Hiding in the security of all things books, with some movies and tv - occasionally food...
Early last week Harper Collins hosted a release party for Joe Nesbø’s new book, The Devil’s Star – the latest in a series of novels about Norwegian detective, Harry Hole. I am always on the look out for a well written detective series, and while catching up with Amanda (Life and Times of A “New” [...]
Emma is a new bride who comes to town when she marries the young doctor, Will Fitch. Frankie Bard is one of the first female journalists assigned to covering the war overseas, and though she is supposed to be dispassionate, sometimes the gravity of events creeps into her voice anyway. Iris James is the new [...]
I was at the grocery store the other day and as I was wandering up and down the aisles I started thinking about short stories and how much I used to like them when I was younger and why I have less patience for them now. I think part of the reason is that I [...]
Paula Butturini and her husband John Tagliabue grew up in a rich Italian tradition that both celebrates and takes equal comfort in the preparation and sharing of meals with family members and friends. When they met, they seemed like a natural match for one another, and spent four happy years as a couple, holding down [...]
One Amazing Thing, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni opens with a young woman sitting in an Indian passport and visa office in an unidentified city in the United States (my guess is somewhere in California), observing the employees and the other varied strangers seeking travel visas to India. An older couple with marital problems, an ex-soldier [...]
Irene and Lily are best friends. Lily grows up the adored child of older parents while Irene’s family life is less than ideal or stable. Trouble with boys leads the girls to be separated when Lily’s stricter parents send her to school at a convent, while Irene continues to attend the same school that both [...]
This is the first book that I have re-read this year and probably only the second book that I have re-read in the past couple of years, the other being Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Originally my copy belonged to my aunt. She told me that it was one of her favorite books (she [...]
Ray Townes and his wife Mary have had a mostly antagonistic relationship over the fifty odd years of their marriage. Unfortunately their problems started relatively early – stemming from the events surrounding 1954- the year that Hurricane Hazel hit Toronto, and the year that Ray became a hero saving people all up and down the [...]
Pearlie and Holland are childhood sweethearts from Kentucky who have found each other again after being separated when Holland went off to war. Holland is a troubled man when he returns and though his elderly spinster aunts try to warn Pearlie that she should not marry Holland on account of his being “ill”, they only [...]
“The subject of his book was umami, a Japanese word that translates as “perfection”, usually as it relates to food. Umami also translates as “the fifth taste”, best described for Westerners as “savory”. The other tastes are sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Umami is the feeling of mouthwatering deliciousness during, and complete satiety after, a [...]