Nonfiction account of training for and running the Iditarod race across Alaska. I absolutely loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone.
After reading Into Thin Air about the Everest climb, I thought someone would have to be crazy to do that. After reading this, it probably is almost as bad
I was sitting in the orthodontist office while my son was getting his braces on (and glad no one was in there except me) laughing out loud. The author is training his dogs to run, which they love to do and he is having trouble holding them back.

This book is set in the south in 1964. Lily, a 14-year-old white girl is heading to town on the Fourth of July, her birthday. The Civil Rights Amendment has just passed. Rosaleen, the black woman who has raised her since her mother’s death when she was four years old, is heading into town to register to vote. Some red-neck white boys start to give them a bad time and for whatever reason, Rosaleen decides to empty her snuff jug on top of their shoes. They immediately start to beat up on her and she ends up in jail. In the meantime, Lily’s abusive father picks her up, takes her home and tells her to wait there while he deals with his orchard workers, that he will deal with her when he gets back. Lily packs a bag of clothes along with a photograph of her mother and a picture of her mother’s of a black Madonna with ‘Tiburon, SC’ written on the back. She heads into town to see Rosaleen and finds out she’s in the hospital because the sheriff let the white boys who beat her into her cell so she could apologize. Lily springs Rosaleen from the hospital and they hitchhike to Tiburon.
When Lily goes into a store to get them something to eat she sees jars of honey with the same black Madonna on them as her picture. She asks where the honey came from and is directed to a bright pink house outside of town. There are three sisters living there. August is the beekeeper, June is the school teacher and May takes care of the house. When they tell the women they have no place to stay, they let them stay in the bee shed out back.
The women have many women friends and they all collect around the pink house. This is the first time in Lily’s life that she has ever felt like she belonged. It’s kind of like a beehive. I think the Queen could be the ‘Mary’ that used to be on a ship’s masthead because everyone cares for it and celebrates around it. The figure has one hand on her heart and the other in a fist lifted in defiance – kind of symbolizing the black woman’s spirit (like Rosaleen dumping her snuff jar and then not apologizing). They all have their jobs to do to keep the ‘hive’ going.
I loved this book.

This is about the depression era racehorse, Seabiscuit. He didn’t have the natural body of a racehorse: his legs were shorter, his gate was wrong, his knees were bent, he was always heavier. But he had the ability and he loved the competition. He would taunt his opponents and let them keep up and then kick it into gear to win the race when they had nothing left. He was just what the depression needed, an underdog that kept winning. He was the most popular sports figure of the time.
Charles Howard was the generous owner of Seabiscuit. He knew the value of publicity from the building of his empire of the car dealerships that helped to replace the horse and buggy to the public’s fascination with his beloved racehorse. He loved the spotlight and for the most part the spotlight loved him.
Tom Smith was Seabiscuit’s trainer and a man of few words. He was a horse-whisperer who understood horses and preferred them to people. He probably delighted in driving the reporter’s crazy, not only with his lack of information but with his constant thwarting them from watching the horse practice. Red Pollard was a poor kid from Edmonton, Canada who literally loved riding the horses. He was a little tall to be a jockey and hadn’t had much luck until Seabiscuit came along and they formed an immediate connection.
Most of the book builds up to two goals. War Admiral was the East Coast Triple Crown winner. He was the perfect embodiment of a racehorse and many people thought Seabiscuit was okay for a West Coast horse but wouldn’t stand a chance against him. It was hard to travel with a horse across the country and set up the races and many obstacles stood in their way. Seabiscuit wasn’t good on a muddy track. The opponents owner had nothing to lose by not racing, they had already named War Admiral Horse of the Year. Howard works the publicity, and Smith and Pollard use the strengths of Seabiscuit and the weaknesses of War Admiral to train. Right before the big race, Pollard is critically injured and is unable to ride.
The other goal is the Santa Anita Hundred Grander. For whatever reasons the race continually alludes Seabiscuit. He even crosses in a photo finish one year to second place.
Pollard is injured a second time and Seabiscuit sustains a probable career ending injury. They leave competition for almost two years, but continue to slowly work out together. Seabiscuit’s comeback is the dream of everyone in the country.
This movie will star Jeff Bridges as Howard, Chris Cooper as Smith and Toby McGuire as Pollard. I knew who would be in the movie before I read the book. I didn’t picture them as I was reading though, since these were actual people, I pictured them. I do think the actors will be excellent casting.
I would have been a Seabiscuit fan during the depression. I am one now. It has made him more special, now that I know more of the story, through this book, than only those closest to Seabiscuit would have known. I loved that fact that because of his bent knees he didn’t sleep for twenty minutes at a time standing up like most horses He laid down and slept for hours, he loved to sleep. That’s how they managed all the long hauls across the country by train.

