tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43758057370017902102011-09-28T15:29:19.691-04:00OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.comBlogger571100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-16079917541053869442011-02-11T13:02:00.000-05:002011-02-17T01:07:20.634-05:00

I have a shameful secret. Despite 25 years working in the financial industry, I can’t handle money. I live paycheck to paycheck like many Americans. I have mortgage and credit card debt like many Americans. Unlike many Americans, I know that I shouldn’t be living this way. I know the correct way to spend and save my money yet somehow I am unable to put any of my knowledge into practice.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-75352776330482754302011-02-07T12:56:00.000-05:002011-02-17T01:01:12.359-05:00

Most of us will eventually be responsible for moving an elderly relative into a nursing home or ourselves become a patient in a nursing home. These are wrenching decisions and enormous lifestyle changes, yet how much do any of us know about nursing homes? Thankfully there is now a source of information as well as guidance on where to find information about this vital topic. Inspired by her

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-40001906564347601682011-01-25T13:04:00.002-05:002011-01-29T01:11:51.645-05:00

I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book. Although not a reader of The Washington Post, I am well aware of the reputation of this great periodical and the legends who work there, both past and present. How is it faring in an era when newsprint is being steadily replaced by websites and blogs? How is it changing to meet these challenges? Author Dave Kindred first takes us through the early

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-7715664243153970262011-01-13T13:16:00.001-05:002011-01-20T01:21:28.459-05:00

One of the reasons a lot of people give for not reading books on history is that they are not relevant to their lives. I have to agree with them that most history books are boring recitations of dates, wars, treaties and the important figures of those eras accompanied by dry analyses. It is difficult to imagine what life would have been like for ordinary people during those times. John Paul

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-37899955744582301832010-12-23T13:17:00.000-05:002010-12-31T01:21:02.980-05:00

Although born a Baby Boomer, I was raised by parents for whom WWII was the defining event in their lives. Every year on December 7, my mother sent me off to school with the admonishment to remember that it was Pearl Harbor Day. My family watched every movie ever made about the war and all of the television series set during the war. The Cold War with its accompanying Duck and Cover Drills

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-34769392728700498802010-12-15T13:32:00.001-05:002010-12-21T01:40:08.009-05:00

If you have never read anything by P.G. Wodehouse, this book is an excellent place to start. It contains two novels and a collection of short stories, all featuring Bertie Wooster and his omniscient manservant, Jeeves. The stories collected here span most of Wodehouse’s career, from among the first Jeeves stories to the last. One drawback to reading an anthology like this is that it is much like

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-37222205186072870702010-12-07T13:14:00.000-05:002010-12-16T01:15:40.722-05:00

The reviews of this book present an interesting dichotomy. Scholarly reviewers rave about author Stacy Schiff’s ability to flesh out the life and times of a queen about whom very little is known. Other reviewers complain that there is very little about Cleopatra herself in the book. Although not a professional historian, I am firmly in the camp with those who stand in awe of this recreation of

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-47050425366993367772010-11-25T13:10:00.002-05:002010-12-03T01:13:36.734-05:00

The title of this book, Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans is a bit off-putting. Reading it, I mentally prepared myself for a diatribe written by a disgruntled low-level employee out to get his pound of flesh. We all know that health insurance companies are in the habit of denying coverage and raising premiums,

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-21096342211392241402010-11-02T13:44:00.001-04:002010-12-14T14:46:05.273-05:00

I was so excited when this book arrived from Amazon.com. I couldn’t wait to dive into it. After all, it promised a brand new view of Elizabeth I, “…portrayed here as the product of women….” The reader is assured that it is “…a thrilling new angle by the brilliant young historian Tracy Borman.” The author herself guarantees that she has “…focused the story upon those women who help to reveal

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-86663712293451463702010-10-26T13:21:00.000-04:002010-10-27T01:23:43.521-04:00

