Book Worm

By Suzanne Nash

Well it is finally here…the Big Summer List of reading materials and I have tried to tackle multiple different genres, so I can bet there will be something to interest everyone’s reading taste. 

From mysteries and thrillers to non-fiction and epic novels, get ready to build your poolside book stack!

In the mystery department I am giving you another dose of a UK setting.  God of the Hive by Laurie R. King is a continuation of a series that revolves around an older Sherlock Holmes and his wife Mary Russell. I have enjoyed previous books in this series and this particular one will not let you down. Follow Holmes and Russell as they race to save the world from another villain with plans to take over the government.

The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips takes place in Cambridge…one of my absolutely favorite English towns and has two plots to follow. London 1672 Charles II’s court has a serious problem. His sister Henriette- Anne has been killed and now his mistress has been poisoned.  Hannah Devlin, a physic, has been called to discreetly make sure the mistress recovers.  Years later in Cambridge Claire Donovan is a guest lecturer at Trinity College and suddenly there is a murder and all of it is connected to the past.  Hannah’s diary holds the key.

I loved The English Wife by Lauren Willig because of its twists and turns as it leads the reader through the old monied world of New York during the Gilded Age. Bayard Van Duyvil is from old family money and when he brings home the lovely Annabelle after marrying her in England their life seems perfect, but then Bayard winds up dead and Annabelle disappears, and no one knows if she has been murdered or is the murderer. 

Edinburgh Twilight by Carole Lawrence is a period mystery set in Scotland. A body of a man has been found in Holyrood park and inspector Ian Hamilton is the one who must figure things out before the body count starts to rise. 

There are quite a few good nonfiction books that would make great poolside reading.

Caroline Blackwood is a journalist who was commissioned in the 1980s to write a story about the aging Duchess of Windsor.  The Last of the Duchess: The Strange and Sinister Story of the final years of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor is the result of her investigation and tells the story of her struggle to find out anything at all about the health and well-being of Wallis once she came under the care of her lawyer Maitre Suzanne Blum.  This is such a weird story that it hardly seems real and whether Wallis Simpson was someone you approved of or not…. the idea that someone can be held captive by a lawyer the way that Wallis was is truly scary.

Another scary person is Belle Gunness who you can learn more about in Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men by Harold Schechter.  I knew nothing regarding this woman who ended up being one of the most prolific female serial killer sin the twentieth Century.  If you like true crime stories, then this is a really interesting look at the woman who lured a series of men to her Indiana “murder farm” from 1902-1908. And you thought online dating was dangerous? Well before the internet or social media Belle was trolling for victims in the media.

The Last Castle by Denise Kiernan appealed to me because when I was in college we often took weekend trips to Ashville and I always enjoyed visiting Biltmore.  This is the story of this beautiful home which really is an American castle. The Biltmore is the nation’s largest home and its history is one tied to the family that build it and the area in which it came to be. The author of The Girls of Atomic City, Kiernan does a wonderful job opening up the history of Ashville North Carolina and how the Vanderbilt’s changed it with their magnificent home and money.

Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir by Christopher Buckley is a funny irreverent look at losing both of your parents and what happens when your parents are the very famous Buckleys.  I thought it was sad, funny and poignant and also took me back to a different age. I loved every minute of it.

If you want your heart to beat a little faster, then you might open up a thriller this summer.

The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney will keep you turning pages as you get absorbed into this psychological drama.  There was a girl before, living at One Folgate Street, before Jane came. And this girl went through a trauma, just as Jane has gone through trauma, and she was chosen, just as Jane was chosen…out of all of the other candidates to live at this award winning minimalist house.  And she fell for the architect just as Jane has.  And she died….  The question is…is Jane next?

Staying in the same theme of houses Broken Harbor by Tana French takes place in an Irish Coastal town where a luxury development has gone to ruin. In this abandoned remote seaside area, a family has been attacked and Mick Scorcher Kennedy and his partner Richie Curran have to find the killer.  The Irish are drawn to the sea and in summer they flock to caravan parks that are scattered along the coastline…and one summer Mick’s mom killed herself in this very same area, so this new murder brings it all back. I actually just stayed in an area similar to this when I was in Ireland, so the story’s atmosphere really drew me in.

