I am currently listening to A Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The book takes place in Nazi Germany during WWII. In the part I just listened to, we visit 1936 where a young boy is fascinated by the black Olympian, Jesse Owens.
The chapter is called "The Jesse Owens Incident" and the young boy, about 7 years old, paints himself black with charcoal and pretends he is Jesse Owens winning a gold medal. His father finds him and scolds him for pretending to be black. He should be happy with his blonde hair and blue eyes... especially as they live under the watchful eyes of Hitler who believes the Aryan race is supreme. In fact, the Olympics were supposed to showcase the supremecy of the Aryans, and yet 6 gold medals were won by black American athelets, including 4 by Jesse Owens. Hitler stormed out of the stadium after Owens won the 100-meter event.
I found this brief video about Jesse Owens on Biography.
After reading The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simmons, a historical fiction book about the siege of Leningrad, I was interested in learning more about this time in recent history. I found this Kindle book called The Siege of Leningrad by Rupert Colley which is part of a series called "History in an Hour." It really had some good information in it and was interesting to read.
The Introduction to the story is powerful. I've included several pieces below:
The Fuhrer has decided to wipe the city of Petersbury from the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet Russia there is no interest in further existence of this large inhaabited area. - Adolf Hitler
With these words, issued on 22 September 1941, Adolf Hitler effectively sealed Leningrad's fate.
The number of deaths in Leningrad exceeded those who died from the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and constitutes the largest death toll ever recorded in a single city.
While being surrounded for almost 900 days... over one million died... from German bombs or artillery, or from disease, the cold or starvation.... The story of the siege is one of heroic resistance and stoical survival but is also one of unimaginable suffering and extreme deprivation.
After telling about the siege, the author tells about some of the people of the siege. One of them, Tanya Savicheva, was a young girl who kept a diary. She was 12 years old when she started writing in her diary. But, with the intense cold and lack of fuel, her diary became fuel along with their household furniture. Tanya was eventually evacuated in August 1942, but she died of tuberculosis on July 1st, 1944. Her nine surviving diary pages tell of the deaths of her family members:
Zhenya died on Dec. 28th at 12:00 P.M. 1941
Grandma died on Jan. 25th 3:00 P.M. 1942 Leka died on March 5th at 5:00 A.M. 1942 Uncle Vasya died on Apr. 13th at 2:00 after midnight 1942 Uncle Lesha on May 10th at 4:00 P.M. 1942 Mother on May 13th at 7:30 A.M. 1942 Savichevs died. Everyone died.
Conor Grennan is 29 years old and decides to take a year off to travel the world. But, partly to impress women, he decides to start the year off by volunteering. He chooses 3 months in Nepal working with orphans.
When he arrives at the orphange, he doesn't know what to do. He's never really been around children before and they are crawling all over him the moment he walks towards the orphanage. At first, he can't remember all of their names and learns to identify them by the shirts they wear.
Mount Everest in Neapl (from Wikipedia)
But, Conor discovers that these children are not orphans after all. Instead, child traffickers have tricked families into paying huge fees in the promise of keeping them safe from the civil war in Nepal and a good education.
Conor comes up with a new mission: to reunite these children with their families in the mountains of Nepal.
The story of these children is full of sadness, hope, humor and love. It is an amazing story of an issue that is still being faced in Nepal today. The organization that Conor founded continues to work on reuniting these children with their families.
I used to watch Gilmore Girls and loved following bookish, scholastic Rory. I saw alist on M and J in a Nutshell which she'd seen on another blog. It is a list of books mentioned on the show. She had marked those she'd read and those she'd tried but abandoned. Sounds like fun to me! I'll be writing the books I've read in bold and the ones I've abandoned with an (A). So, here goes...
1984 by George Orwell The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by
Michael Chabon An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser Angela’s
Ashes by Frank McCourt Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Anne
Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Archidamian War by Donald Kagan The Art of Fiction by Henry James The Art of War by Sun Tzu As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner Atonement
by Ian McEwan Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy The Awakening by Kate Chopin Babe by Dick King-Smith Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
by Susan Faludi Balzac
and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie Bel
Canto by Ann Patchett The Bell
Jar by Sylvia Plath Beloved by Toni Morrison Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney The
Bhagavad Gita The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men
Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by
Peter Duffy Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth
Wurtzel A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary
McCarthy Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Brick Lane by Monica Ali Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner Candide by Voltaire The Canterbury Tales by ChaucerCarrie by Stephen King Catch-22 by Joseph Heller The
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman Christine by Stephen King A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora
Welty A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare Complete Novels by Dawn Powell The
Complete Poems by Anne Sexton Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber The
Crucible by Arthur Miller Cujo by Stephen King The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon Daisy Miller by Henry James Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D David Copperfield by Charles Dickens The Da
Vinci -Code by Dan Brown Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Death of
a Salesman by Arthur Miller Deenie by Judy Blume The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and
Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious
Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx The Divine Comedy by Dante The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by
Rebecca Wells Don Quixote by Cervantes Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis
Stevenson Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by
Edgar Allan Poe Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn Eloise by Kay Thompson Emily the Strange by Roger Reger Emma by
Jane Austen Empire Falls by Richard Russo Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J.
