More minis: The Reconstructionist by Nick Arvin, Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung, Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

The Reconstructionist by Nick Arvin is a truly unusual novel and I think that is one of the things I enjoyed about it. Ellis Barstow and his brother Christopher used to run to the intersection near their house when they heard a crash, to gawk at the sight as young boys will do. Years later, Christopher died at that same intersection.

As a mechanical engineer, Ellis has taken a job in an automotive factory. He's adrift, not particularly happy with his job but unsure what to do. Then, he sees Christopher's former girlfriend. Always captivated by Heather, Ellis follows her home and then drives on. Eventually, he finds a way to run into her again. When he does, she tells him her husband is looking for help. John Boggs works as a "reconstructionist", using engineering to determine how an accident occurred and testifying at lawsuits as an expert witness.

Ellis finds the job oddly satisfying and he has a comfortable friendship with Boggs. But, he also begins an affair with Heather that eventually results in Boggs taking a suicidal, cross-country trip. Ellis follows him. Will Boggs survive his self-destructive road trip? What's more important to Ellis, friendship or love? What really happened when Christopher was killed?

I absolutely loved Boggs. The witty dialogue between Ellis and Boggs drew me into the book, the questions about what would happen kept me there. And, I also loved the use of physics and math to determine how an accident occurred. The reconstruction process is utterly fascinating, plus, I'm accustomed to the way engineers talk and think, so I found The Reconstructionist an oddly comforting read for one so disturbing. It's a sad story, but not without hope. Not what I would call a "thriller," as I've seen it described, but more of a psychological exploration of accidents and how they effect people. The author has worked as a reconstructionist and it shows. This book has the ring of truth. I would avoid reading it if you've suffered a traumatic car accident loss, but otherwise I recommend The Reconstructionist. Just don't expect fast pacing.

The Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung is a book I really should have abandoned, but for some reason I just kept on plugging away. I think it was one of those cases in which the writing was comfortably paced and I was hoping things would improve, but really . . . it's just a bummer.

Janie's sister has disappeared, their father has cancer and even when they manage to briefly track Hannah down, she doesn't respond to their calls or emails. As a youngster, Janie was told that every generation of her Korean-American family has lost a daughter and she must watch out for her sister. Now, her grandmother's prediction appears to be coming true.

When their father finds that the best chance of extending his life is a treatment only available in Korea, Janie and Hannah's parents pack up and move to their home country, leaving Janie in charge of finding Hannah.

Janie and Hannah have a terrible relationship. Bummer. Their dad is terminal. Double bummer. Nobody in the family is willing or able to really share details of life, either past or present. Triple bummer. The whole family is a communication train wreck and, of course, cancer books just make me insane. Nicely written but depressing and I just cannot bear a book in which people don't ever bother to answer each other's questions. My friend Paula enjoyed this book and shared her copy with me. I just didn't enjoy Forgotten Country at all. I'm not even certain who to recommend it to.

Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick has not yet been released, so I'm a little hesitant to review it but I want to go ahead and clear my sidebar. Don't worry, though: it's a June release. Not a long wait!

Robert Goolrick had a runaway hit with A Reliable Wife (<---my review, in self-interview form). I liked the writing but was not enamored of the storyline. However, since I liked Goolrick's writing and the story sounded intriguing, I've been looking forward to reading Heading Out to Wonderful.

Set in the years just after WWII, Heading Out to Wonderful tells the story of Charlie Beale, a butcher who decides to settle in a small town called Brownsburg, nestled in a beautiful Virginia valley. There, he falls in love with the wife of the town's richest man, a beautiful blonde from a poor rural family in the area outside Brownsburg. A movie buff, Sylvan has an unusual accent that she's picked up from years of listening to radio serials and a stunning wardrobe that the local seamstress has created for her.

You know the romance is doomed. But, what about Sam, the child who is caught in the middle of their affair? Will the odd entanglement ruin young Sam for life? What will happen when Charlie and Sylvan's affair is discovered? Will Sylvan save herself and throw Charlie to the proverbial wolves? Will the people of Brownsburg forgive them?

Ack. So many questions with horrible answers. I loved the writing, once again, but the story just made me want to kick the author in the shins, I'm sorry to say. Smooth, understated, gentle, beautiful writing is marred by weirdness and violence. I think a lot of people will love Heading Out to Wonderful. I hoped I would, but the involvement of Sam and the ending were terribly uncomfortable and jarring. I don't think Robert Goolrick is the author for me. One caveat: Heading Out to Wonderful isn't as graphic/erotic as A Reliable Wife. However, the descriptions of butchering can be pretty detailed and if you find the killing of animals for meat upsetting, definitely avoid reading this title.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones

All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones

Copyright 2012

Algonquin Books - Fiction

372 pp.

Let's just get the important bit out of the way, up front: All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones is one of the most important and surprisingly well-written books I've read in 2012. I gushed about it to my friends but I think the sound bite by Alice Walker says it best:

"One of the most absorbing, chilling, beautifully written, and important novels I've read in many years."

Yes. All that. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Gyong-ho (nicknamed Gi) is a mathematical genius who was starved and abused at a labor camp in North Korea. Il-sun is a beauty whose spirit has not yet been broken. When they meet in an orphanage, they become fast friends. Gi is a hard worker who lives in terror of the slightest infraction but she's protective of her rebellious friend, who often dawdles and underproduces at the clothing factory where they both work.

When Il-sun falls for a man she thinks can improve her status, the relationship leads to a horror neither girl can fathom as they're smuggled through the Demilitarized Zone and sold into sexual slavery in South Korea, along with a third girl named Cho.

As Gi, Il-sun and Cho are forced to engage in acts at least two of them could not even begin to imagine in their naivete, they also gradually become aware that the world outside North Korea is not at all what they believed it to be. Fragile in some ways, strong in others, the three young women must deal with the cruelty and anguish inflicted upon them, both mentally and physically.

