Books I read in 2011

A Gathering Light - Jennifer Donnelly
A Place of Secrets - Rachel Hore
Back When We Were Grownups - Anne Tyler.
Blessed Are The Cheesemakers - Sarah-Kate Lynch.
Crazy Ladies - Michael Lee West.
Fall On Your Knees - Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Future Homemakers Of America - Laurie Graham.
Grave Secrets - Kathy Reichs.
Holy Fools - Joanne Harris.
I Still Dream About You - Fannie Flagg.
Jump - Jilly Cooper.
Just One Look - Harlan Coben
Little Bitty Lies - Mary Kay Andrews
Mad Girls In Love - Michael Lee West
Made in The USA - Billie Letts
Mermaids In The Basement - Michael Lee West
Mrs Charles Darwins recipe Book - Bateson & Janeway.
One Day - David Nicholls.
Pomegranate Soup - Marsha Mehran.
Recipe For Life - Nicky Pellegrino.
ROOM - Emma Donoghue
Run - Ann Patchett.
Salting Roses - Lorelle Marinello
Savannah Blues - Mary Kay Andrews
She Flew The Coop - Michael Lee West
Songs Of The Humpback Whale - Jodi Picoult.
Summer School - Domenica de Rosa.
The Abduction - Mark Giminez.
The Best Of Times - Penny Vincenzi
The Big Picture - Douglas Kennedy
The Black Echo - Michael Connolly.
The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato
The Honk & Holler Opening Soon - Billie Letts
The Lady And The Unicorn - Tracy Chevalier.
The Last Apache Girl - Jim Fergus
The Loop - Nicholas Evans
The Memory Keepers Daughter - Kim Edwards
The Red Queen - Philippa Gregory
The Road Home - Rose Tremain.
The Various Flavours of Coffee - Anthony Capella.
The Villa In Italy - Elizabeth Edmondson
The Wind In The Willows - Kenneth Grahame.
Trunk Music - Michael Connolly
Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
Worth Dying For - Lee Child.

What I'm reading - November

The three books that I've enjoyed the most so far this month are The Loop by Nicholas Evans, A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore and Made In The U.S.A. by Billie Letts.

"The Loop" by Nicholas Evans is set in the wilds of Montana in the small town of Hope, high in the Rocky Mountains.
A lone wolf comes down from the mountains to attack live stock on rancher Buck Calder's property. The wolf kills his daugher Kathy's dog before advancing on the baby buggy where her infant son lies sleeping. Kathy manages to scare the wolf off but the incident only serves to incite the ranchers to retaliate.
Over a century before wolves had been hunted to extinction and although they are now protected by law there are many in the town that are prepared to break the law and slaughter wolves that have been re-introduced into the area.
Biologist Helen Ross is called in to diffuse the situation by Dan Prior, head of the local office of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Wolf Recovery team, they've worked together before.
Together they try to save the wolves with help from an unlikely source; Luke Calder, son of their main opponent.
Nicholas Evans is also the author of "The Horse Whisperer" which I read many years ago, I enjoyed reading "The Loop", much more.

"A Place Of Secrets" by Rachel Hore is set in Norfolk, England.
Recently widowed art historian and auctioneer Jude lives and works in London.
As a child she suffered from dreadful nightmares, one night she dreams the dream again.
Soon after, she receives a request to value a collection of manuscripts, books and scientific instruments belonging to an 18th century amateur astronomer, Anthony Wickham,
The collection is housed in the beautiful library of Starbrough Hall, home to the Wickham family for several generations.
Jude's family is also from the area, her grandmother grew up in the Gamekeepers Cottage at Starbrough, and she is invited to stay at Starbrough Hall as a guest of the present owner and his family.
When not working on the collection she is able to spend time with her grandmother, sister Claire and young neice Summer, but Jude is troubled to learn that Summer is also having nightmares which sound very similar to one that she herself had as a child.
As she unravels the history behind the amazing collection, that Wickham and his adopted daughter Esther have amassed, she becomes aware of unexplained connections between her own family and the Wickhams.
The twists and turns of the storyline kept me glued to the very last page.

