The Convict and Other Stories by James Lee Burke

A hundred years from now, I can only hope author James Lee Burke’s books survive as a chronicle of the real history of the South.  From the urine stained streets of New Orleans to the oil fields of Texas, Burke paints a vivid tapestry of the people, history, and culture that make up today’s South.

 The Convict and Other Stories is a collection of short stories showcasing Burke’s trademark juxtaposition of lyricism and brutality. Revisiting the earliest years of some characters from his popular series, exploring the emotional wastelands and quiet courage of generations of ranchers and farmers, paying homage with a steadfast honesty to the compassionate and anguished lives of ordinary people, Burke produces a montage of exceptional stories about unexceptional lives.

 Despite the limitations of the short story, Burke is able to draw complex and sometimes compelling characters while piercing the layers of avarice, mendacity, and love we recognize as daily life. Each of these stories is a quick shock to the conscience, a light in a dark corner and a lesson in redemption. 

Vicky – York                           ISBN   9781416599258

Murder in the Dark: A Phryne Fisher Mystery by Kerry Greenwood

If you haven’t met the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, you are in for a treat and if you are acquainted with Kerry Greenwood’s indomitable and aristocratic detective, you will find her latest investigative adventure to be among her best. 

In Murder in the Dark, Phryne leaves her “bijou residence” in a suburb of Melbourne to attend the Last Best Party of 1928, a four day extravaganza which promises all manner of fun.  Surrounded by the acolytes of twins Isabella and Gerald Templar, supplied with superb food and refreshing beverages, and entertained by fascinating jazz musicians, Phryne sets out to solve a series of kidnappings which threaten to disrupt the party and the lives of her friends. As always, the well-dressed Phryne encounters an intriguing group of characters who try to assist and thwart her investigations but her wit and courage prevail in the end.

 In addition to its polished style and satisfying mystery, Murder in the Dark gives us glimpse into the hedonistic revelry of well-heeled flappers at the end of the roaring Twenties. A friend once described the Phryne Fisher series as “Nancy Drew for grown-ups” and Greenwood’s latest book doesn’t disappoint. 

Vicky – York                           ISBN  9781590584392

Dori Sanders’ County Cooking: Recipes and Stories from the Family Stand by Dori Sanders

When I was growing up, someone always made the trip down the mountain for South Carolina peaches. Visits from cousins and the homemade peach ice cream, warm peach cobbler, and chilled peaches and cream made up for the work of canning all those bushels of fruit. It was memories of those hot summer days and my grandmothers’ kitchens which caused me to pick up Dori Sanders’ 1995 book, Dori Sanders’ Country Cooking. And it was discovering Ms. Sanders’ memories of family and farms that kept me reading. 

Oh, and the food. 

Each section in the elegantly illustrated book begins with a story. With her inimitable, haunting style, Ms. Sanders takes us from hidden slave gardens to the tradition of silver teas with grace and good food—recipes included. I was thrilled to find a recipe much like my great grandmother’s spring favorite, wilted creasie greens and onions, and delighted to find instructions for my favorite peach cobbler. Sanders’ instructions are clear and easy to follow, the ingredients are readily available, and every dish turns out company-perfect the first time. Most impressive! 

In her introduction Sanders, a York County native and author of Clover and Her Own Place, writes, “Our original family home no longer stands…..But the precious recipes are still intact, and the tastes and smells of the food of my childhood let me know that I can go back again.”  

Sanders took me back to my childhood, too, and that is the best recipe of all.

Vicky – York                             ISBN  1565121171

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Sometimes nothing will do but an old favorite.  That was how I found myself re-reading Alice Hoffman’s 1995 novel, Practical Magic. The story of the Sally and Gillian Owens is American magical realism at its best. Hoffman weaves a perfect tale of family and love and the strange twists that sometimes bring us home.

