Weekend Cooking- Book Expo Cookbooks

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.

Cookbooks are one of my downfalls. I have so many, from all of Barefoot Contessa's books to several Rachael Ray, and classics like The Silver Palate Cookbook. I had to pare them down to fit on one very long shelf on a cart in my kitchen, but when I went to Book Expo this year, I couldn't resist picking up a few more. (Don't tell my husband.)

Alison Cayne was signing copies of The Haven's Kitchen Cooking School book in the Algonguin booth. Cayne runs the Haven Kitchen Cooking School in Chelsea in New York City. This book is the perfect gift for someone who wants to be a better cook. She starts with the basics, from How To Read Recipes to How to Season With Salt, How To Dice An Onion and more.

From what tools and equipment you'll need, to what to stock your in your pantry and store in your frig, this book covers it all. The nine chapters of recipes such as Grains and Beans, Fritters, through Soups and Desserts, and everything in between. This book has it all. The cover is very New York City too, with a black striped apron over a white background. The one recipe I'd love to try first is Roasted Sweet Potato with Hazelnut Gremolata- yum.

A few years back at Book Expo, I got a copy of a few Fix-It and Forget-It recipes. I love my crockpot (now my Instapot) and when I saw that Phyllis Good was signing copies of her Stock the Crock book at the Time booth, I was there. She told me that this book has 100 of the best must-have slow-cooker recipes, with variations for gluten-free and vegetarian options for most recipes.

With so many people being more conscious of what they eat, this is a welcome addition. The recipes give the size of crockpot needed, options for making the recipe for two (very handy for me), simple swaps to make it gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, paleo-friendly, and even how to make it picky eater-friendly. I'm going to make the Mexican Pot Roast for Sunday dinner.

While standing in line to get another book, I noticed that at the next table was a woman signing copies of her book Cooking With Nonna. Who can resist that one? The cover shot is author Rossella Rago and her adorable Nonna Romana.

Inside are over 100 recipes from 25 Italian nonnas, with your traditional chapters on Appetizers, Pasta and First Courses, Second Courses, Pizza, Breads and Savory Bakes to Desserts and Cookies (oh, those Italian cookies!)

Each Nonna gets an introduction page to share tips and stories, and each one is more fascinating than the last. If you have an Italian Nonna (or just wish you had one), this is a cookbook for you. I will be trying Four-Cheese Tortelli with Swiss Chard In A Butter and Sage Sauce.

Have you found any cookbooks recently that you like? Share in the Comments section. 

Book Expo 2017- Book Covers

Once I return from the annual Book Expo, I love to go through the books I picked up and check them out. There are so many ways to organize them- by publication date, by author name, or by subject.

This year I took notice of the covers. Book cover art has gotten increasingly more intricate and interesting over the years. It's fun to see what clever art directors come up with to catch the reader's eye.

Women looking away from the camera is something that has been popular. This photo shows three books that feature the protagonist looking away from the camera, giving the effect of longing. I'm patricularly interested in reading Sujata Massey's The Widows of Malabar Hill, about a female lawyer in 1920's India, and these three books are all historical fiction.

From woman facing away on the cover, we have covers where we only see the backs of our protagonists here. Need to Know, about a female CIA agent involved in Russian intrigue seems to be a timely read. (I believe Charlize Theron has optioned this for a movie.) Thrillers tend to like to use this on the cover.

This next one is a new one- covers featuring people with no faces. I guess this can be interpreted as protagonists who are enigmatic?

Then we get the covers with the faces up close and personal, like these two striking books. 

Instead of people, these covers feature buildings on their covers. Brendan Mathews' debut novel The World of Tomorrow, with its Irish immigrant story set in 1939 New York City, looks to be this year's We Are Not Ourselves. Speaking of Irish,  I can never resist a Alice McDermott novel, an Oswego State graduate.

Trees and branches without their leaves will be very popular in the coming months. I'm really looking forward to reading Tayari Jones' An American Marriage. Her previous novel Silver Sparrow was just phenomenal. Eleanor Henderson's The Twelve-Mile Straight is another one I can't wait to read, as I loved her Ten Thousand Saints.

From trees, we move to birds on these covers. Sarah Schmidt's See What I Have Done retells the Lizzie Borden story and I am intrigued by that one.

This vibrant red color is sure to catch the eyes of readers perusing bookstore shelves. Leni Zumas' Red Clocks is geared towards readers of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and will surely benefit from the Hulu adaptation of that book.

These books capitalize on the Gone Girl familiarity by putting girl in the title, but none are of the thriller genre. The Radium Girls is a narrative nonfiction book that will appeal to readers of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and the cover of The Girls in the Picture is just stunning.

