Emma Donoghue has written a novel here that touches on so many topics. There are many balls that she throws expertly int he air and keeps them all aloft until the very end. She touches on the Holocaust, and Nice, France, intersecting that with modern life in New York and contrasting the bravery of the resistance and those secreting children out from under the Nazis noses to undercover confidential informant who is working to help the police expose a drug dealer.
We are introduced to Noah Selvaggio, the grandson of a famous photographer, Pere Sonne and son of Margot Sonne. He is turning eighty years old and for his birthday he is off to Nice, France for the first time since his mother sent him, by himself, at the age of three, to America, 1944 to escape the war, to meet up with his father, Marc Selvaggio. His mother joined them three years later. Noah never learned anymore about his mother's background and now she has passed on. His sister has also died and left him some pictures he is taking with him to France to try and identify.
Days before his departure, he receives a call from a social worker who informs him that his nephew who died, estranged from the family, from a drug overdose, has left an eleven year old son, Michael Young, who needs a home at least temporarily and Noah is the closest living relative.
As Noah and Michael set off for France they will experience a few huddles to overcome in how to relate to each other and how to work together. Donoghue tries to create the tension that happens when two people who have never met and have such different backgrounds need to work together. Noah has never been a parent, and Michael is that tough inner city kid who is worldly and not necessarily good mannered and polite. He is obsessed with his cellphone and video games.
I felt some of this was unrealistic for these unlikely traveling partners. I did not find that the emotional relationship between the two was well defined. As they are traveling together, Michael is helping Noah to recreate the history that his mother may have lived through during the war in Nice. But we are never told the real story which felt unfulfilling. Also, Michael seems to figure things out without any real facts. Noah, at the same time, is realizing that you don't always know the whole story and we make assumptions based on prior knowledge that could be wrong. So as he realizes that he may have missed judged his nephew, he becomes more sympathetic to Michael. But again we never get to find out the true story, which felt frustrating.
There is a happy ending and it is nice to see that each of the characters has grown and that there is a positive outcome, that life should treat these characters well in the future. That people are strong and resilient.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
The World That We Knew
Alice Hoffman has once again created a fascinating novel. I loved so many of her previous novels, including The Dovekeepers, The Museum of Extraordinary Things and The Marriage of Opposites. Her newest novel called The World That We Knew, is a historical novel that mixes reality and magical mysticism to build a story of love, loss and bravery during a time of hate and fear.
Though Hoffman has included Judaism in some of her other books, this time she has written indirectly about the Holocaust. She brings the reader into the room with a mother who wants to save her young daughter from the atrocities of war that she knows are coming. Lea Kohn has narrowly escaped being raped and her mother Hanni realizes that Berlin has become too dangerous to survive. Hanni does not want to leave her own mother behind so she contrives to send twelve year old Lea away.
To protect Lea she she goes to the Rabbi to create a Golem to accompany Lea as she travels to Paris and hopefully freedom. The Rabbi's daughter is convinced to create this mystical creature and also wants to send her young sister Marta along to escape. The Golem, Ava is created from mud on the banks of the river Spree. She is brought to life with the recitation of the secret name of G-d.
She is supposed to have no feelings of her own, just the desire of Lea's mother to love her like her mother would and protect her. Ava is tall, strong and confident. She learns languages — including birdsong — in minutes and can kill on Lea’s behalf.
As they travel together so many things change along the way. They relationship develops and changes. The reader more and more accepts the reality of Ava and her developing feelings for life and the world becoming more human as time goes on.
Ava represents all the parents who risk their lives and take extreme measures to save their children and protect them during the Holocaust. Using this fairy tale like soulless supernatural protector out of Jewish folklore to call attention to the harsh realities of World War II.
Though Hoffman has included Judaism in some of her other books, this time she has written indirectly about the Holocaust. She brings the reader into the room with a mother who wants to save her young daughter from the atrocities of war that she knows are coming. Lea Kohn has narrowly escaped being raped and her mother Hanni realizes that Berlin has become too dangerous to survive. Hanni does not want to leave her own mother behind so she contrives to send twelve year old Lea away.
To protect Lea she she goes to the Rabbi to create a Golem to accompany Lea as she travels to Paris and hopefully freedom. The Rabbi's daughter is convinced to create this mystical creature and also wants to send her young sister Marta along to escape. The Golem, Ava is created from mud on the banks of the river Spree. She is brought to life with the recitation of the secret name of G-d.
She is supposed to have no feelings of her own, just the desire of Lea's mother to love her like her mother would and protect her. Ava is tall, strong and confident. She learns languages — including birdsong — in minutes and can kill on Lea’s behalf.
As they travel together so many things change along the way. They relationship develops and changes. The reader more and more accepts the reality of Ava and her developing feelings for life and the world becoming more human as time goes on.
Ava represents all the parents who risk their lives and take extreme measures to save their children and protect them during the Holocaust. Using this fairy tale like soulless supernatural protector out of Jewish folklore to call attention to the harsh realities of World War II.
Monday, December 9, 2019
The Crepes of Wrath
As the snow is falling outside and winter has set in to stay for awhile, reading mystery novels that involve some delicious recipes to go along with a good crime to try and solve.
So I settled in with Tamar Myers series about Magdalena Yoder, the owner and hostess of the PennDutch Inn. But be careful when you book a room at this Bed and Breakfast, because this is the ninth in a series of murder mysteries that are happening in around this Pennsylvania Dutch Inn.
Magdalena has grown up in a Mennonite family in this Amish small town of Hernia. She inherited this house and now runs it as a B&B with her aunt Freni cooking in the kitchen.
In previous books these characters have been developed and details of their background has been elaborated on. In this book we find Mags with a full house, including a Hollywood couple and gym teacher. She tries to help her guests get the full Amish country experience, including paying extra to help clean, cook and even gather the eggs from the hens. At the same time she is trying to help solve the murder of town
Her sister, Susannah, is married to the Police Chief, Melvin Stoltzfus, who is very busy running his political campaign to get elected local councilman. So he deputizes Mags to help him discover the killer of both Lizzie Mast and then the subsequent death of Thelma Hershberger. Lizzie Mast was a friend but it is well known she was a terrible cook. But why would anyone want to kill her? Then it is even more complicated when Thelma is killed and we need to figure out how they were connected.
This just another fun cozy mystery that will keep you warm and comfortable as you read this formulaic novel and then you can eat some delicious comfort food as you eat some crepes with a variety of fillings.
Tamar Myers likes to write these simple cozy formulaic style mysteries and she has a following for this series and her other antique dealer series also. This Pennsylvanian Dutch series with recipes now has twenty one books.
More interesting might be that she is also writing a Belgian Congo mystery series, about which she has quite a bit of knowledge because she grew up there in the village of a headhunters. Her parents were missionaries and her childhood sounds incredible. I will possibly try and read one of the books in this series.
So I settled in with Tamar Myers series about Magdalena Yoder, the owner and hostess of the PennDutch Inn. But be careful when you book a room at this Bed and Breakfast, because this is the ninth in a series of murder mysteries that are happening in around this Pennsylvania Dutch Inn.
Magdalena has grown up in a Mennonite family in this Amish small town of Hernia. She inherited this house and now runs it as a B&B with her aunt Freni cooking in the kitchen.
In previous books these characters have been developed and details of their background has been elaborated on. In this book we find Mags with a full house, including a Hollywood couple and gym teacher. She tries to help her guests get the full Amish country experience, including paying extra to help clean, cook and even gather the eggs from the hens. At the same time she is trying to help solve the murder of town
Her sister, Susannah, is married to the Police Chief, Melvin Stoltzfus, who is very busy running his political campaign to get elected local councilman. So he deputizes Mags to help him discover the killer of both Lizzie Mast and then the subsequent death of Thelma Hershberger. Lizzie Mast was a friend but it is well known she was a terrible cook. But why would anyone want to kill her? Then it is even more complicated when Thelma is killed and we need to figure out how they were connected.
This just another fun cozy mystery that will keep you warm and comfortable as you read this formulaic novel and then you can eat some delicious comfort food as you eat some crepes with a variety of fillings.
Tamar Myers likes to write these simple cozy formulaic style mysteries and she has a following for this series and her other antique dealer series also. This Pennsylvanian Dutch series with recipes now has twenty one books.
More interesting might be that she is also writing a Belgian Congo mystery series, about which she has quite a bit of knowledge because she grew up there in the village of a headhunters. Her parents were missionaries and her childhood sounds incredible. I will possibly try and read one of the books in this series.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Waisted
OK, so I admit it, I am one of those women who has been obsessed with my body since my teen years. Always looking at others thinking I should be thinner, that I should have smaller thighs, that if my breasts were smaller I would look better in my clothes. Dieting was the focus of the 1970s and
it is only now, looking back from the weight I am today, (not thin), that I can see how great I really looked back then. Oh to weigh now what I weighed in High School!!!
But finally, I think, I am mostly happy with myself and even though it would be nice to fit into that dress or those pants, I am happy with myself and not stressing over my weight. I am enjoying every day and exercising only because it is good for me...nothing in the extreme.
But I will say that to sit reading a book about dieting and food and extreme exercising and weigh ins, makes you think about eating and what should I eat as a snack while I am reading. So those cookies or chips probably are not a good idea and I should be eating some carrots or apple slices instead... oh does it ever really end??
Waisted by author Randy Susan Meyers is an incredibly well written novel with clever, witty repartee. The characters are well drawn and the descriptions of the weight loss program is an accurately created exaggeration of the weight loss TV programs. It is really true, the question of what lengths will people go to to achieve the ideal body. and also the idea of almost never being happy with the body you have and always having to maintain that level of intense exercise and restraint to keep the beautiful body when you get there.
So many of us grew up with Jewish mothers who thought they were helping us and themselves going from diet to diet and at the same time telling us to eat and finish everything on our plates.
This is the story of three women who meet after they each for different reasons feel that their relationships with men would be improved if they were thinner. They are, of course, obese so that there is a reason to try and lose so much weight that they go to get help. The ad they each have answered promises weight loss with dignity and caring. What they find is a group of people who are using humiliation and degradation to manipulate them and see how far they are willing to go to achieve their dream.
Over a light lunch, Randy Susan talked about her childhood, growing up in Brooklyn NY with her mother and shopping with her grandmother. Each of her novels are based on stories she has experienced and she does say that her personal characteristics are evident in the characters in her books. She talks about her relationship with food and about all the women she interviewed and research she did about what women go through to work toward their ideal body. personally, Meyers feels she has reached a good relationship with food and her body.
Randy Susan Meyers is the bestselling author of Waisted, Accidents of Marriage, The Comfort of Lies, The Murderer’s Daughters, and The Widow of Wall Street. Her books have twice been finalists for the Mass Book Award and named “Must Read Books” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. She lives with her husband in Boston, where she teaches writing at the Grub Street Writers’ Center.
Over a light lunch, Randy Susan talked about her childhood, growing up in Brooklyn NY with her mother and shopping with her grandmother. Each of her novels are based on stories she has experienced and she does say that her personal characteristics are evident in the characters in her books. She talks about her relationship with food and about all the women she interviewed and research she did about what women go through to work toward their ideal body. personally, Meyers feels she has reached a good relationship with food and her body.
Randy Susan Meyers is the bestselling author of Waisted, Accidents of Marriage, The Comfort of Lies, The Murderer’s Daughters, and The Widow of Wall Street. Her books have twice been finalists for the Mass Book Award and named “Must Read Books” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. She lives with her husband in Boston, where she teaches writing at the Grub Street Writers’ Center.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
The Chelsea Girls
A historical fiction novel that is a fascinating plot and keeps you reading until the very last page, written by Fiona Davis.
This is another fascinating historical novel taking the reader through history with a clever, fast paced plot. This novel illustrates what happened in America after the war. About how McCarthyism became acceptable and believable in this country.
Introducing readers to a group of young single girls who had performed for the troops in Europe, Davis sets the stage for three strong women who defied their parents and the conventions of that time. They loved the theatre and movies and craved fame. They travel to entertain the troops and all become friends. They even try to go against the army officers to save two young men who they believe are resistance fighters.
After the war they meet up again at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan and are pursuing careers in theatre.
You are drawn into the world of the Chelsea Hotel and the women who lived there. It is fascinating to think that at that time, women really did not leave home for a career and live alone. The hotel management was protective of their privacy. They had sort of a quiet sorority of a kind there. Then each women makes some choices that will change the course of history and their lives. McCarthyism had really taken hold in the US and people did not know how to stand up to the accusations against them. People were living in fear especially those who were in the media and show business. This book tries to show how you could get caught up in the mania and also how your could be ruined by the hysteria.
Each one has some secrets they are reluctant to share. As they negotiate life and love interests, their secrets will affect their lives and the lives of the others.
This is another fascinating historical novel taking the reader through history with a clever, fast paced plot. This novel illustrates what happened in America after the war. About how McCarthyism became acceptable and believable in this country.
Introducing readers to a group of young single girls who had performed for the troops in Europe, Davis sets the stage for three strong women who defied their parents and the conventions of that time. They loved the theatre and movies and craved fame. They travel to entertain the troops and all become friends. They even try to go against the army officers to save two young men who they believe are resistance fighters.
After the war they meet up again at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan and are pursuing careers in theatre.
You are drawn into the world of the Chelsea Hotel and the women who lived there. It is fascinating to think that at that time, women really did not leave home for a career and live alone. The hotel management was protective of their privacy. They had sort of a quiet sorority of a kind there. Then each women makes some choices that will change the course of history and their lives. McCarthyism had really taken hold in the US and people did not know how to stand up to the accusations against them. People were living in fear especially those who were in the media and show business. This book tries to show how you could get caught up in the mania and also how your could be ruined by the hysteria.
Each one has some secrets they are reluctant to share. As they negotiate life and love interests, their secrets will affect their lives and the lives of the others.
