Thursday, January 29, 2015

Book Beginning: American Dreamers



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



Though it was over sixty years ago, I still remember every detail.  It was June 2, 1952, and I finally had a date with the girl of my dreams.

-- American Dreamers: How Two Oregon Farm Kids Transformed an Industry, a Community, and a University by Ken Austin with Kerry Tymchuk, published by OSU Press.

Ken Austin rose from humble roots in rural Oregon to build A-Dec, one of the largest dental equipment makers in the world. His wife and partner, Joan is the visionary behind The Allison -- a world-class destination spa in the heart of Oregon wine country.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Five Faves: Favorite Reads of 2014


Looking over the list of books I read last year, a main theme seems to be secondary works by favorite authors.  It was not a year for lights-out great reading for me.  I enjoyed spending time with some old friends, but nothing really knocked my socks off and I didn't fall in love with any new authors.

But there were several books that stuck with me.  These five were my solid favorites (in the order I read them):




FIVE FAVES

There are times when a full-sized book list is just too much; when the Top 100, a Big Read, or all the Prize winners seem like too daunting an effort. That's when a short little list of books grouped by theme may be just the ticket.

Inspired by Nancy Pearl's "Companion Reads" chapter in Book Lust – themed clusters of books on subjects as diverse as Bigfoot and Vietnam – I decided to start occasionally posting lists of five books grouped by topic or theme. I call these posts my Five Faves.

Feel free to grab the button and play along. Use today's theme or come up with your own. If you post about it, please link back to here and leave the link to your post in a comment. If you want to participate but don't have a blog or don't feel like posting, please share your list in a comment.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Teaser Tuesday: Liberated by Steve Anderson



Our ride back was like some harebrained rum run. Colonel Spanner drove hard and fast, shouldering the steering wheel one way, then the other, a blur of trees and fields, and he whooped as we caught our breath for the next turn and I couldn't get a word in even if I dared try.

Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945 by Steve Anderson.  Liberated is the second book in Anderson's WWII "Kaspar Brothers" series, following, The Losing Role, which I reviewed here. Harry Kaspar, the hero in this book, is the older brother of the main character of the earlier book, Max Kaspar.

Steve has been busy lately.  In addition to Liberated, in 2014 he published another exiting novel set during WWII called Under False Flags.  He explains the real life war adventure that inspired Under False Flags in this essay, War as a Deadly Swindle.

And his translation of a German thriller, Mark of Cain by Marcus Hünnebeck, is available now in a Kindle edition, soon to be released in paperback.

Read my earlier interview of Steve Anderson, here.



Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Mailbox Monday: American Dreamers by Ken Austin



Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got one book last week, and I am very excited to read it:



American Dreamers: How Two Oregon Farm Kids Transformed an Industry, a Community, and a University by Ken Austin with Kerry Tymchuk, published by OSU Press.

Ken Austin rose from humble roots in rural Oregon to build A-Dec, a multi-million dollar international business, guided by a core set of principles and the tireless support of his wife and partner, Joan. A-dec is one of the largest dental equipment makers in the world.

In addition to the story of "the A-Dec Way," American Dreamers tells of the Austins' personal adventures and obstacles, including Joan’s conjuring of The Allison—a world-class resort spa—in the middle of Yamhill County, to Ken's battle with alcoholism.




Sunday, January 25, 2015

Review: Delights and Prejudices



James Beard was the "Dean of American Cuisine." Before Alice Waters was even born, he was championing regional, seasonal cooking. Long before his buddy Julia Child, he had a televised cooking program -- the first ever, starting in 1946, when home televisions were a great rarity and most of audience was men in bars (his show came on after the boxing match).

He wrote more than 20 cookbooks and became famous for his New York cooking schools. After his death in 1985 at age 81, Julia Child wanted to preserve his home, school, and memory, leading to the creation of the James Beard Foundation, still located in his Greenwich Village brownstone. Every year the foundation honors cookbook authors, chefs, restaurateurs, food writers, and other culinary professionals with the James Beard Award.