Married women seems to be a lively topic as these three book titles suggest. I can't wait to read Tom Perrotta's Mrs. Fletcher as I have been a fan since Little Children. (And his HBO series The Leftovers just knocked me out.)

Future Book Expo post will discuss some of the events that took place at the Expo. If you attended Book Expo, what were your favorites? Beth Fish Reads has highlighted some of the books she is looking forward to here and here. 

Book Expo 2017- The Editors' Buzz

Book Expo 2017 is off and running and today was the annual Editors' Buzz, where six editors present the upcoming books they are excited about. It was standing room only today and every book sounded like a winner.

Editors' Buzz Panel Books

Annie Philbrick, owner of Bank Square Books and Savoy Book Shop introduced the editors, reading a short bio of each. Jackie Cantor, Senior Editor of Scout Press presented Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent, which is a bestseller in Ireland and won the Crime Novel of the Year.

She opened by reading the killer first sentence- "I expected more of a reaction when I hit her." When Mary reveals to her husband Oliver that she found a secret box he had hidden, he beats her unconscious. The rest of the novel explains how Oliver became this sociopath, in the vein of Dexter and Hannibal Lecter.

Cantor described how author Nugent's "sunny disposition, so nice, so normal" is at odds with her creation Oliver's behavior. Is he morally depraved or insane? We'll have to read to find out.

Nigerian author Ayobami Adebayo's Stay With Me was presented by Jennifer Jackson, Senior Editor at Alfred A. Knopf. Yejide is in love with her husband and he with her. They long to start a family, but after four years, they still have no child.

One day her mother-in-law shows up with Funmi, whom she introduces as her son's second wife. Ilesa is devastated; she and her husband had an agreement that she would be his only wife. Yejide is so angry, she gives her mother-in-law food poisoning, and is determined to get pregnant at any cost.

Adebayo is just 28 years-old, and her debut novel is being compared to Lauren Groff's fabulous Fates and Furies, with its focus on a marriage told from two different perspectives.

The editors

Sarah McGrath, Editor in Chief of Riverhead Books passionately spoke of Gabriel Tallent's My Absolute Darling, which tells the story of 14 year-old Turtle, who lives with her survivalist, misogynistic yet charismatic father. When Turtle gets a crush on a sweet, loving boy named Jacob, she sees how different life can be and problems ensue.

McGrath said that reading this book "will renew your faith in transformative power of reading," high praise indeed. She said there is a "jaw-dropping climax" and although there is a darkness to the story, there is also humor and sweetness. And no less than Stephen King has called a modern classic.

Ben George, Senior Editor and Publisher at Little, Brown and Company spoke of Brendan Mathews' The World of Tomorrow, a sweeping novel set in New York City in June of 1939, at the time of the World's Fair. The Great Depression is ending, and America is on the cusp of WWII.

We meet two Irish brothers on their way to New York to see their brother. Set over the course of one week, the three brothers, a jazz musician, a fragile heiress, a Jewish photographer, a priest, a vengeful mob boss and his well-intentioned henchman all collide in this story that features  "big dreams, big love and the price you pay for family." George said that it felt like the documentary, Man On A Wire.

Sally Kim, VP and Editorial Director at Putnam spoke of Chloe Benjamin's The Immmortalists, calling it a "love story of a family". When four young siblings go to a fortune teller, they are forever changed. She has the ability to tell people when they are going to die, so the underlying question is if you know the day you are going to die, how will you live your life?

The story is told chronologically, with each sibling taking turns telling the story that spans five decades. Kim said that it has "a crescendo effect to the climactic end" and with questions of magic versus science and destiny versus fate, this one sounds very intriguing.

The last book is A.J. Finn's The Women in the Window, discussed by Jennifer Brehl, Senior Vice President, Executive Editor and Director of Editorial Development at William Morrow. Brehl said she was "held hostage to the story and characters, with its precise plotting and pitch-perfect voice."

Our narrator is a woman, who is separated from her husband and child, and refuses to leave her apartment. She drinks, takes pills, and watches the perfect Russell family across the way. When she sees something dangerous in the Russells' windows, she calls the police, but no one believes her.

Quite a crowd!

This Hitchcockian-thriller has already sold the movie rights, with Scott Rudin producing a script by Tracy Letts (whom I love!). Brehl let the audience in on a secret she discovered about the author, A.J. Finn, whom everyone believed to be a woman. After raving about the book to her colleagues, she found out that the author was not only a man, but he was an editor who works down the hall from her!

