It's Monday: What Are You Reading?

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date

I borrowed several books of poetry from the library written by Mary Oliver, including Dog Songs, The Leaf and the Cloud, and Blue Iris. Oliver tends to write a lot about the beauty of nature - flowers, the seasons, dogs - though her poems are not limited to these. Oliver has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

The bluebird

is dropping the pearls of his song

out of the sky.

- from "Rhapsody," The Leaf and the Cloud

Shelter by Jung Yun, March 15, 2016 by Picador.

Why should a man care for his parents when they failed to take care of him as a child? A debut novel that asks what it means to provide for one's family. (publisher)

I have been reading this on and off, not an easy story as there are lots of heartbreak on the part of the parents and a slow realization by their son of his responsibilities.

What are you reading this week?

Sunday Salon: Books from My Shelves

Books from my shelves, revisited. I featured this book on a Waiting on Wednesday post last year and have pulled it to be read this winter!

The Summer of Good Intentions by Wendy Francis, July 7, 2015; Simon and Schuster
Genre: contemporary women's fiction

The Herington girls - Maggie, Jess, and Virgie -  are together again, with their husbands and kids, for another summer in the family’s old Cape Cod house.

When their mother, Gloria, announces she’s coming for an unscheduled visit—with her new boyfriend—no one is more surprised than their father, Arthur, who has not quite gotten over his divorce.  (publisher)

Here's another that I hope to read soon:


Iris and Ruby: A Novel by Rosie Thomas, April 5, 2016 by The Overlook Press
Setting: Cairo

Iris Black's Cairo house is disturbed by the arrival of willful granddaughter Ruby from England. Ruby helps Iris document deteriorating memories of glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo and her WWII one true love, enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux, who was lost to war. Iris’ early devastation shaped her daughter, granddaughter, and leads them into terrible danger in the Egyptian desert. (publisher)

Any older books from your shelves you are currently reading/hoping to read? 

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date. 

Sunday Salon: Fallen Leaves

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit Mailbox Monday and It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date. 

I'm raking up fallen leaves from last autumn, clearing flowerbeds and bushes of old debris, having found a wonderful new tool - a shrub rake with a very long handle that grabs leaves from under bushes and pulls leaves from bushes without leaving damage. Wish I had known about this rake years ago!

On the reading score, I have three new books this week:

A Drop in the Ocean by Jenni Ogden, to be released May 3, 2016, published by She Writes Press. On her 49th birthday, Anna Fergusson, Boston neuroscientist and dedicated introvert, arrives at an unwanted crossroads when the funding for her research lab is cut. On impulse she rents a cabin for a year on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. However Turtle Island, alive with sea birds and nesting Green turtles, is not the retreat she expected. (goodreads)

300 Days of Sun  from the author Deborah Lawrenson, published April 12, 2016 by Harper Paperbacks

Deborah Lawrenson’s mesmerizing novel transports readers to a sunny Portuguese town with a shadowy past—where two women, decades apart, are drawn into a dark game of truth and lies that still haunts the shifting sea marshes. (goodreads)

And this year's Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction I bought for my Kindle:

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, published April 7, 2015 by Grove Press

The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity, politics, and America, wrought in electric prose. The narrator, a Vietnamese army captain, is a man of divided loyalties, a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent in America after the end of the Vietnam War in the mid 1970s. A powerful story of love and friendship, and a gripping espionage novel, The Sympathizer examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today. (goodreads)

In addition, I have a couple of books for book tours coming up in May and June.
What's on your reading list this week?

The Madwoman Upstairs, a Novel by Catherine Lowell

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

The Mad Woman Upstairs, a literary novel by Catherine Lowell, to be released March 1, 2016 by Touchstone.

"...the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary scavenger hunt to find the family's long-rumored secret estate, using clues her eccentric father left behind." (publisher)

Book beginning: 
The night I arrived at Oxford, I learned that my dorm room was built in 1361 and had originally been used to quarantine victims of the plague. The college porter seemed genuinely apologetic a he led me up the five flights of stairs to my tower. He was a nervous man - short and mouthy, with teeth like a nurse shark - who admitted through a brittle accent that Old College was over-enrolled this year, and that the deans has been forced to find space for students wherever they could. This tower was an annex to Old College. Many tragic and important people had lived here before me, apparently: had I heard of Timothy the Terrible? Sir Michael "the Madman" Morehouse? I shook my head and said that i was sorry - I was American. 

