Author: gr4c5

I write. I read. I cook. I run. That's me, in a nutshell.

Daughter of Fortune

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Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune. New York: Perennial, 2000.

This took me three days to read thanks to a five hour car ride, an hour boat ride and an evening by the sea. Read the day before, the day of, and the day after Isabel Allende’s birthday.

Daughter of Fortune is the didactic tale of what happens when you become so obsessed with a thought, a feeling that you carry the obsession long after you remember why or what it was all about. This is the complicated saga of Eliza Sommers, raised as an orphan by a Victorian brother and sister – strict and unfeeling Jeremy and his spinster sister Rose. Secrets abound in Daughter of Fortune. When Eliza falls in love with delivery boy Joaquin Andieta her whole life changes. An obsession to be his “slave” claims her and compels her to follow him from Valparasio, Chile to California during the gold rush of 1849.

Best lines to remember: “Many years later, standing before a human head preserved in a jar of gin, Eliza would remember the first meeting with Joaquin Andieta and again experience the same unbearable anguish” (p 80). This line, if you remember it 150 pages later, gives away the entire story. Another line to remember, “The girl felt that she was opening like a carnivorous flower, emitting demonic perfumes to attract her man like a Venus’s-flytrap, crushing him, swallowing him, digesting him, and finally spitting out the splinters of his bones” (p 94) and one more, “‘I told you before that a fixation of the heart is very stubborn: it burrows into the brain and breaks the heart. There are many fixations but love is the worst'” (p 129). Wise words from the Machi.

Best word in the book: epizootic.

Author Fact: According to Allende’s website she has received 12 honorary doctorates. I enjoyed poking around the family photos the most.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s (food)” (p 73).


August ’11 is…

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I know that I will spending my first week of August out to sea. Such an enjoyable place for enjoying books! I know that August is another chance at music – Miss Rebecca Correia and a little band called 10,000 Maniacs. What else do I know about August? Not much. I know I am taking two books with me:

  • Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. If I want to still “honor” something I could say I’m reading this in honor of August being National Ocean month. Allende’s lead character takes a boat from Chile to America in search of her gold rush crazed lover.
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf ~ bringing this for the sake of something else in the bag.

As for anything else I haven’t the slightest idea. I am still trying to read the books within my reach so the whole “read-this-book-to-honor-this-thing” isn’t really happening. I have been enjoying this seat of my pants kind of selection. Other books I hope to get to:

  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  • While I Was Out by Sue Miller
  • The Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer

I will have another Early Review book soon but until it actually arrives it’s best not to mention it.

July ’11 was…

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Where the fukc do I start (besides the fact that I’m posting this very late)? July 2011 was hell with a twisted sense of humor. Chronological speaking the first week of July was first a new car, then a wedding, then a quick trip to Monhegan and Kennebunkport (not impressed). A first week of fireworks and fun. The second week of July was an eight hour drive to Chautauqua, New York to see (from dead center second row, thank you very much) Miss Natalie Merchant at her best. A stunning performance I won’t soon forget. The third week was another trip to Maine, burying my grandfather, having my house robbed, and struggling to make sense of administrative setbacks. Week four was Kisa having to replace a tire on the truck, replace a cracked skimmer on the pool, our hot water heater flooding the basement in the middle of the night and lots and lots of home security upgrades. The ongoing issue is Jones freaking out. I don’t know what happened during the robbery but I do know he’s not the same. Insane to get out, he claws and cries and scrambles frantically at every door and window. He acts like a tortured prisoner. In the midst of all this chaos I have tried my best to keep reading. It was only semi-successful. Many fitful starts, few finishes:

  • Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts ~ in honor of it being a book within reach while I was on Monhegan. I think this should be a movie.
  • House of Mirth by Edith Wharton ~ in honor of New York becoming a state in July. Greedy book. I didn’t completely finish it. I got the point three quarters of the way through it and got the point.
  • Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe ~ in honor of Burton Bennett’s birthday. This was made into a movie & no, I didn’t finish the book or see the movie. Another greedy book.
  • Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin ~ in honor of it being a book in the library. I was ten pages shy of finishing this one.
  • It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong ~ in honor of the Tour de France. I will never look at this book the same way again for it was what I was reading on the ride home from the burial…and yes, I finished it …when we pulled into the driveway.
  • Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field ~ in honor of going to Rachel’s “home” state, Maine.
  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen ~ I barely finished this (supposed to be read in August in honor of Franzen’s birth month). I’m waiting for the movie version.

