Fun & Frothy Reads or Non-Fiction at Its Finest

A Bit of Scandinavian Crime Fiction: The Ice Princess and Sun Storm

2011-10-24T18:36:00.000-05:00

Earlier this fall I dived deeply into Scandinavian crime fiction. We are talking a bit beyond the Steig Larsson Millennium series. (Although those were good too.)

Camilla Lackberg has been labeled the next Swedish crime queen. (You'll find out she is not the only one who has been labeled thusly!) The Ice Princess starts out a bit gruesome with a shocker and gets better. She sets her story in a tiny village (which gave her some comparisons to Agatha C.) with her heroine - Erica - coming back to town after the deaths of her parents. One of her former schoolmates Alex dies - was it a suicide? - no - it was murder. But Alex was the local glamour girl who had everything - looks, wealth, and position. But as Erica starts to write about her, she soon uncovers that everything is not as it appears to be. And her memories of a good childhood are being tested by the realization that others in her classroom had been in hell. The secondary story of her classmate Patrik, who happens to be the police detective investigating the case, and how their work collides and their relationship blossoms, adds a depth and a warmth to the story. A great story of uncovering the evil that lies beneath... A good read.

Asa Larsson writes about the area of Sweden that sits above the Arctic circle in the book Sun Storm. Her heroine Rebecka is called back to her hometown, Kiruna, when she learns that the leader of the town's largest revivalist church has been murdered. Now a tax attorney, she was once a member of that church community, and we learn more about Rebecka's past through flashbacks and the villagers who still remember her. Was it the jealous religious elders who killed their leader? Was it an outsider? The church has made the community wealthy. Where is all the money going? Rebecka finds herself taking care of the leader's sister who seems helpless, or is she just manipulative? Rebecka is a great character who Larsson allows us to see in bits and pieces. As she asks the questions, she makes others very nervous. A good read. I'm looking forward to seeing how Larsson continues Rebecka's story in the next book.

Yep - Fallen Behind Again

2011-10-17T14:36:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a great deal. Kinda surprising since I have posted nothing! Yikes. Gotta get back into the saddle again.

Meanwhile - here are a few discussion topics: So are e-readers bringing in more new readers or just switching the formats that people read in? Are they just the latest tech gadgets that everyone has to have? And has anyone thought about whether these readers are even vaguely recyclable?

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

2011-07-05T19:16:00.001-05:00

Meet the gang at McQuarrie Middle School. There's Tommy our narrator, who has a crush on Sara. Kellen is his best bud and there is Harvey who is a bit of a sceptic. And then there's Dwight. He is an oddball and always in trouble, but he has made an origami Yoda. It fits on his finger. And his Yoda talks. And Yoda offers advice, when he is not quoting from his movies. Tommy would dismiss Dwight as a strange dork (Harvey thinks he's a weirdo!) - but his Yoda's wisdom starts making sense and things start happening. Is Yoda for real? Or is this just a scam?

Read Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and find out the rest of Tommy's story and his case book of Yoda adventures. Is Origami Yoda just a piece of paper?

This is a great story for Star Wars fans old and young alike. (And hard-core fans will catch some of the more obscure Star Wars references.) Angleberger, his drawings, the graphics and typefaces make it feel if you are reading Tommy's notebook (with comments from Kellen and Harvey, of course.) It's a fun frothy read. And I just found out there is gonna be a sequel! Squee!

P.S. And if you are really talented - there are origami Yoda folding instructions in the back of the book!

Organize Your Corpses : Murder and More

2011-06-29T15:49:00.000-05:00

Mary Jane Maffini does it again! Another great mystery series!
This series is set in upstate New York, with a fun group of characters and some interesting situations... I never thought that being an professional organizer had such dangerous overtones.

Our heroine, Charlotte Adams, a 5-foot tall professional organizer, who is a bit obsessed with order. Yes, this is a woman who organizes her spice rack. But you will like her anyway. Part of the fun of these books is Charlotte and her group of friends. They were the misfits together in high school, and now that they have grown and Charlotte has come back to her home town it is interesting to see how their relationships have developed.

And Charlotte picks up some new friends along the way - her helper is a multi-pierced young gal with colored hair, but who has a flair for organizing and a good work ethic. And then there is her senior citizen friend Rose, who can be relied on for gossip about her latest suspects and a fresh batch of cookies.

And there is Jack, her best bud, landlord, and pusher of stray dogs. Yep, we have some dogs in this series. The fun part is the dogs are believable and funny. If you like bad dogs that is. They even have their own storyline - Charlotte is determined that they will pass their therapy dog class. And we get to see their progress throughout the stories.

Maybe the best part of these books is Charlotte's job psychology. It is cool to see how she finds out about a person and their habits through what is in their closet. And how much is learned by our messy ways...(But then I thought that was the best part of the old TLC show Clean Sweep.) When I first started this series - I admit I was a bit sceptical about the organizer job part - but I have found that Maffini has really incorporated it smoothly into the story. Now if I can only get Charlotte to my closets..

So for a good mystery, with some original characters, and a bit of a thrill (in some of the books), a bit of romance, and some dogs, come on over to Charlotte's world. You will have a good time. They are fun reads!

They are best read in order:

Organize Your Corpses (2007)

The Cluttered Corpse (2008)

Death Loves a Messy Desk (2009)

Closet Confidential (2010)

The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder (2011)

For more on Maffini's other series - look here.

Mama Does Time

2011-06-28T18:51:00.002-05:00

Florida native, Deborah Sharp does her home state proud with her book Mama Does Time. Mama's home town of Himmarshee is not necessary the touristy part of the state, but she makes news when a body is discovered in the back of her car when she is at the Dairy Queen. When Mace, her middle daughter gets her Mama's phone call, she tries to spring into action, even though she had just settled down to "wanting to see if she could spot any of her ex-boyfriends on Cops."

Now Mama is southern damsel in distress - what is she going to do in jail (besides making friends with her purple haired cellmate)? With the help of her cousin, the lawyer, Mace gets Mama out and shows the new detective in town (the one from Miami) what chaos really is. Mace and her sisters try to get Mama out of her mess and manage to involve most of the town, including Mama's latest fiance ( a Northerner!), who is wanting to be spouse number five!

Filled with southern humor, quirky characters, and goofy family dynamics, Sharpe takes us along for a roller coaster ride of fun. And there is a pretty good mystery too! I'm looking forward to the sequels! A fun frothy read at its finest...

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious and Perplexing City

2011-06-22T13:01:00.001-05:00

David Lebovitz was a pastry chef for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. He decided at one point to move to Paris. His adjustment to living in a foreign country became the material for his blog. His book, The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious and Perplexing City is based on some posts from that blog and more.

While Lebovitz offers some lovely recipes and advice on where to go in Paris, the book is really not a travelogue. It is more of a expat's love letter to his adopted city, even when he thinks it is a wacky place. Some points of fun: he earns more respect from his neighborhood vendors after it is found out he is a pastry chef, how customer service is non existent in certain shops, giant French supermarkets vs local markets, and the joys of French cheese and chocolate.

Written with gentle humor, Lebovitz encourages the reader to come over to his side of the pond to experience it all for themselves. Or at least buy some French cheese and chocolate to munch on while reading it! A Francophile's dream and a fun read.

Murder at the MLA

2011-06-21T18:06:00.000-05:00

Is it a skewer of academia or is it a mystery? D.J.H. Jones' book Murder at the MLA is a little bit of both.

The setting is at a convention hotel in Chicago. The convention is the yearly gathering of the Modern Language Association. It is an event attended by English Literature professors, English departments looking for graduate candidates, and candidates looking for jobs from across the country.

As the convention begins - there is an accident- a professor falls over the railing into the lobby. But is it murder? But then a hiring group from Wellesley gets poisoned from their coffee and one dies. Are the two deaths connected? When the detectives come in - they realize they need some background in this world of publish or perish. And they enlist an assistant professor to be their guide.

The author does a great job with their characters (although the third person omniscient point of view is occasionally disconcerting - but funny sometimes) and they make the reader care about the characters and you want them to succeed with the case. The author (one doesn't know whether it is a he or a she) manages to make quite a statement or two about the status of English literature trends in teaching, the fact that universities are so willing to use up young academics and toss them when it comes time to get tenure, and how some of the trendy teachers are just plain ridiculous. And that the parents and students are paying tuition for it!

A fun mystery about academics! And some nice details about Chicago. Give it to the English major in your life! A fun read.

Bossypants

2011-06-21T10:37:00.000-05:00

Tina Fey's Bossypants is really a series of sketches. Sketches about how she grew up - bit and pieces. Chapters about her parents - bit and pieces. And how Second City, SNL and 30 Rock work - bit and pieces. She gives us a good tale, punches it up with some laughs and moves on the the next topic - which makes this book a very fast read. And an enjoyable one. It really is. She really has a nack for showing her reader that she is just like us - and just lucky.

I think my favorite part of the book - besides the essay on child rearing (The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter) which can be found wandering online - is where she tells us how hard it was to break the comedy barriers that were still around by the time she got to Second City. She was part of one of the first casts to have an equal number of men and women on it. Before her cast apparently, they had only needed two women to be funny. As someone who knows several funny women, and has worked and performed with some more, I find that insulting to our gender.

I thought she was very polite about gender politics at SNL. It is obvious she still works with them and is on the NBC Network. But you can tell she is thrilled that sketches with just female members of the cast get on the air. And her chapters about "becoming Sarah Palin" are interesting. She comments how she was never good at doing impressions - mostly because she never 'looked' like anyone famous, and then this happens. She just got lucky.

Lucky my eye! The woman has talent! A very fun read, but I wished it was longer!

Dead Reckoning

2011-06-01T15:49:00.000-05:00

Charlaine Harris does it again. A solid book. Funny thoughts from our girl Sookie. (I really think that is why I can not bear to see the TV show. I just love her inner dialog in the books.) And more trouble than you can shake a stick at.

If you haven't started these -- do it from the beginning. Sookie's life is a roller coaster ride and this title Dead Reckoning just keeps the crazy happening. I do not think that anyone could pick this one up and jump in. But I'm so entrenched in the Sookieverse, maybe I'm blind.

This title is a 'filler" series title. What I mean by that, is that some longer plot lines are wrapped up, some seem to be just beginning, and of course all heck breaks loose at least once or twice. (Okay - my favorite part of this book is Sookie planning a for a mjaor vampire fight and a baby shower at the same time!) And then there are those teases of plots that are yet to come... This title may not move the series and the characters along with leaps and bounds, but these books tend to have a lot buried in them that you notice later... We will see.

Great book. Great series. A fun frothy read!

The Love Goddess' Cooking School

2011-05-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

When Holly's Grandmother Camilla dies, she inherits her business - a cooking school, and her house, but does she inherit her 'second sight'? In The Love Goddess' Cooking School by Melissa Senate, that is the question her small Maine town neighbors want to know. But Holly has had problems in her own life, and can't make a marinara sauce. She's not too sure that continuing the cooking school is such a good idea after all. But when she has four students sign up for classes, she decides to give it a try.

Senate does a great job at creating a small town community where everyone knows about everyone else's business. And Holly discovers that her grandmother's life was not all joy and roses. Filled with great characters and greater descriptions of food (you will be craving Italian after this one - trust me), the reader will enjoy reading about Holly's struggles in the kitchen, glimpses of Camilla's strength, and their cooking students growth, both in the kitchen and in their personal lives.

Makes one want to take an Italian cooking class if they are going to be that cool. A fun and frothy read.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China

2011-05-17T10:06:00.002-05:00

I discovered this book from an excerpt in The Best Food Writing 2008. I was impressed by the writing and thought the concept of going to a university in China was pretty bold for an English girl. But that what was thought I learned from the excerpt. But when I actually got the whole book, it was an even better story!

Fuchsia Dunlop went to China to study Chinese policy on ethnic minorities, on a British Council grant in 1994. She was working at the BBC. She ended up at Sichuan University in the foreign students wing. She wasn't quite sure what she was doing there. Her Chinese was too poor to do scholarly work, and the topic she had chosen was a "subject fraught with political sensitivities." She ended up writing down her impressions of the food. She had thought about being a professional cook, but that is not where her path lead her. But here, she finds herself curious about Chengdu and the region's food, it's cooks and their kitchens and she tours around asking questions, making friends and writing down recipes. And because China was just beginning to open itself up the world, Fuchsia and her fellow students are a curiosity to the locals too.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China is more than just a book about food. It is a story of finding one's place in the world - even if that happens to be China, and creating a life. It is a traveler's journey and Dunlop writes with insight and humor about a time and place that has changed irrevocably since she has been there. And then there is the food. She writes with such knowledge and discription you will be craving Chinese food there after. Makes you wish you went with her. And after reading the book, I guess I did. A very good read.

Colonial Foodies

2011-05-06T18:46:00.000-05:00

The Founding Foodies: How Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin Revolutionized American Cuisine By Dave DeWitt

This is a great and concise title on how our founding fathers really were the first foodies in the land. Jefferson and Washington were plantation owners and experimented with crops and vegetables in their particular states. Franklin spent time in France as the U.S. ambassador and definitely enjoyed himself while there! He also was a early supporter of corn. Jefferson used his time in France to discover new plants and vegetables and had some of them brought back to Monticello.

This book goes into detail about food (and drink) during colonial times and how the tavern really helped the growth of the democracy. There is also a lengthy section with recreated recipes. There is a very detailed appendix with historic colonial foodie sites to visit. And perhaps best of all - an extremely detailed bibliography for more books both on Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, but food and living during colonial times. A fun read.

Foodies, This Title is for You!

2011-05-03T11:04:00.000-05:00

I'll start by saying right off that I have never had the pleasure of eating at Alinea, and I do not think I have the money to do so either. With that said, let me tell you about chef Grant Achatz's memoir Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat by Grant and his business partner Nick Kokonas.

Grant grew up in Michigan in a family that had been in the resturant business a long time. He attended culinary school right out of high school and was working for the chef, Thomas Keller, at the French Laundry by the time he was 22 years old. Let's talk about drive, here people. I think you can say he has it. His drive led him to work at Trio in Chicago area. One of his best customers was Kokonas. But he really wanted to try something further and the ideas for Alinea were born.

That is where Kokonas comes in. He partners up with Achatz in his restaurant venture. And he tells his version of the "we are going to build a restaurant" story. And they do. And Achatz and Alinea win acclaim and awards. But he is also diagnosed with tongue cancer. How can a chef taste with out his tongue?

So it is the story of a vision, food techniques, a partnership, a theatrical presentation (I'm sorry, opening night of a restaurant reminds me of a theater production), a sickness and the drive to get the most out of life while you're still here. And as a book - it works. Fact is stranger than fiction sometimes. And it seems to have a happy ending - they opened up their latest restaurant venture - Next - and Grant is in remission (I'm sorry, I can't say cancer free- it is bad luck to me.)

Are they perfect people? No, but they have a unique story to tell and it is done well. So for foodies (and other readers) who like books about challenges and struggles and of course - food, this might be the one for you. A very good read.

Unfamiliar Fishes

2011-05-03T10:41:00.000-05:00

Sarah Vowell's book Unfamiliar Fishes has left me with a mixture of sadness, excitement, and questions. Questions about how the United States and its government has left its manifest destiny all over the globe. Excitement, because - well - I really wanted to visit Hawaii before, but now I really want to go. And sadness, because commerce and greed was the reason that we overthrew the Queen of Hawaii.

