Book Talk Wednesday-- Southernmost

'The rain had been falling with a pounding meanness without ceasing for two days and then the water rose all at once in the middle of the night, a brutal rush so fast Asher thought at first a dam might have broken somewhere upstream.  The ground had simply become so saturated it could not hold any more water.  All the creeks were conspiring down the ridges until they washed out into the Cumberland.  There was no use in anyone going to bed because they all knew what was going to happen.
They only had to wait.'

I don't usually begin by copying the complete first paragraph, but I can't remember the last time I read a book whose first paragraph so symbolically sets the stage for the story that is about to unfold.

Asher Sharp, a small town Pentecostal preacher, wanting to help two men, after their home is destroyed, finds himself questioning long held beliefs.  He alienates his wife, his congregation and his community.  After serving up a sermon on tolerance,  Asher is fired by the Church hierarchy. 

When the Courts award Asher's wife full custody of Justin, he takes his son and leaves for Key West in hopes of finding and reconciling with the brother he turned against years earlier.  In search of a brother, Asher and Justin discover the importance of just loving.

   

"I've studied on it a lot, Lydia.  You know I don't believe that way anymore.  All my life I've thought I've understood everything in that Bible, but now I know that none of us can know the mind of God. He's too big for that."

Southernmost is a timely and beautifully told story of re-evaluating ones beliefs and the consequences incurred.   Asher discovers, what I believe, "love thy neighbor", truly means.   I promise this is one of those reads that will make you sit and ponder long after you've turned the final page.    Southernmost  touched my heart and conscience in so many ways, and is going to the top of my "best books of year" list   

  If you are looking for a book that will stir up a great book group discussion...
this may be the one. 

*****

Perfect Pairings

May I suggest you pour yourself a nice tall glass of iced tea and head out to the porch.   Heck,  just take the whole pitcher outside, you are not going to want to put this book down. 

Happy Reading Friends, and

Enjoy!

Who Do I Blame... or Thank?

It is going to be a great weekend for reading!

After my whining about summer's refusal to leave, our days have become milder.  We can actually feel Autumn trying to push through.  To be honest we often go straight from summer to winter, and winter to summer; when the temps drop below 80 two days in a row, we don long sleeves and boots and celebrate our Autumn.

This morning it is overcast and a cool front will be passing through, possibly bringing in some much needed rain.  This my friends is 
the perfect formula for a reading weekend.  

I finished Before We Were Yours last night.  I may have a stack of unread books waiting to be opened and loved, but for some reason when I finish a book, I feel the need to replace it with something new, or new to me (I love previously loved books).    Being too late to run out to the bookstore I began searching for something to download.  This may be considered an addiction... 
 I will not commit.  

Perhaps it was finishing a book about the strong ties of family and what they bring to our lives long after they are gone, while looking for my weekend read I began thinking about who ignited my love of reading and lead me down this path of bibliophilia.  And, of course, the train I jumped on took me to my sweet mother.

I cannot remember waking up and not finding my mother sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a book.   While Daddy watched his favorite sports event or television show, mother sat next to him reading.  Sundays, after Church and dinner, we knew we could find Mother, weather permitting, sitting on the porch with her book and a glass of iced tea (hmmm, sound familiar?)  

Living in rural Louisiana we didn't have bookstores, instead she joined book clubs and visited the Library.   She was always willing to take me to the library, and yes, I had my own book club subscription before I could read.  I still remember the joy of getting  a box of books delivered to my front door each month.  She introduced me to some of my favorite characters... Nancy Drew, Francie Nolan, Scarlet O'hare and so many more.  Mother read almost everything I read, reviewed and edited my book reports and was quick to give her opinion on whether it was an appropriate read for someone my age.

I have almost lived half my life without my mother.  There aren't many days I don't think of her, miss her, especially when November, her birth month, draws near.   I wish we could still share and talk about books.  I know she would love to edit Living Life.

Did someone ignite your love of reading or was it a book that flipped the switch?

Share!

****
"Life is not unlike cinema.  Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand.  No matter how much me may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance with the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn't suit the moment"

Before We Were Yours begins, 1939,  on a shanty boat tied up on the edge of the Mississippi River, near Memphis, Tennessee.   Four children are left alone when their father is forced to take his wife to a nearby hospital.   With a storm coming the boat is boarded by strangers and the children are taken.  

Using the real life horrors of the Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage as a backdrop we follow the Foss children through neglect, abuse and separation.    Secrets are uncovered and lives changed when, two generations later, May Crandall mistakes Avery Stafford, daughter and granddaughter of a South Carolina Senator, for her sister.    After seeing a photograph in May's room, Avery begins investigating her family's connection to the orphanage and to May.  What she uncovers could possibly give her father's political foes ammunition to unseat him in the next election.  We are reminded, no matter how or how long we are separated from family we are tied together by some invisible thread.

