Miracles Can Happen!

Perhaps Miracles Can Happen is an overzealous title, but... I have never listened to an entire audio book. I love to have a hard copy of a book in my hands and to turn the pages. However, a friend (you know who you are) encouraged me to try, The Lions of Little Rock on CD.  I was skeptical, but I thought, ‘What’s the worst thing that can happen? Maybe, I’ll waste a few minutes in my drive listening to a book. If it's bad I can always turn on the radio.’ I know this is not the mentality I should have had, but I love to have a 'real' book in my hands and to turn the pages.

The miracle began the moment I put the CD in my car CD player and I heard, 'I talk a lot. Just not out loud where anyone can hear me.' This novel was fantastic on so many levels. First it was the first audio book I ever listened to in its entirety without turning to a normal book. I listened to it in my car. Well actually I began by listening to it in my car, and then I wanted to hear what happened next so I took it inside and listened as I cooked dinner. Then I had a project to do that required the use of my hands, so I listened while I worked. When I drove my daughter to her lesson I listened and when I took my son to the doctor, (well I bet you can guess) I listened then, too. Do you know what happened next? Yes, you guessed it; my children got hooked on the story as well.

This is a historical fiction novel that takes place in 1958 in Little Rock, Arkansas. It begins the summer after the Little Rock 9 attended Central High School. I learned so much, my children learned so much and it was better than any history class I ever had. Kristin Levine takes you into Little Rock and plops you right into the heart of the story. Her scenes are realistic. The drama, the fear and the circumstances were based on what the people of Little Rock experienced in 1958 and 1959. This was the year the high schools in Little Rock were closed because the people did not want integrated schools. The whites sent their students to private schools or sent them to live with out-of-city relations. This was not possible for the Negroes at the time. There weren’t private schools for them and, with the public high schools closed, they had no other option.

This is a truly amazing story that will capture your attention and transport you back in time. It is a story of friendship, political inequality and the struggle to do what is right. It will make you believe that miracles can happen. Yes I listened to an audio book in its entirety but more miraculous than that the people of Little Rock decided not to keep silent. They chose to take a stand and changed the lives of their children and themselves.  Definitely take the time to read or listen to the author’s note. It is worth every minute of your time.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The average person walks less than five miles a day going about his or her normal routines. Yachting shoes, or boat shoes (think Sperry Topsiders), were originally invented to provide traction on boat decks. Silent marriages typically do not last. Queenie is an old fashioned name in England.

How do these things connect? Ask Harold Fry.

Harold Fry is a retired man in a marriage that has all but dissolved. He spends his days puttering around his house, but never accomplishing anything worthwhile. That is, until he is contacted by Queenie Hennessey, a friend from the past. Harold discovers that Queenie has cancer and a hopeless prognosis. Harold cannot muster the proper sentiment for the letter he must write to Queenie, so he jots down a superficial note and leaves his house to take the letter to the corner mailbox. Harold’s inability to articulate in writing what he feels he must finally tell Queenie prompts a journey that serves many purposes: healing, appreciation, remembrance, grief, human connection.

I love a good story, but a story that actually makes you feel something is even better.  You might think that a book about a man in his sixties walking over 500 miles at a clip of roughly 8 miles per day is predictable, but you’d be wrong. While the reader is left to wonder if Queenie was a catalyst in the demise of this marriage, we are given a chance to see both Harold’s and his wife’s perspective of the path they took to reach the walk that would change everything.

In addition to the story of Harold Fry, the novel provides an opportunity to view our society and the importance we place on items, events, people, and life.

Harold Fry, the pilgrim in boat shoes.

As a side note, the novel was also nominated for the Man Booker Prize 2012. This is also a debut novel from writer Rachel Joyce.

