A Few Quick Book Reviews

I haven’t read any books from my book list recently but here are some quick reviews of other books I have read recently:

The African Queen: A missionary’s sister and a steamboat mechanic make a treacherous voyage down a river in Africa. A good book, but a better movie (Katherine Hepburn and Humphery Bogart). The characters in the book come off a little different then those in the movie but otherwise the two are very similar.

Nickel Mountain: Follows the twists and turns of life for an overweight diner owner in the catskill mountains. Wonderfully written with unusual and lovable characters but confusing emotionally and spiritually. I definitely recommend reading it. I will probably have to read it again to understand it fully.

Julie: This is probably my favorite of the above three. Written by Catherine Marshall author of Christy. This is the story of a girl growing into womanhood in a small town in Pennsylvania. This story has it all, romance, adventure, suspense.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Where do you go?

to pray. Where do you go to pray? I believe Anne of Green Gables said it best when she said that if she really wanted to pray she would go out in the middle of a field and just feel a prayer. I certainly pray best in the middle of fields, or mountains. Anywhere far away from people and close to nature is a good place to pray (although you can pray anywhere, its just easier there.). There is something almost cleansing about nature and it feels like the place I am closest to God.

Where did Jesus go to pray? to gardens and “mounts” and secluded places with trees not people.

I feel close to God when I watch the clouds grow pink and chase each other across the sky and the first few stars come out. Ideally I would always pray from a mountaintop or by running water.

I think God likes mountains. Let’s look at this analytically (ok, not really analytically–more like–as I think of points)
1. Where did God make a covenant with Noah? well, it was probably a mountain. No guarantees, but obviously those were the first to dry out before a flood.

2. Where did God choose to test Abraham by having him almost sacrifice Isaac? A mountain.

3. Where did God meet Moses to tell him to bring the Israelites out of slavery? A mountain. Horeb–the mountain of God to be exact.

4. Where did God meet Moses again to give him the ten commandments? A mountain. Mount Sinai this time.

And so on and so forth… so I believe that God likes mountains. And I certainly like mountains and most of all I like meeting God on mountains. So we’ll keep our tryst on the craggy places as long as I can find mountains to run to. But when I find myself as I am now without mountains in my life I’ll remember this:

“For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched… but to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”  Hebrews 12: 18-24

Filed under: Moral/Spiritual, Uncategorized , God, Mountains, Prayer, hebrews, Mount Zion, Jerusalem, Mount Sinai, Anne of Green Gables

The Great Santini

Summary:

This is the story of a marine fighter pilot, Bull Meecham and his family whom he rules with the strictest military discipline. The story focuses in mainly on Bull’s relationship with his eldest son, Ben. Bull is crass, crude and quick-tempered but he loves his family. The family has just had to move with Bull to his newest post in South Carolina. The book chronicles the Meecham family’s struggle to once again assimilate to a new town and a new place and Conroy also very easily transitions into descriptions of the racial and petty political tensions in a small southern town.

My Thoughts:

Conroy is a master of his craft. This book is easy to read, original and incredibly emotional. The relationships and characters in the book seem to come alive. I laughed, I cried, I want to read more by Conroy. Warning, however, some parts of the book are incredibly crude. I thought both Bull and Ben were incredibly interesting and accurate characters and the tensions between them were very thought provoking.

Rating:

♦♦♦◊ [3/4]

Blurb:

“He [Ben] had lost count how many times he had waited beside landing strips, scanning the sky for the approach of his father, his tall, jacketed father, to drop out of the sky, descending into the sight of his waiting family, a family who, over the long years had developed patient eyes, sky-filled eyes, wing-blessed eyes.  As a child Ben had not understood why he had to stare so long and hard into a sky as vast as the sea to cull the mysterious appearance of the man who had fathered him, the man who could do what angels did in the proving grounds of gods, the man who had fought unseen wars five miles above the earth. But now Ben’s eyes had sharpened with practice and age. By instinct now it responded to the slanting wing, the dark , enlarging speck, growing each moment, lowering and coming toward Ben and his family, whose very destinies were fastened to the humming frames of jets.”

Filed under: Uncategorized

Heroes in Clinicals.

I’ve been in clinicals again this week. I feel like I should update about that. I started to feel really comfortable in the hospital and I like that. I wish we went more days in row because I always like the second day better than the first day…anyway, that’s off topic.

My patient this week had just had a left AKA. He had had a right AKA a couple of months ago and because he took that one very well and he was developing gangrene on his left foot (he was a diabetic with PVD) they decided to go ahead and take the other leg. (oh, btw, AKA means “Above Knee Amputation” and PVD is “peripheral vascular disease–which is when diabetics lose feeling in their extremities, often causing them to injure their feet without even knowing it.)

So the long and the short of it was that my patient had had both legs amputated. So here he was, a 56 year old man with tattoos that said things like “born to be wild” and “freedom” (oh and also the names of several girls–none of whom were his wife. haha.) and he was laying in bed without legs and in excrutiating pain and do you know what he said to me this morning when I came in?

He said thank you. In fact he didn’t just say thank you, he went on and on about how much he appreciated me and the nurses on my floor and how it made such a difference that someone listened to him.

