Frank & Ava: In Love and War

Frank & Ava: In Love and War 
By John Brady
Thomas Dunne Books, 2015. 304 pgs. Nonfiction

Teenaged southerner Ava Gardner dreamed of becoming a real-life Hollywood actress. She moved to Hollywood at age 18, and a few years and two short-lived marriages later, Ava met Frank Sinatra. Together, they embarked on a life-long torrid affair replete with passion, anger, love, drunkenness, jealousy, and one attempt at marriage. Though their relationship was volatile and often painful, they cared for each other until the end.

This book read like a salacious whirlwind through classic Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. I was astonished at how many famous people were deeply involved (sometimes for better but usually for worse) in the lives of Gardner and Sinatra. This book is sensational reading for anyone with an interest in classic Hollywood, celebrity gossip, or watching a decades-long train wreck unfold before your very eyes. You can’t look away!

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Lord Fenton's Folly

Lord Fenton’s Folly 
By Josi S. Kilpack
Shadow Mountain Publishing, 2015. 336 pgs. Romance

Alice Stanbridge has been in love with her neighbor, Lord Fenton, since she was a young girl. When Lord Fenton suddenly asks Alice to marry him, she is sure all of her dreams are about to come true. However, Alice soon discovers that Lord Fenton’s reasons for marriage are more practical and disinterested than romantic. As the day of their marriage approaches, will Alice be able to marry a man who doesn’t love her?

This book was a fun read. Josi Kilpack has managed to create strong, believable characters with honest emotional arcs. The plot can be a little slow at times, but watching the main characters grow from childhood to awkward engagement to loving marriage was entertaining and worthwhile. This novel will satisfy any lover of period romance, but could also be a great introduction to the genre for new readers. Good clean fun!

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The Dorito Effect : The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor

The Dorito Effect : The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor
By Mark Schatzker
Simon and Shuster, 2015. 259 pgs. Nonfiction

Have you ever noticed that your tomato doesn’t really taste like a tomato? Or that eating a pear-flavored Jelly Belly gives you more pear flavor than eating an actual pear? Welcome to the weird world of food science, where flavors are synthetic and we’ve traded real taste (and nutrition) for yield. At the same time, we’ve gotten really good at making junk food taste better and better. This book illuminates the unforeseen consequences (obesity, compulsive overeating, etc.) we all experience when junk food has more flavor than actual food.

This book was an eye-opening explanation of the food desert most of us live in today, and how we got here over the last 75 years. All of this crazy tinkering with food and flavor has, of course, wreaked havoc on our bodies and brains. This book was a fun, quick read that helped me understand much better my own attitudes about food, and how I can find fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats that actually taste like they’re supposed to: delicious, complex, and satisfying (no salad dressing required).

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The Fall

The Fall 
By Bethany Griffin
Greenwillow Books, 2014. 420 pgs. Young Adult

Madeline and her twin brother Roderick are the last in a long line of Ushers, growing up in the very haunted House of Usher. Madeline knows the House wants to keep her and her brother there forever, at any cost. Can Madeline save her brother, and maybe herself, before the House drives them to madness?

“The Fall of the House of Usher” is one of the most popular short stories Edgar Allan Poe ever wrote. This retelling and fleshing-out of the story from Madeline’s point of view made for a book unlike any I have ever read before. The novel jumps around to different events in Madeline’s life, and does not tell her story in a linear fashion. At first, I found this disorienting and even a little upsetting, until I realized that is exactly how this book is supposed to make you feel. After that, I enjoyed letting the book take me on a very creepy, atmospheric, and truly frightening adventure. A perfect Halloween read.

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Q: A Novel

Q: A Novel
By Evan J. Mandery
William Morrow Paperbacks, 2011. 368 pgs. Fiction

In this witty, warm, and self-aware novel, our protagonist, a college junior professor and aspiring author, is about to marry the love of his life, a woman named Q. Unfortunately, mere weeks before the wedding, his future self travels back in time to tell him one thing: “You must not marry Q.”

This is a unique book, with a sense of humor unlike any book I’ve ever read before. I’ve always wondered what life would be like if I could go back in time and tell my younger self what to do/not to do, and this book tells a wonderful story about that exact dilemma. At what point, despite all the things that can go wrong in your life, do you just have to start moving forward? While mostly funny, Q: A Novel is also poignant, and has an awesome surprise ending. A must read for readers looking for something out of the ordinary.

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Dietland

Dietland
By Sarai Walker
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 320 pgs. Fiction

Plum Kettle, overweight, lives a quiet life in New York City while waiting for her gastric bypass surgery. She works from a café answering fan emails for a popular teen magazine, rarely leaves the house otherwise, and buys fabulous clothes that she will wear after she loses weight. But one day, her unfulfilling life is interrupted when a stranger introduces her to a community of women who reject (sometimes violently) the idea that a woman’s only value is her attractiveness.

