Lakeside Musing

TSS: Is it Sunday Already?

2012-03-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

Good morning. Can it really be Sunday again? Twin B has been on spring break and the week flew by. We spent a lot of time together - shopping, lunch, movies, dog walks (it was in the 60's on Thursday), watching The Big East Basketball Tournament, and yes, even reading. She had two plays assigned over break, while I managed to keep current with Clarissa and read several short stories.

It was a quiet week at Lakeside Musing - no reviews posted and no books completed. It's starting to feel like I haven't finished a book in ages! Clarissa, of course, will take the entire year and The Makioka Sisters is a wonderful book, but a very slow read. I did post about my latest trip to the library and will hopefully tackle those pending reviews this week.

Good news - my ipod works again! It seems the latest version of iTunes somehow required an extra step to sync, but I'm back in business now and listening to You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik. Thanks for all your suggestions.

My book club met on Friday to discuss State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I liked it more than most, but will save the details for another post. Up next is A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, a book I have been avoiding. We'll see how it goes...

Today's plans are still up in the air, but we're hoping to see A Separation at the nearby art cinema. It recently won the oscar for best foreign language film and is only playing for a week, so now is the time! I hope you have a good Sunday... did you remember to turn the clocks ahead?

Fun on Friday

2012-03-09T08:31:00.001-05:00

In case you needed another reason to love Jane...

(found on BookRiot's facebook page)

A Trip to the Library

2012-03-08T07:27:00.000-05:00

Although I am thoroughly engrossed in The Makioka Sisters and our yearlong group read of Clarissa, that hasn't stopped me from checking a few books out of the local library. For a small town, we're lucky to have such an excellent branch. If what I'm looking for isn't on the shelf, chances are it can be obtained through interlibrary loan. I've also recently become acquainted with Wowbrary, an email service that sends weekly updates on my library's newest acquisitions - books, movies, and music. I can reserve a book before it even hits the shelves!

Here are the books that came home in my library bag this week. Unfortunately, some may be returned unread, but I can always check them out again later.

And Then There Were None
by Agatha Christie
I'm finally reading my first Agatha Christie novel! March Mystery Madness provided a little extra motivation to get started and, just a few pages in, I have a feeling I'm going to love it.

The Last Brother
by Nathacha Appanah
Amy said this book could be a companion piece to The Sense of An Ending (one of my 2011 favorites), so I put in an interlibrary loan request. Luckily it's a short novel, just 164 pages, so there's a chance I may get to read it.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers
by Katherine Boo
This is a nonfiction title I discovered through Wowbrary, and then spied on the New York Times bestseller list last weekend. Subtitled Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, I may only get a chance to skim through this one and decide whether to check it out again later.

The Gathering
by Anne Enright
I loved Enright's writing in her most recent novel, The Forgotten Waltz, so decided to check out some earlier work. This won the Mann Booker Prize in 2007, but I'm afraid I won't have time to read it right now.

Brunetti's Cookbook
recipes by Roberta Pianaro and Culinary Stories by Donna Leon
Carol wrote about this last month for Venice in February and I wanted to take a closer look. I've gotten into the habit of giving cookbooks a 'test run' from the library before adding to my collection. I'm making swordfish with savoury breadcrumbs (pesce spada al pangrattato saporito) for dinner tomorrow.

Have you been to the library this week?

The Sunday Salon: Welcome to March

2012-03-04T10:15:00.001-05:00

Good morning and Happy March. Turning the calendar to March is always a relief for me. While it's not really spring, the worst of the winter is usually behind us. Another storm or two could still come our way but, judging from the past few months, I'm not betting on it. March means spring break for the college crowd. My three girls all have different weeks off and I'm looking forward to spending time alone with each of them. Of course, March also means college basketball. The Big East Tournament is coming up this week, and then it's on to the big dance - March Madness!

As for my reading, I seem to have more books in progress than normal. Our yearlong group read of Clarissa has picked up again, I'm slowly making progress on The Makioka Sisters, and also started my first Agatha Christie novel. After just a few pages, I think I'm going to love And Then There Were None. It fits in nicely with Christina's March Mystery Madness, too.

On audio, I finished Trespass by Rose Tremain and immediately started having issues with my iPod. I downloaded You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik, but haven't been able to start listening. Hopefully my daughter can figure out what's wrong, because I really need an audiobook to keep me walking!

Also on the blog this week, I posted an alphabetized February Wrap-Up and shared a chicken pot pie crock pot recipe for Weekend Cooking.

Plans for today include finishing this weekend's Clarissa letters, a long walk, reading more of The Makioka Sisters, and baking a cake to take to dinner. I hope to find something to watch on Netflix Instant this evening... I miss Downton Abbey! How will you spend this first Sunday in March?

Weekend Cooking: Crock Pot Comfort

2012-03-03T13:03:00.000-05:00

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has a food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

Comfort food. Those two words immediately bring my mother's mashed potatoes to mind, and then maybe the macaroni and cheese served at a New Haven hospital where I used to work. My husband's first thought is always chicken pot pie, but I rarely (okay, never) make my own. The combination of an intriguing crock pot recipe and a cold, snowy, comfort food kind of day inspired me to try.

Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O'Dea has been my favorite crock pot cookbook for the last year, but I've shied away from preparing anything vaguely pastry-related. Trish's recent experimentation was just the encouragement I needed to give this recipe a try.

CHICKEN POT PIE

The Ingredients:

FILLING

cooking spray
2 uncooked skinless chicken thighs or breast halves, cut in bit-size chunks
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 (10.75 ounce) can cream-of-something soup
2 tablespoons low-fat milk

BISCUIT TOPPING

2 cups biscuit mix
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar
8 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 cup milk (2% or lower)

The Directions:

Use a 4 quart slow cooker. Spray the stoneware with cooking spray, and add the chicken. Add the vegetables and seasonings. Stir in the soup and add 2 tablespoons of milk to the can; swish around to get last bits of soup and pour into the crock. Stir well.

In a mixing bowl, make the biscuit topping. The dough will be pretty "play-doughy". Spread the dough on top of the chicken and veggie mixture.

(At this point, I began planning an emergency alternate dinner!)

Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours, or on high for 3 to 4 hours. The potpie is done when the biscuit topping is golden brown, and is hard to the touch in the middle. If you find that your slow cooker seals really well and you have a lot of condensation building up, you can prop open the lid with a wooden spoon or chopstick.

I was shocked this dish turned out so well!

A few notes:

I used fat-free cream of chicken soup
I misread the recipe and added 1/2 teaspoon instead of 1/2 tablespoon of sugar - it made no difference
I cooked it on high for 4 hours, lid propped open with a chopstick for the last 2 hours
I used two boneless chicken breast halves
I used 1 cup of frozen peas/carrots mixture, plus 1/2 cup of frozen corn

I follow new recipes pretty closely, but the next time (and there will definitely be a next time) I'd add more a little more chicken. I also can't believe this used a whole stick of butter. Any suggestions on how this could be cut down or substituted?

February was...

2012-03-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

*image credit

Another month of the "winter that wasn't"
Below average snowfall, maybe the least snow ever?
Complaints? Not from me.
DOWNTON ABBEY!!!
Experiencing severe DWS (Downton Withdrawal Syndrome)
Finally saw The Artist
Group read of Clarissa going strong
Happy 22nd Birthday to Daughter #1
Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers, an uncomfortable read
Just can't decide about Pinterest...
Kicking around ideas for summer travel
Leap Day
Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers
Nothing like spending time with an old friend
The Odds by Stewart O'Nan
Planning for Daughter #1's graduation, then her
Quest for a job begins
Running slowly on the treadmill... or am I just walking fast?
Syracuse University Basketball still ranked #2
Trespass by Rose Tremain
Under the weather - sidelined by a sinus infection
Venice in February
When does the NCAA Tournament begin?
eXcitement for March Madness already in the air
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon, an outstanding audiobook!
Zelda's paw is almost as good as new

Welcome March... let the Madness begin!

Clarissa February Update, Letters 7-11

2012-02-29T07:56:00.000-05:00

It's time for our February Clarissa check-in. Last month we began a yearlong project to read the 537 letters (roughly 1500 pages) of this epistolary novel around their corresponding dates and discuss our progress at the end of each month. Terri, from Tip of the Iceberg, and I are alternating monthly hosting duties. It's my turn this month, so leave your link and catch up with other participants here.

**************************

After a prolonged silence for most of the month, we've had five letters over the past several days. The first four were from Clarissa to Miss Howe, but in the fifth letter we finally heard from Miss Howe.

Plot Update:
When word of Lovelace's visits to the Howe household reaches Harlowe family, Clarissa is abruptly summoned home. Although she is never alone with Lovelace, Clarissa feels his "rank and fortune entitled him to civility". Her family, of course, does not agree and Clarissa is subjected to even harsher treatment at the hands of her brother and father. They are more anxious than ever to marry her off and have chosen Mr. Solmes.

Clarissa is confined to the house. She is not allowed out, even for church, and visitors are prohibited. Her correspondence has also been curtailed, but Clarissa has found alternate means to continue communication with Miss Howe and asks her friend for advice.

Miss Howe thinks Clarissa might not be aware of her true feelings for Lovelace: "For a beginning love is acted by a subtle spirit; and oftentimes discovers itself to a by-stander, when the person possessed (why should I not call it possessed?) knows not it has such a demon." She warns Clarissa to proceed with caution and believes Lovelace has "seen more than I have seen; more than you think could be seen --more than I believe you yourself know, or else you would let me know it."

A Few Quotes:
Clarissa on Mr. Solmes:

"... find it impossible I should ever endure him. He has but a very ordinary share of understanding; is very illiterate; knows nothing but the value of estates, and how to improve them, and what belongs to land-jobbing and husbandry." L8

"... all I say against him is affectedly attributed to coyness: and he, not being sensible of his own imperfections, believes that my avoiding him when I can, and the reserves I express, are owing to nothing else: for, as I said, all his courtship is to them [her family]; and I have no opportunity of saying no, to one who asks me not the question. And so, with an air of mannish superiority, he seems rather to pity the bashful girl, than to apprehend that he shall not succeed." L8

Miss Howe on the Harlowe family:

"You are all too rich to be happy, child. For must not each of you, by the constitutions of your own family marry to be still richer? ....none of your family but yourself could be happy were they not rich."

Thoughts and Impressions:
After a long silence, the action really picked up over the last week. I was able to read the letters more quickly, too, and think I'm finally getting used to the writing style.

Clarissa is obviously in a very bad spot, practically under house arrest, but it seems like she may be getting ready to assert herself. In letter nine, we learn her family "all have an absolute dependence upon what they suppose to be meekness in my temper. But in this they may be mistaken; for I verily think, upon a strict examination of myself, that I have almost as much in me of my father's as of my mother's family." Has she had a flash of great insight into her temperament or discovered an inner strength she never knew she possessed?

It was a pleasure to finally read a letter written by someone other than Clarissa. Miss Howe provides an interesting perspective on the developing relationship between Clarissa and Lovelace. She sees her friend, possibly unaware of her true feelings, in danger of falling for Lovelace. The more Clarissa's friends/family are against him, the more Clarissa seems inclined toward him. Miss Howe believes Lovelace understands this and and will use it to his own advantage.

I am anticipating a dramatic and exciting March. The letters increase in frequency (sometimes two or three per day) and will now require more discipline to stay on track. I hope I'm up to the task!

Clarissa: February Post Round Up

2012-02-28T20:21:00.000-05:00

It's time for our February Clarissa check-in. Last month we began a yearlong project to read the 537 letters (roughly 1500 pages) of this epistolary novel around their corresponding dates and discuss our progress at the end of each month. Terri, from Tip of the Iceberg, and I are alternating monthly hosting duties.

Have you written a Clarissa post this month? Please leave your link in a comment and I will add it to the list.

February Posts:
1. JoAnn @ Lakeside Musing
2. Cat @ Tell Me A Story
3. Adam @ I Lodge In Grub Street
4. Lindsey @ Sparks' Notes
5. Christina @ The Literary Bunny
6. Col @ Col Reads
7. Terri @ Tip of the Iceberg

Tuesday Intro: Trespass by Rose Tremain

2012-02-28T07:41:00.000-05:00

The child's name is Melodie.
Long ago, before Melodie was born, her pretty mother had had a stab at composing music.
Melodie is ten years old and she's trying to eat a sandwich. She prises apart the two halves of the sandwich and stares at the wet, pink ham inside, and at the repulsive grey-green shimmer on its surface. All around her, in the dry grass and in the parched trees, crickets and grasshoppers are making that sound they make, not with their voices (Melodie has been told that they have no voices) but with their bodies, letting one part vibrate against another part. In this place, thinks Melodie, everything is alive and fluttering and going from one place to another place, and she dreads to see one of these insects arrive suddenly on her sandwich or on her leg or to start to tangle its limbs in her hair.

Trespass
by Rose Tremain

Trespass is my current audiobook and, after this opening scene, Melodie has not appeared again. I have been listening while walking on the treadmill (I hope to be walking outside again soon) and it's definitely holding my interest. The old house in the south of France, full of family secrets and, now, with a mysterious disappearance, has kept me on the treadmill a few minutes longer each day. Does the opening paragraph appeal to you?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph(s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

Wordless Sunday?

2012-02-26T13:12:00.000-05:00

No writing today, just reading.

Weekend Cooking: Meal Planning

2012-02-25T08:37:00.000-05:00

We've been talking a lot about organization and efficiency lately - preparing meals in advance, using a crock pot, and freezing. Last spring I wrote a post for Lakeside Kitchen outlining my meal planning strategy and I've decided to share it here today.

Lakeside Kitchen is a cooking blog my daughter and I started a couple of years ago. When she went off to college last summer, I realized that I did not want to maintain two blogs and quietly closed up shop. Life has changed a little since then. I'm routinely cooking for just three now, plus I no longer worry about practice or game schedules. My basic meal planning principles, however, remain the same.

From Lakeside Kitchen:

It's all about organization.... and flexibility. Every Sunday or Monday, I compose a "Master Meal-Planning Sheet" and select a few dishes to prepare early in the week. Family activities that impact the dinner hour (or my ability to cook) are listed on the left, the menu goes in the center, and a grocery list goes on the right. Here's what this week's sheet looks like, so far:

If we're out all day, I may choose a crock-pot meal that's ready when we get home. When there's little time to spare, a stir-fry is quick and easy. On the rare day when no activities are scheduled, I may experiment with something more elaborate.

My meal-planning sheet looks pretty simple now, but wait a few hours... meetings are added, games or lessons get changed, and the unexpected always arises. By starting with just three or four definite meals, I can make adjustments as needed during the week and, if I'm lucky, have some leftovers for lunches.

A trip to the grocery store is part of my Monday routine, but another stop on Thursday or Friday is inevitable. We always need more milk and produce and, if the beginning of the week has gone as planned, I'll buy fish or meat for a couple more dinners. Also, by later in the week, Margaret may have an idea for a weekend dessert and I can pick up those ingredients, too.

Do you have a meal-planning system, or do you keep a stocked refrigerator and decided day-by-day what's for dinner?

Book Notes: Miss Garnet's Angel

2012-02-24T07:07:00.000-05:00

Miss Garnet's Angel
by Salley Vickers
Plume, 2002
337 pages

What it's about:
After the death of her longtime friend and flatmate, retired British history teacher Julia Garnet does something completely out of character: She takes a six-month rental on a modest appartamento in Venice. An atheist, a Communist, and a virgin, Julia finds herself falling beneath the seductive spell of the city's intoxicating beauty and sensual religiosity. She befriends a young Italian boy and English twins who are restoring a fourteenth-century chapel. And she falls in love for the first time in her life with an art dealer named Carlo. (from amazon)

Why I read it:
Venice in February, TBR Double Dare

What I liked:
Character development: Miss Garnet's spiritual and emotional transformation was very well done.
Setting: Venice is such an appealing setting. It's practically a character here.
Map: I love maps! This map of the city includes characters' apartments, significant historic sites, and canals.

