January Revisited

BOOKS READ

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London - James L. Haley
Non-fiction. Easy and immensely readable bio of a great autodidact. Proof that passion and a good book can take you anywhere and can save you.

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Fiction. Classic. I enjoyed the translation, but I did not like her. At. All. Maybe in my great happiness with my marriage and life, I find it to difficult to imagine forsaking my children. Maybe Madame is just a little too much like some of the "ladies who lunch" in my neighborhood.

Blindness - Jose Saramago
Fiction. This is the best book I have ever read. Ever.

Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems - Folger Shakespeare Library
No Fear Shakespeare - Sonnets - Spark Notes
Poetry. A year ago, I decided to expand my horizons with The Sonnets and try one a day. I finally had time to start. So far I have made it through number 25. One of my favorites has to be number 2.

How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use
If thou couldst answer, "This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,"
Proving his beauty by succession thine.

or, from No Fear Shakespeare

"The effort I spent raising this beautiful child explains the sorry old state I'm in."

The New Testament - NIV
This is my husband's pet project, but I got drafted as well and it has turned into a family project. We will read one chapter of the New Testament every weekday. The goal is to finish in a year ... so far we have made it through Matthew 21.

Apologetics for the 21st Century - Dr. Louis Markos
Non-fiction. Apologetic. Dr. Markos brings together some of the great apologists of the last century and distills their basic arguments into an accessible overview. I have attended Dr. Markos' lectures on C.S. Lewis for 5 years now and I am excited to say that he is as great a writer as he is a speaker. I feel extremely blessed to count him as a friend.

Have A New Kid by Friday - Dr. Kevin Leman
Non-fiction. Our Sunday-school class is watching Dr. Leman's series on Value Packed Parenting, and my husband and I are enjoying it. Dr. Leman has a great sense of humor; so, when someone handed me this book, I took it and read it in about 2 hours. We have had the end vision of what we want our kids to be in mind since they were born. The book didn't offer me much as we tend to agree with Dr. Leman on quite a bit (no TV in bedrooms, 11 year old boys don't need cell phones, controls on the internet), but did give me a few great ideas. My favorite - unless there is blood, let them work it out on their own. So when the boys were fighting this morning, they went into a room on their own with the door closed. They figured it out and I didn't have to mediate ... or hear it.

Bread Givers - Anzia Yezierska

Fiction.

MOVIES VIEWED

The King's Speech - Theatre
I had no idea what this movie was about, but friends invited me and I needed a night away from the liars and stupid people who have been populating my life lately. Who knew a movie about the King's speech impediment would be so pleasurable. But then again, Colin Firth never disappoints.

Yogi Bear - Theatre
The only good thing about this movie was that it ended. But not soon enough.

The September Issue - Home
Well done documentary about putting together the September issue of Vogue. Anna Wintour did not seem as scary as I thought she would. I liked her creative director. And her daughter. Girl Detective, thanks for the recommendation.

UP - Home
This was a gem. Emotionally and visually satisfying. I did not expect this from animation.

Julie & Julia - Home
I felt like this was two movies. The movie with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci was worth 4★.
The one with Amy Adams and Chris Messina was worth about 2★.
By the end, I was fast-forwarding through the parts about the modern Julie to get to the parts about Julia. I read the Julie book a few years ago and didn't much like it either. I think I'll put Julia Child's My Life in France on my someday list.

Expelled - Home
Issues are meant to be wrestled with.

By the way. I am a Christian and that does affect my beliefs. Right now, I believe that there is some truth in Creationism. I believe that there is some truth in Darwinism. I believe that there is some truth in Intelligent Design. I believe the whole truth rests in the person of God and will only be revealed at the end of the world ... whenever that is. I DO NOT believe that the population of our planet was seeded by aliens. It truly surprises me that Dr. Dawkins would think that is any more a viable answer than that there is a God.

In the interest of fairness, here is a link to Scientific American's rebuttal.

