Poetry - Recommended

 Buy it - Read it 

Magic Enuff by Tara M. Stringfellow

"Each poem asks how we can heal and sustain relationships with people, systems, and ourselves. How to reach for the kind of real love that allows for the truth of anger, disappointment, and grief. Unapologetic, unafraid, and glorious in its nuance, this collection argues that when it comes to living in our full humanity, we have—and we are—magic enough."

I DREAMT THE KKK WERE IN MY LIVING ROOM

and I had made everyone lemonade

they sipped, offered pleasantries

my house, the antiques

how could they see I asked

with only those tiny slits

for eyes and we all laughed

after a bit, it got quiet

so I broke the silence with

what I thought my mom

and my grandma and hers

would've wanted me to say -

I poisoned y'all lemonade

        - - - Tara M. Stringfellow

More Food Related Comfort Reads

Sharing my recommendation for Pat Conroy's Cookbook at Facebook prompted two friends to recommend writings by two more of my favorite food writers who write about so much more than food.

If these names are new to you, fix yourself a cup of tea or coffee, a warm pastry, find your coziest reading nook and give 'em a try!  

Ruth Reichl

From Wikipedia:

Is American chef, food writer and editor. In addition to two decades as a food critic, mainly spent at the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, Reichl has also written cookbooks, memoirs and a novel, and has been co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth, and editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. She has won six James Beard Foundation Awards.

• Mmmmm: A Feastiary (cookbook), (1972)
• Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (memoir) (1998)
• Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table (memoir) (2001)
• Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (memoir) (2005)^[8]
• The Gourmet Cookbook: More Than 1000 Recipes (2006)
• Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way (2009)
• Gourmet Today: More than 1000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen (2009)
• For You, Mom. Finally. (2010; first published under the title Not Becoming My Mother)
• Delicious! (novel) (2014)
• My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life (2015)
• Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir (2019)
• The Paris Novel (2024)^[16]

Laurie Colwin

From Wikipedia:

Was an American writer who wrote five novels, three collections of short stories and two volumes of essays and recipes.^[1] She was known for her portrayals of New York society and her food columns in Gourmet magazine. In 2012, the James Beard Foundation inducted her into its Cookbook Hall of Fame

Novels

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• Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object (Viking, 1975)
• Happy All the Time (Knopf, 1978)
• Family Happiness (Knopf, 1982)
• Goodbye Without Leaving (Poseidon Press, 1990)
• A Big Storm Knocked It Over (HarperCollins, 1993)

Storiesedit

• Passion and Affect (Viking, 1974) aka Dangerous French Mistress and Other Stories
• The Lone Pilgrim (Knopf, 1981)
• Another Marvelous Thing (Knopf, 1988)

Food writing

edit

• Home Cooking (Knopf, 1988)
• More Home Cooking (HarperCollins, 1993)

Happy Reading and Bon Appétit!

❤

Hopeful Reading

 

Searching for hope?

Try this -

Winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction
Winner of the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award
Winner of the 2024 Sir Walter Raleigh Award

One of Vanity Fair’s Favorite Books of 2023

“A beautifully fearless contemplation.” –S. A. Cosby

From award-winning writer David Joy comes a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center.

Toya Gardner, a young Black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis. But when she encounters a still-standing Confederate monument in the heart of town, she sets her sights on something bigger.

Meanwhile, local deputies find a man sleeping in the back of a station wagon and believe him to be nothing more than some slack-jawed drifter. Yet a search of the man’s vehicle reveals that he is a high-ranking member of the Klan, and the uncovering of a notebook filled with local names threatens to turn the mountain on end.

After two horrific crimes split the county apart, every soul must wrestle with deep and unspoken secrets that stretch back for generations. Those We Thought We Knew is an urgent unraveling of the dark underbelly of a community. Richly drawn and bracingly honest, it asks what happens when the people you’ve always known turn out to be monsters, what do you do when everything you ever believed crumbles away?

Comfort Reading

 

Have we ever needed the comfort of books more?

Description from Amazon

A standout voice in women’s fiction. I was captivated from the very first line.” — Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Summer of Songbirds

Perhaps the secrets of her mother’s past in this tiny French town hold the key to her own future. . .

Food critic Tempèsta Luddington has always felt like the odd person out in her family, ever since she lost her beloved mother at the tender age of thirteen. When her workaholic father passes fifteen years later, Tempèsta is not surprised that the majority of the considerable family money will pass to her dutiful younger brother, Wal. Still, she is left a modest remembrance from her mother, and for the first time Tempèsta has a world of choices before her.

Lost in grief and hoping to reconnect with her memories and her mother’s past, she uses the money to buy a ramshackle manor house in Sainte-Colombe, a small village in Provence, where her mother had grown up. But she is greeted with more questions than answers. Her welcome, especially by the town’s stodgy mayor, is cold at best, and she finds herself wondering if the entire experiment was a mistake.

Yet she stays, stubbornly sticking it out, slowly learning that her mother’s legacy was more than just a nest egg. Through her mother and the village, Tempèsta learns the value of community and friendship, the importance of self-confidence, and the power of love and trust. What’s more, she sees for herself that there is magic and beauty in the everyday—even something as simple as a sprig of lavender and sage.

“For readers who love Under the Tuscan Sun and Chocolat, this is your next heartfelt, delightful read.” —Jennifer Moorman, bestselling author of The Baker's Man

• A dreamy escape into Southern France from bestselling author Aimie K. Runyan.
• Perfect for fans of Katherine Center, Rebecca Serle, and Sarah Jio
• Kate Quinn described Runyan’s previous work as “a moving tale of female solidarity and courage.”

Comfort Reading Continues (edited)

Essays are, for me, comfort reading.

I write them for that very same reason.  Essays have long been my first writing love.



There have been periods of time when I just simply have not had enough sense to read a novel.

These have been periods of stress when I've been concerned about loved ones and can't seem to hold a thought in my head for long without worries nudging it aside.

And there are times when I've been sitting on a deck, or on the beach, watching the waves and all I want is a little literary comfort to go along with the peace I'm feeling.

Now seems to be a time for essays.

It's not just a cookbook (although it can stand alone as one that cooks and cookbook aficionados would love). It's full of some of the most delicious essays written with the pure poetry that you would expect from Pat Conroy.

More Recommended Reading for Halloween

 

Do you love witches?

Do you wish you were a witch?

ARE you a witch?

Whichever . . .

You might love this book as much as I do.  (it is very timely 😊 ).

Description from Amazon:

A witty, spectacular, and timely tale of modern-day witches waging war on the patriarchy, from fan favorite Kirsten Miller, the author of The Change and Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books.

There are places on earth where nature’s powers gather. Girls raised there are bequeathed strange gifts. A few have powers so dark that they fear to use them. Such a place is Wild Hill, on the tip of Long Island. For centuries, the ghost of a witch murdered by colonists claimed the beautiful and fertile Wild Hill…until a young Scottish woman with strange gifts arrived. Sadie Duncan was allowed to stay.

Five generations of Sadie’s descendants called Wild Hill home, each generation more powerful than the last. Then, in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, the last of the Duncans, once prophesized to be the most powerful of their kind, abandoned their ancestral home.

One of them, Brigid Laguerre moved to California and turned her dark gift into fame and fortune. Her sister, Phoebe, settled on a ranch in Texas, where women visit in secret for her tonics and cures. Phoebe’s daughter, Sybil, has become a famous chef. Seemingly powerless, Sibyl has never been told of the Duncan bloodline.

Now Brigid, Phoebe, and Sibyl have been brought to Wild Hill to discover their family legacy. The Old One, furious at the path mankind has taken, has chosen three powerful witches to turn the tide. The Duncans will fulfill their destinies—but only if they can set aside their grievances and come together as a family.

