The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love ~ Jill Connor Browne

The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love:
A Fallen Southern Belle’s Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared
By Jill Conner Browne

“For anyone even remotely familiar with Jackson, Mississippi, the name “Sweet Potato Queens” instantly evokes sweet memories of beautiful, somewhat augmented female forms enveloped in green sequins, towering red hairdos, provocative dances, and the haunting refrain of “Tiny Bubbles,” as only Don Ho could – or would, for that matter – deliver it. If, as they say, you ain’t from around here, you need some enlightening; and your life will not be complete until you get it. Nor will it ever be the same after you do.”

Ahem, there is nothing “somewhat” about the augmentation, as you can tell from the cover of this book. It is pure fun, from the title and cover to the recipes in the back for Chocolate Stuff and Armadillo Dip. It is sitting down with a girlfriend and having a few drinks while you tell the most outrageous stories you’ve ever heard or experienced in your life. It is positively irreverent and may be giving away the secrets of all women kind but no man will ever pick it up anyway.

The Sweet Potato Queens began as a float for the Jackson, Mississippi St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Considering the outrageous nature of the behavior, the women decided that they needed to do something to maintain some anonymity so they held a meeting to pick names but everyone wanted to be called Tammy. To be fair, they decided to ALL be Tammy.

The great thing about the Sweet Potato Queens is that while other beauty queens only get to be one for a year and have to do all sorts of things for the privilege, “Sweet Potato Queens, on the other hand, don’t have to do jackshit that anybody says, and we are Queens for Life.”

The titles of each chapter is thoroughly explanatory, such as “The True Magic Words Guaranteed to Get Any Man to Do Your Bidding.” The true secret is one that cannot be spoken out loud or at least absolutely not in mixed company. And it is not something a Queen follows through on. It is simply held out there in the hopes that one day, far in the future, she will follow through on the promise.

Then there is “The Best Advice Ever Given in the Entire History of the World.” It is incredibly simple, just two words, but not to be underestimated. “Consider, if you will, the profound effect that following advice would have on, say, your diet, your love life, your financial situation, your decision on whether to have that next drink. I mean, what do those two words not cover?” You’ll just have to read the book to find out what it is.

Other chapters include, “Be Prepared on Account of You Just Never Know,” “He Ain’t Nothin’ But a Man: You Better Have a Good Defense,” and “Men Who May Need Killing, Quite Frankly.”

It is the battle of the sexes told in a humorous light and with great dollops of southern charm. Just when you’re having a grand old time, laughing so hard you might just pop a stitch, she sneaks a little down home wisdom in too. Enjoy.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
By Douglas Adams

Few people realize that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was actually first written as a radio series and broadcast starting in 1978 on BBC radio.  The first book didn’t come out until fall of 1979.  Since then, it has had a long and varied life.  (If you’ve seen the modern movie, please don’t judge it by that.  While it’s entertaining to some degree, it comes nowhere near the brilliance and humor of the radio series or book.)

Of course, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is also a book within the book.  Its major selling point is that on the front of it, in large friendly letters, is written Don’t Panic.  The guide is quoted frequently. 

It includes tips on the use of a towel for interstellar travel, such as wetting it for hand-to-hand combat, or wrapping it around your head to “avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a brush, but very, very ravenous.” 

Or the entry which mentions how ballpoint pens escape, “… it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid life-style, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life.”

The story begins on Earth.

“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.  Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

Things get better, but only momentarily.

“...one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place.  This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.”  Sadly, the Earth is demolished before she can get to a phone.

Before the actual demolition, our antiheroes make their appearance.  Arthur Dent is having a really bad day.  He’s just found out that his house is slated to be demolished to make way for a bypass.  Then he finds out his best friend, Ford Prefect, is not even from Earth and the Earth is slated to be demolished for an interstellar bypass.  Luckily he and Ford manage to hitch a ride on the ship come to do the job.  Of course, they later get tossed off the ship but they do, very improbably, get picked up by Ford’s distant cousin Zaphod and his girlfriend Trillian. 

Zaphod has stolen the ship they are on, which runs on the Infinite Improbability Drive. This drive causes very improbable things to happen when in use, such as calling into existence a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias high over a planet. 