Singin' In The Rain - Home
Ahhh. This is how movies were meant to be. All the boys in the house said it was a "chick flick," but the next day my younger son came down the stairs singing, "Good Morning. Good Morning to you."

Toy Story 3 - Home

The best of the trilogy. Why is it that the best movies I have seen this month were animated? Or older than me?

Meet Me In St. Louis - Home

Our new subscription to Netflix has allowed us to watch a few of the classics recommended in The Best Old Movies for Families by Ty Burr. No one was singing songs from this movie the next morning, but the husband and I enjoyed it.

PROJECTS COMPLETED

Christmas Put Away - You laugh, but this is a bigger project than you think. I love Christmas and all the trimmings. Maybe next year I will buy a pre-lit fake tree. No. Maybe next year I will scale back on the decorations. Not likely. Maybe I won't host that tea for my friends. Come on. As long as there is one person who BELIEVES in this house, we will DO Christmas.

J's 5th Grade Bottle Bio Project - I know. Parents aren't supposed to do homework for their kids. It is a learning process. But when someone tells me the value of making a person out of a 2-litre bottle, I will stop "helping out" quite so much. The research paper complete with a "real" bibliography. That made sense and he did that entirely on his own.

DH's birthday present - I made him a Blurb photo book of our 2010 adventures. The books chronicles our lives last year and encompassed 92 pages of photographs. We were blessed with travel opportunities last year and visited Colorado, Glacier National Park, and The Field of Dreams. I am starting now on 2011 and I also want to start going backwards in time. 2009 included a week in Disney World. 2008 had us in Reno for the National Championship Air Races. If I eventually make it back far enough the books will include our trips to Beijing, Chile and Normandy.

Planned WEBELOS Arrow of Light ceremony and Pack Pinewood Derby - This is one of the activities I am in the process of shedding. I have been with these boys for five years. I have watched them grow up and they are a part of my life. And while I will miss them, running a Cubs Scout den and pack are huge time sinks and I will not be sorry to see the responsibilities go. I will still be minimally involved as M's den leader, but that will be a joy.

Finished the *@# Drivers Course

Blindness

Blindness by Jose Saramago is the best book I have ever read.

I feel very strange making that statement. My best friend and bull-shit detector called me on the statement when I said it to him.

"That's like saying the best drink ever, or the best sex ever, or the best ice-cream ever."

Yes. Yes. Yes.

This is the best book I have ever read. Ever.

It may be the best book I will ever read in my life.

It has changed how I view all the books that have come before this one and I am afraid that it will impact my reading for years to come.

It is the first book that I have ever finished and then immediately begun reading again from page one.

This is the first time I have EVER read the ending of a book before I got to the end. I had to. I had to know if what I was going through while reading this book was going to be worth it. I had to know if the emotional highs and lows I was experiencing had an ending I could deal with. And knowing the ending did not change the experience of the book at all.

I said to the same friend that "knowing the ending of War and Peace and what happens to Prince Andre would have changed the experience of that book for me." Knowing the ending of Blindness only allowed me to go on.

What is Blindness? Simply, it is a story of individuals and collective society losing their sight. More deeply, it is a story of people and collective society losing their vision.

The Boston Globe said this book is "A shattering work by a literary master."

Shattering is the word I was searching for as I read this novel.

It is brilliant. It is dazzling. It is staggering. It is shattering.

This is the first time, at least that I can remember, that I felt a physical reaction to written words on a page. I felt pain. I cried. I was emotionally drained. While I was reading, I had people stop me and ask if everything was o.k. They could see the terror and agony and heartbreak on my face. I was shattered.

I must explain that this was not a horror movie terror. This was a visceral terror. A vision of our society at its worst.

Yet, I could find - and it is what kept me going - a shimmer of hope and a crumb of humanity. For this is also a vision of people at their best.

