November books

I really enjoyed reading The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. I wanted to read this during the winter time, so November was close. My heart ached for this past middle-aged couple who longed for a child.  Their desire for a child led them to kind of imagine a snow child, out of the snow child they made after the first winter snowfall. It was kind of a fantasy book, and at times it was kind of driving me crazy, but I kept me guessing throughout the book. The writing was beautiful and I enjoyed the journey through the Alaska fierce winter, and other challenges of that wilderness. The couple left their home in Pennsylvania, and family behind to forge a new life together.

Pg. 34: It would be a hard life, but it would be theirs alone. Here at the world's edge, far from everything familiar and safe, they would build a new home in the wilderness and do it as partners, out from under the shadow of cultivated orchards and expectant generations.

Pg. 155: ...can we choose our own endings, our joy over sorrow? Or does the cruel world just give and take, give and take, while we flounder through the wilderness?

Pg. 177: It was as if Esther (neighbor friend) knew exactly what memories she had conjured, and Mabel (main character) understood--she had gone through labor, it only to deliver a dead child. She had survived that, hadn't she? It was if she had reached into her own pocket and discovered a small pebble, as hard as a diamond, that she had forgotten belonged to her.

Pg. 270: She was in love. Eight years she'd loved here, and at last the land had taken hold of her, and she could comprehend some small part of Faina's wildness.

The seasons of the past six years had been like an ocean tide, giving and taking, pulling the girl away and then bringing her back. Each spring Faina left for the alpine high country where the caribous migrated and the mountains cupped eternal snow., and Mabel no longer wept, though she knew she would miss her.

Pg. 351: I love you child, she whispered. Faina's face was quiet and kind I wish to be the mother you are to me, she said so softly Mabel doubted her own ears. But those were the words she spoke, and Mabel took them into her heart and held them there forever.

Mabel and Jack endured so much together. Their love was strengthened by their relationship with Faina. The book didn't end the way I would have liked, but probably the way that was best for Faina. She was a strange, mysterious creature, that was difficult to really figure out, but that definitely kept the book quite magical.

I'm glad I read it, especially, too, because Julia loved it and she even had the chance to meet her and listen to her speak in person.

I listened to A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Another great classic on how to view the world through the lens that I'm special, no matter what others say or do, "I'm a Princess."

Pg. 178: "Whatever comes, she said, cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside I would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.

Sara was a remarkable character She could look at life through positive eyes. She could live in a terrible attic, and make the best of it. She made friends with animals, and could see that even a rat can be liked instead of feared.

Pg. 141: How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can alway speak, without even making a sound, or another soul. But whatsoever was the reason, the rat knew from that moment that he was safe--even though he was a rat.

I listened to The Magnolia Story by Chip & Joanna Gaines. I read it earlier this year, but it was our Book Club book of the month, so I listened to it this time and enjoyed it so much more to have their personally tell their story. I really loved how they turned to God for help, gave him the credit for the good in their lives, reached out and served others, would not let hardships get them down, but tackled their problems head on, how family was important to them, and many other good qualities.

The Secret Garden - by Frances Hodgson Burnett
5 stars
Read:November 2017

Loved this classic. So many good, quotable lines. Good wisdom to live by.

I read and listened to this while in Hawaii helping Meredith with her new baby. It is one of my favorite books. I learned so many good lessons from this book.Where, you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow. Loved this classic. So many good, quotable lines. Good wisdom to live by.

Where, you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow. 

The Railway Children - by E. Nesbit

4 stars

Finished: Nov. 15, 2017 This is an endearing children's classic. I was impressed with the courage of these young siblings and their good desires to help others, make friends, and give service willingly. Because they were good to others, goodness was returned to them in the ways they needed it most.

October 2017 books

I finished reading: The Remains of the Day, on Oct. 6, 2017, by Kazuo Ishiguro, 258 pages

I always love it when the fall begins, the leaves change to their magnificent colors of red, orange and gold, and we also meet to pick the books for the year for our Book Club. This September we met at our home. Cathy Hansen chose, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro because she asked Dallin for his pick and he said this was one of his top 5 favorite books.

