We Are the Light by Matthew Quick

- Ann Leave a comment

A terrible tragedy has struck Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quiet suburb that had once seemed safe from random horror. The residents of the town struggle to pick up the pieces and move past that terrible night in We Are the Light by Matthew Quick.

Lucas Goodgame, a resident of Majestic, is struggling. Everyone in Majestic sees him as a hero, but Lucas emphatically does not. He writes to his former analyst Karl, begging him to take him back on as a client even though Karl is no longer practicing. Lucas persists, as he feels Karl is the only one that will understand and be able to help him as grief threatens to consume him.

Through Lucas’ letters – heartfelt and funny – we learn that Lucas believes he is visited by his deceased wife Darcy every night in the form of an angel.  Although he tried to return to his job as a high school counsellor after the tragedy, he got no further than the parking lot before he had to turn around and go home. Lucas retreats further and further from daily life, waiting each night for Darcy to appear.

Things begin to change when Eli, an eighteen-year-old young man whom the community has ostracized, begins camping out in Lucas’s backyard. Lucas and Eli strike up an unlikely friendship and together they hatch a project to heal the community – and themselves.

Told with humor and optimism despite the terrible circumstances, We Are the Light offers insight into Lucas’ mental health and it’s deterioration. The reader learns about what exactly happened in bits and pieces and the extent of what Lucas saw and experienced isn’t fully revealed until toward the end. That he manages, somehow, to pull himself out of a spiral (with lots of help from friends and neighbors and the community itself) makes this a hopeful, fascinating read.

If you are taking part in the Online Reading Challenge this year, this book is a good choice for our December theme of coping with mental health issues.

Online Reading Challenge – December

- Ann Leave a comment

Greetings Challenge Readers!

Welcome to the final month of our 2022 Online Reading Challenge. This month we’re reading books that talk about coping with mental illness and the isolation and stigma that surrounds it.

Our main title this month is Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. In this book, the author explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. It’s about “taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they’re the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are – the beautiful and the flawed – and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways.

Our alternate titles are: Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. This is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and tuatara. But at its heart is Aza Holmes, a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Beautiful and gifted, with a bright future, Esther Greenwood descends into depression, suicidal thoughts, and madness while interning at a New York City magazine.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.  Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living.

Be sure to check the displays at each of our buildings for copies of these titles and many more!

Online Reading Challenge – November Wrap-Up

- Ann Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Book Lovers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you find something to read that fits in this month’s theme of the lives of contemporary Native Americans? If so, what did you think about what (if anything) the book showed you?

I read our main title, There, There by Tommy Orange although I admit that I struggled to finish. It is, in short, devastating. Relentless prejudice, addiction and crushing poverty haunt the characters in this book as they struggle to find a balance between the history of their people and the present day. The recounting of the past, told from the point-of-view of Native people tells a very different story from the whitewashed stories of colonists and pioneers that invaded their land. It is both eye-opening and horrifying.

From the publisher:

“Here is a story of several people, each of whom has private reasons for traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honour his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and unspeakable loss.”

A difficult book that is well worth reading.

If you are interested in learning more about the Native American people and their stories, check out the following links.

Learn about the Land You’re Living On.  Find out what Native peoples lived here.

What We Say Matters: the Power of Words in American and Indigenous Histories. This was also explored in There, There.

Native Hope. This blog “exists to address the injustice done to Native Americans. We dismantle barriers through storytelling and impactful programs to bring healing and inspire hope.” Lots of interesting posts of current issues.

Project 562 is “a multi-year national photography project dedicated to photographing over 562 federally recognized Tribes, urban Native communities, Tribes fighting for federal recognition and Indigenous role models in what is currently-known-as the United States.” Stunning photography and stories.

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

- Claire Leave a comment

Sloane Crosley’s Cult Classic is witty, self-aware, and eloquently rendered. The novel follows Lola, a woman in her late thirties, as she maneuvers her half-hearted engagement, eccentric collection of colleagues from a psychology magazine, and the seemingly endless slew of ex-flames that she keeps running into. Lola’s smart–too smart to consider these run-ins with old boyfriends a coincidence. What she failed to predict, however, was who was behind these interactions and why they placed so much weight (and currency) in her past romantic escapades. 

The plot gains more and more momentum the farther we delve into the cultish endeavors of Clive, the self-appointed psychology guru that Lola cannot help but be entranced by. Like all cult-leaders, Clive denies that his group, the Golconda, the abundance of infatuated followers, or the synagogue-disguised secret headquarters are attributes of a full-on cult. But the true nature of his secret society resides somewhere between meditative groupthink and the layers of social media that petrify the what-ifs of our expired relationships.

