August 2025 Cookbook Reviews

 

Garlic, Olive Oil + Everything Mediterranean by Daen Lia

This cookbook is unique in that the recipes aren't organized by type but by the ingredient - garlic, olive oil, butter, bread, crumbs, and eggs. Each section has a variety of recipes all featuring that signature ingredient. Many of the recipes build on previous recipes in the book and there are also tips included with the recipes that either offer alternate variations or ways to use up any leftovers. There weren't a ton of recipes I'd like to try but there was a good variety of recipes and I liked the way they were organized by ingredient instead of appetizers, side dishes, etc.

The Essential Canning Cookbook by Molly Bravo

This is a great cookbook for someone who's newly learned to can. I always say if you're new to canning, please take an in-person class or learn from an experienced canner - don't learn from a book. The first section of this book covers "foundations and techniques" which includes how to both water-bath and pressure can. The second half has recipes organized by type like fruit, vegetables, broths/stocks, etc. There was a good variety of recipes and a lot of the recipes include helpful tips and variations of that recipe. Overall, this is a solid canning cookbook and there were a couple new recipes I'd like to try.

Braided Heritage by Jessica B. Harris

This is a unique cookbook that explored the Braided Heritage of American food that was rooted in a combination of Indigenous, European, and African history and traditions. Each section of the book focuses on one of those areas with recipes and also articles about specific ingredients or about that culture and food. Harris is a food historian and most of her career has been researching and exploring Southern food through the lens of African influence. While there weren't a ton of recipes I wanted to try, there is a lot of great information and it's obvious that she did a lot of research to create this book.

August 2025 Reviews

 

Framed: astonishing true stories of wrongful convictions by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey

John Grisham and Jim McCloskey (founder of Centurion Ministries) cowrote this book that shares 10 stories of innocent people wrongfully convicted (and one executed). The ones that McCloskey writes are cases that he actually helped with through his work with Centurion Ministries. I was impressed with McCloskey's writing - it has to be intimidating to write half of the stories in a book when the other half are written by John Grisham. All the stories are compelling and as the subtitle says, astonishing. I think the American public understands that there are innocent people in prison (or executed) but I don't know that the true numbers are actually known and if it were known it would be terrifying. This book is terrifying. Even though I read and watch a lot of true crime stuff that is in this vein, it was hard to read story after story of people spending DECADES in prison for crimes that not only they did not commit, but were basically framed by police/prosecution. I think this is an important read, but it is a hard read.

Some quotes I liked:

"Clarence [Brandley] was never compensated for his wrongful imprisonment on death row. He initiated lawsuits against the authorities responsible for his false conviction, but a judge dismissed them, saying those agencies had sovereign immunity. In 2011 he was denied compensation under the Texas compensation statute for false convictions. The fund claimed that his application was made too late. To add insult to injury, Texas ordered him to pay $25,000 for child support payments in arrears during his nine and a half years of false imprisonment. His weekly wages were garnished for many years." (p. 63)

"In a 2001 study, twenty-five well-known bite mark experts were given four identical sets of bite marks and asked to compare them with seven sets of dental molds. The error rate was an astonishing 63.5 percent. Only one-third accurately 'matched' the marks with the teeth. Almost all of them continued consulting and testifying in bite mark cases as if the study meant nothing...In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) declared that bite mark analysis as a forensic specialty was not based on science...In 2016, the Texas Forensic Science Commission declared bite mark analysis so unfounded that it should no longer be used in criminal trials. A moratorium was also recommended by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. But, science be damned. Bite mark analysis is still allowed in most jurisdictions; sought by prosecutors, presented by experts, approved by judges, believed by jurors, and rubber-stamped by appellate courts." (p. 86-87)

"Among innocence advocates and lawyers, it is often said that it is much easier to convict an innocent person that to get one out of prison." (p. 148)

