Not Robert Jordan after all....

Of course, I am talking about S.M Stirling's latest novel of The Change, The Sword of the Lady. This series actually began with a trilogy of books about the Island of Nantucket, which got sent back in time to the Bronze Age. He then wrote a couple of other things, and then started the Change series, adding up to three trilogies. This one I really enjoyed because you got to see more re-imagining of how other traditions/cultures survived the Change, which, frankly, I enjoy more than the battle series. Stirling could end the series here, and I would be content. There was enough 'foreshadowing' in the book to satisfy the 'what happens next?', even though the ending came quickly and seemed rather abrupt. It did start feeling, while reading the third trilogy, the length of time it would have taken them to cross the US... I did feel that it was dragging a little at times, although this one had a better pace to it than the previous book.

If I had one criticism of Stirling, it would be that he didn't bring enough sense of other cultures onto the books... but he does do a great job with what he does.

The Sisters Who Would Be Queen

This book could be alternatively titled, "How History Gets Rewritten". A fascinating biography of the Grey sisters. We all have heard of Lady Jane Grey, but not so much about her sisters. It actually even turns out that what we thought we knew is so much less than the bigger picture....

and the status and marriages of the Grey sisters were, in part, what influenced Elizabeth not to marry.

I found it a fascinating look into some of the political points and counterpoints of the end of the Tudor reign, and also an interesting look into the education and upbringing of a new generation, of the first real generation of Protestant women, and how that factored into their lives...

It is also very readable. A lot of histories can get cluttered up with the same people who have different names, or other issues.... and this one avoids a lot of that. She also has family trees in the book, making it possible to look back and follow who a certain person is and what their relationships are to one another.

Its a very well-written, concise, thoughtful book about the impact one family had....

Fat, Cakes and Good Eats.

So, I've been on a cookbook binge recently. (These are all library cookbooks, btw, so I don't own them, yet)

fat: an appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient, with recipes

by Jennifer McLagan

This was a fascinating cookbook. As a result of reading it I went out and hunted down real leaf lard to play with. It is structured differently than other cookbooks, with recipes by fat source, rather than dessert or appetizer. She begins with butter, the most commonly available fat, moves on to pork, then poultry (including duck fat, mmmmm) and beef and lamb fats. It also follows in the traditions of books like the Omnivore's dilemma, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, in demystifying something that has become fraught with negative connotations.

Some of the recipes seemed a little over-the-top to me, as I really wonder if anyone would make bacon baklava, it seemed as if, in some ways, she was searching for more unusual ways to use an ingredient, but on the whole, it was a fascinating cookbook. I'm not sure that I would render lard in order to deep-fry, but apparently it does not create an odor, and can be reused! She does have a section on deep-frying with lard. With all the information we now have on quality fats, it really shows that less-processed (ie unhydrogenated) fats do have a place in our lives. This is one cookbook that would be a great buy for any meat-eating foodie on your list!

Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Berenbaum

This is a fabulous baking book. She has a section on gluten-free (or almost so) cakes and desserts, where the gluten component can be removed and the dessert will still be successful. She goes by weights as well as cups in the book, so it is a little different from the cookbooks I grew up with. She also seems to understand that while baking is somewhat chemistry, it is also somewhat intuitive as well. The other thing I loved about this cookbook is that it has fantastic resources. Resources for all the ingredients/decorations that a lot of other cookbooks use, and then forget where to tell you to buy them. She also has a section on cakes made with oil, which do require a different mentality to make. I do wish she had mentioned (and maybe she didn't realise this) but cakes made with Wondra or pastry flour are easier to convert to gluten-free, since both/either are low-gluten flours. Cheesecake and flourless chocolate torte are wonderful, but g-f people can get a little tired of those! It was still nice to have some mainstreamed options in a cookbook dedicated to baking.

Good Eats, The Early Years, by Alton Brown.

This is a fun compilation of the first six seasons of Good Eats. The one quibble I have with this cookbook is the footnotes. On the one hand, its cute, on the other, I found myself finding the footnotes box first, and reading through the episode with an eye on the footnotes because they were odd footnotes. Often on ingredients, or methods, or the history. Some of them would have been better served as being notes at the end of the recipe, or simply incorporated into the text. That being said, that was really my biggest issue with the book. It was fun reading about the different episodes, seeing the recipes in one place, and seeing what they would have added if they'd had time. I loved the little nuggets of trivia (and I think that was what annoyed me about some of the footnotes, is that they would have done better as trivia).

