Back to LES MIS...

Hugo ended the last section with the rebellion of 1832 and the building of the barricades on major Paris streets.  He starts this section off track again as he described the barricades of 1848 as being much larger and better able to be defended.

As he described them, my mind slid back to the last time I visited Oaxaca.  It was (and probably is) a beautiful city with a pretty and relaxing zocolo, bordered by shops and restaurants, with a gazebo in the middle, trees and benches.  Vendors were everywhere with crafts, balloons, and toys. Just a lovely central park.

But this last time, there had been a teacher's strike.  A teacher of more than twenty years at the time, I was inclined to sympathize with the strike, but, it seems other people all over the city had joined the demonstrations, and we arrived in the city as the same time as the forces sent out from Mexico City.  I had flown down alone and the taxi from the airport stopped at a restaurant outside the central part of the city (just a little hole in the wall place, but at least it was open.)  The driver refused to drive any further.  The owners of the small restaurant were scrambling to find places to put people up (blankets on tables) and I was fairly sure I didn't want to stay there (especially being alone) since my accommodations downtown were already paid for.  A few of us went outside to attempt to hail another taxi.  An enterprising young man showed up after awhile and told us that he and two other drivers were still going downtown and he could hail them on his radio.  He picked up the people ahead of me and said to the four of us still left that his buddy would be along soon.

Soon was about an hour, but this man took us all to the door of our hotels and was lovely about it.  I hope those three young men made a fortune that evening.  They certainly deserved it.  My friends, Peggy and Ruth, were already at the hotel, having arrived earlier that day, but I learned they had walked about twenty blocks, with their luggage after being unable to get a taxi.

The next day, we saw why.  Burned out city busses were in all of the approaches to the Zocolo where the demonstrators had barricaded themselves and now the troops from Mexico City were camped in the Zocolo.  There was no danger to us--looking very much like the tourists we were.  The troops were even most helpful in pointing us to the very few restaurants still open.  With the exception of the troops, the city seemed deserted...

Down near a church not far from the Zocolo we found a nest of activity--shrines to the movement, the lives lost in the strike/rebellion and pamphlets explaining their demands.  Of course the pamphlets were in Spanish, so I never did know what the demands had been...  Some people tried to convert us to their way of thinking, but we just said we were teachers and were already converted....  without really understanding what their way of thinking was...

Overall, it was a sad visit.  The beautiful city had lost its spirit and its beauty.  Burned out busses and unhappy people and troops with big guns....  I probably will never get back, but I hope it has gotten its mojo back.

Finished A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

Of course I knew a story about women set in Afghanistan in modern times is not going to be all merry and bright, but Hosseini manages to maintain an optimistic spirit as do his characters.  If anything he celebrates the strength of the human spirit with each new paragraph.  The book kept me glued to my chair, as, usually, only thrillers do.

And now I turn back to Les Miserables, of which I have just one last section to read.

Finished A SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET

As Madeleine L'Engle's character describes his writing style, I realized it was exactly the style the author was using--not really sci-fi, but fantasy mixed with sci-fi.  Time travel mixes with a unicorn and telepathy to save the world.  A sweet and strangely Christian story.

I have now started reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Kosseini, the author of The Kite Runner.  The latter was so well written and the world so foreign/ intriguing to me, I felt the need to read more of his books.  This one will be about women living in the shadow of the Afghanistan conflicts.

Finished PEOPLE OF THE THUNDER

Great characters.  Very satisfying ending.  I do enjoy these books by the Gears.

Have just started A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the third book in the A Wrinkle in Time series by Madeleine L'Engle.  Meg is now married to Calvin and pregnant with her first child.  The twins are in college and Charles Wallace is fifteen.  A petty dictator in a tiny South American country has decided he wants to nuke the world.  Charles Wallace is charged with stopping this by going back in time and helping people make better decisions.  Whew!  Big job!

Finished Mount Vernon Love Story

It was really quite a lovely read, especially if you like historical romance.  This was written early in her career and was well researched.  You need to understand that the copyright date was 1968, though. an be aware that the story nearly ignores the elephant in the room--slavery.  The word "slave" is mentioned twice.  Every other time they are "servants." and are, as was typical in that time (and before), portrayed as devoted and happy.  Read it for the romance---

I have now started People of the Thunder, by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear.  The is the second half of the story started in the last of their books I read, People of the Weeping Eye.  It starts right where it left off, and gives enough exposition to help me remember the last book.  This story may included some of their most fascinating characters yet.

Finished SKIN GAME

Stayed up late last night finishing this.  Page 1 through page 600 non-stop action.  Whew!  I slept until 10:00 this morning.  This 15th book in the series may be the best so far.  LOVE this series.

