Good for you reading

As a librarian you constantly see lists of classic novels that you ought to have read. I have just tried to start a Tolstoy novel for the third time. The emphasis in that sentence is on the tried. I know I should read some of these classic novels. I know many people love these novels. However I sometimes feel that they are like taking cod liver oil. They are good from me, but they don't taste good.

River House

River House by Sarahlee Lawrence is similar to my recent review of Heart in the right place. Both are daughters out in the world who have returned home. Jourdan's memoir has a lighter touch than Lawrence's memoir which is more introspective and a look at the land. Lawrence is in her twenties and has spent much of her young adult life as a rafting guide around the world. She begins feeling a call to return home to her arid Oregon farming roots. When she returns to build her house she also explores her relationship with the family land and with her father, who is dealing with his own relationship with the hard farming life. I enjoyed this memoir and wonder what happened afterwards.

Heart in the right place

Carolyn Jourdan has the life she thought she wanted as working for a US sentator. It was a job with lots of perks and ego stroking. So when her mom gets sick and she returns home to help her physician father, it is a wake up to be viewed as she was growing up. This memoir is a wonderful look at evaluating your life and dealing with the issues of aging parents. The memoir is leavened with lots of quirky patients at her father's practice. Highly recommended