Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers by Edward C. Smith

Non-Fiction: Gardening. Paperback from Storey Publishing, LLC. Published in 2006. 272 pages. On loan from the Kent District Library.

When I can, I like to do a small container garden with tomatoes, jalapenos, cucumbers and the like. One of the problems I have is keeping them properly watered, so I was intregued by this idea of "self-watering" plants. I'm hoping to try at least one pot that way this summer to see if it is worth the effort. My only disappointment was that his instructions on how to make your own self-watering planter consisted mostly of saying "go and buy the kit" and here's how you put it together. I would have preferred instructions on how to actually do it yourself from "scratch". Oh well. The book has some good basic gardening information, which I can always use being only a moderately knowledgeable gardener, and there is a decent list of gardening suppliers, including where to buy self-watering planters.

Publisher's summary:
Shiny green cucumbers; firm, juicy tomatoes; baby lettuces handpicked one salad at a time—these are the tasty benefits of the backyard vegetable garden. But earth gardens are a lot of work. They require a plot of plantable land and a significant time commitment to sowing, watering, weeding, and tending each plant.

Is there a solution? Self-watering containers allow vegetable gardeners—from the casual weekender interested in a tomato plant or two to the very dedicated gardener with limited space—to grow richly producing plants in a controlled, low-maintenance environment.

Lifelong gardener Ed Smith became fascinated with the possibilities of self-watering containers and began testing dozens of vegetables in various containers, experimenting with nutrients, soil mixtures, plant varieties, and container positioning. Now Smith is here to tell gardeners that anyone can grow and enjoy wonderful organic vegetables, using pots with continuous- flow watering systems.

Smith shares advice on choosing appropriate containers, how to provide balanced nutrition using his secret soil formula, and what additional tools benefit the container gardener. The reader will also find advice on starting from seed versus buying plants, which vegetables thrive in containers and which might be a bit more challenging, along with space-saving tips on pairing plants in single containers. After the last green tomato has been picked and is ripening on the windowsill, Smith wraps everything up with a chapter on fall clean-up and preparing for next spring. Now there’s really no excuse for store-bought tomatoes!

Online book shopping:
Powell's: Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers
amazon.co.uk: Incredible Vegetables from Self-watering Containers
amazon.com: Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers
Audible.com: not available as audio

March by Geraldine Brooks

Fiction: Historical. Audio from BBC Audiobooks America. Published in 2005. 10 hours and 22 minutes. Read by Richard Easton. Purchased from Audible.com.

Based loosely on Louisa May Alcott's father's life, this book is about the father from Little Women. It recounts his time away during the American Civil War. Interspersed between the goings on during the war, there are flashbacks to past experiences in his life. It was enjoyable to get a glimpse at the absent father from Little Women. Of course, any book about war is going to be hard. Then adding in the reminders of how horrendous slavery is made it a sobering book in many ways. It's always good to remember though, even though it's not an easy thing to do.

Publisher's summary:
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously researched, March is an extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history.

From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father, a friend and confidant of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In her telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.

Spanning the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South, March adds adult resonance to Alcott's optimistic children's tale to portray the moral complexity of war, and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism, and by a dangerous and illicit attraction. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks' place as an internationally renowned author of historical fiction.

Online book shopping:
Powell's: March
amazon.co.uk: March
amazon.com: March
Audible.com: March

Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home by Sarah York

Non-Fiction: Spiritual Life. Hardback from Jossey-Bass. Published in 2001. 172 pages. On loan from the Kent District Library

I had hoped that this book would have some thoughts about how travel can change you for the better spiritually, and in a way it did. But mostly it just really confused me. I couldn't get a real grip on what she believes. I read on the back cover that the author was a minister, so I expected a Christian book. What I got was a book in which the author confesses, for example, to "having abandoned the central message of the song How Great Thou Art", (even though she sung it at the top of her lungs in a valley in the Himalayan mountains), and where she uses a man leaving his family when he figured out that he didn't really love his wife as a good example of the proper response to a spiritual pilgrimage. Finally I decided to look closer at her biography in the back of the book and discovered that she is a Unitarian Universalist Minister. That explained a lot about the way the book seemed to just pick and chose from several different belief systems. I think there are some good ideas in there about how to be a part of the world around us, and to experience it. But there is a lot of other stuff I don't agree with to wade through to find it. That's not always a bad thing to have to do, but I did not go into the book thinking that was what I was getting, so it was disappointing to me.

Publisher's summary:
Gazing at Himalayan peaks or wandering the shores of Scotland's Iona Island makes for compelling travel experiences. Yet the adventure of such journeys is not just about travel, it is about seeking greater spiritual depth. In her down-to-earth and engaging new book, Pilgrim Heart, Sarah York examines the many dimensions of soul journeys: from forming an intention, to preparing to go, to leave-taking, and then to returning. As her experiences and insights reveal, such journey-making is not just a movement through time and space. It demands a willingness to face the strange and disorienting in order to change and grow. And finding home requires an appreciation for one of the greatest paradoxes: we leave, letting go of the security of our physical homes in order to open ourselves to our spirit's home.

Online book shopping:
Powell's: Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home
amazon.co.uk: Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home
amazon.com: Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home
Audible.com: not available as audio

Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

Fiction: Mystery. Hardback from Pantheon Books. Published in 2006. 227 pages. On loan from the Kent District Library.

I tried a couple of his other books outside of this series without really caring for them. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series, however still provides me with an enjoyable read. This is not a challenging tome, by any stretch, but a nice story with insights into human nature sprinkled throughout.