 Reared by their elderly, witchy aunts (whose garden any plant lover will envy), Gillian and Sally learn early that things are rarely what they seem and that one must be ever wary of the duplicity of desire. Adulthood finds the sisters moving as far as possible from their aunts and the legacy of Owens women.  Sally, practical and responsible, runs to marriage and children.  Wild, outrageous Gillian simply runs. It takes years for circumstance and fate, the loss of marriage and the failure of running, to bring Gillian and Sally back together in a tangle of love and trouble that only the aunts and their magic can make right.

 Hoffman is an adroit narrator but it is her ability to transform the mundane into the wondrous which makes this book outstanding.  The first time I read Practical Magic I wanted to be adopted by the aunts.  I wanted to live in their house where “the green-tinted window glass was so old and so thick that everything on the other side seemed like a dream, including the sky and the trees.”  I wanted to learn their spells and wander in their garden. But Hoffman’s novel offers a different and better gift as I found reading it again all these years later. The wisdom, advice, and undiluted strangeness of the Owens women seep down into your psyche and change you in small but remarkable ways.

Vicky – York                                       ISBN 9780425190371

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes and 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell

Julie Powell, a young woman living in New York City, is about to turn thirty.  She has a job that gives her little fulfillment, she’s lost interest in the dreams of her youth, and she’s searching for something to give her life a focus.  When her husband suggests that she cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year and document the process in a blog, she accepts the challenge. And challenge it is!  She describes her adventures tracking down hard-to-find items like marrow bones and learning to de-bone a duck as well as cooking with stick after stick of butter in a world very different from the one Julia Child cooked in. But most of her story involves her day-to-day life and her relationships with family, friends and co-workers.

 Interspersed throughout the book are imagined vignettes involving the early relationship between Paul and Julia Child.  These scenes explore how Julia Child’s interest in food and cooking may have developed and what may have inspired her to begin writing the cookbook that taught so many Americans how to appreciate food. 

While I enjoyed this book, it wasn’t quite what I expected.  I would have preferred more description of the actual cooking, but the book was primarily about Julie Powell’s life and feelings.  The scenes with Julia Child were interesting but, again, I wanted more about the cooking.  There was also a great deal of profanity – perhaps understandable coming from someone trying to cook involved recipes in an apartment kitchen – that some might find offensive.  I would recommend this book to readers interested in modern life in New York City more than I would recommend it to readers interested in cooking and Julia Child.

Molly – York                                ISBN  031610969x

The Foreigner by Francie Lin

The book opens with the devoted Emerson Chang, a mild-mannered, single 40-year-old financial analyst who meets his overbearing, match-making mother every Friday night for dinner.  Mama Chang, a Taiwanese immigrant, views American life as corrupt, and Emerson has not been allowed to embrace American life as fully as he would like.  Growing up in San Francisco, in the Remada, their family-owned hotel, Emerson has felt like a foreigner in San Francisco, his place of birth.  When Emerson’s mother dies suddenly, Emerson is shocked to discover she has left part of the inheritance to his long lost brother, Little P.  So Emerson travels to Taiwan, not only to scatter his mother’s ashes but in hopes of tracking down Little P to negotiate with him about the terms of their mother’s will.  Emerson doesn’t speak Chinese, so he becomes a foreigner once again.  Here in Taiwan is where most of the action takes place, and shady brother Little P, along with some nasty looking cousins and a mysteriously ill uncle, lure Emerson into their Taiwanese criminal underworld.  His uncle’s karaoke bar seems to be a front for something much more sinister.  Some of the revelations eventually uncovered about his family are horrifying.  However, Emerson isn’t about to give up the inheritance and legacy of his mother until he uncovers the past and tries to save his family.  Told in the first person, Lin’s dramatic, suspenseful debut novel will be enjoyed by general fiction and thriller readers alike.  I enjoyed the fast moving plot and the humor she throws in that offsets the darkness of the Emerson’s discoveries.

Jennifer L. – York                                ISBN  9780312364045

Burned by David Hagberg

Burned begins as Patti Monroe and her husband, David, arrive in Moscow from the U.S. to try to repair a business deal that has gone sour.   Patti’s world is turned upside down when their Russian business partners shoot David and kidnap Patti at gunpoint.  Patti is taken to a rundown dacha twenty miles outside of Moscow where her captors, along with brutal Islamic terrorists, try to ransom her.  

