(A remarkable and resilient woman, 98-year-old Jessie Lee Brown Foveaux has chronicled her life, an existence that reflects the entire 20th century and from which universal truths emerge. Hallmark Productions has optioned the story for a four-hour TV miniseries.

Born in 1899, Jessie Lee Brown Foveaux evokes the early 20th-century Midwest with tactile vividness. She recalls traveling by horse-drawn wagon one cold Thanksgiving, with hot rocks and hay placed under the blankets. Her description of all-day laundry routines will make modern women grateful for their washers and dryers. Foveaux's account of a bad marriage and struggle to raise her eight children has the same immediacy and vigor as her childhood memories. Begun as a gift to her grandchildren, this charming text speaks to all readers of the grace and nobility crafted from an "ordinary" life.

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.