Mailbox Monday

A good week with four books, two were presents to myself from my Christmas money:

The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell (from paperbackswap.com).  The enchanted island of Corfu was home to Gerald Durrell and his family for five years before the Second World War. For the passionate young zoologist, Corfu was a natural paradise, teeming with strange birds and beasts that he could collect, watch and care for. But life was not without its problems - Gerald's family often objected to his animal-collecting activities, especially when the beasts wound up in the family's villa or even worse - the fridge.

Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer (from amazon.com).  Lucinda's year in New York City began when her family went to Europe and left her with Miss Peters - not, thank Heaven, with Aunt Emily and her four docile, ladylike daughters.  Miss Peters understood that a girl of ten wanted to roller-skate to school, and stop and chat with Patrolman M'Gonegal, and make friends with Mr. Gilligan, the cabbie, and even play with Tony, whose father kept a fruit stand down the street.  A delightful story of old New York and Newbery Award winner.

Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics:  Mental Illness in Rural Ireland by Nancy Scheper-Hughes (from amazon.com).  When Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics was published twenty years ago, it became an instant classic--a beautifully written study tracing the social disintegration of "Ballybran," a small village on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. In this richly detailed and sympathetic book, Nancy Scheper-Hughes explores the symptoms of the community's decline: emigration, malaise, unwanted celibacy, damaging patterns of childrearing, fear of intimacy, suicide, and schizophrenia. Following a recent return to "Ballybran," Scheper-Hughes reflects in a new preface and epilogue on the well-being of the community and on her attempts to reconcile her responsibility to honest ethnography with respect for the people who shared their homes and their secrets with her.

Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff (from the publisher).   Lily was married for just days before her husband was sent abroad to fight in WWII. Now, he and the other soldiers are returning, and the small town of Toccoa, Georgia plans a big celebration. But a handsome and kind Italian immigrant, responsible for the elaborate fireworks display the town commissioned captures Lily's heart and soul. Torn between duty to society and her husband, and a poor, passionate man who might be her only true love--Lily must choose between a love she never knew and a commitment she'd already made.