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READ: The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

No one writes a love story like Alice Hoffman.

I have never been disappointed in an Alice Hoffman book. She is an extremely prolific story teller who has published books since she was in early 20’s. I have read and enjoyed EACH and EVERY one of her stories. They remind me of the magic and beauty in our world. “Blackbird House,” ” The Dovekeepers,” and “Practical Magic” are essential reads.

In the “The Museum of Extraordinary Things” Hoffman creates yet another magical fairy tale. The novel takes place in Brooklyn in 1911 when the city was undergoing massive transformations. The novel weaves real events into the narrative with the Dreamland Amusement Park and the horrifying Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. These provide the backdrop to the stories of the two narrators – Coralie and Eddie. Both of these lost souls are searching for happiness after years of disappointment and loneliness. They are both motherless, have difficult relations with their fathers (for very different reasons), and are mentored by people who are outcasts to society.

Hoffman uses powerful themes and images in her work that contribute to the magical realism of her writing. In this book she plays with many opposing ideas like Fire/Water, Darkness/Light, Rich/Poor, Religious/Atheist, Normal/”Abnormal”, Entertainment/Exploitation. The imagery adds to the spell that her words have on readers. Pay attention to the many ways she utilizes animals throughout the story – Fish, Dogs, Birds, Tortoise, Wolves. Compassionate practices towards animals contrast with the inhumane nature of labor practices for immigrants and “freaks.” The characters who are affiliated with animals are the “good guys” in the story.

Scenery and setting are key to this novel. Hoffman writes in a way that allows her readers to smell and feel everything. While I was reading this book I had dreams about the museum, the Hudson River, the forests of Ukraine, and Eddie’s carriage house. Hoffman does not write paragraphs and paragraphs of description, instead she has the power to create a sense of place with just a few well-chosen words.

Overall, the book is about the transforming power of love. Good love overcomes misunderstandings and evil. It is everything. One of the characters says about his wife who died shortly after they were married, “I’ll tell you this, a day with with her was better than a life without her…I wouldn’t mind being haunted. I’d be happy about it.” “The Museum of Extraordinary Things” enchants and delights on every page.

Authors have started releasing short youtube videos for their books. Elizabeth Gilbert did it for “The Signature of All Things,” and I noticed that Hoffman did it for this book. Kind of weird. Kind of interesting. Must be a new marketing tool that publishers are using…

In other Hoffman news, I read “The Dovekeepers” is being made into a mini-series that will be released in 2015. It will be on CBS – I’d be much more excited if it was HBO or Showtime, but I’ll still watch it.

Also, I blogged a few months ago about the 21-Day Oprah/Deepak Meditation Challenge. A new challenge, Find Your Flow, starts on MONDAY, April 14th. Register for it here!

READ: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

I have a membership to the San Diego Zoo that I bought when my niece and nephew were in town last summer. The zoo is in Balboa Park, one of my favorite spots in town, and it is an incredible space with lush greenery, beautiful flowers and plants, and a wide variety of awesome animals.

In spite of all the positives I listed – I’m done with zoos. For good.

Every time I leave I feel horrible and haunted by all the sentient beings that are in their enclosures being stared at by an ever-changing group of visitors. I’ve tried to talk myself into liking the zoo, after all, the animals may have a better chance of surviving at the zoo than they would in their natural habitats that are being decimated by our destruction of the environment. But I am done trying to fool myself. Whenever I look at the animals I see all the similarities between them and me. They feel pain, pleasure, hunger, excitement, fear, compassion, and yes, they share the most important quality that humans have – love. Check out the love in this video that was just released by the San Diego Zoo of a momma gorilla being reunited with her baby.

My sincere hope is that this momma gorilla and her baby are never separated because the San Diego Zoo decides to sell one of them to another zoo or park. When watching videos like this it is important to remember that zoos are breeding grounds where families are often separated.

I am familiar with the argument that zoos are good for animals and that they educate people. But in reality, they reinforce humans dominance over animals and we talk ourselves into thinking that zoos are good for animals. Much like we reassure ourselves that it is acceptable to eat some animals and not others.

The hardest part for me at zoos has always been the gorillas and chimpanzees because it is like I am looking in the mirror. Chimps are the closest relative to humans – Karen Joy Fowler’s spectacular novel “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” explores our similarity. I read this book awhile ago, but I didn’t know how to write about it without giving away the “surprise.” Who wants to be the spoiler? Barbara Kingsolver (my favorite author!) wrote an amazing review of this book in the NY Times, and in it she gives the “surprise” away because it does not detract from the power and message of the book.

