Saturday, March 31, 2018

Stacking the Shelves 13



Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature co-hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality. It is a chance to showcase all the goodies you've collected in the last week, whether they're bought on-line or in-store, an ARC or a final copy, borrowed from a friend or the library, physical or digital, you get the idea. If nothing else, this treat shows how much of an addiction I really have when it comes to acquiring my precious books.

Last week I posted about some new books I picked up at one of our awesome local museums. We are very lucky to have an absolutely stunning museum here that is housed in the old Union Station. In December of 2016 it was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The building alone is worth a trip, and the exhibits are always top-notch.

There are two awesome exhibits going on right now. The first exhibit is Fighting for the Right to Fight: African American Experiences in WWII, which includes tons of artifacts and videos. The second is American Adventure 1607, which is an interactive role-playing adventure where you get to "be" one of the colonists from that first voyage to American and as you go through the maze, you make decisions that cause you to gain or lose health, wealth, food, and morale points. Based on those decisions, you live or die and at the end of the maze you can look up your colonist to see if that person really made it or not. Eleanor and I survived!

There is also a local exhibit on display right now called Women in Omaha: A Biographical Sketch of Persistence Through History. I found a couple books related to that exhibit too. Shocking, right?

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33819346 1082544
16115744

Publisher Gift
39171461

NetGalley
36254355

Happy Reading!
Sarah

Thursday, March 29, 2018

First Line Friday: Holy Week Edition


First Line Friday is brought to you by Hoarding Books.

Every year starting on Palm Sunday, I read the book that I am sharing today. I love this book for many reasons, and I highly encourage anyone reading this FLF to check it out.

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"The four Gospels contain eyewitness accounts (and first-hand reports) of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus."

First and foremost of course, it is about the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made for us so we may have eternal life with our Creator. There are many reasons to enjoy this book - though enjoy might not be the right word, considering the suffering Jesus endured, but I think you understand what I mean. This is a book I have been reading every year for quite some time now, and it is among my most valued. Each chapter is devoted to the actions of Jesus and His disciples on Palm Sunday through Easter. The book breaks down each book in the Gospel, showing first what each book says, and then providing commentary on why these books might be different in their accounts, and what it all means. There are several additional useful resources, such as maps of where these places were in Jerusalem, and a Scripture Guide to all the events during Holy Week. The epilogue covers subsequent appearances of Jesus beyond Easter Sunday, to the Ascension. I have also found the suggested readings to be helpful and they are broken up into beginning, intermediate, and advanced sections by topic. Overall, this is such a wonderful resource to have for this most important week. 

Leave a comment or a line of your own and I'll be sure to check out your post as well.

Happy Easter!
Sarah

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

State of the ARC 3


Here we are for round three of State of the ARC, hosted by Avalinah's Books. I am so glad I stumbled upon this meme, because it is really helping me with my 2018 Reading Goals (also find a related Top Ten Tuesday HERE). Links go to Goodreads, unless I have finished the review, in which case it goes to that. All ARCs are from NetGalley and Edelweiss, unless otherwise noted.

(Format equals = title/% complete, pub date)


Pending Approval = One
NetGalley = One

Not Started = None

Started = Fifteen
Whose Promised Land (27%), 10-15-15 (Received four months after publication)

The Witch of Lime Street (19%), 10-6-15 (Received three months after publication)

Queens of the Conquest (12%), 9-26-17

The First Congress (12%), 2-9-16 (Received one month after publication)



Scars of Independence (8%), 5-9-17

Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln (6%), 4-15-16 (Received three days after publication)

Failure (3%), 7-1-16 (Received three months after publication)


The Black Prince (25%), 5-1-18


Crux (19%), 7-17-18 (from publisher)

Lighting the Fires of Freedom (56%), 6-8-18

The Library (pg 18), 4-10-18 (from publisher)

DNF = Zero


Finished, Review To Come = Four
American Gothic, 10-4-16

The Poison Plot, 5-15-18

Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency, 6-5-18

Review or Feedback Sent = Four
Lincoln Reconsidered, 3-22-16 (Received one week before publication)

Thieves, Rascals and Sore Losers5-8-15 (Received 15 months after publication)

Educated, 2-2-18

The Man Who Caught the Storm, 4-3-18

I really struggled with ARCs this month. I think part of it is because I am forcing myself to do it and I have always been somewhat of a free spirit, picking up whatever book I am interested in, in that moment. I am also close to DNF-ing a couple, because they are not as interesting as I thought they would be.

