Pat's (phebj's) Progress--Page 1

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to my first thread for 2013. I’m looking forward to another great year of reading with all of you!

This year, Idaho celebrates its 150th birthday so be forewarned, there will probably be plenty of information about that on my threads. The picture below is of the Boise skyline. It’s not a very big city (apx. 200,000 in the city and 600,000 in the metro area) but the picture includes the trees that it’s known for (the name comes from the french “les bois” or “the trees”) and it also shows the Rocky Mountain foothills that dominant most views of the city. Having grown up on Long Island surrounded by water, I never thought I’d love looking at mountains but it’s amazing how different they look depending on whether they’re covered with snow or new green growth in the spring or a multitude of shadows cast by shifting clouds and the path of the sun.

Currently reading

Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land by Diane Josephy Peavey
420 Characters by Lou Beach
Above All Things by Tanis Rideout
My Own Country by Abraham Verghese
What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes

Books I’ve gotten stalled on but intend to finish:

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (from my Meaning of Life class in November)
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Books Acquired in 2013

I’m planning to list here the new books I bring into the house this year and keep track of how many of them I read.

January (11)

1. Our Hidden Lives: The Remarkable Diaries of Postwar Britain by Simon Garfield (recommended by Heather and Peggy)
2. Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics by David Grossman (recommended by Darryl and others on his thread)
3. Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis (recommend by Deborah/vancouverdeb)
4. The Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death, and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town by Julie Whitesel Weston (Idaho connection)
5. Anything Worth Doing: A true story of adventure, friendship and tragedy on the last of the West's great rivers by Jo Deurbrouck (Idaho connection)
6. God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories by Mitch Wieland (Idaho connection)
7. Balsamroot: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew (Idaho connection)
8. Above All Things by Tanis Rideout (ER win)
9. What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers That Fought It by Trish Wood
10. A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
11. Bitterbrush Country by Diane Josephy Peavey (Idaho connection)

Books Read in 2013

January (3)

1. The Moomins and the Great Flood by Tove Jansson (fiction; children's)
2. Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm (non-fiction)
3. What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It by Trish Wood (non-fiction)

Boise looks like a good spot to visit Pat. Welcome back to the group again in 2013; your threads are always a great place to visit.

Hi Pat! I've found and starred you. I look forward to Idaho info here -- my mother's family settled in Idaho after arriving from Wales. I also look forward to following your reading! Happy New Year!

Yay! My first visitors. :) Welcome to my thread Paul and Anne! Now that I've got it set up, I can start going around and visiting all the 2013 threads for the group. I have nothing else to do today so I should be able to get to everyone.

I can never read enough about your area, Pat, so bring it on!

You may regret those words of encouragement, Lynda!

Found you and looking forward to following your 2013 reads. I'd love to hear what the first Moomin book is like.

I've got you starred, Pat! Looking forward to following your thread!

Hi Genny! I should be able to let you know soon about the first Moomin book. It's only 58 pages long. It's a nice hardcover from Sort Of Books. The main thing I've noticed so far is that the Moomins are much slimmer!

Hi Mamie! It's so nice to see you here. I'm hoping I'll make it over to your thread today. I fear I am already 50 or more posts behind!

I look forward to seeing more about Idaho this year, as well as your reading, Pat.

Thanks, Roni! I've been enjoying finding out more about San Diego on your thread. In a lot of ways it sounds like the perfect place to live.

Happy new year, Pat. What a beautiful picture of the Boise skyline. I've never been to Boise but for strange and unknown reason, I had thought Boise to be less mountainous. Thank you for sharing the picture and correcting erroneous impression.

Hi Caroline! That picture probably overemphasizes the Boise Foothills. They're just to the north and northeast of the city. Otherwise most of the Boise metro area is in a wide river valley (called the Treasure Valley). It's an interesting landscape because you can easily see the Boise foothills as well as the Owyhee Mountains to the SW as most of the land is flat in the valley. Being in SW Idaho, we're also very close to high desert areas just south of us that look like this:

Happy New Year, Pat! I love your Idaho photos! Looking forward to another fun & productive year of reading. How about you?

Hi Pat! Just stopping in to star your thread. Love the photos!

Happy New Year, Pat! I hope that you have a great reading year. Looking forward to more about Idaho's 150th birthday celebration!

Welcome back!

Hi Pat! Great Boise Boosterism, how terrific that you like your relocated home so well.

Sending Happy Reading vibes.

ahhh! Here you are...

Hallo bonjour! I'm here too! Cheers to a great reading year ahead. :)

Hi Pat, and Happy New Year to you. Happy reading in 2013 too. I'm going to love your Boise pictures. I have a friend who moved there several years ago and was devastated to think of being uprooted to clear across the country so close to her retirement but her husband was in love with the idea and the new job opportunity so off they want. She loved it so much that she convinced her daughter and her husband to move out there too. They all love it. I'd love to visit someday.

Happy New Year, Pat! Beautiful pics of the Boise area. Closest I've gotten was Coeur d'alene, which I remember as pretty indeed. I look forward to learning more about your beautiful state this year.

Hi Pat--I sprinkled a bit of stardust on your thread so I can re-find it.

Would you believe I remember a bit about Idaho's 100th birthday celebration? We were living in Twin Falls--I was first grade or so. Dad came home with some sheet music with a song written for the occasion and Mom plunked down at the piano and we all sang it a time or two..... I just googled it and Idaho had a song writing contest for its centenary. The song I remember was pretty un-singable and not listed with the winners......

Stopping by to star you so I can keep track of what you're reading. Hope your New Year is starting out to be a good one.

Happy New Year Pat! I love the photos of Boise. It's a city I'd love to visit one day.

The contrast to where I live is almost overwhelming. I love your photographs.

Hi Pat--Here's to a year of good reading!

My friend has a cabin on the Snake River in Idaho (or a tributary of it), about 1/2 hour from Yellowstone, and I got to spend several days there last fall. It was heavenly Indian Summer weather, but went down to the teens and started snowing the day we left. A beautiful state.

Great pictures, Pat! I've only been to the very eastern edge of Idaho.

Happy New Year!!

Pat,I can just imagine myself driving a red convertible down those long stretches of black top. with nothing but ,are those sunflowers, along the side of the road and not a building in sight!

Great new thread, Pat. I love how you have adapted to and adopted the west after living on the east coast. Is there a book you could recommend that is set in Idaho and reflects some of the flavor of the area? I'd love to fill in Idaho on my state map!

Wishing you a happy, healthy new year!

Hiya, Pat. Idaho figures large in my family's history and my only cousin lives there as also does my best friend forever from college. My Dad was born in Kellogg and may be have spent a good deal of childhood in Coeur d"Alene. My Mom's hometown was Moscow. Both attended the U of I. I spent many summers on a ranch outside of Grangeville, and we drove to Cottonwood for church every Sunday. I rode horses a bit and just enjoyed the summer heat, and quiet. Then, back to Seattle for school.

I really need to find time to visit again. Love your photographs but I'll be around to read abut your reading, too. You are A Star in my constellation!

*boop* That's me, placing a star on your new thread.

Hi Mark. I'm definitely looking forward to another fun year on LT and hope this one is more productive as far as reading is concerned than last year was for me. I almost titled my thread "Pat's Progress (or the lack thereof)" but decided that was negative thinking.

Hi Katie. Glad to see you here and hope you're ready for alot more Idaho photos!

Hi Amy. Thanks for the good wishes for my reading this year. I'm hoping to be more disciplined. Glad to hear you're also interested in learning more about Idaho. I have to admit that before I met my husband, I was one of those East Coast people that often confused Idaho with Iowa.

Thanks Jim for the welcome back and for doing such a great job running this group.

Hi Richard. I like that term "Boise Boosterism". I may have to work it into a future thread title.

Hi Kath. You found me before I could get back to your thread with a link over here. These first couple of days of the year on LT are sheer madness. I had nothing to do yesterday except spend time on LT and I just couldn't keep up with all the new posts on the many, many threads that I've starred.

Hi Faith. It's good to see you here and posting all over LT again.

Hi Bonnie. I really hope you do visit Boise some day. I'd recommend anytime except the winter when we tend to get what they call inversions where colder air gets trapped down in the valley by a warm air mass above. These inversions can last weeks in the winter and end up trapping pollution in the valley. Someone described it as like living inside a tupperware container in your freezer and that's actually a pretty good description. The spring, summer and winter here are generally spectacular though with very low humidity which coming from the Northeast is a huge plus.

Hi Joe. I've never been to Coeur d'Alene. The only place I've been in the panhandle in the northern part of the state is Sandpoint. It's a totally different landscape up there with all the lakes and evergreens; much more like what most people think of as the Pacific Northwest.

Hi Janet. Your story reminded me of the Idaho state song and how un-singable it is. Every once and awhile to torture me, my husband will start singing the Idaho state song, which is engraved in his memory from school, and I literally cringe. I've never heard anyone sing it so it sounds good.

Hi Tina. Thanks for the stars. I need to get over to your thread and Claudia's to see how your Maine winter is going.

Hi Carrie! So nice to see you here. I hope you also make it out to Boise one day. It's a very liveable city and at this stage of my life I appreciate how uncrowded it is.

Hey Lucy. I still remember our trip back east to Bennington VT for my niece's graduation in May 2008. VT was full of lush green rolling hills and, unfortunately, it poured rain most of the weekend. Very different than the dry heat and minimal green (in comparison) that we have here.

Hi Deborah. I haven't spent any time over in the southeastern part of Idaho near Yellowstone yet but have friends that rent a cabin in Island Park each September which is in that general area. They love it and from some of the pictures I've seen, it really is a beautiful place.

Hi Joanne. Happy New Year to you too. I'm actually amazed at how many people have been to Idaho.

Hi Lynda. Unfortunately, those are not sunflowers but some kind of flowering weed that I can't think of the name for at the moment. It took me awhile to get used to that amount of open space where all you see is flat land and nothing else--no buildings, no people, no other cars. It was very unsettling at first but I'm come to appreciate it.

I'll be back to answer the rest of your posts. I need to go pick up my spoiled dog at doggie daycare.

Hi Donna. Interestingly, the first group read I ever did on LT--for Wallace Stegner's Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs--was a major help in learning how to really see and appreciate the West.

So for some book recommendations about Idaho. The ones that follow have been recommended to me but, unfortunately, I haven't gotten to actually reading most of them.

Fiction set in Idaho:

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Five Skies by Ron Carlson
A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes

Non-fiction set in Idaho:

In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country by Kim Barnes
Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America by J. Anthony Lukas
Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm
The Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death, and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town by Julie Whitesel Wetson
Anything Worth Doing: A True Story of adventure, friendship, and tragedy on the last of the West's great rivers by Jo Deurbrouck

The Big Trouble book was recommended to me when I first moved here as being a great way to learn about Idaho history. I started it but then put it aside mainly because it was so long (about 750 pages) but I intend to get back to it sometime because it was fascinating. Technically it's about the assasination of a former Governor of Idaho in 1905 over his handling of a labor issue in the mines while he was in office. But the author covers a ton of other subjects as well and you get a real feel for what it was like in America at that time.

Indian Creek Chronicles is a book I'm currently reading for a discussion at our library on January 15th. It's about a 20 year old college student who signs up to spend October through June living alone in the wilderness babysitting salmon eggs in Indian Creek. I've just started it and it seems good. Reading it in my 50s, it seems like a crazy thing to do but the author obviously lived to tell the tale and the book got the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award. I'll let you know how it goes.

The last two non-fiction books, I just found while looking at a local independent bookstore's list of local authors and their books. They got great reviews on Amazon and I'll be ordering both of them.

Hi Karen. I think you win the Idaho connections award! You might be interested in the book I recommended to Donna in the prior post called The Good Times Are All Gone Now because it's about Kellogg, Idaho.

