2020 Book Reviews

2020 Totals: 
Number of Books: 61
Pages: 16,219
Audiobooks: 143 hours, 53 minutes
New Favorites: The Whistling Season, Dune, Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers, The Dog that Wouldn't Be, The Earthsea Cycle, Farm Girl: A Wisconsin Memoir
Old Favorites: The Historian, The Final Solution, Holmes on the Range, the Bartimaeus Trilogy
Favorite Vocab Words: argot: the jargon or slang of a particular group or class.

61. The Whistling Season (2020.12.)

By: Ivan Doig
Published: 2006
Pages: 345
Genre: American west fiction / homesteading / Montana / rural schools / family novel / humour /  
Bex Rating: 9.5

Reading a book like this is a good way to end any year, but especially this one.  Now I am getting more books by Ivan Doig.

This is the story of three boys who lose their mother to sickness, and whose father sends for a housekeeper from Minnesota to come and sort them out.  Rose Lewellyn arrives in the Montana homesteading territory, accompanied by her brother, which was not expected.  She an amazing housekeeper, but can't cook beans . . . and her brother is educated to his eyeballs, but doesn't know how to split wood.  The book is every degree of hilarious, and the writing is so deft and old-fashioned, even though the book was written in 2006.  Doig has been awarded the Wallace Stegner award, and a National Book Award finalist.

• If I have learned anything in a lifetime overseeing schools, it is that childhood is the one story that stands by itself in every soul.
• It was strange how any last-minute chores in the horse barn demanded [Father's] immediate attention when visiting with [Aunt] Eunice Schricker was the other choice.
• "I like taffy, don't you Paul?"
  "It'll strengthen our jaw muscles, Tobe.  We'll be like those circus strongmen who lift anvils with their teeth and we'll owe it all to Aunt Eunice."
• Rose had done away with Aunt Eunice's doilies on everything, thank heavens, but that whole fussy room still carried an atmosphere of having been crocheted into existence rather than carpentered.
• argot: the jargon or slang of a particular group or class.

60. I'd Rather Be Reading (2020.12.29)

By: Anne Bogel
Published: 2018
Pages: 156
Genre: nonfiction / book lovers / reading / books / 
Bex Rating: 9

This was such a  delightful read--and a delightful, unexpected late Christmas present from my friend, Melanie.  I opened the amazon package, opend the book, and set it down when I was done reading it!

Anne Bogel has a website called Modern Mrs. Darcy, and a podcast called "What Should I Read Next?, so she knows her books.  This slim volume is a collection of essays on reading and readers, and is just a treasure.  I now have about ten more titles and ten new authors added to my ever-growing to-read-next list.

• CS Lewis once wrote, "Friendship...is born at the moment when one man says to another, 'What!  You too?  I thought I was the only one.'"
• Books provide a safe place to encounter new and unfamiliar situations, to practice living in unfamiliar environments, to test-drive encounters with new people and new experiences.
• Author Ann Quindlen, who is to be trusted on such matters, wrote, "I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."
• As Italo Calvino wrote, "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say."

59. Snapdragon (2020.12.26)

By: Kat Leyh
Published: 2020
Pages: 240
Genre: graphic novel / coming-of-age / magical realism / forest story / personal quest
Bex Rating: 7.5

I was excited for this graphic novel, after reading all the reviews, but it kind of fell flat for me.  Part of it was that I couldn't relate to the characters, and part of it was that I disagree with the overarching message: whatever you do is right.  I really wanted to like it, and I thought the storyboarding and art were great--the relationship between Snap and her mom was perfect . . .  but it just didn't quite get there.  I'll be returning this one.

58. Where the Forest Meets the Stars (2020.12.)

By: Glendy Vanderah
Published: 2019
Audiobook Length: 9 hours 57 minutes

Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
Genre: contemporary fiction / love story / cancer survivor / depression / natural history / grief and loss / friendship
Bex Rating: 9

This was such a great audiobook!  I love any book that makes time at the gym fly by, and I was totally absorbed by the story.  It's a first novel, too--it was so great.

Jo is surprised to find a skinny girl in pajama bottoms hanging around the cabin where she is doing to graduate research on birds.  Jo tries to send her home, but the girl, who chooses the name "Ursa" for herself, says she's an alien from the spindle galaxy and that she can't return to her home planet until she sees five miracles.  Worried that the girl is being mistreated and neglected, Jo calls the police, and the Ursa runs.  Gradually, Jo allows Ursa into her life, feeding her and taking her along when she does research.  Ursa is incredibly bright and inquisitive, and Jo can almost believe she is from another planet.  Ursa helps spark a friendship between Jo and Gabriel Nash, who works the neighboring farm and cares for his aging mother.

Both Jo and Gabe care for Ursa and want to find her real home, but know if they contact the police, she will run again.  But eventually, someone who knows Ursa comes looking, and nothing is what it seems.

Dun dun dun.

It was a great story.

57. The Big Sky (2020.12.12)

By: A.B. Guthrie, Jr
Published: 1947
Pages: 400
Genre: American West fiction / mountain men / fur trade / Westward expansion / dying legends / family saga
Bex Rating: 7

Ugh, this book started out so well!  I loved the first half, especially the beginning.  The author is a Pulitzer-prize winner, and very good at writing.  But I ended up hating the main character, Boone Caudill, who ended up alone and bitter and selfish.  The whole thing just fell apart for me. 

56. The Ickabog (2020.11.27)

By: JK Rowling
Published: 2020
Pages: 304
Genre: children's fiction / fairy tale / allegory / moral tale / humour
Bex Rating: 9.5

You can't compare it to Harry Potter, because this book is for a younger audience, and much shorter.  But the attention to detail and the warmth and the magic of the story that you expect from JK Rowling are totally there.  I bought this "for Mollie" "for Christmas" and just hurried and read it myself first :).

In the kingdom of Cornucopia, the ickabog is a marsh beast that mothers use to frighten children into obedience.  But when the king himself claims to see the ickabog, the whole country is thrown into a panic!

55. Dune (2020)

By: Frank Herbert
Published: 1965
Audiobook Length: 21 hours, 2 minutes

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, Simon Vance, Ilyana Kadushin
Genre: classic science fiction / political intrigue / prophecy / Savior mythology / space colonization / saga / drama /
Bex Rating: 10!

Allen and I tried to watch Dune more than once.  We watched the horrible 1984 version, and even tried the Sci-fi channel version--we didn't finish either one. But I am so glad I didn't let those adaptations keep me from enjoying the book, which was epic, in every sense of the word.  Holy cow, I can't wait for the new movie!

54. The Historian (re-read, 2020.11.15)

By: Elizabeth Kostova
Published: 2005
Pages: 684
Genre: fantasy realism fiction / contemporary fiction / Dracula / Eastern European history / history of folklore / thriller / love story / Romania / Hungary / Turkey / Bulgaria / legends / Byzantine and Ottoman empires
Bex Rating: 10

I don't think I knew, or appreciated, the first time I read this book in 2015 (review #40) that this is Elizabeth Kostova's FIRST BOOK (ohhhhhhhhhhh, I just re-read my review, and I did).  Which means I want to read what she's written since.  It is such a tour de force.  I wasn't surprised to find on Goodreads that a lot of people didn't like it, because it is long and slow-paced.  But the writing is superb, the research has clearly been done, and the story unravels so perfectly that I savored every bit.  I mean, this is my second time reading this 700-page book, and I enjoyed it even more this time.

This  is the story of a young woman who discovers that her father, a renowned historian and diplomat, has been hiding his research about the real Vlad Tepes, known to the world as Dracula.  As her father slowly shares pieces of his past with her, the young woman yearns to know more, in part because she knows her father is telling the truth, and in part because she hopes it will give her clues about the mother she's never known.

The story jumps around in time, from an older version of the daughter in present-day (I don't think we ever know her name), to her youth in the 1970s, when her father begins to tell her about Dracula, to her father's youth in the 1950s.

Setting is a major player in this book.  Nothing I have ever read makes me want to visit Eastern Europe like Kostova's descriptions of Budapest, Istanbul, Sofia . . .  It's clear that she knows her subject, that she has been to these places.  The book was critically acclaimed, and it's one of my favorite "chilling" novels.  It's not a horror or even that scary, but the slow unfolding masterfully builds suspense and makes you long for a final confrontation.

• "Human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination."
• Unfolding it returns to me that feeling of the untranslatable heart of France in May, the smell of grass that was not grass, but l'herbe, edibly fresh, as if all French vegetation were fantastically culinary.
• Where the book should have been was a gap like a missing tooth.
• I felt then, as I do now, that there is no joy like the arrival of a train, no matter how disturbing your situation - particularly a European train, and particularly a European train that will carry you south. During that period of my life, in the final quarter of the twentieth century, I heard the whistle of some of the last steam locomotives to cross the Alps on a regular run. ( this was a favorite quote from my first time reading it, as well)
• Helen and her aunt ate unabashedly, with a relish no polite American woman would have dared to show in public.
• It was good to walk into a library again.  It smelled like home.
• The windows were open, and that same hum of bees and rustle of leaves came to us.  I thought how pleasant it must be for Stoichev, even in exile, to sit up here among his manuscripts and read or write and listen to that sound, which no heavy-handed state could muffle, or which no bureaucrat had yet chosen to send him away from.
• bakshish: Baksheesh or bagsheesh is tipping, charitable giving, and certain forms of political corruption and bribery in the Middle East and South Asia
• cri de cœur: a passionate appeal, complaint, or protest.

53. Flush (2020.10.11)

By: Carl Hiassen
Published: 2005
Pages: 295
Genre: young adult fiction / Florida / humor / environmentalism / ocean life / 
Bex Rating: 8.5

This was a fun read.  Not as good as Hoot, but still a quick story that would translate well into a movie.  When Noah's dad get sent to prison for scuttling a casino boat that had been illegally emptying its sewer into a bay of the Florida keys, Noah and his sister decide to get proof of the crime and help their dad come home.  There is quite a cast off colorful characters, and you can tell that Carl Hiassen loves his state (he only writes books set in Florida) and its unique, fragile biology.

• "He's a good man, but sometimes his brain takes a nap and lets his heart takes the tiller."

52. Farm Girl: A Wisconsin Memoir (2020.10.19)

By: Beuna Coburn Carlson
Published: 2020
Pages: 216
Genre: memoir / nonfiction / The Great Depression / farm life / Wisconsin 
Bex Rating: 9.5!

Oh, I could read a million books like this and never get tired of them.  It was very reminiscent of Little Heathens, another favorite memoir (of farm life in Iowa).  Like that book, this memoir contains the recollections of what it was like to grow up on a farm during the Great Depression and the severe drought of the 20s-30s.  The writing was beautiful and soothing--each chapter a well-told memory of childhood.  Thank you, Cori!

• The hope, the can-do spirit, and the determination not to give up were the principles that produced a generation of strong, determined, innovative women and men.  Children saw that their parents were careful with money, that their "make-do" was a sign of creativity, and that work was an acceptable four-letter word.  We learned that to "do without" something that seemed important in the moment would not permanently damage us.
• We didn't have much money, but that didn't mean we were poor...Poor was buying things you knew you could not pay for.  Poor was sending your children to school in untidy or dirty clothes.  Poor was not taking care of the things you had.  Poor was neglecting the animals in the barn.  Poor was leaving machinery in the yard to rust.  Poor was sending dirty eggs to market.  Poor was cutting corners, cheating in your dealings with your neighbors.  We were not poor.
• [Mother] found a few minutes to embroider pretty designs on pillowcases or dishtowels or to crochet lace on white feed sacks to make a tablecloth.  Having no money did not mean there was no beauty in our lives.
• On the Coburn farm, animals were treated humanely, their well-being of primary importance.  They were living creatures and depended on the family for food and shelter. They could feel pain, hunger, and thirst. They were our responsibility, and that responsibility was not neglected.
• I am embarrassed when I realize how eager I was to try the newest cooking fad: pork belly.  I thought of Dad when at a fine restaurant recently, I ordered roasted pork belly and remembered salt pork for supper.  Is there much difference between brining a section of pork belly for a day in exotically flavored salt brine and slowly roasting it with a sophisticated herb rub, and the "freshened" salt pork cooked slowly in a cast-iron over a wood fire in the big, black cookstove in the farm kitchen?  Not much, I think.
• Even in those lean years there was no sense of want or deprivation for us.  We knew that our parents were worried, but they spared us from the worst aspects of the Great Depression, and with childish faith we knew with great certainty that nothing could hurt us when Mother and Dad were there.
• ...wise children waited until Mother made a batch of maple sugar candy.  She made it by boiling a saucepan of maple syrup, beating in cream, adding a handful of butternut meats, and pouring the thick, smooth mass into a buttered pan.  When Mother decided it was cool enough, she cut it into squares and we tasted the wonderful candy.  I believe we could taste in every bite the sap from the trees gathered on a frosty morning, the steaming syrup from the big, black kettle, the sunny afternoon of gathering nuts, and the triumph of getting pieces of nuts from the rough shells.  We knew where it came from and what effort it took to produce it.  It was our candy and we loved it.
• bittersweet vine: florists and arts and crafts folks like to add the vines of oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) to wreaths and other autumn decorations—the yellow leaves and orange berries are stunning. But this perennial vine is one of the worst invasive plants on North American soil. It’s a highly aggressive vine that spreads quickly, rapidly overgrowing anything in its vicinity, and killing even large trees

51. Lost and Found (2020.10.21)

By: Orson Scott Card
Published: 2019
Pages: 281
Genre: young adult fiction / coming-of-age / magical realism / superhero / humor / kidnapping / coping with grief/loss / bullying / high school / parenting / friendship / superpowers
Bex Rating: 9

I really enjoyed this book--it's been a while, OSC!  This is the tory of Ezekiel Blast, a boy who has always had the ability to find lost things and return them to their owners.  But this power means that he has always been accused of being a thief.  At fourteen, Ezekiel thinks that he likes being shunned and alone, until one day a girl named Beth insists on being his friend.  

