Monthly Archives: February 2010

Permanent Rose by Hilary McKay

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I’ve been enjoying the Casson family series by Hilary McKay. This month I finished the third, Permanent Rose. I don’t feel the need to post a full review of it, but here are a few of my favorite lines from the book:

“I always say a little prayer when I put cakes in the oven,” remarked Eve, as she stopped to kiss Rose good-bye.
“What do you say?”
“I say, ‘Please, God, don’t let me forget I’ve put that cake in the oven.’” (page 102)

“Where can Caddy have got to?” moaned Bill for the hundredth time. “Why doesn’t she answer her mobile?”
“It’s switched off,” said Rose.
“Why?”
“In case someone rings.” (page 183)

David, always aware of his lifetime’s collection of guilty secrets struggling to escape, had been shocked at being seen through so quickly.” (page 2)

Teaser Tuesday

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In the canteen there was a television that was always on. I began to learn more about life in your country. I watched programs called Love Island and Hell’s Kitchen and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and I worked out how I would kill myself on all of those shows. Drowning, knives, and ask the audience.

From Little Bee by Chris Cleave, page 49

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:
  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

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TheHelp

Title: The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett
Published: 2009
My edition: Putnam Hardcover 2009
Purchased From: Book Depository
Pages: 451

Synopsis (from Strand): Set deep in the heart of Mississippi, circa 1962, “The Help” offers readers an enchanting and original journey into the trying lives and times of three very different women who chose to come together for a common cause. In this book weare introduced to 22 year-old Skeeter, who has recently graduated school and is being pushed into marriage; Aibileen, a wise and regal maid whose troubles as an African American in Mississippi are enough on their own; and Aibileen’s best friend Minny, whose just been put out of another job and is in need of help. Through author Kathryn Stockett’s touching and remarkable characters this moving narrative will take readers by the hand and lead them to new places.

I read this because: The rare combination of a well-reviewed novel and long run on the bestseller lists is always intriguing.

My thoughts: It’s been a while since I’ve read a fantastic, page-turner of a historical novel, and I’m happy that the drought is over. I can see why this book has done so well; it’s immensely enjoyable. It’s a great story, good writing, lovable narrators and main characters, and a bit of sass. It’s also not without its villains, which is important for any good story. I expected the ending to be sadder than it was, but that’s not a criticism. Also, I think it’s been a while since I read a novel set in the south, which was lovely. I enjoyed this book a lot and had trouble putting it down for things like work and showering.

Book club worthy? Yes, I think it would be great for discussion.

Follow up required: This is Kathryn Stockett’s first novel, but I will definitely keep an eye out for her second.

You might like this book if you like: The Thirteenth Tale, and historical fiction in general. 

Links to purchase: Indie Bound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, Strand

My favorite lines & passages: Even though she has zero kids and nothing to do all day, she is the laziest woman I’ve ever seen. Including my sister Doreena who never lifted a royal finger growing up because she had the heart defect that we later found out was a fly on the X-ray machine. (page 48)

“Every morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision.” Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. “You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?” (page 63)

Extras: Kathryn Stockett’s Website, The Help on Facebook

Teaser Tuesday

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Daddy flipped the switch. In the seconds it took to really get going, cake flour blew up from the mixing bowl and swirled around the room, recipes flapped off the counter and caught fire on the stovetop. Constantine snatched the burning roll of parchment paper, quickly dipped it in the bucket of water. There’s still a hole where the ceiling fan hung for ten minutes.

From The Help by Kathryn Stockett, page 162

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:
  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Beer Batter Cheese Bread

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Beer Batter Cheese bread

My goal of making 52 new recipes this year is off to a very fun start. I love that it’s making me try new recipes instead of making my old standbys over and over again. I’m hoping to have a much larger repertoire of favorites by the end of the year. So far my favorite new recipe is Beer Batter Cheese Bread. It’s a hearty, savory bread with a wonderful flavor that’s amazing with soup. Or on its own. For breakfast. Three days in a row. Heavenly.

This recipe is adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. It’s a very easy recipe, and aside from the Gruyere, I always have all of the other ingredients in my kitchen. As much as I love to make homemade yeast breads, I also love having loaf recipes that can be made quickly. As soon as you have this mixed up and in the pan you can throw it right in the oven.

Ingredients:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
4 ounces Gruyere cheese, shredded (1 cup, packed – I like a little extra)
3 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1.25 cups beer (I used Blue Moon, light beers work best)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for brushing

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees & grease an 8.5 x 4.5″ loaf pan.

2. Whisk flour, cheese, sugar, baking powder, salt, and pepper together in a large bowl. Stir in beer & melted butter until just combined.

