Book Description
It's springtime in Charleston and just about every species of South Carolina's flora is in full and glorious bloom at the Spring Plantation Ramble. Once a year, the upper crust open their sprawling gardens to the public, the site of flower shows, rare plant auctions, and a contagious spring fever. Although Theodosia Browning barely knows a Phalinopsis from a Bog Rose, she still enjoys the Ramble, especially since she can pour tea and promote her Indigo Tea Shop-and her latest concoction, Dragonwell Sweet Tea.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2007-07-03
Laura Childs does it again. I love her tea time series. This one provides the mystery and suspense, as expected, mingled with a lovely amount of tea room interaction. The whole series is worth the read. I can't say any one is better than the other. Enjoy!
the charm of historic Charleston.......2007-06-29
The eighth book in a series called The Tea Shop Mysteries. Like the others, it is set in a charming tea shop in the beautiful historic district of Charleston, South Carolina run by the very likable Theodosia Browning. This one involves poisoned tea (something unfortunately already used in this series), rare orchids, charity fund raising, and international finance. I read this series for the charm and atmosphere of both the tea shop, and of Charleston, and both are fully present.
This is very nice series of very "cozy" mysteries. I love to read them in my big easy chair with a cup of tea. ;-)
Dragonwell Dead is Nearly Dead On! .......2007-05-30
I have been a fan of the tea shop series since the first book hit stores. I stumbled on them quite by chance - but now - several years later - I can't wait for the next installment each time I finish a book!
Dragonwell Dead was, in my opinion, a more solid mystery than its predecessor, Blood Orange Brewing. No question - I enjoyed both books just due to the wonderful, fun characters and colorful descriptions of Charleston - but Dragonwell Dead is closer in tone and feel to the first books in the series. The mystery seems more clever - and the ending ties together much better.
Laura Childs offers a wonderful respite for tea and mystery lovers in her warm and charming series. The characters in the books feel like old friends - and each time, I just can't wait to hear more about them!
The one and only thing that bothered me (simply as a fan of the series) about Dragonwell Dead was the lack of interaction with detective Burt Tidwell. I have grown to like Theodosia's constant sparring with Det. Tidwell - and, to me at least, the local sheriff was not nearly as interesting as our good detective would have been. As well - although all of the major players were back for this book (except Tidwell, who made only a minor appearance), I missed hearing about Theo's therapy dog and pet, Earl Grey.
All this in stride - the book is a good, solid read and contains most of the great characters that we've come to know and love, plus some wonderful new mouth-watering recipes as well!
Does anyone know when the next book - The Silver Needle Murder - will be out? I can't stand the wait!
Karen
Theodesia narrows the focus - and finds herself the next target in this absorbing, fun mystery........2007-05-19
Fans of Laura Child's previous 'Charleston Tea Shop' mysteries will find another satisfying culinary mystery in DRAGONWELL DEAD, the latest installment, which continues to tradition of serving up recipes and tea time tips within the context of a riveting mystery story. Here Charleston's annual Spring Plantation Ramble finds Theodesia serving tea on a lovely plantation when the collapse of a nearby b&b owner leads to her investigation of murder. Theodesia narrows the focus - and finds herself the next target in this absorbing, fun mystery.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Arrmchair travelers invited to Charleston, SC. .......2007-05-14
This series is set in Charleston, SC where the protagonist struggles to be refined at the same time as earning a living operating an upmarket tea shop in the historic district. All aspects of the story are well done; the characters are well-developed and fairly attractive, the description of one of the most interesting US cities is evocative, the mystery is fairly well plotted and developed and you really feel you are traveling right along with the protagonist at she sets about solving yet another nasty challenge to her friends, location and lifestyle.
Average customer rating:
- Grippingly Written, Moving, and Historically Powerful
- Evangelical Pastor - 63 years old
- A mixture of polemic, interesting recollections, and accounts of questionable credibility
- Heartbreaking and Revelatory
- essential
|
Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story
Timothy B. Tyson
Manufacturer: Crown
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ASIN: 0609610589
Release Date: 2004-05-18 |
Amazon.com
When he was but 10 years old, Tim Tyson heard one of his boyhood friends in Oxford, N.C. excitedly blurt the words that were to forever change his life: "Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger!" The cold-blooded street murder of young Henry Marrow by an ambitious, hot-tempered local businessman and his kin in the Spring of 1970 would quickly fan the long-flickering flames of racial discord in the proud, insular tobacco town into explosions of rage and street violence. It would also turn the white Tyson down a long, troubled reconciliation with his Southern roots that eventually led to a professorship in African-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison--and this profoundly moving, if deeply troubling personal meditation on the true costs of America's historical racial divide. Taking its title from a traditional African-American spiritual, Tyson skillfully interweaves insightful autobiography (his father was the town's anti-segregationist Methodist minister, and a man whose conscience and human decency greatly informs the son) with a painstakingly nuanced historical analysis that underscores how little really changed in the years and decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 supposedly ended racial segregation. The details are often chilling: Oxford simply closed its public recreation facilities rather than integrate them; Marrow's accused murderers were publicly condemned, yet acquitted; the very town's newspaper records of the events--and indeed the author's later account for his graduate thesis--mysteriously removed from local public records. But Tyson's own impassioned personal history lessons here won't be denied; they're painful, yet necessary reminders of a poisonous American racial legacy that's so often been casually rewritten--and too easily carried forward into yet another century by politicians eagerly employing the cynical, so-called "Southern Strategy." --Jerry McCulley
Book Description
"Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger."
Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by one of his playmates in the late spring of 1970, heralded a firestorm that would forever transform the small tobacco market town of Oxford, North Carolina.
On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel, a rough man with a criminal record and ties to the Ku Klux Klan, and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased Marrow, beat him unmercifully, and killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. In the words of a local prosecutor: "They shot him like you or I would kill a snake."
Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets, led by 22-year-old Ben Chavis, a future president of the NAACP. As mass protests crowded the town square, a cluster of returning Vietnam veterans organized what one termed "a military operation." While lawyers battled in the courthouse that summer in a drama that one termed "a Perry Mason kind of thing," the Ku Klux Klan raged in the shadows and black veterans torched the town's tobacco warehouses.
With large sections of the town in flames, Tyson's father, the pastor of Oxford's all-white Methodist church, pressed his congregation to widen their vision of humanity and pushed the town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end, however, the Tyson family was forced to move away.
Years later, historian Tim Tyson returned to Oxford to ask Robert Teel why he and his sons had killed Henry Marrow. "That nigger committed suicide, coming in here wanting to four-letter-word my daughter-in-law," Teel explained.
The black radicals who burned much of Oxford also told Tim their stories. "It was like we had a cash register up there at the pool hall, just ringing up how much money we done cost these white people," one of them explained. "We knew if we cost 'em enough goddamn money they was gonna start changing some things."
In the tradition of
To Kill a Mockingbird,
Blood Done Sign My Name is a classic work of conscience, a defining portrait of a time and place that we will never forget. Tim Tyson's riveting narrative of that fiery summer and one family's struggle to build bridges in a time of destruction brings gritty blues truth, soaring gospel vision, and down-home humor to our complex history, where violence and faith, courage and evil, despair and hope all mingle to illuminate America's enduring chasm of race.
Customer Reviews:
Grippingly Written, Moving, and Historically Powerful.......2007-08-16
I finally got around to reading this memoir this summer and was in awe of the author's narrative gifts. This story reads like a novel and is full of plain human wisdom, an emotional openness combining humility and pride, wry humor, sharp political analysis, and a can't-put-it-down story line that comes to terms with America's number one cultural problem: racism. This is a book of local history that gets at the human condition, and a work of history that reads like great literature. I'm telling everyone I can to read it, and that includes whoever reads this. Don't pay attention to any of the so-called "corrections" made by some other reviewers here. This is a must-read historical work that shows an astute and perceptive ability to understand its widely varying participants' points of view and experiences, while not shrinking from the moral and historical obligation to draw judgments. There is only one word to use: *brilliant.* (I'm not one to use that lightly when talking about either autobiography or
history.)
Disclaimer: The writer of this review is a professional historian with a Ph.D., but one who has never met Timothy Tyson.
Evangelical Pastor - 63 years old.......2007-07-29
Few books are as challenging for me as this one. I lived through the years of this story and consistently refused to believe that our racism was as extensive or deeply rooted as it was. Take away: the challenge to see it in our present day and to do something about it.
A mixture of polemic, interesting recollections, and accounts of questionable credibility.......2007-07-18
I was born and grew up in Oxford, North Carolina as a white boy, and graduated from the
University of North Carolina in 1949. I have lived in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland for many
years.
Tyson deserves credit for deploring the murder and acquittal of the murderer in the book.
However, he tends to be polemic: all black people in it are noble; all but a few white people are
some combination of racist, ignorant, or narrow-minded. (It is similar in that respect to Leon
Uris's novel "Exodus", in which all Jews are noble and bigger than life, while all others are hateful
or, at best, not very bright.)
He often uses a down-home style of writing, calling his parents "Daddy" and "Mama" and being
addressed as "Little Buck" by his father, which he apparently feels makes him and his family seem
to be folksy, good plain people.
However, the book is not without its shortcomings.
Accounts of questionable credibility:
¶¶He states that tear gas was used by Oxford police in 1944 to dispel a crowd of black people
who were protesting the arrest of two men. I witnessed the event and remember no tear gas--had
there been, I think I would never have forgotten it.
¶¶An account of the torching of buildings in Oxford on May 25, 1970 by angry black people
following the killing of Marrow describes two tobacco warehouses which were among
them:"Inside these warehouses were eight hundred thousand pounds of golden cured tobacco, a
known flammable substance, with a total value of more than a million dollars." I find it hard to
believe that any tobacco would have been in those warehouses in May.
Tobacco was brought by the farmers to Oxford warehouses from mid-September through
mid-November, where it was sold at auction and immediately taken by the buyers to their Oxford
processing plants, and then shipped off to the cigarette manufacturers. By some time in late
November, all of the warehouses became empty.
Although the whole procedure I describe above could have changed somewhat by 1970, I still
find it hard to believe that there would have been tobacco in the warehouses in May, by which
time it would have probably become dry and crumbly.
¶¶The following exchange supposedly took place during the 1930's between Major T.G. stem (a
prominent white man in Oxford) and a man described in the book as "a local white bootlegger."
