Three Cheers For Me

 

By Donald Jack

5 Stars

Historical/Humour

Adult

I discovered this book and the accompanying series while I was a student in high school. At that time, I devoured books at a phenomenal rate. I discovered quite a few great authors and read some terrific books. This series was my favourite. This book is the opening salvo in the series and won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. I’m not sure how popular The Bandy Papers were outside of Canada.

Bartholomew Bandy is an anti-hero. The son of a preacher, bland looking, physically and socially clumsy. He will make you laugh at some of the situations he gets into, but he is incredibly human and relatable at the same time. We meet him as he prepares to ship off to war in Europe. He starts WW1 as an infantryman in the trenches. Chaos follows him into the chaos that is already there. This book is top-notch comedy, but at the same time, it doesn’t minimize the war that is the backdrop of this story. He survives the trenches and joins the Royal Flying Corps. He proves to be a natural pilot. While training, his engine fails, and he makes a forced landing on an estate called Burma Park. He falls in love with the place and Katherine Lewis, the young woman living there. His encounter with the plumbing there is memorably hysterical. The rest of the book is split between flying at the front and then spending leave in England.

On reading the book a second time, I still heartily recommend it. I look forward to rereading the next four books in the series and eventually reading the four that I never knew about after graduating from high school.

Gray Mountain

By John Grisham
4 Stars
Legal Thriller
Adult

This book arrived in my library courtesy the local used book store. My daughter found it and knew that I had previously enjoyed one of his books. What she didn’t know was that I read a Reader’s Digest version of one of his novels if that actually counts.

This is a legal thriller. The heroine is Samantha Kofer a New York lawyer working for Big Law who starts the story getting furloughed for a year without pay because of a major economic crisis. She is told to work as an intern for free and after a year maybe she would get her job back along with all her benefits. She ends up finding an internship in a little hick village in the Appalachians, deep in coal country for a free legal clinic. She’s a big city girl and she’s a fish out of water, not sure of what she wants and not sure of her future.

The antagonists in all this is the big coal corporations. They are taking advantage of the little people. The story revolves around this conflict. She finds herself getting sucked deeper and deeper into a fight she doesn’t really want to get involved in. She is more of a people person than she gives herself credit for. She finds herself caring about the clients and what becomes of them.

Some of the reviews I read of this book were harsh. Outside of the main character’s vacillations which became a little wearisome, I liked the book.

When the Dikes Broke

 

By Alta Halverson Seymour

5 Stars

Historical Fiction

Children’s/Young Adult

I got a copy of this book through school before I was a teenager. I’m not sure if my copy survived all my changes of address. I had it in my personal library for many years. I am of Dutch decent and that is one of the main reasons I was interested in the story. The events are real. My parents, I believe, moved to Canada just before this happened. The flooding did not reach the areas where my family is from.

The story revolves around the van Rossem family. The family wakes up to find their house flooding. They are rescued but some members of the family get separated from the rest of the family. The story outlines the family’s ordeal.

Loved the book. Read it several times, even though I know how the story goes.