And for LibraryThing and the Early Review Program:

  • Deadly Indifference: The Perfect (Political) Storm: Hurricane Katrina, the Bush White House and Beyond by Michael D. Brown and Ted Schwarz ~ I didn’t finish this. After awhile it got really repetitive with all the blame and finger pointing.
  • Pretty by Jillian Lauren ~ I loved this book. I loved how raw and messed up it was.

We ended July the exact same way we started it – with a road trip and awesome music. A blog about Rebecca Correia’s fantastic farm show will be posted on the other side.

Corrections

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Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections. New York: Picador, 2001.

The Corrections tackles the global scope of economic crisis while microscopically analyzing the dynamics of a family in turmoil. This is Franzen’s criticism of society on multiple levels.The time line bounces around a family history to give the reader a complete profile of each family member; a sort of explanation for why they are the way they are, if you will. Mom Enid is a submissive housewife who feels trapped by her tyrannical husband, Alfred. And she is. Dad Alfred is a retired railroad engineer who suffers from the early stages of dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Eldest son Gary is an alcoholic banker who thinks his life is being controlled by his wife and three sons and becomes increasingly paranoid as a result. Middle child Chip is a professor who lost his tenure-tract position when he indulged in an affair with a student. Finally, youngest child Denise is an accomplished chef who loses her job when she indulged in an affair with her boss and his wife. If the characters aren’t straying they’re thinking about it. The entire novel centers around the fact Enid wants her entire family home for Christmas. The needling, begging, whining and general malaise of the every character will strike a chord with all readers.

I wanted to read something by Franzen in honor of his August 17th birthday but found myself jumping the gun when I needed something interesting to read on yet another road trip.

Author Fact: Franzen created controversy when he voiced concern about The Corrections being selected for Oprah’s book club. His opinion was men wouldn’t read it if Oprah’s book club label was on the cover. As a result Oprah rescinded the selection.

Book Trivia: A movie version of The Corrections has been in the works for a long time but nothing is “in the can” so to speak.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters – first, in the chapter “Families in Trouble: (p 82) and then in the chapter called “Postmodern Condition” (p 190).

House of Mirth

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Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. New York: Signet Classic, 1964.

House of Mirth is one of those classics you read to analyze society from several different angles: society and the woman’s role it in; society and the pitfalls of economic status (or lack there of); society and the role of etiquette. House of Mirth is the book you read in college, in grad school and then go on to write about in your dissertation.
In a nutshell, Lily Bart is an orphaned young woman desperate to keep up with the Joneses. She is in love with status and wealth. After her father’s ruin and subsequent death, Lily’s mother pins her hopes of future fortunes on her daughter’s good looks. Only she too passes before Lily can put her beauty to good use and be married off to some wealthy bachelor. Lily is then taken in by a wealthy relation who tests Lily’s morality in the face of greed and luxury. In a modern spin, Lily is a classic gold digger, looking to “land” a prosperous mate at whatever cost.

Best lines:
How Lily describes New York, “”Other cities put on their best clothes in the summer, but New York seems to sit in its shirtsleeves”” (p 7). How I sometimes feel, “She wanted to get away from herself, and conversation was the only means of escape that she knew” (p 20).
The perfect example of Lily’s “sacrifice” for wealth, “She had been bored all the afternoon by Percy Gryce – the mere thought seemed to waken an echo of his droning voice – but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honor of boring her for life” (p 29). Really?

Author Fact: Edith Wharton got married when she was in her early 20s in 1885 but wasn’t afraid to get a divorce 28 years later. Rock on, girl!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “New York, New York” (p 170). But, also from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1900s (p 175).