Trillian is also a girl who Arthur, very improbably, happened to hit on at a party years before when her name was Tricia McMillan.  Along with an incredibly depressed robot named Marvin, “And then of course I’ve got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side,” they go in search of legendary Magrathea, where Earth was planned and built, paid for by the hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings Earthlings know as mice. 

Full of humor and pithy sayings, like “Time is an illusion.  Lunchtime doubly so,” this is not the type of book that you will ever pick up and wonder if you’ve already read it.  It is the type of book you will want to read again though.

The library offers both the books and the original radio drama on CD.  Though containing the same main story, they are different enough that I highly recommend checking out both.  My husband and I took the CDs for a very enjoyable ride to Massachusetts and back one year.

The Sugar Queen ~ Sarah Addison Allen

The Sugar Queen
by Sarah Addison Allen

The first thing that meets the eye when you pick up a book is, of course, the cover, and the covers of Sarah Addison Allen’s books are lushly beautiful.  The Sugar Queen cover shows a young woman curled up on a window seat with big purple pillows and an open book, looking out into the woods - an enticing vision for any lover of books.  I’ll admit, covers often factor into whether I will pick up a book to begin with.  However, that is not why I picked up this book.  No, it was because of the most effective marketing for books ever introduced, word of mouth.  It was recommended to me by one of our library volunteers.  The cover was just a bonus.    

The Sugar Queen centers around four couples.  Josey, who lives in a big house helping to care for her mother, is secretly in love with the mailman, Adam.  She fills the void with sweet treats and romance novels at night.  Then Della Lee Baker takes up residence in her closet, hiding from her abusive boyfriend Julian, and starts pushing Josey out into the world, into new experiences. 

Josey meets Chloe at the sandwich shop she owns.  Chloe is stalked by self-help books, they simply appear whenever they have something to tell her such as Finding Forgiveness.  Her boyfriend, Jake, cheated on her and Chloe broke up with him but she is struggling with how much she still loves him. 

Finally, Josey’s mother Margaret has been in love with the local cabdriver, Rawley, for forty years.  In fact, they were once lovers, but now he never speaks to her.

Allen makes much of the interconnectedness between the couples, intertwining the stories further, giving the story a small town feel.  It turns out Josey’s new friend, Chloe, is good friends with Adam, who is also a friend of Jake.  Then Julian and Chloe meet at a bar and Julian begins charming Chloe, in stalker fashion.

Full of Southern charm, romance and magical realism cross paths in the books of Sarah Addison Allen.  The Sugar Queen is sweet and short but with surprising depth.  I highly recommend it.

Blue Highways ~ William Least Heat Moon

Blue Highways: A Journey Into America

By William Least Heat Moon

I first picked up Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon from the book exchange shelf of the English Department when I was in college.  It has remained one of my top ten favorite books since that time.

The opening lines are some of the most intriguing I have found in any book.  I copied them down and have read and re-read them over the years, “Beware thoughts that come in the night.  They aren’t turned properly; they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, deriving from the most remote of sources.”  I have always found this to be true but in a useful way, clearing away the inhibitions that held back my best writing.

The adventure started in the late 1970’s when William Least Heat Moon took his truck, Ghost Dancing, on a circuitous route around the United States, sticking to the old “blue highways,” the less traveled roads that were marked in blue on the map, where people lived.  He was a thirty-eight year old English professor who had just lost his job and realized his estranged wife wasn’t coming back.

“Call me Least Heat Moon,” he introduces himself.  “My father calls himself Heat Moon, my elder brother Little Heat Moon. I, coming last, am therefore Least.  It has been a long lesson of a name to learn.”

Perhaps it was his simple rating scale that started my fascination with mom and pop diners -

“No Calendar: Same as an interstate pit stop.

One Calendar: Preprocessed food assembled in New Jersey.

Two Calendars: Only if fish trophies present.

Three calendars: Can’t miss on the farm-boy breakfasts.

Four calendars: Try the ho-made pie too.

Five calendars: Keep it under your hat, or they’ll franchise.”

