Booth, Cathleen "Mercy & Grace on the Camino de Santiago"

Booth, Cathleen "Mercy & Grace on the Camino de Santiago" - 2020

"Sometimes it’s doing the thing that terrifies you that really helps you grow."

Before I begin with the review and you wonder why I'm so fascinated by this story, the author is a friend of mine. (Although, having said that, you probably won't wonder because she is a great storyteller.) For years, we've been attending the same church and since our birthdays are only a couple of days apart, we've been enjoying a coffee or lunch together in between. I have taught not just her daughter Madeleine in RE but also the other girls that walked the Camino with them. And my whole family knows all of the "Eleven Amigos", as the group called themselves (great name, by the way) and their families. They are some of the loveliest people I have ever met in my life and reading about their experience was so wonderful for me. Thank you, Cathleen, for including me in this trip in this unique way. I know I can't give you enough credit with my humble review but I hope it will instigate a few people to read the book.

And here I am right in the middle of it. I am sure anyone who reads this book must feel the same, whether you know the pilgrims or not. I knew Cathleen could write since she had written a personal blog for years (much more personal than my book blog).

In her prologue, she tells us how the idea started, how she wanted to go but was too afraid. I totally understand, I would have been, as well. Actually, I am, that's why I never went even though I know a lot of people who did. But with my back problems, I couldn't even do a quarter let alone half the walks they did, even without a backpack or "mochila". No, that train has left.

But here I am with Cathleen and her friends, listening to (or rather reading about) them as they plan and prepare their trip, as they meet to drive to the airport, as they join the next members somewhere between here and Santander. We hear about the first dinner, the first night in one of the albergues, the first breakfast. They leave the hostel every morning and walk for a while before settling down for breakfast in one of the many cafés along the way.

Their walks tend to be between twenty and thirty kilometres. Hats off, Cathleen and friends. Even though you seem to be at the end of your tether from time to time, you soldier on and don't lose sight of your goal. Together you are strong. I am also grateful that Cathleen belongs to the slower part of the group because that's where I always end up. Makes it more authentic for me.

They meet a lot of lovely people along the way. I have always heard that from anyone who walked the Camino. If you're on that way, everyone is your friend. How lovely to tackle this in such a wonderful community.

There are many wonderful stories in the book about companionship, soul-searching, finding your way to yourself and to God but there are also some hilarious stories, as well. No wonder, when Cathleen and Lila (the friend who invited her to the trip) are together. I remember having been told many of them eye-to-eye, so reading about them makes it almost as if they were here.

I know all the kids have made it into adulthood and listening to their parents they have become just as wonderful adults as they were children. Well done, everyone.

But thank you, Cathleen, for this wonderful report about your Camino. We all can learn from your big heart.

You can find more information (and more pictures) on her website.

I always enjoy reading about other parts of the world and get to know them but I also love reading about the parts that I know. And here, not only did I know all the members of the group, I also know the area where Cathleen lived (as we can see in her pictures in "Training Days", I was also there when our friend Maria showed her pictures in church which was when many of us heard from someone who had experienced the pilgrim themselves.

I also loved that Jim Forrest, another author I highly admire, wrote the introduction.

I have read another book about someone on the Camino de Santiago, German humourist Hape Kerkeling. Also, a great story about someone whose life changed after doing this spiritual journey.
Kerkeling, Hape "I'm off then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago" (German: Ich bin dann mal weg. Meine Reise auf dem Jakobsweg). I think, the fact that his account has been translated into English says it all.

From the back cover:

"'Sometimes it’s doing the thing that terrifies you that really helps you grow.'
These words, spoken in love by a friend, motivated 300-pound Cathleen Booth off her couch and onto the Camino de Santiago. Cathleen’s physical limitations quickly shattered any illusions of self-sufficiency and pride. On a muddy mountainside in Spain - at her most vulnerable - Cathleen would experience from her friend a self-sacrificial love that would ultimately change her from the inside out. Equal parts humor, humility, and heart, Mercy & Grace on the Camino de Santiago invites the reader on a deeply intimate and human spiritual journey."

And if you want to know about Cathleen's sense of humour, Mercy and Grace is what she called her walking boots.

