Gastro Obscura

Title:  Gastro Obscura:  A Food Adventurer's Guide

Author:  Cecily Wong. Dylan Thuras. Atlas Obscura

Publication Information:  Workman Publishing Company. 2020. 448 pages.

ISBN:  1523502193 / 978-1523502196

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Eating may be the most immersive visceral travel experience."

Favorite Quote:  "We have always believed that wonder can be found wherever you are open to searching for it."

Atlas Obscura is a crowd-sourced database of place and foods current numbering at over 25,000. The project began as the brain child of Dylan Thuras and Joshua For. It was an effort to "inspire wonder and curiosity about the incredible world we all share." It began with places not found in ordinary guidebooks and perhaps off the beaten path. It expanded in 2017 to include exploration through food. It has since beyond writing its reach into education and travel. At this point, they are "a publisher of best-in-class journalism about hidden places, incredible history, scientific marvels, and gastronomical wonders."

This book, as the title suggests, is about food but more than that "it's a collection of forgotten histories and endangered traditions, obscure experiences, culinary ingenuity, and edible wonders." It traverses the globe. The book is laid out by region:  Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Canada, United States, Latin America, and Antartica! Each section is further divided geographically. Within each smaller section, each entry is about half a page - some longer, a few shorter. Each is titled by the topic, followed by the location, following by a half-page description of history and evolution. An offset identifies "how to try it." Images accompany some of the entries. 

You can read the book beginning to end, pick up and read an entry or two, or use the included index to look for something specific.

I have followed Atlas Obscura for a while. As a lover of travel and food, the gastronomic aspect immediately appeals to me. Food is a universal language and a part of every life occasion happy and sad. Food brings people together. In a world so divided, it is wonderful to see every effort to identify that which unites us. Though the foods from other parts of the world may seem unfamiliar, the emotion, love and sense of heritage embedded in each item is universal. 

In the past few years when travel has been limited, the ability to armchair travel has become even more important. This book takes us around the world. It is also a reminder that "wonder can be found around every corner - not just in uncharted and far-flung locales but down the street, down some stairs, into the Victorian-era public toilet that now houses a London coffee bar. While travel is a beautiful way of seeking wonder, you'll find within these pages that adventures don't always require a planet ticket ... wondrous food is everywhere."

This book is one that will sit nearby and that I will pick up time and again to peruse. I look forward to that and to seeing what new adventures this team uncovers.

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Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight

Title:  Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight

Author:  Janet Evanovich

Publication Information:  Atria Books. 2021. 304 pages.

ISBN:  198215487X / 978-1982154875

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "The clock on my bedside table said it was 2:00 am."

Favorite Quote:  "If you're going to be a hacker, you need to be smarter and better than whoever you're hacking."

Game on is the twenty-eighth book in the Stephanie Plum series. It is, however, the first I have read. The series has long been on my list to try, and this book does not disappoint. I was apprehensive about not starting with book 1, but I was able to enjoy this one regardless.

Stephanie Plum, born, raised, and living in and around Trenton, New Jersey, is a bounty hunter. This is not a career she sought out. Rather, the back story is that she fell into it out of financial desperation. Turns out, she is really good at it. Her coworkers - a motley crew of characters feature in every book. Given that she is still in the locale of her childhood, her family and even childhood friends are a part of every book. That particularly insert some humor and caring into the book. Her relationship with her family is sweet and so relatable.

Three men from Stephanie's life feature in this book, and from what I have read, others. Joe Morelli is a police officer and, supposedly, Stephanie's significant other. Ranger is part love interest, part mentor, part mystery man. Diesel Diesel (yes, that is the name) is a Swiss bounty hunter who seems to come in and out of Stephanie's life. There may have been and may still be a romance or not.

Of course, there is a dog - Bob.

The plot of this book is about a group of young hackers who, perhaps, inadvertently intrude into the work of international hacker and criminal Oswald Wednesday (gotta love the names!). He does not take kindly to the hacking, and the hackers are in trouble. Of course, Oswald Wednesday has plans that are considerably more grand and more nefarious. Stephanie and Diesel, for their own different purposes, are on the hunt for Oswald Wednesday. Oswald Wednesday is on the hunt for these hackers, who may have dislodged his plan.

