The Friday 5ive is back!

It's been a long while since I wrote a Friday post. I've been busy with running the Book Cellar, traveling and spending time with our beautiful, smart and curious granddaughter, but people have asked me about the Friday 5ive so let's give it a try. Here are five things that caught my attention this week.

1) You can thank this lovely lady here for the return. While attending Adriana Trigiani's comedy and music show at Molloy University in Rockville Centre this week, a woman came up up to me and said "you're Diane- bookchickdi! I read your blog and love your book reviews. I miss the Friday 5ive." Gabriella was so sweet and she took me by complete surprise. No one has ever recognized me from my blog! So Gabriella this one is for you. It was a delight to meet you!

2) I was at the Molloy University theater to see author Adriana Trigiani's comedy and music show celebrating the release of her latest novel, The View From Lake Como. (My rave review here.) The sold-out crowd watched Adriana talk about her family -she is one of seven children- and she had the crowd raoaring with laughter. It was the funniest comedy show I've ever seen and we got a copy of her book too! She had a slide show with family photos, her brother Mike and his band The Predictables played some fantastic music and it was a terrific evening of joy and laughter. If you get the chance to see the show, do it! You can find ticket information here.  Here is a group photo with my friends and I at the Meet and Greet after the show.

3) Before the show, the ladies pregamed at my cousin Mary Beth's home, where she and her friends brought Italian treats to get us in the mood for the show about Adriana's Italian family. Everything was delicious, and Mary Beth's whipped ricotta with honey and herbs was the big hit. 

4) My husband is a big golfer so we watched the show Stick on Apple TV this week. It's about a down-on- his-luck-golfer who years before had a meltdown and now he teaches golf lessons to anyone who will pay. When he finds a young golf phenom he believes he can take this kid all the way to the amateur championship. He along with the young man and his mom, take off in his best friend's old RV for a cross country road trip to make it happen. Owen Wilson and Mark Maron star and it's funny and charming. 

5) The best book I read this week is Jess Walter's So Far Gone. Here's a description from the publisher:

Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons.

Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia?

With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind. So Far Gone is a rollicking, razor-sharp, and moving road trip through a fractured nation, from a writer who has been called “a genius of the modern American moment” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

It's got humor and heart and what I liked best about it is that the characters feel real- they are flawed but no one is all good or bad. (Well, maybe one guy is pretty bad...) It's another road trip story (like Stick) so maybe that is the theme for this week's Friday 5- road trip. 

Welcome back to the Friday 5ive, see you next week!

It's Summer Beach Read Time!

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

Summer means it’s beach reads time and here are a few great ones.

Nothing brings me greater joy than a new book from Adriana Trigiani, and her newest romantic comedy, The View From Lake Como (publishing July 8th), has all the elements that made her a favorite of mine. 

Jess Baratta finds herself living in her parents' basement (which doubles as a bonus kitchen and storage unit when "not housing someone old or newly divorced"). She left her husband Bobby after an unfulfilling short marriage, something her mother Philomena, Bobby, and Bobby's mother cannot comprehend.

Jess works for her Uncle Louie, owner of Capodimonte Marble and Stone (family owned since 1924). Philomena is currently feuding with her brother and will not speak to him, which makes Sunday family dinners fun. 

Now that Jess is back home, unmarried and childless (unlike her older sister and brother), she finds her role in the family carved in marble- she is cook, maid, babysitter, and driver. She will transition to nurse and caregiver as her parents age, like the maiden Aunt Giuseppina whom she was named after. I liked what the author had to say about how we can get stuck in our family roles, anyone from a large family will be able to relate to that.

When Uncle Louie tells Jess that she is going with him to Italy to meet with marble manufacturers, Jess is beyond thrilled. This is a dream come true for her! But fate intervenes and Jess now has to deal with things she never imagined.

Adriana Trigiani writes such rich, fully developed characters. I loved how you always know what Philomena is thinking (whether you want to or not), and Uncle Louie is quite the snappy dresser who dotes on his wife and niece. The fact that keeps his Knights of Columbus tux and sword in his trunk because he is always going to wakes made me laugh out loud (and if you know, you know). 

Many of us would love to have grown up with both sets of grandparents and cousins on the same street, and the dinner scenes had me wishing I could pull up a chair and pass the ravioli. (No one writes a family dinner scene better than Adriana Trigiani.)

