Book Club Blog

You’d think blogging would come naturally for someone who works in the business of writing, but I am still finding it a challenge to get into the “hang” of it. Perhaps if I were more of a blog reader, myself, that would motivate me, although there have been some blogs I have read that - in my opinion - could have just as well never been written. I’m thinking of a blog where the writer, who was a news personality from another town in North Dakota, talked about barfing. Yes, you heard me - barfing.
The writer, whom I will not name, wrote about the first time she had vomited.
I found it more disturbing than anything else and wish I had never read it. But it’s like the old saying - “you can’t unring a bell.”
Here’s hoping that our bloggers at the Journal - though they may from time to time feel like barfing - they have the restraint not to write about it in any detail whatsoever. Surely there are more interesting topics to come up with.
Thanks for listening and for not barfing.
-Louise

In our book study at St. Olaf Lutheran Church for Lent our pastor introduced us to the theologian David J. Lose. In our six week study of Lose's book, Making Sense of the Cross, we have first watched a video each week where Lose speaks about each chapter, then entered into discussion of the book. The book is written as if the author, or speaker is having a dialogue with another individual and they discuss different views or approaches to God, Jesus and the cross.

At first it was difficult for me to get engaged by the back and forth dialogue but I enjoyed learning about the theories of Anselm and Abelard about atonement and how those theories have come into and gone out of popularity. When all was said and done, the book did spark some good discussion and I couldn't help but wonder where each one of us is in all of this talk about the cross and atonement and where does the Holy Spirit enter into the experience of making sense of the cross. It's a good topic for Lent and Holy Week and Easter.

Following the book study we would gather upstairs in the church for Holden Evening Prayer. What a beautiful service that is! The music is absolutely lovely!

Whenever things get tense or hectic lately, I find myself humming a line or two from it. When I find it hard to get to sleep and worries crowd into my mind, if I can focus on recalling the music and the words it helps me to relax and drift off.

Hope you have a good Holy Week and a wonderful Easter.

Snowflower and the Secret Fan
By Lisa See


This is a story of an era in which women’s feet were bound; women were isolated and often abused;  girl children were “worthless.”  Even for those born to high status or wealth, freedom was unknown and  life was hard in many ways.   

This intriguing story is narrated by Lily,  a widow in her eighties.   Lily reflects on her life and her friendship with Snowflower, its ups and downs, their marriages, and larger events that affected their lives.

 In 19th century China, women developed a “secret writing” with which they communicated with each other.    This is the only known language just for women.  They wrote their code in the folds of a fan, which was easy to send back and forth.

In spite of the hardships these women stoically accept, the story has a delicacy like Chinese art.  It is memorable read.  

The story is carefully researched, and teaches about another time and place.  This book will make the women of 21st century America glad to live where and when we do. 

Delcie Danroth Light grew up in Mandan.  My paternal family is Swedish and
maternal family is English.

Bill and I moved to Devils Lake in 1967.  We built our home we still live in
with our own hands and my grandfather's hammer.  We raised three children in
that home, plus many dogs and cats.  Each summer grandchildren from
California come and stay to enjoy life in the Lake Region.  They are proof
of what son Bill said many years ago:  "We grew up in the perfect place."

I have a B.S. From NDSU and M.S. From UND.  I administered Early childhood
Education at Fort Totten, taught adult education, and most of my career, I
taught literature and composition for 25 years in the Devils Lake Public
School.  Education has long been a value in my family.  The first teacher
was the Puritan, Reverend John Cotton (1584-1652), who was the Dean of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England; the teacher at Winthrop Colony,
Boston; and one of the founders of Harvard.  Maybe teaching is genetic?

I love ND, animals, plants, kids, reading, writing, gardening, traveling,
good conversations, witty people, and genealogical research.  I don't know
what boredom means.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver was published in 2005.  It is the story of a preacher, Nathan Price, who decides to take his wife and four daughters to the Belgian Congo to “save” the souls of the native people.   The story is told in the voices of his wife and four  daughters.

Nathan is a rigid “preacher,” not a pastor or minister.  He is convinced of his rightness, and his own righteousness.

 As a person who knows how others ought to live, he displays his ignorance.   He doesn’t understand why the local people refuse to get into the river to be baptized; he doesn’t understand that there are crocodiles in the river.  He does not understand that “Pride goeth before a fall.”  He becomes a comic figure and a tragic figure, as he becomes more and more unhinged.   

This is one contemporary novel worth reading as there are laughs, tears, and many life lessons.

Delcie Danroth Light grew up in Mandan.  My paternal family is Swedish and
maternal family is English.

Bill and I moved to Devils Lake in 1967.  We built our home we still live in
with our own hands and my grandfather's hammer.  We raised three children in
that home, plus many dogs and cats.  Each summer grandchildren from
California come and stay to enjoy life in the Lake Region.  They are proof
of what son Bill said many years ago:  "We grew up in the perfect place."

I have a B.S. From NDSU and M.S. From UND.  I administered Early childhood
Education at Fort Totten, taught adult education, and most of my career, I
taught literature and composition for 25 years in the Devils Lake Public
School.  Education has long been a value in my family.  The first teacher
was the Puritan, Reverend John Cotton (1584-1652), who was the Dean of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England; the teacher at Winthrop Colony,
Boston; and one of the founders of Harvard.  Maybe teaching is genetic?

I love ND, animals, plants, kids, reading, writing, gardening, traveling,
good conversations, witty people, and genealogical research.  I don't know
what boredom means.