Beard published Delights and Prejudices: A Memoir with Recipes in 1964 to explain his own food loving history from toddler-hood to his New York cooking school days. He bounces around from his childhood in Portland to Les Halles in Paris to Mid-Century Manhattan and beyond.

the book is absolutely wonderful, particularly for a Portlander like me. Beard highlights Portland's rich culinary roots, with lengthy chapters on the farmers' markets, local produce, and abundant seafood that we here in the Rose City still enjoy. His remembrances of childhood weeks spent in Gearhart on the Oregon coast would make anyone want to head for the drizzly beach, build a huge bonfire, and roast oysters and Dungeness crabs.

What makes the book stand out is that Beard's bigger than life, kind of oddball personality shows through. For instance, despite launching his career with a catering company featuring canapes and the resultant first cookbook, Hors D'oeuvre and Canapes, he was ambivalent about finger food, coining the name "doots" for all little passed tidbits. Doots? Now, that's funny.

He had strong opinions about food and cooking -- many inherited from his strong-willed mother -- and laid them all out. For example, he hated chicken livers, but loved gizzards (and included plenty of recipes to prove it). He was an ardent Francophile and particularly favored bistro cooking, but could not stand Caribbean food.

When it came to holiday traditions, he loved his mother's Christmas fruitcakes (made a year in advance), but thought cranberries were an "abomination," homemade candy "really unsavory," and Christmas cookies only good if you make them yourself and eat them right away, exhorting well-wishers to "have pity on us, all you bakers -- the spirit of Christmas notwithstanding -- and deliver us from cookies that have crumbled or gone stale."

Delights and Prejudices is outstanding among food memoirs because James Beard is a giant and, therefore, learning what shaped his talent is fascinating, but also because it inspires an examination of our own food delights and prejudices and where they came from.


RECIPE

Huckleberry Cake

(Beard, like most Oregonians, loved the wild, dark huckleberries that grow here, particularly those that grow in the hills near the Oregon coast.)

Cream 1 cup butter and 1 cup granulated sugar together until the mixture is very light. Add 3 eggs, one by one, beating after each addition. Sift two cups flour and save 1/4 cup to mix with 1 cup huckleberries. Add to the rest 2 teaspoons baking powder and a pinch of salt, and fold this into the egg mixture. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and, lastly, fold in the floured huckleberries. Pour the batter into a buttered, floured 8-inch-square baking tin. Bake at 375º for 35 to 40 minutes or until the cake is nicely browned, or when a tester inserted comes out clean.

Serve the cake hot with whipped cream, or cold.


OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other James Beard book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Review: Started Early, Took My Dog



Started Early, Took My Dog is the fourth and latest in Kate Atkinson's series of super smart mysteries featuring Jackson Brodie. Like the other Brodie books, this one involves several disparate stories that more or less come together. Like the other Brodie books, and her literary fiction, Atkinson's droll commentary and crackling wit make every page a delight.

The theme of Jackson trying to rescue "lost" girls runs throughout the books of the series, stemming from the murder of his own teen-aged sister when he was a child.. This book focuses that idea on missing children – children kidnapped, sold, murdered, snatched by estranged parents, aborted, abandoned, or erased from the system.

The title may refer to Atkinson's process of writing this book: She starts the story early, with the 1975 murder of a Leeds prostitute; and she brings along dog in the form of an abused little terrier Jackson rescues and sneaks into hotels in his rucksack.

The narrative moves back and forth between the earlier murder and Jackson's present-day efforts to locate the birth parents of his client – a woman adopted when she was a toddler. Running roughly parallel, with occasional intersections, is the story of Tracey Waterhouse, a newly retired Leeds police officer who finds herself on the lam with a four-year-old girl in a fairy costume.

