Book Review: The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery

Since following Sara Brunsvold on Facebook, I've been gleaning book recommendations. Amanda Cox is an author Sara (or one of her followers) recommended, so I sought The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery. This was a Book of the Year in the 2022 Christy awards. In it, Cox explores mother-daughter relationships, loss, the power of secrets, and the important freedom found in the truth. My treadmill time slipped away, absorbed into the life and environs of this small town Tennessee grocery store.

Recently widowed, Sarah Ashby seeks refuge in her hometown and wants nothing more than to work alongside her mother and grandmother in the Old Depot Grocery Store. Sadly, her mother, Rosemary, is determined to sell the store. She doesn't want her daughter following in her footsteps. Conflicts between grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter bring to light the secrets of the past and the long-falling ripples cast by those secrets. Can they redeem the brokenness of the past? Are they doomed to bear the burden of guilt and isolation that secrets bring?

I will happily look into further books by Amanda Cox. The characters came to life from off the page and felt like friends. The secrets unburdened brought a release and redemption that I love in stories. This is a well-told tale of second chances, love, and loss. It reveals God's redemptive purpose in our pain, and boy, do I need that message these days! 

Mid-month Mention: Preparing for Advent

 

I'm not a strict Advent observer. Most years, I merely purchased the $1-1.50 chocolate Advent calendars available at Aldi. My boys loved eating their tiny dose of chocolate first thing in the morning, as we counted down the days until Christmas. I know there are families who make a far bigger production of it (reading a book of the Bible as they count down days, opening a new religious picture book each day for the first 2 dozen days of December, reading specific Advent devotionals). This year, I want to invest time each day in prayer, to count down the days until we celebrate Christ's birth.

With only one left at home (and a senior in high school, at that), I don't foresee this being a family activity. Still, I wanted to take time in mid-November to offer some suggestions of things I found online to aid in my approach to this coming Advent season.

1) Free Advent Templates - I discovered a website called Praying in Color. You can find a variety of Advent calendar templates as you contemplate ways to celebrate anticipatory days in December. I already pray daily for Facebook friends as a continuance of my 2023 Facebook Prayer Project. Thus, I may select an Advent-related word to focus on. I've also printed one of the blank block ones off for Sean and Claire to see if they want to come up with a calendar of activities.

2) Specific Daily Prayers - Perhaps I'll choose a specific prayer for each of the 24 preliminary days. The following 5 blogs offer prayers I might use:

• One Prayer a Day blog by Bob Hostetler - This is a blog I have followed sporadically for a long time now. Bob is a great guy, an author friend, and a man of prayer. His daily prayer blog is well worth following even outside of the advent season. (My favorite of his many books is The Bard and the Bible, recently re-released as The Shakespeare Devotional - in case you might be searching for an outstanding daily devotional as we approach a new year. Great Christmas gift idea!) 
• Time With Our Creator blog - Although this blog doesn't seem current (last post in 2023), I appreciated the most recent post with a prayer for casting all our anxieties on the Lord. How thrilling to see a Salvation Army song referenced in the post (Lt. Col. E. H. Joy's "All Your Anxiety"): "Is there a heart o'erbound by sorrow? Is there a life weighed down by care? Come to the cross, each burden bearing; All your anxiety - leave it there. All your anxiety, all your care, Bring to the mercy seat, leave it there, Never a burden He cannot bear, Never a friend like Jesus!" - visit this Hymnary page for the music and lyrics to this beautiful song. What a blessed reminder that I can leave my many current burdens at the feet of our Savior!
• Prayer-coach blog by Kevin Shorter - With a variety of prayer tips and helps, this blog offers several prayer lists that I might use (I may send this list of things to pray for addicted loved ones to my son).
• Prayer and Possibilities blog by Kathryn Shirey - Kathryn provides another idea: writing daily letters to God
• The Daily Prayer blog - This blog, offering a thought and a prayer, has been available as long as my blog (both started in 2008). Daily is a misnomer, as it seems the prayers are over several days, but I think they are beneficial and might be useful in this endeavor.

