A Winter Dream
Richard Paul Evans, 2012
Simon & Schuster
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451628036
Summary
The author of the bestselling phenomenon The Christmas Box presents a new holiday novel about family, fate and forgiveness.
Joseph Jacobson is the twelfth of thirteen siblings, all of whom are employed by their father’s successful Colorado advertising company. But underneath the success runs a poisonous undercurrent of jealousy; Joseph is his father’s favorite and the focus of his brothers’ envy and hatred. When the father seems ready to anoint Joseph as his heir, the brothers make their move, forcing Joseph from the company and his Denver home, severing his ties to his parents and ending his relationship with his soon-to-be fiancee. Alone and lonely, Joseph must start a new life.
Joseph joins a Chicago advertising agency where his creativity helps him advance high up in the company. He also finds hope for a lasting love with April, a kind woman with a secret. However, all secrets hold consequences, and when Joseph learns the truth about April’s past, his world is again turned upside down. Finally, Joseph must confront his own difficult past in order to make his dreams for the future come true.
A Winter Dream is an ingenious modern retelling of the Old Testament story of Joseph and the coat of many colors by the master of the holiday novel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 11, 1962
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Utah
• Awards—American Mother Book Award; two Story
Telling World Awards (2000, 2001)
• Currently—lives in Salt Lake City, Utah
Evans graduated from Cottonwool High School in Salt Lake City. He graduated with a B.A. degree from the University of Utah in 1984. While working as an advertising executive he wrote a Christmas story for his children. Unable to find a publisher or an agent, he self-published the work in 1999 as a paperback novella entitled The Christmas Box. He distributed it to book stores in his community.
The book became a local bestseller, prompting Evans to publish the book nationally. The next year The Christmas Box hit #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, inciting an auction for the publishing rights among the world's top publishing houses. Evans signed a publishing deal with Simon & Schuster. Released in hardcover in 1995, The Christmas Box became the first book to simultaneously reach the number-one position on the New York Times bestseller list for both paperback and hardcover editions. That same year, the book was made into a television movie of the same title, starring Richard Thomas and Maureen O'Hara.
Evans has subsequently written eleven nationally best-selling books, including those for children, most with conservative Christian themes and appealing to family values. His 1996 book Timepiece was made into a television movie featuring James Earl Jones and Ellen Burstyn, as was 1998's The Locket, which starred Vanessa Redgrave, and 2003's A UnPerfect Day, which starred Rob Lowe and Christopher Lloyd. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Shoved out of the family business by his green-with-envy siblings, Joe soon triumphs as chief adviser to the CEO of another company. Then the siblings need his help. Sound familiar? This novel is in fact based on the Old Testament story of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors. More sparkly holiday hope from the author of the outrageously best-selling The Christmas Box.
Library Journal
Readers will relate to these characters, be moved to tears and laughter by them, and most importantly, be inspired by them,... A journey you should definitely take.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Specific questions will be added if and when they are made available by the publisher or author.
The Yellow Birds
Kevin Powers, 2012
Little, Brown, & Company
230 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316219365
Summary
A novel written by a veteran of the war in Iraq, The Yellow Birds is the harrowing story of two young soldiers trying to stay alive.
"The war tried to kill us in the spring." So begins this powerful account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. Bound together since basic training when Bartle makes a promise to bring Murphy safely home, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for.
In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes actions he could never have imagined.
With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, The Yellow Birds is a groundbreaking novel that is destined to become a classic. (From the publisher.)
See the PBS interview with Kevin Powers about The Yellow Birds.
Author Bio
• Birth—July 11, 1980
• Where—Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., Virginia Commonwealth University;
M.F.A., University of Texas-Austin
• Awards—Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award (see below)
• Currently—lives in Florence, Italy (as of December, 2012)
Kevin Powers is an American fiction writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran. He was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, the son of a factory worker and a postman, and enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of seventeen. Six years later, in 2004, he served a one-year tour in Iraq as a machine gunner assigned to an engineer unit.
Powers' first novel The Yellow Birds, which drew on his experiences in the Iraq War, garnered a lucrative advance from publisher Little, Brown. It has been called "a classic of contemporary war fiction""by the New York Times. Michiko Kakutani, book critic for the Times, subsequently named the novel one of her 10 favorite books of 2012. KakutaniW wrote, "At once a freshly imagined bildungsroman and a metaphysical parable about the loss of innocence and the uses of memory, it’s a novel that will stand with Tim O’Brien’s enduring Vietnam book, The Things They Carried, as a classic of contemporary war fiction."
In an interview, Powers explained to the Guardian newspaper why he wrote the book
One of the reasons that I wrote this book was the idea that people kept saying, "What was it like over there?" It seemed that it was not an information-based problem. There was lots of information around. But what people really wanted was to know what it felt like; physically, emotionally and psychologically. So that's why I wrote it.
Asked about what he felt was the best book of 2012, writer Dave Eggers said this to the Observer:
There are a bunch of books I could mention, but the book I find myself pushing on people more than any other is The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers. The author fought in Iraq with the US army, and then, many years later, this gorgeous novel emerged. Next to The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, it's the best thing I've read about the war in Iraq, and by far the best novel. Powers is a poet first, so the book is spare, incredibly precise, unimproveable. And it's easily the saddest book I've read in many years. But sad in an important way.
Not all critics were so laudatory of The Yellow Birds, however. Ron Charles of the Washington Post wrote that "frankly, the parts of The Yellow Birds are better than the whole. Some chapters lack sufficient power, others labor under the influence of classic war stories, rather than arising organically from the author’s unique vision." Michael Larson of Salon argues that the book is ruined by "boggy lyricism... There’s never a sky not worthy of a few adjectives." And Theo Tait of the London Review of Books argued that the book "labours under the weight of a massive Hemingway crush.... a trainwreck, from the first inept and imprecise simile, to the tin-eared rhythms, to the final incoherent thought."
Recognition and Awards
Winner - Guardian First Book Award, 2012
Finalist - National Book Award (Fiction), 2012
Finalist - Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, 2012
Winner - Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, 2013
As of December, 2012, Powers lives in Florence, Italy where his wife is in graduate studieds for fashion design.
(Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/20/2013.)
Book Reviews
A remarkable first novel, one that stands with Tim O'Brien's enduring Vietnam book, The Things They Carried, as a classic of contemporary war fiction. The Yellow Birds is brilliantly observed and deeply affecting: at once a freshly imagined story about a soldier's coming of age, a harrowing tale about the friendship of two young men trying to stay alive on the battlefield in Iraq, and a philosophical parable about the loss of innocence and the uses of memory. Its depiction of war has the surreal kick of Mr. O'Brien's 1978 novel, Going After Cacciato, and a poetic pointillism distinctly its own; they combine to sear images into the reader's mind with unusual power.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
A first novel as compact and powerful as a footlocker full of ammo.... The fractured structure replicates the book's themes. Like a chase scene made up of sentences that run on and on and ultimately leave readers breathless, or like a concert description that stops and starts, that swings and sways, that makes us stamp our feet and clap our hands—the nonlinear design of Powers's novel is a beautifully brutal example of style matching content. War destroys. It doesn't just rip through bone and muscle, stone and steel; it fragments the mind as a fist to a mirror might create thousands of bloodied, glittering shards.... Kevin Powers has something to say, something deeply moving about the frailty of man and the brutality of war, and we should all lean closer and listen.
Benjamin Percy - New York Times Book Review
Throughout The Yellow Birds, amid the gore and the terror and the boredom, you can hear notes of Powers's work as a poet.... More than a little of that rich language would risk turning the novel florid, but Powers rarely oversteps. In the best sections, he moves gracefully between spare, factual description of the soldiers' work to simple, hard-won reflections on the meaning of war.... His lacerating honesty never feels false or fails to shock.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
This moving debut from Powers (a former Army machine gunner) is a study of combat, guilt, and friendship forged under fire. Pvt. John Bartle, 21, and Pvt. Daniel Murphy, 18, meet at Fort Dix, N.J., where Bartle is assigned to watch over Murphy. The duo is deployed to Iraq, and the novel alternates between the men’s war zone experiences and Bartle’s life after returning home. Early on, it emerges that Murphy has been killed; Bartle is haunted by guilt, and the details of Murphy’s death surface slowly. Powers writes gripping battle scenes, and his portrait of male friendship, while cheerless, is deeply felt. As a poet, the author’s prose is ambitious, which sets his treatment of the theme apart—as in this musing from Bartle: “though it’s hard to get close to saying what the heart is, it must at least be that which rushes to spill out of those parentheses which were the beginning and end of my war.” The sparse scene where Bartle finally recounts Murphy’s fate is masterful and Powers’s style and story are haunting.
Publishers Weekly
This first novel by Powers traces the story of a young soldier named John Bartle and his friend Murph during fighting in northern Iraq in 2005. Sterling, the tough sergeant of their platoon, has informally assigned Bartle the job of watching over Murph, who is young, small, and not much of a soldier, and Bartle had also promised Murph's mother that he would take care of him. As the horrors of war escalate, all the soldiers seem to lose their grip, and Murph finally snaps, leaving the compound and forcing Bartle and Sterling to search for him through the nightmarish landscape of a ravaged city. Alternating with this plot is the story of Bartle's life after his return home, as he attempts to piece together his friend's fate and come to grips with it. Verdict: Thoughtful and analytical, the novel resonates as an accurate and deeply felt portrayal of the effects of post-combat syndrome as experienced by soldiers in the disorienting war in Iraq. While the battle scenes are effectively dramatized, the main character's inner turmoil is the focal point of this well-done novel.
Library Journal
A novel about the poetry and the pity of war. The title comes from an Army marching chant that expresses a violence that is as surprising as it is casual.... As the war intensifies in Nineveh province, they witness and participate in the usual horrors that many soldiers in war are exposed to. As a result of his experiences, Murph starts to act strangely, becoming more isolated and withdrawn until he finally snaps. Eventually he, too, becomes a victim of the war, and Bartle goes home to face the consequences of a coverup in which he'd participated. Powers writes with a rawness that brings the sights and smells as well as the trauma and decay of war home to the reader.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Yellow Birds:
1. The Army tells the soldiers that death is the "great unifier," that it brings people "closer together than any other activity on earth." But Bartle thinks the more common belief among soldiers is that "if you die, it becomes more likely that I will not." What are your thoughts on either philosophy of death. Is the concept of death in civilian life different from war? Is death in war simply a matter of numbers, lacking any significance?
2. What do you make of the troops killing the single man, alone in front of a wall, and the older couple in the car (pg. 20-22). Why are they summarily killed? Is their killing an inevitability of war? Is the killing justified in wartime?
3. Birds, the orchard, and hyacinths are mentioned repeatedly throughout the book. What might their significance be? Dust and footprints are also referred to frequently. Why? What is their thematic significance—any ideas?
4. Talk about the colonel who addresses the troops while in front of the cameras. Do you think his concern for the troops is genuine...or is he preening before the media? He tells the soldiers that some will not return. Why does he tell them that? Should he have done so? What does Bartle think of the colonel's admission (pg. 87)?
5. The colonel also tells the troops that in the coming battle "you may not do anything more important in your life" (pg. 89). How do Murph and Bartle respond to that statement? Whose perspective do you agree with?
6. What do you think of Sterling? What does Bartle think of him? Does your opinion of Sterling change? Does Bartle's? What happens to Sterling...and why?
7. Why do U.S. troops end up fighting three times, in three years, for Al Tafar?
8. Bartle says that "we were unaware of even our own savagery now: the beatings and the kicked dogs, the searches and the sheer brutality of our presence." What do you make of that statement?
9. Murph seems to give up. What precipitates his loss of will? Does it start with his girlfriend's letter telling him she has found someone else? Bartle tortures himself that he should have been able to pinpoint the moment. To what degree is Bartle responsible for Murph?
10. What is Murph's attraction to the young female medic? Why does he sit and watch her? Even Bartle finds her compelling—why? What does she mean to both of them?
11. SPOILER ALERT: Why does Bartle not want to follow standard procedures with regard to Murph's body? Is the decision the right one? Is it—was it—fair to deprive Murph's mother of the return of her son's body? What about the old hermit with the mule—why does Sterling shoot him?
12. What is the significance of the title, The Yellow Birds? Consider the canaries from the coal mines that Murph describes to Bartle (pg. 139). What about them...and why might the book be named after them? What about all the other mentions of birds throughout the book (see Question 3)?
13. SPOILER ALERT: The following aren't questions but observations: note Bartle's mention of Murph's eyes, as early as page 7, which have already "fallen farther into his sockets." Consider how that represents a foreshadowing of his death. Also note the parallel between Bartle's floating in the James River once he's back home and the disposal of Murph's body into the Tigris.
14. On the plane home, Bartle feels he has "left the better portion" of himself behind. What does he mean? By the time he arrives in Richmond, he has lost his way—and his will—as if he had "vanished into thin air." How would you describe his condition? Is his behavior typical of returning vets?
15. SPOILER ALERT: We aren't told how Bartle's trial, or court martial, plays out, exactly what he is charged with. How—or why—do you think he ends up in prison? What is he guilty of? Is he guilty?
16. What do you think the letter to Murph's mother says? She comes to visit Bartle at Fort Knox. Why—what does she want? Bartle says she offers him no forgiveness, yet he is glad she came. Would you have visited Bartle under the circumstances.
17. Bartle's own mother has no ability to understand her son when he returns. Is there any way that any of us can grasp what a soldier's experience in battle is like? How are we ever to integrate them back into society? How are we to heal them? Can they be healed?
18. What is Bartle's emotional state by the end of the novel? Has healing occurred? What might the future hold for him? Why does the book end with Bartle's vision of Murph's floating remains?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Infamy
Tom Milton, 2009
Nepperhan Press
277 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780979457951
Summary
Fenly Aquino, an American security agent, is working in Madrid with Raquel Lopez, a member of a Spanish security team that has heard about a planned terrorist attack. The plot involves the use of laundered money to buy weapons of mass destruction that will be directed at a target in New York City. The key to stopping the attack is to find the trail of money and follow it to the source of the weapons. They have only two weeks to stop the attack, so time is running out on them as they desperately try to unravel the plot. (From the author.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 3, 1949
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Education—Ph.D. Walden University, M.A. University
of Iowa (Writers Workshop), B.A. Princeton University
• Currently—lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
Tom Milton was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. After completing his undergraduate
degree at Princeton he worked for the Wall Street Journal, and then he was invited to the Writers Workshop in Iowa City, where he completed a novel and a master’s degree. He then served in the U.S. Army, and upon his discharge he joined a major international bank in New York. For the next twenty years he worked overseas, initially as an economic/political analyst and finally as a senior executive. He later became involved in economic development projects.
After retiring from his business career he joined the faculty of Mercy College, where he is a professor of international business. Five years ago he found a publisher for his novels, some of which are set in foreign cities where he lived (Buenos Aires, London, Madrid, and Santo Domingo). His novels are popular with reading groups because they deal with major issues, they have engaging characters, and they are good stories.
His first published novel, No Way to Peace, set in Argentina in the mid-1970s, is about the courage of five women during that country’s war of terror. His second novel, The Admiral’s Daughter, is about the conflict between a young woman and her father during the civil rights war in Mississippi in the early 1960s. His third novel, All the Flowers, set in New York in the late 1960s, is about a gifted young singer who gets involved in the antiwar movement because her twin brother joins the army to prove his manhood to his father. His fourth novel, Infamy, set in Madrid in 2007, is about the attempt of security agents to stop a terrorist attack on New York City that would use weapons of mass destruction. His next novel, A Shower of Roses, set in London in the early 1980s, is about a young nurse who is drawn by love into an intrigue of the Cold War. His next novel, Sara’s Laughter, set in Yonkers, NY in 1993, is about a woman in her mid-thirties who wants a child but is unable to get pregnant. And his latest novel, The Golden Door, is about a young Latina woman in Alabama whose future is threatened by a harsh anti-immigrant law that the state passed in 2011. (From .)
Extras
From a conversation with Tom Milton appearing at the end of Infamy:
Q: A major event of Fenly’s life was his meeting Camila in the elevator of the World Trade Center and falling in love with her.
A: Camila challenged his ideas about women, which had come from his imagined father, and Fenly had to change those ideas in order to attain her.
Q: You wrote so movingly about how he was affected by losing her in 9-11. Did you lose a loved one in the attack?
A: I knew people who lost parents, spouses, and children. When it happened I was at a location where I could see the towers collapse. I’ll never forget it. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Infamy is the story of a Latino American, Fenly Aquino, who works for Homeland Security. He is assigned to travel to Spain to work with Raquel Lopez, a former cop, to assist the Spanish anti-terrorist team in stopping a terrorist attack about to happen on U.S. soil. Both Fenly and Raquel have lost loved ones to terrorism: Fenly lost his fiancée, Camila, in 9/11 and Raquel lost her brother in the attack on Madrid commuter trains. They discover the current plot involves laundered money, drug dealers, prostitutes, Americans living in Spain and possible involvement of other U.S. security personnel. Eventually, it becomes obvious to the terrorists that Fenly, Raquel and the entire Spanish anti-terrorist team know too much about the plot and, by the end of the book, their lives are in danger.
Overall, I liked this novel very much. The story and plotlines were interesting, relevant and for the most part, the book was a page turner. The author is a competent writer who is also a good storyteller. His characters are believable and well-defined.
I particularly enjoyed the flashback scenes, although a few times, it took one or two sentences for me to realize that the paragraph was the beginning of another flashback. Milton does a good job showing Fenly's early tumultuous relationship with his mother, his longing for his absentee father, his eventual maturity, the growing relationship with his fiancée, all leading up to the horrible events on 9/11.
The romance which eventually develops between Fenly and Raquel happens a bit too abruptly.
Although the two work well together, there is very little indication that they will become romantically involved. All of a sudden, at the end, they decide they love one another. As well, the cover is too simplistic for a book of this caliber.
I recommend this book as an entertaining, interesting and relevant read.
Ellen Gable Hrkach - Catholic Fiction.
Discussion Questions
1. We learn early in the story that Fenly and Raquel both lost a loved one in a terrorist attack. How do they deal with that loss?
2. Both Fenly and Raquel grow up without a parent of their own gender as a role model. How did they deal that experience?
3. How are their mentors similar and different?
4. How is Fenly affected by the unexpected return of his father?
5. What does Fenly learn from falling in love with Camila?
6. What inner conflict does Raquel reveal in her words and actions?
7. What role does Leandro play in the story?
8. What role does Samira play?
9. How does the author use the characters of Antonio and José?
10. How does the method used by the terrorists to launder money relate to the theme of the novel?
11. What do you think of Daryl? Do you believe his claim?
12. What role does the mural near the Plaza del Carmen play in the story? Do you agree with its message?
13. Why did the author call this novel Infamy?
14. How might the ideas expressed by characters in this novel apply to situations in the world today?
(Questions courtesy of author.)
Maria's Duck Tails: Wildlife Stories From My Garden
Maria Daddino, 2011
Llumina Press
108 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781605943411
Summary
Happy, sad, and at times a little whimsical, Maria's Duck Tales: Wildlife Stories From My Garden is a collection of short stories of the sometimes complicated, sometimes heart-breaking but always enriching relationship between a woman and the wildlife who call her garden home.
Sharing her observations and interactions with the wild ducks, swans, opossums, ospreys and squirrels of Penataquit Creek, the stories are interwoven with fascinating facts about wildlife and insights into communicating with and understanding our wild friends. Maria's poignant and heartwarming memoirs, as well as the unique bond that she shares with her garden visitors, are, at times, touching, delightful, comical and heartrending. (From the author.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1940s
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Saint John's University
• Awards—See below
• Currently—lives in East Quogue, New York
Maria Daddino is the multiple award-winning author of Maria’s Duck Tales: Wildlife Stories From my Garden, a heartwarming and poignant memoir about a very extraordinary time in her life and the special creatures who became her “wild-friends.”
The author grew up in the 1940’s in Brooklyn, New York, attended Saint John’s University and now lives in a charming little hamlet on the magnificent East End of Long Island. Deer, turkeys, pheasants, egrets, herons, squirrels, opossums and glorious wild birds, brilliant in their feathered plumage, call her native wildlife garden home. Her extensive native and natural garden, certified as a wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation and as a monarch waystation by Monarch Watch, has been on display in several East End garden tours. She also works closely with local wildlife organizations and regularly holds private tours with them in her garden to discuss ways of providing wildlife habitat in beautiful garden settings.
Maria writes a weekly community column, “From Fourth Neck,” for the Western Edition of The Southampton Press. Her essays have appeared in The Press Box in both the Eastern and Western Editions of The Southampton Press, as well as in The Press of Manorville and Moriches. Her wildlife stories have also appeared in the South Shore Monthly, the Great South Bay Magazine and In the Eyes of the Wild: An Anthology of Wildlife Poetry and Short Stories.
Maria’s wildlife garden has been featured in all editions of The Southampton Press. She has appeared on LTV’s The Writer’s Dream, as well as on The Authors Show. Maria has also spoken of the joys of her wildlife garden on several radio shows, most recently, The Backyard Network on KRAE, Cheyenne, Wy.
Maria lives in East Quogue with her collie Christie, her parrot Pablo and all of her “wild-friends." (From the author.)
Awards
IndieReader Discovery Awards Winner (Environment)
National Indie Excellence Book Awards Winner (Nature)
Global eBook Awards Winner (Animals/ Pets)
Readers Favorite Award ~ Silver (Animals)
New York Book Festival Runner-Up (eBooks)
Green Book Festival Runner-Up (Animals)
International Book Awards Finalist (Animals/Pets: General)
International Book Awards Finalist (E-Book Autobiography/Biography/Memoirs)
Los Angeles Book Festival First Honorable Mention (Non-Fiction)
San Francisco Book Festival First Honorable Mention (Non-Fiction)
Beach Book Festival Honorable Mention (Non-Fiction)
Readers Favorite Award Finalist (Humor)
Readers Favorite Award (General Non-Fiction)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Maria's Duck Tales: Wildlife Stories from My Garden is a collection of memories from Maria Daddino as she presents animal tales from her home and gardens, with a touch of humor and poignancy. Duck Tales is a strong pick for wildlife-themed memoir collections, recommended.
Midwest Book Review
One of the nice things about being a columnist is receiving notification from various good people in the animal world about books, services and events that provide a shining light on animals and illustrate how much we love them.
In April, I received a message from a reader on Long Island, New York who describes herself as a "wildlife advocate." Her "...passions are native gardening and wildlife." While her "challenge is having the two peacefully co-exist in the same garden!" This is a wildlife advocate who recognizes that humans and animals should peacefully co-exist and respect the fact that each share this land.
Maria Daddino is also a columnist, writing a weekly community column, "From Fourth Neck," for the western edition of The Southampton Press. Last year, she wrote Maria's Duck Tales "... a collection of short stories of the sometimes complicated, sometimes heart-breaking but always enriching relationship between a woman and the wildlife who call her garden home."
We must confess that we haven't yet finished reading this book, but what we have read is both delightful and heartwarming. It is so refreshing to read about someone who values visits by wildlife in her yard instead of complaining about any perceived havoc they may cause. From her book Maria writes, "I always enjoyed sitting on my terrace in Bay Shore, delighting in the beauty of my garden and the antics of my wild-friends.... I felt so privileged that year to have shared in such an extraordinary gift of nature and I will always remember the exhilaration I felt as I watched a very special pair of young ospreys soar high into the warm summer sky."
Note use of the word "privileged" to describe her experience with wildlife. It is indeed a privilege for humans to co-exist with animals and to share in the experience of life by watching their integration with the world around them. How often have you watched birds flock to feeders in your backyard or squirrels scurry up a fence to feast on peanuts and corn? It is indeed mesmerizing for those who respect the beauty of wildlife and the fascination they are to watch. As Maria writes, "I was thrilled to be part of a cutting-edge community that cherished the bounty of the land and the opulence of its wildlife."
Maria's stories both educate and warm our hearts to recognize the endless joy, amusement and sometimes sadness animals bring to our world. For "...her backyard wouldn't be complete without a bevy of animals–deer, pheasants and turkeys, to name a few, as well as a feral cat Ms. Daddino named Emmy Lou. Come one, come all is her policy, she said."
Give this book a read. We think you'll enjoy it.
Stephen Dickstein - Examiner.com
Maria's Duck Tales is a wonderful glimpse into the lives of the wildlife that ventured into the author's life. Each chapter is a different story about an animal that was fortunate enough to encounter Maria. Each chapter is a quick easy read that is like a breath of fresh air on a rainy day. When I first picked up the book to read I imagined that I would just be reading the observations of the wildlife that the author encountered. Instead she often goes hands-on with her wildlife friends, giving me an up close glimpse of her interactions with them. Her interactions often save the lives of the animals she encounters. While there are stories of ducks, the author also includes stories about squirrels, opossums, swans and even mentions her beloved collie a few times. I enjoyed reading how the animals would become a real part of her family. She always gave them names which made them so relatable.
As an avid fan of nature I loved this book. The author gives a true glimpse of the wildlife she encounters, but, more than that, as I read each chapter I also learned a bit about the habits of each animal—from the way they care for their babies to the foods they like to eat. The illustrations, peppered through the pages of this book, really stand out and also allow the reader a glimpse of the animal she is describing. I think any observer of nature will certainly enjoy reading this book, but I would recommend it to those who never have the opportunity to connect with nature because the author has the wonderful ability to make you feel like you are right there with her, watching the antics of the wildlife she encounters. This book is certainly a keeper for me. I plan on rereading the stories often. On a scale of one to five I would easily give this book a six because it's just that good! (5 Stars)
Brenda C. - Readers Favorite
Verdict: Maria’s Duck Tales: Wildlife Stories from my Garden is a delightful and informative, stirring set of tender and educational animal stories for nature lovers, young and old.
A collection of stories about the ducks that lived in the author’s backyard and taught her about Mother Nature’s hope and heartbreak.
Author Maria Daddino writes about her Penataquit Creek home and garden, which became a temporary home to many creatures. As the title states, many of the stories revolve around Daddino’s endearing duck visitors, like Peanuts and Patches her Muscovy ducks, and a tearful story about their encounter with a red fox. However, Daddino also opened her home to swans, ducks and geese, as observed ospreys and opossums. Her descriptions of the animals are vivid as well as educational, detailing habitats and behavior of the animals:
What I didn’t know was that opossums shared their world with the dinosaurs and that their babies are so small when they are born that twenty can fit into one teaspoon, a discovery which made me realize that most of the members of my new little opossum family were already teenagers!
The book, which includes elegant color pencil illustrations by Steve Ensign, begins with Daddino describing how she grew up in Brooklyn always had “a profound love for Mother Earth,” and was thrilled when she discovered her dream community “that cherished the bounty of the land and the opulence of its wildlife.” Here, Daddino began to work on her garden that would invite swans, geese and ducks that would become friends to Daddino and teach her about all the aspects of Mother Nature. As Daddino prepares her garden she gives the reader a hint that the changing seasons bring a foreboding of sadness:
Nothing compares to the lushness of my summer garden, the fragrances of oriental lilies and roses, the early morning dew on the grass, the sweet tastes of vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes and freshly-picked raspberries and the gentle warmth that emanates from the soil. The vivid oranges, yellows and browns of a fall woodland strike a chord deep in my soul but, as I watch the falling leaves, I am overcome with a sense of sadness as I think of the long, dark days ahead.
Daddino manages to highlight the painful paradox of nature, the ups and downs of survival in her recounting of the stories of the ducks being preyed upon by the fox, and the ducklings getting lost in the storm:
There is no more heartbreaking sight than that of a Muscovy mother looking for her babies and not finding them. Peanut looked in all their favorite places, gently cooing and clucking to them. Peanut came up to me pecking at my leg, practically begging me to join in the search.
Daddino’s choice of names for her ducks is also quite entertaining–from Robert to Bianca to Lucky to names inspired by the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal: Hillary, Monica, Gennifer, Flower, Paula and Joansie.
Daddino’s closes her chronological story with a touching dedication in the epilogue to her beloved dog, Gypsy Blue. In this epilogue, Daddino’s voice, her love and connection for Gypsy Blue, animals, nature is especially apparent and moving, and makes for a powerful close to a gratifying read.
Maria’s Duck Tales: Wildlife Stories from my Garden is a delightful and informative, stirring set of tender and educational animal stories for nature lovers, young and old. (5 Stars)
Maya Fleischmann - IndieReader.com
This endearing collection of stories takes count of the wildlife that populates Daddino’s gardens. In addition to the exploits of a few other creatures, Daddino’s first book focuses mostly on the Muscovy duck community that made its home around the creek where Daddino lived in Bay Shore, N.Y., on the southern coast of Long Island. Thanks to the balance of awe and familiarity that Daddino conveys, her relationship to the creatures is immediately compelling. From the outset, she admits to having an overwhelming love for animals but also an understanding that they should be self-sufficient. One winter, she raised squirrels in a cage in her basement, not naming them to make it easier to set them free when spring arrives. She brought the ducklings into her house to warm them on only the coldest, wettest nights, and the ospreys she marveled at from afar. While this book spotlights delightful and surprising human exchanges with the animals, external human influences create some tension: ospreys nest atop a crane in a neighboring dredging company, ducks get lost under trucks and swans leave their lovers under the docks. How Daddino manages to have a fertile garden with all these ducks around isn’t addressed until nearly the end, as an aside, which doesn’t prove too insightful. The whimsical color illustrations scattered throughout seem to be asking for a younger audience, perhaps with pared down text, bigger pages, more pictures and more attention to story. On the other hand, with more reflection and careful editing, it could make a strong memoir. Charming yet loosely connected, like random journal entries.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What do you think made a city girl from Brooklyn turn into a passionate wildlife advocate?
2. How do you think caring for the animals she writes about in her book affected the author?
3. As the relationship between the animals and the author developed, what do you think it taught her? What did it teach you?
4. If the pekin ducks continually destroyed your vegetable garden, would you have banished them? Why do you think the author didn’t?
5. It was obviously difficult for the author to release the squirrels she had nurtured in her basement through the cold winter months, would you have kept them as pets or would you have released them?
6. Why do you think that the author’s juvenile osprey visitors were so special to her?
7. Most people are afraid of swans, especially when they are protective parents raising their cygnets, why do you think the author felt that they wouldn’t harm her?
8. How would you feel if the crows and sea gulls were swooping down and capturing your ducklings? What would you do?
9. Who are your favorite characters in the book? Why?
10. How many hours a day do you think the author spent hosing down the dock and her long driveway?
11. Would you have done some of the things that the author did...like climbing from boat to boat after knee surgery or getting up in the middle of the night to protect the ducks? Why or why not?
12. What are some of the things that you learned from reading this book?
(Questions courtesy of author.)
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Ben Fountain, 2012
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060885618
Summary
Winner, 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award
A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at "the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal"—three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew—has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America's most sought-after heroes.
For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide "Victory Tour" to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys, slated to be part of the halftime show alongside the superstar pop group Destiny's Child.
Among the Bravos is the Silver Star-winning hero of Al-Ansakar Canal, Specialist William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. Amid clamoring patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and Support Our Troops bumper stickers on their cars, the Bravos are thrust into the company of the Cowboys' hard-nosed businessman/owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a luscious born-again Cowboys cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer; and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Among these faces Billy sees those of his family—his worried sisters and broken father—and Shroom, the philosophical sergeant who opened Billy's mind and died in his arms at Al-Ansakar.
Over the course of this day, Billy will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his struggling family, and his brothers-in-arms—soldiers both dead and alive. In the final few hours before returning to Iraq, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision, and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years.
Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a devastating portrait of our time, a searing and powerful novel that cements Ben Fountain's reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1958 or 1959
• Where—Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A. Universtiy of North Carolina; J.D., Duke
University
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; O'Henry Award; Hemingway/PEN
Award; Whiting Writers Award
• Currently—lives in Dallas, Texas
Ben Fountain is an American fiction writer, whose 2012 novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, was selected as a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award.
He is the author of Brief Encounters With Che Guevara, a collection of short stories. He has won numerous awards, including the Texas Institute of Letters Short Story Award for 2002 and 2004, a Pushcart Prize in 2004, an O. Henry Award in 2005 and 2007, and inclusion of his work in New Stories from the South: The Year's Best 2006. In 2007 he won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction, and a Whiting Writers Award, a prestigious award for emerging writers, from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation.
Fountain earned a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980, and a law degree from the Duke University School of Law in 1984. After a brief stint practicing real estate law at Akin Gump in Dallas, Fountain in 1988 quit the law to become a full time fiction writer. He lives in Dallas, Texas. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[An] inspired, blistering war novel…Though it covers only a few hours, the book is a gripping, eloquent provocation. Class, privilege, power, politics, sex, commerce and the life-or-death dynamics of battle all figure in Billy Lynn’s surreal game day experience.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Brilliantly done...grand, intimate, and joyous.
New York Times Book Review
A masterful gut-punch of a debut novel.... Catch-22 is about to be updated for a new era. In his immortal classic, Heller was lampooning the military's attempt to bureaucratize the horror of World War II. In Fountain's razor-sharp, darkly comic novel—a worthy neighbor to Catch-22 on the bookshelf of war fiction—the focus has shifted from bureaucracy to publicity, reflecting corresponding shifts in our culture…There's hardly a false note, or even a slightly off-pitch one, in Fountain's sympathetic, damning and structurally ambitious novel.
Jeff Turrentine - Washington Post
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is not merely good; it’s Pulitzer Prize-quality good.... A bracing, fearless and uproarious satire of how contemporary war is waged and sold to the American public.
San Francisco Chronicle
Fountain’s strength as a writer is that he not only can conjure up this all-too-realistic-sounding mob, but also the young believably innocent soul for our times, Specialist Billy Lynn. And from the first page I found myself rooting for him, often from the edge of my seat.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
While Fountain undoubtedly knows his Graham Greene and Paul Theroux, his excursions into foreign infernos have an innocence all their own. In between his nihilistic descriptions, a boyishness keeps peeking out, cracking one-liners and admiring the amazing if benighted scenery.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
[W]ickedly affecting…Billy Lynn has courted some Catch-22 comparisons, and they’re well-earned. Fountain is a whiz at lining up plausible inanities and gut-twisting truths for the Bravos to suffer through.
Philadelphia City Paper
Fountain’s excellent first novel follows a group of soldiers at a Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving Day…Through the eyes of the titular soldier, Fountain creates a minutely observed portrait of a society with woefully misplaced priorities. [Fountain has] a pitch-perfect ear for American talk.
Malcolm Gladwell - The New Yorker
Ben Fountain combines blistering, beautiful language with razor-sharp insight…and has written a funny novel that provides skewering critiques of America’s obsession with sports, spectacle, and war.
Huffington Post
A brilliantly conceived first novel... The irony, sorrow, anger and examples of cognitive dissonance that suffuse this novel make it one of the most moving and remarkable novels I’ve ever read.
Nancy Pearl - NPR, Morning Edition
Seething, brutally funny…[Fountain] leaves readers with a fully realized band of brothers.... Fountain’s readers will never look at an NFL Sunday, or at America, in quite the same way.
Sports Illustrated
Billy Lynn is a member of Bravo Company, which acquitted itself heroically in a deadly confrontation early in the Iraq War. An embedded reporter captured the battle on widely broadcast video. Now, on the last day of a victory tour, an insane PR event put on by the army, the company is at a Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving football game. Native Texan Billy has been deeply affected by the death of squad leader Shroom, who gave him books to read and challenged him to think about what he was doing with his life. During a brief stop at home, Billy's sister urges him to refuse to return to Iraq. Billy also meets one of the fabled Cowboys cheerleaders, with whom he improbably forms an immediate and passionate connection, something that has opened a door to the possibility of a new, more hopeful life. But though Billy has had his eyes opened, in many ways he and his company are happier and feel more purposive as soldiers. Verdict: Employing intricate detail and feverish cinematography, Fountain's (Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories) vividly written novel is an allegorical hero's journey, a descent into madness, and a mirror held up to this society's high-definition TV reality. Tragically unhinged, it also rings completely, hilariously true. —Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta
Library Journal
[T]he shell-shocked humor will likely conjure comparisons with Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five.... War is hell in this novel of inspired absurdity.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (page numbers refer to the hardcover edition):
1. Do the young men from Bravo meet your expectations of what war heroes are...or should be? Given their behavior—drinking, trash-talk, hyper-sexuality, and brawling—are they what you think of when the word "hero" comes to mind? Do you find Ben Fountain's portrayal of them funny ... offensive ... realistic...?
2. Talk about the individual members of Bravo, especially Billy and Dime—what do you think of them? What other member of the team stood out as you read the novel?
3. What kind of character is Albert? Most books and films are scathing in their portrayal of Hollywood and its values. How does Albert, a three-time Oscar winner, stack up to the stereotypical Hollywood producer—what do you make of him?
4. Talk about the other characters—in particular Billy's family and, of course, Norman Oglesby.
5. Billy feels it's obscene to talk about Shroom's death...
and he wonders by what process any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death (p. 137).
Is it possible for any noncombatant to understand the depth of Billy's grief? Is it "profane" to talk about Shroom...or is there a way, as an outsider, to talk about war and death without cheapening it? Billy thinks there ought to be a special lanaguage to do so. Do we have such a language?
6. Follow up to Question 5: The book seems to take aim at civilians who talk to the Bravo team: their questions, comments, and references to patriotism, 9/11, terrorism, God, and war are over-the-top—their words are even presented in a vertical-diagonal format. But much of the outpouring of gratitude seems genuine, even if inane. How does a civilian talk to a combatant, someone who faces the constant threat of death and witnesses violence on a scale unimaginable to most of us? What can any of us say? What have you ever said to a returning soldier?
7. The book abounds with parallels between the world of football, especially the Cowboys, and the military. Talk about how those similarities evidence themselves thoughout the book? What is the author trying to get at by settting up comparisons between the two?
8. Albert tells Bravo that they are true heroes for the twenty-first century. He says that their heroism "has really touched a nerve in this country" (p. 56). What "nerve" has been struck...why is the public so enamored with the young men? Why the deluge of attention and adulation? What is it based on?
9. Follow-up to Question 8: Billy, on the hand, pities the Americans and their frenzy to connect with Bravo. He refers to them as children (pp. 45-46). Why is he so disproving of his fellow Americans? Do you consider Billy cynical? Or does he realize something about the nature of his fellow citizens? If so, what does he see in them...in us?
10. Follow-up to Question 9: Billy thinks that Americans have no conception of the "state of pure sin toward which war inclines" (p. 46). What does he mean? How does war incline to sin if one is fighting for one's country?
11. What do you think of the oilman engaged in fracking shale oil who, during lunch at the Statium club, tells Bravo...
So it's a personal thing with me, boosting domestic production.... I figure the better I do my job, the sooner we can bring you young men home.
Is the oilman genuine in his desire to cut foreign imports? How do you see him—is he a patriot? Why is Dime so angry with him? Is Dime's reaction disrespectful, unfair, even spiteful? Or is he dead-on? Do you find the entire exchange offensive or funny or sad?
12. How does religion, or religiosity, fare in this book? What is Billy's attitude toward God and prayer?
- Is God watching out for the young men of Bravo? Should they be more prayerful?
- Or is the difference between life and death, as Billy contemplates, completely random, a matter of chance?
- Or, again, is it a matter of impersonal, preordained fate? When Shroom tells Billy of an Inuit Shaman who could foretell the day of your death, Billy understands Shroom's point that "if a bullet's going to get you, it's already been fired" (p. 27).
How does Billy engage with religion or spirituality? As a soldier, what form would your (or do your) religious beliefs take?
13. Much is made of class distinction in Halftime Walk. Talk about the many references to social class—starting, perhaps, with Mango's comment that what awaits him on his return from Iraq is a job at Burger King (p. 72).
14. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is considered satire, a type of literature that takes a sardonic view of societal conventions. What is this book satirizing—what are its specific targets? By definition, satires are humorous, even absurd...are there sections in Halftime Walk you found particularly funny? Are there parts that angered...or saddened you?
15. What is Billy's "long halftime walk"? What is the significance of the book's title? (See also another book issued shortly after Fountain's: Brian Castner's The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows. The "Long Walk" is a reference to Iraq.)
Spoiler Alert for the remaining questions.
16. Bravo refuses to participate in further discussions of the film project. Why—especially when they're offered a cut of the profits? Is the decision to withdraw a sound one? Why is Dime, in particular, so angry with Norman Oglesby?
17. Follow-up to Question 16: Is Oglesby right when he says that the country needs the film, that it will give a much needed boost to national pride? In other words, is the film greater than Bravo—does its need to be made transcend the needs of the squad as Norman suggests? Is that a valid or a bogus argument?
18. When Billy tells Faison at the end of the book that he would be willing to go run away with her...
She lifts her head, and with the one look he knows it's not to be. Her confusion decides it, that flicker of worry in her eyes? What is he talking about? (p. 305)
What's behind Faison's negative reaction? Does she genuinely fear the consequences for Billy if he goes AWOL? Or is she is attracted to Billy, not for who he is, but for what he is—an acclaimed national hero, a status he would jeopardize if he were to desert? Is there a genuine, heart-felt connection for either of them?
19. Why does Billy decide to return to Iraq? Should he have taken the way out his sister offered him? Were you hoping he would...or hoping he would return and face possible death? If Billy were your brother, son, husband, or boyfriend, what would you advise him?
20. What does Billy come to realize by the end of the book as he settles back in the limo that will take him back to base and from there to Iraq? What is his state of mind?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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