The Wisdom of Sheep: observations from a family farm by Rosamund Young

The Wisdom of Sheep is a collection of farm observations from Rosamund Young. Rosamund and her brother Richard grew up on a family farm that they then took over from their parents. Rosamund always wanted to keep sheep, but I guess they are more labor intensive than cattle and so she had to wait until their Mom passed away as she was her mother's main caregiver. The entries range from a few sentences to a few pages. Some are directly about the workings of the farm and some are more musings on nature and animals. The whole tone is very gentle and meandering. This was exactly what I needed after finishing Framed by John Grisham about innocent people spending decades in prison after being framed by crooked cops/prosecutors. My only complaint is that the timeline of the entries is all over the place, so sometimes it's a little hard to follow. I wish there had been a little more information about how/why she and Richard continued the farm - did neither of them want to get married or have their own family? In her bio it says she runs the farm now with her partner Gareth. Gareth is introduced in the book but I would have liked more backstory on how they went from being roommate/landlord to romantic partners while still living in the house with her brother. I'd also like to know a little more about the farm - since they name all the animals they obviously aren't raising meat, so is it dairy and wool? I feel like there are a lot of unanswered questions. There are some nice black & white drawings throughout the book but I would have liked a few pages of photographs of their farm and some of the animals mentioned. Overall, a very gentle, pleasant reading experience about living on a cattle and sheep farm in the UK.

Seeking Shelter: a working mother, her children, and a story of homelessness in America by Jeff Hobbs

This is a unique look at homelessness through the story of two women, fifteen years apart, who are both helped by a unique organization called Door of Hope in Los Angeles, CA. Evelyn's family is the primary focus of the book and shows just how quickly a few bad decisions can lead to homelessness. Evelyn and her husband Manny decide to move from Lancaster, CA to Los Angeles to be in a better school system for their kids. Evelyn has 5 children, 3 with Manny and 2 with a prior boyfriend who is prison for gang-related crimes. After they move to LA, Manny quickly gets frustrated with their cramped situation living in an extended stay motel with 7 people and starts drinking more. Coming home drunk one night he punches Evelyn's oldest child, then attacks her when she gets home from work. She packs up the kids and leaves, launching them into homelessness. Shortly afterward, she finds out she is pregnant again. The whole year and a half that Evelyn and her kids are homeless, they never miss school and she is working, volunteering at the kids school, and still trying to find permanent housing. Through a social worker she gets referred to Door of Hope, a shelter that is an actual home where she receives therapy, job training, and free childcare. She has a kitchen to cook for her family and a back yard for them to play in with other kids at the shelter. After "graduating" from Door of Hope, Evelyn is matched up with Wendi, a prior "graduate" from Door of Hope who know works for the organization as a mentor to women who leave the program. Things aren't perfect for Evelyn once she leaves the shelter and is in her own place, but this help puts her family on a new path.

One of the most unique aspects of this book is that the author appears to have no agenda - no commentary on what can "fix" homelessness, no opinions on what Evelyn or Wendi did right or wrong, no political suggestions. He wanted to highlight the stories of two women who ended up homeless who weren't addicts or mentally ill to show that depending on your circumstances this can happen to anyone. Door of Hope is a unique organization that appears to be very successful in helping families go from homeless to housed, but it's help is just a drop in the bucket of the need out there. What was highlighted for me in the book is that for women being involved with the wrong man can destroy your life. The women are almost always the ones who end up with the kids and for both of these women if they had either had fewer children or the same number of children with the right man, they would have never become homeless. Definitely a very interesting and well-written book highlighting an the overwhelming problem of homelessness/affordable housing in the US.

Bringing Up Beaver: two orphaned beaver kits, their humans, and our journey back to the wild by John Aberth

John Aberth is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Vermont. In May of 2020 he got his first beaver call. Beavers are different than many other wildlife rehab because if they are young kits they need to stay with the rehabber for 2 years. They also require socialization so John and his wife would need to interact with the beaver kit like they were his family. "...Nine out of ten beaver kits in rehab die, often due to 'rehabber error' (p. 8-9) and a lack of bonding would make the kit depressed and lonely. John and his wife create environments for the beaver kit (whom they name BK) both inside and outside. During their two years with BK they learn a lot about rehabbing beavers, they help him find a mate (another orphaned, rescued kit), and find a new pond for him and his mate to be released. The book includes a selection of photos which is great because you get to actually see BK and some of the other animals Aberth rehabbed during the BK time period.

I LOVE beavers so I was really looking forward to reading this one. It also has a great cover that really draws you in to the story. But I didn't love this one. Maybe it was a little too repetitive - a LOT of poo talk and descriptions, a lot of descriptions of refilling water tanks, washing bedding, etc. It is an interesting story and I admire Aberth and his wife for spending so much time (and it is a LOT of time) doing this to help wildlife. Aberth and his wife don't have children and it was a little off-putting to me how much he referred to themselves as beaver-parents. Two years is a long time and of course you would bond with BK, but that aspect of the story was odd/off-putting to me. I did really like the postscript about "the tragedy of trapping" that highlights how harmful animal trapping can be and how untold numbers of beaver kits die when their parents are trapped. I think hunting for meat/food is fine but trapping seems to only be for fur or "nuisance" and there are other ways to handle those issues. Plus there is just a lot more suffering and cruelty in trapping. Overall, this is an interesting book but I didn't love it as much as other animal memoirs I've read. I would highly recommend Eager: the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter by Ben Goldfarb and Aberth quotes him in the postscript as well.