 I, unfortunately, found the ending to leave a little to be desired. The majority of the narrative was incredibly engrossing and ultimately deserved a better finale. The plot plunges into the mysterious cosmic alignments between Lola and her exes, which we discover is a product of Clive and his followers’ mind-control. In the end, though, the climax flat lines. 

Crosley’s originality in story conception almost makes up for some of the gaps in narrative substance. The story especially shines in its focus on our main character and the mental aerobics she performs to work through her underdeveloped emotional tendencies. Crosley’s underlining commentary on social media and how it has altered modern dating is sharp but forgivingly nuanced. Her contribution to the overarching conversation about human connection in the age of online relationships alone makes Cult Classic worth a read.

Also available as a CD audiobook.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

- Ann Leave a comment

In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own in This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.

Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. Through perseverance, courage and luck, the four make their way to St Louis where Odie and Albert believe their aunt lives. What the four of them experience along their journey shapes and changes them in profound ways, as well as providing us with a glimpse of Depression era America.

The cruelty and oppression that the children faced at the Indian school is heartbreaking although the true depth of the corruption is revealed in bits and pieces. The narrow escapes and unexpected lucky breaks make this an exciting and absorbing book, all overlaid with the tension of whether Odie and Albert will be able to find their aunt.

If you are taking part in the Online Reading Challenge this year, this book is a good choice for our November theme of issues facing contemporary Native Americans.

The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris

- Ann Leave a comment

It is a horrifying but undeniable fact that many medical advances are made or greatly improved on the bloody battlefields of war. Medical staff are forced to improvise and learn under terrible conditions, often facing wounds and trauma they’d never seen before. This was never more true than during World War I when the technology of killing far surpassed medical knowledge.

Despite the chaos and bloodshed, doctors and nurses did what they could to ease suffering. The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris looks at the stories of some of the wounded and at one doctor in particular that worked tirelessly to help them. This book is equal measures heartbreaking and inspiring while also showing the cost of war in human suffering.

Harold Gillies already had an interest in plastic surgery before the war. (The word “plastic” doesn’t refer to the material, but to the meaning of the word as a noun – “easily shaped or molded”.) This field of surgery was still in it’s infancy and not readily accepted as legitimate by the medical establishment. However, World War I was especially brutal when it came to facial injuries as troops faced war machines, poison, fire and explosives never seen before. The nature of trench warfare (where soldiers would peek their head over the edge of the trench making them an easy target) and the lack of any effective protective armor as well as scarcity of medicine and delays in reaching aid (many men lay on the battlefield for three or more days before being rescued) led to a staggering number of dead and wounded.

Gillies volunteered as soon as the war broke out. What he saw in France convinced him of the importance of facial reconstruction and he set about creating a medical unit in Britain dedicated to treating these men. He assembled doctors from various disciplines including dentists and surgeons and encouraged innovations such as using skin grafts. By reconstructing destroyed faces he not only improved the soldier’s quality of life, but saved their mental health. “At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits.”

Reading the stories of the soldiers and what they suffered is sobering and shows the incredible cruelty and randomness of war. That so many of them kept a positive attitude and readily endured multiple, painful surgeries can be attributed to Gillies and the atmosphere of the hospital he created. There was entertainment, good food and outdoor excursions for the men and Gillies himself was an inspiration. Gillies never flinched from horrific wounds that would shake even experienced doctors and he never failed to see the person beyond the ruined face. Beloved by patients, he treated not just the physical but understood how saving the appearance helped soldier’s mental state.

The Facemaker is fascinating to read. The writing never drags and, while Fitzharris does not spare medical details, it is not sensationalist. In many ways it is hopeful, that surgery can restore so much that was brutally taken. Highly recommended.

If you would like to learn more about the book and hear from the author and how she strived to write with compassion about the soldiers, I recommend listening to the Noble Blood podcast episode that first aired on July 19, 2022 “Surgery of the First World War with Lindsey Fitzharris”

 

 

Online Reading Challenge – November

- Ann Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Reading Fans!

Welcome to the next installment of the Online Reading Challenge. This month our Book Flight looks at modern Native Americans and some of the many challenges they face.

This month’s main titles is There There by Tommy Orange. Here is a story of several people, each of whom has private reasons for traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honour his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and unspeakable loss.