For the first 100 pages it is not obvious that a chimp is in the novel, because she is referred to over and over again as the long-lost sister of the narrator, Rosemary. The sister of Rosemary is a trouble-making, antic-loving chimpanzee named Fern.

Rosemary and Fern are a part of an experiment where they are raised together to see what characteristics they share, etc. Fern is raised in a human family and treated like the other two children, Rosemary and Lowell Cooke. Tight familial bonds are created – of course those bonds include love, friendship, sibling rivalry, and misunderstandings. Since Rosemary is raised side by side with Fern, she develops “ape” like tendencies such as standing close to people, touching others a lot, and acting a little out of control. Rosemary and Fern mirror each other in many ways.

Fern leaves the Cooke family when she is 5 years old. Her departure creates a huge hole in the family that tears them apart. This novel explores family dynamics, while at the same time it scrutinizes the relationship between humans and animals. At one point Lowell says about the way that we treat animals: “The world runs…on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don’t mind what they don’t see. Make them look and they mind, but you’re the one they hate, because you’re the one who made them look.” Of course this statement is so, so true – we like to shoot the messenger instead of thinking about the message.

Fowler does not lecture or preach in this novel – she is way too much of an expert novelist to do that. Instead she weaves a subtle, powerful story with well-developed characters and an intense plot that involves the way our memories can play tricks on us. It is well-researched and is loosely based on a true story. I love that she challenges her reader to think about so many things that we try to not think about. At one point Rosemary says: “You might be shown the photos of the space chimps in their helmets, grinning from ear to ear, and you might feel an urge to tell the rest of your class that chimps grin like that only when they’re frightened, that no amount of time with humans will change it. Those happy-looking space chimps in those pictures are frankly terrified and maybe you just barely stop yourself from saying so.” We fool ourselves into thinking the chimp is having fun, just like we tell ourselves that animals like being in a zoo.

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I have been obsessed with podcasts lately. I think people around me on the freeway think I am crazy because I am always laughing or crying in my car. If you get a chance, listen to two of my favorites:

Animal Sacrifice|This American Life – The story about dogs during WWII surprises and bewilders.

Space|Radio Lab – I’ve listened to this podcast at least 3x over the last 2 years. Anne Druyan gives a beautiful interview about her love for Carl Sagan. If, like me, you are obsessed with the TV show COSMOS this is a MUST listen.

READ: Jeannette Walls

My sister visited last week, and while she was here we went to a talk by Jeannette Walls at the Point Loma Nazarene Writer’s Symposium. Walls wrote the 2006 NY Times Best Selling memoir “The Glass Castle” – I feel like I may be the only person who hasn’t read it. She was gracious, warm, inspiring, and authentic in the discussion. I wanted to have a cup of coffee with her and keep the discussion going. Storytelling comes naturally for her, and the coolest part is that she knows that she has been given a beautiful gift.

Walls said a lot of things that resonated with me and I filled 4 pages in my notebook. She kept repeating that we don’t have perspective on our own story – because we are a part of the story we don’t realize the amazing stories that each of us have. Write it down, be honest, and a unique story will emerge. All stores are different because “People can agree on facts, but not how it happened.” Being honest liberated her.

Walls had a horrible, “wacky” childhood (as described in detail in “The Glass Castle”), however she is not bitter or broken. Her bad childhood put everything in perspective and she never takes her life, or a meal, for granted. The interviewer at the talk asked her if she had forgiven her parents, and Walls said that she did not need to forgive them. They did the best they could, and if she forgives, she sees herself as a victim. She chooses not to see herself as a victim. She said, “Love of education and self-esteem can get you through anything.” Her parents, with all of their faults, gave her those two things.

I felt like the discussion with her continued over the last week because I listened to her novel “The Silver Star,” on CD and she reads the story. I am not sure I would have liked the book if it was narrated by someone else. Since I had just been to her talk , I felt like she was in the car telling me a story while I drove on my commute. This is the first fiction novel by Walls, and she said in her talk that there were a lot of grains of truth in it.

The narrator of the story, Bean Holloday, reminded me of Scout from “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Bean is all spunk and sass. “The Silver Star” explores small town life, messed-up families, the bonds of sisters, and the potential dangers of standing up for what is right.

