Summer Reading Celebration

Wonderful journey through difficult relationships featuring love, forgiveness, understanding, betrayal and redemption. Kristin Hannah creates characters that seem to come alive right off the pages. She did a good job with creating Summer Island as well, so good that I have to Google it to see if these islands really exist off the Washington coast. This is a story of an estranged mother and daughter. Nora, the successful mom, hosts a radio call in show giving stellar advice and upheld as a model of morality. Her daughter, Ruby, thinks otherwise, and rightfully so. Ruby carries a huge chip on her shoulders and is unable to connect with others at any level of depth. She ends up having to spend a week caring for her mother at their childhood home on Summer Island. She is offered a huge sum to write a tell all story about her mom just before she makes the decision to go. What follows is the packed week, an old boyfriend and the untangling of many emotions, learned behaviors and walls.

When I have a task of drudgery to do, I make light work of it by simultaneously listening to an audiobook. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning audiobook filled that need well as I tackled some kitchen cupboards. Author Margareta Magnusson makes quick work of explaining the blunt, practical premise of “death cleaning” then devotes most of the book to describing how to implement it as a gentle art. Death cleaning is simply weeding out and organizing your personal stuff in such a way that it won’t pose an undue burden to someone after your death. Very pragmatic! The gentle art is what makes it a pleasure: admittedly, most death cleaners are older people and sometimes their friends and relations are dwindling. One can build new ties in the gentle ways they pass along possessions such as photo collections, hand tools, and all manner of things. The gentle art may include giving away curated collections of photos at family gatherings, or passing along furniture to young people just starting out. Through her chapters readers also catch glimpses of the aged author’s well lived life. It was not a long book, and I highly recommend it.

The pictures of the different places in Jamestown NY were really cool to see. I have lived in Jamestown for about 14 years and I learned quite a bit. I recognized a lot of the buildings on Main Street but Brooklyn Square was totally unrecognizable. The Fenton House is one of the few structures from the early days still standing other than churches. There were lots of fires in those days so lots of buildings from the early days of Jamestown were built and rebuilt several times. The James Prendergast Library looks pretty much the same from Washington Street but with the new entry way and with subsequent additions it looks different from other views. The pictures were interesting and fun to look at.

Reading the Dragonslayers' Academy series with my grandson. He likes dragon stories, and this includes a lot of humor.

“We all need to do things that take us out of ourselves.” (p. 364) whether it is embroidery, fly fishing, or bell ringing, the activities we do offer purpose and focus, especially in difficult times. This novel is set in England in the 1930s and the thread that binds characters is sometimes physical, such as yarn to embroider with or ropes in a bell tower, and sometimes spiritual as between friends and lovers. The losses of The Great War are keenly felt by the parents, sisters, and girlfriends of boys who died. How they build new lives through service, activities, employment, and especially relationships create the threads that embroider a new life and society.

As someone who has experience with dealing with people in toxic relationships, this book hit a tad harder than I expected. Freddy's situation is all too familiar. It was refreshing to see her get out of it. Relationships where the people keep breaking up and getting back together are, in my opinion, romanticized far too much, so the author treating it as a bad thing was nice to see.

In the fourth and final installment, Daine and Numair are in the battle for their lives. The barrier between the Divine Realms and the human realms has completely collapsed. The immortals, hurroks and Stormwings, have been unleashed upon Tortall. These immortals have aligned with enemies of Tortall and Daine and her friends are losing the fight. Daine and Numair are up against a new and horrifying threat when they are plucked from the human realms and dropped into the Realms of the Gods. Trapped in the Realms of the Gods and desperate to return to their friends, they must travels across the Realms to the Dragonlands to enlist aid in their return. Along their route they discover more immortals, spies, animal gods and a plot by enemies of Tortall to not only overthrow order in the human realms but the Realms of the Gods. The human gods are fighting against their sister the Goddess of Chaos. The goddess of Chaos has gained powerful allies in the human realms to aid in tipping the scales against her god siblings. Will Daine and Numair find a way to return to their friends and help in the fight against not only their enemies but the enemies of the gods? I love this series so much! I love Daine, Numair, Alanna and so many other characters from this series!

Really had me guessing until the very end. I must admit, there was quite a twist I never saw coming.

This gem from the late 1950s tells the adventurous tale of William Prendergast, father of James who founded Jamestown, who led other Hudson Valley area colonists in revolt against the manorial system in place there. William was the leader of the “levelers” who believed that they had claim to the land they leased and about 1,700 farmers followed him. William was arrested for treason, and sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered. His wife, Mehitabel Wing Prendergast, appealed to the governor for a reprieve and pardon. The family moved to Tennessee, didn’t care for it, and came to Chautauqua Lake. This book was written for middle grades, and contains lots of swashbuckling adventure from the point of view of a boy of about 13 who is a nephew. It uses very dated descriptions of Native Americans and of women. But it is a rollicking piece of historical fiction that relates the family back story of Jamestown’s First Family.

4.75 maybe 5 Really gripping and mysterious. I loved unfolding the mystery. Very good.