Leaving Lucy Pear by Anna Solomon

Leaving Lucy Pear by Anna Solomon
Published July 2016 by Penguin Publishing Group
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley

Publisher's Summary:
One night in 1917 Beatrice Haven sneaks out of her uncle's house on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, leaves her newborn baby at the foot of a pear tree, and watches as another woman claims the infant as her own. The unwed daughter of wealthy Jewish industrialists and a gifted pianist bound for Radcliffe, Bea plans to leave her shameful secret behind and make a fresh start. Ten years later, Prohibition is in full swing, post-WWI America is in the grips of rampant xenophobia, and Bea's hopes for her future remain unfulfilled. She returns to her uncle’s house, seeking a refuge from her unhappiness. But she discovers far more when the rum-running manager of the local quarry inadvertently reunites her with Emma Murphy, the headstrong Irish Catholic woman who has been raising Bea's abandoned child—now a bright, bold, cross-dressing girl named Lucy Pear, with secrets of her own.


My Thoughts:
Leaving Lucy Pear came to my attention through an email from the publisher. I'd never heard of it but I was preapproved for it through Netgalley and it was different than the other things I've been reading lately so I decided to take a chance. I'm glad I did.

Book clubs will find that Leaving Lucy Pear makes a good selection. There is a lot going on in it and so much to talk about. Solomon explores homosexuality, infidelity, sexual and physical abuse, bigotry and intolerance, workers vs. bosses, prohibition and illegal alcohol, unrequited love, mental illness, truth, family dynamics and, most importantly, what it means to be a mother.

You'll think I didn't like the book when I tell you that, while all of those themes in one book make for a great book club choice, the book might have been stronger and more emotionally compelling if Solomon had pared back a little.

Solomon has created some great characters here and some really wonderful storylines. Bea and Emma are, as they should be, strong, interesting and complicated characters and I enjoyed "watching" them interact with each other and grow. I would actually have liked to know Lucy better; she sometimes disappeared in the story. But then, the story isn't necessarily hers.

The arc of the story, from the moment Bea sneaks out of the house to leave her infant daughter out in the pear orchard to the point when Bea, Emma, and Lucy come together played out in a way I really enjoyed. There is no happily-ever-after here, which is not to say there is not some happiness found or that the ending isn't just as it should be (which is kinda sad, to be honest).

I've gotten kind of bad about picking up unknown books in the past few years. I mean, I've got all of these great bloggers telling me about so many books that I want to read that I rarely pick up something I know nothing about. Leaving Lucy Pear is a good reminder that there's a lot to be said for taking chances.

Top Ten Tuesday - Ten Books I've Read Set Outside the US

I missed this theme a couple of weeks ago but thought it was too good a topic to pass up. I love books that take me to places I've never been. Like Katherine of I Wished I Lived In A Library, I'm going to exclude England because I could fill the list just from there (I mean, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Dickens).

1. Italy - Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
2. Kenya - Cocktail Hour Under The Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller
3. Russia - City of Thieves by David Benioff
4. Jamaica - The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
5. Bangladesh - A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
6. Germany - City of Women by David Gillham
7. Canada - The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay
8. India - The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
9. Chili - Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende 1
0. Ireland - Faithful Place by Tara French 1
1. Iran - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
12. Afghanistan - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
13. Greece - Eleni by Nicholas Gage
14. Vietnam - The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
15. Sierra Leone - A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

 Oops - got a little carried away there! I could easily keep adding new countries - I've read so many great books from all over the world. This is a good reminder to keep looking for books set outside of the U.S. and England! Do you have a favorite country to read about?

The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller

The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (And Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller
Published November 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Nearing his fortieth birthday, author and critic Andy Miller realized he's not nearly as well read as he'd like to be. A devout book lover who somehow fell out of the habit of reading, he began to ponder the power of books to change an individual life—including his own—and to the define the sort of person he would like to be. Beginning with a copy of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita that he happens to find one day in a bookstore, he embarks on a literary odyssey of mindful reading and wry introspection. From Middlemarch to Anna Karenina to A Confederacy of Dunces, these are books Miller felt he should read; books he'd always wanted to read; books he'd previously started but hadn't finished; and books he'd lied about having read to impress people.


