Book Two ~ for TWOsday

The Book Woman's Daughter (Book 2 of 2 of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek) ~ by Kim Michele Richardson, 2022, historical fiction (Appalachia), 352 pages

Bestselling historical fiction author Kim Michele Richardson is back with the perfect book club read following Honey Lovett, the daughter of the beloved Troublesome book woman, who must fight for her own independence with the help of the women who guide her and the books that set her free.

In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.

Picking up her mother's old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn't need anyone telling her how to survive. But the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren't as keen to let a woman pave her own way.

If Honey wants to bring the freedom books provide to the families who need it most, she's going to have to fight for her place, and along the way, learn that the extraordinary women who run the hills and hollers can make all the difference in the world.

Bonnie's note:  I hadn't heard of this until last night, when my friend Joanne in Chattanooga recommended it to me.

Two unrelated things for TWOsday

One

I went to the nearby pharmacy and got my flu shot for this year.

Two

I also got more dry cat food for Jackie, the latest cat who now blogs on Caturdays, you know, the day after Friday.  I got up this morning later than she preferred, so she quite adroitly ripped open the almost empty bag herself and, apparently, helped herself to breakfast.

I heard about a couple of good books

Out of Africa ~ by Isak Dinesen, 1937, nonfiction, 416 pages

In this book, the author of Seven Gothic Tales gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya.  She tells with classic sim-plicity of the ways of the country and the natives, of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom, of her guests, from the Prince of Wales to Knudsen, the old charcoal burner, who visited her, of primitive festivals, of big game that were her near neighbors — lions, rhinos, elephants, zebras, buffaloes — and of Lulu, the little gazelle who came to live with her, unbelievably ladylike and beautiful.

A Gentleman in Moscow ~ by Amor Towles, 2019, political fiction, 496 pages

The #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Table for Two wrote this novel about a man who's ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin.  Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.  Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery, and the count endeavors to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

Two rolls for TWOsday

Life is like a roll of toilet paper:

the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.

Two books, one author

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry ~ by Fredrik Backman, 2013, (translated by Henning Koch, 2015), literary fiction, 370 pages

Elsa is seven years old and different.  Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy — as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy.  She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend.  At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins.  Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of misfits, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

This story is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove.  It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights:  the right to be different.  (I really enjoyed reading A Man Called Ove, and that's why I picked up this book in the first place.)

A Man Called Ove ~ by Fredrik Backman, 2015, literary fiction, 368 pages

Meet Ove.  He’s a curmudgeon — the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window.  He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse.  People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.”  But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness.  So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul.  All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

Fredrik Backman’s beloved first novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others.

Today, I'm sharing two quotes I like

Henry David Thoreau said, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."  That's something we need to think about to really understand.  Hundreds of people may look at exactly the same thing I am noticing today, but what we truly SEE makes a big difference.  Ponder that a bit, and tell me what you think.

I should type this one out, in case the photo ever disappears, shouldn't I?  You can also see what I wrote about Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (published in 2014), HERE:

"We've been wrong about what our job is in medicine.  We think our job is to ensure health and survival.  But really it is larger than that.  It is to enable well-being.  And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive."

Anne, who blogs at "My Head Is Full of Books" (HERE), gave me the idea for this post by quoting Erma Bombeck:  "My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be."

Two things on my agenda today

I had only TWO things on my TWOsday agenda:  a discussion group and an appreciation program with singers and snacks:

1.  Short Story discussion in the early afternoon that met in the small art studio was to study a short story.

Two discussion leaders (Esther and Christie) took turns reading Guy de Maupassant's short story entitled "The Necklace."  A couple of us knew about the story, me and another participant.  It had been part of my English studies (in high school, I think, though it may have been in college for my first degree).  If you are not familiar with the story, you can read it HERE.  I am a visual person, so I would have preferred to have a copy of the story so I could read along.  I don't retain as much by simply listening, and that's why I came home, looked it up (for myself and also for you blog readers), and thought about it on my own after our discussion.

2.  Volunteer Appreciation program in our large community room in the evening.

People who volunteer to greet visitors at the Welcome Desk were included, as were the residents and non-residents who prepare meals to be delivered to the community and Crown Center residents.  I was invited because I volunteer to work in the library, reshelving books and magazines, and preparing donations to be shelved.  I also cull books that have been there long enough and make room for newer books to go on our shelves.  I've been doing it since I moved here in 2014, along with other residents, like my friends Donna and Risé.  Donna, who had a Master's degree in library science, set up our library as in this photo when she first moved here.  The room was recently renovated, but I will share those changes another time.

Today's healthy lunch

When I ate lunch today, I noticed a word connection.  I was still hungry after eating a Swiss cheese sandwich (no, I didn't melt it), and I noticed leftover sweet potato yams in the fridge.  You know me.  Yes, I noticed SWiss and SWeet in the names of those foods.

While looking for an illustration for my blog post, I found this:  "Swiss cheese is widely considered one of the healthiest cheese options."  That is when I realized that today is TWOsday, so here are two things I ate for my healthy lunch today.