My Ex Life
OK , os I am adding to this review ... I have reread the book and gotten the exciting opportunity to interview the author Stephan McCauley about this book, My Ex-Life. It has of course changed my perspective and increased my appreciation for the novel.
Though I say at the end of this review that it is a sweet and funny, there is so much more to this plot. Yes, the novel has quite a few funny interactions between characters. There are great, colorful and funny descriptions of characters, but each of these characters are very deep and complicated souls.
Each character has an ex-life in some fashion. Each character is flawed in some way. Each character is caring around a secret that is weighing them down.
David Hedges is living a swinging life of a single gay man in San Francisco. He is renting a cute cottage with a attractive address, having just broken up with his latest relationship, he works to help young graduating seniors apply to colleges.
His ex wife, Julie, is living on the opposite coast, just outside Boston, with her daughter and finalizing her divorce from her second marriage. She about to lose her house and her daughter is supposed to be applying to college. While going through some old papers, Mandy discovers her mother's ex, she writes to him asking him to come help her write her essay and fill out college applications.
Mandy thinks bringing her mother and the ex together seems like a great idea. The pressure is on from Mandy's dad to get focused on college admissions and he also want Julie to sell the house so he can put more money into his restaurant. He is ready to move on and remarry. All Julie needs now is money to buy him out. She is renting out rooms in the house as an airbnb. Her life is so mixed up and the reefer isn't help her keep a clear head.
David comes east and helps to fix not only the house, but Mandy, Julie and his life.
Following each of these main characters as they interact with each other and try to negotiate their lives, we learn about their secrets and desires. This book though written in alight hearted manner, really delves deeply into each characters inner thoughts and feelings. Even the supporting actors are well developed roles, which help the story unfold. The neighbor, friend who acts one way but is different on the inside and the creepy boyfriend, dangerous character in Mandy's life are perfectly portrayed.
I really got attached to Mandy , Julie's daughter, and was quite concerned as she seemed to be going down a danger path. As a parent, I was concerned about the lack of watchfulness that Julie was showing and the lack of knowledge that David had about how to care for a teenager.
A sweet, heartbreaking and funny novel about family, love and what being home really means. The dialog is snappy and very relevant. Sometimes family and caring for others is not limited to the one you are married to.
Though I say at the end of this review that it is a sweet and funny, there is so much more to this plot. Yes, the novel has quite a few funny interactions between characters. There are great, colorful and funny descriptions of characters, but each of these characters are very deep and complicated souls.
Each character has an ex-life in some fashion. Each character is flawed in some way. Each character is caring around a secret that is weighing them down.
David Hedges is living a swinging life of a single gay man in San Francisco. He is renting a cute cottage with a attractive address, having just broken up with his latest relationship, he works to help young graduating seniors apply to colleges.
His ex wife, Julie, is living on the opposite coast, just outside Boston, with her daughter and finalizing her divorce from her second marriage. She about to lose her house and her daughter is supposed to be applying to college. While going through some old papers, Mandy discovers her mother's ex, she writes to him asking him to come help her write her essay and fill out college applications.
Mandy thinks bringing her mother and the ex together seems like a great idea. The pressure is on from Mandy's dad to get focused on college admissions and he also want Julie to sell the house so he can put more money into his restaurant. He is ready to move on and remarry. All Julie needs now is money to buy him out. She is renting out rooms in the house as an airbnb. Her life is so mixed up and the reefer isn't help her keep a clear head.
David comes east and helps to fix not only the house, but Mandy, Julie and his life.
Following each of these main characters as they interact with each other and try to negotiate their lives, we learn about their secrets and desires. This book though written in alight hearted manner, really delves deeply into each characters inner thoughts and feelings. Even the supporting actors are well developed roles, which help the story unfold. The neighbor, friend who acts one way but is different on the inside and the creepy boyfriend, dangerous character in Mandy's life are perfectly portrayed.
I really got attached to Mandy , Julie's daughter, and was quite concerned as she seemed to be going down a danger path. As a parent, I was concerned about the lack of watchfulness that Julie was showing and the lack of knowledge that David had about how to care for a teenager.
A sweet, heartbreaking and funny novel about family, love and what being home really means. The dialog is snappy and very relevant. Sometimes family and caring for others is not limited to the one you are married to.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Double, Double Toil and Truffle
Next in the Bewitched By Chocolate series by H Y Hanna. This is a cute cozy mystery series about a young twenty something girl who finds out that the woman she thought was her mother had really found on the side of the rode in a basket, left there by her true birth mother. When the famous actress who brought up dies, Caitlyn Le Fey leaves America and goes back to the English countryside to find her real family.
In this mystery series Caitlyn has found her birthplace, the little village of Tillyhenge, that is owned by the Fitzroy family. James is the current heir and handsome love interest of Caitlyn. She has also found the Bewitched By Chocolate chocolate shop run by the Widow Mags, who turns out to be Caitlyn's grandmother and her daughter Bertha who runs the local herb and remedy shop.
There is always a mysterious death in the village that Caitlyn and her best friend Pomona work to solve while Caitlyn tries to win the affections of James. It was cute at the beginning but now so many books into the series, her inexperience in the ways of love and flirting is getting a bit odd.
I get that the author wants to stretch the build of a romance between them but this has gone on too long.
In this novel, a woman comes to town saying she is a witch with potions and powers to place curses and cures on people. She stirs up the anger of the villagers who pay her and then don't get satisfaction for the magic skills they asked for. A famous witch hunter also appears in the village and is invited to dinner at the Fitzroy mansion. When a body turns up Caitlyn is on the trail to find out why the murder took place...
The best paragraph in the book is spoken by Caitlyn's aunt Bertha, when she explains about being in control over the power of witchcraft, " But how can you ever be sure you are in control, and it's not the other way around? You could become a slave to the forces of Dark Magic before you realize. The darkness is there in all of us you know, and it takes great strength of character to make the right choice - the difficult choice. To choose understanding over judgement, forgiveness over revenge."
I think this is a good message for everyone even those of us who have no magical powers and just need to make good decisions, and make our chocolate the old fashion way with our own two hands.
In this mystery series Caitlyn has found her birthplace, the little village of Tillyhenge, that is owned by the Fitzroy family. James is the current heir and handsome love interest of Caitlyn. She has also found the Bewitched By Chocolate chocolate shop run by the Widow Mags, who turns out to be Caitlyn's grandmother and her daughter Bertha who runs the local herb and remedy shop.
There is always a mysterious death in the village that Caitlyn and her best friend Pomona work to solve while Caitlyn tries to win the affections of James. It was cute at the beginning but now so many books into the series, her inexperience in the ways of love and flirting is getting a bit odd.
I get that the author wants to stretch the build of a romance between them but this has gone on too long.
In this novel, a woman comes to town saying she is a witch with potions and powers to place curses and cures on people. She stirs up the anger of the villagers who pay her and then don't get satisfaction for the magic skills they asked for. A famous witch hunter also appears in the village and is invited to dinner at the Fitzroy mansion. When a body turns up Caitlyn is on the trail to find out why the murder took place...
The best paragraph in the book is spoken by Caitlyn's aunt Bertha, when she explains about being in control over the power of witchcraft, " But how can you ever be sure you are in control, and it's not the other way around? You could become a slave to the forces of Dark Magic before you realize. The darkness is there in all of us you know, and it takes great strength of character to make the right choice - the difficult choice. To choose understanding over judgement, forgiveness over revenge."
I think this is a good message for everyone even those of us who have no magical powers and just need to make good decisions, and make our chocolate the old fashion way with our own two hands.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Park Avenue Summer
Just as I am getting used to being a member of AARP and the fact that my doctors are now younger than I am and almost ready to start looking at how to sign up for medicare... another sign that I have crossed an invisible line... books that cover the 1960s are now considered "historical" fiction.
Renee Rosen mentions in her interviews that she was captivated by episodes of Mad Men which inspired her to find a way to write about that time period. Listed in the historical fiction genre is Park Avenue Summer, a novel written about Helen Gurley Brown as she takes over the reins of Cosmopolitan magazine.
The year is 1965 and Gurley Brown has just published her book, Sex and the Single Girl, which stirred up quite a bit of excitement among young women. This is also the time that Betty Freidan has written The Feminine Mystique. Young women are rethinking marriage and family. They are realizing they have more power than they thought. They can work and live on their own.
Alice has come to New York City to fulfill her childhood dream and become a photographer. Having lost her mother at a young age, she hopes to follow in her footsteps, leaving Ohio for the big city. Finding an old friend of her mother's as a mentor, she lands a secretarial job in the office of Helen Gurley Brown just as she is about to try and relaunch Cosmo as the new magazine that "her girls" are looking for. The fictional Alice is there to assist Gurley Brown as she historically goes up against the male executives trying to make Cosmo what she thinks is the new style of magazine young working women are looking for. With sensual cover photos and evocative articles she is hoping to turn around the failing magazine that has been covering recipes and how to get stains out of clothes.
Mixing fact and fiction we follow Alice, one of the women Brown's audience, as she struggles with the new age of women's mystique, the glamour and sexual appeal, and how she supposed to use it. As Alice works through her feelings about men, affairs and marriage, she finds her way around New York City and improves her photography skills.
Quite a fun book to read especially because I was a "Cosmo girl". Reading Cosmopolitan magazine in my late teens and early twenties, I can picture Helen Gurley Brown leading the way for a generation of women.
Renee Rosen mentions in her interviews that she was captivated by episodes of Mad Men which inspired her to find a way to write about that time period. Listed in the historical fiction genre is Park Avenue Summer, a novel written about Helen Gurley Brown as she takes over the reins of Cosmopolitan magazine.
The year is 1965 and Gurley Brown has just published her book, Sex and the Single Girl, which stirred up quite a bit of excitement among young women. This is also the time that Betty Freidan has written The Feminine Mystique. Young women are rethinking marriage and family. They are realizing they have more power than they thought. They can work and live on their own.
Alice has come to New York City to fulfill her childhood dream and become a photographer. Having lost her mother at a young age, she hopes to follow in her footsteps, leaving Ohio for the big city. Finding an old friend of her mother's as a mentor, she lands a secretarial job in the office of Helen Gurley Brown just as she is about to try and relaunch Cosmo as the new magazine that "her girls" are looking for. The fictional Alice is there to assist Gurley Brown as she historically goes up against the male executives trying to make Cosmo what she thinks is the new style of magazine young working women are looking for. With sensual cover photos and evocative articles she is hoping to turn around the failing magazine that has been covering recipes and how to get stains out of clothes.
Mixing fact and fiction we follow Alice, one of the women Brown's audience, as she struggles with the new age of women's mystique, the glamour and sexual appeal, and how she supposed to use it. As Alice works through her feelings about men, affairs and marriage, she finds her way around New York City and improves her photography skills.
Quite a fun book to read especially because I was a "Cosmo girl". Reading Cosmopolitan magazine in my late teens and early twenties, I can picture Helen Gurley Brown leading the way for a generation of women.
Saturday, September 7, 2019
A Better Man
I had a date with Chief Inspector Armand Gamache last weekend!. What a treat to sit and read the newest of the Louise Penny mystery novels. A Better Man is the newest in the Louise Penny, Gamache series.
Again we meet up with all the villagers living Three Pines. Though it never seems to be summer there or even good weather, the people are dedicated to the village and their neighbors. They muddle through protecting each other from harm and even negative feelings. They care for each other and keep each other warm and dry against the elements.
This time spring is coming and the thaw has started and snow and ice melt threatens to flood not only the village of Three Pines but all along the St Lawrence River throughout the province. There is a discussion at the Surete highest level about how to handle the dangerous situation and again Gamache has the best answer though his colleagues disagree. There is still unrest among the leadership of the force and respect for Gamache is challenged. His title has been taken away and now he answers to his second in command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who is also his son-in-law. Along with Isabelle they are off to solve another crime.
After sandbagging the riverbanks around Three Pines they are watching the storm. The father of Vivian Godin approaches Gamache and asks him to find his daughter. Though Gamache knows he should put this aside until after flood is averted, struggles with the knowledge that he also has a daughter he would want searched for.
This is a psychological study in the different personalities of the girl and the people around her. This novel involves domestic abuse and the relationships between family members. Penny is so adept at interweaving the familiar characters in the village into the major plot. She involves them in the crime and weaves their personal stories in with similar themes to the crime motivations.
Clara is suffering from a bad review from the art critics, as Gamache is working through bad social media coverage of his last case. Both Gamache and Beauvoir share the thoughts throughout this novel, "What would I do if..." because Gamache has a daughter who is pregnant, who is also Beauvoir's wife, and they both realize how personal this case is. How can you abandon a missing girl and possibly let a killer walk free?
Again we meet up with all the villagers living Three Pines. Though it never seems to be summer there or even good weather, the people are dedicated to the village and their neighbors. They muddle through protecting each other from harm and even negative feelings. They care for each other and keep each other warm and dry against the elements.
This time spring is coming and the thaw has started and snow and ice melt threatens to flood not only the village of Three Pines but all along the St Lawrence River throughout the province. There is a discussion at the Surete highest level about how to handle the dangerous situation and again Gamache has the best answer though his colleagues disagree. There is still unrest among the leadership of the force and respect for Gamache is challenged. His title has been taken away and now he answers to his second in command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who is also his son-in-law. Along with Isabelle they are off to solve another crime.
After sandbagging the riverbanks around Three Pines they are watching the storm. The father of Vivian Godin approaches Gamache and asks him to find his daughter. Though Gamache knows he should put this aside until after flood is averted, struggles with the knowledge that he also has a daughter he would want searched for.
This is a psychological study in the different personalities of the girl and the people around her. This novel involves domestic abuse and the relationships between family members. Penny is so adept at interweaving the familiar characters in the village into the major plot. She involves them in the crime and weaves their personal stories in with similar themes to the crime motivations.
