Summertime Reading

Over a week ago I got one of those Oprah-emails that promotes her recent reading list and found within a quiz that promised to recommend a book suited to your tastes. Do not remember just what the questions were but the book recommended for me was "What Alice Forgot," by Australian writer Liane Moriaty  (b. 1966). Perhaps a story about an amnesia case and my own forgetfulness is telling but nonetheless the book was totally engrossing. Imagine falling and hitting your head so hard that when you come to you have no idea where you are or who you are?  And that ten years of your life have vanished.

From the same list I also downloaded to Kindle "The Borrower" a story about a boy and a librarian. Have not gotten to it yet because DH suggested the book he was finishing "Dixie Divas."  Well this one is a hoot that has me laughing out loud even on the cycle at the gym. In Holly Springs Mississippi a Senator is found murdered, an old hound dog is beaten to death and the town recluse is missing - how could those facts be connected in a most readable novel? I'm 50 % of the way through the book and have no idea but cannot wait to find out what quaint Mississippi custom will pop up next.  Oh yes, the list of suspects grows longer with every chapter.  Will get back to "The Borrower" after this one.

And while you are humming "Dixieland" who knows where the term "Dixie" originated? See:
www.straightdope.com/columns/read/751/where-did-the-name-dixie-come-from
Dixie is usually thought to include the states of the Confederacy, but where the term comes from nobody knows for sure. Here are the three leading theories:

(1) Before the Civil War, the Citizens Bank of Louisiana, located in New Orleans, issued ten-dollar notes that bore the Creole/French word dix, ten, on one side. These notes were known as "dixies" and the south came to be known as the "land of dixies."
(2) The term comes from the Dixon in "Mason-Dixon line," the famous pre-Revolutionary War surveyors' line that separated Maryland and Pennsylvania.
(3) It comes from "Dixy's land," Dixy supposedly being a kindly slave owner on Manhattan island, of all places. Dixy's regime was supposedly so enlightened that for slaves his plantation came to symbolize earthly paradise. Sounds ridiculous, but the story was widely told in the years just after the Civil War.

Somehow I had thus far failed to discover Sue Monk Kidd (b. 1948), and her feminine/spiritualist/soul-seeking messages as in the "Secret Life of Bees."  So pulling Traveling with Pomegranates off the library shelf, I thought this was just another read-along while driving book that keeps me from wandering while I drive. Somehow listening to jazz on the radio just does not do it anymore.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Alternating journal entries and read by the mother-daughter authors, their words and voices came to me oozing with and and seeking deeper meaning - much like the honey that Sue writes about. This book was written over 2.5 years, well after Sue's success with novels and just as Ann is embarking on a writing career of her own. They travel to Greece, France and again to Greece seeking the temples of goddesses (many discussed at length) and the power of the feminine-divine over the centuries.
And the enjoyment of that book led me to "The Mermaid's Chair" also by SM Kidd. Check out www.suemonkkidd.com/. I want to get to Secret Life of Bees before long.

Meantime the influence of Traveling with Pomegranates got me to yearning for Greek Salad, Greek Retsina, Greet yogurt, Calamari and anything Greek. So I checked the library for books-on-disc about Greece and found Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Why Greeks Matter.  FROM amazon.com find:

Cahill (b. 1940), as set himself a daunting task in Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, in which he seeks to make the ancient Greeks accessible to a modern audience. Yet he succeeds. The author examines ancient Greek civilization through a number of specific roles that underpinned that society, such as the warrior, the politician, and the philosopher.
He delves into their development and shows how they exemplified and perpetuated the different aspects of behavior and thought that defined their times. The use of specific types with whom readers can relate makes for an effective means of bridging the gap between their civilization and ours. With this common ground established, Cahill can show exactly how ancient Greece has influenced western civilization today, such as in the approach to the military and in the creation of the system by which we organize our knowledge and methods of learning.
Scholars of the subject might quibble with certain of the author's pronouncements, and he seems to have an overly dismissive attitude toward the civilization of ancient Rome. Yet there can be no gainsaying the fact that Cahill has succeeded in his goal; by the end of the book, readers can thoroughly understand why the ancient Greeks matter to us today.--Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

The book-on-disc is read by Olympia Dukakis (b. 1931), the actress. Long ago (practically ancient history), I studied Ancient Civilizations (Egypt, Greece & Rome) in undergraduate school and am loving this general refresher course in Greek Mythology and history. Plus the scandelous Cahill I learned has authored/edited an historical series "The Hinges of History," that may call for closer examination.

I need a mid-afternoon pick-me-up - perhaps a Weight Watcher Coffee Latte Iced Bar - 100 calories and worth every one. bb