I often wonder if I was born in the wrong era. Not that I want hardship in my life, but struggle builds character, and I have to say our generation is sorely lacking. Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls chronicles the life of her maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. As horrific as Walls’ childhood was (as chronicled in The Glass Castle), the life of Lily Casey Smith is inspiring. Smith had qualities rarely seen in women of her time and it seems like Jeannette Walls inherited a great deal of her maternal grandmother’s gumption.

Both of my paternal grandparents just passed away (within 70 days of each other), and while reading Half Broke Horses, I started thinking about the lives that their generation (and Lily Casey Smith) led. They saw a depression (much worse than ours), war (also more affecting), and multiple hardships. We have life so easy and yet we complain about everything. What would any of us do if we ever had to work half as hard as our grandparents did? Okay, I’m stepping off the soapbox now. Not that I want to work that hard. I’m spoiled and I like it that way. It is just good to remember how easy we have it.

The book is billed as a True Life Novel. It is a work of fiction based on the things that Walls knew or found out about her grandmother. I regret not asking my grandmother more questions about her life.

The Drink:

At one point in Half Broke Horses, Lily Casey Smith is selling bootlegged gin from a stash that she hides under the baby’s crib.  Who would suspect a mother and housewife?  In that spirit, I give you the Dirty Bathtub Gin Martini.

The Dirty Bathtub Gin Martini

a splash of dry vermouth

gin

olive juice (the dirtier the better)

shake together with ice, pour, and serve with olives and a lemon twist.

I’m not even sure how I made it far enough to write a review.  I guess I couldn’t believe that any piece of writing could actually be so terrible.  The first six chapters of Fifty Shades of Grey are quite possibly the worst I have ever read: and I read a LOT!  Where should I start?  I heard from a friend that E.L James was inspired by Twilight.  Everyone who knows me knows that the Twilight Saga is my guilty pleasure, so naturally I was intrigued.  Booksellers can’t seem to keep the titles in stock.  I can see how the success could inspire you, but this author actually uses exact conversations from Twilight in her book.  I felt like I was reading a very very bad adaptation.

I guess I should tell you the plot, huh?  Well Anastasia is a college student who is coerced by her roommate into interviewing a wealthy businessman for the school paper.  The friend is sick, so Ana goes.  The businessman turns out to be young, incredibly handsome, and then the Twilight plot begins.  He can’t seem to stay away from her, he keeps warning her that he is “dangerous”, he speaks like he is much older than he is, blah, blah, blah.  There are so many, I could go on forever.  If you are going to write a book, at least be original enough to come up with your own plot line.

Now, I am usually a very forgiving reader.  I have never written a book, so I feel a little unqualified to judge another person’s writing too harshly.  I could not figure out why this book was selling out in minutes.

Then I got to Chapter 7 and I got it.  This book goes from Twilight to porn before you even know what’s happening.  Instead of the dangerous man being a vampire, he is a sadist.  He has an entire room just for his sexual desires:  chains, whips, and other sexual torture devices.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Ana is a virgin.  (It is really bad writing.  Have I mentioned that?)

If you are looking for good literature, this is not it.  If you are looking for a little something to get your libido going, this will do it, but there are better books out there.  Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquelaure, wrote the Sleeping Beauty trilogy, that is pretty good writing and does the job much better.

The Drink:

A shot of Patron to dull the pain and a cigarette for the afterglow.

So, I did the dumbest thing ever.  I gave up alcohol for Lent.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  Last year I gave up soda and it was hard, but it didn’t affect my social life.  Anyway, I’m already wavering since I have two trips coming up and what is a vacation without booze? Especially since my kids will be with me; I will definitely need a drink.  A friend suggested that I give up books, but honestly, I don’t think God wants me to go crazy.  I can survive without alcohol right?  I did it for both of my pregnancies.  I’m still not sure why I did this voluntarily.

So, I did not give up books.  I’ve been reading just as much as ever: when I can pull myself away from Pinterest.  I have three books that I am going to share with you today.

The first book, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, takes place in Seattle.  The main character, Henry, is remembering his childhood after the passing of his wife.  Henry is Chinese.  As he remembers, we meet Keiko, his best friend, who is Japanese.   Henry and Keiko were growing up in Seattle in the 1940′s, not long after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  The growing resentment toward the Japanese in America (including Henry’s father) led to hundreds of thousands of people being “evacuated” or “relocated” to internment camps further inland.  The fear of sympathetic Japanese American spies helping to facilitate attacks on the Western seaboard of the US was a very real one.  This novel follows Henry’s heart as he relates his story of what it was like to have his best friend be hated by his family and then rounded up and sent away.

