Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

Antisemitism is growing in the publishing industry, and somehow, I was unaware and surprised to hear this. I heard about it from my machatainista (Yiddish for my daughter-in-law’s mother; interestingly, there is no English word for this relationship!) Nancy attended a talk by Alison Hammer, who writes with a partner under the name Ali Brady (look for their new book, Battle of the Bookstores, in June) and Alison gave some specific examples, such as publishers refusing to publish Jewish authors, bookstores pulling books by Jewish authors, and an Israeli author being disinvited from a conference. That sent me down the rabbit hole – I am a librarian, and research is what I do – and what I found is extremely disturbing.

It seems like this has become more of an issue since October 7. Shades of McCarthyism with a blacklist of Jewish, or what they are calling Zionist, authors. The list was shared on Google Sheets, but Google has since pulled it down. I got this message:

We’re sorry. You can’t access this item because it is in violation of our Terms of Service.

This is completely abhorrent – same with the legal immigrants being disappeared in this country. I see the headlines and can’t help but think of this, written in 1946 by Pastor Martin Niemöller:

I found a few articles about how Shelf Awareness, a book industry newsletter aimed at readers, booksellers, and librarians, that I have subscribed to for more years than I can remember, wouldn’t take an ad for a book with the word Israel in the title. Ad for Israel Book Canceled Because ‘Customers Might Complain’. I canceled my subscription.

I found this: Half of British publishers ‘won’t take books by Jewish authors’

And this: The Gaza War has become a war on Jewish books and authors

And this: Anaheim book event faces accusations of antisemitism after canceling Jewish author appearance

There’s a lot more, but you get the idea. Hammer is a member of a group called Artists Against Antisemitism, and I was happy to make a donation. Please help if you can. And thank you, Nancy, for helping me shine a light on this.

Book News

300 residents form human chain to help Michigan bookstore move 9,100 books

Food News

I have a 7-quart Le Creuset Dutch Oven in “Cerise Red” and a couple of baking dishes. I find it very heavy – when I use it and have to transfer it from the stove to the oven, or take it out of the oven, I generally enlist my husband’s or daughter’s help. Although I do like the baking dishes – yes, they are heavy but no more than most ceramicware. I tried the No Knead Bread recipe and the interior bottom of the Dutch oven cracked and crazed. I contacted Le Creuset (lifetime guarantee) and they said that wasn’t covered, but they replaced it anyway, which I greatly appreciated. This was the second time I had one of their Dutch Ovens just explode on me.

The first Le Creuset I ever got was the same 7-quart Dutch Oven, but in Caribbean Blue. I got it at one of Macy’s crazy sales, and I paid $99 for it, which is just insane, but the sale price was only for that color. I didn’t care, I was poor! When would I ever get an opportunity to get one of their ovens for that price. Then a year or so later, I was browning a brisket, and the interior bottom exploded, cracked, and crazed. I had to throw out the brisket (which was upsetting; it’s an expensive cut of meat), and I returned the pot to Macy’s for a new one. This was back in the day before everything was online, but I didn’t think it would be a problem. I had worked in retail years prior, and I knew that with defective merchandise, the store just sends it back to the vendor for a credit or some variation of that. Well, because I didn’t have my receipt, Macy’s staff was not especially helpful or kind; in fact, their response was to offer to sell me a new one. After escalating to the department manager and then moving up to the next level manager, and over an hour of waiting around, they finally agreed to exchange it, but for the red color – I guess they had a lot of those? Whatever. I didn’t care, and I was thrilled to get a new one. I have a Lodge enameled braiser that I’ve used for a few years now, and the outside enamel and the lid are chipped in several places. It’s still usable, but I think it illustrates the price difference between the brands. However, as my husband points out, I can buy at least two of the Lodge pans before hitting the cost of a new Le Creuset. (But not at the outlet store!)

These pots are supposed to last a lifetime. That article showed a picture of a set of pots this couple bought when they got married in 1965 and are still using! Not sure why I haven’t had that experience. Hopefully, the third time, or in this case, the third oven, is the charm, and I can leave it to my kids! Oh, and I bought an Emile Henry ceramic bread oven to make that no knead bread, which was before Le Creuset finally came out with one of their own. I also won’t heat up my Le Creuset past medium-high on my stove. Lesson learned.

Good News

A boy was in tears because he didn’t have PJs for Pajamas Day. His bus driver came to the rescue

I’m not a birder, but even I can appreciate those who travel to exotic locales like these in Panama. Gorgeous pictures!

Other News

I thought this was so interesting!

April was a rough month for me, and it surprised me. April 11 was the one-month anniversary of losing my beloved Loki, and it was a hard day. I remember when I lost my mother, someone told me it takes a full year at minimum to go through the grieving process. You have to get through every holiday, birthday, and every other memorable occasion, and it held true for me. I just never thought it would also apply to losing my cat. Yes, he was a member of the family for sure, but I didn’t think that holidays and such would be so upsetting.

I mean, Passover – it didn’t occur to me that I would have an issue related to losing my Loki, yet it was. I was sauteeing chicken livers for chopped liver and dropped a tiny piece. My first instinct was to call Loki; he was always the beneficiary of a dropped piece of liver. Or chicken. Or turkey or steak. But no Loki this year.

Normally, I bake a sponge cake for Passover, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was the craziest thing – when I would take that cake out of the oven to cool, Loki would go nuts. He’d stand up against the counter, stretching upwards, his little nose quivering. A sponge cake is baked in a two-piece tube pan, with feet, like an angel food cake. Once it comes out of the oven, you turn it upside down for an hour. There was something about the scent of that cake that appealed to him more than just about anything else I made. This year, I made Flourless Chocolate Cake for Passover, which is better for me because I’m not a fan, so a bite was more than enough. But everyone else at the Seder loved it. I brought the rest of the cake to work, and it disappeared in a hurry.

