Is Throwback Thursday a thing, or does it just sound good? It has a nice ring to it, and in this case the throwback is to books I read many years ago. I am working on my April reading prompt, which I will tell you about in a day or so, but I could not recall whether I had read a particular book or not in my pre-blogging days. I grabbed my trusty, 'old-fashioned' cloth journal where I used to write down the titles of the books I read. The journal covers the years 1995-2010 and only lists titles. Now I have a spiffy excel document as my log, but I will always keep my trusty journal.
As I was flipping through trying to find a specific title, I found myself getting caught up in titles I recollected reading years ago and some that sounded familiar but the details had drifted away and more than a few that sound really good, but I had no memory of ever reading. Lots of time has passed, so I am not surprised that many were read and now are forgotten. I thought it would be fun to pick a random ten titles and share them now--the memorable and not so memorable.
Randomly:
Naming the Spirits by Laurence Thornton -- "The tale of a young woman's mysterious resurrection following a massacre in a killing field. After walking across the pampas, she appears on a doorstep in Buenos Aires, where she is taken in by a couple, both physicians, whose fierce reliance on the rational, explainable world has been shaken by their own daughter's disappearance. Locked inside the girl -- mute but for her first words on arrival, 'I am' -- are the stories and names of eleven Argentinians executed in the night, representing the hope and despair of a people struggling to heal the devastating scars left by one fallen regime."
The Serpent Garden by Judith Merkle Riley -- "Combining heartpounding action, sly humor, romance, and supernatural twists, The Serpent Garden is the story of a creative and resourceful woman who unwittingly finds herself in a dangerous—and deadly—game of hide-and-seek."
Hoopi Shoopi Donna by Suzanne Strempek Shea -- "Growing up in a small New England town, 14 year-old Donna Milewski had all she needed: a grandmother, Babci, whose fragrant cooking filled their home. . .her mother, Helen, who lovingly stitched outfits. . .and Adam, the most wonderful father a daughter could imagine, who dreamed she could one day lead an all-girl polka band."
The Dancing Floor by Barbara Michaels -- "For years, Heather Tradescant had dreamed of the journey she and her father would take to England--a pilgrimage to the great gardens of history. Now that her father is dead, Heather is determined to fulfill his dreams. Unfortunately, her request to see the fabled 17th-century garden of Troytan House is denied by the owner. Though unwelcome, she braves the walls of briars and reaches the Victorian manor house beyond. She senses a strange mission of evil lurking, tainting the manor's peaceful beauty. Only then does Heather begin to wonder whether it is only stories of long-vanished witchcraft that haunt Troytan House or whether there is some more modern horror, hearer at hand, and far, far more dangerous. Barbara Michaels is always good!
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland -- "Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around them. No single event precedes society's fall. There is talk of a war overseas and upheaval in Congress, but it still comes as a shock when the electricity runs out and gas is nowhere to be found. The sisters consume the resources left in the house, waiting for the power to return. Their arrival into adulthood, however, forces them to reexamine their place in the world and their relationship to the land and each other."
Life Without Water by Nancy Peacock -- "Nancy Peacock gives us a young narrator who is both knowing and innocent, trusting and fearful: a girl named Cedar, who reflects on her childhood in the wake of the Vietnam war. As she and her young mother Sara both come of age, Cedar explores the intense bond--and discovers the boundaries--of their mother-daughter relationship. Living as hippies in an abandoned farmhouse in North Carolina, Sara and Cedar survive a number of romantic and domestic misadventures, first with Cedar's father Sol, and later with a group of friends living together in a commune-style home."
Mary McGreevy by Walter Keady -- "After her father's death, Sister Mary Thomas leaves her convent to reclaim the family farm in the Irish village of Kildawree. In 1950, her status as ex-nun scandalizes the women of the village, but her beauty, strength, willfulness and wit attract every eligible man—and a few who shouldn't be so available. Mary has no interest in marrying but decides to have a child. As the town tries to identify the father, we see what attracts them to this passionate Irish woman, particularly as she appears to the parish priest. He knows her attractions, does his best by her, and then suffers the consequences of his light hand and unjudging clerical spirit."
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland -- "In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true. By way of fictionalized diary entries, we traverse her early years as she marries her one true love, bears his children, and is left betrayed, widowed, and penniless. It is Josephine's extraordinary charm, cunning, and will to survive that catapults her to the heart of society, where she meets Napoleon, whose destiny will prove to be irrevocably intertwined with hers." Loved these books!
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynn -- "In 1903, a young Scotswoman named Mary Mackenzie sets sail for China to marry her betrothed, a military attaché in Peking. But soon after her arrival, Mary falls into an adulterous affair with a young Japanese nobleman, scandalizing the British community. Casting her out of the European community, her compatriots tear her away from her small daughter. A woman abandoned and alone, Mary learns to survive over forty tumultuous years in Asia, including two world wars and the cataclysmic Tokyo earthquake of 1923." (I read this one several times!).
More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon -- "In a small town called Dundee on the coast of Maine, an old woman named Hannah Gray begins her story: "Somebody said 'true love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.' I've seen both and I don't know how to tell you which is worse." Hannah has decided, finally, to leave a record of the passionate and anguished long-ago summer in Dundee when she met Conary Crocker, the town bad boy and love of her life. This spare, piercing, and unforgettable novel bridges two centuries and two intense love stories as Hannah and Conary's fate is interwoven with the tale of a marriage that took place in Dundee a hundred years earlier."
It was fun flipping through the journal and seeing how my reading tastes changed and what themes popped up and genres. Sometimes it seemed I would just read one genre exclusively book after book. Oh, and I did find the book I thought I had read (and I did read it); now I wish I could find it on my bookshelves! Wouldn't it be nice if books had GPS chips and would beep when called for?! There is something, though, to be said about perusing shelves, though, too!