Newland Archer marries May Welland but is in love with Countess Olenska. She bucks the trends but refuses to lead him astray. He remains faithful to his wife. After her death, he and son go to Europe and he can visit Countess Olenska in Paris. His son does, after telling his dad that May (his Mom) knew all about his Dad’s love for Countess Olenska and knew he gave it up for her. He sits outside her apartment on a Paris bench while his son goes up to visit her. He turns away and leaves. Last paragraph: “At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel.”
2007 installment of #1 Ladies Detective Series. They just get better and better! LOVE these books. In this one, Mr. JLB Matekoni takes a case- follows the wrong guy – but it actually turns out better than if he’d followed the right guy! (2 men in red cars)
Mma Makutsi quits and thinks she will get a better job – realizes after one morning that she was in the right place and returns much to everyone’s relief.
Charlie quits and has #1 Ladies Taxi Service – has his 1st customer and starts day dreaming, runs a red light and has an accident. So, he comes back, too.
Cases – Hospital deaths – always on the Friday – same bed – it was the floor polisher – she unplugged the breathing machines on that bed and used it for her floor polisher. But the hospital administrator already knew it and didn’t want the woman fired. Mma Ramotswe agreed – she wrote up the case and concluded that no further action was required in respect of incidents in which nobody was to blame.
Mma Makutsi investigated the printing company- supplies kept getting stolen. She gives the suspect the key to the supply cabinet and all authority. He stole everything and took off.
Mr. JLB Matekoni’s case – find out who this woman’s husband is having an affair with – the rudest woman in Botswana. Mr. JLB Matekoni follows the wrong man. She wouldn’t say anything more than he drives a red car and leaves at 5:00 p.m. Two men came out at 5:00 p.m. and got into red cars! When he shows her a picture of the man he followed, it turns out to be her husband’s co-worker going home to his wife. But Mr. JLB Matekoni also overheard a conversation this man had with Charlie Tsongo – a corrupt businessman. And that piece of info made her forget entirely about her husband’s infidelity – they started talking about that.
Also, Mr. JLB Matekoni was heart sick over a photograph that was on the camera when he had his photo developed. It was of Mma Ramotswe and another man – with his arm around her. He finally showed it to Mma Ramotswe and it turned out to be a photo of a woman who looks like Mma Ramotswe and her husband.
Great, sweet book about a woman in rural Kentucky, 1940’s to 2000. Her life on the farm. First husband dies in WWII, marries Nathan Coulter. Their life, love, children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors. Hard work, goodness, kindness, beauty in nature, sticking with one another.
LOVED THIS BOOK! Could not put it down! Elizabeth ends up marrying Darcy, but not until about a year of misconception about him. He still wants her even after she rejects him. Then she finds out what a nice guy he really is. He forgives her rejection and they end up married – Yahoo!
I have read 3 Jane Austen Books: Emma, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice. Still need to read: Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Persuasion.
Good read. Four roommates at Princeton, two are researching the Hypnerotomachia, a 500-year old book which is a mystery. Paul figures it out – you think he is dead. Tom is whiling away his life as a software analyst in Texas when an ancient painting shows up in his mail. No return address except a code, which is deciphered, Italy, Florence, Gen 45:19. Joseph says to his brothers, “Get your father and come.” Means Paul has found Francesco Colonna’s crypt where he saved artifacts from Savonarola’s bonfire of the vanities.
This is all the last part – last few pages of the book. Tom decides to quit his job in Texas and go to Florence and help Paul. Most of the book is the struggle to interpret the Hypnerotomachia and how Tom would help Paul, then quit, then start, then stop.
Real good character development. Loved the 4 guys – good friends. Sometimes hard to follow though – philosophical, etc.
Inspirational! A call to arms!! (Wayne’s book) FANTASTIC BOOK! Biblical truths, stories of the gospel in action, God’s heart for the poor. Everything you ever need to know about what God expects of His people. Full of the truth in plain statistics but also full of hope for what we can do to help.
My favorite parts besides the whole book:
Page 42, Frodo and the Ring of Power: “The “sacrifice” I was asked to make was significant only in my head. But you see, when things have become precious to us–whether our possessions, our work, our status and positions or even our friends and families — we really don’t want to let go of them. They can become idols that compete with God in our lives.”
