I'm not sure if I was disappointed because it was short and so a little less well fleshed out or because a book about "van life" was more about the aftermath of divorce than about being a nomad.
It was a quick, enjoyable read, but not particularly satisfying. But for a free quick read before bedtime when I was between books, I'm not complaining.
Little by little, over the past few years, I've seen real life imitating art. After the Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, I decided that it was time to read The Handmaid's Tale. Now I wonder how Margaret Atwood was so prescient. The Handmaid's Tale read like non-fiction in July 2022. That is horrifying!
Life is as we (used to) know it at the start of The Handmaid's Tale. Offred has an actual name. She's got a job she enjoys, a husband, a daughter, friends. Life is pretty good. The religious right somehow comes into power. And suddenly women can no longer hold jobs, can no longer control their assets. Families are torn apart. Women with viable ovaries can become handmaids. They will give birth to the children that the infertile wives of the leaders cannot have.
We were staying in our Airbnb in New York when I read The Handmaid's Tale. We had Hulu on our Airbnb tv, something we don't have at home. After turning the last page of the book, I turned on the series. We were in a tiny Airbnb so whatever I watched, my husband couldn't help but watching. After the 3rd episode of season 1, he said he couldn't watch anymore. It was just that disturbing.
I'm not going to get all political in this review so I'm pretty much going to leave it here and not say anymore. Other than to suggest that everyone read this book. We are well on the way to life as told in The Handmaid's Tale. Think about that when you go to vote in November.
Quite fascinating to read this book while I finished listening to Miss Eliza's English Kitchen. It was interesting to compare and contrast what I was hearing about cooking, kitchens, employment opportunities and the like while having both books in my brain. It made me think a lot about the opportunities for women and how limited they were back in Miss Eliza's time and even after.
Even after reading this, I'm still not 100% certain about how they coined the phrase "home economics." Skills were being taught to women that they would be able to use to run an efficient, happy home. But it seems the area of study was mostly a way for girls to study something more rigorous than "girls' topics" and to prepare for pretty substantial careers, some of which had not yet even been created.
It was a bit eye-opening to read about what home economics was like before my time - and after. I was a student at the time when home economics was in its most tumultuous period. Cooking and sewing classes - for girls only - were on their way out. But not quite.
I enjoyed reading the book and hope that I'll get to discuss it. But... and there's a big but. Towards the end of the book, Dreilinger inserted herself into the narrative. That would have been fine... had she done that all along. It was confusing as to why she inserted herself into the present day narrative. It's not like she's a home economist. Or is she? And it made me wonder what was the purpose of her book? Did the purpose of her book change over the time she was writing it? By the time I finished my reading, I felt that I needed the answers to those questions. Her observations about home economics during a pandemic were spot-on, but it made me feel as though some earlier parts of the book should have been re-written.
I also felt that the book jumped around. It wasn't chronological. It didn't focus on one home economist at a time. It didn't focus on one theme at a time. That made some of the narrative confusing to me, trying to place why a home economist was important and during which time period.
All in all, the book gave me a lot to think about. And I love a book that really makes me think.
Biggest difference for me was that unlike the years it took for me to finish reading A Gentleman in Moscow, I whipped through The Lincoln Highway in just a few days.
The Lincoln Highway is the very engaging tale of Emmett and his younger brother, Billy. Emmett has just been released from a stint at a reform school after his actions accidentally caused the death of another young man. He was released early because of the death of his father. Years earlier, Emmett and Billy's mom had left. The father, not fit for the farming life, had let the farm go into foreclosure before his death. The boys literally had nothing and were ready to make a fresh start. Somewhere else. Emmett dreams of a life flipping houses in Texas. And Billy dreams of finding their mother.
Billy found a stash of postcards from their mother. From those clues, he figures that their mom had set west on The Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in the United States. He wants to follow The Lincoln Highway and search for her at the fireworks in San Francisco on the 4th of July. She always loved fireworks. Emmett gives in, figuring California has just the growth potential for his house flipping idea to make sense.
Who arrives on the scene but two of Emmett's friends from the reform school. Who have totally different ideas about what the immediate journey should look like. This is the journey the four end up taking. And The Lincoln Highway is the tale of that journey. Taking place over 10 days, it is told from multiple perspectives. From the perspective of each of the four young men, from the perspective of Sally, Emmett and Billy's closest neighbor in Nebraska. And from the perspective of a few others that they meet along the way.
I really enjoyed this novel but I wish I hadn't read it so close to finishing This Tender Land. The stories are nothing alike. But This Tender Land was also the story of four young people on a journey. The strength of both of these novels is in the storytelling. I couldn't help but comparing the two when in reality there is no comparison.
