Kitchen Remodel, Week Seventeen: Starved for Foodie Books

The tile phase of the kitchen is finally underway.  We are still waiting on the subway tile for the kitchen backsplash, but the tile guy came this week to put the tile floor in the powder room.

The subway tile is supposed to get here this week.  Also, we are crossing our fingers that they can start putting up the stucco on the outside walls.  To mangle Churchill, I think we are well passed the end of the beginning and on to the beginning of the end.  Knock wood.

My weekly reading was again food-free.  I took a break from The Autobiography of Mark Twain to listen to the audio edition of Prince of Fire, a Gabriel Allon thriller by Daniel Silva.  My family loves the series, but I hadn't read any until this one.  It was really good. Now I want to go back and read the others.

If I can power through the rest of Mark Twain this week, I'm going to treat myself to a foodie book for the Foodie Reading Challenge.  Either Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain or The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog.

I'm leaving for Idaho for work this afternoon, so am posting my Mailbox Monday post early. 

I got one book last week, from the author who is a doctor in Eugene, Oregon. The cover is funny, but a little shocking:



Pet Goats & Pap Smears: 101 Medical Adventures to Open Your Heart & Mind by Pamela Wible, MD. "[T]his book reveals the secrets to solving your waiting-room frustrations, slashing your medical bills, and securing first-rate health care now."

Dr. Wible has a pioneering vision of community healthcare, which you can learn more about on her Ideal Medical Care website. She has essays in two award-winning anthologies: Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change, along with Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, and Optimism: Cultivating the Magic Quality that Can Extend Your Lifespan, Boost Your Energy, and Make You Happy Now, along with Jimmy Carter and Steve Jobs.

You can learn more about Pamela's enthusiastic and uplifting approach to medicine on her personal blog, facebook, twitter, YouTube, and her Oregonian blog.

Book Beginnings: Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy

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.

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

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

When Henry Mulcahy, a middle-aged instructor of literature at Jocelyn College, Jocelyn, Pennsylvania, unfolded the President's letter and became aware of its contents, he gave a sudden sharp cry of impatience and irritation, as if such interruptions could positively be brooked no longer.

-- Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy, which is on the Anthony Burgess list of Top 99 novels. I love complicated opening sentences like this that put me right into the middle of the story.

Reading this pitch perfect campus novel, first published in 1951, makes me want to create a list of academic-themed books, I enjoy them so. Any suggestions?

Review: Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin

In Lavinia, Ursula Le Guin reimagines the story of how Aeneas (of Virgil's Aeneid) fought the locals of Latinum, married the king’s daughter, and founded Rome. By telling this story from Lavinia’s perspective, Le Guin brings a domestic element to an otherwise military tale.

Le Guin relies on Virgil's account for the backbone of her story. Lavinia is an imperfect narrator because she lacks the personal knowledge needed to describe the battle scenes. So Le Guin provides Lavinia with the necessary information through a series of visions brought on by Lavinia's religious rituals. In these visions, Virgil visits Lavinia from the future and tells her the story of his Aeneid, which Lavinia uses to narrate her contemporaneous tale.

As Anita Diamant's The Red Tent did for the Old Testament, Lavinia brings a female and familial viewpoint to the epic myth of Roman civilization. Le Guin concentrates on the quotidian details and traditions of ancient Rome, admitting that she drew on her imagination as much as on known history.

For me, there was not enough home front content to balance out the battles. The most interesting part was the author's Afterword, where Le Guin explains her love of Virgil's Aeneid, particularly when read in Latin. If I had her devotion to the original classic, I would likely have greater appreciation for Le Guin's retelling.

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

I read Lavinia as one of my books for the TBR challenges I am doing this year:

• MT. TBR CHALLENGE (hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block) 
• OFF THE SHELF CHALLENGE (hosted by Bonnie on Bookish Ardour) 
• TBR PILE CHALLENGE (hosted by Adam on Roof Beam Reader)

Teaser Tuesday: Full-Rip 9.0 by Sandi Doughton

The earthquake that lashed the Pacific Northwest in 1700 ranks among the mightiest the Earth can yield. Scientists today call it a megaquake – a magnitude 9 monster that ripped the full length of the offshore fault where seafloor and continent collide, and unleashed a killer tsunami.

