The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Schaffer ✔✔

I don't know how I heard about this, and I was likely more intrigued by the title than anything.  It was  pretty quick read, and I skimmed over a lot.  It's hard to decide whether she was trying to emulate really good Southern writers like Anne Rivers Siddons, Fannie Flagg, or Kathryn Strockett, but no matter - it didn't work.  I grow tired of characters who (a) have a drinking problem because of some deep dark past (b) had rotten parents, or (c) fell in love with the wrong person.  And that about sums up many of the characters in this book.  'Nuff said - there's another book I want to get started on.

Seems a while since I read a REALLY good one!

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson ✔✔✔✔

Allan Karlsson has had a long and eventful life, but as he approaches his 100th birthday, he is very unhappy living in a nursing home.  He's very healthy and he hates Nurse Alice, the administrator who is planning a big birthday party, so the morning of the celebration, Allan steps out of his window in his slippers and embarks on an amazing, unexpected and hilarious journey.

During his adventures, we also learn of Allan's history, and it is an impressive one for he has taken part in some of the most important events of the 20th century, met and mingled with such people as Harry S. Truman, Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin and even LBJ in a unique capacity.

The opening part had me laughing till tears ran down my face, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole book.  It's a sort of Forrest Gump as Allan embarks on this remarkable journey as well as an interesting look back at events of the 20th century. And if I hadn't checked the credits, I would not have even guessed that it had been translated from Swedish.

The Guilty Plea by Robert Rotenberg

I read the author's first book and really enjoyed it, and this one is even better.  I could not put it down, as much for the fact that the settting is Toronto - with visits to Cobalt and New Liskeard, too - as it is a good crime/legal thriller.  Short chapters, swift action, hardly any screwing!  Good read!!

Death of a Schoolgirl by Joanna Campbell Slan

This book is a continuation of "Jane Eyre", one of my all-time favorite classics.  Jane has given birth to a son, and is very happy in her marriage to Rochester.  But his ward,Adele, who is attending a private school in London, writes a strange letter, and Jane is sent to find out what is going on.  Of course, there's a big mystery - well not really, it's actually a little mystery but the author drags it out like crazy and by about 2/3 of the way through you're just crazy for it to be over.

No one does Jane Eyre like Charlotte Bronte, I guess.  I did like The Flight of Gemma Hardy, though, which is a re-writing of Jane's story - this is a continuation.  Two stars.....

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh ✔✔✔

This is the story of a young woman who, because she was taken away from her mother at a very young age, is not able to form relationships. She's gone through many foster homes and is usually removed from most of them because of her behaviour, until she comes to live with Elizabeth.  Early on, the reader knows that she has not continued to live with Elizabeth because on her 18th birthday when the book begins, she becomes homeless.  However, she has developed a close relationship and understanding of flowers, and it is this that ultimately - but not without lots of hurdles along the way - saves her.

This was a quick read and entertaining enough.  The best parts are the flowers, and their meanings, and at the end of the novel there's a dictionary of flowers with their meanings.  For example, red carnations mean "my heart breaks", daisies mean "cheerfulness". Holly means "foresight".
Roses:  orange is "fascination",  pink is "grace", red is "love", white is "a heart unacquainted with love" and yellow is "infidelity"  Hmmm - I love yellow roses!  Who am I being unfaithful to, I wonder?

An Unquenchable Thirst by Mary Johnson ✔✔✔✔

I heard Mary Johnson interviewed on Tapestry and decided I would enjoy reading her story. Mary Johnson spent 20 years as a nun in the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded and led by Mother Teresa.  It's sub-titled: "one woman's extraordinary journey of faith, hope and clarity".

It was an unrelenting 20 years of following The Rules as laid down by Mother - as she was called - sisters were not allowed to even touch each other, they lived in poverty as they lived in community , worked long, hard hours, and were told that suffering endeared them even more to Jesus.

Sister Donata - the name Mary was given as a novice - finally left in 1997, just before Mother died.  She had been given some authority over the years, but could never reconcile herself to The Rules and their harshness, even though she "took the discipline and chains" every day, since she believed they made her a better nun.  Despite her many contributions to the order, she was never thanked, and very late in the story, she reveals that Mother never once even called her by name.

Here are some quotes and such that really struck me:

Mother Teresa wore shoes that were several sizes too small for her.  She believed that by doing this, she pleased God and saved souls "I couldn't think of any time Jesus deliberately tried to make life harder for the sake of making it harder"

Sister Dolorosa, the novice mistress, calling out in the night: "I need a man.  I need a man"

Sister Donata was constantly reminded that her doubts and questions, even her dreams, were the devil's work. She would double the strokes of discipline and the hours she wore chains.

There were lots of interesting stories in this book - and people - Father Tom, with whom Mary had a very close personal relationship, Sister Niobe, who was a sexual predator, Sister Frederick who was as nasty as could be all the time, and even Mother herself, who visited quite frequently.  Mary was mostly stationed in Italy, incidentally.

Now, Mary lives in the US, has married, and never goes to church.  "The stories about God no longer ring true...physics and literature and music feel so much more honest than theology.....I've learned to be content with mystery, that the universe and its secrets excite me.... Living mindfully, trying to do good while avoiding harm, works better than keeping the Rules ever did".

There is an extensive video on Mary Johnson on You Tube, and her website, www.anunquenchablethirst.com is very interesting.

See also her "dare to be different" meditation at Location 7427 on my Kindle.  She wrote this after she was condemned by other sisters for holding a young nun who had suffered some mental problems.

The Secret Piano by Zhu Xiao-Mei ✔✔✔✔✔

Zhu Xiao Mei was born in post-war China to middle-class parents.  Taught first by her mother , she showed unusual talent and was just 10 yrears old when she began intensive studies at the Beijing Conservatory of Music.  In 1966, when she was 17 Mao's Cultural Revolution began and life changed forever. Her family members were scattered and sent to prison or labor camps and three years later, Xiao-Mei was sent to a work camp in Mongolia where she spent the next five years in horrific living conditions.  She - like all the others there - were brainwashed and she truly believed she was helping the Revolution by informing on her prison mates, renouncing her family, and submitting to self-criticism, a very important aspect of life in the prison.  But still she kept her passion for music, and when the Revolution finally ended, it was her piano and her music that helped her to heal.

She eventually fled to Hong Kong, from there to the US, where she found it very difficult to live and function, although she had a wonderful piano professor.  She then went to Paris, where she still lives.

Her philosophy of music is all tied in with her way of living - Taoism is very strong here.  I downloaded her recording of the Goldberg Variations and it is truly amazing.  She's a very inspirational woman.

I downloaded this book because it was cheap and also as a further study towards our Book Club theme of China from 1885 to the present.  I didn't expect it to be so musically inspirational! As a matter of fact, after I read Part One I fooled around with the idea of not continuing, but the remainder of the book was even more interesting.