Hi Linda! Great to see you here.

Happy New Year Dear Friend. May 2013 bring light, love and health to you.

Happy New Year, Pat. What striking photos of Idaho!

Hi! Finally got here. Photo in #16 looks awfully familiar. Pretty sure I've been on that road. LOL

Pat, you've mentioned two of my favorite books... I read Train Dreams last year and loved it, and I read Big Trouble the summer between my junior and senior years of college. I found it fascinating.

Oh, I loved Train Dreams, too! I read it because Katie loved it. LT is wonderful like that!

Lovely photo, Pat! I have a close friend who hales from Boise! She has been in Canada for nearly 29 years now, and this January she is finally becoming a Canadian Citizen! 29 years of marriage to a Canadian and 4 kids later! :) I'm a big Vancouver Booster, so I totally understand your pride in your city! In fact , I do believe that Macy's customs broker has just shipped me a neckace from Boise...

So glad you liked the books from your Christmas Santa. I was a little worried that the ones I had chosen might be a little dark for the Christmas Season.

Thanks for the Idaho themed books. I marked a couple of your postings as "favorite" which I seldom do. Consider yourself SPECIAL.

Happy new Year Pat! Wishing you all the best for 2013!

Wow, lots more visitors! Good morning Linda, Terri, Jenn, Katie, Mamie, Deb, Karen and Chelle. :) It was 4 degrees here this mornng so our dog walk didn't last very long but luckily the sun is shining.

I've been madly trying to get caught up with Season 2 of Downton Abbey so I'll be ready to start with Season 3 on Sunday. This morning in the news section of my Google home page, I saw this link to the NYT review of Season 3 comparing it to Fifty Shades of Grey of all things.

This series about British aristocrats and their servants is “Fifty Shades of Grey”: soft-core pornography, but fixated on breeding and heritage rather than kinky sex.

Their main point seems to be that the show (like FSoG) is a formula, has gone on too long and is getting increasingly sillier. I definitely liked Season 1 better than Season 2 but that's often what happens as series go on. At the moment, I'm still hooked.

Katie I think you're the first person I know (besides the person who recommended the book to me) who's read Big Trouble. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it this year with the encouragement of all the hoopla over Idaho turning 150 in the local news. And I love that your review of Train Dreams inspired Mamie to read it. That one I'll definitely read this year since it's such a short book and I've been wanting to read something by Denis Johnson.

Deb in general you don't have to worry about a book being too depressing for me. I almost always love depressing books (of course, I'd probably describe them as intense, deep or powerful). It drives my husband nuts because I also like depressing movies and he can't stand them so it's sometimes hard to find one we both want to see. I also love looking at the pictures of Vancouver on your thread. I really need to get a new passport so I can make a trip up there. I've never been and it seems like a great city and is relatively close by now.

Karen I'm glad you liked the list of Idaho books. You might really like Kim Barnes' books. She grew up in Northern Idaho and now teaches writing at the U of I and is married to a poet named Robert Wrigley. I'm pretty sure her first memoir (In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country) got a PBNA Book of the Year award too. An interesting aspect to her childhood is that as her father's fortunes faltered, the family turned to Pentecostalism and when Barnes was a teenager she rebelled against this in a big way. Here's a link to her website: http://kimbarnes.com/.

Beautiful shot of the Boise skyline, Pat.

I attended an author talk with Denis Johnson in November, but didn't get around to writing it up. He talked a bit about having lived in northern Idaho, close to the Canadian border, and the aspects of the locale that stood out for him: very rural, sparsely populated, unusual minority religions (Mennonites, Mormon bigamists), no dominant cultural group, a western, living off the land way of life that has been slow to fade. He was mainly there to discuss a play he had written, Des Moines, but also shared that he is working on a spy-type book set in Uganda. He was also very forthcoming in discussing how his past addiction issues played a big part in Jesus' Son. While the characters were composites, everything in the book had happened to either himself or someone he knew. I have yet to read any of his novels, but Train Dreams sounds tempting.

Pat- How much further in Season 2 do you have to go? I've been re-watching it with my DW and we are down to the last episode, which is called the Christmas episode. I completely agree with you that Season 1 was more consistent. It began to show some flaws and became repetitive. Personally, I would wrap it up after Season 3.
Wow, comparisons to fifty shades huh? A little Mr Carson & Mrs. Hughes action?

ETA- I also liked your Idaho reading suggestions. I loved Train Dreams and NEED to get to Five Skies, which I've had in the stacks forever!

Hey Pat! Dropping off a star.

I had no idea that Boise gets its name from les bois. Makes sense.

Is Boise where the Idaho Shakespeare festival takes place? Have I already asked you this? I have a couple of actor friends that have worked there.

I am also eagerly awaiting season 3 of Downton! NYT comparing Downton to Fifty Shades?! PLEASE.

Sandy K

The Moomins are in, the Moomins are in! I'll bring them home from the library tomorrow!

Thanks, Pat, for pointing me towards Kim Barnes. I hope I can get to one of her books soon, looks just like the stuff I like, especially her autobiographical stuff, although her novels also look very appealing. Happy reading!

Thanks for that information about Denis Johnson Linda! The first time I heard of him was when Tree of Smoke was published in 2007 but I was never aware of his Idaho connection until now. I googled him and found a very short essay he wrote for the New Yorker in 2002 that describes his living in Berkeley in 1973. Here's a quote from it:

. . . we drank up the dregs of the sixties. We didn't feel desperate but, rather, unfettered; there was a sense that we'd broken the bonds of mindless materialism and hypocritical conformity and were now just naturally floundering around until the new shape of human freedom manifested itself. Actually, I think we were all just depressed, at the very least. Probably some of us were out-and-out psycho. And the drugs weren't helping.

I just put Jesus' Son on hold at the library. It sounds like something I'd like.

Just stopping in to catch up, Pat, and to wish you a lovely weekend. I just love how Denis Johnson writes - I need to read something else by him this year, thanks for the reminder.

Mark unfortunately I have 6 more episodes of DA to watch before Sunday night. I hope I don't burnout on it. I had to laugh about your speculation about Carson and Mrs. Hughes! I'm glad to hear you're another fan of Train Dreams. Denis Johnson seems like a good writer that I need to find out more about.

Hi Sandy! I can't remember if we talked about the Idaho Shakespeare Festival before but yes it is in Boise. It's a beautiful location right on the Boise River and the scenery is sometimes used in the plays. The first production I saw there was Chekhov's "The Seagull" and they used the landscape behind the stage for some outdoor scenes. It's also a great place to people watch because people tend to bring their own feasts with them and spread them out with colorful tablecloths. When did your friends work there? And, now that I think of it, the connection must be with The Great Lakes Theater Festival. How neat.

I'll be back later to post some more about the Moomin book I just finished and add some more Idaho books. Off to run errands.

>50 phebj: I really do think that comparing Downton to Fifty Shades of Grey is a BIG stretch. Whatever will sell the article, I guess. LOL

I wouldn't touch 50 Shades with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole...

I agree with Jenn - my Fifty Shades experiences will remain private!! and I won't be reading the book.

Have a lovely weekend dear lady.

Thanks for the list of Idaho books, Pat. I enjoyed All Over Creation a few years ago -- also set in Idaho, and reminding me a lot of Jerome.

Book Notes

1. The Moomins and the Great Flood by Tove Jansson--3 1/2 stars

Well, I finished my first book for the year--The Moomins and the Great Flood by Tove Jansson. It's the first book in the Moomin series about the adventures of a family of trolls who resemble hippopotamuses. Jansson wrote it in 1939 while Finland was at war with the Soviet Union and it wasn't published until 1945. Until last year, it hadn't been translated into English so many people have read the rest of the series but not this first book.

The Moomins and the Great Flood tells the story of how the Moomins came to live in the Moominhouse in Moominvalley. Originally the Moomins lived in people's houses behind their stoves but with the advent of central heating, they were driven out. Moominpapa has already wandered off when the book starts and Moominmomma and Moomintroll (their son) spend the book looking for him.

They experience a number of somewhat scary situations but it all ends well with the discovery of Moominhouse which looks just like the stoves they used to live behind. Along the way they meet the little creature (who will eventually acquire the name Sniff), Tulippa (a girl with blue hair who lives in a tulip), the Hattifatteners (mushroom like creatures who can't speak or hear that wander the world together and can become dangerously electric), the Hemulens (at the moment I forget what they're like; they don't feature prominently in this book) as well as the Stork, the ant-lion and a sea troll.

At first I was a bit disappointed that the characters didn't look quite as cute in the illustrations in this book and that the Moomins were noticeably slimmer. The illustrations are also darker in color and in feeling but I assume that's partly because the book was written during the war. But in looking back through the book, I think I may like these illustrations even better than the later ones.

I will probably give this book 3 1/2 stars because I didn't like it quite as much as Finn Family Moomintroll which was the other Moomin book I've read which I rated 4 stars. But I would definitely recommend it to fans of this series.

This isn't the best picture of the Moomin characters but it has the advantage of identifying all of them.

I went to the library today and got more information on the books they're going to be discussing for Idaho's Sesquicentennial. Besides Indian Creek Chronicles which I mentioned up above, these are the other books with an Idaho connection they'll be giving presentations on:

Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land by Diane Josephy Peavey (essays)
The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall (novel)
Balsamroot: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew
God's Dogs by Mitch Wieland (connected short stories)

Other than the Udall book, I've never heard of any of these but I'm going to do my best to read them in time for the presentations. The problem is there are only two weeks between each presentation and I'm not sure I can keep up that pace and still read other things I'm interested in. I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.

Hi Karen. I hope you like Kim Barnes' books when you get a chance to check them out.

Hi Mamie. Thanks for stopping by. I fell very far behind with your thread just in one day!

Jenn and Paul, the only thing I know about Fifty Shades of Grey is that it's about S&M so I would agree that the comparison to DA seems like a big stretch.

Hi Anne. I forgot all about All Over Creation. Someone on LT mentioned that to me about a year ago and it's been sitting on my library list ever since.

The madness continues! I have no hope of keeping up.. so just saying hi...

I've never even heard of the Moomins. Sounds like one of those series that would be fun to start with a grandchild and they'd remember it all their life.

Tove Jansson's LT author picture shows her playing with her Moomin models. A completely different image than I had of her!

Hi Kath! I'm very happy to just have you stop by. I completely understand about the madness of keeping up at this time of year. My strategy is to read the threads with the least posts first because I feel like I'm making some headway. But then the popular threads have gotten so much busier by the time I get there, that it's somewhat overwhelming to try to catch up. Oh well, it's still a problem I'm happy to have!

Tad I think the Moomin books would be wonderful to read to a grandchild. I discovered them after reading Jansson's The Summer Book which is adult fiction and was a recommendation of Darryl's. I think it may have been Lucy that encouraged me to try one of her Moomin books and I fell in love with the characters. I'm not sure if they were popular here when I was a child but I know I would have loved them.

Linda I've seen that picture of Jansson with her Moomin characters. After seeing it I tried to track them down but most of the products that have been created are sold in Europe and are quite pricey so I haven't actually gotten any of them yet. One of these days, I'll be weak and splurge on a Moomin coffee mug for $25!

Pat, thanks for that great list of Idaho books. I think I'll look for Train Dreams first because it's on my WL thanks to Katie, Mamie, and others. How cool that your sesquicentennial is coming up! I think you deserve that Moomin mug for being,such a good ambassador!

Pat, I read the Moomin Tales as a child here in Canada. I personally was not so keen on the series, but my mom would buy them for me to read. I think that they were Penguin/ British in origin.

I have to admit, I know next to nothing about Idaho. I'll be interested to hear about it this year (if I can stay caught up). Great picture at the top!

