Books We Gave and Got for Christmas!

I hope you're enjoying the holiday season with your family! I just popped in to share our Christmas Book Hauls. We're a reading family, and these are the books we gave to each other and received as gifts this Christmas. If you want to hear more about these books and why they were chosen, I recorded a Christmas Book Haul video that I will post to my YouTube channel in the next few days. 

We gave these books to our son, 30. A slightly unusual mix for him this year that includes two nonfiction titles (he's a big fantasy reader) that were chosen for specific reasons. He's excited to read all of them: 

Plus, I ordered these custom Where's Waldo type books for my sons and their girlfriends! They loved those books as kids and were thrilled with the custom versions.

I gave these books to my husband. As luck would have it, many of them are by favorite authors of both of us, so I am looking forward to reading many of these after he does!

I picked out these two novels for my mom:

• Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy (a top pick from Booktopia this year that she missed)
• The Rent Collector by Camron Wright (got one of my book group's highest ratings)

 

And here is my stack from my husband. LOTS of great novels that I can't wait to dive into, plus a surprise pick that will help us plan our longer road trips for the coming year!

Did you give or receive any books this holiday season?

Let me know in the comments below!

Celebrate Mardi Gras at Home!

It's Mardi Gras Day! We used to live in New Orleans, so this is a major holiday at our house, as you may have heard in my video, Celebrate Everything, Big and Small. We usually celebrate on Saturday and again on Tuesday. Before the pandemic, we had an annual party with all the food, music, etc. on Saturday. With my immune issues, it's now a small celebration with our oldest friends, who lived in New Orleans when we did. We enjoyed takeout from a favorite local New Orleans restaurant (a husband and wife team who were both chefs in New Orleans, under two of the top chefs there!), plus lots of shrimp. Today, Mardi Gras day, we will finish off the season with our annual tradition of Popeye's at that same friends' house (yes, Popeye's is authentic Louisiana food). And, of course, we've decorated for the occasion, and I'm wearing purple, green, and gold with my beads on!

 

Want to join the fun? Here is a collection of ways to celebrate Mardi Gras, New Orleans, and Louisiana today...including food, recipes, travel tips, movies & TV shows, and, of course, some great books! You can also check out my column in Shelf Awareness from last year that features books about and set in New Orleans, Armchair Travel: Destination New Orleans. And if you prefer a video, check out my Recommendations for Mardi Gras Reathathon: Books, Movies, and TV Shows.

 

Great Adult Books Set In/About Louisiana (additional titles in my article linked above):

• The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - I listened to Calla Lily's story on audio and laughed out loud & bawled my eyes out! It takes place in southern Louisiana, with plenty of local color.
• Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen - I loved this memoir about the food, history, people, and unique culture of New Orleans.
• Trail of Crumbs: Food, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée - although this food-focused memoir covers everyplace from Sweden to France to Korea, the author grew up in New Orleans, where the food culture impacted the rest of her life.
• Burn by Nevada Barr - part of her Anna Pigeon series, about a National Park ranger, this one is set in the French Quarter (where there's a National Historic Park). I haven't read it yet, but I plan to this year!
• Mardi Gras Mourning by Julie Smith - I first read this back in the 90's and am rereading it now for the Mardi Gras Readathon on Booktube. It's a classic detective novel, set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, so the setting and atmosphere are great!
• The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate - outstanding historical fiction set in Loiuisiana, with a dual timeline in 1863 and 1987. It made my list of Top Ten Audios in 2023! 
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is another excellent dual timeline historical novel, about twin sisters born in Louisiana. One moves to New Orleans and the other twin decides to "pass" as white and lives a very different life.
• Horse by Geraldine Brooks - in this historical novel from one of my favorite authors, some of the story takes place in 1800's Louisiana.
  