Warbreaker.

This book, by Brandon Sanderson, (who, incidentally has been chosen to finish up Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series) is superb. It is a well-imagined, well-crafted world. He pulls us into it very artfully, explaining some of the basic concepts we need to understand the natural laws of that world). Unfortunately, there is a little spoiler on the back cover, which, fortunately, I didn't read until afterwards.

It has not one, but two heroines, who start to blossom at the beginning of the book, and really grow into their characters and become really strong women. Its refreshing to see such well-written women who are strong, not vapid, but who are trying to find their footings in strange circumstances. There are gods, men, evil men, plots within plots, and Sanderson gently leads us down the garden path...

I found it a truly enjoyable novel, in the best tradition of a fantasy novel, as it has all the elements of a traditional one, but combined in unexpected ways.... he even includes a magic sword!

The Bitter and the Sweet.

Its Not That I'm Bitter by Gina Barreca.

This was interesting and humorous. I'm not usually a person who laughs out loud at books, but I did at this one at various points. In some ways, it really does describe the life of a modern woman, of the pitfalls and inconsistencies of modern life. She had me nodding in agreement when she asked where Carrie Fisher is... where are the spunky female movie heroines? Its true... Leia gave as good as she got, and more so, in the Star Wars movies... her mother? Got pregnant and died. (disclaimer here, I have never seen the 'prequels', never wanted to, but even I know that Anakin's mom was a wimp in the movie, let alone Padme Amidala...) You are preaching to the choir here, Gina... we haven't really had a good, spunky female heroine since Star Wars. Even in TV land. She also addresses the myth of Prince Charming, who "marries Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and for all we know he's also knocked up Mother Goose." (30) And, hey, we all have a little 'crazy astronaut lady' in us...

Its a book that rings true, about the "I'm not bitter, but COME ON..." pitfalls of daily life as a modern feminist woman...

The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz.

Some parts of this book ring so true... you do get dressed, in Paris, to take out the recycling/trash. Some things ring less true for me, but that may be because I'm a French speaker, so hadn't run into that particular issue, ever. I'm also not a gay man (surprise!), but on the whole, it was a tres amusant petit livre. With some wonderful looking recipes... Its a funny little memoir of an American in Paris, and his culture shock.

Two Biographies...

each alike in integrity, setting a scene in wildly different locales, yet both resonated with me.

First comes Love, then comes Malaria by Eve Brown-Waite.

This was a fantastic book. A real-life love story and adventure, which I did not want to end. It had a bit of a rough start, which did initially put me off the book a little... the beginning felt a little too superficial somehow, and while I understand that this was for contrast with the later portions, it could have been achieved a little more smoothly. The book does recover quickly from a shaky first chapter and plunges you into the story of her experiences, first in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, and then in Uganda. I just really enjoyed reading about the people, places, and experiences she had. Some of them evoked my own childhood in Egypt.

Not Becoming My Motherby Ruth Reichl.

Reichl takes an unusual tack in this book about her mother... she talks, proudly of not becoming her mother, but of becoming what her mother wanted her to be. She talks about this in the context of her mother's own life and experiences and thwarted desires...

The 'G' Books...self-help or hindrance?

Two books, both with G in the title, and both self-help, of a sort.

The first, the 'G-free diet' by Elisabeth Hasselbeck can be summed up in one word, shallow. It just felt shallow, and only had a few sources. She does give some good tips, buried in the rubble, but it just seemed to be about her life with gluten. Now granted, the thing that REALLY annoyed me about the book was the chapter about going gluten-free (I cannot type G-free, her little catchphrase, its just too, too blond, perky, sorority for me) for weight loss. EXCUSE ME? Going gluten-free did not help me lose weight. And really, if you find going gluten-free has an advantage to your health, maybe its because you really have a wheat allergy or celiac. She does have some tips on sharing a kitchen with non-celiacs, but I find that to be a little unrealistic, and she may have real problems once her kids become teenagers. I just found the book a little flighty. (Can't you tell?)

I do think its good that gluten-free is getting more notice, but I just wish this had been a slightly more serious book, which had left out the chapter on gluten-free and weight loss. I don't think most gluten-free people find weight loss to happen gluten-free, since most gluten-free products are sugar and white rice, and your gut does start absorbing more nutrients as it heals. She does make a good point about finding good substitutes when you start, having a gluten-free bagel, or a gluten-free cereal, instead of saying "oh just have a salad". While salads are always options when dining out, it can become tiresome.