But I don't know if you should read Blindness. There are very few people I would recommend this book too. I know few people who could handle the emotions I endured. Or better said ... there are few people I know who would want to handle the emotions I endured for a book.

Read Blindness only if you are willing to admit what you cannot see.

Many, many thanks to Myla Goldberg and NPR for introducing me to this book through their series "You Must Read This."

New Year

Already. It is only November, but I have come up with a reading project for next year.

Each month of 2011, I will read that book. You know the one that you were supposed to read in high school or in college and that is referenced and referred to in other classic and modern works of literature, but that just somehow got away from you. Yeah, THAT book. Here are the 12 I have chosen:

Ulysses
Madame Bovary
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Mrs. Dalloway
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Absalom, Absalom!
Moby Dick
Vanity Fair
Invisible Man
Doctor Zhivago
Farewell to Arms

Most of these, by the way, are sitting on my library bookshelf. Two just arrived this week from Amazon.

All of these, except Doctor Zhivago, are on The Novel 100 list, but that is not why I picked them. Interesting to note however, that a number of books that I finished this year are also on the list including, Middlemarch, Great Expectations, Don Quixote, and War and Peace. Some are long time favorites including Huck Finn, Lolita and Pride and Prejudice.

Oh yes, lest I forget, my 11 yo son and I will also be reading The Hobbit. Yet another one that got away!

Hopefully, I will have time to throw in some lighter reading as well. You know, The Atlantic or The Bible? Please tell me you get the sarcasm.

Bad Habit

I have a bad habit.

Ever since I purchased Amazon Prime last year, I buy books without even giving them a second thought. No waiting for them to arrive at the library for me. I don't even have to wait for my total to equal $25 to qualify for free standard shipping. Any book. Any time. Free two day shipping. My latest purchases are due to arrive Tuesday.

Thanks to Girl Detective, I followed a few links to New Century Reading and Nonsuch Books. After reading a few posts I decided I had to have Doctor Zhivago. A few more clicks and I was at Amazon where I could buy that AND Madame Bovary. People buy these books together. So I guess I should too. $40. But free shipping.

But when the hell am I going to read them? Maybe I will wrap them up and put them under the tree. They look like good January books.

Bookbag - May

If April was "finish 15 books month," then May was "don't finish books" month. I started quite a few books, but I didn't seem to like very many of them. Living the belief that there are too many good books out there to bother with the bad ones. I moved on.

Anthill - E. O. Wilson
This was probably the highlight of my month. Wilson is the Pulitzer prize winning author of Ants and On Human Nature. In his first attempt at fiction he manages to weave a tale that educates while it entertains. His writing is lyrical and bewitching. In the end I cared as much about the ants as I did for Raff. I have recommended this book over and over. Now I get to do it again. Read this book.

How Lincoln Learned to Read - Daniel Wolff
I just found this one boring. I didn't get past Sojourner Truth.

Life After Death - Carol Muske-Dukes
I thought I would like this when I started, but by the time I got to page 93 I no longer cared what happened to the characters. I put it down and picked up something different.

Simplicity Parenting - Kim John Payne
More of the same old thing. I'll spare you a few hours of unnecessary reading ... turn off the t.v. and cut out some of your child's activities. Spend more time with them. There. That is the whole book. Don't bother.

The Red Pyramid - Rick Riordin
We love Mr. Riordan around here so we were very excited to jump into his newest series, The Kane Chronicles. I liked it, but J. loved it. He said the Egyptian gods are even better than the Greek gods. I thought he tried to hard. The Percy Jackson books seemed to flow from a real love of ancient history and story telling. This seemed a little contrived.

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (Audio Book)
This was my in-car audio selection for May. I really enjoyed it, but I am not sorry I waited until now to attempt it. I would not have liked or understood it when I was younger.

Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann
Well, I finished this one, but I had to force myself to do it. I joined a new book club ... actually I started it with a close friend of mine and this is the first selection (I did not make it). It was o.k., but I was bored. Some of the characters were intriguing, but I would have gotten more from the book if the connections had been more obvious earlier. I did not enjoy trying to flesh them all out on my own. The most interesting man was the one I thought McCann should have spent much more time on ... Phillipe Petit. He wrote him into to the story, but only as a connection. Six degrees of Petit. I think his story was more interesting to me than McCann's book.

The Broken Teaglass - Emily Arsenault
A mystery that wasn't really mysterious.

Reflections In A Golden Eye - Carson McCullers
Needing a book to restore my faith in the American novel, I turned to old friends at the end of the month. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter would probably rank on my personal Top 10 list. This, McCullers second novel, did not disappoint. I did not enjoy this one as much as the first; but here, her writing was wonderfully concise. The story moved and flowed. It made sense to me. It is so nice to have those authors that you can turn to when everyone else seems to be failing you.

He Can Tell a Story

As we work our way through our "at home" world history curriculum, J. and I are moving through the Middle Ages. We are making our way slowly, ever so slowly, to the Renaissance.

We flew through the Ancients. We loved the stories of the Egyptians and the Greeks and Romans. I haven't found quite as much to love in the stuffy English monarchs and the Plague.

Until this week. When we experienced Henry V.

I have read a little Shakespeare. A little. I remember when I was a girl, someone in my family gave me a beautifully illustrated children's version of some of his plays. His most famous comedies and his tragedies were all there. But there were no histories. There were none of the compelling and beautiful stories of the the great men of England.

So we jumped in this week. Anticipating this chapter and needing to add a little life into our study (the Greeks and Romans had tons of outside material to draw on, I haven't found as much for the Middle Ages), I purchased Henry V in comic book form for J.



and No Fear Shakespeare for myself.



We read them one afternoon, and the watched Kenneth Branagh in the title role in this film adaption.



I'll say it right now. I have missed out on a lot. It was wonderful. It was powerful. It was brilliant.

But we in it shall be remembered--
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
this day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

After we finished the movie last night, J. was pretty quiet. You know, it isn't very "cool" in 4th grade to be a fan of the Bard. Then he said before he went to sleep, "That guy really knows how to tell a story." Amen.

Bookbag - April

If you didn't notice, there was no "Bookbag" in March. I didn't read. I skied quite a bit, but I didn't read.

April has been an entirely different matter all together. I have read voraciously, probably to make up for lost time. And the things I have read - WOW have they made me think. Some have even begun to change my life.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Have you been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution? Shame on you if you haven't. If you have been watching it and want to take the next step in your personal food revolution, then this is the book for you. It will change the way you think about your meals. The first sentence of the book asks a fairly simple question - What should we have for dinner? He answers the question, but leaves us to ask and answer bigger questions about our food. This is the book that has changed my life. I'm a big thinker to begin with, but now I have added thinking about my food to the list. Thinking about my relationship with it, not just what it will taste like.

Food Rules by Michael Pollan
This is the book to read if you don't have time for Pollan's larger work. Pollan breaks eating down into 64 simple rules that can have you eating better than you ever have before in you life. Some of my personal favorites, "Eat only foods that will eventually rot," and "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself." Simple easy solutions to our food crisis. My grandmother would be proud. Jamie Oliver would cheer.

The Complete Guide to the National Park Lodges by David and Kay Scott
We are visiting Glacier this summer and Big Bend next year. Then we plan to hit Yellowstone, Yosemite and The Grand Canyon.

