May RandomCAT: All About Mom

The month of May is, to me, closely connected to my Mother. Not only is it her birthday month but, of course, here in North America Mother’s Day falls on the second Sunday in May. So when thinking of a theme for my RandomCat Challenge, my thoughts turned to mothers.

So my challenge is to read a book that has some connection to mothers. It could be a story that features a mother, or a story that reminds you of your own mother, a book that your mother gave you, a series that you and your mother share, a biography about a famous person that your mother particular admires, or even a book that features a hobby or interest that has a connection to your own mother. Your book would also qualify if the title includes the word Mother or refers to mothers in some way.

Please let us know here what book you will be reading and why this book reminds you of mothers.

Also don’t forget to add your book to the Wiki which can be found HERE

I leave you with the following thoughts on mothers:

I am planning on reading a couple of books that are part of series that my Mother and I are both reading. Fingal O’Reilly, Irish Doctor which is part of the Irish Country Doctor series, and Surprises in Burracombe by Lilian Harry, a series about a rural English village set in the 1950’s. Both these series are particular favorites of hers.

This will be the perfect time for me to finally get around to Tea Rose--my mom and I both loved the first two books in the series by Jennifer Donnelly (and it's fairly rare for us to enjoy the same books...), but then I never got around to the third, though she read it as soon as it came out and passed it on to me, which was ages ago! It's been on my soon-to-be-read TBR stack for ages, so this will be perfect :) And meanwhile, I get to go visit her next week, so I'll tell her I'm finally getting around to it!

My mother loved trees. Our yard was large, an acre, and when she and dad moved in she started thinking about what trees should be added to accompany the two that were already there. After much deliberation she planted a pin oak because she loved their shape, a tuliptree for it's green and orange flowers, and a white dogwood for it's showy spring display. Our yard was as pretty as any park because she also grew an abundance of flowers and flowering shrubs.

Growing up I spent many an hour in the yard under those trees. The kids in the neighborhood met under them in the summer for picnic lunches, and when the afternoons grew too hot for play, we read books or took naps in their shade. It's no surprise my brother became a forester!

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben has been on my shelf far too long, I'm glad I have this perfect opportunity to pull it down and read it.

My mum and I are sharing a lot of reads lately. I will count The Dragon at Noonday, by Ellis Peters, for this challenge because she will be reading this series when I am finished with it :) I could also count The Black Moon, by Winston Graham, because she has read that one and I still have to catch up.

I use tags to help me decide what to read, so I first tried "mothers" to see what's on my tbr and came up with this (amongst others):
The Age of Hope / David Bergen

The, I thought a better one for me might be "mothers and daughters", so some of my top choices for that include:
Love Walked In / Marisa de los Santos
Lives of Girls and Women / Alice Munro (which I'll also be reading for AwardsCAT)
Mudbound / Hillary Jordan
Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man / Fannie Flagg

I haven't decided what to read yet, but I can recommend Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story by Sue Monk Kidd.

I think I will read either Breath Eyes Memory or The Opposite of Everyone.

I'll have to look through my tbr, but this might be the perfect time to read Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout, about a mother and her daughter.

I will plan to read Light from Heaven, the final book in my mother's favorite series.

I just finished The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty and this would fit really well to this theme as it centers on three women, all mothers.

I'm planning on rereading a book which my mother enjoyed and urged me to read many years ago, I Take Thee, Serenity by Daisy Newman about a young couple wanting to get married before their families think they are ready to do so.
My mother was an artist, and enjoyed visiting the Lake Country in England. She visited there the spring after my father died, and then I met her in London and we toured London and Paris together. Therefore, I plan to read two books for CATWoman, which would also fit here: Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others and Art and Sexual Politics: Women's Liberation, Women Artists, and Art History edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker.

Pretty sure I'll end up reading Before We Visit the Goddess which is about mother/daughter relationships.

>6 LibraryCin: I'm also planning to read Age of Hope next month; it's our book club read and happens to be about a mother.

I'm also pretty literal, and have wanted to read A Mother's Reckoning for a while.

In terms of my mother, I'm not sure which mystery it will be, but my mom has always read mystery books, and we've read some of the same ones often. Hopefully, she will be finished Oblivion (that I gave her and my father for Christmas) soon so I can read it in May.

>14 raidergirl3: Not sure if I'll get to it or not. I'll probably start with some of the mother/daughter ones (certainly Alice Munro, as it fits AwardsCAT, as well), so I'll look forward to hearing what you think of it!