Middle-Grade and Teen/YA Books Set In/About Louisiana:

• Ruined by Paula Morris - a teen/YA mystery/ghost story set in New Orleans (the perfect setting for a ghost story!)
• The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman - a compelling middle-grade historical fiction adventure (with a touch of time travel), where a girl from 1960 travels back to 1860 Louisiana
• Zane and the Hurricane by Rodman Philbrick - a middle-grade novel about Hurricane Katrina - powerful and gripping
• Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys - most people are familiar with her two YA novels set during WWII (Between Shades of Gray and Salt to the Sea), but this historical novel is set in New Orleans in 1950

Movies & TV Shows

• Chef  - a wonderful, uplifting movie about a family food truck that travels from Miami to LA, with a stop in New Orleans, of course! My favorite movie of the year in 2015.
• NCIS: New Orleans - though it's a crime show, it includes many scenes of New Orleans, mention of local restaurants and landmarks, and other local tidbits, plus some great local music. They usually do a Mardi Gras episode once a season, for extra fun. It's streaming on Paramount Plus (which used to be CBS All Access).
• Treme - we LOVED this HBO show, which we were somehow able to watch on cable at one point. You can see it now streaming on HBO Max or Hulu.
  
• You can also check out some classic movies and modern classics with New Orleans settings, like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Big Easy.
• Or tune in to watch parades and other scenes in New Orleans streaming live (or if you missed the parades, some great videos) at www.mardigras.com.

One of the locals in Louisiana

Travel
All this talk of Louisiana making you want to visit? I have written articles about visiting New Orleans  and Exploring Cajun Country - check them out and start planning your trip (plenty of food recommendations in both!). I'm certainly ready to go back!

Crawfish!

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!
Notice that many of the books and movies about Louisiana are focused on FOOD? Yes, Louisiana - and especially New Orleans - is known for its amazing, unique food. This blog post on how to celebrate Mardi Gras includes my own recipes for some classic Louisiana dishes, plus food you can grab locally today and webcams where you can vicariously experience Mardi Gras - there are plenty of suggestions in this post that you can still manage to do between now and Tuesday. Or save it for later if you like - we eat this food all year round. 

NOTE that Zapp's potato chips - which you absolutely MUST try) have been bought out by PA-chip maker Utz, so you don't have to get them by mail-order anymore. We can now find them in local stores like Wawa here in Delaware or ordered on Amazon (Cajun Crawtator and Cajun Dill are the best flavors.)

 Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Me & my sons, about 10 years ago

Books for Christmas!

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I've been on a bit of a break while juggling all the Christmas preparations and festivities, but I wanted to share with you the books that we gave and received this Christmas. We are a reading family! I have photos and a short video below.   

Here are the books (and one DVD set for camping) I gave to my husband:

 

And the hefty books we gave to our fantasy-loving oldest son (youngest son doesn't enjoy reading; I'd question his genetics, but he looks just like me!):

 

And I also picked out books for my mother, based on my own favorite books and authors:

• Kindred by Octavia Butler (my review at the link)
  
• The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger (I haven't read this one yet, but I wasn't sure if my mom had already read This Tender Land and Ordinary Grace - she hadn't, so those could be future gifts! This one takes place in the 1950's, so she was excited about that.)

 My mother's husband's birthday is on Christmas Day (his sister's, too!), so for him, I picked out:

• River of the Gods by Candice Millard (I gave him River of Doubt by Millard years ago, and he enjoyed that very much.)

And, finally, my own stack from my family! This year, rather than list specific books (they like a list from me since they don't always know what I've already read), I gave them a list of authors I have never tried before and said "anything from any of these authors." Look at all the great books I received from my family:

 

I can't wait to dive into all of these! Here is a short video, where I briefly talk about each of the books I received:

 

So, that's us!

Did YOU get any books as gifts this holiday season?

What are you looking forward to reading? 

Fiction Review: The Matzah Ball

My last book read in December 2022 was, appropriately, The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer. This was a departure for me, as I don't normally read many romances or holiday-themed novels, but it was a special exception. Both the author and the main character share my chronic illness immune disorder, ME/CFS. It was refreshing to see my own life reflected in the pages of a novel (which is rare), but the book was also entertaining and a lot of fun.

Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt's father, Rabbi Aaron Goldblatt, is a world-renowned Jewish religious leader. She was brought up on Long Island and attended the Jewish Camp Ahava every summer of her youth. When she was eighteen, she was struck down with ME/CFS, a debilitating immune disorder, though she lives her life as best as she can, within the limits of her disease. But Rachel has a big secret, kept from everyone except her best friend, Mickey: Rachel is a best-selling author, under the pen name Margot Cross, of ... Christmas romances. She knows it would destroy her parents (and possibly her father's reputation) to find out about her secret life, so she tells everyone she's a freelance writer. In her apartment, her spare bedroom/office is crammed from floor to ceiling with all kinds of Christmas decorations, posters of her books and movies, and awards she's won, plus her enormous collection of Santa figurines. Margot Cross doesn't make public appearances, but that is just fine with Rachel, since she wouldn't have the stamina for it anyway. Now, her summer camp nemesis, Jacob Greenberg, is coming to New York ... and her parents have invited him to Shabbat dinner! She has no desire to see this guy she was in love with who humiliated her in front of the entire camp when they were twelve years old, but she goes to her parents' house that weekend with an ulterior motive. Her publishing house is insisting her next book be a Hanukkah romance, and Jacob, a professional party planner, is hosting a huge Matzah Ball Max next week. Rachel just has to get to a ticket, to provide some inspiration on how to make Hanukkah seem as magical as Christmas.

So, right off the bat, even as a non-romance reader, I noticed plenty of classic romance tropes here: enemies-to-lovers, secret life, second chances, and all kinds of misunderstandings between Rachel and Jacob. But this novel is unique because Rachel isn't your typical perfect romance heroine straight out of a Hallmark Christmas movie. She feels very real and authentic, flaws and all. Of course, as a fellow ME/CFS sufferer, I greatly appreciated the honesty in how her restricted life is portrayed, but I don't want to give the impression that this novel is depressing. It's very entertaining, with plenty of humor and romcom-ness; it's just also real. You can expect lots of hilarious hijinks and a happy ending in this unique holiday romance.

385 pages, Mira

Harlequin Audio

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge

Monthly Motif Challenge - The Fire Is So Delightful (fire/candles on the cover)

Diversity Challenge (December mini challenge - religious minorities)

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, narrated by Dara Rosenberg. and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 

Celebrate Mardi Gras!

It's Mardi Gras weekend! We used to live in New Orleans, so this is a major holiday at out house, as you may have heard in my recent video, Celebrate Everything, Big and Small. We usually celebrate on Saturday and again on Tuesday. Before the pandemic, we had an annual party with a few friends (many of whom also lived in New Orleans when we did) on Saturday. Tonight it will be a smaller Zoom gathering, but I have a pot of jambalaya cooking on the stove, a fresh King Cake from a local bakery on the counter, plus we'll pick up some steamed shrimp and trade some jambalaya for bread pudding with some friends! Tuesday, Mardi Gras day, we will finish off the season with our annual tradition of Popeye's at a friend's house (yes, Popeye's is authentic Louisiana food!).

 

Want to join the fun? Here is a collection of ways to celebrate Mardi Gras, New Orleans, and Louisiana today...including food, recipes, travel tips, movies & TV shows, and, of course, some great books! You can also check out my column in Shelf Awareness from last year that features books about and set in New Orleans, Armchair Travel: Destination New Orleans.

 

Great Adult Books Set In/About Louisiana (additional titles in my article linked above):

• The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - I listened to Calla Lily's story on audio and laughed out loud & bawled my eyes out! It takes place in southern Louisiana, with plenty of local color.
• Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen - I loved this memoir about the food, history, people, and unique culture of New Orleans.
• Trail of Crumbs: Food, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée - although this food-focused memoir covers everyplace from Sweden to France to Korea, the author grew up in New Orleans, where the food culture impacted the rest of her life.
  

