Recent Reads

There is nothing better than curling up by the fire with a good book in my hands and a blanket on my lap. In the summer I suppose I would lose the blanket and fire and sit under a tree with some shade or let's face it probably just on my couch with the ac on full blast. But whichever season it is there really is nothing better than a good book. My recent reads have been Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen SImpson and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is set in Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, and thatched cottages. Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major Pettigrew is one of the most indelible characters in contemporary fiction, and from the very first page of this remarkable novel he will steal your heart.

The Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But then his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?



My Review: I thought this book was such a sweet story and the whole time I kept thinking how I wanted to be related to the Major! He is a respectful and honorable man. Not only do I now want to live in a little village in England and learn to like tea, but I am also going to make my brother read this book. He is a great example and someone I feel boys should emulate.

AND

Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-simething-year-old mind. Memories of himself as young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.

Jacob was there because his luck had run out-orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the start of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act-in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.



My Review: I thought water for Elephants was a great story but a little depressing. Depressing in the sense of the time period was around the Great Depression and they were a bunch of hobos living on a circus drinking all the time. But I did love the end!

And so on,
Elizabeth