Books and Breads Blog

May 10, 2022

The Queen by Josh Levin ** (of 4)

In principle, the story of Linda Taylor, the woman stuck with the appellation of America’s Welfare Queen, upon whom so much political scorn has been...

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April 27, 2022

Damascus Station by David McCloskey *** (of 4)

Soon after the Arab Spring reached Syria, Hafez Assad reacted to public uprisings with vicious government sponsored violence. Protestors were arrested, tortured, and slaughtered with...

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April 27, 2022

The Eagle’s Claw: A Novel of the Battle of Midway by Jeffrey Shaara *** (of 4)

Ostensibly, the single battle that shaped the outcome of WW II (of which, there are no doubt many such single battles bearing that accolade), is...

America

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April 5, 2022

Bake for Ukraine

The week that Russia invaded Ukraine I called my friends who baked and asked them to join me in #BakeforUkraine. We gave ourselves three days...

Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

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March 27, 2022

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura ** (of 4)

You can probably disregard my unenthusiastic review. Intimacies, after all, was loved by everyone else from the NY Times to the National Book Awards. A...

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March 23, 2022

The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr **** (of 4)

At some level all of us who shop for food know that canned tomatoes don’t really grow in cans and that frozen shrimp don’t really...

America

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March 23, 2022

Looking for the Good War by Elizabeth Samet *** (of 4)

An onion of a book, not just because it can bring you to tears, but because of its layers. In the outer layer, Samet re-describes...

America

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February 17, 2022

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Crosby **** (of 4)

Ike and Buddy Lee couldn’t be more different or more the same. Ike is Black and barely the survivor of deeply embedded southern racism. Buddy...

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February 17, 2022

A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King ** (of 4)

The second in the series of mysteries solved by the retired Sherlock Holmes and his young, sharp, eagle-eyed female assistant, no, make that coequal, Mary...

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January 31, 2022

Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury by Evan Osnos **** (of 4)

Journalism is a first attempt to record history, and Osnos makes an outstanding first pass over the period in America between September 11, 2001 and...

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