There is a "graphic and mature theme" warning by the author and the book is a difficult read because the characters are so fully dimensional. First you get to know their daily lives in North Korea and to understand what the author calls "a living Orwellian nightmare". Then you follow them through the even deeper terror of human trafficking. I quickly found that I cared about the characters and hoped they would get through the trauma and horror of their experiences.

There are three things I have to say about the graphic and mature theme warning:

1. There is no superfluous sexual matter in All Woman and Springtime. What's there is horrifying and shocking but the author limited the graphic and sometimes violent scenes to what is necessary to understand the brutality of human trafficking.

2. The ending is uplifting. You will close the book with a smile on your face. I actually was moved to cry tears of joy -- something that almost never happens with books.

3. Take that warning seriously, though. It's definitely not a book for youngsters.

I highly recommend reading Brandon Jones' essay on how he came to write All Woman and Springtime. There are no spoilers; it's informative and answers a lot of the questions I found lingering in my mind after I closed the book. How did he research the book? Was there some compelling reason that Jones chose North Korea and/or human trafficking? Are the citizens really that indoctrinated to the respect of their "Dear Leader" in North Korea, in spite of the fact that most of them are starving? Is this really Brandon Jones' first book?!

Recommendation:

An excellent read, highly recommended but definitely hard to stomach, at times. Believable characterization and dialogue, compelling storytelling, stunningly mature writing and an uplifting ending make All Woman and Springtime an all-around great read and the kind that needs and deserves to be passed around. I found it absolutely unbearable to put this book down; I had to know what was going to happen to Gi, Il-Sun and Cho.

Recently walked in:

The Queen by Robert Lacey - from HarperCollins

The Aleppo Codex by Matti Friedman - from Algonquin Books

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison - from Algonquin Books

Victricia Malicia by Clickard and Meyers - from Flashlight Press

The Tesseract by Alex Garland - from Paperback Swap

Mrs. Delaney: Her Life and Her Flowers by Ruth Hayden - purchased

In my defense, 3 out of 6 of those books were surprises.

Here. Have a flower.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead

The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead

Copyright 2012

Algonquin Books - Historical Fiction/Korean War/1950s

287 pp.

They left the city and climbed into the mountains. They drove the long balconies of stone, a world extant from the world of the street, a world womblike in its whispery green luxuriance. The world up there was newly wet and cooler by degrees, cooler than the street world. The rooms of the forest were deep and cathedral and what rose to them was scent and closeness, and nothing could be heard but the gently soughing wind.

--p. 40, The Coldest Night

The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead is a spare but powerful tale about a young man named Henry Childs. There are three distinct parts in which Henry falls deeply in love, goes off to fight in the Korean War after he's torn away from his girlfriend, Mercy, and then returns home wounded and grieving.

I found the sharp change from Part I, which leans toward romance, to Part II with Henry arriving in Korea so jarring, at first, that I actually set the book aside for a couple weeks. But it kept calling out, haunting me. If books could speak, this one had a low-pitched, insistent, growling voice that threatened to sink me if I didn't pick it up, again. I am so glad I finally gave in.

Gunny was running with them and then was down among them as they groaned and scrambled to their feet bearing the heavy weight of their armamentary . Gunny was tall and square built and born in 1905. He had been a marine since the age of sixteen and he was now forty-five years old and wore a long handlebar mustache he waxed every morning. He was now ferocious and screaming and cursing and kicking them in the ass.

--p. 93

I skimmed through Part I to remind myself where Henry came from, what happened between Henry and Mercy, and how he happened to end up in Korea, before diving into Part II. The writing is so sharp and minimalist that it also helped to read the cover flap to get a little more info. I usually avoid cover blurbs and publicity info because I like to go into the reading of a book knowing as little as possible. I like to be surprised. But I needed the extra info, this time.

In Part II, Henry arrives in Korea, where he marches and marches and marches through cold, colder, radio-battery-killing, flash-freezing, body-part blackening cold. Henry's new friend Lew is a veteran of WWII, a realist with a sense of humor. Henry and Lew don't know where they're headed nor when they'll get there. And, when they finally encounter action, the Chinese soldiers are brutal. They're everywhere. Henry and Lew don't even know they're in the midst of a seventeen-day battle that will be called the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, nor do you unless you've read about the book. And, that is the beauty of the writing in The Coldest Night. The sense that you are there. After days and days of mind-numbing cold and mystery about what may lie ahead, they enter terrifying, bloody, continuous horror.

"This is some kind of bad shit," Lew was saying.

"I feel like I already died and I'm just walking with you for a while. What do you think our chances are?"

"Fifty-fifty."

"In whose favor?"

"Ours," Lew said.

In his mind Henry saw again the long wounded column bristling with weapons and armed men unwilling to die.

"Time to giddyup."

"Not yet," Henry said, pointing to the lake.

They watched in silence as the icy surface of the reservoir began to move. There were thousands of them. They'd been on the white ice the whole afternoon under white sheets and canvases, having marched ten miles down lake and now they were on their hands and knees and crawling south toward the shore's stony rim where they'd join the battle. Already their silhouettes were moving onto the ridgeline.

--p. 171

The oddly wonderful comradeship between Henry and Lew drew me in but the battle had me glued to the pages. It is harsh in the manner of real war. Olmstead doesn't ever say it's the battle of Chosin Reservoir because you're in Henry's perspective and the truth is, Henry doesn't actually know where exactly they've hiked or why they're battling, just that they're way outnumbered and he has no choice but to kill or die. The narrative could not possibly be more gripping.

In Part III, Henry returns home. I didn't know what to expect in the third section, although there was one particular plot point that I anticipated. The best way to describe Part III is probably to say that it is satisfying. There are unanswered questions as you leave Part I and Mercy is pulled from Henry's life. There are more answers eluding your grasp as you enter Part III. When the book closes, you know Henry's story is not finished because it's so much like real life that it can't be. Real stories never truly end. The chapters simply fold into each other. But, a part of his life has come full circle and there is a definite sigh of satisfaction in knowing where he is right now, as the book closes.

