Monday Mash Up

Monday, December 25, 2023 ~~ Books & More Books

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THOUGHTS

Merry Christmas to those friends who are celebrating.  I hope Santa was very, very good to you all this year.  And to those who aren't celebrating, I'm sending you a plain, unadulterated Merry and the hope that you enjoy the peace and quiet of the day.

I have friends who go around making a big to-do when people wish them Merry Christmas without knowing if they celebrate it or not. I could care less. I respond with a smile and a generic response and move on. It is the thought that counts. Why rain on their parade? Life is too short and I have more important things in life to be Grinchy about.

Like drivers. Why is it every time I get on the highway I comment that today's drivers drive as if they were playing a video game -- zigging in and out, almost taking my bumpers off and all as if there were no consequences for a mistake on their part.

Yes, you are right, we were on the road again this week. We took that long drive to Philadelphia. It was Pop's birthday and we were there to celebrate; he even let us pay for his birthday dinner -- which is a hoot since he paid for every other meal we ate together. We long since stopped making a fuss over who should pay; it is his joy to take his family out to dinner. This was my first visit since Mom died and all things considered, he is doing great. He is much more up-beat and I can feel that a burden has been lifted. He is back making art and getting ready to put a couple of pieces in the community "Artists Among Us" show. He makes art for his own amusement; sometimes it even turns out to be really good.

OUGHTTOBIOGRAPHY

Still working on the "Necessary Roughage" icon.

TICKETS

Not until February I think.

THE BOOKS

Being on the road it was a bad week for reading. Then there was a problem with a book I chose. All in all, not enough reading took place this week!

 

The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr

This is the book I chose to read as the book that would take me over the top of last year's count. Readers here have raved about this one and reviews and articles all mention this one. I was so psyched. Then I started listening and I just could not get into the book. Some of it was the narrator. Some of it was RL getting in the way of my concentration. Finally, after 5 days of trying and the arrival of two holds, I decided to put the book aside for now and to move on. But I am bound and determined to return to this one after I read the two holds, maybe in the new year.
No rating

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James MacBride

With the finish of this book, I have read more books this year than in any previous year. Woo hoo!

As I opened the book, I realized that the hotel where I sat was a 20 minute ride to where this book was set. All I had to do was get on the nearby highway heading north and exit at Pottstown. It used to be a mill town but since the closing of the factories it is slowly becoming another commuter town housing the urban sprawl of Philadelphia. Growing up, this was one of the many towns on the local map but a place that we never went. We had no reason to go there, no family or friends to visit. As the book went on, it continued to name places I do have a connection to -- the town where both my brother and brother-in-law live, the home town of one branch of my family -- where Uncle Jake owned a corner grocery and Uncle Charlie another barely a block away and Uncle Ben was the greenskeeper at a local country club/golf course (the club is still a going concern).

Then I decided to Google to see if there was still a synagogue in the town. Turns out there is. DH went to school with the current rabbi, who is the widow of the father of a women I went to school with -- yes, her step daughter was older than she. Even more interesting is that currently the synagogue shares the building with a Black church, notable because the plot of the book revolves around the connection between the Blacks and the Jews living on Chicken Hill, both peoples despised by the local KKK (and yes, in the 1930s the Klan mentality was rampant and institutionalized even in the North). Regardless, Pottstown is Anytown, USA.

As for the book itself, oh my, was that delicious! I loved it. McBride is an old school storyteller spinning a simple yarn full of interesting characters all of whom have their own story. McBride's prose is simple but lyrical and the message is one of hope. The nasties get their just desserts and the righteous are rewarded. This one was so good that I am considering getting my own copy so that I can read it again and again. And bravo to narrator Dominic Hoffman, who got all the Yiddish and Hebrew right.
4.5 stars -- and I hope they don't make a movie out of it.