This Canyon is Grand!

photo courtesy http://pdphoto.org/   Thanks, Jon!

OVER THE EDGE: Death in Grand Canyon 
by Michael P. Ghighlieri and Thomas M. Myers
          ©2001 Wow! I finally made it through this Grand Canyon book, and I feel like I’ve just climbed out of the canyon myself. I’ve been reading little bits of this book for the past two weeks; there’s only so much death and destruction I can take at one setting! And this book is packed, cover-to-cover, with non-stop stories of some of the over 700 known fatalities in Grand Canyon National Park over the years.
          According to the authors, the purpose of such a gruesome volume of fatal mishaps is to warn future visitors of the hazards lurking in this amazingly beautiful wilderness area. Just how many ways can you die in the Grand Canyon? The book is broken down into chapters describing the various ways that people "met their Maker"; and fools will continue to die there. In a vast majority of cases, the stories show that human error or idiocy was to blame. Some of the victims were basically TSTL and had no business in the wilderness in the first place.
          There are chapters about death by falling into the canyon (from the rim or while on the trails that descend to the mighty Colorado River at the bottom); by environmental factors such as extreme heat or cold, lightning, poisonous snakes, etc.; by flash floods that can happen on a clear, blue-sky day with no warning; by capsizing and drowning on river running expeditions; by suicide; by murder; and by crashes of sightseeing aircraft. It seems that the safest way to see the canyon is either by white-knuckling the guard rails at the rim's scenic overlooks or taking a mule ride to the bottom and back. The mule ride concessions have never experienced a passenger fatality.
          The book is full of Grand Canyon history, geology, flora and fauna, Native American lore, courageous rescue and recovery missions, and tables with brief summaries of canyon fatalities---with plenty of advice for how to prepare for a trip into the wilds and how to avoid the common mistakes that visitors make which can suddenly turn a great vacation into a terrible tragedy. There aren’t any pretty pictures of the Canyon itself.
          Just because I found this book fascinating, doesn’t mean everyone will. This kind of book would appeal to wilderness survival enthusiasts, extreme sports/adventure fanatics, and people who love the Grand Canyon and nature. I would recommend it to anyone who plans to visit Grand Canyon National Park, so they will know ahead of time what they can expect and, basically, how to return home alive.


GRAND CANYON COUNTRY 
by Seymour L. Fishbein
          ©1991 I read this book simultaneously with the above book, Over The Edge: Death in Grand Canyon,  because I needed some beautiful photography of the canyon to balance out the macabre tales of death. This is one of those gorgeous, slick National Geographic books, full of breathtakingly scenic photos and great descriptive nature writing.

Nature's Children

My husband & son in the Good Old Days!

LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS
by Richard Louv
          © 2005 Subtitled: SAVING OUR CHILDREN FROM NATURE-DEFICIT DISORDER. This is one of the best-written books I’ve come across about children and nature. I started reading it last year, but it was so info-intense and fascinating that I was reading it so slowly--- I only got through half of it before I had to take it back to the library. I’m glad I finally found time to return to it.
          One sentence from the book sums up its importance: “Our children are the first generation to be raised without meaningful contact with the natural world.” The author is absolutely right. My whole childhood (I’m a Boomer, by the way) was spent playing outdoors, and I’ll bet I’m not the only child of that generation that did so. Whether we lived in town or in the country, our mothers never worried where we were or what we were doing. We were playing outside! Wandering, exploring, collecting, building, digging, and having spontaneous, natural fun…
          In our modern world, I’ve noticed that you seldom see children playing outside anymore. Stranger-danger is only one reason. Unless children are involved in organized outdoor sports like Little League or soccer, they’re usually found holed up indoors playing video games or texting their friends or watching hours and hours of mind-numbing TV. Intimacy with nature has become a thing of the past for too many of today’s children, unless they are lucky enough to have parents who value the educational and play value of being outdoors.
          This book explains the cause of “nature-deficit disorder”, shows what people are doing on the personal, local and national level to bring more life-enhancing nature into the lives of children, and gives 100 great ideas for more direct involvement in the “No Child Left Inside” movement. I recommend it for parents, grandparents and parents-to-be as one of the best things you can do for your child(ren)’s development and well-being.

Some Favorite Doggie Memoirs

Baby Beary & KittenYahoo

THE DOG 
WHO RESCUES CATS 
by Philip Gonzalez and Leonore Fleischer
Are you a cat lover?
Or do you think of yourself as more of a dog person?
Whichever you happen to be, read this book! You'll love it! Guaranteed!

IZZY AND LENORE
by Jon Katz
          When the author rescued a neglected border collie named Izzy, he found that she was of the perfect temperament to be a hospice volunteer. Together they brought comfort and caring to a number of dying patients.
          But it was the black lab puppy that Katz named Lenore that pulled the author out of his own personal battle with depression. This is a heartwarming story of dogs with heart and compassion.
I learned a lot about hospice from this very enjoyable little book. I'm hoping, as my own dog gets a little more mature, he might be suitable for nursing home visits. If not, I'm thinking about getting some bunnies or a pygmy goat to take around to visit the forgotten elderly. Reading this book has made me interested in this type of volunteer service.