Page 69, “N.T. Wright, in his wonderful book, Surprised by Hope, described our role in God’s plan this way: “…Every act of love, gratitude and kindness…will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make…”
Page 80, The book that finally broke him and made him a Christian: Basic Christianity, by John R. W. Stott.
Page 123: “If your job produces a decent income for you, do not spend it all on yourself. Make some of it available to the poor and the less fortunate, that they, too, might have a decent life.”
Page 151: “-Every one of these hurting people is created in God’s image and loved by Him.
“-Every one of these challenges has a solution.
“-Every one of us can make a difference.”
Last paragraph, page 279:
“And when you close this book, what will you do now? What does God expect of you? Are you willing to be open to His will for your life? Do you have the faith of a mustard seed? Do you believe what Jesus said, that “The kingdom of God is within you,” and that He wants to enlist you in His great work of advancing His Kingdom on earth?
“He is calling you right now to do that which He created only you to do. Can you hear Him? I can.
“You, Me, let’s go. We have work to do and it’s urgent. Join Me…”
UGH! What a STUPID book! No sympathy for any of the characters. About Jewel, a woman who has a Down’s Syndrome child in the 40’s – then called “Mongolian Idiot” – h husband and other 5 children. Starts off in Mississippi, then moves to L.A., back to Mississippi, then back to L.A. This book was tedious. Last paragraph:
“Only letters, labored, indifferent, yet full as she can make them of herself. Letters, I finally hear, singing with all they have, scores of them swirling round me in voices I’ll never understand, but beautiful all the same, God smiling and smiling and smiling.”
Brenda Kay, the Down’s Syndrome child, at age 41, bringing home a page full of “B’s” she had written.
What a fun, exciting book! So many adventures by the mischievous Tom, getting his friends to whitewash the fence, going to the graveyard with Huck and witnessing a murder, getting Muff Potter off on the last day of the trial. Going to Jackson’s Island and playing pirates for a week – whole town thought they were dead – show up at their own funeral. Discovering Injun Joe has a treasure and plans for revenge on someone. Saving the Widow Douglas from Injun Joe. (Huck did that while Tom was lost with Becky Thatcher in the cave.) Tom and Becky get lost underground in a labyrinth of caves. Tom finds the way out miraculously – saw a pinpoint of light that he thought might be daylight. Then, he and Huck go back in the cave and find Injun Joe’s treasure.
Last paragraph: Tom convincing Huck to stay with the Widow Douglas (Widder) and they’ll form a gang of robbers. Here’s Huck:
“Now that’s something like! Why it’s a million times bullier than pirating. I’ll stick to the widder till I rot, Tom; and if I git to be a reg’lar ripper of a robber, and everybody talking ’bout it, I reckon she’ll be proud she snaked me in out of the wet.”
All about how Julia Child and her husband, Paul, lived in France from 1948 to 1954. Julia fell in love with French food and cooking. She wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It took about 9 years, I think. She’s quite the perfectionist! Beautiful France – she absolutely loved it. Not sure I would have liked the food, though – organ meats, fish, eel, etc.
Leningrad, WWII, in siege by Germans. Lev Beniov, young 17-year-old Jewish boy, gets arrested for looting (stole a knife off a dead German), thrown into the Crosses-Russian prison. Kolya, handsome soldier, thrown in same cell for desertion (went to town to get laid). They do not get executed but instead are sent on an impossible mission to find a dozen eggs for the Colonel’s daughter’s wedding. They have a week. There are no eggs in Leningrad.
Last line: “Oh Agnes, Oh my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed! So may I, when realities are melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!”
What a tale – what characters – the underdogs are the heroes in the end – the rich snobs waste away in meaningless lives, or die.
I miss my messed up Chinese family already! What a great book! Wang Lung’s father arranges marriage for him to O-Lan – kitchen slave in the Great House of Hwang. Wang Lung is a farmer. They work so hard they eventually become wealthy landowners. O’Lan is a Proverbs 31 woman. Because of her hard work, her family prospers. But Wang Lung takes a mistress after he is prosperous. Breaks O’Lan’s heart and causes all kinds of unhappiness in his home.
