I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
Just for fun today I’m posing a question and I hope all my blog readers will participate. I got the idea from the Goodwill Librarian Facebook page.
Here’s your question:
What was the job of the main character in the last book you read? If you don’t remember, think of the occupation of the main character in one of your favorite novels. Can you see yourself in that job?
My answer:
The last book I read was The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife: A Novel, by Anna Johnston.
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife: A Novel, by Anna Johnston
The main character in the book was a man who was at the end of his rope, so to speak. He was on the verge of being evicted from his home when he came upon a man his same age who was in a wheelchair by a river. The man in the wheelchair ended up in the river by accident and the other man assumed that man’s identity. Their resemblance is uncanny. He tried to set things straight, but no one would believe him.
It is a delightful story of forgiveness and unconditional love and is told with lots of humor.
The main character in the book didn’t have a job. He was in his 80s, so his situation doesn’t exactly fit the question I’ve posed today; however, if I try to put myself in his shoes – in my 80s, losing my home, and having a chance to move into a retirement home with someone else footing the bill — I’m not so sure I wouldn’t do what he did. I remind you, he tried repeatedly to tell the authorities who he really was, but they all thought he was confused. After all, the man they thought he was had dementia.
It’s your turn…
What was the job of the main character in the last book you read? If you don’t remember, think of the occupation of the main character in one of your favorite novels. Can you see yourself in that job?
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read.
Never take your right to read – or your right to vote – or your right to be in charge of your own body – for granted.
Before I jump into my thoughts about the only book I read in September, I remind you that this is Banned Books Week.
Unfortunately, there are some people in the United States who take it upon themselves to try to dictate what the rest of us can read. Therefore, the American Library Association sets aside a week every October for us to pause and consider the books that some people try to get banned from school and public library shelves.
Stay alert to this in your community.
Women of a Promiscuous Nature, by Donna Everhart
Women of a Promiscuous Nature, by Donna Everhart
This is the first novel I’ve read by fellow North Carolinian Donna Everhart. The subject matter of Women of a Promiscuous Nature is a difficult one, so kudos to Everhart for tackling it.
It is obvious that she did extensive research and the book is well-written; however, the combination of the difficult subject matter and everything I had going on were not a good match at this time.
This novel shines a light on the “American Plan,” which was a government program to regulate women’s bodies in the first half of (and some years beyond) the 20th century. Everhart’s book is set in North Carolina.
I read much of the book and became increasingly depressed about the way women – especially unmarried women – were often assumed to be “loose women.” Apparently, if you were unmarried and dared to hold down a job and live by yourself, you were suspect. Girls and women were picked up at their homes or as they went to work. They disappeared without their employers or family knowing what had happened to them.
In this novel, they were taken by sheriff’s departments to the Samarcand Juvenile Detention Center (for girls) in Eagle Springs, North Carolina and to the The State Industrial Farm Colony For Women in Kinston, North Carolina where they were sterilized, put to work in hard labor in the fields, and put in solitary confinement when guilty of regulatory infractions, etc.
The story is set in the 1930s and 1940s. The “justification” was that male soldiers in the First World War got sexually-transmitted diseases and it was, of course, blamed on unmarried women. When World War II broke out, it was assumed the same thing was going to happen, so unmarried women had to be “fixed” in more ways than one so they could be paroled back into society to be good citizens.
North Carolina has a horrible eugenics history. Before the 1960s, poor white girls and young women were sterilized under the direction of the state. Sadly, many of them had been sexually-abused by family members and they were then labeled as “troubled” or “feebleminded.” With the coming of the 1960s, black girls and women became the state’s target for this hideous process.
This history made me sick! It serves as a reminder that even in the United States of America the government can turn against segments of its citizens and do horrible things to them.
If we don’t learn from our history, we are bound to repeat it.
Janet
Never take your right to read whatever you want to read – or your right to control what is done to your body – for granted.
I concentrated on my writing in August, to the detriment of my reading; however, I did read two interesting and very different books.
P.S. I Forgive You: A Broken Legacy, by D.G. Kaye
P.S. I Forgive You: A Broken Legacy, by D.G. Kaye
In this memoir, D.G. Kaye writes about how difficult and painful it was to grow up with a narcissistic mother. Everything was always and only about her mother, so Kaye grew up knowing that she could never be good enough to gain her mother’s praise.
