Reading in the Garden

  2021 Book Club and Favorites Lists Jenna Bush Hager’s 2021 Book Club Jan.      Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour Feb.      The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah Feb.      Send for Me by Lauren Fox March  What's Mine & Yours by Naima Coster April     Good Company by Cynthia Sweeney May      Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead June     Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid July      Hell of a Book by Jason Mott (National Book Award Winner) Aug.     The Turnout by Megan Abbot Sept.    Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang Oct.      Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Same author as A Gentleman in Moscow) Nov.     The Family by Naomi Krupitsky Dec.     Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding Reese Witherspoon’s 2021 Book Club Jan.      Outlawed by Anna North Feb.      The Sanitorium by Sarah Pearse March  Infinite Country by Patricia Engel April     Northern Sky by Flynn Barry May     The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave June     Seven Days in June by Tia Williams July      Paper Palace by Miran

  The Mad Monk’s Daughter. What an interesting insight into the Russian “Mad Monk” who was rumored to be almost impossible to kill: poisoned, stabbed, shot numerous times, then drowned.  This book is about Rasputin’s last days before his murder in December 1916. We learn about the charismatic man through his daughter Maria’s eyes—the man who was hated by so many, yet an indispensable healer and advisor to Empress Alexandra, before the Romanovs' own fall, their execution, which is detailed in another novel by Robert Alexander,  The Kitchen Boy .   Both books are excellent and unlike other novels set in Russia like  Anna Karenina  and  War and Peace,  these are slim volumes that you can breeze through with ease.  EXTRA:  Check out these AWESOME colorized photos of the opulent Russian society of the Romanovs' 1903 last costume ball.  Jaw-dropping wealth while the masses outside the palaces were starving. No wonder there was a revolution!    https://www.thevintagenews. com/2019/07/

Beautiful Mona Lisa; La Joconde; La Gioconda The  Stolen  Lady by Laura Morelli: Fascinating! I was totally immersed in this historical fiction of Mona Lisa’s life and how centuries later her portrait, along with other art from the Louvre, was kept safe during WWII. I learned so much.   The author’s descriptions really brought me back to the time period of the Italian Renaissance. I could imagine the reek of the vats of dye at the Arno River, hear the clacking of the silk looms, and I could picture how the butchers tossed scraps of meat cuttings into the river, adding to the unbearable stench emanating from it, especially in the hot summer.   I learned about the class wars during that time period and the Medici Family’s role in it; how DaVinci had a reputation for not completing his projects; and his dislike for Michelangelo who was creating the  Statue of David  at the same time DaVinci started painting the  Mona Lisa.   DaVinci’s first person narration toggled back to the third perso

More than a Cooking Contest. I know I recently posted a list of WWII reading in Quick Picks, but with this book I just couldn’t use just one small paragraph to describe it.    I really loved this book about four women in a cooking contest in England during WWII!  Each had more at stake than the prize of becoming a BBC radio program presenter.  Audrey, a widow, needs money to support her family.  Gwendoline needs to prove her worth to her husband.  Zelda needs it as a stepping stone to get a job as a chef in London. And shy Nell needs it to escape from her hellish job with no future.  This book is about their separate struggles, the general hardships of war, and the power of friendships.    Big Bonus:  the book includes over 15 real recipes! I’ve made one already (Coquille St. Jacque—yum!), and I plan to try a lot more (although I will definitely skip the Sheep’s Head Roll and Whale Meat and Mushroom Pie).  But by cooking some of the recipes, it is a fun way to connect to the characters

  Dignity, Purity, Hope. Purple. White. Green.   (read the book to find out what that means) WOW!  This book pivots on roles three women played in the enormous Woman Suffrage Procession in 1913 that was interrupted by a chaotic mob.  The ladies' activism is a great reminder of the long and hard-won road to women’s right to vote that we should not take for granted!   Alice Paul was a young suffragette who had participated in the British, more radical, demonstrations.  Later she was the lead organizer of the 1913 parade.  Such a remarkable feat: the logistical magnitude of managing 5,000 participants, sparring for security and the route they wanted, all in a short time-period!   Secondly, Maud Malone was a spirited librarian who used her voice to bring attention to the cause while riling up the political candidates of the time. Her vociferous persistence paid off with a free trip to jail compliments of future President Woodrow Wilson.  Allegedly, Wilson was a misogynist AND anti-suff

