Last week was ice cream and this week was fudge. Sounds like my last vacation. In any case, my local library was highlighting this book for its Michigan flavor: a murder mystery set in a Mackinac Island fudge shop.
That is, Allie McMurphy has just inherited a Victorian inn and attached fudge shop from her recently deceased grandfather when she opens a closet door to find one of the island's longtime denizens dead on the floor. Since her grandfather had an open and long-running feud with the dead man, and since he certainly didn't die of natural causes, she finds herself at the center of a murder investigation that threatens to derail everything she's worked for.
Okay, so, it's a bit over the top. Honestly, everything about All Fudged Up is over the top - I mean, the author has chosen the pen name of Nancy Coco, which caused my husband to groan audibly when he saw what I was reading. Also, the recipes - which appear to be somewhat randomly inserted throughout the book - are rather awkward. I would have preferred a recipe collection at the end, although I don't typically pick up a mystery in order to improve my cooking (or candy making). I struggled with the prose for the first 50 or so pages as well: these are not beautiful, flowing sentences with vivid descriptions and there is nothing subtle about the writing or word choice. Still, the mystery was well constructed and this was a quick, fun read without any emotional investment.
Nancy Coco may not be Agatha Christie, but I am already on the waiting list for the next book in the series, To Fudge or Not to Fudge. Happy eating...er, reading!
Friday, August 29, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street
As a general rule, I tend to read much more non-fiction than novels, but I've been on a roll with fiction this summer and Susan Jane Gilman's The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street definitely falls in the category of great fiction. (Villa Triste and Elizabeth Is Missing are the other wonderful novels I've read recently.)
Five-year-old Malka Treynovsky arrives in New York in 1913, one of the huddled Eastern European Jewish masses yearning to breathe free. Her family wasn't even supposed to come to America, but now that they're here, Malka is determined to find her happy ending. Three months later she's crippled in an accident with an Italian ices peddler and abandoned. Taken in by the peddler's family, Malka becomes Lillian and forges a new identity and life for herself.
Lillian marries the handsome but illiterate Albert Dunkle, and the two of them build an empire of ice cream shops starting with a single truck. Soon, Lillian is the head of an ice cream empire and a celebrity in her own right, which is wonderful for her right up until it isn't: when she finds herself on trial for both tax evasion and assault. In the midst of this double ordeal, Lillian has decided to share her ordeal with us, darlings, and her voice is what makes Ice Cream Queen the masterpiece that it is. Part Jewish immigrant, part Italian immigrant, and with more than a touch of megalomania, Lillian's gravelly, no-nonsense voice is still ringing in my ears.
Five-year-old Malka Treynovsky arrives in New York in 1913, one of the huddled Eastern European Jewish masses yearning to breathe free. Her family wasn't even supposed to come to America, but now that they're here, Malka is determined to find her happy ending. Three months later she's crippled in an accident with an Italian ices peddler and abandoned. Taken in by the peddler's family, Malka becomes Lillian and forges a new identity and life for herself.
Lillian marries the handsome but illiterate Albert Dunkle, and the two of them build an empire of ice cream shops starting with a single truck. Soon, Lillian is the head of an ice cream empire and a celebrity in her own right, which is wonderful for her right up until it isn't: when she finds herself on trial for both tax evasion and assault. In the midst of this double ordeal, Lillian has decided to share her ordeal with us, darlings, and her voice is what makes Ice Cream Queen the masterpiece that it is. Part Jewish immigrant, part Italian immigrant, and with more than a touch of megalomania, Lillian's gravelly, no-nonsense voice is still ringing in my ears.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
The Goldfinch
I really wanted to like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. People I know and like read it and, frankly, raved about it. It won the Pulitzer Prize for goodness sake! And I couldn't even bring myself to finish it...
The Goldfinch opens with the grown-up Theo Decker on the run in Amsterdam. The reader knows he's in some trouble - too nervous even to venture to the lobby other than in the dead of night. How did this happen? Theo begins his story where all good tales begin: at the beginning. And in the beginning, Theo Decker is 13 years old and the victim of a bomb attack that kills his mother and leaves him, essentially, orphaned. From here the story becomes, frankly, evermore unlikely and, frankly, bizarre.
The biggest issue for me is that I simply could not connect with Theo - or any of the other characters - on any level. I became annoyed with the ceaseless pages of descriptive minutiae that did little to move the story along. I mean, it's not like I didn't try: I read over 400 pages of this book. And I'd waited for months to get a copy from the library. But with nearly 400 more pages to go, I simply couldn't do it.
Browsing through the reviews on GoodBooks, I found some sage advice I wished I'd stumbled on 300 pages earlier: "To anyone wondering if they should still read this book, since reviewers are so divided (e.g. you either LOVE it or HATE it): by all means, YES. Read it! But: if you find you are hating it within 100 pages, just put it down and walk away. Because it won't ever get better for you (Really. do as I say and not as I do: Put. It. Down.)." If only I'd known...
The Goldfinch opens with the grown-up Theo Decker on the run in Amsterdam. The reader knows he's in some trouble - too nervous even to venture to the lobby other than in the dead of night. How did this happen? Theo begins his story where all good tales begin: at the beginning. And in the beginning, Theo Decker is 13 years old and the victim of a bomb attack that kills his mother and leaves him, essentially, orphaned. From here the story becomes, frankly, evermore unlikely and, frankly, bizarre.