I am so excited about two books that are coming out that I am adding to this reading list.

My father-in-law introduced me to Tom Robbins and “Jitterbug Perfume” when I was 18. I LOVED that book, I still do. There were only three things I liked about my freshman year of college at Michigan State University: my roommate, working at the Wharton Center and seeing free plays, and reading ALL of Robbins books over and over. I highlighted the crap out of those books. Robbins has a memoir coming out called: Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life. I can’t wait to read it!
The final book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness comes out in a few months. It is called The Book of Life, and if you have not started the series and you like believable stories about vampires and witches you should start reading now. The series reminds me of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witch Series – which I think is her best work.

EAT: Chilaquiles

The best breakfast food on the planet is chilaquiles. It is followed closely by avocado toast. Those two things, with a green juice and a pot of coffee are my ideal morning foods.

My friend and I have discussed many times that we should open a restaurant that has a chilaquiles buffet at weekend brunch. Picture it — An option of green or red chilaquiles with a huge assortment of toppings so it could suit all preferences. Options for the buffet could include: lettuces, tomato, olives, avocados, jalapenos, chopped onions, scallions, pickled red onions, cilantro, queso fresco, tofu scramble, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, beans, a variety of hot sauces, cashew queso…sounds amazing, doesn’t it?

After making enchiladas the other night I had leftover sauce, so I made a batch of chilaquiles for breakfast the next day. They are super simple to make. This is how you do it:

Ingredients

1/2 bag of chips (about 3 cups more or less)- we’re lucky in San Diego to have Mexican grocery stores all over the place that sell yummy, greasy chips

About 2 cups of enchilada sauce – green or red. If you are super motivated make your own sauce.

Any of the toppings that I have listed above.

Make

Heat the sauce with about 1/2 cup water in a big soup pot until it is hot and bubbly. Add the chips. Stir, gently, until they are all coated with the sauce, and getting a little soft. Serve immediately with lots of toppings. You will be happy.

I’ll let you know when we get the restaurant open and the chilaquiles buffet is available.

Also, the Morning News Tournament of Books is underway. It is really fun for book-lovers. Check it out here

EAT: Cauliflower Puree Pizza

Meatless Monday recipe…cauliflower is the new kale. We eat at least one bunch of it a week – usually as cauliflower buffalo wings (check out recipes here and here), or roasted and put into a bowl with quinoa and baked tofu. I have been trying to master a curried cauliflower soup (inspired by a bowl we had at True Food a few months ago) for the last few months, but so far, I would rate my attempts a solid B.

Right now, my favorite pizza is at the The Rose Wine Pub, a few blocks from our house. We love the cozy atmosphere of the Rose, and we love the pizza with a salad on top, so delicious. We make a lot of vegan pizza – our favorites include variations on BBQ Pizza, Tofu “Ricotta” Pizza, and Soyrizo Pizza. Inspired by our favorite pizza at The Rose, and the three heads of cauliflower I had in the fridge, I made the following for dinner tonight…

Cauliflower Puree

Pizza Dough – Trader Joe’s or your favorite recipe

1 head of cauliflower, cut up
1/3 cup almond milk
1/2 cup nutritional yeast (or parmesan cheese, if that is your preference)
2 tsp garlic powder
Salt +Pepper

2 big handfuls of kale, julienned
1 lemon
1 TB of olive oil (I like to use the garlic infused olive oil from Trader Joe’s)
Couple of shakes of red pepper and Salt +Pepper

Preheat oven to 450.

Steam the cut-up cauliflower for ~7 minutes until it is fork-tender. Puree the cauliflower, almond milk, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, s+p in a food processor, vitamix, blender, or with an immersion blender.

While the cauliflower cooks, make the kale salad. Mix the lemon, olive oil, and S+P, then add the kale and massage it for a minute or two.

Spread the dough on a baking sheet (I usually spray the sheet with oil first), spread the puree on top, and bake for about 12-14 minutes. Take it out of the oven when the crust is done and the puree is getting brown and a little bubbly. After it comes out of the oven, top it with the kale salad.

I am thinking of ways that I could improve this – cashews in the cauliflower puree, adding pine nuts or sundried tomatoes to the kale…it is a yummy, healthy meal and I’ll keep playing with this basic, satisfying recipe.

