The Sunday Salon: Quietude, and the July Reading List

Oh my, the house is quiet. For the past two weeks we've been reveling in a visit from our son, daughter-in-law and 19 month old grandson. But now they've headed back to the extreme heat in their hometown near Dallas, and we are left to bask in the cool breezes of  our near-perfect Michigan summer.  We've traded our grandson's precious babbling for the symphony of bird song, accompanied by the rustling of leaves and the mongolian tones of our backyard chimes.

July is historically my busiest reading month. Looking back over the past 10 July's in my reading journal, I've routinely records 10 and 11 books read during this long summer month.

This year totaled only 7  (but then I'm not counting the dozen or so books I read to Connor during the time he was here. And re-read. And read again.)

Here are three of the highlights of my July reading:

The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer: This novel was bound to appeal to me, as it featured a group of young people who meet in the 70's at an arts camp and become friends for life. Their relationships criss cross in unusual ways throughout the intervening decades. Wolitzer writes of the foibles and concerns of my generation, and she does it superbly.

Tomorrow There Will be Apricots, by Jessica Sofer: This beautiful debut novel is the story of two women in New York, a widow and an almost-oprhan, each seeking love and connection, using their common love of food to bring them together. Sofer writes with elegant detail about our relationships with family  - the one we are born to and the one we find for ourselves.

One and Only, by Lauren Sandler: Billed as a "humorous, tough-minded, and honest case for being and having an only child," Sandler's book appealed to me on several fronts. Because I am not only an only child myself, but also the daughter, wife, and mother of other "singletons" (the new terminology), I naturally have a vested interest in the subject. Sandler, an only child now raising an only child of her own, is almost rabid in her defense of the one-child family.  She makes her case using more sociological and psychological research than personal examples - this is not a memoir, although her own experience informs her interest in the subject.  As a "mature" only child, one who has been caring for elderly parents for the past two decades, and now facing the perils of old age looming on my own horizon, I would have been interested to see some discussion of how singletons in my demographic are handling their status. Overall, the book was well written and researched, and inspired me to thoughtfully consider my own feelings about this very current subject.

All month long, I've been listening to Tumbleweed, by Leila Meacham, a real pot-boiler of a novel about a triumvirate of friends growing up in the Texas panhandle (circa mid 1980's to the present). I LOVE lisetning to these kinds of books - love the long story, the plot twists and turns, the relationship arcs. Impeccably read by Angele Masters, it's the kind of novel that so completely engrosses me I sometimes forget where I'm driving (and they talk about cell phones being distracting!)

So far this August, I'm completely engrossed in Sight Reading, a novel by Daphne Kalotay (author of Russian Winter). This is another guaranteed "like" for me, since the main characters are professional musicians. Kalotay has done a marvelous job of research with this novel, as she explores the complex relationships between couples and their work.

How did July shape up in your reading life?

TLC Book Tours: Stargazey Point

Eroded beaches, a non-existent tourist trade, and skyrocketing property taxes...this is what Abbie Sinclair stumbles into when she goes to Stargazey Point to recover from a traumatic event. Devastated by her own personal tragedy, Abbie thinks she has nothing left to give, but is slowly drawn into the lives of the people of Stargazey Point - the three elderly Crispin siblings and their struggle to stay in their historic beachfront home; the young, handsome architect, Cab Reynolds, who left behind a successful  career to refurbish his uncle's antique carousel; and a motley crew of children who touch Abbie's heart in a variety of ways. Before she knows it, Abbie is helping the people of Stargazey Point revitalize their dreams. In doing so, she's surprised to find her own dreams for life rekindled and even more surprised to find a place she might call home.

Author Shelly Noble's novel is an insightful, hopeful look at the way we can recover from what seems insurmountable tragedy.  I'm always impressed by the human spirit at work, and the way an ordinary group of people can achieve extraordinary things when they come together for a common goal, whatever it may be. Stargazey Point is a novel about just this kind of effort, and I was immediately drawn into the story and interested to see what would become of each character.

Stargazey Point is another perfect summer read...so grab a copy and enjoy it while there's still some summer left.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this book.

TLC Book Tours: City of Hope

The decade of the 1930's was difficult for everyone, but especially for young Ellie Hogan, whose beloved husband dies suddenly. She decides to leave Ireland and return to New York City, a place that holds happy memories for her. But although the Depression has changed the city she once loved, Ellie is determined to create a new life for herself. She plunges all her energy into creating a home and refuge for some of the cities many homeless people. In return, she receives more love and friendship than she ever thought possible, and begins to feel the first faint stirrings of hope and happiness once more. And then someone from the past appears, someone she thought she would never see again - and pieces of Ellie's past that she thought were long gone suddenly resurface, threatening her newfound hope for the future.

Ellie Hogan is a female character I refer to as the "teabag type" - she doesn't realize her own strength until she gets into hot water. I love stories about women who reach into their deepest selves and find their true mettle, and City of Hope is just such a story. Author Kate Kerrigan has created a admirable, inspiring character in her Ellie Hogan, a woman ahead of her time in terms of ambition and ideas - added to that is her beautiful rendering of the historical period and a likable cast of characters.