Turner, Nancy E. "The Star Garden"

Turner, Nancy E. "The Star Garden: A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine" - 2007

The third book in a trilogy. I loved "These is my words" so had to read the sequel "Sarah's Quilt" and this one. The story about the author's pioneer grandmother. In the first part,

In "These is My Words", we meet Sarah Agnes Prine who teaches herself to read, "Sarah's Quilt" we heard about Sarah Agnes Prine dealing with life as a widow and mother of young children.

This story is just as coloruful, the characters come alive just as well, the scenes are just as exciting as in the first two books ... you should definitely read them in order, though.

I would have only one tiny little complaint. I don't live in the USA and so I had to chase down this third book in the trilogy and it took me quite a while. So, I didn't remember every single family member and who belonged to whom etc. I would have liked a little reminder of who is who in the family. A family tree, a list, or something like that. Or at least on the author's website.

But other than that, the book was great. The protagonist surely led an adventurous life. And her Great-Granddaughter Nancy E. Turner did a good job describing her life.

From the back cover:
"From the bestselling author of These Is My Words comes this exhilarating follow-up to the beloved Sarah's Quilt. In the latest diary entries of pioneer woman Sarah Agnes Prine, Nancy E. Turner continues Sarah's extraordinary story as she struggles to make a home in the Arizona Territory.
It is winter 1906, and nearing bankruptcy after surviving drought, storms, and the rustling of her cattle, Sarah remains a stalwart pillar to her extended family. Then a stagecoach accident puts in her path three strangers who will change her life.
In sickness and in health, neighbor Udell Hanna remains a trusted friend, pressing for Sarah to marry. When he reveals a plan to grant Sarah her dearest wish, she is overwhelmed with passion and excitement. She soon discovers, however, that there is more to a formal education than she bargained for.
Behind the scenes, Sarah's old friend Maldonado has struck a deal with the very men who will become linchpins of the Mexican Revolution. Maldonado plots to coerce Sarah into partnership, but when she refuses, he devises a murderous plan to gain her land for building a railroad straight to Mexico. When Sarah's son Charlie unexpectedly returns from town with a new bride, the plot turns into an all-out range war between the two families.
Finally putting an end to Udell's constant kindnesses, Sarah describes herself as 'an iron-boned woman'. She wants more than to be merely a comfortable fill-in for his dead wife. It is only through a chance encounter that she discovers his true feelings, and only then can she believe that a selfless love has at last reached out to her. . . ."

Find Nancy E. Turner's website here.

Filipović, Zlata "Zlata's Diary"

Filipović, Zlata "Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo" (Bosnian: Zlatin dnevnik: otroštvo v obleganem Sarajevu) - 1993

I recently read "Rose of Sarajevo" by Ayşe Kulin and remembered that I always wanted to read this book. My son read it in school and so it was in our house. No chasing after it in a bookshop or waiting until my library found it on an inter library exchange.

This is a brilliant account about a war. The interesting thing is that Zlata started this diary before the war where she is all girly and interested in all the stuff girls of her age are just interested in. So, we can see how her life changes with the war, how all she is interested in now is how to survive and how to find food. A fantastic way of showing the world that war destroys everything and punishes especially those that are innocent, most often women and children. A way of seeing the war through the eyes of a child.

Like Anne Frank in "The Diary of a Young Girl", she gives her diary a name (Mimmy) and like Anne Frank's diary, I think everyone should read this.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2026.

From the back cover:

"In a voice both innocent and wise, touchingly reminiscent of Anne Frank's, Zlata Filipovic's diary has awoken the conscience of the world. Now thirteen years old, Zlata began her diary just before her eleventh birthday, when there was peace in Sarajevo and her life was that of a bright, intelligent, carefree young girl. Her early entries describe her friends, her new skis, her family, her grades at school, her interest in joining the Madonna Fan Club. And then, on television, she sees the bombs falling on Dubrovnik. Though repelled by the sight, Zlata cannot conceive of the same thing happening in Sarajevo. When it does, the whole tone of her diary changes. Early on, she starts an entry to 'Dear Mimmy' (named after her dead goldfish): 'SLAUGHTERHOUSE! MASSACRE! HORROR! CRIMES! BLOOD! SCREAMS! DESPAIR!' We see the world of a child increasingly circumscribed by the violence outside. Zlata is confined to her family's apartment, spending the nights, as the shells rain down mercilessly, in a neighbor's cellar. And the danger outside steadily invades her life. No more school. Living without water and electricity. Food in short supply. The onslaught destroys the pieces she loves, kills or injures her friends, visibly ages her parents. In one entry Zlata cries out, 'War has nothing to do with humanity. War is something inhuman.' In another, she thinks about killing herself. Yet, with indomitable courage and a clarity of mind well beyond her years, Zlata preserves what she can of her former existence, continuing to study piano, to find books to read, to celebrate special occasions - recording it all in the pages of this extraordinary diary."

