I am one of those people...

who is using the internet in a bad way!
Hmm.  Let me explain!
We all thought that the internet would draw us closer together.  That it would open our eyes to other ways of thinking and POVs.  Well we know that hasn't happened, in fact, just the opposite.  The little wormy things that follow our searches come to know what we like and we are feed more of what we like and we seek out what we like and what we know and we can turn out or turn away from those things we don't like.  And so when I saw the book The Left Behind:  Decline and Rage in Rural America by Robert Wuthnow, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't falling into some garbage like this piece of trash.  Like the Vox interviewer, I think it was the title that really put me off.  Listening to Pulpit Fiction this week it all linked together.  White people in our country who consider themselves among the "left behind" or the afflicted are getting it wrong!  Whoa getting it WAY wrong and I didn't want to read a book that got it THAT wrong!
As I listened to the book I really didn't get the impression that it was biased, either way.  This made me irritated of course!  Because I wanted the book to be right!   You know, I wanted it to agree with me!  But it didn't agree or disagree with me.  It really was not leaning to one side or another, it just reported the facts!  Then at the very end, Wuthnow comes clean and admits that he is one of "us" and so of course, I loved the book.  (This is all said sheepishly b/c I know I am just being ridiculous and biased in my own way- of course, I am biased the correct way!)
I still can't conceive of people who follow Jesus and support our current president.  I still can't conceive of people who claim to follow Jesus and believe that capitalism is a good thing.  Or war.  Or the death penalty.  So it is hard for me to put myself in the place of those who believe these things.  But I know I need to remember that both right and left are two sides of a very thin coin.  And so I will not judge.  But I will continue to pray for "them" and "us" and the world.

Ms. Paterson

is just so excellent.  Come Sing Jimmy Jo was a book she mentioned in one of the interviews she did and so I was super excited to see that it was available on audible.
I really don't think there is anyone who can create characters like Katherine Paterson.  She gives them life and SOUL.  I could feel James's heart breaking or flying high, I could feel his confusion and his certainty, his anger and his love and his worry.  How does she DO that!?!
Having been a country music fan in the 80s when this book was written, I knew just what the book meant when it talked about the changing landscape of country music.
I loved the references to the Carter Family.
I loved the whole thing.
One of the best books I have ever read.

ER Stories...

People of the ER is another book by Dr. Philip Allen Green.  I really, really loved the first one I read by him, and this one was the same way.  I just found every one of the short stories to be so well written and so different and interesting.  Sometimes short story collections are hard to write about because they can be uneven.  Even when it is a collection by the same author, but this wasn't the case with this book or Meet Cute, so maybe that bodes well for all of the short story collections that 2018 will bring my way!  Lots of great sermon illustrations in here, too! 

Being from Pittsburgh

Saving Marty just didn't do it for me.  Now keep in mind that I listened to the book and it was read with a southern accent and it wasn't set IN Pittsburgh, but in Southwestern PA and I do know that some people see this region as being part of Appalachia.  Indeed, it is in the Appalachian Mountain region and all.  But I think it was a stretch to say that there was a Pittsburgh Jamboree.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  It just didn't feel "real" to me.  If you live in Southwestern PA and found this to be a correct portrayal, please correct me though! 

The Doctor's Side

I have read nurse books and paramedic books and the doctors don't always come across so well.  So I thought that reading Trauma Room Two would give me a little POV of at least one doctor, an ER doctor in a small rural town.  These stories are fictional (which I just learned here!) but based on true events.  Dr. Green has written an incredible book here.  There are sixteen short stories and I found every one to be top notch.  So

Sewickley!

I was actually sitting in my car, in Sewickley, just before work, listening to Wolf Hollow when I heard the narrator say, "Moreover, we did eat at Lancaster's in Sewickley twice a year."
That was very exciting!   Because I didn't realize that the book was set in Pennsylvania before hearing that!  Later on the book does make mention of Pittsburgh and Aliquppa, too.  But it was very exciting to hear "Sewickley" while in Sewickley!
Wolf Hollow is getting Newbery buzz.  And I did like Wolf Hollow.  And I do wonder if it will win the Newbery.  But man, it just wasn't all I thought it would be.
I agree with people who have said it was reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird. But that's the thing, it was a too too too much like TKAM.  And it also was a little too much like Stepping on the Cracks.  To be totally WOW for me.  I wasn't sucked in or blown away.  But it was good.  It just wasn't WOW.  3 of 5 stars for me.

Lost and Found

The Search for Belle Prater is the sequel to Belle Prater's Boy.  I was so glad to see this available for download.  In it, Woodrow and Gypsy make some new friends who help them in their search for Woodrow's mother.  I liked also, being that the book is set in 1954 that the issue of prejudice and discrimination is addressed when the kids meet Joseph Lincoln, an African American boy who is looking for his father, like Woodrow is looking for his mom.

Belle of the Ball

Belle Ball is a pretty bad name.  I mean, I thought my name was bad.  But Belle Prater had Belle Ball as her name until she married her husband.  Yeah. Belle Ball.
That is neither here nor there!
I have often seen and heard tell of Belle Prater's Boy.
But I had not read it until now.
This is just SUCH a great book.
And it won a Newbery Honor!
This is the story of Gypsy and Woodrow, cousins.  Woodrow is Belle Prater's boy, Belle went missing, just up and left.  And Gypsy's dad died and I won't give away any more about that.  And they are both dealing with the loss of a parent.  And life and rumors in a small town.  And family secrets and just being middle school aged.  They live in the fictional town of Coal Station, VA and White's writing just brings the place to life.  There is also a sequel, The Search for Belle Prater, which I hope to read as well.

Yeah...

This was another book I just couldn't get my mind around.  It is a magical realism kinda deal.  Like the author's Snicker of Magic.  It is on a Newbery watch list...but man...I just don't know...I really didn't like this one at all.  It just seemed so odd...and it just didn't keep my attention at all.

Easy on the Eyes

My mother is in love with Sam Shephard.
She is in love with a lotta guys, actually.
And the ones she finds to be super handsome, like Sam Shepherd, she is just batty about them.
It began with Crimes of the Heart and then she was hopeless since Baby Boom.
We knew he was a playwrite.  And an award-winning one at that.  I guess I always thought that he was an actor first and then a playwrite.  But someone, it seems even cooler, more amazing that he was an award-winning playwrite before I even knew he did picture shows, as they say.
Buried Child won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979.
This story is really powerful and moving and hard.  It is the story of a family pretty much falling apart because of a series of horrible, horrible choices.  Ones that will haunt and torture them until they die.  It is not a feel-good story.  It will stay with you, though, for sure.  And make you a lot happier about your own lot in life.