City of Hope was a fabulous addition to my historical novel library, and I'm eager to read Kerrigan's first novel Ellis Island. Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this novel.

TLC Book Tours: The Virgin Cure

Being a huge fan of historical novels, I was eager to read The Virgin Cure, by Ami McKay, a new-to-me Canadian author whose first novel (The Birth House) was a number one best seller in that country. I'm not surprised, because McKay's writing and story telling skills are epic. The Virgin Cure is set in Lower Manhattan circa 1871. It's the story of Moth, a young girl growing up alone on some very mean streets filled with orphaned children and desperate women trying to eke out some kind of living. Moth's father is long gone, and her mother is a Gypsy fortune teller who sells her 12 year old daughter into servitude with a cruel, abusive society matron. Moth eventually escapes and spends some months on the streets before she is taken in by the charming Miss Everett, a Madam who runs something called an Infant School, which is really a brothel catering to gentlemen willing to pay a premium for desirable young virgins like Moth. In fact, some of them are seeking the fabled "Virgin Cure" - the belief that having intercourse with a virgin will cure them of syphilis. Moth's friendship with Dr. Sadie, a female physician who works among the indigent population, gives her the courage she needs to see a better life for herself.

Moth is a totally engaging character, and I longed to reach back in time and scoop her up for myself, bring her home with me and give her a good life. McKay creates such breathtaking word pictures that reading the novel is almost frightening at times, the reader feels so involved in the time and place.

And what a time and place! We talk a lot today about the poor situations children find themselves in - gangs and single parent families, hunger and lack of education. We tend to forget the history of maltreatment of children in this country. In an author's note, McKay writes that over 30,000 children lived on the streets of New York city in 1870. Even more of them wandered in and out of tenements as their families struggled to find food and shelter. Most of these children were illiterate and would end up as thieves and prostitutes, dead before they ever reached adulthood. McKay's interest in this time period was sparked when she learned about her own great-great grandmother, the original Dr. Sadie, who worked the streets of New York along with Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female physician, caring for the women and children of the city.

The Virgin Cure is a fascinating look at this time and place in our history. But it's also a story of perseverance and hope. Because Moth does find good people among the bad, people who care about her and are willing to help her, people who step up to make a difference, one child at a time.

Sometimes, for a moment, everything is just as you need it to be. The memories of such moments live in the heart, waiting for the time you need to think on them, if only to remind yourself that for a short while, everything had been fine, and might be so again. I didn't have many memories like that...No matter what might happen or what fate Miss Everett had in store for me, I now had the image of Miss Suzie Lowe to place alongside them. She would remind me that I was a girl who longed for things, a girl who wanted to become something more than she was seen to be.

If you enjoy historical novels, I highly recommend this book.

Connect with Ami McKay here:

Website, Facebook page, Twitter account,  Pinterest board.

The Sunday Salon: Permission to Read, Please

On this hot summer Sunday, I've been seriously contemplating climbing the stairs to my bedroom, stretching out on the king sized bed underneath a gently whirling fan, and reading napping. It's a revolutionary concept for me - the napping part, not the reading part. I never nap. But I haven't been sleeping very well, and last night was another in what has become something of an ugly habit - wake up at 1:30, stay awake  until 3 or 3:30, and then drift off into restless sleep until the alarm sounds Summer afternoons seem made for reading, and I'd love to allow myself the luxury of lolling around with The Burgess Boys, which I picked up at the library yesterday. But most of my reading is done at the extremes of the day. I'm used to reading first thing in the morning, often before anyone else is awake, and last thing at night, just before falling asleep. And these recent middle-of-the-night periods of wakefulness have proven a boon to my reading life, if not my physical one.

I wonder why it seems such a decadent pleasure to read in the middle of the day, one almost akin to eating dessert before (or instead of) the meal. In my youth and early adulthood, I often spent time in the afternoon reading, and recall many summer afternoons spent on the back porch of our house or under the shade tree, book in hand, while baby napped inside. It was so rejuvenating, that hour or so spent with a book, that it seems churlish not to engage in it more often.

It is without a doubt my Puritan work ethic that nudges me off the couch and on to more "productive" tasks. I tell myself that reading is sustenance for a writer, that it's is necessary for the betterment of my craft. I remind myself that many of the books piled on my TBR shelf are review books and require my dedicated attention. But even as I settle comfortably on the sofa, I can feel nagging tugs at my shirtsleeve...how about that laundry? did you remember to get the chicken out of the freezer? have those bills been paid yet?

What I really crave is permission to let that other stuff go and read in the middle of the day just for the pure love of it. Isn't that silly?

So without further ado, I will attempt to spend at least part of this summer Sunday engaged in the practice of reading.

How about you? When does most of your reading get done? Is reading during the day a guilty pleasure for you?