Two Perspectives on Getting Old

Neither of these two books is explicitly about aging, but both of them made me think a lot about getting old.

It started with The Madonnas Of Leningrad, by Debra Dean. About a third of the way through the book, I was so upset that Garrett was urging me to read something else. As the central character, Marina , slips into the never-never land of Alzheimer's disease, her family struggles to get a grip on how to cope with the disease and how it will affect their own lives. That was the part that I found so terrifying, but there's another whole story being told that is really fascinating and that eventually, I could appreciate. During the siege of Leningrad in 1941-43, Marina had been working at the Hermitage Museum, carefully packing away paintings and other treasures to protect them from Nazi bombs. She and her colleague committed each painting to memory and these are the memories that stick with her, along with memories of starvation and death, when she can't even recognize her own children some 60 years later. It's a really interesting device to tell the story of the siege while also exploring the nature and permanence of memory.

Next I read Any Human Heart by William Boyd. This novel is written in the form of a series of journals written by (the fictitious) Logan Mountstuart beginning in the early 1900s. Born in Uruguay to British parents, Mountstuart goes to prep school in England and then on to Oxford, where he decides to become a writer. There is nothing extraordinary about Mountstuart... his story meanders through the decades and he is modestly successful at pretty much everything he does. But in the process of living his ordinary life, he crosses paths with some extraordinary people, including writers such as Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Ian Fleming recruits him to be a spy in the Naval Intelligence Division during WWII, and that leads to some interesting adventures. Boyd stays true to the journal format, writing in a very personal way about the major events of the 20th century, particularly about the decline of British power. There's humor, romance, sex, and heartbreak, and through it all Logan continues to move along on not much more than inertia. As he approaches his later years, he adjusts his life to accommodate his declining health in a way that is refreshing in its ordinariness. Getting old no longer felt so frightening.

A New Kindle!

Amazon just announced it's new Kindle DX, a bigger version that's supposed to display native pdfs and supposedly will be better for newspaper formats. The price has gone up to $489 and it won't be available until the summer. I think I'll stick with my old Kindle 1, although I can see how this could be great for people who have to view a lot of pdfs.

I'd love to hear what other people think.

Cutting for Stone

When I heard about Cutting for Stone, it sounded like a book I was guaranteed to like. Years ago, I read and really enjoyed Abraham Verghese's memoir, My Own Country. Now he has written a novel that combines his skills as a doctor with those of a writer. I saw that it had gotten excellent reviews and was excited to read it.

But I was disappointed. The plot did not really engage me until the last third or so of the book, and the characters felt a little bit flat and not fully developed. But what really annoyed me about this book was Verghese's overuse of detailed medical/surgical descriptions to help move the plot along.

"She first put a catheter through the urethra into the bladder to divert the urine away from the fistula to allow the wet, macerated tissues to dry and heal... She had to carefully dissect out the edges of fistula, trying to find what had once been discrete layers of bladder lining, bladder wall, and then vaginal wall and vaginal lining..."

It didn't work for me. It felt to me like Verghese didn't trust his skill as a writer or storyteller to move the story along; he had to resort to what he really knows, and that's medicine. I'm reminded of the fact that Khaled Hosseini, who wrote the excellent books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, is also a physician. Thankfully, he told us stories without constantly reminding us that he's a doctor too (although I do not believe he still practices medicine).

The Soloist

Steve Lopez is a really good writer and has one of the most interesting jobs you can imagine. He wanders the streets of Los Angeles (he used to wander in Philly) looking for a good story. He found one such story when he came across a homeless man playing a two-string violin on Skid Row.

Lopez got more than he bargained for. He did some digging and found out that 30 years earlier, the violin player, Nathaniel Ayers, had been a child prodigy on the double bass. He was one of the few African-Americans admitted to Julliard, but at the age of 19 he had a breakdown and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Like a lot of mentally ill people, he ended up living on the street, but he never lost his passion for music. After Lopez ran his first story, readers who wanted to help began sending him violins and cellos to give to Ayers. Thus began an intense relationship between the two men as Lopez tried to get Ayers off the street, into treatment, and back into the world of music. He was only partially successful -- Ayers continued to refuse treatment because of earlier bad experiences but eventually did begin sleeping at the Lamp Community, a facility that provides housing and other services for homeless people with severe mental illness. But most importantly, Ayers re-connected with some of the world's top musicians, particularly those at the world-class Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The story of their friendship is truly inspiring. In my bookclub, we debated whether or not they could really be considered friends, since their relationship was so unbalanced, but I believe that friendships can take on a lot of different complexions and in this case, they truly care about each other and each of them benefits tremendously from the relationship. I also really admired Lopez's honesty in reporting the story. He didn't try to sugar coat anything and constantly questioned his own motives and actions. The story is complex and troubling, but important.

Majolica returns

I was disappointed when I heard that Majolica in Phoenixville was closing down, and happy when it turned out that they were retooling with a more affordable menu. They now have a $25 prix fixe menu, as well as a number of less expensive items. When we visited recently, I had the prix fixe, Garrett ordered off the menu. My dinner was excellent and a good value.

They started us out with a small piece of home-made focaccia, followed by the dinkiest little amuse bouche that I had ever seen. It was a tasty bite, but alas, I've forgotten what it was!

The prix fixe for the night included an excellent cauliflower soup, poured tableside over grana padana cheese. The main course selection was duck leg confit with white bean ragout and broccoli rabe... delicious, and a great combination of flavors. Dessert was mascarpone sorbet with candied kumquats and almond praline. The sorbet was interesting, creamy like an ice cream or gelato but a little bit lighter. Not too sweet, but very good. The kumquats and praline set it off perfectly.

Garrett had the blue mussels in pernod butter which were extremely delicious, followed by steak frites with house butter. The steak was perfectly cooked, but Garrett thought the frites were a little too crunchy, and they did not have ketchup or any other sort of dipping sauce (like the yummy bourbon mayonnaise you get at Monk's). It sort of reminded me of when Josh was a baby and I asked a waitress at a restaurant to stick his bottle in the microwave for a minute. She was aghast that I would even think that they might have a microwave on the premises.

The Passion of Tasha Darsky

So many times I have written about how a book transports me to a different part of the world, or a different period in history. The Passion of Tasha Darsky by Yael Goldstein Love transported me in a different way -- to the world of a virtuoso musician who lives wholly in her art. So even if this hadn't been a really good story, full of romance, heartbreak, difficult family relationships, exotic travels, etc., I would have loved this book just for introducing me to the way a musician thinks about music. Here is the protagonist, violinist Tasha Darsky, as a young Harvard college student who has been asked by her revered professor to play a piece he composed:

"I couldn't say no to my demigod of a professor, I ended loving that music. I loved the way the overtly Romantic style hid something distinctively modern beneath its warm chords. I loved the periodic slips into atonality, the disenchantment these conveyed. I loved how, the deeper I sank into the piece, the clearer it became that it wasn't so much a piece written in the Romantic style as it was a piece trying to hide itself beneath that style, that the slips into atonality were the audience's chance to see through the trumped-up Romantic delusion to the real music underneath."

