What Are They Reading?

Authors tend to be readers, so it is natural for them to create characters who like to read.  It is always interesting to me to read what books the characters are reading in the books I read.

I can't say that ten times fast.  But I can start a new, occasional post about what these characters are reading.

Usually, the characters' choice of books reflects the author's tastes or, I like to think, what the author was reading at the time.  But sometimes the character's reading material is a clue to the character's personality, or is even a part of the story. 

If anyone wants to join in, feel free to leave a comment with a link to your related post. And feel free to use the button.  If this catches on, I can pick a day and make it a weekly event.

This inaugural post looks at what the character's in P. D. James's The Black Tower are reading.  This is the fifth book in her Adam Dalgliesh series, was published in 1975, and takes place at a private nursing home on the coast of Dorset.

Dalgliesh himself, when he is not solving mysteries as a Commander at New Scotland Yard, is a poet, with several published volumes of his own verse. He is recuperating from a serious illness and heads to the coast determined to retire from the police force.  He packs with him several volumes of poetry and a Thomas Hardy novel.

One of the residents at the Toynton Grange home finds a poison pen letter in the book she is reading -- "the latest" by Iris Murdoch.   The story takes place in the fall of 1974, so depending on when Dame Iris's books were published, this character was reading either The Black Prince (which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize) or The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (which won the Whitbread, now Costa, Award). Good choices, both.

Opening Sentence: Murder in Belleville

Aimée Leduc's cell phone rang, startling her, as she drove under the leafy poplars tenting the road to Paris.

-- Murder in Belleville by Cara Black.

This is the second in Cara Black's Paris-based series featuring Aimée Leduc, a half-American corporate security expert who finds herself -- like so many other amateur detectives -- drawn into murder mysteries. 

Opening Sentences of the Day: Wild in the City and Portland in Three Centuries

Wildness is as much a perception as reality.

-- Wild in the City: Exploring the Intertwine: The Portland-Vancouver Region's Network of Parks, Trails, and Natural Areas by Michael C. Houck and M. J. Cody, from OSU Press.  This book is a good inspiration to get out there and do some hiking!

The Pacific Northwest was an international trouble spot in 1845.

-- Portland in Three Centuries: The Place and the People by Carl Abbott, also published by OSU Press. It looks like a concise, readable history of Portland, and I love the cool zine cover.



A Few More Pages hosts Book Beginnings every Friday.  The event is open for the entire week.

Review: The Stories of John Cheever

The Stories of John Cheever, which won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1978 and the Pulitzer in 1979, is a chronological collection that spans Cheever’s short story career, from pre-WWII up to 1973.

To read this collection – just shy of 700 pages – is to live in Cheever’s head, tracking his artistic and personal development in a way that a single novel or volume of stories doesn’t allow. These are not happy stories. The earlier pieces are particularly bleak and raw. While the later stories are deeper and more nuanced, they are still pretty dark. Precious few have cheerful resolutions. The best Cheever’s characters seem to achieve is contentment despite imperfect circumstances.

Cheever’s is a world of commuter trains and cocktail parties, where everyone wears hats, has a cook, drinks martinis at lunch, summers, sails, and commits adultery. Not everyone is rich; in fact, money problems are a continuing theme. But the trappings, however tarnished, of a mid-century, Northeast corridor, upper crust way of life hang on all the stories. And that is Cheever at his best. He can bring us so deep into that world that it feels like living it.


OTHER REVIEWS

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

List: National Book Critics Circle Award

First awarded in 1976, the National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote the finest books and reviews published in English.

The main awards fall into six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism. Awards are not given to titles that have been previously published in English, such as re-issues and paperback editions.

I confess I bear a grudge against the NBCC Award for inflicting Being Dead, All the Pretty Horses, and Song of Solomon on me -- all which I read only because they were on this list.  On the other hand, I only read Motherless Brooklyn because it was here, and I loved that book.