It took me awhile to get into it as it seemed stiff and kind of boring. I was trying to look for more of the hidden meaning. About half way through I purchased some book darts and I began using them on passages that were meaningful to me. Becoming more involved in the book helped me gain more out of it. In the end I found it very sad. The butler, Mr. Stevens, ended up with an empty life because he was so focused on his professional career he couldn't allow his heart to feel, he couldn't feel, he experienced a failure of feelings. He wanted his contribution in life to be worth something, and then in the end it didn't amount to much. He trusted in his employer, Lord Darlington, and in the end, he let him down as the choices of Lord Darlington led him to be sympathetic to the Nazis.

He had an opportunity to love as Miss Kenton (Housekeeper) did admire him and have feelings for him, but he couldn't allow that to be a part of his life. He chose what he thought was the better part, being the best butler he could be, but what remained at the end of the day, so to speak, was nothing.

Some of his memories brought some satisfaction:
Pg. 110: ...I did perhaps display, in the face of everything, at least in some modest degree a 'dignity' worthy of someone like Mr Marshall--or come to that, my father. Indeed, why should I deny it? For all its sad associations, whenever I recall that evening today, I find I do so with a large sense of triumph.

Pg. 114: I think it fair to say, professional prestige lay most significantly in the moral worth of one's employer.

Pg. 116:.....each of us harboured the desire to make our own small contribution to the creation of a better world, and saw that, as professionals the surest means of doing so would be to serve the great gentlemen of our times ion whose hands civilization had been entrusted.

Pg. 116: I must admit there is something to the argument that whatever the degree to which a butler has attained such a quality, if he has failed to find an appropriate outlet for his accomplishments he can hardly expect his fellows to consider him 'great.

Pg. 135: 'By the way, Stevens, Lord Halifax was jolly impressed with the silver the other night Put him into a quite different frame of mind altogether.' These were--I recollect it clearly--his lordship's actual words and so it is not simply my fantasy that the state of the silver had made a small, but significant contribution towards the easing of relations between Lord Halifax and Herr Ribbentrop that evening.

Pg. 139...the satisfaction of being able to say with some reason that one's efforts, in however modest a way, comprise a contribution to the course of history.

But perhaps one should not be looking back to the past so much. After all, I still have before me many more years of service I am required to give.

Pg. 153: (Miss Kenton) Whenever I thought of leaving, I just saw myself going out there and finding nobody who knew or cared about me. There, that's all my high principles amount to. I feel so ashamed of myself. But I just couldn't leave, Mr Stevens. I just couldn't bring myself to leave."

Pg. 189 (Harry Smith, politician in the small village) But the way I see if we owe it to the lads we lost from this village. That's why, sir, I give so much of my time now to making sure our voice gets heard in high places. And if it changes me, or sends me to an early grave, I don't mind.'

Pg. 239: (Miss Kenton) 'For a long time, I was very unhappy, very unhappy indeed. But then year after year went by, there was the way, Catherine grew up, and one day I realized I loved my husband. You spend so much time with someone, you find you get used to him....I've grown to love him.'

(Miss Kenton) '...occasions now and then --extremely desolate occasions when you think to yourself: "What a terrible mistake I've made with my life" And you get to thinking about a different life, a better life you might have had....I realize before long--my rightful place is with my husband. After all, there's no turning back the clock now. One can't be forever dwelling on what might have been. One should realize one has a good as most, perhaps better, and be grateful.'

Pg. 242-243: 'Since my new employer Mr Farraday arrived, I've tried very hard, very hard indeed, to provide the sort of service I would like him to have. I've tried and tried, but whatever I do I find I am far from reaching the standards I once set myself....more errors are appearing in my work....Goodness knows, I've tried and tried, but it's no use. I've given what I had to give. I gave it all to Lord Darlington.'

