Author: Juliana Lightle

Book 50 for 2025: “The Well of Loneliness”, Radclyffe Hall

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Published in the US in 1928, banned in England, this is the first, well known lesbian novel and without doubt one of the saddest books I have ever read. Hall was already an award winning and popular novelist when she decided to write this novel. The main character, Stephen Gordon, was born to upper class English parents. Her parents had hoped for a boy and chosen the name Stephen. When she was born a girl, they decided to call her Stephen anyway. From an early age, she was different and preferred to ride horses and do outside activities with her father who adored her rather than wear frilly dresses and do the activities common for English girls at the time. Her mother found all this off putting and never showed any love or nurturing toward her. Later in life, after an unpleasant incident with a young woman who uses Stephen as a distraction from her boring life, Stephen’s mother throws her out of the family home and she moves to London where she writes a highly successful novel.

During WWI, they are desperate for ambulance drivers and Stephen is assigned to an all female ambulance regiment in France. There she meets another young woman who becomes her lover.

An English friend, a successful playwright, convinces Stephen to move to Paris where there are no laws against homosexuality and where there is a large community of similar people, many of whom are highly successful in their careers. She and her lover live there for many years, and Stephen successfully continues her career as a writer. Then an old friend from her childhood shows up and everything changes.

Books 47-49 for 2025: See below

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Three books but since one was tiny, “The Strange Library” by Haruki Murakami, and two might not count since I did not read all of them?? At first I thought the Murakami book might be a children’s book until I arrived at the end; it definitely is not a children’s book. This young boy goes to the library to check out books like he usually does and finds a different woman at the circulation desk. She gives him some odd instructions about where to find new books after he returns the books he has already borrowed. He has to walk through a sort of maze, meets some very strange people, and various unpleasant events occur. And the end is terribly sad. The book is short, with a fold up cover and illustrations of all sorts on every other page. The back cover is sort of like a mandala.

Then I tried to read “Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang but only managed to get half way and quit. This is highly unusual behavior for me because if I start a novel, I finish it no matter what. In this case, reading about a woman who steals a dead friend’s unpublished novel and makes it her own which becomes a best seller and then whines when she is attacked because she is white and the friend is Chinese and some question whether is she committing cultural appropriation and is this ok. There is also a lot about the intricacies and unfairness in the publishing industry with so much detail that I gave up. Do I feel guilty? A little.

The third book is “Cheating Death: The New Science of Living Longer and Better” by Dr. Rand McClain. I read most of this nonfiction book, picking and choosing the parts that seem most relevant to my own life and health. I highly recommend this book because it gives useful advice about supplements that can help with sleep, arthritis, diabetes, etc. instead of using some of the usual NSAIDs and some prescription drugs. However, he is not anti-many popular medicines like metformin, for example, so this is not an anti-prescription medicine book. There is a very informative chapter, “Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy”, that details the pros and cons and suggests certain foods to eat, e.g. cruciferous vegetables, to counter some of the negative side effects. This book is useful in many ways. He also discusses some cutting edge therapies that are not available to most people but might be of interest to those searching for what is new and innovative regarding aging.

Book 46 for 2025: “Norwegian Wood”, Haruki Murakami

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This is the novel that shocked him by selling over a million copies and made him famous. It is the story of Toru, a young college student, whose two best friends from childhood change his life. One, his best male friend, commits suicide unexpectedly. Afterwards, the other friend, Naoko, a beautiful and mentally fragile young woman, and Toru spend their weekends just walking together all over Tokyo. As her mental health deteriorates, he increasingly falls in love with her and tries to help. Meanwhile, as Naoko becomes mentally more unstable, he meets another young woman, Midori, who is adventuresome, outgoing, and mentally stable. He does not want to give up on Naoko but is also drawn to Midori with whom he attends college.

The novel is written from the viewpoint of Toru. He tells not just about these women but also his very eccentric roommate at a dormitory and his friend, Nagasawa, who is very smart and disciplined but also quite immoral by Toru’s standards. Although the novel takes place in a Japan of several decades ago, Toru’s narrative and life seem quite modern and realistic.

One thing a reader from the US might notice is that all the characters go everywhere using public transportation. No cars are ever mentioned. Since several of the characters commit suicide, I decided to research the suicide rate in Japan. For decades the suicide rate of young people in Japan has been quite high and continues to be a concern there.

Although I am many decades older than all the main characters, I could not stop reading. This is a meaningful, very well written novel which I highly recommend. It is my second Murakami novel recently and I will read more.

Note: The version I read has the author’s notes from 2023 which are very informative and interesting. He apparently has to leave his home in Japan and go elsewhere, e.g. Greece, to write.

Santa Barbara Botanical Garden

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gurgling water

redwoods sighing

peace

Note: All the plants in this 78 acre garden are native to the area including the coastal redwoods.

Book 45 for 2025: “Atmosphere”, Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Joan, the main character, is an astronomer obsessed with the stars since childhood. She is content with her life as a physics professor until she sees an ad seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space program. While her initial attempt fails, she applies again and succeeds.

In the summer of 1980, she begins her astronaut training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, along with other trainees, including some from the military and others chosen because of their specialist expertise. She is one of those. Some of the top military pilots are nice and some like to make jokes at the expense of women. The women know they won’t all be chosen to go to space. As a consequence one woman in particular becomes excessively competitive. Others help each other and hang out together.

