Here are some others not to forget: Griffeth Buck Vernon Rickard Paul Barden I don't believe Americans are dissinterested in things that were not invented here. We seem to be quite fond of things with European names like Krupps, Braun, and all those other coffee makers. We eat tons of ethnic food. Lots of us are tourists. When the Beatles came out many of us became Anglophiles and a lot of us still think the English cottage garden is the ultimate. We are a country full of appreciative people, IMO. I have never noticed anyone not wanting to buy a rose because it was bred by a non-AMerican. Excuse me for digressing. Anyway even with it's flaws I bet I could really enjoy looking at that book, Devon. I usually check the big Botanica's out from the library but have my easy to hold paperback copy which I enjoy. My library also has The Rose Bible and Antique Roses for the South, both of which were responsible for a number of roses in my garden. Linda

I think the Jewish twist might be going too far, but they made the suggestion that she wasn't the typical German child because of her coloring. I wasn't sure why it would be important other than to make her stand out from the others in the story.

These are some of the titles that I have personally tried: * The Power of Habit: Why We do What we do in Life and Business - Charles Duhigg * Anything by Malcolm Gladwell is fun to read (sociology type stuff) * Sin in the Second City (history of brothel in Chicago) - Karen Abbott * Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America - Steve Almond (just ok) * Woman: An Intimate Geography - Natalie Angier * Necropolis: London and its Dead - Catharine Arnold * The Great Influenza - John M. Barry (history of 1918 flu pandemic) * The City of Falling Angels - John Berendt * A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail - Bill Bryson (HILARIOUS!) * At Home - Bill Bryson * The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way - Bill Bryson - just ok * Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America - Barbara Ehrenreich (controversial and interesting) * The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl - Timothy Egan (fascinating and of regional interest). Fabbo. Anything by Egan will be good, I think. * The Wal-Mart Effect - Charles Fishman (examination of how Wal-mart has changed things) * Watching the English - sociology of UK - Kate Fox (interesting) * Color: A History of the Palette - Victoria Finlay - just purchased this one⦠* Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things - Randy O. Frost * The Dead Beat: History of obit writing - Marilyn Johnson * The Ghost Map - Steven Johnson (Victorian cholera epidemic and public health) * The Great Mortality (history of Black Death) - John Kelley * The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson * Thunderstruck - Erik Larson (he also has a new release out about US diplomat in HitlerâÂÂs Berlin) * IsaacâÂÂs Storm: deadly hurricane down south Texas - Erik Larson * The ChildrenâÂÂs Blizzard - David Laskin * Women of the Raj - Margaret MacMillan (specialist but interesting if you like British history in India - otherwise probably not!) * No Idle Hands: A Social History of American Knitting - Anne McDonald. (I donâÂÂt knit, but surprisingly this was one of the best books I have read this year. Very entertaining and interesting.) * The Library at Night - Alberto Manguel (good and intellectually challenging) * The Emperor of Maladies (history of cancer) - Siddartha Mukherjee - high up the TBR pile * The Orchid Thief - Susan Orlean (good) * Rabbit-Proof Fence - Doris Pilkington (Australian classic about Aboriginal tribes - very moving) * Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine - Roy Porter * Stiff - Mary Roach * Bonk - Mary Roach * Spook: Science Tackles the After life - Mary Roach * Packing for Mars - Mary Roach * Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal - Eric Schlosser * And the Band Played On - Randy Shilts (upfront history of AIDS epidemic) - there is a new documentary about...

I belong to 2 book groups. We do not read "currently popular" books; how curious that one would think that would be a de facto requirement of a book group! Each of the groups I belong to has a different but democratic procedure in place for choosing books. We read plays, poetry, short stories, classics, new titles, fiction, non-fiction, etc. We have very rarely ended up reading a book that has qualified as "chick lit" (whether "currently popular" or not), and when we do, I don't mince words about how I feel about it. The point of the group is to have a vigorous discussion about the merits of a book, its relationship to the body of literature, to history, about translations (if applicable), to our other readings, etc. I have only once set aside a book and did not finish reading it, finding it lightweight, poorly written, and manipulative--and I did say so.