Friday 5ive- March 10, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly(ish) post featuring five things that caught my attention during the week.

1)  I attended a book launch party event for Andrea Dunlop's novel, Women Are The Fiercest Creatures. The book is about three women all connected to a tech CEO- his ex-wife, current younger wife, and his ex-girlfriend who helped him create his company and now wants justice that he is taking his company public. It sounds like a great timely read, and after hearing Andrea and publisher Zibby Owens talk about the origins of the novel, I definitely want to read it. 

The book launch was well attended, and Zibby recognized many of the authors in the audience who stood and introduced themselves. I was excited to see Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt), Bess Kalb (Nobody Will Tell You This But Me), and Christina Baker Kline (The Orphan Train) as I really enjoyed all their books.

Attendees were asked to write down the name of fierce woman they know, and I wrote down Dorothy Reiss, one of the founders of the Book Cellar, the used bookstore where I volunteer. Dorothy runs circles around all of the younger volunteers, and everyone in the neighborhood who comes into the shop loves to talk to her. 

Firece women

Author Andrea Dunlop

Publisher Zibby Owens

2)  Speaking of Dorothy, the Book Cellar is celebrating its 19th anniversary this month. I have been lucky enough to have volunteered there since 2014, and things just keep getting better. We're located in the basement of the Webster Library branch of the New York Public Library, and the staff there is such a joy to work with. They are exceedingly kind to all of their patrons. Our volunteer staff are amazing, they all love books and are so knowledgeable, our customers are so impressed. They are kind too, each customer that comes into the shop gets a smile and a warm greeting. Our neighborhood has become home to more and more younger people, and we have seen people from all over NYC and the world walk into our shop. On Thursday, we had a young couple from Germany, an Irish man who used to live in New York and now lives in France, and a grandfather from India who always stops into our shop when he comes to visit his granddaughter in the neighborhood. Here's to 19 more years at the Book Cellar!

3)  In our quest to eat healthier, I'm finding that desserts have been the most challenging. I did make this Strawberry Pie and added some blueberries to it. It turned out really well, but it was a little too big for just the two of us. After a few days, it started to get a little wet so I will save this recipe for a time when more people are around to enjoy. The recipe is from my favorite, Marlene Koch.

4)  We are watching the second season of Your Honor on Showtime. We liked the first season, and after the end of season one, we weren't sure where it could go. Season two is really riveting, as Bryan Cranston's fantastic portrayal of disgraced judge Michael Desiato finds himself caught between a federal agent, brilliantly played by Rosie Perez, and the mobster family she is trying to take down. Hope Davis as the mobster mama is menancing. The New Orleans setting is good too. 

5)  March is Irish Heritage Month and I'm reading books set in Ireland written by Irish authors. First up is Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. Set in a small Northern Ireland town during the Troubles, Cushla lives with her mother, teaches at a Catholic school, and works at the family's bar. They are a Catholic family, and many of their patrons are Protestants, including soldiers who'd rather be back home. When Cushla meets a Protestant barrister who represents people accused of being IRA terrorists, she falls hard for him. The fact that he is married and his friends think many Catholics are terrorists causes friction between them. The story is so atmospheric, it brings the reader right into this time and place that isn't that far away. There are some parallels to things that happen here in the United States, particularly interactions between minority populations and police.  Two pivotal scenes had me torn up and audibly crying "No!" I highly recommend Trespasses. 

I started reading When in Rome by Liam Callanhan on my Kindle thinking I was reading When in Rome, a light rom-com by Sarah Adams. Liam's book is about a 52 year-old commerical realtor named Claire who specializes in helping religious communities sell their properties. She travels to Rome to help an order of nuns get the best price for their convent, set in the ruins of Rome. Claire becomes involved with the four nuns, whose order will disband them unless they can find another apostolate to join the order or get a buyer who will let them stay. When Claire was in college, she had intentions of joining a different order of nuns, but life intervened otherwise. Now Claire is in a midlife crisis and she has to decide what she truly wants out of life. I'm always intrigued when a male author writes a female protagonist, it's unique. If you are thinking about visiting Rome, this one should be on your list, it's another atmospheric novel. 

Stay safe, Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Friday 5ive- Holiday Edition 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly(ish) post featuring five things that caught my attention during the week. I was off for a few weeks- Thanksgiving and other things kept me otherwise occupied. This week's post is all about the upcoming Christmas holiday.

