This one looked interesting to me, as much for the person I plan to pass it along to as for my own reading enjoyment. The subtitle on the front talks about meeting your neighbors one siren call at a time -- the author was a volunteer firefighter/EMT in a small community in Wisconsin, and these are some of his experiences. I immediately thought of ResQgeek, who also once worked as a volunteer firefighter/EMT in his community, and I knew he would enjoy reading it when I am done (that is, if he hasn't already discovered it).

This book has been advanced on the mental TBR list since it, along with several others waiting to be read, is on lils74's wishlist. Hopefully I can get it read soon, then off to Nepal.

I see that I had originally thought of passing it along to ResQgeek, but he tells me he read it several years ago, so lils74 has free and clear claim.

Finally got this one finished today and would definitely read others by this author (there was a snippet on his other writings in the back of this copy of the book).

I think the best part of this book is the humor, which is sometimes dry and sometimes corny, but always gentle, especially when looking at the foibles of others. The characters in New Auburn are fascinating to read about, but the author is careful to remember that they are actually real people and he treats them with respect. He also shows respect for those who are injured or killed, even through their own foolishness, flavored with a bit of the gallows humor that first responders usually have as a shield against some of the horrors they deal with.

Putting this one aside to go to Lils74, along with another I've already read. It will go out in the mail when I have finished a couple of others I want to send and can make one package.

This wishlist book is finally on its way to lils74 in Nepal, along with a few others. Enjoy!

Thank you for the great parcel that landed in my mailbox today--six great reads, and I am so looking forward to this one. I love memoir and this one has always really interested me.

I finished this yesterday, having read it over the last week or so. What a beautiful book. The writing is amazing, books like this almost make me want to throw in the towel on trying to write memoir myself. I think it takes being willing to have a level of honesty with your reader that I may not possess. But I am grateful that the author possesses it, and to have partaken, in some small way, in the life of this town. It was sad, beautiful, and had some very true observations about death. The last chapter teared me up...been a while since that has happened. A great read. Thanks, 6of8, for another winner!

I have tagged someone with this book in the wishlist tag game, so it will be moving on soon.

Ack! Forgot to make release notes, but this was posted off to Finland for the Wishlist Tag Game on Sunday. Happy Travels, and I hope you like this book as much as I did. It was a winner!

Just a small note to tell the book has arrived safe and sound. Looks very much like something I'm going to like. Thanks!

