The Maytrees

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard reads like poetry with a love story or love stories woven in.

Annie Dillard captures you with the story of the Maytrees living in a very different from modern day Provincetown, MA. The beauty of the dunes and the descriptions of the night sky make me yearn to be there.

Toby Maytree tries to understand what love is by writing down quotes in a red speckled notebooks while never seeing what is in front of him. But patient loving, Lou, remains steadfastly committed to him. They have a handful of engaging and interesting friends. Deary who sleeps in the dunes. Reevadare an eccentric older woman.

They live cheaply and with great joy at the nature around them, but then things change. Toby Maytree moves to Maine and doesn't live quite so simply anymore.

In the end, he returns to the Cape and to the people and woman who still care for him after all he has done.

Strawberry Fields

Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka was a quick read . I think there I was supposed to get a deeper message but it just felt like a story about a group of transient workers who are shockingly clueless and are taken advantage of again and again.

The brief reviews on the back said it was funny, but I didn't really find anything humorous in the book at all. Maybe I read it at the wrong time.

Bird sWithout Wings

I finished Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernieres with a few days to spare before book club.



It's a long book detailing the lives of the townspeople of Eskibahçe during the Ottoman empire. I found the stories of the townspeople, Iskander the potter, Ali the Snowbringer, Rustem Bey the landowner and Leyla most interesting.

The parts about Mustafa Kemel (future Ataturk) and the war scenes were much more difficult to slog through.


I found it sad when the town was ripped apart with all the Christians being sent to Greece and replaced with other Muslims who didn't speak Turkish. It seemed like suddenly the town became smaller and more insulated than what Mustafa was aiming for.