The crowd laughed as Brehl said "I thought we were friends, we go to lunch together" and she never knew he was writing a book.

I was able to fight through the hordes to get a copy of all six books and now my big decision is in which order do I read these fabulous books?

I'll post more about Book Expo 2017 in the next few days, and post photos on Twitter (@bookchickdi) and on Facebook (Diane Short LaRue).

On the Bestseller List

Reprinted from the Citizen:

There are many places to find bestselling books list- The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, and Amazon- just to name a few. This month’s Book Report is a rundown on some of the books on bestsellers lists, in a variety of genres.

George Saunders is known for his brilliant short story collections, “The Tenth of December” being his most recent one loved by critics. He tackles historical fiction in his first novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo”, which is a tour-de-force in literary fiction. 

Lincoln in the Bardo

“Lincoln in the Bardo” takes a real event- the death of Abraham Lincoln’s young son Willie- and creates a masterful novel, posturing what happens after death. Saunders has multiple characters speaking here, most of them residing someone between death and the afterlife, and they tell the stories of their own lives and how they came to be “in the bardo”.

His Lincoln is a father torn asunder by grief, mourning not only his own son, but all the sons he has sent to death in war. Interspersed is dialogue from people who knew Lincoln, some real excerpts and some Saunders himself has written. It is unique and inventive.

Angie Thomas’s debut novel, “The Hate U Give” has also gained critical acclaim. Her novel tops the Young Adult bestseller list but I found it to be just as appealing to adults who don’t necessarily read YA fiction. 

The Hate U Give

Starr is a sixteen year-old young woman who lives in with her parents in an inner city but attends a private suburban school. She straddles both worlds, and has a boyfriend from school that her parents don’t know about. When Starr sees a friend from her neighborhood killed by a police officer during a traffic stop, her family’s life is turned upside down.

I loved Starr’s family- her hardworking mother, her father who is dedicated to bettering his part of the world, her half-brother, her policeman uncle who is also torn by this incident. They love each other fiercely and work hard to get what we all want- a good life for our families. I highly recommend “The Hate U Give” for teenagers on up.

Anne LaMott writes fiction, but is better known for her nonfiction works, like “Grace (Eventually), Thoughts on Faith”. Her latest work is a slim book, “Hallelujah Anyway”, a book about mercy, a timely topic as Pope Francis has spoken and written extensively on this issue as well. 

Hallelujah Anyway

LaMott works hard to be be a better person daily, but she often falls short, as do we all. She asks us all to show mercy to each other, even to those with whom we don’t seem to share much in common, and in today’s divided nation her words are a welcome reminder.

It’s baseball season, and former Atlanta Braves superstar Chipper Jones’ memoir, “Ballplayer” has broken through to hit a Nonfiction bestseller list that is filled mostly with political books. Jones was a mainstay player for the Braves, the only team he played for in his nearly twenty-year Major League Baseball career, which doesn’t happen often in today’s world of free agency. 

Ballplayer

Jones was part of the 1995 Atlanta Braves World Series champions, MVP in 1999, and certainly will be a Hall Of Famer in 2018. He shares stories of his baseball journey, as well as his personal life, which had a few missteps. This one is for baseball fans of any team.

Alyssa Mastromonaco grew up in a small town in upstate New York, and although she didn’t attend an Ivy League school like most of her coworkers, her hard work and intelligence paid off as she rose to become President Obama’s deputy chief of staff and chronicles her life in “Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?” 

Who Thought This Was A Good Idea?

Mastromonaco’s book gives an insider’s view of working in the White House, and I admired how she worked hard at every job- whether a cashier at her local grocery store in Rheinbeck while in high school or her job at Sotheby’s in New York City. This is a wonderful book to give to a college graduate, a how-to on how to get where you want to go.

As today is Mother’s Day, I’d like to thank all the moms who gave their children the gift of of a lifelong love of reading, including my own Mom, who read me “Miss Suzy” until I could recite it word for word. Happy Mother’s Day!

Same Beach Next Year by Dorothea Benton Frank

Same Beach, Next Year by Dorothea Benton Frank
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062390783
Hardcover, $27.99, 384 pages

It's almost a shame that Dorothea Benton Frank's books always have such gorgeous covers because every year when I buy the newest one, I inevitably mess up the pretty covers with sunscreen. I guess she shares some of the blame, after all, her books are a summer right of passage. Summer has not officially arrived until I have the latest Dorothea Benton Frank book in my beach bag.

