Connie ’s Comments (group member since Nov 11, 2013)

Connie ’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

10.4 Truth and Reconciliation

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

"Braiding Sweetgrass" is a remarkable book that melds indigenous wisdom with modern science. Author Robin Wall Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology in upstate New York, and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She starts her book with the Skywoman story of Creation with its message that we need to respect the earth, offer gratitude, and remember than future generations will inherit it.

Another indigenous story is that of the Three Sisters--corn, beans, and pumpkins--that provide the proper nutrients and sunlight that is needed when the three are planted together. The beans wind around the corn's strong stem while the pumpkin or squash vines travel over the ground, sheltering the soil, keeping the moisture in, and reducing the weeds. Rhizobium bacteria, housed in the bean roots, take nitrogen from the air and convert it to nitrogen fertilizer for the three plants. This is just one example of reciprocity in nature. Reciprocity and restoration of damaged land by humans is told in additional stories such as intelligent planting to restore clearcut land.

The book also emphasizes the Honorable Harvest, taking less than half of what you find in the wilderness, and leaving the rest to reproduce during the following year. We are warned away from the Windigo of greed, overconsumption, and pollution.

Kimmerer feels a strong bond with her ancestors. Her grandfather, Asa Wall, was sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. The school separated the indigenous children from their parents for years, cut off their braids, and punished them if they spoke in their native language. The author is taking lessons to learn the Potawatomi language, attends indigenous ceremonies, participates in workshops to learn native crafts such as basket weaving, and passes down indigenous wisdom to her daughters and students.

Kimmerer writes thoughtfully with beautiful lyrical prose as she looks at nature through the eyes of a botanist, an ecologist, and an indigenous person with a strong love of the land. Gratitude, reciprocity, and restoration are necessary to renew the earth.

+10 task (author is Potawatomi)
+25 combo 10.3 Back to School (Professor); 10.10 Group Read; 20.3 Ratings (4.56); 20.5 Boomer (born 1953); 20.6 Awarded (2 Awards)
+10 not a novel
+10 review

Task total: 55
Season total: 400

I would like to lock in When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash 4.05 please.

10.7 Service

Thy Children's Children by Diana Ross McCain

"Thy Children's Children" is a historical novel based on the lives of multiple generations of the Lyman family in Connecticut. John Lyman was courting Hope Hawley in 1738, and the married couple bought land for a small farm in Middlefield three years later. This would grow to be today's complex of Lyman's Orchard, a farm shop, and several golf courses. The novel follows the history of the family from 1738-1871 with a brief epilogue about modern times.

Author Diana Ross McCain is a historian who included major historical events in this compelling story. Elihu and Phineas Lyman fought in the Revolutionary War. William Lyman spoke up against slavery, and his home was part of the Underground Railroad network. David Lyman was an entrepreneur who founded a company that produced washing machines and wringers. He was also instrumental in bringing a railroad across Connecticut, connecting the state with Boston and New York City. Through it all, operations on the family farm continued.

The Lymans had large families, but had to support each other through the sadness of early deaths before the era of modern medicine. Their strong faith helped them through sorrowful times. The work of the strong, intelligent Lyman women was also important to the Lyman family's success. Some family members traveled westward for new opportunities, but faced dangerous conditions. The family honored their relatives by naming their children after their loved ones. So this 634 book is best read over a few weeks since their are multiple Johns, Davids, Elihus, Esters, etc to keep straight in your mind.

"Thy Children's Children" was an engaging historical novel. The story was even more poignant since I knew it was based on people who lived around twenty miles away from me. It made me wonder what choices my family would have made if we were living in earlier times.

+10 task (Elihu and Phineas Lyman served in the Revolutionary War)
+ 5 combo 20.3 Ratings (4.00 locked in help thread)
+10 review
+ 5 jumbo (634 pages)

Task total: 30
Season total: 345

Thanks for your good directions of where to go to vote on the links, Rosemary. I couldn't find it when I looked yesterday.

10.1 TBR

A Shelter of Others by Charles Dodd White

"Lavada rose to the iron dark and stepped barefoot across the cabin floor, paused and placed her hand to the door to test the wind's new ache, to know it as her own. Touch told her she would need Mason's coat. It hung on a tail next to the mantel. She took it in her hands and slipped her thin arms through the sleeves, wore the wight of her man for a moment before she drew on his blistered boots and stepped into another day that lacked him."

