Light and Variable: A Year of Celebrations, Holidays, Recipes, and Emily Dickinson

Connie Cronley takes me back to the Oklahoma I was born and raised in. I'm guessing we are about the same age, same Cherokee/Irish and lover of the old days. From her childhood to today she relates stories that will make you burst out laughing and/or bring tears to your eyes. Her wonderful use of the English language with terms like "domestic as a plate" to phrases so sophisticated she is a pure joy to read. Get this book, read it, give it to your friends, and especially sisters if you have them. Then read it again.

Connie Cronley makes writing look easy. Her style, her sense of humor, and the way she takes the smallest things in life and gleans wisdom from them make this book a joy to read. In addition, we are treated to recipes fit for entertaining or a night curled up with a good book or movie. Like her first, Sometimes a Wheel Falls Off, these essays give the reader a sense of the places Cronley writes from--not only geographically, but emotionally. She is by turns thoughtful and funny, homespun and cosmopolitan. It sounds corny, but she makes the reader want to be a better person.