It’s Not About the Bike

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Armstrong, Lance. It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.New York: Berkley Books, 2001.

I read this in one sitting, again as a passenger on a trip from Maine. I had the luck (?) of traffic on my side so instead of the usual 4.5 hours to get home it took us over six.

I will be 100% honest. I don’t know what to think about this book. When I first finished it I was expecting some sort of lesson to be learned, some sort of moral to the story. Instead I found the ending as well, an ending. The end. I’m not sure why it wasn’t more for me. I guess it’s because in comparison with Matthew Long’s recovery back to athletics Long’s process was more drawn out, more detailed. I felt that Long’s experience was more painful and not as easy to cope with emotionally. I think that was due, in part, to how little time Armstrong spent describing his road to recovery. In comparison to Long, Armstrong made it a much simpler process with much less emotion. To be fair, one man was hit by a bus and another was hit by cancer in three different areas of his body. Only two similarities really rise between the two men. Both men were ordained by doctors to die and both had an insane willpower to defy all odds and, ultimately, get back to the sports they loved so much.

Everyone knows Lance Armstrong’s story – man with cancer defies the odds and wins the Tour de France a shocking seven consecutive times. But, as the title of Armstrong’s story suggests it’s not about the bike. Instead it is about a different kind of competition. Fighting cancer. Ultimately, as near death moments will do, cancer changed him. It woke him up to the possibilities of a fuller, more meaningful life. He never would have become a philanthropist without the experience of personal pain. It’s Not about the Bike is that journey from hotshot cyclist to a powerhouse with a greater purpose.

Favorite lines: “If there is a defining characteristic of a man as opposed to a boy, maybe it’s patience” (p 65). “During our lives we’re faced with so many different elements as well, we experience so many setbacks, and fight such hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and to have a little hope” (p 69). Finally, “We watched the World Series and tried to act like we were interested in the outcome – as much as anybody really cares about baseball before brain surgery” (p 110 – 111).

Author fact(s): Two of my favorite details about Armstrong as the person (and not the writer) is he is also a marathoner (three times) and allegedly agnostic.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Teens” (p 23)

Giovanni’s Room

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Baldwin, James. “Giovanni’s Room.” Early Novels and Stories. New York: Library of America, 1998. 221 – 360.

I want to say Giovanni’s Room is ground breaking but that’s only because it puts homosexuality front and center at a time when one’s sexual orientation wasn’t so openly discussed (1956). The beauty of the story is that it could take place today or tomorrow in any city or town on the planet. Admitting homosexuality isn’t any easier today than it was over a half century ago. Giovanni’s Room has been called autobiographical because it mirrors Baldwin’s personal life: an American expatriate living in France openly engaged to a woman while secretly attracted to men. David is constantly questioning his manhood because he seeks the company of men. His engagement to Hella is nothing more than a cover for his true desires. When his Italian bartender/lover is accused of murder David’s world falls apart. More than the plot, Baldwin’s writing much be savored. The pictures he paints are raw and honest.

Favorite line: “And we got on quite well, really, for the vision I gave my father of my life was exactly the vision in which I myself most desperately needed to believe” (p 235). I think that is the most telling line of the whole story.

Author Fact: Baldwin was a child Pentecostal preacher before the age of 17. He died of stomach cancer in his early 60s.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: He Says” (p 10).

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years

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Field, Rachel. Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. New York: Dell, 1957.

When I first learned of the premise for Hitty I cringed. It has gotten so hard for me to read outlandish stories. The suspension of belief is getting much harder to suspend these days. But, I am happy to say Hitty was different.

