Please read before posting to: "Name That Book"

Have you ever really enjoyed a book and then years later tried to recall the title but can't? Of course you have! Post a brief description in this forum and maybe another BookBrowse visitor will recognize it and post the title! If you post a description, you'll probably want to subscribe to this thread so you don't miss any replies!
* Last updated by: admin on 10/16/2010 @ 3:58 AM *

Queen Elizabeth's 85th b.d. and luncheon brought back the memory of a book I read at least a year ago in which a woman living in a remote part of a village in Canada is invited to the Queen's 80th b.d. luncheon and starts out for the airport only to have her car spin out and fall into a ravine. She is badly injured and while waiting and hoping for rescue, she recounts her life while identifying the damaged parts of her body. She has medical knowledge because she had read her doctor father's anatomy books as a child. It was a beatiful story and I can't remember the title or author.....Help!

Hi Harriette, I think the title you're looking for is Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani...

From the book jacket: Frances Itani succeeds her stunning American debut novel, Deafening, about a deaf woman during World War I, with a captivating reflection on the staying power of family throughout time and memory, and the extent to which individual lives can influence and resonate in the world around them. Born on April 21, 1926, the exact same day as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Canadian Georgina Danforth Witley is one of ninety-nine privileged Commonwealth subjects invited to an eightieth birthday lunch at Buckingham Palace. All she has to do is drive two hours to the airport and board the plane for London. Except that Georgie drives off the edge of the road, her car plunging into a thickly wooded ravine. Thrown from the car, injured, and unable to move, she must rely on her strength, her full store of family memories, her no-nonsense wit, and a recitation of the names of the bones in her body--a long-forgotten exercise from childhood that reminds her she is still very much alive

An ill woman, confined to her home, spends the year at her window following the lives of her birds.

Well, this one's a memoir (and the woman in it isn't exactly confined to her house), but my guess is Birding on Borrowed Time by Phoebe Snetsinger?

http://www.birderslibrary.com/reviews/books/misc/birding_on_borrowed_time.htm

It's a true story about a woman who, at the age of 34, is diagnosed with malignant melanoma and is given 6 months to live. She decides to dedicate the remainder of her life to birdwatching and learning about the various species she finds. She records/documents some 8,000 species and travels the world over, and she makes a serious contribution to the birding world.

Hope this helps!