This book is about Hawaii, its history and natives, and how the United States took it over. And it is told in Vowell's quirky and wry style. She goes into depth about the missionaries who came to this wild and unknown land from cold New England. They were not prepared too well for the voyage or for what they would find. But they managed to bring education and helped create a written language for the Hawaiian people. But island life was interrupted by commerce, farming and taking as much from the islands as the newcomers could get.

Vowell is what I would call a uncomfortable historian. (Howard Zinn does the same thing.) She tells you what happened to whom and when. She gives you details from different viewpoints. But what she shows you is that history is messy. Heroes are human. People make bad choices. And it can make the reader uncomfortable in their easy chair.

And perhaps that is the point. We are to question why we are choosing this route; is it really better policy? And for whom? These are things that Americans have forgotten about.These are questions that their ancestors and founding fathers raised and fought about. Today we seem to argue more about television reality shows.

Vowell gives us questions to ponder. And the more we know about history, the better we are to deal with the present. At least I hope so. A very good read.

Here We Go Again: My Life in Television - Betty White Is So Cool!

2011-04-14T14:15:00.000-05:00

I have always thought that Betty White was cool. She reminds me of a favorite aunt of mine with her humor and laughter. So maybe that is why I responded so well when I started listening to her audiobook of Here We Go Again: My Life in Television. And the fact that she reads it doesn't hurt either!

Betty White has been in television since 1949! I had no idea she was such a pioneer. I must admit my TV memories of her are of her playing Sue Ann Nivens on the Mary Tyler Moore show in the 70's. But in this memoir you find out about her early days of broadcasting on a daily show for over 6 hours a day, as well as countless variations of the Betty White Show, her regular spots on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar, and her many guest spots on game shows, and talk shows. And then there is MTM and the Golden Girls.

I think anyone who is interested in the history of the television industry would be interested to check out her story. The story is told with good humor (hello! It's Betty White!) But not everything is rosy - she tells the story behind the scenes as well.

My only problem with this audiobook is that it is abridged! (And it does not say it on the container.) I wanted more! Have a listen and laugh. A fun read.

Speak Ill of the Dead: A Camilla MacPhee Mystery

2011-04-11T19:58:00.001-05:00

There are times when you finish the first book in a series, when a feeling of excitement comes over you. You have discovered a new author to read! You like the plotting, the character, and setting. It was witty and funny. And it suited your mood perfectly. Ah, the right book at the right time. And then you want to tell everyone about it - but only special people - cause you don't want them to check out all the titles before you...

However in this case, the books in this series might be harder to come by because they are Canadian! (Shocking - I know!) But some libraries have them - the power of interlibrary loan - and can get them for you.

Speak Ill of the Dead by Mary Jane Maffini introduces us to Camilla Mac Phee - a lawyer who runs a justice for victims office. She is feisty woman who has issues with her older sisters (why can't she just find a nice guy and get married), her assistant (who was foisted on her from a work/release program), her nosy and elderly next door neighbor and her best friend (who discovers a body, and collapses and so Camilla has to take in her six cats.)

While she is trying to clear her friend from the charges of murder, she finds out there were many people who had motives to do the deed, for the victim was a famous (and nasty) gossip writer. She discovers the detective on the case has a crush on her sister Alexa, so she pumps him for information, as well as the attractive hotel manager at the hotel where the victim stayed. She gathers information on the other gossip victims and finds evidence of drug use, fat farms and former lovers. And then there is another gruesome victim. (Let me say this is not a cozy! )

In between these goings on, she copes with hiding the cats from the super and her neighbor, and facing those dreaded Sunday night dinners with her family. But her concern for her friend and her determination to solve the case bring her closer and closer to danger.

Camilla is a character you can relate to, her life is not perfect, and she cares about people - even if she is grumbling about them all the way. Maffini writes a nicely plotted mystery and she has come up with some pretty funny and quirky characters. And her descriptions of Ottawa in the spring make it sound lovely.
Sign me up for another one please! A fun and frothy read!

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie

2011-02-09T13:12:00.000-06:00

Scott has made the transition to high school and found his world spinning. His friends are not in the same classes and their group seems to be separating. His mom and dad have just announced that they are having a baby. His older brother, who he hopes will show him the ropes, keeps leaving home. And he has fallen for a former classmate who now looks like "a goddess." The only place this book worm feels comfortable is in his English class. He gets himself involved with student council, the newspaper and the class musical because he wants to be near his "goddess", but his plans keep back firing. Now he has ended up on the football team’s most wanted list because of some of his articles. It’s a good thing he’s a lowly freshman that nobody knows.

In Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, David Lubar writes with skill and humor to bring the reader, the experience (and the terror and the fear) of being an underclassman. He provides us a great look into Scott’s home life including the pressure he feels with the new baby coming and his anxiety about his changing place in the world. He uses Scott’s writing to his unborn sibling as a chance to show Scott’s sense of humor and his thoughtfulness about being the first in his family that might have a chance to go to college. He deals delicately with the subject of being different by having Scott interact with a quirky cast of characters who are both funny and troubled.

This is a fun book for those who are interested in writing because Lubar does a wonderful job of incorporating Scott’s English class topics within his articles for the school newspaper. This coming of age story is highly recommended for younger readers who are looking for a glimpse of what to expect in high school and it can be enjoyed by those readers who already know high school can be a comedy of errors. It is a very good read.

My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space

2010-12-17T18:02:00.000-06:00

Lisa Scottoline has paired with her daughter Francesca Scottoline Serritella to write her latest book of essays My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space. Most of essays were first published as newspaper columns for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

If you have not read Scottoline's essays, you are in for a treat. They are filled with humor about the foibles of modern day life. This group have a bit more to do with Francesca's moving out to NYC and how they both feel about that. The tale about Francesca giving her mom dating advice is priceless! And then there are the stories about Lisa's mom in Florida - pretty darn funny.

Pick it up for a laugh and give yourself a mini-break during the holidays. A fun frothy read! My previous post about her other book of essays is here.

Keith Richards - The Man, the Myth, the Musician, and the Junkie

2010-12-13T14:24:00.000-06:00

In the age old question which rock group is better : the Beatles or the Rolling Stones - if you answer the Stones - this is the book for you.

Life by Keith Richards with James Fox, gives the Rolling Stone fan a glimpse into the creative and sometimes chemically enhanced mind of a founding member of the band. Richards is very straightforward on some issues (the music, his ex- girlfriend and Brian Jones), and cagey on others (Altamont.) It is amazing he remembers as much as he does and it is fun when he has others in his circle being interviewed about the topics at hand.

I must admit it is pretty wild reading about the crazy life on tour with the Stones in the 1970's. And it brings up (for me at least) the question of how much time was wasted on the drugs and how much original music was lost in the process. Keith is such a raconteur that he is even funny during the dark times of his excess. You keeping hoping he's gonna get out of the daze and back into his music. He goes into great detail on this and I will admit most of it was over my head since I'm not a guitarist. I would be curious to hear a musician's perspective on this part of the book. But I can hear the results - and have had his song "Happy" in my head for weeks.

At 564 pages, this is a long read, but Keith's humor and unique perspective make it worth while. Definitely a must read for anyone who is interested in the 60's and 70's music scene in England, and in one of the biggest rock bands of the last century. Just a warning - you might as well get your Stones music out when reading, because you will be hearing the songs in your head!

To continue with a Rolling Stones frenzy take a look at the Rolling Stone magazine issue 1105 from May 27th, 2010. There is an excellent article called "Making of 'Exile on Main Street'" by David Gates. Put out to coinside with the rerelease of the album (38 years old!) it has a lot of information in it on the creation process behind the album and it is very different from Keith's perspective which is fairly detailed in his book.

Get out your albums and CDs and let it bleed. A very good read.

How Did You Get This Number

2010-10-26T10:18:00.003-05:00

Sloane Crosley is back again with How Did You Get This Number, another batch of essays. (Okay - this is one of the ugliest book covers I have seen in a long time. Somebody did her a disservice here!) Some are more personal than others - such as the one about how her bad sense of direction is actually a spatial learning disorder and how it provides her with challenges in everyday life. Then there are others such as being a bridesmaid in Alaska - where there is indeed an encounter with bears.

This book does not have as much of the laugh out loud snark as her first one did (see previous review), but it again provides one with a glimpse into urban life in the twenty-first century. I think one of the most thought provoking tales was the story in which she explained how she was getting some new furniture for her apartment. Apparently it was off the back of a truck. But he was such a nice shyster! (Only in New York City!) It really does say something about extreme shopping for discounts, and how far is one willing to draw the line between getting a deal and stealing.

I really enjoy her voice and am looking forward to the next batch of essays. And hopefully you will too. A fun read.

Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work

2010-10-25T19:53:00.002-05:00

Tim Gunn, Tim Gunn, Tim Gunn. Just saying his name makes me squee! I love the man! He is one of my favorite parts of Project Runway (PR) and he is just a classy guy. I knew I would like this book right away, after all I did like his last one - see former review .

Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work by Tim Gunn with Ada Calhoun is a fun book if you are a fan of Tim and PR. It is a wacky mixture of PR gossip, behind the scenes info, and a mini memoir of Tim's life and career. And he tries to teach/remind us that good manners will get you far. And if that doesn't work - karma - might do you in...

But really it does not sound like he had a great home life growing up. It appears that he is enjoying his fame for what it is worth, but does not take it too seriously. I think that is the secret to his success as a mentor on PR. He knows what it is like to be the nerdy kid in the room, and he relates to the designer's struggles.

Just when you are thinking the book gets a little too serious, he will come out with some snarky comment or PR gossip to keep the reader interested. A fun book. Definately a frothy one. And if your a fan of the man - a must read. We love you Tim Gunn!

Delizia! : The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food

2010-10-23T14:33:00.001-05:00

Hmm, my blog seems to have morphed into food and fiction! Seriously I do read more - I'm just behind in the blogging! But brace yourself for some pasta cravings...

Delizia! : The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food by John Dickie is a foodie book as well as an explanation of the growth of the city states of Italy. Each chapter focuses on a city or region and the how that city contributed (and during what time period ) to the 'national' cuisine.

Fun facts you can bring out at parties:

- French food was highly influential in Italy during the 1700s and 1800s. There was a leaflet campaign "insulting the wealthy for adopting French eating habits."

- Rome was the gastronomic capital of Italy during the Renaissance.

- Bologna had a Guild of Sausage - Makers fight to keep their standards for making mortadella.

- Marco Polo may have claimed to have brought over noodles from China (very much debated in this book) but what he did bring was spices and heavily spiced dishes were considered good for digestion. This trend lasted until the 1700s.

- The Margherita pizza is named for Queen Margherita of Savoy. While she visiting in Naples in the 1880s, she asked to try pizza and she was given three different kinds. The she one chose to eat was the one with basil and tomatoes. It was eventually named for her.

I love the ease with which Dickie combines his stories about food and history. I think this book would be a great one to read before taking a trip to Italy. Or a trip to your favorite Italian market. A fun, frothy and yummy read indeed!

If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince?

2010-10-22T16:14:00.000-05:00

It isn’t easy being the new kid in the school, or in the house. Sophomore Lucy Norton is left in her new home with her stepmother and her evil twin stepsisters by Lucy’s bi-coastal working father. Feeling ostracized in the house and isolated in her new high school, she takes refuge in her art class. Inspired by an older classmate Sam’s painting, she thinks he’s a jerk in person, but her opinion changes after he invites her to a show at an art gallery. Lucy finds herself struggling to find her identity and place in the world when she has an assignment to create a self portrait. But when a basketball game comment in the cafeteria attracts the attention of Connor, the star of the varsity team, Lucy suddenly rises in social status. She gets a date and some new girlfriends who are plugged into the school’s gossip feed. Will she remain the art aficionado or become part of the “in” basketball crowd? Is Connor really her prince?

Melissa Kantor's If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? provides her independent narrator heroine with the wit and sarcasm to have the reader identify with her. She allows Lucy to show us the humor in her uncomfortable home and school life - “It’s so Brothers Grimm.” As she tries to maintain her bond with her dad, she feels that her stepmother is changing everything. This is a good account of a created family trying to adjust to their new life together. It is a charming story of a contemporary teen dealing with the change and uncertainty that being in a new environment can bring. This book shows that having different and creative talents can be a beneficial and positive experience. Kantor does a great job at updating the Cinderella fairy tale. A fine frothy read for young adult collections and a fun read for adults too.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

2010-10-22T10:07:00.015-05:00

Sherman Alexie's book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is a wonderful coming of age story. Junior lives on the Spokane Indian reservation and has found that he needs a better education than what he is receiving in his community. He takes the great leap to attending an all white high school in a neighboring farm town.

As he learns to adjust to his new classmates and they to him, he is being called a traitor by his friends on the "rez." He discovers that this is a year of challenges both in his personal life - several family tragedies - and his school life - competing with his old school on the basketball court.

Alexie provides the reader with a great lead character who takes his punches but still manages to keep his sense of humor about life and himself. He challenges the reader to think about the strength it takes to go against the grain and make changes to your life. Ellen Forney provides the illustrations that add so much to the story and provide the reader with more insight into Junior's character and his cartooning. Take a chance on this National Book Award winner. It's a fun read for both teens and adults.

Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table

2010-10-02T10:28:00.006-05:00

Did you ever have a book that made you just want to put it down and run into the kitchen to make a dish? Or in some cases to go trotting to the telephone and call for take out? This is that book. It made me go and make a gumbo immediately after finishing it. I suppose if I were super wealthy I could just make a reservation to go down to New Orleans for a weekend. Sounds like fun to me. A trip to just eat! How decadent!

Sara Roahen has a way with words, food and the people who make it. Her book, Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table is perfect for anyone who is interested in the food culture of New Orleans. And she is a Midwestern raised gal - an outsider to the town - and she admits it. She was there for several years during her husband's time in medical school and she wrote a food column for a local paper. This allowed her to look at their food culture from a different perspective.

Each chapter takes us on a unique trip to look at gumbo, crawfish, pho (there are a lot of Vietnamese fishermen in the area), chicory, and Monday red beans and rice among other classic and traditional ethnic dishes. She brings us the story of the wonderful characters and cooks who are carrying on the traditions of the food. For example, the section she devotes to the family who has a huge neighborhood St. Joseph's Day table is just touching. And she makes the reader care and worry about this family when they can not be found after Hurricane Katrina.

I guess that is what is also special about this book. Roahen gives us a before and after Hurricane Katrina view of this food culture. We find out what restaurants have rebuilt and what cooks have been lost to New Orleans' memories. She's a very good writer and this is another great book that I discovered from a excerpt that was in the Best Food Writing of 2008. A very fun read, but don't forget the red beans and rice, or gumbo or ...

97 Orchard : An Edible History

2010-08-09T19:01:00.009-05:00

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman has gotten some very nice reviews and I can see why - it is a great book! Ziegelman takes five families of immigrants (Germans, Irish, Italians and Eastern European Jews) and looks at their food culture that they brought with them and how it changes and adapts to American life.

It is fascinating to take a look back at how things used to be done and what conditions that they had to live through. (How brave our ancestors were to make their way here!) It also is interesting to see what impact they had on the American palate and how they influenced "American" cuisine.