Kerkeling, Hape "I'm off then"

Kerkeling, Hape "I'm off then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago" (German: Ich bin dann mal weg. Meine Reise auf dem Jakobsweg) - 2006

I am Catholic. But I would have never even thought about doing a pilgrimage and certainly not one like this one, described by a German comedian. Yes, true, a comedian who makes the Camino de Santiago. And not just the last 100 kilometres but the whole way from the French border, 800 kilometres entirely.

Why did I pick up this book? It is a very popular book in Germany and a lot of people have been talking about it. But mainly, I love the author, he is one of the funniest guys alive, one of the best German comedians. I know, a lot of my foreign friends will say "German comedian?" Isn't that a contradiction in terms? But believe me, if only you would understand him, you'd laugh just as much as all his fans.

Personally, I know quite a few people who have undertaken the pilgrimage after reading the book, or after seeing other people who had read the book doing it. So, on the whole, he did a great job, is probably one of their best promoters.

But even if you're not Catholic or German, this is a fantastic book. It tells us about what we can achieve. I know I would never be able to achieve what Hape (Hans-Peter) Kerkeling did, wouldn't have the time to do it all in one go, for example, but he gives us hope, he describes a fantastic journey through a very interesting part of our continent, tells us about friendships he made along the way and how he had to fight with a big enemy - himself.

And since the book has been translated into several languages in the meantime, there is no reason why you shouldn't start it. (I just hope the translations are good.) I will certainly look out for more books by one of my favourite comedians.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

 "I'm Off Then has sold more than three million copies in Germany and has been translated into eleven languages. The number of pilgrims along the Camino has increased by 20 percent since the book was published. Hape Kerkeling's spiritual journey has struck a chord.

Overweight, overworked, and disenchanted, Kerkeling was an unlikely candidate to make the arduous pilgrimage across the Pyrenees to the Spanish shrine of St. James, a 1,200-year-old journey undertaken by nearly 100,000 people every year. But he decided to get off the couch and do it anyway. Lonely and searching for meaning along the way, he began the journal that turned into this utterly frank, engaging book. Filled with unforgettable characters, historic landscapes, and Kerkeling's self-deprecating humour, I'm Off Then is an inspiring travelogue, a publishing phenomenon, and a spiritual journey unlike any other." 

 

Friends of mine have done the Camino, as well, and one of them has written a book about it. So, if you want to know how a non-celebrity (well, sort of) did the pilgrimage, check out this one:

Booth, Cathleen "Mercy & Grace on the Camino de Santiago" - 2020

Berry, Wendell "Hannah Coulter"

Berry, Wendell "Hannah Coulter" - 2004

A friend recommended this book to me. I might not have read it first if I'd found it in a bookshop because it's the umpteenth novel in a series of stories about the inhabitants of Port William. But I doubt that it matters because I can imagine that they all start at the life of a certain person and go on until today, so they will probably intermingle.

Hannah Coulter, for example, is the mother of Nathan Coulter whose story was written quite a while before that of his mother.

Anyway, Hannah Coulter led a long life in rural Kentucky, she had several children, lived through World War II, the Great Depression, and everything that that encounters. She talks about her life in a diary form but not necessarily in a chronological one.

I came to like Hannah and her loved ones. The way they work together, very old form, maybe still possible in some rural areas but certainly not everywhere.

The writing style is pleasing, just as if your grandma was telling you about your life. I liked that.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the latest installment in Wendell Berry's long story about the citizens of Port William, Hannah Coulter remembers. Her first husband, Virgil, was declared 'missing in action' shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, and after she married Nathan Coulter about all he could tell Hannah about the Battle of Okinawa was 'Ignorant boys, killing each other. 'The community was stunned and diminished by the war, with some of its sons lost forever and others returning home determined to carry on. Now, in her late seventies, twice-widowed and alone, Hannah sorts through her memories: of her childhood, of young love and loss, of raising children and the changing seasons. She turns her plain gaze to a community facing its long deterioration, where, she says, 'We feel the old fabric torn, pulling apart, and we know how much we have loved each other.' Hannah offers her summation: her stories and her gratitude, for the membership in Port William, and for her whole life, a part of the great continuum of love and memory, grief and strength."

