Category: Staff Picks

Hope Will Find You by Naomi Levy

- Lynn Leave a comment

Naomi Levy wrote Hope Will Find You as she was in the midst of her daughter’s health crisis. Spending much of her time in doctor’s waiting rooms, and trying to deal with the uncertainty of the diagnosis, Naomi began, unsurprisingly, to show signs of depression. She’d suspended her enjoyment of life and her career as a rabbi.

This book is a series of very short chapters that chronicle her climb out of that despair. She gains wisdom from other rabbis, mentors and, most of all, Noa, her daughter. Noa suffers from learning and physical disabilities, that may or may not be fatal. She is incredibly positive and energetic, and she is the one who actually comes up with the title.

One of Naomi’s breakthroughs is a realization that she can’t let her fear of the unknown destroy the happiness she can enjoy with her family and friends now. As Naomi lets go of her crippling fear, she is able to go back to work and even starts a new congregation.

Not only is her story inspirational, the book is a fascinating glimpse into Judaism and the Jewish principles of faith.

Notorious Royal Marriages by Leslie Carroll

- Michelle Leave a comment

For a fun and scandalous look into the history of royal matches, pick up Leslie Carroll’s Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny and Desire.  Carroll covers a long history of royal marriages beginning with Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Middle Ages and ending with the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.   A few of the gems in Notorious Royal Marriages include:

*King Henry VIII’s six marriages in which he had two wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, beheaded;

*Emperor Franz Joseph and his cousin bride Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) of Austria whose marriage started out with promise but became cold and impersonal after the tragic death of two of their children and her eating disorder;

*Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia whose love story ended when they and their five children were killed during the Russian Revolution;

*British ruler King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson’s marriage in which the ruling monarch gave up the British crown to marry the twice divorced American.

Each couple has their own chapter so it is easy to for you to skip around the book easily, too.  You may think you know many of these stories, but Carroll adds new information that makes it difficult to put the book down!

 

 

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer

- Ann 1 Comment

We’re lucky here in the Quad Cities to have one of the best ice cream makers in the country right on our doorstep, but there’s nothing quite as sublime as homemade ice cream – sweet and creamy, mixed to your taste with your favorite ingredients. Learn how to take your ice cream up a step into artistry with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer. You’ll never look back.

Each recipe in this book has been repeatedly tested by Jeni at home using only readily available home equipment. She shows that unique flavor combinations and creamy consistency are easily in reach. Lots of yummy pictures, friendly practical advice and personal stories make this book a pleasure to read. As well as ice cream, there are recipes for frozen yogurt and sorbets and suggestions for decadent desserts – such as a “Tuscan Sundae” made up of Salty Carmel ice cream, honey and vin santo sauce, biscotti and whipped cream.

Just reading through the names of the flavors is addicting and fun. Who could resist “Baked Alaska Pie Ice Cream”, “Watermelon Lemondae Sorbet” or “Roasted Strawberry and Buttermilk Ice Cream”. And though I think I”ll pass on the “Cucumber, Honeydew and Cayenne Frozen Yogurt”  and the “Celery Ice Cream”, call me the minute you make “The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World”. I’ll bring my own spoon.

Mad Men on DVD

- Ann 1 Comment

I’m normally wary of anything that has too much hype surrounding it, because generally I feel like it can’t possibly be as good as everyone says it is.  I’m sure you’ve heard of Mad Men, as it is constantly hyped as one of the best shows on TV and has won multiple Emmys and Golden Globes.  If you’ve never seen it, it’s set in the 1960s in New York City, and it’s all about  the “golden age” of advertising on Madison Avenue and the glamorous life that the ad men led.  Last week I finally checked out a couple of episodes and I have to say, it really is fantastic.  What I’m enjoying most about the show is the look and feel of it.  Not only does it seem very historically accurate, it’s such a beautiful period piece.  Everything from the clothes and the hair to the scenery is lovely to look at.

