The Rapture of Canaan

by Sheri Reynolds

     I was skeptical about reading this book because I thought it would have a strong religious bent, but found that once I started it, I simply couldn't put it down. It is about religion, but not the way I had guessed. It reminded me a lot of Witch Child- by the tone, and how it's about a young girl who doesn't quite fit into a secluded community.

Ninah belongs to the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind- invented by her grandfather who gathered his family members, their spouses, offspring and cousins as his followers. There's about eighty people in the congregation and they live together on a communal farm. (They raise tobacco as a cash crop and the leader divides the profits among the members, but seems to keep most for himself). In this group, strict obedience is required, it seems like any kind of pleasure is forbidden, and harsh punishments are meted out. Infractions such as talking back to elders, drinking alcohol, or women cutting their hair are met with punishments like wearing barbed wire under your shirt, sleeping on nettles and thorns in the bed, having to lie in a freshly-dug open grave all night, or being locked in the cellar for weeks. The followers are taught that they must be pious, constantly pray and wait for the rapture when the righteous will be lifted up to heaven. They speak in tongues during some wild-sounding church meetings, really unlike anything I've read about before. It was something to see- how the author wrote this character made me finally comprehend (a little bit) how a person could get caught up in that kind of belief system.

Ninah isn't sure she believes, though. She's afraid of the punishments and wants to feel close to God but also questions some things and finds herself growing attracted to James, her prayer partner. She's allowed to have private prayer sessions with James because the older folks see them as making a good match someday, and counsel the young people to seek out their hearts in prayer together. This goes in another direction, when Ninah and James convince themselves that their growing feelings for each other are a manifestation of God's love, so thus it can't be a sin when they express those feelings. Ninah ends up pregnant. The community does not react positively, to say the least. What follows is not at all what I expected, and I was gripped to the last page to find out what would happen to Ninah and the baby. Some parts of this story made me scratch my head, or roll my eyes- it's really weird in a few parts- and I wasn't too taken by the weaving metaphor- but the voice is lively, and the story compelling, of this young girl trying to find her way and lift her voice above all the strictures she lives with. (Especially as she sees how other kids are different, because she attends public school). The ending felt rather abrupt, but not enough to make me actively dislike the book. I would have liked to know more about how things worked out, but at least the community was starting to turn in a different direction by then.

Rating: 3/5                        320 pages, 1995

The Way of Shadows

Night Angel Trilogy 

by Brent Weeks

     I feel I ought to apologize to my youngest- that I didn't care for this book. It was a gift from her to me (a year or two ago, so she was eight or nine). She picked it out for me "because it looked exciting!" she said. I am sure it is- but it's just not my kind of read. I gave it a good try- got to page 106 and then argh, sorry, I just couldn't continue. I failed to care enough about any of the characters and the complexity of this made-up world and its politics just lost me. Similar to Jhreg I suppose, it's about an assassin. Young man who lives rough and half-starving on the streets, wants something better but mostly just wants to not be afraid anymore so convinces the most skilled and deadly assassin in the city to take him on as apprentice. He has to learn to blend in with people of much higher status, to learn stealth and swordplay and the arts of poisoning and there's also magic. I didn't get to the magic. Alternating chapters tell the story from other viewpoints- including of some leading factions and rulers in this city or neighboring realms- I didn't really keep track of what was going on with all the different ruling parties, varying cultures of the many countries and how they related to each other, even though the author dropped plenty of details and hints at such. Did kind of like the main character, at least his perspective starting out what somewhat sympathetic. I just couldn't focus on it.