Sobol Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton Ethics by Spinoza Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves Eva Luna by Isabel Allende Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer Extravagance by Gary Krist Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People
in the World by Greg Critser Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S.
Thompson The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord
of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce Fletch by Gregory McDonald Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Franny
and Zooey by J. D. Salinger Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut Gender Trouble by Judith Butler George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental
Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg Gidget by Fredrick Kohner Girl,
Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford The Gospel According to Judy Bloom The Graduate by Charles Webb The
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Great Expectations by Charles Dickens The Group by Mary McCarthy Hamlet by William Shakespeare Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K.
Rowling Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K.
Rowling A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave
Eggers Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson
Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare Henry V by William Shakespeare High Fidelity by Nick Hornby The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire by Edward Gibbon Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer How the
Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland Howl by
Allen Gingsburg The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo The
Iliad by Homer I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E.
Lee Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton Jane
Eyre by Charlotte Brontë The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert
Alexander The
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal Leaves
of Grass by Walt Whitman The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield Less
Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al
Franken Life of
Pi by Yann Martel The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S.
Lewis Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen *Little
Women by Louisa May Alcott Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton Lord of
the Flies by William Golding The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson The
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold The Love Story by Erich Segal Macbeth
by William Shakespeare Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert The Manticore by Robertson Davies Marathon Man by William Goldman The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William
Tecumseh Sherman Me Talk
Pretty One Day by David Sedaris The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides The Miracle Worker by William Gibson Moby Dick by Herman Melville The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion
by Jim Irvin Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor A Monetary History of the United States by Milton
Friedman Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My
Sister by Julie Mars A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James
Norman Hall My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s
Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim
Guest My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco The
Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by
Jan Lars Jensen New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay Nickel
and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich Night by Elie Wiesel Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by
William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento,
Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell Notes
of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Old School by Tobias Wolff Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens On the
Road by Jack Kerouac
(A) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by
Alexander Solzhenitsyn One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by
Amy Tan Oracle Night by Paul Auster Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood Othello by Shakespeare Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald
Kagan Out of Africa by Isac Dineson The
Outsiders by S. E. Hinton A Passage to India by E.M. Forster The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by
Donald Kagan The
Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky Peyton Place by Grace Metalious The
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain The
Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White
House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind Pride
and Prejudice by Jane Austen Property by Valerie Martin Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw Quattrocento by James Mckean A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers The
Raven by Edgar Allan Poe The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by
Azar Nafisi Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin The Red Tent by Anita Diamant Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone
Mad by Virginia Holman The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings
Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton Rita Hayworth by Stephen King Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert Roman Fever by Edith Wharton Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf A Room with a View by E. M. Forster Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi Sanctuary by William Faulkner Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
by Nancy Milford The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum The
Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir The
Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith
Thurman Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn
Powell Sense
and Sensibility by Jane Austen A Separate Peace by John Knowles Several Biographies of Winston Churchill Sexus by Henry Miller The
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon Shane by Jack Shaefer The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut Small Island by Andrea Levy Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord
and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of
Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker Songbook by Nick Hornby The Sonnets by William Shakespeare Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett
Browning Sophie’s Choice by William Styron The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov Stiff:
The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach The Story of My Life by Helen Keller A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams Stuart
Little by E. B. White Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales,
Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald Terms
of Endearment by Larry McMurtry Time and Again by Jack Finney The
Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway To Kill
a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare A Tree
Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith The Trial by Franz Kafka The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt
Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson Truth
& Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Ulysses by James Joyce The
Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Unless by Carol Shields Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and
Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard The
Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Walden
by Henry David Thoreau Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected
Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard
Nelson Bolles What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of
the West by Gregory Maguire The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Tatiana and Alexanderis the second book in the trilogy that started with The Bronze Horseman. I finished the first book a few days ago and immediately downloaded the second book to read. I had to know what happened next! (As I mentioned in my review of The Bronze Horseman, this book also has a lot of sexual content. However, this time a lot of it is in the italicized sections and I ended up just skipping page after page of this and the book still totally made sense. )
When this book starts, Tatiana has escaped to the United States and is about to have Alexander's baby. She left Alexander behind, believing him to be dead. As she tries to make a new life for herself, she is haunted by the thought that maybe her husband isn't dead after all.
