More Book Talk

Yesterday was a busy day with two real estate renewal classes so I did not blog
as I said I would. I was a realtor for 25 years and although I do not actively sell
real estate at the present time, I do keep my license current, which means
accumulating 24 renewal hours every two years.

So those of you who love to read--did you find a book or two on Monday's list
that you might like to read? Here are my favorites--Sarah's  Key, Cutting for
Stone, Half Broke Horses, The Help, and One Thousand White Women. But  I 
was surprised that one of my all-time favorite books was not on the list, and that is:

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job 

of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, 

which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless 

and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to 

be illuminated with images. 

When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of 

tiny artifacts in its ancient binding—

an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—

she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. The reader is ushered into an 

exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past,

 tracing the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation. 

For Monday's Book Club, I lead the discussion for:

 Midwives by Chris Bohjailian

The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife 

in the  rural Vermont, for fifteen years. But one treacherous 

winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed 

telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She 

performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have 

died in labor. But what if--as Sibyl's assistant later charges--the patient wasn't

 already dead, and it was Sibyl who inadvertently killed her?

You can only imagine what happens next! The book is written in the voice of 

Sibyl's adult daughter, who was fourteen at the time. Most interesting is that the 

author is a man. Whether you like the book or not, you have to agree he

does an excellent job writing from a female perspective.

The book takes some interesting twists and turns!

I enjoyed it.

Happy reading!