In March I went to a book swap and I came home with this. I knew next to nothing about Nat Turner, but I’m a sucker for graphic novels. What a book! The only words in the book are quotes, most coming from Nat Turner as he sat in prison. Over 200 pages of shocking, emotional, and violent black and white drawings.
We start at the beginning of incarceration from the villages in Africa, cross the sea in slave ships, and sold to the highest bidder. There is one horrific image from this section that will surely stick with me for quite awhile.
The middle is full of how Nat became this religious figure, who received visions from God, and finally decided that it was time to revolt. The revolt, or insurrection, section was shocking in its violence. Nat and his men were responsible for killing 55 men, women, and children, but even knowing that from the introduction didn’t prepare me. Those images are also going to stick me for quite awhile.
This book is powerful. Some will find the images too violent. It’s not for everyone. The shocking images served the purpose of making me take notice and feel the horror, to see it. It’s a great book.
Recommend for graphic novel lovers and for those who want to know more about Nate Turner and the slave rebellion of 1831.
I attended Avon’s KissCon in 2016 when it came to a library near me and was able hang out and drink wine with one of my first romance crushes, Susan Elizabeth Phillips. She is just as sparkly and quick as you might expect if you read her books I’m not sure when I read my first SEP romance, but it had to be in the 1990s.
I’ve read all of her books. They are fast, fun, sassy, and usually feature spunky heroines and alpha male heroes. She infuses her stories with larger than life characters, lots of humor, and real romantic sparks. I don’t read a lot of contemporary romances, but I make the exception for Phillips and am never disappointed.
Some of these I read so long ago, before blogging, and I’m not going to try and give my thoughts on them. Just know that the early ones I loved enough to continue to buy all of her books when they come out.
What I Did for Love. Georgie and Bram hated each other, but a few drugged drinks, a marriage certificate, and a sleazy paparazzi forced them to come to terms with each other, literally. Georgie could not endure another scandalous marriage so soon after Lance, so she made a deal with the devil. Bram would stay married to Georgie for a hefty fee and use her to gain respectability. My thoughts here.
Call Me Irresistable. Lucy, daughter of the former President of the United States, is preparing to walk down the aisle to marry Mr. Perfect, Ted Beaudine ,when her best friend, Meg voices doubts about the marriage. Lucy takes them to heart and walks out on Ted at the church. Meg is blamed by everyone and is asked to stay in the small Texas town for a few days to see if Lucy returns. But not only is Meg completely broke and cut off from her family, she is also stranded in the town when everyone blames her for the heartbreak of their mayor, Ted. My thoughts here.
The Great Escape. Lucy Jorik’s story has been told by Phillips in First Lady and last year’s Call Me Irresistable. This time around she gets her own book. What happened when she walked out of her wedding to the perfect man and jumped on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle? It’s not easy for the daughter of the first woman President of the United States to disappear, but with Panda’s help she manages to do just that. My thoughts here.
First Star I See Tonight. Coop, a recently retired pro football player is being followed by a fledgling private investigator. When he calls her on it she uses her humor and wit to power through all the way to a new job. Sparks, fly, of course, and there’s plenty of hot sex to keep them panting after each other. My thoughts here.
Simply the Best. Rory is a gifted chocolate maker who makes questionable decisions and her prickly relationship with her younger brother, the quarterback of the Stars. When a neighbor is murdered she must join forces with Brett, her brother’s agent, to keep him out of jail. This book made me want to go to a chocolate shop and try all of the flavors!
Stand Alones
Hot Shot was published in 1991 and I read it then. It was enough to make me a fast fan.
Honey Moon was published in 1993 and I remember loving it, but I’m not going to say more unless I reread it.
I read Breathing Room and according to Good Reads only gave it 3 stars.
Ain’t She Sweet is one of her higher rated ones on Good Reads.
Heroes Are My Weakness. The book opens with our heroine, Annie, having a conversation with her multitude of puppets as she drives to her secluded cabin in the middle of a snowstorm. It’s those puppets that kept me from investing fully in Annie from the beginning. She grew on me but the absurdity of the puppets (and their continued butting into the story) turned me off. My thoughts here.
Dance Away with Me. Tess and Ian are a great couple and their love story was very satisfying, but there was a lot of loss along the way. The book felt very 2020 even though I know it wasn’t written this year. My thoughts here.
April was the slowest reading month for me in at least 4 years! I read 8 books with two clear favorites, a few I really liked, and a couple that were just okay.
Things Past Telling by Sheila Williams. Our book club pick this month. A fresh take on the harrowing and horrific journey of the people stolen from their homes and brought to America as slaves. 4 stars!
