Catch Up #2

...or where my brain's been hiding out the last few months...

I was supposed to put Tonya and Brian's graduation pictures here today, but I'm still waiting to get some movie footage from Brent. So while I wait, I will take a diversion and share a little about the books I just finished reading. Martha, a friend from work, brought in a stack of books for me to pick from to read while we went to the Bahamas in March. I got side-tracked by a couple of other books, and this reading list had to wait a short while as I finished up the other stories.

These are the books she loaned me, and this is the order I read them in:
First came Edgar Sawtelle. "I can't wait for you to read that one," Martha said, because she was so anxious to talk to me about it. Sounds like a good recommendation, even if I've never heard of it (or any of the rest on this list). So I dived into it first.

Now if you like this book, you are in very good company. It was recommended by Oprah and one of its fans and supporters is Stephen King. So I started in on the over 550-page book with a little more than mere curiosity.

I found the writing to be very bold and genuine, an interesting combination of male toughness and endearing situations. I read with rapture, anxious to get to the part where all the problems resolve themselves, and was through it in record time. At the end I cried. Not because of the ending, but because in all the book the ending left me hollow. I spent that much time on a book that didn't end the way I wanted it to?! Now that is worth tears.

In retrospect, I can say I do recommend it as a fascinating exploration into the world of a young boy and his dogs. The boy, Edgar, cannot speak, by the way. He can hear. He can see. But he cannot speak. And the writing is good. The ending is NOT predictable, and for some that is the best recommendation ever. I just didn't care for it personally.

After the heaviness of Sawtelle, it was nice to relax into a series of fluff. The Big Stone Gap series is a trilogy. I read the first (Big Stone Gap) and the last (Milk Glass Moon), and never felt left out for not reading the middle book. It was fun to make friends with Ave Maria, to walk in her footsteps. She was Italian. Born in the U.S.A. but roots from Italy. I have one small part of me that is also Italian, so I had a fun time relating to that connection in the books which are part romance and part just plain dealing with life. Fine reading for a quick escape.




When I started Honk and Holler Opening Soon a few weeks ago, I expected about the same from it, but found of these four books this one caught my heart the best. This is the one I want to see well done on the big screen. This is the one that made me cry one minute and laugh out loud the next. It may not be a classic, but it definitely is a lovable, well written story. This is one I'd like to have a copy of on my bookshelf, to pull down and indulge in again and again. It was made for reading in front of the fire in the fireplace on a cold, winter day or even a dreary drizzly spring morning. It was made for reading while soaking in a steamy bubble bath without anything urgent requiring my attention. It's just that kind of story.