I loved the book

I'm looking forward to our afternoon movie today, which will be "The Secret Life of Bees."  This is what I said about the book in September 2009, HERE:

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (2002) is #10 alphabetically in my continuing series on "fifteen books that will always stick with me."

What is it about this book that I like so much?  Maybe it's the image of Rosaleen, a black woman in the South in 1964, spitting snuff on the shoes of a racist white man who is harrassing her.  Maybe it's the strong character of August Boatwright (one of the "calendar sisters" of May, June, and August), who epitomizes a queen bee in this story about bee-keeping sisters who take in a 14-year-old white girl running away from her abusive daddy — I think making her kneel on grits is abuse, don't you?  Maybe it's the Black Madonna in Tiburon, South Carolina, that Lily runs to after she breaks Rosaleen out of custody.  Maybe it's that this first novel was written after the author realized conventional goodness just wasn't enough.

1. On Tuesday, I wrote about two friends, HERE.  Well, I also mentioned a book and a couple of magazines from the library that I was reading.
2. On Wednesday, I wrote about a boy who loved words, HERE.
3. On Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I didn't post anything.  This has NOT been my best blogging week.  Maybe I attended too many Fourth of July events we had at the Crown Center.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

A book about words in my library loot

The Boy Who Loved Words ~ by Roni Schotter, illustrated by Giselle Potter, 2006, children's picture book, 40 pages

Some people collect shells or stones; young Selig collects words. Whenever he hears a new one he likes, he jots it down on a slip of paper and stuffs it into a convenient pocket, a sock, a sleeve, or a hat. The words he collects are ones that stir his heart and ones that make him giggle.  What should he do with so many words?  After helping a poet find perfect words for his poem (lozenge, lemon, licorice), he decides that his purpose is to spread the word to others.  And so he begins to sprinkle, disburse, and broadcast them to people in need.  This book won the Parents' Choice Gold Award.

Two friends on TWOsday

A friend from the community called this morning to suggest we get together for lunch in the Cafe at noon.  A few minutes later, she called back to say she had also invited another of her friends, who happens to be a resident here.  That's fine with me, since she's also my friend.  So there's my TWOsday angle for today.  But what about books?  Of course I'm still reading!  Every day.  Maybe not every minute, though it sometimes seems that way.

 

I'm still in the middle of re-reading Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, 1997, and reading through a couple of magazines (TWO, again) from the Crown Center library:

1. XPLOR from the Missouri Department of Conservation for July/August 2025.
2. Audubon, (Summer 2025 issue) which celebrates 120 years of Audubon.

Starring Grace as Peter Pan

Amazing Grace ~ by Mary Hoffman, illustrated by Caroline Binch, 1991, children's picture book, 32 pages, 10/10

Grace loves stories, whether they're from books, movies, or the kind her grandmother tells.  So when she gets a chance to play a part in Peter Pan, she knows exactly who she wants to be.  The watercolor illustrations fully express Grace's high-flying imagination.

Grace wants to be Peter Pan, but her classmates tell her:  "You can't be Peter -- that's a boy's name" and "You can't be Peter Pan ... He isn't black."  But Grace kept her hand up.  Before the class auditions, Grace's Nana told her:  "You can be anything you want, Grace, if you put your mind to it."  Re-read my title.

1. On Monday, I posted another version of Mozart's Bassoon Concerto, my favorite piece of music, HERE.
2. On Tuesday, I asked for your opinion about children's books, HERE.
3. On Wednesday, I wrote about a children's book, HERE.
4. Thursday's post was philosophical, about buying something on sale and about what TL;DR means, HERE.
5. Friday's post was about a memoir of a family moving to Gaza in 1948, HERE.
6. On Saturday, I wrote about two sole survivors, HERE.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

What does sole survivor mean?

The other day, I had to ask myself, "What does 'sole survivor' mean?"  I always assumed it meant there was only ONE survivor in an accident or disaster.  I looked it up and got this answer:

The term "sole survivor" refers to a person who is the only one to live through a disaster, accident, or other event where many others died.  It can also be used more broadly to describe the only remaining member of a group or the only one of its kind.

Now I'll tell you why I'm looking up something so obvious to most of us.  Two people survived a boating accident on Lake Tahoe recently, and the headlines (HERE:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/sole-survivors-lake-tahoe-boating-204221207.html) said:

Sole survivors in Lake Tahoe boating accident had one thing in common.

