Reading in the Garden

Merry Christmas!!  Sending you warm thoughts with wishes of a healthy, happy, and book-filled new year! Originally I was going to list my favorite books of the year, but that turned out to be an impossible task because all of the books I read this year were excellent. I couldn’t choose a favorite. Having said that, I did put a star by the ones that you might want to float to the top of your list if you are having a hard time deciding which one to read first.    Historical Fiction: •  ¬ The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek   by Kim Michele Richardson (historical references to the pack horse program during the 1930s and blue people of Kentucky) •  The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb  by Melanie Benjamin (Based on a woman who was 2’8” tall) •  The Girls in the Picture   by Melanie Benjamin (about silent film star Mary Pickford and screenwriter Frances Marion) •  I Always Loved You  by Robin Oliveira (about Mary Cassatt’s relationship with Edgar Degas and Berthe Morisot

Hero. Collaborator. Spy. Survivor.   Based on true events, a young man in Italy leads Jews through the Alps to the safe haven of Switzerland during WWII.  He later becomes a spy while working as a driver for a high-ranking German official. This book reads like an action-adventure with unlimited dangers and evil lurking at every turn.  It seems almost like a movie script, yet the author received the story first hand in interviews with Pino Lella on whom the book revolves.  Mark Sullivan’s thorough and extensive research is also apparent in the well-detailed descriptions of locations and occurrences.   The result is a well-written, staggering portrayal of fortitude and heroism with a nail-biting ending! A book not to be missed!  Excellent.  Annette Further reading about the Holocaust: Night  by Elie Wiesel  In Our Hearts We Were Giants   by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev Historical Fiction set in WWII: The Tattooist of Auschwitz  by Heather Morris   (Based on