Reading The 1000 Books to Read Before I Die

 An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving A Review by James Romano Hey 1,000 Bookies!!   In honor of Thanksgiving today my blog post takes us to New Hampshire and the Louisa May Alcott children’s story, An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving.   In the 1880s, Louisa May Alcott wrote a series of short stories and publishing them under the title: Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag .   There were six volumes, and An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving is featured in Volume VI.   Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag had no connection to Alcott’s iconic character Jo March from Little Women , Little Men and Jo’s Boys although she seemed to use the popularity of Little Women to promote sales of her short stories. An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving is a cute tale revolving around one family and their preparations for the big day.   Thanksgiving is a holiday where history and legend collide.   As we all know a band of Englishman unhappy with religious persecution boarded a ship and headed to the New World, eventual...

" If the Devil is poverty, and hunger, and grief, then yes, I think they know the Devil.”  Fleetwood Shuttleworth, The Familiars   The Familiars A Review by James Romano Hello 1000 Bookies!  This week we open our portal and arrive in 1612 Lancaster, England.  The book we are reviewing is entitled The Familiars .  Written by Stacey Hall, this story is a historical fiction account of the Pendle Witch Trial, an actual historical event.  This was the October selection of my book club at work.  Book clubs are fantastic, and they expand our boundaries and horizons. Lancaster, England hosted these witch trials August 18 th and 19 th , 1612 where 11 suspected witches were tried.  10 were found guilty and hung, one of the group was acquitted.  This was 80 years prior to the more infamous Salem Witch Trials which swept through the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Yet as we will see there are several similarities which played a role in the ensuing hyst...

  “We were only a part of our time, it was our illusion that we were the most important part, but most Americans knew that we were not, and they were right” Murray Kempton Part of Our Time Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties Review by James Romano Hello 1000 Bookies!!  Our latest stop on the 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die is 1930s America for a nonfiction book entitled, Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties , by Murray Kempton.  This book is a collection of essays about American Members of the Communist Party during the 1930s. Murray Kempton was a journalist and a social & political commentator.  Mr. Kempton started his career as a copy boy for the great H.L. Menken at the Baltimore Sun.  Kempton's career would eventually take him to the New York Post (twice), the New York Herald Tribune, the New Republic and the National Review.  He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for political and social commentary.  Part of Our Time...