Lots of interesting books being mentioned here! *so far behind*

Hi Pat, I've finally gotten here to place my star. I love the pictures of Idaho that you have posted. I don't know Boise at all, mostly have just driven through on the interstate, but have spent more time in the northern portion of the state. We often stay at Cour d'Alene and Sandpoint is one of our favorite towns.

I'm looking forward to following along with you in 2013.

Finally found your thread Pat so a belated Happy New Year. I've got TV program about Tove Jansson to watch that I recorded over the Christmas break. Must get round to it sometime soon.

A belated 'Happy New Year' from me too, Pat.

I hope you enjoy Indian Creek Chronicles as much as I did when I read it last year.

Hi Pat, I have one of the Moomin books waiting for me at a neighboring county's library and I'll pick it up next week. Till then the Three volumes of Moomin cartoons are keeping me busy.
I do need an Idaho related book for my states challenge, so I'll be watching your thread to see what you find enjoyable.

Hi Pat- Did you watch the Christmas episode last night? Good one, huh? I loved that ending. Tonight's the night!
Speaking of Johnson, I hope I can squeeze in Tree of Smoke sometime this year. I've had that one spoiling on a shelf for a couple years now,

Hello Pat, I love the Moomins. There was a ten minute piece by Jansson's niece about her on BBC radio 4 over Christmas. If you're interested you can listen to it here.

Donna the more I look for good books set in Idaho, the more I find. Thanks for getting me started. :)

Deb I think I'm at least 10 years older than you so I don't know if that has anything to do with the fact that I never heard of the Moomin books before joining LT in 2010. I hope I don't drive you away with all my talk about the Moomins. I guess everyone can't love them!

Hi Terri! So nice to see you here. I hope you'll enjoy learning more about Idaho. I knew nothing about it until I met my husband at work in NYC. He had moved there after college to get a job in the 70s and had no intention of ever moving back. He'd still go back in a heartbeat if he won the lottery. Me, on the other hand, I'd fight to stay here.

Hi Roni. Good to see you here too. I usually manage to get all caught up with my starred threads by the end of the day, although I do have to skim the really active ones, only to have to start all over again each day. It's such an active group but also such an interesting one that I can't find anyone to un-star!

Hi Judy. Nice to have you back! The northern part of Idaho is so different from the southern part. North Idaho is more like what I know of the Oregon or Washington coastal areas with numerous pine trees and lots of water (in our case, lakes). Southern Idaho is much more high desert and can be bleak. Luckily, Boise has the Boise River which adds a decent amount of greenery without alot of humidity.

Before moving to Idaho, we considered Tucson because my brother and parents were living there but the heat and the lack of shade trees were too much for us. We both sunburn easily and generally don't like heat and sun, so we eventually came to our senses and picked Idaho. By that time, I had gotten used to the Arizona desert environment from all the trips I had made to Tucson and Boise's climate seemed like a great compromise between the moldy humidity of New York and the parched landscape of southern Arizona.

Hi Rhian. Thanks for the good wishes. I think Genny first mentioned the Tove Jansson special on BBC. I looked to see if it was being shown over here but couldn't find anything. But I am keeping my eye out for it. Maybe it'll turn up on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Hope you enjoy it when you get around to it.

Hi Stasia. It's so good to see you posting around the threads again! I'm so glad to know someone else has read and liked Indian Creek Chronicles. I'm about 60 pages into it and the author is getting more reflective about what he's doing. It's a nice change from the beginning when all he was doing was drinking with his college buddies in preparation for his long winter alone.

Hi Lynda. I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Moomin comic strips compared to the books. Somewhere in my dim memory I think I was told the comics weren't as good as the books. I plan to be reading alot about Idaho this year, so I'm hoping I'll have some good books to recommend. Stay tuned!

Mark yesterday I watched Episodes 6, 7 and 8 of DA--3 hours worth!. I still need to watch the Christmas Special today which is an hour and a half and then I taped 3 hours of DA for tonight--the special about the house and the two hour season opener. I've spent so much time this week watching DA, I'm not sure what I'll do with myself starting tomorrow. Oh well, I have the DA book so I guess I'll read that!

Hi Dee! So good to see you. And thanks for that link! My husband just left to run an errand so I can crank up the volume on my computer and watch it right now.

I just finished listening to the interview with Tove Jansson's niece. It was interesting to here that she loved to paint the most out of the things she did (write children's books, do comics, write adult books) and that she rebelled against all the hoopla surrounding the popularity of the Moomins by starting to write for adults. She was an incredibly creative person and I hope I eventually get to see the BBC documentary on her life.

Hi Pat!
What a great thread!
I'm also hoping to learn a lot about Idaho - especially since my granddaughter is doing a school project on your state and if I can talk to her intelligently about it I'll be a greater Gram! Love the pictures too ;-)

Glad for all the book recs - I am trying to read through the 50 states which I think will be a lifelong challenge at the rate I am going. I put Indian Creek Chronicles on my WL - then I read a review. I'm just a little nervous about animal brutality. Sometimes I read something like that and can't shake the images - ever :(

OTOH, that's quite a collection of Moomin characters. You are enticing me to find out about them... still a lot of child left in me.

DA tonight! Hope it's good :-)

Hi Claudia. Let me know how it goes with your granddaughter's project about Idaho. I remember doing a year long project about Arizona when I was in grade school and I think that was part of my initial desire to move there. It had a big influence on me.

I went over to read the LT reviews of Indian Creek Chronicles and saw the mention of killing the raccoon by stepping on him. The scene is gruesome but in the author's defense, he did it to end his life as quickly as possible. The raccoon had been struggling to free himself from a trap and the method of putting himself out of his misery was something he had read about in a book as the best way to do it. I generally don't like hunting but in the context of the book, where the author is hunting for his food, it doesn't bother me as much.

Who knows maybe I'm becoming more open to it since living out here. Shortly after we moved into our house (5 1/2 years ago), our next door neighbor asked if we wanted some elk meat. He had just come back from hunting and was cutting it up in his garage. I was horrified at the time but I probably wouldn't be now.

I do understand that, Pat. Now that I have been in Maine for 14 years, I am finally not totally horrified that there is hunting around here - though I would still like to go on a month long vacation in November.

OK. Leaving it on my WL.

Have you read The True Deceiver? It's very dark, but the main character is an author who wrote a series involving tiny creatures similar to the moomins who live in the forest.

I just got caught up with your thread. Very nice picture of Boise. I've never been there; now I want to visit!

Pat, I see that in addition to stalling on Team of Rivals, you're struggling with A Tale of Two Cities. Not surprising (to me) as I find Dickens to be a challenge. I made my way through David Copperfield last year, and could appreciate much about it, but sheesh. You can tell the man got paid by the word.

I hope you're having a good weekend.

Hang in there with A Tale of Two Cities. It's my favorite Dickens. Once you get in the rhythm of it, it's not too bad. :)

Pat--yes, the Idaho Shakespeare and Great Lakes festivals are sister companies. My friend was in As You Like It--I think--they did it 1980's style.

Sandy K

#63: I'm about 60 pages into it and the author is getting more reflective about what he's doing. It's a nice change from the beginning when all he was doing was drinking with his college buddies in preparation for his long winter alone.

Yes, it is. The remainder of the book pretty much stays in that more reflective mode as I recall, and it is definitely the strength of the book.

Hi Pat, I have to admit that I had never heard of the Moomins but they sound (and look) absolutely delightful. The Lonely Polygamist has been on my WL since it was first published and the same for Train Dreams although I didn't really care much for Johnson's Tree of Smoke.

Hi Pat, and a happy Monday *smooch*

I second Deborah's recommendation of The True Deceiver.

Claudia I'll let you know how it goes with Indian Creek Chronicles. I'm assuming, and Stasia seems to be confirming in Msg 94, that the author grows as a person through the course of the book and that there's not a lot of animal cruelty in it.

Deborah and Darryl, thanks for the recommendation for True Deceiver. I just put that on my LT WL and my library list and hope to get to it soon. Interesting that it has a Moomin connection.

Ren thanks so much for stopping by! I'm happy to promote Boise to you. And your state is one I've never visited. Friends rave about Sante Fe and we have some relatives in Albuquerque so I may actually get down there one day.

Hi Ellen and thanks for your comments on A Tale of Two Cities. For awhile I was getting into it and then poof, I wasn't anymore. I blame it partly on too many other books calling my name but I also struggle with the language. I've had to resort too many times to checking our Sparknotes to see what was actually going on in a chapter. Time will tell if I get back to it but I haven't totally given up hope.

Jenn thanks for the encouragement with A Tale of Two Cities. I do like the story and I bought the Penquin classics hardcover version of it with a nice red ribbon bookmark and great notes to explain things. It's sitting right next to my chair because I like looking at it. So there's hope!

Hi Sandy. Thanks for confirming that connection with your friends and the Great Lakes Theater Festival. Do you know if the GLTF is still working with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival?

Hi Stasia. Thanks for stopping by and for your comment about Indian Creek Chronicles. :)

Hi Bonnie. I seem to remember there were alot of people who weren't that crazy about Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke even though it won the National Book Award. I remember picking it up and putting it back several times in book stores. I'll definitely be starting with Train Dreams because of the Idaho connection and because it's a nice short book that I can easily finish!

Hi Richard! A big happy Monday *smooch* right back at ya! I have to admit I've been watching your posts for your review of Volt since it's obvious you loved it. No pressure though!

Hi Pat! Am looking forward to your Idaho reading - I haven't been there yet but one day...and I must be the o LT 40-something woman n NZ who hasn't seen Downton Abbey. I even have series 1 and 2 here on DVD from a friend and had forgotten about them till I saw lots of mentions on here.

Hope you get back into ATOTC but I am all for putting books aside for a few months if they are feeling like work!

Happy New Year Pat!

I heard Bob Edwards interview Jim Carter and Rob James-Collier from Downton Abbey yesterday. Don't know if it would perk up your viewing, but it sounds like an overarching theme for the show is/was to show the breakup of the "Great Houses" during/after World War I. (I have yet to see any of it, although my library does own copies of the first series on DVD.)

Hi Pat. Thanks for the review of the Moomin book. I haven't splashed out on that one yet but I expect I will do at some point! I've got The Summer Book in the TBR pile and I'm looking forward to it.

Sorry to hear A Tale of Two Cities isn't gripping you at the moment. If you have any questions about any of the chapters then please feel free to post them on the tutored read/group read threads and Liz and I will do our best to help you out. I'm still (mostly) remembering to check those threads regularly to see if there are any questions. Or just pm one of us if you'd prefer.

Morning Pat! Oh, Markon's remarks about DA are depressing. From the preview it looks as if that's the way DA is going. Too bad, interesting part of history, but it makes DA loose its mystique. If that's the way the storyline is going, I don't anticipate them going for season 4.
Where in AToTC are you hitting a snag?

Just popping in for a quick catch up....

It has been a long Time since I read Dickens... Hope Two Cities bets better for you !

Not a watcher of DA... never got started with it...

Hi Pat! I've been trying to catch up on threads and have finally found you! Like the others, I hope A Tale of Two Cities starts growing on you.

Oh how I adore those Moomins. Good review and wonderful picture.

Just catching up here, Pat. Hope you are having a lovely Wednesday!

RL has been busy the last couple of days. I'm back into my exercise at the Y (well sort of back into it) and my Osher classes started yesterday (the first one is on presidential power, foreign affairs and the constitution). So I have not been on LT much.

Cushla it's amazing how many people are watching Downton Abbey. I was at a luncheon yesterday and someone sat down next to me that I didn't know. Within minutes we were talking about DA! I'm hoping I get back into A Tale of Two Cities too. I'm definitely having a problem finishing books. Actually my problem seems to be lack of discipline in that I'm eagerly starting new books before I finish what I'm currently reading.

