Top Ten Tuesday: Childhood favourites

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is Books for My Younger Self (These could be books you wish you had read as a child, books younger you could have really learned something from, books that meshed with your hobbies/interests, books that could have helped you go through events/changes in your life, etc.). I am not sure I can find books that fit, so I am instead going to talk about childhood favourites instead.

From a very early age, books were my escape, my sanctuary from everything in life! I would read at any opportunity and my family often used to say that I would read the back of a cereal box if there was nothing else available.

Here are some that I remember, as well as a couple that I have appreciated as an adult.

Beatrix Potter - While I don't remember reading Beatrix Potter, I did have a set of Bunnykins plates, similar to the one picture, when I was a baby. I did enjoy finding a bit more about Beatrix Potter when I listened to Lucinda Riley's The Shadow Sister not too long ago.

For books I did read, I thought I would start with some Australian childhood classics, some of which may not stand up quite so well in terms of political correctness, but I have a lot of fond memories of.

The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay - This book features a cantankerous pudding named Albert which changes flavours to whatever one you might fancy (savoury or sweet) and magically refills itself! It also features anthropomorphic animals and lots of adventure. The pudding is always getting his friends in trouble!

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs - Another Australian childhood classic, this time featuring gum nut babies which and the bad guys are banksia men. With lots of native plants used as inspiration for the characters this is another Australian childhood classic, at least for my generation and those that proceeded us. I am not sure whether they are read now or not.

Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall - Blinky Bill is a koala  and his friends are a platypus, kangaroos and marsupial mouse, as well as a wise old wombat. With a strong conservation theme, this is another classic which has spawned cartoons, merchandise and more over the years.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham- One of the earliest specific books that I have memories of reading is Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I have no idea what edition it was that I read, but I have clear memories of borrowing this book from my school library when I was about 6 or 7, and being so proud of myself because the book was so huge and I read it in no time at all. The print must have actually been huge, or there must have been a lot of illustrations or something because it really isn't that big a book but I didn't realise it at the time. In later life this was also one of my grandmother;s favourite stories so there is that connection as well.

Trixie Belden series - Fast forward a few more years, and my books of choice were the Trixie Belden mysteries. For anything else I may have found to complain about my mother, she did buy me the whole series that was out at the time. I loved reading about Trixie and her brothers Martin and Brian, along with their friends who made up the rest of the Bob-Whites, especially Jim who was my first red headed literary crush, but not my last.

Summer of my German Soldier by Betty Greene  - I remember reading this at school, maybe in early high school. A few years  ago now, I reread it for nostalgia's sake. You can read my thoughts here. 

Jean Plaidy - It was in my early teens that I discovered Jean Plaidy, and I think that my love of historical fiction was cemented. I read through basically every novel that my school library had by Plaidy, and I particularly loved reading the books that she wrote about the queens of England. I couldn't tell you about individual books that I read, but my goodness, I devoured them as quickly as I could get my hands on them.

The Hobbit - I first read The Hobbit in either year 8 or year 9 - the first couple of years of high school anyway. I remember liking it a lot at the time, but my overwhelming memory is the title page that I did for the book report. 

Edward the Emu and Edwina the Emu by Sheena Knowles - This wasn't one of my childhood favourites, rather it was one of my son's favourites when he was a child. They are therefore books that I have read over and over.

Mr Chicken In Paris by Leigh  Hobbs -  A couple of years ago now I went to our State Library for an exhibition on kids books with my nephews. This was one of the books that was part of the exhibition and we had so much fun reading the story.

What a trip down memory lane!

This week....

I'm reading....

I want you to take special note of the books I am reading this week, particularly The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte. Do you need to pay attention to the fact that it is historical fiction? Not really. Is it because it is historical fiction set in World War II? No because to be fair I read a fair bit of that. Is it that it is set in Russia? Could be. Because it's a new release? Nope. Read a few of them recently. What could it possibly be? Oh, that's what it is.  Its a book by a male author. My reading is dominated by female authors to the point that this is only the fifth book by a male author I have read this year, and I am loving it. I am about halfway through now and assuming it stays at the current level it is on track to be either a 4.5 or a 5/5 grade book.

The other book that I started over the weekend is The Wreck by Meg Keneally and this one is great too. To be honest, it's a struggle to know which one to pick up and finish first. Maybe I should do alternative chapters. Or maybe I need a long weekend so that I can just read them both. Unfortunately that can't happen as I worked late every night last week and over the weekend.

I'm watching...

