Book Review: Finding Colin Firth by Mia March

Finding Colin Firth: A Novel by Mia March

Published by: Gallery Books

Published on: July 9, 2013

Page Count: 336

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: Advanced reading edition for Kindle via NetGalley

Available Formats: Paperback and Kindle ebook

My Review:

Three women, each searching for something specific, spend some of their summer in a small tourist town in Maine. There's Veronica Russo, the 38-year-old diner waitress and talented pie maker who has returned to her hometown to face her past and make peace with the fact that she gave a daughter up for adoption 22 years before. Bea Crane is that daughter, and has just learned in a letter written by her mother before she died that Bea was adopted. She sets out on a journey to find answers and her birth mother. Gemma, a New Yorker, is in a failing marriage and without a job when she realizes she's pregnant. To process everything, Gemma visits Boothbay Harbor, Maine, to sort out what she'll do and when she'll tell her husband that they're expecting. While there, Gemma gets an assignment from the local paper to profile Hope Home, a place where teenage mothers have resided during their pregnancies for decades. It's Gemma's story that causes her to meet Veronica and Bea separately to interview them, and Gemma's story that helps the mother-daughter pair come together. During all of this, the town is abuzz with the anticipation of Colin Firth's arrival any day to Boothbay Harbor to film a movie. The townspeople (and the women in particular) have their eyes peeled for the star.

Though these women have heavy internal struggles, the theme and tone of the book are definitely optimistic. There are Veronica's pies with names like "Spirit Pie," "Confidence Pie," "Happiness Pie" and "Hope Pie," each flavor guaranteed to bring about what its name says. There is Bea's belief that though she's on a break from school and work, she'll return to both and become a teacher. While Gemma isn't sure her marriage will work out, she knows she'll remain true to herself no matter what happens. And everyone in town is full of anticipation for Colin Firth as his movie crew moves into town and starts filming.

I'll be honest that I picked this book review solely because of its title (who doesn't love Colin Firth?), and I loved that the novel is filled with references to his movies, personal life, and, ahem, the Mr. Darcy lake scene in BBC's Pride and Prejudice miniseries (unfamiliar or just need to see it again?). But the book really held my interest, and not because I kept waiting for Colin Firth to make his appearance. The characters are memorable and readers will just simply want everything to work out perfectly for all three of the women.

Speaking of the Mr. Darcy lake scene, it's just been named the most memorable moment in British television (read the article).

Four out of five stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like Where the Heart Is (book and movie), Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones's Diary, Midnight in Austenland, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, Waitress (movie) and any movie starring Colin Firth, of course.

Book Review: A Different Sun by Elaine Neil Orr

A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa by Elaine Neil Orr

Published by: Berkley Books

Published on: April 2, 2013

Page Count: 388

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: Paperback

Available Formats: Paperback and Amazon Kindle e-book

My Review:

Emma Davis knows she is called for something special. It's something different from the life her sister Catherine is sure to lead, and different from what her father expects of her. As a young girl growing up on a Middle Georgia plantation, her closest confidant, a slave named Uncle Eli, encourages her to follow her heart. Emma knows to do her life's work she must leave her comfortable life, and she's able to do that when she meets and marries a handsome missionary on leave from his work in Nigeria. Emma and Henry Bowman's married life begins with a journey across the ocean to a Yoruba village.

During her young married life, Emma is constantly out of her comfort zone but leans on her faith to navigate a new culture, household, language and customs. Emma learns the differences between the antebellum South of her girlhood and her womanhood in Africa. Perhaps her biggest challenge is learning to let her husband operate as the head of their household, even when she believes she knows other, better ways to live their missionary life. Through challenges, heartbreak, love and success, Emma learns much about herself as an individual and a wife, and how she can manage to be both.

With beautiful imagery, Orr paints a vivid, complicated picture of Africa and its people, with Africa being a mysterious character in the novel. Orr skillfully creates mounting tension between Emma and Henry, and Emma and Jacob, an native and Henry's missionary helper. And, the author conveys the deep pain and emotional struggle with Emma that she must bear alone. Emma's journey is both an interior and an exterior one, and both are defined by her life as a missionary in a place where she will always be an outsider. Emma's faith, though it waivers at times, sees her through it all.

This is a novel that will give readers reason to consider what freedom is and what one's religion means, timeless ideas that will always resonate with us. 

**Note: Elaine Neil Orr was one of my professors at NC State University when I was working toward my masters degree. Her workshop course in creative nonfiction and thesis direction were of great importance for writing my thesis and the writing coaching and editing work I've done since. I'm grateful to her and honored to review her first work of fiction.

Four out of five stars

If you like A Different Sun, you'll probably like State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and O Pioneers! and My Antonia, both by Willa Cather.

It's Monday. What are you reading?

 

This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Go check out her blog.

Here's what I've got on tap for this July 4 week:

Reading:
Blog, Inc.: Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community by Joy Deangdeelert Cho
Finding Colin Firth by Mia March for review next week
Mrs. Lincoln: A Life by Catherine Clinton

Listening:
Pawley's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

Working on:
Edits on chapters of a Southern historical fiction novel
A feature article for Georgia Connector magazine
A grant draft for a nonprofit organization
Wrapping up syllabi for this fall's Advanced Composition and American Literature
Editing an article for an academic journal

And more blogging!

Monday....