I hate missing too many Sunday updates. When I get too behind I keep putting it off, making the update a bigger project, vastly increasing the probability that it won’t get done at all. This happen to anyone else? So, it’s not Sunday, but I’ve got 30 minutes so we’re doing a quick book /movie update. Too busy to try and give a life update too so we’ll save that for next time.
Maddy is turning 18 and her life is confined to her home because of an immunodeficiency disease. She’s never had any kind of normal existence and it’s not until a new family moves in next door that this is a problem. Soon, her books are not enough and Olly becomes her hope.
A book about risk and bravery and finding your person.
I loved this book, just as I loved Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star. Everything Everything was her debut and I’m only sad it’s taken me so long to read it. I’ll read anything she writes.
Richard, a renown concert pianist, and Karina, a pianist who put her career on hold, are divorced. It wasn’t amicable, but they do share a daughter now in her 20s. Richard is diagnosed with ALS and in that instant his whole life changes. These changes are not limited to Richard and Karina finds herself making a surprising life change because of it.
I loved Still Alice by Lisa Genova. That book tackled early onset Alzheimer’s just as this one shows ALS bringing down someone in their prime. This book is detailed and heavy and shows that forgiveness shouldn’t wait. I was moved to tears by it. I’ll read anything she writes.
I picked this up because of that gorgeous cover and this slight book didn’t disappoint. There are no words, just 25 beautiful illustrations showing a young boy sneaking away from a funeral. It will touch your heart. I highly recommend for children going through the grief process.
Our book group liked (not loved) this one and it had some great discussion points. It’s about the closeness of the four Padavano sisters. What can drive a wedge between the sisters? At what point is forgiveness and moving on the only real option? How many great loves does each person get? Do we ever really get past our relationships with our parents?
It was a little slow, but still worth reading, especially if you like family sagas spanning decades.
What a hoot! Lucy is an early 19th century debutante who is approached by Lady Violet Travesty about joining a vampire cult. Just as she’s about to go over to the dark side, Lord Byron, in very dramatic fashion, saves her and whisks away to his magic castle on his psychic eagle Napoleon. They are soon joined by Sham to make a team of very inept vampire hunters.
It’s very funny, especially the first half. It gets a tad bogged down by the end with a meandering plot, but overall a fun graphic novel. I enjoyed my hour or so with this silly trio.
I LOVE Susanna Kearsley! Her books are such comfort reads. I’ll be doing a post on her soon, so I won’t belabor my thoughts on this one. If she hadn’t written it I would have given up on it before the halfway point. There was a nice twist at the end that was a reward for making it that far, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Gage and I read this together after having read and loved Frindle by the same author. Jack was a hard character to root for, at least at first. He’s in middle school and he’s embarrassed that his dad is the school janitor. He plans a nasty trick for his dad, but pays the price and it better for it.
As a side note, when I was in elementary school my grandpa was the school janitor and I got to say hi to him every day as I left to get on the bus to go home and as he got ready to clean the school after everyone went home. It’s a bond that I’ll always treasure. I was too young to be embarrassed and as I grew older it never once occurred to me to want to hide that fact from anyone. He worked as a janitor for the schools his whole life.
Movies watched
Saltburn was buzzy for awhile and when Jason and I sat down to watch it, we can see why. It seems normal, normal, eh, oh, definitely not normal, the end. If you like strange movies, this is for you! I do like strange and appreciated it.
Set It Up kept getting recommended to me by Netflix so I finally broke down and watched it. It was a cuter than expected rom-com with a fun cast. If Netflix is also recommending it to you I’d say give it a go!
The Hunt is pure political drivel meets ridiculous violence. I have no excuse for watching it, except that Jason and I were watching it in bed and making fun. Jason fell asleep and I, regrettably, made it til the bitter end.
Have you read or watched any of these? Which ones?
These past two weeks have been just what I needed. No travelling, no huge projects. Just my usual happenings. April is a nightmare month for me time wise, so I am trying to soak in every quiet moment. I did have a parent-teacher conference that went very well, and Gage, Jason, and I toured a school together and loved it for Gage. Now I need to schedule testing to see if we can get him in. I did spend an excessive number of hours volunteering at the library, but that’s just fun. I told the library manager this week that sorting and selling donations was my form of therapy.
I started this series with book one and haven’t looked back. I realized I was a few behind so I’m making quick work of the last few. If you like police procedurals you should definitely give this series a look. He started as a Minneapolis police detective, but is currently a US Marshal still based in Minneapolis. He has a recurring partner, Lucas Flowers, and an adopted daughter, Letty, who each have their own spin offs.