I read this first paragraph of the book three times before moving on. Charles Dodd White tells us so much about Lavada Laws and her situation in one lyrical paragraph. The next 216 pages were written just as beautifully.

Mason Laws has been released from two years in prison for a drug conviction. His father, Sam, has been cared for by Lavada during Mason's time away from his North Carolina home. Sam is suffering from dementia, and thinks of Lavada as his daughter. Lavada feels close to Sam, although he is a challenge, escaping into the wilderness when his mind shows the greatest loss of mental acuity.

Mason needs to be on his own for a while after his prison term is finished. He camps out in the woods in a tiny cabin until he falls into a job at a run-down convenience store. Mason is a complicated character, emotionally hurt by a motherless childhood, but capable of showing tenderness to an old dog and compassion to a crippled elderly man.

A deputy in the sheriff's office, Cody Gibbs, served in the war in Iraq. He enjoys inflicting pain, and is more damaged than most of the criminals he pursues. His cruel actions have a domino effect, setting off a chain of actions by unstable or emotionally hurt people, and intensified by the treacherous conditions in the wilderness.

I love the title of this novel, "A Shelter of Others." The novel includes characters who missed the childhood feeling of home and developed haunting psychological issues. There are also instances where caring people created their own family with those who were not their blood relatives, sheltering them with their love.

One could find a quotable sentence on almost every page of this novel. Readers of literary fiction or Southern noir are sure to enjoy the poetic writing of Charles Dodd White.

+10 task (added to TBR in 2014)
+20 combo 10.3 Back to School (Associate Professor of English); 10.7 Service (Cody Gibbs was a soldier in Iraq); 20.3 Ratings (4.29); 20.4 Non-Linear (flashbacks to childhoods, etc)
+10 review

Task total: 40
Season total: 315

20.6 Awards

Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles

"Enemy Women" is another book to add to my favorites list. The story is set against the background of the American Civil War in the Missouri Ozarks. Missouri was considered to be a neutral state with fewer slaveholders than the Confederate states that seceded from the Union. However, conventional Union and Confederate troops plus irregular guerrilla military forces (Union Jayhawkers and Confederate Bushwhackers) looted houses and ambushed individuals in Missouri.

The neutral Colley family had their horses stolen, their barn burned, their house raided, and the father beaten and dragged away by Union forces. A drenching rain saved their house from being destroyed by fire. Eighteen-year-old Adair Colley and her younger sisters took to the road in an attempt to get news of their father's condition. A fellow traveler's false statements resulted in Adair's arrest on charges of "enemy collaboration," and she was sent to a woman's prison in St Louis.

Adair is saucy, sarcastic, and courageous in prison, but it is a hotbed of disease. Her Union interrogator, Major Neumann, is a righteous man who respects Adair's convictions, and tries to help her. Eventually, Adair sets off on a long dangerous journey through the ravaged, lawless state to reach her home in southeastern Missouri. She is strong, resourceful, and quick-thinking in some frightening situations. The book also details Major Neumann's journey after a bloody battle.

Paulette Jiles, who is also a poet, writes beautiful prose. In addition to being a compelling story, the book starts each chapter with excerpts from actual Civil War correspondence, newspaper articles, and both Union and Confederate military records. The story illustrates the brutality of this war where neighbors fought neighbors. This is a story about survival, love, and a journey with a desperate longing to reach home . . . not knowing if home still exists.

+20 task (2 awards)
+ 5 combo 10.7 (Union soldier Major Neumann)
+10 review

Task total: 35
Season total: 275

15.10 Counting on Authors (20 or more letters)

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

+15 task (24 letters in author's name)

Task total: 15
Season total: 240

10.5 Classic

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Written in epistolary form, "The Sorrows of Young Werther" is a semi-autobiographical novel about unrequited love. Werther moved to the fictional German village of Wahlheim to enjoy painting and reading. He meets Lotte at a local dance, and is swept off his feet with love. However, Lotte is engaged to Albert, an older, dependable man who is devoted to her.

