Reading (52 Books in 52 Weeks)

What a year this has been! I would not like Job of the Old Testament wish a day or year away because it would be wishing away all the joys that happened as well. Instead let me desire to walk into the new year with Immanuel, God with me, and walk into it with strength, grace, and perseverance. When one has as many older family members as I have, I can not completely have a season without grieving. Let me take the blessing of having them with me for so long along with the sorrow of missing them when they leave our presence.

I couldn't accomplish all that I thought I would this year, and that's okay with me. I did not blog about all the books I read (although I took a few cool pictures); however, I did read 52 and more (71 actually -- maybe 72 if, before the end of the year, I finish The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton).

I did keep track on Goodreads and was able to take some (very poor) snapshots of my Year in Books 2019. So, here (or better displayed on Goodreads) you can see all of my 2019 books.

The shortest book was a book of poetry and I did not count it toward my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge. Nor did I count any of the children's books. I'm surprised a marketing person did not talk Samantha Shannon into dividing her book up into thirds for more sales; however, I'm not sure where she could have broken the book up.

I read The Donkey's Gift because it was on the bookshelf at my daughter's house and her friend suggested I read this book of his childhood. I'm surprised more people have not read it. (And, now by calling him her friend, I will find out whether either of them read my blog posts. Lol!)

The star rating for Daring to Hope is well-deserved. If you read her first book Kisses From Katie, I highly recommend that you follow up with her Daring to Hope. First, because she is six years older in the second book and she has had time to reflect on her 2011 story. Secondly, her expression and description of her grief at losing a good friend is both accurate and healing at the same time.

Liane Moriarity is known for her book Big Little Lies; however, it was the second book I had read by her. I found her first funny enough that I wanted to read this one also. I have not seen the television series of the same name.

All of the books pictured above, I did write blog posts for.

I wrote on all of the above except Austin Channing Brown's book I'm Still Here Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. I wanted to do a special post just for Brown's book because it was so incredibly good. I gave the book five stars and bought the book. I now follow her on Instagram.

After reading Austin Channing Brown's book, I started reading many more books by authors who are not considered white and male. It started an excellent practice -- one which I am continuing.

Books not blogged on (but reviews can be found on Goodreads)--

22. Under Our Skin by Benjamin Watson
24. The Librarian of Auschewitz by Antonio Iturbe (trans. by Lilit Zekulin)
25. The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
26. How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery
27. A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum (5 stars as you can see in the picture)
28. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
29. The Donkey's Gift by Thomas M. Coffey
30. The Tattoist of Auschewitz by Heather Morris
31. Twelve Patients Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer, M.D.
32. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
33. Reunion by Hannah Pittard

34. Reconstructing the Gospel by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
35. The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind by Barbara K. Lipska
36. Italian Rustic by Elizabeth Helman Minchilli
37. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (not for the faint of heart; check out Goodreads reviews first)
38. My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
39. All the Place to Go by John Ortberg
40. The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison
41. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume (my granddaughter chose this one for me to read)
42. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
43. Running with a Police Escort by Jill Grunenwald
44. The Stars are Fire by Anita Shrive
45. Old in Art School by Nell Painter (audio version; recommended on a list of books for each age)
46. The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White

47. The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shrive
48. My (Not So) Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella
49. Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarity
50. How the Bible Actually Works by Peter Enns (chosen by nephew to discuss with me)
51. Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis Majors
52. Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors
53. Love Does by Bob Goff
54. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen
55. Arabella by Georgette Heyer (my first introduction to this prolific writer)
56. Frederica by Georgette Heyer

57. Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer
58. The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines
59. Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis -- actually I did blog on this one last week
60. Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Granny, McMillan, and Switzler (a work read)
61. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
62. Dominicana by Angie Cruz
63. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
64. The Quiet Gentleman  by Georgette Heyer
65. The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher Heuertz
66. How to Walk Away by Katherine Center
67. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
68. Sorry, I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes by Jessica Pan

I'm not sure how Goodreads wound up with 71 books. I know I did have a couple of children's books in there that I did not count for my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge.

After 214 spam responses on the One of Our Thursdays is Missing, I decided to turn off the comment section on my blog, but feel free to respond to my reviews on Goodreads. I'm looking forward to 2020. See you next year!

P.S. My apologies to those reading this on a phone. I'm guessing that the formatting will be totally off.

Missing (One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde)

I'm going to hop out of order in my book reviews. I have three books I finished prior to this light-hearted one, but those reviews will take more time than I have to give at the moment. This book was a "blind date" book during the month of February at our local library. I finished it today, this last day of March...a very long blind date.
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I don't know how I have missed reading any of the books in this series. It's a perfect book for me, not that I think it is for everyone. You really have to like books and all that goes into writing and reading books. I've been searching to see if someone else has found a way to describe the book: an alternate bookworld. Readers of this series write that one has to read the other 5 that came before this one, but I didn't know there were five others and I did just fine. I didn't feel as though I could fully navigate in this alternate world, but I felt this way because the whole novel was...well, so novel, truly! Perhaps if I had started at the beginning (as I did with The Invisible Library series), I would have been bored with the explanations of how the Bookworld worked (as one reviewer was).

Several other reviewers in Goodreads have fully written out the "dorky, readerly" quotes. I would have written quirky and humorous, but definitely "readerly" and I'd rather not rewrite them all out, but do peruse through Goodreads or Jasper Fforde quotes because they will tickle one's reader funny bone (e.g. trying to figure out who is speaking on page 133 written as a joke; the "Law of Egodynamics: 'For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert").

As a book to borrow from the library, it's a 5 star borrowing book. I can't quite give it a 5 star buying book rating even though there are a few thought-provoking parts when Professor Plum discusses RealWorld with written Thursday: "...you can discount at least eighty percent of chat as just meaningless drivel...In some individuals it can be as high as ninety-two percent. The people to listen to are the ones who don't say very much" (179).

Also, I think I may have moments in the future while reading another author's fiction book where Fforde's Bookworld will intersect with my reading. I'll find myself wondering about the genre or a metaphor or whether there's tea in that teapot. Lol! (You just have to read the book for yourself.) Rating range of 3-5. Why did I start the range with a 3 which only means "I liked it"? It was a great "blind date" with an immediate attraction -- it was all so new and fresh to me, and every time I picked the book back up, I found parts to like; however, I did go out with some other books throughout this six week time of reading. I got bogged down a little in the middle section, picked up steam again after that, but then somewhat raced to finish it. I'm glad I read it and glad I was introduced to Jasper Fforde books via a "blind date", but it's still a rating range of 3 - 5 (a borrow from the library 5). 

Reading 3.0 (The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman)

I could stick with rating this book with a range of 4-5, but 'The Invisible Library' was clearly a 5 star book for me.

