Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:




An Unkindness of Ravens - Ruth Rendell
An Inspector Wexford mystery. He thought he was merely doing a neighbourly good deed when he agreed to talk to Joy Williams about her missing husband, and certainly didn't expect to be investigating a most unusual homicide.








One Pill Makes You Smaller - Lisa Dierbeck
Eleven-year-old Alice Duncan - the protagonist of Lisa Dierbeck's electrifying novel of 1970s' counterculture - finds herself in a predicament. Abandoned by her carefree, jet-set mother and emotionally tortured artist father, Alice falls under the erratic supervision of her sixteen-year-old aunt Esme. Yet, when Alice goes to North Carolina to attend the Balthus Institute, an unorthodox art school for gifted children, circumstances go from bad to worse. Possessing 'a kid's head grafted on a woman's body', young Alice faces the disturbing realities of reckless excess and an accelerated adolescence. Inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, this electrifying tale vividly portrays the more sinister reaches of 1970s American counter-culture and is an audacious, fiercely original account of a young girl's crossing into adulthood.

Having a wonderful crime - Craig Rice
While visiting New York city, Helene and Jack Justus befriend a disconsolate drunk who is trying to steal the lilies from their hotel's flower display and find they once again stepped deeply into something often found in gardens. Of course Helene sends an SOS to John J. Malone.







Fish Sunday Thinking - Alex Gilmore
You are in a job you do not enjoy. You are surrounded by colleagues you do not respect. You feel you can do better. Your life feels directionless. You feel trapped. You drink to take your mind off it all. You dread Mondays. You hate your alarm clock with a passion. You worship Friday afternoons. You cherish the weekend. You loathe the inevitability of ironing, always ironing. You assess where you are going on every Sunday. You know you're not the big fish. You wonder if you ever want to be. You are stuck on repeat. You are in an endless cycle of working, drinking and making coffee. You want a way out. You want to escape this way of thinking. You want to enjoy life, all the time. You want fulfillment. You want freedom. You want to read this book. In a large London law firm, trainee solicitor Denton Voyle contemplates why he is pursuing a career in law. Every Sunday afternoon, with nothing better to look forward to than the ironing, he questions his miserable, listless, alcohol fueled existence and wonders if the pursuit of being the big fish could ever really satisfy him. He soon finds he is not alone and sets out to escape his fish Sunday thinking.


The Delia Collection - Soup - Delia Smith
Part of a collection of recipes from Delia Smith, this volume presents 50 of Delia's best soup recipes. Seasoned fans of Delia will be delighted with the originality of the recipes whilst newcomers will appreciate her friendly and approachable style of writing.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teasers are from Carrie Adams 'The Godmother' (page 142)

She ended the call leaving me with no choice. Why does she have to be so fucking nice? The same reason she has always been so nice. She just is. This is why under normal circumstances consuming alfafa beans and wine with Sasha, then lying on a sofa, chatting and farting, would be a great day to spend a Saturday

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:




Wednesday's Child - Peter Robinson
When two social workers, investigating reports of child abuse, appear at Brenda Scupham's door, her fear of authority leads her to comply meekly with their requests. Even when they say that they must take her seven-year old daughter Gemma away for tests....

It is only when they fail to return Gemma the following day that Brenda realizes something has gone terribly wrong.

At the same time, Banks is investigating a particularly unpleasant murder at the site of an abandoned mine. Gradually, the leads in the two cases converge, guiding Banks to one of the most truly terrifying criminals he will ever meet....

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One fine day in the middle of the night - Christopher Brookmyre
Gavin is creating a unique 'holiday experience', every facility any tourist who hates abroad will ever want, will all be available on a converted North Sea oil rig. To test the facilities he's hosting a reunion for his old school (none of his ex-classmates can remember him, but what the heck, it's free). He is so busy showing off that he doesn't notice that another group have invited themselves along -- a collection of terrorist mercenaries who are occasionally of more danger to themselves than to the public. And they in turn are unaware that Inspector Mac Gregor has got wind of their activities. Within twenty-four hours Gavin's dream has blown to the four winds, along with a lot of other things. Fast, rabidly funny, and seriously over the top.