3. Scrape the batter into the loaf pan. Smooth top and brush with 1 to 2 tablespoons of melted butter.

4. Bake for about 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a tester comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Rotate halfway through baking.

5. Cool for 10-15 minutes in the pan and then turn out onto a wire cooling rack. Cool for 1 hour before serving, if you can wait that long to dig in.

Beer Batter Cheese bread

One last thought…is there anything cozier than having a dutch oven full of soup simmering on your stove in your kitchen on a cold winter evening?
My Kitchen

I don’t think so.

Teaser Tuesday

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The man who had knocked at the door, was a stout personage of middle height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close; half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes. The other was a red-headed, bony man, in top-boots; with a rather ill-favoured countenance, and a turned-up sinister-looking nose.

From Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, page 272

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a fun weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:
  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Polysyllabic Spree: January 2010

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Books Purchased:

Books Purchased - January 2010

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

Books Read:

Books Read - January 2010

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith
Indigo’s Star by Hilary McKay
McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy

Previously reviewed: Shades of Grey, Wishful Drinking, The Left Hand of Darkness, McCarthy’s Bar

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers: This novel was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and was reviewed very well, so when I saw it in a bargain books section for $5 I couldn’t leave it there. It’s an unique book, it’s written from the perspective of a young Chinese woman who moves to England to attend school to learn English. She doesn’t know a lot of English when she arrives (the beginning of the novel) and so her writing voice is in choppy, ‘beginner’ English. As her English improves, the writing throughout the book gets cleaner, with a lovely simplicity. She writes about the discoveries she makes about the language, and what things confuse her. It’s a really interesting look into what it’s like to learn a new language by leaving your comfort zone and immersing yourself in it, along with the loneliness and struggles that come from being on your own in a foreign country. As the title suggests, the book is centered around a romance with an English man she meets shortly after moving to London.

44 Scotland Street: This is my first Alexander McCall Smith book, and I liked it. It was originally serialized in a newspaper, so the chapters are very short. It switches perspectives from character to character and back again, and that made for a very quick, fun read. I have the second book in this series out from the library right now, Espresso Tales. It’s still a bit shocking to me how much/fast Alexander McCall Smith writes, and the number of different series he has going right now.

Indigo’s Star: After loving the first Casson family book, Saffy’s Angel, I had to get the second book and continue reading about these great characters. Indigo’s Star was just as enjoyable, and now I’m reading the third, Permanent Rose.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

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LeftHand

Title: The Left Hand of Darkness
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Published: 1969
My edition: Ace Paperback 2000
Purchased From: Barnes and Noble Lincoln Square
Pages: 304

Synopsis (from Strand): Winner of HUGO and NEBULA Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year. The story of a lone human emissary’s mission to Winter, an unknown alien world whose inhabitants can choose – and change – their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Completely embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, the novel stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

I read this because: Ursula K. Le Guin is an author I’ve meant to read for a long time. My book club also selected this as our January book, which gave me the perfect reason to stop dilly-dallying.

My thoughts: I didn’t really go into this book knowing much about the plot or what it was like, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I think I was expecting more of a epic story, with dozens of characters and an intricate plot. I liked that the focus was on the relationship between Genly and Estraven, and on Genly’s personal challenges and growth.

Book club worthy? Yes, my book club’s discussion of this was fantastic. It’s the sort of book that you want to talk to people about after you finish it.

Follow up required: I’d like to read more of her work, most likely starting with A Wizard of Earthsea. I also own a collection of her short stories.

You might like this book if you like: I haven’t read a lot of Science Fiction, so the only thing I’ve read that I find it at all similar to is Margaret Atwood’s novels. I think it’s the style and creativity that I find comparable.

Links to purchase: Indie Bound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository

My favorite lines & passages:

I am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained, and often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy. (page 241-2)

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness. (page 151)

Extras: New Yorker Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin about The Left Hand of Darkness, Communal book club discussion from NewYorker.com

McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy

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McCarthysBar

Title: McCarthy’s Bar
Author: Pete McCarthy
Published: 2000
My edition: St. Martin’s Press Hardcover 2001
Borrowed from: Hoboken Public Library
Pages: 338

Synopsis (from his website): Despite the many exotic places Pete McCarthy has visited, he finds that nowhere can match the particular magic of Ireland, his mother’s homeland.  In McCarthy’s Bar, he journeys from Cork to Donegal.  Travelling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule, Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name On It, he encounters McCarthy’s Bar’s up and down the land, meeting fascinating, friendly and funny people before pleading to be let out at four o’clock in the morning.

