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10.5 JourneyWest with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge
Woody Nickel is 105 years old when he hears the news that giraffes may be going extinct. He's so upset that he wants to set down on paper his story about driving two young giraffes across the United States.
Woody had survived the dust storms in 1938 in the Texas Panhandle. The orphaned 17-year-old boy went to New York City to see if his surviving relative could help him. He was on the docks when a boat, battered by the Hurricane of '38, docked with two young giraffes. They had been rescued in Africa after a trapper left them to starve. Their herd was gone and the small giraffes would have been lunch for the lions soon. The San Diego Zoo had sent a special padded truck to transport the animals.
Woody was fascinated by both the giraffes and a pretty young photographer who dreamed of selling her work to Life magazine. When the driver was fired, Woody stepped in to help the old man, Riley Jones, who was supervising the delivery.
This is a coming-of-age book as well as an appreciation of the animals which grace our planet. The trip across the country was fraught with difficulties such as windy mountain roads, low bridges, a flash flood, and an evil director of a circus. However, with the help of strangers who were enchanted with the giraffes, Woody and Mr Jones arrived in San Diego. Both of the men were "giraffe whisperers" who knew how to calm down the animals. The relationship between Woody and the mentoring Mr Jones was heartwarming. While I thought the framing story of Woody at 105 years old was unrealistic, the rest of the book was a wonderful adventure. This is a "feel good" book based on a true event that animal lovers will enjoy.
+10 task (journey from NY to CA)
+ 5 combo 10.9 Covid-19 Hits (historical fiction nominee for 2021)
+10 review
Task total: 25
Season total: 235
20.10 MysteryThe Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
"The Passenger" is a book that seems to be about nothing and everything at the same time. It has the barest of plots during the first half of the story, but has interesting and humorous dialogue about the meaning of life, love, quantum mechanics, the atomic bomb, conspiracy theories, the nature of God, reality, and other philosophy. Much of it went way over my head, especially the advanced physics, but you really don't have to understand it all. The author, Cormac McCarthy, spends time attending lectures at the Santa Fe Institute, a think tank for scientists, and it shows in many of the conversations between the erudite characters. McCarthy does not use quotation marks and apostrophes in this work.
Siblings Bobby and Alicia Western are the main characters. The book opens with Alicia taking her own life, followed by a flashback chapter of her hearing voices in her head. Alicia was a gorgeous blond who was a mathematical genius while still a child. She had inherited her mother's beauty and surpassed her father's mathematical mind. Her father was one of the physicists who developed the atomic bomb. Alicia is fascinating when she talks in her own voice, but the hallucinations featuring a dwarf and his cohorts were used too often.
Bobby was a former physicist and a Formula 2 race car driver. He was working as a salvage diver as the book opens in the 1980s. He's on a job involving a small plane crash where the doors are intact and have to be cut open in the watery depths. The divers find that one passenger and the black box are missing. The plane crash is never reported on the news, but Bobby feels like he's under surveillance in a coverup. He doesn't know who or why someone is breaking into his home. As more things happen, he becomes increasingly paranoid.
Bobby and Alicia had a complicated history of an unconsummated mutual love. Bobby feels grief and guilt that he was unable to save Alicia, and is unable to move on emotionally.
"The Passenger" is part of a duo of books where it mainly tells Bobby's story, and "Stella Maris" gives us more insight into Alicia's life. I haven't read "Stella Maris" yet, but "The Passenger" left me both intrigued and confused. "The Passenger" is a hard book to rate since I liked it more at the end than the beginning, so I'll settle on 3.5 stars.
+20 task
+10 combo 10.4 Twelve; 10.9 Covid-19 Hits (2022 Nominee for Historical Fiction)
+10 review
+10 aged (born 1933)
Task total: 50
Season total: 210
10.2 PronounsI Married a Dead Man by William Irish
"There's no way out. We're caught, we're trapped. The circle viciously completes itself each time, and we're on the inside, can't break through. For if he's innocent, then it has to be me. And if I am, it has to be he. But I know I'm innocent. (Yet he may know he is too.) There is no way out."
William Irish's novel starts with a couple wondering who committed a murder. Which one of them is guilty? The question is eating away at their minds. Can their relationship stand the stress of not knowing the truth?
The book then goes back to a day a year earlier when Helen was traveling by train from New York City to her hometown. She's unmarried, eight months pregnant, and has been abandoned by her boyfriend. She became friendly with Patrice, a pregnant woman who was traveling on the train with her husband to meet her husband's wealthy parents for the first time.
There was a horrific train accident which killed Patrice and her husband. While Helen was recovering from some severe injuries, the medical workers mistakenly thought she was Patrice and that her newborn baby was the grandson of a wealthy couple. She was warmly welcomed into their family. Things were going well until she got a scary note from someone from her past. She was terrified that her deception would be revealed.
"I Married a Dead Man" is a noir read published in 1948. It has strong psychological elements including fear, guilt, and paranoia. The book is a fast paced, suspenseful novel set in a late 1940s atmosphere.
+10 task
+10 combo 20.1 Birthdays (pub 1948); 20.10 Mystery
+10 review
Task total: 30
Season total: 130
10.6 MapI Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell
"It was not so much that I didn't value my existence but more that I had an insatiable desire to push myself to embrace all that it could offer. Nearly losing my life at the age of eight made me sanguine - perhaps to a fault - about death. . . . I viewed my continuing life as an extra, a bonus, a boon: I could do with it what I wanted."
