Weekend Cooking- Four Hits and A Miss On Pinterest

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.

I tried a few new recipes these past few weeks from Pinterest; four were hits and one was a big old miss.

My friend Jackie told me about a Stuffed Pepper Soup she made that she and her husband just loved. I'm not a big stuffed pepper fan, but my husband is so I made it for him last weekend. He loved it! He even had two helpings for dinner that night and said that he'd eat the leftovers for his Sunday lunch. (He's not big on leftovers, so that is a big deal.) The recipe is from Cooking Classy.

Photo from Cooking Classy

My younger son stopped by and he had a bowl too and raved about it. This one will definitely be in the winter rotation.

My only Pinterest miss came earlier this week. I wanted to have a slow cooker recipe ready for when I got out of work on Tuesday. I chose a Balsamic Chicken recipe that was simple. I asked my butcher for two whole bone-in chicken breasts, split in two, so four half-breasts total. I didn't look at the chicken until I got home and was ready to cook it. It was two half chicken breasts that he halved, so they were tiny pieces of chicken. I mixed together the balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, chicken broth and spices and placed in the slow cooker. It didn't turn out well, mostly because the chicken pieces were too small. I also found the sauce too vinegary and thin.

I tried to rebound this past Friday and made three new recipes for dinner. I started with a Creamy Chicken Mushroom Soup, which was perfect- not too thin, not too thick. Goldilocks would approve.
The recipe is from Damn Delicious.

 Photo from Damn Delicious

With that, I made a French Onion Chicken Slider sandwich that was super simple. Caramelize the onions, cook chicken cutlets cut in half, top with swiss cheese and place on a slider roll with dijon mustard and lettuce. This was very flavorful and paired well with the soup. It's from Creme de la Crumb. 

Photo from  Creme de la Crumb

For dessert, I tried a Bananas Foster Bread Pudding recipe from the New York Times that was inspired by the dessert at the famed New Orleans restaurant Brennan's. The pudding was delicious, but the sauce called for 1/2 cup of rum, which I thought was too much. I ended up adding more cream to the sauce to cut the rum and it turned out fine. Add some vanilla ice cream on the side, and you've got a mighty fine dessert. The recipe is here.

Photo credit- Sarah Ann Ward from the NY Times

So overall, I batted .800, which would mean I had a good week. Or more to the point, my husband had a good week, haha.

Did you make any good recipes this week? Share them in comments.

Loner by Teddy Wayne

Loner by Teddy Wayne
Published by Simon & Schuster ISBN 9781501107894
Hardcover, $26, 202 pages

A friend whose taste in books I truly respect told me I must read Teddy Wayne's Loner. So of course I did.

Told from the perspective of 18-year-old David Federman, an intelligent, but socially inexperienced, freshman just starting at Harvard. David wasn't popular at his middle class New Jersey high school and was looking forward to being with people he had something in common with at the prestigious university.

He hangs out with a group of people who were much like he was in high school- on the fringes, not the cool kids. Then David meets Veronica, a self possessed, beautiful young woman from a wealthy Manhattan family.

David makes it his goal to date Veronica. He decides that to get closer to her, he would date her roommate Sara, part of his group of friends. Sara is sweet, smart and hardworking, and close to her family.

Veronica seems to be the kind of girl who gets by on her looks, but how she got into Harvard seems to be a question in my mind. She gets David to write a term paper for her, and it appears that she is using David, but he believes she will come to see him for the great man he is.

As the story progresses, David's obsession with Veronica grows and you get a sinking feeling in your stomach that something is going to go wrong here.

Wayne writes beautifully, and his characters are very well drawn, even as Veronica and David are not quite what they appear to be. Wayne also takes on the charged atmosphere on college campuses today, with the timeless issues of belonging and wanting to fit in clashing with the sexual politics of today.

Loner is a quick read, only 200 pages, but the story will stay with you a long time. I recommend it.

