Reviews of Books that I've Won In Giveaways

I love to read and share reviews! I read a new book every month as part of a local book club, but I also have been fortunate to win a few books from Goodreads giveaways, from The Book Club Cookbook, and also as a Celadon Reader. This was my recent collection of recently-read books, and more are on my "to be read" pile.  

BirdGirl: Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future by Mya-Rose Craig

Author Mya-Rose Craig was raised in Bristol, England, by parents who were involved with the hobby of "twitching"--a new term for me--to describe birdwatching to an almost obsessive level. Craig grew up shuttling across the country, as well as seven continents, to catch sight of rare birds, observing over 5,000 birds by the time she was a teenager. She also chronicles her mother's severe bipolar mental illness in her memoir in a poignant way and her struggles with diagnosis, medications, and treatments. I could feel Mya's joy as she describes the thrill of filling her bird list with exciting sightings of birds such as hummingbirds and eagles, etc, and then the confusion she felt living with a mentally ill mother. Finally, Mya shares in her memoir her resolve to work against the threats of climate change that threaten both bird habitats and our future. If you are a bird lover, a naturalist, or care for our environment, you will enjoy reading "Birdgirl: Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future." Thank you to Celadon Books for an advanced reader copy paperback of this book! 

"Maybe Next Time" by Cesca Major

Emma is a busy London literary agent, wife, and mother, but overly engrossed with her phone, reading and answering (or disgustedly ignoring) countless text and "WhatsApp" messages, much to the detriment of her family. Her husband Dan feels neglected, as do her children who are enduring a pre-teen crisis because of their own involvement in social media. It all begins to change when the unthinkable happens and Emma is caught in a revolving repetition of re-living a tragic day. Can she change? Can she control fate? Will she find a way to be the person she finds she needs to be?
I enjoyed this fast-paced contemporary novel by Cesa Major. Aren't we all a little preoccupied with life's demands and the constant notification "pinging" on our phones alerting and distracting us all day? Do we forget what is really important? You will dislike Emma at times, and then cheer her on. She will make you wonder how you would react to a never-ending "Groundhog Day" and then how we might wish we all had that chance to change fate.
I won an ARC copy of this novel in a Goodreads giveaway. Thanks to author Cesca Major for the opportunity to review it!

Last Dance on the  Starlight Pier" by Sarah Bird

Set during the Great Depression, Sarah Bird's "Last Dance on the Starlight Pier" is a novel about one woman—and a nation—struggling to be reborn from the ashes.
July 3, 1932, shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She'd come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dream is cruelly thwarted, Evie is swept into the alien world of dance marathons. All that she has been denied—a family, a purpose, even love—waits for her there in the place she dreads most: the spotlight.
Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a sweeping novel that brings to spectacular life the enthralling worlds of dance marathons and the family-run empire of vice that was Galveston in the Thirties. Unforgettable characters tell a story that is still deeply resonant today as America learns what Evie learns, that there truly isn't anything this country can't do when we do it together. That indomitable spirit powers a story that is a testament to the deep well of resilience in us all that allows us to not only survive the hardest of hard times, but to find joy, friends, and even family, in them.

I won this novel through a The Book Club Cookbook e-mail contest! I really enjoy this website, reviews, and book club recipe ideas.

"A Woman of Intelligence" by Karen Tanabe

Karen Tanabe's "A Woman of Intelligence" is an exhilarating classic spy thriller of post-war New York City, and one remarkable woman’s journey from the United Nations, to the cloistered drawing rooms of Manhattan society, to the secretive ranks of the FBI.   

With a Fifth Avenue address, parties at the Plaza, two healthy sons, and the ideal husband, what looks like a perfect life for Katharina Edgeworth is anything but. It’s 1954, and the post-war American dream has become a nightmare. A born and bred New Yorker, Katharina is the daughter of immigrants, Ivy-League-educated, and speaks four languages. As a single girl in 1940s Manhattan, she is a translator at the newly formed United Nations, devoting her days to her work and the promise of world peace—and her nights to cocktails and the promise of a good time. Now she is the wife of a beloved pediatric surgeon Katharina is trapped in a gilded cage, desperate to escape the constraints of domesticity. So when she is approached by the FBI and asked to join their ranks as an informant, Katharina seizes the opportunity and begins a harrowing assignment.

Thank you to Goodreads and to the author Karen Tanabe.  I won this book in a giveaway.

