Cakes for Kids: 40 Easy Recipes That Will WOW!

 

Shirley J.                  Juvenile Non-Fiction                     Fun Cakes that are easy to make and decorate

Cakes for Kids: 40 Easy Recipes That Will WOW!  by Juliette Lalbaltry   96 pages

I  enjoy reading about other people's creative ideas and if those creative ideas include food - Well!  Right up my alley.   Plus it is fun to check out someone's clever ideas then put your own spin on them, too.  I mentally file all thee ideas away for future use then when time or an event lends itself, I do a quick mental check and come up with something amazing that was inspired by cookbooks like this one.   I especially like cookbooks for Kids because they have lots more leeway with imagination in their designs.  Free spirits if you will.   I found this book perfect for my needs.   There are 4 main types of cake:  Yogurt, Lemon, Chocolate and Sponge.   All are so simple to make, you can stir them up in 20 minutes or less and that includes the time it takes you to get the ingredients and put them together.   The designs for your cake once you decide which of those yummy 4 to go with are like visiting a candy store in themselves.   M&Ms, Skittles, flying saucers, Cookies, fruit, you are only limited by your own imagination - there are zillions of possibilities!    My favorites I have to say are the fish cake on the front and a peacock cake that uses lots of lovely fruit, however, the flower cakes with all the M&Ms  are devine, too, if a little on the too sweet side -wait - is that even possible?   There are cakes with racetracks, Tarzan's house, circus animals, the zoo, a castle, even a graveyard for Halloween.  There are all sorts of animals and insects, bunnies, bears, bees, centipede roll ups, butterflies, lions, a big bad wolf, you name it you will likely find it here.   So fun!  I recommend this book   to babysitters of all ages, to kids and their parents and grandparents, to teachers, to camp programs, to little chef programs and to aunts who want a fun project when they visit.  This book will delight all the cooks out there.

The Taster

 

Shirley J.                             Adult Fiction                                 WWII Food Tasters for Adolph Hitler

The Taster by V. S. Alexander  336 pages

Excellent story of a young woman in Nazi Germany during the Hitler Regime.  When the war is looking like things are going from bad to worse,  bombs are starting to drop where she lives in Berlin.   To keep his daughter safe her father sends Magda (Ritter) to live with relatives in Bavaria where he is sure she will be safe.   Upon arrival, while her Uncle treats her well, her Aunt is angry she is there and that they have to feed and house her.   The Aunt insists Magda get a job a.s.a.p.  When Magda applies for a civil servant job through the auspices of her Uncle putting a good word in and the status in the Nazi community of her Uncle and Aunt (good party members)  Magda gets assigned to the Fuhrer's private staff of tasters at his "Wolf Lair," mountain retreat.   Seems Hitler was paranoid about his food and was afraid the Allies were trying to poison him so he had a staff of several girls trained to taste his food and to be able to smell certain poisons that might have been put in the food.  While living lavishly compared to most Germans and certainly if you survived it, you got grand meals and fine if not elegant room accommodations.  Terrified at first of dying then literally poisoned on purpose to teach her to be more careful and certain of the food she would o.k. for the Fuhrer's consumption, one of the cooks poisoned her on purpose.    Fortunately she survives but was always on her game afterward.   And remember Kharma is not to be trivialized.   Excellent tale of her life at the Wolf's Lair, her encounters with  Hitler and Eva Brun and the Valkyrie.   Like the coffee slogan, good to the last drop, this book is good to the last page.   So much happens and it ain't over till it's over.   Well played, so well written it is hard to believe it is fiction.    I would recommend this book to mature teens on up for the violent sexual scenes described.

The Adventures of Barry & Joe: Obama and Biden's Bromantic Battle for the Soul of America

 Shirley J.            Adult Fiction/Graphic Novel       Sci-Fi Adventures of President Obama and President                                               Joe Biden friends in all the multi-universes through the time/space continuum

The Adventures of Barry & Joe: Obama and Biden's Bromantic Battle for the soul of America                    by Adam Reid       224 pages

The story begins when Donald Trump is sworn in as president.  Immediately after the ceremony, President Obama and then Vice-President, Joe Biden were whisked away in a black limosine to an undisclosed location.   When they arrived, all the top scientists from all over the world were there along with an augmented reality version of the actor Samuel L. Jackson.   It is explained to Obama and Biden that the world has been plunged into a dark place and they must save humanity in order to continue mankind's survival on earth with any hope of peace.   With nods to Quantum Leap, Star Trek, Star Gate, and other Sci-Fi shows, Obama and Biden bounce from the present into many other multi-verses through the machinations of as they land in new place and times and though separated must find each other in each new location and do whatever they must to bring justice and truth to the reality they find themselves in.   They do a marvelous job, too, by the way and their friendship seems to balance their personalities in a perfect yin and yang scenario.  And with the faithful guidance of  Samuel L. Jackson they are the Neos of their adventures in their own Matrixes.  O.K. this one is really out there.   President Obama and now President Joe Biden as time travelling superhero warriors is a unique idea but Adam Reid did you have to have them travel naked?   I recommend this book to teens and gamers on up.  There is a lot more reading and tongue in cheek humor related to details about Obama's and Biden's lives that young kids might not make the connection to and the political fervor is throughout the book. 

