"Why, you just lose your temper if you want to, honey. All the Bible says is don't let the sun go down on your wrath. It don't say nothing about when it's shining. Sometimes you have to let folks know you're not gonna take whatever they want to throw at you. You just cut loose if you need to. Put your foot down, and remember who you are...."
-Granny, from the novel
Well, I absolutely love Ann B. Ross's Miss Julia series! This was the author's first novel featuring another character in the series, Etta Mae Wiggins, and I enjoyed it, although not quite as much. (My rating: 4) Etta Mae is the home health nurse for Howard Connard, Sr., a wealthy man suffering from a stroke, almost immobile with greatly impaired speech. He lets Etta Mae know that he wants to marry her and she is perfectly agreeable since she thinks it will gain her some respect in the small town that loves to gossip about her and her multiple husbands.
The plot involves Etta Mae's efforts to bring this wedding about even over the protests of Howard, Jr. and his snooty wife, Valerie. Add in an ex-husband, Skip, who is being stalked by the vengeful Puckett brothers and expects Etta Mae's help, and you get a "worst bad-luck day"!
I enjoyed the humor in this book and also several mentions of country music artists I know and like. There is a quote about tourists I found hilarious: "All I could do was hope that going-home traffic in Abbotsville (N.C.) wouldn't slow us down. I swear it got worse every year, what with tourists and Northern summer visitors. And Floridians! You wouldn't believe the way they drove. They were about to push us natives out and take over the whole county..." We Floridians complain often about tourists' driving and I have had several Florida friends who have retired to North Carolina so it rang pretty true.
I did miss Lillian, one of my favorite characters in the Miss Julia stories and also Sam and Hazel Marie. Miss Julia and Hazel Marie were involved toward the end of the story---a brief episode but VERY funny! Luckily Miss Julia Lays Down the Law comes out in April, 2015!
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Friday, August 15, 2014
Run to Ground by D.P. Lyle
"What if a good, God-fearing couple are threatened by the man that killed their only son, forcing them to plan the man's murder and their own disappearance? That's the question that drives this story."
-D.P. Lyle from the Author's Note
This is the third novel I have read by D.P. Lyle, a high school classmate. I have enjoyed each of them. The writing style is easy to read, the plots are intriguing, the characters are interesting, but one of my favorite things is the setting of these thrillers. The stories take place in Huntsville, Alabama, my hometown, a place where I spent my high school years. In many places I can picture the locations Lyle mentions---streets, churches, businesses, restaurants, landmarks. One of our high school reunion events took place at The Ledges, a beautiful country club in an upscale neighborhood, which he uses as a meeting place in this story. I rate Run to Ground a 5 for those reasons and because it was a page-turner!
Lead character, Dub Walker, has become a favorite of mine. I especially love the repartee between he and ex-wife reporter Claire McBride. As well as being a forensic expert and consultant with the Huntsville police, Dub plays the guitar. At one point in the story he was jamming with John Lee Hooker tunes which really took me back to my teens when Hooker's music was a favorite of mine.
Often when I read I catch mistakes in editing---typos, etc. This time I caught a glaring one in the mention of Civil War General Braxton Bragg (written Briggs on page 245). Guess the publisher should hire me as an editor!
I had never come across the expression "run to ground" before. The first time I saw it was the title, of course, but then in the story context: "With a wad of cash they could run to ground and stay low for a long time." That confirmed the meaning I had in mind.
I am sorry I have now read the 3 novels in the Dub Walker series by Lyle. I will look for other fiction, perhaps his Samantha Cody series.
-D.P. Lyle from the Author's Note
This is the third novel I have read by D.P. Lyle, a high school classmate. I have enjoyed each of them. The writing style is easy to read, the plots are intriguing, the characters are interesting, but one of my favorite things is the setting of these thrillers. The stories take place in Huntsville, Alabama, my hometown, a place where I spent my high school years. In many places I can picture the locations Lyle mentions---streets, churches, businesses, restaurants, landmarks. One of our high school reunion events took place at The Ledges, a beautiful country club in an upscale neighborhood, which he uses as a meeting place in this story. I rate Run to Ground a 5 for those reasons and because it was a page-turner!
Lead character, Dub Walker, has become a favorite of mine. I especially love the repartee between he and ex-wife reporter Claire McBride. As well as being a forensic expert and consultant with the Huntsville police, Dub plays the guitar. At one point in the story he was jamming with John Lee Hooker tunes which really took me back to my teens when Hooker's music was a favorite of mine.
Often when I read I catch mistakes in editing---typos, etc. This time I caught a glaring one in the mention of Civil War General Braxton Bragg (written Briggs on page 245). Guess the publisher should hire me as an editor!
