January Book Reviews | Captain Freeman Inn

by Donna Cain,

Pleased with my mission of reading more, watching less TV, but not so pleased with my book choices this month. I have always enjoyed history and love reading a well written historical novel. I also enjoy a good old fashion love story but as I get older I find that I get impatient with the ones that are too predictable and not well written. I follow several food bloggers and was delighted when two of them started a book club. Silly me for not reading the reviews first as most of them were not something I would recommend.

Always like to start with my favorite book of the month and in this case it’s a classic that can be read in an evening. The Outermost House was written by Henry Beston  and is a chronicle of the year he spent on Coast Guard Beach. Robert Finch wrote a wonderful introduction which gives a background to Beston’s life. When Beston first came to the Outmost House in the summer of 1924 he only planned to stay 2 weeks. Once there he was so entrenched with the nature that surrounded him that he stayed for a full year to experience all of the four seasons at this humble beach retreat. He spent his days writing longhand on his kitchen table and met a friend once a week who took him to the nearest town for supplies. He relied on drift wood to keep him warm and had a small well that he drained daily in the winter months after he filled his buckets. We recently walked a deserted beach at Nauset and after reading this wonderful nature book my thoughts moved to the sounds, smells, the rhythms of the tide, the beautiful sand dunes and the migration of all the seabirds that Beston described so eloquently. Byron and I love Cape Cod, and I think this book will sit in our personal library so that it can be read again and again. It’s the simple things in life that we should focus on and the Outmost House captures man’s relationship to nature in a way that we should all pay attention to.

The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon  A LONG read that describes Josef Kavalier’s escape from Prague in 1939 and his friend Sammy Clay’s breakthrough into creating comic books in NY city. I was captivated by the story line of what it was like to be  two young Jewish men growing up in the World War II era as well as why comic book superheroes were popular during a dark time in our American history. It was also interesting to learn about comic book history but personally I found a good portion of the book to be a little boring and hard to finish. The characters are well developed and the story full of twists and turns that will make you sometimes, laugh, sometimes chuckle and sometime cry. It did win a Pulitzer in 2001; I just think the same storyline could have been written with half the pages.

The Sea Sprite Inn was hand signed by Lynnette Adair and sent to our inn. Whenever anyone goes to the trouble of sending us a book I feel inclined to read it. This is the perfect lazy day book to relax with on our front porch or at the beach.  I actually dropped it in my bubble bath but was able to save for future reads:) I could relate to the story as it was about an innkeeper who decided to repair a family house at Rehoboth Beach. Through trials and tribulations she opens the inn and is captivated with the lives of the guest’s that visit. A very quick, easy read with a reminder for this innkeeper of the many blessing our guests bestow on us.

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne  There is something about  a good love/hate story line to get you entrenched in a good lighthearted read. For all of us that have been involved with troubling office politics this book will get you smiling.  You can’t help but love the quirky characters and honestly, at some points in the book, I burst out laughing. Well Done Sally Thorne for your first book.

The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close   I was so confused after reading half of this book why it was favorably reviewed on a blogging site I enjoy. I double checked on Amazon for feedback and saw that I am not the only one disappointed in this book.  This is just one of a handful of books that I have read in my life that I just could not finish. I found the story line very boring and the characters not interesting.

Hidden History of Cape Cod by Theresa Mitchell Barbo. A short little read that chronicles some untold stories about our Cape Cod history, one of which was the Coast Guard Rescue that received little glory until recently. We are researching the history of Cape Cod along with the life of Captain Freeman, and while history is usually told many times over, this author has collected some stories that were not in mainstream history books. A great read.

Looking forward to my February reads as we will be on vacation in Mexico:) Happy winter everyone.