The Wednesday Letters - Jason F. Wright

This book begins with the deaths an elderly couple. Jack Cooper has an inoperable brain tumor and has been close to death for several months. His wife, Laurel, seems to be in good health and is caring for him. However, one evening as they lay down for bed, Laurel has a heart attack. Jack is too weak to reach the phone and call for help, and he passes away shortly after Laurel.

Their three children gather, along with a few close family friends, as they prepare for the funeral. They discover several boxes in the basement which are filled with letters from Jack to Laurel - one written every week for the entire time they were married.

These letters reveal many family secrets and the motivation behind many of the decisions Jack and Laurel made.

Matthew, the oldest child, is dealing with a troubled marriage. Samantha is a local police officer, and a single mother. Malcolm returns from Brazil after fleeing two years earlier to avoid jail.

Malcolm's story seems to be the most troubled. He and Jack never got along well, and he resented that. He got in several fights, the last of which was to protect Rain, his former girlfriend and an adopted member of the Cooper family. He almost killed a man who had forced her to leave a bar and was trying to take off with her. In the process, he punched Rain's current boyfriend, Nathan, who is a county prosecutor, when Nathan said, "Leave it alone. She's not worth it."

The two biggest secrets that come out during the book are that Malcolm was fathered by another man when he got drunk and followed Laurel home, breaking into her house. It bothered me that Laurel was raped by a random homeless man, since this kind of thing can perpetuate the myth that sexual violence is usually perpetrated by strangers who attack people in the night.

It turns out that the homeless man who raped is mother is now one of the local preachers. This information comes out slowly through the letters, sending Malcolm on a roller coaster ride. This to me was very far-fetched, and I think the book would have been better without this.

It also turns out that Nathan set-up the bar scene two years before, clearing Malcolm of all charges so he doesn't have to run anymore.

Overall, this was a good book detailing the lives of good people. It was interesting to see how their choices affected themselves and each other.

The Innocent - Harlan Coben

This book was okay. It was a quick read - I believe I finished it in one day - but I didn't feel I got a lot out of it.

SUMMARY

"The protagonist is Matt Hunter, a young man who gets involved in a fight at a frat party in college, winds up going to prison for manslaughter when one of the people he was fighting with dies, and then tries to rebuild his life after being released. He seems to be doing so: he has a good job as a paralegal, and he’s married to a beautiful woman who’s now pregnant. And then, of course, everything goes haywire as all sorts of trouble from the past crops up. Before you know it, Matt is on the run from the cops, suspected of two murders, and somebody wants him dead." (copied from here)

It turns out that his wife has lied about her past. Rather than involving an idyllic childhood on a Southern farm/ranch, it was lived in Idaho and Nevada in foster homes, and eventually as a slave and a dancer.

She faked her own death after finding a fellow dancer had been murdered, and used that opportunity to escape to a new life. However, her past began to catch up with her despite her own innocence in all of it. To top it all off, a child she placed for adoption years before turns out to be her sister-in-law's live-in nanny.

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

The Screwtape Letters is written from the perspective of an experienced devil, Screwtape, trying to teach his nephew, Wormwood, how to tempt. It is composed of letters from Screwtape to Wormwood regarding the man the nephew is responsible for tempting.

Thinking about spirituality from this opposite perspective gave me new insights into ways I can change. I learned a great deal throughout the book. One of my favorite chapters centered on where we have our focus, in the past, present, or future:

"The humans live in time but our Enemy [God] destines them to eternity. . . . The Present is the point at which time touches eternity. . . . He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity or with the Present . . . bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

"It is far better to make them live in the Future. . . . thought about the Future inflames hope and fear."

Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin

Black Like Me is the story of a Texan journalist who, in 1959, decided to undergo heavy medication to turn his skin dark and live as an African American man in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. He wanted to see for himself if all of the rumors about the superiority of Whites were true, as well as to experience what life as an African American man was like at that time.

He spent time in the same cities as a white man, and noticed a dramatic difference in the way he was treated by Whites.

For some reason the most poignant part of his experience, for me, was that he often had to walk blocks or even miles to find a restroom, water, or food he was allowed to use as an African American. Seeing this experience from his perspective gave me a greater understanding of a lot of the problems we still face regarding poverty.