This summer's book is Same Beach, Next Year set in her beloved Lowcountry of South Carolina. Each year Adam and Eliza and their young twin boys Luke and Max spend a few weeks at a vacation condo not far from home. Adam is a hardworking successful construction business owner and Eliza is a fabulous cook, who yearns to write a cookbook.

One year, a new couple takes the condo next door and it turns out the woman is Eve, Adam's first love. Eve is married to Carl, a hardworking, successful pediatrician and they have a young daughter, Daphne, about the twins' age, and they are joined by with Eve's mother Cookie.

The two couples get along famously, and although Eliza has her antenna up a bit about Adam and Eve, the fact that Carl is extremely handsome and shamelessly flirts with her distracts her somewhat.

The four become fast friends, and along with Ted, Adam's father, and Ted's girlfriend Clarabeth, it's one big happy family as they meet every year for two weeks and swim together, golf together and eat together.

Cookie likes to stir trouble, and she is hyper-critical of her daughter, which literally drives Eve to drink. Time flies by and Eve turns to Adam when she fears that Carl has been cheating on her. That sets in motion an incident that threatens two marriages and their friendship.

One of the things I love best about Frank's book is that she makes her characters relatable. Eliza has two sons (so do I), her dog Rufus is her best friend (mine was Malcolm, my late beloved basset hound) and Eliza loves to cook, as do I (well, most of the time).

This book is written from the perspectives of both Eliza and Adam, and I found it intriguing how Frank got into Adam's mindset. I have to say, though, I found his behavior and rationalizations puzzling, although I think each character makes some head-shaking choices here.

Since Eliza is a cook, we get some wonderfully descriptive foodie scenes, from Eliza's trip to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store to Eliza's family Christmas breakfast (I could almost smell the cinnamon on the page) to the feast that Eliza has with her Greek family in Corfu.

Same Beach, Next Year is another Dorothea Benton Frank winner, it's got everything you want in a summer beach read- great characters, sassy dialogue, interesting family and friend dynamics and a road trip to Greece. Maybe I should try covering my book in plastic so the sunscreen doesn't ruin the beautiful cover.

You may recognize the book's title- an homage to the Alan Alda-Ellen Burstyn movie, Same Time, Next Year, which if you haven't seen, you should. The IMDB link is here. (It was a play first.)

Dorothea Benton Frank's website is here.
Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Dorothea Benton Frank's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, May 16th: Girl Who Reads

Wednesday, May 17th: bookchickdi

Thursday, May 18th: Kritters Ramblings

Friday, May 19th: Mom’s Small Victories

Monday, May 22nd: Stranded in Chaos

Tuesday, May 23rd: A Chick Who Reads

Wednesday, May 24th: Into the Hall of Books

Thursday, May 25th: Tina Says…

Friday, May 26th: The Book Bag

Monday, May 29th: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Tuesday, May 30th: A Bookish Way of Life

Wednesday, May 31st: Girls Just Reading

Thursday, June 1st: Jathan & Heather

Friday, June 2nd: 5 Minutes For Books

Murder Between the Lines Book Launch

Murder Between the Lines by Radha Vatsal
Published by Sourcebooks ISBN 9781492638926
Trade paperback, $15.99, 314 pages

One of the best advantages to living in NYC is that you get to attend some teriffic book events. Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing Radha Vatsal, author of Murder Between the Lines, the second book in the Kitty Weeks mystery series, at the Mysterious Bookshop in Lower Manhattan.

I'd never been to the Mysterious Bookshop, and was very impressed. The shop is small, but wonderfully organized. They have bookshelves that line the perimeter from the floor to the very high ceiling. They host many events there, and have an extensive collection of signed books, which are helpfully labeled with a bright pink label on each book.

A standing-room only crowd was in attendance to hear Radha Vatsal speak about her newest book. I first heard Ms. Vatsal at Bryant Park's Author Series talking about her first Kitty Weeks' book, A Front Page Affair, which I enjoyed very much.

I'm happy to say that Murder Between the Lines is even better. This time young New York Sentinel Ladies' Page reporter Capability "Kitty" Weeks is writing a story about Westfield Hall, an exclusive girls' school in New York City in 1915.

Kitty is delighted to speak with Elspeth Bright, a student whose interest in science is ahead of her time. When Elspeth is found dead in Central Park, the result of her freezing to death during a sleepwalking episode, Kitty is led to believe that there is more to it than just an accident and begins investigating.

Vatsal does a great deal of research, which she said is made much easier now that old copies of The New York Times are now archived online, and she saw a headline "Girl Somnambulist Freezes" that gave her the storyline.

