Welcome 
Hi! My name is Margot. My blog is about the things I love to do. That could be what I'm reading, places we visit, my family, food, or whatever else is happening. I hope you'll stay and visit a while.
Contact me by email: margot (DOT) peck (AT) gmail (DOT) com. Currently Reading 
The Art of Racing In the Rain
Peril At End House
Eternal On The Water
My Book Rating System A = Exellent Book . . . .
B = Very good story . . .
C = Good/Average. . . .
D = Poor . . . . . . . . . . .
F = So poor I couldn’t finish it
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 February was a pleasant month for reading. I liked everything I read and had a couple of good surprises. Here are my numbers:
Fiction: 3
Non-Fiction: 6
This is an exact duplicate of January. I just seem to love those non-fiction books.
Challenges completed: 0
Challenges started: 0
Favorite character I met during the month:
It’s a tie!!
 I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the private investigator (researcher) Britten in the graphic novel Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry. I’m sure the author meant this as a serious noir crime novel but I found Britten to be funny and a very likable character.
 My heart went out to the young Ethel Waters who was never loved or cared for as a child. Then my admiration grew for her as she developed into a magnificent woman who shared her amazing voice with the world. [From His Eye Is On the Sparrow.]
What’s ahead for March?
I’m very happy to be hosting two book-tours this month. One is for Pump Up Your Book Tour with the new mystery, Devil’s Food Cake by Josi Kilpack.
The other tour is with TLC Book Tours with a non-fiction title, If The Church Were Christian by Phillip Gulley. I can’t wait to tell you about them as well as a few others I’m anxious to read.
I hope you have also had a good month with your reading.
 Thanks to Kathy/Bermuda Onion for this engaging game we play each week. We gather together all the new words we’ve discovered in our reading and share them with you.
This week I found a bunch of new words in an editorial I was reading in the online New York Times. The writer was talking about whether the United States is going to decline like Rome and other great powers. It was an interesting article, found here and interesting words. Here are three of them.
1. cogency: The thesis seems a tad schematic, but Professor Kennedy maintains it with dazzling cogency.
Cogent means an argument that is clear, logical, and convincing.
2. hegemony: Now doom-mongers conjure with Roman and British analogies in order to trace the decay of American hegemony.
Hegemony means leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others.
3. internecine: Rome was prone to internecine strife whereas America is constitutionally stable.
Internecine means destructive to both sides in a conflict.
I hope you too have had a good reading week and that you were able to add new words to your vocabulary. Don’t forget to visit Kathy for more Wondrous Word Wednesday.
 by Nora Roberts
Berkley Books, 2009
My Rating: B+
Several decades ago I picked up a Nora Roberts romance book and kept on reading every time she wrote a new one. Then she started trying out new twist to her stories. When she started with the paranormal stuff, I stopped reading her. Now she has a new series of four books and I’ve come back to her. This series is strictly romance. Nothing weird.
The quartet of books is focusing around four women, best friends and partners in Vows, a wedding planning company that guarantees the perfect day. Each of the four friends has a unique role in the business and each will be featured in the four books.
This first book, Vision In White, stars Mackenzie (Mac) Elliot. Mac is the ultimate wedding photographer who specializes in capturing the special moments. She doesn’t like the canned, posed photos. Mac watches for the unguarded moments when she can see something different, something special.
Yes, Mac is very good at her job. Her work and her best friends make up for the lack of a decent family life. Her father has been mostly absent from her life. If her mother, Linda, would be absent it would be better for Mac. Linda is selfish, manipulative, conniving, a witch with a capital B. She expects Mac to pay for all sorts of things for her. What’s worse is that Mac gives in to the manipulation which leads to all sorts of problems.
And then Mac meets Carter Maguire. He’s a stable English teacher who’s serious and smart but also funny and a little clumsy. Carter had a crush on Mac when they were in high school but she never knew it. Now he’s flustered by her and gets somewhat tongue-tied.
The relationship is slow and cautious to begin with, but in a good way. Mac, given her parental history, is convince she can’t fall in love or have any type of long-term relationship. She is seriously attracted to Carter but seriously fights it.
She could stay like this, exactly like this, for hours. Days. All sleepy and warm and tangled up with the delicious Carter Maguire. And in the morning, they could . . .
Her eyes flashed open. What was she thinking? What was she doing? The morning? Hours and days? The quick kick of panic had her jolting upright.
As a leading man Carter is an original. He was so perfect I fell in love with him. Here is how Mac (and I) saw him:
“He’s too much for me. He’s sweet and funny, he’s smart and genuinely kind. He’s sexy and he’s got those glasses. He’s got the ear-blush thing happening. He loves teaching. I watched him lead a class, and it’s . . . It gets stuck right here.” She rubbed a hand between her breasts. “All this feeling and need clogged up.”