Alternate titles include: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. Based on the extraordinary life of Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. Minnesota, 1932. The Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own. Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds.

Look for these and many more titles available at displays at each of our three buildings.

Online Reading Challenge – October Wrap-Up

- Ann Leave a comment

Hello Readers!

How did your reading challenge go this month? Did you read something amazing that dealt with weather and/or climate change? Let us know in the comments!

This month’s main title was Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. This thought-provoking, complex novel explores not just the effects of climate change, but also the pervasive poverty of Appalachia and of a young woman trapped in a broken marriage.

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a
shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire.

She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome.

As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.

Weather is a constant in our lives however much we think we can outsmart it. No amount of technological advances, or shaping the land to our whims will defeat the weather. We’ve seen this very recently with Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, with the massive wildfires in the west and the drought in the southwest. And we’ve experienced here in the Midwest with tornadoes and derechos.

What did your weather or climate-change related book show you this month? What did people do to prepare for extreme weather or were they caught unawares? How did the characters survive or perish? What were some of the long-lasting effects of a terrible storm or prolonged weather event have on individuals, families, communities and even history?

Be sure to share your thoughts about this month’s Book Flight in the comments below!

The Children’s Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin

- Ann Leave a comment

January 12, 1888 dawned unseasonably warm in the Dakota Territory. Happy to escape the unrelenting winter cold, people shed their heavy coats and boots and sent their children to school in light jackets. But the weather takes a sudden and deadly turn and by lunchtime a massive blizzard has arrived, causing temperatures to plummet, winds to howl and heavy snow erasing visibility. Anyone caught outside – or in an isolated schoolhouse – was in trouble as shown in Melanie Benjamin’s The Children’s Blizzard.

The Dakota Territories were sparsely populated, and many of the settlers were recent immigrants who had been lured to the area by unrealistic descriptions of a bountiful land. They were ill-equipped to face the unrelenting heat and drought of the summer, and the cold and snow of the winter. Many left, returning to their home country as soon as they could scrape together the money for a train ticket, but some stayed and struggled to create a community. They built homes and farms and then school houses. These schools were usually isolated in the country, poorly insulated and hastily built plus most of the teachers were very young, just 16 or 17 years old.

The storm arrived with no warning and with shocking suddenness. It seemed as if it went from balmy springtime weather to life-threatening snow and cold in a matter of minutes. Against these terrible odds and with no way to communicate with the nearest farms or town, the teachers had to make an impossible decision. Stay in the un-insulated school house with little to no fuel for the woodstove? Or send the children home, most without winter clothing, into a storm that swallowed them up as soon as they stepped out the door?

The Children’s Blizzard is based on real events when 235 people died, many of them children (it’s also called the Schoolhouse Blizzard). Benjamin has based her book on historical records and on the stories of survivors. She readily captures the fear and uncertainty and the blinding grief of parents and community.

If you are taking part in the Online Reading Challenge this year, this book is a good choice for our October theme of extreme weather and climate change.

Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson

- Ann Leave a comment

Early September brought storm clouds and restless waves to the shores of Galveston, Texas but Isaac Cline, the resident meteorologist for the US Weather Bureau, ignored these warning signs. He felt sure that it was a simple tropical storm which would bring rain and wind, but not anything dangerous.

Unfortunately, he was very wrong.

Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson outlines what happened on September 8, 1900 and why, from the growth of the massive hurricane to the devastating and long-lasting effects the storm had on Galveston and the surrounding area, as well as why the warning signs were ignored and dismissed.

The Galveston Hurricane completely destroyed the town and killed over 6000 people; many of those deaths could have been prevented if human arrogance and hubris had been set aside. The US Weather Service was in its infancy and struggling to be seen as relevant. The managers of the service, often political appointees, were terrified of an incorrect forecast that would make the department a laughing stock. They ignored messages from the more experienced meteorologists in Cuba (which the American weathermen thought were inferior) who warned of the possibility of a massive hurricane. By the time Isaac and the citizens of Galveston realized how bad it was, it was too late. The storm had laid waste to the town with no regard for status. Homes, businesses and hospitals were ripped from their foundations, train tracks ruined, ships in the harbor sunk and hundreds of people had been lost to the floods.

While this disaster took place more than a hundred years ago, the story continues to resonate with us as we live through more and more extremes of weather. Technology and weather forecasting have greatly improved, but in the end, nature always wins.

If you are taking part in the Online Reading Challenge this year, this book is a good choice for our October theme of climate change and extreme weather.

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