In an atmosphere full of violent mistrust and political hatred, American FBI agents must work closely with Russian security forces.  Only the agents’ burning desire to rescue Patti will hold the operation together.

Burned is a fast paced thriller that is based on the real life horrifying ordeal of an Austrailian woman named Yvonne Bornstein.  Yvonne and her husband were kidnapped in Russia in the 1990s by Islamic terrorists and held for ransom.  Yvonne was tortured, starved and abused by her captors and Burned captures the spirit of Yvonne’s resistance and ultimate triumph.

Mary Beth – York                                  ISBN  9780765317957

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

In the year since I renounced my Mormon faith, and set out to tell the nation the truth about American polygamy, many people have wondered why I ever agreed to become a plural wife. (First Sentence)  And the fictional narrative begins for Ann Eliza Young, the real-life 19th “rebel” wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young.  Ann Eliza became an outcast of the Mormon church, but the world was eager to hear sordid, shocking, juicy details of the polygamist’s way of life.  Her story is told beautifully, in her own voice, throughout this novel.  Intertwined with Ann Eliza’s tale is a modern-day murder mystery involving Jordan Scott, a young man who was kicked out at age 14 from the “Firsts,” a fundamentalist Mormon cult (Jordan claims they like to get rid of teen boys so that their men don’t have any competition for the teen girls).  Jordan learns his mother has been arrested for murdering his nasty, polygamous father, and believing she is innocent, he sets out to discover the real murderer.  As he snoops around investigating this dangerous cult, his commentary is informative and tantalizing.  Author David Ebershoff intersperses other fascinating means of telling his story – Master’s thesis papers/correspondence, newspaper articles, archivists’ memos, advertisements, playbills, letters, instant messages, and Wikipedia entry.  I found this book highly entertaining and difficult to put down. I was able to confirm some of my opinions or clear some of my misperceptions about the Mormon church and their sects.

Jennifer L. – York                             ISBN 9781400063970

Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley

                                              While shelving some biographies the other week, I came across Kitty Kelley’s Nancy Reagan, The Unauthorized Biography.  “An oldie but goodie,” I thought,  ”This will be dishy and trashy about someone you love to hate: a spoiled, dictatorial, self-involved, vain, rich woman with too much of everything.”

    Kitty Kelley goes into a subject digging for dirt and generally finds it.  Yes, Nancy Reagan had questionable power over the country via her control over her husband. Yes, she consulted expensive astrologists.  Yes, the tiny virago swung a hefty ax, toppling some of the most influential men in her husband’s sphere.

    However, who among us could stand up to a personality assassin’s scrutiny and come out unscathed? Very few, I’m sure. 

When I read a biography, I often learn as much about myself as I do the subject.  This was less an exposé than a picture of a human being who is prey to the frailties and temptations that flew out of Pandora’s box. The author’s perceptions and interpretations of events could be applied toward the events of anyone’s life, and show him/her in an unfavourable light. I have to wonder, “Who is doing Kitty Kelley’s biography?”

    Not trying to defend nor hail First Lady Reagan, but, in expecting a page turner, I found a “turner-off”.  The spirit in which the book is written is less about documenting history, and more about the author’s motivation: $$

Rita – York                                        ISBN  067164646x

Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg

One of my favorite authors has done it again. The storyline and the characters are real.  Some quirky, some normal but very believable.

The story is about a best-selling author whose husband has died  & did  everything from paying bills & fixing things while she wrote  novels & cooked.  It deals with how she and her daughter learn to cope & move on with life. Although Helen Ames has discovered since her husband’s death she has cannot “find a book in her” she finds that through these quirky aspiring student writers that she has a purpose and can be independent. 

Home Safe explores, with insight and humor, (as many of Elizabeth Berg’s novels do) what it’s like to lose everything & in the end, Helen Ames has discovered she can survive and thrive.  Berg has written a perfect, plausible survival story.

Page – Rock Hill                  ISBN 9781400065110