Some interesting points of interest -

- Ireland had a well balanced diet but because of the land laws changing - smaller plots, and their growing dependency on potatoes, by the time they arrived in America during the famine, they really did not have a national cuisine anymore. They could assimilate their food culture much faster into the land of abundance.

- Ellis Island eventually had a kosher kitchen and dinning to feed the newly arrived Jews but not til around 1914.

- Schmaltz was originally was not derived from chicken but from geese. As chicken breeding improved - and they were cheaper - chicken fat took the place of geese fat.

- It is interesting to see how far and fast that German food was assimilated into the New York culture of the time.

Ziegelman takes each family's story and tries to tell it through the limited documents that are available. But she uses their tales and expands them to their neighborhood of the time (which changes with the various waves of immigration) and their cooking traditions of the time. A great book for history lovers, and foodies alike. A very good read.

Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Tomato Farmer

2010-08-07T14:03:00.005-05:00

Tim Stark did not start out to become a tomato farmer. It was more of a casual obsession with growing tomatoes in his New York brownstone. It reminded him of growing up near farm land Pennsylvania. When it came time to expand his crop, that is where he headed and had to deal with the memories that he had left behind. Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Tomato Farmer is that story.

Stark has a way with stories - each chapter takes you forward and back to his work of growing tomatoes for the Greenmarket in New York City, trying to create his business, and his memories of growing up in farm lands - but not in a farm family. And after each chapter you are eager to read more about what happened next and how his small business has had setbacks and personnel changes. As the business grows - he sells other vegetables and peppers (one of the best chapters is his story of peppers and customers at the Greenmarket) and soon his produce makes its way into some of the finest restaurant kitchens in NYC.

And if you are a tomato person - and believe that one of the best things in life is a delicious home grown tomato - this book is for you. An excellent read that I discovered while reading an exerpt from the Best Food Writing of 2009. I'm glad I took the plunge. A very good read.

Pick Your Format - Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day

2010-07-03T03:47:00.001-05:00

Now here's a case where whichever format you pick - movie, book or audiobook, you are going to get a winner. Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day is a delightful book by Winifred Watson. It also happens to be a good movie - my goodness - they finally got an film adaptation right! And if you want another treat - try the audiobook which is narrated by Frances McDormand who is Miss Pettigrew in the film.

I admit that I saw the film first. And then in the DVD extras, I discovered that the story was based on a book and there were some interesting things about the author. She wrote only six books, all were well received for their time - the 1930's - and Miss Pettigrew attracted much attention when it came out. It was going to be a musical - which is a still a great idea - but World War II started and that stopped that idea.

So knowing that the book is almost always better - and how could you better this movie? - I got a copy of the book. The story is definitely rag to riches. Down ridden governess, Miss Pettigrew has a whirlwind day (there is an hour by hour count down in the book) with an actress, Delysia LaFoss. Besides trying to keep track of Miss LaFoss' many beaus, Miss Pettigrew manages to make a difference. And she discovers this eccentric society life that she has only seen on the silver scene.

The book contains witty dialogue and it is very fast paced. (Gotta be paying attention to who says what.) And that part actually reminded me of another movie - His Girl Friday. And the reader is like Miss Pettigrew - a stranger in a wonderland - trying to figure out whats what and who's who.

Between the lovers and arguments and romantic parings, this book is a whimsical look at a time period that is forever gone. I found it interesting that they showed that in the movie, by having their cocktail party interrupted by overhead flying Spitfires signaling that this fun and fast lifestyle is not going to last. But until then, have another cocktail.

This book and all it's variations are definely fun and frothy. A great read!

Nevada Barr's Ill Wind

2010-06-29T18:20:00.004-05:00

When a fiction writer can make the "where" part of the story into it's own character - that's quite a talent. Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon mystery series takes you into the national parks of the U.S. and makes them come alive. In the book Ill Wind, Barr sets her story in Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park.

As Anna explores the park, it's history and the cliffs, she learns more about her co-workers who live on site and about the ancient Anaszi who once lived there and disappeared long ago. This summer, the park has seen an usually high number of medical emergencies and there is the tragic death of an asthmatic child. Then Anna's coworker is found dead in a kiva in the cliffs. Was it an accident? The ancients? Or something a bit more modern?

She just was becoming friends with the fellow ranger. She thought she knew him, but finds out that everything is not what it seems. When Anna struggles to make sense of what is happening in the park, she also has to take stock of her own personal demons that have come with her to this new work site.

Barr brings the Mesa Verde area to life. I have not been to this park, but I have been to other Anaszi sites in the southwest and she brings the striking beauty alive with her descriptions. Makes you want to pull up pictures on the Internet while you are reading. This series really allows the reader to be an armchair traveler!

It was a fun read. I am looking forward to discovering the others in the series.

Coyote Wind

2010-06-29T17:11:00.004-05:00

Sometimes a book delivers to the reader a glimpse into a different world. Such is the case with Peter Bowen's Coyote Wind. Bowen brings to life a small community of Metis in Montana. The Metis people are a mix of French and native Indian cultures. There are many Metis in Canada and several communities in the United States.

Bowen's lead character is Gabriel Du Pre, a cattle brand inspector, who gets involved in a few investigations because he's the only "law" man available. He also is an excellent tracker and that comes in handy when he is assigned to look into a very old crash site. The mystery is not who was in the plane that went down so long ago, but how the extra skull and finger bones ended up there. And whose bones are they? And how did they end up in the crash site?

In this concise but twisting mystery novel, we discover the widower Gabriel's world of his lover and his two independent children, and his joy of being a fiddler man. It is a rough life but the only one that Gabriel knows, since his family has been in this community since before he was born.

While this book is written in a vernacular which may be hard to read for some, I found it fascinating. And Bowen manages to use this language to show Du Pre's humor. Du Pre is constantly referring to himself as just the "cow ass man", when he grumbles about doing more investigative work or when he is getting yelled at by his superior law officers.

A fun read and a great insight into a different subculture. Can't wait to read the next one.

Keeping Up With a Series - Part 1 - Dead in the Family

2010-06-25T16:05:00.007-05:00

The latest book in the Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series is Dead in the Family. And it proves that even vampires have issues with their relatives. Of course your relatives are not a centuries old vampire from ancient Rome and his latest "child" a haunted Russian boy of a very famous family. Yours might be worse. Or not.

Sookie is having family issues too. She's recovering from the fairy war her great grandfather finished and that she nearly died in. Supposedly the door to the fairy realm has been closed. But she has found out that some have remained behind. And have been on her land. Was it her cousin Claude? He claims not - but he asks to be her roommate for a while...

Lots of things going on in this book, and as in any good saga the reader tries to stay in touch with what has been going on in Sookie's world /community. Some items and scenes of note: Sookie spending time with her little cousin Hunter who hears voices just like she does. Eric trying to stay one step ahead of the latest intrigue in vampire politics. Is his sheriffdom going to last? And he's trying to keep things running smoothly while his "dad" is in town. Sam is having family problems of his own - after the shape shifters have come out to the rest of the world. Are the shape shifters really going to have to be registered with the government? Bill develops a relationship with his modern relatives. And Sookie discovers and finds his "sister" in order to help him recover from the last battle. And just how good has Sookie's and Eric's relationship been lately?

Yep - all this and more. It is a book packed with recovery from the last 'storm' in Sookie's life. And if you read between the lines - or is it just the way Harris is sending us, we can guess some of the major events that might happen in the future. Or not. Harris has a brilliant way of keeping us entertained while we are guessing. And that is one of the reason why this series is so dang good.

I throughly enjoyed my latest glimpse into Sookie's funky universe. And I am eagerly awaiting to see what happens next. But in the meantime I'll enjoy the scenes with Pam (one of my favorite vamps)and Sookie and try not to laugh to loudly. And I'll try to speculate what happens next. It was a very fun and frothy read!

For my other post on the Sookie Stackhouse books - try this link.

Flavia's Back! The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

2010-06-25T16:00:00.001-05:00

Our favorite young sleuth Flavia de Luce is back in her next adventure, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley. She has not abandoned her fascination with the study of poisons. But the famous (or infamous) victim in this book is not killed by poison - or is he? And this latest incident seems to have something to do with the death of another villager and what happened during the war. What will Flavia uncover as she digs around in the past?

I just love Flavia's character. Such joli le vive! Well - maybe not - the first scene has her pretending to be dead in the church graveyard and imaging her sisters and family crying. Ah, the dreams and the revenge of the little sister!

Some other fun points, we get to see what Flavia does to the latest of her sister Ophelia's suitors, and we learn more about her mysterious mother from her spinster aunt who comes to visit. And we get to learn more about the village and people of Bishop's Lacey. A fun frothy read and great sequel. I can not wait for the next one!

If you like to listen to audio books, this is one to try on audio. The narrator, Jayne Entwistle, is just perfect and she really brings Flavia's sarcasm and humor to life.

Best Food Writing 2009

2010-06-15T10:53:00.007-05:00

Collections of non-fiction essays don't sound very hip and cool. They sound like something you're forced to read for Lit class. But if you have an interest in the topic or the theme, they can be great fun and a neat way to discover new authors. If you are an espiring foodie, or just concerned about what you eat, than this is the collection for you. Best Food Writing 2009 is edited by Holly Hughes and I am glad I finally checked it out.

Besides being filled with local authors Monica Eng and Mark Caro from the Chicago Tribune, there are pieces from Ruth Reichl, Calvin Trillian and Marcella Hazan. Some highlights from a great group of essays are: Kate Liesener's on the joy of Marshmallow Fluff and how it is made, Lettie Teague on Wine Scams (very interesting and apparently not that hard to do), Rachel Hutton on the celebrity of Spam, Hugh Garvey on how Tokyo is the cocktail capital of the world (who knew?) and Tim Stark on the misunderstood habanero. (In fact, that essay made me read his book that this excerpt was from - more on that later.)

There are essays on the topics of food and the family, resturants and chefs, home cooks, and the joy of eating. Something for everyone. I can hardly wait for the 2010 edition and meanwhile I am going back and hunting down the older editions. A fun read.

This Book Is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

2010-05-24T18:54:00.009-05:00

Marilyn Johnson's latest work is This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cyberlibrarians Can Save Us All. It is a great overview of what is happening in the library profession. It is a good read for those who want more information about what goes on in libraries. However it has been causing a bit of discussion in library circles.

Like any book on a profession, there will be those who say that it is biased and does not portray things accurately. Of course it doesn't. There are thousands of different libraries out there, and despite everything, they are all run a little bit differently. And librarians come in many shapes, ages and sizes. There is no one size fits all. This book reflects only a small slice of those library lives.

If you are in libraryland, this book will be merely a confirmation of many issues and concepts that you have read about in an professional magazine. You probably have heard about some of these people or have read about them. It might not be news to you. Give it to that relative who thinks you just read at a desk all day. But for those who are not in libraryland - this may be a eye-opening read about what really goes on.

It is obvious that Johnson likes librarians and libraries. She has fallen in love with research, and that has opened her eyes to this other world. Maybe her book will convince some budget makers that libraries are a good investment for your communities' dollars.(Oh but wait - a lot of those policy makers don't read and they will tell you so - scary huh?) Take it out from your library and see what you think. And support your local library.

The Burning Lamp

2010-05-24T18:16:00.005-05:00

Keeping a long running series interesting to it's readers can be a hard thing for a writer to do. Some of the books will sometimes feel rushed and half finished, but others may be just right. Amanda Quick's The Burning Lamp is book eight in the Arcane series by Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz, and it is a good one.

We meet Adelaide Pyne at a young age escaping from a brothel. And taking a mysterious artifact with her. We meet her again as an adult, who has just recently returned from the United States and wearing widow's weeds. She also has been secretly carrying out raids on brothels and rescuing the young girls who are there. She ends up meeting the "Director" of a criminal organization called the "Consortium." Griffin Winters is interested in her because of the raids, but he's even more interested when he finds out that she is a dream light reader and that she has the lamp that was stolen from his murdered parents' home.

Adelaide is not certain what to think of this crime lord, but agrees to help Winters work the lamp to help his paranormal senses and save his sanity. But when their lives are threatened, they must work together to figure out who else wants the lamp and why? Is it another crime lord? Jones and Jones? The Arcane Society?

I think one of the main reasons I like this book is Adelaide's character. It keeps coming out throughout the story that she has had a wilder past (touring with a wild wild west show, etc.) that just being a "social reformer". It makes for an amusing ongoing storyline throughout the book.

Quick/Krentz does a nice job filling in more Arcane lore and filling in gaps from the previous book in the series. I'm looking forward to the next book in the adventure - which she is writing under her Jayne Castle persona. A fun read.

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

2010-03-27T15:29:00.010-05:00

In the book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, Ellen Ruppel Shell writes about how the United States' retail culture has gone from one of value to one of low prices/low quality. And while in today's economy everyone is trying to save a buck, these "savings" start to translate into lost jobs and industries for the USA.

Shell makes a seeming dry topic very interesting - her writing style is clear and concise and her examples allow the average consumer to understand the "bait and switch" game that is going on. Among the chapters, she talks about; the rise of outlet stores that have nothing to do with their corporate parents - except in perceived value, the notion that IKEA is a green company - it's wood suppliers are among the worst in terms of ecology violations, the recent scandal of poisonous toys coming from China and the impact that all this outsourcing of goods is having on foreign workers and American jobs.

If you consider yourself to be frugal or an informed consumer - you should read this book. Worth the time and an enlightened read. It might change the way you shop.

Wild Ride

2010-03-26T13:45:00.009-05:00

Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer manage to do it again in their latest book Wild Ride. With action, adventure, and quirky characters, the paranormal storyline take the reader on one heck of a trip.

Dreamland, an old amusement park in Ohio, needs some work. Mab has been working her butt off restoring the park to it's former glory. Her goal is to have it shining for the Halloween celebrations. But it is a little strange that the owners and long time residents Gloria, Gus, and Delpha don't want her working at night. And they are a bit anxious when she is working with the statues of the park mascots. Especially after FunFun the clown seems to run her over - or was that an illusion she had? Maybe she has been working too hard.

Gloria's son Ethan returns from the military and gets shot at on the Dreamland grounds. Who is after the Dreamland residents? And what is up with the midnight roller coaster run? His mom keeps talking about demons. Ethan might just have to sober up to figure this all out. What do you mean he's the new Hunter?

Using humor, and great plotting, Crusie and Mayer lead the reader down the path to figuring out just how paranormal this family park is. With twists and turns galore, it is indeed a roller coster of a ride. Great dialogue and lots of frothy fun! And it makes one want to visit Dreamland for real! A great read.

Jack Haldean's Post World War I Adventures

2010-03-16T09:39:00.015-05:00

Dolores Gordon-Smith's Jack Haldean mystery series take place in an England that is still shook up from World War I. Polite society still goes on, but beneath the surface there is uncertainty. Veterans who are jobless. War profiteers who have given their fortunes for a peerage. The thousands of missing and dead who never made it home. And the spies who did.

Jack Haldean, former Royal Flying Corps pilot, has managed to eek out a living with his writing skills, contributing to magazines and writing two mystery novels. In A Fete Worse Than Death, he's just trying to relax at his relatives' country house and enjoy the village festival. To his surprise, he sees a former and unpleasant member of his old unit. And it is even more of a surprise, when that nasty fellow is discovered dead later that afternoon. Was it a local who did it? Or is this something left over from the war? Or is it blackmail?