 Abandoned                     677 pages, 2008

Indian Paint

by Glenn Balch

adapted by Ardis E. Burton

     Story of a native american boy, son of the chief, who gets to choose his own horse out of the herd. His father is displeased when the boy picks an unborn horse- he wants the black mare's foal, because he saw her running with a wild horse band earlier and figures the stallion sired her colt. His father advises hin against this, saying the colt will be wild and difficult to train. The boy stands by his choice, although people keep pointing out how long he will have to wait for his horse to be old enough to ride (suggesting he should change his mind and choose a grown horse right now). I kind of liked that he didn't go for the immediate, obvious reward but was willing to wait for something he thought would be better. Anyhow, the tribe travels to hunt bison and after the busy work with the meat and hides (he still has to help the women, not being allowed to hunt yet), the boy goes to check on his recently-born colt in the herd. The black mare and his colt are missing. He gets adults to help him read tracks and find out what happened. A fur-trapper had stolen the mare to carry his load to a trader's rendezvous. They find the trapper and the mare, but the colt is missing. It had been unable to keep up and the trapper just left it behind. By the time the boy finds his colt, it is weak and can barely stand. He stays behind while his adult companions go back to the tribe. Alone he nurses the colt back to health. 

I'm assuming the story is going to wind up with this colt being devoted to the boy who saved his life (like Flicka), proving himself a brave steed, and going on adventures with the boy. I browsed through some of the pictures but couldn't finish reading the book. It has the sense of a good story, but didn't feel like I was reading Glenn Balch. Turning back to the copyright page I realized why. The edition I have is part of the Everyreaders collection "selected from the great literature of the world" which are adapted for "the successful teaching of remedial reading" with "carefully controlled vocabulary and sentence structure [enabling] pupils to read the stories easily . . . " Well. Yeah, I could tell the prose had been greatly simplified and it felt like a lot of detail and nuance was missing. It was dry and dull. I'm disappointed I didn't pay better attention when I snatched up these Glenn Balch books a while back- I have two more unread and I already know one is also a shortened version of the original. I doubt I'll even try it now.

Abandoned                 138 pages, 1962

The Mockery Bird

by Gerald Durrell 

This is the first Durrell book that has disappointed me. It's about a fictional bird on a fictional island. The tropical island is just starting to work out its independence from British colonialism, it has a native king and two local tribes that are at odds with each other. The British have plans to build a military base which requires a dam to be built to provide electricity, part of the reef to be destroyed to open up the harbor access, and more changes. Some see this as progress, others as environmentally destructive. Then (I didn't get this far, but I read enough synopses to know what was coming) an endemic bird that was presumed extinct, is discovered alive and well in the forest. Planned construction projects will threaten the bird. There was already friction over the airstrip and dam project, but because of the bird tensions quickly escalate.

Unfortunately, I couldn't read this. I struggled thought the first three chapters and then started skimming. I really did not like any of the characters, and the only one who was tolerable (a visiting young man who's supposed to assist the king's political advisor) was also rather uninteresting. The rest were highly eccentric, to the point of being annoying or ludicrous. Presumably these are based on people Durrell met in real life, but I wonder how much he exaggerated their quirks. The made-up pidgin language used as communication between the natives and the Europeans felt cringeworthy, as did the native slurs casually tossed around, in particular wog was used so frequently I got tired of it. (I did see a similarity between the vociferous insults constantly spouted by the king's assistant to all his underlings, and the way Gerald addressed Lucy in Castaway- but although the king's assistant used very creative language in his insults, and G mostly just swear words, that's nothing to recommend this).

Not to mention, something about the prose (or lack of it) was a bit tedious. I found myself impatient wading through tiresome dialog hoping to get to something happening, and then bored. Sigh. Moving on.

Abandoned                      224 pages, 1981

Dragon Outcast

Age of Fire Book Three
by E.E. Knight

Eh again. I thought I'd give this a try because it was the one that initially caught my interest in the series. It's about the third dragon, maimed by his siblings at birth and shoved out of the nest. In the first two books he's portrayed as a traitor, but this one shows from his perspective, how the dwarves tricked him and he crawled away in bitterness at what he'd done. Travelled for ages underground and fell in with a lot of bats that wheedled him into letting them suck his blood, in return for which they guided him to a hidden stronghold of dragons. So the part with the bats was engaging. The mishaps and scrapes along the way, dismissive. The encounter with dragon society, so dull. I just did not want to read a lot of what came across as court intrigue and power struggles- at some point, in spite of the constant fighting and mention of draconic characteristics- greedily snarfing down meat, snapping their tails around, caring for the health of their scales- it felt like I was reading about people, not dragons. As before, I liked well enough the first part, when the dragon was travelling companion with another animal species. Almost halfway through the book, when he joined the other dragons, I lost interest. I did skim enough to see where this was going- in spite of his outcast status and multiple physical shortcomings, the copper dragon overcomes the judgement of the other dragons to obtain a position of power among them and- presumably- lead them against their enemy mankind. But the execution was just so poor I never got there. Bummer.

