🐄🥵💸🐏🐮🐖📰📝📚Some Big Books!

 

    The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett was highly recommended by my sister. We both had enjoyed Stockett's previous bestseller, The Help. I was excited to read this historical fiction novel even though it was 656 pages long. Stockett writes beautifully about her home state of Mississippi in the early 1930s, and she does so with both eyes open. She doesn't gloss over the racism, misogyny, or eugenics of the time. The story centers around two misfits. An eleven-year-old orphan named Meg, trapped in a truly awful orphanage, and Birdie, an unmarried, plain woman who is the sole provider for her mother and grandmother on the family farm. Things get so tight that Birdie is dispatched to beg for money from her younger sister, who has married into a wealthy, social-elite family living in the university town of Oxford, Mississippi. As Jafar wisely says, "Desperate times call for desperate measures." Things do get very desperate. The plot is well-told. The setting--the heat, the clothes, the food, the flowers, the cars--was evocative. You feel you're there. It pits the condition of the rich against that of the poor, the haves versus the have-nots, and what society considers valuable. The characters are what elevate this novel from good to substantial. Birdie and Meg are memorable and authentic. It was worth the time investment.

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    After the intense read of The Calamity Club, I needed something soothing and cozy, like All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot. This is the second book of the series. James has married and is living in an apartment at the top of Skeldale House, treating animals large and small. He is also negotiating life in the 1930s, however, in the Yorkshire Dales of Great Britain. World War II is on the horizon, but that's in the third book.

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I think Writers Revealed: Treasures from the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery, by Alexandra Ault (Editor), National Portrait Gallery, London, was a gift from my Dear Husband. The book contains mini biographies of authors, mostly British, their portraits or photographs, and a photo of a draft of something they've written, usually in their own hand. It is divided into five sections depicting authors at different times in history, but also in different places in their writing journeys: on the road to success, facing censorship and secrecy, fame, and writing to change the world. Seeing their faces and handwriting humanizes them. They become less "Famous Author" and more human beings. 

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👵🏻🏠👓👽🛸🪐Memoir and Science Fiction? Yes, Please!

 

    I have a Little Free Library outside my house, and someone put this lovely book inside it. Thank you! Oh No, Not the Home: Observations and Confessions of a Grandmother in Transition by Peggy Rowe reminds me of Erma Bombeck's book. They are full of observational humor about herself and people in her orbit. She makes jokes about the fun of getting old. I found her books warmhearted and giggly. I want to read some of her other books!

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    I picked up Moss'd in Space by Rebecca Thorne because a review said it was similar to The Murderbot Diaries. It is similar, but not the same. Thorne does a great job of creating a space world with interesting problems. On a space station, the artificial air adversely affects some inhabitants. The only cure is to live on a planet with good air; however, the only planet close to Space Station 13 does not want the station inhabitants. Our hero, Torian Raznor, has one remaining family member, her older sister, who is slowly coughing herself to death. Torian works for smugglers to earn money to buy her own starship. It is an abandoned alien spaceship covered in moss, but it is also what she can afford. Torian is a likable, caring character who needs a break to save her sister, get accepted to the sole planet in the solar system that can support life, figure out her alien starship, and forget about her non-romantic partner, former captain Amelia. I liked the cozy vibe of the book. It had a balance of action, character development, and relationship advice for alien spaceships with abandonment issues.

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🐝🦀🦦🌳🗡️📔🐐📖🐝 Three Very Different Fantasy Books

 

    The Everlasting by Alice Harrow has been popping up everywhere, highly recommended. I had it on hold for several weeks and was excited to read it. It started slow. So slow, I almost gave up on it. Then, strange things started to happen. This is a book about time travel, destiny, fate, agency, and true love. What can we do? What can we make others do? Every story needs a villain, and this one has a deliciously conflicted villain. Do they want what's best for their beloved country and its inhabitants, or do they want to be the supreme being? There are two protagonists. A nerdy historical scholar with glasses named Owen Mallory. He is an expert on his country's greatest hero and the other protagonist, Sir Una. They were born a thousand years apart, yet they feel like they know each other. I liked the story because it was an intriguing play on the problems and solutions time travel can engender. The main characters, mostly Owen, were an authentic mix of cowardice and bravery. There was a lot of sex, and I found it a distraction from the plot. It felt like an editor said to add some steamy stuff. 

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    I read the first book in this series, https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2026/02/light-hearted-aussie-and-serious.html, and put Heretical Fishing 2 on a wait, then forgot about it. I ended up borrowing it twice to finish it. It was twenty-five hours as an audiobook! It is a gently paced. It is litRPG, but it focuses on cultivation, meaning much less fighting and much more leveling up, farming, fishing, and creative skills. The main character, Fischer, is awakening more animals and people to become Cultivators. The capital, also known as the enemy, is becoming aware of the growing threat to its lock on the country. This is not a challenging book at all; it totally has the don't-worry, be-happy vibe, and I enjoyed it for what it was.

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    I have read several Kate DiCamillo books lately. She is an amazing author. I find her witty, heart-warming, and inventive. One of my granddaughters, a joy to my life, recommended The Beatryce Prophecy to me, and I loved it. It is YA and a short read. DiCamillo sets up contrasting characters and situations. Two orphaned young people trying to find their way in the world: who helps and who harms; a boy versus a girl, a monk versus an elderly village woman, selfish ambition versus selfless love. It gives the plot good tension and highlights light by placing it against the dark. So good.

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💰👓🪙🐄🐖🐑 A Week of Rereads! Which Gatsby was the best: Redford of DiCaprio?

    This has been a week of previously read books. At times, I struggle with insomnia. Something that helps is listening to a familiar book, especially one that is calm and soothing. That is James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small. I like his whimsical way of telling the story of his adventures as a young, new veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales. He is a city boy who badly needs a job. A lot of his practice involves large-animal work — cows — and farmers, two things he initially knows little about. It is a coming-of-age story and a love story about the Dales. I learned my husband read the series when he was deployed for Desert Storm. 

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     I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald in high school in the early 1980s. In my teenage mind, it was chosen because it was so short and sad. It felt like a life to young hopeful teenagers. Beware what you trust because the game is rigged. Rereading it as an adult has been a revelation of how complex and nuanced the plot is and how multidimensional the characters appear as they reflect and play off each other and the times. There is much packed into this short book. Even though it was first published 100 years ago in 1925, its themes of wealth, privilege, casual cruelty, the desire to be and own more feel timely. This is the July book club pick, and, I think, the discussion will be great. 

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