Kaye writes about how she and her siblings coped in different ways through the years and then handled the situation differently when they reached adulthood. Kaye struggled to make her decision to estrange herself from her mother, but as her mother’s death approached and came to pass she had to deal with that decision all over again.
Kaye loved her mother, but she eloquently writes about how difficult it was to live with her and under her lingering influence.
P.S. I Forgive You: A Broken Legacy is not an easy read, but I highly recommend it.
For people like me, who had a wonderful mother who always put her children ahead of her own desires and needs, I found it jarring to read about Kaye’s experience.
I was fortunate beyond all measure in my childhood home life.
The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, by Kristin Harmel
The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, by Kristin Harmel
The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, by Kristin Harmel was the August pick for the Rocky River Readers Book Club. It created lots of good discussion. The moral question presented by this novel is whether it is ever all right to steal.
Intrigued?
The book’s protagonist, Colette Marceau, was born in to a family of jewel thieves. The catch, is that her mother told her that they were descendants of Robin Hood and, therefore, their thievery was justified in that they used the proceeds for good causes.
Specifically, Colette dedicated her life to stealing jewels from Nazis and Nazi sympathizers and putting all the money gained from those jewels to build and maintain a Holocaust museum/center.
The story revolves around the disappearance of her sister along with her sister’s half of a butterfly bracelet. Colette had the other half. In her later years, Colette set out to find her sister’s half of the bracelet and determine who killed her.
The story becomes very complicated as everyone is not who they claim to be, there are familial connections you won’t see coming, and was the body retrieved from the river actually Colette’s sister… or did she survive World War II?
All the loose ends are tied up in the end, and some of them will surprise you.
After having a very good month of reading in June, I had high hopes for July, but sometimes our reading experiences don’t meet our expectations on all counts. July turned out to be a mixed bag.
The River Knows My Name, by Kelly Mustian
The River Knows My Name, by Kelly Mustian
After reading The Girls in the Stilt House, Kelly Mustian’s debut novel in 2021, I kept hoping she would write another historical novel. She came through for us last year with The River Knows My Name. I finally got around to reading it in July.
As the blurb on Amazon states, it is “a haunting Southern story about memory, family secrets, and fierce and fragile love.” Set in the early 1930s in Mississippi and 1971 in North Carolina and Mississippi, Mustian has woven a story of intrigue, family loss and love, and how one decision can affect generations to come.
Why did Evie appear at Nell’s house when they were young children and Evie never left? What did Evie’s hidden birth certificate reveal?
This is a dual timeline novel, which you know is not my favorite format, but I stayed with it because the characters and the plot drew me in from the beginning. Mustian did a masterful job of telling a complicated story of secrets, the passage of time, “where there’s a will there’s a way” perseverance, the love a mother has for her child, and how family isn’t necessarily based on biology.
I highly recommend The River Knows My Name, and I hope Kelly Mustian will gift historical novel fans with many more novels.
John of John,by Douglas Stuart
John of John, by Douglas Stuart
After watching an online interview of Douglas Stuart, I eagerly awaited my name reaching the top of the waitlist for John of John at the public library.
I have had the privilege of visiting the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. I have spent some time on the Isle of Lewis and visited the Isle of Harris. They are wild and stark and incredibly beautiful!
John of John, by Douglas Stuart is set on Harris. The author does a great job of giving you the setting. The moon-like starkness, the incessant wind coming off the Atlantic, the sometimes-rough ferry crossing of The Minch – the body of water between the mainland and the Outer Hebrides. The houses, the crofts, the weavers of Harris Tweed (which is also made in cottages on Lewis), the single-track roads, the sheep, the Gaelic native language, and the conservatism of the Free Presbyterian denomination (which is quite different from the Church of Scotland) are all brought to light in this novel.
The setting is almost a character in the book because to give the landscape and climate justice, one has to be immersed in it to truly appreciate the story.
The protagonist is John MacLeod, son of John MacLeod, son of Iain (John in Gaelic), son of Iain MacLeod. Young John has left the island to go to art school. He has gotten caught up in the fast life (life everywhere is “fast” compared to life in the Outer Hebrides) in Edinburgh. His father calls him home to care for his ailing maternal grandmother.
The younger John is not keen on the idea. The life he has lived on the mainland as a gay young man will surely upset his devout Free Presbyterian father to the point that he expects his father will disown him. How long can he keep his homosexuality a secret from his father.