This Tender Land tells the story of four vagabond children: Odie, his older brother, Albert, Native American Moses and little Emmy. The three boys were all residents at the Lincoln Indian Training School in Minnesota. Odie and Albert are the only non-Indian students at the school, taken in by the school after the murder of their father. Their mother had died several years earlier. Moses (which wasn't his real name) came to the school after the murder of his mother at which time his tongue was cut out. Emmy's mother was one of the teachers at the school. Her father had died and she lived with her mother, an exceptionally kind women.
The children at the school were mistreated. I know that the purpose of "Indian schools" was to "civilize" the Indians. But this school sounded more like a prison than a school. Emmy's mother, Mrs. Frost, had suggested that she take in Odie, Albert and Moses so they could leave the school. Then the "tornado god" took something else away from Odie when Mrs. Frost gets killed. Emmy goes to live at the school, with the school's superintendent whom is referred to as "The Black Witch." Odie, Albert, and Moses "kidnap" Emmy and thus starts the adventures of the four vagabonds.
I feel like my synopsis of the book does it a disservice. This book is wonderful. There have been some comparisons to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In a way it reminded me of "The Wizard of Oz" as the four children follow the river to search for what they are missing and to search for home. They meet mean-spirited people making them question why they left the Lincoln School. But they also meet people who only want to help and to restore their faith in humanity and in God. This is all set with the background of the Depression, where most everyone is suffering from hard times.
My New Jersey book club had selected this for their February title. Since they're still meeting on Zoom, I'll get to join in to the discussion. I'm really looking forward to that.
This Tender Land is the first audio book that I've listened to while walking. A few weeks ago, I became determined to find a headset that would be comfortable while walking. I needed something that wouldn't be uncomfortable or pop out of my ears or block out the noise of what might be around me. I bought a pair of Shokz OpenMove headphones. They are perfect! Until recently, I thought I could only enjoy audio books while driving in the car by myself. These headphones allow me to "read" while I'm walking (which also encourages me to walk more). I'm also able to "read" while doing simple housekeeping tasks, something I wasn't able to do when I was trying to listen through my phone's speaker. Now... off to find my next audiobook read.
I got into bed on Thursday night, opened Ruth and the Green Book on my Kindle, prepared to breeze through a picture book. I knew it was a picture book. But ... where were the words? I only saw pictures. Then I realized that I just couldn't see the writing on my black and white Paperwhite Kindle. I decided I'd have to try and read the book on my iPad on Friday morning. Of course, then I needed a book to read for Thursday night so I grabbed The Cookbook Club and started that. The book from my friend can wait.
Friday morning, iPad in hand, I opened Ruth and the Green Book. I realized that the contrast of the writing against the illustrations made it nearly impossible for these old eyes to read. And maybe there is a way to increase the font of a picture book in the iPad but if there is, I couldn't figure it out. Enough about my trouble reading the book. I bet you want to hear about the book.
I was not impressed with Ruth and the Green Book. In my mind, it was fifth grade content written at a second grade level. When I saw the title of this picture book, I was intrigued. All I knew about the Green Book was what I'd learned after seeing the Academy Award winning "Green Book" in 2018. It would have been something I wished I'd known about when I was teaching fifth grade. I definitely would have taught about it. Victor Green, a postman, created The Negro Motorist Green Book in 1936 as a guidebook for African-American roadtrippers during the days of Jim Crow. It let travelers know where they could eat, sleep, get gas, all sorts of travel-related things in a time when most places would legally be able to deny them service. It was updated annually until shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It started out covering just one part of the United States, but by the end of of its run, it covered, all of the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda.
Ruth and her family leave Chicago on a road trip to visit Ruth's grandmother in Alabama. It was after the family's first stop, to gas up and take a restroom break, that Ruth realized something was amiss. She was not allowed to use the restroom at the service station. She learned it was for Whites only. The family spends that night sleeping in their car. They run into a kind person who shows them his Green Book and suggests that if they have to stop for gas, they should stop at an ESSO station. They follow the person's advice, stop for gas at ESSO and purchase a Green Book of their own. It becomes Ruth's job to study the Green Book so the family can know where to stay overnight, and eventually find out where they can get their car repaired when they break down on the road.
This had the potential to be a great story, but as I said, the reading level and the depth of the story was too simplistic for most fifth graders.
One thing that I did while reading was look back on my 11 years of teaching fifth grade social studies. For 10 of those years, I covered Westward Expansion, the Civil War, and then Social Justice - as opposed to the Civil Rights Movement or social injustice. I was thankful for the freedom that I had while teaching those topics. I didn't try to indoctrinate students into holding my view. I encouraged questioning and analysis so my students could come to their own conclusions. It sounds like so much of what I covered - and how I covered it - would be off-limits right now. That made me incredibly sad. And grateful, in a sad way, that I'm no longer in the classroom.