This was also the first year I didn’t get to celebrate my grandchildren’s birthdays with them. It was the first time I missed one of Jonah’s birthdays, he turned four, and I missed Sylvie’s first birthday. It was the first, probably not the last, though. I missed being with my family for Passover, but was happy I got to share it with good friends.

Sorry for being so maudlin. I can’t seem to snap out of it. I guess I will have to get through this year to feel any better at all.

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

I’m still in mourning for my kitty, Loki. I miss him terribly and think about him all the time. So many things trigger memories for me. Bringing home a rotisserie chicken would have him underfoot until I shared some. I don’t think I’ll ever bake a sponge cake again – for some reason, he would go crazy when I made one. As it cooled on the counter in the pan, he would stand up next to it, paws reaching, nose quivering. There was something about the scent that really appealed to him. He never jumped on the counter, though; he was such a good boy. I was folding laundry and got hit with such a wave of sadness that he wasn’t there to jump into the laundry basket or plant himself in the middle of all the clean laundry.

It’s still weird going to bed, and he’s not there. He’s not in any of his favorite spaces, and I can’t help but look all the time. I get up in the morning and go into the kitchen, and his bowls aren’t there. He was a part of my routine for sixteen years, and it feels like so many of my routines have changed now. I stopped watching cat videos; they make me cry instead of laugh now. Yes, I’m still crying but not as much and not as often. Sometimes, I just scroll through pictures, I have so many. My daughter has over 1600 pictures of Loki on her phone. She was home a lot with him, and she’s a photographer, so it makes sense.

I am so grateful that I can talk to my husband about him, and he understands – he misses him, too. My daughter, too. A shared burden lightens the load somewhat. I know, logically, that it is just going to take time, but that doesn’t really help how I feel now. Having this space helps, too.

Book News

So much book news this month!

Is listening to a book cheating?

Can books beat Trump?

Indie publisher Melville House is racing to preserve history, before the US government buries the evidence . . . they’ve just released two new reports in the US, with both following in the UK in the next few weeks: a print and eBook edition of the Jack Smith report—the summation of an investigation of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election—and the Tulsa report, concerning the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

Trump’s attack on libraries was predictable. Its consequences could be devastating

The president wants to eliminate the agency backing libraries and museums. But the institutions do far more than lend books

We Need Diverse Books is launching the inaugural We Need Diverse Books Day on Thursday, April 3, “to highlight the importance of reading books that reflect the beautifully diverse world.” 

WNDB will be recommending titles for all ages, sharing resources on where to find them, and encouraging everyone to read a diverse book. To celebrate We Need Diverse Books Day and 10 years of the nonprofit, WNDB said it is donating 10,000 titles in 2025 to schools and libraries across the country. 

“We invite you to pick out and read a diverse book today–because diverse books are for everyone and these stories ought to be shared and celebrated,” said WNDB board chair and author Dhonielle Clayton.

Can Bibliotherapy Drive Book Sales?

“After two years of declines, BookScan reported that unit sales in 2024 rose by 1% . . . BookTok sales driven by the social media platform jumped 20% last year over 2023 . . . As fears about the economy grow, consumers will likely cut back on buying big-ticket items and focus more on categories that have a high perceived value at a lower price, such as books.”

Food News

A Dream of Gold and Green

How Irish butter took over the world.

The Surprising Trick for Cooking Rice That Works for Any Grain
A simple boiling method doesn’t require measuring or memorization — and you probably already know how to do it.

Good News

Teacher gives $20 to her students with one rule: Use it for kindness

Kristina Ulmer does the kindness challenge each year . . . She said students run with it.
“The first time I participated in the challenge, I didn’t think it would be possible to make a difference with $20, but I learned that’s really not true,” Sydney said. “You don’t have to have millions — anyone can make a difference.”

Other News

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

I lost my beloved cat, Loki, on March 11. I am beyond heartbroken. I’ve been crying for days, and sleep eludes me. I miss him so much. Please allow me this space to grieve. It helps me to work through my feelings by writing about them.

Loki was sixteen years old and, until the last year, was in perfect health. Last year, he started having seizures, at first tiny seizures, but then a couple of grand mal seizures. It appeared to be something called Feline Audiogenic Reflex Seizures, or FARS, a type of epilepsy that usually occurs in older cats where seizures are triggered by specific sounds. There’s not a whole lot known about it, but we could see it. The sound of a metal spoon hitting the ceramic bowl when I fed him made him flinch; a tiny seizure. Ice coming out of the refrigerator into a metal cup made him cower and shake. I bought silicon spoons to use when I fed him, and we put a plastic cup next to the ice maker; it was still noisy but not troublesome. I was never sure what caused the grand mal seizures, but it never appeared to be sound-related. He hadn’t had a seizure since late last year; then, a few weeks ago, it appeared he had another full seizure. He had peed on the rug, and he only ever did that during a grand mal seizure. But it turns out the seizures weren’t the problem; it was his heart.

A few weeks ago I started noticing he wasn’t eating very much, and he was sleeping even more. Cats typically sleep 12-16 hours a day, and he was probably hitting 20. Then he started getting these episodes where he was breathing heavily with his mouth open. Dogs pant, cats do not, so I started researching. It’s a well-kept secret that there is a lot of good information on animals on the National Institutes of Health website. The lethargy, loss of appetite, and panting fit the symptoms of congenital heart failure, which is not uncommon in older cats.

