Book Beginning: Fallen into the Pit

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

The war ended, and the young men came home, and tried indignantly to fit themselves into old clothes and old habits which proved, on examination, to be both a little threadbare, and on trial to be cripplingly small for bodies and minds mysteriously grown in absence.

Fallen into the Pit by Ellis Peters. First published in 1951, this is the first in Peters's Inspector Felse series. She is also the author of the popular Brother Cadfael series of Medieval mysteries.

Peters won the Edgar Award for the second book in the Felse series, Death and the Joyful Woman (1963), and I want to read that one for the Silver version of the 2016 Vintage Mystery Challenge. But it is hard for me to read a series out of order, so I am starting with this one.

Teaser Tuesday: A Spy Among Friends

The British prepared to flee. Elliott and his M16 colleagues made swift bonfires of compromising files in the embassy courtyard.

-- A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre, with an afterword by John le Carré.

My husband is reading this non-fiction account of Britain's most famous spy. He loves it and wanted me to catch up to him in the audio edition so we could talk about it.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Jenn at A Daily Rhythm, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday: Birthday Books!

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I've been celebrating my birthday this month and have several new books friends gave me for presents:



A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin



The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc by Nancy Goldstone



Here Kitty Kitty by Mallory McInnis



You Need More Sleep: Advice from Cats by Francesco Marciuliano

2016 CHALLENGE: Foodies Read

Heather at Based on a True Story has taken over hosting the Foodies Read Challenge for 2016. Margot from Joyfully Retired started this popular challenge and then passed the torch to Vicki from I'd Rather Be at the Beach.

This is always one of my favorite challenges. I'm signing up  again this year for the Pastry Chef level to read four to eight food books in 2016.

BOOKS FINISHED

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz

A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll (reviewed here)

I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections by Nora Ephron

Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk

Shaken and Stirred by William Hamilton

BOOK POSSIBILITIES

There are several possibilities on my TBR shelves, including:

Jam Today Too: The Revolution Will Not Be Catered by Tod Davies

French Country Cooking by Elizabeth David (or at least one by her)

Spotted Dick S'il Vous Plait: An English Restaurant in France by Tom Higgins

Two Towns in Provence by M.F.K. Fisher

My Kitchen Wars by Betty Fussell

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginning: A Spy Among Friends

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

One moment Nicholas Elliott was at Ascot Racecourse, watching the favorite, Quashed, come romping home at 7-2, and the next, rather to his own surprise, he was a spy.

-- A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre and John le Carré. Great first line!

My husband is reading this and he begged me to read it to so he could talk to me about is because he loves it so much.

Teaser Tuesday: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

"How are you feeling?" she asked, and the Major wasn't sure how to answer. Her driving was making him slightly sick, but in the excited, pleasant manner that small boys on roller coasters felt sick.

-- Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. I love this book! I waited too long to read it.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Jenn at A Daily Rhythm, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Storyline Serendipity: Widdershins

COUNTERCLOCKWISE SERENDIPITY

IN TWO BOOK I RECENTLY READ

So the serendipity between these two books doesn't extend as far as the storyline -- that's an exaggeration. But I'm not going to change the name of this meme just because want to point out an extraordinary coincidence,

Never in my life (and my 50th birthday was this week) have I heard the word "widdershins" and I just now read it twice in books I was reading at the same time. How crazy is that?

First, in the second of Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford's mysteries, A New Lease of Death, one of the characters makes sure they turn to walk the correct direction because it is unlucky to walk widdershins around a church. I only figured out from the context that widdershins meant counterclockwise.

In Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess, there is a scene where the narrator describes a film festival in pre-war Nazi Germany, concluding with the sentence: "And everywhere swastikas seemed to spin widdershins." What a sentence!

Both examples show that widdershins doesn't simply mean counterclockwise, but "contrary" or "against sense."

This funny word caught my attention the first time and gave me pause. But it was the coincidence of seeing it twice in a lifetime in two books in one week that made me dig deeper.