But his father also has a secret.
If you are sensitive to “F-bombs,” you might not enjoy this book. I accepted them as apparently being part of the homosexual scene in which the younger John lived. Not that all homosexuals casually use this language, but it was part of the make up of the younger John – probably as part of his rebellion against the strict religious home in which he had been raised.
I tired of the story after 150 pages. There were other books I wanted to read, so I returned John of John to the public library. Kudos to the author for transporting me to the Outer Hebrides for a few hours.
Roses and Radicals: The Epic Story of How American Women Won the Right to Vote, by Susan Zimet
This book caught my eye when I was at the public library the week of July 4th. It was part of a display the librarians had assembled of books pertaining to the 250th birthday of the United States Declaration of Independence and related patriotic books and history books.
The book prompted me to pause and contemplate the incredible sacrifices the women (and a few men) made throughout the first fourteen decades of our country’s history to work toward the passage of a Constitutional Amendment that would make it unlawful for any state in the union to prohibit anyone from voting based on their sex.
I will write more about the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution in my blog post on August 26 – the 126th anniversary of the ratification of that amendment.
Roses and Radicals is a relatively small book of barely 150 pages, including the bibliography and index. I thought it would be a quick read.
Sprinkled throughout the book are sidebar-like sections within chapters that tell the stories of individual including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Lucretia Mott, Mary Wollstonecraft, Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Victoria Woodhull, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ida B. Wells, and Edith Wilson. A book could be written about each on of them.
Roses and Radicals begins with the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. Elizabeth Cady Stanton accompanied her husband, who was a convention delegate. But her story began when she was five years old and her last brother died. Her father said to her, “Oh my daughter, I wish you were a boy.”
In response to that remark, she was determined to be the son her father had lost. That path served to show her how difficult it would be for a woman to fulfill the burden her father had placed on her because women were so restricted by law and society norms. Fathers held legal rights over daughters and husbands held legal rights over their wives and children.
But, getting back to the anti-slavery convention in 1840… The wives of delegates and the women delegates were not allowed on the main floor. They were relegated to a balcony. The women were so incensed that they began laying plans during the convention. If people from around the world could meet to work for the abolition of the slavery of Africans, the women concluded that they could organize themselves and fight for the rights of women.
The book tells how each of the women I named in an above paragraph worked for the equality of women, women’s rights in the eyes of the law in the United States, and ultimately for women to have the right to vote. It gives little-known details of how women worked behind-the-scenes as well as marching in the streets to secure women the right to vote.
Janet
Too many books. Not enough time. Not enough bookcases. Never take your right to read – or your right to vote — for granted.
After taking a three-week break from blogging, I’m happy to be back. In case you missed my blog last week, here’s the link: A Book I Read in June 2026. It tells you a bit of what was going on with me during my absence from the blogosphere most of the month of June.
I got to read three complete books in June after decreasing the number of blogs I was writing every week. It was a welcome change of pace for me!
The Calamity Club, by Kathryn Stockett
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett is one of my all-time favorite books, so I waited impatiently for her to write another novel. I thoroughly enjoyed The Calamity Club, her new release.
The Calamity Club, by Kathryn Stockett
Stockett seamlessly wove together the lives of five women who — how can I put this nicely? — had diverse backgrounds and life experiences. What they had in common was a shared need to survive in Mississippi in 1933 when the country was in the grips of The Great Depression.
I was pulling for Meg at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum from the beginning. And you can’t help but pull for Birdie as she swallows her pride and travels to visit her sister, Frances, because Frances has married well and will surely give her some money so Birdie and their mother can survive a little longer in the Mississippi Delta.
It turns out that things aren’t what they seem in Frances’ life and Frances and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Startt, have some hard lessons to learn. They are both under the false impression that their lives are not falling apart and surely there will always be enough money for them to live in the manner in which they are accustomed.
Charlie comes along with her colorful and sad past. She comes with lots of baggage but a willingness to work with the others to try to save them all from being penniless. The plan she cooks up will make you laugh out loud even though it is inevitable.
Meg is wise beyond her years and has an endearing sense of humor and a way with words. Birdie seems to be the only one of the adults who has any common sense.
