Rebekah’s Comments (group member since Mar 21, 2014)

Rebekah’s comments from the Bookmarks Subscribers group.

I don’t see anywhere else to ask this, but why are books no longer being added to the bookshelf?

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and
For audio
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Linda wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Linda wrote: " American Dirt I highly recommend it despite the controversy.

Of course, I think the person who disputed the book in..."

Thanks, Linda, I’ll look it up. I’ve already added to my wishlist shelf along with most of the others on this page people wrote about! Lol

I was asking about deleting because in another group I’m in, they ask that no one delete posts because it messes up the numbering of the posts.

Based on that controversy that someone of the author’s heritage shouldn’t write books about that, does that mean female authors cannot write about males and vice versa. So what about Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden or Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe or by Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

And Tony Hillerman was honored by the Navajo Nation for his novels featuring Navajo police officers

Ready for a dozen more? If not, I understand. You can just skip over.
by Joan Silber
Still haven’t decided how much I like it but it did win the Pen/Faulkner whose judges probably have a more highly developed taste than mine.
- Smith’s debut novel and she deserved all the accolades. Race and immigration in a London setting.
- this was the most amusing book ever! Loved that spunky narrator! Can’t believe I hadn’t read it before now but with two teens in the house there are a few books I have to search for once they get them , Hunger Games, Cinder, Paper Towns and Shattered disappearing when Im ready to read them.
by Elizabeth Gaskell well just knowing she was in Dickens’ circle says a lot. Long, lots of moralizing and character angst but still with a message.
by Susana López Rubio -a heartbreaking love story set in times when Havana was a hot spot for American celebrities and a haven for corruption but then came the Revolution when nothing was the same or better. Beautiful story.
- I read Nickel and Dimed and it really opened my eyes how rough making an honest living with only a high school education has become in America. It’s an American dream which is just that, a fantasy. And easy for us whose parents can afford it or if we are willing to pay off debt for the next 10 -20 years to say “You should have gone to college” . But really +12 years of 6-7 hours of 5x weekly education for 10 months of the year doesn’t make you fit for anything but minimum wage? A concept set up so a family could make enough to survive, with a safe place to live, enough food, clothing and pay your doctor bills when you need some antibiotics, not as an allowance for high schoolers as part of their character development. which that is what people have indicated to me it’s for including Sarah Palin’s statement to the same. In the case of that earlier book, the author was an undercover journalist but in this case it was a real person trying to raise a child, with a butthole Baby daddy who didn’t want to pay her to “baby sit his kid” but then complained how much she neglected her child when she was working her butt off to get out of a homeless shelter. ( Guess what? Not everyone homeless has an addiction problem or are mentally ill, but they might become that way after years of the unmitigated stress. ) Of course during Daddy’s visitation his mother was right there, helping. There is a whole section of society and most legislators have no idea what the people below the poverty line have to go through and how we take so much for granted like a Mold free home, a neighborhood where it is safe to walk alone in broad daylight, access to health care, sick leave when your child is running a fever, vomiting and listless. How missing whole days to sit at food stamp offices or applying for Medicaid can cost her having enough to pay her rent so the landlord won’t kick her out, if it doesn’t cost her her job as well. The final ignominy is being in a grocery store paying for milk, bread and cheap canned goods with food stamps and having the well heeled person behind you loudly say “You’re welcome! That’s my hard earned tax money buying your food for you” .
Every American has got to read this.
Sorry. Soapbox, I know 😔

by George Eliot - long but wonderful! I liked it less than Middlemarch but that wasn’t until the end. The end traumatized me. Wasn’t prepared for it,
by Charlotte Mary Yonge - ok, I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for Victorian Lit. One of those love stories where he falls in love instantly on first meeting the heroine with her innocent beauty and ingenuous charms. Then has to fight society’s villains to marry her. The society that arranged “advantageous marriages” even if the teen girl’s intended was her middle aged father’s schoolmate, and being seen walking alone without a chaperone could condemn your chase reputation forever. Lots of near disasters but Love conquers all!
by Clarice Lispector - a stream of conscience written during WWII by a woman whose Jewish family immigrated to Brazil from Russia when she was a baby. Not my thing but people who do drink that cup of tea gave it good reviews. Honestly, the thing that bothers me most about this author, is that she died the day before her birthday at the very same age I am now. The day before your birthday! Would on your birthday be worse?
- yes more Victorian women. Don’t you love the cover! An anthology of deliciously creepy stories of the paranormal where the ghosts often do appear in full body and say their names!
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie- a Nigerian immigrant experience in both US and the UK, lots about the diaspora, the culture shocks for those going to the “first world” and for those returning. Five stars all the way. This also is an obstacle laden love story.. I recommend the audio version to deal with the unfamiliar names in addition to hearing the words in an authentic accent.
And finally we come to the end!
- George Sand is once again a Classic Victorian Author and another female George who wrote on early feminist themes. Only this time from the French perspective which really isn’t much different than the British. Her heroine is rather weak and so well insulated from the world having grown up in Reunion, it’s almost like she was raised in purdah, plus being forced into a loveless marriage with one of those middle aged friends of the father who was himself a tyrant. Thus she made an easy mark for a shallow beguiling man declaring his undying love. Lots of bad choices, but alas! Had grown up motherless so I don’t feel the need to shake her.
So that’s all! For those of you who stuck with me, what are you? Masochists? Well I appreciate it and love to discuss books.

