Kasey to the Rescue

Thanks to Library Thing Early Reviewer program and Hyperion for the opportunity to read and review this fascinating family saga. I was so excited to receive Kasey to the Rescue. My husband and I always visited the two small monkeys at our local pet shop. I also love the idea of service animals of any sort.

In this true account, Kasey becomes the service monkey for Ned, a young man who was paralyzed in an auto accident. His mother tells the reader about the accident, her son's recovery in the face of low odds, and how Kasey came into their life as a miracle!

Ned was your typical college student when he was injured in an accident. His mother rushed to his bedside only to hear the words no mother wants to hear - that their child might not make it and will be a quadripilegic if he survives. With a life that was crazy enough to begin with, Ellen Rogers stays with her son through his recuperation and brings him home where he lives in the living room. Recognizing that her son needed assistance and even perhaps a new focus in life, the family explores the Helping Hands program which provides capuchin monkeys for the disabled. This is a remarkable and funny story of the determination of one family to get through tough times with the miracle of a monkey! (I hope you will visit the website above and consider supporting their program).

As a parent, I certainly could identify with Ms. Rogers and her love for her son and her other children shines brightly in this easy to read book. I know the delight of a miracle. My daughter is also a miracle - but from birth. I know the wonder of a life saved. If you don't have time to read this book, try to make time. You can also view a number of interviews and videos online:

Recent interview with Ellen Rogers - at Paw Nation
Kasey to the Rescue website - book website
And even a Facebook page - Kasey to the Rescue

TITLE: Kasey to the Rescue: The Remarkable Story of a Monkey and a Miracle
AUTHOR: Ellen Rogers
COPYRIGHT: November 2010
PAGES: 288
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: If you have a love of animals, you will likely be enchanted by Kasey. If you love the triumph of the human spirit, you will love Ellen, her son Ned and her younger children. Altogether a fascinating story of love and faith and a little helper monkey!

Knit in Comfort: A Novel

Let me begin this review with thanks to LibraryThing and Avon Publishers for providing me with the opportunity to read this book. Knit in Comfort: A Novel by Isabel Sharpe is one of many books published recently which are centered on a group of women who share knitting as a common hobby. I wanted to love this book, and while I found it engaging enough, I only liked it.


The story revolves around two women. Megan Morgan lives a settled life in Comfort, North Carolina with her husband, children, and mother-in-law. She belongs to the knitting club, Purls before Wine which meets weekly. Even though this is the life Megan wanted, she never really seems content. Needing to supplement the family income, Megan rents out the small garage apartment behind the house to Elizabeth Detlaff. Elizabeth lived in New York City with her boyfriend. In a dream, Elizabeth heard her grandmother tell her to go find “comfort” and she believes that is what she has done! She views Megan’s life as blissfully happy until she sees beneath the surface and realized things may not be the way they seem. And isn’t that true of everyone’s life?




The part that made this story a little more interesting was the introduction of Megan’s stories about her ancestors from the Shetland Islands in Scotland. Fiona, Megan’s great-grandmother, knitted beautiful lace that seemed to tell her story. (This little sample of Shetland Island lace is just one of many beautiful examples I located - oh, if only I could tat lace like that!)
In the beginning, I was more focused on this story until I could figure out who was who. The two stories, Megan’s and Fiona’s, seem to flow together over the course of the book just as Megan and Elizabeth’s stories do.



TITLE: Knit in Comfort: A Novel
AUTHOR: Isabel Sharpe
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 320
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This was an easy book to read and it kept my attention - bonus twist as you learn family secrets. I didn't love it, but not really my cup of tea.

The Bread of Angels

Let me begin this review with thanks to LibraryThing and Doubleday for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The Bread of Angels is a memoir by Stephanie Saldana in which she remembers her year in Damascus, Syria studying Islam, culture, as well as other religions of the world. Trying to run away from herself and her family, her Fulbright Scholarship gave her this perfect opportunity. After a year of running, Saldana finds that she has stopped running away and is running to her future with an open heart and mind.