I'll be picking up a new book from the top of my Mary Higgins Clark pile tonight.  Out of the frying pan into the fire.  ⤗

Well, not frying pan to fire after all.  The next book on my Mary Higgins Clark pile is Mount Vernon Love Story, a biographical story of George Washington's relationship with Martha (known by her loved ones as Patsy.)  Turns out they were not as stiff or perfect as the legend says.  The technique she is using to tell the story keeps it moving and emphasizes how amazing our first peaceful turnover of leadership was.

Finished PICTURE MISS SEETON

Very British--vocabulary.  So that takes some work as does the author's tendency to report dreams, musings, and gossip in the same font as the action and without quotation marks.  Add to that the copyright date of 1969, and you just have to take some time to get used to the style.  Once you have, it is hysterical (in the very funny sense) as well as being both plot and character driven.  Loved it.

I am now about to start the 15th book in the Dresden series by Jim Butcher, Skin Game.  Harry Dresden was the only practicing wizard in the Chicago phone book (or maybe listed on line for Chicago to bring it up to date.)  Now he is the Winter Knight (subject to Mab) and has a demon growing in his head that will break out in three days killing him.  Mab will cure him, but only after he has completed an impossible mission with some of the worst beings in the universe....

Finished FLIRT

A short, fast read book, but even so, it was not innocuous.  Mayhem abounds, kicked off by what had appeared to be perfectly innocent flirting.  Fun.

Have just started Picture Miss Seeton, by Heron Carvic.  Set in England, it is pretty old (c 1968) and is the first of at least ten books in the series.  Miss Seeton is not (at least yet) a Miss Marple type character since she is quite conservative and does not look for or appreciate interaction with the law or controversy.  It was just a coincidence that she was walking past a man who appeared to be hitting his girlfriend, and she, considering such behavior rude, quite naturally poked him with her umbrella.  It was just a coincidence that she got a good look at his face and that, when it was discovered that he had just stabbed the woman to death, Miss Seeton, being a retired art teacher, was quite capable to drawing his face.  Now she is the only witness and the murderer is known to police as criminal, but still at large.

Finished DEMELZA by Winston Graham

It pretty well followed season 2 of Poldark on PBS.  There were other stories, though, and far better explained stories.  I'm glad I read it an am looking forward to book 3 of the series.

I have now started reading Flirt, the 18th novel in Laurel. K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series.  It opens with her consulting with a difficult client who seems seriously unwilling to take "No" for an answer.  And he is surprising worldly as well as intelligent.

This is the shortest of Laurell K. Hamilton's books that I have encountered.

Stopped about 1/4 through THE WITCHES

I will come back to it.  Sometimes it is quite readable and a few pages fly by, but then it becomes prodigious with unnecessarily large words and odd phrasing.  There are times I read sentences two and three times to try to understand them--sometimes I gave up.  At this point, less than twenty people have been accused (one a five year old girl) and no one has been executed, but, I've seen that jail.  I don't know how anyone could live in it long.

I have now begun Demelza by Winston Graham, the second book in the Poldark series.  However, after seeing Sunday's episode on PBS, I'm disgusted with the story and am considering quitting!  I'll see how this goes...

Finished Dick Van Dyke's Autobiography

The character we saw on the screen (large and small) is the same person who wrote this book--warm, funny, caring, gentle, family man.  A very fun read with lots of information about the shows as well as the family.  A joy to read.

I have just started The Witches:  Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem by Stacy Schiff.  I can't find it listed on Goodreads, and when I tried to add it manually, it disappeared immediately after I added it--it had taken me awhile to add, so I'm not going to try again.  Not sure I was going to find it interesting since I have gone to Salem and saw reenacted witch trials there, saw the prison the accused were kept in (being hung would have been a relief), taught The Crucible, and read a number of novels and one non-fiction piece about this already.  But this non-fiction work starts by explaining the difficulting in digging out what happened from sparse and contradictory records and I find I am already interested.  That said, I may read this in four sections just because of the smallness of the print and the fairly dryness of the material.



I went back to Goodreads today (one day after posting the above) and found it--perhaps because I had added it?

Finished DEATH BENEFIT

I had loved the character of Pia Grazdani when I first met her in the second book in her series which I had read out of order.  This is her introduction book, and I love her even more.  She reminds me of Larkin's Lisbeth Salander, if she had been a medical student.  I hope to meet her in another of Robin Cook's thrillers, which this certainly was.  One of those books that you can't put down and then, when you get to the end, you regret that it is finished!

I have now started My Lucky Life in and out of Show Business, by Dick Van Dyke.  I've been looking forward to reading this since I first heard that it was out.  I waited too long to buy it and then it was out of print.  Luckily I found it from a private vendor on Amazon.  It has started as I was hoping: funny, sincere, and charming, perfectly fitting with the public image of this man.