Guest blogger: Martha Boice

We at Fine Print are very excited to occasionally share contributions by local authors. We have asked them to share their thoughts about their favorite book, something they've read recently, or the role reading has played in their lives. Today's offering is from Martha Boice, who has written Maps of the Shaker West: A Journey of Discovery and Dating an Historic Home in Montgomery County, Ohio.
I read the first Harry Potter book about a decade ago. I enjoyed the movie, too. But the series did not take on significance until last summer when our eleven-year old grandson, Sebastian, and I attended an intergenerational Road Scholar program in Orlando. We put on the “Sorting Hat” and were placed in Ravenclaw House. We worked hard all week to do well so that Ravenclaw would get more points and “win” for the week.

Two college professors came one day to share their wisdom about the Harry Potter books. One compared the system of being assigned to Houses in the Harry Potter books with Plato's Republic. He drew a triangle on the board and divided it into three parts horizontally. The smallest group at the top were the guardians or philosopher kings who lived in shared quarters and were characterized by wisdom. The middle group constituted the soldiers or police who showed courage. The lower and largest group were the workers in the Republic, defined by self-discipline. We discussed how it feels to be assigned to a group. Slavery and the Indian caste system were brought into the discussion. There was also wand making one morning and a lively Quiddich game that afternoon. Butterbeer recipes were created and sampled another afternoon. Most of the grandparents knew a little about Harry Potter, but the kids "knew it all."

We visited the Harry Potter area of the Universal Island of Adventure theme park. There was a scavenger hunt to find and photograph various pieces of Harry Potter lore. It was amazing to me that books created by an imaginative woman, J.K. Rowling, could transform the world for young people as well as adults—even the older variety. More amazing is that most of the young people from 8 to 12 had read the last book of more than 700 pages. Sebastian had gone to a book store opening at midnight to get his copy when the last volume arrived. Now the books are on my reading list, too.

Shining a light on a broken heart

Please forgive me if my writing is a little stilted today. It's just that I'm trying to recover from a broken heart, you see. A little girl was lost at sea with a father who died on the boat. She was then found on a desolate lighthouse island by a couple haunted by miscarriages and stillbirths who desperately wanted a child. The girl's mother lived in grief, not knowing the fate of her husband and daughter. There was, it seems, too much love to go around.

Yes, this is all fiction, but debut novelist M.L.Stedman never for a moment let me believe this people weren't real, so give me a moment with my heartbreak. I truly lost a few hours of my life to the heartbreak of loss and disappointment of unfulfilled expectations that she deftly wove in the pages of The Light Between Oceans.  I give great credit to Stedman for not writing caricatures, as it would have been so easy to do in this situation. She presented so many shades of gray (as in complex, nuanced situations, not as in the book), that it seems absurd to think that knowingly taking another person's child could ever have seemed black and white. 

If you're okay with a little post-reading melancholia, I cannot recommend The Light Between Oceans enough. I've wondered before at whether it was possible to like a book without liking any of the characters. Now, I'm questioning if it's possible to feel more of a loss because I like all of the characters too much. They're all flawed, but the motivation driving each of them is clear. It's just unfortunate that the path they're driving leads them into a wreck directly at the spot where a four-year-old child stands. 

More Baths, Less Talking

In the beginning, there was Nick Hornby.  That is, the very first time I posted here at Fine Print, I wrote about Nick Hornby's collections of "Stuff I've Been Reading" columns from The Believer magazine. In the subsequent years, I've occasionally bored you   inundated you  shared with you my belief that Nick Hornby is a great author. And now, 138 posts and nearly 4 years later, Hornby's back. 

Hornby ended his column in 2008, resulting in the presumptive last collection, Shakespeare Wrote For Money after the success of The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs The Dirt. And then in 2010, Hornby returned, likening himself to the boomerang child who, after leaving with middle finger raised, comes back, tail between his legs, to reclaim his old bedroom.  Given that my children are too young to have ever left their bedrooms behind, let alone understand what a raised middle finger means (oh, just let me pretend) I can't predict how I would feel if they returned to the nest after a few years away. As a reader, though, I gave a sigh of relief at Hornby's return to the pages of The Believer to share, once again, his reading diary. The columns from January 2010 through December 2011 have been published in his newest collection, More Baths, Less Talking.