The Wicked City by Beatriz Williams

The Wicked City by Beatriz Williams
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062405029
Hardcover, $26.99, 384 pages

The first thing you notice about Beatriz Williams' new novel, The Wicked City, is its striking cover. A woman wearing a vibrant red dress dress under a red umbrella, walking in what looks like 1920's Times Square in New York (the cars are the key clue to the time frame).

Immediately a reader would pick this book up off a shelf to check it out. Reading the back cover, you discover that a character from Williams' last novel A Certain Age, society maven Theresa Marshall's son Billy, has a role in this novel.

One of Williams' strengths in her novels is the connection between characters in her previous books. The Schulyer family has been prominent in several of her most recent books- One Hundred Summers, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, Along The Infinite Sea, and The Forgotten Room- and they have a role here as well.

The story begins in 1998 with Ella Hawthorne moving into an apartment at 11 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village in New York City. She has just left her husband after finding him cheating on her. Her lifestyle takes a dramatic turn, from living in a gorgeous condo to moving into a tiny apartment in a small, older building.

She meets an intriguing (and handsome) man, Hector, in the laundry room basement, who gives her the lowdown on the building and its tenants. She hears music coming from the the other side of the wall, from the building next door. Hector tells her that it used to be a speakeasy, back in the days of Prohibition.

And then the story takes a turn to the 1920's where we meet Gin Kelly, a real-life flapper, who spends her time at the speakeasy drinking illegal alcohol after working at her job as a typist at Sterling & Bates. Gin is a real dame, the kind of woman Barbara Stanwyck would have played in a the movies.

Gin is dating young rich college boy Billy Marshall, who has fallen hard for her and wants to marry her. She is also being pursued by Anson, a federal Prohibition agent who is leaning on Gin to help him shut down the flow of illegal moonshine, coming from the man Gin ran away from- her stepfather, who has become a powerful alcohol distributor in Maryland.

Gin's story intrigued me more than Ella's did, perhaps because there was more physical action and more of a sense of danger. There is a powerful scene near the end of the story that had me at the edge of my seat, with Gin and Billy and Anson and Gin's stepfather; it was incredibly harrowing.

Beatriz Williams'  writes characters you care about, and her ear for the 1920's dialogue felt very much like watching an old movie on TCM and even put me in mind of HBO's Boardwalk Empire, the Prohibition-set TV series.

She is also very clever at weaving her characters' stories and histories together, and their connection to the Schuyler family gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling seeing some of my old friends again. If you are a fan of Williams' previous novels, The Wicked City is a must-read, and if you haven't yet read any of her books, this is a good one to start with; I guarantee you will be running to grab her previous novels to catch up with what you have missed.

Beatriz Williams' website is here (with a handy family tree for the Schuyler family!)

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Beatriz' Williams tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, January 17th: Girls Just Reading

Wednesday, January 18th: bookchickdi

Thursday, January 19th: West Metro Mommy

Friday, January 20th: A Chick Who Reads

Monday, January 23rd: Books and Bindings

Tuesday, January 24th: Kritters Ramblings

Thursday, January 26th: 5 Minutes For Books

Friday, January 27th: BookNAround

Monday, January 30th: I Wish I Lived in a Library

Tuesday, January 31st: Thoughts On This ‘n That

Wednesday, February 1st: Literary Lindsey

Thursday, February 2nd: The Book Date

Thursday, February 2nd: Reading Reality

Friday, February 3rd: View from the Birdhouse

Monday, February 6th: StephTheBookworm

Tuesday, February 7th: Tina Says…

Wednesday, February 8th: Reading to Distraction

Thursday, February 9th: A Bookish Affair

Friday, February 10th: Life By Kristen

Friday, February 10th: Library of Clean Reads

Weekend Cooking- Cooking Light Recipe

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.

Flipping through the January/February edition of Cooking Light, I bookmarked several recipes that looked tempting to me.

