Sunday, February 23, 2020

Salon ~ Little Women in two parts

Books finished

Little Women (1868) and Good Wives (1869) ~ by Louisa May Alcott.  These were later combined into one book as Little Women.  My Kindle version (2019) was illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.  I rate them 9/10.

Up Next
Love Life Walk: Stories and Thoughts, Walking Across America Eight Times with Stee Fugate, the Love Life Guy ~ by Steve Fugate, 2016, memoir
"I can't have my babies back, I can't take away the pain, so I have to move onward and upward."  Steve's first walk was in honor of his son.  He carried the LOVE LIFE sign in his effort to, as he says, "mend the broken heart while still beating."  Six years and several thousand miles later, tragedy struck once again when his daughter died.  This time, he said, he had the answer on the sign above his head:  LOVE LIFE.  It's not always easy to LOVE LIFE, but Steve is proof that if anyone can face the adversity of losing all of one's children, as he has, and still love life then it's possible for anyone.  Walk along with Steve on his 43,000 mile healing adventure.
Laurie handed me this book on Friday, saying she thinks I'd like it.  Laurie works in the Café downstairs and is my newest Facebook friend.  It's a big book, and my first thought was "but I already have too many to read."  I'm trying, this year, to conquer Mount TBR.  Okay, I'll explain.  I've joined the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.  The idea is to read and pass on the "mountains" of book waiting TBR, or "to be read."  (Click the link to learn more.)  That's where I should focus.  But this book looks so interesting.  On Amazon, 91 customers have reviewed the book, and 91 have rated it a 5.  Yes, 100% of them give it the highest rating.  Yes, I admit that I'm hooked after only a few pages.  Thanks, Laurie.

Life outside of books

I went to the grocery store this afternoon with Lisa, a new friend who joined our exercise group on Fridays, and we saw this bird on the fence.  Is it a hawk?  It was big and very beautiful as it flew to my left (see my second photo).

Could it be a golden hawk or something like that?  It let me get this close, and I used my cellphone to capture the moment.  The photos should enlarge, if you click on them.

Bloggers gather in The Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.

3 comments:

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

The original division of Little Women into two separate books explains why one of the members of our book group had a LW book that ended after Meg got married. It was terribly confusing to her when we talked about the book ("Beth dies? No, she got well after she had scarlet fever.") I guess Elke got a copy with the first part of the book only.

I like the idea of the book about the man who walked across America to heal himself. I think undertaking a quest is a wonderful way of dealing with pain. I hope you like the book.

My way of dealing with my TBR is sorting. I have an immediate TBR under my bed. If I don't get around to these books after six months, they are refiled in my closet stack of books. As I add books to my closet, I send books out to my Little Free Library. My system.

Have a lovely week, Bonnie.

Bonnie Jacobs said...

I played the part of Marmee in a 2-hour play in the 6th grade. Though I no longer remember details (from almost 70 years ago in 1951-52), I know our version of "Little Women" must have include part two because we had Professor Bhaer in it along with Meg's twin babies (dolls contributed by my sister and me). I only recently learned about the two halves of the book.

I'm not close to a Little Free Library here, or at least, not the kind standing near the street for the whole neighborhood to enjoy. We do, however, have a small library in our building that I help to maintain. I wrote about it in a comment on this blog post of mine:
https://bonniesbooks.blogspot.com/2018/01/books-i-completed-in-2017.html

Becki said...

I didn't know Little Women started out as two books! Love Life Walk does look very inspirational. Thanks for sharing! Have a great week.