The Prepared Home: How to Stock, Organize, and Edit Your Home to Thrie in Comfort, Safety, and Style

 

Shirley J.          Adult Non-Fiction        Disaster Preparedness so you can stay in your home during crises

The Prepared Home: How to Stock, Organize, and Edit Your Home to Thrive in Comfort, Safety, and Style by Melissa George    176 pages

Excellent, easy to understand and follow tips on how to organize and stock supplies, tools, food, etc. so that in the event of a crisis (earthquake, tornado, hurricane, fire, etc.) you would be able to survive comfortably in your home.   She has tips for stocking up for a few days, 10 days and even several days in the event that a calamity occurs and your family wants to hunker down and stay at home.   She offers suggestions for what materials you might need to board up windows, how to and what to pack in backpacks ahead of time so that in the event you would have to evacuate your home, you would have useful items and enough food and water to keep you alive for however many days.  She insists on adding things that make you happy to keep things seeming as normal and comfortable as possible (ie. nice smelling soaps/candles, etc.   A very good book on how to be ready for most any natural disaster while still keeping the comfort of home and not having your house feel like a bunker while still stockpiling every thing you will need for months if need be.   I recommend this one to mature teens and adults who want to be sure their families are well set in the event chaos hits outside so you can be cool, calm and collected inside.  Good book.

37 Houseplants Even YOU Can't Kill

 Shirley J.               Adult Non-Fiction                      37 Hearty plants that can survive on minimal care 

Finally the book for me and growing things.  This book offers photos of 37 different hearty house plants that don't require much from their human housemates.   Some need little or no sun and will still flourish.   Some need just a trickle of water now and then, camels of the plant world, but o.k. to forget to water or offer no plant food/fertilizer - frankly, for the most part, these plants don't need you but the off spritz of water now and then will be appreciated.   These plants thrive in dark places, hot places, cool places, sunny places or shoved in a corner and forgotten for weeks at a time.  While you live your life the plant will keep on keepin' on doing its thing, rowing and thriving until you finally remember you get thirsty, maybe the plant does, too.   Funny, witty and packed full of gorgeous illustrations and facts and tips on wonderful looking easy maintenance plants.   The hardest thing might be to leave them alone and try not to over water when you do.   Use that finger in the dirt trick.  It the dirt is dry - so is the plant.   If the dirt is moist or wet come back in a week or two.   Good book.  I recommend it to kids once they are able to read and comprehend on up to senior adults.  

Making Space, Clutter Free

 

Shirley J.     Adult Non-Fiction     Effective strategies for discovering the psychology behind your clutter     Making Space, Clutter Free by Tracy Mccubbin     288 pages    

I loved this book.   Traccy Mccubbin goes behind the clutter to find the why.   Why do you keep the things you do?  Are you attached sentimentally?   Are you attached by guilt?   Are you holding onto someone else's stuff?   So much mental house/head cleaning can be found here that it is like walking through a door to see the reality of what is keeping you committed to your "stuff" and then Mccubbin helps the reader reason out letting things go, fighting the fear of what if you need it later but its gone?   What if Aunt Agnes comes over looking for that gravy boat she gave you years ago?   What if your sister insists you give her whatever memento of your mother's that you got but never liked when Mama passed but that you donated to Goodwill?  Yikes!  Tracy Mccubbin is like your new best friend patting your hand and walking with you through your stored but no longer necessarily wanted accrual of things and helps you reason out whether you are holding on cause you love it or holding on cause you have had it so long you no longer see it, but, everybody else does.  A great book with lots of wise cut through the lies you've been telling yourself wisdom that will serve the reader the rest of their lives.   I recommend this book to anyone who wants to do away with the excess in their lives and living space, whatever your age.      

The Maid's Version

 The Maid’s Version by Daniel Woodrell 192 pages 

 

The last novel Daniel Woodrell has written is The Maid’s Version, which was published in 2013. I don’t know why he hasn’t published anything since, but that’s none of my business. I had fallen in love with Woodrell’s writing after Winter’s Bone, a helluva horrific book to read.

 

I had read The Maid’s Version back in 2014/2015 and didn’t like it. The structure wasn’t parallel, it didn’t make sense, and I wasn’t sure if there was a real conclusion or not. Recently, Kensington Publishing asked me to write a blurb for their March 2024 release, The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson. It is about the same subject as The Maid’s Version: An unsolved explosion of a dance hall is West Plains, Missouri, which killed a lot of young people. I jumped at the chance. I was hoping to learn more about it than I had when I read Woodrell’s novel.

