The Dinner

It is very close to the holidays. Holidays mean food and food means family dinners.  As a kid I loved having dinner with my family.  It gave everyone time to catch up.  Holiday dinners were always fun.  It rotated between my aunt and uncles houses and ours.  Each host family brought a different flavor to the table but it was all good.  I use to grab a chair near one of my favorite uncles.  His wit had me laughing throughout the entire meal.  He was a bigger reader than I if that is possible and we always compared notes.  He kept two lists one for books read and one for books to be read.  I miss him.

This book is also about the interaction of family at a dinner.  The author uses the dinner table to slowly peel away the layers of each individual character so it is really not about dinner or eating at all. The dinner is between two brothers and their wives.  The narrator Paul gets a call from his brother to meet him and his wife at a restaurant.  Paul does not want to go.  That is absolutely clear but after all it is his brother. From the narrative the reader certainly gets the feeling that the brotherly relationship has issues.  Paul’s brother, Serge is a politician who wants to be the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands. There is resentment, at least Paul is resentful. He also dreads the potential conversation he might have to have with his brother.

During the dinner it becomes obvious that there is some type of dark secret or event.  I have to say that I never expected the secret to be what it was and I can’t say anymore because I would ruin the story and then you might not read the book.  This book took awhile to get into and I almost put it down but it I was curious and felt the need to see how things got resolved.

The book was apparently written in Dutch and I thought this was an excellent translation.

Christmas Bliss

I picked a Mary Kay Andrews book as the first book in my Holiday Book Quest because I like her.  She is easy to read, she writes a good story and the books are good romance novels.  My first Mary Kay Andrews novel was Deep Dish (6/15/12 post) about two chefs, one female, one male who are competing for a show on a cooking channel.  There is a whole lot of heat in the kitchen and it is not just from the oven.  It was a fun read.

Christmas Bliss ticks off all the holiday criteria I set out to find.  There are two women as the main characters.  Weezie (don't get me started on that one) who is getting married at Christmas and BeBe who was married never wants to get married but has for the first time in her life found Mr. Right.  Oh yes and she is pregnant with their first child.  Then she finds out that she is still married to her low life husband who she thought was still in jail.  Oh and Weezie's one and only a chef has been invited to be a guest chef in New York quite a difference from his small restaurant in Savannah.  Will the wedding take place.  Will Bebe ever get a divorce from her no good scoundrel of a husband?  Can she even find him? So many questions but no more room for answers in this post.  You could try the book. 

The book is not her best but it is seasonal.

Sunday Notes on Monday

So if you have been reading my blog by now you know that  every Sunday I play this little game with myself. On Sunday the first section that I read of the Washington Post is the Outlook section, it contains the book section. I go to the last page and read the Washington Bestseller list. This week the bestseller list focused on Hardcovers but it alternates between paperbacks and hardcover. You can check my scoring system on the May 6th post.

This week I struck out. I haven't read one thing on the list.  I did download Sycamore Row by John Grisham onto my kindle and look forward to reading that soon.    I do have a lot of books by my bedside.  I just have to decide which book to read first.  Some of the books are The Dinner written by a Dutch author, my book club book Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter and the new Nora Roberts book Dark Witch.  At least I know I can read that book in a few hours. 

I also just finished my first pick in my holiday series, Christmas Bliss which I will talk about Wednesday.  So check back this week to see my choices. Click below for more info on these books.


         

House of Stone

I am a book whisperer if something like that even exists and I will tell you why.  Last weekend I took a much needed break to join my wonderful wine women of West Virginia in of all places why West Virginia of course. My friend opens her beautiful cabin to us and it is just the most relaxing place to be.

I happened to notice a book on her table written by Barbara Michaels.  I had read Barbara Michaels books ages ago.  Some of my favorites were A Stitch in Time and Smoke and Mirrors.  Imagine my surprise when our hostess said she actually new Barbara Michaels and had been to her house in Frederick County.  She also said that Barbara Michaels was just one of two aliases she used to write her works of fiction.  She used different names depending on the subject matter.  Sadly Barbara Mertz (the author’s real name) passed away this past summer. 

So I was saying I am a book whisperer.  Anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows I go NOWHERE without talking a book and or my kindle with me.  This weekend was no exception. I went up with one very thick book but ended up coming home with two additional books.  One is House of Stone by Barbara Michaels a mystery.  The main character is a Professor at a small college.  She stumbled upon an unknown writer at the beginning of her career that made her semi famous in the literary world and the envy of many a college professor at much better known Universities.  A bookseller acquaintance finds this manuscript and makes her aware of it.  Naturally she had to beat out all other of her colleagues to get her hands on this manuscript which not so coincidently turns out to be the very same author she had discovered.  People are jealous of her find and she starts fearing for the safety of her manuscript and her personally.   I shall say no more.  While this was not one of my favorite Barbara Michael’s novels it was still good.  And when I like an author I generally am a repeat offender/reader.

     

Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

This is another book in my foodie series. Issy’s mom had her and decided she was not mother material.  She left Issy with her Grandfather.  It just so happens that he owned several bakeries and so she learned how to bake at an early age and she was good!

The golden rule of the workplace is not to have a relationship with your manager.  That was Issy’s mistake.  Than to make matters worse she was laid off by her manager and he did not have the decency to tell her before he showed her the door.

With no job and no boyfriend Issy goes into a funk until she decides to open her own bakery.  All does not go smoothly but you are constantly routing for her.The characters in the book are very likeable except for the ex manager/boyfriend of course and it is a good story.  There are recipes included in the book as well so if you are adventurous you can make them.  If you do tell me how they came out.

Sunday Notes on Monday

So if you have been reading my blog by now you know that  every Sunday I play this little game with myself. On Sunday the first section that I read of the Washington Post is the Outlook section, it contains the book section. I go to the last page and read the Washington Bestseller list. This week the bestseller list focused on paperbacks but it alternates between paperbacks and hardcover. You can check my scoring system on the May 6th post

I met my goal of having read at least three books on the list but the list is very disappointing,  I can not find anything of interest on it.

This week I read a collection of short stories by Jeffrey Archer called And Thereby Hangs a Tale. Check out my post from Saturday on this book. I love Jeffrey Archer and I love his short stories because there is always a twist in the ending.  I have also finished another book in my foodie series Meet Me at the Cupcake Café.

I started reading The Goldfinch so I will see how that goes.  And I picked up a Barbara Michaels book called The House of Stone.  Have a nice week and if you are interested in learning more about the books click on them below.

     

The World Without Us

This is a fascinating study on what would happen to earth if humans were not around. If you are an anthropology enthusiast you will love this book.  The scenario is as follows: what happens if a virus spread through the human race or an act of terror destroyed everyone and humans would no longer be around.  What would happen to the subway systems, the skyscrapers, our homes, the great masterpieces or our children’s art?  How long would they survive before they were reclaimed?  Which animal species would survive or if there were few in number, would they repopulate? Would the vegetation recover? 

These are just a few of the questions that are posed in this book.  By studying and discussing how things evolved to life as we now know it, the author reverses the process to show the reclamation of Fauna and Flora.