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No one took the fire alarms seriously on April 29, 1986 at the Main Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, because the alarms were always going off without provocation. People left their personal belongings and exited the building. They knew the drill; most of them had been through this before. The firemen would come and reset the alarms and give the all-clear for everyone to reenter the building.

Even the firemen thought it would be a routine trip to the library, and at first they couldn’t understand why the alarm wouldn’t reset. But this time was different. This time there was a real blaze, and the library’s old fashioned configuration helped feed oxygenated air to the flames as over a million books were damaged or consumed.

Susan Orlean picks through the ashes, picks through history, and picks through lies to try to find out what happened. You’d think a fire like that would make international headlines. But a problem in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant diverted everyone’s attention. So if you missed it when it happened, or if it was before your time, pick up The Library Book.

@simonschuster @SimonBooks @susanorlean

The Essential Jonathan Edwards: An Introduction to the Life and Teaching of America’s Greatest Theologians, is a biography of one of America’s best known early ministers. Edwards, who came from a line of ministers, was schooled in Latin and other subjects by his father from a young age. Edwards took his faith and his schooling seriously, giving the valedictory address in Latin.

Edwards is perhaps best known for his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. It is said that while his delivery may have been dry, the congregants cried out in fear at the picture he painted of their nearness to hell.

Edwards was a part of several revivals and spiritual awakenings of his day. Still he met with frustration in matters such as his parishioners assigning seats in the church based on wealth, his inability to force a young man to marry the young woman he had impregnated, and negotiating for a salary raise.

Besides being a biography of the famous preacher, this book also takes a look at Edwards’ doctrinal positions. The information is presented in a scholarly manner, citing references. If you want to read about early American church history or about Jonathan Edwards this book affords a great opportunity.

Ruby’s Hope: A Story of How the Famous “Migrant Mother” Photograph Became the Face of the Great Depression, by Monica Kulling and Illustrated by Sarah Dvojack, is a 9.75×11 hardback with “bleak yet beautiful illustrations” which were drawn with graphite and colored digitally.

Kulling calls this children’s book a “biography of a photograph”, and a “partially imagined” story about real people, or historical fiction.

The story is built around the American Depression of the 1930s and the drought and dust storms that made it difficult for farmers to make a living. Many families packed up everything they could and moved west, looking for work along the way. (Think: The Grapes of Wrath)

Photographer  Dorothea Lange was taking pictures as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) program. When the Migrant Mother picture was published in the newspapers, people saw the hunger and need of the migrant workers in the camp. Soon the federal government sent 20,000 pounds of food for the people in the camp.

A real family left Oklahoma during the drought of the 1930s. The mother of the family is the one whose image became known as the Migrant Mother. She was Florence Owens Thompson, a Native American of the Cherokee Nation, born in Oklahoma in 1903.

Kulling used the real names of the people in this family, but imagined the events that led up to the taking of the picture. In real life, by the time the food arrived in the camp, the family had already left.

Teach the children what their ancestors went through to survive in this land. Teach them the cultural significance of a photograph. Teach them that they have a heritage. 5 Stars.

Lysa’s life wasn’t turning out like it was supposed to. After raising their kids and watching them fly away to college and lives of their own, it was time for her and her husband to enjoy the empty nest. But that’s when he admitted to an affair. So instead of date night any night of the week, now she was home alone, crying into her pillow.

Then the rumor mill started. Lysa was head of a national women’s ministry, but she and her husband were breaking up? Lysa had tried to keep the matter private while she and her husband worked things out, but news or at least half-truths were floating around and now she had to deal with that too.

Then Lysa developed severe abdominal pain that would not go away. For days she lay in the hospital in agony. Finally she was rushed into surgery to remove most of her colon. The surgeon said she had come very close to death. It was actually her pain that let the surgeons know what was wrong and where.

Then Lysa’s town made her move her driveway at her own expense so they could put in a new turn lane.

Then her doctor called to say her mammogram didn’t look right. Yes, it was breast cancer.
Have you experienced an, “It’s not supposed to be like this,” series of events in your life? One of my favorite quotes from this book is Lysa saying,

“God isn’t ever going to forsake you, but he will go to great lengths to remake you.”

Lysa is still fighting some of these battles, and you may be dealing with long-term, seemingly never-ending, compounding problems that just keep stacking up. If that’s you, I recommend this book. It won’t solve all your problems, but it can help you obtain a godly perspective on your trials.

Augusten Burroughs, as he renamed himself once he reached leagal age, is a highly intellegent man who suffered a childhood of abuse and neglect under his biological parents. His father was a college professor who became a mean drunk every evening, and his mother suffered with mental illness which included hallucinations of demons.

His brother, John Elder Robison (Look Me In the Eye), has Asperger’s Syndrome and made up names for everyone. He called his brother Varmint. After his parents divorced, Burroughs’ mother signed his custody over to her psychologist, a Dr. Finch who from all accounts was as nutty as any of his patients and eventually lost his license to practice medicine.

Living in the Finches’ house with an assortment of non-blood related misfits was chaotic and unrestrained. There were no rules. No one told Burroughs when to go to bed or to school, or that he had to go at all for that matter. Respect of his elders was not insisted upon and nothing was off limits or sacred.

