New Leaf Nominations for August • Tasty Morsels; Short and Sweet

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I can find nothing in the guidelines about pricing.

The idea for books not being new was the price. Hopefully after the eBooks have been out a while, the price will go down.

But with the price, there is no way I am buying an eBook for the eBook club that I know nothing about that costs $10.99 or more. So yes, price makes a difference. If I can get it from Overdrive then price makes no difference in my vote.

The Haunting of Hill House is $12.99 and I consider that to be too expensive.

[CRussel]

This is beginning to feel like a conspiracy. Another book I thought of that was well worth the read for this theme is Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef, which is priced within my gag-limit, is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys cooking or eating, and is a good read. But? Nope, not available in the UK or Australia.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by CRussel

This is beginning to feel like a conspiracy. Another book I thought of that was well worth the read for this theme is Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef, which is priced within my gag-limit, is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys cooking or eating, and is a good read. But? Nope, not available in the UK or Australia.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

I’ve had those months

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

This is beginning to feel like a conspiracy. Another book I thought of that was well worth the read for this theme is Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef, which is priced within my gag-limit, is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys cooking or eating, and is a good read. But? Nope, not available in the UK or Australia.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

Originally Posted by Victoria

I’ve had those months

So, next I thought of Ruth Reichl's deliciously funny memoirs, Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples. Nope. Individually, $13-$15, and combined into a single edition, still $12.99.

I really thought this was going to be an easy month. I love to eat, I love to cook, and I love to read about both. Sigh. Nope.

So, next on the failure list -- Alice, Let's Eat by Calvin Trillin. Hilariously funny book about iconic and little known places to eat all across America by the renown New Yorker columnist. This was the book that got my DW and I to rearrange our trip from NYC to California to make sure we went through Kansas City to eat barbeque at Arthur Bryant's. Price is $11.99, so almost within budget. But available in the UK or Australia? Nope.

Wait, got it!

Coming up...

[CRussel]

Finally, a book that is a fun read, is short, is somewhat about food, and that is the start of a wonderful series that I always love to read. It's $9.99 USD, and less everywhere else. It's available everywhere. There's an Audible version (that is excellently read by Robert Ian MacKenzie), and it's on Overdrive. Yup, ticks all the boxes. Oh, and did I mention? It's a delightful summer cozy read.

I nominate Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker. (Published in the UK and Australia as Death in the Dordogne.)

Originally Posted by Goodreads

The first installment in a wonderful new series that follows the exploits of Benoît Courrèges, a policeman in a small French village where the rituals of the café still rule. Bruno -- as he is affectionately nicknamed -- may be the town's only municipal policeman, but in the hearts and minds of its denizens, he is chief of police.

Bruno is a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life -- living in his restored shepherd's cottage; patronizing the weekly market; sparring with, and basically ignoring, the European Union bureaucrats from Brussels. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes everything and galvanizes Bruno's attention: the man was found with a swastika carved into his chest.

Because of the case's potential political ramifications, a young policewoman is sent from Paris to aid Bruno with his investigation. The two immediately suspect militants from the anti-immigrant National Front, but when a visiting scholar helps to untangle the dead man's past, Bruno's suspicions turn toward a more complex motive. His investigation draws him into one of the darkest chapters of French history -- World War II, a time of terror and betrayal that set brother against brother. Bruno soon discovers that even his seemingly perfect corner of la belle France is not exempt from that period's sinister legacy.

AmazonUS -- $9.99
AmazonCA -- $11.99 CAD
AmazonUK -- £3.99 GBP
AmazonAU -- $11.99 AUD
AudibleUS

290 pp.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Haunting of Hill House is $12.99 and I consider that to be too expensive.

If it makes any difference in your decision, the book is public domain in Canada and available at the Faded Page.

[JSWolf]

I'll second Bruno, Chief of Police. It's been on my TBR list for a while.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finally, a book that is a fun read, is short, is somewhat about food, and that is the start of a wonderful series that I always love to read. It's $9.99 USD, and less everywhere else. It's available everywhere. There's an Audible version (that is excellently read by Robert Ian MacKenzie), and it's on Overdrive. Yup, ticks all the boxes. Oh, and did I mention? It's a delightful summer cozy read.

I nominate Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker. (Published in the UK and Australia as Death in the Dordogne.)

AmazonUS -- $9.99
AmazonCA -- $11.99 CAD
AmazonUK -- £3.99 GBP
AmazonAU -- $11.99 AUD
AudibleUS

290 pp.

Overdrive: https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=B...+Police+book+1

[Bookworm_Girl]

I nominate The Honeybus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May. It was an Amazon Best Book of April 2019. Amazon US $9.99, Amazon AU $10.99, Amazon CA $11.99.