I love the historical context of these books, and Vatsal's research is evident on the page. In Murder Between the Lines she manages to work in sleepwalking, Thomas Edison's new batteries to be used in naval technology, President Woodrow Wilson's marriage to Edith Galt, and the burgeoning suffragette movement into her story. You get a real context for events of that time period.

The scene set in the Waldorf Astoria, where President Wilson is set to give a speech and where the suffragettes hope to meet with him, is so evocative. If you close your eyes, you feel as if you are walking in Peacock Alley in the iconic hotel, which, sadly, is closed for renovations now and under new ownership. I was glad Vatsal chose to read from that section at the book launch.

During the Q&A period, Vatsal spoke of how women in the 1910s had more opportunities, particularly in the fields of film and academia. There were many more female silent film directors than there are even today. There were over 600 epsidoes of 30 film series featuring female heroines, like The Hazards of Helen. Vatsal describes a scene of Helen chasing down men who stole money from her, fighting them on top of a moving train.

I'm sure that we will see some of these women in future Kitty Weeks mysteries. Vatsal explained to the crowd that in the 1920s, professional requirements such as more education in areas of law and academia meant that women were increasingly shut out of those professions.

If you are a fan of Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mysteries, or Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series, you will want to read Radha Vatsal's Kitty Weeks mysteries. I highly recommend Murder Between the Lines.

 The Mysterious Bookshop can be found here.

A video of The Hazards of Helen can be found here.
Radha Vatsal's website is here.

Weekend Cooking- Sugar Butter Flour- The Waitress Pie Book

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.

Sugar Butter Flour by Daniel Gercke, Sheri Castle and Evan Sung
Published by Pam Krauss Books/Avery ISBN 9780735216334
Hardcover, $25, 160 pages

A few months ago I had the great joy to see Jessie Mueller in the Broadway musical Waitress, based on the movie of the same name written by Adrienne Shelly. It tells the story of Jenna Hunterson, an unhappily married waitress in a small town with an amazing ability to create delicious pies based on what she is feeling at the moment.

It is a teriffic show, filled with wonderful songs by singer Sara Barielles, with a good book and a great ensemble. As I was watching the show, I was thinking, wow, these pies sound so great, I'd love to be able to make them myself. (They sell mini pies in a small jar at the theater.)

Cue the new cookbook from Pam Krauss Books/Avery- Sugar Butter Flour- The Waitress Pie Book. The book is credited to the character Jenna Hunterson, but the recipes are actually by Sheri Castle, with the text by Daniel Gercke and photographs by Evan Sung.

The book begins with Jenna's Rules for Baking (and Life), with helpful tips for those of us to whom pie crusts are a puzzle (guilty). Then we get right into the pies, starting with Fruit Pies like Sweet Victory Pie (a cherry pie), Banish the Glum Plum Galettes, and Big Guy Strawberry Pie, topped with a basil whipped cream.

The photos are gorgeous, and I like the layout. It begins with an explanation, then lists the ingredients in bold in the middle of the page, making it easy for you to write your grocery list from this. The instructions follow, along with tips and a color photo of each pie.

The Savory Pie section has some fabulous pies, like Betrayed by My Eggs Pie (chorizo, eggs and butter), My Husband's a Jerk Chicken Potpie (chicken with peppers and onions- my husband will love this one) and Old Joe's Horny Past Pie (a traditional Southern tomato pie).

The Chocolate and Nut Pies section has the most creative-named pies- I Wanna Play Doctor With My Gynocologist Chocolate Mousse Pie, and I Can't Have An Affair Because It's Wrong (and I Don't Want Earl To Kill Me) Marbled Chocolate Cheesecake Pie- among them.

The last section is titled Lulus: Blue-Ribbon Winners. Lulus are are showstopper pies, and here you'll find Deep-Dish Blueberry-Bacon Pie (described as a "perfect diner breakfast all cozied up in a slice of pie"), Mermaid Mashmallow Pie (like an ambrosia salad in a pie) and Thanks For Taking Me To The Moon Peanut Butter MoonPie Pie (peanut butter cream topped with marshmallow whipped cream and MoonPies).

If you are a pie baker or you want to be, Sugar Butter Flour is a book you will want to have on your shelf. I'm pretty sure my brand spanking-new copy will soon be covered in sugar, flour and butter very soon as I attempt to make my husband these luscious dessert treats. And if you are a fan of the film or Broadway show Waitress or know someone who is, this is a must-have.

The website for Broadway's Waitress is here.

The Marriage Bureau by Penrose Halson

The Marriage Bureau by Penrose Halson
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062562661
Trade paperback, $15.99, 320 pages

Before there was E-harmony or Tinder, there was The Marriage Bureau, which is recounted in Penrose Halson's book of the same name.