 

So, after reading it, I decided to go back and give The Maid’s Version another try. “Alma DeGeer Dunahew, the mother of three young boys, works as the maid for a prominent citizen and his family in West Table, Missouri. Her husband is mostly absent, and, in 1929, her scandalous, beloved younger sister is one of the 42 killed in an explosion at the local dance hall. Who is to blame? Mobsters from St. Louis? The embittered local gypsies? The preacher who railed against the loose morals of the waltzing couples? Or could it have been a colossal accident?”

 

I learned one important thing in re-reading this book:  It wasn’t about the explosion. It was about its aftermath and how it haunted a town and its people for the rest of their lives. I was able to follow the non-linear structure better, and I was intrigued to the end. But I still felt something was missing. Therefore, The Maid’s Version receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Life at Hamilton: Sometimes You Throw Away Your Shot, Only to Find Your Story

Life at Hamilton: Sometimes You Throw Away Your Shot, Only to Find Your Story by Mike Anthony 296 pages

 

I am probably the only person in the United States who loves American history and musical theater but hasn’t seen Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway sensation, Hamilton. I just don’t think I’d like all that rapping. Of the few scenes I’ve seen on television, I can’t understand a word they are saying/singing. But maybe it’s just me. That, and I don’t want to pay $500 for a ticket just to be frustrated. That’s why I picked up this memoir from the bartender at the theater where Hamilton was/is playing. I thought it was a backstage look at the hottest ticket in town. And in ways it is.

 

The author, Mike Anthony, set out to be a Broadway actor. But like many wannabes, he had to pay his dues. So, he took a job as a bartender at Hamilton’s home, the Richard Rogers Theater until he could get a Broadway gig. I was never sure if Anthony kept a journal during his time at RRT, or if he set out to write a book about the people who stopped by or those he met.

 

The book was interesting, but I didn’t care about Anthony’s memories and anecdotes. I didn’t care about the famous people who came to see the show (Opray, twenty-five times; Rosie O’Donnell more than forty) and his interaction with them. I was rather fascinated about how the Secret Service got then-President Obama and then-Vice President Pence in and out without that night’s audience even knowing they were there.

 

From what I understand, Anthony gave up his dream behind the footlights and settled into a swell job. I’m happy for him. He found satisfaction and joy in what he did, and really, that’s all we can hope for in a job.

 

Life at Hamilton: Sometimes You Throw Away Your Shot, Only to Find Your Story receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Four Eyes

 

Shirley J.                    Juvenile Graphic Novel                                  Based on the author's experience    

Four Eyes by Rex Ogle     224 pages

A really good story about friendship, peer pressure, wanting to fit in and doing stupid things.   Rex did a stupid thing, though everybody and their brother tells you don't look at the sun during an eclipse, he did.  Honestly, we all push the envelope here and there in life but this one proved exceedingly bad for Rex, it really did mess his eyes up.   When in school he realizes he can't see the board it is a rude awakening because he had been a A student before starting middle school.  Now this was turning out to be a nightmare.  He was the shortest one in his classes it seems every one else had a growth spurt except Rex over the summer.   Because of redistricting hardly no one he went to elementary school with was attending his new middle school so he had to go through the whole making friends again thing and the one bud he had there was sucking up to the rich kids with major attitude and who made fun of the other students.   Rex didn't like that and he didn't like them nor what they said.   Rex's parents were divorced.  His Dad had money but his Mom worked two jobs and still, even with her new husband working and Rex's younger step-brother, they barely scraped by.   When the principal and Rex's teacher let his mother know he needed glasses, Rex tried to deny it, but, when Rex couldn't see the t.v. one night and asked that the screen be adjusted, Rex's Mom knew he really did need glasses.   She was caught between a rock and a hard place.   Rex's glasses ended up way more than she could afford and that was getting the cheapest frames they had, sadly, Rex's prescription was so strong his lenses looked like Coke bottles.   He was doomed.   The story has so many real situations in it that kids do have to suffer and endure in gradeschool and it is a tough life making it through those years.  Even tougher when your clothes are hand me downs, patched, worn to threadbare, you get the free lunch at school because your parents are too poor to give you money for lunch, you live in meager circumstances in rough areas because those are the only digs your folks can afford.   Life is tough enough without all the extra burdens, now, coke bottle glasses to boot.   And of course they call him four eyes.   A good coming of age story with loads of reality thrown in.  I enjoyed it and sympathized.   I recommend this book to listeners on up.  Get ready kids cause there are many situations here you will have to face and choose your reaction to.    Well done Rex Ogle.