Having occurred long before Tyson was born, it was recounted to him by Thad Stem, the Major's
son and a close friend of the Tyson family.
"Major Stem was leaving Hall's drugstore with his son (Thad) and they passed Mrs. G. C. Shaw,
the wife of the principal at Mary Potter High, the local Negro high school.
'Good afternoon, Mrs. Shaw,' the Major said, tipping his hat.
A local white bootlegger, idling under the store awning, accosted Major Stem. 'Why'd you call
that [...] woman Mrs. Shaw'?" he demanded.
'Well, Mrs. Shaw's older than I am,' he began softly. 'She's better educated than I am,and she has
more money.' Then, thrusting the bootlegger away from him, the major exploded: 'But more to
the point, what I call Mrs. Shaw is none of your goddamned business, you low-life taxidermist,
you two-for-a-nickel jackal, you knee-crawling [...], net.' These were the days when
people really knew how to cuss. Back then, the appendage 'net' meant a real [...]...on the
way home (Thad) asked his father why on earth he had called the bootlegger a 'taxidermist.' The
major said quietly that a taxidermist is a man who mounts animals."
If not a total fabrication, the story seems to me to have been mostly made up.
In those earlier times, I never heard any white person in Oxford address or refer to a black person
as Mr./Mrs./Ms. (However, by some strange logic, a black doctor was referred to as Dr. X by
white people. Dr. Ellis Toney was a black practitioner there for many years and was so referred
to. The same was the case for some black ministers, who were referred to as Pastor or Reverend
such-and-such.)
¶¶In writing about the slave trade, Tyson speaks of "the dark Atlantic, where the bones of
somewhere around ten million Africans settled into the sand, thrown overboard by the slave ships
that plied those waters in the early days of the republic (the USA)."
Where did this 10 million figure come from? Tyson provides no source. One reference, "Slavery:
A World History", by Milton Meltzer, says that about 2.2 million died that way.
Degrading most of Oxford's black people by stereotyping them as uncultured:
The most puzzling aspect of the book is: On the one hand, Tyson makes the legitimate point that
black residents of Oxford and Granville County, after long having been subjected to a segregated,
inferior status in society, deserved to be recognized as having equal rights with white citizens.
Yet, at the same time, he consistently shows these same black people as being crude and unable to
say anything without massacring English grammar.
"I knowed him right good, and I liked him all right. He didn't hurt nobody." "Yeah, we was
listening to TV, that's how we got involved in the first sit-ins in Oxford, because we saw on TV
they was doing it up in Greensboro." "Me and a guy named Ronald Jordan, me and him climbed
up on the Confederate soldier..." And there are many more.
I know from personal experience that many black people in Oxford, then and now, are much more
cultured than Tyson portrays them. I also know from my volunteer work at the Helping Up
Mission in Baltimore, where I tutor men who are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction in
the 3R's (all of whom to date have been black), that most black people, like anyone anywhere, will
grasp an opportunity to become more cultured.
Heartbreaking and Revelatory.......2007-05-18
An essential history and memoir of a time whose facts are often forgotten and even actively repressed. The present doesn't make sense without honestly examining the past, and this book does that with humility and emotional power. Even if you think you know this history (as I did) you very well may not.
essential.......2007-03-15
For those of us who think we understand by reading about racial prejudice and thinking about what it must be like, should read this book. We still won't really understand, but we will be a much closer than we were before.
Average customer rating:
- Just a Terrific Warm Story!
- A wonderful moving story
- Couldn't get into it
- I Am Hooked on This Author!
- An awe-inspiring novel. One of the best books I've ever read.
|
Sullivan's Island
Dorothea Benton Frank
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Full of Grace
ASIN: 0425193942
Release Date: 2004-01-06 |
Book Description
Set in the steamy, stormy landscape of South Carolina, Sullivan's Island tells the unforgettable story of one woman's courageous journey toward truth.
Born and raised on idyllic Sullivan's Island, Susan Hayes navigated through her turbulent childhood with humor, spunk, and characteristic Southern sass. But years later, she is a conflicted woman with an unfaithful husband, a sometimes resentful teenage daughter, and a heart that aches with painful, poignant memories. And as Susan faces her uncertain future, she realizes that she must go back to her past. To the beachfront house where her sister welcomes her with open arms. To the only place she can truly call home.
Customer Reviews:
Just a Terrific Warm Story!.......2007-09-26
Sullivan's Island is truly a wonderful novel that is straight from the heart about family life. Ms. Frank's real gift is evident in her ability to create such a believable and likeable heroine. The novel is set in the Deep South and if you have ever traveled and spent time in that beautiful area this story will bring back memories of the ocean and marshes of the South. The book is full of the local color and flavor of Charleston's barrier islands and the author does a wonderful job of evoking the laid-back atmosphere of this area. All in all, it was an entertaining read that is ideal for an easy at the beach. I'd gladly recommend this book to all my friends.
A wonderful moving story.......2007-09-11
My neighbor gave this book to take along to the beach. She insisted that I would love it and that it was a great beach read. Well, she was right. Sullivan's Island was a wonderful, moving story. There were bits of humorous moments that kept the story on a lighter tone. Sometimes I couldn't help but laugh out loud and at times I wanted to cry. The characters were seemed real to me and they were people that I could relate to. This book was consistently interesting, and it was hard to put down.
