Delicious!

Two covers.

 

 

Delicious!

Ruth Reichl

 

I was so sad when I finished this book, because I delighted in every phase of the stories and greatly anticipated finding minutes and hours to read it.

A first novel for Ruth Reichl, though she has at least five successful memoirs and food-related books already to her credit. I really hope she writes another novel, soon!

Very likable and interesting characters, though a few times I had to stop and recalibrate my brain cells--reminding myself who was who and what part he/she plays in the story. Still, well-drawn characters and settings. This is a very sensual book; though, mostly not in a sexual context.

 

The Bright Side of Disaster

 

 

The end began with a plane crash. Just before midnight on a Tuesday in February. A girl I'd never met or even heard of died, along with her miniature dachshund (under the seat) and a plane load of passengers in the kind of commuter plane I'll never fly in again. I've pictured it a hundred times now: the quiet hum of the motor, the sleeping passengers, the sudden jolt, the cabin steward thrown sideways before he could finish his instructions. In my mind, it always looks like a movie, because I have nothing else to go on.

The Bright Side of Disaster

Katherine Center

 

Another in my list of summer reads. Light, told with humor and uncommon perspective. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author, too.

 

 

 

 

Where We Belong

 

 

I know what they say about secrets. I've heard it all. That they can haunt and govern you. That they can poison relationships and divide families. That in the end, only the truth will set you free. Maybe that's the case for some secrets. But I truly believed I was the exception to such portents, and never once breathed the smallest mention of my nearly two decadelong secret to anyone. Not to my closest friends in my most intoxicated moments or to my boyfriend Peter in our most intimate ones. I didn't even discuss it with my mother, the only person who was there when it all went down, almost as if we took an unspoken vow of silence, willing ourselves to let go, move on. I never forgot, not for a single day, yet I was also convinced that sometimes, the past really was the past.

Where We Belong

Emily Griffin

 

Sometimes, I crave a well-written, light novel. This one perfectly fit that craving. A well-crafted, contemporary story--told in two time-frames. Not a perfect novel, not a tricky plot. Yet, I liked the characters for the most part, and I was routing for them. An ambiguous ending that pleased me because it didn't make an obvious or trite leap, but still left me hopeful.

That aside, I can't stop myself from commenting on how many novels I've read recently that skip back and forth between perspectives, between eras, between timeframes--sometime four or more timeframes. Enough already! It's O.K. to tell a story sequentially, chronologically. Two timeframes, three perspectives should be enough for any book. Really.

 

ONE FIFTH AVENUE

It was only a part in a TV series, and only a one-bedroom apartment in New York. But parts of any kind, much less decent ones, were hard to come by, and even in Los Angeles, everyone knew the value of a pied-a-Terrence in Manhattan. And the script arrived on the same day as the final divorce papers.

If real life were a script, a movie executive would have stricken this fact as "too coincidental." but Schiffer Diamond loved coincidences and signs. Loved the childlike magic of believing all things happened for a reason. She was an actress and had lived on magic nearly all her life...

And:

...It was Enid thought, simply the human condition. There were inherent questions in the very nature of being alive that couldn't be answered but only endured.

Usually Enid did not find these thoughts depressing but, rather, exhilarating. In her experience, she'd found that most people did not manage to grow up. Their bodies got older, but this did not necessarily mean the mind matured in the proper way. Enid did not find this particularly bothersome, either. Her days of being upset by the unfairness of life and the inherent unreliability oh human beings to do the right thing were over. Having reached old age, she considered herself endlessly lucky. If you had a little bit of money and most of your health, if you lived in a place with lots of people and interesting things going on all the time, it was very pleasant to be old. No one expected anything of you but to live. Indeed, they applauded you merely for getting out of bed in the morning. (pg.17)
One Fifth Avenue
Candace Bushnell

I was looking for a fun, quick read; an airplane book, a beach read. This one was great fun. Candace Bushnell is a fine writer and knows her subject matter--Manhattan and its inhabitants.