Bookish Things: World Book Night, Jane Austen Earrings, etc

Y'all, I'm in that weird reading phase again for work, where I'm reading the first 50-100 pages of about a dozen books to evaluate them as selections for our signed First Editions Club -- which means I've not completed any books lately to write a full-on review.  It's not bad, because I've really liked all of the books I've been sampling, but it's a little frustrating to be forever starting new books and not having the time to finish them because I need to start in on the next one.  Thus this week you are treated to this post of Bookish Things.

April 23 of last week was World Book Night.  If you're reading my bookish blog posts, then I assume that you are pro-book and pro-reading.  If you've not already participated in World Book Night, then what on earth are you waiting for?  It's just about the best thing in the history of 21st century bookish things.  A committee composed of authors, publishers, booksellers, and librarians choose 25+ titles each year that they think will have a wide range of potential readership.  Then people like you and me can pick a book from that list and give copies of it away to non-readers.  For free.  It's an amazing program and this is the third year that I participated in it.  Join their email list NOW so that you can be notified when the giving process opens to applicants again in the fall for 2015 WBN.

I picked Peter Heller's novel The Dog Stars, one of the most gorgeously-wrought post-apocalyptic novels I've ever read, as my giveaway book. I go on and on about it here, but the short version for why I chose it is because it demonstrates that there is no story so bleak that it cannot benefit from a sense of humor and from inventive, poetic prose. My only problem was that at the time I picked this book, I had Wednesday nights off and had planned to give it away on the street corner like I did this year.  But about a month ago, my work schedule changed and now I work Wednesday nights, so what to do?

The young women of The Care Center

I joined up with Joan, my friend & colleague, to give books away on Wednesday morning at a place called The Care Center, a local nonprofit alternative learning program for pregnant and parenting teens to continue their education.  It's cool, because it offers health services and day care, too, to these young girls and women. While I cannot say that I would have chosen The Dog Stars with these readers in mind, some of them were pretty excited about it.  We also took copies of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Zora & Me,  and Code Name Verity, all of which were more age appropriate for these folks.  You can read a little more about it here on the MassLive website, including a short interview with two of the girls.

Check out those beauties.  Last year for my birthday, one of my lovely and generous co-workers gave me this pair of Jane Austen earrings.  I love that they're almost as lovely on the reverse side as they are on the front, and I like the mis-matched, old-fashioned typewriter keys that are part of the design.  I wear them all the time, but it's only recently that I've started getting lots of comments about them because I just lobbed about 8" off of my hair and now they're more visible.  I wore them to work today along with my Austen sweatshirt from Out of Print Clothing company and every customer I interacted with complimented me on them.

Real Encounter or Punk'd? You Decide...

JLaw is shocked and appalled.  I think I am, too.    

Okay, y'all.  I had a conversation with a customer today that belongs in the hall of fame.  Or else I was punk'd.  I'm not sure which, but maybe you can help me decide. Please keep in mind that for the entire length of the conversation I was surrounded by small children and their parents because I was working in the kids section during a school break week.

Man: Yeah, hi, can you tell me if you have any New Age books? I've been reading a lot of New Age books recently and I'd like to see what you have.

Me: Well, we have a very limited selection in store, and it might not be worth a trip to the store just for browsing what we have in stock.  Is there a particular author or title you might be interested in?

Man: You know, my mom started reading these books and passed them on to me.  It's a funny thing to think of your mom as reading books like that.  It surprised me what she was open to.

Me: Yes, well, reading can definitely expand one's horizons. Did you have a particular book in mind?

Man: My mom and I recently moved in together.  I don't have any certain title or anything, but the books that she's given me and that I've started reading are books that you could say opened up my mind about politics.  And lovemaking.  Yeah. I see the world differently now.

Me: (Assuming a *very* professional tone) I see. Well, I'd say we probably don't have the books on hand that you might be looking for, but I could always check our warehouse to see what could be ordered in for you.  Or you know, if you're open to to second hand books, there's an excellent store called Troubadour that is in the next town over.  I've not been there for a while, but the last time I was in, they had an extensive New Age section.

Man: Yeah, that might work.  You know, one of the things that really impressed me about these New Age books was how supportive and welcoming they are.  Like, what they say about lovemaking. They're very open about that. Like, it doesn't matter what society says.  A relationship is between two consenting adults, and if it's mutually loving, then nothing else matters... LONG PAUSE ...