Set in Israel, it’s a great fiction book that touches on so many issues that kids are going through, moving from home, trying to make friends, racial bias, embarrassment, defiance…. I’d recommend reading it with your preteen.
Meskerem was born and grew up with her parents, sisters, and grandmother in Golan Heights, but the family had to move to Herzelia for her mother’s new job. Mezkerem was sad to leave her friends and grandmother behind.
On the first day of school kids started ridiculing her by calling her, ‘an Ethiopian’. Mezkerem’s mom had been born in Ethiopia and her dad was American. Meskerem became embarrassed by her heritage.
This story is only 89 pages but packs a lot of discussion into those pages.
Ava has ADHD. The first line of the book…”Just because I act and learn differently-doesn’t mean something is wrong with me.” It goes through her days showing some of her struggles, like trouble listening and the constant need to move, and ways to help, like eating well and getting enough sleep.
The author based this on her now grown daughter and it’s one I’d recommend for elementary classroom read alouds. And school libraries too! The illustrations are cute and it even has an ADHD checklist in the back.
Here were my first thoughts on Goodreads when I finished this one, “My love affair with Susanna Kearsley continues. This was one of her first books and it may be my favorite so far. I didn’t want it to end. I was worried that the ending would be all wrong. But it wasn’t. It was perfect.” There is something so magical and romantic about her stories. There is history, romance, and a perfect sense of place in all of her books. This one also felt a little like a ghost story.
Julia was sure she’d found her house and she packed up and moved from London to a small English village without a second thought. She was a children’s book illustrator and was able to make a few friends right away just as she was being transported back in time at unpredictable times.
It’s tricky when you are going back and forth between time periods and characters. Inevitably, you are drawn more to one story than the other. This one did a great job of tying the two together so I was invested in both. Was this book, the first time she tried the time travel travel romance, perfect? No. Was it perfect enough to have me rereading the last few chapters again and again because I wasn’t quite ready for it to end? A resounding YES!
Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney, 4+ stars, current events, 372 pages, 2023
The illustrations by Megan Hess in this 200+ pages book are whimsical and fun.
Coco spent much of her childhood in an orphanage in France after her mother died and her father wanted nothing to do with her. She created for herself the life she wanted. “My life didn’t please me so I created my life.” She never married but the love of her life helped her get her start in 1908. She opened her own millinery boutique in Paris.
Everything she touched turned to gold until 1939 when she shut down her 3000 staff salon. She stayed in Paris at the Hotel Ritz with her lover, a German officer, to ride out the war. She fled the country for a number of years after the war before making her comeback.
It’s a beautiful graphic novel for fashion lovers. It wasn’t until after I read this that a friend showed me that Coco had actually been a spy for the Nazis.
5th grader Nick Allen gets into a war of words with his language arts teacher and it goes further that he could have ever have imagined. Gage and I read it together and had a few laughs and talks about unintended consequences.
Naya, a professor who is 3 years out of an abusive relationship, is convinced by her best friends to open herself to new experiences. She meets Jake at a bar and the two make a connection. I loved this story with two very likeable people. It was a very realistic story with a lot of spice! The domestic abuse is a significant part of the story and some may find it triggering.
On the Screen
Jason and I like all of the Batman movies and we finally saw 2022’s The Batman with Robert Pattinson. We liked quite a bit. Are you a Batman fan? Christian Bale is still my favorite.
Jason and I finished Oppenheimer just in time for the Oscars tonight. I don’t know if I preferred it to Killers of the Flower Moon, but I get the hype.
We took a lovely road trip the Lake Norman in North Carolina last week, our third February in a row. Jason has clients in the Charlotte area so he always works a few of the days leaving Gage and I to our own devices. This week we were able to be away for 6 days, even though that meant Gage missed 2 days of school. On our way home we stopped in Wytheville, Virginia and toured the Edith Bolling Wilson First Lady Birthplace Museum, even staying in the hotel dedicated to her history in the town. I considered this a 2 day field trip. Once a homeschooler…
We had a great book club discussion this month. Take My Hand is historical fiction that drew its inspiration from a real 1973 court case. It found that government family centers were sterilizing girls of color as well as those in poor neighborhoods reliant on government help.
Well written and a shocking part of this country’s not so long ago history. I really liked this one. Highly recommend.
This is the sequel to Then Came You that I finished a few weeks ago. An innocent author comes to London to research her next book, only to shoot a man and fall in love with the owner of a gambling club. Loved it.