Middle-Grade and Teen/YA Books Set In/About Louisiana:

• Ruined by Paula Morris - a teen/YA mystery/ghost story set in New Orleans (the perfect setting for a ghost story!)
• The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman - a compelling middle-grade historical fiction adventure (with a touch of time travel), where a girl from 1960 travels back to 1860 Louisiana
• Zane and the Hurricane by Rodman Philbrick - a middle-grade novel about Hurricane Katrina - powerful and gripping
• Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys - most people are familiar with her two YA novels set during WWII (Between Shades of Gray and Salt to the Sea), but this historical novel is set in New Orleans in 1950

Movies & TV Shows

• Chef  - a wonderful, uplifting movie about a family food truck that travels from Miami to LA, with a stop in New Orleans, of course! My favorite movie of the year in 2015.
• NCIS: New Orleans - though it's a crime show, it includes many scenes of New Orleans, mention of local restaurants and landmarks, and other local tidbits, plus some great local music. They usually do a Mardi Gras episode once a season, for extra fun. It's streaming on Paramount Plus (which used to be CBS All Access).
• Treme - we LOVED this HBO show, which we were somehow able to watch on cable at one point. You can see it now streaming on HBO Max or Hulu.
  
• You can also check out some classic movies and modern classics with New Orleans settings, like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Big Easy.
• Or tune in to watch parades and other scenes in New Orleans streaming live (or if you missed the parades, some great video clips) at www.mardigras.com.

One of the locals in Louisiana

Travel
All this talk of Louisiana making you want to visit? I have written articles about visiting New Orleans  and Exploring Cajun Country - check them out and start planning your trip (plenty of food recommendations in both!). I'm certainly ready to go back!

Crawfish!

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!
Notice that many of the books and movies about Louisiana are focused on FOOD? Yes, Louisiana - and especially New Orleans - is known for its amazing, unique food. This blog post on how to celebrate Mardi Gras includes my own recipes for some classic Louisiana dishes, plus food you can grab locally today and webcams where you can vicariously experience Mardi Gras - there are plenty of suggestions in this post that you can still manage to do between now and Tuesday. Or save it for later if you like - we eat this food all year round. 

NOTE that Zapp's potato chips - which you absolutely MUST try) have been bought out by PA-chip maker Utz, so you don't have to get them by mail-order anymore. We can now find them in local stores like Wawa here in Delaware....though we still ordered a carton of assorted flavors for Mardi Gras! (Cajun Crawtator and Cajun Dill are the best.)

 

Me & my sons, about 10 years ago

 

A Very Bookish Christmas!

As usual, it was a very bookish Christmas at our house yesterday! Most of us are avid readers, so we love to exchange books. Here's what we gave and received - I hope you got books under your tree, too!

We gave our son:

• The Order War by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (book 4 in the Saga of Recluce)
• The Great Bazaar and Brayan's Gold by Peter V. Brett - two short stories/novellas set in the world of the Demon Cycle)
• Quill by A.C. Cobble (book 1 of The Cartographer)
• The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen (book 1 of 2)

My husband got:

• Countdown City by Ben Winters (book 2 in The Last Policeman trilogy)
• A Blizzard of Polar Bears  by Alice Henderson (book 2 in the Alex Carter series)
  
• Never by Ken Follett
• Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Child (book 26 in the Jack Reacher series)

I gave my mom:

 

• Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (a memoir)
• Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler (I love Anne Tyler, and my mom's a redhead!)

And, not shown (it was already packed), we gave her husband for his Christmas birthday: The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire by John Eisenberg. He loves both football and business, so this was a perfect fit!

And, I received:

• The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (author of Station Eleven, which I loved)
  
• The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker (author of The Age of Miracles, which I also loved!)
• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu - it wouldn't be a holiday for me without receiving some sort of time-twisting novel!
• Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

I am so excited to read all of these!!

How about you? What book(s) did you receive or give for the holidays?

 

Teen/YA Review: One Way or Another

I recently finished listening to a YA novel, One Way or Another by Kara McDowell, which seems to be her second novel. I enjoyed this fun rom-com with a twist that also tackles a serious issue.

 

Seventeen-year-old Paige struggles with anxiety and is in love with her best friend, Fitz, but he's always dating someone else. Now, as much as she hates even trivial decisions, she has a big one to make: go with Fitz to his family's mountain cabin for a Christmas worthy of a Hallmark holiday movie (and Fitz just broke up with his latest girlfriend) or go to New York City with her mother for her dream trip of a lifetime. Paige wants to be a travel writer someday, and she’s never left her hometown in Arizona before, so the New York trip (which her mom won free) is a big deal. As she's walking with her friend in a store, agonizing over the choice, Paige slips and hits her head. From then on, the novel splits into two different storylines: on one path, Paige goes to the cabin with Fitz and his family, and on the other path, she goes to New York with her mom. Both paths have elements of the picture-perfect holiday Paige dreamed of, though her anxiety follows her no matter where she goes.