Page 56:
I marveled at their ability to create characters that bore no resemblance to their own selves whatsoever. Were they geniuses in a world of losers? Or were there glimmers of themselves in even their most outlandish fictional creations?

I rated this book a 5/5. 

Book Tour: Broken Homes and Gardens by Rebecca Kelley

Broken Homes and Gardens by Rebecca Kelley, paperback: 268 pages. Publisher: Blank Slate Press (April 28, 2015)

A girl, a guy, a broken-down house. Malcolm and Joanna are in-again, out-again: in love, out of each other’s arms, in an awkward co-living arrangement, out of the country. Their unconventional relationship is the only way, Joanna says, to protect herself from the specter of commitment, which inevitably leads to heartbreak. Set in the damp and drizzly neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon, Broken Homes and Gardens is an ode to friendship, lust, and the unrelenting pull of love. (publisher)

Comments: 
The novelty  of teaching in Prague has worn off for Joanna. She suddenly arrives back in Portland and calls her unsuspecting sister to put her up. Laura tries to persuade Joanna to go back to her former boyfriend Nate, but Joanna meets Malcolm and they begin an unusual living arrangement.

A modern romance, for the Millennial generation.

from Ch. 12:

"You and Malcolm. He's moving in with you?" Joanna nodded. "Yep. That's right."

"Are you sure this is a wise idea?""He said he'd help me fix the place up...." 

Rebecca Kelley grew up in Carson City, Nevada, and teaches writing at Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland. She is the co-author of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Broken Homes and Gardens is her first novel.

For other reviews, visit the tour schedule sponsored by TLC Book Tours, which provided a copy of the book for review. 

Book Review: The Reinvention of Albert Paugh by Jean Davies Okimoto

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn.

The Reinvention of Albert Paugh by Jean Davies Okimoto, published by Endicott and Hugh Books (July 23, 2015)

First paragraph, first chapter:

Al didn't quite know how he got sidetracked. He'd never thought of himself as an impulsive person, it was rare that he did anything without thinking it through and he certainly had every intension of taking Bert, his chocolate Lab, to Point Robinson. It was a beautiful fall day and Bert was eager to get to the beach were he loved to swim and retrieve his rubber frog.Of course, Al was supposed to get exercise, too. But instead of going to the beach like he'd told Eleanor he'd be doing - the past eighth months he'd been very dutiful about always letting his wife know his whereabouts - somehow, he inexplicably ended up going in the opposite direction...

A quote/teaser from chapter 2:

"I'm flunking retirement, Martha Jane.""You're doing what, Albert?""I'm flunking retirement. My retirement is a failure, it's not going well at all.""Oh, my. that doesn't sound good." 

My comments: 
Al Paugh retires and sells his veterinary practice on Vashon Island, Washington, after his heart attack and surgery, urged on by his wife Eleanor. When Al finds himself alone, retired from a practice he loved, he has only his faithful dog Bert to rely on. 

Retirement doesn't sit well with Al. He misses his practice and taking care of animals, he has to sell the house he and his wife had for years, and he has to learn to be alone. This is the story of what and how he does, how Al, in spite of being pulled in different directions in the beginning,  "reinvents" himself after retirement, with a little help from his dog and old friends. Al goes through a lot of changes; it's not a predictable story though he does find new love.. 

I enjoyed the book, as I did the author's previous one, Walter's Muse. Besides interesting and unusual characters, the book has many insightful thoughts, ideas, and observations about getting old, retiring, and finding new meaning in life, with help from people on sometimes rocky roads. I gave this a five star and think everyone would enjoy it -young or old, working or retired.  

Jean Davies Okimoto is an author and playwright whose books and short stories have been translated into seven languages. Her many awards include Smithsonian Notable Book, the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, the Washington Governor’s Award and the International Reading Association Readers Choice Award. She has appeared on CNN, Oprah, and The Today Show. Jeanie, a retired psychotherapist, and her husband Joe retired to Vashon Island in 2004 where they (and their dogs Bert and Willie) are visited by deer families and their six grandchildren. Visit her at www.jeandaviesokimoto.com

The Reinvention of Albert Paugh is the third book in Jean Davies Okimoto’s Island Trilogy, following The Love Ceiling and Walter’s Muse. 

