Hillbilly Elegy -- Touching and Inspiring
931243
This was a very touching, but thought provoking read.  Great admiration for J. D. Vance, and the challenges he overcame.  Loved the story of his grandmother and how she influenced his life.  I think this book provides great insight into a part of America I would not otherwise have known about, and the characters are unforgettable.
1983787
Kathryn Magendie has a way of taking the most quiet, unassuming story, and driving it home, bit by bit, until I feel like sobbing and hugging Virginia Kate to pieces.  One of my favorite things about "southern" writing is how down-to-earth it is, and nothing is more down-to-earth than Virginia Kate and her brothers.

Then there's Rebekha - a woman who embodies everything that is a mother.  She's warm, welcoming, thoughtful, insightful, supportive, loving, and selfless.  With this character, Kathryn Magendie has created something that reminds me so very much of my own grandmother who passed away so many years ago now.  I connected with Virginia Kate as she washed and dried dishes with Rebekha, as she woke quietly to make breakfast, to make things easier, and as she sought for the wisdom of her stepmother, a woman I wanted her to so very much dislike in the first book of this trilogy.

It's funny how characters win you over like that - in spite of everything against them they just creep inside, somewhat like this quiet story, and dig deep, finding all those old emotions and rekindling them and reminding their readers of memories long forgotten.

So when I think about southern books, I feel a warm glow and I open them with anticipation and hope and nostalgia, and I know when I open a book by Kathryn Magendie I won't be reading something that will preach at me or talk over me in an attempt to tell a story that I may or may not get.  Instead, I'll be introduced to characters that I feel like I've known my whole life, and instead of losing myself in a strange world, I'll feel like I just came home.
3527917
Last Wish is at once a beautifully-written, loving tribute to the author's mother, a harsh critique of the medical system (as it existed in the 1980's, in any case), and an unflinching expos on assisted suicide. This uplifting and heartrending story should be required reading for young and old alike.

I did notice a certain "datedness" in Rollin's depiction of race relations that some might find offensive--for example, the fact that the in-home care nurses were all Black, and one of them (a Jamaican nurse named Belva) felt uncomfortable addressing her white employer by her first name. Nonetheless, this story is as relevant today as when it was published in 1985. Whatever one's religious persuasion, we cannot know how we will feel about our life until faced with a debilitating, terminal, and tortuously painful final illness.

I am a firm believer in the right of each individual to make his or her own end-of-life decisions, including suicide if circumstances are dire enough to warrant such extreme action. I take comfort in knowing that choice is available to me-as a practical if not legal matter, and hope I am never in a position to seriously contemplate exercising it. Despite the fact that only three states (Montana, Oregon and Washington) have adopted statutes permitting physician-assisted suicide, and 36 states (including New York and California) have laws expressly criminalizing it, I assume that with the advent of the Internet, it would not be anywhere near as risky or difficult to accomplish as it was for the Rollin family.

On that score, Rollin was nothing short of phenomenal in her handling of this touchy aspect. She does not shy away from offering unsentimental, nuts-and-bolts facts, yet veers just shy of turning her book into a gory sideshow. All the while, she unabashedly handles her own misgivings and emotional torment with sensitivity and grace. I commend both her touching and delicate treatment of her mother's final wish and her courage in sharing this very important story with the public at a time when it was a far more taboo subject than one might imagine.
flag
4199105
I don't know how I died. Thats strange, isn't it? To be dead and know that but to not know how it happened. To not know my last memory. Its not something that I ever considered when I was alive. I can see and I can hear. And when I remember back to other times and other places, I see and hear them as though Im reliving them. But when I remember, I miss things that are happening now. I miss chunks of time. I try not to remember. I try not to think. I watch and I listen and I hope to not miss any more time. Because time is all I have now. And how quickly it disappears.

Cate is the narrator, her words begin this touching, lovely story. Heartbreaking, yes, but theres this strong bond of family, of love, that ever so slowly, and with such quiet strength, gently speaks to the eternal bond of families, the grief of loss and the life that follows after. Love. Hope.

Cate Carlton, wife and mother, in life married to Bass, the only man she ever loved, mother to twin boys Rafferty and Cameron, and to daughter Jessa. She loved, loves her horses, especially her horse Opal. Their farm is in the countryside, in rural Victoria, with assorted farm animals in addition to the horses.

Hovering over her family, Cate finds herself watching Jessa ride her horse, or the familys attempts to find Opal, who has been missing since the day she died. Watching all the members of the family, friends, watching their grief, watching them stumble through the days, months as time passes in random patches of time. Alternating those with moments of remembering the years when the children were oh-so-young, and life was filled with small, but incessant energy draining moments. Moments like when she first brought Bass home the first time.

When I brought Bass home to meet my parents and Beatrice, it was autumn. We kicked our way through crunchy leaves and breathed steam as we waited on the doorstep.

This simply is a story of a family, their love, their grief, and perhaps about our memories and the way they haunt us. The importance, perhaps, of staying in the moment long enough to form those memories, and also to cherish those memories. How our memories can pull us back to another place, another time.