After years of devotion to Nick Hornby's books, I've discovered that I really like most of his fiction a lot. In fact, some of it I've loved.  His nonfiction, though, is what makes me quasi-obsessive about his writing. In his collections about what he reads, he articulates and illustrates the things I love best about reading. He explains how the books he's reading interact with his life, and how they become a part of it.  He writes with a forthright lack of pretension makes me laugh about topics like the post-WWII austerity in Britain, the global economic crisis, and John Updike.  Is my devotion to all things Hornby excessive? Perhaps, but when someone recently saw me reading it, she asked what was making me smile and look so happy in the midst of what had otherwise been a rather crummy day. The quick and easy answer: More Baths, Less Talking.

One person, One Voice, Makes a Difference

People often say that one vote doesn't really count.  I'm here to tell you it does.  One person can make a difference. One person who fails to allow apathy to color his view and chooses (yes, chooses) to say this must end can make a difference.

One man, Jay Leutze received a phone call from a fourteen year old girl who told him a mining company was gonna tear down Belview Mountain.  This was the towering peak above her home.  The people who lived there are 'mountain people' as they often prefer to be called.  They had a huge problem.  They were not city people, they had no power, no voice until Jay Leutze gave them one.  The people expected Jay who was not practicing law at the time, to stop the mining company from tearing down their mountain.  The mining company had several things the mountain people did not; money, power and political clout. 

This is the story of how the common people overcame big money/big business and saved their mountain. Stand Up that Mountain by Jay Leutze takes the reader to a remote corner of Appalachia. It gives the reader hope that when  people set their mind to righting something that is so wrong, others will listen.  Conservation groups flocked to help as soon as the story became news, but the work began with a simple phone call from a teenager who asked someone to get involved and make a difference. 

Guest blogger: Charlene Kochensparger

We at Fine Print are very excited to bring a series of posts by local authors. We have asked them to share their thoughts about their favorite book, something they've read recently, or the role reading has played in their lives. Charlene Kochensparger is the author of "Mama's Been Called Up," a story about a young girl's response when her mom is called to deploy, in Military Life: Stories and Poems for Children. She was inspired to write it after the librarian at her children's school commented there weren't enough books about children whose moms are deployed.  Charlene graduated from The Ohio State University, is a contributing writer for Suite101.com, and has been published in several magazines. Her family is traveling through the United States alphabetically and are currently on the letter "i." Charlene Kochensparger will be one of the authors featured at A Tasting With Friends at Benham's Grove tonight. Tickets are available at the door or online. For more information on this event or to buy tickets, check out this page.

My official bookworm status began in sixth grade, when a friend introduced me to Nancy Drew. I still remember my first mystery as clearly as if I'd met the girl detective herself. Mystery at the SkiJump, number 29, had a yellow spine, a snowman on the cover, a mysterious hand reaching out, and a bit of pine branch in the foreground. Between the covers, I found magic.

Nancy was so cool--she had style, a boyfriend, a convertible and enough moxie for half a dozen girls. She could attend a college dance, find a thief, escape kidnapping through her clever use of lipstick and garner gratitude from local police. She defeated the bad guys every single time. What a track record this girl had! She became my hero and I read every copy of the Nancy Drew mysteries my elementary school had...multiple times. I read them at breakfast, at the bus stop, late at night and whenever I could. It felt like Christmas when I would look at the range of titles waiting for me on the library shelf.

Today you can find Nancy in a variety of stories and guises, as the detective I knew and loved, in first-person books, as an elementary school detective, and in graphic novel form. I've read some of these, but my favorites are still the ones from my childhood. My old-school Nancy Drew books have a place of honor on my bookshelves (the newer versions are on my daughter's shelves) and I still re-read them when I get the urge. I credit my love of reading and writing to Nancy Drew  and I still wish I were as stylish, quick-thinking and capable as she.

