Books Completed Since November 1

  Lab Girl, Hope Jahren
This is the memoir of Jahren, who grew up the daughter of a scientist and always found emotional comfort in the laboratory, since her emotionally-distant family didn't show her much attention. She became a paleobotanist (like Elly Sattler in Jurassic Park) and this is the story of her career, from education to junior and then senior scientist. Suffering from bipolar disease, she's supported by an offbeat partner named Bill, who's a top-notch scientist but massively eccentric (during part of his childhood he lived in a hole in the backyard; Jahren doesn't reveal what made him do this until about halfway through the book). It's the story of road trips, building laboratories, taking students on digs (and on unauthorized excursions afterwards, like their trip to the Monkey Jungle in Florida), with Jahren's musings on plant life on Earth.

This is an oddly compelling book, although the narrative is very...odd. Jahren starts out by saying Scandinavian families are generally unemotional, which I think is very odd; I know Scandinavian families and they are usually very affectionate. Perhaps the fact that she was bipolar colored her opinion. Bill is also a very odd person, although you find out about halfway through the book that he's had acceptance problems through his life. The final part of the book addresses Jahren's marriage sketchily—it's hard to discern what she and Clint saw in each other.

The botanical parts are pretty interesting; she addresses things about plants I'd never heard of and it's interesting to read about her research.

  Re-read: Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday, James W. Baker
This is a very readable history of the "all-American holiday" that works very well as a companion piece to Diana Appelbaum's Thanksgiving, but is an easier read without being simplistic. It also touches more on things like images, writings, and films portraying Thanksgiving, changes in "traditional foods" in the intervening years, how the holiday has been infantilized by the iconic use of Pilgrim and "Indian" icons, and the inclusion of parades and football games as part of the "tradition," turning Thanksgiving into the opening salvo for the Christmas season. The one thing that this book makes very clear is that the "iconic" Thanksgiving imagery of Pilgrims and Native Americans only became emphasized at the very end of the 19th century and during the early decades of the 20th, back when the United States became flooded with non-English speaking immigrants whom the schools wished to impress upon some idea of the country's heritage. Previous to that it was just a New England holiday which spread as New England residents moved westward, and involved reunions with family and friends. Even stories about Thanksgiving mostly emphasized reunions between estranged or long-parted relatives; "the first Thanksgiving" was not mentioned.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to know more about the history of the Thanksgiving holiday and its changing face over four centuries.

  Bookish and the Beast, Ashley Poston
This is actually a young adult romance book, third in a series, but I bought it because the female protagonist was a book lover and went to SF conventions, and I loved Poston's The Dead Romantics.

I have to say the teen protagonists acted a lot more adult than the last few adult rom-coms I've read!

The story: Vance Reigns, teen star of the Starfire series, has been banished to his godfather's house in a small town in North Carolina after yet another bad-boy action. There he meets Rosie Thorne, still smarting from the death of her mother a year earlier. After almost hitting Vance's dog Sansa with her car, she follows the dog, enters the house, and accidentally damages a valuable Starfire book, so Vance's godfather lets her work it off by arranging the books in the house's huge library. Vance treats her rudely and she avoids him in return, neither of them knowing that earlier in the year, in costume, they met at a convention and enjoyed each other's company.

The usual misunderstandings abound, especially since Vance, due to his growing up as a Hollywood brat, is cynical and has ceased believing that people befriend him for any other reason than to get something out of him, and there's an interesting subplot about Rosie trying to escape the clutches of an egotistical classmate who won't take "no" for an answer. But for a teen romance, the story is pretty good and not at all cringey as I got during the rom-coms I got from Kindle Unlimited!

  America Eats!, Pat Willard
During the Depression, the WPA sponsored several literary and arts programs to put people back to work. One of the later projects was to be a collection of essays about the different regional foods of the United States. Unfortunately, the WPA was dismantled by the Supreme Court before the project could be completed and published.

Pat Willard found the decrepit old boxes with the material collected for the project and here in this book publishes some of the essays written back in the 1930s, then follows up by going to the individual region and seeing if the customs still exist (it's interesting to know that in some cases they have persisted, if in a minor way). The original essays are fascinating, although they do contain some ethnic and racial terms that might be problematic today. The book's contents are arranged by events rather than regions, so you'll get an account of making authentic Brunswick stew (squirrel meat is essential) next to a "booya" picnic from Minnesota, men running a barbecue at a political gathering who shoo women away because they "stop the meat from breathing" in Mississippi to chicken pilau ("perlow") and conch feasts in Florida, tales of church suppers in Georgia and in Indiana, lodge dinners, food in migrant camps, and more. If you are fond of food history, this is the book for you!

  The Trouble With Hating You, Sajni Patel
Liya Thakkar's conservative Indian parents think their "wild" Americanized daughter will never get married; without telling her, they invite her to dinner to meet handsome Jay Shah and his mother, the object being marriage. When Liya, a successful biochemical engineer, discovers what dinner's all about, she flees, knocking down Jay and, by leaving, insulting his mother. Later she discovers Jay is the attorney who's been hired to help salvage her faltering employer, and she's supposed to work closely with him. Angry, she accepts a date with a guy named Mike, who doesn't want to take no for an answer and leaves her stranded. Who rescues her but Jay Shah?

This was a very enjoyable rom-com compared to some of the ones I read. Liya and Jay are sensible adults, although Liya is hiding a terrible secret, and as they get to know each other, they slowly become friends while both Liya and Jay are juggling social engagements: Liya's best friend is about to be married and Jay's sister is expecting her first child. It was enjoyable to read about traditional Indian marriage customs melding with American ones, and I was thirsting so much for the sanctimonious and evil characters in the story to get theirs (I sure hope Jay did what he said he would, because one person so deserves whatever they get!).

  Gulp, Mary Roach
Since the library got rid of all the Native American books I was planning to read this year, I decided to read a couple of food books for November instead. This one is the decidedly offbeat one: Roach does science books like Packing for Mars and Stiff (about cadavers); this one is about the ingestion of nutrients, from what smell has to do with taste (a lot, as people who contracted COVID-19 discovered) to the new medical practice of injecting fecal matter into sick people's colons (after they have contracted C. diff or other diseases) to cure them. In between we investigate how pets' tastes differ from ours, the fad for Fletcherization and how it wasn't true, the importance of saliva, if you can be swallowed alive, prisoners in jail hiding things...well, you know where, farts and how they grow, dying by constipation, and more, in seventeen delightful chapters.

Roach's writing is instructive without being boring, entertaining without being offensive, and just plain interesting. If you ever wanted the skinny on eating, digesting, and eliminated, this is the book for you.

  A Monmouthshire Christmas, Maria & Andrew Hubert

  The Dead of Winter, Nicola Upson

  The 12 Birds of Christmas, Stephen Moss

A'Book Sale-ing...

It's hard to drag me out of bed these days. Except for two days ago; Friday I was up before the alarm, dressing, breakfasting, and "perambulating the pooch." What causeth such furor? What else? It was library book sale day!

