The View From My Reading Chair – Apr 25

It’s a good week when I get to report a completed book. This week is exceptional because I finished two books! That has to be a sign that the spring semester is almost over and summer is on the way.

Early in the week, I finished reading Jon Meacham’s biography, Destiny and Power. It was a wonderful account of the life and presidency of George H.W. Bush. After such a hefty book, I needed something a little lighter. I returned to James Patterson for a “beach read” with The 19th Christmas. It’s hard to believe that I am almost current in the Women’s Murder Club series. The 20th installment was published earlier this year. That will be a welcome respite later this summer when my reading becomes heavy again.

What’s next on my reading pile? Since I anticipate more reading time ahead — and more need to calm my mind during finals — I decided to give myself some diversity and have three books on deck. I rarely read multiple books at the same time, but I’m thinking this might be the right time to do it again. I’ve been looking forward to returning to The Clifton Chronicles for a few weeks, so I will definitely be getting started on the second installment of the series, The Sins of the Father, this week.

As the semester draws to its close, I see lots of students who are stressed out and simply ready for the online semester that was thrust upon them because of COVID-19 to come to an end. I must admit that I am also in that same boat. I just have to hold out until May 9 and then I can begin to breathe a little more deeply. As I prepare to mentor students with the prospect of an uncertain future, I am picking up Angela Duckworth’s highly recommended Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. I am hoping to find insight for myself and my students.

For the past few summers, I have decided to include a classic novel in my reading plan. This year, I’ve decided to return to a work that I first encountered in high school and absolutely hated. I read more works by the author in college and beyond; his other novels have become treasured favorites. Both The Winter of Our Discontent and East of Eden were wonderful reading experiences that forever changed my approach to American literature. So, this summer I am planning a serious read of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. (Since summer is almost here and I am ready to dive in, I decided to get an early start!) My plan is to work through the novel methodically and without a specific timeline. I want to have plenty of time to enjoy Steinbeck’s language and reflect on the images he portrays of early 20th century America. I’ll keep you posted each week on my progress and my reaction since that will be part of “The View from My Reading Chair.”

#13: The 19th Christmas (James Patterson)

To end the week, I finished the next installment in the Women’s Murder Club, The 19th Christmas. (The 20th book in the series was just published in March, 2020.) Lindsey Boxer is back with her entire crew for another baffling mystery, although I did miss the interactions with Claire Washburn, the medical examiner who was “away” for the holidays working in San Diego.

This time, the women find themselves dealing with the mysterious Loman, a criminal mastermind of repute who is plotting a major heist in San Francisco on Christmas Day. The only problem is that there are so many leads on where the hit is actually taking place that the police force doesn’t know where to direct their efforts. With the rising body count during the investigation, it is clear that Loman must be found — and soon!

Cindy, the newspaper reporter, has discovered an illegal immigrant who has spent nearly two years in lockup awaiting trial for murder. All signs point to the fact that an innocent man was pinned with the crime by gang members who actually did the deed. Combine the false accusation with a flaky defense lawyer who took the family’s money and ran and you immediately see a hopeless case. Can Cindy convince Yuki and the DA’s office to revisit the case while maintaining her credibility and professionalism?

A visitor from Joe’s past makes an appearance as The 19th Christmas comes to a close. It sets the stage for future challenges for Joe and Lindsey. I’m sure Patterson will use this new development as fodder for another running plot line that will continue throughout the series.

#12: Destiny and Power (Jon Meacham)

Pulitzer Prize winning author Jon Meacham has written a phenomenal biography of the 41st President of the United States in Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush. The book traces Bush’s life through its beginnings in New England, through his service in World War II, in the oil fields of west Texas, and throughout his political career. The final section of the biography focuses on Bush’s life post-presidency and gives special attention to his relationships with his sons George W. and Jeb.

I found the account insightful and humorous. I loved how notations from President Bush’s personal diary were scattered throughout the entire work, bringing a sense of  understanding and intimacy to the discussion. I was especially moved by the depiction of George H.W. Bush’s special relationship with his mother. The account of his final visit with Dorothy Bush before her death in the final days of his tenure as President was especially moving.

Mrs. Bush was breathing with difficulty, and Bush and his daughter [Doro] wept by her bedside. The president reached over and leafed through his mother’s “frayed Bible.” In its pages were notes that he had written her from Andover and a birthday card he had mailed her from the navy.

