Maya Angelou's beautiful poem, Amazing Peace, which she read during a White House Christmas Tree lighting in 2005 (hope springs eternal) expresses theMaya Angelou's beautiful poem, Amazing Peace, which she read during a White House Christmas Tree lighting in 2005 (hope springs eternal) expresses the hope and desire of humanity for peace. Most of us just want the basic human needs - shelter, food and security for ourselves and our loved ones. So why we wonder is the world always at war. Why are power hungry politicians of every country allowed to drag us into never ending chaos. This is a poem needed now, needed by our leaders, needed by all humanity. Peace might be an impossible dream, but reading this beautiful poem might give you some solace and perhaps some hope that someday it might be achieved....more
If you really hate Christmas, this is a five star book for you. The quirky, macabre illustrations of Edward Gorey, which enhanced the many books that If you really hate Christmas, this is a five star book for you. The quirky, macabre illustrations of Edward Gorey, which enhanced the many books that he wrote and illustrated, kept me from giving it NO stars. As much as I love Edward Gorey however, the snarky, depressing vitriol of John Updike relegated my copy to the dustbin....more
I purchased this beautiful book many years ago when my children were small and we spent many hours reading gems of poetry made even more delightful byI purchased this beautiful book many years ago when my children were small and we spent many hours reading gems of poetry made even more delightful by the stunning artwork of Gyo Fujikawa.
I was looking for a certain poem and thought that I might have read it in this book. The problem was finding the book! After a bit of searching, I unearthed the book (and the poem, "Little Things") and am enchanted once again by this lovely book. Page after page of Fujikawa's captivating illustrations accompany timeless poetry.
I can't think of a better book to introduce children to the delights of poetry by poets including Blake, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Greenaway, Rossetti and so many others. This lovely book brought back the enchantment I felt when my mother first introduced me to the magic of poetry....more
Who is Icehouse mentioned in the last sentence of this book? I hope you are more observant than I am, but if not, read on. (Icehouse is insig3.5 stars
Who is Icehouse mentioned in the last sentence of this book? I hope you are more observant than I am, but if not, read on. (Icehouse is insignificant, no spoilers).
When a lengthy book has this many characters, it would be helpful to have a character list at the beginning.
I combed the book after finishing it and finally found Icehouse mentioned briefly as "a friend" in a few random sentences by Miriam. When his name appears again prominently in the last sentence of the book, there is no mention of who he is.
I have mixed feelings about this book. One of the good things is that it was a page turner. Here are other things that I liked:
Setting - time and place: San Francisco, 1944. Very noirish. It would make a good black and white film. There are also scenes that take place in the 1920s and 30s.
Clothing details: I love this attention to detail - especially fashions of the time. I could picture the outfits in a movie.
Historical details: Amy Chu clearly did her research and she covered a lot of ground. Some of the highlights for me included her history of race relations in the 1940s and earlier in the U.S. and San Francisco and her coverage of prominent women. Some of the women she talked about or who made appearances in the book were Dr. Margaret "Mom" Chung, the first Chinese American woman doctor in the U.S; Julia Morgan, the first licensed woman architect in California, and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek who spent time in San Francisco during WWII. There are many other historical details which I found enlightening and interesting that set me off on further research.
However, here's why I gave the book only 3.5 stars:
There were too many characters. This led to a problem of character development for some of the characters; there was no time for it, even in a book of this length. Detective Sullivan, Isabella and Miriam were pretty well drawn. Don't read this spoiler if you are going to read the book. (view spoiler)[The unreliable narrator is an incomplete character throughout the book because she is, well, unreliable. However, at the end she does reveal herself as unhinged! (hide spoiler)]
There were so many suspects and so many plot twists, I had proverbial whiplash by the end of the book. By the time I got to the last page I didn't care who the murderer was. I should have figured it out long before the end, but the fact that I kept reading is a plus for the book.
Overall, this was a great escape for a few days and a good first fiction book by the author who has also written several non-fiction books....more
This could have been such a lovely fantasy and quest story, but it was overwhelmed with darkness. I read this book a second time, hoping I would have This could have been such a lovely fantasy and quest story, but it was overwhelmed with darkness. I read this book a second time, hoping I would have a better opinion, but I liked it even less.
The beautiful cover and title were an immediate attraction and promised a comforting story about a bookshop. The fantasy part of the book lives up to this expectation. If you can get past the following trigger warnings, there is an engaging fantasy and quest tale waiting, but it's a dark journey.
Trigger warnings for physical, mental, spousal, familial and generational abuse; violence, alcoholism, bullying, three violent deaths, including suicide; a mass military execution, abuse in mental institutions - and the list goes on, including the trampling of women's rights and the involuntary incarceration of sane women in mental institutions as a means of control.
