I want to thank you all SO MUCH for the book suggestions! I know I'm a broken record, but now that my younger son (he's two years-old) has gained more independence I've been able to read more (as I'm able to get chores done while he's awake [and he "helps" me] rather than waiting until he's asleep to tackle everything), and I am not kidding, I am in heaven. Heaven! I do most of book searching by reading Sunday book sections as well as Entertainment Weekly / Newsweek book reviews and Amazon recommendations (you know, people who've purchased this book have also purchased X, Y and Z). I haven't been able to happily browse in the library since my children became mobile (my eldest is four) -- they love books and reading (or being read to) as well, but I'm uncomfortable leaving them alone in the children's section while I peruse the adult books. I first read Bill Bryson when we were living in Australia: I read his In a Sunburned Country and fell in love with his writing! In junior high school I read Fannie Flagg's Coming Attractions and think she did a great job evoking the time and place and style. Plus she made me laugh aloud, repeatedly. I participate in PaperBack Swap, a place where you can post your books to send to other members (it's a free club) and you can request books, too. Like, I posted a handful of books I no longer needed to own (paper- and hard- back) and various members requested them. I sent the books to them. I requested books in which I was interested (doesn't matter whose they are -- you receive credits for posting books, and you use those credits to request books from other members). One I recently read and which made me howl was Trisha Ashley's Every Woman for Herself -- definitely old British manor house descriptions galore in that one! Oh, and I Capture the Castle (lovely, lovely story) by Dodie Smith in which a family castle plays a significant role. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell takes place in Greece and besides being a delightful read also colorfully describes the family's home there. There was a horrible Katie Fforde I recently read (cannot recall the title at present ...) but boy did she do a terrific job describing the beautiful house, its wallpaper / furnishings, the kitchen and its set-up and the garden. Too bad the story itself was crap. I've never read or really read about Death by Inferior Design but I do love the title! I remember a few years ago reading a blurb about a nonfiction memoir by an American woman who married a Scots and how she rehabbed his family castle and had marital difficulties ... but I was never able to remember either the author or the title. I think I read about it in either House & Garden or Town & Country; searching online has yielded nothing (and I have tried). Maybe when my two year-old starts nursery school next year I can go to the library and comb through old issues of both magazines and see if I can come up with it. It sounded right up my alley!

Hey Radiodok... Nope...I just paint fantasy art. My brother had the book back in the 70's and had a friend of mine paint it. I did a copy of the painting back in 1985. I am now making another copy of it for an art fair. i didn't think I would ever see the cover again SamKaren your resident DJ

My M-i-L watches the TV evangelists-one that she watches enjoyed the movie, becuase "it is all fiction-not one true word in the book or movie-it's a good story, that's all." Another one was highly offended by both the book and the movie. What I find interesting is that in the first book written about the main character, Angels and Demons, the Catholic Church is the innocent victim-in the DaVinci Code she is the perpretator of all nefarious deeds...Brown clearly just wanted to write thrillers, not necessarily attack the church. But we hear little mention of the first book. Mind you, it was as much a strain to the logic as the DVC...how he escapes so many death-assuring situations without super powers boggles the mind.

Recipes For Easy Living by Curtiss Ann Matlock has several recipes in it, two that interested me quite a bit, so I tried them. the Raisin pie is ok, it's a good recipe but you'd better have a LOT of people to eat it, as one person can only stand so many raisins at a time lol. The cornbread was beyond horrid. When you pour two cups of boiling water over cornmeal you get gruel. Baking it doesn't help. Luckily, the donkey's liked it just fine. BTW, I thoroughly enjoyed that book, the third of a trio she wrote about the same bunch of people in Valentine, Oklahoma--an hour from Lawton. Which is darned near home territory for me, near enough to be neighborly at least. First on is "cold tea on a hot day', can't remember the second title & my neighbor has the set right now. I always meant to try some of the recipes from the Covington books, but never got around to it. j