"Happiness was an elusive thing. It had something to do with having beautiful shoes, sometimes; but it was about so much else. About a country. About a people. About having friends like this."

Publisher's summary:
From internationally best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith comes the seventh novel in the phenomenally popular and endlessly charming series that began with The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Once again Botswana's only female detective, Mma Ramotswe, and her invaluable assistant, Mma Makutsi, puzzle out the mysteries of life while finding comfort in steaming mugs of bush tea.

Danger hits close to home when a cobra is found in Mma Ramotswe's office. Of less immediate danger, but greater general interest, are the faulty blood pressure measurements being recorded at the local clinic. But perhaps the biggest mystery is why Mma Makutsi's fiance has missed their usual dinner date. Is he discontented? And if so, will cramming her feet into a pair of fashionable blue shoes help Mma Makutsi find happiness?

Full of subtle wit and charming characters, Blue Shoes and Happiness is another unforgettable gem from McCall Smith.

Online book shopping:
Powell's: Blue Shoes and Happiness
amazon.co.uk: Blue Shoes and Happiness
amazon.com: Blue Shoes and Happiness
Audible.com: Blue Shoes and Happiness

Old Twentieth by Joe Haldeman

Fiction: Science Fiction. Hardback from The Penguin Group. Published in 2005. 272 pages. On loan from the Kent District Library

My son John read this, enjoyed it and passed it along to me. I enjoyed it, too. The twist at the end surprised me.

Publisher's summary:
The passengers aboard the starship Ad Astra spend most of their time on the thousand-year journey to Beta Hydrii within the virtual reality of twentieth-century Earth. There, they can experience nostalgia for the hardship of a life they've since evolved beyond.

But when people inside the virtual reality chamber start to die, engineer Jacob Brewer finds himself face-to-face with a sentient machine obsessed with humanity. It has put itself in charge of the ship. And it wants to talk to Jacob...

Online book shopping:
Powell's: Old Twentieth
amazon.co.uk: Old Twentieth
amazon.com: Old Twentieth
Audible.com: sorry, not available on audio

Words About Books: oeuvre

oeuvre ([oe]vr&) noun

the works of a painter, artist or writer regarded collectively: the complete works of C. S. Lewis

[ORIGIN: late 19th Century: French; literally "work"]

Classic Irish Short Stories: Volume One

Fiction: Short Stories. Audio from Audio Connoisseur. Published in 2003. 4 hours and 56 minutes. Read by Charlton Griffin. Purchased from Audible.com.

Short stories are not my usual reading fare, but since they were Irish short stories, I thought I'd give them a try. I really enjoyed listening to them - I just had to rethink how long a story is supposed to be before I stopped feeling like they just ended - chop - without any warning.

Publisher's summary:
The Irish have always had a knack for telling wonderful stories, and their fantastic ability has been recognized from early Gaelic times. For centuries, stories of all kinds have been offered to friends and strangers alike as a form of entertainment and communication. Today in Ireland, the short story is revered even above the novel. Hearing these magnificent stories, we become aware of more than just the humor and travail of a small island. In some magical, mysterious fashion, as we listen, we all become Irish in a grand, tragi-comedy of life, and these stories show us what makes the human being the special creature he is.

Volume I includes "Homesickness" and "Julia Cahill's Curse" by George Moore; "Innocence" by Sean O'Faolain; "The Fairy Goose" by Liam O'Flaherty; "The Sphinx without a Secret" by Oscar Wilde; "Adventures of a Strolling Player" by Oliver Goldsmith; "The Weaver's Grave" by Seamus O'Kelly; "My Oedipus Complex" by Frank O'Connor; "The Boarding House" by James Joyce; and "The Leaping Trout" by David Hogan

Online book shopping:
Powell's: not available at Powell's
amazon.co.uk: not available from Amazon in the UK
amazon.com: Classic Irish Short Stories, Volume 1
Audible.com: Classic Irish Short Stories, Volume 1

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

Non-Fiction: Christianity. Audio from Blackstone Audio. Published in 1942, recorded in 2000. 5 hours and 52 minutes. Read by Geoffrey Howard. Purchased from Audible.com.

I tried to read Mere Christianity years ago and had a hard time understanding the first chapter. So, I gave up. This semester the teen bible class at church is doing a study of Mere Christianity and I decided to give it another try. But, rather than reading it, I listened to it this time. I still had some trouble grasping everything in the first chapters, but was able to make it all the way through to the second half of the book. From there on it was not as much of a struggle. There is some good stuff in this book. Definitely worth the extra effort to understand the first part. The second half of the book can stand alone and I'd recommend reading it even if you don't want to read the philosophical stuff in the first half.


Publisher's summary:
Mere Christianity is C.S. Lewis' forceful and accessible doctrine of Christian belief. First heard as informal radio broadcasts and then published as three separate books, The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, Mere Christianity brings together what Lewis sees as the fundamental truths of the religion. Rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity's many denominations, C.S. Lewis finds a common ground on which all those who have Christian faith can stand together, proving that "at the center of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice".

Online book shopping:
Powell's: Mere Christianity
amazon.co.uk: Mere Christianity
amazon.com: Mere Christianity
Audible.com: Mere Christianity

Words About Books: magnum opus

magnum opus (MAG-num OH-puhs) noun (plural magnum opuses or magna opera)

A great work of literature, music, art, etc., especially the finest work of an individual.

[From Latin magnum, neuter of magnus (large), opus (work).]

excogitation: C. S. Lewis on Divorce

excogitation: C. S. Lewis on Divorce

Thoughts?