A Killing in Amish Country: Sex Betrayal and A Cold Blooded Murder by Greg Olsen and Rebecca Morris


At just 30 years old, with dark-blonde hair and freckles, Barbara Weaver was as pretty as the women depicted on the covers of her favorite "bonnet" stories - romance novels set in Amish America. Barbara had everything she'd ever wanted: five beautiful children, a home, her faith, and a husband named Eli. But while Barbara was happy to live as the Amish have for centuries - without modern conveniences, Eli was tempted by technology: cell phones, the Internet, and sexting. Online he called himself "Amish Stud" and found no shortage of "English" women looking for love and sex. Twice he left Barbara and their children, was shunned, begged for forgiveness, and had been welcomed back to the church. Barb Raber was raised Amish, but is now a Conservative Mennonite. She drove Eli to appointments in her car, and she gave him what he wanted when he wanted: a cell phone, a laptop, rides to his favorite fishing and hunting places, and, most importantly, sex. When Eli starts asking people to kill his wife for him, Barb offers to help. One night, just after Eli had hitched a ride with a group of men to go fishing in the hours before dawn, Barb Raber entered the Weaver house and shot Barbara Weaver in the chest at close range.It was only the third murder in hundreds of years of Amish life in America, and it fell to Edna Boyle, a young assistant prosecutor to seek justice for Barbara Weaver.

Product Identifiers
ISBN-10 1250067235
ISBN-13 9781250067234

this book was very influential to me!

Todays chapter is Pivot tables in Excel. :|

"The Help"
 

Warning: triggers

I found the following article at The Atlantic. I think this, or a form of this brutality, happens more often in the States than is reported—particularly with immigrants from all over the world.

My Family’s Slave, by Alex Tizon
She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...-story/524490/

The Girl in the Leaves

Scott, an experienced true-crime writer, chronicles the bizarre and shocking true story of 13-year-old Sarah Maynard, who was the lone survivor in a crazed killer's spree that occurred in Apple Valley, Ohio, in the fall of 2010. Available in a tall Premium Edition. Original., THE STORY OF ONE OF THE MOST BIZARRE MASS MURDERS EVER RECORDED. AND THE GIRL WHO ESCAPED WITH HER LIFE. In the fall of 2010, in the all-American town of Apple Valley, Ohio, four people disappeared without a trace: Stephanie Sprang; her friend, Tina Maynard; and Tina's two children, thirteen-year-old Sarah and eleven-year-old Kody. Investigators began scouring the area, yet despite an extensive search, no signs of the missing people were discovered. On the fourth day of the search, evidence trickled in about neighborhood "weirdo" Matthew Hoffman. A police SWAT team raided his home and found an extremely disturbing sight: every square inch of the place was filled with leaves and a terrified Sarah Maynard was bound up in the middle of it like some sort of perverted autumn tableau. But there was no trace of the others. Then came Hoffman's confession to an unspeakable crime that went beyond murder and defied all reason. His tale of evil would make Sarah's survival and rescue all the more astonishing--a compelling tribute to a young girl's resilience and courage and to her fierce determination to reclaim her life in the wake of unimaginable wickedness.

Product Identifiers
ISBN-10 0425258823
ISBN-13 9780425258828

Key Details
Author Larry Maynard, Robert Scott, Sarah Maynard

Book Woo Woo
 

I just happened to be gifted three incredibly good books, all hard back editions, today. :)

The Painted House | John Grisham (2000, Doubleday Publishers)

The Reporter's Life | Walter Conkite (1996, Knopf Publishers)

Undue Influence | Anita Brookner (This book, near as I can tell, was published in England, but was also published by Viking Press in Canada. It was bought for $33.95, back in 1984, per owner's inscription inside the front cover of the book).

I've got lots of good stuff to read now! :)

A few years back I read that Walter Conkite book and really enjoyed it!

How I long for the day when newscasters just read the new and gave us the fact!

We didn't know their politics or parties affiliations and that served us well IMHO!

I cracked open the book last night and got as far as page seven of the first chapter. Where he tells about taking a job over at the Moscow bureau, his wife Betsy in tow -- working a job at the embassy bureau of information (government job). It was his wife's small salary that kept them fed, Cronkite's salary was just peanuts compared to his wife's. As I was reading, all I could hear was his deep bass gravely pipe smoking voice.....


Journalism today is nothing like it was back in the time and day of Walter Cronkite or Chet Huntley or Hugh Downs or....And what a joy that we have Barbara Walters, right?

That's so cool that you've read the book too and enjoyed it.
I noticed last night that there's a bunch of choice black and white pictures too.

This book in particular is like having an longtime old friend, when you turn each page, read each turn of thought, as you reminisce about times gone by. :balloon:

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls.

I am loving this book!
 

Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce


A searing debut novel from one of the most imaginative minds in fiction

Kelly Luce's Pull Me Under tells the story of Rio Silvestri, who, when she was twelve years old, fatally stabbed a school bully. Rio, born Chizuru Akitani, is the Japanese American daughter of the revered violinist Hiro Akitani--a Living National Treasure in Japan and a man Rio hasn't spoken to since she left her home country for the United States (and a new identity) after her violent crime. Her father's death, along with a mysterious package that arrives on her doorstep in Boulder, Colorado, spurs her to return to Japan for the first time in twenty years. There she is forced to confront her past in ways she never imagined, pushing herself, her relationships with her husband and daughter, and her own sense of who she is to the brink.

The novel's illuminating and palpably atmospheric descriptions of Japan and its culture, as well its elegantly dynamic structure, call to mind both Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being and David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars. Pull Me Under is gripping, psychologically complex fiction--at the heart of which is an affecting exploration of home, self-acceptance, and the limits of forgiveness.

