My Two Blessings

  My 52 Books group is ending the month with a quest over land, by sea, through space or into ourselves. I have a few interesting nonfiction books on my shelves that fill the bill such as Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit from the personal Quest’s List as well as the memoir – True North: A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness by Elliott Merrick, plus All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley. Robin Hobb’s Dragon Keeper, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi By Shannon Chakraborty, and The Bone Ships By RJ Barker, among others mentioned in the most recommended lit. From the Wisdom list – Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig, and Virginia Woolf’s A Room on One’s Own. I’m looking forward to reading them all. I may not get to all of them this year but I’ll have fun trying. I’m two thirds through Frozen River and enjoying it. But spending way too much time on youtube and watch...

  Happy Easter!  Currently reading The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon which is good so far: “A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history. Ari Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own. Over the course of one winter, as ...

  Found out why I haven’t been reading as much. Went to the eye doctor and was advised my eyes are a little bit different from each other and if I had the proper glasses, my eyes wouldn’t have to work as hard. Getting fitted for bifocals soon.  Oy! Les Miserables – Jean Valjean has a crisis of conscience. I reread Nora Roberts Northern Lights and it always surprises me. For some reason, I want The Professor to be the murderer and yet again, he wasn’t.  LOL! Almost done with Kazuo Ishiguro’s The buried Giant. Interesting story, especially with the Arthurian language. They find such polite ways to say the worst things. Picked up T.R. Ryden’s Occam’s Razor which looks and sounds really interesting: “When ancient artifacts discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza shed new light on a DNA pattern, venture capitalist James Anderson is thrust into an action-packed road of scientific exploration and discovery. An unlikely participant in the events that begin to unfold, he begins to...

  In the 1980s, the landscape of DC was changing as their comics became more than just "for kids". Stories like The Killing Joke and Watchmen were pushing the envelope, targeting an older crowd, and Alan Moore contributed to it. Near the end of the decade, DC fans were in for a surprise as Alan Moore and his team crafted another dark and memorable comic, one that focused on battling Fascism... V for Vendetta. Released in 1988, the story focused on the "terrorist" known as V and a woman named Evie as they fought tyranny in a world where England was under fascist rule. Yes, in the world of V for Vendetta, England, which fought Nazism in World War II, was taken over by a fascist party. Alongside Watchmen, V for Vendetta became one of the most influential comics, and would eventually gain a movie adaptation in 2006 staring Natalie Portman as Evie and Hugo Weaving as V. I obtained the graphic novel earlier this year and read it to the end, and, in the last month, my pare...

  Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Narrative Nonfiction. Also known as creative or literary nonfiction which are true stories told in literary form rather than dry objective reporting. Narrative nonfiction entertains as well as informs but engages the reader’s emotions as well their attention.  Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt was the first nonfiction book I read written in narrative or creative nonfiction format and led me to reading read more nonfiction. Have several Erik Larsen novels in the shelves which bought for hubby but will fill the bill for narrative nonfiction as well as Joan Didion’s Slouching to Bethlehem. It’s been years since I’ve read Didion so haven’t made up my mind what I’m going to read yet. I’m currently on page 168 in Les Miserables and have discovered how Jean ValJean rises and Fantine falls. Good stuff. Finished the middle grade mystery Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner which is book 1 in the Keeper’s Trilogy.  Will have t...