APRIL 2021

 Greetings Fellow Readers!

Bookshare was held on the last Thursday in April at Beth Hedengren's home.  It was well-attended although there were a few missing who usually attend (I am one of those).  However, I did get a list of some of the books that were reported on.  We tried something new this time which was recommended by Marlene Matheson: Rather than reporting on all the books each person has read during the previous month, only one book is chosen to review thus taking less time for books and more time for visiting. The suggestion was well-received and the evening was a success (or so I heard).  Here, then, are the complete lists as were given to me to add to this blog:

MARLENE MATHESON:

Every Falling Star, The True Story of How I survived and Escaped North Korea
      by Sungju Lee and Susan McClelland 
At the age of 12 Sungju was left alone because his parents had left to find food and not returned.

He joined other boys in the same situation and lived by stealing and fighting other gangs. After six

years he was rescued and taken to China to be reunited with his father. Now years later, he works

to rescue others trapped in North Korea. 

A powerful Story! 

Killing Crazy Horse by Bill O'Reilly  - Beginning in 1811, it tells the story of wars between the

Indian tribes and settlers, equally viscous on both sides, concluding with Crazy Horse being killed

in Nebraska in 1877. This book has helped me better understand the people and difficulties of the 

American Frontier. 

First, The Life and Faith of Emma Smith by Jennifer Reeder - I learned more from this book

about the life of Emma than I'd ever known. I feel that I have become personally acquainted with her. 

There is so much information here that I may read (listen to it on Deseret Bookshelf) again. 

BETH HEDENGREN

Love Your Enemies by Arthur C. Brooks.

Second time reading. So good. Summary here.

Finished reading Love Your Enemies by Arthur C. Brooks. So good. We are reading it for Book Club tonight. Looking forward to a good discussion. I read it first a couple of years ago, after hearing Brooks speak at BYU graduation. Here are some notes on what I like about the book.

 

1.    Politics in this country has developed a culture of contempt. Each side thinks of the other side with disgust—they are so evil that they are not worth even engaging with. 

2.    The antidote for contempt is kindness—warmheartedness. Love: “to will the good of the other” (Aquinas). We may and should disagree with ideas, but understand and care for the person. (See Pres. Oaks Talk on Love Your Enemies from Oct 2020; also the kindness (bunny) talk from April 2021

3.    Culture of contempt: “both sides think that they are driven by benevolence, while the other side is evil and motivated by hate.” Instead we need to be open to nuanced opinion: Hate speech is a problem; so is excessive political correctness. When we get our news exclusively from one side and talk only to those who agree with us, this black and white thinking is exacerbated.

4.    We need to disagree better: Sick to your views, but be kind, fair, and friendly

5.    To learn to be nice: act nice. Smile. Do what is right. The feeling will follow. Nice people do succeed. Act the way you want to be, not the way you feel. [I want to write out what it is I want to be.]

6.    Types of leaders: Coercive/Authoritarian Leader (tyrannical, destroy trust); Authoritative (encourage input, inspire enthusiasm for the organization; may have righteous anger against problems

7.    Morality and politics: Liberals and Conservatives agree on fairness and care for others. Conservatives also believe in respect for authority, loyalty to one’s group (patriotism), and purity or sanctity. Liberals not so much. When persuading the other group, lean toward focusing on fairness and care.

8.    Be careful about identifying so much with your own identity group that you don’t see others as persons. Look for what you have in common

9.    Stories are more persuasive than facts. Tell a story. Tell your own story

 

10. Competition can be good; it sharpens skills and ideas.

11. Follow rules when explaining your ideas to others: 1. Find someone you respect and care about who disagrees with you. 2. Don’t attack or insult. Don’t even try to win. 3. Never assume the motives of another person. 4. Use your values as a gift, not as a weapon.

 

His summary—Five rules:

1.    Refuse to be used by the powerful (media, political figures)

2.    Escape the bubble. Get your news from the multiple sources (liberal and conservative); Go where people disagree with you and talk to them.

3.    Treat others with love and respect, even when it is difficult

4.    Disagree better. Be part of a healthy competition of ideas.

5.    Disconnect from unproductive debates

 

Stolen Magic by Gail Carson Levine

Fantasy mystery with 3 sleuths: a dragon, a kindly ogre, and a young girl. Fun.

 

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

Newberry Award winner.

Young Korean-American girl starts seeing a mythical tiger, and tries to make the tiger save her dying grandmother. The tiger says she must listen to the stories first, the stories which are folklore but also the stories of her family. A beautiful story of family, love, and growth.

 

Secret Garden

Reading aloud with my grandsons, who love it so much.

 

MARYANN STEVENS

The Fall of the Giants by Ken Follett 4⭐️ fIrst of trilogy WWI international cast of Families- Wales coal miners as well as the millionaire Earl who owns the land. Buffalo NY & DC- Russian immigrant family of rich gangsters juxtaposed against an old moneyed senator’s family & lawyer son. A Russian peasant & laboring family. Women’s suffrage, Lenin, the Bolsheviks, Wilson & the League of Nations, the tragedy of loss of life & property of WWI, the punishing ‘peace’ treaty leveled against the Germans. Great storyline.

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. 4.5 ⭐️ True story by National Geographic author. Team goes into the jungle in the mountains of eastern Honduras inland from the Mosquito Coast to find a ‘lost’ city that legend has perpetuated for centuries. Half the team is infected by a parasite carried by the sand flies. The disease is horrible & is moving out of the tropics due to climate change. Excellent writing. Exciting story.

