Author

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2007

Genre: Adult fiction

My Rating: A

Summary:

Jane Hayes is single, thirty-three-years-old, with a successful career as a graphic illustrator. Jane can also be described as a devotee of Jane Austen, although it’s hurting her love life. That’s because she compares every man to Mr. Darcy – the Colin Firth version.

Jane also tries to keep this obsession a secret but her great aunt discovers it. When her great aunt dies, Jane learns she has been given a three week trip to a vacation destination in the English countryside. It’s purpose is total immersion into Jane Austen’s world.

When Jane arrives at Pembrook Park she finds a manor house, horses and carriages, and actors in clothing of the period. Everyone plays a part, including the guests, and the events are typical of the Regency time period. Jane learns to play Whist, the gentlemen go pheasant hunting, and the only books available are the books that were around in Jane Austen’s day.

Most of the guests are women hoping for an Austen-like romance. The gentlemen present at Pembrook Park appear to have come out of one Jane Austen’s novels. The only problem is this: When you start falling in love with one of these men, are you falling in love with the character or the actor playing the part? How could this experience help Jane’s future love life? Is this what Jane’s great aunt was hoping for?

My thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed Austenland. I was able to immerse myself in Jane Hayes’ world, even when I wasn’t reading the book. It gave me some fun things to think about. It wasn’t heavy reading yet it had substance to it.

I especially enjoyed the dialogue between the characters at Pembrook Park. They all did such a good job of talking and behaving “in character,” even when Jane tried to challenge them. There were a couple of characters who didn’t exactly stick to the script, but they were easily forgotten.

I kept thinking about how difficult it must be to recreate the total Regency era experience. For instance, how do you keep airplanes from flying over, and how do you justify modern plumbing and other items that modern travelers expect? I put myself in Janes’s spot and thought it would be nearly impossible to not check on friends and family, or work, or keep up on current events. I would have to have an iPhone!

For me the fun of the book was the struggle between being in both worlds. I fixated on that. I wasn’t so concerned with the romance side the story. I was pretty sure Jane Hayes could figure things out on her own – and she did.

This was a good book for Jane Austen devotees as well as lovers on contemporary romance. This was my third Shannon Hale novel. Now I’m on to the next one. Several have recommended Princess Academy. I also saw a review yesterday on BookFan Mary’s blog for Midnight at Austenland. It sounds like a good follow up to Austenland.

About the author:

Shannon Hale is the author of five award-winning young adult novels, including the bestselling Newbery Honor book Princess Academy. Austenland is her first book for adults. She and her husband are co-writing a series of graphic novels, and live with their two small children in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Subtitle

Author: Mennonite Central Committee

Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing, October 1, 2011

My Rating: A

I’ve contributed to and helped publish church cookbooks over the years. Those books usually contains favorite recipes from the congregation’s best cooks. Well, here’s one that is the mother, no make that grandmother, of all church cookbooks.

Over six hundred recipes from the best cooks among Amish and Mennonite congregations is an amazing set of recipes. Because many of the church’s members raise their own food, the recipes reflect that background. There are the standard chapters like main dishes, side dishes, breads and desserts. But there are also chapters on cheesemaking, pickling, jams, fruit butters and even soap making.

There are two chapters I think are unique. One is “Traditional Classics” and the other is “Grandma’s Remedies.”

In “Traditional Classics” the chapter starts with the social events that are standard within the community: Weddings, Funerals, Quilting Bees, Barn Raisings, and Threshings. What made it fun for me was to see what was on the menu at these events and the enormous quantity of food that was prepared. Keep in mind they do not call in professional caterers. This is do-it-yourself with help from friends and family. Here’s an example from a typical Barn Raising for 250 men:

24 loaves of bread; 5 pounds butter; 21 crocks potatoes, boiled and riced; 4 large roasters of gravy beef; 8 crocks carrots, boiled and buttered; 3 crocks carrot and cucumber pickles; 45 large jars applesauce; 12 crocks sweet apple schnitz and prunes; 350 Amish doughnuts; 5 gallons maple syrup; and 45 lemon drop pies.

There is usually enough left over to feed all of the women and children, usually numbering anywhere from, 50 to 90.