Alexander, meanwhile, is still alive and fighting for his life. At times he acts as a ranked soldier again, while at other times he is imprisoned. He holds on to the belief that Tatiana is alive and well and tries to survive Stalin's "death machine" and find Tatiana.
The Registration Room on Ellis Island. Tatiana lived & worked on the island. My photo from our 2008 trip.
A lot of the story of Tatiana as she lives in NYC and is about her waiting and trying to decide if Alexander was really alive or not and whether or not she should go on with her life. This actually got a bit boring. And, as she was in the United States she was learning English and we had to read her conversations in broken English. I think this was confusing because it didn't 'sound' like the voice of Tatiana that I was accustomed to.
Sachsenhausen NKVD Special Camp (controlled by Gulag) in Germany where Alexander was held
photo from Wikipedia
Alexander's story, however, was more exciting. Not only was there more of the war and the 'history' (which is what I love about historical fiction!), you also learned more about his life as a child. Some of this was really interesting (including his life in the Gulag which I'd studied and read about last year), and other parts were disturbing. I came away not liking Alexander near as much after reading this book.
So, I'm happy to finish this trilogy after the first two books, but won't be reading the third. I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars.
I read The Bronze Horseman because I love reading about Russian history. It was quite a lon book at over 800 pages! But, I really enjoyed it... though I also had some issues with it. Well, one particular issue. The book contains a lot of sexual content. I've never read a Harlequin Romance book, but I can't imagine they could be much worse (both in amount and detail). It was ridiculous. However, the story and the history were wonderful.
The book starts in Leningrad in 1941 on the day when the government announced that Hitler had broken the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and invaded Russia. Tatiana, a young girl just shy of 17, is sent to buy up all the food she can while her family sends her twin brother off to a boy's camp where they hope he'll be safe. Tatiana doesn't sense the urgency and by the time she starts looking for food she can't find what the family needs. But, she is helped by a handsome stranger - a lieutenant in the Red Army.
3 men burying victims of Leningrad seige from wikipedia
The story continues to unfold as Leningrad becomes under siege: the infamous Siege of Leningrad which goes on for 900 days as the Russians bomb and attempt to starve the residents of the city. From Wikipedia: Civilians in the city suffered from extreme starvation, especially in the winter of 1941–1942. For example, from November 1941 to February 1942 the only food available to the citizen was 125 grams of bread, of which 50–60% consisted of sawdust and other inedible admixtures, and distributed through ration cards. For about two weeks at the beginning of January 1942, even this food was available only for workers and military personnel. In conditions of extreme temperatures (down to −30 °C(−22 °F)) and city transport being out of service, even a distance of a few kilometers to a food distributing kiosk created an insurmountable obstacle for many citizens. In January–February 1942, about 700–1,000 citizens died every day, most of them from hunger. People often died on the streets, and citizens soon became accustomed to the sight of death. This time period is graphically portrayed in this book.
My photo of Stalin statue in Estonia, 2012
While we follow Tatiana going through the seige of Leningrad, we follow Alexander as he rises through the ranks of the Russian army. Stalin was an incredibly harsh leader who let so many of his people die - both as soldiers and citizens. I talked more about Stalin at this post.
I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars. I would have given it 5 if it weren't for the sexual content. You can always flip through these pages and enjoy a wonderful historical story!
As I got near the end of Finding Noel, I was practically sobbing. What a heart-felt, touching story.
Here's what the back cover says about this book:
"The Christmas Season is supposed to be full of joy, but not for Mark Smart. Life had dealt him one body blow after another: he lost his scholarship and had to drop out of school; his beloved mother had died in a car crash; his girlfriend dumped him; and now, late on a snowy night in November, his car had broken down. Stumbling into a coffee house, he was looking for a phone to call a tow truck. What he found was a beautiful young woman with an unusual name who, through a simple act of kindness, changed his life forever.
