Reading in the Garden

Bryson’s Africa.    This super slim 50-page book is brimming with Bill Bryson’s usual mix of humor, interesting insights and information—this time about his 2002 trip to Nairobi, Kenya.  While Bill saw beautiful green grassy stretches with herds of impalas, zebras, families of baboons, and thousands of pink flamingos, most of the trip was eye-opening for different reasons. One stop was at an enormous slum with 700,000 inhabitants living without running water in horrendous conditions. Another destination was CARE’s refugee camp where thousands of Somalis and others seek shelter, food, and work.   A journey that was rife with danger and despair, this is one excursion I’m glad to read about without a twinge of temptation to undertake it myself.  It made me acutely aware of the blessings, comforts, and luxuries I take for granted—like running water. Bryson’s trip was sponsored by CARE International, the leading poverty-fighting organizatio...

Bad-Ass Women.    I love this book about women who made significant contributions to the world!  The easily digestible, bite-size bios provide just enough information to discover what the selected ladies were famous (or infamous) for. I had heard of Lady Godiva, for instance, but I thought she was just some free spirit riding naked through town.  Little did I know that her nude exhibition was spurred on by her own husband in exchange for lower taxes for the people!  There were many women I learned about from successful pirate captains to a sixty-three-year old daredevil who packed herself in a barrel and plummeted down Niagara Falls.  Doctors, inventors, scientists, conservationists, suffragettes, pharaoh, soldiers, nurses, pinup girls, and entertainers, the list goes on to explore one hundred women who were not necessarily bad, but definitely bad-ass.  This is a book I will be passing on to my granddaughters so that they ...

Stars of the Silent Screen. Melanie Benjamin is quickly becoming my go-to historical fiction author.  She continuously cranks out one book after another exploring bygone eras and fascinating people.   The Girls in the Picture  is an interesting read about two pioneers in the film industry.  Mary Pickford was a silent screen superstar. Frances Marion was a screenwriter.  Together they took the movie industry by storm:  each one gaining celebrity and becoming the highest paid women in their fields.  But nothing is ever as easy as it seems. This book sifts through the challenges they faced as ladies who dared to follow their own dreams and delves into their friendship complicated by power and jealousy. Other Books by Melanie Benjamin: - The Aviator’s Wife - The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb -Alice I Have Been -The Swans of Fifth Avenue -Mistress of the Ritz Happy Reading, Annette 

Time-Traveling Love Story. An enchanted, time-traveling romance about a Grand Central Terminal worker in the 1930s who meets a woman from the ‘20s. Besides the intrigue of time travel, I was drawn in by the rich historical references: the descriptions of Grand Central Terminal, the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and the phenomenon called Manhattanhenge. The images of a different time period combined with the heartfelt connection of Joe and Nora ran like a full motion picture in my mind.  Good book! Happy  Reading! Annette

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 ...