Beginning ~ with a stone

Daughters of the Stone ~ by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, 2009, fiction (Puerto Rico)

As I write this, I'm in the middle of the five stories that make up this novel, the stories of five generations of women.  What I'm sharing with you today is a bit different -- giving the opening of each of the five parts because each is like a separate novel of each woman in turn.  The last ones are like teasers to me, since I haven't gotten that far in the book.

Book One ~ Fela

A gray braid falling over each shoulder, Tia Josefa stuck her head out of the window of Las Agujas, the embroiderers' cabin located just behind the main plantation house.  The wagon returning from town swung around the main house and came to a final halt in the batey of Hacienda Las Mercedes, a sugar plantation near the northern coast of Puerto Rico.  (Page 5)

Book Two ~ Mati

Mati spent every day outdoors.  Her carved box sat on the spot that her mother had occupied at the table.  She lay under the trees, where she was cool and safe, while the women worked.  Their voices lulled her into a quiet sleep.  When she awoke hungry and cranky and the milk was gone, the women would pull guanabanas from the trees and squeeze the mushy pulp between their fingers, letting the juice drip into her little mouth.  (Page 63)

Book Three ~ Concha

Concha learned her world through her feet.   She was a baby when she first became aware of them.  Even before she explored the face of her mother, Mati, or the mustache of her father, Cheo, she knew her feet.  They fascinated and entertained her in her crib world.  She had been watching them a long time.  She wanted to feel these things.  She pulled and twisted and wrapped her small hands around them.  She got familiar with them and started sucking on the little parts.  And that felt good.  She hated it when Mati insisted on covering them.  (Page 132)

Book Four ~ Elena

Elena was comforted by her father's presence as he drove the pink and gray 1950 Studebaker down the country road.  The flamboyan branches, heavy with their red blossoms, struck the car as it made its way.  It had been drizzling all morning, and the windshield wipers kept a steady beat, "Don't go . . . don't go . . . don't go."  (Page 201)

Book Five ~ Carisa

I stood in the front of the room feeling quite proud of myself.  I would have the best show-and-tell of any of my classmates.  I waited until the class was absolutely quiet and then held out my hand.  I opened one finger at a time to add to the mystery.  The students snaked their necks to see what I was holding.  Then there it was, the black pebble in my hand.

"Oh, come on!"

"Big deal, it's just a rock."

"No, it isn't," I protested, "it's a magical stone."

The room was quiet for a moment and then exploded into laughter and loud voices.  (Page 249)

Each beginning makes me want to know more. I especially want to know what happens to the fifth girl/woman, who speaks to us in the first person. She's telling about all the others as well as herself. Why? What was it about her family tree -- I should say, about the matriarchs -- that compelled her to tell their stories?

This meme is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages. Share the first sentence or two of the book you are reading. Then, share your impressions of that beginning. Click this link to see what others say about the books they are reading this week.

Library Lust ~ a perfect writer's room, too

Photograph by Eamonn McCabe

This seems to me to be the perfect room for a writer.  Look at the walls of books!  What a wonderful table, though I would want a more comfortable chair.   This is the room where Colm Tóibín writes.  I'll let him tell you about it himself, here.  I want a cave like this!  I reviewed his book The Blackwater Lightship in 2007 and originally posted this photo on my writing blog in 2007.)

Library Loot ~ May 4-10

Ninth Ward ~ by Jewell Parker Rhodes, 2010, YA fiction (Louisiana)

• A 2011 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

New Orleans after Katrina is still hard to think about, but this book sounds (and looks) magical.  I was totally drawn by this fantastic cover, but I also want to see how the author presents the aftermath of Katrina to 10-to-12-year-old children.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon ~ by Sarah Addison Allen, 2010, fiction (North Carolina)

"It took a moment for Emily to realize the car had come to a stop.  She looked up from her charm bracelet, which she'd been worrying in slow circles around her wrist, and stared out the window.  The two giant oaks in the front yard looked like flustered ladies caught mid-curtsy, their starched green leaf-dresses swaying in the wind."

After Bookfool's review and this opening how could I resist?

Moon Over Manifest ~ by Clare Vanderpool, 2010, YA fiction (Kansas)

• Winner of the 2011 Newbery Medal

From the dust jacket:  "Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was."

Cutting for Stone ~ by Abraham Verghese, 2009, fiction (Ethiopia and New York)

The opening lines draw me in:  "After eight months spent in the obscurity of our mother's womb, my brother, Shiva,and I came into the world in the late afternoon of the twentieth of September in the year of grace 1954.  We took our first breaths at an elevation of eight thousand feet in the thin air of Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia."

The Warmth of Other Suns ~ by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010, history (USA)

• Winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
• Winner of 2011 Mark Lynton History Prize
• One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2010

This book chronicles the migration of almost six million Southern black citizens from the South to cities in the north and west.  It's the choice for a summer read-along (click to read what I posted yesterday).

Library Loot is a weekly meme co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.  Marg has the Mister Linky this week, if you'd like to share a list of the loot you brought home.

Saga of the yellow house ~ UPDATED

The yellow house a block from me will have to be demolished.  It twisted on its foundation, and the floors now slant.  The stairs have pulled away from the walls on both sides, and nothing is stable.  So caution tape is all around the house.  The owner said they plan to save things from the structure, like crown molding, in order to use it in rebuilding.  This situation is sad, but joyful in that her daughter and a roommate went to the other (front) part of the house because of the dogs' barking and agitation and were not hit by the tree when it fell.

My photo doesn't do justice to the eerie feeling of being able to look through the house.  I took this wobbly shot after the town meeting last night, after the sun was behind Lookout Mountain.  My hand wasn't steady, but in the tiny cell phone window, I couldn't see the blurriness.  So, this is what I have for now.  I'll replace it, if I get over to the house before the rain starts this morning.