"Maame" by Jessica George

When I first began reading Maame,"" I thought it would be a simple tale of a young girl's first romance, but I was in for a surprise as it was so much more! Protagonist Maddie, a 25-year-old British Ghanaian woman, had to function as an adult, a "Maame" for most of her life, and because of all her responsibilities, she was deprived of the natural ebbs and flows of growing up. Isolated by caring for a father with debilitating Parkinson's disease, and with a mostly absent mother and older brother, Maddie's only avenue for advice was querying the Google search engine for answers to her problems. She knows much is expected of her but she inwardly desires a life of freedom, friends, romance, and fulfillment in her job. When her mother arrives from Ghana, Maddie finally begins to seek out all those desires independently, but then her father suddenly dies and Maddie is faced with guilt. She faces a new reality that she is unable to find joy in those desires any longer. Her struggles are poignant, and as you read on you will want to help and enlighten her to find the life she deserves.
Thank you author Jessica George, Read With Jenna, and The Book Club Cookbook for a copy of Maame to review. I truly enjoyed reading it!

"The Christie Affair" by Nina deGramont

Why would the world's most famous mystery writer disappear for eleven days? What makes a woman desperate enough to destroy another woman's marriage? How deeply can a person crave revenge?. This intriguing novel answers these questions in this fast-paced spellbinder. The story takes place in 1925 London, in the socialite world of the Christies. Miss Nan O’Dea became Agatha's husband Archie's mistress, luring him away from his devoted and well-known wife, Nan O'Dea's plot began decades before, in Ireland when Nan was a young girl. She and the man she loved were a star-crossed couple who were destined to be together, until the Great War, a pandemic, and shameful secrets tore them apart. Then acts of unspeakable cruelty kept them separated. It is a tale of two very different women who want the very same things in life. The greatest mystery wasn't Agatha Christie's disappearance in those eleven infamous days, it's what she discovered.

This was another wonderful win by The Book Club Cookbook giveaway contest! Check out their website for wonderful reviews and delicious recipes from authors for book club menu ideas in their "Novel Noshes" section.

"Life is like a book. Every day is a new page, every month is a new chapter, and every year is a new series." 

I hope you might find a few books from my reviews that sound interesting to you, dear reader. Please let me know a book that you have recently enjoyed.  

Happy Reading!

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My Goal for 2023 and Three Books That Inspired Me

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."

—T.S. Eliot

Do you make resolutions, set goals, or pick a word to follow in the new year?   I usually don't do any beyond the usual random thoughts of "I should exercise more," "I should eat more vegetables," or "I'd like to begin traveling again."   This year, however, I am approaching a new decade birthday and I am determined to keep a goal I've set for myself to begin writing my life story.  

In 2022 my husband and I went through all our old-time photo albums and scanned and uploaded each photo to a cloud service to preserve them all as a project after local Colorado wildfires made us realize how all our photos could be lost forever.  Looking at each photo we felt as if we were reliving our life and all the memories of happy occasions we experienced as we scanned photo after photo. 

It made me realize that every person has an important story to tell, worth passing on along with their photo memories and ancestry records. Someday, perhaps when my grandchildren are approaching my decade of life, they may be interested in reading more about the grandmother and grandfather they remember.  I know I wish I knew more about the details of my grandparents' lives beyond the memories I have of them.

Amazingly, I recently received three books to review from The Book Club Cookbook at the end of last year which helped me formalize this goal. The Book Club Cook Book is a meeting place on the web and social media for publishers, authors, book club members, and readers to connect and share books, book club menu ideas, as well as menus and recipes from favorite authors. I have learned about many wonderful books through them and won many in their giveaways.

The first book I received was Living and Leaving My Legacy- vol 1 by Merle R Saferstein.  A prolific personal journal writer, Ms. Saferstein wrote 380 journals full of her life events over 48 years! She kept her journals locked away from her family, for her eyes only.  As she got older she realized that she ultimately wanted to share many of her thoughts and experiences with her family and friends as part of her legacy and began a project of what will ultimately be a two-volume collection of her journals, covering approximately 70 topics. While her memoir is a somewhat sanitized story of her life, she also gives many ideas and journal prompts in her book that is meant to inspire readers and deepen their life journey. If you are also a lifelong journal keeper this may be a book you would like to read to see how she was able to accomplish the task of condensing the good and bad, the lessons learned, the conversations, encounters, memories, dreams, travel adventures, challenges and breakthroughs of life. 

