Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

I truly liked and enjoyed this story, and the movie!  Not because it’s about Brooklyn, but it really isn’t.  It is a coming of age story of a young girl who is sent away from her family to have a better life for herself.  She has never been away from home and then to be sent to another country! 

In my opinion, she finds that home is where you make it.

In regards to the movie, I think they made the character of Eilis less shy than how she is portrayed in the book.   

Mothers and Sons by Colm Toibin

I am not a big fan of short stories but since taking a class about short stories they are beginning to grow on me.

This is a collection of short stories that are about mothers and sons. One son is a thief, one a priest and one snorts cocaine - all very interesting. 

A Beggar In Jerusalem by Elie Wiesel

This is the first book I am reading by Elie Wiesel and I will be reading “Night”, “Dawn” and “Day”.

The character David fought in the Six-Day War.  Although his Colonel tried to persuade him to leave because he felt he wasn’t a fighter, David stayed to do whatever he could do.

His recollections are about the living and the dead as he hangs out with other men at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  He is looking for a friend that he met in the war, hoping that he shows up to know if he is still alive.  To him war means dying and living means dying. He captures the resilient spirit of a people determined to live.

Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim

Iceberg Slim is writing the tale of another character from an era gone by.  Set in Chicago, Otis Tilson hails from a family of five from Mississippi.  The family survived on a sharecropper’s plantation where they earned “forty cents for every hundred”. His father was also the plantation preacher.

Against the fathers’ wishes, his mother convinced the family to move to Chicago and it all went downhill from there. 

This is an explosive account of a black male who likes to dress as a woman and be treated like a woman.  He attributes his lifestyle to his mother who has her own demons and I can’t even understand what’s going on in her mind!

Death Wish by Iceberg Slim

Set in Chicago, this is the story of a Mafioso guy who wants to get rid of all the top bosses and be the top boss himself.   Does he not realize that the same can happen to him?

Shangri-La: The Return to the World of Lost Horizon by Eleanor Cooney and Daniel Altieri

I came across this book when I was requesting “Lost Horizon” to re-read.

This novel brings you back to Shangri-La from the novel “Lost Horizon”. 

A Chinese general will stop at nothing to find this mysterious and rich place called Shangri-La.  The plot thickens as he is diverted on purpose from the trail and other characters are “invited” to Shangri-La.

The main theme of the story is what does Shangri-La mean to you – a physical place or a spiritual place where your mind and soul rest?