There are two three books coming out in the next few months that I am very very excited about...
The first, One-Woman Farm: My Life Shared with Sheep, Pigs, Chickens, Goats, and a Fine Fiddle by Jenna Woginrich, will be on the shelves November 5. I just found out about it a few weeks ago and was happy to learn I didn't have long to wait. After hearing Woginrich speak at the Mother Earth News Fair last fall, I fairly quickly devoured two of her books, Barnheart and Made from Scratch. And they both earned a place on my favorites list.
I happily just discovered (as I'm looking up links and images for this post, no joke) that she has yet another book due out next June! This one is a collection essays, which I'm not usually a fan of, but Woginrich is such an engaging writer that I think I would enjoy it. The title is Cold Antler Farm: A Memoir of Growing Food and Celebrating Life on a Scrappy Six-Acre Homestead.
And now for the book I am most excited about: One Realm Beyond, the first in a new series (Realm Walkers) by Donita K. Paul. I have read all of her fantasy novels so far--all eight of them--and upon finishing the last one this past spring, was very sad to see them end. But, being the stalker that I am, I noticed a Pinterest board of Paul's called Bixby Styling that appeared to be dedicated to a new character. Which could only mean one thing. Sure enough, her new book hits the shelves on January 28! (synopsis available on the author's website)
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.
--Wendell Berry (from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997)
Robert Jordan
This seems to be one of those series that people either love or hate--for some, both--but I find myself somewhere in the middle. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it took me more than a month to read just the first book. It is easy to get lost in all the (brilliantly woven) details of a 657-page book when one keeps interrupting it to peruse several other novels in-between.
Rand alThor is content to herd sheep on his father's farm just outside the village of Two Rivers, but strange visitors uproot everything he knows. Trollocs seem to be hunting him and two other boys, and so they must flee, setting off on an adventure with more questions than answers and discovering that the gleeman's stories were not all fairy tales.
to awake early
while the night-things still sing
watch the grey-brown doe bound
from edge of yard
as mist yet glides upon reflections
turn creaking spigot and wait
for gurgling halting water to reach
mouth of hose and shower herbs
even before the sun crests the mountains
oh, to arise in those fragile moments
when only humans are silent
arise, my soul, and sing with the dawn
join in with chirruping chorus
allow feet the lightness to leap
across dewy field as the doe
until the Sun draws out your wings
then, soar