I had been in touch with his breeder when he started having seizures, and she told me that she had never had a cat with that issue. She also told me his mother had passed away at 17 of what she called natural causes; she was getting older, slower, wasn’t eating as much, and eventually passed away. That seemed like maybe what was happening with Loki. We kept a close eye on him. I had read that some cats can live for a while with this heart issue, anywhere from a couple of months to a couple of years. My husband and I discussed it, but he seemed to think if we took him to the vet, the only option would be to put him to sleep. So we didn’t take him.

Then the episodes of heavy breathing started becoming more frequent, at least once a day, that we saw, then a few times a day. He didn’t like being held anymore; we thought he might be in pain. He wasn’t moving around much, either, and didn’t jump up on the furniture to hang out with us anymore. He didn’t come to bed with us anymore. He was sleeping on a rug in the dining room or near his food. He went to the litter box, but that was about it.

I was getting more concerned as his breathing seemed to worsen, and at his loss of appetite. I weighed him, and he had lost over a pound since November. Alarmed, I again suggested we talk to the vet. My husband was afraid that the stress of taking him there would kill him – cats, as a rule, hate getting into the carrier, hate car rides, and hate going to strange places with strange smells, and Loki hated all three of those stressors. But I thought if there was any way the vet could help him, any kind of medication, maybe it was worth a shot.

It turned out that my husband was right. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong other than his heart was racing. We hung out there for a while, discussing options, but Loki seemed to be getting worse, instead of calming down. He could go on Lasix, but the longer we stayed, the more the vet was convinced it wouldn’t help. He couldn’t hear any fluid in his lungs. He said we could take him to a veterinary cardiologist for scans and more sophisticated testing, but he didn’t think he would even make it there. He pointed out that it is a horrible feeling to not be able to breathe normally and he was right. It was an agonizing decision, but we all agreed he was in too much distress at this point, and we were going to put him to sleep.

The vet said he would sedate him first, then give him something to stop his heart. I couldn’t bear the thought of watching that, and neither could my husband. We held him to say goodbye, and his beautiful blue eyes were just solid black, all pupil. He didn’t appear to be cognizant of what was happening or even who we were. The vet took him from us, and we left. We had barely left the parking lot when he texted us that Loki had died before he could even sedate him.

My heart broke. I spent the day crying and looking at pictures of him.

He brought so much joy into my life! We had another cat, Edgar, who we adopted from the shelter, as we had all the cats in my life. But Edgar had some issues; he was hearing and visually impaired, and startled easily. He was an orphan, a specific term for kittens taken from their mothers too young, before being socialized. And worst of all, he was a biter. Not little nips, we are talking teeth sunk into the skin, drawing blood. Cat bites are much more dangerous than dog bites and almost always cause serious infections. My husband was nearly hospitalized a few times, and my daughter was hospitalized once. The morning I woke up with him biting my ankle and blood all over the bed, I’d had it. He moved out onto my back porch and never even tried to get into the house again.

I became afraid of cats. I’ve always had cats, but he really freaked me out. One day, my husband came home from helping one of his customers – he helped people with their computer issues. This particular customer had a couple of Birman cats, which I had never heard of, and he said they were the sweetest, friendliest cats he’d ever seen. While he was working on the computer, they just hung out with him. He got the name of a couple of breeders, and suggested we look into it. She had told us that this one breeder was very particular about where she placed her cats, and in fact, she hadn’t been able to get one and instead used a different breeder. We visited both, and it was no contest. If the breeder approved, we would get a kitten from her. I sat down with her and told her about my experiences with cats, and how Edgar had made me afraid of them. She had half a dozen Birmans roaming around, and they were all so calm and so sweet. She agreed we could have a kitten from her next litter. This was a first-time mom, so she only had two kittens.

I never had any experience dealing with a breeder. We were animal shelter people all the way. These cats were also very expensive, which made me uncomfortable. My husband argued that we could afford it (sort of) and then stipulated that Loki would be my fiftieth birthday present. He knows how to play me, and that worked. The timing was perfect; Loki was born on November 1, and a few weeks later, I turned fifty.

We started visiting the breeder when the kittens were just a few days old and had just opened their eyes. We visited regularly, at least once a week. She gave them temporary names, Lewis & Clark, and originally, I was going to take Clark, I thought he was cuter. But as they got older, he got a little more rambunctious, and I got scared because of the horrible experience we had with Edgar. Kittens are very playful! The breeder told us to take Lewis, that he had a very sweet nature. I’m not sure how on earth she knew that about kittens that were just a few weeks old, but she was right. Lewis became Loki, and we lived happily ever after.

Loki was the sweetest, most loving cat I’ve ever had. He wasn’t a lap cat, but he loved to sleep on the hassock with his head on my ankle, or on the arm of the chair cuddled up with my husband. He slept in our bed for most of his life until the very end.

He would be waiting by the front door when I got home from work and would follow me all over the house, often getting underfoot while I was cooking. He always seemed to know when I was sad, and he would come sit with me. Loki was also a talker – he always had something to say. Birmans were bred from Siamese cats a long time ago, but if you look up the breed, it says they are quiet. We used to kid around and say guess he never read the book on Birmans. Their fur is also supposed to be easy to maintain because they don’t have an undercoat, so they are not supposed to be prone to matting. But he was – another instance of him not reading the book.

I was able to teach him to ‘give me five!’ When I brushed him, I would say, “put your keppe back” (keppe is Yiddish for head) and he would throw his head back so I could brush his neck. The funniest thing was that he never really liked playing with toys, and we tried them all! He would play for thirty seconds, then just walk away. He liked these little crunchy-sounding foil balls, and he would swat them around and chase them, but after a few swats, he was done. Laser? No reaction. He was scared of this fish toy that moved if he touched it, so he avoided it. The dangly toys didn’t interest him; really, nothing did. He just wanted to hang out with us, and he was happy.

