The River Wife by Jonis Agee

I just finished reading The River Wife by Jonis Agee. I thought it was an excellent read! The book’s narrator is Hedie Rails Ducharme, the pregnant 17 year old bride of Clement Ducharme, who is telling the story in 1930from the Ducharme family home in southern Missouri. Hedie comes across journals/diaries of Jacques Ducharme’s river wives, who were either married or involved with Clement Ducharme’s great-grandfather, Jacques Ducharme. The first half of the book starts in 1811 when the New Madrid area of Missouri had an earthquake and young Annie Lark was trapped inside her family’s cabin on the second floor. Jacques was a French fur trapper who came across Annie and rescued her. The first half of The River Wife is about Annie and Jacques’ life together. It was almost impossible to put down once I started it!

The second half of the book was about the other women in Jacques’ life. He was a charming, imposing character and seemed to inspire great loyalty. I found the second half of the book to be a little confusing. A couple of times I wanted to stop and draw up a genealogy chart, in order to keep the relationships straight. However, that slight confusion did not take away from my enjoyment of the book.

I do have to admit that I had to go back and re-read the last chapter after I finished the book. I thought that I must have missed something, and sure enough, I had missed an important fact. I would have liked for the ending to have been a little more direct, but I will also admit, that this might have just been me, missing the subtlety of the story! I would really be interested in hearing if others had this difficulty. I would also be interested in hearing what others thought the ending implied!

The River Wife has been described as a haunting Southern gothic story and I would agree with that. It is a fascinating story. I highly recommend this book and would love to hear what others thought of it!

Harry Potter-Am I Crazy?

JK Rowling published her first Harry Potter book in 1997. It hit the USA in 1998. I remember several friends raving over it, and going to Harry Potter parties at the bookstores as each new book was released. I thought they were crazy. I had no interest in reading a child’s book, especially about wizardry. My daughter, Maggie, had read them and kept encouraging me to try them. No way, not interested.

Cut now to ten years later, the fall of 2007. We were closing up my parent’s summer home in Indiana and I came across a copy of the 1st Harry Potter book in their bedroom. The book had probably come from an auction, where my mother often buys boxes of books. I thought, well, it’s free to read, and I don’t have anything to read right now, so why not? Thus began my obsession with the Harry Potter books! I have to admit that I wasn’t completely taken with #1, but it was good enough that I was willing to read #2. I found it to be better than the first and so I was willing to read #3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#3) was fantastic. I was hooked! In the past 4 months, I have read the first 6 Harry Potter books. I love them and could hardly stand to be away from them during the rest of my life going on. Each night, I would pick up the latest HP book that I was reading and say to my husband, let’s find out what Harry’s up to tonight!

I have forced myself to read other books in-between reading each Harry book, to try to keep my addiction under control. But I would find myself trying to rush through the other books, because I wanted to get back to Harry, Ron and Hermoine. What had happened to me? Maybe the books actually put me under a spell!

This is a real tribute to JK Rowling’s ability to write. If I were a writer, I think that to be able to hold a reader’s attention and even longing for more of the same, would be the highest praise there could be.

The Harry Potter books have sold well over 100 million copies. Both adults and children are reading them. They have been an incredible phenomena.

I’m wondering what others have thought about the Harry Potter books, read or not. Have any of you been as resistant as I was to reading them? Did it take you 10 years to read one, or have you still resisted? And for those of you who have read them, did you find them as hard to put down as I did once I began reading them?

One caveat: I haven’t read the last Harry Potter book yet. A big part of my reluctance to read it is that I don’t want the series to be over! How bizarre does this sound? But I can’t wait much longer, so I will be reading it very soon. So if you have already read it, please don’t give the last book’s story away to me yet!

Harry Potter

JK Rowling published her first Harry Potter book in 1997. It hit the USA in 1998. I remember several friends raving over it, and going to Harry Potter parties at the bookstores as each new book was released. I thought they were crazy. I had no interest in reading a child’s book, especially about wizardry. My daughter, Maggie, had read them and kept encouraging me to try them. No way, not interested.

Cut now to ten years later, the fall of 2007. We were closing up my parent’s summer home in Indiana and I came across a copy of the 1st Harry Potter book in their bedroom. The book had probably come from an auction, where my mother often buys boxes of books. I thought, well, it’s free to read, and I don’t have anything to read right now, so why not? Thus began my obsession with the Harry Potter books! I have to admit that I wasn’t completely taken with #1, but it was good enough that I was willing to read #2. I found it to be better than the first and so I was willing to read #3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#3) was fantastic. I was hooked! In the past 4 months, I have read the first 6 Harry Potter books. I love them and could hardly stand to be away from them during the rest of my life going on. Each night, I would pick up the latest HP book that I was reading and say to my husband, let’s find out what Harry’s up to tonight!

I have forced myself to read other books in-between reading each Harry book, to try to keep my addiction under control. But I would find myself trying to rush through the other books, because I wanted to get back to Harry, Ron and Hermoine. What had happened to me. Maybe the books actually put me under a spell!

This is a real tribute to JK Rowling’s ability to write. If I were a writer, I think that to be able to hold a reader’s attention and even longing for more of the same would be the highest praise there could be.

The Harry Potter books have sold well over 100 million copies. Both adults and children are reading them. They have been an incredible phenomena.

I’m wondering what others have thought about the Harry Potter books, read or not. Have any of you been as resistant as I was to reading them? Did it take you 10 years to read one, or have you still resisted? And for those of you who have read them, did you find them as hard to put down as I did once I began reading them?

One caveat: I haven’t read the last Harry Potter book yet. A big part of my reluctance to read it is that I don’t want the series to be over! How bizarre does this sound? But I can’t wait much longer, so I will be reading it very soon. So if you have already read it, please don’t give the last book’s story away to me yet!

Top Reads of 2000

Below is a list of the best of the books that I read in 2000. I have *** the best, with *** being my absolute favorite book read that year.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin-Harriett Beecher Stowe ***
Simon’s Family-Marianne Fredriksson ***
Vinegar Hill-A. Manette Ansay
The Strange Woman-Ben Ames Williams
A Tangled Web-L.M. Montgomery
While I Was Gone-Sue Miller ***
Gap Creek-Robert Morgan
Killing Mr. Watson-Peter Matthiessen ***
Lost Man’s River-Peter Matthiessen ***
Bone By Bone-Peter Matthiessen ***
Eddie’s Bastard-William Kowalski
Ahab’s Wife-Sena Jeter Naslund ***
The Vision of Emma Blau-Ursula Hegi

As you can see, I tend to read pretty eclectically. Would love to hear anyone's opinions of any of these books, if you have read them.

Of course, I have to wonder, does anyone really care what books I liked?

A Mission Statement?

I wonder if a blog should have a mission statement? Like why did I create this blog? What is it's purpose? What do I hope to accomplish? I guess I would answer that I want to share my love of books with others. I am often asked my friends, relatives and co-workers about "what's a good book to read?". Hopefully, I can share my choices here and that others will also share their opinions. I really want to hear from others about books discussed and books recommended.

I have to admit to a lifelong love affair with books. Even as a very young child, my favorite gift to receive was always a book. My favorite places to visit are libraries and book stores! My children have become great readers, and now I am working on my grandchildren! My oldest grandchild, Lexie, is 8 and is becoming an excellent reader. Perhaps she will share some of her favorite children's books with us on this blog!

I think that my first few posts will be of lists of books that I have really enjoyed over the past 8 years. In 2000, I began logging books read, with notations about how I liked them. Hopefully, the lists will give others some ideas of books that they might also enjoy.