I just found a good one, Her Mother's Secret by Natasha Lester. Looks like a good read.

I may be the only person here who has yet to read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, but that's my planned read for this challenge.

>17 jeanned:, that is a great choice for this topic

I may read Mosquitoland by David Arnold, which is about a teenage girl who takes a bus across the country to find her mother.

I'm planning to read Close Company: Stories of Mothers and Daughters.

I have 2 books for this challenge. I am reading a biography of Shirley Jackson called Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin. She had 4 children. It also counts towards the CATWoman and AwardsCAT and possibly the CultureCAT but that is a bit dodgy.

I'm going to also count The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman. For years, since I was in high school, my mom wanted me to read the Leaphorn/Chee series. She told me over and over how much I would love it. I never did get started to reading it until she passed away and I do love it. I am on book 15 of 18 this month. I read one every other month. I do love this series and I wish my mom was here to talk about it. Mom knows best!

I have so many that would fit this category. My mum was a fashionista (unfortunately not passed on to me) and I have Christian Dior a biography by Marie-France Pochna. Mum lived in Northern Ireland, which leads to many possibilities.

But she was a big fan of Hamish Macbeth, so my final choice is Death of a Dreamer by M.C. Beaton which happens to be my only unread Hamish Macbeth story on the tbr shelf.

I just finished Saga, Vol. 7 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples. The Saga series has a major character who's a mother on the run with her family.

I'm still planning on another read for this thread, but I finished Cane River as of last night, having just started in May 1rst, and it's a perfect fit here. It explores three generations of women in a family, focusing on connections between mothers and daughters. For readers interested in historical fiction that covers generations or looks at race and/or slavery, I'd absolutely recommend it.

>24 whitewavedarling: Thanks for the tip Jennifer. I have Cane River on deck for my challenge, but I think I'll move it up. I'm reading Breath Eyes Memory and it's wonderful.

>25 lsh63:, I'm glad :) I think I was put off from reading it when I realized the author had written it based off of her own history--I've read some books along those lines that just weren't reading, and took it as something of a warning sign--but I'm so glad I finally got to it. I'll have to put Breath Eyes Memory on the shortlist of works by Danticat to look up; I do love her writing, but haven't gotten around to that one...

My mom recommended Big Little Lies which I hope to start next week!

I finished Death of a dreamer by M.C. Beaton - another entertaining yarn in the Hamish Macbeth series.

Perfect choice for the category because my mother not only was a fan of Hamish Macbeth but she shared the name of his main squeeze, Priscilla.

Read the most perfect book for this challenge - Before We Visit the Goddess. It's a multi-generational tale, set partially in India as well as the US, about three generations of mothers and daughters.

I am using The Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler for this randomCAT for mom. The book is about family and features Abby Whitshank as mother and her husband Red and their children and grandchildren.

I read The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon, which fits this challenge as several of the main characters are mothers and one of the themes is loss of a child.

Boy, Snow, Bird / Helen Oyeyemi
3 stars

I think the book started in the 1930s. Boy is a girl who was raised by her abusive father; her mother wasn’t around. She doesn’t leave until she is 20ish, when she hops on a bus to take her anywhere else. She ends up in a small town and tries her best to fit in. She does marry and inherits a stepdaughter, Snow. Boy later has a daughter of her own named Bird.

This was told mostly by Boy’s point of view, but the middle section is from Bird’s point of view when she’s 13. It was… different. I’m rating it ok, as some parts of it were interesting, but some of it wasn’t. It started off really promising, when Boy was younger, and I probably found that the most interesting part of the book. It wasn’t a long book, so it didn’t take long to read. It was hard keeping track of some of the characters. I skimmed over some of the long paragraphs. At first, I enjoyed the letters between the two sisters, but then they got wordy and talked about things I really didn’t care about… things that I’m not sure really meant anything to the story. Boy made some odd decisions/choices and I didn’t like her much of the time.

June is finally up: http://www.librarything.com/topic/257589

Sorry!

My choice for this month was We Never Asked for Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. This is the story of single mother Lettie, who has been a hopeless, selfish mother for her son's first 15 years. Then her parents go back to Mexico leaving her to look after her children alone. Lettie panics, but then starts to learns what it really means to be a mother. It was a very good book, four stars from me.

This is tagged "mothers and daughters", though I didn't find there was a lot of interaction between them, but with the tag, I'll use it here.