The closest parallel to Olmstead's writing style that I can come up with is Hemingway's writing. As with Hemingway, there are times that you want to holler out, "Give me more than this!!!" I never did know, for example, what Olmstead meant when he referred to the Lew and Henry (and the other men they marched with) as "the hunters" and I couldn't find any reference to that particular term when I looked it up online. But, I lean toward a preference for leaner, less flashy, tighter writing. There is an intensity that comes with a tighter focus and now that I'm acquainted with Olmstead's unique voice, I am very anxious to read more.

Highly recommended - A taut, intense and powerful tale of love, grief, war, and the making of a man. Sometimes a little too spare -- there were times I yearned for just a little more information -- yet there are scenes of tremendous beauty and brutality that would have lost their edge had they been more wordy. There's a great deal of teenage sex in Part I, but it's not overly graphic, as I recall.

Other reviews:

Cleveland.com says Olmstead writes with "ferocious economy". Yes. That's a fine way to put it.

Not a review, but of interest:

Beth Fish Reads - I didn't realize Coal Black Horse and Far Bright Star by Olmstead precede The Coldest Night and are about the same family, the Childs family (although I did notice that the author cleverly inserted the first two titles into the narrative of The Coldest Night). "Beth Fish" informed me.

Thanks to our Twitter discussion, I now have acquired a copy of Coal Black Horse and am looking forward to going back in time to meet Henry's ancestors. I already had a copy of Far Bright Star and had trouble getting into it. Apparently, I just needed to become accustomed to Olmstead's writing and The Coldest Night was the introduction I needed.

In other news:

I spent the weekend shoving furniture around to try to let more light into the house, reading, cleaning. Nothing exciting, but it felt like progress. It's always pleasant to hang out with my two fur pals and I needed to step away from the computer for a few days.

I emptied a jam cabinet that used to sit in our entryway but somehow ended up getting shoved up against some bookshelves. It contained little more than books, CDs and a few miscellaneous trinkets. Most of the books went straight into a donation bag, but I stopped to read a tattered copy of M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker (the novel that became the movie and then a series) and couldn't put it down, Friday night. It was a perfect read -- the complete story of Hawkeye and Duke's time in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit, from the time they drive to the 4077th M*A*S*H to when they say goodbye, stateside.

Then, yesterday, I had to dig in my donation bags for entertainment when I made the mistake of leaving the house without one of my current reads. I started reading a beat-up copy of The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister that the United States Postal Service quite nearly murdered (but which I've since replaced, after a year of trying to flatten it out by weighting it beneath a large stack of books failed). So, now I'm 70 pages into my ratty but readable copy of Essential Ingredients, halfway through The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock, about a third of the way into The Lola Quartet (which is, I admit, frustrating me), carrying my poetry book, Light on the Concrete by Lucas Hunt, everywhere (except the restaurant, when I was so desperate I went digging in the donation bags) without reading more than 3 poems at a sitting and still occasionally glancing at the Titanic book to tell it, "Later, later."

My reading life is definitely not boring. How was your weekend reading?

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Kitty Cornered by Bob Tarte

Title: Kitty Cornered: How Frannie and Five Other Incorrigible Cats Seized Control of Our House and Made It Their Home by Bob Tarte

Copyright: 2012

Published By: Algonquin Books

Length: 285 pp.

Reason for Reading: I am a cat fanatic and loved the author's first book.

Brief Summary: In the third memoir about his pets, Bob Tarte focuses on the cats that have invaded his home and heart. The Tartes have 6 cats, all of whom were rescued in some way. The author begins by describing a cat who charmed him more than most and then goes back to describe how each of the cats entered his family. Although they have many other pets, the birds take a backseat in this book. But, if you've read either of his other books, you'll appreciate the occasional references to them.

A side note: The author wrote to me and asked if I'd be willing to review this book. I generally try to avoid accepting books directly from authors, but I absolutely loved Enslaved by Ducks and the fact that the book is about cats would have probably been enough to sway me.

What I loved about Kitty Cornered:

I found myself relating to the author's joys and frustrations with cat ownership. The six cats are named Agnes, Frannie, Lucy, Maynard, Moobie and Tina. He talks about their individual personalities, how they interact with each other and how each cat became a part of the family plus loads of anecdotes about how the Tartes have had to alter their lives to fit cats into the equation. In the front of the book, the author has nicely provided a schematic of the main floor of his home that includes labels showing such things as the location of an inconveniently-placed litterbox, the chair that has been commandeered by one of the cats, the stairs where another routinely trips the author, etc.

There is also a "Cats of Characters" list. Haha. There's an example of the author's sense of humor, for you. Since there are so many cats and the house is almost a character in and of itself, both the floor plan and descriptions of the cats are very helpful. I routinely flipped back to remind myself which cat was which, although eventually you do get to know them as individuals and the cast reference is no longer necessary.

Kitty Cornered is heartwarming and lively. The author acknowledges the intelligence of cats and beautifully describes their individual personalities with affection and humor. Although he sometimes longs for them to behave just a little different, he respects their personalities. The story does jump backward in time after describing Frannie's arrival, but it's handled well. By the time you've gotten to know Frannie, you'll be eager to hear how Bob and his wife Linda ended up with so many cats in the first place.

Cat-owner notes:

Our cats have all been rescues. Miss Spooky came from the Humane Society; Sunshine, aka "Shiny", was a stray who was foisted on us by my eldest son's teacher; Fiona was fostered and displayed at a Petsmart (where we like to say she found and adopted us); and, Isabel was dumped outside our veterinary clinic and held for me by one of the vet techs, who knew I wanted a companion for Fiona.

Bob Tarte's cats came to him in similar fashion. One of them was rejected by his owner's boyfriend, which is exactly what happened to Fiona. She was found by a highway, fostered, adopted, unadopted because of a boyfriend, fostered again, and then adopted us. So, it's only natural that I found myself relating to Bob's stories and appreciating his deep compassion for the cats in his life.