Clara is suffering from a bad review from the art critics, as Gamache is working through bad social media coverage of his last case. Both Gamache and Beauvoir share the thoughts throughout this novel, "What would I do if..." because Gamache has a daughter who is pregnant, who is also Beauvoir's wife, and they both realize how personal this case is. How can you abandon a missing girl and possibly let a killer walk free?
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Broken Strings
This is a middle school novel that touches on the Holocaust in a simple but poignant way.
Authors, Eric Walters and Kathy Kacer tell the story of a young girl and her grandfather's relationship to present what can be a hard topic to address for young readers.
Seventh grader Shirli Berman is cast as Golde for the school musical, Fiddler on the Roof. One of her school responsibilities is to go over to her grandfather's house to bring him groceries and check up on him. Her Bubbe has recently died and everyone in the family misses her. Shirli especially because she always listened to her sing and came to all her performances. Until now no one in the family knew why Zayde forbid music in the house and did not seem interested in Shirli's performances. He has never spoken about his experiences during the war years, event to Shirli's father, Zayde's own son.
Looking for costumes, for her play in Zayde's attic, Shirli comes across a poster and an old violin which open up something long closed off in Zayde. Though he has never spoken about his past, now that the door has opened he is ready to share all the hard memories he has kept bottled up for decades.
I even shed a tear or two as I read this novel. Bringing a grandfather and his granddaughter closer, and bringing an old man out of his shell and keeping him feeling vital even in later age, is what this book explores. There are a few times when the authors seem to stretch the edge of reality, but the story and the message is well presented so you can let go of the questions. I can picture this Zayde as my grandfather, but I am not sure someone 14 years old would currently have a grandfather of this description. Also this book is set right after the World Trade Towers were attacked, which relates the those emotions to the Holocaust, though I am not sure if these are equivalent, but the the storyline is so engaging.
Authors, Eric Walters and Kathy Kacer tell the story of a young girl and her grandfather's relationship to present what can be a hard topic to address for young readers.
Seventh grader Shirli Berman is cast as Golde for the school musical, Fiddler on the Roof. One of her school responsibilities is to go over to her grandfather's house to bring him groceries and check up on him. Her Bubbe has recently died and everyone in the family misses her. Shirli especially because she always listened to her sing and came to all her performances. Until now no one in the family knew why Zayde forbid music in the house and did not seem interested in Shirli's performances. He has never spoken about his experiences during the war years, event to Shirli's father, Zayde's own son.
Looking for costumes, for her play in Zayde's attic, Shirli comes across a poster and an old violin which open up something long closed off in Zayde. Though he has never spoken about his past, now that the door has opened he is ready to share all the hard memories he has kept bottled up for decades.
I even shed a tear or two as I read this novel. Bringing a grandfather and his granddaughter closer, and bringing an old man out of his shell and keeping him feeling vital even in later age, is what this book explores. There are a few times when the authors seem to stretch the edge of reality, but the story and the message is well presented so you can let go of the questions. I can picture this Zayde as my grandfather, but I am not sure someone 14 years old would currently have a grandfather of this description. Also this book is set right after the World Trade Towers were attacked, which relates the those emotions to the Holocaust, though I am not sure if these are equivalent, but the the storyline is so engaging.
Saturday, August 24, 2019
A Murder Unmentioned
Again I am back reading one of my favorite mystery series, the Rowland Sinclair series, written by Suri Gentill. This series presents Rowly Sinclair and his friends, Edna, Milton and Clyde, living in Australia during the early 1900. We are now in book six of the series and we are on the verge of World War II. In the last book,, Rowly and his friends went to Germany to stop the Australian representative to get close to Adolf Hitler, when he wanted to learn how to bring Hitler's power and ideas back to Australia.
Now Rowly and his friends having escaped death or arrest in Germany are back home and Rowland wants to share what he learned in Germany and keep the German sympathizers from coming to power at home. But once again there are forces that want to stop him and keep his ideas out of the public arena. When a gun turns up unexpectedly, an investigation is started. The gun seems to be the weapon used to kill Rowland's father many years ago. Rowland and his brother never really spoke about that fateful night. As different people come forward with theories about what happened Rowland finds himself under scrutiny and possible arrest for murder.
This continues to be a fun entertaining series, and the added benefit of learning a little Australian history. There, of course, there is also some romance which is keeping me frustrated ... I can hardly wait until Rowland figures out how to propose and marry the love of his life, Edna, the beautiful bohemian sculptress.
Now Rowly and his friends having escaped death or arrest in Germany are back home and Rowland wants to share what he learned in Germany and keep the German sympathizers from coming to power at home. But once again there are forces that want to stop him and keep his ideas out of the public arena. When a gun turns up unexpectedly, an investigation is started. The gun seems to be the weapon used to kill Rowland's father many years ago. Rowland and his brother never really spoke about that fateful night. As different people come forward with theories about what happened Rowland finds himself under scrutiny and possible arrest for murder.
This continues to be a fun entertaining series, and the added benefit of learning a little Australian history. There, of course, there is also some romance which is keeping me frustrated ... I can hardly wait until Rowland figures out how to propose and marry the love of his life, Edna, the beautiful bohemian sculptress.
The Island of Sea Women
What an incredible story. Lisa See has out done herself yet again. Sometimes you read a fabulous award winning novel and hope that the author can repeat the performance. I started with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. After reading that book with my book discussion group, we rated that our favorite book. Then with another book group I read, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. With this group we held a in person FaceTime discussion with Lisa. Now this was I thought the best book she had written, but now The Island of Sea Women, she has published another incredible novel.
This is book is such a beautiful story. Not only do you learn a history lesson about Korea and what happened there between the Japanese and the Koreans during the 1930s leading up to the Second World War and the Japanese colonialism. Then the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and afterwards, when the Americans came in and divided the country and the Korean War. It was a turbulent time in the Korean history that I am sure many readers are unaware of, as I was, until they read this book.
Lisa describes in intimate detail what it is like to be one of the haeuyeo, women who lived on the island of Jeju off the Korean coast, who were females divers. Lisa is very adapt at writing about the life of these strong independent women who go out into the frigid waters off the island and dive to incredible depths to gather abalone, octopus, and other edible seafoods that they sell to support their families. When they age out of diving or are too young to dive, they gather seaweed and other shellfish at the water's edge. In this society women are the wage earners and the men stay home and take care of the children. There are so many interesting angles to this book.
It is all based around the story of Young-sook and Mi-ja, two young girls who become close friends, and follows them through their lives, growing up to become haeuyeo, then as they get married, start their families and what happens when the war and other political differences separate them and challenges their relationship. The tides ebb and flow driving them together and apart. The waters are cold and the life is hard and Lisa See draws a clear picture of their lives. All based on real events and people she interviewed, this novel is immersed in historical facts.
This is book is such a beautiful story. Not only do you learn a history lesson about Korea and what happened there between the Japanese and the Koreans during the 1930s leading up to the Second World War and the Japanese colonialism. Then the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and afterwards, when the Americans came in and divided the country and the Korean War. It was a turbulent time in the Korean history that I am sure many readers are unaware of, as I was, until they read this book.
Lisa describes in intimate detail what it is like to be one of the haeuyeo, women who lived on the island of Jeju off the Korean coast, who were females divers. Lisa is very adapt at writing about the life of these strong independent women who go out into the frigid waters off the island and dive to incredible depths to gather abalone, octopus, and other edible seafoods that they sell to support their families. When they age out of diving or are too young to dive, they gather seaweed and other shellfish at the water's edge. In this society women are the wage earners and the men stay home and take care of the children. There are so many interesting angles to this book.
It is all based around the story of Young-sook and Mi-ja, two young girls who become close friends, and follows them through their lives, growing up to become haeuyeo, then as they get married, start their families and what happens when the war and other political differences separate them and challenges their relationship. The tides ebb and flow driving them together and apart. The waters are cold and the life is hard and Lisa See draws a clear picture of their lives. All based on real events and people she interviewed, this novel is immersed in historical facts.
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
The Mother-in-Law
Sally Hepworth has written an intriguing novel that grabs your attention and keeps the suspense going all the way until the end.
So many of us have a mother-in-law. It is the age old joke about how hard it is to get along with your mother-in-law. I remember my grandmother, my mother's mother never thought any of the spouses of her children were good enough for her son or daughter. Now I have mothers-in-law and I have become for the first time a mother-in-law. This book does capture some of the thoughts that go through your mind as both the mother and child that are the in-law. How will we get along, not to step over and invisible boundaries, not to insult one another, not to offer unsolicited advice, not to meddle in the marriage or with the raising of the grandchildren, but yet to be apart of their lives
This book does invoke many of those feelings. Lucy marries Oliver and is looking forward to a mother-daughter bonding relationship with her new mother-in-law, Diana. Diana comes across as cold and reserved. So the relationship seems strained. Lucy and Oliver have three children in quick succession, but Oliver's sister Nettie and her husband are unable to conceive.
Oliver is having trouble with his business and finances are tight. His father Tom has helped his children in the past but when he dies suddenly, Diana the mother has not been as generous. She feels that you should work hard for what you want and things should not be handed to you.
Flipping back and forth between the past and the present and hearing the story mainly from Diana and Lucy's points of view we learn Diana has been found dead in her home and the police are investigating. Learning about each character we learn that each has a secret that they have shared with the other family members. As the secrets are revealed and the police all each character down to the station for interviews we unravel how a family can end up in such a precarious position.
A good plot that is not much of a thriller but does do the slow reveal of information that leads to satisfying conclusion.
So many of us have a mother-in-law. It is the age old joke about how hard it is to get along with your mother-in-law. I remember my grandmother, my mother's mother never thought any of the spouses of her children were good enough for her son or daughter. Now I have mothers-in-law and I have become for the first time a mother-in-law. This book does capture some of the thoughts that go through your mind as both the mother and child that are the in-law. How will we get along, not to step over and invisible boundaries, not to insult one another, not to offer unsolicited advice, not to meddle in the marriage or with the raising of the grandchildren, but yet to be apart of their lives
This book does invoke many of those feelings. Lucy marries Oliver and is looking forward to a mother-daughter bonding relationship with her new mother-in-law, Diana. Diana comes across as cold and reserved. So the relationship seems strained. Lucy and Oliver have three children in quick succession, but Oliver's sister Nettie and her husband are unable to conceive.
Oliver is having trouble with his business and finances are tight. His father Tom has helped his children in the past but when he dies suddenly, Diana the mother has not been as generous. She feels that you should work hard for what you want and things should not be handed to you.
Flipping back and forth between the past and the present and hearing the story mainly from Diana and Lucy's points of view we learn Diana has been found dead in her home and the police are investigating. Learning about each character we learn that each has a secret that they have shared with the other family members. As the secrets are revealed and the police all each character down to the station for interviews we unravel how a family can end up in such a precarious position.
A good plot that is not much of a thriller but does do the slow reveal of information that leads to satisfying conclusion.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
The Golden Hour
What a beautiful book. Written by Beatriz Williams. Her prose is wonderfully descriptive and her imagery is realistic.
This is the historical fiction story of the war years of World War II as a backdrop. We do not come directly in contact with the war or the Holocaust in this novel, but they are there in the background. Mentioned in passing and referred to but not directly confronted in this story.
This is a novel as seen through the eyes of Lenora "Lulu" Randolph, who later becomes Mrs. Thorpe, when she marries Benedict Thorpe. It is also the story of another Mrs. Thorpe, the former Elfriede von Kleist, who 40 years earlier marries another ginger haired man named Wilfred Thorpe. Alternating between the lives of these two women we hear the stories of history that surrounds their relationships with these men.
Hinting a mystery as the book opens, Lulu Randolph is escaping her past by living in the Bahamas during the war. She has gotten herself a contract with a New York newspaper to write a society column about the Governor of the Bahamas and his wife, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Her news position as a reporter acknowledges the American obsession with England and their royalty, even those who have been sent to the outpost of Nassau in disgrace. The Duchess, Wallis Simpson, wants to present a positive image to the press and engages our Lulu to write the society news column. Mixing fiction with fact, we learn about the real life at the Government House in Nassau and about the Duke's relationship with people like, Harry Oakes and his son-in-law, Alfred de Marigny. A mystery that has never been solved is presented, Oakes is murdered in his bed.
Also the Burma Road riots are presented in the book to show the issues of race that were happening at this point in history.
At one point Wallis Simpson, the divorcee who became the Duke of Windsor's wife, who took away his chance being the King of England, talks to Lulu about marriage, comparing it to skiing, saying, "Have you ever been skiing?..It's exciting really. You stare down that slope and you think what a thrilling ride it's going to be. In your head, you may map out exactly where you're going to turn, how fast, how damn magnificent you are going to look as you swish your way downward. Then glorious finish to start all over again.....That's the general idea. Or nobody would try. So you push off, all dressed up in your fine new skiing clothes, and at first it all goes exactly how you expect, just exhilarating fun, everybody admiring how your've mastered the hill. Until you find a patch of ice, maybe, or the slope turns steep, or you take a wrong turn, and all at once you've lost control. ...The slope becomes your master instead of the other way around. You see the end approaching and there's nothing you can do to avoid it anymore. You've started the whole thing in motion, and you've got to see it through, no matter how bad the crash at the bottom."
Going back further is the story of Elfriede, who meets her ginger hair prince charming in Switzerland, in a hospital, while they are recovering from illnesses. He from pneumonia and Elfriede from what is now known as postpartum depression. She goes back to her husband and young son and we learn about her life leading up to the present as the plot unfolds. Building suspense, Williams develops both story lines bringing them closer in proximity as we come to the end.
In the end this is a story of two strong but flawed women, who find the strength to help the men they love in a war torn world.
This is the historical fiction story of the war years of World War II as a backdrop. We do not come directly in contact with the war or the Holocaust in this novel, but they are there in the background. Mentioned in passing and referred to but not directly confronted in this story.
