Picture Perfect Cooking

Did you all, my readers, think I have stopped reading since I haven’t had a bookworm post in so, so long?  Never fear, I have had a book in my hand all spring and summer long and have read some really good books and some not so good ones, too.  Let’s take a look, shall we??

I guess I had better say something first…I read for pure pleasure.  Unless it is the Bible (the perfect instruction manual for life) or a cookbook/gardening/how-to book, I read to get lost in another world or another life.  Books are an escape for me and I love them!  Sometimes I think I should have been a librarian in some big old library full of rare and precious books, but maybe that is because of the book I am reading right now.

I am in the middle of “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova, and it is so good.  If you recall, I wrote a short post about another book by the same author called “The Swan Thieves”, and I think I like “The Historian” better than that one. 

I have also read the first two books by Stieg Larrson: “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl Who Played With Fire”.  My co-worker, K, has the third book, “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest”, and I can’t wait to get a hold of that one, too.  I highly recommend these, but with one caveat.  The first book starts out a little slow, but don’t give up on it.  If you can make it through the first 50 pages or so of story background information, you will be rewarded.  The plot takes off from there and doesn’t stop until the very end.  The second book, not weighed down by history, takes off at a run and keeps going.  It is great!  These will be the only three books by the author because he passed away shortly after the third books was completed.  So sad!

Two other books that I have read this summer and enjoyed were food-related.  Yay!  One of my favorite topics!  The first was “The Hundred Foot Journey” by Richard Morais and “A Year in Provence” by Peter Mayle.  My local library was having a summer reading program for adults and these two books were on the reading list.  I didn’t get signed up in time to complete enough books before the deadline, but it was fun to read some different authors that I have never heard of before.

My favorite of the two was “A Year in Provence”.  I think I finished it in three days and wished it was much, much longer.  It is about the author and his wife’s first year of living in the Provence region of France, and it is a true story, which makes it even more entertaining.  “The Hundred Food Journey” is fiction, but good as well.  An Indian family decide to move from India to England and then France after the death of a special family member.  The interactions between the Indian family and the locals of France is especially entertaining.

I also read “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert since I had heard a lot about it, but had not yet seen the movie.  I don’t think I will bother with the movie.  I finished the book, but it was a struggle.  This is also a true store of one woman’s journey to put her life back together after a difficult marriage and divorce.  She travels to Italy (to eat), India (to pray), and Indonesia (she finds love) to recover from her sadness.  I guess the best way to say it is that I was very uncomfortable with her religious decisions.  It seemed like she wanted to take the “best” parts of every religion and put them together to make some sort of hybrid.  That just doesn’t fly in my book.  If you want the easy, happy, and loving parts of God, you must also take his rules along with them. 

I hope you enjoyed my little book review list.  I hope to start on the Harry Potter series soon.  I like the movies and want to try the books, too.  Happy reading!!

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