Mr. Adams, damn you Mr. Adams ; You're obnoxious and disliked; that cannot be denied...

Yes - a little lyric from the musical 1776. An interesting portrayal of John Adams to be sure, but David McCullough's John Adams is a bit more authentic. Yes - it is a long book - but worth the read to discover Mr. J. Adams.

McCullough's smartest move was to let Adams explain things for himself. He was a prodigious letter writer and so was Abigail, and McCullough has used the Adams' correspondence to fill his book and let them tell the story of their times. It really is quite amazing when you realize all that Adams lived through, the Declaration of Independence, the Revolution, the French Revolution, and the vice presidency and being President of a newly formed nation that some people did not think would make it. And along the way, he was the nation's representative to England, Holland and France; he helped write the constitution of Massachusetts and established the U.S. Navy. Oh - yes he had six children, one of whom became president, too! Yeah, a busy guy. And all done with out computers and modern communication. Makes today's politicians seem like wimps in comparison.

McCullough mentioned in his press interviews for this book that he fell in love with Abigail, and the reader does too. It was remarkable the life she lead, while maintaining the homestead while John was traveling or overseas, but still keeping up on the politics of the moment. They had a unique and loving relationship for their time.

John Adams and Abigail come alive in this book. If you really want a sense of how the world was during this period, McCullough's prose makes you feel as if you were there, looking over their shoulders at their writings. He makes some of the more complicated issues, clearer and makes you care for these people and their passions for liberty. And he made me cry, when he wrote about John's twilight years. It is a talent to make someone care about a person who died over 180 years ago...

A book worth your time and effort.

Orchids, a Mystery & French Food - What More Could You Want?

This book says it is fiction. But the subtitle says it all. Deadly Slipper: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne by Michelle Wan, is a great beginning to what will hopefully be a series. The next book is out this month.

This is a well written mystery that explores its surroundings - the Dordogne region of southwestern France, and some of the locals and expats who live there. And then there are the orchids. Yes, I admit the reason I read this, was for the orchids, but they are a important part of the search for the missing hiker who disappeared 19 years ago.

The leads are Mara - a twin who is obsessed with her sister's disappearance, and Julian the orchidologst that she gets to help her with her quest. She has a series of photos of what appear to be the last roll of film that her sister took. Can Julian identify the orchids and the landmarks in the shots? And what about those stories of other missing women?

Wan gives us intimate details of the countryside, and has us peeking in to the lives of the villagers and along the way - the reader gets to savor the local bistro's menu. I am eagerly awaiting the next book!

What do we really know about Shakespeare?

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt, is one of those biographies that truly change the way you think about the subject. Everyone thinks they know a bit about Shakespeare, but what do we really? The imaginings of various 19th and 18th century biographers? The myths? The rumors that it was "really someone else" who wrote all those plays? (Let me be fair and declare that to be bunk in my opinion - straight away here!) Greenblatt takes the latest known scholarship and turns it into readable prose that attempts to dig away at the secrets of Shakespeare.

He gives us the Catholic background of Will's family, and their lives in a Protestant world. And Greenblatt manages to explain how this religious struggle effected the way Shakespeare viewed the world.

The details of Shakespeare's fellow playwrights and what everybody was reading at that time, is very fascinating when you discover that Will had a habit of borrowing bits and pieces from all over the place as he was perfecting his style.

Some of the conclusions may be conjecture, but until we find something else - meet Mr. Wm. Shakespeare - actor, playwright, and gentleman.

Julia and Her Love Affair with France

I don't remember watching Julia Child regularly (that was in my pre-Food Network obsession days,) but when I did, it was just as much fun - to watch her in action as it was to see what was cooking. And when I had the pleasure of seeing her kitchen at the Smithsonian - yes, they have the whole thing!- it was interesting to realize what a true pioneer she was. If you want to recapture the essence of Julia then try the book, My Life in France by Julia Child and her grandnephew Alex Prud'homme. Her voice and enthusiasm come across loud and clear.

Julia had quite a few adventures before becoming a cooking goddess. She went with her husband Paul to Paris in 1948, when he got posted there for his government job. And there she discovered Paris and French food. She got started at Le Cordon Bleu, made friends with future collaborator Simone Beck, and discovered the job of sharing her cooking techniques. And if that were not enough, the Childs got posted to Germany and Norway and got involved with McCarthy politics, as the senator attempted to "clean up" the government. All that and she wrote a monumental cookbook too! What a life!