What I didn't like:
The alternating story of Tobias and the Archangel Raphael (from the Apocryphal Book of Tobit), while necessary to overall understanding, slowed things down. I was always anxious to return to Julia's story.

A favorite passage:

"The dark green water-weathered doors lay open back. Stepping through the vestibule she made out a procession of candles punctuating the fine gloom with little swaying hollows of light. As she stood the notes of a chant started up. What a strange world she had entered coming to Venice; a world of strange rituals, penumbras, rapture. Timidity crept over her, the old insidious sense of not belonging, and she stepped back out of the wax-laden smell into the harshness of the foggy air." page 68

My Rating:

Poet Birthday: Edna St. Vincent Millay

2012-02-22T08:20:00.001-05:00

View from Mt. Battie - Camden, Maine

Today is the birthday of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, born in Rockland, Maine (1892). After her parents divorced in 1900, Millay moved with her sisters and mother to Camden, Maine. Edna was in high school when she submitted a poem, "Renascence," to a poetry contest. She didn't win the contest, but one of the judges fell in love with her, and almost divorced his wife. She performed "Renascence" at a poetry reading, and a woman in the audience was so impressed that she paid Edna's way to Vassar College.

*click to enlarge

The above marker is at the top of Mt. Battie; I like to imagine she wrote this poem here.

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

2012-02-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

It amazes me how a book with very little plot can be so immediately absorbing. I sat down with Anne Enright's latest novel on a Friday afternoon, planning to read just a few pages. I wasn't sure it was what I wanted to read next, but, by the time I looked up, fifty pages had been turned and the decision had been made.

To say The Forgotten Waltz is about an affair is too simplistic. Adultery from the point of view of the other woman gets a little closer, but it's really more than that.

Gina, our first person narrator, is happily married to Conor when she meets Sean Vallely in her sister's garden. Enright's prose is slow and deliberate, but draws the reader in from the opening passage . Gina's voice provides a sense of immediacy and intimacy as she meanders through events from her childhood, marriage, and career. Her account of Sean's marriage, career, and daughter also figures prominently in her story of their affair.

As I closed the book (and I loved the ending), I considered the possibility that the story would be very different if told from Sean's perspective, or that of his wife, Aileen. Is Gina a reliable narrator? But in the end, I realized it didn't matter. I simply enjoyed reading Gina's story.

Favorite passages:

"The affair, as I had learned to call it, progressed in its Friday pace. The sex became less filthy and more fun, the silence filled with talk - laughter even - and this unsettled me. I might have preferred silence. Every normal thing he said reminded me that we were not normal. That we were only normal for the twelve foot by fourteen of a hotel room. Outside, in the open air, we would evaporate." p. 117

"I have thought about it a lot since - how much Aileen did or did not know. When it all blew up in our faces, sean said that she had been 'in denial'. He said 'you have no idea' (the things I have to put up with). They must realise, these women. They must, on some level, know what is going on. I know it sounds like a harsh thing to say, but I think we should own up to what we know. We should know why we do the things that we do. Otherwise it's just a mess. Otherwise we are all just flailing around." p. 108-109

"I thought it would be a different life, but sometimes it is the same life in a dream: a different man coming in the door, a different man hanging his coat on the hook. He comes home late, he goes out to the gym, he gets stuck on the internet: we don't spend our evenings in restaurants, or dine by candlelight anymore... I don't know what I expected... It's like they don't know you exist unless you are standing there in front of them. I think about Sean all the time when he is gone, about who he is, and where he is, and how I can make things right for him. I hold him in my care. All the time." p. 202

"I go through the darkening town with Sean's beautiful mistake. Because it really was a mistake for Sean to have a child, and it was a particular mistake for him to have this child; a girl who looks out on the world with his grey eyes, from a mind that is entirely her own. Lovers can be replaced, I think - a little bitterly - but not children. Whoever she turns out to be, he is forever stuck with loving Evie." p.258

Bottom line: The real beauty of The Forgotten Waltz lies in the writing.

My rating:

TSS: A Sunday Ramble

2012-02-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

Good morning, and welcome to a rambling edition of The Sunday Salon. After missing the last couple of weeks, it seems like there's a lot to talk about. The lack of winter weather gets top billing around here. In contrast to last year's punishing snow and cold, it appears this will go down as "the winter that wasn't". We have had around 40 inches of snow this season, the least ever by mid-February. We have had a few inches over the past couple of days - just enough to make everything look pretty, but no driving woes or snow shovels for us this weekend!

On the reading front, Venice in February continues. I posted a review for The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan. The audio was well done, but it's not a book you can really claim to enjoy. I also finished Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers and will be trying out a new (to me) mini review style.

I finally started reading The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki. The Japanese names confused me for the first chapter or two, but I made myself a cheat sheet and fell right into the story. This sentence from the back cover says it all:
As told by Junichiro Tanizaki, the story of the Makioka sisters forms what is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century, a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family–and an entire society–sliding into the abyss of modernity.
I purchased this book a year or two ago for The Japanese Literature Challenge and, even though the challenge is over, the time seems right to read it now.

After a long gap, the next letter in our Group Read of Clarissa by Samuel Richardson is dated tomorrow. It's been nearly a month and I'm looking forward to reading more. I wonder what happened during Clarissa's visit to Miss Howe - did she see Lovelace? There are only a few letters this month and I will collect links to all February posts on the 29th. It's still not too late to join in. We will have read only eleven letters (roughly 73 pages) by then. The frequency increases in March, so I'm going to need to budget more reading time next month.

Have you noticed Blogger changed word verification to TWO words? Not only that, it is much harder to decipher the words. It's frustrating when the verification process takes more time than the actual comment. Several months ago, I removed word verification, disallowed anonymous comments, and began moderating comments over five days old. So far there hasn't been a spam problem.

We're now only hours away from tonight's Downton Abbey season finale and I'm already worried about the impending Downton Withdrawal Syndrome (DWS). {If you don't watch the show, I know you think I'm crazy, but do yourself a favor and watch the beginning of season 1. All it takes is one episode and you'll be hooked.} Coping strategies are in the planning stage, but include watching the entire season again (possibly multiple times), trying Upstairs, Downstairs and other series, and reading Downton-themed books. Do you have any suggestions? Are you worried about DWS?

We have a busy day ahead, so I'll wrap this ramble up now. The Syracuse University basketball game is at 1:00 (what a great season!), then dinner with my family, and finally the two hour Downton Abbey finale. Are you on twitter? There's a live party beginning at 9 PM using #DowntonPBS. It's fun to follow the stream even if you don't tweet. I'll see you there!

Kafka's Soup: A Complete History of World Literature in 14 recipes by Mark Crick

2012-02-18T08:14:00.002-05:00

This quirky little book was recently on display at my library, and I couldn't resist taking a closer look. It consists of fourteen recipes, each reading more like a short story. The fun begins when you realize the "stories" are written in the style of a famous author.

As I skimmed through this slim collection, I was particularly drawn to "recipes" by Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf, and Geoffrey Chaucer. As expected, Chaucer's Onion Tart recipe was beyond my comprehension (as is his work). Harold Pinter's Cheese on Toast recipe is, naturally, presented as a play.

My favorite recipe was for Tarragon Eggs a la Jane Austen:

4 eggs
1 tablespoon minced fresh tarragon, or 1 teaspoon dried
4 tablespoons butter
Ground pepper
Pinch of salt

It is a truth universally acknowledged that eggs, kept for too long, go off. The eggs of Oakley Farm had only recently been settled in the kitchen of Somercote, but already Mrs. B- was planning a meal that would introduce them to the neighbourhood with what she hoped would be universal acceptance. Her eggs had been strongly endowed by nature with a turn for being uniformly agreeable and she hoped to see at least a half dozen of them make fine matches in the coming week. The arrival of a newcomer in the parish presented the perfect opportunity and Mrs. B- wasted no time in sending out invitations to a luncheon....

The book is very clever. Of course, it helps to be familiar with the writing of each recipe's author, but even if you just know a few, it's still pretty funny.

Kafka's Soup
Written and illustrated by Mark Crick
Harcourt, Inc., 2005
92 pages

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan (audio)

2012-02-15T09:36:00.000-05:00

It's not unusual to feel slightly off kilter while traveling, especially in a foreign country. We eat more, we drink more, sleep patterns are altered, there may be a language barrier, and it's easy to get lost.

Such is the case for Colin and Mary. Wandering around an unnamed city late at night in search of an open restaurant, they are befriended by Robert, a stranger who takes them to an out-of-the-way bar. Initially they're happy to meet a native and visit an establishment frequented by locals, but a feeling of unease gradually grows. After a chance meeting the next morning (the couple got lost and never made it back to their hotel), Colin and Mary end up at Robert's home. Here the story becomes uncomfortable. The plot takes a turn toward the twisted and odd. I won't elaborate further, but be aware this psychological thriller is rife with sexual overtones. The cover illustration hints at a voyeuristic component to the relationship. Indeed, at times, I felt like an voyeur by simply listening.

Alex Jennings' narration is flawless. Although listening was not my first choice, I'm glad now there were no print copies available in the library system. A pervasive feeling of unease is, perhaps, even more palpable on audio.

I initially wondered at McEwan's failure to name the city, ostensibly Venice, but later decided it enhanced the mood. Leaving it unnamed accentuated the sense of disorientation.

The Comfort of Strangers (1981) was a gripping, yet disturbing book. Listening seemed to make it even more compelling. I was forewarned, but chose to proceed anyway. While not exactly a likable book, it was very good.

My rating:

Chivers Audiobooks, 2001
3 hours 49 minutes

Valentine's Day with Jane Austen

2012-02-14T07:43:00.000-05:00

Quotes from Jane Austen on Love and Romance, edited by Constance Moore:

What a strange thing love is!

- Emma Woodhouse, Emma

I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of being in love.

- Emma Woodhouse, Emma

A woman in love with one man cannot flirt with another.

-Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey

...it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.

-Charlotte Lucas, Pride & Prejudice

It would be an excellent match, for he was rich, and she was handsome.

- Sense and Sensibility

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope... I have loved none but you.

- Captain Frederick Wentworth, Persuasion

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

- Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride & Prejudice

If you go on refusing every offer of marriage, you will never get a husband at all.

- Mrs. Bennet, Pride & Prejudice

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

- Charlotte Lucas, Pride & Prejudice

When two sympathetic hearts meet in the marriage state, matrimony may be called a happy life.

- Mary Crawford, Mansfield Park

Of course, the real reason to feature Jane Austen quotes is the excuse to include a photograph of "my" Mr. Darcy, Colin Firth. Happy Valentine's Day!

"The Farmer's Children" by Elizabeth Bishop

2012-02-13T07:38:00.001-05:00

*photo credit

"Once, on a large farm ten miles from the nearest town, lived a hard-working farmer with his wife, their three little girls, and his children from a former marriage, two boys aged eleven and twelve."

It begins like a fairy tale, complete with a stepmother, princess-like half sisters, and two motherless boys. When Elizabeth Bishop adds in oppressive cold and a full moon, the tale quickly turns dark and foreboding. Since their father and the hired man (who usually sleeps in the barn) have gone to town, Cato and Emerson must take his place in the barn and guard against vandals. Cato decides it's a "night for the crumbs" and hides four slices of bread under his sweater during dinner. On the way to the barn, he leaves his trail of crumbs.

"Outside it was almost as bright as day. The macadam road looked very gray and rang under their feet, that immediately grew numb with the cold. The cold stuck quickly to the little hairs in their nostrils, that felt painfully stuffed with icy straws. But if they tried to warm their noses against the clumsy lapels of their mackinaws, the freezing moisture felt even worse, and they gave it up and merely pointed out their breath to each other as it whitened and then vanished. The moon was behind them. Cato looked over his shoulder and saw how the tin roof of the farmhouse shone, bluish, and how, above it, the stars looked blue, too, blue or yellow, and very small; you could hardly see most of them."

Inside the barn, the boys are cold and scared. Judd's blankets are nowhere to be found and the farm implements look malevolent in the moonlight. They long to follow their breadcrumb trail home before sunrise. Unsurprisingly, the story ends in tragedy. It is a peaceful tragedy, one that I was not expecting.

Bishop's writing is very visual, allowing the reader to "see" every detail as the story unfolds. Although Elizabeth Bishop is best known for her poetry, I am happy to discover her short stories.

I read "The Farmer's Children"in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. It also appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1949. Unfortunately, I could not find the story on the internet.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Weekend Cooking: Pork & Pineapple Skewers

2012-02-11T09:47:00.000-05:00

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

Grilling in Central New York in February is very unusual, yet this entire winter has been anything but usual. Our area has never experienced a winter with so little snow (under 40 inches so far this season), and temperatures have been relatively mild, too. Last night, with the grill so easily accessible and temperatures pushing 40 degrees, we decided to make a summer favorite - Pork and Pineapple Skewers. It's an adaptation of this Rachel Ray recipe.

PORK AND PINEAPPLE SKEWERS

Ingredients:

1 20 ounce can of pineapple chunks in their juice, drained and juice reserved
1 clove garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
1 1/4 pounds pork loin, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces

Directions:

Combine the pineapple juice, garlic, soy sauce, ginger and oil in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper. Add the pork and scallions and let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Preheat an outdoor grill or grill pan to medium-high.
Meanwhile, thread the marinated pork and pineapple chunks onto skewers.

Grill the kebabs, turning occasionally, until golden and cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes.

Quick, easy, and delicious!

Note: If you think the photos look like more than 1 1/4 pounds of pork tenderloin, you're right. I doubled the recipe.

Tuesday Intros: Celebrating Dickens Bicentenary

2012-02-07T07:59:00.000-05:00

Today marks the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. In honor of the bicentenary, I am posting two of my favorite opening passages from his novels. Bleak House, widely considered to be Dickens' masterpiece, has a marvelously visual opening. Can't you just see and feel the mud and fog? It is, by far, my favorite Dickens opening.

A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens' work of historical fiction, features what may be his most well-known opening, yet it is my least favorite novel. My favorite Dickens novel, Great Expectations, has an unremarkable opening paragraph.

More information on the Dickens Bicentenary can be found at Dickens 2012. Follow the celebration on twitter @Dickens2012.

.

Bleak House
published serially 1852-1853

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

A Tale of Two Cities
published serially 1859

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

"A Venetian Night's Entertainment" by Edith Wharton

2012-02-06T07:55:00.000-05:00

*image credit

Short Story Monday, meet Venice in February. I'd been searching for stories set in Venice to share this month, when Audrey pointed me toward Edith Wharton. The story was exactly what I'd hoped for and Wharton, as always, was a pleasure to read.

"A Venetian Night's Entertainment" is a story Judge Anthony Bracknell liked to tell his grandsons. Ever since childhood, the mere mention of Venice had been like "a magician's magic wand" to the judge. His fascination stemmed from a print depicting a "busy merry populous scene" in St. Mark's Square.

"For here, by their garb, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons' gowns who stalked through the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of parasites at their heels. And all these people seemed to be diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys, distributing doles to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by slippery-looking fellows in black -- the whole with such an air of ease and good-humour that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a part of the show as the tumbling acrobats and animals."

