The April Regional Readers selection is 40 Acres and No Mule by Janice Holt Giles. In the late 1940s, Janice and Henry Giles moved from Louisville, Kentucky, back to the Appalachian hill country where Henry had grown up and where his family had lived since the time of the Revolution. With their savings, the couple bought a ramshackle house and forty acres of land on a ridge top and set out to be farmers like Henry’s forebears. To this personal account of the trials of a city woman trying to learn the ways of the country and of her neighbors, Giles brings the same warmth, humor, and powers of observation that characterize her novels. Enlightening and evocative, personal, and universally pertinent, this description of a year of “backaches, fun, low ebbs, and high tides, and above all a year of eminent satisfaction” will be welcomed by Giles’ many readers.
40 Acres and No Mule is available to Regional Readers for $12 per copy. Our meeting will be Tuesday, April 30; coffee and conversation at 2 p.m.; book discussion at 2:30 p.m.
The book group is open to all and new members are always welcome. We encourage suggestions for the 2024 reading list.
