Reading in the Garden

Sisters, Beer and Pies.    While  one sister finagles away the family inheritance to follow her dream of opening a brewery, the other sister is left to struggle financially.  This is the story of sharp selfishness, fresh generosity, earthy tenacity, elegant acceptance, and refreshing remorse that will leave a smooth and satisfying aftertaste. Ok I’ve gone overboard with the beer references, but I can’t help it. This book is bubbling with family dynamics intertwined in the beer industry.  Besides getting hooked into the lives of these two very different women, I was also fascinated at how involved the craft brewing business is.  It made me have a whole new respect for my own  favorite brew pub.    This book is best enjoyed on a warm summer day with a nice cold one.  Book Published: July 23, 2019 ROAD TRIP! The Lager Queen of Minnesota  brought back memories of a road trip my husband and I took...

Bring Back Our Girls.    International journalist Isha Sesay examines the mass abduction of two hundred and seventy-six girls from their Nigerian school in 2014. She explores the events of that day when the militant Islamic group, Boko Haram, kidnapped the students, an ordeal that lasted over two years for some and sadly, continues for over one hundred girls today. Specifically, she follows the journey of four girls stolen away from their loved ones into a precarious nomadic life. In this mainly Christian group of girls they are continuously pressured to convert to Islam, then coerced to marry the insurgents. Those who do not convert endure beatings and starvation.   All the while the Nigerian government almost seems to ignore the family members’ pleas to step in and find them. Their story was thrust into a political abyss where the #Bring Back Our Girls movement became a threat to an ineffective government.  While the world was shocked to f...

Invincible Elinore.    I loved these real letters of a woman determined to start a new life in Wyoming in the early 1900s.  Writing to her former employer in Colorado, Elinore beautifully describes the landscapes, challenges, and triumphs of becoming a female homesteader.  She tells us of nearly getting stuck in a May snowstorm and the joy of deliver food boxes to sheep herders at Christmas.  Elinore claims that working the land is no more difficult than being a wash woman in town, and there’s job security in homesteading.  It’s better than any city job unless you’re afraid of coyotes, work, and loneliness. And what a hard worker she is!  She has seven cows to milk twice a day; she does the cooking and housekeeping, sews clothes, has nearly an acre garden to maintain, all while raising her kids. I’m not quite as optimistic as Elinore in thinking that almost any woman can do it. She just makes it look easy. Elinore not only ...