Discover the joy of Julia once again! Bon Appetit!

And if you want to try her famous French cookbook vicariously, try Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell. A thirty-something's culinary challenge, and obsession with Julia and the art of French cooking. Pretty funny writer and an equal part of this book is about life and how to live it, and yes - food.

Sweet Poison - Sayers read alike

Read alikes. This is a library term for books that remind one of, have similar topics of, or the same writing style as other well known books and authors. Sometimes these reading suggestions work, sometimes not - it really depends on what qualities the original book/author/story has for you, the reader. In this case I just finished Gaudy Night and had gotten the read alike suggestion of reading the David Roberts' mystery series featuring Edward Cornith and Verity Brown. The first book in the series is Sweet Poison.

Is it Sayers? - No. But is it good? Yes. Roberts' focuses on the same time period 1930's England, and has a male and female lead characters that are working together to solve murders. Roberts actually has a good grasp of the complicated politics that England went through before WWII. Most popular stuff glosses over the fact that there were communists and fascists throughout English society before the war. Many folks did not think Hitler was that bad. Yeah - they don't like to mention that - a bit of embarrassment, really. Regardless, Roberts make the story interesting by having Edward as the aristocrat and Verity is the middle class, communist journalist and in 1935 politics are all over the place and contribute to the tension surrounding the murder.

This book has the classic murder at the grand estate, but after that it shows the much grittier - "real" side of that time period. It wasn’t all glitter and bright young things. Politically, people were still sorting out what it meant to be a communist and how these ideals would play out on the world stage. And the author shares my theory of communism at that time - which if you have ever read Doris Lessing - communism seems like a better system for men than women.

Verity and Edward make a great team, and I look forward to their other adventures…

The Fixer-Upper

Judith Arnold's The Fixer-Upper is a great "real" contemporary romance. The set-up is this. Libby - a divorcee with a teenager - is a private school admissions director in NYC. She gets an application from a youngster himself - Eric. In a world where parents send her massive boxes of chocolates and the kids have taken every lesson known to man, this kid stands out. She wants to meet this applicant. Eric finally mentions to his dad, Ned, a widower, that he has applied. Ned goes in to meet the admissions director and likes what he sees. Ned is an architect - but has just moved to NYC to work in rehabing and restoration. He ends up seeing Libby's pre world war II apartment and offers to strip the battered but potentially beautiful fireplace.

You will fall in love with the characters because they feel like people you might know. Libby's ex's family hangs around - she claims she got them in the divorce - and her ex is around too. Ned and Eric have problems adjusting to the new city and being without their former family support. Libby's daughter is thirteen, smart and her current fascination is with a street musician she discovered with her girlfriends. And Libby is dealing with the fact that her apartment is going condo! And she starts to question herself, is Ned is just seeing her so that Eric can get into school?

Arnold writes very well developed characters and they have everyday problems - from the problems of dating as a single parents, trying to put the kids first even when it may threaten the relationship, and to learning to move on with one's dreams. Again, Arnold has written a winner. Very enjoyable characters that you will root for!

A Classic Rereading - Gaudy Night

Every so often, one must reread a book to see if it is indeed as good or great as you have remembered. Or maybe you are going to the movie and want a refesher on how the book really is better. Or in this case a play. I just finished Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. I can not remember how many times I have reread it, but each time I get something else out of it. It still is a mystery in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, but mostly with Harriet Vane and not so much Lord Peter. The book still assumes that everyone has taken Latin and knows where all the starting chapter quotations are from. And there is that annoying Latin bit at the very end of the story - that no matter how many times I have had it translated - it does not satisfy me. But get past all that, and there is a story of the love of scholarship and a university setting. Education for education's sake. And a bit of a mystery tossed in for good measure.

Sayers was a scholar herself - Dante - and this book shows her love of the place that got her started - Oxford. And who doesn't remember their college days as sometimes wondrous and brain expanding times (knowledge - folks, not drugs!) The feeling that you have just been shown/taught the concept that runs the rest of the world or, that will become your personal mantra, is a feeling that is suppressed when you have been out of academia for awhile in the "real world." Perhaps that is why so many people choose academia?

