Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
Charles W. Eliot
May, 2008:
Title: Your Backyard Herb Garden
Your Backyard Herb Garden: A Gardener's Guide to Growing Over 50 Herbs Plus How to Use Them in Cooking, Crafts, Companion Planting and More
Miranda Smith
This has become my new favorite resource. I recently started a small container herb garden on my balcony, and picked up this book to help me in my quest to reduce our food bill. Many of you are wondering why I decided to place this book in the cooking section of my blog. Simple, this book is not just a gardener’s guide, but a cook’s guide on how to grow herbs to use in and out of the kitchen. The author shows you how to grow herbs without the use of pesticides and then how to make them into amazing oils, teas, butters and more. She also has a whole health and beauty section in this book. The think I like most about this book is the individual herb section. Each herb is given one page, and the author tells you how difficult it is to grow this herb, if it is friendly to helpful bugs like ladybugs and butterflies, if it can be grown in a container and how much you should expect to harvest from your new plant. I would recommend this to any one who loves to garden or cook, as well as anyone looking to trim their grocery bills.
Book Quote for 05/26/08
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
Oscar Wilde
I often have been asked what I do with my books once I have finished reading them. My answer: Keep them on a bookshelf to be reread at my leisure. You know I found it a truly awful book if I get rid of it.
Title: A Game of Thrones
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)
George R.R. Martin is not the first author to have his story told by multiple characters in the book, but I think that he is the best. He is able to capture the voice of the young and the old, the innocent and the corrupt with equal perfection. The series starts off by hinting at the big “unknown” on the other side of the Wall. Martin masterfully moves all about this world, having us watch as one thing happens as a result of the others that came before. Martin is also not afraid of killing off characters if it furthers the plot. As he gets rid of one voice, he replaces it with another, usually from a completely different view point. Some of the deaths we get to experience from the dying person’s prospective, sometimes from a spectator, sometimes they are a foot note in someone else’s day a thousand miles away. While some of my favorite characters were gotten rid of, he replaces them with others that I found that I had some strong emotion for, usually intense protectiveness or deep hatred. While this is a fictional setting, it gives you a feel for how our world may work if we got to look down on it all from above.
Title: Moon Called
Moon Called
This was my first experience with Patricia Briggs. Overall, my feelings were meh. I am not a big fan of the romance genre. The genre as a whole is predictable in as far as how characters interact with each other. This was half way fantasy and half way romance. The book was great whenever the main character, Mercy, was not dealing with her old fling or her new budding relationship. Mercy is a character that I very much like, being a shape-changing mechanic who owns her own garage. Basic plot: she meets a young werewolf that is attacked in front of her. After killing the attacker, the only thing she can think to do with her charge, she takes him the the local alpha werewolf. Next day, the young one is dead on her door step, the alpha is ripped to shreds, and the alpha’s daughter is missing. Picking up the trail, she goes north to see her adopted father and head alpha of the western hemisphere, and of course her old flame is there. Hilarity ensues, red herrings are found and thwarted, and over all the book was alright. Great as fluff reading on a plane, but I wouldn’t get too invested in it.