It was very funny and very touching.  There are some serious situations involving kidnapping and kidnapping rings, so it's not lighthearted.  I forgot how much I enjoy Card's gift for dialogue--he might be the best at dialogue of any writer today.

• After all, thought Ezekiel, the man's doctorate was only an EdD, not a PhD.  No language requirement.  Ezekiel figured it was the educational equivalent of a Certificate of Participation.
• "What Beth just did, touching my arm and sucking all the anger out of me.  Is that a micropower?"
  "Yes," said Doctor Withunga.  "But pretty much all girls have it, when they touch a boy, and they always have."
• This woman was not his mother.  She was nothing like his mother.  Except that she was a mother, there was a generic connection that perhaps binds all mothers together.
• "I don't love cars either," said Ezekiel.
  "Careful who you say that to," said Shank.  "There are guys who think that car-love is the only sure sign of manhood."
• "Love is a complicated business," said Father.  "For every time I felt sorry for you about losing your mother, I've felt sorry for myself five times over.  Don't beat yourself up because your brain thinks about you more than about other people.  The selfishness of the human brain is how our species has survived."
  "You always told me we survived by cooperation," said Ezekiel.
  "Didn't say our motives were pure, did I?" asked Father.
• "It's much easier to put up with an unfortunate nickname if you accept and embrace it."
• "When people treat you like you're guilty, then you feel the shame of it just as if you were.  Shame is what other people force on you."
• tref: ritually unclean or unfit according to Jewish law—opposed to kosher. Yiddish & Hebrew; Yiddish treyf, treyfe, from Hebrew ṭĕrēphāh animal torn by wild beasts, torn flesh

50. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2020.10.27)

By: David Grann
Published: 2017
Pages: 324
Genre: nonfiction / National Book Award finalist / Native American / oil rights / FBI / conspiracy / organized crime / Prohibition / Osage Nation / Oklahoma / cover-ups
Bex Rating: 9

I could not put this book down--I loved Grann's other nonfiction work, The Lost City of Z, (which I reviewed in 2017, #22), and this book contained the same gripping excitement, meticulous research, and perfect attention to detail that Grann masterfully wields to create a compelling read.

In the 1920s, the highest concentration of millionaires in the world lived in Osage county, Oklahoma.  The Osage tribe owned all the mining rights to their land, and the oil business was booming.  But because "Indians" only had partial status as Americans, it was easy for crooked white Americans to take advantage of the system and fleece the rich Osage.  But skimming off the top was not enough.  Many prominent local businessmen were involved in a broad conspiracy to slowly kill members of the Osage tribe, one by one, for their "headrights" (mining rights).  Thirty-two murders were documented, but the author uncovered evidence that actually hundreds of murders were committed.  The tribe tried to bring these murders and injustices to light, but they never had a chance for justice in Osage County, where the main conspirators were lawmen, doctors, and judges.  Only when the FBI stepped in did the Osage have a chance of exposing the men and women who were complicit in poisoning, shooting, stabbing, and even blowing up with nitroglycerin the targeted tribe members.

This story is almost too crazy and depraved to be believed.  "Money for lives" is the catchphrase of people who love power more than humanity.  But there is one clear hero of this story: Tom White is the FBI agent who works tirelessly for justice, and who did not seem tainted by prejudice or a desire for vainglory like many of his contemporaries.

• In 1904...the Osage also managed to slip into the agreement what seemed, at the time, like a curious provision: "That the oil, gas, coal, or other minerals covered by the lands...are hereby reserved to the Osage Tribe."
• But in 1921, just as the government had once adopted a ration system to pay the Osage for seized land--just as it always seemed to turn its gospel of enlightenment into a hammer of coercion--Congress implemented even more draconian legislation controlling how the Osage could spend their money.  
• [Tom White] grew to oppose what was then sometimes called "judicial homicide."  And he came to see the law as a struggle to subdue the violent passions not only in others but also in oneself.
• History is a merciless judge.  It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.

49. Toby Tyler (2020.10.09)

By: James Otis
Published: 1881
Pages: 150
Genre: young adult fiction / children's fiction / circus life / runaway / moral tale / 
Bex Rating: 8.5

I vaguely remember watching this movie at my Grandma's house--all I could recall is that Toby Tyler learns to ride a horse standing up, and that he has a monkey friend named Mr. Stubbs.  

The book was very charming--no wonder it was chosen for an early Disney movie.  I learned from the introduction that it was published in installments in Young People, and children who read this magazine sent pennies to the editor "to help Toby get home to Uncle Daniel."

Toby runs away and joins the circus after a quarrel with Uncle Daniel.  He is hired by the candy vendor, a cruel man named Mr. Lord.  Toby slowly makes friends with other performers in the circus, and then is apprenticed to do trick riding on horses . . . but all the while, he is trying to save  up enough money to get back home to Uncle Daniel and beg forgiveness for running away.

I ordered to DVD for seven bucks, and think I will add it to Mollie's birthday presents. (Update: Allen, Mollie, Calvin and I all watched the movie together and EVERYONE LOVED IT.  Allen must have said five times, "I wasn't expecting it to be this good.")

• "Uncle Dan'l says I'd eat till I was sick if I got the chance; but I'd like to try it once."
• "Now you remember what I say, an' you'll find it good advice.  Whatever business you get into, don't think you know all about it before you've begun.  Remember that you can always learn somethin', no matter how old you are, an' keep your eyes an' ears open, an' your tongue between your teeth, an' you'll amount to somethin', or my name hain't Ben."

48. Saints, Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand 1846-1893 (2020.10.02)

By: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Published: 2020
Pages: 675
Genre: nonfiction / Latter-Day Saint history / American history / religious / cultural / Utah history / women's rights / polygamy / revelation / temple-building / faith
Bex Rating: 9

I read the first volume of Saints to prepare for General Conference in April, and just finished this second volume in preparation for the October General conference, which begins tomorrow!  (This volume had such a timely quotation from Wilford Woodruff--it was the comfort I needed during this contentious, pre-election time.  It is in bold red below)

This 47-year period in the church's history was a TOUGHIE.  I think I personally may have been able to handle the trials of Missouri and Nauvoo and crossing the plains better than the trials that the next two generations faced.  All of the difficulties that were linked to polygamy seem so difficult to bear--especially in the late 1880s, when General Conference was not held for years, the prophets and apostles were in hiding, and voting rights were stripped from women in Utah territory--all because of national anti-polygamy laws that were passed.  Then when President Woodruff was inspired to write the Manifesto that ended polygamy, it introduced a whole new batch of trials. All of a sudden, members who made many sacrifices to live in polygamous relationships were told that polygamy would no longer be practiced.  It was confusing and faith-testing, to say the least.

I appreciate that these histories contain truthful accounts of unsavory and even awful incidents in church history.  I already knew about one of the biggest stains on church history--the Mountain Meadow Massacre--but I was unaware of the actions of a man named Walter Gibson.  He was a traveler and adventurer who'd heard a voice telling him to establish a kingdom in the Pacific.  When he joined the church, he felt it was his destiny to take the Gospel to Hawaii.  But once he was there, he misused church funds to buy land for himself and set himself up as a prophet, leading so many Hawaiian converts astray.  Ezra Benson and Lorenzo Snow traveled to Hawaii to straighten things out, but the Hawaiian members who supported Gibson would not listen to them.  That's when the church in Hawaii made a move to Laie, and the members who stayed with Gibson later regretted their support of him and his wild claims.

Another sad occurrence that was news to me: "Completing the temple was a bright spot in an otherwise difficult time for Wilford.  Disunity within the Quorum of the Twelve continued to threaten their ability to lead the church effectively." (556)

It is incredible that during this same period of time, missionaries were spreading the Gospel in Scandinavia, South Africa, the South Pacific, and to Native Americans, the Relief Society sent members to speak at women's meetings in Washington DC, the youth and primary organizations were formed, church magazines were published, The Book of Mormon was translated into Spanish, and four temples were built (Logan, Manti, St George, and Salt Lake).  There was so much growth and so many miracles.  Maybe it's not so incredible after all--there was always difficulty and opposition to the work, and there still is.  When we are stretched in adversity, our spiritual strength can increase.

I love the narrative approach of these histories--it is good to hear about the history of the church as a whole, but even better when presented in the scope of individual members who had their faith tested and refined.  I am excited for Volume 3!

• "A creed that can take the heterogeneous masses of mankind and make them a happy, contented, and united people," [Brigham Young] stated, "has a power within it that the nations know little of.  That power is the power of God." (347)
• George Q. Cannon urged them to be cautious. "The spirit of fighting seems to be easily brought out when circumstances call it forth," he said.  "Let us keep our tongues still and not implicate ourselves by unwise talking." (377)
• "Pull up the collar of your coat and button yourself up and keep the cold out until the storm blows past," he counseled them.  "This storm will blow past as others have done." - John Taylor (506)
• [Church] leaders hoped more political diversity among the saints might increase their influence in local elections and in Washington, DC.  They also believed diversity would help the Church achieve such goals as Utah statehood and general amnesty for Saints who had entered into plural marriages before the Manifesto.
  "Every man has as much right--prophets, apostles, saints, and sinners--to his political convictions as he has to his religious opinions," Wilford had declared.  "Don't throw filth and dirt and nonsense at one another because of any difference on political matters.  That spirit will lead us to ruin." (646)

47. Dracula (2020.09.30)
By: Bram Stoker
Narrated by: (Audible edition) Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, Katherine Kellgren, Susan Duerden, John Lee, Graeme Malcolm, Steven Crossley

Published: 2004
Audiobook Length: 15 hours, 28 minutes

Genre: classic fiction /supernatural tale / horror / vampires / folklore / love story / moral tale 

Bex Rating: 9

Oh, this audio version was so great!  The voice actors really made it come to life.  I know I read Dracula when Allen and I were first married--I remember that I was reading it the same time that he was reading Frankenstein . . . but I do not remember the ending of this book at all???  It makes me wonder if I stopped at some point.  

It was also interesting to read about Bram Stoker on Wikipedia.  His real name was Abraham, and that was the character Dr. Van Helsing's first name--it's always intriguing when an author uses their own name.  

This was a super fun read before Halloween--and it's worthwhile to know the real history and original story. It makes me want to re-read The Historian (2015, review #40).  I just barely found out that Laurie R. King's next Holmes and Russell novel will be set in Transylvania and abounds with vampyre mythology.  Castle Shade comes out in June and I have already pre-ordered my copy!

46. The Radium Girls: Young Reader's Edition (2020.09.29)

By: Kate Moore
Published: 2020
Pages: 348
Genre: nonfiction / science / medicine / American history / radiation poisoning / corporate cover-ups / women's rights / 
Bex Rating: 9

Thanks to Kathryn for telling me that her book club was going to read this book.  As soon as I looked it up, I knew I would want to read it as well.

This is the true story of the girls who were hired to paint luminous watch faces with a new amazing product: radium!  Thanks to the recent discovery of this element by the Curies, radium was all the rage.  And thanks to its help in destroying cancer, it was touted as a cure-all, and added to medicines, cosmetics, and even paint, to make it glow in the dark.  When America joined the fighting in World War One, demand for glow-in-the-dark watches skyrocketed, and hundreds of girls were hired to paint watch faces.  They were all taught the best technique for painting on the delicate watch faces was to "Dip, Lip, Paint"--meaning you would dip your brush in the radium paint, put the brush tip between your lips to make the brush point tiny, then paint the watch face.

When different watch-painters began losing teeth, at first it seemed coincidental.  But as mysterious aches, tiredness, and sarcomas (bone tumors) begin to develop in the "radium girls," they begin to realize that radium is not the wonder-drug it is touted to be.  The companies that employed these girls, however (United States Radium Company, Radium Dial, and Luminous Dial), denied that radium was dangerous, or that they were in any way liable for these mysterious, painful, and almost always terminal illnesses.

My library ordered the young reader's edition, aimed for a teenage audience, which was still very detailed and informative. I don't know that I will read the original version, now that I have read this one.  It was so compelling and tragic and infuriating.  It's not the first corporate cover-up story I have heard, but it was one of THE first corporate cover-up cases in America which directly resulted in improved safety guidelines and corporate accountability in America.  It so sad that so many of these girls lost their lives to an indifferent, bloated company before they were finally held accountable. Having read this on the heels of watching Dark Waters, it's hard to have faith in the morality of chemical corporations.  