Hi Ardene! Happy New Year to you too. Thanks for that link but it looks like I missed the window when the tape of the show was available to listen to. I liked Season 1 of DA the best so I'd recommend taking it out of the library. If I remember correctly, it's only 7 episodes long and goes pretty quickly. It would be perfect for a bad weather day where all you want to do is curl up inside.

Heather thank you so much for the offer of help on A Tale of Two Cities. I was into it for awhile but, as I mentioned to Cushla, I'm just so easily distracted by other books. I guess if I'm honest part of my problem is the amount of time I spend reading threads on LT. I love doing that, it's my favorite way to relax, but it really cuts into my reading time.

Hi Lynda. They are doing a Season 4 of DA. I googled that to check and got an article about the Christmas Special they just aired over in the UK at the end of Season 3. Unfortunately, I read about a major spoiler but at least I now know there's more to come. I don't think there's one thing in particular that's keeping me away from A Tale of Two Cities so it's hard to say I've hit a snag. It's mainly that it's not a page turner for me and there are so many other books calling my name.

Hi Kath. Always good to see you here. Thanks for the encouragement re A Tale of Two Cities. The good thing is I'm just about halfway through so it makes sense to keep going and I'm still hoping that I will.

Hi Lori. So glad you found me. :) The threads still seem to be crazy busy and every once in a while I realize there's someone I followed in 2012 whose 2013 thread I haven't seen yet.

Hi Lucy. If I remember correctly, you were the one who first encouraged me to read the Moomin books and I'm forever grateful. :)

Hi Mamie. Thanks for stopping by. Yesterday was a good day and today should be too. We are having repeated snow "storms" here so we've got lots of the white stuff to deal with, especially because they only plow the main roads here. The theory is that any snow will soon melt so it's pointless to plow residential streets. That is usually the case but of course there are exceptions. So we've got icy, snowy, slushy, wet streets and parking lots to deal with the last couple of days which is a pain but our winters are usually short. By February, it often starts feeling like Spring here so I'm not really complaining.

Sorry to hear about the DA spoiler Pat! Having watched S3 and the Christmas special I think I know what you're talking about...

I know what you mean about not feeling like you're making progress with your reading. What with work and the busyness of this group at the moment I feel like my reading has really slowed down and I'm still hundreds of posts behind!

>109 phebj:: I was quite irritated to hear that spoiler from a British friend who didn't realize that it aired months later in the U.S.

Heather I'm starting to think of being behind on LT and my reading as my "new normal" because it isn't as alarming to me as it used to be. I may have to go to the other extreme and start reading one book at a time again.

Tad I must admit I was very curious when you mentioned that you had heard the spoiler earlier and I actually kind of guessed some of it. Considering what a phenomena the show is, it's really too bad that it isn't shown on the same schedule here as it is in the UK. The woman I sat next to at lunch yesterday has a daughter in Scotland and the daughter has to make sure she doesn't accidentally tell her mother something she doesn't already know when they discuss the show.

>112 phebj:: I wonder if it's a money thing. BBC wants to get as much revenue from merchandising, etc. before PBS starts in.

Pat, I hear you about reading threads on LT cutting into reading time--I do the same thing.

A Tale of Two Cities--I read it last year, and although it ultimately was a satisfying read, I had a hard time getting into it. I am a big Dickens fan, so I'm not sure why it didn't suck me in the way that Bleak House and Great Expectations both did. Many people cite it as their favorite Dickens novel, but I definitely liked Bleak House waaaaaaay more.

I recorded Downton Sunday night because I had rehearsal and I still haven't watched it. What is wrong with me?! Ha!

Sandy K

Hey, Pat, just coming by to catch up on your thread! Only read one book at a time--what a novel concept!!

Tad I never thought of that angle but it wouldn't surprise me if they did!

Sandy I have a copy of Bleak House that I hope to read some day so I'm glad to hear you liked it so much. It's definitely much more of a time commitment than AToTC is. Hope you find the time to watch DA soon. I'm somewhat at loose ends after spending the last three weeks catching up on Seasons 1 and 2. I was watching at least one episode of DA most days for that time period and now there's nothing I feel like watching until it's on again next Sunday. :(

Hi Roni! The only way I think I could read one book at a time again is to restrict my time on LT so I wouldn't be tempted by other people's comments on all the good books they're reading. That and staying away from the library where it's so easy to get the books I learn of on people's threads.

Book Notes

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers--4 stars

I actually finished this book on December 31st but am just now putting down some thoughts about it. It’s a debut novel about the war in Iraq and two soldiers who want nothing more than to stay alive and return home. The main character, John Bartle, is the older of the two at 21 and promises his platoon mate’s mother that he will make sure her 18 year old son Murph returns safely. You know in the first chapter that Murph doesn’t make it but it takes the rest of the book to find out what happened and what the repercussions were for Bartle.

The author served in Iraq after enlisting at the age of 17. When he returned, he continued his education and ended up with an MFA in Poetry. My one complaint about the book is that I sometimes felt the language took me out of the story and I became focused on the words rather than on what was going on. With that one caveat, I would definitely recommend the book. The main things that will stay with me are the description of going into battle as similar to the moments just before a car crash where everything happens in slow motion and the conflicting emotions Bartle had about being thanked for his service (“I don’t deserve anyone’s gratitude and really they should hate me for what I’ve done but everyone loves me and it’s driving me crazy.”)

I googled Kevin Powers to find out more about him and came up with a recent interview he did with The Guardian on November 13, 2012. I’m going to quote some of it here to remind me where the title of the book came from and what Powers was trying to portray:

The title of Kevin Powers' debut novel comes from a marching song he learned on manoeuvres with the US army. "A yellow bird/With a yellow bill," it goes, "was perched upon/ my windowsill./I lured him in/With a piece of bread/And then I smashed/His fucking head …" The lines, which looped round and through his 2004 tour of Iraq, snagged unshakeably in his mind; as he was writing the novel, the bird – suckered in then set upon – came to stand for "the lack of control soldiers have over what happens to them. The war proceeds, no matter what you think or do; it's an entity unto itself. You're powerless, and powerlessness itself becomes the enemy. That was my emotional experience of the war. The idea of the bird resonated with the core of what I was trying to get at."

"The core of what Bartle goes through," he says, "I empathised with it. I felt those things, and asked the same questions: is there anything about this that's redeeming; does asking in itself have value? The story is invented, but there's a definite alignment between his emotional and mental life and mine."

The Yellow Birds is his answer to the wider question, put to him repeatedly on return to civilian life, of "what it was like over there".

"There have been stories recently that the number of veteran suicides has now surpassed the battlefield casualties," Powers says. "I wanted to show the whole picture. It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a different way. I thought it was important to acknowledge that."

Pat- I picked up a copy of Bleak House after finishing the Dickens bio. It looks like a book I would love. I wish we could try to read it this year but it's already looking doubtful. Our Book Reading Life is sure a blast but it sure gets complicated.

Mark I was just over at your thread admiring your picture of Chicago! I forgot about the Dickens bio. I might take that out of the library. Maybe we can do Bleak House next year. I bought a nice Penguin Classics hardcover edition of it shortly after Bonnie raved about it.

A very nice review of The Yellow Birds, Pat. I appreciate your having included the Guardian excerpt - very telling of the author's intent.

Thanks for that review of The Yellow Birds. That song has echoes for me of a Robert Louis Stevenson poem from my childhood.

A birdie with a yellow bill
hopped upon my window sill
cocked his shiny eye and said,
"Ain't you 'shamed you sleepyhead?"

Or at least that's what I remember.

Train Dreams is now on the tbr pile.

Markon...lovely poem.

Good book notes on The Yellow Birds... interesting interview.

I was just talking to my 13 y/o granddaughter last night. She was surmising that in the future, school desks will have monitor screens built-in and instead of reading about historical events (battles, etc), there will be videos showing what happened.
We talked about why, oh why, don't history lessons focus more on peaceful events, cooperation, good outcomes from compromise and agreement, etc. Why is it always about death and destruction? violence and corruption? Good things DO happen. And we need to accentuate the positive and potential.

ok. rant over.

Lovely review of The Yellow Birds, Pat. Stopping in to wish you a weekend full of fabulous!

Pat- Excellent review of The yellow Birds. It was a top read of the year for me too! It's also one that cries out for a re-read. Bleak House for next year sounds perfect. We'll have to remind each other.

Markon- The marching song, based on that poem, is featured in the opening pages and it's not that sweet. LOL.

Wow, great review, Pat. The origin of the title gave me a little jolt. Powerful stuff.

And I love Cee's rant. Since we are, in theory, supposed to learn from history and avoid repeating our mistakes, it would make sense to focus on our (humankind's) failures in history lessons. But that doesn't seem to be working. Perhaps we could focus on our successes more and it would influence the future. Just a thought.

Happy Weekend to you, Pat!

Linda thanks for your kind words on my comments about The Yellow Birds. This year I'm hoping to say more about the books I read but mostly by referring to things like the Guardian interview that I find useful. I've given up on writing formal reviews because I need to spend an inordinate amount of time writing them. I can easily talk about a book I've read but putting my thoughts into a review is often excruciating.

Ardene I'm so impressed that you remembered that poem from your childhood. I googled it and it said it was from A Child's Garden of Verses. What a blast from the past! I just put a copy in my Amazon cart. :)

Hi Linda. I hope you like Train Dreams when you have a chance to try it. As I said somewhere upthread, I'm very confident I'll read that book this year since it's such a short book.

Claudia when did your granddaughter get to be 13?! Sounds like she's a very smart girl. I think that's a very good point about focusing on good outcomes and what lead to them. One of the classes I took in the fall was about how a group of people with diverse interests had come together to get legislation passed to protect an area of Idaho called the Owyhees (The Owyhee Initiative). Ranchers, conservationists, outfitters, Indian tribes, etc. all worked together for years to come to an agreement that would protect the land and promote the economy. One of the ways they made sure they all worked together was to always have lunch after their business meetings and sit people next to each other with different interests. It was so refreshing to hear of people working successfully together!

Your comment about school desks of the future reminded me that I saw one on a 60 Minutes story (I think) on David Kelly, CEO of IDEO. It doesn't have a built in monitor but that would be an excellent addition. The main features they thought kids would like were the wheels, the desk flipping up, and the shelf underneath for their backpacks. Here's a picture:

Hi Mamie! I'm glad you liked what I had to say about The Yellow Birds. Hopefully, you'll give it a try sometime. And thank you for the good wishes for the weekend. I'm going to see the movie Silver Linings Playbook tomorrow which was just nominated for an Oscar for best picture so I'm looking forward to that.

Mark you are primarily responsible for me reading The Yellow Birds. First because of your favorable review which caused me to put it on my WL and second because it was a gift from Deborah for your Christmas Swap. So a double thank you is in order!

Hi Ellen you're right about getting a jolt from the poem that the title of The Yellow Birds is based on. It all seems so innocent until the last line!

I loved your comment: Perhaps we could focus on our successes more and it would influence the future.

We aim to please! Big Smile!

Hi Pat, Mark is responible for Yellow Birds being on my wishlist as well, but your review is pushing it closer to the top!

Mark--you do!

Hi Judy. Hope you get a chance to read The Yellow Birds soon. I can't remember, have you read Matterhorn?

Yes, I loved The Matterhorn. It was my top book of the year in 2010.

Hi Pat, you're hard to keep up with. I loved your notes on Yellow Birds. I don't know when I'll get to that one but I have a copy of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk sitting on my iPad (another book about the Iraq war). So I think I'll probably read that one first. And in the beginning of it I just looked and he's talking about being in Bravo Company....hey, wasn't that the Marine platoon in Matterhorn? I do believe it was.