 -- Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest by Sandi Doughton, published by Sasquatch Books and reviewed in The Oregonian last Sunday.

Doughton is the science writer for the Seattle Times.  She explains -- in a clear and captivating way -- the science of why the Pacific Northwest is due for another megaquake.

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

Kitchen Remodel, Week 16: Mirror in the Bathroom

Other than getting an English Beat song stuck in my head, hanging a mirror in the new powder room didn't pack much of a punch.

But besides the mirror, the only thing going on with our kitchen remodel last week was the installation of a screened panel to hide the old steam radiator. Wow. That is really lame.  It's the tile.  We are still waiting on the tile.

And I didn't read anything about food last week either.  The Autobiography of Mark Twain has no references to food at all.  Nor does Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.  I may have to take a break from both -- not because they don't talk about food, but because they are both long and . . . I hesitate to say boring.  How about, attention absorbing and important, but not 100% entertaining.

Apart from books, we had a fun eating weekend.  We went to a DIY wedding Friday night where the young bride and groom recruited their relatives to bake desserts.  Right after the ceremony, the guests were treated to a vast buffet of sweet treats.  It was nostalgic of church basement receptions, bake sales, and all things delicious.  Congratulations to Scott and best wishes to Emily! #Freywed!

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog.

I got one book last week, from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program:



The Road to Burgundy: The Unlikely Story of an American Making Wine and a New Life in France by Ray Walker.

I am a sucker for any American ex-pat in Europe memoir.  This one looks particularly good because it involves starting a winery.  It hits all my armchair fantasies.

Book Beginnings: Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest by Sandi Doughton

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.

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

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

Stories passed down from that night don't tell us if dogs howled a warning. Huddled together in the cold, the animals might have sensed the first, faint vibrations while the people still slept.

 -- from the author's Introduction to Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest by Sandi Doughton, published by Sasquatch Books.

On a misty morning in October 2011, the Satsop nuclear plant's cooling towers floated like twin mirages above Washington's Chehalis valley.

-- from Chapter One, "An Odd Duck."

Doughton is the science writer for the Seattle Times.  She writes with a clear and captivating style that make this explanation of why Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver are the urban centers of a "mega-quake" terrifying but impossible to stop reading.

Used Book Love

I can think of dozens of reasons I buy used books, including the availability of out-of-print titles, price, and the happy feeling I get from knowing a book is being "reused" instead of recycled.

What about you? Do you buy used books? Why do you? Or don't you?

For fanciers of used and rare books lucky enough to be in Portland this weekend, try to stop by the Rose City Used Book Fair, where 40+ dealers will offer a treasure trove of cool books and ephemera. 

If you need further encouragement, check out this spify "info-graphic" the folks at Thriftbooks came up with and asked me to post.  

Review: A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. Wodehouse

A Prefect's Uncle is P. G. Wodehouse's second published book. Like his first, The Pothunters, it is set in an English boarding school for boys. Except in the long passages describing cricket matches, it is a charming and funny book that hints at the hilarious style Wodehouse later perfected.

The initial gag about the Prefect's uncle arriving at the school provides the title and is quite funny. But that storyline peters out and the main plot involving a poetry contest is not as clever.

The big weakness of the book is Wodehouse's unrelenting concentration on cricket. He describes cricket matches play by play and devotes pages to cricket strategy and other bits of cricket minutia.

Diehard Wodehouse completists may be willing to skim over the cricket passages to glean the funny bits. But those new to Wodehouse should start with one of his later, more popular books.


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

A Prefect's Uncle was one of my books for the MT. TBR CHALLENGE (hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block) and the OFF THE SHELF CHALLENGE (hosted by Bonnie on Bookish Ardour). 