 WWII Quick Picks Summer 2021 The following Quick Picks are all books about World War II.  Each book offers a unique and interesting aspect of the devastating war that reached all corners of the earth.  There are endless tales to tell and this is a great group of historical fictions that have recently been published.  The Woman with the Blue Star  by Pam Jenoff  Pub date: 5/4/21 This story revolves around Jews hiding in the sewer system in Krakow to avoid deportation to a concentration camp.  One day a young Polish woman walks by and sees a pair of eyes looking at her from the sewer grate. And so starts a friendship and fight for survival.  Excellent book! The Forest of the Vanishing Stars  by Kristin Harmel  Pub date: 7/6/21 I was awestruck by the stunning tale of Jews surviving in the forest as the Nazis hunted them during WWII.  Based on true events, it’s a monumental story of courage, heroism, and a shining light in the midst of darkness and evil.  Remarkable! Sisters in Arms  by K

 Summer 2021 Quick Picks A mix of recommendations—novels and non-fiction, adults and kids.                                 Here are my most recent reads that I enjoyed. The Girls in the Stilt House  by Kelly Mustian A beautifully written story of two teenage girls involved in a murder in the back swamps of Mississippi and the unravelling of what brought the two strangers together. This book kept calling for me any time I reluctantly had to put it down.  It is an excellent tale of despair, tragedy, and rays of hope for justice in an unjust world. The end had me biting my nails and holding my breath, as the past comes back to haunt the relationship that was forged out of necessity and survival. The Secret Keeper of Jaipur   by Alka Joshi I couldn’t resist returning to Alka Joshi’s rich and vivid India, where once again I was enraptured by the story, the culture, and the end of the book I immersed myself further by cooking her delicious recipes.  A complete delight! This is a sequel to  

  Injustice, Courage, and an Indomitable Spirit. Imagine a husband committing you to an insane asylum just to get rid of you.  That was a common occurrence in the 1800s and since a woman was her husband’s property she had no voice, no recourse.  The doctors signed off on a husband’s request because he was a man after all, so he was considered superior, all-knowing, and all powerful, and the women were tossed in an institution against their will with no way to defend themselves.  That’s what happened to Elizabeth Packard in 1860.     She was too outspoken for her husband who was a PASTOR. She had her own views, her own opinions, and when she started influencing parishioners in a Bible class, she went too far.  It endangered her husband's authority and his sponsorship from an outspoken donor to the church who opposed abolition.  She was treading way too far over her womanly boundaries and had to be stopped.  So he arranged to have her kidnapped and committed to an insane asylum witho

Getting Creative with Meals.   Can you guess what the meal in the picture is?  No, it’s not roadkill, although it does resemble something that’s been run over by a semitruck.  What we have here is a delicious Mock Duck. It was made with red lentils and rice. I found this recipe in the  Wartime Recipes  cookbook.     After reading numerous historical fictions about WWII, I really wanted to find a cookbook that offers different versions of coffee substitutes that are mentioned here and there in books:  coffee made from acorns ( The Paris Architect  by Charles Belfoure); coffee made from carrots, acorns, parsnips ( The Girl from the Channel Islands   by Jenny Lecoat); or chicory  coffee ( The Rose Code   f r om Kate Quinn).  Sadly, this cookbook did not have any such recipe. It did, however, offer other recipes from a time when food was scarce, especially coffee, sugar, eggs, butter, and other items.   The Mock Duck recipe caught my eye, because, it too, was mentioned in   The Rose Code, 

  Worth the Six Hundred Pages  Top secret codebreakers during WWII, a royal wedding, friendships, love, betrayals, a madhouse, and even a Mad Hatter literary society—this book has it all!  I was drawn to this well-written, mesmerizing, historical fiction like a magnet.   The book toggles between the early 1940s when three women work at Bletchley Park in England.  This is the top secret location where the codebreakers work frantically to decrypt German, Italian, and other messages. The story then pivots to 1947, right before the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Philip of Greece, and a mystery surrounding a woman imprisoned in a mental institution.     Although this beefy book wanders outside my comfort zone at 626 pages, I was hooked the entire time.  It wasn’t like other longer books where I wished they would end already, where I think the author should have and easily could have lopped off a lot to bring it down to a still-engaging read.  This book kept me going. I loved the cha