From Amazon US:

An extraordinary story of a girl, her grandfather and one of nature’s most mysterious and beguiling creatures: the honeybee.

Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm. She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. That first close encounter was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.

May turned to her grandfather and the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality. Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of neurosis and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom. It was during this pivotal time in May’s childhood that she learned to take care of herself, forged an unbreakable bond with her grandfather and opened her eyes to the magic and wisdom of nature.

The bees became a guiding force in May’s life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival and the unequivocal relationship between a mother and her child. Part memoir, part beekeeping odyssey, The Honey Bus is an unforgettable story about finding home in the most unusual of places, and how a tiny, little-understood insect could save a life.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by CRussel

So, next I thought of Ruth Reichl's deliciously funny memoirs, Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples. Nope. Individually, $13-$15, and combined into a single edition, still $12.99.

I really thought this was going to be an easy month. I love to eat, I love to cook, and I love to read about both. Sigh. Nope.

So, next on the failure list -- Alice, Let's Eat by Calvin Trillin. Hilariously funny book about iconic and little known places to eat all across America by the renown New Yorker columnist. This was the book that got my DW and I to rearrange our trip from NYC to California to make sure we went through Kansas City to eat barbeque at Arthur Bryant's. Price is $11.99, so almost within budget. But available in the UK or Australia? Nope.

Wait, got it!

Coming up...

Charlie, there is definitely a conspiracy out there against food books, especially when priced in Canadian dollars. At least I added several delicious-sounding finds to my TBR.

Here are some of the other books that looked interesting to me:
- Anything by Ruth Reichl, the above mentioned by Charlie as well as Save Me the Plums
- The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone
- Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line by Michael Gibney
- The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin
- The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais *I highly recommend the movie based on this book starring Helen Mirren*
- The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
- Honey and Venom: Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper by Andrew Cote

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Charlie, there is definitely a conspiracy out there against food books, especially when priced in Canadian dollars. At least I added several delicious-sounding finds to my TBR.

I agree about the apparent conspiracy. I was getting quite frustrated there for a bit.

Even if it doesn't get selected, I'd recommend the Bruno books. The food is simply marvelous in them. And they're delightful.

Here are some of the other books that looked interesting to me:
- Anything by Ruth Reichl, the above mentioned by Charlie as well as Save Me the Plums
- The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone
- Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line by Michael Gibney
- The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin
- The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais *I highly recommend the movie based on this book starring Helen Mirren*
- The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
- Honey and Venom: Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper by Andrew Cote

I've read that Reichl as well, and enjoyed it. And the Jacques Pepin is wonderful. The others are unfamiliar, so to be investigated.

Also, if you come across a dead tree copy of the full Tummy Trilogy, by Calvin Trillin, snatch it up. The first of them, American Fried, and the last of them, Third Helpings, never made it into eBook format. And his About Alice, an homage to his wife, Alice, is definitely worth a read.

Spoiler:

In Calvin Trillin’s antic tales of family life, she was portrayed as the wife who had “a weird predilection for limiting our family to three meals a day” and the mother who thought that if you didn’t go to every performance of your child’s school play, “the county would come and take the child.” Now, five years after her death, her husband offers this loving portrait of Alice Trillin off the page–his loving portrait of Alice Trillin off the page–an educator who was equally at home teaching at a university or a drug treatment center, a gifted writer, a stunningly beautiful and thoroughly engaged woman who, in the words of a friend, “managed to navigate the tricky waters between living a life you could be proud of and still delighting in the many things there are to take pleasure in.”

Though it deals with devastating loss, About Alice is also a love story, chronicling a romance that began at a Manhattan party when Calvin Trillin desperately tried to impress a young woman who “seemed to glow.”
“You have never again been as funny as you were that night,” Alice would say, twenty or thirty years later.
“You mean I peaked in December of 1963?”
“I’m afraid so.”

But he never quit trying to impress her. In his writing, she was sometimes his subject and always his muse. The dedication of the first book he published after her death read, “I wrote this for Alice. Actually, I wrote everything for Alice.”

In that spirit, Calvin Trillin has, with About Alice, created a gift to the wife he adored and to his readers.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I nominate The Honeybus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May. It was an Amazon Best Book of April 2019. Amazon US $9.99, Amazon AU $10.99, Amazon CA $11.99.

This looks interesting. Even though it has a 5 week wait at my best chance library, I'm going to go ahead and give it a second and hope it gets here in time.

[Bookworm_Girl]

The other book that sounded interesting was The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese by Michael Paterniti.

[gmw]

I second Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson.


And that's my third ticket spent. I'm skipping out of the nominations this month, too much on to spend my usual time investigating options.

[Victoria]

I third ”The honeybus”, and also third “Bruno, Chief of Police”.