 

The Magic Misfits

 Shirley J.                               Juvenile Fiction                              Young magicians, friendship

The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris     336 pages

A story of kids who all enjoy magic but maybe have their own eccentricities which tend to make them social outcasts at school and within their less accomplished peers.   They end up finding each other and thwarting an evil magician, B. B. Bosso, and his fake sideshow cronies from ripping people off who attend his shows,   Even the games at his "carnival" are all rigged so people can't possibly win big prizes..   Enter the Misfits who are highly intelligent and magnificently skilled at their magic and mathematical fortes.  The misfits go in and study how the carnies' games are set up and figure out how to beat them anyway and proceed to do so.   Basso is furious and all the carnies are stunned.   When Basso takes jewelry from the elderly Carter steps in and out pick-pockets the pickpocket returning the stolen items to their owners.   The final show down comes - who will win?   Bad or good?   Basso or the Misfits?   A fun read for kids and part of a 4 book series wouldn't you know?  This one is sufficient for me, but, there are many tips on performing your own magic tricks, codes included for the super sleuths and easter eggs hidden throughout with the promise of many more in the next books.   I would recommend this series to the younger set and for reading aloud.                 

The Magic Treehouse Books 1-8

Shirley J.                   Juvenile Fiction                  Morgan LaFey's magical treehouse that transports Jack                                                                                    and Annie on adventures in Morgan's magical books

The Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne (I read 8 books total Books 1-8 in the series)      

Total: 784 pages

Book 1:  Dinosaurs Before Dark            80 pages

Book 2:  Knight at Dawn                      176 pages

Book 3:  Mummies in the Morning        80 pages

Book 4:  Pirates Past Noon                   128 pages

Book 5:  Night of the Ninjas                   80 pages

Book 6:  Afternoon on the Amazon        80 pages

Book 7:  Sunset of the Sabertooth          80 pages

Book 8:   Midnight on the Moon           80  pages

Total:                                                     784 pages

The Magic Treehouse books are actually a series of 55+ books divided into 2 categories.   The first 28 books are about Morgan LaFey and I understand 29-55+ are about her brother Merlin the famed Magician of King Arthur's court.   I have only finished the first 8 books, but, I think I am good and don't feel the need to continue the series.  The premise of the stories is 8 year old Jack and his 7 year old sister Annie while out playing in the woods by their house come upon a treehouse they had never noticed before.  Like Goldilocks did with the three bears house before them they decide to climb up and check it out.   It is really a beautiful wonderous place inside and it is filled with loads of books about all manner of topics.  Turns out it is an enchanted treehouse (probably why they never noticed it before) and is owned by Morgan LaFey, who in previous literature was quite a rough gal who, as Disney showed us in the Sword in the Stone, had an ongoing rivalry with her brother and always wanted to best him.   In this story we meet a milder, kinder Morgan who is a magical librarian hence why she has all the books and because the books are magical if you point to a picture in one and wish you were there so you are!  The 8 books I read has Jack and Annie visiting with dinosaurs, knights in castles, mummies in ancient Egypt and the ghost of a queen they help to find her copy of the Book of the Dead so she can get to the other side, though no mention of the River Styx nor the ferryman comes up, they are captured by pirates thinking they are getting a day at the beach with that wish, they meet ninjas, visit a rainforest and find the beauty and the horror there, they head back in time to cavemen days and in the 8th book go to the future and visit the moon.   The stories are cute.   Jack is the long suffering voice of reason while Annie ignores him and goes running off getting lost, in trouble etc. because she won't look before she leaps but, being an animal whisperer she tends to land on her feet no matter how much mud they have to get through.   The stories are cute, the idea a play on the author's own youth with her brothers going adventuring in all the different parts of the world her military father took the family to.  I guess I would recommend this as a read-aloud book for parents with young children, but, I found Annie to be so obnoxious I have read all about her that I plan to.   

  

Don't Call It A Cult

 Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman, 289 pages

In 2018, shocking headlines announced that a little-known professional development company called NXIVM hid an inner circle of advanced students, all of them female, who had vowed themselves as slaves and been branded with their master's initials.  That the slaves included millionaire heiresses and recognizable Hollywood actresses only made the news more sensational and seemingly inexplicable.  What really happened, and more importantly, how could it have happened?

Sarah Berman was not among those who were blindsided by the revelations.  She had already been investigating the group for years for VICE, one of a number of investigative journalists who had begun to explore the dark business going on behind the bright facade.  Her account of the group and its development, from its roots in a multi-level marketing company through its remarkable growth to the final breakdown, follows a journalistic model.  This is not a comprehensive history of NXIVM, but a series of perspectives anchored in the experience of those who were actually there.  This is both an advantage and a disadvantage, but in this case it is unfortunately weighted towards the latter.  One problem is that there are key perspectives missing - most obviously that of Raniere himself, a problem which Berman is aware of but which is beyond her power to correct.  Another, more subtle, issue arises from Berman's framing.  Early on she describes the different reactions NXIVM inspired from different parts of the political spectrum, the right citing it as an "example of moral breakdown among the monied elite," the left "textbook toxic masculinity blown up to epic criminal proportions."  That these are not contradictory she does not seem to have noticed, and in her eagerness to prove the latter she almost entirely neglects the former.  That Keith Raniere was a manipulative, abusive guru is well established, but how strong, successful women were duped by such a shallow conman into becoming not just his victims but also his enablers is scarcely addressed.

Rust and Stardust

 

Shirley J.                  Adult Historical Fiction                 Fictionalized True Story of a child abducted, raped                                                                                          and kept captive for 2 years until her rescue

Rust and Stardust by T. Greenwood    384 pages

Good telling of the events that took place in 1948 when 11 year old Sally Horner was abducted and held captive for 2 years from Camden, New Jersey to San Jose, California.   The facts are true, many of the characters that Sally encounters during her time in captivity have been fabricated by the author but make the sad story more palatable.   A well done book.   I would recommend this one to mature teens on up.  The reader has to remember that kids were not as savvy to the ways of the world in 1948 as they are today and the way Sally was duped happened not from her lack of intelligence but lack of experience and understanding.     Bit of trivia -this event was the inspiration for the book, "Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov. 

