Little Thoughts About Books and Stuff

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri Summary:  Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant. Little Thoughts : This book is the January recommendation from Amanda. I couldn't agree more with the summary that this collection of short stories is elegant and touching; they were beautiful yet very heartbreaking stories.  Before I started this book, someone mentioned th...

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger Summary:   In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota's Gilead River, the Lincoln Indian Training School is a pitiless place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O’Banion, a lively orphan boy whose exploits constantly earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Odie and his brother, Albert, are the only white faces among the hundreds of Native American children at the school.      After committing a terrible crime, Odie and Albert are forced to flee for their lives along with their best friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage. Out of pity, they also take with them a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. Together, they steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi in search for a place to call home.      Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphan vagabonds journey into the unknown, cro...

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore My rating: 4 of 5 stars Date Finished:  February 15, 2022 Goodreads Summary:  England, 1879. Annabelle Archer, the brilliant but destitute daughter of a country vicar, has earned herself a place among the first cohort of female students at the renowned University of Oxford. In return for her scholarship, she must support the rising women's suffrage movement. Her charge: recruit men of influence to champion their cause. Her target: Sebastian Devereux, the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery who steers Britain's politics at the Queen's command. Her challenge: not to give in to the powerful attraction she can't deny for the man who opposes everything she stands for. Sebastian is appalled to find a suffragist squad has infiltrated his ducal home, but the real threat is his impossible feelings for green-eyed beauty Annabelle. He is looking for a wife of equal standing to secure the legacy he has worked so hard to rebuild, not an ...

Abandoned in Death by J.D. Robb My rating: 5 of 5 stars Date Finished:  February 21, 2022 Goodreads Summary:  Homicide detective Eve Dallas must untangle a twisted family history while a hostage’s life hangs in the balance—in the new In Death novel by #1 New York Times bestselling J. D. Robb. The woman’s body was found on a bench in a New York City playground. She was clean, her hair neatly arranged, her makeup carefully applied. But other things were very wrong—like the tattoo and piercings, clearly new. The clothes, decades out of date. The fatal wound hidden beneath a ribbon around her neck. And the note: Bad Mommy, written in crayon as if by a child. It seems clear the killer’s childhood was traumatic—a situation Eve is all too familiar with herself. Yet the clues point to a perpetrator who’d be around sixty, and there are no records of old crimes with a similar MO. What was the trigger that apparently reopened such an old wound and sent someone over the edge? When Eve...

The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley My rating: 4 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary:  As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh’s doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, removed from sunshine and fresh air, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her. After her father dies unexpectedly, leaving her his vast fortune, Anne has a moment of clarity: what if her life of fragility and illness isn’t truly real? What if she could free herself from the medicine that clouds her sharp mind and leaves her body weak and lethargic? Might there be a better life without the medicine she has been told she cannot live without? In a frenzy of ...

Run: Book One by John Lewis My rating: 5 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary:  “In sharing my story, it is my hope that a new generation will be inspired by Run to actively participate in the democratic process and help build a more perfect Union here in America.” –Congressman John Lewis The sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series March—the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Selma voting rights campaign.  To John Lewis, the civil rights movement came to an end with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. But that was after more than five years as one of the preeminent figures of the movement, leading sit–in protests and fighting segregation on interstate busways as an original Freedom Rider. It was after becoming chairman of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and being the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. It was after helping organize the Mis...

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan My rating: 2 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary:  On a chilly February day, two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence. Clive is Britain's most successful modern composer; Vernon is editor of the quality broadsheet The Judge. Gorgeous, feisty Molly had other lovers, too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister. In the days that follow Molly's funeral, Clive and Vernon will make a pact with consequences neither has foreseen. Each will make a disastrous moral decision, their friendship will be tested to its limits, and Julian Garmony will be fighting for his political life.A contemporary morality tale that is as profound as it is witty, this short novel is perhaps the most purely enjoyable fiction Ian McEwan has ever writt...

Title:  Someday, Someday, Maybe Author:   Lauren Graham Publication Date:  April 28, 2013 Rating:  3 Stars Reading Challenge:  Book Riot Read Harder 2022 - Read the book that's been on your TBR the longest Synopsis:  From Lauren Graham, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, comes a witty, charming, and hilariously relatable debut novel about a struggling young actress trying to get ahead―and keep it together―in New York City. It’s January 1995, and Franny Banks has just six months left of the three-year deadline she set for herself when she came to New York, dreaming of Broadway and doing “important” work. But all she has to show for her efforts so far is a part in an ad for ugly Christmas sweaters, and a gig waiting tables at a comedy club. Her roommates―her best friend Jane, and Dan, an aspiring sci-fi writer―are supportive, yet Franny knows a two-person fan club doesn’t exactly count as success. Everyone tells her she needs a backup plan, a...