Jack enlists the aid of his cousin and the local police inspector to figure out what happened at the fair and what really happened on a raid on the Somme.

Gordon-Smith has a great character in Jack, and it has been fun following his development and his -sometimes - action adventures. She has a great grasp of the post-war setting. And as a fan of this time period, I'm eagerly awaiting the next one in the series. Lots of fun.

Mad About the Boy (2008)- Jack's aunt and uncle are celebrating their wedding anniversary with a big ball at their country house. One of the guests commits suicide. Or was it murder? With various Russians running about and his cousin Isabelle's beaus hanging around, Jack has more than enough suspects.

As If By Magic (2009) - When Jack finds out an old war chum is in trouble, he comes to the rescue. But his friend's story of seeing a murder, and his tale of a missing legacy, has Jack puzzled. Is this all connected? Or is his friend just damaged from the war?

Adventures in Royalty with Georgie

2010-03-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

Lady Georgiana has some problems. She wants to do something with herself instead of mope around the family's cold Scottish estates. But they have no money and she decides to earn some. It's better than waiting around to be married or being a companion to a great aunt in the middle of nowhere. She's not in great demand - she's only 34th in line for the throne and there's a depression on!

So she goes to stay in the London house (for free!) and get a job. The problem is she doesn't know how to cook, set a fire in the fireplace, or take care of herself. She's a bit naive but willing to learn. After getting fired from Harrod's, she starts a business of being a maid who will "open your London house" for you. With the help of her non-royal grandfather, and her best friend Brenda, she is starting to make it on her own.

But her brother Binky gets accused of murder, and then her cousin the Queen wants her to keep an eye on her cousin David, the Prince of Wales. Hmmm. What's a lady to do?

In Her Royal Spyness, Georgie learns to make her way in the world - she's not stupid - just rather sheltered - and discovers that good manners can get you far. And then someone gets murdered in the house. and he turns out to be a blackmailer. She just has to clear Binky of the charges!

Rhys Bowen has another great series on her hands. Lots of fun and froth. And a bit more information on what was really going on behind the scenes of royalty in the 1930's. Great fun, and I am eagerly awaiting the next one.

Others in the series:

A Royal Pain (2008) Georgie keeps us her cleaning business and the Queen decides to have a foreign princess stay with her. Thank goodness the princess seems to like "Bubble and Squeak".

Royal Flush (2009) After Georgie makes a big mistake by putting the word "escort" in a ad, she gets sent back home to Scotland to with orders to keep an eye on a certain Mrs. Simpson. But it seems someone is injuring royals, even lesser ones!

An Accidental Goddess

2010-03-13T12:31:00.004-06:00

What would happen if you woke up and discovered your ship had been damaged and you're in sick bay? Then you figured out that you had traveled 300 years into the future. And when you notice a shrine - you find out the face is yours! Special Forces Captain Gillaine Davre finds herself in just that position when she reawakens on the Admiral Mack Mararian's space station.

Mack's not sure what to make of this space traveler. He's busy trying to keep the peace and order on a space station set on the edge of his world. And he's trying to keep their enemies out - but there seems to be spies everywhere. Mack is not sure if Gillaine is a spy, but he thinks she attractive.

Gillaine is trying to fix her ship so that she can get out of there. Especially since she had been declared a goddess for her act of bravery that happened over 300 years ago. But she is not your average gal - she has natural powers that can help Mack's struggle. But should she announce herself? And completely denounce 300 years of faith and worship? She never wanted to be a goddess. She just wanted to do her job.

In, An Accidental Goddess, Linnea Sinclair does a great job of combing science fiction, action and romance. As she builds her world, we learn about Mack's latest challenge, and Gillian's background. And soon they find themselves up against a common enemy.

It may feel a little slow to start - but the action gets going soon enough, and Mack and Gilliane are a couple to cheer for. A very fun read!

Some Like It Hot Buttered

2010-02-20T11:22:00.009-06:00

Jeffery Cohen's confection of a mystery, Some Like It Hot Buttered is a fast humorous read. It appeals to the mystery and movie fan. His hero, Elliot, is trying to get his small town movie theater off the ground. The last thing he expected was to find a customer dead in the aisles.

It is good for business - kind of - but Elliot wants to make sure his theater is known for the comedy movies he shows, not deadly popcorn. With suspicions falling on his employees (Sophie, the teenage wannabe goth, is a stitch), Elliot wants this investigation solved. And it doesn't hurt that the local police detective is a nice looking gal. But what about the car attacks when he's riding his bike home at night?

Filled with zingers and movie trivia, this is the first book in the series. Definately fun and frothy. And popcorn worthy! Looking forward to reading the next one.

Fired Up

2010-02-20T11:05:00.007-06:00

Fired Up is Jayne Ann Krentz's latest in her Arcane Series. And it is the first book in the Dreamlight Trilogy. Jack Winters believes he has been affected by the family curse. He needs the legendary Burning Lamp and someone with the talent to read the lamp's dreamlight. Chloe Harper comes from a family that would prefer to remain under the Arcane Society's radar. Her family's talents have usually gotten them in trouble. A little forgery, here. A new identity, there. Jack is convinced that Chloe is the investigator who can find the stolen lamp.

But once they have the lamp the fun has just started. For it seems that several groups of people are after the artifact. And only one of them is the Arcane Society. Can Chloe and Jack lie low in the wilds of Las Vegas long enough for her to try to work the lamp? How many people know about this legend anyway? And how is Fallon Jones involved?

Another fine adventure from Krentz. And a fun introduction to a new talented family - the Harpers. For them, going legit, is the crime! A fun fast read!

Broken Teaglass

2010-01-23T14:27:00.002-06:00

The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault says it is a novel but it is really a mystery. What happens when co-workers find coded clues that makes them think that something is amiss in their quiet workplace? The workplace in question happens to be a dictionary publisher and the clues are words. Is this just a puzzle? Is this just a workplace prank? There are several eccentric people who work here. Is it one of them? And what happens when the slip of paper says murder?

This slowly moving story combines a love of words, a deadly puzzle and a recovery/coming of age story all in one. The author draws you in and involves the reader in the discussion about words (how they change, develop and grow) and the lives of the lexicographers who are working on the changes to the new edition. And was there really a murder?

A very interesting first work by a new author. It will be intriguing to see what she writes next. A book for the word lover and a very fun read.

Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog

2010-01-18T19:36:00.003-06:00

Lisa Scottoline is a crime fiction writer who writes legal mysteries. Imagine my surprise when I discovered her latest book Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman. I did not know that Scottoline also wrote a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. These essays are chick lit for the older gal. And they are full of fun.

You will laugh at her stories of her family - she refers to them as the Flying Scottolines. She has a elderly mother who resists getting an emergency cell phone and refrains from using her hearing aid. Her gay brother who fights with their mother - long distance (the fun bit is that he lives with his mother.) And a daughter who is leaving the nest after graduation. And then there are the animal members of the family - the dogs, cats, pony and chickens. (The stories about the arrival of the chickens is pretty funny.)

And then there are her observations on getting older and suckered into expensive face cream, can one really find decent jeans, and the concept that her car has finally become her house. (I can relate to that one!) She's even figured out how to eat a drive thru salad in the car. As she says "it wasn't pretty."

She writes a bit about her books - and being on a book tour - but mostly these stories are about family life and the wackiness of 21st century America, when having multiple divorces doesn't raise an eyebrow. (She calls her ex's - Thing One and Thing Two!)

Try it - it is a very funny and fast read. Great for a bit of light hearted reading before bedtime. I think I will look for more of her columns online! A very good read.

Blind Justice & the Sir John Fielding Mystery Series

2010-01-05T19:49:00.005-06:00

Sir John Fielding was famous in eighteen century England as a co-founder of London's first police force - the Bow Street Runners. He was also a magistrate who was known for his intellect and fairness. His half brother was the novelist Henry Fielding. And the most remarkable part of his career was that he did all this and he was blind since the age of 19.

Bruce Alexander has created this mystery series around the great "Blind Beak" as he was known. Blind Justice is the first in the series. The narrator of the stories is a thirteen year old, Jeremy, who Fielding saves from jail. Jeremy becomes Sir John's "eyes" and helps him on his missions of justice.

Alexander has a great feel for the historical period and this will be a grittier read of the Georgian/Regency period than some readers will be used to. This is not the beautiful and fancy Regency of romances novels and the Ton. This world is filled with corruption and villains. Some of them get their comeuppance and some get away because of family connections or wealth. Hmm, kind of sounds familiar.

Join Fielding as he deals out justice - one case at a time. I have enjoyed the first three books in the series and looking forward to reading more. A very fun read.

Blind Justice (1994)
Murder in Grub Street (1995)
Watery Grave (1996)

Too Many Cooks

2010-01-04T06:50:00.012-06:00

Since I led a book discussion group on Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, I have will have a number of titles to share. But this one, Too Many Cooks, I am also having fun listening to the audio book of it. It is set very early in the Nero Wolfe series, and in some ways it reflects the era - 1938 - and in some ways it is ahead of its time.

Wolfe is invited to a special gathering of world renowned chefs. He is the guest of honor. That is probably the only reason he will leave his brownstone in New York and travel to a West Virginia spa where the gathering will take place. The chefs are friendly rivals or are they really? When a chef is found dead and several people have declared their interest in seeing him gone, Wolfe gets himself reluctantly involved in the case.

This book is filled with food references and even *gasp* food recipes! Somehow I do not think that most people will be trying to make Terrapin Maryland, but who knows?

One of the more interesting aspects of this book, as a Nero Wolfe fan, is the fact that Archie seems a bit racist (to our "modern" mindset) when referring to the southern blacks who are the backstage workers and cooks at the spa. (But then he has snarky things to say about the chefs too!) But you have to remember this was written in 1938 when that attitude and the language used would have been common. The notable part is that when Nero Wolfe questions the staff about the murder, he treats them with dignity and civility and eventually ends up defending them from retribution from the local sheriff.

A fun read. And a fun book to listen to!

Favorite line of dialogue that I must use in a conversation sometime -

"I didn't see anybody put you away on a shelf to save up for the lord."

Yes, I have fallen behind.

2009-12-30T18:32:00.002-06:00

Yes, my friends, I have fallen behind. But that does not mean I have not been reading and writing. Just reading alot of textbooks and writing essay papers. I am in graduate school and it is taking awhile to adjust.

But I still have been reading - just very lax about posting about it. But as the new year dawns - we will get back on that saddle again. And the next semester doesn't start until Jan 20th!

The 2009 Anthony Awards

2009-10-21T13:08:00.004-05:00

I had the privilege and fun of being present at the Anthony Awards that were presented at Bouchercon in Indianapolis this past weekend.
Here are the winners!

Best Novel: THE BRASS VERDICT, by Michael Connelly

Best First Novel: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson

Best Paperback Original: STATE OF THE ONION, by Julie Hyzy

Best Short Story: "A Sleep Not Unlike Death" by Sean Chercover (from HARDCORE HARDBOILED)

Best Critical/Nonfiction: ANTHONY BOUCHER: A BIBLIOGRAPHY, by Jeffrey Marks

Best Children's/Young Adult: THE CROSSROADS, by Chris Grabenstein

Best Cover Art: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, designed by Peter Meselund

Special Service Award: Jon & Ruth Jordan

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees! It was great seeing that there were two Chicagoland connections - Julie Hyzy and Sean Chercover. We knew they were good. Now everyone else knows they are too!

Never Thought I'd Join a Bandwagon, But Then I Read Charlaine Harris

2009-10-08T19:56:00.008-05:00

Yep, the header says it all. I have fallen into obsession with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books. I started tentatively. Finally got a hold on the first one - Dead Until Dark - and read it straight through. I loved Sookie, loved her issues and her "disability" as she called it. Oh and there were vampires. I'm not a HUGE vampire fan and I was not sure quite what to expect. But in Harris' world, it seems normal and logical and matter of fact. That folks, is called good writing. She created a funky world with back story and a multitude of characters that continue to be fleshed out (no irony with that word) throughout the series.

As I have flown through the books (I admit I still have one more to go - but then there are NO more til a new one comes out and besides it is really interrupting my sleep and my grad student class), I have marvelled how creative this world is, and how Sookie is a sensitive person regardless of what happens to her. That delicacy of feeling that you find in the books makes me extremely vary of seeing the TV show made from her work (True Blood). I just don't think you can "act" that stuff.

So why am I so surprised that I like these books? These books have been hyped a lot lately, and if I had a dollar for every book that was hyped that I did not care for - well, I would be very well off indeed! But nope, I have been seduced into staying up til 2 in the morning and not caring. That my friends is what a book obsession is all about. Harris is a talented gal. I have read her other series before this and have enjoyed them as well. (I met her once at a mystery convention - very nice lady too!)

Sookie's just a waitress in a tiny town in Louisiana. People think she is stupid because she has trouble concentrating - well that's because she hears everyone's thoughts all the time. Kind of like non stop chatter in your head. When she meets her first vampire - Bill - she delightedly discovers that she can not hear his thoughts. And he and the other vampires discover there is more to her than what you just see on the surface. It is really a saga about discovering another world and being valued for the talents that others see in you. Join the adventures. Just make sure you start reading early so you can get to bed at a reasonable hour. Because you are not going to want to stop. Trust me. A very fun and good read. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Dead Until Dark (2001)
Living Dead in Dallas (2002)
Club Dead (2003)
Dead to the World (2004)
Dead as a Doornail (2005)
Definitely Dead (2006)
All Together Dead (2007)
From Dead to Worse (2008)
Dead and Gone (2009)

A Touch of Dead (2009) short stories

Holmes on the Range

2009-10-03T09:53:00.002-05:00

Meet the Amlingmeyers. A pair of brothers riding the range from one grub stake to the next. Are they just obsessed cowpokes thinking about food, smokes, horses, women and more food? Nope. Old Red (Gustav) and Big Red (Otto) have other things on their mind. Like detecting. Just like that Sherlock fellow. Welcome to the world of Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith.

Old Red's obsession with all things Holmes - read to him by his brother from Harper's Magazine - leads them to adventure. The slightly shady outfit they have signed up with - the Bar VR - ends up having two deaths on the premises. And the foreman really does not seem to care since everyone is supposed to be preparing for the arrival of the foreign owners of the ranch. Just who is lying to whom? And just what is going on with the ranch finances and stock? And those fancy English folks might have a hand in this mess too.

Hockensmith's characters are great fun. The story is told in Big Red's voice and he is a perfect doubting Thomas about his brother's detection skills. But he will stand by him as a loyal "Watson" and family member should. Old Red sometimes doubts himself - he is just an average uneducated cowboy - but he has studied his hero Holmes' methods.

With wonderful characters and a twisty plot, this series is off to a great start. I'm eager to read the rest. A very fun read!

Another Fast Romantic Read

2009-09-23T19:01:00.003-05:00

It is a quick read, but a fun one. Janelle Denison's book Heat Waves is a nice crisp romance. Erica has a radio show in Chicago. Her "hook" is that she talks about sex. But all her knowledge - she crams before each show - is tested when she gets a regular caller, Ian. They have a bit of chemistry on air. And when he challenges her - and the result is a date - the getting to know you part begins.

