Musing about a local cemetery

Movers and Shakers, Scalawags and Suffragettes: Tales from Bellefontaine Cemetery ~ by Carol Ferring Shepley, 2008, history (Missouri), 384 pages

The history of Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis is told through the stories of those who are buried there.  The book is organized into sections:

1. Movers and Shakers
2. Scalawags and Nortorious Women
3. Suffragettes
4. Fur Traders
5. Civil War Patriots
6. Captains of Industry
7. Professionals
8. Titans of Transportation
9. Artists and Architects
10. Men of Sports
11. Phulanthropists
12. Cemetery Lore
13. Art and Architecture of Note

Besides being a history of a significant place, this book is a guidebook to St. Louis and its notable residents.  Because so many of St. Louis’s leading citizens (such as William Clark, James Buchanan Eads, Susan Blow, and Adolphus Busch) are buried in Bellefontaine, the book is a tale of the city.

Too many library books?

Somebody's Daughter ~ by Ashley C. Ford, 2021, memoir (Indiana), 224 pages

This is the story of a poor Black girl's childhood defined by the absence of her incarcerated father.  Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley C. Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement.   There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there.  She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men.  In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates.  When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her.  Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos.  Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration, and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down.

Note to self:  It's "dangerous" to walk through the little Crown Center library, especially if you stop to align books on the shelves or even glance at titles while you are there.  Especially when you know how easy it is to sign out a book (or two).  I have two books from the University City Library checked out, plus six books and a magazine checked out of the Crown Center library where I live.  No, wait, I just found one more Crown Center library book in my bedroom, left there when I fell asleep last night.

Here's what I have posted this week:

1. GRATITUDE is my chosen word for this year.
2. So I ordered a GRATITUDE JOURNAL, which is supposed to arrive today.
3. My THURSDAY THOUGHTS were about Adriana Trigiani's memoir Don't Sing at the Table.
4. I shared the beginning sentences of Holy Fools by Joanne Harris in my BOOK BEGINNINGS on Friday.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

hosts The Sunday Salon.

Beginning ~ with seven players

Beginning

It begins with the players.  Seven of them, six men and a girl, she in sequins and ragged lace, they in leathers and silk.  All of them masked, wigged, powdered, painted; Arlequin and Scaramouche and the long-nosed Plague Doctor, demure Isabelle and the lecherous Geronte, their gilded toenails bright beneath the dust of the road, their smiles whitened with chalk, their voices so harsh and so sweet that from the first they tore at my heart.

Holy Fools ~ by Joanne Harris, 2004, historical fiction, 355 pages

Joanne Harris transports us back to a time of intrigue and turmoil, of deception and masquerade.  In 1605, a young widow, pregnant and alone, seeks sanctuary at the small Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer on the island of Noirs Moustiers off the Brittany coast.  After the birth of her daughter, she takes up the veil, and a new name, Soeur Auguste.  But the peace she has found in remote isolation is shattered five years later by the events that follow the death of her kind benefactress, the Reverend Mother.

When a new abbess ― the daughter of a corrupt noble family elevated by the murder of King Henri IV ― arrives at Sainte Marie-de-la-mer, she does not arrive alone.  With her is her personal confessor and spiritual guide, Père Colombin, a man Soeur Auguste knows all too well.  For the newcomer is Guy LeMerle, a charlatan and seducer now masquerading as a priest, and the one man she fears more than any other.

Soeur Auguste has a secret.  Once she was l'Ailée, "The Winged One," star performer of a troupe led by LeMerle, before betrayal forced her to change her identity.  But now the past has found her.  Before long, thanks to LeMerle, suspicion and debauchery are breeding like a plague within the convent's walls ― fueled by dark rumors of witchcraft, part of the false priest's brilliantly orchestrated scheme of revenge.  To protect herself and her beloved child, l'Ailée will have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Thinking about the cover of this book

Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers ~ by Adriana Trigiani, 2010, memoir, xiii + 204 pages

Bestselling author Adriana Trigiani shares a treasure trove of insight and guidance from her two grandmothers:  time-tested, common sense advice on the most important aspects of a woman’s life, from childhood to the golden years.  Seamlessly blending anecdote with life lesson, Don’t Sing at the Table tells the two vibrant women’s real-life stories — how they fell in love, nurtured their marriages, balanced raising children with being savvy businesswomen, and reinvented themselves with each new decade.