Tasha wants to be a composer -- creating music, she feels, is more important, more noble, than simply playing it. She falls in love with another composer, a man who she views as a genius and their love affair is as passionate as their love of music. But a misunderstood comment convinces her that theirs is a "partnership between two very unequal talents" and she returns to the violin and breaks off the relationship. From that point on, she pours all of her passion in to her violin playing, becoming what some people say is "the greatest violinist since Paganini."

This book explores the questions what does it take, and what are the costs of creating art at that level? Can one live a normal life and sustain normal relationships in the context of this kind of passion and commitment? It's a fabulous book.

Restaurant discovery

With some of our favorite restaurants closing down, we were delighted to "discover" Jasper Restaurant in Downingtown. Last night we went for their weekly prix fixe dinner, and it was yummy. At $35 it wasn't TOO expensive, but more than we usually want to spend on a weeknight dinner. Here's the menu:

Avocado with champagne mango and micro cilantro - this was such a lovely combination of flavors, with a little citrusy dressing and flavorful olive oil. Light and simple. Those champagne mangoes are really delicious.

Grilled Eggplant, baked with fresh goat cheese, sweet baby pepper and coulis - another good combination of flavors, although Garrett and I agreed that our red bell pepper sauce we make with stuffed poblanos is even better.

Grilled coconut Shrimp over cauliflower puree - It's been great to discover that cauliflower can be so good when prepared properly.

Pork Medallion with blueberry chutney - really yummy, although I thought the pork could've been cooked a little less. The chutney was perfect with it though, not too sweet.

Chocolate Pate topped with toasted almonds - delicious, not too heavy. Could've used a little more raspberry coulis IMO.

Getting to know Barcelona

I chose my next book, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón in anticipation of an upcoming trip to Barcelona. Garrett and I tacked a short vacation onto a freelance assignment I had there in early February. So while I was learning about a planned EU-US collaboration on the prevention of Alzheimer's disease, Garrett was exploring this beautiful city. But I had already begun exploring it in this book, which I loved almost as much as I loved Barcelona itself.

The novel revolves around a book called The Shadow of the Wind and its author, the mysterious Julián Carax. It's 1945 and Daniel, age 11, is still mourning the death of his mother from cholera some 7 years earlier. His father, a bookstore owner also in mourning and struggling with how to reach his young son, takes Daniel to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and tells him to pick out a book. This event presages everything that is to come, both in tone and atmosphere.

"This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here has a soul. The soul of a person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it...When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands. In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see her has been somebody's best friend. Now they have only us, Daniel. Do you think you'll be able to keep such a secret?"

And that wasn't all:

"According to tradition, the first time someone visits this place, he must choose a book, whichever he wants, and adopt it, making sure that it will never disappear, that it will always stay alive. It's a very important promise. For life," explained my father. "Today it's your turn."

So begins Daniel's journey to uncover the story behind Carax's book, The Shadow of the Wind. Zafón's book encompasses many great themes: friendship, love, family, books, life under a fascist government, and especially, Barcelona. As Daniel's friend Fermin says:

"This city is a sorceress, you know, Daniel? It gets under your skin and steals your soul without you knowing it."

Outliers

Ok, now's the time for those of you who actual read this blog to add some of your own thoughts. I know at least two of you also read this book and I would love to have your contributions to the blog.

Outliers is Malcolm Gladwell's third book. I've really enjoyed all of them, but I think The Tipping Point was my favorite. That may be primarily because it was so fresh. Now Gladwell has used the same formula three times: he comes up with some interesting, provocative idea that explains certain aspects of human behavior that we can all relate to, and then he provides examples that "prove" his thesis. And even though they may not prove anything, his examples are always interesting.

In Outliers, he presents several "rules" that explain why certain people are more successful at whatever they do than others. People like Bill Gates, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Beatles. Why Chinese are better at math. Why the best hockey players are born during certain months of the year and why some airplanes crash. The airplane crash part was particularly interesting in light of the pilot who landed his plane in the Hudson River two months ago.

I've read several negative reviews of this book, but even though it's fairly easy to pick apart some of his arguments, I thought it was extremely interesting and fun to read. Now I want to know what the rest of you think.

The Last Days of Dogtown

Anita Diamant's The Last Days of Dogtown is a book I would not have selected had it not been for my bookclub. The subject matter -- a dying town in Massachusetts in the early 1800s just did not sound that appealing. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the book. Diamant creates many wounderful quirky characters, somewhat reminiscent of Cold Mountain, which I also really liked.

Sashenka

Epic and romantic were some of the descriptors that attracted me to Simon Montefiore's Sashenka. And the book did not disappoint. The story begins in 1916 as the Russian revolution is about to erupt. Sashenka is a young, beautiful, wealthy teenager who rejects her bourgeois upbringing and becomes a Bolshevik activist with the code name "Comrade Snowfox."

Cut to 1939, and she is married to a party leader -- both of them "completely committed to the rapture of the Revolution" -- raising two kids whom she adores. Although Stalin's reign of terror is over, even the smallest infraction can lead to imprisonment or even execution. Thus, when Sashenka embarks on a torrid affair with a writer who is anything but a party loyalist, and her husband suspects the affair and tapes one of their clandestine meetings, the couple's comfortable life comes apart at the seams. With the help of their friend Comrade Hercules, she and her husband manage to spirit her children away just before they are arrested, and she endures torture (vividly and horribly depicted by the historian Montefiore) without breaking just long enough to ensure that the children are safe.

The third part of the book takes place in 1994. A young historian, Katinka Kinsky, is selected to research the family history of a Russian woman who says she was adopted during the revolution. You can imagine what Katinka learns, but there are still some surprises, and more romance, in store.

Out Stealing Horses

I decided it was time to read something that wasn't about some horrible war going on around the world... but it turned out not to be as easy as I thought it would be. I chose Out Stealing Horses by Per Pettersen, which is about an older Norwegian man named Trond living a quiet contemplative life in a remote part of Norway. It sounded nice and peaceful, but I should have noticed on the Amazon description that something happens that evokes memories of 1948... duh, WWII.

Anyway, I got totally caught up in the novel, including the war part -- a really fascinating story about love and betrayal -- and I loved Pettersen's use of language and descriptions of the natural world and Trond's place in it:

"I shut my eyes into a squint and looked across the water flowing past below the window, shining and glittering like a thousand stars, like the Milky Way could sometimes do in the autumn rushing foamingly on and winding through the night in an endless stream, and you could lie out there beside the fjord at home in the vast darkness with your back against the hard sloping rock gazing up until your eyes hurt, feeling the weight of the universe in all of its immensity press down on your chest until you could scarcely breathe or on the contrary be lifted up and simply float away like a mere speck of human flesh in a limitless vacuum, never to return. Just thinking about it could make you vanish a little."

Pettersen moves from present to past smoothly and doesn't give too much away too soon. But unfortunately, it all ends abruptly, and I felt the author wrapped things up way too quickly, as if he just got tired of the story and wanted to move on to something else.

Sarajevo

The books I've been reading over the past year or so have taken me all over the world and across time. My next stop: Sarajevo during the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s. I am embarrassed to say that my recollection of this horrific event is vague, even though I have a good friend who came to the United States from Bosnia as a political refugee about that time.