In “Grandma’s Remedies” there are recipes for a bread and milk poultice, lots of uses for honey, vinegar, and teas, hair tonic, liniment, mustard plaster and so forth. Here’s an interesting one:

Lily Whiskey

Fill a jar with the petals of the Madonna Lily. Get a bottle of good quality whiskey. Fill the jar so the petals are all covered. As they settle down, add more whiskey. This is especially good for burns and sores.

Scattered throughout the book are quotes about food and sometimes life in general. For example,

“Courage is fear that has said it’s prayers.”

I know I’ve said it before but my favorite cookbooks are those that read like a good novel. Treasured Amish and Mennonite Recipes makes for great reading. I’ve been on a roll lately reading about the Amish and this was a very nice fit. I’ll recommend this book to foodies who love the old-fashioned recipes from an area of the world devoted to the simple life.

About the Author:

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) works alongside local churches and communities in more than 50 countries, including Canada and the United States, to carry out disaster relief, sustainable community development, justice and peace-building work in the name of Christ. MCC also seeks to build bridges to connect people and ideas across cultural, political and economic divides.(from the publisher)

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

Author

Publisher: McBooks Press

Genre: Historical Fiction

My Rating: A

Summary from the publisher:

Sally Ketchum comes from dirt-poor farm folk. She has little chance of bettering her life until a mysterious barnstormer named Tex teaches her to fly—and becomes the first person worthy of her love. But Tex dies in a freak accident, leaving Sally to make her own way in the world. She enrolls in the U.S. military’s Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program, and in a special school located in West Texas begins learning to fly the biggest, fastest, meanest airplanes the military has to offer. She also reluctantly becomes involved with Beau Bayard, a flight instructor and aspiring writer, who seems to offer her everything she could want. But many people see no place for a “skirt” in the cockpit, and Sally soon finds herself pitted against a high-powered Washington lawyer who wants to disband the WASP once and for all. Their battle is a story of extraordinary women who broke society’s rules and became heroes, and of men who stood in their way.

My thoughts:

The main reason I wanted to read this book is so I could, hopefully, get a look at women’s lives during World War II. My mom was in the same age group as the characters in this story. I thought often of her and her sisters and friends as I read. My mom was a wife and mother during the war but she knew so many others who took the jobs of the men who were fighting overseas. And then they were pushed out of those jobs when the men came home. Of course, many men didn’t come home but the women were let go anyway.

I thought the author  got the time period just right. I especially enjoyed all the information about the WASPs. Karl Friedrich obviously did a good job with his research. His main character, Sally, was a fighter and yet she did it within the culture of the 1940s.

Although billed as historical fiction, I liked the romance in Wings. It was sweet while still being as spicy  as any of those other romance novels I read. Excellent dialogue and naive sexual tension. But don’t worry, none of those hot pages you have to flip through quickly.

Recommend? Yes, for historical fiction fans and/or for those who wish to learn more about this plucky group of women.

About the author:

Karl Friedrich was born and grew up in Tyler, Texas. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine and public relations writer, advertising copywriter, and photographer. A lifelong aviation fan, he got his first ride in an airplane at the age of five (“If I’d been six, I’d have had the sense to stay on the ground, as the thing was held together with rust and bailing wire,” he recalls.)

Karl’s friends who fly commercial, military or private aircraft, and his lifelong fascination with women who achieve great accomplishment despite the displeasure of men, provided the inspiration and impetus for Wings.

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of the book and to TLC Book Tours for allowing me to be a part of it all. To see other stops on the book tour, visit the schedule here: TLC Book Tours

Check your local library or your local bookstore for copies of this book. Wings is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

If you’ve read any of Tony Hillerman’s books, then you know Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. In this story he’s dealing the murder of a Zuni boy and the disappearance of his best friend, a Navajo boy. As in all of Tony Hillerman’s books, it’s a complicated story.

This may only be the second book but it was so good it won an Edgar Allen Poe Award in 1973. Come read my review over at Quirky Girls Read.

My review is over at Quirky Girls Read. Come check it out.

Author

Publisher: Grand Central, 2011

My Rating: A

Rakhee is a girl of Indian descent who’s lived in Plainfield, Minnesota all of her ten-plus years. Things seem to be going as normal until her mother starts getting mysterious letters from India. And then, when school is out for the summer, Rakhee finds herself on a plane with only her mother. They are headed for India and Rakhee is not happy about leaving her father behind. Are her parents getting a divorce?

Once they are at her mother’s ancestral home, Rakhee is thrown into an unfamiliar world. Things look, sound, and taste different. She’s also not used to the way the various family members behave with each other. But she gradually makes friends with her cousins.