Many years ago when I first became aware of George Eliot as a Victorian woman who openly lived with a man without benefit of marriage, I eagerly sought out her novels thinking they would be as scandalous as her life. Imagine my disappointment upon discovering that the books were conventional Victorian novels, no different from the books of Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope or Henry James, all of

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-28048594023175522362010-10-22T13:39:00.000-04:002010-10-23T01:41:17.510-04:00

I was a little put off when this book landed, unsolicited, in my mailbox. I don’t like being reminded that I am growing older. Reading the blurbs on the back cover, I was intrigued by the fact that the author was a widow who had lost her husband of forty years quite suddenly and didn’t miss him. That alone was enough to encourage me to read the book. It turns out that after his death, she

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-53846466884771693652010-10-19T13:35:00.001-04:002010-10-23T01:38:56.214-04:00

I haven’t read a Young Adult book since, well, since I was a young adult. After a lifetime of reading “adult” books, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book, meant for a young audience, readily held my attention. What was particularly satisfying was the amount of historical background provided for each spy. Their life and times are described in enough detail to give a well-rounded

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-42646236049327734152010-10-08T12:57:00.001-04:002010-10-16T00:59:11.735-04:00

Many years ago when I was in college (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), there were no required courses other than the ones for your major. You better believe I didn’t crack a math or science text for four years. But, once I graduated and entered the real world, I discovered that there is a reason why those courses are taught. Contrary to what many disgruntled students will tell you, that

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-20273913056126134262010-09-16T12:50:00.001-04:002010-09-18T00:55:19.687-04:00

I really have to start reading the book blurbs more carefully when I enter the Book Giveaways on GoodReads. This is the second book I have received that is not what I thought it was when I signed up. I thought this book was about Samuel Colt and the invention of the Colt Revolver, a nice segue from the previous Giveaway, They Rode for the Lonestar; the Texas Rangers having made the Colt

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-63257006884262992192010-08-09T13:29:00.000-04:002010-08-20T01:33:01.449-04:00

The Great Silence, a history of the aftermath of WWI as experienced by the people of Great Britain is curiously relevant as we wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The issues facing returning soldiers then are the same as the issues facing returning soldiers now: disfiguring injuries, PTSD (called “shellshock” during and after WWI) and a lack of jobs. A significant difference for

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-31674925403045738812010-08-02T13:22:00.001-04:002010-08-20T01:29:14.409-04:00

Whenever I read a book that I really like, I always check out the bibliography to see if there are other books on the subject that I might like to read. I pay special attention to books that are specifically mentioned in the text of whatever book I am reading. Lately, one title has come up over and over, Guns, Germs, and Steel. I read it when it was published in 1997. Because so many authors

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-218992627463339232010-07-26T13:28:00.000-04:002010-07-27T01:34:25.926-04:00

The usual criteria on most sites that sponsor book giveaways, is that you have posted reviews of similar books in the past. This is good for the giveaway sponsors. They are assured that you have actually read the books and that you post reviews. But it’s frustrating for reviewers who wish to widen the type of book that they read and review. I find myself reading and writing reviews for the same

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-80358751680547958032010-07-19T13:17:00.002-04:002010-07-23T01:25:35.038-04:00

This book was not at all what I expected. Somehow, when I read the blurb about it on the Early Reviwers’ page on LibraryThing, all I took away from it was that the author had planted a garden and tended it by hand while ruminating on our dependence on oil. Even the book jacket quoted the author "What will happen if the oil runs out or becomes so expensive we can’t afford to buy it?" I was

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-42303723312513285612010-07-12T12:54:00.000-04:002010-07-16T00:57:07.358-04:00

Back in the early 1980’s while the Cold War was still raging, I used to joke that I must be on some FBI and/or CIA watchlist because of my growing collection of books on the Soviet Union, including books (in translation) authored by Soviet writers who were not dissidents. My curiosity about all things Russian stemmed from my idea that you can’t "hate" an enemy that you know nothing about. Fast

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-17646388465476537172010-07-01T13:00:00.001-04:002010-07-02T01:06:47.996-04:00