Here is a list I put together from various sites of all the novels that talk about Port William:
Nathan Coulter - 1960
A Place on Earth - 1966
The Memory of Old Jack - 1974
The Wild Birds: Six Stories - 1986
Remembering - 1988
Fidelity - 1992
Watch with me - 1994
A World Lost - 1996
Jayber Crow - 2000
That Distant Land - 2002
Hannah Coulter - 2004
Andy Catlett - 2006
Whitefoot - 2009
A Place in Time - 2012

I intend to read a few more.

Roth, Philip "Zuckerman Unbound"

Roth, Philip "Zuckerman Unbound" - 1981

I had read the first Zuckerman story "The Ghost Writer" not that long ago and found the story fascinating. Partly autobiographical, partly alternate history, love and war, a perfect combination of all those topics and a very challenging but also entertaining read.

I therefore had to read how it goes on with our friend Zuckerman. I was a little disappointed. Not about the writing, not about the story as such, but that so much time had passed between the first and the second book. Not just many years but a lot of things happened during that time to the protagonist. The author fills us in on the major parts that happens but you still have the feeling that something is missing. As if you meet an old school friend after decades and don't really know who he is anymore.

Still, the story is as interesting and forthcoming as the first one. Nathan Zuckerman has more or less developed into the writer we expected him to become, his private life certainly leaves nothing wanting.

From the back cover: "The sensationalizing sixties are coming to an end, and even writing a novel can make you a star. The writer Nathan Zuckerman publishes his fourth book, an aggressive, abrasive, and comically erotic novel entitled Carnovsky, and all at once he is on the cover of Life, one of the decade's most notorious celebrities.

This is the same Nathan Zuckerman who in Philip Roth's much praised The Ghost Writer was the dedicated young apprentice drawing sustenance from the great books and the integrity of their authors. Now in his mid-thirties, Zuckerman, a would-be recluse despite his fame, ventures out on the streets of Manhattan, and not only is he assumed to be his own fictional satyr, Gilbert Carnovsky ("Hey, you do all that stuff in that book?"), but he also finds himself the target of admirers, admonishers, advisers, and would-be literary critics. The recent murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., lead an unsettled Nathan Zuckerman to wonder if "target" may be more than a figure of speech.

Yet, streetcorner recognition and media notoriety are the least disturbing consequences of writing Carnovsky. Against his best interests, the newly renowned novelist retreats from his oldest friends, breaks his marriage to a virtuous woman, and damages, perhaps irreparably, his affectionate connection to his younger brother and his family. Even when finally he lives out the fantasies of his fans and enjoys an exhilarating night with the beautiful and worldly film star Caesara O'Shea (a rather more capable celebrity), he is dismayed the following morning by the caliber of the competition up in the erotic big leagues.

In some of the novel's funniest episodes Zuckerman endures the blandishments of another New Jersey boy who has briefly achieved his own moment of stardom. He is the broken and resentful fan Alvin Pepler, in the fifties a national celebrity on the TV quiz show "Smart Money." Thrust back into obscurity when headlined scandals forced the quiz show off the air, Pepler now attaches himself to Zuckerman and won't let go--an "Angel of Manic Delights" to the amused novelist (who momentarily sees him as his "pop self"), and yet also the likely source of a demonic threat.

But the surprise that fate finally delivers is more devilish than any cooked up by Alvin Pepler, or even by Zuckerman's imagination. In the coronary-care unit of a Miami Hospital, Nathan's father bestows upon his older son not a blessing but what seems to be a curse. And, in an astonishingly bitter final turn, a confrontation with his brother opens the way for the novelist's deep and painful understanding of the deathblow that Carnovsky has dealt to his own past."

Philip Roth received the Booker International Prize in 2011.

Roth, Philip "The Ghost Writer"

Roth, Philip "The Ghost Writer" - 1979

Why I have not read any books by this extraordinary writer is a big mystery to me.

