Do you re-read books? I can't imagine not reading. Thomas Jefferson's famous quote "I Cannot Live Without Books" is me all over. For the many hundreds of books that I own, there are four I revisit every year without fail.
Every summer. Without fail.
This is the story of the Morley family. Each chapter title is an ingredient of a Thanksgiving meal. It begins with The Turkey in 1662. Patience and Caleb are living in the wilderness, she hoping for a window for their cabin home, he building that home along with a cradle for their coming baby. Caleb joins a hunting party, a turkey is found by the brook, Patience drags it to the cabin and hears the shot ring out. Cliff hanger.
The chapters are named for pumpkins, chestnuts, squash, butter and onions and a loaf of bread, apples, new plates, etc., you get the idea. Each chapter named for an ingredient that builds the meal and builds another generation in the family. The story is centered around the Morley women and their table. The table is always there.
I love this book and it came off the shelf last night to begin tonight.
This is the sweetest and lovingest story you can treat yourself to. On a certain morning in late November she declares, "Oh, my! It's fruitcake weather!" and off she and Buddy go to gather their ingredients, paying for them with pennies and nickels and promises. She is Sook, a distant cousin and he is Truman. The two live together with relatives they try very hard to ignore as they are the center of each other's universe.
They bake fruitcakes each year, gathering fallen pecans, bartering for whiskey, hoping for Christmas morning when they will present to each other the best gifts ever.
I read it still, after 45 years of continual reading I still laugh in the same places and cry in the same places. Every time. Just about the best Christmas book there is.
