Sunday Book Review: Forties' Child: An Early Autobiography

Forties' Child: An Early Autobiography, by Tom Wakefield

I found Tom Wakefield in a cemetery somewhere near the other side of the world. His tombstone captured my attention more than any other in that huge, crowded place. The illustration and the words, they made me pause and study for a bit. I added him to my list of names/places/things to look up and learn more about. I just finished his autobiography last evening.


Our trip to England and Scotland is nearing two months past. I find myself in a place that feels almost like mourning as I continue to take every free moment possible to work on our photo album and, occasionally,   return to my journal/essays/written pieces about our journey.

Tom Wakefield's words have been a part of my post-trip life. Getting back to work and back into routine after so many days away, then entering the holiday season with its topsy turvy series of events and travels, working and not working. I managed to find two of Wakefield's non-fiction books affordably via the wonders of used bookstores on Amazon. I plan to look for some of his fiction through the library.

Reading the short stories that make up this autobiography of his early life has been a very pleasant experience. It's like when you meet a new person who really intrigues you and after a couple of get-togethers you find yourself feeling relieved that yes, you do indeed want to be friends. Tom was a man I never met. He grew up in a country I've never lived in. His stories are about a time before my own. Yet, I enjoy his words and his images and am looking forward to reading more of his work.

Not even in focus, this is Tom Wakefield's stone at Highgate Cemetery in London, England. It says "Writer, Educator, Mother." I had to know more. 

Tom's Obituary
A nice piece about Tom republished in 2012.

Sunday Book Review: Fifty Shades of Santa

Yeah, that was my husband's reaction when he saw the title of my latest holiday purchase, as well.

Well this isn't really that kind of book. Fifty Shades of Santa: 12 Nice, (not Naughty) Humorous Holiday Romances is a collection of short stories published by Welkin Press. I'm not typically drawn to reading romance, but I am often drawn to short stories. This book contains one called One Cool Cat, by Peg Nichols, and it was my hook to buy this book.

Peg is one of the many wonderful people I have "collected" as friends via my membership in the Kansas Authors Club. She is warm, adventurous and always has a kind and encouraging word ready for an in-progress writer (such as myself). As long as I've known Peg, I've never really had the opportunity to read much of her work.

One Cool Cat did not disappoint. At the beginning of the story, the cat's name is Outside, and I immediately began picturing the many directions the story might be headed. A down and out family moving to a remote cabin, it easily could have been the start of the type of horror story I might have enjoyed reading in my teens. As a "cat person" I always worry a little that the cat might end up the bad guy.

No spoilers, but little Outside found his way in. As the subtitle of the book promises, these are "nice" holiday romance stories, and when I was done reading I was thinking that I don't spend nearly enough time reading nice these days. It was very pleasant to drift off to sleep with a smile on my face rather than a chill in my bones.

Peg Nichols, thank you for hooking me up with some pleasant holiday stories to warm me up for what should be a happy holiday season. Now that I've had the pleasure of reading your short story, I shall enjoy the rest of the stories the book has to offer, as well.

Sunday Book Review: Blood, Bones & Butter

The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

by Gabrielle Hamilton




I generally hesitate to give any press (if you can call my blog press) to a book that is already so widely read. This one certainly isn't lacking for readers.

However, this is one of the books I devoured while on vacation in April. Almost literally... devoured. Not until I read this book did I ever imagine food -- the preparation and cooking of food -- to have such high literary quality. This book, I suppose it is something of a memoir... an autobiography... but first and foremost, it made me want to deepen my relationship with food. It made me want to appreciate my food. Love my food. Get more creative and adventurous in the preparation of my food.

I wouldn't classify this as a food book, however.

It is the very personal story of a woman. A woman who happens to write so beautifully you find yourself wanting to drink in and, yes, eat her words. It is a woman who writes her own story so openly that, as a writer, I was mesmerized by her honesty, as well as her ability to pull me along from one page to another. How little I could relate to; her life and background and experiences so different than mine. Yet how much I could relate to; motherhood and figuring out one's self, piece by piece, bit by bit.

As much as I loved the book, thankful all the while I was on vacation and could keep turning pages till the deed was done, the ending left me feeling flat and maybe even dissatisfied for several days. I like happy endings and I'm not altogether convinced that this book provided one. Although it wasn't particularly unhappy either. And as it was/is real life, I continue to ask myself, "Who am I to judge?"

In my perfect world the end would have included the business, the babies, and a couple growing old together, till death do them part. Call me naive. I came home and dove into my own version of gourmet cooking -- throwing out the recipes and determining that finding a way to make chard--in this season of farmers market abundance--palatable.

