Book Blog Hop and Follow Friday! (6-10-11)

Happy Friday everyone! Each Friday, Jen at Crazy For Books and Parajunkee post their weekly memes. Each asks a question, you answer, then link up on their respective blogs!

Q. The magic book fairy pops out of your cereal box and says "you and your favorite character (from a book of course) can switch places!" Who are you going to switch with?

My goodness, I can only pick one?!? I don't know if I can limit it down. Ron from Harry Potter has always been one of my favorites, but since anyone from the series will be a popular answer today, I'm going to go with Marie from Madame Tussaud. I keep on thinking back on how much I enjoyed that book and how I really want to read more novels based during the French Revolution. But Marie was such a central player in the revolution that it would be interesting to see how everything happened.

So, who would you trade places with? Let me know! And have a great weekend!

Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Author: Gabrielle Hamilton
Publisher: Random House
Published: March 1, 2011
Hardcover: 290 pages
Source: purchased at Borders.com


My Rating: 3 stars


Synopsis (from borders.com): Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Hamilton’s ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than one hundred friends and neighbors. The smells of spit-roasted lamb, apple wood smoke, and rosemary garlic marinade became as necessary to her as her own skin.

Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; the soulless catering factories that helped pay the rent; Hamilton’s own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton’s idyllic past and her own future family—the result of a difficult and prickly marriage that nonetheless yields rich and lasting dividends.

My Thoughts: As someone who works in the restaurant industry, I was originally drawn to this book for several reasons. For one, I wanted to see what it takes to own and operate a successful Manhattan eatery. I was also curious to see someone else's take on the whole experience. If you have ever worked in food service, whether it be as a dishwasher, a line cook, a waitress ... you know that it is a strange business. Filled with strange people, long hours, and crazy guests, it is an exhausting job. It can be fun, though. I was looking for someone else's view on this crazy business, and Gabrielle Hamilton definitely gave me a different perspective.

The book follows Hamilton from her childhood all the way to her mid-30s, when she is raising her own two children. She chronicles the way that food has shaped her life, from the way that her mother prepared meals to her first job at the age of 13. She was pretty much worked every job in this industry, and she describes many of her experiences in this book. She also describes her exasperation with the food industry, how draining and unrewarding it can be. I loved how she acknowledged the highs and lows, the small things that really make your day (her description of organzing the coolers was so dead on. It's one of the few ways that you feel you can have control and organization in your restaurant, which is why it is one of my favorite things to do), and the small things that can push you over the edge.

Hamilton's writing is superb. She perfectly captures various activities and knows just how to describe them. While her writing and restaurant stories were great, I really didn't enjoy the parts chronicling her home life. Her marriage and children, I just didn't feel a connection between those passages and the other parts of the book. I felt that if she had just focused on her career and life in the restaurant, it would have been a more cohesive book. Overall though, I found Hamilton's story to be engaging, funny, and a great representation of the food and beverage industry. Even if you do not work in this line of business, I think that it would be refreshing to read and learn about this crazy world that she lives in.

Waiting on Wednesday (6-8-11)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where you get to highlight an upcoming release that you are looking forward to. This week, my pick is Escape by Barbara Delinsky (expected publication date:July 5,2011).

Synopsis (from bn.com): Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking on the phone with victims of tainted bottled water—and she is on the bottler’s side.

And it isn’t only work. It’s her sister, her friends, even her husband, Tim, with whom she doesn’t connect the way she used to. She doesn’t connect to much in her life, period, with the exception of three things—her computer, her BlackBerry, and her watch.

Acting on impulse, Emily leaves work early one day, goes home, packs her bag, and takes off. Groping toward the future, uncharacteristically following her gut rather than her mind, she heads north toward a New Hampshire town tucked between mountains. She knows this town. During her college years, she spent a watershed summer here. Painful as it is to return, she knows that if she is to right her life, she has to start here.

This book sounds so appealing to me right now, especially since I think about doing something like this every single day. What are you waiting on this Wednesday?

Top Ten Tuesday (6-7-11)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, a different topic is posted and you get to create your own top ten list and connect with other bloggers. This week's topic is: Top Ten Favorite Book Settings

1) Hogwarts - come on, who wouldn't want to go here?!?

2) Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil. E Frankweiler) - sleeping in the beds of former kings and queens, surrounded by beautiful art ... who wouldn't want to be in this setting?

3) Pemberley (Pride and Prejudice) - dressing up for fancy balls, spending time out in the beautiful gardens, Mr. Darcy to look at. Once again, I would love to spend my days here.

4) Manhattan (Sex and the City) - after reading (and watching) Carrie live out her days in this city, I long for the days of being able to walk around the city, go to the best restaurants, and soak in all that the city has to offer.

5) Versailles (Madame Tussaud) - if I could skip the whole French Revolution/beheading part, then I would love to spend my days here as a member of the royal court. The gardens are just too beautiful to pass up!

6) Paris (The Invisible Bridge ... or any book set in Paris!) - spending days with Andras as a student, time in small cafes, being in the lavish apartment of Clara. Really, any book in Paris just makes me want to go (which I have decided needs to happen sometime within the next two years!) Seeing the lights reflected in the water at nite, seeing all those cafes, looking at all the pastries ... I'm about to pack my bags right now!