This is the list of fiction winners. Those I have read are in red. Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

2020 Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

2019 Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat

2018 Milkman by Anna Burns

2017 Improvement by Joan Silber

2016 LaRose by Louise Erdrich

2015 The Sellout by Paul Beatty

2014 Lila by Marilynne Robinson

2013 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2012 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

2011 Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman

2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (reviewed here)

2008 2666 by Robert Bolano

2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

2005 The March by E.L. Doctorow

2004 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here)

2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones

2002 Atonement by Ian McEwan

2001 Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald

2000 Being Dead by Jim Crace

1999 Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

1998 The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro

1997 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

1996 Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault

1995 Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin

1994 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy (reviewed here)

1991 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

1990 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

1989 Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

1988 The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee

1987 The Counterlife by Philip Roth

1986 Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price

1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

1984 Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

1983 Ironweed by William Kennedy

1982 George Mills by Stanley Elkin

1981 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike

1980 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

1979 The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan

1978 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here)

1977 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

1976 October Light by John C Gardner

NOTE

Last updated on December 31, 2018.

OTHERS READING THE BOOKS ON THIS LIST

If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.

Teaser Tuesday: Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

Most of us are type designers from birth.  We begin scribbling as toddlers, the most freedom we will ever have.

-- Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield.

This is a fascinating and really entertaining book. I love it.

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

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here)

Diary of an Eccentric is hosting in March.  Please stop by her terrific blog to see what this "eccentric bookworm" is reading lately.

Thanks to a recent visit to Booktique, a wonderful Friends of the library bookstore in Lake Oswego, a stack of "County House" books came into my city house last week:



The English Country House: An Art and a Way of Life by Olive Cook



Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History by Mr. Mark Girouard



A Country House Companion by Mark Girouard



Althorp: The Story of an English House by Charles Spencer



The English Country Town by Anthony Quiney and Robin Morrison

Now all I need is a huge pot of tea and a fire in the fireplace. 

Opening Sentence: What's So Great About Christianity

Christians are called upon to be "contenders" for their faith.

-- from the author's Preface to What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza.

God has come back to life.

-- from the first chapter, "The Twilight of Atheism: The Global Triumph of Christianity."

This is a very good book.  D'Souza makes a case for religion in general and Christianity in particular, arguing from scientific, historical, and (mostly) philosophical positions. 

I found the audio version at the library and didn't really know what to expect.   I definitely didn't expect it to be a philosophy book.  I find myself rewinding quite a bit, but it is worth it to understand his arguments. 

Review: People of the Book

People of the Book is the kind of literary novel with historical mystery overtones that I love to get swept away in.  And Geraldine Brooks delivers in spades.

The story centers around a real-life 15th Century illuminated Hebrew manuscript called the Sarajevo Haggadah.  In 1996, Hanna Heath, a rare book conservator from Australia, is called to post-war Sarajevo to inspect and repair the Haggadah for a UN-sponsored museum exhibition designed to highlight the shared history and culture of Bosnia's Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Using clues Hanna finds in the book -- including a tiny white hair, an insect wing, a wine stain, and missing cover clasps -- Brooks splits the narrative into Hanna's investigation and independent stories of the manuscript's history.  These stories move back in time from World War II, to fin de siècle Vienna, to the Venice ghetto of the 1500s, to the book's 15th Century creation in Spain.

As with many entertaining historical novels, the characters depicted sometimes demonstrated modern sensibilities, no matter when their scenes take place.  But the story moves along so quickly and is so generally engrossing, that this minor flaw is easy to ignore. 

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book, or any of Geraldine Brooks's other novels, listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

People of the Book counts for several challenges I'm working on: the European Reading Challenge, the Eastern European Reading Challenge, my TBR challenges, and the What's In a Name? Challenge.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

On 12 June, 2005, a fifty-year-old man stood up in front of a crowd of students at Stanford University and spoke of his campus days as a 'lesser institution' -- Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

-- from the author's Introduction to Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield (thanks go to Amused By Books because I won this in her December giveaway.)

The introduction describes Steve Jobs explaining his early fascination with calligraphy, which led to his revolutionary use of multiple fonts in his first Macintosh computer. 




A Few More Pages hosts Book Beginnings every Friday.  The event is open for the entire week.

Opening Sentence: A Bell for Adano

Invasion had come to the town of Adano.

-- A Bell for Adano by John Hersey.

Hersey's Pulitzer-winning novel is the story of an American Army officer in Sicily during World War II.  The Italian-American Major Joppolo who wins the hearts and minds of the people of the town of Adano by helping them find a replacement for the town bell, which the Fascists had melted down cannon parts.