Guest Blogger : Ferree Hardy

We at Fine Print are very excited to bring a series of posts by local authors. We have asked them to share their thoughts about their favorite book, something they've read recently, or the role reading has played in their lives. Ferree Hardy, a former employee of the Washington-Centerville Public Library, recently published her first book Postcards from the Widow's Path. The book is an examination of the the Biblical Book of Ruth through a widow's eyes, guiding new widows through journalling exercises to help them through grief toward growth. She enjoys reading, writing, boating, hiking, biking, and baking and is proud to say she wears her own holes in her jeans. You can follow Ferree's blog at www.widowschristianplace.com or www.ferreehardy.blogspot.com. Ferree Hardy will be one of the authors featured at A Tasting With Friends at Benham's Grove on September 13. For more information on this event or to buy tickets, check out this page.

Every type of loss—death of a loved one; loss of a home and belongings; loss of innocence and faith; loss of health; divorce of hope and dreams—every loss is a catastrophe to the one who suffers.

When college professor and author Jerry Sittser was driving home from a day trip with his whole family, their minivan was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Sittser’s wife, his mother, and four-year-old Diana Jane, were killed. He lost women from three generations of his life. Left to navigate grief with his three other children (ages 2 – 9), he too, felt his loss was catastrophic and I don’t think anyone would disagree.

A profound book crystalized from this experience—A Grace Disguised—How the Soul Grows Through Loss. Sittser’s mastery of thought, language and faith provide the bereaved with a looking glass of their new reality. The hope is not trite or clichéd; the grace is not delicate, it’s real.

Someone who’d experienced her own suffering and sacrifice gave me this book when my first husband and father of our three teens died instantly of a brain aneurysm the day before my 44th birthday. She told me, “Wait a while, six months or so before you read this. You’ll know when you’re ready.” Wise words for such a insightful pages; the early days of grief are filled with too many other things to process. I recommend reading A Grace Disguised when the shock begins to wear off and questions about life's fairness and justice start to pound. Better yet, read it now, before you need it.

The subtitle says it all--how the soul grows through loss. In my work with widows since my own loss, it’s been my joy to see that happen over and over again—the soul does grow if and when we let it. Jerry Sittser shows through example, not preachy formula, the sacred metamorphosis of applied faith.

Guest blogger: Debbie Price - Is Tom Sawyer a psychopath?

We at Fine Print are very excited to bring a series of posts by local authors. We have asked them to share their thoughts about their favorite book, something they've read recently, or the role reading has played in their lives. Debbie M. Price is the co-author with Stephen G. Michaud of The Devil's Right-Hand Man: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert Charles Browne. (Published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA). 2007.) Debbie Price will be one of the authors featured at A Tasting With Friends at Benham's Grove on September 13. For more information on this event or to buy tickets, check out this page.



Is Tom Sawyer a psychopath? Charming, manipulative, deceitful, impulsive, irresponsible, easily bored and heartlessly able to let his poor Aunt Polly mourn his presumed death, Tom could answer 'yes' to most of the questions on Robert D. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised.
But Tom has what psychopaths don't: a conscience, even if it kicks in a bit late. Samuel Clemens, writing as Mark Twain, masterfully shows us the difference between the kind of mischievous badness that set the moral arbiters of his day a twitch and true evil of the psychopathic variety.

Which brings me to one of my favorite literary discoveries of the summer: Mark Twain's Book for Bad Boys and Girls edited by R. Kent Rasmussen. On the jacket, Twain warns, "Be good and you will be lonesome." Who could pass up a tease like that? Tom, Huck and young Sam's own struggles with conscience fill the pages of this laugh-out-loud compendium of essays, speeches and excerpts. Twain's satirical wit bites at the ankles of the goody-two-shoes writers of his day with their "Sunday school books" about preternaturally perfect little boys and girls whose only reward, it seems, is to die young and go to heaven. To boys, Twain advises, "You ought never to knock your little sisters down with a club. It is better to use a cat, which is soft." And to girls, "You ought never to 'sass' old people unless they 'sass' you first."

