The Well-Tended Perennial Garden

Tracy DiSabato-Aust’s book is a great resource for information on perennial maintenance.  She addresses subjects like designing with maintenance in mind, bed preparation, pruning, deadheading, pinching and division. The second half of the book, which I find the most useful, includes dozens of entries on specific perennials and their pruning requirements along with other maintenance tasks. If you have ever wondered if deadheading a particular perennial will give you that extra flush of bloom, read this book. There are also useful lists in the back with such titles as “lower maintenance perennials”, “clay busters” and ” deer-resistant perennials”. Tracy has over twenty years of experience designing and maintaining perennial gardens.  She has experimented with cutting back perennials in her customer’s gardens to find what works best for various species. This book is a very handy guide for keeping your garden beds beautiful and floriferous.

Double Deuce by Robert B. Parker

"A 14 year old girl and her baby are killed in a drive-by shooting in one of Boston's projects called Double Deuce.  Hawk is asked by the residents of Double Deuce to find the killer and to get rid of the Double Deuce gangs.  Hawk enlists his friend, Spenser, to help him."  While Hawk is a professional thug, Spenser is a private eye.  They use their unorthodox methods to find the killer.


I like reading Spenser books because of Parker's writing style.  He writes short chapters that move along quickly.  Before you know it, you are almost done with the book.  You may like a Spenser book if you like a quick read.



Tapestry of Fortunes by Elizabeth Berg

     "Four women venture into their pasts in order to shape their futures, fates, and fortunes."  (Amazon).  When her best friend dies, Cece, a motivational speaker and writer, moves into a house with three other women of various ages and careers. She is lonesome and realizes that she does not need the big house that she owns as well as the many accumulated possessions.  With a few bumps she eventually becomes friends with the others and one by one they begin opening up to each other about their pasts and current sorrows.  Unexpectedly, Cece gets a letter from an old flame. She decides to visit him as part of a road trip. This leads to a grand roadtrip including all the women who realize they could benefit by making an attempt to visit someone from their pasts.  Much of the plot is predictable, but there are many sweet moments related to friendships and to a vision of hope beyond ones feeling of loss and change.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

This novel is dark and disturbing, yet a delightfully addictive read. An international best seller, The Dinner has been called the "European Gone Girl."

On a summer night in Amsterdam two couples, Paul and Claire and Serge and Babette meet in a chic restaurant to talk about their children. Each has a fifteen-year old son, and together the teens commit an unspeakable crime. Between entrees we learn that Paul, the father of Michel, has a dark past. Paul's disturbing secrets slowly unfold, chilling this reader to the bone. Serge, the father of the other boy is a prominent politician soon to become the Netherlands' prime minister. The mothers of the teens, Claire and Babette, have their own ideas of how to deal with the situation.

What's a parent to do? What would you do if you loved someone who committed a horrific crime?

Alan Bradley’s first novel introduces us to 11 year old Flavia de Luce.  Living in a run-down English estate in the 1950’s with her father and two sisters, Flavia fancies herself a detective.  She has a well-equipped chemistry lab to aid in her investigation.  Here she also loves to experiment with poisons, dreaming up ways to retaliate against the older sisters who torment her.  When a dead bird with a stamp on its beak appears on the family’s doorstep and a stranger is found murdered in the cucumber patch, Flavia sets out to investigate.  When it appears that Flavia’s stamp-collecting father may be involved, Flavia tries even harder to solve this case, despite resistance from the local police.  

Flavia is an endearing, intelligent character.  Author Bradley has received numerous awards for this book including the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award.  There are currently 5 books in this series with a sixth due out in January.

Angels at the Table by Debbie Macomber

 

Angels at the Table is the latest in the Angel Series.  Shirley, Goodness and Mercy are back with an apprentice angel, Will.

Shirley, Goodness, Mercy, and Will are God’s prayer ambassadors.  They have come down to Earth even though it is forbidden.  Their presence on Earth causes some mishaps.

In this novel, Lucie and Aren meet in Times Square on New Year’s Eve with the help of the angels, Shirley, Goodness, Mercy, and Will.  Lucie is a chef who has recently opened a restaurant, Heavenly Delights.  Aren is an anonymous food critic for the New York Gazette newspaper.  Their relationship hits a bump in the road.  The angels feel it is their duty to help them get back together.  Instead they cause more problems, sometimes with funny results.  Eventually, their efforts to reunite Lucie and Aren are successful.

This book is for anyone who enjoys a warm hearted story with a happy ending.

 

 

 

Ken Follett's historical epic entitled The Century Trilogy:

 
The first book of the trilogy, Fall of Giants, takes place at the time of WWI, the Russian Revolution, and the fight for women’s suffrage.  Five families from different countries, interconnected through relationships, become embroiled in the national causes of their countries.  Often members are on opposing sides of the issues and even of the battles of war.  Winter of the World, the second book in the trilogy picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs. The third book, due out in 2014 and provisionally titled Edge of Eternity, will be about the next generation during the Cold War.