Me: (Feeling *distinctly* uncomfortable now). Um, yes. The consenting part is quite essential and...

Man:...CONTINUING PREVIOUS THOUGHT...and so my mom and I are thinking of exploring our relationship...

Me: Cutting in, politely but EVER so firmly: Sir, as I said, I'd be very happy to order in a particular book if you're interested, but I'm afraid I must go.  You can call us or use our website for placing orders.

Man: Thank you for being so, um kind. I really appreciate it.

Me: You're welcome sir, and you have a good day. Bye now.

What just happened to me?  The man's voice was ringing with sincere desperation.  Or  desperate sincerity, I'm not sure which.  One of my coworkers who used to work at a big box store thinks that this was just some guy getting his rocks off.  I'm not so sure. And just which "NewAge" books are sanctioning incest these days? Gah, I just don't know what to think. I guess it's better for me to have treated it as real, even if it had been fake, than to treat it as fake with the off chance that it could have been a real customer. All I can say is that I deserved an adult beverage after responding to such a conversation in a consummately (er, bad choice of words?) professional manner. In front of children.  Without giving the game away to any customers in the store who happened to be listening to my end of the conversation.

Book Review: Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern

It is so great when books incorporate characters who are underrepresented in the media without making readers feel that they're just ticking off boxes and filling quotas, and Cammie McGovern's first book for young adults, Say What You Will , does just that.  It's the story of Amy, a girl with cerebral palsy, and Matthew, one of her peer helpers who gets her through the day at school.  You see, Amy cannot walk unassisted, or speak without her voice box & computer pad, or even eat most foods.  Up until now, her schools have always provided professional assistants to help her with all of these functions, but that has left her friendless and isolated with only adults interacting with her all day long, whether it's her parents, her teachers, or her aids. Now that it's her senior year, she has talked her parents into hiring peer helpers in the hopes that she will become better socially adjusted and make her first friends.

Sounds like this could be an After School Special, right?  Except that McGovern does a great job of keeping things pretty real and not too sappy.  Much of the book is told in a close third person narrative, getting into the heads of both Amy and Matthew, but McGovern fills in the gaps with both text messages and emails that are sent back and forth.

Before long, Amy becomes closer to Matthew than to any of her other peer helpers, and she starts to fall in love with him.  He plays his cards a bit more closely to the chest, and even if he recognized his feelings for Amy as love, his increasingly erratic OCD behavior and thinking keep him from acting on anything.  So you've got the agony and ecstasy of falling in love for the first time, but obviously in this case there are major complications. Matthew is not sure Amy is capable of having a physical relationship, and he's not sure that he's capable of even holding her hand without having to wash his hands obsessively both before and after. Amy, for her own part, tries to give out decreasingly subtle hints to say that she's ready to take their friendship to the next level, sex and all.

To complicate matters even further, Amy's parents don't really approve of her feelings for Matthew and want to push her in the direction of Sanjay, another of her peer helpers, because he's ambitious and capable and self-confident: everything that Matthew is not.  Brilliant Amy is college bound, spoiled for choice with her acceptances at Stanford and multiple Ivy League schools, while Matthew feels that he might be capable of taking a correspondence course but not much more. Basically, it's Pretty In Pink where academics play the role of class.

McGovern has a deft and comic touch when writing Matthew and Amy.  Most of the time I identified with both of these young people, and I particularly admired the ways Amy was both philosophical and practical in the face of her physical limitations. The book takes a slightly soap-opera turn in the last quarter, but even that was resolved quite well and ended up being more hopeful and pragmatic than most teen book.  I really recommend this book for all folks who enjoy YA novels, but beyond that, it's a solid read for anybody searching for an unconventional protagonist or an under-represented one.

Here's an email sample from the first chapter of the book, from Amy to Matthew, that I think gives you a flavor for the style and direction this book takes:

To: mstheword@gmail.com
From: aim high@comcast.net
Re: I'm happy! 