Good mystery set in Guadalupe Mtn of Texas. Anna Pigeon is a National Park Service ranger. Discovers fellow ranger dead in the wilds supposedly by mountain lion. She is suspicious, though. She gets sabotaged on a hike, falls, very treacherous, but doesn’t die. Then another ranger, Craig Eastern, dies of snakebite in his tent. Anna figures it out: it’s Harland Roberts, another ranger. They are capturing collared lions in the national park and using them for canned hunts for the wealthy. She figures it out, confronts him in the night in the desert, ends up fighting, wounding him badly, leaving him there to either die or get picked up. The end.
Very compassionate and animal-loving female author. “Compassion means “with suffering.” Went home to be with Dad when he was dying of cancer even though he had written her off when she married Howard Mansfield (Jewish). Then, her mother, who was really the culprit, got cancer too and again she went home and cared for her. I couldn’t have done that.
Beautiful, beautiful book! Mma Ramotswe’s cases include a young chef who catches her boss stealing food for her husband and then is accused of blackmailing the boss. Mma Ramotswe discovers the person blackmailing the boss is Aunty Emang, a Dear Abby-type person who ends up being a tiny, purely evil person. “Her visitor’s small face, with its darting, slightly hooded eyes, was impassive, but there was something in the eyes which disturbed her. Evil, she thought. That is what I see. Evil.”
Tess, beautiful beyond belief, eyes and lips especially, long dark hair. Her mom sends her to the D’urbervilles (fake ones) to maybe make them rich. Instead, she is raped by Alec D’urberville. She goes home, has a baby, which dies at age 1. She goes to work on a dairy farm. Falls in love w/Angel Clare. He begs her to marry him. She refuses for a long time. Finally gives in. She tells him on the first night of their honeymoon that she was raped.
Bryony Ashley’s father dies after being hit by a car. Bryony returns to England from Funchal, Madeira. She returns to Ashley Court, the mansion with a moat and a maze that has been in her family forever.
Miranda Brand goes to Berlin with cousin and his wife, Stella. Soon is involved in murder of Brigadier Brindley, who told story of stolen diamonds. Then the governess is murdered. Turns out it was Stella – she was going to murder Miranda – jealousy and wanted money. Miranda and Simon Lang, the detective, end up in love and married at the end.
Not M.M. Kaye’s best mystery. Still need to read “Death in Kenya” and “Shadow of the Moon.”
“Big Brother is Watching You.” Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth for Big Brother, the Party of Oceania. He rewrites history constantly – that is his job. He knows that things are not as they want him to believe. He hates Big Brother. He falls in love with Julia, another worker in the Fiction Department. After a few months, they are discovered by the Thought Police. They are taken to the Ministry of Love and tortured and brainwashed until they become the robots Big Brother wants them to be. They no longer love, they no longer doubt anything Big Brother says. They believe it all.
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
Oceania/Big Brother is run by 4 ministries: “The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with Torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation.”
Big Brother slogans: “Ignorance is strength. War is Peace. Freedom is slavery.”
‘Two Minutes Hate’ – all workers go to telescreen and watch and hear Emanuel Goldstein, enemy of the party, talk. It brings out hate, rage, violence. Then they go back to what they were doing.
Telescreens – on everyone’s wall – always on – always playing or spouting propaganda and lies – even on while you sleep in case you say something while you are dreaming.
‘Newspeak’ – the official language of Oceania – coming into existence – eliminating words that allow people to think about things against Big Brother. Words like ‘free,’ ‘equal.’
Proles – the people who are not working for Big Brother – ordinary people – “the swarming disregarded masses, 85% of the population of Oceania…” They work and breed.
“If there is hope, it lies in the Proles,” Winston writes this.
The party wants to maintain absolute power forever. The Inner Party members are the only ones with enough to eat and comfortable homes. The rest of the world, including outer party workers like Winston and Julia, live in filthy rundown apartments that are cold and dirty, they never have enough to eat. Nothing is plentiful except for Victory Gin. The Party controls everything and every thought, even memories, because they rewrite the past.