The day we lost Loki, the New York Times ran this article:

I miss him so much, my heart hurts. We are talking about retiring to Portugal in a couple of years, and my husband said once we get settled, we can get another cat. But I can’t imagine wanting another cat. I don’t think any other cat would ever measure up to Loki, and that would break my heart all over again.

Rest in peace, my beautiful boy.

Beware the Ides of March! It’s not until March 15, so you have time to prepare. I’m pretty sure my readers aren’t going to be targets of assassination, so no real need to worry! It is the date that Julius Caesar was assassinated on the steps of the Roman Senate, and the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, immortalized these words in his play, Julius Caesar.

Personally, my favorite day this month to celebrate is March 3 – it was the day in 1976 when my boyfriend (now husband) told me he was falling in love with me. It is also my first grandchild’s birthday, so all in all, a pretty great day!

Book News

I have a trip to NY planned, but not until the end of May, so I won’t get to see this. If any of you go, I’d love to hear about it!

One of my prize possessions (which wouldn’t fit this display) is a handbag made from an old children’s book that I found in a thrift shop many years ago. I’ve never actually used it, but it hangs in the front of my living room fiction collection. When I eventually move, and the books have all gone to that great big library in the sky (someone else’s house), I will gift it to my granddaughter in hopes that she will use it. Maybe she’d also love the Hillary Clinton paper doll book!

There are certain authors (who shall remain nameless) who are commonly called “blurb whores.” They’ll blurb anything and everything with over-the-top superlatives, rendering their opinions, at least in my opinion, completely worthless. I have heard of some very famous authors extorting, I mean charging fees for blurbs, which is completely unethical. So I am in favor of this new trend, or hopefully, Simon & Schuster’s embracing of forgoing blurbs will become a trend.

Romantasy and BookTok driving a huge rise in science fiction and fantasy sales

The subgenre helped increase the market share by 41.3% last year aided by bestseller Fourth Wing from Rebecca Yarros, while food and drink topped nonfiction sales . . . the romance trend may be partly due to changing attitudes towards the genre: publishers are perhaps more likely to classify books as romance rather than general or literary fiction in recent times, because romance is now given more prominence in bookstores. (Yay!)

This was not a surprise to me! [Read my review of Fourth Wing.] While I understand the appeal of romantasy, especially among younger women who grew up with Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Twilight, I prefer my romances to be set in the real world. Although I’m sure many people would say that all romance is fantasy, I am not one of them.

On the other hand, my BFF Judy loves the Yarros series, and she rarely reads romance; she’s more of a mystery reader. But she did introduce me to my favorite romance series of all time – Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – and that series revolves around time travel, so not exactly the real world there, either.

Food News

Short ribs, soup and secrets: Our critic’s exclusive lunch at the CIA

At the CIA’s dining room, food critic Tom Sietsema isn’t the only one undercover.

Has This Yogurt Gone Bad? And More Food Safety Questions, Answered
Your favorite breakfast staple is surprisingly long-lasting.

I never heard of Sichuan food until my husband started working (intermittently) in China. This was around 1980. He came home and pretty much swore off Chinese restaurants, finding the Cantonese-style food boring and inauthentic to his experience. It actually isn’t inauthentic, it’s just the food from Guangzhou (formerly Canton,) China, and it was pretty much the only type of Chinese food available throughout most of the United States; probably in Chinatown (in any city) you could get more of a variety, like Sichuan, Hunan, and Hong Kong style food. Eventually, Sichuan dishes started showing up with that little 🌶️ warning, along with all sorts of food from different areas in China, and that amped up my lifelong love affair with the cuisine. This article delves into the history of the Sichuan pepper, and it is fascinating!

Thirty-two minutes to boil an egg?? Not worth it, but what do I know. Also, that “jammy yolk” makes me gag; I need my hard-cooked eggs to have a solid, pale yellow yolk.

Good News

Other News

My son and his family came to visit for their Winter Break – we don’t get that in South Florida, understandably! They were supposed to come in on Monday, but due to the weather, their flight was canceled. Delta was able to get them on a flight the next morning, all sitting together, which is important when you are traveling with a three-year-old and a ten-month-old! I was thrilled to see them all, but losing that day was so disappointing. It would have doubled the cost of their already ridiculously expensive airfare to take a later flight home, so we sucked it up and enjoyed the time we had together. We took them to a “farm” – I’m using quotes because it used to be a u-pick strawberry farm, but now it’s just a tourist destination with lots of animals like birds, goats, donkeys, rabbits, etc., and a fun “train” ride that my grandson loved. Yes, he is still obsessed with trains! And we went to Butterfly World, which is glorious! My daughter is a photographer, and she took some amazing photos that she put into albums. If you like pictures of animals and butterflies, take a look! Butterfly World The Girls Farm

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

Happy Groundhog Day! Let’s hope that groundhog doesn’t see his shadow tomorrow. Either way, I’ll be watching the movie!

Book News

This play was inspired by a memoir that I loved, The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia “Butterfly” Hill, which came out around 2001 – and I still remember it clearly. Talk about making an impression! I’ve literally read thousands of books since then, so a book that memorable deserves a look if you haven’t read it. I hope I get to see this show!

Fire wrecks romance bookstore. Fans step in, make real-life happily ever after.

Are men’s reading habits truly a national crisis?

The questionable statistic at the heart of the “men don’t read fiction” discourse.

Who are the top readers for 2024? And where did they get their books?

And — bonus data — which books were they least likely to finish?

