Friday Favorites

I don't know if Amberly has Friday Favorites up yet, but hop on over, check it out and play along! I am sharing my favorite memoirs. (Just a disclaimer--it is not written by a christian so some aspects of her lifestyle might bother some people.)
There were many times I would be laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face and then within a few pages I would be crying with tears streaming down my face. Her writing style is very witty and warm and real.

From Publishers Weekly In this spunky memoir of a dream come true, Laskas (columnist for the Washington Post Magazine, author of The Balloon Lady and Other People I Know, etc.) recounts her first year of living the country life after buying a farm. Before the move, Laskas lived comfortably with her beloved cat, Bob, and her mutt, Betty, in a small house set on a quarter-acre plot only 15 minutes by bike from downtown Pittsburgh. Her boyfriend, Alex, a devoted urban dweller, was a shrink and owner of a pet poodle who lived separately from her in the city. Her childhood dream of living on a farm unexpectedly became a reality after she found the embodiment of her dreamAcomplete with a barn, a chestnut grove and breathtaking vistasAwhile looking at farms for sale as an excuse for a Sunday outing with Alex. Their first year together on the farm makes for an amusing and emotional tale, told in loving detail as Laskas recalls her own and Alex's adjustment from single, urban life to a committed relationship in wide-open spaces. She describes clearing the farm, meeting the neighbors, Alex's illness and the death of one of their animals with heartfelt honesty, offering many fresh pleasures for any city dweller who has ever dreamed of buying a farm.

The sequel is equally good and was every bit as emotional for me.
From Booklist
In this delightful sequel to Fifty Acres and a Poodle (2000), Laskas continues to chronicle her city-girl adjustment to country life. Now that she and her husband, three dogs, two horses, and two mules have been happily ensconced on Sweetwater Farm for two years, she senses something vital is still missing. When her mother becomes seriously ill, it awakens her own dormant maternal instincts. As she struggles to come to grips with a life-altering decision to expand her family--a quest that involves a failed attempt at in-vitro fertilization and an eye-opening trip to China to adopt a baby--she and Alex, her psychologist husband, come to affectionate terms with an often puzzling, yet increasingly rewarding, lifestyle. The assortment of eccentric new friends and neighbors who drop in and out at Sweetwater Farm adds vibrancy to this humorous account of one woman's quest for emotional and spiritual fulfillment in contemporary rural America.


Happy Friday, everyone!