My Thoughts:

• Andy Miller had, like so many of us, grown up loving to read. Maybe more than most of us. He spent an incredible amount of time at his local libraries growing up, read every book in the school library, and took no small amount of grief as a child for being such a book nerd.

• In his son's first three years, Miller read just one book - Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. Instead he read work emails, music magazines, business proposals, newspapers, Excel spreadsheets. I hadn't been distracted by quite so many things but, while my kids were very young, I was lucky to read more than a couple of books a year, preferring to stick with magazines which worked better with the brief periods of reading time I could squeeze in.

• When he started reading The Master And Margarita he said his "life changed direction" and he began his year of reading dangerously, a year when he was not "reading for pleasure." Instead he was "reading for dear life." 

• I've been pretty well convinced to never pick up The Master and Margarita after reading what Miller had to say about it, even though he loved it.

• Miller began with a list of a dozen books he called the "list of betterment." It was largely a list of books he had previously lied about having read and included only a dozen books. It's his belief that all readers lie about having read books they think they should have read but haven't. Not sure I agree about that, at least not in the blogosphere - we're forever making lists of books we should have read but haven't!

• On only his second book, George Eliot's Middlemarch the whole thing almost came to a screeching halt. His wife convinced him to continue, to "let the book do the work" and told him that it didn't matter if every line made sense. "The drift would do for now." I can relate to that - more than once I've kept reading, accepting that I'll get out of the book what I can and won't worry that it might not be what the writer intended.

• In the end, Miller made his way through 50 books in a year, reading 50 pages a day. While he ended up loving some books (including Middlemarch), it was more important to him that he took something away from each of them. It ranged from a lesson the book meant to teach to the idea that he must persevere, even when he'd prefer not to. 

• I have a hard enough time giving up on books I'm not enjoying. Miller would have me believe that I need to push on through. You'll notice that I didn't learn that lesson from him, having recently succeeded in giving up on Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. 

• Fifty books on that list of books he felt were really important and must be read - I hadn't even heard of a lot of them. What does that say about the kind of reader I am? 

• The book is a blend of memoir and book criticism. It is filled with humor (particularly in all of the footnotes) and readers will be able to relate to Miller's struggles. It felt a bit uneven, sometimes focusing for long periods on Miller's life but more often to long stretches about the books. When I cared about the books, that was fine. When he was talking about books I'd never heard of, and quickly sussed out that I would never read, things dragged. 

• If you're interested in this one, I recommend reading it a chapter at a time. It doesn't suffer from being read that way but might if you tried to power through it. Of course, that's entirely up to you - unlike Miller, I have no intention of telling you what to read or how to read it. 

Life: It Goes On - July 31

Schedules were arranged and rearranged, groceries were bought (car snacks are an extremely important part of the journey!), our fur babies are being cared for, posts were scheduled and books were packed, and plans made (it's Milwaukee so there will be beer and beaches, for sure). We're finally there so I'm not here! I'll likely be driving my husband crazy by posting pictures on Facebook and Instagram that let burglars know that we're not home but, otherwise, I'm going to be AWOL from the electronic world for the next few days. 

I'll just leave you with this question: what is the funniest thing that ever happened to you on vacation? 

Finding Fontainebleau: An American Boy In France by Thad Carhart

Finding Fontainebleau: An American Boy in France by Thad Carhart
Published May 2016 by Viking
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher and TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
The adventures of Carhart and his family—his NATO officer father, his mother, four siblings, and their dog—in the provincial town of Fontainebleau, France, in the 1950s. Dominating life in the town is the beautiful Château of Fontainebleau. Begun in 1137, fifty years before the Louvre and more than five hundred before Versailles, the Château was a home for Marie-Antoinette, François I, and the two Napoleons, among others, all of whom added to its splendors without appreciably destroying the work of their predecessors.