Over the last couple of weeks I have been watching a British show called The Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul. It follows a group of British celebrities with different types and degrees of faith (including atheist, Muslims, Christians and Jewish) as they complete the Sultan's Trail which runs from Vienna to Istanbul. Along the way they visit various sites with historical and religious significance. It was a very interesting show to watch highlighting what the similarities are between people as well as the differences. When I was looking for a couple of details I realised that there are two previous series so I will be seeing I can find those.

I also recently watched the documentary, The Booksellers, which follows some of the characters from the antique book trade in New York. This was so much fun to find out how these unique characters started out in the trade, and how they re faring in this world where everything is available on the internet

We were super excited to see that there is a follow up series to Back in Time, this time called Further Back in Time. In the first series, which I wrote about here, the Ferrone family lived for a week in each decade starting from the 1950s through to the 2020s, talking about the food that people would have been eating, how family was structured, and particularly the changing role of women. In this series, the family goes further back in time with the episode being set in the 1900s and then will travel forward to the 1940s. We very much enjoy it and we are looking forward to watching the rest of the series. Expect a Weekend Cooking post about this at some point.

Finally, we started watching Warrior Nun on Netflix as it was recommended to us as something to watch if you loved The Umbrella Academy. Whilst I would pick Umbrella Academy every time over Warrior  Nun, we are enjoying it, and I am enjoying seeing the various different locations around Spain!

Life

We have been in strict lockdown now for around five weeks. Originally it was due to finish on September 13, but it has been announced that is being extended by a couple of weeks with a small  tweak here and there, followed by a slow easing of restrictions in stages through to November, depending on the numbers. Right now, I am trying to figure out when I am going to be able to go to the hairdresser because I am very much in danger of finding out exactly what colour my hair actually is!

Our big news this week is that we got a vacuum robot. It didn't take me long to start talking to it as though it is a dog because it feels like it follows me around, and gets under my feet. Originally we thought about naming it Teddie but I woke up on Sunday morning and suddenly realised that was possibly a bit close in name to my youngest nephew, so we are just going to call it Dog. I did have to laugh at my husband. He loves a new toy, so the first time we put it on, it wasn't that much of a surprise to find that he had followed it around the house, rolling around in his office chair!

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Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Make Me Hungry 
Reading Reflections: August 2020
The Last Charm by Ella Allbright
Weekend Cooking: Books That Make Me Hungry....again

Six Degrees of Separation

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Six Degrees of Separation: Rodham to Light Between Oceans

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links.  I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

The starting point this month is Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld. I can't imagine that I will ever read this book as I don't think it is my kind of book. It is an alternate telling of the life of Hilary Rodham Clinton, asking the question of what her life would have been like had she not married Bill Clinton.

For my first link in the chain, I have gone down the alternate history route, but kind of an extreme alternate. In the world that that Jasper Fforde has created for the Thursday Next series,  which starts with The Eyre Affair, dodos are the pet of choice, you can travel from one side of the world to the other in a tube, and the Crimean War still rages on even though it is 1985.

For my next link, I am focusing on the Crimean War and choosing The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon. The Rose of Sebastopol is about a young woman who goes off to the Crimean War to be a nurse alongside Florence Nightingale.

I am following the war time nurse thread for my next link which is to Daughter of Mars by Thomas Keneally. This book is about a young woman who heads off from country Australia to the front in World War I.

Normally I try to use books I have read for these posts, but this time I am using a book I am going to read as my next link. The Wreck is by Meg Keneally, who is Thomas Keneally's daughter. They have written a historical mystery series together which I also have on my shelves, but this book is due to be released this month.

From here I kind of got stuck on the lighthouse motif, choosing Lighthouse Bay by Kimberly Freeman, because lighthouses are supposed to try and prevent wrecks, and because it is a really good book!

For my final link I chose Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman, once again because of the lighthouse, although I was trying to make a pun about preventing physical wrecks but not necessarily preventing emotional wrecks! It's a stretch though.

For this month I have travelled from an alternate world where dodos and mammoths roam to the Crimea, to the Mediterranean of WWI and then to the Australian coast. Where have your links taken you?

Next month's starting point is The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Weekend Cooking: TTT Books that made me hungry....again

I have a confession to make. This week I have been super crazy busy at work which has meant working late every night and being completely brain dead at the end of each day.  I am also likely to be working all weekend which means that I don't have a terrible lot of inspiration for this week's post.

However, earlier this week I did write a post that could count as a Weekend Cooking post, so I am going to share that with you instead.

Most weeks I participate in an event called Top Ten Tuesday which is where there is a theme and then lots of people tell us all about ten books or bookish things that fit the theme.This week, the theme was Books That Made Me Hungry. There were lots of different takes on the topic. Lots of people chose books with food on the cover, or just books that made you hungry when you read them.