I’ve read a few other books by Pema Chodron and I always finish feeling inspired and content. She is an American Buddhist nun and writes about Buddhism in such a welcoming and relatable way. I take a lot from Buddhist teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh being my introduction. I’m a Christian, but I’ve really grown personally from books like these. Maybe you will too if you give one a try. This one deals especially with some life strategies that all can benefit from.
“The most straightforward advice on awakening bodhichitta is this: practice not causing harm to anyone- yourself or others- and every day, do what you can to be helpful.”
“Buddha was pointing out that the fixed idea that we have about ourselves as solid and separate from each other is painfully limiting.”
“Our personal attempts to live humanely in this world are never wasted. Choosing to cultivate love rather than anger just might be what it takes to save the planet from extinction.”
I started this series with book one and haven’t looked back. I realized I was a few behind so I’m making quick work of the last few. If you like police procedurals you should definitely give this series a look. He started as a Minneapolis police detective, but is currently a US Marshal still based in Minneapolis. He has a recurring partner, Lucas Flowers, and an adopted daughter, Letty, who each have their own spin offs.
Most people are familiar with Malala by now. The girl was shot in the face by the Taliban on her way to school in Afghanistan. But there is a backstory if that’s all you know. I already knew everything in this book, but it’s an easy one hour listen on a road trip with your kid!
*I’ve read 22 books so far this year.*
Currently reading
Watching
Jason and I watched Season 1 of White Lotus. What a crazy, beautiful trip. Any other fans out there?
Plans for the Weekend
There are a few hours left that will be spent on Friends of the Solon Library duties. I need to connect with a few members about Facebook stuff and I need to start finding volunteers for our next big book sale. Anyone want to help out in April?
I first read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende when I was the manager of a B. Dalton bookstore in the Washington DC area 25ish years ago. Each month the staff would have to choose a recommendation for a display and I would pick one to read. This was one of those recs and it was my first foray into the world of magical realism. For that it will always have a special place in my heart. I’ve long had this on my list of top 100 books, but this was my first reread and I had forgotten much.
I can’t believe that I’d forgotten what a monster Esteban was. Seriously, this is more his story than anyone’s and I remembered the women with the green hair and the seers more that I remembered the rapes. So much to discuss if you have a book group waiting to take it on.
The last third of the book had more of a focus on Chile’s history and was fascinating (based on actual history of the 1970s). Allende provides such a rich picture of the South American country. Still relevant today. The ‘right’ overthrew the ‘socialists’ by a coup, only to empower a dictator who ended democracy for the country. A cautionary tale if anyone is paying attention.
After some thought I think I’ll go ahead and put it on my favorites list for now. We’ll see if anything comes along and beats it as I reread favorites.
Have you read it? What did you think?
“…she did not believe that the world was a vale of tears but rather a joke that God had played and that it was idiotic to take it seriously if He himself never had.”
“Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change”
“She tried to recall the cold, the silence, and that precious feeling of owning the world, of being twenty years old and having her whole life ahead of her, of making love slowly and calmly, drunk with the scent of the forest and their love, without a past, without suspecting the future, with just the incredible richness of that present moment in which they stared at each other, smelled each other, kissed each other, and explored each other’s bodies, wrapped in the whisper of the wind among the trees and the sound of the nearby waves breaking against the rocks at the foot of the cliff, exploding in a crash of pungent surf, and the two of them embracing underneath a single poncho like Siamese twins, laughing and swearing this night would last forever, that they were the only ones in the whole world who had discovered love.”
“thought about the years I still had left to live and decided that without her it wasn’t worth it, for I would never find another woman with her green hair and underwater beauty. If anyone had told me then that I would live to be more than ninety, I would have put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.”
It’s been a busy two weeks. I took a road trip with a friend, celebrated my parent’s 55th anniversary, my dad’s 77th birthday, sat through my son’s IEP meeting and helped with a luncheon at his school, and even did a minimal amount of planning for an upcoming trip and possible high schools for the boy. Gage had a day off of school and I took him with me to sort donations at the library and he worked hard without complaint!
Bell has a white mother and black father and it’s his mother who is the one to first tell him that when world will see him as different. She embarrasses him when she causes a scene calling out bias and yet his father remains largely silent when he needs to hear from him the most. This book starts when he is 6 and has a run in with police and they take his water gun and ends after the George Floyd murder when he has to decide if it’s the right time to have the talk about race with his own young son.
Bell was the first Black editorial cartoonist to win the Pulitzer Prize. Highly recommend. Its’s engaging, touching, honest, brave.
