Book For The Week - 05/01/12

Wrench: A Novel

by

Dolen Perkins-Valdez































Wench: A Novel by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the book selection for my library reading group for May.  I started reading it on my kindle a couple weeks ago thinking it would take me awhile to get through it.  Instead I flew through the book!  It very much held my interest.  I can't really say I liked the story line.  It is an extremely sad one.   It is about a resort in Ohio prior to the civil war where southern slave owners took their favorite slave girl on vacation without their wives.   Historically this resort existed.  But the story is about the friendship of four fictional  black women who were taken to this place year after year from their various home plantations.   The lesson of how friendship among women can get them through a lot is one of the underlying themes of the book.  There is only one man in the entire novel who is not a total pig.  He is a slave and works with horses.  All the white men are despicable.  Even the one who is supposed to be the nice slave owner is awful.  The book is full of abuse and difficult to read at times.  But the story flows and the strength of the women in the story is clear.  The resort is a real place in history and when it closed it was purchased by a religious body who turned it into a school for black people. Today it is a University.  http://www.wilberforce.edu/home/home.html
Click on the book title and the author's name to follow links to more information.  The following is a video that features the author.

Dr Seuss The LORAX Official Trailer

My daughter and I took Haily and Tyler to see The Lorax today. I loved it!

Book For The Week - 4/20/12

  Destiny of the Republic

   by

   Candice Millard

Last night I finished reading Candice Millard's "Destiny of the Republic"  which is a book about the assassination of James Garfield.   I don't remember learning much about President Garfield in school and really enjoyed finding out more about him.  In fact,  now I would like to visit his home in Ohio.  The book explains how the bullet was not the cause of Garfield's death.  He died of infection getting into his wound.   I was amazed at the poor sanitary conditions  of the white house in this time frame  with rats running all around.  The historical medical information in the book was very interesting to me too.  The doctor that was in charge of President Garfield had a real ego problem.  If he had been willing to allow the more modern doctors of the day advise him then there might have been a more positive outcome.  The man who shot Garfield tried to say in his defense that it was not the bullet he shot that killed the president but instead it was the poor medical care the president  received afterward.   Which was true but they hung him anyway.   Click on the book title and the author's name to follow the links to more information.

Dinner And A Movie 4/13/12

It was my turn to cook so Mark and I had dinner in and since his son Jacob has an April birthday he got to choose the menu. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, corn from Mark's garden last year and frozen for enjoyment now, and Indiana Sugar Cream Pie. I picked up a movie to watch after dinner. This is a movie that was discussed on one of my fb contacts pages last year and I had intended to watch it but never did. It is very thought provoking and pretty sad. Not an escape movie but a brain exercise.

The Assassination of a President

My library book group is reading "Destiny of A Republic"  by Candace Miller this month.   While I normally review a book after I read it and am only about 20% through this book I wanted to mention the man who assassinated President James Garfield which was Charles J.G. Guietau .   It caught my attention that he was a member of the Utopia community called  Oneida which was a religious cult kind of place that practiced free love among the members.  The book I am reading mentions that Guietau was unable to get the women of the community,  even in this free love setting,  to give him any attention.  So he must have been a real weirdie.  Yet he was allowed to be free among society.   While I respect religions role for people and the value it adds to people's lives,  I continue to urge people to think things through for themselves and not become sucked into any extremist group.  Please follow the links to learn more. 

Dinner And A Movie 4/7/12

After a dinner at http://www.pfchangs.com/menu/ in Indianapolis Saturday evening my daughter and I watched "The Help". I had listened to the book on audio last year and we have talked about renting the movie ever since. It is both an excellent movie and an excellent book.

Dinner And A Movie 4/4/12

After dinner out Mark and I rented Water For Elephants. I had listened to the book a year or so ago on audio but had not seen the movie. A movie is never as good as a book but this is still a very good movie.