October column

Now I am caught up.  Maybe I will find time to add some juicy stuff here soon!



September turned out to be a very busy month. As an active member of Fiber Folks of SW Mo. I have been involved with our annual event in Mt Vernon. This year it was Sept 19^th and 20^th. We had a good turn out to shop with our vendors and many took classes in everything from plucking and spinning bunny fur, polymer clay, basket making, and several types of weaving. I taught 2 weaving classes in beginner rag rug weaving. Taught a total of 7 students. This is the same class I will be teaching in my store as soon as I sell off a few more hundred of these 50 cent books so I can make room. I will still sell books, but will be more selective on the books I take in and will try to sell the best I can find but keep the prices low. Also on Saturday the 27^th I did a weaving demonstration at Prairie State Park north of Joplin. What a treasure we have in our own back yard. A great place to take the kids to see what most of the state used to look like. The visitors center is a trove of information.

I had to do a little digging to find my books to review this month.

The Four Agreements:

by

Don Miguel Ruiz

I read this small book a few years ago and have given several as gifts to family. Ruiz is a shamanic teacher and healer and has written several books on guides to personal freedom (Toltec Wisdom)

This little book is full of simple truths about life.
There are four agreements: Be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions. And Always do your best. It is the how and why one should do these things that make the book worth reading and remembering. Being impeccable with your word seems simple right? Don't tell lies. But your word is a powerful thing. We can express love, hate, envy, and many more emotions with our word. Also your words that you speak to yourself is involved as we tend to use negative self-talk to put ourselves down. I will just mention what I learned about the second agreement. Don't take anything personally. I like the term he used “its not about you” I think this one statement should be the main take away from this book. We tend to take everything personal, and thus making us responsible for everyone elses thoughts and actions. An example would be someone being ugly to you. When the other person's beliefs transfers to you, it changes you and their baggage becomes your baggage. Basically what other people do, feel, think, or say “don't take it personally”. There is much more in this little book and worth reading and trying to make these agreements that can change how you go through this life a much happier person.

Outlander

by

Diana Gabaldon

I did report on this book series last year, but since the movie of this first book came out recently on one of the movie channels I thought I would touch on it again. Gabaldon as become one of my favorite authors and since I have collected her complete series I finally did start re-reading them. I am up to book four now and bought her newest release but refuse to read it till I have read all 7 of the others first.

The setting starts out in the early 1940's when a war nurse, Claire is in Scotland on vacation with her husband and ends up passing thru some special stones and ends up back in1745 win the wilds of Scotland where she is taken captive by a Scottish clan who think she is an English spy. She is rescued by Jamie Fraser a young Scottish warrior. As the books progress she is able to use her nursing skills to help people but has to be careful that they don't brand her a witch. Remember this is 1745 and people didn't know about germs or disinfecting anything. Each book has a historical significance so you do learn a lot about history. They eventually end up in the New America during its early years and that is where I am now in book four. I do love these epic novels that carries you thru the years with the main characters.

Dorothy Cliff is owner of Read Again Books in Granby.

Sept. column

Guess I have gotten behind.  So here is Sept.



I want to put another plug in again for our Fiber Daze event Sept 19^th and 20^th in Mt Vernon. I have flyer's and info at my book store or go to our website and check it out. Lots to see and do. Free admission and there may even be some classes still open that you can sign up at the door. But you can still register on line. http://www.fiberfolksofswmo.com/ Then click on Fiber Daze. My rug weaving class has filled up but don't forget I will eventually be teaching classes here at my book store.

I can't believe I have been writing this column for over 3 years!

I am vain enough that I have a scrapbook of all my column and in looking back I feel I have read some very interesting books along the way. At the present time my reading has been a little boring as I have been very busy and I seem to fall back on old authors that are comfortable and easy to read. Not that I don't have a big stack of very interesting books waiting for me, so I promise my next book will be a new author.

I have been seeing advertisement for a new movie on an old book that I really liked. It was a book for young adults and I reported on it back in Dec 2012. I felt it would be good to repeat that review since this movie is out. By the way it is rated PG and even though I haven seen it, if its anything like the book I highly recommend it.

The Giver

by

Lois Lowry

After reading this book I recommend it for anyone 10 or above. It actually comes in a set of 3 books and after reading this first one, you will want to find the other 2 books. It is a small book and easy to read. The setting is in the future where the world has no poverty, no crime, sickness, and no unemployment. Sounds wonderful doesn't it?

Think again as it also offers no choices. 12 year old Jonas is chosen to become the Giver which is an honor only bestowed every generation or so.

As Jonas begins to receive the “memories” of what life before was like going back and back and back, he begins to feel things and see light and color, and experience pain for the first time.

Will he decide that he cannot pay the price to become the “Giver”? There is no turning back or is there?

This is one of those simple but unforgettable books that will stay with you for a long time and may make you even wonder where our own society is headed.

Low Pressure

by

Sandra Brown

I have found Brown to write good romance novels but also to include very good mysteries into her books. In this one Bellamy has blocked out her memory of a tornado that happened when she was 12 and the murder of her big sister on the same day. As an adult she becomes a well known author and to help her remember this event she writes a book titled “Low Pressure” and opens all the wounds for herself and her family about this event. It is a fiction but has enough facts in it that it opens things up for the people involved in the investigation and conviction of a local man and they don't like the way they are portrayed and the sloppy job and probable incarceration of the wrong man. Which means the the killer is still around and the spotlight goes back on the sister's old boyfriend, Dent. Now Bellamy is getting way to involved with Dent so is she at risk. A great read!

Dorothy Cliff is owner of Read Again Books in Granby.

August column for newspaper



New things happening at Read Again Book store in Granby. I am in the process of culling out many books and have them on sale for 50cents and hardbacks for $1, and many large sacks for $3. When I get enough sold I plan to remove a few shelves to make room to expand my weaving studio into the store. I will have my floor looms here and will be offering classes. More about this coming later. So come stock up on my garage sale prices!

I regret that I had to be closed some again in July due to family health issues. And now I have tentative plans to take a little vacation the first week of September . Again if my flag is out I am here and feel free to call to make sure I am open. Things are getting better.

I got to do my first sales at Webb City Farmers Market on July 19^th. What fun that was. I set up a table to sell my woven rugs, bags, and table runners. I really enjoyed meeting some great folks and sold a few rugs. They allow crafters that meet their criteria the 3^rd Saturday of each month. I sure hope to go back in August with more new “stuff” I even found a few folks interested in learning to weave.

I will be officially teaching my first weaving class at Fiber Daze in Mt. Vernon September 19^th and 20th You can find all the details at our website: fiberfolksofswmo.com I have all the info at my store. We even have scholarships available to cover some classes, so you can check that out and apply if you want. The event is free and open to the public. The website will lead you to the classes available and the cost for them. Please get registered early as the classes do fill up. There will be an assortment of vendors there for you to browse and shop.

I did manage to get a couple good books read recently. Found another new author that I enjoyed very much and then a Nora Roberts book that I had not seen before and it was a great mystery novel.

Cavedweller

by

Dorothy Allison

Ten years ago Delia abandoned her family, took off with a rock and roll band and ended up in California, living the wild life of a rock stars girl. They had a child, Cissy, who at age 10 loses her famous father in a wild motor cycle accident. Delia is on her own and haunted by memories of her 2 daughters she left behind as toddlers when she ran to avoid abuse at the hands of their father Clint. She loads a kicking Cissy in her old car and head for Georgia to try to put her live back on track. When she gets there she finds herself shunned by most who knew her story. She worked at menial jobs to survive

and ended up making a bargain with her ex husband to care for him in his terminal condition if he would help her bring her girls home from an emotionally abusive grandmother who raised them. Allison does such a great job of pulling this book together that makes a wonderful story of a mother's love, with characters who are flawed, prickly, and also very human.

The Witness

by

Nora Roberts

This was a real page turner from the start. Elizabeth is the more than a perfect daughter of a mother with steel for a spine and no love in her heart. An over achiever who has had her life directed since birth she finally rebells and meets up with a friend at a mall and from there things get out of control for her as she makes fake ID's for them so they can go to a night club. Here they meet some very sophisticated young men and are lead astray in a big way. The book fast forwards 12 years and this girl now has taken a new identity and her name is now Abigail. She has to be very careful to not find any attachments with others as it could cost her her life. She is a brilliant woman who designs special security systems. She has secluded herself in a small rural town with an arsenal of fire arms and a fierce dog to protect her. But would the romantic interest of the new police chief reveal her secrets and put her back in the cross hairs of the Russian Mofia?? Great read.

July column



As if I don't keep busy enough I have joined a sweet bunch of ladies here in Granby for a little sewing a couple times a month. I was happy to find it was not just quilting but learning how to do many projects to create useful things for the home or gifts. It is very motivating to me as I love to learn new things. Thanks, Tammy, Amy, Debbie, and Mary, plus a couple I have not met.

I had to be closed another week in May due to family illness, but hang in there with me. When my flag and sign is out I am here and most days come in much earlier than my posted hours.

I did not get much reading done this month, but did read another Lisa Unger book and found another “favorite” author.

Heartbroken

by

Lisa Unger

Heart Island is a privately owned small island in the middle of a huge lake in the Adirondacks, owned for generations by Birdie Burke's family. Birdy is truly a crusty old bird that seems to love her island more than her husband and grown children. Each summer they are to show up for a week together on the island. This year her daughter Kate, an aspiring author who has used old family journals to write her first novel is a source of irritation to Birdy. Kate's book is fiction, but based on facts from the journals left to her by Birdie's sister. Is there really a ghost on the island? Enter in the mix is Emily. You wonder for awhile where she came from and how she fits in with this family. She is young and struggling and has hooked up with a guy who is obviously no good. He uses her to help commit petty crimes and she hates it. Then she is forced to help with an armed robbery and they end up on the island. The linking together of the characters was done very well and in the end family ghosts are put to rest. I like the way Unger slips in characters from her previous books. It makes you think she loves them and has to keep them alive. Unger has become a favorite author of mine.

The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

by

Barbara Vine

I throughly enjoyed this book!

Writing as Barbara Vine, Britain's mystery novelist Ruth Rendell writes this literary suspense of the highest order. With this truly absorbing page-turner, Vine developes her characters in a way that makes you feel what they feel and have empathy even for Gerald Candless, a bestselling novelist who dies suddenly, and leaves behind a wife and two doting daughters. To sort through her grief, his daughter Sarah puts aside her university studies and agrees to write a biography of her famous father. But as she begins her research and pulls back the veil of his past, her life is slowly torn apart: a terrible logic begins to unfold that explains her mother's remoteness, as she learns that her father took on a new identity before he married and had two daughters. So if he wasn't Gerald then who was he and what could have made him take on a new identity? She also sheds shocking light on a long-forgotten London murder. To quote from the back of the book: “The mystery of Gerald Candless is so ingeniously constructed, its truth and falsehoods are so deftly and convincingly interwoven, that its solution...is as jolting as a flash of lightning”

I would definitely read more books by this author.

I believe this to be true



June column



Again I apologize for having to close my doors for a few days in May due to family illness. Family has to be my first priority. If you are driving very far please feel free to call first to be sure I am open.

I think I have mentioned before that I have never been a mystery reader. I guess that I am getting hooked, but not to much blood and guts please. I discovered a new author, at least new to me this last month. Ended up reading 3 of her books. Her name is Lisa Unger. Her books are classified as physiological thrillers.

Fragile

by

Lisa Unger

The setting is a small community outside of New York City, where everyone knows everyone and their business. It is a good place to raise children in this warm environment. Some leave to find more excitement but end up coming back. Old high school cliques are never quite forgotten. The students are just mature now and have mature roles to play. When psychologist Maggie Cooper returns with her family and sets up practice, her knowledge of local families give her insight into their lives. Her son's girlfriend disappears and her intuition is useful but also dangerous. There are parallels between this girls disappearance and the abduction of another local girl years before when Maggie was in school. Her husband Jones, local police officer has his own issues with the old case and with his son. When Maggie gets close to the truth she realizes it could tear her family apart. A great ending! A great read!

Darkness My Old Friend

by

Lisa Unger

This is another novel set in the same little community with Jones Cooper, now a semi retired cop back in the picture when he is visited by a psychic to tell him some predictions about his future, some of them dire. Michael, a mysterious young man has returned to seek answers about his mother's disappearance many years earlier, now that his cruel father is dead. He has hired a detective and a psychic to help him find out what happened to her.

Fifteen year old Willow is acting out as she resents being moved to this quiet town with her novelist mother. She has developed a friendship with a daughter of one of her mother's old high school classmates. This new friend has a way of bringing out the worse in Willow and she tendency to run away when things get tough. She witnesses Michael digging what looks like a grave in the woods. The twenty five year mystery of Michaels mother starts to unravel as Jones sees the predictions being fulfilled to his horror.

Black Out

by

Lisa Unger

A very carefully woven mystery about a wealthy suburban housewife named Annie living the perfect live in Florida with her husband Gray, and her daughter Victory. Annie's life begins to unravel when she starts feeling she is being stalked by someone from her past. Someone she has been told many times is dead and can't hurt her. She is seeing a therapist to help her heal from a tragic childhood. Her husband rescued her when she was still a teenage and became her protector. She knows she had a different name and life as Ophelia. But there is so much she can't remember. Under her therapy she starts to piece things together and realizes that maybe some of those closest to her are her enemies. A real psychological thriller that you really don't want to put down or you will forget who and what is real for Annie and what is just in her head. This was a real page turner.

May column



Are you looking for a little gift for someone special? Why not stop in to the book store in Granby and pick up a gift certificate? It can be redeemed for books or hand crafted items.

I have noticed that when I pick out a few books to read for the month that they end up having a general theme that will in someway connect the books. I do not do this intentional but it is just something I noticed. This month two of the books I choose have young teenagers that are learning to make their way in the world. My third book may not meet with approval of some people, but I read a wide variety of books and think that there is something for everyone, so I will report on it and you can decide.

The Secret Life of Bees

by

Sue Monk Kidd

I really love this book and hope to find some more of Kidd's writing soon. The setting is in South Carolina during the 1960's. Lily is 14 years old and carries a burden that she killed her mother when she was only 4. She has grown up with a cold, often abusive father. Her surrogate mother is their black maid, Rosaleen. Lily goes with Rosaleen when she tries to register to vote. (the first time for blacks in the south) Rosaleen gets into trouble and is arrested for spitting tobacco on the shoes of some guys who harass them. Later they come to the jail and beat her up. About this time Lily's father is threatening to do her harm for her involvement so she runs away and manages to sneak Rosaleen out of the hospital where she was taken for sutures. In their flight they end up about 100 miles away. Lily found the name on a picture of a bee keeper that was in the few possessions she had belonging to her mother. They are led to the home of three eccentric black sisters who take them in. Through their love and understanding Lily blossoms and you will have to read the book how the connection to her mother and these three ladies comes about. This book was made into a movie staring Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah. I can certainly see them playing in these roles.

Thirteen Moons

by

Charles Frazier

Did you know there are thirteen moon cycles with 28 days in between? I didn't know that till I was about half way through this book that I figured out how the title fit perfectly.

The setting is in the mid nineteenth century in the raw country of the new America and the edge of what was then the Indian Nation in North Carolina just after the Revolutionary War.

Will Cooper is a 12 years orphan living with relatives, when he is handed a map, keys, and a horse and “sold” into indentured service to find his way to the edge of the Cherokee Nation and run a trading post. The story progresses with his being adopted into the Cherokee Tribe and being a very smart young man who loves to read, he taught himself about the law. As a teenager he found the love of his life who would be an illusive figure throughout his life. He spends most of his life working to protect the rights of his “tribe” even though many where forced to move to Oklahoma. The ones who stayed were legal land owners and he helped them buy up mountain land, establish small towns and industries. As a lawyer and later a Senator, Will goes to Washington City many times to fight to preserve the Cherokee’s homeland and culture. Thirteen Moons is a great novel about a man’s passion for a woman, and how loss, longing and love can shape a man’s destiny over the many moons of a life.

Reincarnation

by

Suzanne Weyn

I like to think that all things are possible. When I read a book like this it resonates with me on a level that many may not agree with. The ultimate historical romance: one love story unfolds over many centuries and many lives.
From prehistory to the present, theirs was a love for the ages. It starts with a fight in a cave over an elusive green jewel . . . and then travels over time and lives to include Egyptian slaves, Greek temples, Massachusetts witch trials, Civil War battlefields, Paris on the eve of World War II, America in the 1960s . . . and a pair of modern-day teenagers. For readers who believe that love is stronger than time or death, this is a great novel suited for young adult reader. Weyn writes other books for teens and young adults.