Before We Were Yours, is an well researched enjoyable easy read.  Because this fictional story is told using memories of actual survivors of the Tennessee Children's Home Society, and the reign of the  notorious Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis adoption firm, I was pulled in and continued to turn the page.   It is unbelievable this could have continued for 20 years. 

It is a good read!

Happy reading.... 

July's Book Frenzy

It is sweltering here.  The temps have been high, and this week our heat index is nearing 110. It's the perfect time to grab a glass of iced tea and settle down with a good book...

or we could sit and chat about a good book.

My taste in literature, as you can see,  is eclectic to say the least.  

 Southern literature is probably closest to my heart... I have deep roots in the south, and many of our southern writers can return me home with the turn of the page.   My southern picks this month are Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, and Meanwhile there are Letters, the Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross McDonald.

Although, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter has been on my radar and my to-read list for several years, it wasn't until I was invited to sit in on a new acquaintance's book group I found it necessary to finally read it.  I can't believe I took so long to pick it up.  With the backdrop of a small Mississippi town, Tom Franklin delivers a raw and haunting story of lives forever changed by indiscretions, secrets, lies of omission, and redemption.  This book kept me thinking long after I turned the last page.   Another book I enjoyed by Franklin (co-authored with his wife) is The Tilted World.

I am slowly savoring Meanwhile there are Letters.    My words cannot do justice to this book, so I will share Ann Patchett's praise,   "What could be better than a love built on friendship, and friendship built on letters?  To catch a glimpse into the inner lives of these tender, brilliant, bookish souls is a thrill beyond measure."   We are often given the chance to view a favorite author through a biographer's words.  Sometimes the writer will give us what he or she wants us to know with a memoir.   Here we are allowed into Welty's thoughts and private life through personal letters I doubt she had any intention of sharing.  If you're not familiar with Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter is one of my favorites.

This post seems to be getting a bit long and wordy so I will share my thoughts the other books another time.

Sit down, have a glass of tea and let me know how you are beating the summer heat.

What's your favorite genre?

What are you reading this week?

  

******

I can't close without saying, the events, both in our country and around the world, of the past few weeks are weighing heavy on my heart.  I cannot begin a day without thinking of and praying for the men, women, families, whose lives have been forever changed.  This I know and where I find comfort... light will win over the darkness.

"You must understand this, my beloved; 

let everyone be quick to listen,

 slow to speak, 

slow to anger"

James 1:19   

Sometimes It Happens...

Sometimes it happens... a book is opened, and somewhere among the pages we stumble upon a sentence, a phrase, a group of words that sit down in the most comfortable chair
 and linger with us. 

"...it is about nothing, about the many nothings of ordinary life that somehow arrange, symphony-like, into the whole of everything".

I happened upon this group of phrases  just as I was finishing Margaret Eby's book, South Toward Home.  (We'll chat about the book later.)   Though Eby writes these words to describe John Kennedy Toole's book, A Confederacy of Dunces, I keep returning to them, because, it is in these  "nothings of ordinary life" that I find everyday blessings.    

I find it so easy with today's social media to get caught up in the wanting better and more.    We need only to log in for a few minutes to begin reading that everyone else is off on the best vacation, has the best relationship, friends, house, children...  Everyone else's life is filled with all these spectacular moments...  you get where I am going.   I don't know about you, but I often sigh and think what if.   Then I land, usually face down caused my own blindness... 

 Summer mornings sitting outside with a cup of coffee, my morning readings and listening to the sounds of summer...  meals around my own dinner table with family and friends...  watching the joy on my grandson's face as he licks a popsicle.    Extraordinary is great, and I am grateful for all those adventures, but nothing compares to my nothings.   It is recognizing and accepting the blessings of the moment to moment, the ordinary,  that stitch together and create a rich, and spectacular life.  

**** 
  Perhaps it is the southern humidity, the intoxicating smell of  magnolias, or the over indulgence of spirits... no one can create a multi-layered, damaged yet heroic character or spin the  tragedy/drama/comedy tale like the southern writer.  (this southerner's personal opinion, of course.)   South Toward Home, is the ultimate road trip for the southern lit lover wanting an insight into the lives, people and places that inspired some of the south's most infamous (Welty, O'Connor, Faulkner, Lee, Capote and Toole) southern authors, and maybe a few not found on everyone's reading list, but no less talented.  Each chapter stands alone, so no need to feel like you must tackle this journey in one trip.

My favorite son(-in-law), picked out this book for me while we were browsing one of my favorite bookstores, Lemuria in Jackson, Mississippi.  Thanks for the great suggestion,
loved it!

Now I want to get into the car, fill-up the gas tank, and trace Eby's tire treads.  
Anyone up for a southern road trip?

I hope you are reading something fabulous!