He held her hand, thinking of all the times she had lovingly rubbed his through the years. After a few hours he and Doro left for Washington. To Bush, the sight of his mother struggling to breathe put the rest of life in proper perspective. “I don’t know that Mum knows I’m President of the United States,” he told his diary, but “I do know that is not important anymore.” (p. 527)

As I realized that I was reaching the end of the biography, I began to wonder how I would adequately sum up the importance of this work. Bush 41 seems to be such an underrated, under appreciated leader by many. How could I possibly convey my feelings to my audience of readers? It seems as though Meacham recognized that his readers would need help in finding the right words to express the importance of George H.W. Bush. To help, he provided the following moment from an interview the author conducted with President Barack Obama reflecting upon his attitude toward the legacy of Bush 41.

. . .Bush, Obama thought, was “one of our most underrated Presidents,” and, in the middle of a late winter afternoon a quarter century after Bush left Washington, the incumbent president made the case for the Bush legacy.

“I would argue that he helped usher in the post-Cold War era in a way that gave the world its best opportunity for stability and peace and openness,” Obama said in the telephone interview from the White House. “The template he laid in a peaceful and unified Europe and in what for at least twenty-five years was a constructive relationship with Russia and the former Soviet satellites, and the trajectory away from nuclear brinksmanship at a time when things were still up in the air, was an extraordinary legacy.” As challenging as the world remained, “the one thing that we don’t have right now is any serious prospect of a great power war anywhere in the world,” Obama said. “Part of the reason for that is that I think George H.W. Bush did a really good job in managing that post-Cold War transition.” At home, Obama cited the Americans with Disabilities Act — something, Obama said, “that it’s hard to imagine a current Republican president initiating. . .So although President Bush was sometimes mocked for talking about ‘a thousand points of light,’ the fact is, even in his policies, there was a genuine conservative compassion there that manifested itself in working with Republicans and Democrats on the Hill to get some big things done.” (pp.599-600)

I highly recommend this biography for every American who is interested in the history and the challenges of the Office of the President. The men who have served and lead our nation from the Oval Office have shouldered immense burden as they attempted to make the lives of America’s citizens better. They all have had faults. Most have experienced success of some degree while in office. They all should be honored, respected, and thanked for their service — regardless of our political leanings.

The View From My Reading Chair – Apr 18

Another week of quasi-isolation has passed and I am continuing to enjoy spending additional time reading. Unfortunately, this week did not see a completion. That’s generally what happens when I dive into larger works. It takes a little longer for me to plow through them.

Currently, I am reading Jon Meacham’s biography of President George H.W. Bush, Destiny and Power. I am a little over 450 pages into this 600 page tome and have found myself mesmerized by the stories and reflections it contains. I just finished reading about the President’s leadership and fears during the military engagements known as Desert Shield and Desert Storm. As I got closer and closer to this portion of the book, I noticed that my reading pace slowed significantly because I was taking time to pause and reflect on my own experiences. I was a freshman in college at the time at Pepperdine University and spent lots of time watching the coverage of the war in the lobby of Dorm 4. Why was I so interested? It had nothing to do with my interest in the American political system (although my time at Pepperdine would forever change my interest in government and my political views). It had more to do with the fact that my older brother — who I really didn’t know very well at the time — had been deployed to Saudi Arabia to help maintain the nation’s planes that provided the first wave of domination. Needless to say, I have had a rather personal response to these last few chapters of Destiny and Power that I have read. I anticipate finishing this outstanding book in the next few days.

What’s next in my reading stack? After bemoaning the fact that I could not borrow books from my local library in last Saturday’s “View” post, I learned that the Plainview Library is actually still open for business! Books can be reserved online and librarians will make curbside deliveries of your books when you arrive. This was awesome news and I needed to check it out for myself! Last weekend, I put in a request for the next volume of James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club series that I need to read. On Monday morning, I received a call from the library that my copy of 19th Christmas was ready to be picked up. I got the book later that morning, but have been very good and not peeked inside yet. I know that as soon as I do, I can forget about reading anything else. The Patterson novels are normally fairly quick reads for me, so I should also get to return to the Jeffrey Archer’s Clifton Chronicles this week as well. Yeah for a happy reading plan!

The View From My Reading Chair – Apr 11

Life in mostly quarantine has continued without too much interruption to what feels like a normal routine. I have found myself reading more than usual though. So far this week, I have clocked around 8 1/2 hours with my nose in a book. While that’s not unusual for some people, when school is in its regular routine, I am lucky to read for 3 hours during any given week.  It’s still rather early on a Saturday evening right now. I anticipate that my total for the week will exceed 9 hours of reading before all is said and done.

The first portion of the week was devoted to reading Jeffrey Archer’s lovely Only Time Will Tell.  It is the first volume in his Clifton Family Chronicles. You can read more about my enjoyment of the first book in the series by checking out my review that appeared on this site earlier this week. I fully intend to continue making my way through the saga in the coming weeks, but I decided that I should probably tie up some other loose ends in my TBR.