READ: The Fault in our Stars by John Green

This morning I read the last 100 pages of “The Fault In Our Stars” by John Green in one sitting. Then I cried my face off for an hour. I got up to do the dishes, tears still came. I went to yoga, sat down on my mat, and the tears continued to leak out of my eyes. I don’t think I will be able to see the movie, which comes out in June, without a box of kleenex.

I didn’t want to read this book, even though it was on all the must-read lists of 2012, because over and over I heard that it was a tear-jerker and super sad. It seemed like the book would be a big, fat cliche. I am so glad that I put it on my library list (it took me almost 5 months to get it – I was #675 on the reserve list). The reason I finally decided to read it was the title. “The Fault In Our Stars” is a great title and it brings all kinds of thoughts and images to my mind (my favorite book title of all time is “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” by Joan Didion, which is actually a phrase by Yeats). The reason for the name of the title is revealed in the book, and it made me love the title even more. I thought I knew how the book would go before I even read it, instead the irreverent writing and unpredictable storyline surprised me. Green perfectly captures being a teenager, and a person, in a f#@%ed up, unfair situation.

I am sure you have heard the basic premise of this book: two teenagers meet in a kids-with-cancer support group and they fall in love. The narrator, Hazel Grace, is a 16 year old who will make you adore her before the end of the first chapter. Hazel has terminal cancer. She encounters Augustus at the cancer support meeting, and immediately they start a snappy dialogue that they both don’t want to ever end.

They fall in love fast, after all, Hazel has terminal cancer and does not know how much longer she will live. In a memorable scene Augustus says, “I’m in love with you, and I know love is just a shout out into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we are all doomed and that there will come a day when all of our labor is returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” And that is the kind of dazzling words and images that make this book so good. A version of this speech is in the movie preview above.

Everyone that knows me knows that I get so excited about what I am reading, and I want to share it with everyone (which is part of the reason I started this blog). Hazel describes this trait that we share perfectly, “Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” I feel that way about so much that I read!

I’ll get my evangelical thing going…You should read “The Fault In Our Stars.” It will break your heart, and it will remind you that never have enough time, no matter how long you live. Everyday, normal life is awesome. Love is a gift. Nothing is more important than the current moment. We are all made of stars. I am writing cliches now…

READ: The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

One of the best parts of working at a university is the library. Students are busy reading for class, so new releases are almost always available and I can check them out for 5 months. I picked up The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri about 2 months ago from Geisel Library, but it sat, untouched, in a pile of books in my bedroom. Then I received an email from the library telling me that I had to return it within five days because it had been requested…I can’t stand returning my library books late, so the email prompted me to pick it up to read the first page, and I had no problem finishing it in the five days that I had left to read it.

Surprisingly, “The Lowland” is the first book I have read by Lahiri. I have heard all good things, but for some reason I haven’t read her work. After reading this, I will definitely be checking out her previous novels. “The Lowland” covers four generations of an Indian family whose lives go from India to Rhode Island to California. The chapters rotate narrators, and the literary device helps this novel explore the theme of the big, gigantic pain of secrets.

Subhash and Udayan are brothers growing up in India with a close bond, but as they enter college they start to separate, especially when Udayan becomes involved in the Naxalite movement (which I had never heard about prior to reading this). Subhash moves to the United States to complete his education, while Udayan stays in India and marries a woman named Gauri. Tragedy strikes, and the lives of these characters intersect in a way that none of them expected.

My favorite narrator in the the book is the somewhat unsympathetic character of Gauri. Her passion for philosophy leads to beautiful passages about time. Gauri has “an acute awareness of time, of the future looming, accelerating. The baby’s lifetime, so scant, already outdistancing and outpacing her own. This was the logic of parenthood.”

When Gauri talks about her daughter, it reminded me of so many children who are trying to understand the baffling, incomprehensible passage of time. In particular, I remember my sister, Julie, doing this: “At four Bela was developing a memory. The word yesterday entered her vocabulary, though its meaning was elastic, synonomous with whatever was no longer the case. The past collapsed, in no particular order, contained by a single word…Bela’s yesterday was a receptacle for anything her mind stored. Any experience or impression that had come before. Her memory was brief, its contents limited. Lacking chronology, randomly rearranged”

Time helps heal some wounds in the book, however the characters feel overwhelmed by the inescapable past. It is always there. The secrets spread apart the family and cause a lot of pain. Lahiri tells a satisfying, deep, multicultural story that beautifully comes together and sticks with the reader.