I chose a book that reminded me of childhood, books that made me hungry as well as a book that I had cooked something from after reading it. Most of the books on my list were chosen by searching the words hungry and delicious on the blog and I had so many books I could choose from. I didn't even need to look at the titles or covers to find books. In fact, I had so many I could have done the theme three times over!

Here's my post and a couple of the books that I had on my list

Top Ten Tuesday: Books that Made Me Hungry

And you can find all the other posts that people contributed here.

Books that I saw on lots of people's lists that were on my list included With the Fire on High, the Hannah Swenson series of mysteries which are set in a cookie shop, and Sarah Addison Allen's books.

What books would you have included on your Top Ten list of books that made you hungry?

Weekly meals

Saturday: Beef stew with mash potato (pressure cooker)
Sunday: Beef stew with rice
Monday: "Fried" chicken with mash potato, beans and gravy
Tuesday: Pork chops, mash potato and creamed spinach
Wednesday: Spaghetti bolognaise and yummy garlic bread (not the brand name but that's what we call it).
Thursday: Pork nachos
Friday: Takeaway night - Chicken schnitzel, chips and gravy

Add your link!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

The Last Charm by Ella Allbright

When Leila loses her charm bracelet she is devastated, because the charms represent her life story over the past twenty years. When she was a young girl, her mother gave her a charm  bracelet with a heart charm on it and then promptly disappears from her life. Then, as Leila grows, she receives charms to commemorate the important events in her life. For her, it is the connection with her mother that she holds onto, rightly or wrongly. The person who finds the lost charm bracelet asks Leila to describe it and so this book is, in effect, her telling the story of each charm.

Leila's mother leaving means that Leila and her dad have to move away from their home. Before they leave, Leila meets Jake, the young boy who has moved into Leila's old house with his dysfunctional family.

Over the years, Jake and Leila's lives continued to intersect as Leila comes back to visit her granddad Ray (loved him!) and then when Leila moves back to the town.

I loved the premise of this book. The idea that when something momentous happens you add some kind of momento so that you can sit and touch it to bring back the memories, to evoke the feelings, to bring that moment to mind, to bring the people you love back to mind.

It will depend on what you think of the characters as to how this book resonates for you, and this was mixed for me.

Jake......sigh....what a man he grew up to be. Jake overcame such challenges from his childhood and through sheer grit and determination became more, much more. I struggled more with Leila who also had to overcome childhood trauma, but it took her a long time to be able see what was right in front of her, and a long time to grow up. Quite frankly, I think Jake had the patience of a saint, and there were numerous times when I wanted to lead into the book and yell at Leila to just have a proper conversation with Jake.

Having said that, I had very tangible reactions to the book. It made me smile, it made me laugh, and yes, I cried.

Rating 3.5/5

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this review copy.

Goodreads synopsis

A moving and heartwarming love story perfect for fans of Me Before You and One Day in December…
Leila’s charm bracelet tells a story of love, a story of loss, a story of hope. This is the story of her … and the story of Jake.
When Leila Jones loses her precious charm bracelet and a stranger finds it, she has to tell the story of how she got the charms to prove she’s the owner. Each and every one is a precious memory of her life with Jake.
So Leila starts at the beginning, recounting the charms and experiences that have led her to the present. A present she never could have expected when she met Jake nearly twenty years ago…

Reading Reflections: August 2020

I a little bit surprised to see that I read quite so many books this month. But I do need to be honest and confess that a couple of these were quite short!

You Were Made for Me by Jenna Guillaume - 4/5 (Australian)

A super fun read where a couple of young girls create the perfect boy!  Read my review here.

The Switch by Beth O'Leary - 4/5 (Audiobook)

As soon as I saw that this was available as part of Netgalley's new offering of audiobooks and their app. I enjoyed the book and the performance but the app was a bit glitchy. Read my review here.

The Roommate by Dervla McTiernan - 4/5 (Australian Authors)

This is a prequel to the Cormac Reilly series, featuring a young garda Cormac Reilly as he investigates a murder in Dublin. This one is/was available from Audible for free for members.

The Secrets of Saffron Hall by Clare Marchant - 4/5

Ooopss. I swear I had posted the review for this book but it seems that maybe I only wrote this in my head. Must get onto writing it for real. I love a good dual timeline, and a story of a building with a long hidden history and this book had both!

Matilda Next Door by Kelly Hunter - 4/5 (Australian author)

I really enjoy Kelly Hunter's books at the best of times, and I have previously enjoyed all the books set in the small town of Wirralong. This is the first book in the new quartet called the Outback Brides Return to Wirralong. I am really looking forward to reading the last two books!

