The Night Birds

Here's a great book to start out a new year! The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman, published in 2007, The Night Birds.  I really wish that we were discussing it at book group, so I may present it again for vote when it is my turn in a few months!

was awarded the Alex Award, the Friends of American Writers Literary Award, and a Spur Award.  I am surprised that I hadn't heard of it until it was presented (but not chosen) at last month's book group. I had voted for it because I thought it sounded so interesting, but another book was chosen.  I still wanted to read it, so after reading the book group choice, I read

The Night Birds is set in the 1860's and 1870's in Missouri, then Minnesota.  It is the story of three generations.  Asa Stenger, a young boy, is at the heart of the book.  He was descended from German immigrants who had settled in Missouri, then moved to Minnesota.  The time period was that of the Civil War and then the Dakota Conflict (or The Sioux Uprising), a fairly unknown time of US history.

In Minnesota during this time period conflicts were still relatively common between the white settlers and the Indians.  However, cordial relationships between the settlers and the Indians were also evident.  One day, Asa's Aunt Hazel, his father's sister, unexpectedly showed up at their home.  She had been thought to be long dead, but as Asa learned, Hazel had been long-forgotten in an asylum for years.  As Hazel and Asa began to trust each other and become closer, Hazel began sharing stories of her past with Asa, including her being taken captive by and living with the Dakota Indians.  Hazel had been institutionalized after the capture and hanging of 38 of the Dakota warriors in 1862. 

Hazel's story is fascinating and interweaves history with Indian mysticism, love, loss, and forgiveness.
Her story left Asa with questions and answers that led him onto his path in life.

This is a beautifully written story that I look forward to re-reading at some point.

What are the night birds?  "...birds that led humans out of sorrow."

Beautiful!

 

Obsessed.

Today as I pulled up to Barnes and Noble for my weekly Bible Study the thought went through my head..."I'm going to be spending a bunch of money here today..."  The temperature was 1 degree outside.  It just felt like a book buying day. Ever have one of those? Despite piles of to-be-read books awaiting attention at home?

So, by the end of the morning I walked out with 3 new books: Canada by Richard Ford, Roots of the Olive Tree by Courtney Miller Santo, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin.  I guess that reading, and even the anticipation of reading is my winter comfort.

Oh, okay...so I also bought a half-price tin of peanut brittle and a half-price jigsaw puzzle.

Favorite books of 2014

If my count is correct, I read 48 books in 2014.  Not as high as I would like, but decent.  When I break it down into 12 months, that's 4 books a month.  Only 2 books read were non-fiction this year.  22 of the 48 books were written by women, which means 26 were written by men, so I find that fairly impartial, but surprising.  I would have guessed that I read more books written by women.  2 books were by Joyce Carol Oates and 2 were by Marilynn Robinson.  Anyway, as I annually do, I have my list of favorite books that I read in 2014.

This year the preliminary list is 21:

The Year of Wonder-Geraldine March

Death Comes For The Archbishop: Willa Cather

Still Alice-Lisa Genova

Iron House-John Hart

Miss Pegrine’s Home for Peculiar Children-Ransom Riggs

A Town Like Alice-Nevill Shute                                                      

The Son-Philipp Meyer

The Goldfinch-Donna Tartt

The Fault in our Stars-John Green

The Grapes of Wrath-John Steinbeck

 Frog Music-Emma Donoghue

A constellation of vital phenomena: Anthony Marra

Calling Me Home-Julie Kibler

Angle of Repose-Wallace Stegner

The Invention of Wings-Sue Monk Kidd

Carthage-Joyce Carol Oates

Natchez Burning-Greg Iles

Night Fall-Nelson DeMille

Lila-Marilynn Robinson

Gilead-Marilynn Robinson                                                   

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry-Rachel Joyce

I find it interesting that 2 of the books are Young Adult, and 4 of the books are older works.  11 of the 21 were written by women, so still fairly even.

I am eliminating the last two only because they were recent re-reads.  That by no means indicates that they are not worthy of my favorite books read! That being said-

Narrowing it down to my top 11 favorites of 2014:

Still Alice-Lisa Genova

Iron House-John Hart

A Town Like Alice-Nevill Shute                                                      

The Son-Philipp Meyer

The Goldfinch-Donna Tartt

The Grapes of Wrath-John Steinbeck

Angle of Repose-Wallace Stegner

The Invention of Wings-Sue Monk Kidd

Carthage-Joyce Carol Oates

Natchez Burning-Greg Iles

Lila-Marilynn Robinson

Again, three of these books are older books.  Now to get serious: my top 6 favorites:

The Son-Philipp Meyer

The Goldfinch-Donna Tartt

Angle of Repose-Wallace Stegner

The Invention of Wings-Sue Monk Kidd

Natchez Burning-Greg Iles

Lila-Marilynn Robinson

And so it gets down to 2 books:

Natchez Burning-Greg Iles

Lila-Marilynn Robinson

And choosing between these two books is like having to pick a favorite child.  I really loved both of them, but the winner goes to this stunningly beautiful book:

Lila by Marilynn Robinson  

 

 

for December 2014-Four books

I re-read Gilead by Marilyn Robinson as it was the book chosen by one of my book groups for December.  Each time I read it, I am struck by the beauty of this book.  It is one of my very favorites, second only to To Kill A Mockingbird.  If you haven't read it, run to the library, bookstore, friends, somewhere to find it!  I first read Gilead in January of 2005.  (if you are interested in my take on the book, I reviewed it on this blog December 16, 2010 after my third time reading it)

For my other book group's choice for December we read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.  This was my second reading of this book.  I reviewed it on this blog on January 1, 2014. It, too, is an excellent read.  This book lends itself to great discussion in book groups!

In December, I also read Stephen King's newest book, Revival.  It is the story of a charismatic minister

named Charles Jacobs, who came to a small New England town and became beloved by all of his parishioners.  He befriended Jamie Morton, a small boy whose family attended the church, and shared his passion for electricity with Jamie.  However, tragedy struck the Jacobs family and Charles publicly denounced God during a church service.  He was sent away and not heard from again.

Over the years, Jamie developed an interest in guitar and began playing in bands, traveling around the country.  As can often happen in that lifestyle, he began drinking and using heroin to the point that he was destitute.  Then Jamie met up with Charles Jacob again, and that meeting led to years of consequences for Jamie.

As the jacket cover for the book states:

"Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings."

The story spans about fifty years and is quite interesting.  It has made me think more about Stephen King's writing.  I have always thought that he is a great writer (although I find some of his subject matter quite disturbing and have not read all of his books).  The more that I do read of his writing, the more I think that he puts much more into his writing than what is read on the surface.  I have never read any of his books for a book group, but I think that his writing would lend to great thought and discussion.  I will have to consider this!

The last book that I read in December was Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline.  I had not read it

before because I had not seen great reviews for it.  I should have known better.  I liked the book quite a bit.  It is a simple read, but I loved the story.



Orphan Train is a historical fiction account based on the true reality of our country between 1854-1929, when orphan children were put on trains headed west to find families to either live with or be adopted by.  Often the children were taken in to be labor for the families, but there were also families who were truly looking for children to be part of their family.

I liked the way the author set up the story.  It involved two main characters: Vivian Daly, who had come to the United States in 1929 with her parents, but was soon orphaned and sent from New York City on an Orphan Train headed west.  She had a hard youth as she went from family to family.  She eventually married and ended up living on the coast of Maine.  Molly Ayers was a young seventeen year old girl who was living in foster care in Maine and had been caught stealing a book.  Her community service was to help the elderly Vivian clear out her attic.

As the two go through Vivian's belongings that have been packed away for years, slowly the story of Vivian's life emerged.  Both realized that they had had similar lives and experiences, wondering about their pasts and their families. 

It was a good story of loss, and new beginnings.

A Plethera of Books

Four more books that I have read in the last month or so:

three story house by Courtney Miller Santo:Three thirty-something cousins came together to renovate

one of the cousin's grandmother's old historic home in Memphis.  The home was an oddly shaped, three story home that had seen much better days.  It's kind of how the three cousins were feeling about their own lives. As they work on the house, each revealed what was happening in their own lives. I didn't find it especially interesting!




The Lion by Nelson DeMille: another one of the five in the John Corey series of which I previously had read two of them.  I enjoy the John Corey character, so I think that's what I find so interesting in the books.  In this one, John was hunting and being hunted by an old nemesis from 10 years earlier-Asad Khalil, a Libyan terrorist known as "The Lion".  The Lion had returned to the United States to finish off killing those who had thwarted him the last time he was in the US, with John Corey being at the top of the list.  Good fun mystery.




The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens: this was kind of an interesting one.  Joe Talbert was assigned to

write a biography for his college English class.  He went to a nursing home and found Carl Iverson.  Carl was in the nursing home because he was dying.  He had been medically paroled from prison where he was serving a life sentence for rape and murder.  Joe soon learned from a friend of Carl's that Carl was a decorated Viet Nam veteran.  When the friend shared some of Carl's history, it seemed inconceivable that Carl would have raped and murdered a young girl.



Meanwhile, Joe was dealing with his alcoholic mother and his autistic brother who lived with the mother.  Joe also was becoming friends (and hoping for more) with his next door neighbor.  As Joe worked on his assignment, he shared Carl's story with Lila, his neighbor and they began to wonder about Carl's guilt or innocence.  Joe became more convinced that Carl was innocent and wanted to prove it before Carl died.

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper: I really enjoyed this book.  Lots of humor in it. When Judd Foxman's father died, the entire family returned for the funeral.  When they arrived, their mother

announced that their father had wanted them to sit Shiva for him, despite the fact that the family had never been practising Jewish. So now they were expected to sit for seven days in the house while people came and went offering condolences, food, etc.