Digital Audiobooks Lead Growth In Library Circulation For The Second Year

Digital audiobooks continue to dominate circulation in U.S. public libraries, with strong growth in both adult and youth audiobook collections. A new survey conducted by Library Journal (LJ) and School Library Journal (SLJ), in partnership with the Audio Publishers Association (APA), highlights the ongoing shift towards digital audio content.

Food News

Good News

Dog was attacked, left with crooked face. Now he’s a social media star.

An airport piano was filthy and out of tune. He fixed it (for free!) during a layover.

“It was in very rough shape – dust was everywhere, and there was a gluey substance under the keys that prevented them from working,” said passenger Josiah Jackson.

Other News

We are a month into the new year and I am still avoiding much news these days. I am a former MSNBC news junkie, with emphasis on former. I still subscribe to the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, but I mostly read the headlines when it comes to anything political or Trump. I can’t handle any more than that. I am hoping we get through these next four years with as little damage as possible with conceivably a major swing in the 2026 elections, but I’m not as optimistic as I used to be. I feel irreversibly damaged from this past year, and I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever recover. I am joining the millions and millions of Americans who don’t read newspapers or educate themselves in any meaningful way. I am in mourning, for lack of a better word, for America and democracy. Someone wake me up when this national nightmare is over.

My grandchildren are my happy place.

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

Happy New Year! Hope you enjoyed the holidays and are looking forward to the new year!

Looking back at last year…

Book News

Here are Boston Public Library’s 10 most borrowed books in 2024

“Nine out of the ten most frequently borrowed titles were written by women and tell stories that center on women’s experiences and inner lives across multiple settings, decades, and literary styles.”

Food News

The 14 best cookbooks of 2024 (The Washington Post)

These titles span cuisines, subjects and styles, but all would be an asset to your cookbook shelf.

Other News

When I got my job at Lynn University, one of the first things I did was mount a framed copy of “A Great Day in Harlem,” the iconic black-and-white photograph of 58 jazz musicians in Harlem, New York, taken by freelance photographer Art Kane, in my office. Only two of the musicians pictured were still alive; today, there is only one, Sonny Rollins, and he spoke to The New York Times about it. They created this interactive look at the photograph, and I loved it! Hope you do, too!

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

Another year coming to a close! I am so grateful to all my readers. Thanks for reading and sharing, and for your comments and emails. Cheers to health, happiness, and prosperity in 2025! Wishing you and yours a safe, healthy, and joyful New Year filled with great books!

I was so thrilled to have my family coming home for Thanksgiving, but you know what they say about best laid plans? I understand how difficult it is to juggle the holidays when my son and his family live in New York, we live in Florida, and my daughter-in-law’s family lives in Chicago. It’s impossible to be in so many places at once! The onus seems to be on my son and his family to make all the grandparents happy, and they are incredibly thoughtful about it. They were all set to come to Florida for Thanksgiving but my husband and daughter came down with Covid! My granddaughter is only seven months old, and just got her first Covid vaccine. It just seemed too risky to visit right now. Luckily, they were able to get a credit for their airfare, and we hope to see them soon.

Book News

50 notable works of fiction from 2024

Highlights among the year’s novels, short-story collections and works in translation, as selected by the staff of The Washington Post’s Book World.

The 10 best books of 2024 (The Washington Post)

Best Books of 2024 (Goodreads)i

Best Books of 2024 (Book Riot)

Best 20 Books of 2024 (Publishers Weekly)

Best Books of the Year (Barnes & Noble)

Best Books of 2024 (Kirkus Reviews)

100 Notable Books of 2024 (New York Times Book Review)

Food News

Why are bananas berries but strawberries aren’t?

A strawberry isn’t a berry. But scientifically speaking a banana is a berry. So what’s the deal? Why are berries so hard to define?

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

I love the idea of this, but with just three of us having Christmas Eve dinner, I rarely make it to 7. I usually make Baked Clams Oreganata, Caesar Salad (with anchovies!), and Seafood Risotto with shrimp, mussels, lobster, and scallops. Close enough – how much can three people eat!

Other News

My husband retired this year. Well, he was laid off from a job he had for twenty years where he survived numerous layoffs over many years. The timing wasn’t bad – he was planning on retiring in another year or so, and this just accelerated the timeline. I am not quite there yet – I hope to work for at least another year.

We are planning on retiring to Portugal where the cost of living is so much lower, health care is more affordable, and gun deaths are a rarity, not a way of life. My husband and I visited last April and loved it. Last month, my husband and daughter visited, and she loved it. We may be retiring, but our daughter lives at home and will come with us so it was very important that she be happy about the move as well.

It is a time-consuming and somewhat expensive process to move to another country, but we are excited about the prospect of what will surely be our last big adventure. Once I retire, the plan is to move to a less expensive state for about a year while we work through the immigration process to Portugal. Florida has gotten insanely expensive – if we hadn’t bought our house when we did 38 years ago, and paid off our mortgage, we wouldn’t be able to afford to live here. The cost of insurance – homeowners and auto – is crazy expensive, like another mortgage payment. If I had to do that on top of an actual mortgage payment, we’d both be working two jobs to afford it.

We are thinking about moving to Delaware or New Hampshire, two states with lower costs of living, no state income tax, and a tiny bit closer to my kids in New York. If I could afford to live in NY, that would be ideal, but it is prohibitively expensive. I haven’t lived in winter since I was a kid. One of my closest friends lives in Maine, and I have never even been there! It would be nice to be able to see her more often, and NH would allow for that. On the other hand, a New Hampshire winter is a bit scary for me! Delaware has slightly milder and shorter winters than NH.