Abandoned                  379 pages, 2007

A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

I tried very hard to like this book, because it was highly recommended to me by two family members, but I just can't get into it. I did read as far as the first passage my dad or sister marked (p. 96) and flipped through to read the other marked passages. It's full of elegant language, insightful and clever remarks, unflappable characters who meet awkward circumstances with dignity. It's about a gentleman who is placed under house arrest by the Bolsheviks in 1922. His crime -as far as I could tell- is writing some revolutionary poetry so he is spared being shot and instead condemned to live in a grand fancy hotel. For some thirty years. So he watches a lot of history pass by, gets to know the various hotel staff intimately, and some of the other guests, including a nine-year-old who first shows him the rooms in the basement and where to sneak to spy on meetings in the old ballroom. The story wanders all over the place, in past reminiscences and current musings to stories told and heard by others. All very rich and fine and sometimes amusing or insightful, but somehow boring too. I'm sorry to say I was relieved to give up on it. Could just be wrong timing for the reader. It's popular enough I'll always be able to find a library copy if I want to give it another try someday.

Borrowed from a family member.

Abandoned                             462 pages, 2016

more opinions:
Attack of the Books!
who else has read it?

Green Hills of Africa

by Ernest Hemingway

I could not like this one. I tried really hard- read a third of it. It's about a safari trip Hemingway made to East Africa with his wife (referred to in the book only as P.O.M. - Poor Old Mama- took me a while to figure that out) and a few friends, to hunt big game. Their goal was to get as many large animals as their license permitted during the allotted timeframe- rhino, lions, kudu, giraffe, zebra for their hides, etc. Hemingway was obsessed with getting a larger rhino than his companion, a kudu with bigger horns, etc. He took pride in making a good, clean shot- and while I can admire the skill- I found the attitudes overall very distasteful. Even though he describes in one passage having suffered a terrible war wound in the past, so he knows what it feels like to have been shot- and thus is determined to always make a clean kill so the animals don't suffer long. Yet he describes in detail how one of his companions always laughed hilariously at the sudden contortions animals made when hit hard from a far distance- stunned, in shock and agony, flipping head over heels or spinning in circles- I didn't find that funny at all. I've read other hunting accounts that were interesting and showed enough respect for the animals, enjoyment of the challenge that I was okay with it. Yes, these were different times and attitudes but still. It was too crass for me. The descriptive writing of the landscape, environment and native peoples did not make up for that. The cursory manner Hemingway used to refer to his companions- barely describing them at all so I rarely knew who was who- and half the time had no idea what their conversations were about- didn't redeem it for me either. I did like reading his opinions on other writers- in the evening, after stalking and shooting at animals all day, Hemingway and his companions would sit around the camp getting drunk, reading books and discussing literature. Really full of their own opinions. Some great thoughts in there and pointed observations, but if I wanted to read literary criticism I'd much rather have a book about just that, without all the amusement on the part of animals dying with their hides blasted open so he and his friends could get all the trophies they'd paid for. I'm feeling sore about this, as you can tell. Don't care for Hemingway now.

Abandoned                  207 pages, 1935

The Time in Between

by María Dueñas
translated by Daniel Hahn

I saw this at Indextrious Reader, and wondered immediately if my nearly-fifteen-year-old would like it. It has a lot of elements my teenager enjoys in books: romance, a bit of drama, intrigue and spying. This is a war story, set during the Spanish Civil War. The main character, a young seamstress-in-training named Sira, flees the turbulence in Madrid and goes to Morocco with her fianceé. Where she gets unexpectedly stranded, betrayed and burdened with a heavy debt due to someone else's reckless behavior. She turns to her sewing skills to get herself out of the mess, and it evolves into something else, leading to connections that get her involved in espionage.