I loved The View from Lake Como, it's a perfect summer read to toss in your bag as you head to the beach. It will make you smile and laugh out loud at times as Jess attempts to find her place in this world and in her family. Whether you're from a large family or just wish you were, be sure to pick up The View From Lake Como.

If Mysteries and Thrillers are more your style, there are two I would recommend. Chris Pavone turns from writing characters in situations abroad (The Expats, The Paris Diversion, Two Nights in Lisbon) to write The Doorman about a doorman in a fancy New York City building. 

Chicky Diaz has been at his post for many years, and he knows all about the secrets, love affairs, and wealth that the residents of the Bohemia hold. When he gets entangled with someone who wants to cause trouble at the Bohemia, he has to decide how to handle it in the midst of protests that are beginning to roil the city. It’s a real page-turner about class, race, and privilege.

Laura Lippman takes a break from her more hard-boiled mysteries to write a cozy-type mystery in Murder Takes A Vacation. Muriel Blossom is a middle-aged widow on a river cruise in Paris. When she meets a handsome man on her flight, they have a flirtation and agree to meet later. 

He turns up dead, and people are following Muriel on the cruise looking for something they believe the dead man gave her to hide. Muriel’s experience working as an assistant to PI Tess Monaghan will come in handy in solving the case.

Historical fiction fans will love Isabel Allende’s My Name Is Emilia de Valle set in the late 1800’s. Emilia is an American journalist traveling to Chile to cover the brewing civil war, and to find the father who left her and her mother behind before she was born.

Emilia ends up in the thick of battle and sees the horrors of war up close. Allende does an incredible job of putting the reader in Emilia’s shoes, and showing how women supported the dangerous war effort up close and personal. It’s a fascinating read.

If family stories appeal to you, Kevin Wilson’s Run For The Hills is a terrific novel. Rube Hill shows up at Madeline Hill’s farm to inform her that he is her brother- and that there are two more siblings out there. 

Their father would marry a woman, father a child, and years later disappear without a trace. Rube and Mad travel cross-country to find the other two younger siblings and eventually confront their father. It’s got heart and humor and it’s a good road trip book.

Enjoy your summer reads!

The View from Lake Como by Adriana Trigiani

The View From Lake Como by Adriana Trigiani

Published by Dutton ISBN 9780593183359

Hardcover, $29, 416 pages

Nothing brings me greater joy than a new book from Adriana Trigiani, and her newest romantic comedy, The View From Lake Como (publishing July 8th), has all the elements that made her a favorite of mine.

Jess Baratta finds herself living in her parents basement (which doubles as a bonus kitchen and storage unit when "not housing someone old or newly divorced"). She left her husband Bobby after an unfulfilling short marriage, something her mother Philomena, Bobby, and Bobby's mother cannot comprehend.

Jess works for her Uncle Louie owner of Capodimonte Marble and Stone (family owned since 1924). Philomena is currently feuding with her brother and will not speak to him, which makes Sunday family dinners interesting. 

Now that Jess is back home, unmarried and childless (unlike her older sister and brother), she finds her role in the family carved in marble- she is cook, maid, babysitter, and driver. She will transition to nurse and caregiver as her parents age, like the maiden Aunt Giuseppina whom she was named after. I liked what the author had to say about how we can get stuck in our family roles, anyone from a large family will be able to relate to that.

When Uncle Louie tells Jess that she is going with him to Italy to meet with marble manufacturers, Jess is beyond thrilled. This is a dream come true for her! But fate intervenes and Jess now has to deal with  things she never imagined.

Adriana Trigiani writes such rich, fully developed characters. I loved how you always know what Philomena is thinking (whether you want to or not), and Uncle Louie is quite the snappy dresser who dotes on his wife and niece. The fact that keeps his Knights of Columbus tux and sword in his trunk because he is always going to wakes made me laugh out loud (and if you know, you know). 

Many of us would love to have grown up with both sets of grandparents and cousins on the same street, and the dinner and funeral buffet scenes in The View From Lake Como had me wishing I could pull up a chair and pass the ravioli. (No one writes a family dinner scene better than Adriana Trigiani!)

I also enjoyed learning about the marble artists in Italy. I know I will look more closely at the interior of churches after reading this novel. 

I loved The View from Lake Como, it's a perfect summer read to toss in your bag as you head to the beach. It will make you smile and laugh out loud at times as Jess attempts to find her place in this world and in her family. Whether you're from a large family or just wish you were, be sure to preorder your copy from your favorite bookseller today.