Almost every time I've spent time in my kitchen in the last several weeks, I've found my mind drifting back to Gabrielle Hamilton's stories and contemplating just how limited my view of happily-ever-after has become. And maybe, in doing so, I feel a little bit of a pressure valve releasing. My own one-way, right-way, known-way gaining some flexibility. I think about how what Gabrielle thought she wanted to do with her life (writing) never quite fit in the way that she thought it might. And how what she did with her life (cooking and kids and eventually writing) kind of happened in spite of herself. And that makes me think of the places I have gotten in spite of myself, as well.

Needless to say, I loved this book. It's been several weeks and the words haven't left me. Several trips to the library later, I still look for it on the shelves because I think I'd like to just open a page at random and drink in a few phrases. I add it to my highly recommended list.

Sunday Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars

When Munchkin #1 was about 10 years old, she made a rule that our read aloud and together books could not be "books that make mom cry." Needless to say, I read this one alone... late at night... pretty much all in one sitting... with a box of tissues nearby.

The Fault in Our Stars is John Green's newest young adult book, which you've probably already heard about because it has made #1 on the New York Times and the Indiebound bestseller lists and it had a full page review in Time magazine. 

Yes, if you are someone who is put off by the hype, it is my opinion that this is a book that deserves it. At first glance it's a cancer book, and if you get the same feeling I get when thinking about cancer books... well...

But honestly, it's a book about living and first love and being honest and frank in that way that most people only manage for that brief window in their teen years anyway. Hazel, the main character, is an immediately endearing person who just happens to depend on an oxygen tank and has cancer. It's a nuisance, but she doesn't waste pages whining about her fate.

Instead, she focuses on being a good friend to the boy in her support group who will lose his eye to cancer. She falls in love with another boy who has lost a leg to cancer. She worries about her parents and what her sooner-rather-than-later life's end will do to them. She obsesses over characters in a book whose lives past the book's ending are unknown to her.

John Green, once again, impresses me as a story teller and as a worthy, intelligent adult who is gaining an audience with teens (and I would imagine adults, as well). Next on my bookshelf is his debut novel, Looking for Alaska. My kids have already given me reviews, but I've enjoyed Green's books enough I plan to read them all myself, as well.

Sunday Book Review: American Dervish

American Dervish, by Ayad Akhtar

Often I put my lists aside and simply let myself be drawn to a book on the shelf at the library. Maybe it was the title, American Dervish, that attracted me. Maybe it was the promising blurb on the back cover that declared I would find myself represented within the pages "weather you believe religion is a precious gift from God or the greatest scourge of mankind." 

This is one of those books where I was almost immediately caught up in the story and had trouble putting it down. I'm often guilty of putting myself to sleep at night while reading. With this book, I found myself being forced to put it away and close my eyes because mornings always come early and I did not want my days to suffer from too much late night reading.

American Dervish is a debut novel by Ayad Akhtar. It is told from the point of view of Hayat, a young (early teens) American-born Muslim boy. I've said it before, but I always appreciate a book that tells a good story and teaches you something new at the same time. Not only were there bits and pieces about Muslim faith, but I liked the different perspectives of the religion from within. Various extremes were represented, from the blind followers to those who questioned and even denied the faith. It was very satisfying and familiar at the same time. The story very much confirmed what I've always felt has to be true. We're not so different, any of us, no matter what our religious background.

Part of what may have made this story so relatable for me is the fact that Hayat is a young teen in roughly the same era as myself. So though he is a Muslim boy with a father who is a doctor, growing up in a part of the United States that is very different from where I grew up, there are a lot of things he talks about that I knew well. Television shows and his father's take on reading books, most specifically. (My father was a book reader, but things his father says reminded me a lot of my Grandfather in many ways.)

I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anybody.

A surprise bonus, I discovered on Kansas Plains People on Friday that Mr. Akhtar will be speaking in Kansas City on Tuesday. Unfortunately, my schedule is not flexible enough to travel that day, but it's neat to see that he will be in the area and speaking about his book.

Sunday Book Review: Making It Home

Making It Home: My year as a middle-aged runaway, by Liz Moore

I’m not even sure how to begin to say just how much I enjoyed this book. Let’s call it an adventure story for women approaching middle age. It’s a book about that thing we’ve often imagined ourselves doing. At least, I have always loved the idea of living elsewhere, getting to know new places and people by becoming a part of the community, and living (for a while, at least) without ties or roots or personal history.

Liz Moore was one of the presenters at the 2011 Kansas Authors Club Convention. I was so enthralled by her story that I purchased the book online for my Kindle PC free e-reader almost first thing when I got home. (For some reason I was under the impression that the book was only available for Kindle, but I now see that it is available in paperback, as well, which is all the better because this book would make a great gift.)

