Category Archives: Book Reviews

Book Review: The Shell Collector

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Anthony Doerr’s elegant prose is captivating in The Shell Collector. His attention to detail and his vast knowledge is impressive. First of the seven stories, also the title of the book, is about a blind shell collector, who lives in East Africa on an Indian Ocean beach.

The second story, “The Hunter’s Wife,” tells about a woman with extraordinary visions and the resulting gap this special talent creates in their relationship. The third story, “So Many Chances,” is about a family who moves from Ohio to Maine and the new world the young daughter discovers.

The fourth story, “For a Long Time This Was Griselda’s Story,” is about normal people in Idaho encountering an extraordinary man with a rare talent. Pure love, resentment and rage simmer in this tale. In the fifth story, “July Fourth,” a group of American anglers and a group of British sport fishermen have a lively feud. It’s Limeys vs Yanks, Old World vs New.

The sixth story, “The Caretaker,” begins in Liberia, Africa and ends on the coast of Oregon. This story is one of my favorites, possibly because it begins in West Africa where we served in the Peace Corps. As in life, the story centers on three truths: order, chance, fate.

The last story, “A Tangle by the Rapid River,” toggles between Africa and Ohio, between a world where things grow wild, where you can hear insects sing, and a place where everything is cement, soot and noise.

The Shell Collector is a collection of stories to cherish and to remember.

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Book Review: A Three Dog Life

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Australian Aborigines slept with their dogs for warmth on cold nights, the coldest being a “three dog night.” …Wikipedia

Abigail Thomas’s memoir, A Three Dog Life, is a story of courage in the face of disaster. Plain-spoken and full of wisdom, the book takes us through terror and eventual acceptance of what never can be changed.

While walking their dog in New York city, Abigail’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car and suffered a shattered skull leaving him with serious and permanent brain damage. He was eventually admitted to an upstate New York care facility that specializes in treating traumatic brain injuries. So that she could be closer to her husband, Abigail moved from their apartment to a house a short distance away from Rich’s new permanent home.

They were married for twelve years before the accident, each with grown children from  previous marriages. Now 63, Abigail’s life was irreversibly changed. She observed Rich grind through the various stages of brain damage: psychosis, paranoia, hallucinations, aggressive behavior, and rages. He had no memory of what happened to him, nor of the year before. He lost short-term memory so that moments after Abigail left, he had no recollection of their visit. But he did have periods of uncanny perceptions and would say things about what she had been thinking. Abigail found ways to cope and to learn how to live alone.  One of the things she did was to acquire two more dogs, making a total of three, and the four of them became a team. She found ways to find pleasure in small things and to find new interests.

I loved this touching and profound memoir. Dealing with this kind of tragedy takes patience and grace. I found author Abigail Thomas’s quiet, droll sense of humor refreshing. She managed to make a new life—not one she preferred, but one that was nevertheless satisfying.

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Book Review: The Boston Girl

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Anita Diamant’s novel, The Boston Girl: A Novel, captures the essence of an immigrant Jewish family. College student Ava interviews her 85 year-old grandmother Addie: “How did you become the woman you are today?”

Addie was born into an immigrant Jewish family in Boston in the early 1900’s. During her lifetime, her family experiences many changes in society, changes her parents resist. Addie’s mother, a bitter, complaining woman, sees little good in anything. Her father is mostly silent during his wife’s rages, but Addie feels the brunt of the family’s strife. They live in a cold water flat with a shared outhouse in back of the tenement.

As Addie grows into womanhood, she realizes her life is different from that of her family’s old-world views, and she strives to create an independent life. Addie’s story takes us through WWI, the depression, and ends in the 1930’s.

I found The Boston Girl enlightening with its world views seen through Jewish immigrants’ eyes. As Addie is exposed to other ways of life, she longs to become a part of the new world, but always feels the burden of her parents’ anger and frustration. Anita Diamant is also the author of The Red Tent, which is an entirely different novel than The Boston Girl, so much so that I found it difficult to believe it was the same author. But The Boston Girl has its own value in its sharing of the difficulties of adapting to an unfamiliar culture.

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Book Review: A Land To Call Home

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A Land to Call Home, the third novel in “The Red River of the North Series” is another exceptional Historical Fiction by Lauraine Snelling. The story takes place in 1884-85 in Dakota Territory, in what would become North Dakota.

The story centers around the families of two sisters-in-law, both widowed and remarried, but includes other neighbors and relatives who fight to survive the struggle of taming the virgin prairie. The adults are originally from Norway and they speak Norwegian, though struggle to learn English. As the pioneers face almost insurmountable challenges to “prove up” their individual homesteads, they also work toward their dream of building a real town.

The immigrants’ homes are made of sod, dwellings that are dark and damp. But the women make colorful quilts to liven their environment. Even the combination church/school building is a sod structure. Helping one another, sharing their meager supplies, and living their strong Christian faith carry them through the hard times.

Reading this series has made me appreciate even more the hardships of our early pioneers. I love reading about how those brave people managed, what they ate and how they spent their time. Their lives were centered around their deeply rooted religion. When their faith was tested, they helped one another through it. I particularly enjoyed the first Christmas program in the new soddy school house. In those days there were no problems celebrating a traditional Christmas pageant with a live baby, donkey, even sheep. The community pitched in with materials to make the program a success.