Macy Wood had little memory of her birth parents and memories she'd rather forget of her adopted home. A Christmas ornament inscribed with the word "Noel" was the single clue to the little sister she only vaguely remembered, a clue that would send her and Mark on a journey to reclaim her past and her family."
This is a wonderful Christmas story I highly recommend!
The Christmas Box was the first of two Christmas books I read by Richard Paul Evans last month. This was a very quick read with large print and blank pages between the chapters. It probably took me about an hour to read it. And, It was a very touching Christmas story, though I thought the reading was a little choppy.
The Christmas Box is a story about a young family who move in with a widow lady and do some chores in exchange for rent. But, what is the mystery of the Christmas box? And what secret is the widow keeping? And, what is the first Christmas gift?
I read this book in the past evening and this morning while my daughter is sadly sick with the flu. It is a short read with small pages, a regular sized font, and only 163 pages. And, the story is amazing.
The book is a true-life story told by naturalist Farley Mowat who is sent to the Artic to study the supposedly blood-thirsty wolves. Mowat is thankfully found by an Eskimo after being left with a pile of equipment on a frozen lake. After moving into a nearby small cabin, Mowat quickly discovers...moreThis This book is a quick read at only 163 pages. And, it is an amazing story!
The book is a true-life story told by naturalist Farley Mowat who is sent to the Artic to study the supposedly blood-thirsty wolves. Mowat is thankfully found by an Eskimo after being left with a pile of equipment on a frozen lake. After moving into a nearby small cabin, Mowat quickly discovers a family of wolves living nearby: the father (whom he names George); the mother (whom he names Angeline); another male (he names Uncle Albert); and four pups.
Mowat, who has been told the wolves are wiping out the caribou and are incredibly violent, starts to see these wolves for what they really are: a loving family who take good care of their pups and actually strengthen the caribou population by weeding out the week members.
I really enjoyed this book and am hoping to rent the Disney movie version as soon as possible. And, I see he has other books... which I'm eager to read!
I picked up about six Christmas books right before I left town for the holidays. I don't care for Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days show, but thought this book looked interesting and took it with me.
A Christmas Blizzard is about a rich man named James Sparrow. His wife loves Christmastime, but James would rather escape to their private home in Hawaii. He also has a very strange fear that haunts him every winter.
This Christmas, his wife is sick and he is debating whether or not to go to Hawaii without her. Taking a quick trip on their private jet to visit a sick relative, James finds himself stranded due to a blizzard. From there, the story gets even stranger as James has something like A Christmas Carol encounter.
The book was a quick read at slightly less than 200 pages. I really didn't enjoy the story very much - it was just too strange. If you enjoy Garrison Keillor, you'd probably enjoy this book more than I did!
By far, I read the most books I've ever read in 2012. I started the year with a goal of reading 50 books... and ended up reading 63! I read a great variety of books from memoirs (like The Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour) to science fiction (like Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card). I discovered new authors (like Ruta Septys' Between Shades of Grey) and classics (like Dickens' Oliver Twist). I read books written for the young (like books by Gloria Whelan) and for adults (like David McCullough's The Greater Journey). It was an amazing journey as I read book after book, laughed and cried, and learned about different times and places... even imaginary ones! I had a wonderful year of reading. Here's a list of those books from the first to the last...
The Greater Journey by David McCullough (mentioned here)
I took this book off of my husband's bookshelf. He is a recreational pilot and enjoys reading books about airplanes. I enjoyed this book and felt like Crichton really tried to make it readable for those of us who don't know a lot about planes and flying. However, I still found it a little hard to follow at times.
The book is a mystery about Flight 545 on a Norton N-22. During the flight 56 people were injured and 3 died. What went wrong? Casey Singleton, a vice-president of Norton Airlines, is given a week to solve the problem. If she doesn't, Norton will have some serious problems.
Can Casey figure out what happened in time? And, is the N-22 safe...or is it a Death Trap?
Yesterday, while Alex was sick asleep in bed, I finished Cleopatra's Daughter. I was sad to finish it and have the story end, though I was thankful that there was an 'afterward' that told what happened to many of the main characters. This was my second book by Michelle Moran and, like Madame Tussaud, it was an amazing book!
This book of historical fiction follows the life of Cleopatra's daughter, Selene, starting on the dreadful day when Rome's Octavian conquers Egypt. Selene and her ten-year-old twin brother, Alexander, are taken away on her mother's own boat to be captives in Rome. The hope of both children is to one day return to Egypt as rulers.
