Read Anything Good?

One of the best way to “Connect, Reflect and Inspire” is through sharing what has brought us joy. Alison Bourney and group created a survey as a start for us to share books that have made a difference for us. She tested it out on our reunion committee and below are the results.

Please join in the fun by adding your thoughts on books and taking the survey yourself at this link https://goo.gl/forms/YhnHtAezjtbnqBTn1

Through sharing results of this survey and by adding to it, we can add some fun and insights into a favorite hobby of many in our class “reading. ” If you want to comment on the survey, use the comment button and we will test it out together. *,-)  

Survey results by Question

Do you have favorite books or authors that you read on vacation?

  • Short stories – From O’Henry to Maupassant to Shirley Jackson
  • I like Faye Kellerman and Michael A. Kahn (mystery writers with Jewish themes). Also the James Herriott books. Also Jane Austen.
  • I like to read biographies and, for lighter reading, mysteries.  Also since I’ve taken up birdwatching you’ll often find my nose in a field guide studying birds for my next trip!
  • I like novels or sometimes non-fiction set in some historical period or in another culture. 
  • Whatever is on NYT’s list of top historical novels – The Nightingale; All the Light We Cannot See (and if that last is a favorite, then you must read the true story which inspired it – And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran!)
  • ON VACATION I READ TOTAL AND MINDLESS DRECK!  MYSTERY AND HISTORICAL FICTION ARE BEST ON A PLANE OR THE BEACH.  
  • My favorite authors, are mainly immigrant women who write about their experiences in fiction and memoirs, I read everything that they write. I guess, as I am an immigrant, and work with immigrant families in a school district, I am attracted to immigrant literature.
    • Sabel Allende
    • Julia Alvarez
    • Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
    • Jhumpa Lahir
  • Other favorite women authors
    • Louise Ehrdich
    • Barbara Kingsolver
    • Again, read everything. Tomorrow I am off to a Native American camp for middle school children and will think of Louise Ehrdich all weekend as we practice drumming and dancing,

What book(s) are your favorite to read to young children?

  • Wanda Gag–both Hansel and Gretel and Millions of Cats; A Fish Out of Water; Color Kittens
  • Goodnight Moon by Clement Hurd
  • We have a one and half year-old grandson, and some of his favorites are The Little Engine That Could, a book full of dogs, various books that talk about feelings, and books where he has to find something in the picture on each page, like Goodnight Moon. When we travel, we always bring him a book written by a local author or one that is about the place we are in.
  • My all-time favorite for age 2+ is Where’s the Cake?  (A British publication, now out of print, but if you can find it, buy it! There are no words, but many different story lines to follow in the pictures.  It’s a complete and fun conversation with your child!)  – Others: Giraffe’s Can’t Dance; Skippy Jon Jones (first book in series); Going on a Bear Hunt .
  • My favorite is Hurry, Hurry Mary Dear by M. Bodecker and Erik Blegvad, about a women who is busy all the time cooking, baking, knitting, raking, getting ready for winter while her husband sits in a rocking chair saying Hurry, Hurry Mary Dear with a surprise ending.
  • Another favorite book, again with a Scandinavian theme is Jan Brett’s The Mitten where a mitten keeps stretching as winter animals climb into a lost mitten to keep warm. I guess I like these books as I have lived in Scandinavia, and knit and both have drawings of a person knitting and fall-winter Scandinavian landscapes.

What book(s) are your favorite to give to school age children?

  • Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
  • Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
  • Roald Dahl books were always a favorite of our kids.  Wing Ding Dilly by Bill Peet is definitely a favorite.  
  • Anything by Jan Brett or Tomie dePaola;  ‘Who Am I’ series of biographies (gr. 2-4);   Elizabeth Enright (Half Magic); CS Lewis( Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe), Rick Riordan series
  • ALWAYS GIVE THEM THE LITTLE PRINCE, HEIDI OR LITTLE WOMEN DEPENDING ON GENDER OR AGE. 
  • Pippi Longstocking and her adventures as an orphan girl who lives with a monkey and a horse and can do whatever she wants.  Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author—all her children books are excellent.
  • I also like reading the Madeline books to my grandchildren, and they all like fairy tales Grimm, Russian, Andersen fairy tales.
  • I like fairy tales for adults and am reading a great book by a young writer, graduate from Middelbury College,The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden.   The owner of a bookstore in Middlebury where Robert Frost used to frequent during his summer vacations, recommended this book, a fairy tale based on Russian fairy tales with fantasy.

Have any books made a real difference in how you lead your life? Why?

  • The Phenomenon of Man by de Chardin opened me to looking at change in a different way; Marathon by Jeff Galloway as a guide that helps older runners.
  • I have long admired how Elizabeth Bennet was so forthright and outspoken even though she was very young (20) and living in a very patriarchal society. I‘ve tried (with only partial success!) to model that in my life more.
  • The Road Less Travelled, by Scott Peck. Read many years ago at a difficult time.
  • Beryl Markham’s West with the Wind, which is a manuscript discovered posthumously, has been a long time favorite and an inspiration. At work, I read a number of books that were helpful in my leadership roles, including The First 90 Days, about assuming new leadership positions. A recent book (which I am still reading) is Road to Character by David Brooks, which by the way talks also about Frances Perkins. Also, as I read true stories about people’s experiences, whether positive (Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg) or adverse (House in the Sky), they certainly help shape my views.
  • Currently, Being Mortal is challenging me to embrace the inevitability of death with a renewed energy for joy.  Always love the tiny book, Gifts from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh as a guide to life’s great journey, a reminder that everything has its season.  Same goes for Passages many years ago.  And didn’t you love Our Bodies, Ourselves back in the day?  The spirit? – I always go back to my MHC introduction to Martin Buber in the mystical I and Thou.  Currently rereading poems by Rumi.
  • I ALWAYS GO BACK TO LITTLE WOMEN. THE YOUNG WOMEN SHOWED SUCH STRENGTH IN COPING AND REACHING/OBTAINING THEIR GOAL. BEGAN READING THIS WHEN I WAS NINE.
  • I enjoy reading poetry and memorizing poems on gratitude, life, adventures and then recite them as they fit an occasion.  For my daughter’s wedding in September I recited an Apache blessing. Poems in a few words contain meaning and influence the way I think and live.

