Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

Obsessed by Elisabeth Bronfen.

The book is being released by Rutgers University Press on August 9, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: Even the most brilliant minds have to eat. And for some scholars, food preparation is more than just a chore; it’s a passion. In this unique culinary memoir and cookbook, renowned cultural critic Elisabeth Bronfen tells of her lifelong love affair with cooking and demonstrates what she has learned about creating delicious home meals. She recounts her cherished food memories, from meals eaten at the family table in postwar Germany to dinner parties with friends. Yet, in a thoughtful reflection on the pleasures of cooking for one, she also reveals that some of her favorite meals have been consumed alone.

Though it contains more than 250 mouth-watering recipes, Obsessed is anything but a conventional cookbook. As she shares a lifetime of knowledge acquired in the kitchen, Bronfen hopes to empower both novice and experienced home chefs to improvise, giving them hints on how to tweak her recipes to their own tastes. And unlike cookbooks that assume readers have access to an unlimited pantry, this book is grounded in reality, offering practical advice about food storage and reusing leftovers. As Bronfen serves up her personal stories and her culinary wisdom, reading Obsessed is like sitting down to a home-cooked meal with a clever friend.

Review: America for Beginners by Leah Franqui

Travel broadens the mind and the heart. When you venture out from your own home, whether within your own country or further afield, you not only encounter people who are different from you, but you also see the similarities, the universalities with people who might once have seemed profoundly unlike you. These realizations can change people unimaginably, alter their beliefs and help them see themselves as citizens of a kinder, wider world. In Leah Franqui's novel America for Beginners, her main characters all open their hearts and minds in ways they could never have envisioned when their cross country tour started.

Pival is newly widowed and wealthy. She spent many years of her marriage obeying her husband, making his life comfortable, keeping up appearances, and never (overtly) questioning his edicts about their life. She has felt trapped for too long. Now that Ram is gone, she decides that she is going to leave India and go on a tour of the United States. She's going to find out if it is true that her beloved only son Rahi is dead. Ram had declared him dead when Rahi came out as gay to his parents, disowning the young man completely and requiring Pival to disown him as well, but she knew he wasn't dead, at least not then. Then came a long distance phone call to Ram that confirmed Rahi's death. But she's never been sure if the phone call was true or not and she's determined to find out. She plans to travel the US, seeing sights and slowly making her way to California to the address where Rahi and his partner lived, to find out the truth about his life, love, and his untimely death, and finally to die herself. She does not share her purpose and intentions with tour company owner Ronnie, new guide Satya, or Rebecca, the American unemployed actress hired as a companion to accompany Pival for propriety's sake.

Pival is a wonderful character, having endured an unhappy marriage, now having the chance to come into her own and take charge of her own life. She is burdened by regret and grief, not for her late husband but for her beloved son, her reason for living. While her journey, physically and emotionally, takes center stage here, there are other journeys of the heart and head paralleling Pival's and highlighting the differences and hurts that arise amongst families and friends. Jake, Rahi's partner, is not on the cross country odyssey with Pival but he is also on an emotional journey, grieving his partner and blaming and loathing the parents who could hurt Rahi (also known as Bhim) so badly simply for being himself. The narration focuses on four characters, Pival, Jake, Satya, and Rebecca, giving each of them an extensive backstory, setting them up for their own emotional journeys. The book brims with emotion, sadness and comedy both. The stops on the tour are just tiny pieces of the puzzle that is the US, just as each of the characters is one part of a larger whole of humanity but they, country and characters, are parts that it was wonderful to spend time exploring. The book itself is not so much about the road trip and the sights the characters see as it is about self-discovery and cracking open your own heart, seeing past prejudice and recognizing our commonality. This is a big-hearted, funny, and affecting book about love and grief and regret and hope. It was also a selection for the 2018 Great Group Reads list put out by the Women's National Book Association for National Reading Group Month so it would be perfect for reading and discussing in a book club.

For more information about Leah Franqui and the book, check our her author website, like her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or Instagram, look at the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and publisher William Morrow for inspiring me to finally write a review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

Cornelius Sky by Timothy Brandoff.

The book is being released by Kaylie Jones Books on August 6, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: Cornelius Sky is a doorman in a posh Fifth Avenue apartment building that houses New York City’s elite, including a former First Lady whose husband was assassinated while in office. It is 1974 and New York City is heading toward a financial crisis. At work, Connie prides himself on his ability to buff a marble floor better than anyone, a talent that so far has kept him from being fired for his drinking. He pushes the boundaries of his duties, partying and playing board games with the former First Lady’s lonely thirteen-year-old son in the service stairwell—the only place where the boy is not spied upon mercilessly by the tabloid press and his Secret Service detail.

