Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

Alexander McCall Smith

In the second book of The Sunday Philosophy Club series, Alexander McCall Smith takes us on another journey with Isabel Dalhousie.  While running her niece's delicatessen, she meets and man who is haunted by memories not his own since his heart transplant... this she must help him to understand....  All the while she is involved in her own thoughts about love and friendship and other complications.

Another delightful read!!!

Sunday Philosophy Club Series:

• The Sunday Philosophy Club (2004)
• Friends, Lovers and Chocolate (2005)
• The Right Attitude to Rain (2006)
• The Careful Use of Compliments (2007)
• The Comfort of Saturdays (2008)
• The Lost Art of Gratitude (2009)
• The Charming Quirks of Others (2010)
• The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (2011)
• The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds (2012)

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

The Sunday Philosophy Club

Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith brings his energetic and delightful writing (No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series) to an entirely different setting in Scotland with charming Isabel Dalhousie.  Far from Botswana, he creates another great female character to journey with.

Isabel is the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics... a pursuit which brings her to apply her sense of ethical right and wrong to amateur sleuthing!  At a concert, she catches the eye of man tumbling to his death from the balcony and it sure there is something more than a fall....

It is an interesting journey through the genteel homes and lives of Edinburgh.

A delightful read!!  I will look forward to continuing the series!

Sunday Philosophy Club Series:

• The Sunday Philosophy Club (2004)
• Friends, Lovers and Chocolate (2005)
• The Right Attitude to Rain (2006)
• The Careful Use of Compliments (2007)
• The Comfort of Saturdays (2008)
• The Lost Art of Gratitude (2009)
• The Charming Quirks of Others (2010)
• The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (2011)
• The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds (2012)

Steps to the Altar by Earlene Fowler

Steps to the Altar
Earlene Fowler

Earlene Fowler has an easy to read style of writing.  I had never read her before and picked up a copy in remainders - a signed copy, too....  and, I enjoyed her writing.  Of course, this is part of a series and I was completely out of order.... in fact, it is number 9 in the series... the problem with series books!

While the book can stand alone, there are some character quirks that make it a bit confusing without having read the previous eight books!

It is a good read.  It takes place in a central California coastal  town.  Her descriptions of the area and the people are wonderfully accurate.

I wouldn't mind reading this series in order... and from the beginning!

Alice's Drive by Alice Ramsey

Alice's Drive

by Alice Ramsey
Republishing Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron

Annotation and "Chasing Alice" by
Gregory M Franzwa

Alice Ramsey was the first woman to drive across the continental United States in an automobile!

In 1909, with three women passengers, she left Manhattan on June 9 and arrived in San Francisco on August 7.  

In the mid-1960s, Alice Ramsey was our neighbor.  I remember some of her stories.  She had a great influence on me at a young age.  Over the years, I have often thought about Mrs. Ramsey.  I could never afford her book, though I was anxious to read it.  I was thrilled to discover that her book - long out of print and cost prohibitive if found - had been reprinted.

What a charming telling of a long and difficult trip.  Very few of the roads were paved or much more than a cow path.  The weather was uncooperative and the rain gave her many challenges.  She was a driver, navigator, mechanic and story teller.  What a treat this book is!

At the end of the book, Mr. Franzwa traces the route in modern terms... what a great companion to the original.  I wrote to thank Mr Franzwa, only to discover that he had passed away.... Thank you, Mr Franzwa!!!

Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff

Q's Legacy
by Helene Hanff

A magnificent autobiography about the journey to 84 Charing Cross Road - the bookseller, the writing of the book and the experiences that this connection brought Ms. Hanff.

Helene Hanff found a book of lectures by Cambridge don, Air Arthur Quiller-Couch --- Q's legacy was for her to search for the books he refers to in his lectures.  We travel this road with her through good times and bad - through good jobs and bad.  Ms Hanff's incredible character explodes in her own words.  By the end, you are quite sure that you actually know this person.

It is a particularly remarkable read if you have read and loved 84 Charing Cross Road.  And, if you did, you will find the story of Marks and Co touching you in a new way...

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

84 Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff

What a beautifully written book! This is a very short book and very quick to read... though you might find yourself going backwards to reread the beauty of the language.