I just slipped into my mother's office to look at the names of my new peer helpers, and I'm so happy! Your name is on the list! I thought maybe I'd scared you by coming right out and asking you to apply.  I realize it's an unusual setup, but try not to think of it as my parents offering to pay people to be my friend. I know there's something unsettling and prideless in that. I prefer to think of it this way: my parents are paying people to pretend to by my friend.  This will be much closer to the truth, I suspect, and I have no problem with this. I'm guessing that a lot of people in high school are only pretending to be friends, right? It'll be a start, I figure. 

NB: I read an advance reading copy of this book provided by the publisher. It will be available from Harper Teen in June 2014.  The author also happens to be somewhat local to my bookstore, but I read it out of my own interest and not at the behest of either author or publisher.

Book Review: Til the Well Runs Dry byLauren Francis-Sharma

It's not often that my two discrete audiences for this blog read the same posts.  My Book Blogger posse like the bookish ones, my Anguilla posse like the travel ones, and rarely the twain do meet, but I hope that today's post might find common ground between the two. It's a novel set mostly in Trinidad during the 1950s and 1960s, a time of political upheaval and change all over the Caribbean.

Author Lauren Francis-Sharma is the daughter of Trinidadian immigrants, and after visiting her grandmother's homeland, she decided to set her first novel there.  Though I've traveled up and down through the Caribbean, I've never been to Trinidad & Tobago, a dual island country unique in the region for its multi-ethnic heritage and industry beyond the usual tourism. Oh, and of course its tradition of Carnival. Trini Carnival makes all of those poor folks in New Orleans who celebrate Mardi Gras look like a child's clumsy efforts in comparison.

'Til the Well Runs Dry opens in the tiny village of Blanchisseuse in the 1940s, where Marcia Garcia is a 16-year-old seamstress trying to earn enough money to keep food in de bellies of what's left of her family. We soon meet Farouk Karam, the man whom she will grow to love and hate in equal measure, often simultaneously.  Farouk and Marcia share the narration for the first part of the novel until their second daughter adds her voice to the chorus.

If I were to describe this book in terms of its plot, it might sound very eventful--there are secrets here that politicians might kill to keep, not to mention rape, incest, murder, imprisonment, black magic, corruption, and abandonment--but that would give the wrong impression.  These plot points are present, but they're not the defining aspects of this novel.  It's much quieter and more intimate than that.  It's the story of a family: a mother whose hard knocks began long before her first two children go missing and her husband leaves her; a father whose thrall to his own parents prevents him from being the father he is capable of being; the four children who are the issue of this relationship that is more defined by tumultuous obsession than love.

Take this family and drop them in an ever-shifting political setting as Trinidad seeks its own way in the world separate from the British Empire, and you end up with a story that is as colorful and multi-layered as the book cover would suggest.  Francis-Sharma's writing is so evocative of this tropical island that I could see, hear, taste, and smell everything she was describing. Though the narratives themselves are third person, limited points of view, the dialogue is rich with the speech patterns and idioms of Caribbean patois.

I loved reading this novel and I was completely swept up in the complications of this family and their ties to each other, knotted up so tightly and frayed by the coastal salt water that it would take a machete to hack them apart.  More than anything, Francis-Sharma was able to convincingly portray what it might be like to love somebody so fiercely that surviving such a love could only change and harden and temper you into a fierce creature yourself.

I recommend this book for readers who value strong and complicated female characters, those who enjoy historical fiction in an unusual setting, and those who, like me, have an unquenchable thirst for Caribbeana.  There was much about this book that reminded me of early Toni Morrison, and honestly, is there higher praise that I could offer on that score?

NB: I read an advance reading copy of this book that was provided at my request by the publisher.  It will be published in the US by Henry Holt on 22 April 2014. 

Pulitzer Predictions: 2014

Yay! It's Pulitzer Time!    

I do not believe I've actually ever done a prediction post like this before, but for some reason I feel emotionally invested in several contenders this year.  So let's have some fun, shall we?  I've been trolling many websites that are predicting the Pulitzer Prize winners this year.  I think some of them are right on the money and some of them are delusional (they apparently don't know the criteria for being considered for the prize).  Some of them, frankly, make me want to cry with their predictions. For good or for evil, we will know the results as of the afternoon of Monday, April 14.

The following books are all either books that I think are deserving of the committee's nod, or are likely to get the nod, or both.  I hope that y'all will chime in with your favorite picks and the most likely contenders for this year.