I didn't quite get that far. I read about a third of it and then began skimming, loosing interest and not willing to push through six hundred-plus pages. It's a good story, with a strong female character who remakes her life several times over, but I just didn't find anything I could quite connect to. The political events all felt like flat background material and Sira's personality never really felt alive to me. I suppose it could be the fact that the text is translated, or it could be that it's just not my usual type of read, so I didn't find it exciting. I did, however, get enough of a feel for it to surmise there's nothing I'd object to my teenager reading! although I don't quite know if the author's style will be appreciated more than I could.

Borrowed from the public library.

Abandoned                   615 pages, 2009

more opinions:
Fantasy Book Club
Ardent Reader
anyone else?

A Passage to India

by E.M. Forster

Just a quick note on this one. I tried to read it on a very long drive. Sixty pages in, after picking it up and putting it down repeatedly, I had to give up with a sigh. If this is Forster's best work, it makes me wonder if I should cross Room with a View and Howard's End off my want-to-read list. It's about a bunch of people in India nearing the end of colonialism, snobs of the British ruling class trying to mix socially with native Indian people (who are well-educated themselves) but nobody understands each other and it all goes wrong. At least, I gathered that much from the back cover text and glancing at a few reviews online. I just could not picture anything in my mind, or figure out what was going on, or keep the characters straight, while reading this. So I ended up disinterested and bored. Of course, it could just have been my mood and the surrounding circumstances (long hours in the car with a restless eight-year-old in the back seat) so I am re-shelving this one to try again at a later date. Do tell me if it's worth the effort of another attempt.

Abandoned              335 pages, 1924

Earning My Spots

by Mark Eastburn

Wanted to like this one, but I just couldn't get into it, probably because it's juvenile fiction and the writing just a bit too simplistic for my taste. Things were glossed over that I really wished had better treatment. Such as, when the main character's family is apparently kidnapped, his reaction is so flat. Well, he does go off on a quest to find them again, but I would have expected more shock or anger or something. Maybe- because he's not quite human? His family are were-hyenas, shape-shifters. I haven't read a lot of books with this concept, aside from Animorphs really. I was into it at first- the hyena boy faces off against a group of bullying werewolf kids at the school- his is the only family of were-hyenas in town so he gets picked on and misunderstood. Then his parents disappear during a sudden confrontation with harpies - that really threw me- and he goes off with a new acquaintance- a were-jaguar kid- and some others to find them again. Eventually- I gathered this from synopsis read elsewhere- he encounters a population of were-hyenas in another part of the country, learns more about his heritage, finds out that his quest is much bigger than just saving his family. A lot to like- but for some reason I lost interest when the harpies showed up. I don't know why I can suspend belief to read about people who change into wolves, hyenas, jaguars, coyotes, etc. but the inclusion of harpies makes me roll my eyes. Maybe because it's a different kind of genre? harpies seem like they belong in a fantasy story with magic, while shape-shifters fit into urban fantasy type? it's all fiction so I don't know why it matters to my brain. Oh well.

I had this one on my e-reader.

Abandoned                 288 pages, 2016

more opinions: Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

No Way Home

the Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations
by David S. Wilcove

I didn't finish this one. I read fifty pages. No fault of the book- I'm just very busy with starting the garden, dealing with things in my aquariums, the kids' school activities and so on. Reading has to fit into the margins right now, and this one just didn't have me eagerly turning pages every few minutes I could sit idle here and there. I'm returning it and hope to pick it up again at a later date.

It's about how animal migrations have been disrupted by human activity and habitat loss. Each chapter looks at a specific type of wildlife- the one I read was on birds (songbirds in particular) and it was very detailed, but I found the writing a bit dry so it was hard for me to stick with it. Later chapters - I gathered by skimming- are about monarch butterflies, wildebeest and other herbivores in Africa, bison and pronghorn in the American West, whales and sea turtles, salmon and other fish that travel up freshwater streams to spawn. Most cases are about how animals need to travel to follow food sources, or reach places where they can safely raise their young, how scientists have tracked them and learned about all this. The data about how travel routes have been disrupted and thus animal populations fallen, are kind of staggering if you haven't read about it before. There's some suggestions for how we can reverse the damage and support the animals' needs, but overall it sounded kind of glum. But then, I didn't read the whole thing so can't say.

