West with the Night by Beryl Markham

 

She was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic from Britain to North America. (1936)

Book Club read - Our fist book of 2026.

She's a total stud. 

This is a memoir about her flight but actually more about her child hood and young adult hood growing up in a very rural part of east Africa (now Kenya.)

She's an excellent writer. 

Her free-range and unorthodox childhood was a breeding ground for her to live an original life. She helped her father train racehorses, hunted with the locals, tussled with a lion once and portrays it all charmingly. 

Her father moved to South America when she was a teenager and she decided to stay in Africa, striking it out on her own as a horse trainer. 

She eventually met a pilot who taught her to fly and she became a professional independently contracted commercial flier in Africa. 

There are some personal details omitted (relationship stuff) and it focuses more on her adventures, flying, horses, and the characters surrounding these endeavors. 

I would love to know more about the other stuff, but it was a very interesting and original read. 

Eager to discuss it at book club Sunday!

Bloody Long Narrative Drains the Life out of Listener- Dracula by Bram Stoker

 

This book is nearly driving me to madness. No wonder it captured the interest of posterity though. 

A little backdrop from my childhood:

When I was four, I was staying with a relative who let me stay up late at night and watch Dracula. I was a very sensitive child who rarely watched tv at all so this made a huge impression on me. I remember being terrified of bats flying into my window. To this day, I remember the images of those black and white figures from the (1931) version?? 

Now, after I finish reading this, (currently 80% through) I must prepare myself to watch the movie for the first time since I was four years old. Will its hold over me be amplified or dispelled? 

I'll let you know. 

We Open:

The novel started out strong with a riveting opening recounting the tale of Jonathon Harker's visit to Transylvania as a guest and solicitor to the mysterious Count Dracula told through the medium of his journal.

This audio book has two readers; a male and female and they are truly amazing; fine reading and even different voices and accents for the different speakers.  (Duke Classics audio book version - there are several)

This is where I rant for a second:

Dr. Van Helsing's long monologues began to wear on me in the next portion of the book which takes place in England. He was tending poor sick Lucy who had a penchant for sleep walking to the graveyard where a tall dark figure was found "bending over her neck," I couldn't wait for her to either convalesce or perish as quickly as possible. Firstly, her sickly sweet Victorian female persona was more than mildly annoying. 

It's a book of its time; as the ladies are always being gently shafted out of anything interesting, are more virtuous than angels and are never even for a second brought down from their lofty pedestals to anything resembling normal human behavior. Seriously, vampire Lucy had a lot more personality than her human predecessor; it was almost a shame that she had to have a stake driven through her heart by her poor ex fiancée who also kind of suffers from one dimensionality. 

I'm not even finished with the book and I really don't know the plot so I'm committed to finishing it so I can watch the movie (s). I just had to rant about it a little bit to get it off my chest. 

The author also likes to ramble along a bit too much into side characters who have little to do with the main story line. 

I'm a sad person of my time who just is in a hurry and wants people to cut to the chase just a little bit more. I'm usually nicer to authors who are still living sorry Bram; if you're reading this from the hereafter; I'm sure you understand my perspective. I've never once fainted because of being shocked by something someone said so...

Hysterical Victorian Women

Ok; one more thing. The "guys" form a vampire hunting guild and have all these secret meetings and stakeouts that would be "ever so much for poor Mina" so they leave her alone at night in her bedroom....

Excellent idea guys.  Guys who does visit her while you're out "working?" The man who harnesses the mist and flows through cracks in doors, materializing to mesmerize and bite. She doesn't want to say anything about her "strange" dreams because it might worry them? They don't do any serious inquiry about her strange onset of paleness and fatigue that poor Lucy suffered from and "died" from like last week?? Oh by the way have we noticed that her teeth are getting sharper? Best not speak of it; she might faint. 

Also bro doesn't put it together that his mental patient Renfield is obsessed with bats, blood, and has a "lord and master?" hmmm. Could these things be connected somehow? 

If Van Helsing would do less talking and hinting around the subject and more fact connecting... well.... the story could be less tortuous and shorter.... Also Mina might not have Count Dracula attached to her slender virtuous Victorian neck. 

Human History of Vampires

I'm no connoisseur of things horror, gothic etc. I'm not versed on this stuff; but a cursory plunge in google has informed me that legends of blood sucking monsters are rife in ancient folklore from multiple civilizations, people groups, and different continents.

 I watched Twilight so I know Bella did her research. I'm a sucker for unrequited love y'all. Bram was doing his research and he claimed that his story had a solid foundation in true events. Ooh that's spooky.

Addendum. Last night I watched the 1958 version with Christopher Lee The Horror of Dracula. Many claim it is the best most accurate version. While some of the facts were different, I liked it a lot. It was a little suspenseful but not too scary. It captures the essence of the prominent characters and the basic plotline. 

Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez

 

I read this on my kindle app.

My favorite thing about this read was that the author writes as if she were talking to you while she's doing your hair and you feel like you're her best friend. 