In 1938, twenty-four-year-old Audrey Parsons had already been through a litany of jobs near her home in England. She worked in a factory (too boring), as a dental receptionist (too bloody- she had to pick up teeth off the floor!), as a photographer's assistant (the darkroom was too dark), as a delivery girl for a cake shop (fired for eating the cakes) and as a riding instructor (she refused to muck out the stables).

Audrey went to visit her Uncle George in Assam, India and he gave her the idea of starting a marriage bureau in London. There were so many young men working overseas looking for a wife to join them, he thought Audrey could do something about that.

So Audrey found a partner in Heather, who was practical and logical in contrast to Audrey (now called Mary), who was more romantic and imaginative. They made a perfect team for this job!

The Marriage Bureau was formed, and thanks to a slew of good publicity in local newspapers, it was successful right out of the gate. The idea was that people would come in and be interviewed, giving their requirements for a potential spouse. They paid a small fee, and if a match led to marriage, they paid an After Marriage Fee.

The Marriage Bureau: The True Story of How Two Matchmakers Arranged Love in Wartime London is filled with stories of the many clients who came in looking for love. Their first wedding was a 68 year-old bride to a 70 year-old groom, which garnered so much publicity (including a short documentary film) that the bureau was overrun with inquiries across the world- India, dozens of African nations, and once WWII broke out, even American servicemen stationed in England used their services.

The stories are charming and sad, and some are even maddening. Mary and Heather were so successful, they even found a match for Cedric, a man they both found unappealing and disagreeable. Maybe there is a lid for every pot.

At the end of the book, there are two lists that must be read- Requirements for Female Clients 1939-1949 and Requirements for Male Clients 1939-1949. These lists contain such specific client requests as:
Women required:

• Not too sophisticated but not too dumb
• Man who will cherish a large woman
• I divorced my husband who was teacher. Not another teacher
• No bridge, pub crawling, golf, passion for The Club or Americans

Men required:

• No hysteria, no gold diggers; likes mountaineering
• Able to play a portable instrument (string or woodwind) well. Rather a prairie than a hothouse flower
• Someone who doesn't expect too much
• A nice, stylish girl, not too brainy, with the appearance of a West End mannequin. No objection to a rich widow. Someone who likes living and is human.

Reading this put me in mind of PBS' series Home Fires, and if you like that, this book is for you. Mary and Heather were women ahead of their time, and I enjoyed reading about their successful business and all of the lovely people they helped to find love. I recommend The Marriage Bureau.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Penrose Halson's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Thursday, May 4th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Friday, May 5th: BookNAround

Monday, May 8th: Always With a Book

Tuesday, May 9th: Tina Says…

Wednesday, May 10th: bookchickdi

Thursday, May 11th: Man of La Book

Friday, May 12th: Reading is My Super Power

Friday, May 12th: View from the Birdhouse

Monday, May 15th: StephTheBookworm

Monday, May 15th: A Bookish Affair

Tuesday, May 16th: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Wednesday, May 17th: The Feminist Texican [Reads]

Thursday, May 18th: Just Commonly

TBD: Reading Reality

My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward by Mark Lukach

My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward by Mark Lukach
Published by Harper Wave ISBN 9780062422910
Hardcover, $25.99, 320 pages

Mark Lukach fell in love at first sight with the beautiful Italian woman Guilia when both were freshmen in college. They had so much in common- they're both lefthanded, their moms have the same birthday, she grew up in Italy and moved to the US, he grew up in the US and moved to Japan in the same year. They felt these coincidences were part of their mythology that they were destined to be together.

Mark and Guilia planned a future together, one where Guilia would have a fabulous job in fashion marketing, and they would have three beautiful children. Family was important to both of them.

For awhile things were looking like they would follow the track they had planned. Until Guilia began to act erratically. She had a great job, one that she was good at. One day she started emailing Mark during the day with work emails that she was agonizing over for hours. She would waste an entire work day worrying about these simple emails she had to send.

That is how Guilia's mental illness manifested itself, as Mark describes in his heartbreaking memoir My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward. Soon she began to believe that the Devil was tormenting her. It got so frightening that Mark took her to the local ER, where the doctors decided that Guilia must be admitted to the psych ward for her own good.

Mark and Guilia's world was turned upside down. Everything became about her mental illness, which the doctors couldn't really pinpoint with a diagnosis. Was it schizoprehenia? Was she bipolar? Her symptoms didn't exactly fit any diagnosis.

Mark takes us inside the world of mental illness with a loved one. The unpredictability, the unbelieveable emotional and physical stress on not only the person with mental illness, but also on loved ones.