This is the true story of a woman and her relationship with a bookseller.  Separated by the Atlantic ocean, the communication depends upon letters from both parties and a mutual trust to honor payment for books sent without question.  A different time in the world.

The correspondence occurs immediately post World War II,  Who knew how much worse things were in England post war than during the war?  You learn about the food shortages and food rationing. Relationships develop through the letters that are wonderful to peek into.

I also recommend the movie...  It is quite faithful to the book and brings the characters to life.

On Folly Beach by Karen White

On Folly Beach by Karen White

I picked up this book for a very odd reason... I had a friend who was dying of cancer and his favorite place was Folly Beach, South Carolina.  I bought the book to share with him.  I only read it while waiting for appointments... feeling that making it last would keep him alive longer... I think it even worked for a time.  I got up to the last few pages and set it aside - refusing to finish it until he died.

Having few, if any, expectations about the book, I was surprised by how coherent the story was and how memorable the characters.  I remembered the story whenever I went back to it.  This is doubly amazing because the books slipped back and forth between the present and the past.

The story winds into the past of a community controlled by the effects of World War II and into the broken heart of a 21st century war-widow.   The historical details about the years of WWII are wonderfully done.  They are then sprinkled with the richness of life in Folly, South Carolina.

To my surprise, this is a wonderful read.  It is a bit of a love story, but mostly historical fiction and intrigue.

Gidget by Frederick Kohner

Gidget by Frederick Kohner

I grew up in the Gidget age - and the coming of age of surfing.  I never knew, until recently, that Gidget was based on a real person - Kathy Kohner Zuckerman - and her experiences learning to surf and hanging out with the surf bums in 1956-1959!

The book is written by her father.  It is a fun book, but the slang is ancient and a bit stilted being written by an immigrant whose first language was not English....

It is fun to see the rise of the surf culture.  For those of us who grew up on the Pacific, it is a culture we know.  

What a culture grew up around Gidget ... movies and television, larger than life characters.

Why We Should Believe in Santa Claus by Alexander McCall Smith

Why We Should Believe

in Santa Claus

by Alexander McCall Smith

Some of us were born in places that no longer are. In my case, it was a country called Southern Rhodesia. You will not find it on a map today, but you will find Zimbabwe, which is what it became. There it is, in the middle of Africa, a part of the world that, for all its trials, is still one of the most beautiful.

Christmas there was at the hottest time of the year. As a child, I remember being puzzled by many of the images of Christmas that we saw in books and magazines. Christmas was all about winter: fields of snow, holly wreaths, carolers gathered around warming fires. This all seemed very exotic and exciting and added to the magic of what happened on the great day itself.

We went to church and sang those carols with all their wintry imagery, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” and so on, more snow and ice. But before we went to the Christmas service, we’d undergo the ritual of waiting outside the closed door of the living room, all of us children bursting with excitement. At exactly six o’clock, the door would be opened and we would go in to see if Santa—or Father Christmas, as we knew him, a name I still marginally prefer—had stopped by. He always had, and he signified his presence by eating the cookie and drinking the glass of milk that we had left for him by the fireplace. Proof! There it was—crumbs on the floor and an empty glass. How could anyone doubt his existence?

And I was not a doubter. Additional evidence was before my eyes in the shape of a pillowcase full of presents. Quite remarkably, they were often the things I had expressed a desire to have. What a mind reader he was!

I stopped believing in Santa when I was 7, and I vividly recall the precise circumstances those many years ago when my belief came to an end. All of us remember where we were when important things happened. Such memories are curious nuggets amongst the dark furniture of our minds, amongst the vague images and associations that make up our memory of things that happened to us a long time ago.

We were preparing for a holiday party a few days before Christmas itself. I knew that my father was due to appear as Santa, a role that he played well, in spite of being too tall and thin to be entirely convincing. But he sportingly donned the classic red outfit, so hot and inappropriate to African conditions, and stuck the cotton-wool beard to his chin. It was evening, and we were standing under a great night sky almost white with stars, limitless constellations soaring and dipping against a background of dark velvet.

Suddenly my father turned to me and said, “You don’t believe in Father Christmas anymore, do you?” I froze. I stood quite still, looking up at the evening sky. A shooting star flashed across the heavens. It did. I remember it to this day, because it seemed like a portent.

