Reading Eloisa James’s  Paris in love: a memoir is much like getting a postcard from your dearest friend as she briefly describes her year long trip to Paris. Or, it may feel a bit like reading interesting snippets of her diary or journal.  James gathered the blog and twitter posts she wrote while abroad as the genesis of her book, and the result is this small but charming volume that packs an unforgettable punch. Her writing meanders through her Paris year winding circuitously around her every day events. Just when you can’t imagine why she’s interrupted her last thought with a seemingly random unrelated statement, she ties them all together in a cohesive bow, leaving the reader waiting for more.

James and her husband both took year long sabbaticals after she recovered from breast cancer surgery and moved their family to Paris. As they settle in, the children are less than thrilled to be in a new country and new school where they do not know the language and have no friends. But, as their year progresses, each family member makes adjustments to their new living situation and the family shares many once in a lifetime moments together.

Visiting  landmarks and museums, shopping at the green grocer, the corner butcher or Parisian stores, attending Mass at a centuries old church, interacting with the homeless and preparing for Christmas in a foreign country are all woven into enchanting prose. The every day mundane encounters with family and friends are retold with such endearing appeal and heart  that I grew attached to the author and her family, including their overweight(make that obese) dog.

C’est dommage that the ending came so soon! My hope is that Ms. James will take another sabbatical in the near future and again write about her adventures bringing along her new best friends-her readers. Qu’est-ce un livre charmante!

The spice necklace : my adventures in Caribbean cooking, eating, and island life by Ann Vanderhoof  follows Ann and her husband as they travel around the Caribbean islands making friends and soaking up all that  island life has to offer. The islands couldn’t pay an advertising or marketing firm to market their lifestyle and their exquisite natural beauty and bring them to life as eloquently as this talented writer does.

Here are some of the things you will learn and experience:

• If you eat wild goats in the Dominican Republic you will be surprised by the strong oregano taste. This is not from a chef’s over seasoning but because the goats chomp endlessly on the oregano bushes which cover the island.
• The very hot pepper sauce made on the island of Trinidad comes from the congo pepper which, on the Scoville pepper heat index, measures 300,000 units compared to the hot Mexican jalapeno which comes in at 8,000 units.
• Coconut water, a popular beverage on several islands, was used in World War II. It was given intravenously to soldiers in emergencies in place of plasma because coconut water has the same electrolyte balance as blood.
• Sea moss, a seaweed variety, is revered on the islands as a male sexual aid similar to Viagra. It is added to soups, drinks and salads to increase sexual prowess.
• Of all the players in Major League Baseball, 1 out of 9 are from the Dominican Republic.

Even those who have travelled to islands in the Caribbean will be charmed by the stories and anecdotes that Ann has garnered during her stays in Grenada, Dominica, Trinidad, St. Lucia, St Marten and other islands. Her love of the area is reminiscent of Melinda Blanchard’s books, A trip to the beach : living on island time in the Caribbean and At Blanchard’s table : a trip to the beach cookbook, both of which contain enough color pictures to ensure many readers will book their next trip to the lovely island of Anguilla to visit the Blanchards and their Anguillan restaurant. Together, these three books are utterly delightful armchair travelling at its finest. So, pull up a chair, make yourself a cool drink and feel the cool breezes as you happily turn the pages.

Leila Aboulela’s book, Lyrics Alley, is set in 1950s Sudan and follows the lives of the wealthy Abuzaid family as their country prepares for political independence from Britain and Egypt.   The Abuzaid family is caught right in the middle of the drama since their business empire has benefitted greatly through their British and Egyptian connections. Love, loss, tragedy and injustice all creep into the storyline making this an arresting family saga. And, in the background, the political changes sweeping the country are ever present. Will Sudan embrace all that modern technology can offer them or cling to the mores and culture of their Arabic heritage?

I may have given this book 4 stars if I had not read that some reviewers were prematurely comparing the author to the highly esteemed Egyptian novelist and Nobel Laureate for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz, and his monumental work, The Cairo Trilogy. Mahfouz’s trilogy shows a greater maturity and a much deeper scope and breadth than Aboulela’s story, perhaps because it was written over many years of a long and celebrated writing life while Aboulela is still in the midst of creating  a very promising career.

Both authors represent the much-needed Arabic voice and point of view in contemporary literature and offer similar themes of domestic and family life as portrayed in the male dominated cultures of Egypt and Sudan. And, it is especially important to have  representation of realistic voices of Muslim women which Aboulela so competently depicts.