Liz gave herself a gift for her fiftieth birthday. She packed her car and began a cross country journey that would take her from Texas to Arizona to Oregon to Iowa to Vermont. She selected small towns along the way and lived in them, a few months at a time, working for temp agencies and doing things like cleaning and waitressing as she went.

Liz writes her story so wonderfully that you feel yourself along for the ride, wondering how she’s going to find affordable housing and where she will work next. You learn a little bit about each place she stays. The people she meets along the way are all so wonderfully human, and Liz’s ability to settle into a new place and a new routine constantly amazed me.

The year didn’t go exactly as she had planned, but even the way she incorporated the heartache and the sorrow into the story made it just that much better. As the title suggests, she eventually makes it home.

I’ve recommended this book to my book club. I think anyone who has ever experienced even a bit of wanderlust would appreciate Liz’s story. 

Sunday Book Review: The Jenny Cain Mystery Series

As my current work-in-progress is a mystery (my first), I’ve found a lot of my leisure reading leaning in that direction, as well. My grandmother and my aunt were big fans of the mystery genre. I remember staying overnight with Grandma and flipping through the pages, at night, of the dozens of Ellery Queen’s that were stacked neatly on her headboard.

I’ve found myself less-than-satisfied, however, with the cozy mysteries I’ve picked off the shelf at various bookstores in the last few months and at the library, with so many options, I’ve had trouble committing to any one author. I finally took a look at my bookshelf and decided to take a more methodical approach to my reading with an author I already knew and loved.

Nancy Pickard’s career as an author began with the Jenny Cain mystery series. I started with her first book, A Generous Death and immediately liked Nancy’s heroine, Jenny Cain. It has been fun to read the stories and watch the characters develop. Each book has also had a little introduction or bit on writing by the author or an editor, as well. These might be the pieces that many readers ignore, but I cherish the insights to the writing process when I’m reading a story. It helps to have Nancy’s voice in my head, as well, as I’ve been fortunate to listen to her speak at two different Kansas Authors Club events.

As I write this, I have completed Say No to Murder and Marriage is Murder (my favorite so far), and am just getting started on the book, I.O.U. Initially, I thought I’d just read a book or two of the series, but I’ve enjoyed them enough I just may read through to the end of the series.

Sunday Book Review: The Rocking Horse

Every year at the Kansas Authors Club convention, I make a point of meeting and getting to know someone I’ve never met before. In Coffeyville this year, I was able to share a table at breakfast with new Kansas Authors Club member and new author, Gloria Zachgo, and her husband Ron. Bonus! A new member to add to my writing friend collection and an autographed book.

Gloria's first novel, The Rocking Horse, is available through Create Space. It can also be found on Amazon.

The story takes place in Kansas and completely passes my test for a Kansas book. The author obviously knows the state and appreciates its people. It was easy, as a reader, to settle into a setting that was at once familiar, though fictitious.

The Rocking Horse is a story of suspense and mystery. It examines the effects on a small town of a decades-old, brutal murder, and the characters, who are immediately likeable, finally get some closure. As happy as endings can get in a story that starts out with such violence, this one is tops.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gloria’s first novel and am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

Sunday Book Review – 11 from 2011

Since I didn’t blog about books at all in 2011, but I did keep my faithful journal detailing everything I’ve read, I thought it would be fun to go back and select the eleven reads I consider most worthy from 2011. These aren’t necessarily books that were published in the last year, just books I managed to get read in 2011. As well, they are in the order I read them, rather than ranked by preference. The qualifier to make this list was that it was a book I enjoyed enough that I would recommend it to a friend.

1. Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (without going nuts with worry), by Lenore Skenazy

This book is: Non-Fiction

Who should read? All parents, and anyone who has an interest in questioning the culture of fear that tends to surround raising children these days.

My “out there” parenting friends, if they haven’t read this already, would really enjoy and appreciate Lenore’s humor. Some of it feels a little foreign to my way of thinking and I think that is a product of being a Midwesterner (and partly from hanging out with other “out there” parents). We hear the stories, but I don’t think the culture of fear is quite as deep or extreme here as it is when you go east or west. None-the-less, a surprising amount of the material in this book feels familiar and once I read it, my eyes were really opened to the constant messages that our society sends about the world being such a dangerous place to raise children.

2. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, by Nicholas Carr

This book is: Non-Fiction

Who might enjoy? Anyone who enjoys topics of brain and behavior. This book was very readable, entertaining, and full of some thought provoking stuff.