I had really looked forward to this book, and it did not disappoint. Although it is a large book at more than 1,000 pages in large print (650 pages in regular print), when I got to the end I only wanted more.
Having an historical novel in which to dive and get lost in was exactly what I needed last month.
I hope Stockett is already working on her third novel!
Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi
While I was on the waitlist at the public library for Theo of Golden, I read a number of reviews of the novel. People seem to really like the book or really not like it, so I was eager to read it for myself.
Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi
The story is intriguing, and I certainly didn’t want to put it down. The premise of the book is very clever and refreshing.
Theo was born in Portugal, lived all over the world, and in this novel has landed somewhere south of Atlanta, Georgia. That’s about all we know about Theo. He only has the one name, and we don’t know what he does for a living or how he made his money – of which he seems to have more than plenty.
Theo is a likeable old man. He makes a point to make friends with people in Golden. He patronizes a coffeeshop his first day in town and is enamored with the 92 hand-drawn portraits on the wall. This interest in the portraits is something that is carried throughout the book and they are the catalyst for his meeting many people in Golden and learning their stories.
His discovery of the portraits is the inciting event for the novel, and may I say was a clever and “novel” idea on the part of the author. I’ll not tell you about the artist or what happens to the portraits, but it is a delightful story of human kindness and unlikely individuals discovering that they have talents and can excel.
The ending will surprise you.
What a satisfying month of reading I had in June!
What have you been reading? Have you read any of the books I read in June? What did you think about them?
In last week’s blog post, I revealed that I needed to take three weeks off from blogging because I was trying to cope with depression. If you missed it, here’s the link: I’m back!.
When I wrote my June 9, 2026 blog, I had started reading the book I’m telling you about today. This book explained a lot about me. It was an eye-opener.
The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path through Depression, by Eric Maisel, PhD
The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path through Depression, by Eric Maisel, Ph.D.
I started reading this book the last week in May, and it has been a game-changer for me. It was recommended by Rhonda Douglas of Resilient Writers in one of her online classes. Thank you, Rhonda!
I never considered myself to be depressed except for Seasonal Affective Disorder in the fall and winter, but – whether I am otherwise depressed or not – I learned something important about myself in the early chapters of this book.
Dr. Maisel explains how the depression that a creative person often experiences is different from other people’s depression and how it must be addressed differently.
I was reading along and taking some notes, and then I got to page 57. It was then that I had an epiphany. The words on pages 57 and 58 described me. I was so excited to learn this that I couldn’t wait to tell my sister.
She read those two pages and said, “This is you!” That led us to have an honest conversation about why we are so different in many ways.
I learned that, as a creative person, I need to find meaning in everything I do. That’s why I cannot just goof off. (Be careful how you read/interpret the next sentence.) I cannot do nothing. In other words, sitting down and doing nothing would drive me to distraction. If I don’t see the meaning in a task, it irritates and frustrates me to have to do it. While I’m doing that unwanted task, I’m thinking “I could be writing.”
I feel driven to fill all my waking time with an activity that has meaning for me. Otherwise, I am stressed out.
The beauty of what I got out of this book is that it’s all right that I’m made that way and it is all right that everyone else isn’t. I now know why I get frustrated and grumpy (and sometimes very angry) if I don’t see the meaning in what I’m doing. I now understand why my sister can be content to lie on the couch for hours and read a book or play a game on her tablet.
I now understand why it baffles my sister if I decide to clean out a bookcase at 10:00 at night, and she understands why I tend to do things like that. We finally, after living together off and on for more than seven decades, understand why we are so different in the way we spend our time. I can finally accept that it’s all right for her to lie on the couch and read or play games on her tablet, and she no longer has to feel guilty for not jumping up to help me clean out that bookcase.
Living with a writer, artist, or musician can’t be easy for a non-creative. I wonder how many divorces could have been avoided if more people had this information.
Creative people, in general, doubt themselves. Can I write that story? Can I paint that painting? Can I get up in front of people and sing? Can I go out on that stage and perform my part in this play? What if no one likes my story? What if no one buys my book? I’m only fooling myself if I think I can do this. I’m an idiot!
You must tell yourself that you’re better than you think you are. You have done the research. You have practiced. You know your lines. There is someone out there waiting to read your novel.
My explanation is simplified, but if you think you might be struggling with your creativeness or you live with a creative person – or you’re considering spending your life with one – it behooves both of you to read this book. It might just help you understand and accept each other for who you are.