Pat - fascinating on The Yellow Birds which I bought recently.

Trust that you are having a simply wonderful weekend thus far.

I saw that story on the school desks.. I just thought that the wheels are asking for trouble!

Nice report on Yellow Birds..

Judy I thought you might have read Matterhorn already. It was my favorite book of 2011! I'm not sure I've read anything since that's affected me as much.

Bonnie I keep on forgetting about Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. I've seen some good reviews on LT and want to read it. I just started a book called What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It by Trish Wood. It's very gripping and can be gruesome but I think I'm going to love it. Some of the men actually like going to war and seem to be normal. It's hard for me to imagine because I think I'd be completely traumatized.

Paul I'll be very interested in what you think of The Yellow Birds when you read it, especially what you think of the writing since you have such a strong interest in poetry.

Kath I had to laugh at your comment about the school desks because that's exactly what I thought. All I could picture was a classroom of kids rolling around, essentially chaos!

My husband is reading Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk now--I bought it because I absolutely loved Fountain's earlier work, a collection of short stories, and then my husband picked it up before I got a chance to start it! He says it's great so far, and I have every intention of reading it in the next month or so. Meanwhile, I'm glad you're enjoying (to the extent that that word is appropriate) What Was Asked Of Us!

Hi Jennifer! I've never heard of Ben Fountain before but my library has a collection of short stories by him called Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. Is that the one you read?

I'm liking What Was Asked of Us so much that I just ordered a copy from Amazon. I had taken it out of the library and keep adding post-it notes to pages I want to go back to.

As soon as my hold list clears out at the library (we can only have 5 books on hold at one time), I'll be adding Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk to it.

I seem to have gotten on a war themed reading jag but all the books are excellent so I'm not complaining. The other one I'm trying to find time for is Our Hidden Lives: The Remarkable Diaries of Postwar Britain that was recommended highly by two LTers (Peggy/LizzieD and Heather/souloftherose).

I was debating whether to read The Yellow Birds, but your review has convinced me. Awaiting your review of What Was Asked of Us, since that's another one I'm debating whether to read.

Jennifer has me seeking out the short story collection by Ben Fountain, also new to me. I haven't found the short stories yet, though.

Hi Pat, Great review of The Yellow Birds. I've heard such good things about it but never really felt like it'd be something I'd like. I may rethink that.

>121 markon: markon, A Child's garden of Verses was a favorite with my mother and I when I was little. When my son was young, I'd wake him up in the morning sometimes with that very poem, along with a good tickle - it was fun.

1: This year, Idaho celebrates its 150th birthday so be forewarned, there will probably be plenty of information about that on my threads.

Excellent! I know next to nothing about Idaho.

How have I not managed to visit your thread yet this year? I’m gradually working my way through the stars with already a bazillion posts...

I like that chair!

Did I really suggest the Moomins to you? Oh good!

Well, I went to add The Yellow Birds to the BlackHole only to discover it already there. One of these days, I may actually read it.

Nice review, Pat. Happy Sunday!

Hi Pat--You're right that I live very close to the setting of Indian Creek Chronicles--except that I live in the valley and not the mountain/wilderness. I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would--too often that sort of book is filled with too many risk-taking moments that make someone cringe who grew up with the backcountry and the respect it requires. And, as you've probably found, he did make at least one of those decisions that put him in a really bad place.

Have you read A River Runs Through It by Normal Maclean? The last novella in the collection: "USFS 19: The Ranger, The Cook and the Hole in the Sky" is also set in pretty much the same area--the Idaho/Montana wilderness border with Maclean hiking across the pass and down Blodgett Canyon to Hamilton. The XDH spent summers backpacking as a wilderness ranger and usually began his tours from the Idaho Elk Summit Ranger Station where Maclean began his trek. I went with DH as a wilderness volunteer for several of his swings.

I also read The Lonely Polygamist when it came out a few years back. I'll be interested to see what you think!

Hi Pat- Matterhorn was my favorite read of 2010. I'm starting to see a trend here. I've had Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk on my radar for awhile. I haven't seen it mentioned very much on LT.

Deborah I have to admit that What Was Asked of Us can be tough going at times because of the subject matter. The author interviewed 29 soldiers that served in Iraq from 2003 to 2005. The interviews seem to be organized chronologically and I'm about a third of the way through when the initial invasion is over and Baghdad has fallen. No one seems to know what to do to successfully restore services and the Iraqi people start turning on the soldiers most of whom really want to help but don't have the resources. That heartbreak plus the violence was getting to me last night. Still a great book but . . . .

Hi Ellen. I love all the LT recommendations of authors and books I've never heard of but my husband is actually starting to get alarmed at all the books I keep bringing into the house. Usually, he never says a word so maybe I'm overdoing it on the Amazon orders lately. Luckily, my library has a short story collection by Ben Fountain so that I don't need to buy.

Hi Joanne. I hope you end up liking The Yellow Birds. It's a good book and relatively short at 230 pages. After Ardene mentioned that poem, I ordered a copy of A Child's Garden of Verses and am looking forward to reading it again.

Hi Katherine! Glad you found me. I've been skimming threads and then getting to a book review I want to read and marking it to come back to. That's what happened with your thread and I see I'm now behind about 20 posts. I'm glad you're interested in Idaho. I'm hoping to have another post about it soon and I go to my first library lecture on Indian Creek Chronicles on Tuesday so I should have something to report back on that.

Delurking to say Happy Sunday and leave a *smooch*

Hi Lucy! I'd have to go back to my earlier threads to check but I'm pretty sure it was you that encouraged me to try the Moomins. Don't you have a collection of the Moomin characters that I saw on Richard's thread awhile ago? That may be why you're the first person I associate with them.

Hi Stasia I hope you get to The Yellow Birds soon. As I said to Joanne, it's a quick read and something you could polish off in a couple of hours. Hope you have a great Sunday too. I need to look for your thread because I'm not seeing it at the top of my starred list and that's very suspicious for a Sunday.

Hi Janet. I think that's so neat that you have that connection to Indian Creek Chronicles. From looking at a map, it looks like the Bitteroot Valley is really sandwiched in between two imposing mountain ranges. I should finish the book today or tomorrow and it's been a good read so I'm glad the library talk got me to finally read it.

I have an unread copy of A River Runs Through It which I need to find. Your comments about it make me want to get to it. So what does a wilderness volunteer do?

Hi Mark. I know you were one of the ones who got me to read Matterhorn. That was a fantastic book. I'm pretty sure I first read a good review of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk on Amy's (porchreader's) thread and then saw that it was a Barnes & Noble "discovery". Anyway, it was recommended in the B&N quarterly brochure they publish about new books. I saw it the other day on Jennifer's thread but now that I think about it you may be right that not that many LTers have read it yet.

Richard thanks so much for stopping by! I've been very remiss at getting around to the high post threads but I wanted to tell you that I did read and thumb your excellent review of Volt: Stories. I'm slightly distraught because I own a copy of the book that prior to our Christmas Eve party was sitting right next to my reading chair. In cleaning up, I stuffed books into a number of nooks and crannies and I haven't been able to find it yet. I won't give up until I do though! Thanks so much for bringing attention to short stories this year. There seem to be a wealth of excellent collections out there.

It's amazing to me, Pat, how many wonderful collections appear and vanish without leaving the sales mark I think they deserve. I truly want to make Alan Heathcock a monument, so his voice will be heard! I like the work he does, and so appreciate that you responded to my review so positively!

*Wave!
Your review of The Yellow Birds was excellent. I don't know that I will tackle it soon, but I've added it to my list.

Well, I went ahead and bought both of the Iraq books since they were both under $9 for Kindle. I've read enough war books that I think I'll be able to handle them. I've also read a lot about the debacle and corruption that was the so-called occupation of Iraq in the early days of the war. I'll try to get to them soon.

Just dropping through to check out what you've been up to! I also read A Child's Garden of Verses extensively as a child--they and Mother Goose were my first introductions to poetry.

Richard it's interesting that short stories aren't more popular. Considering that alot of people don't have much time to read, you'd think they'd be a natural. But in RL, I don't remember anyone recommending a short story to me or talking about reading one.

Hi Jenn. Glad I got you to add The Yellow Birds to your WL. Hope you like it when you get to it!

Deborah hope you like the two Iraq books when you get to them. As difficult as last night's reading of What Was Asked of Us was, I can't imagine not continuing to read it because I'm hooked.

Hi Roni. I can't wait to receive my copy of A Child's Garden of Verses so I can read it again. I'm looking forward to a nice trip down memory lane.

Hey Pat--the one I read was indeed Brief Encounters with Che Guevera: Stories--I think those are the only two books he's written so far. I remember reading the short story collection (which I'd picked up mostly because of the gorgeous birds on the cover and the title lol), and immediately looking for more work by Fountain...at which point I grumbled for hours because he still hadn't published anything even a few years after the stories! So, of course, when I saw the novel, I grabbed it :)

Jennifer I think you're right about Ben Fountain only having written two books. What confused me was when I looked him up on LT there are three works listed under his name. But I'm thinking the third one may be a mistake or one of his short stories. At any rate only one person on LT has that work.

Hi Pat, I've had my eye on The Yellow Birds for the past several months. Your review is tempting me to run out and read it as fast as I can, only my other books would be mad at me. Still, I will make room for it soon.

RE: Cee's rant. In bible timeline class many comments have been made regarding the old testament and some people have dropped out of the class because of the constant rivalries, war and murder. Students asked why the bad times are highlighted while the times of peace are not included. Our proctor suggested that the wars where constantly featured to drill home a point to the Israelites. So, long story short, perhaps a point is trying to be made, if it's ever achieved is yet to be determined.

Hi Lynda I'm not sure if this adds anything to the discussion or not but I was at a luncheon last week listening to 3 reporters talk about the coming Idaho legislative session and one of the questions was why they never reported good news. One of the reporters said he was asked that question all the time and would give examples of positive stories he had written and no one remembered them. It makes me wonder if there were good things I learned in history classes that I've forgotten. Put another way, I wonder if it's naturally the negative things we remember or focus on so as to hopefully be able to avoid them in the future. Of course, like we've been saying, that isn't working too well.

What "good news" story ever got a fraction of the exposure of the twin towers????

Just sayin'

Interesting discussions over here, Pat! The Yellow Birds is on my TBR list, and I'm thinking about buying it to read on a plane trip in a couple of weeks. Somehow a new book makes flying a little more enjoyable.

And I think that you are onto something when you suggest that we are more likely to remember the negative things that we hear than the positive. I think that this has some evolutionary roots. Negative stimuli have to be stronger so that we won't get eaten by tigers. I've seen this discussed in the context of communication as well. In a relationship (whether husband-wife, boss-employee, etc.), you need to say five times as many positive things to counteract one negative comment. I know that when I read teaching evaluations, I can get lots of "great professor" comments, but it is always the "a little bit boring" one that I remember!

Claudia I certainly can't think of any recent good news that got as much exposure as 9/11. Good news just doesn't seem to "sell" as much as bad news does. The other thing the reporter seemed to be implying was that most news is bad news. He said his job was to report the news. He said he wasn't actively seeking out bad stories and ignoring good ones.

Hi Amy. I related to your comment about a new book making flying more tolerable. I often will buy something new to take on a flight in the hopes I can bury myself in a good book and ignore what's going on around me.

I also thought that was interesting about one negative comment outweighing numerous positive ones. I certainly know I'm sensitive to what I perceive as criticism and I have to be careful not to blow it out of proportion. I also think alot of people don't know how to deliver negative comments well.