Guilia's parents came over from Italy and were heartbroken at what had happened to their daughter. Mark's parents also came from Japan to lend support, but no one knew exactly what to do.

Guilia was heavily medicated, and it took a long time to find the correct medications that would abate her depression and suicidal thoughts, and those medications frequently left her lethagric and zonked out.

Mental illness is so debilitating because the sick person often cannot help themselves, as someone with a physical illness can. Mark was responsible for Guilia, but when she requested that he not be given information about her from her doctors, the doctors had to respect her decision, making the situation even worse.

Guilia did get better, and their dream of having a child was realized. She went back to work and things seemed better, until she relapsed. Now Mark had to balance Guilia's illness with caring for their infant son.

My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is a moving memoir about loving and living with someone with mental illness. It will break your heart, and enlighten you as to how difficult it is to deal with an issue that our healthcare system is woefully unprepared to do, although Guilia was lucky enough to have doctors and hospitals that were caring and professional.

If you read Susannah Cahalan's Brain on Fire, I recommend My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward as a good followup to that book.

Thansk to TLC Tours for putting me on Mark Lukach's tour. The rest of his stops are here:

By The Wayside Stories by Anne Leigh Parrish

By the Wayside- Stories by Anne Leigh Parrish
Published by Unsolicited Press ISBN 9780998087238
Trade paperback, $16.99, 238 pages

A few years back I read a collection of linked stories, Our Love Could Light The World, by Anne Leigh Parrish. The stories were about a family with five children, set in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. Since I grew up in a family with five children in that region, I had to read it.

I loved the book, and it reminded me of Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning linked story collection, Olive Kitteridge, but I enjoyed Parrish's book even more.

Parrish is back with a more traditional collection of stories, By the Wayside. Instead of linked stories with the same characters appearing in the stories, these stories have similiar themes. Many of the stories have appeared in other publications as well.

The eighteen stories in By The Wayside deal mainly with young women facing a crossroads in life. These sassy women are dealing with dead parents, mental illness, sibling animosity, disappointment, marriage, and unrequited love. Many of these women are lonely, and some have adult responsibility beyond their young years.

In the first story, An Angel Within, Leet is a twenty year-old woman whose parents are gone. She is responsible for her two younger sisters, a sixteen year-old obsessed with nail polish, and a thirteen year-old whose obsession with beautiful clothes and handbags sometimes led to shoplifting.

Leet believes that an angel lives inside her; it is the only way she can get through her days at her lousy job as a grocery bagger in a town that requires a two-bus communte, only to return home to deal with her sisters.

The second story, How She Was Found, is one of the strongest. Fiona is on an archeological dig with her male professor and three male fellow students who treat her with disdain until she makes a significant find. I particularly liked Fiona's spunk. (Lou Grant would not like it- Mary Tyler Moore Show shout-out.)

Short stories require that the author get right to the point with her words, there is no room for flowerly descriptions. Parrish excels in that, using indelible phrases and sentences that set the mood and character in the reader's mind, like these:

In the terrific Where Love Lies, she writes "Dana figured nothing had been her fault. Bruce figured everything had been his fault." You learn a lot about that married couple in one sentence.

When Anna and her newlywed husband Paul move to the dusty town of Huron, South Dakota in 1920 in An Act of Concealment, Paul "thought the place he looked at nothing like home. His heart sank a bit. Anne's didn't. To her, home was an idea, not a place." I absolutely loved that passage, and again we know who these people are immediately.

When Anna says to another man that she believes marriage causes a kind of blindness, he tells her that "marriage alters one's vision... I mean that he doesn't see you well enough and (that) you see him too clearly."

Another story I loved was The Lillian Girl, about a teen who runs away from her disinterested parents and finds a woman looking for her daughter. It's the last story, and a fitting end to the this wonderful collection.

I found that I enjoyed the stories that were longer, the stories that were but a few pages seemed to end too abruptly for me. I recommend By the Wayside for those looking for a good short story collection, written beautifully. It's a perfect one-day read, but one that you'll contemplate much longer.

My review of Our Love Could Light The World is here.