Teaser Tuesday: Tales of St. Austin's by P. G. Wodehouse

The qualities which in later years rendered Frederick Wackerbath Bradshaw so conspicuous a figure in connection with the now celebrated affair of the European, African, and Asiatic Pork Pie and Ham Sandwich Supply Company frauds, were sufficiently in evidence during his school career to make his masters prophesy gloomily concerning his future. The boy was in every detail the father of the man.

-- Tales of St. Austin's by P. G. Wodehouse, from "Bradshaw's Little Story."

I had to read it through twice, but that is the funniest thing I've read in a long time.  Such a brilliant construction and tone of mock-historic epic.

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 this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog.

While I was in Davenport, Iowa for work last week, I went to the local library where they had a Friends of the Library sale shelf.  I found several, including and M.F.K. Fisher I've been looking for for a while.

The Oasis by Mary McCarthy (I want to read more of her books)

 

The A. B. C. Murders by Agatha Christie (I'm on a roll)

 

Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan (looked like a fun book for summer)

 

All That Work and Still No Boys by Kathryn Ma (winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award)

 

Sister Age by M. F. K. Fisher (essays on growing old)

Kitchen Remodel, Week 15: Nothing Doing

Progress on our kitchen remodel was infinitesimal this week. We got doorknobs on the powder room and basement doors -- big whoop. We got screens on the windows that are to have screens, but they are all but invisible, so don't show in photographs.

The holdup is still the tile. The white subway tile for the backsplash is 2 x 6 instead of 3 x 6, so had to be special ordered. We finally gave up on the California company that was supposed to send the tile three weeks ago. We've ordered replacement tile from our local Pratt & Larson, which we should have done from the get-go.

So it will still be two weeks before the tile gets here, and another week or two to get it all installed. It's looking like our kitchen will be done mid-July, not mid-June as originally forecast.

At least the weather here in the Rose City is beautiful for Rose Festival. Being able to grill outside and eat dinner on the porch makes us forget we are still operating out of our "camp kitchen" in the dining room.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginning: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

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.

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

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

The driver of the wagon swaying through forest and swamp of the Ohio wilderness was a ragged girl of fourteen.

 -- Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.  This is a misleading beginning because after half a page of wagon trail woe the short section ends with, "That was the great-grandmother of Martin Arrowsmith" and we jump forward 100 years to the story of Martin's medical career.

Arrowsmith won the Pulitzer Prize in 1926.

Review: The Gathering by Anne Enright

It is comforting to think of memory as a recording of past events that can be played back anytime. But the brain does not store memories – especially traumatic memories – in such an orderly and retrievable fashion. In The Gathering, Anne Enright grapples with the chaotic, fragmented, and twisted ways we remember the traumas of childhood.

The memories belong to Veronica, one of the nine surviving Hegarty siblings, gathered for the funeral of their brother Liam. Veronica tries to deal with her grief and make sense of her brother's death by piecing together their family history. She uses her imagination and objective clues to give context to distressing images from the time she and Liam lived with their grandmother.

Veronica's struggle is authentically idiosyncratic. Her grief and the secrets she carries drive some kooky behavior and alienate her from her husband, her mother, and her own daughters. She can be an unattractive, if believable, heroine.

Veronica's off-putting conduct and Enright's sometimes too-obtuse prose makes The Gathering a difficult book. But Enright earned her Booker prize for tackling a harrowing subject and concluding with the important lesson that a problem cannot be solved until it is acknowledged.

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 Gathering is one of the books I read for the MT. TBR CHALLENGE (hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block) and the OFF THE SHELF CHALLENGE (hosted by Bonnie on Bookish Ardour).

Teaser Tuesday: Beast in View

June knocked on the door and waited, swaying a little, partly because the martini had been double, and partly because a radio down the hall was playing a waltz and waltzes always made her sway. Back and forth her scrawny little body moved under the cheap plaid coat.

-- Beast in View by Margaret Millar.  This won the Edgar Award for best mystery in 1956, the third year the award was given.

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 this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog. 

I ended up with a huge stack of books last week.

