Book Club

October's book club was so good! When it was first announced what we would be reading I wasn't super excited. But after reading the book, and then going to book club... I thought it was one of the best books I have read in a long time!

The book we read is Same Kind of Different as Me, by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. This book could possibly be life changing...

I loved the blurb that was on the website (so I just copied it on over to here... but go to the website to read more about this amazing book!)

"It begins outside a burning plantation hut in Louisiana... and an East Texas honky-tonk... and, without a doubt, in the heart of God. It unfolds in a Hollywood hacienda... an upscale New York Gallery... a downtown dumpster... a Texas ranch. Gritty with pain and betrayal and brutality, it also shines with an unexpected, life-changing love."

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The book switches back and forth between the two authors lives.

Denver Moore is a black man who grew up in Louisiana and raised under plantation-style slavery in the 1960s. That fact absolutely amazed me... when was slavery supposed to end - wasn't it 1865? Anyway, Denver ends up hopping onto a train and heads to Texas - a man that has never learned to read and has no skills other than cotton-picking. Denver doesn't have a lot of options for jobs. So Denver ends up homeless and then in prison and then again homeless.

Enter Deborah Hall in 1998 - an amazing woman with a very good heart. She is married to Ron Hall, a very successful international art seller who began his career in 1971. Ron loves the money, the job, the prestige... Deborah finds it all a little too much and manages to keep Ron on the ground with it all. Eventually they start working at a homeless shelter....

And then you have to read the book! I don't want to ruin it by telling to much, but it is a great book. The beginning started out a little slow, but after three or four chapters I couldn't put it down! Also, you may need some tissues for the the last 1/4 of it. I did!

A Girl Named Zippy

Someday I'm going to get my life together again so that I can keep my blog updated! It just seems like I am constantly moving, and I feel so tired all the time! I'm sure most of it is due to a very sweet and handsome little boy who loves to play and run and the other part is probably my obsessive need for clean.
I got ambitious on Tuesday and rearranged the kitchen decorations. I decided I'm done with apples. I've had them for 9 1/2 years - wow! Anyway, I also decided I was sick of the grimy dust on my blinds. So I took the living room and kitchen blinds down, and washed them in the bathtub. And of course, I couldn't just do that... I had to clean the windows too. I AM A NUT!
And all I know is that sleep is going to come easy tonight! I am exhausted, but I keep putting off my blog and it's already been a month since my last entry.
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For our September book club we read A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel. It is a memoir about her childhood in a little town of 300 people.

"Nicknamed 'Zippy' for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards."
-courtesy of ReadingGroupGuides.com


I thought this book was hilarious! I just kept laughing while I was reading. It was a quick read, and was well-written. I would recommend it for a good light-hearted read.

Anne of Green Gables

My book club went really well! I was expecting 2 or 3 girls to show up... but I was pleasantly surprised with 11! Book club was kinda short comparatively (only 2 hours), but it was fun.

The food... well, it was interesting. Remember how excited I was about finding the Anne of Green Gables Cookbook? I won't be recommending it to anyone for new recipes... It's only good for being cute!
The gingersnaps were a definite YUCK! They left a really gross aftertaste, and just weren't very flavorful. The raspberry cordial was really thick - it was like drinking watered down raspberry jam. It was good, just thick. And the plum pudding was good too, but the caramel sauce was thin and not very "caramel-ly."
I think the girls appreciated the effort though. No one really comes to eat anyway - and I didn't have hardly anything left over (which was my goal - I hate having lots of leftovers from things like that.).
Anyway...

Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery, has to be one of my most favorite books. It was pure, simple and just plain funny. I had a smile on my face after reading it, and I giggled through most of it. I wish I would have found this book earlier in my life!

I did a little research on the author and the book. I found most of my information from this website: Anne 2008

These were my favorite things we talked about:

Would you rather be divinely beautiful, dazzlingly clever or angelically good? We couldn't decide which one we wanted to be.. just like Matthew and Anne!

Anne symbolizes : a modern woman competing alongside boys for scholarships and working hard to ear her way to college; hope, optimism and the power of faith. She is determined to succeed despite all the obstacles! And finally, Anne represents the universality of the quest for all things we wish for in life - friendship, love, acceptance and a home.

Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908 - this year marks the 100th anniversary of it being published. Today, over 50 millions copies are in print in over 35 languages. There are 7 more books in the series, written by Montgomery.

Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne's House of Dreams, Anne of Ingleside, Rainbow Valley, Rilla of Ingleside

There is also a prequel, Before Green Gables, written by Budge Wilson and published in 2008.

I have checked all of these books out from the library, and so will be happily continuing my adventures with Anne for a while!