Werther is artistic, emotional, and lacks purpose and responsibility in his life. His feelings reach the height of happiness when he is with Lotte, then plummet in despair. His love for Lotte becomes an obsession, even after Lotte and Albert are married. Werther felt that he no longer wanted to live.

This novel prompted 18th Century young males to dress in blue jackets and yellow waistcoats like Werther, and write passionate letters to the women they loved. Unfortunately, it also prompted some of these emotional young men to end their lives in suicide. "The Sorrow of Young Werther" was part of the "Sturm und Drang" (storm and stress) literary movement which was a reaction against rationalism. It's an interesting classic story to read in the context of its era.

+10 task (listed 3,052 times as a classic)
+10 review
+10 1001 list book

Task total: 30
Season total: 225

20.8 Gothic

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

+20 task (# 35 on Best Books to Read for Halloween)
+10 combo 10.5 Classic (listed 2,042 times); 10.6 Birthday (Oct 16)

Task Total: 30
Season Total: 195

20.9 Anniversary

Happy Anniversary, Kate!

The Lost Vintage by Ann Mah

Page 72: "Sitting on the floor, drinking Champagne, talking about our plans for the future."

Kate, a sommelier, is staying with her cousin Nico's family in Meursault, France while she's studying for the difficult Master of Wine test. She has not been back to the vineyard since she broke off a serious relationship with their neighbor around ten years ago. Kate volunteers to help with the harvest of the grapes. She also helps her best friend, Nico's wife, clean out their cellar storage area. They find World War II-era items belonging to Kate's great half-aunt Helene, as well as some valuable items in a secret hiding place.

Kate's uncle is unwilling to talk about Helene or World War II. There is conflicting evidence so Helene's descendants don't know if the family was involved in the Resistance, or if they were collaborators with the Germans during the Occupation. The missing pieces to the puzzle are found when they locate Helene's diary.

"The Lost Vintage" is a wonderful family saga with a contemporary 2015 timeline, flashbacks to a romance around 2005, and my favorite--Helene's 1940-44 timeline from the war years. The history of the Occupation with some people helping the Resistance, and others collaborating with the Germans was terrifying for those who lived through it. After the Liberation, many women who had relationships with German officers were excessively held up to public shaming and barbaric treatment, but sometimes their only other choice was to let their children starve. Helene wrote, "The most enthusiastic persecutors were the war's most spineless cowards--traitors, informers, racketeers--hoping to expunge their record by pouncing upon this most convenient scapegoat."

Author Ann Mah is also a food and travel writer. She included great descriptions of wine-making, French food, the Burgundy region of France, and the prestigious Master of Wine designation. "The Lost Vintage" is even more enjoyable if you pour a glass of your favorite wine.

+20 task
+15 combo 10.8 Mediterranean (France); 20.3 Ratings (4.03); 20.4 Non-Linear (Back and forth through the years 2015, 2005, and 1940-44)
+10 review

Task total: 45
Season total: 165

20.7 Exophonic

Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri

"Whereabouts" is a slender novel composed of a series of vignettes about an unnamed, introverted, female narrator. Jhumpa Lahiri wrote the book when she was living in Rome, and the chapter titles such as "At the Trattoria" and "In the Piazza" indicate an Italian setting.

Each chapter is a moment in time with a middle-aged college professor who lives alone. The book is written in first person so we only read the narrator's point of view concerning her life. She is very introspective, and examines the joys and sadness of solitude. She enjoys walking in her neighborhood and associating with others for a short time, but then needs to go back to her routine, quiet life. The narrator is highly observant, and there seems to be a promise of some small changes in her life as the book ends. The novel is character-driven with very little plot.

The book was first published in 2018 before the pandemic, but the author was very skilled in writing about social isolation. Jhumpa Lahiri wrote the book first in Italian, then self-translated it to English. Her prose is spare and sometimes heartbreaking, and the forty-six vignettes give the reader a melancholy portrait of an introspective woman. "Whereabouts" is not for everyone, but will be enjoyed by readers who like literary fiction.

