Two Old Women
Posted: 2020/04/08 Filed under: Book Reviews, E-Books, Fiction, Lust To Go | Tags: 2020, alaska, april, book lust iii, book review, Fiction, James Grant, Velma Wallis, women 1 CommentWallis, Velma. Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival. New York: Perennial, 1993.
Reason read: Seward Day is in March.
Two old women do not know each other very well before being abandoned by their People. Surviving the wilds of Arctic Circle Alaska is serious business, especially when you are elderly. Winter is closing in, food is scarce, and it is time for the tribe to be moving on. The Athabaskan Chief and his Council make the tough decision to leave their weakest behind in order to survive the harsh elements. This means seventy-five year old Sa’ and eighty year old Ch’idzigyaak are left to fend for themselves: finding food, making clothes, securing shelter, and staving off loneliness. These women are tough and resourceful, which makes for great perseverance.
Spoiler alert. This has a happy ending so you know the women survive. That wasn’t the plot twist for me. What I didn’t expect was the women’s fear of their tribe “finding” them again. They were suspicious of potential malevolent behavior (including cannibalism) if they were discovered to have survived. Even when they are reunited with their People, it takes time to trust them again. Who can blame them?
In my modern day society, I thought could not imagine a society where a community leaves its elderly behind, knowing full well they will probably will die. But then again, oh wait. I do. Italy, March 2020. They had to make the hard decision to not offer ventilators to anyone over the age of 80. Survival of the fittest.
Quote I liked best, “The body needs food but the mind needs people” (p 65).
Author fact: Wallis was born in the Alaskan interior. Two Old Women is her first novel.
Book trivia: Two Old Women was illustrated by James Grant.
Nancy said: Pearl actually didn’t chose Two Old Women. She asked author Dana Stabenow to select some Alaskan titles. Stabenow said Two Old Women is very controversial in Alaska.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “All Set For Alaska” (p 15).
White Sky, Black Ice
Posted: 2019/03/18 Filed under: Book Reviews, Fiction, Lust To Go | Tags: 2019, alaska, book lust iii, book review, Fiction, march, murder, mystery, police, series Leave a commentJones, Stan. White Sky, Black Ice. New York: Soho Press, 1999.
Reason read: Alaska’s Seward Day takes place in March.
The first book in Stan Jones’s Nathan Active series has the task of painting a picture of who Nathan Active is. The character development is slow in regards to Active’s personality. Jones spends a lot of time building the backstory of Active’s adoption after his fifteen year old Inupiat mother gave him up. He was raised by a white couple in Anchorage and grew up to be a state trooper. Here’s the rub: he has been posted back in his little birth village of Chukchi where he feels torn between the cultures of his upbringing and the traditions in his blood. He’s an obvious outsider, being raised in the big city. But when atypical suicides start happening one right after the other Active decides to listen to his ancestral roots and dig in.
Confessional: because White Sky, Black Ice takes an environmental spin I kept thinking of Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. She also tackles the theory that our planet is going to hell.
Author fact: Stan Jones launched the Kotzubue newspaper. He was also an editor for a couple of other newspapers.
Book trivia: White Sky, Black Ice is the first in the Nathan Active series.
Nancy said: Pear said nothing specific except to say White Sky, Black Ice is the first in a series.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the interesting chapter “All Set For Alaska” (p 14).
Fine and Bitter Snow
Posted: 2019/02/14 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction | Tags: 2019, alaska, book lust i, book review, Dana Stabenow, february, Fiction, murder, mystery, series Leave a commentStabenow, Dana. A fine and Bitter Snow. New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2002.
Reason read: to continue the sequel started in January in honor of the month Alaska became a state.
Kate is back. It’s been awhile since we last caught up with the feisty private investigating crime solver. In A Cold-Blooded Business she and single dad, Jack, were hot and heavy. Now several books later Jack is dead and Kate is sort of looking after his son from a previous marriage. As an FYI – Kate’s grandmother has also passed. In time, this detail will become important to the plot. For now, Kate needs a distraction from the grief these dual deaths have caused and, oddly enough, it comes in the form of oil drilling in southeast Alaska. Drilling in general has been a sensitive subject to all involved but when longtime friend and park ranger, Dan O’Brien, is deemed too environmentally friendly and is forced into early retirement, it becomes Kate’s mission to save his job. It becomes even more personal when a good friend of her grandmother’s is found murdered just days after agreeing to help Dan keep his job. Is the drilling in the wildlife preserve connected to this most recent death? State trooper, Jim Chopin, is on the case and he asks Kate to help…in more ways than one.