While I was never a journal keeper I still benefited from reading Ms. Saferstein's book as an example of how to begin writing a record of my life. Her end-of-chapter journal prompts helped make me form an outline for what I want to write and in what order. 

The next book I read was Cobblestones, Conversations, and Corks: A Son's Discovery of His Italian Heritage by Giovanni Ruscitti.  Giovanni Ruscitti is a husband, father, son, and brother. He is also the managing partner of Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti LLP.   A few weeks before his father's passing he asked Giovanni to tell the Ruscitti story, and Giovanni became an author.

The synopsis from the book release:

"In this memoir, Ruscitti visits Cansano, Italy,  for the first time with his family, including parents Emiliano and Maria. As he walks Cansano’s cobblestones, his father’s stories and life are illuminated by the town piazza, the steep valley, and the surrounding mountains. He relives the tales of his parents’ struggles during World War II, their extreme post-war misery and poverty, their budding romance after, and their decision to immigrate to the US in search of the American Dream."

This book was a wonderful gift, as my husband immigrated as a seven-year-old with his parents from a small town in Southern Italy in the 1950s, and many of Mr. Ruscitti's conversations with his parents and journeys back to Italy that he recorded in this memoir were very reminiscent of my husband's life. experiences. It made my husband and me more aware of the value of recording parts of our life in our own voice and perhaps even anticipating the questions our descendants would want to know about us, as we wrote our own life stories.  

So many Americans are many generations removed from their immigrant ancestors and many might not even know facts about how and why they immigrated and the struggles they faced as new arrivals in a foreign country that was now to become home for them and their future generations.  This could be the story of a first-generation son or daughter from any nationality.   I smiled often as I read this book as I recognized my father-in-law in many of the descriptions that Mr. Ruscitti shared about his father.  His story also made me realize the sorrow and sacrifice many felt to leave their family and friends, town and country, language and culture to make a better life for their family in a new land.  Their story needs to be told!

The third book Hereafter -- The Telling of Ellen O'Hara by Vona Groarke brought tears to my eyes and touched my heart. It is a uniquely written record of a great-granddaughter's searching for the immigrant story of her great-grandmother who came to New York City in 1882 to earn wages as a live-in servant girl to send money home to her struggling parents and siblings in Ireland.
Ms. Groake's struggle to tell her great-grandmother's story could also be my story, as I have searched many records trying to find the story of my Irish ancestors, although I had very little information about them, to begin with.  Author Groarke at least had the name of her great-grandmother, while I did not even have that to help in my search for the first of my Irish ancestors who came to America. I have searched online records, censuses, ancestry DNA, cemetery grounds, etc., all hoping to find more of my ancestors' stories. In reading Groake's poignant story about her great-grandmother Ellen O'Hara, I could imagine what I would write if I did find traces of my first American ancestors. If I could imagine and honor their lives by telling their stories the best I could, as Groarke did. I often feel that, sadly, Americans do not know the struggles and prejudices their first American ancestors endured to begin their life here. Their struggles and dreams led to the opportunities their descendants would have one day. Reading the imagined story of Ellen O'Hara, which was presented on one page, along with researched source facts about the life of early Irish immigrant servants and boarding house owners on the opposing page of Groarke's book, helped me understand how the mere fragment of a name could be developed into a life story of one of the many that came to America during the years of the Irish diaspora. This may not be a book everyone would appreciate, but for those struggling to find more about past ancestors, it is an encouragement to keep searching, learning, and imagining.

Books are also a part of our life experiences and I feel so grateful that I had the opportunity to read the three books above that arrived at a time when I was contemplating this goal for the new year.  They were each unique in their format, and messengers of encouragement to me that this was something I need to accomplish.  A verification that however I told my story it would be cherished by my descendants.

I hope you too, dear reader, will write your story and share it with your family! Please let me know what books have encouraged you to do so.

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The Fleeting Days of Summer

 

"Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed." ~ Mary Oliver

 

This is the last weekend in August--how can that be? Fall arrives early in Colorado. I can see the sun's slant of light becoming lower on the horizon, and the air has a chill at night. It won't be long until the aspens turn golden yellow and we have our first whisper of snow on the mountains.

