The $64 Tomato

The $64 Tomato
by William Alexander
****

How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden.

Gardening time is here, is it not? And if you are a gardener, then this is a must read. As the title suggests, we who deign to plant and attempt to grow things sometimes do not know the actual cost of the fruits of our labors. This book is one man's experience at gardening (or really, small-scale farming), working in concert with nature to provide his family with fresh, healthy produce.

But the best-laid plans, and all that.

The author tells us how his family moves to a small, rural town in New York where his wife sets up her medical practice. They buy an old house, pay too much for it, and then pay even more to renovate it. Scarcely finished with that, the author looks longingly at the wild acreage surrounding the hosue and begins plannning for a fantastic garden.

Our hapless gardener becomes a victim first of landscapers, then of pests of the large and small variety, disease, weather, and simply exhausting labor. Nevertheless, he pushes on and year after year manages to produce for his family wonderful fresh produce.

The cost is great when he sits down to calculate the cost of his home-grown produce. But he does not give up -- the benefit is too important.

The author tells his experiences with humor and interesting detail, including helpful information to other gardeners. I enjoyed this book, though I am no vegetable gardener --flowers only, for me. But for anyone who likes to dig in the earth, and enjoys the hopefulness of planting a seed or seedling and seeing where you can go from there, wiill enjoy this book as well.

What Remains, a Memoir of Fate, Friendship & Love

What Remains, a Memoir of Fate, Friendship & Love
autobiography, Carole Radziwill
***

I began reading this book just at the time Caroline Kennedy was being considered as the replacement senator from New York. Carole Radziwill is a cousin, by marriage, to Caroline, and reading the book served somewhat as a historical reference to current times.

I say somewhat as Carole does not refer a lot to the Kennedy family in her book except to John F. Kennedy, Jr., who was cousin to Carole husband, Anthony Radziwill. John's mother Jacqueline, and Anthony's mother Lee were sisters.

The story should have been a fairy-tale with a happy ending. A girl from a lower-middle class family achieves success on her own and ends up marrying a handsome prince. But instead, it's a sad story, indeed. The book starts out as Carole and Anthony are sitting at the beach in Martha's Vineyard awaiting the arrival of John and his wife Carolyn Bessette who is also Carole's best friend. It was that fateful day we all remember when the plane John was piloting crashed into the bay, killing John and Carolyn and her sister.

To make the story even more sad, as they waited on the beach, not yet knowing the terrible news, thoughts were of Anthony who was in the final throes of a fatal bout with cancer. Carole would shortly lose the three most important people in her life in a very short span. She quotes Orson Welles, at the start of her book, If you want a happy ending, it depends on where you end your story.

The book then turns to Carole's childhood, growing up in a family that lived a marginal lifestyle, providing sometimes unsavory role models for young Carole. I won't elaborate on the journey from childhood to princess, but it is an interesting story, and I'll offer no spoilers here.

I am not a follower of the famous, and this book would probably hold more interest for one who is. I found it more historically interesting as it fit into the nooks and crannies of things I already knew. The book is very well-written -- a beautiful use of language and style. I always enjoy a book so well-written.

I only gave this book three stars because I felt it was a book with a limited audience - those who like to peer into the lives of the rich and famous. However, it was, I hope, a cathartic book for the author, as she did have three very tragic losses to deal with.

A Girl from Yamhill, and My Own Two Feet

A Girl From Yamhill
My Own Two Feet
two autobiographies by Beverly Cleary
****
My own introduction to Beverly Cleary was in the mid-50's at perhaps age 9 or 10, when at a weekly visit to the Emerson Stone Branch Library I came across Henry Huggins. I became an immediate fan and went back looking for more from this author. I read the few available Beverly Cleary books in our little library and re-read them from time to time.

When my friend passed these two autobiographies (published in 1988 and 1995, respectively) to me to read, I was not sure I was interested (and I wondered why two autobiographies). I did enjoy them, however. A Girl from Yamhill takes Beverly from her earliest memories only to junior high school. My Own Two Feet picks up from there, taking you through public school, the Depression, college, marriage, World War II, and finally the publication of her first book.

As you read of her life, you soon realize that her children's books are so successful because her stories come from real life experiences.

Beverly was an only child, born in 1919 and still living today. She was well cared for despite many financial struggles her family faced. She recalls a happy childhood filled with fun and adventure that kids are bound to find when left to their own devices. Her parents were not restrictive in her younger years while they lived on a large farm in Yamhill. Beverly enjoyed less freedom after they moved to Portland when the farm could no longer support them during the Depression. As Beverly grew older, her mother become more and more possessive and even jealous of her daughter's youth and friends and fun, but Beverly rarely rebelled until college age. Beverly was always eager to leave home and become independent, and in college studied to be a professional librarian. At an early age she discovered a desire to write, and found she had a knack for storytelling, especially to children. She was offended when teachers asked her if her stories were original, thinking a young girl could not have written so well. She was in her late 20s before she finally sat down and started her first novel, Henry Huggins.

If you are a fan of Beverly Cleary books, you will enjoy both of these well-written books, which also include pages of photographs of Beverly and the people in her life during those growing up years.

Counting the Cost

Counting the Cost
by Liz Adair
*****

It's a coincidence, but seems entirely appropriate that I would write a review of this love story on Valentine's Day. The book cover tells us:

Counting the Cost by Liz Adair is "a novel that will break your heart and elevate your spirits . . . a closely-etched picture of life in a hard country in hard times, filled with memorable people, and a love story as poignant as it is beautiful."
- Ronald Shook, PhD, Associate Professor of English, Utah State University

The story is fiction but is based on the lives of real people, with the author's uncle and aunt the main subjects of the story. Along the way you will find characters Lucy and Jimmy who I know are the author's parents. The places, the lives they lived, the hard times, and the heartbreak are all taken from real experiences.

