...you should like this book. Funny, self-depracating, insightful, and slightly raunchy. I listened to it with Fey narrating her own book. Great!

The story of a slave woman who, for a variety of reasons, lived under three different masters/mistresses. She gained family at each situation. Her son was the result of being raped by the first plantation owner. She found her husband at the second home. They had a daughter. Joanna, the woman, learned dressmaking skills which were indispensable to the daughter of the second owner who gave her to his daughter as a wedding present.
The story was bookended by a modern story of finding letters and a quilt in a Pennsylvania home and wondering what became of the maker.
The book evoked anger in me that man could be so cruel to any man. I also felt the ending was hurried and didn't answer all the questions presented in the first chapter.
A good story that needed a better written ending.

Living and working in San Francisco, the author purchases a Villa in Tuscany that needs major renovations that she will live in 3 months of the year. I know how much trouble people have trying to get work done in the same city when they can supervise. This lady was very brave and lucky. Beautiful writing.

This is chick lit. It is a romance. Not my usual genres. It was an interesting fictional read of people who Van Gogh knew or could have known, but mostly it\\\\\\\'s a story of the prostitute with the golden heart. Not a meaty read, but entertaining.

Anthony Shadid is an American of Lebanese decent who sought and found, if not his family\\\\\\\'s roots, at least his ancestral home that he painstakingly restored. Along the way he learned the customs and personality of the peoples in his sphere, both family and strangers. Shadid restored not only the home, but the land, the olive trees became of special significance to Shadid - a link to the past while starting a new tradition.
The story weaves ancestor stories with Shadid\\\\\\\'s tribulations restoring the home.
As with the house restoration, the reader needs to be there at the end of the book to truly appreciate the beauty of the work done.

I was in middle grades when Alan Shepard and John Glenn were shot into space. My formative years were the formative years of the space program. This book helped dust off many cobwebs that have accumulated in the 50 ensuing years. Customs were very different then and make for an interesting conversation about whether the changes have been for the better. I felt this book could have used \"more meat.\" It felt like an appetizer, preparing me for something more.

Andy is an assistant district attorney whose son is accused of killing a classmate. Other members of the accused\\\'s family have done time for murder. Is there something in the family genes? How best to handle this situation may shock some.

Welcome to Earl\\\'s All-You-Can-Eat, but don\\\'t sit at the front window table. That table is saved for The Supremes, the name given to Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean by Earl. These three women have been friends for over 40 years - since high school. Each has married, had children, and dealt with the vicissitudes life has for us.

This book is part comedy and part drama. Most of all it is a hoot. Once you meet these women, you will know you have found true friends.

The first of Ernest Hemingway\\\'s wives follows him to Paris where she is thrust amid the crowd of writers and ex-pat friends: Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald and others. Despite her encouragement, Hemingway\\\'s writing drys up and soon, so does the marriage.
Enter the 20s in a past world full of camaraderie and literature.

...but there is always the promise. The promise of tomorrow and a better turn in life and love is the quiet river that runs through this book. I read this book in two sittings. It changed from a view of life in the 1950s to a mystery - what happened to Jimmy, Lewis's best friend. There a lot of tomorrows before Lewis and we get the answer.

I went on this walk with her. I adored this book. Beautiful writing. Wonderful character driven book of an elderly woman reviewing her life while she walks on New Year's Eve. Could have been maudlin, but Lillian is and always have been a strong woman. Bravo Lillian and thank you Kathleen Rooney for bringing her into my life. I know I will read this over and over again. (This from someone with 4000 books on my TBR.)

is a timeless classic, an inspirational novel of good vs evil. The first of a five book series by Madeleine L'Engle.