The point of Atkinson's Brodie books is not to follow a linear string of clues to a logical solution to the mystery. Indeed, two of the main storylines in Started Early are left unresolved in the end, which is disconcerting, but hopefully signals a sequel in the works.

These are in no way conventional mysteries. They are – like all great novels – stories about people facing conflict, struggling with relationships, finding their places, and trying to understand life. That they have a few dead bodies thrown in make them "mysteries," but they are no less literature. Started Early, Took My Dog is a gobsmacker of a good book.


OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other Kate Atkinson book listed here, please leave  a comment with a link and I will add it.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Book Beginning: Liberated by Steve Anderson



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



I should've been more scared, but the truth was I had never felt more ready and raring to go.

Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945 by Steve Anderson.  Steve has been on a role lately.  His novel, Under False Flags also came out in 2014.  And his translation of a German thriller, Mark of Cain by Marcus Hünnebeck, is available now in a Kindle edition, soon to be released in paperback.

Liberated is a sequel of sorts to Anderson's earlier WWII novel, The Losing Role, which I reviewed here. Harry Kaspar, the hero in this book, is the older brother of the main character of the earlier book, Max Kaspar.  Steve is already working on other books involving the Kaspar brothers.




Wednesday, January 21, 2015

List: The Oregon Book Award for Fiction



The Oregon Book Awards and Fellowships honor the state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers. In addition to financial support, the program produces the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, which connects writers and readers throughout the state with readings, classroom visits, and workshops.

I hope to read the winners of the Fiction Award. Although so far, only Jump Off Creek is even waiting for me on my TBR shelf!

2015 Cari Luna, The Revolution of Every Day

2014 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Unreal and The Real: Collected Stories

2013 Ismet Prcic, Shards

2012 Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

2011 Willy Vlautin, Lean on Pete

2009/2010 Jon Raymond, Livability: Stories

2008 Ehud Havazelet, Bearing the Body

2007 Alison Clement,Twenty Questions

2006 Justin Tussing, The Best People in the World

2005 Marc Acito, How I Paid for College

2004 Tracy Daugherty, Axeman’s Jazz

2003 Cai Emmons, His Mother’s Son

2002 Gina Ochsner, The Necessary Grace to Fall

2001 Molly Best Tinsley, Throwing Knives

2000 Craig Lesley, Storm Riders

1999 Ehud Havazelet, Like Never Before

1998 Peter Ho Davies, The Ugliest House in the World

1997 Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

1996 Tracy Daugherty, What Falls Away

1995 Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker

1994 Diana Abu-Jaber, Arabian Jazz

1993 Diane Simmons, Dreams Like Thunder

1992 Ursula Le Guin, Searoad

1991 (no award)

1990 Molly Gloss, The Jump-off Creek

1989 Hob Broun, Cardinal Numbers

1988 Todd Grimson, Within Normal Limits

1987 Russell Working, Resurrectionists

NOTE

Updated July 16, 2016.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Teaser Tuesday: A Hunger for High Country



Like people, bears were unpredictable.  I couldn't tell the shy ones from the killers, so my reaction was to assume the worst about the, all.
-- A Hunger for High Country: One Woman’s Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country by Susan Marsh, published by the Oregon State University Press.

Marsh was one of the first women to work in the field for the US Forest Service. Her memoir is filled with evocative descriptions of the National Forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park where she worked, as well as adventures with bears, gun-toting mountain men, and sexist bureaucrats.

A Hunger for High Country offers a first-hand account of what it was like to live and work in a National Forest -- an area most of us see while driving to our vacation, but have never really thought about.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Mailbox Monday



Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got one book last week, and I am very excited to read it:



Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945 by Steve Anderson. This is the second in his "Kaspar Brothers" series. The main character, Harry Kaspar, is the older brother of Max Kaspar, the hero in The Losing Role, which I reviewed here. Steve has more stories involving the Kaspar brothers in the hopper.