Confessional – I that this was the perfect pairing with Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior which is also an environmental drama.
Like I liked, “The moose might kick your ass and the grizzly might rip it off and the wolf might eat it, but they wouldn’t talk you to deal while they got on with the job” (p 232). This is Dana’s way of saying yeah, I know the woman is holding shotgun to Kate’s face and talking way too much, but I need to explain some motives here before she pulls the trigger.
Author fact: Stabenow also writes science fiction.
Book trivia: A Fine and Bitter Snow is Stabenow’s twelfth story.
Nancy said: nothing specific about A Fine and Bitter Snow.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “I Love a Mystery” (p 117).
Cold-Blooded Business
Posted: 2019/01/24 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2019, alaska, book lust i, book review, Dana Stabenow, Fiction, january, murder, mystery, series Leave a commentStabenow, Dana. A Cold-Blooded Business. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 1994.
Reason read: Alaska became a state in January.
Disclaimer: A Cold-Blooded Business is part of a series and since this is my first Kate Shugak mystery I feel like I jumped into it blind.
Kate Shugak is a private investigator for the Anchorage District Attorney’s office. In A Cold-Blooded Business her assignment is to go undercover at RPetCo, short for Royal Petroleum Company based in Prudhoe Bay up in the Arctic Circle. John King, CEO of RPetCo wants to know who has been dealing cocaine to his employees on company time. His main concern is overdoses are on the rise. There has even been a death by drowning linked to drug use. “Get that dope off my slope” he urges poetically.
Small pet peeve. Teeny tiny, really. On page 142 Kate is yearning for peace and quiet since her boyfriend’s young son, Johnny, “had the television on from the time he woke up till the time he went to bed.” However, not even eleven pages later Kate’s exposure to television is described as limited to Bernie’s television at the Roadhouse “eternally tuned into a basketball game” or Bobby’s set which existed “solely to be hooked up to a VCR” (p 152 – 153). I probably wouldn’t have squawked if the contradictory details weren’t so close together.
As an aside, what irked me from the beginning is that Kate is supposed to go undercover as a roustabout on the slope but within her first week on the job she meets a former medic/acquaintance from another job and a trooper who knows her name. She has to lie and say she’s no longer an investigator. Later she rushes to the first overdose on the job. Bursting into the room she encounters the victim is her cousin and he’s just as surprised to see her as she is him. Finally, Cindy Sovaluk, a woman she meets in the sauna turns out to know her grandmother. So much for undercover when four different people know your name or are related to you!
As another aside, are yearling bears really harmless enough to tug on their tails?
Author fact: Stabenow lives in Alaska and definitely knows the culture. That’s the obvious. What isn’t as obvious is just how many books Ms Stabenow has written. Check out her website here.
Book trivia: A Cold-Blooded Business is part of a series. I counted nineteen Shugak mysteries and I’m only reading two.
Nancy said: Pearl said Cold-Blooded Business is “her favorite Shugak mystery” (Book Lust p 18).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the unimaginative chapter called “Alaska” (p 17). I would have riffed off a Phish tune and called it “Alaska? I’ll Ask Her”.
Spring Sprung Titles
Posted: 2017/04/28 Filed under: Early Review, Fiction, NonFiction | Tags: alaska, Ann Cleeves, art, audio books, biography, books, Dan Simmons, Early Review, Elsie Lee, epistolary, Fiction, france, Guillermo Martinez, henry james, John McPhee, Kenneth Clark, Leon Edel, librarything, marriage, memoir, murder, mystery, NonFiction, Pamela Paul, romance, science fiction, Shetland, Sue Grafton, travel, WS Merwin Leave a commentWhat to say about April? I ran my fastest 10k while ill (go figure). I met two new runners and may have convinced someone to at least try. I don’t know where this acceptance to run with others is coming from. To share a conversation I had with someone: I asked where she runs. She replied she doesn’t have my pace, “nowhere near it” were her exact words. I answered I don’t have that pace all the time either. Me & my pace visit from time to time but we don’t make it a thing. She laughed and I saw myself ten years ago talking to someone who face-times with friends while running. I worried about her relationship with pace. But, this blog is turning into a thing different from reading.
