Looking Back - After Long Silence

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

After Long Silence by Helen Fremont

Nonfiction - Memoir

1999 Delacorte Press

Finished in April 1999

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

Helen Fremont was raised Roman Catholic in America, only to discover in adulthood that her parents were Jews who had survived the Holocaust. Delving into the extraordinary secrets that held her family together in a bond of silence for more than forty years, she recounts with heartbreaking clarity and candor a remarkable tale of survival, as vivid as fiction but with the eloquence of truth. When Helen was small, her mother taught her the sign of the cross in six languages. Theirs was the tender conspiracy of a little girl and her mother at bedtime, protected by a God who could respond in any language. What she didn't understand was that she was being equipped with proof of her Catholicism, a hedge against persecution, real or imagined. It wasn't until adulthood that she began to comprehend the terrible irony of her mother's gesture, as she and her sister discovered their parents' remarkable, long-held secret. She knew that her father had spent six years in the Siberian Gulag, surviving nearly on will alone; that her mother's elder sister, fearless and proud, had married an Italian Fascist whose title and connections helped them to survive during the war. But their faith, their legacy as Jews, was kept hidden for decades.

"After Long Silence" is a searching inquiry into the meaning of identity, self, and history. It's about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be left unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.

My Original Notes (1999):

Suspenseful narrative, yet somewhat distant. I feel like I learned more about the treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust, but didn't truly connect with any of the people in this memoir.

My Current Thoughts:

Not a remarkable or favorite memoir. 

California Road Trip 2019 - Escondido (Part I)

Wednesday, September 13, 2019
Mark & Ana's
Escondido, CA
Weather: Sunny and very hot (upper 90s)

We spent the morning catching up on bills, emails, etc., then headed to Enterprise to pick up our rental for the week. We don't usually mind running errands with the RV, but the upcoming week was full of several social events (including a two-night stay in La Jolla for our daughter's wedding), all of which would be impossible without a car. It's nice to have something smaller to navigate the streets of a large city like San Diego.

Our favorite place to "camp" in Escondido.

We had a lovely dinner with my brother and sister-in-law at a beautiful winery in Escondido. The view (overlooking the San Pasqual Valley) is stunning, especially at sunset.

Cordiano Winery

Escondido, CA

Our gracious hosts for the next week!

Delicious!

Mark & Ana's lovely patio.

Top Ten List for 2013

I'm not sure why I didn't post a Top Ten list in 2013, but I've since gathered the information so I can include this in the link for Top Ten and Year-End Summaries (located in my sidebar). Looking at this list, I realize I had a great year of reading in 2013!

The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister (4.5/5)

Broken Harbor by Tana French (4.75/5)

The Shadow In the Streets by Susan Hill (4.5/5)

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman (5/5)

The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancy (4.75/5)

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (4.75/5)

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin (4.75/5)

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green (4.75/5)

Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler (4.5/5)

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (4.75/5)

California Road Trip 2019 - Rancho Jurupa Park & Escondido

Tuesday, September 12, 2019
Riverside to Escondido, CA
Mark & Ana's
Distance: 81 miles
Duration: 11 nights
Cost: Moochdocking - free
Weather: Sunny and very hot (upper 90s)

Our next destination was only a short drive south, so we had a relaxing morning and I even had time to ride my bike around the park, which turned out to be much larger than we thought when we first arrived. We didn't have to check-out until 1:00, but it was getting very hot, so we decided to head out around noon. The traffic wasn't horrible, but we were glad to escape the Pomona Freeway congestion.

One of the event halls at Rancho Jurupa Park.

Beautiful lake with lots of benches and places to fish.

Playground and picnic pavilion.

Another lake for fishing.

Best place to gas up if you don't mind waiting in line.

It got even hotter!

We got to Escondido around lunchtime so we ran some errands before heading over to my brother and sister-in-law's. We ran our power cord to their house, but that only gave us 15 amps, so in order to use the AC, we had to run the generator. Needless to say, we didn't spend a lot of time in the RV!

The River

The River by Peter Heller
Fiction
2019 Halfred A. Knopf
Finished on January 2, 2020
Rating: 4.5/5 (Excellent)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, the story of two college friends on a wilderness canoe trip—a gripping novel of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence.

Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But: The next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding tale of desperate wilderness survival.