What can I say, I really loved the book. I wondered whether this book was partly autobiographical, it certainly had tendencies that sounded like it. I liked the alternate history part, a genre I cherish a lot.

A young writer meets an older writer, his writing hero. And there he meets an interesting young girl who seems to have a fascinating past. That is the basic story. However, it's the way Philip Roth tells the story that makes it interesting, makes you want to know all about Nathan Zuckerman, the young author, and his life, makes you want to read the whole series.

Within just 180 pages, Philip Roth manages to give an overview of Jewish history, the Holocaust, Anne Frank's diary, and life in the United States in the fifties, especially the situations of the Jews at the time.

If you like the first sentences: "It was the last daylight hour of a December afternoon more than twenty years ago--I was twenty-three, writing and publishing my first short stories, and like many a Bildungsroman hero before me, already contemplating my own massive Bildungsroman--when I arrived at his hideaway to meet the great man. The clapboard farmhouse was at the end of an unpaved road twelve hundred feet up in the Berkshires, yet the figure who emerged from the study to bestow a ceremonious greeting wore a gabardine suit, a knitted blue tie clipped to a white shirt by an unadorned silver clasp, and well-brushed ministerial black shoes that made me think of him stepping down from a shoeshine stand rather than from the high altar of art", you will like the whole book. His writing is beautiful.

I will definitely read more by this author, especially since I have ordered the second one in the series (Zuckerman Unbound) right away at my library already.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Exactly twenty years ago, Philip Roth made his debut with Goodbye, Columbus, a book that immediately announced the presence of a major new talent. The Ghost Writer, his eleventh book, begins with a young writer's search, twenty years ago, for the spiritual father who will comprehend and validate his art, and whose support will justify his inevitable flight from a loving but conventionally constricting Jewish middle-class home.  Nathan Zuckerman's quest brings him to E.I. Lonoff, whose work--exquisite parables of desire restrained--Nathan much admires.  Recently discovered by the literary world after decades of obscurity, Lonoff continues to live as a semi-recluse in rural Massachusetts with his wife, Hope, scion of an old New England family, whom the young immigrant married thirty-five years before.  At the Lonoffs' Nathan also meets Amy Bellette, a haunting young woman of indeterminate foreign background.  He is instantly infatuated with the attractive and gifted girl, and at first takes her for the aging writer's daughter.  She turns out to be a former student of Lonoff's--and may also have been Lonoff's mistress.  Zuckerman, with his imaginative curiosity, wonders if she could be the paradigmatic victim of Nazi persecution.  If she were, it might change his life.

A figure of fun to the New York literati, a maddeningly single-minded isolate to his wife, teacher-father-savior to Amy, Lonoff embodies for an enchanted Nathan the ideal of artistic integrity and independence.  Hope sees Amy (as does Amy herself) as Lonoff's last chance to break out of his self-imposed constraints, and she bitterly offers to leave him to the younger woman, a chance that, like one of his own heroes, Lonoff resolutely continues to deny himself.  Nathan, although in a state of youthful exultation over his early successes, is still troubled by the conflict between two kinds of conscience: tribal and family loyalties, on the one hand, and the demands of fiction, as he sees them, on the other.  A startling imaginative leap to the beginnings of a kind of wisdom about the unreckoned consequences of art.

Shocking, comic, and sad by turns, The Ghost Writer is the work of a major novelist in full maturity."

I have read "Zuckerman Unbound" in the meantime.

Philip Roth received the Booker International Prize in 2011 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1980.

Allende, Isabel "Maya's Notebook"

Allende, Isabel "Maya's Notebook" (Spanish: El Cuaderno de Maya) - 2011

If she hadn't been on the list, yet, with this book Isabel Allende would have made it onto my favourite author's list. I absolutely loved this book.

Maya is a girl with a tremendous story. She has a Chilean father and a Danish mother and is brought up by her Chilean grandmother and her second husband who is African American. Can it get any more international? Can a girl who is loved by a grandmother and looked after so carefully, get into trouble?

Yes, she can, if she feels that neither her mother, who just left her when she was a baby, nor her father, who is always away on business, wants her in her life, that she is unwanted.

And this is what happens to Maya, she ends up with all the problems our parents warn us about. Sex, Drugs and Rock'n Roll, well, less of the rock'n roll and more of the drugs, unfortunately. She gets into so much trouble that the whole world seems to be chasing her.

