Highly Influenced

Do you ever read about food in a book and suddenly get a craving for it?
If that has happened to you, then you'll understand why there is a turkey roasting in my oven today.
I blame it all on Anna Quindlen's novel Still Life with Bread Crumbs. No, it wasn't the bread crumbs but the description of Thanksgiving. Really, not the main Thanksgiving meal, but the leftovers. The idea of a turkey sandwich, those thick slabs between two slices of wheat bread, are what convinced me to buy a turkey at the grocery store yesterday.
I finished Quindlen's novel yesterday, and it made me feel hopeful at the end. Maybe the feeling that remains once you've closed the book is the most important thing.
Of course, it also made me feel hungry.
How bout it? Have you ever gone in search of food after reading about it in a book?

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- Still Life With Bread Crumbs

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
One good thing about being sick is the chance to sit and read. I started Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen. Here's the intro.

A few minutes after two in the morning Rebecca Winter woke to the sound of a gunshot and sat up in bed.
Well, to be completely accurate, she had no idea what time it was. When she had moved into the ramshackle cottage in a hollow halfway up the mountain, it had taken her two days to realize that there was a worrisome soft spot in the kitchen floor, a loose step out to the backyard, and not one electrical outlet in the entire bedroom. She stood, turning in a circle, her old alarm clock in  her hand trailing its useless tail of a cord, as though, like some magic spell, a few rotations and some muttered curses would lead to a place to plug it in. Like much of what constituted Rebecca's life at that moment, the clock had been with her far past the time when it was current or useful.

I think that second paragraph doesn't go at all with the first paragraph, but the book has definitely captured

me with Quindlen's warm writing style. This is the story of a photographer who had one of those famous pictures in the 1970s-80s that people made into posters and hung in their dorm rooms. Now the money from that picture has dried up, she's trying to pay for her mother's nursing home and her father's apartment, so she sublets her fabulous New York apartment and takes a rundown cottage in the country to try to make ends meet.

Also this week  is Teaser Tuesdays. Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read  and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser
Here's my teaser from page 34:

Rebecca never hung her own work in her home. She felt it would be like talking to herself. Which she did a fair amount in the cottage these days. Otherwise she would never speak to anyone.

A Tale of Two Books

It seems like so long since I read a book that I enjoyed, until I stumbled on Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson.

When I started this book, I couldn't tell in which time period it took place. An older man reminiscing about simpler times in England and the old Empire. He was born on the Indian subcontinent. It could have taken place in the late 1800s or the early 1900s between World Wars, but it is actually set in present day. The main character is devoted to tradition yet finds himself attracted to a Pakistani widow. In spite of his love of country and British customs, he moves forward ignoring the resistance from even those Brits younger than him, and the Pakistani family which oppose the relationship. The book is very sweet. It doesn't throw tradition to the wind but encourages people to look at customs and determine which are useful in today's world while weaving an intriguing story around likable characters. Earl wants to read it next.
The other book I stumbled on was Anna Quindlen's Every Last One. I filled my library bag with books on tape before my most recent trip to pick up Grace.
This was one of them. I knew nothing about the book. The blurb on the back was fairly innocuous. A woman, mother of three feels herself growing distant from her husband. Well, that sounded like life in suburbia. I'd read other books by Anna Quindlen and enjoyed them so I slid it into the bag.
When I began listening to it, I became enthralled with her characterizations. The daughter Ruby as a quirky senior in high school, the twin teenage boys. Of course, they reminded me of my own family. I told my friend Ruth that she should listen to the book because her family also has an oldest daughter, an independent thinker, with two younger sons. The book stretched from Ruby's prom junior year to New Years her senior year until (SPOILER ALERT), Ruby's ex-boyfriend kills her, her father, one of the twins and stabs the mother. That's right. Without any warning that this book included murder and mayhem, the entire family is killed except for the mother and one of the boys who is away on a ski trip.
The book included no indication that murder was on its way. I felt outraged that I had been lured into loving this family only to see them killed on New Year's Day. The title comes from a conversation the mother overheard as she drifted in and out of conciousness. The police officer who found them says, the whole family is dead: "Every last one."
I overcame my outrage at the surprise mass murder to listen to the remainder of the book because Quindlen is a good writer.
Would I have picked up this book if I knew about the murders? Probably not. I try to read books that don't make me feel too anxious. I use books for entertainment and escape.
Nevertheless, I'm glad I listened to this book because the characters snagged me. I guess if Quindlen were not such a good writer, I wouldn't have cared so much that they were strangled and stabbed on New Years Day.