Baking and Reading

Isn't that beautiful? Pasadena's Farmers Market has the best strawberries. And one of my favorite cooking blogs, had a great recipe for strawberry cake. Serendipity. This has not been a good weekend for any diet. Adrian baked his best deep dish pizza ever. And I baked this luscious cake today. We will live, just a bit rounder. The good thing is that I also got a bunch of vegetables at the FM, so the rest of the week might save us.

I've been reading a lot lately. First is a book about Don Benito Wilson. It's paper and it's for one of my PALAC groups. As always, love the group. Bill is the leader, but he couldn't last week, so I lead it. I do love the group, but the book is ridiculous. I'm sure the writer is a very nice man. Everyone in the area seems to know him. Bill and Jaine heard him speak about this book. He's just not a very good writer. A really not very good writer. Just two more sessions.

The rest of my books are digital. These are most of the books I've listened to recently:

Brothers, Rivals, Victors - I just got this one. It's about Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley. Most of the action takes place in WWII, but it also tells the history of each man. I'm a third of the way done. One really interesting thing is that Patton was the grandson of Don Benito Wilson. Some say they were a lot alike. Poor Mrs. Wilson. The book is well organized and well written, always a plus. Another plus is that these are three very interesting men during a very interesting era. Highly recommended.

Screwtape Letters - I've read this before and found it again when looking for books read by Ralph Cosham. This book is perfect for his soothing tones. CS Lewis wrote a lot of books about Christianity. His most famous are The Narnia series. Screwtape is a devil who is writing to his nephew Wormtongue. He is guiding Wormtongue through his attempts to seduce a human into Hell. Lewis was one heck of a writer. Screwtape's explanation about how humans work and think, how they can be corrupted, how they can be lost to "our father below." I recommend this to believers and non-believers. Why should either group lose out on great literature.

A Cure for All Disease - Reginald Hill writes detective stories based in Northern England. Sometimes they focus on detectives Dalziel and Pascoe. I like those best and this is the best I've ever listened to from that series. First, the narrator, Jonathan Keeble, is excellent. He has a lot of people to voice; they are all distinct which makes the book easy to listen to. Second is the way this book was written. The book begins with Dalziel in a convalescent home after a very serious injury. His doctor has suggested that he records his feeling on a tape recorder, which Dalziel has named Mildred. We hear his recording through much of the book, particularly through the first half. These recordings are interspersed with the emails that a young girl is writing to her sister. Lovely.

The middle of the book is a third person narrative. Fascinating. I must remember to listen to this again.

Drawing Conclusions - Another detective story, this one is written by Donna Leon featuring her Venetian detective Brunetti. Well written. I don't know if you remember these stories. They always focus on a social issue. In this case it is about the poor and the elderly and nursing homes. It's amazing how many soap boxes there are to climb on in that gorgeous city. Probably true of any city. Although I liked this book, it isn't one that I would read again. I listened to it over night which means I heard it all at least twice.

Born in Shame - Oh, shame on me. Nora Roberts trash. Third book from one of her trilogies. Yes, I listened to the other two. In fact, the reader was so breathy on the first one it took me a while to get into it. I guess I did eventually. I wasn't born in shame, just reading in shame. Only if you like Nora's books.

George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm - This one took me forever to finish. That's because I really wanted to hear every word, so I had to be awake and aware for every second. George V of England, Nicholas II of Russia, and Wilhelm II of Germany were cousins, all grandchildren of Queen Victoria. They were all affected by WWI, one more adversely than the others. Although the most interesting part of the book was how they blundered into that horrible war, it was all highly readable.

Of course, we all know that Victoria reigned forever. Her son, Edward, took over after she died. Wilhelm and Nicholas had reigned for some time before George got his chance to reign. Despite their biologic closeness, there could not be three more different men. I recommend this one.

Guardian of Lies - for when you need a spy thriller. I recalled that I like Paul Madriani stories. This one is a little far-fetched, but good to listen to as you go to sleep. All of this using books as a sleep aid has reminded me that podcasts are made for that purpose. I've learned this month that I fall asleep within 15 minutes of plugging in. Some of these books are 14 hours long. What a waste. My NPR Shuffle podcasts are about 25 minutes long. So much less to catch up on the next morning.