This is a novel as seen through the eyes of Lenora "Lulu" Randolph, who later becomes Mrs. Thorpe, when she marries Benedict Thorpe. It is also the story of another Mrs. Thorpe, the former Elfriede von Kleist, who 40 years earlier marries another ginger haired man named Wilfred Thorpe. Alternating between the lives of these two women we hear the stories of history that surrounds their relationships with these men.
Hinting a mystery as the book opens, Lulu Randolph is escaping her past by living in the Bahamas during the war. She has gotten herself a contract with a New York newspaper to write a society column about the Governor of the Bahamas and his wife, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Her news position as a reporter acknowledges the American obsession with England and their royalty, even those who have been sent to the outpost of Nassau in disgrace. The Duchess, Wallis Simpson, wants to present a positive image to the press and engages our Lulu to write the society news column. Mixing fiction with fact, we learn about the real life at the Government House in Nassau and about the Duke's relationship with people like, Harry Oakes and his son-in-law, Alfred de Marigny. A mystery that has never been solved is presented, Oakes is murdered in his bed.
Also the Burma Road riots are presented in the book to show the issues of race that were happening at this point in history.
At one point Wallis Simpson, the divorcee who became the Duke of Windsor's wife, who took away his chance being the King of England, talks to Lulu about marriage, comparing it to skiing, saying, "Have you ever been skiing?..It's exciting really. You stare down that slope and you think what a thrilling ride it's going to be. In your head, you may map out exactly where you're going to turn, how fast, how damn magnificent you are going to look as you swish your way downward. Then glorious finish to start all over again.....That's the general idea. Or nobody would try. So you push off, all dressed up in your fine new skiing clothes, and at first it all goes exactly how you expect, just exhilarating fun, everybody admiring how your've mastered the hill. Until you find a patch of ice, maybe, or the slope turns steep, or you take a wrong turn, and all at once you've lost control. ...The slope becomes your master instead of the other way around. You see the end approaching and there's nothing you can do to avoid it anymore. You've started the whole thing in motion, and you've got to see it through, no matter how bad the crash at the bottom."
Going back further is the story of Elfriede, who meets her ginger hair prince charming in Switzerland, in a hospital, while they are recovering from illnesses. He from pneumonia and Elfriede from what is now known as postpartum depression. She goes back to her husband and young son and we learn about her life leading up to the present as the plot unfolds. Building suspense, Williams develops both story lines bringing them closer in proximity as we come to the end.
In the end this is a story of two strong but flawed women, who find the strength to help the men they love in a war torn world.
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Mistress of the Ritz
Mistress of the Ritz is the new novel written by Melanie Benjamin. She is the author of many other historical fiction novels including The Aviator's Wife, about Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, which was a NYT bestseller. Many of her books have really engaged me while I was reading them and this one does not disappoint.
Though it reads a little slowly through the first half it is building the characters personalities and setting the context for what is to come. This is a story following three main characters, the Auzellos, Claude and Blanche and the Hotel Ritz in Paris, France. Yes, the hotel plays such a large part in the novel that it can be considered a character. Benjamin, the author, develops the The Ritz with such detail of the layout, the beautiful design and decor and the lifestyle of the people and the workers that you can imagine yourself there.
You can feel like you are a guest at The Ritz along with other American celebrities like Ernest Hemingway and Mr. and Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald as you read this book about life in Paris before and during the Nazi occupation of France. Before there were parties and celebrations at the hotel. These special guest along with others like Coco Chanel eat, drank and lived at the hotel. When the Germans came to Paris they took over the hotel as one of their headquarters. The staff is moved to another side of the hotel and among them are Claude and Blanche. Blanche Ross is a young American wannabe actress who comes to The Claridge Hotel and meets the assistant manager, Claude Auzello. He falls in love with her and rescues Blanche marrying her and when he becomes the manager of The Ritz, she becomes the "Mistress of the Ritz".
The title is given to Blanche by her husband, not really as a term of endearment, but she decides to take it that way. "Welcome Home To The Mistress of the Ritz" calls out Claude one evening, with a jealous feeling, when he comes in to see her drinking and making friends with the patrons and the staff, while his workday is still not finished.
We follow their marriage and their daily lives living and working under the watchful eye of the German officers as the war goes from 1937 until 1945 when the Allies finally arrive and Paris is once again free.
This is a story of resilience , resistance and also a love story. Intriguing and written with a sense of suspense, even though as a reader, I was somewhat sure I knew what was coming, I was riveted until the end.
Though it reads a little slowly through the first half it is building the characters personalities and setting the context for what is to come. This is a story following three main characters, the Auzellos, Claude and Blanche and the Hotel Ritz in Paris, France. Yes, the hotel plays such a large part in the novel that it can be considered a character. Benjamin, the author, develops the The Ritz with such detail of the layout, the beautiful design and decor and the lifestyle of the people and the workers that you can imagine yourself there.
You can feel like you are a guest at The Ritz along with other American celebrities like Ernest Hemingway and Mr. and Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald as you read this book about life in Paris before and during the Nazi occupation of France. Before there were parties and celebrations at the hotel. These special guest along with others like Coco Chanel eat, drank and lived at the hotel. When the Germans came to Paris they took over the hotel as one of their headquarters. The staff is moved to another side of the hotel and among them are Claude and Blanche. Blanche Ross is a young American wannabe actress who comes to The Claridge Hotel and meets the assistant manager, Claude Auzello. He falls in love with her and rescues Blanche marrying her and when he becomes the manager of The Ritz, she becomes the "Mistress of the Ritz".
The title is given to Blanche by her husband, not really as a term of endearment, but she decides to take it that way. "Welcome Home To The Mistress of the Ritz" calls out Claude one evening, with a jealous feeling, when he comes in to see her drinking and making friends with the patrons and the staff, while his workday is still not finished.
We follow their marriage and their daily lives living and working under the watchful eye of the German officers as the war goes from 1937 until 1945 when the Allies finally arrive and Paris is once again free.
This is a story of resilience , resistance and also a love story. Intriguing and written with a sense of suspense, even though as a reader, I was somewhat sure I knew what was coming, I was riveted until the end.
Shuk
Shuk From Market to Table Israeli Home Cooking
By Einat Admony and Janna Gur
This is a beautiful cookbook. The first thing about this book that strikes you as soon as you open the cover is the incredible photography. The colors are rich and vibrant bringing the the food and the market to life. Your mouth waters at the pictures of each dish and then you read the ingredients. Now you can practically taste the food emanating right off the page.
The ingredient lists are short . There is great detail in how to make some of the spices combinations that may be hard to find in the United States. The detail and explanations behind the Shuk, itself, an Israeli market, and each recipe also is just fun reading.
You will enjoy just reading and sharing this cookbook with friends. The added treat will be savoring the food just for yourself , with your family or for company.
By Einat Admony and Janna Gur
This is a beautiful cookbook. The first thing about this book that strikes you as soon as you open the cover is the incredible photography. The colors are rich and vibrant bringing the the food and the market to life. Your mouth waters at the pictures of each dish and then you read the ingredients. Now you can practically taste the food emanating right off the page.
The ingredient lists are short . There is great detail in how to make some of the spices combinations that may be hard to find in the United States. The detail and explanations behind the Shuk, itself, an Israeli market, and each recipe also is just fun reading.
You will enjoy just reading and sharing this cookbook with friends. The added treat will be savoring the food just for yourself , with your family or for company.
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
In the Kitchen With Grandma
Always fun to cook with Grandma. Build life long memories by cooking with your children and grandchildren. This is a very cleverly written cookbook. The recipes are written with an ingredient list and then divided into chores the child can do on their own, then parts of the recipe that the child needs to do with Grandma, and then parts Grandma may have to do on her own. That way the children are apart of the process but cannot get hurt.
It is always more fun to eat something you have helped prepare. This will encourage children to try foods they may not have if they just sat down to the table.
The recipes seem easy. The food choices seem kid friendly.
This cookbook is written by Lydia E Harris
It is always more fun to eat something you have helped prepare. This will encourage children to try foods they may not have if they just sat down to the table.
The recipes seem easy. The food choices seem kid friendly.
This cookbook is written by Lydia E Harris
Thursday, July 25, 2019
A Spy in Exile
Jonathan de Shalit has followed up his first thriller, Traitor, with a new suspense novel continuing the life of Ya'ara Stein after she is forced out of the Mossad. Building on the intrigue and secretiveness in the life of a spy we continue to learn more about Ya'ara and her missions.
This time Ya'ara has decided to go back to a normal everyday existence as a film student when she is called back for a secret mission. Just as she is working to settle into a normal routine and accept that her life as a Mossad agent was not meant to be, the Prime Minister calls her into his office to make her an offer she does not want to refuse. He is offering her a classified position. No one can know who she is working for. She will be given assignments that are deadly, dangerous and highly controversial. She may have to work without a safety net and also not tell anyone who she is answering to. But she is in charge and hires six recruits who she will train and they will work with her on assignments. Tripping back and forth between 1945 and current day, we follow Ya'ara and meet some of the men in her life. They are there to help her, sooth her when she is upset, but she does not get too close to anyone. There is a distance she keeps that protects her from her hidden emotions that are hinted at once in a while. She can be a cold hearted killer, and a calculating agent who is out to make sure her enemies get what she has determined they deserve.
An added interesting aspect of the story is that even though it mainly takes place in Israel and Germany, there is a chapter about Ya'ara coming to Lincoln, New Hampshire. She has flown to the United States and is walking the Appalachian Trail. Up from the South she walks and enters New Hampshire. She thinks, "The northern states through which the trail passed, Vermont and New Hampshire, seemed friendlier. She knew that could change in an instant, but she was surrounded by warmth and serenity, and she gave in to that warmth, wrapped herself in it." After hiking for many kilometers, she reached Lincoln where a gas station attendant recommended a restaurant. "...the Gypsy Cafe. She found it easily. It was hard not to spot its storefront, which was painted a deep blue and decorated with myriad other colors, too. ..The menu was awfully eclectic. Food from a wide variety of places around the world., one dish per country."
So much added fun when you read about somewhere you know in a book. Otherwise this was a hard book for me to connect with. Thriller fiction is not a genre I usually read. This was not hard to follow or too violent, but I did not get attached to the characters and as a reader you did not really become connected to the story or backstory enough to agree with Ya'ara's need to kill the people she targeted.
This time Ya'ara has decided to go back to a normal everyday existence as a film student when she is called back for a secret mission. Just as she is working to settle into a normal routine and accept that her life as a Mossad agent was not meant to be, the Prime Minister calls her into his office to make her an offer she does not want to refuse. He is offering her a classified position. No one can know who she is working for. She will be given assignments that are deadly, dangerous and highly controversial. She may have to work without a safety net and also not tell anyone who she is answering to. But she is in charge and hires six recruits who she will train and they will work with her on assignments. Tripping back and forth between 1945 and current day, we follow Ya'ara and meet some of the men in her life. They are there to help her, sooth her when she is upset, but she does not get too close to anyone. There is a distance she keeps that protects her from her hidden emotions that are hinted at once in a while. She can be a cold hearted killer, and a calculating agent who is out to make sure her enemies get what she has determined they deserve.
An added interesting aspect of the story is that even though it mainly takes place in Israel and Germany, there is a chapter about Ya'ara coming to Lincoln, New Hampshire. She has flown to the United States and is walking the Appalachian Trail. Up from the South she walks and enters New Hampshire. She thinks, "The northern states through which the trail passed, Vermont and New Hampshire, seemed friendlier. She knew that could change in an instant, but she was surrounded by warmth and serenity, and she gave in to that warmth, wrapped herself in it." After hiking for many kilometers, she reached Lincoln where a gas station attendant recommended a restaurant. "...the Gypsy Cafe. She found it easily. It was hard not to spot its storefront, which was painted a deep blue and decorated with myriad other colors, too. ..The menu was awfully eclectic. Food from a wide variety of places around the world., one dish per country."
So much added fun when you read about somewhere you know in a book. Otherwise this was a hard book for me to connect with. Thriller fiction is not a genre I usually read. This was not hard to follow or too violent, but I did not get attached to the characters and as a reader you did not really become connected to the story or backstory enough to agree with Ya'ara's need to kill the people she targeted.
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
The Spies of Shilling Lane
I picked up this book not realizing it was written by the of The Chillbury Ladies Choir. That was a fabulous novel and this new novel does not disappoint. Jennifer Ryan is a creative and entertaining author.
The Spies of Shilling Lane is a totally unexpected treat. Written about a time in history that was horrific and troubling, Ryan manages to find humor and love and relationships. This is really a story about a mother, daughter relationship. Growing up Phyllis Braithwaite lived under the tyrannical authority of her Aunt, her parents had died when she was six years old. This had shaped the woman she became. Not knowing anything different she married and ran her home and raised her daughter with those same principles. Now her husband has left her and her daughter, with whom her relationship has grown colder and colder over the years, has gone off to London.
When the ladies of the small village she lives in turn their backs on her she goes off to London to find her daughter, Betty. With a long held family secret to reveal to her daughter, the brusque, determined Mrs. Braithwaite searches out Betty at her home and place of business to find there are more questions than answers. Through a series of mishaps that take Mrs. Braithwaite and Betty's landlord the shy, cowardly, Mr. Norris on a series of adventures involving secrets, danger and death, they search for Betty.
Writing about London during World War II and the Blitz, Ryan takes the reader into the meetings of fascist sympathizers and into bomb shelters. She does not compromise the chaos and fear of the war but does create an entertaining and sometimes funny plot to keep the focus in the novel on the mother/ daughter relationship which is really central to the book. Also the idea that people can change and look at themselves and discover they do not like what they see.
Over and over again Phyllis asks herself, "How do you measure the success of your life?"