But Erica is not sure she wants Ian to see the woman behind the radio personality. Does he even want to? Ian wants to know more about this talented woman. And the rest of Chicago gets to listen in while the ratings for her show soar.

Denison does a great job giving us a pair of real people, with real problems and back stories. Everything is not solved instantly and they do have to decide how they can develop their relationship. Bringing in a bit of "on air" sexy talk adds to the humor. A fun frothy read. A keeper.

Books, Obsessions and Real Life

2009-09-23T18:47:00.003-05:00

I have been reading a ton of stuff! But it is not here. SIGH! I'm working on catching up. And I've been in a book obsession. I blame it all on that. The staying up til 2 am on a work night. Sorry - I don't have the bounce back that I used to.

Having a book obsession is a rare and wonderful thing. The book, the setting, the characters have entranced you. The author has seduced you into their written world and you could care less about what time it is. All you want to know is - WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! ! !

Yes - obsessed. It doesn't happen as often as you think. So enjoy it, tolerate it, cope with it. And it will fade.

Until the next time...

When Your Lie about Your Age, The Terrorists Win

2009-08-08T13:50:00.006-05:00

Humor is very subjective. And things that did not make you laugh when you were twenty, may make you keel over with laughter when you're forty. Life changes you, I guess. Or maybe your ability to laugh at yourself.

In the book, When Your Lie about Your Age, The Terrorists Win: Reflections on Looking in the Mirror, Carol Leifer manages to do just that. She looks at her life and just laughs. Leifer, a stand up comedienne, and writer for shows like Seinfeld and the Larry Sanders Show, shows us a snapshot of her life as it is at 50 years of age.

Some of her observations:
- She claims that "after 40 the body develops a wicked sense of humor".
- "You may not rationalize eating an entire pint of ice cream by claiming it was for the calcium."
- The sunny side of the street is the one with the threat of cancer on it."

With these silly bits how can you go wrong? A very fun quick read - but a sense of wry humor is a must!

Fast Reads in Romance

2009-08-08T13:06:00.005-05:00

I've been studying category romances with a formal genre study group and have discovered some lovely ones. Nice quick romances and a romantic suspense one, too. So here are some brief reviews.

Yours, Mine...Or Ours? by Karen Templeton
Two families come together by circumstances and finances, to help restore a battered inn in New Hampshire. The heroine is a local with two small kids, and our hero is an ex-cop with a teen-age daughter who is taking a chance on his dream of owning a B&B. A good story that mixes realism with the romance.

In Safe Hands by Linda Conrad
A fast paced romantic suspense tale. She's trying to find the relatives of the child she has fostered. He is trying to find his brother who is missing. Their quests collide and they team up to find the answers. It takes place in southern Texas near the border, and has a paranormal element in the "second sight" that runs in her family.

Once Upon a Valentine's by Holly Jacobs
She meets him when she sets her ex's couch on fire in her backyard. He is one of the first responders. She has to do community service with his fire department outreach team. She's trying to finish her nursing boards, take care of her kids, and plan the next PTA party which happens to be for Valentine's Day. A nice group of characters who take the time to get to know each other. A good mix of realism with the romance.

The Right Mr. Wrong by Cindi Myers
She is a recovering skiing champion, so what is she doing on ski patrol? He's the foreign playboy of the patrol who never dates the locals. While she's recovering trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, they get to know each other past the dubious first impressions. Nice details about the skiing community and their co-workers. A good story about people who have been hurt who are slowly working out a relationship.

And speaking of snow, Winter's Heat is a fun anthology with stories from Vicki Lewis Thompson, Jade Lee and Anna DeStefano. It asks the question - just what happens to people who win a free all expenses paid romantic weekends to a brand new skiing resort? Especially if they entered as a joke, don't have anyone to come with them, or bring their gay best friend since they don't have a boyfriend. Problems arise when the press and a guest celebrity complicates matters. Will this weekend be fun? Or just a disaster?

What Happens in London

2009-08-01T14:55:00.008-05:00

Julia Quinn's books always seem to have a quirky element that makes them different. And I mean that in a good way. I'm trying to decide exactly what that is. It probably is a few different factors. She writes well, she has witty dialog between her lead characters, she lets her lovers get to know each other, and she sneaks in secondary characters that leave you wanting their story next. It sounds so easy. She makes it read so easy. But it is not. That my friends, is why her books work.

What Happens in London is her latest, and it features Olivia and Harry. Olivia is very lovely lady, but really has not found that special someone to wed. Harry meets her by chance and at first glance they do not really like each other. It probably doesn't help that he thinks she is a beautiful twit and she's heard gossip that he's killed his fiancee. And it does not help that Olivia has taken to spying on him - since he's next door - and has discovered he does have some secrets. Having your neighbor notice that you're spying does make it a bit awkward the next time you meet them at a ball.

Harry does Russian translation for the British government and ends up being assigned to watch Olivia since her latest suitor seems to be a Russian prince that the government wants to watch. Hence, he ends up meeting with Olivia more than he ever intended. Their dialog of getting to know each other and to like each other - really sets this book apart.

Filled with a mix of various quiet scenes and some hilarity - the scene of Harry's cousin enacting a Gothic novel for the Prince and the household is pretty funny - the future lovers grow to appreciate each other. And isn't that what a romance is supposed to be about? A very good read.

Catching up with Hannah Swensen and the Gang

2009-07-25T13:24:00.006-05:00

Following characters through a series sometimes feels like trying to keep up with your distant friends' latest news. Some of the ongoing characters make you laugh. And some will amaze you with the changes in their character or their latest hobbies. But they feel like old pals that you want to spend some more time with. And when it comes down to it - that is the work of the talented skills of the author, who makes her readers enjoy these fictional friends.

Joanne Fluke who writes the Hannah Swensen mysteries series manages to keep her series fresh and full of life with her engaging characters. Hannah is still baking away at her bakery business, The Cookie Jar, and she is still the one most likely to find a dead body in her tiny town of Lake Eden, Minnesota.

In the Key Lime Pie Murder, she finds the dead body at the local county fair and has to waste a lovely Key Lime pie in her discovery. (Disclosure here - I love Key Lime pie and to have it fall to the ground! What a tragedy! What a waste! Sigh!) And she has to sleuth while being a judge for the various baked goods contests, supplying goodies for another booth and getting hooked into being a magician's assistant.

During the Carrot Cake Murder, she's just helping out a friend at one of the biggest family reunions in area. And she manages to find the prodigal relative who reappeared for the reunion, dead in the main building where the festivities are taking place. Talk about problems with the relatives. There are more than a few suspects here.

The latest outing for Hannah is the Cream Puff Murder. She's on a diet with a vengeance - she's trying to fit in a dress her mother ordered for her - and she finds the fitness instructor dead in the gym's jacuzzi. The instructor (a reoccurring character) had a lot of male fans but basically most of the females and wives in town did not care for her. But who took their threats to the next level? And how come most of the police force had to be taken off the case?

Amidst the sleuthing, comes the latest tidbits about Hannah's family, who help her hunt out the latest gossip on the deceased. And we get the updates on her love life (Will she ever make a decision between Norman and Mike? This last book may have a clue!) and her beloved fat cat Moishe. And then there are the recipes. One word. YUM! Can you tell that I like this series? A very good read.

Wicked Plants

2009-07-25T10:43:00.005-05:00

Have you threatened to poison someone lately? Apparently it is easier to do than you think. (Not that I'm suggesting anything of course!) But in the book, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart, you can get a lot of information about dangerous plants and their nasty and lethal side effects.

Everything from Castor beans, Arrow poisons and deadly Nightshade is covered here. Stewart and her illustrators make the details very plain. This tree bark will kill you, this plant will try, and this one can be found in every backyard on your block. Hmmm. Maybe a plant identification session of your yard is in order. Stewart makes the seemingly dry topic interesting, informative and entertaining. This well written and researched book is a great resource your botany shelf. Perfect for those mystery writers who are trying to get rid of a character!

This book makes you want to heed what your mother used to say; "you do not know where that's been, don't put that in your mouth!" A very good read.

Confections of a Closet Master Baker: A Memoir

2009-07-14T10:30:00.002-05:00

Confections of a Closet Master Baker: A Memoir by Gesine Bullock-Prado is not your typical foodie book. Going from Hollywood to a bakery in Vermont might not be the regular career path that everyone takes, but Gesine isn't everyone. She's Sandra Bullock's younger sister and was involved with her production company. But her passion is baking. And that is what kept rearing it's head in La La Land.

Rather then the stories of Hollywood, what I really loved about the book was her stories of growing up in Germany - her mother was an opera singer there, and staying with her relatives. And her German pastries! (Yum! I'm not a big baker - but even I'm encouraged to try some of the easier recipes in here.) When Gesine makes her transition to full time baker, she finds she feels closer to her deceased mother through her memories of baking with her.

I really like the reminiscing in this book and thinks Gesine tells her tale well. Now if I can just get her to send me a batch of macaroons... A good read.

Death Will Get You Sober

2009-07-14T10:25:00.012-05:00

Sometimes a book will take you into a subculture that you have never really paid that much attention to before. And the reason for the non-attention may just be that it never touched your life or your family or was even brought to your notice. (We humans are really a self-absorbed group.) So Death Will Get You Sober by Elizabeth Zelvin is not your average mystery set in New York City. It's main character, Bruce, is a recovering alcoholic. We first meet him in the detox unit at the Bowery. He's just starting to get out of his latest bender. It takes him awhile to realize that the two deaths happened while he was there (one of which was his roommate who seemed "perfectly" fine) were not deaths by natural or in this case known chemical causes. The deaths were dismissed as the casualties of a lifetime of drinking. But were they really? And what about those other deaths of long time alcoholics at those other detox centers? Were these people just being written up as the latest statistic?

Zelvin (who is a practicing psychotherapist) has run a detox center. She knows of what she writes about and she does it with respect, and manages to bring a bit of humanity to both sides of the detox situation - both the workers who trying to get the alcoholics sober and the alcoholics themselves. There are no "bad guys/good guys" here. And who knew that there were so many AA meetings throughout NYC?

I really enjoyed the characters and founding myself rooting for Bruce as he struggled through his multiple AA meetings. His pals, Jimmy and Barbara are quirky couple: him with his obsession with computers and her trying not to be an enabler. I found Barbara's character very compelling because I felt that I knew people who were like her - one who never said no and never wanted to make a scene. I found myself by the end of this really nicely paced read, wondering what happened in next book to these people. And will Bruce make it being sober? Looking forward to the next one. A very good read.

The Naked Baron

2009-07-14T09:57:00.003-05:00

I believe it is a testimony to an author's plotting skill, when one finds a romance that really has two storylines going on and it works. Sally MacKenzie in her book The Naked Baron, does it quite well, thank you very much. We are introduced right away to Grace and Dawson - the younger couple. She is unsure and feeling ungainly since she is a woman of size and stature in a group of petite debutants. Dawson is not a fan of petite twits and when Grace comes on the scene he feels that this is the one. The older couple, Grace's Aunt Kate who is newly widowed and Dawson's Uncle Alex - a bachleor - find themselves facing each other accross a ballroom after many years. Their previous relationship did not end well. Kate was forced to marry someone else, and Alex has never really recovered from it. It is obvious the attraction is still there.

Will Grace take a chance on Dawson? Will she even realize Aunt Kate has had a past love? (She's a bit overwhelmed with Dawson at the moment.) Will it be okay in the end? Join the fun with these lively and likeable characters. I've just discovered this author and I'm hoping to read some more of her work. A fun and frothy read.

Simenon's Maigret

2009-07-06T19:37:00.004-05:00

Georges Simenon's classic mystery character is Chief Inspector Maigret. It's hard reviewing a "classic". Is it classic because it is timeless? (These stories are fairly timeless.) Or is it a classic because the author was in the right time and place in the fiction - in this case - mystery timeline?

I read two books featuring Maigret. The first was Maigret Goes Home. He goes back to solve a murder in the village where he grew up. Most of the locals do not remember him. But he remembers the murder victim - the Countess of the estate that he grew up on. Maigret's main detecting style is to ask a lot of questions and wait to see what shakes loose. And while he is waiting he watches village life slowly pass by.

The other book was Maigret and the Hotel Majestic. Set in a Paris luxury hotel, the setting is bustling and frantic. The guests come in, the help makes them comfortable and the process starts again. A bit of a bump is caused when one of those guests is found murdered in the kitchen staff's area. Why would this elegant lady be down there? Who was she really? And who knew her before she was so rich and important? It is a story of youthful loves, dreams and abandoning it all to reach more practical goals. Maigret is well known in this local, but finds himself digging into the pasts of guests and staff alike. Again, he asks all the questions and sees what rises to the surface.

I liked the second better book much better than the first. Once I finally figured out Maigret's style, I think I finally understood the author's pacing. Simenon has tried to make his books a representation of France as he had known it. The timeless cafes, coffees and cigarettes. He succeeded so well - that the Hotel book contains no clue as to when it was written - during the occupation of Paris in World War II. But that does not interfere with Maigret. Perhaps that is why he is a classic. A good read.

Candace Camp's Matchmaker series

2009-06-22T19:43:00.004-05:00

Candace Camp has finished her fourth book in her Matchmaker series. And I just finished reading them all. (Yes, it was a bit of a marathon weekend.) It is great to read a romance series that:
1.) isn't too long
2.) has some great continuing characters - Francesca and Irene are my favorites
3.) has a mix of the "reality" of the time period with the froth and gloss
4.) and may have a bad guy to mess up the romance - but it's not necessarily an outsider. Nasty relatives were around in history too, folks.

The Marriage Wager is Dominic and Constance's story. Francesca, a lovely fashionable widow, takes a bet from the Duke, that she can make over the dowdy Constance. Constance takes the chance that the season can bring her more than just chaperoning her younger cousins. She doesn't even imagine that she could fall in love with Francesca's brother Dominic. He is supposed to be looking for an heiress. Nice steady lead characters.

The Bridal Quest is Francesca's next task. How can she find a wife for Gideon? He's a long lost heir that was finally found. He grew up on the streets and his relatives are trying to tame him by getting him married. Irene has not had a good view of marriage and is not interested in getting a husband. Her plain speaking has not won her many fans. But Francesca thinks Irene can help her to get Gideon to be more like a gentleman. These are some great characters - fairly unusual for romance and this book has a bit of a mystery element too.

The Wedding Challenge has Francesca finding a husband for her ex-fiance's sister. Callie wants to get married but is tired of all the fortune hunters who want to wed a Duke's sister. She manages to find Bromwell herself, but she doesn't know his family's past history with her brother. But who is telling the truth? Brom or her brother Sinclair? There are some great scenes in this book. While the leads are good, you can tell that this book sets up the next one with Francesca and Sinclair.

The Courtship Dance is finally Sinclair and Francesca's story. And I think the best one in the bunch. We finally get some answers to their early romance, and Francesca's own unhappy marriage. She feels she has let the Duke down and decides she is going to find him a suitable wife. He decides to let her, but he really only wants her. Some great characters who deal truthfully with their past lives and troubles. You will find that you are really rooting for them by the end of the story. A most satisfying read.

And there you have it. A strong romance series. Some great leads, some fun secondary characters - love the great-aunt Lady Odelia - and some good story lines. Some very fun and frothy reads.

