Reading recommendations:

Solomon's Oak

Glory Solomon, a young widow, holds tight to her memories while she struggles to hold on to her central California Farm. She makes ends meet by hosting weddings in the chapel her husband built under their two hundred year old white oak tree, known locally as Solomon's Oak. Fourteen year old Juniper McGuire is the lone survivor of a family decimated by her sister's disappearance. She arrives on Glory's doorstep pierced, tattooed, angry and homeless. When Glory's husband, Dan, was alive, they took in foster children, but Juniper may be more than she can handle alone. Joseph Vigil is a former Albuquerque police officer and crime lab photographer who was shot during a meth lab bust that took the life of his best friend. Now disabled and in constant pain, he arrived in California to fulfill his dream of photographing the states giant trees, including Solomon's Oak.

In Mapson's deeply felt, wise, and gritty novel, these three broken souls find in each other an unexpected comfort, the bond of friendships and a second chance to see the miracles of everyday life.

I love the way Jo-Ann Mapson writes about family, how the roots we put down are the ones that ultimately hold us together. I will be reading Jo-Ann again--

Cleopatra, A Life

Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still with political intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.

She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well, incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had relations with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar, and after his murder, three more with his protege.

Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean, the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, a deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

Mayo Clinic, Book of Home Remedies

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated not-for-profit group medical practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy that the needs of the patient come first.

This book is not intended to replace the advice of your doctor or other health-care providers, but it can help you manage common problems and perhaps prevent a trip to the clinic or emergency room.

See you at Rylander!