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This book is very inspiring. From the beginning, I felt curious by the question "what is man?" The question is very intellectual,However, Martin Luther King gives simple answers to the question. There are quotations by John Donne and Shakespeare. Especially meaningful are Martin Luther King's thoughts about the New Jerusalem. It doesn't take long to read the book. It's very short. In the end, it is again about love.

Oh my goodness! Why did I choose this story for Friday the 13th? I'm not superstitious. I have a healthy respect for sidewalk cracks, the number thirteen and cracked mirrors. I need to add voodoo on to the short list of superstitions. I don't know much about voodoo. This morning it greeted me in Niyah Moore's novella "Beneath The Bayou."  I had to look up the term and try to remember old movies as well. I had heard of sticking pins in dolls. These are little ways of manipulating our world to get our way. It must make the gods unhappy, at least my God to see us putting a skeletal head before a prayer. "Beneath The Bayou" begins with an Afro-Brazillian and the location, New Orleans.  Are there more churches there or more people who believe in magic? That would make an exciting statistic.  I picked this novel because of the title. I like titles using the word "bayou." I remember a novel by Nora Roberts with the word bayou in it. The title is

Zadie Smith is really testing me. One moment I'm in America with the dancing stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The next moment I'm meeting the well known people of England whom I don't know. There is my test. These are people I've never heard or read about in my life. Don't worry; this doesn't hinder my reading. It makes my reading of Swing Time more exciting, more fun. Her novel is like bread. It's very nourishing. It's emotional in a dry sort of way. There are paragraphs where I want to remain for a few days. My weakness is that I don't like to stop and underline or highlight my thoughts. After all, you can't highlight or underline the beauty of a rose. All you can do is hold it lightly in your hand and sniff the delicious fragrance. I want to walk gently. I will take my time reading and learning about these two girls and their families who are so different from one another and yet the same in some ways. I can almost hear their la

  I have a weakness. I love deserts. That means I love sugar. Shame, shame, shame. As a matter of fact, I have an appointment with my dentist tomorrow. While I sit in the dentist's chair, I might think about the Danes. They strive to stay away from sugar. The Lego Company in Denmark "provide workers with free baskets of rye bread, fruit and carrots instead." I also respect the Danes because of their willingness to recycle. I've never been good at recycling either. Our family tried it for a while. It wasn't long before busyness took over our lives causing all  the trash to end up in one container. Denmark cares deeply about environmental issues. Obviously, they are thinking of future generations. Not until I started reading "A Year Living Danishly" by Helen Russell did I think about Denmark and its people. It's amazing how much we don't know about the countries and continents around us. We often forget to celebrate or appreciate the assets

What can I say? Luscious pleasure comes to mind as a way to describe the poetry written in "The Rain In Portugal" by Billy Collins. It's so easy to picture each of his thoughts: cats, months, rain, a weathervane. Would like to own a copy and read it again and again. I think of Billy Collins mind as brilliant. A mind which longs to share all of its discoveries with other people or readers. http://billycollinspoetry.com/

  In The McCullagh Inn in Maine by Jen McLaughlin, Chelsea has led a sad life. For one, her father spent years in prison. Then, she experienced an unhappy marriage with Richard and a guy named Jeremy broke her heart. Now the cartels are following her. Trying to fix up an aunt's inn in Maine becomes quite the ordeal. We follow Chelsea, Richard, her brother, Paul, through hardships. It's not easy for Chelsea to trust again. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? It's really not easy to fall in love again either.  I have a feeling Maine is very pretty. I wanted to read about some of the places in "The McCullagh Inn In Maine, but didn't see any bushes, hear the ocean or even a hill with blueberries. goodreads.com/authorJen_McLaughlin

I've had extravagant fun in New York and Paris, France while reading "The Christmas Mystery" by James Patterson. Although I have a deep respect for elderly people, I almost forgot about the horrible murder of the elderly, rich lady. In a way, I wanted to forget her part of the story because the way she was murdered seemed so coldly cruel. The murder is covered very quickly and the murderer found rapidly. I think this is because the author, James Patterson, wanted to keep a light atmosphere for the Christmas holidays. It is a Christmas story shiny with jewels and beautiful paintings and two wonderful characters named Moncrief and K. Burke. However, the paintings are forgeries. This fact really caught my attention. With a few facts given by Mr. Patterson, I learned a good bit about forged paintings. To me, these crimes take a certain amount of boldness because there is the physical change of the painting by removal of a name or making a name bigger or alt