I love a good historical novel during the summer and I couldn’t give you a list of summer reads without including a few.

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer is a World War II story that was a New York Times Notable Book. It is Paris 1937 and Adras Levi has arrived to begin studying architecture in Paris.  Originally from Budapest, Andras finds himself adrift in a world he isn’t used to, and he finds comfort when he falls in love with a beautiful dance teacher, Clara. This is a sweeping saga of a family from Hungry who tries to study and get ahead and all of that is cut short by War.  The Nazi’s plans put an end to dreams and sever the families.  Intrigue and lies are needed to keep from being swallowed up in the injustice of the times.

Taking place during the same time period, White Rose, Black Forest is based around the heroes of World War II. When Franka goes into the woods to try and commit suicide she stumbles upon and wounded man dressed in German military garb.  Writer Eoin Dempsey introduces us to a young woman struggling to face the repercussions of being part of the White Rose…an organization that spoke up against the Nazis. Franka has to make a decision about whether to believe this stranger and risk her safety or turn him in to the authorities. John, the stranger, has to decide which side Franka is really on, and whether he can trust her with his life.

By Suzanne Nash

I am currently away traveling in England, Ireland and Wales, enjoying the countryside and getting some time to read, reflect and do a bit of writing. I am looking forward to the Spring quickly approaching and nice enough weather to take a few books out into the sunshine. Here are a few ideas for books to enjoy as the days grow longer.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles is one of my favorites. His writing in this earlier novel is not as eloquent as his later novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, but it is a good story, well written that will capture your imagination. Katy Kontent meets Tinker Grey on a New Year’s Eve out with her friend and roommate, Eve Ross. Suddenly both girls are thrown into the high society of New York in 1937. Katy has remade her Russian immigrant background as she seeks to make her way out of the dead end secretarial pool. A chance encounter with Tinker enables her to start circulating among the upper crust and have a front row seat to all of the excesses of the very wealthy. The title is taken from a book written by George Washington called the Rules of Civility and Tinker has tried to follow these rules throughout his life, though his attempts at following his code only land him tied to a woman he does not love. This story is filled with wonderful period details and lots of cocktails, parties and gorgeous settings. It’s great way to put away the dreary days of winter.

As Good As True is a new novel by Cheryl Reid and follows the story of a Syrian immigrant resettled in Alabama. Anna Nassad finds herself in a bind. She has just recently allowed the first black postman to deliver mail to her house, and even worse, invited him in for a drink of water. This causes a firestorm of reaction from the community and her family, especially her husband, Elias. The next day she wakes to find her husband dead and everyone is pointing the finger at her and wondering if she is at fault for his death. On the long days between his death and burial, Anna looks back at her life and her choices and she fights to regain the trust of her daughter Marina. I love exploring new authors and this a great example of a new, fresh talent.

If you enjoy fact more than fiction, then have a go at reading The Bettencourt Affair: The World’s Richest Woman and the Scandal that Rocked Paris. As heiress to a 40 billion-dollar L’Oreal fortune, Lillian Bettencourt recently found herself at odds with her own daughter, Francois, over Lillian’s decision to patronize an artist, Francois-Marie Banier. For years Lillian and Banier were fast friends and she rewarded him lavishly for that friendship by giving him millions in art and properties. Francois was jealous of this relationship and swore that Banier turned her mother against her. In recent years this disagreement turned into a major court battle with Francois declaring her mother unsound. It was a “he said, she said” case that captivated the entire nation. It begs the question…are you allowed to spend your own money as you please? Are you allowed to leave your money to those you care about? At what point do friends who benefit from the financial gain of wealthy patrons start to take advantage of that relationship?

A Banquet of Consequences is another lovely mystery by Elizabeth George. Barbara Havers is in trouble with her department head and must prove herself in this latest case. A feminist writer, Clare Abbott, is poisoned and Thomas Lindley steps in to solve the crime with help from Havers. Caroline Mackerron was Clare’s assistant, but seems determined to control everything surrounding the case and soon the detectives turn their attention to her life and the apparent suicide of her son, William. There are plenty of twists and turns to this murder mystery and it will keep you guessing from beginning to end.