What is so fascinating to me about the book is that Hersey wrote it in 1944, while the war was still going on, which probably explains its fresh, action-oriented style.  It isn't a deep retrospective -- it is breezy and lively and filled with funny character sketches. 

This counts as one of my Pulitzer choices for the 2012 Battle of the Prizes, American Version. 

Teaser Tuesday: Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon: Exploring the Wild Heart of Alaska

No matter how many logs I fed the woodstove, it was always well below freezing in the cabin the next morning. . . .  It got so bad I had to put the milk in the refrigerator (unplugged) -- not to chill it but to keep it from freezing solid. 

-- Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon: Exploring the Wild Heart of Alaska by Mary Albanes (see trailer here).

Thanks go to the wonderful book publicist, Mary Bisbee-Beek, for getting me a copy of this one. 

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

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here)

Diary of an Eccentric is hosting in March.  Please stop by her terrific blog to see what this "eccentric bookworm" is reading lately.

Two books came into my house last week.

 

The Things You Would Have Said: The Chance to Say What You Always Wanted Them to Know, edited by Jackie Hooper.


This looks great!  It is the book edition of the popular blog by the same name.  It contains letters written by real people to others who have passed out of their lives -- parents, friends, enemies, their childhood selves, etc.  The letters are incredible.




Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith.  I got this one from the LibraryThing Early reviewer program.  I've gotten my LibraryThing list under control, so I am looking forward to this one.

Review: The Pothunters

The Pothunters is P. G. Wodehouse's first book, originally published in 1902. It's a schoolboy story set in an English boarding school, with a plot involving stolen trophies and much emphasis on school sporting events.

There are some lively moments, humorous scenes, and witty lines, but The Pothunters only hints at what Wodehouse would go on to achieve. There is far too much straightforward story without the extraordinary shenanigans of the later works.

For example, the theft of the trophies – "pots" in schoolboy jargon – is a simple smash and grab, nothing like the hilarious farce of the theft of the silver cow creamer. And the direct descriptions of the schools boxing tournament and field day races are like small town newspaper accounts of real events. They hold no comparison to Wodehouse's riotously funny satire of sporting events, such as The Great Sermon Handicap or some of the games the Drones come up with.

Wodehouse completists will want to read The Pothunters, but initiates should start with one of his later works to avoid wondering what the fuss is about.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, Please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.  

NOTES

The Pothunters is available in one of the cool new Collector's Editions by Overlook Press.

It is also available as a free kindle download on amazon.  It is the first ebook I read and I have to say I didn't care much for the experience.  I read it on my iPhone, using the kindle app.  I didn't care for the experience and it took me forever to finish as a result.

Share the Blog Love

It is very exciting to me that Dana at Let's Book It is featuring Rose City Reader as her Blog of the Week.

And, no, we aren't related and I didn't have to bribe her.

Thanks Dana!

I'm giddy. Just giddy.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon: Exploring the Wild Heart of Alaska

My pack, heavy with rocks, dug into my back as I hiked across the uneven ground twenty miles (32 kilometers) from the Arctic Circle.

-- Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon: Exploring the Wild Heart of Alaska by Mary Albanes (see trailer here).

Thanks go to intrepid book publicist, Mary Bisbee-Beek, for getting me a copy of this one.  It would be a great choice for the Memorable Memoirs challenge.

Review: Innocents Abroad, Volume One

The full title of Mark Twain's first published book gives, in quaint – and, one expects, tongue-in-cheek – 19th Century style, a synopsis of the contents: The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims' Progress: Being Some Account of the Steamship Quaker City's Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land. This is the non-fiction chronicle of Twain's adventures, on sea and land, with a group of American travelers.

Volume One of the two-volume edition covers the European part of the trip, concentrating on Gibralter, France, and Italy, with side trips to the Azores and Morocco.   Twain's account is part travelogue, part humorous essay. Parts have aged better than others – some of the jokes are a little frowsty and his descriptions of the local people can be startlingly off-color to politically correct modern readers.

But the book is still very funny and entertaining. Some of the travel essays, especially his chapters on Venice, are insightful and relevant. His humor can be clever, slapstick, or subtly sarcastic. Some of the funniest bits involve running jokes about holy relics, martyrs, hired guides, and trying to communicate in foreign languages.