Arrived there fifteen minutes early to find lines trailing out either end of the entrances to the Cobb County Civic Center. Since I've had such poor luck with the children's books since they moved from Jim Miller Park, I decided to start downstairs instead where all the nonfiction and hardback fiction was. Ended up in line behind an old hippie with a silvery ponytail wearing a cowboy hat. The usual complement of SAHMs and elderly were the majority of the crowd, dragging anything capable of holding a load: reusable shopping bags like me, luggage carriers, boxes on wheels, large suitcases, red wagons... The doors opened promptly at nine and off we went. After two hours upstairs and downstairs (finding nothing I'd hoped to find), there I was with

 The Corfu Trilogy, Gerald Durrell (reading this already; just don't expect it to be a lot like The Durrells in Corfu)

 Life Among the Savages/Raising Demons, Shirley Jackson (because I loved her short story "Charles" so much; part of a longer sequence in this book)

 Neither Wolf Nor Dog, Kent Herburn (man tours West with Native American guide; figure if I'm watching Molly of Denali I should also be learning more about other Native cultures)

 A Book of Christmas Folklore, Tristram P. Coffin (I've borrowed this from the library before, liked it enough to want to own it)

 Memorable Christmas Stories (book of short stories from a Mormon publisher; Chicken Soup for the Soul-type stuff)

 Letters from the Editor, the correspondence of Harold Ross (the original editor of "The New Yorker")

 Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul, John Barry (one of the two Roger Williams books out there)

 Crossing Antarctica, Will Steger (by dogsled in 1990)

 Time to Be in Earnest, P.D. James ("fragments" of an autobiography, as she calls it)

If you know me, you also know that is never that. Yes, as soon as I finished all my chores today, I left James to his telephone calls and headed back over there about 12:30 p.m. Sunday is "box day," and no matter how big a box you bring in, you can fill it for $20. I just brought a shopping bag, and I'm a piker. I was in line behind the hippie with the ponytail again, and he had the box a combination TV/VCR came in (he must have been saving that a while!). Someone near the front of the line had a refrigerator box! In fact, several people in line had huge boxes and I feared for the books.

I needn't have feared: the people with the biggest boxes went straight to the CDs and DVDs and just swept them into the boxes with great sweeps of their arms and left the books alone. They are probably going to re-sell them on EBay, pawn them, or turn them in for credit or cash at places like 2nd and Charles or McKay's or CD Warehouse. (James thinks they are buying them for their own resale shops. I did always dream about having a used bookstore and picking up my original stock at library book sales.)

Anyway, the books were all left, in nice straight lines, for we searchers for the perfect read.

 More Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things by Reader's Digest (love these books; they're like peanuts, so I get them cheap)

 America Celebrates! A Patchwork of Weird & Wonderful Holiday Lore, Hennig Cohen and our old friend Tristram P. Coffin (wow! even Native American celebrations——all they missed was Day of the Dead)

 Travels, Michael Crichton (which I've been looking for at a booksale for ages; now if I could have only found a book on Dorothy Kilgallen...)

 Spice: The History of a Temptation, Jack Turner (not just for eating; the book opened to advice to guys on how to improve your sex life with a honey and ginger rub)

 Boston: A Social History, Brett Howard (Alcott, Holmes, and even Ponzi!)

 North to the Night, Alvah Simon (couple sails the Arctic Ocean)

 A Country Life: Scenes from a Veterinary Life, Douglas Whynott (I adore vet memoirs; this one takes place in New Hampshire)

 Thurber on Crime, James Thurber (the only fiction I bought, collection of Thurber shorts with a mystery theme, including my favorite "The Macbeth Murder Mystery")

I also bought, although it sounds kind of odd, a book called How to Care for Aging Parents. I am done with that, and James' mom is cared for very well and very ably by my sister-in-law, but I looked at it as "well, we're the aging ones now, so maybe there are some good tips for us." Maybe it sounds strange. Whatever.

Books Completed Since May 1

 Victoria, A.N. Wilson
While Daisy Goodwin has used several sources for her scripts for the British series Victoria, this, I learned, was the primary text from which her story was taken. I had previously read Wilson's The Victorians and therefore greeted this new book with optimism and was rewarded with a very readable biography, which, of course, begins with Victoria's forebears and "the baby race" that was necessary after the death of George IV's daughter Charlotte to provide an heir to the British throne.

Wilson wants to emphasize the point that while most people remember the later images of Queen Victoria, the chubby old lady with the sour face whose trademark line was always the parody "We are not amused," Victoria was once a lively, vivacious young lady, held under the thumb of her mother, who loved her but was never acknowledged by the royal family, and her mother's ambitious advisor Sir John Conroy, who nursed a long-standing belief that he deserved to be part of the ruling class. She had decided opinions, but would listen to others if sufficiently intrigued, and was more cunning than her prime ministers, Parliament, and other members of the family believed.

Learned many interesting things about "the John Brown affair" and also about Victoria's later friendship with her Indian servant "the Munshi," and, sadly, the imperious way she treated her own children even after the way she felt she had been take advantage of. "Bertie," later Edward VII, was left to his own devices (which turned out to be gambling and womanizing) when Victoria refused to allow him to learn statecraft from her (a privilege she extended to her hemophilic son Leopold), and the youngest, Beatrice ("Baby"), was expected to stay a spinster and provide companionship to her mother, something Beatrice eventually thwarted. And of course Victoria's passionate romance with Albert, whom she originally dismissed as a spousal choice, is well covered.

Wilson's prose makes Victoria come alive as a real woman with weaknesses and with a great deal of strength. Enjoyable throughout.

 Murder in the Bowery, Victoria Thompson
Frank Molloy's newest client in his still fairly new role as private investigator is a well-groomed young man named Will Bert who's searching for his younger brother, Freddie. Will and Freddie were sent West on an orphan train where Will found a sympathetic guardian and made good while Freddie ran away from his new family and is now supposedly back in New York. But the orphan train organization has no record of either boy, and Freddie is know in the newsboy community as "Two Toes" due to an accident—and he has no brother. Plus the search for Freddie has turned up another death, that of a young society woman named Estelle Longacre who enjoyed "slumming" in tours of the poor neighborhoods in the Bowery.

This is an absorbing entry in the series which mixes a real historic event—the newsboys' strike of 1899 (which inspired the cult musical Newsies)—with the mysteries of the missing Freddie and the murdered Estelle. It also exposes the seedy underbelly of not only the New York slums, but of dark secrets that underscored the life of the wealthy, leading to a rather creepy revelation and also a bit of vigilante justice.

Also enjoyed seeing Maeve chivvying the hotel remodelers!

  100 Life Hacks, Dan Grabham
It was a dollar, what can I say? Just what the cover says: tips, tricks and other "life hacks," from using a large paper clip as a makeshift phone stand to advice for doing better at work. Don't pay a lot; but you may find several good ideas.

 Curious New England, Citro and Gould
Picked this up for a dollar at a book sale. It's a tongue-in-cheek listing of all the strange exhibits, sights, monuments, and museums that can be found in the six states. Do you know colonies of parrots live in Connecticut? Or that there's a nut museum there as well? Would you like to visit a three-story outhouse? Head to Maine, where you'll also find a desert, remains of a Nazi POW camp, and a stove museum. Massachusetts boasts the Ether Dome in Boston, Fall River's Lizzie Borden tour, and a house made of paper. Visit a cuff link museum, a neolithic settlement, and a museum of American life during WWII in New Hampshire, and a pet cemetery of the rich and famous, a butterfly farm, and Nibbles the giant termite in Rhode Island. And wait, you're not finished: Vermont holds cursed mineral springs, its own personal "Loch Ness" monster (known as "Champ"), and a smelly rotten sneaker display. But wait, there's more!

Fun to read, probably more fun to visit.

 The Silver Gun, L.A. Chandlar
I started this book with such promise.