But first, let's explore why the Pulitzer books generate so much speculation and debate.  Why more so than the National Book Award or the National Book Critics Circle Award?  My hunch is that, unlike other major awards for book published in the US, it comes down to two points: (1) Unlike those other free-for-all awards, the Pulitzer Prize is awarded to an American writer [which means that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's fine novel, Americanah, is ineligible. not that you'd know it from the various prediction lists on the interwebz.]. (2) More importantly, also unlike those awards, there is no longlist, much less no shortlist, published ahead of the award ceremony.  The winner and the finalists are revealed at the same time.

Okay, so here goes (knuckles cracking)...My top pick for either the winner or one of the finalists is Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. I go on about it here, but it's earned tons of accolades from nearly everybody except the First Lady, who seemed to think that her review of the book was a platform for talking about nutrition in privileged families.

My other favorites would be, in no particular order, The Son by Philipp Meyer, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Woman Upstairs by Clair Messud, and  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra.

There are other books I loved from 2014 that I think are worthy of the prize, but are total long shots: Flora by Gail Godwin and Benediction by Kent Haruf. I'd love for either of them to win, but I doubt it will happen.

Then there are the books out there that I haven't read, but which I think are strong contenders.  Namely George Saunders' story collection The Tenth of December and The Good Lord Bird by James McBride.  While I would prefer that the prize go to a book I've already read and loved, I wouldn't be either upset or surprised if one of these won.

And then there are the books that I am actively hoping will not win, because if they, I will probably have to slit my throat.  Actually, in this case it comes down to just one book: Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers.  I hate and revile that loathsome book. Seriously, I might have been exaggerating for effect, but this book was laughably bad, which is why it is so completely mysterious to me for it to be getting the kind of critical attention that it's been getting.  Some betting operations have even listed this book as the odd-on favorite. Ugh.


 
Which brings me, at last, to the other categories.  Other than the winners themselves, who really cares about the other Pulitzer winners beyond the fiction awards, or at least cares as much?  Harsh but true.  In a twist of irony, novels get all of the glory in a prize that was originally created to acknowledge outstanding journalism.  I don't really have a stake in the other categories, other than general nonfiction, for which I'm hoping that Sheri Fink's excellent  Five Days at Memorial puts in a good showing. It was without a doubt the finest nonfiction book I read last year. (Hint: I only read 17 works of nonfiction compared to the 100+ works of fiction, so it's not like I'm drawing from a wide base. Even so, Fink's book would stand out.)

What about you, gentle reader?  Which books that you read from  2013 deserve to be recognized by the Pulitzer committee?  Or if you want to be wicked, which books do not?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Edited on 14 April 2014 to gloat add: Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch is the winner!  I'm really quite pleased about this.  I'm also delighted that Philipp Meyer's excellent novel, The Son, turned out to be a finalist.  The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis wasn't even on my radar, so shame on me.  In fact, it was so not on my radar that I returned a copy of this book two weeks ago to the publisher. 

Book Review: The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain

A fellow bookseller just created a new section in our bookstore called Read the World, featuring fiction, poetry, and essays translated into English.  He's a big proponent of translation and is in fact helping to put together a symposium on the importance and the future of translation.  Sadly, browsing the new section in my bookstore made me realize that I don't read many books that were not originally written in English.  Now, a large part of this is not so much my fault as it is the nature of the American publishing industry.  According to a 2007 study done by the University of Rochester, a scant 3% of the books published in the US are in translation. A quick survey of my Goodreads stats shows that I've read three books in translation over the last twelve months, and now that I'm aware of the situation, I'm going to see what happens when I actively seek out works in translation to read this year.  Thank goodness for Europa Editions and other small publishers who make world literature available to those who read only English!

One that I have recently read is called The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain, which I picked up not because it was originally written in French, but because it sounded fun and had actually been selling fairly well in the store.  Lucky for me, it turned out to a delightful little novel. It's set in France in the 1980s when Francois Mitterand was the president of France, and it is basically the story of what happens when you believe than an object can empower you to take control of your own life.

