Telling the Bees

A lovely, thoughtful book to read slowly and to savor the metaphor of the bees compared to our human world. I was puzzled by the reviewers who complained that the author went into too much detail about the bees and beekeeping, because that was essential to the story. Each chapter begins with a littl......more

This book was won in a First Reads contest at Goodreads. I was immediately drawn into this book by the courtly formality of the language used by the narrator. Albert inadvertently discovers a crime perpetrated upon his neighbors and friends. What follows is a slowly unfolding and mesmerizing tale of......more

I can't describe this book better than NY Times best-selling author Elizabeth George did: “Telling the Bees is a marvel. With infinite compassion and perfect pitch, Peggy Hesketh has written an American classic: the inadvertent examination of a life unlived, told by the 80-year-old beekeeper who did......more

From the first sentence, which I can’t quote because this is an advanced readers copy, I fell in love with this story. Like the perfect pitch of humming bees in an old California Orange grove at sunset after a long summer day, the main character Albert Honig, recalls the tragic deaths of his two nei......more

Do you want truth or do you want facts? Can one live in a honorable and honest and orderly way? These questions, along with issues of family and failures and forgiveness, are at the heart of this beautifully composed novel. August Honig is a man who has lived a very tightly controlled life, tending......more