This book was displayed with librarian favorites at my local library. It's listed as a science fiction book (not my normal reading genre although it is often one of my favorite genres in television series or movies). I was intriguingly lost rather than hopelessly lost at the beginning. Some readers don't like that feeling of being dropped into the middle of something and being overwhelmed (if you are one of them, this is not the book for you). If it had dealt with a subject unfamiliar to me, then maybe I would feel the same way, too; however, this was about books and libraries and dragons and alternate worlds, oh my! The author knows Tolkien and Sherlock and coding and gaming and books.

The protagonist Irene is a strong female character, and I'm fascinated with THE language of the THE Library. Maybe I was "glamoured" (have to read the book to know the expression), and maybe if I was more familiar with science fiction, I would not have been so enamored with the book, but I was, so much so, I rushed out and picked up the second book in the series. Book one can stand alone. I haven't finished the second book so I can't tell yet whether I will have wished I had read just the one. Since first writing this, I have finished the second book, and that review will follow this one.

💕💕💕 Family-wise, I keep coming back to the beauty of libraries. You don't have to be rich to use the library unless you are prone to overdue or lost books; however, our library system has recently stopped overdue fines! I feel a little guilty (wondering how am I going to support the library now), but I am hoping that getting rid of library fines goes well for the system! This novel also points out the power of language and that is a narrative from which every family can benefit.

---No matter what I read, I am one body in the physical world, one mind and heart in the story, and one spirit and soul indwelt by God (well, all of me is indwelt by Christ as in Christ, I live and move and have my being) -- hopefully you understand that I am saying that I sense God moments. And, there is a moment in this book when Irene understands how to beat back the enemy by claiming her identity. I won't say more than that in the interest of not spoiling the story for other readers.

Reading 2.0 (I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel)

My reading of this book I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel came about because of happy coincidental timing of two reading challenges ("a book about reading" on the 2019 Reshelving Alexandria Reading Challenge), (2019 Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge which led me to her blog), and the book itself offered at half price from two different vendors.

At first glance, I felt the special offer price was the only price I would ever pay for a book this small; however, that was before I actually read the book. It would make a great gift book which was another reason I thought it should be under $10 until I looked at the prices of the gift books on my shelves, and I realized $10 and more is not an unusual price for a gift book.

So, pricing aside, I went from a range of 3 stars (I like this book) to 4 stars (I really like this book).  I'm glad I bought it, and my "Want to Read" list of books grew especially since I discovered via Goodreads' book compatibility analysis that I have a 90% book compatibility with Anne Bogel, so I am likely to enjoy the books she mentions in this book.

The opening chapters were fine. I felt like I could read those same chapters on her blog, but, as I continued reading, her chapters (really, each stand alone pieces in themselves rather than connected chapters -- "charming essays" one reviewer called them) held some deeper thoughts (a quality I like). Interestingly, a reader who gave the book a rating of 3.5 liked the opening chapters and not the last chapters. Differences in enjoyment for various chapters is probably fairly common in a book of essays. My guess is that any voracious reader would enjoy this book as a gift (and at 156 pages, it is little in size, not in number of pages).

💕💕💕 It's definitely a great book for parents who are short of times to read (because the chapters are short and complete within themselves) and who want to raise children who read.

----Those interested in spiritual transformation, I loved the sighting of the influence of Dallas Willard on pages 27-28. 

Wrap Up of 52 Books in 52 Weeks

As a first timer last year in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge, I did not realize that there was a end-of-the-year wrap up until I saw a friend's post. Now that I know, here is mine (complete with a picture of my many bookmarks and a gift mug from a friend)!

Did you reach your reading goal or did you decide to just meander about and follow  rabbit trails and end up getting lost in the enjoyment of reading?  

I didn't have any goal other than to reach 52 books in the year. It turns out that I easily read 52 books in less than 52 weeks; however, reviewing them and writing about them was more challenging. It was also disheartening when Google changed up their algorithms in October so that I had less folks reading the blog. Not that I write to gain lots of readers, but it helps to have some readers. I was encouraged and content to have 70-100 and did not need more. A change of algorithms meant less exposure, and I'm not interested in adding ads. So, there you have it: if you read my blog minus the ads, thank you!

Where did your armchair travels take you?  Which countries and time periods did you journey through? 

France, Burundi, South Africa (twice), UK (twice), Mexico, and Russia were the countries I "traveled" to outside of my own which made up the majority of the rest of the books when they were not non-fiction or fantasy.  

Which books stayed with you the longest?  Did you set any aside to read again at some point and savor the story all over again?

I'll be dipping back into a number of non-fiction books: Joyful Journey; the Barefoot/Shoes series by Sharon Garlough Brown (actually fiction involving non-fiction...hard to explain); The End of Alzheimer's; Braving the Wilderness; Becoming Dallas Willard; The Crossroads of Should and Must; Blue Zones Solution; The Plant Paradox; Spiritual Direction; 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do; The World According to Mr. Rogers; The Art of Listening in a Healing Way; Leadership and Self-Deception; Donald Hall's two books; maybe Soul Keeping. So, that looks like about all of my non-fiction books. 

This made me realize I read a LOT of non-fiction this past year, and I never used to read any non-fiction (except textbooks forced upon me by teachers). The one fiction book I would re-read would be The Gentleman in Moscow.  Surprisingly, a book that I only gave 3 stars to kept coming back to mind: Calypso (also non-fiction). I was mad at Sedaris over the turtles. I probably needed to give his book 4 stars if it was going to keep coming back to my mind like that (and not because of the turtles). The non-fiction books definitely made an impact and bits and pieces have stayed with me. Goodness, only 16 of my 54 books were true fiction. Add 6 more that were fictionalized true stories, and that is still less than half. 

Did you discover any new to you authors or genres? 

Let's look at this in a different way: the only author I was familiar with was Gary Moon who wrote Becoming Dallas Willard. Every single other author was new to me! Wow. 

Which books intrigued or entertained, made you laugh, cry, dance or sing?

Again, I need to look at that question in the opposite direction. Which book did NOT make me feel any of those things listed? I can't recall what Evensong was about, and the Shelf Life I recall as mostly feeling like authors being forced to write a story which included a book he or she had read and I didn't like any of the stories until a couple at the end. 

Share your favorite titles, covers, quotes and of course, your reading lists. 

Forgive me if I don't list all the books here. Scroll down through my blog list on the right and all the book titles are listed in the titles of each blog post reviewing each book. 

Ascending (A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles)

"Ascending" is an odd choice of gerund for this particular book, especially since the main character descends in social stature as he is confined to a hotel in Moscow, never to step foot outside of its doors in house arrest. However, this gentleman Count Alexander Rostov ascends up the stairs to unused servant quarters in the attic. Rostov also ascends a ladder of growth in what really matters in life when much is taken from you. Much, but not all. Furthermore, the chapter titles start with 'A' and "Ascending" is one of the chapters.