Lives of Girls and Women / Alice Munro
3 stars

Del is a young girl growing up in small town Ontario. This follows her from a girl through high school. It’s set around WWII and a bit after.

There really wasn’t much to this book. I’ve been wanting to try Alice Munro for a while, but am not a fan of short stories, so that pretty much left me with this book. It was ok, but really nothing happened, so for anyone looking for some kind of plot, this won’t provide it.

My daughter gave me a book for Mother's Day, Keep Me Safe by Daniela Sacerdoti. It was perfect for this theme. After a stressful experience 6 year old Ava asks her mum Anna to see her other mother. Anna has no idea what she is talking about and the book is about Anna and Ava trying to understand where these thoughts and memories are coming from. Plus there is a good dose of romance thrown in for good measure.

Although I had wanted to read a couple of books for this theme, the month has been so hectic that I have had to scale back on my plans. I did complete Surprises In Burracombe by Lilian Harry, the 10th book in a series both my mother and I really enjoy.

Finished The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly--historical fiction, full review written. Lord, how I love this writer's work.

Secrets of Eden / Chris Bohjalian
3.75 stars

Steven is a minister in a small town. ****This may be a , but it’s revealed fairly early on.**** Little do most people know, he’s been having an affair with one of his parishoners, Alice. ****END POSSIBLE **** Alice is married, but her husband is abusive toward her. Alice and her husband have a teenage daughter, Katie. When Katie’s parents are discovered one Monday morning by Alice’s best friend, Ginny, it appears that Alice was murdered by her husband, who then killed himself.

Overall, I thought this story was very good. I listened to the audio, which was done well; there were four different narrators for each of four parts, each part told by someone different. We got points of view from Stephen; Kathleen, a lawyer; Heather, an author who is famous for her books about angels, whose parents also died when she was a teen via a murder-suicide by her father; and Katie. I would have given it 4 stars, except for a quarter star deduction for Heather’s boring angel stuff. I could have done without any of the angel stuff. Heather’s part of the story was the least interesting to me (though not all bad), but add in those angels, and the book lost a ¼ star. I quite enjoyed the rest of the book, though.

Though I don't mention it in my review or summary, there are parts of the book that focus on Nell's relationships with her sister and her mother.

The Perfect Royal Mistress / Diane Haeger
4 stars

In the mid-17th century in England, Nell grew up in a brothel. Her single-mother was a prostitute and a drunk, and her sister followed her mother’s footsteps to become a prostitute. Nell wasn’t going to do that, so she started off selling oranges outside a theatre. From there, she moved on to become a famous, well-loved actress, where she managed to catch the eye of King Charles II and she went on to become one of his many mistresses.

I really liked this. I had read one previous fictional account of Nell, but on looking back at my review, I wasn’t crazy about how that one was written, but I found this one very readable. There were parts that focused more on Charles and a bit of the politics of the time that wasn’t as interesting to me, but overall, I quite enjoyed this story. Just an fyi that Nell was a real person.

I read Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell, about a young girl who has an illegitimate child. There was an abundance of tears and lots of praying, but she handled the subject in a way I found surprising for a Victorian novel.

I realized that my last read for May, Who's That Girl? by Mhairi McFarlane, fits this CAT because the protagonist has to sort through a lot of complex emotions surrounding her mother's death.

Nearly a week late, I have finished reading Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others. My mother was an artist, and really enjoyed her visit to the Lake District of England. This is a beautiful book. However, it was a challenge to read. It is printed on relatively shiny paper which caused a glare. The text mentioned many illustrations (by number); however, often the illustrations were not with that section of text, and it was inconvenient looking for the illustrations. Also, for a reader who is not familiar with the English countryside and towns, a map would have been very helpful.

Although the book was published as a companion to a 1987/88 exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, it is not a catalog. The book contains a brief biography of Potter's life and discusses her artwork in many fields including her interest in fungi and fossils (and her drawings of them). There are over 450 illustrations, most of which are of her artworks, although there are some photographs of people and places. A list of the illustrations usually with the medium, the size and current location (i.e. museum) is provided at the end of the book. The last couple of chapters talk about her impact on the Lake District; she was a Lake District farmer specializing in sheep, and she left her land to the National Trust.

OK, a bit late, but I read the The Tempest by Shakespeare. My mother was a huge lover of the Bard, and this is one I had never read. Interesting, but won't be my favorite.