The beauty of the land he describes has made me want to pack up and take off every time I re-read it, “I went to the Trace again, following it through pastures and pecan groves and tilled fields; wildflowers and clover pressed in close, and from trees, long purple drupes of wisteria hung like grape clusters.” 

He encounters people all along the way and shares their wisdom in their own words, like the delightful conversation with the waitress in the three calendar café where he is served a biscuit with a smiley face button on it because he looked like he needed one.  The waitress asks what he’s looking for and he responds at last with “harmony.”  She tells him, “I started out in life not likin’ anything, but then it grew on me.  Maybe that’ll happen to you.”

The author deftly weaves the interesting bits of conversation with haunting descriptions.  “It was one of those moments that you know at the time will stay with you to the grave: the sweet pie, the gaunt man playing the old music, the coals in the stove glowing orange, the scent of kerosene and hot bread.”

It is this blend of philosophy, introspection, descriptions of land, people, architecture and explanations of the history that built it all which give the book its’ distinctive feel.  It is a slow book for deep reading, perfect for the coming winter.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ~ Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot

I’ve always enjoyed books which teach me something as well as telling a good story.  Usually I find that in fiction books where the author has something to share which they have researched or learned.  With The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a spellbinding story intertwines with both a history and a science lesson. 

The author first heard about HeLa cells when she was 16.  She became fascinated, wondering… who was the woman behind the cells that helped develop the polio vaccine, revolutionized cancer treatment and helped in every endeavor from in virtro fertilization to cloning?  Her search for Henrietta Lacks led her to Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, who had the same questions but many more.  Most of all though, Deborah wanted to know who her mother was.  Together they investigated.

Henrietta Lacks was a thirty year old mother of five in 1951 when she went to Johns Hopkins Hospital and was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cervical cancer.  At that time the treatment involved using radium placed into the uterus to kill the cells.  When the treatment didn’t work, Henrietta died, painfully.  But all of her cells didn’t die with her.  A biopsy of the tumor provided the first cells capable of being kept alive in a lab.  They were named HeLa after her and have gone on to be the basis for many treatments, vaccines and cures but her own family did not know this was taking place until decades later.  The cells were replicated many billions of times over and shared between scientists.  This is the story of those cells and the people Henrietta Lacks left behind, particularly her daughter Deborah.

The author explains the science in an understandable way and tells a compelling story of the humans the science derived from and affected. I actually listened to this book on CD in my car rather than reading it in the paper format.  The two readers are tremendous, making it at once easy to understand and clearly bringing forth the characters so that they are individuals, more in the nature of a radio drama than a book being read.  I would highly recommend it in either format.

I am the Messenger ~ Markus Zusak

I am the Messenger
by Markus Zusak

I have a confession… I enjoy Young Adult Literature.  I don’t think people should eschew books simply because they are “labeled” for a younger reading group.  There are beautiful picture books, incredibly funny books for middle graders and amazing books written for young adults.  YA writers are often willing to take risks, present harsh realities and ask hard questions about life.  I have always found that YA writers create some of the most engaging and intricate stories but more people are starting to catch on.  J.K. Rowling’s success with Harry Potter was followed by Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series and now The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collin’s.  This is not everyone’s cup of tea, and they are not representative of all that YA Literature has to offer.  YA books cover the gamut but many are quick, engaging reads that hook the reader immediately.  They can be fluffy light reads or intense reads dealing with harsh social issues.  I am the Messenger has both the humor and the harsh issues.

Meet Ed Kennedy.  He’s a nineteen year old taxi driver.  He lives in a shack with a seventeen year old dog named Doorman who has a rarified stink.  He plays cards with his friends Ritchie, Marv and Audrey regularly.  He loves, and lusts after, his friend Audrey.  He also just managed to catch a bank robber, without really meaning to.  It just sort of happened.  After the robbery, he receives an Ace of Diamonds in the mail.  It has three addresses and three times on it.  It takes some time to work up the courage, but finally he goes to the first address.  This isn’t an easy case he’s facing.  It is hard, harsh reality and he has to figure out how to help.  He steps back and walks away, scared.  He’ll be back.  The second address offers something completely different, a lonely old lady who seems very kind.  The third one is a fifteen year old shy girl who likes to run.  It’s all a bit of a mystery.  Ed will help them though and, when he’s done, there will be another card.  