   Photo copyright K.S. Brooks.  Do not use without attribution. Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge It was the same thing every year. I trek out to a cemetery no one else I know is buried in to pay my respects to someone I didn’t even know on New Year’s Day because someone I love asked me to, which was all fine and good when she was alive, but she’s dead now too.  Yet here I am, kind of hungover, freezing my butt off going to pay my respects to a stranger.  The ice-covered snow crunches beneath my Uggs as I maneuver my way between headstones and plots, carefully trying not to walk over someone’s resting place. The sound is muffled as if every other sound once you cross over the property line. The cars on the street not even 100 feet away aren’t as loud as you’d think they should be. It’s like the whole cemetery is under a sound-dampening dome or something.  The flock of geese flying overhead should be a racket, but yet they are entirely silent. It’s k...

    Okay so not much has changed from my last Monday post except that I finished one book.  Currently Reading: The Girls in the Stilt House  by Kelly Mustian Date Started:  September 8 Goodreads Summary:  Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her hard life on the swamp and her harsh father. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father. Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she's holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see in Ohio. As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must com...

This week I'm doing a 5K Your Way for Libraries to help raise money for EveryLibrary - You can donate by going to my page here - Amelia's Team Page for Lit Chicks I'm doing my 5K by writing 5 thousand words.  I was going to do a 5k word short story, but it might end up being a series of flash fiction/short stories. Sunday, September 26  - Word Count: 807 Morning in the Library It started off like any other Monday morning. I unlocked the side door to our building, disengaged the alarm, and then locked the side door.  You would think patrons wouldn’t attempt to enter the library through a staff-only door before operating hours, but you’d be wrong. I dropped my stuff in my office before making my way to the break room to start the coffee.  It’s the unofficial rule of the branch, first, one to come in in the morning starts the pot and everyone needs to make it the same way, one scoop per 1 cup water.  Coffee started; I headed out into our small brick branch of a lar...

So wasn't really thrilled with either thing I wrote last week, but at least I'm writing! Prompt: Dear Mom D o you remember that pool party you and dad were hosting when you dove into the pool, fully clothed to rescue the doll I pitched into the deep end on a whim when I was three?  I wanted to see if she could swim, you wanted to prevent a future meltdown when I no longer had her to cuddle to sleep. E very observant, I’m still not sure how you noticed I had thrown it in when you were over on the other side of the backyard talking to Mrs. Cress.  But there you came out of nowhere to leap into the pool to rescue Masiey, causing quite the stir as all the guest turned to look at the commotion.   A dmittedly, I did know better than to throw her into the pool. You had warned me not to throw my toys into the pool after the incident with the barbie, and that one time with the princess crown.  They always sink to the bottom and get stuck in the filter on the floor of the...

  So trying to get back into this blog journal thing I've got going. I always start strong at the start of the year and then mid way through I stop.  But since the title includes and things, I thought I'd start to share some of the things I do in the kitchen.  I recently started subscribed Persnickety Plates newsletter list and one of the first ones I got was for these Easy Garlic Bites . I instantly pinned it because I am always looking for easy recipes to make after work and this one fit the bill. The only thing I needed was to pick up steak at the store as I had everything else in the pantry.   I served the steak bites with Knorr Pasta Sides - Stragonoff noodles.  It made for an easy and tasty meal 5 out of 5 will make again!

  So I've started a number of books, and have yet to finish them if they haven't been an auido version. But I'm going to hunker down and finish all three of these physical books!  Currently Reading: Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen Date Started:  August 25 Goodreads Summary:  Do you feel like your life is an endless to-do list? Do you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram because you’re too exhausted to pick up a book? Are you mired in debt, or feel like you work all the time, or feel pressure to take whatever gives you joy and turn it into a monetizable hustle? Welcome to burnout culture.   While burnout may seem like the default setting for the modern era, in Can’t Even, BuzzFeed culture writer and former academic Anne Helen Petersen argues that burnout is a definitional condition for the millennial generation, born out of distrust in the institutions that have failed us, the unrealistic exp...