WHAT IS STORYLINE SERENDIPITY?

A ONCE-IN-A-WHILE BLOG EVENT

Have you had the experience of something coming up in a book -- an event, place, idea, historical character, or even an unusual word -- and then shortly after, the same thing comes up in a different book completely by coincidence? I call this Storyline Serendipity.

I don't mean like when you take a class in Russian history and read two books about the Tsar. Or when you read two mysteries and there are dead bodies in each.

I mean random coincidence between two books. I like it when this happens because it makes me slow down and pay more attention to how the event or idea, place or character was treated in each book. I get a little more out of each book than I would have if the universe hadn't paired them on my reading list.

If you experience Storyline Serendipity, feel free to grab the button and play along. If you want to, please leave the link to your post in a comment. Or leave the link to your post on the Rose City Reader facebook page. If you want to participate but don't have a blog or don't feel like posting, please share your serendipity in a comment.

This is a once-in-a-while blog event that I'll post as I come across Storyline Serendipity. If you want to participate, post whenever you want and leave a comment back here on my latest Storyline Serendipity post. If it ever catches on, we can make it a monthly event.

Book Beginning: The Big Seven

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

Sunderson must have been about ten and was burning up with fever from strep throat and still had to go to Sunday morning Lutheran service. His mother had her antennae out for malefactors and only Bernise who had broken her leg tobogganing had recently succeeded in avoiding church.

The Big Seven: A Faux Mystery by Jim Harrison. The opening passage is the protagonist's memory of a childhood sermon that introduces the theme of the seven deadly sins -- the "big seven" of the title.

Harrison introduced Sunderson, a retired Michigan State Police detective, in his earlier "faux mystery," The Great Leader.

Mailbox Monday: Erica Jong

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

My mom sent me a book in celebration of my upcoming birthday this week:



Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir by Erica Jong.

Ha! Fifty and Feisty is my new motto!

Review: A Little Dinner Before the Play

“Take two partridges and prepare in usual way. Old birds can be utilized in this recipe if necessary.”

I'd given up on Lady Jekyll’s recipes long before I got to her favorite partridge dish (Perdrix aux Choux) in her "For Men Only" chapter, but I did pause to wonder what the "usual way" of preparing partridges might be. And what sort of household has the choice between old or new partridges?

The answer is Downton Abbey. A Little Dinner Before the Play is a collection of columns about food, cooking, and entertaining that Lady Agnes Jekyll wrote for the London Times from 1921 to 1922, exactly when Mrs. Patmore and Daisy would be looking for inspiration. It provides guidance, menus, and recipes for all occasions, starting with breakfast, to winter car picnics, fancy buffets for dance parties, “tray food” for those sick in bed, and meals for public speakers. If you ever wonder what the Crawley family would actually eat, this is the perfect book for you.

The recipes are sparse and presuppose general, shared cooking knowledge. Instructions to “prepare in the usual way” are common. As are a lack of measured amounts. Instead, she says things like, “add milk to form dough.” It doesn’t matter, since the food is generally ghastly. There is a lot of boiled meat; meat, fish, and eggs run through sieves to make pastes, sometimes together; dry sounding cakes or boiled puddings; and lots and lots of complicated jellied concoctions.

For example, Lady Jekyll recommends Iced Jelly as a refreshing sweet treat at a wedding feast. For such a special occasion, you don’t cheat by using gelatin sheets (her favorite in many other recipes), you go for the real thing:

Boil two calves feet for several hours, strain off and leave to get cold. Remove all grease, and put them into a stewpan with the peel and juice of 4 lemons to each quart of liquor, ½ lb. loaf sugar, a piece of cinnamon stick and a few raisins, the whites of four eggs. Whisk all well together whilst boiling; strain through a jelly bag several times until clear. Flavour liberally with a sherry glass of maraschino, pour into an ice mould with secure lid, pack in ice and freezing salt in an ice pail, and freeze for 2 hours.