Sometimes he just offers a hilarious set piece, like this one:

We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can "show off" and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off. . . . The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother. I shall always delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I shall have finished my travels.

That's the kind of droll observation that can still sting, a century and a half later.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

NOTES

The Innocents Abroad, published in 1869, was Mark Twain's first published book. He'd had stories and essays published before, including the travel pieces that make up The Innocent's Abroad, but this was his first actual book. My edition is part of a matching set Hubby gave me several years ago. It is about time I started working my way through them.

This counts as one of my choices for several challenges: Non-Fiction, Back to the Classics, Classics, Mt. TBR, Off the Shelf, and TBR Pile. Because of the Venice chapters, I mention it as part of the Venice in February challenge too.

Opening Sentence: World Without End

Gwenda was eight years old, but she was not afraid of the dark.

-- World Without End by Ken Follett.

This is the sequel to the fabulous Pillars of the Earth that I read a few years back. Pillars was the story of building the Kingsbridge Cathedral in the 1100s; this one takes place 200 years later.

This counts as one of my choices for several challenges: TBR Pile, Mt. TBR, Off the Shelf, Chunkster, and Tea & Books.

Teaser Tuesday: The Devil's Elixir

The Mexican got up from the couch, calmly, and took a step toward Walker, sending a ripple of tension across the room.  The rest of the bikers straightened up and inched forward threateningly, clearly ready to rumble, as did Navarro's two aides.

-- The Devil's Elixir by Raymond Khoury. This is a drugs-and-guns thriller with a historical mystery overlay.  It is pure entertainment. 

This is the latest in Khoury's Templar series, featuring FBI agent Sean Reilly and his archaeologist girlfriend Tess Chaykin. I haven't read the others, but this one stands alone just fine.

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

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Metroreader hosting in February. Please stop by her fun blog to see what she is reading on her commute!

I got one book last week:

Bamboo Farmer Wisdom: 101 Inspirational Thoughts by Greg Bell, author of Water the Bamboo.



The book came as part of a "small world" story. A few weeks ago, a gentleman came to my door to explain that a friend of his had owned our house for about 30 years, that he was elderly now, and would love to come see his house again.  So we made arrangements for the two of them to come over for a visit, which they did yesterday afternoon. 

It turns out that the gentleman who made the arrangements for his friend is the father-in-law of my old friend, Greg Bell.  So he brought me a copy of Greg's new book, a little gift-book companion to Greg's excellent Water The Bamboo: Unleashing The Potential Of Teams And Individuals, which I reviewed here.



The Wisdom book did indeed come with a Water the Bamboo wristband.  My cats immediately disappeared it. 

Favorite Author: Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999) was an Irish-born author best known for her complex but entertaining philosophical novels.  Dame Iris, as she was known since she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1987, won the Booker, Black, and Whitbread (now Costa) prizes; had one book on the Modern Library's list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century; and also wrote poetry, plays, and books of philosophy.

I am working my way through her novels, which are listed below in publication order.  Those I have read are in red; those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

Under the Net (1954) (Modern Library's Top 100 list)

The Flight from the Enchanter (1956)

The Sandcastle (1957)

The Bell (1958)

A Severed Head (1961)

An Unofficial Rose (1962)

The Unicorn (1963)

The Italian Girl (1964)

The Red and the Green (1965)

The Time of the Angels (1966)

The Nice and the Good (1968)

Bruno's Dream (1969)

A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970)

An Accidental Man (1971)

The Black Prince (1973) (James Tait Black winner)

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974) (Whitbread, now Costa, winner)

A Word Child (1975)

Henry and Cato (1976)

The Sea, the Sea (1978) (Booker winner; reviewed here)

Nuns and Soldiers (1980)

The Philosopher's Pupil (1983)

The Good Apprentice (1985)

The Book and the Brotherhood (1987) (reviewed here)

The Message to the Planet (1989)

The Green Knight (1993)

Jackson's Dilemma (1995)

OTHER MURDOCH FANS

Please feel free to leave comments with links to your Murdoch-related posts and I will list them here. 

NOTES

The Sea, the Sea is my favorite so far.  It is a remarkable novel and really, really wonderful. I also loved The Bell.