MY LIFE AS A DOG 
by "Moose" with Brian Hargrove
          This little Jack Russell Terrier reminded me of Wishbone of PBS fame. Except Wishbone was more of an intellectual, while Moose was a comedian through and through.
          For the few people who may not know, Moose played the canine character, Eddie, on the sit-com Frasier. That show was popular during my TV-less period of life, so I missed it. But later, I saw enough of it in reruns to have a general idea of the characters. If I'd known that Eddie was the star of the show (according to Moose), I would have watched every episode.
          In this book, he presents us with his hilarious autobiography. I especially enjoyed his memories of his birth and puppyhood. My own dog, Beary (pictured above) thought his "Moose-isms" were hysterically witty, especially the put-downs of cats.
         This was an easy read that I finished in one evening. This book should be required reading for Frasier fans. Moose passed on to that Great Doghouse in the Sky in 2006. Rest in peace, little Moosie...

GOOD DOG. STAY.
by Anna Quindlen
          I read this short, little true-life book during my 45 minutes on the treadmill. Full of beautiful, professional dog portraits, this is basically a eulogy for a beloved pet that had to be euthanized in his old age. It was like the story of MARLEY & ME, condensed into only 98 pages, telling how the puppy grew up with the family's children. I cried at the end.

Down Home Humor

 
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID: A Memoir 
by Bill Bryson (268)
          ©2006 An earlier Bryson book I read, THE LOST CONTINENT (1989) was a real let-down. I googled the author and discovered that it was one of the earliest books he wrote. Maybe a kindly editor suggested he needed to lighten up with the biting sarcasm and annoying whining, because every other Bryson book I’ve read since has been a winner with me.
          While I was on his official website, I watched the trailer for Thunderbolt Kid. It was a hilarious little clip read by the author himself. His voice was nothing like what I was expecting, and the goofy animation cracked me up. So I just had to read the book. This little treasure reminded me why I love him. This guy can take the most mundane subject and make it hysterically funny.
          This is a wacky, roller coaster ride back in time, and since I’m only two years younger than Bill, and I was a notorious tom-boy growing up, his adventures a lot of times mirrored my own. In fact, if I were to try to write a book about my childhood memoirs, I couldn’t do it, because Bryson beat me to it.
          If you were a kid in the ‘50s, you really ought to read this one. It’s like a cross between Dennis the Menace and Leave It to Beaver, with some Beavis & Butthead thrown in to spice things up. If you are interested in the period of the 50s as the dividing point between who we were then and who we are now, this book won’t disappoint.

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN 
by Robert Fulghum
          I thought there were going to be kids in this, but it was really a guy's memoirs packaged as a collection of quirky essays. This is a book of "uncommon thoughts on common things"; except I found that a lot of the stuff he was writing about was the same stuff I often thought about, wondered about, and wrote about myself in my journals. So I don't know how uncommon his thoughts actually are. I bet anyone could read this book and find plenty of things they've found themselves pondering or say "Hey, I thought of that when I was a kid!" But that's what made the book fun. I could really identify with a lot of what he was saying.
          The book is short, funny, and easy to read. The essay on Mother Teresa came as a nice surprise; not to be missed.

LAKE WOEBEGONE DAYS
by Garrison Keillor
          I'd heard of Garrison Keillor and knew he had a public radio show, but I didn't really know what to expect. What a treat! I loved this book and didn't want it to end, so I read it slowly and savored it. It brought back so many memories of my long ago, small-town childhood. It was a hilarious read, and there were actually times when I laughed out loud. The best way I can describe the author: a modern-day Mark Twain, but even funnier. I recommend it for the winter blues or anytime you need a quick pick-me-up.

A Couple of Books for Foodies

APHRODITE
by Isabel Allende 
Chilean author Isabel Allende has served up something different in this gorgeous book about food. I was especially interested in the anthropological aspects of the book: ancient and modern uses of plants and other foodstuffs to excite the passions. The recipes look decadently delicious! The book is printed on slick pages and illustrated with really unique artwork (mostly from the late 20th century).

THE FOOD OF A YOUNGER LAND: A Portrait of American Food---from the Lost WPA Files by Mark Kurlansky
          This history of American food was tremendously interesting to me for two reasons. Even though I don't like to cook, I love to read about food --- and I love to sample regional foods when I travel. I was also interested in the back story of how this book came about.
          During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the government put millions of unemployed Americans to work through the Works Progress Administration (later renamed the Work Projects Administration): constructing roads, parks and public buildings, as well as a number of cultural projects for artists, photographers and writers to document American life during those years of severe economic struggle. It's amazing to read the list of now famous actors, artists and writers who survived those lean years thanks to WPA projects.
          The FWP (Federal Writers' Project) employed out-of-work and wanna-be writers and sent them out all across the country to compile travel guidebooks of all the states. Then someone came up with a project to do a book on the regional cuisine of America, and they called it AMERICA EATS. A lot of material was collected, but when America entered WW2, the WPA was discontinued and the book was never written and published. The manuscripts, letters, interview materials, etc. collected for the project were turned over to the Library of Congress, where they were "lost" for decades until Mark Kurlansky discovered and edited them into this book published in 2009.
          So the stories in this book come from the 1930s, with updated/background material added by the editor. We get to see what the nation's dietary practices were back before there were interstate highways, supermarkets, fast food chain restaurants, frozen and packaged foods, and all the other commercial conveniences that make much of our food today so uniform and uninspired. We get to return to the days when food was traditional, seasonal, regional, and real.
          The book is divided into five regions: the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, the Far West, and the Southwest. I especially enjoyed reading about food of the Midwest, the food I grew up on. But all of the regions and their old-time cuisines fascinated me. I learned why hush puppies were called that. That a Minnesota booya is a lot like our own local burgoo. There's even an organ-meat stew called Son of a Bitch. I learned all about clam bakes and lamb fries, chowders, mint juleps, ethic foods brought here by immigrants, Native American foods, slave foods, pioneer cooking, cowboy chuckwagons, etc. Recipes were written right into the stories, so it didn't feel at all like reading a cookbook.