A Gentleman in Moscow has a high rating on Goodreads (4.36 stars), and mine is not going to change that rating. Of the 52 books I have read this year (while this is only my 48th review this year, I have already read all 52), this one wins as my favorite fiction. The criticisms from those who did not give it 4-5 stars ranged from "too much historical fiction" to "not enough historical fiction" (so those cancel each other out in my mind), "too charming and like a fairy tale" (valid, but that's one reason I was drawn to the book), and "needs a quiet place to be read" (I indeed had a wonderful quiet place to read this book).

In a lovely vacation rental near the beach, where activities such as beach walks, puzzle building, craft making, eating, and conversing were happening, I had a comfy chair to sit in and read. It helps that I love Russia, Russian literature, charming vocabulary, lots of conversation, literary allusions, and gentle action with enough sad parts to keep it real.

This was a library discussion book (in which every member loved the book -- highly unusual), but I ended up buying my own copy. Whether one buys the book to read or borrows it from the library, it does make for a great discussion group book. It has been a couple of months since our group discussed this book so I will comment on discussion questions I could glean from my bookmarks.

Page 29: What is it that keeps us going? Revenge, goals, practicalities?
Pages 86-87: (a hard one to explain, but definitely discussable): What does it mean to be out of step with one's times (or in step)? What of poetry? What of the written word?
Pages 109-110: Is there value in marking time? "...if attentiveness should be measured in minutes and discipline measured in hours, then indomitability must be measured in years. Or, if philosophical investigations are not to your taste, then let us simply agree that the wise man celebrates what he can."
Page 121: If you found a tree and ate of its fruits which enabled you to start your life anew, would you?

At this point, I'm going to say "and many more" because the book is a hefty 462 pages long. Towles breaks it up into 5 books in one, but I felt each "book" moved seamlessly into the next. There are plenty of characters that also move in and out of the story just like in Russian stories. I thought I would get lost, but I didn't. Unlike Russian stories, Towles gave most of his characters only one name. The book would make an excellent movie or even series. The characters are all ages, and charming little stories are within the main story. I even learned some games to play while waiting for dinner in a restaurant! The ending is surprising, in a good way. 

Homecoming (The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair by Amy Makechnie)

Best opening sentences that I have read in a long time: "I was ten when Gaysie Cutter tried to kill me. It was just like her, too -- always leaving a bad first impression." Best ratings on Goodreads that I've ever seen, especially for a Young Adult book...no, make that Juvenile book at my library. First, on ratings, I only saw one person who gave it one star and the reviewer hated the characters and found the book difficult to read but found one character to be "aDORable". My guess is the reviewer was a young person with possible reading challenges? However, kudos to her, if that is the case, because she is reading and reviewing on Goodreads. Many of the reviewers were adults. This I know because they felt the need to explain that they enjoy reading YA or J literature. I'm with them. A good story is a good story, whether it is a picture book or a juvenile/young adult book or Plato...okay, so maybe not Plato.

This book begs for comparison to The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. (See my review here.) The protagonist of Bradley's book, Flavia de Luce, has a vocabulary beyond her years. I enjoyed that, but Makechnie's book does not have the elements that annoyed me in Bradley's book. Her protagonist, Guinevere St. Clair -- Gwyn, does have a mother...okay, so she isn't quite a normal mother because of brain damage, but she is there. And, Gwyn has a sister that she actually likes and does not try to poison (see the relationship between Flavia and her two sisters). She even has a father who is not cold and distant -- preoccupied, yes, with trying to find the cure for his wife. There's even a Nana (grandmother) who is normal; she can be both kind and cranky. All this normalcy may appear boring; however, Gaysie Cutter of the opening sentence is eccentric enough to balance out our cast of characters. The character that annoyed me the most is the mom. I know it's sad for me to say that. I kept thinking that the mom, who can't remember anything after her thirteenth year acts more like a five-year-old, but maybe her memory is stuck at 13 and the brain damage caused her emotions to be more like a child in primary or elementary school. I want to know what happens with Mrs. Vienna St. Clair.

What Flavia and Gwyn have in common is their sleuthing. Whereas Flavia is precocious and often knows more than the adults, Gwyn's vocabulary and missteps seem to fit her age. Still, dead bodies pop up, literally pop up, and mysteries abound, or perhaps, one mystery and lots of secrets. The story begs for a sequel. I probably will go back and read another Flavia de Luce book (such good vocabulary), but I really hope Makechnie will write the next Guinevere St. Clair book. Other characters who made brief appearances in this first book must have a storyline, and Gwyn's dad has to keep up his search into the brain (while Flavia's forte is poison, Gwyn educates us in matters of the brain).

Since I write one piece for review and blog (which includes personal connections to the book), I'll segue into the blog portion with two of my favorite quotes from The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair to close out the review portion. (As for why the title of "Homecoming", it involves a plot spoiler so you'll just have to read the book to find out why.)

"I sniffed, wrinkled my nose at the old smell, and looked around, wondering if death stank. Ms. Myrtle's chair sat alone in the corner, and I felt a wave of wistfulness for the tales of my parents, and even of Gaysie, sorry I hadn't asked for more stories and information, sorry I would never get the chance. And even though she was a frightful woman, I suddenly missed that she wouldn't be watching us grow up or sticking her head out the door to tell me to 'hush up!'" (216).

"To Guinevere St. Clair. This is what I know of friendship: Hold on to the people you love. Know what they feel like, smell like, and act like, so that when they're not there to hold on to, you remember. G.C." (232).

Plus, there's a reference to and adventure because of Huck Finn. Yeah, way to win a teacher's heart.

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Family life: I've got to go with those last two quotes. How often I hear many people say, and I've said it often myself: I wish I had listened better and asked for more tales.

Spiritual transformation: Listening to people has shown up in this section before (and worth practicing again and again and again), but I'm going to go with the practice of learning more and more about our bodies which includes our brains. The research that is coming out about our brains is fascinating and very spiritually transforming!

Sleuthing (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley)

In my pursuit of some light reading, I discovered I do not possess my own copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. I intend (barely and briefly) to compare Scout, the protagonist of TKAM (as it was known by my students) with Flavia, the protagonist of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (TSATBOTP -- goodness, even with initials, the title is still long). I went to take a picture of the two books together and that's when I realized that I did not own TKAM (my children, take note, my birthday is coming).

From the title of this blog post -- "Sleuthing" -- and the picture of the dead bird, you can deduce ("arrive at by reasoning, reach a logical conclusion") that this is a mystery, not my normal genre to read. However, several friends rated this book highly (4 stars) on Goodreads, and I longed for something light-hearted to read.