The first one is a Pumpkin Soup with Almonds and Sage that looks similar to Rachael Ray's Pumpkin Soup recipe that I made for Thanksgiving; it was a big fan favorite. I may try this one to see which we prefer. The recipe is here.

Next is a Turkey and Swiss Sloppy Joe Sandwich that I may pair with the Pumpkin Soup for a Sunday lunch. The recipe is here.

My husband wants to eat more vegetables this year, so we decided that soups would be a good way to accomplish this as he is not a big vegetable fan overall. There is an Immunity Soup recipe with onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, kale, chickpeas and chicken that looks like it will fit the bill. The recipe is here.

I tried brussel sprouts for the first time on our Florida vacation (I know, I know) and liked them, and the Broiled Flat Iron Steak with Brussel Sprouts and Sweet Potatoes is a recipe I might have avoided but now will try. The recipe is here.

Pork tenderloin is a good weeknight meal because it is a quick cooking meat, and that makes the Pork Tenderloin with Mushrooms and Onions recipe that takes 23 minutes one I will be making on a workday. The recipe is here.

My husband loves beef stroganoff, so to mix it up, I will try the Chicken Stroganoff recipe. That recipe is here. He likes Chicken Cacciatore and I like slow cookers (another good weeknight meal), so the Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore is also going to get a look. The video for that dish is here.

I did manage to make one recipe from the magazine this week- BBQ Beef-Stuffed Potatoes. It was pretty easy, but I did have an issue. You make a brown sugar/tomato paste rub for the boneless chuck roast and place baking potatoes wrapped in parchment paper on top and cook for 8 hours.

BBQ Stuffed Potatoes- from Cooking Light 

I have never cooked baking potatoes in the slow cooker and I think my potatoes may have been too large because they were not cooked enough after 8 hours. Next time I may cook the potatoes in the microwave.

The dish was tasty, full of flavor and at only 385 calories, it's a terrific lower-calorie dinner. You top the potatoes with the beef that you shred, shredded cheese, sour cream, and green onions. It's similar to the Taco Potato we used to sell at our Taco Maker restaurant. We'll have it again. The recipe is here.

Did you try any new recipes this week? Let me know in comments.

All the Time In The World by Caroline Angell

All The Time In The World by Caroline Angell
Published by Henry Holt ISBN 978-1-62779-401-5
Trade paperback, $15, 321 pages

There is nothing so exciting as discovering a debut novel.  Caroline Angell's first book, All The Time In The World, brings to life the world of the Upper East Side of New York City, as seen through the eyes of Charlotte, a young woman who is working as a nanny to the two young Maclean boys.

Charlotte is also a music composer who is trying to come to terms with why she is not working in the music business. She finds herself distancing herself from her college friends, and her friends and family worry that she is becoming too attached to the Maclean family and forgoing her own dreams.

She adores Matty and George, the two young boys she cares for. She and Gretchen, the mom, get along well, and she doesn't see Scotty, the dad who works long hours in the finance industry, very often.

When a tragic event occurs that threatens to tear the Maclean family apart, Charlotte is thrust into a different role; she becomes the glue that holds them together. It is up to her to get the boys to school, to deal with their teachers, run the household, and help them understand a world that no longer makes any sense to them.

Charlotte is very close to her sisters and they are becoming more worried for her, afraid that if she doesn't get out and begin her own life now that she never will. But Charlotte loves Matty and George and feels an obligation to them.

I loved the character of Charlotte, and even though I am years older than her, I related to her a great deal. Her sense of responsibility to the Macleans was something I understood in my heart. Her relationship with her sisters felt so true-to-life, I'm sure that Angell must have sisters of her own.

Her connection with Matty and George was so sweet, and yet frustrating as well. I have two sons of my own and I smiled with recognition, thrust right back to the days when they were little guys as I read of Charlotte trying to corral them in their everyday lives.

Charlotte also has a complicated relationship with Scotty, the boys' dad, and Patrick, Scotty's slightly irresponsible playboy brother.