Lane Sanders is challenged and left breathless by her job assisting New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, a short, squat piston of perpetual motion who keeps her on her toes. She has lived with her Bohemian aunt since her parents died, looked after by Aunt Evelyn's enigmatic majordomo Mr. Kirkland, gets on well with her co-worker and friend Valerie; less well with her other office mates Lizzie and Roxy, and she maintains a friendly but platonic relationship with a reporter named Rourke. LaGuardia is determined to rout out crime in his beloved city and frequently receives threats against his life, but Lane is still startled when one of those threats is delivered directly to her. And then someone tries to push her in front of a subway train.

There are several mysteries going on here: the threat to LaGuardia, the identity of a creepy-looking guy with long nose hairs that keeps showing up at events that LaGuardia attends, the handsome man with a British accent who steals Lane's heart at a dance hall, and an image that continually turns up in her dreams: a silver gun with elaborate red scrollwork on it that turns out to have something to do with her deceased parents. So there are lots of subplots, twists, and downright surprises in the plot, which starts with Lane at a run and just keeps her running.

And then it happened. Three times in two pages a police character referred to an unmarried woman as "Ms." Really? Really? You go through all this work developing a 1930s background and details (except for minor, maddening modernisms that crept in, like Lane and her mysterious guy dancing to a song that was written in the 1950s) and then you use a term that came in in the 1970s? It completely threw me out of the story and I never really got back into it. Plus the diary entries that Aunt Evelyn encourages Lane to read were written by a friend of hers that turned out to be a Famous Artist who has been in several media stories in the past few years. Not sure why this person was included in the plot.

 The Food of a Younger Land, Mark Kurlansky
In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration was initiated to create jobs in a country shellshocked by the Great Depression. One of the WPA offshoots was the Federal Writers Project, most well known for experimental plays done by up-and-coming artists like Orson Welles and John Houseman, and the state guidebook project, which provided the history and highlights of each of the then 48 states and Washington, DC. But yet another project was put aside, America Eats, a book about the various regional foods of each section of the country, from the Yankee standards of New England to the Spanish-flavored cuisines of the West and of California. All over the country recipes and profiles were being submitted for a book hopefully to be published in 1942—and then came December 7, 1941.

This volume includes most of the unedited, unfinished excerpts, articles, and essays that were supposed to be part of the WPA's guide to American foods, and it's fascinating to read, from the pickles and Indian pudding of Vermont all the way to "Oklahoma City's famous Suzi-Q potatoes." We visit a "sugaring off," a clambake, a traditional Rhode Island May breakfast (these are still held); learn how to make traditional barbecue sauce in the south—and hominy, and mint juleps; attend a "Negro" baptism and eat "burgoo" and Brunswick stew; chow down on lots and lots of corn dishes in the Midwest, along with persimmons, pheasants, and Native American dishes; sample geoducks, Washington apples, Basque and Bohemian dishes, potatoes and "prairie oysters." This was a United States devoid of all but a few chain restaurants, where regional foods were made fresh with local ingredients and no one ate fresh tomatoes in December.

It's fascinating reading if you're interested in the food history of the United States. 

 Murder on Memory Lake, J.D. Griffo
An Italian grandmother as a sleuth? How could I resist, especially after I read the first few pages and our heroine responds to what she thinks is a scam phone call with "Ah, Madon!" and my childhood came spilling back, aunts, uncles, grandparents and great aunts, and godmothers all using that familiar exclamation. I ended up reading most of chapter one to my husband, laughing through half of it, as Alberta Scaglione discovers her great aunt Carmela has left her a darling lakefront home and almost three million dollars. But her peaceful new life doesn't stay peaceful because soon after she moves in Alberta discovers a dead body floating in the lake. And not only that, it's someone Alberta knows, Lucy Agostino. Alberta didn't like Lucy very much, but there's a clue on the body that lets her know that Lucy's death was the result of foul play. And since the police won't believe her, Alberta resolves she'll find out what happened to Lucy—with a little help from her sister Helen, an ex-nun; Joyce, her African-American  ex-sister-in-law who she likes more than her brother; and her granddaughter Gina, otherwise known as "Jinx" since the day she was born in a casino (it's a long story).

Parts of this book can be a bit unbelievable (like the search under the lake caper), but I didn't mind because it brought back all the wonderful memories of Italian family meals, the old Italian proverbs bandied about, and all the Italian terms like pozzo and ubotz, not to mention that so much of it is damn funny. I have the next one to read and another is coming out in the fall, and believe me, I'm waiting to see what these pazze Italian ladies come up with next! Just a fun cozy mystery, and so very, very nostalgic if you were brought up Italian.


 The Farmer's Son: Calving Season on a Family Farm, John Connell
John Connell has returned to the farm where he was raised, helping his father with the cattle and the sheep that support the family, after having been away some years. He falls back into the rhythms of country life pretty easily, helped along by his mother, but tension still exists between himself and his father. This is Connell's diary of six months on the farm and his relationships with the animals, with his parents, and with himself.

This is akin to the flip side of the stories told by James Herriot, of the indomitable farmers who brave all weathers and the forces of life and death to nurture and do good by their livestock. Connell's narrative is almost hypnotizing, told as if he were narrating it aloud, with an Irish lilt and often a poetic turn as he ruminates on farming, nature, and relationships. There are also asides where he talks about the ancestors of modern-day cattle, the aurochs, and how humans went from hunting them to raising them for meat and for milk. He also talks with affection about the sheep and a dog he is trying to train, and the ancestral farmlands of Ireland.

It's a beautifully written memoir about the farming life, if that is the type of book you are looking for.

 Ruff Justice, Laurien Berenson
Family awards are in the air in this entry in the Melanie Travis "canine mysteries" series. Her 13-year-old son Davey's poodle Augie needs only a few more points to become a champion. And her Aunt Peg is handling a promising new young poodle named Coral. Wanting Coral to look her best, Aunt Peg has commissioned a hand-braided leash from artisan Jasmine Crane, and goes to pick it up at her booth—and finds Jasmine strangled with one of her own leashes. Soon after, Aunt Peg and a young woman named Abby ask Melanie if she'll look into the disappearance of Abby's twin Amanda, a noted pet sitter. Amanda, coincidentally, was living in a garage apartment on Jasmine Crane's property.

Melanie only promises to check out a few people to try and locate Amanda, but the more she probes, the more she discovers that things with Jasmine, Amanda, Amanda's lackluster dog-show boyfriend Rick, and Jasmine's former partner Sadie aren't what they seem. Not to mention Jasmine's fellow vendors at dog shows, who have no love lost for her. And what about those burglaries occurring during dog shows?

In a subplot, Melanie assists Francesca, a new student at her school who is suddenly failing in her subjects.

Enjoyable as always, even if the subplot is predictable. I enjoy all the characters even if Aunt Peg continually gets on my nerves. I love the way Davey is standing up to her now!

  The History of THE BOOK in 100 Books, Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad
This is a nifty oversized book filled with fascinating photographs and prints chronicling the history of books, from the first basic storytelling "published" on cave walls and cuneiform tablets all the way to electronic books and even unusual books (are they really "books"?) Tally sticks that go back to 20,000BC, the lost knowledge of Inca khipus, palm leaf texts from India, the first cookbook; folding books, scrolled books, spiral books; handwritten manuscripts and printed manuscripts; graphs, patents, underground publications, bank notes, papermaking. comic books. All illustrated in full black and white and in color, photos, drawings, and more. Perfect for every book lover.