To be honest, at first I wasn’t sure whether this was a Young Adult title that appeals to adults or an Adult title with appeal for Young Adults.  What I can tell you, is that it’s a fascinating story which received the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.  Part of the appeal to me is that Markus Zusak is an Australian author and I think you get a bit of a unique flavor there.  Writers from different countries tend to have a slightly different way of looking at things.  I have compared the humor in American sitcoms to Canadian sitcoms to British sitcoms and it is a little bit different for each.  I suspect the author would be a talented writer whatever country he came from.  It’s not that he’s writing about Australia, but maybe the landscape, the nature of the air, somehow changes how the words sound.

My verdict is simple, I really like this book and many other people have too.  Give it a try.

The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings ~ Amy Tan

The Opposite of Fate
by Amy Tan

Most people would recognize Amy Tan as the author of The Joy Luck Club which was turned into a movie in 1993.  There have been other books, including The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter and Saving Fish from Drowning, as well as two children’s stories and a memoir titled, The Opposite of Fate. 

The last is my favorite.  There is something special when a writer tells their personal story.  The writing skills are all there - pacing, plot, characterization, but with the immediacy of first person knowledge.    We get to see what they consider to have been important to their development as a writer and what they really meant when they wrote something.  In Amy Tan’s perspective, not nearly as much as has been ascribed to her writing.

Her sense of humor is evident.  She writes about the annoyance and yet the odd pride in finding that there are Cliff Notes for her book, The Joy Luck Club, which make several wild claims.  She finds they question “Which daughter in the book is most like Amy Tan?” and turns the page to finally find out the answer, as it has been asked of her so many times in interviews.  But there is no answer, it’s just a question.  She is “left to ponder my existential angst in the usual fashion.”

Tan offers deep truths that we feel in our bones, “It’s your belief in yourself that enables you to do what you wish” and “…if I did not like what was before me, I had only to look at my shoes, then look up and walk ahead toward a fresher, more pleasant scene.”

She has wondered how she can write about things she doesn’t know.  Is she “downloading stories from the Nirvana Wide Web?”  Or are they simply memories from her childhood, things she overheard and took in but didn’t remember doing so?  She deems her childhood too implausible to make for good fiction, but capable of being mined for fiction. 

She’s had a lot of fun in her life, like playing with the Rockbottom Remainders, a group of writers who perform to raise money for children’s literacy.  She’s also had some harrowing experiences.  She has faced down gang thugs, been in a car accident and had a roommate, and good friend, murdered by thieves who broke into his new apartment.

Her essay on living with chronic Lyme Disease will be particularly poignant, and heartening, for anyone who lives with a chronic disease.  Tan concludes, “Yes, the world to me is still a scary place, but no more than it is for most people.  I am no longer governed by fate and fear.  I have hope and, with that, a determination to change what is not right.  As a storyteller, I know that if I don’t like the ending, I can write a better one.”

As a writer I found this book very inspirational and, as a reader, a fascinating collection of stories.  I would recommend it to anyone. 

Ghost Story ~ Jim Butcher

Ghost Story
by Jim Butcher

Hell’s bells, it’s the return of my favorite smart ass wizard.  Okay, he’s dead, but that’s not going to stop Harry Dresden.  This is urban fantasy at its best.  

A quote comes to mind from The Princess Bride.  This book has it all – “Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles.”  Okay, maybe not giants, but if not, it’s got everything else.  I think it even has a quote from The Princess Bride.

Harry Dresden is a wise-cracking detective, a wizard in modern day Chicago.  Now, he’s also a ghost.  As such, Harry has a huge disadvantage in this book, no magic.  So many action adventures follow a typical pattern and give you little new to consider.  Though the last book was titled Changes, this book continues the changes and growth of characters.  This is definitely different from the others, but it just keeps getting better. 

Like a phoenix, Harry rises from the ashes, but he also evolves.  As one who can generally guess what is coming next in a plot, the unexpected is always a joy and Butcher does not disappoint.  This is not a regurgitation of past plots. The conclusions that Harry reaches, the truths found, and the realizations make for a very satisfying read.  What’s been done can’t be undone and Harry has to face the consequences.  As in real life, everything is not going to be okay, but life goes on and people have to deal with it.  There are still some people prepared to help Harry though. 