Couldn't get into it.......2007-06-27
This was the first time i read a book by this author and it will be my last. For some reason i couldn't get into this book, i'm used to contemporary romance and this didn't have it. I feel bad that i only gave it 1 star but some other readers might like it!
I Am Hooked on This Author!.......2007-05-19
Couldn't put this book down and you know a book is really good when reading it makes you laugh out loud!! I have become addicted to Dorthea Benton Frank's writing. I have visited the areas that she writes about and reading her books makes me what to go back to South Carolina as soon as I can.
An awe-inspiring novel. One of the best books I've ever read........2006-09-17
This book is written with such flare and polish that it's hard to believe that this is Dorothea Benton Frank's first novel! Her conversational style of writing is highly appealing, and this beautiful saga is full of drama and history. There are no words to describe how much I loved this book!
Book Description
Canaan Creek, South Carolina, in the 1950s is a tiny town where the close-knit African-American community is united by long-term friendships and church ties. Bonnie Wilder has lived here, on Blackberry Corner, all her life, and would be content but for her deep desire to have a child. She and her husband Naz cannot conceive, and he refuses to adopt. Even the support of her outrageous best friend Thora—to whom Bonnie tells everything—can’t help fill the emptiness inside her.
Then Naz finds a blanketed infant on the banks of Canaan Creek, and suddenly Bonnie’s life is transformed. She has found her calling. Together with Thora and the rest of the hilarious, tough, and all-too-human women from her church group, Bonnie creates an underground railroad for unwanted babies. But one of these precious gifts will come back to haunt her: a deception begun in good faith comes full circle, ultimately forcing Bonnie to find the courage to confront a difficult truth at the center of her own life.
Filled with compassion, humor, and tenacity in the face of almost insurmountable odds, here is a rich, inspiring tale of friendship and family, sisterhood and mother love…and of finding grace where you least expect it.
Customer Reviews:
Great Read!!!.......2007-10-16
As others have stated, the first 2 chapters or so are slow. From that point on, the book is captivating. A Must Read!!!!
Best Read This Year.......2007-10-11
The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner was excellent from cover to cover!!! Well-written, evocative and suspenseful, it contained a bit of several genres - making it appealing to many audiences. The writer transports you through several time eras and perspectives of events. Bravo!!
Good Book.......2007-05-21
The book was slow to start but once I got 3 chapters into it I couldn't put it down. We all know somone who reminds ous of the characters in the book (especially if you are from the south or a small town). I recommend this book especially for a book club setting. This is a book that everyone will have an opinion about.
The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner.......2007-03-08
First, I choose this book to read with my book club. All of the members of my club (about 10 participants) enjoyed the book. It's starts off kind of slow, but picks up...with twists, and turns like you would not believe. I would recommend this book. THanks
Women United friends and foes!.......2007-02-04
I have to be honest,If my book club wasn't reading this as our monthly selection I would have never read this book. Wow I would of missed out on a very good read! What do you do when you have a dilema and differen't personalities in the same click? Do the right thing know matter what...or at least what you feel is right.Don't let the first couple of chapters scare you away this is a read everyone can and will enjoy!
Customer Reviews:
Interesting...confusing.......2007-10-19
I'm still not sure how I felt about this book. There were some interesting literary references...although it seemed like they may have been too much to link with the multiple story lines. Connections were confusing and all over the place.
Left With A Blank Stare - Huh?!.......2007-10-17
I have scanned quickly over all the positive reviews, and I feel sort of out of sorts giving this book a three star. Y'all I just did not get the gist of the story.
I simply did not like the Cocoa/Ophelia character. She was so neurotic, just annoying as hell. I had no sympathy for her. I loved George though. He was such a lovely and easy going man. I can't understand why he put with her craziness.
Willow Springs had some interesting characters. Dr. Buzzard appealed to me. Benice, Cocoa's friend, seemed a little weak minded and strange.
I still don't know what led to the two deaths. What really happened to Little Caesar? I have absolutely no idea what was really transpired. I know that Ruby hoodooed Cocoa, because she thought Cocoa wanted her useless man. However, I am not sure of why George had to suffer for it in the end.
I did not feel like there was enough history to explain why the past affected the present so.
Y'all I just did not get it. I don't know. Maybe this is one of those books you have to read more than twice to get it. I was annoyed when I read the last words - just annoyed and a little depressed at the outcome of the story.
Couldn't put it down.......2007-04-16
I read this book way back in the summer of 1988, when I was awaiting the birth of my daughter. It was the perfect novel to read during such a hot summer, during which the temperatures in the Midwest were similar to the hottest temps in the South. I found it fascinating that the practice of voodoo and herbal medicine as portrayed in the novel had survived through so many generations. The characters were strong and memorable. I ran across this book again while browsing in the library, and I am thinking about recommending it for the book club where I work.
You'll be happy that you had giving the time to read this book........2006-05-27
I tell you a good book is one of those books that you're actually sad when it's over. That was "Mama Day" for me.
What many reviewers stated in here is true, Gloria Naylor is a master storyteller. Her characters are vividly drawn, her humor is by turns laugh-out-load funny or subtlety sarcastic, and her prose quite often caused this reader to sit back and savor the sheer creativity, beauty and freshness of the images which she creates.
