The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe

author:  Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

What a wonderful way to be introduced to a culture so foreign to our understanding.  Ms. Lemmon did a great job of giving the reader an understanding of what was going on in Afghanistan and how it felt to live in such a time.  I really liked this book.

Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

                     ....  








                     ...







I read this book via audible.com.   The book starts out a bit slow, but much to my surprise I found myself sitting in the garage to hear just a bit more as I listened to the last part of Harold's pilgrimage.

 The day that I decided that I needed to add the book to my blog was the day that Rachel Joyce had the character of Rex (next door neighbor of Harold and Maureen) talk about his missing his wife who has been dead several years  (I am paraphrasing....repeating kind of what I remember his having said):

"It is kind of like a huge hole in the yard.  At first you forget and find yourself falling in.  But then you begin to remember about the hole and you begin walking around it."

I found myself repeating this to a woman who had recently lost her husband and I added:

.....my interpretation is....it is not that the hole goes away.....it is just that you begin to try to live life without falling into the hole. 

It is not easy.   

The reviewer was right who said:  After walking for a while in Harold Fry's very human shoes, you might find that your own fit a bit better. --Mia Lipman

It is funny that while Harold is the main character of the book,  it is a comment of Rex to Maureen in chapter 20 that I find the need to record in this post.  Rex says that when his wife learned that she had a brain tumor he held her hand and comforted her.  He says:  "I should have RAGED"  "I should have let her know how much I would miss her."

I think that when one looses a spouse, there are always things that you wish.  If one loses the spouse suddenly, you might think that you wish you hadn't had the spat the day before or that you had cooked them a nice dinner the night before....or whatever it is that you did or didn't do.  If one loses the spouse to a long illness, there may be many things that you wish you had said.  For me, I know that my husband knew how much I fought his disease.  But I DO wish that I had told him how much I was going to miss him.  However, you can not know how much you are going to miss them before you begin to miss them.  It gives me solace to know that Rex wishes that he had RAGED.

I want to add the part that comes just after the man tells us that Jesus came on Earth to shop.....It is BEFORE Maureen and Rex drive to see Harold.  Wish I had done that at the time....looking back, I just don't remember what it was that I wanted to add.  Perhaps someone who reads this book will remind me.

City of Women

I liked this book a lot!  Sigrid is very real.  A huge theme in the book for me is the fact that Sigrid makes choices that can not be undone.  Her choices are caused by the extraordinary time and place in which she lives.  I would recommend this book to anyone.  I read this book on audio.com and could hardly wait to get in the car in the morning to go get my coffee and listen to what might happen next.

The Devil's Dream

As I prepared to leave for Florida in late March 2012, I decided that it would be a good thing to have an audio book or two to listen to on my drive.  My son and my son-in-law are fans of audible.com, so I joined and downloaded several choices.  Most of what I read at home are non-fiction or information on the internet.  I decided to choose more frivolous titles for my entertainment while I drive.  Well.....I am hooked!  It is so much fun to be reading fiction again after many years of having been away from that genre.

The book that I just finished is The Devil's Dream by Lee Smith.  I really liked the book.  I really like Lee Smith.  It is about Country Music and Appalachia Mountain People and lives in the mountains in the mid to late 1800's and early 1900's.  All of those things are things that I am particularly interested in.  I found myself wanting to listen to the tunes that were named via iTunes as part of the experience.  However, the thought that I want to capture for this blog is from page 5 of the paperback edition:

Dissolution

I read this book via audio.com.  Read the below post for thoughts about this book.

Fall of Giants

I read this novel via audio.com.  It was a very good choice for my long trip down and back to JAX in September 2012.  This was not my favorite book.  However, it was exactly as the description says above .....a wonderful way to look very closely at the events happening just before and during and just after WWI.  The longer I get away from the actual reading, the more I like knowing the things that I learned while reading the book.

Probably the most interesting idea that I would record is the fact that I began reading Dissolution by C.J. Sansom immediately on the ending of Fall of Giants.  Both books have as a theme the very sad idea that the beginning of reform is idealistic and seems obtainable.  In Fall of Giants it is the Russian Revolution.  In Dissolution it is the beginnings of Protestantism.  But human beings seem to not have the capability to reach the ideals to which they aspire.  The leaders fall into the temptations of wanting to live well...to rule....to use any means to reach the ends to which they aspire.

In Fall of Giants the reader sees the idealism of the reformers in the Russian Revolution and the great need for reform as the serfs live terrible lives in Russia in the first decade of the 1900's.  Grigori Peshkov has been involved in many ways in the Revolution.  He believes in the goals of the Revolution!  However, after the Revolution his family reaps the benefits of his involvement by living inside the Kremlin and enjoying comforts not available to ordinary families in post Russian Revolution Russia.  This fact is not lost on Grigori.  He is conscious of the fact that idealism has been set aside ....but he is unable to give up the advantages that his family enjoys.  We would all want our spouse and children to have the best that we could provide.  It is so simple when one sees it on an individual basis as Ken Follett unfolds the end of the story.

In Dissolution C.J. Sansom the story revolves around the investigation by a hunchback lawyer during the Reformation into a murder in a monastery.  As his investigation unfolds he is made aware of the fact that many of the actions of the reformers are horrific but sanctioned because they are for the ultimate good.  Thus Cromwell and his followers outdo the evil of the establishment in their zeal to create a new order.

It is serendipity that I read these two books back to back.  I will write more when I finish Dissolution