This book was good.  I’m glad I read it.  Henry’s story was a little slow for me, but altogether realistic.  Real life isn’t always fast-paced and climactic.  The historical side of the novel was great.  I’m kind of a WWII junkie, though my focus has always been on the Nazi Germany side of it.  I know very little about what happened in the Pacific other than the bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  This was pretty eye-opening.  Roosevelt is always seen as a huge hero.  No one talks about his part in the systematic rounding up of a race of people that happened in our own country.  Though these were not “death camps”, it wasn’t sunshine and roses either.  We don’t really learn about this in school.  Do German kids learn about the holocaust?

The next book is Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James.  Six years after Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy are married, they have two sons and are living blissful lives at the grand estate of Pemberley.  The evening before Lady Anne’s Ball (named for Darcy’s late mother), Lydia Wickham, Elizabeth’s sister, arrives distraught over her missing husband George Wickham and his friend, Captain Denny who have apparently run into the woods after an argument.  Darcy and his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam mount a search party and find one dead body and a suspect.

It was okay.  I LOVE Pride and Prejudice.  Darcy’s Story by Janet Aylmer is the story of P&P told entirely from Darcy’s perspective.  I really liked it.  Death Comes to Pemberley is written well in that you feel like the time period is the same, but the characters are much too flat and there is too little action.  There is some intrigue, but not enough to make me go telling everyone that they have to read this book.  I did however, very much enjoy the ending.  The Wickhams’ fate made me happy.

I am now realizing that everything I have read in the past month was a little depressing. I’m not depressed though so I guess it’s okay.  The third book is called Little Bee by Chris Cleave.  Little Bee is leaving a detention center outside of London.  Two years earlier she arrived there after fleeing from Africa (Nigeria, I think).  She has a business card for an Englishman named Andrew and his wife, Sarah, whom she met on the beach two years earlier.  Little Bee finds them after she leaves the detention center and the novel follows as she and Sarah help each other heal from wounds too deep to bear.  There is a lot of build up to get to a horrific event both women shared.

Depressing I know.  Pretty good if you are in the mood for sadness and drama.  Luckily, here in Texas it is pretty much spring and I’m ready for some mindless fluff.  Maybe I should read the Twilight Saga again…

The Drink:

Since I did give up alcohol for Lent and so far I haven’t weakened, I have been supernaturally drawn to my Cocktail Bible.  One of our ministers at church stresses the importance of every Sunday being a “Little Easter” and breaking the fast, and we spent our first Sunday celebrating with a champagne cocktail.  Spring is creeping closer, and what better way to celebrate than with something fun and bubbly?

Please note that I improvise on almost every recipe I make.  It makes the drink less authentic and probably affects the taste considerably, but we don’t really care.  We just like to drink.

Champagne Cocktail

Place sugar cube in the bottom of a champagne flute. (We put a teaspoon of sugar in a wine glass). Add a dash of angostura bitters.  Fill glass with champagne. (We used Prosecco). Top off with a lemon twist.

So I’ve been reading as crazy as usual, but haven’t had the time to post the books that I’ve read let alone find a drink to pair with it.  So today, I will post the titles of the books that I haven’t yet blogged about along with a short description but no pairing.  Although, everything goes well with a glass of red wine.

The Witch’s Daughter by Paula Brackston–Quite frankly, I was underwhelmed by this book.  It was okay.  I finished it, but it is not at the top of the list of books that I would recommend.  It follows a woman named Bess who is like 360 years old as she runs from a fellow witch who has been hunting for her and following her through various lives and occupations she has made for herself.  I love stuff about witches, but this just didn’t impress me, though some of the historical stuff was interesting.  If you want a good book about witches, read A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  It’s great and the second one comes out later this year.  You can read my review of A Discovery of Witches here.

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown–This book follows three sisters who have all moved home.  Their mother has been diagnosed with cancer and their father is a Shakespeare scholar who always speaks in verse.  I liked this book because it shows the sisterly dynamic as one that is closer to my own.  The relationships between the girls seem real and insightful.  There is love, but also bitterness and blame and understanding.  It was pretty good.