Wow! What a great way to start off the New Year (and new decade). Peter Heller's latest novel is outstanding! I've only read one other by him (The Dog Stars, reviewed here), but I love his beautiful prose and had a strong feeling that The River would also be a winner. I wasn't disappointed.

The cadence of the paddle strokes was high and it hurt after a couple of hours and so they weren't thinking about a lot. Jack had pored over the map and there would be a few riffles and smaller rapids and nothing to portage for two days, so he was at a loss as to where to expect the next attack. They had passed a wide cove with a pair of loons, one was probably nested nearby, and when they stroked past, the one closest tilted back her head and loosed a pitched wail that must have moved the trees like wind. It pierced the haze and echoed off the waiting forest and rolled over the water like any scream, and it seemed to carry a pathos so deep it was a wonder a mere world could support it. Maybe she knew what was coming. Maybe she had hatchlings in a nest and nowhere to go and she knew.

and

What he loved about poetry: it could do in a few seconds what a novel did in days. A painting could be like that, too, and a sculpture. But sometimes you wanted something to take days and days.

and 

"The biggest fires. They talk, just like this. Listen."

They listened. Who knew how far off. Not close enough yet to crown the wall of woods with light. There were other sounds: turbines and the sudden shear of a strafing plane, a thousand thumping hooves in cavalcade, the clamor and thud of shields clashing, the swell applause of multitudes drowned out as if by gusts of rain. Rain. Downpours. Washing through a valley and funneling over a pass. Crackling through woods and sodding over the tundra. Wynn closed his eyes and could swear he heard the sweep of a coming rainstorm. As if the fire in its fury could speak in tongues, could speak the language of every enemy. And sing, too. Over the rush, very faint, was a high-pitched thrum, a humming of air that rose and fell almost in melody.

Wynn walked to the water. He peered into the dark. Between the tall trees on either bank was a swatch of stars, a river of constellations that flowed heedless and unperturbed. Between the brightest, needling the arm of Orion and the head of the Bull, were distances of fainter stars that formed, as Wynn stared, a deep current, uninterrupted, as infused with bubbles of light as the aerated water of a rapid. Except that he could see into it and through it and it held fathomless dimensions that were as void of emotion as they were infinite. And if that river flowed, that firmament, it flowed with a majestic stillness. Nothing had ever been so still. Could spirit live there? In such a cold and silent purity of distance? Maybe it was silent at all. Maybe in the fires that consumed those stars were decibeled cyclones and trumpets and applause.

and

He heard a loon call, piercing and forlorn, and it poured into his spirit like cool water. It was a sad cry and he realized as he listened how barren the river had felt in the days without it. Why was a wail that seemed so lost and lonely so... what? Essential and lovely. It was like the blues, he guessed, or like Jack's cowboy songs. Sad, but somehow you would starve without them.

The story is extremely intense and each night I had to force myself to stop reading and go to sleep. The River is one of those books that makes me wish I was still a bookseller at Barnes and Noble. I would have enjoyed sharing my passion for the book, handselling it to customers looking for that perfect gift this past holiday season. I'm not a fisherman, or for that matter a firefighter, but I found myself thinking of several friends who either fish or fight fires (and a couple who do both) and know they would love this novel. I also thought of some who enjoy kayaking and thought of them as I raced through this book. And yet, this is not just a book about paddling a canoe or fly fishing. It's about the beauty of nature and a deep friendship, both of which are so vividly drawn that I felt as if I was sharing their canoe or camped out under the same stars they gazed upon. There is so much to admire about this moving, lyrical novel and I'm not only eager to read his other two (The Painter and Celine), but I look forward to rereading The Dog Stars. 

2019 Year End Survey and Top Picks List

I am very pleased with my reading in 2019. I surpassed my Goodreads goal of 50 books, reading more than I have in any given year since 2007, and ended the year with some wonderful books. I didn't listen to as many audio books as I did last year, but I received a wireless headset for Christmas and am already noticing more listening time during the day. The only ebooks I read were book club selections and those numbers probably won't go much higher in 2020 since I prefer to read books in print. I hope to continue knocking books off my ARC stacks; I have so many dating back several years. I read a ton of nonfiction (thanks partly to the Nonfiction November Challenge), but not much in the way of sci-fi or classics. I didn't have a lot of 5-star books and I'm surprised at the number of average (3/5 stars) and fair (2/5) books on my list. I may have been a bit more stingy with higher ratings this year. OK, enough chatter. Here are my stats for 2019:

Books Read: 55
Print:  45
Audio:  8
Ebooks:  2
ARCs: 5
Fiction:  29
Nonfiction:  17
Mystery:  9
Science Fiction:  0
Classics:  1
Poetry:  1
Teen/YA:  0
Childrens:  1
Memoirs:  11
Graphic Novels:  1
Rereads:  4
Male Authors:  13
Female Authors:  42
New Authors:  21
From My Stacks:  24
Borrowed:  31

Ratings:

5 stars:  6
4.5 stars:  11
4 stars:  17
3.5 stars:  3
3 stars:  10
2 stars:  8

Top Picks of 2019

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb (5/5)

Henry, Himself by Stewart O'Nan (5/5)

Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg (5/5)

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (5/5)

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (5/5)

Becoming by Michelle Obama (5/5)

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker (4.5/5)

Devotion by Dani Shapiro (4.5/5)

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane (4.5/5)

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne (4.5/5)

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman (4.5/5)

Kitchen Yarns by Ann Hood (4.5/5)

The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny (4.5/5)

After You by Jojo Moyes (4.5/5)

Whiskey When We're Dry by John Larison (4.5/5)

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny (4.5/5)

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (4.5/5)


#1 Book of 2019: Henry, Himself

Favorite Book Group Selection: Whiskey When We're Dry

Favorite Audio Book: Maybe You Should Talk To Someone

Favorite Mystery: How the Light Gets In

Favorite Series: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache/Three Pines - Check out all the Louise Penny books on my list this year!

Click here to see all the books I read in 2019. I've included links to all my 2019 reviews, as well.

Books Read in 2019

1. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (4/5)

2. If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name by Heather Lende (3/5)

3. And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman (3/5)

4. The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes (2/5)

5. Ruby by Ann Hood (2/5)

6. The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (4.5/5)

7. Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini (3/5)

8. A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny (4.5/5)

9. Whiskey When We're Dry by John Larison (4.5/5)

10. Becoming by Michelle Obama (5/5)

11. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (4/5)

12. After You by Jojo Moyes (4.5/5)

13. The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny (4.5/5)

14. Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love, and Food by Ann Hood (4.5/5)

15. My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman (4.5/5)

16. The Library Book by Susan Orlean (4/5)

17. The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg (2/5)

18. A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne (4.5/5)

19. The Guilty Dead by P.J. Tracy (4/5)

20. Felicity by Mary Oliver (4/5)

21. Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting by Anna Quindlen (4/5)

22. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (4/5)

23. A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult (4/5)

24. The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister (3/5)

25. At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon (4/5)

26. Nomadland by Jessica Bruder (3/5)

27. Hunted on the Fens by Joy Ellis (3/5)

28. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (5/5)

29. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (4/5)

30. The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny (4/5)

31. Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce (2/5)

32. The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves (2/5)

33. How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (5/5)

34. Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon (2/5)

35. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (3/5)

36. Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg (5/5)

37. As We Are Now by May Sarton (3/5)

38. Henry, Himself by Stewart O'Nan (5/5)

39. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane (4.5/5)

40. The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt (4/5)

41. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2/5)

42. After Her by Joyce Maynard (4/5)

43. The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg (4/5)

44. Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan (3/5)

45. Forty Autumns by Nina Willner (3/5)

46. Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall (2/5)

47. I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel (4/5)

48. Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent (4/5)

49. On Writing by Stephen King (4/5)

50. Devotion by Dani Shapiro (4.5/5)

51. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver (4/5)

52. Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? by Patricia Marx & Roz Chast (2/5)

53. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom (3/5)

54. Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb (5/5)

55. The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker (4.5/5)

A Month in Summary - December 2019

Little Whale Cove

Depoe Bay, Oregon

December 2019

The final month of not only the year, but the decade! I've been compiling my year-end stats and will share those with you in another day or two, but first things first. I continued to have a good month of reading, although I gave up on several books (both in print and on audio) in the past week. I'm debating whether I should keep an on-going DNF list. It would be interesting to see how many I give up on each year. Anyhow, three of the six books I read in December wound up on my Top Ten list of 2019. Definitely a nice way to close out the year.