What I disliked about Kitty Cornered:

I mentioned in my review of Enslaved by Ducks that the author's sense of humor occasionally got on my nerves. He's a pretty silly guy and writes very much like I used to write (my own sense of humor actually irritates me -- weird, but true). This time, I didn't ever feel like I needed to set the book aside to take a break from it, but I still did find his sense of humor a little overwhelming. That is a very minor complaint, though. The cat stories are too enjoyable to let such a little thing turn me off.

Another frustration -- something that has only become a frustration in recent years -- is the fact that the author's cats are indoor/outdoor pets. Spooky and Sunshine were both allowed outdoors because I was raised with cats that spent a great deal of their time outside. However, Shiny eventually decided the outdoor world was too frightening, while Miss Spooky insisted on outdoor time to the end of her days and was, in fact, injured several times. Spooky's injuries were enough to convince me that cats belong indoors. It didn't occur to me, as a younger pet owner, that cats can be perfectly happy indoors. Now, I'm rather opinionated about the need to keep cats indoors and dogs behind fences for the safety of both.

Update: The author has noted the fact that his cats are now kept indoors, in a comment to this post. Wahoo! I'm very excited about that. Having fallen a little bit in love with his kitties, I'm thrilled to know that they're in a safer place and have adjusted nicely. Thanks for the update, Bob!

Recommendation:

4/5 - Recommended especially to cat lovers, people who enjoy reading true tales about animals (pets or otherwise) and folks who like memoirs with a very light, entertaining writing style. Kitty Cornered will be released April 10, 2012.

I missed out on a great cat shot, today. Isabel and Fiona were curled up next to each other on my bed with Izzy's nose tucked under Fi's chin. Unfortunately, if the camera isn't handy there's no way I can capture them in any pose. The moment I rise they're awake and following me. Darn. Fiona at least satisfied my urge to snap by exploring the printer shelf. Good kitty.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac by Kris D'Agostino

Nothing is a better barometer of failure than the success of other people.

~p. 226 of The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac, Advance Reading Copy (some changes may have been made to the final print edition . . . when it's released, which will be March 20, 2012)

From the publisher's description:

Calvin Moretti can't believe how much his life sucks.

To carry on with the synopsis, in my own words:

Cal is 24, a film-school dropout living with his parents. His dad has cancer, is depressed about his inability to work and convinced he's going to die; he is stocking up on survival gear and food for the coming apocalypse. Cal's mother is losing her mind over the bills, trying to figure out how to keep from defaulting on their mortgage. Cal's 17-year-old sister Elissa is pregnant, and his exercise-obsessed brother Chip has moved home, the only successful wage-earner in the family, a fact that he likes to mention whenever convenient. Cal works with an autistic preschooler, but only because his mother made him get a job. He wants out of this mess, away from his crazy family. When he gets a chance to hang out with friends, he takes recreational drugs and gets terrible advice from them; they're not exactly winners, either.

The opening line? "I work with retards." You will be all set to hate Cal from page 1. But, the thing is . . . Cal is so obnoxious that you practically feel like you've met him. You know a Cal. You probably know a family that has been through the kind of domino-chain crises that the Morettis are going through. And, as you get to know his wacky family, you realize that it's not the individuals that matter, not the immaturity and the bad decisions each family member makes and which add up to a big, messy house of dysfunction. What matters is that they are a team and beneath all the crazy is a whole lot of love.

What I disliked about The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac:

I wanted to thwack everyone in that nutty family, at least once (usually a lot more). James, Cal's dad, is heinously depressed and fatalistic, so you want to hit him upside the head to get him to just quit the moping. But, then on the other hand, he does have cancer and when the doctors ignore his whining, you want to give them a swift kick. Cal's mom can't keep up with the bills but their house is a three-story that's appreciated dramatically since they purchased it. You want to swat her for not being realistic. Later in the book, she brings home a dog to try to cheer up James and you have to wonder how anyone could even remotely entertain the notion of bringing in a pet when she can't even get around to paying the water bill. Elissa ignores her doctor's specific diet instructions, Cal takes drugs and keeps telling himself he's reached a turning point and will do the adult thing but never does. Chip is just obnoxiously fit and likes to brag that he's the only child who is helping with the household expenses (true, but he doesn't have to be such a nuisance about it). There's even a tragedy dumped on your head about 30 pages from the end of the book. But, but, but . . . .

What I loved about The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac:

None of that matters! Seriously, it's the whole picture in this book that is so great -- the fact that Chip sits at one end of the couch with his legs intertwined with his dad's, Cal knows he's a loser but he's at least thinking about trying to be mature, Elissa is a sweet and zen, and their mom may be stressed and a little too attached to the house but she cares deeply about everyone. There aren't any scenes with the family dragging in expensive take-out food; they make home-cooked meals and Grandma often comes over to help. They're in each other's business but they mean well. They're just so freaking real.

Also, the dialogue is tremendously entertaining, the writing surprisingly light-hearted, and Cal is bizarre and immature enough that it's fun to love hating him. He never does quite grow up. He'll drive you bananas. Here's what he says when his mom brings home a dog:

"She's definitely irritating enough to be part of this family."

One more passage!

I am lying on the floor listening to black metal. I listen to Tentacles of Whorror. I listen to Codex Necro. I listen to Filosofem. My mother has already come in three times and asked me to turn it down. I ignore her.

"This is the music of insanity," she says from the doorway.

"Then it should replace the cuckoo clock as our family anthem," I tell her.

~p. 299

See? Don't you love them, already?

Highly recommended but you have to look at the whole, not the parts. The little family in The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac is a jigsaw that appears to be missing some major pieces but when you put it all together, what you find is that the picture is a big old sloppy heart. And, it's in that underlying theme, "Love will carry us through," that you can't help loving the Morettis. I'm guessing plenty of people will be turned off quickly, but I loved this book. Also, I think it's worth noting that I was so entertained that the fact that a major character had cancer (my one can't-stand-to-read-about-it condition) never did stop me from reading on.