Two thoughts for TWOsday

I have a tiny booklet for grades 4-8 (dated 2001) that has "journal topics."  Page 199 says, "Write the title and back cover description for the autobiography you hope to write some day."

I have already blogged that if I ever write a memoir, I'll call it Bits of Bonnie.  Click HERE to read more about it.  As for what to say on the back cover, I'll have to give that some thought.  But I can give you "one bit" as an enticement:  I have always enjoyed words:  playing with words, learning new words, writing blog posts about words and ideas, writing poetry (my first national publication was a short poem about a baby playing with her feet up in the air).  Maybe I should pull out my thick "Bits of Bonnie" notebook (shown above) and read stories that I have collected over the years.

Come Pour the Wine ~ by Cynthia Freeman, 1980, Jewish fiction, 517 pages

Cynthia Freeman portrays an insightful and moving story of Janet Stevens, a teenager from Kansas who comes to New York in search of fame and fortune.  The pursuit of her dream leads her into marriage, motherhood, a heart-rending separation, and then divorce.  At the age of forty five, she meets a man who not only gives her a renewed sense of her Jewish heritage, but also offers her the chance for total fulfillment as a woman.

A reviewer on Amazon gave this book five stars and wrote:  "Girl with Jewish background marries a man she falls for like a ton of bricks.  They go through life with a silent problem hovering over their life until one day it's out in the open.  How she and Bill go forward with life is the whole story."

I found this book in our little Crown Center library and brought it home last night to read.

.

Two by two

When I eat in the Circle@Crown Cafe, either I've agreed to meet someone there or one or TWO people come over to talk to me.  Yesterday, a women sat down to talk with me, and a man stopped to talk us, though he never sat down.  Both are residents.  Today, a man who lives on my floor sat down to chat while I finished up my lunch.  It really is good to live in a place with so many friendly people.

Two games ~ Chess and Bananagrams

I just read that playing board games could boost your brain by "enhancing cognitive functions, improving memory, and strengthening problem-solving skills."  Besides exercising your thinking, it is also good for social health.

I remember wanting to learn to play chess because I liked  a boy who was a chess player.  Even though he was a couple of grades ahead of me in school, I knew him because he was a cousin of our next-door neighbors.  I never played a game of chess with him, but I learned how to play and still have a set of wooden chess pieces somewhere.  I also got into Monopoly as a child and played all sorts of other board games with friends and siblings.

As I got older, I enjoyed playing Scrabble.  (I am a wordsmith, you know.)  From there, I moved on to Bananagrams.  It's also about making words and using up all the tiles.  One good thing about Bananagrams is that it can be played alone, as well as with a friend or friends.

This is a game of Bananagrams that my friend Donna played by herself in 2019.  Can you make out any of her words?  Now I want to play.  I just looked across the room and see my Bananagrams bag sitting on top of my Webster's All-In-One Dictionary & Thesaurus.  It is not a "board" game, but it is challenging.

Thinking about two things today

1.  Three surveys to fill out for the social workers in the office:

1. Program Survey (Yes, I'd possibly enjoy a discussion of literature.)
2. Daily Life Survey  (Yes, I prepare my own meals.)
3. Quality of Life Survey (No, I don't get bored.)

2.  Café meals:

• I pay for five meals a week delivered, so I don't have to cook all the time.
• I eat in the Café with friends as a way to socialize.

Two meals in the Café today

I decided to have breakfast ~ AND ~ lunch in  the Café today.  I had breakfast alone while I blogged on my computer and will have lunch with another resident.  For breakfast, I wanted "dessert" foods and had a muffin and yogurt.

For lunch, I plan to have soup.  Earlier, I asked, "What's the soup of the day?"  I really like their lentil soup, and that's my option for today.  Great!  So I've eaten the yogurt and the muffin so I could take my morning pills.  (Pills come with old age, ya know!)  I look forward to eating lentil soup in less than an hour.

Monkeys on the loose in St. Louis

1.  Monkeys?

Well, actually, monkeys are loose in NORTH St. Louis.  I didn't read about it until Monday morning, but apparently Animal Control announced it on Friday afternoon.  Then I learned that exotic animals are prohibited in the city of St. Louis.  I never knew that, either, but then why should I?  I've never considered getting a pet monkey.  You can read about it HERE, where the news specifies exactly where those monkeys are:

"Missouri’s Department of Health confirmed that the primates are in or around O’Fallon Park."  (See the park in the photo above.)

Owning exotic animals in St. Louis is banned by city ordinance.  For the record, I'm not technically in the city of St. Louis.  I live in a suburb, so those monkeys are nowhere near me.  Miles away, unless they somehow hitched a ride; but it's about a 20 minutes drive to get to my part of town from there.

2.  Residents

What is my second of today's TWOsday subjects?  Hmmm.  Oh, yeah, meeting people (not monkeys).  Yesterday, I met a new man who had just moved here (he silently counted on his fingers) "nine days ago."  He lives in the other building, but it's connected to my building by a link that allows us to look left and right, to the front parking lot and the back patio where we have trees and planters and lots of places to sit (when it's warm enough) while we talk or enjoy the air and the birds who come to our feeder.  In this photo, all the windows on the left, leading to the main entrance, are part of the link between our buildings.  The windows line both sides of the link, with these looking out over the parking lot.