I admit I like most things I read, I'm not very discriminating. You can get me interested in just about anything from biographies to Shakespeare to light fiction. I go to used book stores and rummage sales all summer long and pick up 25 cent bargains to read through the winter. So here I am trying a new author. Her name is Carol Higgins Clark and she is the daughter of Mary Higgins Clark. I am starting her book titled "Hitched" and the first few pages are a little hard to get into. Maybe I'm distracted by all the things I need to do at work or the things I SHOULD be doing at the house rather than sitting on by bum and reading, but so far the daughter hasn't captured my imagination like her mama can. I'll let you know how it turns out. - Louise

The books I like to read these days aren’t the highbrow works of literature that I have enjoyed at various times in my life, rather they are the easy reads - my favorite are science fiction and fantasy. Yes, I admit to being a nerd - I KNOW that shocks no one. My next favorite are murder mysteries and detective novels.
I read every day for a few minutes while I sit under the dryer every morning drying my hair. I have one of those big dryers like you see in beauty shops that I sit under at home in my basement. When you have naturally curly/frizzy hair like mine you use one of those rather than a blow dryer or else I would look like what I call a dead dandylion - with fluff standing out in all directions.
I also try to catch a few minutes to an hour of reading right before going to bed most nights. It calms me down and helps me to sleep.
Recently I finished Remember Me by Mary Higgins Clark and may I say I enjoyed it. It has likeable characters and a story line that unfolds quickly to reveal “who done it.” I liked the setting of this one - a historic home by the sea, a former sea captain’s residence. I’d give this one a 6 because I THOUGHT I had it figured out before hand and found in the end I was only partly right. - Louise

The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper:  This is an amazing book.  It gave me a whole new prospective of the people of Africa.  When I thought of Africans I always thought of hungry, sick & dying people.  This is a true story about a family .of the very elite, very rich and well educated living in Liberia.  They lived in a hugh house on Sugar Beach on the west coast of Africa. That was before the revolution.  Times change !  This is a good read !
 
THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT by Ellen Johnson Sireaf.  Ellen is Africa's first woman president and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. A remarkable story about Ellen's life and also a history of the country of Liberia.  This book gets a little boring at times but I do enjoy history.....both past and present. Published in 2009.  I ordered both books from Amazon.

I had a phone call early this morning. As I raced to pick up I found myself wondering who it could be calling so early. Was it bad news? Who was calling in too sick to work today? Instead it was my faithful Uncle Vern calling to tell me that overnight it had rained, then frozen and the sidewalks and streets were like glass. He wanted me to be sure to take sidewalk salt with me as I headed to the garage and to wear my winter “studs” - that rubber webbing with metal protrusions that help grip the ice and keep a walker from ending up spread eagle like Bambi on the ice.
What a nice thing that was! Everyone should have an Uncle Vern who watches out for you on days when the sidewalks ice over and one step outside your door could send you skittering down on hands and knees. I think of the many times he has come to my rescue, cleaning out rain gutters, chopping ice dams, shoveling and sprinkling sidewalk salt to make sure I don’t fall and get hurt as I blunder out at the last minute headed to the office. He’s a real lifesaver not only in the winter time. Summers he keeps my lawn trimmed and lovely, the flower beds weeded and the bird bath filled.
Often he will be up early, long before the sunrise, and his handiwork will be obvious only because as I head to the garage the sidewalk is clear or a dusting of kitty litter mixed with salt on black icy patches tells me he was there as I was dragging my lazy butt out of bed and washing the night away in the shower. It makes me smile. Cinderella had her Fairy Godmother, I’ve got Uncle Vern. Don’t you wish you had an Uncle Vern, too? -Louise

I just finished reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Anne McCaffrey, who is well-known in the science fiction-fantasy circles for her 26 books set on the planet Pern. Born in the USA April 1, 1926, McCaffrey passed away in her home in Ireland on November 21, 2011.
I imagine it will be her last, unless there are manuscripts that she had lying around that need publishing. It makes me sad to think the dragons of Pern will have flown for the last time. Rest in peace, my friend, you have given a great many of us a great deal of joy in your labors.
Maybe because I was born in 1952, the year of the dragon, I have always had liking for dragons. The dragon riders of Pern and their adventures have been a source of enjoyment for me since discovering them during my college years. For a time I even had a small dragon collection. My friend, Richard Hinschberger, once made a dragon costume to surprise me for Halloween one year and we went out dancing in costume - I dressed as a lion (I already had the mane) and he a green dragon. I remember laughing a great deal as he had difficulty managing the dragon’s tail on the dance floor.
Here we are in 2012, another year of the Dragon about to begin. I’m hoping it will be a good year. The past few have not been so for me, but ever the optimist, I refuse to give up.
I think that was one of the things that appealed to me in McCaffrey’s writing. Her tales were, for the most part, uplifting stories of people from many different crafts and halls who survived, sometimes against the odds, using the resources they developed around them. In the book I recently finished, the very civilization of Pern was threatened by a faction working to thwart progress and innovation because of fear and ignorance. Meanwhile a pair of dragonriders and their dragons are badly injured by attacking tiger-like creatures. If it weren’t for the progress and innovation made in the healing arts, both riders, a bronze dragon and a green would have surely died. I would give The Skies of Pern by Anne McCaffrey my personal rating of 7 out of 10 with 10 being the best book I ever read.     –Louise