This is the 13^th book in the Harry Dresden series.  These don’t stand alone particularly well.  I definitely recommend starting at the beginning.  Relationships change and grow, people come and go, and events referred to in future books are crucial for understanding Harry and his world.

Harry Dresden is a hero for all times, with or without his magic, because he cares.  I will be eagerly anticipating the next book in the Harry Dresden series.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake ~ Aimee Bender

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
by Aimee Bender

I’ve always been fascinated by books which bring magical elements into our everyday world.  Following in the footsteps of such well known authors as Alice Hoffman and Isabel Allende, authors like Sarah Addison Allen and Aimee Bender offer us fresh insight into the human soul through riveting stories that bring fairy tales and fables to modern life.

Aimee Bender offers a lyrical story in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.  Rose Edelstein is an average little girl, overshadowed by her somewhat brilliant older brother and outside the special relationship he seems to have with their mother.  Then, when her mother bakes her a trial run birthday cake for Rose’s ninth birthday, Rose discovers an unusual gift.  She can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake, the “absence, hunger, spiraling, hollows.”  Though it is sweet and delicious, the cake tastes empty.    

From then on, Rose can taste her mother’s deep dissatisfaction with her life in every bite of food her mother prepares.  It is a painful awareness.  When her mother starts an affair, Rose can taste it.  As time goes on, Rose finds she can trace where a food came from and who was involved in its preparation, right back to the farm where the ingredients were grown. 

Rose slowly realizes that her brother has a special gift, a very disturbing gift, that takes him further and further away from their family.  She wonders where these gifts came from.  Neither of her parents have gifts, or do they?

One oddity is that even with her dialogue, Bender uses no quotes.  I can see where that would consternate some readers.  It gives the book the feel of a flashback, more of an internal quality, a storybook quality. 

This is not a “happy” book.  Everything is not going to be “okay,” and yet it is.  Rose finds a niche for herself in the world, finds her way.  That, to me, is real life.  At the end of the book I felt I had experienced something; that I had taken in a new way of looking at the world.  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is an unusual book.  The author leads you down a path but in the end you do have to take a fairly large leap.  I enjoyed this book deeply, but you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you do.

The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases From a State Hospital Attic

The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases From a State Hospital Attic

Written by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny, photographs by Lisa Rinzler

When the Willard Psychiatric Center overlooking Seneca Lake in upstate New York was abandoned in 1995, 427 patient suitcases were moved to the warehouse for the state museum.  In 1998, the authors undertook a project to examine the suitcases and learn about the Willard inmates through them.  Ten suitcases were chosen from among the 427.  The authors were given permission to view the medical records, which were stored in an abandoned hospital building. 

“What might be revealed by comparing the personal artifacts from their pre-institutional lives with the way they were perceived by doctors and hospital staff?  Regardless of what might have troubled them, we were struck by the sundering of who they were as people from who they became as mental patients.”  (p19)

Beyond the biographies, information about general treatments, and conditions at the hospital, the general history of mental health care is discussed. 

The author of the preface, Robert Whitaker, speaks of the Quaker method of caring for the newly insane with compassion by providing food, shelter and companionship.  Apparently this was the initiative behind later institutions but that ethic was rather poorly carried out at Willard where the patients were “cared” for in the most rudimentary manner. “The hospital was no longer seen as a refuge for troubled people, but rather as a place for keeping them away from society…” (p10)

The question is presented, might looking into the patient’s histories have provided a path for possible treatment and recovery?  That seems likely in at least some cases.

Therese Lehner was an immigrant, a nun whose leader was cast out and she followed.  She suffered many hardships in the following years and asked repeatedly to be released from her vows.  Oddly enough, the hospital assumed this was something she had made up.  The researchers were able to verify her story, years after her body was given to medical research instead of being given a Catholic burial. 

Likewise, the case of Mrs. Ethel Smalls reveals a lack of treating the patient as a person.  Being evicted by her landlady at the age of forty, after divorcing her abusive husband and losing two infant children, Ethel felt “tired” and went to bed.  The police were called and she was committed.  She agreed to go, thinking she was going for a rest cure.  She never felt well enough to leave.  Like some women do, she spent a great deal of time talking about her various discomforts, which were discounted by staff.