Thanks to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for a review copy of the book. 
For the full tour schedule, see more reviews.

Book Beginning: Rainy Day Sisters by Kate Hewitt

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. Post it. Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also, visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

Rainy Day Sisters: A Hartley-by-the-Sea Novel by Kate Hewitt, to be released August 4, 2015 by NAL

"Welcome to Hartley-by-the-Sea in England’s beautiful Lake District, where two sisters who meet as strangers find small miracles tucked into the corners of every day...."

Book beginning:

Lucy Bagshaw's half sister, Juliet, had warned her about the weather. "When the sun is shining, it's lovely, but otherwise it's wet, windy, and cold," she'd stated in her stern, matter-of-fact way. "Be warned."Lucy had shrugged off the warning because she'd rather live anywhere, even the Antarctic, than stay in Boston for another second. In any case she'd thought she was used to all three. She'd lived in England for the first six years of her life, and it wasn't as if Boston were the south of France. Except in comparison with the Lake District, it seemed it was. 

Page 56:

She'd just tried to erase all signs of her presence in Juliet's house. Because Juliet didn't want her here.
It hadn't been her imagination; her half sister actually did resent her. 

Book description: "When Lucy Bagshaw’s life in Boston falls apart, she accepts her half sister Juliet’s invitation to stay with her in a seaside village in northern England. Lucy... finds that her sister is an aloof host, the weather is wet, windy, and cold, and her new boss, Alex Kincaid, only hired her as a favor to Juliet....With the help of quirky villagers, these hesitant rainy day sisters begin to forge a new understanding…" (goodreads)

A new novel set in England's Lake District. 

First Chapter: THE MOUNTAIN STORY by Lori Lansens

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn.

The Mountain Story: A Novel by Lori Lansens, published June 30, 2015 by Simon and Schuster.
Genre: fiction

First paragraph, first chapter:

Dear Daniel,  A person has to have lived a little to appreciate a survival story. That's what I've always said, and I promised that when you were old enough, I'd tell you mine. It's no tale for a child, but you're not a child anymore. You're older now than I was when I got lost in the mountain wilderness.
Five days in the freeing cold without food or water or shelter. You know that part, and you know that I was with three strangers and that not everyone survived. What happened up there changed my life, Danny. Hearing the story is going to change yours. 

Teaser, page 118:

..."It wasn't a helicopter. You heard Wolf. It was the wind."

Five days. Four hikers. Three survivors. From Lori Lansens comes a gripping tale of adventure, sacrifice and survival in the unforgiving wilderness of a legendary mountain. 

On his 18th birthday, Wolf Truly takes the tramway to the top of the mountain that looms over Palm Springs, intending to jump to his death. Instead he encounters strangers wandering in the mountain wilderness, three women who will change the course of his life. Through a series of missteps he and the women wind up stranded, in view of the city below, but without a way down. They endure five days in freezing temperatures without food or water or shelter, and somehow find the courage to carry on.

Wolf, now a grown man, has never told his son, or anyone, what happened on the mountain during those five days, but he can't put it off any longer. And in telling the story to his only child, Daniel, he at last explores the nature of the ties that bind and the sacrifices people will make for love. The mountain still has a hold on Wolf, composed of equal parts beauty and terror. (book description from good reads)

Based on the beginning, the teaser, and the book details, would you read on? 

Book Review: The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami, paperback published December 2, 2014 by Knopf.
Genre: fiction
Source: library book

First sentence:The library was even more hushed than usual.

Last sentences:About how it feels to be alone, and the depth of the darkness surrounding me. Darkness as pitch black as the night of the new moon.

My comments: In very large print, The Strange Library has the look of a children's book with full page illustrations, and only 96 pages. It has the quality of a dream, of a young man's fears and longings. This young man becomes imprisoned in the bowels of a large city library by the Old Man, tasked with memorizing three long books on the Ottoman Empire before he can be released, but at the same time he is served excellent food by a beautiful young girl and befriended by his jailer, the Sheep Man.

Though the young man is helped to escape by the girl and the Sheep Man, both have disappeared, but so have his pet starling at home, and his new leather shoes. This makes him doubt that the experience was only a dream. His mother dies at the end and the young man's soaring imagination also seems to disappear, leaving him in a darkness similar to the room he was imprisoned in, in the library.