Books Completed Since March 1

 Look Both Ways, Carol J. Perry
Her aunt's house now intact after a terrible fire the previous autumn, Lee Barrett is slowly furnishing the upper story, which Aunt Ibby has made over as an apartment for her. She spots an antique bureau on a local Salem, MA, television shopping show, available at one of the town antique shops and identical to the one that used to be in her bedroom, complete with secret drawers. At the shop she buys the bureau, but spots a few more antiques she might like and returns, only to find the proprietor dead. Her new guyfriend Pete Mondello, a Salem police detective, heads the investigation team. But even as she gets involved with the town theater group for the summer, Lee wonders if she's also in danger—the bureau once belonged to a woman who died.

This is the third of the "Witch City" books and as equally enjoyable as the first two, even if Lee's preoccupation with furnishing her nest provides a lot of extraneous text. Lee and Pete make the usual handsome leading couple, but it's the supporting characters that give it a fillip: Aunt Ibby, her gentleman friend Rupert Pennington, practicing witch River North, and of course the former witch's familiar, Lee's orange tabby cat O'Ryan. And once again Lee starts seeing visions of the type she's had since she was a child, but these are of a woman and a little dog, with the woman appearing to beckon Lee to help her—the former owner of the bureau. An ex-con, a ditzy blonde, the nephew of the former owner, and the former partner of the shop owner also figure.

I quickly narrowed down the suspects after finally discarding two red-herrings, but there's some properly spooky goings on for Salem to coincide with Lee's visions in the final chapters. These books aren't great art, but they're fun to read.

 The Roosevelts and the Royals, Will Swift
One of the supposed great faux pas of the day, 1939 America couldn't believe it when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain made a tour of the United States and stopped at President Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park, NY, and the President and his perambulating First Lady Eleanor fed them hot dogs! Surely this was a black eye in social hosting!

This is the story of the two "royal families" of the World War II era, the shy and stammering "Bertie," great-grandson of Queen Victoria, who became King of Great Britain when his older brother David, a.k.a. Edward VIII, abdicated the throne to marry divorcee American Wallis Warfield Simpson, and his supportive wife Elizabeth Bowes-Lytton, and the "squire of Hyde Park," Franklin D. Roosevelt, confined to a wheelchair due to polio suffered as an adult, and his determined wife Eleanor, who grew up considered an ugly duckling and who became famous for her social causes. Alternate chapters chronicle the history of both couples, the desperate event that made them friends (World War II), and finally their futures after the combined forces of the U.S. and Britain withstood Adolf Hitler's and Tojo's bloody war machines.

I'd wanted this book since I saw it on the stacks and was not disappointed. No, you won't get the complete saga of the U.S. and Britain in the war, nor complete biographies of the four particulars, but it's a fine summary of the two couples and their parallels (Bertie to Eleanor, and Franklin to Elizabeth). I found it a great read, and it's a good starting place if you are interested in either of the families.

 Dear Mrs. Bird, A.J. Pearce
No sooner do I say in at least two reviews that chick-lit is not for me than this book shows up and I fall in love with it.

Emmy Lake and her best friend Marigold "Bunty" Tavistock, along with William, Bunty's fiance, have known each other since childhood. Now they are living in Blitz-battered London, where Bunty works for the War Office, William is part of the fire brigade, and Emmy is a secretary. Emmy's secret longing is to be a Lady War Correspondent, and when she sees a situations-wanted advert for a writing job with a publisher who runs a London newspaper, she thinks this is her Big Chance. Unfortunately it's only after she's quit her old job and taken the new that she realizes she will be working for the old fashioned "Women's Friend" magazine, screening the letters for famed "agony aunt" Henrietta Bird.

But as she reads the letters, Emmy realizes times are changing. So many women want to know what to do about their feelings of loneliness while their husbands serve, or about girls who are resisting the urge to send off their boyfriends to war in a special way, subjects Mrs. Bird deems Unpleasant and not fit for publication. Surely they need answers, too? And since Mrs. Bird mainly has her eye on her own war work and doesn't even look at the column after its published, why can't Emmy consult her own feelings and the work of other agony aunts to help the correspondents her superior ignores?

Emmy's upbeat, lively narrative in the face of appalling destruction and loss of life make this one a winner. Even though in her innocent youthfulness she makes simple gaffes and one terrible error in judgment, her big heart is in the right place. You want to cheer with her even as you realize she's headed for trouble. Plus I could hear her enthusiastic narration in the voice of Emer Kenny, who plays a character coincidentally named Bunty in the Father Brown television series.

It's also a great tale about how people Carried On during the Blitz. So very much recommended!

 Why We Eat What We Eat, Raymond Sokolov
I picked this up because March was National Nutrition Month and the subject looked interesting. It was pretty interesting. I don't like cookbooks, but I do like books about the history of food. This one is about how the European arrival in the "New" World changed both the cuisine of the Americas and of other countries. For instance, what we think of as "French cooking" or "Italian cooking" only exists because of foodstuffs brought over to Europe from America after 1492—tomatoes, of course, form the base of classic "Italian cooking" and there were no tomatoes in the Old World until after the 1500s. (Heck, even into the late 1700s they were looked on with suspicion.) Also, now you find tortillas or variations thereof all over the world, but corn (maize) was solely a New World product at one time. A fairly absorbing chronicle of cross cultures, more interesting if you are a foodie.

 Victoria's Daughters, Jerrold M. Packard
I found this book at the library book sale just as season three of Victoria was ending, a perfect antidote to the compelling but sometimes very sweetened (especially in Victoria's attitude to her eldest son) version of the queen as played by Jenna Coleman. The book follows the fortunes of Victoria's five daughters: Vicky, the bright eldest child whose fairy-tale love story with Frederick of Prussia would turn into horrible misery; Alice, the Prince of Wales' staunchest ally in his formative years, and who devoted her life to good works as she mourned having a husband who she felt no kinship with; plain Helena (Lenchen) who married for love of an eccentric husband who agreed to live with the Queen and Prince Albert; talented Louise, who restrained her artistic leanings in order to please her mother, but who still rebelled in marrying a lowly Scottish duke; and "Baby," little Beatrice who the Queen expected to stay by her side through her lifetime, and who did until she rebelled and found a husband to free her.

Much is written about "the playboy Prince" of Wales, but this is a nice glimpse into the distaff side of Victoria's household. I'd learnt a lot about Vicky (and her painful later life with her disparaging son who would become the villain Kaiser Wilhelm of the Great War) through the miniseries Edward the Seventh, and also a little about Alice, but the younger three girls rather disappeared into the woodwork. Louise now has a book devoted to her life, which I would like to read sometime.

 Death at the Seaside, Frances Brody
Private inquiry agent Kate Shackleton has seen off her partner and her landlady on August holidays and arrives in the seaside town of Whitby (known for the famous Whitby jet, a gem used in mourning jewelry) for her own time off; this is with a great deal of nostalgia, as she and her late husband were in Whitby when Gerald bought her wedding and engagement rings. In fact, the same jeweler still has a shop there. So after arranging to see an old friend, Alma, who lives in Whitby, and checking into the Royal Hotel, Kate walks to the jewelry shop—only to find the jeweler dead. Worse yet, Kate discovers Alma appeared to be in love with the jeweler, Jack Phillips, and that Alma's missing daughter, Felicity, was one of the last to see him alive.