I've read a lot of books by the current crop of black authors but nothing has touched me and made me fall totally in love with a book like Mama Day. This book was brilliant and I couldn't put it down until it was over.
In this book Willow Springs is a sparsely populated sea island just off America's southeastern coast whose small black community is dominated by the elderly matriarch, Miranda ``Mama'' Day. When Mama Day's great-niece, Cocoa, marries, she returns to Willow Springs with her husband for an extended visit. Once there, strange forces both natural and supernatural work to separate the couple. After visiting the menacing Ruby, a local root doctor, Cocoa becomes dangerously ill, and the struggle for her life showcases Naylor's talent for descriptive prose. Though the novel as a whole fairly breathes with life, it is marred by the unintentionally comic death of a major character, which is attacked by a vicious chicken.
This is a masterpiece of contemporary literature, a pleasure to experience. "Mama Day" is an entertaining and original look at family, community, and love. With a little voodoo sprinkled in for good measure.
Moving, poignant, love story!.......2005-12-27
There are really no adequate words to express what a wonderful read you about the embark upon should you take the time to read this book. It is one of the most poignant and soul-stirring love stories I have perhaps ever read. Each page is meant to be savored as though one is sampling a fine wine, as Naylor weaves a spellbinding tale of how love truly does conquer all.
Amazon.com
Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair is the soulful tale of Jessie Sullivan, a middle-aged woman whose stifled dreams and desires take shape during an extended stay on Egret Island, where she is caring for her troubled mother, Nelle. Like Kidd's stunning debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, her highly anticipated follow up evokes the same magical sense of whimsy and poignancy.
While Kidd places an obvious importance on the role of mysticism and legend in this tale, including the mysterious mermaid's chair at the center of the island's history, the relationships between characters is what gives this novel its true weight. Once she returns to her childhood home, Jessie is forced to confront not only her relationship with her estranged mother, but her other emotional ties as well. After decades of marriage to Hugh, her practical yet conventional husband, Jessie starts to question whether she is craving an independence she never had the chance to experience. After she meets Brother Thomas, a handsome monk who has yet to take his final vows, Jessie is forced to decide whether passion can coexist with comfort, or if the two are mutually exclusive. As her soul begins to reawaken, Jessie must also confront the circumstances of her father's death, a tragedy that continues to haunt Jessie and Nelle over thirty years later.
By boldly tackling such major themes as love, betrayal, grief, and forgiveness, The Mermaid Chair forces readers to question whether moral issues can always be interpreted in black or white. It is this ability to so gracefully present multiple sides of a story that reinforces Kidd's reputation as a well-respected modern literary voice. --Gisele Toueg
Book Description
Sue Monk Kidd's stunning debut, The Secret Life of Bees, has transformed her into a genuine literary star. Now, in her much-anticipated new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans and cement her reputation as one of the most remarkable writers at work today.
Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.
Jessie Sullivan's conventional life has been “molded to the smallest space possible.” So when she is called home to cope with her mother's startling and enigmatic act of violence, Jessie finds herself relieved to be apart from her husband, Hugh. Jessie loves Hugh, but on Egret Island— amid the gorgeous marshlands and tidal creeks—she becomes drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is mere months from taking his final vows. What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother's tormented past, but most of all, as Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, she will find a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right.
What inspires the yearning for a soul mate? Few writers have explored, as Kidd does, the lush, unknown region of the feminine soul where the thin line between the spiritual and the erotic exists. The Mermaid Chair is a vividly imagined novel about the passions of the spirit and the ecstasies of the body; one that illuminates a woman's self-awakening with the brilliance and power that only a writer of Kidd's ability could conjure.
Customer Reviews:
Nice cover.......2007-10-22
The cover design of Sue Monk Kidd's novel "The Mermaid Chair" was the best thing about the book. Trying to read this book was like trying to clean a bathroom floor.
Ms. Kidd's first novel, "the Secret Life of Bees" was quite good. It deserved to be a New York Times Bestseller".
Many readers will not find any affinity with the main character who makes poor choices and who is as callous as an armadillo. They will like her self-destructive mother even less. Kidd should have reached in a new direction instead of again writing about women characters bonding together to provide support. This seemed formulaic. The affair with the monk seems too sudden and quite implausible.
If you liked "the Mermaid Chair", I suggest you read Colleen McCullough's "The Thorn Birds", which you will undoubtedly like much more.
Ms. Kidd, next time don't cave into ideas from publishers about what readers want to hear. Give us the stuff straight, before the editors slash it to pieces.
A bit disappointed.......2007-10-21
I loved The Secret Life of Bees but this book left me a bit disappointed. I felt the author tried too hard and perhaps even forced some of the pieces into the story. But, she is a lovely writer and that's why I gave her three stars.
Not that great.......2007-10-15
I was very disappointed in this book. Kidd is such a wonderful writer, but this felt like a quicky attempt to get another book out, regardless of quality, to follow-up on the success of Secret Life of Bees...while there was still a buzz, a momentum, to get sales o this off the ground for this wet-dream sophmoric effort. Well written, but more of a romance/pulp piece than a good read. I wouldn't call it literature, wouldn't call it chick-lit, maybe Harlequin Romance kind of thing, but I've neve read one of those to know. I would not recommend it.