Brandwashed:Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy

 

Shirley J.                 Adult Non-Fiction              How Marketing Tactics use subliminal seduction to get                                                                                   consumers to buy their products and services

Brandwashed: Ticks Sompanies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom      304 pages

I first discovered the art of subliminal seduction in advertising when I was in college and I have been an avid reader on the subject ever since.   It is amazing the ways marketing firms come up with to keep their products and services in the front of the public's minds.   Now with data mining so easily accessible companies store our shopping habits, our brand preferences, our demographics and gear ads, coupons, mailings so spot to our wants and needs it seems as though they are psychic.   All those little ads constantly running on the sides of your computer screen are the ones hidden in among news stories that strangely enough are the product we last searched online for or bought.  George Orwell's work of fiction has seen the light of day - Big Brother is watching and learning and profiling us into varying shopper categories all based on what we buy.   Turns out compiling facts on us is a multi-billion dollar business worth paying big bucks to find out what our buying trends are so they know what to market to us and save their time and money on not shoving a bunch of things we don't want and won't buy at us.   It is fascinating the tricks used and how easily we all fall in line for it.   The author who is an expert in the field has also been duped by marketing ploys and he knows what to look for.   A fascinating book showing examples over time mentioning actual products and services by name and sharing just how they persuaded us to want and buy becoming lifelong loyal customers because a product was used in our home when we were growing up.  This information won't stop it from happening to you but will give you an understanding of how it is happening to you.  Clever.   I recommend this to anyone who would like to know the inside scoop on how companies seduce us.   High-schoolers on up.   Good book

Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of an Uncommon God

 Shirley J.                           Adult Non-Fiction                         Biblical characters telated in today's settings

Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of an Uncommon God by Max Lucado    240 pages 

A really good relating of people's life stories taken from the Bible and written as though they were happening today.   So many times you will nod your head and think, "Yeah, I get that."    Max Lucado has a great way of engaging his reader.  It is like he is right there in the room with you telling it to you - that is how big Lucado's spirit is - it lifts off the page and sinks into your heart and head.   He has a very down-to-earth, kind of street savvy way of coming across like when he relates when Jesus was dining at Simon's house and the prostitute came in with expensive perfumed balm and washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried his feet with her hair before anointing him with the perfumed balm.  Simon seeing the prostitute at Jesus' feet hollered, "Who let this whore in my house?"   I cracked up laughing.   That is the in your face, irreverant yet comical at times way Max Lucado writes about the people and the happenings in the Bible.  It is fun, though provoking and beautiful.  It will touch your heart, speak to your soul and often crack you up.   I keep thinking of that line over and over and bust out laughing.   It is so unexpected but so true to what some folks might say today.   Come on, couldn't you see Jesus poppin' by Snoop's crib?   I love it and I love this book.   Well done, Max Lucado!   I recommend this to middle-schoolers on up.  So many good lessons to be gleaned here.

Han's Christina Andersen's The Snow Queen

 

Shirley J.                                  Juvenile Fiction                                     Snow Queen Fairy Tale

Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen  48 pages

Beautiful intricate cut-out illustrations accompany the story of two young friends, Gerda and Kay.  Life is happy and good until one day when a mirror shard pierces Kay's eye and another mirror shard pierces his heart.   They turn him from a loving friend into a complainer and a conniver total personality turnabout.  Then one day he disappears - turns out the Snow Queen lured him to her icy lair.   Gerda, tough cookie to be so young searches everywhere for Kay.   She has her best luck finding his trail through birds and animals who see without being seen.   Lots happens and I don't want to spoil the big finish but, it is a zehr gut story.   I recommend this to all of every age even to be read to those in the womb.     

I Am Charlotte Simmons

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, 676 pages

She is Charlotte Simmons, the valedictorian of her high school in the tiny Appalachian town of Sparta, North Carolina, with qualifications impressive enough to earn her a full scholarship to elite DuPont University.  Having long held herself aloof from the squalid debauchery of her hillbilly peers as a result of both her Momma's uncompromising religious moralism and her academic mentor's elevated vision of the life of the mind, Charlotte is wholly unprepared for the sophisticated decadence she finds at DuPont.  The present life of her peers is the reckless pursuit of pleasure in preparation for their future pursuit of wealth and power, and Charlotte is alone and far from home.  Who is Charlotte Simmons?

Wolfe began his career as a novelist late in life, after having already made himself famous as a journalist and cartoonist.  It is precisely his sharp observations that power his writing, although it is his connected determination to always present these observations squarely, without sensationalism but also without flinching, no matter how sensitive the topic, which is his most valuable trait.  Wolfe's deep satire is not caricature or parody, but a revelation of the absurdities we ordinarily fail - or refuse - to notice.  Meanwhile, I Am Charlotte Simmons is surprisingly moving, with it being much easier to become emotionally invested in Charlotte's choices and fate than in those of Sherman McCoy.  Unfortunately, the book does fall apart somewhat about two-thirds of the way through, as though Wolfe knew the ending he wanted to get to but had to derail the story to get it there, although even here there are moments worth remembering.

Don't Call Us Dead

 Shirley J.        Adult Non-Fiction                 Poetry, Black Men and the Joys and Horrors They Deal With

Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith    96 pages

This book cuts to the heart, so hard hitting are Danez Smith's poems they will bring tears to your eyes for the tortured souls he tells you of and the richness of finding a love like no other in the men he has cherished throughout his own life.   Like an icepick shattering a sculpture his words are dealt with such precision that the images and ghosts he brings to the page will stay in the reader's memory.   Some word pictures are so dreadful, reader you may have to put the book down and drop your head to your chest the sadness will be so strong, then another poem like perfume wafting on a breeze will lighten you and make you smile for the joy he found in someone's arms it is an endearing feeling.  Danez Smith is an artist painting emotions on the page and in the minds of his readers.   Well done.   I recommend this one to adults as some of the themes are written in beautiful verse of grown ups. 