Eh, dead bodies but no blood and guts, just lots of talk of poisons...lots. No deep philosophical discussions but lots of multi-syllable words...lots. I like multi-syllable words even when they are written as coming out of the mouth of a precocious eleven year old. The thoughts and conversations of Flavia can be funny. It is meant to be "over the top" (hyperbole, exaggeration). It has to be when the author names the characters Ophelia (Feely), Daphne (Daffy), Flavia, Antigone, Dogger, etc.

Therefore, if the book is meant to be jolly good fun (even with dead people, poisons, kidnapping, etc.), readers shouldn't expect reality in the story. Yet, at the bottom of this custard pie (part of the story), there is some sweet (or not-so-sweet) reality in the form of how the murders happen and in the kidnapping. All's well that ends well so have no fear there. I like the relationship between Inspector Hewitt and Flavia, but I confess to being annoyed by the family relationships.

One, why are mothers generally dead and fathers cold and distant (or vice versa)? Can one not have an adventuresome life with a live mother and father who care for and love you? Maybe not. I finished two memoirs this summer Calypso and Hillbilly Elegy (reviews in the links) and one author has a dead mother and father who was cold and distant in younger years and warm and loving in later years, and one author has a drug addict mother, and a father who left the family.

Two, Flavia's siblings. Flavia's talk of poisoning her sisters and how they treat each other is flat-out painful for me to read. Not because it sparks painful thoughts of my own relationships with siblings but because I have such good relationships with my siblings and whenever I have seen painful relationships, the situation has not been funny. I know, I must remember this is exaggeration for the sake of fun. Keep that in mind and you'll be fine...if you like long words and long explanations of how poisons and crime work. Nothing gory, and the explanations are well done. Also, Flavia is not perfect in her sleuthing, just as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird is not perfect. Scout is a believable character. Author Harper Lee catches the right temperament, the right expression for a smart, intelligent young girl written in a style where the character is looking back. Then again, To Kill a Mockingbird is meant to be realistic...a lot.

I'm conflicted. I can't give the book 4 stars like my friends and many reviewers, but I can't give it 2 stars like some other reviewers who hesitated going against popular opinion that Flavia and her sleuthing are as good as...the sweetness at the bottom of the pie. I liked the book. I started the book one day and finished it the next. Not a perfect solution for my desire for light-hearted reading, but a fair choice. 3 stars. Go into it as something over-the-top and laugh at the names of the characters.

💕💕💕💕 Sibling love. That has to be my topic for this section of my blog post. How to get it. Some of it may take time, but surely parents helping children to love one another has to be one facet of sibling love. I confess I did my whole ambitious, not present, time of parenting which I regret. Now, I pray, God of the past, present, and future, will redeem the years the locust have eaten (all biblical references)...that God who is outside of time will redeem ("compensate for the bad aspects") of those years.

-------------It took me a moment to think what could go into this spiritual transformation section, and then it came to me: Being Present. Scout's dad Atticus (one of the most beloved characters in literature) is a lawyer and busy. When he reads his newspaper, he concentrates on reading his newspaper, still there is a sense that he is attentive to his children. Flavia's dad Colonel de Luce (in Italian, luce has to do with light, but in late Middle English, it's a pike fish!)...laughing out loud here...her dad is a cold fish and not attentive to his children even with their mother dead. To practice being present to people, I stop what I'm doing; I look with my eyes; I keep my mouth closed and listen with my ears; I'm thankful for the person. Being present while alone, for example, eating: I enjoy looking at the food; I taste and savor each bite; I'm thankful for food. 

To Read or Not to Read (Shelf Life ed.Gary Paulsen and Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler)

I don't have to read every book I start. This was an important decision I made last week. See the stack of books below.

These are just a few of the books I intend to read! At the time I took this picture, I forgot there was one in my purse.

(Yes, the purse looks like it could be replaced, but that's a blog piece for another day: not filling our waste or dump sites.) My actual decision not to read a book came while reading these two books:

I finished Shelf Life; I returned Vinegar Girl to the library. Both of these books have something in common. In Shelf Life, editor Gary Paulsen asked prominent authors to write short stories  which included the mention of a book. This was done to promote and benefit ProLiteracy Worldwide. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler is the third book of Random House's "Hogarth Shakespeare" project where a novelist updates a story from Shakespeare.

I picked up Shelf Life from work and I almost did not finish it as the stories at the beginning did not interest me. Sure, they mention a famous book (or two) in each story, but the stories came across like the results of a writing assignment rather than what would naturally come from the author. However, some of the students at the school where I work had this book as required reading so I pushed on and I liked the stories at the end. Also, the last section "About the Contributors" fascinated me.

Vinegar Girl written by well-known author Anne Tyler was supposed to be my "light-hearted" read after reading through a series of depressing books. It was okay, but I kept thinking the original Shakespearean play The Taming of the Shrew was a lot better. This isn't just me insisting on the original Shakespeare. I like his stories retold in modern language. I just kept thinking: "Wait, she's changing up the actual story." In the middle, I decided that I could stop reading. Just because I had started reading the book did not mean I had to finish it. Not only did I have all those other books I wanted to read (see first picture), but these books came in two days later (and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley looks like it might be the light-hearted read I have been looking for.)

💕💕💕💕 About 70% of the people who look at my blog do so on a mobile device and I now realize the website post does not always come out well on a mobile so I'm working to fix that. I still have not figured out how to add the translation widget to the mobile format, but I'm playing with how to divide up the sections such as this one that connects the reading to family life and the one below connecting to spiritual transformation.

I don't actually have the answer to the question I'm raising in this section. How do we get our children and students to enjoy some of the best literature of the ages when testing on anything kills most of the joy?

-------------As for spiritual transformation and reading, I have not, I believe, mentioned reading scriptures which surely would be included in any spiritual transformation plan. Again, testing destroys a whole lot of joy. While reading Old Testament scriptures and New Testament scriptures will help any reader because of the vast number of biblical references and allusions made in books, reading of the bible can make a transformative difference. And, while some readers may gasp at the word "can", reading the bible knowing that God loves you, the reader, and delights in you, makes a difference between reading it  and being transformed and thinking that God is out to get you and not being transformed. Also, skillful readers know to picture in their minds what they are reading. See the second book review You Gotta Be the Book in this blog post "Five Books..." to read a discussion of how important it is to picture what we are reading, yet so often that information is not offered to those reading the bible.  