So begins a tale full of chases, near misses, and daring rescues tumbled together with family, friendship, and love. I am not sure if this is the formula for the rest of the books, but, as a first time reader, it works for a fun read. Part of me now wants to go back and read an earlier book is the series and compare. Part of me wants to leave a good enough read alone. I tried the series. I enjoyed it. It's free standing so there is not a need to read more to find out what happens. However, it feels like it is likely a reliable series when you are in the mood for a pick-me-up adventure.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Cloud Cuckoo Land

Title:  Cloud Cuckoo Land

Author:  Anthony Doerr

Publication Information:  Scribner. 2021. 640 pages.

ISBN:  1982168439 / 978-1982168438

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "A fourteen-year-old girl sits cross-legged on the floor of a circular vault."

Favorite Quote:  "A text - a book - is a resting place for the memories of people who have lived before. A way for the memory to stay fixed after the soul has traveled on ... But books, like people, die too. They die in fires or floods or in the mouther of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world. And when a book goes out of the world, the memory dies a second death."

Dictionaries and other sources have the following definitions of the term cloud cuckoo land:

• to think that things that are completely impossible might happen, rather than understanding how things really are (Cambridge Dictionary)
• a realm of fantasy or of whimsical or foolish behavior (Meriam Webster)
• state of absurdly, over-optimistic fantasy or an unrealistically idealistic state of mind where everything appears to be perfect (Wikipedia)

In words from the book itself, "...And yet. When the stream of the old Greek picks up, and she climbs into the story, as though climbing the wall of the priory on the rock - handhold here, foothold there - the damp chill of the cell dissipates, and the bright, ridiculous world of Author takes its place."

That, in a nutshell, is this book. From 15th century Constantinople to 1940s Idaho to an interstellar spaceship in 2146, this book traverses time and space. At the heart of it all are children, often in impossible situations - a war, a hostage situation, a last hope for survival. In each, the story if about the innocence of children and about their ability to find hope and resilience.

The story is at times absurd, but it is this thread of children growing up and of hope is what ties the book together and leaves a lasting impression. The other thread running throughout is the magic of stories through the ages and the simultaneous power and fragility of stories. "Each sign signifies a sound, and to link sounds is to form words, and to link words is to construct worlds." Stories can provide anchors and wings. They can express our own thoughts often more eloquently than we can. At the same time, stories are so often forgotten and lost.

The title of the book itself is a story within a story. Cloud Cuckoo Land - the story and the place is made up. The supposed author Diogenes was real. However, none of his works are said to have survived. The tie in to the book is clear, emphasizing how easy it is for a story to be lost. The fact that this fictional invention survives through the ages in this book is a testament to the people who protect books and pass stories on down the generations. This book and its survival becomes the thread that pulls the disparate times and places and characters in this book into one cosmic vision.

In many ways, this book reminds me of David Mitchells works Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks - a cast of characters across time and place but with the same themes recurring throughout and a circular approach leaving a cohesive singular message.

For the survival of children, for the survival of books, for a lover letter to the power of stories and those who protect them, this will remain a memorable book for me.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

The Storyteller of Casablanca

Title:  The Storyteller of Casablanca

Author:  Fiona Valpy

Publication Information:  Lake Union Publishing. 2021. 315 pages.

ISBN:  1542032105 / 978-1542032100

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "May McConnaghy perches on the overstuffed chaise in the drawing room and fans herself gently with the little booklet she's brought with her."

Favorite Quote:  "One of the things I learned from the dream seller was that we all need to be able to speak our own truth, to have it heard. Sometimes we can feel there's  no one listening and then we must find other ways to make ourselves heard."

Like The Skylark's Secret by Fiona Valpy, this book tells two stories in two timelines, and one is a story of World War II. The story of the 1940s is that of Josie, a young girl who flees Europe with her family to arrive in Morocco to await passage to the United States. The other story is about seventy years later and of Zoe who comes to Morocco as an expat with secrets and sorrows of her own.

The connection between the two is Josie's diary that Zoe discovers decades laters under the floorboards on the house in which she lives. The diary provides first a distraction from Zoe's own sorrows. It is an escape from Zoe's own reality. Then, as Zoe learns more and more of Josie, it provides healing and hope.

Josie's story is that of a refugee. "Can we really imagine how it must feel to be so afraid of what lies behind you that you are prepared to throw yourself headlong into an unknown that is going to be filled with danger and loneliness? Leaving behind your family and your culture and seeking something better in a land where you are not welcome and you are not understood?"