Pel and the Faceless Corpse

2009-06-20T14:43:00.003-05:00

Mark Hebden's Inspector Pel series features a lead character who a bit of a worry wart. Pel is concerned about his digestive system, his hostile television addict of a housekeeper and his smoking habit. But he isn't worried about murder. It happens and he solves it with his team. How pragmatic. How French.

This case, Pel and the Faceless Corpse, brings Pel to a tiny town in the mountains, where outsiders are easily noticed and memories of the war (WWII) are long. The dead man is an outsider, but because of the way he was murdered it is hard to tell who he is. Maybe the better question is who do the locals think he is? He was found at the base of a monument dedicated to the local group of Resistance fighters who were shot during the war. Was he a Nazi or just a German? For some the label is enterchangable. Pel and his team must straighten out the past, and look into the rumors of money that the Germans lost when they left the town. Who is telling the truth?

Pel is a engaging character and his team provides a bit of realism that some mysteries do not. And it is an interesting view of small town France. I would like to take a look at other books in the series. A good read.

Busman's Honeymoon

2009-06-20T13:53:00.006-05:00

I have a habit of not reading the last book in a series. I put off the inevitable because I usually want the author or the characters to go on and on. The last book seems so final. (Nowadays it is possible for them to go on and on because the author's estates sell the rights to the name or the character.) But in this case Dorothy L. Sayers concentrated on writing other things and gave us the last Lord Peter Wimsey book entitled Busman's Honeymoon. However in the 1937 version that I read, the book is subtitled A Love Story with Detective Interruptions. And that gives the reader a big clue that this particular Wimsey book is not going to be all about finding evidence.

At the beginning, we find Lord Peter and Harriet Vane attempting to finalize their long romance by marrying. It sounds much easier than it is, with the press hounding them and Peter's sister-in-law making plans that no one wants. How ever they manage to do the deed and slip off to the countryside to their new country home. The new home is not all that is it was promised to be, and with the help of Bunter, Lord Peter's man, the happy couple has a lovely evening just the same. However the following day brings a corpse in the basement and it embroils them in a local mystery that they can not get away from.

But along with the mystery, Sayers gives the characters time to figure out some things about their marriage. How will they go on? Will Harriet accept that Peter will always have to have his hand in a case? Will Peter remember to keep her involved? They are trying to figure out their new roles and how Bunter, the man of all trades, fits into the mix.

Sayers gives us a realistic ending. Lord Peter has never been very good with the end result of a case. In those days, they hung murderers. It usually brought back memories of the war (WWI) for him. But this time he has Harriet to help him. A very good read.

CookOff: Recipe Fever in America

2009-06-20T13:08:00.005-05:00

Do you watch eagerly any and all cooking competitions on the Food Network? Do you dream of entering the Pillsbury BakeOff? If so then Amy Sutherland's book Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America is for you. Sutherland captures the history, enthusiasm and a bit of the wackiness that is inherent in these contests that are promoted as being all American. But do these contests really reflect what America eats? Or is this a case of the contestants giving the big food conglomerates what they want? And are they really cooking anyway? Or just assembling ingredients?

Sutherland delves into all those questions and many more as she follows contestants to the Pillsbury, garlic fest and other cook offs and well as a couple chili competitions. Just who are these people who compete? Some are what they call "contesters" people who have been doing this for quite a while. (Pillsbury has limits now on how many years you can compete at the contest - three!) Some are fresh faced newcomers just thrilled to be at their first contest. Most of the branded contests have women as the majority of their contestants. Men on the other hand dominate the chili and BBQ contests.

Sutherland has a great way of making these folks come alive in her writing. And she shows them to be very human with all their foibles, humor and passion. Most of these people love food and love to be creative in the kitchen. And it shows. Check out the mania and maybe you too will compete. A very entertaining read.

Murder in the Marais

2009-06-13T13:19:00.004-05:00

Cara Black starts off her series with lead character Aimee Leduc in the book Murder in the Marais. What starts out as a simple and overpaid job of hunting down a encripted website, ends up becoming a case of murder. Aimee finds the body and sets in motion an investigation that goes all the way up to the top level of French politics.

The Marais is the traditionally Jewish section of Paris. And this is where the French Jews were rounded up during the occupation. Memories are long for injustices, and Aimee finds she is sifting through the history of the occupation in order to find out who would want an elderly Jewish woman murdered and who wants her to stop investigating.

This is a fast paced story but Black gives the reader enough time to get to know Aimee and her unusal background. Black hints at the fact that Aimee has secrets of her own that will be revealed in later books. Aimee is a tough character who has been trained by her recently deceased father in the art of detection. And it does not take the reader long to admire her tenacity and skill at going undercover to figure out the case. I'm looking forward to reading the next one in the series. A good mystery and a very good read.

Seven Ages of Paris

2009-05-30T15:21:00.004-05:00

If you decide that you have forgotten anything you have learned about French history, or if you have decided that you are woefully ignorant of the French in general, you need to take a look at Alistair Horne's book Seven Ages of Paris.

In a fairly concise and enlivening book, Horne takes us on a whirlwind journey through the ages of Parisian life. This is definitely his view on things. But his view is a very good one - and it helps the ignorant like, yours truly, get a handle on the magnificent city that is Paris. From 358 AD to the rise of Mitterand, he gives us the politics, the people, architecture and artists that have given rise to the current "City of Lights." And he manages to interconnect them all as he goes along.

He has a bit of a "chatty" style for a historian, but he reminds you of the friend that is really going to tell you the highlights of what you need to know and nevermind the rest. I was amazed that his writing drew me in and kept me reading in the great saga that is PARIS! I was a bit disappointed by the lack of information about the French Revolution - a bit sketchy there - but the discussion of the aftermath, kept me from protesting. And besides he did tell you he was going to do the history - his way. An excellent book to look at the history of an exciting city. Viva la France!

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

2009-05-29T10:49:00.006-05:00

When the dead body of a stranger lies in the garden of an disheveled ancient family home, what's an eleven year old girl with a passion for chemistry (and a unnatural knowledge of poisons) supposed to do? Solve the mystery of course. Welcome to Flavia's world.

Flavia de Luce is 11 going on 4o. She's the neglected youngest daughter of an absent minded stamp collector in Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. With her trusty bicycle Gladys, Flavia is determined to solve this crime. When her father is charged with the murder, it becomes even more important. She doesn't realize that the investigation will lead her to finding out more about her father's past.

Bradley does an excellent job showing us an eccentric dysfunctional family and manages to make it seem "normal" to Flavia. And when her older sisters lock her up in a closet or tell her she was really brought home as a baby from a store, she does what any normal youngest child does. She takes revenge. She just does it a little differently, with poison ivy in a lipstick.

I'm excited that this is to be a series. There are too many de Luce family secrets that have been hinted at and need to be uncovered. As a reader, I am looking forward to seeing Flavia and her sisters growing up in this odd environment. A very fun read!

Monsieur Pamplemousse - A Gastronomic Sleuth

2009-05-11T20:22:00.006-05:00

The world knows author Michael Bond for his creation of Paddington Bear. But have you heard of his other literary creation for adults - Monsieur Pamplemousse? Monsieur Pamplemousse is a man of many talents. He was on the National Police force - but there was that chorus girls scandal in Paris (but no specifics - hmmm). He is now working undercover for Le Guide - the premier French publication which rates restaurants and food establishments throughout France. He brings along his dog Pomme Frites, on his food excursions in French countryside. He is a bit annoyed when his much awaited special dinner, is served with a fake human head. Has this renowned restaurant gone down hill? Mon dieu!

This series of adult books are bawdy bits of fun. Is it the French? Or Mr. Bond's quirky sense of humor? These are characters to be savored and enjoyed. Even Pomme Frites' has something to say. The mysteries are solved in the end, but the wacky winding and funny road it took to get there - well, c'est la vie. Definitely fun and frothy.

So far I've read:
Monsieur Pamplemousse
Monsieur Pamplemousse and the Secret Mission

Fortunes' Kiss

2009-05-09T10:35:00.003-05:00

Lisa Manuel's book, Fortunes' Kiss, seems like it might be a standard historical romance, but it has enough quirks in it for a reader to sit up and take notice. Moira is trying to find out about her late stepfather's will. Having no male relative to step forward for her, she goes to London herself to see the new Baron and figure out what monies are left to her and her mother. She doesn't figure on the new heir being the slightly notorious Graham Foster, adventurer and Egyptian antiques expert.

Estranged from his family, Graham is not happy about returning to England. And he definitely is not happy when Moira accuses him of stealing her inheritance. But he starts to help her find out what happened and in the process she helps him and his family adjust to their new situation.

This book has some nicely done quirky characters (some great scenes with Graham's pet Sun Spider), and the leads are nicely normal. The author makes them very appealing and the reader wants them to succeed and solve their puzzle. A fun read.

Blow Me Down - a Virtual Romance!

2009-05-09T10:17:00.002-05:00

What if you got trapped in a virtual reality game? Would you panic? Would you be able to support yourself as you went through the "game?" Just what are the rules in this new world? Kate MacAlister deals with those issues in her book, Blow Me Down.

Amy is just trying to relieve some tension by playing her daughter's virtual reality game. She just thinks she is playing the part of a wench in this pirate world called Buckling Swashes. And she doesn't realize she is trapped until she meets up with Black Corbin who recognizes her as a fellow real person and not a game character. He thinks she is great even when she bests him in a duel. She thinks he is arrogant but realizes he knows the rules since he was one of the games programmers. And he thinks he know how they got trapped in the game.

On a island filled with pirates, taverns, and houses of ill repute, Amy finds herself using a sword again, learning how to sail a sloop, and trying to organize a finance system for a local brothel. And teaming up with Corbin leads her to wonder - if he likes her in the VR world, will he like her in the real world? A fun and frothy good time.

Murder on the Eiffel Tower

2009-04-26T14:37:00.006-05:00

Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner is a wonderful book that combines history and mystery to produce a fun work of fiction. We are immersed from the beginning in the 1889 World Exposition in Paris. The entire city is focused on the new Eiffel Tower and the exposition. The joy and the excitement of going up to the viewing platforms has visitors in a frenzy. And when someone is murdered on the platform, the case makes front page news. But who would murder a maiden aunt taking her niece and nephews on an outing? Victor Legris, a young bookseller, is on the platform with newspaper friends when this happens and wants to find the culprit. And when more people start dying after visiting the viewing platforms and the exposition, he is determined to solve the case - even as his friends are turning into suspects.

The author (really a pen name for two lady booksellers in modern France) brings to life the Paris of the time, and Victor's occupations as bookseller and book critic. Victor is a compelling character who is trying to be modern but finds he is more conservative than he thinks he is. With a cast of interesting secondary characters, the story allows us a brief glimpse into their world. And we had a wonderful time. A very fun read.

The Perfect Poison

2009-04-26T14:07:00.006-05:00

The Arcane Society continues in Amanda Quick's The Perfect Poison. Quick (who is Jayne Ann Krentz) has written her sixth book in the series - the third historical one. And much to this reader's joy - she keeps the excitement in the series. (Can I tell you how many times books within a long series, have clunkers through out because the author can not keep up the quality?)

Finally Quick brings us Colin's story. Colin Jones' talent is a difficult one - he has a talent for strategy and making connections. He sees the patterns in his head and connects the dots so that the Society and his new project, Jones and Company can figure out what is going on in the battle for the founder's formula. He doesn't have Miss Lucinda Bromley in his pattern however.

Lucinda has a talent for botany - more specifically figuring out what botanic ingredients have been combined to create potions for good or for evil. She's been helping a member of Scotland Yard, with various cases that involve poisons and she discovers that one of the ingredients she has figured out was stolen from her greenhouse. She decides to enlist Jones and Company to find out who the thief is and where is her plant. She also has a bit of a reputation - she is rumored to have poisoned her fiance, and wants things handled as quickly as possible. When they meet - they end up surprising each other - with their talents and intelligence. And when Colin figures out her thief is connected to his quest - the hunt is on.

Quick once again gives us great characters, with pithy dialogue and a roller coaster ride of a plot. And she brings us an excellent subplot of an Arcane Society matchmaker in action. (It would be fun to have her again in another book!) Along the way she manages to deftly fill in more details about the Jones family, the Arcane Society, their history, and their members' talents. I can hardly wait for the next installment! A very good read!

Fool's Puzzle

2009-04-26T13:48:00.003-05:00

When you are reading the first book in a series, you hope for the best. The best would be that you are interested enough in the character, her surroundings and situations to continue reading the rest of the books in the series. The worst would be that nothing touched the reader enough to bother looking up the next book in the series. I'm here to say that Earlene Fowler's Fool's Puzzle has brought out the best.

Benni Harper is a widow who has taken up the job of a director of a small town folk-art museum. The museum also rents out studio space to various artists. Benni happens to stumble upon one - a dead one - when she is supposed to be setting up for her first quilt exhibition. Was it a former boyfriend? A stranger? Blackmail? Benni keeps getting hints from the local police chief to leave it alone. But as she asks more questions, she keeps finding more clues about what happened the night her husband died.

Fowler sets up a series filled with an interesting location - a farming/cattle area in small town California, quirky characters - her best friend Elvia is a stitch, and a question of romance between the Hispanic police chief and Benni. She leaves the reader wanting to know what happens next to these folks. A good read.

Traveling with Carolyn Blue

2009-04-18T12:36:00.009-05:00

Sometimes when you find a "new" mystery series you get the urge to run out and read all the books in order, right away, because you are obsessed with the characters, theme or the setting. And because you are reading a series, you might shortly discover that the author might have a "formula" or "pattern" in their books. And the books might all seem similar. This is what is known as a genre, folks! (Some people may say there are only 6 stories - just told over and over and over again!) And in crime/mystery fiction somebody usually solves a murder/puzzle/crime. The art is in creating scenarios and characters that the reader wants to come back to.

I have been whipping through Nancy Fairbanks' books with the food writer/academics wife/mom Carolyn Blue. I had read the first one for it's New Orleans connection a while ago (see early posting). But now I needed to read her books about traveling to France - Death a L'Orange and French Fried. (And now I've been sucked into reading them all!) And travel we did. One book is set in the city of Lyons, the other in Paris and the surrounding countryside on a tour with a bunch of not so nice academics.

We can identify with Carolyn because she is an underestimated sleuth. She's the nondescript over 40+ lady who is supposed to stay in the background. But she doesn't and that is when she gets in to trouble or when the humor begins. In Chocolate Quake, she ends up on the back of a motorcycle to go interview a guy in a pool hall nicknamed Spider. Holy Guacamole has Mrs. Blue crossing the Mexican border by her hometown of El Paso with a female ex-vice cop and ends up being her partner in bounty hunting. (Pretty darn funny scene.)

I like reading travel narratives and this is really what these mysteries are about. (And it is a cheap way to travel!) Carolyn talks about and notices the food, but then that is her specialty and profession. She is my kind of traveler - looking at the cultural aspects of the area while having studied the history of the town etc. That is how I travel - which may be why I enjoy these so much. Are these realistic? Well - the travel part is pretty real - and she exposes the reader to sights that they may not have know about. It is a travel guide? No - but it is a heck of a good read. I'm up to the Mozzarella title and having a fun frothy time. A fun read with some quirky characters. Enjoy.