The baffling thing is that the book could have done without most, if not all, of these dark incidents and themes. Many of the dark issues are ongoing today and some took place in the early 1900s, including the execution of volunteer soldiers in WWI for supposed "cowardice." As much as these issues need to be known and addressed, this wasn't the right book to do it. The fantasy alone was enough.
Opaline, Martha and Henry are beautiful characters, well developed and engaging. So engaging that I wanted to protect all of them and was horrified when awful things happened to them. The secondary characters are also well drawn - the hateful ones, the charming ones and the magical, mysterious ones like Madame Bowden.
The fantasy is delightful - a magical bookshop that disappears and reappears according to need. The story tells us that the first Irish owner transported an abandoned, ancient library from Italy in the late 1800s and rebuilt it in Dublin as a curiosity shop. He put the small building together piece by piece and squeezed it in between his home and the home next door.
Opaline in 1921 and Martha and Henry in the 21st century are each drawn to the mysterious bookshop and their stories are skillfully intertwined. The bookstore's revelations and Madame Bowden's magic help them on their journeys while they are going through sad and horrible events in their lives. Opaline and Martha seek refuge; Henry is searching for a lost manuscript. Their quests for self-fulfillment and happiness have many twists and turns, but I was pleased with the ending (except for wondering (view spoiler)[ if Opaline and Martha would deal with guilt or remorse issues. (hide spoiler)])
This page-turning book has much to recommend it if you like fantasy, bookshops, magic, hidden manuscripts and Indiana Jones-like quests, but it's a minefield to traverse.
Some quotes that stood out:
"In a place called lost, strange things are found." (p.117)
"Grief is a constant companion, is it not?" (p.119)
"Once upon a time in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old house." (The beginning of an imaginary book, "A Place Called Lost.") (p.130)
"You think it's strange that a woman has been silenced? Forgotten about? Written out of history? Henry, what have they been teaching you?" (p.133)
"What is something you create, even if you do nothing? The answer was a choice. Choosing not to do something was still a choice." (p.151)
"Conformity is a death sentence. . . . you must embrace what makes you stand out." (p.294)
"I was cursed with that most enduring of human desires - to make my mark." (p.300)
"What you seek is seeking you." (p.364)
"It sort of found me. Stories sometime do." (p.367)
"Before you set out on a journey of revenge, you must dig two graves." (attributed to Confucius) (p.397)
"Lost is not a hopeless place to be. It is a place of patience, of waiting. Lost does not mean gone forever. Lost is a bridge between worlds, where the pain of our past can be transformed into power." (p.410)
"Each person who finds themselves here brings a special gift that if you use it, you can transcend your fears. A story handed down through memory, lives that reveal themselves to you without words, books that breathe their knowledge softy in your ear . . . - all of these things are the real magic . . . " (p.411)
"In order for something to exist, you must first believe in it. Invite your heart to see what your eyes cannot." (p. 417)...more
I purchased this book because it reminded me of the trip my husband and I took to Siberia at the end of August, 1991, one of the most exciti3.5 stars
I purchased this book because it reminded me of the trip my husband and I took to Siberia at the end of August, 1991, one of the most exciting trips we ever experienced (my husband's idea, ha!) We took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Khabarovsk to Irkutsk and Lake Baikal three days after the end of the attempted coup of the government in Moscow when tanks surrounded government buildings. (Yes, I did try to cancel and get my money back, but the travel agency refused and apparently the U.S. government wasn't concerned enough about Siberia to put out a travel warning.) Fortunately for us, not many people in Siberia were aware of the situation except the police and military who were out in numbers. We were welcomed as tourists, given first class treatment on the train and in hotels, something that probably wouldn't happen today if we ever booked another trip.
But back to the book. The author, Sophy Roberts, was in Russia doing research and looking for pianos in Siberia for a period of two years in 2016 and 2017. Her visa was denied for the third year, probably because her quixotic quest sounded suspiciously odd!
Her journey was inspired after attending a music evening in a ger, a yurt-type home on the steppes of Mongolia. The host complained about the quality of the piano and wondered if older pianos found in Siberia might have a quality and tone better suited to the dry climate of Mongolia's steppes. Ms. Roberts, an award winning journalist and travel writer who chronicles places off the beaten path, was intrigued by his question and request to "find a piano" that would adapt well to conditions in Mongolia. It was an assignment tailor-made for her and off she went on a two year quest to find the "right" piano.