I would rather not say too much more about Saldana’s story other than the fact that while she is praying in a centuries old monastery, she meets and falls in love with a novice French monk. Away from the monastery, Saldana’s days are spent learning Arabic, studying the Quran, having coffee with Grandfather, and learning how to love herself and her family. The beauty of the book is in her intricate descriptions of places and people that most of us will never encounter. In a post 9/11 world, Saldana navigates the Middle East with some trepidation, but finds that she is as horrified as her new neighbors by the violence that is occurring in Iraq and Lebanon. Visits to the desert monastery are more journeys of the soul than the body and as I read, I longed for the silence of the places she walked – places she met Jesus and Mary. In absolute balance, Saldana met the Jesus and Mary of the Quran as well.

I enjoyed this book from start to finish. Culture and religion and love fill the pages of this memoir and after a bit of time has passed, I might just read this book again.

TITLE: The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith
AUTHOR: Stephanie Saldana
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 303
TYPE: non-fiction, memoir
RECOMMEND: A wonderfully peaceful book to read, even in the midst of chaos.

The Survivors Club

Thank you to Library Thing and Hachette Book Group for the opportunity to read and review this fantastically informative book. I feel much better about my potential for survival. My husband and I both took the associated online Survivors quiz - I am a Thinker, he is a Believer. Surely between the two of us, we can survive!

Sherwood has put together a phenomenally interesting and fact-filled book about who survives. And the why certain people survive. Through interviews with survivors world wide in every imaginable situation, this book presents a wide ranging profile of how we too can survive. As I completed the section on flight, I wanted to give the book immediately to my son who will be flying to Chicago next Thursday. Instead I told him about the Plus 3, Minus 8 rule which refers to the first three minutes of a flight and the last eight minutes before landing - these are the most likely times planes crash - and that in the event of a crash, you have about 90 seconds to get out of the plane, so sit within five rows of an exit and make note of where it is.

The book is not meant to frighten people or make for OCD watchfulness in every situation. Rather it is meant to make us all more aware of our surroundings and to know how to begin to act, not react, if danger should arise. I am better for having read this book.

TITLE: The Survivors Club: The Secret and Science that Could Save Your Life
AUTHOR: Ben Sherwood
COPYRIGHT: February, 2010
PAGES: 373
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I certainly want everyone I love to read this book. Once you read it, you will too.

30. Family Sentence

Thank you to Beacon Press and LibraryThing for the opportunity to read and review the uncorrected proof of Family Sentence: The Search for My Cuban-Revolutionary, Prison-Yard, Mythic-Hero, Deadbeat Dad by Jeanine Cornillot. This is exactly the type of book I usually enjoy - as I tend more toward non-fiction and biographies in my personal reading tastes. In addition, I know a little something about the loss of a father with my own father disappearing during the Korean conflict when I was only two. So I was a bit surprised that I did not particularly like this book.

Jeanine Cornillot was only two years old when her Cuban father was arrested for anti-Castro revolutionary activities and imprisoned in Miami. Jeanine went to Philadelphia with her Irish-American mother and brothers where they lived in poverty and confusion regarding their blended cultural heritage. To further complicate matters, Jeanine spent her summers in Little Havana with her Hispanic relatives. Still this sounds like something I would enjoy. The problem was the whining! As the author sought to sort out her family problems, she whined and complained and whined. Or that is how the writing sounded to me as I read. I just never felt her pain; never mustered up what should have been natural empathy. I did learn some things about the culture of Little Havana, but ultimately I had to force myself to finish the book.

TITLE: Family Sentence: The Search for My Cuban-Revolutionary, Prison-Yard, Mythic-Hero, Deadbeat Dad
AUTHOR: Jeanine Cornillot
COPYRIGHT: October 1, 2009
PAGES: 220
TYPE: biography
RECOMMEND: Not my favorite although it does provide some insight into the Cuban-American culture

15. Forbidden Bread

Let me begin this review with thanks to LibraryThing for providing me with the opportunity to read this wonderful book. The second thing is that my lifelong dream has been to be a Slovak peasant – knowing of course, as author Erica Johnson Debeljak discovers in her book Forbidden Bread that this group doesn’t exist in Central Europe as the romanticized vision I have in my head. But when Erica first moved to Slovenia with her lover and fiancé, the rural lifestyle and traditions were still common and she describes these with great detail.