When you are living a quiet life in the country you may not question this, but when you are living under constant threat of death you wonder if you are living your best life.
Phyllis says, "If a woman knew the moment of her death, would she live her life any differently? More wisely, undoubtedly. More frivolously, perhaps. But would she more full-hearted, less selfish?"
That is the crux of the novel. Measuring the success of your life, not through hard work, making money but through relationships, friends and family. At each step of the way through the danger and chance of dying, the characters weigh their lives and hope to live to have a chance at making the best choices.
The Spies of Shilling Lane is a totally unexpected treat. Written about a time in history that was horrific and troubling, Ryan manages to find humor and love and relationships. This is really a story about a mother, daughter relationship. Growing up Phyllis Braithwaite lived under the tyrannical authority of her Aunt, her parents had died when she was six years old. This had shaped the woman she became. Not knowing anything different she married and ran her home and raised her daughter with those same principles. Now her husband has left her and her daughter, with whom her relationship has grown colder and colder over the years, has gone off to London.
When the ladies of the small village she lives in turn their backs on her she goes off to London to find her daughter, Betty. With a long held family secret to reveal to her daughter, the brusque, determined Mrs. Braithwaite searches out Betty at her home and place of business to find there are more questions than answers. Through a series of mishaps that take Mrs. Braithwaite and Betty's landlord the shy, cowardly, Mr. Norris on a series of adventures involving secrets, danger and death, they search for Betty.
Writing about London during World War II and the Blitz, Ryan takes the reader into the meetings of fascist sympathizers and into bomb shelters. She does not compromise the chaos and fear of the war but does create an entertaining and sometimes funny plot to keep the focus in the novel on the mother/ daughter relationship which is really central to the book. Also the idea that people can change and look at themselves and discover they do not like what they see.
Over and over again Phyllis asks herself, "How do you measure the success of your life?"
When you are living a quiet life in the country you may not question this, but when you are living under constant threat of death you wonder if you are living your best life.
Phyllis says, "If a woman knew the moment of her death, would she live her life any differently? More wisely, undoubtedly. More frivolously, perhaps. But would she more full-hearted, less selfish?"
That is the crux of the novel. Measuring the success of your life, not through hard work, making money but through relationships, friends and family. At each step of the way through the danger and chance of dying, the characters weigh their lives and hope to live to have a chance at making the best choices.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Good Riddance
A love letter to Elinor Lipman :
Elinor, you are perhaps the funniest of all the authors I read. All your books are relevant to my life . I feel like we could be friends. I can relate to the way you think and the nuances of everyday life you are able to turn into comic novels.
In your newest novel about Daphne Maritch, who at a young impressionable age marries a man who is using her to gain his inheritance there are so many comedic events. First I love that you set the stage to start in a small New Hampshire town, where Daphne grows up the daughter of the High School English teacher, the former June Winter and her husband the school principal, Thomas Maritch. When she finds out that her husband is cheating on her and never really loved her, she initiates a divorce and moves into a small apartment in Manhattan. Her father, now a widower, decides to also move to the big city, a lifelong dream.
Enter the supporting characters, across the hall neighbor, Jeremy and down the hall neighbor, Geneva. Geneva, finding a yearbook that Daphne had put in the recycling bin of the apartment building starts to investigate Daphne's past and her mother's special relationship to the high school graduating class of '68. Lipman uses the yearbook to set in motion the complex interactions between all these characters. Conversations between a grown daughter and her newly dating father.
A widowed man and his new dating lifestyle. A newly divorced young woman figuring out" friends with benefits" or real love in the fast paced city life. While all of them are chasing the yearbook and the rights to use it for a documentary, a podcast or a play.
Again Elinor you have written a clever funny plot, while also bringing into sharp focus so many of the current issues that people are thinking about, discussing with friends and trying to balance.
You can laugh at the characters in the book while you take a look at yourself and how you relate to their problems.
Elinor, you are perhaps the funniest of all the authors I read. All your books are relevant to my life . I feel like we could be friends. I can relate to the way you think and the nuances of everyday life you are able to turn into comic novels.
In your newest novel about Daphne Maritch, who at a young impressionable age marries a man who is using her to gain his inheritance there are so many comedic events. First I love that you set the stage to start in a small New Hampshire town, where Daphne grows up the daughter of the High School English teacher, the former June Winter and her husband the school principal, Thomas Maritch. When she finds out that her husband is cheating on her and never really loved her, she initiates a divorce and moves into a small apartment in Manhattan. Her father, now a widower, decides to also move to the big city, a lifelong dream.
Enter the supporting characters, across the hall neighbor, Jeremy and down the hall neighbor, Geneva. Geneva, finding a yearbook that Daphne had put in the recycling bin of the apartment building starts to investigate Daphne's past and her mother's special relationship to the high school graduating class of '68. Lipman uses the yearbook to set in motion the complex interactions between all these characters. Conversations between a grown daughter and her newly dating father.
A widowed man and his new dating lifestyle. A newly divorced young woman figuring out" friends with benefits" or real love in the fast paced city life. While all of them are chasing the yearbook and the rights to use it for a documentary, a podcast or a play.
Again Elinor you have written a clever funny plot, while also bringing into sharp focus so many of the current issues that people are thinking about, discussing with friends and trying to balance.
You can laugh at the characters in the book while you take a look at yourself and how you relate to their problems.
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
The Liar in the Library
Simon Brett is a well known mystery writer. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2012 Malice Domestic Convention. As the acknowledged master of the modern whodunit, he is the writer responsible for the Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter, Fethering and Blotto & Twinks series of crime novels. He is also the current president of the prestigious Detection Club in the UK.
He has created an entertaining amateur detective in his character, Jude and her accomplice Carole, two women of a certain age who live in the small village of Fethering. Jude and Carole live next door to each other and though this seems to be the 15th novel in the series, it is the first one I have read. But I was able to enjoy the storyline without needing to have read any of the others.
I really do not know why I did not study library science and become a librarian. When I see a book with the word library int he title, I cannot resist taking a look. A mystery about a murder in the library would just have to be entertaining. This book does not disappoint. Though it is a short developing plot and kind of repetitive , it still kept me interested in finding out who the killer was.
A guest author comes to the Fethering library to promote his new book. At the end of the evening where there were plenty of people hanging around drinking wine, with a belligerent guests who drank a bit too much, there is a dead body. With a a few suspects on the kist to interview, Jude is suspect number one, so she is quite anxious to find the real murderer. She and Carole set out to talk to everyone involved with the dead person and find out who had a more realistic motive so that she can steer the police away from herself.
He has created an entertaining amateur detective in his character, Jude and her accomplice Carole, two women of a certain age who live in the small village of Fethering. Jude and Carole live next door to each other and though this seems to be the 15th novel in the series, it is the first one I have read. But I was able to enjoy the storyline without needing to have read any of the others.
I really do not know why I did not study library science and become a librarian. When I see a book with the word library int he title, I cannot resist taking a look. A mystery about a murder in the library would just have to be entertaining. This book does not disappoint. Though it is a short developing plot and kind of repetitive , it still kept me interested in finding out who the killer was.
A guest author comes to the Fethering library to promote his new book. At the end of the evening where there were plenty of people hanging around drinking wine, with a belligerent guests who drank a bit too much, there is a dead body. With a a few suspects on the kist to interview, Jude is suspect number one, so she is quite anxious to find the real murderer. She and Carole set out to talk to everyone involved with the dead person and find out who had a more realistic motive so that she can steer the police away from herself.
Saturday, July 6, 2019
The Flight Portfolio
Once again an enjoyable novel can teach us a valuable lesson. First there is the history lesson that I had never known. Then there is the morality question that one must face while reading this novel.
Julie Oringer has again written a beautiful sweeping novel of a time period in history that has so many unspoken incredible stories to be told. This is the story of Varian Fry, a journalist from New York, who goes over to France after they are captured by the Germans in 1940.
Fry flies to Marseille as a representative of the Emergency Rescue Committee, an organization created to assist in the escape of artists and writers to immigrate to the States. The ERC has sent Fry with a list of artists they have decided are the most talented and the loss would be great if they were killed during the war. As Fry works in the Marseille office to arrange the visas and papers for these famous artists to travel out of the country, many other citizens in danger come to ask for help.
With limited resources there are only so many people he can help. Whose life is more valuable becomes a constant refrain.
In one discussion with an artist who Fry is hiding as he waits for the necessary papers to help him escape, the artist gives him a German proverb to explain the dilemma. Zilberman said to Varian, "You are like the boy in the German proverb, the one who carries the pail of milk. Oh, it goes like this: Who's most important, the farmer who feeds the cow, the cow who makes the milk, or the girl who milks the cow? None of them. The most important person is the boy who carries the milk to market. One wrong step, and the work of all the others is lost in an instant."
Oringer has taken the facts and woven an intriguing, fast paced, captivating novel around the facts of Varian Fry and the many people was able to rescue. She has added fictional characters and imagined the details that could have happened to fill out the story of Fry and his experiences.
This is an incredible story based in fact about Varian Fry, who grew up in Ridgewood, NJ, graduated from Harvard and was a New York journalist and editor. He risked everything to help artists and writers escape the Nazis after France was invaded. He was able to save among others, Hannah Arendt, Franz Werfel, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, and Marc Chagall. Many years later, in 1994, he was honored as the first American to be "Righteous Among The Nations"
Julie Oringer has again written a beautiful sweeping novel of a time period in history that has so many unspoken incredible stories to be told. This is the story of Varian Fry, a journalist from New York, who goes over to France after they are captured by the Germans in 1940.
Fry flies to Marseille as a representative of the Emergency Rescue Committee, an organization created to assist in the escape of artists and writers to immigrate to the States. The ERC has sent Fry with a list of artists they have decided are the most talented and the loss would be great if they were killed during the war. As Fry works in the Marseille office to arrange the visas and papers for these famous artists to travel out of the country, many other citizens in danger come to ask for help.
With limited resources there are only so many people he can help. Whose life is more valuable becomes a constant refrain.
In one discussion with an artist who Fry is hiding as he waits for the necessary papers to help him escape, the artist gives him a German proverb to explain the dilemma. Zilberman said to Varian, "You are like the boy in the German proverb, the one who carries the pail of milk. Oh, it goes like this: Who's most important, the farmer who feeds the cow, the cow who makes the milk, or the girl who milks the cow? None of them. The most important person is the boy who carries the milk to market. One wrong step, and the work of all the others is lost in an instant."
Oringer has taken the facts and woven an intriguing, fast paced, captivating novel around the facts of Varian Fry and the many people was able to rescue. She has added fictional characters and imagined the details that could have happened to fill out the story of Fry and his experiences.
This is an incredible story based in fact about Varian Fry, who grew up in Ridgewood, NJ, graduated from Harvard and was a New York journalist and editor. He risked everything to help artists and writers escape the Nazis after France was invaded. He was able to save among others, Hannah Arendt, Franz Werfel, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, and Marc Chagall. Many years later, in 1994, he was honored as the first American to be "Righteous Among The Nations"
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Save Me The Plums
I have read many of Ruth Riechl's other memoirs and was looking forward to reading this new book.
It did not disappoint. Save Me The Plums was a fascinating description of the world of magazine publishing and a look into the world of Gourmet magazine in particular.
Ruth has had a varied, interesting, and exciting career. Her travels eating her way around the world and meeting the most famous chefs and authors made me envious as I read the book. She has been a food critic for the New York Times and worked at newspapers in California, but the best job ever seems to have been her ten years as the editor of Gourmet magazine.
I remember subscribing to the magazine in the years she was the editor. I was a newly married young mother, staying home and wanting to cook delicious dinners for my family. So many of the ideas Ruth talks about in the book were directly aimed at me during those years. So this book was very easy to relate to.
Her descriptions of food and cooking are mouthwatering. "There's something soothing about peeling apples, about the way they come whispering out of their skins. Slicing them is another pleasure, and I listened for the juicy crunch of the knife sliding through the flesh. I cut into the lemon, treasuring the scent of the aromatic oils as they flew into the air." You can feel the slippery apple skins, and hear the juicy crunch and smell the lemon as you are reading the passage. It is beautiful written.
She talks about her personal life and how the decisions she makes in her work life are influenced by her family and friends. There were two very important lessons she learned along the way and shared with her readers. I want to remember them and use them as I go forward in life. One was, "...one of life's secrets: Luxury is best appreciated in small portions. When it becomes routine it loses its allure." As she travels through Paris in search of a story about Paris on a low budget, she is reminded that it is exciting "to abandon security and run toward the life that is waiting." That is important advice to us all, enjoy everyday and every experience and don't worry about the rules and the to do list. The other important quote is, "Every world has its extraordinary side. It's just that so few of us know how to find it." Take nothing for granted, I think is the message.
There are some entertaining antidotes and some delicious recipes. I wish had continued to subscribe to Gourmet magazine while it was still be published and I also wish I could go out to the newsstand and pick up a copy right now.
It did not disappoint. Save Me The Plums was a fascinating description of the world of magazine publishing and a look into the world of Gourmet magazine in particular.
Ruth has had a varied, interesting, and exciting career. Her travels eating her way around the world and meeting the most famous chefs and authors made me envious as I read the book. She has been a food critic for the New York Times and worked at newspapers in California, but the best job ever seems to have been her ten years as the editor of Gourmet magazine.
I remember subscribing to the magazine in the years she was the editor. I was a newly married young mother, staying home and wanting to cook delicious dinners for my family. So many of the ideas Ruth talks about in the book were directly aimed at me during those years. So this book was very easy to relate to.
Her descriptions of food and cooking are mouthwatering. "There's something soothing about peeling apples, about the way they come whispering out of their skins. Slicing them is another pleasure, and I listened for the juicy crunch of the knife sliding through the flesh. I cut into the lemon, treasuring the scent of the aromatic oils as they flew into the air." You can feel the slippery apple skins, and hear the juicy crunch and smell the lemon as you are reading the passage. It is beautiful written.