Harriet Vane and Sayers get caught up in the questions that are still being debated over 100 years since women have been admitted to higher education. Should a woman have a career or a family? What will higher education do to her place in the world? What would Sayers think - she being in the group of the women graduates that first went to Oxford- of today's graduates? The irony is that in 2006, more women are going to college than men. Now if we can figure the rest of it out...

Enjoy the read.

What if you're the normal one in the family?

Cathie Linz's book, Good Girls Do, is a contemporary romance that asks the question - what if you're the "normal" one in the family? Julia is enjoying the small town life as the local librarian, when her mother, sister and niece move in. Her wandering mother is an hippie/new ager, her sister is the wild one of the family- following in mom's footsteps, and her niece - well let's just say she's not a average kid. And then she meets the former bad boy of the town - Luke who comes back to take over his dead dad's bar. Julia has spent a lifetime trying to recover from a chaotic childhood and enjoys being part of this settled community. Luke has had a crummy childhood and it not sure he wants to come back to the place he started from. Julia and Luke both learn about each other and a bit of perspective on their pasts and how they fit in the community. Fun read, nice twist on the characters- worth a look. Hope the sequel with the sister is just as good.

Various mysteries - Wedding Planners & Edwardians

And now it it time for some mysteries...

Deborah Donnelly has created a great character in wedding planner Carnegie Kincaid. Her latest in the series is You May Now Kill the Bride. This mystery is set in in Puget Sound's San Juan Islands with Carnegie trying to arrange the wedding of her best friend. Carnegie sounds like a great wedding planner (having been a professional bridesmaid, she rings true to me...) who just has a problem with corpses falling in her path. Her best friend's future husband is a cop so that helps with the current batch of deaths, and she has a great cast of characters surrounding her - the on and off again boyfriend, the ex military man for a secretary/assistant and her mom who is thinking of remarrying. I have not read the past ones in the series, but am looking forward to exploring/reading those. A good read which falls into the "read it for character - not a intense and intricate plot" - mystery.

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Having a historical setting for a mystery series can backfire - especially if the author does not do their research. The Edwardian England mystery series by Marion Chesney is a nice glimpse into the past. Marion Chesney is another writing name for M.C. Beaton who has written several other series. This series is about Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart. The latest book is Our Lady of Pain. Again the emphasis is on the characters, before concentrating on the mystery.

This is the fourth book in the series and Chesney is continuing to develop the relationship between the two leads. Lady Rose, who her father claims is over educated and that is why she is not getting any marriage offers, is now in a engagement with Cathcart - because otherwise her parents were going to send her to India. Cathcart, who is a veteran of the Boer war is trying to create a business of his private investigations. Rose and Harry like each other, but their timing seems off in their relations with each other, and their status in this society keeps causing misunderstandings. The other fun characters are Daisy - the dance hall girl/maid that Rose has taught to become her assistant/chaperone, and Superintendent Kerridge of Scotland Yard, a man of the people, who is not a fan of the aristocracy.

If the bodies and cases don't get in the way, Rose and Harry may prosper yet! Start with the first in the series - Snobbery with Violence. A fast & fun series.

Behind the Scenes in a Professional Kitchen

Addicted to the Food Network? Always wanted to be a chef? Been dreaming about finding out about the action behind the scenes of a three star restaurant kitchen? Read Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as a Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford. Buford is a writer with the New Yorker magazine who was curious about what kind of cook he would be in a professional kitchen. He met Mario Batali, and the opportunity arose to work in the kitchen of Babbo, Batali's three star restaurant in New York City. This begins a series of apprenticeships that Buford takes on to expand his culinary knowledge of Italian cooking.

Buford starts at the bottom as a prep cook - cutting, dicing and more cutting and moves up the line, eventually to the grill and the pasta station. He writes really well and you join him in his fascination on why things work in a kitchen, and why things don't. The events taking place at Babbo, become a drama with characters that travel through the entire book.

His culinary explorations are interesting as well - did you know that polenta was originally made from barley? And polenta can cause a vitamin deficiency - if it is the ONLY thing that you eat? He tries to get at the heart of what Batali learned in Italy about cooking - and goes to some of Batali's teacher's to learn with them. While in Italy, Buford trains with a pasta maker and butcher to learn the their art of Italian food. And he comes to realize the differences between the small restaurateur/home cook of the Italian regions and the variations that Batali has made for the fancier New York City restaurant customer.