The cousins are instructed to play anywhere except in the forest behind the house. There is a walled-in area that Rakhee is very curios about. Telling her she cannot go there is like a red flag to Rakhee. One day she sneaks back there. She finds a locked door and peers into the keyhole.

“I was staring into the most dazzling garden I had ever seen. Cobblestone pathways between rows of salmon-hued hibiscus, regal hollyhock, delicate impatiens, wild orchids, thorny rosebushes, and manicured shrubs starred with jasmine. . . .

Then I was no longer looking into the garden, but into an eye–brown and inquisitive, like mine, pressing against the other side of the keyhole. I fell backward, then looked again, wondering if in my excited state I was imagining things. The eye had vanished, and the garden sat still and beautiful again.

But just as I was about to calm down, without any warning, the eye came back, then receded, revealing a face, a terrible face . . .”

Sorry, but I’m going to leave you hanging there. I don’t want to spoil it for you. I really liked this beautifully written story. The Girl in the Garden was set in a world that was very new to me – an exotic village in India. The story is filled with mystery: Who is the girl in the garden? What does the girl in the garden have to do with Rakhee’s mother? Why all the secrets and what do they have to do with Rakhee’s life? With all the mystery it was hard to stop reading.

I found it hard to believe this was the author’s debut novel. It definitely felt like the work of a seasoned writer. Kamala Nair was born in London and grew up in the United States. A graduate of Wellesley College, she studied literature at Oxford University and received an M.Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin in 2005. She currently lives in New York City, where she has worked at ELLE DECOR.

Connect with Kamala on her website:  Kamala Nair.com

Check your local library or your local bookstore for copies of this book. The Girl in the Gardenis also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

I read this book as part of the book’s TLC Book Tour. For more stops on the tour, visit the schedule HERE.

Joy for Beginners is about a small group of women first came together to help Sara. She was the mother of a young boy and newborn twins and she had her hands full. They came together as a baby-holding group to give Sara some relief. Then Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer and the group shifted their priorities to support Kate.

As the book opens, it’s eighteen months later and Kate has been pronounced cancer-free. They’ve gathered together at Kate’s house for a victory celebration.Kate’s daughter has been encouraging Kate to sign up for a white-water rafting trip through the Grand Canyon but Kate is terrified of the idea.

All the women urge her to do it by agreeing to do something that terrifies them or something they’ve been putting off. Kate agrees but on one condition: She gets to choose what their challenge is. With some trepidation, the women agree. Let me introduce you to the women and what their challenges are:

• Caroline’s husband left her after twenty-five years of marriage. She’s been floundering around ever since. The only thing that saves her is her love of books. She works in a bookstore and is responsible for evaluating and buying the used books people bring in. Her challenge? Get rid of all of her husband’s books. Hint: There are a lot of them and it’s not easy.
• Daria is an artist, specifically a sculptor. She’s loved working with mud/clay her entire life. Someone had given her an Amish Friendship Bread last year, and it was a disaster. Her challenge is to learn to bake bread. Hint: There’s a big difference between a ball of dough and a ball of clay.
• Sara is the young mother I mentioned earlier who needed help with her twins. She’s the ultimate mother, one who truly loves everything about the experience. On the other hand, she’s been absorbed in the lives of her family 24/7 for years without even a night away from them. Her challenge? Take a trip by herself. Hint: It’s hard to take care of only yourself.
• Hadley and her husband were married barely a year when he was killed in an auto accident. Hadley took the insurance money and bought a very small house surrounded by overgrown ivy, roses and other plants. Strange as it may sound, this made her feel secure. Her challenge? Build a garden. Hint: What happens when you start chopping out some of those plants?
• Marion has three grown children and a good, solid marriage of thirty-three years. She’s also a journalist. I was surprised when I heard her challenge: Get a tattoo. Hint: A tattoo expert tells Marion, “The irreversible decisions are good for the soul.”
• Ava is the only one of the women who wasn’t part of Kate’s support group. The other women resent her somewhat ,but she’s a lifelong friend of Kate’s. The challenge Kate gives her? She has to walk a three-day, sixty mile breast cancer walk.

How the women handle their challenges, including Kate’s rafting trip is what the stories are all about. This is such an in-depth look at the personalities that I swear they are real people. I thought each of the women’s stories could have been expanded into a book of their own.