Through adventures with English crusties who have colonised a desolate mountain; roots-seeking, buffet-devouring Americans; priests for whom the word ‘father’ has a loaded meaning; enthusiastic Germans who ‘here since many years holidays are making’; and his fellow barefoot pilgrims on an island called Purgatory, Pete pursues the secrets of Ireland’s global popularity and his own confused Irish-Anglo identity.

Written by someone who is at once both insider and outsider, McCarthy’s Bar is a wonderfully funny, affectionate portrait of a rapidly-changing country.

I read this because: I’m currently obsessed with any and all things concerning Ireland.

My thoughts: I loved this book. As far as armchair traveling goes, Pete McCarthy is an excellent companion/guide. Not only does he take you along for the ride as he meanders through the west of Ireland, he also explores the experience of feeling completely at home in a place that isn’t your homeland. I learned quite a bit about Irish culture and Ireland while reading it, and laughed a lot at his dark and witty humor infused into his stories.

Sadly, when I was googling Pete McCarthy to see if I could find him on Twitter or some links to good interviews, I found out he died in 2004. He was 51. He only wrote one other book; he didn’t get the chance to write the third book he had been planning.

Book club worthy? Mostly just a fun book to read on your own, but potential for some good discussion on whether or not you can feel a stronger attachment and kinship with the country of your ancestors than the country you were raised in.

Follow up required: I’d like to go to Ireland, as soon as possible. :) I’d also like to read his only other book, The Road to McCarthy. (Not to be confused in any way with The Road by Cormac McCarthy.)

You might like this book if you like: Bill Bryson

Links to purchase: Indie Bound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, Strand

My favorite lines & passages:

There’s nothing like a couple of Italians staring at you to make you feel ashamed to be part of a nation that thinks polyester is a good fabric. (page 116)

Luckily I’ve trained myself over the years never to go anywhere without something to read, just in case someone turns up late, the meeting ends early, or I’m inadvertently imprisoned for 35 years and put in solitary confinement. (page 128)

The Celts believed that our world and the spirit world are very close, and that there are particular places of energy where the divide is very thin, and it’s possible to step across to the other side. (page 226)

I like reading in a pub rather than a library or study, as it’s generally much easier to get a drink. (page 258)

I think everyone has an inner voice, and we can all learn to listen to it. You don’t need to analyse where it comes from, but you can attune yourself to it. If you can learn to follow it, it will lead to fulfillment. That’s why I came here. (page 334)

Inklings by Jeffrey Koterba

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inklings

Title: Inklings
Author: Jeffrey Koterba
Published: 2009
My edition: Houghton Mifflin Hardcover 2009
Borrowed From: Hoboken Public Library
Pages: 264

Synopsis (from Strand): Political cartoonist Jeffrey Koterba grew up as an awkward twitchy child, his body bursting with the same unsettling nervous tics as his father–a talented musician whose dreams of fame had faded leaving him an eccentric alcoholic who obsessively fills the house with broken electronics. To escape the instability of his home, Jeff fled to the Sunday comics, copying the strips he loved, and making his own. After his rebellious teenage years, this love of drawing would become his livelihood and salvation, as he struggled with his troubled family life and his long-undiagnosed Tourette’s syndrome. INKLINGS is a pitch-perfect memoir filled with a self-deprecating humor and a complete absence of sentimentality. The prose is pithy vivid and as full of feeling and nuance as the author’s art.

I read this because: The cover caught my eye every time I went into a bookstore, and I read a good review of it in an issue of Entertainment Weekly.

My thoughts: This is a great memoir for many different reasons. Mainly I loved it because it’s a wonderful portrait of a person working hard and devoting their life to their passions, and eventually making a career from it. It’s also fascinating to read about what it’s like to live with Tourette’s syndrome. And, not least of all, it’s a (not sappy) story of rising above an imperfect childhood/home life and other challenges without bitterness.

Book club worthy? I’ve said before: I don’t personally enjoy discussing memoirs in book groups, but this one would make for better discussion than most.

Follow up required: I want to check out the music of Jeffrey Koterba’s swing band, Prairie Cats. :) I also enjoyed browsing his editorial cartoons on his website (link below).

You might like this book if you like: A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Links to purchase: Indie Bound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, Strand

My favorite lines & passages:

Trying to not stare at the corner is like being thirsty on the hottest day of the school year but not being allowed to leave the room to get a drink. The more you can’t get a drink, the thirstier you become. You raise your hand and ask your teacher if you can be excused to get a drink, but she says no, you just had a drink a little while ago. You’ll have to learn patience, she says. But your mouth is so dry and you just know you’re going to die. In this moment it’s the corner that I thirst for.  (page 62-63)

I will not allow my embarrassment and fear to overshadow what hasn’t yet happened. (page 256)

Extras: Jeffrey Koterba on Twitter, Jeffrey Koterba’s Website