One thing I wanted to clarify is that the Sesquicentennial that Idaho is celebrating is it's 150th anniversary of becoming a US Territory. The actual date it became a territory is March 4, 1863 and it was Abraham Lincoln who signed the legislation making it so. There's a lecture I'm hoping to go to in February at the Idaho Historical Museum called "Abraham Lincoln, Friend and Father". I kind of like that title and now I understand why there is such a big statue of Lincoln in one of Boise's oldest parks. (Idaho became the 43rd state on July 3, 1890.)

I was trying to find a good geographical map of Idaho and this was the best I could do. It's a little hard to make out but you can see Boise down in the lower left of the state and if you look really closely, you'll see the mountains just to the north and east of the city. The Boise River isn't on this map but it's a 102 mile tributary of the Snake River and it's what makes Boise green.

Nice review of The Yellow Birds, Pat. And thanks for sharing those comments by Kevin Powers. This book is already on my wish list, so I'll probably read it this year.

Hi Darryl thanks for stopping by! Hope you like The Yellow Birds when you get to it.

Hi Linda. BIG Happy Face!

Just stopping by to say hello, Pat!

Hey Terri! Thanks for the visit. I need to set aside some time and catch up with the threads again.

To comment on Richard's remark about collections disappearing - there is a tendency to collect or select from short story anthologies which can often mean the original release goes "missing". As a completist freak this irritates the life out of me.

Have a lovely weekend.

Hi Pat--something cool I discovered is that if you go to your profile page and click on your location, it links you to the interactive google earth map. They are a lot of fun to play with and can be posted on your thread.

Have a great weekend!

Good morning, or more likely, good evening Paul! I hadn't thought about short story collections disappearing because of picking and choosing things for anthologies. I wonder how often that happens. . .

Janet thanks so much for that info about the interactive map on LT. I need to experiment with it more because when I go to copy the URL address, I'm only getting part of what I see.

Hmm Yes, I need to figure out how to use that map too.

Love the Idaho images, Pat! We really enjoyed Boise for the very brief time we were there, and still think our drive through the Swan Valley ranks as one of the most beautiful ever.

Good grief! I can't believe that I'm just now getting here, Pat. It's been that kind of month. I knew, though, that somebody I like had also gotten Above All Things. I've just barely started it, but I am looking forward to moving right on with it. This is contrary to my experience so far with my other ER ARC which arrived two days before this one. The Inbetween People is written in present tense, first person narrative with not a quotation mark to be seen. It's very short, but I'm afraid that it's going to read very long.
Love your pictures!
Do finish Tale of Two Cities, but remember that it's not anywhere close to my favorite Dickens. I know that makes a difference!
And, state songs? The melody of "The Old North State" is very easy, but the words ---- Was there ever anybody who could sing, "Though scorners may sneer at or witlings defame her, how our hearts beat with gladness whenever we name her!" without bursting into laughter or tears????
Now I'm off to try that map.....

*Waving* hello, Pat!

Lucy let me know if you figure out the interactive map! I still need to spend some time with it. It's one of those LT features I probably would never have discovered if not for Janet's recommendation. Now that I think of it, there are probably tons of LT features I know nothing about.

Anne we bought a large photograph of the Swan Valley to put over our fireplace just after we moved here but we've never been there in RL. I've always wanted to make a trip and see it in person.

Peggy I'm confident you'll finish Above All Things before I do so I'll be eager to see what think. Don't worry, I'm not giving up on Dickens. I have a really nice edition of Bleak House that I want to read and I will finish A Tale of Two Cities. And of course I love A Christmas Carol which I read two years ago after a long time between readings. I made the mistake of reading the lyrics from your state song to my husband. It prompted him to launch into a rendition of our state song. :(

Hey Katie! Thanks for stopping by.

This looks OK on the preview.

To get the view you want: left click and hold gives you a hand to grap the map and move it. Zoom in and out on the upper left and choose the type of map you want on the upper right.

To post the view once you've gotten what you want: right click on the map and copy the address under properties and post like any other pic.

Edited to rearrange the instructions a bit.

Way behind, Pat, but wanted to say I liked that review of The Yellow Birds a lot, too. Great book. Fascinating comments from Kevin Powers that you found. I think thanks to him and others, more attention is being paid to the difficulties returning vets face.

Interesting discussion on the news and negativity. I'm afraid that I'm with Cee
when it comes to be dubious about good news being reported. I know that ABC evening news does put in positive news every night.. and I have followed their MADE IN AMERICA campaign for a long time now. Lots of good news there. Also, I try to remember to watch Sunday Morning on CBS because they focus on good news..

Good book talk here too, btw :)

Wow, Janet, thanks for putting that map in. That's just what I was trying to show--how Boise is nestled up to the mountains but in a valley. I'm going to try and use your instructions and see if I can find a good map of where Pete Fromm spent that infamous winter in the wilderness.

Joe you were one of the ones I had down as recommending The Yellow Birds so thank you for that. I just finished another book about Iraq (What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It) which was excellent and started a new one--Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Both of them deal with the disconnect soldiers face when they come back home.

Hi Kath. CBS Sunday Morning is my favorite news program and that probably is because it focuses on good stories. I think to some extent I'm so used to bad news it doesn't faze me much anymore.

Book Notes

2. Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm--4.5 stars

Pete Fromm was a 20-year-old college student in 1978 enamoured with the idea of being a modern day mountain man when he made a spur of the moment decision to spend the winter alone in the wilderness. A classmate at the University of Montana had just backed out of a job with Idaho Fish and Game to babysit two and a half million salmon eggs in Indian Creek and he made what he referred to as one of a “series of completely unconsidered decisions” that led to him spending October through May in a tent in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. As an example of how unprepared he was, when the wardens were getting ready to leave him at the site, they had this exchange:

”You’ll need about seven cords of firewood. Concentrate on that. You’ll have to get it all in before the snow grounds your truck.” Though I didn’t want to ask, it seemed important. “What’s a cord?”

Luckily, Fromm is resourceful and even though he’s only brought six books(!) with him, they’re how-to books on outdoor survival. He teaches himself to cook the supplies he’s brought in, and eventually to trap and hunt, but his biggest challenge is loneliness and how to fill up all the time he has on his hands. Surprisingly, he’s not as alone as I expected. His dog is with him, the wardens come in monthly with his mail, his college buddies visit twice, and there are a good number of hunters who come through looking for elk, mountain lions and bears.

The blurb on the back of the book refers to it as a “modern-day Walden” but I don’t think that’s apt. He’s more of a doer and an observer than a thinker. Here’s a description of what he sees on one of his hikes:

“At one exposed bend of the river, where the wind had cleared the ice of all but the newest snow, I saw the trail of an elk that had run down the mountain and crossed the river. Its tracks showed how it leaped the last bit of riverbank, landing on what looked exactly like more snow. But on the ice, all hell had broken loose. The elk's front feet had shot to the left, while his back legs had done the splits. He held on for what must have been a long time, his feet making wild looping patterns on the ice, but then the snow had been wiped clean by the big broad side of the elk spinning over the ice.

I laughed, translating what must have occurred, and I wished I'd been just a few minutes earlier, that I could have seen the mighty, majestic elk take such a pratfall.

Walking on though, I thought of what a fragile thread held everything together out here. If the elk had broken something, dislocated a hip (which looked more probable than not), it would have been all over. There would have been nothing left but a ring of dirty snow and a pile of stomach grass centered in a haze of coyote tracks.

That’s basically the extent of the discussion on the fragility of life in the wilderness. But although this book wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, it grew on me. Fromm is a good writer and his descriptions of his adventures were fascinating at times. Even though I spent most of the book thinking I would never have done what he did, I came to respect him. He includes an afterword that catches the reader up on the next 20 years of his life and some more “unconsidered decisions” that led him to become a writer. I, for one, am glad he did and I’ll be looking for more of his books.

Here's a map of the two big wilderness areas in Idaho. As best I can determine, Fromm spent his time in the area just above (about half of an inch on the map) the designation of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness but close to the Montana border. (He was in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, just the southern part of it.)

Very nice review of Indian Creek Chronicles, Pat. Anyone who can spend a winter in someplace like the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness earns my respect!

Nice review, Pat. It made me want to reread the book. I wouldn't have the courage to do what he did, either.

I think, though, that he was in the Selway rather than a bit farther south in the Frank Church.

Hi Pat,mI see the Idaho reading is underway. Indian Creek Chronicles sounds like a great true life adventure/survival story. I guess Fromm was smart to bring his how-to-survive books along, but I think I would have had a copy of Walden or something similar to make me feel less alone. He had his mail brought to him? Sounds like a pretty good service to have in the wilderness!

Morning Pat! Your review of indian Creek Chronicles is outstanding. His experience reminds me of another 20something, sure of himself adventurer, Chris McCandless from Into the Wild. Glad to see he survived to write an afterward, sadly, McCandless couldn't do that.
Off to see if I can add a thumbs up.

Thanks Darryl! I edited my description of where he was on the map to make it clearer that he was actually in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. There are just no towns or other markers on the map to refer to where he actually was and he was closer to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness designation than he was to the Selway-Bitterroot designation on this map. Hope that's clear.

Thank you Janet. I actually might reread this book sometime too. First though I need to pass it on to my husband's uncle. He spent many summers alone in Idaho at fire lookout towers and also at a ranch in the wilderness that hikers stopped at. When he saw I was reading Indian Creek Chronicles, he said he thought he could have done something like this and I think he probably could. It'll be interesting to see what he thinks of it. At the library book discussion, everyone was a baby boomer and they all thought Fromm was crazy.

Hi Donna. While I don't doubt Fromm was alone most of the time, I was surprised at how much contact he had with people. One thing that was interesting in the afterword was how the ranger station that was closest to him had changed in 20 years. When he was there in 1978-9, there was no heat or insulation or power. Twenty years later, there was a thermostat and a new bathroom and they regularly rented it out.

Thanks for the thumb Lynda. In the library discussion group, several people compared this book to Into the Wild as well as to Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. I haven't read either of those books but I want to now and I have a copy of Strayed's book.

Indian Creek Chronicles sounds really interesting.

Hi Rhonda! I hope you get a chance to try Indian Creek Chronicles. What made it interesting to me was learning about something I would never do myself.

Hi Pat, you are definitely going to learn a lot about your state and Indian Creek Chronicles is a great start. And your maps are great. I'm going to have to look at that feature.

Great review, Pat!

Hope you have fun with the map feature, Bonnie. I love maps. :)

Thanks, Claudia!

'Nother map lover here!

#182: I am so glad to see you ended up liking the book, Pat!

Very nice review of Indian Creek Chronicles, Pat. I love that part of the world and have only slightly explored it. And I love the maps!

I used to watch CBS Sunday Morning every, well, every Sunday morning. I have fallen out of the habit but I always liked the positive focus and felt like it wasn't smarmy or pollyanna-ish.

I used to always watch CBS Sunday Morning, but I've fallen out of the habit. My favorite news program is the PBS NewsHour; yesterday's program, which was dedicated almost entirely to the inauguration ceremony and commentary by political analysts and Presidential historians, was superb.

I like the NewsHour too, Darryl (and can't help still thinking of it as McNeil-Lehrer!). I also love Gwen Ifill. It's a sad commentary on my life that our Friday night excitement often includes Washington Week. I'm really excited that Ifill will be giving a talk at my daughter's school in April. It's open to family as well as students so you can bet we'll be in attendance.

Wonderful wonderful review of the Fromm.

I remember the very first day Gwen started on the NewsHour! She was sooooo nervous!
(that's how lame my life is).

Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness looks like a fantastic read! The review is wonderful! I could never do that. I could live in a cozy cabin with my nearest neighbor out of line of sight.
I want a shower and a bathroom with heat. And internet.

Maps tell me nothing. They are pretty colored paper.