"Happiness grows at our own fireside and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens." 

~ Douglas Jerrold

Summer is passing quickly, but there is still much of its beauty to behold and enjoy.

"But once in a while, the odd thing happens, once in a while the dream comes true." ~ W H Auden

My husband and I took a walk around the Hudson Gardens and Event Center in Littleton, Colorado, recently.  Hudson Gardens is a nonprofit organization encompassing thirty acres of garden exhibits, trails, open spaces, and event venues, and it provides free admission from sunrise to sunset every day of the year for self-directed exploration. I've blogged about it more extensively in the past--click here--to read that post.

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." 

~ Edith Wharton

The garden has amazing water lily ponds full of the most delicate and beautiful flowers...

"Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell."

~ Louisa May Alcott

...as well as many other flowers, shrubs, trees, and art sculptures to enjoy.

 

"

"The words 'far, far away' always had a strange charm." 

~ Alfred Tennyson

There are many benches along the trails where one can sit and appreciate the garden's serenity.

"A loving heart is the truest wisdom." Charles Dickens

The resident geese and ducks looked very content in the shade and waters of the garden. 

"In the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed." 

~ Kahlil Gibran

Hudson Gardens is a treasure to visit in all seasons and the perfect place to take a walk in nature.  We are fortunate to have it in our area!  

Another treasure I was happy to visit in August was the author Susan Branch at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in the Aspen Grove branch in Littleton, Colorado. 

Susan was doing a cross-country road trip with her husband, Joe, to promote her wonderful new book called "Distilled Genius: A Collection of Life-Changing Quotations." 

 I have been a fan of Susan's handwritten and painted books since her first book, "Heart of the Home," and have been following her blog for years, so I was very excited to hear she would be stopping by close to me! 

There was a large crowd of fans to greet her--a few who traveled from as far away as Wyoming and Iowa! She gave a lovely talk about how she collected quotations all her life and what they meant to her. She said quotations were:

"Practical expressions of wisdom from courageous thinkers and teachers ahead of their time, nurturing and life-affirming, hilarious, heroic, and human ~ they taught me how to be brave, showed me where to find my dreams, and encouraged me to try and make them a reality.

All of the quotations in this blog post came from her book.  It is another treasure I will always cherish. Thank you, Susan!

"The sweetest flower that glows,

 I give you as we part. 

For you, it is a rose

For me, it is my heart.

~ Frederick Peterson

See you all in September!

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The Shadows--Book Review

Do you like thrillers or horror stories?   I was a big fan of Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels in the '80s and '90s and also read novels written by Jonathan Kellerman, Patricia Cornwell, and other mystery and crime authors whose cases often had a supernatural feel to them. I find that my imagination twists and turns with the written word to make the story come alive in my mind even more horrific than any movie producer could ever imagine, yet I feel safe in the fact I have control over being able to close the book for a while when it becomes too real for me.

I received an advance reader copy of The Shadows by Alex North in October from Celadon Books,  and found, as with all good thrillers, the story slowly evolved and developed with pangs of lost friendship, parent conflicts, burgeoning first love, manipulated dreams, murder, disappearance, copycat killers, and unfilled aspirations. I felt more than a horror novel it was a thrilling "coming of age" for the middle-aged protagonist who returned home when his mother is dying only to find he has to reconcile with many other unresolved dilemmas in his life.

Other reviewers raved about Alex North's first novel, The Whisper Man.  I think The Shadows will equally become a favorite!

Stay happy, safe, and healthy!

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Winter Fun and Blog Wins!

What does one do when winter brings lots of fresh snow? Go sledding! Our son-in-law brought our granddaughter to what is known as "sledding hill" in our community, and they both had an afternoon of fun! I think I'm going to buy a sled so I can go along and join in next time!

I have been very fortunate to win two blog giveaways recently!

JoAnn, of the blog The Gathering Place, sent this delightful storybook to me called "Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch."  It shows how a little note and gift changed a lonely man's life in many wonderful ways. JoAnn is an elementary teacher and reads this story to her class for Valentine's Day every year to share its wonderful message. Thank you, JoAnn! I know my grandsons will enjoy this story when I read it to them.

You can watch a video of Hector Elizondo reading the book on StorylineOnline--share it with a child or grandchild you love.