So, keep your eyes open for the blue skies and prepare for some outdoor reading in our near future. Keep on reading!

By Suzanne Nash

If you have never been on a reading retreat…I highly recommend it! I am lucky enough to have a few wonderful friends who gather each year for a weekend of quiet reading…ok maybe not quite so quiet! We also drink and eat and laugh and share our favorite books with each other in a beautiful estate near Gordonsville. I shared these latest finds with them and I am sure in the next few months I will share some of their favorites…

Enchantress of Numbers: A Novel of Ada Lovelace by Jennifer Chiaverini, introduced me to a historical figure I knew very little about, the daughter of Lord Byron. I adore the poetry of Lord Byron and always saw him as a romantic figure who associated with his little gang of creative artists, but I knew very little about his wife, Lady Annabella Byron. Born Anne Isabella Milbanke, Annabelle was a very no-nonsense woman who was a gifted mathematician. She was, at first, captivated by George Gordon Byron, then appalled by him. After marriage she comes to discover the mercurial nature of her husband and begins to suspect the unnatural relationship he has with his half-sister, Augusta Marie. This novel follows the path of Ada, her and Byron’s daughter, who faces the burden of fame from the moment she is born. She is whisked away from her father so that Annabella can try and shape her daughter’s future without the influence of Lord Byron’s unbalanced way of life. She refuses to let Ada succumb to anything that seems driven by her imagination and her days are heavy with mathematics and practical applications. Ada becomes a very studious young woman who thrives, yet whose imagination still finds an outlet through mathematics via the friendship with Charles Babbage who invented the Difference Engine, the very first programmed computing machine. I was fascinated by this largely unknown pioneer of technology and loved the way Chiaverini presented Ada, as well as her mother. It has made me want to explore this area of history a bit more.

I took a flight with a layover in Iceland recently and that led me to pick up an Icelandic writer named Yrsa Sigurdardottier. I am really glad I am writing this name and not having to say it out loud as I would surely butcher it. If you don’t mind reading names you can’t pronounce then I highly recommend her latest book, The Legacy. Apparently Yrsa is the “Queen of Icelandic thriller writers” and I can see why. She develops a detective, Detective Huldar, who is grasping at straws as he tries to figure out a baffling murder of a mother and wife who seems to have no enemies. A list of numbers, which no one understands, is left at the scene. When the victim’s child is found hiding under the bed, child psychologist Freyja must help the police learn what they can from the only witness. I really enjoy Swedish and Norwegian writers and so I was curious to see if the Icelandic thriller might have a similar feel….a bit of darkness that seems ever present. It has a slight Nordic feel, but I think the fact that Iceland has the lowest violent crime rate in all of the world keeps the atmosphere a bit lighter. A violent murder is not a normal, everyday occurrence and so the scrutiny of the police is very intense. I will be reading more from this author in the near future and booking a flight for a crime free vacation!

Sing Unburied Sing is a new novel from Jesmyn Ward, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Salvage the Bones. I just have to rave a little about the voices in this novel. The rhym and cadence of the dialogue pulled me in from the beginning. Language inflections for regional speech can be tricky…it can pull you in or push you away with its differences. I was hooked from page one. That said, if you do not immediately succumb to the cadence please try and hold on for a few chapters until you fall into the patterns…it is worth it! The past and present flow together in this book as ghosts and the living walk freely through these pages. The injustice and inequality of races is clearly front and center in this book as it is set in Mississippi and is told from the view points of a mixed race child, Jojo, his African-American mother, Leonie, and an African American ghost child who was killed escaping from Parchman prison. History is filled with the unburied dead, those who never rest with the injustice of the world and part of this novel looks at how we put to rest the past and set those spirits free. It is beautiful and lyrical and moving and it’s a novel I will return to because it is one that deserves more than one reading. From Pops and his pain to Mam, who always has one foot in the realm of spirit, each character spoke to me. A good writer can take even the most unlikely of characters, one with all of the qualities you most dislike and somehow make you empathize and love them. Fall in love with all of these wonderful creations as you dance between the realms of past and present, physical and spirit.

Have a great rest of your month and keep turning those pages!

