Book of the Week
“The Restaurant of Lost Recipes” by Hisashi Kashiwai (2014 — translation copyright 2024, 210 pages, fiction) This is another book by the author of The Kamogawa Food Detectives, featuring the same unique father-and-daughter duo who cook and solve mysteries. Their restaurant is hidden in a backstreet in Kyoto, and you might only discover it through a small advertisement in the Gourmet Monthly magazine. The building looks unassuming,...
Book of the Week
“The Wedding People,” by Alison Espach (2024, 363 pages, Genre: Fiction/Romance) Phoebe Stone arrives at the Cornwall Inn in Newport, RI. Spiraling two years after an unexpected divorce from her professor husband, she booked the nicest, most expensive suite there, and flew from St. Louis with no luggage, wearing the fanciest dress in her closet. At check-in, she is immediately assumed to be part of the wedding party who has booked the...
Book of the Week
“Close Knit,” by Jenny Colgan (2024, 318 pages, Genre: Fiction) Gertie Moonie is a shy young woman who lives on a tiny, remote island, one in a string of islands in the North Sea of Scotland. Gertie is surrounded by women. She lives in a small cottage with her mother Jean, her grandmother Elspeth. The cottage is stuffed full with many packages of wool. The women are all knitters, and their Knitting Circle meets regularly...
Book of the Week
“Mastering the Art of French Murder: An American in Paris Mystery,” by Colleen Cambridge (2023, 262 pages, Genre: Mystery) Paris, December 1949. Tabitha Knight travels from Detroit to live with her French grandfather and Uncle Rafe in Paris. Her grandmother has passed away and the two older gentlemen enjoy having Tabitha around. And Tabitha loves helping them. Tabitha worked at the Willow Run bomber plant helping to build B-24...
Book of the week
“Down a Sunny Dirt Road,” by Stan and Jan Berenstain (2002, 202 pages, Genre: Children’s Nonfiction – Autobiography) It is more than possible that reading the title or the authors’ names above brought back memories of a book you read or someone read to you. Stan and Jan Berenstain began writing children’s books in 1962 and never stopped. Even now, their son Michael continues to publish new titles in the...