PORTLANDERS: Steve is going to be reading from Liberated this Thursday, January 22, at Powell's Books on Hawthorne at 7:30. More details on the Powell's calendar.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Book Beginning: A Hunger for High Country



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



One task was left to me before leaving Montana, to bid farewell to Windy Pass.

-- A Hunger for High Country: One Woman’s Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country by Susan Marsh, published by the Oregon State University Press.

Marsh was one of the first generation of women to work in the field for the US Forest Service. Starting in the 1970s, Marsh worked in the National Forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park, first in Montana and then for many years in Wyoming.

A Hunger for High Country is Marsh's first-hand account of the adventures she lived, as well as a history of the region and the agency she worked for.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Mailbox Monday: A Hunger for High Country



Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got one book last week, and I am very excited to read it:



A Hunger for High Country: One Woman’s Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country by Susan Marsh, published by the Oregon State University Press.

Marsh was one of the first women hired by the US Forest Service in the 1970s, working first in Montana and then for many years in Wyoming. A Hunger for High Country is her personal memoir and a history of the agency and region. I love these kinds of memoirs about real women building the kinds of adventurous careers I've never considered. They make me think more creatively and expansively about my own career.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Books Read in 2014



This is the list of the 104 books I read in 2014, in the order that I read them. I started the Dumas Law Group in 2014, my own law firm, so I didn't review many books. It was all I could do to read them!

I rate books 1 to 5, but only give five stars to a very few all-time favorites. Four stars go to books I think are really good and would recommend to anyone. I rate a book a 3 if I liked it personally, but wouldn't think of recommending it. Most books get 3.5, which means that I liked it and would recommend it to people who like that genre or type of book. See this post for details.

One of Ours by Willa Cather (3.5/4; Pulitzer)

The Bridal Wreath: Kristin Lavransdatter, Vol.1, by Sigrid Unset (4/4; Nobel)

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn (3/4)

The Society Ball Murders by Jack Albin Anderson (3/4)

Candida by George Bernard Shaw (3/4; Nobel)

William Tell Told Again by P. G. Wodehouse (3/4)

The Gold Bat by P. G. Wodehouse (3/4)

Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg (4/5)

Coastliners by Joanne Harris (3/5)

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin (3.5/5)

Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy (3/5; reviewed here)

The Wife: Kristin Lavransdatter, Vol. II, by Sigrid Unset (4/4; Nobel)

A Wanted Man by Lee Child (3.5/4)

A Shooting Star by Wallace Stegner (3.5/5)

C. S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet by Alister McGrath (4/5)

The Cross: Kristin Lavransdatter, Vol. III, by Sigrid Unset (4/4; Nobel)

The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (3.5/5)

Deception by Philip Roth (3.5/5)

The Difficult Sister by Judy Nedry (3.5/5)

What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw (aka 4:50 from Paddington) by Agatha Christie (3.5/5)

Death in the Air (aka Death in the Clouds) by Agatha Christie (3.5/5)

Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner (3.5/5)

Economic Facts and Fallacies, 2nd edition by Thomas Sowell (4/5)

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan (3.5/5)

The Life of the Party by Irvin S. Cobb (3/5)

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding (3.5/5)

1939: The Last Season by Anne De Courcy (3.5/5)

The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester (3.5/5)

The Rich Are Different by Susan Howatch (3.5/5)

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter (4/5)

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (3/5)

I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away by Bill Bryson (3/5)

A Pillar of Iron by Taylor Caldwell (4/5; reviewed here)

Snobs by Julian Fellows (4/5; reviewed here)

The Head of Kay’s by P. G. Wodehouse (3/5)

A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym (3.5/5)

Night In Shanghai by Nicole Mones (4/5)

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (3/5)

The Glassblowers by Daphne du Maurier (3/5)

In the Last Analysis by Amanda Cross (3.5/5)

The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin (3.5/5)

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (3.5/5; Nobel, All-TIME Top 100)

Sinful Folk by Ned Hayes (4/5)

