Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

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.

Today would have been my mother’s 90th birthday, but instead, I lost her in 2008. She was only 73 years old. Eight years older than I am now, which is a sobering thought. She had a hard life; her father was much older than her mother, and his family had disowned him. I was never quite clear on why. Her mother was orphaned in Kyiv as an infant, and sent to live with an aunt in Saratoga Springs, New York. So they had no extended family. I never met my grandfather; he suffered several strokes throughout my mother’s childhood and passed away when she was 21 years old.

My mother grew up in Brooklyn. Her father couldn’t work because of the strokes, so her mother supported the family working in a toy factory. My mom had an older brother, but he had an intellectual disability. He never finished school but eventually got a job in a liquor bottling plant in Brooklyn. I was never clear on what he did exactly, but it didn’t pay much. My mother worked for as long as she could remember, babysitting when she was young, and when she was in high school, she worked as a model for Macy’s in downtown Brooklyn. She also prepped dinner every night, peeling carrots and potatoes. She cleaned the apartment, took care of her father after school, and took care of her brother as well. She graduated from high school with a secretarial degree, or something to that effect. She married my father when she was 18 years old, as many women did back then, wearing a beautiful wedding gown she borrowed from a friend.

My parents divorced when I was 8 years old. It came as a complete shock to my mother. My father left, went to Mexico for a quickie divorce, and came back two weeks later, married to my evil stepmother. My mother didn’t even date for many years, but eventually, she met Bob and married him. Those were the happiest years of her life, especially after my kids were born.

My mom was sick for many years. She had rheumatoid arthritis, TMJ, sciatica, and COPD, and lived in pain for more years than I care to think about. She was in bad shape but held on until my son came home from Tampa for a visit. He spent the weekend with her, and she passed away two days later.

She would have loved my daughter-in-law, and her great-grandchildren would have been the loves of her life, as they are of mine. I always thought I would miss my mom the most when something bad happened, and I do, but I miss her more when something good happens, like my son’s wedding, my daughter’s college graduation, and the birth of my grandchildren. I would have loved to share all that joy with her.

I am at that age where many of my friends have already lost their parents, or will sometime soon. No matter how old you are, it is difficult to lose a parent. Especially a mom like mine, who made me feel loved no matter what I did – I always knew she had my back, even when she criticized me (often,) or didn’t agree with my decisions (often). As Nana, she gave my kids that same gift, unconditional love, and even more remarkably, so did her husband, who my kids called Papa. When my son questioned what my husband and I wanted to be called by our new grandson, for some reason I wasn’t comfortable saying Nana and Papa. But when Jonah was a few months old, he brought it up again and we agreed, knowing we had enormous shoes to fill and hoping we could live up to the example set for us.

I miss my mom almost every day, and I’m glad I have this forum to write about her from time to time. Thank you, my readers, for indulging me.

Book News

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

This month’s Food News is dedicated to the retiring Pete Wells, restaurant critic for the New York Times for the past twelve years. He followed in some serious footsteps and held his own and then some…Frank Bruni, Sam Sifton, and going way back to my teen years, Mimi Sheraton – I remember my stepmother waiting each week for the restaurant review, then often making reservations, and the fabulous Ruth Reichl, who wrote a wonderful memoir, Garlic and Saphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, about her time as the NY Time’s restaurant critic. No word yet as to who will follow Wells, but I’ve been told by a source at the NYT that Priya Krishna and Melissa Clark will be doing restaurant reviews on an interim basis until further notice.

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT SALMON FROM ITS PACKAGING

So interesting!

Other News

After spending some time in Chicago, my family braved the South Florida heat and came to visit for a week! My beautiful new granddaughter is three months old and is the cutest. My three-year-old grandson is as sweet and smart as ever. (Not that I’m biased or anything!) It was a joy to spend some time with them!

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

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

TV & Games

When my son was two years old, a dear friend of my mom’s gave him a Nintendo gaming system that had come out a year earlier. It came with the original Super Mario Bros. game, and my son loved it. So did I. In those days, when you “died” in the game, you had to start over. There was no saving whatever level you reached. There were no cheat codes to get ahead. I know I have a touch of OCD, and that manifested in me staying up all night playing Super Mario, and for days, maybe weeks, I was like a zombie, taking care of my son during the day, and playing that game half the night. Until I beat it. And then I never played it again, not any version of it.

When I was in high school, we got the very first video game, Pong. It was too boring to be addictive though. I played other games, pre-Nintendo, when you had to play in arcades. I loved pinball and Space Invaders. I dabbled with Pacman but never got hooked. My husband loved Asteroids, but I could take it or leave it. I have never considered myself a gamer, yet looking back, I’ve been playing video games for most of my life.

Remember The Oregon Trail? I loved that game. We played it on our first home computer, the Tandy Corporation (Radio Shack) TRS-80 Model 1 (we couldn’t afford the first Apple computer!) Games and everything else were stored on cassette tapes. Beyond Space Invaders, I never got into the shooting games. I detest guns and war as much as I love reading thrillers that feature lots of gun violence and war. It’s a dichotomy I’m comfortable with. But now that we all carry computers in our pockets, there are a lot more games to choose from.

My husband and I watch TV at night, but it is rare that something I’m watching holds my complete attention. (One recent exception is a new movie on Netflix, “Hit Man,” which is excellent!) We watch a lot of news, and I usually read while it’s on. We watch some shows; right now, we are bingeing “Suits” and rewatching “Northern Exposure,” which has held up surprisingly well. We are loving the second half season of “Bridgerton”, and regularly watch Monday’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, and Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver on Max (HBO). I watch Jeopardy daily, and read during the commercials. My husband has become addicted to YouTube, and I can read or play games through all of that.