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

Anne Leigh Parrish’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, April 3rd: Dwell in Possibility

Wednesday, April 5th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Thursday, April 6th: Lit and Life – author guest post

Monday, April 10th: Bibliotica

Wednesday, April 12th: Mama Vicky Says

Thursday, April 13th: Bibliophiliac

Monday, April 17th: Books ‘n Tea

Wednesday, April 19th: Susan Peterson

Thursday, April 20th: Dreaming Big

Monday, April 24th: BookNAround

Tuesday, April 25th: Bookchickdi

Wednesday, April 26th: Maureen Downing

Thursday, April 27th: Lovely Bookshelf on the Wall

Monday, May 1st: 100 Pages a Day – author guest post

Wednesday, May 3rd: Good Girl Gone Redneck

Thursday, May 4th: Seaside Booknook

Friday, May 5th: Readaholic Zone

On Broadway- Sweat

Sweat by Lynn Nottage

More than a few years ago, I saw a wonderful play by Lynn Nottage, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark. It was a remarkable play, one that I never forgot. When I saw the ads for another play by Nottage, Sweat, I knew I had to see it.

And when Nottage won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for drama for Sweat, I ran to get a ticket. Set in Reading, Pennsylvania in 2000 and 2008, Nottage takes on the topic of factories closing in small cities and what that does to the town and the people who worked there.

Most of the action takes place in a bar, where we meet Cynthia, Tracie and Jessie, celebrating a birthday in 2000. Times are pretty good, the ladies are having a good time, dancing and drinking until Cynthia's troubled estranged husband shows up. His union has been on strike for years, and it has turned him inside out.

Cynthia's son Chris and Tracie's son Jason also work at the factory, although Chris wants to save his money to go to college to become a teacher, which Chris and bar manager Stan scoff at. Why give up a steady job, good pay, health insurance and more to teach?

The good times don't last. There are rumblings that the factory may move to Mexico because of NAFTA, and that leaves these people without many options.

Nottage takes on class, race, immigration, friendship, loyalty and much more in this powerful, searing drama that left me shaken and shaking at the end. Although set in 2000 and 2008, and written well before the election of 2016, Sweat resonates like nothing I've seen since The Normal Heart.

She provokes thought and emotion in the rapt audience. You could literally hear people breathing, it was so quiet in the theater.

All the performances are astonishing, with Johanna Day, Michelle Wilson and Krhis Davis particular standouts. Alison Wright, who is having quite a career now, first as Martha in FX's The Americans and as Pauline in FX's Feud: Bette and Joan, has a smaller role as Jessie, but she makes the most of it.

Nottage brings these people to vivid life, and helps us to understand why people feel left behind in this economy. Things changed too fast for them, and caught them by surprise. Everything they thought would continue has gone away, for many different reasons.

I got a discount ticket to Sweat, but this is a show I would gladly pay full-price to see.

Watching Sweat put me in mind of ABC's brilliant drama, John Ridley's American Crime, which this season deals with similiar themes- people who are in bad situations, often not of their doing. They feel disposable. If you haven't watched it, stream it. It is very sad, but must-see TV.

Weekend Cooking- Weekly Organizer

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.

A new store opened up near me called The Flying Tiger. It's a Danish upscale dollar store. They sell kitchen goods, toys, arts and crafts kits, party supplies, all kinds of cool knickknack-y type items. (Their website is here.)

The Flying Tiger on the Upper East Side

The last time I was there, I found this Weekly Planner. It is legal pad-sized, and each week has a tear-out sheet. I decided to use it to help plan meals, grocery lists, and to keep track of what nights my husband would be home for dinner and what nights he would be at work dinners.

I've had it three weeks and so far it's working out well. At the beginning of the week, I review my husband's calendar and mark off when he will be home. Then I can plan what I will cook, instead of thinking about it each morning.

When we lived in central New York and our two sons were young, I would plan out our weekly meals and we would grocery shop as a family every week after church. It was efficient and fairly well organized.

When we moved to NYC, and now that our sons are on their own, grocery shopping is different. I go to the grocery store almost every day, since I walk to the multiple stores I shop at- Agata & Valentina for meats and produce, Morton Williams for canned items and frozen foods, various bakeries for desserts and breads- and can't carry too much at one time.

So now I put my weekly planner right on the refrigerator and as I look at the dinners I have planned, I write out my grocery list on that day. When I'm ready to head out to the store, I take a photo of the grocery list, and it's on my phone. (This eliminates the dreaded lists I used to write on paper and continuously forget on the kitchen counter.)

I think it will also help me to stop repeating a recipe too often, which I tend to do because I can't remember the last time I made something- two weeks or two months ago? I hope it will increase my creativity in the kitchen.

Putting the list on the refrigerator means I will be looking at it frequently, and it also has made it easy for me to add an item to the list as I run out of something. I can also add things like doctor's appointments or anything else I need to remember.

Do you plan your meals and have a system that you use? Let me know in comments.

This post was inspired by Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity's blog post from 2014. You can find that here.