Midnight Voices by John Saul

Brad and Caroline Evans lived in a nice little cozy apartment on the East Side of Central Park in New York City which was a better neighborhood than the West Side with their two children 12 year old Laurie and 10 year old Ryan.  Brad had been telling Caroline lately that he felt like he was being watched and followed whenever he went out.  She thought he was just paranoid, until the night he went running late in Central Park.  He never came back.  He had been murdered, his neck snapped from behind. 

After Brad's death Caroline was skeptical of the park but when the kids insisted that they go and play with their friends, she relented, going with them.  Ryan ran to the baseball diamond and she and Laurie sat on a bench to watch.  Suddenly an old woman and a handsome young man sat down with them and started talking to them.  They seemed very nice.  She unwittingly told them all about herself and the next day the old woman showed up at the antique shop where Caroline worked.  She bought a large vase and asked Caroline to deliver it to her at her home which is the huge old spooky mansion called the Rockwell at the edge of the park not far from where Caroline lived with her children.   When she arrived and entered the building she was greeted by the doorman, who seemed like the butler in the haunted mansion at Disney World.  He spoke in monotones.  Suddenly the handsome man was there introducing himself as Anthony Fleming and told her that the old woman was up to her old tricks, trying to find him a wife.  He made her promise to have dinner with him and they decided to play along with the old woman's game.

That was the beginning of the whole nightmare.  Caroline and Anthony married a few months later and she and her children moved into the Rockwell.  Ryan didn't like it from the start recalling ghost and witch stories he had heard from his schoolmates.  They had told him that Rodney, the doorman, was a troll who lived under the bridge in the park.  He also didn't like Anthony Fleming or any of the other tenants in the Rockwell. 

Soon after moving in, both of the children start hearing noises and voices in the night.  Then people were coming into their rooms at night, particularly Laurie's room and hovering over her, poking her, whispering.  The people in her room were the neighbors, even a creepy doctor who lived in the building, started appearing in her room, crooning over her, touching her.  All three of them, Caroline, Laurie and Ryan, were being drugged through the food the neighbors so generously brought them.  But they didn't realize it at the time.  They shrugged it off as fatigue and nightmares. 

Laurie began being strapped to a gurney and taken out of her room every night at midnight, she was inserted with needles and tubes in every part of her body.  These people, the people that lived in the Rockwell, where hooked to the other ends of the tubes and needles, draining her youth out of her body and into theirs.  Then, one day all the old ladies where missing.  In their places where young ladies, who coincidently looked exactly like the older ladies.  Caroline was also being heavily sedated so that all this could take place without her intervening.  She eventually was taken to some creepy old hospital where she would be out of the way, and locked up there.  But Ryan had sensed something wrong about the neighbors from the start.  Locked in his room, he found a hidden door in his closet and found his way out of the house.  He went and found his mother and freed her, then the two went back to the Rockwell and saved Laurie, whose was close to death. 

While I was reading this book one day, in the middle of the afternoon, mind you, my son knocked on my bedroom door, and I just about jumped out of my skin.  I also chewed my nails, which I haven't done in a long time.  Very scary.  An action packed page turner.  It was published in 2002 by Ballantine Books.

Also see ----->Black Creek Crossing  by the same author. 

Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship That Saved Two POWs in Vietnam

by James S. Hirsch

This is the true story of a friendship that became legendary between two fighter pilots in a Northern Vietnamese POW camp which the inmates called the Zoo.  One prisoner, Fred Cherry, is one of the first black air force fighter pilot officers and the first black officer captured by the Vietnamese.  The other, Porter Halyburton, is a Navy pilot from the south, who at first couldn't believe that the black man could be a fighter pilot.  The Vietnamese put them in the same cell, believing that the racial barrier would torture the two. 
When Halyburton first saw Cherry, he was badly injured.  One arm, which was damaged in the plane crash, hung limp from his shoulder socket, he needed badly to bathe, and he could hardly walk.  Cherry was sure he would soon die.  Halyburton was also in bad emotional shape due to the daily interrogations and torture sessions, as well as being isolated from anyone for months.  He was taken to Cherry's cell, and told to "take care of him".  Both men had their doubts about each other.  One believing that other was a typical southern racist and the other not believing that his cell mate could possibly be a superior officer.  Halyburton began taking care of Cherry and helped him to bath, walked him around the cell to try and bring him "back to life", demanded that the guards give him medical attention, and often sacrificed his own meek rations so Cherry might gain weight. 