Women On the Road

My favorite genre of books is "travel" and I love road trip books by authors like William Least Heat Moon, Peter Jenkins and Bill Bryson. But I especially admire women who travel the "road not taken" and are brave enough to see the world on their own.

For a short time during the 70s, my sister and I traveled all over the West, living out of a camper shell on the back of her pick-up truck with her Doberman, my German Shepherd, and all our worldly possessions. We had the time of our lives and took home many awesome memories. Here is an old photo of me posing in front of the mighty Grand Canyon.

Below is a selection of my most favorite "women traveler" books, and none of these ladies let their gender keep them at home.

THE LAST OF THE SADDLE TRAMPS
by Mesannie Wilkins 
           I can't believe only one other person on Shelfari has this book on their shelf. What a shame for it to fade into obscurity!
          The book, which was published in 1967, tells the real life story of a 63 year old Maine woman who, when she's warned by her doctor that she only has 2 to 4 years to live, bought a horse and set out in November, 1954 with her little dog, to ride all the way to California with only $32 in her pocket.      Along the way she slept in barns, jails, motels, out under the stars, and in the homes of welcoming strangers. Her many adventures on the long trip to California are told with the warmth and humor of a little old lady who has a big dream and the courage to make it happen. I doubt she ever stopped to think how far it was from Maine to California. She just trusted in God and took things one day at a time.
          Sixteen months, 7,000 miles, and 8 filled diaries later, she arrived in California.  She, along with her horse and dog, was featured on the Art Linkletter Show and became something of a celebrity. This is a classic "road trip" story of a truly inspirational woman traveler seeing America from the back of a horse.
         P.S.  She proved her doctor wrong and lived well into her 80s.

LOIS ON THE LOOSE
by Lois Price
          I laughed all the way through this insane book! "One woman, one motorcycle, 20,000 miles across the Americas" is what it says on the cover. True story. Lois quits her boring job at the BBC in London, flies with her Yamaha 225 dirt bike and camping gear to Anchorage, Alaska, and begins an 8-and-a-half month trek south, headed for Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of South America. What utter lunacy for a young lady, traveling alone on a small bike not meant for long distance travel, with very little knowledge of motorcycle mechanics or the Spanish language, to set off on such a hair-brained adventure!
          Along the way, she's befriended by all kinds of bikers, learns to communicate (mostly by miming) with the Hispanic locals, and deals with all kinds of bureaucratic nightmares at border crossings and airports. The only country she skips, for obvious safety reasons, is Nicaragua. The trip, fraught with endless frustrations and danger, is accomplished through the sheer tenacity and bravery of a little gal with a great big dream. This is not a book of flowery prose about the people and places she visits; nonetheless, the reader gets a realistic feel for this kind of extreme travel adventure. Lois' great sense of humor at her endless predicaments and her determination to stand with her bike at the "end of the world" keeps this easy read moving at an almost frantic pace.
          Bill Bryson's A WALK IN THE WOODS cured me of any ideas I ever had about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Lois' book did the same for any wacky notions I may have had of biking south of the border. I'll have to be content to let books take me there.

BREAKING THE LIMIT: One Woman’s Motorcycle Journey Through North America 
by Karen Larsen
          ©2004 This is the best Road Trip book I’ve ever read, and I read every one I can get my hands on. Road trip books, FYI, are a sub-genre of travel books. Travel books tell the reader how to get there and what he will find. Road trip books are personal travelogues that go much deeper, recounting the adventures that the traveler experiences while on the road.
          Karen Larsen is one remarkable young woman. Born in Canada to an unwed mother, she was adopted as an infant and grew up in Massachusetts. She’d hiked a significant portion of the Appalachian trail and was a world traveler. After a two year stint with the Peace Corps, serving in Bulgaria and Macedonia, she returned to Princeton to earn her Masters.
          A breast cancer scare motivated Karen to locate her biological family, to assess her family history of the disease. It also brought to mind the fact that life is uncertain, so if a person has any untried dreams, it’s a good idea to go for them before it’s too late. So the day after graduation, she packed up her little Harley Sportster, “Lucy,” and hit the road for a summer of freedom, adventure and pure adrenaline.
          She was a little gal on a little bike, alone as she headed into the unknown: west to the Pacific Coast and then north to Alaska. She caused quite a stir every day as she stopped to gas up Lucy or get a bite to eat in a roadside café. Some people were rude or even outraged at the foolishness of a woman traveling alone on a motorcycle. But most were awed that she was brave enough to follow her dream and face the unknowns of each day: the weather, the road conditions, and the dangerous wildlife, including some of the people she came in contact with.
          Karen and her story were amazing enough. While on the road, she makes it a point to connect with her biological parents and half-siblings, and learns a lot about herself in the process. But what made this a first-rate, road trip saga was the perfect balance of colorful description of the places she passed through, the variety of interesting people she met, and the many (sometimes scary) adventures she experienced.
          I love it when I come to the end of a book feeling like I actually lived it!

Four Awesome Survival Adventures

Photo courtesy http://pdphoto.org/    Thanks, Jon!

