Julie ~ "Lucky" 2013 ~ Booklist

[Janet]

Great news, Julie. 

[julie]

Thank you Janet      

[pontalba]

Julie, did you see this article in the New York Times?  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/nyregion/answer-to-a-1985-disappearance-is-found-behind-a-false-wall.html?_r=0

What a story. 

[julie]

Wow, that is surely a fascinating case ! Thanks for sending me the article. I would have probably missed it . It made me think a couple things --

 

 1--- So sad in the first place that someone could virtually drop off the planet with no one to even notice . I wonder if the lady didn't have any family whatsoever, like even cousins ,who would always wonder what happened to her. Apparently not enough to keep after the police on it .

 

2- Quite ironic that the old man died 27 years to the exact DAY he reported his wife missing . Karma ?   or just WEIRD coincidence ?

 

3- Reminds me a BIT of the activist from the 70's I think .. I need to look him up .. Ira Einhorn -- http://reason.com/blog/2013/04/22/earth-day-co-founder-killed-composted-gi

 

I remember seeing that case on tv shows before .. A beautiful girlfriend came up missing and had sort of the same fate, although her body was found a bit sooner than this poor lady ... this girl had family members who were searching for her and kept after the police to find her .

 

Kinda scarey to think how many of these loons could be loose, murdering girlfriends or wives and the cases are never solved .

 

Good find !        I'm always interested in reading about strange cases like this .

[lauraloves]

I'm a bit late but great news

[julie]

Thank you Laura   

[Kidsmum]

Brilliant news Julie, i think a book buying spree is most defintely called for to celebrate your good news

[pontalba]

  Glad you liked it, I figured you would. 

 

Yeah, very weird.  It seems he punished himself, finally.

 

You are welcome.

[Devi]

I thought you might like to see this, it regards the beaumont children among other kids.

 

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/police-took-dna-from-child-killer-derek-ernest-percy-before-his-death/story-fni0ffnk-1226684425815

[julie]

Thanks for the article, Devi

 

 That poor mom, to wonder all these years where her little girl's body is and now she will never know .I'm sure it'd give some satisfaction to the other families involved if they can link the guy to any or all of these missing kids .

  I don't know a whole lot about some of them ,although I've read short articles on some ,and if you look at just what is known , such as the ages and genders of the people missing, statistics would tend to lean in the direction that more than one guy is a killer over there .

Most serial killers target a specific type, age or look of a person . For example, if you look at the girls Ted Bundy killed ,they could have all been sisters, they looked so much alike .

John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer went after skinny teenaged boys who they could overpower .

Green River Killer went after all prostitutes , etc ..  The Zodiac tended to target young couples in cars together .

I guess anything is possible with this guy ,but it'd be unusual for him to target so many different groups -- young girls, teen girls, young boys, a wide group of kids in the Beaumont case ,etc . Very strange if he will be linked to them all . I wonder if they have DNA evidence in the case of all of the kids ? Being so long ago, some of them may not have had any DNA on them if their bodies laid out for an extended time in the weather .

This will be an interesting one to follow though to see what they find .

I think I have at least one book on my kindle about this guy . I need to look it up and see .

 

Thanks again for the article. Very interesting .

[Devi]

I'll be sure to keep you updated as we hear more!

[~Andrea~]

Sorry this is so late - I'm only just catching up with threads since I've been away - but great news Julie

[julie]

Thanks , Andrea  

[julie]

The Astronaut Wives Club  - Lily Koppel

 

This nonfiction book tells the story of the first astronauts in our country who were selected to be in the space program ,which began back in 1959 .

It tells the story from the wives viewpoints. of how hard it was on them to spend a big chunk of their married life alone ,when their husbands were chosen to be the first in our space program ,so they were gone a lot of the time being tested and trained to prepare for the first attempts to send a man into space. During this same time. Russia was competing with our country and they were actually doing everything before we got started, so they were a step ahead of us along the first few years .

It told of the closeness all of the wives had, being in the same position, waiting to hear when their husband would be chosen ,and which flight he would be on . The men were quite competitive, but yet, they were also friends . It told how their lives changed ,being asked to the White House , being signed up to have stories done on their daily lives in Life Magazine, having news people standing outside in their front yards when their husbands were being sent on their space flights .

This group of ladies went from ordinary housewives, raising kids, living in navy and air force bases ,and trying to make ends meet on fixed incomes .Once the men were chosen, they were more financially stable, with all the celebrity status they achieved  . It sounded like in most of the cases, the wives would have gladly had their husbands home and safe rather than gone all the time on dangerous missions .

After the first crew of men were picked, the book went on to tell a bit about the next crews , up until the early 70's , so there were quite a large number of ladies in this group by then ( I think it was around 50 total) .

I have never had any interest in the space program, but did find it interesting to see how famous these ladies became and how they handled life when they were married to some of the first astronauts. It was interesting to see how NASA had so many rules for them, and wanted the men to have "perfect" lives, with any infidelity , etc covered up .or the men would have lost their chances to be among the first in space .

Interesting book , well written . Hard to keep track of everyone, since there were such a large group of ladies, but if you are a space buff ,then it would be really interesting for you, I'm sure .    4 stars  ****

[Devi]

I saw this book in the store a few times, I've picked it up a few times, sounds like I need to buy it.

[julie]

I thought I'd  try posting something each day that is book related . Anything at all to get the cogs turning and keep my brain focused on       R E A D I N G  ..

 

Today I'd like to list a few Authors from Ohio  ----

  I'll just mention some of  the ones that  I have read something by :

 

Erma Bombeck -- sadly, died too young . She wrote humor-type books, mainly based on the life of a housewife and mother. Interesting for a light read .

