South of Broad, Pat Conroy

I'm a fan of Pat Conroy's writing and have been since very early on, though I have to admit that I became a huge fan with PRINCE OF TIDES.

I've had SOUTH OF BROAD on my TBR pile since it came out but was saving it - as I often do with books I'm truly looking forward to - for a special occasion. The special occasion was that my book club needed an alternate book to read and I suggested this.

I dove right into it, but have to admit that if it weren't for the book club thing, I probably would have given it up two pages in. For some reason, the prologue, short as it was, rubbed me the wrong way and felt way too contrived for my liking. Not that it wasn't beautiful writing, it was. Not that it wasn't, in some ways, vintage Pat Conroy, it was.

But I'm a reader who reads for story. I read - and love - literary fiction, but I tend to shy away from those writers whose language overwhelms the story. So I took a step back from this book right away - beautiful language but I wasn't hooked. In fact, the opposite happened.

The good news is thanks to my book club. I forced myself to finish, painfully, slowly and with great disappointment in my hear, the first five pages. Two pages into Chapter 1 I was hooked and I read the entire book, all 462 glorious pages of it, in less than two days. I LOVED it. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me cringe with disgust and it made me howl with anger. I LOVED it.

This is a book that bowled me over from beginning to end. Once the story began, I didn't want to put it down. I had to in a couple of places because I was weeping so hard I couldn't see the type. I had to in another couple of places because I was so pissed off at the actions of a character that I wanted to smack that character across the head and say smarten up, you idiot.

Now that's better than good writing, that's fabulous writing. And thanks again to my book club. I would have put this book down and missed one of the best reading experiences I've ever had. Oh, I know I would have come back to it eventually, but I'm glad I didn't have to wait.

Kate

Food and literature -

My book club meets only every six or eight weeks, and there are, as you can see, only four of us. But we read great books, eat, as you can also see, and drink wine. It's a perfect book club for me.

Last night was my turn to pick the book and I chose Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise. We also try to pair the restaurant with the book so I took us to the restaurant in the French Cultural Centre, Salade de fruits Cafe. The food was pretty close to and the conversation matched it, as always.

I had lamb chops cooked rare and they were as good as lamb chops can be - which is excellent. I had vegetables - sugar peas, asparagus, broccoli, beets, squash and fabulous mashed potatoes - all of which were cooked and served with flair. And paired with a lovely, inexpensive French red - Domaine de Bastide. Reasonably priced, this restaurant is definitely French bistro food and cooking at its best.

And all of this made me think about mashed potatoes and the conversation we had over dinner. I don't know if you've read Suite Francaise but it's a book about the Second World War and its effect on the people of France. I loved it, the writing was exquisite, the stories poignant but practical and real. But the conversation we came around to ended up being about the way the French take pride in the small things - I can't remember a meal I had in France (and I've had many from Michelin starred restaurants to the tiniest of cafes in small towns) that wasn't cooked, served and presented with a special flair. Each of those meals mattered - in the cooking of it, in the serving of it, and perhaps most importantly, in the eating and enjoying of it.

So mashed potatoes for me are like eggs. Relatively easy to cook and relatively easy to make them an everyday experience. Relatively easy to do badly, as well. But if you think about those mashed potatoes, if you consider how to make them extraordinary - and it may not take a lot more time or energy - you can end up with something special.

And Salade de fruits Cafe managed that with every part of our meal.

Oh, yeah, and I forgot to tell you another thing that made it special. I made the reservation and the waiter used my name all the way through the meal. He remembered it, used it, and made me feel as if I were a part of their tiny family. I'll definitely be going back and taking visitors and friends with me. In fact, on my desk next to the computer is the two-month calendar that came with our bill. It shows the specials for the next two months and I've already picked out a couple of don't miss weeks - the week of the salmon papillotte and the week of the prime rib. I can hardly wait.

Kate

Friday book review - Ian Fleming's YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

My book club - which, oddly enough, is all women - picked James Bond for this meeting. And we all picked different books.

I picked YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE mostly because I loved the theme song and every time I looked at the cover or thought about the book I started singing it. It reminded me not only of the movie - which I don't remember that well - but of my dad who died two years ago this month. One of his favourite gifts from me was a cassette tape with the theme songs from all the Bond movies. Nancy Sinatra sings this one and while I'm typing this I'm listening to it on YouTube. And thinking of my dad and how much he would enjoy this song again.

I've just finished the book and I can't believe how good it was, how well written and how surprising. I wasn't bored for a minute and I didn't, as I sometimes do, put it away until I the day before book club.

It's a completely different (I think) story from the movie. One of the things I'm going to do in the next couple of weeks is to watch the movie because I haven't seen it for many, many years and I want to see how the book I enjoyed so much got translated into the movie. This story - because it happens right after Bond's wife is murdered - is quite sombre. And the setting and the story all seem to fit into that sadness. Fleming did a terrific job in making everything work around Bond's sadness.

What I particularly liked, I think, was the way the book explored the Japanese culture from the perspective of the 1950s and how the English saw that culture.

I also picked up QUANTUM OF SOLACE (trying for the old and the new) not realizing that it was a book of stories. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it - partly because I enjoyed YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE so much and partly because I'm teaching a short story course right now so reading any stories is probably good for me.

Kate

P.S. - don't let anyone from my book club read this blog or they'll know everything I'm going to say at our meeting.