Welcome to The Book Worm!  I am always ‘worming’ my way through a good book either for personal enjoyment or research on a project.  I find books at garage sales, second-hand shops, events and of course at the local library.  I can spend hours looking at books!  The local library has a book sale twice a year and once a year the Rotary Club has a massive book sale with over 30,000 books!

The Book Worm is where I will will share my favourite books with you!  Some will have been bought second-hand, borrowed or given to me as a gift, each one special.

This is a library book I have had out on continuous loan for a long time!  I consider it to be my book that I have to ‘lend back’ to the Library!  Personally, I don’t think there is a more detailed book about the history of roses anywhere!  The book is big at over 500 pages, written by acclaimed horticultural historian Jennifer Potter, it is easy to read, very interesting with lots of lovely photos blended beautifully with historic facts.  The pink tabs are areas of interest, I think this is an amazing reference guide for any rose lover!

The Teahouse Fire is a very detailed look at the history, rituals, customs and hierarchy of tea in late-19th-century Japan.  It follow the story of a young girl who travels to Japan with her missionary uncle, shortly after their arrival she is orphaned when a fire sweeps through the city.  She takes shelter in a little house she soon comes to learn is a teahouse when she is discovered by the daughter of the great tea master and is taken in by the family as a servant to the daughter.  Years pass and Japan slowly opens its doors to the West.  Reading about Japanese customs was very interesting and how the people fought to keep them.  The daughter went on to train to become one of the first Japanese women to teach the Way of Tea an intricate and sacred ceremony that takes a lifetime to learn and perfect.  The book is very detailed and a little hard to read, I read parts over and over to understand the story but overall a very insightful book.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the in-depth look at rose breeding.  This is a story about a biology teacher named Gal who spends her free time breeding roses, specifically Hulthemias.  Gal has a very structured life because she has to spend every second night in the hospital for kidney dialysis, she finds comfort and enjoyment in her rose garden and in her greenhouse where she breeds and grows seedlings.  She needs a new kidney but everyone and everything in her mind is against her, then her 15 year old niece comes to live with her and she meets the handsome chemistry teacher and through more trials and tribulations of raising her sister’s daughter she slowly lets people into her life.  The book ends just as the relationship with the chemistry teacher is blossoming and Riley has decided to stay living with her even though her biological mother is back in the States.  The book has hand-drawn pictures from Gal’s rose book and it has information from Winslow Blythe’s Complete Rose Guide that Gal refers to.  Her rose the “Riley” named after her niece wins at a rose show and is accepted into the rose trial gardens in Florida.  So Gal in the end is happy this is what she set out to accomplish.  Its a novel and a rose breeding guide and a great book for a rose lover or anyone who faces a crisis in their life.

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