By Julie Andrews
Non-Fiction/Memoir/Autobiography
Julie Andrews’ second memoir, Home Work is a substantial tome, clocking in at over five hundred pages. Is Home Work worth the time? Mom will let you know – if ever stops prancing around the house singing about female deer and a drop of golden sun. Oh, wait:
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer:
That one small entry wound belied a massive, mostly internal hemorrhage that was about to kill me. I’d be dead in a matter of minutes, unless someone with some kind of x-ray vision happened to show up and was somehow able to see all the bleeding that couldn’t be seen. I needed a miracle.
In gripping You Are There fashion, Back in the Game tells what happened when one man opened fire at a baseball practice for Republican members of Congress on the morning of June 14, 2014, wounding five and nearly killing one: Louisiana congressman and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. And how Scalise fought his way back to the people’s House.
It’s Scalise’s moment by moment account of not only what happened to him, but of those who emerged in the seconds after the shooting began and worked to save his life and the lives of his colleagues and teammates when a lone gunman attempted the greatest political assassination in U.S. history.
The gunman came within a hair’s breadth of succeeding.
Kimber: Let me just say right out of the kennel that Back in the Game is a book about heroes. Like:
On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by some of the finest, most experienced climbers in the world set off on the final leg of a five-day climb to the top of the world. Along the way, things went terribly wrong. Traffic jams along the route, miscommunications, inexplicable delays that burned up vital oxygen. Questionable leadership and decisions. A ferocious rogue storm. Time. All at the cruising altitude of a 747. All conspired to kill. Eight climbers from three expeditions died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit.
It remains one of the worst disasters in the history of Mount Everest.
Several survivors wrote memoirs after the disaster. Climber and journalist Jon Krakauer published his first-hand account of the tragedy in 1997, Into Thin Air. It was a bestseller. Anatoli “Toli” Boukreev, a guide with Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness team, felt impugned by the book. Toli co-authored his version of events in The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest, also published in 1997.
Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
“This is a story of contrasts: the beauty of St. Petersburg and the brutality which took place within its walls; the gentle beauty of Dora and the atrocity of her treatment. A story that gives glimpses of the paradoxes of the human spirit: the ugliness and beauty of which humanity is capable…”
Thread of Life looks at the 20th century through the lives of three Jewish women. At its heart is Dora, a romantic and tragic figure, a concert pianist born in Riga, Latvia. She lived in St Petersburg and was killed in the Riga Holocaust. Her daughter is Genia. Born in 1915 in St. Petersburg, Genia lived in many places around the world before dying in England at the age of 102. It’s also about the author and her life and perspectives.
A thoughtful weft of memory, history, love, loss, and learning, this memoir includes insights from the author in which she shares her moments of discovery while addressing themes of Russia, Jewishness, motherhood, music, home, and language, as well as the vagaries of memory.
We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Okay. So who can resist a title like that? And a sweet furry face like me to tell ya about it? Wait. Her Momness wants to muscle in. You know Mom.
Snow doggie!
So here we go:
She had me at “dogs.” And I don’t even pretend to be unbiased on the subject of unconditional love on four feet. Hi, Kimmi.
But we totally loved this book. It’s short. Sweet. And to the point. Kind of like… Well. One of us was gonna say “chihuahua.” But we’ve known a few too many Chihuahuas With Attitude. So…
The Introduction tells us that the author lost her husband in 2008. She turned to writing and dogs to cope. And this piquant and pithy collection of 23 poems in free verse is the latest endeavor. And we really, really liked it. Cuz. You know. Dogs. Besides. The gang’s all here. From a 50-pound German Shepherd named after a Jimi Hendrix tune to Bray, a skittish black Afghan to Queen Chloe, the “pet store dog adoption” and more, this clever little book tugs at the heartstrings.
Some readers will recognize Odette, the “Velcro dog” who was rescued from a backyard breeder. “NO” isn’t in Odette’s vocabulary.
But it’s about a lot more than descriptions of a lot of dogs. Their breeds and personalities and idiosyncrasies. A lifetime of love is packed into a few brief lines of free verse. Like, “In a blink of an eye, joy to despair.” “Fur weathervanes.” Love conquers all. “Nothing is important except the moment/An evening in the company of my dogs.” So much more.
Heartfelt and effervescent, the entries snap, crackle, and pop as the author skillfully traces the ups and downs of life with dogs while interweaving bits and pieces of her own life story throughout the text. Sentences are staccato-short but packed with meaning and texture. It’s clever. It’s engaging. It’s as warm and welcoming as a sweet furry face we all know and love (Kimber: Even feline fans will love this book!)
Highly readable, Sleeping With Dogs is the kind of book you can read cover to cover in under an hour. You can also dive in for a quick nibble or two and come back to it later. Or sip and savor it slowly, like a fine wine. Or unconditional love on four feet.