Companioning (Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern...sic, as in "spelling is correct")

This book was not on any of my "to read" lists. I was wandering through the local library waiting for my granddaughter to pick out her books, and I saw this book in the NEW BOOK section. Look at this cover! How can a bookophile bypass such an offering? And, a  logophile, also.  So much so that I looked up the etymology of bookophile and logophile. At this point, if I have almost lost you, skip down to the picture! Bookophile is a recent addition to the English language. However, the word that means "lover of books" bibliophile is on record as early as 1820. If I have not lost you, logophile means "lover of words" as does lexophile; however, the latter is used mostly with people who love words in puzzles and the like. It has been at least three weeks since I have reviewed any books (although I have finished six books), and I needed to prime the brain to go into reviewing mode. Maybe I'm not such a lover of writing. What would that word be?

Awesome cover, isn't it? I have ten bookmarks in my library copy so I definitely enjoyed the book. I'm going with a rating between a three and a four. See how I rate in this post. Halpern's novel is entertaining, and I had it read within three days. Some readers think it ends abruptly, too pat (simple, glib, unconvincing) which took me back to my days of teaching denouement -- a tying up of all the loose ends into a conclusion -- a definition which is rather interesting considering I was taught the actual word means "unravelling" as in all the problems are unravelled and life settles (for good or for evil or in the case of great novels, ambiguously). I am truly digressing into words today!

One reviewer quit reading after the first chapter, which is not the first chapter but rather titled "The Marriage Story Part I". He or she called it "chic lit" and stated that starting out a book with college sex did not portend an auspicious read. (My apologies for the big words today; I'm only half way through my coffee; will that work as an excuse?) Skip that part if it would annoy you; Halpern does not actually continue in that vein.

Sliding up the scale from three stars to four, if you give an English teacher or a group discussion leader a book with talking points in it, she's going to like the book. Strewn throughout this book are quotes from poets and authors! Swoon!

There is a story. You might have been wondering. Homeschooled (wait, "Unschooled") girl Sunny steals a dictionary and gets community service time at, yes, you guessed it, the library, where she meets older single woman Kit, yes, the one involved in the marriage story, part 1, but she's not married now (and part of the draw of the story is wondering why she is not married). One also wonders what is going on with Sunny's parents, Willow and Steve.

My connections to the book -- Sunny and her parents do not eat anything with a face which leads Kit to contemplate a bible verse she learned in her college "Bible as Literature" class (Genesis, not Song of Solomon) about humans having dominion over animals. This talking point sent me off on a search of the Hebrew word radah. This is an excellent discussion of four Hebrew words used in Genesis. Rather than Sunny thinking the bible verse is a bad idea as in the book, the real Hebrew word would support her family's desire to protect and take care of animals. Also, in a connection to me,  my eating protocol at the moment is such that I'm not too keen to eat anything with a face...except maybe a fish...but that's a different blog.

Sunny and Kit have a discussion about silence and mindfulness which Sunny relates to because her parents went to a meditation retreat. Then, the two have the homeschool/unschool discussion throughout the book. Sunny states at one point about her ability to get along with younger children: "[It goes with] the whole homeschool / no-school territory. Older kids and younger kids are always tossed together. No one really makes a distinction. When you're little, you idolize the older kids, and when you're older, the little kids idolize you, and you get used to entertaining them" (71).

How about the question of reading the ending of the book first? See, if you're not a book reader, you're thinking, "Who cares?" but this is the type of question which raises voices in a book discussion group.

Another talking point: Characters change (103). Do they? Do the character traits of people change in real life?

Lest you think this is strictly a chick lit book, Halpern delves into the life and thoughts of her male character and his relationships with a group of four older men (thus, one of the aspects of my "Companioning" portion of my blog title). As much as I do not like the current wave of books where each character gets his or her own chapter, Halpern does a great job of transitioning between the characters.

Death and dying. Yup, got some death and dying in here. Got some religion, but church folks tend to get the negative aspects of the book. Maybe homeschoolers/un-schoolers get negative treatment as well, but Willow and Steve are not religious homeschoolers. No..., but I can't explain why without including plot spoilers. As a homeschooling parent who tried the John Holt unschooling, which is harder than using already written curriculum when done correctly, and a private school teacher and a public educator (not all at the same time), I'll just write that there are oddities and lawbreakers in every avenue of education.

I'll close with going back to the words and books. Halpern does include where Robbers Library comes from. It takes a long while for a short little explanation which has nothing to do with the story but satisfies those of us who kept flinching because we thought an apostrophe had been left out. After all, Sunny did steal a dictionary, but it has nothing to do with her. That's not a plot spoiler, folks. That's for all the readers who need to know that Robbers Library is not a typo or grammatical error. As for the books part -- the library -- some reviewers thought these situations would never happen at a real library. Pay attention to the reviews of the small town librarians. These activities could happen at all the small town libraries I have ever been in and used. We know our librarians. They are our people.

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For the children/grandchildren part of my blog: Libraries! Go to them! Often! My children had a library card as soon as they could write their name, between four and five years old.

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For the spiritual formation part of my blog: Check out that link about radah. You may not give up eating anything with a face, but what is one action you could take to protect the world we live in?
Next month is Plastic Free July . Give it a try. I have for several years now, and I've reached the point where it has become habit to avoid using single use plastic or, if possible, not use plastic at all. 

Ratings and Reviewing (aka Why Did You Give It That Number of Stars?)

A befuddled question from a daughter "How exactly do you rate your books?" initiated this post. A standard ratings guide looks a little like the one below (maybe a bit fancier).

This is an opportunity to reveal my complex, not so complex, way of scoring and have a post to which I can refer in other book review posts. Starting from the top:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 stars still means phenomenally great, well, maybe not always phenomenally, but it definitely means that I have bought the book or will buy the book. It usually means the writing is fabulous; however, it always means I have parts of the book that I want to remember or to refer to.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars still means really good. It might mean that the writing was phenomenal; however, the difference between 4 and 5 involves whether I would buy the book. 5 always means, "I want to own this book" and 4 means "I loved reading this book, but I don't know that I would ever read it again." The Chemist (if you like that genre) was a story that kept me hanging on the edge of my seat. The Help, I stayed up all night to finish that book (hmmm, I may have rated it 5 stars back in the day before I started really fine tuning my ratings). However, with both of these books, the story and writing is amazing, but I'm not buying the books. I'm willing to wait to get them from the library if need be.

Four stars is a tricky little rating for me. If you are my friend and you ask me to rate your book, there is a distinct possibility that I will give it a 4 rather than a 3 because you are my friend. If I hate your book, I will try to never get around to finishing it. Now some books of friends really are 4-5 star ratings. You never know.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 stars is a tough one to explain. It might be a beach read, a book to entertain me. The trouble with three stars is people who love the book want to know why I only gave it three stars, and the people who hate the book, wonder why I even bothered. Three stars very often means that I enjoyed reading the book; I'm glad the author wrote the book, but I'm not going to be referring to it. Maybe there were some flaws in the storyline or in the writing. Maybe they weren't flaws at all -- maybe the book just was not my cup of tea! For those unfamiliar with that phrase, others might like the book, but it was not the usual type of book I read or like.