As young Tony grew up, that image faded, but Venice still figured prominently in his dreams. All he learned in subsequent years seemed to "confirm its claim to stand midway between reality and illusion" - Venice still meant magic.

"It was the kind of place, Tony felt, in which things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen..."

Tony finally had an opportunity to visit Venice 1760, as part of his grand tour aboard the family's merchant ship. The story perfectly conveys the carnival-like atmosphere as, almost immediately upon arrival, Tony becomes an unwilling participant in a strange series of events involving a chance encounter with a beautiful young woman, an arranged marriage, misdelivered correspondence, and a chase. Tony is never exactly sure what is happening and, as a result, neither is the reader. This story was great fun! You can read "A Venetian Night's Entertainment" here.

Can you suggest other short stories set in Venice?

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford. Venice in February is hosted by Bellezza and Ally.

Author Birthday: Stewart O'Nan

2012-02-04T08:09:00.000-05:00

*photo credit

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of writer Stewart O'Nan (books by this author), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1961). He worked for years as an aerospace engineer, and when he came home from his work every day he would go down to his basement and write. In 1994, he published his first novel, Snow Angels, about a murder in a small town in western Pennsylvania. He often writes about characters who feel trapped by their circumstances and end up doing horrible things. He said, "My own life isn't terribly interesting, even to myself, and that ... [is] why I write about people and places so different from the ones I know."

Stewart O'Nan's latest novel, The Odds, was every bit as good as I had expected. If I'd known today was his birthday, I would have finished the review in time to post. Instead, let me say that O'Nan was my favorite author discovery of 2011 and link to my thoughts on a few of his books.

Have you read Stewart O'Nan yet?

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

2012-02-02T07:40:00.000-05:00

Anna Quindlen knows how to tell a story. You may not always feel comfortable while reading it - mothers die (One True Thing), domestic violence is rampant (Black and Blue), and painful coming-of-age choices must be made (Object Lessons) - but Quindlen is a master. Her characters' lives will draw you in ever time, but beware of the emotional punch.

I was prepared when I began reading Every Last One on a flight home from Florida last month. Other bloggers warned that an "unspeakable tragedy" was in store. I put the book away shortly before landing, certain the event was just pages away. The funny thing is that once I got home, I avoided the book for days. I needed extra time to brace myself, but then the rest of the book flew by just as quickly.

The first half focused on Mary Beth Latham's seemingly perfect life - great husband, three kids, a beautiful home, and her own landscaping business. Sure there are the trials of daily living, but overall things are pretty good. Half way through the book, something horrible happens. The rest is all about surviving, putting your life back together as best you can, and facing the next day. It was easy to empathize with Mary Beth, but something about her rubbed me the wrong way.

Returning to Quindlen's fiction after a nearly ten year hiatus has been a pleasure. Although I liked the first half much better than the second, Every Last One definitely met my expectations. A recommended read.

My rating:

Clarissa Group Read: January Update

2012-01-31T07:45:00.000-05:00

This month we embarked on a yearlong project to read Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. The epistolary novel, published in 1748 and purported to be one of the longest novels in the English language, contains 537 letters written over the course of a year. The goal is to read the letters around their corresponding dates and discuss our progress at the end of each month. Terri and I will alternate monthly hosting duties.

Visit Tip of the Iceberg to leave your link and find collected January posts.

Plot summary:
There are six letters written in January - all between Clarissa Harlowe and her dearest friend, Anna Howe. The first correspondence, initiated by Miss Howe, expresses concern for her friend over a recent incident that has wreaked havoc within the Harlowe family and incited public discussion. Miss Howe asks for a complete account of events from her friend's perspective. Clarissa obliges with a series of five letters.

Mr. Lovelace is presented to the Harlowe family as a suitor for Arabella, the elder daughter, but appears to show no real interest in her. He even takes her "consenting negative" as a final rebuff. Within a couple of weeks, his attention shifts to Clarissa. While Mr. Harlowe does nothing to discourage the match, Clarissa's older brother, James, arrives from Scotland and voices an intense dislike of Lovelace. He holds a grudge dating back to school days and has threatened to disown Clarissa if she marries Lovelace. Meanwhile, rumors of Lovelace's "faulty morals" abound. Clarissa claims she will not allow a relationship to divide her family.

Tensions escalate until James and Lovelace end up in a sword fight, with James sustaining a nonfatal injury. He will recover fully, but cannot rest until Clarissa is safely married. James bullies his father into discouraging Lovelace's advances. It is decided to send Clarissa to Miss Howe for a visit.

A Quote:
from Clarissa's final letter to Miss Howe:

"Will you engage, my dear, that the hated man shall not come near your house? - but what an inconsistence is this, when they consent to my going, thinking his visits here no otherwise to be avoided! But if he does come I charge you never leave us alone together."

Thoughts and Impressions:
Although I'm still getting used to the language, Clarissa is much more readable than I expected. Starting with just six letters in the first month has been a nice way to ease into our project. The stage is now set... I'm anxious to see where things go from here.

Can Lovelace really be as bad as James thinks? And what about Clarissa? Will she abide by her family's wishes, or do I sense a streak of independence... and possibly deception?

The most important development this month was on a personal level. After reading these first six letters, it became obvious that my huge paperback poses a problem. Not only is it cumbersome, but the print is very small. To top it all off, I realized the pages are yellowing.

I took my Christmas gift certificates to Barnes & Noble and purchased a NOOK Simple Touch. I can't wait to read February's letters now!

The Sunday Salon: TBR Double Dare Strike Out, New NOOK, and Zelda Update

2012-01-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

Not one strike, but three. Twenty-nine days ago, I took up James' dare to read from my shelves for three months. Today, I admit defeat.

Strike #1: My library hold of The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright arrived. The plan was to read a few pages, send it back, and check it out again after the dare. I read the whole book.

Strike #2: The Odds by Stewart O'Nan, pre-ordered months ago, appeared in my mailbox. I will start reading it this afternoon.

Strike #3: I bought a NOOK Simple Touch and downloaded Clarissa for our group read (not technically a strike since the book is already on my shelf). Then, at Sandy's suggestion, I impulsively downloaded a sample of 11/22/63 by Stephen King... it's only a matter of time before I click 'buy now'.

So much for the TBR Double Dare. But, early dropout status notwithstanding, I will still continue to read from my shelves as much as possible.

The new NOOK:
On the plus side, I love my NOOK Simple Touch! It's very lightweight and easy on the eyes. I'll never try to read a book on my iPad again. Just looking at the pink case makes me happy, but will I need a 'wardrobe' of them? Kate Spade has some very attractive, albeit pricey, offerings.

I've had great fun exploring the Girlebooks link Audrey sent. Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon was my 'practice download' and there are several others that caught my eye, including Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield.

Are there any other websites I need to know about? Or NOOK tips in general?

Zelda update:
Zelda is not happy wearing the dreaded Elizabethan collar, but her paw is finally beginning to heal. This week she started to put a little weight on it... very tentatively, of course, but a good sign. The vet has prescribed another two weeks of antibiotics and we'll reassess the collar in another week. It looks like Zelda is going to make it!

I finally decided to visit the doctor this week, too. Antibiotics are helping some with the sinus infection and bronchitis, but the killer cough lingers. It looks like another day on the couch for me - reading, blogging, and drinking tea. Are you up to anything exciting today?

Author Birthday: W. Somerset Maugham

2012-01-25T07:21:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know today is Virginia Woolf's birthday and she will no doubt receive the greater amount of attention, but W. Somerset Maugham was also born on this date.

*photo credit

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of W. Somerset Maugham (books by this author), born in Paris (1874). His father was in Paris as a lawyer for the British Embassy. When Maugham was eight years old, his mother died from tuberculosis. His father died of cancer two years later. The boy was sent back to England into the care of a cold and distant uncle, a vicar. Maugham was miserable at his school. He said later: "I wasn't even likeable as a boy. I was withdrawn and unhappy, and rejected most overtures of sympathy over my stuttering and shyness." Maugham became a doctor and practiced in the London slums. He was particularly moved by the women he encountered in the hospital, where he delivered babies; and he was shocked by his fellow doctors' callous approach to the poor." He wrote: "I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief; I saw the dark lines that despair drew on a face; I saw courage and steadfastness. I saw faith shine in the eyes of those who trusted in what I could only think was an illusion and I saw the gallantry that made a man greet the prognosis of death with an ironic joke because he was too proud to let those about him see the terror of his soul."

When he was 23, he published his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, about a working-class 18-year-old named Liza who has an affair with a 40-year-old married man named Jim, a father of nine. Jim's wife beats up Liza, who is pregnant, and who miscarries, and dies. The novel was a big success, and Maugham made enough money to quit medicine and become a full-time writer. For many years, he made his living as a playwright, but eventually he became one of the most popular novelists in Britain. His novels include Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Cakes and Ale (1930), and The Razor's Edge (1944).

Somerset Maugham said, "To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life."

Maugham's The Painted Veil was the first book I reviewed on this blog back in 2008. It was also one of my favorite books that year. I've read a few of his short stories and have Of Human Bondage waiting on the shelf. Have you read Somerset Maugham?

Tuesday Intro: The Forgotten Waltz

2012-01-24T06:54:00.000-05:00

"I met him in my sister's garden in Enniskerry. That is where I saw him first. There was nothing fated about it, though I add in the late summer light and the view. I put him at the bottom of my sister's garden, in the afternoon, at the moment the day begins to turn. Half five maybe. It is half past five on a Wicklow summer Sunday when I see Sean for the first time. There he is, where the end of my sister's garden becomes uncertain. He is about to turn around - but he doesn't know this yet. He is looking at the view and I am looking at him. The sun is low and lovely. He is standing where the hillside begins its slow run down to the coast, and the light is at his back, and it is just that time of day when all the colours come into their own."

The Forgotten Waltz
by Anne Enright

I picked this book up on Friday intending to read just a page or two, but was entranced by Enright's writing and ended up at page fifty before realizing I'd actually decided to start the book. Does the first paragraph appeal to you?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

"The Geranium" by Flannery O'Connor

2012-01-23T07:50:00.001-05:00

*image credit

"Old Dudley folded into the chair he was gradually molding to his own shape and looked out the window fifteen feet away into another window framed by blackened red brick. He was waiting for the geranium. They put it out every morning about ten and they took it in at five-thirty. Mrs. Carson back home had a geranium in her window. There were plenty of geraniums at home, better-looking geraniums. Ours are sho nuff geraniums, Old Dudley thought, not any er this pale pink business with green, paper bows."

From these opening lines, it's easy to surmise Old Dudley isn't very happy in New York City. He agreed, in "a moment of weakness", to leave his home in a southern boarding house and move into the apartment his daughter shares with her family.

"The apartment was too tight. There was no place to be where there wasn't somebody else. The kitchen opened into the bathroom and the bathroom opened into everything else and you were always where you started from. At home there was upstairs and the basement and the river and downtown..."

Now Old Dudley is lonely, isolated, and intimidated by the city. He resents the relaxed racial attitudes of the north and struggles with the fact that black people live in the same building as his daughter. The geranium's appearance on the windowsill each morning is the single constant in his life... until one day when it is no longer there. The ending is very moving.

Why has it taken me so long to discover Flannery O'Connor? I recently purchased The Complete Stories and my first inclination was to turn to "A Good Man is Hard to Find", but I decided to start at the beginning instead. "The Geranium" was Flannery O'Connor's first published story. It appeared in Accent: A Quarterly of New Literature in 1946 and was written as part of her six story Masters thesis project. Reading these stories in order will allow me to watch this great talent unfold. I really enjoyed "The Geranium"- you can read it here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Vacation Reading: Two Mini-Reviews

2012-01-22T09:07:00.000-05:00

Ragtime
by E.L. Doctorow

Ragtime, winner of the 1975 National Book Critics Circle Award, intermingles historical figures with fictional characters to capture the mood and spirit of New York City in the early years of the twentieth century.

The novel opens as Harry Houdini crashes his car into a telephone pole outside a home in New Rochelle. The family invites him in, and the line between fact and fiction begins to blur. Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldman, Evelyn Nesbit, and even Sigmund Freud wander in and out of the story. They cross paths with our fictional family, a Ragtime musician from Harlem, and a poor immigrant desperately trying to protect his young daughter.

The novel was quick reading and entertaining, but the neither the writing nor plot really stood out for me. I ended up leaving it in our rented condo for a future vacationer. My book club's reaction was mixed, too. Eight of us read the book, but only three would recommend it to a friend.

My rating:

Where Angels Fear To Tread
by E.M. Forster

Forster's first novel deals with his signature themes of class, manners, and the collision of cultures.

Plot Summary (from amazon):
When a young English widow takes off on the grand tour and along the way marries a penniless Italian, her in-laws are not amused. That the marriage should fail and poor Lilia die tragically are only to be expected. But that Lilia should have had a baby -- and that the baby should be raised as an Italian! -- are matters requiring immediate correction by Philip Herriton, his dour sister Harriet, and their well-meaning friend Miss Abbott.

I've read several of Forster's novels and especially enjoyed Howards End and A Room With A View. When Thomas mentioned that reading this novel in the sun would enhance the experience, I decided to bring it to Florida (there is no sun in central New York this time of year!) Of course, he was right. Reading about the lush Italian countryside while soaking up the sun myself was sublime. Maybe not quite as polished as his later novels, but definitely recommended for any E.M. Forster fan.

My rating:

Tuesday Intro: Every Last One

2012-01-17T08:19:00.000-05:00

"This is my life: The alarm goes off at five-thirty with the murmuring of a public-radio announcer, telling me that there has been a coup in Chad, a tornado in Texas. My husband stirs briefly next to me, turns over, blinks, and falls back to sleep for another hour. My robe lies at the foot of the bed, printed cotton in the summer, tufted chenille for the cold. The coffeemaker comes on in the kitchen below as I leave the bathroom, go downstairs in bare feet, pause to put away the boots left splayed in the downstairs back hallway and to lift the newspaper from the back step. The umber quarry tiles in the kitchen were a bad choice; they are always cold. I let the dog out of her kennel and put a cup of kibble in her bowl. I hate the early mornings, the suspended animation of the world outside, the veil of black and then the oppressive gray of the horizon along the hills outside the French doors. But it is the only time I can rest without sleeping, think without deciding, speak and hear my own voice. It is the only time I can be alone. Slightly less than an hour each weekday when no one makes demands."

Every Last One
by Anna Quindlen

I read the first half of this book on our flight home last Saturday, but haven't been able to pick it up since. The characters are all very real, and somehow familiar, to me. From reading reviews, I know something very horrible and violent will occur soon, possibly within pages of my stopping point, and I will need to read the rest of the book in a single sitting - with plenty of tissues nearby. That will hopefully happen later today or tomorrow.

On a totally unrelated note... Why are UK covers always so much more appealing than their US counterparts? I would much rather be reading this edition.

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

Of Vacations and Veterinarians

2012-01-16T08:59:00.000-05:00

What a difference a day makes. Saturday morning, I woke to the sound of waves and watched the sun rise over the Gulf of Mexico. Sunday, it was twelve below zero as the snowplow roared down the road. I'm ready to go back to Sanibel!

It was a very relaxing week. There were walks on the beach and bike rides, but mostly I ate, drank, slept, and read. I finished Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow for book club and Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster. I'm at the halfway mark in Every Last One by Anna Quindlen, read the first few letters in Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, and made a significant dent in the pile of New Yorker magazines.