Honestly, I’d love to move to Orlando for a year. Our South Florida friends would be able to visit. The housing costs are lower there, but insurance is still a nightmare. I love Disneyworld, and if we lived there, we could get annual passes. I always thought that would be my ideal place to retire. It’s a long shot though. Any thoughts on where to retire? Please share!

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

Heading into the election!

Election Day is a mere five days away! In case you are new here, I just want to make it clear which way I am voting. Feel free to disagree with me; this is America, and we are all entitled to vote however we want.

I watched in complete disbelief last month as Alex Wagner on MSNBC spent some time with a group of UA (The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry) union members in Lansing, Michigan, an important swing state. Some were solidly Trump or Harris, but most were undecided. Most also had no idea what was going on in the world. Many of them were getting all their [dis]information via social media. Some knew nothing about Trump and all the court cases he’s involved with, and even worse, the ones who knew didn’t seem to care. Some didn’t have any opinions on Jan. 6th or didn’t understand why it was a big deal. Many were concerned with immigration, but none were very clear on what the problems were. These were union members with good jobs, and one young man said that immigrants were taking “all the jobs.” Not his, apparently.

A couple of weeks ago I watched Jimmy Kimmel send a “reporter” to a Trump rally at Coachella. The “reporter” asked people their opinions on a variety of issues, from critical race theory to fracking to D.E.I. All the Trump supporters had strong opinions on these topics, so the reporter followed up by saying, “What is “critical race theory [or whatever the topic was] for people who don’t understand it?” Not one of those people with strongly held beliefs could explain them; they just knew they were bad. To be fair, there probably were people there who could explain some of these topics, but for comedy’s sake, they didn’t show any of them. It’s funny as hell if you’re not a Trump supporter, and Kimmel is playing to his audience. I point this out because this is the type of disinformation that is so prevalent today.

As an academic librarian, I try to teach my students how to determine the trustworthiness of their sources. How to tell the difference between information, misinformation, and disinformation. It is becoming more difficult to parse through all the noise and find the kernels of truth. AI has made it exponentially more complicated, which is why information literacy is so vitally important.

I realize that most people don’t follow the news like I do. I read three newspapers a day, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. I don’t read them cover to cover, but I get their newsletters and feel I have a pretty good idea of what is happening in the world. I watch probably too much MSNBC, some CNN, and some YouTubers like David Pakman and The Young Turks. I also follow late-night comedians like Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers – all are available on YouTube, and when the news is especially brutal (looking at you, Netanyahu,) they make me laugh.

I am a “super voter,” a term I had never heard until I worked for the Obama campaign. It was the second campaign I ever worked on; my first was Jimmy Carter, and I didn’t turn 18 until a month after his election so I couldn’t even vote for him! But I have voted in every election since. Local and national. And apparently, that makes me a “super voter.” I love that! We are so privileged in this country, and it kills me that so many people don’t vote. This is from the Pew Research Center:

The elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades. About two-thirds (66%) of the voting-eligible population turned out for the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate for any national election since 1900. The 2018 election (49% turnout) had the highest rate for a midterm since 1914. Even the 2022 election’s turnout, with a slightly lower rate of 46%, exceeded that of all midterm elections since 1970.

I also find it interesting that other democracies around the world have much higher voter turnout than we do. The Institute for Responsive Government, “composed of industry-leading experts, the Institute’s team works across disciplines to build a new approach to governance that centers efficiency, efficacy, and accessibility” put out this report: What Other Countries Can Teach Us About Turnout

Their report investigates the roles different voting structures around the world play in increasing turnout among eligible voters. The purpose is to surface several alternatives the United States could explore as a way of confronting its voting challenges and increasing turnout. Instead, we have Republicans suppressing as many voters as possible – especially voters of color. The rulebook on winning fairly has been incinerated; the sickening new way to win? Any means possible.

Please vote! Our future depends on it.

We Put 12 Strangers in a Group Chat About the Economy . . . It Got Personal

The Wall Street Journal did a little something out of their lane – a sort of social experiment. I found it completely fascinating! The reporter, Rachel Wolfe, chose twelve people she felt were representative of a broad swath of America, but who didn’t know one another.

“What would happen, we wondered, if we asked 12 people diverse in thought, background and identity to talk to each other every day about the economy?” 

Then she fed them prompts and recorded the results.

“Over five weeks and 1,300 text messages, our recruits sparred over student loans, presidential candidates and inflation. They also shared their successes, painful stories—and drink coupons.”

Hope you find it worth reading as well.

Book News

For ‘Perfect Couple’ author Elin Hilderbrand, book organization is optional

At her home in Nantucket, the bestselling author keeps her collection personal, including where she puts her books: “Nobody else has to understand it.” [I love looking at other people’s bookshelves!]

Warner Bros pulls plug on Harry Potter events at library

This is so sad! The Harry Potter books get so many kids to read. For years, the publisher encouraged these types of events, but no longer. This library got a “cease and desist” letter from the movie studio so they had to cancel one of their most popular events.

What Is a Shadow Library?

Millions of books circulating in the shadows of the internet are shedding light on the current realities of accessing information.

Food News

Frozen spinach deserves more respect. Here’s how to best use it.

Pack nutrition into a wide range of dishes with this budget-friendly staple. [I use it all the time!]

Stanley Tucci wants to cook for you

How the actor built a culinary identity, one project at a time.

Other News

Doctor running half marathon sees woman collapse, saves her, finishes race

I got to spend Rosh Hashanah with my family in New York. My grandson is three and was lucky enough to get into the “3K” program that the city runs – it’s a lottery process for preschool through the city school system. It’s not perfect – he cries sometimes during the day, and he got sick a week or two into it, but there has been some improvement since he started going in early September. The plus side is they got to keep their fabulous nanny, whose primary job is now my six-month-old granddaughter. They are coming to visit for Thanksgiving, and I can hardly wait!

