Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

Calling it a "true life novel" Jeannette Walls has pulled together stories of her grandmother and uses them as the basis for this first person "memoir" Grandma was a tough girl and woman who grew up on a ranch in New Mexico and at age five started helping her father train horses. She had her feet pulled out from under her when she was fifteen and her father decided he could no longer afford her education. But by then she had had just enough education to qualify to teach in rural schools where it was difficult to place teacher, so she left home and was able to sustain herself as she bounced from town to town eventually finishing up a bachelor's degree. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane, and she married a good man. Very homey down-to-earth writing in a wonderful book.