Crime Brulee
Truffled Feathers
Death a L’Orange
Chocolate Quake
The Perils of Paella
Holy Guacamole
Mozzarella Most Murderous
Three-Course Murder
Bon Bon Voyage
French Fried
Turkey Flambe

Dream a Little Dream

2009-04-14T09:55:00.003-05:00

Dream a Little Dream by Susan Elizabeth Phillips is a story about redemption and healing. Gabe Bonner just wants to be left alone after the death of his wife and son. Rachel Stone is a widow, trying to stand on her own and survive with her son. She is trying to create a new life for herself that has nothing to do with the life she lead as the younger wife of a "take the money and run" preacher. Gabe doesn't want her son near him. It reminds him too much of his dead son.

Phillips is a writer who has a way with snappy dialogue and humor, but she has chosen topics that are not easy. Recovering from religious betrayal is not a popular topic in romance books. But she tackles it with grace and sensitivity. Rachel can be seen as just trying to grab her share of the pie, but Phillips shows us that beneath the tough shell, she is a person who has doubts and fears. She also tackles the topic of trying to have a relationship while having a child. That is never an easy process, and she makes the relationship between Gabe and Edward a cantankerous one. It does test the love Rachel has for Gabe.

She also has some excellent secondary characters in Ethan and Kristy. Ethan, Gabe's brother, is a preacher who seems attracted to the bad girls and doesn't notice the good girl - Kristy - who is in front of his nose, until she quits working for him. A fun couple to watch.

This book is part of an overall series (Chicago Stars) that Phillips has, but it can be read as a stand alone. It really is a nice example of well developed romance fiction. Some people may have trouble with the religion topic - there are good preachers and bad ones - but I think she is brave enough to take it on. A very good read.

Going Overboard

2009-04-14T09:35:00.004-05:00

Some publishers have a sneaky way of having a story blurb on the back of a book that is supposed to be a mini peak at what the storyline is. Some have a paragraph that turns out to be nothing like the book inside. Talk about snarky! When you like the book - it is fine - but when you don't the consumer/reader might get a tad irritated. They are lucky this one was a good book.

I chose Going Overboard by Christina Skye as part of a book discussion on contemporary romance. I was interested in the setting a Caribbean cruise ship. I have always have wanted to go on one so this seemed like a way to enjoy one with out leaving my living room. (And that made it a bit cheaper on expenses, too.) Well, I think we are on the cruise for about the first third of the book and then it is on to all over the islands. This is no placid ride. This is a romance adventure.

It starts out simply enough. Photographer/Video Director Carly Sullivan needs a buff looking guy for her shoot that needs to take place during the cruise. It is an ad for the cruise line. The model they got was a bit flabby and she needs a last minute replacement. She starts scouting on board and finds Ford McKay who says he is a rancher from Wyoming. A very buff rancher. They start working together. And when the bullets start flying on a location shot on an island, Ford is definitely not just a rancher. (Hint - he's a Navy SEAL.)

There's intrigue, kidnapping, terrorists threats, assignation attempts and murders. (And you thought this just was a nice boat trip.) And through it all Carly and Ford learn about each other's strengths, desires and fears. They want each other but can their jobs and current situation keep their love alive?

A fast paced adventure from island to island with some great characters. A good read.

Belle Weather

2009-03-21T13:45:00.003-05:00

Columnist, Celia Rivenbark makes us laugh again with Belle Weather: Mostly Sunny With a Chance of Scattered Hissy Fits. I'm not quite sure what makes me laugh so hard at her work. Is it the southern flavor? I don't live in the south so is it "really" southern. Is her gentle but snarky (hard to combo but I think it works) jabs to one and all of her favorite topics? Or is it the ride of the absurd as she gives us a rambling tale that ends with us saying "Huh? Didn't we start back over there? " Or is just her funny turn of phrase?

Some examples:
On online dating-
"Her friend complained 'There ain't nothing out there for the rednecks.' ...but "listing one of her 'unique attributes' as the 'ability to pee off the side of my daddy's bass boat while standing' wasn't the sort of thing most on-line dating services could really appreciate."

On how she is disappointed in the 'new' TV Guide magazine-
"...I always felt that the Holy Grail would be to write the program synopses for TV Guide. It wasn't my fallback, it was my dream job and now, verily, it will never be. ...I pictured being paid a big pile of money to watch hundreds of hours of TV before reducing a complicated plot line to few powerful nouns and verbs."

And her open letter to Britney Spears is something to read...
"Through all the wild partying and head shaving and fornicating and tattooing and what not I've got your back. Even though, when you shaved your head , you looked like the world's only redneck Tibetan monk. ...I didn't lose faith in you."

A little essay here, a little essay there - fun for all abounds. A fun read for a crummy time.

Death Swatch

2009-03-17T11:04:00.002-05:00

Death Swatch is the newest book in Laura Childs' scrapbooking series. It has a great setting - Mardi Gras time in New Orleans - and some great characters in Carmela and her girlfriend Ava. It even has a great mystery - a float designer who has connections to some of the highest crewes that parade, is killed at a Mardi Gras party. (A dark humorous scene is everyone coming to the funeral when they are all hung over from their various Mardi Gras parties from the night before.) He also was an amateur historian interested in maps and Jean Lafitte's treasure. Who has the map and who killed him for it? And is there a treasure? Carmela gets more than she planned for in this hectic and fast paced adventure.

I was actually thrilled that this series finally seems to have hit it's stride. The story is strong and the characters are too. I loved the part where Carmela and her women friends have created their own female crewe. I just wish the author would move the interpersonal relationships forward. Carmela and her ex have been hanging on too long and it seems to be dragging the series and the character development down. I hope this gets taken care of in the next book. A fun read.

Through a Glass, Deadly

2009-03-17T10:45:00.003-05:00

Sarah Atwell's Through a Glass, Deadly is her Agatha nominated first book in the glassblowing series. Emmeline Dowell has created a life for herself as a glass artisan in Tucson. She is happy living above her studio and shop, selling her glass pieces and teaching classes in the ancient art of glass making. Finding a body in her furnace is a big surprise. Even more astonishing is the fact that this body was the husband of someone she just met. And this husband was involved with the mob. Em just wants to find the murderer so that things can get back to normal. Having the police over means her ex boyfriend, the chief of police, Matt will soon be by.

Atwell gives us a great exploration of glassblowing - maybe more that you wanted, but I always thought it was a fascinating art - and of the Tucson area. Em is an interesting artist and it is great to see her passion for her work. She is an appealing character, there are great secondary characters and it is a good start for a new series. I'm looking forward to the next one. A good read.

Bright Lights, Big Ass & More

2009-03-07T10:58:00.003-06:00

What can you say about Jen Lancaster's books? They are funny. They are relatable. And sometimes she says those not so nice things that you were just dying to say!

Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? is her sequel to Bitter in Black and it continues the tale of money and job woes and their slow recovery. It also tells the story of Jen's book deal which happens whiles she's in temping hell. And then there are those wacky neighbors? They never have those on the glam TV shows!

Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big or Why Pie is Not the Answer is a story about losing weight. But it also the story of someone trying to accept their body, make it healthier, and figure out how she got that way and make some changes in her life. She makes the working out horror story seem funny, and brings a great "everyday" woman appeal to the typical "trying to change myself" memoir. If it is on thing you learn - Jen is not typical. Very funny and inspiring.

Lancaster's next book is supposed to be a memoir about growing up. I can't wait to see her perspective on it. And to laugh about it. Her books are very good reads.

We'll Always Have Parrots or Organized Chaos Can Be Fun

2009-03-07T09:46:00.004-06:00

Donna Andrews has written a mystery series. Her publisher refers to them rather plainly as "the Meg Langslow mysteries." I'll just call them "organized chaos." From the very beginning of the series, Murder With Peacocks, to the one I just finished, We'll Always Have Parrots, we are exposed to a world that Andrews has created containing lovable quirky characters, twisting plot points, way too much happening at one time, and the occasional murder. And let us not forget the birds. What may have started a cute title idea has managed with Andrews' cleverness to be fully integrated into the story line. Each book has something to do about birds.

Meg is a great character who while the chaos reigns around, manages to wrangle it, direct it and sometimes conquer it. She's a take charge kind of gal, and if someone in her large extended family is suspected of murder, she tries to make it right. A bit "type A" for someone who is an artistic blacksmith (but she has been getting into making armory lately...), but because she is the "sane one" in the room, we cling to her as the story tumbles and tosses along.

Her family are a bit nutty. The mother who is a gossip and diva. Her dad, a retired doctor, who is a big mystery fan who wants to help out at the autopsies. Her brother, the "barely passed the bar" lawyer, who managed to create a hit computer game. Her nephew, whose duck follows him everywhere. And the countless other distant and not so distant cousins who keep popping up with regularity. Did I mention it was set in the South?

I can not describe all the funny bits in these books. Maybe because there are too many to describe. But if you do not find anything funny in these - well then - you have no sense of humor and just go away. But I highly recommend them for these serious tense times. A very good read. I can not wait to start the next ones.

The Meg Langslow books I have read:

Murder With Peacocks - Meg tries to organize and be in 3 weddings in one summer with 3 bridezillas - one of which is her mother. One of them wants peacocks on the lawns. And a nasty guest is murdered. (My personal nightmare - being in three weddings in one summer - not the the murder part.)

Murder With Puffins - Meg and her boyfriend Michael try to escape for some quiet time to a family cottage in Maine. Half the family comes with. A local artist and old flame of Meg's mother is murdered. And there is the remnants of a hurricane. Yikes!

Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos - In her hometown of Yorktown, Virginia, Meg tries to help organize the chaos of a reenactment festival of Yorktown and solve a murder that happened in her craft fair booth -while in period costumes. What a gal!

Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon - Meg is temping at her brother's computer gaming company when the office's practical joker is murdered. The buzzard is the office mascot. The game they sell? Lawyers From Hell.

We’ll Always Have Parrots - While attending a fan convention for a TV show, Michael has acted in, and to sell her budding line of swords, Meg finds the dead body of the star of the show. A rabid fan? A disgruntled co-worker? Or could it be one of the monkeys and parrots that are running about the lobby? Talk about a decorating idea gone wild.

Books I have to look forward to:

Owls Well That Ends Well
No Nest for the Wicket
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much
Cockatiels at Seven
Six Geese A-Slaying

And something for the future:

Swan for the Money - Due in July 2009

The Lover's Knot

2009-03-07T09:22:00.009-06:00

A Lover's Knot: A Someday Quilts Mystery is author Clare O'Donohue's first mystery. (And she knows something about quilting, having worked on the HGTV show Simply Quilts.) Nell Fitzgerald is recovering from a shock. Her fiance has just called off the wedding. She takes a break from the chaos her life has become by visiting her grandmother in upstate N.Y.

While she is resting, she becomes drawn into her grandmother Eleanor's world of the quilt store, good friends, and her quilting circle. And when Eleanor is injured, Nell takes over for her in the store. But when she finds the local flirt and handyman murdered in the store, her outsider status is useful for picking up clues.

The characters are well drawn and their community well written, it makes one want to travel and see this place for oneself. O'Donohue does a nice job with Nell's reawakening from heartbreak to being in a stronger space. And she does it realistically - time wise. The reader cheers her on.

A great first book for a series. Hope there is another.

Knit One, Kill Two

2009-03-07T09:22:00.004-06:00

Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton is the first of her series with Kelly Flynn. Kelly comes back to Colorado because her beloved aunt has been killed. The police think it was a vagrant, but there are questions that need to be answered. Why did her aunt take out a second mortgage for $20,000? Where is the money? And what happened to her aunt's precious family quilt that was hanging in the living room? It is no where to be found. And what about this woman who claims to be her aunt's cousin?

Kelly finds her aunt had more friends than she thought, thanks to the yarn and fiber shop across the street. Even though she is supposed to be here temporarily, Kelly finds support and help from these friends when she starts trying to clear things up. And she finds she is really liking the relaxed atmosphere of the area. Perhaps she will stay? On to the next book!

Sefton does a great job setting up a series by giving us a nice set of secondary characters and a heroine the reader can relate to. And the bits about falling in love with the feel and colors of the textiles and yarns, make us want to go yarn shopping. Even if we know nothing about knitting. Looking forward to reading some more. A good read.

More Home Cooking

2009-02-21T15:43:00.007-06:00

What can one say about Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking? Bright, well composed essays on a variety of food topics with cunning recipes stashed in between the start and finish. The joys of gingerbread - got it. The raspberry addict - got it. The love of roast chicken - got it. The pleasures of simple but good food - got it.

She makes the reader want to run home and make some simple but elegant dish. Such zest of life, such honest enthusiasm, humor and love of food. Such fun to read. A very good read.

P.S. Read her first one - Home Cooking, too!

McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire

2009-02-21T15:04:00.005-06:00

Jeffery Rothfeder's book McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire is not just a book about a business. It is a book about a family - the McIlhenny's, a place - Avery Island, Louisiana, and a time - the Civil War reconstruction era. Rothfeder does an excellent job of explaining how the product Tabasco - has been intertwined since the beginning with these three.

The business was begun as a post war enterprise. It grew to engulf the island - which is also home to salt mines. It helped create one of the first "company" towns. And it helped change the culinary culture as the appreciation for hot foods has grown. Tabasco has become an icon.

The McIlhenny family is full of bankers, naturalists, and soldiers and their family-run company has, in some ways, become an extension of themselves. Rothfeder does a nice job keeping the story going through the decades. An interesting story of history, food and a family run business. Don't blame me if you run out and get some hot sauce. A very good read.

Paper Scissors Death

2009-02-13T13:44:00.009-06:00

Paper Scissors Death is the start of a new mystery series by Joanna Campbell Slan. Kiki Lowenstein's husband is found dead and naked in a hotel room. Kiki is in a state of shock, but tries to keep it together for her daughter Anya. She also finds out their finances are a mess, and she is going to have to start over. The good thing is she has a mother-in-law who loves her granddaughter, and Kiki never really felt comfortable in the gated community she lived in anyway. The bad news is the mother-in-law hates her, knew about her husband's affairs and Kiki has a self-esteem problem. But she just can't accept that George would just die of a heart attack. He was too young, and who were the women he was dinning with just before it happened?

Slan gives us a heroine to be proud of. Kiki is forced to grow and get out of her comfort zone - just so she and her daughter can survive. The ironic part is - she gets more help from her "lower-class" friends, then the community she once was a part of. And she manages to get the attention of a police detective who is also not sure this case is over. Her well written friends and their support system are the type of folks that you want behind you when the chips are down.

For anyone who loves scrapbooking, Slan really has the crafting part down pat. Kiki ends up using her scrapbooking skills to earn money, and Slan - an author of non-fiction scrapbooking books, knows her stuff. She flavors Kiki's story with reasons why people love scrabooking. And she writes about the amount of emotion there is in the craft. And best of all she gets it right.

I'm looking forward to the next adventure. Forensic scrapbooking indeed! A great read, for mystery and scrapbooking fans alike.

Crewel World: Cozies Ain't For Sissies

2009-02-03T09:51:00.007-06:00

There are those that say certain kinds of mystery books are cozy. I think they categorize cozies, by having amateur sleuths, lovely little towns, and having folks getting murdered "off stage". So what happens when you have a series that has a little Minnesota town, the main character owns a needlework/craft shop, solves mysteries on the side, but the killings are not necessarily pretty. How's getting tossed off a balcony (Crewel Yule), cut by the throat (Cutwork), and having a knitting needle pushed into your brain (Sins and Needles)? Cozy? I think not.