+20 task
+10 combo 10.8 Mediterranean (Italy); 10.3 Back to School (Author is a Creative Writing Prof at Princeton)
+10 review

Task total: 40
Season total: 120

20.5 Boomer

Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley

Leonid McGill is a New York P.I. who has a history of working both sides of the law in the name of justice. The black former boxer is approached by Catfish, an old Mississippi blues singer. Catfish wants Leonid to deliver a letter to his granddaughter, a wealthy heiress who has never been told of her black racial heritage. But there are corrupt people who will go to any length to make sure this letter never gets delivered. The lives of Catfish, Leonid, and others that know the family secret are in danger.

"Trouble is What I Do" is a fast-paced book with snappy urban dialogue. It's a short, suspenseful read that kept me turning the pages.

+20 task (Author born 1952)
+ 5 combo 20.3 Ratings 4.02
+10 review

Task total: 35
Season total: 80

10.3 Back to School

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Edith Hope was spending a few weeks at the Hotel du Lac since her friends had suggested a short break after a socially shocking event. Her closest friend "was prepared to forgive her only on condition that she disappeared for a decent length of time and came back older, wiser, and properly apologetic." The hotel was located in Switzerland by the misty grey shores of a lake, and the grey tones reflect Edith's somber mood at this time. It's the off-season, and most of the residents of the hotel are lonely women.

Edith is an unmarried thirty-nine-year-old writer of old-fashioned romance novels. Like the heroines in her books, she is quiet and looking for love. She is introspective, intelligent, and an observer of life, although her opinion of the other women changes as she gets to know them better. There is a contrast between Edith and the widow, Mrs Pusey, who is vibrant in a superficial way.

The story has flashbacks to her life in London where we find out the reasons for her banishment to Switzerland, her childhood relationship with her mother, and more. Parts of the book are written as letters. The novel contains quite a bit of quiet humor as Edith observes the other people at the hotel and reflects back on her own life. Anita Brookner's writing is lovely, and "Hotel du Lac" was a winner of the Booker Prize.

+10 task (author is an art history professor)
+10 review
+10 combo 20.4 Non-linear; 20.9 Anniversary pg 107 "Glasses of champagne were delivered to Monica and Mme de Bonneuil and myself, and then we all had to drink her health. . . "

Task total: 30
Season total: 45

15.9 Counting on Authors (18-19 letters)

The House in the Mist by Anna Katharine Green

Task total: 15 (18 letters)
Season total: 15

Round 2
20.1 Riding the Metro

Love in Lowercase by Francesc Miralles

City: Barcelona
Country: Spain
Continent: Europe

Samuel, a Germanic Studies lecturer at a university in Barcelona, has a lonely life that alternates between the classroom and his apartment. His life changes when a cat scratches on his door. When he lets the cat in, he also lets other people into his life, starting with his neighbor when the cat escapes from his apartment. The neighbor sends him on an errand that leads to other connections. Samuel describes "love in lowercase": "Its when some small act of kindness sets off a chain of events that comes around again in the form of multiplied love."

Samuel and his new friends meditate on life, noting the writings of great writers and philosophers. Samuel also makes a connection with Gabriela, a girl he met when they were children. There's lots of self-deprecating humor as Samuel manages to always do the wrong thing when he's in the company of beautiful Gabriela. The book is charming and fun, and Mishima the cat is hard to resist.

+20 task
+ 5 review

Task total: 25
Season total: 1105

20.10 Riding the Metro

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

City: Petropavlovsk
Country: Russian Federation
Continent: Asia

The Kamchatka Peninsula in northeastern Russia is very isolated by its geography. Two sisters disappear while they are playing along the coast of Petropavlovsk, the peninsula's only large city. No roads connect the peninsula to the continent so the only way to leave is by air or sea. Detectives are unable to locate the two girls, aged eleven and eight.

The book is divided into twelve chapters, one for each month of the year. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a woman who may have an association with the disappearance, such as an eye witness, the wife of a detective, the distraught mother, etc. The chapters also introduce us to their families and friends. Some of the links to the two sisters seem tenuous at first, but the connections come together beautifully at the end.

This book is much more than a mystery about a disappearance. It shows the social structure of Kamchatke Peninsula with most of the people in the south having a white Russian ethnicity. Indigenous people with darker skin live in the northern areas. They often live a semi-nomadic life herding reindeer, hunting, and fishing. The book shows the political and economic forces, and the social and ethnic customs that exist on the peninsula.