Carhart takes readers along as he and his family experience the pleasures and particularities of French life: learning the codes and rules of a French classroom where wine bottles dispense ink, camping in Italy and Spain, tasting fresh baguettes. Readers see post-war life in France as never before, from the parks and museums of Paris (much less crowded in the 1950s, when you could walk through completely empty galleries in the Louvre) to the quieter joys of a town like Fontainebleau, where everyday citizens have lived on the edges of history since the 12th century and continue to care for their lieux de mémoire—places of memory.

Intertwined with stories of France’s post-war recovery are profiles of the monarchs who resided at Fontainebleau throughout the centuries and left their architectural stamp on the palace and its sizeable grounds. Carhart finds himself drawn back as an adult, eager to rediscover the town of his childhood. FINDING FONTAINEBLEAU imagines a bright future for this important site of French cultural heritage, as Carhart introduces us to the remarkable group of architects, restorers, and curators who care for and refashion the Château’s hundreds of rooms for a new generation of visitors. Guided by Patrick Ponsot, head of the Château’s restoration programs, the author takes us behind the scenes and shows us a side of the Château that tourists never see.

My Thoughts:
I gotta be honest with you on two scores.

Number one, I haven't finished the book. Too much going on on television the past couple of weeks for much reading. But I'm well on my way to done and feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on this sucker at this point. Unless, in the last fifty pages, Carhart suddenly resurrects one of the French kings or something, I doubt will be an ending that really knocks the book out of the park and makes me so angry I want to throw the book across the room.

Number two, I had some misgivings going into this book for a couple of reasons. I had mixed feelings about his last book, Across The Endless River, which was one of the first book I ever reviewed for review when I started blogging. And the description of this one both intrigued and worried me - all interesting ingredients, but would there be too much going on?

Not to worry. There is a lot going on in this book but I am really enjoying all angles from which Carhart comes at Fontainebleau. Seriously, a 1950's American family with five children end up living in a French manse right on the edge of the Chateau de Fontainebleau? It's like something out of a Doris Day movie without pratfalls and a laugh track. I can really picture Carhart and his family as they explore their little neck of the new woods and beyond, get used to new customs, and acclimate themselves to a whole new way of life.  But then, I am learning so much about French history, the region, and the way this unique Chateau evolved. I'm bound to find myself digging more into the kings and the times they lived in. And...you can't help but be impressed with France's devotion to the restoration and maintenance of this piece of their history, their devotion to caring for all of their heritage. Especially when you live in a town where it feels as though historically significant buildings are being torn down daily (albeit not nearly as historically significant!).

Thanks to the ladies at TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. I'm so glad I took a chance on this book! For other reviews, check out the full tour.


Twenty-six years ago THAD CARHART moved to Paris with his wife and two infant children. He lives there now, with frequent visits to New York and Northern California. His first book, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, appeared in 2000, published by Random House. Across the Endless River, a historical novel, came out in 2009 with Doubleday. Connect with Thad Website | Facebook | Twitter

Top Ten Things Books Have Made Me Want To Do Or Learn About After Reading Them

Well, let's just start this list off with the first book that I ever recall making me want to do something and see where that leads us, shall we?

1. Little Women: I was eight and already a lover of books when I was given Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I wanted to be Jo (even though I knew I was really more of a Beth). Even more, Jo made me want to be a writer. I never did write a book but I still keep notebooks with story ideas, character sketches, short stories, and writing resources. Because a girl's gotta dream.

2. March: Geraldine Brooks borrowed Mr. March from Little Women then reimagined him as more the real life inspiration for that character, Bronson Alcott, Louisa's father. I loved Mr. March so as Father but as March, not so much. March made me dig deeper into the reality of the Alcott family, including reading a couple of books that taught me much more about the family and the crowd they ran with.

3. In The Sanctuary of Outcasts: Not long before I read In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, I read Elise Blackwell's The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish which talked about leper colonies in the southern United States. I took that to be a fictional device. Then I read In The Sanctuary of Outcasts and learned that leper colonies were a reality here. I had to know more and spent the better part of a couple of days reading about the ways we "treated" those afflicted with this terrible disease.