Angell writes some powerful, emotional scenes, such as one set at a hospital that just tore my heart out. All The Time In The World is the kind of book that worms its way into your heart, and you will feel so many different emotions reading it. Charlotte is a woman you will not easily forget. I highly recommend All The Time In The World.

Caroline Angell's website is here.

The Night I Sat Across The Aisle From Debbie Reynolds

This post is a review of Debbie Reynolds' last book, Make 'Em Laugh, and I was there for one of the anecdotes- read through until the end. The world was a more interesting place because Debbie Reynolds was in it.

Make 'Em Laugh by Debbie Reynolds and Dorian Hannaway
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062416634
Hardcover, $25.99, 288 pages

The subtitle of Debbie Reynolds' book Make 'Em Laugh is Short-Term Memories of Longtime Friends and it aptly describes this book; it's filled with short anecdotes about Reynolds and the people she met in her long and storied career.

While reading it, I felt like I was sitting next to her on her couch in her beautiful home while she flipped through a scrapbook, sharing memories of the many famous people she has met and known.

Reynolds is hilarious, as anyone who has seen her on a talk show or award show knows. She has a sharp, quick wit that is well on display here. She also has some funny stories to share about her family, including daughter Carrie Fisher who inherited her mom's sense of humor.

Carrie opens the book recounting the evening that her brother Todd accidentally shot himself in the thigh with a blank from a gun. Debbie called a cab to take him to the hospital because "ambulances can be so loud", and when Debbie was brought to the police station to be fingerprinted, Debbie gave them one finger to be printed. And we're off.

Reynolds shares that she likes to do talk shows, The View and The Talk being two of her favorites. She really loved being on Craig Ferguson's show, saying that no matter what she said, he was right there with her.

She was one of Joey Bishop's first guests on his talk show in the 1960's and recalls demonstrating on Regis Philbin (Joey's sidekick) the proper method taught to Girl Scouts to put out a fire. She jumped on him and he came out of it bruised and scraped, while she split her dress. She was a hit, making the front page cover of New York Sunday News.

Reynolds talks about her visits to the White House, sitting next to Prince at the Oscars, who was wearing a purple lace shawl over his head, dancing the night away with Belgium's bachelor King Baudouin and having her rear end pinched by both Prince Philip (Queen Elizabeth's husband) and Robert Kennedy.

Jonathan Winters and Jimmy Stewart were favorite dinner party seat mates, Milton Berle, whom Reynolds called "obnoxious", was not. Neither was Shelley Winters, "a pain in the ass." She shares a tale of dumping a bucket of ice and water over a drunken Elaine Stritch's head when Stritch was talking through an entire cabaret performance of a friend of Reynolds.

One anecdote she shares is one I was there for. She recounts attending the first preview for Bette Midler's Broadway show about agent Sue Mengers. She was seated near Liza Minelli, and I was sitting across the aisle from them and was so excited to see both of these superstars.

If you are a fan of Debbie Reynolds, Make 'Em Laugh is a book you'll enjoy. It would make a lovely gift for the Turner Classic Movie aficionado in your life.

The Day I Met Carrie Fisher

This post is from 2009, the day I saw Carrie Fisher's  howlingly funny one woman Broadway show, Wishing Drinking. The world was a more colorful place because Carrie Fisher was in it.

Carrie Fisher turned her funny book Wishful Drinking into a stage production and it's now on Broadway at Studio 54.


I enjoyed her book and her first (autobiographical) novel, Postcards from the Edge, which was turned into a brilliant movie starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine, so I looked forward to seeing the show.

Fisher engages the audience right away, tossing gobs of glitter on the front row as she wanders among them. She involves a few of them in her show, and it definitely enhanced the experience.

The show is about Fisher's life- her family, her iconic role in Star Wars, her marriages (first to music icon Paul Simon and then to a closeted gay man with whom she has a lovely daughter), her addiction to pills and eventual diagnosis of bipolar illness.