3. The Autobiography of Mark Twain

This book is: well… an autobiography

Who might enjoy? Everyone, but I think writers, especially, will enjoy a little time with this book. Don’t let the size intimidate you (or opt for the 1995 edition, which is much more compact, but still full of great stories on writing and Twain’s history). It is meant to be taken in bites and pieces. It will make you want to re-read Twain stories just to see if you can pick the autobiographical parts of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn from the fiction. Twain’s writing in this book is so personable, you will put the book down feeling like you’ve just spent the evening with your grandfather, listening to him tell to stories about the olden days.

4. The Scent of Rain and Lightning, by Nancy Pickard

This book is: a Novel

Who might enjoy? Anyone who loves a well-written story. Nancy’s books are fantastic and I love the way she writes about Kansas in a way that is both familiar and appreciative. She is an excellent author who doesn’t rely on stereotypes.

5. Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool

This book is: a Novel, young adult

At least, it was marketed as a young adult novel, but I finished reading it as a very satisfied adult. The book takes place in southeast Kansas, and I learned a lot about the culture and history of a part of Kansas I am less familiar with.

6. Leondardo da Vinci, by Kathleen Krull (Giants of Science series)

This book is: Non-Fiction, geared toward late gradeschool to junior high

Who should read? This is a great science series. One of the best, as far as I’m concerned. I discovered Kathleen Krull’s Giants of Science books several years ago and basically wrote her begging her to write more of them. She does a really good job of introducing the world as it was at the time of the scientist of focus so that their achievements make sense in that context.

7. Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, by Lorna Landvik

This book is: a fun novel, but touching and left me a bit tearful at times

This was a “book club” selection in 2011. It’s always fun to read the same book that your friends are reading, even though fodder for Mom’s Night Out discussions rarely runs low. I think this was selected as a light and fun read, but it was actually quite touching. It covered a group of women (all neighbors) through several years of friendship. The story is told through their book club meetings, which they called Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.

8. Househusband, by Ad Hudler

This book is: another fun novel, with a bit of food for thought beneath the surface

This was a surprise I picked up off the “staff picks” shelf at the library. As you might guess, the story is about a man who decides to give up his career (his wife’s career is a bit more lucrative, and perhaps she loves her work more) to stay at home to raise the kid. Only it’s not a decision, at first. Her job takes them on a move across country and he starts out staying home more by default than anything else. I almost didn’t stick with this book through the early chapters, but he kept throwing in little gems that resonated with me and about a third of the way in I decided I really liked the book.

For instance, “I’d always thought confidence was as permanent as eye color or earlobe size, but it had become clear to me that it was as fragile as corn chips.”

There was a lot to think about in this book as far as what we value as a society in terms of work and family. I expected it to be more about strict gender roles, and perhaps to the author it was, but I found that many of the issues he dealt with were very familiar, as far as perceived value and worth of a person who decides to make taking care of family their primary role.

9. An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green

This book is: a novel, young adult

I’ve known for quite some time that John Green was going to be on my reading list because my children have become such big fans of his. He has a neat Vlog project with his brother online. My kids recommended this one as my introduction to John Green. The three of them agreed that this was their favorite of his work, so far. I enjoyed it and will probably catch up on the rest of his books in the coming year.

10. Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull

This book is: fantasy, also young adult

I like that my kids introduce me to new books I probably wouldn’t pick up on my own. Again, it was their enthusiasm for this series that made me want to read it. I think it was Middle Munchkin who read it first and she immediately put herself on the library list for reading the rest of the books in the series. We kept going to the library and these books kept coming home with us checked out on the card of another kid. There are five books in all and my son tells me there is going to be a movie. I’m not surprised. It was an excellent book. (I’ve only read the first one, the others are on my list for 2012.)

11. Everything I want to do is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front, by Joel Salatin

This book is: Non-Fiction

Who should read this book? Everyone. It’s about food and food policy is important to everyone, like it or not.

My husband has been a Joel Salatin fan for a couple of decades and I generally absorb the knowledge, as it interests me, through osmosis. My work as farmers market manager, however, has encouraged me to pay more attention to the details. This book is a series of essays written over the years detailing Salatin’s experiences as a return-to-local foods leader in the modern age.

"...if you want to certify something, certify the farmers' bookshelf and magazine rack. This [organic] movement has always been about a worldview, a value system. It is lived out from a deep inner conviction, not a codified system of dos and don'ts. If I'm feeding my mind and soul with the right stuff, my heart and hands will probably be in the right place too." ~ Joel Salatin

Sunday--Long Overdue--Book Review: Flyover People

I had the privilege of being a pre-publication reader of my friend Cheryl Unruh's book, Flyover People: Life on the Ground in a Rectangular State and I was going to tell you all about it at the time, but then she posted her cover and I thought how nice it would be to post a review on the eve of publication. I could go on and on talking all about me, of course, and the dozens of reasons this blog and my Sunday Book Review, in particular, have taken a back seat to life, but that would fail to achieve the point. Let's just stop with better late than never.