4: City of Thieves: I knew about the siege of Leningrad before I read this book. But this work of fiction, for some reason, opened my eyes to just how horrific that siege was for those trapped inside of the German blockade. More, more, I needed to know more. A million and a half soldiers and citizens died; nearly that many more were evacuated. Both armies sustained incredible losses, palaces were destroyed, art stolen. Such a tragedy.

5: The Weight Of Heaven: My first Imrigar book and the book that really set off my love affair with books set in India and the neighboring region. If you've followed me long, you know how much this one book as influenced my reading.

6. The Girl With The Pearl Earring: I'd heard of Jan Vermeer before I read this book, but I knew absolutely nothing about him. Again, I wanted to learn more about how much Chevalier had based this book on fact and how much on fiction and immediately did some research. It's a desire to learn more about the artists I read about that has stayed with me and finds me looking for works by Vermeer and the other artists I've read about any time I'm in an art museum.

7: Loving Frank: Frank Lloyd Wright - icon, pioneer, architect. That much I knew going into this book. After reading it, I wanted to know more about the man behind those incredible buildings. Internet research and a documentary viewing taught me that Horan was spot on in the facts she presented. Wright may have been a visionary, but he wasn't overly concerned with the realities of his visions nor was he a very nice man.

8. Little Heathens, 9. Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe, 10. The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: If there's anything about food in a book, I tend to spend a good deal of the next week in my kitchen. While Fried Green Tomatoes wasn't a book about food, it did make me want to try fried green tomatoes and other Southern delicacies (not a fan of those tomatoes as it turns out!). Little Heathens had me looking at old school kitchen methods and got me back to doing more freezing and jelly making. Both The Sharper Your Knife and Finn's Kitchen Counter Cooking School are chock full of recipes and ideas and both earned a spot in on my recipe book shelf. They've inspired me to be creative, make use of what I've got and dare to make up my own dressings!

What books have made you want to do something or learn more about something after reading them?

Life: It Goes On - July 24

I know I'm not alone in hoping this heatwave that's gripping most of the country ends soon. You know it's hot when they talk about a cold front moving in and all that does is drops the highs to the upper 80's. Ugh. It was at least tolerable enough last evening for us to sit outside for a bit after dinner.

This Week I'm:

Listening To: NPR all week after bailing on my audiobook. I'll start Khaled Hosseini's And The Mountains Echoed tomorrow.

Watching: The RNC convention, at least as much as I could take of it. I sort of hate the conventions. A lot of cheerleading, a lot of telling us what they'll do if they're elected but not much as far as how they think they'll manage to accomplish those things.

Garden at the library

Reading: Racing to finish Leaving Lucy Pear before my permission through Netgalley expires. That whole readathon plan didn't quite pan out as I'd planned. I want to read. I just can't make myself sit down and do it for hours on end right now. Still, I did pick up a couple new books when I stopped at my library's book sale.

Making: A cocktail I discovered last weekend - a French 95 (bourbon and champagne - sounds weird together but oh, so yummy!), grilled cheese, chicken and orzo, caprese pasta, Asian chicken salad, and birthday cake.

Planning: A bridal shower in a couple of weeks for my niece.

Thinking About: Family dynamics. We spent the evening with old friends last night and what can only be called horror stories about problems with their siblings and parents. BG and I both left feeling very blessed.

As laid back a visit as you can get!

Enjoying: A visit from The Big Guy's brother and his wife Sunday and Monday and celebrating Mini-him's 28th birthday today. We'll do a family dinner today since he will be headed off with friends on his actual birthday this week. How did 28 years go by so quickly?!

Feeling: Frustrated. I have ended up with headaches the past few Saturdays. I've powered through as much as I can but I'm not getting nearly as much done as I'd like which means I don't get Sundays for a bit of a recharge day.

Looking forward to: Heading off to Milwaukee this weekend. Because of the way we had to take days off, the boys will head up a day earlier than Miss H, The Big Guy and I and head back a day early but we'll have plenty of time with the six of us to have fun!

Question of the week: It's ice cream season - what's your favorite flavor?