A Lovely Life

1.   Eat, Pray, Love.   Elizabeth Gilbert.  This is actually the first book I got that got me hooked on reading again.  I couldn't put this story of a woman's pretty ballsy journey in Italy, India and Indonesia.  Well worth the time to read it....great insight! 2.  Bossy Pants.   Tina Fey.  I've read some funny books, but this one had me hysterically LOL'ing while simultaneously crying during a flight back from California.  It was a random airport buy (I liked the orange cover) and is one of my favorite books.  I want to be Tina Fey's BFF.  3. T he Kitchen House.  Kathleen Grissom.  This is one of the only books that didn't come recommended by a friends, but was chosen by yours truly based on Amazon.com reviews.  It's one of those books that sucks you in resulting in a quick read because you simply can't put it down.  Not an easy read necessarily, but a GREAT one! 4.   East of Eden.  John St...

After spending literally MONTHS suffering through a book I just couldn't get into, I was desperate to find something that kept me reading.  After asking for suggestions on my Facebook and Instagram accounts, I found the Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.  It did NOT disappoint!! It's a book set in the late 1700's, early 1800's on a tobacco plantation and follows two main characters, Lavinia and Belle.  The book begins when Lavinia is a small white girl who was orphaned on a ship from Ireland.  With no parents, she was taken home by the plantation master and given to the slaves to be cared for.  Belle, who is the plantation master's illegitimate daughter, becomes one of her main caretakers, but we quickly find that isn't just Belle who becomes young Lavinia's family.  The slaves are a close knit group and take Lavinia in as their own with love and grace.  As we watch Lavinia grow from childhood to adulthood, we're exposed to both the tragedy and resi...

Sorry for the blogging delay lately...it's been a busy couple of weeks.  All is back on track, though, so the blogging continues! I recently read Blackberry Winter by Sarah Jio after deciding to jump on Peanut Butter Fingers monthly book club.  They read this in February and discussed it a couple of weeks ago.  This wasn't a quick read for me so needless to say, I'm a tad behind on this review. I haven't read any of Jio's other novels, so I had no basis of what to expect although the reviews I read for Blackberry Winter were stellar and the book club picked it, so why not?!  Summary The book follows two female characters at very different times in history.  Vera Ray is a single mother in 1933 who we find struggling to make ends meet in order to care for her young son, Daniel.  Claire Aldridge is a wife and journalist in a marital struggle in 2010.  Claire is assigned to a story after an unusual snow storm occurs that parallels one in 1933 and,...

After a wedding, the holidays and a move into our first home, I'm finally back in the swing of being able to pick up a good read!  I'm even in the process of working on what we affectionately call my "reading room".  It's actually a spare bedroom that will be utilized as my little office/craft room/reading space until we decide to make it into a guest bedroom. I began reading again a few years ago as an adult.  I had never considered myself a reader and found it difficult to sit down long enough to actually open a book.  A friend suggested Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and I was instantly hooked!  The summers in Georgia are pretty balmly, but I loved sitting out on my balcony with a good glass of wine, a candle and a book where I'd get lost in it's story. I've just started Blackberry Winter by Sarah Jio after reading another blog, www.pbfingers.com that does a monthly book club .  Several people recommended it, so I thought I'd giv...