Flyover People is a collection of essays about my state -- Kansas. Yep, I'll claim it, though Cheryl is the one who has put it into words, what it means to be from Kansas, to choose Kansas, to love Kansas and its people.

Memories and experiences become part of who we are. Kansas seeps into our cells, reconfigures our DNA, claims us as its own. If we leave, it follows.

And from another essay...

We never lose this sense of being grounded, of knowing who we are and why we're here, of being nurtured by the soil and the grass and the stars.

Cheryl is the person who pays attention to the roadside ditches, the dusty roads, and the small town corner stores, and makes you want to look again, to pay attention too. She's a person who appreciates what I love about Kansas and takes the time to put it into words. I love reading her weekly columns in the newspaper and I love the collection she has put together for this book.

But it's not just a love of wide open sky that Cheryl writes about. She shares bits and pieces of herself, as well, and you get to know the small towns of our state as you catch little glimpses of the girl who grew up in a place called Pawnee Rock and constructed tin can telephones and began her writing career at the Larned Tiller and Toiler newspaper.  

Cheryl's essays have always made me want to slow down, take a back road to get where I'm going, and look a bit harder at each signpost I pass by. I want to share these gems with Kansas doubters -- my Houstonian friends who wondered why on earth I'd return to such a place as Kansas, the California transplants who seem incapable of seeing Kansas beauty, and the friends from other states who wonder why I will not leave.

I'm sure there's a lot to be appreciated about other places and people, but Kansas is my place. Kansans are my people. Maybe it really is as deep as my DNA. Life on the ground in a rectangle state is pretty good, and my friend Cheryl captures it beautifully.

Joshilyn

Judge for yourself. Do I look calm, cool and collected? Or do I look like a kid who has just met their rock star hero? 

Me and Joshilyn Jackson

Joshilyn Jackson was in Wichita last night reading and signing copies of her latest book, Backseat Saints. When my friend, Cheryl, alerted me that Joshilyn would be coming to Kansas, I dropped everything and... well, marked my calendar.

Joshilyn was great -- very entertaining -- even better, perhaps, than on her blog. You all might remember that I've been a fan for a long time. It is a gift to her readers that she keeps writing so we have something to read between books.

She talked a bit about her characters and then read us a scene from her book. I like having her voice in my head. I was still hearing it when I started reading last night. She's got a sweet, southern accent that makes you want to slow down and absorb the words at a more leisurely pace.

I may have to revive the Sunday book review for this one. Only a couple of chapters in and I'm hooked. 

My Newest Writer Crush

For Christmas I got a gift certificate from Amazon and I must have spent days and days "shopping" for books. I couldn't decide what I wanted to spend my money on. I bookmarked everything from chic lit to classic literature. I contemplated memoirs and biographies, but also salivated over non-fiction topics like contemporary politics (yes, me!) and genetics and etymology. Buying a book feels like such an event these days. It's one of those things I gave up for budget-keeping purposes and I've grown quite adept, as if this were ever a problem, of taking full advantage of my library's resources. 


I love, love, love the feel of a book in my hand, however. I love the feel of the pages, the smell of the ink, and the extra weight a book adds to my bag when I carry it around just in case I have a moment to pull out a book and read it. So buying myself books was an extra special treat and I wanted to savor every moment. I wanted to select just the right books.


I succeeded. 


In all my browsing and bookmarking and reading first chapters... I came across Amy. Amy's name wasn't exactly new to me. I've come across The Mother's Guide to the Meaning of Life at least a dozen times and I've probably read near half the entries while standing in an aisle.


I also remember picking up Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life a few times. Unfortunately, I've been on my self-imposed book buying ban for a while now and I somehow never managed to run across these at the library. I somehow came across Amy's name via one of my keywords I typed into Amazon, hoping to hit upon just the right combination to inspire me to spend my gift certificate. Then I googled her and browsed her websites and finally realized that I had also recently come across her name here. I figured it was fate. I ended up with a fat envelope of Amy Krouse Rosenthal books from Amazon.


And I have not been disappointed. 


Amy's books are the best kind of candy. They are filled with sweet, yet thoughtful, and they leave you feeling good about the world in general. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've lost weight since my package arrived because I've been eating Amy's books instead of candy. Win-Win.

I have not survived against all odds. I have not witnessed the extraordinary. I have not lived to tell. This, this is my story.

~Amy Krouse Rosenthal 

Don't miss Amy's theme song.

Love it!

