Recent Reads

I have enjoyed some great books recently...even though the weather here in Pennsylvania still feels a bit like summer, this time of year I love to curl up with a Pumpkin Spice coffee and a good book.  Here are a few that I have enjoyed lately.

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.
It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out.
But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.
From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?
As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?
The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

I really enjoyed this book...thought provoking and timely.  Not a happy, easy read - but glad I read it!

The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force.

Somehow, as much as I love to read, I never read a Louise Penny book.  Then she was a author for our library's fund raiser and she was so interesting.  With my ticket I received a copy of her newest book - The Grey Wolf - but everyone told me I needed to start with her first book.  It was very interesting to learn about her writing process, how she develops her characters, and who she based them on.  So I started with this one...the first of now 19!  So many books I want to read ( I came home from the library with 5 yesterday!) that I don't know when I will get to them...but I will try.

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

I read this book in one day !  A very easy to read book and a wonderful look at how she became the Barefoot Contessa.

How good is that ?

 Amanda Delanoe finds joy in running a chic contemporary art gallery in the City of Light. The only child of a French businessman and an American model, both now deceased, Amanda lives well and adores her dog, Lulu, but so far the love of her life has eluded her.
Then she meets Olivier Saint Albin, a dashing publisher. At the same time, she reconnects with Tom Quinlan, an old boyfriend from her days at NYU twenty years ago, now a lawyer on sabbatical who has come to Paris to devote himself to writing a thriller.
Charming Olivier is a master at the art of flirtation, but as Amanda feels herself falling for him, she learns he is married. Providing counsel and support is her friend and co-owner of the gallery, fun-loving bachelor Pascal Leblanc. When Amanda begins to receive threatening phone calls late at night, it is Pascal she turns to. Then someone breaks into her apartment on the Left Bank, and it’s all too clear she is in real danger. But from whom? An old love, a new love, or a stranger? As love enters her life, so does terror. . . .
Triangle is at once the story of a woman dedicated to staying true to her principles and a breathtaking tale of suspense from the one and only Danielle Steel.

I like to read Danielle Steel in between other books...very easy to read - and this one was a little bit different because of the mystery involved. I enjoyed all the references to places in Paris.

That's it for now...but I just picked up five books at the library yesterday!  Have you read any of these books?  What did you think ?  What are you reading ?  Please let me know in the comments below - I really enjoy hearing from you.  

Have a great week and enjoy November.