Mailbox Monday: On Cussing, The Friend, & Cape Mediterranean

I gathered a random assortment of books last week. What about you? What books came into your house last week?



The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. This book won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction, which is a list I am working on.

It sounds like a sad story but a good book about a woman who adopts her friend's Great Dane when her friend dies.



On Cussing by Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love. This is right up my alley, since the one thing law school taught me was how to swear. I found a copy of this gem, out last year from Tin House Books, at one of my favorite book stores, Cannon Beach Book Company.



Cape Mediterranean: The Way We Love to Eat by Ilse van der Merwe. This new cookbook comes out in February. I got a review copy because it sounds fascinating and yummy:

Cape Mediterranean food/cooking is a South African style of cooking and entertaining influenced by one of the oldest and arguably also the healthiest cuisines in the world. It has developed naturally from within the Western Cape due to its Mediterranean climate and the abundance of classic Mediterranean-style local produce. This book features more than 75 delectable recipes, from breads, dips and tapas, to lavish salads, succulent roasts, freshly made pastas and heavenly desserts. The recipes bring seasonal produce to the fore and the balance of dishes and ease of preparation will have you inviting friends and family over in no time to share in this veritable bounty.

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday, a weekly "show & tell" blog event where participants share the books they acquired the week before. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Mailbox Monday is graciously hosted by Leslie of Under My Apple Tree, Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, and Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf.

Book Beginning: The Ritornelo Game: A Marlonburg Story by Rhonda Chandler

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS
THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Professor Mark Newlin pushed the door of his classroom open on a late August morning, the first day of the semester, and realized three things.

-- The Ritornelo Game: A Marlonburg Story by Rhonda Chandler. This is the first book in a new series I stumbled across on Instagram. It sounds great!

Here's the publisher's description:

A family desperate for money. A child prodigy—the heir to the family fortune—missing. Riverview House holds many secrets.Mark Newlin is a history professor at Gold College in southwestern Illinois. When tragedy thrusts him into a life he doesn't want, well-meaning friends send him to a bed-and-breakfast on the river for rest and healing. But Riverview House is not the peaceful retreat described in the brochure.A nineteenth-century mansion built on the upper Mississippi River, for years it was the symbol of the Channon family's prestige and their right to a place in American aristocracy. After several generations, the family has lost most of its money, and none of its arrogance. And the future of everything depends on one man. The heir to the Channon fortune. Whom no one has heard of for years.Mark and his assistant Sean Merritt find themselves in the midst of an unusual family gathering. Against his will, Mark is drawn into the Channon family's struggles. And as his concern for the heir's welfare increases, he discovers the power to heal in the most unlikely place.

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.

SOCIAL MEDIA: If you are on Twitter, Instagram, 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. Please find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING





TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

Mark had a sudden impulse to hurl the tray at him. He took a bite of toast instead.

Teaser Tuesday: Lara Tupper and Billy Lombardo

Both Lara Tupper and Billy Lombardo are showing up here for Teaser Tuesday because I missed last week so am doubling up.

(1) Lara Tupper has a new book out this month called Off Island that is my favorite kind of historical fiction novel, one that weaves in a contemporary story line.

In Off Island, Tupper creates an imagined history of artist Paul Guaguin, famed for his vibrant paintings from the South Seas, visiting an island off the coast of Maine. A hundred years later, a contemporary painter finds the paintings and letters Gauguin left behind, and learns maybe Guaguin also left a family in Maine.



TEASER

The tails  of the Pastor's coat flapped as he watched the sun sink behind the buffer island, a slash of red caught in the hermit's broken window. Like the light was stuck there.

Off Island by Lara Tupper, from Encircle Publications.

(2) Billy Lombardo's novel, Morning Will Come, launches this month as well. It's the story of a couple with three kids learning to cope after their oldest daughter disappears. I admit it sounds so sad I haven't dived in. But I've dipped my toes and it looks more hopeful than it sounds.



Morning Will Come by Billy Lombardo, from Tortoise Books.

TEASER

She'd loop her arm through his and maybe he wouldn't lock his arm, maybe he would loosen it and keep it there for the two-block walk to his apartment, Maybe he would say he missed her.

SLOW BLOGGING WEEK!

I didn't get much posted the past week because things have been hopping at work. Catlin Gabel, a private school here in Portland, released a report last month identifying nine child molesters who worked at the school from the 1960s to 2016.  My law partner and I specialize in representing sexual abuse survivors. We filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of one of the Catlin Gabel survivors.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by The Purple Booker. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from the book they are reading or featuring. Please remember to include the name of the book and the author. You can share your teaser in a comment below, or with a comment or link at the Teaser Tuesday site, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Book Beginning: Morning Will Come by Billy Lombardo

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS
THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Curbside at the United terminal, Alan Taylor looks for a green Mazda with his wife in the driver's seat, three kids in the back. 

Morning Will Come by Billy Lombardo. The story of a marriage and family struggling with the disappearance of the oldest daughter.

Morning Will Come is a "re-issued, re-titled, re-edited, re-beautifully jacketed version" of Lombardo's 2009 novel, How to Hold a Woman. The cover is riveting. This new edition is available for pre-sale from Tortoise Books and launches this month.

From the back cover:

Alan and Audrey Taylor are raising three children and coping with the demands of busy careers when their eldest child, Isabel, on the verge of precocious womanhood, goes missing in the middle of the night. Thus begins this intimate portrait of a barely functioning family left to decipher the mysteries of how to go on in the aftermath of violence and loss. Morning Will Come, a haunting, sometimes raw exploration of grief, is also by turns hilarious and sexy, exploring the bonds of blood and the redemptive power of love.

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.

