Alexandra Redgrave

This was a total impulse buy back in August - the power of the cash-register display! Plus, I'm a sucker for learning a new skill, especially the old ones that have fallen by the wayside in favour of modern conveniences.

This book was exactly what I was hoping for: Short, 1-2 pages explaining how to do a variety of tasks around the home. It's broken up into sections for the Kitchen, Outdoors, Home, Gardening and Grooming. Some of it was obvious for me; as a gardener, there wasn't much in the Gardening section I didn't already know and as a born and bred Floridian, I already knew how to shuck an oyster, but on the flip side, I didn't have a clue about how to walk on snow or how to read the sky to find North (or South). Now I do.

Most everything in the book is practical and I'll be referring back to it over the years, although there are instructions for how to saber a Champagne bottle; a skill I'm going to choose to keep theoretical.… (meer)