Train Go Sorry

I've been taking a small break from Little Women and have been reading the book Train Go Sorry religiously. Though, I do need to break that habit of starting other books in the middle of ones I am currently reading. I have since finished Train Go Sorry, and I enjoyed it a lot. It follows a four different stories during different times, who are all connected by one person. I think this book qualifies as non-fiction, though it is written through the eyes of one person, so it reads as a fiction book. The one constant through the book is the Lexington School for the Deaf, where the author of the book, Leah Hager Cohen, grew up and where her father, Oscar, is superintendent. The four stories are told in different chapters on a rotating basis. One chapter focuses on Leah's personal life; her childhood growing up in a school for the deaf when she and her family is hearing, her family's history, including the small biographies of her deaf grandparents, and her career as a sign language interpreter. The second chapter focuses on James, an inner city poor black student at Lexington, and his success at the school. There is also background on his family, including a whole chapter dedicated to his brother Joseph, who is in jail. The last chapter is of him graduating, leaving you wanting to know how his life turns out. Another story in the book follows Sofia, a deaf russian immigrant who does very well at Lexington. She struggles keeping her two lives separate, though. She wants to pursue the life of her deafness, including wanting to go to a deaf university when she graduates. However she is also present in her family life, with strict Jewish-Russian parents who are embarrassed about her deafness. The last set of chapters have to do with Lexington itself, and all of the changes it undergoes as the deaf movement in America is changing as well. Lexington used to be an oral school, meaning it taught deaf kids to speak and read lips, to better communicate in the hearing world, but with the deaf pride movement gaining steam, Lexington decides to allow, and even require, sign language classes for teachers and students. This book was really good, and very well structured. I learned a lot about the deaf world, something I am very interested in, and about the struggles deaf people face everyday. I loo

I have been continuing reading Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I have really enjoyed the story so far, but I am also intrigued by the structure that Alcott uses in some chapters. In the chapter "The P.C. and P.O.", Alcott writes most of the chapter in a newspaper format. She is describing one of the favorite pastimes of the girls, writing their own newspaper under fake names, and includes some excerpts of their work, written under their pen names. However, most of the other chapters uses the same birds-eye-view where the narrator (we don't know who it is, I'm assuming it may be Alcott herself) watches in in the lives of the girls through third person. Every so often the narrator will make themselves heard with a paragraph or two in first person, usually describing how his/her lives relate to those of the girls. Sometimes a chapter will focus solely on one of the sisters, so you can never tell who is the main character. This is shown through the chapter "Meg goes to Vanity Fair". This chapter follows Meg as she spends a weekend at a rich friends house. She hears people at the parties talk about her behind her back because of her family's financial situation, and how she is poor compared to the other party guests. Because of this, she allows to let the other girls dress her up in one of their old dresses, and be paraded around the party as one of them. Even at this she hears negative remarks from party guests saying she is a fool for letting herself be subject to the girls fun. Another example would be the chapter "Amy's Valley of Humiliation." This chapter focuses on Amy in school, and how she was physically punished for having limes in her desk (limes were big for girls her age, they traded them and bought from others). Because of this Marmee pulls Amy out of school, to be tutored by her older sisters.

I have noticed that my vocabulary has increased immensely since reading this book. Because it was written in a different time, the vocabulary seems richer to me, and I have started annotating for unusual words that I didn't know before.

I have been continuing reading Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I have really enjoyed the story so far, but I am also intrigued by the structure that Alcott uses in some chapters. In the chapter "The P.C. and P.O.", Alcott writes most of the chapter in a newspaper format. She is describing one of the favorite pastimes of the girls, writing their own newspaper under fake names, and includes some excerpts of their work, written under their pen names. However, most of the other chapters uses the same birds-eye-view where the narrator (we don't know who it is, I'm assuming it may be Alcott herself) watches in in the lives of the girls through third person. Every so often the narrator will make themselves heard with a paragraph or two in first person, usually describing how his/her lives relate to those of the girls. Sometimes a chapter will focus solely on one of the sisters, so you can never tell who is the main character. This is shown through the chapter "Meg goes to Vanity Fair". This chapter follows Meg as she spends a weekend at a rich friends house. She hears people at the parties talk about her behind her back because of her family's financial situation, and how she is poor compared to the other party guests. Because of this, she allows to let the other girls dress her up in one of their old dresses, and be paraded around the party as one of them. Even at this she hears negative remarks from party guests saying she is a fool for letting herself be subject to the girls fun. Another example would be the chapter "Amy's Valley of Humiliation." This chapter focuses on Amy in school, and how she was physically punished for having limes in her desk (limes were big for girls her age, they traded them and bought from others). Because of this Marmee pulls Amy out of school, to be tutored by her older sisters.

