The Sunday Salon...and Did You Ever Hear About "The Women"?

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's the place where Book Bloggers from around the world share their bookish finds with one another in a virtual place called The Sunday Salon. Thank you to for Deb at ReaderBuzz keeping us all together on Sundays and hosting The Sunday Salon now! I also visited with Kim at The Caffeinated Reader, another Sunday gathering place for us bookish people called The Sunday Post ! It's been a while since I've shared a book or two. I have been reading and busier than ever since retiring, but I need to get back here... I miss sharing all the great reads I've been enjoying! So, this week, I wanted to share something recommended to me during a recent visit to the Vietnam Veterans display of The Wall that Heals...

This week, in my little town, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, The Wall That Heals came... displayed in a field, in beautiful farm land, not too far from where I live. The Wall That Heals is a replica of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial that is in Washington, DC. It also is an educational center as the trailer that brings in the memorial is turned into a learning experience with displays and information that brings what the Vietnam Veteran's experienced to life.

Even though this is a 3/4 replica of the original memorial in DC, it still has the power to move anyone who sees it. The over 58,000 names displayed is enough to silence the room, but seeing how the Veterans who visit are moved by their visit, brought tears to my eyes. 

One of the facts I learned during my visit to The Wall was that there are only 8 women whose names appear on The Wall. These 8 women were all nurses that died while serving in the Vietnam war. And on the day I visited The Wall, I sought out these women to see their names among the many. I had their names and their locations on the wall. As I stood in front of one of the panels I was approached by one of the Veteran volunteers. He asked me if I had any questions, and if I'd like to do a rubbing of any of the names on the wall. I explained to him, that I did not have any relatives engraved on the wall, but that I was amazed how there were only 8 women on the wall. We got to talking about those women and their histories. He shared his story with me, and I thanked him for his service and told him I was glad that he was able to come home and glad he was okay. "Okay is a relative word" he tells me. And I understood what he meant without further explanation... but then a strange thing happened. This Vietnam Vet, a man in his 70's, tells me if I am interested in these women, I should read, The Women by Kristin Hannah. He went on to tell me, that even though it is fiction, it really tells the story, the experience, of one woman during her time in Vietnam. He originally picked the book up because of the cover, which shows a helicopter flying over palm trees. He read it because of it's story... Here is the blurb about the book found on Goodreads...

Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided. Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost. But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

You can learn more about The Wall That Heals at Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. You can learn more about the women "on the wall" by clicking on this link.

Have you read any books about the Vietnam War? 

Fiction or Nonfiction?

The Women by Kristin Hannah was published by St. Martins Press February of 2024. You can listen to an excerpt on the publishers page.

Summer time is coming and reading is heating up along with the weather in South Carolina. I'm looking forward to sharing some great reads...

Happy reading... Suzanne

First Lines Friday... The Wedding People by Alison Espach

"...now Phoebe stands before a nineteenth-century Newport hotel in an emerald silk dress, the only item in her closet she can honestly say she still loves, probably because it was the one thing she had never worn. She and her husband never did anything fancy enough for it. They were professors. They were easygoing. Relaxed. So comfortable by the fire with the little cat on their laps. They liked regular things, whatever was on tap, whatever was on TV, whatever was in the fridge, whatever shirt looked the most normal, because wasn't that the point of clothing? To prove that you were normal? To prove that every day, no matter what, you were a person who could put on a shirt?

   But that morning, before she got on the plane, Phoebe woke and knew she was no longer normal. Yet she made toast. Took a shower. Dried her hair. Gathered her lecture notes for her second day of the fall semester. Opened her closet and looked at all the clothes she once bought simply because they looked like shirts a professor should wear to work. Rows of solid-colord blouses, the female versions of things her husband wore. She pulled out a gray one, held it up in front of the mirror, but could not bring herself to put it on. Could not go to work and stand at the office printer and hold her face in a steady expression of interest while her collegue talked at length about the surprising importance of cheese in medieval theology.

   Instead, she slipped on the emerald dress..."

                                    The Wedding People by Alison Espach

This book has gotten so much great buzz and was a Jenna Book Pick in last August. It is in my TBR pile and I'm really looking forward to sinking my teeth into it. It's all about love and friendship... what do you think about the excerpt? Does it make you want to read more? It did me...