My apologies to Dr. Maisel, in case I have misrepresented the book in any way; however, I will be grateful for the rest of my life for your enlightening me about why I am the way I am.
Reading this book gave me clarity, but my bubble burst a couple of weeks later when the realization of what my life has to be came back and hit me in the face full force. At least now I know why I find it so hard to find joy in picking up limbs and cutting sweetgum sprouts. I’ve also come to realize that I’m depressed in the summer, too, because there is no end to the yardwork and I’m getting too old for this. Besides… I’d rather be writing!.
Janet
“I was okay just a moment ago. I will learn how to be okay again.” ~ Nina LaCour
I read (or attempted to read) four good books last month, and I’m happy to share my thoughts about them with you today.
The Creek, The Crone, and The Crow, by Leah Weiss
The Creek, The Crone, and the Crow, by Leah Weiss
This historical novel with an element of magical realism held my attention throughout. It’s the first book in regular size print I’ve been able to read in a long time. The story line and Ms. Weiss’ writing style played a big part in making that possible. The setting in a fictional community in the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina drew me in. I would say that the setting was as much a character as the people who populated the book.
Alternating chapters between two main characters is not typically my favorite format for a novel, but it worked for me in this book.
In a nutshell, Kate Shaw taught at the last one-room schools in North Carolina in 1980. She and the community are not happy when the county decides to close their school and bus the students miles to a bigger school.
Then, Lydia Brown, a psychic who wants to know more about her birthmark and the visions she had as a child, comes to Baines Creek looking for local recluse Birdie Rocas. Most people are afraid of Birdie and want to avoid her at all cost.
A professor from nearby Asheville gets brought into the story to help interpret Birdie’s writings. There are things hidden in the journals and there are things hidden underground.
Everyone’s story is woven together and things get more and more interesting as the contents of Birdie’s journals come to light.
I almost told too much. I don’t want to spoil the story for you.
Although it is historical fiction, the location is fairly well pinpointed to be near the real community of Little Switzerland, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have eaten lunch in the restaurant there several times, so it was interesting when it and the building it is in showed up in a number of scenes.
The Immigrant and The Outlaw, by Joy Neal Kidney
The Immigrant and The Outlaw, by Joy Neal Kidney
This is a delightful collection of newspaper and magazine articles Ms. Kidney has written about her childhood and the ancestors and other characters that have filled her life.
So much many of Ms. Kidney’s memories matched mine, I thought at times she was writing about my childhood. I did not grow up on a farm and I did not have grandparents, but there were lots of little details that I could identify with – like a linoleum floor, going outside to watch Sputnik go by, the oil stove in the living room, and even my Daddy’s “ashtray on a stand” by his chair.
Along with childhood memories of growing up out in the country, there were memories of helping to assimilate Bosnian immigrants and their first Thanksgiving in Iowa.
The last piece in the collection, “A Housewife’s Best Friend” made me stop and think about the difficult lives of my grandmothers. Although they died long before I was born, they lived and raised farm families without the luxury of electricity. I take electricity for granted every day, and even a momentary power surge or a limb falling on the power line sends me into a frenzy. I am so spoiled!
I recommend this book to people of all ages.
The Astral Library, by Kate Quinn
The Astral Library, by Kate Quinn
This is quite a change from Kate Quinn’s usual novels, but I must say I enjoyed it.
Let me clarify that. I enjoyed the first four of the eight CDs. The skipping got so bad on disc 4 that I finally gave up and went on to disc 5. I listened to it until it just stopped playing.
This novel has an interesting premise. When someone is at the end of their rope, they can be invited to the Astral Library. In the Astral Library, a person can enter and live in a book.
It was by coincidence that I ended up reading (or trying to read) two books in May that involved magical realism. I’d never even heard that term before, but The Astral Library and The Creek, The Crone, and The Crow both fall in that category.
Something I found extremely irritating – which I’d forgotten about books on CD – is that there is a tremendous range in the volume. Some characters almost whisper and some characters yell all the time. And sometimes one character whispers part of the time and yells part of the time. I had forgotten that was a problem I’ve had before in listening to a book on CD. I’ll try not to make that mistake again.
Ironically, I had planned to begin today’s blog post wishing everyone a happy “Audiobook Appreciation Month.”