Laurie

 Shirley J.                              Adult Fiction                                     Dog as Best Friend, Life in Florida

Laurie (A Short Story) by Stephen King    32 pages

A great story about a cranky but good-hearted widower living in Florida who's sister brings him a puppy to care for and keep hi company.    It is sweet how they come to terms with one another.  Soon the old fellow comes to doting on his new friend, though, he wouldn't necessarily admit it.   Living in Florida they often take walks down to the pier when his neighbor Don Pilcher holds court on his soapbox stopping anyone lingering long enough to tell his views (generally politically incorrect) on pretty much everything.  While the dog, Laurie, generally likes everyone she always barks and growls around Don.  A good story.  I really enjoyed it.   I think everyone will who reads it and I recommend it to middle-schoolers on up.

Elevation

 

Shirley J.                                      Adult Fiction                         Getting Along, Accepting Diversity

Elevation (A Novella) by Stephen King        160 pages

Really good story with a nod to, "Thinner," an earlier piece by King.   Scott Carey, the hero of the story is losing weight.  No matter that he is still eating the same and not exercising, he is dropping weight like mad, fortunately, he starts out a large overweight man, but though he feels great, he is slipping into oblivion as the scale continues to go down in number.    While dealing with his own gut-wrenching delimma, Scott sees so much uncalled for attitude and remarks when a marred lesbian couple move to town and open a restaurant.   Unkind even dirty remarks are made in the local diner and while having his usual, Scott just can't stand it that no one in town seems to have anything nice or friendly to say to the women, though, one of them reached out to say hello and try to befriend Scott since they were neighbors.  Scott stirs up a hornet's next with the Catlerock, Maine townfolk when he tries to drum up business for the ladies' restaurant as he was told if things didn't change drastically they would soon be out of business.   When Scott all but gets into a brawl in the diner with a construction worker who throws a poster about the upcoming annual Thanksgiving Marathon Race,  he sees that one of the lesbian's photo is on it and he later learns from a friend that she had Olympic aspirations at one time but an injury threw her out of the competition.   Ever since she has competed in local marathons and would again this year since their move to Castle Rock.    Lots happens, jealousy, anger, and later compassion.   In spite of his circumstances, Scott continues to go the extra mile.   The ending will be a surprise as King's books always are.   I would recommend this book to middle-schoolers on up, there are many good lessons in tolerance and standing up for what is right even if it is the unpopular thing.    

Hillbilly Elegy

 Shirley J.                              Adult Non-Fiction                           Memoir, Appalachian Family LIfe

Hillbilly Elegy:A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance    288 pages        

A good book about real life growing up in Appalachian culture.   Many of the urban issues exist in the midwestern and southern portions of Appalachia that J.D. Vance grew up in and he discusses how they touched him and his family members lives with an open down-to-earth candor that is refreshing and teeters from sorrowful to funny.  He talks openly about his mother's addiction to drugs and the various drugs of choice she always had trouble with.   His last name fluctuates throughout his life as one of his mother's 5 husbands adopted him only to have to leave him in the lurch shuffling from home to Grandma's and various relatives throughout his childhood and teens.  While his family never admitted to it, most were alcoholics if not out and out drug addicts as Meth and Heroin took over even hillbilly terrain.   Money was good when his mother got along with whatever man she was with, but, when her personality (thought bi-polar) became too frenetic and she could no longer tolerate the current father figure and kicked him out, he and his sister often went hungry scrounging whatever they could to survive.  His grandmother and her siblings were hard drinking, cussing like sailors and  toting guns they were apt to pull on one another as quick as they would an enemy.   From all this J.D. Vance managed to grow up and graduate from Yale University.   A really good book and good look at what growing up poor, white and from the hills is like. I would recommend this book to mature high-schoolers on up.   Ron Howard made a film based on this book with the same title.

Fiery Angel

The Fiery Angel: Art, Culture, Sex, Politics, and the Struggle for the Soul of the West by Michael Walsh, 224 pages

On one level, The Fiery Angel is Michael Walsh's celebration of the power of art and storytelling, of how they shape us and our future.  On another, it is an argument for the heroic ideal he believes is central to Western culture and civilization.  Walsh is well aware that the heroic tends to shade into the luciferian, indeed he sees this as a positive - Western man is never comfortable with the status quo and acknowledges no limits except those which he places on himself.  This is a vision that Walsh believes is threatened by the rising forces of leftism and Islam, each of which finds the concept of the heroic threatening for ideological and theological reasons.

Walsh leaps quickly from topic to topic and idea to idea in a way that is equal parts thrilling and disorienting.  It isn't clear whether this is deliberate - a little reflection reveals how thin is his distinction between the idea of progress he advances and the progressive definition he deplores, as well as how consistently his archetypal superman served as a cautionary tale rather than a model to be imitated in the premodern West, and especially how it is precisely the rejection of limits that has led us to our present crisis.  If his overall vision seems lacking, however, the passages where he discusses music are notable for their depth of thought and feeling.

The Booksellers' Secret

The Bookseller’s Secret by Michelle Gable 400 pages

Out in my garage, there are a number of plastic tubs (about 30) brimming with books that I want to read. One of them is Mary S. Lovell’s “The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family.”  So naturally, when one of my favorite authors, Michelle Gable* decided to write a novel with one of the sisters, Nancy, as the historical protagonist in a duel-narrative timeline, I had to read it!