Let me know what you think and leave a link to your post as well.
Happy Reading!
Sarah

Monday, March 26, 2018

New Treasure



I love ARCs. The only issue I remotely have with ARCs is that typically the ones I am offered are from UK publishers. As a result, I do not get physical copies. It is a super easy problem to have, because I still have an ARC so in the end, that is all that matters. I have won a couple books from Goodreads Giveaways, but today I was very excited when I received a hard copy in the mail of this new one, which I included in my most recent Stacking the Shelves. I can't wait to get started. You can find more info about the book HERE, on Goodreads.


Do you like ARCs, or do you prefer waiting for the final, polished products? Do you find ARCs through NetGalley and/or Edelweiss, or have you established relationships with certain authors and/or publishers?

Happy Reading!
Sarah

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Palm Sunday: The Final Days of Jesus



This is not a review, but a celebration of this day - Palm Sunday. Service this morning was wonderful, as usual. And we sang one of my most favorite songs.


Today is the day Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, and so began the last week of His earthly life. Every year, starting today, I go back to a book I love dearly. 

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It is a fantastic volume that details day by day this last week. The book lays out the different books of the Gospel, looking at the similarities and differences. Each day I read the corresponding chapter and am filled with His word. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to look at the events day by day. In addition there are photos, texts, charts, and Scripture references. It is a beautiful text that I look forward to every year.

Happy Reading!
Sarah

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Stacking the Shelves 12


Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature co-hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality. It is a chance to showcase all the goodies you've collected in the last week, whether they're bought on-line or in-store, an ARC or a final copy, borrowed from a friend or the library, physical or digital, you get the idea. If nothing else, this treat shows how much of an addiction I really have when it comes to acquiring my precious books.

Counterpoint Press
38825257

Amazon
23385123

The Durham
We are very lucky to have an absolutely stunning museum here that is housed in the old Union Station. In December of 2016 it was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The building alone is worth a trip, and the exhibits are always top-notch. My daughter, who will be five in July, will always choose the Durham first above all other fun places to go, even before the Children's Museum.

There are two awesome exhibits going on right now, and I can never resist snagging some books whenever we go. The first exhibit is Fighting for the Right to Fight: African American Experiences in WWII, which includes tons of artifacts and videos. The second is American Adventure 1607, which is an interactive role-playing adventure where you get to "be" one of the colonists from that first voyage to American and as you go through the maze, you make decisions that cause you to gain or lose health, wealth, food, and morale points. Based on those decisions, you live or die and at the end of the maze you can look up your colonist to see if that person really made it or not. Eleanor and I survived! Additionally, On Wednesday this last week, I went to a talk given by Agnes Schwartz, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, so I picked up her book as well on this trip. You can read about the event HERE. It was incredibly powerful, and I will never forget it.

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What treasures did you haul this week?

Happy Reading!
Sarah

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Priorities


First Line Friday: A Roll of the Dice


First Line Friday is brought to you by Hoarding Books. It's super easy to participate. Just grab the book nearest you and post the first line. Or, you can bend the rules a bit, as I often do, and post the first paragraph, the first line of a certain chapter, etc. I once even posted the LAST line of the introduction of a book because it was THAT good. Then head over to Hoarding Books to check out the others who have posted from the linky widget and see what lines they have selected.

This week I am sharing a book that is deeply important to me. Last night I met the author, Agnes Schwartz, when she gave a talk at the fabulous and amazing Durham Museum. She is a survivor of the Holocaust and World War II. Please check out this post to learn more about her story and the struggles she faced, both during the war and after as she and her father tried to put their lives back together. These stories are so crucial to our understanding of history, and that was much of Mrs. Schwartz's message: this can never be allowed to happen again. There are so few survivors left, we must continue passing their stories on into each new generation. we can never allow those fiends who deny these crimes against humanity to be louder than we are.

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"I started writing this memoir when I turned sixty in 1993. While I had contemplated doing this for a long time, I suddenly felt an urgency to do so. As each year flew by faster than the previous, I became more and more aware of my mortality. To put my life's story on paper had become increasingly important, important enough to invest in a laptop computer because I knew without that, this project would not get done."

I am still in a bit of awe over the talk last night. being face to face with someone who survived the terrible atrocities committed by the Nazis across Europe...was an incredibly humbling experience. When it was my turn to get my book signed, I asked if I could hold her hand. She said yes and I held her hand between my two, not knowing what else to say except "Thank you". I must've said it five times. She patted the top of my hand and smiled. I will never forget this, as long as I live. And I will make sure I do all I can to ensure that her story, and the stories of so many like hers, are never forgotten.

