Poetry

I wonder if every reader wishes at some point that she could write?   Over the years I've tried my hand at short stories.  I've even written the odd script or two for the drama team at church.  But the form of writing I keep coming back to is poetry.  I rarely share my poetry but have lately been playing around with it again. 

A friend has a story blog (Sort and Polish you should check it out) and she wrote a blog that inspired my latest poem.  her blog starts with We awoke to the song of a frog this morning.   I took that simple phrase and came up with this.

I awoke to the song of a frog today

A solo before the chorus joined in,

With the wind keeping time in a breezy beat,

Nature’s band tuned to the pitch of the dawn   

First a bass, then an alto entered the song

While the trill of a bird sang counterpoint

In harmony nature’s song was sung

As if it was meant to be heard today

By The Creator of music;

and me.

 

From Blood by Edward Wright

I started this book on a Saturday morning and neglected everything until it was done!   I wasn’t interested in this book to start with because of the title but I was encouraged to read it and I’m glad I did. 

Shannon Fairchild is a mess.  That’s the first line of the first chapter and is pretty descriptive of the main character.   She’s in limbo in her life having stopped writing her PhD dissertation and started a house cleaning business.    Her world is turned upside when her parents are murdered.  Her mother’s dying words “find them and warn them” sends Shannon on the hunt for some friends of her parents and also for the person who killed them.  In the process of finding out who killed her parents, Shannon finds a mystery about her own past.

The action and plot twists are endless and entertaining.  The characters are believable and I enjoyed the glimpse into the 60’s protests that provides the framework of the story.

My only complaint with the book is the title.  To me it conjured up visions of vampires and such and I am squeamish about violence so I was not inclined to read the book because of that.  But obviously the book is not about any of that.   The title is to do with the motivation of Shannon to carry on with the quest to find out about her parents and their past.  The author describes it as responding to a call that came from her very blood. 

Edward Wright is a new author to me and I fully intend to find and read his other books.  If you want an engaging mystery with nonstop action then clear your weekend and read this book.

Books Read in August, 2012

Summer nights are for reading and I had a week of vacation so there was lots of time to read

 in August.  Following is a list of the books read and my recommendations.

Janet Evanovich –  Pretty much all the same, light summer reading, not recommended if you’re squeamish about language/sexuality talk-but very funny and highly entertaining despite that

·         High Five,

·         Hot Six,

·         Seven up,

·         Hard Eight,

·         To the Nines

·         Ten Big Ones

John Dunning –   Great series about an ex-cop turned bookstore owner/book scout-lots of information about books and interesting mysteries

·         Booked to Die

·         The Bookman’s Wake

Robert Parker – Jesse Stone novels- I’m hooked on the TV movies starring Tom Selleck so decided to read the books.  Good mysteries and great character development about an alcoholic police chief in a small town of Paradise where things are never quite as they seem and murder happens on a regular basis.

·         Night Passage

·         Stone cold

And finally for something completely different I read

• the Disciplined Life by Calvin Miller. 

He passed away in August the day after I had downloaded this small book to read.   Everything by Calvin Miller is worth reading and I highly recommend it.

GREEN TO GO BY JOHN H CUNNINGHAM

This is the second in the Buck Reilly series by John H Cunningham. It is an e-book so you can only get it on your computer or e-reader.     Buck is a seriously down on his luck ex-corporate type, current treasure hunter living in Key West, Florida.  Trouble seems to follow him around.  In this book a friend is kidnapped and Buck is commissioned to find him. 

This is an adventure/mystery story with lots of twists and turns.  The story takes place in Florida and Cuba and has Buck again facing some seriously bad guys.  I started reading it in a walk-in-clinic where I was waiting to get a prescription; it was a two hour wait and the time flew by as I got absorbed in the story and the chase.

Buck is a cliché name for a character who is not at all a cliché.  Sure he’s flawed but he has a definite sense of right and wrong; an ability to make good friends and has a strong sense of responsibility.   In my last review (Red Right Return)  I complained about the language and it wasn’t an issue in this book.  Buck is a likeable character. The story is told in the first person so we have the benefit of his thoughts and feelings.  This isn’t just an adventure story; it’s a story about the ability to move on with life even when bad things happen to you; it’s evolving into a love story and above all it’s a good story. 

