The Love Fest Continues

Is it possible to curl up in bed...enthralled...and unable to put down...a cookbook? Oh yes. If it is The Pat Conroy Cookbook which isn't really a cookbook. It is more of a memoir about food, travel and interesting people from his life with some good recipes thrown in at the end of each chapter.

I serendipitously read this book the week after reading his book My Reading Life. How fortuitous. Even though this book was published several years before My Reading Life there are many of the same influential people mentioned in this book that were mentioned in his other book and it felt like I was reading a sequel. Fantastic!! Plus, there was the added bonus of quite a bit of background information on my favorite book The Prince of Tides which was icing on the cake.

This book was pure joy to read. I loved it. I was pulled in again to the life, friendships, loves and passions of Pat Conroy. I couldn't put this cookbook down!! If was full of everything that I enjoy and value in my own life. The people that I like to surround myself with in my life are people who have a great sense of humor, a love and appreciate for great food, have a rich appreciation for travel and literature and tell great stories. This book has all of that with some Southern flare thrown in for good measure. It was a delight. And...there are some superb recipes as well.

You all know my love for Mr. Conroy and all I can say is that the love fest continues.

My Rating: Excellent

Book Club Hangover



This morning I have what I like to call a "book club hangover". Last night was book club at my friend Valynn's house and I stayed too late, ate too much, laughed very hard, and over shared...as usual. :) I then came home in the wee hours of the morning and proceeded to talk to Tyler for quite a while longer and then couldn't drag my butt out of bed to go to the gym this morning. As a result, I feel fat, lazy, and tired. But...I had a lot of fun last night so it was worth it!!

Our book for this month was Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. I was underwhelmed. I found it to be a snooze. This book has some things going for it: an interesting premise, set in Seattle, a sweet tale, nothing raunchy...very clean, you could recommend it to anyone and not worry about them being offended in any way. Maybe that was the problem for me. It was too sweet or more to the point it was too saccharine. I just didn't really get into it and didn't think the characters were well developed and fully fleshed out. That said I thought some of the secondary characters were much more fascinating than the main characters. I loved Sheldon and that crusty old chain smoking lunch lady. I wanted this book to do more, be more, delve deeper and it didn't. I also didn't care for the ending which was predictably dull. On a positive note, the story dealt with interesting subject matter from an uncommon perspective.

From School Library Journal

"Henry Lee is a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while they are scholarship students at a prestigious private school in World War II Seattle. Henry hides the relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese residents of Seattle have begun to be shipped off by the thousands to relocation centers. This is an old-fashioned historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer. "

Unfortunately for me, the novel didn't live up to it's pretty cover and catchy title.

My rating: OK

I Am In Love


Oh Pat Conroy. I love you deeply. I am seduced by your way with words, wit, and wounded inner child. You beguile me with your southern charm. You bewitch me with your intellect. You distract me from anything else that I have going on in my life. I am consumed. Your magnetism is undeniable. I could leave my husband for you except I don't think he has much to worry about because he just might love you as much as I do.

I have read nearly every word you have written. Everything that I can get my hands on. Each time I am enchanted. Even when you show that the mighty Pat Conroy is fallible (South of Broad). Even when disappointed and left wanting I am captivated by your beautiful writing and charisma.

What a treat it was to open the cover of My Reading Life and have it be pure unadulterated Conroy. My heart skipped a beat. This is a book I must buy, write in the margins, and keep as a reference. I must own this work of beauty.

Who could not be beckoned to a comfy chair by this?

"I grew up a word-haunted boy. I felt words inside me and stored them wondrous as pearls. I mouthed them and fingered them and rolled them around my tongue." (pg.84)
Not to mention the ultimate phrase that thrills me every.single.time I read it?
"My wound is my geography. It is also my anchorage. My port of call." (Prologue from the Prince of Tides) Chills I tell you. Chills.

This book is pure joy for a Conroy fan. It is the author talking about his life, his influences, his experience, and the books and people that have shaped who he has become. I wanted it to never end. I wanted to sit by his fireside and listen to my favorite author forever.

I loved how he describes that joy of reading. It is how I feel but have difficulty articulating.

"When an author sets the table right, there will be no need to pass either the foie gras or the barbecue because the characters will grab me by the collar. They will spring to life so fully developed, so richly contained in the oneness of their own universe, that they will populate the cafes and verandas and alleyways of a city I will never want to leave. Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever, from that day forward, is part of literature's profligate generosity." (pg. 311)

"Can I incorporate this splendid work, ingest it whole into my bloodstream, where it can become part of my thinking and dreaming life?" (pg. 312)

I have walked many times through Mr. Conroy's "glittering city of words"and have journeyed to the darkest parts of hell with him by my side. I have loved every minute.

I close this book uplifted, inspired and fully satisfied.

My rating: EXCELLENT. A must-read for any Conroy fan or lover of literature