March 29, 2024 YOU SPIN ME ROUND

 

Been extremely busy lately. When I finally sit down at the end of the day--my brain is MUSH. My thoughts are all jumbled up and seem to spin-round & round. So that's where I've been. Can't seem to focus or concentrate long enough to write my blog. It's frustating. I've read several books though so without further ado let me tell you a bit about this great book I finished last week. It's called The Reading List and it was written by Sara Nisha Adams. One of the main characters is a widower named Mukesh. He lives a very simple life in Wembley, West London. He has three daughters and a granddaughter named Priya, who is a book worm. Another important character is a lonely teenager named Aleisha who is spending the summer working at the local library. One day while at work, she spies a crumbled piece of paper, opens it and finds a list of novels. She's not much of a reader, but decides to read every book on the list. Wanting to forge a better relationship with his granddaughter through reading, Mukesh finds himself in the library one day asking Aleisha for recommendations. She starts recommending books from the list and the two forge a friendship through reading. The is wonderful story about the power of books. They not only bring unlikely people together,  they help people forget their problems for a while and take readers to magical places. Hope you give this 400 page book a try and let me know what you think. 

March 2, 2024 WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE

 

I teach AP Art History and this week we studied Global Contemporary. This area concentrates on works created after 1980. One of the works was  the Vietnam Memorial. So strange--I was actually reading a book about this devastating  war.  The memorial was originally dedicated in 1982 and I can remember my first visit to it in 1983 when I was a senior in high school. It's a simple but stunning memorial to the 60,000 plus men and women who lost their lives.  There were approximately 10,000 women in the Vietman War--7,000 of them nurses--literally right out of nursing school. Of those 7,000-- 8 died overseas. Sadly, when those nurses came home, they faced many hardships that were highlighted in Kirstin Hannah's new book The Women. The main character in this incredible story is Frances "Frankie" McGrath. Frankie grew up in a well to do family in Southern California in 1965. After completing nursing school, Frankie decides to join the Army Nurses Corp. After 6 weeks of training, she finds herself in Vietnam facing death and destruction at every turn. Luckily, Frankie meets two other nurses, Barb and Ethel, who teach her the ropes as well as how to survive the grueling hours and horror of Vietnam. After two tours of duty, Frankie finally comes home--to a different kind of Hell. This is the story of the nurses who sacrificed in the war, unsong heroes, who were forgotten. It's also the story of finding a new purpose after being one of the "lucky" ones to survive the war. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and had a hard time putting it down. The characters were so well written--real, raw--that they have been hard to let go of. This is a book that will stick with me for  a long time and I highly recommend it.