It just felt very self-absorbed, even though she does have some well-laid-out chapters, and does have a clear list of wheats/glutenous food to avoid. And she has a nice little card in the back to take to restaurants and such. Although I WISH the card did not have 'G-free' in large letters on the top, but included the words 'gluten' somewhere on the card. My only other real issue with the book is that all the resources have websites. No phone numbers. There are still people in this day and age who do not go online. And she only has six books in the resources. One of which belongs to the doctor who wrote the foreword praising the book.

Its not a bad book, don't get me wrong. But I would not use it as the sole guide to going gluten-free, or trying to live with a gluten-free person. And I freely admit, if you hadn't guessed already, that I am not crazy about the words "G-free".

The other book I picked up was called "Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex and Love When You've Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted" by Judith Sills, PhD. I didn't even get through this book. I picked it up because I thought it might have good tips to get back into the dating world (not that I was ever really 'in' the dating world, so to speak...its always something I've had a hard time with). Its aimed mainly at the older woman of my mother's age, mid-sixties up, who have been with a partner or have had a family for many years, and who have more of a persona built around being 'in a relationship'. It really isn't as broad as the title implies, so while it might be excellent for someone of a different generation, it wasn't good for me.

Unrelated in any way..

other than that I read one right after the other...

The Importance of Being Kennedy, by Laurie Graham. This just struck me as being one of 'those' books, that might be entertaining. Its based on the facts of the Kennedy children and lives, but just lightly fictionalized as seen through the eyes of the nanny who raised them. It was fascinating to see the older children, and the children who were not talked about, and the things that were unspoken. The author did a good job of putting in little 'future nudges' (aka foreshadowing), where you read it and you knew what it was referring to. It was a light book that hung together well. It had a point of view and a direction, and you learned something from reading it.

Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo. I wanted to really like this book. I liked the premise, and I liked elements of it, but I felt that the author took the easy way out in some ways. She almost just flipped slavery on its head, so to speak, without working in more socio-economic factors somehow. It was almost to see if she could do it... and it almost worked, but not quite, because I kept feeling like the heroine was a black slave instead of a white one. I wish she had done something more creative with the geography as well... instead of just flipping the map a little. She just didn't go far enough with the concept, somehow. Because she had some wonderful elements in it, and some wonderful characterizations with the blacks being the masters and the whites being subordinate... I liked it, but I felt it could have been better, deeper, more powerful.

The Cooked and the Raw.

So the latest buzz in the cooking blogs of the world (apart from the movie Julie and Julia, which just oogs me out a little, somehow...a fictionalized account of an interesting book, but fictionalized, taking liberties with people's LIVES) was about Richard Wrangtham's Catching Fire.

This book isn't scholarly, per se, but it isn't run-of-the-mill either. It does have an interesting premise, which makes a certain amount of sense, that we evolved from apelike creatures to humans because of cooking our food. That cooking foods neutralized toxins, and released more energy. And the author makes some compelling arguments towards that, backed up by physical facts and the fossil record. But then he diminishes his arguments by having other agendas. He has a chapter in which he demolishes the Raw Foodists, and he ends with making a claim that the current obesity crisis is due to, basically, overprocessed food. I did find the book interesting, don't get me wrong, but I also found that it was skewed and slanted towards the author's argument... Personally, I feel it could have definitely been a strong factor, but that our evolution was triggered by many things. I kept thinking, during one chapter, "You know, there's a way we could prove this, if anyone wanted to try it". Try feeding modern apes a diet of cooked food. Have a control group that is fed the same things, uncooked...

I just think its a little too simplistic to say that cooked food, and cooked food alone, resulted in Homo Erectus. We feed our pets cooked foods, and we don't have our dogs walking on their hind legs...(in fact, dogs do better on a raw food diet, by all accounts)...if any vets are reading this, does anyone know if dogs/cats have developed larger brains or differences in their digestive tracts in the past 50/100 years? The dogs/cats do uphold the hidden agenda, that modern eating habits are making us fat...since we have a lot of tubby pets eating canned food.

Anyway, I just feel that this book could have used a more critical reader and a stronger editor. I kept stopping and muttering to myself while reading this...and my college anthropology was 18 years ago! (eeek!)