By Suzanne Nash

As this goes to print I sit in front of a warm fire and enjoy the prospect of snow this winter.  There is nothing better than a vacation or snow day to curl up and enjoy a cup of cocoa with a pile of books and I hope you have a stash ready just in case the opportunity arises soon. Here are a few possibilities you might want to add to your collection.

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney introduces readers to the Plumb family in her debut novel The Nest.  Four siblings are the centerpiece of the story which revolves around the family nest egg, held in trust until the youngest member Melody turns forty.  Their mother, however, has the power to use that money in an emergency and an emergency does arrive in the form of the eldest sibling, Leo, being a complete irresponsible idiot and getting behind the wheel while he is drunk.  Quickly Melody, Bea and Jack see all of the money they were expecting to be theirs disappearing to pay for Leo’s mistake.  It infuriates them and changes their lives.   Suddenly they are forced to reimagine their futures and they aren’t really happy with that.  Simmering resentments surface and the family’s dysfunction becomes apparent.  I love debut novels and this a good one delving into the meaning of family, loyalty and love.

If you read the novel I recommended in another Bookworm Review called A Man Called Ove and enjoyed it, or if you like Scandinavian writing, then you must read Britt-Marie Was Here. Author Fredrik Backman has a distinctive writing style of which I have become enamored.  His main character, Britt-Marie, is prickly and set in her ways when she learns her husband has been cheating on her.  She is stunned.   She had her life ordered and completely organized, now it has come completely undone.  But Britt-Marie will rise above it all.   With her favorite cleaning products in tow, she heads to a new life as the temporary manager of a rec center in a dead-end town called Borg.  Backman once again creates delightful characters and I laughed out loud at Britt-Marie’s thoughts on everything from the ordering of the cutlery drawers to how to entertain a rat for dinner.

The last book on my list this month is my favorite book in a long time.  Himself, by Jess Kidd is a beautifully written Irish tale that is magical and glowing.  This is one of the few novels I have read where I can actually hear the Irish lilt.  The language is rich and delectable!  Mahony returns to his mother’s hometown, Mulderrig, to investigate her disappearance which occurred years ago. The town is filled with secrets and ghosts are quite literally stirred up as Mahony probes into the past. He seems to have a touch of magic about him and even nature appears to be affected by his presence.  This novel is a combination fairy tale and crime fiction and is remarkable in every way.  It is like many Irish tales which seems to grow with each telling.

So, grab your beverage of choice and stoke up the fire and enjoy a brief spell immersed in a book this new year!

The final work from the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, actor, and musician, drawn from his transformative last days.

In searing, beautiful prose, Sam Shepard’s extraordinary narrative leaps off the page with its immediacy and power. It tells in a brilliant braid of voices the story of an unnamed narrator who traces, before our rapt eyes, his memories of work, adventure, and travel as he undergoes medical tests and treatments for a condition that is rendering him more and more dependent on the loved ones who are caring for him. The narrator’s memories and preoccupations often echo those of our current moment—for here are stories of immigration and community, inclusion and exclusion, suspicion and trust. But at the book’s core, and his, is family—his relationships with those he loved, and with the natural world around him. Vivid, haunting, and deeply moving, Spy of the First Person takes us from the sculpted gardens of a renowned clinic in Arizona to the blue waters surrounding Alcatraz, from a New Mexico border town to a condemned building on New York City’s Avenue C.  It is an unflinching expression of the vulnerabilities that make us human—and an unbound celebration of family and life.

Spy of the First Person (Knopf), an autobiographical work of fiction, comes with a poignant back story. Sam Shepard, whose illness had not been made public, began working on the book in 2016, writing by hand. When that became impossible, he used a tape recorder, with family members transcribing. Musician Patti Smith, a friend, helped Shepard with edits, and he gave the final manuscript to his daughter just days before he died.

There are references in Spy of the First Person to his actual sisters and two sons and daughter, so reality fleetingly intrudes upon this fragmentary, disjointed narrative, in which Samuel Beckett’s influence on Shepard (Buried Child, Fool for Love) has perhaps never been more apparent. It’s Waiting for Godot in the desert.

Who is the “Spy of the First Person”? It could be Shepard spying on himself, watching himself deteriorate. It could be, and perhaps is, God. Waiting.

