Marda, The Year of Magical thinking is a wonderful book. And it's now going to Broadway as a play starring Vanessa Redgrave. A good companion book to read along with it is A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. It's remarkable how similar their thoughts on the grieving process are, especially towards well-meaning people who tell the person who has suffered a loss that their loved one is "in a better place."

I just finished My Life in France by Julia Child. She apparently started it a couple of years before she died and it was finished by her nephew. I just loved it & could almost hear Julia's actually voice as I read the pages. She was such a wonderful person. She grabbed life with both hands and collected friends like some people collect pots & pans.

In my TBR stack is Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin about how Lincoln took his biggest political enemies and made them part of his administration.

The Places In-Between by Rory Stewart who writes about his experiences walking across Afghanistan in 2002

Alice Hoffman by Alice Hoffman, a novel about being careful what you wish for.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. The story of life and death in occupied France during WWII

The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards A novel about a doctor who gives his baby daughter to a woman to take to an institution, but instead she gores to another town to raise her herself. This is next month's book group book, so i guess it's really the next one in line.

Whoops! MAke that The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

I definitely want to read A Team Of Rivals. Our book club is doing A Year Of Magical Thinking and we are going as a group to see the play this spring or summer.

Isabel Allende's "Daughter of Fortune," Kiran Desai's "An Inheritance of Loss," Paul Molyneaux's "Swimming in Circles: The End of the Wild Oceans," and a book of interviews with Allende that hasn't arrived yet from Amazon. Everything else is school stuff.

BTW, Marda, while all my colleagues loved the Russo book, I did not.

Don Osell's "Growing up in Henderson as I Remember It"(a small town on the banks of the Minnesota River). My son lives there and he sent it to me for christmas. Although it tells small stories from the 30's and 40's in that town, it could be anywhere USA. MY next book will be "The Rochester I Knew" by Henry Clune. Rochester, NY is my home town.

Ornamental Plants and Floweers of Tropical Mexico by Linda Abbott Trapp.

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood.

Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande.

I've been reading the historical novels by Phillippa
Gregory.
The Constant Princess
The Queen's Fool
Someone gave me Fannie Flagg's book,
Can't Wait to Get to Heaven. I read it one night when I
couldn't sleep.
Last night I finished A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve.
I found it on the bottom shelf of an end table in the
living room. I have no idea to whom that one belongs.

Neil has some books on discs now that he wants me to listen
to. One is by Patricia Cornwell, Cause of Death. He says it
is a good one. I am so thankful that there are ways for
people with low or no vision to enjoy books. It has been
so good for him.

Stephen King-Lisey's Story

"information that can change our lives, fortunes..." Well, that would be my stack of nursery catalogs that I can't put aside until I run out of money...should be soon. ~grin~ josh