It's Monday, What are You Reading? Dr. Martha: The Life of a Pioneer Physician, Politician and Polygamist by Mari Grana

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

Dr. Martha: The Life of a Pioneer Physician,  Politician and Polygamist 

by Mari Grana

This post is the one-hundredth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

This was an ‘advance reader’ book I got from LibraryThing.  

This was the review I wrote:
 
“A well balanced commentary on the Mormon view of women's status during the lifetime of Dr. Martha (Mattie) Hughes Cannon during the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dr. Martha's triumphs and tribulations are illustrative of both the good and the bad of the implementation of Mormon principles within the territorial and federal jurisdictions during this period. As the first elected woman State Senator in the nation, the status of Dr. Martha (Mattie) in American history is secure. This book well presents that status. I highly recommend it to those with an open minded interest in these subjects.”

Book Description from Amazon:

Dr. Martha tells the fascinating story of Martha Hughes Cannon, the first woman elected to the Utah state senate—in 1896. She was a polygamist wife, a practicing physician, and an astute and pioneering politician. In compelling prose, author Mari Graña traces Cannon’s life from her birth in Wales to her emigration to Utah with her family in 1861, her career as a physician, her marriage, her exile in England, her subsequent return, and her election to the Utah state senate. Her husband was the Republican candidate she, a Democrat, defeated in that historic election.

Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Golden Age by Jane Smiley

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 
Golden Age by Jane Smiley

 This post is the ninety-nineth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-novel-Hundred-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00WPQ9904/

I got this one in hard-copy the day it was published, from Amazon.com. As I write this, I’m near the end of the one hundred years covered by the trilogy…a few years into the future. The future she envisions is a bit apocalyptic… but seems to fit with he overall narrative of the three books. Having lived the last three fourths of these years, I was fascinated by how similar the lives of her Langdon descendants are to people I know and have known… and also some significant differences. She is a good story-teller, that is for sure! ;-)


Book Description from Amazon:

From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize: the much-anticipated final volume, following Some Luck and Early Warning, of her acclaimed American trilogy—a richly absorbing new novel that brings the remarkable Langdon family into our present times and beyond

A lot can happen in one hundred years, as Jane Smiley shows to dazzling effect in her Last Hundred Years trilogy. But as Golden Age, its final installment, opens in 1987, the next generation of Langdons face economic, social, political—and personal—challenges unlike anything their ancestors have encountered before.

Michael and Richie, the rivalrous twin sons of World War II hero Frank, work in the high-stakes world of government and finance in Washington and New York, but they soon realize that one’s fiercest enemies can be closest to home; Charlie, the charming, recently found scion, struggles with whether he wishes to make a mark on the world; and Guthrie, once poised to take over the Langdons’ Iowa farm, is instead deployed to Iraq, leaving the land—ever the heart of this compelling saga—in the capable hands of his younger sister.

Determined to evade disaster, for the planet and her family, Felicity worries that the farm’s once-bountiful soil may be permanently imperiled, by more than the extremes of climate change. And as they enter deeper into the twenty-first century, all the Langdon women—wives, mothers, daughters—find themselves charged with carrying their storied past into an uncertain future.

Combining intimate drama, emotional suspense, and a full command of history, Golden Age brings to a magnificent conclusion the century-spanning portrait of this unforgettable family—and the dynamic times in which they’ve loved, lived, and died: a crowning literary achievement from a beloved master of American storytelling.


Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)