When I read my friend Angelas review (which is what convinced me to read this), what stayed with me most of all was the comment that was made to her, that it's so hard to lose a mother because she holds all of your memories. Which, of course, reminded me of my mother, and of these lyrics.

Sometimes when you're doin' simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while

Hold me in your thoughts
Take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes
Keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you

- Warren Zevon Keep Me in Your Heart

Recommended

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Harper-Collins AU
675076
Hillbilly Elegy was a well written memoir. It gave me a glimpse of a culture in an area I was unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, I was able to identify families in my own area who also fit the culture of poverty, drugs or alcohol; both on the nearby reservations and Caucasian families as well. The book certainly made me think about opportunities from a different perspective.
4832720
Song of the Mountains is a work that comes from the heart. The authors connection to her dearly departed is keenly felt on nearly every page  not only her loss, but also her love and her cherished memories. Each scene is rendered in beautiful detail, transporting the reader to the mountains to witness their serenity firsthand.

Song of the Mountains is a tale of loss, but it is also a tale of perseverance and rebirth. Even though the author is over 70 years old, her strength is evident from the start: both the outer strength to complete this grueling pilgrimage through the Himalayas, and the inner strength to seal this chapter of her life, bid farewell to her beloved, and begin anew.

This is where the story becomes more than just one womans journey; it becomes an incredible source of inspiration. For if the author can overcome the obstacles that she has, and find the will to put one foot in front of the other with a smile on her face, what excuse can the rest of us possibly have?
1448915
An excellent picture of contemporary hillbilly culture.  It is a remarkable story of the human spirit yearning for something better and the fortitude to accomplish that goal.  It also paints a clear picture of the power of family loyalty and having someone believe in you.  An excellent read.
637643
A very thought-provoking autobiography that raises important questions about how we presently address the needs of the "hillbilly" poor in our country, and what makes it possible for far too few to escape the circumstances of their lives and achieve some semblance of the American Dream. Fascinating and page-turning. I know this book is going to stick with me the rest of my life.
2466341
I so loved this book!  I appreciate the unique flavor- the "Southern" voice which I know so well.  Edie's story really touched me.  I "know" the people she describes, though we've never met.  From her difficult, hardscrabble upbringing, the reader follows her journey and struggles with empathy and insight for those who grapple with a hard, difficult life.  When I read her mamaw's words "my life is hell", it reminded me of my own maternal "Mawmaw's" attitudes towards life which through no fault of her own, dealt her an unfair hand--  one of neglect, poverty and loss.  This story is remarkable in it's themes of fatherlessness, redemption and Providence.  The writing style is poetic, reflective and sanguine.  I was captivated from the first page ---you should read this book!
2983438
A well-written novel that pays eloquent homage to the human spirit and does not shy away from depicting the faults and frailties we all embody, while giving us examples of hope and resilience and an extraordinary glimpse into a part of our American past that is not widely known.  Looking forward to reading further works by this author.
1741737
Awesome Book For The Hillbilly Elegy. This book truly great. There are different stories of individuals who demonstrated a comparative movement who never got the prizes, who were not capable get access inside the "social capital" five star compose. This book exceptionally prescribed
3125413
Beautifully written, inspiring, heartfelt. This book relates the missing pieces of the story of Chris McCandless' life and death. It gives meaning to his journey, and one ends the book with a sense of peace and closure.
3935196
This book is about the journey and adventure of an Appalachian man's life.  He goes through many woeful experiences with love, employment, and other failures in life.  But this free spirited Hillbilly from the mountains of West Virginia manages to find strength in his Appalachian family, tradition, and habits to over come the physical and emotional ills that plague his lonely life.

 "The Fool's Progress" provides detailed depictions of different environments and personalities with a crude comical twist.  It is entertaining to read at times and boring at others. Overall, the book is a heart warming novel that does not really stick with the traditional story telling of having a plot, climax, antagonist, protagonist, and etc. The book also  tended to stretch a bit (over 500 pages with no real plot or story line to follow). Rating: 6.5/10
1321301
I read this in one sitting.  What a beautifully written tribute to Alan, but also a tribute to the strength of family and the bond between Austin, Anna, and Alan with their family.  The loss of a child is incomprehensible, but by sharing his experience, Mike Horton has given hope and inspiration to others suffering this tragedy.
2568209
Mix together two families - one black and one white; one town full of bigots and the KKK; one older, sturdy brother and one younger, charming, handsome brother; one yearning wife; one vile, hateful old man; and two soldiers that have returned home and are willing to let the color lines blur to help each other handle the atrocities of war.

Each and every character in "Mudbound" was drawn with a meticulous eye towards detail.  I could visualize all of them, liking some and despising others.  The land itself is drawn with special clearness along with the uncertain life of the farmers who depend upon its bounty to support themselves and their families.

This is a heartwrenching but touching book that looks at marriage, infidelity, racism at its worst, love, hate, recovery, and hope.