So, without further ado, here are the finished books:
Fiction:
- Diplomatic Lover by Elsie Lee – read in one day
- Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez – read in two days
- Celibate Season by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard – read in four days (this book annoyed me and I kept having to put it down)
Nonfiction:
- Lost Upland: stories of the Dordogne Region by W.S. Merwin – confessional: DNF (bored, bored, bored)
- Coming into the Country by John McPhee
- Henry James: the Untried Years by Leon Edel
- Another Part of the Wood by Kenneth Clark – this was cheeky!
Series continuations:
- “F” is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton (I’m calling this a continuation even though I read “A” a long time ago.)
- Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons (AB + print so I could finish on time – today!)
- Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves – another quick read (finished in four days)
Early Review for LibraryThing:
- My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul
Coming into the Country
Posted: 2017/04/26 Filed under: Book Reviews, Lust To Go, NonFiction | Tags: 2017, alaska, april, book lust iii, book review, John McPhee, NonFiction Leave a commentMcPhee, John. Coming into the Country. New York: The Noonday Press, 1977.
Reason read: in four months I will be visiting Alaska. I thought I would start reading about it now.
There is a little bit of all things Alaskan in Coming into the Country. To name a few: the trials and tribulations of traveling rivers via kayak, the must-know laws of sport fishing (for example, fishermen are prohibited from catching fish by anything but mouth. Who knew?), Juneau is two time zones away from Anchorage. There’s more: McPhee details the nature of Grizzly bears, the techniques of placer mining, the bickering over the new location of the state capital, marriage and survival, and my favorite, the people of Alaska (transplant and not). The people you meet in Coming into the Country are phenomenal.
As an aside, Pearl may have called Coming into the Country a “classic” but in a timely twist, the boom of oil in Alaska is anything but old news.
Quotes I liked, “The best and worst part of catching that fish was deciding to let it go” (p 77) and “On days when the mail plane does not come, the human atmosphere is notably calmer than it is now” (p 199).
Author fact: I already told you McPhee has a huge list of books he has written. And I already told you I have six of them on my Challenge list. I already reviewed “Crossing the Craton” a few years ago.
Book trivia: There are no photographs in Coming into the Country but there are several different helpful maps.
Nancy said: Nancy called Coming into the Country a “classic” (p 15).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “All Set For Alaska” (p 15).
January ’13 was…
Posted: 2013/02/01 Filed under: audio book, Early Review, Fiction, NonFiction, Poetry | Tags: alaska, Alexander McCall Smith, art, Athens, audio books, childrens book, David Benioff, Dorothy Jones, Early Review, Eleanor Cameron, Fiction, Giorgio Vasari, greece, Lewis Carroll, librarything, Michael Chabon, Music, natalie merchant, NonFiction, patagonia, Philip Matyszak, Poetry, Robert Lawson, travel, William Hudson, William Makepeace Thackeray, William Maugham Leave a commentWhen I look back on January 2013 I have a sense of relief. All things considered this month was better than the last. In the grand scheme of things January treated me kind. No major meltdowns. No minor catastrophes to speak of. I started training for Just ‘Cause in the quiet way. Four to five miles a day and I didn’t stress about the numbers. If I didn’t make five or even four I didn’t have a hissy fit or beat myself or moi up. I cut me & myself some slack; gave us a break. I know that as the months wear on this won’t always be the case, but for now it was nice to go easy on me, myself & moi. The running was a different matter. Just as relaxed a schedule but not so easy going on. The run is a little over six weeks away and I’ve done next to nil in order to train. New Guinea has been awesome in that I’m working on speed intervals on level five. Let me repeat that. Level five. Nothing to write home about. I used to operate at level nine. Enough said. On with the books! I am pretty proud of the list.
- Lives of the Painters, Architects and Sculptors by Giorgio Vasari ~ in honor of National Art Month way back in October. This finally completes the series!
- Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak ~ in honor of Female Domination Day in Greece.
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray ~ in honor of January being the first month I read something from the first chapter of a Lust book. I admit I didn’t finish this one.
- Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham ~ in honor of Maugham’s birth month. I also didn’t finish this one.
- Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron ~ Happy new year. Read something to make me happy.
- Idle Days in Patagonia by W. H. Hudson ~ in honor of January being the best time to visit Patagonia.