Normally when I review a book, I first read the book and write my review, then I read reviews written by other people. In the case of Betsy Ross and the Making of America, my introduction to the book was via a review in the New York Times Book Review dated May 9, 2010. It was not a flattering review. The reviewer, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a professor at Harvard, accuses the author, Marla R.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-65027728129727117132010-06-22T19:01:00.001-04:002010-06-23T01:06:55.963-04:00

This is another Book Giveaway on Goodreads.com that I entered on a whim. It turned out to be much funnier than I had anticipated. The author had me midway through the prologue where he describes transporting five baby goats from his farm in upstate New York to Manhattan, a trip that takes several hours, during which time the goats develop diarrhea and he is forced to drive with his head out the

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-51733073151539233162010-06-15T00:54:00.000-04:002010-06-16T01:01:51.007-04:00

Barack Obama is not a saint. What a relief. The Promise: President Obama, Year One, written by Jonathan Alter, a Newsweek reporter, is a refreshing change from the worshipful treatment of President Obama in Game Change. Mr. Alter provides an even-handed treatment of the first year of the Obama presidency. He shows us a president who is all too human, making mistakes in both personnel and policies

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-67639316424613391982010-06-01T13:14:00.000-04:002010-06-03T01:20:24.364-04:00

When you encounter a sentence like: "Despite the thickness of his wet suit, the cold still launched his testicles into his throat", you know that you are reading a Guy Book. Written for Guys by a Guy. W. Craig Reed has been reading too much Tom Clancy and too many Soldier of Fortune magazines. His macho posturing spoils an otherwise fascinating book on submarines and submarine warfare in the

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-40366274314055081372010-05-12T13:23:00.000-04:002010-05-13T01:27:55.184-04:00

Every gardener knows about Monet’s magnificent gardens at Giverny which inspired so many of his paintings, but very few gardeners have the opportunity to visit those gardens and experience them in person. Lucky for us, Elizabeth Murray who is a gardener and photographer, has written a book about Giverny that is lavishly illustrated with her own incomparable photographs. She spent a year as a

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-11309396274609238692010-05-01T13:05:00.000-04:002010-05-05T01:11:09.505-04:00

I read a lot of science fiction in high school. I was deep into teenage angst, certain that my life was "the worst life ever!!!" and therefore sought escapist literature. Although my homelife was indeed worse than most, entering adulthood, I discovered that one could escape the shackles of a dysfunctional family and establish healthier relationships with other people. I put aside science

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-71005803716685573182010-04-23T13:15:00.000-04:002010-04-29T01:18:26.351-04:00

As an organic gardener, I am concerned with the health of the soil and the beneficial insects who pollinate crops and keep pests in check. "Colony Collapse Disorder", the mysterious die-off of honeybee hive populations, has been in the news for the past few years. Who are these insects and how did they come to be so important? Hattie Ellis’ Sweetness & Light: The Mysterious History of the

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-91040339536970005212010-04-15T13:05:00.001-04:002010-04-23T01:08:19.588-04:00

One of the reasons that I like history so much is learning that people are the same no matter when they lived. They have the same hopes and dreams. They love their children and hate their in-laws. They have good bosses and bad bosses, and bouts of unemployment. They feud with their neighbors and their extended families. They are just like us but without indoor plumbing and cable. Amanda Vickery

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-84199978041611093222010-03-31T13:25:00.001-04:002010-04-08T01:30:53.093-04:00

Brian Fagan is one of my favorite authors. I was first introduced to his books in college. They were the text books in the prehistory courses I took for my major in archeology. More recently, he has been writing about the effects of climate change on human history. He has a talent for writing about complex subjects like climate change so that they are comprehensible to the lay reader without “

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-4763094229117937342010-03-15T13:04:00.002-04:002010-03-19T01:49:58.954-04:00

Thanks to the efforts of Al Gore, most people are aware of their carbon footprint and ways that they can reduce the size of their footprint. But how many of us know that we also have a “foodprint”? Anna Lappé introduces us to this important concept in her book, Diet for a Hot Planet. Thanks to the factory farming of crops and animals, the very food we eat is contributing to the problem of global