I hope to revisit this one soon.
Borrowed from the public library.

Abandoned               245 pages, 2008

Unicorn Mountain

by Michael Bishop

I have a feeling I may have tried this book once before, so long ago I remembered very little except the general premise. It's set on a Colorado ranch, where several disparate characters end up together- Libby who runs cattle on the land, her Ute ranch hand, her ex's cousin who comes to stay. He's dying of AIDS- this was written in the eighties- and some of the ways in which people talked around him, admittedly made me uncomfortable.  I gather from reading more opinions on Goodreads, that at its publication date, this book was way ahead of its time depicting gay men and issues they had to deal with- so it ought to be read in a historical context. But that isn't what bothered me. Nor the outright lack of unicorns- although I know they come more into the book later in the story- up to where I read they were mainly background material, a group up in the hills, their presence kept secret by the landowner and her very few friends. The unicorns appear to be unhealthy, and somehow they weave into the story with the other characters trying to put their lives back together, or keep things going as best they can. I didn't get far enough to find out though, because something put me off. It was when ghosts came into the narrative. I just don't do ghost stories.

Abandoned                    406 pages, 1988

More opinions: Speculiction      anyone else?

Sheep

by Valerie Hobbs

Young border collie leaves his farm when sudden hard times hit the farmer and his wife. Spends the rest of the book looking for a good home, in particular one where he can herd sheep again, knowing that is his life's purpose. Has a short stint in a pet shop, then with a spoiled child who treats him like a toy. He runs off, meets up with some tramps and later an odd character that travels with a bunch of goats pulling a caravan. Gets caught on the street and put in the pound, where a new owner finds him- a cruel circus man who makes him learn tricks by beating him. All the circus animals are miserable; the border collie finally strikes out in a confusing scene involving an elephant, but a female dog he's become enamored of in the circus refuses to leave with him. Wandering again, he finally takes up with a lonely boy in an orphanage.

I might have liked this book. The dog knew a bit too much to be a credible animal character, while being woefully ignorant of other things that affected him closely. I could have overlooked that, though. The strange part was how closely certain stages of this book echoed other stories I know- which really got annoying to be honest. The tramps were very much like Lennie and George in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. The orphanage scenes reminded me strongly of They Cage the Animals at Night. The Goat Man and the circus made me think of other books too- Hurry Home Candy is one. The character of the dog was nice (he went through a whole slew of names as he met different people) but I started rolling my eyes at easily recognized tropes and skimming through the chapters.

I read this one sitting in a thrift store, waiting for my teenager to look at clothes. I nearly finished the book- enough to know I didn't really want to bring it home.

Abandoned                 144 pages, 2009

More opinions: ExUrbanis anyone else?

Chaser

Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words
by John W. Pilley with Hilary Hinzmann

Famous border collie Chaser knows the names- proper nouns- assigned to 1,022 toys and a lot of directive verbs and commands as well. Her owner was a college professor who taught behavioral psychology and brought his dogs into the classroom (border collie mixes and a few other dogs he had before Chaser's time) so his students could apply methods they had learned to teach the dogs new behaviors (an annoying one was teaching his dog Grindle to answer telephones- which then got left off the hook for hours before someone noticed!) After he retired, the author deliberately set out to discover how much language he could teach to a border collie- from the start he was intent on shaping Chaser's learning and response to spoken language, especially her ability to recall names of objects. It's pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick with this book. I found the writing style uninteresting, the daily life details and conversations only distracted me, and many of the explanations became repetitive. I started skimming a lot before getting halfway through and decided to just move on. Something about it failed to hold my attention.

Borrowed from the public library.

Abandoned            260 pages, 2013

more opinions:
Across the Page
who else?

Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

Ahh, I really wanted to like this one. I am not quite sure why it didn't hold my interest. It's got a unique premise- a world where dragons and human exist in an uneasy truce- and one young woman is hiding a dangerous secret: she is half-dragon. The dragons can take human form (although their very alien attitude usually makes them easy to discern) and in this manner Seraphina's father married a dragon- without knowing it. Seraphina works at the palace as an assistant to the music instructor- music is her reason for being. But she becomes involved in court intrigue, which makes it harder and harder to keep her secret. And she suffers from debilitating headaches and strange visions- honestly, this aspect of the story- her "garden of the mind"- made me think so much of the two books I read recently about teens with schizophrenia! It was interesting when I finally figured out who the various people are she sees in her dream garden- curious to see where this thread would lead- but unfortunately I found the reading a slog. Something about the style, or the characterization, or the world-building just fell flat for me. Darn. Moving on.

Abandoned                 512 pages, 2012

more opinions:
Teen Reads
Dear Author
anyone else? I know a lot of you out there have loved it!

Thirteen Moons

by Charles Frazier

I eagerly anticipated reading this book, based on my enjoyment of Cold Mountain. Unfortunately, Thirteen Moons couldn't hold my interest. It's a historical novel surrounding the time when Cherokees were forced off their land by the American government. The main character is a twelve-year-old orphaned boy Will, who is sent by his aunt and uncle to work off years of bond in a trading post on the edge of the Cherokee Nation. He has a fine horse, and loves reading, but not much else in the way of prospects. He soon meets a Cherokee man who basically adopts him into the tribe, and gradually he gets introduced to the culture. For me the most vivid, memorable scene was when he attended a tribal dance where the native americans impersonated the various foreigners who had invaded their land. One of the author's aims seemed to be showing how varied the abilities and stations were among Cherokees- Will spends winters among the Cherokee in an earth-and-wattle hut surrounded by dim smoky light and storytelling, but later in the story he visits a fine plantation run by a wealthy Cherokee man who has slaves and a beautiful young girl (and he falls in love). He muddles around trying to find his place in life, eventually settling on pursing law (because he has law books) and trying to fight for the Cherokee to stay on their land. His visits to Washington are eye-opening: the portrayal of the capital as a small, muddy town full of pretentious and self-absorbed folk, quite a different picture of our early government than I ever had in mind. His efforts fail, the girl leaves him (several times) and he starts to watch the forced removal of his adopted people from their homeland. I struggled to get through the chapters where he started pursuing law, my attention to the story lagging, and hoped it would pick up again with this depiction of dissolution and despair. But I couldn't bring myself to keep reading- two thirds done, and I had no more attachment to the characters than at the very beginning. It's a slow book and I failed to stick it through.

Abandoned              422 pages, 2006

The Education of a Gardener

by Russell Page

This volume is about the career of a landscape architect. I am not familiar with the author, but apparently he is renowned in gardening circles. He spent his entire life designing outdoor spaces for the wealthy after creating his first garden at age 18. I read the initial chapter where he tells about how he first became interested in plants and gleaned knowledge from all his neighbors who gardened, and then struggled to stay with the book. It's very strongly focused on design, on balance and form and how the eye is led through a landscape. Stuff on a grand scale. While the principles are something I'd probably benefit from understanding better, personally I found the reading rather dry. And over half the plants were unfamiliar to me. All the photographs are in black and white, which I suppose is okay because you see the form and composition of things, instead of being wowed by beauty and color- but it felt rather flat and dull. I skipped around trying to find something a bit more engaging, but even when he was describing design problems and how plants or sketches solved them, it failed to keep my interest. The last chapter, where he imagines a garden he would build for himself, was more intriguing, however only for the first few pages.

I'd like to like this book, but I don't. Why is it that whenever I don't care for a classic, I feel disappointed in myself? Urg. It's quite dense, and not just with the words- it's also surprisingly heavy for the size of a standard hardback book- so I became physically weary of handling it. Nothing against the author for that, but it did make it harder to try and appreciate a book I just didn't want to be holding for long.

Abandoned          382 pages, 1962

Killing Keiko

by Mark A. Simmons

When I saw this book on the library shelf, I recalled reading Death at SeaWorld and was curious about another perspective on similar subject: orcas in captivity. This book is about one particular orca that starred in the film Free Willy. Following the film's popularity, people wanted Keiko- the real whale- to be set free in the ocean- he was living in a theme park in Mexico. The attempt was made- with huge donations of money from both the public and private organizations. The whale was moved from Mexico to an aquarium in North America for a rehabilitation period, and then to an oceanic pen on the coast of Iceland where the release was planned. He was led into the open ocean and guided back to the pen many times- but in the end did not make it. Reports say he was weakened by long-term illness and deteriorating skin conditions caused by his decade in captivity. It certainly sounds like the effort of restoring his health and releasing him into the wild again was a complicated, daunting task- some say with little hope of success.

