gilda_elise | Entries tagged with let it snow 2022

Thor, a mighty grizzly, and Muskwa, a motherless bear cub, become companions in the Canadian wilderness, going from one adventure to another, picking berries, fishing in rivers, encountering other animals of the forest—all while two bear trappers are drawing nearer and nearer. . . .

This exciting story, originally published as The Grizzly King, inspired the hit film The Bear.

It’s a simple story, yet there is much to glean from it. Told from the perspective of both the bears and the hunters, we come to see who is the braver, the most forgiving, the one with the most heart.

But both species have much to learn. Thor had never had any experience with humans, but he learns the danger in what he perceives as weak animals. As Langdon, one of the hunters, tracks down the grizzly, he will have an epiphany. He is a stand-in for Curwood, who had a similar experience as his character.

A saw The Bear many years ago. The book adds depth to the story, so is a great companion to the film. Both tell a still relevant tale.

( TBR Book Links 1-5 )

6. The High House by Jessie Greengrass
7. Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
8. Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser
9. The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde, Diane Oatley (translator)
10. 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
11. The Bear (The Grizzly King: A Romance of the Wild) by James Oliver Curwood

Goodreads 11

Stephen King's second novel, the vampire bestseller 'Salem's Lot, tells the story of evil in small-town America. For the first time in a major trade edition, this terrifying novel is accompanied by previously unpublished material from King's archive, two short stories, and eerie photographs that bring King's fictional darkness and evil to vivid life.

Also contains: One For the Road, Jerusalem's Lot

Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work—in fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.

Though only his second book, King hit it out of the ballpark. I remember reading it when it was first published, and it hasn’t lost any of its pathos, its suspense, its terror.

It’s hero, Ben Mears, moves back to the town out of his childhood, ‘Salem’s Lot. He has known danger there before, and has come to conquer it. But things don’t go as planned. There is a sickness that his come to ‘Salem’s Lot, and as the danger heightens, it shows King at his best, pulling the reader into the horror that is taking over the town. He’s a master at his craft.

It also shows how King had a way of creating characters who the reader can come to care for, who you want to succeed. And though, it being King, you don’t know who will live and who will die, you still can’t help but take them to heart. You want Ben to come through unscathed, or at least, alive.

Delightfully creepy, I think this is one book to which I’ll return, perhaps time and time again.

Vampires
2. 'Salem's Lot, Illustrated Edition by Stephen King

From the author of the #1 international bestseller and Indie Next Pick The History of Bees, a captivating new standalone novel about the threat of a worldwide water shortage as seen through the eyes of a father and daughter.

In 2019, seventy-year-old Signe sets out on a hazardous voyage to cross an entire ocean in only a sailboat. She is haunted by the loss of the love of her life, and is driven by a singular and all-consuming mission to make it back to him.

In 2041, David flees with his young daughter, Lou, from a war-torn Southern Europe plagued by drought. They have been separated from their rest of their family and are on a desperate search to reunite with them once again, when they find Signe's abandoned sailboat in a parched French garden, miles away from the nearest shore.

As David and Lou discover personal effects from Signe's travels, their journey of survival and hope weaves together with Signe's, forming a heartbreaking, inspiring story about the power of nature and the human spirit in this second novel from the author of the "spectacular and deeply moving, The History of Bees.”

A powerful interweaving of the present and future, we hope for a good outcome for both Signe and David, but wonder if that’s possible. Each must deal with a changing world. Signe is trying to save it, David is only trying to survive.

Sparce, yet compelling, the story of what is, and what will be, is heartbreaking. The characters aren’t always likable; Signe is bitter and angry at what is happening to her world, David is often childish. But in the end I came to care for both character. Ultimately, I found it to be a book well worth reading.

A young man in a tropical paradise dreams of an unknown woman on a mountain far away... And as he dreams, the young woman envisions him—and the great danger moving ever closer to enfold them both...

A force as strong as destiny and twice as fatal binds Thad Alexander and Tamara Whelan together long before they ever meet. It is a force that will unleash the evil power of the universe on them and those they love, drawing them into a close encounter in a land where the dead return to claim the living as their own... where hideous shapes rise from the sea to engulf men and women in eternal oblivion... where mountains come to life and the past and present co-exist in agony... and where the great battle between love and destruction will be waged by a man, woman and a child—against an evil more appalling than any other mankind has ever known.

Part horror story, part science fiction, the story is eventually shown to be a romance story.

Much of what is going on is never fully explained, thus the horror part. But some of the story is explained. There are machines from the future that are distorting time, causing the visions of the dead. But are those people really dead? The answer isn’t clear.

The book started slow, but once the story started to completely focus on Tamara and Thad, things began to pick up.

