Pirate Queen captures chef.
I was thinking silly.
I was thinking lighthearted.
I was thinking mindless romantic fluff.
Now I’m thinking I need to apologize to Mr. Eli Brown – mindless fluff indeed.
Would I recommend it? Yes, it was so much more than I thought it would be in all the best ways.
At the very high risk of exposing the extent of my book nerdiness to the world I will tell you that when I discovered this book at the library I was so excited I got goosebumps. Then I quickly grabbed it off the shelf before anyone else could get it, ran to check it out and happily skipped home with it under my arm. (Figuratively speaking of course. I travel with three young girls in a truck with a bum starter but we don’t need to get into that.)
Would I recommend it? Yes.
You could read The Lady of the Rivers, The Red Queen , The White Queen and The Kingmakers Daughter* first if you wanted to be all proper in your historical timeline but it’s not necessary. Of course you’ll love this book so much that you’ll want to read them all when you are done anyway so you might as well start at the beginning!
*I read The Kingmakers Daughter as well and, unsurprisingly, I also loved it!
Do you know how the shape of spoons relates to political history?
!
Have you heard the theory of knife use and how it relates to overbites?!
Did you know that there were 692 patents granted for egg beaters in a 64 year span?!
Have you heard all the different ways people came up with to turn spits?!
Ice boxes!!? Pots!!? Measuring cups!!? Forks!!?
I would be happy to tell you because I found it all completely fascinating.
You don’t even have to ask.
Just invite me into your kitchen and soon you’ll have me jumping up and down in front of you as I spout off with nerdy factoids that I remember the gist of but not enough of the details so that you will think it’s interesting as well.
It will be like the kitchen nerds version of forgetting the punch line of the joke.
Come to think of it perhaps that’s why I don’t tell jokes.
Perhaps it would be best just to read the book yourself…
Would I recommend it? Clearly!
The author does a fantastic job of relating ancient (and not so ancient) kitchen woe’s to current day practice. I loved it in a way that had me running off to bed to see what happened next, which is impressive in a book about the “History of How We Cook and Eat!”
This is Jane:
She likes monkeys.
After reading Hug and Little Gorilla (yes, I know, they aren’t actually monkeys) 7,000 times we got a copy of Caps For Sale and read it 200,000 times. Then I got smart and asked my local librarian to help find some monkey books.
Sock Monkeys Do The Monkey Monkey sounds intriguing and Jane loved it. 
The problem is that it’s sock monkeys doing the hokey pokey. No offense to William B Windburn because his sock monkey photos are great, I just happen to hate the hokey pokey.
We both were satisfied with Busy Monkeys but it’s a two word a page board book which turns into a parental bored book awful quickly. 
Then Monkey Monkey Monkey showed up.
She loved it.
The other girls liked it.
The illustrations are super cute.
I have never said nor heard the word monkey so often in my life.
It’s catchy.
It rings in your head after you are done.
I put it on the pile to return to the library.
I took it off and kept it an extra week.
I debated but put it on the pile the next week.
I debated more and took it back off.
I debated more and put it back on.
The kids took it off and we read it again.
Everyone wandered off saying “Monkey wants some monkey nuts. Monkey, monkey, monkey nuts.”
I decided we were all going insane, put it at the bottom of the pile and threw it in the book return as soon as possible.
Would I recommend it? If you’ve got a monkey loving child and a high tolerance for the word monkey it’s mostly perfect.
These are by no means all of the monkey books we’ve read in the last few weeks. Curious George has been a regular as well as a few terrible books I shall not mention here and many that had monkeys featuring as minor characters.
Any other favorite monkey (or gorilla she doesn’t seem to be too picky) books you can recommend?
This…
I…
….
Wow.
Would I recommend it? Well, yes.
Except that you should be warned that it starts with a needle in an eyeball… and that’s not even close to the last of the nasty things that happen.
Also, it’s a bit like reading something of Stephen Kings.
Utterly compelling, horrifyingly good and now that I’ve finished – I’m afraid of people.
So it was good.
Yup, good.
If I keep mulling over the scenes and picturing the story in my head does that mean it was a successful book? I think it does.
If I am disappointed by the character development after such vivid scenes were “painted” in my mind does that mean that the book was sup-par or just not living up to it’s own standards? Either way it’s not a good sign.
Would I recommend it? I can’t decide.
Would I recommend it? If you came over to visit and share a cup of tea with me this evening I’d pick this book off the table where it is sitting and send it home with you.
Before I placed it in your hands I would probably check to make sure that you didn’t have issues reading about childbirth- it’s a book about a midwife after all.
But, if you did have issues with that sort of thing, I would tell you the story of the birthing class I went to before Ivy was born.
All three of my girls were born at a birth center staffed by midwives and when I was pregnant with Ivy we attended the requisite birthing class. In our first class they told us their intent was to turn us into “mini-midwives” and teach us as much about the process of childbirth as they could in the few Saturdays that we had. Which they did with the help of videos. Many, many videos of childbirth that we would watch and then discuss. On the last day we were given the opportunity to share any thoughts we had with our classmates. One of the husbands, in a room full of very pregnant, first time mothers, spoke up and told us that watching the videos was sort of like watching horror films. That they are awful at first but then you get desensitized to them.
And then, I would give you the book anyway.
Would we recommend it?
Four generations of my family (sorry, only three are pictured) say yes!
Get ready to pay attention!
Because as the main character relives her life over and over again you’ll want to remember who’s who, what was what and when things happened the last times around.
Would I recommend it? Yes – a book worth paying attention to!
There I am, standing at the circulation desk of the library waiting as my pile of books gets checked out when yet another book catches my eye.
How could I have missed it? The cover is muted red with black and shiny gold highlights. The title “Wicked Bugs” sounds interesting but once I see that the subtitle involves the word “diabolical” I pick it up.
I pick it up and discover that it is one of those hard cover books.
Perhaps someone can help me out here because I have no idea what the technical term is for this kind of cover. All I know is that there are hardcovers, and then there are those hardcovers. Those hardcovers have a matte finish, feel extra soft in hand and once I’m holding a book with one of those covers it’s all over. The book practically screams to come home with me, I must know what’s inside. Need it even be said? – I love those covers.
Once I’m done swooning over my favorite cover I see that it’s a unique size. Squarish, but not so square as to be awkward, just enough to be different. Smaller and cuter (which is saying something since I count ten bugs on the front alone) than your average book.
So, there I am, abandoning my favorite librarian mid-conversation, already in love with a book I have yet to open.
I quickly page through it and it just gets better. Line drawings of giant bugs, fancy fonts, off set quotes, informative boxes, classifications at the top of the page including “Horrible,” “Deadly” and “Painful” and the paper -it’s good paper, thick paper, I love this book.
I toss it on the top of my already too big pile, attempt to ignore the look from John which is trying to subtly inquire if I’ll ever be doing the dishes again with this pile of books to read and say “This one too!” just in case there is some other library patron ready to swoop in and take my new favorite book from me.
Would I recommend it? Need you ask? I’ve already read it, but it’s not due back at the library yet so I’m keeping it around the house thrusting it at people and forcing them to read crazy, wicked bug facts while admiring the cover.
Also I have made a mental note never to move any further south, too many “wicked bugs” down there where it’s warm!
And a second mental note that I must next read Wicked Plants by the same author.
And that e-readers are probably not my thing.
And that while I just gave this a broad recommendation probably people who go through the roof when they see a spider wouldn’t appreciate the larger than life drawings involved.
And a final mental note that the rest of my mental notes should be on post-it’s as I’ve been staying up way too late reading to be able to remember all this stuff.
Behind the Willows 