Reading in the Garden

Journey of the Heart The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. After receiving a letter from a dying acquaintance, retired Harold Fry spontaneously sets out on a 500-mile journey by foot to visit her. Walking alone gives Harold time to contemplate his marriage, his son, and his childhood, while meeting new people along the way.   This structured, unassuming Englishman still wearing his tie and yachting shoes seems to be doing what most people only dream of—making a great escape from his dull life if only for a brief time.  But Harold’s walk is so much more; it’s about regret and reconciliation of his past.   I really enjoyed this book.  It’s gentle, thoughtful, amusing, and moving—a touching thumbs-up. Happy Reading, Annette This book met one of my 2015 Book Challenges:   Read a book set in a foreign country .

America: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Girl in Translation   by Jean Kwok. Kimberly Chang is eleven years old when she and her mother move from Hong Kong to America with the help of Aunt Paula. In New York they start their long and arduous struggle to assimilate into a new and foreign culture while trying to remain true to the ingrained values and customs of their heritage.  Aunt Paula wears a mask of piety and familial devotion like a snake skin that sheds and quickly reveals her ugly core of darkness and spite. With family like this, who need enemies?  Aunt Paula has Kimberly and her mother literally working for pennies in her clothing sweatshop in Brooklyn, while keeping them holed away in a roach-infested building with no heat.  With the guise of being helpful, she oppresses them in inhumane living conditions. Despite the negative pull of the daunting life of factory work and atrocious living situation, Kimberly knows that the only way to overcome thei...

Bewitchingly Fun Read Babayaga by Toby Barlow is a book about an older witch out for revenge on a younger witch, a mild American advertising man, another wound-up American who draws the other into a shady espionage plot, and a detective who gets caught up in the middle with outrageous consequences.  This book had me under a spell right from the beginning.  It was such a fun read that I had a hard time putting it down. It was refreshingly imaginative with a fun and lively narrative and unexpected plot that wound its way through the streets of Paris in 1959. Although at times it was graphically gruesome and violent, the book as a whole was not a dark tramp through the underworld of witches and covens.  Each of the characters was unique and fully developed so in the end I felt like I really knew and understood them.  More than that, I liked them—even the evil, sour, old, sassy hag. I give it a high-flying thumbs-up! This was a book club selection and o...

2015 Book Challenge ReadingintheGarden.blogspot.com Happy New Year!!  To all you book lovers, here’s an entertaining challenge for 2015.  Let’s see how many books you can mark off this list.   Have fun!        ·          Read a book set in an “A” state:  Alabama, Alaska,                 Arizona, Arkansas      ·          Read a memoir      ·          Buy a book from your local bookstore      ·          Join a regular or online book club      ·          Read a suspense/thriller      ·           Read a book from                ...