Barcelona Spain in 1945. Ten year old Daniel goes with his father to the “cemetery for books.” He gets to pick out one book to take with him. The book he chooses is “Shadow of the Wind” by Julian Carax. He loves it but starts noticing someone following him is eerily similar to a character in the book. To top it off, all the books written by this author are being destroyed as they are found.
It uses flash backs to the turn of the century as Daniel tries to find out more about the author and why someone is destroying his books. He befriends Fermin, a homeless character with espionage in his past. A corrupt police captain is interested in every move they make.
The book is full of mystery, romance, tragedy and very colorful characters (with the exception of Daniel’s father). The first hundred pages were okay but the last 400 were harder to put down. I read more than the last half in one sitting. It would make a great movie.

This book needed to be another 200 or more pages. If I picked it up, and I didn't have to be anywhere, I couldn't put it down. Middlesex is about three generations of the Stephanides family, ending with Calliope, the main focus of the book. The first line "I was born first as a baby girl . . . then again, as a teenage boy" grabs your attention as much as the title did in enticing you to look over the book. The book jumps ahead forty years to the present Cal, an employee working for the state department in Germany. Then it jumps back to Cal's grandparents in a small village in Greece in 1922, so small (and interbred) that there are only two possibilities of marriage for her/his grandfather. When the village is attacked by the Turks, brother and sister flee to America. Since no one will know, they pretend they are strangers with similar heritage that have met on the boat, and then marry - keeping the secret of their sibling relationship for decades.
We read about generations settling in America. Actually we are all from immigrants unless we are Native Americans. In many ways this book is about the awkward childhood of most of us, but with the setting in Detroit. Once Calliope reaches puberty, however, things start to rapidly change. She grows tall and her shoulders broaden, her voice drops, she starts to grow hair on her upper lip. Her parents take her to a doctor in New York. She isn't totally honest with him, giving answers she thinks he wants to hear, not telling him about her feelings toward a girl from school. He concludes that since she was brought up as a girl, she identifies totally with the female sex and should have an operation and take hormones to appear that way. When he leaves the room and she secretly reads her file, she discovers that genetically she is actually more male. She runs away to California to escape mutilation. After living as a boy for several months, she returns home as a son. His grandmother tells her secret and he promises not to tell until after she is gone.
The story then jumps back to Europe and a grown up Cal. He has decided to tell his new girlfriend his story and not run away as in the past. I would have liked to read more about how it was after he came home from California, or more of his adjustment to becoming male. But maybe the imagination is better.

An island north of Puget Sound is the setting. The Japanese live and work along with the other islanders until W.W.II. Land is paid for and stolen, many of the Japanese are interred, etc. The story heats up in the early 50s when a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese man, Kabuo, is charged with his murder.
The Japanese man’s wife was involved with the town’s newspaperman, Ishmael, while they were still in high school but it wasn’t acceptable for the races to mix.
The whole time I read this, I kept thinking it would make a great movie. When I read that Sam Shepherd would be in it, I thought he would be perfect for the brooding Ishmael. When the movie came out, Shepherd played Ishmael’s father. Looking back at the timing, Ethan Hawke was a better age to play him, so after I got used to that idea, I enjoyed the movie.

Six weeks in rehab. The book starts with the author (age 23) waking up on a plane - he doesn’t know how he got there or where he is going. His four front teeth are knocked out, his nose is broken, he has a whole in his cheek.
His parents meet his plane and help him check into a rehab center in Minnesota. He was told if he doesn’t stop using he will be dead before he is 24. The whole book is about his recovery and the people he meets. He has to look back over his life - when did he start drinking (at 10), why is he filled with rage.
Two answers come (1) alcoholism can be genetic and his grandfather was an alcoholic. (2) A lot of our personalities are formed before the age of 2 and James had a chronic ear infection that was not detected and took several surgeries to correct. He was always screaming as a baby because of his unbearable pain. That caused a lot of unjustified anger towards his parents and everyone else.
He has been sober since 1991.
I think I might read his second book “My Friend Leonard”.
Postscript: 1/26/06 DUPED!!! Facts have come out that this “memoir” was highly embellished by the author. He was in jail 2 hours, not 87 days. He didn’t undergo root canals without benefit of novocane. His friend Lily did not commit suicide, etc. I would have read this differently if it was fiction or based on a true story rather than a memoir. Oprah is ticked. I feel a little sorry for the guy. He didn’t write this to get on Oprah’s book club and dupe her and the public, that was an amazing development. The publisher should have checked facts and published it under a different genre. I will not be reading “My Friend Leonard”.