If you’ve never heard for the Mitford Sisters, they hail from an aristocratic English family and became particularly infamous in the 1930s. An eccentric group of ladies if there ever was one. The last sister died in 2014. (It’s well-worth jumping down the rabbit hole with both feet to learn more about them.)

However this novel is set in the 1940s and in contemporary times.

 In contemporary times, novelist Katie Cabot has hit a slump. For the last three years she has been searching for a subject for her next novel. One of her writer friends, Jojo, invites Katie to visit her in London, believing that a change of scenery will spark her creativity. On Jojo’s advice, Katie visits the Heywood Hill Bookshop and the place where one of her idols, Nancy Mitford worked during World War II.

While visiting the bookshop (which still exists today), Katie meets several characters, all who are searching for a missing manuscript autobiographical novel that Nancy supposedly penned while working there. (Fact: Nancy was a very successful author in her time). While there seems to be a lot of subterfuge, nothing seems to be truly at stake.

The historical timeline takes up most of the book---and is the most interesting, as readers get to know Nancy and her sisters. After Nancy began working at the bookshop, she, unintentionally, turned it into a literary salon, where her wealthy and writerly friends gathered on Sunday afternoons.

Sounds like a great read, doesn’t it?  For me it was slow…very, very slow. Even though Nancy’s section didn’t have any tension until the last third, it was my favorite. Katie’s contemporary section read more like a romantic drama than a search for an eighty-plus year missing item. And I never felt that Katie’s section had a real resolution. I felt like I was left hanging. Therefore, “The Bookseller’s Secret” receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

*If you haven’t read Gable, her two best novels, in my opinion, are “A Paris Apartment” and “The Summer I Met Jack.”

 

The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All

The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All  by Josh Ritter 304 pages

The protagonist of songwriter Josh Ritter’s second novel is ninety-nine-year-old Weldon Applegate, lying on his deathbed in a hospital. Tubes are coming out of his arms, and he is on oxygen. He seems to this reader to be passing in and out of consciousness.

When he is out of it, Weldon returns to the forests of Cordelia, Idaho, almost a century earlier; back to a time when he was a child and the Applegates were considered the best lumberjacks in the industry. When his head is clear, he recounts a life of murder, mayhem, avalanches, bootlegging and all sorts of axe-swinging adventures.

Weldon’s father, Tom, was a lumberjack who promised his wife that he'd stay safe and never jack again. After his wife dies, he and Weldon move to Cordelia, a town full of lumberjacks and near the Lost Lot, a cursed tract of land that Tom owns. Tom works in the town general store but finds himself making a deal with a larger-than-life lumberjack-of-legend, Linden Laughlin, who turns out to be a devil in disguise. Weldon tells us the whole story in tall-tale style from those times through when technology and industry take over.

The story structure follows Weldon’s mental state, moving from one adventure to another without any division. I found this hard to follow. The language is rough, but realistic for the time period. It didn’t bother me, but I just didn’t like the story. For me, the action moved a snail’s pace, but I think it was me and not the story. I wasn’t as drawn in as I had hoped to be, but I will admit to learning a lot about lumberjacking. Therefore, “The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All” receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

 

Oh, William!

Oh, William! (Book 3 is the Amgash Series ) by Elizabeth Strout 256 pages

I have to admit that I’m a little late to the party; I’ve never read any of Pulitzer Prize winner’s Elizabeth Strout. And I’m a little late by reading Book 3 in a series, but that doesn’t matter. I didn’t feel list or confused by reading this novel. Strout did an amazing job in filling in the blanks for new readers.

I knew that Strout had written a book about the protagonist, Lucy Barton, but I didn’t know anything abou it.  But that didn’t stop me from enjoying this slim volume that packs a punch.

In this novel, Lucy is now in her sixties. There are two narratives happening simultaneously. First is Lucy’s trip dowm memory lane, ruminating on her life, her career, her daughters and escpecially her childhood. Her husband, David, has died, but she remains in close contact with her daughters’ father, her first husband, William. They still call each other by the pet names they used from their marriage.

William is married, happily I’m not so sure, with a daughter is approximately ten years old. HE is turning seventy, and seems lost in the world. When he stumbles on life-changing family secret, he seems to feel even more lost. I get the idea that William has always been a rather sad person, and this secret only exacerbates those feelings.

When William invites, pleads is  more like it, for Lucy to accompany him on a fact-finding mission to unlock the long-ago.

The story is told in caveats so readers can see both sides of the situation. However, what I didn’t like about the novel is the overuse of some statements. For example, she may say “This is what I meant…” or “This is what I meant to say…” several times in the same paragraph. That style would interrupt the story’s tension for me. Therefore, “Oh, William” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Twisted Twenty-Six

 Shirley J.                      Adult Fiction                              Gramma Mazur, Widow, Keys

