All for Nothing takes place in Germany during the end of World War II when everything is falling apart. The Russian army is advancing and Germans are fleeing the occupied territories in cars and carts and on foot. In a rural East Prussian manor house, the wealthy von Globig family tries to seal itself off from the world. Twelve year old Peter von Globig fakes illness to escape his Hitler Youth duties. His father Eberhard is stationed in Italy with a desk job safe from the front and his mother Katharina has withdrawn into herself. The house is run by a Auntie with the help of two Ukrainian maids and a Pole. The family has no plans to leave until Katharina’s decision to house a Jewish stranger for the night forces their hand.
Quotes
My Take
A very depressing, but insightful, book about the human condition, especially when under stress. As a Christian, I don’t agree with the author’s sentiment that our lives are “all for nothing.” I think what we do during our brief stay on earth matters and how we live our lives and treat those around us has value.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/All-for-Nothing.jpg?fit=174%2C275&ssl=1275174Anne-Marie Readerhttp://www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thousand.book_.quest3_.pngAnne-Marie Reader2019-09-12 02:01:512019-09-12 02:01:51373. All for Nothing
In early 1943 Germany, a teenaged Magda Ritter is sent to live with her relatives in Bavaria. Living in deprivation as a result of the second World War, Magda’s Aunt and Uncle expect her to get a job. After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat, to be a taster for the Fuhrer’s food to prevent poisoning. High in the Bavarian Alps, the Berghof is its own world, far from the battles that are consuming Germany. While Magda grows accustomed to her dangerous job, she begins to have doubts about the war, doubts that are stoked by Karl, a young SS officer with whom she falls in love.
Quotes
My Take
I liked, but did not love, The Taster. I’ve read so many books about World War II and, other than some details about the last days of Adolf Hitler, there was little new in this book. While it is well written, I had little connection with any of the characters.
The Last Black Unicorn is the memoir of comedian Tiffany Haddish. Known as a stand-up comedian, actress, and star of Girls Trip, Haddish shares the ups and downs of her life from a poverty stricken, abusive childhood to Hollywood stardom.
Quotes
“He’s ashamed of himself, because he left you when you were three, did nothing for you, and you ended up being very successful without him, and then you buy him stuff. You are not only a better person than he is, but you are kind and responsible where he is not, and you’re providing where he did not. Not just as his child, but as a woman, providing for him. Your goodness holds up a mirror to his ugliness, and that is too painful for him, so he has to project this onto you, by saying you make him feel less about himself. It’s nothing you did. It’s guilt.”
“So I ended up getting out of pimping, because I didn’t make much money. It’s just not a lucrative business, selling dick. Dick ain’t really all that hard to come by.”
“I believe my purpose is to bring joy to people, to make them laugh, and to share my story to help them. To show people that no matter what, they matter, and they can succeed. No matter how bad things go, no matter how dark your life is, there is a reason for it. You can find beauty in it, and you can get better. I know, because I’ve done it. That’s why my comedy so often comes from my pain. In my life, and I hope in yours, I want us to grow roses out of the poop.”
“You know how white people do, they just encourage and cheer anybody who lets it all hang out and just don’t give a fuck.”
“The only downside to the Bar Mitzvahs was that I killed a man once.”
“That man hadn’t wanted to dance at first, and I made him, and then I booty popped him . . . and now he’s dead! I just felt like a booty assassin.”
“DJ Timbo: “Tiffany, your ass is not deadly.” Tiffany: “No, my ass is deadly. That man is dead.”
“Everyone has their own personal pain and their own demons, and no one will talk about it, and that’s why they never get better. They’re all afraid to talk about it.”
“That’s why I think my life turned out as good as it has. Because all the time, I’m just trying to have fun.”
“In stand-up, you do need to be having fun up there like Richard Pryor said, but you have to know yourself well, too. You have to know when you make different faces, or do different things, you get certain reactions. You start learning and it’s like playing a piano. You just know exactly what keys to stroke, ’cause really with comedy, you’re like fiddling with people’s souls. You resonate on the same frequency as them, trying to get them to relate.”
“I’m a survivor, and all this struggle I went through—while it sucked at the time—is really helping me now. It has helped me get to where I am, and it will help me continue to improve and do better. It didn’t always feel like it at times, but I truly believe I am blessed.”
