A Fully Read Life

Judith Ryan Hendricks-The Baker's Apprentice

2011-04-22T20:25:00.000-07:00

This book was a completely random pickup. I was at Powell's with some friends and we each had given ourselves $30 and 45 minutes to find books. While waiting for them to come back I was checking out the sales books and one caught my eye. The Baker's Apprentice was not at all what I was expecting it to be.

I also did not realize until the very end that this was a sequel to another book so now I feel that I need to go and get the first book! The book centers around Wyn Morrison, a baker of bread and the relationships with people around her, such as Mac, her lover that disappears. Another character, Tyler, is a young woman who looks up to Wyn as a mother figure.

The book has yet again inspired me to want to start baking and cooking more. But on a positive note, the book has given me hope that there is more yet to come!

Elin Hilderbrand--The Blue Bistro

2011-01-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

This book started out with a menu. A menu that sounded absolutely delightful. The book ended with me in tears. Not an uncommon occurrence when I'm reading. It's also a book that I started and finished in the same afternoon.

The book centers around Adrienne Dealey, a 28 year old woman who has just left a bad relationship in Aspen (a really bad relationship where she turned in her boyfriend for theft) and ended up on a boat to Nantucket. There she ends up with a job at a restaurant, as the assistant manager-with no restaurant experience. She has spent the last several years working in resort hotels, in Florida, in Thailand, in New England and Aspen but has no experience in restaurants. But, Thatcher Smith, the Proprietor, for some unknown reason, gives her a job as his assistant manager.

Reading this book made me want to work in this kind of environment-and I have even less experience in restaurants than Adrienne-unless you count nine months working in the service deli of a grocery store, not my proudest moments and a job that, although I got high marks on customer service, never really broke into the service deli world!

As in every novel, there are catches. The first one is Fiona Kemp, the Executive Chef of the restaurant and best friend of Thatcher from childhood in South Bend, Indiana. Is there something more with Thatcher and Fiona? It's unclear at the beginning but it is clear that there is something desperately wrong with Fiona. She lets nearly no one into her kitchen and there are many other signs that all is not right in Nantucket. Another catch is Adrienne herself, she is so unsure of herself, so afraid of the mistakes that she's made in the past that she's almost afraid to let herself go again.

Thatcher and Adrienne end up in a relationship, albeit not the normal one since clearly Thatcher has placed Fiona at the top of his priority list. I both hated and pitied Fiona throughout the book and was really ready to throttle her at the end. I loved Adrienne and all her flaws and Thatcher drove me nuts but reminded me of those I've loved in the past and may still care about today. In fact, throughout reading this book, I was constantly reminded of someone that I'd not thought of in so long as a result of the Thatcher character. It's not that Thatcher is like this person, in many ways they are complete opposites, but there was something that made this person come to my mind over and over again while reading The Blue Bistro.

This is definitely a book that will stay with me and when I think of this book, I will think of that person that should be, and very much is-most of the time-in my past.

Melissa Ford--Life From Scratch

2011-01-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

So it's been nearly a year since I last blogged. This was not my intention. For those who may or may not know me, I made a huge life change in August. I left my job of four years in Oregon and moved to New York City. Why New York City? Why not New York City! I have always dreamed of living here my entire life and knew that, as the great sage, Hillel says, "If not now, when?" So here I am, five months later, living in the tiniest studio I have ever lived in my life and loving it! So it is fitting that my first book back is a review of a book set in NYC!

I loved this book! I received Life from Scratch as an Early Review book and could not put it down. It's a relatively slim book (although in actuality is 208 pages) about a woman who is recently divorced in New York. She talks about her teeny tiny kitchen in her teeny tiny studio and how she was always from a family that ordered in. After her divorce, she decided to start cooking and took all her cooking supplies that she got as wedding presents and started cooking as well as dating again.

I think this book was especially poignant to me for a few reasons: the first is now having lived in NYC for nearly 5 months, I recognized so many of the places that she was referencing and could actually say that I was familiar with them, or at least their subway stops! Secondly, the title character was a nice Jewish girl named Rachel, which, wait, so am I! Finally, the struggle of cooking in a tiny studio apartment. While I actually think my studio is smaller than her as she had room for a bed AND a couch and I only have room for a futon as both, it is a struggle to cook in such a limited amount of space and to not be able to invite people to enjoy it. My hope is that my next apartment in NYC will be slightly larger, even just bigger enough to put some screens up to separate my eating from sleeping areas!

All in all, I highly recommend this book!

