Reading on a Rainy Day

It didn’t help that Norma had all the girlish charm of a boulder. Girl Waits With Gun has one of the most fascinating premises that I have come across. A woman made a Sheriff (US's first) after she stands up to some goons? Give me more! I'll happily drink up to that! Constance Kopp and her sisters - Norma and Fleurette - were riding into town on their buggy (this is 1914) when an automobile driven by Henry Kauffman comes smashing into them. The rogue Kauffman denies any wrongdoing and gets his muscled henchmen to intimidate the women. Towering over most men in her town, Constance barely registered any fear and so sent letters to Kaufmann asking him to pay. Kauffman however knew where the women were staying and his threats reached their home as well. This drives Constance to complain to the Sheriff, who resourceful as he is, struggles with Kauffman quite a bit. I don't know if that sounds like an enticing enough summary to you, but if it does not, please igno...

The ease. Us, the children … I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery. Dana had just moved to a new apartment with her husband, Kevin, and was helping him set up his bookshelf, when she started feeling very dizzy. The sensation was immediate and unexpected, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a strange place. The apartment and the books had vanished; Kevin was also nowhere near her. Instead she found herself at a riverside, staring at someone struggling in the river. Keeping her worries and questions aside, she jumped into the river and carried the nearly drowning boy to the shore. A woman came to her, wailing that her son was dead. Dana simply kept her cool, yelled at the woman to be quiet, gave the boy CPR and announced to the mother that the boy will live. The woman's husband arrived on the scene with a gun pointed at Dana's face. Terrified for her life, Dana felt the same dizziness overwhelm her and within seconds, she had ...

Every time Mrs. Wentworth came at me, I thought of Mama. [...] But Mama could never know. I was tied to Mrs. Wentworth now. The wage they had agreed upon was meant to keep Mama alive. If I ran away, I feared Mrs. Wentworth would come after Mama. She'd be left with nothing - no clothes to wear, no place to sleep, no food in her belly. My bruises were a small price to pay. Twelve-year old Moth was born into the poorest of the slums in 1870s New York, to a fortune-telling mother and a father who abandoned them when she was three. Named Moth by her father because a tree told him to do so, Moth was sold into servitude by her mother in exchange for a fortune. Despite her attempts to blend into the new household, she ends up detesting the lady of the house - so much that she was willing to risk thieving to escape. And then begins a new life for Moth - at the infant school, where virgin girls are taught how to charm and seduce a man until eventually their virginity is sold. On the p...

She nodded yes. Her jaw was clenched shut. After everything they'd shared, what did Pavel take her for? Something that could be forsaken along with the silverware and linens? He should have known better, she thought. She'd been taken advantage of too many times already. She would not be made the fool, not again, not this time. Imagine if a war is brewing around you, but you don't have the knowledge of WW2, its history, causes, and its ultimate two tragedies (the Holocaust and the atom bombings) and their repercussions. Imagine that you are not lucky enough to have read about what Hitler did, from your living room or classroom, and rail against his actions in indignation, disgust and disbelief. Imagine that WW2 never happened - instead it is only going to happen, soon, in exactly the same way and we are going to be puppets in Hitler's hands, again. As a member of a designated "inferior" race, would you trust the people who stood ...

"Comrade, sir, I assure you we believe fully in the theories of Marx and Lenin," said Dao. We believe absolutely in communism, the most wonderful ideal of mankind, the youngest, the freshest ideal in all of history. But if a single style is imposed on all writers and artists, the day is not far off when all flowers will be turned into chrysanthemums."  (The above was actually told by the Vietnamese intellectual leader, Phan Khoi , but the author has attributed them to her character, Dao, in this fictionalized story set in one of Vietnam's darkest times. - As mentioned in her note at the end of the book ) The Beauty of Humanity Movement is a story about Vietnam - about one of its warring times that the United States had nothing to do with. In fact, the better-known US-Nam war is only mentioned in passing - almost because it actually happened, not because it had any connection to this story. Old Man Hung serves pho to his faithful customers every ...

"The fellow in the corner of the room -- do you see him?" He did not seem frightened; instead he looked almost conspiratorial, as if they had come upon some unexpected animal in the forest and he was deciding whether he wanted to spook the animal for fun, or merely stay still and watch it. Louise looked and saw only an empty wooden chair, bathed by the dimming light of late afternoon. 13, rue Thérèse is being talked about as a puzzle novel - with plenty of pictures and puzzles, and a narrator who tries to piece them together. Not quite unlike a suspense thriller, but this one is set in a totally unique setting and the story is told in a very unusual way. American Professor, Trevor Stratton, has just arrived in Paris to teach, and finds in his new office a small box full of artifacts from the WW1 period. His secretary placed them there for him to feast his research-oriented mind on them, but he doesn't know that yet. As he picks up item after item, he tries...