As with most books using this approach, one story can be more powerful than the other. In this case, it is Josie's story. The telling of the story sometimes gives Josie a voice that does not sound her age, but perhaps that is the things she survived and perhaps it is the tool of a storyteller and dramatic license. For most of the book, Zoe's story is less compelling for the reader has yet to discover what lies at the heart of her sorrow. Josie's story comes with the power of a known history; Zoe's does not.

Along with the stories, the viewpoint on Morocco in two time periods is an interesting one, particularly the role the nation played during World War II - yet another aspect of the war to be explored. It is not as aspect I know much about, and it is not a country I have visited. So, the presentation over time of a place was a fascinating part of the this book.

My biggest stumbling block in this book is that Josie's and Zoe's are only tangentially connected through the diary. In other two time period books, the characters and the stories often link together bringing past and present together for a much stronger impact. There is often a relationship or a tracing of lineage from one time to another, and the story of the past creates a much more direct impact on the present. In this book, the two do come together but the emotion of it is not there for there is no true connection between the characters.

Overall, the history is interesting, and the location is fascinating. However, the emotion of the book is not what I expected.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Beautiful Country

Title:  Beautiful Country: A Memoir

Author:  Qian Julie Wang

Publication Information:  Doubleday. 2021. 320 pages.

ISBN:  0385547218 / 978-0385547215

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "My story starts decades before my birth."

Favorite Quote:  "Secrets. They have so much power, don't they?"

"Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always lived here." This is the lesson repeated time and again in Qian Julie Wang's childhood in New York City. What she knows is that she and her parents leave China for a new home in America because they have to. She is seven. Her life in New York becomes the only life she has ever known. It is life of struggle as her parents work in sweatshops, adapt to a new country, a new language, and a new way of life. Within that confine, they seek to provide their daughter an education.

To her, this is the only home she has ever known. She wants to fit in and belong. It is her parents at times who seems restrictive and challenged and different. 

What she does not realize is that her parents and she remain in the United States in the shadows, long after their temporary visas expire. They do no have a legal means of remaining in the country. In China, both parents were professors - one of English, the other of mathematics. Here, they take whatever job they can find simply to survive. This memoir is an adult looking back on this childhood narrative through the eyes of that young girl who does not know any of this and does not understand.

The understanding of the adult is the retrospective at the end of the narrative:

• "First and foremost, thank you to the members of the undocumented community, and in particular, the Dreamers and DACA recipients. To those whose stories I know and those whose stories I've yet to hear:  your courage and resilience are my inspiration, and I look forward to continuing to learn from you. I am now privileged beyond belief but I will stand with you for as long as you will have me."
• "And finally to Ba Ba ... and to Ma Ma ... When you had nothing, you somehow managed to give me everything. For that alchemy, no thank you can every be enough."
• "I like that I could help Ba Ba believe that one day, no one would think we were immigrants, that we really and truly belonged here."

Spoiler alert .... Although not really a spoiler if you read author biographies first. Qian Julie Wang is a Yale law graduate and managing partner in a law firm specializing in education and civil rights. Clearly, she and her family found a way to survive and thrive. My read of this book is not a conversation on the legality or illegality of the immigration. The law is the law, and the decision made were those of adults. 

To me, this is a compelling story about a child who has no hand and no control in those decisions, a child who has no knowledge of that decision, a child whose mother hides an illness for fear of what a doctor's visit will mean for her undocumented family, a child who has no home other than the known streets of New York. What is to become of this undocumented child as she becomes an adult? Where is home? Where does this child belong? What does a parent's decision mean for the life of this child?

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Several People are Typing

Title:  Several People are Typing

Author:  Calvin Kasulke

Publication Information:  Doubleday. 2021. 256 pages.

ISBN:  0385547226 / 978-0385547222

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "gerald"

Favorite Quote:  "it is just like all the time, everywhere, on here

you can scroll and scroll and it won't stop until you do

we call it ephemera or at least I did, before, I called it ephemera and really that's a mistake, it

cheapens it

we love to say the digital is fleeting like a sunset but these scraps of ourselves we fling into the ether will outlive most of us like the sun"

What would happen if we could view some of our work conversations from a different perspective? What would we say differently? What would we see differently? How would we behave differently?