First, I went to a lunch event where Alyce Cornyn-Selby from Portland's Hat Museum was the speaker.  She is a real live-wire!  In addition to restoring her 1910 mansion and founding the Hat Museum, she has driven across the country in an old roadster with no top (the car, not her), and written over a dozen books, including one I got:



What's Your Sabotage? The Last Word in Overcoming Self-Sabotage by Alice Cornyn-Selby.

Second, I stopped by to see my friend Rachel at Second Glance Books because she has decided to close shop in July and redirect her time, talent, and treasure to other book-related ventures, like the Rose City Used Book Fair.  Follow the Second Glance facebook page for further developments.  I walked out with some great books, as always:



The Elizabeth David Cookery Book Set, which includes French Provincial Cooking, Mediterranean Food, French Country Cooking, Summer Cooking, & Italian Food -- five of David's classic books on cooking, with thousands of recipes.




Here's How, Mixed Drinks by W. C. Whitfield (Author) and Tad Shell (Illustrator), with a wood cover.



Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark, an Edgar Award winner.



A Private View by Anita Brookner



Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Third,  I hit an estate sale where I found a treasure trove of vintage mystery paperbacks, some with really cool old Penguin covers.  I ended up with quite a stack of Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Ngaio Marsh books, all perfect for the Vintage Mystery Challenge hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block.

What books came into your house last week?

Kitchen Remodel, Week Fourteen: Let There Be Light!

We got light fixtures, knobs, and pulls this week.  With all those details in, it is hard to accept that we still have no tile, so are a long way from finishing.

I love the old fashioned "Edison" blubs in these Schoolhouse Electric fixtures.  One of Portland's oddest but best stores is Sunlan, home of "the light bulb lady," where you can buy any kind of light bulb ever made.  These look as much like the artisanal light bulbs on Portlandia as you can get.

Two books I read this week had a cooking theme.  The Hills of Tuscany by Ferenc Máté was a typical but still wonderful ex-pat memoir about a couple who moved to an old country house outside of the village of Montepulciano.  There are all kinds of descriptions of Tuscan food and wine that made me want to stomp grapes and smoke my own prosciutto.

Son of Holmes was an early effort by John Lescroart, who went on to write a successful mystery series, and spin offs, set in San Francisco and featuring lawyer and sometimes bartender Dismas Hardy. 

Son of Holmes is set in France in the early days of WWI, where a master spy rumored to be the son of Sherlock Holmes is under cover as a chef in a provincial town.  He drinks a lot of beer -- a LOT of beer -- and putters in the kitchen, but there isn't much discussion about the food he is supposedly cooking. 

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard

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.

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

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

Dale Crowe Junior told Kathy Baker, his probation officer, he didn't see where he had done anything wrong.

-- Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard. 

I haven't read an Elmore Leonard book in years.  I o.d.ed on them a while back so had to take a long break.

The Top 100 Books of the Twentieth Century by Image Journal

Image is a literary and arts journal (among other things) with a mission to "support and showcase art shaped by the faith traditions of western civilization." A central part of Image's calling is to showcase contemporary writing that "grapples in a serious way with religious faith."

Image compiled its Top 100 Books of the Twentieth Century list during the flurry of Top 100 lists made around the turn of the Millennium. The intent was to provide a "resource for those just starting to explore the great tradition and wondering where to begin." (Like so many other book lists created around this time, Image's Top 100 list is no longer available on Image's website. I first created my post back when the list was still available.) 

In selecting books for this list, Image listed an author only once in order to feature 100 different writers. Only "creative writing" was included – fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction. The editors selected works that "manifest a genuine engagement with the Judeo-Christian heritage of faith, rather than merely use religion as background or subject matter."

The idea of this list intrigues me. I don't know if I will ever finish all the books on it because there are a lot of poetry book and I am not a big poetry reader. It also includes some books that are out of print and hard to find, which is too bad. 

The books are listed in alphabetical order by the author's last name. I noted if I've read a book, if it is on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library.