It opens with an accountant named Daniel, who decides to treat himself to a solo dinner at a fancy brasserie one night when his family is out of town.  Not long after he's ordered, President Francois Mitterand sits down with a small party at the table next to him. The President accidentally leaves his hat behind on the banquette between himself and Daniel, so Daniel surreptitiously picks it up and leaves with it, thinking of it as an accidental souvenir of the night he sat next to the President.  But lo and behold, after he starts wearing the hat, Daniel begins acting a bit differently at home and at work.  He takes charge during a business meeting, he gets a promotion, he acts more confidently and with authority--that sort of thing.  He's just beginning to attribute his new success to the President's hat when he accidentally leaves it behind on the train...

...Enter a young woman named Fanny, who notices an abandoned hat on the luggage rack of her train. It's clearly going to be next to impossible to find the owner, so she dons that hat herself, little knowing what is in store for her.  Now she is feeling empowered and emboldened in new ways.  Fanny finds a way to break off an unproductive affair with her married love, and then the short story she submits to a national contest wins the grand prize. Now she in turn leaves the hat on a park bench, where it gets picked up by Pierre, a once-mighty perfumeur who has fallen on hard times...

...You can guess what happens when the perfumeur puts on the President's hat, n'est-ce pas?

We see various people whose lives are changed by this presidential hat, and the big question is, does the power lie within the hat, or does it simply awaken the power in each individual who wears it?  I ended up thinking of Mitterand's hat as a cross between a benevolent version of Tolkien's One Ring and Mary Poppins, transferring its attachment from one owner to the next, always going where it happens to be needed.

For a small novel (it barely reaches 200 pages), it really covers a lot of territory both large (love, life, work, politics) and small (random chances can change your life, and so can accessorizing). Though I read it in two short sittings, the quiet contentment that pervades these pages stayed with me for days--a kind of magic all its own.  I recommend it to just about any reader, but especially if you're looking for a book that is life-affirming without being hokey, or gentle without being dull. The President's Hat got lot of raves in France and it won both the Prix Landerneau Decouvertes and the Prix Relay des Voyageurs in 2012.  Sadly, the translation is not attributed to any one person but to Gallic Books in general.

What about y'all?  Do you seek out works in translation to read? Have you read anything marvelous lately that was not in its original language?

NB: I read an uncorrected proof version of this book that I found in the ARC pile at my bookstore.  It is  published in the US by Gallic Books, which is distributed by Consortium.

Ode to Everything Nashville

The Parthenon  

Did y'all know that Nashville has its very own Parthenon?  The first time I visited the city (maybe seven or eight years ago), this came as a complete surprise to me. Since the original Parthenon has been shattered by ordnance and the ravages of time, the Nashville replica stands proud.  It may not have all of the architectural wonders and illusions of the original, but at least it does offer visitors a sense of scope.

I mention this because last week my husband I visited Nashville at the behest of Vanderbilt University, whose library had purchased a large collection of my DH's work (alas, not from us but at auction!), and so we journeyed south for a few days. DH taught a couple of micro classes and visited with students in the special collections and in the divinity school, and then he gave a couple of talks, including one in conversation with Ann Patchett.

The view from our hotel room. Too bad we're not football fans! 

Because our schedule was largely driven by our hosts, I really only had a few hours of free time to call my own;  a nasty headcold, in conjunction with the unseasonably cold and rainy weather, contrived to make me want to nap my free time away.  I managed to explore a little, including a visit to Patchett's wonderful bookstore, Parnassus, and a quick stop at an old Union fort from the Civil War.

Parnassus is beautiful, and like all of the best spaces, it combines new and old elements for a timeless and comfortable feel. You'd never guess that the bookstore has only been in place for about three years. It also has hundreds of personal touches, so that even though the store is part of a strip mall, once you step inside, you're a world away from that box-store feel.  I particularly liked the memorial benches down the center of the store: obviously for sitting and reading, but also firmly anchoring this space in a local community.

The memorial benches down the center of the store

One bench was in memory of a loving dog. I just loved that.

Or this piano, which is used to good effect for creating displays in the music section, but is also played during some events--or whenever a small child simply cannot resist the urge.

In the tradition of Narnia, Oz, and Wonderland, the children's department at Parnassus has a special child-sized access point.  I love how it also evokes both the local icon of the Parthenon and the store's own eponym:

Of course I ducked through here

And what bookstore would be complete without a four-legged mascot?