Fun! A mother I can relate to.

LOL! Especially love this one!

The title, in case you can't read from the image: The same phrase describes my marriage and my breasts: Before the kids, they used to be such a cute couple.

Bonus: Amy will be speaking at a TEDx event on February 25. I'm assuming we'll be able to view these online. I'll be watching for it.

Best Read of 2009: No Impact Man

Somewhere along the line I became enamored of Facebook's Library application and I started neglecting to talk about books I had been reading here. This is the book I ended the year encouraging everyone to read, in person, and I probably shouldn't neglect leaving a record of that recommendation here.

I was so encouraged by this book, I read it twice in row. Once on my own and then out loud with my daughters. Hubby read it and became a fan, as well.

In short, No Impact Man is about a writer from NYC who decides to spend a year making as little impact on the environment as possible. In a test of extremes, he and his wife go all out to determine if it is possible to live happily without contributing to the detriment of the world.

They stop using elevators, they only move about the city by their own power, they stop participating in activities that create trash and consuming products that are, in any way, harmful to the environment. All in all, the experiment is fascinating and makes for a good read, but the lesson I walked away from this book with was really something other than what I had expected.

Sure, I want to continue to do my best to live a low impact lifestyle. I know there is much more that can be done and I expect to continue making lifestyle changes for the better rather than for the worse. But the thing that really impressed me about this book were the questions about how we spend our time and why we (as a culture) prioritize the things we do.

It goes much further than a "keeping up with the Joneses" mindset, though that's the basic idea. But for me, the questions about happiness and what we stand to gain from human connection were much more powerful. It was an illustration of tuning in to the world around you rather than finding excuses to tune out, embracing rather than avoiding.

I loved this story and I loved the feeling of optimism I was left with when I finished reading the pages of this book. I think for some, the extremes of the experiment might be a little too much to take. But the end message is not about doing it all, just about doing what you can. Doing something. Making small differences in your own way and asking questions about the way you choose to spend your time.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

I just devoted most of my Saturday to finishing this book. It is a fascinating story of William Kamkwamba, a boy from Malawi in Africa who builds a windmill in his yard to give his home electricity.

It's a very emotional read, as well as inspirational. As I was reading the book, I found myself fixing meals for my family and wondering at just how much I take for granted. It's not often that I consider what a luxury it is that my greatest stress from feeding my family comes from contemplating which oil is healthier, or pressuring myself to fix all meals from scratch rather than take shortcuts with boxed foods or pre-made. I think of the times when I have felt that money was tight, and yet we always had groceries, we never ate fewer than three meals a day. Even when my cupboards felt bare, I've always known that there is a store just down the street overfull with options.

I have never known hunger. I have never known poverty. I take for granted that a switch on my wall will power my lights. At the push of a button I have heat, clean dishes, I wash mountains of laundry, and a window to the world through my computer.

I don't stop and appreciate the riches in my life nearly enough.

William tells a story where these things I take for granted aren't even missed, because it is not assumed that they should be available. At 14, William built a windmill from scraps he foraged from a trash pile, based on diagrams in books he he could barely read because they were written in English. With none of the resources most every American doesn't even realize they take for granted, William taught himself the principles of electricity and physics and he provided his family light, and later water for crops so that they would not go hungry.

If you've ever found any excuse for not accomplishing something in your life, this book will make you rethink your excuses. There are NO excuses for not realizing your dreams. There is no reason big enough to stop you from doing whatever it is you desire to do or create.

"I went to sleep dreaming of Malawi [home], and all the things made possible when
your dreams are powered by your heart."

This is an awesome book and I highly recommend it.

Sunday Book Review: Best Friends Forever

I bet you thought I'd stopped reading! I haven't... just haven't been moved to write about anything I've read lately.

I finally got a hold of Jennifer Weiner's new book, Best Friends Forever, and devoured it this weekend. Weiner has managed to write yet another novel that is greatly entertaining. In fact, I think she just keeps getting better. (I really enjoyed Certain Girls and Good in Bed, but both had endings that felt a little awkward... didn't leave me quite as satisfied as I would have liked.)

BFF was a perfect read for the end of a "vacation" week.

Her stories are funny and touching. She certainly kept me turning the pages to find out how this one all came out, though I caught on to the "surprise" ending fairly early in the book. (I had to keep reading to make sure that I was right.) It's so nice to read a book that doesn't leave me feeling weepy and sad.

Sunday Book Review: American Shaolin

American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China

by Matthew Polly

I picked this book up three times at the library before committing to checking it out. Honestly, if it hadn't been on the "Kansas Notables" display, I likely wouldn't have looked at it at all.

