Memoir Pick: Dimestore: A Writer's Life

Dimestore: A Writer's Life
by Lee Smith
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
2016
200 pages
ISBN: 9781616205027


Lee Smith's collection of personal essays embeds her as  the voice of Appalachia. Her life story reads like a country song of religion, love, life, birth, death, pain, suffering, and joy. She grew up the only child of a hard working shopkeeper and his wife. Smith's town was full of kin: cousins, uncles, aunts, and twice removed more distant cousins. Everybody who wasn't related to each other at least knew each other. There were no secrets in town...at least no long kept secrets. Church was the center of their lives: revivals, services, church suppers, prayer meetings, funerals, and baptisms.

Children ran though the hills, swam in the river, caught fish in the stream, played up and down in  all the hollers, and came home with a hand full of wildflowers or a jar of lightning bugs. Smith conjures up the magic and wisdom of a time and  a place so distant that most of us can't recall. Folks went to church on Sunday or faced the rest of the town's scorn. People stood at attention for the pledge and celebrated being American and free.

Mothers cooked three meals a day, kids ate a lunch packed in a brown paper bag, fathers sometimes sat down to dinner late, but they always had their dinner at the table. Main street consisted of the dimestore, the post office, a movie theatre, a fire house and not much else. Some topics were never talked about. Mental illnesses were called by gentler terms, "a bout," "an episode," "kindly nervous."  When someone died, the whole town took notice and brought dishes of food. Think "Mayberry RFD" with Loretta Lynn thrown in. The town of Grundy doesn't exist anymore having been flooded by the Army Corps of Engineers, but Lee Smith's love letter to a bygone town and time live on as an endearing place of love and family.

Smith pays tribute to writing and the love of reading. She includes passages of fiction and poetry written by some of her adult students. She celebrates the life and poetry of Lou Crabtree and spoke at her funeral. Lou was an elderly lady when Smith met her at a writing workshop she was teaching. Lou had suitcases full of poems and fiction and she wrote to please herself never once thinking of publishing. She wrote to soothe herself, to calm herself, to see something on the page that made her happy. That is what writing should be! Later, Smith includes a quote from Anne Tyler who said, "I write because I want more than one life." Not to get rich, not to be famous, not to travel or to be on television. Writing for the people in Smith's essays is the essence of their being.

Thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining, this short read (200 pages) is satisfying for the soul. Smith presents a simpler way of life in the glowing halo of wistful nostalgia, but it's beautiful and ethereal.

Highly recommended for adult and mature readers and all book clubs. Anyone who loves small town America, the South, and Appalachia will love this book.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Foodie Pick: Voracious

Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books
by Cara Nicoletti
Little Brown and Company
2015
274 pages with index and recipes!
ISBN: 9780316242998

Supremely satisfying, divinely dulcet, and totally transcendent, Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books is sure to satiate the most voracious readers, eaters, and foodies.  Cara Nicoletti marries two passions of life: reading and eating. The two truly are connected after all.

Nicoletti shares each book and her own thoughts about the food found within and what it brought to the characters, tone, and plot of each novel. From Nancy Drew to Charlotte's Web and Where the Red Fern Grows  to Les Miserables to the Aeneid to Middlesex, Nicoletti delivers  up her dish on great books and the culinary creations they inspire.

To Kill a Mockingbird impacts many readers with its message of defending the underdog. The novel is full of food (as is the South). Nicoletti regales readers with descriptions from the book: "....scuppernongs, dewberry tarts, peach pickles, hickory nuts, cherry wine, butter beans and Lane cake..." I thought I was the only reader on the planet who was bothered by some of these foods. I was fourteen when I read To Kill a Mockingbird, and I took to the dictionary for a definition of scuppernongs--this was a  pre-Google, pre-Internet era. I discovered scuppernongs are a variety of grapes that grow in the South. I looked everywhere for someone who could tell me what the heck a Lane cake was. Finally I found an old Southern lady on the golf course--where else?--who told me Lane cakes are popular in the South and loaded with booze ("shiney"--i.e. moonshine). To Kill a Mockingbird brought the South to life for readers everywhere. Biscuits are a staple of every diet in the South. They are so prevalent In Maycomb, Calpurnia shines Scout's shoes with a biscuit. In honor of Harper Lee's classic, Nicoletti provides a recipe for Biscuits with Molasses Butter. She also gives cooks helpful tips throughout. For example, you can freeze pre-formed, unbaked biscuits.