I've almost only read promised wishlist tags for the past two years, but now I'm proud to say I'm free of those and can choose what to read all by myself!
As an elderly lady I tend to write journals while I'm still reading, otherwise I'll forget what I want to say. So bear with me...
Some books bring back more memories than others. The first chapter was touching as only two weeks ago I got a letter from a friend telling how her 22-year-old nephew had died in a car crash. Four young men in a car, all had alcohol in their blood, straight road, good weather, no other vehicle involved but the car ended upside down. Three of them survived without a scratch, but the nephew was without a safety belt, got thrown out of the car and the car turned over him. It was his mother's 45th birthday and it started with a call from the police.
Drunk-driving is a problem in Finland and usually it's the lucky drunkard who causes fatalities among the innocent and miracleously survives himself (it's usually a he). I've always said that if anybody I knew gets behind a wheel drunk I wouldn't hesitate at all to call the cops on him and if something happens to drunk-drivers it just serves them right. Very black and white opinions, so reading about the dead nephew and the shock and sorrow the family is going through evokes mixed emotions. Relief that no outsiders were involved. Anger towards the driver, but what about the nephew? He wasn't driving, so he was a victim, but he went along, so he was partly to blame... But death at 22 is too high a price to pay for going along. And it must be devastating to the family, losing a child is bad enough, but it being due to pure stupidity must make it so much harder. Finding the right words for the grieving has never been easy to me, but this time it was really hard.
I'm now in chapter two and I have to raise my hat to the writer and his collegues - it's amazing that there is a functional group of voluntary fire-fighters in the community of merely 485 people. This sort of voluntary work is more common in the US, I guess, and it takes my mind back 17 years. I was organizing a lecture weekend on critical care for vets and nurses and we had two lecturers from the States, a vet and his male technician. I had asked them beforehand if there was something they wanted to see in Helsinki and gotten an answer from the technician that they would be happy with anything I would come up with. So when I picked them up from the airport at 3 pm one Friday and asked if they wanted to have a rest at the hotel after the long journey or do something, I was suprised to learn that the vet would like to see the Helsinki Fire Station. Que? He told that he is a voluntary fire-fighter and had in fact spent the previous night up on the roof of a burning building! He tries to visit fire stations wherever he goes. I said I'd try my best, but this would have been easier if I had been told beforehand. The tech said he is so sick of seeing fire departments he didn't mention this to me in the hope of not being dragged to one again. I dropped the boys at the hotel and went home - to call the firemen!! They said a tour can be arranged, when are your visitors due to Finland? Hmm - they are here and this is their only day off... Luckily firemen are supposed to act in short notice and I was told to come right away as at 4 pm they will shift into on-duty staff only and if there is a call to make they'll be off. The vet had also told me to ask for their badge - something which felt really silly and sort of mumbo-jambo. The person in the other end knew right away what I was talking about; apparently firemen and policemen are small boys at heart and whenever they travel and meet, they exchange badges!
So back I went to collect the boys and took them to an interesting tour in the Helsinki Fire Station, somewhere where I've never been.
The book tells about New Auburn, Wisconsin, and my guests were from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so it's a small world. But for the life of me I can't understand how a vet from a hectic emergency hospital has any energy left for fighting fires in his free time as I am half dead when I get home from ordinary vet practice. His tech volunteers as a reader in a children's hospital; he reads stories to sick kids. A different culture in good and bad, the book told how these fire-fighters sold raffle tickets with prices like a hunting rifle. That would be illegal here, we have strict laws about who is allowed to have a firearm and you certainly cannot win one from a raffle.
To be continued...

The writer uses wrong collective noun - it's not a gaggle of crows, it's a gaggle of geese and only if they are on water. If they are in flight, it's a skein of geese. The collective noun for crows is - hold on to your seats - the murder of crows! No kidding. I've had a fascination for English collective nouns since 1998 when I went whale-watching in the Hebrides and during the evenings the Brits and Aussies onboard played all sorts of word-games and the theme for one evening was who would come up with most collective nouns. I thought it unbelievable that there where soooo many collective nouns and people who spoke English as their first language didn't know them. I think we only have three collective nouns in Finnish and even a child knows which noun to use. Not only is the British system very impractical (unpractical? dyspractical? malpractical? This really is a silly language...), but the nouns are often so far fetched that you wonder which draggle of drunks has come up with the lot. An unkindness of ravens. A charm of finches. A richness of martens. A parliament of owls. A pride of lions. An ostentation of peacocks.
But the book gives us a totally new meaning for being cockeyd!
Life is hard and then you die - Silver Star Ambulance Service and Funeral Home looks after you before and after.
I'm no good with mnemonics. "On Old Olympic Towering Tops A Finn And German Viewed Some Hops." The writer never remembered what the Finn was about. I still remember KonSuKiePre which our Swedish teacher kept repeating, but what does it mean?

Holy Puke! If you ever dreamed of becomming a nurse, paramedic, doctor, police or some other important link of the medical profession, read chapter four. 350 pounds of puking Helen (and her retching family) is no laughing matter. We had peeing, pooing and puking cats at work all day yesterday, but no animal smells as bad as a filthy human being. I would not stand a day working in a human hospital.
I had no idea that voluntary fire-fighters react to all emergencies great and small, be there fire or not. But how can you take seriously a man who has also written "How to hypnotize a chicken"?

Just more than a mental note: I've tagged Annimanni with this book, so perhaps I'll now get to finish it (promised tags have gotten in between).