• If you looked a little closer at all the positive publications, however, there was a common factor: nearly all the researchers worked for radium firms.  Those making money from radium were the very same people who were publishing the positive literature.  As radium was such a rare and costly element, the companies selling it could control its image and most of the knowledge about it.
• To the girls' surprise, lip-painting was banned by USRC in late 1923.  The peculiar explanation was that acid in dial-painters' mouths spoiled the paint.
• Within sixty hours, Sarah's bones caused exposure on the film: white fog-like patches against the ebony black.  And from that strange white fog, Martland now understood another critical concept.  Sarah was dead, but her bones seemed very much alive, making impressions on photographic plates and carelessly emitting measurable radioactivity.   Sarah's own life had been cut short, but the radium inside her had a half-life of sixteen hundred years.  It would be shooting out its rays from Sarah's bones for centuries, long after she was gone.  Even though it had killed her, it kept on bombarding her body, and would do so every day of every week for month after month and year after year.
• Those lucky enough to have a job were fiercely loyal to the firm.  There was a feeling, in fact, that the whole town needed to support such a generous employer.  there were very few of them around in these difficult times.
• For almost six years, Radium Dial had known the women were radioactive.  Yet it had covered it up, keeping the results secret from the women, because it didn't want its business to suffer.
• "People are afraid to talk to me now, "Catherine confessed.  'Sometimes it makes me terribly lonesome--they act as though I am already a corpse.  It's hard to have people around and still be alone."
• Charlotte Purcell lived to be eighty-two.  She was adored by her grandchildren.  "When I asked her to teach me how to jump rope, she said, 'Well i don't think i can teach you because I only have one arm.' I suppose that was upsetting to me so she said, 'Well, wait.' She tied a rope to a chain-link fence and then she jumped rope with one arm and showed me how to jump rope."

45. Ocean Anatomy (2020.09.20)
By: Cynthia Rothman
Published: 2020
Pages: 207
Genre: nonfiction / art /science / oceans and ocean life / natural world / reference
Bex Rating: 9.5

I have all four of Rothman's "Anatomy" books and I am a sure buyer if she makes more--these are my very favorite "reference" books--they are both whimsical and informative, and the art is so soothing.  

44. Alexander Hamilton (abridged audio) (2020.09.13)
By:  Ron Chernow
Narrated by: Scott Brick

Published: 2004
Audiobook Length: 11 hours, 51 minutes

Genre: biography / Alexander Hamilton / American history / founding fathers / American culture / Revolutionary War
Bex Rating: 9

A few times I wondered what I was missing by listening to the abridged version.  But when when I saw that the unabridged was THIRTY-FIVE HOURS long, I was grateful my public library had the abridged.  I really enjoyed the book, but 12 hours is plenty long for a biography.  

Hamilton really was one-of-a-kind, and really shaped American history and culture in such a profound way.  Learning more about his life and about the climate around revolutionary history is both important and RELEVANT.  One of the most comforting things I learned is that the divisive political culture that exists today has not just sprung up out of nowhere--it has long been part of the nature of American politics.  The fact that we CAN disagree, so openly and even with such vehemence, is evidence of the freedom that Hamilton, et al, fought so hard to achieve.  Unity is hard-won in America, but it still occurs, and, I believe, can yet become stronger--especially as we try to learn from history and work together.

43. Beyond the Bright Sea (2020.09.12)
By:  Lauren Wolk
Published: 2017
Pages: 293
Genre: young adult / award winning fiction / orphans / heritage / leprosy / The Elizabeth Islands / Penikese Island / family / mystery /
Bex Rating: 9

Katie loaned me this Scott O'Dell award-winner, and I loved it!  Crow is only a baby when she is found by a rough old hermit named Osh.  With help from his fiercely good neighbor, Miss Maggie, Osh rears Crow as his own daughter.  When she is older, she starts to ask questions about where she came from, and why the other residents of Cuttyhunk shun her.  When she learns that the nearest island, Penikese, was home to a leper colony, she determines to go to Penikese and search for clues about her heritage.

• With the flour and oil she got from trading eggs, Miss Maggie baked bread that made me happier than if I'd had cake, which I tasted only once in a blue moon.  I was almost glad to be sick if it meant her bread and soup.
• No one who's ever been as cold as a New England islander in February would care more about gold than coal.
•  I read a dozen new books, like The Secret Garden and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz--books that rang like bells in my heart.
• "An island is one thing when a man has a boat, quite another when he doesn't."
• Nothing better than to dredge a hunk of hot biscuit through chowder thick with clams and potatoes.
• "What teacher would mind when a student doesn't need her anymore?"
• His hand was terribly rough and hard, but he held mine as if I were made of petals.
• "People don't want much until they have plenty, and then they want more and more."
• I dried myself off and put on some clean clothes, amazed by the power of such a small accomplishment to restore my good mood.
• Osh spent some time in his garden, though it was as tidy as a Quaker quilt, and then came to sit beside me.
• drumlin: a low oval mound or small hill, typically one of a group, consisting of compacted boulder clay molded by past glacial action.

42. We Are All Made of Molecules (2020.09.01)
By: Susin Nielsen
Published: 2015
Pages: 248
Genre: young adult / coming of age / divorce and remarriage / autism / siblings / blended families / 

Bex Rating: 8

I checked this book out of the high school library on a day I was subbing, and finished it that same day.  It was short and compelling, with some really great characters.  I have a soft spot for characters who mix their metaphors and use big words, trying to sound smart.  It had some pretty heavy teenage themes, and I would not recommend it for anyone under 18.

• I felt a twinge of guilt.  But then I reminded myself: high school is a doggy-dog world.
• This made no sense whatsoever.  How can you be mellow and dramatic at the same time?
• I felt full of confidence and joie de beaver (that's French for just basically loving life).
• Anyone who says "It's better to give than to receive" is just trying to look good.  Receiving is way more fun.
• Schrondinger's Cat: A thought experiment: in simple terms, Schrödinger stated that if you place a cat and something that could kill the cat (a radioactive atom) in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box, so that until the box was opened, the cat was (in a sense) both "dead and alive".

41. Zits: Alternative (Zits Treasury, Volume 18) (2020.09.01)
By: Jim Borgman, Jerry Scott
Published: 2007
Pages: 248
Genre: comics / humor / teenagers / parenting

Bex Rating: 9.5

I found this collection at the D.I.  WHO WOULD GET RID OF THIS?  I enjoyed it from beginning to end.  I had no idea it was volume 18.  I might have to ask for volumes 1-17 for Christmas.

Perfect for COVID-19

I texted this to both of my teenage sons . . . because, um, I knew they would laugh.

Truman, all the way.

Also Truman.

I don't really like the ones where the mom reminds me of myself.

Haha!  Brigham, all the way!

40. The Hate U Give (2020.08.27)
By: Angie Thomas
Published: 2017
Pages: 444
Genre: young adult fiction / coming-of-age / friendship / racism / civil rights / equality / poverty / police brutality / family life / human rights / rap / social activism / black American culture
Bex Rating: 9.5

When 16-year-old Starr Carter witnesses the murder of her best childhood friend, Khalil, by a police officer, she relives the moment when she and Khalil saw their friend Natasha killed in a drive-by shooting when they were ten.  Severely traumatized, Starr decides not to tell anyone she saw what really happened, knowing it could put her family in danger from both the police and the drug boss who runs her neighborhood.

Starr lives in two worlds: her neighborhood, Garden Heights, and the prep-school she attends with mostly privileged, white students who don't know that Starr is from "the hood."  She tries to play a part in both worlds, but Khalil's murder helps her learn who her real friend are, and how to let her real voice be heard.

• "It was because you used to have the Harry Potter movies.  What we used to call ourselves?  The Hood Trio.  Tighter than the inside of Voldermort's nose."
• "Why does it always have to be race with you?" Uncle Carlos asks.  "Other races aren't killing us nearly as much as we are killing ourselves."
  "Please.  If I kill Tyrone, I'm going to prison.  If a cop kills me, he's getting put on leave.  Maybe."
• "All right," Momma says.  "But I'm going with her."
  "That's totally fine," Uncle Carlos says.
  "I don't care if it's not fine."  She looks at me.  "She's not doing this alone."
• "I don't use dead people to get out of class."
• "Even if he was [ a drug dealer], I knew that boy.  Watched him grow up with you.  He was more than any bad decision he made," he says.  "I hate that I let myself fall into that mindset of trying to rationalize his death.  And at the end of the day you don't kill someone for opening a car door.  If you do, you shouldn't be a cop."
• OTP: “OTP” stands for “One True Pairing.” It's used in fandoms to describe any given participant's favorite couple — or couples, because, perhaps contrary to the term's very definition, you don't have to limit yourself to just one OTP

39. Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty (2020.08.21)
By: W.L. Rusho
Published: 1983
Pages: 223
Genre: nonfiction / biography / Everett Ruess / adventurers / Southwestern US / tragedy / unsolved mystery / art / beauty
Bex Rating: 9.5

Everett Ruess, born in 1914, began traveling alone in the desert at the age of fifteen, for months at a time.  He was incredibly smart, self-assured, and a gifted writer and artist.  He loved the company of people, but had trouble connecting, or being understood. In the southwestern wildernesses of Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Utah and Colorado, he felt a connection to nature and to himself, and so he spent months at a time wandering and exploring these places alone.  In 1934, at the age of 20, he vanished, and when this book was written in 1983, no one had ever been able to discover what happened to him.  [But his remains were found in 2009]

Like many people do when they read a book of this nature (where the main character intentionally leaves friends/family/civilization behind), I can't help but put myself in their place and think of what it would be like and how I would feel.  It is easy to imagine heading into the wilderness on my own, a little less easy to imagine leaving my loved ones and my daily life, and hard to imagine doing anything like this permanently.

One thought I kept having is that there are not many stories of women making this kind of choice.  I feel the pull of the wild, but not the pull of a permanent life in the wild.  It is a common story for young men, however--a search for meaning, or for self, or for some higher purpose.  

The words of Everett Ruess were lovely and even sometimes inspiring--definitely in the same vein as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir and other alone-in-nature artists.  I admire so many things about these thinkers, whose personal views and experiences have left deep impressions in the American culture and psyche.  Also, I appreciated the times when Ruess expressed his delight at the beauty he found in San Francisco and other cities--he was a seeker of beauty, wherever he was.  

Even when it's difficult to fully relate, it's easy to see that Everett Ruess was an uncommonly sensitive soul.  I think, ultimately, that he was fortunate to find The Thing that made him feel whole, and to have the support of a loving family as he lived his chosen way: wandering/exploring/worshiping beauty in the desert at such a very young age.  

• These days away from the city have been the happiest of my life, I believe.  It has all been a beautiful dream, sometimes tranquil, sometimes fantastic, and with enough pain and tragedy to make the delights possible by contrast.  But the pain too has been unreal.  The whole dream has been filled with warm and cool but perfect colors, and with aesthetic contemplation as I jogged behind my little burro.  A love for everyone and everything has welled up, finding no outlet except in my art.
  
• I've done the things alone chiefly because I never found people who cared about the things I've cared for enough to suffer the attendant hardships.  But a true companion halves the misery and doubles the joy.
• Once more I am in the desert that I know and love--red sand, twisted cedars, turquoise skies, distant mesas, and far to the south, the blue line of Mogollon Rim.
• I have been thinking more and more that I shall always be a lone wanderer in the wilderness.  God, how the trail lures me.  You cannot comprehend its resistless fascination for me.  After all the lone trail is the best.  I hope I'll be able to buy good horses and a better saddle.  I'll never stop wandering.  And when the time comes to die, I'll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is." (dun, dun, DUN)
• But then I am always being overwhelmed.  I require it to sustain life.
• I never wonder what time it is, because for myself it is always time to live.
•                          A Life, by Everett Ruess, 1933
  A life
              is a mirror
  Reflecting the road over which it passes.
              Sometimes
  When it rains
              The mirror itself is reflected in the road.
• During this last year, I have continued to seek beauty and friendship, and I think that I have really brought some beauty and delight into the lives of others, and that at least is something.
• Often, alone in the endless open desert, I find it hard to believe that the rest of the world exists, and yet, letters sometimes establish an intimate connection which actual contact could not.
• Living in the midst of such utter and overpowering beauty as nearly kills a sensitive person by its piercing glory, they are deaf, dumb, and blind to it all.  Behind bars in their dirty, dingy, ill-lighted trading posts, they think of nothing but money.  When they question me, it is how much do you make, where do you sell your stuff, what prices do you get?
       A while ago, I spent all my money for a bracelet and was broke most of the while since.  It is a beautiful thing; I had never thought of owning one, but it seemed to fit so well, and I liked the design and the three turquoises so well, that I have never regretted the purchase.  By day it is like a bit of sky on my wrist, when my hand is on the saddle horn, and by firelight, the stones have a rich greenish luster, as they reflect the leaping flames.
       But one of my trader friends asked as soon as he saw it, "How much did it cost?"  He saw it only as merchandise.
• I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it.  Always I want to live more intensely and richly.  Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover one's self? . . . I was never one to be content with less than the most from life, and shall go on reaching, and leaving my soul defenseless to attacks.
• As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think.  I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time.  I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities.
• cognomen: an extra personal name given to an ancient Roman citizen, functioning rather like a nickname and typically passed down from father to son
• to check out: A Dreamer's Tales, of Dunsany

38. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr: Their Lives, Their Times, Their Duel (2020.08.20)
By: Anna Erskine Crouse and Russel Crouse
Published: 1958
Pages: 178
Genre: nonfiction / history / biography / American history / Revolutionary War / Alexander Hamilton / history for kids
Bex Rating: 8.5

I have had a very fun time saying "Their Lives, Their Times, Their DUEL!" over the past few months whenever I see this book.