Finally, Made In The U.S.A. by Billie Letts, is the story of two runaway children.
Fifteen year old Lutie and her nerdy little brother Fate.
After their so called step mother, Floy, falls down dead in the check out line at WalMart, Lutie & Fate head to Las Vegas, in Floy's beat up Pontiac, to find the father who deserted them all some years before.
As you can imagine life does not treat them well, living out of the Pontiac, eating food from homeless shelters and dumpsters, being preyed upon by sadistic employers, drug dealers, pornographers and street wise bullies.
There is a happy ending, although it isn't the one that Lutie expected.
I found the book quite disturbing and a terrible indictment of how children can fall through the cracks of society and be left to fend for themselves in dire circumstances.
In an interview with Billie Letts, at the end of the book, I was shocked to learn that over 800,000 children in the US went missing in the year before the interview took place and that 1.3 million young people were living on the streets of America as a result of running away, or homelessness, in that same period.

I  listed all three books on bookmooch

 but as I write this post
both A Place of Secrets  and Made In The USA
have already been mooched.

Tell Us What You're Reading - October

There are two books I want to share with you this month for Tell Us What Your Reading with Ricki Jill @ Art@Home.
Firstly my Michael Connelly choice for October was The Scarecrow.
Not one from the Harry Bosch series but featuring a character new to me, although I believe there has been at least one other in which he appeared.
Jack McEvoy is the crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times who many years before wrote a bestselling novel after working with the FBI on a serial killer case.
The Scarecrow begins with Jack receiving his pink slip with the added insult that he has to train his pretty, young female (and much less paid) replacement before he goes.
If his journalistic career is over, Jack decides it has to end  in glory and so he follows up a lead into the wrongful arrest of a young gang member for the murder of an exotic dancer.
A story he thinks might just get him a Pulitzer Prize.
He discovers plenty of flaws in the case which lead to another, similar murder committed in Las Vegas.
Whilst investigating there he contacts Rachel Walling, the FBI officer he worked with on the previous serial killer case, she reluctantly agrees to help once again.
The further they delve into the case the more they realise they are now being hunted by the Unsub/Scarecrow and the tension in the story builds page by page until reaching it's dramatic conclusion.
When I first started reading this book I thought that it wasn't as good as those from the Harry Bosch series, however, I soon changed my mind as the links fell into place and I did enjoy The Scarecrow after all.

The second book I want to share is Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews, an Edgar Award Nominee.
(I seem to recall that I read a review of this book on a blog which sent me off to bookmooch where I was lucky enough to find a copy to mooch.)
Savannah is one of my favourite cities to visit, I co-hosted the Quimper Club's annual meeting there in 2010 and came to know it well.
Savannah Blues was a delight to read, quite light and frothy not like The Scarecrow at all.
I took it on the train with me when I went up to Paris last week and the time passed very quickly!
I finished reading the book on the way back home the next day.
"Weezie" Foley finds herself living in the carriage house of the beautifully restored Savannah townhouse she once occupied with her unfaithful husband Tamadge Evans III.
His new fiancee, Caroline, rules the roost there now and she wants Weezie out.
As an antiques picker Weezie spends her days combing Savannah's garage sales, flea markets and house clearances, one day she hopes to have enough money to open her own antiques shop.
Her life starts to unfurl at the edges when she discovers a dead body in a cupboard, during an unauthorised look around Beaulieu a run down antebellum rice plantation, in the dead of night.
The book is full of well drawn characters, BeBe Weezie's best friend; priest turned lawyer Uncle James; ex hunk of a boyfriend, Daniel; Merijoy, evangelical campaigner and leading light of the Hysterical/Historical society and many others.
Quote from the cover:
"An amazingly accomplished, genre-bending debut novel: smart, sassy, and fun to read" Booklist.

I wouldn't disagree and by the way I'll be adding both of these books to my inventory on bookmooch.

The Simple Woman's Daybook - September

Last month I joined Peggy's meme "The Simple Woman's Daybook " for the first time.
I liked the way that answering the questions made me focus on life's little details.
Or as a friend, who lives Pondside, likes to call it "keeping it real".