Book Review: Funny Story

Funny Story, by Emily Henry, was not a clean read! No, indeed it veered into graphic descriptions of activities I would prefer to be left to my imagination with a slow fade. Alas, I listened in audio form. I could not quickly skim through and get beyond, but had to barrel through the sensual scenes (I'd say "intimate," but they were casual and to me, intimacy is hard-won through marital commitment). However, again, these scenes popped up after fully invested, and besides, the story was so delightful otherwise. I can understand why it was an instant New York Times bestseller (and Julia Whelan's narration was outstanding, as always).

Daphne and Peter always introduce their impending marriage by explaining the funny story of their meeting and finding love. Only now, Peter has realized he's actually in love with his best friend, Petra. Daphne had moved her entire existence to Peter's Michigan town to be with him and now she is alone, without genuine friends, and seeking a replacement for the one good thing about her life, her beloved job as a children's librarian. Also, she must find a new place to live on the spur of a tragic and traumatic moment.

After Daphne moves in with Miles, Petra's similarly rejected fiancé, she receives a wedding invitation to Peter and Petra's wedding. Why not prove she is not as devastated and lonely as Peter believes? Why not rub in his face that she could move on quickly? Thus, she spins a new funny story. She will attend with her new boyfriend, Miles. Can they keep up the pretense? Is it really a pretense? What does Daphne truly need and will she find it in this sweet Michigan town?

This was entrancing! There were several laugh-out-loud lines! Moreover, I loved the characters. Daphne struggles with inevitable trust issues from a father who was never there for her. Certainly being dumped by your fiancé intensifies trust issues all the more! But Miles is so likeable. He is sweet, endearing, and the kind of guy that everyone falls for. Then again, we're all reeling from the emotional baggage of life.

I have my own funny story... about this book. I didn't begin listening as soon as I received it from the library. It came due before I finished. No worries. I'd seen it available on Hoopla. Alas, only on the neighboring town's catalog. Thus, I had to wait until the audio version came available again (3 weeks). At the checkout, the woman next to me was checking out the hard-cover copy of... Funny Story. (I had also noticed a woman on a recent plane trip reading this same book.) Funny! Delightful! Well-earned reputation.

📒 Content caution: sex, drug use, language

Book Review: The Air Raid Book Club

I thank my library and Hoopla for providing me with endless options of audio books to listen to while I walk on my treadmill. The Air Raid Book Club by Annie Lyons offered another dip into WWII and the lives of British and German characters. This book adheres to current societal agendas that view God's dictates for what is good for man as too limiting and restrictive. Yet, I could enjoy this tale for the redeeming qualities of love and self-sacrifice. Indeed, I admire the main character, Gertie, for her willingness to take in a German Jewish child and I affirm the life-changing rewards we receive when we place the needs of another above our own. So, despite unwholesome content (always comes when fully invested in the book, i.e., later), I still enjoyed the story and found something to gain from this tale.

Life isn't the same for bookstore owner Gertie Bingham ever since her husband Harry died. Her enthusiasm for what brought her joy has dampened. Then, war breaks out and she answers the call to provide a home for a German Jewish child. Hedy is a typical sensitive teenage girl. Gertie must rise to the role of parent, an unfamiliar role that brings untold joy. The Blitz threatens their lives, but solidifies their love for one another. This was a fresh story of the way books and community soften the harsh realities of life and provide an anchor in a storm. I may still give Annie Lyons' other popular title, The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett, a go.

📒 Content Caution

Book Review: Be Not Far From Me

Be Not Far from Me is the second Mindy McGinnis book I've read. I was as swept up in the story this time as I was in her previous book. She has an impressive skill for sucking a reader in and making them want further details to know how things will turn out for the characters. This is not a Christian YA book, yet the title comes from a passage in Psalm 22. It was fitting and is my prayer in my life as well. The inside cover blurb says: "Award-winning author Mindy McGinnis delivers a compelling and harrowing story about survival and one girl's attempt to endure the impossible." This book, about being up against great odds, was riveting!