I returned to the biography of Johannes Brahms that I have been “reading” since Christmas. This massive volume was a chore to plow through. Whenever I would actually pick up the book, I had to basically force myself to commit to reading a few pages before returning to something less academic. As I picked up the book again this week, I finally decided that enough was enough. I am not prepping to teach a class on the composer’s life and there are far too many books that I desperately want to read to continue torturing myself with this book because I “think I should.” So, with 200 pages behind me, I removed my bookmark and placed the biography on a high shelf in my apartment. The work is wonderfully written and filled with information for the scholar to glean. This was just not the right time for me to read it.

So now, I was faced with a choice of what to read next. Since we are in quarantine here in Plainview, the public library is closed. That means I actually wanted to return to My Library Shelf project this week and could not. Since I had just put away a biography, I decided to pick up another one from my TBR and began reading Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham. While I am not a historian, I do enjoy reading about our nation’s Presidents and the First Wives. I had a wonderful experience late last year reading a Betty Ford biography that I highly recommend. I’m only about 100 pages into Meacham’s biography and I am enthralled with the Bush story. At this point, George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, have moved to Midland, Texas to begin pursuing work in the oil industry. Their family now includes George, Jr. and Jeb; the last chapter I read was about the tragic death of their daughter, Robin, who died at the age of four from leukemia. It truly was a heart-wrenching tale that I had never heard before.

The biography clocks in at just over 600 pages. That’s a fairly large book for me. However, given my current reading rate at the moment, I am hoping to plow through the work in the coming week and then return to the story of the Clifton family for the second installment of the series.

#11:Only Time Will Tell (Jeffrey Archer)

I was first introduced to Jeffrey Archer and his Clifton Chronicles series way back in 2013. That’s when I first read Only Time Will Tell as an audio book. One of the exciting things about keeping this blog of all the books that I read for my own pleasure is that I can always return to previous reviews to see what I thought of a book from my past. I remembered enjoying the audio book and knew that I hoped to read the entire series, but so many things always seemed to get in the way.

As 2019 was coming to an end, I began to look for something to gift myself for the Christmas holidays. As luck would have it, I found the complete Clifton Chronicles in paperback edition bundled as a set. I had found my gift! Once they arrived, I decided not to tear the set open right away since I wanted to have plenty of uninterrupted time to make my way through the saga of Harry Clifton and his family. I planned to work my way through the books this summer.

Plans changed for everyone in so many ways when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. Suddenly, I found myself spending more time at home with lots of time to read. I finished the novel I was reading at the moment and then tore open the wrapping of the Archer series and began on the first page. That was six days ago and I finished the novel this afternoon. Truthfully, I finished last night….but made myself wait for the last few chapters until this afternoon. I knew I just needed to get some sleep.

Only Time Will Tell completely lived up to my expectations. It is the story of Harry Clifton, a young English boy who is being raised by his single mother. There is a question about his paternity that propels the plot of this entire novel. Was the man who died in a freak boating accident his biological father or is Harry the bastard son of the wealthy man who is the father of his best friend?

Harry escapes his humble home and the limited possibilities of living in that community by pursuing an education. The only way that he is able to fund his education is by scholarships that are awarded to him because of his musical abilities. (Hmmm…..I wonder why that resonates with me so much!) While at school, Harry meets his friends Giles and Deakins who will remain close companions throughout the years of his schooling. During his earliest training, Harry also meets the mysterious Old Jack who takes a profound interest in the lad and consistently acts in the boy’s best interest without seeking any credit for the child’s successes.

Historically, the novel covers the years just after the end of World War I through the earliest fighting of World War II. In the novel’s closing scenes, the reader learns that Britain has declared war on Germany because of the Nazi invasion of Poland. The act of war that follows on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean forever changes the course of young Harry’s life. While readers may not find the concluding section of the novel as fulfilling as most of what has preceded it, Archer does manage to leave the audience with a tremendous cliffhanger that will make certain that the reader returns for book 2 of the series!

As I reflect upon Only Time Will Tell, I notice a similarity in style between it and John Jakes’ The Bastard that opens the author’s Kent Family Chronicles. (For reasons that I still cannot comprehend, John Jakes’ novel was assigned to me as a 7th grader as part of an independent history assignment. Inappropriate teaching? Yeah, I was not emotionally ready to handle the material that was presented there. But I do want to go back and read that series of the American experience as well someday.) Archer’s novel focuses on the war experience from the British perspective. I’m anxious to see if Harry will remain an American now that he has found his way to New York Harbor or if he will return to Britain as he longs to do at the end of Only Time Will Tell. I suppose I’ll just have to crack open the next volume to find out what new adventures await in the Clifton saga.