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (5/5; reviewed here)

Still Life by Louise Penny (3.5/5)

You Take It From Here by Pamela Ribon (2.5/5)

The View from Penthouse B by Elinor Lipman (3/5)

20,000 Days and Counting: The Crash Course for Mastering Your Life Right Now by Robert D. Smith (2.5/5)

A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh (3.5/5)

Sister Age by M.F.K. Fisher (3.5/5)

Stoner by John Williams (3.5/5)

Nickel Mountain by John Gardner (3.5/5; BOMC Well-Stocked Bookcase)

The Principles of Uncertainty by Maria Kalman (3.5/5)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (4/5)

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg (3/5)

Bonjour, Happiness! by Jamie Cat Callan (3.5/5)

Bridget Jones's Guide to Life by Helen Fielding (3/5)

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (4/5)

The Gem Collector by P. G. Wodehouse (3/5)

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark (3.5/5)

Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (3/5)

The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope (4/5)

Risk by Dick Francis (3.5/5)

Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (3.5/5)

French Women for All Seasons by Mirabelle Guiliano (3/5)

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (3/5)

A Northern Christmas by Rockwell Kent (3/5)

Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis (4.5/5)

Private Life by Jane Smiley (3/5)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (5/5)

Daughters-in-Law by Joanna Trollope (3.5/5)

The Truth About Lorin Jones by Alison Lurie (4/5)

California’s Over by Louis B. Jones (3.5/5)

A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George (3.5/5)

She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith (3.5/5)

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny (3.5/5)

Prague by Arthur Phillips (4/5)

Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs (3/5)

C'est La Vie: An American Woman Begins a New Life in Paris and--Voila!--Becomes Almost French by Suzy Gershman (2.5/5)

The Pearl Diver by Sujata Massey (3/5)

Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosley (3/5)

Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor (4/5)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (3.5/5; College Board Top 101, Erica Jong Top 100, BMOC Well-Stocked Bookcase)

44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith (3/5)

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes (3.5/5)

Summer Lightning by P. G. Wodehouse (4/5)

Me before You by Jojo Moyes (1/5)

Style by Kate Spade (3.5/5)

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (4/5)

Delicious by Mark Haskell Smith (3.5/5)

Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir by Christopher Buckley (3.5/5)

A Man of Parts by David Lodge (3.5/5)

Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh (3.5/5)

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (3.5/5; Costa BOTY)

If a Pirate I Must Be…: The True Story of "Black Bart," King of the Caribbean Pirates by Richard Sanders (3/5)

The Victim by Saul Bellow (3.5/5)

On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks by Simon Garfield (3.5/5)

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (4/5)

Smokescreen by Dick Francis (3.5/5)

Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of The Island of Corfu by Lawrence Durrell (3.5/5)

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan (3.5/5)

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula le Guin (3.5/5)

Captain Nicholas by Hugh Walpole (3.5/5)

The Spa Decameron by Fay Weldon (4/5)

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Book Beginning: Their Name is Today



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



The cry of a newborn baby catches at the heart.

-- Their Name is Today: Reclaiming Childhood in a Hostile World by Johann Christoph Arnold, foreword by Mark K. Schriver.

I'm interested in learning more about this book's promised "creative ways to give children the time and space they need to grow" and how the author proposes to defend "the joy and wonder of childhood."

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Book Beginning: Meet Your Baker by Ellie Alexander.



HAPPY NEW YEAR!

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS IN 2105 FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



They say it takes a while to recover your land legs after years spent at sea.

-- Meet Your Baker by Ellie Alexander. This debut "Bakeshop Mystery" introduces Juliet Capshaw, a newly-graduated pastry chef turned amateur sleuth when one of the customers of Torte, her Ashland, Oregon bakery turns up dead. Since the victim is a board member of the world-famous Shakespeare Festival, the beating heart of the town, anyone could be a suspect.

Happy New Year!




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