The novel details the rigor of astronaut training both mentally and physically, how trainees behave under stress, and how all the stress makes some people nicer and others increasingly rude. In the midst of all this Joan continues to care for her beloved niece and discovers a love she never dreamed of in her wildest dreams.

Book 44 for 2025: “Kafka on the Shore”, Haruki Murakami

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This is my first Murakami novel; it will not be my last. It’s fascinating and profound. A 15 year old boy, Kafka, runs away from home. His mother and older sister disappeared when he was four. He does not remember them. His father, a famous sculptor, ignores him. Although they live in the same house, they rarely see each other. After running away, he finds a private (but open to the public) library in another city and is taken in by the two people in charge of the library.

Nakata, another main character who is an elderly man, is not very bright due to a bizarre event that sent him to the hospital in a coma when he was a child. He talks to cats and makes fish and eel fall from the sky like rain. He becomes friends with another principal character, a young truck driver, who helps him out because Nakata reminds him of his grandfather.

The novel portrays the lives of these characters through their actions, dreams, and fantastical events. The unreal becomes real and people learn about their true selves through these events.

Book 43 for 2025: “Salt Bones”, Jennifer Givhan

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This novel surprised me by being a page turner. Once I read through the first couple of chapters, I had to keep going. In Southern California the Salton Sea, once much larger and the home of a thriving resort, now has shrunk and only a few people live there. Not far away lies the Imperial Valley, one of the largest agricultural regions in the US which is close to the Mexican border. This is the setting of the story of the little town of El Valle, the surrounding areas, and the tale of two families, one rich, white landowners, the other Mexican-indigenous. Mal, one of the main characters, has always lived on El Valle, worked hard, tried to forget the disappearance of her sister, and raised two daughters alone. Another local girl goes missing, then a week later her youngest daughter also goes missing. Frantic, she searches for answers, wonders if there is a link, and keeps dreaming of the local, indigenous legend of the horse headed woman, El Siguanaba. Meanwhile readers learn about the long friendship and affair between Mal’s oldest daughter, Griselda, and the son of the valley’s largest, white landowner, Mal’s difficult, disabled mother, her father, and brother’s, one of whom is running for office after going to Stanford, and the youngest brother, Benny, who is now a detective. Not only does this work of fiction combine Latinx and indigenous cultures, it also addresses environmental collapse, family secrets, and the complex relationships between mothers and daughters.

Book 42 for 2025: “Hope In A Time of Dying”, Len Leatherwood

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This autobiographical novel was written by a good friend of mine whose own family experienced some of the horrors of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. The main character, Hope Winterfield, and her husband make their living as antique dealers in Texas when her elder brother, Robert, a doctor with HIV, convinces them to move with their three daughters to the LA area to help him out. Because their antique business is not doing well and she wants to help her brother, they move, thinking that if it does not work out, they can move back to Texas.

Robert has an ex, Anthony, who is also his business partner, who hates Robert’s new love, the charming, handsome, younger man, Cody. Hope takes the job Robert has offered her, only to discover the dynamics surrounding the job, her brother, friends she has known for years, and many others are nearly overwhelming and that quite often nothing is as it seems. Added to all this is Hope’s difficult mother who often denies the realities of her own life. This is the tale of a family and complicated family dynamics where the main characters have to decide what it most important in life and what they should value the most and fight for.

Carrot Cake Bars

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These are easy to make and about as nutritious as a cake like treat can be. I used regular flour but might try almond flour next time.

3 cups lightly packed shredded carrots

1 heaping cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1 Tb. grated ginger or more to taste

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp BP

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2/3 cup avocado oil

1 cup unbleached flour

Grease an 8 inch square pan ( I used glass). Put the oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and spices in mixing bowl and combine. Add ginger, BP, and baking soda. Add carrots and walnuts. Stir to combine. Finally, add the flour and stir. Pour into the baking pan. Use spatula to level because mixture will be thick. Bake at 335 for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool before cutting into bars.

Book 38 for 2025: “Beyond the Door of No Return”, David Diop

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Translated from French and written by a Senegalese author, this novel takes place during the time of colonialism and the slave trade. In Paris of 1806, a famous botanist, Michel Adanson, is dying. He never has finished the botanical work to which he dedicated his life, and as he lays dying, his last words are the woman’s name “Maram”.

His daughter finds an unpublished memoir hidden in a cabinet. It is the story of his younger life, what happened to him in Africa, all addressed to his daughter so she can understand his story and the meaning of his last word. It is a tale both strange and sad, filled with healers and magic and tragedy. Maram, a fabled revenant, a woman of noble birth from the kingdom of Waalo, was captured and sold into slavery but managed to escape. While working on his quest to find new plants, Adanson hears about this woman and becomes obsessed with finding her. His guide, Ndiak, the son of a chief, accompanies him everywhere and they become friends. This is a story of adventure, romance, and the horrors and cruelty of the slave trade.

Note: The author won the International Booker Prize for his other novel, “At Night All Blood Is Black”. Readers of this will miss several books I am reading because I am a judge for a literary context and cannot discuss what I am reading for the next several weeks.