The acting in the show has also been wildly acclaimed, and it is also superb.  Jon Hamm is fascinating to watch as Sterling Cooper’s morally-complex creative director Don Draper.  You want to root for Don because he’s so charismatic and such an advertising genius, but he is certainly no angel.  I’m also finding myself really interested in the storyline of Peggy, the naive new secretary to Don.  We’re learning about how things work at Sterling Cooper right along with Peggy as she is thrown into a world filled with double standards between the men and the women.  If you’re looking for a great drama series to watch and are especially interested in learning a little more about the past, I highly recommend checking out Mad Men.  Currently we own season one, season two, season three, and season four, so stop by any of our three locations to look for one today!

Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasure by Robert Wittman

- Ann Leave a comment

Seriously, why hasn’t this book been made into a movie already? (although you’ll certainly be reminded of scenes from several popular movies and tv shows) Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career, offering a real-life international thriller in Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasure.

The son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year career going undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid. Wittman tells the stories behind his recoveries of priceless art and antiquities: the golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king, the Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement, the rare Civil War battle flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments. The art thieves and scammers he caught run the gamut from rich to poor, smart to foolish, organized criminals to desperate loners. Wittman has saved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art and antiquities, but he considers them all equally priceless.

Told with a true storyteller’s gift, Priceless is intense and fun and personal – Wittman feels passionate about preserving art and he’ll make you fell passionate about it too.

Childhood Classics Revisited

- Ann 2 Comments

I just finished reading a five book series that totals over 5,000 pages, so I decided it was time to take on something a little lighter.  There are a few books from my childhood that even as an adult I find myself going back to often.  The Giver by Lois Lowry is still a book that I mark among my favorites.  If you’ve never read it, it’s a story about a boy named Jonas who lives in a futuristic society where everything is under strict control in order to promote “Sameness”.  Your jobs and spouses are chosen for you, people don’t really have emotions, and they no one can even see colors.  Even though it’s a great book to read as a kid, I love it more reading it as an adult because I can see the deeper meaning behind the story.  I also recently re-read a book that I haven’t touched since I was too young to remember, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle.  In this sci-fi/fantasy novel, Meg’s scientist father goes missing, and as she enlists a cast of unique characters in order to find him, she discovers that his work will take her to places she never imagined.

A few days ago I realized that, shockingly enough, I never got around to reading Katherine Paterson’s Newbery winning novel Bridge to Terabithia when I was a kid.  It’s about a boy and girl in the fifth grade who are sort of outsiders, but they form a close friendship through their creation of a mythical land called Terabithia.  It was a really quick read, but it’s powerful and packs an emotional punch in the end.  Fans of the Narnia series will enjoy the made-up land of Terabithia, while fans of more realistic fiction will enjoy the friendship between Jesse and Leslie and seeing how much Jesse grows as a person because of Leslie.  There’s a good chance that I’ll be revisiting this one in the future.

Do you have any books from your childhood that you revisit often?  Or any children’s classics that you regret never reading?

Come to the Edge by Christina Haag

- Michelle Leave a comment

Christina Haag, childhood friend and later longtime girlfriend of John F. Kennedy, Jr. has written a moving and beautiful memoir of her years with him, Come to the Edge, which chronicles their lives from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

After meeting him as a young girl as one member of a large circle of friends in New York City, Christina Haag becomes a close friend and confidant of John throughout their high school and later college days.  After high school they both attend Brown University and learn that they share a love of theater both at Brown and later in New York City, where they return after graduation.  After starring together in an off-Broadway play, he confesses his love for her and they embark on a five year romance.  Her memoir tells of the human and personal side of their relationship that was far removed from the prying eye of the public.

She tells of their group dinners while roommates in college, trips to Cumberland Island in Georgia, their near death experience kayaking in Jamaica and of their normal, everyday life in New York.  Her recollection of a man who lived his life on the edge is poignant and reflective.  This is both a completely satisfying and heartbreaking memoir that tells the tale of  love, loss and what could have been.

A Secret Kept by Tatina de Rosnay

- Ann 1 Comment

The bestselling author of Sarah’s Key, Tatina de Rosnay, has written another winner.  A Secret Kept literally keeps the reader in suspense, wondering if the secret will ever be totally revealed.