In alternating chapters, we follow the adventures of Felicity, who, along with the young man who's sweet on her, has gone out in an old boat to find her estranged father, whom she is certain is living nearby.

I didn't enjoy this entry in the series as well as some of the previous ones. I found Alma intensely irritating, with her "sight" and the descriptions of her little fortune-telling booth left me claustrophobic. I didn't like the way she used Kate, nor the way Kate seemed to daydream her way through the mystery, at least until Jim Sykes and Mrs. Sugden show  up to help her. My favorite part of this book was the recreation of the peaceful seaside life of a 1920s English resort, with the cool breezes, piers, rock candy, summery cottages, wooden fishing craft, laid-back summer attitude, and other relicts of a bygone age. You can almost hear the wind blowing and the ships creaking in harbor as they sway in the tide.

 On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service, Rhys Bowen
Now that her lover Darcy's father has been cleared of murder (see previous book), Georgiana Rannoch must clear one more hurdle to marry him: remove herself from the line of succession to the throne of England ("Georgie" is 35th in line and can't marry a Catholic if she remains there). So she approaches her distant cousin Queen Mary to help her, only to have the queen send her on a secret mission while Darcy is away: she's to attend a country house party where the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII) will be with his American lover, the odious Wallis Simpson, and make sure the two aren't planning to elope. Luckily this party is in the same Italian town where Georgie's best friend Belinda has gone to hide until she gives birth. Georgie also finds out that the hostess of the party is none other than an old schoolmate.

Georgie tires me out in this book: she's continuously sent to and fro until she can locate Belinda, arrive at the party in a ladylike manner, and then has to keep an eye on her Cousin David and the imperious Wallis. All is not well at the estate, either: Georgiana's often childlike and always demanding mother and her German husband are attending the same party, along with some prominent Nazis, who are meeting in an old outbuilding for what Georgie believes may be treasonous reasons.

Again, you may spot the culprit from the beginning: the fun is watching Georgie negotiate each new obstacle thrown in her path, if not with aplomb, at least with ingenuity. I especially enjoyed Georgie's growing friendship with Camilla, the old schoolmate she once regarded as kind of a drip, but who possesses strength and depths Georgie would not have dreamed of when they were at school. A series of somewhat improbably adventures occur (the sequence in the marble temple comes immediately to mind), but it's all in fun and sleuthing.

 The Children's Hour: Favorite Mystery Stories (Volume 7), edited by Mathilda Schirmer
When I was "knee-high to a grasshopper," I used to play with a friend whose older brother owned a set of the Collier "Junior Classics," a set of books of short stories, each volume around a common theme. I confess to the many times I snuck out of playing some boring girlie game on the excuse of using the bathroom and instead crept upstairs to read a story out of "The Animal Book." This volume of The Children's Hour, a similar set of books that I didn't know of, consists of mysteries from "stories for younger readers" to "stories for older readers." Frankly I found the stories for the younger kids more entertaining; most of them were about a brother and sister falling upon some type of puzzle and solving it. One story takes place in Australia and includes a youthful aborigine hero, another is a chapter from Homer Price where Homer and his pet skunk Aroma capture bank robbers, and the prize here is an Augusta Heuill Seaman novella, The Strange Pettingill Puzzle. It's so cool watching free-range kids canoeing, horseback riding, studying birds, and generally relying on their own smarts instead of being in organized activities and fixated on electronics.

The stories for older children are a tad more conventional: two Sherlock Holmes adventures ("Blue Carbuncle" and "Red-Headed League"), Poe's interminable "The Gold Bug" (read by me for the first time and not understanding why everyone loves it), and a couple more. "Miss Hinch" is an interesting tale about the titular female criminal and her pursuit, including by a successful female detective. The other exciting tale is "The Adventure at the Toll Bridge," about a gang who try to escape but hadn't reckoned on the youthful custodian.

I quite enjoyed this, and discovered that all the books are available on Archive.org's Open Library: The Children's Hour library

 The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo and Yuko Uramoto
Chiaki is a bright young woman almost "thirty-something" who works in an office and lives in a hopelessly untidy small apartment. She meets her handsome young neighbor only because she keeps forgetting to take out her garbage and the smell is wafting over to his apartment, so he comes over to complain. She thinks her untidiness is hopeless but she truly wants to change, so she calls in "KonMari."

If you've been curious about all the kerfluffle of the Marie Kondo/Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up conversation flitting about talk shows and social media, this is the most fun way to learn what Kondo's philosophy of paring down your possessions to only the ones which "spark joy" is all about. Illustrated are Kondo's signature clothing-folding tricks (although the fitted sheet trick isn't included; it's online, so check it out) and her method of sorting by category, not by room, and by leaving sentimental items until last, when you have learned how to sort and discard other items. The text and illos are light and often amusing, imparting a lesson while giving an enjoyable read.

I really enjoyed this, and there's even a psychological twist to Chiaki's story.

 Marilla of Green Gables, Sarah McCoy
I've been wanting to lay my hot little hands on this since I heard of it and finally borrowed it from the library, not wanting to wait for the paperback. This is McCoy's version of the early life of Marilla (and also Matthew) Cuthbert, before Anne Shirley entered their lives, opening when thirteen-year-old Marilla, helping her mother Clara prepare for a new baby, meets her mother's twin sister Elizabeth "Izzy" Johnson, a dressmaker in St. Catherines, for the first time. Marilla already knows her own mind, but her entire world revolves around Green Gables, and Izzy helps to widen her experience, as does her growing friendship with a neighbor boy, John Blythe.

McCoy tells a good tale here, prompted by Marilla's revelation to Anne late in Anne of Green Gables that John Blythe was once called her beau. McCoy also paid attention to the books (unlike Budge Wilson, who admitted when she wrote Before Green Gables that she never actually read the book!), so the Avonlea folks are all as we expect them, and she gives a great portrait of young Rachel White, who will become Rachel Lynde. It's also possible that the political story that is woven into the last half of the book could have happened to Marilla and Matthew. However, it's revealed in Anne that Matthew said he'd never "gone courting" when in this book he does, and also Matthew says to Marilla at one point in Anne that there was no reason for them to raise her as austerely as they had. The little romance Matthew almost has is quite in character, but although Matthew and Marilla do have some bad things happen to them in the course of the novel, their childhood apparently was far from dark: even their stern Presbyterian father seems nice. So it is a bit of a diversion from the original background as presented by Montgomery. However it did not make me all that unhappy, and McCoy's writing was quite lovely. I was just sad about the fight that broke up John  and Marilla, too close to current events for my taste.

Books Completed Since February 1

 A Forgotten Place, Charles Todd
The Great War is over, but not for its men: they now face the repercussions of their injuries in their return to civilian life. Bess Crawford is serving as a nurse to these men, including Welsh soldiers from the same mining town. These men know that with missing limbs they will be unable to make a living anymore; too many are depressed. One man commits suicide, and Bess and the other hospital staff try to give the others hope. After they are shipped home, Bess is disturbed when she gets a note from the Welsh company's captain saying that another man has committed suicide. He asks if there is any way she can come to help them. Bess, good soul that she is, decides to use a few days of her leave to do just that. But by the time she arrives, all but a few of the men have died and Captain Williams has moved to a remote village. To make certain he's all right, Bess has a driver take her to this village since it is off rail or bus lines—and then the driver leaves her stranded. Captain Williams and his sister-in-law take her in, and Bess is sure she can find some way to get back to Swansea, until she realizes that the mysterious citizens of the tiny community are determined she not leave.