Made progress on BY BLOOD WE LIVE, read a children's book, and started a new Robin Cook

Rather than be the romantic, albeit dangerous, vampires I enjoy reading about, these are mostly stories about more traditional evil vampires, though there are twists.  I enjoy the stories, but there are so many of them after a while they all start to blend together in my head, so I have to take breaks from them.  I have just passed the half-way point and am taking another break.

I then read The Ox of the Wonderful Horns and Other African Folktales by Ashley Bryan, a children's picture book with five wonderfully unfamiliar (to me) stories.  I think I will enjoy sharing it with our Great-Grandkids who should move in with us by the end of the month.



I have now just barely started Death Benefit by Robin Cook.  I've read the book that came immediately after it, so am reading this one out of order.  I have only read the prologue, in which a clandestine and illegal gun deal has taken place in Russia.  Just doesn't seem much like Robin Cook yet.

Finished THE BIG SHORT

Well, it seems that the reason none of us understood "junk bonds" and all the other convoluted kinds of bonds that blew up towards the end of 2008 is that they were so complicated that no one understood them.  Which may be why nobody on Wall Street was ever actually prosecuted--none of them understood what they were doing.  They weren't criminal, they were stupid!  The few people who bet against the bonds were very interesting people--unusual, very smart, and incredulous.  Good book, though somewhat technical.

I have now returned to By Blood We Live.  These are short stories about vampires by modern authors.  I have read a story about a group of vampire hunters taking out a nest and am now reading one about a young vampire going out hunting alone for the first time.

Finished People of the Weeping Eye and another book

I swear each of these books I read is better than the last.  Perhaps because I have been a camping aficionado, I love living is the distance past with these great characters and this time the characters are, perhaps, even more interesting and the plot more complicated.  It has a sequel, People of the Thunder which is next in my Gear pile , so I'll be reading it in thirteen books.  Now I am only half-way through the story.

Then, while going to California for TR's class reunion, I read Emperor Dad, another of  Henry Melton's sci/fi-fantasy books for teens.  Joseph's dad got laid off and resents it.  He tries to consult, but he is a scientist, not a money manager.  So he scraps it and starts (in secret from his family) to pursue a line of scientific investigation that leads him to teleportation.  From this discovery to his becoming Emperor of the Earth makes a really great story.  It starts slow because it is pretty technical showing his line of study, but as soon as he discovers teleportation, it becomes really exciting.  Highly recommended.  I love this author.



I have now started The Big Short by Michael Lewis.  I have not yet seen the movie, but will when it shows up on a TV channel I watch.  I have never been able to understand exactly what happened with the housing market bust.  How could such huge banks make such a big mess?  This books not only purports to explain this, but also how someone could make money of the crash (another concept that is totally beyond me.)  So, I figured I'd let Michael Lewis attempt to explain it to me.  I have to admit that, though I've barely started, he is doing a pretty good job.

Finished THE LOST YEARS

Unlike with most MHC novels, I figured out "who done it" pretty much after we had been introduced to all the characters.  But that didn't keep me from being hooked by the suspense, because I had no idea how they were going to catch this very clever character.  However, I should have known, when Alvirah and Willie are on the case....  As usual, I enjoyed this book very much.

I have now started People of the Weeping Eye, another W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear novel.  This one has started rather slowly by introducing characters and I can't connect the characters introduced in the first chapters with those in the opening unnumbered chapter,  Moon of the Angry Winds.  Each character seems pretty interesting, though and I am hopeful that they will all connect somehow before too long.

Finished EVER AFTER

Don't you just hate when a favorite author kills off a favorite character?  When Stephen R. Donaldson did it in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, he just invented another fabulous character.  Will Kim Harrison do that?  Remains to be seen.  In the meantime, the book was edge of the seat exciting--it kept me up past my bedtime a few times.  I enjoyed the short story at the end as well which picked up right where this book left off.

I have now started The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark.  Mariah's father has been murdered and the police suspect her mother who is suffering from Alzheimers.  Did he really have a letter written by Christ to Joseph of Arimethea?  If so, where is it?

Finished DEATH AT VICTORIA DOCK

Certainly the most dangerous of the Phryne Fisher novels I've read to date, what with a machine gun and a kidnapping.  In addition to that, a missing person case is solved.  Quite a bit for such a short book.

I have just started Ever After, #11 in Kim Harrison's Hollows series.  Someone is stealing sick babies from the Rosewood unit of the hospital.  This is the disease that Rachel would have died of if not cured as a baby.  However, the cure is illegal because cured children become demons.  Is someone trying to experiment with finding a better cure, or, more likely, wanting to give selected people demon powers???

Finished DANSE MACABRE by Laurell K. Hamilton

This series did not start erotic at all---but, it seems, that was a loooooong time ago.  One would think I'd be way too old to be engrossed by this.  But, within an erotic supernatural world, it is amazing how much can be said about interpersonal relationships, racism, sexism, homophobia, communication and miscommunication, power and lack of it as experienced in our "real" world.  I remain fascinated.