I'm not a martial arts enthusiast. The closest I've ever come was probably a crush on Ralph Macchio in junior high school. None-the-less, I always have a soft spot for Kansas authors (Matthew Polly is from Topeka) and was further drawn by the first lines of chapter 1:

Some people have an inner voice. I have an inner to-do list. And since I'm a glass-half empty type of guy, my list is entitled "Things That Are Wrong With Matt." Whenever I am in danger of feeling too good about myself, that list starts flashing in my head.

THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH MATT

1. Ignorant

2. Cowardly

3. Still a boy/not a man

4. Unattractive to the opposite sex

5. Spiritually confused

I was touched, but I brought the book home thinking the hubby might enjoy it. He hasn't gotten the chance, however, because I began reading it first. I almost couldn't put it down.

It's rare for me to find a book that reads so easily, teaches me something about a topic I thought I had little interest in, and makes me laugh out loud. Matthew Polly has written that book, and I have now passed it on to the hubby for his enjoyment.

He does manage to cross all his items off his list by the book's end, but like the rest of us, he manages to add a few new ones along the way.

Polly sold movie rights to the story, as well. I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Sunday Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.

~Atticus Finch

My oldest daughter and I just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm sure I read this in high school or college, and I remembered the general storyline, but I did not remember it being such a compelling read. It is a great read-aloud book. The prose are lyrical and you can't help but adopt a southern accent as you read along.

I don't usually give a lot of thought to what is considered "classic" or not in literature, but this is a book that certainly deserves the title. It takes a reader directly to 1930s Alabama and, being narrated from a free-thinking child's point of view, it leaves you with a strong impression of time and place.

It's one of those books that opened my eyes a bit, and generated quite a bit of conversation outside the book. I think my favorite part is toward the end of the trial of Tom Robinson, Atticus's closing remarks and the talks he has with his kids afterward.

If you had been on that jury, son, and eleven other boys like
you, Tom would be a free man... So far nothing in your life has interefered with your reasoning process. Those are twelve reasonable men in everyday life, Tom's jury, but you saw something come between them and reason.

~Atticus Finch

Great book. I highly recommend picking it up to read again, or for the first time if you managed to avoid it as an assignment in school as a kid.

Sunday Book Review: Just Do It

Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned on Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!)
by Douglas Brown

If Douglas Brown can write about his sex life so freely, I guess I can write about reading his book. When hubby put this one on the library list a while back, I didn’t exactly roll my eyes. Well, maybe just a little bit. But since I am the one who gets the mail and the book fell into my hands first, I went ahead and opened it thinking I’d get a little preview of what he would be reading.

In short, I was hooked from page one and Hubby had to wait until I was finished to read the book.

This isn’t erotica, not even close. It’s a story I think married couples everywhere can relate to. The busy lives, constant working, child rearing… life can be exhausting. And exhaustion gets in the way of the couple. We can push ourselves to continue getting the bills paid and to care for our kids, but when it comes to taking care of each other, we too often let the rest of it get in the way.

Hubby and I have long had this routine of checking in on the 3 entities of our relationship. How are you? How am I? How are we? Doug and his wife Annie took this a few steps further. Beyond assessing how the “we” was doing, they decided to make the “we” great again and they decided on more than just a date or a night out together. There are a hundred little ways that couples plan to re-connect and refresh the “we” in a relationship, but Doug and Annie committed to 100 days, no days off, of sex.

Extreme? The more I read the book, the less I thought so.

This book is a memoir about a relationship – a happily married couple (11 years) who decides that ho-hum-okay is just not good enough. It wasn’t that they were in a troubled marriage. They seem to have a good relationship… one that you would expect would still be solid another 10 or 15 years from now. But like many couples, I believe, they were missing that zest, that sparkle that tends to fade in a long-term relationship.

What did they gain, aside from lots and lots of sex?

Communication, for starters, and not just how-do-you-like-it type communication. Committing to intimacy for 100 consecutive days means committing to getting to that place, that frame of mind, where sex becomes possible. And getting to that frame of mind is where the work comes in. It’s easy to bury yourself in a book, wallow in front of the television or turn your mind off to surfing the internet while waiting for sleep to overtake you each evening. To choose to give time to your relationship each day, however, no matter how tired or stressed you may be, is to give priority to the couple again.

I found that I was touched by many aspects of this book. Douglas Brown’s obvious love and admiration of his wife was wonderful to witness. There is a lesson to be learned in approaching life as such an adventure, rather than the grueling chore it seems to become for so many couples.

One aspect of the story that probably surprised me most was the relationship between Doug and Annie and their families. To embark on such a venture AND to tell your folks about it! Wow! To say more would be to write volumes and volumes.