I have noticed that my vocabulary has increased immensely since reading this book. Because it was written in a different time, the vocabulary seems richer to me, and I have started annotating for unusual words that I didn't know before.

Little Women Post #2

I've been continuing in Little Women, by Louise May Alcott. So far I've enjoyed listening to the stories of the four sisters. Meg and Jo, the two oldest sisters, were invited to a formal party which they were very excited to go to. Meg, being the more lady like of the two, day dreamed about a new dress and gloves which she could wear and show off to all her friends while Jo was nervous to go because her dress had a bad burn mark in the back and her gloves were stained. They arrived and Meg started dancing however Jo stayed behind in a corner. When she was about to be asked to dance by someone she didn't want to, Jo dashed off to a side room and bumped into Laurie, her neighbor. They danced together in the back room very strangely because no one was watching, so they could make a fool of themselves. However their fun was interrupted when Meg comes in because she twisted her ankle while wearing her high heels Jo had warned her about. When the party guests dispersed, Laurie gave Jo and Meg his carriage (which the Marches could not afford) so Meg didn't have to strain herself anymore then she already had.
Beth, the second youngest sister, is very timid and quiet, even at home. She does however like to play the piano. When the Marches and the Lawrence's become friends, Beth is quite intimidated by Laurie's grandfather, Me. Lawrence. However they warm to each other and eventually share the strongest bond between Mr. Lawrence and any March sister. She is invited to play the piano at anytime in the Lawrence mansion, which she does. For a thank you, Beth knits him a pair of slippers, and in return for that, Mr. Lawrence gives her a piano for her own house. I think that in Mr. Lawrence's mind, Beth almost replaces the granddaughter that he lost years ago.
I've really enjoyed the book so far. The language is a bit peculiar sometimes, but I'm guessing that it is because the book was written just after the Civil War. I think the next chapter is about Amy getting in trouble at school, which I am excited to read about.

Blog Post #3

I finished Winter of the Worlds the day I wrote my last blog post, so I don't remember everything word for word, but Ken Foullet basically finished the book by having one of his characters, Carla von Ulrich, standing around the room with her adopted daughter, and her two sons (Though one son was from a Russian soldier who raped her, and the other from her husband) and asking herself what the future holds. So not a giant cliff hanger for the next book, but I am defiantly excited to read it. I assume the next book will follow this book in the way that the children of the narrators become the narrators of the next book. It almost makes me sad, because I am now so attached to some of the main characters and want to hear more about their stories and lives. I will hear some more in the next book, but it will be through their children's eyes, so I don't think it will be the same. Two of the characters, Daisy and Lloyd, had little sparks flying throughout the whole book, but weren't able to get married until the last few chapters because Daisy's first husband Boy (half brother of Lloyd) refuses to divorce her. I want to explore their relationship more because I didn't get enough time to read about it. I am also attached to some of the main characters from the first book, and in the third book some will be dead (some are dead by the second) and others will play extremely insignificant roles. I have no doubt that it will be more confusing to see which of the 3rd generation kids will be related to the others because they will all be cousin or half cousins once removed, or really any combination. I can't wait until 2014 because that's when the next one comes out!

I have also been reading the beginning of Little Women by Louise May Allcot. I really like it so far, the passages are extremely descriptive and not so hard to read. I like the way Allcot describes the four sisters and their actions, and in someways I think that it is completely different from how four sisters would act today. It's nice to read a book about simpler times. This book takes place during the Civil War on the east coast. I've seen the movie, and it is one of my all time favorites, but I wanted to read the book as well. The second oldest sister Jo, who is kind of a tom boy has just met their neighbor Lorie who is cooped up all day by his grandfather. I know from the movie that they become really good friends, so I'm excited to start reading about it.