These are the books I’ve read since my last post on Dec 15,
by Susan Gregg Gilmore - a local author who was a journalist for our paper and spoke to my mom’s book club at her assisted living. Need to read one more to read all and anxiously waiting to see if she’ll publish again. Well worth reading with insight into the culture in our neck of the woods.
by Rebecca Rosen because I’m curious and God knows I need all the guidance I can get! I might be too skeptical or untuned or whatever but I still don’t feel I’ve received irrefutable proof about the departed hanging around for whatever reasons. I’ve gone on a ghost hunt, watched the shows and stayed in haunted Hotels, The Stanley for one and the Hotel Galvez but I guess I need a pretty defined form, (semi transparent is fine), but I’d like them to move something and then clearly vocalize “My name is ————-. I died in 1952 and the records of my life on Ancestry.com so you can verify. “
by M.C. Beaton- very light reading which I was looking for at the time plus had a Christmas tree on cover.
- quite good. Basis of plot centers on early feminists then and the young ones now and the changes in expectations.
by Sharyn MCrumb. Live in Appalachia: Love to read about Appalachia and have two ancestors that were “Over Mountain” men who followed Sevier from Tennessee to North Carolina to fight the Battle of King’s Mountain. McCrumb has excellent novels based on traditional mountain ballads and she USED to be a favorite author until I sent her a fan email and she was pretty nasty in her reply, even used the GD, 2 syllable compound word, to let me know how she felt about me and presumably any fans in the state of Texas. I can’t imagine what she tells people who don’t admire her work! I had the Audacity to call these books mysteries and wondered if she would visit Houston where I lived then to do any book signings. She informed me she didn’t write “penny dreadfuls” and her Ballad NOVELS have been the subject of theses for Graduate students! I guess. I shouldn’t assume that when you get an Agatha award for best novel, which is awarded for the “mystery genre not classified as hard-boiled”, that it is classified as a mystery. It was actually for one of her Ballad novels and I can’t find anywhere that she sent the award back. But other than that, she has written other series with titles like Bimbos of the Death Sun, Zombies of the Gene Pool, If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him... , The PMS Outlaws and a light hearted series about the NASCAR culture. Just saying.
I still enjoy her NOVELS, but now I check out from library or buy used.
by Mary Higgins Clark. Predictable MHC but she’s a cozy old reading friend when things get hectic. Met her once and she’s a lovely lady in and out.
- got this on audio as one of those extra cheap sales they have for members to promote new authors. Don’t want to give plot away - great psychological thriller.
by Alison Weir I hate to say this book kept my attention like a 2 hour lecture on Earths gravitational pull that occurs immediately after a big turkey dinner. Hate to say because she too is a lovely lady in person with so much knowledge! I prefer her novels though. I will keep the book because she signed for me as a first American edition.
by Margaret Truman - the author was the daughter of the President and was in the spotlight most times. She started writing her Capital Crimes series in 1980. She has an “in “ on the Wash DC scene. I’d like to know if she based any of her characters on personalities she knew in DC. I bought this at a library sale, and I might check out a few more, if by some chance I ever catch up on my TBR shelf!

Linda wrote: " American Dirt I highly recommend it despite the controversy.

Of course, I think the person who disputed the book in the first place will be respo..."

What was the controversy? There’s been a lot of books coming out about border immigration experience such as The Devil's Highway: A True Story ( I highly recommend) and Lost Children Archive are two I think of right now. Looking forward to reading the latter book. But even Carlos Fuentes who died in 2012 was writing @bout it. The Crystal Frontier was written in 1995. Another of his books I enjoyed was The Old Gringo. A bit of a surprise literary people might appreciate.

Betsy wrote: "Rebekah wrote: "Finished Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. the only other book I read by this author was [b..."

I saw it in the issue before this one and looked interesting.

Finished Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. the only other book I read by this author was Bel Canto

Are you not adding any more books to the shelf?

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
haunting. Won the Pultizer among other awards. Also finished a quick Agatha Christie.

Is there a thread for general questions?

I did once quite a few years ago. Nearly the first time I entered but haven't since I gave it a star rating but wrote no review. Did the rest of you write a review?

Is there going to be a group read for Oct?

why has this become so popular recently? I don't remember this as much in precious decades and I don't remember seeing any at all on the books I read in the 20th century.And doesn't seem like finding a book with a headless man is much harder?

Does anyone know of other cities who host book festivals.I heard Chattanooga, TN does but haven't found a date for it.

I love going to Hannibal, Mo and be a Mark Twain tourist. Even if quite a bit of it is getting kind of cheesy.

I have several subscriptions but this is the one that gets me on tip- toes. Starting the beginning of the month the new issue comes out, I start looking for it and apprehension grows until I finally get my hands on it.

The months that there isn't an issue coming feel like something's missing and I grumble to myself, "I don't see why mags are only coming out every other month. Books are published every month, aren't they?" " My current issue is already worn out and I've memorized it even though I try to savor it but saving some of the articles to read when the dark days are here."

I found the very first charter issue when I was on home holiday while living in India. Since then it has followed me everywhere, after India, Texas, now Doha, Qatar. Since there seems to be a dearth of good bookstores here in Doha, as most have larger electronic sections than books, I cling to Bookmarks magazine as a life support, helping me pick books to download on Kindle or put on my shopping list for the next trip home.