Later on, when I was in the room with him, I thought to myself, “would I want to live like this?” I mean, how do you cope with something like that? you need help with everything. Also he was in extreme, extreme pain. We were giving him 100 mg of demerol every 2 hours and he was still in pain. It was rough. But there he was thanking me and saying later that he would like to get up and that he hoped to stay active. He had end stage lung cancer. He hadn’t really been eating since march because he had started chemotherapy. He was taking pills like they were candy.

Just sitting here thinking about it makes me want to cry, but he would not like that. No, he would not like that at all, and he never cried the whole time I was with him, despite the fact that at one point he said his pain was a 12 on a 0-10 scale. Nor would his wife or daughters, who came and sat with him the whole day, like it. These women were caring for him all day long and had been for over a year. They were devoting hours, after getting home from work, or between driving the school bus to help him and encourage him.

What amazing people these people were. They were kind of like real life heroes. In fact, if I knew of one of those “describe a hero that you know” contests I would probably enter them.

They looked at life, not through rose colored lenses, but seeing things the way they really were, all the trials and difficulties, the frustrations and pains, and they said “ok.” And they didn’t look back and they didn’t complain and they found a laugh here and there and rest in the hospital chairs.

As a nurse I always wanted to be able to help people. To really be a hero for them, but here I am discovering that more than likely, most of the time it is the other way around.

Filed under: Life, Nursing school, Uncategorized , AKAs, clinicals, dealing with diabetes, diabetes, hospitals, Nursing, Nursing school, PVD, sickness

The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories

Summary: A collection of short stories by Earnest Hemingway. There are 10 stories overall, most of which deal with death in some form or fashion. I will summarize the most memorable.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro is the first one in the collection and it deals with a man and woman who have gone on safari. Their vehicle has broken down and the man is severely injured and waiting for death. The fascinating part of this story is how Hemingway approaches death. He describes how the man knows he is going to die and he will catch glimpses of death in different forms and feelings, a heaviness, a shadow, a hyena, before he finally succombs.

A Clean-Well Lighted Place is the next story. It is extremely brief but possibly my favorite. It describes the conversation of two waiters, waiting for a customer to leave their cafe. One is extremely annoyed and ready to go home, but the other man understands. The understanding waiter says “I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe…With all those who do not want to go to bed.  With all those who need a light for the night.”

A Day’s Wait is a brief but ironic story about a little boy who waits for death for a day because he has been confused between measurements in Celcius and Farenheit.  He has a fever of 100 but in France he was told you could not live with a temperature above forty four degrees.

The Short and Happy Life of Frances Macomber is a very intriguing and very memorable tale of a couple big game hunting in Africa. It is the story of the boy becoming a man, although he is middle-aged. Frances encounters a lion on the first day but runs, terrified, from it. His wife, in return, mocks him mercilessly and sleeps with their guide. The next day though, they go buffalo hunting and somehow, mysteriously, in a wild moment he becomes a man. Courageously, he pursues a wounded buffalo into the brush to finish it off, but the buffalo charges him. His wife panics and shoots, presumably at the buffalo, but misses and kills Frances. Hemingway implies, but does not state, that she shot Frances intentionally, because his change would have ended her cuckoldry and perhaps even their relationship.

My Thoughts: As always it is a relief to read Hemingway’s brutal, pessimistic and often fatalistic writing. I thank God for an author not entranced with describing idyllic scenes and touching feelings. Hemingway, to me, is oftentimes more about what is left unsaid than what is actually stated and the beauty of his stories are that they make the reader think and because they make one think they stick with you.

This book was particularly interesting to me because of Hemingway’s fascination with death. He seemed to try to trap it. It was as if he said to himself “if I can describe it, I have conquered it” and yet he never did.

Rating:

♦♦◊◊ [2/4]

(Although I am biased towards Hemingway, I could only in good conscious give this book two diamonds because some of the stories were not noteworthy at all.)

Blurb:

“D***ed good thing.  Beggar had probably been afraid all his life.  Don’t know what started it.  But over now. Hadn’t had time to be afraid with the [buffalo].  That and being angry too.  Motor car too.  Motor car made it familiar.  Be a d*** fire eater now.  He’d seen it in the war work the same way.  More of a change than any loss of virginity.  Main thing a man had.  Mad him into a man.  Women knew it too. No bloody fear.”

Filed under: Book Reviews, Uncategorized , A Clean Well-Lighted Place, A Day's Wait, book review, books, Earnest Hemingway, The Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories

Driving in Georgia

Oh I love to go fast. If there were no cops or other cars I would drive 100 mph every where I went.

Today I drove across the state of Georgia. I had gone to Auburn, Alabama to visit a friend. (Who, by the way, is one of the most wonderful people alive.) Unfortunately I had to return after just one night because I had work today, but the drive was so wonderful I almost didn’t mind. I was a little disgusted with the thought of getting up early (6:30 Auburn time) to return home, but it was so nice to be out in the freshness of the morning, with VERY few people around that it made me want to get up early on Saturday mornings more often.

