Book Twelve

The most fun I've had reading all year . . . maybe the most fun I've had reading in years. Molly Wizenberg is pretty much my hero and I only wish I could have her pantry and know what to do with it. I'm extremely bummed that she is taking time off from her blog Orangette to open her husband's restaurant. I would love following her days on the internet. After reading A Homemade Life, I feel like she's a good friend. And now that I'm finished with the book, I'm miss her.

The book is so precious and revealing as she talks about her chance meeting with her now husband via her blog and the death of her beloved father. I made the first recipe, Burg's Potato Salad, and Matt Loved, Loved, Loved it. Molly's Dad and my mother had a similar passion for potato salad. The difference would be, of course, that my mom poured in dijon mustard and made it without a recipe. Burg used Ranch Dressing. I'm glad I can make potato salad now. I feel like a real adult.

I'm hoping to go back through the book this summer and try out all the recipes. And the book makes me yearn for Paris, baguettes, salad and soup. This book is oh so much more than meets the eye. I would recommend it to all my friends. If my friends don't like the book well then . . . serious problems.

Read a better review below:
Molly Wizenberg has written a beautiful tribute to her family, her father in particular, and to the soothing, comforting, exciting power of food. She starts by introducing us to her family, and before long you feel like one of them, in the kitchen late at night stirring, tasting, and baking Fresh Ginger Cake with Caramelized Pears. She takes us to Paris and Seattle and we meet all her friends along the way. Molly gently leads us through Christmas with Espresso-Walnut Toffee, her father's battle with cancer with Italian Grotto Eggs, and to the French Style Yogurt Cake with Lemon that changed everything. Her stories are simple, like her food, but comforting and filling too. Molly Wizenberg is absolutely one of the best food writers I have read. She has a way of drawing you in, making you feel a part of the story, and she makes me itch to get in the kitchen and try her recipes! This is a book I will use often, mostly when I have the urge to cook, but can't decide what. I'll give this book to friends and family and hope they get the same feelings of contentment and joy from this book as I did.

Book Eleven

There's a little something wonderful about Ann Patchett in the way that she writes. It feels honest and approachable and very non-Jodi Picoult ish. I feel like I might want to be her friend if I met her in real life. And yet, her writing doesn't quite grasp hold of me the same as Anna Quindlen or Julia Glass. Almost, but not quite.

Run was a difficult book for me to finish. The characters were developed but not enough that I cared about them in the morning when I woke and at night when I tried to read ten pages before bed. I wanted to know more about Sullivan, the young man who killed his girlfriend in a car crash and derailed his father's political ambitions. He was a minor bit character unfortunately and this was Tip's story. But all Tip wanted to talk about was the science of fish. Boring.

Patchett says the topic of the book is politics. To me, it is and always will be a book about family. Kirkus Reviews sums it up by saying "Compelling story but thematically heavy-handed." I concur. I might recommend this book to Patchett lovers but I won't sing its praises.

Book Twenty One

Saturday
By Ian McEwan

Oops. I forgot this one. Will blog later.

Book Number Ten

Losing serious momentum coming into the summer. 52 books is a long ways off but I remain realistically optimistic that my goal shall be achieved.

I picked up this book for a penny (or so) at the Barnes and Noble sale rack. I have read many, if not all, of Tracy Chevalier's novels thus far. Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Lady and the Unicorn, Falling Angels, etc. Chevalier's characterization did not disappoint. By the story's end, I felt a part of Georgian England and the Piddle Valley. I especially loved the character of Maggie. She was the perfect ratio of vulnerability and rough edge for my taste. The references to Blake and Songs of Innocence were lost on me. Completely. Another BNoble reviewer suggests that Blake is by far the most aloof, vaguely written about character in a novel. I concur.

The ending also left me unhinged. It took 200 or so pages for me to fall in love with this novel and the last twenty pages felt like an afterthought for me. I don't enjoy when all the loose ends are tied up in a pretty little bow but Chevalier's ending this time around just felt lazy.

There are moments in this book that will stay with me. When the kids find themselves lost in Bedlam after following William Blake's funeral procession, the hysteria surrounding the French Revolution and the declaration of loyalty to King George AND when Maggie blows her nose and residue from the mustard and vinegar factory become quite apparent. And YET, I'm left with just moments and not a novel that changed me. And isn't that the novel we are all looking for?

Book Number Nine

This is the book that got wet. I was absolutely distraught when my entire Sigg bottle of water dumped on the new hardcover by one of my favorite people I have yet to meet. I have loved Mary Pipher since the day she published Reviving Ophelia. That book was the reason I entered the profession of school counseling and became so interested in young women's issues. I may never get to meet Mary Pipher and let her know the impact her writing has had on my life (Letters to a Young Therapist, Another Country etc.) Knowing her through this book was the next best thing.

After the surprising success of Reviving Ophelia, Pipher was overwhelmed by the attention and demands on her time. In 2002, after a personal crisis, Pipher realized that success and fame were harming her, and she began working to find a quieter, more meditative life that would carry her toward self-acceptance and joy. Her book explores all these issues. I love her chapter titles: The Glad Game, Avalanche of Roses, A Bigger Container and Stopping for Joshua Bell. When she writes about her sixtieth birthday party and the creative presents she received from family, I wanted to sign up as her daughter right then and there. I'm not sure I want to move to Nebraska but her life is one I want to lead: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Pipher could easily be a carbon copy of myself. Pipher describes her scattered nature perfectly as "going meta." "While my laid back, slow talking husband finishes a sentence, my mind jogs three laps around town and gerenates a dozen new observations and plans." After reading her self descriptions in the preface, I just knew the entire autobiography would be about ME.