That could make a vegan out of anyone. She has many other recipes for sweet or savory jellied things. She even suggests covering a Camembert cheese in aspic!

Lady Jekyll’s advice to hostesses captures her era as much as the recipes. In the title chapter, her idea for a simple meal before leading guests to the theater is to offer individual roasted quail to each guest – served on silver trays, doused with brandy as they come from the kitchen, set alight, and served flambé.

You can have the cook pick up quail next time she’s out buying new partridges.


OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book or any other book from the Penguin Books Great Food series listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

A Little Dinner Before the Play counts as one of my books for the 2016 European Reading (UK), Mt. TBR, and the Foodies Read Challenges.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginning: The Fur Person

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

When he was about two years old, and had been a Cat About Town for some time, glorious in conquests, but rather too thin for comfort, the Fur Person decided that it was time he settled down.

The Fur Person by Mary Sarton. This is as adorable as it looks, an "enchanting story and classic of cat literature . . . drawn from the true adventures of Tom Jones, May Sarton’s own cat."

2015 European Reading Challenge WINNER!

THIS IS THE WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT POST FOR 2015

TO FIND THE 2015 REVIEWS, GO TO THIS PAGE

TO FIND THE 2015 WRAP UP POSTS, GO TO THIS PAGE

THE 2016 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE IS LIVE NOW -- GO TO THIS PAGE TO SIGN UP OR READ MORE

2015 was the fourth year for this challenge, which involves reading books set in different European countries or written by authors from different European countries.

Big thanks to all the participants who joined me for the Grand Tour!

JET SETTER GRAND PRIZE WINNER

We had a dark horse winner this year. Jim Casterline, a faithful reader but non-blogger got involved late and, as allowed, posted his reviews in comments on the review page. Jim read a lot of classics and his pithy reviews are worth reading! He won the Jet Setter Grand Prize for reading books from 15 different European countries! He won a $25 gift card to Powell's Books.

Honorary Mention (but no prizes) go to eight other participants. In years past, HM went to those who read 10 or more qualifying books (meaning books set in different countries, by different authors). This year, I'm awarding HM to those who posted wrap up posts on the Wrap Up page because I appreciate these posts very much for making my job of figuring out the winner so much easier!

• Bev at My Reader's Block (11)
• Shonna at Canadian Bookworm (10)
• Maphead (10)
• Avid Series Reader (30 books from 8 countries)
• Julie at Smiling Shelves (7)
• Jen at The Introverted Reader (6)
• Sherrie at Food for Thought (5)
• Mave at LibriAmoriMiei (5)

Congratulations to all the readers who completed the challenge! For those who finished the challenge but didn't post a wrap-up, feel free to do so now and link it on this page here.

JOIN THE 2016 CHALLENGE! SIGN UP HERE

The gist: The idea is to read books by European authors or books set in European countries (no matter where the author comes from). The books can be anything – novels, short stories, memoirs, travel guides, cookbooks, biography, poetry, or any other genre. You can participate at different levels, but each book must be by a different author and set in a different country – it's supposed to be a tour.

Teaser Tuesday: A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll

Take two partridges and prepare in usual way. Old birds can be utilized in this recipe if necessary.

A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll.

I'd given up on Agnes's recipes long before I got to her favorite way to make partridges in pastry (Perdrix aux Choux) in her chapter, "For Men Only," but I did pause to wonder what the "usual way" of preparing partridges might be. And what would it be like to live in a household where one had the choice of older or newer partridges?

This book is a collection of Lady Jekyll's 1921 - 1922 newspaper columns on food. Don't read it for the recipes; read it for the food history.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Jenn at A Daily Rhythm, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday: Kate Spade

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got one, random book last week:



Manners by Kate Spade. This is a slim, hardcover book with lots of color pencil illustrations. I happened across it when I was at Powell's to get a gift card as a thank you gift for a business associate who did me a favor. (There's a bit of serendipity for you!)

Manners goes with Style, which I have, and Occasions, which I don't. Now I'd like to have all three, because I'm a completist.