I couldn't resist buying it from a thrift store, because I am just as enamored with Lin Manual Miranda's Hamilton as the rest of America is, maaaaaaaaaaaybe bordering on obsession.  And it was fun to read it at the Bear Lake North Beach with my sister Katie sitting next to me, because she loves Hamilton as much as I do.

My favorite thing I learned was how devoted Aaron Burr was to his daughter, Theodosia.  He believed that women were as capable and intelligent as men, and devoted himself to her education--something that was very out of the ordinary in his time.  But if you want to learn more about Hamilton, look no further than the biography that inspired Lin Manuel Miranda, which I listened to a month oater (review #44, above)

• Aaron Burr had decided at her birth that she would grow up to be the living proof of his theory that women were as bright as men--a startling viewpoint in 1780!  From babyhood on, he laid down a schedule of learning that wad to make [Theodosia] the best educated woman in the country.
• Malcolms: Malcolm's Additional Continental Regiment was one of the sixteen Additional Continental regiments authorized by the Second Continental Congress for the Continental Army. The regiment's colonel was William Malcolm, a wealthy New York City merchant, and its lieutenant colonel was Aaron Burr

37. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell (2020.07.20)
By: Robert Dugoni
Published: 2018
Pages: 434
Genre: contemporary fiction / disability / ocular albinism / 

Bex Rating: 8.5

36. Pirate Latitudes (2020.07.13)
By: Michael Chrichton
Published: 2009
Pages: 324
Genre: adventure fiction / pirates / New America / Caribbean

Bex Rating: 6.5

This book made me think that maybe all posthumously published books were never meant to be published.  There's a reason Chrichton left this book on his computer, people.

35. Food Anatomy (2020.07.12 )
By: Cynthia Rothman
Published: 2016
Pages: 223
Genre: nonfiction / art / encyclopedia / food / culture / natural world / reference
Bex Rating: 9.5

34. The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street (2020.07.05)
By: Karina Yan Glaser
Published: 2017
Pages: 311
Genre: young adult / family story / siblings / New York / Harlem / heartwarming
Bex Rating: 9

I love all the stories of big families and their hijinks--this has the earmarks of Little Women and The Penderwicks . . . it's the fun story of a family fighting to stay in their Harlem brownstone when the landlord wants to throw them out.  I love the kids' horrible ideas of how to win over the crusty landlord, and their realistic relationships with each other.

• The Vanderbeekers shook their heads in wonder.  College was looking more and more like a place where dreams came to die.
• They yearned for the warmth of their home, the pets awaiting their arrival, the comfort of Mama's nourishing meals, and the love of their friends and neighbors.
• "I have always believed that raising kids means more than just being a good parent and trying to do the right things, " Papa went on, his voice beginning to wobble.  "It means surrounding your kids with amazing people who can bring science experiments and jam cookies, laughter and joy, and beautiful experiences into their lives."
• Oliver was the first to wake up.  He had never outgrown the habit of getting up early to scope out the gift situation under the tree on Christmas morning.
• "Fluffy," Laney said promptly.  "Or Cutie.  Or Princess Cutie."

33. True Colors (2020.06.21)
By: Kristin Hanna
Published: 2009
Pages: 491
Genre: contemporary fiction / sisters / love story / romance / justice system / forgiveness / redemption / family drama / wrongfully convicted
Bex Rating: 9

This is the third book I've read by Kristin Hannah, and while The Nightingale is still my favorite, I must say she is a master at compelling novels--I feel like the plots are tight and the characters are real.  And I couldn't put it down.  This particular book is primarily about sisters, a subject I am never tired of, and Hannah's depiction of three strong female characters is spot-on.

Winona, Aurora and Vivi Ann are just girls when their mother dies of cancer.  Winona will do anything for her bitter father's approval, Aurora wants everyone to get along and stay together, and Vivi Ann seeks solace with horses and cowboys.  We follow the three sisters as they navigate through adulthood, dealing with bitter jealousy and small-town gossip.  When Winona's long-time crush falls for Vivi, and Vivi only has eyes for a dangerous man who just moved to town, their loyalties to each other begin to be tested.

• Couldn't they see that Vivi Ann was acting out of desperation?  Chewing off her foot to get free of the trap of their disappointment?
• Everyone knew it was illusory, this palpable proof of the coming heat, but no one cared.  A couple sunny days in May could tide the locals through a rainy June.
• They'd always fought and made up and gone on; sisterhood was like that, a quilt made up of all the scraps, good and bad.
• She had so many things to say to her sister, words she'd hoarded for years, polishing like the bits of beach glass their mom had loved.
• Trends came and went, the words changed with the generations, but how girls expressed themselves remained the same: with bright colors and glued-on glitter.
• When I got close I could see that it was an old guy with the kind of hair you should just shave off and quit trying to save.

32. Riviera Gold (2020.06.11 at Bear Lake)
By: Laurie R. King
Published: 2020
Pages: 350
Genre: fiction / mystery / historical fiction / French Riviera (Monaco) / Sherlock Holmes / historical fiction / redemption /
Bex Rating: 9

This is the SEVENTEENTH installment in the Mary Russell series.  I will not stop buying them and reading them--even better, I will not stop LOVING them.  Keep 'em coming, Laurie R. King! 

Russell is off to Monaco and the French Riviera, hoping to find traces of her surrogate housekeeper and erstwhile mother figure, Mrs Clarissa Hudson.  Holmes catches up with her, and they soon find that Mrs. Hudson is caught up in a web of Russian ex-pats who will do anything to protect their power and fortunes.

PS- I always enjoy the historical research that Ms. King engages in, and learning about Basil Zaharoff, the "merchant of death" was an interesting, nonfiction side plot.

• He seemed to feel that genius raised a man above the need for tidy dress and good manners, and wore an air of superiority in place of a jacket and tie.
• But that just means that these years with nothing but family, friends, and sun, the beach and the garden and the sea--they're just so precious.  And all the sweeter for knowing they'll pass.
• Which meant that I knew something that he did not.  And since it is on such minor pleasures that marriages are made, I was smiling when I moved to join him...
• "One does wonder what the world would look like if all of its countries were given over to the women to run for a time."
  "Good heavens, Holmes--we'll make a feminist out of you yet."
  "A person need not wear a label to see the sense in a thing."
• lotos: 1. (in Greek mythology) a fruit that induces forgetfulness and a dreamy languor in those who eat it. 2. the plant bearing this fruit, thought to be the jujube, the date, or any of various other plants.
• pissoir: a French invention common in Europe that provides a urinal in public space with a lightweight structure. The availability of pissoirs is likely to reduce urination onto buildings, sidewalks, or streets.

31. Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea (2020.05.25)
By: Steven Callahan
Narrated by: Steven Callahan
Published: 2002
Audiobook Length: 6 hours, 53 minutes
Genre: nonfiction / survival / adventure / sea stories / travel / sailing /
Bex Rating: 9

Allen and I listened to this together on our drive to Arkansas.  It is the harrowing true story of how Steven Callahan survived in a life raft for 76 days . . . and it is read by the author.  He really is the guy it happened to!  Callahan had a field journal with him in the raft and took notes of each day, from which he was able to reconstruct what happened into a narrative.  It was a fun book to listen to, but also difficult in many places--the descriptions of his extreme thirst and hunger are painful to imagine.

30. Ptolemy's Gate (2020.05.24 )
By: Jonathan Stroud
Narrated by: Simon Jones
Published: 2006
Audiobook Length: 15 hours, 32 minutes
Genre: young adult fantasy / alternate history / magic / djinni / coming-of-age / humour / London / pride / power / revolution / conclusion
Bex Rating: 9.5

I finished this with headphones while everyone else in the car was sleeping, driving toward Alliance, Nebraska.  We stayed there because 1- it is roughly halfway from Soda Springs, Idaho and Fayetteville, Arkansas, and, more importantly, 2- it is the home of Carhenge: a Stonehenge replica made entirely out of cars.

Carhenge aside, I love the conclusion of the Bartimaeus trilogy, because we finally get to see Nathaniel turn the corner and become the hero you hope he will be.  It was just as funny as the previous two books, but a little more serious and actually touching on important subjects: power, knowledge, humility, kindness, bravery.

29. The Giver of Stars (2020.05.20)
By: Jojo Moyes
Published: 2019
Pages: 400
Genre: historical fiction / love story / Appalachia / packhorse librarians
Bex Rating: 9

This was a great summer read!  I loved the characters and especially loved learning about the REAL packhorse librarians, part of a program initiated by Eleanor Roosevelt to improve literacy in rural America.

28. Nature Anatomy (2020.05.10)
By: Cynthia Rothman
Published:
Pages: 224
Genre: nonfiction / nature / art / science / natural world / reference
Bex Rating: 9.5

I need to own all of Rothman's books.  I have been in love ever since Allen's mom bought Farm Anatomy for me several years back.

27. The Dog That Wouldn't Be (2020.05.08)
By: Farley Mowat
Published: 1957
Pages:238
Genre: memoir / humorous / dogs / Canada / hunting / naturalist
Bex Rating: 9.5

I need more books like this in my life.  It was along the lines of Betty Smith's hilarious memoirs. I loved hearing a young Mowat describe his boyhood and the dog named Mutt who was a centerpiece in his memories.  It was funny, endearing, unbelievable, and highlights a bygone era in North American history.

• My parents had been married long enough to achieve that delicate balance of power which alone enables a married couple to endure each other.  They were both adept in the evasive tactics of marital politics--but Mother was a little more adept.
• Mother would sit and watch him with that infuriating attitude of tolerance that women can turn into a devastating weapon against their mates.
• None of your pregnant glass-and-chrome showcases could have carried that load a single mile.  Eardlie could do so only because he was the ultimate result of five thousand years of human striving to devise the perfect vehicle.  For there is no doubt at all but that the Model A stands at the apex of the evolution of the wheel.  And it is a matter of sorrow to me--as it should be to all men--that this magnificent climax should have been followed by the rapid and terrible degeneration of the automotive species into the effete mechanical incubi which batten off human flesh on every highway of the world today.
• It was a place of pleasant memory on the whole, for it was free from the horrors of most summer resorts.  There were no thundering outboard motors piloted by fat and foolish men, hell bent at fifty miles and hour for nowhere.  There were no rows of shoddy matchbox cottages clustered cheek by jowl along the shores--the sylvan counterparts of city slums.  Instead there was a single unobtrusive log house, an even more unobtrusive boathouse and sleeping cabin combined, and then nothing but the ancient hills, black-shrouded in their forests, overlooking and solacing the waters of the lake.
• scrofulus: 1. Literally, relating to scrofula (tuberculosis (or TB like bacteria) of the lymph nodes, particularly of the neck). 2. Figuratively, morally contaminated and corrupt.
• donnybrook:  a scene of uproar and disorder; a heated argument.

26. The Dutch House (2020.4.24)
By: Ann Patchett
Published: 2019
Pages: 337
Genre: contemporary fiction / childhood / adulthood / home / real estate / vindication / evil stepmother / sibling relationship
Bex Rating: 9

Allen has been a Patchett fans for years, but I only discovered her when we listened to State of Wonder two years ago when we drove to Arkansas and back.  She's one of the great writers of our time! I bought this book for Allen for Christmas, but quarantine is causing me to tear through everything readable in our house . . . so I didn't politely wait until he read my gift before picking it up myself.

This is the story of a brother and sister, and the house that they are raised in.  Even though they move past the heartaches of their childhoods, they can't leave the Dutch House, and all it represents, in their past.  It takes place over five decades and there's a lot of jumping back and forth through time, but it was never confusing.  I hear that Tom Hanks reads the audiobook, so that version is worth looking into, for sure.

• "But we overlay the present onto the past.  We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we're not seeing it as the people we were, we're seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered."
• There was no logic to the way any hospital was laid out--they grew like cancers, with new wings metastasizing unexpectedly at the end of long tunneled halls.
• ...there was no greater luxury for a woman than to have a window over the sink.
• There is no story of the prodigal mother.  The rich man didn't call for a banquet to celebrate the return of his erstwhile wife . . . when she left them she killed them all, each in his own way, and now, decades later, they didn't want her back.

25. Breathing Lessons (2020.4.03)
By: Anne Tyler
Published: 1988
Pages: 327
Genre: contemporary fiction / marriage / parenting / drama / self-realization / growing old / cycles / relationships / Pulitzer Prize
Bex Rating: 9

Anne Tyler delivers just the sort of self-introspection-driven novels that are good to absorb during the COVID-19 quarantine.  This entire novel takes place in the course of one day, when Ira and Maggie Moran, a couple in their late forties, drive to the funeral of an old friend.  I think my favorite Tyler novel is still the first one I read: A Spool of Blue Thread, but I have enjoyed all of them!