My copy of The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac was a surprise from Algonquin Books. I'm so glad they sent me this particular surprise! It was a nice antidote to the commonplace. I can't wait to see what Kris D'Agostino comes up with, next.

Since the Moretti family adopted a dog, today you get a doggy pic:

That's Care's Oscar on the left and Esther in the background. Oscar had just gotten a brushing. Didn't he look spiffy?

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Weekly Reading Update, including a brief review of Maman's Homesick Pie by Donia Bijan

For reasons made obvious in my last post (we were out-of-town most of last week for Eldest's wedding), I didn't manage to accomplish much in the way of reading. I did, however finish the two Grandma's Attic books that I briefly reviewed. I hauled all of the Grandma's Attic books, including the two I reviewed last year, to Nashville and passed them on to my multi-talented, cake-decorating sister-in-law, who has two little girls.

I also finished reading Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen by Donia Bijan. Apart from the fact that there was a lot of jumping back and forth in time (which is typical, I suppose, since the book is a memoir), which made the reading occasionally confusing due to tense issues, I really enjoyed Maman's Homesick Pie.

Donia Bijan spent her first 16 years of life in Iran, then her family eventually moved to the U.S., where Bijan attended college. After college, she moved to Paris to train as a chef at the famous Cordon Bleu Cooking School. Bijan moved back and forth between the U.S. and France to work at various establishments and hone her skills, then she opened her own restaurant. Maman's Homesick Pie blends memories of her childhood and home life with talk of college, cooking school and the many places she worked to develop her skills as a chef.

Donia Bijan's story is partly about her love of food, how it developed and how she came to blend the recipes and flavors from the three countries in which she's resided to create her own recipes and menus. But, it's also a loving tribute to her mother, who died in a pedestrian/car accident. Her mother was an excellent cook who loved preparing food and passed on her joy to her daughter. She was also a fascinating woman who was involved in politics and nursing, a woman with a strength and spirit you can't help but admire.

Maman's Homesick Pie is one of the best cross-cultural and "inside the world of the chef" memoirs I've read in a while. Although Bijan's family lost their home and possessions during a regime change in Iran, her mother was determined to bloom where she was planted and that rubbed off on the author. There's no whining about their tremendous losses. Instead, Bijan focuses on the scents and flavors that gave her joy and how she became a chef because it was truly the only profession she could imagine for herself.

If you love a foodie memoir with plenty of recipes and a chatty writing style, you'll love Maman's Homesick Pie. I heartily recommend it. There are some unusual ingredients that I doubt we'll be able to obtain in some of the Persian recipes but the author did mention alternative ingredients that can be substituted, in many cases.

I'm jumping the gun, here. The release date is October 11, but I couldn't convince myself to set down Maman's Homesick Pie, once I started reading. My thanks to Algonquin Books for the sending me this unexpected ARC in the mail.

I'm focusing on Lord and Lady Spy, at the moment. And, I'm enjoying a daily dip into Haiku Mind. Otherwise, I really am not doing much reading; the other books in my sidebar took a nice drive to Nashville and back for no apparent reason. Hopefully, I'll get my groove back, soon. Since I bought a few books that were on my Paperback Swap wish list in Nashville, I have room to add a few titles. What wonderful books would you recommend that I add to my wish list?

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Weekly Reading Update including a brief review of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow

Oops, looks like kitty is looking the wrong way. The books are to the left, Izzy!

Welcome to my first weekly reading update! I just realized I have a dual book tour due on the 24th, so I'm going to try to crash through those two small books and pre-post my reviews (if I fail--and this is one of my busy weeks, so that's very possible--you'll just see the sneak peek and I'll review, later); but, in the meantime, here's what I'm reading and what I've recently finished.

Only one book completed, recently:

I just finished reading The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow over the weekend. I'd originally hoped to finish the book in time for Algonquin's Book Group discussion, last week, but wacky weather made last week a migraine rollercoaster and I was happy to finally finish a book, period.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is about a bi-racial girl, daughter of a black American soldier and a Danish mother, who survives a plunge from the roof that kills her mother and two siblings. She is then thrust into a situation that causes her to rethink her identity as she moves in with her black grandmother and aunt and is labeled "black". Prior to moving to the U.S., she didn't think about or question her skin color. She was simply a person, not a black or a white or a mixed-race individual.

The story is based on both the author's experience (also the daughter of a black American soldier and Danish mother) and a true story the author read in a newspaper about a family that jumped from a roof. Only the daughter survived and the author combined that story with her personal experience to create this fictional tale.

While I had a little trouble getting into the story, at first, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is a book that will stick with me for a long time. It seems very timely as there are probably a lot more bi-racial youngsters, now that legalized segregation is long gone and, hopefully, people are becoming more enlightened about the meaninglessness of skin color. I only really have one bi-racial friend and I know she struggled with her identity, but she's never mentioned specific incidents. I think The Girl Who Fell from the Sky really helps you to get that "in her shoes" sensation, to understand how difficult it must be to experience prejudice and random classification (being told you're black, even though you're also half-white, in this case). Highly recommended.

What I'm reading, now:

Jamie Durie's The Outdoor Room - This is a coffee-table-sized book about a television designer's techniques for creating the right outdoor room for a particular homeowner's personality and style. I've never seen the show, but I am loving this book, so far. Unlike a lot of similar design books, this The Outdoor Room is quite heavy on the text as the author goes into great detail about his design process and how you can use his way of planning to design an outdoor room that fits your personal style and needs.

Durie talks about collecting pictures that grab your eye -- of random objects, colors, textures, things that appeal to you -- looking around at what you've already done, design-wise, within your home, and creating your own little design board that will help you figure out what's important to you and how to use what you love to create a room that will work for you. I'm not very far into this book but I'm really enjoying it.

Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness & Open Your Heart by Patricia Donegan is a book of 108 Haiku verses by various authors (many of whom the author met at some point, although the vast majority seem to be deceased). The number 108 has to do with the 108 difficulties a Buddhist has to overcome to become "awakened." #13, for example, is a haiku that fits the concept of "interdependence":

a heavy cart

rumbles by--

peonies tremble

by Buson Yoka

Donegan elaborates about the meaning behind each of the Haikus she's chosen, often including what the author was specifically talking about in a particular Haiku (why, for example, an author noticed the way a certain flower looked when it was in flames -- a haiku that had to do with the bombing of Tokyo during WWII), followed by a brief author bio. This is a very cool little book that I bought on sale at Borders on Sunday. The poetry section was still surprisingly intact, so I had a lot of options and I'm really glad I happened across this particular book.

Maman's Homesick Pie by Donia Bijan is one of those foodie memoirs that are so popular, now, and I can already predict that it will be a hit because the author has a comfortable, chatty writing style that will make you smile. Plus, the recipes look great. Donia Bijan is a chef whose parents were originally from Iran but moved to San Francisco in 1980, hence the subtitle, "A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen." Right now, I'm reading about Bijan's mother's years as a nursing student in England and I have to tell you . . . the story about how she showed up in London knowing only two words of English is a hoot. You will love it.

Maman's Homesick Pie is not due to be released till October, but it's one of those books that I like to say I "accidentally" started reading. That just means I picked it up to read a little, out of curiosity, and found that I couldn't put the book down. I am absolutely in love with this book, so far, and I know my future daughter-in-law will love it, too. And, probably my husband will want to play around with some of the recipes. If you like recipe-packed memoirs, go ahead and jot this title down. It's a good one.

Lord and Lady Spy by Shana Galen is a romantic historical adventure in which two married spies lose their jobs and then have to compete against each other for a single slot with the spy organization that has let them go -- whoever solves a murder wins the job. Hardly seeing each other at home worked well while they were both spies. Neither knew the other worked for the Barbican group and after the tragic loss of a child it was easier staying apart, busy and challenged, than dealing with their loss. Now, they not only see each other in a new light but also have no choice but to deal with their tattered marriage. So far, so good! I love Shana Galen's books because they're heavier on adventure than romance, which suits my taste.

How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson is a book about baking, but it's not just about baking. It's about reclaiming the part of you that desires to putter around in the kitchen and create something wonderful. Since I've been avoiding the kitchen for a couple decades (I'm a survivalist cook) but have been yearning to get back out there just for the fun of it, I figured baking would be a good place to start and a recipe book will hopefully stock me up with a few new recipes so my poor Bible Study group can have something other than pineapple or apple-cinnamon cake when it's my turn to do dessert. I'm pretty sure Nikki turned me on to Nigella. Thanks Nikki! I am absolutely crazy about Nigella's delightful, casual writing style. I might actually pull the cover image out of my sidebar, just because that cupcake picture makes me crave cupcakes, though.

Unnamed Manuscript by A Friend is just what it sounds like. One of my writer friends asked me if I'd be willing to read his memoir and make suggestions. On the day I began reading, I got so totally caught up in his story that I lost track of time and barely made it to exercise class. And, then I set it aside for a week, but I'm hoping I'll have some time to focus and finish the manuscript in the next week or two, since I'm going to weekly updates (and Fiona Friday -- and anything I'm committed to reviewing . . . obviously, I tend to burden myself a bit). Anyway, so far it's fabulous. My friend is already multi-published; he's not a new writer and he's not asking me to edit. He just wants my opinion.

And, in the mail . . . three books arrived, today:

The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman from Berkley for review

The Call by Yannick Murphy from HarperPerennial for review and

Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by Jame Richards from Paperback Swap

What's new in your reading life?

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

In a mood to review, again. Weekly updates will begin next Tuesday.

I know I'm jumping the gun, here, reviewing When She Woke by Hillary Jordan well before its October release date, but when a review copy showed up in my mailbox I was so excited that I lost any tentative grip I had on self-control and immediately began reading.

When She Woke is a retelling of The Scarlet Letter that takes place in an undated but obviously not-too-distant future. Hannah Payne has been raised with a strong religious background, working as a wedding-dress seamstress, still living at home as an adult. After embarking on an affair and becoming pregnant, she has committed a crime.

Criminals known as Chromes are injected with a virus that changes their skin color, the differing color depending upon the crime involved. In a time period when a plague has rendered a large portion of the population infertile, abortion is murder.

The man with whom Hannah has had an affair is married and very well-known. Refusing to reveal the father of her unborn child seals her fate. Caught and tried as the murderer of her unborn child, Hannah awakens in a cell where her every move is observed by guards and broadcast to the public. Her skin is bright red to reflect her crime. After weeks of nothingness in a barren room, she is released to a world where she is not only taunted but endangered. Where can she go and how will she survive?

There's so much to this story that I think I'll just keep my thoughts fairly general. When She Woke has a central character who has been stigmatized, questions herself and -- as the blurb says -- embarks on a "path of self-discovery that forces [Hannah] to question the values she has held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith." Obviously, When She Woke is a very timely novel.

Hannah's true challenge begins as she is given a choice of living visibly in a world where she is in constant danger or moving into a home where the rules are so strict and petty that she's always in peril of being cast out and continually experiences punishing reminders of why she is a pariah.

I guess my biggest problem with When She Woke was that I never fully understood why Hannah felt abortion was an absolute necessity, given the fact that her family seemed more likely to accept a child than to harbor a known criminal. And, her intense and continued love of the man who impregnated her was, I thought, a bit irrational and hard to buy into. Not that love is necessarily a rational thing. Hormones have always led to tricky situations, haven't they?

Having mentioned what I consider some of the negatives, I do think When She Woke is a thought-provoking and surprisingly gripping book that will likely be a hit in book groups. There is a great deal worth discussing and the author does an excellent job of imagining the dangers of a world in which there is visible evidence of one's crime. The idea of people being visibly punished in such a way also seems stunningly plausible in a country where religion and politics are becoming increasingly blended, if not confused.

The ending is a little too neat and tidy, but the vast majority of When She Woke is excellent as Hannah's challenges become even more oppressive and life-threatening, the farther you get into the book. I love reading about characters who are so thoroughly backed into a corner that it's difficult to imagine a way out. When She Woke is chiefly about being yourself, not conforming to what society says you must do and be. I love the theme; I just didn't totally buy into the romance with the fellow who fathered the child she aborted.