In a nutshell Hitty: Her First Hundred Years is about the first hundred years of a doll’s life. Made out of well-seasoned mountain-ash wood, Hitty is a sturdy, made to last doll. She is given to a small girl named Phoebe Preble sometime in the early 1800s. The Preble family makes their home outside of Portland, Maine and Phoebe’s father is a whaling captain. When we first meet Hitty, she is a resident of an antique store and has set out to write the memoirs of the first hundred years of her life. And what a life the first hundred have been! During her time with the Preble family she was abandoned in a church, kidnapped by crows, taken out to sea where her ship first springs a leak and later catches on fire; she becomes lost at sea, found again only to be given away as a heathen idol, and finally, dropped somewhere in India – never to be seen by the Preble family again. Hitty (whose real name is Mehitabel) goes on to be owned by a succession of little girls, some kind, some not. There are great periods of time when she is stored in an attic trunk or wedged in couch cushions. One hundred years goes by very quickly for both Hitty and the reader. (I was able to read the whole book in less than three hours.)
My only complaint – Hitty admitted to not knowing what a train was yet in India she recognized a cobra on sight.

Favorite line, “Which only goes to show how little any of us can tell about our own futures” (p112). I like this line because it’s in reference to not knowing when Hitty will return to Maine. I can relate.
The other element I liked about this book is the timelessness of it. Someone “threatens” to wear a nose ring when she is older. I can picture the same “threat” being made today. Another example: later Hitty attends a concert of a famous singer. The throngs of people crowding around the celebrity is very much like the crush of crowds at any concert today.

Author Fact(s): Field was originally from Stockbridge, MA and moved to Maine when she was 15 years old. She died when she was only 48.

Book Trivia: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years won two awards, the Newbery Award when it was first published in 1929 and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award many years later.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the introduction (p x) – mentioned as a book Nancy Pearl read as a child.

Bonfire of the Vanities

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Wolfe, Tom. The bonfire of the Vanities.New York: Bantam Books, 1988

I will admit I never saw the movie of the same name. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because as a 19 year old I didn’t have time to go to the movies. I was working four different part-time jobs on a little island that has never boasted of a theater.

This is, by far, the most wicked of social satires that I have read so far. Wolfe’s world in The Bonfire of the Vanities is a delicious clash of wealth and poverty, prejudices and avarice, sex and scandal. It seems like the perfect movie for the self indulgent 1980s. There is not a single likable character in the entire story. Everyone is on their way to being corrupted by greed. Greed for money, greed for power, greed for what they don’t have. In their worlds the grass is always greener on the other side of Central park, the other side of the marriage.
Bonfire of the Vanities takes a single incident and illustrates the domino effect one wrong turn and one bad mistake can have. Sherman McCoy is an unhappy Wall Street bonds man who is having an affair with the wife of an aging billionaire. He isn’t supposed to be with her, she isn’t supposed to be with him – a typical scenario for the story. So, when they take a wrong turn and end up lost in a bad section of the the Bronx their car strikes a black teenage boy, possibly killing him. They argue their way out of going to the police, convincing themselves it didn’t happen the way each of them think. Deciding not to tell is their downfall.
When the political Reverend Bacon hears of this “accident” from the mother of the victim the racial significance of the event is not lost on him. Witnesses claim the driver was white so he pushes alcoholic journalist, Peter Fallow, to pursue the story. Peter’s piece about a black youth who was the victim of a hit and run sends the media into a frenzy. Soon Bronx District Attorney Abe Weiss, up for re-election, is out for blood. He knows this is the perfect platform for garnering votes: hang the hit and run driver whatever it takes. Larry Kramer, assistant D.A., does exactly that with barely any evidence: an undamaged car, an eyewitness, and Sherman McCoy’s reluctance to cooperate.

Author Fact: probably the coolest thing (more relevant to me) was that Tom Wolfe used to be a reporter for the Springfield Union paper.

Book Trivia: Bonfire of the Vanities was made into a movie in 1990 and starred Tom Hanks and Melanie Griffith. Interestingly enough, it was a box office flop while the written word was a smashing success.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade (1980s)” (p 179).

Pretty

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Lauren, Jillian. Pretty: a Novel. New York: Plume, 2011.

