Reading in the Garden

Headless Horseman Horror Story In the spirit of Halloween, this month I will suggest some creepy, ghostly short stories by famous authors.  Don’t worry. I’m not into the ghastly chilling scene. I don’t like horror movies and rarely read scary books, with an exception of some Stephen King novels.  I don’t really care to be scared senseless by watching dolls come to life or people inversely crab crawling up a staircase.  I prefer my ghosts to be friendlier, like Casper.  With that said, Washington Irving’s classic short story about a headless horseman chasing a scared school teacher, is a milder kind of fright.  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving is a short story about a gangly, superstitious, nerdy school teacher named Ichabod Crane, who comes to teach in the small village of Sleepy Hollow.  It isn't long before he is smitten by the coquettish Katrina Van Tassel.  Unfortunately, big and boisterous Abraham, aka Brom Bones, als...

Catch of Two Centuries Ever wonder where the expression “Catch-22” comes from?  Well, I did, so I finally read the book Catch-22 by Joseph Heller .  Captain Yossarian, a WWII Army bombardier discovers that Catch-22 is a regulation in which the men must continuously fly more missions, and can only stop flying them if they are deemed insane.  But if they themselves declare that they are insane and request to stop flying, it proves they have cognitive abilities and are considered sane. Therefore must fly more missions. This book follows Yossarian who is trapped in the “Catch-22,” "damned if you do, damned if you don't" conundrum and must continue flying more and more missions, which the General continues to increase the moment Yossarian has met the set limit. It explains Yossarian's story as well as other airmen in chapters which tell and re-tell their experiences in a different light, revealing more and more about the situations and the men themselves. It’s...

The Wedding Summer is a busy time with vacations, bike riding, picnics, weddings, and more. That means less time to read, which in turn means fewer book reviews.  Therefore, I am taking a break. In honor of my niece I’m incorporating a list of some past book suggestions into the letter below, much like I did in last year’s Vacation Montage .   Click on the titles to read the reviews.  I must mention that although this letter refers to real events (I really did attend my niece’s wedding), it is entirely fictionalized, and any resemblance to living persons (who may or may not have attended the wedding) is purely coincidental—unless you’re one of the beautiful people, then by all means, consider it a compliment to you. Dearest Gertrude, Dog On It! [sic] I wish you could have been at the wedding. It was simply wonderful! It was a grand and beautiful wedding like A Good American dream come true . You should have seen Brittany—she was gorgeous, just glowing...

A Doggone Fun Book Dog On It by Spencer Quinn is a detective novel with a twist.  Chet and Bernie are partners in the Little Detective Agency.  Each has his strong points. Bernie is the thinker.  Chet is intimidating, if need be, and has a knack for smelling out criminals, literally.  Chet is a dog.  He’s also the narrator of the novel, which makes for a totally unique and fun read.  Chet’s wry commentary is hilarious, like when Bernie asks Chet if he needs to go out after being inside all day.  “Why would that be?” Chet thinks to himself.  “Just because my back teeth were floating?”  The Chet and Bernie mysteries are a series of books, Dog On It being the first volume.  In this particular assignment they’ve taken on, Bernie and Chet are hired to find a missing teenager. The duo work diligently together to solve the case. All the while, Chet’s perspective of the human and canine worlds kept me smiling throughout the book.  I...

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I am. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is about one day in the life of a woman getting ready for a party she is hosting—or so I thought. What I found out is that only two small instances in the book are devoted to Mrs. Dalloway’s party preparations.  Her venture to a shop in London to pick up flowers is how the book begins, and offers a most famous literary line. “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”   The other party “fuss” is when Clarissa Dalloway sits down and calmly mends the green dress she is planning to wear to the evening event.  So, if we’re really not talking about the party, what’s happening the rest of the time, you ask? Well, the book follows the activities, thoughts and memories of people who in some way touch Clarissa’s life during the day.  We tiptoe into the minds and lives of various people such as a man she passes on a park bench who suffers from PSTD after the recent Great War. We ...

Kickin' It with the Classics If you’re just tuning in, you may not have noticed that every so often I toss in reviews of classic books.  My interest in classics dates back to ninth-grade English class with Mr. Haynes.  At the end of the school year Mr. Haynes gave us a reading list for summer break.  Most of the books on the list were classics. For some reason I kept the list and years later after high school, I looked at it and decided, what the heck, let’s give this thing a whirl.  Slowly I started reading the books and marking them off.  Each year I squeezed in a few classics between my other reading. Weird?  Maybe.  But I was curious, and it turns out they’re classics for a good reason.  So now, when some of those books are mentioned here or there, I now know what they’re talking about—without looking at Wikipedia.  As a bonus, it’s helped me in crossword puzzles too.  It’s true, some of the classics are a little more diffi...