She starts out right away talking about her gay male friend who died in her bed right next to her. She explains the circumstances and finds some humor in what was a horrible experience for her.

Carrie Fisher outside the stage door

The funniest part of the show occurs when a board of photos descends and she uses it to show how she explained to her daughter, who wanted to date Elizabeth Taylor's grandson but feared that they were related, how the family tree worked.

She explained that Debbie Reynolds (her mom), Eddie Fisher (her dad) and Liz were the Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of their day. She shows how Debbie had terrible taste in men, which Carrie seemed to inherit, and how Eddie's wives got progressively younger as he aged. She involved Greta, an audience member, in this howlingly funny explanation. She calls it Hollywood Inbreeding 101.

Her impression of her mother is so delightful, and it is sweet that they live right next door to each other in California. Carrie has clearly inherited her mother's sense of humor and survival.

Also enjoyable were the stories she told of working with George Lucas in

Star Wars. She pokes fun at her infamous hairstyle that highlighted her pudgy cheeks, the merchandising juggernaut and how George Lucas owns her likeness and so she appeared as dolls, shampoo bottles, soap, and a Pez dispenser. A life-sized concrete likeness of her (with enhanced breasts) that is sold as a sex toy on Ebay comes down from the ceiling to emphasize her discussion.

Fisher uses several photos as backdrops, including a photo of her in Princess Leia regalia that is in a textbook on mental health, illustrating the Bipolar Disorder chapter. At the end of the show, tabloid headlines about her and her family fly across the screen behind her as Fisher sings "Happy Days Are Here Again" in a lovely, strong voice. She sings as well as she writes, and that's saying something.

The show is very funny, and touching as well. Fisher lays bare her life- her successes, her failures, her frailties- for all to laugh at and empathize with. That she made it through and is able to laugh at it and make us laugh at it, is a gift. If you want a good laugh, go see Wishful Drinking before it closes in December.

I waited outside the stage door to get my copy of her book signed, but was disappointed when Fisher's people told us that she would sign only the stage program or ticket. She came out right away after the matinee, but seemed much more reticent towards the handful of people waiting for her than she was onstage. I guess I'll chalk it up to the fact that she just spent two hours talking onstage and had to come back in a few hours and do it all over again.

The Most Compelling Books of 2016

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

The year 2016 is quickly coming to a close, and it’s time to reflect on all of the reading I’ve done this year with my list of the most compelling books of 2016. These are books that long after I finished reading, I find myself still thinking about them.

I didn’t read much non-fiction this year, but two titles in that genre made the list, including the one book I was most moved by: Lisa Fenn’s Carry On. Fenn, a producer at ESPN, was looking for a good documentary subject when her father told her about two high school wrestlers — one was blind, the other lost both legs in an accident, and both lived in poverty. Fenn becomes involved in trying to help these young men make better lives for themselves. It restores your faith in humanity and helps you to understand the world better. 

Carry On

Jeffrey Toobin, whose book was the basis for the FX smash TV series The People v. O.J. Simpson, turned his attention to the Patty Hearst kidnapping in American Heiress. Toobin brilliantly immerses the reader in the mid-1970s as he tells of wealthy heiress Hearst’s kidnapping by a group of ragtag political extremists, and what happened when she became an ally to their violent cause. 

American Heiress

Mysteries and thrillers were tops on my reading list, something different for me. Chris Bohjalian’s novel The Guest Room shows how easily one mistake can turn the life of a happily married father into a nightmare. You can feel a pain in the pit of your stomach as his life unravels after a bachelor party, and the ending is shocking. 

The Guest Room

Lisa Lutz’s The Passenger opens with a woman’s husband lying dead at the bottom of the stairs and her on the run. We discover she was already on the run for something else and when she is saved by a stranger, their lives become entwined. You’ll hold your breath the entire time you’re reading. 

