November 22, 2012

• Tea and Trouble Brewing- Review & Giveaway

  Today it’s white and cold in Alberta, while in Oregon it’s raining.  Today is Thanksgiving if you are American and here in Canada we’ve already celebrated back in October.  Today is also Giveaway Day, a first for me from this remote corner.   I am honoured to announce that Dorcas Smucker is generously giving away her newest book, Tea and Trouble Brewing, via this blog. 

  

  I quickly jumped in and said I’d do a book review when Dorcas was looking for bloggers for her blog tour.  But then I got nervous because I’ve never done a book review before.  As number 11 on a list of 18 bloggers doing a review, I wondered if I could do it without shamelessly copying the others.  And (horrors!!) what if I don’t use commas correctly?

  But.  After someone has kindly mailed you 3 books- one to keep, one to give away on your blog, and one to quietly slip to someone as a gift- you need to keep your word.  You want to keep your word.

  Here I quote someone named Bevy who introduces Dorcas:

  Dorcas is the wife of a Mennonite Minister, the mother of six children and author of several books/memoirs.  She is a once-a-month columnist for the Eugene Register-Guard, on Facebook and is blog host for Life in the Shoe. (end of quote)

  After joining the online world just three years ago by getting a Facebook account and then discovering the wide world of blogland, I was quickly drawn to Dorcas Smucker’s writing.  I had heard vaguely of her before, but when she left a thoughtful comment on one of my first faltering blog posts and I followed her to her blog at Life in the Shoe, I knew I had happened upon a gold mine.

  Dorcas writes well of real life.  She is articulate and funny.  And with her there is none of this rambling what-does-this-mean-and-where- is-it-going” discomfort that I can almost feel through the computer screen when people read what I write.  Succinct at its best makes me happy.  There is also none of the Sunday school paper stuffiness that you might mistakenly expect from  a Mennonite minister’s wife.

  Here I quote Crystal on Dorcas: 

  Her writing is impeccably genius. This isn’t some random blog with a few funny stories thrown together. These pages are chock-full of carefully-crafted beginnings, middles and endings. One specific reason I love Dorcas’s writing? She ALWAYS connects her final paragraph to her first in a way that perfectly ties up the package. That takes serious talent and years of work.”  (end of quote)

  Tea and Trouble Brewing is Dorcas Smucker’s fourth book.  Like her other three books, it is a compilation of the Letters from Harrisburg that she writes for the Eugene newspaper column.   In her fourth book she addresses truly winning, clotheslines, harvest time, pregnant cats, football games, and joining face book.  Among many other things.

  My favorite paragraphs include these in the chapter “How Little Girls Become Moms” when the sweet family kitten suddenly becomes a mother. 

  Cleo was like a different cat.  Skinny, tired, preoccupied.  She no longer had time for lounging on laps.  Most of the time she was in her box, curled into a crescent, the patient curve of her body completely filled with pawing, seeking, demanding kittens, a mass of black and gray and yellow.

  “It makes me sad to look at her,” said our oldest daughter, Amy.  “She’s like these girls that get married and have all these babies way too young, and they just look so harassed and tired.”

  I didn’t tell her that Cleo reminded me of myself. 

  And later on in the same chapter, Dorcas writes on how motherhood has changed her: 

  I could, if I wished, go back to worrying about matching this belt and these shoes.  Instead, I agonize about war and orphans and tornadoes and injustice.  I meddle shamelessly, asking the guy in the wheelchair if he needs help reaching that cantaloupe at Fred Meyer and offering to pray for the weeping young woman hiding out at the back of the Goodwill store.

  I dispense advice and listen a lot.  I hope people can look at me and tell that I care and if they need it, I will drop my work to make a pot of tea and talk.

  I have a restless, seeking nature and struggle with contentment.  I think the biggest appeal for me in Dorcas’s writing is wrapped up in this excerpt from the chapter “Rethinking Life Choices” in her latest book.

  I seldom question my major life choices.  I have few regrets, and I like where I live and who I’m with and what I do.

  And later:  Who knows, the future may find me stitching up wounds on little heads in Africa someday.  Or not.  But right now I need to sew pretty dresses for my daughter and take good care of the wounds that show up in my household, and I know this is what I’m supposed to be doing, now and here.

  Yes and amen.

  *****************************************************

  For a chance to win a free copy of Tea and Trouble Brewing, please leave a comment on this post.   Tell us what you like about where you live or who you’re with or what you do—or all 3.  Since a lot of the people who read this blog are not bloggers and I know how annoying it can be to sign in to some foreign site, your Facebook comment will count as well.  (I hope this is considered kosher.) Since this is a busy time for many of you, I will draw the winner’s name a week from today.

  Per the Author’s request – the following information is made available to you:

  To order a copy, for yourself, go to

  Amazon , to pay by credit card.
  If you would prefer to pay by check (cheque! , please send $15 (postage is included in this price) to Dorcas Smucker, 31148 Substation Drive, Harrisburg, OR 97446.

  **Dorcas also has a special on right now. All 4 of her books for $40.00. Again, postage is included.
  

  (Note:  I have read all four of these books and they make wonderful gifts.)

  Happy Thanksgiving to my lovely American friends! 

  • 12:33 am
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