Turn the Page...Tuesday

It's Turn the Page...Tuesday, an online reading group that Adrienne at Some of a Kind has been hosting forever.  Read what you want and then tell us about it on the first Tuesday of each month. Couldn't be easier!  Today I'm going to tell you about two of the eight books I finished in May.

Doc 

~ Mary Doria Russell

'He began to die when he was twenty-one, but tuberculosis is slow and sly and subtle.  The disease took fifteen years to hollow out his lungs so completely they could no longer keep him alive. In all that time, he was allowed a single season of something like happiness.'

This is the first paragraph from the novel Doc.  This was a real fantastic read about the life of John Henry "Doc" Holliday before the O.K. Corral shootout.  It takes place for the most part in Dodge City, Kansas where Doc lived out a few years of his life as he struggled to live with his disease, and struggled to live with Kate.  Doc Holliday was a young man and not the wild killer that so many stories have made him out to be. He was a soft-spoken Georgian gentleman who had bad flares of temper, would rather practice dentistry than gamble, loved to play the piano, had a biting tongue, and was quick with a gun.  

 The author did an incredible job with research and writing a novel that tells us so much more of who Doc was then any of the other countless stories and movies that have been written about him.  That being said, I love the movie Tombstone and read every single word uttered by Doc in Val Kilmer's "Doc voice". It made it all the more fun! 

This was a great book.  I really enjoyed it and am now putting it on the Caveman's nightstand because I think he should read it too!

From Goodreads:

Born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday arrives on the Texas frontier hoping that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Soon, with few job prospects, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally with his partner, Mária Katarina Harony, a high-strung, classically educated Hungarian whore. In search of high-stakes poker, the couple hits the saloons of Dodge City. And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and a fearless lawman named Wyatt Earp begins--before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety. 

My Beloved World

~Sonia Sotomayor

'I was barely awake, and my mother was already screaming.  I knew Papi would start yelling in a second.  That much was routine, but the substance of their argument was new, and it etched that morning into my memory.'

And so begins My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor. This first paragraph is pretty powerful and epitomizes the strength this woman possesses.  She was only six years old, newly diagnosed with diabetes when she wakes up to hear her parents fighting about who had to give her her insulin shot.  Sonia realized that if it was such a hard thing, then she would never again be able to go spend the night at her grandmother's house, so she got up, walked into the kitchen and begin to boil the water herself to sterilize her needle so she could give the shot to herself. She knew that it was going to have to be up the her to take control. Pretty sad at six years old. 

I read this book as the May read for the book club that I'm in. It is not a book I would have picked for myself and I even thought, "Ugh! A political memoir. Shoot me know." , but in all honesty, it was really good.  Sonia Sotomayor was the 3rd woman and the very first Hispanic to be appointed to the US Supreme court. She tells her story from childhood to the time of the appointment in a voice that is not self-pitying and is there to tell a story and give hope to others.  I have all the admiration in the world for this strong, resilient woman who has given back simply by telling her own story.   

Highly recommended!

From Goodreads:

The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon. Now, with a candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.

Here is the story of a precarious childhood, with an alcoholic father (who would die when she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother, and of the refuge a little girl took from the turmoil at home with her passionately spirited paternal grandmother. But it was when she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes that the precocious Sonia recognized she must ultimately depend on herself.  She would learn to give herself the insulin shots she needed to survive and soon imagined a path to a different life. With only television characters for her professional role models, and little understanding of what was involved, she determined to become a lawyer, a dream that would sustain her on an unlikely course, from valedictorian of her high school class to the highest honors at Princeton, Yale Law School, the New York County District Attorney’s office, private practice, and appointment to the Federal District Court before the age of forty. Along the way we see how she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends and their children. Through her still-astonished eyes, America’s infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book, destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery.

What have you been reading lately?