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (Books & Banter book club)

In the summer of 1919 Constance Haverhill is at Hazelbourne-on-Sea helping an elderly family friend, Mrs. Fog, recuperate from influenza. Constance had been running the accounting for this same family's estate during the war, but has now been released from that role for men coming back from the war. Constance's parents are no longer alive and her brother and his wife have taken over the family farm, so she feels like she needs to find her own way now. At the Hazelbourne seaside hotel she meets Poppy. Poppy is from a well-to-do family and is trying to help keep women working even after men come home from war with her motorcycle taxi service. Her brother, Harris, was wounded in battle and is struggling to reacclimate at home. Poppy sweeps Constance into her circle of friends and women motorcycle riders. Constance is having an amazing summer, but knows that she is not in the same class as Poppy and her friends and needs to find work that can support her soon. The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club uses the aftermath of World War I to explore issues of class, sex, race, ability, and money.

I found this book hard to get into. There are a LOT of characters and storylines going on and it can be hard to keep up with all of it. I did like Constance and I wanted to see what would happen to her. A lot of the other characters were pretty awful - spoiled, elitist, selfish, etc. The story overall was pretty slow, then all of a sudden the end sped up and SO MUCH was going on in the last few chapters. A lot of the storylines were either quickly wrapped up or dropped. I was happy with the ending for Constance but I wish that there hadn't been so many other storylines to wrap up. I think several characters/storylines could have been left out altogether. It was OK but I wouldn't recommend it and I wouldn't have read it if not for my book club.

The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder by David Grann (Evening Edition, re-read)

Two years after leaving England with a fleet of five warships survivors from The Wager wash up in Brazil telling a wild story of shipwreck, murder, and survival. These men are hailed as heroes who survived shipwreck, starvation, and a myriad of illnesses and trials. But a few months later another small ship lands in Chile and says the first group are actually mutineers who abandoned their captain and ship. The Navy calls a court martial and all surviving sailors from The Wager are called to testify. The press and public are fascinated with this dark tale of shipwreck and mutiny - but which group will prevail in the court martial? Who is actually telling the truth?

David Grann does an AMAZING job of telling this wild story that highlights the adage, the truth is stranger than fiction. And actually several maritime authors use the story of The Wager as inspiration for fictional books in later years. Grann gives the back stories of several of the key players in this real life drama, tells the story of The Wager's doomed voyage and shipwreck, and how the sailors who survived lived to tell their tales. It's amazing that anyone survived to today reading about how AWFUL life on the sea was for the sailors - and that was before any fighting/war even happened. Life on a ship it was almost like a prison with the chance of drowning added in and Grann explains how press gangs went around basically abducting men into service because it was such a hard life and high mortality that few would volunteer. What's amazing to me is several of the survivors went on to continue in Naval careers after their ordeal! The shipwrecked sailors ordeals were horrific and as one reviewer aptly put it - this was like Lord of the Flies non-fiction edition. I can't reiterate enough how well Grann lays out this story and the amount of research he did to get all the facts together and then convey it to the reader. He also includes several color photographs of paintings that depict some of the sailors and ships involved in this story, as well as some photographs of the island they were shipwrecked on in Patagonia. Once again, he's taken a true story that could have been lost to history and turned it into a page-turner book that you can't put down until you know what happens in the end.

Some quotes I liked:

"She was christened in honor of Sir Charles Wager, the seventy-four-year-old First Lord of the Admiralty. The ship's name seemed fitting: weren't they all gambling with their lives?" (p. 18-19)

"Byron confronted an inescapable truth of the wooden world: each man's life depended on the performance of others. They were akin to the cells in a human body; a single malignant one could destroy them all." (p. 38-39)

"Logbooks were supposed to be preserved from a wreck so that the Admiralty could later determine the potential culpability of not only the captain but also the lieutenant, the master, and other officers. Bulkeley was shocked to discover that many of the Wager's records had disappeared or were shredded, and not by mere accident. 'We have good reason to apprehend there was a person employed to destroy them,' he recalled. Somebody, whether a navigator or perhaps even a more senior officer, wanted to shield his actions from scrutiny." (p. 102)