Therese Borchard-Beyond Blue

2010-03-22T21:41:00.001-07:00

As someone who has experienced depression, albeit not to nearly the extreme that Borchard has, and for very different circumstances, this was still an amazing read. Borchard has done a wonderful job of pinpointing exactly the progression of her depression and the waves and fits in which it came. I would recommend this book for anyone who has a loved one experiencing bouts of depression or for someone who has experienced depression themselves. The book reiterates that depression is not the type of ailment where you pop some pills and then it's over. This is a life-long condition that one lives with, going through the highs and lows on an ongoing basis.

Alice Sebold--The Almost Moon

2009-08-30T12:55:00.001-07:00

I've read both of Alice Sebold's other books and truly enjoyed them. A day later and I'm still not sure what I thought about this one. A daughter, Helen, in her late forties, her mentally ill mother and her deceased father. It was very interesting to read about how Helen grew up in what was a very difficult life, the mother was extremely mentally ill and was agoraphobic, not leaving the house for years at a time. I think the most interesting part to me was the affect that this mother had on the life of her fully grown daughter, Helen, and that even after she was married with children, she felt the need to protect her mother and chose to return home. Clearly the most shocking part of the book happened within the first chapter, when Helen killed her mother. It wasn't premeditated but something that almost just kind of happened. The worst part almost wasn't the actual killing of her mother but the hours that ensued after. I felt that I had just really gotten into the book towards the end and thus was very disappointed when it ended in what I felt was a very unsatisfying way. I wish there had been more of a conclusion but then again, my imagination can always make up some pretty imaginative ways to end the story!

Sadia Shepard--The Girl From Foreign

2009-08-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

I picked this book up at the library and immediately was drawn into the world that Sadia spun. The story tells the real tale of her grandmother, who was born of the Bene Israel Jewish community in India, a community that I've heard some about in recent years. Unfortunately I didn't know a lot of information about the group or even what had become of them in more recent times. It was very interested to read about the conflict that Sadia felt, having all these different religious beliefs in one household. While it seemed at first, that Nana didn't really bring a lot of the Jewish faith into the household, as Sadia explored more and more throughout India, she realized that many of the things that her grandmother had done while she was a child were really Jewish traditions and not the traditions of her Muslim grandfather. I can only imagine the pain that Rachel Jacobs/Rahat Siddiqi felt trying to navigate the world through such different lenses. I wish that more of her secrets and world could have been shared before she'd died and I would have loved to hear how she felt about her religions and how she felt of the increasingly more religiousness of Pakistan since she left.

Michelle Richmond-No One You Know

2009-06-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

This was the first book that was sent to me by Early Reviewers. I read one of her earlier books, The Year of Fog and loved it. This book was equally as compelling for me. The first thing that struck me was the relationships between sisters, I have a younger sister and although our relationship is somewhat different, we are still extremely close.

The book tells the story of two sisters, Ellie and Lila. Lila was murdered while she was a doctoral student in Mathematics at Stanford. Although the police did not arrest anyone, a book was published by a teacher of Ellie's that named a suspect, the married lover/co-student of Lila's. The book was a source of trouble for Ellie as she had spoken to her professor in confidence and had not realized until he was nearly done with the book that he planned to publish it or had even written anything. Ellie's life is thrown into an immediate tailspin when her sister dies. She knows the perfect sister died and she struggles to really find meaning with her own life. She flits from relationship to relationship, bed to bed and job to job until she falls into a job that suits her well, a coffee buyer. The story incorporates the fine art of tasting coffee and the world of mathematics in a story that in an odd way, makes perfect sense. I would recommend this book whole-heartedly because I think it's a story that has so many levels and just pulls one in further and further until the very last page.

Jonathan Rosen-Joy Comes in the Morning

2009-03-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

I don't even remember what interested me in this book. I do know that I got it from one of my favorite sites, www.paperbackswap.com, which I'm happy to tell you about because it rocks!!

One of the reasons I was drawn to this book was because there are really not a lot of modern books that are written towards a Jewish audience that are overtly Jewish in content, especially coming from the Reform movement perspective. I am starting to see more come out lately and am hoping that this is a positive trend. Of course, I am hoping that one day I will start my one genre of literature with plenty of books showcasing strong Jewish women, exactly the way they are written about in other strong female literature, but that's another posting.

Back to the book. The book is told primarily in three voices: Deborah, a Reform rabbi in New York City; Henry, a Holocaust survivor who would like to commit suicide now that his quality of life diminishes further with every stroke; and Lev, his son who has recently broken off his engagement. Originally, I was only really impressed with Deborah, saddened by Henry and thoroughly frustrated with the character of Lev.

So how did Deborah become entangled in the lives of Henry, his wife and two sons? Henry had been hospitalized for a stroke and Deborah was doing chaplaincy at the hospital when she happened upon Henry. She started to do some praying for him and then Lev came in very upset, thinking that she was a Christian chaplain. She explained that no, she in fact was a Jewish rabbi.