Now, thanks to The Cellist from Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, I think I have an inkling of what happened and why the breakdown of Sarajevo's multiethnic community was so tragic. Galloway gives us three characters in addition to the cellist himself. Since this is a work of fiction, the cellist, who is based on a real person, is the only character not well developed. Rather, the novel tells the story of how the cellist's actions affected normal Sarajevans.

The true story behind the novel is this: After 22 people waiting in line to buy bread were massacred, the cellist Vedran Smajlović defied the risk of appearing on the street and, for 22 days, played Albinoni's Adagio in G minor in their honor. Meanwhile, in the hills surrounding Sarajevo, snipers picked off innocent civilians as they went about their daily lives.

All of the characters face their own moral dilemmas as they try to survive the siege. Although all are affected by the cellist's actions, only one has any direct relationship with him: a woman sniper code-named Arrow who has been assigned to protect the cellist by picking off would-be assassins hiding in the hills. His music touches her, indeed it even seems to touch the assassin waiting to kill him. Arrow does not want to kill the assassin, but she must. Yet later, when she is ordered to kill again, she refuses, putting her own life in danger.

"She didn't have to be filled with hatred. The music demanded that she remember this, that she know to a certainty that the world still had the capacity for goodness. The notes were proof of that."

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

In the past couple of weeks, I've read a lot in the news about Zimbabwe -- the cholera epidemic, continued political turmoil, and the near collapse of the social and economic fabric that has been getting progressively worse since 1980 when Robert Mugabe took power. What led me to stop and read the news stories about Zimbabwe was a book I just finished, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin, a journalist and author who was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in New York. This memoir covers a period between 1996 and 2004, when Godwin returns many times to Africa after his father has a heart attack up until the time he delivers his father's body to a funeral pyre. The country is coming apart at the seams as Mugabe's followers begin throwing white farmers off of their land in a massive land take-over that ultimately precipitated the extreme poverty and starvation currently gripping the country. That's the backdrop for the stories of Godwin's family, which he tells with a lot of love. As his father is recovering from the heart attack, Peter comes across a photograph of a woman and young girl, and learns from his mother that the woman is Peter's grandmother and the girl, his aunt, who perished at Treblinka. It is only then that Peter learns that his father is Jewish, born Kazimierz Jerzy Goldfarb in Poland, rather than George Godwin born in Britain. Thus, the displacement of white Zimbabweans takes on new meaning for the Godwins.

For [Kazimierz}, Africa is clearly the antidote to Europe's great burden of history, the blood feuds and the destruction, the prejudices and the pogroms and the Holocaust. It is a place where he can wipe his memory of past hurt and start again.

But, of course, some 60 years later George and Peter both find themselves repeating history.

Godwin is not only a great writer, but he really knows his stuff and delivers what seems to be an inside look at Zimbabwean culture. Here's one short passage:

A sultry black waitress named Temptation talks us through the menu: smoked crocodile, tiger fish mousse, roast mopani worms, ostrich terrine, impala stew, warthog steak. While we eat, a woman offers to braid my hair with extensions, and a man in a loincloth declares he is PingePinge,a witch doctor, and would like to tell my fortune.

Godwin observes not only his father's failing health and both of his parent's desperate attempts to salvage their lives in Zimbabwe, but also his own personal loss of home.

I can't bear the guilt, the feeling of responsibility. I can't lug the skins of my forebears on my back wherever I go. I will be just like my father. I will dispel from my head all the arcane details of this place, the language, the history, the memory. I will turn my back on the land that made me. Like Poland was to him, Africa is for me: a place in which I can never truly belong, a dangerous place that will, if I allow it to, reach into my life.

This is a really good book told by a remarkable man, who despite his many accomplishments maintains his humility and keeps his eyes open as he observes the world around him.

I think I've been reading too many books about the dark places in the world and the dark times in history. But I can't stop myself. I find these stories too compelling and important to resist. Maybe a brief respite into something lighter... oh no, that will have to wait because I've already started my next book about the siege of Sarajevo. More to come...

A Brilliant Sea of Poppies

When I finished reading Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, I went to his website to read a little more about him, and I was delighted to learn that this is the first book in a trilogy. While it’s hard to imagine a book better than this one, Ghosh has such a fertile imagination and writes so beautifully that I’m certain he can pull it off. And what a fascinating group of characters he has created; a schooner called the Ibis being the central character around which the epic story revolves. The setting is India during the 19th century, with Britain and China gearing up to fight the opium wars. On a voyage from Calcutta to Mauritius, the stories of people from all walks of life and diverse cultures intertwine, revealing the best and worst in people, with humanity winning out.

This is another book that is rife with hard-to-understand language. Take this passage:

’Malum must be propa pukka sahib,’ said the serang. ‘All lascar wanchi Malum be captin-bugger by’m’by.’

Interestingly, the novel is followed by a something called The Ibis Chrestomathy, which serves as sort of a glossary, and is supposedly written by one of the main characters some years after the events unfold because of his obsession with language. Reading this book on my Kindle, where I couldn’t easily flip to the back of the book, I didn’t know of the existence of the Chrestomathy until I finished the book. And although the Kindle has a search function so I could search for a word, all uses of the word are flagged, making it essentially useless to look up the meaning of a word. In any case, over time I got used to the language and could almost understand it, and I loved the authenticity of the many languages spoken by this rag-tag group of people on the ship.

Beyond his masterful use of dialogue, Ghosh writes amazing, deeply intimate prose, such as this:

Then his own face began to smart and he realized that his eyes had welled up with a substance that was as corrosive as acid, tinged with the bitter gall of his betrayals of his wife and child, and with the bile that came from knowing that he had spent all his years as a somnambulist, walking through his days as if his life mattered no more than a bit-part in a play written by someone else.

There is a lot to love about this book. In fact, I intend to read it again because I'm sure I have merely scratched the surface with the first read.

Becoming a locavore... or not

I almost always read books to completion, even when I don’t especially care for them. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle compelled me to break this rule. Even though I have really enjoyed all of Barbara Kingsolver’s novels, and I am a strong proponent of the ideas she espouses in AVM, after a few hundred pages I simply got tired of being harangued by her constant lectures and self-important ruminations. I love the way she writes, but wish she would stick to novels; also her writing gifts do not extend to her daughter and husband, who somewhat annoyingly co-authored the book. Kingsolver and her family committed themselves for one year to eating locally and writing about the experience. Everything they ate (with a very few exceptions) was grown or raised by them, or bought from local farmers. Living on a farm in Virginia made it possible, but it still wasn’t easy.

Imagine doing it yourself. First of all, no bananas, no coffee. Where I live, no oranges. And you have to eat seasonally, something that I think is a great idea but also difficult. I love things like winter squash, kale, and other winter greens, but no salads all winter long would be almost unbearable. Garrett and I do a pretty good job of buying almost all of our meat locally from farms that raise their animals humanely and sustainably; and we pick and freeze or can fruits and vegetables all summer long. And I love to go the farmer’s markets and buy really fresh fruits and veggies, and artisanal cheeses from local farmers. But that’s about as far as I want to go.