This is a great book and well written. He gives you some knowledge of Italian cooking, a background on Mario Batali, the ins and outs of a busy restaurant kitchen and he makes you think twice about ordering in a restaurant after 10:00 pm! Enjoy.

Road Trip anyone?

Jane and Michael Stern are very interesting people. She is East coast. He is Midwest. He is lean. She is not. But they got together, got married and have been working together ever since. Their specialty is road food. They literally wrote the book on that. They have also done books such as the Encyclopedia of Pop Culture and one about Elvis. Nowadays they are sticking to the food projects, with a road food column in Gourmet magazine and a new book called Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food. This book is their memoir of how it all started.

What is amazing is that when they first had the concept to taste food at all the little mom and pop places in the Unites States, they did not think it would take that long! This book tells about their first adventures - when they looked like hippies and were going into places that might not appreciate that lifestyle - and how they have refined their "system" of reviewing. Apparently they eat around 5 meals a day! Breakfast being one of the biggest. They usually order a ton of stuff to taste all the different dishes a place has to offer. No wonder some places thought they were a bit strange.

In the midst of their adventures, they made friends, had the usual traveling problems (illness, bad hotels, etc.), found some great food and learned a lot about America on the way. Each chapter ends with a recipe, and leaves the reader wishing to take a food road trip too...

Just when ya think that romance is like everyone else's...

I read a lot of romances. Some have great storylines and characters you want to go out to lunch with. Some have people you do not want to stand in a line with. Some books have a historical theme that opens your eyes to that period of history. Some books could be set anywhere and in anytime. Some are dull as dishwater. Sometimes it is hard to tell when the storyline went blah. But just when you think it is a skimmer - bamm! Something hooks you in.

I am not quite sure how that happened in Suzanne Enoch's An Invitation to Sin. One minute I was just humming along, reading and feeling that I might turn in early. Then the bamm. She has done this to me before. I am becomming convinced that this is her technique.

She is currently writing a series on the Griffin family. Lord Zachary is a charmer, who happens to be a third son, who goes from one idea to the next. He is forced to take his aunt to Bath. They happen to stop on the way at her old friends the Witfelds. The Witfields have seven daughters. In regency times, this is a big YIKES! But just when you think the charmer will just flirt with the daughters and move on...he meets the eldest sister Caroline who has a goal to get into an arts conservatory, and needs him to pose for the assignment to get in. Then there is Mr. Witfeld, a dabbler in many hobbies himself, and the 6 other daughters who are rather anxious to get married. And how did Enoch just sneak in the bit about breeding cows!

Again - you think romances are predictable, and then you get an author who just won't play along. Yes - it is a romance - so how do you think it ends? But the journey and the characters she gives you are worth the trip. Try her - you'll like her.

P.S. Zachary has 2 other unmarried brothers! Can we say series?

Never Judge a Book By Its Cover - HA!

Graphic Design. Post-Modernism. Books. Do you like all three? I have the book for you... By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design by Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger. It covers the growth of book design from the 1960's when the paperback first got started, to post-millennium book covers. I'm not an expert in art or design, but I know what I like and some of these covers are "out there" for their era. And by now, some of the designs look like they are very current aka 2006. It will also show you, how current book design has become much more formulaic. And it is very interesting to see which covers/titles have become iconic. Fun in graphics land.

Think Globally - Act Locally

Wanda Urbanska and her husband, Frank Levering, wrote a book called Simple Living: One Couple's Search for a Better Life, when they moved from L.A. to Virginia. They had a hand in starting the current "simplicity" movement. They now have an orchard in North Carolina and have a show called Simple Living on PBS. Their latest book, Nothing's Too Small to Make a Difference continues their message of keeping thing simple and worrying about their impact on the environment.

This book may be a re-run to others who have previously read other books on simple living, but I felt it was a great reminder and inspiration to those of us who are trying to do what little we can. Wanda points out that - yes - little things do add up - when she talks about taking a travel cup to get her coffee from the local shop versus the plastic cup. She sat down one day and added up all the cups she would have used and it was quite a lot. Sometimes I think that we need the reminder that choosing to make a smaller footprint on the earth, create less garbage, buy less junk, create more beauty IS worth it. This book is a positive introduction to that, it has some first-rate tips, and it is a good update on the couple that helped the "movement" along.