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Gardening at Night - Diane Awerbuck
Gardening at Night follows the unfolding of a young girl's life through a childhood filled with silences, through adolescence and young womanhood. It is about how much people are the total of their longings, how high drama can also be low comedy. It probes how much of the old century a girl should take with her into the new one, and examines the merging of families in the Eighties and their emerging into the florescence of the Nineties and beyond. It is especially the story of a girl's escape from a ghost town. The South African mining town of Kimberley was created over a hundred years ago when men with buckets scraped out the insides of the earth like a thousand black dentists. Now, it is a place where the only tales are those of leaving.

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Entertain - Ed Baines
Enjoy Brit celebrity chef, Ed Baines, restaurant-class recipes in the comfort of your own home. This book will give you plenty of inspiration as mouthwatering dishes are made straightforward and simple, a must-have for any kitchen.

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Drop Shot - Harlan Coben
The young woman was shot dead in cold blood, dropped outside the stadium, in front of a stand selling Moet for $7.50 a glass. Once her tennis career had skyrocketed. Now, at the height of the US Open, the headlines were being made by another young player from the wrong side of the tracks. When Myron Bolitar investigates the killing he uncovers a connection between the two players and a six-year-old murder at an exclusive club. Suddenly Myron is in over his head. And with a dirty US senator, a jealous mother and the mob all drawn into the case, he finds himself playing the most dangerous game of all...

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The Blood Detective - Dan Waddell
As dawn breaks over London, the body of a young man is discovered in a windswept Notting Hill churchyard. The killer has left Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster and his team a grisly, cryptic clue...However, it's not until the clue is handed to Nigel Barnes, a specialist in compiling family trees, that the full message becomes spine-chillingly clear. For, it leads Barnes back more than one hundred years - to the victim of a demented Victorian serial killer...When a second body is discovered Foster needs Barnes's skills more than ever. Because the murderer's clues appear to run along the tangled bloodlines that lie between 1879 and now. And if Barnes is right about his blood-history, the killing spree has only just begun...From the author of the bestselling "Who Do You Think You Are?" comes a haunting crime novel of blood-stained family histories and gruesome secrets...

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teasers are from Marika Cobbold's 'Shooting butterflies' (page 127)


Grace paused by his chair, her index finger on her chin. 'Now let's see; what could we have been doing? Flown a kite? Played Cluedo; hide and seek perhaps? All those, of course, but mostly I've been having what is known amongst us women a a conversation'

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:



Untorn Tickets - Paul Burke
Notting Hill - 1978. Dave Kelly and Andy Zymanczyk are two teenage boys trying to escape their secure, loving but oppressive Catholic backgrounds. Andy's life is even more stifling as the only child of very strict Polish parents. For the first time in his life, he is allowed to take a part-time job, and begins work at the beautiful Odeon cinema in Westbourne Grove, under the irresponsible but charismatic influence of the manager Tony Harris. The two friends begin a voyage of discovery: they learn about films, they learn about music, they learn about life and are exposed to a level of freedom and temptation that neither has ever known before. But in an era of great upheaval, their beloved cinema and their strict Catholic grammar school are both put under threat and they realise that their lives will never be the same again.

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The Rottweiler - Ruth Rendell
The first girl had a bite mark on her neck but they traced the DNA to her boyfriend. But the tabloids got hold of the story and called the killer 'The Rottweiler' and the name stuck. The latest murder takes place very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. Someone saw a shadowy figure running away past the station, but the only other clues are that the murderer usually strangles his victims and removes something personal - like a cigarette lighter or a necklace...Since her husband died, too soon in their relationship, Inez has supplemented her income by taking in tenants. The murderous activities of the sinister 'Rottweiler' will exert a profound influence on the lives of this heterogeneous little community, especially when the suspicion emerges that one of them may be a homicidal maniac.

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The portable virgin - Anne Enright
A collection of pained, precise and disquieting stories that restore to us the strangeness of the lives we follow beneath the surface of the lives we lead.