“all my wins are lessons and all my failures are lessons that will one day become wins.”
My Take
Reading The Last Black Unicorn was a window into a culture that I know little about it and have a hard time relating to. I haven’t seen Tiffany Haddish’s work, but found her memoir to be both humorous and poignant. She is a survivor and writes about her past with love rather than bitterness. If you are a fan, then you are likely to enjoy this book.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/The-Last-Black-Unicorn.jpg?fit=164%2C245&ssl=1245164Anne-Marie Readerhttp://www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thousand.book_.quest3_.pngAnne-Marie Reader2019-09-03 04:12:002019-09-03 04:12:00371. The Last Black Unicorn
Still Life is the first book to feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec. He is called in investigate the suspicious death of Jane Neal in the rural village of Three Pines south of Montreal. Neal’s body is found in the woods, shot in the heart with an old fashioned arrow. Shortly before her death, Neal’s painting Fair Day which depicts many of the local community members was accepted into a local art show. A coincidence? Inspector Gamache must discover the truth.
Quotes
“Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. So when I’m observing that’s what I’m watching for. The choices people make.”
“There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?’
She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin.
“They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.” Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. “I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong’.”
“Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.”
“Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead “still” lives, waiting.”
“I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.”
“They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.”
“The fault lies with us, and only us. It’s not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it’s definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it’s us and our choices. But, but’ – now her eyes shone and she almost vibrated with excitement – ‘the most powerful, spectacular thing is that the solution rests with us as well. We’re the only ones who can change our lives, turn them around. So all those years waiting for someone else to do it are wasted.”
“I’ve been treating you with courtesy and respect because that’s the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness with weakness.”
“Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It’s the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy.”
“Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table,”
“Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room. But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves. ”
“Life is loss. But out of that, as the book stresses, comes freedom. If we can accept that nothing is permanent, and change is inevitable, if we can adapt, then we’re going to be happier people.”
“Everyday for Lucy’s entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy’s prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen. But no more. Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn’t the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.”
“Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn’t meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed and certainly only the deserving are murdered. However well hidden and subtle, there was a sense that a murdered person had somehow asked for it. That’s why the shock when someone they knew to be kind and good was a victim. There was a feeling that surely there had been a mistake.”
My Take
While Still Life has received critical acclaim in the mystery fiction world (named One of the Five Mystery/Crime Novels of the Decade by Deadly Pleasures Magazine, Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards), I had a hard time really engaging with it. I never warmed up to Chief Inspector Armand Gamache or the supporting characters. Penny does have many insightful things to say about the human condition. However, I was happy to finish the book so I could move onto something new.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Still-Life.jpg?fit=208%2C312&ssl=1312208Anne-Marie Readerhttp://www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thousand.book_.quest3_.pngAnne-Marie Reader2019-09-03 04:06:082019-09-03 04:06:08369. Still Life
Genre: Non Fiction, Essays, Humor, Memoir, Short Stories
224 pages, published April 16, 2019
Reading Format: Audio Book
Summary
Southern Lady Code is a collection of 23 essays by Helen Ellis, a Southern woman living in New York City. She takes on topics such as marriage, manners, thank-you notes, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the art of living life as a Southern Lady.
Quotes
“One of Mama’s parenting mantras was: “Oh, Helen Michelle, I have yet to begin to embarrass you.”
“If you don’t know what to do with the rest of your life, make your bed. If you’re going to be a couch potato, at least fluff the pillows. If you can’t afford pearls, red nail polish is your best accessory. If you don’t have time to do your nails, smile and stand up straight.”
“Mama says, ” Helen Michelle, a lot of women have trouble saying no and then find themselves in worse situations because they were afraid of being rude. So, if you have trouble saying no, say ‘No, thank you.’ Let’s practice.”
“No fairy tale begins: “Once upon a time, he blindfolded me in the back of a car.” No fantasy suite has another woman’s hair clogging the drains. A suitcase full of gowns doesn’t make you a princess. Be careful what you wish for, Cinderella’s house was infested with mice. If a man doesn’t kiss you, he doesn’t want to kiss you. If a man doesn’t kiss you on the mouth, he doesn’t find you attractive. A fist bump is not a kiss. An ass pat is not a kiss. Don’t trust a man who keeps your kisses a secret.”