This is a slow-moving atmospheric entry in the Bess Crawford series, akin to a Gothic novel, with bodies washing up on the shore and mysterious burials, a strange tale about a sunken ship, violent acts in the middle of the night, and Bess' sensation that she is always being watched. The sea and the changeable weather add more fillips of mystery and atmosphere. You need to be patient with this entry in the series as it's written more like a 19th century suspense novel, but the spooky setting and ominous villagers make it well worth reading.

 Seven Letters from Paris, Samantha Vérant
In 1989 Samantha and her madcap best friend Tracy went to Europe, stopping briefly in Paris. There they befriended two Frenchmen around their age who took them on a dream tour of the city. Jean-Luc Vérant and Samantha hit it off immediately, and he begged her to stay in Paris. Samantha was nervous and the next day she and Tracy continued their tour. But Jean-Luc did not forget her and wrote her seven letters which she kept for the next twenty years. In 2009 Samantha's world fell apart. She was laid off from her job, she and her husband were on the verge of divorce, and she had no idea what she was going to do. But she'd kept Jean-Luc's letters all those years. She thought that, in having to start her life all over again, that she would at least contact him to apologize for never writing back.

Instead, something magical happened. Jean-Luc wrote back. And 20 years later, he was still interested.

This is, indeed, a modern-day fairy tale: attractive woman relegated from art director at a big corporation reduced to dog walker and moving back home after a divorce finding out not only did the handsome French guy she once befriended is still in love with her, but he's even free to marry her. Alas, Samantha has no confidence in herself and keeps shooting herself in the foot, but Jean-Luc is persistent. And when she visits Paris again, she finds everyone loves her—Jean-Luc's kids, Jean-Luc's parents, Jean-Luc's friends...Alors! Really, I'm glad it all worked out for her, but reading this is like reading a romance novel. I actually bought it because I was interested in her second book, in which she learns to get used to living in France.

What I really found annoying was the recitation of clothes and other stuff she bought or sold or Jean-Luc got for her by their brand names. Do women really know what all of these things are by their brand names? Sometimes I didn't know if she was talking about a dress or shoes. In fact, I found her brand name dropping rather intimidating. Plus she promises Jean-Luc's children, who suffered through a snooty stepmother, a cat, and even though she's nearly broke, she spends her cash on an expensive purebred cat. You couldn't have adopted a cat from a shelter? Sheesh. Talk about conspicuous consumption.

 Choices, edited by Mercedes Lackey
This is the latest edition of short stories set in Lackey's Valdemar universe. The stories, as always, range from stand-alone stories like "With Sorrow and Joy," the tale of a Herald who goes home to solve thefts and possibly make peace with a resentful cousin and "Of Crows and Karsites," where young Herald Rinton and his Companion sense a Gifted person on the other side of the Karse border, where Gifted people are viewed as demons, to stories with a continuing character who has appeared in other collections (Kitha and Hadara, a change child and a blind gryphon; Lady Cera of Sandbriar, trying to rebuild a shattered community; Kade and his companion Nwah the kyree; and more).

Sometimes the qualities of these stories waver back and forth between great and meh, but this was a particularly good collection: I quite enjoyed the first story mentioned; the final story, written by Lackey herself, which involves the sword "Need" who will only respond to a swordswoman to save other women; another entertaining and humorous tale with the Iron Street gate guards of Haven; "Letters from Home" in which a young trainee struggles with her Gift; "The Right Place" about a young orphan who can read animals and knows a horse and her foal are being abused; and "The Letter of the Law," in which a Herald must find out a way to save a family's prized ram in a city where the ruler will not bend the law. But they were all good this time, and perfect for fans of Valdemar.

 Re-read: In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, Bette Bao Lord
Since it's once again the year of the boar (these days they call it a pig), I had to pick this delightful book for a return engagement. Young "Sixth Cousin," otherwise known as Bandit, knows only that news that's come to her Chinese home has made her mother smile and her grandparents sad. Her college-educated father, she discovers, isn't coming back: he's made a new home in the United States, and he's sent for Bandit and her mother. Grandfather decrees that Bandit shall have a new name before she departs and she decides on an American one: Shirley Temple Wong.

Soon everyone is getting used to their new home in Brooklyn—including Mother, who discovers that with no servants, she will need to learn to cook, clean, and do laundry—and Shirley is off to the fifth grade, where the kids seem friendly at first, but then ignore her. It's due to her sudden encounter with the biggest, toughest girl in class that Shirley's status suddenly changes, and it's through her classmates that she becomes a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and their newest player, Jackie Robinson.

I had forgotten some of the events in this book, including the sad period when Shirley had no friends and the chapter about the family's homesickness, and also some of the laugh-aloud funny things that happen, like when Shirley volunteers to change a fuse. It's a sweet-and-sour look at the experiences of an immigrant child in the late 1940s, heartwarming and humorous.

By the way, did anyone notice what happened in the principal's office? Shirley told the principal she was ten, but if you went by the way she counted, she was only about eight and a half. She still learned English well enough to pass the fifth grade! I'm impressed!

 Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Books as an Adult, Bruce Handy
This book is about...well, just what the title says it's about: Handy goes back and looks at classics and sees them with adult eyes, still admiring most of the texts. He begins with picture books, painting a surprising portrait of Margaret Wise Brown, whose Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny may give people the impression she was some warm and wise granny. Instead she was a lively young woman with a creative way with words, who allowed herself to be bullied by her female partner.

There are chapters on Dr. Seuss, Charlotte's Web, Beatrix Potter (and other animal stories), Beverly Cleary's imp Ramona, the Little House books and Little Women, and more, all with entertaining information, such as Green Eggs and Ham was written after Ted Geisel was challenged by publisher Bennett Cerf to write an interesting book using just fifty words (the chapter also chronicles the difficulties he had writing a book using less than 300 simple words considered understandable to children; the result was The Cat in the Hat). I disagreed with him occasionally, but life would be pretty boring if we didn't have differing opinions!

Really enjoyed this, except I got tired of Handy suddenly pulling a fact that had nothing to do with the books he was commenting on out of midair and issuing an apologia for the author. The book is still good despite the author's political or personal leanings at another time of his/her life, and hopefully he/she learned better as they grew older.

 Death in St. Petersburg, Tasha Alexander
Lady Emily and her dashing husband Colin Hargreaves are in St. Petersburg, Russia, for Colin's newest assignment, monitoring political situations between Great Britain and Russia. They are at the Mariinsky Theatre to watch a performance of Swan Lake, with the lead role taken by the prima ballerina Irina Semnova Nemetseva. But during the interval, the crowd emerges from the theatre to find Nemetseva lying dead in the snow. Soon after she dies, an ethereal ballerina wearing Nemetseva's costume begins to appear at various locations in the city. What does it mean? Is her ghost haunting St. Petersburg? And who killed her? Was it her best friend Katenka (Ekaterina Petrovna Sokolova), who was her understudy, and who finished the Swan Lake performance to enthusiastic applause? Or someone else?

I enjoyed the story, despite the tongue-twisting Russian names, and immersing myself in pre-revolutionary Russia and examining the value the Russians placed on the ballet. I really liked the setting. But I am getting a little tired of the format Alexander has been using of alternating the Lady Emily and Colin (and Cécile) narratives with chapters about one of the persons involved with the mystery. In this case it was Katenka's narrative in fleshing out their pasts and their intense friendship. But she used to be able to keep the entire mystery narrative in Lady Emily's voice, and I don't find the newer books with the alternating chapters as crisp and clever as the older books without it.