FOR TODAY..........

Outside my window ....... cows (nothing new there!)
I am thinking.......  about a task I have to do for the next edition of the Quimper Club Journal.
I am thankful ....... that the swelling of my left arm, caused by a wasp sting three days ago, is reacting favourably to the antihistimine that I took.
In the kitchen ....... lunch today - french onion soup, made by the Senior Partner with pain au cereales, made by me.
I am wearing ....... jeans and a pink and white striped T shirt, lambswool slippers
I am creating ....... working with photographs for the above mentioned QCJ
I am wondering ....... if I'll meet the deadline for the QCJ!
I am reading ....... The Honk & Holler Opening Soon - Billie Letts
I am hoping ....... to make inroads into a huge pile of ironing, later today
I am looking forward to ....... a 9 day break in Devon & Cornwall UK. We leave next Friday
I am hearing ....... my cocker spaniel, Ben, snoring quietly as he sleeps by my feet under the desk
Around the house ....... gradually preparing for visitors who will arrive shortly after we return from the UK
I am pondering ....... what to cook for dinner tonight
One of my favorite things ....... walking our dogs through the French countryside
A few plans for the rest of the week ....... go shopping in either Bayeux or Carentan, go to the hairdressers for some pampering, work in the vegetable garden clearing out all the plants that are over, or have gone to seed
Here is a picture for thought that I am sharing .......

Green tomatoes from my garden

Italy In Books Reading Challenge - August

The inside back cover of jamie's italy

Dolci di Love - "Sweets of Love" is a really sweet book, a fairy tale for the 21st century.
Corporate business is Lily Turner's whole life, her husband has been sidelined as she works hard to maintain the life she has chosen for herself.

Her PA Pearl shops for his birthday and Christmas presents and has to remind Lily not to present him "another polo shirt"!
Thus shamed Lily resolves to buy her husband a new pair of golf shoes.
Because she doesn't know her husbands shoes size she has to check inside an old golf shoe, where she discovers a photograph that will shake her entire world.
I'm not going to disclose much more of the story except to say that Lily heads to a small Italian town - Montevedova - gets entangled with a group of busybody Italian widows; the local broken hearted hearthrob and a little girl who captures her heart.
Does she find "Dolci di Love"?
Well, what do you think?
If you've read and enjoyed Sarah - Kate Lynch's "Blessed Are The Cheesemakers", you'll know what to expect.
If you haven't, you could be in for a sweet treat.
This book review for the "Italy In Books Reading Challenge" is a twofer this month as I also want to mention a great cookery book which I like to dip into especially during the summer months.

jamie's italy is a fabulous book full of wonderful recipes, stunning photography and a travelogue.
It was first published in 2005 and is still available on Amazon, at about half the price I paid!
It is a marvellous journey through the many regions of Italy.
In the foreword Jamie describes it like this:
"In writing this book, I didn't just want to give you a collection of Italian recipes. I wanted to share some great experiences with you at the same time. So I wrote it while I travelled around the country, working and eating and meeting people off the beaten track. I wanted to find the food of the "real" Italy - not the place that conjures up images of olive groves and lemons-"
Jamie Olivers website click here

Submitting this post to the Brighton Blogger @ Book After Book

 for the Italy In Books Reading Challenge.

Inside front cover of jamie's italy

What We're Reading - August



August has been a funny month weather wise, lots of rain, that meant less time spent gardening and more time spent reading!