The only meaning I can get out of the book is this: loss of love, like the loss of a mother, can deprive one of light and that wide imagination that makes life worthwhile. Also, perhaps life and light is more important than filling our minds with arcane information in books.

Have you read the book? What did you get from it?

Book Beginning: The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Paperback published May 12, 2015; St. Martin's Griffin
Hardcover first published in 1987
Genre: fiction

Book description: 
Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart. (publisher)

Book beginning: The taxi, an old Rover smelling of  old cigarette smoke, trundled along the empty country road at an unhurried pace. It was early afternoon at the very end of February, a magic winter day of bitter cold, frost, and pale, cloudless skies. The sun shone, sending long shadows, but there was little warmth in it, and the ploughed fields lay hard as iron. From the chimneys of scattered farmhouses and small stone cottages, smoke rose, straight as columns, up into the still air, and flocks of sheep, heavy with wool and incipient pregnancy, gathered around feeding troughs, stuffed with fresh hay.  

Sitting in the back of the taxi, gazing through the dusty window, Penelope Keeling decided that she had never seen the familiar countryside look so beautiful.  

page 56:

"It's just that...this is the sort of place where I think I could stay. I wouldn't feel trapped or rooted here. I don't know why." She smiled at him. "I don't know why."

 This book was first published in 1987 and has been a bestseller since then. I have never read it but have heard about it, and now have the chance to read the new paperback edition to be published in May, Thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. Post it. Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also, visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Mailbox Monday: An Old House, a Dog, and a Library

Share your new arrivals on Mailbox Monday.

Three Story House

This novel has been on my shelves but I don't think I announced in Mailbox Monday when it arrived. Looks like a good read. Published August 19, 2014 by William Morrow.

Publisher description:

Renovating an historic Memphis house together, three cousins discover that their failures in love, career, and family provide the foundation for their future happiness in this novel from the author of The Roots of the Olive Tree. 

Nearing thirty, cousins Lizzie, Elyse, and Isobel face their own failures as they restore the almost condemned house. Lizzie seeks answers to a secret about her father. Elyse’s obsession with an old flame threatens her sister’s wedding, and Isobel is tempted to betray confidences that would damage her cousins.  

Told in three parts by each of the women, this account of the restoration of a house built out of spite, but filled with memories of love, is also a story of friendships that help the women get what they need instead of what they want.

 Other books that arrived: two cozies to be released November 4, 2014 by Signet.

A Dog Gone Murder

On Borrowed Time

What's in your mailbox this week?

Book Review: The Moonlight Palace by Liz Rosenberg

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB.

The Moonlight Palace

Publisher description:
Agnes Hussein, descendant of the last sultan of Singapore and the last surviving member of her immediate family, has grown up in the crumbling Kampong Glam palace, given to her family in exchange for handing over Singapore to the British. Now Agnes is seventeen and her family has fallen into genteel poverty, she struggles to save her family and finds bravery, love, and loyalty in unexpected places.

The Moonlight Palace is a coming-of-age tale rich with historical detail and characters set against the backdrop of 1920s Singapore. Published Oct 1, 2014 by Lake Union Publishing.

First chapter, first paragraph: 

I have always lived in the crumbling Kampong Glam Palace. Istana Kampong Gelam. Because it is white, with rounded arches in a row, it has the look of an ancient wedding cake. It has always been falling apart, as long as I have known it. Even my nighttime dreams are always set inside the palace compound. Unlike friends and schoolmates who share exciting flying dreams, where they sail away over the tiled rooftops through surging grey clouds beyond tiny Singapore, in my own dreams I skim low through the rooms of the palace, barely above the ground. I see the patterned carpets, the wooden floorboards worn to the smoothness of satin. But never have I risen above the level of the palace ceiling , not even in my dreams. 

My comments:

I learned something new about the history of the tiny country of Singapore, a sliver of land that was "created" by the British who took control of it and developed it. The mixture of people and cultures there at that time and into the present is fascinating. Our heroine Agnes is part Chinese, part English, part Malaysian, and describes her family as both Buddhist and Muslim.