 About Time: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who: 2007, Series 3, Tat Wood and Dorothy Ail
So we're now on volume eight (!) of Mad Norwegian Press' in-depth look at Doctor Who, this covering "The Runaway Bride" through "Voyage of the Damned" along with the seven-minute "Time Crash" and the animated serial "Infinite Quest." Once again, each episode is examined by summarizing the plot, noting the characters, fitting the story into Who continuity, and then posing questions about inconsistencies and other things that just don't make sense. Interspersed with the episode examinations are the usual essays, ranging from "What Were the Best Online Extras?" to "Which are the Most Over-Specialized Daleks?" to "Why Should an Alien Love Cricket?" (There are seventeen essays in total.)

These are truly books for people who really, really love Doctor Who, so don't come into them thinking they are introductory volumes for the series. Wood and Ail point out the tiniest detail, which won't make a whit of sense unless you're familiar with the other seven volumes and the whole history of the series. If you are that Who lover, welcome aboard, but start from the beginning!

 Re-read: Heidi Grows Up and Heidi's Children, Charles Tritten
Since I re-read Heidi last month, I thought I would follow up with two sequels written by Johanna Spyri's French translator. Supposedly children kept writing to Tritten asking what happened to Heidi and he obliged them by writing a sequel (and then others, but only the first two were translated into English), stating that Spyri could never refuse a child and probably would have written a sequel or two if possible. Heidi Grows Up partially incorporates Spyri's own experiences with a cruel schoolmaster. Now fourteen, Heidi goes to the same finishing school that Clara attended. She makes fast friends with the other girls, save for snooty British girl Eileen, especially a Hungarian girl named Jeanne-Marie, known as Jamy. At school she continues the violin lessons she began in Dorfli, and is mercilessly teased when her grandfather sends her a gift of a little goat cheese. But it is when Heidi comes home for vacation accompanied by Jamy that things begin to happen and Heidi considers returning to Dorfli when she graduates to become the new schoolmistress.

The sequel title makes it obvious what happens at the end of Heidi Grows Up, but also features Jamy's little sister Marta. Both girls were raised by their sweet but sad grandmother, and after she passes away Marta doesn't wish to stay with their socialite parents, who spend most of their time partying and traveling for diplomatic purposes, leaving Marta alone. Instead she comes to live on the Alm with Heidi and her family, to the consternation of the Grandfather, who eventually comes to love her and she ceases to fear him. But she is constantly in fear of other things, and believes in all sorts of superstitions, which makes her especially nervous as Heidi's time arrives.

While these don't have the special touch that Spyri gave to her original, these are sweet, creditable sequels, and the source material is actually partially hers: Tritten borrowed incidents from other Spyri stories to incorporate into both tales (an incident with Jamy and Peter is taken from Moni the Goat Boy, for example). I only wish the other two volumes, Heidi: Grandmother and Heidi's Country, had been translated.

Here are the full verses to the song Peter sings that Marta likes so much.

 Finding Dorothy, Elizabeth Letts
I enjoyed this fictionalized account of the life of Maud Gage Baum, wife of the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The novel switches back and forth between 1938, in which an elderly Maud wangles her way onto the MGM lot to make certain the movie moguls don't ruin her husband's magical story and becomes interested in young Judy Garland, who is being pushed (to the point of being mistreated) into stardom by a rapacious stage mother and a lecherous studio executive, and Maud's memories of meeting, marrying and living with L. [Lyman] Frank Baum, who was a hard-working but mostly impractical dreamer, who skipped from being an actor and empresario to selling his family's oil product to managing a general store in the Dakota Territory to an unfulfilling job back in New York state until beginning his literary career with the first of many Oz books.

Maud lived a slightly unconventional lifestyle for a girl of her time, encouraged to run around with the boys by a suffragette mother who would write articles, papers, and books with Susan B. Anthony. Maud is sent off to Cornell University to be one of its first coeds and must face the harassment of male students; later her sister Julia marries badly and ends up suffering through bad times on a claim shanty in Dakota. Frank's dreamy ways and fun personality attract Maud immediately, but she ends up being the practical one of the family; while Frank works hard, disaster always seems to strike his enterprises, but he always takes time for dreaming and bringing up his four sons—they never had the daughter they so badly wanted—with happy memories.

Letts spins the tale of the Baums and of Frank's famous creation with a lively text. Maud herself is a bit of a stiff character, but Frank's magical qualities shine out from every page, and Letts' brisk portrayal of Matilda Gage is equally entertaining. She also brings her settings to life, whether it's Christmas at the Baum house or the bleak Dakota prairies (that stood in for Kansas) or the Gage neighborhood in New York. There are also memorable scenes in the 1938 narrative having to do with "Over the Rainbow" and its meaning to Maud, Judy Garland, and others who work on the film. The "star" system at the big studios of the 1930s is also given a grim once-over: it ruined Garland's life as it made her a star.

Not a perfect book, but the good parts outweigh the bad, and it does a good job of capturing the various eras.

 Food Will Win the War, Rae Katherine Eighmey
I've been looking for a book about the World War I homefront in the United States for a couple of years now and pretty much been unsuccessful until I found this book while looking for something else. It's not everything I wanted, but it gives a partial view of homefront America 1917-1918.

Eighmey, who wrote the historical cookbook Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen, consults diaries, news stories, and personal letters to bring the First World War in a farming community to life. She covers the buildup to war and then the continual effort put into rationing food for the public so that it could be saved to ship to the men (and few women) in the American Expeditionary Force and displaced citizens in Belgium and France. If you've heard of WWII Victory Gardens and thought they were only a WWII "thing," you'll learn differently here. Eventually the government suggested "wheatless meals" and "meatless meals," with only three meals a week with no restrictions. People were encouraged to grow potatoes for the war effort and eat rice instead, add nuts to meals to replace meat protein, and have egg dishes as a main course at supper.

While this book concentrates on Minnesota and particularly its rural community, it is representative of the sacrifices ordinary families made to support the war effort. This could be California or New Jersey or Texas. The volume is full of photographs, posters (complete with Columbia wearing a Liberty Cap, something that vanished in WWII ads), advertisements, and cartoons from the era, and of course filled with vintage recipes, some which sound interesting, and others which will make you wonder if people today could give up their hamburgers and steak and eat dishes like "rice au gratin" and creamed chicken instead. If you are interested in wartime homefront histories, food history, or both, you'll find a good deal to like in this book

 Attachments, Rainbow Rowell
I am just not cut out for chick-lit.

I admit, I picked this up based on the fact I mostly liked Fangirl and wanted to like Carry On, but found Simon too whiny, and that I found a quotation about autumn given by one of the protagonists: "October. My favorite month...[t]here's a chill in the air that lifts my heart and makes my hair stand on end. Every moment feels meant for me...I was born in February, but I come alive in October...October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!" How could you not love a woman who talks like this? And I love epistolary books and half the text is e-mails.

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder work at the same newspaper, the Courier, one that has just made the jump to computers and the internet. Beth's living with a musician and reviews films. Jennifer, a copy editor, is happily married but is worried about fulfilling her husband's next wish: a child. Management is so fearful of the employees wasting time surfing for porn and goofing off on the web that they hire Lincoln O'Neill to read any e-mails flagged with "certain words." Lincoln's supposed to report Beth and Jennifer's brisk and funny (and irreverent) e-mails to management, but he can't. A bachelor still living with his mother years after the breakup with his first love, Lincoln enjoys the repartee between the two women, and especially loves Beth's wit. Soon he's falling in love with her and even checking out the club where her boyfriend performs.

