The Monsters Of Templeton by Lauren Groff

 

The Monsters 

of

Templeton

by

Lauren Groff

I don't know how this book hopped on my to read list but if I could remember who suggested it I would sure thank them.  I checked it out on my kindle app from the State Library of Ohio and had no problems getting it read before it was due.  It really sucked me into the story.  Lauren Groff has created a very different novel and I am not sure how to describe it.  It isn't a historical novel.  It isn't a science fiction or fantasy book.   It isn't a romance.  It has drama.  It has humor.  The author's character development is pure art.  The monster in the lake is a loch nest type monster but to me the true monsters of Templeton are the small minded, small town people and their terrible behavior for the past two hundred years.  Since one of my hobbies is  family history, the protagonists search for the identity of her father by digging through genealogical records was a very interesting part of the book for  me.  There was a high percentage of undocumented paternity in the fictional little town of Templeton, New York.  The author uses Cooperstown as the model for Templeton so baseball fans are wandering about throughout the story.  This book will stay with me and is a favorite.  I will read more of Lauren Groff.  Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow links to more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

Color Capital Of The World by John Kropf

 

Color Capital Of The World

by

John Kropf

Part memoir and part family history this delightful story of the crayon combines local Sandusky history with Ohio history and broadens to include United States History along with  world history.  Written by John Kropf who is a descendant of the founders of the American Crayon Company. His legacy crayon company competed with other crayon companies in the first half of the 20th century.  It absorbed most of the competition but Crayola out survived them. This short book was right up my alley and if you don't read it you are missing out.  The author is close to my age so grew up in the same era as I.  While I did not grow up in Sandusky I did grow up in the midwest.  Therefore the book had some nostalgia for me. The author recommends the following link for more information on crayon history.  Click HERE.   Also click on the authors name and book title above to follow the links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  

Barkskins by Annie Proulx

 

Barkskins 

by

Annie Proulx

This evening I finished Annie Proulx's novel Barkskins.  I had checked it out from the digital library onto my kindle app.  The story begins in the late 1600s when two French indentured servants arrive in New France and follows their descendants until 2013. They are lumberjacks and it is also the story of the forests of North America and other parts of the world such as the tropical rain forests in South America and the ancient trees of New Zealand.  It graphically describes the destruction of the forests and ends with the impacts of deforestation seen today.  The book is divided into units and each unit switches back and forth between the two families.  I found the characters a little hard to remember as it switched back and forth.  There were two family trees in the back of the book.  One for the downline of each indentured servant.  These diagrams helped me keep the people in the book straight.  This is a historical fiction book that touches on environmental issues.  It would be a great choice in the classroom or in a book group.  It also depicts the mistreatment of the eastern Canadian Native Americans.  It is long but worth sticking with it. The National Geographic channel made a tv series out of the book but has only released one season.   Please click on the book title and author's name above for more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

The Thread Collectors by Shaunna J Edwards and Alyson Richman

 

The Thread Collectors 

by

Shaunna J Edwards

and

Alyson Richman

The Thread Collectors is an historical novel set during the Civil War.   It is co authored by Shaunna J Edwards and Alyson Richman.  Each of them were inspired by their individual family histories to weave together a fiction story about their heritage.  Edwards is a black woman and Richman is a Jewish woman.  In the novel Stella is a black woman in New Orleans and Lily is a Jewish woman in New York.  The men they each love are both musicians and meet just before the Battle of Port Hudson.    The story line intertwines the four young people's lives and vividly brings home the horrors of the Civil War.  Both Stella and Lily support the union through their work with textiles.  While the women are quilting, rolling bandages, and embroidering maps on bits of cloth the men are waking the troops, entertaining officers in the evenings  and leading the troops into battle with their instruments.   This book is an easy quick read and has a lot of material for discussion therefore would be a good book group selection.  Please click on the four links above to sites with further information and enjoy the short video that follows.  

The Second Life Of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore

 

The Second Life Of Mirielle West

by

Amanda Skenandore

I really enjoyed this historical novel about life in an American leper colony in the 1920s.  Historical fiction is my genre but add the sub category of medical history and and I am sucked in every time.  The main character of The Second Life Of Mirielle West is a fictional wife of a silent film movie star who is used to a glamorous life in Los Angeles when she goes to the doctor because she accidentally burns herself on her curling iron getting ready for a glamorous Hollywood party.  Soon she finds her self riding in a box car to a leper colony in Louisiana that is filled with disfigured individuals.  When they arrived their box car was burned to ashes.  The next couple years of her life is detailed in the book as she adjusts to life in a leper colony.  She begins as a spoiled person who thinks only of herself and matures into a much more well adjusted person emotionally.   She makes real friends instead of the surface relationships she had back in LA.  Although the story is not a true story the descriptions of life in Carville are well researched.  The author, Amanda Skenandore, is an RN who has written several books with medical history as the theme and I will be reading more of her work.  Carville Leper Colony is now a National Historical Site with a museum  that can be visited.  They have a website HERE.  Please click on the book title and authors name above to follow the links to more information and enjoy the video about Carville below.  

Alaska by James Michener

 

Alaska

by

James Michener

     The end of March I checked out this book from the library on my kindle app.  I wanted to read it in preparation for our trip to Alaska next month.  It is a very long historical novel and spans approximately  1600 pages.  The book begins with the geological formation of the area and proceeds to the arrival of native peoples.  Then the explorers are introduced followed by the fur traders.  The purchase of the Alaskan Territory from Russia by the United States after the civil war is covered and then the late 1800s brought the gold rush which was a very colorful part of the book.  In the early 1900s salmon canneries arrived and there was explanation of political battles and the development of infrastructure in the state of Alaska.  The areas of the state are well described throughout the book and I am confident that I am much more prepared for our vacation than I was before I read the novel.  I will read more by this author.  In fact I wish I would have read his book titled Hawaii before we traveled to the Big Island last summer.  If we ever return I will read it first.  Michener wrote Alaska in 1988 but it is still great background information for anyone traveling to the state.  Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the links to more information and enjoy the short video that follows.  It has some interesting stories about the story teller. Anyone who hasn't read anything by James Michener is missing out.  

Sea Otters

 

Something is scheduled to happen in my life during the latter part of May.  My husband and I are headed to Alaska for a short vacation.  We will be there a week, which is a normal length for a vacation, but when considering an area the size of Alaska a week is short in relation to what all there is to see.  We will be enjoying two national parks.  In preparation for the trip I checked out James Michener's Alaska on Libby Overdrive.  It is an extremely long historical novel.  I will likely NOT get it finished before I have to return it and will end up buying it on my kindle app.  If I get it read before we leave I will be surprised.  Each chapter is the length of a short novel.  For example, chapter four is roughly 260 pages.  I have about 50 pages left in chapter four.  This chapter covers Russia's interest in Alaska beginning with exploration and going on into the fur trade's beginnings in the 1700s.   The early commercial fur traders were brutal to not only the sea otters but also the native populations. The Aleutian Islands were the area that Michener focused on in this area of his novel.  I have been looking up some additional information online this afternoon.  The library of congress has some information that can be found HERE and an Alaskan Theater/Education  Group has posted some information HERE.  Finally the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game has some sea otter information on their site HERE.  The pelt of the sea otter was especially coveted by many countries. The video that follows has information on the sea otter pelt.  I am looking forward to continuing to read this novel.