Books Read (click on the link for my review):

Devotion by Dani Shapiro

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? by Patricia Marx

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker

First Lines:

A woman named Sandra was cradling my head in her hands. We were in a small room--just the two of us--and it was so quiet I could hear the ticking of her watch. The air smelled faintly of eucalyptus. A high window overlooked a parking lot, and beyond the parking lot, mountains. I tried to relax--that was the point, wasn't it?--but I wasn't relaxed at all. I had signed up for something called Master Level Energy Work, thinking it would be like a massage. But this was no massage. For one thing, she was sighing a lot. (Devotion)

"The simplest thing would be to tear it down," the man said. "The house is a shambles." (Unsheltered)

My mother is an absolutist. Wait--is that the right word? My mother is not Louis XIV. (Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?)

My father's wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us. (Lucky Us)

Patient reports feeling "stressed out" and states that he is having difficulty sleeping and getting along with his wife. Expresses annoyance with others and seeks help "managing the idiots."  (Maybe You Should Talk To Someone)

At first, they blame the air. (The Dreamers)

Movies and TV Shows:

The Irishman - Thank goodness we were streaming this at home; I got so tired of all the swearing and eventually started working on a puzzle, only glancing up every now and then to see what was happening. Reminiscent of The Sopranos, but with no likable characters. Meh.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - Tom Hanks' performance is heartwarming and spot-on. I enjoyed the film, but felt the ending was too pat.

The Crown (Season 3) - Wah! We finished this and now have to wait who knows how long before Season 4 is released. I thought Olivia Colman did a wonderful job as the Queen. I loved her in Broadchurch, but she was just as impressive in this new role.

The Two Popes - It took me a while to warm up to this film, but I wound up enjoying it quite a lot. Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce are outstanding.

The Upside - A feel-good movie that made me laugh. Bryan Cranston was very convincing in his role.

Puzzlemania:

I was born in Canada, so this was fun!

I love all the whimsical pieces!

Visitors:

My brother and sister-in-law flew up from San Diego to surprise me on my birthday! I was stunned to see them sitting in the living room when I walked in the house after spending the afternoon (playing Mah Jong!) with my girlfriends. What a special treat!

Outings and Trips:

Hilltop Cafe in Waldport with the family!

Celebrations:

My Mah Jong Pals

I got the first winning hand on my birthday!

We must have been very good this year.

Christmas Dinner
(before our friends arrived)

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy and peaceful New Year!

New Year Resolve

New Year Resolve
by May Sarton

The time has come
To stop allowing the clutter
To clutter my mind
Like dirty snow,
Shove it off and find
Clear time, clear water.

Time for a change,
Let silence in like a cat
Who has sat at my door
Neither wild nor strange
Hoping for food from my store
And shivering on the mat.

Let silence in.
She will rarely speak or mew,
She will sleep on my bed
And all I have ever been
Either false or true
Will live again in my head.

For it is now or not
As old age silts the stream,
To shove away the clutter,
To untie every knot,
To take the time to dream,
To come back to still water.

"New Year Resolve" by May Sarton, from Collected Poems 1930-1993.

The Dreamers

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
Science Fiction
2019 Random House
Finished on December 28, 2019
Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

An ordinary town is transformed by a mysterious illness that triggers perpetual sleep in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Miracles.

“This book is stunning.”—Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

One night in an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep—and doesn’t wake up. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster.

Those affected by the illness, doctors discover, are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?

Written in luminous prose, The Dreamers is a breathtaking and beautiful novel, startling and provocative, about the possibilities contained within a human life—in our waking days and, perhaps even more, in our dreams.

I loved Walker's debut novel, The Age of Miracles (reviewed here), and was thrilled when I learned she had written another book. It was published at the beginning of the year, but I delayed getting a copy until I knew I could devote my full attention to the book without any interruptions. Life got busy with travel and illnesses and before I knew it, a year had passed since I first read about The Dreamers. A few days before Christmas, I borrowed a copy from the library and started reading on Christmas Eve. I was completely sucked in from the opening lines and had I not been busy preparing our Christmas dinner, I could have easily spent the entire day reading from cover to cover, it was that compelling. The further along I read, the more curious I became about the cause and ultimate outcome of the pandemic. Eager as I was to have my questions answered, yet choosing to savor the book as long as I could, the final pages came far too quickly. Sadly, the denouement was anticlimactic and left me with too many unanswered questions. In spite of this quibble, I loved this riveting story and look forward to more by Karen Thompson Walker.