Brave Companions by David McCullough
This was my favorite book this month. It may rank as one of my favorite books of all time. I always learn from Mr. McCullough and this book is no exception. It is a collection of articles and pieces that came from his larger works and from speeches. He writes near the end, "there is nothing inevitable about history." I don't think it is a lesson we have quite learned as a country. He shows, so eloquently, that one man can make a difference and that we can be the change. I learned that the truisms are, well, true. Unfortunately, he has also added to my TBR pile. There may be 50 books he referenced that I must now read.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Chris Cleave's Little Bee was wonderful. Fiction has bored me lately. Most of the works I have picked up (especially some of the best-selling popular ones) have given me absolutely no reason to turn the page. So many have been the same story told with different words. I have found nothing original, until I picked this up at the bookstore the other day. One of my daily blog reads had done a small "chapbook" entry on it and I decided to give it a try. I am so glad I did. As much as I have travelled, I have never been to Africa, but I am connected to the continent one week a month while my husband is there on business. Often protected by bullet proof cars and men with machine guns as he is driven to work (yes, he is in the oil business), he looks out and sees the desperation and tragedy that is life over there. He has often said that I couldn't imagine what he sees and what life is like for the people of Nigeria or Angola. Yes, I can. Yes, I can.

I also participated in Girl Detective's 15 Books in 15 Days Challenge. Here are the links to those posts:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Time Pirate
Profiles in Courage
Nikon D90: Guide to Digital SLR Photography
The Emperor's Code
With The Old Breed
Mere Christianity
Touch the Dragon
Looking at Pictures
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies
Mudville
Ruined by Reading
The Mother Tongue
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
The LIttle Prince

To Fly, To Read

Chapter nine of David McCullough's Brave Companions begins:

In the mid-1920s, in several parts of the world, a number of brave, skilled young men and women began taking to the air at the controls of a variety of aircraft ...

I was hooked on that chapter. I was hooked on the book as well, but I read and re-read that chapter. Then I went back to it and read it again.

These were no amateur pilots. They were intensely professional, intensely serious about the craft of flying and about their own role in history....

But most remarkable is how many of them proved to be writers of exceptional grace and vision, authors of more than a score of books.

The chapter was compelling because it combines two things I am passionate about ... reading and flying. You get the reading part. Who else would agree to read 15 books in 15 days and finish? Either someone who is passionate about reading or crazy (and I have been called that before).

But my passion for flying is a hard one to explain. I am not a pilot (my husband takes the controls of our personal aircraft). As many times as he asks me if I want to take the controls, I say "No." That is too much pressure. Too much responsibility. I don't want to pilot.

I like to navigate. I like to figure out how to get where we are going ... too easy sometimes with our modern avionics. What I really like is too look out the window and watch the ground rush by as we fly overhead. I like being up in the air. I like seeing the world from that angle. I like to fly.

I understand what compelled them to fly and to write. It is the same thing that compels me to read and to travel in our small plane. Both take you to new places.

The airplane offered a spiritual pilgrimage in ways other machines never had. These aviators wrote of being lifted out of themselves by the very act of flight, of becoming part of something infinitely larger than themselves.

McCullough discusses the books of both Lindberghs, Beryl Markham, Nevil Norway and Amelia Earhart. But I realized with a shock that I had never read one of the most famous pilot/authors signature works. I had never read Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince.

That would be my 15th book. The Little Prince.




Much has been written of this little book that I learned to love in an hour of a day. But McCullough can say it better than I ever could.

"What frightens me more than the war is the world of tomorrow," Saint-Exupery told his mother in late 1940. Central to all he wrote was the theme of responsibility. In The Little Prince, it is the fox, finally, that tells the Little Prince what really matters in life, by reminding him of the flower, the single rose, he had cared for at home on his own small planet. "Men have forgotten the truth," says the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose."

I see that as I fly. The responsibility I have as a wife and a mother. The responsibility I have a citizen. We have built this country. We have planted and harvested from her soils. We have crossed her majestic peaks. We have settled and populated her. We have tamed her. Now we are to be held responsible.

I Carried it in my Pocket

It was a little book of poems that I found on the bottom shelf in the poetry section of Half Price Books. It was the little part that appealed to me, because it could fit in my pocket and because it was a book I could read it in a day ... or an hour.