• Maggie felt that the entire business of time's passing was more than she could bear.  Serena, she wanted to say, just think: all those things we used to promise ourselves we'd never, ever do when we grew up . . . We promised we wouldn't wash the dishes right after supper because it would take us away from our husbands, remember that?  How long wince you saved the dishes for the morning so you could be with Max?  How long since Max even noticed that you didn't?
• She suspected he thought women got together on the sly and gossiped about their husbands.  Typical: he was so self-centered.  Although sometimes it did happen, of course.
• "Any time they'd come we wouldn't say a word but we'd give each other a look across the room: just trade a look, you know how you do?  And all at once I had no one to trade looks with.  It was the first time I understood I truly lost him."
• Why did popular songs always focus on romantic love?  Why this preoccupation with first meetings, sad partings, honeyed kisses, when life was so full of children's births and trips to the shore and longtime jokes with friends?
• She had sung in the choir for years, at least till the children came along and things got complicated; and she had taken a real joy in rounding out a note just right, like a pearl or a piece of fruit that hung in the air a moment before it fell away.
• When they stepped out of the church it was like stepping out of a daytime movie--that sudden shock of sunshine and birdsong and ordinary life that had been going on without them.
• If she was easily swayed, she thought, at least she had chosen who would sway her.  If she was locked in a pattern, at least she had chosen what the pattern would be.
• Ira wished she wouldn't keep telling him her dreams.  It made him feel fidgety and restless.
• Was it any wonder he was so sensitive to waste?  He had given up the only serious dream he'd ever had.  You can't get more wasteful than that.
• The mere fact that her children were children, condemned for years to feel powerless and bewildered and confined, filled her with such pity that to add any further hardship to their lives seemed unthinkable.  She could excuse anything in them, forgive them anything.  She would have made a better mother, perhaps, if he hadn't remembered so well how it felt to be a child.
• She had thought of [marriage] as more different than it really was, somehow, more of an alteration in people's lives--two opposites drawn together with a dramatic crashing sound.  She had supposed that when she was married all her old problems would fall away, something like when you go on a vacation and leave a few knotty tasks incomplete as if you'd never have to come back and face them.  And of course she had been wrong.  But watching Jesse and Fiona, she could almost believe that the early vision was the right one.

24. The Golem's Eye: book two in the Bartimaeus Trilogy (re-read, 2020.03.  )
By: Jonathan Stroud
Narrated by: Simon Jones
Published: 2004
Audiobook Length: 16 hours, 31 minutes
Genre: young adult fantasy / alternate history / magic / djinni / coming-of-age / humour / London / pride / power / revolution
Bex Rating: 9.5

The first book will always be my favorite, but the writing, adventure, and humor are JUST AS GOOD in all three.  Oh, it's been such a pleasure to listen to these books while I exercise. The narrator is amazing and I have snorted with suppressed laughter more than once.  I am already on the third book (Thank you, Truman!) and am loving it.  I think I will check out Jonathan Stroud's other series when I am through with Bartimaeus.

23. Rebel of the Sands (2020.4, didn't finish)
By: Alwyn Hamilton
Published: 2016
Pages: 206 out of 314
Genre: young adult adventure / fantasy / genies / alternate history
Bex Rating: 7

I read two-thirds of this book before I gave up on it getting any better.  Too much reliance on deus ex machina, and confusing loose threads in every scene.

22. Saint Maybe (2020.4.03)
By: Anne Tyler
Published: 1991
Pages: 337
Genre: contemporary fiction / families / religion / redemption / drama / atonement / self-realization / growing old / relationships /
Bex Rating: 8

This book was familiar when I started it, and I remembered that my friend Erin had loaned it to me in the early 2000s.  It might be one of the first books I returned without finishing.  I remember having a realization that it was better to return a book promptly than to let it languish, unread, on my nightstand.  24-or-25-year-old Becca was not ready for these kinds of books . . . and that's okay.  I think the difference might be that now I identify with Anne Tyler's characters a little more.  Now, I am very interested in thinking about and navigating through common events of middle-aged domesticity.  That said, this book was my least favorite of the four Tyler books I have read in the past six months.

This is the story of Ian Bedloe, who, in a moment of teenage frustration and selfishness, tells his older brother, Danny, that Danny's wife is cheating on him.  The fact that it's true does not make it any easier when Danny promptly drives his truck into a wall, committing suicide.  Ian carries a weight of crushing guilt around with him, until he happens upon "The Church of the Second Chance."  In an act of atonement, Ian drops out of college to come home to help his parents raise his brother's three small children.

It's a beautiful, soul-searching story, full of Tyler's singular, perfect way of capturing the ups and downs of family life.

• Bee and Doug Bedloe sat side by side, smiling extra hard as if someone had just informed them they were being photographed.
• She opened her eyes and fixed Ian with a thoughtful, considering stare, and Ian felt a sudden loosening in his chest.  It seemed she had reached out and pulled a string from somewhere deep inside him.
• His father met him at the terminal.  Neither of them knew yet how they were supposed to greet each other after long separations.
• Doug belonged to an era when the sight of a man holding a baby was considered humorous.  
• It seemed that only Ian knew how these children felt: how scary they found every waking minute.  Why, being a child at all was scary!  Wasn't that what grownups' nightmares so often reflected--the nightmare of running but getting nowhere, the nightmare of the test you hadn't studied for or the play you hadn't rehearsed?  Powerlessness, outsiderness.  Murmurs over your head about something everyone knows but you.
• She wanted some extras.  She wanted that crowd of cracked, crazed, chipped, handleless mugs waiting behind the other mugs on the off chance they might be needed.
• Now they were passed from hand to hand like babies in an old folk's home, with Rita saying those just-right things that women somehow know to say.  "Brother Kenneth, how's that sciatica?  Why, Sister Denise!  You've gone and lightened your hair!"
• tole: painted, enameled, or lacquered tinplate used to make decorative domestic objects.

21. Saints, volume 1: The Standard of Truth (2020.04.01)
By: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publication
Published: 2018
Pages: 586
Genre: history / nonfiction / religion / The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints / Mormons / Joseph Smith
Bex Rating: 9

I had kind of semi-consciously resisted reading this book, thinking that I didn't need to go over all the "same stories" from church history again.  But then my sister-in-law Savanah told me that she was reading it to prepare for the April 2020 General Conference.  President Nelson had encouraged all members of the church to prepare for that conference by "immersing ourselves in the glorious light of the Restoration."  I loved Savanah's idea; here was a very concrete way I could follow President Nelson's counsel, beyond re-reading the account of the First Vision with my family.

I felt gently chastised from the first chapter--where I learned about a dozen things I never knew before.  Allen has been listening to a podcast about the research that went into Saints, and from him I learned that when the first draft (compiled by historians and researchers) was ready, readers found it difficult and hard to engage with.  So, the Church hired creative writers to make it more accessible.  The result is a narrative history that is very easy to read--a hard task, given so many over-arching events that took place during the first 25 years of the Church's history.

Two interesting things stood out to me.  First, the book opens with the eruption of a volcano called Tambora on an island in Indonesia, in 1915.  This event kind of sets the stage for the world that Joseph Smith grew up in.  The volcano had disrupted weather patterns dramatically and there was widespread famine and hardship throughout the world.  So many people were feeling a need for direction in a time of panic and upheaval, seeking for God.  I read this book during the COVID-19 flu pandemic, in the middle of two earthquakes, so I couldn't help but draw some parallels to my own time.

[But it was a CRAZY, kind of disconcerting experience when, the day after I wrote this review, I picked up Calvin's schoolwork packet and saw THIS on the cover of his Scholastic News:

Seriously?  I had never even HEARD of Mount Tambora before reading Saints.  And Scholastic decides that during a global pandemic is the best time for kids to learn about it?  I hope "The Big One" is not coming any time soon...]

Second: I loved this account from when the women's organization of the church was formed.  Emma Smith suggested "Relief Society" for the name of the new organization.  Eliza Snow wanted to call it The Benevolent Society"--she said that "relief" implied an extraordinary response to a great calamity.  But Emma firmly responded, "We are going to do something extraordinary . . . we expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls," (450-451).

Mic drop.

I repent of my notion that I don't need to know church history.  It is my heritage, and learning more about that heritage, the good and the bad, absolutely enriches my religious identity and strengthens my faith.    

20. Little Britches (2020.3.24)
By: Ralph Moody
Published: 1950
Pages: 260
Genre: memoir / cattle ranching / horses / Colorado / cowboys / father/son relationships /
Bex Rating: 9.5

I think Cindy Erickson recommended this book to me a while back.  I bought it used about a year ago and it has been sitting on my shelf.  Oh, it was so good!  If you like the Little House on the Prairie series, you will like this.

Ralph and his family move from New York to Colorado to help Ralph's father recover from tuberculosis.  The story starts when Ralph is eight and ends when he is twelve, and pretty much a man.  The Moodys buy a ranch and start making improvements: all while dealing with accidents, droughts, water-rights' wars, and learning how to live off the land.

It was funny, sweet, and wise.  It is a memoir of a child becoming a man, but it is really about the love between a son and a father.  I loved it.

• We went to a little store up the street, and Father bought a pail of milk and a whole custard pie.  We ate it sitting on the curb beside our wagon.  Father knew just how to buy a good breakfast.
• "A man's character is like his house.  If he tears boards off his house and burns them to keep himself warm and comfortable, his house soon becomes a ruin.  If he tells lies to be able to do the things he shouldn't do but wants to, his character will soon become a ruin.  A man with a ruined character is a shame on the face of the earth."
• "Always remember, Son, the best boss is the one who bosses least. Whether it's cattle, or horses, or men; the least government is the best government."
• I think mother always did kind of like operations.  She put a clean sheet over the kitchen table, dropped scissors, darning needles, and Father's whisker tweezers into a basin of boiling water, and rolled up her sleeves.  It looked as though she was really going to do a big job, and I wasn't very happy when I shinned up on the table.
  It seemed Mother were trying to dig clear to China.  First she tried tweezers, and then she tried darning needles, but the splinter was so rotten that all she could do was nibble away at the end of it.  
• [I read this book during the COVID-19 Quarantine, and this part really jumped out to me:] Freddie Sprague got the mumps in late October, and they closed the school.  That month was the best I ever had, in some ways . . . Mother wouldn't let us quit studying just because the schoolhouse was closed, so as soon as the supper dishes were washed, we had to get our books out.
• That night when we were milking, [Father] told me it had been a day I should remember.  He said it would be good for me, as I grew older, to know that a man always made his troubles less by going to meet them instead of waiting for them to catch up to him, or trying to run away from them.
• Then Father would put his arm around her, and they'd walk to the house while he told her that, with a wife like her, a man had nothing to worry about.
• And you never saw such a dinner in your whole life.  There were sweet potatoes and white potatoes and boiled onions, and squash and turnips and cranberry jelly, besides the turkey.  When that was gone, there was mince pie and pumpkin pie, and afterwards a pound of cracked nuts . . . and a plate of fudge.  We all ate so much we could hardly get up from the table.  Then Father and all of us lay on the floor by the stove while mother read us "Snowbound."  I think it was about the best day any of us had ever had.
• "There are only two kinds of men in this world: honest men and dishonest men.  There are black men and white men and red men and yellow men, but nothing counts except whether they're honest men or dishonest men."
• I guess I never noticed how good a cook mother was, or what good times we had at home, until after I went to work at Cooper's.
• Milking time was when we always talked.  Most of the nights, though, we didn't talk at all.  We didn't that night.  I don't know how to tell it, but there was something nice about being out there alone with him and smelling the cow smell, and hearing the milk go singing in the buckets.  Sometimes it's nicer not to talk when you're near somebody you love.
• remuda: a herd of horses that ranch hands select their mounts from. The word is of Spanish derivation, for 'remount' i.e. "change of horses" and is commonly used in the American West. The person in charge of the remuda is generally known as a wrangler.

19. Holmes on the Range (re-read 2020.3.18)
By: Steve Hockensmith
Published: 2006
Pages: 294
Genre: western fiction / mystery / detective / Sherlock Holmes / cattle ranching / humor
Bex Rating: 9.5

I checked this book out of the Fayetteville Public Library when Allen and I lived in Northwest Arkansas, so it's been at least 13 years since I read it.  I liked it so much that I bought it used online, and it's been on my bookshelf, waiting for a re-read. (I also read the second book, On the Wrong Track . . . I kept waiting for the part I remembered about guarding money on a train, but just found out that this is part of the second book's plot.  Hard evidence for the virtues of re-reading: sometimes it's like reading it for the first time.)

This is the first in a series of books about Old Red and Big Red, the Amlingmeyer brothers, who work as hired cowpunchers in the late1800s.  Big Red, (Otto) has read so many Sherlock Holmes stories to his illiterate older brother, Old Red (Gustav), that the famous detective has become Old Red's hero . . . and his mentor.

When the brothers are hired to work at the Bar-VR Ranch, it is quickly apparent that something shady is going on.  Big Red wants to keep his head down and get paid, but Old Red insists on investigation and deduction.

It's funny, original, and action-packed.  A fun read for any fan of westerns, and a GREAT read if you also happen to love Sherlock Holmes.

• Old Red not being on speaking terms with the alphabet, it was up to me to read "The Red-Headed League" out loud.  And I enjoyed doing so, for I found it a dandy little tale.  But my brother took it to be a lot more than that.  To him it was a new gospel.
• Under his eyes were bags so large you could pour oats in them and strap them to a horse's muzzle.

18. Back When We Were Grownups (2020.3.12)
By: Anne Tyler
Published: 2004
Pages: 279
Genre: contemporary fiction / families / drama / self-realization / growing old / relationships /
Bex Rating: 9

This is my second Anne Tyler novel--the first one was A Spool of Blue Thread, which I read last fall (review #31).  She is a master of concision in both narrative and dialogue.  It's a pleasure to read about people who feel so effortlessly real.

