Books!

I am reading again! It is wonderful! Right now I am finishing Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, which is a chronicle of her family's year of living off their own land. Why does this sort of thing fascinate me?!?

I also read Into the Wild, the account of that twenty-something college grad who went "off the grid" in the 90's with hopes of living off the land in Alaska and ended up dead in an old bus. (Don't worry--you know this right from the get-go if you've not read the book.) Again--fascinating. We rented the movie on Netflix.

Before that, it was West with the Night, Beryl Markham's story of growing up on a farm in Kenya in the early 1900's and becoming one of the first women bush pilots. Wow!! (Mom scored me that one in a Goodwill this summer when we went on a shopping spree the day of her surprise b-day party.)

Of course, I can always re-read any of my Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy Sayers. Jen and I used to laugh when we were roommates about having crushes on Lord Peter. I'm not sure there is a modern equivalent of him. (Sayers wrote in the 1920's and 30's.) Besides, if there WERE, he wouldn't hold a candle to Alan. Lord Peter only plays classical piano and cannot ride a mountain bike. Besides, he wears a monocle. Not sure I could get used to looking across the dinner table at a guy wearing a monocle.

I also re-read a book my mother-in-law gave me years ago that is a pretty fascinating story set in the California Gold Rush that is based on the book of Hosea: Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I'd read it first while recuperating after our first miscarriage, and it amazed me how I cried at totally different places in the story this time around. Alan liked to tease me about the romance-novel cover, but this book has a lot more depth than the cover conveys.

What's next? I've been wanting to read Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley, which came recommended by Kathy in New Zealand. (Kathy inspired me to read all Jane Austen's novels years ago--I think she decided to have a "summer of the classics" or something like that. I still love Jane Austen.) And it was either Kathy or Jen who started a bunch of friends reading The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith. They all take place in Botswana, and Jen gave me the whole series when she moved to New Zealand. Well, all but the FIRST one. (It disappeared after being loaned, as books & CDs will do.) And since I don't have a great track record with library books, I've held off, hoping a copy will jump out at me at a thrift store.

I've also got a whole list of books Aunt Betty suggested--books about and/or by spunky women. My favorite of her suggestions is Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860: A Woman's Life on the Mormon Frontier, by May Ann Hafen. This woman pulled her own cart from Iowa to Salt Lake City because she was too poor to own oxen. My favorite part of Aunt Betty's suggestion is that she gave me credit for being the only person she knows who might ever attempt something like that. That totally flatters me! But if my attempt at 40 miles of the Appalachian Trail was any indication, Aunt Betty gives me WAY too much credit.

Feel free to suggest titles! I've given up TV (finally!!) and can now read a bit before bed (when not watching movies like Waking Ned Devine with my husband, who is definitely more worthy of a crush than a fictional, British amateur detective who wears a monocle!)