The Passenger

Irish writer Tana French’s latest Dublin Murder Squad mystery The Trespasser is the best of the series so far, with a protagonist, detective Antoinette Conway, who is tenacious as she maneuvers her way in an all-male environment to solve a murder that hits close to the squad. 

The Trespasser

Much of the fiction I read this year was just outstanding, and emotional. Caroline Leavitt’s Cruel Beautiful World, set in the early 1970's, follows a 16-year-old girl who runs away with her teacher, and how that affects her sister and Iris, the woman who raised them. Iris’ story moved me most, and these characters are unforgettable. 

Cruel Beautiful World

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Louise Erdrich’s LaRose starts out heartbreaking, as a man accidentally kills his best friend’s young son and, following his tribal tradition, gives his young son to the grieving parents as amends. This beautifully sad book is filled with the fascinating characters affected by this act, and the writing is devastating. 

LaRose

Jennifer Haigh’s Heat and Light tackles the topic of fracking and how it impacts the lives of a small Pennsylvania town where the factory work is gone and people are torn between saving their environment and making enough money to survive. Haigh’s brilliant novel especially resonates in today’s atmosphere. 

Heat and Light

Richard Fifeld’s The Flood Girls is set in a small town as well, in Montana. Rachel comes home to make amends for all the trouble she caused and befriends her teenage neighbor, a young man who doesn’t fit in. Again, the characters here are so well-drawn, and the ending is just shattering. 

The Flood Girls

Deanna Lynn Sletten’s Finding Libbie is a novel that didn’t get a lot of attention, but should have. When a young woman finds a wedding photo of her father with a woman not her mother, she sets out to find out what happened to the bride. It’s about first love, the difficulties of marriage, and the heartbreak of mental illness and addiction. 

Finding Libbie

Anthony Marra’s The Tsar of Love and Techno perfectly places all of the pieces of the puzzle in a story that spans a century, telling how a 19th-century Russian painting affects a variety of people. Given the current interest in Russia, this one is a must-read, and Marra is a genius storyteller. 

The Tsar of Love and Techno

And finally, the book that everyone (including Oprah) has on their list: “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead. I don’t normally like books that everyone loves, but this one is incredible. Cora's story, a slave who runs away on a literal underground railroad, is just one punch to the gut after another. Every American should read it. 

The Underground Railroad

Diane La Rue is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and blogs about books at http://bookchickdi.blogspot.com. You can follow her on Twitter@bookchickdi, and she can be emailed at laruediane2000@yahoo.com.

Weekend Cooking- New Holiday Recipes

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.

This is the time of year when my mailbox is stuffed full of catalogs for companies that I am not entirely sure how I got on their list- Little Princess catalog, really? I don't have a young daughter as a matter of fact, I don't have any daughters. I'm not quite sure how that one happened.

What I do enjoy showing up in my mailbox are the holiday issues of food magazines. The covers are so cheery and bright, and there are always great recipes that I want to add to my holiday repertoire.

Cooking Light has a lovely little mini raspberry cheesecake on the cover that just screams Christmas. Last year we celebrated New Year's Eve with a dinner at our home in Longboat Key, Florida. We bought a huge beef tenderloin from Costco, seasoned it up and grilled it outside. (We never used to be able to do that in Central New York in December!)

This December issue has a Holiday Survival Guide section, and a recipe for the Perfect Beef Tenderloin is there, along with a Board Dressing that you place on the cutting board for your roast. You mix the herbs, oil and vinegar, then place the roast on top after it cooks, roll it and then slice. We are definitely trying this one on New Year's Eve. The link for the recipe is here.

Photo by Jennifer Causey- Cooking Light magazine

food network magazine has a special pullout Favorite Holiday Party Foods section that takes you from appetizers like Party Peppers (stuffed jalapenos) and Spinach-Artichoke Soup Shooters to drinks like Apple Cider Floats to desserts like Pear-White Pepper Tiramisu.