 

I love novels that play with time—time travel, time shifting, alternate timelines, etc.—so this one was right up my alley. Paige’s anxiety and inability to make a decision affect every aspect of her life, and the author dealt with that difficult topic with honesty and sensitivity. At the same time, both timelines have a sweet, rom-com feel to them, as Paige compares her experiences to every holiday movie (and rom-com) she’s ever loved. There is plenty of humor here, too. The audio was very well-done with narrator Erin Spencer hitting the teen voice perfectly. I enjoyed this novel and like that it is fun, with the alternate timelines and rom-com vibes, but that it also tackles the serious issue of Paige's crippling anxiety and self-doubt in a very real way.

 

336 pages, Scholastic Press

 

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

 

Or you can order One Way or Another from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

First Book of 2021!

Happy New Year!

I somehow managed to stay up until midnight last night, so that was an accomplishment. My husband and I got some fabulous takeout, watched two movies--Palm Springs and The Peanut Butter Falcon (reviews to come)--and counted down with Carson Daly when the ball dropped.

When we went up to bed at 12:05 am, I finished my book, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig so today I get to start a new book at the start of the new year! Since I just chose it this morning, I was too late to fully participate in Sheila's annual First Book 2021 at the Book Journey blog (check out all the great First Reads there), but I always like to post my first book of the year anyway. Here it is ...

First Book of 2021: The River by Peter Heller

I'm starting The River  by Peter Heller, a highly acclaimed novel that combines outdoor adventure, thriller suspense, and lyrical writing. I enjoyed Heller's Celine, and my husband just read The River and enjoyed it this fall, so I'm looking forward to it.

May your new year be filled with health, happiness, and lots of good books!

What's YOUR first book of 2021?

Bookish Christmas 2020

Lots of books under the tree!

It's always a bookish Christmas at our house, and this year was no exception! My husband, our oldest son, and I are all avid readers, so we always give lots of books as gifts to each other. Here's what we gave and got this year:

My haul:

I made out very well this Christmas, with two new classics and three novels related to time travel, time shifting, or alternate timelines (they know me well!)

My Book Gifts

 

That thin one on top is The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde - I have never read anything by him or by John Updike, so I am looking forward to those. And I've already started The Midnight Library!

My husband:

My Husband's Book Gifts

As you can see, he loves thrillers, so this stack should keep him busy for a while! He'll probably read some of mine, too ... and vice-versa! Oh, and I also gave him Ready Player Two, which I can't wait to read, also!

Our son:

Our Son's Book Gifts

Our son loves epic fantasy novels (and The Far Side!). Besides these, he also got Red Sister by Mark Lawrence in his stocking (I think he's got it in his room already). He's excited to dive into all of these!

What books did you give and receive this holiday season?

Celebrate Mardi Gras Today!

A Mardi Gras float heads down Canal Street - Mardi Gras 1988

Today is Mardi Gras day - we used to live in New Orleans, so this is a major holiday at out house! We had our annual party with a few friends (many of whom also lived in New Orleans when we did) on Saturday, and today, we will finish off the season with our annual tradition of Popeye's at a friend's house (yes, Popeye's is authentic Louisiana food!).

 

Want to join the fun today? Here is a collection of ways to celebrate Mardi Gras, New Orleans, and Louisiana today...including food, recipes, travel tips, movies & TV shows, and, of course, some great books! You can also check out my column in Shelf Awareness from last year that features books about and set in New Orleans, Armchair Travel: Destination New Orleans.

 

Great Adult Books Set In/About Louisiana (additional titles in my article linked above):

• The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - I listened to Calla Lily's story on audio and laughed out loud & bawled my eyes out! It takes place in southern Louisiana, with plenty of local color.
• Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen - I loved this memoir about the food, history, people, and unique culture of New Orleans.
• Trail of Crumbs: Food, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée - although this food-focused memoir covers everyplace from Sweden to France to Korea, the author grew up in New Orleans, where the food culture impacted the rest of her life.
  