⭐⭐ 2 stars still means I didn't like the book, but I don't think I give out 2 stars very often. Two star books are blah, and I rarely finish "boring, dull, and without meaningful content" books.

⭐ I think I have only ever given out one 1 star rating to a book. I would not finish reading a book I hated; however, I might have been the library book discussion group leader and had to finish this particular book. You might wonder why I chose a book I hated. In our group, no one person chooses all the books, and, at the time, I would lead the discussion, but everyone had an opportunity to choose a book.

0 rating -- You may wonder at a zero rating. This does not mean that I hated the book beyond belief. It means either I did not get around to rating a book (at my entrance into Goodreads, I added a lot of books at one time without rating each and every book), or it means it's just that type of book which is difficult to rate which truly means that I'm too much of a coward to tell my friends who love the book that it was so-so or to tell my friends who hated the book that I actually loved it. Lol!

And, now I close to go attend our local library book discussion group! 

Eating and Living (The Blue Zones Solution by Dan Buettner)

Do I post this with my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge type of posts or with my siblings blog on health? The competitive side of me (not that 52 in 52 is a competition...haha) won out, but I will copy this into our family health blog as well (found here).

Photography is not my strength so apologies ahead of time. This mushroom soup is actually excellent. It did not come from the recipes in The Blue Zones Solution but I have been inspired by Dan Buettner's research into the Blue Zones ever since I first read his articles for National Geographic.

This book goes beyond those National Geographic articles which covered how people in Blue Zones ate and lived. Blue Zones are those areas of the world where the most centenarians live. In The Blue Zones Solution, Buettner revisits those zones in Greece, Japan, Italy, Costa Rica, and, yes, even the United States. In Part Two of the book, his team learned from Finland how to teach three areas of the United States how to create their own Blue Zones. In Part Three, Buettner discusses making a Blue Zone a personal choice, followed by Part Four, the recipes.

Since I've been reading a number of other health books with food protocols in them (Genius Foods, The End of Alzheimer's, and The Plant Paradox), I had comparisons to make. There are some situations that most writing healing food books seem to agree upon: the Standard American Diet is SAD, not just an acronym, but truly 😢, and sugar is not good for us. (See my post on that here.)

However, there are some differences. Legumes. Centenarians eat them, no question about that. And, they do eat bread, just not ones with the kind of grains in the typical SAD meal plan. Legumes and grains are not high on the list of some of these other protocols. That being said, the books previously mentioned are fighting back against some specific diseases (Alzheimer's, inflammations of many types).

I find reading a combination of these healing food protocols and paying attention to one's own body and medical tests are a good start to finding a healing protocol designed for oneself.

The Blue Zones Solution also addresses lifestyles of centenarians, not just healing foods, but a thriving lifestyle, this and the recipes make the book worth buying.

Buettner's Mushroom Stew includes white wine, soy sauce, and rice -- all of which are not healing for my Celiac's, thyroid, sky high iron, or potential for Alzheimer's so I offer my version which I made the day before yesterday and thought tasted quite good! It made just two servings (1 for the day before and 1 for yesterday).

Deborah's AIP  (Autoimmune Protocol) Mushroom Soup
(I use food that has not been sprayed with chemicals, etc.: truly organic in practice, not just on the label)

In a saucepan, cover the following with water:
2 small stalks of celery, sliced thin (I included the leafy parts which I took out before eating)
2 carrots, sliced thin
3 cloves of garlic, chopped or diced
5-6 dried shiitake mushrooms
1/2 onion, diced

I simmered this until the vegetables were soft. The dried mushrooms remained a bit chewy when I was ready to eat so when I...

Blend about 3 ladles and include all of the mushrooms until smooth. NOTE: I learned to hold a towel over the top of the blender when I blend something hot. This is supposed to prevent the top from flying off from the heat. I have not had any flying top disasters.

Put the blended soup into the rest of the soup and simmer to thicken it up. I started grabbing spices, salt, and pepper which I thought were AIP (I didn't double check.) I just dashed them in. Mediterranean salt, pepper, curry, turmeric, and dill weed.

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Blue Zone ideas for raising children: Besides being mindful about what one eats, having an optimal circadian rhythm for sleep and bedrooms that are cool, quiet, and dark, are beneficial for health. Working in the yard, planting a garden all practices for thriving. Creating a group of mutually committed friends, not just at a stage of life, but people with whom you will be young with and grow old with, is something that people do who live in Blue Zones.

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Interesting that a spiritual practice is fasting. It turns out that almost every healing protocol involves a form of fasting. NOT starving as in harmful practices. But, practices such as making one's last meal of the day be at least 3 hours before bedtime. In today's fast paced busy world, we're often grabbing food at 9 pm and then sending the children to bed. The Creator who made our bodies apparently knows our bodies need to relax at a meal and then give our bodies time to digest it before heading off into some good sleep. 

Moving (The Address by Fiona Davis)

Lovely book cover, sad story that ends well for at least one of the characters (that for my friend who hates sad endings). This is next month's book for discussion at my local library. It's a quick read in spite of the dual time line (1880s/1980s) which in the words of one reviewer "are hard to escape these days." The historical aspect is interesting -- the Dakota New York apartment house where, if it doesn't ring a bell, John Lennon was shot. The other historical aspect and the one that makes this book sad is the portion of the story involving the asylums where women were sent when they were deemed crazy. At a different time, I might have been more energetic about reading this story, but this is the third book in a row where I have been reading about the horrible situations women have been placed in and forced to go through. Nellie Bly's cameo appearance in this story is definitely a highlight. If you get ahold of the book and you have the time, it's worth reading. It's a good choice for a book discussion group, and there were a couple of plot twists: one reasonable, one...eh, maybe. I'm ready to go back to my health and education book reading for awhile, but don't hesitate to recommend a fictional book to me. Just don't make it a sad one for awhile!

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I'm going to finish out this section with the last 3 tips on listening gleaned from a 2014 blog piece by Janice Taylor. With the hearts portion of my blog (the mom/grandma portion), I'd say my mom gave her children good advice. Although she applied it to listening to sons, it's more appropriate and less gender specific to apply it to all children, "When a child speaks, stop what you are doing to listen." She applied it to boys feeling that they spoke less. Sometimes that's true and sometimes not. Basically, if I'm with a child (or adult) who rarely speaks up, if he or she starts talking, it would be good to stop and listen! This is a practice I did not excel at.

In the area of good practices, I finish with the last three tips as promised above.

7. Listen rather than judging. This works for a connection with the book. One, several times, characters were not listened to, and two,  some major misjudgments occur.

