Life: It Goes On - September 8, 2013

Greetings from Omaha, where summer, apparently, is using the lunar calendar to determine it's end date this year. Holy buckets has it been hot the past few days! It's doing wonders for my tomatoes but I'll bet they're not selling many pumpkins spice lattes around here.


I'm actually coming to you this morning from Missouri, where we've had rollicking good fun this weekend helping my sister-in-law cope with turning 50 next week. Y'all know how much I love my trips to Missouri, especially when I get to spend time at a winery!




Here's What I'm:

Listening To: Fleetwood Mac's Rumors - takes me right back to high school!

Watching: Football and Paul Bettany movies: Wimbledon,.Master & Commander, and A Knight's Tale. It just happens that they were all on tv this week and I do like looking at him!

Reading: On audio, I'm still listening to Anna Quindlen's Black and Blue. I'm not loving it; I don't know if it's the narrator or the story. I want to feel an emotion punch from Quindlen like I did with Every Last One. I'll finish A Place At The Table this weekend and quite like it. I think I'll move In Cold Blood to my regular read next to make sure I finish it before I attend one of the Omaha Reads events for it.

Making: My sister and I made a really cute (if I do say so myself - and I can because it was entirely my sister's idea) candy bouquet for my sister-in-law's birthday with 50 pieces of candy.Sadly, no picture.

Planning: On catching up this week. Being gone on a weekend always puts me behind.

Grateful for: Being close enough to my family to be able to share special events.

Loving: My new haircut - had five inches cut off the other day.

Thinking: There are some really ridiculous t.v. shows - and BG has watched all of them for at least 5 minutes.

Looking forward to: I'm trying not to look forward - I'm trying to enjoy each day as it arrives. It's easier to pretend that winter's not just a couple of months away that way!

Elizabeth The First Wife by Lian Dolan

Elizabeth The First Wife by Lian Dolan
Published May 2013 by Prospect Park Books
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Elizabeth Lancaster, an English professor at Pasadena City College, finds her perfectly dull but perfectly orchestrated life upended one summer by three men: her movie-star ex-husband, a charming political operative, and William Shakespeare. Until now, she’d been content living in the shadow of her high-profile and highly accomplished family. Then her college boyfriend and one-time husband of seventeen months, A-list action star FX Fahey, shows up with a job offer that she can’t resist, and Elizabeth’s life suddenly gets a whole lot more interesting. She’s off to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for the summer to make sure FX doesn’t humiliate himself in an avant-garde production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  

My Thoughts: 
Lian Dolan writes chick lit with a brain. Rarely will you learn as much from a chick lit book as you will from Elizabeth The First Wife chock full as it is with references to Shakespeare and, surprisingly, quantum physics. While Dolan gets snarky, it's a  gentle snarkiness blended with a clear love of her setting and its denizens. Her voice rings out throughout the book; the sense of humor so many have enjoyed for years listening to her on the Chaos Chronicles apparent in her writing.

Dolan draws on stereotypes for some of her characters but they are such fun, with just enough depth to make them feel like real people, that readers will mostly forgive her. Elizabeth can come of a little Bridget Jones-y at times, finding herself repeatedly in the center of trouble, but more because of her trusting nature than her own poor choices a la Jones.

It was fun to see characters from Dolan's first novel, Helen of Pasadena (also, obviously, set in Pasadena), reappear in Elizabeth The First Wife. 

One of the things I enjoyed most about Elizabeth The First Wife are the magazine-like sidebars that start every chapter which look at Shakespearean power couples and characters through a pop-culture filter. For example, one is titled "The MacBeths" and includes the bit "Who They Remind You Of: The Reagans, the Clintons, the Eminems, the Jolie-Pitts." Another is titled "3 Guys Your Mom Will Love" and lists three of Shakespeare's characters and lists "Who He Reminds Us Of," "Why Mom Would Love Him," and "Major Drawback." One of my favorites of these is a two-page comparison of Romeo Montague, Hamlet and Edward Cullen (of Twilight fame). Dolan compares personality traits, hobbies, and hangups (Hamlet's is, of course, his mother). I know I'm not doing these pieces justice here; trust me, much chuckling was involved in the reading!

Elizabeth The First Wife was my last "summer" read before launching into all of the fall events and it was the perfect way to end the season.

The Girl You Left Behind by JoJo Moyes

The Girl You Left Behind by JoJo Moyes
Published August 2013 by Pamela Dorman Books
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouard’s portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officer’s dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everything—her family, her reputation, and her life—to see her husband again.

Almost a century later, Sophie’s portrait is given to Liv Halston by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. A chance encounter reveals the painting’s true worth, and a battle begins for who its legitimate owner is—putting Liv’s belief in what is right to the ultimate test.  