My reading of this book was less than optimal. It traveled with me to San Diego Marine Camp and then endured the aforementioned flood. I will try to re-visit the book again down the road as I know Pipher's quest for peace and embracing of meditation could be quite meaningful in my life. This is a deeply personal, courageously honest, and ultimately very inspiring book.

Book Number Eight

Kind of a dumb name for a book, unfortunately. I don't have much to say about this book except that it is classic Binchy. A novel set in Ireland with her familiar cast of characters. Fiona from Nights of Rain and Stars, the Feathers, several fancy dinners done up at Quentins Restaurant and Pastor Flynn from Whitethorn Woods. I have to imagine that Mitford lovers would find an equally compelling read here. This was the perfect book for my sickly spring break. Nothing gives more comfort than a Binchy read.

Had a sinking realization that I have 44 books yet to read this year. That silly Sawtelle book and the Somerset Maugham novel have set me dreadfully behind. Thank you Maeve for giving me a quick read to keep up my spirits and send me on towards my goal.

Book Number Seven

Winner of 2008 BNoble Discover Great Writers Award
Best NonFiction Book of 2008 - Entertainment Weekly

Read this book for the second time around. Nervously, I have recommended it for our next Stillwater Book Club discussion. I'm anticipating the discussion as we don't typically read memoirs or novels about drug abuse. I'm not sure how they'll feel about the honesty of the book and the rawness (quite a few F-inheimers though not gratuitous). I feel the book is revealing and courageous. I'm eager to hear how they felt about the book though reading it as parents and commenting on how to let kids go, divorce and how addiction is different now than it was 20-30 years ago.

I, personally, love the book. Not sure if it's my love affair of the geography of the novel (situated in Point Reyes and the North Beach community of San Fran). I could be biased. Most of all, I feel as though I've learned how to counsel families who are struggling with an addicted son/daughter. This seemed to be a well researched book on methamphetamine and I recognized a lot of Hazelden speak: the three C's, secrets make you sick, relapse is part of recovery, etc. I felt like I knew the characters intimately by the end of the book and really want to know how they are doing currently. I dreaded when Nic would relapse yet again and felt such pain for him and for the family. I wonder if he has yet hit his bottom.

Other things to discuss: the twist at the end for David Sheff, co-dependency, the charmed life, role of religions, the disease model, the effect on family (siblings, extended family, parents, etc.)

Book Number Six

This novel was an impulse buy at a weak moment. I saw it on the sale rack at BNoble and knew that I could read the book in an instant. I have loved reading the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books so this felt like just what the doctor ordered.

The novel reminds me so incredibly much of my favorite teenage book - Just A Summer Romance. I'm left completely enamored with the geographical description of Fire Island and its depiction of a remote, peaceful getaway. Reminds me of how it felt to be at the cabin all summer and have no worries in the world. Re: the characters. Publishers Weekly calls the "love" relationship between Alice and Paul saccharine at best. I tend to agree. Unfortunately, I can't decide whether to put this book in my kid's rack or my adult fiction rack with the silly sex scenes. I think I'm going kids rack but may live to regret that decision if the wrong person picks it up.

I have a feeling this is not a book that I will remember reading in another two years but will probably pick up again when I'm bored. New York Times says "would do well under a beach umbrella." So true.

Book Number Five

So, I loved her last book Prep. Thought that she gave the narrator an incredibly unique voice that captured adolescence angst to perfection. This novel moves beyond boarding school to the relationships that confound and confuse the early 20s. “Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which, in Hannah’s observation, is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into adulthood."

I really wanted to like this book and I didn't hate it. Unfortunately, the novel really seemd to suffer from a sophomore slump. The narrator, Hannah Gavener, is compelling and you root for her but are left feeling in the end that you were lead astray. Kirkus Reviews writes: "An earnest, if somewhat underdeveloped, antidote to chick-lit. " I agree.

Not a favorite but glad to start a Sittenfeld collection. Eager to read American Wife up next and man oh man, nobody writes low self esteem better than Curtis.

Book Number Four

In Dreamers of the Day, Russell shifts her gaze to the Middle East, specifically to the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where a group of high-profile Europeans met to decide the fate of the region in the aftermath of the First World War. Didn't like the protagonist Agnes Shanklin, a 40 year old spinster, who has a personal awakening and traipses all over the Middle East with her dachshund Rosie. Agnes is an atheist. I understand why after surviving the loss of her family to the influenza and the vagaries of World War I. However, her disdain for Jerusalem and the casualness of her affair with German spy Karl didn't entice me. I don't know enough about history to find this book charming (Lawrence of Arabia was appealing but Winston Churchill seemed like a pill). Overall, I thought the novel was terribly preachy. Yes, dreamers of the day are dangerous men. We get it.

I have loved Mary Doria Russell's novels. This was my least favorite as of yet.