Now I don't like Cats, the musical. I thought it was silly and a waste of my money. I should be clear that I also don't like cats - the animals - either. I am a dog person. Cats don't do anything. And I am allergic to them. Cats have caused me hospital visits before. I tend not to be overly fond of "cat people" either. Dogs are it.

This little book was fun. I enjoyed it with my boys after school. We read the book out loud. We took turns with the poems. I think T.S. Eliot would have liked how his little book inspired us.

Do you know that it is poem in your pocket day?

I suggest not only putting a poem in your pocket but a whole book of poems.

Or make copies of a poem and hand them out to your friends.

Of course you must read the poem. Out Loud.

To you kids!

I Laughed All Day

Bill Bryson makes me laugh. I was sitting at the Ford dealership and a restaurant yesterday ... laughing out loud. People kept giving me funny looks. Only one person asked me what I was reading and said The Mother Tongue sounded like a good book. When I offered her my copy (I happen to have two) she said it was probably too long for her and she didn't have enough time to read.

I didn't bother telling her that this was my 13th book in as many days. I didn't want to make her feel bad.

If you haven't read Bryson, by all means run out and pick up some of his books. The Mother Tongue is a great one, but my all time favorite is A Short History of Nearly Everything ... everything you ever needed to know about science in 560 pages.

The best part of the book is my new favorite word ... sluberdegullion. I can find many uses for a word that means a worthless or slovenly fellow. I even used it yesterday.

Ruined by Reading

I didn't think I was going to make it yesterday.

We had a crazy morning around here. We barely made it to school on time. The dog got sick (he is fine now). I went to Whole Foods with a friend. Doesn't sound like a big deal except that Whole Foods is 45 minutes from my house.

We went to lunch.

On the way home we had to make an hour pit stop on the not so good side of town while we waited for the tow truck.

Then I actually had to cook some of that great food and grass fed beef on our brand new grill. Yesterday was our only family night for meals. I finally blogged about Monday's book and then it was 8:00 PM. I hadn't even begun a book.

After a quick check of my shelves I spied this small tome. I think I have read it before. I didn't care (I didn't remember it anyway). It was a perfect book for the crazy day.

Reading ... does offer a delectable exercise for the mind .... Like the bodies of dancers or athletes, the minds of readers are genuinely happy and self-possessed only when cavorting around, doing their stretches and leaps and jumps to the tune of words.

I like this little book. It wasn't really as much about reading as it was a note or a letter to the author's books thanking them for their importance in her life.

It started -- my reading, that is -- innocently enough, and then it infiltrated. It didn't replace living, it infused it, till the two became inextricable, like molecules of hydrogen and oxygen in a bead of water.

My favorite passage was this ... it seemed so appropriate after the hours my husband and I spent this weekend trying to put the grill together.

Incidentally, living by the word, by organized series of words, which is narrative, is a handicap when it comes to operating modern electronic devices like telephone answering machines or VCRs. (Or reading directions for putting a grill together.) Such ineptness is not due, as laughing children suppose, to quaintness or premature senility. It is simply that readers are accustomed to receiving information in the narrative mode.

Baseball, Book 2

Mudville is the second of the books I am reading as possible "Bookclub for Boys" summer reading books. I just don't know if I like this one or not. Well, I know that I didn't like it, but I wonder if my boys will like it. I used to be much, much better at picking out books for them.

There is enough about baseball. The main character is a boy. But there is almost too much about curses and girlfriends and dysfunctional families. It just isn't what I wanted.

What I want are some great recommendations for baseball books.

Baseball, Book 1

I am hosting a summer "Bookclub for Boys." I have great plans for this club. It is open to any boy at the elementary school my kids attend. There are no restriction on age or grade. I don't even care if they can read. Their parents can read to them.

We are going to read baseball books, watch baseball movies and learn to keep score. At the end of the summer we will all attend a game together and use our new baseball skills to really enjoy the game.

