In 3 days I read two books and started my 3rd one this afternoon. While visiting my daughter, Hannah I had the opportunity to visit several used books stores and books sales. My library in the van is stocked up. The novel “The Wild Girl” was bought simply because I love the author, Jim Fergus, who wrote “One Thousand White Women.” He didn’t disappoint with this one. The story is about Ned Giles, an Apache girl, and the great Apache Expedition of 1932. The characters in the book are introduced and you quickly form an attachment/ emotion to them. Fergus writing is prose, he is a brilliant storyteller, and I just couldn’t put the book down. It is inspired by several true stories and that makes the book feel “real.” A brief and vague synopsis of the book is a group of wealthy men organized an expedition to free a boy who was kidnapped by the Apaches. Ned Giles joins the expedition as a photographer. While in a small Mexican town Ned discovers a wild Apache girl and he comes up with the idea of trading her for the kidnapped child. The rest of the story is unbelievable.When I finished “The Wild Girl” I pulled out “Your Name is Renee.” I spent a wonderful afternoon reading the true story of Ruth Kapp Hartz. Her family were German Jews and were targets of French as well as German anti Semitism during WW II.
This evening I am reading S.C. Gwynne book, “Empire of the Summer Moon.” According to a reviews online, “The book traces the rise of the Comanche people
from their roots as primitive bands of hunter-gatherers to their mastery of the horse and emergence as the feared power brokers of the area. At the center of the narrative is the charismatic Quanah Parker, who skillfully navigated the gaps between his traditional culture and the emerging, settled culture of the late-nineteenth century. Quanah was the son of a Comanche warrior and a woman named Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped at the age of nine and chose to stay with the Comanches. Quanah was a brilliant, feared war chief who guided his people in adapting to new realities after their final suppression by the U.S. Calvary. An outstanding addition to western-history collections. --Jay Freeman “Hannah I want to keep two of these books so I will be sending them to you to put in my library. The stories are not your cup of tea, historical, Empire of the Summer Moon is a little dry, and all of them had some violence.
Mom and I are going to stay in this area a few more days. It rained sporadically today so we were confined to the shelter and the van. It was a soft, gentle rain so walking in it was a delight. There is peace in hearing the night noises instead of traffic. We slept with the windows and two curtains open so we were greeted with light and air when we woke up this morning.
Life is good.
