Tea with Jane Austen by Kim Wilson

Tea with Jane Austen is an interesting concept book: it discusses Jane Austen's life and world with well-researched detail. The focus of this slim volume is the British tradition of tea time, and particularly Jane Austen's love of tea.

Full of interesting facts (such as the dark side of the tea-trade) and strange old recipes, Tea with Jane Austen is a book with a very specific appeal. If you like Jane Austen and the history of the regency period, you may find this book very interesting. If such historical anecdotes do not interest you, this book may not be your cup of...well, you know.

Outside the Not So Big House, by Julie Moir Messervy and Sarah Susanka

I bet I’m not alone in thinking: hmm…now that the snow has melted, what on earth should I do with the yard? Thank goodness for the library. There are tons of books on gardening and landscaping available, including the new Outside the Not So Big House, written by the creators of the Not So Big House books.

A useful tool for dreaming big but building small, Outside the Not So Big House offers insight into architectural and landscape design. The book is lovely to look at, with many beautiful pictures of showcase homes and gardens. Using these showcase homes as examples, authors Susanka and Messervy give the reader an architectural vocabulary to use when talking about what he or she most wants in a potential home landscape. Whether creating a sheltered space from which to enjoy a view or a well-laid path to guide guests through the garden, the reader learns what elements of landscape design most appeal to the human eye.

Practically speaking, though, Outside has some drawbacks. The book focuses primarily on landscaping new homes or doing complete renovations of older homes. Folks interested in making minor changes to their existing house and yard may find the book does not address their particular concerns. Also, most of the landscapes ideas featured in the book are extremely expensive. In short, this book is fun to look at for ideas, but offers less in the way of practical advice for the average homeowner.

The Ghost Walker by R. D. Lawrence

After a visit to my remote ranch home by a group of researchers from WSU doing a study on cougars who informed me that they have been tracking two different female cougars, each with kittens, via radio collars, and that they have been calling my mountain their home for the last few months, I figured that I should bone up on cougars. After a few chapters I remembered reading this book shortly after it was published in 1983. It is a great account of the fall, winter and spring when he left civilisation behind to further his study on cougars by living in the wilderness about 90 miles from Revelstoke, B.C. Chock full of facts about the wild cats, I learned enough to continue to feel comfortable wandering the wilds of my homeplace. Besides being fact filled, it is a wonderful story of the wilderness and all his adventures through the 10 months he spent there without ever seeing another human.

Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer

This is a fun, fast moving SciFi novel. Jake Sullivan has a problem with his blood vessels in his brain which he inherited genetically from his father who became a vegetable because of it. Jake jumps at the chance when the technology comes to be able to transfer his conciousness into an android form, while his old "real self" goes to retire on the far side of the moon and finds a new cure for his problem, the new Jake falls in love with another mindscaned android on earth. While a major court case to determine if mindscanned people are actually legally who they used to be, the old Jake wants to go back to earth and resume his old life. As you can imagine there are a few complications...