by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb (July 2019) I admit I have a deep affection for southern France. Any book about Provence with all its flowers, scenery, food, history and culture along with its temperate climate on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea interests me. Adding a bit of nostalgia to the mix adds to the enjoyment. This book is just the...

by Sofia Lundberg English Translation 2019 On her tenth birthday in 1928, Doris Alm’s bibliophile father gave her a red leather address book. “You can collect all your friends in it.” Pappa smiled. “Everyone you meet during your life. In all the exciting places you’ll visit. So you don’t forget.” (p. 7) That is exactly what Doris did. We meet...

CHICKEN EVERY SUNDAY by Rosemary Taylor (1943) A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN by Betty Smith (1943) In my June blog, we learned about “stories that helped us win World War II” distributed to soldiers in the form of Armed Services Editions (ASE) books. Of all the ASE books, Chicken Every Sunday and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn were among the most beloved. I...

This month’s selection, When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning (2015) is offered in memory of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944. While memory of this aspect of the war has dimmed over the intervening decades, the impact of books on American culture remains. This is the true story of...

by Phaedra Patrick We meet Arthur Pepper, a 69-year-old retired English locksmith, on the one-year anniversary of his wife Miriam’s death. He had spent the last year in semi-hibernation, taking a “time out” from Life, stunned by the unexpected end of their happy marriage of more than 40 years. Feeling that it was the end of something and not...

by Marcus Samuelsson I intended to choose a book for this month’s selection that was unrelated to cooking and chefs. Then I read Samuelsson’s book. I hope you’ll bear with me--I think Samuelsson’s and Ripert’s book (32 Yolks, March selection) should be paired. I hope you agree and enjoy this astonishing man’s memoir of his very different path to...

by Eric Ripert Who is Eric Ripert? If you are a fan of Anthony Bourdain’s series “Parts Unknown,” you may have seen a handsome white-haired, green-eyed man with a French accent on several shows. Ripert and Bourdain were good friends, and in fact they were shooting another episode together in France when Bourdain died. Ripert is a chef and...

This month’s selection focuses on a little-known historical event in honor of Black History Month. In recent months, I’ve become interested in events occurring in the few years after World War I in the U.S. We know much of that history, and some issues of that time, such as race, voting rights, and immigration, continue to play a large role in...

Donna Leon is the creator of the Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery series beloved throughout the world, as well as by many in the Grover Beach Community Library Senior Book Break. Our affection for the characters has not dimmed through the more than 20 books and several decades during which Leon has been telling their stories. Now she’s...

2018 has been quite a slog, and I think we’d all enjoy a bit of lightness and humor to end the year. In Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters, Mark Dunn shows us in a humorous way the joy that the manipulation of words and language can bring to those of us who treasure them. If just speaking aloud the title doesn’t bring at least a smile to your...