SABBATH SNAPSHOT : A Li-TEA-rary Ballad for Christmas

Remember, this is a review---not necessarily a recommendation. For me, Sharyn McCrumb's , Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past, was an "It's OK" rating."

However, according to "goodreads" reviews, I'm in the minority. One reviewer gave it 4 out of 5 stars stating, "McCrumb at her best with two parallel stories centered around Christmas Eve." I, have read several of McCrumbs books and like her ballad-type writing and her Appalachian setting for many of her books. This novella was "sweet" but a little too predictable for me.

Also, on my "Christmas stack" is A Mistletoe Promise by Richard Paul Evans of the "Walk Series," which I liked. 

I'll let you know if I like this one---since like McCrumb's book proves, I don't always like every book an author writes.
"So many books so little time" has had me not finishing books, when a story "takes a turn" I don't like. This is a relatively new choice for me---it must go along with being a Medicare card holder----time is too short for mediocrity.

Li-TEA-rary Cuppas

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
(Genesis 1:1, KJV)

First lines are important. First lines set the stage.
All writers know the importance of that first line. That very first line aka "the HOOK" uses memorable words to "hook" the reader and draw him into the story. 
From "I am Sam, Sam I am," (Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss) to ...and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984, Orwell), choice words "hook" us.
"Marley was dead: to begin with." starts Charles Dickens', very familiar Christmas Carol. Even a partial sentence such as Dickens' Tale of Two Cities'...."It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," can prompt remembrance. Miss Vaughn's senior English classroom comes to my mind. 

 "First Lines Literature Mug"
philosophersguild.com

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again....."was the opening line for Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which I still recall some 50+ years later. It conjures up eery silence and Gothic intrigue.

A couple of years ago, I read Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James, because I assumed it would be her last. It was. Phyliss Dorothy James, a British crime writer, passed away yesterday 11/27/14  at her home in Oxford England. This final novel, combined a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a historically accurate murder mystery and though not my favorite, I'm glad I read it.

I've been a fan of James' books featuring detective Adam Dagliesh since college days. I also remember her female detective in an, Unsuitable Job for a Woman. 

Though I don't remember the opening line for Death Comes to Pemberley,  I do remember the setting. The setting compared her sitting room with the splendid library, full of volumes and freely open to her---so different from her earlier home library, which she could enter only by invitation. 

In the Bible, the first line lays (literally) the foundation for creation and the basis of the Greatest Story Ever Told. (Genesis 1:1)

God's Word is my favorite li-TEA-rary cuppa. I'm hooked. 

SABBATH SNAPSHOT : culinary with a li-TEA-rary readabili-TEA

Nowadays, I'm one of "those people" who would rather read their way thru a cookbook----rather than eat my way through it. I love looking at the pictures as well. Think Screen Doors and Sweet Tea---a book of tales as well as recipes. Just reading the intro had me in the Delta listening to blues, browsing at Square Books in Oxford and chatting with the McCartys---you know, Lee and Pup of Mississippi Mud "pottery" fame! If  the author, Martha Fosse discussed presentation, she might frame it in terms such as "showing out." Her book (2010) was as southern as kudu and a delightful read........but it's already back at the library......as I don't buy cookbooks anymore, I just check them out.

I already have a large home collection that could use some weeding.

In years past, I was drawn to cookbooks that doubled as travelogues. It's how I found many "out of the way" inns and B&Bs in North Carolina and quaint tea rooms in England, as well as The Ritz. All were included in my travel planning and those cookbooks conjure up great memories.....just no dishes.

This week I checked out Ina Garten's (THE Barefoot Contessa) latest cookbook, make it ahead. My "foodie" son and his wife actually cook from her books. Her premise here was to offer recipes for any season of the year that were actually better when made ahead.

Made ahead....just in case "your FedEx delivery of Pernigotti cocoa powder got held up in a snowstorm in Memphis and arrived a day late." (p 11) I don't know about you, but my cocoa says Hershey's and it's even available at "my neighborhood" Kroger. 

Ina tells on herself occasionally---even thinking and admitting, "her husband fell in love with her because of the boxes of brownies she sent him while he was in college." (p.186)

There were tips with funny quips, beautiful glossy photos and even a recipe for your best friend----your dog that it is. It was a fun way to while away the hours, with a cuppa tea on a chilly fall day as hubby had a migraine and I needed to be quiet. 

Li-TEA-rary Sentimentali-TEA

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants. (Psalm 116:15, NIV)

NASB renders faithful servants as His godly ones. The King James version calls them saints. Regardless of the translation, they all describe Claudia Parlow.

Today would have been her 70th birthday---August 12, 1944- November 30, 2013.
I know because my morning cuppa li-TEA-rary was sipped as I opened my devotional reading that was based on classic Christian verse. A gift from her, my literary loving friend.

Quickly my 2nd cuppa was filled with sentimentali-TEA as I read the inscription written above the August 12 entry. 

This cup is Claudia's. I baked brownies for her hubby, Terry, today and we shared both sadness and nostalgia as we remembered her past birthdays and celebrations.

"To Dotsy who's been a soulmate in suffering and prayer....." Love, Claudia. 

Both sadness and pleasure served in remembrance.

SABBATH SNAPSHOT: li-TEA-rary musings

Works of historical fiction have taken up a good bit of my bookshelf space lately.  From the Civil War to Lindbergh's flight. Recently, I read Stella Bain, which took place during World War I, and I felt the gripping horror of that war from the inside of a field hospital tent. Some have made the blog, others have not----mainly because parts of the book might cause a check in my spirit for an all out positive recommendation. 

Literary musings compiled below are from works, that did not make a full review--

1.  King’s Mountain, (© 2013) a historical fiction account of the the American Revolution by Sharyn McCrumb. 

Maybe I wasn't sure about the book in it's entirety, though the accuracy of her research was well documented and she's a NYT best-selling author.

But.......I had taken notes as if some phrases with spiritual meanings for me just jumped off the pages and seem worthy of sharing---

“Your faith will be your armor.” A sentence repeated often to the reluctant ones (mountain men) who were not Tory sympathizers and were willing to fight the British. Yet, setting out for the task of a war, a war they believed in, was still difficult. (p.123) 
(in spiritual warfare, believers need to be clad with the full armor of faith in the Lord. Ephesians 6:11)

The Whigs and the Tory sympathizers did not battle a faceless enemy but their own neighbors in the backwater counties known as home. 

John Sevier who embodied the American pioneer Spirit wanted his “recruits” to know, “There’s a lot of trust in soldiering. Your life depends on them and theirs on yours.” (p.139) 
(Trust, among members in the community of faith, is essential to battle against the "mighty unseen powers of this dark world." Ephesians 6:12)

"But politics is even more troublesome than war, because most of it is done while you’re your back is turned, and the enemy isn’t always easy to spot." (p. 321) 
(Our enemy "prowls around seeking to devour" (1 Peter 5:8) and can take on many forms in order to destroy those who love the Lord. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.)

2.  A realistic fiction set in England is always a draw for me, especially when there's a map on the frontispiece.

"For years they had been in a place where language had no significance" describes, in a nut shell, the relationship of an Englishman's marriage in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. (© 2012)  Fry's pilgrimage often became a life changing exercise of "just putting one foot in front of the other." But, while on his journey to see an old friend/acquaintance, Fry learns much ----about others and himself. "Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human." 

One goodreads review called it a "story of one man's faith in his feet." An old man, at that, so some readers might not appreciate a book about one of medicare age who becomes a hero....as the book becomes somewhat predictable, until the end.