Julia Phillips' prose is lovely, and the ending is just perfect. This debut novel left me hoping she's at work on a second book.

+35 task
+ 5 review
+100 finisher bonus
+100 for 5 continents

Task total: 240
Season total: 1080

Happy Birthday, Jayme! Enjoy your celebration!

Fall Styles: Combo (5), Review (10), Not-a-Novel (10), 1001 (10), Jumbo 500-699 (5)

10.1 TBR (can use one time)
✓ A Shelter of Others by Charles Dodd White (or 20.3 Ratings 4.30, or 10.3)

10.2 Halloween (death)
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell
A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd 2009
✓ A Double Death on the Black Isle by A.D. Scott

10.3 Back to School
✓ Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
✓ Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

10.4 Truth and Reconciliation (Indigenous author)
Poet Warrior: A Memoir or An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo
✓ Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

10.5 Classics (100 X)
✓ The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway

10.6 Birthday (male author with Sept, Oct, Nov birthdate
✓ Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro Nov 8, 1954

10.7 Service
Redeployment by Phil Klay
✓ Thy Children's Children by Diana Ross McCain

10.8 Mediterranean
✓ Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief by Maurice Leblanc (France) 1907

10.9 Oxford
✓ The Hanging of Margaret Dickson by Alison J. Butler 2013

10.10 Group Read
✓ Old Filth by Jane Gardam

20.1 Serially
The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett 1902
✓ Laura by Vera Caspary 1942
Agatha Christie

20.2 Anti-hero
Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief by Maurice Leblanc 1907
✓ Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

20.3 Ratings
✓ The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah 4.34
The Color Of Lightning by Paulette Jiles 4.08
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories by Hilma Wolitzer 4.17
✓ The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg 4.57

20.4 Non-Linear
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
✓ When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash

20.5 Boomer
✓ Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley 2020 (born 1952)
✓ Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian (born 1962)
✓ The End of Her by Shari Lapena (born 1960)

20.6 Awarded
✓ Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles

20.7 Exophonic
✓ Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri

20.8 Gothic
✓ The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

20.9 Anniversary (champagne)
✓ The Lost Vintage by Ann Mah

20.10 Musical Mysteries
Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon 1992
The Strings of Murder by Oscar de Muriel 2015
✓ Honky Tonk Kat by Karen Kijewski 1996

20.9 Riding the Metro

Queen of the Flowers by Kerry Greenwood

City: Melbourne
Country: Australia
Continent: Oceania

Task total: 25
Season total: 840

Round 3
10.1 Page Count (2 or 3 short works adding up to 75-150 pages)

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (70 pages, published 1862)

and A Message from the Sea by Charles Dickens (52 pages, published 1860)

"Goblin Market" is a sensual narrative poem about two innocent sisters who are tempted with luscious fruit by the goblin men. There are many interpretations of this poem ranging from sexual temptation to the temptation of drugs.

There is also a religious interpretation with the goblin men representing the devil in the Garden of Eden, and the sister Laura representing Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Lizzie, a Christ-like figure, makes a sacrifice that leads to the redemption of Laura.

Christina Rossetti was a religious woman who worked with "fallen women" at the St Mary Magdalene Home. Her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was the original illustrator for the book of poetry published in 1862.


"A Message from the Sea" was published in the December 13, 1860 Christmas edition of the literary journal "All the Year Round." It was a collaborative effort mainly written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins with help from Robert Buchanan, Charles Allston Collins, Amelia Edwards, and Harriet Parr.

American Captain Jorgan visits a family in a charming fishing village in Cornwall. He found a letter in a bottle during his last voyage, and wanted to deliver it to the family. The letter was written by a family member who was lost at sea, and had some troubling news. The collaborative effort also contains some ghost stories, and a harrowing shipwreck so it should have kept the interest of people of many ages. Stories were often read aloud back in the 19th Century since some people were illiterate. I found "A Message from the Sea" to be very entertaining, and also enjoyed the themes of honesty and family love.

+10 task
+ 5 review
+5 before 1996

Task total: 20
Season total: 815