About the Author:

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in 1874 on Prince Edward Island. Her mother died when she was only 21 months old. Her maternal grandparents took over her care, and her father moved to western Canada.

Maud (as she was called) found companionship in nature, books, her imagination and writing. At the age of 9 she started writing poetry and keeping a journal. Her first poem was published in a newspaper when she was 16. She went to school in Cavendish, and then attended Prince of Wales College where she studied for a teacher's license. She completed the two-year course in one year and graduated with honors.

In 1899, she was earning $96.88 for her writings (poems, short stories and serials). By 1903 her earnings had increased to $500.

Montgomery wrote her first novel, Anne of Green Gables, in 1905 and sent it in to several publishers who all sent her rejections! In 1907 she tried again, and finally it was accepted and became an immediate best-seller, selling over 19,000 copies in the first 5 months.

Montgomery married Reverend Ewan Macdonald in 1911. They had secretly been engaged for 5 years! After their marriage, they moved to Ontario. Along with being a mother, Montgomery assisted her husband in his pastoral duties, ran their home, and continued to write best-selling novels, as well as writing short stories and poems. She was faithful in recording entries in her journals.

Montgomery died in 1942, and returned to Prince Edward Island to be buried in the Cavendish cemetary - close to the site of her old home.

Anne of Green Gables

Tomorrow night is book club - hosted by me! I'm a little nervous, but hopefully it will go well. I chose the book Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. My friend, Megan actually suggested the book to me. I had never read it before (or seen the movie!). Apparently it is quite a popular book for young girls... I guess I never was in the "in" crowd though!

Hosting book club basically means that I have to lead the discussion and serve treats afterwards. So I've been doing some research. And I discovered that Anne of Green Gables was first published in 1908 - that's right! It's the 100th year! How lucky of me to choose this book at this time!

I thought it would be fun for the treats to see if I could find some recipes for some of the food talked about in the book. And can you believe it? There is an Anne of Green Gables Cookbook. It was written by home economist and food stylist, Kate McDonald. Kate is also L.M.M's granddaughter!
It has quite a few recipes in it, and is an adorable cookbook. It is meant for younger cooks, or maybe even very inexperienced cooks so everything is pretty basic. It has quotes from the Anne books which really helped me decide what to make!

See if you can guess which things I'm going to make from these quotes:

"You'll put down the old brown tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves. It' time it was being used anyhow - I believe it's beginning to work. And you can cut some fruit-cake and have some of the cookies and snaps." ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, XVI

Of course, I'm making the Maritime Gingersnaps.
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"But it isn't good manners to tell your company what you are going to give them to eat, so I won't tell you what she said we could have to drink. Only that it begins with an r and a c and it's a bright red color. I love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good as any other color." ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, XVI

And, naturally this is Diana Barry's Favourite Raspberry Cordial (you'll be relieved to know that there will be no mix-ups with it!).
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"Everything went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum pudding in one hand the the pitcher of pudding sauce, warmed up, in the other. Diana, that was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in my place and shrieked out, 'Marilla, you mustn't use that pudding sauce. There was a mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you before.' Oh, Diana, I shall never forget that awful moment if I live to be a hundred." ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, XVI

And what kind of book club would it be without Marilla's Plum Pudding with Caramel Pudding Sauce (without the mouse of course!)?
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Just reading these quotes gives me the giggles. I loved the book, and I am so excited for tomorrow!

The History of Love

This month for book club we are reading The History of Love, written by Nicole Krauss. It is one of the craziest books I have ever read. It was good... it just was wierd, and my head is still spinning thinking about it and trying to figure it out. I don't have bookclub until the end of this month... but I thought I'd try for some feedback from ya before I go to it.

The summary (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The History of Love is a novel in the form of a homage to things lost, as well as to unsolved mysteries. The novel within the novel, also named The History of Love is the basis for all these questions.
Leo Gursky is an old locksmith who feels as though he is disappearing. He tries at all costs to draw attention to himself, but he still feels he has a void in his life. Eventually, he goes on a quest to find his long-lost son and the novel that he wrote as a young man, now published in Chile under the name of Zvi Litvinoff. Alma Singer is a teenage girl who is trying to keep her family together after the loss of her father. Named after the heroine of The History of Love, Alma tries to console her widowed mother (who has recently been requested to translate the novel from Spanish) as well as keep her younger brother Bird (who believes he is a lamed vovnik) from becoming a social pariah.


Anyway, give it a try and see what you think!

The Scarlet Letter

I had book club tonight. It was fantastic - and can I send a great big thank-you! to my sweet sister, who would come over to my house and sit with a sleeping baby and two hairy dogs so I could go. I'm so lucky to have Jenny!

