November 2017 Reviews

The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Marta McDowell

Laura Ingalls Wilder is known for her Little House on the Prarie book series that was a fictionalized account of her childhood. In those books and in her own life the natural world was very important to Wilder -whether observing nature or planting and harvesting a garden. In The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder McDowell explores Wilder's connection with the natural world and explores all the areas that Wilder called home in her life. The book is also full of beautiful photos and illustrations, including many of Wilder and her family. I didn't do this, but McDowell has arranged the book to follow the Little House series, so you could read a chapter of this book either before or after reading one of Wilder's book series to get a fuller picture of that book. This is definitely a unique book and it would be of almost no interest if you weren't a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her book series. Reading this book definitely inspires me to re-read the Little House series sometime soon. This is a must-read for any fans of Wilder and/or her book series.

Some quotes I liked:

"By squatting, accidentally or on purpose, inside what was then [Osage] Indian Territory, Charles Ingalls and his neighbors had the possibility of a real estate windfall. A bonanza. Pa stopped the wagon, built a log house, dug a well, plowed, and planted inside one of the ancestral lands of the people of the Osage Nation in hope that it would soon come under the umbrella of the Homestead Act of 1862. If so, his 'claim' might be grandfathered...From the days of the Puritans, European immigrants had seen the Indian use of land as something less than ownership...If the Indians weren't going to stick to one place and farm - 'improve' their land - the colonists rationalized, they did not have valid property rights." (p. 80) [It didn't work out for the Ingalls family - they were evicted in 1871 and went back to Wisconsin]

"In the spring of 1879, Laura found herself assuming a different role in the family. Fourteen-year-old Mary was struck blind. An attack of meningitis temporarily paralyzed half of her face and permanently damaged her optic nerves...[Laura] took on many of the roles of the senior sibling - in school, in the garden, and eventually as a wage earner. She became Mary's eyes, describing everything in detail to her sister. This process of seeing out loud cemented Laura's memories, etching impressions in her mind and honing her skills as a narrator." (p. 137)

"Rose's Danbury garden was so extensive that one year, during the Second World War, she put up eight hundred jars of produce, filling the shelves in her stone-walled, brick-lined cellar with what she called her 'genuine social security.'" (p. 293)

Little Fox in the Forest by Stephanie Graegin 

I saw this book on the 2017 Goodreads book award voting list and I love wordless picture books, so I got it to check it out. I LOVED it! The illustrations are beautiful and the story is so cute. On show and tell day a little girl brings her stuffed fox to school. After school a real fox steals her stuffed fox and she and her friend go after both foxes. They discover an animal world and when they finally find her stuffed fox the girl has to make a hard decision. My only complaint was there was a weird section with a weasel trying to steal the stuffed fox that didn't make a lot of sense to the story. But the illustrations are so beautiful and I love the story. Definitely a great picture book!

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Lois Clary is a programmer working for a robotics company in San Francisco. One night she decides to order dinner from a new takeout place and falls in love with the spicy soup and sandwich combo that comes with the best bread she's ever had. Soon she is ordering dinner from Clement Street Soup and Sourdough every night. One night the brothers who run Clement Street show up and explain they are closing their restaurant due to visa issues, but leave her with their sourdough starter. Never having baked bread before, Lois buys a bread baking books and tries her hand at baking. The result is amazing. Soon she is baking bread and bringing it into work, where she is encouraged to audition for the local farmer's market. When she doesn't make it into the farmer's market she is brought into an underground (both literally and figuratively) market of experimental food. Soon Lois is baking in the early morning hours before work, working her robotics job by day, and trying to figure out who the mysterious Marrow Market benefactor could be. She is also starting to realize that the sourdough starter seems to have a mind of it's own - she has to decide whether to try to tame it or let it go.

Very much like Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore this book combines the high-tech world with old-school technology, in this case bread baking. Also, we have a main character from the tech industry who is able to straddle both worlds and in doing so make some huge breakthroughs. Somehow all the craziness comes together and works to make for a very unique book. Also, makes me want to try my hand at making sourdough too...

The History of Bees by Maja Lunde

England 1852 - William is a biologist on the verge of self-destruction. He wants to make a name for himself and make his son proud, so he tries to create a new type of beehive that will make it easier to keep bees.

United States 2007 - George is beekeeper who's keeping the family business going and assumes his son will join him. But, when his son has other career plans and his business is hit hard by Colony Collapse Disorder George isn't sure whether the family business will make it.

China 2098 Tao works 12 hour days hand pollinating fruit trees since the bees and natural pollinators are long gone. But after a freak accident with her son, Tao uncovers a potential new source of hope for her community.

These three stories while centuries apart all come together and connect seamlessly in the end. They all show the power and importance of bees for food production. Without bees there is nothing. This was a really unique story and I really wasn't sure until close to the end how the stories would be connected, but the author does a great job of tying these seemingly unrelated people and stories together. Definitely an interesting book.

S is for Southern by Garden & Gun

I love Garden and Gun magazine, so I couldn't wait to check out this new book. Having grown up in the South, I love all things Southern and this book definitely does not disappoint. It covers everything from famous people, places, foods, ideas - there wasn't anything that I thought was missing from this book. I definitely learned some things too - I didn't know the Foxfire books started as a high school project or that people want their ashes kept in Duke's mayonnaise jars! This would make a great gift or addition to your bookshelf at home. Whether you're a Southerner from birth or it's your adopted home, this is a great book that really celebrates everything about the South.