My Thoughts: 
Last year, JoJo Moyes' Me Before You was one of the breakout hits of the year. I passed on it for review. Yeah, I know, still kicking myself for that one. Needless to say, I wasn't passing on this one.

The Girl You Left Behind is not just the name of a painting - it is Sophie whose husband has gone off war leaving her to take care of an entire village, it is Liv whose husband died leaving her filled with guilt and an emptiness she can't find a way to fill. Neither Sophie nor Liv will remain left behind; they are both stronger than they know. Sophie's tremendous courage and willingness to do whatever it takes to save her husband, Liv's incredible  grief and inability to let go - Moyes made me care about what happened to these women.

It's not uncommon to use two different stories, set in two different time periods in one book. What is unusual is to have both stories carry equal weight, both in the story line and the emotional aspect of the story. Moyes does just that, fully immersing the reader in first Sophie's story and then Liv's before starting to move back and forth more frequently. Authors utilizing this story telling method often tie their two stories together by the most tenuous of threads or the connection does not become obvious until you are nearly done with the book. In The Girl You Left Behind, seven pages into the modern story line, the connection becomes clear and Sophie's story plays a prominent role in Liv's story. Never once did I find myself racing through one part just to get past it and on to the other story line - a rare thing indeed.

Moyes is a gifted storyteller, able to handle complex plots and create nuanced characters. I look forward to reading more of her work.

Fall Feasting!

It's that time of year again, time for me to celebrate the change of seasons by celebrating food! For the next three months, I'll be reading a number of both fiction and non-fiction books centered around food. This year, it's also going to help me knock off one of the challenges I signed up for this year, The Foodies Read Challenge.

On my pile of books to choose from this fall are:
A Thousand Days In Venice by Marlena De Blasi
Harvest by Richard Horan
Under The Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister
The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Chef by Jaspreet Singh
Extra Virgin by Annie Hawes
                                          Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

Which of these have you read? Are there any I simply must get to this fall (because let's be real here, there's no way I'm getting through all of these no matter how good my intentions!)?

Life: It Goes On - Sept 1

Ahhhh, I feel so much better now - it's finally REAL football season! It's also that time of year when my head is in a funny place. I've got great loads of tomatoes coming off the vine right now and it's been scorching hot, so it's summer, right? But pumpkin beer is on the shelf, football's on the t.v. and the Halloween candy is out so it's fall, right?

I do know my reading is already starting to change as I turn the page on the calendar. I'm finishing one last true summer read (Lian Dolan's fun Elizabeth the First Wife) and then I'm starting my annual Fall Feasting reading (more on this tomorrow). Today starts R.I.P. VIII (Readers Imbibing in Peril) hosted by Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings and at the end of the month Michelle of Seasons of Reading will again host the Fright-fall Readathon. I may not be ready to spend all of my time cozy in my corner of the sofa but I'll definitely be doing a lot of reading out on the patio while it's still warm enough.

Here's What I'm:

Listening To: Podcasts this week - I've been catching up with the Chaos Chronicles (Lian Dolan broadcasting from her closet!) and Book Club Girl On Air.

Watching: Love Actually (I know, I know, it's not December but I love this movie!) and Say Anything. How can you not  love that scene with John Cusack holding a boombox over his head serenading Iona Skye with Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes?"

Reading: This week I'll start listening to Anna Quindlen's Black And Blue on my commute and I've still got In Cold Blood on my nightstand (can I just say, once again, how impressed I am with this one?). I'll finish Elizabeth the First Wife in by tomorrow and then I'll pick up something foodie for Fall Feasting, probably A Place At The Table by Susan Rebecca White.

Making: Oh lordy, have I been domestic this week! I got a box of peaches Monday and every day I did something new with them - I froze six quarts of slices, make six pints of freezer jam, and baked a peach custard pie and peach crisp. One evening I threw together a corn & black bean salsa and a ham and pasta salad another. Yesterday I roasted cherry tomatoes to freeze. Mama Shepp's boys were over last night to watch football so I put on a spread for them including bacon-wrapped stuffed banana peppers which I'd never tried before. This all probably means I won't cook a thing this week!

Planning: On getting more work done in the basement this week in anticipation of a trip to the Goodwill.

Grateful for: A house full of "my boys," laughing, watching football and snarfing down food. I miss having them around all of the time!

Loving: I already said "college football," right?

Thinking: My holiday weekend should be filled with chores but I just might spend a good chunk of the next couple of days reading.

Looking forward to: A trip this weekend to help celebrate a 50th birthday party!

Question: Are you still caught in summer or looking forward to fall?