The roads were fairly clear of travelers which was wonderful and I buckled my seatbelt, armed with cheerios, chocolate chips, some leftover stromboli, and a sublime mixed tape and I started my engine. Let me describe a little of what is was like for you.

The morning mists still hung heavy in the crooks and crevices of the road, but the sunlight was strong and strengthening.

Still green trees, shaded most of the road, but in some places sunlight dappled the asphalt. I passed a field of sunflowers. I crossed a lake and smelled that delicious autumny smell of a fire burning somewhere and I rolled down my window…and I flew.

Or it felt like I was flying. I stuck my hand out the window and let the cold wind press hard against my fingers while my mixed CD blared “Forever young, I want to be, forever young.” What a way to start a day.

I am currently reading The Great Santini by Pat Conroy(see “the booklist” post) and loving it and it ties in perfectly to my drive today. Here’s what Conroy has to say about Georgia:

“Georgia born, Ben felt a strange kinship to the blood red earth…loved the fragrant land he saw mostly in night passages, whose air was filled with country music and the virile smells of crops and farm machinery possessing the miles between towns.”

Filed under: Life, Uncategorized , driving, driving fast, driving with the windows down, fall, georgia

Peter Pan

Summary:

The classic story of a little boy who never grows up and firmly believes whatever he pretends. He whisks a little girl named Wendy and her two brothers away from their comfortable nursery and flies them to Neverland to fight pirates and play with mermaids and so that he and the lost boys can have a mother.

My Thoughts:

This book makes the reader feel like they are caught in between a children’s game of make-believe and a bedtime story. The things that make this book stand out are the unexpected and truly innocent and child-like quirks (i.e. the lost boys’ solution to drive away wolves is to look between their legs at the wolves) and the surprisingly deep insight to characters (Hook’s strict upbringing at a private school which makes his deepest desire to be considered in “good form” rather than “bad form” and Peter’s uncommon relationship with mothers.) I did stall out a little in the middle of this book though. Sometimes one gets a bit annoyed with Peter and his antics.

Rating:

♦♦◊◊

Blurb:

” The cooking, I can tell you, kept her [Wendy] nose to the pot, and even if their was nothing in it, even though there was no pot, she had to keep watching that it came aboil just the same. You never exactly knew whether there would be a real meal or just a make-believe, it all depended upon Peter’s whim: he could eat, really eat, if it was part of a game but he could not stodge just to feel stodgy which is what most children like better than anything else…”

Filed under: Book Reviews, Uncategorized , Book Reviews, books, J.M. Barrie, Neverland, Peter Pan, Rating, Summary

Two Random Thoughts

1. Got my library card for Augusta today. As I was standing in line I was reading the NY Times Bestseller list and noting with remorse that all the books were about practical real life things and not a good story among them. I had just about decided that to write a deep and thought provoking blog about it…when I turned the list over and saw the “fiction” list.

2. The day I face a plate full of chocolate chip cookies and don’t eat more than is good for me is the day I’ll know I’ve grown up.

Filed under: Uncategorized , chocolate chip cookies

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Ok, I confess. I had already read this book when I formulated my book list, you were probably wondering where it came from as it was kind of a black sheep on a book list stuffed with classics….don’t even look at me like that. It qualified! I swear. I got it as a present for my 20th birthday.

Summary: This is the story of the inhabitants of an island in the English Channel. The island was occupied by Germany during WWII. The book has wonderfully vivid characterizations and a beautiful voice. The entire book is a compilation of “letters” which I thought would be annoying at first, but it really turns out to be a wonderful tool in the story telling because it allows a subtlety and understated-ness otherwise unattainable.

My thoughts: I LOVED this book. I read it in about 3 days, even with tests to study for in between.

Rating: [there are no stars in custom characters and I am technologically deficient so I will be using a four diamond rating system.]

♦♦♦◊ [3/4]

Blurb:

“Spring is nearly here. I’m almost warm in my puddle of sunshine. And down the street–I’m not averting my eyes now–a man in a patched jumper is painting the door to his house sky blue.  Two small boys, who have been walloping each other with sticks, are begging him to let them help.  He is giving them a tiny brush apiece. So–perhaps there is an end to war.”

Filed under: Book Reviews, Uncategorized , The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

the book list

1. all bloggers love lists. 2. I love books. 3. I just had my 20th birthday.

so in accordance with all these things here’s a list of 21 books to read before my 21st birthday:

1. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
2. Shout!: the Beatles in their Generation by Philip Norman
3. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Theodore Dostoevsky
6. The Snows of Kilimanjaro and other Stories by Ernest Hemingway
7. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
8. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

 

9. Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum
10. Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway
11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (tried this one once, will try again.)
12. The Great Santini by Pat Conroy
13. The Flame Trees of Thicka by Elspeth Huxley
14. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
15. A Passage to India by E.M. Forester
16. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
17. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey
18. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
19. Daisy Miller and Washington Square by Henry James
20. A Man Named Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
21. Blue-Eyed CHild Of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw

I’ll post a brief review as I go, since I know everyone is eager to learn as much as they can about literature!

Filed under: Life, Uncategorized , 21 books to read before your 21st birthday, 21st birthday, book list, books