It’s about a missionary family located in the Congo in the 1960s. The father is obsessed. The four daughters are all very individual. They do not fit in very well in the village where they are located, especially the father who doesn’t even try to learn about local customs.
I especially liked Leah because what you saw is what you got and I liked her maturing process. She went from idolizing her father to seeing and calling it as it was. I also enjoyed getting into the different sister's personalities: Rachel was extremely self-centered and Adah was in her own little world where people didn't realize how smart she was.
This took me a long time to read, not because it was boring but because I had it in the car and I didn’t have a lot of waiting time this year.
I liked the book but it was harder to read than some books.
Addendem: 4/17/05: Skimmed this book again for reading group in Moscow. Also read Books Rags and Spark Notes. We really got more into the corollaries between the missionary family and the fight for independence in the Congo.

The author grew up in New York. His father was black. His mother was Jewish and passed herself off as light skinned. It’s the story of growing up with this secretive mother and only getting her to talk about her life after he has grown up.
When, as a child, he asks her the color of Jesus’ skin, she says, “it’s the color of water”.
He describes his mother and her matter-of-fact ways absolutely perfectly: The nuts and bolts of raising us was left to Mommy, who acted as chief surgeon for bruises ("Put iodine on it"), was secretary ("If somebody hits you, take your fist and crack 'em), religious consultant ("Put God first"), chief psychologist ("Don't think about it"), and financial adviser ("What's money if your mind is empty?). Matters involving race and identity she ignored.

It is about a couple that has been together since they were 15 years old – truly soul mates. He gets a brain tumor and dies right before her 30th birthday. He leaves behind a “list” of something she needs to do for each of the following ten months. When he tells her she needs to go sing Karaoke and she calls the club and finds it already booked, she also finds out that someone has already reserved her spot. When she gets sent on a holiday with her friends, he had already made all of the arrangements. She looks forward to the first of each month to open a new card from him.
The book was sweet, a little naïve with several one-dimensional characters, but the fact that someone so young wrote it (22) is remarkable. Some of her phrases and observations are wonderful.

It was nice to read a book that I picked out for a change of pace. This was a hard book to put down. It was about the enduring friendship of six women who met at college and are now in their late forties. They have all had extremely different lives. The story is told by three of the women. Corrine is a “gourd” artist who was married to an abusive (mentally and physically) husband, her former therapist. Because of her past history of depression, he blackmailed her the whole time they were married, threatening to have her committed and not be able to see their son if she didn’t do what he said. Julia is the first lady of Alabama who goes through all the motions of what she should be, but isn’t really living her own life the way she wants to. Lanier is the tomboy who acts first and then thinks about it later. The other three are Rosanelle, the ex-beauty queen who now runs the alumni office. Astor was the exotic Cajun dancer who spends time in New York until she becomes too old to get roles. She marries a famous, but aging black artist and enjoys playing the devoted wife role to her invalid husband. Byrd is the sensitive one who worries about all their problems and is the motherly one of the group. They get together twice a year and then Corrine gets sick and changes the way they all (especially Julia and Lanier) look at things.

It is the memoir of a beloved college professor suffering from amyotrophic lateral schlerosis. His former student hears about his illness and starts to visit him every Tuesday. My mother was diagnosed with ALS three months ago.
Morrie is full of wisdom and insights, as I’m sure my mother still is. However, the big difference between the two cases is that she is already at a very advanced stage of the disease and can no longer talk with us. Morrie never really looses the speech ability. I know Mom is very in tune to the conversations around her but she doesn’t seem to have the energy to keep up her end of the conversation on her Dynawriter.
The most poignant part of the book for me was the gradual giving up of things for Morrie. First dancing, then walking without a cane, then walking, etc.
Mom gave up hiking at the ranch several years ago (blaming it on being out of shape). She gave up wine because of the medicine she was on. She gave up walking without a cane, then walking without a walker, and now walking at all. She gave up baths when she couldn’t stand up by herself any more and get out of the bath tub. She gave up sleeping with my dad when 1) she thought she was keeping him awake and 2) she needed a breathing machine at night. She gave up eating when she choked so badly that it wasn’t worth the taste any more.
I can’t think of an illness any worse than ALS. I thought this book would be really hard to read. It wasn’t. It was almost uplifting, although bittersweet.

After I saw a short article about this book, I decided I would probably have to read it.
The author lost her husband suddenly while her only daughter was in a coma in the hospital. I loved the book and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has lost a spouse, parent, or someone close. And, to anyone in a long term marriage or relationship that still has both partners.
As I read it, I thought a lot about my mom and how these would have been her thoughts – if she had not been the first to go. I thought about my dad and, how he is dealing with her absence. I thought about my husband and our marriage and how it would be if one of us lost the other one. Joan Didion’s observations are right on and she communicates them to the reader so we can understand exactly what she means.