Liz has a beautiful fluid style of writing that draws you into the story and makes you lose all track of time as you read. I was first introduced to Liz's work with her book of her mother's compiled letters, Lucy Shook's Letters From Afghanistan which I highly recommend as well.

In Counting the Cost, a New Mexico cowboy, Heck Benham, meets and falls in love with a beautiful woman newly arrived from back east. But Ruth is married, and nothing good can come from that secret love. Ruth is a complicated person, part charming and helpless, part scheming and disloyal, she is accustomed to the comforts of life and finds herself trapped in a marriage of convenience. Heck is a true cowboy - honest, hard-working, with traditional moral values and beliefs guiding him - he would never dream of interfering in another man's marriage. But life does not always work out according to plan, and a desperate situation causes Heck to go against his better judgment and run away and set up life with a married woman.

I'm going to avoid any spoilers here as it is a story that needs to unfold in its own way and I would do a great disservice to the reader to reveal too much. There are twists and turns along the way and it isn't all heartache. There are some very happy times in the humble lives of these people. With historical honesty Liz paints vivid pictures of New Mexico and Arizona country during that period and the people and their manner of living.

I recommend this book both for its story, but also for the interesting setting so beautifully interwoven throughout the book.

The book isn't available in bookstores at this time, but is easily obtained by ordering online: www.inglestonepublishing.com. A portion of the profits go to the SWAN organization, helping women in third world countries.

Sky Burial

Sky Burial
by Xinran
*****

UPDATE: I have learned this is not a true story after all, and am somewhat disappointed at being led to believe it was. Still, I recommend the book, it is a good read. The book jacket says:

It was 1994 when Xinran, a journalist and the author of The Good Women of China, received a telephone call asking her to travel four hours to meet an oddly dressed woman who had just crossed the border from Tibet into China. Xinran made the trip and met the woman, called Shu Wen, who recounted the story of her thirty-year odyssey in the vast landscape of Tibet.

Shu Wen and her husband had been married for only a few months in the 1950s when he joined the Chinese army and was sent to Tibet for the purpose of unification of the two countries. Shortly after he left she was notified that he had been killed, although no details were given. Determined to find the truth, Shu Wen joined a militia unit going to the Tibetan north, where she soon was separated from the regiment. Without supplies and knowledge of the language, she wandered, trying to find her way until, on the brink of death, she was rescued by a family of nomads under whose protection she moved from place to place with the seasons and eventually came to discover the details of her husband's death.

This story will grab your attention and grab your heart. It is hard to imagine the twentieth century life in Tibet she describes. Things changed so little from centuries past for the little nomadic family of sheepherders who saved her life and then took her into their family. As you read you become aware there must be some great passage of time, but only a couple of times does the author reveal to you just how many years have passed during Wen's sojourn in Tibet.

The book is just over 200 pages in length, small pages at that, and easily read in a single cozy afternoon. It has all the elements I love most in a book: stories of women and their loves and their friendships, stories of unfamiliar cultures (I am particularly drawn to stories of the far east), stories of love and struggle, and stories that are true.

I won't tell you the outcome of Wen's quest to find her husband as you need to read it in the words told by Wen herself.

After the story was related to her, the author [claims] she lost track of Wen, and has since desperately tried to find her or the nomadic family with whom she lived.

I highly recommend this splendid book

On Writing, a memoir of the craft

On Writing, a memoir of the craft
by Stephen King
*****

I have read exactly one Stephen King novel. I saw part of Kujo, the movie, and I'm still scared of barking dogs. So, I'm not exactly sure why this book appealed to me. But it turned out to be a really great read, both from the standpoint of a writer and for sheer entertainment.

King tells us this is not textbook, and it's not. But it is full of advice. For example, "Adverbs are not your friend." He tells us how he writes. That he writes constantly when he is writing, even on holidays, lest his characters get "stale". He listens to loud rock music. And he says he does not "plot" his stories. I found this last particularly interesting.

In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech . . .

. . . my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow . . .

. . . I lean more heavily on intuition . . . my books tend to be based on situation rather than story . . .

. . . The situation comes first. The characters--always flat and unfeatured, to begin with--come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate. I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way.

Isn't that a cool concept? I love it so much, I'm going to try it myself if I ever get down to writing my stories.

The book is also highly autobiographical and we learn so much about King's life and experiences starting from a very young age. His story is as compelling as any novel.

If you are a writer, an aspiring writer, or just someone who appreciates good writing, you will love this book.

The Worst Book Ever Written--The Shadow God

The Shadow God

by Aaron Rayburn

(no stars)

I didn't read this book. I just read the review of it on Amazon.com. I sincerely enjoyed the reviewer's writing at least, and from the excerpts provided, I'd have to say he's probably close to right in his estimation.

For a chuckle, click this link and read the review for yourself. http://www.amazon.com/review/R1LPA5YOND6TGD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Here are a couple of my favorites from the excerpts provided:

"Spiers's eyes popped extraneously from their sockets, as his face turned from a deep red to a sickly purple."

"Of all the things to think, he never thought he'd think that."

"Eubanks looked annoyed. He exhaled annoyingly and said..."

As our reviewer said, "It's enough to make aspiring writers want to give up . . . "