When Erica Johnson met and married Slovenian poet Ales Debeljak she moved across the world to Slovenia, just as this country was swirling with national pride and development in a post-Communist world. Erica did not speak the language, did not understand the culture, and wanted desperately to please her new husband and his family. She chronicles her difficulties, challenges, and triumphs in this very funny memoir of adaptation. For anyone who has studied European history, the bureaucracy came as no surprise, but her funniest encounters with the red tape were found in her stories of being pregnant.

Debeljak supplements her stories with photos from her own collection. The reader truly gets a sense of their daily life, even over time. Like the author, I was sad with the last chapter which explains that even during her short time in Central Europe, many things had changed. The things that endeared her new country to her were obsolete, but not forgotten.

TITLE: Forbidden Bread
AUTHOR: Erica Johnson Debeljak
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 304
TYPE: non-fiction, memoir
RECOMMEND: Because I love Central Europe, I loved this book. It is hard for me to separate out these feelings to know if you would also love it.

9. Everything Asian

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ACCULTURATION is the “cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture.” Having studied Cultural Anthropology in my college career, I remember that full acculturation is often easier for younger children than adults and that learning the language is paramount to this process. Even so, definitions and lectures cannot take the place of actual experiences. While I do not know David Kim, his sister, parents, or friends, I can certainly feel their pangs of growth in this process of acculturation in Sung J. Woo’s debut novel Everything Asian. Perhaps this is because the author experienced many of these pangs himself learning English as a Second Language after moving to the United States from South Korea at the age of 10. His past realities have given life to Everything Asian. Visit the author’s web page to learn more about Sung J. Woo.

Everything Asian begins with young David Kim describing his new life in America and his life within his family. It seems that no one is happy, but that may be from David’s perspective. Gradually we learn that mom and dad are too busy running their store to be too excited about anything else and sister is still mad because she had to move away from Korea. In a well crafted novel-in-stories, we get varied perspectives on what it is like to learn a whole new set of cultural norms, to learn a new language (or not), and to struggle to get by in a new place. The sense of family and growth expands beyond the small Korean family at the center of the novel and includes an eclectic group of people working in Peddler’s Town, the small strip mall where the family business is located. Many of the individual stories are quite funny and linking them together makes for a sweet and gentle glimpse of who we are and how we come to be!

I am very grateful to St. Martin’s Press and LibraryThing for providing me with the Advanced Reading Copy.

TITLE: Everything Asian
AUTHOR: Sung Woo
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 328
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I recommend this book to readers who like coming of age stories, especially those with a cultural twist.

Tuesday Things

Today's question: Do you use a rating system on your blog? How do you feel about using the rating system provided on sites like Library Thing and Amazon? When looking up information on a book you are interested in, do you use the ratings provided by these sites (or similar sites) to help you make the decision on purchasing the book?

On my blog I make a recommendation - sometimes positive as is in "Everyone must read," to the negative as in "could not finish" or "maybe someone will like it, but not me." On LibraryThing, I do select the star ratings for each book that I read and review. But sometimes, I admit to being a tiny bit influenced by the ratings already posted by others...never by much, maybe a half star especially if I sort of liked the book but had a small issue with some parts.

When I am thinking about reading a book, I usually take a look at the reviews on LibraryThing first, and then glance up at the star rating. But I have to tell you that, much like movie reviews, there are some books that I absolutely loved that have very low ratings...and some that I cannot even begin to finish (or review for fear of offending the world) that others have rated highly.

First I am fairly easy to please, don't meet too many books that I hate. But when I don't like a book, I really do not like it. Do any of you do that where you have problems with reviewing a book that you just did not like at all or cannot finish? Sometimes I cannot even verbalize why I don't like it, other times it is the writing style, the characters, the story. Anyway, hints for the faint of heart who are hesitant to post negative reviews.
Happy Week to all,
LibrarysCat

45. The Gates of Trevalyan

Thank you to Library Thing and Belle Books for the opportunity to read and review this book about the Civil War,

As a historian and a librarian, I thought that I would really love this book. In the beginning, as I was introduced to main characters Jenny Mobley, Emily Hill, and Charles King, I was still hopeful. In many ways this is the classic Gone With the Wind story with large Georgia plantations and all of the trappings of Southern culture and slavery.