 

Thomas Berger --- my old pal who wrote Little Big Man . Definitely a book that shouldn't be missed if you like Westerns ,mixed in with a bit of humor . Part 2 was Return of Little Big Man ,which was also excellent .

 

Allan Eckert -- who I think wrote The Frontiersman series of books. Those I read many decades ago, but are really interesting well researched novels about the early settlement and Indian wars in our area of the country. I'm a little vague on him, as I said, it's been SO long since I read his books

 

.Sue Grafton -- wow, I didn't know she was from Ohio . She wrote the Kinsey crime books -- A is for Alibi, etc ... I read up to about H or I, so I am WAY behind in them, but mysteries usually aren't at the top of my interest in books . 

 

John Jakes who is an American History lover ,and wrote the Kent Family series which started with The 'person of dubious parentage' . I read these when my kids were babies, so that tells you how long ago that was. A lifetime .....

 

Robert McCloskey -- wrote my all time favorite kid's book, Homer Price ,which has stuck with me for many decades . I still remember the Donut Machine and World's Largest Ball of String .... GREAT book for kids, maybe in the 8-10 year range. Not sure if kids these days would even find it that good . Not exactly up to date with modern times, but excellent stories .

 

James Renner --whose first book was a true crime book about a missing girl from our general area, Amy Mihalovich ,whose murder has never been solved . He is now writing one on Maura Murray, another cold case .

 

Helen Hoover Santmeyer -who wrote a handful of books, the most well known being And Ladies of the Club, which weighs in at about 1300 pgs . Not sure why, but the book reminds me of my Grandma ... maybe what her life would have been had she gone on to college rather than getting married and having a family. Anyhow, it is told around the time frame in which my grandma would have lived,( Helen being born 5 yrs after my grandma  ,  in 1895) in a small Ohio town , so maybe it reminds me of her since she would have been the age of the ladies in the book . It doesn't really have much of a plot, it's just a story about several ladies who live in  a small town and become friends . The amazing thing about Helen is that she was 69 when she STARTED her huge book and 86 when it was published. It was delivered to her publisher in  ELEVEN boxes .... it was also on the NY Times Bestseller list for 37 weeks. I guess Helen is pretty impressive to me ,that you are NEVER too old to go after your dreams .

 

 

Ok, folks, that's is for now .... more to follow . Maybe I can jump-start the old brain and get it moving again if I try to come up with nifty ideas about books and reading in here .   

 

[chesilbeach]

Great idea, Julie!  Interesting list too.  I think I've only heard of a couple of those authors, although I haven't actually read any of them, but a good start to your bookish postings.

[Kidsmum]

I like your thinking Julie, i've only heard of Thomas Berger off your list though - not read the book but loved the movie 

[julie]

Thanks Claire --

There would probably be some on the list that aren't huge on the bestseller list ,at least not at this point . I think most people over here would have heard of most of them, especially John Jakes and Sue Grafton . They still have books cranking out pretty frequently .

 

 

 

Kidsmum

Yep, Thomas Berger has a "gift of gab " with his writing , at least the books I mentioned. I haven't read any of his others. Was the movie funny in parts ? The boy who told the story was sure funny .

[Athena]

I've only heard of Sue Grafton, I think. Nice list, good idea !

[julie]

Today ,let's travel to Kansas City, Missouri to take a look at their public library . This may be the coolest design of any library I've ever heard of :

 

http://www.idesignarch.com/kansas-city-public-library-missouri/

 

Now after looking at their photos, I wanted to know what books they chose for their book wall and how they were chosen .

 Here is a list, which were voted in by library patrons ,and the final decisions made by the library board of directors .

 

The first 2 books have several books on their spines which are all books by and about Kansas

The next has popular kid's books :

 

• Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
• Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
• Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
• Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
• What a Wonderful World by George Weiss and Bob Thiele
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• M.C. Higgins, the Great

Then, separate books that each have their own book spine :

Catch 22

Silent spring

O Pioneers

100 Years of Solitude

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Fahrenheit 451

The Republic

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Tao Te Ching

Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

Black Elk Speaks

Invisible Man

To Kill a Mockingbird

Journals of the Expedition ( Lewis and Clark)

Undaunted Courage

Lord of the Rings

Tale of Two Cities

Charlotte's Web

Romeo & Juliet

Truman (David McCullough)

 

 

I wondered why Truman got chosen, but find out Missouri was his birthplace .

 

The 2 about Lewis and Clark were because they traveled up the Missouri River .

 

I'm assuming that some of the others were chosen to represent different ethnicities in our country .

 

Silent Spring was written to alert us to the need to protect our natural resources .

 

And of course the 451 book to depict the need to make sure books are ALWAYS a part of our world , allowing people's voices ,opinions and ideas to be printed for all of us to benefit from .

 

 

Anyhow, an interesting building, interesting choice of books. I think some of them would have been different ,depending on what state the library would have been in.

 

 I'm wondering what books would have been chosen here, or in YOUR local area ?

[Devi]

Wow what an awesome library! Love it.

[chesilbeach]

I remember seeing a photo of that library somewhere before, and as incredible as it looks, I wondered if it's all artificial lighting inside because there are no windows, or is the other side of the building a wall of glass?

[julie]

Claire

 I think it said this was the back wall of the building . so maybe there are lots of windows in the rest of it . I'd sure like to be able to see this in person. I like visiting libraries, but this one is quite a jaunt . Probably a day or 2 of driving from here .

I've been to all the libraries around here that are in about a 25 mile radius . None of ours have any neat doodads like this one, they are all just buildings ,mostly brick and boring .

 I went to a cute neat one on the weekend . So cute, but a waste of good shelf space . It has a fireplace and small sitting room, then a breezeway type room that looks out over a little creek and some woods . VERY small library, though .

[bobblybear]

Wow - that looks amazing. Must be quite incredible to see it in person!