Slack, an instant messaging programs, originated in 2013 in the context of video game development. The objective was to allow coworkers to establish virtual "workspaces" and collaborate via voice, video, files transmission, and most frequently, text messages. It use and popularity expanded to such an extent that it was acquired by Salesforce in 2021 for almost $28 billion.

Gerald works at a New York public relations firm. Slack is a key tool in his work. There is one key problem. Gerald's essence or consciousness is trapped within the virtual world of Slack. His physical body is still in his work-from-home office, but he is not there.

With this premise begins this book. The title is literal. Slack operates with several people typing along different "channels." Gerald is stuck and want to go home.

The villain of the book is Slackbot. Slack itself wishes to keep Gerald in Slack. It, by turn, deflects, detracts, threatens, and attracts. Slackbot becomes a main character in the book.

Of course, it is possible to read into this book grand statements of human-machine interaction and about self-discovery when one steps out of oneself. Gerald is literally outside of himself. It is also possible to read this book as an amusing view on today's communication styles and the connections and disconnections those styles create.

Reader beware. The entire book is written in Slack messages. Many books have attempted to use a different "language" if you will to tell a story. Texts from Jane Eyre imagines text conversations between characters from modern and classical literature. . The History of the World According to Facebook presents what a record of history might have been if Facebook had always existed, and if everyone and everything posted on Facebook. Ian Doescher's Star Wars series reinterpret the original Star Wars trilogy into a Shakespearean play. This book is different in that it tells an original story in this form. There is no frame of reference or comparison. If that is not for you, this is not the book for you.

Parts of the book are laugh out loud funny. However, even at only 250 pages, it feels long. The novelty of the idea and the writing style only carries so far. The self-discovery does happen but predictably so. Ultimately, the book is memorable for its unique setup and an amusing read.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois

Title:  The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois

Author:  Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

Publication Information:  Harper. 2021. 816 pages.

ISBN:  006294293X / 978-0062942937

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "We are the earth, the land."

Favorite Quote:  "... truth can be both horrible and lovely at the same time."

This book is about growing up and about owning your history - the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. And what a history it is. Let's begin with names.

William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois was the first African American to receive a doctorate degree from Harvard. He was one of the founders of the NAACP. His written works - both prose and poetry - are some of the seminal works of African American literature. In this book, his words are the background and the grounding of Ailey's life.

Alvin Ailey was an artist and an activist. His dance and choreography combines ballet, jazz, and modern dance with the music and language of African American heritage to bring voice to that rich history. In this book, Ailey bears his name.

Pearl is the name of Ailey's grandmother - a strong woman in a line of strong women. She is a foundation of Ailey's life. Ailey bears her name.

Ailey Pearl Garfield is raised in a city in the north, but every summer brings her to the small town of Chicasetta, a fictional place based on the author's mothers' home town in central Georgia. Ailey's family has had a presence in Chicasetta since their ancestors first arrived on this continent as slaves. This dichotomy of Ailey's life - the north and the south, the city and the country - continues as she grows up. As she grows up comes more awareness of the history and secrets of the family. The issues of the racism combines with a much more personal history of familial secrets.

In this, Ailey sets out to discover to Ailey Pearl Garfield is - aside from the weight of her names, aside from a dark family history, aside from the expectations of her history. Perhaps, her journey leads her far away. Perhaps, it leads her back to the very place she starts but this time by choice and decision. "But it's good that you can say how you feel ... And you don't have to tell all the truth if you don't want to. But its important to know what the truth is, even if you only say it to yourself."

At over 800 pages, the book takes the time to develop characters and the story of Ailey Garfield and her family across decades. In that evolution, the book seamlessly embeds the history and culture of the African American diaspora. The story is at the same time deeply personal and historically global.

It is interesting that the family story is not completely about race or about the African American experience. It is about an issue that transcends race, culture, religion and is about the horrible things that people can do to each other. It is challenging to say without a spoiler what the family story is. But it is unfortunately a universal issue that shocks and horrifies me. "There're things that I just can't say out loud. Not now and maybe not ever. I'm tired sometimes. And I'm really, really sad..."

The history that surrounds the family story interests me even more. I have not read much be WEB Du Bois. I feel that this book introduces me to the work and encourages me to explore further.

The fact that this is a debut novel intrigues me even more. Honoree Fanzine Jeffers is a poet who, in this book, has turned to prose and novel. I look forward to seeing what she does next although in interviews, she has stated that she will never write an 800 page epic again.

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