The Dirty Parts of the Bible by Sam Torode–This book was recommended by a friend and I really did enjoy it.  The end got a little weird, which I think hurt the story a little bit, but overall, it was a good book.  I bought it on my Nook for $.99, so to me, it was worth it.  There is nothing worse than spending ten bucks on a book for it to be something you didn’t like that much.  Since I’ve been reading mostly library books, the sting seems a little sharper.  Anyway, this book is about the son of a preacher who leaves home to retrieve some money from his father’s childhood home after his father is disgraced.  He disproves all of the crazy religious falsehoods his parents have drilled into his sweet head, mostly having to do with sex.

More to come…

Happy New Year!  I have been reading like crazy the last few weeks and I have finished yet another wonderful book.  The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley is fantastic.  I loved it.  And it was over 400 pages, so it made me really happy that it wasn’t over too soon.  I really hate that.  You are reading along having a wonderful time and the next thing you know it’s over.  I always get a little sad when a great book ends, but lucky for me this is a series.  I started the second book yesterday, so hopefully it will be just as marvelous.

Flavia de Luce is an 11-year-old girl living in her family home of Buckshaw around 1950.  She lives with her reclusive father and two sisters in this massive house.  Flavia does not particularly get along with her sisters and in the opening of the book, they have tied her up and left her in a closet or the attic. (I forgot which, and I already returned the book to the library.)  Flavia is a chemistry whiz and has her own lab in the house that belonged once to a long deceased relative.  Her revenge plots against her sisters are usually chemical and she specializes in poison.  Now this makes Flavia sound a little creepy, but really, she’s not in the slightest.  She is precocious and brilliant and made me remember how much I always like chemistry.  (When my kids are big enough, we are definitely getting a chemistry set.)  Anyway, one night Flavia hears her father arguing with a strange man and then finds that same man dead the next morning.  The adventures that ensue are funny and a little nerve-wracking since our heroine is but an 11-year-old girl.  I can’t say enough wonderful things about this gem of a book.  Read it!  It is on our list for book club this year.

The Drink

As I mentioned, Flavia de Luce is an accomplished chemist and poisons are her passion.  Pick your poison and make a cocktail.  My husband and I tend to favor bourbon above all else, so here is a bourbon cocktail for your drinking pleasure.

Manhattan 7

My own creation, but I’m sure I’m not the first to do this.  It’s not exactly a difficult cocktail to make.

glass of ice, dash of bitters, shot of bourbon, sweet vermouth, top off with sprite or 7up and garnish with a cherry.

For me, a regular Manhattan is a little too bitter.  The 7up adds a little more sweetness.

Classics can be daunting.  I find myself still occasionally harboring the same attitude that accompanied me in high school and college.  Their very pages seemed to ooze with boredom.  Over the past five years, I have picked up a number of classics that I could never seem to get through previously.  Each one, after reading, has made in onto my list of favorite books.  Obviously, they are classics for a reason and now that my social life isn’t my only concern, they are ever so slowly creeping back into my literary repertoire.  Pride and Prejudice, for example, was one that I tried to read once when I was about 15.  After the first ten pages, I gave up.  Then I saw the movie, loved it and decided to give the book another go.  Pride and Prejudice is now one of the best books I have ever read.  Jane Eyre is another.  We read it for Book Club and it is a beautiful book.  I had never read a gothic novel.  I has a completely unique feel to it.  Not to downplay the books that I actually did read in college, but my focus was more on world literature and we focused on the Russians, French, and German authors.  Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Flaubert and Turgenev.  More obscure classics.

Which brings me here.  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  A good friend of mine listed it as one of her favorite books of all time, so when I found myself at Half Price Books, I picked up a copy.  It is fairly short and very easy to read as far as classics go.  I finished the entire book in a day and a half.  Nick Carraway has moved East to a place called West Egg in Long Island, New York and finds himself living in a small house next to a huge mansion.  Jay Gatsby, Nick’s neighbor, is forever throwing lavish parties populated with strangers.  Surrounding Gatsby is a great deal of speculation and mystery and Nick finds himself befriended by his strange neighbor.  Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan, features largely in this tale as does her husband Tom Buchanan and his mistress Myrtle Wilson.  This is a story of love and lies among the wealthy.  I’m afraid of telling too much about the book because I might give something away.  It is not a long book and uncovering the mysteries is half the fun.  This book was really good.  It’s a little confusing in places, but for me that could have been because of all the daft, unnecessary writing in the margins.

