I've made this deal with myself that for the rest of the year, the bulk of my books would come from the discard box at the used bookstore where I spend one day a week.   This may or may not be a decision that I am thrilled with but it will be an interesting experiment nonetheless.  Needless to say, I'm reading absolutely nothing that any of my people are reading or even have read in the past decade or so.  This month alone I've read: Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen, a mystery/suspense novel set in the Florida Everglades,  Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith, the story of a young couple's first year of marriage, taking place in a 1920's Midwestern college town, and I am now knee-deep in Jean Webster's classic Daddy-Long Legs written in 1912 about a young, orphaned girl who is sent to college at the behest of an anonymous benefactor.  I'm pretty sure I haven't read this last book since I was in junior high.   I'm also relatively confident that no one in my world is reading it, although, it's pretty darn sweet and I wish I could think of someone else who would want to read it too. 

The thing is, I have such a deep sadness to see good books ignored and forgotten.  I'm like the lady with 15 cats.  I want to rescue them all.

Bipolar kayak ecotours, Seminole identity raising, telemarketers, private investigators and assault by crabs.  This book has it all. 

I'm only part way through this book.  I have nothing to say as of yet, except, it is so darn sweet and exactly what I wanted to read when I was in 4th and 5th grade.  The only difference now is that I'm almost 50.  I still want to read the same sorts of things, well-written books.

Loosely based on the author's own first year of marriage, this book is full of Americana that we so frequently and conveniently forget.  Also, Betty Smith wrote one of my all-time favorite novels, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. So there's that.