The Power of O

No, I’m not talking about that O, but when I think of my favorite things, the election of Barack Obama will forever be at the very top of the list. But here, I’m talking about Oscar Wao, who lives in a space set aside for strange, quirky, and unforgettable characters like Oskar Schell and Owen Meany.

Yet while Oscar Wao certainly qualifies as a quirky character, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a lot more than an Oscar character study. Many of the other characters, including Lola, Oscar’s sister; Yunior, his sometimes buddy and Lola’s sometimes boyfriend; and Oscar’s mother and aunt are equally interesting. Moreover the story is all told against the backdrop of the brutal Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. So there’s a lot going on and the book delivers quite a punch.

I had a lot of trouble, however, with the frequent use of untranslated Spanish, Spanglish, and Dominican dialect (if that’s what it was) words. It just drove me crazy to not understand what people were saying to each other. Some people in my book club didn’t find this annoying at all and felt that they could understand the general gist of what was being said. But I wanted to know what all those words meant. Since the book does have footnotes that provide historical background, why not a glossary, or footnoted translations? Even with this annoyance, it’s a great book.

The Gift of Rain

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng illuminates an aspect of WWII that was unfamiliar to me and probably many other people, that is, the occupation of Malaya by the Japanese. The story is told in retrospect by an elderly Phillip Hutton, the half-Chinese son of a man who owns one of the largest businesses in Penang. Growing up, Phillip was an outsider, connecting with neither his British father and half brothers, nor the Chinese community in Penang. When he meets a charismatic Japanese aikido master, Endo-san, he becomes his student and unwitting collaborator with the Japanese invaders. This is a multilayered book, weaving together multiple cultures with the horrors of war, the beauty and violence of aikido, a deeply conflicted personal relationship between Phillip and Endo-san, and the strength of family ties. The fight scenes are extremely graphic and difficult to read, and there are a few other places where the narrative drags a bit, but overall I found this to be a fascinating read that I would highly recommend.

The Book Thief

I thought my book club had sworn off reading any more holocaust books, but someone snuck in this one, and I’m glad they did. Markus Zusak has created a memorable and important book with many richly conceived characters (including Death, the narrator). The protagonist, Liesel, is sent to live a with a foster family in Molching, Germany (near Munich) under somewhat unclear circumstances. On the way to Molching, her little brother dies and when he is buried, Liesel steals her first book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook. Throughout the rest of the novel, Liesel learns to read the book (as well as other books she steals) thanks to the tireless and loving guidance of her foster father. And she writes about the interesting people in her life, including her foul-mouthed foster mother, her friend Rudy who imagines himself to be Jesse Owens, the mayor's wife who allows her to steal books, and the Jewish fist fighter that she and her family hide as the Nazis are closing in. The book is a testament to the power of words. Although this book is classified as a YA (young adult) book, it fully deserves to be read by people of all ages.

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit

Lucette Lagnado was just a child when her charismatic father’s life started to crumble in Cairo. Anti-Jewish sentiment after the Suez war forced their family (and indeed, almost all of Egypt’s Jewish community) to leave everything behind and resettle in the United States, where they had no standing, little money, and no vibrant supportive community to rely on. Lagnado, who is now a reporter for the Wall Street Journal tells this story of cultural upheaval with great love and tenderness for her family, especially her father “The Captain,” The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit.

More great reads

Yikes! I have read a lot of books since my last entry. Now I just have to try to remember what I liked or didn’t like about them.

Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia, raised Muslim (a horrific childhood), emigrated to Holland, and became a member of the Dutch Parliament. Infidel is basically an intellectual memoir of how she came to understand and reject Islam, principally because of its subjugation of women. Fascinating and inspiring.

Pig Candy, by Lise Funderberg
When Lise Funderberg’s cantankerous father was dying of prostate cancer in Philadelphia, he wanted to spend as much time as he could back home on his farm in Georgia. Lise accompanied him on many of these trips, reliving through his stories the experience of being black (albeit light skinned, or “high yellow”) in the Jim Crow south; and also reclaiming the loving community he left behind. To celebrate his return, he purchased a La Caja China, a roasting box sort of like a smoker, in which they would slow cook a pig, resulting in the crispy, sweet, savory bits of skin called pig candy to share with family and friends. There’s a lot of love in this big family story, and the Funderberg tells it with just the right amount of respect, humor, and tenderness.


Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos
A sequel to de los Santos’ earlier book, Loved Walked In, Belong to Me brought back many of the same characters, and introduced a few others. Although almost all of them were a little too smart, clever, and beautiful to be believable, I still fell for and was touched by the story.

Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan
Mamah Borthwick was not only Frank Lloyd Wright's lover but his intellectual peer, which is saying a lot considering that Wright was a genius. Nancy Horan does an amazing job of portraying these fascinating and unconventional, albeit flawed, characters. While there have been volumes written about Wright, creating the Mamah character required a lot more imagination and conjecture, but it comes off as totally believable and an interesting look at feminism in the early 1900s.

The Space Between Us, by Thrity Umrigar
A novel about two women in Bombay and a contemporary view of the caste system. One is a wealthy privileged Parsi and the other her poor Hindu servant. The bond between them is strong despite the class differences, but as women, neither has much control over her life. Great multi-dimensional characters.

Forget Me Not: A Memoir, by Jennifer Lowe-anker
Alex Lowe, one of the world's greatest mountain climbers, was killed in an avalanche in 1999 in Tibet. Here, his amazing story is told by the loving wife he left behind with three kids. Although I loved the descriptions of the wild places they visited, and I appreciate the intense passion with which Alex lived his life, I can't get past the sense of irresponsibility and selfishness that would allow a man with three young children to spend his life climbing mountains that bring a high risk of death. Just a couple of months ago, 9 climbers were killed climbing K2. Jennifer comes across as a person equally passionate about living life to the fullest, and fortunately, she finds a way to do it without sacrificing the needs of her children

The Septembers of Shiraz

For Americans, the most momentous thing to happen in Iran in 1981 was the release of the hostages after 444 days of captivity. Dalia Sofer has another story to tell about Iran in 1981, about normal Iranians who were imprisoned, tortured, and many times killed by the Islamic fanatics who came to power after the Iranian revolution. The Septembers of Shiraz begins with Isaac, an Iranian Jew, taken prisoner by the revolutionary guards; and much of the book details his horrifying experiences in prison. Meanwhile, his wife and young daughter attempt to lead as normal of lives as possible, and his teenage son is living in the United States, studying to be an architect. All of them are going through their own personal revolutions, but it is Isaac that will bear the deepest and most permanent scars. This is a remarkable, beautifully written book, despite its descriptions of terrible events.

Great flick

Last night, Garrett & I watched an amazing movie, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. Everything about this movie is terrific - it tells a compelling (but sad) story about a remarkable man, the filmmaking is beautiful, the score is lovely, the acting is great. Director Julian Schnabel is a genius.

The story is about Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a brain-stem stroke and was paralyzed from head to toe. Locked into his body (as if in a diving bell), he kept his mind active through his imagination and memory. Schnabel's portrayal of this and of how Jean-Do wrote a book about it is simply extraordinary. Jean-Do's only means of communication was by blinking his left eye. To write the book, a transcriptionist recited a series of letters and Jean-Do would blink when she got to the letter he wanted. I'll write more about the book when I've finished it. In the meantime, rent the movie and watch it. And then watch it again.

