By sheer coincidence, all of July’s reads are also available as films or TV shows. From Where the Crawdads Sing to Hillbilly Elegy, they all moved from the page to screen. Which is better? I’ll probably never know, as I’d rather read than watch. But since I’m a member of “the book is always better than the movie” society, you know how I’d vote. (The one generally accepted exception, of course, being Jaws.) Book 1: Benjamin Franklin: His Life As…
Postcard 1: Six decades of hedgehog love As proof that memories and assumptions can be faulty, let me confess that I’d always believed my first encounter with a hedgehog was through Mom and her love of Beatrix Potter characters. We brought those tiny story books – just the right size for a toddler’s hands – home from the library every chance we got. I was just four years old when I met a hedgehog by the name of Mrs. Tiggle-Winkle:…
Each month as I sit down to write about the books I’ve read, I look for a theme. It’s never planned out ahead of time, but sometimes a theme does emerge. This time, it’s stories about the post-war era. Not all of them, but five (if you count The Longest Day) out of six is a theme, right? Book 1: The Diary That Changed the World by Otto Frank Over the years, I’ve read plenty of good books about Anne…
Confession: If you’ve followed these blog posts through the years, you may remember that 14 months ago I started reading Charles Dickens’ Bleak House following the author’s original monthly-installment schedule from 1852-3. His novels didn’t get released as a complete volume until after his readers had endured many months of three- or four-chapter installments trickling to them in magazine form. As much as the concept of following the original schedule, and stretching out Bleak House over 20 months appealed to…
This morning, between rowdy thunderstorms, I heard an odd sound. Gary and I were sitting together in our sunroom, gazing into our backyard, which – after all the recent rain – looks like a jungle. The noise was pitched high enough that Gary couldn’t hear it. Years of high-frequency milking machines will do that to you. It almost sounded like an alarm: two tones in fairly rapid succession and then silence. By late afternoon, I’d forgotten all about it. Then…
About halfway through April’s books, it struck me that nearly all the main characters had the same problem: they lacked impulse control. Book 1: The Moon’s a Balloon by David Niven This memoir is an absolute trip. David Niven found success in spite of himself. Over and over again, his unfiltered mouth got him in trouble. From boarding school to the military. From the stage to screen. Story after story revealed Niven’s severe lack of impulse control. All the same,…
In the last few days before today’s total solar eclipse, I couldn’t resist checking to see if Mom had ever written a poem about this all-too-rare occasion in nature. Sure enough, she had. But, as often as she wrote about the moon, that’s not what this poem from 1971 was about. Eclipse I saw two wagons passing by the sea:one full of letters from my love to me.The other held a cargo of such strange designthat I could only pray…
Today is Mom’s birthday. She was born 94 years ago, giving her mom bragging rights to winning the great competition. During her teens, Mom penned this poem. Writing in first person as an octogenarian, the lovely green-eyed redhead tried to imagine what life would be like so many years in the future: Passing Phase of an Octogenarian Today is my birthday. And when they think I do not hearThey whisper I am old. They say that I have had my…
These Irish eyes spent the month of March reading books by Irish authors. Book 1: Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt This is a memoir I very much wanted to reread, but since the great sadness descended on the family with first Mom’s death and then Dad’s, it has seemed wise to hold off until I felt sturdier emotionally. The story about that story is here in an earlier post. As with seemingly all rereads, there were many plot points I…
Now that we have a sunroom, Farmer Gary and I notice daily we have several new patches of disturbed earth outside. It’s time to decide what to plant there. We brought up the topic while visiting with John, Aubrie, and Cameron last week. Aubrie loves to garden and is always great with gentle advice – be it regarding fruit, vegetables, or flowers. It’s always fun for John and me to observe our spouses dig in and discuss fertilizer, alkaline levels…