This is the story of Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-something widow who suddenly feels as though who she really is has been subsumed by years of sacrifice and people-pleasing.  It is heartwarming and funny and achingly real.  The characters could be your own relatives.  I loved it, and I am on the prowl for more books by Anne Tyler.

• Oh, didn't a river rest your eyes!  She sank  into a peaceful trance, watching how the water seemed to gather itself as it traveled toward a sharp bend.
• The  children were the most enthusiastic.  They raised [their glasses] high above their heads, like people hailing taxicabs.
• A quiet toddler.  An inquisitive little boy.  The kind who might take a clock apart out of scientific curiosity.  "Tristam!  What have you done?" she would ask, coming upon a heap of sprocketed innards.  But she would feel secretly proud  of him.
• Sad to say, he had one of those skinny jawline beards that seemed more trouble than shaving.
• "People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes," he said.  "The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on.  But instead it's like missing water.  Every day, you notice the person's absence more."
• Sometimes Rebecca thought that the whole point of having lots of daughters was, the law of averages said at least one of them might behave right at any given time.
• She used to assume that the bereaved were actually  mourning for themselves, and of course  that was partly true.  But what she hadn't expected was the sorrow she felt on behalf of Joe.  She ached to think of all that he was missing--the various landmarks in the girls' lives and the daily pleasures and minor family triumphs.
• double-tilde: this symbol:  ≈  meaning "approximately equal to"

17. The Final Solution (re-read, 2020.03.03)
By: Michael Chabon
Published: 2004
Pages: 144
Genre: mystery / crime fiction / Sherlock Holmes / parrots / post-war Britain / homage /
Bex Rating: 9.5

I wish there were more novellas in the world.  It was so nice to pick up this story and reacquaint myself with it in an afternoon.  And remember how amazing Michael Chabon is.  Coincidentally, Allen and I subscribed to CBS all access for one month just so we could watch Picard, and guess who the head writer and producer is?  Micheal Chabon, people. Brooklyn accent: Not for nothing this guy won a Pulitzer.

Though he is never named, this is the story of what happens when a displaced German boy and his pet parrot encounter an aged Sherlock Holmes.  Interrupted from the study of his bees by a murder and the theft of the parrot, Holmes is surprised to find himself keen to help the boy.

It's a great story and a great mystery, written flawlessly.

• "I have no illusions about my son, sir."
  "The hallmark of a sensible parent, no doubt."
• A delicate, inexorable lattice of inferences began to assemble themselves, like a crystal, in the old man's mind, shivering, catching the light in glints and surmises.  It was the deepest pleasure life could afford, this deductive crystallization, this paroxysm of guesswork, and one that he had lived without for a terribly long time.
• He was aware of the existence of a vocabulary for the consolation of sorrowing children, but it was one he had never troubled to learn.
• They lumbered it to the porch, where the centrifuge, with its great, toothed hand crank, waited, bearing the patient reproachful air of all idle farm machinery.
• Its steering mechanism...relied to a large degree on the steady application of prayer.
• Esperanto: an artificial language devised in 1887 as an international medium of communication, based on roots from the chief European languages.
• speleology: the study or exploration of caves.
• ambit: the scope, extent, or bounds of something.
• aspergillum: an implement for sprinkling holy water.
• synod: an assembly of the clergy and sometimes also the laity in a diocese or other division of a particular Church.
• gephyrophobia: the anxiety disorder or specific phobia characterized by the fear of bridges.

16. The Starless Sea (2020.03.02)
By: Erin Morgenstern
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Published: 2019
Audiobook Length: 18 hours, 39 minutes
Genre: contemporary fiction / magical realism / literature / the power of story / gaming /
Bex Rating: 8

This might be the strangest book I have ever read (listened to).  I think it would have been slightly easier to follow if I had read it instead of listening to the audiobook, but the narration was excellent, and included a cast of five readers, each reading from a different book-within-the-book.

Speaking of book-within-the-book, it was slightly reminiscent of Inception, that crazy, dream-within-a-dream movie.  So bizarre, but lovely.  I loved Morgenstern's first book The Night Circus, and this one was written in her same soothing tone (but I liked TNC better).

This is a story about stories.  How stories shape us and propel us--how they enchant us and transport us.  It was almost a philosophical treatise on the relevance of story to our every day lives.  Bees, keys, and swords.  Crowns, hearts, and feathers.  Pirates and bunnies and honey and games and books and so many stories.

The ending was satisfying, but when there were still four hours left on the audiobook, I couldn't believe that it wasn't almost over.  (Incidentally, that was the same feeling I had watching Inception).

15. The Rules of Magic (2020.02.29)
By: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2017
Pages: 367
Genre: contemporary fiction / magical realism / 50s and 60s in America / witches / witch-lore / Vietnam War / Reese's Book Club /
Bex Rating: 7.5

This book is meant to be a prequel to the author's bestseller, Practical Magic, which was written in the 1990s.  I have never read that book (though I vaguely remember seeing the movie version with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman).

I liked it, but I didn't love it.  The witch-lore was fun, and the characters were well-developed--I especially loved the sibling relationship, which was the strength of the book and the general source of conflict.

Basically, the Owens siblings (Frances, Bridget, and Vincent) find out they are witches, and also find out that whoever they love is doomed to be taken from them.  They spend their adolescence and adulthood trying to escape or outwit this curse.

• Truth felt light and green, but a lie sunk to the floor, heavy as metal.
• Writing itself was a magical act in which imagination altered reality and gave form to power.
• ...only the crow knew that it was possible for a woman to claim to have no heart at all and still cry as though her heart would break.
• "...when you truly love someone and they love you in return, you ruin your lives together.  That is not a curse, it's what life is, my girl."
• It came on the the wind, the way wicked things must, for they are most often weighted down with spite and haven't the strength to lift themselves.
• blotto: extremely drunk.

14. The Happiness Project Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun (2020.02.24)
By: Gretchin Rubin
Published: 2009
Pages: 352
Genre: nonfiction / happiness / self-help / philosophy / lifestyle / goals and resolutions / happiness science & research
Bex Rating: 9

Gretchin Rubin was not sad or depressed, but she set out to improve her personal happiness by dedicating a whole year to the study and practice of happy living.  She determined to improve herself in twelve areas over the course of twelve months, breaking down each month into manageable practices that she could try to implement into her life.

I liked this book because it didn't have to be read in one big gulp, because it was fun and interesting and well-written, and because I believe in trying to be happier in general.  Quotes and vocabulary galore!

• I didn't want to reject my life.  I wanted to change my life without changing my life, by finding more happiness in my own kitchen.
• "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." Buddhist saying
• "No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction." Samuel Johnson
• Having fewer clothing choices made me feel happier.  Although people believe they like to have lots of choice, in fact, having too many choices can be discouraging.  Instead of making people feel more satisfied, a wide range of options can paralyze them . . . I certainly felt happier choosing between two pair of black pants I liked rather than among five pairs, the majority of which were either uncomfortable or unfashionable--and made me feel guilty for never wearing them, to boot.  
• I'd been self-righteously telling myself that I did certain tasks or chores "for Jamie" or "for the team."  Though this sounded generous, it led to a bad result, because I sulked when Jamie didn't appreciate my efforts.  Instead, I started to tell myself, "I'm doing this for myself. This is what I want."  This sounds selfish, but in fact, it was less selfish, because it meant I wasn't nagging to get a gold star from Jamie or anyone else.  No one else even had to notice what I'd done.
• Both men and women find relationships with women to be more intimate and enjoyable than those with men.  Women have more feelings of empathy for other people than men do (though women and men have about the same degree of empathy for animals, whatever that means).  in fact, for both men and women--and this finding struck me as highly significant--the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women.
• Learning that men and women both turn to women for understanding showed me that Jamie wasn't ignoring me out of lack of interest or affection; he just wasn't good at giving that kind of support.
• There's no evidence for the belief that "letting off steam" is healthy or constructive.  In fact, studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn't relieve anger but amplifies it.  On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.
• One piece of evidence that didn't resonate with me initially was the importance of keeping happy memories vivid.  Studies show that recalling happy times helps boost happiness in the present.  When people reminisce, they focus on positive memories, with the result that recalling the past amplifies the positive and minimizes the negative.  
• I realized [that] happiness has four stages, to eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.
• "The business of the wise man is to be happy." Samuel Johnson
• "Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.  Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating." -Simone Weil
• I learned another reason not to say critical things about other people: "spontaneous trait transference."  Studies show that because of this psychological phenomenon,people unintentionally transfer to me the traits I ascribe to other people.  So if I tell Jean that Pat is arrogant, unconsciously Jean associates that quality with me.  On the other hand, if I say that Pat is brilliant or hilarious, I'm linked to those qualities.  What I say about other people sticks to me--even when I talk to someone who already knows me.
• Because money permits a constant stream of luxuries and indulgences, it can take away their savor, and by permitting instant gratification, money shortcuts the happiness of anticipation.  Scrimping, saving, imagining, planning, hoping--these stages can enlarge the happiness we feel.
• "When one loves, one does not calculate." -Saint Therese of Liseaux
• The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided.  It's more selfless to act happy.  It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted.  No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high.  He seems self-sufficient, he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit.
• Giving positive reviews requires humility.  I have to admit, I missed the feelings of superiority that I got from using puncturing humor, sarcasm, ironic asides, cynical comments, and cutting remarks, A willingness to be pleased requires modesty and even innocence--easy to deride as mawkish and sentimental.
  Books to check out: 
• The Bluebird (play) 
• author Elizabeth Enright 
• Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking 
• Charlotte Yonge's The Heir of Redclyffe
• Newcastle Personality Assessor Test This 12-question personality test is pretty interesting...
• flaneur: an idler or lounger. French
• darshan: an opportunity or occasion of seeing a holy person or the image of a deity. Hindu
• Ruinensehnsucht: a longing for romantic ruin or decay, German
• amae: the behavior of a person attempting to induce an authority figure, such as a parent, spouse, teacher, or supervisor, to take care of him. The word is rarely used of oneself, but rather is applied descriptively to the behavior of other people. Japanese
• nostalgie de la boue: a desire for degradation and depravity. Literally: "mud nostalgia" in French

13. The Raft (2020.02.16)
By: S.A. Bodeen
Published: 2012
Pages: 241
Genre: young adult fiction / survival at sea / Midway Island /
Bex Rating: 8.5

I got this book because the author left a great review on one of my all-time favorite books in the same genre, I Am Still Alive.  This is my favorite kind of story, and I thought it was pretty good.

Robie lives with her scientist parents on the Midway Atoll in the middle of the Pacific and is no stranger to long, boring, cargo flights.  But when a flight she's taken dozens of times goes down in the ocean at night, she must use all her skills and knowledge to survive at sea.  The worst part is that no one knows she was on the flight--her parents think she is still visiting her aunt in Hawaii.

The author had a really great piece of writing advice at the back of the book in the Q&A section:

It's easier to revise lousy writing than to revise a blank sheet of paper.

12. Penny From Heaven (re-read, 2020.02.09)
By: Jennifer Holm
Published: 2006
Pages: 274
Genre: young adult fiction / middle-grade fiction / Italian-Americans / Brooklyn Dodgers / post-WWII America / New Jersey / New York / Newbery / Newbery Honor
Bex Rating: 9

I last read this book in 2008, and remember loving it immensely, so I read it again! Jennifer Holm is a gifted writer and I really enjoyed her flawless character development.  Here is my review from twelve years ago:

Penny From Heaven is set in the 1950s, and is the story of an almost-twelve-year-old girl named Penny, whose summer is ruined when her mother won't let her go to the movies or the public swimming pool, because she's afraid she'll get polio. Penny's father died when she was a baby, but she's very close with her father's Italian family, though her mother doesn't have anything to do with them (the descriptions of the Italian food alone make this book worth the read). Penny's summer is made even worse when she finds out that her mom is dating the milkman (there's a hilarious scene when the milkman is over for dinner and Penny is totally nasty to him. He is offered several drinks and then Penny innocently suggests a glass of milk).

Jennifer Holm based most of the plot on stories from her own family and her Italian heritage. There's a lot of true information about Italian internment camps during World War II, and the afterword is as interesting as the book.

• I close my eyes as Me-me soaps up my hair, her fingers strong.  It feels wonderful.
• "Eat!" he orders.  He's Italian already.
• Pop-pop's walking pretty good with his cane.  I've noticed lately that he doesn't have too much trouble walking when he wants to get cigars.  It's only when Me-me wants him to take out the trash that his old war wound starts acting up.
• sfogliatelle: a shell-shaped filled Italian pastry native to Campania. Sfogliatella means "small, thin leaf/layer", as the pastry's texture resembles stacked leaves.  The sfogliatella Santa Rosa was created in the monastery of Santa Rosa in Conca dei Marini in the province of Salerno, Italy, in the 17th century. Pasquale Pintauro, a pastry chef from Naples, acquired the original recipe and began selling the pastries in his shop in 1818.  The dough is stretched out on a large table, or flattened with a pasta maker, then brushed with a fat (butter, lard, shortening, margarine, or a mixture), then rolled into a log (much like a Swiss roll, but with many more layers). Disks are cut from the end, shaped to form pockets, and filled. The pastry is baked until the layers separate, forming the sfogliatella's characteristic ridges.