UPDATE: The book is also an amazing testament to Jean-Do's resiliency in the face of an unimaginable tragedy. It increased my admiration for Julian Schnabel in his ability to translate the book into such an amazing movie.

Girls Like Us

Having grown up listening to Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and to a lesser extent, Carly Simon, I was thoroughly captivated by this triple biography by Sheila Weller. The title tells it all: Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon -- And the Journey of a Generation, although I was born a little too late (and with no musical talent) to experience life in the '60s as they did. The book provides back stories for many of my favorite songs. Like, did you know that when Joni Mitchell wrote "Carey" and "California", she was fleeing from what she had come to see as a smothering love affair with Graham Nash (who wrote "Our House" about their relationship)? Or that she wrote "Circle Game" in response to Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain"?

This book is full of titillating stories about not only the three women, but many other musicians who filled the airways with the music I still love - James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Crosby Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne -- the list goes on and on. I was reminded of the time (it must have been in the early '70s) when I went to see James Taylor. Carole King, whom I had never heard of, opened for him and and blew everyone away.

The book isn't all gossip - Weller also provides some insight into the music industry, the process of songwriting, and how our society and culture changed over the last four decades of the 20th century. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am still humming tunes from these three great women in music.

Not a Fan

I know a lot of people love Anne Tyler, but I am not one of them. Her latest book, Digging to America, did not change my opinion. The premise of the story holds a lot of promise: two very different families are brought together when they each adopt baby girls from Korea. One of the couples is Iranian-American, the other middle-class white Americans. The cultural differences between the families and the way they adjust to their Korean daughters is interesting, although not at all surprising. The problem, from my point of view, in addition to the fact that nothing much happens, is that the characters are poorly developed and not very likable. At the end of the book, we know practically nothing about the two fathers, and the main thing we know about one of the mothers, Bitsy, is that she’s really judgmental and annoying. The most well developed character is one of the grandmothers, long-time widowed Maryam, who gets involved with the other grandfather, who has been recently widowed. But it felt like Tyler was holding back on revealing too much even about these characters

Mary Doria Russell delivers again

When I bought my Kindle, I chose a new book by one of my favorite authors as the first read. Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell did not disappoint, although I did not love it nearly as much as I loved The Sparrow, on of my all-time favorite books. Dreamers, like her previous book A Thread of Grace, falls into the genre of historical fiction (a favorite of mine), and Russell delivers with a compelling story set in an exotic setting (Cairo), during a historically important time (the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference), and full of wonderfully complex fictional and non-fictional (e.g., Winston Churchill, Lawrence of Arabia) characters. The plot is somewhat far-fetched, but the story and Russell’s beautiful writing make up for this weakness.

Three Cups of Tea

Greg Mortensen deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, or maybe sainthood. The work he has done and continues to do in Pakistan and Afghanistan is truly inspirational, and this book does a fantastic job of telling his story. I had a little trouble at first getting used to the book being written in the third person (by co-author David Oliver Relin) although it was clear that Relin was not there for most of these events. But over time, I got used to it and it didn’t bother me. Moreover, I can’t think of a better way of telling the story. And what a story it is, starting with his near death experience attempting to climb K2, developing a deep bond with the villagers who nursed him back to health, living in and out of his car in Berkeley while trying to raise money to open a school in Pakistan, and other brushes with death such as when he was kidnapped in Waziristan. Oh, and in the meantime, he falls in love, marries, and has two children.

Mortensen and the Central Asia Institute, which he founded, have now built 61 schools, mostly for girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and the links he has forged with the people there offer some hope against Muslim extremists who breed terrorism. That he has done this all at such great personal cost, both to himself and his family, only makes his accomplishments more extraordinary.

An Eater's Manifesto

As much as I loved Omnivore’s Dilemma, I found Michael Pollan’s follow up book, In Defense of Food, to be flat and uninspiring. He makes the case that most of what the “experts” tell us about how to eat is wrong – based on flimsy or non-existent evidence and the wrong-headed, reductive way of thinking about food as a combination of individual nutrients that can be consumed in isolation from whole food. This makes sense to me, and I agree with the wisdom of his overall message: "Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not too much." I just wasn't drawn in the way I was with Omnivore's Dilemma.

Motherless Brooklyn

There are many things to recommend this book. First, I think, are the characters. Lionel Essrog ranks up there with Oskar Schell and Owen Meany. And it's not only his Tourette's syndrome that makes him memorable; he is a good guy trying to the right thing despite the fact that the whole world sometimes seems to be against him. And he is surrounded by other equally interesting characters. Second, Jonathan Lethem is a great writer. He has a great ear not only for the language of his characters but also for the sounds of the city (Brooklyn here as in a lot of his books). Third, he has crafted a quick moving and compelling plot, with some interesting twists. Some of the people in my book club found this book a difficult read, I think because Lethem does such a good job of getting inside Lionel's head to make you understand what Tourette's is like. But I found this just fascinating.

Two at a Time

During a long drive to Washington DC and back, I listened to A Golden Age by Tahmina Anam, which was read by the actress, chef, and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey. The story takes place in Bangladesh as the country struggles for independence from Pakistan in 1971. As the book begins, Rehana has lost her husband to a sudden heart attack. In a culture where a widow is powerless and seemingly helpless, she is also about to lose her two young children, who are being “adopted” by her husband’s brother and his wife. Yet she refuses to accept this cruel fate and somehow, through a series of events that become clear only much later, manages to get her children back. Her much loved son, Soheil, and her diffident daughter, Maya, grow up to become embroiled in the fight for independence, and they eventually drag Rehana into it as well. Through her tremendous love for her children, this “weak” little woman develops great strength and becomes a hero not only to her country but to her children. Against a backdrop of war and tragedy, this is really a hopeful book about love and persistence

When I wasn’t in my car listening to A Golden Age, I was reading Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd. I had picked up this book when I read a review of another newer book by Boyd, a British author whom I had never heard of but who has written a number of highly praised books. What a fortunate discovery! Brazzaville Beach has so much to recommend it: two interesting intertwining stories, a bunch of good characters (many of them chimpanzees), exotic settings (one at least), romance, and danger. Hope is an ethologist who has gone to Africa to observe chimpanzee behavior, working with the person who basically wrote the book on the subject. She is also in search of herself and trying to escape a tragedy in her native England where her anthropological endeavors were decidedly more sedate. In Africa, she observes chimpanzee behaviors that call into question the life’s work of her mentor, and her reports about these behaviors put her life in danger. I found the science in this novel to be fascinating and as compelling as the intrigue and romance.

My New Toy

I have lots of books to write about, although I haven't had time to post anything for awhile. But I'm still reading, now on my new Kindle!
It's pretty cool and I've found that I read more slowly and carefully since their is so much less text on the page with more space between lines. Downloading books in 10 seconds, browsing the Kindle store, and looking up words I don't know as I'm reading are other neat features. Now what I need is to find other Kindle owners so we can share books!