Ashley Hawkins is partying in the Smokies with her friends when she comes upon her boyfriend in a compromising position with another girl. Drunk and delirious with rage, she flees the scene and ends up falling into a ravine and injuring her foot. Now she is miles from help (as if she were a person who would accept the help of others, ha), and wandering alone in the threatening woods. She must endure countless challenges (at one point, she wakes to find an opossum chewing on her diseased foot - yikes) in order to survive. Her best hope, she believes, is to channel the wisdom she learned from her mentor, Davey. But Davey went into the woods and never came out. This isn't a comforting thought in her precarious situation.

I am impressed by this author's ability to secure and hold the reader fast. Her writing makes you forget that there is a puppet-master manipulating the strings of the dance before you. You become so deeply involved that you forget there is a writer at all (a mark of a good one). While I winced at some scenes, I never looked away. Ashley's voice of narration is unique. She is quite a character and her strength, while it sometimes gets her in trouble, carries her through tremendous obstacles. This was an entertaining and educational read. Still, I hope I never find myself in the woods, reaching back in my mind to pull forth the wisdom Ashley exhibits.

Compilation: Twenty Outstanding History Books

I have a master's degree in history. My favorite focus is Victorian British history, but I also have studied some American history. When I began to compile this list, I was overwhelmed. I apparently read a lot of non-fiction history books. Thus, I limited this list to outstanding titles, primarily read in the past five years, but a half dozen from further back in my blog. Some of my favorite historical authors include Daniel James Brown, Candice Millard, and Erik Larson. Here are twenty that stand above the rest (and I'm sure I'm leaving out a few because I couldn't take the time to skim all the history reads on this blog):

1. Forty Autumns by Nina Willner - Berlin Wall story
2. The Lost Airman by Seth Meyerowitz - Nazi occupied France
3. A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War by Joseph Loconte - WWI, Lewis & Tolkien
4. The Wager by David Grann - a British shipwreck
5. The Radium Girls by Kate Moore - US history
6. One Summer by Bill Bryson - America 1927
7. The Greater Journey by David McCullough - Americans in Paris
8. Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown - US in WWII
9. The River of Doubt by Candice Millard - Theodore Roosevelt
10. The Library Book by Susan Orlean - LA library fire of 1986
11. Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard - US president
12. The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale - Victorian London
13. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson - Winston Churchill in the Blitz
14. The Five by Hallie Rubenhold - Jack the Ripper victims
15. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown - 1936 Olympic rowing team
16. Dead Wake by Erik Larson - the sinking of the Lusitania
17. Under a Flaming Sky by Daniel James Brown - a Minnesota fire of 1894
18. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson - WWII Berlin
19. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - WWII
20. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson - advancement of wireless communication

Book Review: The Heirloomist

What a perfect book for a week when I couldn't face anything with depth or difficulty. The Heirloomist: 100 Treasures and the Stories They Tell is full of minor vignettes about items with major sentimental value. The stories were delightful. From a fork gifted for a first date to a Magna-Doodle with a captured message from a deceased father, these stories pull at your heartstrings. I loved the treasured notes from the past and the baby bench almost sold before friends recognized its significant value.

The 81st treasure, especially, stood out to me. It showed a list torn from Life's Little Instruction Book. The list was one the owner lived by and it stood out to his children and friends. I noticed the first item on the list: "Compliment 3 people every day." I read this during a tough week. But, I received a gift from someone following this rule and I can tell you how meaningful it was. I was leaving a medical facility when a woman called out, "Your hair is beautiful." It took me by such surprise, I doubted she was talking to me, but she looked right at me. I said, "Thank you." Then I turned around and added, "That made my day! You can't imagine how much!"