But her grandmother has a solution, like always. She simply sends Maya to an old friend who lives on a Chilean island with only a few villages on it. Nobody knows where she is and that is a good thing.

Here she has all the time in the world to get back on her feet and find out who she really is.

The description of all the characters, whether they are in Mayas former or in her new life, is just fantastic, we can imagine very well being part of any of the communities Maya is catapulted into. She learns what life is all about, that there is a lot more to it than a quick "fix" can give her. Great voice, Isabel Allende, great storytelling. She builds anticipation by switching from Maya's life before to the one after she arrived in Chile. Her writing is poetical, yet it rings so true. You want to believe this is a true story.

Some great quotes:
"Nothing strong can be built on a foundation of lies and omissions."
"Our demons lose their power when we pull them out of the depths where they hide and look them in the face in broad daylight."
"Happiness is slippery, it slithers away between your fingers, but problems are something you can hold on to, they've got handles, and they're rough and hard."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Isabel Allende’s latest novel, set in the present day (a new departure for the author), tells the story of a 19-year-old American girl who finds refuge on a remote island off the coast of Chile after falling into a life of drugs, crime, and prostitution. There, in the company of a torture survivor, a lame dog, and other unforgettable characters, Maya Vidal writes her story, which includes pursuit by a gang of assassins, the police, the FBI, and Interpol. In the process, she unveils a terrible family secret, comes to understand the meaning of love and loyalty, and initiates the greatest adventure of her life: the journey into her own soul."

I really need to improve my Spanish, these authors seem to be the greatest.

Read about my other Isabel Allende books here.

Diffenbaugh, Vanessa "The Language of Flowers"

Diffenbaugh, Vanessa "The Language of Flowers" - 2011

When I saw this book first, I was attracted by the title. "The Language of Flowers". I love languages but I had never heard that flowers have a language. Of course, we all know that roses are supposed to mean love but there seems to be so much more to it.

I enjoyed reading this story very much. Set as a diary of a young girl who grew up in foster homes, this book is telling two stories at the same time, the time she spent in various institutions and homes until her eighteenth birthday and the time after. Same as the time divides the protagonist's life, the book is also divided into two different parts, the story of the girl and her problems, covering an extensive range of psychological issues she has with this world and the story of the flowers, how they came to mean something special.

I was quite happy to learn that the stephanotis I had chosen as the main flower of my bridal bouquet about thirty years ago was promising happiness in marriage, and I can say that this is entirely true. I did not like the fact that my favourite flower, the peony, stands for anger. Maybe it's a good thing they are only available for a very short time during the year.

Now, whether you believe in the language of flowers or not, this book offers so much more than just that. It picks up a lot of different topics without getting too confusing or chaotic.

There was a whole "Flower Dictionary" on the Random House website but since they now published a book about the topic - "A Victorian Flower Dictionary" (Goodreads) -, they discontinued it. However, there is a list elsewhere on the net, here.

From the back cover:

"A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel, The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it's been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But a mysterious vendor at the flower market has her questioning what's been missing in her life, and when she's forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it's worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness."

Morgan Dawson, Sarah "A Confederate Girl's Diary"

Morgan Dawson, Sarah "A Confederate Girl's Diary" - 1913

If you enjoy stories like "Gone with the Wind", you will love this book. Sarah Morgan Dawson lived from 1842 to 1909. She was born into a well-to-do family who had slaves like any other rich people. Her diary is a great description of the civil war and what it did to all the people who lived during that time.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Sarah Morgan Dawson lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the outbreak of the American Civil War. In March 1862, she began to record her thoughts about the war in a diary -- thoughts about the loss of friends killed in battle and the occupation of her home by Federal troops. Her devotion to the South was unwavering and her emotions real and uncensored. A true classic."