Twisted Twenty-Six by Janet Evanovich   320 pages

This story features Gramma Mazur.   The old gal has been dating local gangster Jimmy Rosolli for a few weeks and they decide to get married.   They elope to Las Vegas without telling Marion, Stephanie's mother, though Gramma calls Stephanie to tell her to tell her mother she is o.k. so she won't worry.   Just don't mention the wedding thing she will surprise her when she gets back.  Unfortunately for Gramma she gets a surprise herself.   Fourty-five minutes after the ceremony, Grandma's new hubby has a heart attack while gambling in a casino going down cussing then dies.  Poor Gramma Rosolli!    All the other older mobsters in Jimmy Rosolli's group start harassing Gramma for Jimmy's keys.   Nobody tells what the keys are to.  Nobody knows where Jimmy kept them and Gramma has no clue what they are talking about, Jimmy didn't give her any keys nor mention them but no one in the burg believes her.   Gramma has enemies crawling out from the woodwork all over town.   Jimmy's sisters aren't as bereaved over their brother's passing as they are over those missing keys and they too, harrass Gramma every chance they get, at the bakery at the funeral parlor at bingo.   They call Gramma a gold digging slut and say she only married Jimmy for his money but that isn't true.   Gramma actually fell in love with Jimmy and he with her.  So what if he has killed people over the years, every body has a past and Jimmy's didn't really bother Gramma.   When the keys don't materialize, the ex-wife tries to get chummy with Gramma so she can make sure she gets a piece of whatever fortune Jimmy left for her and their daughter.   The wise guys decide to take things to the next level and when Gramma turns up missing, is it Jimmy's sisters who have her?   The mob?  The ex-wife?  Someone else?  Stephanie is about to lose her mind with fear and she and Lula are on the trail.   Great story.  So sad for Gramma.I would recommend this one to mature high-schoolers on up.

Look Alive Twenty-Five

 

Shirley J.                      Adult Fiction                          Female Bounty Hunter,  Deli Work,  Shoes    

Look Alive Twenty-Five by Janet Evanovich   336 pages

This time Stephanie and Lula are working in the Red Rive Deli.   Someone put the Deli up as bond collateral and when the perp skipped his court date Vinnie ended up getting possession of  the deli.  His father-in-law, who actually owns the bonds office decided he wanted to keep the deli and puts Stephanie in as Manager and Lula in as sandwich maker.   The ladies love working around food but the other two guys who work there stay high ost of the time.  Lula decides the sandwiches are too plain so she dazzles them up and Surprises the customers, they never know what they might actually get.   Stephanie finds she lacks management skills.   She lacks sandwich making skills and she lacks waitressing skills.   Lula has great waitressing skills but her skirts are so short it looks like her thong is lost in the Grand Canyon.  However, people keep coming back for the fear factor - the managers keep disappearing when they go out back to the dumpster and all that is left is one of their shoes.   Lula suspects alien abductions.   This one will keep you guessing all the way to the end     Especially when Tank, who is as big as a rhino is abducted.   No blood, no trace of what happened.   Even the camera on the back only catches  the managers staring off to the right, then a flash of light and one shoe goes sailing across the screen.   Hokey Smoke, Bullwinkle!   What is happening?   Good book.  I love the series.  I recommend this one to high-schoolers on up.

Note To Self

 

Shirley J.                    Adult Non-Fiction                       Advice from the present you to your younger self  

Note to Self: Inspiring Words from Inspiring People by Gayle King    208 pages

The premise for this book is, if you could write a note to your younger self, what would you say?  On the t.v. show CBS This Morning, Gayle King does a segment titled Note To Self letters from people and celebrities read aloud that they have written to their younger self telling that young person basically not to worry it is all going to work out for you when you grow up.  The bullies, the self-doubt, even the abuse you are now enduring will not last forever and your strength of character will get you through the tough times of youth.  The letters from a war widow and the father of one of the children killed at Sandy Hook are so brave and full of loving advice on the heartbreak of those periods with the assurance they will be able to go forward one step at a time though the world feels like it is closing in.   Oprah speaks in loving terms to the little girl she was then being sexually abused from her pre-tweens through late teens, Chelsea Handler and Maya Angelou also give inspiring talks to their former selves often going through the same darkness no child should ever have to.  Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter give encouragement to the boys they were going through times when the nation was not tolerant of other races in the days before civil rights were enacted.   They tell their younger selves to stay the course and keep fighting the fight for their friends of all persuasions that equality is something worth fighting for and helping the people of this nation is their calling and they will be able to make a difference one day through politics.   So many topics are broached, a young gay man who finally comes out proudly telling his younger self he knows times are hard and taking the labeling of Fag and worse, the fear of being different will all settle itself one day and he will be playing in the NFL   Pain doesn't last forever, it just feels that way at the time.   So much good advice, caring conversations delivering hope for the future.   I would recommend this to middle-schoolers on up.

 

Borgias

The Borgias: The Hidden History by GJ Meyer, 431 pages

Everyone knows that after Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI, he commenced an orgy of depravity the likes of which Rome had not seen since the days of Caligula and Nero.  Together with his bastard children, Cesare and Lucrezia, Alexander organized a criminal campaign of self-aggrandizement on a massive scale, while still finding time for some recreational murder and incest.

It's a wonderful story, featuring the darkest corruption in the holiest of places, playing upon popular prejudice and prurience, and as such it has been told and retold, most recently in hit TV shows and novels.  The only problem, according to GJ Meyer, is that very little of it is true.  Most of it is based on rumors spread by the rivals of the Borgias, given added currency by growing Italian nationalism and the Spanish origins of the family, their undisguised ambitions, and the almost complete collapse of their power after the death of Alexander, all of which was taken up and amplified by anti-Catholic polemicists in the centuries following the Reformation, eventually becoming engrained in conventional history alongside the Black Legend.  Going further than merely pointing out the obvious problems with the Borgia legend - the obviously invented operatic scenes, the supposed poisons whose effects are different from every poison known to modern medical science, the many positive accounts of Rodrigo's character before his election and Lucrezia's character after his death - Meyer challenges the most deeply ingrained myth of all, presenting strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that Cesare, Lucrezia, and their siblings were not, in fact, the illegitimate children of Rodrigo Borgia, but the legitimate children of his nephew.