Everything was perfect until I received a call from the kennel just before we boarded the plane to come home. Zelda injured her paw/pad and they were taking her to the vet. By the time we landed in New York, I had a message from the vet. Thankfully there were no broken bones, but since greyhounds have very delicate legs, there was no extra skin to stitch the laceration together. Her wound was cleaned and covered, antibiotics and pain meds were prescribed, and a plastic boot was fashioned from an IV bag to keep the bandages dry in the snow. Zelda is hobbling around on three legs and we're slated for return vet visits two or three times a week for the next couple of months. We have an appointment later today and I'm anxious to speak with the vet in person. Once Zelda start to heal, I'm hoping they'll show me how to change the dressing. I love our vet, but would rather not visit three times a week all winter. It may be a few more days before regular blogging resumes.

Poor Zelda...

Clarissa Group Read Begins Today!

2012-01-10T08:30:00.001-05:00

Letter 1: MISS ANNA HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
January 10

I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbances that have happened in your family. I know how it must hurt you to become the subject of the public talk; and yet upon an ocassion so generally known it is impossible but that whatever relates to a young lady, whose distinguished merits have made her the public care, should engage everybody's attention. I long to have the particulars from yourself, and of the usage I am told you receive upon an accident you could not help and in which, as far as I can learn, the sufferer was the aggressor.

Clarissa
by Samuel Richardson

Our year-long project now underway. Many brave readers have decided to join in as Terri and I read all 537 letters (1500 pages) around the dates they were written. Full details can be found here and here. Would you like to read along?

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

On vacation...

2012-01-07T08:05:00.000-05:00

see you next week.

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (audio)

2012-01-06T07:16:00.000-05:00

Listening to Travels with Charley reminded me not only of how much I love John Steinbeck's writing, but how much I enjoy travel writing in general. In 1960, Steinbeck was living on the Long Island Sound, approaching his sixtieth birthday, and feeling out of touch with a country he'd been writing about for decades. That fall, he set out with his beloved dog, Charley, in a specially designed pickup truck/camper (named Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse) on a journey across the country. His goal was to rediscover America and reconnect with her people.

Steinbeck's journey took him along the back roads of New England, across the New York State Thruway and into the Midwest. He drove through the Badlands, basked in the majesty of the giant redwoods, and traversed the desert southwest. After a short break in Texas, Steinbeck was back on the road again and found himself in the midst of a civil rights demonstration in Mississippi. Figuring he'd seen enough, he turned Rocinante north and headed home.

Rocinante, fully restored, at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas

I have read many Steinbeck novels over the years, but in Travels with Charley, it felt like I was meeting 'the man' for the first time, instead of 'the writer'. While listening, it is easy to imagine Steinbeck speaking directly to you. I laughed at his subpar sense of direction and imagined how he would marvel at cars now equipped with built-in GPS systems. I enjoyed his musings on the sense of community among truckers, the 'mobile home' developments springing up across the country, and the impact of super-highway construction.

"When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing." (p.90)

The other star in this book is, of course, Charley. You'll have to take my word on this, but Charley is no ordinary dog. He's a black standard poodle, from France, with a personality as distinct and developed as your or mine. The relationship between man and dog takes center stage in several parts of the narrative. I fell in love with Charley, and think any man who forms such a strong bond with his dog can't be all bad either.

Now I'd like to read more of Steinbeck's nonfiction and a good biography, too. Do you have any recommendations?

Travels with Charley in Search of America
by John Steinbeck
Narrated by Gary Sinise
Penguin Audiobooks, 2011
7 hours and 58 minutes

My rating:

Wondrous Words Wednesday

2012-01-04T09:04:00.000-05:00

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Kathy at BermudaOnion's Weblog where we share new or unfamiliar words encountered in our reading. If you've come across some interesting words this week, feel free to join in the fun.

My words are all from The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, and definitions come from dictionary.com.

susurrus: a soft murmuring or rustling sound; whisper.

Over a susurrus of awed mutterings, he told us that Robson had been cut down in the flower of youth, that his demise was a loss to the whole school, and that we would all be symbolically present at the funeral. (p.13-14)

nonpareil: having no equal; peerless.
(it's always meant small sugar pellets used for decorating cookies, etc. to me - definition number 3)

Also between Veronica and Brother Jack, whose life and deportment she clearly regarded as nonpareil: he was the appointed judge when she asked publicly of me - and the question gets more condescending with each repetition - "He'll do, won't he?" (p.47)

solipsistic: of or characterized by solipsism, or the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.

My first reaction was, I admit, solipsistic. (p. 150)

Tuesday Intro: Arthur & George

2012-01-03T08:01:00.000-05:00

A child wants to see. It always begins like this, and it began like this then. A child wanted to see.

He was able to walk, and could reach up to a door handle. He did this with nothing that could be called purpose, merely the instinctive tourism of infancy. A door was there to be pushed; he walked in, stopped, looked. There was nobody to observe him; he turned and walked away, carefully shutting the door behind him.

What he saw there became his first memory. A small boy, a room, a bed, closed curtains leaking afternoon light. By the time he came to describe it publicly, sixty years had passed. How many internal retellings had smoothed and adjusted the plain words he finally used? Doubtless it still seemed as clear as on the day itself. The door, the room, the light, the bed, and what was on the bed: a “white, waxen thing.”

Arthur & George
by Julian Barnes

I enjoyed The Sense of an Ending so much that my first instinct upon finishing was to turn back to page one and begin again. While that reread is still a possibility, I decided to explore more of Barnes work instead. Arthur & George was the only other novel available at my library.

But... We're off to Florida in a few days and I hate traveling with library books, especially hardcovers. And the TBR Double Dare is now underway, too. The first thirty pages convinced me to return to Arthur & George in a few months. In the meantime, I will begin our next book club selection (Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow) and choose a couple books from my shelf for the trip.

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

"An English New Year" by Henry James

2012-01-02T09:09:00.000-05:00

"It will hardly be pretended this year that the English Christmas has been a merry one, or that the New Year has the promise of being particularly happy. The winter is proving very cold and vicious - as if Nature herself were loath to be left out of the general conspiracy against the comfort and self-complacency of man."

More of a letter or essay, Henry James wrote "An English New Year" during the economically unstable 1870's. He was 35 years old, living in England, and the piece was published in The Nation on January 12, 1879. It later appeared in his Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America.

James talks of the general gloom prevalent throughout the country. As London is mired in fog and snow (described in in prose reminiscent of Dickens), he hopes to recover his 'nervous balance' with a brief escape to the country.

"Of all the great things that the English have invented and made part of the credit of the national character, the most perfect, the most characteristic, the one they have mastered most completely in all its details, so that it has become a compendious illustration of their social genius and their manners, is the well-appointed, well-administered, well-filled country-house."

James is invited to accompany the lady of the house on a charitable holiday visit to a workhouse where she is to distribute toys to the children. The dispatch ends abruptly as he is reminded of Oliver Twist.

"An English New Year" is this week's Library of America Story of the Week and includes drawings by Joseph Pennell. You may read it here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

The Sunday Salon: A Look Ahead

2012-01-01T11:02:00.000-05:00

*image credit

Happy New Year 2012!

And so we begin another year. While mulling over resolutions for 2012, I realized that slight changes made in 2011 have added to my overall enjoyment of reading and blogging, so I will continue on this path for another year.

My top goal for 2012 is to keep pressure and stress out of blogging. I will not necessarily review every book I read. If I don't have much to say, a one paragraph book note with a few basic thoughts will suffice. I will participate in events and group reads, and continue to limit challenges and commitments.

Co-host a 2012 Group read. Interest in our Clarissa read-along project has been overwhelming! Terri and I will begin the year-long effort to read the 537 letters (1500 pages) roughly on the dates written. Our 'real time' read will last into December. My invitation post is here, but the page is still under construction.

I will return to my stacks in 2012. I loved the TBR Dare last year and plan to do it all again with the TBR Double Dare. Although it ends in April, reading my own books will continue to be a priority throughout the year.

Go back for seconds. Many of my 2011 favorites were written by known and trusted authors. I will read their work more deeply.

Resume the short story habit. Sometime over the summer, short stories vanished from this blog. I will try to participate in Short Story Monday at least semi-regularly.

Finally, thank you to all who read and comment here. I appreciate your feedback and friendship, and look forward to another year of book talk.

Some December acquisitions....

2011-12-31T07:52:00.000-05:00

before the TBR Double Dare begins tomorrow.

Highlights and Favorites: 2011

2011-12-30T07:46:00.001-05:00

*photo credit

2011 will be remembered as the year I began moving toward a reading and blogging regimen that fits the rest of my life. The combination of no challenges/minimal commitments with great events/group reads reduced pressure and resulted in a very satisfying reading year. A few more adjustments are needed, but I'm definitely headed in the right direction.

HIGHLIGHTS:

The TBR Dare brought me back to Richard Yates.

Virago Reading Week warmed up a snowy January.

Persephone Reading Weekend was spent book shopping in London!

Paris in July, and finally reading A Moveable Feast

The Art of the Novella Challenge - my August classics fix

A stormy Labor Day weekend spent indoors reading Wish You Were Here blazed a path for a new Stewart O'Nan devotee.

The House of the Seven Gables group read - meeting new blogging friends proved more enjoyable than Hawthorne's novel

FICTION FAVORITES:

The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Fiction Honorable Mention:

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan

The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

Cold Spring Harbor by Richard Yates

NON-FICTION FAVORITE:

A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates by Blake Bailey

- the best literary biography I have ever read

Non-Fiction Honorable Mention:

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

AUDIO FAVORITES:

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner

Audio Honorable Mention:

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Peony by Pearl S. Buck

FAVORITE SHORT STORY:
"Bliss" by Katherine Mansfield
Although short stories haven't been featured over the past several months, "Bliss" was my clear favorite of 2011.

Reflections, Resolutions, and Plans for 2012 coming soon...

Tuesday Intro: The Sense of an Ending

2011-12-27T08:46:00.000-05:00

We live in time - it holds us and moulds us - but I've ever felt I understood it very well. And I'm not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing - until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.

The Sense of an Ending

by Julian Barnes

I started this book last night and was immediately captivated by the gorgeous writing. Reading is top priority today and, at just over 160 pages, I'll easily finish this afternoon. Why have I waited so long to read Julian Barnes?

This is actually the second paragraph. Diane is reading the same book and has already posted the first paragraph. Visit her blog for more Tuesday Intros.

End-of-Year Book Survey

2011-12-26T10:27:00.000-05:00

*image credit

My official 'best of' list is still days away, but this quick survey has appeared on several of my favorite blogs and has helped focus my thinking.

1. Best Book(s) You Read in 2011?

A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates by Blake Bailey
The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

2. Most Disappointing Book?

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2011?

The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones
I never thought a novel in verse could be so much fun.

4. Book(s) you recommended to people most in 2011?

Richard Yates and Stewart O'Nan... I recommended authors this year.

5. Best series you discovered in 2011?

Series are to be avoided.

6. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2011?

Stewart O’Nan
Toni Morrison
Barbara Pym

7. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2011?

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

8. Book you most anticipated in 2011?

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

9. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2011?

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
This UK cover (a library sale find) is more attractive than its US counterpart.

10. Most memorable character in 2011?

Richard Yates - A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates by Blake Bailey

Most memorable fictional characters include:

Jack from Room by Emma Donoghue
Emily from Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan
Bo and Elsa from The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner

11. Most beautifully written book(s) read in 2011?

The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

12. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2011?

The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman was an intense, emotionally draining novel.

13. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2011 to finally read?

a novel by Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye)

14. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2011?

"You had to stay in a place to make it a home. A home had to be lived in every day, every month, every year for a long time, till it was worn like an old shoe and fitted the comfortable curvatures of your life."

The Big Rock Candy Mountain
by Wallace Stegner

15. Book That You Read In 2011 That Would Be Most Likely To Reread In 2012?

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Merry Christmas to all...

2011-12-23T14:36:00.000-05:00

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on Earth, good-will to men!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

*photo credit

An Invitation to Read Along...

2011-12-18T09:52:00.000-05:00

As the New Year begins, Terri and I will embark on a new project. We're going to read Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. This 18th century masterpiece, subtitled Or the History of a Young Lady, is an epistolary novel composed of 537 letters dated from January 10 through December 18. At roughly 1500 pages, we'll try to read the letters around their corresponding dates. This should provide at least a loose structure to the venture.

Plot synopsis (from amazon):
Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, and translated into French and German, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels.

I will be reading a very hefty (nearly 3 pound!) Penguin Classics edition, while Terri has the tome downloaded on her e-reader. We don't have a firm posting schedule set, but are leaning toward monthly progress updates. We'll be chatting on twitter, too. Would you like to join us?

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman

2011-12-17T12:05:00.000-05:00

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement

by Jane Ziegelman

Harper-Collins, 2010

272 pages

source: purchased

Summary (from Publishers Weekly):

Ziegelman puts a historical spin to the notion that you are what you eat by looking at five immigrant families from what she calls the "elemental perspective of the foods they ate." They are German, Italian, Irish, and Jewish (both Orthodox and Reform) from Russia and Germany--they are new Americans, and each family, sometime between 1863 and 1935, lived on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Each represents the predicaments faced in adapting the food traditions it knew to the country it adopted. From census data, newspaper accounts, sociological studies, and cookbooks of the time, Ziegelman vividly renders a proud, diverse community learning to be American. She describes the funk of fermenting sauerkraut, the bounty of a pushcart market, the culinary versatility of a potato, as well as such treats as hamburger, spaghetti, and lager beer. Beyond the foodstuffs and recipes of the time, however, are the mores, histories, and identities that food evokes. Through food, the author records the immigrants' struggle to reinterpret themselves in an American context and their reciprocal impact on American culture at large.

My thoughts:

More a culinary history of New York's Lower East Side than actual immigrant stories, 97 Orchard looks at five distinct ethnic groups through their native food customs, and then explores how their traditions were adapted to life in the United States. It begins with German immigrants in the 1860's, progresses through waves of Irish immigrants in the 1880's, to German and Russian Jews toward the end of the 19th century, and finally ends with the Italians of the early 20th century. A single building, located at 97 Orchard Street, is the common thread that binds the narrative. Five families, each a representative of one ethnic group, called it home. Today that structure is at the heart of New York City's Tenement Museum.

I was expecting specific immigrant stories told from a gastronomic perspective. Instead, the families themselves are only incidentally mentioned. Census records provided names of families living at the address, along with specific dates for births, deaths, etc. Beyond that, any mention of the families was limited to what "may" have happened, where they "might" have eaten or shopped, how they "would have" prepared a meal, etc.

The book covers immigrant food life from the dining halls at Ellis Island to German beirgartens and Jewish delis on the Lower East Side. It discusses the push-cart markets that flourished from the 1880's through the late 1930's. It covers life in the boarding houses along with the purpose and function of the Settlement House. Photographs, recipes, and newspaper articles provide an added dimension to the narrative.

Tenement life was difficult, especially for women. A lack of indoor plumbing and cramped conditions with minimal privacy added to the burden. Water had to be hauled up the central staircase. Without refrigeration or storage space, food was purchased immediately prior to preparation. Much of a typical day revolved around procuring and preparing meals. Ziegelman brings the sights, sounds, and smells of tenement living to life for the 21st century reader.

Book Club reaction:
Eight of us met to discuss the book last month. Six had read the book, one was still in progress, and one got the wrong book from the library (similar title, but written for a YA audience). Overall reaction was positive, but several expressed disappointment at the lack of specific information on each family. The sections on Ellis Island and the push-cart markets sparked lively discussion and there were also raves about the Tenement Museum itself. It's number one the itinerary for my next trip to NYC.

