August '25 Books

 Another ten books month....

The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel is about the men and woman who worked to retrieve and save the European artworks stolen and hidden by Hitler during WWII. George L. Stout, an Iowan from Winterset, was extremely instrumental in their successes.  

Mean Streak, Low Pressure, and Blood Moon by Sandra Brown are three more of her books that I've been reading. These pretty much all follow the same formulaic - romantic suspense, action, intrigue - eye candy for the mind.

The Listeners is the first book I've read by Maggie Stiefvater. It is based on true happenings during WWII. I never knew that diplomats from Germany, Italy and Japan who were in the US when war was declared with those countries, were confined to large luxury hotels until they could be exchanged with the U.S. diplomats in their respective countries. As I've said before, I really enjoy novels based on true historical events.

South of Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver is the latest in his Colter Shaw series. It is a race against the clock to save a flooding town from total disaster when the protecting levee begins failing. 

The Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters is the first book I've read by this author and the first YA book I've read for some time. The setting is San Diego in the middle of the 1918 influenza epidemic. 

The Last Midwife by Sandra Dallas takes place in a small Colorado mining town in 1880. It follows a respected midwife as she cares for mothers and their babies until she is accused of murdering one of the newborns. I have always liked books set in previous times. The surprise for me in this one was that I thought I had read all of the Sandra Dallas books at my library. Now I have.

Zero Days by Ruth Ware is about a husband and wife team who are hired by companies to test their security systems. When the wife finds her husband murdered, she is the prime suspect. Before she can be arrrested she works to stay ahead of the law while trying to find the real killer. I didn't care for the first book I read by this author, The Woman In Cabin 10, but I did like this one.

We Are All Guilty Here is by one of my favorite authors - Karin Slaughter. This is the first new book of her's that my library has gotten since 2020 and the first in her new North Falls series. Set in a small town where everyone knows everyone until two teenage girls are murdered and they realize they didn't know their neighbors at all. As much as I enjoyed her Will Trent series, I think this new series might be even better. 

Until next month, wishing you all a Happy Labor Day.

Perseids Meteor Showers

Did you catch any falling stars during the Perseids meteor showers earlier this week? Perhaps - if you are a night owl and younger than I am. It's been a long time since I put down a blanket, laid back and watched for the annual show. But there is this:

Nocturne II By W.S. Merwin

August arrives in the dark

we are not even asleep and it is here
with a gust of rain rustling before it
how can it be so late all at once
somewhere the Perseids are falling
toward us already at a speed that would
burn us alive if we could believe it
but in the stillness after the rain ends
nothing is to be heard but the drops falling
one at a time from the tips of the leaves
into the night and I lie in the dark
listening to what I remember
while the night flies on with us into itself

The Details You Learn From Reading

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good

She was very very good,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

My mother used to recite as well as sing this little poem to my sister and me. She could have changed it to boy if she wasn't concerned about it rhyming, as both my brothers had curlier hair than Betty and I. 

The amazing, to me, fact is that this wasn't just a little ditty made up in the 30's or 40's, it was a poem written by none other than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And I didn't know that, would probably have never known that, had it not been for the book I am currently reading. 

Being able to read, enjoying doing so, unimaginable what my life would have been without those.

From KRNT to KCCI - A 70th Anniversary Celebration

From the time I moved to Des Moines in 1968 until moving back to SW Iowa in 1995, I was a staunch Channel 8 viewer. So this week I have been enjoying the "Where Are They Now?" clips of former KCCI staffers as they come back to help celebrate the station's 70th anniversary. 

This morning I watched part of Eric Hanson's "This is Iowa" 60-minute special featuring clips from the past and interviews from then and now. 

Dolph Pulliam hasn't changed much but I did not recognize Mary Brubaker in this picture. I attended many Drake basketball games in '68-'69 where Pulliam helped lead his team to the Final Four. Later I watched him as a broadcaster on KCCI.

I also watched The Mary Brubaker show where she interviewed local and national celebrities and featured medical, political, home improvement, and fashion news as well as cooking segments.

I was once a very nervous guest on her show but for the life of me I can't remember why. I certainly was not any kind of celebrity and I wasn't a good cook with some new recipe. I vaguely remember wearing a jumpsuit on the program. They were popular at the time and I had sewn several for myself. Or was it for a makeover or a new hairdo? Maybe some day I will recall the reason. In the meantime, I'm going to watch the rest of Eric Hanson's special.