The Borgias is not merely a debunking of myths.  Meyer turns the true story of the Borgias into a compelling story of ambition and intrigue, all while admirably informing the reader on the politics and culture of Renaissance Italy, a haphazard collection of independent and semi-independent states continually forming alliances and feuds with each other and the French and Spanish empires beyond the peninsula.

The Unholy

 

Shirley J.                                   Adult Fiction                                        Film Noir  Movie Studio Remake  

 The Unholy by Heather Graham     384 pages

A good noir murder mystery.   A movie mogul's son is captivated by a young starlet, so much so, he agrees to give her an after hours tour even though he know his Dad would be furious.   Little does he know someone or something is lurking in the shadows,   The starlet ends up dead, the son accused of her murder and Humphrey Bogart's ghost is going to help solve the case along with special FBI agent from the paranormal squad, Sean Cameron and special effects artist, Madison Darvil who has the ability to talk to the dead.   There are creepy scenes with Sean and Madison talking to the dead starlet in the morgue that might keep you awake nights.   An interesting premise and of course this book is part of a series. #6 in the  Krewe of Hunters. series.   I would recommend this especially to lovers of film noir and Hollywood of the 1940s.   I think teenager on up will enjoy thi one.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 , 

Riding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations, and Observations

Shirley J.                                          Adult Non-Fiction                                     Memoir

Riding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations and Observations  by Craig Ferguson         288 pages

I am a fan of Craig Ferguson and I have read and enjoyed his book, "American on Purpose."  This book while witty and often funny has a melancholy feel about it.   There is a sense of Craig growing older and tired and just like he is not having a great time any more.   Maybe he is a little jaded from his Hollywood experiences - not every corporate executive who talks about your being family really means it,  A feeling of you can go back home but after so long a time, where is home?  Then there are all the affairs he has had that leave him wondering about all the time it took him to find his forever in his current wife Megan.  A slower look at life, its ups and downs and on the whole a glance over the shoulder as he forges ahead.   This is not a happy book so don't look for his usual mirth, but, there are the off surprises of joviality which are momentary bright spots.   I don't think I would recommend this book as it took me a long time to read and left me feeling down.

Noni Soni: Former Best Friend

Nina Soni: Former Best Friend (Book 1 in a series) by Kashmira Sheth; illustrated by Jenn Kocsmiersky 148 pages

Meet Nina: a slightly forgetful nine-year-old girl who has hit a rough patch. She has a school writing assignment due on Monday, and she has no idea what to write about. She’s just destroyed, accidentally, her best friend’s project, and now he seems to hate her. Her father works in another state and is only home on the weekends; she misses him a lot. Her younger sister has decided that she doesn’t want a birthday party and de-invites the guests. Life is hectic!

Nina problem-solves all that is going wrong, she learns some valuable lessons about friendship and responsibility. Given that these books are STEAM, she even learns about scientist Andrew Fleming, the doctor and bacteriologist who won a Nobel Prize in 1945. She even conducts an experiment with peanut butter that works perfectly!

What I like about Nina is that she makes lists. She wants to stay on top of things. The illustrator Kocmiersky does a good job in capturing those lists. I think organization is a good thing to learn at an early age. I sure wish I had.

Two more things that I thought stood out is, first, are the word pronunciation pull-out boxes. What may be new words to the young reader are pulled out, shown phonetically and with a short definition. And second, teaching young readers about the Indian culture. I even leaned some things!

This is a quick and easy read for adults, and I think the age group this story is aimed at (7-10 years old) will also enjoy it. Therefore, “Nina Soni: Former Best Friend” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Meet Me in London

Meet Me in London by Georgia Toffolo 336 pages

For fans of Josie Silver's “One Day in December” and Christina Lauren's “In a Holidaze.” 

I’m just gonna say it now. “Meet Me in London” is a novel that would be a wonderful Hallmark Christmas movie. This rom-com has it all: great setting; girl hates boy before she even meets him; boy is indifferent to girl, yet they need each other; low-level sparks fly; and BAM! they fall in love.

 At her core, Victoria Scott is a vintage fashion designer. I love vintage clothing and I wish author Toffolo had described some of her clothing. Maybe she did, and I missed it. The clothing could have been from any decade from the 1930s to the 1990s. I got the feeling that it was 1950s, but I wouldn’t put money on it.

To make ends meet, she works in a bar in Chelsea; across the street is her ex-boyfriend’s business. The area the two businesses are in sounds quaint and wonderful….lots of little specialty shops and restaurants. However, there is a new store opening down the street that will change everything and probably put all the shops out of business: Russell’s, an old and established department store.

The store is facing its own set of challenges: its way, way behind schedule and its grand opening date in early December may not happen. Oliver Russell, son of the store owner and heir apparent, has been sent to fix things and get the opening back on schedule or they’ll lose the Christmas buying season.

Oliver is also trying to fend off his mother who wants to meet his girlfriend over the holidays; a girlfriend who doesn’t exist. Victoria and Oliver literally run into each other outside the department store. Readers know where this is going so I don’t need to go on.

One thing that confused me is that the novel takes place in London’s Chelsea neighborhood. So how can the title be “Meet Me in London”? Although the novel was predictable, I did like it. It wasn’t great, but reading a holiday rom-com is fun during the dog days of summer. Therefore, “Meet Me in London” 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Hardcore Twenty-Four

 Shirley J                            Adult Fiction                         Female Bounty Hunters, Zombies!