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

Hurricane Helene

I’ve lived in South Florida since the 1970’s. Hurricane David was my first, in 1979. Me and my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, lived in Rio, a tiny hamlet about an hour north of West Palm Beach. We rented a three-room apartment that was carved out of an old house, probably very illegal (the bedroom didn’t have a window and was just big enough for a double bed – literally, it fit wall to wall.) We were in the middle of moving south to West Palm Beach. The hurricane warnings came, and the storm was expected to make landfall in WPB, so we decided to stay put. We put plywood on the windows in the living room – there was no such thing as hurricane shutters back then. David ended up as a Category 2 storm, so not too horrific. My husband had the foresight to move our cars around the side of the house; it was fortuitous because the huge tree in the front yard was destroyed by the storm and both of our cars would have been smashed. We were fine, but the surrounding area was not. We were minutes away from Hutchinson Island, and when we were able to get over there, the devastation was surreal.

We went through many more hurricanes after that one. Eventually, we purchased hurricane shutters but they are the type that need to be manually installed and it takes a full day or more to do so. We have six sliding glass doors and several windows, including clerestory windows, long narrow windows above the sliding glass doors. My house is normally filled with light, and it is eerie once those shutters go up. We didn’t have enough shutters to cover all the clerestory windows, and by the time Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 storm, hit in 1992, we were very lucky it hit south of us in Miami. My daughter was just a few weeks old, and while we didn’t get hit by the storm, a few days later we got hit with the aftermath, tropical storm winds strong enough to knock out our electricity. We had no power for several days. Meanwhile, one of my neighbors had a big van and went around the neighborhood collecting whatever we could give. I sent all my diapers, wipes, and formula to Miami. I was lucky that I could still go to the store and buy more.

That was nothing compared to Hurricane Wilma in 2005. It hit in mid-October, and again we were without power for about a week. By that time we had a lot more supplies and camping equipment. We had a giant cooler, and a grill and a two burner camping stove. We lost the roof of our house – actually, my entire neighborhood was roofless. The homes were about eighteen years old, and the building codes had changed by then, because of Andrew. But we didn’t get those improvements until we lost our roof. We didn’t have hurricane shutters on two of the clerestory windows, so we had a front row seat to debris flying over the house, things like big swaths of fencing, toys, bicycles, and pool furniture. It was quite something to see most of a shed flying over the house. The shingles coming off the roof damaged our cars, which were in the driveway. Our garage was full of stuff, and we moved all the patio furniture in there as well. And we put our crazy cat, Edgar, in there, too. He bit my daughter in the process of moving him. She ended up in the hospital the next day on intravenous antibiotics. Cat bites are no joke.

We’ve had many storms since then, but no direct hits from another hurricane. In fact, in the past few years, all the hurricanes seem to be either hitting the west coast of Florida, coming up through the Gulf of Mexico, or heading north of us up the eastern seaboard. And that’s what Helene did, with more devastation that could be imagined. A hurricane hitting the mountains?? That’s just impossible. Until it wasn’t.

More than 120 people have died already, and over 500 more are still missing across six states. There are too many horror stories, too much destruction, too much devastation.

If you want to help, here are legitimate places to offer your money or time:

The New York Times

The Washington Post (Asheville, NC)

USA Today

FEMA

World Central Kitchen

WCK’s Relief Team is on the ground and in the skies over Florida, identifying communities most in need of support after Hurricane Helene. Water, sand, and debris blanket our search areas, but we will continue to do what it takes to provide nourishing meals. #ChefsForFlorida pic.twitter.com/jLHomeBmYT

— World Central Kitchen (@WCKitchen) September 30, 2024

Book News

Publishers try skinnier books to save money and emissions

This Election Will Determine the Fate of Libraries
By Amanda Jones

Jones is the author of the book THAT LIBRARIAN: The Fight Against Book Banning in America. She has been an educator for 22 years, and is the President of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians

Food News

Will We Ever Shut Up About Caesar Salad?

How the cold, crunchy, craveable salad inspired a consistent and nearly comical fixation

Allrecipes, America’s Most Unruly Cooking Web Site [ from the New Yorker]

Other News

Amazon Prime Streaming!

I know a lot of people get Amazon Prime for the fast, free shipping, but their streaming channel has grown a lot over the years, and now we watch it all the time. If you’re a football fan, it’s the only way to get Thursday Night Football. My husband loves The Rings of Power (a Lord of the Rings prequel) and Fallout. We both love Reacher, based on the Lee Child series, and Bosch and Bosch Legacy, based on the Michael Connelly series. Prime is the home of the original series The 1% Club (trivia game,) the multiple Emmy nominee Mr. & Mrs. Smith. and one of my favorite escapes, Clarkson’s Farm. Finally, there are literally thousands of movies, and they constantly add new ones. I can always find a rom-com when I need one! ‘Nuff said.

Apple unveils AirPods that can work as hearing aids

Apple says that following FDA clearance, the feature will be available via a software update. (The FDA granted approval.)

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.

On audiobooks

There are people who don’t believe that listening to an audiobook is reading. I am not one of them. Not everyone can read; not everyone has the time or money (books are expensive!) to read. So if there is an alternative, why not? For me, the answer to that question is a tricky one.

