Recently Read

Skip it if you wanna.

1.  The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow - Novel about a backwoods Kentucky family who move to Detroit in World War II so the husband can work in a factory.  Depressing, at times heartbreaking, and one of my absolute favorite books.  You'll become so involved in the life of this family that you won't want the book to end.  Highly recommended.

2.  Max by Howard Fast - Fast-paced novel about film-making in New York at the turn of the (last) century.  Very interesting and just soap-opera-ish to keep it fun.  I enjoyed it!

3.  Claiming Ground by Laura Bell - Subtitled "A Memoir", this is more a series of vignettes of the author's life as a sheep herder in Wyoming in the late seventies.  Did not finish.

4.  Blackbird by Jennifer Lauck.  Memoir.  Young girl's mother gets sick and dies; dad's a real dick.  Dad dies; stepmother is a bigger dick.  The end.

5.  On the Edge of Nowhere by Jim Huntington - One of the best books I've read lately, this memoir by a man who grew up in Alaska in the early 1900s is absolutely mesmerizing.  Very good!

6.  The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn - Account of the time the author spent at the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris.  I picked this one up because I really enjoyed another book of hers, Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good, but I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much, I guess mainly because I'm not interested in cooking techniques.  Did not finish.

7.  Call the Nurse by Mary J. MacLeod - Memoir of a nurse who practiced on a remote Scottish island in the 1970s.  Interesting and entertaining.

8.  The Gin Girl by River Jordan - Murder mystery novel set in Florida. *yawn*  Well, THAT'S a few hours of my life that I won't get back again.

9.  Tending Lives: Nurses on the Medical Front by Echo Heron - True stories from nurses.  Very good.

10.  The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber - Novel about a family of Black homesteaders in South Dakota in the early 1900s.  Good.

And that's what I've been reading.  You?