8. Listen rather than finishing the speaker's sentence.

9. Listen rather than sharing every single story from your own life that might relate closely or loosely to what the speaker is saying.

Maddening (Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann)

If you know me personally and you're wondering how I came to be reading a non-fiction book like this (it's not my normal "go-to" genre), I was wondering the same thing myself. I came home from vacation, opened up my email, and read that I had this book waiting for me at the library for pick up. I thought: "Did I order this? I know we've been watching Quantico, but I don't think I ordered a book on the FBI!" Then, I realized it was a discussion book for the next library book discussion group meeting.

I know "maddening" is not a gerund which I generally use in my book review blog titles, but the book's story (not the book itself) is infuriating. The story involves one of the worst racial tragedies in the US, and it's not even in American History textbooks. If I were still teaching, I would definitely choose this book as one for my high schoolers to read.

The author David Grann stated in an interview with PBS News Hour that he started writing the book as a "Who did it?" but it became a "Who didn't do it?!" One reviewer mentions that there are a lot of people involved. There are! I feel Grann did a good job of keeping it clear. Pictures helped. Although pictures of the "devil himself" made me even more disgusted with him as he is so smug, so sure that he is going to get away with everything. If it sounds like fiction, it does read like a movie or television series. Apparently the story did make it onto film, but I'll bet that a new movie or tv series comes out of this.

Hopefully, if that happens, those who make it will stick to the story. The greed and travesty is unreal as it is, but the goodness of those who helped and tried to help is equally amazing.

Embedded in all of this is also the early beginnings of the FBI which adds to the story. Ratings wise, I'm saying 4 stars only because I save 5 stars for books I buy full price. IF I were teaching this, I would buy it and it would be bought for all my students. In that respect, it is a 5 star book.  I recommend the book.

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My family moved from a very diverse area to a not-so-diverse area. Thankfully, we have much diversity in our friends and family. I have never regretted teaching my children to love people of all ethnicities. I can't really say "teaching" as we just lived out being friends with all manner of people. I could  have done a better job with the homeless.

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A story like this cries out for practices of social justice. Unfortunately (or perhaps with good reason), anyone under 18 is not allowed to help out at our homeless shelters and places where meals are served. (Before anyone gets upset, the children might know each other from school and they don't want the homeless children being embarrassed by being fed by a fellow student.) As adults, we have many options. My mind today was in the direction of spiritual formation in children so I did a search on "social justice practices and children". I ran across this quote that resonated with me:

People should talk to us with the same kind tone that they talk to other children.

 (Beeru, ragpicker, 14, member of child workers union, India)

Wow. Lots of great ideas can be found, but how about starting with how we talk with one another? If you're a person of influence in a church, then I have some really great ideas. How about living in the poorer neighborhoods or setting a family up in a home next to church members and getting that family financial guidance, marital guidance, childrearing guidance? I've seen it done.

Surviving (The Legacy Series: Legacy, Prodigy, Champion by Marie Lu)

The first book in this series, Legacy, is not shown here because it was my daughter's book. She thought I stole borrowed it from her when I reviewed it last week. (See that review here.) However, I did not take the book home with me; thus, I only have these last two in the series which I checked out from the library. Notice the books are from the Teen section, and know also that the books have nothing to do with London -- that's just my morning coffee cup. The series takes place in the United States (and I realized this morning that I do not have a US coffee cup -- hint to family and friends).

Why did Lu (or her publishers) title this series the Legacy series? Really, the first book mainly involves the prodigy character(s). But, can you imagine a series titled the Prodigy series? It sounds a bit elitist, which the prodigy character, June, is. We can consider Day as the anti-prodigy character who is a prodigy that didn't make the cut but survives anyway (not a plot spoiler).

This series ranks ahead of the average teen series because of what Lu brings to the table of literature. Sure, it's typical teen fare: parents dead, lots of violence and fighting to survive, love interests (will she go with _______ or with ________ when you know all along that she's meant to be with ____).

However, though it irks me to have dead good adults in teen fiction, I do think the legacy that June and Day have involves parents and siblings who strive for good, in fact, gave their lives up fighting evil. Lu also employs symbolism and allusion, trademarks of good literature. Take the names of the main characters: June and Day -- season and time of the most light, at least in the northern hemisphere where this story takes place. Then, the kiss in Prodigy is so strong of an allusion, if you don't see it, you have some missing pieces in your literary background. I would rate Prodigy  as the strongest of the three books with a 4 star rating.

As for Champion, the last in the series, one can not just stop at Prodigy! I surmise my issue with Champion is that it moves beyond my originally agreeing with a Commonsense review stating that Legacy was for readers 12 and up. I will say, though, that when Lu brings in the theme of who we become, what shapes us, then she leads us into a story much more than the average teen fiction.

"How had he slowly twisted into the Elector who created such a dark nation? What path had he chosen to follow?" (Champion 263).

We know the legacy of three characters and the choices they make along the way which lead them into the people they become. We also see the choices of a few other characters and what led to their rise or fall. In this respect, I like the story. I'm still giving it 3 stars, but who doesn't finish a series?! Three stars won't stop someone from finishing to see what the end holds. And, to Lu's credit, she does go for a more complex ending. I do intend to read more of her novels.

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Writing stories. The deeper aspects of the Legacy series are what elevates this series: the choices that characters make, who they are and who they become. Too often, I saw students from first grade to high school think their normal everyday lives were not as exciting as the latest action movie they happened to watch. I made it my goal to encourage them to see that their daily lives had value in story form. A couple of weeks ago I gave my granddaughters a file of their dad's art work and written work. One of their favorite pieces was a story that he wrote about his dad, their grandpa. The story was loved by Grandpa as well. It's unusual for someone not to want to be a hero (or perhaps "heroic" would be a better word), but heroes don't happen overnight. Small daily actions grow heroes. Daily life, daily choices matter. June and Day, the characters in these books, have flaws, make mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes provide comic relief in our stories and sometimes they provide transparency and reality, but our mistakes need not hold us back from becoming people who in the midst of surviving also grow and thrive in goodness.

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I'm into these practices on listening since a friend sent me nine "DO NOTs of an Active Listener" from a 2014 blog of Janice Taylor's. I wish I could figure out how to turn them into DOs except, basically, the DO part of each one is "Just listen." 😌

4. DO NOT interrupt; do not cut the speaker [your child, your student, your friend, your ___?] off mid-sentence. Allow him/her to finish the thought. Just listen.
5. DO NOT plan your responses as the speaker is speaking. Just listen.
6. DO NOT give advice unless specifically asked for it. Just listen. 