I saw this book and loved the title. The Girl Who Threw Butterflies. It just sounded like a good book. It sounded like a fun read. It was. Not to melodramatic. Enough plot to keep me going. Fun characters. People in a community coming together.

The problem. The main character is a girl. A girl who plays baseball mind you. But she is still a girl. While I will have my boys read it, I don't think it will make the book club list.

Help for the Summer Homeschool

I grabbed this book from the new book shelf at the library as I was walking out the other day, hoping I could use it as we prepare for our summer "homeschool." You know the museums, art classes, and history programs that I stuff the kids with over the summer to make up for the deficiencies of our (really good, by the way) public elementary school.

If your kids have never been to a museum or never taken an art class, then this is a great choice. While I really like the book, it was a little too "elementary" for us.

But it is a book, and it is number 9 of 15.

A Journey Back to Thailand

I bought yesterday's book, Touch the Dragon, 5 years ago on a family vacation to Thailand. We were in Chaing Mai and I walked into a little expat bookstore and asked for a book on the country. I didn't want a picture book or a travel guide. I wanted a book about life in Thailand. The proprietor did a great job with this recommendation.

It has been said of this book that it is "as if I had been lifted all the way to Thailand without ever booking passage." I think I have to agree. While I can't speak to what life with the Thai people is like, I can say that my memories of the trip mesh perfectly of her descriptions of the country. Vivid color. That is what I remember and that is what she describes. I don't think I have ever been anywhere as colorful as Thailand.

The blues seem bluer. And there are more shades of blue in the Andaman sea than anywhere else. ...



There is more gold and red.



Sometimes you begin to think that every part of the country is covered in color.



Even the elephants can paint.



And while I can't speak to life in Thailand, I understand the loneliness of living in a place where you just don't belong. We were able to travel so easily to Thailand because we were living as expats in Korea. Talk about not fitting in. Talk about not understanding a culture and a people. While we did make some friends in Korea, we never truly felt like we were part of their lives. We were always on the outside.

I should have read this book while I was in Thailand, but I am kind of glad I waited. I had a wonderful time yesterday looking through my old photos and remembering our trip.

7 of 15 ... but I am Tired

Oh, I am not tired of reading. This challenge has kept me going through some very difficult days. In order to read, I have had to clear my mind. But I am tired. I am frustrated.

I was told of the loss of a really good person this week. I haven't even been able to get my head around the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico yet. I know BP drillers. I know Transocean contractors. One of my Cub Scouts' dad worked on that platform. I haven't heard if he was on rotation. I don't want to call in case he was.

I am not good (on a good day) with stupidity and incompetence. When I meet them on a bad day, things spiral downhill. I have run into a brick wall of stupidity, incompetence and downright deceitfulness over the last week as I have tried to refinance my mortgage. I can't even begin to write about that or I will lose all focus for the rest of the day.

I am tired and I am sad. I want to crawl into a hole. At least I can take a book with me.

Yesterday I took Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis into my hole. How I love Lewis. I never understand why so many people find him so difficult to read. I find him so approachable. Reading his books seems like having a conversation with a good friend.

If you didn't know, Mere Christianity began as a series of radio talks Lewis gave during some of the darkest moments of WWII. His voice lifted a nation and helped many individuals get through trying times. Maybe that is why this is even more like a conversation ... it was. It was a conversation with England.

It was a blessing to the people then and it was a blessing to me yesterday.

Reality in fact is something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is not a religion you could have guessed.

And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.

He knows all about it. You are one of the the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner that that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one.

Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

With the Old Breed

This is Adam Brown. Adam is a Navy SEAL who was killed in combat on March 18, 2010. I didn't know Adam personally, but his life has touched mine on the fringes.

I was told of this tragic loss yesterday as I was reading the 6th of 15 books in the 15/15/15 challenge, With the Old Breed by E. B. Sledge. It is Sledge's account of his time with the Marines on Peleliu and Okinawa in WWII. It is one of the most profoundly moving books that I have ever read.