Meanwhile, on the home front, Cherry's wife had moved on with another man, had a new baby, and told Cherry's children that he was dead even though she knew he was alive.  Also, she squandered away almost all of his pay from the air force. $122,098.13 of the $147,184.00 that he had earned. 

Halyburton's wife and child remained faithful although he was thought dead and even had a memorial service in his absence.  After six years, she found out that he was alive and we share her mixed emotions, happiness and fear for husband.  She also plays a huge role in the American battle to bring the POWs home. 
In the end the two men tearfully admit that they had saved each other's lives.

I believe this is a really awesome, well researched book.  Hats off to James S. Hirsch for this story.  He has shown us how racial diversity can be overcome by sheer human kindness.  The book was published in 2004 by the Houghton Mifflin Company.

Black Creek Crossing

Black Creek Crossing by John Saul

Thirteen-year-old Angel Sullivan has always been shunned by other kids, teased and taunted because of her appearance and strange ways.  Then Angel's family moves to Roundtree, Massachusetts.  They are told from the beginning that all kinds of wierd things have happened in the little old house on Black Creek Road, but the lure of a new start for Angel's family beckons and they make the move anyway.  But when Angel is shunned even by her new classmates, she falls deeper into depression.  Until she meets Seth Baker, a fellow outcast.  The two become fast friends, but are constantly harrassed by the other kids as well as their own parents.  The two begin to  research the house and discover that a man had murdered his wife and daughter there.  And every other family who moved into the house hear voices, see visions, and many murders had taken place.  Angel and Seth are led to the basement of the house by a mysterious black cat where they find a very old book of witchcraft and begin to make potions against their enemies.  But once they had begun, there was no turning back.  The spirits of Black Creek Crossing had a hold on them.  And the day of reckoning comes. 

John Saul is the author of the national bestseller Midnight Voices, which I will definitely have to read after having read Black Creek Crossing.  This book was a fast paced page turner and actually gave me a nightmare on the first night that I was reading it!  My nightmare was totally unrelated but I'm positive that it was stemmed from the book.  It has all the classic haunts such as the black cat, the old cemetery with the mysterious big oak tree, witchcraft, and ghosts.  The book was published in 2004 and is a Ballantine Book by the Random House Publishing Group.  Go get it right away, you won't be sorry!

 

Autumn Reads

Having just finished off Maid Marian by Elsa Watson, a novel of Sherwood Forest with all the old beloved characters such as Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett, Clym O' the wood, Queen Eleanor of Aquitane, King Richard the Lionheart, and the Sheriff of Nottingham, I have a To Be Read pile in the works that I think are appropriate for the new season:   

The Haunted Abbot by Peter Tremayne   -    a tale of Ancient Ireland                   

Black Creek Crossing by John Saul         -     Supernatural Suspense    

Blood Kin by Henry Chapell              -     A haunting novel of early Texas

I'm excited about these autumn reads and will review each book soon!  Often, I get on theme kicks with my reading and lately it has been 18th and 19th centuries, such as westerns(Larry McMurtry is one of my favorites), early English History(The Dress Lodger), Civil War era(Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier), as well as American Indian novels.  But since the new season has arrived, I have more drawn to the supernatural and the new bestsellers.  Happy Reading.

 

Maid Marian

Maid Marian by Elsa Watson

As an infant, Marian is orphaned and heiress to great lands and fortunes.  She is married off at the age of five to a young nobleman, Lord Hugh of Sencaster.  The marriage joins her inheritance to his and vastly enriches his family.  When she is seventeen, Lord Hugh, whom she hasn't seen in years, mysteriously dies.  Now an unmarried widow, she becomes a ward of the King, who is off on crusade and cannot be bothered with such matters at home.  The Queen, Eleanor of Aquitane, takes it upon herself to marry Marian off, therefore the new husband would pledge his loyalty and silver to King Richard.  Marian knows she is irrelevant in the decision and is determined to stop this marriage.  She seeks out the help of the famous Robin Hood, Saxon outlaw of Sherwood Forest.  Of course, the outlaw, turns out to be not a bad person, but likeable, noble, and handsome.  She devises a plan for Robin and his merry men to intercept a letter from the Queen, which tells Lord Hugh's mother, Lady Pernelle, that Marian is to marry Hugh's younger brother Stephen.  Once married, her land becomes theirs and she could be easily disposed of.  Just before the wedding, during her pre-wedding confessional, Robin dressed as a priest, whisks her out of the castle lands and back to Sherwood Forest, where she begins an outlaw life and the two fall deeply in love.  Queen Eleanor believes Marian to be dead and Robin Hood and his outlaws help her regain her fortune and expose the treachery of her enemies. 