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
by Aron Ralston
          ©2004 I remember this news story when it happened eight years ago. Young man, canyoneering alone in Utah, becomes trapped when a huge boulder rolls onto his hand. After six days of trying to chip away the rock or devise a system of pulleys with his climbing gear to lift it, in an act of desperation, he cuts off his own hand with a dull pocket knife in order to escape.
          I didn’t think I’d ever get through this book.  Ralston tells the stories of what seems to be every mountain he’s ever climbed, every trail he’s ever hiked. Very goal-oriented, Ralston was on his way to being the first person to climb all 59 of Colorado’s mountains over 14,000 feet high, solo, during the winter season, when he had his accident.
          At first, I was thinking that maybe he should have written a second book about his outdoor adventures, and just concentrate in this book on the one that almost killed him. But as I got farther along in the story, I decided that the slow pace of the book must approximate the slow and painful passing of endless hours that he was trapped and facing death by thirst and hypothermia. He had passed his time remembering the mountains he’d climbed and skied, and thinking of friends and loved ones.
          This is an incredible story of courage and perseverance that will especially appeal to those who love the great outdoors and stories of survival.

INTO THIN AIR 
by Jon Krakauer 
          ©1997 In 1996, Outside magazine sent journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer to Mt. Everest to do a story on the commercialization of the mountain. Too many competing guide companies were taking marginally-qualified climbers to the summit for up to $65,000 each. The mountain was littered with empty oxygen tanks, other trash left by trekkers and climbers, and even the bodies of some of those who never made it back alive. It was a tragedy just waiting to happen. Krakauer, who reached the summit, came back with a story of the worst climbing disaster in the mountain’s history. He was one of the lucky ones who lived to tell the story.
          All I can think after reading this gripping adventure tale is: WHY would anyone in their right mind want to climb Mt. Everest, with its trial of excruciating suffering and the very real danger of dying on the mountain? The only answer: “Because it’s there!” (attributed to George Mallory, a British mountaineer who died on the North Face of Everest in 1924 at the age of 37).
          This book was intense. It starts slowly, with details of the expedition, but quickly builds like an avalanche to its disastrous conclusion. It was a real page-turner. I definitely felt I was there!

LEFT FOR DEAD: My Journey Home from Everest
by Beck Weathers
©2000  INTO THIN AIR by Jon Krakauer  documented the ill-fated 1996 expedition to the summit of Mount Everest, which claimed the lives of eight climbers. One member of the team, Beck Weathers, a pathologist from Dallas, was found comatose and at the point of death, and so he had been left behind to die.
          Beck didn’t die though. He somehow woke up and had a strange epiphany in which he saw the faces of his wife and two children, and realized he would never see them again unless he got up and made his way back to camp. His wife had already received word from Everest that Beck was dead, when unexpectedly he came stumbling into camp. But he was so far gone that the surviving climbers put him in a tent by himself and,  for a second time, he was left to die. But again, he rallied and was eventually rescued in a daring helicopter pick-up.
          What went on at Mount Everest was only a small part of the book, however. The story is told from the perspectives of Beck himself, his wife and children, and their family and friends. They piece together a portrait of a man so obsessed with mountain-climbing that it nearly destroyed his family.
          I can certainly identify with the pain and loneliness his loving, patient wife went through because of his need to prove himself by attempting to climb the seven highest mountains on the seven continents. I myself was a motocross widow for seven years while my son pursued the elusive dream of becoming a professional motocross racer. I hated MX as fiercely as Peach Weathers hated mountaineering.
          In a brutally honest way, Beck bared his soul and confessed to his failings as a husband and father in his pursuit of extreme adventure. After eleven surgeries to amputate his frozen right hand and all the fingers on his left, as well as facial reconstruction that included a new nose, he still had to deal with putting his family life back together. As much as I liked Krakauer’s account of the Everest tragedy, Beck Weather’s story was so much more personal and moving. It was a quick read, hard to put down, and an amazing “miracle” story that brought tears to my eyes in the end.

ANGELS IN THE WILDERNESS 
by Amy Racina
          ©2009 I never get tired of reading true-life outdoor survival tales. In this one, the author is a physically-fit, middle-aged female hiker who enjoys backpacking solo in the wilderness. But on one fateful trip into a remote valley in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, she has an accident: a 60 foot fall into a ravine that breaks both her legs and leaves her praying for a miracle. The miracle comes, after 4 days, in the form of three backpackers. They are the “angels” in the title, who find her and are able to keep her alive until help can be summoned.
          The first half of the book features her love of nature and the great outdoors, her hike, and her accident and rescue. The rest of the book is about her long, painful road to recovery and the friends who helped her through it. Her healing is both soul-searching and spiritually uplifting. I'm glad she lived to tell her story.

The Irritating Ms. Stein

BREWSIE AND WILLIE
by Gertrude Stein
          ©1946 I can’t even begin to tell what this book was about. Thankfully, with only 114 pages, it was short!
          This entire WW2-era book was about a group of American G.I.s gabbing about German women, Negro soldiers, finding a job when they get back home, and whether or not America should be an industrial nation.
          This was a book with no plot and really, no point. There was a total disregard for proper punctuation, and the conversations were all run together, repetitive and boooooooooooring!
          I agree with what author James Thurber had to say about Ms. Stein: “Anyone who reads at all diversely during these bizarre 1920s cannot escape the conclusion that a number of crazy men and women are writing stuff which remarkably passes for important composition among certain persons who should know better. … one of the most eminent of the idiots, Gertrude Stein.”
          I can’t believe someone actually published this drivel, and someone got paid to write it. The reader should be paid to read it!