God’s name is taken in vain repeatedly in at least the first half of the book. (I can’t vouch for the second half, since I didn’t get to listen to it.) I think this would be less offensive if reading the printed word. I found it quite offensive as I listened to the novel being read aloud. When profanity is used just for the sake of using it – and not something a character needs to say over and over again – it just ends up being irritating, and after a while it loses its impact. I was surprised and disappointed to find this in a Kate Quinn novel.
The excessive use of vulgarity did not feel necessary to the story. It had a lovely and intriguing premise.
Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, by poet Maggie Smith
Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, by Maggie Smith
In the “Introduction,” Ms. Smith offers “ten principles of creativity: attention, wonder, vision, surprise, play, vulnerability, restlessness, connection, tenacity, and hope.”
She wrote, “You have to do it to learn how to do it.”
There is a helpful chapter in the book for people like me who are writing their (hopefully!) debut novel. That chapter is about choosing a title for your book. She talks about the different responsibilities a book title has.
I identified with the author when she wrote about loving “the idea of writing every day” but not doing it. She followed that a few pages later with, “Commit to doing at least one thing in service of your writitng every day.”
I agree with her, and I try to do that – something that serves my writing every day. It might be reading an article about the craft of writing, reading in my genre, listening to a webinar, reading a poem, planning a future blog post, or doing historical research. My favorite days, though, are the ones in which I get to work on my novel.
I hope you’ll be inspired to read one of the books I read in May.
May is Get Caught Reading Month, Mystery Month, National Share a Story Month, and Latino Book Month, so I wish you a happy May in all those ways and the other ways you celebrate it.
Here in the northern hemisphere, it is truly the month when we transition into summer. What’s not to love about that? (I know… humidity, snakes, and mosquitoes, but let’s not go there.)
As has been my practice (some months and years more so than others), I like to blog early in the month about some of the books I read the previous month.
I will point out (again) that I am not a book reviewer. There are people who do that as a profession, and I am not one of them. Occasionally, I receive an email from a stranger asking me to review their book. I don’t do that. My reading time is precious and I only read the books I choose to read.
My fiction reading has been sparse for several months now due to the brain fog that is part of ME/CFS, which I have lived with for 39 years.
This is frustrating, to say the least. I used to love to read and, as a fiction writer, it is especially difficult for me to admit that I have difficulty reading a novel and remembering what I’ve read on a page – much less to try to remember the plot of a story.
This makes for embarrassing times at book club, where I feel like an intruder in a group where everyone else knows the minute details of novels. All I can do is marvel at what extraordinary memories they have as I sit quietly and listen to the discussion.
You may wonder how and why I’m trying to write novels. I have spent years working on two novels, and I have no idea when either of them will be completed. It is only because I have worked with this story and these characters for so long that I am able to believe I can finish writing the book. It is challenging work, but writing brings me joy and a sense of accomplishment.
That said, I will share a little of what I read, or more accurately, finished reading in April.
40 Days of Decrease: A Different Kind of Hunger, A Different Kind of Fast, by Alicia Britt Chole
40 Days of Decrease: A Different Kind of Hunger, A Different Kind of Fast, by Alicia Britt Chole
I’ve been a Presbyterian all my life, so fasting for Lent has never been a thing for me. There has been a growing emphasis on Lent in the Presbyterian Church USA in recent decades, but fasting or “giving up something for Lent” is not part of that emphasis.
I was drawn to the title of this book several years ago. I finally purchased a used copy of it and looked forward to reading it in the 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter this year.
I am a flawed human being and a flawed Christian. I read it “religiously” (pardon the pun) for the first 20 days. Then, I got distracted. I lost my focus and read the last 20 chapters on a hit-and-miss basis. That is not a reflection of the book. It is merely a reflection on me and my failings.
This book is excellent! If you want to give up eating chocolate or something for Lent, that’s quite all right, but this book takes a different approach. I believe it takes a deeper approach.
For each day during Lent, the book encourages the reader to give up something in their lives.
For instance, on Day 1, we are encouraged to give up Lent “as a project” with a beginning and ending date. On Day 2, we are encouraged to give up regrets. That is a huge one! Especially if you are in your later years. Another day we are encouraged to not speed up sorrow. Give yourself and others time to grieve. Don’t rush it.
As you can see, this book is packed with baggage we all have. Each day gave me something to ponder and to try to get rid of.
