It is hard to believe that it has been a whole month. Wow! I guess time really does fly when you are having fun. My book reads this month were limited. I read Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray for our Book Club and really enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed the homemade cake we had at the Book Club lunch! (recipe from the book)

Since I didn't have any new books to read, I read magazines. Real Simple and Martha Stewart Living. I went to the Book Fair and listened to a review given by one of my favorite people (Marilyn Arnold) on one of my favorite books Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks was also being reviewed at the same time.

Baby D came along and seemed to enjoy being out in the crowd. He's a very good baby. Easy to please. We had a good time taking care of him over the weekend while the parents were playing in the woods. Anytime, I say! We love being grandparents.

Recently, I purchased three new books: Hope Is the Thing With Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds by Christopher Cokinos; Bittersweet: A Daughter's Memoir by Marilyn Arnold; and The Quickening by Michelle Hoover.

It is this last book that I choose to write about today. It was very good. Some difficult themes but very good. Two main characters narrate the story and they have VERY different points of view. Each have their flaws, and good points, and both are in interesting situations. The story takes place in the Midwest farming area during the Depression. A situation is presented and the reader suspects something but it isn't confirmed until the end. I guess the most interesting part of the novel is the question: what motivates us to do what we do -- childhood, parents, sorrows, happiness, values, inner nature, spouse, children . . . the list can go on and on. The resolution of the book is heartbreaking. I would recommend it as a good read and plan to give it the second read test soon.

I like it when I hear a quote from a book, play, poem, etc and know the source. For some reason, it confirms something. Not sure what exactly, but it is a confirmation of the soul. It has been fun hearing my son talk about his English Literature class. They are reading short stories and poems that I used to teach to my English classes so many years ago.

William Carlos Williams (This is Just to Say, The Red Wheelbarrow)

e. e. cummings (In Just-)

Kurt Vonnegut (Harrison Bergeron)

and more.

I'm glad we have a common vocabulary of literature.

I'm enjoying Hope is the Thing With Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds. The title is based on the poem by Emily Dickinson.

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.