The two of them slowly start to develop a relationship with each other, very cautiously and with much trepidation-both having been hurt in the past. The relationship starts with them studying Talmud together (Rosen wrote a previous book called Talmud and the Internet which I have sitting on my pile of books to read). Through the Talmudic study, they get to know each other better and better and the relationship becomes stronger yet fragile still at the same time as they both explore what it means to be involved like this.

As with all relationships, there are struggles and some of them quite traumatic and each make mistakes, as people do in relationships but watching their relationship develop is really beautiful and you want them to succeed in their pairing.

I loved the beautiful depictions of Deborah in prayer. She talks about wearing her grandfather's large Tallit that covers her completely and the incongruity of wearing the Tallit over her t-shirt and underwear first thing in the morning when she davens Shacharit. She also talks about her strictness in Kashrut and many other things yet while at the same time still struggling with many of the customs and laws of Judaism. I don't often feel this way, but I felt that I could really identify with this character and could see parts of myself in her and parts of what I want to be within her as well.

Hillary Rodham Clinton--Living History

2009-03-11T22:06:00.001-07:00

I've always admired the Clinton family but never really understood them. This holds true for Hillary as well. I find her to be a hugely fascinating yet very complex woman. On the one hand, she is a stereotypical woman of her generation, married with both a BA and a law degree. With child and a working mother. But I never really felt that I could see what made her tick.

After reading her autobiography, I still don't know if I truly understand her. I certainly know much more about her childhood and some about her college years. I learned how she met Bill and what had originally drawn her to him.

Bill Clinton was an enigmatic man who really drew everyone around him to his charisma. Hillary was no exception. Hillary was actually dating someone else when she met him. They began dating during law school and spent much time together. After law school, Clinton moved back to Arkansas where he knew he would end up after law school. Rodham, on the other hand, went to Washington, D.C. where she ironically worked on the Watergate case.

Ultimately Hillary decided to follow her heart and moved to Arkansas to be nearer to Bill. She worked as a professor for a short while before joining a private law firm and marrying Bill Clinton. We all know what follows in her life. The book followed her time in the White House and the scandals that surrounded the presidency as well as the animosity she faced, being a very different First Lady than had been traditionally present in the White House.

Rodham Clinton juxtaposed her's and Bill's time in the White House with the times of the younger Bush presidency. She also spoke of times she spent with previous First Ladies, especially Jackie Kennedy. She felt a very strong connection with Kennedy for several reasons and valued her opinion, especially when it came to raising a child in the White House.

Throughout the book, Rodham Clinton stayed true to her White House promise, to let her daughter have as much privacy as possible and really did not focus on her daughter as a huge part of the book.

Of course, a book about the Clintons would not be complete without mention of the Monica Lewinsky scandal--something I have some strong opinions about (feel free to ask me my response would be to questions of that nature!!) Rodham Clinton spoke of how she felt throughout the whole experience but instead of explaining what was going through President Clinton's head, she simply stated that the story is Clinton's to share, not hers.

I really enjoyed learning about the details of Hillary Rodham Clinton's life but, as I stated before, I still feel that I don't understand her. I felt that even though she shared a lot of events that happened in her life, I don't feel that I know what makes her tick. To a certain extent, I felt that I was reading a history book, which isn't necessarily a bad thing BUT I was hoping to find out more about what goes on through her head, and more importantly, the emotions and voices of her heart.

Erica Orloff-Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven?

2009-02-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a horribly long time since I last posted--it isn't that I haven't been reading, I have definitely been reading a TON! I just got busy with work and then some of the books I read recently were good reads but just not ones that I thought were postworthy.

Which is what I thought was going to be the same with this book. I think I read about the book in a magazine and thought it looked like a quick, interesting read so I put it on my paperbackswap.com wish list and then received it some point later on.

This book was such a powerful but simple book. I was right in that it was a quick read, partially because I just couldn't put the book down but it was much more of an intense book than I had imagined.

The story is told in two voices, Lily Waters, a journalist who is divorced with two kids; and Michael Angelo (yes yes, very humorous) who is her gay best friend and pretty much the only father her children have known. The first scene of the book is the morning of Lily's fortieth birthday, with Michael calling her at five thirty in the morning to make sure he's the first person to wish her a happy birthday. It is already there that we see the deep connection these two have to each other.

The book is ultimately about Lily's discovery that she has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer. It was a complete accidental diagnosis-it was supposed to be a humorous tale of her breasts getting smashed and kneaded like dough. . . It turned into so much more than that.