The View from My Reading Chair – Apr 4

And with the flick of a pen, my little corner of the world suddenly changed. This week, the community of Plainview, Texas learned that Coronavirus had made its way into our midst. Local government responded and issued a stay-in-place order. Thankfully, my work at the university is considered essential, so I can still get out of the house daily and be surrounded by people…or so I thought. Friday became a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride for me as we learned that Wayland would close down all of its campuses to the public effective immediately. Employees with keys to buildings may continue to access their offices (assuming it is a closed office with a closing door) and work. That’s it — come in, work, and leave. I don’t know exactly how that is going to play out in the weeks ahead, but I’m not looking forward to it at all. Even though I consider myself an introvert, I also suffer from depression and know that isolation from friends is bad news for me. I need to hear laughter and to have some level of physical touch in my life.

But, for right now, I’m managing and maintaining as much normalcy as I can. I’m keeping a relatively stable schedule going and have regular interaction with people virtually through Zoom and lots of phone calls home to the Geriatric Ward. I’m also continuing my adventures in books. This week, I completed Chaim Potok’s wonderful novel, In the Beginning. If you missed it, you can find my review of that novel here.

I finished the Potok on Thursday, I think….all of my days are beginning to run together. I finally decided to dive into the first volume of Jeffrey Archer’s Clifton Chronicles. I encountered Only Time Will Tell several years ago as an audio book when my work required lots of commuting around Arkansas and Tennessee. The book made a tremendous impact on me and I knew that I wanted to continue the saga of the Clifton family, but I wanted to actually read the books as oppose to merely listen to them. But, I’m not a fan of reading a series while I wait for the latest volumes to appear from publishing houses. Over Christmas, I decided to take a look and found the entire series available as a single package from Amazon for a very reasonable cost. So The Clifton Chronicles have served as the base for a very large TBR stack that lives on the kitchen island in my apartment since I returned from holiday in January. This seemed like the perfect time to break the packaging and open the first book. I’m just getting started really — only about 85 pages in — but I am totally hooked on the story of young Harry Clifton and anxious to see what happens next.

This week’s update took a very different slant from my normal approach to these posts. I suppose I just needed to interact with the silent readers behind the screen. I would love to hear from you though. Don’t just be a silent reader — especially if you have made it this far! Tell me what you are reading at the moment and what is beckoning from your personal TBR stack. Above all, stay safe, care for yourself and each other, and continue to escape the insanity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the pages of a good book.

~Kennith

#10: In the Beginning (Chaim Potok)

I was first introduced to the writing of the Jewish author, Chaim Potok, while taking a course in minority literature at Pepperdine University. I discovered many interesting authors in the class and it forever changed the landscape of my personal reading. I remember fondly my first experience with Potok’s classic novel My Name is Asher Lev. I decided to revisit the book earlier this year and was thrilled with its power upon a second reading. This began my continuing voyage through the works of Potok and I continue to be amazed at his skill and command of the written word.

In the Beginning is set in Brooklyn in the first few decades of the 20th century. The stock market has crashed, people have survived the Great Depression, and America has found itself fighting absolute evil in the Great War. Against this background, Potok introduces us to David Lurie, a brilliant young Jewish boy who excels in his study of Torah. As he matures and encounters more evil in the world, David begins to have questions regarding Truth and faith. The young student begins to search for answers from scholars of all ages and religions – even exploring the writings of Anti-Semites. David’s quest for Truth causes great distress for his observant Jewish family. As he looks for answers, David also learns more about his family’s past, their journey to America, the losses they have suffered, and the often personal cost of questioning faith and traditional values. Along the way, David also learns what it means to become a man who stands on his own against opposition.

I was absolutely floored by In the Beginning. I personally identify with the challenges that often come at the intersection of inquiry and faith traditions within a conservative community. I loved watching a young man’s journey of discovery as he asked tough questions while those around him were frightened by the student’s audacity to even ask the questions. Throughout my life, I have been told repeatedly a maxim that is heralded throughout Potok’s novel — absolute Truth has nothing to fear from doubt, inquiry, and investigation.

This was the perfect novel for me to read in our nation’s current time of crisis related to the COVID-19 epidemic. As I find myself asking questions such as “How can God allow this to happen?” and “Does God even love us anymore?” the words of In the Beginning bring me comfort in the assurance that God knows my questions and fears before I even ask them. He is not frightened by the questions I ask. Instead, He repeatedly reveals Truth to me in various ways at various times through various means because He loves me that deeply.