SOCIAL MEDIA: If you are on Twitter, Instagram, 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. Please find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING





TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

Her eyes adjusted to the dim glow of the city lights filtered through the cloth dressings of the windows on either side of his bed. She tiptoed deeper into the room, toward the left side of his bed.

Book List: Books Read in 2019

Every January, I make a list of the books I read the past year. I usually read a 100+ and 2019 was the same. I read 104 books in 2019. Some were very short; some were very long. A few seemed longer than they were.

I'm trying to be less stingy about giving five stars. I've always reserved five for classics or a very few all-time favorites. I'm going start giving five stars for books I really enjoyed and would recommend generally; four for books I liked and would recommend to people who enjoy that type of book; three if I was lukewarm on it or if liked it personally, but wouldn't think of recommending it; two if I didn't like it; and one if I really didn't like it.

MY LIST OF 2019 BOOKS, IN THE ORDER I READ THEM

Educated by Tara Westover ⭐⭐⭐

The Jewel in the Crown (The Raj Quartet, Book I) by Paul Scott ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan ⭐⭐⭐

The Day of the Scorpion (The Raj Quartet, Book II) by Paul Scott ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You by Donna Cameron (my interview with Donna Cameron is here) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Towers of Silence (The Raj Quartet, Book III) by Paul Scott ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Henri, le Chat Noir: The Existential Musings of an Angst-Filled Cat by William Bradon ⭐⭐⭐

Slam by Nick Hornby ⭐⭐⭐ ½ 

The Girl from Oto by Amy Maroney (my interview with Amy Maroney is here) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Shame of Losing by Sarah Cannon (my interview with Sarah Cannon is here) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

An Affair with a House by Bunny Williams ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Tenth Man by Graham Greene ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Friend of My Springtime by Willa Cather ⭐⭐

Licking Flames: Tales of a Half-Assed Hussy by Diana Kirk (my interview with Diana Kirk is here) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Division of Spoils (The Raj Quartet, Book IV) by Paul Scott ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mark Hampton on Decorating by Mark Hampton ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In the Woods by Tana French ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Staying On by Paul Scott (Booker Prize winner) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Blood, Salt, Water by Denise Mina ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith ⭐⭐⭐

Queen of Spades by Michael Shou-Yung Shum ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Headlong by Michael Frayn ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Vengeance by Benjamin Black ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Robineau Look by Kathleen Moore Knight ⭐⭐⭐½ 

I'd Rather Be Reading: A Library of Art for Book Lovers by Guinevere De La Mare⭐⭐⭐⭐

Agents and Patients by Anthony Powell ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson ⭐⭐⭐

Collected Poems: 1944-1979 (NYRB Poets) by Kingley Amis (including A Case of Samples, Poems 1946-1956 and A Look Round the Estate, Poems 1957-67) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Woman of Means by Peter Taylor ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Someone by Alice McDermott ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Poorhouse Fair by John Updike ⭐⭐⭐½ 

A Man of Property (The Forsyte Saga, Book I) by John Galsworthy ⭐⭐⭐⭐

In Chancery (The Forsyte Saga, Book II) by John Galsworthy ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Girl, 20 by Kingsley Amis ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante ⭐⭐

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance by Ben Sasse ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ 

To Let (The Forsyte Saga, Book III) by John Galsworthy ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Imitation Game by Ian McEwan ⭐⭐⭐

Wise Virgin by A. N. Wilson ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Best of Friends by Joanna Trollope ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Uneasy Money by P. G. Wodehouse ⭐⭐⭐½ 

The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lila by Marilynne Robinson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold John le Carre ⭐⭐⭐

Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Backwards in High Heels: The Impossible Art of Being Female by Tania Kindersley ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

There There by Tommy Orange ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lady Into Fox by David Garnett (James Tait Black Memorial Prize Winner) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery by Kyril Bonfiglioli ⭐⭐⭐

Conquests and Cultures: An International History by Thomas Sowell ⭐⭐⭐

Trove: A Woman's Search for Truth and Buried Treasure by Sandra A. Miller ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Power by Naomi Alderman ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Something Special by Iris Murdoch ⭐⭐⭐

Dirty Friends by Morris Lurie ⭐⭐⭐

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Gift of a Letter: Giving the Gift of Ourselves -- Add Richness and Grace to Your Life Through the Art of Letter-writing by Alexandra Stoddard ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brene Brown ⭐⭐⭐⭐

And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Do the Windows Open? by Julie Hecht ⭐⭐⭐

The Dying Animal by Philip Roth ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Little Book of Lykke: Secrets of the World’s Happiest People by Meik Wiking ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke ⭐⭐⭐

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Small Room by May Sarton ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Heart-Keeper by Françoise Sagan ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Levels of Life by Julian Barnes ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Gourmands' Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy by Justin Spring ⭐⭐⭐⭐

It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty and Other Tragedies of Married Life by Judith Viorst ⭐⭐⭐

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

First Love by Joyce Carol Oates ⭐⭐⭐

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mira's Way by Amy Maroney ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Birds of Wonder by Cynthia Robinson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Cat Abroad by Peter Gethers ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Rash by Lisa Kusel ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Suitable Vengeance by Elizabeth George ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Milkman by Anna Burns ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Professor's House by Willa Cather ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Shattered by Dick Francis ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Hunter by John Lescroart ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Before Lunch by Angella Thirkell ⭐⭐⭐½ 

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Final Verdict by Sheldon Siegel ⭐⭐⭐½

The Secret of Clouds by Alyson Richman

The Adults by Caroline Hulse ⭐⭐⭐⭐



NOTE

I usually link to amazon because I know I like to have a link to a book when I want more information about it and amazon is a clearinghouse of information. But I know some people dislike amazon. Please don't take offence. Feel free to find books and information wherever you chose.