Blood From a Stone: A Memoir of How Wine Brought Me Back from the Dead

 

Blood From a Stone: A Memoir of How Wine Brought Me Back from the Dead by Adam McHugh 272 pages

 

This is one of those books that I picked up for the title and bought for the first sentence: “This is the story of how wine brought me back from the dead.” To my embarrassment, I had not bothered to notice the book’s subtitle; but even if I had, I probably would have not even bothered to read the first sentence, just bought it.

 

Adam McHugh was a hospice chaplain who worked nights. No wonder he was depressed. That’s a really tough gig. And it’s no wonder that he started drinking with wine being the beverage of choice.

 

I’m not sure what I thought this book was going to be about, but it wasn’t a history of wine and winemaking. It was so dry, I could barely stay awake to read it.

Blood From a Stone: A Memoir of How Wine Brought Me Back from the Dead receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

 

Demon Copperhead

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 560 pages

 

Barbara Kingsolver’s 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a modern retelling of Charles Dicken’s David Copperhead except that it is set in Virginia’s southern Appalachian Mountains. However, Demon’s story makes David’s story read like a rom com it is so bleak. I’m surprised that neither Kingsolver nor Demon were suicidal.

 

The book starts at the beginning, with Demon’s birth, there on the bathroom floor of the single-wide trailer where he and his teenage mom live, surrounded by her drug paraphernalia. He arrives fully enclosed in the sac. According to the neighbor, that is a sure sign that the child, officially named Damon, will not die by water. Little comfort for the child as he grows up.

 

Demon’s dad is dead; his mom is a drug addict, but somehow, they manage. Life is hard, and the boy with copper-colored hair knows hunger and learns early how to scrounge. His mom tries, sort of. Thanks heavens for the neighbors, the Peggots.

 

Amazon reviewer Stephanie McCall wrote it best: “Barbara Kingsolver just plain nailed these characters, these settings, this life story of her modern, Appalachian David Copperfield. I not only felt for, but felt with and not only traveled with, but traveled inside, Demon all the way from his home next door to the Peggott's, to Creaky's farm, to the McCobb's, to Coach Winfield's and everywhere in between. I can't say every place and character was one I grew to love. I mean, come on, some of these people are downright cruel or downright creeps. But they were three-dimensional and I could at least understand them. And even the situations and scenes at which I cringed, left an impression on me.”

 

During scope of this novel, Demon ages from newborn to almost eighteen. He caught a break here and there, but not often. And when he did, it was heartbreaking when he lost it.

 

Kingsolver also does an amazing job in depicting the opioid crisis the dominates that part of the country.

 

Demon has one goal in life: To see the ocean. And each time he gets close, the proverbial rug is pulled out from under him.

 

This is one of those books that I could not stop reading, yet at times I had to put it down because it hurt too bad to read more. Demon Copperhead receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

July totals

 

In July, three people read 30 books with a total of 9,082 pages read.  

Shirley was the winner with 21 books and 6,294 pages!  

Congrats everyone for another banner month.

A Senior Moment is just a wrinkle in Time: Prayers, Sayings and Chuckles

 

Shirley J.                    Adult Comedy                                                Witticisms about growing older

A Senior Moment is just a Wrinkle in Time: Prayers, Sayings and Chuckles by Inc. Product Concept Mfg.    144 pages

Guaranteed to make seniors, their children, their grandkids smile, even laugh out loud at times, and definitely agree with the quotes from famous writers, witticisms, stories, prayers, jokes all telling the reality of senior life and how to deal with it while staying positive and finding the funny in all situations.  Cute and funny.   I recommend it to everyone, seniors their families and friends.  

Traveller's History of Oxford

A Traveller's History of Oxford by Richard Tames, 298 pages

There are a number of great universities in the world - at least two in England alone - but Oxford has a mystique all its own.  A great deal of this derives, of course, from its nine centuries of accumulated history, the people who studied and taught there and the traditions they fostered or defied.  This is the focus of A Traveller's History of Oxford, an introduction to both the university and the city presented as a journey through time a well as space.

The author, Richard Tames, is a proud graduate of the other university, which gives him an outsider's objectivity.  Unfortunately, while his snarky tone is amusing for a time, it sours and becomes tiresome long before the end.  This is aggravated by inconsistencies and basic errors - claiming, for example, that the putative author of The Screwtape Letters is Satan himself instead of Uncle Screwtape, or implying that Latin was a language unknown beyond the clergy before referring to it as "universally accessible" a few pages later.  Still, for those looking for an unconventional guidebook that focuses on the development of the place rather than whatever tourist spots happen to be hot at the moment, this book may be indispensable.