11. Starsight: Skyward, Book 2 (2020.02.05)
By: Brandon Sanderson
Narrated by: Susie Jackson
Published: 2019
Audiobook Length: 14 hours, 30 minutes
Genre: young adult / science fiction / adventure / space travel / embracing differences / expanding your worldview / humor / espionage
Bex Rating: 8.5

Not quite as good as the first book, but still entertaining--a perfect audiobook--and I will definitely read the next Skyward novel.

Spensa is shocked when an alien ship crashes on Starsight, an alien with whom she had briefly connected, cytonically.  Quickly the alien, named Alanik, tells Spensa that she has been summoned by the Superiority to their capitol city, Starsight, to be part of a new cadre of fighter pilots from all over the galaxy.  Alanik is injured, so she agrees that Spensa should take her place and try to impersonate her, in hopes of obtaining the Superiority's carefully-guarded hyperdrive travel secrets.

It's much different from the first novel, but I enjoyed the conversations with M-Bot about what it means to be human, and the larger character development of Spensa, whose worldview expands when she realizes that all Krell are not evil. just as all humans are not good.

10. The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2020.02.03)
By: Heather Morris
Published: 2018
Pages: 268
Genre: dramatic nonfiction / historical nonfiction / World War II / Holocaust / Jews / Auschwitz / Slovakia / love story / humanity /
Bex Rating: 9

Two holocaust books for my beach reads on my twentieth anniversary trip to Costa Rica?

Yes.  And no regrets.  As soon as I finished Zookeeper's Wife, Brenda gave me Tattoist, which was her beach read, and I read it in a day on the plane ride home.

Heather Morris knew and extensively interviewed Lale Sokolov, the Slovakian Jew who became the Tätowierer at the Birkenau and Auschwitz concentration camps.  She captures his remarkable story with vivid, haunting prose.

Lale tattooed prisoner numbers on the new Jews and Gypsies and Russians brought to the camps every day.  In a position that came with slightly more privileges, he used his wits to exchange prisoners' valuables for food, which he smuggled back to them.  When he meets Gita, another Slovakian Jew, he falls in love, and slowly gets to know her during their almost-three-year stay at Auschwitz.  When the Allies break into Germany and the Nazis flee, Lale and Gita are lost from each other, but Lale again uses his kindness and wits to find his love.

• Closing his eyes, he mentally says the names of each of his family members.  He cannot picture his siblings as clearly as he used to.  His mother he can see perfectly.  But how do you say goodbye to your mother?

9. The Zookeeper's Wife (2020.02.03)
By: Diane Ackerman
Published: 2007
Pages: 342
Genre: dramatic nonfiction / historical nonfiction / World War II / Poland / Jews / Warsaw / Zoos / Holocaust / humanity /
Bex Rating: 9

I have heard of this book for several years, but had I known it was written by Diane Ackerman, I would have
read it long ago.  She is the author of two of my favorite nonfiction books: The Moon by Whale-light and Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of my Garden.

This is the amazing, true story of Antonina Zabinski and her husband, Jan, who are zookeepers at the Polish Zoo in Warsaw.  When Hitler invades Poland in 1939, their zoo is bombed, animals are confiscated for the Berlin Zoo, and the way of life for the Zabinski's changes forever.

But Antonina and Jan, despite immediate, omnipresent, life-ending danger, choose to use the zoo to harbor as many people as they can: Jews, artists, gypsies, and other "undesirables" targeted by Hitler and the Nazis.

It was beautiful.  It was both uplifting and heart-wrenching.  And since Diane Ackerman wrote it, the research is in a category of its own.  This book has a SEVEN PAGE bibliography, and an 18-page, double-columned index.  I loved it so much.

• In her memoirs, [Antonina] wrote that she heard him speak, but his words floated away from her; it was as if her brain, already choked from the day's horrors, had issued a non serviam and refused to absorb any more.
• One puzzle of daily life at the villa was this: How do you retain a spirit of affection and humor in a crazed, homicidal, unpredictable society?  Killers passed them daily on zoo grounds, death shadowed homely and Underground activities alike, and also stalked people at random in the streets.  The idea of safety had shrunk to particles--one snug moment, then the next.  Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heighten the senses.  
• An insect collection is a silent oasis in the noisy clamor of the world, isolating phenomena so that they can be seen undistractedly.  In that sense, what is being collected are not the bugs themselves but the deep attention of the collector.  That is also a rarity, a sort of gallery that ripples through the mind and whose real holdings are the perpetuation of wonder in a maelstrom of social and political distractions.  “Collection” is a good word for what happens, because one becomes collected for a spell, gathering up one’s curiosity the way rainwater collects.  Every glass-faced box holds a sample of a unique collector’s high regard, and that’s partly why people relish studying them, even if they know all the bug parts by heart.
• Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the [Warsaw] Ghetto's Hasidic rabbi...preached "sensitization to Holiness," a process of discovering the holiness within oneself.  The Hasidic tradition included mindfully attending to everyday life, as eighteenth century teacher Alexander Susskind taught: "When you eat and drink, you experience enjoyment and pleasure from the food and drink.  Arouse yourself every moment and ask in wonder, 'What is this enjoyment and pleasure?  What is it that I am tasting?'
• ...the Zabinskis continued their tradition of people and animals coexisting under one roof, over and over welcoming stray animals into their lives and an already stressed household,  Zookeepers by disposition, not fate, even in wartime with food scarce, they needed to remain among animals for life to feel true and for Jan to continue his research in animal psychology.
• Maurycy told Antonina that every night he prepared his bed slowly with a happiness unknown to him since before occupation, taking pleasure in the simple acts of carefully folding his only suit, frayed as it was, and laying it over a chair beside his own bookshelf, occupied by the handful of books he had salvaged from his old life, in a house where he could sleep unmolested, surrounded by a surrogate family whose presence padded his existence.
       For a great many people, the Ghetto had erased the subtle mysticism of everyday life, such reassuring subliminals as privacy, agency, and above all the faith that allows one to lie down at night and surrender easily to sleep. Among the innocence of hamsters, Maurycy slept near his books, with documents that bestowed the status of being real, and, best of all, under the same roof as his beloved Magdalena. Finding love undemolished, with enough space to exist and his heart still limber, gave him hope, Antonina thought, and even renegade "moments of pleasure and joy, feelings he'd lost in Ghetto life."
• As spring sidled closer and nature hovered between seasons, the snow melted and a low green cityscape of garden plants arose during the day, but at night the land froze over again and moonlight glittered the walks into silver skating trails. Hibernating animals still curled up underground, waiting in suspense. The villa’s people and animals sensed the lengthening light, and when a gust of air swept indoors, it carried the mossy sweet smell that rises from living soil. The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making and shedding—in short, the fuzzy, fizzy hoopla of life’s ramshackle return.
       But spring floated outside the small rupture in time the war had gouged. For people attuned to nature and the changing seasons, especially for farmers or animal-keepers, the war snagged time on barbed wire, forced them to live by mere chronicity, instead of real time, the time of wheat, wolf, and otter.
• "If I maintain silence about my secret it is my prisoner," Gdansk-born philosopher Arther Schopenhauer wrote in an earlier era, but "if I let it slip from my tongue, I am its prisoner."
• But, without meaning to exactly, one still tends to conjure up scary scenarios, their pathos or salvation, as if one could endure a trauma before it occurred, in small manageable doses, as a sort of inoculation.
• philtrum: the vertical groove between the base of the nose and the border of the upper lip.
• ziggurats: (in ancient Mesopotamia) a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple. Ziggurats are first attested in the late 3rd millennium BC and probably inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel 
• non serviam: non serviam is Latin for "I will not serve". The phrase is generally attributed to Lucifer, who is said to have spoken these words to express rejection to serve God
• imprimatur: a person's acceptance or guarantee that something is of a good standard.
• hart ducha: Polish: strength of will or spirit
• kibbutz: a communal settlement in Israel, typically a farm. [I have looked up this word a million times.  Maybe this time it will stick]

8. The River of No Return did not finish (2020.01.31)
By: Bee Ridgway
Published: 2013
Pages: 238 (out of 452)
Genre: fiction / romance / time travel
Bex Rating: 6

False. Advertising.

It is plain to me now that the "reviews" that the publisher chose to put on this book were designed completely to sell copy, not to accurately portray quality.  When I read the Washington Post's front-cover review: "An instant classic, along the lines of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell," I was sold.  Because THAT book is good.  Good storytelling, good characters, GOOD LITERATURE.

This book was just a harlequin romance disguised as literature.

I am not opposed to romance (though I admit, I'm personally more attracted to the term "love story").  I have read and enjoyed and recommended many books that contain scenes that might be considered "steamy" . . . but the scenes in this book were so gratuitous and off-putting.  They also didn't seem to fit the narrative or character development that well.

No thanks, Bee Ridgway.  At least I bought this book at the D.I.

7. The Amulet of Samarkand: book one in the Bartimaeus Trilogy (re-read, 2020.01.23)
By: Jonathan Stroud
Narrated by: Simon Jones
Published: 2003
Audiobook Length: 13 hours, 30 minutes
Genre: young adult fantasy / alternate history / magic / djinni / coming-of-age / humour / London /
Bex Rating: 10!

Just as hilarious and fast-paced and masterfully written as I remember.  But listening to it the second time round might well be the more delightful experience.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy is right up there with Harry Potter.  Only wittier.  It's the story of a young boy named Nathaniel who is apprenticed to a crotchety, self-serving old magician.  Nathaniel decides to drown out his loneliness by applying himself and becoming the best magician England has ever seen.  He secretly reads his master's forbidden books, and summons a djinni named Bartimaeus, something that even his master would dare not attempt.

The book is told in third-person about Nathaniel, but then in first-person from the point of view of the djinni, who is such a delightful character.  It is an alternate magical history as well, and the characters are well-rounded and fully-fleshed.  Jonathan Stroud makes the book quite touching, actually.

I love this series and highly recommend it.  I first read them in 2009, and you can the reviews of them there (reviews #37, #39, #42) .  I can't wait to re-discover the next two.

6. Rise and Shine (2020.01.18)
By: Anna Quindlen
Published: 2007
Pages: 279
Genre: contemporary fiction / sisters / celebrity / New York City / midlife crisis / poverty in America / super-wealth in America / illusion / reality
Bex Rating: 9

I have loved Anna Quindlen's essays and articles for quite a while; this is the first time I have read one of her novels.  It was so engaging, wickedly smart, and funny.  And effortless to read--because Quindlen has such mastery of nuance and conciseness.

This is the story of two sisters in New York City.  One is the most famous, recognizable, and adored morning news anchor in America, Meghan Fitzmaurice.  The younger sister, Bridget (Miz Fitz) is a social worker in the projects, unmarried and happily attached to a deputy commissioner 25 years her senior.  When Meghan interviews a millionaire playboy the morning after her own husband announces he is leaving her, she unwittingly calls the playboy an effing A-hole, thinking she was off-air.  America reacts, and suddenly Meghan falls from grace.

It is a story about sisters, for sure, which is one reason I love it--"Sisters-with-a-capital-S" will always be one of the biggest slices in the pie chart of my life.  But Quindlen examines so many important human conditions in this novel: not just the obvious disparity between the rich and the poor (in New York and everywhere), but maybe more importantly (and more insidious), the disparity between reality and illusion.  How readily we consume/believe/glorify/vilify what is presented to us by the media and entertainment industries.  How we artfully pretend, in our everyday lives, that things are what they are not, and are not what they are.

The sisters were hilarious, merciless, loyal, and believable.  Their relationship is the perfect framework to examine a lot of social and personal issues that we face every day.  I loved it.  It was the fifth and final Christmas book gift from Allen, and now I have read them all--he outdid himself this year with the most perfect books, and this one contained, by far, the finest writing.

• My sister is the messiest person on earth, except in her mind, which is as orderly as the inside of a nuclear reactor control room.
• "She looks like a roof shingle in a high wind these days."  Our aunt Maureen is the official queen of china closet aphorisms.  I suspect she makes most of them up on the spot. 
• A disproportionate number of us live in Manhattan.  Like a thief with his fist behind his back, the other four boroughs are clenched around a core of gold, and the gold is the island.
• But I knew who I was.  I was the maiden aunt, that staple of fiction and movies and real life, the one who is attentive and adoring and just a little odd, who takes the kid the places and has the conversations the parents can't or won't.
• He had a beard, which I found increasingly irritating, and a habit of striking yoga poses with no provocation, so that sometimes he would leap from bed and, rather than go to the bathroom, do the Crow or the Heron.  A response seemed to be required, and my response, after four weeks, was to tell him that I wanted to move on.
• "Sisters tend to get stuck in their roles and they don't know how to get out of them.  The pretty one.  The practical one.  That's a hard row to hoe."
• In a world that had become like that restaurant, friends and enemies and rivals and allies all with an ear cocked heavenward for the messages from cell phones and emails and lunch conversations, the only possible way to be silent was to disappear.
• The network was letting the morning newsperson, a nice young woman who was always tripping over stray consonants as though they were heaves in the sidewalk of a sentence, sit in for Meghan...
• The weather is the constant background music of life on an island.
• There is no feeling quite like refusing to speak to a person only a nightstand apart.  Meghan said in later years it was good preparation for marriage.
• "That's not his job, Meghan.  He gets to be the kid.  You get to be the mother.  He doesn't take care of you.  It's the other way around."
• The thing about New York is that while you are in it, of it, it seems unequivocally the center of the universe.  Your metabolism rises to meet it, so that your heart seems to beat faster, your mind to jump more quickly from one thing to another.  The earth seems made of concrete all the way down to its core.  
• New York runs on its own digitalis.  One moment your heart is thump-thumping in normal fashion.  The next it's staccato, double-time, leap-a-leap.
• Liver and creamed spinach.  My favorite meal is the kind of thing children are forced to eat as punishment.
• The spotlight is something that shines from within at least as much as the glare from without.
• When you are from New York and you meet people from other parts of the country--or even the suburbs of New Jersey--they will express surprise that you manage to live where you do.  None of them seems to understand how rude this is.  How surprised they would be if you said, Gosh, it's hard to understand how you manage to survive in the stifling upper-class confines of Sterling Silver, Connecticut, or Gee, don't you get tired of the sheer boredom of life in Little Town, Iowa?
• Watching Irving eat tea sandwiches is like watching a bear eat berries.
• The soundless New York exists only for the wealthy.  For the poor there is always sound: the cars whooshing past on the highway on their way to someplace else, the subway clanking along the elevated line, the screaming fights in the courtyard, the sound of gunshots in the night.
• virago: 1- a domineering, violent, or bad-tempered woman. 2- a woman of masculine strength or spirit; a female warrior.