1) I was not impressed with the store windows this year, not enough about the holiday, more about the retail. There is one display that outshines all of the professionally done windows and that honor belongs to a parking garage on East 79th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave. Javier Sanchez manages the Continental Towers garage, and every year he decorates the garage with elaborate minature Frosty's Village that bring a smile to my face. While I was there, four other ladies came to the garage to see the display, that's how popular it is.

I love this little town with Prince of Wales Pub

The town has a pizzeria among its eateries

These are full sized

Hanukkah is represented

2)  We made a quick trip around the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree on Wednesday. It's always impressive and beautiful. 

3) The Book Cellar, the used bookshop in the Webster branch of the NYPL where I volunteer, had their annual volunteer appreciation holiday dinner this week. We had many new volunteers who joined us this year, and it was a wonderful evening where everyone got to know each other a little better. I'm so proud of the great group of dedicated people we have who love books and people, and work so hard to make the Book Cellar "the hidden gem" of New York as so many of our customers call it. 

The best book sellers in the business!

4) When we travel I like to pick up an ornament for our Christmas tree, and this year we have two new additions. We visited Edinburgh, Scotland and picked up a Royal Yacht Britannia ornament from the decommissioned royal yacht when we toured it. If you watched season five of The Crown on Netflix, you'll know what I'm talking about.When we visited our younger son in Boston, we toured the JFK Library and I picked one up there as well.

5) I'm sure you're not surprised to know that I have a collection of Christmas books that I decorate my bookshelf with, and this year I added two books- Jasmine Guillory's Royal Holiday and Susan Mallery's new one, Home Sweet Christmas, the second in her series set in the Christmas town of Wishing Tree. I love a good Christmas series, it really puts me in a holiday mood. Do you collect holiday books?

It's getting a little crazy again out there with flu, COVID and RSV. I hope you stay safe and healthy and got vaccinated.

Friday 5ive- July 15, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention this week.

1) After 17 months of being closed, the Book Cellar reopened this week and I'm back to work. I volunteer at the Book Cellar, a used bookstore located in the basement of Webster Library, a branch of the New York Public Library. All of the staff are volunteers, all our books are donated, and our proceeds benefit the branch libraries of the NYPL. Over the past 17 years, we have donated over $1 million to the NYPL. It was so great to be back to work, to see all of the fellow volunteers, and all of our customers have been so happy to see us. If you ever visit NYC, you have to stop by. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at BookCellarNYC.

2) One of my favorite things at the Book Cellar, besides getting to talk books with everyone, is creating new book displays. Since we were closed for 17 months, BookTok has become a thing. People on TikTok, many of them teenagers, have become book influencers. They create TikToks about books that they love, with books that make them cry being very popular. They have put many books on the bestseller lists, and publishers now court them. Maybe we should get into BookTok....

3) We were in Florida for a quick weekend trip, and our first stop was at the Publix to pick up a loaf of Cinnamon Bread. We brought the loaf back home because it is the best cinnamon bread we have ever had. We even got our friends hooked on it. Now we have to figure out how to get it delivered to NYC permanently, because making weekend trips to Florida for cinnamon bread could get expensive.

4) While I'm working in the kitchen, I watch TV shows on my Echo Show. I've been watching 30 Rock, the NBC sitcom created by Tina Fey and starring herself, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jack McBrayer and Jane Krakowksi. I forgot how falling down funny this show is. The jokes come fast and furious, and there are many jokes that probably wouldn't be allowed in today's culture. The guest stars are incredible too- Carrie Fisher, Elaine Stritch, Jon Hamm, Rip Torn among many more. You can find it on Hulu. 

5) I read lots of great books this week. Speaking of 30 Rock, I read a book about the show, The 30 Rock Book: Inside the Iconic Show, from Blergh to the EGOT by Mike Roe, which publishes in November. I got so much more out the show after reading this fascinating book. Reading about dealing with the intense personalities like Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan, the insanely long hours the writers worked, and sometimes myopic focus on sacrificing everything to the joke was so interesting. Roe tackles some of the tough issues around 30 Rock, and this would make a great Christmas gift for the 30 Rock fan in your life. 

