How Do I
Julie's Picks
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Schenone, Laura
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family Nonfiction |
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By shining a light on both the joys and pains of her multi-generational family's history, Laura Schenone attempts to understand her own passions. These take the form of multiple research trips to Liguria, the region of Italy from which her great-grandparents emigrated, honing painstaking techniques for handmade ravioli, and raising two sons while pursuing her writing career. Her sorrows are affecting, her successes triumphant. She also shares recipes, so you can delve into the mysteries of ravioli.
Recommended by Julie, July 2008 | |
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Beaton, M. C.
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death Mystery |
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Agatha Raisin's dream is coming true. She has sold her PR firm in London in order to begin early retirement in a quaint cottage in the Cotswold countryside. Once ensconced in her carefully chosen new setting, she realizes that her personal life has always, in fact, been professional. Nor is she inclined domestically. No one asks her to tea. The vicar's wife does not call. Entering a quiche in the village baking contest purchased from her favorite London bake shop seems like the perfect solution-a sure way to win friends. But her entry kills the judge, and the embarrassing truth that the quiche was purchased spreads quickly. Agatha's dreams are turning nightmarish.
Published in 1992, The Quiche of Death is the first in the Agatha Raisin series by M.C. Beaton. Number eighteen, Kissing Christmas Goodbye: An Agatha Raisin Mystery, arrived last year. And the fun continues: September 30, 2008, is the release date for A Spoonful of Poison: An Agatha Raisin Mystery.
Recommended by Julie, June 2008 | |
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Kaufman, Frederick
A Short History of the American Stomach Nonfiction |
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Americans seem to be obsessed with dieting, health, and nutrition, while at the same time the incidence of diseases related to over-eating are increasing. I’ve been reading food history books, both old and new, searching for how we arrived at this schizoid state. A Short History addresses these questions in a new way. Though Ben Franklin and Cotton Mather are prominent characters, this is not a dusty history of food. Employing hip language and humor, Kaufman’s revelations surprise and even shock. Kaufman contends that the American Puritan practice of fasting is the clinical ancestor of anorexia nervosa, and goes on to explore our “separate-but-equal urges to stuff and starve ourselves” (as the book jacket copy puts it). He backs up his thesis with enough evidence to convince me.
Recommended May 2008 | |
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Sorin, Fran
Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening Nonfiction |
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If I were categorizing this book, I’d invent the term, “garden therapy.” Sorin is a counselor who wants to help gardeners (including indoor gardeners) think about their gardening wants and needs, while understanding and accepting the limitations imposed by their garden spaces. Though the chapters include instruction on actual plant cultivation, the reason to read Digging Deep is for its lessons in creativity. Your garden is a perfect place to imagine, explore, play, work, risk, share, and celebrate.
Recommended by Julie, May 2008 | |
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Bender, Aimee
An Invisible Sign of My Own Fiction |
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This novel requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief. If you haven’t read within the magical realism genre, the extreme quirks of character and plot may surprise you. One definition of magical realism includes “heightened reality in which elements of the miraculous appear while seeming natural and unforced.” An Invisible Sign of My Own offers large doses of heightened reality as well as miraculous events that defy expectations. Though the protagonist is an obsessive counter, knocker-on-wood (or paper if no wood is available), and a compulsive quitter, it’s easy to sympathize with her as she teaches math to second graders, worries about her ill father, and tries to avoid emotional encounters with the attractive male art teacher who has a few quirks of his own.
Recommended by Julie, April 2008 | |
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Rybczynski, Witold Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century and Why We Live in Houses Anyway Nonfiction |
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In an intimate, conversational style, architecture critic Rybczynski tells the story of New Daleville, a "neotraditional" residential subdivision in rural Pennsylvania. Over the course of five years, Rybczynski met the developers, the community leaders whose approvals they needed, the home builders and sewage experts, and the first families who moved in. Along the way, he explores how Americans came to prefer single family houses and other pertinent housing history.
As a committed pedestrian, I loved reading about how smaller lots, narrower streets, and other seemingly old-fashioned, small town characteristics of communities like New Daleville contribute to a community that accommodates walkers as well as cars. Exciting, too, is the planning for new communities where people can choose to live within walking distance of their work, and where opportunities for shopping and entertainment are also within walking range.
Recommended by Julie, July 2007 | |
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Meyer, Danny Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business Nonfiction |
| Danny Meyer opened Union Square Cafe in 1985 when he was 27 years old. Since then his New York City restaurant empire has grown to include 11 establishments. In Setting the Table Meyer explores his family, business, and taste history with an emphasis on food. Readers interested in dining and restaurants are likely to enjoy his stories. But what I value most about this book is that Meyer has woven his management philosophy throughout, showing the development of what he calls "Enlightened Hospitality."
I got excited about "Enlightened Hospitality" while reading an interview just before Setting the Table was published, in which Meyer emphasized the importance of making his customers feel heard. He said, "The customer is certainly not always right. But they must always feel heard." Setting the Table has inspired me to pay more attention to the importance of listening to others, whether customers, employees, supervisors, or friends, regardless of my reaction to what they might be saying. Among many other important lessons, this book has encouraged me to focus on the act of listening. We take listening for granted, but careful listening really is a gift we give each other. Recommended by Julie, April 2007 | |
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Harrison, Jim Returning to Earth Fiction |
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Returning to Earth chronicles a year in the life of a closely knit family in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Four characters are each given one-quarter of the novel to tell their first-person tale. Donald, who is Chippewa-Finnish, begins the story. He is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease at age forty-five. As he dictates to his wife the story of his ancestors, he weaves family history, strong ties to the natural world, and hints of private, mystical views of life, death, and an afterlife. On page one Donald says, "I don't have the right language to keep up with my thinking or my memory or all of my emotions over being sick." But his authentic, distinct voice and stream of consciousness style is just right for a man overwhelmed with love for life. The members of Donald's family who narrate the remaining three sections of the novel face their private grief as well as struggle to help each other cope with Donald's death. Each narrator's voice is distinctive and utterly believable, and the themes of integrity and reverence for the earth are completely compelling.
Recommended by Julie, February 2007 | |