The main issue has 120 holiday recipes, 25 cookie recipes, and 100 gift ideas for the food lovers on your list, with price points from $8 to $100. There is also a cute section on ideas for gingerbread houses- roofs made of Crispix cereal and Necco wafers, doors made of spearmint gum, windows from Oreo cookies. You'll ace any Gingerbread House competition with these clever ideas.

The link for food network, with pages of holiday food ideas, is here.

Do you have any favorite food magazines? Let me know in comments.

I'lll Take You There by Wally Lamb

I'll Take You There by Wally Lamb
Published by Harper ISBN 978-0-06-265628-5
Hardcover, 272 pages, $25.99

Wally Lamb is a writer who grabs the reader emotionally, taking them on a heartfelt journey in each book that he writes. I first discovered him in She's Come Undone, which I read at work. I cried so hard, people would stop by and ask me if I was OK. That's the kind of writer he is.

When I began his latest novel, I'll Take You There, I got a different kind of vibe, a lighter tone. Felix Funicello, cousin of 1960's star Annette Funicello, is a divorced dad of Aliza, a young woman working as a writer for New York magazine.

I loved the interplay between Aliza and her dad. Felix teases Aliza about her coarse language (an unfortunate side effect of living in NYC) and is supportive and encouraging in her career. Kat, Aliza's mom and Felix's ex-wife, is a strident feminist, and Felix and Kat still get along well even though they are divorced.

Felix runs a Monday movie night club at a old theatre that used be a vaudeville theatre. He has heard talk of ghosts that inhabit the place, but hadn't seen any until one day he is accosted by the ghost of Lois Weber, who made her name as a female director of films of the silent era. Lois tells Felix that she is going to show him a film of his life, starting when he was ten years old.

Felix actually enters the film and he becomes the young boy he once was. We meet his older sisters, Simone and Frances, as they are going to the theatre to see a movie. We learn about Felix's family and their relationships to each other.

The story deepens midway, when Frances faces some issues that she has been unable to deal with. The entire family is affected by Frances's problems, and the children learn some secrets that threaten the family's cohesion.

I grew to love I'll Take You There. I enjoyed the nostalgic look back at 1950's Brooklyn, and the history lesson of the Miss Rheingold beer competition that the Funicello children became personally involved in when their former babysitter was a finalist.

Lamb tugs at the heartstrings of the reader in the latter half of the story, with a tale that brought tears to my eyes. (Damn you Wally Lamb, you did it again!) The Funicello family worms their way into your heart and you love and identify with them. (Fans of TV's wonderful new show This Is Us would love I'll Take You There. It has a similar sensibility and blend of humor and pathos.)

Aliza is given the task of writing about the Miss Rheingold competition, which galls her since she was a Feminist Studies major in college. But she learns something interesting, and Lamb ends the novel with a blog post written by Aliza to her mom about the new generation of feminists that will particularly enlighten feminists of my age who may not quite recognize the feminists of today.

I'll Take You There features a grown-up Felix, whom we first met as a young boy in Lamb's sweet Christmas novel Wishin' and Hopin', and while you don't have to have read that book to appreciate this one, those who have read it will enjoy it on a higher level. I highly recommend I'll Take You There, and it would make a great gift for the literary feminist on your list.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Wally Lamb's tour. the rest of his stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, November 22nd: Jenn’s Bookshelves

Wednesday, November 23rd: Dolce Bellezza

Monday, November 28th: Turn the Page

Tuesday, November 29th: West Metro Mommy

Wednesday, November 30th: Lit and Life

Thursday, December 1st: The Well-Read Redhead

Monday, December 5th: bookchickdi

Tuesday, December 6th: What Will She Read Next

Wednesday, December 7th: Bibliophiliac

Thursday, December 8th: A Bookish Way of Life

Friday, December 9th: Booksie’s Blog

Monday, December 12th: Girl Who Reads

Wednesday, December 14th: Mother’s Circle

Thursday, December 15th: SJ2B House Of Books

TBD: Peeking Between the Pages

Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard

Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard
Published by William Morrow ISBN 978-0-06-225766-0
Trade paperback, $15.99, 327 pages

Joyce Maynard's fantastic novel Under the Influence is one of those books that grabs your attention right from the beginning and never lets go. It doesn't start flashy, with a grisly murder or great drama, rather we learn that protagonist is moving to a new town with her son when she sees a woman she hasn't seen in ten years.

