Valentine Maturing
This book takes up where 'Very Valentine' left off. (Read 'Very Valentine' first). The book begins with Valentine's grandmother getting married in Italy. When Valentine returns to New York she is making new plans for her custom shoe business with the help of her friends, Gabriel and Bret, her brother Alfred, and her grandmother's colleague, June. June takes on a larger role in this book. We love her spunk and wisdom and her ability to be accepting. Valentine is grappling with her feelings about her short lived romance in Italy with Gianluca. And she unearths a family secret that takes her to Buenos Aires to meet a long lost cousin,Roberta, who is also in the shoe making business! The role of family is still integral in this book. Valentine witnesses several different marriages in her life and is deciphering what she would like for her own future. This soap opera was fun to listen to and I can't wait for the third in the series to tie it all up! (Ciao, Valentine)
A book about the challenges of being thirty something
I just love this author. She writes to Nancy Pearl's pillars of a great book: great writing, well-written characters, great settings, and a good story/plot. Valentine is a modern young woman in her early thirties and she is discovering what she believes about love and family and her career as a shoe designer. The story is set in both New York and Italy which are both well-described. Valentine is working in the family business with her grandmother as her mentor and friend. The business is experiencing some fiscal troubles since they hand craft the shoes for a niche market--weddings. As Valentine learns to diversify she also learns to be proud of tradition and embrace her heritage. Her Italian family is rich in fun and lovable people and it is great to see them through her eyes. A very fun read that has elements of truth and respect in it. I liked the injection of a reference to "The Elves and the Shoemaker" which is one of my all time favorite folk tales.
What if you became friends with a spiritual leader?
This is a deceptively simple novel about a man named Otto who is in his mid-life. He is satisfied with the status quo. Then an opportunity occurs, (because his sister is friends with a man named Volya, a Skovorodinian monk who is considered enlightened and a promising spiritual writer) for Otto to go on a road trip for a couple of weeks with a man who is completely different than himself (Volya). First Otto resists everything about Volya. Over time he realizes that he can learn from Volya. The lessons are small or are they? Actually, the lessons are life changing. As Otto learns to respect Volya he also sees life around him with new lenses. He examines his own childhood and family. He examines his married life with children. At the end of the book he is set on a new path for the next part of his life. Although purely fiction, the author has studied many religious and spiritual traditions and weaves the best of them into this book.
A great modern celebration of Shakespeare
I loved the household that these three sisters grew up in where their parents were madly in love; where there dad was a Shakespeare professor so it was all Shakespeare all the time; where reading was a passion of all the household members. All three sisters return to their childhood home as they are grappling with each of their own adult issues and they rally around their mother who has cancer. Coming home is a growth time for them. The book is amazing in that it is written in the "voice" of all three of the women. This took a while to get used to--maybe because I just kept asking myself, "who is narrating?" but it was an unusual and fantastic way of relaying the story. A great read!
Letter to My Daughter
On the night before her fifteenth birthday, Liz gets into a heated argument with her mother that ends with Liz running away from home. Laura, the anguished and guilt-ridden mother, is left sitting in their Baton Rouge home praying for Liz's quick and safe return. To pass the time, Laura decides to write her daughter a letter about her own troubled adolescence. In doing so, she hopes to give Liz insight that she does understand what she is going through. Laura's parents had her sent to a strict Catholic boarding school following her forbidden relationship with a boy from the wrong part of town. In the telling of her story, the reader is transported to a time when some things were different but others very much the same.
This is a great coming of age novel that women, both young and old, can relate to. It is an extremely fast read at less than 150 pages, but it will touch you for a very long time. Have a box of Kleenex nearby when you read this one - for a man, George Bishop captures the pain of being a teenage girl and a mother with astonishing accuracy. Well done!
This Book is 50 years old this year!
This year marks the 50th anniversary of this book and this book is just as "fresh" today as when it was written. The book is written from the point of view of a Native American patient(Chief Bromden) in an asylum who is assumed to be deaf and dumb because he has never spoken anything. His silence allows him to be keenly observant of everything that is going on in the ward (& to be overlooked). A new patient enters the scene, McMurphy, and he turns everything upside down. Is McMurphy insane or isn't he? Chief Bromden doesn't think he is especially because he knows he can hear and speak almost immediately.
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A sensitive novel about how it would be to marry a man who is bipolar and how to stick it out with him. The author deftly captures how this man, Mick, would be fighting his ups and downs. How he would be living his life in between bouts of hospitalization. How he would need support from many different avenues. This book is a love story about how Mick finds the love of his life, Lucy, and how they build a marriage. Challenges occur for them. Lucy gets cancer. Lucy also has an accidental pregnancy. How do Mick and Lucy traverse these challenges? You will have to read the book to find out! This book is very well done down to the title itself.
Music from the True Vine
Bill C. Malone, author of Country Music USA and many other definitive books about southern music, introduces us to Mike Seeger, the lesser-known half-brother of folksinger, Pete Seeger. Mike was born to Charles and Ruth Seeger, musicologists and composers. The Seeger family was noted for their passionate interest in the world of music, particularly that of the true vine or down-home music performed by southerners prior to the media age. Pete Seeger acknowledged that his half-brother was more musically-talented than himself. Mike was proficient at the mandolin, French harp, guitar, Jew’s harp, panpipes, dulcimer and his favorite instrument, the banjo. He rejected formal music training as a young man and learned to play all his musical instruments by ear. He was a member of The New Lost City Ramblers. This group had the distinction of being fathers of the string-band movement. Malone covers the family background, Seeger’s family life, and musical career in great detail
Unusual and Unique Love Stories
After having this title on my wish list for several months, I was very excited when book made its way into my hands. This collection is a wonderfully fresh look at short stories with an Indian flair. Centering around love in many different forms these stories put a great twist on the traditional story. The first story, which is one of my favorites, it about a tiger who thinks he has fallen in love with his keeper. Who better for a tiger to love than the one who they can depend on to bring them food and attention on schedule every day? On this fateful day that the tiger realizes his deep affection for his keeper, things begin to go awry as the daily meals arrive much too late for the tiger. Starved and agitated when the keeper finally arrives, the tiger's attempts to demonstrate how fond of the keeper he is take a gory turn as the tiger's natural instincts take over. The mauling of the keeper is only the awful start to where the day goes bad as the tiger runs around the zoo trying to find someone to help his poor injured love. The most interesting thing about this story is that it is told from the tiger's view point. As a charming and alarming story, this is a great example of what to expect from this book; something just a little bit unusual and unique.
Meet this author at the Fox Cities Book Festival on Sunday, April 15, 2012!
Perfect! The author thought of everything! I just adored how creative and soulful this book was. We see the story from three different points of view (Lynnie, Homan, Martha) and eventually a fourth (Kate). As each person is painted in their part of the story, they are self-actualizing. It is marvelous. Also a considerable amount of time is covered, from 1968 to the present. The changes in American culture are carefully reflected in the ongoing unfolding. Lynnie (beautiful girl) is put away in an institution, by her family, because she is considered retarded. Homan works at the institution and he is misunderstood himself because he is deaf. He is simply called "42". However, Lynnie calls him "Buddy" and he calls her "beautiful girl." Their friendship and respect for one another swiftly develops into love. They make a break for it and Lynnie has given birth to a baby girl but although Homan delivered the baby he is not the father. They arrive at the farmhouse of Martha (an ex-schoolteacher) who is a sensitive soul.
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