I am so on the fence about this book it's not funny. Rowell has a way of writing about her that I enjoy, and it kept me turning pages to see what would happen, but I was irritated by the narrative. All these folks seemed to talk about was relationships and marriage. Okay, Beth likes good movies. Lincoln's an appealing geek who also likes movies and plays D&D. He's in contention with his sister, who wants him to move away from his clinging mother. Jennifer's afraid to get pregnant. Beth wants to tie the knot with her enigmatic guy and she's trying to save an old movie theater. Everything's awash with emotions. No one ever talks about anything but relationships, especially the women. I guess this is common in what's supposed to be a romance. As in all the romances, all the guys are adorable and all the gals are cute. It is so emotionally exhausting.

In the midst of this waterfall of emotions, two of my favorite parts are reliving the Y2K fracas (the story takes place 1999-2000) in the computing industry, and visiting Lincoln's friends Dave and Christine, who have this lovely warm marriage. The other stuff is so unreal: loud rock music, clubbing, buying expensive baby clothes and designer women's products. I could not relate to these people, except to the geeky side of Lincoln. The e-mails are a hoot, though.

 Smoky the Brave, Damien Lewis
Bill Wynne was attached to the 26th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron in World War II when he met a dirty mite of a dog that had been found in the jungles of the New Guinea island where he was stationed. Wynne loved dogs and took the fearless little animal that he named Smoky to his heart. She remained with him all during his war service and became known as the 26th's mascot, immortalized by a photo of her in Wynne's helmet in an issue of "Yank" magazine. Wynne taught her tricks and she kept up the morale of the squadron, and became the first known "therapy dog" taken to hospitals to amuse injured soldiers. In one instance, she even helped the squadron string telephone wire through a pipeline under a runway.

Lewis not only tells the story of Wynne and Smoky, but of the 26th and the essential work they did during the war and the dangers and hardships they faced outside of the Japanese troops trying to kill them: jungle insects, heat, varmints, thirst, tropical illnesses. Wynne lost friends, survived a serious fever, endured hurricanes and bombings, but always Smoky was there as his partner. She also endured illness and danger, plus the real threat of being left behind once the war was over.

This is well-told with a few gaffes by a non-American writer (no "fourth base" in baseball), but summarizes Wynne and Smoky's postwar adventures in about eight pages, devoting the whole book mainly to their wartime experiences. It's a good companion to Wynne's own story about Smoky, Yorkie Doodle Dandy, in which the last third of the book is devoted to their postwar experiences on local television and in Hollywood. Pick up this one to learn more about life in the European theatre and the work of the photo reconnaissance squadrons, but Wynne's book is a more personal look at their experience.

 The American Agent, Jacqueline Winspear
This newest of the Maisie Dobbs' mysteries begins a little slowly as Winspear immerses you in the sights, sounds, smells, and terrors of the Blitz. Maisie and her old friend Priscilla Partridge have volunteered for the ambulance corps and as the novel opens, they are being observed by young American reporter Catherine Saxon. Next day Maisie receives a shocking telephone call from her intelligence colleague Robert MacFarlane: after Saxon left them, she was murdered in her apartment. MacFarlane wants Maisie to investigate the crime, to be assisted by Mark Scott, the American agent who helped get her out of Munich. Maisie is also juggling a personal issue: her adoption of Anna, the young refugee living with her father and stepmother, is about to come up for review.

Once Maisie is on the case, the mystery deepens: who was the man Catherine kept meeting and fighting with, the man called "Scotty"? Could he have a connection with Mark Scott, who is uncharacteristically letting Maisie investigate on her own. And who was her "Stage-Door Johnny," as her roommates called Catherine's boyfriend, and could he have something to do with her death? Or could it be one of the roommates, or her landlady, or someone she's made an enemy of via her career?

While Maisie's investigation takes center stage, the Blitz and the reaction of ordinary British citizens to the hellfire is just as important as the mystery. Winspear brings the hellish nights vividly alive, and intertwines them into her plot, especially in the subplot involving the Partridges and young Tim's adjustment to his disability (see the previous book). She also emphasizes the yeoman work of the war correspondents and the women who fought to join "the boys' club" and prove themselves as competent as the men. And once again, Winspear is not allowing Maisie's life to remain static.

Not the best entry in the series mystery-wise, but outstanding in its portrayal of London and environs during the Blitz.

 Cool Hand Lou: My Fifty Years in Hollywood and on Broadway, Lou Antonio
Back when I was a teen with odd tastes, I didn't get "crushes" on contemporary music stars or actors; I preferred men, not boys. The cute series The Snoop Sisters provided me with Lou Antonio, with his nice dark hair and quick dark eyes (I'd seen him earlier, on Star Trek, but nothing clicked under the makeup he had to wear), and I have enjoyed his performances and his directorial efforts ever since. Recently I was listening to a podcast where the host interviews actors, but not the usual tired "pop" stars everyone else interviews today. When I was finished I scrolled through other episodes and was pop-eyed to find Mr. Antonio included on one, and was even more pop-eyed when I listened and realized he'd written a book! I read his book and rewatched The Snoop Sisters at the same time.

What a career! He actually wanted to be a ballplayer until a dislocated pitching arm killed that dream. Should he just stay in Oklahoma City and run his dad's chicken fried steak place? No, instead he went to New York City, studied acting under Lee Strasberg, and did stage and television series filmed in NYC until that option went away, then he moved to Hollywood and made a name not only in acting but in directing. His acting credits included Cool Hand Luke, four guest star appearances on the critically acclaimed Naked City, Route 66, The Defenders, Gunsmoke, and more. His director credits include The Partridge Family, Owen Marshall Counselor at Law, McCloud, McMillan and Wife, Something for Joey, Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neill Story, and more. He's worked with stage greats like Geraldine Page and Colleen Dewhurst, and directed George C. Scott, Lee Remick, and Elizabeth Taylor. You follow him from struggling actor to noted director, from the gritty to the greats, with many goofs and triumphs along the way.

It's all written in an informal, conversational style that I found enjoyable, as if you were seated across from him at dinner and he's telling you stories. I could almost hear his voice as I read. Great book!

 Stirring the Pot With Benjamin Franklin: A Founding Father's Culinary Adventures, Rae Katherine Eighmey
Call it a biography of Benjamin Franklin with culinary interruptions.

Once again Eighmey tackles a historic figure in a different way, as in Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen, by seeing what foods and drink that figure would have eaten during their lifetime, taken from mentions of food in their journals as well as typical menus of the era. In this way, we see a typical colonial/revolutionary diet across the boards, from Franklin's childhood as the son of a fairly poor soapmaker and chandler to his time in the salons of Paris eating nouvelle cousine. Eighmey extracts Franklin's diet from his legendary diary entry about arriving in Philadelphia with three loaves of bread to his name to the Franklin family's grocery orders to Franklin's letters home from Europe mentioning fashionable dinners. Each chapter is followed by a selection of foods from the era taken from cookbooks published at the time.

I didn't like this one quite as well as the Abraham Lincoln book. She has to do a lot of extrapolation and sometimes the recipe connections are tenuous, like the ones that accompany the chapter on Franklin's electrical experiments. However, if you're interested in "cookery," as the British say, or historic recipes, this should please.