I am so close to finishing Winter of the World by Ken Foullet. Over the long weekend I read for an hour + everyday, and got through almost 300 pages. I am currently only 20 pages from the end of the book. I wonder how Foullet will wrap up the book, because I know that the book ends in the year 1949 and currently I'm in 1947, so I am interested in seeing how he writes two years in twenty pages. I have noticed that the years are explored in various detail through this book. For example the year 1943 was in total about 300 pages while 1948-1949 will only be twenty pages or less. Foullet titles the different chapters the different times of year, and what year it is, which is very helpful when trying to figure out the timeline of the war. I also think that how Foullet places characters in every aspect of the war is really cool, because we can see the fighting as well as other really important factors. For example, the character Greg Peshkov lives in Washington D.C., so we can see some of the political moves of the Unites States, as well as majored in physics and works on the Manhattan Project. Greg's half brother (though they think they are cousins and have never met), Volodya Peshkov lives in Russia and in a major and spy trainer for Berlin spies. He is married to Zoya who is a Russian physicist and works on the nuclear bomb in Russian. It is interesting to see the race for nuclear power play out between the two countries, and I think that the 3rd book will most likely revolve around that and the cold war. I have noticed that there is a lot less war scenes in this book then in the last one. There is more scenes of living though the war in every country then fighting. For example one of the more prominent characters, Daisy Peshkov (half sister of Greg and Volodya), was born in Buffalo, New York but lives in England. Almost every scene she narrates is about driving the ambulance in the Blitz (her part time job) or her love life with her husband (Boy Fitzherbert, son, and heir, of the Earl of Arberowen) and his half brother, Lloyd Williams (though they don't know they are half brothers, also son of the Earl Fitzherbert). Another prominent character Carla von Ulrich (whose mother used to work with the mother of Lloyd Williams) describes the life in Nazi Germany. We see the war through Nazi eyes with her brother Erik, who is a doctor in training on the front line. Carla also depicts life as a spy, as she and her boyfriend are spy for Russia (who are recruited by Volodya).

The book I am reading now, Winter of the Word, is the second book in the Century trilogy by Ken Foullet. It took me about a year to finish the first book, which was about 1,000 pages, but I took breaks and read different books at the same time. The first book is called Fall of Giants and takes place before, during, and after World War 1. The book follows different families from Russia, England, Whales, Germany, Austria, and the United States. Each character is connected to each one of the others in some way. The book I am reading now follows the children of each of the characters from the first book. It is interesting to see how each family ends up in different places in the book, the father of one of the main characters was born and raised in Russia, but moves to Buffalo, New York as soon as he could, and becomes a gangster who sells illegal liquor during Prohibition. His daughter takes a vacation to England and marries the son of an Earl, and then spends the rest of the book living in England (at least as far as I have read so far). Ken Foullet´s style of writing is mainly informative. He doesn't try as hard to put in sensory details that would make the book as descriptive as it could be. However he does do an amazing job of telling the story through different eyes of different characters, since the book is written in first person of about 8 or so characters. I just finished a passage last night through Erik's eyes. Erik is a young German who is blindingly faithful to the Nazis even though his father was killed by the gestapo (German police). He is extremely stubborn and naive, as shown in the passage I read last night. Erik works on the front line about 40 miles west of Moscow as a medical assistant. He was called to treat the victims of a car crash near the woods. When every person has been treated, he hears gun shots and decides to investigate. He sees the Russian people of the town they had just occupied stand in a line leading to the SS officers, who were greatly admired by Erik. Eventually he comes upon a pit where the 12 gunmen shot and kill the towns people one by one because they were all Jews or communists according to the SS officers. Erik had never believed the Nazis were murderers, he didnt even believe his father was killed by the gestapo. The way Foullet describes this scene is beautiful. As the reader I can clearly see the innocence and naivety of Erik in this scene. This book is really interesting and an amazing page turner. I recommend it for any one!