My rating:

Bottom line:
An interesting and enjoyable book, but a somewhat deceiving title lead to false expectations of specific immigrant stories

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (Audio)

2011-12-16T07:24:00.000-05:00

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat and Cassandra Morris
HighBridge Company, 2009
9 hours and 34 minutes
source: purchased

One sentence summary (from publisher):
An enchanting New York Times and international best seller and award-winner about life, art, literature, philosophy, culture, class, privilege, and power, seen through the eyes of a 54-year-old French concierge and a precocious but troubled 12-year-old girl.

My thoughts will be brief, as I may truly be the last blogger to read or listen to The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The book has been exhaustively reviewed. Just type the title into Book Blogs Search Engine and you'll see what I mean.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is an incredibly thought-provoking, cerebral novel. There isn't much in the way of plot and that made it hard for me to get involved initially. But once hooked, I was entranced. The ending came out of nowhere and was a complete surprise - I was dumbstruck.

This audio production is absolutely brilliant! Barbara Rosenblat is Madame Michele, the concierge, and Cassandra Morris is equally convincing as twelve-year-old Paloma. In fact, I think audio may actually be the best way to experience this novel. I may not have persevered through the slow beginning otherwise.

Passages I liked:

"I have read so many books...
And yet, like most autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gained from them. There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is to know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of nowhere, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading - and then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates, and no matter how often I reread the same lines, they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading, and I see myself as some mad old fool who thinks her stomach is full because she's been attentively reading the menu." (page 53)

"Madame Michel had the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress,but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant." (page 143)

My rating:
Half a start off for the slow start

The Buddha In the Attic by Julie Otsuka

2011-12-14T07:10:00.000-05:00

The Buddha in the Attic
by Julie Otsuka
Alfred A. Knopf, 2011
129 pages
source: borrowed

Publisher's Synopsis:
Julie Otsuka’s long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’ nearly a century ago.

In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war.

In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream.

One word review: Meh

And to elaborate:

The Buddha in the Attic provides an insightful look into the difficult lives of Japanese 'picture brides' in the early 20th century. As with her earlier novel, When The Emperor Was Divine, Otsuka's language is spare and powerful. This time though, while it serves to accentuate her point, it struck me as sing-song and repetitive.

"One of us blamed them for everything and wished that they were dead. One us us blamed them for everything and wished that she were dead. Others of us learned to live without thinking of them at all. We threw ourselves into our work and became obsessed with the thoughts of pulling one more weed. We put away our mirrors. We stopped combing our hair. We forgot about makeup. Whenever I powder my nose it looks just like frost on a mountain. We forgot about Buddha. We forgot about God. We developed a coldness inside us that still has not thawed. I fear my soul has died. We stopped writing home to our mothers. We lost weight and grew thin. We stopped bleeding. We stopped dreaming. We stopped wanting. We simply worked, that was all...." (page 36-37)

Several bloggers loved this novel but, had it been much longer, I may not have finished.

Violet had a very different reaction and I urge you to read her review before deciding against this novel.

My rating:

Tuesday Intro: Howards End is on the Landing

2011-12-13T07:32:00.000-05:00

"It began like this. I went to the shelves on the landing to look for a book I knew was there. It was not. But plenty of others were and among them I noticed at least a dozen I realised I had never read.

I pursued the elusive book through several rooms and did not find it in any of them, but each time I did find at least a dozen, perhaps two dozen, perhaps two hundred, that I had never read.

And then I picked out a book I had read but forgotten I owned. And another and another. After that came the books I had read, knew I owned and realised that I wanted to read again.

I found the book I was looking for in the end, but by then it had become far more than a book. It marked the start of a journey through my own library."

Howards End is on the Landing
by Susan Hill

As the end of the year approaches, I have come to the realization that I may only finish one or two more books. Perusing my shelves, I spied Susan Hill's book (subtitled A Year of Reading from Home), and thought it would be the perfect lead-in to The TBR Double Dare. I'm only proposing to read "from home" for three months, but these first few sentences have me even more excited to begin.

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea. Every week she posts the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph(s). Feel free to grab the button and play along.

Author Birthday: Gustave Flaubert

2011-12-12T08:03:00.000-05:00

From today's Writer's Almanac:

Today is the birthday of Gustave Flaubert (1821) (books by this author), born in Rouen, France. He was a notorious perfectionist in his work, and once said, "I spent the morning putting in a comma and the afternoon removing it." In 1851, he began what would become his first published novel, and his masterpiece. Five years later, Madame Bovary (1856) appeared in La Revue de Paris in serialized form. It's the story of Emma, a doctor's wife, who is dissatisfied with her life and longs to experience the passion, excitement, and luxury she has only read about in novels. She has two long-term affairs, accrues insurmountable debt, and ultimately takes her own life with arsenic.

From Madame Bovary, chapter nine: "Deep down in her heart, she was waiting and waiting for something to happen. Like a shipwrecked mariner, she gazed out wistfully over the wide solitude of her life, if so be she might catch the white gleam of a sail away on the dim horizon. She knew not what it would be, this longed-for barque; what wind would waft it to her, or to what shores it would bear her away. She knew not if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, burdened with anguish or freighted with joy. But every morning when she awoke she hoped it would come that day."

A month after the final installment of Madame Bovary was published, the French government banned the book, and hauled Flaubert up on charges of offending public and religious morality. Flaubert and his lawyers defended the book, saying that, by exposing vice, the novel was actually promoting virtue. Flaubert was narrowly acquitted, and Madame Bovary was published in book form two months later. The publicity and scandal of the trial contributed to its success.

Flaubert wrote: "It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes."

Madame Bovary was one of my favorites books of 2010.

The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones

2011-12-09T05:00:00.000-05:00

The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus: A Novel About Marriage, Motherhood, and Mayhem
by Sonya Sones
Harper, 2011
420 pages
source: borrowed

In a nutshell:
The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus is a coming-of-middle-age story told in verse.

My thoughts:
Holly is turning 50, sending her only child off to college, and desperately trying write a book. She's also dealing with wildly fluctuating hormones, an empty nest, an aging mother in the midst of a health crisis, editorial deadlines, and a husband who may or may not be fooling around. And that's just for starters.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't consider reading a novel in verse, but The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus came with Sandy's personal assurance that I'd love it - and Sandy has never steered me wrong. Every woman of 'a certain age' will be able to identify with at least some of the issues Holly faces. You may even find yourself asking "Could she be writing about my life?"

This book is well-suited to the busy month of December. It reads quickly - perfect for several short bursts, or you can read the entire novel in a sitting or two. One cautionary note: Be careful where you read it. You may burst out in laughter in inappropriate places or, like me, cry while waiting in the dentist's office.

Favorite poems:

HOW DO U NO WHEN UR OLD?

Well, you are old
if you had trouble understanding
the title of this poem.

You are old
if you have no idea who that person is
who's hosting Saturday Night Live.

You are old
if before you head off
on your morning run

you find yourself
tucking your husband's
cell phone number in your pocket

so that the paramedics
will know
who to call.

AFTER WE KISS SAMANTHA GOODNIGHT

Michael and I watch her
skip off down the sidewalk
with her new roommates,

the four of them already a unit,
their bursts of laughter floating back to us
as they disappear around a corner,

happier
than a litter
of leashless pups.

Then, the two of us
head out into the night,
hand in silent hand,

to find
the nearest
liquor store.

MARRIAGE IS A FIRE

First it burns with desire,
with uncontrolled lust.

You touch each other
and you combust.

But if no one remembers
to stir the embers,

to feed them, poke them,
tend them, stoke them,

the blaze that once sizzled
will sputter and fizzle.

Which is why
I always say:

thank the Lord
for lingerie.

And take a look at this poem:
(click to enlarge)

My rating:

Bottom Line:
As Sandy would say, "You've GOTTA read this!"

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (Audio)

2011-12-08T07:26:00.000-05:00

The Paris Wife
by Paula McLain
narrated by Carrington McDuffie
Random House Audio, 2011
11 hours and 27 minutes
source: purchased

Quick summary from audible.com:
If what they say is true — that behind every great man there’s a great woman — then Hadley Richardson is the woman behind Ernest Hemingway. In the novel The Paris Wife, Paula McLain traces their relationship from its frowned-upon beginnings in Chicago to its painful end in Paris six years later, and narrator Carrington MacDuffie brings a cast of historical characters out of the required reading list and brightly to life.

My Thoughts:
Whatever your opinion of Ernest Hemingway's writing, the writer himself was certainly larger than life. Last year, I read Catherine Reef's biography geared toward young adults. This year I thoroughly enjoyed A Moveable Feast and the movie Midnight in Paris. Craving more Hemingway, I turned to The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.

It is told from the perspective of Hemingway's first wife, Hadley Richardson, and recounts their relationship from initial meeting through the tumultuous breakup six years later. During this time, Hemingway wrote many stories and a novel that would become The Sun Also Rises. McLain includes many details of his writing process and, midway through the book, I purchased a copy of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway in order to read the stories as they were mentioned.

Other members of the 'Lost Generation', Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce, figure prominently in the story and add further color the novel. I doubt I'll ever tire of reading about this time and place.

The Paris Wife is not a book to race through. It's pace is slow, leisurely, and pleasant - easy to put aside and pick up again later. I thoroughly enjoyed Hadley's voice and insights, and admire McLain's creativity for her unique approach.

A note on the audio production:
This was my first experience with Carrington McDuffie. Her tone, inflection, and pace seemed perfectly matched to the novel. Her name in the credits will be a positive influence in choosing future audiobooks.

My rating:

Bottom line: Highly recommended to anyone interested in Ernest Hemingway, Paris, and the 'Lost Generation'.

Wordless Wednesday: A Dog's Life

2011-12-07T07:24:00.000-05:00

Tuesday Intro: The Lost Wife

2011-12-06T07:41:00.000-05:00

"He deliberately dressed for the occasion, his suit pressed and his shoes shined. While shaving, he turned each cheek carefully to the mirror to ensure he hadn't missed a single whisker. Earlier that afternoon, he had even bought a lemon-scented pomade to smooth his few remaining curls.

He had only one grandson, one grandchild for that matter, and had been looking forward to this wedding for months now. And although he had met the bride only a few times, he liked her from the first. She was bright and charming, quick to laugh, and possessed a certain old-world elegance. He hadn't realized what a rare quality that was until he sat there now staring at her, his grandson clasping her hand.

Even now, as he walked into the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner, he felt as though, seeing the young girl, he had been swept back into another time..."

This is a novel that starts at the end with Josef meeting his long lost wife. It rewinds through history (WWII in Europe), before eventually delivering the reader back to the present. Ideally, all four pages of the first chapter should be shared here. But I'll leave you, instead, with the final three lines.

"Do you remember me now?" he asked, trembling.
She looked at him again, as if giving weight and bone to a ghost.
"Lenka, it's me," he said. "Josef. Your husband."

The Lost Wife
by Alyson Richman

I purchased this book after reading Jill's review. A few chapters in, I'm totally invested in Josef and Lenka's story. Does this one appeal to you?

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

TSS: Winding Down, Planning Ahead

2011-12-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

Good morning and Happy December! It's hard to believe 2011 is winding down and those 'best of' lists I love so much have already begun to appear. My reading month is off to a great start, so any lists I compose will have to wait a few more weeks.

Last week I read The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones. Subtitled 'A Novel About Marriage, Motherhood, and Mayhem', it was a quick read that had me both laughing and crying (and slightly embarrassed, since the latter occurred in the dentist's waiting room).

A couple of trips to the mall put a good dent in my Christmas shopping and allowed just enough time to finish State of Wonder by Ann Patchett on audio. The combination of a great story, beautiful writing, and an excellent narrator made this a near-perfect audio experience.

I'm currently reading The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman (Jill's review sold me) and started Peony: A Novel of China by Pearl S. Buck on audio. Both are off to very strong starts.

Now it's time to 'close the book' on 2011 and begin planning for 2012. There are currently eight reviews in my draft folder that need to be completed before the end of the year. I really don't want to start the new year with a backlog, so they will be a December priority.

2011 was a challenge-free year at Lakeside Musing. I participated in events, dares, and group reads... and enjoyed every moment. My strategy for 2012 will be identical. Early plans include:

THE TBR DOUBLE DARE
Sponsored once again by James at Ready When You Are, C.B., it runs from January 1 until April 1. You can modify the rules to suit your needs, but basically James dares us to read only books from our tbr (to be read) pile for three months. I'm in for the entire time, but will make exceptions for book club selections, audiobooks (no tbr pile), and Stewart O'Nan's new novel that I have already pre-ordered. Full details are here. Will you take the dare?

VENICE IN FEBRUARY
Co-hosted by Bellezza and Ally, this is technically a challenge but I'm calling it an event (much like Paris in July). Details, reading suggestions, and collected reviews can be found on this dedicated blog. Since this coincides with the TBR Double Dare, I am scouring my shelves for books set in Venice. Miss Garnet's Angel is all I've come up with so far. Will you join us in Venice?

Now it's time to relax with another cup of coffee and tackle my google reader. We're having a birthday party for my father later this afternoon, and I'm hoping to spend time reading The Lost Wife this evening. What are you up to today? Have you started planning you 2012 reading?

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

2011-12-03T10:41:00.000-05:00

This Is Where I Leave You
by Jonathan Tropper
Plume paperback edition, 2010
339 pages

Publisher's summary:

The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman clan has congregated in years. There is, however, one conspicuous absence: Judd's wife, Jen, whose affair with his radio- shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the demise of his father and his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit shiva-and spend seven days and nights under the same roof. The week quickly spins out of control as longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed and old passions are reawakened. Then Jen delivers the clincher: she's pregnant.

This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, and a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not.

My thoughts:
This novel defines the old phrase 'putting the fun in dysfunctional'. I read it early last summer, but never got around to writing a review. This Is Where I Leave You was the perfect pick-me-up after a spring spent reading Richard Yates. There is no alcoholism or mental illness. Instead, we have a family that simply cannot communicate or relate to one another.

I chuckled at these opening lines, then found myself laughing out loud as I continued.

"Dad's dead," Wendy says offhandedly, like its happened before, like it happens every day. It can be grating, this act of hers, to be utterly unfazed at all times, even in the face of tragedy. "He died two hours ago." "How's Mom doing?" "She's Mom, you know? She wanted to know how much to tip the coroner."

I purchased the book after reading Sandy's excellent review. Rumor has it there's a movie on the way, too.

My rating:

Bottom line: This is the funniest novel I've read in years!

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (Audio)

2011-12-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
by Mary Roach
narrated by Shelly Frasier
Tantor Audio, 2004
7 hours 59 minutes

Publisher's Summary:
An oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.

For two thousand years, cadavers (some willingly, some unwittingly) have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.

In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors' conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.

My thoughts:
It seems like Stiff has been in my audible.com library forever. I downloaded it sometime in 2004 and vaguely remember listening to a few minutes before deciding the timing wasn't right. When I began again last month, I wondered if perhaps that elusive 'right time' would never arrive.

The introduction posed no problem but then, in the opening chapter, Roach visits a face lift refresher course for plastic surgeons. A new technique is to be practiced on cadavers. Roach finds herself gazing upon a classroom of cadaver heads draped in lavender cloths, propped in roasting pans at individual work stations, awaiting face lifts. This image literally made me shudder!

However, I'm glad I persevered. Mary Roach is an extraordinary science writer. A natural curiosity drives her to ask questions that might not occur to you or me. She then conveys the answers in an immensely readable manner, and her slightly irreverent, sarcastic sense of humor makes it all fun. Yes, a study of the lives of human cadavers can actually be a lot of fun.