I was in an agony of indecision. If I said, “No, I do not believe,” then what would happen to all the presents I was hoping to get? It might be, you see, that Santa was listening to us and would mark my card accordingly: “No longer believes in me—no presents this year.”

Reason, the rational part of me, won out, and I said, “No, I no longer believe.” The heavens did not fall. No sleigh pulled by wounded reindeer slewed out of control in the sky above. Nothing happened. The world went on, as it always does, after all those small moments when something magical or mysterious is denied or lost.

There is a moment in J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan when the audience is invited to revive the dying fairy Tinkerbell and told, “If you believe in fairies, clap your hands.” And every time, the theater breaks into sustained applause. That is not to suggest there are theaters full of seriously deluded people. What it does tell us is that there are times when we need to pretend to believe in things we know not to be true. We know that the world is a place of suffering and hardship, and we know, too, that justice and kindness and love and such things will not always prevail against these hard realities. Myths help us to get by. The day they all die and we tell our children exactly how things are, the world will be a poorer, less enchanted place. So don’t be ashamed to clap your hands at Peter Pan or act as if Santa exists. He stands for kindness and generosity, and those things are alive and will continue to be alive—as long as we believe in them.


Alexander McCall Smith is the best-selling author of the “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series. His newest novel is “La’s Orchestra Saves the World.”

From Parade Magazine - http://www.parade.com/news/2009/12/13-why-we-should-believe-in-santa-claus.html

Disclosure Policy

I know that the FCC disclosure policy for bloggers hasn't taken effect yet, but I decided to post this, update any posts I may have missed and get in the habit of telling you when a publisher GIVES me a book to review.

Anyone who has read my reviews will know that no matter what the price of a book is, I'm not sold that easily and will pan a book as easily as I will praise it, regardless of how I acquired it.

Ask Elizabeth Samet about how fond I am of the piece of crap and political propaganda she put out.

Or read the review on Rule Number Two - I would have paid double to read this gem.

I also have links to Amazon.com. They 'pay' a percentage of the sale to me IF you click on the link on my site and purchase it. After a couple of years, my account is up to $26.53 and they don't pay until I acquire $100.00. Don't think this rapid influx of money is going to benefit me soon!

The FCC has crafted yet more legislation to regulate the dishonest and the corrupt - but, will only cause difficulties for those of us with our little blogs and tiny readerships.

Update 10.13.2013 - I no longer participate in any Amazon program... and I never collected a dime.

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive ~ Alexander McCall Smith

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

by Alexander McCall Smith

In the eighth book in the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, Mme Ramotswe's husband, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, goes out on a case and Mma Makutsi resigns - for a bit anyway. As changes occur and life goes on, the steadfast Precious Ramotswe is once again reminded of the blessings in her life and the goodness in her country.

In this installment, the rich characters come alive with their foibles and their antics. We are drawn, once again, into a world that is uniquely of Botswana, and yet is of the world. The richness of the relationships of the people in Precious Ramotswe's world are a delight.

Author's Website: http://www.alexandermccallsmith.com/

Book 1 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998)
Book 2 - Tears of the Giraffe (2000)
Book 3 - Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001)
Book 4 - The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002)
Book 5 - The Full Cupboard of Life (2004)
Book 6 - In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004)
Book 7 - Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006)
Book 8 - The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (2007)
Book 9 - The Miracle at Speedy Motors (2008)

Hawke ~ Ted Bell

HAWKE


Ted Bell

I enjoyed every wild moment of this book!

I was introduced to Ted Bell via a radio interview. I enjoyed his personable and entertaining manner, so I immediately ordered his books!

The first book in the sequence is Hawke. The story opens with a young boy caught in the position to witness the unspeakable horror of having his parents murdered. He is then raised by his grandfather and becomes a highly decorated hero of Her Majesty's Royal Navy and, later, an operative for the British and the Americans.

His mission takes him back to the same Caribbean waters. As he tries to stop the Cubans from acquiring and using nuclear weapons, he encounters the men from his past who terrorized him as a child. The time for justice has arrived.

This book was fast moving and hard to put down. The characters were colorful and real. For me, the only weakness was the love story.

Great and Fun Read!!!!