For The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Nicoletti writes about the description of Ichabod Crane and his "insatiable and all-consuming hunger." Ichabod is  a lowly school teacher, not a wealthy landowner. He salivates over Katrina Van Tassel's family table and their hearty meals. Everywhere Ichabod goes, he sees an abundance of food, "...he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn..." In honor of Ichabod, Nicoletti offers up Buckwheat Pancakes to which you can add toppings of maple syrup, peanut butter, bananas, honey, or smoked salmon which she admits with humor,  "I've tried them (the pancakes) with all of these toppings, for research purposes, of course."

Rebecca, my all time favorite Gothic read, gets full literary and culinary treatment here. The food abounds in this novel. There is literally food everywhere and it is shocking to see the depth and breadth of it. For breakfast they dine on: "...scrambled eggs and bacon, fish, boiled eggs, porridge, and ham...and entire table of condiments for the toast and scones--jam, marmalade and honey--as well as dessert dishes and mountains of fresh fruit." The narrator in Rebecca never reveals her name which makes this  novel all the more creepily Gothic and romantic.  For Rebecca, Nicoletti gives a nod to our nameless heroine and creates an ambrosia called  Blood Orange Marmalade.

Readers will devour every recipe and anecdote with gustatory glee. This novel is a treasure trove for the eye, the mind, the soul and the palate. Truly a rare find!

Highly, highly recommended for foodies, readers, cooks, chefs, and eaters everywhere. If you know a foodie, this book is a delectable gift that they will treasure! This is one book I will return to again and again for the food and for the stories!

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Classic Pick: Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables
retold by Ann McGovern
Illustrated by A.J. McClaskey
Scholastic Inc.
2013
80 pages

Over 60 of Aesop's stories retold by Ann McGovern will explain the fables for a new generation of readers. Stories include the old stand-bys like "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." Lesser known fables are included, too: "The Farmer and the Stork," "The Two Travelers and An Axe," and "The Playful Donkey."

Illustrations by A.J. McClaskey depict each tale and add visual interest for reluctant readers. The slimness of this little treasure is bound to appeal to the reluctant club. Even the most reluctant of readers will not be intimidated by the short fables and the "lesson" each fable teaches.

This version of Aesop's Fables is a no-brainer for any literature class. The stories are concise and complete. Learners will come away from the book with a good understanding of fables and the famous and not so famous stories.

Recommended for all learners grade 3-up. Easy to read and understand. Non-intimidating for reluctant readers.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

High School Pick: The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls

The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls
by Julie Schumacher
Delacourte Press
2012
227 pages

Forced into a mother-daughter book club, four very different girls have to spend time together. CeeCee would probably never talk to Adrienne or Jill, but because of a teeny tiny car accident, she’s being punished.

Adrienne feels as if she’s being punished by her mother. Her mother seems distant and argumentative. Adrienne has never known her father, and feels neglected by someone who’s never even seen her. When she tries to get answers out of her mother, her mother answers questions with other questions. Their household is entirely dysfunctional. Adrienne breaks a few rules and curfew, but she’s still a quiet girl with her head on straight. The same can’t be said for other members of the dysfunctional book club.

Wallis is an enigma to the other girls. She lives in the woods, but no one has ever been to her house. Her mother never attends the book club, and Wallis always has an excuse for her absence. The other mothers seem worried but it never occurs to them to investigate.

The book club decides to read only books by women authors and begin with a short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Then they read Frankenstein and question whether the monster is good or bad; they finish with The Left Hand of Darkness. No wonder the girls were bored, and confused! What a weird list of books/stories to read! No wonder they called the club Unbearable!

A few poignant moments when I almost loved CeeCee, and readers will probably like Adrienne and be stumped by Wallis’s “problems.” Jill is the most “normal” character of them all. Girls with mother problems will empathize with Adrienne.

Recommended grades 8-up. Some mature topics and talk. No details. The terms lesbian, slut and hermaphrodite are used in girls’ conversations. Not for younger readers.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I purchased this book for my library. Caution: I used Follett’s advice on grade level. Actually, I think grades 8 and up. Parents of middle school may not want to answer questions about hermaphrodites.