I'm certainly not suggesting that a sex marathon is the answer, but I do think this book is good fodder for thoughts about the time and effort invested in couplehood. It’s a great read. Funny. Well written. Many laugh out loud parts. Every couple should read it, especially if you are ringing in an anniversary in the double digits.

Sunday Book Review: The Wednesday Sisters

The Wednesday Sisters

by Meg Waite Clayton

This is the book I've been wanting to tell you about for the past two weeks! I might start by simply saying it is lovely. As a writer, I found myself inspired. But the book turned out to be just a little bit more than I was expecting.

The book is about a group of young mothers who begin meeting in a park every Wednesday while their children play. They begin writing together. It starts as an exercise, but becomes an important part of each of their lives as each of them begins using the written word to fill images of themselves, make a mark on the world, or as a tool for understanding themselves and their own histories. Set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the characters are a way of viewing the changes that were taking place for women in the world, in general.

The narrator, Frankie, tells the story of these women from a looking-back point of view. It's not so much an explanation for the attitudes and the way times were changing for women in general, but an acknowledgement of the way things were. Where and when these these friends came from, people of different races didn't marry, women didn't participate in athletic events, and girls got married and had children rather than pursuing careers. Yet, women were doing all of these things and the book is about women, young mothers, in the midst of all this change of attitude and expectation.

It's a happy book. Very upbeat, even though the element of the woman dealing with breast cancer was very difficult for me and left me feeling pretty emotional in a few places. The way women with cancer are treated, however, is yet another sign of how far we've come and how fast. For the first time, I found myself feeling my mother was probably fortunate to have had her mastectomy in 1977. I know I always had a sense that the choices she was making and the amount of control she had over her own treatment plan was something fairly new, and the book confirmed that feeling.

Most of all, as I made my way through the book, I found my own desires to write a novel flaring high again. Unfortunately (or fortunately -- depending on if you are a glass is half full or half empty person, I guess), the demand for my fingers at the keyboard is quite high these days. I've barely had a moment free from writing... so that I can begin writing!!!

It probably didn't hurt that Meg Clayton stopped in at my blog and left a comment WHILE I was reading the book. (Thanks, Samantha!) That's how I know I can flag her here as a Kansas author. She may not think of herself that way, but since she lived here until she was seven, I'm going to claim her.

In short, if you are a writer or if you are at all interested in women's history, you are probably going to enjoy this book. This one goes on my recommended list, and I will be looking forward to more of Meg's work (old and new) to review in the future.

Mystery Writer to Speak at October KAC Convention

The Kansas Authors Club Convention will be held in Dodge City this year, October 3, 4 & 5.

Registration information will soon be posted at the KAC website, but here is a link to an article in yesterday's Globe.

Keynote Address will be by Charlotte Hinger, a mystery writer from Hoxie, Kansas.



The Kansas Authors Club has members with a wide variety of writing experiences and expertise. I always find inspiration in the most unexpected places. If you write, or think you might like to write, it's a great opportunity to spend some time with other writers and learn how others are approaching the craft and the business of writing.

More details from the Globe article:

The convention will begin with early registration at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3. Youth Contest awards will be given at 7 p.m., and read-arounds (three-minute limit per reader) will take place for writers of all ages at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Dodge City Marshal Alan Bailey will perform Saturday afternoon and welcome guests at that night's banquet.

A state board meeting, registration, the book room and a silent auction will begin at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 4. Workshops will start at 10 a.m. and also will be offered from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., repeating from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m.

Other workshops will include: “Historical Cattle Trails” by Gary Krysinger of Holsted; “Creativity” and another on “Poetry” by Jane Holwerda of Dodge City; “Newspaper Writing” by Charlene Scott of The Dodge City Daily Globe; “Letters to the Editor” by Prem Bajaj of Wichita; and “Children’s Literature” by Eunice Boeve of Phillipsburg.

The awards banquet will begin at 6 p.m. Saturday, followed by a presentation of book and service awards.

Activities on Sunday, Oct. 5, will begin at 8 a.m. with registration and worship/meditation offered by the Rev. Andrew Becker, husband of Amy Becker, District Seven president. The Rev. Becker is pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Offerle and Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kinsley.

Don Pady of Topeka will lead the Rosemary Time, a memorial to Kansas Authors Club members who died during the past year.

A general business meeting for all club members will run from 9:15 to 10:15. A Sunday morning panel on “Small Publishers” will be held and some workshops repeated from 10:30 to 11:30.

KAC writing contest awards will be distributed after the noon luncheon, and William J. Karnowski will give out his Youth Poetry Awards.

Registration for the convention is $75 and must be submitted by Sept. 15. The convention is open to anyone who wishes to attend.