She talks about her personal life and how the decisions she makes in her work life are influenced by her family and friends. There were two very important lessons she learned along the way and shared with her readers. I want to remember them and use them as I go forward in life. One was, "...one of life's secrets: Luxury is best appreciated in small portions. When it becomes routine it loses its allure." As she travels through Paris in search of a story about Paris on a low budget, she is reminded that it is exciting "to abandon security and run toward the life that is waiting." That is important advice to us all, enjoy everyday and every experience and don't worry about the rules and the to do list. The other important quote is, "Every world has its extraordinary side. It's just that so few of us know how to find it." Take nothing for granted, I think is the message.
There are some entertaining antidotes and some delicious recipes. I wish had continued to subscribe to Gourmet magazine while it was still be published and I also wish I could go out to the newsstand and pick up a copy right now.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Where The Crawdads Sing
I cannot stop thinking about this book. For a first time novel it has hit the ball out of the park. It is one of those stories that stays with you long after you have put the physical book down. I hope Delia Owens can do it again.
Kya is eight years old, living in a swamp backwater of North Carolina, in a broken down shack. For a minute you believe this could almost be a true story, with a father who is a violent alcoholic and a mother who has lost her bearings. It could be reminiscent of Educated or The Glass Castle which were each explanations of real lives that seemed like this novel. But slowly the story unravels as Kya explains her life. Her mother just packed her suitcase and put on her best clothes and walked away one day. She barely remembers two older siblings who also left when she was young. Her final brother, four years her senior, who taught her how to hide in the swamp, from Dad when he is on a violent rampage, left soon afterwards. Within a few years of trying to keep house for her father, who comes and goes in a drunken state, he finally goes off one day and never returns. The only thing he really taught her was to fish before he disappears.
Kya grows up wild, feeding herself on mussels found on the beach and grits she figures out how to cook in a pot on the stove. She rarely goes to town to interact with other townspeople. When the truant officers come and try to put her school she hides in the swamp. One day at school with other children teasing her made it clear that was not somewhere she wanted to be.
As she grows through her teen years she learns to forage for nettles and berries. She catches fish and mussels both to feed herself and sell to Jumpin, a black man who runs the marina and sells her gas for the boat and other supplies. His wife brings her used clothes and teaches her about menstruation and becoming a woman. The rest of her knowledge of sexual relationships she learns from the birds and the bees.
As she matures into a beautiful young woman, she gets involved with two young men. Tate is the quiet studious young man who comes from humble means and teaches her reading and mathematics.
Chase is the rich, high school football star, who takes advantage of Kya's naivete.
But Kya also shows us that she can overcome obstacles and becomes quite learned in the area of nature and science.
This is a story set between 1952 and 1970 in the south. It shows the country's attitude for that time period toward African Americans and the poor. Prejudice, with a Colored Town area and separation of people and fearful of what they could not understand. Kya is labeled "marsh girl" and is ostracized for being uneducated and different.
Of course there is a mystery running through the novel. As Kya tells her story, we are also following the story of a body that was discovered dead in the swamp. The book begins with a prologue of two young boys out playing and discover the body. Whose body and how it got there are revealed as a police investigation is laid out in contrast to Kya's story.
A wonderful slice of life, reminding us of the way we dressed, ate and socialized. The competition of boys to show their masculine prowess and the division of social status. All of this can be compared to where we are on all these topics today.
Kya is eight years old, living in a swamp backwater of North Carolina, in a broken down shack. For a minute you believe this could almost be a true story, with a father who is a violent alcoholic and a mother who has lost her bearings. It could be reminiscent of Educated or The Glass Castle which were each explanations of real lives that seemed like this novel. But slowly the story unravels as Kya explains her life. Her mother just packed her suitcase and put on her best clothes and walked away one day. She barely remembers two older siblings who also left when she was young. Her final brother, four years her senior, who taught her how to hide in the swamp, from Dad when he is on a violent rampage, left soon afterwards. Within a few years of trying to keep house for her father, who comes and goes in a drunken state, he finally goes off one day and never returns. The only thing he really taught her was to fish before he disappears.
Kya grows up wild, feeding herself on mussels found on the beach and grits she figures out how to cook in a pot on the stove. She rarely goes to town to interact with other townspeople. When the truant officers come and try to put her school she hides in the swamp. One day at school with other children teasing her made it clear that was not somewhere she wanted to be.
As she grows through her teen years she learns to forage for nettles and berries. She catches fish and mussels both to feed herself and sell to Jumpin, a black man who runs the marina and sells her gas for the boat and other supplies. His wife brings her used clothes and teaches her about menstruation and becoming a woman. The rest of her knowledge of sexual relationships she learns from the birds and the bees.
As she matures into a beautiful young woman, she gets involved with two young men. Tate is the quiet studious young man who comes from humble means and teaches her reading and mathematics.
Chase is the rich, high school football star, who takes advantage of Kya's naivete.
But Kya also shows us that she can overcome obstacles and becomes quite learned in the area of nature and science.
This is a story set between 1952 and 1970 in the south. It shows the country's attitude for that time period toward African Americans and the poor. Prejudice, with a Colored Town area and separation of people and fearful of what they could not understand. Kya is labeled "marsh girl" and is ostracized for being uneducated and different.
Of course there is a mystery running through the novel. As Kya tells her story, we are also following the story of a body that was discovered dead in the swamp. The book begins with a prologue of two young boys out playing and discover the body. Whose body and how it got there are revealed as a police investigation is laid out in contrast to Kya's story.
A wonderful slice of life, reminding us of the way we dressed, ate and socialized. The competition of boys to show their masculine prowess and the division of social status. All of this can be compared to where we are on all these topics today.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Lost Roses
Usually a book is so good you cannot put it down. This time I was having a hard time picking it up. I really was enjoying the writing and most of the plot line, but whenever we read about Varinka and her story line it was so disturbing that I wanted to return the book to the library unfinished.
I did finish the book though and really enjoyed most of it. This is a novel starts in 1914 and is about the lead up to World War One. We follow the lives of Eliza Ferriday, who lives with her daughter, Caroline and her mother in New York. They are members of the upper class and have an apartment in the city, a home on Long Island and her husband has just purchased a small farm with a house in Connecticut.
Eliza goes to visit her close friend, Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanov family, royalty in Russia. they had met years before as students in Paris and she is excited to visit her in St. Petersburg.
But as Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia's imperial dynasty begins to crumble, Eliza sails back to America, promising to help Sofya and her family. Danger moves quickly through Europe and the entire continent is engulfed in war. Russian royalty are threatened by the working class and many are killed.
Vacrinka is a member of the working class and lives with her mother under very poor conditions. She is emboldened to Taras who is taking advantage of the her and the times they are living through. He rises in the army of the people's resistance and moves up in rank as a leader killing the Russian leadership and taking over Streshnayvas country residence. Vacinka has brought intense danger into the family's life.
Meanwhile in America Eliza is helping to settle Russian women and children who have managed to escape and are seeking refuge. She finds them jobs and safe places to live. She also starts a fundraising campaign to send money to Paris to help Russian refugees there. She asks everyone she meets if they know her friend Sofya. Eventually after the war ends in 1919 the war is over and Eliza travels to Paris to look for her friend and for the man she shamed into enlisting.
All in all the book is fascinating and very uplifting in the end, but along the way it was disturbing and I am not sure some of the detail was necessary.
I did finish the book though and really enjoyed most of it. This is a novel starts in 1914 and is about the lead up to World War One. We follow the lives of Eliza Ferriday, who lives with her daughter, Caroline and her mother in New York. They are members of the upper class and have an apartment in the city, a home on Long Island and her husband has just purchased a small farm with a house in Connecticut.
Eliza goes to visit her close friend, Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanov family, royalty in Russia. they had met years before as students in Paris and she is excited to visit her in St. Petersburg.
But as Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia's imperial dynasty begins to crumble, Eliza sails back to America, promising to help Sofya and her family. Danger moves quickly through Europe and the entire continent is engulfed in war. Russian royalty are threatened by the working class and many are killed.
Vacrinka is a member of the working class and lives with her mother under very poor conditions. She is emboldened to Taras who is taking advantage of the her and the times they are living through. He rises in the army of the people's resistance and moves up in rank as a leader killing the Russian leadership and taking over Streshnayvas country residence. Vacinka has brought intense danger into the family's life.
Meanwhile in America Eliza is helping to settle Russian women and children who have managed to escape and are seeking refuge. She finds them jobs and safe places to live. She also starts a fundraising campaign to send money to Paris to help Russian refugees there. She asks everyone she meets if they know her friend Sofya. Eventually after the war ends in 1919 the war is over and Eliza travels to Paris to look for her friend and for the man she shamed into enlisting.
All in all the book is fascinating and very uplifting in the end, but along the way it was disturbing and I am not sure some of the detail was necessary.
Miss Pym Disposes
Writing under the pen name, Josephine Tey, Elizabeth MacKintosh wrote two different mystery series. The Miss Pym series included this mystery Miss Pym Disposes written in 1947.
Interestingly written this plot continues on with Miss Pym visiting a women's college as a visiting guest lecturer for 180 pages of the short book before there is any untoward behavior. Usually a mystery sets up the scene and then someone is killed or something is stolen and the rest of the book is trying to solve the crime. In this novel, Miss Pym comes to the school and gives a talk. Then there are all kinds of developments that entice her to stay on campus. The story is setting the scene and introducing the reader to all the characters in quite a bit of detail. You know the school setting and all the different women involved in the story long before any incident happens.
Then quite quickly the crime is uncovered and Miss Pym wrestles with her conscience and decides who she thinks is guilty and deals out her own form of justice. The novel comes to an as she feels all the pieces are tied up. OF course there is a twist at the end that leaves the reader wondering as Miss Pym takes the train back to London.
Such a different style of mystery writing.
Interestingly written this plot continues on with Miss Pym visiting a women's college as a visiting guest lecturer for 180 pages of the short book before there is any untoward behavior. Usually a mystery sets up the scene and then someone is killed or something is stolen and the rest of the book is trying to solve the crime. In this novel, Miss Pym comes to the school and gives a talk. Then there are all kinds of developments that entice her to stay on campus. The story is setting the scene and introducing the reader to all the characters in quite a bit of detail. You know the school setting and all the different women involved in the story long before any incident happens.
Then quite quickly the crime is uncovered and Miss Pym wrestles with her conscience and decides who she thinks is guilty and deals out her own form of justice. The novel comes to an as she feels all the pieces are tied up. OF course there is a twist at the end that leaves the reader wondering as Miss Pym takes the train back to London.
Such a different style of mystery writing.
Monday, June 17, 2019
The Pianist of Syria
The Pianist of Syria is a memoir written by Aeham Ahmad. It is a story of growing up in a refugee camp in Syria. Aeham is a second generation Palestinian growing up in a suburb outside Damascus.
Aeham is the son of a blind violinist, who plays at wedding receptions. His father fled Palestine in 1948 during the Naqba. His love of music lead him to try and open a music store, which he runs with Aeham and his brother. It is filled with guitars, pianos, violins and about 200 ouds.
His father is very talented and has also taught himself carpentry to make a living. Later on, when he decides that his son should learn to play the piano, he gets a second hand instrument. When he cannot get a piano tuner to come to their neighborhood, he teaches himself to tune the piano.
Aeham's mother is a school principal at the school Aeham attends early on. She makes a point to treat him equally with all the other students and not play favorites. He has a rough time in school. But then he discovers music and attends a special music school. He does much better there, though there are many incidents described in the book about how hard it is for him. The school is mainly populated by children from wealthy families. He has to travel by public transportation that can take two hours to get each way. He overcomes many obstacles to continue his music education.
He attends The Damascus Music School and then graduates to studying music pedagogy at Al Baath University in Homs. Then everything changes. Ahmad describes the difficulty of living as a Palestinian in Syria, writing about how beginning in July 2013 the refugee camp of Yarmouk was without electricity or hot water. He is thirty years old, he and his new bride have had their first son when Syrian tanks role through Yarmouk. The city was then completely sealed off, with no water, food or electricity, and was besieged by the Syrian Army as they hunted for rebel forces.
Though his hand is injured while serving falafel to his neighbors, and then repaired by a carpenter, he continues to love music and wants to play his piano and also writes songs. He puts the instrument on wheels and two friends help him move the piano out into the streets. He plays in the streets with the idea of playing the piano amid the wreckage of war as a way to protest against the actions of President Bashar Al Assad’s regime. Appalled at the carnage around him, he says he wanted to “counter violence with art”. He says in the book, "I'm a pianist, not a political activist. My revolution is music. My language is music. Music was going to be my form of protest, even if no one heard me. It was January 28, 2014."
Then he has to escape Syria and after an incredible ordeal arrives in Germany, leaving his family behind. After his picture and music videos are uploaded to YouTube and published in newspapers, then photographer is arrested. His piano is burned by ISIS and Ahmed realizes it is time to leave the country. When his family tries to escape they are caught and arrested. After they are released, Ahmed travels to Germany and then later his family emigrates. They all live in Germany now and Aeham Ahmed continues to perform bringing Syrian music to a wider audience.
Aeham is the son of a blind violinist, who plays at wedding receptions. His father fled Palestine in 1948 during the Naqba. His love of music lead him to try and open a music store, which he runs with Aeham and his brother. It is filled with guitars, pianos, violins and about 200 ouds.
His father is very talented and has also taught himself carpentry to make a living. Later on, when he decides that his son should learn to play the piano, he gets a second hand instrument. When he cannot get a piano tuner to come to their neighborhood, he teaches himself to tune the piano.