Sunday Morning, Rachel Maddow... and half an hour of local news is enough for me.

Yeah! Happy Hot Review Day, Pat!! It's nice when excellence is recognized!

Great review of Indian Creek Chronicles, Pat! I do love reading travel/adventure narratives about things that I would never dream of doing. I will be looking for this book!

>198 lauralkeet: Right, Laura. My parents and I would occasionally watch it on PBS during the 1970s, when it was known as The McNeil/Lehrer Report. It's the only television program that I watch on a regular basis, as I'm usually not home during the day when The Charlie Rose Show is on.

Wonderful review of Indian Creek Chronicles Pat. It sounds like the sort of thing I'd like to read about but would never, ever consider doing myself!

Hi Pat, looks like you have really caught our attention with Indian Creek Chronicles! i just checked my library and they have a copy, so onto my library list it goes!

Adding to the chorus of praise for your review of Indian Creek Chronicles, issuing a satisfied OOO over the maps, and leaving in a cloud of *smooches*

Lynda I'm glad to hear you love maps too. I can pore over maps for hours and I even like them when they're no longer accurate. I have a large framed map of the world from the 1990s with sea monsters that I just like the look of even though I know it's out of date.

Hi Stasia. I was a little surprised by how much I ended up liking Indian Creek Chronicles. It got better and better and by the time I read the afterword I was in love with it. Even though there wasn't alot of reflection by the author in the book, it was clear he had learned alot from the experience. It was also nice to find out how he became a writer and that he married, had children and took them back there, and was passing on what he learned to his kids.

Thanks Ellen. Have you been into the wilderness around that area? I've never gotten near that part of the state mainly because there are no paved roads to easily drive into it. I've never been a big hiker or camper and don't see myself changing at this late date. But I am more interested in reading about it than I used to be.

Hi Darryl. The PBS News Hour somehow is not on my radar these days but I need to change that. I'm less and less enthralled with the network nightly news programs.

Laura I also used to watch regularly when it was the McNeil/Lehrer Report, then less so when it was just Jim Lehrer and now hardly ever. And I didn't realize Washington Week was still on. I get more and more of my news online and I'm not sure that's such a great thing.

Thanks Lucy!

Thanks Kath. The longer I live out here, the more I understand why people would choose to live isolated from others. Living close to, or in, NYC for most of my life, I didn't get that at first. It may also be a factor of getting older and getting more in tune with nature. But I haven't gone so far as to want to give up my creature comforts and start camping out with all my husband's relatives. Luckily, my husband feels the same way I do about that.

Thanks for letting me know about the hot review, Lynda. I haven't had one of those in ages.

Thanks Linda. I hope you like Indian Creek Chronicles if you get a chance to try it.

Thank you Heather. One of my next books is an ER win called Above All Things. It's a fictionalized account of George Mallory's quest to climb Everest. I'm looking forward to the book but that's another thing I'd never consider doing.

Hi Judy. Glad your library has Indian Creek Chronicles and hope you end up liking it.

Thanks Richard. Your visits always bring a smile to my face. Smooches to you too.

Hi Pat- Somehow I missed your review of Indian Creek Chronicles. Good job. That sounds like just my cuppa! On the list it goes.

Thanks Mark. Hope you like it when you get to it.

Indian Creek Chronicles sounds intriguing, Pat. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

All caught up here, Pat, and what fascinating discussions you have been hosting! I really enjoyed your review of Indian Creek Chronicles - I would NEVER do that. I just cannot even imagine the scope of what he experienced.

Pat, what a terrific review of Indian Creek Chronicles! I'm going to put it on my wish list, both for me, and for relatives as gifts. Love the maps, too. I think maps are fascinating. We have a series of 6 framed prints of antique maps of Cyprus hanging in our family room.

Hope you are doing well!

Hey Joanne. Hope you like Indian Creek Chronicles if you get a chance to try it.

Hi Mamie. Thanks for the compliments on my review. I was very happy being an armchair traveler for this adventure.

Thanks Anne! I'm happy to be promoting Indian Creek Chronicles since it's one of the less popular books on LT. I'm also glad to know you're another map lover. I need to check the NPR site because I heard a little bit of an interview yesterday about how people don't know how to read maps anymore because they rely on computers and GPS now to tell them where to go and when those aren't working they can get into big trouble.

Hi Pat, I'm just flying through but will add to the positive chorus about your review. And add me to the list of map lovers! When I was a child, my parents had a subscription to National Geographic and I would always take the fold-away maps out and hang them on my bedroom wall. I credit this with getting me my current job where I had to pass a geography "test". Thank goodness I knew what and where the UAE was!

*waving* at Pat

Thanks Katie! My parents had a subscription to National Geographic when I was a kid too and my husband has one now which is a recurring Christmas gift. Besides the maps that come folded in the magazine, we occasionally get special maps sent to us separately as part of the subscription. I spend more time with the maps than I do with the magazine. I love your story of having to pass the geography test to get your job.

Hey Stasia!

Book Notes

3. What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It by Trish Wood--4.5 stars

This is an amazing and important book and I’m surprised more people haven’t read it. Trish Wood interviewed 29 Iraq War veterans who served in the military between 2003 and 2005 and then edited their stories. The interviews are arranged chronologically and show how the war progressed from the huge success of the initial invasion to the chaos of the insurgency.

I listened to a discussion online from CSPAN’s video library from November 3, 2007 of Trish Wood and two of the soldiers who contributed to the book (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/WasAs). Wood said she wanted to write this book because she felt that Iraq War veterans were invisible to most people and struggled with feeling disconnected once they returned to the U.S. The two marines that appear with her had vastly different experiences adjusting to being back home. One, Major Chris Toland, seemed pretty much at ease with how things had gone despite witnessing one of the worst IED attacks on his own squad. The other, a medic named Paul Rodriquez, had numerous problems--traumatic brain injury and PTSD being just two of them. It’s an interesting discussion if you have time to listen to it (it’s about an hour long).

This can be a very tough book to read because almost all the stories concern death or, worse in some ways, traumatic injuries that soldiers survived. Sometimes I had to put the book aside and other times I couldn’t put it down. What was interesting to me was that each interview looks at the details of a soldier’s experience and with maybe one or two exceptions those experiences are very intense. There are no detached, big picture discussions. Many of the stories are heartbreaking but the soldiers respond differently to what happened to them. Most of them want nothing more than for themselves and their buddies to survive the war and get back home. They’re not concerned with the bigger reasons the war is being fought. There are some though who love being in the war not so much for political reasons but because they love the job.

One thing these interviews drive home is how confusing, frustrating and devastating it was to fight an insurgency the soldiers weren’t prepared for and what a scourge IEDs (improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs) and suicide bombers were. The first suicide bombing of US soldiers in Iraq was in March 2003. That and the failure of the coalition forces to provide the Iraqis with basic services after the fall of Baghdad led to a situation where the two sides couldn't trust each other. Trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis under these conditions turned out to be impossible.

Despite this book being a tough read, I would highly recommend it. It gave me a sense of what it was like to be in the Iraq War that I never got from the news. Probably the most valuable thing to me was hearing the variety of points of view on why a soldier would choose to go to war, how those views changed (or didn’t) once they got there, and how some of these soldiers adjusted (or didn’t) once they got home. As an example of the different points of view, here are two of the interview titles (which are quotes from the soldiers telling their stories): “In war, the best of you shines” and “War turns you into what your mother wishes you would never be.”

A big thank you to Jennifer (whitewavedarling) for bringing this book to my attention.

Pat, you are reading some tough things that I doubt that I will ever touch. Thank you for at least putting them out before us. One of the rewards of living into young old age (!) I find is the satisfaction that I don't even have to begin to ask myself whether I'd try living in the wilderness for a winter alone.
I still haven't tried the interactive maps, but I know where to find the advice when I'm ready.
And I do hope that you'll join the merry band who know The Sisters Brothers!

Peggy, I just put The Sisters Brothers on my LT wishlist and on my PBS wishlist. How is it going with Above All Things? I started reading that and like it but of course I have a number of other things going at the same time so haven't made a whole lot of progress yet.

Hi Pat- Good review of What Was Asked of Us. I had not heard of this one. It sounds powerful. It would make a nice companion read with What It Is Like to Go to War, which was also excellent.

Thanks Mark. I bought a copy of What It Is Like to Go to War for my last Thingaversary. I need to get that out and read it. Thanks for the nudge!

I thought it was so impressive that Marlantes released back to back books like that: one fiction and one nonfiction and both excellent. Very curious to see what he does next.

Hi, Pat. Thanks for stopping by to comfort me while I was feeling badly.

Me too, Mark. I found my copy of What It Is Like to Go to War and read the preface and can tell already it's an excellent book. I don't know how I got on this war themed reading jag but at least all the books are excellent, and I think most of them are your recommendations.

Your welcome Roni. Being sick is no fun, especially when it's something more than just a cold.

thumbed your review of Indian Creek Chronicles. Excellent! Added it to my pile too. I way prefer a doer over a "Walden" myself.

Update on the results of the Fat Resistance Diet - down 11 lbs in 3 weeks. :)

Jenn thanks for the thumb. I'm very impressed with your weight loss. I'm going to the library tomorrow and they have The Fat Resistance Diet checked in so I will be picking it up.

Pat, excellent review of What Was Asked of Us and it does seem like a good companion read to What It Is Like to Go to War. I've not read either, but they are both clearly very important works.

I agree, you are reading some tough sounding books... I give you my blessing, and have devoutly sworn that I will not follow suite. I need to keep it light, there is too much in the day to day right now..the news and world around me.. I just don't have it in me these days to take on such books.

I'm impressed by your reading. Impressed too that you were watching C-span books - Oh I do miss a few things about teev, and I haven't tried to figure out how to do it on the computer, which I suspect I could..... anyhow all to say, that I can see how that interview would get you into reading the book, I'll avoid serious books like that unless a 'face' has been put into them, like Terry Gross interviewing or whatever.

Hi Pat, another compelling review. I'm not sure I can read What Was Asked of Us right now, but I will put it on my watch list for sure. Thank you.

Thanks Ellen. I've started What It Is Like to Go to War and so far it's less intense that What Was Asked of Us but also very good. We'll see if I follow through with it. I've got so many other books I'm reading right now.

Kath what you said reminded me of someone I knew years ago who just didn't watch or read the news. She said very little of it directly affected her and she was much happier not knowing. I think I might be able to do that but I don't know if I could give up reading tough books. For some reason, I'm drawn to them.

Hi Lucy. Actually I just found the interview online when I googled the book after reading it. The reason I read it was because of an LT review. It's very easy to watch online--just turn on the sound and click! Although I've been aware of CSPAN's Book Talk show I almost never watch it but now I'm going to look for interviews on the books I've read to supplement my reading. The internet is a wonderful thing!

Thanks Anne. It's definitely a tough book and I'm sure that's why more people haven't read it. Part of the reason I wanted to read it was I just couldn't understand why someone would voluntarily go to war. The book did help with that--mainly, that people are different and have different reasons. Some feel they have no other choice, some are eager to go, and some don't want to go but do want the benefits of having the government pay for their future education.

I've been absent for awhile, Pat so just stopping in tosay hi and wish you a good weekend :0)

Thanks for the good wishes, Lynda. Hope you're having a good weekend too!

Wow just made it over here to read your terrific review of What Was Asked of Us Pat.

Probably the most valuable thing to me was hearing the variety of points of view on why a soldier would choose to go to war

Now that's a question that I've always wondered about. A friend's son decided to join the Marines very late in the war in Afghanistan, maybe four years ago, and when I asked her what made him sign up for it she said that he'd wanted to be in the military since he was a little boy. But, I thought, that couldn't be the reason an adult would sign up, knowing the risks, well after the bodies had started falling. I can't understand why anyone would volunteer. Does the book answer that question?