Frank, Anne "The Diary of a Young Girl" (Het Achterhuis)

Frank, Anne "The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition" (Dutch: Het Achterhuis) - 1942-44

What is there to say about a book that everybody has read? It is amazing how a young girl can write so explicitly. Her thoughts are way beyond her age but that is probably to be expected in her circumstances. If you haven't read this book, you should. My sons read it in school and I think every student ought to. What a lesson to be learned, what an account of a time hopefully never to return.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Anne Frank's extraordinary diary, written in the Amsterdam attic where she and her family hid from the Nazis for two years, has become a world classic and a timeless testament to the human spirit. Now, in a new edition enriched by many passages originally withheld by her father, we meet an Anne more real, more human, and more vital than ever. Here she is first and foremost a teenage girl—stubbornly honest, touchingly vulnerable, in love with life. She imparts her deeply secret world of soul-searching and hungering for affection, rebellious clashes with her mother, romance and newly discovered sexuality, and wry, candid observations of her companions. Facing hunger, fear of discovery and death, and the petty frustrations of such confined quarters, Anne writes with adult wisdom and views beyond her years. Her story is that of every teenager, lived out in conditions few teenagers have ever known."

Levy, Andrew "A Brain Wider Than The Sky"

Levy, Andrew "A Brain Wider Than The Sky: A Migraine Diary" - 2009

As a heavy migraine sufferer, I am always curious as to what others have to say about their problems with this disease. Fellow sufferers usually recognize each other instantly. This is a big one. Andrew Levy certainly has enough on his plate, it's amazing how he can describe his disability so precisely. I could say “Yes, exactly” to almost every sentence this guy wrote. He starts his book with a warning, “my experiences are not meant to compete with professional diagnosis.” Certainly not, however, often it's the little things that help you more than all the medication and treatments your doctors come up with. Not that they cure it, but neither do the doctor's efforts, at least not in my case and that of many others I know.

Having a constant migraine means your life is only worth half. You can hardly make plans, and if you do, don't get too excited, that might lead to another migraine and/or you will be sorely disappointed if, no when you can't go. It means you have to put a lot of your life on hold, your work, your family, your hobbies, anything that has been worth so much for you before. If you can keep your work and your family, you belong to the lucky ones.

Anyway, Andrew Levy gives a wonderful account of his own sufferings and what others have found. He mentions not only health specialists in this field but also a lot of famous names we know but didn't know they were fellow sufferers. Again, very interesting.

If you feel that reading about migraine gives you a migraine, this book is not for you. But if you like to read about it because you have the hope that one day you might find a solution, read this book. If you have a loved one who suffers from this and you don't understand what they are going through, this is also the book for you. You might understand your partner better and be able to help more.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"With more than one in ten Americans - and more than one in five families - affected, the phenomenon of migraine is widely prevalent yet often ignored or misdiagnosed. For Andrew Levy, his migraines were occasional reminders of a persistent illness that he’d wrestled with half his life. Then in 2006 Levy was struck almost daily by a series of debilitating migraines that kept him essentially bedridden for months, imprisoned by pain and nausea that retreated only briefly in gentler afternoon light. When possible, he kept careful track of what triggered an onset and in luminous prose recounts his struggle to live with migraines, his meticulous attempts at calibrating his lifestyle to combat and avoid them, and most tellingly, the personal relationship a migraineur develops - an almost Stockholm syndrome–like attachment - with the indescribable pain, delirium, and hallucinations. Levy researched how personalities and artists throughout history - Alexander Pope, Freud, Virginia Woolf, even Elvis - dealt with their migraines and candidly describes his rehabilitation with the aid of prescription drugs and his eventual reemergence into the world, back to work and writing.

An enthralling blend of memoir and provocative analysis, A Brain Wider Than the Sky offers rich insights into an illness whose effects are too often discounted and whose sufferers are too often overlooked."

Interview: "A Memoir and Cultural History of Migraines" by Andrew Levy

See also my list of "Migraine Books" 

Betancourt, Íngrid "Even Silence has an End: My Six Years in the Jungle"

Betancourt, Íngrid "Even Silence has an End: My Six Years in the Jungle" (French: Même le silence a une fin) - 2010

This book is an account of French-Colombian politician  Íngrid Betancourt, who was abducted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2002 and rescued by Colombian security forces in 2008. She spent six and a half years in the jungle as a prisoner of the FARC.

I think most of us really appreciated learning about this but we would have liked a little more information about the background, Colombia, the FARC … On the other hand, the book could have been more condensed, there was a lot of repetitiveness. One of our members teaches writing and she said her first task for the students would usually be to write a personal narrative about a personal experience this looks like a first draft. We all believed her. We do believe that writing can be a kind of therapy and wondered whether it was it therapeutic for her.

We were amazed how she could get into so much details, how she could remember them after all that time.