As this book with the brilliant title begins, someone is watching a man on a screened-in porch in a rocking chair, which, we learn later, is a wheelchair. The point of view shifts between the watcher and the watched. (“Sometimes it feels like we’re the same person,” Shepard writes.)

It’s unclear at times who is sharing this flood of memories, of grandparents, of a terrible day when a racehorse was shot by a sniper, of a woman being beaten, of a man escaping Alcatraz (real or a movie?). The reader must follow the flow; but, like trying to decipher someone else’s dreams, it’s not always easy.

The book startles with quick, elliptical references to the unnamed man and his illness, discovered after spinal taps and MRIs and blood tests and X-rays. “Nothing seems to be working now. Hands. Legs. Nothing. I just lie here.”

And later: “You notice the progressive nature of things. Things run down. You notice how different. You don’t want to believe it.” Eventually, having to ask for help to scratch an itch: “Is something crawling through my hair? Is there an ant, for instance? Is there a worm? Is there a fly? An insect of some kind, winged? Mosquito? A leggy insect. An insect with many tentacles that is searching around through my hair for something imagined?”

It’s painful to read, and yet remarkable to think Shepard was compelled to keep writing, and without self-pity.

A feeling of vague paranoia can lurk in these sparse pages. “Someone wants to know something. Someone wants to know something about me that I don’t even know myself. I can feel him getting closer and closer.”

There’s a subtle curiosity at work, too, the curiosity of a writer to the very end. Unsettling, yet brave.

By Suzanne Nash

As I write these reviews, I am up in the mountains on a retreat at Shrine Mont in Orkney Springs, and the air is crisp cool and the sky is bright with sunlight reflecting on the changing leaves. It’s the perfect place to read and reflect.

I have a mix of theme and genres this month starting with The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott. The author of The Dressmaker has delivered another historical novel that entertains. Based on an actual murder of a mill girl and the subsequent trial in 1833, this story centers around the mills in Lowell Massachusetts. There is a clear class distinction between the girls who run the looms and those families who actually own the mills. Many young girls have left family and farm work to work at the looms so that they can earn money and become independent but they are at the mercy of the mill owners. The Fiske family is the well to do owners of the mills in Lowell and when Alice Barrow begins working at their mill she suddenly becomes acquainted with the eldest son. She eventually represents the factory girls and workers and it is her dear friend Lovey (Sarah) Cornell who is found murdered. A tense trial begins and there is confrontation between the evangelical camp movement and the other religions in the area, between the industrial mill owners and the workers who are becoming increasingly angry about the conditions at the mills.

If you have ever wondered about the reason behind union movements this is a good look into the start of workers uniting in the US. It paints a picture of the rough conditions and the life of those who chose to leave everything behind for a chance to work in a factory. It is well written and a very easy read.

On a recent long-distance drive, I enjoyed listening to a new thriller that has just been released called Behind Closed Doors, a debut novel by B. A. Paris. Wonderfully creepy, it is a bit like Gone Girl in its intensity. Jack and Grace Angel seem to be the perfect couple. In fact, “perfect” is used quite a lot in this novel and start to mean something far different than the normal word. It doesn’t take too long for you to realize that Grace is trapped in a horrible relationship that threatens not only her existence but that of her autistic sister, Millie. Grace will need all of her wits and strength to find her way out and she will have to rely on her sister to help her.

This was the perfect companion for my drive as it kept me engaged and intrigued the entire way – in fact I couldn’t wait for the ride home so I could find out the conclusion. I always enjoy discovering debut authors and I will definitely be picking up the next B. A. Paris book!

My final book choice is my favorite –The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. Preston is one of my favorite authors and you may remember I reviewed another of his books several months ago….The Monster of Florence. Preston is a freelance journalist, as well as a book author and he specializes in amazing true stories and mysteries. This time he has discovered that there is a group of explorers set to enter into a mysterious jungle in Honduras that has not been mapped or extensively explored previously. They believe that in this remote jungle lies the legendary White City, or also known as the City of the Monkey God. In 2015 Preston has managed to get himself included in this remarkable expedition. This book delves into the history of this area and discusses the Mayan culture and another culture which we known far less about which was located in the Mosquitia region and speaking Chibcha. Once the group, led by Steve Elkins, manages to get themselves into the region where they believe the ruins to be, they face deadly snakes, tropical diseases, drug cartels and a jungle so dense they can only travel a short distance each day. This is a perilous journey but the group stumbles on a cache of ritual objects buried in the jungle and they know they have made a significant discovery that may change our understanding of pre-Columbian culture. But the danger isn’t over once they leave the jungle. Weeks after they are back home the team begins to face another enemy – Leishmaniosis. It is a parasitical disease which can take three forms and, of course, they have contracted the hardest to cure…the one that could kill them all.