Connie believes he is the only one who can offer the boy true solace and companionship. But at home, his wife and sons are furious at him and can’t take another minute of his antics. Connie is haunted by memories of his troubled childhood, and the worse things are at home, the more attached he gets to the fatherless boy.

When Connie’s wife changes the locks, he finds himself wandering the mean streets of the city in his doorman’s uniform, where he encounters unlikely angels who offer him a path toward redemption. Cornelius Sky is an elegant picaresque that beautifully captures a city on the edge of ruin, from its richest and most privileged heights, to its poorest and most depraved corners.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Floating Feldmans by Elyssa Friedland.

The book is being released by Berkley on July 23, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: Sink or swim

Too bad her kids didn’t get the memo.

Between the troublesome family secrets, old sibling rivalries, and her two teenage grandkids, Annette’s birthday vacation is looking more and more like the perfect storm. Adrift together on the open seas, the Feldmans will each face the truths they’ve been ignoring–and learn that the people they once thought most likely to sink them are actually the ones who help them stay afloat.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong.

The book is being released by Scribe US on July 16, 2019.

The book's jacket copy says: Park Minwoo is, by every measure, a success story. Born into poverty in a miserable neighborhood of Seoul, he has ridden the wave of development in a rapidly modernizing society. Now the director of a large architectural firm, his hard work and ambition have brought him triumph and satisfaction. But when his company is investigated for corruption, he’s forced to reconsider his role in the transformation of his country.

At the same time, he receives an unexpected message from an old friend, Cha Soona, a woman that he had once loved, and then betrayed. As memories return unbidden, Minwoo recalls a world he thought had been left behind―a world he now understands that he has helped to destroy.

From one of Korea's most renowned and respected authors, At Dusk is a gentle yet urgent tale about the things, and the people, that we abandon in our never-ending quest to move forward.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this week are:

Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain
Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers by the New York Public Library The Honey Bus by Meredith May
The Liar in the Library by Simon Brett
The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib
Church of the Graveyard Saints by C. Joseph Greaves

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
The Bottom of the Sky by Rodrigo Fresan
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
The Confessions of Young Nero by Margaret George
A Moveable Feast edited by Don George
Speaking of Summer by Kalisha Buckhannon
Breaking the Ocean by Annahid Dashtgard
Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery by John Gregory Brown
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton
The Ventriloquists by E.R. Ramzipoor
The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell

Reviews posted this week:

nothing at all :-(

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Magnetic Girl by Jessica Handle
Oh, Tama! by Mieko Kanai
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Exposure by Jean-Philippe Blondel
Here I Am! by Pauline Holdstock
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar by Olga Wojtas
Ways to Hide in Winter by Sarah St. Vincent
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
Granny’s Got a Gun by Harper Lin
White Elephant by Julie Langsdorf
At Briarwood School for Girls by Michael Knight
The Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel
All Ships Follow Me by Mieke Eerkens
Like This Afternoon Forever by Jaime Manrique
Gravity Well by Melanie Joosten
Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austin
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Dear Baba by Maryam Rafiee
Saint Everywhere by Mary Lea Carroll
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Tonic and Balm by Stephanie Allen
Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons
In the Shadow of Wolves by Alvydas Slepikas
The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin
CinderGirl by Christina Meredith
The Death of Noah Glass by Gail Jones
The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis
Autopsy of a Boring Wife by Marie-Renee Lavoie
The Fragments by Toni Jordan
The Question Authority by Rachel Cline
The Plaza by Julie Satow
The Lonely Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya
Portugal by Cyril Pedrosa
To Keep the Sun Alive by Rabeah Ghaffari
Haben by Haben Girma
The Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester
Educated by Tara Westover
State of the Union by Nick Hornby
Turbulence by David Szalay
Southernmost by Silas House
What a Body Remembers by Karen Stefano
The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar
Questions I Am Asked About the Holocaust by Hedi Fried
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain
Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers by the New York Public Library The Honey Bus by Meredith May
The Liar in the Library by Simon Brett
The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib
Church of the Graveyard Saints by C. Joseph Greaves

Monday Mailbox

A great looking duo arrived this week. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Rush by Lisa Patton came from St. Martin's Press.

I never joined a sorority but I have it on good authority (from other non-sorority girls and even one non-girl) that this story of a Southern sorority and the people inside it and out, wealthy and poor, who are affected by it is a wonderful read.

The Ravenmaster by Christopher Skaife came from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Who wouldn't be fascinated by the life a a yeoman warder and the ravens in the Tower of London? I am completely intrigued and can't wait to read this one.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.