Monica Ferris has created a great character in Betsy Devonshire. And she has given her a interesting group of friends and neighbors. Betsy has a talent for figuring out the little things that solve cases. And she is not so sure she likes this talent. It does bother her that some of these killers are people in the community. Folks that she knows. (Now, that is why I always find these "malice domestic" books creepier - these are not strangers doing the killing!)

She's embarked on this path by accident. She really was just intending to stay with her sister and help her in the store, while she was getting over her divorce. And then her sister was murdered. And she inherited the store and estate. So she stuck around for awhile. And got more involved with her employees and her customers.

Ferris does a nice job fleshing out the secondary characters throughout the series; it is a rare "cozy" that has a regular character that is gay. But Godwin grows and develops through the series. He becomes more than the guy who can match the right thread colors. Various members of the store's regulars - the Monday Bunch - get their own spotlight in the books in the series.

And then there is the needlework. Cozy? Maybe. It has been considered an art form for years. This series is a great way to see how Ferris mixes it in with the mystery. One book has Betsy trying to identify a certain bobbin lace pattern, the next has her researching symbols on a church tapestry. And the store is used as a place where folks in the community can gather. Actually, I wish we had a store like Crewel World locally. These books make me want to take up my cross-stitching again!

So do yourself a favor - start with the first three books in order, and then you can mix them around a bit. And discover the world of Excelsior, Minnesota. A fun series.

Monica Ferris' mystery series featuring Betsy Devonshire:

Thai Die (2008)
Knitting Bones (2007)
Sins and Needles (2006)
Embroidered Truths (2005)
Crewel Yule (2004)
Cutwork (2004)
Hanging by a Thread (2003)
A Murderous Yarn (2002)
Unraveled Sleeve (2001)
A Stitch in Time (2000)
Framed in Lace (1999)
Crewel World (1999)

Stamped Out

2009-01-26T20:08:00.004-06:00

Stamped Out by Terri Thayer is the first book in a new series with April Buchert, a interior designer who has moved back to her small home town in Pennsylvania. She's been in California for awhile and is not sure she is glad to be home - even if it means shedding her deadbeat husband behind. But she has not mentioned that to her parents yet. She's still learning to deal with them being in the same town. Her dad and his partner have invited her to work with them on the latest project they are general contracting. And while checking out the site to be demolished, a body is found.

Who is it? No one has gone missing for years. This was a house her dad had worked on before and had bankrupted his company on the job. This house was trouble from the start, with continual changes from the owner, it's eventual fall into disrepair, and status as the local teen hideout. How many old memories will have to be dug up? How many old grudges? April learns that she was not the only one with troubles on her mind, the summer the house was built.

This book has some interesting characters, April who is an artist and trying to come to terms and change things in life, and there is her best friend Deana. Deana is the one organizing and hosting the rubber-stamping parties but her main job is her family's funeral home. (And actually that is pretty interesting.) During these crafting nights - all sorts of gossip is let loose and you learn a lot about the rest of the characters. (This does happen at some craft nights!)

Thayer's book is billed as "A Stamping Sisters Mystery" but really it is just a mystery with some rubber stamping thrown in. Let's hope there is a little more integration between the topics for the next one, because I like the characters and I'm interested in seeing what happens next. A good read.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

2009-01-26T18:57:00.012-06:00

A chance encounter with a book by Charles Lamb, leads to a inquiring letter written to an author, who just happens to be looking for her next project, and her curiosity leads her to the island of Guernsey in the The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows have written a book that is full of characters that we want to get to know - right away- and the format that the authors use - personal letters between characters - gives us the opportunity to be eager (and inquisitive) for the next missive.

Their letters give us the chance to examine the relationship between the characters, as it grows from being formal strangers, and moves to becoming beloved friends. They contain a lot of the minutia of life, and give the reader a bit of the background of the main writer - Juliet and what her life has been like during the war. All of the characters are experiencing the recovery of Great Britain from the war, but those on Guernsey have a special reason to be grateful after the sorrowful years of occupation.

The Literary society came about because of a special pig dinner. Special because it was being hidden from the Nazis. And as the islanders bonded over dinner and being in trouble, the society grew to be more than just a group of people talking about books. And one person, Elizabeth, seems to be the catalyst that brings them all together. When Juliet learns about their stories, she wants more than ever to bring their tale to light in a book because she is falling in love with the island too.

Filled with war stories, book references, British slang, and good humor, the authors have a definitely created a great story to tell. If you don't like the style of the book - personal letters - you might have trouble with it. But I think it is splendid! A very good read.

Bitter is the New Black

2009-01-26T10:07:00.004-06:00

Jen Lancaster is not a nice person sometimes. Come on and sit next to me, sister! In her memoir Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-centered Smart Ass, or Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office - yeah what a subtitle - she tells it like it is. She goes from being a "on her way up the corporate ladder" yuppie/shopaholic to being an unemployed mess, and trying to recover from the downfall. In the meantime, she marries her long term boyfriend (for the gifts - their broke, but the fact that the hotel where they have it is having a porn convention is a stitch), gets a pair of dogs that like to chew her expensive footwear, and starts a website to get rid of the frustrations. And that website catches on. And thus a writing career is born.

This book is a combination of many things. It's a a study of employment dos and don'ts, job searching dos and don'ts (if they tell you they want you to work on a pretend business plan and come back for another interview - they really are just scamming you out of a consulting fee - cause they are going to steal it if it is good.), and learning how to live within your means. Along the way you have the wacky family stories (her mother being hungover the day of the wedding - insisting she only had one glass of wine - that kept getting refilled), the touching moments between Jen and Fletch (he's a keeper!), and an example of what not to do while your drinking too much (phone calls are bad). It is also a book about the myth of the American dream that mass marketers want everyone to spend their money and time achieving. She learns that one the hard way. But everything is done with humor and being a smart ass doesn't help sometimes - but it sure is funny.

Take the Office, mix it with Bridget Jones, with the acidity of Seinfeld, and add Chicago and there you will have this book. Cause you know it is all about Jen. Very funny. I can not wait to read the next one.

Running Hot

2009-01-12T11:17:00.007-06:00

Jayne Ann Krentz's Running Hot continues her Arcane Society series with a bang. Being a member of the society means that you have a paranormal talent, in this case, the aura readers. Aura readers are dismissed as "not important" talents. But what happens if your talent has a twist like Grace's? Or can be used to manipulate others' auras, like Luther's skill? These talents aren't so little any more.

Grace, a society genealogist and aura talent, is on her first assignment for Jones & Jones. It is supposed to be a routine case. She needs to identify a man who is suspected of murder. Her bodyguard showing her the ropes is Luther. Sounds simple. But what happens when they find out there are more sensitives at this hotel than just their suspect. And it looks like they have been experimenting with the Founder's formula. Did they stumble on a meeting for Nightshade? What are the odds?

Grace and Luther make a great team because they are not perfect. They are both people with a past. Their experiences and talents help them in the race to have J&J figure out what is going on in the ongoing battle against Nightshade. It also doesn't hurt that they are attracted to each other.

Krentz has written some great characters here and has set up the next adventure in the Arcane Society series quite nicely. It would be great to see some of Grace and Luther in the next book too. Her secondary characters are developed and she leaves us with a urge to see what is going to happen next to Fallon - who has been in all the books. And she leaves us with more information about the growth of Nightshade, but leaves us dangling to see what is going to happen next. A great series and a fun book. Can't wait for the next one!

A Death in Vienna

2008-12-16T19:41:00.004-06:00

A bomb goes off in Vienna. Art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon, is sent in to see what happened to his friend who happens to hunt down items stolen from the Jews in World War II. What he finds is a complicated web of lies and deceptions that will take him around the world in Daniel Silva's A Death in Vienna.

Silva writes an exciting book that takes readers on a whirl of four continents. Gabriel is a killer, but as he becomes more entangled in the plot, he finds himself providing revenge for those who were killed in the gas chambers. And Silva makes him a complicated Renaissance man. We want to discover more about the contradictions in this artist, who has been trained to kill. We learn more about his personal background and his personal ties to this case.

Silva also touches on the aftermath of the war. Which lower level Nazis escaped? And how did they do it? Via the Americans, via Rome, via Argentina? Who helped the murders along the way - to rebuild their life and not suffer retribution for their sins? Silva has done his research well and provides the reader with enough details to want to learn more about the post war period. This period of history was not black and white - there is a whole lot of gray.

A fine read and a good thriller. I'm looking forward to reading more books in the series.

Christmas Love Stories

2008-12-15T19:35:00.006-06:00

One of the reasons, I am behind in posting, is that at this time of year I start reading or re-reading romance Christmas stories. Yes - those short stories set in the days of old, or that are in a "modern" environment. I start reading them in November. About one an evening - or more, depending on if I can't fall asleep.

Yes, they can be sappy. Yes, they are unrealistic (Hello, we are reading fiction here!) And yes, some of them are not even historically accurate about Christmas. (I'm a history minor. I'm picky.) And everything is solved by the miracle of Christmas, or New Year's or Boxing Day. (Sure.)

But in today's cynical and hectic times, a little "what if" is good for the soul. What if everyday were Christmas? What if everyone were nice and kind to each other? What if love was around the corner for everyone? (The romantic lives!) It's a nice thought. ;- )

But heck, my comfort read may not be your comfort read. There is a book out there for everyone. Even Scrooge. But have yourself a merry little Christmas, now...

Leslie Charteris' The Saint

2008-12-15T19:34:00.002-06:00

The Saint in Europe is one of the many Simon Templer mysteries written by Leslie Charteris. We find our debonair thief lounging in the watering holes of Europe and looking at jewelry along the way. How can you dislike such a smooth operator?

"For the saga of any adventurer take this: an idea, a scheme, action, danger, escape, and perhaps a surprise somewhere. Repeat indefinitely, with irregular interludes of quiet. Flavor it with the eternal discontent of unattainable horizons, and the everlasting content of an eagle's freedom. That had been Simon Templar's life since the day when he was first nicknamed the Saint..."

This book features seven short stories. In them he rescues the damsel, discovers the murderer, helps the police and does some thieving on the side. What more could you ask out of life?

A fun read. For those classic puzzle mystery fans.

Swashbuckling through Spain - Captain Alatriste

2008-12-15T18:53:00.008-06:00

Arturo Perez-Reverte has created a wonderful swashbuckling character in Captain Alatriste.
He starts out with a bang with this description: " He was not the most honest or pious of men, but he was courageous." And the fun begins from there.

Alatriste has always been a soldier in the wars of Spain. He is struggling between the wars, and is recovering from injuries, and has a cronic lack of ready funds. When he is not drinking, he hires himself out as a swordsman, bodyguard and for other unsavory jobs that bring in the coins. He gets a secret commission to waylay some English travelers. One unknown boss says rough them up, the other man says kill them. What to do? And who are these English men? Alatriste discovers that they are sword savvy and are not typical travelers. These are gentlemen. One is the infamous Lord Buckingham and the other is the Prince Regent! Who wants to kill them? Who hired Alatriste? And how can he escape being killed because he did not complete his mission?

Lots of Spanish history, lots of swords, lots of danger and a character you want to cheer for! A fun read, and hopefully a fun series.

Raise the Titanic!

2008-12-08T13:59:00.005-06:00

In the mood for some daring do and adventure on the high seas? Come join the ride with Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt in Raise the Titanic! Written before they actually found the Titanic, the book provides a big "what if" to the concept of having the ship rise to the surface. And that is just part of the story!

Scientists are hunting for a rare element to create a anti missile security system. As they track the element down - they found out that someone else has been in on the trail - in 1911. And one of the miners - was on the Titanic. N.U.M.A. and Dirk Pitt to the rescue!

It is a tightly written story - a bit dated - but it takes you on a roller coaster ride. If you can't handle the "Armageddon Factor" (the unbelievable task of landing two space shuttles on an asteroid flying into the planet Earth) then you won't be able to have fun reading this book. But try it - you might like it. A fun read.

Thin is the New Happy

2008-11-24T18:52:00.004-06:00

Thin is the New Happy: A Memoir by Valerie Frankel is a thought provoking book. Frankel who is a prolific writer of magazine articles, Chick Lit fiction, Young Adult fiction and a few non-fiction titles, has her work cut out for her when she decides to explore her obsession with body image. She is brought to this self discovery when she realizes that her daughter is the age she was when she started dieting. At 11, Frankel started down the road of weight loss and lack of self esteem about her body weight. Having a mother who focused on it, didn't help either. Frankel takes the brave step of exploring her past and changing her future.

Frankel is a funny quirky writer on her best days, and she brings those skills to play here as well. Certain passages of the book will hit too close to home for many women, and others will bring you tears with her self effacing humor. She compares her story to other women, and finds that she is not alone in the body image struggle. But she is determined to conquer her demons and not pass them down to her daughters.

Part of this book is memoir, part of it is self help too. She reveals her past bluntly and with humor. (Sometimes however, with contemporary memoirs, I find myself saying "Too Much Information!" here.) But she does triumph. No, it is not instantaneous. It is a struggle; within her family, her professional life, and with herself. A good and inspirational read.

One Bad Apple

2008-11-15T14:40:00.003-06:00

One Bad Apple by Shelia Connolly is a great first mystery. Our heroine Meg is new to town and is trying to rehab a old family property that has an orchard on it's grounds. She is learning more about apples and 17th century homes than she ever wanted to know. Everything in this place needs to be fixed, but first thing to go and need fixing is the septic system. Thank goodness she seems to have a competent (and nice looking) plumber in Seth! Her joy is short lived when there are more plumbing issues in the morning. Seth comes out - takes a look in the septic system and finds a dead body. Not just any dead body. It turns out to be an ex-boyfriend of Meg's.

There is a lot more going on here than meets the eye, Meg discovers. Her ex was involved in bringing in a development project that would change the town. Everyone in town she meets, seems to be on one side of the project or the other. Who would kill for this development? What part does her property play in all of this? Will she stay to take a side?

Connolly has a group of nice small town characters in this book. It will be interesting to see how they interact throughout the planned series. I think she has a great first start with this book and I want to see how Meg and her house develop. A fun read.

The Wordy Shipmates

2008-10-27T18:20:00.005-05:00

Yes, Sarah Vowell has done it again! She has a taken a tiny section of American history and made it her own. The Wordy Shipmates is her latest micro-history. This book is about the early settlers of Massachusetts. Nope - not those pilgrims with a capital "P". This is about that other group - those future Bostonians, the Massachusetts Bay Colony and their leader John Winthrop. They want to build "a city upon a hill" but their way. And if you do not agree - then they banish you. And thus Rhode Island is born!

There are some problems with this book. It is hard to be quirky about major players in history, when what writings that are available seem to suggest that some of the founding fathers had no sense of humor at all. And most of us modern folk would call them cranks. But different times for different men, and Vowell tries to make them alive for us, with all their sins and faults. While her admiration for their struggles and the principles that they passed on to us future Americans, is evident, it is hard for the reader to get excited by the early 17th century prose.

Winthrop and his group survived, passed on their beliefs, created Harvard, started Indian wars, and helped create a uniquely American culture. And Vowell ties it all together for you. This book is a must for a Sarah Vowell fan, or a early American history buff.