Adding What Was Asked of Us to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Pat.

Bonnie the book answers that question in a few cases. Not all of the soldiers talk about why they volunteered. Of the ones that did, the reasons were varied. One soldier came from a very poor neighborhood and knew if he stayed at home, he'd get involved in drugs. He didn't have the money to go to college and was looking forward to having the government pay for his education. Several others were like your friend's son. They had always wanted to be part of the military. The one I found the most interesting was a soldier that was liberal in his politics, hated the Bush Adminstration but just liked the work of being a soldier! If you ever watch the CSPAN interview, one of the soldiers, Paul Rodriquez who was a medic in Iraq and dealt with about 700 injured soldiers, seemed to be just holding on now that he was back in the US. He had a traumatic brain injury and PTSD from the War and when he got home, he dealt with it by drinking. That led to a car accident and the death of his passenger and a year in jail for him as well as dealing with numerous injuries from the accident. Despite all that, he said he would still go back.

Hi Stasia. Hope you like the book when you get a chance to try it.

198: can't help still thinking of it as McNeil-Lehrer!
Glad I’m not the only one. And it hasn’t been so for nearly 20 years.

215: I heard a little bit of an interview yesterday about how people don't know how to read maps anymore because they rely on computers and GPS
I’d think in some ways a GPS might improve the situation by showing people how to wend their way through a map.

You have some serious books going on here. Appreciate the lengthy reviews.

Pat- What is fascinating about What It Is Like to Go to War is that it's a real-life version of Matterhorn and it's even grittier.
Have a great Sunday!

Pat - I loved Matterhorn and have thought of following up with What It Is Like to Go To War. Now I am definitely adding What Was Asked of Us, thanks to your great review.

My stepson was in active duty in the Army for four years and came close to being deployed to Afghanistan. He was initially disappointed (I was not!) when his unit was pulled back at the last minute. His perspective on the military changed considerably after his discharge (luckily he was not recalled, as many were during that period) and he became absorbed in his education, graduated from law school at University of Michigan, and is doing wonderfully. The Army was a good experience for him, but not where he belonged as a career. He read Matterhorn on my recommendation and said that despite the different era, Marlantes' portrayal of the mentality of the high commanders resonated with his experiences.

Hi Katherine. The little bit of the interview I heard on maps vs. GPS was in the context of people who set out on hikes into areas where they ended up needing to be rescued because their GPS didn't work (the example given was because batteries had run out). The person being interviewed was a map person and his point was that if they had a map they would have been fine but they're now relying on technology which doesn't always work. I'm happy you like the lengthy reviews. I'm always surprised by how long they get. I had to laugh when I was on your thread and saw your comment that you just intended to write a paragraph. I'd love to be able to do a good review in a paragraph.

Hi Mark. Hmm . . . . "even grittier". I hope I'm ready for that. In case you're interested I found a video of Marlantes talking about What It Is Like to Go to War on CSPAN from a year ago (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/ItIs). It's an hour long and I'll probably wait until I finish the book to watch it but I know you're a big fan so I figured I'd post the link now.

Hi Linda. I hope you get a chance to read What Was Asked of Us. And thanks for the story about your stepson. It sounds like he's doing really well in life and I'm so glad he didn't have to go to Afghanistan.

Great review of What Was Asked of Us, Pat; I've added it to my wish list as well.

Thanks Darryl! Hope you like it.

Pat- Thanks for the Marlantes link. I'll check it out, when I get a few free minutes.

Mark, I'll let you know when I finally watch it. It's a talk he gave about the book at the Savannah Book Festival in February 2012.

All this talk about war books reminds me I still need to read Matterhorn. These types of books are difficult for me to read but I think it's so important to acknowledge the sacrifices being made by these young men and women. Thanks for bringing this book to my attention, Pat.

Hi Donna. I put off reading Matterhorn for over a year because I wasn't sure I could take it but it's truly an excellent book and is one of my favorites of all time. Reading What Was Asked of Us was much harder because it was so intense all the time. But I agree with you about needing to acknowledge what these soldiers go through and that was the author's reason for writing the book.

Just trying to keep up with you :)
It looks like you are starting off the year with books that you enjoy.. always good!

:)

Hi Kath. I purposely didn't join the Anna Karenina group read this month because my reading has been too planned lately. I'm having much more fun feeling like I can read whatever I want!

This is me the last couple of days. I got a nasty cold on Thursday and it's still hanging on. I'm sneezing and coughing too much to go out but at least I'm totally up-to-date on all my starred threads and that usually never happens anymore. So there's always a silver lining!

Pat- I am sorry to hear that you are suffering from a cold. What a bummer! Yes, it's good to see you buzzing around the threads but are you getting any READING in?

Mark I am doing some reading. I'm almost done with Bitterbrush Country which is for a library talk tonight on Idaho books. I have a feeling I won't make the talk because my cough is just too obnoxious. If someone else showed up with this cough, I'd be horrified and wish they had stayed home. The book is really good so that's the main thing.

I haven't gotten back to What It Is Like to Go to War yet but I will. That reminds me. I read a great review in this Sunday's NYT about a new book called The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War. It's about how they changed military tactics to address the situation in Iraq, mostly successfully, but then how they became rigid again and tried exactly the same thing in Afghanistan which didn't work as well. The title of The Insurgents also refers to an insurgency in the political ranks of the military. I'm off to see if my library has it!

ETA: Just put it on hold. I love library books because I don't feel guilty if I don't read them.

Pat - So sorry to hear about your nasty cold - poor baby! And I agree with Kath - it looks like you are off to such a great start this year. I do want to read Matterhorn, but I am not sure when I will get a round to it. I definitely have to be in the right mood for that type of book. You are planning our reading less, and I am planning my reading more - that's one of the things that I love about this place: everybody follows their own hearts and we share each others' journeys bonded together by our love of reading. Hoping that you feel better very soon.

*"I love library books because I don't feel guilty if I don't read them." Me, too!

Yuck, nothing worse than being down with a cold/cough. Hope it clears up very quickly and you can get back into the swing of things. In the meantime, it does give you a great excuse for doing nothing but read!

Mamie when I first joined LT almost 3 years ago I started to plan my reading and then it just kept mushrooming to the point I was never just picking up a book at random anymore and I started to rebel. I assume this is all part of a cycle and I'll eventually start planning more. I actually do love the planning part just not the following through part.

Judy thanks for the good wishes. With all the talk about the norovirus and flu in the news, I actually feel lucky just to have a cold and in some ways I'm happy to have a reason to be a lazy bum.

Fingers crossed here too that we can dodge the flu/norovirus bullet.......feel better soon.
Loved the 'doing nothing' post.

Pat - get well soon. I enjoyed your review of What was Asked of Us and will get around to it one day I am sure. I seem to have quite a lot of books on the Middle East situation all piled up and not presently getting the attention they probably deserve.

Pat - I plan, and then I also read spontaneously - check out my January possibilities post at the top of my thread - I have the original possibilities, which were planned, and then below that I have the Hey Wait a Minute section, and these are the spontaneous reads. You will see that the bottom section is almost always bigger than the top section. This is because I like to plan (I am a born list maker), but I also like to follow the journey that my reading takes me on where one book leads to another.

Thanks Lucy. I saw that ecard when I was searching for some Idaho pictures on google. It's amazing the mismash of stuff that comes up for searches.

Thanks Paul. I have a few books on the Middle East, at least of one of which I started, but so far I haven't gotten any traction with that subject. It's a shame, because it's an area I really could use a better understanding of.

Hi Mamie. I will definitely check out your "Hey Wait a Minute" section! I'm glad to hear it's usually bigger than your planned reads list. I also love to make lists and cross things off although there are some pesky things that never get done. I guess it's not the plans that are the problem but the guilt when things don't get done.

Hope you get over that nasty cold soon. I just read the description of Bitterbrush Country. I'm intrigued by the concept of "gourmay" cooking on a sheep farm.

Morning Pat- It's probably pretty evident that I like to plan my reads but I still do enough spontaneous reading too! My "Must Read Now" shelf is proof of that. I've had titles languishing there for a year or more and there are only 20 or so books.

Hi Pat! catching up here--wonderful discussion and reading going on. Hope you get over your cold soon--they are so annoying.

Mentioned up above--Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. I read Strayed's book last year--very good. I haven't read Krakauer's book, but I absolutely loved the film version.

CBS Sunday Morning--I'm also a fan. I love their giant sunny logo.

Take care and rest up and get some good reading in today.

Sandy K

Thanks Lori! Where did you see that description of Bitterbrush Country? So far I haven't seen any references to "gourmay" cooking but I still have about 50 pages to go. It's a great book and I'll be sorry to finish it. I just wish I could have gone to the library discussion but what can you do. The cold seems better today, the sun is out and it's above freezing so things are looking up.

Hi Mark. Good to know I have company in not getting to books. I think part of my problem is I'm not a very fast reader and overestimate what I can actually get through.

Thanks Sandy. Good to know you also liked Wild. I haven't read Krakauer's book or seen the film but I'm hoping to try the book soon. I agree--one of the things I love about CBS Sunday Morning is all the variations they do on their sunny logo.

>251 phebj: Love it! But he looks so uncomfortable.

Hope your cold gets better in leaps and bounds... nasty colds are... well... nasty! sigh

take care - extra sleep and fluids, relax with your books etc, etc.

Feeling better now I hope....?

Hi Claudia. He does look uncomfortable. Thankfully, I have a comfy recliner to laze around on. I have been taking your advice. I've been sleeping about 11 hours a day, drinking lots of water, and relaxing. Now, of course, my husband has this thing. Our dog is going nuts with the two of us not up for much in the way of activity and our streets still too icy for long walks. But the weather for the next week is supposed to be above freezing each day so hopefully by the time we're both better, we'll be able to safely head out on our morning walks again.

Hi Kath. I am better but still have a bad cough but that seems to be getting better too. Thanks for checking in on me. :)

Oh, I was so far behind on your thread...and I've skimmed much of it. I must add my name to the list of CBS Sunday morning watchers. We like to sleep in on Sundays, and invariably one of us will roll over, look at the clock and say "Time to get UP! We're going to miss Charlie!"

I hope you are coming out on the bright side of that nasty cold. Maybe you should start a new, germ-free thread!

Hi Linda! The cold seems much better today and I will be taking your advice to start a new thread--just as soon as I can think of what picture I want to start off with. It's such a weighty decision sometimes.

I know, February is tomorrow and I am trying to decide what to start off with. Silly, but fun.

The description I read was the one on LT: http://www.librarything.com/work/2050097/descriptions

Hi Pat

I'm thinking of you tonight in admiration for the wonderful soul you are!

I'm in complete agreement with Linda. You're are a wonderful soul. Hope you're feeling better!

Hi Pat - Sorry to hear you've been under the weather and hope you're feeling fit very soon! (Oh, and me three, I agree with Linda and Jenn!) :)

Hi Lucy. I saw your new thread is up so I'll be checking out what picture you choose shortly.

Thanks for the link Lori. I may have missed the reference to "gourmay" food in Bitterbrush Country. I'm almost done with the book and then will see if it turns up when I look back over all the pages I flagged.

Linda, you're such a sweetheart!

And you too, Jenn!

and you three, Joanne!

I love my LT friends. :)

OMG, are you reading Cloud Atlas? Breathlessly, waiting for a response...

Oh, Mark. I hate to tell you but I started Cloud Atlas over a month ago, got bogged down in the middle with the distant future story and the pidgin english, and put it aside. I really want to finish it so I'm still listing it as "currently reading" but, alas, I have no idea when that will be. Can you forgive me?