I like to relax after work by rewatching a couple of different series – all of Aaron Sorkin, particularly “The West Wing” and “Newsroom,” plus the “Gilmore Girls” are all on permanent rotation. I also love Sorkin’s other shows, but I can’t access them for free right now. I recently had a yen to rewatch “Ally McBeal,” but it wasn’t streaming on anything I subscribe to. Lucky me, the algorithm pointed me towards “Boston Legal,” which I haven’t watched since it originally aired. It, too, has held up remarkably well, and I am loving it. Because I’ve seen all these shows multiple times, they are a comfort watch for me. I can read since I don’t need to pay all that much attention to the screen.

If I am too engrossed in a TV show, I can’t read, but I can play games on my iPad. I play Backgammon, Spite & Malice, Solitaire, Gin, Hearts, Spades, and occasionally Candy Crush, in that order (OCD, remember?!) I refuse to spend any money on Candy Crush, so it gets boring pretty quickly when I’m stuck on one level.

Every morning, I play the New York Times games and the Washington Post games. I start with WAPO, their morning newsletter, “The 7,” reaches my inbox first. I catch up on the headlines, then play their daily news quiz, On the Record, followed by a super easy word game, Keyword. But then my real fun begins. I subscribe to the NYT “The Morning” newsletter, which I love. At the end of the newsletter are links to their games.

I start every morning with the Crossword Mini, which usually takes less than a minute to complete. Then it’s on to Wordle, followed by Connections, then Strands (out of beta!) finishing up with Spelling Bee. I can generally get to Genius on my own, sometimes with a look at the grid, but have always needed hints to get to Queen Bee. If I have time, I’ll attempt the Monday and Tuesday crossword puzzles. I suck at them, and while I have attempted a Wednesday puzzle, I rarely am able to complete it on my own. The games get progressively more difficult as the week continues, with Saturday the most difficult puzzle and Sunday the largest puzzle.

I believe you need a NYT Games subscription to play all these games. I also love their Weekly News Quiz, out every Friday, and I almost forgot Flashback, a weekly history test of sorts that’s out every Saturday where you have to put eight historical events in chronological order. I’ve put them correctly in order a handful of times, but I usually miss one or two. Flashback and the News Quiz aren’t located with all the other games, so I’m not sure if it works with a Games subscription or News subscription or no subscription! If you aren’t a subscriber and can access it, please let me know. The NY Times has a few other games as well, but I rarely play them. And good news if you just want to play games, you don’t need to have a NYT subscription to subscribe to Games as they are a separate entity, as is NYT Cooking, which I highly recommend. You can subscribe to any of those alone, or bundle everything into one terrific package.

Book News

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.)”

7 ways to take your book-reading experience to the next level

This was so interesting! I’ve read the entire Bridgerton series and my husband and I have been watching as well. There is some divergence from the books, but in a good way, I think, especially the diversity of the cast. I also love how they take modern music and create waltzes from it. The homes are incredible, and for what they are worth, now I know. Check it out!

Food News

For a food that begins with just flour, water, or sometimes eggs, there are infinite variations of pasta. So what happens when you convene a panel of five Italian cuisine experts and ask them to determine the 25 most essential pasta dishes throughout Italy?

Croissant mashups: A (not-so-brief) history since the Cronut

Cronuts and cragels and crozels and cretzels. Croffles and croiffles and cruffins and tacros.

More than a decade ago, French pastry chef Dominique Ansel unleashed an unstoppable force upon an unsuspecting world: the Cronut, a doughnut-croissant hybrid that drew blocks-long lines to his Manhattan bakery and became an overnight international hit.

My husband and I stood in that Cronut line for well over an hour, but they ran out before we could get one. We’ve had many of the imitators, the Dunkin Donuts version was especially awful, but never the real thing. Someday!

Dr Pepper is now as popular as Pepsi. It’s still shrouded in mystery.

Does it contain prune juice? Was there an actual doctor? And more questions about the quirky soda.

Other News

Summertime and the reading is beachy! I do love me a good beach read, and they are plentiful this year. There were a couple of weeks last month where I swear, every book I read had “summer” in the title!

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

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

I finally got to meet my new granddaughter! Sylvie is a little angel, and we all fell in love at first sight. Now I’m counting the days until I can hold her again…

Book News

John Oliver made libraries the main story of “Last Week Tonight,” and did an amazing job (as usual!)

The Queen of the Beach Read Hangs Up Her Bikini

In Florida, a bestselling author is building a new community of literary resistance

Food News

The United States of Avocado

The best way to crack an egg for every personality type

Are you traditional? Risk-averse? Adventurous? These are your egg-cracking options.

I’ve been cracking eggs on the counter since I saw a TV chef explain why it is best – I can’t remember if it was Alex Guarnashelli or Anne Burrell. If you tap it on the counter, it usually puts a divot into the shell, or as they explained it, a spot that says “open here” – it looks like the photo on the right, but you don’t need two eggs to do it. Plus you don’t get any pieces of shell falling into whatever you’re doing with it.

‘Tinned fish date night’ is TikTok’s latest trend. Here’s how to do it.

Don’t water at night and other secrets to growing great basil

Basil can be a bit fickle. Experts offer advice to help you grow it better — plus some ideas for how to enjoy it.

Other News

I am proud to say that my daughter, Ariel, overcame health issues and other hardships to graduate summa cum laude from Lynn University!

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.

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