7) New England (All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve) - hearing Shreve describe the small New England college town as the backdrop for her story ... it left me wanting to plan a trip up there to see the foilage in the fall. No one can describe a place quite like Anita Shreve

Not quite ten, but that's all that I could think of. So what book settings would you love to visit?

Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh

Baker Towers
Author: Jennifer Haigh
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: January 2006
Paperback: 368 pages
Source: purchased at used book sale


My Rating: 3.5 stars


Synopsis (from goodreads.com): Bakerton is a company town built on coal, a town of church festivals and ethnic neighborhoods, hunters' breakfasts and firemen's parades. Its children are raised in company houses - three rooms upstairs, three rooms downstairs. Its ball club leads the coal company league. The twelve Baker mines offer good union jobs, and the looming black piles of mine dirt don't bother anyone. Called Baker Towers, they are local landmarks, clear evidence that the mines are booming. Baker Towers mean good wages and meat on the table, two weeks' paid vacation and presents under the Christmas tree. Born and raised on Bakerton's Polish Hill, the five Novak children come of age during wartime, a thrilling era when the world seems on the verge of changing forever. The oldest, Georgie, serves on a minesweeper in the South Pacific and glimpses life beyond Bakerton, a promising future he is determined to secure at all costs. His sister Dorothy, a fragile beauty, takes a job in Washington, D.C., and finds she is unprepared for city life. Brilliant Joyce longs to devote herself to something of consequence but instead becomes the family's keystone, bitterly aware of the opportunities she might have had elsewhere. Sandy sails through life on looks and charm, and Lucy, the volatile baby, devour's the family's attention and develops a bottomless appetite for love.


My Thoughts: I was drawn to this book because I really wanted to read Jennifer Haigh's latest novel, Faith, but since I didn't want to buy a book that I wasn't sure I would like, I thought this would be a good way to see if I liked Haigh's writing style. Well, the good news is that I really enjoyed Baker Towers and Haigh's writing style. The bad news is that I want to read more of her books!


This book is set during World War II, which really drew me to the book. It follows the 5 children of the Novak family as they grow and mature during the 1940s. With their father dead from year's of work in the local mines, the Novak children without a strong male presence in their lives and an Italian mother who married a Polish man and doesn't fit in with the rest of the Polish women in their neighborhood. The children all experience their small-town life in different yet similar ways. They all recognize that there must be something more out there, but they all all inexplicably drawn back to their home. Haigh's writing is clear and lets the story move quickly. It's descriptive without being too heavy. If there was one thing that I didn't like, it would be that towards the end, I felt like there was too much jumping around between the siblings. Instead of focusing on one sibling, each chapter would feature several of the siblings, which got to be a bit confusing. Also, Sandy was not in the book that much. I kept on wondering what was happening with him, where he was, but I guess we will never know.


If you are looking for a book set in a different time and that moves quickly, I would really recommend this book. Haigh's writing is clear and moves the story along at an enjoyable pace. After reading this, I will definitely be on the look out for more books by this author.

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

The Devil Wears Prada
Author: Lauren Weisberger
Publisher: Broadway
Published: 2004
Paperback: 360 pages
Source: purchased at Borders


My Rating: 4 stars


Synopsis (from borders.com): Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job "a million girls would die for." Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of "Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts "Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about "The Boss from Hell." Narrated in Andrea's smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda's children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day--and often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a milliongirls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul. 


My Thoughts: After watching the movie numerous times, I finally got around to reading the book. I was skeptical at first that it would be too different from the movie for me to like, and while it did differ slightly, it was a great read! Told from Andrea Sachs' point of view into the working world of fashion magazines, we are all introduced to one of the many "bosses-from-hell" that I think we all have dealt with. Miranda Priestly is definitely one of the worst, though. Her outrageous demands, the way she talks to others, the way she treats people ... it's just awful! Seeing Andy deal with her antics for nearly a year is comical, sad, and uplifting at the same time. Lauren Weisberger is a great writer, one who truly knows how to dish it out without making her characters too whiny or unreal.


If I had to pick out my favorite part of this book, it would have to be the characters. It's such a diverse group of people in this book and each of them has their own, distinct personality. Weisberger throws a lot of people at you, but it was never overwhelming and it didn't feel like anyone was just there for the sake of being there. Every character contributed something, whether it was Andy's boyfriend Alex with optimism or Emily (Miranda's other assistant) with cruel jabs, which never seemed cruel, each character brings something to the table. Weisberger also does a great job of moving the story along. It would be easy for the book to become depressing with Andy's stories of Miranda's demands, but it moves along and actually seems quite light.


While the book was different from the movie, it was a great read and one that I would recommend to anyone looking for a chick-lit read. It wasn't too gushy with romance, but seeing Andy worklife a year out of college definitely made me feel better about my current boss! It was a great read for summer and something that I think I will definitely read again!

Waiting on Wednesday (6-1-11)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Each week, you highlight and upcoming release that you are waiting for. This week, my pick is Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan (expected release date: June 14, 2011). After reading a few reviews of this book on other blogs, I really cannot wait to read it for myself!

Synopsis (from bn.com): For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials “A.H.” At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface.

As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.

By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.

So, what are you waiting on this Wednesday?