Halloween Comfort Reading

 I love Halloween.

Last night I watched (for the umpteenth time) one of my favorite movies, Practical Magic.

I like it every bit as much as the book it's based on and now they're doing a sequel.  Yay!!!

So now I think it might be time for me to re-read the series.

Unsure where to start, I scooted over to Alice Hoffman's webpage and this is what she had to say:

Practical Magic Series

I'm often asked about the order in which you should read the books in the Practical Magic series. It’s your choice! You can read them in the order they were written (Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic, Magic Lessons, The Book of Magic) or you can read them in chronological order (Magic Lessons, The Rules of Magic, Practical Magic, The Book of Magic). It’s up to you!

Click on the book jacket to learn more.

Happy Reading!

Happy Fall!

Happy Halloween!

Comfort Reading

 

As the craziness in this country continues getting crazier, I may need some extended comfort reading.

I know for certain I can find it in Margaret Maron's Colleton County.  And ooooh boy - I can hear her right now.  She would have a lot to say about things.  ❤

Read about Margaret and her amazing body of award winning work here

More Comfort Reading

 

Pat Conroy.

Oh, how I miss Pat Conroy.

I have read and re-read and re-read again everything he wrote.

This is my fave.

Not always easy to read, but it remains a comfort read for me.  I need to be reminded, especially now, of the good in the world; in people.

From Amazon:

An American expatriate in Rome unearths his family legacy in this sweeping novel by the acclaimed author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini
 
A Southerner living abroad, Jack McCall is scarred by tragedy and betrayal. His desperate desire to find peace after his wife’s suicide draws him into a painful, intimate search for the one haunting secret in his family’s past that can heal his anguished heart. Spanning three generations and two continents, from the contemporary ruins of the American South to the ancient ruins of Rome, from the unutterable horrors of the Holocaust to the lingering trauma of Vietnam, Beach Music sings with life’s pain and glory. It is a novel of lyric intensity and searing truth, another masterpiece among Pat Conroy’s legendary and beloved novels.
 

Upcoming Comfort Reading

 

I have loved hearing from you about comfort reading!  My TBR list has grown, thanks to you.  Always a good thing.  

I often say I was born to be a retired person and people laugh, but I'm quite serious.  Spending my days reading is what I have wanted to do since forever and now it's pretty much what I do as my reward for all those years of work.

It's too peopley out there for me, and these days the craziness of the world is more than I want to be a part of (although the staff in my state reps' offices all pretty much now recognize my voice - I have no intention of disengaging totally; not while we have corrupt unhinged people running this country).  MY country.

Oops - one of my tangents; sorry . . .  As if none of you know how I feel about the state of things.

Back to comfort reading.

Louise Penny is one of my comfort read authors, and has been since I first heard of her and her debut novel, STILL LIFE.

I was lucky enough to meet Louise for the first time at the Baltimore Bouchercon in 2008.

Back then there was no long signing line.  I was able to gush and fumble and make it known in truest fangirl style that I thought she hung the moon as she signed my Three Pines books.

And I sill do.

I have all her books, of course.

Most have been signed and personalized and I absolutely treasure the collection.

Her newest, THE BLACK WOLF, will be published the end of this month.  And I can't wait!

But I'm also excited about the special anniversary edition of STILL LIFE.

All this to say, my winter comfort reading will be me snuggled up at home with Donald and Annabelle re-visiting Three Pines, books One through 20.  The Ultimate Comfort Read.

Louise will not be touring with her newest book in the United States for reasons I, personally, agree with and admire her for.  Read her words here.

And that's all for today from me in the mountains of Meat Camp, NC

Happy Reading

Stay strong, we are all in this together

❤ ❤ ❤

Comfort Reading Continues

 

The title of this book gives you no reason to think of it as a comfort read, you just have to take my word for it.

I love this book.

The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers • A New York Times “Readers’ Choice: Best Books of the 21st Century” Pick

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Table for Two, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.