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce 4⭐️ In the 1980s, Unity Street is a rundown area of town, a mix of shops & flats, one lot still has WWII bomb damage. Frank owns the Music Shop where he adamantly sells only vinyl-no cassette tapes or the new CDs. He can look into your eyes & tell you what album or even single musical recording will change your live. Kit is the young assistant he has taken in. Two old Brothers manage the family funeral parlor across the street. Maude, who changes the color of her Mohawk on a whim owns the tattoo shop next door. Father Anthony, the retired priest sells religious Knick-knacks. One day a woman wearing a pea green coat with matching purse, gloves, & shoes faints while peering intently into the Music Shop. Mysterious Ilsa Brauchmann, recently arrived from Germany, thus inserts herself & her mystery into the community of Unity Street.

The Women’s Hour by Elaine Weiss 4⭐️- it was good but 16 hours of detail got rather tedious. It’s summer 1920. 35 states have ratified the 19th Amendment - 36 are needed to to pass. Female Suffrage was a 70-year battle and the battleground has moved to Tennessee. This non-fiction narrative details the entire battle- transcripts of telegrams, newspaper articles, personal correspondence of Suffs, Antis, elected officials. Takeaways. 1-Every reform movement seems to go through the schism in membership where , generally the younger members move towards more radical tactics while the older ones stick to more genteel or acceptable tactics- this is especially true in a reform movement that is very slow moving. 2-Surprised at how much blatant racism affect the legislative battle. 3-ERA was written in 1923. 4-Not much has changed.

Miss Bensons Beetle by Rachel Joyce 2.5 ⭐️ Britain 1950 is still facing shortages & rationing. Miss Benson has been teaching at a girls school for 20 years, flips out one day & steals her supervisor’s new Lacrosse boots in front of all the faculty. She heads to New Caledonia to find an elusive gold beetle with an assistant who meets none of the qualifications. Kept reading to see why other readers liked so much. Never found the reason.

GERI CHRISTENSEN

SYCAMORE ROW by John Grisham

An older man dies leaving two adult children and their families behind.  He also leaves a will called a Holographic Will which means it was hand-written and cancels out all previous wills leaving his entire estate, which is very large, to his black housekeeper.  The family are all furious and hire lawyers to sue the estate and get what they believe to be their inheritance.  A small-town attorney by the name of Jake Brigance is hired  to defend the estate and give justice to this humble black woman. The two adult children of the deceased are trying their hardest to defame the character of the black housekeeper, but there is a tremendous tension building up throughout  to why she might actually deserve the money.  It is well-written and keeps you involved and interested right up to the very end.  I give the book four stars.

THE ROSE CODE by Kate Quinn

 A debutante, an impoverished dreamer, and a spinster, the most unlikely of friends, come together to work in Bletchley Park: Britain's best kept war secret. As the war drags on, their jobs become more important, more strenuous, and more secretive. Just when they think nothing could sever their bond, D-Day arrives, and blows their friendship apart. The war ends and years go by. When one of them reaches outside the walls of her prison, asking for help, will the old friendship they'd rather leave behind be strong enough to save her?  This is a very long and convoluted story, but worth hanging in there to the end.  It is wonderful how the author weaves the lives of these women together and puts it all in the framework of a fascinating story of love, betrayal, redemption and suspense.  I give the book 3.5 stars

A QUESTION OF BETRAYAL: AN ELENA STANDISH NOVEL  by Anne Perry

A sequel to the novel DEATH IN FOCUS.

 On vacation from London on the beautiful Italian coast, twenty-eight-year-old Elena Standish and her older sister, Margot, have finally been able to move on from the lasting trauma of the Great War, in which the newly married Margot lost her husband and the sisters their beloved brother. Touring with her camera in hand, Elena has found new inspiration in the striking Italian landscape, and she’s met an equally striking man named Ian. When Ian has to leave unexpectedly, Elena—usually the more practical of the sisters—finds she’s not ready to part from him, and the two share a spontaneous train trip home to England. But a shocking sequence of events disrupts their itinerary, forcing Elena to personally deliver a message to Berlin on Ian’s behalf, one that could change the fate of Europe.

Back home, Elena’s diplomat father and her secretive grandfather—once head of MI6, unbeknownst to his family—are involved in their own international machinations. Worried when Elena still hasn’t returned from Italy, her grandfather starts to connect the dots between her change in plans and an incident in Berlin, where Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich are on the rise. It seems the message Elena delivered has forced her into a dangerous predicament, and her grandfather’s old contacts from MI6 may be the only people who can get her out alive—if Elena can tell the difference between her allies and her enemies.  I enjoyed this book and especially the surprise ending.  I had a few questions about the how's and the why's, but overall it was a great read.  I give this book 4 stars.

NIGHT OF THE FOX by Jack Higgins.  

This is one of my  favorites by this author (my absolute favorite was THE EAGLE HAS LANDED).  

If there is such a thing as a perfect novel, this one is for me. Can anyone tell a tale of historical fiction like Jack Higgins? Not in my opinion. This novel has everything in it that a reader would ever ask. It is a thriller, an ingenious plot, a crucial stage of World War 11, and romance to boot. The characters are wonderful-all of them including the supporting staff. This is the kind of book that takes you away from the mundane and lets you travel back into time. You look forward to ending the day with the story in your hands as your eyes start to fade. Then you decide to savor the story and save it for yet just one more day. I never wanted this story to end. I give this book five stars.  

SUE DE MARTINI

THE TEA GIRL OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE by Lisa See

This book is about a young woman who is a member of an ethnic minority in China whose village religious beliefs require her to leave because of an event that happens in her life. A story of separation and redemption. 4 Stars. Fiction.