The book reads like a day-to-day diary of all her different searches to find old pianos that had been transported to Siberia, even supposedly the last piano of the royal family before they were shot to death in Yekaterinburg. Roberts' search is accompanied by extensive research covering the history of the first pianos in Siberia and Russian history going back to the 1700s.
I was hoping for a little more information about the Trans-Siberian Railway, but was happy that Khabarovsk and Irkutsk each had a chapter. Irkutsk was/is known as the Paris of Siberia and the author did find several pianos there. The pianos had been transported from Moscow by wealthy wives of nobility and cavalry officers who had tried to overthrow the Czar in 1825 (the Decemberist revolt) and were banished for life to Siberia. Some of their wives followed them to Irkutsk bringing music, literature and art.
The history of Russia and of pianos in Siberia was at times very interesting, at times tedious. The black and white photos were a bonus, but some were of very poor quality. Granted, some were quite old, but I wonder if they couldn't have been enhanced before inclusion in the book. The book went on for over 300 pages before the author finally found "the right piano" and had it transported from Siberia to Mongolia.
The author did exhaustive research and documentation of her two year quest. I loved the maps that she included, without which I would have been lost. Great source notes, bibliography, historical chronology, acknowledgements and index were at the end of the book.
My main complaint was the length and excessive detail about some of the inconsequential pianos. I don't know how long the book would have been if the Russian government hadn't denied Roberts' third visa, but I'm glad they did before the book became two volumes. This was a very interesting read, but the length made it 3.5 stars for me....more
If you are looking for an enchanting book, you can find this international bestseller "in the library!"
I liked this book so much I read it twice. It iIf you are looking for an enchanting book, you can find this international bestseller "in the library!"
I liked this book so much I read it twice. It is a whimsical little book that takes you into the lives of five characters from a young shop girl to an older man who has just retired. Add a sixth character and you have an eccentric librarian who sprinkles a bit of magic into their lives to help them along the way.
I loved it that the librarian handed her patrons a children's book or another off-topic book in addition to the books they were looking for and a felted animal or object as a "bonus gift."
This is a great escape book for troubled times - charming and magical it leaves you with hope that you can change your life with a bit of inspiration from a good children's or other enchanting book (reinforced with a "bonus gift!")...more
As much as Goodreads annoys me with its many glitches, I do have to thank it for the many wonderful books that have been suggested by friends4.5 stars
As much as Goodreads annoys me with its many glitches, I do have to thank it for the many wonderful books that have been suggested by friends. True Biz, suggested by my friend, Lisa, is one of those books.
True Biz is not only a wonderful coming-of-age story, it is also educational and enlightening about the deaf community, a community that has been subjugated and oppressed much like other minority communities in the U.S. and other countries.
I enjoyed the coming-of-age story with its "typical" teenage angst, crushes, anxiety, social interactions and explorations into drugs, sex and political movements. I came to care about many of the characters, especially Charlie, Austin, February and their families. I loved their residential school, River Valley School for the Deaf, which allowed the students to interact and achieve (or not) without being stigmatized for being deaf.
True Biz addressed issues including family relationships, elderly parents, dementia, death and grief - issues that affect all types of families, whether hearing, deaf or a combination. I found myself caring, empathizing and tearing up in certain scenes because of how well the characters are drawn.
Discrimination against deaf people in everyday interactions with the hearing community was shown. Miscommunication and misunderstanding issues between hearing and deaf individuals, even those with cochlear implants, were addressed as common and frustrating problems. Other difficult communication problems were between deaf signers and those with cochlear implants who hadn't learned to sign. Sometimes the incidents were funny; other times, sad.
True Biz allowed me to delve into a different world with a wonderful fictional story - but it is so much more than that because of the information about deafness and the deaf community that it imparts. Sometimes, the information was seamlessly woven into the story; other times it was presented throughout the book in separate pages of illustrations, Wikipedia entries or other sources of information. That format was sometimes necessary to illustrate a point in the story; other times I wish it would have been placed elsewhere in the book so as not to disrupt the flow of the story.
The rest of my review deals with interesting non-fiction aspects of True Biz. I have placed it in a spoiler because of length.
(view spoiler)[I was appalled to learn of the bleak history of American Sign Language (ASL) schools being shut down for almost a hundred years starting with the 1880 Milan conference which decided that deaf children should learn to communicate orally without using sign language. Alexander Graham Bell promoted this movement along with his disgusting eugenics focus in which he suggested that deaf people shouldn't marry or have children.
In the late 1960s sign language did make a resurgence with the "total communication" philosophy of Roy Kay Holcomb who said children should use whatever communication method worked best for them depending on their needs.