Agnes almost loses her family inheritance, the Kampong Glam Palace, because some resented that her ancestor, Sultan Hussein Shah, "gave away" to the British the land that later became Singapore. She fights to save her palace inheritance in spite of everything. An intriguing look at history and place, with a charming story of a young girl growing up and finding love in the Singapore of the 1920s. My objective rating: 3.5/5.

Liz Rosenberg has written more than thirty novels and nonfiction for adults, poetry collections, and books for young readers.

She is a professor of English and creative writing at Binghamton University, New York, and has written a book column for the Boston Globe for the past twenty-five years.

Her best selling novels are Home Repair and The Laws of Gravity. She and her husband, David, were raised on Long Island.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and the author for a review ARC of this book.
For more reviews, visit the tour schedule

Book Review: A Hero for the People by Arthur Powers

Title: A Hero for the People:
Stories of the Brazilian Backlands by Arthur Powers
Publication Date: May 3, 2013; Press 53
Genre: General Fiction/Literary

Arthur Power’s debut collection of short stories set in contemporary Brazil, where he and his wife lived for almost 30 years.

My comments: The stories show a history of Brazil and the differences that existed and may still exist between the wealthy and the poor in the jungles and remote areas, the backlands of this vast country. What I gleaned from the variety of stories is that rich landowners, farmers and ranchers have killed and driven off the native population from lands their families have occupied for generations, land that legally belongs to the backlanders because of the length of time they have lived on it. However, ignorance of the law and their legal rights and fear of those more powerful in terms of money and political influence kept the indigenous and poor people downtrodden.

A close look at the people in these revealing and well told stories show some of their superstitions, their way of life, and how they cope with their situation. What they needed and need in order to keep and benefit from their land, according to Powers, is a "hero for the people."

"We have just learned they got a court order to oust the families from Agua Fria," the lawyer's voice said over the line.

"But that's illegal," Brother Michael protested. 

"Of course it is. But we will get it reversed in a few days. But in the meantime, we can't let them take the people off the land. Once they are off the land, it's almost impossible to get it back. (from "A Hero for the People", 1988)

Arthur Powers went to Brazil in 1969 and lived most his adult life there. From 1985 to 1997, he and his wife served with the Franciscan Friars in the Amazon, doing pastoral work and organizing subsistence farmers and rural workers’ unions in a region of violent land conflicts. The Powers currently live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Arthur received a Fellowship in Fiction from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, three annual awards for short fiction from the Catholic Press Association, and 2nd place in the 2008 Tom Howard Fiction Contest. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in many magazines & anthologies. He is also author of  The Book of Jotham (Tuscany Press, 2013).

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Thanks to the author and Book Junkie Promotions for a review copy of this book. Visit their website for other reviews. 

Book Review: Us by David Nicholls

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted weekly by Jill at Breaking the Spine. What new releases are you eagerly waiting for? Link your post to Breaking the Spine.

Us: A Novel by David Nicholls
Expected publication: October 28, 2014; Harper
Genre: fiction

Publisher's description:

'I was looking forward to us growing old together. Me and you, growing old and dying together.'
'Douglas, who in their right mind would look forward to that?' 

Douglas Petersen understands his wife's need to 'rediscover herself' now that their son is leaving home. He just thought they'd be doing their rediscovering together.
So when Connie announces that she will be leaving, too, he resolves to make their last family holiday into the trip of a lifetime: one that will draw the three of them closer, and win the respect of his son. One that will make Connie fall in love with him all over again.
The hotels are booked, the tickets bought, the itinerary planned and printed.
What could possibly go wrong?

This novel will be released soon. I have already read the preview edition and can't recommend it enough.

My comments: Douglas, a "nerdy" and rigid biochemist tries to save his strained marriage and reconnect with his teenage son during a month-long Grand Tour of Europe. His wife, Connie, a much freer spirit then he, wants to return to her art and the freedom she had as a single woman twenty five years previously. Their son Albie, soon to be a college student, seems estranged and uncommunicative with his father.

The adventure in Europe changes Douglas and exposes him to new experiences and people that open up his previously narrow view of life. It changes the family dynamic as well. The ending is a surprise one.

My rating: 5 stars. Great plot about family dynamics; wonderful characterizations. Grab this book as soon as it's published!

I received an advance edition of this book for review.

First Chapter: Embrace the Whirlwind by Laurel-Rain Snow

First Chapter, First Paragraph is a weekly meme hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea.
Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Miz B; choose two teaser sentences from a random page of your current read.

