Reading in the Garden

Charming Count.    A Gentleman in Moscow  by Amor Towles is about a man who is placed on indefinite confinement in a Moscow hotel in 1922 for an incendiary poem he wrote during political unrest in Russia. The Bolsheviks spare Count Alexander Rostov’s life, but only if he never steps outside the confines of the Metropol Hotel again. In the hotel he settles into a subdued life stuffed away in a small attic room. He watches from the inside as the political landscape outside his window constantly changes. During his days, months, and years there, he forms friendships with the staff (and one enemy) and later has a life-altering event.  But it isn’t really what’s happening in the hotel that pulled me in so tightly to this book, it was Count Rostov himself.  As the title suggests, he is a true gentleman, a distinguished man who handles himself with the utmost charm and unassuming congeniality that would not be expected from a prisoner, but from the a...

Library Love.    The Library Book  by Susan Orlean is an account of the Central Los Angeles Library fire of 1986 which destroyed or damaged more than a million books. Like a skillfully controlled fire, Orlean continuously meanders from the investigation and arson suspect to other paths, then back to the investigation. She splinters off into the history and inner workings of the library to Nazi book burnings to an eccentric long-haired, Casanova-type librarian who was pressured to resign because of the scandalous press constantly swirling around him. She explains the intensive process of preserving and restoring soggy, smoke-filled books. Ambling into collections of maps, sheet music, menus, photographs, and autographs housed in the library, she then leads us to a quick look at bookmobiles,  pack horse librarians , and more before ending with the conclusion of the investigation, revealing what happened to the suspect, and the reopening of the library. ...

Novel Lessons.    Photo by   Fabiola Peñalba   on   Unsplash Packabook Explorers , a site that offers suggestions on fiction from around the world, recently posted an article about a judge in Virginia opting for an unusual sentencing for teenagers who spray painted racist graffiti. For one year, they were ordered to read a book a month and write a report on each one, and they weren’t just any books. The judge drew up a list of 35 books that highlight inequality based on race, religion, or ethnicity. All five kids successfully completed their assignments and two years later none had reoffended.  You can read the full article here . Below is the list of 35 books: 1. The Banality of Good and Evil by David R. Blumenthal 2. The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates 3. Black Boy by Richard Wright 4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 5. Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks 6. The ...

Unusual Childhood. Twenty Chickens for a Saddle  by Robyn Scott is a memoir about  a girl’s unusual childhood in Botswana when she moved there in 1987 at the age of seven.  It was fascinating to learn about Robyn’s foreign environment, the harsh landscape with scorpions, spitting cobras, puff adders, hippos, and leopards.  But it was equally engrossing to discover more about her eccentric family such as her controlling, hot-tempered grandfather who lured moths to flutter on his face by letting a mixture of wine and grape juice dribble from his mouth. This is the same man who encouraged his boys to swim across a croc infested river and had a coffin manufacturing business among other ventures.   Robyn's father was a hardworking physician who had to accustom himself to the local cultures and superstitions and later deal with the AIDS epidemic. And her mother was a homemaker, aspiring author of holistic medicine—and their teacher. She insist...

Poll of Favorite Book Club Reads. Recently, I asked the question on The Great American Read Facebook Book Club: What is your favorite book that you’ve read with your book club? With over 200 responses, below are top three titles mentioned. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah GoodReads Description: In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are. France, 1939.  In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another. ...