Unfortunately, for me, the story, weak to begin with, got lost in the military and political history. I was able to finish the book only by skimming the long drawn out details. I will say that the history seemed to be well researched. So if you would like to know more about the Civil War era, espeicially in Georgia, you might like this book.

TITLE: The Gates of Trevalyan
AUTHOR: Jacquelyn Cook
COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 365
TYPE: historical fiction
RECOMMEND: Only if you really like military and political history

Library Things

I positively love widgets. I have the Random Books from My Library widget on my LibrarysCat Book List Blog. On my personal blog I have a postcrossing widget and a wonderfully fun Wordle. If you have never done one before, you should visit my blog and try it! It makes a word mosaic of sorts with the most common words from your blog.

I was fortunate to participate in a library program called 23 Things. We had to blog about it and while I no longer update it, there are some fun things linked there...photo mosaics, sandboxes, wikis, technorati, delicious, bubblr, and of all things::::LibraryThing! It is rather funny looking back at my first experience there! We basically learned about Web 2.0 applications and had to work with them from our own offices...it was great. Thanks to the PLAN folks for providing me with this opportunity.

Great question as always.

Thanks,
LibrarysCat

Tuesday Things

This week's question: Legacy libraries. With which legacy libraries do you share books? Tell us a little about a couple of them and what you share.

How much fun was this!! Thank you BB, as you always come up with good questions for us. Here is my list:

Marilyn Monroe - 1

Hawaii>

Alfred Deakin - 1

Pride and Prejudice

Carl Sandburg - 4

A Lantern in Her Hand

Pride and Prejudice

The Good Earth

My Antonia

Earnest Hemingway -2

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Pride and Prejudice

William Butler Yeats - 1

Pride and Prejudice

Sylvia Plath - 1

Cranford

Theodore Dreiser - 1

My Antonia

Walker Percy - 2

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Pride and Prejudice

Sir Walter Scott - 1

Emma

I found this wonderful because it brought to mind some of my very favorite books - the book most shared was Pride and Prejudice, and the book that I was most happy people had read was Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

For your second question, I will have to think about it. My mother has been in the hospital for the last three weeks and I am almost brain dead. She has been moved to a physical rehabilitation center, so things are looking up and I may get some sleep! I did get some reading done at the hospital so at least there was that! Thank you for keeping us thinking and sharing.

LibrarysCat

Tuesday Things

Today's Question: Have you ever added a quote to the quotation field in common knowledge? What's a quote you particularly like from a book, one that you know by heart?

My favorite quote ever is from Alexander Pope Essay on Man:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast,

Man never is, but always to be blest. (30)

My daughter was born in 1979, two weeks late. She had meconium aspiration and was on a ventilator for three days. When she was finally off the ventilator, we were so excited. The lead doctor came up and said to us "I have no idea what you are so excited about - your daughter - if she lives - will either be severely retarded, completely crippled, or a vegetable." First, my ex-husband nearly decked him. Then I broke down. The intern who had been working with us came up to us and said - never, ever give up hope. He was my hero and I hoped that when his practice got huge and crazy that he would never forget those words. **My daughter graduated from college last December and is doing well...neither retarded or crippled. But the real issue is that we would have loved her no matter what!

Back to the question - I have never put a quote in the common knowledge field. For whatever reason, I don't participate fully in the things that LibraryThing has to offer. I also loved many of the quotes in The Things They Carried and would consider adding some of those to LibraryThing.

As always, excellent question. Thanks.

Flusi the LibrarysCat

Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: LT and RL (real life)- do you have friends in real life that you met through LibraryThing? Have you attended any LT meet-ups in your area? Would you be open to attending meet-ups or is LT strictly an online thing for you?


