Leapman, Michael "The Ingenious Mr Fairchild: The Forgotten Father of the Flower Garden"

Leapman, Michael "The Ingenious Mr Fairchild: The Forgotten Father of the Flower Garden" - 2001

A very fascinating book, even if you're not into gardening at all (like me). The story of a gardener who first experimented in breeding different plants by "interfering with nature".

The author describes the history alongside with a very interesting tour through London but also draws our attention to the concerns we have today towards genetic manipulation. It only sounds like a historical report about something long forgotten.

We discussed this in our international book club in January 2004.

From the back cover:

"An award-winning journalist pens a fascinating account of the life and times of Thomas Fairchild, a London nurseryman who discovered hybridization and paved the way for the growth of gardening as a cultural obsession. 8-page color photo insert."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

Krasnow, Iris "The Surrendering to Motherhood: Losing Your Mind, Finding Your Soul"

Krasnow, Iris "The Surrendering to Motherhood: Losing Your Mind, Finding Your Soul" - 1997

According to the publisher, this book is "the story of one woman's search for spiritual fulfillment and personal identity", according to our book club members it's just a story of a spoilt right woman who has no idea how the normal people live and tries to judge over whether mothers should be working or not.

One of the worst books our book club ever read.

We discussed this in our international book club in January 2003.

Not to compare with Esther Vilar's "The Manipulated Man".

From the back cover:

 

 "The story of a woman who came of age with the sexual revolution who finds emancipation in the Zen of motherhood, "Surrendering to Motherhood" is about letting go of the need to achieve and finding one's true self."

Nichols, Peter "A Voyage for Madmen"

Nichols, Peter "A Voyage for Madmen" - 2002

The title of this book is fantastic. The guys who undertook this journey really were mad, and if it didn't show before, it surely did afterwards. I am no big fan of sports but this book was really captivating. You just had to fear with the sailors and their families and friends. I loved this book - and so did the other members of my book club.

It's just amazing what people are willing to sacrifice for their five minutes of fame or even for the feeling to have done it. I'm all for winning, but not at any cost. And still, I understood those guys, somehow.

We discussed this in our book club in January 2005.

From the back cover:

"The story of the last great sea adventure - the 1967/68 Golden Globe round the world yacht race. Nine people - a Frenchman, an Italian and six Englishmen began the race. Only one finished. This is their story.

In 1967 nine men set out in small boats to race each other round the world. It had never been done before. This was before satellites provided pin-point navigation. Their world at sea was far closer to Captain Cook's age than ours. When they sailed, heading for the world's stormiest seas, they vanished over the horizon into the unknown.

One man, sending reports of tremendous progress, never left the Atlantic. These were not sportsmen- one didn't even know how to sail. Once at sea, they were exposed to conditions frightening beyond imagination and loneliness almost unknown. Their boats were primitive compared with the today's yachts. The living space was the size of a VW bus. Sealed inside their tiny craft, the sailors met their truest selves. This it turned out, was their greatest danger. They failed and succeeded on the grandest scale."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

Hardy, Thomas "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"

Hardy, Thomas "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" - 1891

Tess Durbeyfield is a girl from a poor family who is thrown into a difficult situation without any fault of herself. This will determine her later life which is not a happy one.

This novel certainly belongs to the tragic ones. A friend of mine said it was the most horrible book she ever read. But usually we disagree about books. As we do this time. I loved this novel. Of course, I didn't like everything that happened to Tess or the other girls in the story, but the way Hardy describes the ordinary people's lives and the countryside is just great. I really enjoyed reading this book.

From the back cover:

"Hardy tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, a beautiful young woman living with her impoverished family in Wessex, the southwestern English county immortalized by Hardy. After the family learns of their connection to the wealthy d'Urbervilles, they send Tess to claim a portion of their fortune. She meets and is seduced by the dissolute Alec d'Urberville and secretly bears a child, Sorrow, who dies in infancy. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer Tess love and salvation, but he rejects her - on their wedding night - after learning of her past. Emotionally bereft, financially impoverished, and victimized by the self-righteous rigidity of English social morality, Tess escapes from her vise of passion through a horrible, desperate act." 

 

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

Kingsolver, Barbara "Prodigal Summer"

Kingsolver, Barbara "Prodigal Summer" - 2001

"Three interwoven love stories set in the Appalachian farmlands, US. The first - involving a reclusive wildlife ranger and a young hunter, the second, a young widow taking over her husbands farm, and the third - between two old cantankerous farmers, one a traditional farmer and the other organic. As always with Kingsolver, nature and the environment rule!"

So far, I liked all the Barbara Kingsolver's books I've read. I like her style, the way her characters come alive. This one involves a lot of family history, the different people in the book all seem to have some links to each other, but there is also quite a bit about nature protection which I liked a lot but some other book club members have found a little "too much".

Anyway, if you are a fan of Barbara Kingsolver and similar writers, you will like this one, as well. A book that gives you a nice feeling.

I have also read other books by Barbara Kingsolver, you can find my reviews here.

We discussed this in our book club in January 2003.

Book Description:

"Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.
From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly feuding neighbours tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place. Prodigal Summer demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama and ideas that is characteristic of Barbara Kingsolver's finest work."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

MacDonald, Ann-Marie "The Way the Crow Flies"

MacDonald, Ann-Marie "The Way the Crow Flies" - 2003

The second novel of this Canadian author. We read the first one "Fall on Your Knees" in 2002.

Same as her first book, this novel is based on some family history, in this case also on a real life tragedy in the neighbourhood.

Not a lighthearted, nice novel, a lot of tragedy in this novel. Again, the author has a great way of describing the people in this book and I liked it just as much as her first one.

From the back cover:

"The optimism of the early sixties, infused with the excitement of the space race and the menace of the Cold War, is filtered through the rich imagination of high-spirited, eight-year-old Madeleine, who welcomes her family's posting to a quiet Air Force base near the Canadian border. Secure in the love of her beautiful mother, she is unaware that her father, Jack, is caught up in a web of secrets. When a very local murder intersects with global forces, Jack must decide where his loyalties lie, and Madeleine will be forced to learn a lesson about the ambiguity ofhuman morality -- one she will only begin to understand when she carries herquest for the truth, and the killer, into adulthood twenty years later."

We discussed this in our international book club in October 2004.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

MacDonald, Ann-Marie "Fall on Your Knees"

MacDonald, Ann-Marie "Fall On Your Knees" - 1997

We read this book because we didn't want to read another Oprah book - it turned out to become an Oprah book the next month. ;-)

Anyway, not everyone shared my enthusiasm but I really liked it. I loved the author's talent to let the people come alive. I think, part of the story was based on the author's family. The novel is dark but also funny, it incorporates history as well as immigration and religious problems, quite a variety. It's a love story as well as a crime novel, has character studies and a lot of interesting tales.

This was the author's first novel. We read her second one "The Way the Crow Flies" a couple of years later.

We discussed this in our international book club in January 2002.

From the back cover:

"A story of four sisters tied by inescapable family bonds, of miracles, terrible secrets, attempted murder and an extraordinary love affair. The settings range from haunted Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, through the battlefields of World War I, to the emerging jazz scene of New York City."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.