“Because it turns out, “If it happens, it happens” is Southern Lady Code for we don’t want kids.”
My Take
A fun, fluffy diversion. I especially enjoyed the story of how the author’s parents staged a home invasion when she was a teenager as a party trick to see what she and her friends remembered.
Us Against You is the sequel to Beartown, a book by Swedish author Frederik Backman that takes place in a small town in Sweden that lives and dies for youth hockey. All the same characters from Beartown are back with new conflicts and drama and lots of hockey.
Quotes
“Everyone is a hundred different things, but in other people’s eyes we usually get the chance to be only one of them.”
“He’s twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”
“The worst thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives. Not just the people we choose, the people we like, but all the rest of them: the idiots. You who stand in front of us in every line, who can’t drive properly, who like bad television shows and talk too loud in restaurants and whose kids infect our kids with the winter vomiting bug at preschool. You who park badly and steal our jobs and vote for the wrong party. You also influence our lives, every second.”
“The complicated thing about good and bad people alike is that most of us can be both at the same time.”
“It’s so easy to get people to hate one another. That’s what makes love so impossible to understand. Hate is so simple that it always ought to win. It’s an uneven fight.”
“Sometimes people have to be allowed to have something to live for in order to survive everything else.”
“Life is a weird thing. We spend all our time trying to manage different aspects of it, yet we are still largely shaped by things that happen beyond our control.”
“They run only where there are lights. They don’t say anything but are both thinking the same thing: guys never think about light, it just isn’t a problem in their lives. When guys are scared of the dark, they’re scared of ghosts and monsters, but when girls are scared of the dark, they’re scared of guys.”
“Unfairness is a far more natural state in the world than fairness.”
“Being a mother can be like drying out the foundations of a house or mending a roof: it takes time, sweat, and money, and once it’s done everything looks exactly the same as it did before. It’s not the sort of thing anyone gives you praise for.”
“The best friends of our childhoods are the loves of our lives, and they break our hearts in worse ways.”
“It’s hard to care about people. Exhausting, in fact, because empathy is a complicated thing. It requires us to accept that everyone else’s lives are also going on the whole time. We have no pause button for when everything gets too much for us to deal with, but then neither does anyone else.”
“What does it take to be a good parent? Not much. Just everything. Absolutely everything.”
“Anyone who devotes his life to being the best at one single thing will be asked, sooner or later, the same question: “Why?” Because if you want to become the best at something, you have to sacrifice everything else.”
“At some point almost everyone makes a choice. Some of us don’t even notice it happening, most don’t get to plan it in advance, but there’s always a moment when we take one path instead of another, which has consequences for the rest of our lives. It determines the people we will become, in other people’s eyes as well as our own. Elizabeth Zackell may have been right when she said that anyone who feels responsibility isn’t free. Because responsibility is a burden. Freedom is a pleasure.”
“Two drowning people with lead weights around their ankles may not be each other’s salvation; if they hold hands, they’ll just sink twice as fast. In the end the weight of carrying each other’s broken hearts becomes unbearable.”
“Sons want their fathers’ attention until the precise moment when fathers want their sons’.”
My Take
While I’m a big fan of Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove, Beartown), I liked, but did not love Us Against You. The characters, dialogue, ideas and conflicts are interesting at times, but it is re-plowing the same ground as Beartown, a superior book.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Us-Against-You.jpg?fit=154%2C231&ssl=1231154Anne-Marie Readerhttp://www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thousand.book_.quest3_.pngAnne-Marie Reader2019-09-02 20:34:012019-09-02 20:34:01353. Us Against You
Baby Don’t Hurt Me is the autobiography of Saturday Night Live alum Chris Kattan, best known for his roles as Mango, Mr. Peepers, and one half (along with Will Farrell) of the head-bopping brothers in A Night at the Roxbury.