The book gives an amazing glimpse into this time in Roman history a little over 2,000 years ago: customs, clothing, religion, architecture, and more! Although I've heard of the horrible acts that took place in the Colloseum, I was saddened and sickened to read of other atrocities. (And yet, the story also included hope and love.) We are planning our first trip to Italy this summer, and I will definitely look at it through different eyes then I would have before reading this book.
Oliver Twist is an amazing story that most of us are probably familiar with. It is about a young orphan named Oliver who lives and works in a workhouse for boys. He dares to ask for more gruel with the famous words, "Please, sir, I want some more." And, is then sold as an apprentice to an undertaker. He later escapes to London where he joins up with the Artful Dodger who is part of a criminal ring that includes pickpocketing.
Frontispiece first edition "Oliver Twist"
from Wikipedia
I have twice seen this story as a musical, but it is very brief compared to this lengthy novel. And, many things are left out! I totally enjoyed this book and enjoyed reading it on my Kindle app where I could look up the definitions of many words! Dickens style of writing is humorous and a joy to read. And, the story is a wonderful story that tugs at your heart.
Mr Bumble, the Beadle, by Kyd (Joseph Clayton Clarke)
from Wikipedia
I started watching Oliver! which was filmed in 1968 and LOVE it! I've seen clips of it, but I've never seen the entire production. I love musicals, and am surprised I've never seen this one. I plan on watching the entire show with my family this weekend.
Last night I finished And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Alex read this last year and loved it and kept suggesting I read it. So, I finally did.
About halfway through the 300 page book I was not enjoying it, but I kept reading. The book is about a group of ten strangers who are lured to a small, isolated island. By the end of the night, one of them is dead. And, so they begin to die. But, who is killing them off? Is it someone hidden on the island? Or perhaps is it one of the ten?
What I didn't like about the book was the fact that I didn't really get to know the ten people and so I really didn't have feelings for them. So, as they started to die, it did not bother me! But, my feelings changed towards the end. I read straight through the last 100 pages - I just couldn't put it down as I needed to know who would survive and who was committing the murders! However, even then, I really didn't care much for the people and did not feel upset when someone died.
This was my first book to read by Agatha Christie. I didn't enjoy it very much, though I know she's a popular author. I'm glad Alex enjoyed it and I believe my sister has read quite a few of her books and enjoyed them. If you've read this book, or others by this aughter, let me know what you think!
I read another wonderful book! This one was a biography about author and animal-lover E. B. White. The book, The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic by Michael Sims tells of White's childhood in Moutn Vernon, a suburb of New York, with wonderful summers in Maine; his young adult life plagued with shyness around women and the beginnings of a literary career; and his discovery of a spider in his barn... that led to the creation of Charlotte's Web.
I loved reading about White's love of nature that started when he was very young. His early life included trips to the zoo, the circus, and month-long summer trips to Maine. White loved his time in Maine and would take a canoe out early in the morning, while the rest of the household slept, to watch the Great Blue Herons.
After marrying, he bought a small farm with his wife and started filling the barn with animals. One day, he noticed a spider on a web and he eventually spent a lot of time researching orb weavers. (I think it was over a year, but I read this book about a month ago and not I'm not sure I'm remembering that fact correctly.)
I loved learning more facts about spiders while reading this book, and just the fact the E. B. White was so meticulous with the accuracy of nature in his book. Charlotte's Web is one of my favorite books and this was a great look at the man behind the book... and a wonderful book about nature, too!
I read Stephen King's 850 page book this week, 11/22/63. The book is primarily about a man, Jake Epping, who travels back in time to try to stop the assassination of JFK. But, Jake enters the past in 1958 so, along the way, he tries to do a few other good deeds.
While I was reading on Monday, and Alex was home sick, I came across a part of the book that dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is a subject that I wasn't very familiar with, so I started looking online. I found a movie from 2000 titled Thirteen Days and Alex and I both watched it and learned a lot about this scary time in American history! You can find the movie on YouTube. I also have started (and will try to finish today) a History Channel documentary called Declassified: The Cuban Missile Crisis, which you can also find on YouTube.
(Part 1 of 2)
As far as Stephen King's book... this was my first book to read by him and I REALLY enjoyed it! The book was full of surprises and I never new what was going to happen next. Warning: the book contains quite a bit of cussing and a few 'bedroom scenes'.
I just finished an incredibly moving book called Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult. This is her first book I've read, but I've seen the movie version of a book she wrote - My Sister's Keeper. I found that movie incredibly heart-wrenching, and Lone Wolf is the same.