- The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll ~ in honor of Lewis birth and death month.
- Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson ~ in honor of the month all Creatures Great and Small aired.
- Tatiana by Dorothy Jones ~ in honor of January being the month Alaska became a state.
On audio I listened to:
- Final Solution by Michael Chabon ~ in honor of January being Adopt a Rescued Bird month.
- No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith ~ in honor of Female Mystery Month
- City of Thieves by David Benioff ~ last minute add-on. This was addicting!
For the Early Review program with LibraryThing:
- Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws (started in Dec)
- Her by Christa Parravani
For Fun:
- Leave Your Sleep the poetry book for children by Natalie Merchant
Tatiana
Posted: 2013/01/21 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction | Tags: 2013, alaska, book lust i, book review, Dorothy Jones, Fiction, january Leave a commentJones, Dorothy. Tatiana. Fairbanks: Vanessapress, 2001.
Tatiana is an Aleut woman clinging to her ancestral truths in spite the while man’s emergence and the prevalence of modern medicine, technology and unfamiliar customs. This is first apparent when her husband needs surgery after a burst appendix. She is grateful for modern healthcare saving his life but is somewhat disappointed when the old remedies of her culture couldn’t do the same. This sociological shift is even more evident in the upbringing of her children. Her daughter’s mouth is washed out with soap for not speaking English in class; her son, home from a higher education school in Oregon, is bored with the tiny town life that used to thrill him. The divide even affects Tatiana personally when her aacha (friend with whom she has a special bond) Katya is baptized by the missionaries, marries a white man and is ruined by him. It is this relationship that is interlaced throughout Tatiana’s present day life. It is one of Tatiana’s deepest sorrows. But, nothing drives home the differences between Tatiana’s old way of life and the modern more than World War II. Evacuated to a southern Alaskan village Tatiana’s entire way of life is disrupted and turned upside down.
This was chock full of lines that I connected with immediately. I can’t quote them all but here are a few: “His hands talk more than his mouth” (p 5), and “Some will stronger than mine soaked my soul in that fear” (p 7). Here is another, “Fear made me mean” (p 80). Does anyone else think of Yoda reading that?
There was only one moment in the book that disappointed me. On page 239, the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tatiana says of her son’s soldier friend Lawrence, “I never did see Lawrence…again” and yet four months later, “Lawrence, Paulie’s soldier friend, rushed into the house. Must have been that other soldier friend named Lawrence.
Reason read: Alaska formally became a state in the month of January.
Author fact: Tatiana is Dorothy Jones’s first book.
Book trivia: Not many libraries have this book. In fact, no library in my immediate area of even my whole state had it. My copy was borrowed from Colorado. Thanks, ‘Rado! However, I have to add this small disappointment – my interlibrary loan came with lots of paperwork taped to the front with the strict words, “Do not remove.” I am dying to see the art work for the cover (by Sara Tabbert). I took a peek at Sara’s website and now I’m even more disappointed I can’t see the cover art. Maybe if I tear a little corner….
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Alaska” (p 17). There’s a no brainer!
Jan ’13 is…
Posted: 2013/01/04 Filed under: audio book, Early Review, Fiction, NonFiction | Tags: alaska, Alexander McCall Smith, art, audio books, childrens book, classic, Dorothy Jones, Early Review, Eleanor Cameron, Fiction, Giorgio Vasari, greece, italy, librarything, Michael Chabon, movie, mystery, NonFiction, Philip Matyszak, Robert Lawson, travel, William Thackeray Leave a commentHoly crap I am late with the list. “I’m late, I’m late” said the White Rabbit! Okay, okay! I just finished The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland so sue me.
January 2013 is another year of hope and of promise. Kisa and I are going to see Trey Anastasio at the Palace in a few weeks. I officially started training for the 5th Just ‘Cause Walk and, and. And! I am training to run a 10k in March. Yay me. But, here are the books…before I get too carried away.
- Rabbit Hill (speaking of rabbits) by Robert Lawson in honor of when All Creatures Great & Small first aired. Get it? Creatures = rabbits. This is a kids book so I’m hoping to fly through it.
- The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith in honor of January being Female Mystery month. I’m listening to this on cd. It’s the first one in the series so expect to see Alexander McCall Smith on my book list for the next 4 or 5 months.