The biggest issue for me is that I simply could not connect with Theo - or any of the other characters - on any level. I became annoyed with the ceaseless pages of descriptive minutiae that did little to move the story along. I mean, it's not like I didn't try: I read over 400 pages of this book. And I'd waited for months to get a copy from the library. But with nearly 400 more pages to go, I simply couldn't do it.
Browsing through the reviews on GoodBooks, I found some sage advice I wished I'd stumbled on 300 pages earlier: "To anyone wondering if they should still read this book, since reviewers are so divided (e.g. you either LOVE it or HATE it): by all means, YES. Read it! But: if you find you are hating it within 100 pages, just put it down and walk away. Because it won't ever get better for you (Really. do as I say and not as I do: Put. It. Down.)." If only I'd known...
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light During the Great War, 1914-1918
Somewhere along the line, John Baxter's Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light During the Great War, 1914-1918 stops being so much about Paris and starts being much more about Baxter's own search for the records, and more importantly experiences, of his paternal grandfather, Archie.
Here's the deal: I love Paris. And I'm very interested in World War I. I have a much harder time investing myself in why an author's grandfather might have enlisted 100 years ago (to escape an uncomfortable domestic situation, Baxter ultimately surmises), retracing said soldier's steps from eastern Australia to western Europe, uncovering his medical history (oh the banality of varicose veins!), and then hypothesizing on how he got to Paris and who he might have met.
Unfortunately, I was not much more impressed with the Paris parts of the book. The section on Gallieni's use of Paris's taxicabs to transport French troops to the front was likely the most interesting, although that particular story is pretty well known. I take that back - the very most interesting bit concerns the drug kit containing "cocaine, morphine, syringes, and needles" sold by Harrod's and marketed as a "welcome present for friends at the front." Indeed. In any case, Harrod's stopped selling the kit, along with vials of heroin gel, after the British government restricted sale because those same friends at the front were too stoned to go "over the top."
Ultimately, the best of Paris at the End of the World are the myriad images, from old photographs to wartime to postcards and magazine illustrations, that are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. These, along with the various long-forgotten quotes and ditties (such as the riff on La Marseillaise, "Aux gares, citoyens / Montez dans les wagons") are the strength of Paris at the End of the World. Even so, more complete and in-depth books on World War I Paris are available; this one is probably best left to those seeking every perspective on wartime Paris, including that of a long-dead Australian soldier.
Here's the deal: I love Paris. And I'm very interested in World War I. I have a much harder time investing myself in why an author's grandfather might have enlisted 100 years ago (to escape an uncomfortable domestic situation, Baxter ultimately surmises), retracing said soldier's steps from eastern Australia to western Europe, uncovering his medical history (oh the banality of varicose veins!), and then hypothesizing on how he got to Paris and who he might have met.
Unfortunately, I was not much more impressed with the Paris parts of the book. The section on Gallieni's use of Paris's taxicabs to transport French troops to the front was likely the most interesting, although that particular story is pretty well known. I take that back - the very most interesting bit concerns the drug kit containing "cocaine, morphine, syringes, and needles" sold by Harrod's and marketed as a "welcome present for friends at the front." Indeed. In any case, Harrod's stopped selling the kit, along with vials of heroin gel, after the British government restricted sale because those same friends at the front were too stoned to go "over the top."
Ultimately, the best of Paris at the End of the World are the myriad images, from old photographs to wartime to postcards and magazine illustrations, that are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. These, along with the various long-forgotten quotes and ditties (such as the riff on La Marseillaise, "Aux gares, citoyens / Montez dans les wagons") are the strength of Paris at the End of the World. Even so, more complete and in-depth books on World War I Paris are available; this one is probably best left to those seeking every perspective on wartime Paris, including that of a long-dead Australian soldier.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Salt, Sugar, Fat
Michael Moss's look at "magical formulations of salt, sugar, and fat," as he so nicely phrases it, is not for the faint of heart. Salt, Sugar, Fat is no less than an expose on how Big Food has altered the diets of Americans (and increasingly those all over the world) since the heady days after World War II.
Although neither a quick nor light read, this is a book that makes the reader think seriously about the "food" we all consume. Moss provides an inside look at everything from marketing campaigns targeted at "heavy users" of cream cheese to the creation of Lunchables. Moss demystifies such innocuous seeming ingredients as fruit juice concentrate and potassium chloride.
Ultimately, Moss's conclusions mirror those of the authors of The Food of a Younger Land: if only we would eat only what would have been recognizable as food by our great-grandparents, we might all be a bit healthier - and slimmer. In any event, I challenge anyone who reads Salt, Sugar, Fat to not take a hard look at their current diet and find room for improvement. I've definitely banished a few "foods" from my shopping card.
Although neither a quick nor light read, this is a book that makes the reader think seriously about the "food" we all consume. Moss provides an inside look at everything from marketing campaigns targeted at "heavy users" of cream cheese to the creation of Lunchables. Moss demystifies such innocuous seeming ingredients as fruit juice concentrate and potassium chloride.
Ultimately, Moss's conclusions mirror those of the authors of The Food of a Younger Land: if only we would eat only what would have been recognizable as food by our great-grandparents, we might all be a bit healthier - and slimmer. In any event, I challenge anyone who reads Salt, Sugar, Fat to not take a hard look at their current diet and find room for improvement. I've definitely banished a few "foods" from my shopping card.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)