Reading in the Garden

Out of Human Bondage Into Emotional Bondage Beloved  by Toni Morrison is about a woman who escapes slavery to the free state of Ohio where she settles into her mother-in-law’s house with her kids to try and start a new life. The book slowly reveals Sethe’s horrifying journey out of human bondage into an emotional bondage.  The story enthrallingly dissolves in and out of the past and present offering readers glimpses of wholly tragic situations.  It begins in the middle when Sethe’s  mother-in-law dies shortly after her  two boys run away.  This leaves Sethe alone with her daughter, Denver, and the spirit of her dead baby, Beloved. Beloved is an oppressive reminder of the meaning of freedom and eventually manifests herself in a human form to reveal the haunting truth behind her death. I’ve read a couple other moving novels about slavery, but nothing like this.  This book unfolds vivid, raw descriptions of unimaginable horrors—atrocious a...

Power Couple in the Logging Industry Serena by Ron Rash is about a newly married couple who owns a timber company in North Carolina in the 1930s.  While Pemberton efficiently runs his successful logging business, his new bride, Serena, a smart, self-assured, and manipulative woman, steps in with steely resolve to take production to the next level.  Pemberton (as he is ever referred to, even by Serena who never calls him George) is in awe of his wife’s strength and knowledge and proudly watches her smooth management skills not just in the logging industry, but also in their fight to control great portions of wooded land that politicians want to turn into a park—The Smoky Mountains National Park.  To what level of ruthlessness will this power couple take their quest for dominance?  This book was a page-turner and an eye-opener.  I kept turning the pages because I wanted to see what that slimy Serena and her accomplice husband were up to next. The eye ope...

A Sea of Supernatural Incidents The Ocean at the End of the Lane   by Neil Gaiman   is a book about a boy’s childhood filled with paranormal activity—not the kind where a possessed person is watching you sleep, but the kind where three women have “unusual” talents for recipes (spells) and one other-worldly, evil being reeks havoc in all four of their lives, mainly the boy’s. When a man goes back to his hometown for a funeral, he starts to remember odd occurrences when he was seven years old, things he had forgotten and will later forget again.  It all begins when he meets Lettie Hempstock, an eleven-year old at the end of the lane.  Like in the movie The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, a 1977 movie starring Jody Foster, strange things are happening there.  Instead of dead people though, there are strange people like Lettie, her mother Ginnie, and grandmother Old Mrs. Hempstock, who seem to know things they couldn’t possibly know.  They’re olde...

Happy Birthday to Notable Authors Born in February! Click on the links to read reviews. James Michener February 3, 1907 American author known for long sagas of historical interest set in distinct locations:  Alaska, Hawaii, Caribbean, Texas , and Poland to name a few. So far, I’ve read Sayonara and Tales of the South Pacific , both of which I’ve enjoyed.  Michener won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for Tales of the South Pacific . Charles Dickens February 7, 1812 An English writer known for his classic works including A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectation, and A Tale of Two Cities to name a few. Jump into tales of struggles and hardships of the downtrodden. Laura Ingalls Wilder February 7, 1867 American author known for her Little House on the Prairie series based on her pioneer childhood in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Kansas.   Sinclair Lewis February 7, 1885 American novelist and playwright ...

Journey of the Heart The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. After receiving a letter from a dying acquaintance, retired Harold Fry spontaneously sets out on a 500-mile journey by foot to visit her. Walking alone gives Harold time to contemplate his marriage, his son, and his childhood, while meeting new people along the way.   This structured, unassuming Englishman still wearing his tie and yachting shoes seems to be doing what most people only dream of—making a great escape from his dull life if only for a brief time.  But Harold’s walk is so much more; it’s about regret and reconciliation of his past.   I really enjoyed this book.  It’s gentle, thoughtful, amusing, and moving—a touching thumbs-up. Happy Reading, Annette This book met one of my 2015 Book Challenges:   Read a book set in a foreign country .

America: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Girl in Translation   by Jean Kwok. Kimberly Chang is eleven years old when she and her mother move from Hong Kong to America with the help of Aunt Paula. In New York they start their long and arduous struggle to assimilate into a new and foreign culture while trying to remain true to the ingrained values and customs of their heritage.  Aunt Paula wears a mask of piety and familial devotion like a snake skin that sheds and quickly reveals her ugly core of darkness and spite. With family like this, who need enemies?  Aunt Paula has Kimberly and her mother literally working for pennies in her clothing sweatshop in Brooklyn, while keeping them holed away in a roach-infested building with no heat.  With the guise of being helpful, she oppresses them in inhumane living conditions. Despite the negative pull of the daunting life of factory work and atrocious living situation, Kimberly knows that the only way to overcome thei...

Bewitchingly Fun Read Babayaga by Toby Barlow is a book about an older witch out for revenge on a younger witch, a mild American advertising man, another wound-up American who draws the other into a shady espionage plot, and a detective who gets caught up in the middle with outrageous consequences.  This book had me under a spell right from the beginning.  It was such a fun read that I had a hard time putting it down. It was refreshingly imaginative with a fun and lively narrative and unexpected plot that wound its way through the streets of Paris in 1959. Although at times it was graphically gruesome and violent, the book as a whole was not a dark tramp through the underworld of witches and covens.  Each of the characters was unique and fully developed so in the end I felt like I really knew and understood them.  More than that, I liked them—even the evil, sour, old, sassy hag. I give it a high-flying thumbs-up! This was a book club selection and o...