Lauraine Snelling captures the spirit of our hard-working early settlers. As I’ve followed along with many of the same characters in previous books in the series, I applaud their triumphs and despair their hardships. I admire their deep faith and their ingenuity in finding ways to strive. I love the “Red River of the North” series and look forward to book four.

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Book Review: A Dog Called Hope

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A Dog Called Hope: A Wounded Warrior and the Service Dog Who Saved Him by Jason Morgan and Damien Lewis is a well written, moving true story.

While on an anti-narcotics raid, special forces warrior Jason Morgan parachuted into a Central American jungle. He’d served with the famous Night Stalkers on many such missions, but this assignment ended badly for Morgan. Months later he regained consciousness in a U.S. military hospital, paralyzed from the waist down, in chronic pain, and with no memory of what had happened to him.

In the meantime, Jim Siegfried, a Canine Companion for Independence (CCI) puppy trainer, was assigned a dog to raise and train. In the eighteen months Jim would have Napal, a black Labrador Retriever, the pup learned to respond to thirty commands and be prepared for the next training sessions to meet special-needs recipients. It’s a tremendous sacrifice for puppy trainers. The bond between trainer and pup becomes very strong and giving up the dog is heart-wrenching. Some dogs don’t make the grade, but those who do become a life-line to veterans and the disabled.

Jason Morgan’s life spiraled downward to the point of his having no hope. This once-active career military and family man’s life as he knew it ended with his massive injuries. Jason’s life took a remarkable turn when he learned about CCI. He was given Napal and after the two trained together at a California CCI facility, Jason was able to respond to his family’s needs and know real happiness. Not everything ran smoothly in Jason’s life, but with Napal he was again able to find humor, companionship and meaning in life.

A Dog Called Hope is a remarkable story about the strong bond between man and dog. I learned how intensely trained CCI service dogs are and how they can change lives. Although the dogs cost about $50,000 to raise and train, they are free to the recipients. The book opened my eyes to the challenges a wheel-chair bound person faces. But a canine companion does more than pick up dropped objects and open doors. Their constant presence helps build confidence, open up new possibilities, all the while providing unconditional love and joy. I highly recommend this touching and often humorous book.

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Book Review: Hillbilly Elegy

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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance is a stark, beautifully written and sometimes humorous memoir about the author’s growing-up years in a troubled family. Vance’s Appalachian family was originally from Jackson, Kentucky, but later moved to the “Rust Belt” of Middletown, Ohio. In his memoir Vance describes the mind-set of poor, white Americans. The memoir is a passionate, personal analysis of a culture in crises.

Vance and his half-sister were mostly raised by loving grandparents. His mother was an addict; he barely knew his father. His mother went from husband to husband, and even though some of these men were decent, they were never around long enough to help a growing boy get a sense of direction for his life.

Vance did poorly in school, had spotty attendance, and often made unwise choices. After barely graduating from high school, a cousin urged him to join the Marines, a choice that made all the difference in the life he subsequently lived. When he enlisted, he was out of shape, had a sour attitude, and couldn’t begin to imagine what he would do with the rest of his life. By working hard—and that not always by choice—he learned his own self-worth, and gained confidence both physically and mentally.

With his new-found confidence, and with the help of the G.I. Bill, Vance attended and graduated from Ohio State University in Columbus. At the University, he learned how other people lived, that he could contribute to society, and that he could be someone he never dreamed possible. He learned that successful people look at the big picture, not just present-day challenges.

He applied and was accepted at Yale Law School. At Yale he met yet a different class of people, and was introduced to other lifestyles and opportunities. His expanding self-worth influenced his future choices.

Hillbilly Elegy is a powerful book. As one who’s “been there,” Vance describes the problems with so many of the working class poor, how their lifestyle reflects bad choices, resulting in the next generation making the same self-defeating decisions. It’s easy to be critical of people like this, but the remedies are complex and often elusive. Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating study of a profound problem in today’s American culture.

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Book Review: To the Bright Edge of the World

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To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey is a beautifully written historical novel based on an 1885 exploratory expedition to unmapped Alaska.

Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester and his wife Sophie have only been married a short time when he undertakes an assignment to explore regions of Alaska’s Wolverine River Valley. He is accompanied by two other Army men. Along the way they meet up with two trappers and prospectors hoping to locate minerals. A Native woman also joins them whose survival skills prove to be invaluable in their precarious journey.

Forrester’s team experiences harrowing, life-threatening situations, illness and deprivation. While her husband struggles in the wilds of Alaska, Sophie is compelled to remain at their home, an Army post at Vancouver Barracks, Washington Territory. Sophie has always been interested in nature, particularly birds, and discovers within herself a talent for wildlife photography while photography was in its infancy. She converts her pantry into a dark room and manages to learn the art of not only photography, but of developing pictures. Thus, she manages to ease her loneliness, despite the disdain of other army wives who spend their afternoons gossiping at teas.