Certainly this book series is an opportunity to think about social justice as well. How one goes about social justice is a good topic of discussion or of listening: to God, to others, before judging, jumping to conclusions and finding oneself more of a hindrance than a help.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and Altared by Claire and Eli

The Handmaid's Tale -- Let's just get the caveat out of the way. There's sex in this book. Not just sex but distorted, destructive sex. So, why did I read this book? Well, I didn't know this about the book when I started. However, I had seen this title around for many years. It came out in 1986, and I, for some odd reason, thought it had to do with geishas. Yet, this April I was on vacation, and my daughter had the book on her bookshelves. She said that it was a dystopian novel (and she knows I read dystopian novels). Specifically, it's a dystopian satire. The quote by Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal gives us one clue that this is the case. An interview with Margaret Atwood led me to read the book. In the interview, Atwood said that none of the horrors in this book have been dreamed up. While they have not happened in one place at one time, they have happened or are happening somewhere in the world. Here from an article in 2012, Atwood comments:

"I made a rule for myself: I would not include anything that human beings had not already done in some other place or time, or for which the technology did not already exist. I did not wish to be accused of dark, twisted inventions, or of misrepresenting the human potential for deplorable behaviour. The group-activated hangings, the tearing apart of human beings, the clothing specific to castes and classes, the forced childbearing and the appropriation of the results, the children stolen by regimes and placed for upbringing with high-ranking officials, the forbidding of literacy, the denial of property rights: all had precedents, and many were to be found not in other cultures and religions, but within western society, and within the "Christian" tradition, itself. (I enclose "Christian" in quotation marks, since I believe that much of the church's behaviour and doctrine during its two-millennia-long existence as a social and political organisation would have been abhorrent to the person after whom it is named.)

"The Handmaid's Tale has often been called a 'feminist dystopia', but that term is not strictly accurate. In a feminist dystopia pure and simple, all of the men would have greater rights than all of the women. It would be two-layered in structure: top layer men, bottom layer women. But Gilead is the usual kind of dictatorship: shaped like a pyramid, with the powerful of both sexes at the apex, the men generally outranking the women at the same level; then descending levels of power and status with men and women in each, all the way down to the bottom, where the unmarried men must serve in the ranks before being awarded an Econowife." For the full article go here. 

Please note: The situations in this book are happening or have happened! Secondly, Atwood places the word "Christian" in quotation marks because she thinks what has been done in Christ's name would have been abhorrent to Christ. There are Christ-followers in this book who die for trying to prevent the activities in this society. Thirdly, while feminists have embraced this book, for readers to miss the satire against repressive regimes is to limit the impact of the story. 

Here I get to whether satire has the same value visually in a televised show. I say no. Atwood's introduction in the book includes a quote from A Modest Proposal, and I include here the start of Swift's proposal: 

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

Swift continues on with how to the poor Irish. Can you imagine (or maybe you can; I think it would be horrible) watching a show of someone eating a one-year-old child? 

For me, turning The Handmaid's Tale into a commercial, entertaining commodity strips the book of all of its power, all that the satire was fighting against. This is even more true given that the series is continuing to stray from the original story. 

As I turn to the other book, a book written by two Christ-followers, Altared, the question must arise in some minds: why would I couple this non-fiction book with Atwood's? I do so because Claire and Eli (no last names on purpose) offer, in the words of one reviewer: "A much needed wake-up call -- a plea for a paradigm shift in the way we think of love, marriage, and ourselves as followers of Jesus." 

Also, this comment "real love has little do with looking for Mr. or Ms. Right" hits at the core theme of this book. The body of Christ, as seen in our church institutions, has bought into the culture's view of love, or I might say, Dean Martin's view: "You got to get yourself somebody because you're nobody until somebody loves you" and Dean is definitely talking about lower case 's' here. Yes, this includes the church who makes singles feel less than they are because they are not one half of a couple. Instead of a top priority of getting to the altar (hence the title Altared), Claire and Eli invite the reader to make love for God and love for one's neighbor the greatest priority. 

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Books, banned books: what do you let your children read? A large number of books that I have taught in my classes were banned at one time or another: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Huckleberry Finn, Animal Farm, Brave New World...I propose (not a modest proposal and not a satirical one) that if you son or daughter wants to read a book that you let them and also do the following: 

1) Read the book at the same time as your child is reading it. For some offspring, nothing says "uncool" like mom or dad reading a book he or she wants to read. 

2) Read the book and discuss, as in let your son or daughter do the talking and be a listener. What kind of questions could you ask? "What did you appreciate about the book?" "Why do you think people want to read this book?" "What do you wish I would understand or get about this story?" 

Finally, in this section, as a former literature teacher, I would like to add that not all books you've been told are "bad" are actually bad. Two brief illustrations. A colleague and I were pulled into the principal's office for teaching A Tale of Two Cities because "it was about rape". For the life of us, we could not figure out what we were being called on the carpet for. Finally, we reminded each other that the peasant woman probably was raped, but this was Dickens, for heaven's sake, no graphic details at all. Then, come to find out, a commentary at the back of the particular book we were reading said the entire book was about the "rape of women through all ages". I think the commentator missed the point of the book; however, that being said, the story itself did not include any rape scenes. Then, one of my all time favorite books was brought into question. Brave New World. A story way ahead of its time when Huxley wrote it. A highly moral story. A story were readers are told that everyone is encouraged to have sex with everyone but the only "graphic" illustration of this is when Lenina drops her zippicamiknicks on the floor, and my students were as disgusted by this as John was horrified. Interestingly, many of the same parents complaining about the book had high schoolers who had already seen (and perhaps had laughed with them) when Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds run into each other in the nude in The Proposal. A critique of this movie is not my point; the fact that my students had seen much more nudity on the screen than is in Brave New World is my point. 

With no apologies for making this blog post even longer, I include a paragraph from an article"Brave New World (is Here!) From a New York Post 2012 article:

If Orwell’s “1984” is a cautionary tale about what we in the capitalist West largely avoided, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is largely about what we got — a consumerist, post-God happyland in which people readily stave off aging, jet away on exotic vacations and procreate via test tubes. They have access to “Feelies” similar to IMAX 3-D movies, no-strings-attached sex, anti-anxiety pills and abortion on demand. They also venerate a dead high-tech genius, saying “Ford help him” in honor of Henry Ford just as today we practically murmur “In Jobs We Trust.”

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Spiritual practice -- listening -- 3 ideas from a blog by Janice Taylor, 2014, quoted in a Salem Alliance Church 2018 Conference flyer: 

1. DO NOT allow your brain to race ahead of your lips! We speak at about 100 to 150 words per minute, but we think at 250 to 500. Just listen. 

2. DO NOT anticipate what will be said. Just listen. 

3. DO NOT be distracted by the people or things around you. Keep your eyes focused on the speaker. Just listen.