A PRIMER FOR THE GRADUAL UNDERSTANDING OF GERTRUDE STEIN
by Gertrude Stein, edited by Robert Bartlett Haas
           © 1971 Good grief! Was this woman on drugs or what??? It’s hard to believe that someone got paid to write such nonsense! If I didn’t already know she lived and wrote in the pre-computer age, I’d suspect she’d used a random word generator to do her writing. It’s like that kit you can get which has words on magnets, and you randomly stick them on your refrigerator to make up poems.
           I never achieved anything approaching a “gradual understanding” of this woman, AT ALL! I usually like to give an author “three strikes and you’re out.” But after reading her BREWSIE AND WILLIE last year and hating it --- Ugh! I can’t take any more!
           ***sound of toilet flushing***

The Wisdom of Older Women

I love to seek out the wisdom of the older generation.  They've come from a simpler time and have seen many changes over the course of their long lives. They're like living history books. A few of these wise women I've met through my reading are:

TESSIE AND PEARLIE 
by Joy Horowitz 
          I've never known any bubbes (Jewish grandmothers), but these two make me wish I did. Tessie and Pearlie were both in their 90s when their granddaughter, a journalist, decided to write the story of their lives. Through her visits and interviews with them, old family photos, and letters saved over the decades, Joy came to know much about her family's history and heritage. In this book, she shares the wisdom of her bubbes, as well as a few favorite family recipes, with the world.
          I wouldn't call this a lighthearted book. Both bubbes were preoccupied with getting old and dying (and who wouldn't be, at age 90?). But love of family seemed to be the lifeblood that kept them going, and their answers to their granddaughter's endless personal questions make for an often hilarious read.

ON MY OWN AT 107 
by Sarah L. Delany w/ Amy Hill Hearth
         With the miracles of modern medicine, more and more of our older folks are living to be centenarians. But I believe it must be truly rare for a couple of siblings to reach the age of 100 together.
          Bessie and Sadie Delany were aged 102 and 104, respectively, when they wrote their best-selling memoirs in HAVING OUR SAY: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (published in 1993). I enjoyed that book very much, as the sisters told about their long lives and the many historic moments they witnessed together. Even though they had plenty of chances to marry, the Delany sisters chose to live together all their lives as single women. They just didn't want to lose their independence and their careers (Sadie was a teacher and Bessie was a dentist) by getting married.
          Bessie passed away in 1995 at the age of 104, and this small, easily read book tells how older sister, Sadie, had to continue on without her. It's a beautiful tribute to a beloved sister who enjoyed gardening, as Bessie's garden continued to give Sadie comfort in the final years of her life. Sarah (Sadie) Delany lived to be 109.

THE DELANY SISTERS' BOOK OF EVERYDAY WISDOM
by Sarah & Elizabeth Delany w/ Amy Hill Hearth
          I've now read all three of the Delany books. In the first one, HAVING OUR SAY, the centenarian sisters tell the story of their long lives together. The last one, ON MY OWN AT 107, is Sister Sarah's tribute to Bessie after she passed on to Glory at the age of 104.
          I think I like this one, the second book, best. The sisters answer questions about how they lived to the ripe old age of 100, how things have changed in the world over the years, and what advice they can give for living a happy, fulfilled life. I was expecting this second book to be a sappy, commercial attempt to cash in on the success of the best-selling first book. But I really enjoyed their home-grown wisdom and old-timey expressions. They even included a few of their most prized recipes, including one for how to make your own soap and another for the production of rose (as in rose-petal) wine.

Welcome Shelfari Friends!

I'm thrilled to have my book blog featured as the blog-of-the-month in the Paging All Bookworms group! I hope you'll have time to visit my two other blogs (see sidebar at right for the buttons to click) and check out my art gallery too!  Thanks for stopping in and come back anytime!

http://www.shelfari.com/groups/48124/about 

Three Selected Stephen King Thrillers

"Remains" pen & ink by C.C. Godar  -  SOLD

THE STAND
by Stephen King
          Reading about a super-flu epidemic that wipes out most of mankind, during 2010, the first year of H1N1, felt frighteningly close to home. This is the third Stephen King I've read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 
          Most readers feel that the uncut version, at 1,153 pages, was way too long --- and I agree. Too many descriptions of the suffering of what seemed like hundreds of minor dying characters could have been left out without destroying the story line or the feeling of horror as the flu swept the country. 
          But other than that, the main characters were so skillfully portrayed that I came to feel like some of them were my personal friends, and I walked every weary mile with them as they made their way to the Free Zone gathering place. 
          I'd love to know what has happened to the surviving characters since the book first came out. But please, Mr. King, if you do a sequel, be merciful and keep it short, like maybe 500 pages next time!

UNDER THE DOME 
by Stephen King
          In his notes at the end of the book, SK says, "I tried to write a book that would keep the pedal consistently to the metal." I have to say, he succeeded there! Non-stop murder and mayhem, from beginning to end. This was a book that I could barely tear myself away from. Not because I liked it so much (at times I wanted to pitch it through the patio door!), but because I just wanted to get to the end and find out what happened.
         "The engine of Velma's light truck shoots backward and tears her in half. Her upper body exits through the windshield, trailing intestines like party streamers, and splatters against the Dome like a juicy bug." 
          For those who've never read Stephen King, this is just one example of the near-constant blood-and-gore fest that awaits the reader of this epic disaster saga. Classic Stephen King. I normally avoid books with excess violence, because I tend to visualize what I read way too picturesquely. But I seem to make an exception for this author. I find myself wishing he'd exercise moderation in his writing, but I guess then, it wouldn't be Stephen King...
          In some of the reviews I've read, people were disappointed with the ending. I thought the ending was perfect. When I reached the halfway point in the book, I was ready to hang it up. But 500 pages is a lot of time invested, so I had to keep reading. I'm glad I stuck around for the ending. I thought it really rocked!
          The science fiction aspect of the book was well-researched and well-written. (SK gives credit where credit is due, for the research, in his notes.) What an imagination!
          All in all, I liked THE STAND much better. It had characters you could love and really root for, and it had an overall feeling of hope that things would work out in the end. UNDER THE DOME just felt mean-spirited and hopeless to me, and I never did really engage with the characters. But mostly, I was annoyed with the excess blood and guts. Sometimes, too much really is too much! It's confusing to me how I could like a book like this so much, and at the same time NOT like it too.