Sledge addresses the big picture: the war, the battle, and the Marines. But he also manages to make his experience more personal. He brings us into the action with a personal side and human stories.

The personal bodily filth imposed upon the combat infantryman by living conditions on the battlefield was difficult for me to tolerate. It bothered almost everyone I knew....To be anything less than neat and sharp was considered a negative reflection on the Marine Corps and wasn't tolerated....In combat cleanliness for the infantryman was all but impossible....It has always puzzled me that this important factor in our daily lives has received so little attention.

I have been fortunate enough to have spent time on Guam and in The Philippines. We have built close personal relationships with men who fought there. My husband stood with them as they honored their fallen comrades on the crest of Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. They are heroes whose name will never appear in any history book or on any television series.

Mr. Sledge brought the stories that I have heard them tell me to life. I understand now that when Ed was telling me a gruesome story of a friend of his who was killed on Iwo, he was leaving much out. He was sparing me the most bloody details. He wanted me to understand the war, but he did not want me to know the war.

Mr. Sledge brought me closer to the battle than I would ever want to be.

To me, artillery was an invention of hell. The onrushing whistle and scream of the big steel package of destruction was the pinnacle of violent fury and the embodiment of pent-up evil. It was the essence of violence and of man's inhumanity to man.

During prolonged shelling, I often had to restrain myself and fight back a wild, inexorable urge to scream, to sob, and to cry. As Peleliu dragged on, I feared that if I ever lost control of myself under shell fire my mind would be shattered. I hated shells as much for their damage to the mind as to the body.

I hope I will never know war. I hope I will never lose a husband or a son.

I hope that the lives of the men who died in battle in WWII or Korea or The Iraq War will never be forgotten.

I hope that Adam's wife and two young children will know that there are people out there who appreciate their sacrifice and his.

I hope you will take a moment to say a prayer for them.

War is brutish, inglorious and a terrible waste. Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it. The only redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other.

If you have the way or the means in these trying times, I hope you might consider Adam's family.

Adam Brown Memorial Fund
Navy Federal Credit Union
Body 200 Dam Neck
Virginia Beach, Virginia 23461

A Word of Explanation

You might be wondering why so many book reviews. Well, I decided to participate in Girl Detective's 15 Books in 15 Day challenge. The reviews you are reading daily are the result of that. I have also unplugged the T.V. for 5 days, so I can't comment on politics or the world I know nothing about. I have immersed myself in books rather than other forms of media. The result so far is that I feel much calmer. I don't hear as many voices in my head. They are quieting and allowing my own thoughts to come through. I like it.

A Little Book for A Day with Little Time

I knew yesterday would be crazy. I subbed at the school for my favorite teacher (she also happens to have M. in her class so I got to spend the day with my son). And I chased boys from 7 AM (running club and choir) to well into the night (baseball practice). I picked up a slim volume that I knew would be easy, The Emperor's Code. This is Book 8 in the The 39 Clues series developed by Rick Riordan but with a different author for each book in the series.

The books are fine. J. loves them, but he also loves the on-line game aspect that comes with them. He likes collecting the cards and figuring out the clues. As a marketing plan the books are genius. As a series, they are just o.k.

To be honest, I expected more from the likes of Riordan, Gordan Korman, and Jude Watson. They have all produced better work.

I do like that they manage (if the kids care enough to check it out) to teach a little history, a little geography and a little of the liberal arts. I also like that the heros are kids ... a theme that always draws me to Children's and YA literature (i.e. Nick of Time and Percy Jackson).

Do you have a struggling reader? These would be great! Amazon says they are for kids ages 9-12. I think a twelve year-old would be bored, but a struggling 8 or 9 year-old would probably find them easy enough to get through but interesting enough to hold his (or her) attention. My advanced 7 year-old has no trouble with them.