Teaser Tuesday Two-fer

. "To the north, the headlands jut through a bank of mist, and her hands fall to her sides, stilled by the sight. The spot she's resting on could well be the exact place where Charlies had stopped to paint his sunrise, for the angle of the headlands slanting into the sea could only have been captured from this vantage point." The Ice Chorus by Sarah Stonich. This book is pure indulgence. It is romantic and intelligent. I am thoroughly enjoying it. "We wanted to take the mystery out of good food and allow people to have an honest appreciation for it, and we've watched a new quest for excellence take place in Americans' attitudes towards foodstuffs. There is a sense of adventure, the redefinition of personal preferences." -- The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. This cookbook brings back dozens of cooking memories. This is what America has been eating and cooking for the last 30 years. . Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. .

Mailbox Monday

Thanks once again to the terrific contest on Reading Local, I have a great list of books for Mailbox Monday. Using my contest winnings from Annie Bloom Books, I got: Frank Lloyd Wright in New York: The Plaza Years 1954-1959 by Jane King Hession Frank Lloyd Wright Interactive Portfolio by Margo Stipe I chose Wallace Books when I won a gift certificate from Reading Local for the Portland book store of my choice. What a treasure trove of a book store! I got: The British Museum Is Falling Down (King Penguin) by David Lodge Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis Ending Up by Kingsley Amis The ABC of Canapes by Edna Beilenson Heavy Weather: A Blandings Story by P.G. Wodehouse The Lexicon: A Cornucopia of Wonderful Words for the Inquisitive Word Lover by William F. Buckley Jr. To Begin Again: Stories and Memoirs, 1908-1929 by M.F.K. Fisher .

Review of the Day: Julie & Julia

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Julie Powell took a clever idea born of personal desperation and used it to catapult into a new career as an author. Stuck in her dead-end temp job as a government secretary, and panicking over turning 30, Powell got the harebrained idea to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s most famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (volume one, at least), in one year. Her stroke of genius luck was to take her husband’s idea and log her daily progress on a blog she called the Julie/Julia Project, thus eventually earning her a book deal for Julie & Julia, a movie deal, and the enmity of hundreds of envious bloggers typing away in obscurity.

Unfortunately, the idea was better than the execution -- at least for readers hoping to learn about Julia Child and read about, well, cooking all the recipes in MtAoFC in one year. There is precious little discussion about Child, and not much about the cooking. Instead, ignoring the rule that “just because it happened to you does not make it interesting,” most of the book is about Powell’s dead-end temp job as a government secretary and panic over turning 30.

When Powell writes about the cooking, the book is very good -- witty, irreverent, and fresh. The passages about making Boeuf Bourguignon, her adventures with aspic, and her final triumphant duck de-boning make the book worthwhile. But digressions into Powell personal life, such as buying her friend a pink sex toy for her birthday or the sexual endowments of another friend’s married lover -- while they may be what made her blog so popular -- coarsen the story. Julie & Julia would be better with more MtAoFC and less Sex in the City.


NOTE: This was my memoir/biography choice for the Spice of Life Challenge.

OTHER REVIEWS

Book Psmith
ExUrbanis

(Many people reviewed this book. If you would like your review listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

List: Book Club

I love my book club. After refusing to join one for most of my life, Book Club is now the highlight of my social life. All the ladies are fun, interesting, and make a point of reading the books. We get into some great discussions -- as well as eat wonderful meals and laugh a lot. We even have a name for the club now, but it is top secret.

Unlike many book clubs, we do not have a theme and we do not create a list of books for the year. We meet every other month and rotate hosting duties. Sometimes the hostess cooks (or at least serves) a dinner that is related to the book somehow, so we have eaten Afghan food (A Thousand Splendid Suns), African food (Infidel), and had a picnic (I Capture the Castle), among other themed dinners. The hostess picks the book for the next gathering.

This is the list of books I've read since I joined in 2008, starting with the most recent and moving backwards:

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (reviewed here)

Tinkers by Paul Harding (Pulitzer winner; reviewed here)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (reviewed here) 

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

Honolulu by Alan Brennert

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (reviewed here)

Small Island by Andrea Levy (reviewed here)

The Red Tent  by Anita Diamant

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosna

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Davita's Harp by Chiam Potok

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Keysey

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

The Bone People by Keri Hulme (reviewed here)

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter

Leap of Faith by Queen Noor

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

NOTES

Updated on December 28, 2012. I do not usually review the books we read for book club. Apparently talking about them satisfies my analytic urge.
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Pants on Fire!

. This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks if we would lie about reading a book: "Two-thirds of Brits have lied about reading books they haven’t. Have you? Why? What book?" My answer? Not intentionally, only out of self-delusion. There are books that I am convinced I have read, either because they have been on my book shelf for as long as I can remember, so I think I must have read them at some point, or because the story is so famous and so familiar that I assume I read the book. Here are two examples of books that I had crossed off my various lists years ago. But something (yeah, a guilty conscious) tickled in the back of my brain until I actually opened them up and started reading -- just to make sure. Lo and behold! I hadn't read either one of these, even though I was convinced I had. Clarification: After reading J.G.'s comment, I see that this post wasn't terribly clear. When I realized that I had not read these books, I then read them. The reviews came AFTER I read them, I swear. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. On my shelf since high school. I was sure I had read it. Here is my review. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I knew all about Miss Havisham in her wedding dress and the spiders in the cake, so I must have read it, right? No. My loss. It is wonderful. Here is my review.