The Drink

For Christmas, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, got me a book called The Cocktail Bible by Linda Doesser.  This drink is from that book.

The characters in The Great Gatsby drink Chartreuse throughout the novel.  Chartreuse is a liqueur which is chartreuse in color and tastes sweet and spicy.  Since this cocktail has the same name as Gatsby’s love interest, I thought it was fitting.

Chartreuse Daisy

put 4-6 cracked ice cubes into a cocktail shaker. Dash lemon juice over the ice and pour in two measures brandy and measure green Chartreuse.  Shake vigourously until a frost forms, then strain into a chilled glass. Top off with sparkling mineral water.

My book club had a book exchange for the month of December and I think except for the book that I wrapped, all ten books were either books I already wanted to read or wanted to read as soon as I read the back.  The great thing about a book exchange like we did is that at least one person with similar tastes in literature had already read the book and liked it. Makes it easier than choosing a book blindly.  I will give you a quick list of the books that were exchanged in case you are curious.

Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Allen Bradley

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella

The book I ended up with was Little Bee by Chris Cleave, but I haven’t read that quite yet.  Instead, I checked out Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult on my iPad.  If you have an iPad, love to read, and don’t know about Overdrive, then my friends, you are missing out.  All you need is a library card and you can start checking out books.  You can download the app for the iPhone too, but I don’t think I could read a book on my phone.  It gives me a headache just thinking about it.  Anyway, I checked out Keeping Faith and it was really great.

The book is about a woman and her daughter, Faith.  Mariah is going through a divorce and her 7-year-old daughter, Faith begins hanging around with an imaginary friend who her mother thinks she is calling her “guard”.  It turns out, she is calling her friend “God”.  Mariah and Faith are non-practicing Jews, so when Faith begins reciting bible verses from the New Testament that she has never heard before, her mother becomes concerned.  Faith begins inadvertently performing miracles and develops stigmata, and people begin flocking to their home hoping for miracles of their own.  Keeping Faith has amazing depth and is thought provoking on both a religious and a psychological level.  I really liked it and it was nice to have read it going into Christmas.

The Drink

I actually feel kind of strange pairing this particular book with a drink, but I’ll try.  I got this recipe, which I have not tried, from a blog called The Joy of Drinking.

Manna from Heaven

Manna was the miraculous food source provided to the Israelites as they wandered through the desert. As you may or may not know (depending on your level of free time and interest), manna had the appearance of white coriander seeds and tasted like honey.

1.5 oz Aalbord Akvavit. Spring for the gold stuff, don’t be cheap and buy the white stuff, since it’s pretty harsh. Akkavit is a Scandinavian spirit; it’s name means “Water of Life.” This brand specifically is from Denmark. It’s basically a neutral spirit flavored with various herbs, in this case, dill and coriander.

.5 oz Barenjager honey liqueur

.5 oz Heavy Cream

Shake well with ice, strain and serve straight up, with an orange garnish. The orange isn’t Biblical, just tasty

I few weeks ago I needed a new book and the valet guy at my church recommended this one.  The Maze Runner by James Dashner is a lot like the Hunger Games in its futuresque hopelessness, but The Maze Runner is markedly more depressing and not as good.

Thomas finds himself waking in a huge metal box.  It is pitch black and he only knows his name.  All of his other memories are gone.  When the box opens he finds a group of boys staring at him.  He has entered the Glade.  The Glade consists of four walls that close every night and a completely self sustaining world.  There is a farm that provides food and all other supplies arrive once a week in the same box that brought Thomas to the Glade.  Beyond the four walls lies the Maze and the goal is for these boys to find a solution.  Seems easy enough, but the boys have been there for years to no avail.  It is a frightening and confusing place where  they only have first names and no one has any memory of anything before they found themselves in the Glade.  When a girl shows up the day after Thomas, the Glade is thrown into chaos and Thomas must help everyone escape.

This book is okay.  I liked it, but not as much as The Hunger Games.  I’m on the second book in the trilogy now.  If you like Scifi, then you will probably enjoy this, though it’s not great literature.  It is for young adults and it is written accordingly.

The Drink

Since this book consists of a bunch of adolescent boys policing themselves a la Lord of the Flies the drink is:

Mad Dog 20/20 any flavor

Should get you in the spirit.