 I'm only sharing the one prompt today because I wanna work more with the other one and I'm not ready to share it yet.   Prompt: Only human He kept humming the bars of a song. The earworm was stuck firmly implanted in his brain as he tried to work on a budget report, a memo about quarterly spending, and reformatting a spreadsheet his coworker had messed up. But what was the song? He caught himself humming it while alone on the elevator at work and wondered again for the thousandth time what the song was and why it was stuck in his head. After lunch, he put his headphone in and tried to drown it out by listening to any other song on his playlist. When that didn’t work he decided maybe he should try to find out the song title. This way he could eradicate it by listening to the real song. He opened up the app on his phone to identify songs and hummed. Yea, that didn’t work. Maybe Jessica knew what song it was, he sent her a text explaining the situation and t...

 A few weeks ago I attended my first virtual write-in.  We were given a prompt, some time to write, and then volunteers could read.  The first prompt was: did I just say that out loud I freeze, did I just say that out loud? I ask myself as I notice the sound coming from my computer has stopped.  I quickly looked down to the bottom of my screen to see if I was muted or not.  The red slash is there across the microphone icon and I relax slightly at the sight.  “Amber, did you want to add anything to the discussion? I believe you are muted.” I click to unmute myself, “No, sorry I was just talking to myself as I took notes.  I will add now that I am unmuted that I really like the direction this project is headed in.” I quickly mute myself, not that I feel any better about telling everyone on the call that I talk to myself. I spend the rest of the meeting nodding along, taking notes and clearly not talking to myself. No sooner does the meeting end then...

   Photo copyright K.S. Brooks.  Do not use without attribution. Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge There is something special about watching the sunrise over the ocean. I have felt this way ever since I was a child, and my mother would wake us up early in the morning to make the one-hour drive to the shore.  Barely awake, we’d trudge down the sand until we were close enough to hear the waves and feel the saltwater on our faces but far enough back not to get wet. We’d huddle together on the blanket in serious childhood debate, waiting for those first rays to change the sky from dark blue to a wild array of colors.  As we got older, the trips were few and far between, but mom always insisted on at least one group trip a year on Thanksgiving morning. Over the years, we transitioned from one car to multiple cars, from mom driving herself to a rotation of being picked up by a child and a yearly debate on if significant others and children will be invited....

The prompt was to pick captions from 2 pictures and then connect them.  These are the captions I chose: The proposed warehouse on Kuser Road The decision to include these red-eyed bugs in ice cream was a “special” one for {Gabby} and business partner {Matt} (changed names) Here's what I wrote: The proposed warehouse on Kuser Road hit a roadblock last week when crews out to survey the site released a swarm of bugs.  The workers were taking a soil sample when the bugs rose from the ground swarming out of the hole.  The swarm was rather large and now has infested the town, residents have been advised to seal up their homes and only venture out when necessary.  These rather large flying insects have already caused 2 traffic accidents, damage to one local convenience store, and caused the cancellation of various outside events. Local pest control businesses are booming as they are offering sealing services to help keep the bugs out of your homes and businesses.  Loca...

  Photo copyright K.S. Brooks.  Do not use without attribution. Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge I didn't get this entry finished and while I like what I've started here, I'm stuck so if you have any imput I'm open to hear it!  * * * “I hate my job.”  He took my hand as we walked down the wet sidewalk, just the sound of my heels and the occasional car that passed by.  We turned the corner onto the busy street and merged with the flow of peditian traffic. “I used to love my job, but now I sit across a desk and deliver some of the worst news people can be getting right now.  I’m the face these people will always connect with losing their jobs. When I walk the halls, no one will meet my eyes, like I’m some sort of severance medusa and just a glance from me will mean the end of their income.” He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, this was a rant he’s heard before and no words were needed.  He knew how hard it was on me, it was harder on him, being one ...

 I was IT support for the first meeting of the library system's virtual writers group. I listened for most of the meeting but decided to participate in the writing prompt.  We had about 15 minutes to write. The prompt was to write something in the format of Joe Brainard's I Remember.  The prompt had me remembering a poem I had to write for something a creative writing class and I took the idea of that poem and expanded it: I remember our nights together; the taste of whiskey in your kisses and the smell of it on your breath.  I remember the feel of your hands and the soft curses we both spoke in the back room of the bar, in the kitchen of your apartment, or the bedroom of mine.  I remember how your kisses had the same effect as a shot of whiskey short-circuiting my brain.  I remember every whispered promise of love, marriage, and family.  I remember the night those promises stopped when I walked into the bar to see your hands on another woman.  I ...