Happy Birthday to me. I recently had my birthday, and gifts of books made their way to the library. I have been reading, and thought that folks might like to see what was given.
The first book is “The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24’s Over Germany” by Steven E. Ambrose, published 2001. I have several books by Steven Ambrose, and this one reads well.
The person who gave me this book, had a father that flew in a B-52 during World War II. I was also given a few photographs of his father and the of the crew. There were stories of his father told, when we visited the WWII museum in New Orleans and saw a B-24 hanging in one of the hangers.
My daughter gave me “The Spice & Herb Bible” by Ian Hemphill, published 2014. This is a wonderful reference book, and cook book about spices.
This book gives the description, uses, care of (storing and growing,) and backstories of just about every spice and herb known. There is also a recipe for every entry that highlights the specific spice. Lastly, there is a chapter on how to blend spices, making different blends and rubs. I will be using this book a lot.
Another great friend, who is a rummage sale and bazaar shopping queen, found me several pop-ups for my collection. They were both great reads, and have shown to granddaughters. The first is “Amazing Pop-up House of Inventions” by Robert Crowther, published in 2000.
It has a fold out for every room in a house. There are also pull tabs for items in the room. Next to the items, are notes, such as in the bathroom scene: who invented the modern tooth brush, or razor; make up and mirror history. Every page has great information.
The second book she gave me was “Dinosaurs: A Journey Through the Prehistoric World. A 3-D Explorer.” by Barbara Taylor, published 2010. This book also has some good pop-ups that have lots of prehistoric critters in it.
At the bottom of every page is a headshot of all the dinosaurs on the page, and then some history of that particular animal. It almost tricks you to look again at the pop-up, and then read about it.
My wife took me out for a birthday meal (I picked breakfast), and she bought me a food mill for making tomato sauce. She also allowed me to buy a book for myself. I bought two. They were two different books about Hurricane Katrina, and how it affected the town of Bay St. Louis. One, I gave to the person who presented me the Ambrose book. He and his wife, along with my wife and I had just RV-ed to Bay St Louis in Mississippi for a week.
The other that I kept for myself was “Rising From Katrina: How My Mississippi Hometown Lost It All and Found What Mattered” by Kathleen Kock, published in 2010. Bay St. Louis. Both Katrina books were signed by the authors.
My son found me two fly fishing poles, and a reel for my birthday. His daughters also bought me some fishing flies. I used to fly fish about forty years ago, and am about to start over-teaching some granddaughters. It forced me to breakout the book “Fly Fishing Made Easy” by Michael Rutter and Dave Card, published 1997, that I already had in the library.
It has been a great birthday. Not only have I some great reading material, but some resources for cooking, canning, fishing, and reading for my grandkids. Anything to keep them off of electronics for a few minutes.
Thanks for reading.
Librarytomes 