Pg. 243: Lord Darlington wasn't a bad man....able to say at the end of his life that he made his own mistakes....He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lordship's wisdom. I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really--one has to ask oneself--what dignity is there in that?'

Pg. 243: (The retired man) Don't keep looking back all the time, you're bound to get depressed. We've all got to put our feet up at some point. You've got to enjoy yourself. The evening's the best part of the day You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it....Ask anybody...The evening's the best part of the day.'

Pg. 245: (Strangers interacting in happy warm conversation). 'Listening to them now, I can hear them exchanging one bantering remark after another. It is, I would suppose, the way many people like to proceed...Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically, After all, when one thinks about it, it is not such a foolish thing to indulge in--particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth...I have of course already devoted much time to developing my bantering skills, but it is possible I have never previously approached the task with the commitment I might have done...I will begin practising with renewed effort.

 I finished reading : The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, on Oct. 10, 2017, by Jacqueline Kelly, 340 pages

I read this book because my granddaughter, Dorothy, nearly 10 years old was reading it, and I wanted to converse with her about it, and get an idea of what she was reading. The audio version is fun to listen to. It's a cute story of a young girl who develops a sweet relationship with her Grandfather, after being afraid of him for years. Their common interest in plants, animals, insects, etc. develops a strong bond between them, and they also have some interesting discoveries along the way.

"My name is Calpurnia Virginia Tate, but back then everbody called me Callie Vee. That summer, I was eleven years old and the only girl out of seven children. Can you imagine a worse situation?"

I started The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah on Oct. 13 and finished it on Oct. 25th. I love historical fiction, so this was a captivating book for me during WW II. The beginning of the book it says in the first paragraph: "If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today's young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention. Other parts of the story that had meaning to me.
Pg. 110 She took the short coil of crooked yarn and tied it to an apple tree branch. The burgundy color stood out against the green and brown. Now, each day in her garden and when she walked to her gate and when she picked apples, she would pass this branch and see this bit of yarn and think of Antoine. Each time she would pray--to him and to God--Come home.

Pg. 177 (Vianne talking to the Germany officer, Beck) In the silence between them, she heard a frog croak and the leaves fluttering in a jasmine-scented breeze above their heads. A nightingale sang a sad and lonely song.

Pg. 201 Isabelle: From now on, she was Juliette Gervaise, code name the Nightingale.

Pg. 219 Isabelle: The pride of what she'd accomplished in the Pyrenees had changed her, matured her. For the first time in her life, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

Pg. 233 Sophie & Sarah: The girls shuffled forward holding hands so tightly they appeared fused together. And in a way they were, as were Rachel and Vianne, joined by a friendship so strong it was maybe all they had left to believe in.

Pg. 234 Vianne's observance of Sarah's reluctance to wear the yellow star. "Vianne saw Sarah's fear and embarrassment and confusion. She was trying her best to be a good girl, to smile and be strong even as tears glazed her eyes. "Oui," she said a last. It was the saddest sound Vianne had heard in nearly three years of sorrow."

Pg. 324 Vianne trying to save children of Jewish parents. "Vianne looked down at her terrified daughter and saw her own fear replicated in the beloved eyes, and all at once she knew what she needed to do. 'We have to try to save him or we are as bad as they are,' she said. And there it was. She hated to bring her daughter into this, but what choice was there? 'I have to save this boy.'"

Pg. 438 Vianne: "Antoine was Julien's father in every way that mattered. It is not biology that determines fatherhood. It is love. I touch his cheek and gaze up at him. 'You brought me back to life, Julien. When I held you, after all that ugliness, I could breathe again. I could love your father again. I never realized that truth before. Julien brought me back. His birth was a miracle in the midst of despair.....I smile at them, my two boys (speaking of Ari or Daniel & Julien) who should have broken me. but somehow saved me. each in his own way. Because of the IO know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain."

The ending was so powerful. It pulled at all the emotions of the heart.