Although Aboulela still has a way to go before she enters the same literary landscape and brilliance as Mahfouz, she is well on the path to making that happen and will certainly act as an inspiration for future female Muslim novelists. Lyrics Alley builds on her portfolio of her other books which include Minaret and The Translator.

The title, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky refers to the Tartar ethnic background of the characters and hints at the story line. Rosa Achmetowna, the narrator,  is the most irritating character you will come across in a long time. But, without her, this book would be a shell of itself not worthy of reading.

When Rosa discovers that her 17 year old daughter, ‘stupid Sulfia’  is pregnant but can not name the father, she does everything within her power to ensure that the birth does not take place. But, in spite of her intercession, months later, Sulfia delivers a beautiful daughter named Aminat who becomes the apple of Rosa’s eyes.

Rosa has made it her life’s mission to control the lives of  her ‘good for nothing’ husband Kalganow and her daughter Sulfia and now she must also look out for the welfare of her grandchild. But soon, her attempts at manipulating their lives spiral out of control. When her daughter crosses paths with a German cookbook author, Rosa believes this is her last chance to move her daughter and granddaughter out of Russia to a better life in a Western country. How she works the situation may make you laugh until you are filled with disgust and then sympathy for the way the story unfolds.

In this charming but disturbing book, the narrator will  draw you in with her steel-clad, outrageous opinions and her can do attitude. You may not like the characters or the situations they find themselves in, but believe me, you won’t easily forget them.

Occasionally, you may  want to read something light-a good story that isn’t that serious but has a fairly unusual plot, moves fast enough and has interesting characters (though not always likeable). Emily and Einstein by Linda Francis Lee could be that book.

Unbeknownst to Emily, Sandy, her adored husband, is on his way to tell her he wants a divorce when he is tragically struck by a car and dies on a snowy New York city street.  Before the realization that Sandy is gone forever sets in, Emily is confronted by the wealthy Portman family attorney who informs her she will have to vacate the apartment she shared with her husband-the same home she has lovingly restored. Her grief makes her initially immune to the fact that their marriage was not all that it seemed.

But just as anger, disbelief and  melancholy take hold of her life, she rescues a small scruffy dog from the shelter where she volunteers and Einstein comes to live with her. As she makes her way through the early days of widowhood, faces daily problems at her book editor job and discovers her husband was not the loving man she imagined him to be, little scruffy Einstein is at her side.  How and why Einstein helps her is at the center of this story which manages to convey so many emotions-anger, sadness, tenderness, remorse all tempered with light-hearted comedic scenes.

Is there hope or redemption in sight for Emily, Sandy or even  Einstein? Read this book to see how this unconventional story ends.

Doc Hendley, author of Wine to Water: a bartender’s quest to bring clean water to the world, was a motorcycle riding, hard drinking North Carolinian bartender who spent much of his high school and college years partying.   He hung out with a rough group of people and never shied away from the occasional bar fight. A semester before graduating from college he met a woman who told him about an international aid organization called Samaritan’s Purse. As Doc started researching the organization, he learned of the water crisis present in many countries around the world. He found that one of every six people on earth does not have a ready supply of clean water.  ‘Unclean water kills a child every twenty seconds and is more lethal than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined’.

Soon after, Doc founded his own organization, Wine to Water, to provide clean water to needy people around the world. What began at a local fund-raiser has become an international aid group.  Hendley then spent a year helping to dig wells and bring clean water to people in war-torn Darfur. On a shoestring budget, his organization opened a Wine to Water training facility in Uganda, constructed several wells in Cambodia, put in a new water system in a leper colony in India and drilled wells for an orphanage in Peru and a region in  Ethiopia.

 When Hendley was nominated for and became one of CNN’s 2009 Top 10 Heroes, Wine to Water raised more and more money as it began to benefit from the positive  publicity. Today, they continue their volunteer projects with activities such as distributing water filters to earthquake stricken Haiti after the 2010 earthquake devastated that country.

Reading this matter of fact account of Hendley’s humanitarian work makes you proud that there are still young Americans willing to invest their time and their lives in the pursuit of helping others. Please read his story and also visit www.winetowater.org where you can learn more about the organization and what they have accomplished. Maybe you can help, too!

