Genre: Fiction | Historical FictionStars: 4-1/4 out of 5Synopsis from GoodReads: Just after the Second World War, in the small English village of Chawton, an unusual but like-minded group of people band together to attempt something remarkable.One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists.… Continue reading Book Review: The Jane Austen Society
Tag: reading
Book Review: Fever
Genre: Historical FictionStar Rating: 3-1/2 out of 5Synopsis from The StoryGraph: Mary Mallon was a courageous, headstrong Irish immigrant woman who bravely came to America alone, fought hard to climb up from the lowest rung of the domestic service ladder, and discovered in herself an uncanny, and coveted, talent for cooking. Working in the kitchens… Continue reading Book Review: Fever
Book Review: Women Healers
Genre: Nonfiction | HistoryStars: 3-1/2 out of 5Synopsis from The StoryGraph: In her eighteenth-century medical recipe manuscript, the Philadelphia healer Elizabeth Coates Paschall asserted her ingenuity and authority with the bold strokes of her pen. Paschall developed an extensive healing practice, consulted medical texts, and conducted experiments based on personal observations. As British North America's… Continue reading Book Review: Women Healers
Book Review: Yellow Wife
Genre: Historical fiction (US Civil War time period)Stars: 4-1/2 out of 5Synopsis from Goodreads: In the tradition of Wench and Twelve Years a Slave, this harrowing story follows an enslaved woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia. Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Brown was… Continue reading Book Review: Yellow Wife
Book Review: Beasts of a Little Land
Genre: Historical fictionStars: 5 out of 5Synopsis from Goodreads: In 1917, deep in the snowy mountains of occupied Korea, an impoverished local hunter on the brink of starvation saves a young Japanese officer from an attacking tiger. In an instant, their fates are connected—and from this encounter unfolds a saga that spans half a century.… Continue reading Book Review: Beasts of a Little Land
Book Review: One Day
Genre: NonfictionStar Rating: 4 out of 5Synopsis from Goodreads: On New Year's Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day--chosen completely at random--turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent… Continue reading Book Review: One Day
Book Reviews – February into March
Things have been so hectic between work and trying to get some things done here at the house that I haven't really had time to devote to organizing and writing book reviews for many of the titles I've finished up recently. I thought, rather than try to pressure myself to review the back catalog for… Continue reading Book Reviews – February into March
Book Review: A Far Wilder Magic
Genre: YA Fantasy/RomanceStars: 4-1/4 out of 5Synopsis from Goodreads: When Margaret Welty spots the legendary hala, the last living mythical creature, she knows the Halfmoon Hunt will soon follow. Whoever is able to kill the hala will earn fame and riches, and unlock an ancient magical secret. If Margaret wins the hunt, it may finally… Continue reading Book Review: A Far Wilder Magic
Book Review: We Kept Our Towns Going
Genre: Nonfiction | American HistoryStars: 3-1/2 Synopsis from Goodreads: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is known for its natural beauty and severe winters, as well as the mines and forests where men labored to feed industrial factories elsewhere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But there were factories in the Upper Peninsula, too, and women who worked… Continue reading Book Review: We Kept Our Towns Going
Book Review: The Grass is Singing
Genre: FictionStars: 3/5Synopsis from Goodreads: Set in South Africa under white rule, Doris Lessing's first novel is both a riveting chronicle of human disintegration and a beautifully understated social critique. Mary Turner is a self-confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, frustrated wife of an ineffectual, unsuccessful farmer. Little by little the ennui of… Continue reading Book Review: The Grass is Singing
Knit One, Spin Too 