Happy New Year!

Wishing you and yours a very happy new year and the best to you in the coming months!

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
Published October 2011 by Scribner
Source: my copy purchased to read with the Omaha Bookworms

Publisher's Summary:
Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege of Masada by the Romans. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

My Thoughts:

The Dovekeepers was recommended by one of the Omaha Bookworms whose favorite books include Anita Diamant's The Red Tent.  I've been wanting to read something by Hoffman for a long time and the cover of this is so beautiful, it wasn't difficult to convince me that this was a book I should make time for. And then I started reading it and those first 100 pages were tough. The book is separated into the stories of the four women, with Yael's story leading off. I didn't much care for her and 100 pages of traveling through the desert started to grate on me. But as the women's stories each unfold, more and more they incorporate each other's stories and move the overall story forward and I began to care more and more what happened to these women, women who I knew were doomed. Hoffman truly has created four distinct, unique women with incredible strength and amazing independence within the confines of their time.

The Dovekeepers is one of those books that make me want to learn more about a part of history I'm only passingly familiar with. I wanted to know more about the history of Masada and I always wonder how much of what I'm reading is fact and how much is fiction. Clearly, the stories of the individual people are fiction. Beyond that, though, I'm knocked out by Hoffman's research about the time, daily lives, and geography in which she's set her story and intrigued by the pull between the Jewish religion and the "old" ways where spells, demons, and curses played important roles.

Masada was built on a plateau by King Herod as a refuge in case of revolt between 37 and 31 BCE. on the eastern edge of the Judaean desert overlooking the Dead Sea. In 66 CE, a group of Jewish fighters, the Sicarii, overthrew the Roman forces stationed there. Eventually, as the Romans cracked down on Jerusalem and surrounding Jewish settlements, more and more people came to settle on the plateau, depleting the available resources. In 72 CE, Roman governor Lucius Flavius Silva and the Roman legion laid siege to Masada, building a wall around Masada,a siege embankment, and a siege tower. According to history record, when the Romans finally breached the fortress walls, they found all but two of the settlers dead by mass suicide.

Sunday Salon - December 30

Greetings! Everyone recovered from Christmas or are you, like me, making recovery a slow, drawn out process? I always wait to take down decorations until at least New Years so they are are still up, but I still haven't gotten the gift bags put away, some packaging from gifts is still sitting around, and, sigh, I still haven't gotten my Christmas cards sent. And this weekend, I just don't care. After a wonderful but hectic Christmas and a very busy three days at work, I'm using this four-day weekend to relax, slowly put things back in order and read, read, read.

Here's What I'm:

Listening To: Studio 360 on NPR - yesterday's program was an entire hour devoted to "Culture Shock 1913." In this year, modernism really began to make an impact on the general public from an exhibit of cubism in the U.S. to the Paris premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" with choreography by Nijinski (if you're familiar with Disney's "Fantasia" you'll recall "The Rite of Spring" as being the long piece about the development of life on Earth). If you click on the picture above, it will link you to this very interesting story about a year in history that profoundly changed the way people think.

Watching: Almost nothing. Some football, "Elementary" and "A Christmas Story" - that's about it for this week. The five of us celebrated Christmas on Christmas Day and watched "A Christmas Story" together, eating our Asian dinner just as the movie family sat down to Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant.

Reading: This past week I finished A Golden Age by Tahmima Anim (which I loved) and read Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses which made me wonder why it's been so long since I picked up anything by Tan. My goal was 75 books this year so I've picked up Julian Barnes' The Sense of An Ending (finally, Teri!) which I thought was an appropriate title to end the year on.

Making: I made a yummy potato dish in the crockpot for Christmas dinner with the in-laws last Sunday and this week I turned those leftovers into a great potato soup. The Big Guy took the leftover ham and made a great ham and  bean soup as well. Nice to be able to use the leftovers in ways that make the cold weather easier to bear.

Planning: On ushering the new year in very quietly. I'm sure we'll do our usual Chinese takeout and pop open a bottle of champagne at midnight but otherwise, I think it will be a movie/football night. Do you have big plans?

Grateful for: I feel like I must say this is some form or another every other week, but family. I am blessed to have very close families on both sides and know how lucky I am to have in-laws that I enjoy.

Loving: My new Nook. Yep, my family all pitched in (lead by Miss H who was bound and determined that I should have one) and got me a Nook HD for Christmas. I have yet to download a book onto it but will figure that out this weekend. I have some from Netgalley ready to go. I have enjoyed using it to read email, keep up with Twitter, and just to explore.

Also loving reading all of the year-end posts. I mark down books throughout the year that I find on people's blogs but when those books start showing up on year-end best-of lists, then I know I need to star them and move them to the top of the wish list. Sometimes I even find books that I've overlooked somehow that need to be added.


Looking forward to: Two more days of relaxation before heading back to another three-day work week. Hmm, wouldn't it be nice to have those every week? What are you looking forward to this week?

Looking Back - My Favorites of 2012 - Amended

*Oh my - somehow I missed two books I absolutely had to add to my list, The Lighthouse Road and Maine. I really couldn't take two books off the list so now instead of 20 books, there are 21.

It was an unusual year for me reading wise - these 21 books clearly stood above the rest of the books I read this year. Unfortunately, that says as much about the books that didn't make this list as it does about the ones that did. Perhaps this explains my several months long reading slump!

The fiction books that made my top ten and honorable mention lists were largely books that took me to another time and place or which made my pulse race a little more quickly. My top ten fiction books for 2012 were:

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
The Cove by Ron Rash

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye
The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar
The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay
A Golden Age by Tahmima Amin

Honorable Mentions:
The Only True Genius In The Family by Jennie Nash
The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Broken Harbor by Tana French
The March by E. L. Doctorow
Maine by J. Courtney Sulliven

I read fewer non-fiction books this year (not exactly sure why because I read so many great ones in 2011). My favorites were:


The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloots
American Eve by Paula Uruburu
In My Father's Country by Saima Wahab

I've got a blend of old favorites when it comes to authors, new-to-me authors, and debut authors. I'll certainly be looking to add more books by these authors to my shelves. Have you read any of these books? What are your thoughts? What were some of your favorite books in 2012?

Merry Christmas

Remember The Reason For The Season

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, please take a moment today, as you are opening present and enjoying a special holiday meal, to remember the true reason we are celebrating this day.