Joy is a concept I’ve thought a lot about, as you have probably guessed from the title of my blog. Joy is a lot more than being happy. As I staryted reading Joy for Beginners I wanted to see how the title would fit with my experience of joy and the stories of the women in the book. Will the challenges Kate gives the characters help them break throughj to a new understandimng of joy? Will it have the opposite effect? Read the book and tell me what you think.

So many people loved Erica Bauermeister’s first novel, The School of Essential Ingredients, that this one is going to be very popular. I expect to see it on the best seller lists. Check your local library or local bookseller. It’s also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.) Another way to get this book is via . . .

A GIVEAWAY

Tell me in the comments section of your interest in the book. I have one copy (US/Canada only) and will leave it open until June 23rd.

Thanks so much to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for my review copy. For more stops on the book tour, visit the schedule HERE.

THE BOSTON COOKING SCHOOL COOKBOOK OF 1896

by Fannie Merritt Farmer

This book is a gem – from a historical perspective and as a current resource. It’s “a facsimile of the first edition” published in 1896. The reason it has historical significance is that, for the first time in history, the author “provided carefully worked-out level measurements and easy to follow directions leaving nothing to chance.”

Measurements prior to this cookbook were by handfuls and pinches and how it “looked.” Fannie Farmer, the principal of the Boston Cooking School, created a cookbook that called for a cupful, a teaspoonful, and a tablespoonful.

In the decade prior to 1896, scientists worked diligently on the “study of foods and dietetic value, and it is a subject which rightfully should demand much consideration from all,” said Fannie Farmer. She approached her book in a scientific, no-nonsense manner. The book reads like a textbook, which is what it was.

That’s not to say this book is dull and boring because it’s not. It’s similar to an interesting encyclopedia about every food imaginable. The book starts out with the definition of food (anything which nourishes the body) and the three basic elements in “cookery” (heat, air, moisture). In the remaining 36 chapters Mrs. Farmer takes meticulous care in examining each food and then supplies numerous recipes for using that food item. There are also numerous menus for all occasions.

Last week I shared with you a recipe from this book, Eggs a la Goldenrod. That was a standard of my mother’s from the 1930s and 1940s. Many recipes in this book are like that. They will remind you of dishes served at your grandmother’s, and even great-grandmother’s table. You will find dishes like Miss Farmer’s original Boston Baked Beans and other New England specialties. Now you’ll find that most of the recipes and methods of cooking have spread throughout the country and around the world.

The recipes were fun to read  but I got a real kick out of the “Course of Instruction.” There are several different courses. The First Course  of Instruction was twelve lessons ($12 and a $3 materials charge) it was for Plain Cooking. The very first thing taught in the first lesson was The Making and Care of a Fire.

The Second Course of Instruction was for Richer Cooking. By the time a student got to the last lesson here’s what they would be making:

• Puff Pastry
• Oyster Patties
• Raspberry Tarts
• Creamed Oysters
• Lobster Salad
• Mayonnaise Dressing
• Salted Almonds
• Ice Cream or Sherbet

Yikes!! How many of those dishes can you make? I’m sure I can handle Salted Almonds. I have made mayonnaise in the blender. Do you think that counts?

How much fun that must have been to be a student in Mrs. Farmer’s school. Since that doesn’t look like a possibility for me now, I’ll keep checking this book out from the library and use it to teach myself. It’s no wonder this book has been printed and reprinted  and used for 105 years.  My hunch is that it will be around for a long time to come.

Tell us how you feel about classic cookbooks like this one. Do you own a copy of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook? Do you have a favorite recipe from the book? Share with us your experience.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

Author

Publisher: William Sloane Associates, 1947

Genre: Western

My Rating: A

Two years ago I read The Way West by A.B. Guthrie. It was a moving historical fiction about one of the first treks of settlers over the Oregon Trail. (My review is HERE.) That book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950. I wanted to read the first book in Guthrie’s trilogy so I decided that now, with May’s Western Challenge, would be a good time.

The Big Sky spans the years 1830 to 1843. The story centers around Boone Caudill who ran away from his Kentucky home at 17 with his father’s special rifle. His goal was to head out west where he knows his mother’s brother is a mountain man. He longs to be on his own and to spend his life outdoors.

