Nancy_Lay

"Soy Sauce for Beginners" by Kirstin Chen is, at its root, a story about authenticity. Gretchen Lin, the main character, is on a journey to discover who she really is. Is she the San Francisco resident studying for an advanced degree in music who is fleeing a marriage gone wrong? Or is she the Singapore native, born into a wealthy family of soy sauce merchants? The other main character of the novel is the soy sauce itself, produced for many years in the same painstaking way, culminating in deep resonant flavor. Should Gretchen remain in Singapore to work for the family business? Or should she return to San Francisco to try and rebuild her marriage? Should manufacturing of the soy sauce be altered to speed up the process, bringing increased profits to the family? And, with faster production, would the soy sauce still be authentic? Gretchen and her family struggle with these questions in an easy to read story. "Soy Sauce for Beginners" is recommended for all who like a good family story as well as for foodies who are interested in reading about traditional, authentic food.

Wow! On a scale of 1 to 5, "Once We Were Brothers" is a 10 and I have been unable to put it down. Ronald Balson has created a deftly written story centered around an elderly Chicago man who is a concentration camp from Poland. He is determined to right a sixty year old wrong and unmask the man he believes is responsible for inflicting countless amounts of pain and suffering on Polish Jews. This is powerfully written with a beautifully moving plot line and well drawn characters. I won't soon be forgetting these characters and this emotional story!

"The Mouse-Proof Kitchen" by Saira Shah is a book with a split personality. On the one hand is a gripping story of how the birth of a severely disabled child affects a marriage as well as family relations and personal friendships. The other hand holds a very different story. Think "A Year in Provence" type tale where a young couple buys a big old run-down house on the top of a hill and seeks to convert it to a restaurant and/or cooking school. As individual plots, these two stories would work quite well. Combined, they require a suspension of belief on the reader's part. What young parents, faced with a newborn who is critically ill, sell everything they own, leave behind work, friends, and their entire support systems and move to a far distant peak in another country, to a rattle-trap building with no heat or running water and where the nearest health care is two hours away? Add to this mix a rather strange mother who telephones at all hours with bizarre requests of her daughter, a mentally ill young woman who is squatting on their land in an outbuilding, and a supporting cast of odd and unusual town residents. My attention was continually bouncing from one plot line to the other. It was an interesting read.

This book, "Children of the Jacaranda Tree" captured my heart at the first paragraph and held it hostage until the very last line. The story of the women and children of post-revolution Iran was at times, gripping and intense, and at other times sweet. I felt I was there with them, seeing and feeling what life was like for them in a city torn apart by extremists. I loved the writing. It was clear and descriptive and pulled me along to follow the journey of these women and children as they grew and matured. I highly recommend this book!

What a fabulous surprise this book was! My assumption, upon seeing that the book was about three strong women and that the author was male, was that the story would be filled with stereotypes. This was not to be the case. I became engrossed in these women and their stories and could not put the book down. I wondered how author Mike Greenberg would blend these three separate stories together, but he did so quite ably. This was a great read that I enjoyed from beginning to end and it should appeal to most readers of women's fiction.

Eric Asimov's "How to Love Wine A Memoir and a Manifesto" is more manifesto than memoir. After a rather slow start, Asimov introduces his theme - that anyone can learn to love wine and explains in detail that wine is meant to be tasted with food. This theme is reiterated throughout the rest of the book. He gives some clear suggestions for the beginning wine lover and I came away with a much greater understanding of how I can find and enjoy good wine. This book is perfect for people like me who want to enjoy good wine but don't know quite where to start.