It's the story of a family who has been torn apart. Luke, the dad, is devoted to studying wolves - in fact, he spends two years away from his wife and children to try to become a member of a pack of wolves in Canada. Edward, the oldest son, left home when he was 18 - the day after 'coming out' and telling his dad he was gay. Cara, the daughter, is now 17 and has been living with her father. She hates her brother because her parents divorced - and she blames him. Georgia, the mother, now has a loving husband and twins, but she misses her son who now lives in Thailand.
Three months before Cara's 18th birthday, she and her father, Luke, are in a car wreck. Cara has to undergo some surgery, but her father is now in a vegetative state. When Georgia calls her son to tell him the news, he catches the first plane home and enters the world of the family he left behind six years before. Now, Edward thinks they need to let their father die while Cara is fighting for his life... and a miracle.
The story is incredibly moving and I cried many times. Each chapter is told from the voice of one of the main characters - including a few I didn't mention here. Besides the story of the family's struggle over whether or not to let Luke die, you also read the story of Luke's time with the wolves in the wild - and learn a lot about wolf behavior!
I haven't listened to very many books on tape as I usually don't care for the way they're read. But, I watched this 4 minute video of this book being recorded and think it is wonderful! And, it looks like they use a different reader for each character. (As I mentioned, each chapter is from the point of view of a different character.)
Luke Warren, the man who lived with wolves, is actually based on a real person - Shaun Ellis. You can learn more about him at The Wolf Centre site.
And, though this is a poor photo, this a picture from my night camera at our ranch in Oklahoma... of a pack of wolves! There were 3 in the photo before this, but it was even poorer than the other. Unfortunately, the camera was focusing on the fence - not the wolves. My in-laws live about 30 miles from our ranch and sometimes hear the wolves howling. I hope to get a better photo of 'our' wolves! (You can see an eye of one wolf to the right of the top of the middle pole and another eye of another wolf right above the middle pole.)
Last week I read Michelle Moran's book Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution. With our trip to France coming up soon, I'm very interested in learning about French history. And, this was a terrific book to learn more about the French Revolution.
Madame Tussaud is a historical fiction book about the famous wax sculptor who lived in Paris during the French Revolution. Born Marie Grosholtz, she learned the art of wax scultping from her uncle. Their museum, Salon de Cire, was better than a newspaper... it didn't just tell the news, it SHOWED the commoners the people MAKING the news. As the Revolution began, the Salon was updated frequently to reflect the quickly changing political changes.
Madame Tussoud, a wax figure (from Wikipedia)
Marie and her family walked a fine line between the Royals and the Revolutionists. And, as the Revolutionists started their murderous rampage, they started 'demanding' that Marie make death masks that they could parade through the streets on their pikes. It was a GRUESOME, deadly time. And, though it was hard to read about some of the realities of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, it was also incredibly interesting! I highly recommend this book. (Note: there is a short 'bedroom scene' in this book between Marie and someone before she is married.)
I recently finished my second book by G. A. Henty - In the Regin of Terror: A Story of the French Revolution by G. A. Henty. I downloaded a FREE version from Amazon on to my Kindle app.
Image is of a MP3 version
Harry, an English boy, moves to France to live in the chateau of a French Marquis. The Marquis hopes that Harry's English ways will influence his boys. But, the French Revolution has come and there is danger to all French aristocrats, including the Marquis and his family. The Marquis and his wife move to Paris to support their king and imprisonment and death will await some of the family while Harry tries to protect the Marquis' three daughters.
Image from Wikipedia
Of course this is a very violent book given the topic it is covering. The violence begins with the horrific September Massacres of 1792. The massacres started with the slaying of 24 priests who were being transported to a prison named L'Abbeye. Five days of massacre followed as the mobsters emptied prison after prison, giving 'mock' trials and then executing the prisoners - male and female, young and old.
This book really helped me to understand the French Revolution and, more specifically, the Reign of Terror. However, I think it was incredibly gruesome and I don't think I'll share this particular book with Alex for a few more years. It might be better suited for high schoolers and adults.
Welcome to my blog! I homeschooled our only daughter, Alex, for 6 years... from kindergarten through 5th grade. Then, for two years (grades 6 & 7) she attended a private school. This year, we're HOME again!
Besides homeschooling, I also love to read, learn, travel, run & bike! If you enjoy my blog, please leave me a message! I love to hear from you!
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