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The matchmaker from Perigord - Julia Stuart
A perpetual breeze blows through Amour-sur-Belle, a village so ugly that even the English refuse to live there. Guillaume Ladoucette, the barber is forced to give up his business as the advancing age of his customers means many have gone bald. He decides to set himself up as a matchmaker instead, for, despite its name, love is the one thing that Amour-sur-Belle lacks. Some shun Denise Vigier because her grandmother was found guilty of horizontal collaboration during the war. The bar owner refuses to serve Madame Fournier, the mushroom poisoner. And Madame Ladoucette and Madame Moreau have been trading insults for so long they have become almost a form of greeting. 'Not everyone falls instantly head over heels,' the matchmaker counsels. 'Love is like a good cassoulet, it needs time and determination.' But how can a matchmaker make love simmer - when he has not yet solved the problem of his own troubled heart?

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The Godmother - Carrie Adams
Tessa King is successful and unattached. She's got a lovely apartment and nice clothes, and nothing ties her down - that's the way she likes it.
Tessa also has four godchildren. A fifteen-year-old pot-smoking rebel who hates his parents. A seven-year-old whose father walked out on her mother when she was still in hospital. And two screaming baby twins who are unattractive, double the trouble, and ruining their parents' relationship. That's why Tessa's not particularly maternal.
Sometimes it's great to have nothing tying you down. And then sometimes, you start to realise something's missing ...

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Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook - Alan Rosen & Beth Allen
Located in downtown Brooklyn, Times Square and Grand Central Station in New York, Junior's Restaurant, which bakes quite possibly the best cheesecakes in the universe, is a legend in its own right and has been wooing New Yorkers since it first opened its doors in 1950. And now, finally, they are willing to offer up their recipes for Junior's New York-style cheesecakes (all cream cheese, no sour cream, thank you, on a sponge cake crust), from the cheesecake that started it all (Junior's Original New York Cheesecake), to flavour twists like Banana Fudge, Rocky Road and Pumpkin Mousse, to little cheesecakes meant just for one (Little Fellas), to Junior's newest creation, Skyscraper Cheesecakes (think alternating layers of cheesecake and layer cake) in flavours like Boston Cream Pie, Lemon Coconut, and Carrot Cake. It's a cheesecake lover's delight!

Cover Attraction

Each Wednesday, Marcia from The Printed Page, hosts Cover Attraction.

She writes:

"I’m a very visual person and love beautiful cover art. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the book but at least I might stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by."

Me, I like nice covers and if I see a cover I like, I'll make sure to check it out (same happens when I see a title I like but that's for another meme).


It just looks so funky! A blue face with glasses??? you can't beat that!

Synopsis
After backpacking her way around India, 21-year-old Sarah Macdonald decided that she hated this land of chaos and contradiction with a passion, and when an airport beggar read her palm and insisted she would come back one day - and for love - she vowed never to return. But twelve years later the prophecy comes true when her partner, ABC's South Asia correspondent, is posted to New Delhi, the most polluted city on earth. Having given up a blossoming radio career in Sydney to follow her new boyfriend to India, it seems like the ultimate sacrifice and it almost kills Sarah - literally. After being cursed by a sadhu smeared in human ashes, she nearly dies from double pneumonia. It's enough to send a rapidly balding atheist on a wild roller-coaster ride through India's many religions in search of the meaning of life and death. From the 'brain enema' of a meditation retreat in Dharamsala to the biggest Hindu festival on earth on the steps of the Ganges in Varanasi, and with the help of the Dalai Lama, a goddess of healing hugs and a couple of Bollywood stars - among many, many others - Sarah discovers a hell of a lot more.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teasers are from Adriana Trigiani's 'Rococo' (page 77)


'The portable tables are covered in red, with multicolored tulips for centerpieces. Toot took my twelve years of school pictures, glued them to a wire, and stuck them in the vases amid the flowers. she covered the floor with green Astroturf, except for the wooden dance floor, where the riding lawn mower usually sits'