If you're already a fan of Harlan Coben then I recommend that you read  Just One Look, I've read  four of his books so far (there are many more waiting on the bookshelf thanks so a special Amazon promotion recently) and I enjoyed this one the most.
When Grace Lawson stops by the Photomat one afternoon, before doing the school run, she gets more than the happy snaps of her family's trip to the cider orchard than she expected.
Inside the pack is an unexplained photograph of a group of college students, one of which could be her husband, Jack.
When confronted with the photograph her husband denies all knowledge of it, later that night he get's into his car and disappears.
A great read, the pace is fast and grips you from the start.
Grace is an unlikely heroine but she will do anything to find Jack and to save her children from the sinister hit man, Eric Wu.
Along the way she uncovers not only her husband's past but also sheds light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding her own near fatal accident at a rock concert several years previously.
Mermaids In The Basement, my third Michael Lee West book, was a light and easy read. Full of great female characters oozing Southern charm and hospitality, and with a few great recipes thrown in for good measure.
The Last Apache Girl  by Jim Fergus is set in during the Depression era and tells the story of Ned who's father committed suicide when his business failed.
After his fathers suicide Ned drops out of his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago and  with the insurance money buys an expensive camera to indulge his love of photography.
Whilst working part time at the Chicago Raquet Club, he hears about The Great Apache Expedition which will leave Douglas, Arizona on April 1, 1932 to search for a young Mexican boy who had been stolen by Apache Indians some years before.
Knowing that he cannot expect to join the expedition as a "gentleman" he drives across country in his father's Roadster and manages to sign on as the expedition photographer.
The Last Apache Girl is based on historical fact.
The Rocky Mountain News said:
"History, romance and enough adventure to make us wish by the closing chapter that the story didn't have to end quite yet", and I'd have to agree!
The Times called Trespass by Rose Tremain " Thrilling....a terrific book, accomplished and poised" .
It is a story of sibling love and rivalry; at the Mas Lunel an isolated stone farmhouse in the Cévennes
Aramon Lunel lives in squalor, whilst his sister Audrun lives in a shoddily built bungalow close by. There is something very sinister about their relationship, at first just hinted at but which is explained further as the story unfolds.
When Aramon announces that he plans to sell the Mas Lunel, to Anthony Verey, an English antiques dealer, Audrun's grasp on reality becomes ever more tenuous.
Anthony leaves his depressing life and failing business behind in London to visit his sister V a garden designer and her lover Kitty at their home in the Gard.
His arrival and decision to buy the Mas Lunel creates conflict not only between Aramon and Audrun but also between V and Kitty and sets into motion a terrible series of events which changes all their lives for ever.
Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen was by far the book I enjoyed reading the most, this month.
It had been on my TBR list for ages so I was thrilled when my sister Kathryn brought it over for me in June.
I'm sure that most everyone else in the world has read WFE by now so you probably know the storyline.
Suffice it to say it was nothing like I expected to be, it was way better than that!

Joining Ricki Jill for the What We're Reading linky party tomorrow

The Simple Womans Daybook. August 2011.

When Jan visited my Normandy Life blog and commented on my blue sky collage I went over to Oz (not literally, of course!) to visit with her and learn about her life, through her blog A Tapestry of Life, in New South Wales, Australia.

There I discovered that she participates in Peggy's The Simple Woman's Daybook meme each month.

It looked interesting and so I decided to join in this month, with the following.

FOR TODAY..........

Outside my window... Blue skies and wispy white clouds.

I am thinking... that I should be out gardening instead of blogging!

I am thankful... for the friends I've made through blogging (that's why I'm here and not in the garden)

In the kitchen... for dinner tonight I'll be preparing stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in parma ham with sauteed savoy cabbage and courgettes a la Ina Garten

I am wearing... cropped linen pants, striped cotton shirt, Shalimar, Sugar Honey lipstick and flip flops

I am creating... just thinking about doing some scrapbooking later

I am going... no plans for any trips this week

I am wondering...what postie will bring today

I am reading...The Last Apache Girl by Jim Fergus

I am hoping...that I can find a dog sitter so that we can take a short holiday in Italy this October

I am looking forward to...friends visiting us next month

I am hearing...a light aircraft flying overhead

Around the house...finally found new homes for the rugs that we bought last week

I am pondering... where to hang the Cath Kidston bunting that I bought on ebay, it's a lot longer than I thought it would be!

One of my favorite things...Radley handbags

A few plans for the rest of the week: visit the dechetterie (dump), shopping on Thursday at the market and having lunch with the Senior Partner at l'Authentique afterwards

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Shabby chic garden furniture