I had never come across the expression "run to ground" before. The first time I saw it was the title, of course, but then in the story context: "With a wad of cash they could run to ground and stay low for a long time." That confirmed the meaning I had in mind.
I am sorry I have now read the 3 novels in the Dub Walker series by Lyle. I will look for other fiction, perhaps his Samantha Cody series.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
"I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wind is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings---
I know why the caged bird sings!"
-from "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
When Maya Angelou passed away a few months ago I saw several tributes to her on TV and in the newspaper. Someone was quoted as having said that Maya Angelou never had an insignificant thought. That made me say Wow! And I realized I had never read any of her work. When we were looking for summer selections for the book club, someone suggested we read something of Angelou's in honor of her amazing life. I am not sure how this title came up but it turns out I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first, and probably best-known, of her series of autobiographical works. It will certainly not be the last one I read. I loved it! My rating is a 5.
Our group does not meet to discuss the book until the end of this month and I generally do not read so far ahead but I wanted to be able to pass my copy on and there is always sparknotes.com for a thorough review.
Maya was born Margarite Anne Johnson and was called Ritie by many in her family. Her older brother, Bailey, gave her the nickname Maya and it was interesting how that happened.
This book is so readable. It has a lot of humor but much pathos, as well. Racism and gender bias raise their ugly heads quite often. Family relationships are explored in very touching but sometimes maddening ways. Some of the very surprising and memorable parts of Maya's story are when she stopped talking, her driving "lesson" in Mexico and her time of living in a junkyard.
I don't want to give away too much of the story. I highly recommend you read it for yourself!
And speaking of Sparknotes, I took the quiz online and got 21/25 correct. I figure that's about a B+. If you remember details well, you will probably be able to top that score.
http://gsearch.sparknotes.com/search?q=I+Know+Why+the+Caged+Bird+Sings&searchbg=&template=default&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&site=SparkNotes
-----------------
Our group met to discuss the book this past week and gave a rating of 4.4. Some thought parts of the story, especially the end, were not fleshed out enough. Most enjoyed Maya's writing style. We had a very lively discussion, much of it centering around race, both in Maya's early years and NOW. As we were talking, I found myself comparing this autobiography with Mildred Taylor's Logan family series, including award-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, probably still my favorite book of all time. The setting is similar, rural South in the '30s. Of course, Taylor's works are fiction but my understanding is that she based much of her series on personal stories she heard from her father. I don't know why that didn't occur to me sooner. My recommendation: Read them both!
When his wind is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings---
I know why the caged bird sings!"
-from "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
When Maya Angelou passed away a few months ago I saw several tributes to her on TV and in the newspaper. Someone was quoted as having said that Maya Angelou never had an insignificant thought. That made me say Wow! And I realized I had never read any of her work. When we were looking for summer selections for the book club, someone suggested we read something of Angelou's in honor of her amazing life. I am not sure how this title came up but it turns out I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first, and probably best-known, of her series of autobiographical works. It will certainly not be the last one I read. I loved it! My rating is a 5.
Our group does not meet to discuss the book until the end of this month and I generally do not read so far ahead but I wanted to be able to pass my copy on and there is always sparknotes.com for a thorough review.
Maya was born Margarite Anne Johnson and was called Ritie by many in her family. Her older brother, Bailey, gave her the nickname Maya and it was interesting how that happened.
This book is so readable. It has a lot of humor but much pathos, as well. Racism and gender bias raise their ugly heads quite often. Family relationships are explored in very touching but sometimes maddening ways. Some of the very surprising and memorable parts of Maya's story are when she stopped talking, her driving "lesson" in Mexico and her time of living in a junkyard.
I don't want to give away too much of the story. I highly recommend you read it for yourself!
And speaking of Sparknotes, I took the quiz online and got 21/25 correct. I figure that's about a B+. If you remember details well, you will probably be able to top that score.
http://gsearch.sparknotes.com/search?q=I+Know+Why+the+Caged+Bird+Sings&searchbg=&template=default&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&site=SparkNotes
-----------------
Our group met to discuss the book this past week and gave a rating of 4.4. Some thought parts of the story, especially the end, were not fleshed out enough. Most enjoyed Maya's writing style. We had a very lively discussion, much of it centering around race, both in Maya's early years and NOW. As we were talking, I found myself comparing this autobiography with Mildred Taylor's Logan family series, including award-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, probably still my favorite book of all time. The setting is similar, rural South in the '30s. Of course, Taylor's works are fiction but my understanding is that she based much of her series on personal stories she heard from her father. I don't know why that didn't occur to me sooner. My recommendation: Read them both!
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