A Warm and Gentle Story

In September, the book club I belong to will be discussing My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. The book was printed in 1956, and the copyright renewed in 1984, so it still might be available in a few places. The book I read was from our local public library, so maybe yours might have a copy too. It's such a nice book.
As far as I can tell, the book is mostly true, with the exception that the behavior of some of the family members might be a tad exaggerated The story is told by the then ten-year-old youngest member of a nutty British family. They obviously have tons of money, and decide to take themselves to the Greek island of Corfu to escape the (sometimes) miserable English climate. There is a sweet, unflappable mother and four unusual entities which she calls her children. The boy telling the story is a budding naturalist who is allowed to roam over the landscape where he collects almost every living thing he encounters --- animals, birds, snakes, insects --- actually, if it breathes, he wants it. Problems usually arrive when he takes his latest acquisition home. It's frequently okay with Mom, but hardly with his brothers or single sister.
There are a lot of funny situations, mixed with some down to earth reality. I enjoyed the whole thing.

A Winner

I just finished reading A Song for Issy Bradley and am absolutely awed by it. The author, Carys Bray, is British, and there is a great deal of modern-day British slang in it, At first, that was rather off-putting to me as I had no familiarity with the words and had no idea what they meant, but I quickly got beyond that and realized that an excellent story was unfolding.
This is not a happy book but it seems very true to life. The father in the family is a Mormon Bishop and tries to hold his wife and children to impossible standards of behavior. The author was born into a Mormon family, so she knows whereof she speaks.
The Mormon faith has so many strange attitudes and practices that it would be easy to hold up to ridicule. This book doesn't do that, but it makes one realize that extremism in any faith moves the practitioner away from the love and compassion that all faiths emphasize.
It is a mark of the author's talent that she made all the characters come alive and become ones we care about.
If you're looking for a good book to read, look no further.

And the other one

Perhaps the title of this post should have been the title of my book, FROM THESE ROOTS,just so that it would be in big print and hopefully, catch a reader's eye, but that's not the way I've done this blog in the past. I always entitle a blog post with whatever I feel like writing. The exception being, of course, my last blog entry.
FROM THESE ROOTS is my latest published book (although I have another ready to go). It came out in early 2014, and is a story I felt obligated to tell. There's a wonderful review of it at  http://eileendandashi.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/uniquely-told-by-two-dead-women-from-these-roots-by-audrie-clifford-fiction-memoir/ Although the early part of the book is complete fiction because I was trying to incorporate the few facts I know about my grandmother's life into a story, when the story moves to the life of the woman's daughter, that story is as true as I can make it. That woman, called Emma in the book, was my mother. As you'll see if you read the book, there were several happenings in my mom's life that most of us never experience --- shall we all say, "Thank God!"
My hope in writing the book was to make the reader aware of how strong these women were, and then to look at their own mothers with new appreciation.

MAGGIE WHITSON

I consider "Maggie" to be the best of the books I've written, although the one I've just completed is a strong contender for the title.They're both fiction, with no relation to reality, and they're both fun to read.
"Maggie" tells the story of a skinny, ninety-some year old lady, who has to spend time in a nursing home so that an injury to her back can be properly cared for, as she has no family on the outside. She is damn mad about it, but because circumstances call for it, agrees to remain in the nursing home for a longer period of time.
During the time she is so confined, she decides to learn about the lives of the other old people surrounding her, and this is quite a cast of characters. Maggie is funny, irreverent, and mildly profane. I came to love her and so have the ones who have read about her. Check out the reviews on Amazon, and then treat yourself to  to a book that will have you laughing.

I'M B-A-A-A-CK....

I stopped writing on this blog a couple of years ago because I felt that nobody read it, as there was seldom a comment. Last week, my daughter convinced me that most people don't comment on the things they read. So I've decided to try it again. Since my last post, I've written three more books, the last just finished day-before-yesterday. I'm going to try to interest you in my own books before telling you about some of the hundreds of books I've read in the meantime.
I hope you're all fine and still reading obscure blogs. It's appreciated.

Another Wonderful One

Yesterday I finished reading A LESSON BEFORE DYING by Ernest J. Gaines (1993). Although this book was selected for Oprah's Book Club, at that time I was living in a small town with next-to-no television reception, did not watch Oprah's program, and therefore didn't ever hear of this book. I borrowed it from a family member and was completely captivated by it. The story is about a young black man in the South who is wrongly convicted of a murder that occurred while he was present. He was sentenced to die in the electric chair, but suffered such complete humiliation during the trial that he couldn't accept any of the love and comfort offered by his family. His godmother insisted that the local school teacher (who was connected to the family) visit the prison regularly and attempt to raise the condemned man's self-esteem so that he could die with at least a semblance of dignity. When you have a reluctant teacher and an even more-reluctant student, the way is not easy. Mr. Gaines has done a beautiful job in telling this story

Egad! It's Science

On the recommendation of my son, I ordered DEATH BY BLACK HOLE by Neil deGrasse Tyson (2007) but would have been unable to retain any interest if the book had presented information about the universe in the ordinary dry scientific manner. Mr. Tyson doesn't do that. His funny comments actually had me laughing out loud. Because of that, I stayed with the book and now understand black holes (kind of). It's a great book that enables the reader to laugh while learning.