Boone’s goal was not necessarily to have a lot of adventures but he gets them anyway. Near the beginning of the novel is an interesting frontier trial. Someone steals Boone’s rifle and when he tries to get it back he’s arrested. The impromptu trial doesn’t get Boone off but it was fun to read the crude legal wranglings.

Boone encounters people who take advantage of him but he also meets good people as well. Boone becomes good friends with another young man, Jim Deakins. Together they make it to St. Louis and beyond.

They team up and become good friends with Dick Summers, a master hunter and guide. Boone greatly admires Summers. This is the first positive adult male he’s known and Summers serves as a personal guide for Boone as he matures. (Dick Summers was the trail boss for the wagon train in The Way West so I already knew his good character.)

Boone and Deakins make it to the mountains and learn to trap. They have numerous encounters with Indians and Boone falls in love at first meeting with an Indian girl, Teal Eye.

It’s a jam-packed novel of one scrape after another. It’s impossible not to love the character of Boone Caudill. Even though he did some pretty stupid things and has a hot temper, I was always rooting for him. The dialogue seemed very true to the time period as did the descriptions of people, surroundings and landscapes. It’s a part of the country I’m very familiar with and that boosted my enjoyment of the story.

This is a good historical novel, especially for readers who like stories about the West. It’s not a shoot-em-up cowboys and Indians story. It’s fiction but still a good study of the people who populated the country during the 1830s to 1840s. There was a nice bonus in the paperback edition I read. It was a Foreward by Wallace Stegner. In it he puts the significance of this story in perspective and calls The Big Sky A.B. Guthrie’s best novel.

Check your local library for a copy of this book. The Big Sky is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

This is Book #1 for the Hop-a-long, Git-a-long, Read-a-long sponsored by Ready When You Are C.B.

What they are really savvy about is how the legal and illegal system in LA works. Although Rachel has a huge case load, the story revolves around two cases, handled primarily by Rachel and Bailey. The first case is the rape of the daughter of a rich and influential doctor in a very wealthy part of town. The father thinks he knows who did it and wants the guy sent away now. It’s much more complicated than that.

The second case is much more personal for Rachel. A Deputy DA she has worked with for two years, Jake, is discovered dead in a sleazy motel room with a dead teenage boy. Immediately, it’s consider a murder/suicide with Jake as the murderer. Rachel is positive that’s not possible. Although she doesn’t know about Jake’s life outside work, she doesn’t see him as a shooter or a pedophile.

The case is taken over by the FBI with a handsome police lieutenant as the coordinator. Rachel is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery in spite of the fact that her boss has told her, in no uncertain terms, to leave it alone.

Of course, Rachel can’t do that so she sets out to prove the FBI wrong and to find the killer herself. Rachel and Bailey uncover quite a bit of information on both of the cases they’re working on and manage to put themselves in danger. They can’t figure out which case is causing such a violent reaction. Or is it both cases?

My thoughts:

I really liked Rachel Knight. She’s the narrator of the story and her style is to take us along and tell us about each aspect of her day. That includes the big detail of what was happening with the investigations as well as the little details. I loved all the little details because that’s what made the characters so real. I know what Rachel was wearing, what she was eating (not much because she’s always dieting) and what she was drinking (sometimes too much, but often perfect martinis).

Rachel mentioned various restaurants they went to. I checked out a couple online and they are real places. I liked that. (The author’s website has pictures of some of Rachel’s places here: Marcia Clark)

Another thing I liked about this story was how the author set up the end of each chapter. It was like a little teaser that left me dangling. I just had to keep on going through the next chapter and then the next one. Although I read it on my Kindle, I’ll call it a page turner. Or maybe that’s a “next-clicker.”

This novel gives us a look at the cases from inside the prosecutor’s office. Most of the stories I read or watch come from the defense side, such as most recently, Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly.  Of course the author, Marcia Clark, spent many years in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office which gave this story such a realistic angle. I know some people have problems with Marcia Clark leftover from the OJ Simpson days. But, this is such a solid, well-written story that I recommend readers erase their memories of those days. Just read this book and don’t think about the name of the author.

Rachel is so smart, canny, tenacious, tough (without being rough or crude) and loyal. She’s such a good character that I’m very hopeful the author has a couple more Rachel Knight books in her laptop. I’d love to read more.

My copy came from the publisher but I noticed it’s available at the library. Guilt By Association is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

Published April, 2011 by Mulholland Books, a mystery imprint of Little Brown.