“is always talking about herself and her ailments.  She expresses no other delusions or hallucinations.” (p78) 

Ethel had endured years of abuse by her husband, suffered a miscarriage and had an ovarian tumor removed.  Any of those things could have produced lasting problems that caused her stated complaints of back pain, headaches, gastrointestinal upsets and severe menstrual periods.  Instead she was ignored.  She fractured her wrist but it was never set.  She told about a spinal defect but no one believed her until an x-ray revealed scoliosis.  Even with that, she probably felt safer there than in her previous life.

The authors also provide insight into the current state of treatment for those suffering mentally, including a look at how other countries handle different problems.  Hearing voices, for instance, is not automatically seen as a cause for institutionalization in many places.  According to the authors, two to three percent of the population hears voices but only a third of those people become psychiatric patients.  The others have coping mechanisms.  One might think that those not receiving treatment are sadly slipping through the cracks but drugs for treating such auditory hallucinations are “only effective in stopping the voices for about 35 percent of people...”  (p53) 

The combination of biographies and historical details provide a fascinating and accessible portrait of mental healthcare in the past and make a plea for a humanization of the current system.  I would highly recommend this book, in particular for anyone interested in the history of the Finger Lakes area.

To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

It seems a little odd to me that as an English major in college and a librarian for the past thirteen years, I somehow managed to not read To Kill a Mockingbird.  Well, this summer, I finally bought myself a copy and found out what I was missing.

Set in Mississippi during the economically depressed 1930’s, the story is told through the eyes of Scout, daughter of Atticus Finch.  Atticus is a widower trying to raise two children, Scout and her brother, with the help of his housekeeper, Calpurnia.  This is a tough enough proposition, then Atticus is charged with defending Thomas Robinson, on trial for allegedly raping a woman.  Atticus knows that this is a losing battle because Tom Robinson has already been convicted in the court of public opinion simply because he is a black man.  Tom is a truly good and kind man though, whose only real crime is feeling sorry for a poor white woman.     

Though told from a child’s view, this is in no way a simple book.  The children go to school and learn to get along even when they are vilified for their father’s attempts to defend Tom.  They are fascinated with the neighborhood recluse, who they have never seen.  They take terrible scoldings from a crotchety old neighbor lady who verbally assaults them as they walk by.  Scout chafes under her Aunt’s tutelage to become a young lady.  But there is more than meets the eye to any situation and there are deeper lessons to these simple story lines, which I will not reveal here. 

It is the quintessential coming of age tale.  Scout learns to see the world through other people’s eyes; and she also learns that good men are sometimes laid low and the world continues to turn after a tragedy. 

To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was voted best novel of the twentieth century by librarians in 1999.  I can see why.  It is fascinating and heartbreaking.  There are funny moments and scary moments.  There are even moments that brought a tear to my eye.  It has the type of ending that always appealed to me – not a happy ending, but life goes on, and we look for the best in the future ahead.  I would highly recommend it to most people.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader ~ Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Letters of a Woman Homesteader
by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Elinore Pruitt Stewart is the embodiment of the pioneering spirit, longing for a place of her own and willing to work hard for it.  These cheerful letters to a former employer, full of humorous incidents and vivid language, detail the adventures of the first few years in Wyoming.

Hardship is no stranger to Eleanor.  As a child her parents had died within months of each other.  Later, her husband was killed in a railroad accident leaving her with a baby to raise.  After a difficult bout with the grippe she decides to make a change and takes her little girl, Jerrine, away to the wilderness of Wyoming in 1909.  

In Wyoming she works as a housekeeper for a Scotsman while homesteading her own piece of land.  She is an inspiration in her industriousness.  “I have done most of my cooking at night, have milked seven cows every day, and have done all the hay-cutting, so you see I have been working.  But I have found time to put up thirty pints of jelly and the same amount of jam for myself.”