I highly recommend 40 Days of Decrease: A Different Kind of Hunger, A Different Kind of Fast, by Alicia Britt Chole. I don’t plan to wait until Lent 2027 to re-read it. Most of the topics in the book are things that I need to work on constantly. I think many of us could benefit from reading it throughout the year. Some of the daily topics could be dwelt on for a week.
Even though the book was designed to be read in daily increments during Lent, I refuse to feel guilty for taking several extra weeks to finish reading it. In fact, I think that’s perfectly okay.
It takes some of us longer than 40 days to get our lives straightened out. I’m a work in progress.
Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy,by Nathaniel Philbrick
Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, by Nathaniel Philbrick
I wanted to read the entire book, but I was unable to devote the time necessary to do that. My reading for pleasure tends to just be for the pleasure in the moment of reading a well-written, interesting novel. This book is not a novel but a retracing of George Washington’s 1791 tour of the southern states. I was especially interested in his travels in South Carolina and North Carolina in light of the novel I’m writing.
I enjoyed that part of the book and took some notes for future reference. I was disappointed, though, that the book jumped from Washington’s time with the Catawba Indians to “his next stop in Salisbury.”
Washington’s next stop was not Salisbury. He traveled to Charlotte, and spent the next night (May 29, 1791) as a personal guest of Red Hill Tavern owner Martin Phifer, Jr. near the present-day intersection of US-29 and Poplar Tent Road in Concord, Cabarrus County.
Mr. Phifer had served with Washington at Valley Forge, so they were more than acquaintances.
I’m puzzled over why the author skipped over Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties and went directly to Rowan County.
Otherwise, what he covered that I got to read was very interesting and easy to follow. I think anyone interested in George Washington or his tour of The South in 1791 would enjoy this book.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have one or more good books that you’re reading! I’m reading The Mad Wife, by Meagan Church and Brawler: Stories, by Lauren Groff.
Janet
The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.
This weekend I finished reading and taking copious notes from an excellent new nonfiction book, The Regulator Movement in North Carolina: Prelude to the Revolution, by Marcia D. Phillips.
Today is National Tell a Story Day, and this nonfiction book tells quite a story!
The Regulator Movement in North Carolina: Prelude to the Revolution, by Marcia D. Phillips
If you want to know some of the little-known background leading up to the American Revolution, I highly recommend this book. As a native North Carolinian, I learned about the Regulators in North Carolina History classes; however, to read the details of it as an adult is to better grasp the terror that many residents of my state were living under in the late 1760s and early 1770s.
The author did an amazing job, like no one else I’ve read, of giving hundreds of years of history leading up to the Regulator Movement in North Carolina. She wrote about how the feudal system in Europe and even the Magna Carta laid the groundwork for what happened here in the mid-1700s!
I had never connected some of the dots that Ms. Phillips connected, but it all fits together now in my mind.
The book also does a great job of explaining the differences between the Regulator Movement in North Carolina and the Regulator Movement in South Carolina. That’s something important for me to keep in mind as I write my historical novels in progress.
Quoting from The Regulator Movement in North Carolina: Prelude to the Revolution, by Marcia D. Phillips,
“In a nutshell, the North Carolina Regulators were not attempting to overthrow the colonial government, just convince it to be the same one they had for years and true to British common law. Their actions were not intended to disrupt the law but to ensure the government’s actions were regulated, to promote uniformity and fairness. The issues of the day – excessive taxation and fees with limited recourse in the assembly, lack of justice in court rulings, and forced taxation for the Anglican Church, which none of the Regulators attended – were the sticking points but also indicative of underlying principles being violated. These discontented farmers were even willing to self-regulate if the colonial government would allow it.”
The Regulators signed petitions in an effort to get Governor Tryon to address their grievances. His appointed officials in the North Carolina Piedmont – particularly in the northern Piedmont part of the province owned by Lord Granville – were robbing the citizens blind and pocketing the money they collected.
They were sick and tired of paying tax to support the Anglican Church. They were Presbyterians and Baptists, and they wanted the right to pay their own clergy. Their clergy were not allowed to officiate over marriages or funerals. For people who had left Europe for religious freedom, this was unacceptable.