Jacqueline, of the blog Purple Chocolat, wrote a beautiful Valentine's themed blog post and offered to give away two sets of this adorable silicone Teacup Make Molds to two people--one set white, and one set pink. I was a lucky winner of the pink set of eight!

Thank you, Jackie! I look forward to baking and decorating cupcakes in these holders and then having a 'tea party" with my granddaughter(s) one day when they are a little older. I know how much little girls love to pretend, and to eat a cupcake held in this cute teacup will be so much fun for them.

 

The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City

The Morgan Library and Museum, located at 225 Madison Avenue, New York, New York is a treasure trove of manuscripts, and printed books as well as prints and drawings that are in the once private and personal collection of the American financier and philanthropist John Pierpont Morgan. I felt fortunate to be able to visit the Morgan on a trip to New York City, and I'd love to show you some of its magnificence.  (All photos and photo collages in this post will enlarge  for easier viewing when clicked on)

Mr. Morgan's library was built between 1902 and 1906 adjacent to his New York residence at Madison Avenue and 36th Street.  It was designed by Charles McKim of the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White in an Italian Renaissance style.  The two lionesses in front were sculpted by Edward Clark Potter, who would later create the two lions that guard the New York Public Library's main building.

Today the library is a complex of buildings that serve as a museum and a scholarly research center. The most recent addition, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano and Beyer Binder Belle, and was completed in 2006, is a modernist entrance building that joins the interior spaces of the complex.

In 1924, eleven years after Pierpont Morgan's death, his son J.P. Morgan Jr, fulfilled his father's dream of making the library and its treasures available to scholars and the public alike by transforming it into a public institution. The rotunda portion of the library is opulent in detail.

Monumental bronze doors lead to variegated marble columns, an ornately patterned floor, and fine mosaic panels that line the curved walls. Highlights of Morgan's collection of rare printed and manuscript Americana are on display here, such as letters of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as well as the journal of Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne and works by Edgar Allen Poe and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I was particularly fascinated by this life mask of the first President of the United States, George Washington, made in 1785 by the French Sculptor Jean-Antione Houdon at the President's Mount Vernon residence.  To make the mold of Washington's face Houdon had Washington lay down, and he placed a protective layer of grease on his face and then applied plaster over that, covering his entire face. When the plaster hardened, he removed the mold and poured plaster into it, thereby making this positive "life mask."  Houdon returned to France with the mask and used it to sculpt a marble portrait of the president which was presented to the rotunda of Virginia State Capital building in 1796.

The grandeur of the East Room Library takes one's breath away!

The library, with three-story inlaid walnut bookshelves and magnificent ceilings, was designed as a treasury for Pierpont Morgan's collection of rare printed books.

The sixteenth-century tapestry over the mantelpiece depicts avarice; one of the seven deadly sins personified by the mythological King Midas.

One view in the East Room are examples from The Morgan Library and Museum's extraordinary collection of medieval illuminated manuscripts, rare printed books, and bindings, and handwritten manuscripts of great writers, artists, and composers from the Renaissance to the present day.

Some articles in the collection have been acquired since Pierpont Morgan's death.

There were volumes upon volumes of books on the shelves...

...and beautiful murals painted on the ceiling.

Two staircases, concealed behind bookcases, provide access to the balconies.

Display cases held a variety of rare books in the library.

The North Room is lined with two tiers of bookshelves and adorned with ceiling paintings from the studio of American artist James Well Finn. This was the first librarian's office. In 1905 Pierpont hired Belle de Costa Greene to manage and augment his collection of rare books, and she later served as Morgan's first director.

 

Selection on display are changed regularly in the library, but one work always-on display is one of Morgan's three copies of a Bible printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. With Gutenberg's Bible, the painstaking process of copying books by hand gave way to an innovative new technology--movable type--that facilitated the exchange of art and ideas for the greater masses of people.

Pierpont Morgan's study, called the West Room, was a lush but intimate room where Morgan relaxed and met with art dealers and business associates.

To the left of the massive fireplace, Morgan's impressive manuscript collection was once secured in a vault lined with solid steel.

The Morgan Library and Museum offers the Thaw Conservation Center,  Research Services, as well as Online Exhibitions.  Information on Current and  Upcoming Exhibitions can also be accessed on their website. It truly is one of the exceptional library and museum gems of New York City!

Do you remember the TV show called The Adventures of Superman?  Next post I'll show you a building that has a fascinating bit of scenery that was used in the show!