This book is eye-opening in many ways. What starts as one woman’s journey to self-acceptance weaves in a searing critique of our culture’s treatment of people as objects and eventually erupts into an anti-terrorist revenge fantasy. While this book is definitely a comedy, it is not for the faint of heart (it explicitly attacks the extremely damaging pornographic film industry). This is a must read for people looking to see themselves and the world in an entirely new way.

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The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue

The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue
By David Sax
PublicAffairs, 2014. 336 pgs. Nonfiction

Have you ever wondered why kale was unheard of one day and everywhere the next? And why did fondue ever go out of style, but bacon mania seems here to stay? In this fascinating book, author David Sax tracks the history and influences of food trends throughout the last few decades. The result is a surprising and fun exposition of the farmers, media stars, marketing powerhouses, and corporate moguls who try to predict and sometimes decide what makes it to your supermarket shelves or drive-thru menu.

As both a food lover and sociology buff, this book was a fascinating read for me. It never crossed my mind before to wonder how kiwis went from an obscure fruit only found in New Zealand to something you could buy at any grocery store. This was an eye-opening explanation of the hidden forces that shape what we eat every day.

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Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama
By Arthur C. Clarke
Spectra, 1990. 288pgs. Science Fiction

Just a few hundred years in the future, an enormous cylindrical object enters our solar system, making a beeline for the sun. As it’s the first proof of extraterrestrial intelligence ever encountered, Earth and its colonies nickname the mysterious vessel “Rama” and decide to send their nearest spacecraft to explore it. As the astronauts scramble to make a safe and scientific exploration of the vessel, they are racing against time as Rama hurtles ever closer to the sun.

Rendezvous with Rama is unique in its scope and execution for a science fiction novel. Instead of bizarre aliens, explosions, deep space, and ray guns, this book a small-scale, very realistic story of what would happen should an enormous alien vessel start passing through our solar system. Clarke’s language is simple but very descriptive as he takes you along on an incredible journey into an alien spaceship.

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The Heiress of Winterwood

The Heiress of Winterwood
By Sarah E. Ladd
Thomas Nelson, 2013. 320pgs. Romance

Amelia Barrett, heir to an estate, promises that she will raise her dying friend’s baby as her own. Unfortunately, her family and fiancé do not take kindly to the idea, so Amelia does the only thing she can think of to keep her promise: propose marriage to the baby’s long-lost father, a captain recently returned from the sea.

This inspirational romance has all the elements that readers of the genre will enjoy – family drama, gentle romance, and surprising twists and turns with a happy ending. The Heiress of Winterwood is the first novel in the Whispers on the Moors trilogy.

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Sous Chef: 24 Hours On the Line

Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line
By Michael Gibney
Ballantine Books, 2014. 240 pgs. Nonfiction

Have you ever sat in a nice restaurant and wondered how all that appetizing food got to your plate? There’s a lot going on behind the scenes of every restaurant, and Sous Chef is a fun look into the miracle of logistics that every restaurant is. This book gives a unique, second-person narrative of a typical day in the life of an upscale sous chef, from deliveries and food prep in the early morning hours to the cathartic fatigue of serving up that last plate. You’ll joke with your co-workers, deal with demanding customers, and find out just how much knowledge and skill is required for creating and serving delicious food. With casual language and vivid descriptions, the author brings life to an initially thankless but ultimately rewarding job of bringing raw ingredients through a chaotic kitchen to your plate. You’ll never think of restaurants the same way again.

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The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War

The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War
By Richard Rubin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 356pgs. Nonfiction

In the early 2000s, there was a lot of talk about the rapid expiration of living WWII veterans, and the need to preserve their names and stories. Richard Rubin, however, realized that there were a very few living veterans from the first world war, all aged between 101 and 113, and he set out to find and interview as many WWI vets as he could. Mr. Rubin weaves their individual stories into an amazing narrative that offers profound insight into the individual experience (and cost) of an entire world at the first industrial war.

This book is very moving. Not many people know the causes, conflicts, and outcomes of the first world war, although it continues to shape the world we live in to this day. It’s impossible to overstate the impact that WWI had on every aspect of life, both for individuals and for entire continents. I would recommend this book to everyone.

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Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation
By Michael Pollan
Penguin Books, 2013. 480 pgs. Nonfiction

What makes humans different from every other animal? In this fascinating book, the answer is: we cook our food. In four parts that explore each of the ancient elements of fire, water, air, and earth, Pollan discusses the techniques of how and the reasons why we transform raw ingredients into delicious food.

The most interesting aspects of this book for me were the discussions on why we as a culture have stopped cooking our own food, and the impact that has had on our health, our families, and our future. I didn’t realize how little cooking any of us do anymore; many of us open a package or a jar and heat something up. Cooked is an eye-opening exploration of the importance of food, cooking, and our rapidly disappearing culinary heritage.

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