Hardcore Twenty-Four by Janet Evanovich (Book 24 in the Stephanie Plum series)   304 pages        

When Stephanie has to bring in FTA  and sometimes grave robber, Simon Diggery, he makes her promise to babysit his Boa Constrictor, Ethyl.   Stephanie does her best, she brings  Ethyl pizza, doughnuts, roadkill and finds that feral cats have gotten into Simon's house while she was away, and then there were the raccoons the next time she came.   She stopped going in to the house all together and just tossed whatever edible thing she came across in to Ethyl in hopes she would eat whatever.   Lula is always on hand to help out but this time she is being stalked by ZOMBIES!   They are showing up all over Trenton and brains are disappearing out of corpses right and left even from the former Stivas funeral home now under new management.   Diesel pops up and is hunting someone or something but so mysteriously Stephanie has no clue what he is after.   Ranger collects on one of their double or nothing bets to Stephanie's utter bliss and slut shame over Morelli.  There is a professional protestor (who knew you could get $20 bucks an hour for that?  More if you carry a sign and even more if you instigate anything that gets on the news and makes headlines!)    Grandma Mazur is still trolling the internet for Honeys and fell for a guy who looks just like George Hamilton in his pictures...wait a minute!   That IS George Hamilton!  Stephanie does a little reseacrh and finds the guy is short, pudgy has a wife and they are swingers, oh yea, she is short and pudgy, too.   Stephanie's mother calls hysterical that Grandma has run off and is flying to Florida to get with her new sweetie.   Does it ever end?   Keep reading to find out.   I recommend this book to all the Stephanie Plum addicts - you will love it.   Middle-schoolers on up will enjoy this story.

Deadline

 Shirley J.                         Adult Fiction                   Friendship, Psychics, the Governator, Missing People    

Deadline by Fern Michaels (The Godmothers Series Book 4)    288 pages

I keep stumbling into the midstream of series then like the characters so much I have to go back and read the books in order and this one is no exception.   I really loved the 4 friends here, Toots, brassy and southern, fun and funny, cusses like a sailor when it suits her and is one heck of a business woman who gets things done 1, 2, 3.   Sophie is a psychic who reads Tarot cards holds seances and doe automatic writing.   She is so good, Maria Shriver Schwartzenegger contacts her to come to the Governator's manse and hold a seance to contact the spirits to find out why after all these years she is dreaming about her deceased uncle and assassinated president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.   The spooks get spooky and Maria is impressed.  Ida and Mavis are the other two friends and how they all carry on together and call each other out on things they do or so, giving the bird frequently to each other - they are good times and call to mind special friends around pitchers of margueritas.   Good times.   Toot's daughter Abby is in love with a lawyer who loves her too, but, all of a sudden is missing along with a young gorgeous starlet he represents.  Abby is beside herself with anguish.   Was she misreading their relationship?   Sophie better get the planchette back out, it going to be a bumpy night!   Good book.   I recommend this book and the series which I plan to read.   I think middle-schoolers on up would get a kick out these fiesty old broads.

Real Music

Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church by Anthony Esolen, 274 pages

It is a truth rarely acknowledged that the Christian liturgy is at the center of the Western artistic tradition.  Both the fine and the practical arts developed as the handmaids of the Mass.  It can be argued that the seemingly undeniable decline of art over the course of the past few centuries is directly connected to the divorce of aesthetics from the sacred, and it is inarguable that this same divorce has impoverished the Church and resulted in much of what is seen, said, and sung being banal and second-rate.  It is under these conditions that Anthony Esolen invites us to consider the great hymns of the past, from the Protestant as well as Catholic tradition, and to appreciate their continuing power.

Esolen is a professor of English and not of music, which is reflected here in his concentration on poetry rather than melody.  Balancing this somewhat, the physical book includes a CD with performances of some relevant hymns by the St Cecilia Choir of Chicago's St John Cantius Church.  Despite the connection to St John Cantius, the book is not primarily a liturgical prescription, and Esolen is generally too preoccupied by the beauty of the hymns he is discussing to spend much time denigrating more recent compositions.  Instead, the book has the character of a devotional, exploring in a surprisingly moving way what these songs tell us about the Divine and our relationship with Him.

The Secret of Snow

The Secret of Snow by Viola Shipman 352 pages

There’s no better way to cool down on a hot and humid St. Louis afternoon than to read a book that takes place in northern Michigan in the dead of winter!

Sonny Dunes fled northern Michigan thirty years ago for the sunshine and warm temperatures of southern California. Palm Springs to be exact. It’s not hard to be a meteorologist when the weather is the same day after day. But what is hard is not aging or gaining a few pounds. When the station decides to replace the fifty-year-old Sonny with a virtual meteorologist, she loses it. On air. Not good for one’s career.

With no job, Sonny isn’t sure what to do. She has only one place to turn; her mother, in yes that awful, awful place in northern Michigan. It’s not that Sunny hates the wintery weather, which she does with a passion. For her, her hometown is haunted. Haunted by death of her younger sister, and the survivor’s guilt she has endured.

Her agent tries to find her a new gig, but the only person willing to take a chance on her is an old college classmate whom she despises and has been trying to ignore for years. Sonny is forced to swallow her pride and move back home, taking up residence in her childhood bedroom.

The job is as bad as she had feared. The station wants her to cover all the winter activities in the region. Did I mention that Sonny hates winter?  Yeah, the job is sheer hell. She has to put on a happy face while hating every minute and aspect of winter.

As Sonny begins to confront her past and to make friends with her new colleagues, her heart and soul begin to melt, freeing her enjoy the attention of a man named Mason and actually start enjoying her life---and dare I say it, the winter weather.

One thing that annoyed me about the book was that it starts off in December 2021 and projects through April 2022. I didn’t feel the plot warranted its futuristic timeline, but maybe I didn’t understand author Shipman’s reasoning behind it.

I liked “The Secret of Snow,” and it receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. And yes, reading it in the depths of summer did make me less hot and cranky.