I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson

I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away by Bill Bryson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved most of this book. Some of it I found boring or flippant. However, it captured my imagination.


First of all, this book was published in 1999 and I am reading in 2018, 20 years later. Things have changed and I was motivated to find out how. Here are some of my research and comments: (Titles of applicable chapter is in parenthesis.)

1. 9/11 had not happened.
2. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series in 2016. 
(Take Me Out to the Ball Game)
3. Airlines don't serve food any more. (Room Service)
4. We now shop by E-tail. (Consuming Pleasures)
5. National Debt is not 22+ trillion it was 4.7 trillon in 1999 
(The Numbers Game)
6. # of registered vehicles  2018-276 million 1999-121 million 
(The Cupholder Revolution)
7. # of people in prison Now 2.3 million 1999 1.6 million
(The War on Drugs)
8. Amtrak has a train that stops in eastern and middle New Hampshire on its way to Boston from Maine and back again.
(The Waste Generation)
9. Global Temperature has increased 1.33 degrees since 1999
It was predicted in 1999 that would increase in a half a century
by 4 degrees and everything would burn up. ((The Waste Generation)
10. Toy 'R Us went bankrupt last year and closed all of their stores. They are now trying to figure out how they can reopen some of the stores. (Shopping Madness)
11. Libraries no longer shelve video tapes. DVD's only. (Our Town)
12. Walmart annual sales 1999 $120 billion 2019 $496 billion
(Our Town)
13. Opryland Amusement Park closed in 1997, but Hotel still is triving. (The Great Indoors)
14. Everyone likes free stuff. 1999-book matches 2019 ball point pens.
(How to Have Fun at Home)
15. The trend was enclosed malls. 2019 trend has reversed and shoppers want open malls where they can drive to the particular store and not have to get out and walk through the mall to get to it.
(The Great Indoors)

I read this book for my Book Club. I was ready to share my findings when I discovered I had a conflict and couldn't be there. I shared with another member and she is going to share if she finds it appropriate.

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LONDON, A Historical Novel

London by Edward Rutherfurd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wish they had taught history in high school like this. Mr. Rutherford takes the people and their stories through time. The stories are fiction, but the history is real. After I read Sarum I wanted to go North and read London. He moves the reader through different time periods, updating the families with stories of the descendants of the original families. A ancestral chart is included along with maps from the different eras. The chart was of the fictional families. I wish he had included a chart of the different kings and queens during each era*. If you are interested in English history from a personal perspective, I highly recommend London.

*As I read the book, I made my own chart of Kings and Queens that appeared in the book  and some events that occurred in each era by chapter. An accurate list can be found at this link: 
Kings and Queens of England & Britain.

The River: BC 54 
Druids, Celts, Caesar/Rome King Canute
Londinium AD 251
Romans
The Rood 604
Christian Church planned. Rome/Pope
Anglo Saxon
The Conqueror 1066
King Edward, the Confessor
The Tower 1078
King William I
The Saint 1170
Henry I. Henry II. St. Thomas Becket. Plantagenet's
The Mayor 1189
King Richard I, The Lionheart. Crusades. Knights Templar. Magna Carta
his Son, John ruled, but died. Then, his baby son and the Council lead by The Mayor ruled.
The Whore House 1295
Henry III. His son, Edward I, Edward II
London Bridge 1357
Edward III. Richard II (10 year old son)/Guardian, John of Gaunt. 
First Bible in English. Geoffrey Chaucer. Henry IV, Henry V,
Civil War of the Roses (two Houses of the Plantagenet's): 
    Red-House of  Lancaster  and  White-House of York (Tudor)
Hampton Court 1533
Henry VIII-Anne Boleyn-Elizabeth
                      Catherine Parr-Mary Seymour 
Printing Press, Lutherans,Protestants-Cranmer 
The Globe 1597 (Theatre)
Elizabeth I
Agri Economy, Spanish Armada, Protestant Church, 
70 years since Columbus discovered America,
Drake and Raleigh, English explorers
God's Fire 1603
King James/Scotland-Oliver Cromwell-Richard Cromwell-Charles I 
Mayflower, Idea of Government Debt introduced
Virginia, Massachusetts, Harvard
London's Fire 1665
Charles II
London burns, The Plague, Restoration of House of Commons and Lords 
St. Paul's 1675 (Christopher Wren)
Charles II, James II, William III of Orange/Mary Anne
Tories and Whigs,  London Rebuilt after the fire, Bank of London
Astronomy, Greenwich Mean Time, 
Gin Lane 1750
George I, George II
Bonnie Prince Charles/Jacobite cause died, Catholic
Bow Street, house numbered for 1st time. Hanovers/Protestant
Lavender Hill 1819
George III, Prince Regent/George IV, William IV
Buckingham Palace, Industrial Revolution (Coal-Fog)
Bank of England, Options trading/Stock Exchange
Small Private banks.
The Crystal Palace 1851
Queen Victoria
The Great Exhibition, Steam, Railroads, Passenger Trains,
Crimean War-Florence Nightingale
The Cutty Sark 1889
Queen Victoria
Telephone, Electricity, Jack the Ripper
The Suffragette 1908
Queen Victoria, Edward VII, Edward VIII, George V
Selfridge's Dept. Store, Halley's Comet, Motor Car
The Tube (Subway)
The Blitz 1940

George VI, Elizabeth II

WWI, Russian Revolution, Gone With the Wind

Women to vote.

The River 1997
Elizabeth II
Clean River Thames, Tate Gallery
Museum of London, Huguenots


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One Thousand White Women

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd 
by Jim Fergus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the story of May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women who, under the auspices of the U.S. government, travel to the western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among the Cheyenne Indians. The covert and controversial "Brides for Indians" program, launched by the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, is intended to help assimilate the Indians into the white man's world. Toward that end May and her friends embark upon the adventure of their lifetime.

This story was so well written I felt like it was a fictional account on a real event in history. It is not, but all of the events and characters are so well portrayed that I wanted to make it real. I knew when I was reading it that no good would come at the end. However, I loved the the story up until the end. I will admit that I skipped most of the end because I knew it would be too sad. Luckily, there was a 'Codicil' so I found out the rest of the story. 

A couple of quotes from the book that spoke to me:

"It is the one lesson I learned well at the asylum-to live each day as it comes, day by day, and to dwell neither on regrets of the past nor worries about the future-both of which are beyond my powers to influence." Spoken by May Dodd after she arrived as the Cheyenne camp. page 89

"Furthermore,..."is it possible that if a warrior believes in his 'medicine', he can make it come true? A fascinating concept, is it not? And one that lies at the very core of 'pagan religion."

"And perhaps of our own," I pointed out, "for now you speak of faith, Helen." 

Quite!", said Helen,..."That is to say, faith in the power of God, in the power of Art, in the power of medicine men and medicine animals-it's all one, finally, don't you agree, May?"
Conversation between Helen and May while Helen was painting birds on the Cheyenne warriors to protect them from bullets. page 137

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