Empty Nest: Three Books for Winter Reading

Quasi sci-fi, fiction and a historical novel round out my winter-reading recommendations. They are: ?Fortune Smiles: Stories? by Adam Johnson; ?Go Set a Watchman? by Harper Lee; and ?Dead Wake, The Last Crossing of the Lusitania? by Erik Larson.

?Nirvana,? a short story within ?Fortune Smiles? by Adam Johnson, quite literally, might be the most intriguing, well written short story I have ever read. Not to spoil the tantalizing story line, here are a few samples of Johnson's refreshing, tech-savvy writing: ?Charlotte becomes the person in the room who makes the victims of other afflictions feel better about their fate.? ?After the doctor left, I went into the garage and started making the president. A psychologist would probably say the reason I created him had to do with the promise I made Charlotte and the fact that the president also had a relationship with the person who took his life. But it's simpler than that: I just needed to save somebody, and with the president, it didn't matter that it was too late.? ?Her face has the lack of expression that comes only after it's been through every emotion.? Has the book got your attention? Adam Johnson won the 2015 National Book Award for ?Fortune Smiles.? Previous to that he won a Pulitzer Prize for ?The Orphan Master's Son.? Not too shabby.

Harper Lee also won a Pulitzer in 1961 for ?To Kill a Mockingbird.? If you haven't read it, which I hadn't?dunno why, probably because it wasn't assigned?read, ?Go Set a Watchman.? Many say ?Watchman? was the rough draft for ?Mockingbird.? There are identical passages in both. No matter. Considering the state of race relations in the U.S. and world today, ?Watchman? should be mandatory reading. ?Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.? ?... it's always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are.? ?If you did not want much, there was plenty.? ?Love whom you will, but marry your own kind ...? ?The Finch doorbell was a mystical instrument; it was possible to tell the state of mind of whoever pushed it.? ?As the cow said to the milkman on a cold morning, 'Thank you for the warm hand.'? With prose and subject such as these, why should the book be assigned?

Tired of fiction? You want facts? OK, ?Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania? by Erik Larson, is fascinating, entertaining and superbly written. I hadn't read any of Larson's highly acclaimed books. Once again, dunno why. Probably because there are too many books and so little time. So, Ginnie plopped ?Dead Wake? into my lap, now I'm hooked. I could have sworn that the U.S. entered World War I because of the sinking of the Lusitania. Wrong. The U.S. entered WWI nearly two years after the tectonic event. It was only after rumors that Germany was collaborating with Mexico, promising them Texas as spoils, that the U.S. shed its cloak of isolation. Also, the British may have purposely hung the Lusitania out to dry as a way of drawing the U.S. into the war. And, the British were fully aware, through decoding efforts of famed ?Room 40,? that a German sub was hot on the trail of the Lusitania.

Get a nice warm lap blanket, cup of coffee or tea, sit back and read the winter away. Who needs warm weather and sunshine to draw one away from a good winter of reading?

Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526, email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com, or visit his website at www.empty-nest-wortds-photos-and-frames.com. Curt also reads his stories at www.lostlakeradio.com.