An Adequate Follow-up to "Bees".......2007-09-30
Of course, this was not The Secret Life of Bees, but it was a decent book in its own right. Jesse returns to the island where she grew up to deal with a crisis involving her mother. When she arrives, her life is turned up-side-down. The tumult includes falling in love with a monk, her mother's sanity, the decision of whether to abandon her former life and her husband, and the realizations about her father's death. The conclusion was good, all the lose ends tied up, but I can't help but think that Jesse was unjustly vindicated. Her actions were often selfish and her justification for these actions were unfounded. But the story was full of folk-lore and embedded with self-realization, both on her part, her mother's and even Brother Thomas. This was a "coming of age" story, even though the characters were past their prime. An adequate follow up to her first novel, it has established Sue Monk Kidd's niche as a writer of honest southern women with pasts to resolve.
A great story writer!!! I love this........2007-09-26
Sue Monk Kidd is an excellent writer and especially for women. NOT that the opposite sex wouldn't enjoy it as well, I simply find this particular book a story that women will enjoy in every possible way. Kidd has a very spiritual nature and though it doesn't hit you over the head in this story, it can be felt. I was "hooked" from the beginning to the end. I am figuring YOU will too.
Book Description
From Joan Medlicott, the nationally bestselling author who created the wonderful world of Covington, comes a heartwarming story about three generations of women who find their way past old hurts and losses to understanding, forgiveness, and love.
Winifred Parker climbed her way out of poverty by marrying into one of Philadelphia's oldest, wealthiest families. Now seventy-two years old, she has always felt that her son married beneath him and she has had no contact with her daughter-in-law, Zoe, since her son was killed in Korea.
Zoe Parker lives alone on twenty-eight acres of rural Carolina land that she inherited from her parents. Determined to preserve her property when faced with the threat of foreclosure, Zoe, now in her fifties, has no choice but to turn to her wealthy, estranged mother-in-law.
Katie Parker is a young divorcée whose daughter recently passed away. When she returns home to Zoe's land to heal, she knows enough about her mother's history to be surprised to find her grandmother living there, too.
Though old grievances stand between the three women, new challenges and grave danger cause them to forge a new path together, and they soon find unexpected bonds forming along the way. Joan Medlicott has created an entirely new group of characters you'll want to spend time with in this warm, rich novel about family, friendship, and where the two meet.
Customer Reviews:
A key phrase... "as if".......2007-08-05
A bit of wisdom from this book that I'll carry with me... "as if"... I apply it regularly. I did not give this book more stars solely based on the fact that I was put off by the violence of one passage.
Not all that good .......2007-01-11
About a third of the way into this book I strongly considered just stopping. I decided to go ahead and finish the book since it is such a fast read, but it didn't get much better as it went along.
I thought the premise of the book to be very interesting and was looking forward to reading another book by Ms. Medlicott (author of the Covington series). It didn't live up to my hopes.
The story was very contrived ..... many characters had sudden shifts in behavior that were needed to make everything turn out well in the end and weren't very believable. If you like a story where everyone falls in love and everything turns out just fine in the end (regardless of how unbelieveable it all is), you will like this book. One must suspend any grounding in reality to appreciate this book. One final complaint, there are only TWO Mrs. Parkers, not three !!! The third woman in the books is not a Mrs. Parker, but her maiden name is Parker. This should have been a tip off early about the quality of the rest of the book.
I deeply appreciated this brilliantly woven tale! Highly recommended........2006-01-30
A wonderful story about a middle-aged widow in danger of losing her family's home, who must swallow her pride and turn to her snobbish mother-in-law, a woman who turned her back on her own son when he "married beneath him", for financial assistance. In return, the ailing mother-in-law must face coming down off her high horse and recognizing her late son's wife for the wonderful person she is. Mediating the reconciliation is a woman grieving the death of her handicapped daughter, who helps both her mother and grandmother forgive past hurts and move forward together, all while healing her own pain.
This is my first experience with this author, and it surely won't be my last. This is a very well-written story, told from the heart, of love, life and forgiveness. I felt a strong emotional connection to the characters as they worked through their differences and come to a greater understanding of the other.
Unlearning hate.......2005-10-09
When Zoe Parker is in danger of losing the house and land bequeathed to her by her parents, she asks her mother in law for financial assistance. Widowed Zoe and her mother in law Winifred, have always been at loggerheads, with Winifred insisting that her late son married beneath him, and, because of her stubborness and pride, has cut off contact with Zoe and her daughter, Katie. Saying that she would need to see the property before investing her money and, not mentioning the fact that she has a serious illness looming, she comes for a visit and immediately puts everyone's back up with her domineering ways and arrogance. Katy has also moved in with her mother after the death of her severely handicapped daughter, but without knowing any of the details of Winifred's hurtful attitude to Zoe and her refusal to help in the years following the death of Zoe's husband, cuts through the barrier of years to become very attached to her grandmother. This is the story of three generations of women of the same family, trying to bond, trying to forgive and trying to make sense of their lives at this point. I don't know that I'd be quite as forgiving to such a hurtful person, even if I did know her background and some of the reasons for her behaviour, but then, perhaps I'm not of such a generous spirit as these women!
Readable.......2005-06-12
This is not normally my kind of book, but having just read
Broken Prey, needed a change of pace. This book is ok, however
there are not 3 Mrs. Parkers. Two and one Ms or Miss Parker.