This was a strange, convoluted, but ultimately entertaining story.

( TBR Book Links 1-5 )

6. The High House by Jessie Greengrass
7. Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
8. Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser

Goodreads 8

Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser

Witches
1. Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope.

Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times.

No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.

Much of the information about FDR wasn’t new to me. To a lesser extent, the same could be said of Abraham Lincoln and TR. But I learned quite a bit about LBJ, to the point where I could see the similarities between him and the other three men. All four faced adversity, and through that, came to understand their fellow countrymen who had so much less. They would gain the empathy to try to use their power to help those less fortunate. All four would succeed to different degrees.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it would be Lincoln and FDR who would have more success, the two men who would die in office. By refusing another term, TR and LBJ gave up the opportunity to cement their legacies. Both would stumble, TR by running as an independent, LBJ with the Vietnam War, and fall.

The book is set in three parts: Ambition and the Recognition of Leadership, Adversity and Growth, and The Leader and the Times: How They Led. Done in this way, the book, step by step, reveals the four men.

( TBR Book Links 1-5 )

6. The High House by Jessie Greengrass
7. Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Goodreads 7

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

In this powerful, highly anticipated novel from an award-winning author, four people attempt to make a home in the midst of environmental disaster.

Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies. Caro, Pauly, Sally, and Grandy are safe, so far, from the rising water that threatens to destroy the town and that has, perhaps, already destroyed everything else. But for how long?

Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive at the High House after her father and stepmother fall victim to a faraway climate disaster—but not before they call and urge Caro to leave London. In their new home, a converted summer house cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally, the two pairs learn to live together. Yet there are limits to their safety, limits to the supplies, limits to what Grandy—the former village caretaker, a man who knows how to do everything—can teach them as his health fails.

A searing novel that takes on parenthood, sacrifice, love, and survival under the threat of extinction, The High House is a stunning, emotionally precise novel about what can be salvaged at the end of the world.

I think we tend to believe that, even at the end of everything, humans would survive, mostly with grace and courage. But what if that’s not the case? What if our end comes, not with a bang, but with a whimper?

The four main characters, the young Pauly, his half-sister, Caro, Sally and her grandfather, Grandy, find themselves sheltering in High House after things start to seriously fall apart everywhere else. Pauly’s mother, Francesca, an environmentalist who had tried to warn the world of what was to come, has left him a house that has been stocked as well as she could manage. There is food and shelter, and a garden and mill to create more, but nothing is forever, and as the supplies dwindle, the survivors are left to wonder just how long they’ll survive.

The book jumps between time and characters, but the dawning horror of what is coming is always there. And as that horror overtakes the reader, we see what may well be our own future. This is a harrowing novel, but one well worth reading.

The Rest of the Mount TBR 2022 Book Links

( TBR Book Links 1-5 )

6. The High House by Jessie Greengrass

Goodreads 6

H. The High House by Jessie Greengrass

FEBRUARY- Girl Power. Highlighting Women! Female Authors, Fierce female characters, feminism, female body positivity, females in science/government, etc.

The High House by Jessie Greengrass

Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the very special 12-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless - mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the "steam" that children with the "shining" produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant "shining" power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes "Doctor Sleep."

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan's own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra's soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted fans of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

This sequel to The Shining does not disappoint. Dan Torrance is center stage, first as he struggles with alcoholism, then as he comes to the aid of Abra Stone, another possessor of the shining. Even more powerful than Dan, she still needs his help, along with her doctor, John Dalton, and Billy Freeman, a friend of Dan’s, to fight off the True Knot, who have focused on Abra as a source of the “steam” that keeps them alive.

As usual with King’s books, all the characters come alive, and you can’t help but come to care for many of them. In that, I was so glad to find that the book and the movie have very different projections. And while I don’t usually care for books that focus too much on children, King has a gift for writing them as you remember childhood to be, and how you remember seeing the world.

The book works on two levels, as a horror story, and as a story of redemption. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
2. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
3. The Autumn Throne (Eleanor of Aquitaine #3) by Elizabeth Chadwick
4. Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year by Charles Bracelen Flood
5. Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2) by Stephen King

Goodreads 5

D. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Vampires
1. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
(they don't drink blood, but they're still vampires)

Shortly after losing all of his wealth in a terrible 1884 swindle, Ulysses S. Grant learned he had terminal throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and dying, Grant began to write his memoirs to save his family from permanent financial ruin. As Grant continued his work, suffering increasing pain, the American public became aware of this race between Grant's writing and his fatal illness. Twenty years after his respectful and magnanimous demeanor toward Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, people in both the North and the South came to know Grant as the brave, honest man he was, now using his famous determination in this final effort. Grant finished Memoirs just four days before he died in July 1885.

