Looking Back - Charms for the Easy Life

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons
Fiction
1995 Harper Perennial (first published in 1993)
Finished in May 1997
Rating: 4.5/5 (Excellent!)

Publisher's Blurb:

A family without men, the Birches live gloriously offbeat lives in the lush, green backwoods of North Carolina. In a sad and singular era, they are unique among women of their time. For radiant, headstrong Sophia and her shy and brilliant daughter Margaret possess powerful charms to ward off loneliness, despair, and the human misery that all too often beats a path to their door. And they are protected through the years by the eccentric wisdom and muscular love of the most stalwart Birch of all — a solid, unbending and uncompromising self-taught healer who can cure everything from boils to broken hones to broken hearts ... a remarkable matriarch who calls herself Charlie Kate.

Charms for the Easy Life is the passionate, luminous, and exhilarating New York Times bestseller by Kaye Gibbons,the acclaimed author of Ellen Foster and Sights Unseen.

My Original Notes (1997):

One of the best books I've ever read! Excellent! I didn't want it to end, but couldn't put it down. Bought everything else that I could find by Kaye Gibbons. I feel like I know the three women in the story. I greatly admired the strength and independence of the grandmother. What a woman! And their love for books and the understanding of the power of the written word... Lyrical - reminded me a bit of Beach Music.

Beautiful. Charming. Delightful!

My Current Thoughts:

With such high praise, I'm shocked that I no longer own a copy of this novel. Maybe I'll get a copy at the library and read it again.