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

This was another book club pick that I normally wouldn’t have read on my own.  But from the first chapter I was hooked.

Towner Whitney fled her childhood home of Salem, Ma in order to escape her crazy family and after the death of her twin sister.  But she’s been drawn back by the disappearance of her Great-Aunt Eva.  In the opening paragraph Towner admits that she herself is crazy and lies all the time.   Her mother Mae is a recluse, living on an island and rescuing abused women and supporting them by teaching them how to make lace and selling it.  Both her mother and her aunts are lace readers; women who can see the future in the patterns of the lace they make.

This is a complicated story that flits between fantasy and reality; past and present.  Told mostly from Towner’s point of view the lines are always blurred as she tries to piece together the reason why her Aunt has disappeared and how that will affect the rest of her life.  This is a mystery on many levels; the disappearance of Eva; the mystery of what happened to Towner and her twin sister; who really is Cal Boynton, the resident cult leader.  Naturally since the setting is Salem, there are witches who are on a collision course with the Cal Boynton and his particular brand of religion. 

This book was hard to put down.    It’s fast paced with twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting.  The ending is particularly shocking but does help to make the rest of the story make sense. 

This is Barry’s first novel and I’m looking forward to reading her second one The Map of True Places. I highly recommend this book.

Charles Dickens by G.K. Chesterton

I’m not really a fan of biographies but am trying to broaden my reading and thought that understanding ore about Dickens would help me to understand and enjoy his novels more. (Please note that I will be quoting some of the book but as I read this on my Kindle stating pages is problematic so I won’t be able to do a true footnote.)

Chesterton is an early 20^th Century writer who wrote on a wide variety of subjects including theology.  He also wrote mysteries and fantasy stories.  There are a lot of biographers of Dickens but I thoroughly enjoyed Chesterton’s style and his take on what made Dickens tick.

The book starts out with a lengthy discourse on what makes a person or thing “great” in the eyes of society.  Chesterton doesn’t really define it although he tries but in the end he says, whatever greatness is, Dickens was great.  The fun of reading anything by Chesterton is that he is so quotable.  For instance during the discussion about greatness he writes “Every man was waiting for a leader.  Every man ought to be waiting for a chance to lead”.  He also says of the time that Dickens lived that “It was a world that encouraged anybody to be anything.  And in England and literature its living expression was Dickens.”

Another quotable quote from Chesterton on the troubles during Dickens’ early years “Circumstances break men’s bones; it has never been shown that they break men’s optimism.”  Chesterton paints Dickens as an optimistic, exuberant person who infused his novels with these characteristics. He also tended to wear his heart on his sleeve.  He felt things keenly and was very sensitive and did not generally take criticism well.

Chesterton does a very thorough job of characterizing Dickens as well as critiquing his books.  It was a bit hard to follow some of his thoughts as he talks a lot about British politics and literary people of that age that I’m not particularly familiar with.  However I think it was worth reading and is a great review of Dickens in context.  If you’re interested in a biography of Dickens I highly recommend this one.

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

It’s taken me years to get into this series.  But with the movie coming out these books are popular again and I thought I’d give it another try.  Plus I liked the idea that there are 18 books in the series that I get to read if I like.

Stephanie Plum has just lost her job and is running out of options.   She’s sold her furniture to pay bills and needs to find a job.  Her mother suggests asking her Cousin Vinnie for an office job.  Vinnie runs a bail bonding company and as luck would have it, doesn’t need anyone for the office.  He is down a couple of bounty hunters though and Stephanie talks him into giving her his most wanted fugitive worth $10,000.00 to her if she can bring him in.  The fugitive is a police officer accused of killing an unarmed man.  The good part is she went to high school with him and Stephanie figures bringing him in will be easy. Of course it isn’t or there wouldn’t be a book.  Much mayhem ensues with Stephanie becoming the target of an insane boxer and the fugitive police officer coming to her rescue a few times. 

I enjoyed the story and will continue to read the series.  Stephanie has a crazy Italian family with a Grandmother who will have you laughing out loud.  I could do with less sexy bits but I’m a bit of a prude when it comes to my reading most people probably wouldn’t be bothered by it.  It does fit in with the story so I’m hoping that the rest of the series is a bit tamer in that regard.  On the whole though it was a quick easy read and I looked forward to Two for the Dough, the next book.

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