Nonfiction

It’s that time of year when a lot of people start to plan their spring gardening projects. This season, consider starting a compost pile in your home or yard! Compost is made of recyclable materials that you might encounter every day, such as coffee grounds and filters, vegetable and fruit scraps, shreds of paper, dry leaves, and more. Over time, these materials breakdown and combined with some soil can become a valuable mixture for your garden. In addition to helping your green thumb, composting is environmentally sound and helps to reduce waste in landfills. Getting started with extreme recycling or composting would be a great weekend project to engage the whole family, but also is easy enough for one gardener to tackle alone.

First it was organic foods, then locally produced, in recent years the move towards using animal power in lieu of diesel for farm production has increased substantially.

Normally relegated to pioneer reenactments, animal power is making news (On Small Farms, Hoof Power Returns), even though they are generally seen as only feasible for small farms.

Check out the documentary, The Farmer and the Horse, for the ups and downs of using animal power.
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The Magnolia Story is an endearing walk through Chip and Joanna’s journey to their Fixer Upper television show fame. Narrated by Joanna, and Chip too with his usual style of popping in and out, this book takes you to the start of their relationship, the first houses they flipped, and the beginnings of a new family. Though this book isn’t a behind-the-scenes of Fixer Upper, it tells everything that came before the show and gives you an interesting peek into their past. Joanna doesn’t leave out the hard times in their business or their relationships, as, with each challenge they conquer, a new one always seems to leap up. But through it all they share their philosophy for life and how they choose to thrive rather than survive.

In Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes, Elizabeth Bard captures the sights, sounds AND TASTES of Paris, the cultural challenges of an expat living in France and the angst of a Renaissance woman trying to find her place in a practical world. If you liked Eat Pray Love and Under the Tuscan Sun, you’ll love this delicious memoir!
NK