Published after his death by his friend Mark Twain, Grant's Memoirs became an instant bestseller, restoring his family's financial health and, more importantly, helping to cure the nation of bitter discord. More than any other American before or since, Grant, in his last year, was able to heal this—the country's greatest wound.

I’ve developed such an admiration for Grant, and the more I read about him, the greater it becomes. In so many ways, this book truly solidified that admiration. He was the reigning hero of the Civil War; this book shows how much of a hero he was away from the battlefield.

I can’t even begin to imagine the pain he was going through as he raced to finish his memoirs. But he carried on, without complaint, the rock for his family that he had been for the country. From both North and South, words of praise and condolences would pour in.

He was the truest as well as the bravest man who ever lived.” Words from ex-Confederate General James Longstreet, Grant’s wife’s cousin and a fellow cadet at West Point. But I think his character was best summed up by the words of his friend, Mark Twain: ”He was a very great man and superlatively good.”

Few books have shown Grant’s character so well, or the regard felt by so many of his fellow countrymen. For that alone, the book is well worth reading.

A. The Autumn Throne by Elizabeth Chadwick

B. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

G. Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year by Charles Bracelen Flood

M. The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

England, 1176. Imprisoned by her husband, King Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England, refuses to let her powerful husband bully her into submission, even as he forces her away from her children and her birthright. Freed only by Henry's death, Eleanor becomes dowager Queen of England. But the competition for land and power that Henry stirred up among his sons has intensified to a dangerous rivalry. Eleanor will need every ounce of courage and fortitude as she crosses the Alps in winter to bring Richard his bride, and travels medieval Europe to ransom her beloved son. But even her indomitable spirit will be tested to its limits as she attempts to keep the peace between her warring sons, and find a place in the centres of power for her daughters. Eleanor of Aquitaine's powerful story is brought to a triumphant and beautiful close by much-loved author Elizabeth Chadwick.

After enjoying the first two books in this series, I was somewhat disappointed with this one.

The part of the book that covers Eleanor’s years of imprisonment by her husband, Henry II, were actually the more interesting part of the book. Henry would pull her out of her captivity from time to time, usually during the holiday season, so it wasn’t as if Eleanor never saw anyone, including Henry. Their confrontations were the most interesting part of the book, so when Henry dies, so too does the heart of the story.

A little over half the book takes place after Henry’s death, and though Eleanor is now free, the life seems to have gone out of her. At least out of her story. Because now she’s not really the center of things, but rather someone who is there only to do her son’s bidding.

And I had to wonder if she had been so pliable with Henry as she is with Richard, if maybe her marriage would have been more of a success. Because she dotes on Richard. I mean really dotes on him. At times it was almost creepy. The speculation regarding his homosexuality are only hinted at, and the failure of his marriage is placed squarely on his wife. When Richard dies, Eleanor decides that she’s done with life and plans to enter the Abbey at Fontevraud. She would die there two years later.

So it seems that, once the entire story is told, my good opinion of Henry II has returned.

A. The Autumn Throne by Elizabeth Chadwick

B. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

M. The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

A family returns to their hometown—and to the dark past that haunts them still—in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

Well, going by this book, here’s another author whose books I’ll be adding to my to-be-read pile.

Part science fiction, but really absolutely horror, the book’s focus is on how the past and future can meet, and how one person’s actions can destroy a world. Or many worlds. It took awhile to figure out what was good on, which was a good thing, as it ratcheted up the suspense. Even then, there were some real surprises.

The characters were compelling, especially Nate. As we learn how their pasts come together, and what it means for their futures, the best part of Nate, and Maddie and Oliver, come through.

My only complaint, and in the scheme of things it’s a small one, was how the characters kept doing things that they felt weren’t the smartest things to be doing. Once or twice, okay, but this kept happening. They were think to themselves, “My gut tells me not to do this,” but they’d do it anyway. Overlooking that, it’s a suspenseful and compelling read that can’t help but pull you in.

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
2. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

Goodreads 2

Purple, orange, or green on the cover
1. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis.

What if there was a book that could lead us out of the climate crisis? Though it’s a novel, this book would be a good start. Seen through the eyes of a handful of characters, some in positions of power, some powerless, we see the devastation of climate change, along with its solutions. Many of the solutions are radical, but vitally needed.

But while I love the idea that, given horrendous climate events, there would be enough of a change in people’s minds that they would be willing to go along with the solutions presented, I can’t quite believe that that’s what would happen. But, no matter how well written, the book doesn’t convince me.

Still, it’s an interesting look at what is to come and, perhaps, the path that we will take.

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Goodreads 2022-1

JANUARY- New To You. Celebrate the New Year with something new to you:
A new genre, a new author, a new book series, a new book purchase, etc.

The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson