Upside Ann

 "Every year when I stands first in my class, Ma gives me the advice: Daughter, she say, never be gamandi.  What you have, given to you by God.  You just a basket into which God puts the flowers.  Flowers not belong to you.  They belongs to God.  Same way, your clever belong to God." What a beautifully written story.  I didn't want it to end. A book of friendship where good people make mistakes for either reasons they believe are altruistic or for reasons they cannot explain.  People who tell their stories to gain understanding from the listener and end up acquiring a new understanding and subsequent forgiveness from themselves.  I loved these new friends of mine and I wanted them to end their stories in places of reconciliation and acceptance.   The book ends with a 3-page essay: "The Story Behind the Story Hour".  If you are reading my blog and I have somehow inspired your interest in this book then I want you to know that you need to finish the book with

 Toads are capable of sarcasm, but their blood runs too cold for hysteria.

 Irene was torn between thinking Thank goodness I'm on the ground and That's what comes of sloppy vocabulary and word choice. There was nothing wrong with being curious about how a story turned out, after all, she was a librarian.  It went with the job.

“There was, in fact, a street sign to that effect—the first I’d seen in all of Devil’s Acre.  Louche Lane , it read in fancy handwritten script.  Piracy discouraged . "Discouraged?" I said. "Then what's murder? Frowned upon?" "I believe murder is'tolerated with reservations'." "Is anything illegal here?" Addison asked. "Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that's just for paperbacks."

       "It's the end of the world.  Everyone needs a hobby, right?" Reading this as part of the blind date program at the local public library.  I try hard to decipher whether the first line of the book which is printed on a red heart on the brown paper cover of the book might be a romance.  Yech.  Can't do that, even for Valentine's Day. This time I succeeded wildly.  While the protagonist might be said to be in love with his estranged wife, this is absolutely a post apocolytic tale.  No zombies.  Nuclear end of the word.  But, there is still at least a hint of cannibalism.   Normally, I try to avoid nuclear holocast stories having been scarred in middle school reading "On the Beach".  I still cannot touch those memories/images without shuddering.  This story, however, was much more upbeat.  Everyone isn't OBVIOUSLY going to be dying soon - slowly - painfully.  At the end there is still wi- fi.  And, the characters - about 20 individuals holed up in

 Chicago by Sufjan Stevens Who's that Girl? - Eurythmics It's a Small World