I have read many versions of Robin Hood and Lady Marian, and I found this particular version to be as good if not better than the others. I love to read of the middle ages and cultures of peoples of those times.  This book was published by Crown Publishers in New York and copyrighted in 2004.   I've written a review of other versions of Maid Marian in my archives.  See---->Lady of the Forest and its sequel Lady of Sherwood. 

The Long Journey Home

The Long Journey Home by Don Coldsmith

John Buffalo, a Lakota Sioux, is taken from his family and his home as a young boy and forced into the hostile world of the white man.  His is first sent to a school for Indian boys where he learns the customs and ways of whites.  It is at this school where it is soon discovered that John has an extraordinary talent in sports.  He is then sponsored by a famous Senator to go to a college in Pennsylvania to study and participate in sports there, particulary football and track and field, to possibly be in the Olympics.  He then falls in love with the Senators white daughter and upon discovery of the love affair, the Senator sends him back West to a lesser school and the daughter is sent to Europe to dissaude the couple.  After the two are broken apart, he is heartbroken and throws himself into his studies and sports, as well as his love of horses.  John decides to pursue a career of coaching but because of the prejudice of the times, is unable to find a job in that field.  He then goes to work for a German farmer breaking horses and has a real talent in that and is soon asked to go to work for The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Circus as a horse trainer.  It is during this time that he meets a young cowgirl whom he instantly falls in love with, but knowing that the union of the two would be frowned upon, they must hide their love and never marry.  While touring with 101 Show, an old coach from the University hunts him down and asks him to go to the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912 as an assistant coach.  He would be working with the famous Jim Thorpe.  After his stint at the Olympics, John decides to go back to the 101 to see his girl, only to find her gone.  Heartbroken again, John continues his work with the Wild West Show as a cowboy or an Indian, or a horse trainer, whatever is needed.  Eventually the 101 gang is broken up and John moves on to work at various ranches and playing poker in small town saloons.  This is when World War I breaks out, and John joins the cavalry as an Indian Volunteer.  At the end of the war, John discovers that his cowgirl love has died and has had a son by him, who also died in New Mexico of tuberculosis.  Finally, John can take no more of the white mans ways and "bad medicine" and travels West to the Indian Reservation where he was originally from. 

You'll have to read the book tofind out what happens in the end, but I absolutely loved it and I really learned a lot.  The book was published by Tom Doherty Associates in New York in the year of 2001.  Check it out!

The Dress Lodger

The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman

The setting is 19th Century Sunderland England.  A young girl is destitute and without a decent family.  By day, a potter's assistant, hauling mud and clay to the potters wheel.  By night, a dress lodger, or a prositute, owned by a man with a fancy dress.  Watched by an old woman, "The Eye",  who dresses her nightly in the "blue dress", and follows her around the foggy streets to be sure she is earning her rent.  At home in a filthy lodge, her only relative, her tiny bastard baby who was born with his heart on the outside of his body, is being tended to by a small girl who can barely take care of herself.  On one of her nightly rounds, she meets Dr. Henry Chiver, who steels bodies from the streets to perform and teach his students of the human anatomy.  Once the Doctor learns of her deformed child, he decides that his days of body thieving are over, obsessed by the wonders of this child with the blue heart.  He must have it, he must study it, and decides to take the child from her.  But before he gets the child in his clutches, the baby dies of the cholera morbus.  A deadly disease that has been ravaging the continents and killing mostly the poor.  He steals the body of the child from the graveyard, takes the childs heart, and buries the rest of the body in his backyard.  The dress lodger knows because she has been to the graveyard daily to mourn her child.  Immediately upon discovering the missing body, she goes to the doctors study to accuse him and retrieve her child.  But the townspeople have figured him out also.  They know that he has taken their loved ones bodies also.  They come in a mob to exact revenge.  Bodies of people, old and young alike are retrieved from the doctors soil.  This is a time when people would not let their bodies be studied.  Doctors had no other way to discover cures and learn of the diseases.  They had to resort to murder and thievery.  "Grave: A place where the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student."-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I found this book intriguing in a Dickenson sort of way.  We learn of the culture of the people of England during a time of death, we learn of medical history and we see how we have come a long way in studying disease and finding cures, and we learn of those who were sacrificed so thatmedicine might advance.  This book was published by the Atlantic Monthly Press in New York and was copyrighted in 2000.