Two survivors?  Then there is no "sole" survivor.  There are TWO, not ONE.  Whoever wrote that article needs to take a refresher English class.

Oh, you want to know what those TWO people had in common?  They were wearing life jackets.

Beginning ~ with her name and village

Beginning

The month is May.  The year is 1948.  A girl named Siham is 15 years old.  Her village is al-Majdal ... Siham will leave al-Majdal this month.  This week.  Tonight. ... Her family will live in a house in a new town, in a neighborhood in Gaza ...

I'll Tell You When I'm Home ~ by Hala Alyan, 2025, memoir, 272 pages

The rich and deeply personal debut memoir by award-winning Palestinian American poet and novelist Hala Alyan, whose experience of motherhood via surrogacy forces her to reckon with her own past, and the legacy of her family’s exile and displacement, all in the name of a new future.

After a decade of yearning for parenthood, years marked by miscarriage after miscarriage, Hala Alyan makes the decision to use a surrogate.  In this charged time, she turns to the archetype of the waiting woman — the Scheherazade who tells stories to ensure another dawn — to confront her own narratives of motherhood, love, and inheritance.

As her baby grows in the body of another woman, in another country, Hala finds her own life unraveling — a husband who wants to leave; the cost of past traumas and addictions threatening to resurface; the city of her youth, Beirut, on the brink of crisis.  She turns to family stories and communal myths:  of grandmothers mapping their lives through Palestine, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon; of eradicated villages and invading armies; of places of refuge that proved only temporary; of men that left and women that stayed; of the contradictions of her own Midwestern childhood, and adolescence in various Arab cities.

Meanwhile, as the baby grows from the size of a poppyseed to a grain of rice, then a lime, and beyond, Hala gathers the stories that are her legacy, setting down the ones that confine, holding close those that liberate.  It is emotionally charged, painstaking work, but now the stakes are higher:  how to honor ancestors and future generations alike in the midst of displacement?  How to impart love for those who are no longer here, for places one can no longer touch?

A brutally honest quest for motherhood, selfhood, and peoplehood, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home is a powerful story of unraveling and becoming, of destruction and redemption, and of homelands lost and recreated.

The book was published this month.  Although I just got it, it has already pulled me into her story.  I found the book's description online.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

A couple of things to think about

Just because something is on sale doesn't mean you have to buy it.  A deal isn't a deal if it wrecks your budget.  Retailers use sales to make you feel like you're missing out — but the truth is, you're not saving money if you weren't planning to spend it in the first place.  In that case, buying a $100 item at 25% off does NOT mean you saved $25; it means you spent $75.  But did you really need it?

TL;DR stands for "Too Long; Didn't Read."  It's a slang term used to introduce a summary of a lengthy text, or as a comment indicating that a piece of writing is too long.  Essentially, it's a way of saying, "Here's the short version because the original was too long."

Where does rabbit live?

Missing Rabbit ~ by Roni Schotter, illustrated by Cyd Moore, 2002, children's picture book, 32 pages

While shuffling back and forth between her Mama's house and her Papa's house, Kara's favorite toy, Rabbit, asks to stay at Papa's house.  Kara must leave her toy behind while she is at Mama's house, where she misses him terribly.  This heart-warming tale for children whose parents are divorced captures the true meaning of home and parental love.

Put on your thinking cap, and share your opinion

Having run across several children's books as I've been sorting through boxes of my books, I have a question for myself today:  Should I "count" children's books among my annual list of books read?  Well, they ARE books, and I have read (or re-read) them this week.  So do I actually want to record each one as another book read?  What do you readers think?  What's your opinion?  YAY or NAY?

Mozart's Bassoon Concerto ~ my favorite music

For those of you who don't already know, I used to play the bassoon,

though I was never THIS good and never got to play this particular piece.

A book by Alice Walker

Meridian ~ by Alice Walker, introduction by Tayari Jones, 1976, literary fiction (Georgia), xxi + 261 pages

As she approaches the end of her teen years, Meridian Hill has already married, divorced, and given birth to a son.  She’s looking for a second chance, and at a small college outside Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1960s, Meridian discovers the civil rights movement.  So fully does the cause guide her life that she’s willing to sacrifice virtually anything to help transform the conditions of a people whose subjugation she shares.

  

Meridian draws from Walker’s own experiences working alongside some of the heroes of the civil rights movement, and the novel stands as a shrewd and affecting document of the dissolution of the Jim Crow South.  This classic novel was written by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Color Purple.