She's a great storyteller and this is a fascinating tale about how she started out as an emergency relief worker and ended up in Afghanistan starting a non profit Beauty School for women entrepreneurs. 

There are lots of anecdotes and interesting cultural experiences. I know very little about the culture so reading about some of their customs as well as the many different people groups/ethnicities/ that exist within the country was eye-opening. 

I see that she has several other books out there and I added one to my list. 

One thing that really stands out is her fearlessness. A lot of people prize personal safety above all else. She went boldly and relied on her wits and ability to connect with people and I really admire that. You could say that there were multiple points where her life was unstable and seemed on the verge of extreme calamity - yet there she is "in the arena" as Teddy Roosevelt memorialized and Brene Brown has expanded on. 

Her life is full of color, adventure and yes peril! Very different from how my life feels currently, but very much how I imagined my life would be when I was younger.

Maybe soon Deborah 

Nemonte Nenquimo's Memoir We Will be Jaguars

 

A kindle read from the library.

Nemonte is a Waorani woman. See bio below from:   Amazon Frontlines

"Nemonte Nenquimo is a Waorani woman, mother, and climate leader, who has dedicated her life to the defense of Indigenous ancestral territory and cultural survival in the Amazon rainforest. She is the co-founder of Ceibo Alliance and Amazon Frontlines, and has won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize."

When I was a kid growing up in an enclave of evangelicalism, some of our heroes were Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. Jim Elliot and Nate Saint were killed in an attempt to evangelize indigenous people in Ecuador (the Waorani people then known as "Auca.")  Elisabeth Elliot and Nate Saint's sister Rachel (featured in this memoir) returned to the area to try to establish influence with the Waorani. 

Although I believe that the evangelizers were trying their best to follow an ideology that they had persuaded themselves to believe and were themselves a victim of (I understand I was there), it's heartbreaking to read firsthand about how such doctrines negatively impacted others and how the Waorani people were abused and manipulated by people who hoped to "save them" or exploit the resources on their lands. 

Nemonte emerges from oppression and seeks to integrate her own cultural identity with the one that has been imposed on her by outside forces. She is broken by abuse at the hand of "missionaries" and by the messages that she had deeply internalized that would lead her to believe that she and her people were "less than." As the story continues, she discovers healing and succeeds in forging a new life that embraces progress while maintaining an allegiance to deep cultural values and practices. 

The reader is taken on a quest with Nemonte who finds her voice, her unique role as a unifier of her people, activist, dreamer, partner, and mother. She reclaims the beauty of her heritage and unites her family and the greater community to defend their lands against those that would seek to harvest and destroy. 

On a personal level, as someone who has recently emerged from religion and cast aside doctrines that I had long found distasteful but now openly disbelieve, I found myself identifying with certain parts of her story when as a child, she continually prayed to God "the white man's God" hoping for some kind of supernatural experience that never happened. What she did experience were dreams, visions, and symbolic messages linked to her heritage that served as guides. You can call this god or not, I'm not sure what it is, but to me, it solidifies my position that there are many different ways of tuning into the mystical. The minute that one person claims that one way is superior to another, or that the experience that they have had is somehow something that everyone needs to have, is where I walk away. I'm more than saturated with that attitude. 

As strange as it may be for some, the deep indoctrination that all other mystical experiences (outside of a certain Christian one) should be viewed with skepticism and mistrust and are likely demonic, is hard to shed. I really enjoy being able to read, watch, listen to the stories and art of others without the fear of being "tainted" or worse falling under the influence of the devil. 

Thank you Nemonte for being courageous and sharing this fascinating story. 

A descriptive Novel narrated by Tom Hanks The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

 

Audio read discovered on my library app "Libby."

Best thing about this book: narrated by Tom Hanks. He did a fabulous job. 

It was fairly interesting. I think what stood out the most was the relationship of the protagonist with his siter. They were kind of "us against the world." 

Their mom was a mysterious woman who apparently had once held aspirations to be a nun. She was drawn to charity work like a moth to a flame and once they moved into the gargantuan, demonstrative "Dutch House" that her husband had purchased secretly as a surprise, she became increasingly unhappy.

She moved out when her youngest son was still small and virtually disappeared. 

Maeve (the sister featured on the cover in a painting) developed severe diabetes.

The maid and nanny was relied upon by their eccentric successful father for more than just housekeeping and childcare. 

Eventually he remarries an ambitious women named Andrea who is an exacting stepmother who loves the Dutch House. 

When the father dies unexpectedly, Andrea kicks both children out permanently. They move into together but over the course of their adult lives, find themselves creeping back to observe the Dutch House from afar. 

The book centers around the concept that the house has some kind of mysterious pull for them with a mixture of unhappy and happy memories. 

Danny (the speaker) goes on to marry and despite going to medical school at his siter's insistence, ends up in real estate which is is his passion that was passed down from his father. Their mother re-emerges later in the story and there is a reconciliation of sorts. In a twist of events, the mother ends up a caretaker for Andrea in the Dutch house (which she had once despised). The mother discovers that she is needed and Andrea relies on her. 

The story ends with Danny's daughter May purchasing the house bringing everything full circle.