It was interesting to compare and contrast this to reading Nina Planck's "Real Food", in which she espouses things like drinking raw milk, red meat, as well as fruits and veggies and butter... this book does make some interesting points, and she also uses some of the same anthropological examples to prove some of her points as does Wrangtham. I suppose this proves that nutritional data can be made to say anything you want...

But her point is, essentially, that "Industrial Food" has caused our obesity/current societal ill-health. She makes some very good points, interspersed with her own experiences, about the nutritional value of 'real food'. She does not actually endorse eating everything raw, that was just my pun in the title, but she does drink raw milk. She drinks milk from pastured cows, and gives a history of milk drinking, that also explains the history of why milk became pasteurized in this country. She also tells you what to look for if you want to drink raw milk, and how to do it safely.

She backs up her claims with a lot of research, of tables, of facts. She gives good, better, best options in terms of food, and goes into detail on why a diet more similar to what your grandparents ate is a good thing.

Charming, I'm sure

So, I've read a few books that have *really* charmed me this last year. Just wonderful, sweet, enthralling, enrapturing books.

I'm finishing up "The Help". This is powerful as well as charming, funny, written in several voices (which can be very hard to pull off, see my review of Eve, which did not pull it off). Its a tribute to strong, affirming women, and to the power of womanhood, basically. I think this one is the sleeper hit of the summer. Its difficult to describe in a few easy sentences because just giving a few sentences to this book would almost oversimplify and cheapen the book. Its set in the South, in the 1950s and 60s, and was written as a tribute, in some way, to the woman who raised the author. Its a story of anger, frustration, self-worth, and empowerment. My friend Mary-Anne was talking some months ago about how difficult it is for some authors to write in an authentic 'voice' for race. This succeeds. Its not just a story of civil rights, though, its a story about prejudice on all levels, and alienation, acceptance, and self-worth.


Kissing Games of the World is another sleeper novel, which most people would never pick up, in part for the title. Again, its not something easy to describe in a few sentences, but it again is a story of growth, love, acceptance and empowerment. My boss read it and she loved it. While at first glance it seems to be a typical romance plot, it is so much more. And is just compellingly written. I just loved it.

Nothing But a Smile is another captivating book about an unlikely, unexpected romance. Set in 1944 it is also a discussion of independence, equality, censorship, all kinds of issues, clothed in an enrapturing book. Again, its not something most people would take out or buy, based on both the title and cover, but it is about so much more than pinup art. Its a story of an era, of changing times, and of finding talent. Of fulfillment...

I'm sure you've seen the movie, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. The book is so much better, so much more complex and just completely, utterly charming. I took the book out and just devoured it overnight. And the characters are still people you see today, on the street. Maybe not the exact circumstances, but still, its light-hearted without being marshmallow fluff. Its well-crafted, well-written....

The Guernsey Literary and potato peel pie society, or, as its referred to by most library patrons, the book with the potato pie in the title. This is a book written in another manner that can be hard to pull off...letters. An epistolary (have I impressed you yet?) book is, I've found, one of the harder forms for authors to get right, to convey the story without faltering. This works, and works well. You really get to know the characters, the situations, and get a flavor for the novel. All through the letters, from different characters, with different plots and subplots (just like life!). Its not perfectly written, and there is a subtle change in flavor in the two sections (One of the authors died , so perhaps the book was finished by the other?), but all in all, a good book (and very popular).

Biographies....

I don't usually read a lot of biographies for the sake of biography... I read biographies where I'll learn something, about an era, about a culture, about a way of life, about change...

I recently read two amazing biographies. Labor of Love, by Cara Muhlhahn, and The Sun in the Morning, by Mollie Kaye.

Mollie Kaye wrote The Far Pavillions, an amazing novel of colonial India. She grew up in the midst of the British Empire, in India, and The Sun in The Morning is her story of an enchanted childhood in India. The descriptions of her adventures are breathtaking, bittersweet, and enthralling. She discusses her parents as well, how they met, their lives together. She had an amazing memory for small details, and would describe some object which told a story. Even though the book was basically a series of memories, tied together somewhat haphazardly, it does not feel haphazard. It feels deliberate, and really paints a picture of a forgotten era.

