Reading in the Garden

OMG! I loved this book!     Little nine-year-old Starla won my heart. She’s compassionate and witty, and delivers a narration that snaps, crackles, and pops.     In 1963 Starla decides to run away from home to find her mother in Nashville and avoid being sent to a reform school. On the road, a kind black woman, who has a white baby in her truck, pulls over to offer Starla a lift. That’s the beginning of a hair-raising, life-changing adventure where they bond and save each other. I couldn’t put this book down.   One of the blurbs on the cover calls the book “wise, funny, tender…destined to become a classic.” I wholeheartedly agree. Starla is as spirited and memorable as Anne of Green Gables, Pippi Longstocking, or Addie Pray of “Paper Moon.”  And oh, how I loved Eula, too—such a loving and gentle soul. Both of them snuggled in my heart.💛🧡   Here are some of the snappy quotes from Starla:   “I went back to working on the window, but the dang ...

 The Glass Menagerie  by Tennessee Williams. This is a tragic, classic play that I had to read in high school. Yet the only thing I remembered about it was that the daughter Laura was shy and introverted and was comforted by her collection of glass animals. But as I reread it as an adult I now see and feel so much more than I did through the eyes of a teenager. I see how impossibly trapped all three characters were.   The 23-year-old daughter, Laura, is “ crippled,” not just in having one shorter leg than the other and having to wear a brace, but because she's emotionally crippled with an inferiority complex. She's terrified of everything—even of going to business school.    The mother is trapped in a life where she has no resources. She was taught to be a housewife with no outside job, only to serve the family, completely dependent on her husband for financial support—just like Project 2025 is trying to bring us back to. The play takes place in the 1930s and he...

 The Glutton by AK Blakemore. This is an unusual historical fiction set around the French revolution, a dire and punishing time of great social divides. A near-death incident alters a man's physical constitution where he remains hungry no matter how much he eats. He gorges himself at street performances eating not just large quantities of food but also devouring unthinkable things from corks and belts to a trough of entrails and more unimaginable things.   Blakemore's writing is bewitching sophistication with a glut of extravagant words co-mingled with crude phraseology. Words crowned with an air of pretension glide next to vulgar expressive jargon - the his and hers set of “C” words make repeated appearances.   If you're adverse to violence, squeamish when someone eats a dead rat or worse, or offended by foul language, this may not be the book for you, yet it just may be the perfect read for someone coloring outside the lines.   While I did like the book, some thing...

 Libby Lost and Found by Stephanie Booth. This is such a sweet and tender tale about a highly successful JK-Rowling type author of a fantasy kids series who gets early onset dementia and needs help completing the last book in the series. When Libby puts out a plea to a superfan to hear the stories she proposes for the Following children's fate, 11-year-old peanut bursts into her life like a whirling ray of sunshine. Peanut is a fearless, can-do ball of energy, who doesn't always get things right yet plows forward despite her own set of curveballs life has thrown at her. Heartbreak is something Libby and Peanut have in common, but their unlikely collaboration is hopeful, humorous, and full of magical charm. I loved getting swept away in their personal stories as they work to finish the children's story. Happy Reading! Annette

Bottoms Up! This is an absorbing tour into the world of absinthe, the notorious alcohol that was globally banned by 1915 and then widely legalized again in the early 2000s. The author examines how one man fooled collectors into paying exorbitant prices for bottles of forged “pre-ban” absinthe.     Alongside the uncovering of the forger, we learn about the history of absinthe, the bad reputation it gained, underground absintheurs, as well as bootlegging in Switzerland. There is a mystique about the drink, including the way it visually changes as water is dripped into it over special spoons balancing sugar cubes atop the glasses. Drinking it is almost a ritual. A culture is enmeshed in the absinthe scene that rivals the enthusiasms of oenophiles.  I found all of it very informative and entertaining.    I’m not much of a drinker, but I wouldn’t mind trying this just once. I want to see the whole process—an interactive drinking experience. One should be enough ...

2023 Book Club Lists 2023 Idaho Book Worms Book Club – my book club  😊 💫Jan - Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton 💫Feb - The Guncle by Steven Rowley 💫Mar - Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest 💫Apr - The Lost Girls of Willowbrook by Ellen Marie Wiseman 💫May/June - The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore 💫Jul - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus 💫Aug - West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge 💫Sep - The Time Machine by H.G. Wells 💫Oct - The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner 💫Nov - The Patron Saint of Second Chances by Christine Simon 💢We do not meet in December since the holidays are hectic enough.   2023 Well-Read Moose Gems wellreadmoose.com 💎 Jan – Bandit Queen Parni Shroff 💎 Feb – House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson 💎 Mar – I Have Some Questions for you by Rebecca Makkai 💎 Apr – Hello, Beautiful by Ann Napolitano 💎 May – No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister    💎 Jun – Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See 💎 Jul – The First Ladies by M...