Speechless

I can't think of a word strong enough to convey the fabulousness of the tasting dinner we had last night at the Birchrunville Store Cafe. Instead, I'll just share the menu and say that EVERYTHING was outstanding. I wish we had taken pictures because the presentation was almost as impressive as the food.

First course: Ahi tuna and calamari tartare

Seafood course: trio of Diver sea scallop with leek and truffle mousse, crispy bronzino with arugula pesto and tomato coulis, and jumbo lump crab cake with wasabi champagne beurre blanc

Next course: Pan seared foie gras with caramelized pear and black current port wine jus

Another course: Boneless squab breast with juniper berry reduction and red wine risotto

Yet another course: Sliced venison filet with black trumpets and creamy polenta

Dessert: Chocolate walnut brownie napoleon with caramel gelato and Fresh berry vol au vent with lemon cream

Nobody Does it Better

In the world of historical fiction, nobody does it better than Geraldine Brooks. In saying that, I’m reminded of how much I loved the novels of Rose Tremain and Pat Barker. But in my mind, Brooks’ new novel People of the Book is the quintessential historical novel because it combines interesting and important historical facts across several centuries and countries with wonderful fictional characters, a compelling story, passion, and great writing.

Hanna Heath, an Australian book conservator is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: conserving a beautifully illuminated 15th century haggadah that turns up in a library in Sarajevo in 1996, at a time when Bosnia is struggling to rebuild itself after the devastating civil war. I loved learning about the process of conserving a book like this, and how the story of the book’s creation and survival is revealed through tiny clues that Hanna finds tucked into its pages: a wine stain, sea salt, an insect wing. We travel in time from the Spanish Inquisition, through World War II and finally to the Bosnian war. And we meet courageous, as well as ordinary and despicable people. As the story of the book is revealed, so too is Hanna’s story. What she learns about her extraordinary but unloving mother, the father she has never known, the mentor she holds in such high esteem, and the man she has fallen in love with rocks her world. And all of it reveals, ultimately, who she is.

The story of the book and the survival of the haggadah also testify to the ability of people from different religious backgrounds to transcend their differences because of their common humanity. But lest the novel become weighted down with these grand themes, Brooks gives Hanna a distinctive fresh voice and a feisty approach to the hurdles she faces, She is a memorable character in a memorable book, written by a truly gifted author.

As anyone who reads this blog will know, I am forever catching up on reviewing the books I've read. Today I'm determined to catch up, if only because the book I'm just about to finish is so fantastic that I want to get everything else out of the way. Not that some these books haven't also been great:

I started the year with three books about my favorite topic: food. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is a great and truly important book. I was already a convert to the 'grow locally' movement before reading this book, but I loved the way Pollan makes his case so convincingly, yet so personally. The middle section about Joel Salatin's sustainable farm was a revelation. I was even moved to write to the farmer who raises the organic beef that Garrett & I have gotten to love (Tussock Sedge ) to find out if her beef is grass fed or corn finished (it's both), and she told me that she was also reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, and that they will be finishing some of their steers with grass this year as a test.

Then, for a totally about face, I read Julia Child's My Life in France (with Alex Prud'Homme). She tells a lively and fascinating story about what she went through with her co-authors to get Mastering the Art of French Cooking written and published. It's also sort of a love story about her marriage to Paul Child, about whom I did not know much. Upon finishing the book, I got out my tattered copy of Mastering, thinking I would try some of the classic recipes she talked about in the book. But alas, they are just too heavy, fat-laden, and complicated for my style of cooking. When I wanted to make something delicious with chicken, instead I got out Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Her recipes are always delicious and usually fairly simple, which I love.

Next, I read The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones. Interestingly, she was the editor for both Child's and Hazan's books as well as for a number of other classic cookbooks, including one of my favorite's, Irene Kuo's The Key to Chinese Cooking. Jones shares her delightful adventures with a great many different influential chefs from all different cultures over the years, which I found very interesting, although I wish she had shared a little more of herself in the book. She makes being an editor sound like the greatest job in the world, and I guess it has been for her.

Mixed in with all these food books, I read three novels. Needing something to read for the train ride home one day, I stopped into the book store and picked up The Gathering by Anne Enright, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2007. I can find practically nothing good to say about this book. I found the writing to be cryptic and difficult and the characters were all unlikeable. I won't spend any more time talking about it.

For my book club, I read Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos. I had mixed feelings about this book; loved the overall message and really liked the writing style and story. But the resolution to the story was unbelievable and way too convenient and some of the characters too one-dimensional and "perfect." I actually liked the book much better after our bookclub discussion. This is a feel-good book to counter all the tragic and depressing books out there (although there is tragedy AND depression in this book!), and it's a good and easy read.

I'll finish these mini-reviews with Amanda Eyre Ward's Forgive Me. This is Ward's third novel and I have really liked all of them. What I love about her writing is that she tackles not-very-pleasant topics (this time, apartheid),has three-dimensional, interesting, and flawed characters, and leaves many questions unanswered. The main character in this book, Nadine, is a journalist constantly in search of danger. I had a hard time relating to her and thought a lot of her stories were cliche, but in the end I thought Ward did a fantastic job of portraying how complicated things like love and forgiveness can be.

Bye Bye 2007

I thought I should start fresh in 2008 since I got so far behind writing about the books I read in 2007. Briefly,

I really enjoyed Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. This is an unusual addition to the historical fiction genre in that Nemirovsky wrote it as a contemporary novel in 1940 or so before she was carted off to Auschwitz, where she was murdered. She gives us a fascinating glimpse into the lives of a French people from many different social classes and backgrounds. The first novella in this book takes place as the French are fleeing Paris in advance of the German occupation; the second novella deals with collaboration between the occupied and the occupiers in a small farming village. Both stories are filled with interesting and believable (but not always likable) characters.

Jenna Blum gives us a totally different perspective on WWII and the Holocaust in her excellent novel, Those Who Save Us. Switching back and forth between two characters and two time periods, Blum creates an intriguing story of love, abuse, betrayal, and redemption. She confronts head on the moral dilemma of what one will do to survive during a time of unspeakable horrors. The characters are well drawn and complex. And as in real life, everything is not tied up neatly in the end, but leaves the protagonist with many unresolved questions. That’s life.

After I heard Richard Russo talk at the Free Library of Philadelphia about his new novel, Bridge of Sighs (which my friend, Laura, says is boring), I decided to read some of his earlier novels. Straight Man is a funny book with interesting, quirky, small-town characters typical of Russo. Although this book is enjoyable, I never really connected with the characters or cared that much about what happened. Maybe it was just my mood at the time.

I chose The Color of Love by Gene Cheeks after hearing him interviewed on Fresh Air a while back. Cheeks was born in Jim Crow south to a white mother, who divorced Cheeks’ abusive father and went on to fall in love with and marry a black man. This set into motion one tragic event after another, as Gene was taken away from his mother (unfit because she gave birth to a mixed race child) and thrown into the foster care system since neither his father nor his father’s family wanted him. The writing is pretty amateurish, but I appreciated the fact Cheeks, who is not a writer, wanted to tell his story and told it in his own way.