Embrace the Whirlwind

Embrace the Whirlwind by Laurel-Rain Snow
Published March 19, 2007; BookSurge
Genre: fiction

First chapter, first paragraph: 

She hadn't trusted in the myth of "happily ever after" for a very long time, but, despite herself, she had trusted that he was going to be the love of her life. After all, the two of them had been hanging out pretty regularly now for a couple of months. He came to the roadhouse where she worked, usually right after she finished up with his construction crew, and they had fallen into the habit of leaving together after her shift ended. But tonight had been different, right from the start.

Book description: 

Coming from a deeply troubled family, Amber finds herself making more and more misguided choices. Pregnant and subsequently abandoned, she becomes obsessed with a man who can't seem to commit to her. Hopelessly addicted to his love, Amber whirls more and more out of control until she meets a retired social worker whose kindness and caring guide Amber toward understanding and self-fulfillment.

Based on the opening paragraph and the book description, would you keep on reading?

Soy Sauce for Beginners by Kirstin Chen

Friday 56 Rules:

 *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice Also Book Beginnings by Rose City Reader.

Soy Sauce for Beginners

Book beginning:

These are some of my favorite smells: toasting bagel, freshly cut figs, the bergamot in good Earl Grey tea, a jar of whole soybeans slowly turning beneath a tropical sun.

You'd expect the latter to smell salty, meaty, flaccid - like what you'd smell if you unscrewed the red cap of the bottle on a table in your neighborhood Chinese restaurant and stuck your nose in as far as it would go. But real, fermenting soybeans smell nothing like earth, these soybeans smell of history, of life, of tiny, patient movements, unseen by the naked eye.  

Everything about soy sauce I learned from my father and my uncle and my late grandfather. 

page 56:

Singlish, Singapore's unofficial national tongue, combines a singular accent with an idiosyncratic syntax .... Frankie said it was as if the entire region conversed in opera libretti in place of regular speech.... 

Book description: 
Gretchen Lin, adrift at the age of thirty, leaves her floundering marriage in San Francisco to move back to her childhood home in Singapore and immediately finds herself face-to-face with the twin headaches she’s avoided her entire adult life: her mother’s drinking problem and the machinations of her father’s artisanal soy sauce business....Soy Sauce for Beginners reveals one woman’s search for a place to call home, and the art and tradition behind the brewing of an unsung condiment. This is a foodie love story, and (a book about) family loyalty and fresh starts. (goodreads)
Soy Sauce for Beginners, a novel by Kirstin Chen, published January 7, 2014; New Harvest

Based on the information and the excerpts above, is this a book you would add to your reading list?
Singapore has always intrigued me, so I'd be curious about this one.

Book Review: Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok

Mambo in Chinatown

Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok is set in modern day America and has several ethnicities represented in its American story of immigrants old and new.

Book beginning:

My name is Charlie Wong and I'm the daughter of a dancer and a noodle-maker. My mother was once a star ballerina at the famed Beijing Dance Academy before she ran off to marry my father, the handsomest noodle-maker in Beijing - or at least that's what she always called him before she died. Hand in hand, they escaped to America to start their family. 

Page 56:

The dress was quite modest but revealed my neck and collarbones. I understood the moment Pa paused that I'd done wrong.
"Don't you like it?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"You look like a dancing girl," he said.
"Ma was one," Lisa said.
"Your mother was a dancer," he said. 

My comments:

Charlie Wong is American-born Chinese (ABC) and her parents were born in China (FOB - fresh off the boat. Don't you just love these acronyms!).

Charlie breaks out of a Manhattan Chinatown mold and enters the world of dance, a world her mother, a former Beijing Opera dancer, had introduced her to. Charlie meets Caucasians, American Blacks, Hispanics, and international dancers and changes her limited future to one that opens for new opportunities. She also helps her troubled younger sister Lisa to find optimism and her place in American society.

Informative look at some new Americans and some of the difficulties between the modern and the traditional cultures many young American immigrants face. Excellent characterizations and storytelling, Mambo in Chinatown pulls you into the world of a young woman inspired by her mother to make a better life for herself in America.

Friday 56 Rules:

 *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice Also Book Beginnings by Rose City Reader.