I also love the way that the bookstore augments the standard overhead lighting with unexpected bits of whimsy:

Stars for the children's department

Or these bird fixtures in a non-fiction alcove

Parnassus also offers a small selection of cards.  Most of them are beautifully printed by letterpress, and thus on the pricier side ($5 and up). I was reminded once again that I was in the South when I saw  two rows of cards like these:

I didn't even know they made cards for this!

My visit to Parnassus wouldn't be complete without mentioning the fun staff they had there and my opportunity to chat with Karen Hayes, Patchett's co-owner. I knew her from my days as a bookseller at Lemuria, lo, these many years ago, so we had a late lunch talking books, shop, and travel.  It was also the occasion of my first bento box, so naturally I had to take a picture.

Isn't it beautiful?  And it was only $8.95!

By then there was just time enough for me to take a quick tour of Fort Negley before heading back to the hotel before the lecture that night. I wish I could say that it was amazing, but it wasn't. I suppose I could say it was at least worth the price of admission (it was FREE). I've visited a few forts before, all of which were much older that Ft Negley (by a couple hundred years), so I was definitely expecting more.  Once you've seen any of the old forts in the Caribbean, particularly the two excellent ones in Old San Juan, I suppose most others would be a disappointment.

What I got was a small hill, a view to downtown and a baseball stadium, some crumbly walls that I mostly couldn't get near, and some boardwalks. Oh, and lots of wind and some intermittent drizzle.

Visitors must stick to the paved paths or boardwalks at all times.

A distant stone wall

I think these trees are actually more interesting than the fort itself

In one direction you could semi-visualize what the view might have been like for the Union soldiers defending the fort:

But mostly the fort is encroached on all sides by the city of Nashville.  There's one building in particular that looks like it would be better suited to Gotham:

Can't you just imagine the bat signal emanating from there?

Still, I learned a little bit of history and took a walk that I otherwise wouldn't have taken, so that's a victory in the face of my inherent laziness.

By 3:00, though, my cold was getting the better of me, so I went back to the hotel to get my nap on before dressing for the big lecture that night.  Not much to tell about that, other than it was very entertaining to hear Ann and my DH in conversation about books, reading, e-readers, bookstores, writers, reviewers, publishing, working, discipline, the myth of writers block, and just about any other subject related to the production of a book.

The rest of our time in Nashville was either taken up with university stuff or with family, but DH and I had one evening free for dinner together just the two of us.  Thanks to the help of the Nashville forum on TripAdvisor, we were lucky enough to get a next-day reservation for an early dinner at Chateau West, just up the road from our hotel. We chose wisely, for although the ambience at this new restaurant wasn't a match for Tin Angel, where we had dined with one of the deans earlier in the week, the food was better.

It had been a long time since we had partaken of a full-on French meal, so we made a pact to eat lightly all day on Friday so that we'd have belly room to appreciate the various courses. For an appetizer, DH ordered the escargot and I chose the charcuterie platter because it featured one of my favorite cheeses, St. Andre.  But when our plates arrived, I was promptly filled with food envy: his snails were served in puff pastry.  My charcuterie was good--it could have benefitted from some flatbread or crackers--but the escargot were fabulous:

For our main courses, we had trouble making up our minds but DH eventually settled on the coquilles St. Jacques while I decided on the duck Chambord. Both were dreamy.  His scallops were huge and tender and came with a sweet potato soufflé. The sauce, unlike every other sample of that dish we've had, was not at all heavy (but no doubt still very calorie-laden).  I don't order duck very frequently but I basically did that night because I was skeptical of how Chambord would work with it.  It was amazing.  The potatoes added an earthiness that balanced the sweetness of the sauce perfectly.  I was surprised that I didn't love the sweet potato cake, which was actually too dense to be rightfully called a soufflé, and it was overburdened with nutmeg, a spice I normally love.

Coquilles St Jacques

Duck Chambord

The dessert menu was the piece de resistance. I love dessert and while I will eat almost anything sweet, I will laugh in your face if your restaurant puts on airs about its desserts for offering a cheesecake, a creme brûlée, and a variation of Death By Chocolate.  Puh-leeze. Those are so pedestrian that every major chain restaurant offers those. No, if you want to impress me, you have to do a little better than that.  Chateau West impressed me. We selected a strawberry mille feuille and a hazelnut Paris-Brest.  The former was quite good, and beautiful to boot.  But the latter? It was pure heaven. I'd never heard of a Paris-Brest dessert, but it's a puff pastry with hazelnut cream and it was one of the best things I've ever eaten in my life.