Highly recommended, particularly as a book group selection. When She Woke is scheduled for release on October 4, 2011. Many thanks to Algonquin Books for sending me the advance review copy, which I'll be passing on to another blogger.

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt

Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt

Copyright 2010

Algonquin - General Fiction

335 pages, incl. author notes and discussion questions

When he got to the turnoff road, he was sweating, and when he made the turn, he felt as if someone had stapled his heart.

--p. 170

He used to work with a sheetrock guy whose wife and child had died in a plane crash. The man never got over it, and it used to irritate Charlie the way Hank would say, "I dreamed about Jean and Suzie last night," and everyone would look sort of stricken, wondering, Why doesn't he get over it already? But that was the secret, wasn't it? You never got over what you lost. You always carried it with you, stitched to you like Peter Pan's shadow. And you never wanted to get over it, because who wanted to forget a time that had been so important? No, the truth was, you wanted to remember it always.

--p. 243

Book description:

Isabelle and April are both running away from their husbands when they hit a fog bank and their cars collide. One woman survives; the other dies instantly. Although the accident occurs miles from their homes, both are running away from marriages and life in the same town. The surviving woman is bound to cross paths with the husband and child of the woman who died. I'm going to copy last sentence of the book cover blurb because I like it. "As these three lives intersect, the book asks, how well do we really know those we love and how do we open our hearts to forgive the unforgivable?"

My review:

I shouldn't have looked at the back cover of the book because I like to write reviews in my own words, but I love the adjectives Chris Bohjalian used to describe Pictures of You: riveting, poignant, deeply moving, beautiful, hypnotic. I'm not even certain why Pictures of You pulled me in so fiercely, but I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that I was able to easily empathize with the characters, having been through unexpected loss. The second quote, above, particularly touched me. And, I loved the author's writing style. I found her characters were believably human and emotional. There were a few times I felt pulled out of the writing for a minute, but then she sucked me right back in.

Pictures of You has an open-ended conclusion, which the author talks about a bit in the additional material (I have the paperback edition and can't say if the extra material is available in the hardback copy). The author, Caroline Leavitt, mentions that she doesn't like perfectly wrapped-up endings, so her own endings are deliberately left open to the reader's imagination. Some people will probably be upset about that, but I don't mind that kind of an ending at times; it really just depends upon the book. In this case, I was okay with it. I didn't necessarily love what happened to the characters but it had the ring of truth and in the end, I really thought the book was deeply meaningful and what happened may not have fit my expectations but it was more realistic than the happily-ever-after ending I tend to favor.

The bottom line:

Pictures of You is a page-turner and very emotional, but there are plenty of upbeat moments mixed in. Lovely writing, an unbeatable dilemma, well-rounded characters and great dialogue make it a winner. If you like your endings wrapped up in a pretty bow, this may not be the book for you. I didn't love the way the book ended but I thought it made sense, given the storyline.

If I were to rate the book numerically (which I don't do, but I want to clarify how much I liked it), I would give it a 4.5/5. I'm going to write a review on Amazon -- something I don't usually do -- to help offset some of the lower ratings that I don't think it deserved. I do think it's probably a love/hate type of book because of the ending and the fact that not everyone can necessarily relate to the kind of grief the characters experience, but I'm in the "love" category. In fact, I stayed up late reading it because I couldn't put it down and after I finished I thought, "I'd really like to reread this," because there were a few things I thought I'd like to revisit after finding out some of the little plot twists that caught me off-guard toward the end.

Many thanks to Algonquin Books for my copy, which was sent unsolicited after I'd added it to my wish list. Ha! What luck!

Cover thoughts:

I like the cover. It's intriguing and eye-catching, in spite of fairly dull colors. One of the characters is a photographer and the wings are meant to represent an angel, although I think if I were to tell you why, it would be a spoiler. Point being, the cover fits the story.

Coming up:

Fiona Friday will be a pretty crappy picture, but it's cute and it's a photo of Isabel -- Fiona's been Little Miss Contrary, lately, skittering away when I get out the camera. I'll post that later on, tonight.

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Paris Was Ours, ed. by Penelope Rowlands

Paris Was Ours: 32 Writers Reflect on the City of Light

Ed. by Penelope Rowlands

Copyright 2011
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill - Nonfiction

279 pages

Even if it wasn't misty or if the sycamores didn't quite line up perfectly, you'd imagine that they did. It's so synesthetic, that part of the world. That wet air carries everything with it. Those places are so humid and damp and all the antiquity lingers in the air.

--from "Montparnasse and Beyond" by Richard Armstrong, p. 180 of Paris Was Ours

I received a finished copy of Paris Was Ours in a surprise package from Algonquin Books and you should have heard the squeal. It just happens to be one of the books that most interested me from their catalogue, but I wasn't going to request anything from Algonquin simply because I've got enough advanced readers to carry me through till at least April. But, Paris! I've only been there briefly but the idea of Paris still entrances me and the memory of how it goes from dull and gray when overcast to sparkling and golden when the sun emerges has remained with me. I carried Paris Was Ours straight to my reading spot and started reading the essays the evening the book showed up.

Michael of Algonquin's marketing describes Paris Was Ours as "a delicious treat for the armchair traveler," and that's an apt description, in my humble opinion. Thirty-two essays cover the same ground from a wide variety of different perspectives but there are vast differences in experience along with some telling crossover. Many of the essayists mention the immaculate gardens upon which even adults are not allowed to set foot. No playing frisbee or lounging in the grass is allowed. Even a foot placed on the delicate turf will result in a fierce, "You should know better," whether one is a toddler or a 40-year-old.

Children do have their play areas, however. In Janine Di Giovanni's essay, she writes a friend's thoughts:

"Children in France are seen but not heard," says one American friend, Katherine, who is a mother of two. "Except on the playground, where the parents don't get involved and then it becomes Lord of the Flies."