No one gets their just desserts in these stories. A very good little boy meets a spectacularly gruesome end, while a wicked man gets what he wants from the people he abuses. (Hint: Twain knows a psychopath when he sees one.)  Hilarious bits aside, there is a seriously dark subtext here. I had to wonder, is Twain really rooting for the bad boys and girls? I could tell you what I think, but it will be a lot more fun for you to pick up Mark Twain's Book for Bad Boys and Girls and decide for yourself.

Guest blogger: Sharon Short

We at Fine Print are very excited to bring a series of posts by local authors. We have asked them to share their thoughts about their favorite book, something they've read recently, or the role reading has played in their lives. Sharon Short is the author of the forthcoming (Penguin Plume, 2013) novel, My One Square Inch of Alaska, in which a pair of siblings escape the strictures of the 1950s industrial Ohio town on the adventure of a lifetime. Sharon's book Sanity Check: A Collection of Columns includes 100 reader-favorites of her weekly humor and lifestyle column that ran in the Dayton Daily News from 2002-2012.Sharon has also published two mystery series (Josie Toadfern and Patricia Delaney) as well as short stories and essays. Additionally, Sharon is the Literary Life columnist for the Dayton Daily News, directs the renowned Antioch Writers' Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and is an adjunct instructor of creative writing and composition at Antioch University Midwest. She lives in Ohio with her husband and is the mother of two college-age daughters. You can visit her website, www.sharonshort.com or follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Sharon Short  will be one of the authors featured at A Tasting With Friends at Benham's Grove on September 13. For more information on this event or to buy tickets, check out this page.


My dad still chuckles about keeping a box in the front seat of his truck so that on his way to work he could return all the books I'd checked out from the public library. From my elementary school library, I received an award for checking out more books than any other kid; that was at the 200 book mark and I was in third grade. I'm sure by the time I finished elementary school, I'd read every book available. Another strong memory: my paternal grandmother giving me a box of goodies from the charity shop where she worked. It contained a fabulous pair of yellow shoes, and many books.


To say that I was a voracious reader as a child and that reading shaped my life from the beginning would be an understatement. Books that stand out from my childhood include Mystery of Hopkins Island (in that box with the yellow shoes) because it was about a teenaged writer who won an island--an island!--off the coast of Maine, went there with her siblings, solved a mystery, and found romance; Harriet the Spy, a classic that I read 13 times in a row, because I so wanted to have Harriet's moxie; all of the novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder (for example, Little House on the Prairie) and Louisa May Alcott (for example, Little Women), because I loved travelling back in time with these strong, young women; and Around The World in Eighty Days, because I yearned for adventure. Another novel that captured my imagination as a young reader was My Petition for More Space, a dystopian futuristic novel that made me realize that in addition to providing hours of imaginary adventure and intrigue, stories could serve as powerful vehicles for social and philosophical commentary.

As a teen, I was a fan of John Steinbeck and Ray Bradbury. I still am. I love books by many other writers as well. I'm certain my desire to write sprang, in part, from my love of reading. I barely and only vaguely remember an early time in my life before I was reading and writing; for most of my life, both have been as natural (and necessary) to me as breathing.

The other day, I heard an NPR interview with Thom Steinbeck, son of John. Thom said that he was about 13 when he asked his father what writers do. John Steinbeck answered that "the good ones reconnect human beings with their humanity." That summary rang so true for me as a reader. As a writer, I humbly hope I come close to achieving, in some fashion, that ideal.

Guest blogger: Kristina McBride - My Greatest Gift to You

We at Fine Print are very excited to bring a series of posts by local authors. We have asked them to share their thoughts about their favorite book, something they've read recently, or the role reading has played in their lives.  Kristina McBride is the author of The Tension of Opposites and One Moment, just published in June.  A former English teacher and yearbook advisor at Springboro High School, she has dreamed of being an author since she was a child and lived across the street from a library. You can find out more about Kristina at www.kristinamcbride.com, follow her on Facebook, Twitter , and Goodreads. Kristina McBride will be one of the authors featured at A Tasting With Friends at Benham's Grove on September 13. For more information on this event or to buy tickets, check out this page.