The first book Garrett and I read together (10 years ago) was Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, so I picked up his latest book, Thirteen Moons, when I saw it on sale at BJs. After glancing at some fairly negative reviews, I shelved the book for awhile, but pulled it out when I couldn’t find anything else to read. I really loved this book. As he did in Cold Mountain, Frazier writes evocatively about the natural world, and he populates his book with lots of interesting characters. The story revolves around a boy who, at age 12, is indentured to his uncle and sent off to run a trading post on the frontier. The boy, Will Cooper, narrates this book from his perspective as an old man. Over the years, he becomes a lawyer and an honorary member of the Cherokee nation, who works with the Chief to preserve a homeland when the Indians are removed to reservations. Oh, and of course he falls in love and spends the rest of his life longing for reconciliation with his Clare. So it has a little bit of everything: beautiful writing, great characters, and romance!! Since I finished it, I have gone back and read some of those reviews, and all I can say is I disagree. I love Frazier’s writing and the story and characters are really compelling.

When I first took a look at The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman, I remembered him as the arrogant judge on “The Next Iron Chef.” Then when I saw that for one section of the book he tags along with Michael Symon (who won the Iron Chef competition) I was taken aback. How unfair was that?? (despite the fact that I was rooting for Symon to win). Anyway, I really liked this book. I loved getting into the heads of some of the country’s great chefs, and I love reading about food. I still think Ruhlman is sort of arrogant, but he’s a good writer and reporter, and a devoted foodie.

A Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult
Like many of Picoult's books, this one is a bona fide page turner. But also like some of her other books, it left me feeling sort of empty. I've thought a lot about why this is and I think it's because her characters are so one dimensional. The plot is gripping and moves along rapidly, with some interesting usual twists and turns (some of them completely implausible), but the ending is way too tidy (and also implausible).
The central character, Nina, is a beautiful and brilliant lawyer who prosecutes child molesters. Knowing from experience how difficult it is to get a conviction in these cases, and the pain it inflicts on the victim, when her own child is molested, she goes to extreme lengths (murder of the priest she suspects) to protect him. She calculates that she can convince a jury she was temporarily insane and get an acquittal. When she discovers that the scientific evidence she thought proved the priest's guilt, in fact, proves him innocent (it's complicated), she desperately tries to make amends. All the while, Picoult wants us to believe that an intelligent woman who is deeply committed to her child would risk depriving that child of his mother (trauma on top of trauma). Moreover, although Nina is not a particularly likable character, all the characters around her seem to think she is close to perfect.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
This is a really beautiful book. Joan Didion lost her husband and soul mate, the writer John Gregory Dunne, to a sudden heart attack at the same time that their daughter, Quintana, was fighting for her life in a New York hospital. Didion writes eloquently about her grief and confusion, but more than that this book is a love story. Throughout most of their 40 year marriage, she and Dunne lived and worked symbiotically, and to have him suddenly snatched away was almost like losing a part of her herself. Not only that, they lived fascinating lives, traveling all over the world and living the good life. In her work as a journalist (and novelist), Didion met and wrote about famous people in the arts as well as politics. She and her husband doted on Quintana, so the story of Quintana's strange illness and Didion's devotion to her is equally compelling. Quintana died shortly after this book was published, making it even more poignant. For all the sadness and tragedy upon which this book is built, I found it to be remarkably uplifting and inspiring.

Since I finished The Other Boleyn Girl on the way to Dresden, I needed to pick up another book in the Frankfurt airport for the return flight. I chose The Zahir, by Paulo Coelho. I had liked (but not loved) The Alchemist, and The Zahir struck me in much the same way: both are about the quest for enlightenment and spirituality, and both are somewhat heavy handed. The Zahir at least has a more interesting plot. The narrator's wife, Esther, has disappeared and he spends the next few years searching for her, his obsession, his "Zahir." In the meantime, his lover Marie supports him unselfishly as he searches. In fact, she's the only unselfish character in the book. Assisting him in his search is Mikhail, an expatriate from Kazakhstan and possibly Esther's lover, who travels about giving interactive performances about love. It's all very deep and spiritual, but not really compelling, at least not for me.

Once I finished The Zahir, I could move on to one of the books in my stack that I've been looking forward to reading. My sister, Julie, had loaned me her copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, who also wrote The Kite Runner, which I loved. Both of Hosseini's books take place in Afghanistan and as such, provide a glimpse into a very different world. In combination with The Places In Between, by Rory Stewart, which I read for my bookclub but apparently never wrote about on this blog, these books are starting to make Afghanistan a little more familiar, if not more understandable. What Suns does that the others don't is provide a picture of women's lives in Afghanistan, which are very different from the lives of men.

I really admire the way Hosseini weaves the political struggles in Afghanistan with the heart-wrenching tale of two women, but I found A Thousand Splendid Suns to be unrelentingly grim until the last 35 pages or so when it suddenly becomes a love story. I guess you can't criticize a writer for writing something unrelentingly grim about an unrelenting and grim war, but it made difficult reading for me. As for the male/female and other relationship issues that he tackles, I was less surprised by the fact that women have no rights and no protection in Afghanistan (at least under the Soviets, the Taliban, or the Mujahideen) than by the way the wealthy Jalil treats his illegitimate daughter Mariam: he alternately loves and cares for her and casts her out to endure a horrific life. I guess what I found so surprising was the kindness he (at times) showed to her. Even his other three legitimate wives take her in, although eventually they seem to the culprits in his rejection of her. The rehabilitation of the Jalil character at the end of the book also did not ring true to me, but given that the Afghani culture is unknown and perhaps unknowable, perhaps this is as realistic as any story can be.

We had a fabulous dinner at Cafe Mosaic the other night, or at least I did. We go there frequently and usually it's very good, sometimes excellent, and sometimes just so-so. On Friday I had their szechwan pepper crusted ahi, with soy glazed spinach, lomi-lomi tomatoes, and wasabi vinaigrette. It was memorable... so delicious I was practically speechless. Mike almost always has ahi tuna on the menu, and it's always good, but this was just spectacular. I'm not even sure what anyone else had, I was so focused on my meal. Eveyrone else must have enjoyed theirs as well, since no one even wanted a bite of mine, although I did offer. Maybe it was just that look in my eyes.

This will be the first short restaurant review on my blog. I've been meaning to do this for awhile, because we seem to have an increasing number of good restaurants out in our neck of the woods.

Saturday night, Garrett and I headed to Fioravanti in Downingtown. Except for a few quibbles, I thought it was very good. I started with a salad of tomatoes, spinach, arugula, blue cheese crumbles, and caramelized onion pancetta dressing. The combination of flavors was great, although it appeared to be a hot-house tomato, which I think is inexcusable when the local tomatoes are so wonderful right now. The salad was also overdressed and the dressing was quite vinegary, so when I got towards the end, I could no longer eat it. Garrett started with chicken medallions stuffed with spinach, asiago, and roasted peppers; wrapped in bacon; and served with horseradish aioli. They were very good, but pretty much anything wrapped in bacon is going to be good.

For our entrees, I had a special of Chilean sea bass topped with lobster and some red Japanese caviar and served on risotto with braised leeks. It was delicious, very well balanced, and the risotto was perfectly cooked. I have never liked caviar before, but this was the perfect complement to a great dish.

Garrett had osso buco, which was excellent as well.