On top of that, Judd had recently learned that his wife had been having an affair with his boss.

So for seven days the siblings and mother are in the house together.  Old resentments and secrets began to come out, as the family attempts to learn to live together for the week.

It's a good book....much about love and marriage and family, but really funny. 

Angle of Repose

I first read Angle of Repose by Wallace Stenger about 40 years ago.  Hard to believe, but it's true!  The

book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1972 and I read it shortly after. I consider it a classic and re-read it about every 10 years or so.

First of all, to explain the title-it is an engineering term that describes the angle where dirt/soil settles after being piled up. More about that later.

The novel is narrated by Lyman Ward, the grandson of Oliver and Susan Burling Ward.  Lyman was a retired professor of history who was divorced and confined to a wheelchair.  He decided that he wanted to write a biography of his grandmother and he went to live in his grandparent's old home in Green Vally, California, much to the displeasure of his son, who felt that Lyman would not be able to care for himself there.  But the caretakers of the house helped Lyman daily and he was determined to stay there.  He had old letters/correspondence between his grandmother and her best friend, along with old articles from magazines and newspapers and so he began trying to put together the history of the family from when they went out West a century earlier.

As Lyman went through the old letters, he began to learn more about Susan Burling Ward, his grandmother who had raised him.  In 1868, Susan was an educated, cultured artist, a young Quaker woman living in the East when, on New Year's Eve, she met Oliver Ward, a young ambitious sounding man who wanted to head West and become an engineer.  A week later, Oliver left for the West and Susan did not see him again for five years.  The did write to each other and over time an "understanding" came to be, so that when Oliver returned to the East they agreed to marry.

And thus the lifelong journey began.  The family moved around in the West through-out the years as Oliver worked on mines and canals.  Susan helped to support the family with her art and writings.  They had three children.

This is just such a simplified summary...there is so much more in the book.  Some of the most influential characters were Augusta Drake and her husband Thomas Hudson.  Augusta was Susan's best friend and it was the letters between Susan and Augusta that Lyman was using to write Susan's biography.  And Frank, Lyman's assistant, who was in love with Susan.  It was never made clear exactly what Susan and Frank's relationship was, but clearly it was a love relationship, if not a sexual relationship.

As Lyman worked through all the letters and articles and memories of his grandparents, he began to study the story of his life and his marriage.  Near the very end of the story, Lyman had a very disturbing dream that included his ex-wife:

"'What do you mean Angle of Repose?' she asked me when I dreamed were were talking about Grandmother's life, and I said it was the angle at which a man or woman finally lies down.  I suppose it is; and yet it was not that that I hoped to find when I began to pry around in Grandmother's life.  I thought when I began, and still think, that there was another angle in all those years when she was growing old and older, and very old, and Grandfather was matching her year for year, a separate line that did not intersect with hers.  They were vertical people, they lived by pride, and it is only by the ocular illusion of perspective that they can be said to have met.  But he had not been dead two months when she lay down and died too, and that may indicate that at that absolute vanishing point they did intersect.  They had intersected for years, for more that he especially would ever admit."

 This novel covers over 100 years and four generations of the family.  Fascinating book! 

Lila

The only way I can describe the book Lila is that it is stunningly beautiful.  Marilynne Robinson has hit Gilead is among my very most favorite books of all times; Home, the follow-up to Gilead is among one of my most favorite books, and now Lila is also.  All three of these books take place in Gilead, Iowa.  I very strongly recommend that the reader reads them in the order written.

another one out of the park.  Her book

Lila goes back into the past of Lila, the young girl who married elderly minister John Ames in the book Gilead.  Lila tells the story of Lila growing up and then her meeting and courtship with Rev. Ames.  Lila had suffered a hard and difficult childhood, never knowing who her actual family was, but being raised by Doll, who had taken Lila from where she was living and raised her along with the other drifters who Doll traveled with.  When coming to Gilead, it was a completely different style of life than what Lila had known and much of the book is about the struggle Lila had making sense of life in Gilead, and of the goodness of people.

After Lila met Rev. Ames, each seemed to have a sort of attraction to each other.  Lila, of course, was very untrusting of others and held back from the help that those in Gilead generously offered.  Shortly after she had met Rev. Ames she was thinking about him:

"He had given a sermon, 'Let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.' He said it meant that when you did a good thing it should seem to come from God, not from you. It should not feel to other people like your goodness, and it should not feel that way to you, either. Any good thing is less good the more any human being lays claim to it."

Near the end of the book, Lila was thinking about the future and how to tell her son about his life and his father.

"You turned into a perfectly fine baby.  Maybe your father has enough years left in him to see you turn into a perfectly fine boy.  And maybe not.  Old men are hard to keep."

"Old men are hard to keep"....that line broke my heart.

I felt like the entire book was full of beautiful words.  I hated ending it.