So you think you’re  a culinary expert?  Go ahead and read Danyelle Freeman’s book Try This: traveling the globe without leaving the table to determine if you really know as much about food and various cuisines as you think. Freeman, a restaurant critic and creator of the food blog restaurantgirl www.restaurantgirl.com has written a compendium of food which highlights everyday food from 14 different countries. Her book is jam packed with dishes both familiar and unfamiliar to most people.

Freeman presents cuisines from Europe, The Middle and Far East and discusses many of the comfort foods that people in those countries eat. She brings in historical tidbits, eating etiquette and her opinions of New York restaurants that serve these popular cuisines. Her ability to make every meal sound like her last highlights how her love of food shines through in her writing. She enhances her descriptions with mouthwatering prose which may cause you to immediately search for a Vietnamese restaurant in your neighborhood.

If you have always died to learn more about food items like bibimbap, cocida, wu tao go, dubu jigae or robatayaki, this is the book for you. Perhaps, Freeman could write a sequel exploring African, South American and other world cuisines left out of this book. Until then, bon appetit, kali oreski and buon appetito.

People yearning to return to Guernsey Island after reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society are in luck! The Soldier’s Wife by Margaret Leroy is also set on  Guernsey Island  in the English Channel during World War II. Leroy paints such a realistic picture of  the island  that you feel as though you are walking along side the characters while they manage their lives as the Germans occupy their beloved homeland.

The sacrifices and the hardships the islanders experience are relayed through the story of Vivienne de la Mare as she tries to keep her family together while her husband is off fighting for England. With her two daughters and a mother in law who is quickly exhibiting signs of dementia, she has her hands full. When the property next to theirs is commandeered by German soldiers, lonely Vivienne tries to keep her distance from the soldiers so as not to appear friendly with the enemy. Eventually, she and a German soldier, Gunther, begin a friendship that slowly blossoms into a secretive, illicit love affair.

Vivienne struggles with her conscience, knowing that her family and neighbors would strongly disapprove of  her relationship if it was ever uncovered. When she helps harbor and feed an emaciated Jewish work camp escapee, she realizes that Gunther must not become aware of her involvement with the escaped prisoner.

There are  many tender and poignant moments set against the backdrop of war as Vivienne tries to keep her family clothed, fed and safe.  While her mother in-law becomes increasingly ill and her children question decisions she has made, Vivienne attempts to keep their home life as normal as possible during these abnormal times. But, underneath the surface there is always the awareness that the world is at war, and though the German soldiers are often  friendly, some of their inhumane acts are hard to accept.

This fast read would make a fine selection for book clubs since there are many topics including war and foreign occupation, compassion, loyalty and adultery that would contribute to an interesting discussion .

Librarians are often gun shy when reading books about other librarians for fear of the way they may be portrayed between the covers. Rebecca Makkai’s protagonist, Lucy Hull, a children’s librarian in her first novel, The Borrowers, may not be a fair representation of the profession, but the original and quirky storyline will certainly keep you turning the pages.

Lucy’s world is turned upside down after she finds her favorite patron, 10 year old Ian, in the Library when she opens the building one morning. Ian has run away from home and camped out overnight in the Children’s Room unbeknownst to the Library officials. For a while, Lucy has felt uneasy about Ian and the struggles he seems to be having in his fundamentalist home. To Lucy’s dismay, Ian’s overbearing mother is very strict and rigid about which books she will allow Ian to read and she  has excluded many popular children’s books and classics from his accepted reading list. She and her husband have also made an assumption that Ian may be gay and have signed him up for a course at the Glad Heart Ministries, an organization “dedicated to the rehabilitation of sexually confused brothers and sisters in Christ.”

 Lucy is a bit of a firebrand and struggles with the typical librarian’s passion for protecting the First Amendment. She is concerned about Ian’s rights and well being but somehow thinks that kidnapping or ‘borrowing’ him may be the way to right the wrongs in his life. Ian and Lucy embark on a multistate trip while she tries to figure out the best way to help him. While on the run, the duo have a number of adventures and in the midst of all the excitement and chaos, Lucy still  manages to introduce Ian to many fine children’s books .

While some of the scenes may require the reader to suspend their disbelief, there is much to discuss in this book which should become popular with the book club circuit. Who has the right to decide how parents educate their children? What rights do the children have? How do religious beliefs play into parents and their views about sexual orientation?

By all accounts, Makkai’s first novel  bodes well for her future as an author. Her engaging and often whimsical writing style should be delightful read for many readers.