On a different note, I have rediscovered my love for audio books. Over the last few weeks I’ve listened to “Fin and Lady” by Cathleen Schine, “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C. Clarke, and “Lit” by Mary Karr. They have all been great, escapist audio narratives, especially “Lit”. Karr is a master memoirist who narrates her audio book with her southern accent and lots of emotion. The book explores her descent into alcoholism and the years it took her to grapple with her demons. Listening to these books on CD makes my crappy commute so much better, in fact, some days I am glad to be stuck in a traffic jam on the 5.

LIFE: Urban Gardening

I have failed at my multiple attempts at gardening in a rental near a canyon that is full of skunks, foxes, coyotes, and gophers. However, I won’t give up, and one of these days I’ll have a garden again. For now, I get to enjoy the wonderful garden that my friends, Megan and Jon, have cultivated in their front yard. I posted about the garden, and a yummy dinner that we made on one of my most favorite blogs…Vegenista.

Click here to read the guest post.

The pictures above and all the pictures in the post are by the ultra-talented Megan Morello. Check out her work at laluzphoto.net

READ: The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

I stayed up late the other night finishing “The Signature of All Things” by Elizabeth Gilbert because I wanted to see how it all turned out. “I want to see how everything is going to turn out” is the signature phrase of my Great-Aunt Nancy, and it fits her to a tee. Her curiosity has played a strong part in keeping her alive, and sharp, into her 90’s. The main character in “The Signature of All Things,” Alma Whitaker, has that same inquisitive trait (she reminds me in many ways of my Great-Aunt Nanc) and the story of her life makes for a fantastic read. I loved this book. It is an essential read.

I learned a lot while I read “The Signature of All Things,” but I didn’t realize it until I finished because I became so lost in the narrative. Gilbert masterfully provides her readers with science and history lessons, all seen through the eyes of Alma, one of the most fully developed characters I have encountered. Curiosity and a thirst for knowledge sustains us. Gilbert’s narrative demonstrates that searching for answers, asking questions, and looking for meaning are all human traits that are absolute gifts (most of the time).

The Signature of All Things

Alma Whitaker is born in 1800 into a privileged life on an estate in Pennsylvania. Her father and mother have high expectations for Alma’s behavior and attitude, so every moment of the day is filled up with opportunities for her to learn and experiment. The house she grows up in has a steady stream of esteemed visitors, who must be interesting, articulate, and intelligent to meet the intellectual demands of Alma’s father. One of my favorites scenes in the book occurs when an astronomer creates a solar system at a party held outdoors. I don’t want to spoil the scene for people who haven’t read it so I won’t describe it in detail, but at one point Alma becomes a comet. Gilbert writes:

Astonishingly, at some point, a sputtering torch was thrust into her hands. Alma did not see who gave it to her. She had never before been entrusted with fire. The torch spit sparked and sent chunks of flaming tar spinning into the air behind her as she bolted across the cosmos-the only body in the heavens who was not held to a strict elliptical path.

Nobody stopped her.

She was a comet.

She did not know that she was not flying.

Her knowledge gives her confidence, and one of the characters tells her that “The entirety of your being is reassuring, Alma.” As a woman in the 19th century her opportunities were limited, but she makes the best of her circumstances and eventually her life leads her to places and to people she would never have imagined. Alma does not have a perfect life, but it is a full, meaningful life. Really, what more can we ask for?

More than anything Alma likes to study and theorize. She devises theories of time and thinks of them in four groups: Human Time, Geological Time, Divine Time, Moss Time. Alma thinks, “The most striking characteristic of Human Time, however, is that it moved with such amazing quickness. It was a snap of the finger across the universe…She was a mere blink of existence, as was everyone else.” Her descriptions of all the Times are beautiful and thought-provoking.

My favorite line of the book, which brought tears to my eyes because I thought of my Great-Aunt Nanc, is when Gilbert writes that Alma, “…still wanted to see what happened next, as much as ever.” Because we all live in Human Time, as Alma would say, we don’t get to see what happens next. We need to make the most of the time we have.

Aunt Nancy when she was about 85. She had just made us pull over when we were driving so she could look at plants growing on the side of the road. — Aunt Nancy at about 85 years old. She had just made us pull over when we were driving so she could look at plants growing on the side of the road.