Also, I find it interesting that the story seems to be told by the ghost of a lodger who lives in the same house as the dress lodger and has died from the cholera. 

 

The Complete Peanuts-Charles Schulz

I found this little fat book in the new section of my local library.  It is the complete book of Peanuts comic strips from 1950 to 1952.  I read every square.  This is the evolution of all the Peanuts characters and shows when and how each came into the picture.  Of course, Woodstock, didn't come in til the 1960s, but we do see Charlie Brown, Lucy, Violet, Peppermint Patty, Shermie, Linus, and Schroeder with his little piano.  These were the original characters.  We see Snoopy begin to "think" and the characters mutiply. The captions in the strips heavily reflect life in the 1950s and there is an interview with Charles Shulz that I found very interesting.  Did you know that "Sparky" Schulz originally sold his strip to the St. Paul Pioneer Press for $10 a day and when he asked for a raise, they refused and he quit and took it to New York where it became an immediate success?  Check it out!

Their Eyes Were Watching God

I'm so excited!  One of my favorite books is being made into a movie.  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.  It will star Halle Berry.  Watch for it and check out my book review here ---> Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Boone's Lick by Larry McMurtry

Boone's Lick is a backwater town in Missouri . The setting is the American West during the Civil War.  Mary Margaret Cecil and her growing family are living off the land the best they can.  Her husband Dickie is a supplier for the forts of the US Army and travels far and wide securing himself with an Indian wife and family at every fort on the Oregon Trail.  Mary Margaret has had enough of his never-do-well ways and decides to pack up her family and her beloved brother-in-law, Uncle Seth, in a wagon and travel up the Missouri River to find her husband Dickie and put an end to his galavanting ways.  Along the way they procure an old Indian who guides them and a French traveling minister who sort of helps guide them.  They lose old Grandpa Crackenthorpe in a storm, they meet several bands of Indians, including Pawnee, Comanche, Sioux, and the terrifying Blackfoot, as well as three Indian families of Dickie's.  When they finally reach Wyoming and find "Pa", Mary Margaret delivers him his walking papers. 

Among the characters are the shy but ambitious son Shay, his temperous brother G.T., their fearless little sister Neva, baby Marcy, Mary Margaret or "Ma", crazy and delusional Grandpa Crackenthorpe, the family caretaker Uncle Seth, Ma's whore sister Aunt Rosie, Wild Bill Hickok, Sheriff Baldy Stone, the all-knowing Indian Charlie Seven Days, father Pere Villy, and the infamous Dick Cecil himself. 

This book is so humorous, I found myself giggling at every turn of a page.  The frontier life and Civil War era is luring to me and I enjoyed it very much.  Larry McMurtry is at his very best and cannot be outwritten when it comes to westerns.  The book was published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster Inc.  Go get it right away, you won't be sorry!

The Way of the Coyote by Elmer Kelton

It is the end of the Civil War, in the 1860s.  Rusty Shannon is a former Texas Ranger who rescues a small boy from his captives, the Comanche Indians.  The two journey to Rusty's Texas home where he is confronted by two outlaws who hold an old grudge against him.  One of his friends, a black man named Shanty, is burned out of his home by the Klu Klux Klan.  The state police and the judges, as well as most politicians are carpetbaggers, robbing normal folks of the their farms and possessions.  Comanches are raiding homes for scalps, horses, killing women and taking small children to raise as slaves or warriors.  This is the story of two men and their struggles to remain free among hard ruffians. 

I enjoy Westerns very much and Elmer Kelton is a master.  He is a six-time winner of the Spur Award, has earned four Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, and was named the greatest Western author of all time by the Western Writers of America.  He has written more than forty books.

The Way of the Coyote was published in 2001 by Tom Doherty Associates. 

Note:  I didn't realize it at the time I checked this book out but it is the third book of a series, although it was still well read out of order.  The first book is called The Buckskin Line and the second is called Badger Boy.  I'm currently reading these and will review soon, so check back often.

