TTPT....and a Giveaway!

(Update~ Paige from Funny Magic is the winner of my extra copy of Anne of Windy Poplars.  Thanks for all your comments!)

I'm late - I'm late - for a very important date.  No time to say hello - goodbye. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.
(The March Hare in Alice in Wonderland as he's rushing off for the tea party.)  Here it is, the first Thursday of the month and I'm just posting for Turn the Page...Tuesday.  Ah well, we can't all be on time...

Brittany sent me 'God Never Blinks' by Regina Brett for Mother's Day and it was the perfect gift.  Regina is a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper and this little book is full of her writings; the 50 life lessons she has learned.  Regina grew up in a very large family, always feeling lost in the crowd.  So lost that she thought that God had probably blinked the moment she was born, so never realized that she was there.  Many years and hardships later, Regina has changed her thinking and knows that God Never Blinks.  This book has much wisdom between it's covers and is well worth the read.
From the Introduction:
"It took me 40 years to find and hold on to happiness.  I always felt that at the moment I was born, God must have blinked.  He missed the occasion and never knew I had arrived...I ended up confused by the nuns at age 6, a lost soul who drank too much at 16, an unwed mother at 21, a college graduate at 30, a single mother for 18 years, and finally, a wife at 40, married to a man who treated me like a queen.  Then I got cancer at 41.  It took a year to fight it, then a year to recover from the fight.
When I turned 45, I lay in bed reflecting on all life had taught me.  My soul sprang a leak and ideas flowed out.  My pen simply caught them and set the words on paper.  I typed them up and turned them into a newspaper column of the 45 lessons life taught me."   -Regina Brett

When Regina turned 50, she added 5 more lessons, thus the 50 lessons life taught me.

Letters From Yellowstone by Diane Smith transported me to 1898 Yellowstone Park, where Alexandria Bartram is invited to join a field study group collecting and catalouging Yellowstone's flora.  Alexandria was invited based on her college studies and her letters of inquiry that she signed simply A.E. Bartram, so upon her arrival at Mammoth Hot Springs, the professor in charge of the expeditian is shocked to find a woman, and not the young male scientist that he was expecting.   Alexandria must work harder and prove herself worthy and knowledgeable in order to not be sent back. 

From the back cover:

'Once the scientist overcome the shock of having a woman on their team, they forge ahead on a summer of adventure, forming an elightening web of relationships as they move from Mammoth Hot Springs to a camp high in the backcountry.  But as they make their way collecting amid Yellowstone's pristine beauty-threatened even a century ago by misguided tourism-the group is splintered by differing views on science, nature, and economics.

This delightful epistolary novel captures an ever-fascinating era and charts one woman's dramatic journey to a greater understandingof herself and her place in the world.'

This book was delightful and fun, but didn't have a lot of action, though there are many well done tense moments between the members of the party.  It is written all in letters and is really a good read.

For June, Adrienne has challenged us to read an American Classic.  I love the classic's and have a couple on my shelves that I have yet to read so have thrown my gloves in the ring for this one.  Won't you join in?  The more the merrier!

                                              Speaking of classics, I was re-arranging my bookshelves recently and bringing down a box of books from the attic to add to a newly re-done shelf.  I found that I have two copies of the 4th book in the Anne of Green Gables series, Anne of Windy Poplars.  Anne of Green Gables is certainly a classic, though a Canadian classic, but no matter, I would like to give my extra copy of Anne of Windy Poplars away to someone who doesn't have a copy and would like one.  Just let me know in the comments and the book is yours.  If there is more than one of you who would like it, I will use random.org to pick a winner in a couple of days.  How about Sunday?  Sounds good to me.  A winner on Sunday. 

Happy Reading!