Learned a new word - "internecine" which means "destructive to both sides in a conflict." and definitely summed up the shipwreck survivors of The Wager. p. 160

"Eighteenth-century British naval law has a reputation for being draconian, but it was often more flexible and forgiving in reality. Under the Articles of War, many transgressions, including falling asleep on watch, were punishable by death, yet there was usually an important caveat: a court could hand down a lesser sentence if it saw fit. And although overthrowing a captain was a grave crime, 'mutinous' behavior often applied to minor insubordinations not deemed worthy of severe punishment. Nevertheless, the case against all of the men of the Wager seemed overwhelming. They were not accused of negligible misconduct but, rather, of a complete breakdown of naval order, from the highest levels of command to the rank and file. And though they had each tried to shape their stories in ways that justified their actions, the legal system was designed to strip these narratives down to the bard, hard, unemotive facts." (p. 233)

"Strikingly, there was one surviving castaway who never had a chance to record his testimony in any form. Not in a book or in a deposition. Not even in a letter. And that was John Duck, the free Black seaman who had gone ashore with Morris's abandoned party. Duck had withstood the years of deprivation and starvation, and he had managed with Morris and two others to trek to the outskirts of Buenos Aires. But there his fortitude was of no avail, and he suffered what every free Black seaman dreaded: he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Morris didn't know where his friend had been taken, whether to the mines or to the fields - Duck's fate was unknown, as is the case for so many people whose stories can never be told." (p. 248)

"John Byron, who married and had six children, stayed in the Navy, serving for more than two decades and ascending the ranks all the way to vice-admiral...in the cloistered wooden world he seemed to find what he had longed for - a sense of fellowship. And he was widely praised for what one officer called his tenderness and his care toward his men." (p. 254)

Update from re-reading for book club 8/2025:

This is still an amazing read and I flew through it again because even though I knew what was going to happen you still get caught up in the story. Reading about earlier times when there were no antibiotics, no understanding of scurvy, life was just brutal. And the life of a seaman was beyond brutal. It's still amazing any of these men survived what they did to tell their stories. I'll be curious what my book club members will think because this is not our normal book club reading.

July 2025 Cookbook Reviews

 

The Blue Kitchen by Cider Mill Press

I was familiar with the Blue Zones and have watched the Netflix docuseries as well. Even though I don't 100% agree with all the dietary suggestions (mostly plant based) I thought I would check out this cookbook. I didn't realize there were prior Blue Zones cookbook so I can't compare this one to those. It's organized like a typical cookbook with chapters on appetizers/snacks, salads/bowls, soups/stews, etc. Not many recipes jumped out as something I want to try. I also felt like many of the recipes were either too basic (a cucumber salad that just marinated cucumbers) or overly involved. Overall, I wasn't super impressed with this one. Not saying it's a bad cookbook, just not for me.

Sun-Kissed Cooking by Brooke Williamson

Brooke Williamson has already had a long career in professional cooking starting from a young age in professional kitchens. This is her first cookbook and the focus is on vegetables. Growing up in Los Angeles there are fresh vegetables almost year round and as a professional chef she would build her menu around what's in season. I really liked that the recipes are organized by vegetable. I didn't find many recipes I wanted to try. I enjoyed reading her introduction about how she got into cooking and her career so far. Overall, if you're looking to add more vegetable recipes to your personal kitchen this one is worth checking out.

July 2025 Reviews

 

Slow Noodles: a Cambodian memoir of love, loss, and family recipes by Chantha Nguon

Chantha Nguon grew up in Cambodia in what would probably be considered middle class. She and her siblings were educated, she had money for treats, and their family ate well. After her father's death her mother is able to keep things going for the family but then Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge come in and their family flees to Vietnam. In Vietnam their circumstances are much reduced but she still has her mother and older sister and the three of them are doing OK. Then when her sister and mother die in quick succession, Chantha understands what real deprivation and poverty is. She cobbles together whatever means she can to make enough money to eat for the day. Eventually she meets her husband, Chan, who is also half-Khmer and also came from an educated, middle class family who also lost everything during the wars in Cambodia and Vietnam. Together they try to escape Vietnam, spending 10 years in a refugee camp in Thailand, before realizing they won't be able to emigrate to Europe or America. They go back to Cambodia and try to rebuild their lives. But back in Cambodia, Chan and Chantha not only survive but they begin to thrive. They also not only rebuild their own family, but help their community begin to rebuild. Throughout all of these trials food is what continues to connect Chantha to her family and Cambodia. She has nothing material from her childhood or family so the recipes and memories are what she cherishes and also passes on to her own children. An inspiring story of one woman's path from war-torn refugee to successful businesswoman. She also includes 22 Khmer recipes that sustained her through it all.