The diaries and letters of Sophie and Allen Forrester are skillfully paced as they face hardships and conquests. Interspersed with Allen and Sophie’s writings is modern-day correspondence between a pharmacist and a great-nephew of Allen’s who is a curator of an Alaska museum. Also shown are excerpts and illustrations from historical documents which span the time period from the 1880s to the present.

To the Bright Edge of the World is an extraordinary novel, not only in its depiction of “man against nature,” but as a story of love, endurance, and hardships faced with courage and grace.

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Book Review: One Thousand White Women

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Jim Fergus’ One Thousand White Women is a fascinating “what if” novel about the United States government agreeing to send 1,000 volunteer white women as brides to the Cheyenne people. As Chief Little Wolf explains the idea at a Washington D.C. meeting, “It is the Cheyenne way that all children who enter this world belong to their mother’s tribe.” Thus, this would be an ideal way for the native peoples to become absorbed into the white man’s way of life. In exchange for the 1,000 woman, the Cheyenne would trade 1,000 horses.

May Dodd had been wrongly institutionalized in a Chicago lunatic asylum. Along with several other women in asylums and prisons all over the country, they took advantage of the offer to be released with full pardon with the condition that they would agree to become a Cheyenne bride. But confined women weren’t the only ones to volunteer—women from all over the country responded to the Cheyenne’s marriage proposal, telegraphing and writing letters to the White House.

Traveling by train to the Cheyenne tribal lands, May Dodd meets the first group of women who will be fellow brides. It’s a diverse selection of women, all with their own stories.

Finally arriving, the women are housed in teepees, called lodges. A Christian minister who works with the Indians officiates, and the women are married in a group ceremony. May Dodd is now the wife of Chief Little Wolf, and she joins him and his other wives in their family lodge.

Through journals, May Dodd writes to various members of her family, sharing her inner-most thoughts and observations. It is through these journal entries that the story progresses. I very much enjoyed One Thousand White Women for its glimpse into Native culture, the status of women in the late 1800s, and the many truths in this imaginary story.

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Book Review—Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog

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Ted Keresote, while on a kayak/raft trip down Utah’s San Juan River, was surprised when a big golden/reddish dog joined their party. He didn’t have a collar or obvious identification. The dog was thin, but full of energy, and had apparently been living on his own for some time. He seemed to like what he smelled in this party of several friends, and he adopted Keresote. His eyes said it all: “You need a dog, and I’m it.”

Upon returning to his home in northwestern Wyoming, near Jackson Hole, Keresote took the dog, whom he named Merle, to a veterinarian. The vet determined that the dog was probably not quite a year old, was in good health, and had no chip or other ownership identification.

The two, man and dog, bonded and became a team, enjoying life as they hunted, hiked, and skied, sharing their love of the outdoors. As the name of the book implies, Keresote installed a dog door in his home, allowing Merle almost total freedom. Fortunately, they lived in a rural area where this was possible.

As the author recounts Merle’s demeanor and their relationship, he shares interesting facts written by expert animal behaviorists. The two—the man and his dog—learn from each other.

Merle’s Door is a remarkable book and one I highly recommend, especially if you love dogs and yearn to know more about them.

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The Mysterious Agatha Christie

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Although I’m not usually a fan of mysteries, I recently read Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie as a library-sponsored book club selection.

From the Hercule Poirot Mystery series, Three Act Tragedy is, as the title implies, written in three sections. In the first, mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington chokes on his cocktail at a dinner party and suddenly dies. In the second act, another “accidental death” occurs and with many of the same people present. In the third act master detective Hercule Poirot, together with a team of sleuths, attempt to solve the baffling murder mysteries.

Reading this book made me curious about the author and her amazing writing accomplishments. Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (1890 – 1976) is listed in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies. Her novel, And Then There Were None is Christie’s best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world’s most popular mystery ever, and one of the world’s best-selling books. Her works have been made into plays, films and television series.

Agatha Christie enjoyed a happy childhood in Devon, England. She married Archibald Christie in 1914, and they had one child, a daughter. In 1926 Archie asked for a divorce as he had fallen in love with another woman. Soon afterwards, Agatha disappeared, causing a public outcry of alarm. Searchers found her car, but despite an extensive manhunt, she was not found for 10 days. There never has been an explanation for the disappearance. She says of the experience, “So, after illness, came sorrow, despair and heartbreak. There is no need to dwell on it.”

Christie traveled extensively for several years, writing along the way, frequently using foreign settings for her novels. In 1930 she married an archaeologist 13 years her junior, Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan. Their marriage was happy and lasted until Christie’s death in 1976.

In 1946, Christie said of herself: “My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, gramophones and cinemas. I dislike the taste of alcohol and do not like smoking. I DO like sun, sea, flowers, traveling, strange foods, sports, concerts, theatres, pianos, and doing embroidery.” Interestingly, she doesn’t mention writing. But a master in the craft of writing she was. Agatha Christie is known world-wide and her work has been translated into more than a hundred foreign languages. Mystery may not be my favorite genre, but learning about Agatha Christie has somewhat solved the mystery about what it takes to be a great, world-renowned author.

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