Sarah

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

A Roll of the Dice: A Memoir of a Hungarian Survivor


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Tonight I had the profound honor of hearing a talk by Agnes Schwartz, who survived the horrors of war and the Holocaust as a young Jewish girl in Budapest. Her message was simple and consistent: Never forget. This can never happen again. She spoke of the deniers, and how when the last survivors are gone, it will up to future generations to know and teach those that come after them about this terrible crime against humanity; this way there will be no opportunity for the deniers to gain a foothold.


Many times I was in tears. She spoke of her happy childhood, growing up in a well-to-do family. Her parents owned their own business and Agnes went to school, excelled in academics and earned a place at a college prep gymnasium. She spoke lovingly of her family, her mother and father. Of her grandparents and spending summers with them in the country. And of Julia, her family's housekeeper, who had known Agnes since birth. But when the Nazis marched into Hungary - and Mrs Schwartz was very specific about this word, as Hungary was one of Germany's allies, and in a deep depression at the time - those happy days came to a sudden end. The deportations started in the countryside, and luckily Agnes' parents had moved her grandparents to Budapest at the time, so the family was together. They were moved from their comfortable apartment into a two-bedroom, cramped apartment a few blocks away. Agnes, her parents, and grandparents shared one bedroom, the other occupied by others Jewish people of no relation to Schwartz and her family. Not long after this move, Agnes' grandfather became ill. So ill, he was taken to a "hospital". Her last memory of her grandfather is him lying on a cot, in a long row of cots. Despite trying to find out what happened to him, she does not know if he died of his illness, or was murdered by the Nazis.

When deportations started in the city, men ages 18-45 were taken first. Agnes had to tell her father good bye. A few days later the Nazis came back, this time for the women in that same age range. Agnes recalled with perfect clarity saying good bye to her mother, her mother telling her to be a good girl. She would never see her mother again, as she died at Bergen-Belsen of 'natural causes', likely starvation and typhus. Agnes would not learn this until after the war. So for a time it was Agnes and her grandmother, in a tiny, shared apartment with little food and lots of bed bugs. One day a knock at the door brought a great surprise - her father. He'd escaped en route to Germany and when two Nazi officers were seeking directions to Budapest. Her father was fluent in German and as a result of him assisting the officers, he was not deported. When he learned that his wife had been taken away, he wanted to go after her, but both Agnes and her grandmother begged him to stay. He did.

A final knock at the door opened up an escape for Agnes. Her family's former housekeeper, Julia, was going to take Agnes with her and keep her from deportation. Agnes had blond hair, and so was passed off as Julia's niece from eastern Hungary. Her story was that her parents had sent her to Budapest to stay with her Aunt Julia as the Russians invaded. The plan worked and not a single person ever questioned the story.

I can not imagine living through the things that Agnes Schwartz survived. She ended up losing her grandmother as well as her aunt and uncle, all three having been moved into the ghetto. Even as the war was on its last legs and everyone knew the end was near, the Nazis were determined to kill as many Jews as possible. Agnes learned that her remaining family members had been taken to the Danube River, shot and left to die in the freezing water. She also spoke of how, as ammunition was running short, the Nazis would tie ten people together at a time with wire, shoot one, and they all would fall into the river together killing ten people with one bullet. Schwartz spoke of how whenever she hears someone talk of the 'Blue Danube', she thinks of it as the 'Red Danube', filled with the blood of innocent Jews, murdered for their only crime of being born Jewish. When the bombings of Budapest finally stopped as the Russians liberated the city, Mrs Schwartz recalled those first moments coming up from the basement of Julia's apartment building, having lived in almost total darkness for nearly two months as bombs were dropped day and night and they had little light inside except for candles. She spoke of first going outside, how bright it was and the stench that even now she says has never left her nose, the smell of death with bodies strewn about the streets. 

Easy to see why I was in tears much of the night, no?

After Mrs Schwartz spoke about her experiences surviving the war, her immigration to the US and her life up to this point, she took some questions from the audience, then signed copies of her memoir.

I waited in line with my friends, and when it was my turn, I asked if I could hold her hand. I clasped her hand between my own, and she patted the top of mine. I did not know what else to say, but "Thank you." I told her thank you, for sharing your story, for passing this on to those who have come after you. I must have said thank you five times. We chatted briefly, and she asked my name before signing my book.


This interaction, these experiences with living history, people who have survived these greatly traumatic events, must continue to happen. Hearing a survivor tell their own story is so much more powerful than reading a chapter from a text book. Every day there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors left in the world. We must hear their stories before they are gone, and continue to pass them on.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Blech...(To The Subject, Not The Books)

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Fire and Fury - 3.5 Stars

Unbelievable - 5 Stars

I am doing a joint-review because I really don't like giving this douchenozzle any more attention than he's already received for the last couple years. I also don't feel it necessary to do any kind of in-depth review. No one supporting him is going to change their mind because of anything I write, and I am not going to waste the time. Trumplethinskin sucks and I look forward to the day when he is out of office and we can start correcting the massive mistakes piling up daily under this "administration".

I read Fire and Fury because, of course. I went into it knowing that there would likely be very little new information. Because of the intensity of coverage due to the giant man-baby waddling around the White House and his various golf courses, we know everything. All the time.

It is EXHAUSTING.

I long for a simpler time when I went a few days without hearing President Obama's name and it was okay, because he was an adult doing his job and taking his responsibilities seriously as the president of the greatest nation on earth.

Anyway. There is nothing new or groundbreaking here. If you recognize the fact that Trumplethinskin is among the dumbest of the dumb and is surrounded by scum-sucking gutter rats, nothing in this book will surprise you. It's basically a summary of the shit we have been living through since he was "elected". We already knew that a lot of the people in the book are awful. I did enjoy, however, the constant reminders about how dumb Trumplethinskin's sons are, and that Ivanka is not much better. In fact, Ivanka and her husband are collectively referred to as Jarvanka. Bannon is there is in all his grizzled, disgusting glory, and it is all so stupidly ridiculous that THIS is what is currently operating our government.

So, because this book was such a bombardment of complete and utter grossness, it was necessary to follow it up with a look from the outside, of sorts.

Tur's book follows Trumplethinskin in the same chaotic way, but the chaos comes from life on the campaign trail as Tur alternates between those details and then episodes from Election Day. I can not imagine doing her job, and for covering him as long as she did. When a candidate running for office to lead the most powerful country on the planet, perhaps that candidate should not be implying that he admired(?) Putin for executing journalists. But this is true. He discussed it at a rally. Probably more than once.

I initially rated this book a four-star, but the more I reflected on it, I decided it deserved five. After all, Tur survived the constant movement as the campaign went city to city to city. I can barely stomach seeing this moron's face on the book cover, I don't know how she managed it for months on end.

Here are a few of my fave quotes from each book:

Fire and Fury
"There was a lack of coherent message because there was nobody to write a coherent message - just one more instance of disregarding political craft" (page 148).

"After months of defending Bannon against liberal media innuendo, Kushner had concluded that Bannon was an anti-Semite" (page 140). Um hellooooo....what took him so long????

"George W. Bush, on the dais, supplied what seemed likely to become the historic footnote to the Trump address: 'That's some weird shit' " (page 40). I hate to say it, but I have said it for a while now, pretty much from that event on January 20th - W is looking better and better in the review mirror as this clusterfuck of a presidency rolls on.

Unbelievable
"He is the polar opposite of President Obama. Where Obama's rhetoric soars, Trump's rhetoric slithers. While Obama eats arugula, Trump scars Burger King. Where Obama is controlled and calculating, Trump is petulant and loud" (page 80). Yes, this, a thousand times.

Overall, you already know if you are going to read Fire and Fury. I would recommend Unbelievable if you are choosing between the two. Honestly, Fire and Fury needed a bit better editing, there were some typos and errors of that nature. And like I said, reliving it constantly is exhausting. Unbelievable is less exhausting, but no less frustrating. There were so many times his campaign should have been sunk.

Monday, March 19, 2018

Learn By Reading...



One of my most favorite quotes. Do you have any book-related quotes that you especially love, or certain lines from books that have stuck with you over time?

Friday, March 16, 2018

Stacking the Shelves 11


Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature co-hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality. It is a chance to showcase all the goodies you've collected in the last week, whether they're bought on-line or in-store, an ARC or a final copy, borrowed from a friend or the library, physical or digital, you get the idea. If nothing else, this treat shows how much of an addiction I really have when it comes to acquiring my precious books.

Random House Gift
(via NetGalley)
36794530

Fave Library #1
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30612157 33918943 34788371
34731226

Fave Library #2
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33773618 29939393

NetGalley
37591134

What treasures did you haul this week?

Happy Reading!
Sarah

More Missing Scotland Tonight...

Here I am getting all emotional again over a place I love dearly and can not wait to visit again.

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(photo taken by my mom in November, 2009)

So we might have stayed a smidge too long at Stirling and they closed the gates!

Below is one of my favorite photos I took on the whole trip. I am standing at the entrance to Stirling, and the stone bridge in the lower left corner is thought to be roughly where the bridge was where William Wallace and his men obliterated the English foot soldiers. The monument on the next hill is the William Wallace Monument, but unfortunately our tour didn't stop there.

No automatic alt text available.
(photo taken by me in November, 2009)

Until we meet again, Stirling 😘