This book was recommended to me after I read&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Help/dp/0399155341/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Help</a>&nbsp;by Kathryn Stockett as a much more true-to-life depiction of life in the South and racial relations.  I have to say, it felt truer to me.
3585581
Amy McVay Abbotts Whitley County Kid is a thoroughly enjoyable collection of essays that unabashedly celebrate the rural, small town life of South Whitley, Indiana, where she was born in 1957 and lived until going off to college in 1975.  Each essay is an unfurling petal of recollected formative and defining experiences that blossom into an engaging, exuberant, emotionally powerful portrait of a tight-knit community.  For Abbot, whose ancestry in the region reaches back to the 1830s, the imprint of South Whitley, its rural rhythms, its people, its rituals, its ways of being and doing, remains an important part of who I am.

Abbot is a writer whose acuteness of vision and richness of perspective deftly captures the particularities of place, people, and events.  Her writing is clear, crisp; animated by sharp images and the telling detail, buoyant with humor.  A journalist by trade and a long-time columnist, Abbot knows how to launch into a story, find its center of gravity, tell it compellingly in spare but lively prose, and reflect on its lasting significance.

And the stories she tells in Whitley County Kid depict a place where the pace of life pulsed much less hectically than today; where summer was a commodity spent slowly and enjoyed by children who roamed outside all day, scheduled only by their own interests; where talents were given the time and encouragement of emerge; where the business district was commercially vital, and a persons word and a handshake sealed a bank loan; where no one suffered the perplexity of King Lears anguished question, Who is it that can tell me who I am; where the village raises the child ethos was an everyday reality; where Christmas manger scenes were uncontroversial; where the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer were still part of the school day; where rustic lake cabins offered a cooling retreat from the humid hug of southern Indiana summers before being displaced by condos and luxury homes; where the local hospital, having witnessed the births and deaths, the illnesses and recoveries, comes to represent what a high-tech health care facility never can: the heart of the community; where a continuity of values passes down through the generations and the past remains very much present in the present; where the spirit of generosity and the largeness of attentive concern generate a quiet energy of well-being.

If small-town life is Abbots subject, memory is her theme.  Her memory is an electromagnetic flux line, along which the past falls into place and is given shape and texture.  Memory re-members. It gives the self continuity and coherence, allows one to be in time without getting lost in it, and, by making the past present, with its fullness of feeling intact, provides a context for understanding.  Memory allows one to not just look homeward, but reinhabit it, too.  The title of this essay collection signifies: the Whitley County kid Abbot was is a part of who she now is.

Because the essays in Whitley County Kid enact connection, they will appeal to anyone who feels disconnected to the headlong gallop of our times, who feels forced by the cultural environment into adopting a series of improvised selves and carefully curated poses, who regrets the eclipse of human personality by opaque institutions, who values openness and relationships of trust rather than guile and suspicion, who yearns for a sense of communal belonging with its shared knowledge and considered purposes, implicit understandings and ethical standards.  Yes, its true that, as Abbot frankly acknowledges, memory plays tricks, that she is romanticizing my hometown by leaving in the bad but enhancing the good.  But it seems to me the charm of these essays, their rich harvest, their evocative force and emotional potency, lies precisely in their augmentation of reality.  To romanticize is simply to sing the song of truth in a different key.
738133
Cold Mountain is the elegiac odyssey of one man who has fought for the South in the Civil War, after he is nearly mortally wounded. During a long convalescence, his mind attends carefully to the reasoning and waste of war, and the dehumanization of its participants. At some point in his musings, Inman makes a decision and begins his fateful journey home to Cold Mountain and the young woman he hopes is still waiting. At no point on his journey will he be safe, as the roads are patrolled by soldiers searching for such as he, deserters.
An uncommon man, Inman would not call himself so, but rather be driven to humility and a need for a simple life after the nightmarish memories of war and death on the battlefield. He goes on foot, fearing that a horse will attract too much unwanted attention, although his wounds have scarcely healed. But he sets out with purpose and determination, set on that one goal, a return to the brutal but beloved Cold Mountain.
The woman he walks toward is Ada Monroe, a Charleston minister's daughter, who has lived alone on her father's small farm on Cold Mountain after her father's death, refusing to return to Charleston. Ada knows nothing of farming or survival, although it is her intention to keep the farm and learn to run it. A young woman comes into Ada's hapless life, Ruby, who strikes a bargain for their mutual survival: Ruby has the knowledge and Ada has the land. They form a strong partnership that slowly grows into a respectful friendship, determined, each in her way, to survive the war and the approaching winter. Ruby is an able teacher, and Ada a willing pupil. Together they prepare the farm for the rigors of planting grain, caught up in the rhythm of daily life that depends on itself for sustenance, and they realize that their bargain was well made.
Each tedious day of his endless journey, Inman finds himself changing in unexpected ways, mentally tougher, spiritually stronger, although his body is decimated by long bouts of hunger. Ada has become a different person herself, a woman able to provide food and work the land with her hands, no longer the daughter of privilege. As they draw closer to each other, they are more suited, hardship honing their characters, sharpening their perceptions of what is meaningful. Like life, the truest road is in the journey, not the destination. And this journey is filled with wisdom and the appreciation of nature in all its forms, the simple-gratification of a day well lived.