Maynard takes the rest of the novel to share why Helen hasn't seen Ava in ten years and tells us the story of how they came to be friends. Helen was thirty-eight, divorced from her husband and trying to raise her three-year-old son on her own. She had no family to speak of, and she adored her husband's family who took her in and loved her, and then threw her out when her husband left her for another woman.

Helen turned to alcohol and when she was frantically driving her son to the hospital with a burst appendix after she had been drinking, the police stopped her and she watched helplessly as her son was taken away in an ambulance while she was taken away in handcuffs.

She lost her license and then she lost her son to her ex-husband. She had visitation twice a month for six hours and felt that her life was over. Then she met Ava and Swift, a wealthy couple who made her feel like she was worthy again.

Ava was confined to a wheelchair and her husband Swift was a larger-than-life bear of a man, a self-made millionaire who lived life to the fullest. They took Helen in under their wing, inviting her out to dinners, bringing her into their home, and eventually hiring her as a photographer.

Helen blossomed with Ava and Swift, and soon her young son Ollie, now eight, was brought into this makeshift family. Ollie was mesmerized by Swift, who acted like a child himself- all id, no superego.

Helen also began dating Elliot, an accountant she met through online dating. Elliot was the anti-Swift. He was not flashy, boring even, but Helen and Elliot liked the same things- staying in and watching old movies, trying new restaurants.

Ava and Swift did not approve of Elliot; they told Helen he was a dud and not good enough for her. Ollie didn't like Elliot either; he wasn't as exciting or cool as Swift.

The title refers not only to Helen's DUI conviction but to the way in which Helen fell under the influence of this golden couple, two people who picked her up when she was at her low point. Why couldn't Elliot understand that?

Maynard reveals these characters so slowly and brilliantly, they feel very real. Helen's anguish, loneliness and humiliation at losing her son, the only light in her life, is so visceral, you can feel it vibrate on the page.

Her imagery is vivid too, such as her description of Helen's childhood with a mother who didn't love or want her:

"I remember a great many bologna sandwiches and granola bars. A Top 40 station playing seventies hits, and the television always on. Old lottery tickets piled on the counter, never the winning number. The smell of marijuana and spilled wine. Stacks of library books under the covers of my bed: the thing that saved me."

The story has a sense of foreboding throughout. We know that something happened to destroy Ava and Helen's friendship, we are waiting for it to be revealed.

At the end of the book, the Author's Notes share that Elliot (my favorite character) is based on Maynard's husband and it made me wish that everyone had an Elliot in their life as Maynard and Helen did.

I read Under the Influence in a few hours, I truly did not want to put it down. It is a book that I will recommend and ponder and know that my thoughts will return to many times in the future. I will not forget Helen and how she loved her son with a ferociousness most mothers have in them. I give it my highest recommendation.

Joyce Maynard's website is here.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Joyce Maynard's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, November 22nd: BookNAround

Wednesday, November 23rd: Books and Bindings

Monday, November 28th: I’d Rather Be At The Beach

Tuesday, November 29th: Peeking Between the Pages

Thursday, December 1st: bookchickdi

Monday, December 5th: Comfy Reading

Tuesday, December 6th: Dreams, Etc.

Wednesday, December 7th: Vox Libris

Thursday, December 8th: A Splendidly Messy Life

Friday, December 9th: 5 Minutes For Books

Monday, December 12th: Ace and Hoser Blook