I couldn't read the book, though. I went into it not knowing who the author was, his agenda or background. I was baffled on the opening page, when the author claimed that orcas in captivity behave no differently than those in the wild. I was taken aback by his disparaging attitude towards others around him- both colleagues and renowned scientists. The writing felt awkward and often sounded peevish. It jumps around a lot but usually zeroed in on why the author felt slighted or how his opinion trumped everyone else's- which really bored me. The book itself- as a physical object- felt like a self-published volume- cramped margins, slightly-over-large text, thinly glued binding. I assume my guess was right when I looked up the publisher and found this one book to their name. Just couldn't read any more after that.

Abandoned          398 pages, 2008

An Arrangement of Skin

by Anna Journey

I had a few unfinished reads this past week. I think my mood was off. An Arrangement of Skin- borrowed from the library- is a collection of essays on various subjects. The one I liked - "Birds 101"- was about the author's enrollment in a weekend class on basic taxidermy: how she cleaned, stuffed and posed a starling. Curious the reasons other students in the class wanted to attempt taxidermy. Made me interested in reading another book on my list, also about taxidermy. Other stories, I just couldn't click with. There's one about her mother's penchant for telling macabre stories at the dinner table. Another about her experience getting some chicken pox scars treated. I thought I would like the story that included her musings on horseback riding, but I was starting to loose touch with the author's voice. I didn't make it to the story about a tattoo artist.

The other two I abandoned this week were also library loans. In the Hall of Small Mammals by Tomas Pierce looked interesting- but I only read the first two short stories. I wanted to like the one about a dwarf woolly mammoth brought to life for a tv show stunt. When it turns out they accidentally cloned two mammoths and weren't supposed to keep the second one alive, it was hidden in the narrator's mother's house. She doesn't want it there, is rather indifferent to its presence. So what could have been interesting- well, the mammoth was just in the background. Unfortunately, the writing style didn't quite work for me, and even though I usually enjoy this type of material, I was just bored. (304 pages, 2016)

Unicorn Crossing by Dana Simpson was another dud for me. At the library I suddenly thought, hey, is there another Poebe and Her Unicorn book out? There was, and I was happy, but when I started to read it, I slowly started loosing steam. The characters felt flat. The storylines didn't interest me. It just wasn't as funny as I recall the previous four books being. I found I didn't want to pick it up off the bedside table to finish. Maybe I'll try it again another time. (160 pages, 2017)

Abandoned           225 pages, 2017

A Wayside Tavern

by Norah Lofts

This is the story of a place. The home of a wine-seller at a crossroads. When a group of Roman soldiers moved through the area they left their wounded leader behind, and he found an ill slave girl locked in a room (for her safety). Together they struggled to survive in the lonely place- all other inhabitants in the nearby villages having fled. By the time the Roman soldier had healed enough to leave, he didn't want to- had found acceptance there- even when people antagonistic towards Rome moved in and he had to hide his identity. What began simply as someone's home became an important locale in the community; eventually it became a tavern and inn. Over the centuries the building with its specially tiled floor served many different functions, but always remained in the hands of the same family, originally formed by that Roman soldier and the slave he rescued from starvation, so long ago.

I liked a piece of historical fiction written by this same author which I read many years ago, so I'd always hoped to have more of her books. Unfortunately I didn't care for this one. The initial story of the slave suddenly finding her freedom and together with the Roman finding ways to stave off starvation until the settlement was populated again, when they became prosperous- was interesting. But then suddenly the woman was old, invoking vaguely understood rituals the Roman had mentioned to her, baffling her companions. And the storyline quickly moved on to other characters, all introduced very briefly as the book tells of how this place remained useful through the centuries. It just wasn't keeping my attention at all, by page 95 I simply lost interest.

Abandoned               376 pages, 1980