Hi, My 2b is western Canada (southern Saskatchewan). Obviously a lot of bonsai material wouldn't survive in that climate - I only bonsai hardy trees (chinese elms, alberta spruce, scots pine, burr oak, etc. etc.) In the winter, I pop them out of their pots and heel them in. (If you leave the pots outside over winter they will shatter - I learned the hard way). This way, it's a cheap hobby - I air layer trees growing at the edges of fields, dig up some wild material from ditches and start some stuff from seed. The bloody pots, though, are expensive! Thanks for the suggestions about the books - I'll try looking at a copy of Naka's and see if it's the one I'm thinking of. I could really use some structure in my trees - up 'till now I've been just winging it :)

Eureka!! I found the information! From an obit. in the Washington Post June 4, 2011 "Harry Bernstein, memoirist who wrote of childhood of deprivation, dies at 101 Harry Bernstein, who caused a literary sensation when he emerged from anonymity in his 90s to write two devastating memoirs that explored his childhood of squalor, abuse and anti-Semitism, died June 3 at his daughter's home in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was 101. The cause of death was not reported. "The Invisible Wall" drew favorable comparisons to Frank McCourt�s Pulitzer Prize-winning "Angela�s Ashes," about that author's hardscrabble upbringing in Ireland. Reviewing "The Invisible Wall" in the New York Times, William Grimes called it "a world of pain and prejudice, evoked in spare, restrained prose that brilliantly illuminates a time, a place and a family struggling valiantly to beat impossible odds." In "The Dream," Mr. Bernstein's follow-up memoir, he traced his family's move to Chicago in 1922. In reviews, critics described Mr. Bernstein as a storyteller of quiet, heartbreaking power. Author Juliet Wittman, writing in The Washington Post, said of "The Dream" that "beneath the poignant descriptions of places and times past, beneath the rising and falling patterns of these characters' lives, we hear at Wordsworth called "the still sad music of humanity." For much of his life, Mr. Bernstein's writing career was steady but unremarkable. He critiqued and summarized manuscripts for film studios in the 1930s and 1940s once giving thumbs down to Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" as "just another historical romance." Later, he edited trade magazines and continued to publish articles and short stories. In 1981, he wrote a novel, "The Smile," about a fashion model. It received little attention, although he joked that he knew it sold at least one copy because of a letter he received from a reader. When his memoirs were published, Mr. Bernstein faced some skepticism from critics who said he could not possibly recall entire conversations from his childhood. He insisted he did, as they had been seared into his brain with photographic clarity. As much as he tried to forget the past, Mr. Bernstein did not extinguish the burning hatred he said that he felt for his father, who made his mother's harsh life even worse. She died at 65 of malnutrition in an unheated tenement in the Bronx, N.Y. After her funeral, he never saw his father again. "He wept when she died. That's the only good thing I can say about him," Mr. Bernstein told USA Today. He dedicated "The Invisible Wall" to his mother, "who gave us so much and received so little. Can this book make up for it? Can anything?" � The Washington Post Company

Thanks guys, I will check that out. A little about myself: I am recently widowed, I live in the mid west in a 2 year old patio home. I have two friends in the development who keep me so busy, it's hard to find reading time. My main interest right now is traveling. I have been reading since the first grade teacher stopped reading books to the class. My favorite books are historical novels...not the romances. I just bought......and am re-reading the Outlander series. That's some heavy reading, about 800 pages per book and 6 in the series. I also like The Earth Children Series. I ran out of historical novels years ago and went to books about strong women, Danielle Steele's books for example. I like light reading most of the time. Books like The Little Lady Agency by Hester Brown, her second was Little Lady, Big Apple. I like Fern Michaels, they are such an easy read which helps at my age. I especially like her Sisterhood Series and Hey Goodlooking. Another one I like is Night Swimming by Robin Schwarz. The list goes on and on. If you don't mind I will hang in here for a while. There was another book I was interested in. If I remember right the title was "Under the ____ Tree". It was about a woman who's husband surprised her with a divorce, he gave her nothing except a house in a small town and kicked her out. In spite of feeling so alone, she makes a life for herself in her new environment. I am going to check out Ladder of Years, thanks again.

I am becoming more and more convinced that I have read it, but I still can't remember when or who wrote it.