This is another one of those can’t-put-down books that I read in just seven hours time (on a car ride from Jamestown, New York to Western MA).  I was mesmerized by the characters, the story, everything. Beth “Bebe” Baker has just lost her boyfriend in a horrific accident. Disfigured from crawling over broken glass and deeply dependent on drugs she enters a halfway house to find sobriety and a sense of self. There, and at the cosmetology school, she meets a cast of misfit characters who take her under their own broken wings. It’s a troubling tale of coming to terms with not just the past, but the unknown future as well.
Before reading Pretty I had just finished reading Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts and I think I had that storyline running through my head because I found a few similarities where there shouldn’t have been. Letts’s character, Novalee Nation, shares many personality traits and similar experiences with Lauren’s character, Beth “Bebe” Baker. Both are young woman essentially far from home and practically homeless (Novalee lives in a Wal-Mart and Bebe lives in a rehab halfway house). Less than scrupulous men abandon both women. Both women deal with pregnancy. Both women adopt creatives outlets as a coping mechanism and a means of escape (Novalee takes up photography while Bebe studies cosmetology). Both women search for salvation in the arms of a quirky community of misfits. Both experience the return of lovers and learn to let go.
But for all that, this is where the similarities end. Lauren’s style of writing in Pretty is raw, gritty, real. While the title of the book is  Pretty Bebe is someone who isn’t always pretty. She has her moments of displaying downright ugly. This characteristic just makes her all the more human. One example of this reality is the wearing down of her resolve to stay away from someone less than good for her. This man is a connection to her drug addled past and Bebe knows that in order to remain sober she needs refuse all contact with him. She does well to ignore his phone calls until the rest of her life starts to unravel and she weakens…but isn’t that always the way?
This is a quick read…but that’s a good thing because that only means you’ll have time to start at page one and read it all over again.

Where the Heart Is

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Lette, Billie. Where the Heart Is. New York: Warner Books, 1995.

This was another “reread” book. I don’t know when I read it first, but I do remember not liking it as much as the second time. The first time I found everything just a tad unbelievable, the people and plot a little unreal. I have since changed my mind. About everything.

When we first meet Novalee Nation, she is seven months pregnant and about to be abandoned by her no-good boyfriend. Luckily for her, Novalee’s boyfriend picks a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma where Novalee decides to take up residence when she realizes Willy Jack isn’t coming back. As a seventeen-year-old Novalee is incredibly conscientious. She keeps track of every item she takes from Wal-Mart while in residence (canned Spam, maternity clothes, a sleeping bag…) and during the day tries to be as inconspicuous as possible. No one questions this strange pregnant girl roaming around town. In fact, she befriends a few of the community members on the very first day by taking their picture. These caring, generous people will become Novalee’s lifeline and family after her baby girl, Americus, is born. In a sea of goodwill there are a few tragic events that give a well-placed reality to the story.The town of Sequoya suffers a devastating tornado and later Novalee’s best friend is brutally attacked by a man who originally seemed too good to be true. Finally, there is the return of Willy Jack. These events help temper the sticky sweetness of the rest of the plot.

Best lines:  “And suddenly, Novalee knew- knew what she hadn’t known before. She wasn’t who she had been. She would never again be who she was before” (p 157).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s” (p 73). Where the Heart Is is not mentioned in More Book Lustbecause of anything more than a mention of an orange almond bisque (the range of the 600s in the dewey decimal system includes applied sciences – cooking).

Deadly Indifference

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Brown, Michael D. and Ted Schwarz. Deadly Indifference: the Perfect (Political) Storm” Hurricane Katrina, the Bush White House, and Beyond. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2011.