I wish I could remember whose review compelled me to read this book - so much that I still remember snatches of that review. When I saw this ebook for under six bucks on the Barnes and Noble website, I had to grab it. It was the perfect read on the 30/45-minutes-to-anywhere NY public transportation system. Sometimes, I read it on my nook, and sometimes on my phone (I'm beginning to completely appreciate the utility of the ebook). The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is actually a collection of essays, set during the Vietnam war, and focusing more on the experiences of the other members of Tim's platoon. It starts ostensibly as a list of the men's possessions, intriguingly tied with their own habits, preferences and beliefs. Henry Dobbins, who was a big man, carried extra rations; he was especially fond of canned peaches in heavy syrup over pound cake. Dave Jensen, who practiced field hygiene, carried a toothbrush, dental floss, and several hotel-size bars of...

Seven-year old Rachel Kalama is like any other girl living with her family in Honolulu. Her father is a merchant seaman who is away from home for months at a time. Her mother works hard to bring up four kids. Rachel and her older sister, Sarah, fight like typical siblings, until one fight turns ugly and Rachel returns home with minor injuries. That's when her mother notices a bleeding rash on her thigh, which Rachel could not feel. Rachel is proud that she isn't complaining (not even feeling) an injured spot in her body. But her mother is anxious and worried. She gives the injury a couple of weeks to heal, and when there's been no change, Rachel's parents dress her up in long skirts and shoes to cover the spots. Her mother visits a local doctor privately for help, and Rachel is barred from removing her shoes ever in public (much to Rachel's anger). Until one day, something happens in the school grounds in front of a large crowd that reveals to everyone what is wr...

Fourteen year old Lily Owens has been tormented by the same memory since she was four - the events of the afternoon her mother died. She stays with her harsh father, T. Ray, in a peach farm in South Carolina - a father who never acknowledges her birthday, doesn't buy her anything, and is nothing like a father should be. When he wants to punish her, he makes her kneel on grits for an hour. Her only real companion is the fierce, sometimes-outspoken, black woman, Rosaleen. Then something happens that prompts Lily to leave her father and her home to a place called Tiburon along with Rosaleen. There, she stays with three black beekeeping sisters, August, June and May, who provide such delightful company and eventually helps Lily get answers to the questions with which she arrived there. I had been putting off reading this book for so long because I knew nothing about it, and the bee-word was honestly a little repulsive. (I have serious issues with any kind of small creepy crawly...

In nineteenth-century China, six-year old Lily is just beginning the rituals towards becoming a woman. As per custom, her foot is to be bound and her marriage fixed in a few years, even though it will be much later before she starts staying with her to-be-husband. Even before she begins her initiation, her fate and that of her aunt's daughter, Beautiful Moon, are beginning to get intertwined with that of a girl named Snow Flower. I listened to this book a couple of months back, and my review comes really late. So while I probably forgot a few points, there is so much about this book that is still with me. For starters, I am not an audiobook fan, but I'm beginning to understand that it's more due to unengaging narrators than the audio book itself. Janet Song, the narrator of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan , does an impressive job in evoking the character emotions and conveying the tragedies and happiness. Girls in China had their feet bound at six years of age. I had ...

It is by chance that José Saramago stumbled upon the history of this elephant's journey. In 1551, King João III of Portugal gave Archduke Maximilian an unusual wedding present - an elephant named Solomon. Solomon and his Indian mahout, Subhro, travel from Lisbon to Vienna with a interesting motley of characters. The details of the travel are not historically known, but Saramago has woven an interesting fictional tale recounting that journey. I have to confess that my expectations from this book were low. I had never read Saramago before, although I did try to read his The Stone Raft , with which I didn't have any success. I was very worried about whether his books were even for me. But finally, the title is what prompted me to request this book from NetGalley . I then received a protected PDF that would expire within 60 days. Since I wasn't too keen to read it, I let the days lapse by, until eventually I found myself on a flight to NY with no reading planned. By then, I...

This is a book that needs no introduction. In fact, I had no idea either what the book was about before starting it. I don't recall ever reading the synopsis, which I now read for the first time. The Color Purple is a book of letters. Celia is a black woman who is so ashamed of her life that she cannot even talk of it to God. So she writes to God instead. She starts writing at age 14, and chronicles her life for the next 20 years. Raped and abused by her father, she wants to prevent her sister Nettie from the same fate. Eventually she gets married to "Mr. _____" (whose surname is never revealed). This man beats her, which she yields to, believing that it is proper for a man to beat his wife. In fact, she is so submissive, she doesn't ever protest. Then she meets Shug, an attractive, independent black woman who has always been attracted to Celie's husband. Through Shug, Celie learns to express herself more and discovers her creative self. In Shug, she finds ...