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-18508956350276488292010-02-28T17:54:00.001-05:002010-03-02T17:58:45.694-05:00

I bought my first house 25 years ago. It was an old Victorian in dire need of renovation. The yard was in even worse shape. Previously a rental, the landlord had paved part of the backyard with gravel to create a parking lot. The rest of the yard was a jumble of vines including poison ivy. I was literally starting with nothing. I didn’t even own any garden tools. Over the next ten years, I tamed

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-59515446611058224222010-02-15T17:16:00.001-05:002010-02-23T17:28:42.780-05:00

I have to admit that I didn’t finish reading this book. I made it to page 167 of 294 (the last 60 of those pages are recipes and places to buy chocolate). It is so poorly written that I just couldn’t read it. My initial impression was that it needed a good editor, but after the first couple of chapters, I realized that what it really needed was a good author. There is very little original

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-86049745486063931532010-02-06T14:40:00.005-05:002010-02-09T00:49:00.794-05:00

Having been bombarded by lots of juicy tidbits, I did something that I rarely do: I purchased a book the day it came out. I didn’t wait for a sale. I didn’t wait for the paperback. I bought it now because I had to have it now. I knew already that the Clintons have a dysfunctional marriage. That McCain chose Sarah Palin as a running mate in an attempt to steal the spotlight from Obama. I wanted

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-62715365310088162842010-01-31T23:14:00.002-05:002010-02-05T01:19:43.488-05:00

What Jacob Riis did for New York City with his photos of tenements, Jack London did for London with his book, The People of the Abyss. The abyss that he referred to was the squalid East End of London, where the poorest of the poor lived and died. All of the horrors are there, described not by a dispassionate historian keeping a professional distance in his reporting, but in eyewitness accounts

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-14365519504938505762010-01-15T13:10:00.000-05:002010-02-05T01:11:57.247-05:00

I’ve been reading books on climate change for years. Almost all of them deal with just the science behind climate change and how science can stop or reverse climate change. Thomas Friedman’s book looks at climate change from an economic point of view. His thesis is that climate change is caused be economics. It’s not bad enough that the American way of life is the worst in terms of pollution.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-81524622472326521962009-12-24T13:20:00.002-05:002009-12-30T01:27:33.141-05:00

Andro Linklater has written a fabulous book. It is incredibly detailed. It took me more than a month to read because I could only digest it in small chunks. Thirty or forty pages a day were all that I could take in before having to put it down. Yet, at no time did I feel that I was slogging through it, pushing myself to just finish the darn book. It was truly a joy to read. BUT It’s a big “but

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-6243855076626610662009-12-15T13:13:00.001-05:002009-12-25T15:27:52.725-05:00

What better way to spend a wintry day than listening to ghost stories in an old house. I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Gordon Thomas Ward this past January that was held in the Van Wickle House, a 18th century Dutch farmhouse. He is an excellent speaker, holding us spellbound with accounts of his investigations into hauntings in central New Jersey. Afterwards, he held a book signing.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-66986477197469312382009-12-01T13:33:00.000-05:002009-12-19T01:35:31.302-05:00

I first became aware of Arlington National Cemetery after President Kennedy was assassinated. Like so much of the country during those dark days, I watched the funeral on television. Growing up during the sixties, Arlington was ever-present, as many of the young soldiers who died in Viet Nam were buried there. Yet it wasn’t until a few years ago that I became aware that the site had originally

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-91089437757360385072009-11-16T13:49:00.001-05:002009-11-18T01:53:14.923-05:00

I came of age in the 1970s at the height of the Women’s Movement. It was a heady time full of marches and protests and petitions. Women’s Studies departments were formed at colleges and universities. The study of history, full of dead white men, was expanded to include herstory, bringing to light the lives and achievements of women in the past. Women have come a long way since then, now full