Roach explores 'cadaver life' possibilities that reach far beyond traditional medical research or an anatomy lab for first year medical students. {The section of medical students' reflections on their cadavers was truly touching, and mirrors conversations I've had with medical students over the years.} Cadaver involvement in automobile crash tests has lead to significant safety improvements. Cadavers have taken part in decomposition studies which have aided crime investigation. Roach also talks about funeral practices ranging from traditional embalming and cremation to more experimental techniques such as human composting.

Stiff provides an interesting look at a topic many of us (myself included) tend to avoid. I look forward to reading Roach's other work.

A note on the audio production: Frasier is a new-to-me narrator. She did an excellent job of capturing Roach's slightly sarcastic sense of humor and I would be happy to listen to her again.

My rating:

Bottom line:
Stiff is very interesting and, at times, even funny, but definitely not for the squeamish.

We have a winner...

2011-11-25T13:29:00.000-05:00

Congratulations, Staci! Send me your address and I'll mail out a copy of Jitters: A Quirky Little Audio Book next week.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T07:53:00.000-05:00

Forever on Thanksgiving Day
The heart will find the pathway home.
~Wilbur D. Nesbit

Tuesday Intro: The Buddha in the Attic

2011-11-22T07:25:00.000-05:00

"On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes, but many more of us came from the country and on the boat we wore the same old kimonos we'd been wearing for years - faded hand-me-downs from our sisters that had been patched and redyed many times. Some of us came from the mountains, and had never before seen the sea, except for in pictures, and some of us were the daughters of fishermen who had been around the sea all our lives. Perhaps we had lost a father or brother to the sea, or a fiance, or perhaps someone we loved had jumped into the water one unhappy morning and simply swum away, and now it was time for us, too, to move on."

The Buddha In The Attic
by Julie Otsuka

A short book is just what I need for this busy holiday week and, at just 129 pages, The Buddha in the Attic seems like the perfect choice. Have you read it? Would you continue reading based on this first chapter? Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

TSS: Home, At Last

2011-11-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

Finally, we are at home for an entire weekend. The past four have involved two college Family Weekends, a couple of days with Twin A, and a weekend getaway for my husband's birthday. While the weekends themselves have been fun (and good for my backlog of audiobooks), it has been a little exhausting too. Many 'winterizing' chores have been postponed and it already feels like I'm playing catch-up with the holidays. Oh well, it will all get done eventually.

November has already been a fantastic reading month, thanks mostly to increased audiobook time. I'm slowly working my way through the pending reviews.

Reviews posted this week:
The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber
Jitters: A Quirky Little Audiobook by Adele Park
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Giveaway:
I have a giveaway going on for Jitters, but fear a blogger comment snafu has lost some of your entries. This was a very entertaining audio and won an Audie Award in the Multi-Voiced Performance category. There is still time to stop by and let me know if you're interested. The winner will be announced on Friday.

I'm currently reading The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka and listening to State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I've read all of Patchett's books and loved them (with the exception of Bel Canto), but this is my first time listening. State of Wonder captivated me instantly. I didn't want to stop listening and may need to locate a print copy to read at home. Either way, I'm looking forward the a three and a half hour drive on Tuesday to pick up Twin A for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thanksgiving plans are falling into place. All three girls will be home and we're hosting Thanksgiving dinner for 22, or possibly 25, on Thursday. Friday is our annual leftover feast (no Black Friday shopping for me), followed by a family Christmas party (complete with Yankee Auction) with all of my cousins on Saturday. Sunday we hope to cut down the perfect Christmas tree before Daughter #1 returns to college. I'll drive Twin A back early Monday morning.

Finally, in this spirit of Thanksgiving, I'd like to say how thankful I am for all of my blogging friends. In the confusion of the last month, I missed Lakeside Musing's third anniversary, so will take this opportunity to say thank you to all my readers and regular commenters. It's been an amazing three years!

The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber

2011-11-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

The Language of Baklava
By Diana Abu-Jaber
Anchor Books, 2006
330 pages

Publisher's summary:
Diana Abu-Jaber’s vibrant, humorous memoir weaves together stories of being raised by a food-obsessed Jordanian father with tales of Lake Ontario shish kabob cookouts and goat stew feasts under Bedouin tents in the desert. These sensuously evoked repasts, complete with recipes, in turn illuminate the two cultures of Diana's childhood–American and Jordanian–while helping to paint a loving and complex portrait of her impractical, displaced immigrant father who, like many an immigrant before him, cooked to remember the place he came from and to pass that connection on to his children. The Language of Baklava irresistably invites us to sit down at the table with Diana’s family, sharing unforgettable meals that turn out to be as much about “grace, difference, faith, love” as they are about food.

My thoughts:
Food, arguably the most outward expression of culture, was an essential part of Diana Abu-Jaber's childhood. With a Jordanian father and American mother, she grew up straddling two cultures. Food was at the heart of family tradition and ritual, especially for her father. Most important events, lessons, and memories revolved around food.

Abu-Jaber writes with humor, warmth, and obvious love for her family. Her father's fixation on Jordanian foods and rituals reminded me of my own Italian-immigrant grandparents. Surely the desire to preserve food traditions for future generations exists in all cultures.

The familiar setting, Syracuse and Central NY, also contributed to my personal enjoyment. I have visited the same parks, eaten in the same restaurants, and survived the same brutal winters.

Recipes are included with each chapter - an added bonus! I'll be trying the Peaceful Vegetarian Lentil Soup, "Start the Party" Hummus, and Diplomatic Magloubeh. For the Very Fried Falafels, however, I will happily make another trip to King David's restaurant.

Favorite Quotes:

"Making shish kabob always reminds the brothers of who they used to be - the heat, the spices, the preparation for cooking, and the rituals for eating were all the same as when they were children, eating at their parents' big table. But trying to kill the lamb showed them: They were no longer who they thought they were." p.19

"So now what did I just do?'
"You ate some baklawa?'
She curls her hand as if making a point so essential, it can be held only in the tips of the fingers. "I looked, I tasted, I spoke kindly and truthfully. I invited. You know what else? I keep doing it. I don't stop if that doesn't work on the first or second or third try. And like that!" She snaps the apron from the chair into the air, leaving a poof of flour like a wish. "There is your peace." p. 190

My rating:

Bottom line:
The Language of Baklava is one of the best culinary memoirs I've read in quite some time.

Jitters: A Quirky Little Audio Book by Adele Park

2011-11-17T12:07:00.000-05:00

Jitters: A Quirky Little Audio Book
by Adele Park
Narrated by: Adele Park, Susan Paige Lane, and 7 others
Straight to Audio Productions, 2010
6 hours 31 minutes

Publisher's Summary:
Nancy Neptune loves to stir up trouble – it makes for awesome radio. But even the Queen of Obscene is amazed by all the twisted things that go down in the polygamist community of Zion Flats.

For Sandy Wyman, a one-armed reporter, sharing a house with Nancy Neptune is like living in a dorm room on steroids. Seeking refuge from the chaos that comes from being within 20 feet of a person like Nancy Neptune, Sandy befriends a polygamist with a host of sketchy habits.

Nadine Mackleprang, a nosy neighbor, is trying to eat everything that isn't nailed down so she won't have to think about why her husband has left her for another man. When she learns that Sandy's polygamist pal is in danger, Nadine waddles to the rescue.

Join Nancy Neptune and her eccentric gaggle of girlfriends for an unforgettable tour through polygamist country in Jitters - A Quirky Little Audio Book.

Jitters is a full-length audiobook told in first-person narratives. Each chapter begins with a newscast on KNVL, the radio station headed by the notorious Nancy Neptune. Listen as a cast of 15 characters react to the events of the day.

My thoughts:

Most of you know how much I love lists, especially those related to awards. Jitters came to my attention when it appeared on this year's list of Audie Award Winners in the Multi-Voiced Performance category. It was up against some pretty stiff competition, including Room by Emma Donoghue. When I mentioned on dog eared copy's blog that I thought Room was a shoe-in, the author offered to send me a copy of Jitters. How could I refuse?

The story consists of a series of first-person narratives relayed by a full cast of extremely colorful, quirky characters. Each chapter opens with a KNVL radio news broadcast. The news always concludes with the latest Utah Jazz NBA scores, serving to ground the events in reality. One character's interpretation of the events follows. Let me tell you, the combination of shock radio and polygamy can lead to some very funny situations. Characters are basically stereotypes, further exaggerated by the narrator's voice (Nancy Neptune's over-the-top Jersey accent, for example). However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. These characters are far better suited to audio than text, and narrators make full use of their opportunities.

That said, Jitters was not what I expected. I listen to audiobooks to fit more books into my life - while I drive, clean, cook, and walk the dog. Jitters was never actually a book, but a performance designed specifically for audio. Even so, it still made for a very entertaining six and a half hours!

Check out the trailer:

My rating:

Bottom line:
Jitters was not exactly what I was expecting, but still a lot of fun.

Giveaway:

The author generously included an extra copy to give away. If you would like a chance to win Jitters: A Quirky Little Audio Book, please let me know in the comments. The giveaway is open to US residents. I'll draw a winner on November 25th. Please include your email.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

2011-11-15T13:42:00.000-05:00

On Chesil Beach
by Ian McEwan
166 pages
2008, Vintage Books

Summary (from Publishers Weekly):
Not quite novel or novella, McEwan's masterful 13th work of fiction most resembles a five-part classical drama rendered in prose. It opens on the anxious Dorset Coast wedding suite dinner of Edward Mayhew and the former Florence Ponting, married in the summer of 1963 at 23 and 22 respectively; the looming dramatic crisis is the marriage's impending consummation, or lack of it. Edward is a rough-hewn but sweet student of history, son of an Oxfordshire primary school headmaster and a mother who was brain damaged in an accident when Edward was five. Florence, daughter of a businessman and (a rarity then) a female Oxford philosophy professor, is intense but warm and has founded a string quartet. Their fears about sex and their inability to discuss them form the story's center. At the book's midpoint, McEwan (Atonement, etc.) goes into forensic detail about their naïve and disastrous efforts on the marriage bed, and the final chapter presents the couple's explosive postcoital confrontation on Chesil Beach. Staying very close to this marital trauma and the circumstances surrounding it (particularly class), McEwan's flawless omniscient narration has a curious (and not unpleasantly condescending) fable-like quality, as if an older self were simultaneously disavowing and affirming a younger. The story itself isn't arresting, but the narrator's journey through it is.

My thoughts:
On Chesil Beach is a hauntingly sad novel... quite unlike anything I've read. Edward and Florence obviously love each other, but the reader realizes early on that their wedding night will end badly. An omniscient narrator relays the story and its aftermath, and provides just the right amount of background information to aid our understanding of the characters.

McEwan's writing, however, is the main attraction - beautiful, compassionate, and simply a pleasure to read. This devastating novel is sure to leave a lasting impression.

Favorite passages:

"For the first time, her love for Edward was associated with a definable physical sensation, as irrefutable as vertigo. Before, she had known only a comforting broth of warm emotions, a thick winter blanket of kindness and trust. That had always seemed enough, an achievement in itself. Now here at last were the beginnings of desire, precise and alien, but clearly her own; and beyond, as though suspended above and behind her, just out of sight, was relief that she was just like everyone else." p. 87-88

"Whatever new frontier she crossed, there was always another waiting for her. Every concession she made increased the demand, and then disappointment. Even in their happiest moments, there was always the accusing shadow, the barely hidden gloom of his unfulfilment, looming like an alp, a form of perpetual sorrow which had been accepted by them both as her responsibility. She wanted to be in love and be herself. But to be herself, she had to say no all the time." p. 146

My rating:

Bottom line:
On Chesil Beach will be one of my favorite novels this year.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

2011-11-10T07:52:00.000-05:00

Her Fearful Symmetry
by Audrey Niffenegger
386 pages
2009, Jonathan Cape/ Random House

Summary: (from amazon.co.uk)
Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers - normal, at least, for identical 'mirror' twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn't know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin ...but have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twins' mother - and who can't even seem to quite leave her flat. With Highgate Cemetery itself a character and echoes of Henry James and Charles Dickens, "Her Fearful Symmetry" is a delicious and deadly twenty-first-century ghost story about Niffenegger's familiar themes of love, loss and identity. It is certain to cement her standing as one of the most singular and remarkable novelists of our time.

My thoughts:
Reading The Time Traveler's Wife was pure escapism for me and, although I'm not usually drawn to novels with supernatural elements, I wanted to read Her Fearful Symmetry eventually... once the hype and excitement died down. I was excited to discover a UK edition at the library book sale last summer (the US cover doesn't do a thing for me), happily paid the two dollars, and set it aside for R.I.P. season.

While it can't compare with my experience of reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle during a Halloween storm/power outage, it was perfectly suited to the season. Ghosts, communication with the dead, questions of identity, and, of course, Highgate Cemetery all contribute to its eeriness. The cemetery was especially intriguing and a tour will surely be part of my next London itinerary. I was also fascinated by the presentation of twin relationships - thankfully very different from that of my daughters and sisters.

In the end though, my reading of Her Fearful Symmetry was simply for pleasure. It provoked no deep thoughts on social, political, or economic issues. Its value was solely as entertainment ...and that is exactly what I needed during a stressful, busy week.
.
My rating:

Bottom line:
Her Fearful Symmetry was enjoyable and entertaining, but not quite as good as The Time Traveler's Wife.

Tuesday Intros: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

2011-11-08T07:47:00.000-05:00

My name is Renée. I am fifty-four years old. For twenty-seven years I have been the concierge at number 7, rue de Grenelle, a fine hôtel particulier with a courtyard and private gardens, divided into eight luxury apartments, all of which are inhabited, all of which are immense. I am a widow, I am short, ugly, and plump, I have bunions on my feet and, if I am to credit certain early mornings of self-inflicted disgust, the breath of a mammoth. I did not go to college, I have always been poor, discreet, and insignificant. I live alone with my cat, a big lazy tom who has no distinguishing features other than the fact that his paws smell bad when he is annoyed. Neither he nor I make any effort to take part in the social doings of our respective kindred species. Because I am rarely friendly— though always polite— I am not liked, but am tolerated nonetheless: I correspond so very well to what social prejudice has collectively construed to be a typical French concierge that I am one of the multiple cogs that make the great universal illusion turn, the illusion according to which life has a meaning that can be easily deciphered. And since it has been written somewhere that concierges are old, ugly and sour, so has it been branded in fiery letters on the pediment of that same imbecilic firmament that the aforementioned concierges have rather large dithering cats who sleep all day on cushions that have been covered with crocheted cases.

Similarly, it has been decreed that concierges watch television interminably while their rather large cats doze, and that the entrance to the building must smell of pot-au-feu, cabbage soup, or a country-style cassoulet. I have the extraordinary good fortune to be the concierge of a very high-class sort of building. It was so humiliating for me to have to cook such loathsome dishes that when Monsieur de Broglie - the State Councilor on the first floor- intervened (an intervention he described to his wife as being "courteous but firm," whose only intention was to rid our communal habitat of such plebeian effluvia), it came as an immense relief, one I concealed as best I could beneath an expression of reluctant compliance.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery

Blogger opinion has been divided over The Elegance of the Hedgehog, so I am approaching it with some trepidation. It does seem to be agreed that the audio version, with its dual narrators, is the better choice. This is definitely a novel of ideas. After three CD's, the plot is nearly nonexistent but, so far, it's a nice change of pace.

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

Reviews coming soon...

2011-11-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

A couple of crazy weeks followed by weekends of travel have lead to a sorry scarcity of 'proper' reviews at Lakeside Musing. This week is shaping up to be more of the same and will be followed by a weekend get-away for my husband's birthday. My goal is to carve out an hour or two, find a quiet spot (the one above is on Daughter #1's campus), and finish up some reviews.