I have to say this story makes me glad I am a book reviewer and prefer to write fiction because Preston puts his life on the line to get the stories he tells. It is no small feat! The other part of this story is the mystery of what happened to these massive cities which seem to have been abandoned in the jungle. The theory is that smallpox brought by Europeans to the Americas could have killed 90% of the population, decimating the once flourishing civilization. To put that into context – Black Death which devastated Europe only killed 30-60% of the population. Preston finds it ironic that a “New World city destroyed by Old-World disease wreaked havoc on its Old-World rediscoverers with a New World disease.” This is an incredible story that will keep you enthralled throughout and you will be amazed that there are still as yet unexplored regions in our world with lost cities to find.

Have a wonderful fall and enjoy your Thanksgiving!

By Suzanne Nash

I love the fall and especially October. The air is crisper and school is back in session….and Halloween is right around the corner. I love the fresh apples and pumpkins seen in all of the stores. The smell of cinnamon in the fall recipes fill the air and it’s the perfect time to curl up with an eerie tale…so here are a few selections to give you some creepy thrills.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry has the flavor of a Victorian gothic tale in the style of Shelly, Collins or even Dickens. It’s 19th century England and Cora Seaborne has just lost her husband…which in her case in not something to mourn. She is a naturalist at heart and once she has her freedom she throws aside Victorian convention and goes around wearing pants and digging in the dirt looking for fossils. She leaves London with her unusually obsessive 11-year-old son, Frances, and they decamp to Colchester where she begins to become intrigued by the tale of the Essex Serpent that roams the marsh and allegedly had taken the lives of multiple people in the past. This monster is back and the people of Colchester are afraid. Cora doesn’t believe in magic or religion…she is a practical person who thinks science will explain the Essex Serpent…she believes it may even be a lost species and she wants to be the one to present this new specie to the world. Follow Cora’s foray into the marshes of Colchester and discover if she is right.

If you are looking for some witchy fun try The Witches of New York: A Novel. The author, Ami McKay, discovered during her research for this book that one of her relatives had been hung for witchcraft and that made this book even more personal for her. She describes the work as “part Victorian fairy tale, part penny dreadful, part feminist manifesto” and that really captures the atmosphere. In 1880 New York there is a tea shop called Tea and Sympathy run by two very unusual women, Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St. Claire. They are looking for an assistant and 17-year-old Beatrice Dunn seems to fit the bill. Adelaide and Eleanor help their clients in multiple ways and seem to have a knack of knowing what is needed. The curiosity of the age has made séances a very popular entertainment and the public clamors to know more about science and magic. On the other side of the coin there is public hysteria about dark magic that is stoked by the sermons and guidance of the Reverend Francis Townsend. He and his followers are on the lookout for witches and his dark ideas are violent and misogynistic. It is into this world that the innocence and spiritual gifts of Beatrice are tested. This is the perfect tale for the month of October.

What says spooky haunted house more than gargoyles? The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson is a very unusual love story. The narrator remains unnamed but the reader learns of his descent into hell, after a horrifying car wreck that leaves him unmanned and burnt beyond recognition. Into this hell comes a beautiful slightly crazy sculptress of gargoyles, Marianne Engle, who leads him through hell and out the other side. Yes, Marianne has a similar role as Beatrice did in Dante’s masterpieces if you are familiar with them. Marianne explains that she and the narrator have been together for many lives and that their love is eternal, spanning the world from Japan, Italy, England, Iceland and Germany. But time is slipping away and she has very little time left to save him.