If Only It Were True by Marc Levy

Lauren Kline is  a physician who, during her weekend vacation, gets into a car accident and goes into a deep coma.  Somehow, she has figured out how to astrally travel outside of her body, by power of thought.  She thinks where she wants to be and she puts herself there.  No one can see her or hear her while she's out of her body.  She decides to go back to her old apartment and discovers a man, Arthur, an architect, who has moved in.  She watches him for a while and soon Arthur is able to see her and feel her.  At first he doesn't believe her but when she convinces him to go to the hospital to see her body, he believes.  His friends think he's crazy, talking to himself, even acting like he's with someone who's not there.  The two soon become inseperable. 

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the staff convinces Lauren's mother to remove the feeding tube that is keeping her alive.  When Lauren confides in Arthur that this is about to happen, he decides to kidnap her body in order to keep her "ghost" alive.  An investigator with the San Francisco Police soon tracks him down, recovers the body, but strangley, the policeman believes Arthur's story and agrees not to turn him in.  The body is returned to the hospital and the next day Lauren's ghost begins to fade.  They realize that the feeding tube has been removed and soon the ghost is gone and Arthur is left to mourn the death of his new best friend.  He grieves for a couple of weeks, staying in the house and not answering the telephone.  Little does he know, Lauren is still alive and breathing, even coming out of the coma back at the hospital. 

Now, I usually don't go in for romance novels, but this one struck a chord with me because of the supernatural flair which drew me in right away.  I'm glad I read this book. It is a page turner from chapter 1, a rich heartwarming story that I won't soon forget.  The book was copyrighted in 2000 and was an instant success.  Foreign rights have been sold in twenty-eight countries.

A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton

Once in a while when I'm browsing the library I check out the book that the book club is reading for the month and this is one of them.  They are usually very well written and are usually bestsellers.  This particular book is also a member of Oprah's Book Club.

Alice Goodwin has a good life in Prairie Center, a small town in Wisconsin.  A handsome husband, two beautiful little girls, 400 acres of farm land with a springfed pond, a great old house, and a barn complete with milk cows.  She works as school nurse at the town's elementary school.  Her neighbor, Theresa, is her best friend and the two often swap babysitting duties. One day while Alice is babysitting her friends two girls, she decides to take the girls for a swim in the pond. She goes upstairs to change into her swimsuit, during which time Theresa's little 2 year old, Lizzie,  rushes out to the pond and drowns.  The community mourns, Alice is in shambles, the relationship between the two friends obviously dwindles. 

Meanwhile, another child, a six year old boy at the school with severe emotional problems, who Alice sees often as nurse, and has given her quite a hard time has told his mother as well as authorities that Alice has sexually molested him.  She is arrested and taken to jail where she spends three months.  Her bail is set at about $100,000.00 and her husband eventually sells the farm to get her out.  The family moves to the city to await trial.

The trial date arrives and still grieving over the drowned girl, hurt from a fight in jail, struggling with her relationship with her husband and her best friend, Alice must testify. 

An awesome page turner.  Powerful, unforgettable, daring, compelling, gripping, and exquisite.  When I first began reading the book, I didn't have a clue what it was going to be about because there wasn't a summary on the back or on the inside jacket cover.  Since it was a book club book I decided to give a try anyway and I'm glad that I did.  The first few pages are a little slow describing the family and the farm life and I thought it was going to be boring, but believe me, it definitely picked up very soon.  Bravo, Jane Hamilton!

Kids Section: Great Books for Kids

Dirt Boy by Erik Jon Slangerup.  A boy named Fister Farnello is always getting dirty.  To avoid having to take a bath he runs away and makes friends with Dirt Man, a very dirty giant.  Fister gets so dirty that he has mice and birds living in his hair, mushrooms growing between his toes, and moss growing in his bellybutton.  After days of frolicking in the dirt with Dirt Man, and even the birds and mice are complaining of the smell coming off of Fister, he decides he'd better go home.  At first his mother doesn't recognize him, and thinking him a monster, sprays him with the hose.  Thats when she realizes the monster is her long lost son and takes him straight to the bathtub. "It took twenty-three bars of soap, sixteen bottles of shampoo, one hundred and seventy-nine gallons of bathwater, forty-four million bubbles, and eleven tubes of toothpaste to finally get Fister Farnello clean."  And so the moral of the story is that it is ok to be clean.  This book is primarily written for children in grades k-3.  Heck, who'm I kidding?  I loved it! 

Other Books my kids have loved:

Where the Wild Things Are, A little boy in a wolf suit causes some mischief and is sent to his room without supper and he imagines that his room grows vines and turns into a forest where he meets some Wild Things.