This book manages to do many things well. It will benefit parents, teachers, or anyone who knows or works with a kid with an autism diagnosis. In the 9 mindsets it also has something for every stage of the child, from child to older teen. I especially like the section on the medical comorbidities, too often treating the medical issues is completely overlooked.
Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas. 4.5/5 stars, Historical Romance, 371 pages, 1993
I loved this book, but both main characters did some horrific things to each other. I will read and most likely love anything she writes.
“That is the power of our differences to make us smarter and more creative. And that is how all those infusions of new cultures and ideas, generation after generation, created the matchless alchemy of our melting pot and helped us build the strongest, most vibrant, most prosperous nation on the planet, right here.”
I’m not in menopause, yet, but I am of a certain age so I wanted to prepare myself. In many ways I wish I hadn’t 🤣. I wish I could say reading this made me feel empowered, but mostly it just depressed me. I’m glad I read it and I’m glad I’m done reading it. I took some useable knowledge and am better off for it. Make sure you’re taking extra calcium ladies!
Currently Reading
Movies
On my weekend road trip we went to the grand old theater in town and finally saw Killers of the Flower Moon. Yes, it was 3 1/2 hours and I had to get up for a 10 minutes break in the middle, but I really liked it. Lily Gladstone was phenomenal.
We watched Little Italy on Netflix. It had a fun cast and some laughs.
Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles–the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness. (from Goodreads)
Michelle’s memoir Becoming is one of my favorites. If you haven’t read it, you should. This book shares new stories, offers advice, and addresses the ‘go high’ vision and what it means.
It didn’t pack the same emotional punch of her first book, but there were parts I really loved. I loved the section on her relationship with Barack, especially that first trip to Hawaii to meet his family. I love her honesty and the way that she never puts him on a pedestal. Through her we see the real him. I love this quote, “Any long-term partnership really is an act of stubborn faith.” This spoke to me because I often speak of my own marriage this way.
The last few sections about how she was portrayed in right wing press and her now famous call to ‘Go High” were my favorites. We are so lucky to have had her as First Lady and to have her now encouraging us all to do the work. As many like to say, freedom isn’t free, and if we want a better country we have to be better citizens. I’m going to leave you with a few of the quotes I write in my journal.
“If you keep your children from feeling fear, you’re essentially keeping them from feeling competence.”
“We’re alone, each of us. That’s the ache of being human.”
“Any time we grip hands with another soul and recognize some piece of the story they’re trying to tell, we are acknowledging and affirming two truths at once: We’re lonely and yet we’re not alone.”
“Going high is not just about what happens on a single day, or a month, or inside one election cycle either. It happens over the course of a lifetime, the course of a generation, Going high is demonstrative, a commitment to showing your children, your friends, your colleagues, and your community what it takes to live with love and decency. Because in the end, at least in my experience, what you put out for others- whether it’s hope or hatred- will only create more of the same.”
After two snow days this week and bitter cold temps we went to the movie theater yesterday and saw Wonka! The magic was just what we all needed. We followed it up with Aladdin’s Lebanese food and our day was made.
Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger. 3.5 stars, thriller, 260 pages, 2023. I like Lisa Unger’s thrillers and this one was quick and satisfying. Madeline was a survivor of an attack, the same attack where she watched her best friend get murdered. Harley is a true crime podcaster and is looking into the 10 year old story. Not surprisingly, secrets are uncovered and danger abounds.
Simply Sinful by Carly Phillips. 2.5 stars. romance, 272 pages, 2000. I was looking for a quick satisfying romance, but this wasn’t it. Detecctive Kane McDermitt goes undercover to prove Kayla’s business is really a front for prostitution. He requests a date (through her business), sleeps with her on said date, and is then convinced she is innocent. Of course he was.
I’ve read 7 books so far this year.
Currently Reading
Nothing has changed from last week, except I’ll probably finish one of these today.
Movies
Wonka, 2022. Magic and chocolate fun for the whole family! I’m so glad that we saw it on the big screen.
Streaming
We finished up season 2 of Reacher on Amazon. We liked it even better than the first season.
Plans for the Weekend
I’ll share this because I’ll be puzzling some today and maybe it’s an idea that appeals to you. I belong to our local Buy Nothing group on Facebook. Neighbors offer each other things they no longer want or need. For the last few years I’ve offered up a puzzle exchange for the month of January, sort of a Little Free PUZZLE Library. When the weather was good I put them on our front porch shelves and as we’re snowed in I’ve moved them to a bin at the end of our driveway. I started with 7 puzzles that I’d done this year and was willing to part with and told people to come take, trade, or give. It’s been fun seeing the puzzles that have come in. The turnover is high, even a few weeks in.
Stacy's Books 