The Regulator Movement in North Carolina came to a head in Alamance County on May 16, 1771, when Governor Tryon ordered eight cannons to fire upon a group of Regulators who had asked to be heard. Under the Johnston Riot Act, Tryon gave them until noon to disperse; however, instead of arresting them at noon when they did not disperse, he turned eight cannons on them. It is called the Battle of Alamance, but it was really an ambush.
As the book gives in detail, that was not the end of Tryon’s reign of terror. He had a number of Regulators hanged and had many of their farms burned to the ground.
The book includes an extensive bibliography for readers wanting to do additional research. Thank you, Ms. Phillips, for giving us such a concise and well-researched account of the Regulator Movement in North Carolina.
Perhaps it is partly because of our current political environment that, but while reading this book, it struck me how similar Governor William Tryon of North Carolina was to Donald Trump. I’m not just referring to the fact that he built an extravagant palace for himself while in office.
Some leaders build palaces. Others build ballrooms and triumphal arches.
But it is the pattern of retribution demonstrated by Tryon and by Trump that hit me as an undeniable and frightening similarity between the two men.
Janet
The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.
April is National Literature Month in the United States. Maybe I’ll get to read more books this month than I did in March of any of the recent previous months. Writing this blog almost every day along with other things pressing on my time and energy have left little time for reading for pleasure.
In the more than ten years that I’ve been blogging, I have traditionally blogged on the first Monday or around the first day of the month about the books I read the previous month. That has not been the case over the last year or so, but maybe I will get back into that rhythm this year… or eventually. I miss having time to read.
Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash
I read one very small book and part of another book in March. Perhaps what I have to say about them will giver you the incentive to read them.
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, by Walter Isaacson, is a tiny book with great importance during our country’s 250th birthday this year. Walter Isaacson has done extensive research and written many books about individuals who played instrumental roles in the formation of the United States. It was only natural for him to write a book about the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Isaacson takes that sentence and breaks it down by word and phrase to address their meanings and how those particular words made it into the final draft of the Declaration of Independence.
He states in the first chapter, that “We the people” “is as profound as it is simple. Our governance is based not on the divine right of kings or the power imposed by emperors and conquerors. It is based on a compact, a social contract, that we the people have entered into.”
That early sentence in the chapter titled, “We,” sets the tone for the 67-page book. “We the people” is also the opening phrase in the United States Constitution.
Being a wordsmith of sorts and a political science major in college, I especially enjoyed how Isaacson brought in details about Benjamin Franklin’s input and editing recommendations of Thomas Jefferson’s early drafts of the Declaration of Independence. Both men were learned and very specific in word choice.
Both men were well-read and students of philosophy. They drew on the theories they had read about humanity and governance.
For instance, Jefferson had written “sacred and undeniable” but Franklin insisted that “self-evident” was a more accurate description of our rights. Franklin had become a close acquaintance of Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume’s theory, known as “Hume’s fork” maintained that there are two types of truths. One is dependent upon empirical evidence and observations (such as, New York is bigger than Philadelphia), while the other type of truth is just true. Such truths are not contingent upon physical evidence or observations. An example is “All bachelors are unmarried.”
Franklin held that our rights are self-evident. They are not based on information that must be gathered and analyzed.
Another interesting tidbit was that Jefferson wrote that we are endowed by our Creator with certain “inalienable rights,” but when John Adams copied from Jefferson’s document, he changed “inalienable” to “unalienable” and that’s the way it was approved on July 4, 1776. No wonder I get confused sometimes over which word ended up in the document!
There is really no difference between “inalienable” and “unalienable.” Perhaps it was a case of personal preference… or an error in copying.
A book that I started reading for book club in March was Where the Rivers Merge, by Mary Alice Monroe. Time ran out, as it often does, and I did not finish reading it before the club met for discussion on March 22. I hope to read it in its entirety before the book club reads its sequel perhaps in 2027. The sequel has not been published, but book club members said it is being written.
Mary Alice Monroe knows the ACE (Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto) Basin area of coastal South Carolina very well. The story in Where the Rivers Merge is anchored in that location and it is a deep love and respect for that physical environment that is the heart of this book about a family whose members have varying degrees of appreciation for the place and differing ideas about its worth.
The ACE Basin is a large undeveloped estuary in Colleton, Charles, and Beaufort counties in South Carolina on the Atlantic coast. In addition to being an author, Ms. Monroe is very interested in conservation and the environment.
Happy reading during this National Literature Month!
Janet
The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.