Also it's nuts that one could not pay off a $39,000 loan on
50 acres of land. Zoe could have worked at a fast food place
and made enough for the payments, even if she had bad credit.
She evidently had enought money for satellite tv as she turned
on CNN, but hey, you got to have a story. If you like books about feelings and forgiveness, etc you probably would like this.
I'm going back to my type of book and will start The Closers.
Book Description
Towering live oaks guard old secrets and powerful forces that even the spirited Bay Tanner can’t control. . . .
A freak summer storm has Bay Tanner, sometime private investigator, cooped up with her ailing father at his antebellum mansion near Hilton Head. Desperate for a distraction, Bay recovers a cooler bobbing along on the incoming tide. What she discovers inside will plunge her into a world of ancient magic where the power of the “root” has held sway since the days of the slave row. Suddenly, mysterious people and strange incidents, including a near-fatal accident, force her to realize that she may have unleashed something she can neither understand nor escape.
Meanwhile, her investigation into the simple case of a runaway wife turns deadly. The police are eager to nail the wealthy, prominent husband for murder, but Bay’s instincts tell her there’s more to the story. Sheriff’s Sergeant Red Tanner, her late husband’s brother, warns her off the case, but Bay’s never been good at taking orders. Soon she’s working full-time to defend her client, who may not be as innocent as Bay would like to believe.
Time and again, every trail leads back to a mystical commune in the tangled backwoods of Beaufort County and to one of its leaders, a charismatic woman who believes in the real and malevolent power of the old ways. To find a killer, Bay must travel to the heart of this woman’s world—and not everyone will escape the spell of Sanctuary Hill.
Customer Reviews:
KUDOS!!! Bay Tanner series leaves reader wanting MORE and MORE!.......2007-07-24
For the readers of the low country sleuth Bay Tanner, this will NOT be a disappointment! Continuing her saga of suspense, surprise and a little romance, she continues the involvements of Hilton Head, Presqu'isle and Gullah characters with surprises along the way. This one is the BEST yet, leaving a desire for the immediate sequel to one of the South's leading mystery women!
Best Bay Tanner Mystery To Date.......2007-06-01
I have read all of Kathryn Wall's Bay Tanner mysteries and I think this one may be the best -- by a hair. As usual, Wall evokes the hot summer setting of the low country so completely that I experience strong cravings for sweet tea and feel overheated just reading the book. In this novel, Wall takes on racism in the Low Country, in a complex and compelling way that challenges the reader to think in new ways about old problems that die hard. This context offers Wall the opportunity to develop some likeable characters even more completely, including Lavinia Smalls, the judge's care taker, as well as Eric, Bay's partner in her detective agency. I missed Bay's more compelling romantic interests of the past, although things heating up with her brother-in-law Red evoked shock, horror, and perverse fascination. The night scenes at the compound are downright creepy -- in a good way. I read this book in two days, because I could not put it down. I loved it! In sum, I found this mystery the most realistic and compelling this far in an absolutely fascinating series. I hope there will be many more Bay Tanner mysteries to come. Are you listening, Ms. Wall? Or should I say Ms. Kathryn?
strong entertaining regional mystery.......2007-05-19
An unexpected storm socks the South Carolina Lowcountry coast stranding private investigator Bay Tanner at the home of her ailing father. Stepping outside the luxurious antebellum mansion, Bay grabs a floating cooler. When she opens it expecting inside food or drink, she is stunned to find the corpse of a newborn.
She informs Sheriff's sergeant Redmond "Red" Tanner, who also happens to be the brother of Bay's deceased husband; her in-law tells her not to investigate as he knows how her curiosity keeps the cat in trouble. She ignores his warning rant because she believes the key to identifying the mother and perhaps the killer is the strange charm the victim had around her neck. At about the same time realtor Dumars hires Bay to look for his missing wife. When the spouse is found dead her client is the prime suspect. Though she thinks he is innocent, she detests what she believes is his disrespect for the dead as he sleeps with another woman while his wife lies in the morgue. She considers dropping him as a client rationalizing that her contractual consideration was achieved when the corpse was found.
The realistic portrayals of the characters especially Bay and Red make for a strong entertaining regional mystery. Bay has several dilemmas to consider making her seem human as she suddenly has two men wanting her and a moral quandary re Dumars. Fans of the series will appreciate this superb whodunit that brings Beaufort County alive through a fully developed cast involved in two homicides.
Harriet Klausner
Average customer rating:
- Written word transforms dead end life
- Triumph of the Human Spirit
- Poverty in the world
- I'll think twice before throwing food out again
- a famous book about the slums in Brazil
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Child Of The Dark: The Diary Of Carolina Maria De Jesus
Carolina Maria de Jesus
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Biography of a Runaway Slave
ASIN: 0451529103
Release Date: 2003-10-07 |
Book Description
A powerful first-hand account of life in the streets of São Paulo from 1955 to 1960 that drew international attention to the plight of the poor.
