Deluged With Books Cafe

There was a time when I was quite fascinated by millinery shops with all its fancy hats. Pretty sure, from time to time now, when I see such vogue hats, I would remember Aunt Charlotte, the flapper girl, whose got a whole closet filled with them, and it'd make me smile. Maternal Threads  shows that one need not have a grand adventures or an extraordinary family legacy to make a memoir captivate a reader. I love these quiet journals that evokes bouts of nostalgia; poignant, lovely and lingering. In Maternal Threads, Brown traces her mother's family tree which brings her back into the 1920s and its rather empowering history on women and from which revelations slowly came to her over the years in a manner of musical crescendo. More than Aunt Charlotte and family secrets, the book has social relevance on women. It amazingly lays out the thread that connect the characters of each generation and the metaphorical hats that they wear for every phase of their lives, whether tr...

At Least You're in Tuscany  is a lively and honest memoir of Italy, a breath of fresh air among others I've read. It displays an intimate portrait of the pulse, the quirks and the realities of a small Tuscan town. Just as well, the book does not merely wax poetic about the beautiful Tuscan scenery but, more importantly, it attempts to bridge the yawning gap of cultural intricacies and present them in a much closer and understandable light. After taking a few holiday trips in Italy, Jennifer Criswell decided to finally move to the beautiful hill town of Montepulciano and become a writer. Quite easier said and dreamt than done, but she held on to her mantra; she may be alone and almost running broke but 'at least she's in Tuscany'. In her first year of stay, adventures, good and bad, await her and even claiming some old Sicilian roots barely helped. There's none about the joys of renovating a villa or the makings of a romantic crossing-continents love sc...

If you want to read a book about the beauty of summer and the struggle of gardening, about something and nothing, then you may pick this up and forget the time. The Solitary Summer  follows her journey in  Elizabeth and her German Garden , where she accounted her time learning gardening and interacting with nature and friends. As also reflected in Elizabeth von Arnim's other book,  Enchanted April , her writing conjures serene images of flowers in bloom and shafts of sunlight, of lying on the grass by the pond, of reading for hours under the shade of a tree and the effects of these languid habits on the soul. In this short book, she related her witty conversations with the Man of Wrath, her exchanges with previously hired gardeners, the way of life of the villagers, funny arguments with her own conscience and best of all, her love of books and traipses at the garden.

It wasn't idyllic, not even close to romantic but Adam Gopnik's account of his Paris life seemed more affecting and pleasurable than any travel books I have read about this city. He sweeps the dreamy curtains aside and presents to us a Paris, not a city of love and not a city of dreams but, an everyday Paris, where you can really see yourself breathing and living in it. For half a decade, moving from New York, he and his wife along with their son lived the Parisian life trying to find their bearings on its intricate web. Gopnik's eloquence shows through on his writing with its sense of timelessness. Family and domesticity aside, he paints a subtle picture of a nostalgic Paris in the last years of twentieth century.

In an old specialty store was where I first glimpsed this book. After reading the first few pages, I really wanted to finish the whole book but, alas, I couldn't. There's somewhere I must go, I only stayed to pass the time, life happened, etc. It wasn't until years after when I finally chose to sit down and read it again. Memoirs always have much affinity with the authors just as readers, in odd little ways, find a connection to a particular book. My own journey with this one more or less is wrought with nostalgia, an old acquaintance met again. There's a lot of Italian memoirs that I have read but none of Venice yet and I'm glad I took up Madame De Blasi's book first. An American chef on a stop to Venice meets a Venetian banker who looks like Peter Sellers and months after, she is hauling up her things halfway across the world to move her life there. It sounds like a cliche in the travel genre already, I know. What drew me in was its cadence of tones am...

At twenty-three, Kayli Stollak, like most starry-eyed twentysomethings, assumed that she and her boyfriend, Charlie, would be together forever. Besides a rockin’ sex life, they shared a passion for motorcycle adventures, hedonistic European music festivals, and wearing matching glittery spandex to the disco. What more could a gal ask for? She envisioned their love burning well into their sixties. And then he dumped her. Heartbroken, Kayli turned to her seventy-five-year-old granny for support. And this ain’t no ordinary granny. Granny Gail is a ball-busting, sh*t-talking, gossipy yenta with an anecdote or piece of unsolicited advice for every situation. Granny didn’t sugarcoat the truth or let Kayli dwell on her failed relationship. No, Granny told her to cut the crap and snap out of it. Why didn’t Kayli give “one of those dating websites” a shot? With her ego on the line, Kayli threw the dare right back at her—if it was so wonderful, why didn’t single Granny join her in the world...

Paris, whirlwind romance, cafes, and the everyday life of Parisiennes. It couldn't get any nicer than this. Then again, I must admit there are other far nicer books. That or I must have gotten tired of all these cliched memoirs of living in France (but that doesn't stop me from collecting books like this!). At some point, they would all sound a bit the same for me by now however Turnbull does still offer more it seems. This is but another interesting glimpse about the little traits and subtle differences of being an Australian (or being a foreigner) in Paris and of the little French eccentricities; like how exclusive they are in parties, how the women friendships go, Parisienne fashion, how they view cover letters (this was interesting!) and decorative dogs among other things. Of late though, I just cannot shake off that growing disquiet for certain tones in memoirs. Well, writing in first person has its own undoing, I guess, and this book is no exception. The fact that...

It is the story of women and books and literary figures and characters amidst oppression and censure. In truth, this book is a slow read for me. The number of times I picked it up and dropped again seemed too many to mention over the course of weeks (was it months?). Perhaps it may be said that this book is better when taken in small doses. As a woman living in a freer nation, I could almost take for granted the rights given to me as opposed to women pictured in the book. I am wrought with puzzlement and burden (and annoyance) as I manage to finish each chapter. Its fragmented narratives make it quite difficult to piece the story together in a timely manner but that is not really the core of this memoir for in the end it won't matter. Faith and beliefs are more important and shown to us the lengths people will go to to pursue it. The pages are stained with numerous tragedy, deep suffering and atrocities one living in a free world couldn't begin to imagine. I could ignore th...

I haven't read a graphic novel/ comic book for a very long time  but Little Fish is something quite different.  For one its an autobiography.  Ramsey Beyer chronicles her first year of college in Baltimore, living far away from her small hometown in Michigan.  It's a young woman's journey into discovering who she is and how big the world is outside of her safe environment, crafted by way of drawings and artful notes.  Initially, it looks very simple almost plain even in the storytelling however as you keep reading you noticed the way each zine, graphic, note enhances the tale being told directly to the reader. It is a story within the art, simple yet charming, captivating and heartwarming.  A different reading experience that most can appreciate and enjoy. By the end of the book, I was so invested in her story that I wanted to learn more about her experiences. A coming of age novel that feels like the person is definitely living it.