Maeve's Baby by Fiona Macarthur - 3.5/5 (Australian author)

No I didn't make a mistake in the last paragraph. I already read the second book in the quartet. I actually completely forgot that I preordered this entire series so it was something of a surprise when this one dropped onto my Kindle, but I did enjoy reading both off these stories over the course of one weekend.

The Last Charm by Ella Allbright (3.5/5)

This is one where I knew that I haven't yet finished the review. I mean I have an opening paragraph, I have a bit near the middle and some of the ending. Just need to fill in the gaps really! Watch this space.

The Deadly Hours by Susanna Kearsley, Anna Lee Huber, Christine Trent and CS Harris (4/5)

This is a collection of  4 stories that follows a cursed watch through history from the 1700s through to the 1940s. I read this because I love Susanna Kearsley, and this story actually feature characters from a couple of her previous books. I enjoyed the last two books but the Anna Lee Huber was the one I enjoyed the most. It clearly is part of a series, and I don't read series out of order but still!

I am linking my post up to the Monthly Wrap up which is hosted at Feed Your Fiction Addiction

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Made Me Hungry

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is Books That Made Me Hungry. This is my kind of topic! In fact I just searched on my blog for the words hungry and delicious and I came up with a list of about 40 authors or books that qualifies, so I could easily do this topic multiple times over.

I would start by mentioning a couple of things. Earlier this year there was a  TTT which was a book cover freebie and I chose to do baking book covers. You can check it out here.

The other thing is that each week I host a weekly event called Weekend Cooking.This is where you can share you love of food. It could be something that you make, or related to TV, or even something to do with books. If you would like to join in, you would be more than welcome. Find out more here.

Let me try and narrow this list down to just ten authors an/or books.

Jolly Good Food by Allegra McEvedy - Enid Blyton was one of my first favourite authors, and her books were filled with food, whether it be picnics with the Famous Five or Secret Seven and Pop Cakes and Google Buns from the Folk of the Faraway Tree. In my Weekend Cooking post about this book I share a video about making Google Buns (before Google was Google as we understand it)

The Hannah Swenson series by Joanne Fluke - Whilst there are many, many different cozy mysteries out there now, one of the first that I became interested in was the Hannah Swenson mysteries by Joanne Fluke. Hannah Swenson is a cookie shop owner in Minnesota who has a habit of finding dead bodies and then attempting to solve the murder. I loved the early books in this series, not least because the cookies sounded amazing and the books included recipes. I did give up at about book 10 because I couldn't deal with the ongoing love triangle. As far as I know that is still an issue at book 25 in the series.

Sarah Addison Allen - SAA writes very easy to read, beautiful magical realism with southern charm. Whether she is writing about the apple tree in Garden Spells, or the power of food to change your mood in The Sugar Queen, it always sounds delicious!

Saved by Cake by Marian Keyes - I recently watched a few sessions of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and one of them was Marian Keyes. Whilst I wouldn't have said that Marian Keyes is someone who writes much food into her book, but this book is the story of how baking helped  her deal with severe depression. It is laugh out loud funny, which isn't something that you often say about a cookbook. Check out the videos that I have linked to in my review here, which includes a delicious recipe for Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcakes.

The Lost Pearl by Emily Madden  - Sometimes in a book it doesn't necessarily have to be about food for you to catch a glimpse of a tasty morsel. For example, this book is about the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the aftermath in a young woman's life, but as I read it there was a mention of something called a Lemon Crunch Cake. Next time I was searching for a recipe and making it, and it was delicious! Read my review here.

Barbara O'Neal - I first read Barbara O'Neal when she won a RITA award, defeating one of my favourite authors in the process. Since then I have read quite a few of her books. She definitely has a way of writing which is incredibly comforting and this is especially true when she is writing about food.

Rebeccca Raisin - Speaking of authors who just have a way of writing, Rebecca Raisin definitely is another one. So far I have read three books by her which are all about food, books or France, or French food! I have shared several quotes  that cover all three of these topics over the last few months

A Trifle Dead by Livia Day - I have mentioned a couple of Australian authors, and I thought I would mention another. This time, it is another cozy mystery series with a cafe owner, this time in Hobart. The review of this book is one of the more memorable posts I have written, at least to me!

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo - I read this earlier this year and I instantly became a fan of this author. I still haven't read any more but I will! This book is about a young mother who is trying to finish school who has a natural affinity for flavour and food. (Review here)

Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees - I thought I would finish this week's post with another recent read. Whilst not everything in this book sounded delicious, given that it is set in times of rations just after the end of WWII, there was plenty that was. The idea of using recipes to share secrets is very interesting! I shared a recipe for a Bee Sting cake when I posted the review!

What books have you salivating at the moment?