Knitting Under the Influence ~ Claire LaZebnik

Knitting Under the Influence

Claire LaZebnik

0-446-69795-8

As knitting became 'popular' recently, so did the genre of 'knitting novels.' I have been a knitter most of my life and find most of these books as shallow as the finished items being produced by the new knitters. I have tried to be generous to them, but this book had no purpose for the knitting ties whatsoever, and was very strained when it was attempted.

This is the story of three young women friends who share indiscrimanate sex and alcohol intake as the tie that binds them together. Knitting attempts to be the vehicle, but fails miserably. This is nothing more than a modern romance novel that delves into sexual pleasure and drunkeness - at the end all three are 'in love.'

The interesting part of this book was the story line that followed a therapist who works with autistic children. I appreciated the attention to detail in the specifics of autism - a disease that the author is personally associated with.

However, for the most part, the end pages sum up the knitting - a listing of the knitted projects turn out to be drink recipes.

Not a bad romance novel, but this is not a knitting book.

(Book received as a free preview copy)

The Winding Ways Quilt ~ Jennifer Chiaverini

The Winding Ways Quilt

Jennifer Chiaverini

Book 12 in the Elm Creek Quilt Series


As life does, the time has come for several members to make major changes in their lives, to move far away, to start over after great hurts and disappointments, to mend fences and to be the new people to join the circle of friends.

As Sylvia sees the founding members lives changing so drastically, she commemorates each of their lives with a special Winding Ways quilt. We learn more about each of the quilters lives.

"When I think of all the different paths I could have followed in my life, all the twists and turns that could have led me anywhere," muses incoming teacher Gretchen, "it's something of a miracle that I ended up here, surrounded by loving friends."

Another beautiful Elm Creek Quilts story about wonderful people.

Book 1 - A Quilter's Apprentice
Book 2 - Round Robin
Book 3 - The Cross-Country Quilters
Book 4 - The Runaway Quilt
Book 5 - The Quilter's Legacy
Book 6 - The Master Quilter
Book 7 - The Sugar Camp Quilt
Book 8 - The Christmas Quilt
Book 9 - Circle of Quilters

Book 10 - The Quilter's Homecoming

Book 11 - The New Year's Quilt

Dear John ~ Norma L Betz

Dear John

~Norma L Betz

978-1-4343-1071-2

This is a delightful first novel from an author who shows great promise.

A young woman is faced with the death of her last relative - the aunt she was named for and who helped her when her parents were tragically killed when she was nineteen. Through love, support and financial assistance, her aunt made sure she completed college and graduate school. As young adults do, Suzanna allowed the distance to grow between them as she established her life and career. Now, her only family was gone and she had to face the obligation to sort through the life that is gone. Any adult who has faced becoming an orphan can relate to the multitude of emotions that one suffers through.

With her companion, Quincy, a five-year-old Weimaraner, Susanna heads to the home she has inherited from her aunt. When she arrives, she meets the people who have shared her aunt's life and the haunting questions about her past. She inherits a treasure trove of history from their ancestor Abigail Adams, including some of the letters she wrote to John Adams in the beginning of the Revolution. Susanna becomes inspired by Abigail's letters. And, she becomes inspired by her aunt's life as she gets to know her aunt's friends, and finds that they are embracing her as a friend as well. It is the story of the strength of a family of women... the quiet strength that keeps them going through life. While Suzanna is admiring it in Abigail and her Aunt Suzanna, she comes to realize that it is something else she shares with them.

Unfortunately, the wealth of the treasures become a target for someone unscrupulous and causes grave danger to Susanna and Quincy and their new friends, as well as the beginnings of love.

Anyone who is interested in American history will enjoy a journey into some of the letters of Abigail Adams during the early years of the Revolution. The journey is memorable and a remarkable window on the world of 1775.

I really enjoyed this book!

The critical side of me has to complain loudly about the font used for the letters of Abigail Adams. It was nice to have a font change to distinguish the letters from the story, but the one used was difficult to read, which made it harder to enjoy the wealth of the letters and to enjoy the book.

If I were to give any advise to Norma Betz, I would say DO NOT HOLD BACK. I felt like she was always trying to neatly package and contain her characters, yet she had created these wonderfully deep characters who wanted to breathe. Let them breathe! Quincy, too!

I hope Norma Betz follows with a second book!

Her website is found here.

(Book received as a free preview copy)