Hunt for the Skin Walker

Hunt for the Skinwalker - Science confronts the unexplained at a remote ranch in Utah    Colm A. Kelleher, Ph.D. and George Knapp

I was drawn to this book because of the title - as someone interested in all things Native American and/or paranormal. The fact that there was a scientific approach to unexplainable activity was also important. Too many times skeptics note the lack of "scientific" basis for the paranormal.

By way of background: "Skinwalkers" are NA witches, usually in the Navajo tradition, that are more than tricksters - they can be evil doers and use black magic. The "Gorman" ranch (names were changed) was on land that had seen more than its share of the unusual for hundreds of years.

I was impressed with the strength and stubbornness of Gorman family who suffered through financial and psychological hardships because of the other-worldy chaos on their land. The chaos included large blue orbs and UFOs over their land, the murder of their dogs and the mutilation of their cattle, along with sightings of strange creatures including a wolf-like beast that was able to withstand bullets and disappear.

The most practical explanation - and there is one from science - is that the multiverse theory - many universes with the ability of some beings to go between them.

This was a fascinating book about a fascinating subject.

Nella Last's War - the Second World War Diaries of Housewife, 49

I did not want Nella to leave when she finished with her diary of the years from 1939 through 1945. She'd become a friend and I her confidante. So I went on Amazon and now I have Nella Last's Peace and Nella Last in the 1950s. Her time dovetails from my parent's and into my childhood and I want to revisit it.

As for Nella's first book (she had always wanted to be a writer), I will use her own words:

22 January 1940
I feel as if my efforts are so tiny and feeble - so little to help all the trouble and pain in the world.
(Nella had started to do volunteer work for the Woman's Volunteer Services as soon as war had been declared.)

5 March 1940
...I thought of all the mothers whose boys have gone off to fight and who suffer, and I felt pity wrap me like a flame.
(Nella knew that at least one of her sons would see combat.)

12 May 1940
But a riot of pink and white apple blossom, soft misty fields, woods of hyacinth blue...
(I've been to England in the spring and her descriptions actually made me homesick.)

3 January 1941
Dorothy L. must have been pleased to see her brainchildren come to life.
(Nella wrote this after seeing a movie based on a Dorothy L. Sayres book. Nella was a great reader and the icon Dorothy L. was one of her favorites)

1 August 1943
On the way women were beginning to dress and other changes, in herself:
I feel pants are more the sign of the times than I realised. A growing contempt for men in general creeps over me...I'm beginning to see that I'm a really clever woman and not the 'odd' or 'uneducated one' woman that I've had dinned into me.
(Nella had spent a marriage catering to an unresponsive husband and the war had caused her to discover that she was quite good in managing a business, albeit a Red Cross second hand shop.)

6 May 1945
On seeing newsreels of the concentration camps:
No power can be left so alone that, behind a veil of secrecy, anything can happen.


Nella was a woman of her time and ahead of her time.
I cherish "knowing" her.

Two Totally Different Books

Winter Sea - Susanna Kearsley
Winter Sea is that rare romance book that is almost a time travel/historical/modern story. Kearsley deftly travels from Jacobite Scotland to modern Scotland without missing a beat, bringing the reader along for a ride filled with interesting characters. A historical romance author finds herself in the ruins of a Scottish manor and in the mind of one of her own ancestors.

I learned more about the formation of the British union and the attempt by the Jacobites to disrupt that union by placing a Scottish king on the Scotland's throne.

Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
This is the story of the life of two co-joined but separated twins told narrated by one, Marion Stone. The brothers are separated at birth by the doctor who informally adopts them when their birth mother dies. Of mixed race, Caucasian and Indian, the brothers lives seem to mirror the turmoil that arises in their adopted country, Ethiopia.

As  a nurse I usually forgo reading any books about the medical profession but CFS was our book club selection. I enjoyed the story of the brothers Stone and learned more history, modern history.

Note: I am continuing to work toward the 100 book mark - about half-way there.

Nella Last's War, Housewife, 49

Before I start this blog over again, or renew it by writing about the books I've finished reading, I wanted to mention the one I am reading: "Nella Last's War".

Nella Last, a housewife who lived near Liverpool during World War, was part of England's Mass Observation Project - citizens who kept diaries during the war.

Nella has quickly become part of my life, as I've become part of hers. I've started crocheting - not for soldiers but for other charity projects- and today I actually made vegetable soup from scratch. Cooking things from scratch is something I rarely do, but after reading about Nella's wartime cookery and how she saved bits of this and that and came up with a meal, I thought I should use my time to do something equally constructive if not equally frugal.

The many Nellas of this time period are easily forgotten because they didn't drop the bombs or storm the beaches; however, they were just as important as those that did. They were (are) the backbone of a country that survived.

Many of us today can learn from them - and more than crocheting for charity or making soup from scratch.