5. Just Ride: Racing 2725 Miles to Mexico (2020.01.11)
By: Ty Hopkins
Published: 2019
Pages: 267
Genre: nonfiction / mountain bike ultra racing / exercise science / the human body / endurance / mental resilience / The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route /
Bex Rating: 9

Last year, my friend Brenda tore this infographic out of her BYU Alumni magazine and brought it to me, knowing I would be interested in reading about the BYU professor who rode in the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race from Canada to Mexico in 16 days.

I read the short article, then looked at the name of the professor again . . . Ty Hopkins . . . hmmmmm.  Wait a second, I know that guy!  Or, at least, I know that my dear friend, Lauren Hopkins Johnson, has a brother with a PhD in exercise science who teaches at BYU.

I texted Lauren a picture of the article.

Lauren's brother and his book were both amazing.  I devoured Just Ride, and loved especially Ty's brutally honest self-assessment, every single day.  There is no question that most of this "race" requires incredible mental fortitude.  Yeah, you have to be in shape.  Sure, you should have reliable gear.  Of course, you need to study the route meticulously . . . but the single most important equipment you can carry is between your ears.  This kind of ultra-endurance attempt demands a strong mental game.

Ty also brings his profession along for the ride--all kinds of data about how the body responds to extreme stressors and physical overload was measured and examined and codified.   I love it that he kept a meticulous list of everything he ate!  All of the data seems to suggest one thing to me, personally: The human body is one of the most miraculous, intricate, and beautiful things in all God's creation.

(This is pretty much my favorite kid of nonfiction book.  I am adding to my list of "adventure nonfiction" on my favorite books post).

• As I slowly made my way up the Red Meadow Lake climb, my doubt was coupled with self-pity.  I became emotional.  I missed my family.  Why did everything have to hurt so much?  Why was I doing this to myself?  The decision to do this race seemed like a great idea sitting in my comfy office chair and reading race reports, but now reality painted a much different picture.  I took a deep breath.  I could see light starting to define the horizon in front of me.  I reminded myself that this is what I wanted.  There was a lot to be thankful for. I started trying to think of those things, and then I started talking about them out loud.  Before I knew it, I was praying--giving thanks.  I felt better emotionally.  No more self-pity, and I was gradually moving up the rough mountain gravel.  This became part of my morning routine--self-reflection and prayer.  It became my best chance of getting through the roughest part of every day.
• I was planning what I would do if I was confronted with one of the off-the-grid loners who was likely planning to topple the government in some way . . . as I was day dreaming, I passed a neatly kept cabin near the road.  An older couple was sitting on the porch.  They smiled and waved.  I returned the way with an awkward smile that I was sure communicated, "Why are the hermit loners so nice?"  So much for my paranoia.  
• Three states in a day was a nice lift, even though it was just a sliver of Idaho.
• The harder it is to get to a beautiful place, the fewer the people; and the fewer the people, the better it is.  This is also probably one of the things that makes the GDMBR so attractive to me.  It's remote and pristine, untainted by the masses.  These places seem harder and harder to find as the number of people who want to enjoy them increases.  
• The San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado are my favorite mountain range.  The are tall and vast.  The 14,000-foot peaks jut out from the earth everywhere you look.  The vegetation is green and lush, with yellow, purple, white, and red dotting the green tundra.  Groves of quaking aspens and enormous firs congregated in huge clumps to break up the unspoiled alpine tundra.  I was physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.  The exhaustion somehow made the descent through the beautiful landscape a permanent part of my memory.  It was an astounding payoff for a hard day of riding.
• My legs turned the pedals, the pedals turned the chain, the chain turned the wheels.  This was my current life in its simplest form.  My pace was good, but my body and my mind were barely hanging on.

4. Earthsea Cycle (2020.01.11)
By: Ursula K. LeGuin
Published: 1968
Pages: 889
Genre: young adult fiction / fantasy / Taoism / Good vs Evil / power / choices / balance
Bex Rating: 10

My first four books of 2020 were all Christmas presents from Allen, and this one was my favorite of all.  What made it better is that Allen found after researching and hunting for books he thought I would like.  He read a lot of reviews that described LeGuin's work in the hyperbole it rightly deserves, and bought it for me.  Such a perfect gift!  I absolutely devoured it.

How have I never read any Ursula K. LeGuin before?  The woman was A FORCE.  Seriously, click on her name above and get to know her.  I also especially loved this article about LeGuin from the Paris Review by Michael Chabon (one of the finest writers today--if you haven't read Chabon, I suggest starting with Gentlemen of the Road).

This is fantasy at its best.  Original, beautiful, with clear themes and messages that transcend fantasy as a genre.  LeGuin writes mostly about the human experience, about relationships with self and with others.  About striving to create wholeness and balance--she is largely influenced by Taoism, which makes her fantasy much deeper than most.  I love it that the relatable goatherd, Sparrowhawk--who becomes the wizard of Earthsea--has so much potential and power, but must first overcome his pride in order to feel whole.

This hefty book contains the first four volumes about LeGuin's fictional world, "Earthsea" combined into one.  It's interesting that the first three were written in the late
sixties/early seventies, then the fourth was written in 1990, and the fifth book, The Other Wind, in 2001 (I'll have to get that one).  The fourth book does has a markedly different tone and is much more serious and, I would say, more adult, than the first three.  But I loved them and could hardly put it down, all 889 pages.

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968): A young goatherd named Sparrowhawk discovers he has innate power when he saves his mountain town from invaders.  He apprentices to the wise mage, Ogion; then, impatient to learn more quickly, leaves to study magic at the school for wizards on the Island of Roke.  There Sparrowhawk, whose true name is Ged, unleashes evil into the world because of his pride.  Now injured and brokem, he must travel the world in search of the evil force, hoping to right his wrong.

• His hair and beard and robe were white, and he seemed as if all darkness and heaviness had been leached out of him by the slow usage of the years, leaving him white and worn as driftwood that has been a century adrift.
• Yet a greater, unlearned skill he possessed, which is the art of kindness.
• "You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything.  So I thought once.  So did we all.  And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.
• A man would know the end he goes to, but he cannot know it if he does not turn, and return to his beginning, and hold that beginning in his being.  If he would not be a stick whirled and whelmed in the stream, he must be the stream itself, all of it, from its spring to its sinking in the sea.
• ...and last and best they gave him hot water to wash the cold and saltness of the sea from him, and a bed where he could sleep.
• On the dock Yarrow stood and watched them go, as sailors' wives and sisters stand on all the shores of all Earthsea, watching their men go out on the sea, and they do not wave or call aloud, but stand still in hooded cloak of grey or brown, there on the shore that dwindles smaller and smaller from the boat while the water grows wide between.

The Tombs of Atuan (1971):  This book is the story of Arha, the Priestess of the Tomb of Atuan, a vessel for the powers of darkness.   But before she was Arha, she was Tenar, a girl who was stolen from her family to become this dark figurehead.  As Arha, she forgets her former life and is lost in a sea of ritual, surrounded only by women in a closed compound.  But one day, she sees a man entering the underground Labyrinth, which only she is allowed to enter.  It is our old friend, Sparrowhawk, and Arha is intrigued by him.

• Under the trees ran a stream, narrow but powerful, shouting, muscular over its rocks and falls, too hasty to freeze.
• Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake.  It is not easy.  It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one.  The road goes upward towards the light, but the laden traveller may never reach the end of it.

The Farthest Shore (1972): Now in his fifties, Ged is no longer Sparrowhawk, but the Archmage of Earthsea.  Restless and unsatisfied, he leaps at the chance to find the source of a new threat: mages all over Earthsea are forgetting the words of power.  With a young prince named Arren at his side, Ged becomes Sparrowhawk once again, and sets sail in Lookfar, hoping to right the great imbalance that is seeping through all the isles of Earthsea.

• "Fortune-telling and love potions are not of much account, but old women are worth listening to."
• "Do you see, Arren, how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it.  When that rock is lifted the earth is lighter, the hand that bears it heavier.  When it is thrown the circuits of the starts respond, and where is strikes or falls the universe is changed.  On every act the balance of the whole depends."
• For in this love he now felt there was compassion: without which love is untempered, and is not whole, and does not last.
• "But I am old.  I have made my choices, I have done what I must do.  I stand in daylight facing my own death.  And I know that there is only one power worth having. And that is the power, not to take, but to accept.  Not to have, but to give."
• There is no kingdom like the forests.  It is time I went there, went in silence, went alone.

Tehanu (1990): Though this fourth installment was written almost twenty years after the third, it picks up at the exact moment that the third ends.  Battered and unconscious, Sparrowhawk arrives at the feet of Tenar, borne by the oldest dragon.  Tenar is old, her children are raised and gone, and she has taken in a small girl, Therru, who was brutally abused and burned.  Tenar and Therru nurse Sparrowhawk back to health, but his power is gone--he used it to save the world.

This book is more about relationships, finding purpose, and second chances than it is about quests or dragons or magic.  LeGuin does not sugarcoat the reality of abuse, of misogyny, of inequality.  It has a completely different tone from the first three, but I liked it all the same.

• Tenar sighed.  There was nothing she could do.  But there was always the next thing to be done.
• ...she went on, pondering the indifference of a man toward the exigencies that ruled a woman: that someone must not be far from a sleeping child, that one's freedom meant another's unfreedom, unless some ever-changing, moving balance were reached, like the balance of a body moving forward, as she did now, on two legs, first one and then the other, in the practice of that remarkable act, walking.
• "...but what's a house without chickens at the door?"
• "Listen to me, Therru.  Come here.  You have scars, ugly scars, because an ugly, evil thing was done to you.  People see the scars.  But they see you, too, and you aren't the cars.  You aren't ugly.  You aren't evil.  You are Therru, and beautiful."

3. New Kid (2020.01.01)
By: Jerry Craft
Published: 2019
Pages: 249
Genre: graphic novel / young adult fiction / new kid / minorities / art / friendship / perseverance
Bex Rating: 9

The third fabulous Christmas book from Allen.  This one is about Jordan, whose parents are sending him to an elite private school filled with mostly privileged white kids.  All Jordan wants is to go to art school, but his parents are trying to give him opportunities they never had.  Seventh Grade is tough at his new school, but he learns to make friends and stand up for them, using his art journal as a way to process what he is going through.

2. Pumpkinheads (2020.01.01)
By: Rainbow Rowell
Illustrated by: Faith Erin Hicks
Published: 2019
Pages: 217
Genre: graphic novel / teen fiction / last chances / friendship / Halloween / taking a leap
Bex Rating: 9

Another Christmas present from Allen.  I so appreciate how well he researches graphic novels every year and consistently buys the best ones for me!

This was a fun, light-hearted story of the last night that two friends will work together at the Pumpkin Patch before graduating and heading to college.  Deja has a plan to make sure that Josiah's last night at the patch will be his most memorable.  It was very sweet, and I love Faith Erin Hicks' drawings.

1. Waterless Mountain (2020.01.01)
By: Laura Adams Armer
Published: 1931
Pages: 212
Genre: young adult fiction / Navajo Indian / Newbery medal / coming-of-age / Native American tradition
Bex Rating: 8

Allen found this book at the D.I. and got it for me for Christmas.  It is a Newbery medal-winning book I have never heard of.  It was an easy read--the writing was soothing and beautiful.  The "story" was really just a series of vignettes in the life of a Navajo boy named Little Brother, there was not really a story arc.  I loved the Navajo legends interwoven throughout the book, and the descriptions of the desert.

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2019 Book Reviews 33 Books: 9,571 pages + audiobooks
2018 Book Reviews 52 Books: 15,788 pages + audiobooks
2017 Book Reviews 46 Books: 16,573 pages + audiobooks
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2010 Book Reviews 45 books: 12,353 pages + audiobooks

2009 Book Reviews 43 books (before I counted pages/audio)
2008 Book Reviews 58 books (before I counted pages/audio)
2007 Book Reviews August-December (when I began blogging)