Anyway, the book - The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Now, I read this book in high school, and I'm certain that I hated every minute of it. It is written in 1850 wording, so it takes a little time to get the brain in the right mode. However, reading it this time (as a much more mature adult) was different - I actually enjoyed it!
I'm still an idiot and miss out on a lot of the symbolism that English teachers love to point out, but at least this time I liked reading it! I have never been good at picking up on symbolism. And I have to admit that as a teen I would get so annoyed 1) for not getting it, and 2) for having to pick books apart, instead of just enjoying them. I remember just wanting to argue that we have no idea what the author was intending, so why did we have to figure it out? Good thing I've matured a little....
The lady who hosted this month's book club, is in fact, an English teacher. She did a great job of pointing out important themes and symbols throughout the book. And I guess since I didn't have to write an essay on it, I was less intimidated (and less irritated) by all the theories and symbolism that it has. In fact, I enjoyed it and it really made the book much more interesting to me.

A quick synopsis (courtesy of Wikipedia):
"The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850 is an American novel Set in Puritan Boston in the seventeenth century, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth after committing adultery, refuses to name the father, and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne explores the issues of grace, legalism, sin, and guilt.

I would recommend this book to those who like to read the classics. But if you are looking for a thriller, this is not the book for you!

Pope Joan

Okay, so I realize that I am the ultimate blog-slacker! I just haven't been able to squeeze everything into my days... my sweet little Braxton who has figured out how to get into EVERYTHING, my need for cleanliness, and of course, my need for sleep keeps me pretty busy!

However, I did go to book club in May, and it was a really good book. We read Pope Joan, by Donna Woolfolk Cross. It is a historical fiction, and is based on controversial history. It is a great combination of history, heroes, love, violence and secrets.

Here is the synopsis (courtesy of the Pope Joan website):

"As its title reveals, the novel is based on the life of one of the most fascinating, extraordinary women in Western history--Pope Joan, a controversial figure of historical record who, disguised as a man, rose to rule Christianity in the 9th century as the first and only woman to sit on the throne of St. Peter.
Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against the medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn to read and write. When her older brother is killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak and identity, goes to the monastery of Fulda, and is initiated into the brotherhood in his place. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great Christian scholar. Eventually she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest throne in Christendom.
Pope Joan is a sweeping historical drama set against the turbulent events of the 9th century -- the Saracen sack of St. Peter's, the famous fire in the Borgo that destroyed over three-quarters of the Vatican, the Battle of Fontenoy, arguably the bloodiest and most terrible of medieval conflicts. The novel is a fascinating vivid record of what life was really like during the so-called Dark Ages, as masterwork of suspense and passion that has as its center an unforgettable woman, reminiscent of Jean Auel's Ayla, Jane Austen's Emma, and other heroines who struggle against restrictions their souls will not accept."

This book made me realize how blessed I am to be living now, instead of then! The poor women of that time (the Dark Ages) were so repressed! The women were treated as perpetual minors, with no legal or property rights. By law, they could be beaten by their husbands - the only rule being the size of the club they could be beaten with! They were not allowed to learn (it was believed that a woman's brain and her uterus were connected - so if a woman were to be educated, her uterus would shrink, thus resulting in her being barren. Of course, if this were true, I should be super smart! :)

The Thirteenth Tale

For March/April book club (we are behind a month due to Spring Break) we read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It is categorized as a gothic suspense novel.
And I LOVED it!

A quick summary (courtesty of Wikipedia.com):

"Vida Winter, allegedly the most famous novelist in England, and quite possibly the world, has never been forthcoming when it comes to her past. Her entire life is a secret, and for fifty years reporters and biographers have attempted to discover the truth. With her health quickly fading, Ms. Winter hires an unknown, bookish biographer, Margaret Lea, to bear witness to the tragic story of the Angelfield family, their eccentric beginnings as well as their demise. Margaret, who has family secrets of her own, must unravel the mysteries of the past in order to reconcile not only Ms. Winter with her ghosts, but also Margaret with hers."

I have never read a book like it. It was such a page turner for me that I couldn't even put it down to go to sleep - believe me, I tried! It is a story in a story in a story.... It had so many twists and turns that I couldn't quit thinking about it, and so I had to read the next chapter and then the next and then the next...

Everyone in my book club also stated that they loved the book and it was also a page-turner for them. A few of the ladies in my book club figured out the ending, but most of us didn't. And, we still had a lot of things that we were figuring out at out meeting. It was so fun to see what the other women thought was going on in the book... We all decided that we wanted to read the book again, (now that we had figured a few things out) and see if we could pick up on anything that we had missed the first time through.