Here's what I'm working on:

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman. My book club met last Thursday. Now I can include their reaction, too.

Jitters - A Quirky Little Audiobook by Adele Park. I'll also be hosting a give-away.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber. Saturday's Writer's Almanac told me it was her birthday, but also served as a reminder that this review has been lingering in my draft folder for far too long.

Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

My google reader is crying out for attention, too.
Wish me luck...

Tuesday Intros: Travels with Charley

2011-11-01T08:31:00.000-04:00

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, the engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.

When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This part of the process is invariable and immortal. I set it down only so that newcomers to bumdom, like teen-agers in new-hatched sin, will not think they invented it."

Travels with Charley in Search of America
by John Steinbeck

Travels with Charley was our audiobook selection last weekend as we traveled into the path of the nor'easter. I've been a huge Steinbeck fan since high school, so my husband and Twin B decided to humor me when I suggested this title for our journey. His eyes were mostly closed (don't worry, I was driving) and Twin B was plugged into the iPod, but as I listened, I fell in love with Steinbeck all over again.

This is my first experience with Steinbeck's non-fiction and his 'voice' is simply captivating. Only one CD played before my passengers awoke or unplugged and wanted to talk. There were so many quotes I wanted to note and hear again, I plan to purchase a print copy today.

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, who remains without power following the nor-easter mentioned above.

A Poem for Halloween

2011-10-31T07:40:00.000-04:00

Theme in Yellow
by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

*photo credit

Literary Overdose: Is Four Too Many?

2011-10-28T14:19:00.000-04:00

It's Family Weekend at Twin A's college and we're hitting the road again. I wanted to write a quick Sunday Salon-type post before leaving, and last night's twitter conversation provided just the spark I needed. It began as an impromptu meeting of the Stewart O'Nan fan club (@LitHousewife, @mattviews, and I seem to be the charter members), then several others joined in and our conversation broadened. At some point during the rapidly flying tweets, someone mentioned that they usually read three books by an author before moving on. I thought that was very interesting....why three instead of two? What happens if you read four in a row - author burnout?

Soon I began thinking about my own reading habits and notorious lack of structure and rules. Looking back over the past year, I have spent extended periods with two authors - Richard Yates and Stewart O'Nan. In both cases, strangely enough, it would appear that I followed the same three book rule.

A couple of years ago, I read Revolutionary Road. I thought it was brilliant and have been meaning to return to Yates ever since. I finally did last spring - in a big way. My personal Yatesfest began with The Easter Parade and continued with Disturbing the Peace and Cold Spring Harbor. The grand finale was A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates by Blake Bailey. Several short stories were also scattered along the way. I plan to read the remainder of Yates work, but after three novels and a biography, a break from his tragic reality was in order.

My author 'discovery' of the year, Stewart O'Nan, was next. I absolutely love his writing style and characters. A stormy Labor Day weekend was spent reading Wish You Were Here. The lakeside setting provided an ideal end-of-summer read. Emily, Alone featured many of the same characters and was the perfect follow-up. In total awe of O'Nan, I headed to the library and came home with Last Night At the Lobster... also stunning. That was three and, just as with Richard Yates, I decided to take a break. O'Nan's new novel will be released in January and is already in my amazon shopping cart for pre-order. This break will end in just a few months.

So that's twice this year I've unintentionally followed the 'three book rule'. Is it some sort of intuitive reading reaction, or simply coincidence? Now I'm curious. When you delve into an author's work, how deep do you go before taking a breather? Is there such a thing as literary overdose?

On to my current reading...
After Tuesday's Two-for-One Intros, it appears that Her Fearful Symmetry has 'won'. It's perfect for the season and, after 100 pages, I'm really enjoying it. However, On Chesil Beach has not been totally abandoned. I'll get back to it as soon I'm done.

I finished the audio version of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach and must say it is totally unlike anything I've ever read... in a weird but totally interesting kind of way. For our road trip today, I have downloaded Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck and hope my husband and Twin B will agree to listen.

We had our first snowfall of the season yesterday. Although I'm not really looking forward to winter, the snow in the trees and mist rising from the lake made for a beautiful view this morning. Have a wonderful weekend!

A Literary Friendship: Henry and Edith

2011-10-26T08:01:00.000-04:00

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1900 that Henry James wrote his first letter to the budding novelist Edith Wharton, beginning a long friendship. Wharton was an admirer of James's work, and she sent him one of the first short stories she ever wrote. He wrote back to say that he liked the story but that she shouldn't write about Europe if she didn't live there. He said, "Be tethered in native pastures, even if it reduces [you] to a back-yard in New York." His advice inspired her to write about the New York society she'd grown up in, and the result was The House of Mirth (1905), which became her first big success.

They remained friends for the rest of James's life, but while Wharton became more successful, James's novels sold less and less well. When he learned that she'd used the proceeds from a recent book to buy herself a new car, he joked that he hoped his next book would provide enough money for him to buy a new wheelbarrow. But he always appreciated her friendship, and once wrote to her, "Your letters come into my damp desert here even as the odour of promiscuous spices ...might be wafted to some compromised oasis from a caravan of the Arabian nights."

Two-for-One Tuesday Intros

2011-10-25T07:24:00.000-04:00

I don't usually do this. One book at a time is my rule - physical book, that is. Audiobooks are different. I have no problem with two audios on the go, since each has its own place - one in the car and another on my iPod. Over the years I've experimented with reading two and three books at once. Selections typically included one fiction and one nonfiction title, plus a classic or long-term read. The trouble began when one book really captured my attention and I read it exclusively. In my mind it became the 'winner', and the 'losers' were left to languish on my nightstand. Clearly the other books weren't exactly losers, but I had a hard time getting back to the growing pile on the nightstand. Reading monogamy seemed to be the answer.

Fast forward two years....

"They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy. They had just sat down to supper in a tiny sitting room on the first floor of a Georgian inn. In the next room, visible through the open door, was a four-poster bed, rather narrow, whose bedcover was pure white and stretched startlingly smooth, as though by no human hand. Edward did not mention that he had never stayed in a hotel before, whereas Florence, after many trips as a child with her father, was an old hand. Superficially, they were in fine spirits. Their wedding, at St. Mary's, Oxford, had gone well; the service was decorous, the reception jolly, the send-off from school and college friends raucous and uplifting. Her parents had not condescended to his, as they had feared, and his mother had not significantly misbehaved, or completely forgotten the purpose of the occasion. The couple had driven away in a small car belonging to Florence's mother and arrived in the early evening at their hotel on the Dorset coast in weather that was not perfect for mid-July or the circumstances, but entirely adequate: it was not raining, but nor was it quite warm enough, according to Florence, to eat outside on the terrace as they had hoped. Edward thought it was, but, polite to a fault, he would not think of contradicting her on such an evening."

On Chesil Beach
by Ian McEwan

I started On Chesil Beach a few days ago. After fifty pages of beautiful writing and engaging characters, my mind began to wander. Last night, I allowed myself to start Her Fearful Symmetry too. Halloween week seems like the perfect time to read it!

"Elspeth died while Robert was standing in front of a vending machine watching tea shoot into a small plastic cup. Later he would remember walking down the hospital corridor with the cup of horrible tea in his hand, alone under the fluorescent lights, retracing his steps to the room where Elspeth lay surrounded by machines. She had turned her head toward the door and her eyes were open; at first Robert thought she was conscious.

In the seconds before she died, Elspeth remembered a day last spring when she and Robert had walked along a muddy path by the Thames in Kew Gardens. There was a smell of rotted leaves; it had been raining. Robert said, "We should have had kids," and Elspeth replied, "Don't be silly, sweet." She said it out loud, in the hospital room, but Robert wasn't there to hear."

Her Fearful Symmetry
by Audrey Niffenegger

Do either of these first paragraphs appeal to you? I'm also wondering, if you read more than one book at a time, how you keep one title from 'winning'?
Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

A Lovely Reminder of Paris in July

2011-10-24T16:05:00.000-04:00

...thank you, Karen!

Weekend Cooking: Pumpkin Latte Coffee Cake

2011-10-22T08:24:00.000-04:00

My love of fall is no secret. Every year I look forward to the vibrant foliage, apple picking, football games, breaking out my sweaters, and, of course, the return of pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks (always with a nod to Book Psmith). Fall is also the time of year I head back to the kitchen.

Knowing of my particular fondness for pumpkin spice lattes, Audrey sent a recipe for Pumpkin Latte Coffee Cake. Better Homes & Gardens recipes are usually a success, and this looked like the perfect seasonal treat to bake for my next book club meeting. A 'test bake' on Thursday confirmed it.

PUMPKIN LATTE COFFEE CAKE

Makes: 12 servings
Prep: 30 mins
Bake: 350°F 45 mins to 50 mins
Cool: 45 mins

Ingredients

5 eggs
2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder or instant coffee granules
1 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk*
1 recipe Streusel - see below
1 recipe Coffee Drizzle - see below

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan; set aside. In a small bowl stir together two of the eggs and the espresso powder; set aside. In a medium bowl beat cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in the 2/3 cup sugar, the 2 tablespoons flour, and the vanilla until smooth. Beat in egg-espresso mixture; set aside.

2. In a medium bowl stir together the 3 cups flour, the baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds; gradually add the 1-1/2 cups sugar, beating until fluffy. Add the remaining three eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk to pumpkin mixture, beating after each addition until combined. Spread half of the batter in the prepared baking pan. Spoon half of the cream cheese mixture by small spoonfuls on top of the batter. Add the remaining batter in spoonfuls; carefully spread over the cream cheese mixture. Top with spoonfuls of the remaining cream cheese mixture. With a knife, swirl batter to marble. Sprinkle with Coffee Streusel.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 45 minutes. Spoon Coffee Drizzle over coffee cake in a lacy pattern. Cool completely on wire rack.

Streusel:
In medium bowl bowl combine 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, and 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice. Using a pastry blender, cut in 1/4 cup cold butter until crumbly.

Coffee Drizzle:
In a small bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon light-color corn syrup. Stir in enough cooled espresso or strong-brewed coffee (1 to 2 tablespoons) to make drizzling consistency

Make Ahead Directions: Prepare as directed. Cool baked cake completely but do not spoon Coffee Drizzle over coffee cake. Wrap in foil; overwrap in plastic wrap. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight. To serve, top with Coffee Drizzle.

*Test Kitchen Tip: To make 1 cup sour milk, place 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar in a glass measuring cup. Add enough milk to make 1 cup total liquid; stir. Let stand for 5 minutes before using.
_______________

This cake was delicious! The coffee/pumpkin flavor combination is amazing. Be forewarned though, this recipe uses a lot of bowls. It's also very filling, so cut pieces on the small side... you can always go back for more. My mother thought the cake might taste even better with nuts. I'll add pecans or walnuts next time and find out.

When I mentioned the cake on twitter, @sugarbakingblog sent a link to another pumpkin spice coffee cake with walnuts. I'll try that recipe later in the week and then decide which to serve at book club. I'll keep you posted...

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

Wordless Wednesday: Fall

2011-10-19T06:53:00.000-04:00

Group Read: The House of the Seven Gables

2011-10-15T10:42:00.000-04:00

Group reads satisfy on so many levels. For me, the increased sense of community is the biggest draw. Comparing progress notes with other readers on twitter is like running into a friend at Wegmans. Not only do these random updates add to my enjoyment, they strengthen friendships. Group reads also provide an opportunity to read a book I might not get to on my own. And finally, participating in a group read always leads to deeper understanding of the selected title. Other readers, without fail, pick up on things I barely notice.

My main problem with group reads is timing. Often finishing just a little too late, I seem to lack the discipline other readers master so easily. By them time I'm ready to discuss, the group has moved on. Or else, as in the case of The House of the Seven Gables, I finish weeks ahead of schedule and struggle to pull my thoughts together at discussion time.

The first chapters of The House of the Seven Gables required extraordinary concentration and effort. Whether it was Hawthorne's writing style or my own evening fatigue, I just couldn't get into the rhythm of the narrative and turned to an audio version for help. Anthony Heald's excellent narration carried me forward and I was able to follow the story with ease. The routine of listening in the car and reading at home allowed me to finish the book quickly.

The atmosphere of the novel surely lends itself to the season: an old curse, supernatural occurrences, haunting, and family discord. Hepzibah and Clifford were highlights in this gloomy novel. Wonderful passages detailed Hepzibah's unfortunate appearance and her descent to shop proprietor. Clifford's eccentricities and child-like behaviours also proved memorable, as did their tragic withdrawal from society.

"Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay, than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. It can merely be a suspended animation; for were the power to actually perish, there would be little use of immortality. We are less than ghosts for the time being, whenever this calamity befalls us." (p.141)

Despite these bright spots, The House of the Sevens Gables will not be counted among my favorites this year. A neutral to slightly positive reaction is all I can muster. I consider myself a patient reader, but this story took forever to develop. The 'action' occurred quickly and the mysteries were tidily resolved at the end.

Based on previous experience with Hawthorne, my reaction came as no surprise. I disliked The Scarlet Letter in high school and, although a reread five years ago lead to greater appreciation, I still disliked it as an adult. I should have sworn off Hawthorne at that point, but the lure of a group read and a long standing curiosity about The House of the Seven Gables proved irresistible.

Bottom line: I'm glad I read The House of the Seven Gables, but my classics to-be-read list is far too long to spend any more time with an author I don't love. I'm afraid we're through, Mr. Hawthorne.

Thank you, Frances and Audrey, for hosting this group read. Other group read posts can be found here.

Thinking About Historical Fiction

2011-10-12T13:51:00.000-04:00

Wonderful Wednesdays is a new meme hosted at Tiny Library. Sam says it's "about spotlighting and recommending some of our most loved books, even if we haven't read them recently. Each week will have a different genre or theme."

This week's theme is historical fiction.

I enjoy historical fiction and have a developed a special fondness for novels set in Tudor England. When thinking about a couple of my favorites, I was struck by the wide range of styles this category encompasses. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory both deal with Henry VIII's reign, but I'd be hard pressed to list other similarities. They are very different in both approach and purpose.

When I read Wolf Hall earlier this year (my thoughts), I referred to it as historical fiction for the historian. It is slow moving, involved, well-researched, and packed with historical detail. Mantel's award-winning novel focuses on Thomas Cromwell.

Gregory's novel, as the title suggests, deals primarily with Anne Boleyn's sister, Mary. Read in pre-blogging days, The Other Boleyn Girl was a real page-turner. It presented the steamier aspects of Henry's conquests and life at court. I read it in just two or three days, but Wolf Hall required two or three weeks to complete. Both books held my interest, but served to satisfy very different historical fiction moods.

Are you a fan of historical fiction? Do you have a favorite novel set in Tudor England? Visit Sam at Tiny Library for links to other posts on this topic.

TSS: Fall Break

2011-10-09T11:44:00.000-04:00

It's fall break. The house is full, activities galore are planned, and the kitchen is a hive of activity. My college-aged daughters are home until Tuesday and my husband has taken the week off. There wasn't much reading last week, but it was a good one nonetheless.

The girls came home on Wednesday. One drove herself but, since the other doesn't have a car, I spent 7 hours on the road. Time passed quickly as I listened to Jitters: A Quirky Little Audiobook for the first part of the journey and got caught up with my daughter on the way home. Although the humor may not be for everyone, I'm enjoying this audio production. The audio "book" designation puzzles me since it was never actually published in print form. More on this after I've finished. I am also thoroughly enjoying 97 Orchard by Jane Zeigelman.

