Library Loot 7/15/09

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva at A Striped Armchair and Marg at ReadingAdventures.

I have returned a lot of books to the library because I am trying to commit to reading some of the books I own that are piled on my TBR stack. However, I realize that I will not be able to resist a great title staring me in the face when I am volunteering at the library. So these are the library books I have kept because they sounded too good to return without giving them a try.

I spotted this book somewhere but I can't remember where.
The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin
Synopsis:
In 1851 Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lifetime.
Based on historical records, including letters and diaries of Oatmans friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinoisincluding the massacre, her captivity, and her return to white societyto her later years as a wealthy bankers wife in Texas.
Oatmans story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan. Its themes, from the perils of religious utopianism to the permeable border between civilization and savagery, are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Oatmans blue tattoo was a cultural symbol that evoked both the imprint of her Mohave past and the lingering scars of westward expansion. It also served as a reminder of her deepest secret, fully explored here for the first time: she never wanted to go home.

I read the first two books in this series and absolutely loved them. If the Little House books appealed to you, this series might too.
The Porcupine Year
by Louise Erdrich
Synopsis:
Here follows the story of a most extraordinary year in the life of an Ojibwe family and of a girl named "Omakayas," or Little Frog, who lived a year of flight and adventure, pain and joy, in 1852.
When Omakayas is twelve winters old, she and her family set off on a harrowing journey. They travel by canoe westward from the shores of Lake Superior along the rivers of northern Minnesota, in search of a new home. While the family has prepared well, unexpected danger, enemies, and hardships will push them to the brink of survival. Omakayas continues to learn from the land and the spirits around her, and she discovers that no matter where she is, or how she is living, she has the one thing she needs to carry her through.
Richly imagined, full of laughter and sorrow, The Porcupine Year continues Louise Erdrich's celebrated series, which began with The Birchbark House, a National Book Award finalist, and continued with The Game of Silence, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

This book had my name on it as a request when I went in the library a few days ago. I didn't request it, my lovely, local librarian put my name down for it. With that kind of recommendation you know I'm going to read it. :D
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
Synopsis:
An enchanting first novel about love, madness, and Kenny G.
The Silver Linings Playbook is the riotous and poignant story of how one man regains his memory and comes to terms with the magnitude of his wifes betrayal.
During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends are saddled with families; the Philadelphia Eagles keep losing, making his father moody; and his new therapist seems to be recommending adultery as a form of therapy.
When Pat meets the tragically widowed and clinically depressed Tiffany, she offers to act as a liaison between him and his wife, if only he will give up watching football, agree to perform in this years Dance Away Depression competition, and promise not to tell anyone about their “contract.” All the while, Pat keeps searching for his silver lining.
In this brilliantly written debut novel, Matthew Quick takes us inside Pats mind, deftly showing us the world from his distorted yet endearing perspective. The result is a touching and funny story that helps us look at both depression and love in a wonderfully refreshing way.

This is our book club selection for this month.
Mary McGreevy by Walter Keady
Synopsis:
Sister Mary Thomas is certainly a free-thinking nun. But when she returns to her life as Mary McGreevy, there seems no end to her scandals.
Written with Walter Keady's characteristic charm and graceful humor, Mary McGreevy is the story of a young nun who abandons her convent — and every vow she's ever made public — for the sweetness of real life in Kildawree, the Irish village where her heart was twice broken. In 1950, leaving the convent is scandalous enough, but the village is still reeling from that first rebellion when Mary presents them with her next. The mysteries of faith fold into the more direct question of paternity when Mary chooses to have a child out of wedlock and not to name the father.
Mary McGreevy is a delightful page-turner, full of humor and insight and the sweet rewards of an irrepressibly human spirit.