Lynn

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist ( Backlist Book Pick )

September 18, 2020 by Lynn Leave a Comment

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I read The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist as part of my nonfiction book for every state challenge. It was an impulse purchase at Barnes and Noble, but I knew it would work perfectly for my Mississippi book.

Not only was this book perfect for learning about Mississippi, but it was also a fascinating book.

I have talked about this book several times over the last few years, but I thought it would be a great backlist book. It was published in early 2018 and I don’t think that it got the attention that it deserved.

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist is a shocking account of racism and junk forensic science in our criminal justice system, and its devastating effect on innocent people.

It is a story that is so hard to believe happened and yet it happened. Not only did it happen, it happened in recent history. This is not a long ago type of story. This is a “it happened in my generation” story.

It covers the important topic of crime and injustice in the south and how two men manipulated the system in order to make money and further their careers.

I will admit that this was not a fast read for me. It goes into quite a bit of detail about crime against women and kids.

It is a rough read, and one that I did not read right before bed. It is graphic and sad, but such an important event that not very many people know about. I highly recommend it.

I read it. My husband read it. And we have both recommended it to more people than I can count. If you like fascinating nonfiction or true crime type of books I think you will love The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist.

Recent Reads ( Lynn )

September 7, 2020 by Lynn 2 Comments

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August was a fairly good reading month for me. I read nine books, and most of them were nonfiction. I feel like I am finally getting back into nonfiction books after reading a lot of fiction over the last few months.

When the Germans Came

I am not sure where I first heard about When the Germans Came, but it is basically the nonfiction version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I am working on a whole post comparing the two books, but I will say that I enjoyed When the Germans Came To Town. It had a lot of facts and took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I really enjoyed it.

The Duchess of Bloomsbury St.

I read this after reading 84, Charing Cross Road. The Duchess Of Bloomsbury St. is the follow-up book about the author visiting England. It was a fun follow up read.

Life Together

My daughter, Grace, has read quite a few books by and about Bonhoeffer. We have had a few discussions recently about churches, Christians, and attitudes during the current events. She thought I would enjoy Life Together, especially the first chapter. She was right. This book was a reminder that many things have not changed. Circumstances are different, but in many ways people are people and their responses are often very similar. I will say that this is not a book that I would recommend to someone new to Bonhoeffer, what he stood for, and what he believed. This book makes a lot more sense if you know a little bit about Bonhoeffer and where he is coming from.

Finding God’s Life for My Will

My oldest daughter received the book, Finding God’s Life for My Will, as a gift. She read it and enjoyed it. She thought I would enjoy it too. I did. It was a good reminder that we can plan our life, but God often changes our plans. This would be a great book for a young adult, college student, or a new Christian.

Canyon Dreams

I first heard about Canyon Dreams on the podcast Nonfiction 4 Life. When I heard the interview with the author, I knew that I wanted to read the book. It has sat in my to be read pile for a few months, and I finally picked it up. I loved this book! I am not a huge sports fan, but many in my family are football and basketball fans. What I loved about this book is that it shared a story that very few people know about. If you love nonfiction, I highly recommend this one. This book is about so much more than just basketball. It shares a part of America that few people know about or want to admit exists. I told my husband that he needs to read this one. I also plan to get it for a couple of family members as gifts.

Rural Diaries

The Rural Diaries is the story of Hilarie Burton Morgan. She gave up her lifestyle as an actress and bought a working farm in Rhinebeck, New York. This book is about life, livestock, small-town life, and so much more. It is about finding the community and learning what is important. This book is considered a DIY memoir, but since it is about farm life and life in the country, I think it is also part food memoir too. I love memoirs, and this was an easy fun read for me.

Nathan Coulter

After reading quite a few nonfiction books, I need some comfort type of reading. I have read a few Wendell Berry books and enjoyed them, so I decided to pick up Nathan Coutler. I enjoyed this one, but I definitely liked Hannah Coulter and Andy Catlett more.

Grace from the Rubble

This book was a good, but tough read for me. I have lived in Oklahoma since 1994. My husband and I lived in the Oklahoma City area when the bombing happened. My husband was close enough that he felt the blast when it went off. I am going to do a full review of Grace from the Rubble in a few weeks. But I am glad I read this one. While I don’t agree with everything in this book, and I think the writing could have been better, it is such an important read. This book focuses not just on the destruction, but on love and forgiveness.

Miss Julia Takes Over

This is the second book in the Miss Julia series. I have heard this series described as Mitford like but with mysteries. I can kind of see why people would say that, but I don’t really agree. To me, Mitford is much better. This book was definitely a bit pg-13 for me in a few spots, and they weren’t necessary to the book. I might try the third book in the series sometime, but I am not sure. If you have read this series, I would love to hear what you thought of it.

Wherever You Go, I Want You To Know ( Sunday Reading )

August 30, 2020 by Lynn Leave a Comment

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It is time for another Sunday reading book. This is where we feature a Christian or theology book that we wouldn’t normally share about. Featuring them on Sunday’s gives us a way to share the Christian books that some of our readers enjoy.

Today we are changing it up a little. We are sharing a kid’s book for Sunday Reading.

Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know by Melissa Kruger is a fun kids book that reminds you that no matter what you do in life loving Jesus is the most important thing you can do.

The first book I read by Melissa Krugar was the Envy of Eve. I enjoyed it and have added a couple of her other books to my TBR list. When I heard that she wrote a kid’s book, I knew that I wanted to read it.

I love including a book when I give a baby gift and am always looking for new ideas of books to give.

Wherever You Go, I Want You To Know will now be my top choice for including as part of a baby gift.

I loved this book! It was so sweet and fun with its rhyme. I can easily see this as a book that kids will want you to read to them over and over again.

This book reminds me of a Dr. Suess type book because it reads like a poem.

It is fun and entertaining while at the same time pointing you to Christ and the importance of following him.

The illustrations are colorful and fun. Kids of different ages will enjoy this one.

I love that this book tells kids they can dream big while at the same time points them to the importance of following Christ.

If you need a book to give as a kids gift, Wherever You Go, I Want You To Know is a great one. It would work for a baby gift or as a gift for a younger child.

Nonfiction Books August 2020

August 26, 2020 by Lynn Leave a Comment

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Do you love nonfiction? There were some great nonfiction books released in August 2020.

We love to feature backlist books every week, but that does not mean we don’t enjoy new releases as well, especially if those new releases are nonfiction books.

It is no secret that we love nonfiction books. Our family enjoys finding new and interesting books about history, science, true crime, memoirs, and more.

This month I added several nonfiction books to my Amazon wish list, which also acts as my “I want to read list.” As I was adding titles to the list I realized that you might like to see what nonfiction books in August caught our attention.

Nonfiction books released in August 2020 that we are looking forward to includes a medical science type book, a book about weather, a book about a congressman, and some true crime. We have not read any of these yet, but we are adding them to our list to read soon.

What books released in August 2020 are you looking forward to reading?

The Organ Thieves by Chip Jones

In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a white businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge. The circumstances surrounding his death reflect the long legacy of mistreating African Americans that began more than a century before with cadaver harvesting and worse. It culminated in efforts to win the heart transplant race in the late 1960s. Read more…

A Furious Sky by Eric Jay Dolin

With A Furious Sky, Dolin has created a vivid, sprawling account of our encounters with hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus’s New World voyages to the destruction wrought in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Weaving a story of shipwrecks and devastated cities, of heroism and folly, Dolin introduces a rich cast of unlikely heroes, such as Benito Vines, a nineteenth-century Jesuit priest whose innovative methods for predicting hurricanes saved countless lives, and puts us in the middle of the most devastating storms of the past, none worse than the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed at least 6,000 people, the highest toll of any natural disaster in American history. Read more…

His Truth Is Marching On by Jon Meacham

John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was a visionary and a man of faith. Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Jon Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” From an early age, Lewis learned that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a minister, practiced by preaching to his family’s chickens. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it—his first act, he wryly recalled, of nonviolent protest. Integral to Lewis’s commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God—and an unshakable belief in the power of hope. Read more…

The Year Germany Lost the War by Andrew Nagorski

In early 1941, Hitler’s armies ruled most of Europe. Churchill’s Britain was an isolated holdout against the Nazi tide, but German bombers were attacking its cities and German U-boats were attacking its ships. Stalin was observing the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and Roosevelt was vowing to keep the United States out of the war. Hitler was confident that his aim of total victory was within reach. Read more..

Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz

In 1934, the nation’s most legendary crime-fighter–fresh from taking on the greatest gangster in American history–arrived in Cleveland, a corrupt and dangerous town about to host a world’s fair. It was to be his coronation, as well as the city’s. Instead, terror descended, as headless bodies started turning up. The young detective, already battling the mob and crooked cops, found his drive to transform American policing subverted by a menace largely unknown to law enforcement: a serial murderer. Eliot Ness’s greatest case had begun. Read more…

Olive the Lionheart by Brad Ricca

In 1910, Olive MacLeod, a thirty-year-old, redheaded Scottish aristocrat, received word that her fiancé, the famous naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa. So she went to find him. Read more…

A Beautiful Blue Death ( Backlist Book Pick )

August 20, 2020 by Lynn 3 Comments

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This week for our Backlist Book Pick we are featuring the first book in one of my favorite mystery series.

Backlist Book Picks is where we feature older books, books that are not the new releases that everyone is talking about.

With all the new book releases each week, older books often get forgotten on the bookstore shelf. We want to change that by featuring a backlist book each week.

A Beautiful Blue Death is the first book in the Charles Lenox series by Charles Finch.

I love a good mystery book, but I like my mystery books without all the graphic details. Thrillers and gory graphic details are not for me.

A Beautiful Blue Death is not considered a cozy mystery, but I think it fits in that category because it doesn’t have all the graphic details that many mysteries do.

A Beautiful Blue Death, and The Charles Lenox series, are considered historical mysteries.

The series is set in Victorian England. Charles is the second son in the family. He gentleman and an amateur detective who loves solving a good mystery.

In A Beautiful Blue Death Charles helps his good friend, Lady Jane, after one of her former servants is found dead.

This book and the entire series involve the upper and lower class of Victorian England. This is a great series if you like Dowton Abbey type of stories.

I am featuring the first book in the series today because it is important to start with the first one, but I think the series gets better as it goes on.

There are thirteen books so far in the series. I have enjoyed all the books, but books two, three, four, and five are probably my favorite.

If you love a good British mystery, give A Beautiful Blue Death and The Charles Lenox series a try.

Have you read any books in this series?

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Lynn