Customer Reviews:
Written word transforms dead end life.......2007-03-23
The autobiographies of poor people from places far from the middle class worlds of rich countries never used to appear in book stores. It was indeed rare that such lives, however interesting, difficult, inspiring or depressing would ever show up on the shelves. But such is the modern world that nowadays we do get occasional chances to glimpse other lives, hear other voices. In "From the Land of Green Ghosts" we could read of the life of a member of the Padaung tribe in Burma; in "Notes from the Hyena's Belly", we read about a small town Ethiopian. Both these men were not poor in their own societies, but went through the traumas of war and revolution before escaping to the calmer West. The adventures of Tete-Michel Kpomassie, a Togolese villager who made it all the way to Greenland, provide another type of narrative. CHILD OF THE DARK, a book written by a Brazilian woman from the very bottom of society, is yet another kind of these rare narrations, and moreover, was one of the first to appear. Carolina Maria de Jesus, a black mother of three with a second grade education, abandoned by all the men in her life, raised her kids in one of the worst slums of Sao Paulo. She picked trash and paper to sell to junk dealers, cadged bones from a slaughterhouse to make soup, collected squashed tomatoes from behind a cannery, and scavenged thrown away food items from the garbage of richer streets. Writing a diary every day helped her to persevere through years of hardship, to escape for a few moments, her hunger, misery, and constant worry. Through a chance encounter with a journalist, her diary was eventually published and she became a celebrity in Brazil back in the early 1960s. She left her hand-to-mouth existence and moved out of the favela forever. Her book is the only one of its kind from that time. [She had a hard time coping with her new life, though, and died in poverty in 1977.]
It's not all sweetness and light, not all a goody goody, morally uplifting Cinderella tale. She sometimes beat her kids, she slept with various suitors, abused "substances", and reported to the police on her neighbors (not that they didn't deserve it). She also has bad things to say about Portuguese, gypsies, and Jews. But OK, most all this is a story of human survival. De Jesus eked out a meagre living amidst squalor and constant quarreling, drunkenness and the sexual antics of the poorest members of Brazilian society, yet she bore up, kept writing, and made many observations about the society that produced such misery, the politicians who came around to ask for votes and then never appeared again. Brazil has no doubt changed in the last half century, but I believe this most human life story is still extremely relevant, both for Brazil and the rest of the world. How many Carolinas is it going to take ?
Triumph of the Human Spirit .......2006-04-26
Caroline Maria de Jusus was born a[...] in poverty and went to only the second grade. She lived most of her adult life in poverty and her children were labeled [...]. She wanted to write and did. She became a writer of international reputation. Her book has been read by people around the world and in the United States. Her work stands with that of Victor Frankl in "MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING," and "BLACK ELK SPEAKS" an American Sioux, and with Frederick Douglass' NARRATIVE LIFE.
CHILD OF THE DARK, is a must read for anyone who wants to understand and to challenge the values and standards of a civilization (ours) that degrades human life for fun and profit.
Poverty in the world.......2005-10-05
This book is great in the respect that it captures the experiences of someone living in extreme poverty and how she deals with the daily struggle of survival.
I'll think twice before throwing food out again.......2003-03-13
This book is truly an eye opener as to what it really means to be poor and hungry. I can't believe that someone with only two years of schooling could churn out such a masterpiece, the language and thought processes involved will leave you wondering with amazement. What suprises you is that in and amongst all the squalor, deprivation, fights and hunger she still admires the night sky, the birds, the stars, the beautiful weather. What a woman ! Most people in her position wouldn't have time to be thankful for these "free" beautiful things and that is what I found so touching. Her dedication to her children and indeed her neighbours will teach all us other mortals in the devleoped world what being humble really means. At times this woman cannot find a meal but when she has money and food she shares it with her friends and neighbours, wondering little if she will have a meal the next day. Her ability to keep going despite her adversities will shock you. Please read this book, you will aspire to be a better person afterwards.
a famous book about the slums in Brazil.......2002-11-16
This book takes place in the late 1950's in the slums (called favela's) in Brazil. The book is actually the diary of Carolina Maria De Jesus who is a poor woman with 3 children all with different fathers. She lives in a shack and sells scrap paper, tin cans, and rags to feed herself & her children. The struggle just to eat and have clean water every day is enormous and it's just so shocking that all these people live like that. Her fight for survival is inspiring. Carolina only went to school through the second grade but she writes really, really well. Her diary ends up getting published (obviously!) and she gets out of the favela for good. They show pictures in the book of her moving out but her diary ends without mentioning it. If you like this book & want to know what happens to Carolina & her family after she moves out of the favela you'll have to read the second one, "I'm Going To Have a Little House".
Book Description
This collection of nineteen original essays on selected topics and epochs in North Carolina history offers a broad survey of the state from its discovery and colonization to the present. Each chapter consists of an interpretive essay on a specific aspect of North Carolina's history, a collection of supporting documents, and a brief bibliography.
Selections cover historical periods ranging from Elizabethan to contemporary times and examine such issues as slavery, populism, civil rights, and the status of women. Essays address the tragedy of North Carolina's Indians, the state's role in the Revolutionary War and the Confederacy, and the impact of the Great Depression. North Carolina's place in the New South and evangelical culture in the state are also discussed.
Designed as a supplementary reader for the study and teaching of North Carolina history, The North Carolina Experience will introduce college students to the process of historical research and writing. It will also be a valuable resource in secondary schools, public libraries, and the homes of those interested in North Carolina history.
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- Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #3: Valdez is Coming & Hombre
- Ethnicity and Family Therapy, Third Edition
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- High Profile
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