A Dress for Diana

Categories In the News , Romance

Last year I went to see the exhibit Diana: A Celebration at the Dayton Art Institute.  I got a rare look at Princess Diana’s childhood photographs, mementos, and home movies, as well as a collection of her dresses worn at both royal and charity functions. 

The highlight of the exhibit was the dress worn at her wedding to Prince Charles at St. Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981.  Featuring a 25-foot train trimmed with lace and an 11-foot veil hand embroidered with 10,000 mother-of-pearl sequins, the dress was stunning to behold. 

If you weren’t able to see the dress in person, then reading the book      A Dress for Diana by David and Elizabeth Emanuel is the next best thing.  The Emanuels became instantly famous when they were hand picked by Diana to design the most famous dress in the world. 

In the Kitchen with Ramsay, On the Road with Bourdain

Categories Cookbooks , Entertainment , Nonfiction

Gordon Ramsay certainly speaks his mind. But you know, he is almost always right! What I have discovered, however, is that this talented and volatile chef is a very nice man underneath all that bravado, and an excellent teacher as well.

Besides being a television personality on popular shows in Britain (Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares) and the US (reality series Hell's Kitchen and the soon-to-be-aired Kitchen Nightmares), Chef Ramsay has published lots of cookbooks and a couple of autobiographical books that read like novels. He has also opened and run a number of restaurants, earning lots of Michelin ratings. 

Anthony Bourdain, another TV chef, has a fascinatingly cynical view of life and the world of food. His documentary-style series on the Travel Channel, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, follows Bourdain around the world in pursuit of flavor. He, too, has lots of books to his name, including novels, cookbooks, and memoirs such as the fascinating Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. He cooks at the Brassiere Les Halles in New York City.

Hot and Steamy

Categories Romance , Staff Picks , Fiction

The weather's not the only thing that's hot and steamy these days.  This summer's batch of new romances are just as sultry.  If you're in the mood for a little romance (and perhaps one or two or ten scorching love scenes), check out these latest titles.  They're guaranteed to raise your temperature a degree or two.

Historical Romance:

• Passion for the Game--Sylvia Day
• Sins of a Duke--Suzanne Enoch
• Desperate Duchesses--Eloisa James

Romantic Suspense:

• Into the Dark--Cindy Gerard
• Abandon--Carla Neggers
• Whisper My Name--Maureen Smith

Great Books for the First Day of School, Part II

Categories Parenting & Families , Children's Books

You’ve hit all the local office supply chains, big box stores, and the mall. You have pencils and backpacks, new shoes and maybe even a new haircut. Still not feeling ready to face the first day of school?

In a previous post, I discussed great books for kids (or parents) who are a bit nervous about the first day of school. But, there were too many great books to fit in just one post. Below are Great Books for the First Day of School, Part II.

Arkady Renko and Stalin's Ghost

Categories Mystery & Suspense , Staff Picks , Fiction

Twenty-six years ago, Gorky Park transported American readers to a frozen crime scene in Moscow and introduced Senior Inspector Arkady Renko, a homicide specialist in a country "that had little organized crime and no talent for finesse." A murderer is frequently a drunk nearby.   

But evidence of a triple murder has emerged in the thawing ice and snow of April.  A KGB major is already on the scene when Renko arrives.  Renko's relationship with the KGB is testy and antagonistic.   The victims—two men, and a woman wearing ice skates—will be difficult to identify.  Each has a gunshot wound in the head and in the heart.  The hands have been removed to prevent fingerprinting.  

Renko lights a cigarette.  His job is to find killers, but he can’t stand the sight of a dead body.   

The Final Solution: A Story of Detection

Categories Staff Picks , Fiction

I suppose there’s a downside to being a literary wonder boy.  Each of Michael Chabon’s novels has been so extraordinary (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Summerland, and more--not to mention Wonder Boys) that I’m sure he’s kept awake nights thinking how to top them.

His newest, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, is probably not my favorite, though for sheer whiz-bang originality it’s tough to beat—it’s a playfully sophisticated, Yiddish-drenched, noir, alternate-world satire.  Sitka, Alaska, was designated a protectorate for Jews displaced during World War II , but sixty years later it’s about to be reassimilated into America, along with its melancholy protagonist, policeman Meyer Landsman—a process hardly likely to go smoothly. 

I admired it more than I liked it.  But the author of the 2004 The Final Solution:  A Story of Detection can rest on his laurels for the rest of his literary career, as far as I’m concerned (though I’m glad he doesn’t).  It’s another highly literary and original takeoff on a familiar genre, though it, too, got mixed reviews.  I think it’s breathtaking.

I'll Take the Place of Any Hostage Mia Farrow Doesn't Take the Place of

Categories Home & Gardening , Outdoors & Nature

I would prefer a place without snakes, even though I imagine Mia Farrow bravely took snakes into consideration when she offered to exchange herself for "Suleiman Jamous, the humanitarian coordinator of the Sudan Liberation Movement." 

This is the first of two entries about the Darien Gap, the 30,000-acre area between Colombia and Panama.  The Gap is what makes it impossible to drive from Alaska to the bottom of Chile.  You can't go from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the Darien Gap either, because of mountains, swamps, rivers, and dense jungle.  Another problem: paramilitary guerrillas, who will kidnap you if they find you, which they will.  The native peoples aren't especially friendly either.

The paramilitary groups include two left-wing groups, the ELN and the FARC; and one right-wing group, the AUC.  You may ask yourself, If I have to be kidnapped by a paramilitary group in or near the Darien Gap, which should I choose?  Two books that could help you decide are Leszli Kalli's Kidnapped: A Diary of My 373 Days in Captivity and The Cloud Garden, by Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder.