Summer Time Reading Continues

To say my blogging has been slack would be a serious understatement! I've thought about deleting it all together. I've wondered what I should do with it. Try as I may, though, I cannot just "do away with it". I don't know where it will go in the future, so I will take it one day at a time. One blog post at a time.

I thought I'd start with what I know I love to talk about--and have neglected so much the first 6 months of this year--BOOKS! I have finished two books recently that I want to share:

The first is written in my favorite genre: memoir/biography. It is Michael J. Fox's Lucky Man. This book is his story. It begins in a Gainesville hotel during the shooting of a movie, with the story of the "twitching pinkie" where Michael first really remembers noticing something was "off" about his body. Then it rambles back into his childhood to explain to the reader from "whence he came".

Fox paints a great picture of his journey into show-biz and some of the lessons he's learned along the way. Then, he poignantly tells about his inner struggle and physical battle as he is learning to live with the dreaded Parkinson's disease.

I loved Fox when he was Alex P. Keaton on the show Family Ties. I have enjoyed his performances in several movies and always found him quite interesting. For that reason, even when the book made twists and turns that were hard for me to follow, I pressed on. And I'm glad I did. His story is a powerful one.

My second "summer read" is a fiction story by Karen White called The Memory of Water. This book is the fictional story of Marnie and Diana Maitland who experienced a childhood tragedy on the South Carolina shore. Here is a bit of the back cover:

On the night their mother drowns, sisters Marnie and Diana Maitland discover there is more than one kind of death. There is the death of innocence, of love, and of hope. Each sister harbors a secret about that night-secrets that will erode their lives as they grow into adulthood.

After ten years of silence between the sisters, Marnie is called back to the South Carolina Lowcountry by Diana's ex-husband, Quinn. His young son has returned from a sailing trip with his emotionally unstable mother, and he is refusing to speak. In order to help the traumatized boy, Marnie must reopen old wounds and bring the darkest memories of their past to the surface. And she must confront Diana, before they all go under.

The story is one of sorrow and loss. It gives great detail what it is like living with someone who has been diagnosed manic/depressive or bipolar. White paints a beautiful picture of love despite this cloud that surrounds this family. The book is written in first-person narrative from each of the four main character's perspectives. I love that. And the ending caught me totally by surprise!

Both of these books were enjoyable for me. While I wouldn't call them "must reads", I'd say they are "worth it" reads if you choose to do so. Now I'm off to find my next book and to read some of your blogs. I've got a lot of catching up to d!