Labor of Love is the story of a midwife. Its fascinating to read about an ancient practice that still exists and thrives in today's modern world. The author does talk about the complications of being a midwife, and some of the run-ins she has had with the medical profession, as well as somewhat of where, sometimes, the medical profession goes wrong. But it is not, in any way, a negative book. Too many times, one can read these things and feel like you are being preached at, or have your faith denigrated, or even feel like the medical profession is the big bad boogeyman. This book really does none of those things. But it does talk about the experiences the author has had being a midwife, both good and bad. And it does talk about her interactions with doctors. It too is the story of a different world, hidden in modern culture. And it is reassuring to know that one can find midwives who have medical training. That there are a few options in life apart from home birth or hospital birth. And she does clarify a few things about birth centers and home birth and such and relative safety.

I wanted to like you....

I hate starting the new blog on such a down note, but there are a number of books that I've tried to read over the past weeks that just have left me cold. Books that got good reviews in the papers, books that sounded good from the blurbs, but that, for some reason, just didn't translate well. Maybe it was my mood, maybe I was in more of a 'good fluff' frame of mind. By good fluff I mean a well-written 'chicklit' book. There are such things out there, where they are well-written but not deep. They are entertaining and lighthearted, but not mighty tomes of death and depression. And they will be reviewed in a future blog.

Here are the ones I've tried so far, and was disappointed:

The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie. On the surface, and according to the blurb, it has everything you'd ever want in a novel, harems, imaginary wives, travelers from strange, exotic climes, a little bit of magic...yet somehow nothing coalesced. It felt as if I was plodding through the book, and that I'd missed the magic carpet. *sigh*

Eve: A Novel of the First Woman, by Elissa Elliott. This had potential. It really did. But it could have used some more cohesive editing and rewriting. She does have some lovely language and imagery to describe the Garden, but somehow the family dynamics fall flat. I suspect the problem is in too many points of view, as it is told through the eyes of different female family members, but somehow the characters are flat, and are very one-note. I was really disappointed in this one.

Lulu in Marrakech, by Diane Johnson. I have to admit, I have never read any of Diane Johnson's novels before, and probably never will again. I was hoping for an intelligently written piece of 'good fluff', and it just completely failed. None of the characters resonated or felt true to me at all. It just felt very contrived, as if the author had only seen Marrakech through visits, and hadn't had experience with people of other cultures...

Lastly, a nonfiction piece I'd had great hopes for, but alas, it too went ptttthhhhbbbtttt. The food of a younger land, by Mark Kurlansky. I suspect part of the problem is that I expected something a little different, based on the cover, and the blurb. What it is is a series of essays about food in different regions of the country, taken from the 'America Eats' Project, under the auspices of the Federal Writers' Project, created by President Roosevelt in the 1930s. The problem with the book, I think, is that it lacks a unifying framework, a wholeness. It seems to be tidbits thrown together in a mishmash without any kind of unifying thread to it, apart from it being about food. If Kurlansky had done a little more to give a theme to the book: seasonality, unusual feasts that have since died out, and organized it that way, rather than by state, I think it would have been more what I was expecting, as some of the essays are rather short, and it just feels jumpy and choppy. Its an example of how arranging your material can really make a difference in the feel of the book.

I promise not to be a negative Nelly next time, and to review some really wonderful books that you can escape into in this rainy summer weather...

Welcome to my cozy lair....

So I'm devoting a blog to books, maybe some authors, and to book reviews. I'll review books that charm me, that enthrall me, and even books I throw across the room in disgust. There are a few authors I will probably never review: I'm not into James Patterson, Steven King, Nora Roberts, pap for the people...

But lets talk about Ms Nora Roberts for a moment. I read, last week, in the New Yorker, an article about her. Here's a link to the abstract of the article, if you want to read the full thing, you have to subscribe.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_collins

The article started out basically comparing NR to some of the greatest authors in the English Language. Apparently more women find her words memorable than they do the words in Wuthering Heights, or other works of great literature. To me, that says something about the quality of literature out there today. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Ms Roberts works incredibly hard, she certainly churns the books out. They are popular, yes. Quality literature? No. I couldn't even finish the article lauding the praises of Nora Roberts, saint in training.

This blog aims to bring you good literature. Good books. Intelligently written books, of many genres. I read a lot, I read a variety. I'll even review some of the classics as well as new books, new authors. Yes, this blog has a bias... my own. My tastes.

What do I read? Almost everything. I don't read political books or self-help. I don't read 'What's wrong with America' books.