Quotes
My Take
My husband Scot gave me Baby Don’t Hurt Me as an anniversary gift. Early in our marriage (before we had kids), we would take in shows at the Groundlings Theater in mid-town Los Angeles. Chris Kattan (along with Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri and Lisa Kudrow) is one of the Groundlings that we saw on a regular basis and he was hilarious (especially his Mr. Peepers sketch which worked particularly well in a live performance). It was fun to read about Kattan’s life and show business experiences and take a trip down memory lane.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Baby-Dont-Hurt-me.jpg?fit=166%2C249&ssl=1249166Anne-Marie Readerhttp://www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thousand.book_.quest3_.pngAnne-Marie Reader2019-09-02 20:29:052019-09-02 20:29:05351. Baby Don't Hurt Me: Stories and Scars from Saturday Night Live
Nora, the protagonist In a Dark, Dark Wood, hasn’t seen her former best friend Clare for ten years since they left University. When she receives an invitation to Clare’s Hen Party (British for Bachelorette Party) set in a remote part of the English countryside, Nora equivocates but ultimately decides to attend, a decision she will come to deeply regret.
Quotes
“Clare watched them from the far sofa, and I found myself watching her, remembering how she loved to observe, how she used to throw a remark out, like a pebble into a pond, and then back quietly away to watch the ripples as people scrapped it out. It was not an endearing habit, but it was one I could not condemn. I understood it too well. I, too, am happier watching than being watched.”
“People don’t change,” Nina said bitterly. “They just get more punctilious about hiding their true selves.”
“I always thought that being self-sufficient was a strength, but now I realize it’s a kind of weakness, too.”
“there’s one thing I dislike more than being hurt, it’s being seen to be hurt.”
“There are days when I don’t hear a single human voice, apart from the radio, and you know what? I quite like that.”
“There was something strangely naked about it, like we were on a stage set, playing our parts to an audience of eyes out there in the wood.”
“You’d think people would be wary of spilling to a writer. You’d think they’d know that we’re essentially birds of carrion, picking over the corpses of dead affairs and forgotten arguments to recycle them in our work—zombie reincarnations of their former selves, stitched into a macabre new patchwork of our own devising.”
“There’s a kind of focusing effect that happens when you’re very ill. I saw it with my granddad, when he was slipping away. You stop caring about the big stuff. Your world shrinks down to very small concerns: the way your dressing gown cord presses uncomfortably against your ribs, the pain in your spine, the feel of a hand in yours. It’s that narrowing that enables you to cope, I suppose. The wider world stops mattering. And as you grow more and more ill, your world shrinks further, until the only thing that matters is just to keep on breathing.”
My Take
In a Dark, Dark Wood is a serviceable thriller with a few twists and turns to keep things interesting. I’ve read better of this genre, but still enjoyed my time with this book.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/In-a-dark-dark-wood.jpg?fit=216%2C333&ssl=1333216Anne-Marie Readerhttp://www.thousandbookquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/thousand.book_.quest3_.pngAnne-Marie Reader2019-09-02 20:00:422019-09-02 20:00:42342. In a Dark, Dark Wood
When Jack Stokes met Ruby Woodrow, she was twenty and he was forty. Ruby was the daughter of a Carolina gentry family and was a newly widowed after disastrous marriage to a brutal drifter. Jack was a skinny tenant farmer with nothing to his name but his pride. This unlikely pair created a special bond with each other and a remarkable marriage.
Quotes
“It took me a long time to learn that mistakes aren’t good or bad,
they’re just mistakes, and you clean them up and go on.”
“Oh, it’s no crime to want and need somebody to love and to be loved by and to go and do what you need to do to have that, but its certainly a pity when you want it so badly you’ll let it be anybody.”
“You have to be so careful. You can’t ever just throw words out. They have to land somewhere.”
“And half the job of finding peace is finding understanding. Don’t you believe it to be so?”
My Take
I read this book a while ago and I must say that it really didn’t stick with me. It’s not bad, just not great. Gibbons is a skilled writer, but I just didn’t care that much about the relationship between Ruby and Jack.
Calypso is a collection of short stories by the humorous essayist David Sedaris. As with many of his previous books (Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls) Sedaris writes about his family and also his boyfriend Hugh. Much of the book focuses on Sedaris’ purchase of a beach house on the Carolina coast, named “the Sea Section,” where he envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. It doesn’t quite work out that way.