READ: 2014 Book Preview

The other day at the San Diego Central Library I noticed a card catalog and it reminded me of the way I used to do research projects in high school and the first year or two of college. I have not opened a card catalog in almost twenty years. I loved research projects in school because they would lead to unexpected discoveries and open up unknown worlds. The first research project I remember was in fourth or fifth grade in my “Program for the Academically Talented” class (do they still have this program or is it a remnant of the 80’s?). The project involved Greek and Roman Gods, and as soon as I started learning about them I wanted to know everything. One discovery led to another, and over time the little bit that I learned led me to Homer, Sophocles, Socrates, and so much more.

200px-Gatsby_1925_jacket Zelda Fitzgerald was the subject of my 9th research project and I chose her because of my obsession with “The Great Gatsby.” Researching Zelda led me to authors like Edna St. Vincent Millay (same biographer), Ernest Hemingway (Zelda could not stand him), and Sylvia Plath (she always reminded me of Zelda). Learning is a continuous, exciting cycle where little flickers of interest move us to diverse things.

Part of the fun of reading for me is deciding what to read next, I like researching upcoming books. The sources I turn to the most are IndieBound, the New York Times, and The Guardian. I also get ideas for what to read next from walking through bookstores. The books below are all going to be added to my library list in 2014.

“California” by Edan Lepucki (expected Summer 2014)

I am a little jealous of this book because it sounds like an idea I had a few months ago. Of course, I never even wrote the first sentence, and this woman wrote the entire book…The book centers on a couple in post-apocalyptic California. It sounds as though it takes place in the near future and it explores love, humanity, and resilience. Can’t wait to read it.

“The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd (out now)

Oprah brought her book club back about a year ago as Oprah 2.0. I am an Oprah junkie, and have read almost all of her book picks over the years, so I’ll be reading this one. She only picks about two books a year, the last two books, “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed and “The Twelve Tribes of Hattie” by Ayana Mathis were great reads.

“Cutting Teeth” by Julia Fiero (expected May 2014)

I found this book on Flavorwire’s 15 most anticipated books list. I am intrigued because Fiero has been compared to Meg Wolitzer, and Karen Thompson Walker (who wrote “The Age of Miracles”) wrote, “Fiero’s writing feels like real life. She captures the anxiety of our times with authority, insight, and humor.”

“The City of Mirrors” by Justin Cronin (expected Fall 2014)

If you have not read the first two books in this trilogy, “The Passage” and “The Twelve,” you still have time to get caught up before the final book comes out next fall. “The City of Mirrors” will be the end of The Passage Trilogy and I am hoping for a satisfying ending. These books are creepy and will keep you awake all night. Cronin writes incredibly well, and the world he has created in these books will always haunt me.

“Oh She Glows Cookbook” by Angela Liddon (expected Spring 2014)

Angela creates no-fail recipes on her blog www.ohsheglows.com and I know this book will be full of delicious recipes and gorgeous pictures.

“Delicious!” by Ruth Reichl (expected Spring 2014)

Reichl is a memoirist who wrote two of the best book memoirs of all time: “Comfort Me With Apples” and “Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table.” This book will be her first work of fiction. The Amazon website describes it as a: “…dazzling fiction debut—a novel of sisters, family ties, and a young woman who must find the courage to let go of the past in order to embrace her own true gifts.” Reichl has a gift for storytelling, so I think this will be fantastic.

“And the Dark Sacred Night” by Julia Glass (expected Spring 2014)

“Three Junes” will always be one of the books on my Top Ten books of all time list. I am so excited about this book because she brings back characters from that book. Glass published her first book in her late 40’s – inspiring!

“The Museum of Extraordinary Things” by Alice Hoffman (February 2014)

Alice Hoffman. Enough said.

“The Bone Clocks” by David Mitchell (Fall 2014)

If you have not read Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas” you are missing out! The website The Bookseller says the following about his upcoming novel: “The “rich and strange” novel will follow the story of Holly Sykes, who runs away from home in 1984 and 60 years later can be found in the far west of Ireland, raising a granddaughter as the world’s climate collapses.” Mitchell tells unique, haunting stories that should not be missed.

Untitled Short Story Collection by Margaret Atwood (Fall 2014)

I will read a grocery list if Atwood writes it. Can’t wait to read these stories.