The strawberry mille feuille

The Paris-Brest

I reckon that concludes my trip to Nashville.  I hope I get to visit again with more time to spare, for seeing more sites, eating more good food, and maybe going to hear some live music, which we didn't do at all on this trip.  And, of course, I'd love to have more time for visiting family & friends in the area!

Last Month in Review: April 2014

Probably my favorite book of the month  

The first two months of 2014 were not stellar reading months for me, but I'm happy to say that March turned that around.  Three cheers for March!  Hooray, huzzah, o frabjous day!

Okay, enough of that.  Expending all of that energy just wore me out.  You see, I have a cold.  Or, if you heard me say that aloud, it would sound more like, "I hab a code." Into every life a little virus must fall, but I'm a tad resentful that said cold interfered with my enjoyment with my visit last week to Nashville. Boo.

Anyway, here, in chronological order, is what I read in March. Some of 'em I even reviewed.  Wonders will never cease. Three audio books and a YA novel helped increase my stats for the month, but there's not a single work of nonfiction here. Gotta work on that for next month!

1. Thunderstruck and Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken.  The first story in this collection still haunts me, but I wasn't the right reader for most of the others. I don't believe I will review this one.

2. The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith.  A sweet YA book.  I liked it a little less than The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, but it's still a quick, easy read. Two teens form a connection when they're stuck in an elevator during a power outage in NYC.  They really click, but they both end up moving away from NYC soon after that chance meeting. You know the drill.

3. The Painter by Peter Heller.  Read this one as an e-book, so I'm eager to see if the finished copy of this novel will have full color illustrations of the paintings referenced at the head of each chapter.  So there's this guy, and he's a painter, and life is complicated.  His daughter is dead, he's killed a man who was trying to kill a horse, and he possibly is being stalked by the man's brother.  It's a really interesting book, and if you liked the disjointed inner monologue from Heller's previous novel, The Dog Stars, you'll feel like you're settling into familiar territory with this one.

4. The Horse and His Boy by C S Lewis.  I re-listened to this one on audio because I was in a pinch and needed something for a short trip but didn't want to buy something new.  Here's my older review of this one, but suffice it to say that the reader is very good, and while I was filled with nostalgia listening to this one, there are a lot of complicating factors listening to this book as an adult.   Namely the Islamaphobia and anti-Arab sentiment running through it.

5. One Plus One by Jojo Moyes.  Review here.

6. Tease by Amanda Maciel.  An unconventional novel featuring teen suicide.  I expect this one will raise some eyebrows upon publication.  Review here.

7. The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones.  Despite the frivolous-sounding title and the light cover, this is NOT a funny novel. It's good, but definitely not funny.  Review here.

8. The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd. This novel has both head and heart.  It's so, so satisfying and engaging and informative and entertaining. Review here.

9.  The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland. Slightly disappointing. A woman who works as a transcriptionist for a prestigious NYC newspaper decides to investigate the death of a blind woman who apparently committed suicide by breaking into a lion enclosure at the zoo and being devoured. Sounds like it would be awesome, but it's just so-so.

10. The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain.  Finding and wearing the president's hat can change your life, but then it seems to deliberately detach itself from you to find the next person in need of its special powers.  It's kinda like Mary Poppins meets Tolkien's One Ring, but with benevolence. I hope to review this one soon.

11. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.  This was a re-read via audio.  I loved the listening experience so much that I updated my original review of this book, found here.

12. The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith.  Fascinating collection of short stories that incorporate traditional Vietnamese ghost stories into the modern Vietnamese experience.  Mini review here.

13. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.  Listened to this one on audio, read by Dan Stevens, aka Matthew Crawley from Downton Abbey.  Enjoyed it to bits, not least because Dan Stevens is one excellent, not to mention dreamy, reader.  I'd love to see a modern film version of this, so somebody please make this movie.  

14. Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson.  Holy shit!  This book is truly excellent and dark and disturbing and I hope to write a review of it eventually.  I finished it on the plane back from Nashville.