Secrets of Adulthood by Gretchen Rubin

This is a little book of aphorisms that Gretchen Rubin has put together to share her Secrets of Adulthood. In case you're not familiar, an aphorism is "a concise statement that contains an expansive truth." (p. 12) She initially started writing down these "secrets" to share with her daughters, but also realized they could be good reminders for her (or anyone) as well. The aphorisms are divided into 4 larger categories (Cultivating Ourselves, Facing the Perplexities of Relationships, Making Things Happen, and Confronting Life's Dilemmas), then each category has several subcategories/topics like Work, Creativity, Tough Decisions, Adventure, Friendship, etc. This is a really quick read - like you could probably sit down and read it all in an hour or so. This would also make a great high school or college graduation gift. A cute, quick read with lots of memorable quotes and aphorisms.

Cellar Rat: my life in the restaurant underbelly by Hannah Selinger

After Hannah Selinger finished college at Columbia University, she came home to Massachusetts and decided to work at a local restaurant for the summer. The dysfunctional connection she found as a restaurant worker led her on a 10 year detour from journalism (her college major) into the underbelly of the restaurant world. She worked her way from a local pub into fine dining working as a sommelier at restaurants like Bar Americain, BLT Prime, Jean-George, and Momofuku. Throughout all the restaurants Selinger worked, the common thread was dysfunction. Restaurant workers, whether front of back of the house, have brutal schedules - long, hard hours, working holidays, weekends, it's very hard to get time off, and it's rare that your days off align with anyone working a more "normal" job. Restaurants also tend to draw partiers and addicts and staff often go out after work to blow off steam leading to more unhealthy aspects of this career/lifestyle. Selinger found herself in a love/hate relationship with working in restaurants. It was like an abusive relationship - when it was good, it was really good, but when it was bad, it was brutal. After her father's death, Selinger realizes that is the wake up call she needs to get out of restaurants and go back to writing.

In 2020 Selinger saw a series of tweets about a powerful man in the restaurant industry that she had crossed paths with back in her restaurant days. That triggered her memory of all the dysfunction she witnessed and participated in during her restaurant working days. I was surprised at the mixed reviews of this book. Several people said that they thought the book would be more about wine and how to pair it with food (that is NOWHERE in the description of the book) or that Selinger was a narcissist who just wanted to whine about all the bad stuff that happened to her. She doesn't come across as narcissistic AT ALL to me. Nowhere in the book does she say that every minute of every day in the restaurant industry was awful and toxic. That's the whole point of the book the love/hate aspect of restaurants - when it's good it's intoxicating but when it's not, it's really bad. It's also frustrating and sad to keep reading about abusive people in power who are never held accountable. Certain industries are known for this but it's anywhere where there is enough money to shield people from their consequences. I really liked the book even though it was not a happy or light read. Selinger is a good writer and this book shines a light on things that are likely still going on in restaurants today despite the #metoo movement and everything else.

Some quotes I liked:

"But to be a woman who loved food was very different than to be a man who loved food. You were still supposed to care about restraint. You were supposed to love it, want it, understand it, obsess over it, talk about it constantly - but never really indulge in it. To indulge was to give up the last vestiges of control. To indulge was to slip from a size 0 to a size 2 to a size 4 to a size 6 and so on and so on." (p. 168)

"To fit in at Momofuku, after all, you couldn't be nice. You could pretend to be nice, but you couldn't actually mean it. It was hard to know where I fit in when it came to this jigsaw puzzle of personalities. I wasn't mean, but I was a misfit. After work, I was happy to commiserate with the servers and creative personalities at the late-night bars. Even though I was upper management, I wasn't treated like a manager, and I wasn't included in the camaraderie extended to Dave's so-called Momo family. From the outside, it was a happy place to work, a communal place, where everyone pushed everyone else to be better. But inside, it felt competitive and exclusive, and, for me, unwelcoming. It was a workplace led by people who wanted you to believe that they had your best interests in mind, when really they wanted you to fail." (p. 198-199)