A Fairly Hounorable Defeat was also very good, and sticks in my head all the more now that I read Claire Massoud's The Emperor's Children, which I think was a rip-off of Murdoch's earlier book.

Updated March 17, 2020.

Opening Sentence: Murder at the Vicarage

It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage.

-- Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie.

This is the first of Christie's full-length novels featuring Miss Jane Marples, although Miss Marples had appeared in earlier short stories.

The Vintage Mystery Challenge has me in a vintage mystery mood, for sure.  This will count as one of my choices in the Golden Age Girls category. 

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Devil's Elixir

Alvaro de Padilla was overcome by dread as his visions dissipated and focus returned to his tired eyes.

-- The Devil's Elixir by Raymond Khoury. This is a real rip-roarer. Pure fun. It opens in 1741 in what is now Mexico.

This is the latest in Khoury's Templar series, featuring FBI agent Sean Reilly and his archaeologist girlfriend Tess Chaykin. I haven't read the others, but this one stands alone just fine.



A Few More Pages hosts Book Beginnings every Friday.  The event is open for the entire week.

Opening Sentence: People of the Book

 

I might as well say, right from the jump: it wasn't my usual kind of job.

-- People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, about the mysteries of a real-life 15th Century illuminated Hebrew manuscript called the Sarajevo Haggadah.

Despite the popularity of this book, I haven't read it before.  It is terrific.

It also counts for several challenges I'm working on: the European Reading Challenge, the Eastern European Reading Challenge, my TBR challenges, and the What's In a Name? Challenge.

Review: Serenissima

The Republic of Venice existed from the late 7th century until 1797 and was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice, or La Serenissima for short. Erica Jong's 1987 novel Serenissima is set in contemporary Venice, but much of the story goes back in time to Venice in the late 1500s, at the peak of the Republic's glory.

Jessica Pruitt is a 43-year old actress in Venice to judge an international film festival and begin filming her next movie, a reinterpretation of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice in which she will star as her namesake, Shylock's daughter Jessica.

Like the dreamy, foggy glide of gondolas downs Venice's romantic canals, the story drifts from the glittering present to Jessica's historic adventure. After an encounter with an aging ex-patriot – who may also be a witch – Jessica finds herself in the lavish Jewish ghetto of 16th Century Venice, in love with a visiting English poet named Will, and racing to save a newborn Christian baby by finding it a safe Jewish home.

The story definitely depends on the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. The time-travel doesn't try to make sense and the ending explains nothing. And there is a sex scene involving Shakespeare, a Venetian whore, and the Earl of Southampton that I would like to erase from my reading psyche.

But Jong is a terrific writer who blends sumptuous language with a knack for good storytelling. Fans of Jong may prefer her purely contemporary novels like Fear of Flying and its sequels. On the other hand, Serenissima would make a good introduction to Jong for fans of fantasy and historic romance.

OTHER REVIEWS

Fear of Flying, reviewed here
How to Save Your Own Life, reviewed here

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

NOTES

Serenissima was also published as Shylock's Daughter.

This counted as my Italy book for the European Reading Challenge, my book for the Venice in February Challenge., and one of my books for the I Love Italy Challenge.

Teaser Tuesday: Alfred Edelman: Urban Compositions

Alfred Edelman, with your eyes
I see anew
my own native place.

A side-swept entrance
opens into a tunnel
leading towards light,
towards celestial riverbeds.

-- from poetry by Paulann Petersen (Oregon's poet laureate), in Alfred Edelman: Urban Compositions, photos by Alfred Edelman, essay by Kathleen Dean Moore, published by Pacific Northwest College of Arts.

Edelman was a Portland-based architect, photographer, and founder of Hotlips Pizza (yummmmmmmmm). This beautiful books features Edelman's photographs of urban fragments, coupled with Peterson's poems.  It is lovely.

Urban Compositions is available at The Gallery at Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland (or on line), Broadway Books, or directly from Jeana Edelman.

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

Mailbox President's Day

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Metroreader hosting in February. Please stop by her fun blog to see what she is reading on her commute!

Only one book came into my house last week, but it is a book I've had my eye on for quite a while, so I am very excited.




Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz, with a Foreword by Sally Fallon.

I've wanted a copy of this ever since Hubby gave me a German sauerkraut crock for Christmas.  Not romantic, I understand, but what I really, really wanted.