April showers…and books

The Butcher and the Vegetarian, Tara Austen Weaver
I’ve been following Tara’s lovely blog over at Tea and Cookies for a while…her recipes are delicious, and so is her writing. I so enjoyed this clear-eyed exploration of where our meat comes from, and her honest struggle to switch to meat-eating from a lifetime of vegetarianism. I am not a vegetarian (and not likely to become one, with a poultry-loving husband), but I am now much more aware of how my meat gets to me.

Summer at Tiffany, Marjorie Hart
This was a total impulse buy – I just saw it at Books-A-Million one day and snapped it up. And oh my, it’s such fun. A glorious romp through 1940s New York, told through the eyes of an Iowa college girl who landed a job at Tiffany’s for the summer. Such wealth! Such dashing midshipmen and elegant movie stars! Such exuberance when WWII ended! If you love Tiffany’s, or romance, or WWII stories, this is for you.

Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, ed. Leonard S. Marcus
Julie (as ever, my book supplier) lent me this months ago, and I’ve just finished it. Nordstrom wrote The Secret Language, which I loved as a child – but I didn’t know she was a children’s editor at Harper for many years. She corresponds with authors such as Maurice Sendak and E.B. White – and she is hilarious, dramatic, charming and smart – what’s not to love? Especially recommended if you love children’s lit.

Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos
Serenity reviewed this book last month, and she loved it, so I bought it and saved it for my plane ride to New York. And oh MY. I LOVED it. Full of warmth and heartbreak and people who step up and take care of each other when it’s needed; and the coffee shop where Cornelia (the main character) works is like the Philadelphia version of my beloved Ground Floor. And Clare, the other narrator, is this wonderful, precocious, compassionate teen who I just loved. De los Santos is a poet, and you can tell – her writing is luminous but never affected, and Cornelia’s narrative voice is wonderful. It’s like you’re having a really long coffee chat with a best friend. And the ending is perfect.

Belong to Me, Marisa de los Santos
This is kind of a sequel to Love Walked In, but not exactly. It picks up on Cornelia’s life, and Clare’s too, a couple of years down the line, but it introduces a lot of new characters, and a new narrator – Piper, Cornelia’s snotty neighbor. I didn’t like Piper at ALL for a while, but then I knew so much of her story that I couldn’t help empathize with her. And this book takes a hard look at the ways we carefully construct our own public images, being who we want to be in public and trying not to fall apart in private. And as with Love Walked In, there’s all kinds of love peeking around every corner. There’s a lot of sadness, too, but oh, these books are completely beautiful. Go read them. Now.

I didn’t finish very many books this month, but I’m in the middle of three, just got two from Amazon and just ordered two more, including Anne and May’s newest release. (Yes, I know I have a problem.) My April books were few, but totally valuable. I’d recommend any of them. And I hope to have some more lovely reviews for you in May.

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