The author, Erica Orloff, is one I had never heard of before, but writes so simply and beautifully about what what all of us want and few of us truly have: a friend that will be there no matter what-holding the pot you puke into or raising your children when their "Spawn of Satan" father ditches them for a child bride in England.

This book was originally supposed to be one of those books I read and immediately swapped back but I think I'm going to keep this one on the shelves for now . . . who knows? Maybe I've found that friend who will sit with me while I puke or they are still out there. . .

Irene Spencer-Shattered Dreams

2009-01-03T12:18:00.001-08:00

I picked up this book while wandering around Powell's last week. (For those who don't know, Powell's is the biggest new/used bookstore this side of the Mississippi and is AWESOME!). I've long been fascinated with the topic of Fundamentalist Mormonism and was constantly intrigued with polygamy. This book was written by Irene Spencer who was the second of ten wives of Verlan LeBaron. His first wife was her half sister. Overall, Verlan fathered 58 children.

This book chronicled Spencer's life from a childhood whose mother escaped her polygamist husband to Irene's decision to enter polygamy against the wishes of the majority of her family. She marries Verlan at the age sixteen and shortly after the marriage, goes to Mexico to live with his family in their compound. Throughout the years, she lives in Mexico, Nicaragua, Baja, and San Diego. She gives birth to thirteen children, twelve who survive and adopts one more.

It's obvious that Irene tries to be a good polygamist wife but just cannot handle it. She is constantly jealous of her husband's other wives and it feels that he is always putting her towards the end of of his list of priorities.

At times the book felt a little long but at the same time, I felt that there was so much more that Spencer could have shared, specifically about the LeBaron clan, who seem to be a large FLDS powerhouse. She does have another book coming out that will explore that topic more.

Anna McPartlin-Pack Up the Moon

2008-12-29T22:49:00.000-08:00

Since I'm currently in the middle of a book, I figured I'd write about other books that I've read recently.

Pack Up the Moon is a book that I found online while browsing at Borders.com. The first time I picked it up, during camp this summer, I kind of read a few pages and then set it down. Around Thanksgiving time, I picked it up again and was immediately drawn into Emma's world.

The book is written from Emma's point of view and starts with her taking a pregnancy test. She is very hesitant about taking this test-even though she's been with her boyfriend, John, for several years and they are living together. To her relief, the test is negative. She doesn't tell John about this test and off they go to a party for friends of theirs who have just received an inheritance and are having an "I am now rich" party.

Tragedy strikes at the beginning of the book when John is hit by a car and killed. Emma feels immense guilt about the accident and immediately closes herself off from her circle of friends and family. Other important characters in the book are Emma's best friend, Clodagh, a friend who is always dating different guys; Anne and Richard-the I am now rich couple who are struggling with their own marital difficulties; Sean, John's best friend who has turned to alcohol for relief from his grief; and finally Noel, Emma's older brother, a Catholic priest, who has not only lost his friend but is in the midst of his own struggle for identity within and without the church.

At times, this book sort of reminded me of P.S. I love You, by another Irish author, Celia Aherns. While there were some similarities, what them both being set in Ireland and dealing with the death of a partner, these are two very different books and show two very different ways of handling grief.

While Holly, in P.S. I Love You, had time to prepare for her husbad's death and received messages from him after his death, Emma was not as lucky. John's death was sudden and heart-wrenching and the only messages she receives from John come in the form of her own dreams.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who is a romantic at heart and anyone who still believes in love surviving death while still believing in a second chance at love.

The First One

2008-12-28T22:34:00.000-08:00

I have always loved reading and words in general. I was raised in a house where I always saw my parents reading and there were always ample books for me to read. Therefore, I would do my best to read as many of them as I could, even reading books that were way beyond my years from a very young age. For this, I thank my parents for not censoring what I read-even when I went on a quite extended Holocaust/death kick-sorry mom!

Several years ago, my father made a comment to me along the lines of, "Wow, Rachel, if we'd kept track of all the books you've read in your lifetime, there would probably be thousands of them!" I recently relayed this story to my dad and he had no recollection of it. Well, I did and over the years have tried to start keeping track of all that I've read. So far, no really success!

This is where this blog comes into play. I am hoping, now that I am finished with school and working a "regular" job, I will be able to take more time to read and more time to reflect on what I've read. I truly believe that literature can serve many purposes. One of these purposes is to give you a temporary escape from reality-whether it's going to Hogwarts Castle (Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowlings) or experiencing what life was like in the times of Rashi (Rashi's Daughters by Maggie Anton). Literature also provides a road map for life. This road map can do one of two things, it can guide you on what you should do and how you should do it OR it will provide examples of what NOT to do and how to avoid these.

Anyway, I hope this Blog will be as enjoyable to those who read it as I hope it will be for me writing it.