Middle-Grade and Teen/YA Books Set In/About Louisiana:

• Ruined by Paula Morris - a teen/YA mystery/ghost story set in New Orleans (the perfect setting for a ghost story!)
• The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman - a compelling middle-grade historical fiction adventure (with a touch of time travel), where a girl from 1960 travels back to 1860 Louisiana
• Zane and the Hurricane by Rodman Philbrick - a middle-grade novel about Hurricane Katrina - powerful and gripping
• Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys - most people are familiar with her two YA novels set during WWII (Between Shades of Gray and Salt to the Sea), but this historical novel is set in New Orleans in 1950

Movies & TV Shows

• Chef  - a wonderful, uplifting movie about a family food truck that travels from Miami to LA, with a stop in New Orleans, of course! My favorite movie of the year in 2015.
• NCIS: New Orleans - though it's a crime show, it includes many scenes of New Orleans, mention of local restaurants and landmarks, and other local tidbits. They usually do a Mardi Gras episode around this time of year, so check your cable On Demand.
• You can also check out some classic movies and modern classics with New Orleans settings, like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Big Easy.
• Or tune in to watch parades and other scenes in New Orleans streaming live (or if you missed the parades, some great video clips) at www.mardigras.com.

One of the locals in Louisiana

Travel
All this talk of Louisiana making you want to visit? I have written articles about visiting New Orleans  and Exploring Cajun Country - check them out and start planning your trip (plenty of food recommendations in both!). I'm certainly ready to go back!

Crawfish!

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!
Notice that many of the books and movies about Louisiana are focused on FOOD? Yes, Louisiana - and especially New Orleans - is known for its amazing, unique food. This blog post on how to celebrate Mardi Gras includes my own recipes for some classic Louisiana dishes, plus food you can grab locally today and webcams where you can vicariously experience Mardi Gras - there are plenty of suggestions in this post that you can still manage to do TODAY! Or save it for tomorrow if you like - we eat this food all year round. 

NOTE that Zapp's potato chips - which you absolutely MUST try) have been bought out by PA-chip maker Utz, so you don't have to get them by mail-order anymore. We can now find them in local stores like Wawa here in Delaware....though we still ordered a carton of assorted flavors for Mardi Gras! (Cajun Crawtator and Cajun Dill are the best.)

Me & my sons, about 10 years ago

First Books of 2020!

Happy New Year!!

For the past seven years, Sheila at Book Journey has hosted First Book of the Year, where readers from all over the world post photos with the first book of the new year that they're reading. Here's mine:

Wow, I look tired! I'm not used to staying up till midnight! ha ha But the important thing about this photo is what I'm holding (which you can't see too well) - my TWO First Books of the Year, one in print (on a Kindle) and one on audio.

I was all set with my First-of-the-Year choice (Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday, a Christmas gift) when I realized I hadn't yet read the book choice for my neighborhood book group ... which is NEXT week! Oops - poor planning. But I chose something I have been wanting to read for my audio book.

So, my two First Books of the Year are:

Running on Red Dog Road: And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood, a novel by Drema Hall Berkheimer (on the Kindle for book group)

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center (on audio on my iPod)

What is YOUR first book of the year?

Books for Christmas!

As is our tradition, many of the gifts we exchanged yesterday were BOOKS! My husband, our older son, and I are all avid readers and love to give and receive books. I am exhausted today and ready to spend the next week on the couch reading my new books!

These are the books I got from my husband, son, and mom:

One of these will be my First Book of the Year!


And my husband received these books from my son and I:

And we gave these books to our son - all his favorite kind of fantasy novels. Two are continuations of series he loves, and the Terry Brooks is a new series for him to try:

Hope you are also enjoying a bookish holiday season!

Celebrate 4th of July with Books!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know how much I loved the two historical novels by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. I gushed about them both here on the blog and reviewed both of the novels, America's First Daughter and My Dear Hamilton, in glowing praise (my reviews at the links). In both cases, I was hesitant to read the book, thinking I would be bored by a 600-page historical novel, but by chapter two, I was hooked and quickly sped through each of them, left at the end wanting even more!

