Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
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I read this book in one afternoon—it was that good! The title refers to the way that they teach children to spell Mississippi in the South (M, I, crooked-letter, crooked-letter, I, crooked-letter, crooked-letter, I, humpback, humpback, I). Given that information, it is not surprising that the story takes place in rural Mississippi. This is the intriguing story of two boys who grew up in the 1970s and were friends—one black and one white. One never leaves the town because he was accused of killing a girl in his high school when she disappeared, and the other leaves and comes back later to be the town constable. Did Larry Ott really kill the girl he dated and took to the drive-in movie? Why hasn’t her body ever been found? Why does he remain in the town and keep running the local gas station even though no one ever comes there? What about
This book was initially reviewed by Suzanne back in September 2009. Based on her review I added this novel to my “must read” list and am very glad I did. Like Suzanne, I was initially intimated by its large size, but the first chapter got me hooked. By the time I had come to the end of the book I was sorry to be done with it. Kathyrn Stockett draws you into the time period and the lives of her three main female characters. I couldn’t decide which one was my favorite. It was such a refreshing change to see this time period and its racial tension portrayed from a female point of view (let alone three). I lived through these womens’ daily lives, heartaches, dreams, and their determination to survive and make a difference. 
Grand tales of high adventure as northmen go a-viking in pursuit of silver and gold across a tumultuous Europe of the Tenth Century A.D. are spun by Frans G. Bengtsson in “The Long Ships”. He brings alive this time when the continent trembled at the approach of the men in the dragon ships and people changed their religion at the whim of their Kings from the old pagan gods, to Christianity or to Islam. He depicts battles large and small, but also great feasts with ale and mead as well as contests where poets sling praise or insults in equal measure. These marvelous stories follow the engaging and very human hero Red Orm, he is a bit of a hypochondriac and frequently plagued by doubts as to the status of his ‘luck’. Orm’s adventures begin when he is a strapping young lad kidnapped by Krok’s raiding party in the first tale called “The Long Voyage”. Orm becomes a valued member of the crew and his facility with language puts him in a leadership position when he and his men enter the service of the Muslim Lord Almansur of the Moorish caliphate in Spain. The second story “In King Ethelred’s Kingdom” finds Red Orm at the center of an invasion of England where a propitious conversion to Christianity advances his romance of a Princess. The third story “In the Border Country”, finds Orm setting up his new home and meeting his less than welcoming neighbors. The fourth story is another voyage of adventure across the Russian steppes in search of “The Bulgar Gold”. Bengtsson was considered a major writer in advancing the art of the essay in Swedish, but he brings a warmth and humor to the telling of these tales and the reader shares his great sense of fun as each one unfolds.
I pulled out a wonderful book from my ’snowy day’ shelf. The Birchbark House takes place in 1847. It follows the life of a 7 year old Ojibwe girl named Omakayas, which means Little Frog. She and her family live on an Island in Lake Superior. Through their experiences you learn of the
After hearing a recommendation about this book, I decided to get it to see if someone that has no cooking experience could use it. I must say the book is easy to follow and the recipes are all healthy. I couldn’t believe there was a healthy way to make brownies, but there was and it tasted pretty good. It does get annoying sometimes when he uses ingredients that aren’t easy to find, unless you frequent health food stores. I like all the nutritional facts for all the recipes, its especially good if your keeping your fat or calorie intake to a certain level. I must admit the food doesn’t taste as good as the fatty foods are, but when it comes to eating healthy its the best tasting I’ve had. This book isn’t for everyone, got to be committed to healthy recipes or this will be a waste, he barely uses any salt, sugar, butter, or anything that makes things taste good, but he motivates you to think about your body’s well-being.
Come one, come all, step right up and pay your nickel to meet the freaks in Ellen Bryson’s book “The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno: A Novel” wherein she brings alive the world of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum through the eyes of the title character Bartholomew ‘Barthy’ Fortuno A.K.A. The World’s Thinnest Man. The book opens with the birds-eye view of its protagonist observing the bustle of post-Civil War New York City from his perch on the fourth floor of the American Museum where he had resided for nearly a decade remarking, “In fact, whenever possible, I avoided leaving Barnum’s Museum at all. A man like me had no business in the wider world. Let the outside world come to me and pay to do it.” Like a special bird Fortuno is happy to sing for his supper in a gilded cage, yet moments later he will observe the arrival of a stranger whose presence will ignite the transformative events of the story. Most of Bryson’s central characters are members of Barnum’s cast of human curiosities including a fat lady, a strong man and a giantess. All of them work and reside at Barnum’s American Museum which was a catch-all cultural center covering interests high and low, part-circus, part-theatre, and part-museum, being both educational and full of hokum. In addition to the famous showman Phineas Taylor Barnum, real-life people featured in the story include his wife Charity Barnum and the famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. 
If you know Lewis Black, you know that he is very funny and loves to criticize everything and even Christmas can’t be spared. He makes fun of everything related to the holidays; he keeps you smiling hours after you have read it with mixes of his own holiday memories from years past. I found it very easy to read, the language is pretty simple with big lettering, and the most important being its short length. The humor can be vulgar so the book isn’t for everyone, but its definitely the type of humor a Jon Stewart crowd would love. 
This is another behind the scenes look at professional wrestling in the past fifty years. Vince McMahon is the god of wrestling for decades and this book mentions him more than anyone else and for good reason. If your not a wrestling fan you wont enjoy reading this book, but Vince is married to Linda McMahon who has become a contender for a seat on the senate and this book could help anyone trying to take the McMahon’s down. The title reveals that wrestling has plenty of drugs, sex, and of-course wrestling with Vince McMahon having a blind eye to all that is happening and basically is looking out for himself. This book will be boring for non-wrestling fans, but there are fun true stories that can be entertaining for anyone, but the real appeal is to see the guy Linda McMahon has married, it may have people look at her in a different light.
I love epics. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that before on this blog, but I love a good epic. Gone With the Wind, (John Jakes’s) North and South, and The Thorn Birds all rank among my favorite books. The coming on of autumn put me in the mood to read a good epic - and the recent release of Follett’s latest, Fall of Giants, inspired me to finally take Pillars of the Earth off the shelf and give it a go.
After reading Leigh’s log about Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin, I had to check out the author for myself and I was not disappointed. Baby Proof was an enjoyable read. Emily has a talent for writing about real relationships and I felt connected to her characters. In fact I noticed a lot of similarities between myself and Claudia, the main character in this book. I thought many times while reading, I would do that or I would say that. Emily tells the truth about relationships, both the good thing and the bad. Baby Proof takes you through the various stages of Claudia and Ben’s love life - the marriage, the divorce, the aftermath, and the reconciliation. 