HM
 

"Absolutely on Music"

Haruki Murakami Conversations with Seiji Ozawa

"A deeply personal, intimate conversation about music
and writing between the internationally acclaimed, best-selling
author and his close friend, the former conductor of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra."

a keeper...Greco

The Discovery of France by Graham Robb. Really good.

On Audible, listening to The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I read that article a few days ago. I'll never forget it.

いちきゅうはちよん ~ 村上 春樹 - 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
 

Murakami spent four years writing the novel after coming up with the opening sequence and title.[11] The title is a play on the Japanese pronunciation of the year 1984 and a reference to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The letter Q and the Japanese number 9 (typically romanized as "kyū", but as "kew" on the book's Japanese cover) are homophones, which are often used in Japanese wordplay.

Excerpt from Wikipedia here

Our neighborhood is
 

starting a book club next week. The book that was chosen is "The Women in the Castle." Has anyone read it? Thoughts?

A neighborhood book club?!? I want to have one of those! Sounds like an interesting book. I look forward to hearing if you recommend it or not.

Rereading The Handmaid's Tale because I'm really into the series on Hulu, so I wanted to read it again.

I've got plans to buy this book next Tuesday. A close friend of mine from grad school read it recently. She gave it a thumbs up, so I'm looking forward to reading it. :balloon:
http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimag..._s1200x630.jpg

– White Rage by Carol Anderson
– Of Blood and Sorrow: A Tamara Hayle Mystery By Valerie Wilson Wesley

I want to read The End of Eddy. I heard about it on NPR. Has anyone read it?

I want to start reading Fantastic Beasts, I have the book I just need to open it.

Hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis / by J.D. Vance
 

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis -- that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside.

Halfway through Insomnia
Starting The Circle because the movie was good
Next is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo because I found it at the thrift store for .98

Listen, Liberal, or, What ever happened to the party of the people? / Thomas Frank
 

"It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America"-- Provided by publisher.
--------------------------------


Fascinating from a historical viewpoint.

The novel "Villa Europa" by Ketil Bjornstadt

I just finished Serena by Ron Rash. I liked it but wish that Serena would have been killed sooner but that might have ruined the book.

I read this book. It's totally worthwhile. I wish more folks would seek it out.

I just finally finished reading Walter Cronkite's memoir, the other day. It's probably not most people's first choice in reading materials, but it brought back sweet memories of my mom's father, whom I had a very enjoyable relationship. He was the only grandfather I knew and I was his little princess. So I loved reading the Cronkite book.

I began to read the book by John Grisham (A Painted House), last night. When I first chose this book to read, I just chose it because of other books authored by Grisham (The Pelican Brief, and others), but I am glad I chose this book to read.

A Painted House is a story told from the narrator's point of view: Luke Chandler, who is seven years old. It's a story about the life of his family, growing up as a kid of cotton picking share cropper's who live in Arkansas, caught up in the world of back breaking poverty. This story, although it's a fictional account (novel) turns out to closely parallel the lives of my grandparent's growing up years. My grandmother's parents were cotton picking share cropper's in the south...my grandmother was eldest of thirteen children, whom all grew old enough to help pick cotton on their parent's share cropping tenancy. I see my grandparents lives through the narrator's point of view. I'm only on page 52, but I'm loving this story. <3

I've not read this book nor have I heard of it.
If you end up reading it, maybe you could tell us about it, somewhat? Thanks for posting about your inquiry on The End of Eddy.

I just got the book from the library so I will let you know.

This arresting autobiographical novel pulls no punches; rather, it lands them on the reader as frequently as fists descend on its subject. The Eddy of the title is a (gay) child born to below-the-poverty-line parents in an isolated village in rural northern France in 1992.


I would definitely recommend this book. It's a short read and well worth the time.

Sounds like an interesting read...
Thanks for your timely update! :D

It's only a 185 pages so I read it in a day.

Finishing up Apocalypticon by Clayton Smith. Audiobook.

Edge of Tomorrow, Hiroshi Sakurazaka

I liked the movie and thus far, I like the book. Should say audiobook. All my 'reads' are now audio format. Just enjoy being read to and less strain on the eyes.

I just finished The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

And:

Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel by David Rakoff (this book is entirely in rhyme)

The destruction of Hillary Clinton / Susan Bordo.
 

"A play-by-play of the political forces (both right and left) and media culture that vilified Hillary Clinton during her 2016 Presidential campaign, from cultural critic and feminist scholar Susan Bordo. The Destruction of Hillary Clintonis an answer to the question we've all been asking: How did an extraordinarily well-qualified, experienced, and admired candidate--whose victory would have been as historic as Barack Obama's--come to be seen as a tool of the establishment, a chronic liar, and a talentless politician? In this masterful narrative of the 2016 campaign year, Susan Bordo unpacks the right-wing assault on Clinton and her reputation, the way the left provoked the suspicion and indifference of a younger generation, and the unprecedented influence of the media. Urgent, insightful, and engrossing,The Destruction of Hillary Clinton is an essential guide to understanding the most controversial presidential election in American history"-- Provided by publisher.


For the most part, this is a rehash of what has been published about the election for months.

However, there are a few things where her analysis of the dynamics involved has a different slant, thus food for thought. In particular, she seemed a little stumped and surprised by the way the generation gap in feminism manifested itself and exerted its power.

Bernie fans probably wont like what she has to say.

Kobi, thanks for your post! I just finished Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign: by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes, but I think the one you posted about will be much better.