Collected Poems by W.H. Auden

The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos

Sabbaths by Wendell Berry

77 Dream Songs by John Berryman

Souls Raised from the Dead by Doris Betts

The Woman Who was Poor by Leon Bloy

The Stories of Heinrich Boll by Heinrich Boll

A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt

Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury ON OVERDRIVE

Selected Poems by George Mackay Brown

Godric by Frederic Buechner

Recovered Body by Scott Cairns

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather FINISHED

The Man Who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton FINISHED

The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel

Many Things have Happened Since He Died by Elizabeth Dewberry

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard FINISHED

Selected Stories by Andre Dubus

Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot FINISHED

The Sin Eater by Alice Thomas Ellis

Silence by Shusaku Endo TBR SHELF

Collected Poems (The Residual Years; The Veritable Years) by William Everson

The Trip to Bountiful by Horton Foote

The Lady's Not for Burning by Christopher Fry

Saints and Villains by Denise Giardina

The Cypresses Believe in God by Jose Maria Gironella

Diaries by Julien Green

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene FINISHED

Virgin Time by Patricia Hampl

Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin ON OVERDRIVE

Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos

The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Peguy by Geoffrey Hill

Earthly Measures by Edward Hirsch

Great River by Paul Horgan

The Never-Ending by Andrew Hudgins

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving FINISHED

In the Crevice of Time: New and Selected Poems by Josephine Jacobsen

Questions for Ecclesiastes by Mark Jarman

Collected Poems by Elizabeth Jennings

The Anathemata by David Jones

The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis

Three Cheers for the Paraclete by Thomas Keneally

Ironweed by William Kennedy FINISHED

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb FINISHED

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott FINISHED

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle ON OVERDRIVE

The Stream and the Sapphire by Denise Levertov

The Mercy by Philip Levine

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis FINISHED

Light by Torgny Lindgren

Lord Weary's Castle by Robert Lowell

Salvage Operations by Paul Mariani

Viper's Tangle by Francois Mauriac FINISHED

Charming Billy by Alice McDermott FINISHED

Collected Poems by Thomas Merton

If I Had Wheels or Love: Collected Poems by Vassar Miller

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller FINISHED

Collected Poems by Czeslaw Milosz

Black Robe by Brian Moore

The Truest Pleasure by Robert Morgan

Chronicles of Wasted Time by Malcolm Muggeridge

Complete Poems by Edwin Muir

Collected Poems by Les Murray

Dakota by Kathleen Norris

The Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Patrick O'Brian ON OVERDRIVE

Short Stories by Flannery O'Connor TBR SHELF

If You do Love Old Men by Virginia Stem Owens

Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc by Charles Peguy

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy FINISHED

The Francoeur Trilogy by David Plante

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok 

The Presence of Grace by J.F. Powers

Three Gospels by Reynolds Price

Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers

Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone

New and Selected Poems by Louis Simpson

Collected Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ON OVERDRIVE

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark FINISHED

Hapgood by Tom Stoppard

Collected Poems by John Heath Stubbs

Collected Poems by Allen Tate

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien FINISHED

Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler 

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset FINISHED

In the Beauty of the Lillies by John Updike TBR SHELF

The Blood of the Lamb by Peter de Vries

Returning by Dan Wakefield

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr. ON OVERDRIVE

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh FINISHED

Night by Elie Wiesel FINISHED

New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur

All Hallows' Eve by Charles Williams

Wise Virgin by A.N. Wilson FINISHED

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

Beyond the Bedroom Wall by Larry Woiwode

In the Garden of the North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff


UPDATED 

October 26. 2023. So far, I've only read 20 of the 100 books. But there are several on my TBR shelf or available as audiobooks, so I will try to pay this list more attention -- even the poetry! 

Teaser Tuesday: The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese

But to condemn Camembert makers for wanting to change the recipe because they're "all about profit" is to condemn them for being traditional. No one in the history of Camembert has ever labored to make the cheese simply for the sheer joy of hard work.

 -- The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese by Kathe Lison.  I want to read this for the 2013 Foodies Read Challenge!

 The cover on mine, above, may be the ARC cover, because I got my copy from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. The official cover looks like this:



Both are cool, but I prefer the ARC. Which cover do you like better?


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