I've just returned from a river cruise in the Valley of Champagne - wet wet wet except for two sunny days and 12-15 C degrees. Half of us (22 altogether) got fever and flu, the views weren't that magnificent, food didn't meet our expectations... On the plus side we had good company (no complainers), saw the hullabaloo around Tour de France bicycle race (grabbed flying freebees in front of kids) and watched the French national day fireworks on the night sky sitting on our deck-chairs, our boat anchored close to the Eiffel Tower on the river Seine. I released perhaps a dozen French books on French soil and one of them is already caught and brought a new member!
But now that I'm back I'm continuing with the book and I have to say either time has worked against the book or I've striken a boring phase, but it goes soooo slowly.
I'm still not sure I understood how the Combitube works, but if I'm lucky I'm won't need to use one ever.

I'm glad I stuck with him over the boring bits as when he stopped being philosophical or artsy and returned back to basics the flow was back.
Speaking of which, there was a small leakage of eyes with the letter from the old lady:
"Dear Abalane Driver with Beard
I am sorry I just wanted you to help my goose. Thank you for your help putting him barn She was in 30's year's. She died at 1 pm That day. On E.R. they fix animls. The policeman made me Feel Bad I will not wear LifeLine any more. I did not call Police Man.
Thank you For helping.

Ramona

He died
with his wings out
He went
to heaven."

But even sadder was how the marriage of his brother ended and if I still have swollen eyes tomorrow at work he is to be blamed.

I think Michael Perry is a gemini as several times he hit a familiar cord. His writing in the wee small hours (it's 3.23 am now), his itchy feet which in the end took him back home, his views on bachelorhood:
"I have been single for thirty-seven years now. It feels good, like an old shirt. I come and go as I wish, I dissappear for as long as I want to, go for days without speaking to anyone. I do the dishes when I need them, peel me some HoHos for breakfast if that's what I want. [...] Over two decades I have become absurdly selfish of time and space, and I know it. I cannot pretend otherwise. And in fairness, I cannot imagine anyone who would put up with such self-indulgence. And so I have never married." Just like something out of my mouth, but perhaps I should be honest and add that there has never been exactly a queue outside my door... But I can't say that I mind.
Perry is also mighty interested in people's personal history. He makes it sound much better than I do - as I've just thought I am being nosy.

Luckily I don't have to respond as quickly as these guys do, because I've noticed that getting out of the house and off to work even on a normal workday takes longer than it used to. I remember Mom saying that getting old meant getting slow, but hello, I'm merely 49. How slow will I be in twenty years time??

The Perry Family is very exceptional as Mom and at least three boys are into voluntary rescue work. It's been too long since I began the book so I can't remember if he told how his brother and sister died, so can't say if there lies a reason.

The book moves to Annimanni later today. Enjoy!

Thanks very much! I've had this on my wishlist for ages, although I can't remember why I added it in the first place :) Probably read about it somewhere… Very nice to now have it on my humongous TBR pile ;)

Well. Hmm. I really wanted to like this book but didn't. I was expecting more actual small-town life and less reminiscing about rescue work, which was way too detailed for my liking. Also reading about so much death and suffering was difficult as my father passed away only recently and I'm still feeling quite fragile. So, by the time I reached page 80 or thereabouts, I decided to give up. Sorry :(

I picked this book up from a VBB, based on the first sentence. Thanks Annimanni for sharing!

This poor book got a second DNF in a row... The first sentence was promising but the rest didn't live up to the promise. Too much details about rescuers.

Jaakonkatu 28, kirjanvaihtohylly.

Onnittelut! Olet löytänyt ilmaisen ja vapaan kirjan, joka etsii uusia lukijoita. Mukavaa että tulit tänne netin puolelle katsomaan kirjan aikaisempia vaiheita. Tässä voit kertoa, mistä kirjan löysit ja mitä siitä pidit. Luettuasi vapauta kirja uudestaan toisten löydettäväksi. Hyviä lukuhetkiä!

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