1. On Monday, the novel I discussed was about addiction to food, HERE.
2. On Tuesday, I wrote about the expanded edition of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, HERE.
3. On Wednesday, I wrote about what we should eat, HERE.
4. Thursday's post was about an accidental command to Alexa, HERE.
5. Friday's post was all about celebrating Juneteenth, HERE.
6. On Saturday, I wrote about the summer solstice, HERE.  It's already hot.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Summer Solstice

Summer officially began last night at 9:42 p.m.  Let me tell you a story about the change from spring to summer in 1963, exactly 62 years ago.  My youngest child was born four minutes before that spring became summer.  That means all of my children have reached retirement age and COULD quit working.  Some of their children also have children of their own, giving me SIX great-grandchildren (so far).  Are any of you reading this blog post also proud great-grandparents?

Juneteenth celebration

Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States and is celebrated annually on June 19th to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.  Here at my senior center, we will have a special celebration today sponsored by our African-American neighbors.  Genies, who lives above me, ordered wristbands like these to give people, and I'm still deciding which of my shirts or blouses to wear today.

Added later:  I decided to wear BLACK jeans with a short YELLOW shirt over a longer GREEN shirt (so green showed at the neck, arms, and bottom) with a RED hat on my head.  Genies also gave out pins to wear on our shirts.

Alexa is listening

I was talking to a friend on the Welcome Desk (which means she's a resident who volunteers to greet and direct visitors).  She always has her Alexa device and is usually playing music by Elvis and others from long ago.  If folks have requests, she tells Alexa to play it.  Anyway, I mentioned a sign I had seen in reports about the recent No Kings protest saying "Alexa, change the president."  The music stopped and we looked at the Alexa device, which was trying to figure out how to respond to my command!

The word for today is FOOD

 Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? ~ by Mark Hyman, 2018, diet, 400 pages

Did you know that eating oatmeal actually isn't a healthy way to start the day?  That milk doesn't build bones, and eggs aren't the devil?

Even the most health conscious among us have a hard time figuring out what to eat in order to lose weight, stay fit, and improve our health.  And who can blame us?  When it comes to diet, there's so much changing and conflicting information flying around that it's impossible to know where to look for sound advice.  And decades of misguided "common sense," food-industry lobbying, bad science, and corrupt food polices and guidelines have only deepened our crisis of nutritional confusion, leaving us overwhelmed and anxious when we shop for food.

Dr. Mark Hyman takes a close look at every food group and explains what we have gotten wrong, revealing which foods nurture our health and which pose a threat.  He also explains food's role as powerful medicine capable of reversing chronic disease and shows how our food system and policies impact so much, including the environment, the economy, social justice, and personal health.  He paints a holistic picture of growing, cooking, and eating food in ways that nourish our bodies and the earth while creating a healthy society.  The book includes recipes to achieve optimal weight and lifelong health.

          

It's a bird ... a plane ... It's Jonathan, now complete!

Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition ~ by Richard Bach, photos by Russell Munson, 1970 and 2014, fiction, 164 pages, 10/10

I first read this book back in the 1970s and several times since then.  Yesterday, I went through the library to straighten books on shelves before going to eat in the Cafe.  I noticed the blue book on the shelf and thought, "I haven't read this in several years," and checked it out to myself.  In the Cafe, waiting for my food, I realized this is NOT the book I've read over and over.  It's new and has a whole fourth section.

"[T]he new complete edition of this philosophical classic, perfect for readers of all ages — now with a fourth part of Jonathan’s journey, as well as last words from author Richard Bach.

"This is the story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules … people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves … people who know there’s more to this living than meets the eye:  they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than they ever dreamed.

"A pioneering work that wed graphics with words, Jonathan Livingston Seagull now enjoys a whole new life."

Monday Musing

Eat Only When You're Hungry ~ by Lindsay Hunter, 2017, literary fiction (Florida), 224 pages

This one's about a father who searches for his addict son while grappling with his own choices as a parent (and as a user of sorts).  It follows 58-year-old Greg as he searches for his son, GJ, an addict who has been missing for three weeks.  Greg is bored, demoralized, obese, and as dubious of GJ’s desire to be found as he is of his own motivation to go looking.  Almost on a whim, Greg embarks on a road trip to central Florida, telling himself it's a noble search for his son.