Antoine takes his sister Melanie on a 40th birthday trip to  Noirmoutier Island, a lovely place where they had spent several enjoyable summers as children.   But something about the island also brings back troubling memories for Melanie.  On the return trip home, just as Melanie is about to reveal her fears to Antoine, she loses control of the car.  The book opens with Antoine waiting anxiously in a hospital waiting room, wondering if Melanie will even survive.

Antoine finds himself confronting not only his past, but his present family relationships as well.  Unhappy since his divorce just a year ago, he has difficulty communicating with his children and he has always felt distanced from his father.  He senses the secret revolves around his mother, and he wonders about her sudden death so many years ago.

I really enjoyed this book.  The tension is kept sufficiently tight, and the character development, realistic.  Plus, if you’re a francophile, you’ll appreciate some of the many French references! Incidentally, the author was recently named one of the top ten fiction writers in Europe.

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

- Ann Leave a comment

I was a teenager myself when Ann Brashares released her first Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book.  If you’ve never read them before, they’re a pretty fun set of novels geared towards teens.  The series centers around four girls who have been friends since bith.  When they’re in high school, they go out shopping one day and discover a pair of seemingly magical pants that fit all four of them, despite their very different body types.  The girls have to spend the summer apart, so they ship the pants to each other as a way to keep in touch.  The first four books find the girls falling in love, getting into college, struggling with their families, and most of all sticking together through thick and thin.  I devoured all four books and found myself pretty attached to Lena, Bridget, Carmen, and Tibby by the end of the fourth book, not really wanting to part with them just yet.

So imagine my delight when, ten years after that first book, I find out that Ann Brashares has written a fifth book about the girls titled Sisterhood Everlasting.  This time, they are in their late 20s and are experiencing life as adults.  Carmen is an actress living in New York City, Lena is teaching art classes at RISD, Tibby is in Australia with her longtime love Brian, and Bridget is constantly changing jobs and apartments in San Francisco.  Though Carmen works hard to keep everyone together, the girls don’t see much of each other anymore.  That is, until Tibby suddenly sends them all plane tickets for a trip to Greece, giving the girls a chance to finally come together once again.

Beyond that, I can’t say too much about the book because something shocking happens, and I don’t want to spoil interested readers.  All I will say is that this book has a really different tone from the other books (especially since it’s now geared more towards adults rather than teens), and if you’re a longtime fan of the series, it might not be a bad idea to read this with a box of tissues nearby.  It’s really a story about how even the closest of friends can drift apart, how much we change over the years, how little we really change, and how we deal with tragedy.  As someone who has read the previous books in the series, it was interesting to see where they all ended up and continue on with their journeys.  Lena and Bridget have always been my favorite characters, and their stories in this book are especially compelling.  If you’ve never read any of the other books, Brashares does a pretty good job at giving you the background information you need, but I’d still recommend giving the earlier books a try.  They were even made into a couple of movies, with the first book being made into the movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the second, third, and fourth books being combined into the movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.  Overall, I’m glad I got to revisit these old friends one more time.

Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

- Ann Leave a comment

There’s something very comforting about Erica Bauermeister’s books — they’re sort of  “stop and smell the roses”  reminder.   For me, when she describes the smell of freshly baked bread, I swear I’m going to master making it from scratch, even though my past attempts at bread -baking have often yielded less-than satisfying results.  Indeed, at times I’ve been too embarrassed to throw it out for the birds!  (I mean, really, what if even they didn’t eat it?) But enough about me.

As in her first book, The School of Essential Ingredients, each chapter focuses on a different character.  In her new one, Joy for Beginners,  the characters are all women and all friends, even though they are different ages and at various stages in their lives.  These women don’t live Pollyanna lives — loved ones still die, couples still divorce, some parent-child relationships stay strained — but through it all, their friendships remain strong and continue to provide the support and encouragement each of them needs.

The book opens with a potluck dinner party, celebrating Kate’s recent victory over breast cancer.  Kate agrees to try something she’s always feared– white-water rafting– but in return, each of them must also promise to do something they find difficult, though Kate  gets to pick their challenges.  In some cases, the task seems surprisingly simple, such as baking bread or discarding books left by an ex-husband.  Still, Kate seems to have an innate sense as to what her friends need most.

I really enjoyed this book.  It’s a perfect gift for a good friend — or for someone who wants to make bread from scratch!