She’s got it bad, doesn’t she? The story builds slowly but doesn’t drag. Ms. Roberts takes her time to define all the characters. This is like the Nora Roberts’ books I read for so many years. However there are some subtle differences. These woman are each strong in their own way. They are independent business women, making it on their own. That added to the story for me.
My husband gave me this book and Book Two for Christmas. Book Three is due in April and Book Four is due later this year. I’ll be reading those, for sure. Check your public library for copies. This book is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)
I know lots of people don’t care much for romance novels. In order to get some balance to my thoughts I looked at what other reviewers thought of this book. You can check them here:
S. Krishna’s Reviews
Dear Author
Lesa’s Critiques:
Galley Smith
The Lottery
by Shirley Jackson
The American Literature website has some wonderful classic short stories. As part of my new program to educate myself on short stories, they have been a superb resource. I want to tell you about a story I found there but first let me tell you about one of the key things I’ve learned about short stories: you usually have to read to the very end to catch on to the point.
In The Lottery I had no idea what the whole thing was about until the last few paragraphs. Let me tell you the gist of the story without giving away the ending.
The Lottery does not refer to the multi-million dollar lotteries of today. It appears the story takes place several hundred years ago in a small rural village. All 300 of the villagers have gathered in the center of town – men, women, and children. It seems to be an annual event.
There is quite a ritual to it and it appears to have going on for a very long time. The male head of each household draws for each family. Every man is called forward and he draws out a paper from the ancient black box. No one opens their folded paper until the signal is given.
After the winning family is determined, there is a second lottery for the members of the chosen family until only one person is named. It is only then that the reader learns what the lottery is all about. I kept thinking of all the nicest things that could result from this lottery. I was wrong. The outcome is gruesome and stayed with me for a long time.
The story first appeared in the New Yorker Magazine in 1948. It was not received well. I imagine people had the same reaction I did. The New Yorker received lots of hate mail and cancelled subscriptions.
In spite of the controversy the story can be appreciated on several levels. For one thing, it’s very well written. It’s gone on to become a short story classic and appears on classroom reading lists around the country.
The entire story can be read here. But don’t forget I warned you.
If you’d like to read other bloggers who have posted short stories or if you’d like to join in, visit John at Book Mind Set.
 Sunday is the day I like to share with you some of the place we’ve visited in our travels. No matter where we go, I usually like to check in on two places – local bookshops and yarnshops. I consider books and yarn legitimate tourist attractions.
Today I want to concentrate on the places that love yarn. In the past I didn’t think to take pictures of my favorite yarn stores. I made up for that recently by bringing my camera with me to a shop in Sebastopol, California.
 Visiting at local shops lets me know what is important in that area and I often find new and unusual yarns. Once in a little shop in Whitehorse, Yukon Province in Canada I “discovered” an incredibly soft yarn made from musk ox. I wanted it so badly but it was $60 a ball. Later I saw the same yarn for as much as $125 a ball! I also like it when shops have samples of various items knit in their yarns.
 The best yarnshops have chairs and couches and tables for their customers to come and knit. A few years ago my daughter Cerrin and I spent a fun day in a very sweet shop in Minneapolis. One section of the store was a cafe and we had lunch and sat there knitting for hours. We wanted to stay for their all-night pajama party but the tickets were sold out.
 And of course, a good knit shop should have plenty of books, magazines and pattern books.
 For me the heart of a yarn shop is the people who work there. The best shops have employees who love both people and the process of knitting, crocketing and lace making. You’ve seen this picture before. It’s our teacher Bonnie helping Genevieve learn how to knit gloves. We had fun, learned a new skill and, of course, bought more yarn. We’ll be back again.
I hope you’ll join me again next Sunday for more Favorite Places. If you’d like to join in, just grab the button at the top of this post, put it on your blog along with info about one of your Favorite Places. Come back and leave a link in the comment section and we’ll all come and visit you.
Getting recommendations for good places to eat is something all good foodies love to do. Jane and Michael Stern have been recommending such places for over thirty years. They have written numerous books on the subject, have a weekly spot on American Public Radio’s Splendid Table, a column in Gourmet Magazine, and an excellent website. Today I want to tell you about their newest book.
 500 Things To Eat Before It’s Too Late and the Very Best Places to Eat Them
by Jane and Michael Stern
Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishers, 2009
My Rating: A+
The Sterns wrote this book in order to look back over their long career in food tasting and rank the best foods that are unique to America.
The book is divided into sections of the country. The first double-page of each section has a map and a list of each state. Under the state is a list of each eatery and the town. As you turn the pages within each section you find short discussions about special foods in that area.
There are paragraphs about the places to eat a specific food, including address, phone number and websites, if available. Each section has numerous lists of the best places to find the unique foods. The book is loaded with pictures of food and the food establishments. It’s a very colorful book.
Let me give you a little sample of each section of the book and some of the lists you will find.
New England
- 5 Best Boiled Dinners
- Top 9 Chowders
- 16 Great New England Ice Cream Parlors
- 9 Best Lobster Rolls
Mid Atlantic
- Six Best Beef on Wecks
- 5 Top Crab Feasts
- New Jersey’s Finest Deep-Fried Dogs
- Nondenominational Jewish Apple Cakes
South
- Top Banana Puddings
- The Magnificent 7 Best Biscuits
- Exemplary Sweet Tea
- Must-Eat New Orleans Sandwiches
- Exemplary Red-Velvet Cake
Midwest
- Ultimate Fried Chicken Dinner
- Butteriest Butter Burgers
- Chicago’s Best Chicken Vesuvios
- Top 4 Cinnamon Rolls
- 4 Essential Cincinnati Chili Parlors
Southwest
- Carne Adovada Hot List
- Texas Chicken-Fried Steak At It’s Best
- Southwest’s Top Chili
- New Mexico’s Best Sopapillas
- Best Migas
West
- Fish Tacos of So. California
- Top Sources of Huckleberry Sweets
- Top 8 Oregon Chowders
- Best Sourdough Bread
- 9 Sensational West Coast Doughnuts
Within the book you will also find pages devoted to the “Best Of” on a national basis. The Sterns rank pizza, barbecue ribs, french fries, hamburgers, and pancakes. In addition to all this great information, there are recipes dotted here and there throughout the book.
Anytime someone recommends a good place to eat, a little part of me is suspicious. It’s not until I try it for myself that I know whether I agree with the recommendation. As I read this book I looked for the various places we have eaten. I was very pleased that I could agree with the Sterns on places I knew were superb. For instance, they named Stroud’s in Kansas City as the best place to eat fried chicken. They are absolutely right about that! Now I know I can trust their recommendations.
As you can see, this is part travelogue, part cookbook, a list of lists and lots of commentary. It’s food-writing at it’s best. This is a book you’ll want to take along on your next road trip or just set out for an adventure in your own neighborhood.
I found this book at the library but my plan is to buy a copy and keep it in our vehicle. It is available at Amazon.
Talking about food is a regular feature on my blog and on other blogs as well. Visit Beth Fish Reads for other bloggers who are participating in Weekend Cooking.
I love to eat food, talk food, write and read about food. I also love mysteries, so, if the two are combined, I’m happy. Here are a couple I think look good enough to add to my list:
1. Fatallty Flaky by Diane Mott Davidson
 Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz doesn’t have a moment to spare as she frantically tries to pull everything together for two upcoming wedding receptions, including last-minute venue and menu changes from a spoiled bridezilla, in bestseller Davidson’s entertaining 15th culinary suspense novel (after Sweet Revenge). When Harold Doc Finn, Aspen Meadow’s beloved retired doctor, dies under mysterious circumstances on his way to the first wedding ceremony, Goldy wonders if it was an accident or murder. When her godfather and Doc Finn’s good friend, Jack Carmichael, is also attacked, it’s obvious that Goldy will have to venture out of the kitchen and put her detecting skills to use once again. Stir in a slimy spa owner, rumors of a malpractice suit and the usual cast of supporting characters—including Goldy’s patient cop husband, Tom, and her capable culinary assistant, Julian Teller—and you’ve got another winning entry in Davidson’s mouthwatering series.
2. How To Host a Killer Party by Penny Warner
 Mixing fun and fundraising for charities seemed like the perfect job for Presley Parker when she’s suddenly downsized from her position teaching abnormal psychological at the university. Pres is psyched about her first big gig—hosting a “surprise” wedding for the San Francisco Mayor at notorious Alcatraz prison.
But the party’s over when the bride bolts faster than an escaping prisoner, and is later found dead floating in the bay, a victim of poisoned chocolates. When Presley becomes prime suspect, she looks to her quirky Treasure Island co-workers for help, but it’s the attractive, mysterious crime scene cleaner Brad Matthews who helps tidy up her tarnished reputation. If she doesn’t solve this mystery, she’ll be exchanging her party dress for prison stripes. (From the author’s website, here.)
Friday Finds is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. Check with her for other great book discoveries.
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What You’ll Find On My Blog: *Book Reviews 
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CHALLENGE PROGRESS
- 100+Books: 22/100
- Library: 8/25
- Agatha Christie: 12/87
- Women Unbound: 1/5
- Social Justice: 2/6
- Mysteries: 5/12
- Take a Chance: 1/6
- What's in a Name: 0/6
- Book to Movie: 0/4
- Awesome Authors:0/10
- 451 Challenge: 0/3
- 18th & 19th Century Women Writers: 0/4
- Global: 1/6
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Every Saturday
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Every Sunday
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NORTHERN CALLIFORNIA
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