That's What Jenni Said

I really wanted to like Shauna Niequist’s new book, Bread & Wine . I love cooking, dinner parties, and fellowship and these are just the things Niequist writes about for 250+ pages. Her writing style is lovely and she has included several of her favorite recipes interspersed among her personal essays. I just felt that something fell flat for me here; there was nothing that drew me in and deeply engaged me. A good book, like a good date, requires chemistry and emotional impact. Perhaps it is because many of her essays focused on motherhood and pregnancy and miscarriages and I don’t have those shared experiences to bind us. Although this book doesn’t quite hit the right notes for me, I’ll be passing a recommendation for it it along to those I fellowship with who are mothers. I suspect they will better appreciate Niequist’s perspective.

Canning and preserving: our mothers did it, our grandmothers did it, and many of us wistfully dream of capturing the best of every season ourselves. But it seems a bit intimidating at first glance. Before we can begin, we must assemble our equipment. First we start with our pressure canner, a necessity for canning many foods and a time saver for all foods. If you've got a modern flattop ceramic stove, pay close attention and make sure to buy a canner approved for ceramic tops (the selected canner MUST have a completely flat bottom) like the Presto 16 quart aluminum one that we own. You’ll also need equipment to handle the jars during the canning process and both Presto and Ball make a nice 7 piece kit that includes a funnel, jar holder, and other items. Of course you’ll need canning jars, and I recommend, at minimum, a set of half-pints (for jam), pints (for salsa, bbq sauce, pickles, and fruit in syrup), and quarts (for tomato sauce). If you’re going to be giving away your ...

How many of you know anything about the author Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein ? Me, I knew next to nothing about her prior to this week; I’ve never even read Frankenstein . I can now say however, I know a significant amount about Ms. Shelley, her husband, her step-sister Claire, and their private torrid affairs. This is because I just finished A Fatal Likeness by Lynne Shepherd which, although a work of fiction, details many of the factual elements of Shelley’s life and relationships. The blended (part truth, part fiction) history of Mary Shelley unfolds as our protagonist and detective, Maddox is immersed in a she-said he-said she-said case that has him confused and flip flopping back and forth in his estimations of who is telling him the truth. The overly controlling daughter-in-law of Mary hires him to investigate a woman who they believe may be holding documents regarding Mary that may prove unsavory to her reputation. They wish Maddox to determine whether this woman, Clair...

My review for the recent Data community DC Event held at George Washington University is now live on their website: http://datacommunitydc.org/blog/2013/06/the-value-of-the-data-scientist/

Wow. The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke is quite extraordinary. I could not put this book down once I started it. Alex is a young and troubled boy, growing up impoverished under the care of his mother, Cindy, in Belfast, Ireland. His father has abandoned them through a sudden and traumatic event that is slowly teased out of Alex's memory as the novel progresses; meanwhile his mother wrestles with depression and self-harming tendencies. Cindy's most recent suicide attempt brings Alex under the lens of the local authorities, and Anya Molokova takes over as his primary psychiatrist. Soon Anya discovers that Alex believes himself to be surrounded by demons and one of them, Ruen, has established a particularly close and disturbing relationship with the boy. As Anya gets pulled deeper into Alex's life and bonds with the boy in an attempt to properly diagnose him she asks the important questions:  What does Ruen represent for Alex?  Is Ruen a manifestation ...

Paul Harding, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers has written a new novel titled Enon . It hits bookstores in early September, but interested readers can pre-order the book now at Amazon.com. While rich in its prose, Enon is one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Our protagonist, Charlie Crosby, looses his daughter in a terrible accident and it causes his entire life to unravel. For some there is a voyeuristic pleasure in observing, from a safe distance, the depravity of a lost soul and novels (like this) and movies (I point you to American Beauty ) that feed this appetite satisfy. For others, watching hurt and damaged people wrestle with demons to no avail in an agonizing dance that continues long after the music stops is painful and horrifying. I am in the latter grouping and so this book is not for me. Not for me at all. In short: do you find enjoyment in reading about drug addiction, overwhelming penetrative grief, isolation, and despair? In turning pa...

Hubby and I spent our time over the weekend with my brother-in-law (we shall call him BIL for short and he is hubby’s brother)  and his family out in Colorado Springs.  BIL is a twenty one year veteran of the US Air Force. Soon after hubby and I had just begun dating in college, BIL was heading off to his first Air Force assignment out in California. In fact, my first visit to hubby’s house in college involved meeting BIL and BIL’s friends (wherein they gave hubby a lot of ribbing over having a girlfriend) as they were getting together for some final celebrating before BIL moved away. In this way, BIL will always be tied up in my memories of those first few weeks with hubby and I look back on them, and him, fondly. Over the years BIL and his family have moved around the country as he progressed in rank and we’ve always enjoyed dropping in to see them wherever they were stationed. Because I was there at the time of his send off into the military it seemed fitting that I shoul...