DREAMCATCHER 
by Stephen King
          I really liked this book. I loved the childhood friendships of the main characters (Beaver, Jonesy, Pete, Henry, and Duddits), told in flashbacks that somehow relate to the bizarre things that these grown men go through on one particular hunting trip in the great north woods of Maine. Dear sweet Duddits has become a favorite book character for me.
          It's a real bummer what happens to the Beav (no pun intended, but there it is anyway, so if you've read the book, you'll know what I mean). But the events leading up to his tragedy are almost hysterically funny. Yes, this book is deliciously disgusting with an intricate, creative story line. I also enjoyed the mental combat between Jonesy and Mr. Gray. This story is sure to appeal to sci-fi fans, especially those who like stories of alien invasions.

In Memory of Radar

Radar was a "dog who came to stay". Some useless @$$#0 dumped this wormy, half-grown black pup on our lane, and we didn't need another dog. I was going to send him to the pound, but my young son begged and pleaded to keep him, promising to feed and care for him (famous last words) --- so he stayed. I named him Radar because he had these huge ears, which he eventually grew into.
          Radar grew up to be a very good watchdog. He stayed outside because we already had an indoor cat, Nugget. He was an excellent mole-catcher, so we never had problems with moles in the yard and garden; now we're overrun with them. Like the dog in Hal Borland's book (reviewed below) he was allowed to come and go freely and he covered a large range of woods. He was a happy dog that didn't require a lot of attention.
          He ended up costing us a lot in vet bills though. Unbeknownst to us, he came to us full of heartworms. When he started coughing and getting sick, he was diagnosed and treated, to the tune of $350. Another time he cut his side open on a barb wire fence and had to be sewn up.
          In the last year of his life (we figured him to be about 14 years old then), he was going blind and deaf. Thunderstorms had always scared him, and one day after a bad storm, he came up missing. Days went by...no Radar. We figured he'd gone off into the woods to die. Then 4 or 5 days later we got a call from an animal rescue group in the county west of us. Radar had been picked up in the parking lot of a restaurant in a town 15 miles away. We gave the group a $20 donation and brought him home. A few days later a neighbor called for us to come get him. Then after another storm, he ended up at another neighbor's. We put him in a pen for awhile until we thought his wanderlust had abated. But next time he was let out, he went to an even farther neighbor's. They found him bedded down in a dog carrier in their garage! We decided by then that he was completely senile and no poor old dog should spend his last days lost and wandering alone, so we had him put to sleep.
          I still miss old Radar. He reminded me a lot of Hal Borland's hound, Pat.

THE DOG WHO CAME TO STAY 
by Hal Borland
          ©1961 Hal Borland is a favorite nature writer of mine. I’m glad he shared with his readers the story of Pat, a black and white fox hound/beagle mix that showed up at his rural home one Christmas Day, accompanied by a half-grown black mutt puppy. Hal and his wife Barbara never planned to have a dog, but Pat and Mike made themselves at home and settled in.
          Eventually they had to give the pup, Mike, away. But they kept Pat because he was such a fine, gentlemanly dog that won their hearts and became a part of their family. The story follows the life of Pat as he hunts rabbits with Al, terrorizes groundhogs, and guards against poachers and trespassing hunters. The chapter on skunk encounters was hilarious, and the ending was poignant, not sad like so many pet books are. No tears here, just a lot of chuckles and a memoir of country living at its best.

A Little Too Close to Home

UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES OF JACKSONVILLE 
by Scott Maruna 

           c. 2006  I love this book!  Whoever would have guessed that my hometown, Jacksonville (IL), and the surrounding area has so many spooky stories to tell!     
          Our two private liberal arts colleges have more than their share of ghosts, it seems. The top two stories of the building on the down-town square where the art co-op/gallery to which I belong is said to be haunted. I even found out that the island in the Illinois River that has been in my husband’s family since they immigrated here from Switzerland in the 19^th century (it’s now an Illinois fish and wildlife area) was briefly haunted during the 1880s!

          The book, which was written by my son’s high school math/science teacher, covers not only ghosts and hauntings, but also UFOs, monsters, wildlife that shouldn’t be in this region (like bull sharks, cougars, wolves, armadillos, etc), unsolved mysteries and weird weather events. 
          This book would make a great gift for anyone interested in the paranormal. Next time I’m in town, I plan to stop by Our Town Book Store (next door to the haunted art gallery building), and pick up a copy for myself.

Two Books Worth Reading

BOUND FOR GLORY 
by Woody Guthrie  ©1943

and

THIS LAND WAS MADE FOR YOU AND ME 
by Elizabeth Partridge  ©2002

          I’m so glad I read these two great books together. Woody’s autobiography was raw and immediate. I felt like I was sitting in the same room (or boxcar or migrant’s tent) with him, listening to him drawl out his long, lonesome story; listening to him play his guitar while telling a tragic story in song. Partridge’s biography of Woody patches up the holes, explains some of the mystery of the man, and continues on with the rest of the story.

