Welcome

Hi! My name is Margot. My blog is about the things I love to do. That could be what I'm reading, places we visit, my family, food, or whatever else is happening. I hope you'll stay and visit a while. Contact me by email: joyfullyretired (at) gmail (dot) com.

What I’m Reading

Saying It Well

Justice

Forever

The Sense of an Ending

Wish You Were Here

A Moveable Feast

Clarissa

The Odyssey

My Book Rating System

A = Excellent in every way
B = Very good story
C  = Good/Average
D = Poor
F = So Bad I couldn't finish it

Archives

Award Winning Nonfiction

Regular readers of this blog know how obsessed I am with Agatha Christie’s novels. You will know how thrilled I was to get Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks by John Curran. Here’s a little bit about it: Following the death of Agatha’s daughter, Rosalind, at the end of 2004, a remarkable legacy was revealed. Unearthed among [...]

Celebrating Steinbeck: The Long Valley

Author: John Steinbeck Publisher: Viking, 1938 Genre: Classic Fiction Format: Hardcover Source: Public library My Rating: A+ For the last two weeks a group of bloggers, sponsored by the The Classic Circuit, has joined together to honor the writing of John Steinbeck. I’m happy to be a part of that group. Over the years I’ve [...]

Book Review: Heart of a Samurai

If you are looking for a good old-fashioned adventure story, I have the book for you: Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus. The story is about a fourteen-year-old Japanese boy, Manjiro, who was a crew member on a fishing boat that was wrecked by a fierce storm. Five crew members survived, washed ashore on [...]

I’ve Become a Tomato Activist

When is the last time you ate a tomato? What did it taste like? Where did it come from? If the answers to those questions are a.) within the past few months, b.) it had no taste at all, and c.) it came from the store or a restaurant, chances are you ate a modern-day [...]

Book Review: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

Jill (Rhapsody In Books) was right. This multi-award winning novel was fantastic – real characters, important issues, references to classic literature, and beautiful language. Come see my review on the group blog, Quirky Girls Read.