I have to wonder if there is a tell-all grace period. Wait so many years, put so much distance between now and then, and then spill the beans with abandon. Deadly Indifference is that type of book. Michael Brown was Under Secretary of Homeland Security during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. As Director of FEMA he was the appointed scapegoat of the entire fiasco and for all intents and purposes Deadly Indifference is his chance to clear his name. This is his opportunity to set the record straight and blame other people. As former Under Secretary of Homeland Security he has nothing to lose and therefore can tell all with straightforward clarity. It is to be expected that Brown points the finger everywhere but himself. In the first chapter I was even wondering if he was going to blame the residents of New Orleans simply because they willingly chose to live in a “fishbowl” city well below sea level. When Brown does get around to placing some of the blame on himself he does so lightly and delicately. His heavy hand is reserved for people like New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisana governor Kathleen Blanco. While Brown’s book is thought provoking one would benefit from reading several different accounts of what went wrong before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. It would be interesting to compare this to someone with an unbiased point of view.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

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Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. New York: Berkley Books, 1983.

I don’t remember when I first read Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. I know that there was a time when I devoured anything Anne Tyler wrote. I’m sure this was first read during that phase. I’ve always pictured this as a movie. It should be a movie.

There is no doubt Tyler wanted Dinner to be a character novel. The plot moves slow enough so that more emphasis is placed on the people within the constraints of the narrow storyline. The characters swell and grow beyond the plot, making them the focal point. For example, Cody does enough rotten things that it should be impossible for the reader to like him and maybe even go so far as to hate him and yet, one finds ways to feel sorry for him because he is not his mother’s favorite child. He’s not even her second favorite. I find it interesting that no matter how rotten Tyler made Cody out to be I couldn’t help but pity him. His “lashing out” made me want to protect him and love him. He even had his quiet moments of kindness, “Cody took a pinch of Jenny’s coat sleeve so as not to lose her” (p 61). In fact, all of the characters are this way. Pearl Tull is an abusive, angry mother but you have to pity her because her husband walked out on her for apparently no reason. She is left to raise three small children completely on her own. Cody, the oldest, is only eight when his father leaves. Jenny is the middle child and Ezra is the youngest. All three children grow to be self-absorbed adults with difficult-to-love personalities. And yet, yet you want them to be okay.

Favorite revelations: “It was if, by mutual agreement, they had split the city between them” (p 80), “He’d had a long day – standing outside other people’s lives mostly – and he needed the exercise” (p 145), and “Couldn’t you classify a person…purely by examining his attitude towards food?” (p 162).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in three different chapters. First in “Families in Trouble” (p 82). Also, from the chapters called “Mothers and Sons” (p 161) and “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1980” (p 179). I’m reading Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant to celebrate food.

July ’11 is…

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July 2011 promises to be one crazy month. See, I’m already a week late posting this because I have been off hiking some cliffs in Maine. Here’s what’s been oging on so far:
Batman entered my life on the first day of July. I’m sure I’ll never look at the open road the same way again. I’ve been on vacation for the first week of July – again, a crazy time. Said that already. Been sleeping in five different places in one week. There was one wedding so far. Later in the month there will be at least three concerts (Further, Natalie Merchant & Rebecca Correia), Kisa’s birthday, a burial, and who knows what else will happen! Because things are so scattered I’ve decided to not plan out July’s reading list. I really didn’t have time to plan ahead, to be totally honest. I know that I have packed Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe to bring on vacation. I’ll be reading it in honor of Burton Bennett, but that’s all I’ve planned for now…More later!

This is short and sweet, but c’est la vie!

June ’11 was…

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What a weird month June ended up being! I wanted to stop borrowing books from other libraries while mine went through a transition period with it’s catalog. I chose one book to read, And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hoover Santmyer which I thought would take me the entire month of June. How wrong I was…about everything. First, the migration is delayed so I could have borrowed books from other libraries. In that one instance the library stayed the same while everything else changed: the entire building has had every light bulb changed, I’m in the process of hiring two new people (and an architect for a complete overhaul of the library’s layout), in September I will have three staff members working nights, only two people are in their same offices, and I even got new furniture. What a difference a month makes. I was also wrong about finishing And Ladies of the Club. I was bored to tears. So I moved on to:

  • Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan in honor of D-Day on June 6th, 1944.
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan in honor of June being Family month.
  • Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe in honor of June being National Short Story month.
  • Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler in honor of Food Week

Not a huge month for reading. I spent a lot of time focusing on life in the here and now…