So we go with Greg on a tour of highway and roadside, of Taco Bell, KFC, gas-station Slurpees, sticky strip-club floors, pooling sweat, candy wrappers, and crumpled panes of cellophane and wrinkled plastic bags tumbling along the interstate.  This is the America Greg knows, one he feels closer to than to his youthful idealism, closer even than to his younger second wife.

As his journey continues, through drive-thru windows and into the living rooms of his alluring ex-wife and his distant, curmudgeonly father, Greg’s urgent search for GJ slowly recedes into the background, replaced with a painstaking, illuminating, and unavoidable look at Greg’s own mistakes ― as a father, as a husband, and as a man.  Eat Only When You’re Hungry is a study of addiction, perseverance, and the insurmountable struggle to change.

Musing (okay, pondering)

I went browsing for another book in the Crown Center library and noticed this one.  It looks like we've had this one on our shelves since May of 2019, but I don't remember ever seeing it.  (Of course, that's not a difficult thing to imagine when many, many books on are the shelves and shelves and shelves of books, right?)  So I signed it out and brought it home with me.

Do you read BIG books? This one has 576 pages!

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization ~ by Nicholson Baker, 2009, history, 576 pages

Baker doesn't write a standard historical narrative, but instead presents a series of facts from diaries, memoirs, magazines, government reports, and contempo-rary newspaper accounts and presents them chronologically.  So I guess that's history.  I haven't read this long, long book, which is also very heavy.  But I wanted to write about it because a friend of mine has donated it to our Crown Center library, and I don't want to lose track of it.  (Since it looks unread, I'm not sure my friend read it, either.)

Here's what I have posted lately:

1. There were no posts here for a few days because of a computer problem, so looking back to Thursday a week ago I pondered how we learn from mistakes, HERE.
2. The next day, I wrote about a graphic novel, HERE.
3. And that Saturday's post was about a monkey, HERE.
4. Tuesday's post HERE was rather philosophical and discussed a book that I had written about before.
5. On Thursday, I wrote HERE about the senior center where I live.
6. Friday's book beginning was about small stuff, HERE.
7. On Saturday, I wrote about the Continental Congress, HERE.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

What a great book to read just before "No Kings Day"

The Continental Congress: A Primary Source History of the Formation of America's New Government ~ by Betty Burnett, 2004, history (grades 7-9), 64 pages, 10/10

This book uses primary source documents, narrative, and illustrations 

to recount the history of the colonies' break from Great Britain and the 

creation of a new government of the United States.

Just after I finished reading the book yesterday, I read that Texas and Missouri were calling up the National Guard as a precaution against the potential for any violence at protests on Saturday.  I had not heard about the protests until then.

Beginning ~ blowing a concern out of proportion

Beginning

Often we allow ourselves to get l worked up about things that, upon closer examination, aren't really that big a deal.  We focus on little problems and concerns and blow them way out of proportion.  A stranger for example, might cut in front of us in traffic.  Rather than let it go, and go on with our day, we convince ourselves that we are justified in our anger.  We play out an imaginary confrontation in our mind.  Many of us might even tell some-one else about the incident later on rather than simply let it go.

Why not instead simply allow the driver to have his accident somewhere else?

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life ~ by Richard Carlson, 1997, psychology, 248 pages

Does your life seem to have as many ups and downs as a soap opera?  Then let this little book that spent 100 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list show you how to stop blowing things out of proportion, stop worrying about things that might happen (but probably won't), stop obsessing about things you can't change and things that just don't matter ― and start living!

This book tells you how to keep from letting the little things in life drive you crazy.  In thoughtful and insightful language, the author reveals ways to calm down in the midst of your hurried, stress-filled life.  He suggests making small daily changes by choosing your battles wisely; reminding yourself that when you die, your 'in' box won't be empty; and making peace with imperfection.  Learn how to:

• Live in the present moment.
• Let others have the glory at times.
• Lower your tolerance to stress.
• Trust your intuitions.
• Live each day as it might be your last.
• Make your life more stress-free.

I shared a bit more than I usually do of the "beginning," but I really HAD to include that great line in the second paragraph:  "Why not instead simply allow the driver to have his accident somewhere else?"  What a great beginning!

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Thoughts about the Crown Center

Layout of 1-bedroom apartment,

like mine (Source: HERE)

“Every morning, I start my day using the 

exercise equipment, and then I always try 

to have lunch in our café.  The monthly 

concerts are my favorite entertainment." 

― Philip Schwartz, another resident

I also enjoy the concerts, Phil.