Two words for today

Tell me a couple of things

(yes, list exactly TWO things)

that make you happy on this TWOsday.

I promise to leave a comment myself, and

  I wonder how many of us will mention books.

Dark skies ~ sun rays later

My twin daughters are taking their time coming to visit me, partly because of the weather where they are driving right now.  They sent me this photo of dark skies.  Later, they sent the one below.  Two daughters, two views of the sky.

The second book of a trilogy ~ for TWOsday

The Year of the Flood: Book 2 of The MaddAddam Trilogy ~ by Margaret Atwood, 2009, literary fiction, 448 pages

The long-feared waterless flood has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life. Among the survivors are Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, who is barricaded inside a luxurious spa. Amid shadowy, corrupt ruling powers and new, gene-spliced life forms, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move, but they can't stay locked away.

Okay, I'm curious about that "waterless flood."  I'm sharing all three books of this trilogy in three days this week, but I haven't gotten to this one yet.

Two more books

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows ~ by Ai Weiwei, translated by Allan H. Barr, 2022, memoir, 400 pages

This memoir tells the history of China over the last hundred years while also illuminating the author'ss artistic process.  Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as "Little Siberia," where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets.  Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.  He gives details of his return to China and his rise from artistic unknown to art world superstar and international human rights activist — and how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime.

Ai Weiwei’s sculptures and installations have been viewed by millions around the globe, and his architectural achievements include helping to design the iconic Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing.  His political activism has long made him a target of the Chinese authorities, which culminated in months of secret detention without charge in 2011.  Here, for the first time, Ai Weiwei explores the origins of his exceptional creativity and passionate political beliefs through his life story and that of his father, whose creativity was stifled.

Ai Weiwei provides a deep understanding of the myriad forces that have shaped modern China and serves as a timely reminder of the urgent need to protect freedom of expression.

The Moral Animal ~ by Robert Wright, 1995, psychology, 496 pages

Are men literally born to cheat?  Does monogamy actually serve women's interests?  These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years.  Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics — as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.

TWOsday ~ daughters of two families

Rashi's Daughters, Book I: Joheved ~ by Maggie Anton, 2007, fiction (medieval France), 384 pages

This is the first novel in a trilogy set in eleventh-century France about the lives and loves of three daughters of Rashi, the great Talmud scholar.  (According to  Wikipedia, the Talmud is, after the Torah or Jewish Bible, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology.  It consists of the Oral Torah and its commentaries.)

In 1068, Salomon ben Isaac returns home to Troyes, France, to take over the family winemaking business and embark on a path that will indelibly influence the Jewish world, writing the first Talmud commentary, and secretly teaching Talmud to his daughters.

Joheved, the eldest of his three girls, finds her mind and spirit awakened by religious study, but, knowing the risk, she must keep her passion for learning and prayer hidden.  When she becomes betrothed to Meir ben Samuel, she is forced to choose between marital happiness and being true to her love of the Talmud.

Rashi's Daughters, Book 2: Miriam ~ by Maggie Anton, 2007, historical fiction (medieval France), 496 pages

The engrossing historical series of three sisters living in eleventh-century Troyes, France, continues with the tale of Miriam, the lively and daring middle child of Salomon ben Isaac, the great Talmudic authority.  Having no sons, he teaches his daughters the intricacies of Mishnah and Gemara in an era when educating women in Jewish scholarship was unheard of.  His middle daughter, Miriam, is determined to bring new life safely into the Troyes Jewish community and becomes a midwife.  As devoted as she is to her chosen path, she cannot foresee the ways in which she will be tested and how heavily she will need to rely on her faith.

Rashi's Daughters, Book 3: Rachel ~ by Maggie Anton, 2009, historical fiction (medieval France), 425 pages

Rachel is the youngest and most beautiful daughter of medieval Jewish scholar Salomon ben Isaac, or "Rashi."  Her father's favorite and adored by her new husband, Eliezer, Rachel's life looks to be one of peaceful scholarship, laughter, and love.  But events beyond her control will soon threaten everything she holds dear.  Marauders of the First Crusade massacre nearly the entire Jewish popula-tion of Germany, and her beloved father suffers a stroke.  Eliezer wants their family to move to the safety of Spain, but Rachel is determined to stay in France and help her family save the Troyes yeshiva, the only remnant of the great centers of Jewish learning in Europe.  Rachel is a remarkable Jewish woman of dignity, passion, and strength.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter ~ by Kim Edwards, 2005, fiction, 9/10

On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins.  His son, born first, is perfectly healthy; his daughter has Down's Syndrome.  Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever.  He asks his nurse to take the infant to an institution and never to reveal the secret, then tells his wife their daughter was stillborn.  Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the baby at the institution and disappears into another city to raise the child herself.  What happens when secrets are revealed?

This book was among several I got for the Crown Center library after a neighbor died.  I'm excited about adding it to our collection here because I really enjoyed it when I read this book back in 2007.  (See my post about it HERE, where I rated this book 9/10, an excellent book.)