Miss Spiders Tea Party, A lonely spider who eats only flowers makes friends with bugs.

Mama Do You Love Me, A little Inuit girl conjures up all kinds of reasons why her mother might not love her, but of course her mother still loves her even when shes angry or upset. 

 

Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? THE CARTER FAMILY

Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? THE CARTER FAMILY & Their Legacy in American Music by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg

After reading CASH, The Autobiography(See December 2003 Journal Entry)and learning about the Carters through him, I had to have more.  Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone is the first major biography of the Carter Family and their legacy as musical pioneers.  Their musical style became the basis for what is country, folk, and bluegrass music today.  A.P. Carter was a poor, eccentric mountain farmer from Poor Valley, Maces Springs, Virginia in the foothills of Clinch Mountain.  He married Sara Dougherty, who was the cousin to the late famous Mother Maybelle Carter.  Maybelle was the wife of A.P.'s cousin Eck Carter.  A.P., Sara, and Maybelle started out playing for friends and neighbors in the early 1920's.  Soon A.P. would travel about the mountain area collecting songs and writing songs of his own.  In 1927, the three went to Tennessee to audition for a New York recording executive who was paying fifty dollars for any song recorded.  Two of country music's first stars were produced from those sessions:  Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family.

By the 30s, the Carter Family was selling more than a million records and was appearing regularly on XERA, a high-powered radio station broadcasting from coast to coast.  People all over the country would gather around their radios listening to this music that told their life stories. 

Here is the story of the Carter family as they were.  Their trials and tribulations.  Their down home lives, their sadnesses, the great scandal and divorce of Sara and A.P.  The story of how A.P. died a lonely man on a mountain with a lot of land but very little recognition of what he had accomplished.  The story of Sara's true love Coy Bays and how she ran off to live with him in California and left her children behind with A.P. in Virginia.  The story of Maybelle, the sweet, talented, mother who eventually made her daughters, June, Helen, and Anita famous and traveled with the Johnny Cash show.  Maybelle was idolized by many, many musicians and her guitar picking style is still copied today. 

Now, I have been listening to the old Carter Music.  My husband can't stand it, he comes in a asks if we can listen to something else.  I, on the other hand, get the chills from listening to Maybelle on guitar or autoharp, Sara's country voice, the songs from our past, or A.P.'s deep bass voice chiming in from time to time.  Even if you don't like country music, you should read this book.  It has a lot of history, American history and I learned a lot.  Thanks Mark and Charles.  You have researched, recorded and written an awesome story of a family that will live on in America's heart forever. 

To hear samples of the music please visit:  http://www.un-broken.net/music/

Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire

Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire.  It is 1502 and Bianca De Nevada is seven years old.  She and her father, Vicente De Nevada live in Tuscany in the hills on a farm with Primavera Vecchia, the cook and Fra Ludovico, the priest.  One day the son and daughter of the Pope, Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, come to visit and order Vicente off on a quest to find a branch of the Tree of Knowledge, which is protected in an ancient monastery on the Holy Mountain in Thessaly.  He leaves Bianca in the care of Lucrezia who sends her off into the woods with the hunter to be killed.  The hunter takes her out and leaves her there to find her own fate.  She stumbles upon the dwarves cottage where she is taken care of until Lucrezia learns from the mirror that she is still alive.  Years pass and Vicente returns to the farm with the famous relic to learn that his daughter "ran away and has died". 

Mirror, Mirror, is the adult "so to speak" version of the classic Snow White.  I enjoyed the new spin on the tale and have read others by Gregory Maguire, such as "Confessions of an Ugly stepsister" and "Wicked", which is the wicked witch's version of The Wizard of Oz.  I have just finished reading "Lost" also by the author, which was supposed to be a new tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, but I just got lost reading it.  It was more about some chic who is infatuated with her cousin. Ugghh.

      

Been Here and Gone: A Memoir of the Blues by David Dalton

Been Here and Gone: A Memoir of the Blues by David Dalton. 

"Can I tell you about the blues? Baby, I was born with the blues...."