It was discouraging that the captives fought so much between themselves, we're sure it's a survival mechanism but we would have thought they stick together rather than fight each other. However, Íngrid Betancourt admitted she was difficult. She is a strong personality.

The whole FARC culture was interesting, it was another world, however, their members were in a kind of prison, too. It's amazing how people change when they have the power.

So, all in all, a very interesting book, even though we didn't agree with the whole style.

We discussed this in our international book club in August 2011.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"In the midst of her campaign for the Colombian presidency in 2002, Ingrid Betancourt traveled into a military-controlled region, where she was abducted by the FARC, a brutal terrorist guerrilla organization in conflict with the government. She would spend the next six and a half years captive in the depths of the Colombian jungle. Even Silence Has an End is her deeply moving and personal account of that time. The facts of her story are astounding, but it is Betancourt's indomitable spirit that drives this very special narrative-an intensely intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate reflection on what it really means to be human."

Turner, Nancy E. "Sarah's Quilt"

Turner, Nancy E. "Sarah's Quilt. A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine and the Arizona Territories, 1906" - 2006

The second part of the trilogy that started with "These is my Words", the continuation of the life of Sarah Agnes Prine after the death of her beloved husband. Life has to go on for the widow and her children and Nancy Turner describes the events in her courageous grandmother's life as well as in her first book.

If you liked "These is my Words", you should carry on reading this one.

Nancy has continued the account of her grandmother's life with "The Star Garden". If you like her books, you might want to try "The Water and the Blood", as well.

From the back cover:

"In These Is My Words, Sarah Agnes Prine told the spellbinding story of an extraordinary pioneer woman and her struggle to make a home in the Arizona Territories. Now, in this mesmerizing sequel, a three-year drought has made Sarah desperate for water. And just when it seems that life couldn't get worse, she learns that her brother and his family are trapped in the Great San Francisco Earthquake. A heartwarming blend of stubbornness and compassion, Sarah Agnes Prine will once again capture the hearts of readers everywhere. "

Turner, Nancy E. "These is my Words"

Turner, Nancy E. "These is my Words, The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901" - 1999

The story is based on the life of the author's grandmother, a courageous and clever woman, who taught herself to read as a teenager and was a pretty independent woman. Her story is told in the style of a diary, starting when she is 17 in 1881. It's a love story as well as a tale of the struggle people, especially women, went through in the early beginnings of the settlings in America. There are so many different stories in this book, it could have been a whole series. It's a historical novel about life on the American frontier with a lot of detail.

This story is told with a lot of heart, the characters come alive, the history is very vivid. A wonderful book.

I have read this book several times, once with my first book club ever, in England, once with my international book club who voted it best book of the year.

We discussed this in our British Book Club in October 1999 and in our international book club in October 2003.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2021.

From the back cover:

"A moving, exciting, and heartfelt American saga inspired by the author's own family memoirs, these words belong to Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon - from child to determined young adult to loving mother - she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.

Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters, These Is My Words brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again."

Nancy has continued the account of her grandmoter's life with "Sarah's Quilt. A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine and the Arizona Territories, 1906" and "The Star Garden".

If you like her books, you might want to try "The Water and the Blood", as well.

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Poisonwood Bible"

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Poisonwood Bible" - 1998

One of my favourite books ever. This story is told in diary form by the wife and four daughters of a preacher. He takes them to Africa where all five of them have different experiences and see the country with different perspectives. The father is quite abusive, not what you would expect a religious man to be (though one of my friends says she knows a guy exactly like him and that's why she doesn't like the novel).

This book doesn't just tell the story of a family and different women but also the history of the Belgian Congo and the differences of the cultures.

We discussed this in our book club in December 2001.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2021.

Book Description:

"The Poisonwood Bible tells the story of an American family in the Congo during a time of tremendous political and social upheaval. The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. This tale of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction, over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa, is set against one of history's most dramatic political parables. The Poisonwood Bible dances between the darkly comic human failings and inspiring poetic justices of our times. In a compelling exploration of religion, conscience, imperialist arrogance, and the many paths to redemption, Barbara Kingsolver has written a novel of overwhelming power and passion."

I have read several other Kingsolver novels in the meantime and liked all of them, you can find my reviews here. Although this one is still my favourite next to "The Lacuna".

Barbara Kingsolver was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for "The Poisonwood Bible" in 1999.