Her wonderful adventures are full of language that is very conversational and easy to read, but also picturesque.  “We were driving northward, and to the south and back of us were the great somber, pine-clad Uintah Mountains, while ahead and on every side were the bare buttes, looking like old men of the mountains, - so old they had lost all their hair, beard, and teeth.”

Her sense of humor is evident throughout the letters, as when she goes to file a claim on her homestead and, “modestly kicked over a chair,” in order to get the land agent to pay attention to her. 

Even with so much hardship and work, she remains cheerful, kind and full of hope.   A light in a snowstorm leads her to Zebulon Pike, who gives her and Jerrine shelter.  Elinore learns that he has not been home, or heard from home, since the end of “The War.”  She writes letters for him and reads those that arrive in return.  With the help of her employer, she arranges for someone to stay at Zebbie’s homestead while he takes the train home for a visit, with a ranch hand for an escort.

On another visit to Zebbie’s, her imagination takes flight as they sit in a cabin listening to him play the fiddle while a terrible storm rages outside – “Zebbie was playing what he called ‘Bonaparte’s Retreat.’  It all seemed to flash before me – I could see those poor, suffering soldiers staggering along in the snow, sacrifices to one man’s unholy ambition.  I verily believe we were all bewitched.”

She also manages to find romance in sparsely populated Wyoming but loses her first son as an infant, to an infection which could be easily treated with penicillin today.  “His little message to us had been love, so I selected a chapter from John and we had a funeral service, at which all our neighbors for thirty miles around were present.  So you see, our union is sealed by love and welded by a great sorrow.”

Elinore is at once a product of her time and place, and also leaves us a record of it.  Besides the book of letters which is a quick and enjoyable read, there is a recording of the book available on CD which lends the perfect voice to Elinore, pleasant and homespun.  It can also be listened to online through our library’s subscription to Talking Tumble Books.  I highly recommend it.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life

by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver 

Follow Barbara Kingsolver and her family as they make the move from water starved Arizona to lush Southwest Virginia.  How does one pack a year of living and learning new things into just 370 pages?  In the case of Barbara Kingsolver, the answer is with humor and grace. 

The family starts their locavore year with morel hunting and asparagus harvesting.  Join the family for Barbara’s 50^th birthday party, a huge celebration planned around local foods.  There are trips to Vermont, over the border into Canada and across the ocean to Italy.  There’s also the joy of removing lactose from milk by making cheese at home, the sustainability of organic farming methods which build up the soil instead of eroding it and a crash course in what it takes to market organic produce.  Learn about the trials and tribulations of raising heritage turkeys without very much information available, the “harvesting” of poultry and turkey sex.   Add in canning safety and know-how, as well as recipes.

Both Barbara and her husband have biology degrees and are concerned citizens of the world so the book is packed with verifiable information as well as their personal experiences.   There are warnings, including what CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are costing our environment and health, but solutions are offered too.  The author contends that our food has become industrialized to the point where it is minimally nutritious and we need to take that process natural again.  She makes the case for heirloom and open pollinated vegetable seeds versus the hybrid and genetically modified seeds which are only good for one season and may even have animal or bacterial genes spliced into the plant chromosomes. 

The author contends that where our food comes from and what’s in it is something everyone should know about, care about and can do something about, whether it is growing some veggies in pots on your windowsill, in a back (or front) yard plot or simply buying seasonally from a farmer’s market.  We can vote with our dollars by buying local and organic products in big supermarkets too.  The contention the author makes is that buying locally whenever possible and growing some of our own food, can make a tremendous impact on the environment through reducing our use of fossil fuels in moving foods to market. 

An inspirational and informative read. 

Bird by Bird ~ Anne Lamott

Not too long ago I picked up the book Bird by Bird.  I had heard of it many times and even have one writer friend who says it is one of her favorite books on writing, but I was just never interested.  The title always put me off.  I interpreted it as some stuffy book by a self aggrandizing writer.  I could hear a British accent saying, Bird… by Bird.  Then an issue of Writer’s Digest came out and they had an article by Anne Lamott which turned me on to what the book really is.  Part memoir and part writing instruction manual, Anne Lamott’s book is very accessible and I identify with what she has to say.  I recognize myself in her memoir and her advice makes sense.  If you like memoirs or like to write yourself, I highly recommend the book.