Some favorite quotes:

Accent: "The Southern accent is one of our nation's greatest treasures. Its beauty rivals that of a songbird or the most resonant cello...There's a Northern accent as well, and it's easily distinguishable from a Southern accent the same way a paper bag full of broken glass is distinguishable from a cashmere scarf." (p. 2-3)

Foxfire: "Beginning in 1966, high-school students in Rabun County, Georgia, ventured out of the classroom to interview the elders of their mountain communities. The oral history project wound up becoming a social documentary on an epic scale, catalogued in more than a dozen best-selling Foxfirebooks now considered an invaluable archive of Southern Appalachian life and culture." (p. 101)

Gone With the Wind: "Thirty million or so copies later, Margaret Mitchell's sweeping 1936 historical novel, and its Oscar-winning film adaptation, leave a complicated legacy...Still, Vivian Leigh's Scarlett and Clark Gable's Rhett immortalized Mitchell's memorable duo for decades to come, inspiring official and unofficial sequels, spin-offs, parodies, painted porcelain, dolls, conventions, doodads, gewgaws, a famous Carol Burnett sketch, and legions of superfans called Windies. A 2014 Harris Poll reinforced the story's unfading popularity, ranking GWTW as the second-most-popular book in America - just behind the Bible." (p. 111)

Mayonnaise: "For a good number of Southerners, there's no such thing as mayonnaise. There is only Duke's Mayonnaise, made according to the sugarless recipe that Eugenia Duke of Greenville, South Carolina, devised in 1917...Mayonnaise is such a constant in Southern life that at least a few Southerners want it to be part of the hereafter, too: Duke's regularly hears from customers who want their remains forever kept in a Duke's jar." (p. 186)

Palmetto Bugs: "Exterminators will tell you there's a difference between species, but in the South, you can confidently call any cockroach longer than your thumb joint (knuckle to nail) a palmetto bug. Or, more likely, scream, 'Palmetto buggg!' as it scuttles at up to twenty miles per hour across the floor like the winged spawn of Satan that it is." (p. 227)

Generation Chef: risking it all for a new American dream by Karen Stabiner

Karen Stabiner followed new restaurant owner Jonah Miller on his journey to open his first restaurant. Miller quits a good job to start his dream of owning his own restaurant. After raising $700,000 in investments - mostly from friends and family - he finds a space, renovates, hires his staff, and bets his future on Huertas. This behind-the-scenes look shows just how stressful and hard it is to open a new restaurant in New York City. From raising the investment money needed to trying to get a liquor license there is SO much that has to be done. Everyone hears how hard it is for restaurants to succeed and in this book you see that through Miller's eyes. But, at the end of the book Huertas has survived for 3 years and Miller is finally able to start looking into his next venture because he doesn't want to just be a restaurant owner, he wants an empire. Overall, an interesting book at the behind-the-scenes side of the opening of a new restaurant. There were a few chapters that were kind of slower and I felt like the epilogue crammed a LOT of information in one final chapter, but overall good.

Once and For All by Sarah Dessen

** spoiler alert ** Louna Barrett grew up helping with her mother's wildly successful wedding planning business. But, Louna's parents divorced when she was a baby and her father died in a car accident not long after, so she's never seen the real "happily ever after" work out in person. Her own first love ended tragically and she can't seem to move on and open herself up to love again. When she meets Ambrose, a serial-dater who juggles multiple girls all the time, she immediately dislikes him. But, Ambrose is used to getting whatever girl he wants and he seems to have his sights on Louna. Can Louna give Ambrose or anyone a chance or will she be stuck on her lost first love forever? 

I like how Dessen slowly unfolds the story of Louna and her first love Ethan. The one thing I didn't like about this book was the unrealistic ending. I liked that Louna and Ambrose get together and that was done really well, but it's pretty far-fetched to think that not only would Louna find new love, but that her Mom and William (Mom's gay best friend and pseudo-father to Louna) would also both find new loves all at the same time. That was a little too Hallmark movie for me. But, I did like Louna's character and how you can see her slowly starting to open up her heart throughout the book.

Truffle Boy: my unexpected journey through the exotic food underground by Ian Purkayastha

Ian Purkayastha grew up in Texas with an Indian father and Texas mother. Some of his best childhood memories involved cooking and eating with his Texas grandparents and extended family. He learned about foraging for wild food from his uncle Jared. While researching wild foods Ian learns about truffles and is determined to try them. He saves up his money to buy some from Italy and is soon importing truffles and selling them to local high-end restaurants in Dallas and Austin, Texas - all while still in high school! After finishing high school he defers college to work for a truffle distributor in New York and within a few years has started his own company, Regalis, that imports truffles and other wild edibles for some of the most exclusive restaurants in the world. Ian is meticulous in making sure that all the food he sells is sourced locally and sustainably to keep his reputation spotless. At only 22 it might seem pretentious for Ian to write a memoir, but he has accomplished more by 22 than many people have after decades. A very unique memoir about the wild edible food world and one man who is building his food empire.

A quote I really liked:

[Ian bonded with his uncle Jared over their shared struggles with learning disabilities. Jared also taught Ian about foraging and wild food] "Like me, [Jared] had struggled through school, the situation made worse by his undiagnosed learning disabilities. Instead he watched Grizzly Adams, read Stalking the Wild Asparagus by wild-food expert Euell Gibbons, and devoured the Foxfire books, a 1970s series that documented Appalachian craft skills and folklore. (He built a functional still out of Foxfire for a high school science project.)" p. 38