Are there any cookbooks that you never want to be without? Why?

  • Joy of Cooking (1964), McCall’s Cookbook (1963), Good Housekeeping Cookbook (1973),Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (1970).  I do cut very significant amounts of salt, sugar, and fat from some of these recipes.
  • My mother’s copies of Fannie Farmer and Joy of Cooking. Bonus is Joy of Cooking even by a local gal.
  • Not really. I would say the best all-round cookbook is Rombauer, Joy of Cooking; it has all the basics and answers lots of questions.
  • Well, I have lots of cookbooks (and recipes collected over the years) but increasingly I am either making stuff from memory, or inventing something from what’s on hand, or using the internet. And recipes are getting simpler.
  • Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen because we love to cook cajun; Chris Schlesinger’s License to Grill because we love to grill and it has fabulous and unusual marinades and side dishes; Southern Sideboards because my mother was from the South; and the Buffalo Hospital Cookbooks, a throwback to my childhood. Now I do most of my cooking from on-line recipes though. 
  • Very old one – Forum Feasts; also love most  Barefoot Contessa cookbooks; but really, all we need is the Food Network online 😉
  • ANYTHING BY INA GARTEN. QUICK, EASY AND DELICIOUS!
  • I collect cookbooks and like to read them.  However, when I go to cook I rarely use a recipe. When I do need to check something I go to Alice Waters all her books, especially Simple Food 1 and 2 are excellent, and the classic Joy of Cooking. These 3 books are the only ones needed to cook all meals.

Do you have a favorite mystery? 

  • Love the Emma Lathan series  MHC authors.
  • Faye Kellerman and Michael A. Kahn (mystery writers with Jewish themes).
  • For travelling or relaxing, I do like mysteries. I especially like Inspector Gamache (Louise Penny), Inspector Bruno (Martin Walker), Inspector Brunetti (Donna Leon),, Chief Inspector Kincaid (Deborah Crombie) – and lots more!
  • Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey;  The Eight by Katherine Neville; all mysteries by Louise Penny
  • TEN LITTLE INDIANS BY AGATHA CHRISTIE
  • I don’t read mysteries but popular ones seem to be Tana French’s Irish and Ann Cleeves’, Scottish

What is the best book you read in the last year? Why?

  • Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahir Delijana. It gave voice to the women of Iran and enabled me to identify with them at least partially.
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I have worked in pharma, hospitals and appreciate the complexity of the issues addressed.
  • Hidden Figures. I saw the movie first, and then read the book. Even though I avidly followed space exploration from Sputnik on, I had never heard of these women or of this aspect of the program. I found them truly inspiring!
  • Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Fascinating man, and it reminds us that all the political issues we have been dealing with have been around since before the founding of the country!
  • I have a read a number of books set in World War II: Boys in the Boat, All the Light We Cannot See, Nightingale, Unbroken and most recently The Lilac Girls.   I think one of my recent favorites though is Outside Boy, book about a boy coming of age in the Tinker (gypsy) culture in Ireland.  
  • The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson about the black migration out of the deep South in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s.  It’s a non-fiction that reads like a novel; is beautifully informative, thoughtful, and sensitive; addresses the painful truth of Jim Crow laws that schools sidestepped in our upbringing; and is especially important as we continue the discussion of racism, emigration, and immigration
  • LAUGHED MY WAY THROUGH BETTYVILLE. STRIKES HOME RE CARING FOR AGING PARENTS IN THE MIDST OF DEMENTIA AND THE GREAT ATTITUDE NECESSARY TO DEAL WITH SUCH TRAGEDY. 
  • The Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert that traces the history of cotton and how the world has changed imperialism, slavery, continued oppression.

What is the next book you want to read? – Why?

  • Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl , I enjoy her style and it is our book club selection.
  • The Quartet, by Ellis. It sounds interesting, and my husband (political junkie) said it was a great read.
  • Dream Land, (The True tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic) by Sam Quinones, Bloomsbury Press.  A bit of a trudge, but fascinating.
  • Field guide to the birds of Brazil (because I have a trip coming up!)
  • Why?  A Gentleman from Moscow by Amor Towles, because a friend gave it to me as a Christmas gift.  I also have in my pile Ghandi’s Autobiography, A Story of My Experiments with Truth, and the Ken Follett trilogy, but it is daunting.
  • Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; great reviews and charmingly written (at least in first 50 pages!)
  • WHATEVER OUR BOOK CLUB COMES UP WITH!
  • I belong to a book group that we have met monthly for 30 years, and I follow what a Mount Holyoke book group in Portland, Oregon reads.  I get invitations, but since Portland is 2 hours away from Eugene, Oregon I have not attended, but I have their book selections every month for 6 years.  I also belong to a book group, again via distance, reading from a small bookstore in central Oregon, each month I get a book and read it.