Aeham's mother is a school principal at the school Aeham attends early on. She makes a point to treat him equally with all the other students and not play favorites. He has a rough time in school. But then he discovers music and attends a special music school. He does much better there, though there are many incidents described in the book about how hard it is for him. The school is mainly populated by children from wealthy families. He has to travel by public transportation that can take two hours to get each way. He overcomes many obstacles to continue his music education.
He attends The Damascus Music School and then graduates to studying music pedagogy at Al Baath University in Homs. Then everything changes. Ahmad describes the difficulty of living as a Palestinian in Syria, writing about how beginning in July 2013 the refugee camp of Yarmouk was without electricity or hot water. He is thirty years old, he and his new bride have had their first son when Syrian tanks role through Yarmouk. The city was then completely sealed off, with no water, food or electricity, and was besieged by the Syrian Army as they hunted for rebel forces.
Though his hand is injured while serving falafel to his neighbors, and then repaired by a carpenter, he continues to love music and wants to play his piano and also writes songs. He puts the instrument on wheels and two friends help him move the piano out into the streets. He plays in the streets with the idea of playing the piano amid the wreckage of war as a way to protest against the actions of President Bashar Al Assad’s regime. Appalled at the carnage around him, he says he wanted to “counter violence with art”. He says in the book, "I'm a pianist, not a political activist. My revolution is music. My language is music. Music was going to be my form of protest, even if no one heard me. It was January 28, 2014."
Then he has to escape Syria and after an incredible ordeal arrives in Germany, leaving his family behind. After his picture and music videos are uploaded to YouTube and published in newspapers, then photographer is arrested. His piano is burned by ISIS and Ahmed realizes it is time to leave the country. When his family tries to escape they are caught and arrested. After they are released, Ahmed travels to Germany and then later his family emigrates. They all live in Germany now and Aeham Ahmed continues to perform bringing Syrian music to a wider audience.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
The Sentence is Death
Building from the Word is Murder to the The Sentence is Murder, Anthony Horowitz has topped the list of my favorite mystery writers. I have watched all the Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War episodes on television and loved everyone of them. I really must expand and read all his other books, including Alex Rider and the books written in the style of other writers whose estates have requested Horowitz to write for them. he is extraordinary.
These mysteries though light, humorous and entertaining like a cozy mystery are so much more.
The usual cozy mystery has become so popular and sometimes so formula and the dialog is repetitious , Horowitz has created such a clever, creative series for his detective series.
An ex police officer turned detective, Daniel Hawthorne is a difficult person for Horowitz to understand. Horowitz writes, "But on a personal level I found him extremely trying. He was dark and solitary, refusing to tell me anything about himself even though I was supposed to be his biographer....If I had to choose to pluck a hero from real life, it certainly wouldn't have been him."
Horowitz plays Watson to Hawthorne's Holmes and mixes reality with fiction.
He writes as if he is telling you about his real everyday life, working on the set of a Foyle's War taping when Daniel Hawthorne turns up and informs him there is a death they need to go investigate.
Incredible dialog is also a part of this great writing style. Where other mysteries have mundane conversations that build on the formula to solve a crime, Horowitz creates well crafted intelligent dialog that makes the story move forward to is engaging on its own. For example, a quote of creative dialog, "It was a joke." "Not a very funny one." "I don't think a joke has to be funny, Detective Inspector. In my books, I use humour only to subvert the status quo. If you've ever read the French philosopher Alain Badiou, you'll know that he defines jokes as a type of rupture that opens up truths. I actually met him at the Sorbonne, by the way. He was a remarkable man. By ridiculing my enemy, I defeat him. That was, the insight that Alain gave me and although I see no need to justify myself, that was precisely the mechanism I was using ..."
This is such creative, clever and caustic repartee, that it bring the barebones mystery novel to a higher level.
Off goes Horowitz following Hawthorne as he interviews suspects and witnesses. Taking notes to write about how he solves the murder before the police can and Horowitz insisting that he is giving the reader all the information needed to solve the crime. But, even though he is meticulously trying to keep track of all the clues and figure out the answer before Hawthorne, Hawthorne always seems to notice something or interpret something differently and come to the real conclusion when no one else does.
So of course there are many red herrings and misdirections through out this mystery novel. The plot unwinding and twisting beautifully in many directions. A few subplots revealed as the book progresses that reader guessing until you think, "eureka, I've got it", and then as the final answer is uncovered you realize that Horowitz led you astray purposely and there is one more terrific twist.
These mysteries though light, humorous and entertaining like a cozy mystery are so much more.
The usual cozy mystery has become so popular and sometimes so formula and the dialog is repetitious , Horowitz has created such a clever, creative series for his detective series.
An ex police officer turned detective, Daniel Hawthorne is a difficult person for Horowitz to understand. Horowitz writes, "But on a personal level I found him extremely trying. He was dark and solitary, refusing to tell me anything about himself even though I was supposed to be his biographer....If I had to choose to pluck a hero from real life, it certainly wouldn't have been him."
Horowitz plays Watson to Hawthorne's Holmes and mixes reality with fiction.
He writes as if he is telling you about his real everyday life, working on the set of a Foyle's War taping when Daniel Hawthorne turns up and informs him there is a death they need to go investigate.
Incredible dialog is also a part of this great writing style. Where other mysteries have mundane conversations that build on the formula to solve a crime, Horowitz creates well crafted intelligent dialog that makes the story move forward to is engaging on its own. For example, a quote of creative dialog, "It was a joke." "Not a very funny one." "I don't think a joke has to be funny, Detective Inspector. In my books, I use humour only to subvert the status quo. If you've ever read the French philosopher Alain Badiou, you'll know that he defines jokes as a type of rupture that opens up truths. I actually met him at the Sorbonne, by the way. He was a remarkable man. By ridiculing my enemy, I defeat him. That was, the insight that Alain gave me and although I see no need to justify myself, that was precisely the mechanism I was using ..."
This is such creative, clever and caustic repartee, that it bring the barebones mystery novel to a higher level.
Off goes Horowitz following Hawthorne as he interviews suspects and witnesses. Taking notes to write about how he solves the murder before the police can and Horowitz insisting that he is giving the reader all the information needed to solve the crime. But, even though he is meticulously trying to keep track of all the clues and figure out the answer before Hawthorne, Hawthorne always seems to notice something or interpret something differently and come to the real conclusion when no one else does.
So of course there are many red herrings and misdirections through out this mystery novel. The plot unwinding and twisting beautifully in many directions. A few subplots revealed as the book progresses that reader guessing until you think, "eureka, I've got it", and then as the final answer is uncovered you realize that Horowitz led you astray purposely and there is one more terrific twist.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
Murder in the Balcony
Ok so this is yet again another mystery series, but there is a new twist on the amateur detective. This time she is the manager of the local historic movie theatre, that only shows classic films.
Murder in the Balcony is complete with murder, ghosts and old black and white movies that Nora and the other employees love.
Another cozy mystery series. Though this is not the first in the series, it was easy to figure out the back story. Nora Paige has left her husband who is a movie producer/director and is having an affair with a starlet. She goes north to a friend in San Francisco. She is given the guest cottage to live in and a job at the Palace, a historic movie theatre that shows classic films. Of course there is a ghost on premises to make the novel light and entertaining.
This time Nora invites a Real Estate conference to use the theatre for their meetings. She handles the catering and logistics to help the theatre earn more money. But when a real estate broker is killed, Nora decides to help the investigation to speed up the reopening of the theatre. Juggling running the theatre, trying to find out the killer and negotiating with husband to see if they will patch up their marriage or not is keeping Nora busy and on her toes.
This is an entertaining mystery novel. It holds your attention, but there are so many.
Interesting is the detail about many old movies that I did not know. I even figured out which movie my mother-in-law has been trying to remember.
Murder in the Balcony is complete with murder, ghosts and old black and white movies that Nora and the other employees love.
Another cozy mystery series. Though this is not the first in the series, it was easy to figure out the back story. Nora Paige has left her husband who is a movie producer/director and is having an affair with a starlet. She goes north to a friend in San Francisco. She is given the guest cottage to live in and a job at the Palace, a historic movie theatre that shows classic films. Of course there is a ghost on premises to make the novel light and entertaining.
This time Nora invites a Real Estate conference to use the theatre for their meetings. She handles the catering and logistics to help the theatre earn more money. But when a real estate broker is killed, Nora decides to help the investigation to speed up the reopening of the theatre. Juggling running the theatre, trying to find out the killer and negotiating with husband to see if they will patch up their marriage or not is keeping Nora busy and on her toes.
This is an entertaining mystery novel. It holds your attention, but there are so many.
Interesting is the detail about many old movies that I did not know. I even figured out which movie my mother-in-law has been trying to remember.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
The Cobbler's Tale
Neil Perry Gordon has taken the story of his family's travels from Eastern Europe to a better life in America. He has based the bones of the story on facts and created some suspense around the reality of bringing a family to the new world.
This novel is the story of a young Jewish immigrant, Pincus Potasznik, a cobbler who leaves his pregnant wife Clara and children behind in Eastern Europe’s Galicia region in search of a better life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is a year or so before the first great war begins and Potasznik leaves his wife, mother-in-law and children behind. The Rabbi advices him that going to America will be good for his family and that he also should start a Landsman Society of Krzywcza, in New York for other villagers who will travel there to help them get settled.
On the boat to America, he meets a man who will become his lifelong friend, Jakob Adler. Without knowing it Jakob worked for the crime boss in Warsaw and is escaping after running into trouble back in Poland. He becomes a good friend to Pincus, helping him get ahead in New York, but also becoming a partner-in-crime. HE changes the immigrant's story forever. It is interesting how each occurrence in your life and alter the direction you were going.
It takes Pincus four years to return to Krzywcza to bring his wife, Clara and their children to New York. He has been unaware of the turmoil and hardships they have faced as a result of the war. Also there is a side story of Moshe, the eldest son, being recognized as a tzaddik, one of the 36 righteous individuals that Kabbalah believes live at any one time.
Though this for the most part moves at a slow pace of everyday life, switching between chapters of Pincus' life in America getting settled and setting up his business and Landsman Society and then Clara and the kids living in a small shtetl as war approaches, there are scenes interspersed that create a sense of tension and pick up the pace of the story. Just when you may say I have read enough, something grabs your attention and you want to find out how it will end.
I listened to this novel as an audible book. Read by Michael Fischbein, it also seems that he is reading very slowly and clearly, enunciating and seemed to make the story also drag, until he would read one of the more suspenseful sections and the story would be more interesting. you could almost hear the suspenseful music in your head as you reached those parts of the book.
This novel is the story of a young Jewish immigrant, Pincus Potasznik, a cobbler who leaves his pregnant wife Clara and children behind in Eastern Europe’s Galicia region in search of a better life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is a year or so before the first great war begins and Potasznik leaves his wife, mother-in-law and children behind. The Rabbi advices him that going to America will be good for his family and that he also should start a Landsman Society of Krzywcza, in New York for other villagers who will travel there to help them get settled.
On the boat to America, he meets a man who will become his lifelong friend, Jakob Adler. Without knowing it Jakob worked for the crime boss in Warsaw and is escaping after running into trouble back in Poland. He becomes a good friend to Pincus, helping him get ahead in New York, but also becoming a partner-in-crime. HE changes the immigrant's story forever. It is interesting how each occurrence in your life and alter the direction you were going.
It takes Pincus four years to return to Krzywcza to bring his wife, Clara and their children to New York. He has been unaware of the turmoil and hardships they have faced as a result of the war. Also there is a side story of Moshe, the eldest son, being recognized as a tzaddik, one of the 36 righteous individuals that Kabbalah believes live at any one time.
Though this for the most part moves at a slow pace of everyday life, switching between chapters of Pincus' life in America getting settled and setting up his business and Landsman Society and then Clara and the kids living in a small shtetl as war approaches, there are scenes interspersed that create a sense of tension and pick up the pace of the story. Just when you may say I have read enough, something grabs your attention and you want to find out how it will end.
I listened to this novel as an audible book. Read by Michael Fischbein, it also seems that he is reading very slowly and clearly, enunciating and seemed to make the story also drag, until he would read one of the more suspenseful sections and the story would be more interesting. you could almost hear the suspenseful music in your head as you reached those parts of the book.
Lady in the Lake
Lady in the Lake: The Mysterious Death of Sphinx Barmaid Shirley Parker is the real story that author Laura Lippman has based her book Lady in the Lake on.
Lippman took a 1966 unsolved mystery and created a novel around what may have happened. Madeline "Maddy" Schwartz is unhappy in her everyday life. Married with a teenage son, she feels like something is missing. Not sure what she is looking for she leaves her marriage of almost twenty years, her son and the upper middle class suburbs for inner city Baltimore.
Leaving behind a pampered lifestyle, Maddie is trying to recreate herself, bring back some of her youthful passions and leave a mark behind when she is gone. Also working through some deeply held secrets from her past, she sets out to become a journalist. Fighting her way into a male dominated business, she uses some of the techniques she developed as a young ingenue.
She defies logic and the norms of the time, having an affair with a young black policeman, she meets in the neighborhood. She helps to solve a murder of a young girl, finding the body and informing the police., which leads to her first job at the Star, the city's afternoon newspaper.
Twisted in between the chapters about Maddie Schwartz are the reflections of a woman speaking to us from the beyond. Looking down and watching Maddie, Cleo's ghost wants Maddie to leave her alone, to stop her poking and prying.
Wanting to make a name for herself, Maddie hears about the recovery of the body of a young woman who has been missing. It seems to be Cleo Sherwood, an African-American cocktail waitress about whom little is known. Sherwood's body was found in a lake in a city park months after she disappeared. Maddie realizes this could be her big break. She names her the Lady in the Lake and starts to investigate. It seems that no one is really interested in the case, so she throws herself into the inquiry at full speed, disregarding how it will affect others around her. Her failure to listen to the people around her will lead to tragedy and turmoil in her ambitious, driven, rush to prove herself.