I continued my reading trip to the Catskills/Hudson Valley (begun with Jane L. Rosen's Eliza Starts a Rumor and continuing with Elyssa Friedland's Last Summer At The Golden Hotel) with Lea Geller's The Truth and Other Hidden Things. When Bells Walker finds herself pregnant at 43 and her husband denied tenure, her family has to leave NYC and move to the town of Pigkill in the Hudson Valley, where her husband finds a job teaching English literature at Dutchess College. Her two teenage children are unhappy at the move, and mortified by her pregnancy. Bells can't find a job writing for the local paper, so she turns her skills to writing a snarky blog about the moms and displaced Brooklyn millenials in Pigkill. When her blog garners the attention of the media (which Bells likes), she finds that has created trouble for her family. It's a terrific beach read, and I found myself cringing at the things Bells does, all the while feeling empathy for her. Her husband is a little tone-deaf, and Geller nails the Hudson Valley milieu perfectly. 

Another great beach read is Beck Dorey-Stein's Rock the Boat. Kate Campbell has a charmed life- she lives in her longtime boyfriend's fabulous family apartment in New York City, works at his family's PR firm, and hopes to be married soon. When her life falls apart in five minutes, she has to move home to her parents' home in the New Jersey seaside tourist town of Sea Point. Devastated, she plots to get her old life back with a fool-proof plan. She reconnects with her childhood friend Ziggy, who lost his father and business partner in the plumbing business. Ziggy's best friend Miles is also coming home to claim the CEO title of his family's business, a hugely successful resort run by his mother. I loved the characters, the storyline (especially the library setting), and this book made me want to head to the fictional town of Sea Point to grab a cocktail at the Jetty bar, dress up for dinner at the Wharf, and hang out at the beach with Kate, Ziggy and Miles. (And yes, you'll have the 70's hit song, Rock the Boat, stuck in your head while reading it. And if you watched Netflix's Derry Girls, you'll have the image of the choregraphed boat dance stuck there too.) I also enjoyed her memoir, From the Corner of the Oval, about her time at the Obama White House as a stenographer.

I finished up the week reading Julia Quinn's The Duke and I, the book that the hit Netflix series, The Bridgertons was based on. The book is a quick read, even at 400 pages, and it's as a delightful as the series is. You will picture Regé Jean-Page's face as you read, even though his description differs slightly in the book. And the commanding Queen Charlotte is missing from the book, but other than that, it's a fun read. 

I hope you all had a great week. Stay safe and cool out there.

To The Stars Through Difficulties by Romalyn Tilghman

To The Stars Through Difficulties by Roamlyn Tilghman
Published by She Writes Press ISBN 9781631522338
Trade paperback, $16.95, 303 pages

I volunteer at the Book Cellar, a used bookstore located in the basement of the Webster Library on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. The Webster Library is one of the original Carnegie libraries, built in 1905.

Andrew Carnegie gave money to build nearly 1700 libraries across the country, many in small towns like the town of New Hope, Kansas, the setting for Romalyn Tilghman's novel To The Stars Through Difficulties. 

The novel opens with a newspaper clipping of a an EF-5 tornado that destroyed the entire town of nearby Prairie Hill, where the only thing left standing was one wall of the old Carnegie Library. The story is told through the eyes of three women- Gayle, a woman who lost her home in the tornado, Angelina, who is writing her PhD thesis on Carnegie libraries, and Traci, an artist from New York who relocates to New Hope for the promise of a job teaching at an art center, formerly a Carnegie library in New Hope. (I did not realize that many small town libraries were turned into media/arts centers in the 1970s.)

Angelina's grandmother lived in New Hope and she played a major role in procuring money from Andrew Carnegie to build a library there. Some of the most interesting sections of the book tell the story of how the women in the town banded together to raise the necessary funds to get the grant.

Those women would let nothing stand in their way in their determination to get a library for their town, not their husbands, and in Angelina's grandmother's case, not the expectations of what a woman is capable of doing or the opinions of others as to how to accomplish that.

Angelina needs this trip to complete her thesis. The family print shop she ran with her late father is about to close, her mother is not supportive of her goal, and it has taken her too long to get this far academically.

Traci is a fish out of water in New Hope. She is a young woman from a big city, and she has nothing to lose. Her new job is tenuous, and depends on the town to raise funds for her salary. She finds it hard to relate to the women in this town, and the troubled teens she is charged with teaching challenge her in many ways.

To The Stars Through Difficulties is the motto of the state of Kansas, and it is the perfect title for this wonderful book. It is about women banding together to create something lasting, something that will better their communtity and the people who live there. It is a story about women empowering themselves.