Over the years, I’ve tried to listen to books with mixed results. I tried listening to mysteries and thrillers or other fiction while driving. Invariably, I would suddenly realize that I had no idea what was happening. I was completely tuned out. So that didn’t work for me. Then I tried children’s books. I listened to the first three or four of the Lemony Snicket books, and that worked! Then I got bored of those, they were all pretty much the same so I moved on to the Harry Potter series. Jim Dale, the reader, was phenomenal. In fact, he is cited twice in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the most character voices in an audiobook (more than 200) and for voicing the first six “Top Ten” selling audiobooks of all time. And he kept my attention.

I read the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, with my daughter. She was in kindergarten when it came out, and I was working for Borders Books & Music. I brought home the book, and we took turns reading a few pages each night. It took us all summer, but we finished the book. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t enjoy reading it that way, a bit at a time. I like to sit down and read a book through with as few breaks as possible. So when the next book came out, I told her she was on her own; she read it herself, and I didn’t bother. Eventually, I turned to the audiobooks and read the entire series that way and loved them.

My BFF knew that I had finally found audiobooks to love, and she suggested listening to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series on audio. We had both read all the books, but she also listened to them and adored the reader, so I decided to give them a try. They are fabulous! My husband also listened to them and loved them. But then I was done. I couldn’t find anything else that would keep my attention,

With the popularity of streaming audiobooks, I tried again. This time my motives were more personal. Regular readers of this blog are aware that I have been having vision problems for a number of years now. I’ve had several surgeries, and while technically, my vision is 20-20, that’s BS. The doctors make me bob and weave and move my head around until I can read the eye chart. I actually have scar tissue in my right eye that caused a blind spot. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I had to take the vision test for my driver’s license. I put my face in the machine and read all the lines. Then the woman administering the test said, read the rest – but there was no rest, that was all I could see.

I am fine reading on my Kindle or iPad, and even books if I wear reading glasses (which I hate.) I have no trouble with distance, so driving is fine and so is watching TV or a movie. But computers – that is where the trouble lies. If I close my right eye, I can see just fine, but using both gives me weird blurry spots and double vision. It’s annoying. But since my eyes aren’t going to get better, and I have narrow-angle glaucoma which could eventually cause my sight to get much worse, I decided to try audiobooks once again.

This time, I tried using the library app Hoopla and started with a romance. Since I mostly read romance, it seemed like a good idea. I also have often wondered about listening to a romance, especially a steamy one. Would it bother me to hear sex scenes read aloud? Turns out, not so much. I listened to Hearts on Thin Ice by Katie Kennedy and loved it! Unfortunately, that was her first adult book, so I had nowhere to go.

I poked around Hoopla some more and stumbled on an old series by Brenda Novak, the Dundee, Idaho series. I had never read them, but I’d read many of her more recent books and enjoyed them, so I gave it a try. I’m now on the 8th book in that series, and I think that’s it. There’s a novella that finishes up the series, but I’m not sure it’s available on audio or through my library, and I usually hate novellas so I’m not going to stress about it.

Over the years I’ve known people who listen to specific readers, but I’m pretty sure there were different readers for each of the books in the series, and I liked them all. This last one is read by a man, so that’s a bit different, but so far, it’s still holding my attention.

I am feeling a lot better about audiobooks now. I listen in the morning before my daily podcasts show up (I’m usually up around 5:30.) I listen while doing laundry or cooking. And I listen in my car. Sometimes I even listen while my husband and I are watching TV, especially when he starts with YouTube. There are a few things I like on there, but mostly not so much, so listening to a book is good. Or reading one.

Back in 2001, I actually entered a Random House Audio contest called “Where Do You Like to Do It?” and won! It was incredibly ironic since I rarely listened to a book back then. Contestants were invited to write a short essay, poem, or story about their use of audiobooks. This was so long ago that the prize was – get ready for it – a Sony CD Discman and several books on CD (which I never listened to.) I won for this poem:

I like to do it in my car
Peter Mayle takes me far
I like to do it in the bath
David Rakoff makes me laugh
I like to do it while I run
Lemony Snicket makes it fun
I’d like to do it all the time
Then aural pleasure would be mine!

Maybe I was prescient? I’m happy to say, at last that aural pleasure is mine.

Book News

Oklahoma revokes license of teacher who gave class QR code to Brooklyn library in book-ban protest

A former public high school teacher in Oklahoma had her teaching license revoked by the State Board of Education Thursday for providing students a link to a list of banned books posted online two years prior

Book Publishers Sue Florida, Alleging School Library Law Violates First Amendment

The suit challenges a Florida statute that gives parents and residents more say over the vetting of library materials for sexual content

This week in Ron Charles’s Book Review Newsletter in The Washington Post, he discusses Western Illinois University’s decision to fire all the librarians. He said, “I hate to break it to the bean counters, but a university library without academic librarians is called a storage room.” And this: “In an age awash with misinformation, losing these scholars seems like an astonishingly shortsighted cut.” I had read about this in Inside Higher Ed, a daily journal about academia, but it was refreshing to see the story in a mainstream newspaper. Kudos, Ron Charles!

I’m very excited to tell you that you can subscribe to and read The Washington Post Book Review weekly newsletter, written by the very witty Ron Charles. It is my favorite read about books. He said,

“Remember, free features like this either grow or die, so please tell your friends who might enjoy this newsletter that they can read it every week by clicking here.

(No, they don’t have to subscribe to The Washington Post.)”

Food News

It May Not Look Like an Ice Cream Sandwich, but It’s the Best You’ll Ever Eat

Maybe it’s shaped like a cornflake-coated chicken drumstick. Maybe it’s two crisp churros with a scoop of Oaxacan chocolate ice cream between. Forget the standard-issue ice cream sandwich. These are the frozen treats to mail-order now.

Other News

This is fun for us language geeks!

London street cleaner wins dream vacation in a contest made just for him

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

Thanks to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.