So if the mere mention of “poetry” is enough to make you jump up and run screaming from the room, take heart. Or take bark. Because Sleeping With Dogs will grab you collar, kennel, and kibble from page one.
I’d grab a copy now ‘fize you!
Even If: Keeping Faith in the Face of AdversityNote: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
“It’s undeniable – it’s him! He did it!”
Ever felt afraid? So stressed you can barely see straight? Or maybe you’ve felt like you can’t catch a break. Like just when you muster enough strength to rise above the water and catch your breath, another wave hits? Maybe you’re in a place where nothing makes sense? Asking how could a loving God allow…?
Then this book is for you.
We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Please note that we won’t be rating this book. Assigning a numerical rating to a memoir just doesn’t feel right.
Kimber: Mom and I? We don’t say the above about too many books. But June Summers’ Hope Unleashed isn’t just any book. Hauntingly beautiful and searingly elegiac, Hope Unleashed is based on the life of a real woman, Wendy, as told by her mother. It also has dogs. About 40+. And about 20 cats (Nobody’s perfect). And how Wendy’s limitless love for animals and her passion for saving lives became her own lifeline as she battled an aggressive form of cancer.
Mom says you might want to grab a box of tissue before diving into this one. Or maybe a whole pallet. I’ll let Mom tell ya more. As soon as I re-up her tissue supply. Take it away, Mom:
“Looks like you made a friend,” his Marine Corps buddy quipped of the short-legged, floppy-eared stray dog who wandered into the USMC compound in Afghanistan.
But what author Craig Grossi heard was, “Looks like a Fred.” The name stuck. What unfolds next is one of the most touching, heartwarming and remarkable true animal stories we’ve ever read.
Even Kimber Her Royal Magnificence was impressed: “Fred is my new best bud! He’s like, Totally PAWsome!”
“Kimmi, you say that about everyone,” chirpeth Her Momness.
“So?”
Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Ever gingerly opened a book, unsure where it may head, or how?
Stable Weight was one of those books. When Mom and I sat down to read it, she let me in on a secret. I’ll explain at the end of this review. So stay tuned. And don’t tell Mom. Let’s just keep this our little secret, okay? Meanwhile, on to the review:
Mom and I are humungous C.S. Lewis fans. Far as we’re concerned, if C.S. Lewis books were an Olympic sport, they’d bring home the gold. Both fiction and non-fiction.
You gonna eat that?
Now, you may know Lewis from The Chronicles of Narnia. Probably his best-known and most beloved work. But he wrote like, a ton of other stuff, too. Some of our other faves include Mere Christianity. The Great Divorce. The Problem of Pain. The Screwtape Letters. Surprised by Joy. And his autobiography, Till We Have Faces. Lewis notes that altho Till We was not a commercial success, it’s his favorite work.
Indeed, we’ve read pretty much everything “Jack” ever published. Except this here puppy. Missed this one. But we found it the other day in the Book Place. Sitting on a shelf. Calling our name. Diving in, this book actually surprised us. Here’s why:
In his life, Lewis received thousands of letters from young fans who were eager for more of his bestselling Narnia books and their author. This book is a collection of many of his responses to those letters, in which he shares his feelings about writing, school, animals, and of course, Narnia. Lewis writes to the children – as he wrote for them – with understanding and respect, proving why he remains one of the most beloved children’s authors of all time.
Letters to Children offers a rare, luminous glimpse into the heart and mind of a remarkably eloquent and equally gracious genius. There’s so much wit and warmth in Lewis’s letters to young readers. In fact, Lewis carried on a loquacious correspondence with many of his young correspondents for years, even into their adulthood. The sheer volume of his correspondence is astounding. Ditto the amount of wit and whimsy in each letter. It’s remarkable.
Lithe and limber, Lewis’s letters brim with warmth and vitality. They’re perhaps as surprising as they are charming.
Offering advice to a young correspondent, Lewis writes:
There’s more. But our personal favorite on Lewis’s list is:
Write on, dude.
C.S. Lewis also writes about his health issues, the weather, gardens, and so on. He reads and responds to every letter received personally – in long hand. (Note to young whipper-snappers: That’s called “pen and ink.” Before computers.) Lewis’s responses are soaked in kindness and encouragement. He shows an unflagging interest in each of his young correspondents’ lives, their families, schools, and writing endeavors, often offering encouragement per the last.
When his correspondents ask for more Narnia a stories, Lewis gently explains, “I’m afraid the Narnian series has come to an end.” He urges them to write their own stories.
We love that!
“It is a funny thing that all the children who have written to me see at once who Aslan is, and grown-ups never do” writes Lewis in the final letter in this tome, typed the day before he died in 1963.
Kimber: Good thing we’re not grown-ups, huh Mom?
Pages & Paws 