However, the author includes a depressingly long list of schools for the deaf that have closed from the 1950s to the present and says, "Today's prevailing educational philosophy centers on a mainstream approach, but at what cost? For many deaf and hard-of -hearing students, the result has been a veneer of 'inclusion,' without true equity." (pp. 383-384)
Generations of children in the U.S. never learned to communicate effectively when they lost their schools and their sign language. True Biz relates a theory by scientists that if a child hasn't learned some form of communication (like sign language) by the age of five, they risk "permanent cognitive damage." (p.17)
As for cochlear implants, many of the early ones were defective. In True Biz one of the main characters is electrocuted by her defective cochlear implant and suffers a disfiguring surgery when it is removed. After she was implanted at the age of three, her parents were told not to communicate with her using sign language and to send her to mainstream schools. It was heartbreaking to read how she (representative of thousands of others) struggled to communicate within these confines.
The author quoted NBC News, March 14, 2014, about cochlear implants: "A manufacturer of amazing medical devices known as cochlear implants, which restore hearing to the deaf, sold defective implants to young children and adults for years - even after learning that a significant number of the devices had failed." (one of three quotes at the beginning of the book)
One benefit of the shutdown of ASL schools from the 1880s onward was that Black schools kept using sign language because they were denied the "latest" educational programs. Racism in this instance actually benefitted Black children by keeping sign language in their schools. Black Sign Language (BASL), a dialect of ASL, developed as a result. (p.271)
Many pages in the book are illustrated charts of American Sign Language. ASL has a few similarities to French Sign Language (LSF) because Thomas H. Gallaudet went to France in 1815 to learn methods of deaf education there. Gallaudet brought a French educator, Lauren Cleric, back with him to the U.S. and they established the American School for the Deaf in 1817 in Connecticut, the first deaf school in America. (p.255)
Other interesting historical highlights:
Martha's Vineyard ASL (MVSL) developed because of the isolation of the island and very little genetic diversity. MVSL gradually died out after the American School for the Deaf opened in Connecticut in 1817 and was attended by many children from Martha's Vineyard. There was also less genetic isolation as residents were increasingly able to travel back and forth more easily to the mainland. (p.171)
A chronological history of attempted "cures" for deafness (some of them horrifying) from ancient Egypt (1550 BC) to contemporary times was included. (pp. 205-207) (hide spoiler)]
I started off wanting to give this books five stars, but then dropped it to 4.5 because of several issues:
The sign language charts, although wonderfully illustrated, were distracting because of their many different placements in the book. I wish most of them, except very basic ones like the alphabet, had been placed in an appendix instead of interrupting the flow of the story.
I felt like several pages of information were unnecessary and also intrusive to the story, like the Wikipedia entry for "U.S. anarchist movements, history of" (pp. 236-237). The (hopefully fictional) page from "Revolutionary Recipes" with partial instructions for making explosives (p.341) was a questionable and strange inclusion.
The ending was very abrupt and in some places unbelievable to me. It was as if the author was rushing to finish the story at that point and just wanted to wrap it up quickly.
(view spoiler)[ I wanted to know more about what would happen to the students, staff and their families after the school closed. (hide spoiler)]
True Biz is badly in need of an index for all the extra informational pages interspersed throughout the book.
Regardless of the ending and layout issues, this book well deserves 4.5 stars. It did a remarkable job of enlightening me about the deaf community and helping me understand and have compassion for the many difficult and challenging issues they face.
Addendum (not included in the book): UC Berkeley forced the 100 year old California School for the Deaf to move in the late 1970s by petitioning that it was "seismically unsafe." The university which "had coveted" the deaf school's land for years then took over the land for its own purposes and built dormitories on the "seismically unsafe?" land. This is just one of many takeovers or shutdowns of deaf schools in the U.S. since the 1950s. True Biz includes a long list of those schools in the "author's note" on pages 383-384. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califor......more
11/12/2024 - Reading this lovely book once again and wishing I were walking the beautiful countryside. What a great escape and much needed comfort boo11/12/2024 - Reading this lovely book once again and wishing I were walking the beautiful countryside. What a great escape and much needed comfort book this is.
Thank you to my friend, Hilary, for telling me about this beautiful book! (I read the hardcover edition, but it is not yet listed on Goodreads.) I ordered it for myself and it came just before Christmas. What a treat! It has been delightful curling up and turning page after page of stunning photographs of Norfolk. I felt like I was right there in the saltmarshes with Ruth Galloway.
If you have read the Ruth Galloway series, you will love this companion book. Elly Griffiths does a superb job of pointing out the different places in Norfolk where the Galloway series took place and the accompanying photographs made me wish I were there.
Griffiths also talks about her family and how they influenced her writing, especially her Aunt Marjorie. When Griffiths was a child visiting her grandmother and aunt in Norfolk, her Aunt Marjorie would tell her folktales of "will-o-the-wisps, ghostly apparitions and a spectral hound called the Black Shuck," (p. 7) all of which appeared in the Ruth Galloway books.
There is a map of Norfolk in the front and back inside covers pointing out different places in the Ruth Galloway books, as well as a comprehensive index which also includes the books.
As the book progresses from spring to winter, Norfolk countryside is shown in a vibrant array of changing colors. This book is a feast for the eyes and will probably be my favorite book of the year. Just turning the pages made me happy. My only wish is that I would have had this book while I was reading the series. Still, I will dream about visiting beautiful Norfolk someday. In the meantime, when I read the Ruth Galloway series again, this beautiful book will be by my side!
A few sidelights:
"The oldest human footprints outside Africa were found in Norfolk. . ." (p. 7)
". . . Norwich . . . is famous for having a church, most of them complete with graveyards, for every week of the year - and a pub for every day." (p. 61)
"Norfolk has more surviving medieval churches than any county in England." (p. 82)
A beautiful word that I encountered while reading one of the Ruth Galloway books is also mentioned in this book with a stunning photograph of a "murmuration" of starlings, (p. 127). A murmuration is "a large group of birds, usually starlings, that fly all together and change direction together" swooping and swirling in the sky....more
Ray Bradbury, master storyteller, thank you for all the years we have been mesmerized and dazzled by your tales of wonder, of worlds we never dreamed Ray Bradbury, master storyteller, thank you for all the years we have been mesmerized and dazzled by your tales of wonder, of worlds we never dreamed of, of the human condition, of love and hate, of dystopian nightmares, and by your beautiful writing. The golden apples of the sun is one of your treasures.
When asked about the title for this book and the last story Bradbury said it was a metaphor for the last line of Yeats' beautiful poem below, The Song of Wandering Aengus (last stanza). Bradbury said he was introduced to romantic poetry by his wife, Maggie, and fell in love with it.
Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.
Hard as it was to choose a favorite story in this book, the first story, The Fog Horn, a haunting tale of loneliness and unrequited love captivated us and will always remain my favorite....more
A fun, diverting mystery perfect for a plane read or short escape. Koko the cat, Siamese super sleuth, teams up with investigative reporter Jim QwilleA fun, diverting mystery perfect for a plane read or short escape. Koko the cat, Siamese super sleuth, teams up with investigative reporter Jim Qwilleran to solve murder, mayhem and a series of art heists. Leave it to the cat to be the centerpiece of this dream team. If you like this one, there are 28 more cat tales by the prolific Lilian Jackson Braun awaiting you....more
This collection was much better than volume 2. Among others, there are short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Charles This collection was much better than volume 2. Among others, there are short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Charles Dickens, Ellery Queen, Thomas Hardy, A.A. Milne and G.K. Chesterton. I loved the first story by John Collier, "Back for Christmas," a wonderfully crafted story in only 5-1/2 pages. Several cartoons by one of the kings of the macabre, Gahan Wilson, are scattered throughout....more
Sheriff Walt Longmire is back in the saddle again chasing flesh and blood bad guys (and some dead ones too) in Absaroka County, Wyoming. Welcome back Sheriff Walt Longmire is back in the saddle again chasing flesh and blood bad guys (and some dead ones too) in Absaroka County, Wyoming. Welcome back to the 21st century, Walt! I missed you when you were up there in Montana fighting evil spirits in the 19th century. It's good to have you back even though I appreciated you illuminating the tragic history of Native American boarding schools in Hell and Back. I am continuing this series in memory of my husband who loved Longmire as much as I do....more
A riveting first person account by New Zealand Captain F.A. Worsley whose brilliant navigation skills turned a failed expedition into a triumph of surA riveting first person account by New Zealand Captain F.A. Worsley whose brilliant navigation skills turned a failed expedition into a triumph of survival. Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to traverse the Antarctic continent from "sea to sea" became a harrowing survival tale for twenty-eight men after their ship, the HMS Endurance became frozen in the ice early in 1915 and sank ten months later.
What follows is a jaw dropping tale of courage, perseverance and the Herculean efforts by Shackleton and his crew to survive and reach safety. Sir Edmund Hilary called it "one of the most remarkable stories of survival in recorded history." Their ship's name became their legacy as they faced towering open seas in tiny boats, constant hunger, thirst, frostbite, life-threatening accidents and killer whales. That's just a few of the dangers they faced.
Accompanied by pages of incredible photographs, this astounding survival tale was one of my husband's favorite books and is now one of mine. ...more
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