This is a fiction about an old time bluesman, Coley Williams.  Coley was a backup musician for some of the most famous blues artists of the 20th century.  At the age of 102 Coley agrees to tell his life story for the first time. He was born into a farming family on the Mississippi Plantations where he soon discovered his talent for playing the blues.  He travels the Mississippi Delta, hopping freighters and crossing crossroads, to play in juke joints and little shanties leaving his family behind.  During this 100 year span he encounters the Great Flood of 1927 , the Great Depression, the race riots of the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement.  Here are mini-biographies of some great blues legends whose paths he crosses: Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Robert Johnson, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, among many many others.   David Dalton, formerly of the Rolling Stone magazine, has written a true history of the blues.  Traditionally he has written biographies of great musicians such as the Beatles, Janis Joplin, The Rolling Stones, James Dean, Jim Morrison, and the Grateful Dead. 

I enjoyed the southern voice and feel of this book as well as the history and the music.  The music is sad, electrifying, artful, and can never be repeated.  Thanks to David Dalton for giving us the blues!

Every Tongue Got To Confess-by Zora Neale Hurston

Every Tongue Got To Confess-Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States by Zora Neale Hurston. This book is chock full of African-American folk tales collected by Ms. Hurston in the rural South at the turn of the twentieth-century.  From God tales, Preacher tales and Devil tales, to Heaven tales, White-folk tales, and mistaken identity tales they reveal attitudes about slavery, faith, race relations, family and romance that have been passed down for generations. 

Example:    A man who was down on his knees praying for God to forgive him for stealing hogs said: "You might as well forgive me for that ole turkey gobbler dat roosts in de chinaberry tree, too, Lord."  - Edward Morris

Ms. Hurston records the voices of ordinary people with great self-awareness, humor, and amazing wordplay.  Her power of storytelling is fascinating.  I was first introduced to her writings by a book club reading at my local library and will read all her books that I can get my hands on.  The power of the library is immense.

   

You Got Nothing Coming-Notes From A Prison Fish by Jimmy Lerner

You Got Nothing Coming-Notes From A Prison Fish, by Jimmy Lerner.  Jimmy Lerner was a professional "suit"  living in a nice suburban town out in California with a drinking problem.  The drinking led him to a divorce and AA meetings.  While in an AA meeting he meets this crazy guy who torments him night and day.  He ends up killing the guy in self defense and lands in prison.  The book is a true account of the murder and Jimmy's time in prison.  Meet "Kansas", a large skinhead with a Swastika tattooed to the back of his head who becomes Jimmy's cellmate.  Lots of interesting characters and prison stories are here.  Jimmy served 6 years in prison where he wrote the book, and was subsequently pardoned.  Hats off to Mr. Lerner for sharing such a tragic part of his life with us.  The book is funny, educational, and bizzare and I enjoyed it greatly. 

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

A young Confederate war soldier (Inman) goes AWOL and begins a long journey home to the mountains of North Carolina to his long lost love (Ada).  Along the way he meets marauders, bandits, guards looking for outliers, an old witch, a family who tries to turn him in for the reward, a wayward preacher, a young woman whose husband was killed in the war, among many others.  Meanwhile, back home Ada is trying to survive on her fathers farm hopelessly until a young half-Cherokee woman (Ruby)comes to her aid.  A great read and I can't wait to see the movie. 

Buffalo Girls by Larry McMurtry

"I am the wild west, no show about it.  I was one of the people who kept it wild...."  Calamity Jane.  An old woman in Montana mud writes a letter to her daughter in the East.  Her name is Martha Jane, but everyone in the west calls her Calamity.  This is the story of Calamity's last days.  Here you will find Indians, beaver hunters, saloons, gunfighters, frontier history, everything you could possibly want in a western.  Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley along with other Western legends go with Buffalo Bill Cody to London to play in the Great Wild West Show.  I love Larry McMurtry and everything I have read by him has been exciting and well written. 

                                                           

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Zora Neale Hurston wrote in a rich cultural style that I have read no where else.  She fluently goes from 3rd person proper English to Old Harlem black slang.  This book is considered to be the autobiography of the author, however I believe it is also considered to be fiction. The story is set in the South, in the 1920s, with the main character being a young woman named Janey.  Janey first lives with her old grandmother who marries her off to an older man who is very abusive to her.  She runs off with a another man to Southern Florida where they open a mercantile type store in the Everglades.  She lives with this man for years until his death.  She continues to run the store until a young man comes in one day and steals her heart.  She lives with him until a great hurricane comes and breaks open the lake and they along with others make a break North on foot.  Absolutey wonderful!  Its been a long time since I read something so rich and cultural.  Every character is full of life.  Ms. Hurston has been ridiculed by her peers for not giving her black characters the normal self-pity and white hatred that is so popular among many black authors.