Quotes
“After I die, and you read something bad about yourself in my diary, do yourself a favor and keep reading,” I often say to Hugh. “I promise that on the next page you’ll find something flattering. Or maybe the page after that.”
“I felt betrayed, the way you do when you discover that your cat has a secret secondary life and is being fed by neighbors who call him something stupid like Calypso. Worse is that he loves them as much as he loves you, which is to say not at all, really. The entire relationship has been your own invention.”
“In France the most often used word is “connerie,” which means “bullshit,” and in America it’s hands-down “awesome,” which has replaced “incredible,” “good,” and even “just OK.” Pretty much everything that isn’t terrible is awesome in America now.”
“Increasingly at Southern airports, instead of a “good-bye” or “thank-you,” cashiers are apt to say, “Have a blessed day.” This can make you feel like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne. “Get it off me!” I always want to scream. “Quick, before I start wearing ties with short-sleeved shirts!”
“Why do you think she did it?” I asked as we stepped back into the sunlight. For that’s all any of us were thinking, had been thinking, since we got the news. Mustn’t Tiffany have hoped that whatever pills she’d taken wouldn’t be strong enough and that her failed attempt would lead her back into our fold? How could anyone purposefully leave us—us, of all people? This is how I thought of it, for though I’ve often lost faith in myself, I’ve never lost faith in my family, in my certainty that we are fundamentally better than everyone else. It’s an archaic belief, one I haven’t seriously reconsidered since my late teens, but still I hold it. Ours is the only club I’d ever wanted to be a member of, so I couldn’t imagine quitting. Backing off for a year or two was understandable, but to want out so badly that you’d take your own life?”
“Happiness is harder to put into words. It’s also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I summon them, and remain long after I’ve begged them to leave.”
“there are only two kinds of flights: ones in which you die and ones in which you do not.”
“It is what it is,” which is ubiquitous now and means absolutely nothing, as far as we can see. “Isn’t that the state motto of South Dakota?” I said the second or third time I heard it.”
“Everyone in America is extremely concerned with hydration. Go more than five minutes without drinking, and you’ll surely be discovered behind a potted plant, dried out like some escaped hermit crab. When I was young no one would think to bring a bottle of water into a classroom. I don’t think they even sold bottled water. We survived shopping trips without it, and funerals. Now, though, you see people with those barrels that Saint Bernards carry around their necks in cartoons, lugging them into the mall and the movie theater, then hogging the fountains in order to refill them. Is that really necessary?”
“When visitors leave, I feel like an actor watching the audience file out of the theater, and it was no different with my sisters. The show over, Hugh and I returned to lesser versions of ourselves. We’re not a horrible couple, but we have our share of fights, the type that can start with a misplaced sock and suddenly be about everything. “I haven’t liked you since 2002,” he hissed during a recent argument over which airport security line was moving the fastest.”
“You’re not supposed to talk about your good deeds, I know. It effectively negates them and in the process makes people hate you.”
“Another word I’ve added to “the list” is “conversation,” as in “We need to have a national conversation about_________.” This is employed by the left to mean “You need to listen to me use the word ‘diversity’ for an hour.” The right employs obnoxious terms as well—“libtard,” “snowflake,” etc.—but because they can be applied to me personally it seems babyish to ban them. I’ve outlawed “meds,” “bestie,” “bucket list,” “dysfunctional,” “expat,” “cab-sav,” and the verb “do” when used in a restaurant, as in “I’ll do the snails on cinnamon toast.” “Ugh,” Ronnie agrees. “Do!—that’s the worst.” “My new thing,” I told her, “is to look at the menu and say, ‘I’d like to purchase the veal chop.’” A lot of our outlawed terms were invented by black people and then picked up by whites, who held on to them way past their expiration date. “My bad,” for example, and “I’ve got your back” and “You go, girlfriend.” They’re the verbal equivalents of sitcom grandmothers high-fiving one another, and on hearing them, I wince and feel ashamed of my entire race.”
My Take
: I always get more than a few chuckles when reading a David Sedaris book and Calypso was no exception. It isn’t his best effort, but also not his worst. More like average Sedaris. I especially enjoyed his essays on buying “The Sea Section,” a beach house in North Carolina since my husband and I are contemplating doing the same thing.