Maggie O'Farrell writes about the near-death experiences in her life in seventeen essays in a non-chronological order. She grabs our attention in her first essay about a creepy, dangerous stranger who follows her on an isolated path. I was thinking about that chilling story for hours.
There are chapters about a miscarriage, several near-drowning incidents, a machete held to her throat, childhood encephalitis, the life-threatening allergies of her daughter, and more. In addition to the physical residual effects of the encephalitis, cerebellar damage left her with feelings of impulsiveness and other changes in behavior which put her more at risk.
Maggie O'Farrell includes the happy experiences in her life in her essays while acknowledging that we are all vulnerable to things changing in the next minute. It may be just a matter of luck that one person glides through life, and another faces multiple challenges. The book is also a reminder of the importance of kindness since we may have no idea of what another person is facing.
+10 task (Nicholas Evans map)
+10 combo 10.2 Pronouns; 10.4 Twelve
+10 review
Task total: 30
Season total: 100
Thanks for sharing the ideas in Block's introduction with us, Elizabeth.
10.4 TwelveWingwalkers by Taylor Brown
"These pilots, they died with the violence of saints or lived in furious suspension, steering machines that defied the unseen powers of gravity. He loved them for it. They lived on something like faith, he thought, held on trembling wings or beneath mushrooms of silk, crisscrossing the land like itinerant birds or moths, filling the hearts of those on the ground. Nothing but wind beneath their soles."
"Wingwalkers" is a dual narrative of William Faulkner, and two daredevils who barnstorm their way across the South. The book follows the life of Faulkner starting in 1908 during his childhood, and ending in 1934 when he has realized his two dreams of becoming a pilot and a writer. Alternating chapters tell the 1933-34 fictional story of World War I flying ace, Zeno, and his wife, Della the Daring, who performs stunts as a wingwalker. Faulkner meets Zeno and Della at an air show in New Orleans and they spend time trading stories, lubricated by bootleg liquor.
Taylor Brown writes beautiful descriptions of the natural world in the Southern states. There is a westward migration and a sense of desperation in the country during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
I enjoyed both of the story lines, although the numerous switches back and forth in time was sometimes bothersome until the timelines began to converge late in the book. The adventurous plot and Taylor Brown's excellent writing made this an entertaining story.
+10 task
+ 5 combo 20.7 Ratings (274 ratings)
+10 review
Task total: 25
Season total: 70
Congratulations, Grandma Deedee!
Thanks, Joanna and Elizabeth.
Bea wrote: "Found this on my home shelf: Close Company: Stories of Mothers and Daughters. Some of the authors are: Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, Alice Walker, Jeanette Winterson, and Alice Munr..."That's a great group of authors, Bea, and some of them had rather difficult relationships with their own mothers.
Have fun with your gift card, Joanne!
15.1 Alpha OmegaThey Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy
+15 task (H-Y)
Task total: 15
Season total: 15
I enjoy the tasks with the soup, wine, tea, etc too. I noticed that detectives seem to subsist on whiskey!Thanks to the mods for a great Fall season!
10.6 Bless the AnimalsMr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
In July 1964, Winston Churchill was very apprehensive about his retirement from Parliament at age 89. Throughout his life he had suffered from bouts of severe depression which he described as "the black dog."
Esther, a librarian at the House of Commons, decides to rent out a spare room as the two year anniversary of her husband's death approaches. Mr Chartwell (also known as Black Pat) is interested in becoming a lodger.
Black Pat is a foul-smelling, huge 6' 7" dog who can walk upright on his two hind legs, and talk. He just moves into a place and takes over people's lives. Black Pat exhibits dog behavior, but also loves to make puns. His enormous size can have a smothering, crushing effect on people.
The lives of Churchill, Esther, and Black Pat intersect as Esther substitutes as a secretary to Churchill the evening before his retirement. Churchill has stern words of advice about resisting the black dog:
"You must hurl yourself into opposition, for you are at war."
The depiction of Clementine Churchill, and her role in the life of the great leader was heartwarming. The book had both serious and humorous moments. There is a lot of wordplay since Churchill, the librarians, and Black Pat all exhibit a love of famous quotes. "Mr Chartwell" is a cleverly written book about an important subject.
+10 task
+ 5 combo 20.2 King (debut novel)
+10 review
Task total: 35
Season total: 1035
20.10 BirthdayHow It Went: Thirteen Late Stories of the Port William Membership by Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry takes us back to Port William, Kentucky, with thirteen new short stories. The farming community has undergone many changes over the years with industrialization bringing problems as well as conveniences. Most of the stories are told from the perspective of Andy Catlett as a child, an adult, and as an aging man.
The stories have a sense of community, a love of family, and an appreciation of the land, but also a regret that the simpler rural way of life is now passing us by. There is humor in many of the stories, but there is a slightly different tone compared to Berry's earlier works. Author Wendell Berry has aged along with his character, Andy Catlett, and they are both idealizing the early 20th Century and feeling some trepidation of what the future will bring. Other important themes that run through the book are taking pride in doing a job well, and being aware of others that may need help due to age, injuries, or financial reasons.
A new reader of Wendell Berry's fictional books should start with his earlier novels and short stories since this book is a nostalgic look back. A visit to Port William is always a special experience.
+20 task
+ 5 combo 10.2 Octoberfest (American)
+10 review
Task total: 35
Season total: 1010