To see all I've posted about the tornado, click here or on the label "tornado" below.
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UPDATE:   Official-looking men were at the house today, so I didn't spend time setting up cell phone photos.  However, I wanted to show the front view.

We've lost 100-year-old trees all over the area.  Today, I drove through Forest Hills Cemetery after leaving the library.  Here's one damaged area, though I was happy to see that the graves of my maternal grandparents and my Aunt Bonnie were undisturbed.

 

A summer read-along

Vasilly and Doret have planned a summer read-along at Color Online, starting June 1.  We'll have a halfway post on June 15, and a wrap-up on June 30. Here's the book they chose:

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration ~ by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010, history (USA)

Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. This exodus of almost six million people, from 1915 to 1970, changed the face of America. The author, who interviewed more than a thousand people and gained access to new data and official records, compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She tells this story through the lives of three individuals:

1. Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat;
2. George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and
3. Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career and became the personal physician to Ray Charles.

The book shows what it was like to travel across the country by car and train to forge new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how the migrations changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture.

The book is a winner, literally.

• Winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
• Winner of 2011 Mark Lynton History Prize
• One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2010

And so is the author.

After covering the historic Midwestern floods, Isabel Wilkerson won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. She was the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism and the first black American to win for individual reporting.

How many of you will join me in reading this one?

Storm clean-up

Though there are still lots of dangling wires and a smashed car a block over from Donna's apartment, clean-up is in full swing in my neighborhood.  Actually, many were out after the first of the three storms, trying to salvage whatever they could from the homes of friends and neighbors before the next one hit us.

This is today's view of the yellow house that was my Saturday snapshot.  I showed a close view of it as the house hit on the day after the tornadoes tore through here.  As you can see, there's a black tarp on the left part of the house and a blue one on the right.  I'm sure clean-up will be a large part of tonight's town meeting, about 30 minutes from now.  (Double click to enlarge the image, then click again to make it really big.)

April reading wrap-up

My top book of the month (April)

Books completed in April

64.  Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books ~ by Paul Collins, 2003, memoir (Wales), 8/10
65.  The Red Judge ~ by Pauline Fisk, 2005, YA fiction (Wales), 6/10
66.  The Secret of Sabrina Fludde ~ by Pauline Fisk, 2001, YA fiction (Wales), 6/10
67.  Steal Away Home ~ by Lois Ruby, 1994, YA fiction (Kansas), 9/10
68.  The Dive from Clausen's Pier ~ by Ann Packer, 2002, fiction (Wisconsin and New York), 8/10
69.  How Do I Love You? ~ by Marion Dane Bauer, 2009, children's, 9/10
70.  California Blue ~ by David Klass, 1994, YA fiction (California), 9/10
71.  Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough ~ by Ruth Pennebaker, 2011, fiction (Texas), 7/10
72.  The Grand Inquisitor ~ by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1880 (translated by Constance Garnett, 1956 edition), fiction (Spain), 8/10
73.  The Grand Inquisitor ~ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1880 (translated by David McDuff, 1993), fiction (Spain), 8/10
74.  Leeway Cottage ~ by Beth Gutcheon, 2005, fiction (Maine and Denmark), 9/10
75.  Whale Rider ~ by Witi Tame Ihimaera, 2003, YA fiction (New Zealand), 9/10
76.  Winter's Bone ~ by Daniel Woodrell, 2006, fiction (Missouri Ozarks), 8/10
77.  My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World ~ by Gilles Bachelet, 2004, children's, 10/10
78.  Raining Cats and Dogs ~ by Jane Yolen, 1993, children's, 7/10
79.  The Shell Woman and the King: A Chinese Folktale ~ by Laurence Yep, 1993, children's, 9/10
80.  Six Months to Live ~ by Lurlene McDaniel, 1985, YA fiction (Ohio), 8/10
81.  Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! : Voices from a Medieval Village ~ by Laura Amy Schlitz, 2007, children's (England), 10/10
82.  The White Darkness ~ by Geraldine McCaughrean, 2005, YA fiction (Antarctica), 8/10
83.  Domestic Pleasures ~ by Beth Gutcheon, 1991, fiction (New York), 9/10
84.  Still Missing ~ by Beth Gutcheon,  1981, fiction (Massachusetts), 9/10

By the numbers, for April and (year-to-date)

9 fiction (42)
6 YA fiction (15)
5 children's (11)
0 essays (book collection) (1)
0 graphic novels (2)
0 history (4)
1 memoir (2)
0 philosophy (1)
0 religion (4)
0 women's studies (1)
0 writing (1)
__________
Total =21 in April, for a total of (84) in 2011

My top book of the year (so far)

Only seven merited 10/10 ratings or 9.5/10 ratings, so far this year:

14.  If I Stay ~ by Gayle Forman, 2009, YA fiction, 10/10

23.  The Art of Racing in the Rain ~ by Garth Stein, 2008, fiction, 10/10

28.  The Year of Pleasures ~ by Elizabeth Berg, 2005, fiction (Illinois), 9.5/10

38.  Children Make Terrible Pets ~ by Peter Brown, 2010, children's picture book, 10/10

49.  Sing You Home ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2011, fiction (Rhode Island), 9.5/10

77.  My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World ~ by Gilles Bachelet, 2004, children's, 10/10

81.  Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! : Voices from a Medieval Village ~ by Laura Amy Schlitz, 2007, children's (England), 10/10

If you want to see all the titles for the year, averaging 21 books a month, click here, where I'll continue to collect that data.

MY BOOK RATING GUIDE

10 - Loved it!! Couldn't put it down!!
9 - Excellent!
8 - Very Good
7 - Good
6 - Above Average
5 - Average

Anything lower: Nah