I will warn you that there is an icky part that has to do with incest, but it doesn't go into too much detail (thank goodness!). It's at the beginning of the book, but just keep reading - You'll love it!

A Bed of Red Flowers

I had book club again on Wednesday night. There was only a few of us there, but it was a pretty good discussion. The book we read this month was A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan, written by Nelofer Pazira.
It is an auto-biography about her life in Afghanistan. She was born in 1973, when Afghanistan declares itself to be a republic. In 1979, the Soviets invade Afghanistan. At this point, Afghanistan turns into a war zone between the Soviets and some anti-government groups. That's when the United States steps in and starts funding some of the anti-government groups. Nelofer and her family escape in 1989 to Pakistan, and eventually to Canada. Eventually, the Soviets pull out, and the Taliban takes over. The Taliban somehow turns Islam into an oppressive cult that forbids women to work, attend school or even leave the house without a male escort, and of course, the women now have to be covered from head to toe, with only their eyes showing.

I was surprised at how much I liked the book. I was apprehensive about reading another biography (sometimes they can be quite dull!), but I really enjoyed this one. There are a lot of names of people and places that I could never pronounce (eventually the names all started looking the same) but once I got past that it was really a fast read.
Nelofer really personalizes this book, and it is almost possible for one to feel like they are in living her life - from the terror of living in a war zone, to the miles and miles of walking to escape Afghanistan. She uses a lot of personal stories, and includes intimate stories from the people in her life.
I would recommend reading this book - the only part I didn't like was at the end when she lets loose with a few anti-American sentiments, blaming the United States for allowing the Taliban to take over. This story does make me want to read other books about Afghanistan's tragic history and perhaps get another point of view.

Amazing Grace

After Braxton was born, I was so excited to be a mom that I kind of let everything else go by the wayside.... but I have since realized that this is not good for Braxton, or myself (especially in the sanity department!). And one of the things I love to do is read -- so re-joining myself to a book club has been one step in the right direction for me!

For January we read the book Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas. It's a biography about William Wilberforce (1759-1833), who I had never heard of (and to make myself feel better, neither had some of the other women in my book club). However, he turns out to be quite an extraordinary man who works tirelessly to end the slave trade within the British Empire, and eventually he even accomplishes the abolition of slavery there. He also worked with James Madison (who I have heard of!) in working towards the abolishment of slavery in the United States, which came much later.

Anyway, this man is just amazing! It took him 25 years to have complete success in his endeavors - but he kept on working tirelessly for all those years! And to top it off, he had poor health! He did have lots of good people helping him with this cause, but it gives one some hope on what we can do with enough determination - no matter our circumstances!

I would recommend reading the book. It wasn't the greatest book I've ever read, but it does give one inspiration on how to truly live like a Christian. The hardest thing about the book was that there are so many details and people with similar names that I started getting them confused. However, there is also a movie out, which I haven't seen yet, but supposedly will really help in reading the book.

As part of our discussion last night, Emily (the one who chose the book and led the discussion) brought up how our society is similar to what the British Empire was like during Wilberforce's time. There was little regard for the poor; religion was a social thing; and basically everyone lived for themselves.

It may not be quite that bad in our society today, and her main concern that she brought up was the increasing availabilty of pornography, and the ease in accessing it, and the ability it has in ruining lives. We discussed how a lot of sexual predators started looking at pornography, and how it becomes so addictive that people quit living their lives. Emily mentioned 4 different lives/familes that she personally knows falling apart because of an addiction to pornography. One of the people Emily mentioned was a college student who flunked out of school because he was so addicted!

We talked about how we wished the government would take action against the pornography companies like they did the tobacco companies. It was mentioned that for some odd reason, most people view pornography as the "norm" and are not recognizing it as an addictive habit.

After leaving book club, I wanted to throw up from hearing all the statistics and disgusting things that this industry is causing. And then I wanted to take Braxton and find some way to make him stay my little baby boy forever so that he never has to deal with this! However, we all know he will grow up, and if this trend continues it will only become more and more available to him. Emily has 8 boys that she is worried about, along with 2 girls who she wants to see marry good men!

I had to leave book club early so I don't know what they decided to start doing, but I know it's time for me to do some research. We have got to put an end to it. It will probably always exist in some form - it has for a long time. But seriously, does it have to be a click away for some poor unsuspecting person - especially our children?

Emily just emailed me the link to Townhall.com with an article about just simply enforcing the laws against pornography. The article is called Hard-Core Pornography Isn't "Free Speech". It's a great read that will get you fired up!