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-70883807297270815062009-11-06T19:02:00.000-05:002009-11-10T01:05:15.586-05:00

I love reading books on history. Occasionally I grow tired of heavy, dry tomes and want something lighter and fanciful. I don’t care much for modern literature, preferring books written a century or more ago. But not because they are historical. I like them because they were written by people living at that time in history. They allow us to experience the feelings and dreams of people who lived

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-89824733791437567272009-11-02T16:36:00.003-05:002009-11-03T08:52:42.051-05:00

Almost everyone today agrees that Global Warming is real and is happening even faster than originally estimated. We can see the effects already in the melting of glaciers and sea ice, storms of increasing frequency and intensity and devastating droughts. Added to the ongoing degradation of the environment caused by industrial farming and fishing, the pollution from the burning of coal and gas to

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-60748649361894762262009-10-26T13:07:00.001-04:002009-10-27T01:16:43.536-04:00

There is a revolution going on. At first it was a quiet revolution. The initial skirmishes were fought on the fringes of society. Over the past few years, the revolution has become more vocal, more powerful. It has moved from the fringes to the very center of our culture. People are becoming more conscious of the food they eat. And not just what kinds of food. They also want to know where

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-48344425085507767852009-10-16T13:05:00.002-04:002009-10-20T01:11:55.702-04:00

It’s no secret that I love roses, especially heirloom roses. I love their gorgeous flowers. I love their heavenly scents. I love their toughness. And I love their names. Residing in my garden are Baronne Prevost, Cecile Brunner, General Jacqueminot, Mme. Pierre Oger, Mme. Plantier, Therese Bugnet and Zephirine Drouhin. Who were these people and why were roses named after them? Douglas Brenner

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-84580945445468008992009-09-29T14:42:00.001-04:002009-10-17T23:09:59.378-04:00

"Stalin's Children" was written as a memoir of a family but it is much more than that. It is an intimate look at life in mid-20th century Russia. The story of those years is told through the lives of three generations of the Bibikov family. Scholarly histories can only give dry descriptions of the tumultuous years from Stalin's purges through Perestroika. The Bibikov's lived those events.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-20028688477156551092009-09-10T14:35:00.000-04:002009-10-17T22:40:59.667-04:00

During the Great Depression, many programs were created by the Federal Government to provide jobs for those who had none. We are still benefitting today from the fruits of that labor which created many public buildings, roads, bridges and parks. One project, however, never saw the light of day. The "America Eats!" project was about traditional American food. Out-of-work writers were assigned

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-62749891720328806112008-10-29T14:38:00.000-04:002009-10-17T21:50:33.839-04:00

Like most people, when I hear the name Casanova, I think of sex. Ian Kelly offers a more rounded view of a fascinating man who has come to be defined by a single facet of his complex life. Casanova's autobiography, "The History of My Life", offers more than the story of one man's life. It allows us a unique glimpse into the life of people from all walks of life during the eighteenth century.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-83289280890262263982008-08-29T14:06:00.002-04:002009-10-17T21:31:53.811-04:00

I was still a student when China was in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. I distinctly remember my Social Studies teacher talking about the Bamboo Curtain. He very dramatically announced that no one knew what was really going on in China. He showed grainy photos taken illicitly during the Great Leap Forward in the 50’s and smuggled out of the countryside that showed backyard ore smelters.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-56287270548033076912008-06-09T13:46:00.002-04:002009-10-26T04:17:01.964-04:00

I've always wanted a cutting garden. Although I love having bouquets of flowers in my house, I don't like picking flowers from my carefully planned borders. A separate plot, preferably in an inconspicuous spot from which I could plunder as many blossoms as I wanted without worrying about leaving holes in my planting scheme, is definitely the answer. But how to begin? How to decide what to plant,

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-63512091294072204442008-05-31T13:31:00.000-04:002009-10-17T20:45:31.296-04:00

I have to confess that I never finished this book. I found it to be unreadable. At first I thought it was because she writes of many plants that I cannot grow in my NJ garden. Or perhaps it was because I couldn't relate to what was blooming in her garden during the winter months when my own gardens are completely bare. About halfway through the book, I realized that it was the quality of the