By the way, when I picked up this book, I missed the actual title and thought it was Life Lessons from My Grandmothers, which is only the subtitle.  Look at that cover; what do you notice first?  The author's name and the subtitle are in bold red capital letters, but the actual title is lost in small white lower case print almost hidden in the middle of shiny gold.

Gratitude journal

I decided to buy a daily journal to keep track of my WORD for this year, which is GRATITUDE.  Look what I found.  There's actually a Daily Gratitude Journal, so I decided to get it to keep track of all the things I'm grateful for each day.  Amazon says:

Start each day with positivity and gratitude! Our Gratitude Journal Notebook is crafted to guide you in reflecting on life’s blessings and setting a joyful tone for the day. Inside, you'll find dedicated sections to capture daily gratitude, reflect on yesterday’s wins, establish self-care goals, set your intentions, and declare powerful affirmations. Let this journal be your sanctuary for mindful growth and inspiration. Reclaim your joy, one day at a time, and share it with the world!

And notice the truly amazing thing about the cover:  It also has my "favorite word," which is JOY.  It says, "Embracing each day with Joy and Gratitude."

Star words for a new year

Some people choose a word for the New Year, something to consider each day all year long.  Here are some examples:

Attentiveness, Authenticity, Awareness, Becoming, Breakthroughs, Capacity, Catalyst, Connection, Continue, Courage, Creativity, Cultivate, Dedication, Depth, Development, Discovery, Emergence, Endeavor, Enriching, Enthusiasm, Flourishing, Gentleness, Growth, Harmonizing, Imagination, Journeying, Learning, Nurturing, Observation, Open-heartedness, Potential, Possibility, Preparation, Process, Readiness, Reimagining, Reflection, Renewal, Transformation, Wonderment.

Some people even choose three words to represent their aspirations for the New Year, like these two illustrations I found online.  The words are often alliterative, meaning they start with the same letter.  Here are some examples:

• Compassion, Courage, and Curiosity
• Purpose, Passion, and Pluralism
• Gratitude, Graciousness, and Generosity

To choose a word for the New Year, you can:

1. Create a list of words (or use those above that I shared).
2. Select the word that resonates the most with you.
3. Try it out, and make adjustments if needed.
4. Display the word somewhere visible, to remind you each day.

A new plan for a new year

It's a new year, so what (if anything) will I do differently?  I've decided to copy some other book bloggers, who include a summary of the week's posts and/or activities.  So today, I'm showing links to some of what I wrote in this week's posts, as well as telling you about a book I'm about to read.

On the first day of this new year, I posted some "gentle goals" I found online (HERE).  I immediately noticed "Read for pleasure" on the list.  Well, sure, I do a lot of that already.  "Practice gratitude every day" sounds like what I already mentioned I would try to to when I wrote about a Gratitude Journal (HERE).  I posted a snippet from a Book Beginning (HERE), and I mused about a book and a word (HERE).  That's all I posted this week.

The English Major ~ by Jim Harrison, 2008, literary fiction (USA), 255 pages

Folks online say this is a book "for a male audience" and "Cliff’s on-the-road adventures are full of great characters [and] lusty encounters."  So I'm a little hesitant as I begin to read this.  But I majored in English (among other studies) and once had a jigsaw puzzle of the United States.  So I got this book thinking it was a sort of adventure as the main character travels throughout the country.  The dust jacket says:

"It used to be Cliff and Vivian and now it isn't."  With these words, Jim Harrison sends his sixty-something protagonist, divorced and robbed of his farm by a late-blooming real estate shark of an ex-wife, on a road trip across America, armed with a childhood puzzle of the United States and a mission to rename all the states and state birds to overcome the banal names men have given them.  Cliff's adventures take him through a whirlwind affair with a former student from his high school-teacher days twenty-some years before, to a "snake farm" in Arizona owned by an old classmate; and to the high-octane existence of his son, a big-time movie producer in San Francisco.

and Sunday Salon