Mary Trump is incredibly smart with an excellent way with language. This was an excellent history book and one that I would encourage anyone to read.
In January, my sister-in-law texted me a recommendation to West with Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge. I hadn't yet selected my first read title and this was one of them. My sister-in-law have pretty similar tastes in reading so off I went to download this one.
What a different tale this tells. Woodrow Wilson Nickel is an elderly man in a nursing home when he learns that giraffes are going extinct. He had an experience with giraffes back in 1938. He's over 100 and is now determined that his story about his time with the giraffes doesn't end with him.
This is a coming of age story, a story about the benefits that animals bring to the lives of the humans who interact with them, a story about remembering... and about passing along stories to those who might care about the stories being told.
Woody is a survivor of the Dust Bowl. He finds himself in New York facing yet another tragedy when he first spots the giraffes. He learns that they are traveling across the country to go live at the San Diego Zoo. This is based on a true story of the giraffes cross-country trip. It's an eloquent time piece and heartwarming to watch the way Woody grows up and develops as the story moves along.
West with Giraffes is based on a true story of the first San Diego Zoo's giraffes cross-country journey. I highly recommend.
As expected, there were no real surprises. So much of trump's interviews had already been broadcast... and I'd already wondered why the heck trump would submit to the interviews and then answer in ways that were less than flattering and in many cases idiotic? I guess that's another book that Mary Trump might want to write.
What will really stick with me, though, after reading Rage, is that my long held suspicion that things were undisciplined in the White House from day one was 100% spot on.
Bob Woodward will need to write a follow-up book or update the epilogue or in some way update this book once we are looking at trump through the rear window. It's very current. Reaffirms things I'd already been thinking but until this nightmare of a presidency is over, the story cannot be fully told.
And now, for now, I am putting the trump book club on pause! With just a little over a week left until "Election Day" (whatever that exactly means this year), I just can't take anymore.
As minorities across the country were gradually beginning to take on more significant roles in politics, business, and entertainment, our family had become the most prominent example. Our presence in the White House had been celebrated by millions of Americans, but it also contributed to a reactionary sense of fear and resentment among others. The hatred was old and deep and as dangerous as ever.I think I might have been wrong about my first thought. I now don't really think that the uptick in anti-semitism is a reaction to Obama's presidency.
She faced the question, "what does fear keep you from doing?" and decided she was unwilling to let fear or disapproval keep her from action.
In an increasingly urbanized and industrialized America, ailing farmers felt forgotten, and many joined the Populist party to fight for reform of the injustices they experienced. In routing languages, Bryan built his campaign to tap into the needs of those he called the "struggling masses" and "humbler members of society." He reaffirmed their worth to the country, citing them as the Americans who produced the crops and goods that allowed the nation to live.
He also excoriated the "capitalistic class" that "owns money, trades in money and grows rich as the people grow poor." Bryan named and identified their fears of abuse from the powerful corporate elite, from Wall Street, and from the railroad and mining magnates. Captains of industry such as John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil), J.P. Morgan (banking financier), and James J. Hill (Union Pacific) passionately supported William McKinley and the Republican agenda, and they wielded enormous political clout. Bryan fought openly against "the heads of these great trusts" that he believed put corporate profit above people.
McKinley proposed protective tariffs as the best way "to get work for the masses," which particularly appealed to urban factory workers in the East.
During the following spring, Helga and Clara faced the reality of being penniless women eeking out a living in New York City. ... They moved to Brooklyn to look for work because it was a less expensive place to live than Manhattan.
She had flagrantly broken the most basic code of Victorian and Norwegian motherhood: mothers belong in the home.
The humility of her destitution in Brooklyn taught her that sometimes individual effort alone was not enough in an unjust system. No matter how hard she and Clara worked in New York, with women's wages so low, she felt helplessly trapped.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to just pick up and ride your motorcycle around this big beautiful country? Hollie lives in Rochester, New York with her husband Bonz. They have been together for over 30 years. With Bonz newly retired and the kids leaving to go off on their own adventures they needed something to reconnect. Join them on their journey through 22 states, many national parks and a couple of biker rallies. Hollie requested three months off work (with no pay), and her employer was gracious enough to allow this. So that was it, June, July and August of 2017 off they went to discover not only the USA but also themselves. No real plans and no reservations, flying by the seat of their pants, join them in seeing what it is like to ride a Harley on the open road for 87 days, one day at a time.Top on my bucket list is to visit all 50 states. And I'd love to just pop in the car and make my way from one state to the next, covering all 13 states that I haven't yet been to. I really thought that this book would have me green with envy and ready to pack my bag and hop in the car.