When Burroughs felt depressed, Dr. Finch reached to the shelf behind him and without looking picked up a drug sample and tossed it to Burroughs. Dr. Finch told him to take that until it was gone and he would be feeling better. Burroughs had already decided he was gay, so he figured the answer to his depression was a new boyfriend. Somehow that didn’t fix things either.

I was depressed at the sad state of affairs in the lives of these non-fiction characters by the end of this memoir. I was binge-reading his brother John’s books on Asperger’s Syndrome and thought I might get a little more insight from Burroughs’ book. There wasn’t any insight about Asperger’s, just a sad sick feeling that comes from a life without boundaries.

This book does have sexually explicit scenes and crude language.

#ChrisRobison #mentalillness #Snort #Varmit #depression

Amy Byler’s life was thrown into chaos three years ago when her husband walked out of her and her children’s lives. Suddenly she needed to become not just Mom, but breadwinner for her family. Dusting off her college degree, she was able to get a job as a librarian. It wasn’t as lucrative as her husband’s income had been, but with refinancing she and the kids were able to stay in the house. Amy was stretched from both ends, but she made life work.

After three years her husband decides to walk back into their lives just as he had walked out. Not so fast, said Amy and the kids in unison. But slowly he wins them over enough to take the kids for the summer, leaving Amy free to return to NYC for the first time since before becoming a mom.

Letting her hair down and playing the single woman is fun for a while, (“What do you mean you never got divorced?”) but eventually Amy is forced to make difficult choices.

I have a different value system than our fictional protagonist, but I give high marks to Overdue Life for the friendships that support Amy, enduring through years and demonstrating a loyalty that draws their physical presence from states away when there is a crisis.

The book is enjoyable, light reading. Maybe best of all it is free with Audible narration if you have Kindle Unlimited.

#momspringa #overduelife

Melody Warnick and her husband were on their sixth move as a married couple when they pulled the moving van up to the rental house they would occupy in Blacksburg, VA. As upwardly mobile professionals, they had followed jobs from city to city. Along the way daughters were born and their family grew. Melody, a writer, began to think about the permanence and stability of her own childhood and that maybe it would be a good thing to give her daughters, too.

But what makes a place home? Where should they stop moving and say, “This is home”? They came to Blacksburg because Melody’s husband landed a job teaching at Virginia Tech. Melody was put off by the town at first, surrounded by dreary clouds and rain and mountains. She decides to make the best of it, and embarks on a series of experiments designed to help her feel more connected with the town where she lives, Blacksburg.

In an odd personal twist, I grew up just outside of Blacksburg, and moved to a flat part of the state as a young teen. How I pined for the Blue Ridge Mountains, the lower humidity, and a population who didn’t think I had a hick accent! For this reason Melody’s book was of special interest to me; would her experiments fail and her opinion besmirch my hometown?

Melody Warnick is a talented writer and she has approached this subject in a thorough journalistic style, while keeping the text engaging.

@melodywarnick @VikingBooks #LiveLocal #lovewhereyoulive #livelocal  #placeattachment #BlacksburgVA #homesweethome #BlueRidgeMountains #NewRiverValley

Eva Schloss had blond hair and blue eyes, and like her mother, could pass in appearance as non-Jewish. During World War II in Europe, they made the risky choice to hide in the open while Eva’s brother and father’s more ethnic features forced them into hiding in the country.

Eva and her family knew the Franks before they went into hiding. Eva described Anne Frank as mature and self-assured. Anne was just a little older than Eva, but Eva so admired Anne’s confidence and sense of fashion.

It was hard to be in hiding, and heartbreaking for her family to be separated. Sometimes Eva and her mother made the dangerous train trip to the country to visit her father and brother. It was terrifying to make the long journey with German soldiers all around them, often checking their identification papers. Eventually the family was found out – betrayed – and sent to Auschwitz.

It may be difficult, but it is important to read (or listen to) historical accounts of what happened at Auschwitz. First-hand narratives such as this are so horrible it may seem hard to believe they are true. But story after story after story verify these atrocities. May our world never fall to such wide-spread evil again.

After the war Otto Frank and Eva’s mother both came home, but their spouses did not. In time the two married, making Eva stepsister to Anne, who of course did not survive the concentration camp.

Now 90 years old, Eva earlier this year spoke with a group of students who were photographed at a party playing a drinking game with cups arranged in a swastika pattern. 
Eva said of the meeting, “I think they have learned a lesson of life.”

@EerdmansStore @eerdmansbooks ‏#holocaust #WWII #EvaSchloss #evasstory

The SAMPLE copy of the No-Stress Bible Guide I was given to review was clearly not meant to be an all-inclusive reference. It came across to me like a CliffsNotes version of the Bible. That’s great if you’re studying for a test on the Minor Prophets or you have to write a paper on the salient points of Paul’s missionary journeys.

I’d rather sit down with the whole Word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of my understanding. I’m glad I don’t have to pass a test or write a essay, but what I’m doing seems much harder. I’m humbling my pride, crushing my selfish will, and learning to love my enemies. For this I want the whole counsel of God.

I expect this guide to fully meet the needs of some readers, but it’s not for me.

@BarbourBuzz