Sports took center stage for much of the week. First, baseball is over. It was a disappointing series for the Yankees, but the Tigers definitely deserved to win that final game. It's time to move on to college basketball...

Yesterday was all about football. It was Homecoming Weekend at the local high school, and they won big! In the evening, we went to my nephew's Homecoming Game. That one was a defensive struggle, but he scored a touchdown with 10 seconds remaining to send the game into overtime. Unfortunately, they ended with a loss. We got home in time to see the last half of the SU game on TV. A field goal in the final second broke a tie and gave Syracuse the win.

Today we're off to the pumpkin farm. I also need to take a new header photo. With beautiful sunshine and leaves at their peak, today is the day! Hope you enjoy your Sunday.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman (Audio)

2011-10-07T10:46:00.000-04:00

What the Dead Know
by Laura Lippman
narrated by Linda Emond
Harper Audio, 2007
10 hours and 30 min
source: purchased

Summary:
Thirty years ago two sisters, 11 and 15 years old, disappeared without a trace from a shopping mall and are presumed dead. Now a disoriented woman involved in a hit-and-run accident claims to be one of the missing Bethany sisters. The case takes on a new intensity as the mystery deepens. What the Dead Know moves back and forth in time before arriving at a stunning conclusion.

My thoughts:
Laura Lippman's books are regularly featured on several blogs I visit. But it was Jill's reviews, along with the beginning of fall and the RIP Challenge, that finally prompted me to begin What the Dead Know. I got in my car, popped in the first few disks and before I knew it, almost four hours has elapsed! For the next several days, I could only manage to listen in 20 or 30 minute intervals and it drove me crazy. I HAD TO KNOW what happened! That night, I stayed up listening until 2AM. Thankfully it was a Friday, and the alarm didn't ring at the crack of dawn the next morning.

This was a fantastic story! I won't go into more plot detail, but the inclusion of a colorful police detective, a bookish social worker, and a high profile attorney were all big pluses for me. I don't read many mysteries and may not be as discerning or sophisticated as other readers, but the resolution of this one took me totally be surprise. I loved this book.

A note on the audio production:
Musical interludes in an audiobook always seem to annoy me and this was no exception. Linda Emond's narration, however, was wonderful. Her voice was crisp and utterly engaging, but never melodramatic. I would jump at the chance to listen to her again.

My rating:

Bottom line:
I loved this intro to Lippman's work and welcome any suggestions of what to read/listen to next.

Jen at Devourer of Books is collecting audiobook reviews every Friday for her Sound Bytes feature. Stop by and read her review, then click over to see what others have posted. Feel free to link up your own audiobook review, too.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-05T07:12:00.001-04:00

Sunday's sunset

Tuesday Intros: 97 Orchard

2011-10-04T10:19:00.000-04:00

From the introduction:

97 Orchard tells the story of five immigrant families, each of them, as it happens, residents of a single New York Tenement in the years between 1863 and 1935. Though separated by time and national background, the Glockners, the Moores, the Gumpertzes, the Rogarshevskys, and the Baldizzis, were all players in the Age of Immigration, a period of sweeping demographic change for both the Old and New Worlds.

Starting in Europe in the early 1800's, whole chunks of humanity streamed from the countryside to the cities - the continent's new manufacturing centers - in pursuit of work. Those who could afford to embarked on a trans-Atlantic migration, lured to the United States by the promise of American prosperity and freedom. 97 Orchard chronicles what became of those immigrants, but from a special vantage point: it retells the immigrant story from the elemental perspective of the foods they ate.

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
by Jane Ziegelman

This sounds fascinating! I've seen nothing but praise for 97 Orchard and plan to start reading later today. My book club will discuss the book in early November. What do you think? Is the topic of interest to you?

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

The Sunday Salon: Welcome October

2011-10-02T09:48:00.000-04:00

Good morning and Happy October! It is a COLD and rainy morning in central New York - barely 40 degrees when I woke, but it probably dipped into the 30's overnight. We very nearly turned on the heat last evening, but opted for a fire instead. The furnace is a definite today!

On the reading front, I finished The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne last week. After a rough start, it worked out well as a combination read/listen. Several readers will be posting thoughts on the 14th. There is still time to join us!

I had hoped to finish The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison last night, but got sidetracked by the Yankees win over the Tigers. Morrison's writing it truly beautiful and, with just 30 pages to go, I should be able to fit it in between today's activities.

UP NEXT:

97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman
I saw this reviewed on Rachel's blog last year and thought it sounded fascinating. Members of my book club agreed and we we will discuss it in early November.

Jitters: A Quirky Little Audiobook by Adele Park
This book won the 2011 Audie Award for Multi-Voice Performance, a category I was certain would go to Room. The author generously provided a copy, and a long drive coming up on Wednesday will be the perfect opportunity to get started.

Apple-picking is on our agenda today. The hourly forecast suggests a rain-free window early this afternoon. Since today is the last day to pick Cortlands (my preferred apple for baking), we'll bundle up and hope for the best. Later there will be plenty of baseball and football on TV, a family dinner, and, of course, some reading. What are your plans today?

Author Birthday: Truman Capote

2011-09-30T07:23:00.000-04:00

photo credit

From today's Writer's Almanac:

Today is the birthday of the writer Truman Capote (books by this author), best known for the short novel Breakfast at Tiffany's and the groundbreaking work In Cold Blood, with which he single-handedly created a new literary genre — the nonfiction novel. Capote was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1924, his parents divorced when he was four, and he was sent to live a mostly lonely and solitary existence with some elderly aunts in Alabama. In his mid-teens, he went to live with his mother and her new husband in New York City but didn't adjust well to city life and ended up dropping out of school when he was 17 to take a job with The New Yorker. This was effectively the start of his professional writing life, and within a few years Capote was writing for a number of publications.

With his literary success came social celebrity, and the young writer's talents were often overshadowed by his now-famous flamboyance and eccentricities. Capote's artistic genius was well matched by his penchant for glittering high society, which lionized him in return, and he was seen at all the best parties, restaurants, clubs, and social circles.

While Capote was a society darling before the publication of In Cold Blood, it was really that book that cemented his place among society's elite. In Cold Blood was an instant success, selling out immediately, becoming one of the most talked-about books of its time and bringing its author millions of dollars and a level of fame rarely experienced by a literary author. In Capote's own words, In Cold Blood was "a solution to what had always been my greatest creative quandary. I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry."

Capote had apparently attempted something similar as a child. In a 1957 interview with the Paris Review, he discussed his first foray into nonfiction, when he had been a member of the Mobile [Alabama] Press Register's Sunshine Club, originally lured in by the free Nehi and Coca-Cola and also by the short-story writing contest with the prize of a pony or a dog. As he said, "I had been noticing the activities of some neighbors who were up to no good, so I wrote a kind of roman à clef called 'Old Mr. Busybody' and entered it into the contest. The first installment appeared one Sunday, under my real name of Truman Streckfus Persons. Only somebody suddenly realized that I was serving up a local scandal as fiction, and the second installment never appeared. Naturally, I didn't win a thing."

When Capote was around 12, the principal at his school announced to his family that the boy was "subnormal," and that it would be only humane to send him to a special school "equipped to handle backward brats." Understandably, Capote's family took umbrage at this, and in an effort to prove the principal unequivocally wrong, they "pronto packed me off to a psychiatric study clinic at a university in the East where I had my IQ inspected. I enjoyed it thoroughly and — guess what? — came home a genius, so proclaimed by science. I don't know who was more appalled: my former teachers, who refused to believe it, or my family, who didn't want to believe it — they'd just hoped to be told I was a nice normal boy. Ha ha!" For his part, his genius scientifically proven, Capote took to staring in mirrors, sucking in his cheeks and naming himself Proust, or Chekhov, or Wolfe — whoever was his idol of the moment. It was around this time that the boy started writing in earnest. His mind "zoomed all night every night," and he felt it must have been several years before he slept properly again.

Genius or no, Capote understood the only way to improve was to do the work and keep doing it, again and again, because "Work is the only device I know of [for improving one's technique]. Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."

Banned Book Week: The Bluest Eye

2011-09-29T15:41:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe Toni Morrison's beautiful writing in The Bluest Eye has been banned or challenged, yet this list from the ALA places it at number fifteen. In celebration of Banned Books Week, many bloggers are participating in a Virtual Read-Out by posting videos of themselves reading excerpts from their favorite banned book. I'm not quite brave enough for a vlog, but would still like to share two passages I loved from The Bluest Eye.

"The gray head of Mr. Yacobowski looms up over the counter. He urges his eyes out of his thoughts to encounter her. Blue eyes. Blear-dropped. Slowly, like Indian summer moving imperceptibly toward fall, he looks toward her. Somewhere between retina and object, between vision and view, his eyes draw back, hesitate, and hover. At some point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth, his mind honed on the doe-eyed Virgin Mary, his senses blunted by a permanent awareness of loss, see a little black girl? Nothing in his life even suggested that the feat was possible, not to say desirable or necessary." p.48

"We walked quickly at first, and then slower, pausing every now and then to fasten garters, tie shoelaces, scratch, or examine old scars. We were sinking under the wisdom, accuracy, and relevance of Maureen's last words. If she was cute - and if anything could be believed, she was - then we were not. And what did that mean? We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser. Dolls we could destroy, but we could not destroy the honey voices of parents and aunts, the obedience in the eyes of our peers, the slippery light in the eyes of our teachers when they encountered the Maureen Peals of the world. What was the secret? What did we lack? Why was it important? And so what? Guileless and without vanity, we were still in love with ourselves then. We felt comfortable in our skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness. Jealousy we understood and thought natural - a desire to have what somebody else had; but envy was a strange new feeling for us. And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us." p.74

The Sunday Salon: Happy Fall

2011-09-25T10:27:00.001-04:00

Fall is here! It's a bright, sunny morning in central New York, but the air has a definite chill. Leaves are changing, pumpkins and mums are everywhere, and apple-picking season is in full swing. I finally enjoyed my first pumpkin spice latte of the season, and my traditional raw apple cake was a hit at Friday's dinner party. This is definitely my favorite time of year.

It's been a slow week on the reading front though. In fact, that pumpkin spice latte break was the only time I spent with The Bluest Eye all week. Toni Morrison's writing is both beautiful and haunting, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

My progress on The House of the Seven Gables picked up midweek as I decided to try the audio version. The book requires more concentration that I am able to muster at the end of the day and I found myself reading each sentence two or three times, frustration growing by the page. The audio helped me get into the rhythm of the story, and now it's easier to read in the evening after I've been listening in the car. If you're interested in reading along, there is still plenty of time. Frances and Audrey are co-hosting a group read of The House of the Seven Gables on October 14.

This afternoon, I'll read The Bluest Eye and watch some football. Later we'll have dinner at my sister's house and celebrate my nephew's 16th birthday. I'll close with a scary thought a friend posted on facebook this morning - three months from today is Christmas! Happy Sunday...

Weekend Cooking: Raw Apple Cake

2011-09-24T13:44:00.000-04:00

Years ago, my sister gave me a recipe for Raw Apple Cake. It came from the Four Sisters Inn Cookbook -a souvenir from her California Wine Country vacation. Since then, this cake has come to signal the beginning of fall for my family. Yesterday we hosted a dinner party and, by coincidence, served the raw apple cake on the real first day of fall. It was just a good as we remembered!

Raw Apple Cake
(from Four Sisters Inn Cookbook)

4 cups grated tart apples, firmly packed
1/4 cup oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix apples, oil, vanilla, eggs, and sugars. In a separate bowl, stir together flours, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and nuts. Gently fold into the apple mixture and stir until moistened. Pour into a lightly greased 9 x 13 pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone with a food-related post to share: Book reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button, head over to Beth Fish Reads, and link up anytime over the weekend.

Happiness is...

2011-09-21T16:36:00.000-04:00

... a pumpkin spice latte and a good book.

Tuesday Intro: The Bluest Eye

2011-09-20T08:03:00.000-04:00

Quiet as its kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow. A little examination and much less melancholy would have proved to us that our seeds were not the only ones that did not sprout; nobody's did. Not even the gardens fronting the lake showed marigolds that year. But so deeply concerned were we with the health and safe delivery of Pecola's baby we could think of nothing but our own magic: if we planted the seeds, and said the right words over them, they would blossom, and everything would be all right.

It was a long time before my sister and I admitted to ourselves that no green was going to spring from our seeds. Once we knew, our guilt was relieved only by fights and mutual accusations about who was to blame. For years, I thought my sister was right: it was my fault. I had planted them too far down in the earth. It never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust and or despair. What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and that unyielding earth. Cholly Breedlove is dead; our innocence, too. The seeds shriveled and died; her baby, too.

There really is nothing more to say - except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

The prologue, all in italics, has completely captivated me. Banned Book Week is September 24 - October 1. The Bluest Eye is listed at number 15 on ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books. I hope to post a review sometime next week. How will you mark Banned Book Week?

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

The Sunday Salon: So Much to Talk About

2011-09-18T11:14:00.000-04:00

Good morning! This is my first Sunday Salon since the end of July - the leaves are changing, the morning temperatures hover around 40, and it's time to accept the fact the summer is over. My sweaters and fleece made an appearance last week... yesterday I even wore socks. All I need now is a pumpkin spice latte.

The girls have settled into their college routines. Daughter #1, a senior, seems to be involved in just about everything, while the twins, first years, are making friends and getting used to college life in general. Twin B lives at home and commutes to a nearby college, so we have at least another year before achieving 'empty nester' status.

August, packed with travel and moving kids around, was a slow reading month, but things have certainly turned around in September. I've finished five books so far (unheard of by mid-month for me), including three 5 star and one with a 4 1/2 star rating! Am I getting soft in my rating or choosing books more wisely? Definitely the latter...

As you can tell from recent reviews, I've discovered Stewart O'Nan. His quieter, character-driven novels have quickly made him a new favorite. He'd long been on my 'authors to read' list. but Nan's review of Emily, Alone convinced me the time had finally come. Since the book is a sequel, I decided to read Wish You Were Here first. That novel was a perfect end-of-summer read for Labor Day weekend, and I followed up immediately with Emily, Alone. (Listen to this NPR interview to hear O'Nan talk about Emily). After that, I couldn't resist Last Night at the Lobster. I rated that one 4 1/2 stars but, the more I think about it, it should have been 5. If you're interested in O'Nan, this short novel would be the perfect starting point.

My reviews:
Wish You Were Here
Emily, Alone
Last Night at the Lobster

My audiobook selections have veered toward mysteries this month. Friday I posted thoughts on Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin - definitely a favorite this year. Yesterday I finished What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman and loved that, too. Lippman has so many other books to choose from. Can you recommend another title?

I've started participating in Devourer of Books Friday Sound Bytes feature. Jen posts an audiobook review and invites others to link up. It's a another great source for audio reviews and an excellent community-builder, too.

I'm currently reading The House of Sevens Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Frances and Audrey are hosting a group read (in conjunction with Carl's R.I.P challenge) with posts scheduled for October 14. After two chapters, I've decided it requires my full concentration... definitely not a book to read when I'm tired!

Banned Book Week is coming up September 24. In perusing ALA's top 100 banned/challenged books list, I noticed The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison at #15. Since I've never read Morrison (collective gasp!) and own the book, it seems like the perfect time to begin. Do you plan to read a banned book next week?

Today we are celebrating my mother's birthday, so there won't be much time for reading. I need to clean the house and make lasagna now, but will be back this evening for some blog hopping. After a long summer, I look forward to catching up with everyone. It's good to get back to The Sunday Salon!