--from "Parenting, French-Style" by Janine Di Giovanni, p. 94 of Paris Was Ours

Let me skip ahead to what I liked and disliked about the book before sharing a lengthy quote that I think is amazing but also gives slight evidence of one of the book's troublesome aspects.

What I loved about Paris Was Ours:

I absolutely adored the learning experience of reading about the French culture as written by a large number of people who have lived in Paris or still do. I can honestly say I never really understood the French. I found my own experience was 50-50 on the friendly scale. When I purchased a little silver Eiffel Tower charm from an elderly man in Montmartre, he spoke in careful English and even wrote the number of francs on one palm with the finger of his opposite hand. What a sweetheart!

But, we had one of those French waiters . . . the famously snobbish fellows who refuse to listen to garbled English-French, a man who actually slammed our plates onto the table. Their attitude -- both the kinder French and the snobs in restaurants -- are described in depth and their motivations explained from a variety of angles that truly make sense of the culture, the personalities, the differences in the way women look and men treat them, how their children are brought up. The word pictures painted by essayists in Paris Was Ours give readers a surprisingly three-dimensional view of a lifestyle and culture.

What I disliked about Paris Was Ours:

I had two problems with the book and I thought they were minor but worth mentioning. One is that the essays often lack context. For example, "Montparnasse and Beyond" by Richard Armstrong begins:

I had an instantaneous connection to Paris. --p. 78

My first thought when I read each of the essays was always, "Okay, I wonder when this person lived in Paris." Paris of the Sixties may have been very different from Paris of the Nineties, so I thought that was important information. Sometimes the time period is mentioned, sometimes it's not -- often you're well into an essay before the time period is revealed. There are brief bios of each of the authors in the back of the book. I would have liked to see those bios on a separate page preceding each essay, complete with dates to give each essay context.

The other problem I had was that most of the essays were peppered with French expressions but there is no glossary. For those who know French well, that's likely not a problem. But, I had junior high and high school French -- only enough to translate the easy words like "fromage" and "patisserie" that probably everyone knows. A glossary would have been very, very helpful. Eventually, I began marking words to look up, but there were so many of them that I should have just kept a laptop nearby, for translating purposes.

The lack of a glossary, however, was not enough to put off this reader. Note how much you can learn from this simple passage:

The French have such an attractive civilization, dedicated to calm pleasures and general tolerance, and their taste in every domain is so sharp, so sure, that the foreigner (especially someone from chaotic, confused America) is quickly seduced into believing that if he can only become a Parisian he will at last master the art of living. Paris intimidates its visitors when it doesn't infuriate them, but behind both sentiments dwells a sneaking suspicion that maybe the French have got it right, that they have located the just milieu and that their particular blend of artistic modishness and cultural conservatism, of welfare-statism and intense individualism, of clear-eyed realism and sappy romanticism -- that these proportions are wise, time-tested, and as indisputable as they are subtle.

If so, then why is the flâneur so lonely? So sad? Why is there such an elegiac feeling hanging over this city with the gilded cupola gleaming above the Emperor's tomb and the foaming, wild horses prancing out of a sea of verdigris on the roof of the Grand Palais?

--from "A Mild Hell" by Edmund White, p. 205 of Paris Was Ours

I looked up several words from that passage (apologies for the change of text size, which Blogger is not allowing me to fix, for some unknown reason):

just milieu - (definition from Wordnik)

–noun
1. The true mean; a just medium or balance between extremes; specifically, judicious moderation, as between extremes of opinion or conduct: defined as a political term by Montesquieu, but first brought into common use by Louis Philippe in 1831 in characterizing his own system of government.

Flâneur (from Wikipedia)

The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it".

elegiac (from my handy dandy American Heritage Dictionary) - (adj.)

1. Of or relating to an elegy (a mournful poem or song, especially one mourning a dead person).

2. Expressing sorrow, mournful.

I should have know that one. *headdesk*

The bottom line:

I loved Paris Was Ours. I felt transported to Paris, where a culture that's always perplexed me (as I have French roots, I really desire to understand the French) was explained with flair and erudition. A glossary of French terms and a little better context in the form of a lengthier bio placed just before each writing would have been helpful for the reading of most of the essays -- some authors did translate French expressions, but most did not.

Highly recommended for all readers but particularly for those who have a fascination with France in general or Paris in particular, or the armchair traveler who loves learning about other cultures. I'm going to loan this book to my son, who spent several weeks in France and will undoubtedly enjoy Paris Was Ours. I intend to reread it, eventually -- next time, with a French dictionary or a computer handy.

Some favorites:

I loved Jeremy Mercer's essay, "My Bookstore High", an excerpt from his book Time Was Soft There, about the time he spent living in Shakespeare and Company. Judith Warner's "Toward a Politics of Quality of Life," is a fascinating comparison of American feminism vs. the kittenish, pouty feminism of the French that I think would be of particular interest to those who are participating in challenges involving feminist issues.

There are several essays in which the acceptance of sexual orientation is mentioned but I didn't mark them. However, I was particularly interested by a comment that if a gay couple is invited to a party in New York, someone will seek them out to reassure them that they're very welcome, while in Paris the same couple will find themselves treated like everyone else, their orientation accepted to the point of being nothing of any interest.

I found Stacy Schiff's essay, "In Franklin's Footsteps" amusing and informative. And, I kept thinking to myself, "Stacy Schiff, Stacy Schiff. Where have I heard that name?" I looked her up and discovered that I have her biography of Antoine Saint-Exupery. It just happened to be sitting in a prominent place in the den because I pulled it off a shelf and set it aside, thinking, "I've got to read this one!" while cleaning some shelves, about two weeks ago.

Gushy thanks to Michael of Algonquin Books for the copy of Paris Was Ours.

Tomorrow I'll review Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox by Susan Blackaby, another surprise book, this time from Sterling Kids. It's a book that I love so much I fear my cats are going to get sick of it, sometime soon. Well, I have to read it to someone!

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.