- Lives of the Painters, Sculptors Vol 4 by Giorgio Vasari ~ this (finally, finally) ends the series started in October in honor of Art Appreciation month
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery ~ in honor of the first month of the year I’m reading something from the first chapter of More Book Lust.
- Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron ~ in honor of the a Happy New Year. Another kids book to lighten the mood.
- Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak ~ Okay, get this – Female Domination Day in Greece happens in January, hence reading something Greek.
- Tatiana by Dorothy M. Jones ~ in honor of Alaska becoming a state in January. Mo one locally has this book in their library so I had to ILL it. It might have to come from Alaska. How fitting.
- Final Solution by Michael Chabon ~ in honor of January being Adopt a Rescued Bird month. This is another book I will listen to in the car or while working out.
For the LibraryThing Early Review program I am just finishing up Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws. I also received notification of a January Early Review book but as always I won’t mention it by title until it’s in my hot little hands (or in this case, cold little hands since it’s 6 degrees outside).
January 2011 Was…
Posted: 2011/01/31 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: abuse, alaska, autobiography, biography, books, boxing, elvis, Fiction, haiti, motherhood, NonFiction, science fiction Leave a commentI can’t help but sing ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” when I think of the month January has been. If you live in any state (besides Hawaii) you know what I am talking about. Even HotTopic-Lanta has gotten some snowfall. They haven’t known what to do with it, but they got it nonetheless! Needless to say the snow has kept me indoors and reading for the month of January! For the record, here are the books:
- Breath, Eyes Memory by Edwidge Danticat ~ in honor of Danticat’s birth month. This was a movie in my head (or else a true-life story). Really, really good!
- Cruddy by Lynda Barry ~ in honor of Barry’s birth month. This was one of the most disturbing books I have read so far. the violence and abuse was over the top.
- King of the World by David Remnick ~ in honor of Muhammad Ali’s birth month. I didn’t know I wanted to know but I’m glad I know.
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov ~ in honor of Asimov’s birth month. Science fiction, of course. Interesting, but a little redundant in theme.
- Two in the Far North by Margaret Murie ~ in honor of Alaska becoming a state in the month of January. Courage and adventure personified. I enjoyed this book a lot.
- Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 -May 7, 1945 by Stephen Ambrose ~ in honor of Ambrose’s birth month. It took me a little to get into this book but I’m glad I read it. It is slowly helping me get over my fear of Hitler and all things Nazi.
- Another Song About the King by Kathryn Stern ~ in honor of Elvis Presley’s birth month being in January. This was a super fast, super fun read.
I was supposed to get an Early Review book but it hasn’t arrived yet. It will go on the February list of books, hopefully.
Two in the Far North
Posted: 2011/01/16 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, NonFiction | Tags: 2011, alaska, autobiography, book lust i, book review, january, NonFiction Leave a commentMurie, Margaret E. Two in the Far North. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962.
Murie starts her first book, Two in the Far North with a look back at her first visit to Alaska when she was nine years old in the year 1911. The writing is full of exuberance and excitement. Her enthusiasm oozes from the pages and offers a unique perspective on the birth of an Alaskan frontier town from a child’s point of view. As she grows into an adult and returns from college the emphasis shifts to marriage (1924) and following her biologist husband as he does field research in the untamed parts of her beloved Alaska. On each expedition you can tell she never loses that joy from exploring everything that makes Alaska unique. (I can’t even tell you how many times she uses the word ‘happy’ to describe everyone and everything around her.) Murie’s chronicle of life in the Alaskan wilderness is honest and passionate from start to finish.
Favorite lines, “There was one wonderful spring when people had to move out of their houses on Front Street, and rowboats were the thing, but this was fun only for the children” (p 54), “A rocking chair and a bed with springs are to be enjoyed whenever met” (p 210), and “If man does not destroy himself through his idolatry of the machine, he may learn one day tp step gently on his earth” (p 357).
Favorite Murie illustrations: p 167, p 195, and p201.
Author Fact: Margaret Murie had so many interesting facts about her I couldn’t chose just one. For starters, she lived to be 101! She studied at Simmons College in Boston for a short time (one year). There is a movie about her life called “Arctic Dance.”
Book Trivia: Two in the Far North is Murie’s first book and it is illustrated by her husband, Olaus.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Alaska” (p 17). Duh.