The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon

I was all set to really love this book even though I wasn't familiar with Sharon McMahon or her podcast and "Governerds" fans. Reading about 12 "unsung Americans who changed the course of history" sounded like a fantastic book. I barely got through the first person she highlights and honestly only because I wanted to find out if Clara Brown ever reunited with her daughter. Not being familiar with her podcast style, I found her writing very off putting. As one review put it her constant "cringeworthy attempts at humor" fell flat for me. There was also a LOT of rabbit trailing and asides that took away from the person who was supposed to be the focus. I also agree with other reviews I read that said it was hard to tell who the 12 people were because there was WAY too much information (and in my opinion too many chapters) for each person. Why not have one chapter per person to be sure it's obvious who they are? There is a way to give historical background about a subject/person without getting too bogged down and there is a way to have humor shine though even when writing about difficult topics but none of that was present in this book. This was rambling and awkward in my opinion.

Night Magic: adventures among glowworms, moon gardens, and other marvels of the dark by Leigh Ann Henion

In Night Magic Leigh Ann Henion invites us to turn off our porch lights and explore some of the creatures of the dark. Covering everything from fireflies and glowworms to foxfire fungus and moon gardens, she explores things that are becoming more and more hidden or lost to our constantly "on" and lit up world. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she is from the NC mountains and lives in Boone so a lot of what she talked about was familiar to me. She explored some interesting things like Mothapalooza, a moth-focused festival and helping researchers trap and tag/record bats. While a lot of what she talked about was very interesting, a lot of it was overly-flowery or came across like she was trying too hard to make EVERYTHING extra special. I personally found the first half (which was focused more on things in NC) more interesting than the second half. I did like it and I do think she is bringing attention to important parts of our environment.

Some quotes I liked:

"...naturalist Lynn Faust, who used to spend summers in the now-defunct Elkmont community, grew up admiring the fireflies we're watching. As an adult, she came across and article about sychronous-flashing fireflies in Asia, and she recognized similarities in what the scientists were reporting and what she'd seen as a child. When she reached out to researchers in the 1990s, they were skeptical that an unknown-to-science species existed in the most-visited national park in the country [The Great Smoky Mountains National Park], so she sent a musical composition mimicking the sequences of flashes in Elkmont. It's what convinced firefly scientists that they should make a trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where they confirmed a never-before-recorded synchronous species: Photinus carolinus. (p. 6-7)

"We might think of songbirds as daytime companions as opposed to night owls, but 80 percent of North America's migratory birds travel at night, using stars as navigational devices while avoiding the turbulence of daytime thermals. In U.S. cities alone, 365 to 988 million birds are killed every year during these nocturnal migrations in part due to artificial lighting issues, which disorient and cause them to collide with buildings, often fatally. And without access to navigational stars in cities awash with LEDs, some birds simply lose their way, with city lights drawing them away from their ancestral migratory flyways." (p. 70)

News of the World by Paulette Jiles - History & Historical Fiction book club, re-reading

After the Civil War Captain Jefferson Kidd rides from small town to small town reading the News of the World from various newspapers. He's lived through three wars, is widowed, and enjoys the freedom of not being tied down in his old age. While at one of his stops he is offered a fifty-dollar gold piece to bring a rescued white child back to her family. Johanna Leonberger's parents and younger sister were killed by Kiowa raiders and she was kidnapped and lived with them for 4 years. She is now 10 years old, does not speak English, and doesn't want to leave her Kiowa family. The Captain agrees to take her against his better judgement, but while traveling across the wild Texas territory the two form a unique bond. Once they reach her extended family outside San Antonio the Captain has to make a terrible choice that will ultimately change both he and Johanna's lives forever. This is a short, but fantastic book with two very memorable characters and would make a great movie! Definitely worth reading!

Updated review after 2nd reading:

Re-reading this book was even more enjoyable the second time. There were scenes I didn't remember, but overall I was able to read it a little more slowly because I knew the ending so I wasn't rushing to find out what happens. I still got choked up at the very end. I just LOVE Captain Kidd and Johanna and now to find out there will be a movie later this year is even better!

Update after 3rd reading:

It's been 5 years since I last read News of the World and I still love it. This time the poetic language really stood out to me and just how well she tells the story. She is able to pack so much description in so few words. Such a great book. Update to my second reading - I saw the movie and was not impressed. This is a hard book to turn into a movie because it's not super dramatic and more about the developing relationship between Captain Kidd and Johanna. Also just found out that Jiles passed away this month.