The restaurant is small and has an open kitchen, which I like because it's fun to talk to the chefs and watch what they are doing. However, it was also really noisy (mostly because of a few larger, loud parties). Service was pretty good, although we felt a little bit rushed. I was shocked when I looked at the clock when we got back to the car and it was only 9:20 (we went in a little before 8)!

We had taken a Bogle Petite Sirah with us to this BYO restaurant, and it turned out to be a good match for both of our dishes.

For Garrett and me, The Birchrunville Store Cafe is the standard to which everyone else is compared. Fioravanti wasn't nearly as good as Birchrunville, but we really enjoyed it and will probably go back.

September 12. I am on an airplane returning from Dresden where I attended the World Congress on Huntington’s Disease. Since I have eight hours ahead of me with nowhere to go and no internet access, I thought I would take the opportunity to catch up on my reading, or rather on writing about the books I have been reading. Catching up seems to be a constant theme with this blog.

One of the great things about my book club is that it often motivates me to read books I might not have chosen otherwise. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl is one of those books. Though it appeared on several “best of 2006” lists, the length of the book and the wordy, stream of consciousness style, and thousands of references seemed a little daunting and not that attractive. But I stuck with it anyway and was rewarded with a great read from a new, extremely talented young author with a distinctive and original voice.

First of all, it has nothing to do with physics. It’s a coming of age story about a young woman being raised by a charismatic, brilliant father who has some rather odd ideas about child raising. After her mother is killed in a car accident when she was four years old, Blue and her father begin an odyssey throughout the United States, never spending even a full academic year in any one place. While on the road, they read an discuss all the great literary works as well as political science, history, etc. Finally, Blue’s father decides that for her senior year in high school, she should settle in one snooty private school so she can apply to and get admitted to Harvard, which she does because, like her father, she is sort of a genius.

Blue is, of course, totally out of place, but she is taken under the wing of another charismatic and unusual person, the film teacher Hannah, who tries to draw her into a crowd of privileged, snotty, and somewhat deranged students. This all makes for an interesting plot with a lot of twists and turns, humor, and pathos. There is one scene where the young man she fancies tells her group of friends that she kisses like a tuna. I could feel her pain as she buries her head into her pillow and sobs. Her intellect and unconventional upbringing, however, give her the tools to deal with all manner of strange and crazy situations. Ultimately what comes through is that despite her extraordinary life circumstances, Blue is just a teenager with the same angst and desires that we are all familiar with.

Help, my battery is starting to run down and I still have 3 books to write about!!!

These three books fall into my old favorite genre, historical fiction. These seem to be the books I fall back on when I can’t think of what I want to read next.

I had picked up Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks because I has so much enjoyed reading March. I was not disappointed. Year of Wonders takes place in 1665 when the Plague is raging through England. Brooks does what she did so well in March, creating a great story with rich characters within a historical context. There may not be any truth to the “story” but she uses it to draw the reader into a time and place far distant from our world. The voice is especially effective and Brooks never strays from telling the story in this voice.

Only on Sunday did we cease from the constant round of gathering and gardening, making and visiting. And of all days of the week, it was Sunday that I now dreaded. What had been my favorite day was now accursed to me, for it was on Sunday, in church, that our failure to arrest the Plague's ravages was apparent in the emptying pews and missing faces.

Of course, she creates wonderful memorable characters. The story revolves around a small village where the charismatic priest convinces the townspeople to quarantine themselves as a means of preventing the spread of the bubonic plague. This is the historically true incident around which the novel is built. The protagonist, Anna starts out as a young, naïve, uneducated and poor young woman, who loses everything but gains enormous strength as the plague ravages her town. She learns to read from the vicar’s educated wife Eleanor, and as their friendship develops her horizons expand far beyond the small town she has never left. Yet she must still deal with the fear, discrimination, and ignorance that infests the town and threaten its survival even more than the plaque does. Again, these problems are rooted in history.

As in many of the historical fiction books I have read, this book strays into a passionate romantic relationship that seems just a little too contemporary to be believable, but I am totally captivated anyway. I don’t find it hard to believe that people have always had passion, but wonder if the way they act upon it has changed throughout history. I doubt the historical record is all that revealing in this regard.

For example, I felt similarly about the book I just finished, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. This is the story of Mary Boleyn, the court of Henry VIII, and of course, Anne Boleyn, the older (or younger by some historical accounts) sister of Mary. More than most historical fiction I have read, this book made me constantly want to know what really happened and I found it distracting that the story Gregory creates seems at odds with what is generally accepted as true. The Boleyn family comes through as ruthless and conniving and Henry, a megalomaniac. From the other things I have read, both of these characterizations may be accurate, and I guess it’s the prerogative of the author to fashion a story that conveys this without worrying about the truth. But in the end the book reads more like a romance novel than history. I think I'll try reading some real history about this time period instead.

Sandwiched in between Wonders and Boleyn, I read Triangle by Katherine Weber, which concerns the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City in 1911. The structure of this book is different from most historical fiction, in that as the story of the fire is told through the remembrances of Esther, one of the survivors, there are competing stories about Esther’s granddaughter Rebecca, Rebecca’s lover George, and the annoying feminist herstorian (not HIStorian) who interviews Esther as part of her research. The problem, for me, is that there is just too much going on. George is a musician and a fascinating character, but the things that make him so remarkable are completely separate from the story of the fire. The attempt to pull these stories together by having him compose a symphony (opera) about the fire seems really contrived.

However, when my bookclub discussed Triangle, I came away with a totally different perspective. One of the subplots of the book involves George being is at risk for Huntington’s disease (his mother had it), and Rebecca is a genetic counselor. I thought this was a red herring until my friend Ruth pointed out that since George and Rebecca are related in some way (it gets complicated but has to do with Esther's parentage!), perhaps she too is at risk. Oh my, this book has a lot going on. It's interesting and quite challenging, but at times somewhat frustrating and repetitive. I sent an e-mail to Katherine Weber to find out more about the HD/genetics angle. I just can't imagine why she made this so obscure that it could easily go unnoticed. I read several reviews, and no one even mentions this, but it does seem to tie the subplots together. I may even have to go read this book again!

Catching up (again)

After finishing Water for Elephants, I wanted to read something less sprawling, and my next two books really fit the bill. First I read Astrid and Veronika, by Linda Olsson. What I liked most about this book was the sense of place. The story is set in a small Swedish village, where Veronika, a writer, has returned after the sudden death of her fiance to write a novel about the great love of her life. She befriends a reclusive elderly neighbor, Astrid, and together, ever so slowly, they build a trusting friendship that allows both of them to make peace with their demons. The stark, remote setting functions almost as a third character in this book and is what I will remember most about this rather slow, but still compelling story.

Next I picked up On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan. I absolutely love McEwan's writing and this book proved that he could draw me into a story that has the barest skeleton of a plot. In England, in the early '60s, two young people nervously approach their wedding night. Both virgins, their anxiety comes from opposite perspectives: he is ready to explode with desire and lust and she with fear. Yet while they love each other, neither has the capacity to talk about their fears, and ultimately they fail miserably in their attempt at consummating their marriage. It's a sad and frustrating story, but told exquisitely with McEwan's characteristic skill.