I have now started Death at Victoria Dock (Phryne Fisher #4) by Kerry Greenwood.  Driving innocently home (well, as innocently as Phryne does anything), Phryne's car windshield is shot apart (disintegrated) by a bullet.  She stops and quickly discovers a young man dying not far from her car, also shot.  The next morning a rich businessman stops by to ask Phryne to find his daughter.  Now she has two mysteries to solve.

Finished THE MODIGLIANI SCANDAL

Not a high energy spy or thriller novel or a sweeping historical epic like Follett's usual fare, but this was a very fun series of cons.  I loved it.

I have now started Danse Macabre by Laurell K. Hamilton, Anita Blake, # 14.  OMG!  Anita thinks she might be pregnant!  I would not have thought this could be possible, since all of her partners have been magical species different from hers...  As a reanimator and a vampire hunter, how will a child fit into her life?

Finished THE TEMPTATION

Enjoyed this very much.  I think this may be the last in The Secret Circle series and it did, indeed, resolve everything quite satisfactorily.  I'm a little sorry it is over.

I have now started The Modigliani Scandal by Ken Follett.  I have just barely started and can't tell much as yet...  First chapter is set in France and opens with a small flirtation between a young woman and a baker.

Finished A VIEW FROM A BROAD

Funny stories about Bette and her characters and costumes, giving only a small glimpse into what it takes to do a world tour and the things that can go right/ wrong.  She is very generous to her fans, though not so much to reporters.  Love the pictures and stories.  Very short read, coffee table book.

I have now started to read The Temptation (The Secret Circle #6) by L. J. Smith.  In an attempt to rid themselves of the witch hunters that have been plaguing them, all of the circle members but Cassie have been possessed by Cassie's own ancestors.  Now she must find a way to exorcize them and bring them back to her unharmed.

Finished TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

The only other book by Elizabeth Lowell that I have read was given to me by friend Judith.  In it the heroine was an archeologist interested in a site on her family's land.  It also had a theme of stealing and exporting antiquities and was as much an action mystery adventure as a romance.  This book was pure romance and also pure formula.  However, it was well written, characters were well drawn, and it actually had me crying at the end.  And, I was really ready for a pure escape novel.  So, I greatly enjoyed it.

I am now reading A View From a Broad by Bette Midler, documenting memories from her first world tour.  Quick read, fun, coffee-table type book.

Finished preparing A WRINKLE IN TIME for teaching.

I think we will have fun reading this.  It will bend Gabriel's mind in some new ways, I suspect, but I don't think he will have any trouble finding the theme or understanding the family love that runs through the book.

I have now started To the Ends of the Earth, a traditional romance by Elizabeth Lowell.  A professional photographer meets a man who sails and designs sailboats.  It has started off formula enough--two people sworn off the opposite sex after being hurt have an instant attraction to each other.  But it will be fun to sink into a romance I get to just enjoy and not think about teaching.

Finished 100 more pages in ROUGHING IT by Mark Twain and Gabe, Skippy, and I finished WEST SIDE STORY

In this section of Roughing It, Twain tries mining and fails miserably--several times.  He's been silver mining and gold mining in both Nevada and California.  His stories are filled with humor and also pretty harrowing.  If you didn't know his history, you might think him about to die at any moment. His descriptions of fellow travelers are funny, caring, and under- or overstated depending on the character.

Skippy has been paying me with gift certificates to Barnes and Noble since I asked her not to pay me. Tutoring Gabe is fun for me.  Gabe learned earlier this summer that the person being tutored is called a tutee, so now he writes on the gift certificate "To Tutor from Tutee,"  Which is cute.  Today he writes "Tutees," to include his mom.  The kid is funny...

We finished West Side Story (the novelization) today.  It is pretty raw...the musical is fairly raw as well, but it is tempered by song and dance.  The book is just plain raw.  I will never take his teacher's recommendations for what to read again.  I think part of the problem is that it is next year's teachder making the recommendations, and she doesn't even know him yet.  I know him far better by now than she does and can make better decisions about what he needs.

We will start Hank the Cowdog tomorrow, but I think we will finish it by the end of the week.  So I was thinking we could add another book.  I thought it should probably be Science Fiction or Fantasy since we haven't touched that genre this summer.  I wanted to read the first Harry Potter book with him, but he was adamant that he had seen all the movies and had the game and therefore knows everything there is to know about the Harry Potter world.  I let him have that (though I disagree) and selected A Wrinkle in Time.  He knows nothing about that, so he didn't object.



So, I am now re-reading A Wrinkle in Time to prepare it for reading with Gabe.  It's kind of fun and a little mind-bending.  I think Gabe will enjoy it.