Memoir Monday... On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves

Growing up in the late 60's and 70's was so different than now. The concept of "Freedom" was a lot of "Drugs, Sex and Rock & Roll". Hitchhiking was a way to get from one place to another without fear.  The idea of "seeing the world" was joining the Peace Corps or striking out with your bestie to Europe and learning what hostels were... and Rick Steves lived that adventure... or at least the "striking out with your bestie to Europe" and specifically the “Hippie Trail”, an adventure route from Istanbul to Kathmandu.

When I read about Rick's book, it brought back the anticipation of adventure that was part of my soul growing up. For me, it was venturing out to "the City", art galleries, and road trips to places I've never been... and for a lot of us, that sense of adventure settles down into going to college, finding your place in the world and the soulmate you were meant to be with...

On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves...                                                                                                                              From the publisher... "In the 1970s, the ultimate trip for any backpacker was the storied “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. A 23-year-old Rick Steves made the trek, and like a travel writer in training, he documented everything along the way: jumping off a moving train, making friends in Tehran, getting lost in Lahore, getting high for the first time in Herat, battling leeches in Pokhara, and much more. The experience ignited his love of travel and forever broadened his perspective on the world. This book contains edited selections from Rick’s journal and travel photos with a 45-years-later preface and postscript reflecting on how the journey changed his life. Stow away with Rick Steves on the adventure of a lifetime through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               This book is on my wishlist and was published Feb. 4th by Rick Steves. 

Exciting news for Harlan Coben fans... Nobody's Fool coming this March!

 

Harlan Coben writes suspense... and he's really good at it! Nobody's Fool is his newest thriller coming out March 25th of this year, and I just received a review copy from the publisher! Let me tell you, I was hooked from the first innocent line..."Did it all go wrong the moment I saw you?"... The prologue introduces you to college graduate Sami Kierce who's taking the summer off to backpack through Europe with his college roommate and his jock friends, but a chance encounter the night before the trip, changes Kierce's plans and life... 

I am turning those pages as fast as I can! Did I say, Harlan Coben writes really good suspense? Yes, I think I did. And for good reason... "His suspense novels are published in forty-six languages and have been number one bestsellers in more than a dozen countries, with eighty million books in print worldwide"... and I am hooked on Nobody's Fool.

Here's the blurb from the publisher... "Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs. Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day. His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past—and prove, after all this time, he’s nobody’s fool."

Nobody's Fool will be published by Grand Central Publishing on March 25th and will be available at your favorite bookstore... come back soon for my full review...

New Book from Fredrik Backman!

 For the fans of Fredrik Backman there's a new book on the horizon! It's called My Friends, will be published by Atria Books and available to purchase on May 20th of this year. Nice and hefty, the page count is 448 according to the publisher... and I love fat books! 

If you're not familiar with Fredrik Backman, he wrote A Man Called Ove, which was a massive hit and made into a pretty good movie. He has written more than just that book, with a total of a dozen including this newest one. 

Here's the blurb from the publisher about My Friends...

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

AND... I just received an ARC of My Friends by Fredrik Backman for my Kindle and can't wait to start reading it! So as we settle down into the new year, stay tuned for my review of My Friends by Fredrik Backman... 

P.S. Here's my review of Fredrik Backman's novella, And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer and Longer, a beautifully written story about the effects of Alzheimers in a loved one. 

First Book of the Year... 2025!

Happy New Year! AND Happy New Book! Every year for the past 11 years, Sheila at Book Journey has hosted First Book of the Year. It's where readers every year share the book they are going to start their year off with. My pick this year is Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller. 

 I love the premise of this book... Someone switches all the books in a little library of "wholesome" reading with banned books. But to cover up the switch, the person replaces the "wholesome" book with the banned book and leaves the "wholesome" book jacket, so that the book cover is not what the book actually is.... 

BUT, as I started to read this book, there was so much foul language that I had to put it down. I'm no prude - it just didn't seem it was really necessary. I'm hoping that the beginning of the book is just setting up the story and that we can leave that behind and get to the drama of the banned book switch. Here's the publisher's blurb...

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.

What Lula doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula’s library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. That's when the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.

This book has gotten a lot of great buzz, which is the reason I picked it. So, I'm hoping for a good read. This is also my first library book of the year (or actually library ebook of the year). 

Do you have a book pick for First Book of the Year?

Have you read this one yet? It was published this past summer, June 2024, by William Morrow. Stay tuned for a review...

Happy Reading... Suzanne