I wrote about these two novels and their authors in this week's From the Shelf column in Shelf Awareness: The Women Behind the Founding Fathers. Both would be excellent choices this week for celebrating the United States' Independence Day, the 4th of July. These two authors beautifully combine historical details of our nation's birth and development (Kamoie is a history professor) with compelling stories of influential women, and the combination is irresistible.  You can read more about them at the link to my column above.

And, coincidentally, both of these engaging and fascinating novels would be perfect choices for my Big Book Summer Challenge - there is still plenty of time to join! Despite each having 600+ pages, these are both fairly quick reads and would be a great addition to your summer reading.

Happy Fourth of July!

Celebrate Mardi Gras with Books,TV, Movies & FOOD!

A Mardi Gras parade and float, circa 1988

Happy Mardi Gras, ya'll!

Today is Mardi Gras day - we used to live in New Orleans, so this is a major holiday at out house! We had our annual party with a few friends (many of whom also lived in New Orleans when we did) on Saturday, and today, we will finish off the season with our annual tradition of Popeye's at a friend's house.

Want to join the fun today? Here is a collection of ways to celebrate Mardi Gras, New Orleans, and Louisiana today...including food, recipes, travel tips, movies & TV shows, and, of course, some great books! You can also check out my latest column in Shelf Awareness published today that features books about and set in New Orleans, Armchair Travel: Destination New Orleans.

Great Adult Books Set In/About Louisiana (additional titles in my article linked above):

• The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - I listened to Calla Lily's story on audio and laughed out loud & bawled my eyes out! It takes place in southern Louisiana, with plenty of local color.
• Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen - I loved this memoir about the food, history, people, and unique culture of New Orleans.
• Trail of Crumbs: Food, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée - although this food-focused memoir covers everyplace from Sweden to France to Korea, the author grew up in New Orleans, where the food culture impacted the rest of her life.
  

Middle-Grade and Teen/YA Books Set In/About Louisiana:

• Ruined by Paula Morris - a teen/YA mystery/ghost story set in New Orleans (the perfect setting for a ghost story!)
• The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman - a compelling middle-grade historical fiction adventure (with a touch of time travel), where a girl from 1960 travels back to 1860 Louisiana
• Zane and the Hurricane by Rodman Philbrick - a middle-grade novel about Hurricane Katrina - powerful and gripping
• Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys - most people are familiar with her two YA novels set during WWII (Between Shades of Gray and Salt to the Sea), but this historical novel is set in New Orleans in 1950

Movies & TV Shows

• Chef  - a wonderful, uplifting movie about a family food truck that travels from Miami to LA, with a stop in New Orleans, of course! My favorite movie of the year in 2015.
• NCIS: New Orleans - though it's a crime show, it includes many scenes of New Orleans, mention of local restaurants and landmarks, and other local tidbits. They usually do a Mardi Gras episode around this time of year, so check your cable On Demand.
• You can also check out some classic movies and modern classics with New Orleans settings, like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Big Easy.
• Or tune in to watch parades and other scenes in New Orleans streaming live (or if you missed the parades, some great video clips) at www.mardigras.com.

One of the locals in Louisiana

Travel
All this talk of Louisiana making you want to visit? I have written articles about visiting New Orleans  and Exploring Cajun Country - check them out and start planning your trip (plenty of food recommendations in both!). I'm certainly ready to go back!

Crawfish!

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!
Notice that many of the books and movies about Louisiana are focused on FOOD? Yes, Louisiana - and especially New Orleans - is known for its amazing, unique food. This blog post on how to celebrate Mardi Gras includes my own recipes for some classic Louisiana dishes, plus food you can grab locally today and webcams where you can vicariously experience Mardi Gras - there are plenty of suggestions in this post that you can still manage to do TODAY! Or save it for tomorrow if you like - we eat this food all year round. 

NOTE that Zapp's potato chips - which you absolutely MUST try) have been bought out by PA-chip maker Utz, so you don't have to get them by mail-order anymore. We can now find them in local stores like Wawa here in Delaware....though we still ordered a carton of assorted flavors for Mardi Gras! (Cajun Crawtator and Cajun Dill are the best)

Me & my sons, about 8 years ago