March Book Review <3

We are back home and settling into the idea that it’s time to clean up gardens and home to get ready for the busyness of spring and summer! We had a wonderful vacation and I will share some travel details and photos (of course…) but first….

The March Book Review

I managed to read two very different books in the month of March. I loved them both although one made me so sad and angry and one made me think and smile often. 

Let’s take a look at them:

John gave me Killers of the Flower Moon a long time ago to read. I am ashamed to say it got buried in the stacks next to my chair and I finally discovered it early in the month. I couldn’t hardly put it down. 

The full title is Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. This book, written by journalist David Gramm, is about a chunk of American history that certainly was not covered in any American History class I ever took. 

The Osage tribe was displaced in 1803 from their ancestral land in Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas to various locations until finally they were allowed to purchase a barren piece of land in Oklahoma in the 1870’s. 

As they negotiated the contract with the government, they somehow worked through it to own everything above and below the ground. This proved very profitable when oil was discovered on the seemingly useless stretch of land. 

This resulted in the Osage becoming some of the wealthiest people in America at the time.

Unfortunately, because they were Indians the American Government was able to take away most of their rights. This brought about “guardians” who managed their money. These were usually businessmen and bankers who took advantage of the situation. 

It gets far worse. 

The Flower Moon is a time of year on the Osage calendar and it was during the Flower Moon that several outright murders and suspicious deaths began to happen in the 1920’s. There were investigations that ran into dead ends (no pun intended, believe me as some of the investigators were also killed). 

Eventually the newly formed FBI got involved and there were arrests made. Sadly the trials were rigged and the guilty did not see justice. There is more to this as David Grann used old records from investigations that had been sealed up and stored away, but he was able to access. He also interviewed descendants of the tribe who knew things no one listened to. 

I don’t think it will ruin it if I tell you that there were many more murders than were ever discovered as they used slow poisoning to make it look like a wasting away type of disease. 

The whole murderous reign was done by many people and always to gain the rights to the oil underground of the victim. 

And yes, by white citizens with all the rights that the Indians did not have. 

The corruption and greed is nauseating, but so important to read about. 

The book is well written and while it is all based on records and truth, it reads like a novel in that it is not dry. You have a chance to get to know the people Grann is writing about. 

I highly recommend reading this one. I know there is a movie that was made as well and we do plan to watch it sometime. 

If you don’t want to read the book, I encourage you to use the internet and read the facts of this story. It is a heartbreaking part of our nation’s history and it is so important that we acknowledge and repent of this kind of thinking. 

As Christians, we don’t have to have done the act to weep, mourn and ask God to forgive us on behalf of this country. We cannot be great if we do not turn from this kind of greed and hatred of others. 

And now for the awkward shift to the second book I read. 

I saw Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson on a shelf in the library and liked the cover.

Per usual when it comes to fiction, I googled searched “explicit material” for the book and was pleased to discover that it is described as quiet, thoughtful and tender. I decided to take a chance and found it to be all of that. 

The book begins with a letter written by a woman in England named Tina to a professor who works in a museum in Denmark asking some questions about something she had learned from him in her teens. He had written to one of her high school classes, I think, with explanations about a man’s body discovered in a bog and the history around his being there during the time he lived. 

The professor has passed away and so an employee of the museum thoughtfully responds with answers to her questions about the Tollund Man (which is a real thing) and thus the rest of the book is their letters back and forth. They are both middle-aged with grown children and processing different kinds of grief and the changes that life brings as we age. 

I am a letter writer and love receiving letters. I love processing thoughts and feelings. So, of course, I enjoyed learning about who they were, their families and circumstances, their thoughts and questions and their stories of their separate journeys in two different worlds through their words back and forth.

If I had to guess I would say both were Enneagram 4’s and it was enriching to read their perspectives. While I have said that there is nothing explicit, their world view is different from mine. Part of it is the fact that the characters come from a different culture (and differ in culture from each other) and part of it is basically there is no faith background for either of the characters except for some legalism in her background. 

The author gave me a glimpse into how others might think and believe who are different from me and this makes me more compassionate.

Youngson is not trying to preach an agenda or persuade the reader to agree with choices and paths of others. In fact, it is more an interesting look into how these two processed and shared their own questions. 

It didn’t change my beliefs and I did not feel manipulated to try and change.

Rather it strengthened them as I thought how different things would have been for everyone if they had had a healthy relationship with Jesus. It also offered me new perspectives of aging that will help me mature.

These do not have to do with faith but with the common experience of humanity. I will include an example in closing below. 

Some parts are hard on the heart and some are heart warming.

One of the passages was particularly sweet and I would like to end with one that made me smile as I could relate to it so well. 

On a train ride, Tina is offered a seat by a younger woman who grabs the hand rail to stand. Here is what she writes in her letter:

“The first train was full; I had booked a seat, but there was a young man already in it, fast asleep, and I did not like to wake him, so I was prepared to stand until the next station, but then a girl stood up and offered me her seat. I rarely go anywhere by public transport, so I was shocked to find I have slid over some line that marks out those young enough to stand from those who are owed the respect of the young and must be made to sit. I nearly refused but realized in time that would (a) make me look like an old curmudgeon and (b) would rob her of the satisfaction of doing the right thing. So I accepted, with a smile. She smiled back and she had the sort of smile that was a pleasure to see.” Pg. 205

I have been in this situation in recent years of being offered a seat. It was, as Tina says in her letter, shocking. It was a blink ago I was the one standing for someone older. I don’t know that I responded with such grace and insight on my first experience. I robbed someone of their chance to do the right thing and perhaps myself of a smile from a stranger that I could cherish. 

I am learning. 

If you love the thought, reflection and wording that fills that passage, you would enjoy reading the letters of these two as they find a space in the world to think through things with someone who listens and responds. 

I highly recommend reading this one with a friend so you can talk about it a bit and compare notes and observations. 

Have a blessed day…and let me know….what are YOU reading?