Book Reviews

Summary: Inspector Gamache and his wife go away to their favorite vacation spot for their 35th anniversary, murder follows them.

This is my fourth Inspector Gamache book in as many weeks and the series seems to be getting better. Inspector Gamache and his wife traditionally go to a small quaint upscale wilderness inn for their anniversary. Again this year for their 35th, after a rough year, they are able to get away.

The only other guests at the inn are a wealthy extended family. The matriarch and second husband, the adult four children and corresponding spouses and one grandchild round out the guest list. Returning characters Peter Marrow, and his wife Clare, from Three Pines is one of those children. Peter, the third of the four and in his early 50s is still in many ways traumatized by his family as it seems are the rest of the family.

After several days, a statue of the children’s father is installed at the inn. The next morning the second child (the oldest daughter) is found crushed by the statue in the garden.

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Summary: A history and guide to early church theologians, pastors and writers.

I am sorry if you are not interested in Christian History, I think I am going to be reading a lot of it this year. The resurgence of awareness of the early Church Fathers, not only in the more traditional liturgical church settings but in the Evangelical world has given rise to a number of good books about early Church history and the actual writings of those early Christians.

After reading John Michael Talbot’s mostly memoir-ish look at the early Church fathers I decided that I wanted a more history oriented book, but still introduction level. I have read fairly in depth about the early Church Fathers on the trinity, but not on much else. (Although I have read several other than Christian history survey books that cover the era.)

When the Church Was Young fits the bill well. D’Ambrosia is Catholic and writing this in part to encourage Catholics, but this is not an exclusively Catholic view of the early church. After all, at this point it was just the Church, the major splits were yet to come, although there were certainly lots of little splits.  There were a few places where I think that D’Ambrosia made too much of a leap from ancient to current Catholic and I think he started referring to all Christians as Catholic earlier than the history warrants, but with those caveats, D’Ambrosia does a good job of giving context and history to the various Church Fathers and enough of a sense of their writing to feel like you are getting more than just survey history.

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The 1950s were a dark time for the American cook, although she may not have realized it at the time. World War II introduced new food technologies such as freezing methods, preservation and dehydrating, all in the name of the war effort. After the war ended, food manufacturers needed to convince the American consumer to continue on with the new traditions from frozen TV dinners to the meat product called Spam. Cookbooks followed suit with such popular titles as “œCookbook for Frozen Foods” and The Can Opener Cookbook”. Convenience and elaborate presentation were all the rage, as well as some unusual pairings as this photo from my grandmother’s 1970 “œJoy of Jell-O” cookbook depicts. 

Somewhere along the line, American tastes and skills started to change and expand. Many give richly deserved credit to Julia Child for changing the culinary landscape but author Luke Barr says more people are deserving of the credit. He also theorizes the change occurred in Provence, France in 1970 when Julia Child, Child’s writing partner Simone Beck, American cookbook author James Beard, and food writers MFK Fisher (Barr’s great aunt) and Richard Olney vacationed in the South of France during the same time period. Through a series of correspondence and the food icons journals, Barr has written a dramatic retelling of when these instrumental people gathered together over their holidays and discussed the “œfuture of food in America, the meaning of taste and the limits of snobbery”.

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When 12-year-old Samuel Chambers mother dies, he struggles with his thoughts and beliefs regarding death. He swears that he will do anything to bring his mother back and soon becomes caught in a struggle between good and evil over the ancient Tree of Life. During his journey and struggle, he begins to probe his thoughts on death ““ could death be a gift? What waits beyond the experience of death?

This book is well written and causes the reader to pause and reflect on their own thoughts on death and whether it is a finite end or just an intersection in our lives. Do we really believe there is a life after death, and can we embrace the goodness of the journey to the other side?

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Summary: Our current system of caring for the elderly and sick could be better.

Mortality is something that no one really likes to consider. However, Atul Gawande, a general surgeon and author of a number of books thinks we need to spend a lot more time thinking about it. (Notice the subtle, but brilliant blade of grass on the cover.)

Being Mortal is about our end of life health and care system. Because Gawande’s father is an immigrant from India, he opens the book talking about the difference between the older systems of family care (and what is still practiced in many parts of the world including India) and our Western independence focused system of care. While Gawande thinks there are many things to be said for being around family and multi-generational living, the reality is not always good. Those that do not have children have no system, the children’ may need to give up opportunities if it requires moving away, and regardless, the elderly themselves would often prefer to be on their own.

Prior to Social Security and Medicare, most elderly were in poverty and approximately 2/3 of the residents of poor houses (think Dickens) were elderly. Those poor houses were still operating in the US until being slowly shut down in the mid-20th century.

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Summary: What comes around…?

When a murder mystery series is based around a small town there has to be some questions about how/why murders will disproportionately happen in this particular town.

A Fatal Grace is only the second book in a now ten book series, but Louise Penny has taken a wise path, it is not one of the insiders, but an outsider that is murdered. And connecting it to the previous murder by having her move into the house of a previous murderer/murdered victim also is a nice twist.

My main complaint about the second book (and even more so in the third book) is that it takes forever to get into the book. I keep saying I am interested in the people and the setting, but my complaint here is that Penny is taking too long to get to the murder. So there is probably something else at the root is what is not quite doing it for me.

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