If you are looking for a far more modern spooky tale then look no further than The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckly. Ann Brook lives in Ohio with her daughters, Maddie and Katie and her husband, Peter. Peter is a professor studying avian bird flu and the possibility of a pandemic in the USA. If you don’t know anything about H5N1 Influenza, it’s a highly pathogenic virus that can infect migratory birds and it is very possible that is could cause a widespread pandemic in the United States. In this story, the pandemic occurs and what ensues is chaos and fear, where choices have to made that will affect everyone’s future. Ann and Peter’s marital problems become less of focus for them as they try and deal with the life-threatening situation that forces them to lock their doors and try and keep from coming into contact with anyone who might infect them. There really is a surveillance of migratory birds ongoing in the USA so this is a very real threat. Buckly has done a wonderful job making the science of this threat very readable. It definitely had my heart thumping as I turned the pages and I think if you want something that strikes a bit closer to home this book will do the trick.

So, make sure you pick up some ghostly stories this fall. Happy Haunting this Halloween!

By Suzanne Nash

We are in the middle of the dog days of summer and while I encouraged you to explore other lands last month, this month I want to discuss a few books that ask you to explore your beliefs and expand your understanding of other religions.

Summer is the perfect time to slow down and go within and this time of year poetry really calls to me. Try The Illustrated Rumi: a Treasury of Wisdom form the Poet of the Soul by Dunn, Mascetti and Nicholson. If you have never read Rumi you will be in for a treat! This books not only has beautiful illustrations but it is a mix of story and poetry that give you a look into the Arabic world of Sufism.  Here is a small taste of the poetry…perfect as you head to the beach:

Silence lies in the ocean

While words flow through the river

The ocean waits for you, don’t wait for the river.

Look to the ocean and watch its message,

It will come, it will come.

Along those same lines another Sufi exploration is Physicians of the Heart: A Sufi View of the Ninety-nine Names of Allah by Wali Ali Meyer, Bilal Hyde, Faisal Muqaddam and Shabda Kahn. Whether you are Muslim or Christian or any other religion there is something beautiful about looking at the different aspects of God and how each aspect of God touches us.  I am studying one name each day this summer and it is a beautiful way to start each morning. This book is beautifully organized so you will understand the groupings of the names and why balancing one name with the other is so important.

For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystic by Roger Housden is a beautiful and transformational book that you might want to always keep with you.  I find myself opening it up whenever I have a spare moment…and perusing the inspirational and thoughtful poetry and prayers.  One page has the prayer or poem while the facing page has a commentary of the writing or the author. It’s a lovely book to relax with in the long afternoons when you are perhaps too tired or hot to read anything lengthy.

Another beautiful book that connects you to God within nature is John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.   I am not one who can just come up with blessings on the spur so I am always drawn to those who can create beautiful blessings that stir the heart.  O’Donohue is by far my favorite. I adore his writing and I always find inspiration is his books, including Anam Cara which I have reviewed in the past. Celtic Christianity has a special place in my heart so I  always return to this book when I need comfort or inspiration. Some of the blessings seem especially fitting for the summer. Here is a portion from In Praise of Water:

Water: vehicle and idiom

Of all the inner voyaging

That keeps us alive

Blessed be water,

Our first mother.

And from For Eros

May the words of love

Reach you and fluster

Your held self,

The way a silhouette of breeze

Excites the meadow.

Perhaps poetry doesn’t really do it for you….that’s ok…I have one more book that is a bit more standard.  Currently there are several biographies out there of Bonhoeffer and I recently read one called Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas which will expand your awareness of this fascinating pastor who stood against the Nazi Regime in the 1930s.  His bravery in standing up for his beliefs is remarkable and since I did not know a great deal about his life I found the history very compelling. It will make you think about your faith and what you are willing to stand up for. A few Bonhoeffer quotes that stand out and represent this pastors faith in action…

“There is no way to peace along the way to safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture”

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

These are words to ponder as our summer this year seems to be filled with controversy and social justice issues.  I do not believe everyone can be called to be a Bonhoeffer but we each contribute in our own way to the fabric of this world and that fabric can only be made stronger by its diversity. So I hope you appreciate all of the diverse offerings around us this summer and the more you read the more you can appreciate our differences.

Try and stay cool!

Suzanne