Book Review: A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell

A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell

Published by: Little, Brown and Company

Published on: June 18, 2013

Page Count: 360

Genre: Cookbook, history

My Reading Format: Advanced reading copy in e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley

Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle book

 

My Review: 

William Sitwell, food writer and television personality in Great Britain bid on several 19th century cookbooks at an auction in 2010 and won them. While reading through them later, the idea for this book was born. What he discovered was that even centuries ago, those who wrote down recipes became authorities on food, and therefore, in some cases, also culture and hospitality, either in his or her own circle of friends or to a larger audience. Things haven't changed much over the years. With more research, Sitwell chose 100 recipes written down by cooks that we may already be familiar with or have never heard of. Either way, those recipes, in some way, shaped the food culture of its time. (He makes the disclaimer early that a recipe from centuries past may not be cookable by someone in a modern kitchen today, but that some of his chosen recipes would be.) Starting with ancient Egyptian bread, the recipe for which was painted on the wall of a tomb in 11 BC, Sitwell takes us through food history, all the way to modern-day recipes by cooks that are a regular part of our lives through their books or television shows today.

Though the 100 recipes are from a wide range of countries and cultures, Sitwell's cultural references are heavily British assuming in places that his readers will know exactly what he's talking about. I didn't always. However, that didn't take much away from my enjoyment of the book. 

I enjoyed reading about recipes I'd never heard of and never realized what a major impact some of them had in their time. Some of those were very interesting, such as John Evelyn who was the first person to advocate for salads and create a dressing for them in the 1600s and Mary Eales, who invented ice cream in 1718. As an American, the buttered apple pie recipe from Amelia Simmons' American Cookery in 1796 was an important one, as was Eliza Leslie's cupcake recipe from her 1834 book Miss Leslie's Behaviour Book: A Guide and Manual for Ladies. Also included were other fun things like the evolution of the cocktail party in the mid-20th century, the start of Gourmet magazine and epicurious.com, and today's TV food personalities like Emeril, Mario Batali and Jamie Oliver, and food personalities we'll never forget (i.e. Julia Child).   

If you're interested in food culture and its history, both ancient and modern, you'll like A History of Food in 100 Recipes. 

Four out of five stars

If you think you'll like this book, I also recommend Eating by Jason Epstein.

Silver Linings Playbook and Building My Own Syllabus

Last week I was putting together my syllabus for a year-long American literature course I'll be teaching to ninth and tenth graders at a homeschool co-op starting in the fall, my favorite genre. There are so many wonderful things I've considered including that I needed advice and perspective from others to help me make sure I wasn't overloading the class. So I tossed the question out on Facebook to find out people's favorite and least favorite books they read in high school. For my purposes this time I threw out everything that wasn't American lit and made my choices from the feedback I got.

Did you see Silver Linings Playbook a few months ago when it was out? I loved the complex characters, plot and the balance between funny and serious moments throughout the film. I thought Bradley Cooper as the main character Pat was wonderful. While I liked him just fine in The Hangover and Wedding Crashers, I loved seeing what else he could do.

I just read the book version by Matthew Quick earlier this week. There are some big differences between the book and the movie, but I liked each of them for different reasons. In both the book and the movie Pat is trying to win back his ex-wife by getting in shape and reading everything she has put on the syllabus for her high school English students. Though he doesn't love what she's selected, he plows through them, looking forward to the day when he'll be reunited with his ex-wife and they can discuss the novels.

Two-thirds of the books Pat reads are ones I've chosen for my syllabus: The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn. The two Pat read that I didn't pick are The Catcher in the Rye (which almost made it on to the syllabus. If I teach this class again I might teach this one.) and The Bell Jar. 

Here are the rest of the novels that made it in: My Antonia, Of Mice and Men and The Color Purple. We'll also read A Streetcar Named Desire and bits and pieces of Phyllis Wheatley, Anne Bradstreet, Thoreau, Whitman, Emerson, Sandburg and Dickinson. I'm looking forward to rereading all these classics myself to prepare.

Have I missed anything What other books do you consider to be important to American literature?

Simon Callow's Charles Dickens

Two people have recently said exactly the same thing to me: that I must be planning to assign a lot of Dickens to my high schoolers this fall, because I'd loaded my Goodreads to-read shelf with a bunch of his novels. The real reason is that I've just finished Simon Callow's new biography, Charles Dickens (or called Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World in the U.S.), which I picked up in London to coincide with Callow's one-man play on Dickens which I saw (it was wonderful, by the way). For nearly two hours Callow gave the audience Dickens' bio, hitting all the highlights of his interesting life. Sound a little boring? It wasn't. Callow was highly entertaining. So was his book. I'd learned a lot of new information about Dickens on my 2010 trip to London when I visited his house museum in Bloomsbury. A lot of what Callow did for me though was give both extra information and a fresh perspective on what I already did know about Dickens. Also while reading the bio, I realized how few novels by Dickens I've actually read (only Bleak House, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol), so I'm motivated to change that. I've got Oliver Twist downloaded onto my Kindle to start when the right moment comes. Here are a few photos from the Charles Dickens Museum:

 

It's Monday. What are you reading?

 

This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Go check out her blog.

I'm currently enjoying Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again. It's been patiently waiting on my shelf for me to pick it up ever since I visited the Old Kentucky Home on a trip to Asheville several years ago. It will definitely take me the rest of the week to finish it. 

 

 

Up next on my to-read list are The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell (for future book review) and Elaine Neil Orr's A Different Sun (also for future book review).

Also, I'm still currently listening to The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Migration by Isabel Wilkerson in the car. 

What are you reading?