Excellent and courageous

Lucy Delaney's memoir is the only firsthand account of a freedom suit. Lucy's mother, Polly, and several other free black citizens of Illinois were kidnapped, taken to Missouri, and sold as slaves. Polly married the valet of the man who bought her and they had two daughters. After the death of the owner and his wife, Polly's husband was sold "down south." Polly remembered growing up free and encouraged her daughters to always look out for the chance to run away. Lucy's older sister did make it to freedom in Canada. Polly ran away, but was captured in Chicago by slave hunters. She sued for her freedom, proving she was born free. Polly sued for Lucy's freedom, too, on the basis that a slave could not be born to a free woman. The jury agreed. Polly (laundress) and Lucy (seamstress) worked and saved, finally having enough to visit Lucy's sister in Canada. Polly died without ever knowing what happened to her husband. After Emancipation, Lucy located her father in Virginia. Lucy was a leader in the black churches, social, and political organizations of St Louis.

I started this book on Libby, but I struggled to follow along with the narrator. I picked up an actual book and started over. This book was very touching and I felt the emotions of the all the characters. It was so hard to choose a side even when characters did wrong.

I started the series a couple of years ago listening to the audiobook of To Helvetica and Back. It seemed slow taking too much time to establish the town and characters. The reader just didn’t seem right, which is very important to me with audiobooks. I thought I’d give the series another try when I saw this on the list. It’s definitely better and certainly moves faster. A novice snowboarder finds a boot (including foot, ankle, and sock) on a Utah ski slope. The rest of the skier is found, shot, in a crevasse. The deceased grew up in the area, an awkward nerd in high school, but founded a successful tech company. Shelton’s writing style is okay. But it’s one of those cozies that you can’t solve along with amateur sleuth. Too many random misdirects. The solution is based on clues the protagonist only remembered (and are shared with readers) at the very end. It was ok, but with so many cozy series available you can find better.

Entangled Life is not a quick read, but went faster than I expected. I don’t know much about mushrooms, lichen, etc. This is very sciency, but clear. I can promise how much I’ll remember. The chapter on radical mycology — using fungi to help break down litter like used diapers, cigarette butts, even some plastics — is probably the most worth reading.

Lots of good places. Unfortunately the book is out-dated and some of these places have permanently closed.

I picked this book up at the campground store and thoroughly enjoyed it. My only complaint is that it is a bit dry in its detail but it was interesting to read about the women who so bravely helped to colonize the Kentucky wilderness,

Loved it! It made me laugh.

Very repetitious prose. The story was interesting, but I didn't need to know 50 ways in which the husbands had sex with their mail-order brides. Nor did I need to know 100 ways the women gave birth. The bare bones of the story were interesting, but it was hard to read.

It was emotional, both happy and sad at the same time.