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-543569619149769522008-03-20T19:28:00.000-04:002009-10-17T20:30:07.520-04:00

My first exposure to Michael Pollan's writing was an article in the New York Times Magazine. I loved his writing style and his point of view. He made me think about the environment in ways that were totally new to me. I love those "aha" moments. Those "why didn't I think of that?" moments. And then my outlook on life and the world around me is subtly altered. So it was with great anticipation

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-14762393717654004472007-12-26T21:23:00.000-05:002009-10-17T20:03:31.227-04:00

I had trouble with this book. I just couldn't get into it. Was it because I don't share the authors' fascination with the many types of snowdrops? Or maybe because I don't care for opera? And what exactly does opera have to do with gardening? Perhaps it was the writing. The letters were more esoteric discussions than chatty correspondence between two gardeners who are also close friends. Are the

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-13424756801878536912007-11-30T16:54:00.000-05:002009-10-17T16:57:00.780-04:00

I checked this book out of my local library about four years ago and liked it so much that I bought it so that I could re-read it at my leisure. The author and I are kindred spirits. We garden organically, prefer heirlooms, abhor lawns and lawnmowers, and adore compost. I have to keep reminding myself that she was writing in 1981, long before any of these things were "fashionable". Her

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-40511979009501610142007-11-25T13:49:00.004-05:002009-10-17T19:49:50.957-04:00

In 2003, Niall Edworthy and his family purchased a home in West Sussex, England. It had a yard, a shed and a vegetable patch. He describes his first attempt at growing vegetables as a disaster. He bought a couple of books, asked advice from neighbors and the second year was merely pathetic. He decided to get serious about this gardening business and took a course, bought more books, bothered

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-39175829798354041242007-08-09T14:37:00.000-04:002009-10-17T03:01:01.269-04:00

I didn't know until I actually had this book in my hands that it was written in the nineteenth century. Those are my favorite reads. I love getting a firsthand account of life in the past. As a flower gardener, I'm always interested in what flowers gardeners grew in the past. Although Charles Dudley Warner writes about his veggie garden, it turns out we have a lot in common. I was delighted to

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-1084326503655951152007-05-26T16:01:00.000-04:002009-10-17T02:48:31.063-04:00

I was tempted to buy this book years ago when I became interested in heirlooms. The fact that it was about "southern" passalongs discouraged me from doing so. New Jersey is one growing zone north of what is considered "southern". There are classic southern plants that can be grown here in sheltered locations but all it takes is a colder than normal winter and those delicate immigrants succumb.

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-54951612769348487092007-02-08T20:22:00.001-05:002009-10-17T02:38:42.945-04:00

I was enthralled and deeply moved by this book. Enthralled, because reading their letters was akin to reading modern day garden blogs. I was deeply moved by their deaths because I felt by the end of the book that I knew them. Their letters also brought back a lot of memories for me. My maternal grandmother was a few years older than Katharine White. Unlike many women of her time, she married

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-74337080227282327982007-01-22T20:37:00.000-05:002009-10-17T02:26:17.289-04:00

I was disheartened to read in the Preface to "Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web" that the first part of the book would be difficult to get through. I pressed on. Very science-y. An excellent sleep inducer. No joke. I did fall asleep while reading it one warm afternoon. But it was definitely worth it. Like the authors, I urge you to read the entire book and not just

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4375805737001790210.post-48456474486896404682006-11-25T15:45:00.002-05:002009-10-17T02:11:57.525-04:00

I was prepared to not like this book. It's just not my style. Come on, a collection of newspaper columns? We've all read the garden column in our local paper. It's horrible. Poorly written, pushing a lot of chemicals and all the newest plants. I'm an heirloom gardener. My interest is history. What were old gardens like? How did gardeners back then do things? What did they grow? Why? What worked

OldRoseshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10307114475443602351noreply@blogger.com0