 I love books – everything about books – the way they smell and feel, getting lost in their stories, sharing those stories with friends, and, especially, thinking about the characters and plot days after completing a read. One of the best gifts I can offer to another is the exhilaration of a good read, and as an author, I’m often asked to share a book that I love. Funny enough, this is nearly impossible for me to do. Why? Because I love so many books, I can hardly focus on one. So, today, I have chosen to share three of my most recent favorites – a middle grade, a young adult, and an adult. It’s only fair that I hit all age groups, right? Right! So, let’s go . . .

Wonder – R.J. Palacio – Middle Grade – 8-and-up
Palacio’s Wonder is breathtaking and I truly believe that everyone should read it. That’s right, everyone. The main character, Auggie – one of those people who will slip effortlessly into your heart – is about to enter the fifth grade, but he has been home-schooled his entire life due to a terrible facial deformity. The book begins as Auggie’s parents challenge him with the idea of enrolling in a public school. Auggie bravely agrees to take this terrifying step, and he faces the trials that follow with a grace and kindness that we should all learn to exemplify. A great read for teachers and parents to share with any child 8 years or older – the discussions this one may inspire are endless. For a list of questions, see the discussion guide provided on the author’s website. (http://rjpalacio.com/for-teachers.html)

The List – Siobhan Vivian -- Young Adult – 12-and-up

Vivian’s The List alternates between eight complex characters – aged freshman through senior – showing the reaction of each after finding their name on the traditional “Ugliest/Prettiest” list that is posted widely throughout their high school on a yearly basis. As the eight main characters and others around them react to the labels and the ripple effect these labels initiate, the reader follows the characters as they deal with the tangle of emotions that come with cultivating a sense of identity. Dealing with serious topics (eating disorders, bullying, sexual identity), this book is powerful and moving, taking an honest look at the way status works in the lives of contemporary teens, but in a way that is never preachy or forceful. The writing feels real, the thoughts and dialogue ring true to the modern teen, and the characters are all unique and so very authentic. In a word: Ah-mazing.

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn - Adult – Very, Very Adult

Holy, oh my goodness, this book! I cannot say much for fear of spoiling, but let me just start with this. It’s twisted. Really twisted. And I absolutely loved it! (Insert giddy laughter). I’ll share the premise, but cannot go beyond the opening scenes without spiraling into the realm of Ruining The Book. Gone Girl begins with a couple who have been married for five years – exactly. On the day of their anniversary, the wife goes missing. The husband quickly becomes the primary suspect. And he is a very (very) unreliable character. Flynn uses diary entries going back to when the couple first met as a clever way of introducing the reader to the vanished wife. This book has it all: a fascinating weave of intricate characters; a complex, hold-on-for-the-ride plot; and an exceptionally smart and witty narrative. (Vulgarity Warning – this one would be rated R, just so you know.)

September's In the Queue

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling is blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising. It is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults and an exciting new beginning for her. The little town of Pagford is not a nice quiet idyllic English village. It is a town in turmoil. When Barry Fairbrother passes away unexpectedly, the largest war the town has ever seen begins. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Rowling's first adult novel is destined to be a blockbuster!



Those We Love Most by Lee Woodruff

How do unforgettable characters confront their choices, examine their mistakes, fight for their most valuable relationships and ultimately find their way back to each other.  If you want to know read this book and she how they manage it. This novel is an enthralling family drama which heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.  I can't wait to read more novels by this author.

 My Mother Was Nuts by Penny Marshall

This is your backstage pass to all things Penny. Learn how she made it all the way from the Bronx to Hollywood in her own voice she tells her hilarious account that shows you an intimate glimpse of the actress/director/friend.  She takes us on her journey to become the first woman to direct a film that made more than $100 million at the box office and describes her amazing start as a happy accident.  Prepare for a wonderfully insightful and laugh out loud story of Penny's life.