Deluged With Books Cafe

"Find a map of British Columbia.” The rugged coasts of Pacific Northwest are almost familiar to me now. I came across its breathtaking and raw beauty when I first read Susan Vreeland’s The Forest Lover of where she waxed poetic about it. So here again I meet the majestic mountains, the dark forests, the tumultuous sea, the mystical dreams and the people of Kitamaat who breathe life into the book. Monkey Beach tells the nostalgic recollections of Lisa Marie, a young Native American woman from Haisla, as she sailed to the sea in search of her missing brother. Her hasty journey is fraught with peril and reminiscences which eventually bring light to the unfolding drama and mystery surrounding her family, her brother’s death, her unique supernatural gift and the social struggle of the residents in their remote Indian village being at a cultural crossroads. This originally came out more than a decade ago and I would have totally missed it had it not been published ag...

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters (August, June and May), Lily is introduces to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come. ( * )

A story of food, healing, and love... This alluring novel of friendship, love, and cuisine brings the bestselling author of Lost in Translation and A Cup of Light to one of the great Chinese subjects: food. And the hidden world of Chinese high culinary culture. When Maggie McElroy, a widowed American food writer, learns of a Chinese paternity claim against her late husband's estate, she has to go immediately to Beijing. She asks her magazine for time off, but her editor counters with an assignment: to profile the rising culinary star Sam Liang. In China Maggie unties the knots of her husband's past, finding out more than she expected about him and about herself. With Sam as her guide, she is also drawn deep into a world of food rooted in centuries of history and philosophy. To her surprise, she begins to be transformed by the cuisine, by Sam's family – a querulous but loving pack of cooks and diners – and most of all by Sam himself. The Last Chinese Chef is the exhila...