SUNDAY POTPOURRI: A RAINY DAY OF READING, ETC.

A windy rain has been blowing through these parts, starting yesterday.  I was out then, having lunch with my second son, my two granddaughters, and my daughter, along with her husband.  We had to run through the downpour and the puddles afterwards.

So today is all about curling up and staying warm.

After blogging a little, I decided to watch some Amazon videos while I ate lunch.

Earlier, I found an e-book from an author I’ve enjoyed, so I had to “click, buy.”  Yes, it is a habit.  Never Alone, by Elizabeth Haynes, is a brilliantly suspenseful and shocking story in which nothing is at it seems, but everything is at stake.  I discovered it on Cleopatra Loves Books.  I often find books I must have on her blog.  Thanks!

 

 

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Sarah Carpenter lives in an isolated farmhouse in North Yorkshire and for the first time, after the death of her husband some years ago and her children, Louis and Kitty, leaving for university, she’s living alone. But she doesn’t consider herself lonely. She has two dogs, a wide network of friends and the support of her best friend, Sophie.

When an old acquaintance, Aiden Beck, needs somewhere to stay for a while, Sarah’s cottage seems ideal; and renewing her relationship with Aiden gives her a reason to smile again. It’s supposed to be temporary, but not everyone is comfortable with the arrangement: her children are wary of his motives, and Will Brewer, an old friend of her son’s, seems to have taken it upon himself to check up on Sarah at every opportunity. Even Sophie has grown remote and distant.

After Sophie disappears, it’s clear she hasn’t been entirely honest with anyone, including Will, who seems more concerned for Sarah’s safety than anyone else. As the weather closes in, events take a dramatic turn and Kitty too goes missing. Suddenly Sarah finds herself in terrible danger, unsure of who she can still trust.

But she isn’t facing this alone; she has Aiden, and Aiden offers the protection that Sarah needs. Doesn’t he?

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On another blog, Readerbuzz, Deb shared some nonfiction books she enjoyed, which led to me adding another one to my “must buy” list.

White Trash, by Nancy Isenberg, is one I ordered in hardcover, so it will arrive via mailbox.

 

 

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Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.
 
We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.

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So much to ponder, with this second book; and a good mystery will always keep me turning the pages.

What are you reading/watching on a Sunday?

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