          Woody wrote his autobiography in the early 1940’s. It’s mostly about his childhood and a series of unfortunate events that left him destitute and homeless as a young man. But he did a lot of living in the years since, up until his death in 1967. Partridge’s book features lots of great photos and brings closure to Woody’s life story.

          Bob Dylan said it [BOUND FOR GLORY] left more of an impression on him than Kerouac's ON THE ROAD.  I have to agree 100%. While similar (talented ramblin’ men who found it hard to settle down), Kerouac’s Beat Generation represented the hedonism of self-indulgence, while Woody’s story showed a deep concern for the poor and oppressed of the Great Depression/Dust Bowl Days.

          Woody rattled around the country, carrying his paint brushes in case he could paint or repaint a sign here or there for a meal. He  carried his guitar and made end meets on the tips he got for singing anywhere he could. He  traveled as a hobo by boxcar, hitch-hiked, and did a lot of walking. He was always looking for “a job of work,” which in those days was hard to find. He was fortunate to be able to get by doing the things he loved: writing & singing songs, painting, and writing.

Photo courtesy http://pdphoto.org/   Thanks, Jon

          At first I was a bit peeved with the biography, because the author told of his childhood as if she were copying it from Woody’s book.  But then I noticed that Woody’s version left out some important details: like the true cause of his mother ending up in an insane asylum. I excused this because he was just a boy and perhaps had repressed the sad memories.  But when he never mentioned in his autobiography his first wife, Mary, and his three small children he abandoned when he took to rambling (which came out in the biography), I downgraded his book from 5 stars to 4 for covering up aspects of his life that he apparently was too ashamed to deal with.

          The cover photo of BOUND FOR GLORY features a photo of Woody looking achingly sad and lonely. Reading either book shows that he had a hard life fraught with too many heartbreaking tragedies for one person to bear. Both books give an insider’s look at what life during the Great Depression was like, and I can recommend them as a portrait of a difficult time in our nation’s history and of a flawed, but great musician who lived and sang about those tumultuous years.

Books in Honor of Veterans

ALWAYS TO REMEMBER 
by Brent Ashabranner
          ©1988 Illustrated with his daughter’s photography of the memorial and its grounds, the author tells the story of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, from its humble beginnings in the mind of a Vietnam veteran, to its prizewinning design by a 21-year-old Yale undergraduate named Maya Lin, through its construction, and dedication on Veteran’s Day, 1982.
          The book also gives a brief overview of the history of the war and how America became involved in the fighting. But most of the book was about the memorial and how it brought together a nation so divided over the conflict.

OUR BROTHER’S KEEPER 
by Jedwin Smith
©2005 When 19-year-old Marine PFC Jeff Smith was killed in action during the Vietnam War, his family back home fell apart. His alcoholic mother blamed his ex-Marine father for his death. They divorced, and over the years his 5 siblings lost touch with each other. His oldest brother, the author of this memoir and a talented sportswriter, found his life spiraling out of control as an alcoholic trying to drown his grief.
          This is the story of one man’s amazing 30 year road to recovery as he set out to avenge the death of his brother. After getting a handle on his drinking problem through the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, Smith’s first step was a visit to the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, DC. But that only made him more determined to find out how his brother died and to track down and kill the enemy soldier who took his life.
          I enjoyed reading about the close bond the two brothers shared when they were children. The author gives a lot of family background as he explores how Jeff’s death affected his parents and siblings and led to his own failure to cope. I’m not going to give any more details because the ending is both surprising and inspiring.

DAYS OF INFAMY 
by Harry Turtledove
          ©2004 What if the Japanese had invaded Hawaii right after their surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th, 1941? That’s the theme of this alternate history novel that’s an action-packed and visually graphic look of what might have been.
          Several storylines are woven into this disturbing epic, which continues to its dramatic conclusion in the sequel END OF THE BEGINNING. 
          Jane Armitage, the estranged wife of an American officer who becomes a POW, is on her own when the attack occurs. Japanese-Hawaiian fisherman Jiro Takahashi welcomes the Japanese take-over of the islands, but his two sons who were born in Hawaii consider themselves true-blue American citizens. Joe Crosetti is a young man out to avenge the deaths of his uncle’s family at the hands of Japanese bombers by training to become a fighter pilot, eager to enter the war. And the strangest character of all, Oscar van der Kirk, a blond, American surfer-dude who goes on with his simple lifestyle, despite the war going on around him. There’s also a complete cast of Japanese military characters. 
          I liked how the story was told through different viewpoints of people on both sides of the conflict. This is a meaty book that roars on to its finish and then leaves you hanging, eager to continue with the sequel.

I AM FIFTEEN AND I DON’T WANT TO DIE 
byChristine Arnothy
          ©1956 (translated from the French) When we think of civilian suffering during WW2, the Nazi death camps always come to mind, and rightfully so. This book is about a Hungarian family who had to hide for months in their smelly, damp cellar with assorted other neighbors when their apartment building was damaged in the Siege of Budapest, one of the bloodiest campaigns of WW2.
          Although the book is a quick read, the images of starvation, rape, rotting corpses, and general mayhem leave a disturbing impression of the atrocities that both sides (German and Soviet) inflicted on the people of the Hungarian capital near the end of the war.

JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN 
by Dalton Trumbo
          ©1939 Earlier in the year I read how one of the best-loved American artists lent his talents to the “war effort” in NORMAN ROCKWELL’S FOUR FREEDOMS by Stuart Murray & James McCabe. Patriotism had to be whipped up if American mothers were going to give up their sons to the military, especially so soon after losing so many of them in WW1.
          Rockwell painted proud pictures of patriotism and freedom, the way we’re supposed to feel when our boys march off to war. Trumbo word-paints the grim reality of war’s aftermath “when Johnny comes marchin’ home again.”
          Joe is a young American soldier who wakes up in an Army hospital in 1918 to learn the extent of his combat injuries. As he fades in and out of consciousness, he dreams of home and family, and passes time with tender memories of the world he left behind. His reminiscences soften a story that is sometimes very hard to read.
          This was a reread for me, and not one I was looking forward to. But I wanted to see if this book would have the same impact on me that it did 40 years ago when I was a senior in high school during the Vietnam War. After reading it back then, I was ready to run off to Canada with my boyfriend, who had recently lost his older brother in combat in ‘Nam. And I believe the book solidified my own feelings against war in general.
          With all the global conflicts and wars that my country has been involved in since then, I can say that rereading JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN has had an even greater impact than that first reading did.
          Politically controversial since its publication between the two World Wars, it was revived and reprinted during the Vietnam War. Raw and graphic and bitterly truthful, I feel everyone should read this book, because we tend to take war for granted in this modern world of ours. If we truly knew its devastation and questioned its necessity, we’d all be beating our swords into plowshares.

2 Shocking, Sad, but Inspiring Books

A STOLEN LIFE 
by Jaycee Dugard

c. 2011  Wow! What a story! This is the memoir of a young lady who was kidnapped when she was eleven and was kept as a sex-slave by a pervert and his enabler wife for eighteen years. During that time she gave birth to two daughters, the first when she was only 14.  The babies were delivered by her rapist and raised to call him and his wife Dad and Mom, and their real mother “sister.” (I don’t think I’m giving anything away here, because this case was widely reported in the news when the young woman and her children were later discovered and rescued.)

           I can’t write this review without warning more sensitive readers of the explicit nature of Jaycee’s recollections of her abuse. It is very hard to read or even imagine! It’s a tale of survival, but also an example of how one sick-o person can manipulate and control the lives of those around him. And lastly, it’s a plea from Jaycee herself: that if something going on in a family (even if it’s your own) doesn’t look right to you, don’t hesitate for even a minute to report it to authorities. 

RANCH OF DREAMS by Cleveland Amory

          c. 1997   It says on the front cover that this is a “Heartwarming Story of America’s Most Unusual Animal Sanctuary.”  I found it to be a heartwrenching story.  It blows my mind how cruel people can be to animals. I’m glad there are people like Cleveland Amory who rescue abused and unwanted animals and give them a loving home.

           The author’s favorite book as a child was BLACK BEAUTY. He was even related to the man who brought the beloved horse story, by British author Anna Sewell, to America and made it popular in this country. It was his childhood dream to have a ranch someday where mistreated and unwanted animals could live out their lives in peace.

           Amory, a television critic for TV Guide in the  60s and 70s, established the animal rights group Fund for Animals in 1967. In 1979 he started Black Beauty Ranch in east Texas, and his first animal residents were feral burros rescued from the Grand Canyon.  It’s the largest and most unusual animal refuge in America, but it’s not a zoo or tourist attraction. It’s open to the public on special occasions, but most of the time it is just a home for animals to be cared for, not looked at.

           The book details the horrific offenses and the legal struggles he often had with the federal government and the many different missions he went on to rescue both domestic and exotic animals. Mr. Amory died in 1998 at the age of 81. The animal world lost a devoted friend and advocate with his passing.

3 Nature Books for Families

 

THE SENSE OF WONDER 
by Rachel Carson

          c. 1956  The text was originally published as an essay in Woman’s Home Companion entitled “Help Your Child to Wonder.” It was posthumously made into a book in 1965, illustrated with black & white and color nature photography by Charles Pratt and others. Many photos featured children enjoying the wonders of the natural world around them.  In this book, Miss Carson often refers to the explorations of woods and beach that she made with her little great-nephew Roger, who she adopted after the death of his mother in 1957.

         With prose as eloquent as poetry, Rachel Carson urges parents to take the time just to be with their young children in the great outdoors. It’s not important to drill into their little brains the names and details of the flora and fauna they see, but rather to just be with them in the wonder of the moment.

BUTTERNUT HOLLOW POND 
by Brian J. Heinz (31 pages)

          c. 2000  What a great book with which to follow Rachel Carson’s THE SENSE OF WONDER!  The lovely, detailed watercolor illustrations by Bob Marstall bring to life the story of a day in the life of the denizens of a pond ecosystem somewhere, anywhere, in the eastern half of the United States.

           The various food chains and ecological niches of the creatures that call Butternut Hollow Pond “home” are sensitively explained to children in a series of vignettes describing five different times of day from the break of dawn to the shadows of the night. I recommend this thoughtful book to parents who wish to introduce their children to the natural world.

BLUE POTATOES, ORANGE TOMATOES 
by Rosalind Creasy (39 pages)

          c. 1994  This is also a wonderful nature book for children, one that is meant to encourage them to explore the world of growing plants in the garden.  Riotously colorful, it gives helpful advice for the young first-time gardener and introduces him or her to varieties of common vegetables and fruit that also come in unusual colors. There are even easy-to-make recipes, so children can experience (with the assistance of their grown-ups) cooking and eating the fruits of their labors.