Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

"No, I'm not doing it, I'm not climbing that hill."

-- from Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten. My sister gave me this book for Christmas and I just finished it. I loved it.

I really didn't know anything about Ina Garten before I read this book. I never watched her on tv and don't have any of her cookbooks. But I was curious and I love food-related memoirs, so I wanted to read it. It didn't disappoint. What an interesting life! 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Be Ready When the Luck Happens:

I shopped for my wedding dress on my own, which strikes me as a little sad. It was just as well, because I’m sure my mother and I would have disagreed about the dress.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. That's what I did this week.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Blandings Castle slept in the sunshine. Dancing little ripples of heat-mist played across its smooth lawns and stone-flagged terraces.

-- from Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse. A deceptively benign beginning for what will be a hilarious novel involving a tell-all memoir, a prize pig, a chorus girl, and general mayhem. You get a better idea of the humor in the book from the beginning of the Preface:

A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained “all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.” He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha, but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning.

P.G. Wodehouse is one of my favorite authors and I haphazardly collect his books in several editions. I'd love to have a complete set of one cool edition, but there are so many books and so many cool editions, that I don't think that will ever happen. He published close to 100 novels and books of short stories!

Perhaps my favorite Wodehouse editions are the Penguins from the 1970s and '80s with cover art by "Ionicus."  He drew the cover illustrations for 58 Wodehouse books. I have 17 of them, including Summer Lightning, and am on the lookout for others. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Summer Lightning:

And so far, in his efforts to win the favour and esteem of his Uncle Clarence, he seemed to have made no progress whatsoever. On the occasions when he had found himself in Lord Emsworth’s society, the latter had looked at him sometimes as if he did not know he was there, more often as if he wished he wasn’t.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

The Honourable Galahad Threepwood has decided to write his memoir―a tell-all that could destroy polite society. Everyone wants this manuscript gone, particularly Lord Emsworth’s neighbor Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, who would do anything to keep the story of the prawns buried in the past. But the memoir isn’t the only problem. A chorus girl disguised as an heiress, a double-dealing detective, a stolen prize-winning sow, and a crazy ex-secretary are only a few of the complications that must be dealt with before everyone can have their happy ending.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income..

-- from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

Are you doing anything to commemorate the 250th birthday of Jane Austen this year? My plan is to reread Austen’s six main novels, one every other month. Sense and Sensibility was in January and a perfect way to kick things off. I read Pride and Prejudice in March and loved it just as much this fourth time. 

Mansfield Park was the third book in my project and I just finished it. It's not my favorite because I think Fanny Price is a drip. I like the story, but the heroine grated on my nerves. 

I’m particularly looking forward to Emma in July because it’s my favorite. Likewise, Clueless is my favorite adaptation so I plan to rewatch that after Emma. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Mansfield Park:

Fanny’s thoughts were now all engrossed by the two who had left her so long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search of them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just turned up into another, when the voice and the laugh of Miss Crawford once more caught her ear; the sound approached, and a few more windings brought them before her.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.

"Green But Unseen" -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

Green But Unseen

This blog is my first bookish love, but I do enjoy the spontaneity and general sense of fun found among bookstagrammers on Instagram. One of my favorite things is how bookstagrammers come up with clever ways to highlight the books in their collection. One of the best is posting about a set of books based only on the color of the covers or spines. A popular version of this is to gather "Red But Unread" books. My personal favorite (because I thought of it) is to feature "Orange You Going To Read That" books.

A new one making the rounds is Green But Unseen, showcasing books with green spines or covers. I picked a baker's dozen of 13 books with green spines. These books have nothing intentionally in common besides their green spines and that I have not yet read any of them. 

These are in alphabetical order, by author. Which would you pick first? 

Family & Friends by Anita Brookner. I have so many of her books on my TBR shelf and have only read Hotel du Lac, because it won the Booker Prize. I want to read more, although I've been reluctant to start because I've read that the rest of the books don't stand up to Hotel du Lac. The only way to find out is to try for myself.

The After Party by Anton DiSclafani, a novel about Houston socialites in the 1950s. It sounds fun to me, although it gets mixed reviews.

The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy. This one is not a sequel to The Dud Avocado, but is similar. Avocado is about a 21-year-old American woman who find adventure in Paris. Old Man is about a slightly older American woman who finds adventure in London. 

The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich. This one has been on my shelf the longest. I always like her books so should get cracking on this one.

Crusoe’s Daughter by Jane Gardam. Her Old Filth trilogy is a recent favorite of mine. I want to read more by her and have gathered several, including this one.

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley. I remember that my sister read this one in college and loved it. It's a modern classic I’ve been meaning to read for quite a while.

Kaleidoscope by J. Robert Janes. I love and collect paperback Soho Crime books with these color-block spines. Occasionally, I come across a hardback version, like this. I prefer the paperbacks because they all match, but will take the hardbacks if it is all I can find.

The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche by M.L. Longworth, book 7 in her Provençal Mysteries series, one of the many series languishing on my shelf. My plan is to start this series as soon as I finish Martin Walker's "Bruno, Chief of Police" series, also set in rural France. 

Midaq Alley, The Thief and the Dogs, and Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz in an omnibus edition. Until I took this picture, I had it in my head that these three novels were his famous "Cairo Trilogy," but they are not. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to these books. Should I? He did win the Nobel Prize for Literature after all. 

Civil to Strangers by Barbara Pym is one of several of her books I have in Virago Modern Classic editions. She’s a favorite, and I feel a Pym jag coming on. Maybe I'll tackle her books next, as soon as I finish my Helen MacInnes deep dive. 

The Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell, book 19 of 24 from her Inspector Wexford series. I’ve only read the first one, so I have a way to go!

The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal, in a Modern Library edition. The Red and the Black almost killed me, so I've been putting this one off. But I hear it is more enjoyable than Red & Black, so I'll get to it one of these days.

August Folly by Angela Thirkell, which now I plan to read in August. I've only read one of her books, but I know she is having a resurgence in popularity. I want to read more. 

What unread green-spined books can you find on your shelves?

And if you are a fellow bookstagrammer, drop me a comment with your user name so we can find each other over there. 

Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

A feeling of laziness, of a gentle slipping into sleep, spread over the fields as the July sun arced slowly downward, deepening in colour, yet losing intensity.

-- from Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes.

Snare of the Hunter was Helen MacInnes's 17th novel, first published in 1974. I'm hosting a Helen MacInnes group read on bookstagram and this one is our current pick. We started with The Venetian Affair, followed by The Salzburg Connection. This one is shorter and moves faster than those, but is still packed with Cold War intrigue, a confusingly large cast of characters, and a budding romance. All three feature an ordinary guy roped in to undertake a dangerous mission and an attractive young woman who has to keep up with him on the adventure while wearing a skirt and high heals. I love them! 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Snare of the Hunter:

McCulloch gave a casual but friendly nod as he took his place. Just one stranger briefly summing up another who would share close quarters with him on a long journey.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Irina Kusak’s recently divorced husband, Jiri Hrádek, is a high-ranking official in the Czechoslovakian secret police: cruel, ambitious, utterly ruthless. So when he turns a blind eye to her defection to the west, she is uneasy. Aided in her escape by a group of friends, including David Mennery, an American with whom she once had a passionate affair, Irina begins to feel herself truly free. But soon their journey becomes a nightmare. It becomes clear that Hrádek only allowed Irina to defect in order to bait a trap for her father, a world-famous author living in secrecy in the west, but when she refuses to lead Hrádek to his quarry, Irina herself becomes his prime target.