While is style of writing is not necessarily compelling, his whole experience and bravery helped me to gain a better understanding of the inequalities faced by so many people. I think it would be interesting for someone to undertake a similar experiment regarding other groups which are discriminated against today.

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

I have been wanting to read this book for over two years. I heard about it right before we moved away for graduate school, and so I finally got around to checking it out from the library, or at least trying to check it out, in April or May. I couldn't understand how the Lincoln library could have over 50 copies, and yet it was still a long waiting list. The following week, I saw the first preview for the movie adaptation. Ah-ha!

So, I finally broke down and bought it when we made a visit to Vernal in early August and I had already finished the only book I brought with me for the trip.

I LOVED this book. It is broken up into three sections detailing Liz's experiences spending four months in each of three locations: Italy, India, and Indonesia (Bali). She is healing from a terrible divorce and a long bout of depression, so she decides to go on a journey of self-discovery.

While I loved the descriptions of Italy and the things she learned about herself there (all focused around food - hence the "Eat" in Eat, Pray, Love) and her time in Bali (focused on finding balance between the physical and spiritual - the Love part), the section detailing her spiritual journey in India is what made me love this book.

Say You're One of Them - Uwem Akpan

Apparently graduating and moving severely limit my time to review the books I read.

Say You're One of Them is a collection of 5 short stories about the resilience of children based in various African countries. None of the stories, however, are uplifting. They are fictional accounts of real suffering in these countries.

In "An Ex-Mas Feast," a mother, father, and several children all live in a shanty. As a prostitute, the oldest daughter brings home the only real money the family gets. She is saving to pay for her younger brother to go to school. The family looks down on her and frequently criticizes her for the way she earns her money even though their only other source of income is begging, which usually in unproductive. In the end, she pays off her family's debts, brings home a feast, and prepares to leave the house to work full time. Her younger brother threatens to run away and not go to school if she follows through with it.

"Fattening for Gabon" is the story of a young boy and girl who are sent by their parents to live with an uncle in a distant city. They are happy with him, but soon new people appear in their lives and say they are going to take them away to give them a better life. Even though they are both about 10 years old, their new "mother" changes their names to European names and they are forced to be called by these new names. As time passes, it becomes clear that their uncle sold them to these people. He becomes remorseful, but he has already received part of the payment for them and so he is killed by those who plan to take the children away. The older brother manages to get a spare key to allow him and his sister to escape. His sister screams and refuses to come as they try to escape, and he runs away without her.

"What Language is That" is the story of two little girls, one Christian, the other Muslim. They enjoy playing together and their families have no problem with their friendship until tensions break out. Neither of them understands why she is not allowed to see the other.

"Luxurious Hearses" is the story of a Muslim teenage boy who is trying to flee south to escape his fellow Muslims who are planning to kill him for being the son of a Christian father. He spends an exhausting couple of days trying to hid his religion from a bus full of Christians who are fleeing the same violence. However, upon reaching the south, they realize that tensions are just as bad there with the Christians persecuting the Muslims, and the southern Muslims are trying to flee north.

Set in Rwanda, "My Parent's Bedroom" is about two young children who find themselves in the middle of a conflict because their parents are from two different tribes. Their father's family is demanding that he kill their mother, which he refuses to do. In the mean time, he is hiding injured Tutsis in their ceiling, causing it to sag all over. The children are barely able to escape. Their father's family kills their father, and drags away their mother after setting their house on fire.

One Book - One Lincoln Books

One Book – One Lincoln

Past Finalists and Selected Titles

2009

 People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

What is the What by Dave Eggers

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks

The Color of Water by James McBride [305.8 McB]

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard [Biography Roosevelt]

2008

Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson [915.491 Mor]

 The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2007

Moloka’i by Alan Brennert

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

 The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan [973.917 Ega]

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor

2006

Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos [Nebraska Author]

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

 The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson [364.152 Lar]

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls [B W1547]

2005

 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Green Mile by Stephen King

Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps by Ted Kooser [917.823 Koo] [Nebraska Author]

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

2004

 Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

Old Jules by Mari Sandoz [B Sa54s] [Nebraska Author]

2003

The Weight of Dreams by Jonis Agee [Nebraska Author]

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg

 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

2002

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

 Plainsong by Kent Haruf [Nebraska Author]

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

Montana 1948 by Lawrence Watson

 – indicates the selected title for this year