We see how much Angelina's grandmother's generation and the women of today have in common. They set a goal and come hell or high water, it was going to be achieved. I enjoyed seeing how supportive the women were of each other, even while being wary of each other at times.

The characters are so realistic, and those who long for small town living will truly appreciate To The Stars Through Difficulties. When I was a child, I loved The Little House On The Prairie books, and this felt like a modern, grown-up version of the those books. I got the same warm feelings reading To The Stars Through Difficulties.

I highly recommend To The Stars Through Difficulties.

Weekend Cooking- The Book Cellar

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Last June, I began volunteering at the Book Cellar, a wonderful used bookstore located in the Webster Library branch of the New York Public Library on the Upper East Side. It is a fantastic place, often called a 'hidden NYC gem' by people when they find it.

The Book Cellar has been open for eleven years, which is such an accomplishment, made even more impressive by the fact that it is operated by the Friends of the Webster Library and staffed completely by a terrific group of dedicated volunteers.

I enjoy spending four days a week at The Book Cellar, and one of the many reasons for that is that I am always finding great books to purchase, most for under $3. It does cause a problem in that, while I frequently donate my books to the Book Cellar after I have read them, I somehow end up bringing home just as many (OK, maybe more) than I donate.

Recently, I found some books that relate to Weekend Cooking. As I was looking through my cookbook collection to see which ones I could donate (not as many I as should have), I discovered that I did not have a copy of The Silver Palate Cookbook, a classic that should be in every kitchen.

I was able to rectify that error by picking up a copy at The Book Cellar for just $3. Does anyone have any favorite recipes from the book that I should try? Let me know in comments below.

Calvin Trillin's book about his lovely wife who passed away way too soon, About Alice, holds a special place on my Favorites Bookshelf, and so when I saw that his book Alice, Let's Eat was at the Book Cellar, I snapped that up too. Trillin is so funny, and I adore Alice, so I can't wait to dig into this one.

The last book I purchased is Julie Powell's Julie and Julia, about a young woman who begins a blog writing about her quest to cook every recipe in Julia Child's classic cookbook Mastering The Art of French Cooking in her tiny kitchen apartment. I can't believe I haven't read this one yet.

Now I'm off to work my shift at the book store where maybe I'll find even more treasures to bring home. (Just don't tell my husband.)

You can like The Book Cellar on Facebook here.

My Good Deed- Helping to Build a Library

My husband is the CEO of ArchCare, the healthcare ministry of the Archdiocese of New York. They operate nursing homes, hospitals and provide home care and day care for the frail and elderly. During Hurricane Sandy, they took in 59 refugees from an adult home in the Rockaways. Their home was severely damaged.

These people were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and maybe a garbage bag of personal belongings. They are some of the kindest, sweetest people I have met, always looking out for each other, taking care of each other.

We took some of them to a luncheon on Arthur Ave. in the Bronx last month, and I noticed one of the women had a book on the table in front of her, a Margaret Truman mystery. I asked her if she enjoyed the book and if she had read any other Truman books. I told her that I could buy her some more Margaret Truman books at the local used bookstore in my local library. She was thrilled.

I asked other residents if they liked to read, and they came alive. One man likes James Ellroy crime novels, another woman enjoys books about travel and explorers. I had the pleasure of sitting next to a former children's librarian and we chatted up a storm about books. She is a big Maurice Sendak fan.

When we visited my husband's family in Kingston, NY, I stopped in Ollie's Bargain Outlet and loaded up on books. If you have an Ollie's near you, GO THERE. It's like a Big Lots, and this one had a huge book section, bigger than most bookstores, and they had tons of books for $2 and up. We're starting a library for these people!

Today I stopped at Webster Library Book Cellar used bookstore and picked up all these books for just $30. I found Ellroy, Truman, some travel books and others books I think they may like.

Some of the residents are blind (including my librarian friend), so I told them we could get them audiobooks. This where I am looking for help. If anyone out there has a good resource for audiobooks (they would have to be CDs) I would appreciate if you could point me in the right direction.  Do you know of any websites or stores that carry discounted audiobooks? Any contacts that you have would be so wonderful. I'm also looking for some children's books for my librarian.

So many people have been so generous, donating money to help care for these displaced people, and The Gap donated winter coats, hats and gloves to them. As I love books, I think this is a great way to bring them some joy as well as myself.

Thanks in advance for anything you can do, I'll keep you updated!