For me, there is not too much of an overlap in LT and RL. In fact, there is only one other person I know besides my daughter who has an active account on LT. That amazes me!! WHY?? I love all things books, love all things which make up nerdery - this is my husband's word for all the blogging and posting and cataloging that I do, for the most part related to LT.

I would love to attend a meet-up in my area. Thinking about location, I wonder where in the world such a meet-up would be - New Orleans, Atlanta, Tallahassee? All within driving distance, but might require an overnight stay. Sounding better and better.

What is funny about this question, is that when I talk to my daughter and three sons, I refer to people whose blogs I have read for five years as my friends. And I will never really meet them. They think that is so funny. To tie this in with LT, I got a postcard last week and my daughter asked me who it was from and I said, "Oh a friend from LT" - you know who you are! Thank you very much. I loved it. So here's to new friends and happy reading!

LibrarysCat

Tuesday Things

Today's question is only marginally about LibraryThing but I thought it might be a fun question anyway. It's more about blogging. Everyone who participates in Tuesday Thingers has a blog- some have a book blog, some have several, some have blogs that are more personal, etc.- and we've all chosen to participate in this particular way of networking to build traffic, get to know each other, etc. So my question is: what other weekly memes or round robins do you participate in? Is this the only one? Why Tuesday Thingers and not some other weekly Tuesday meme? Or do you do more than one?

So far this is the only weekly meme that I participate in. However, I enjoy it very much so I have been thinking of joining others. Thank you for providing a good link to get started. It is always fun to read what others have to say and I always try to comment on quite a few each week. We all know how wonderful it is to come back to your blog and see notes from new friends. And, I agree that it must be difficult to think up a new question each week. But maybe you could move to questions about reading in general which is of course related to Library Thing in a most intimate way! This is a great group and I am glad that this was my introduction to memes.

6. The Guardians

The Guardians: A Novel by Ana Castillo

As a member of LibraryThing I was fortunate to be selected as an Early Reviewer for this book!

In this compelling exploration of illegal immigration and life on the Mexican-American border, Ann Castillo introduces the reader to four characters and their musings on their life and culture. The story, which develops in rather brief sections narrated alternately by each character, revolves around one family's search for a brother and father. The author brings the reader into this world of chaos and mistrust through the language and descriptions of everyday life on the border.

Regina, a legal immigrant through marriage to an American soldier who died before consummating the marriage, tried desperately to leave behind the migrant life of many illegal immigrants. Her brother Rafa could not as he needed the work to support his son and new wife. Regina has the strongest voice in the book and the sporadic use of Spanish words mid-sentence illustrate how she is straddling two cultures, both perhaps broken. Regina is devoted to her family and seems to have lost herself in the difficulties of her life. Through her search for her missing brother, she begins to find herself again.

Regina takes in her nephew Gabo and helps him to stay in school and out of the gangs that roam the border stealing from their own people and anyone else. It is when talking about Gabo that Regina utters my favorite line in the book: She says, "One day I am going to take him to Washington, DC. To see where the Devil makes his deals." These deals with the Devil continue to make poverty and desperation a constant in the lives of many legal and illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, the people who are trying to live a good and simple life in the border towns are beset with more than one devil. The scavengers, or coyotes, who traffic in human desperation have become another Devil to deal with and one which perhaps would exist with or without the Devil's deals in Washington.

Gabo lost his mother, who was murdered when trying to cross the border, when he was young and lives with the fear that he has also lost his father. He is consumed with love for the Lord and hopes to become a Catholic priest. He is also consumed with finding his father and often finds himself pulled between the two.

Regina seeks assistance in finding her brother, bringing in the other two main characters - Miguel and el abuelo Milton, who is Miguel's grandfather. These two men play a role in the final resolution of the story and serve to remind the reader of the importance of heros and political activism. While the resolution of the story is rather surprising, I think it shows the anguish of the characters and hopefulness in the face of extreme adversity.

I was in a unique position to like this book because I speak Spanish rather fluently, am Catholic, and share the author's political leanings about "our" immigration problem. I would recommend this book to anyone who was interested in this culture or societal problem - or maybe just for an interesting and thought provoking read.