This is a story of what life was like racially, socially, politically and sexually during the 1960s. Blending fact and fiction, Lippman has created a story which is much bigger than the crime being solved.
Lippman took a 1966 unsolved mystery and created a novel around what may have happened. Madeline "Maddy" Schwartz is unhappy in her everyday life. Married with a teenage son, she feels like something is missing. Not sure what she is looking for she leaves her marriage of almost twenty years, her son and the upper middle class suburbs for inner city Baltimore.
Leaving behind a pampered lifestyle, Maddie is trying to recreate herself, bring back some of her youthful passions and leave a mark behind when she is gone. Also working through some deeply held secrets from her past, she sets out to become a journalist. Fighting her way into a male dominated business, she uses some of the techniques she developed as a young ingenue.
She defies logic and the norms of the time, having an affair with a young black policeman, she meets in the neighborhood. She helps to solve a murder of a young girl, finding the body and informing the police., which leads to her first job at the Star, the city's afternoon newspaper.
Twisted in between the chapters about Maddie Schwartz are the reflections of a woman speaking to us from the beyond. Looking down and watching Maddie, Cleo's ghost wants Maddie to leave her alone, to stop her poking and prying.
Wanting to make a name for herself, Maddie hears about the recovery of the body of a young woman who has been missing. It seems to be Cleo Sherwood, an African-American cocktail waitress about whom little is known. Sherwood's body was found in a lake in a city park months after she disappeared. Maddie realizes this could be her big break. She names her the Lady in the Lake and starts to investigate. It seems that no one is really interested in the case, so she throws herself into the inquiry at full speed, disregarding how it will affect others around her. Her failure to listen to the people around her will lead to tragedy and turmoil in her ambitious, driven, rush to prove herself.
This is a story of what life was like racially, socially, politically and sexually during the 1960s. Blending fact and fiction, Lippman has created a story which is much bigger than the crime being solved.
Transcription
This is a fun spy novel written by Kate Atkinson. I have not read other books by Atkinson yet so I do not know if this is her usual writing style. But this book was so entertaining that I will go pick up some of her other books to find out.
Transcription is a wise, funny quick paced spy thriller. It is a novel starts out 1981 as Juliet Armstrong looks back on her days as a young woman. People in England still live with the proud sense of patriotism and love the pomp and circumstance. A royal wedding is about to happen.
Back in 1940 after her mother's death, Juliet is scooped up by the MI5 to assist with the war effort. In the mist of the war, Juliet is employed to transcribe meetings that are being recorded between a group of fascist sympathisers and a man named Godfrey Toby, whom the fifth columnists believe is a Gestapo agent but is actually a British spy monitoring his informers.
As things get more complicated Juliet herself is recruited to spy and given an alias. She learns to shift between different names and persona. Life becomes a game of deception even in the most mundane experiences. "It was a Saturday afternoon and here they were, Juliet thought, Englishwomen doing what Englishwomen did best wherever they were in the world - taking tea and having cozy chats..."
Then there are some scenes after the war when Juliet now working for the BBC runs into Toby again and some of the tragedies of the war are brought to light. A clearer view of what they were fighting for.
In another instance, as Juliet goes about her business of spying and transcribing she thinks,
"The future was coming nearer, one relentless goose step after the next. Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now."
This is so appropriate to that time period and so eerily relevant to our current times. Reading this book and thinking about our current world situation and questioning personal freedoms and patriotism .
Transcription is a wise, funny quick paced spy thriller. It is a novel starts out 1981 as Juliet Armstrong looks back on her days as a young woman. People in England still live with the proud sense of patriotism and love the pomp and circumstance. A royal wedding is about to happen.
Back in 1940 after her mother's death, Juliet is scooped up by the MI5 to assist with the war effort. In the mist of the war, Juliet is employed to transcribe meetings that are being recorded between a group of fascist sympathisers and a man named Godfrey Toby, whom the fifth columnists believe is a Gestapo agent but is actually a British spy monitoring his informers.
As things get more complicated Juliet herself is recruited to spy and given an alias. She learns to shift between different names and persona. Life becomes a game of deception even in the most mundane experiences. "It was a Saturday afternoon and here they were, Juliet thought, Englishwomen doing what Englishwomen did best wherever they were in the world - taking tea and having cozy chats..."
Then there are some scenes after the war when Juliet now working for the BBC runs into Toby again and some of the tragedies of the war are brought to light. A clearer view of what they were fighting for.
In another instance, as Juliet goes about her business of spying and transcribing she thinks,
"The future was coming nearer, one relentless goose step after the next. Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now."
This is so appropriate to that time period and so eerily relevant to our current times. Reading this book and thinking about our current world situation and questioning personal freedoms and patriotism .
Kosher Chinese
So excited to read a book about Kosher Chinese food.
SO not that book!
Interesting memoir of a young man who joined the Peace Corp and taught English to Chinese students in China. Not so much about food except that he does give up his vegetarian and kosher ways to experiment with different Chinese foods.
Mainly this is a travelogue memoir of his experiences while living in a Chinese province for two years.
Michael Levy leaves his easy American suburban lifestyle to spend two years in Guiyang, the largest city in southern China's relatively rural Guizhou Province. He has left home as a Jewish, kosher vegetarian but know that while he away that will be very hard to stick to. "From day one, I decided that I was going to be as good a guest as I can, and that meant saying yes to anything they put in front of me."
Through this book we are enlightened about China as Michael experiences many different obstacles in his path. First of course is the language difference. He has lessons and thinks he is speaking correctly, but in many interactions he has mangled the pronunciation or the sentence structure. Then there are times where he is actually speaking correctly and the people do not want to think that an American can speak their language so they refuse to understand him even when he is right.
There are the funny interactions with his students. They have taken on English names based on things they have heard in American music or on television. So Michael tries to carefully without insulting them help them change their names to more acceptable words. When he explains he is Jewish, the student become fascinated and start a Friday night Shabbat Club, where they cook dinners of "Jewish food" together. They are eager to learn as much as they can from him. The students are always challenging Michael to explain why what they have learned from books provided by the Chinese government about America and Americans, other religions and the world could be incorrect.
Michael Levy's experience is entertaining but also very educational for the reader to learn what life is like in China for the people who are average working class citizens. He shows us how restricted their lives can be. We can live vicariously through Michael and then decide if we want to travel to China to taste the foods and even try the toilets for ourselves.
SO not that book!
Interesting memoir of a young man who joined the Peace Corp and taught English to Chinese students in China. Not so much about food except that he does give up his vegetarian and kosher ways to experiment with different Chinese foods.
Mainly this is a travelogue memoir of his experiences while living in a Chinese province for two years.
Michael Levy leaves his easy American suburban lifestyle to spend two years in Guiyang, the largest city in southern China's relatively rural Guizhou Province. He has left home as a Jewish, kosher vegetarian but know that while he away that will be very hard to stick to. "From day one, I decided that I was going to be as good a guest as I can, and that meant saying yes to anything they put in front of me."
Through this book we are enlightened about China as Michael experiences many different obstacles in his path. First of course is the language difference. He has lessons and thinks he is speaking correctly, but in many interactions he has mangled the pronunciation or the sentence structure. Then there are times where he is actually speaking correctly and the people do not want to think that an American can speak their language so they refuse to understand him even when he is right.
There are the funny interactions with his students. They have taken on English names based on things they have heard in American music or on television. So Michael tries to carefully without insulting them help them change their names to more acceptable words. When he explains he is Jewish, the student become fascinated and start a Friday night Shabbat Club, where they cook dinners of "Jewish food" together. They are eager to learn as much as they can from him. The students are always challenging Michael to explain why what they have learned from books provided by the Chinese government about America and Americans, other religions and the world could be incorrect.
Michael Levy's experience is entertaining but also very educational for the reader to learn what life is like in China for the people who are average working class citizens. He shows us how restricted their lives can be. We can live vicariously through Michael and then decide if we want to travel to China to taste the foods and even try the toilets for ourselves.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Murder From Scratch
Leslie Karst has started a new murder mystery series involving a restaurant and cooking.
This is not the first novel in the series so I will have to go back and read her earlier mysteries.
Sally Solari has inherited a restaurant which I know I will find out the story behind that in an earlier plot. Now she signing . the papers to become a co owner with her head chef and keep the restaurant going. This time a long forgotten relative is murdered and her newly discovered cousin needs a place to stay while the house is a crime scene.
Her cousin Evelyn comes to live with her and together they try to uncover who is behind the murder of Evie's mother's death. Though it looks like a suicide Evie is sure her mother would not do that and leave her.
This is a bit of a formula mystery and a bit slow moving, but still entertaining enough that I read through to the end. There are also discussions about Italian food and restaurant kitchens that keep the pace of the book moving.
At the end there are a few of the recipes for dishes referred to in the story. They do look good.
This is not the first novel in the series so I will have to go back and read her earlier mysteries.
Sally Solari has inherited a restaurant which I know I will find out the story behind that in an earlier plot. Now she signing . the papers to become a co owner with her head chef and keep the restaurant going. This time a long forgotten relative is murdered and her newly discovered cousin needs a place to stay while the house is a crime scene.
Her cousin Evelyn comes to live with her and together they try to uncover who is behind the murder of Evie's mother's death. Though it looks like a suicide Evie is sure her mother would not do that and leave her.
This is a bit of a formula mystery and a bit slow moving, but still entertaining enough that I read through to the end. There are also discussions about Italian food and restaurant kitchens that keep the pace of the book moving.
At the end there are a few of the recipes for dishes referred to in the story. They do look good.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Doom and Bloom
Another fun, entertaining mystery in the Gardening series by H.Y. Hanna. She is prolific and the books just keep on coming. The characters develop and build relationships as the storyline continues from book to book. Cute vivacious, Poppy is getting the hang of gardening taking over her grandmother's business. She has two cute animals that are part of the plot and two neighbors who are connected to the animals. One a handsome, author, Nick and possible romantic interest?, the other an absentminded professor, Bertie. Of course there is a police detective, this time a woman who Poppy can share information with. There is always a murder to solve so the fun can continue.
This time Poppy is learning how to create a garden that will be calming and attractive to an elderly woman's dog. The woman is a bit eccentric, so when her niece is killed, Poppy tries to figure out who could have a motive for murder. While trying to get her business up and running, Poppy has a chance to interview various people in the village. She has the assistance of Nick and Bertie as she tries to ask questions surreptitiously and the ear of the police detective, Susan who will eventually bring the culprit to justice.
Along the way Hanna shares some gardening and florist tips that Poppy is learning. All good fun for a quiet afternoon.
This time Poppy is learning how to create a garden that will be calming and attractive to an elderly woman's dog. The woman is a bit eccentric, so when her niece is killed, Poppy tries to figure out who could have a motive for murder. While trying to get her business up and running, Poppy has a chance to interview various people in the village. She has the assistance of Nick and Bertie as she tries to ask questions surreptitiously and the ear of the police detective, Susan who will eventually bring the culprit to justice.
Along the way Hanna shares some gardening and florist tips that Poppy is learning. All good fun for a quiet afternoon.
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II
Robert Matzen is the author of Dutch Girl : Audrey Hepburn and World War II.
One of my all time favorite stories is Gigi!
Well known for her role in My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday,
Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston, also had a secretive past.
This book is an eye opening look into that hidden past.
One of my all time favorite stories is Gigi!
Well known for her role in My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday,
Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston, also had a secretive past.
This book is an eye opening look into that hidden past.
This book reveals the turbulent childhood of Hepburn,
living in the Netherlands through the German invasion and occupation of 1939 -1944.
The details of the story presented in Dutch Girl are fascinating in that they
happened to Audrey Hepburn, but also this is a historical account of World War II from
the Dutch perspective that has not really been examined until now.
The book reflects on the five years that Hepburn and her family along with the
Dutch people lived under Hitler’s rule.
“Not that they had ever listened to his speeches or obeyed,
but it had been a life under the oppression of his terrible will
and his twisted soul that they had endured.” Audrey and her family
lived in the town of Velp, which when the British and Americans came to
liberate them had been under siege and everyone was living in hiding.
living in the Netherlands through the German invasion and occupation of 1939 -1944.
The details of the story presented in Dutch Girl are fascinating in that they
happened to Audrey Hepburn, but also this is a historical account of World War II from
the Dutch perspective that has not really been examined until now.
The book reflects on the five years that Hepburn and her family along with the
Dutch people lived under Hitler’s rule.
“Not that they had ever listened to his speeches or obeyed,
but it had been a life under the oppression of his terrible will
and his twisted soul that they had endured.” Audrey and her family
lived in the town of Velp, which when the British and Americans came to
liberate them had been under siege and everyone was living in hiding.
She was sixteen at the time of the liberation. Audrey and her mother went to live in Amsterdam.
This would later connect her to Anne Frank’s story.
Then onto London to start her career and leave her mother and her political troubles behind.
Her first success was as a chorus girl in High Button Shoes.
Then MGM came to town and Audrey won a screen test. Her stardom began in 1953.
The amazing part is that like Gigi and Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady,
Hepburn’s story is a similar story of unexpected success at something she was aiming toward.
This would later connect her to Anne Frank’s story.
Then onto London to start her career and leave her mother and her political troubles behind.
Her first success was as a chorus girl in High Button Shoes.
Then MGM came to town and Audrey won a screen test. Her stardom began in 1953.
The amazing part is that like Gigi and Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady,
Hepburn’s story is a similar story of unexpected success at something she was aiming toward.
In an 1965 interview she says, “I can safely say that unlike others
I simply stumbled into movies. And from one thing to another.”
It was never a career she wanted, it was a career that came easily to her -
she had grown into an exotic face that responded to makeup and lighting.
I simply stumbled into movies. And from one thing to another.”
It was never a career she wanted, it was a career that came easily to her -
she had grown into an exotic face that responded to makeup and lighting.
“My success - still bewilders me.” And she was - a great success!
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