Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Waiting on Wednesday: A TIGER IN THE KITCHEN by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan


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My pick for this week is . . .




Pub. Date: February 2011
Publisher: Voice
Format: Paperback , 304pp
ISBN-13: 9781401341282

Description (from the publisher):
Born in the year of the Tiger (a rebellious sign), Cheryl Tan left Singapore at age 18 to attend Northwestern University. Years later, as a 30-something living in New York City, she was suddenly gripped with a sense of loss at the knowledge that after almost sixteen years in the United States, she was, indeed, “Ang Moh” (a Chinese term that implies “Westernized”). Tan did not know how to make the food of her people, and any Singaporean will tell you that they don’t eat to live—they live to eat. In the tiny Southeast Asian country that straddles the equator, food is both a national obsession and their way of bonding. In the kitchen, they tell stories.

In A Tiger in the Kitchen,Cheryl Tan invites readers to join her on a quest to recreate the dishes of her native Singapore as a way to connect food and family with her sense of home. As Tan begins cooking with her family, she learns not just about food, but about her family history and her heritage. She finds that home is rooted in the kitchen and the foods of her Singaporean girlhood. A Tiger in the Kitchen is a charming story about being a Chinese-American and a food exile, and finding a place for one’s heritage in a modern life.


About the author (from the publisher):
Cheryl Tan is a New York-based writer who has covered fashion, retail, and home design (and written the occasional food story) for the Wall Street Journal. Before that she was the senior fashion writer for InStyle magazine and senior arts, entertainment, and fashion writer for the Baltimore Sun. Born and raised in Singapore, she crossed the ocean for college in the U.S. after realizing that a) she wanted to be a journalist and b) if she was going to be as mouthy in her work as she was in real life, she’d better not do it in Singapore.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays: HAUNTING JASMINE by Angali Banerjee



Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by
Miz B. of  Should Be Reading.
Want to play along? Here's what to do:
 1. Grab your current read
 2. Open to a random page
 3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
 4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
 5. Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


My Teaser:

"I make chamomile tea and put on my reading glasses. I flop into bed and open the book, which emits a newly minted smell.  I flip through, hold the pages to my nose, and inhale."

-- page 120

HAUNTING JASMINE
by Angali Banerjee
Pub. Date: February 2011
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Format: Paperback , 304pp
ISBN-13: 9780425238714

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Free Book Download: DEBT-FREE FOR LIFE by David Bach




For one day only -- TODAY! -- David Bach is offering a free PDF download of his book, DEBT-FREE FOR LIFE.  What a great offer -- now you don't have to go into debt to figure out how to get out of debt!

Click here to visit WalletPop.com for the free download link.


Thanks to Dina at Just Another New Blog for bringing this offer to my attention.

Waiting on Wednesday: AMONG OTHERS by Jo Walton


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Pub. Date: January 2011
Format: Hardcover , 304pp
Sales Rank: 208,907
ISBN-13: 9780765321534
Edition Description: First Edition

Description (from the publisher):Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment.

Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead.

Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England–a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off…

Combining elements of autobiography with flights of imagination in the manner of novels like Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude, this is potentially a breakout book for an author whose genius has already been hailed by peers like Kelly Link, Sarah Weinman, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

About the author (from the publisher):
JO WALTON’s novel Tooth and Claw won the World Fantasy Award, and the novels of her Small Change sequence—Farthing, Ha’penny, and Half a Crown—have won acclaim ranging from national newspapers to the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award. A native of Wales, she lives in Montreal.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays: THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES by Amy Tan


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by
Miz B. of  Should Be Reading.
Want to play along? Here's what to do:
 1. Grab your current read
 2. Open to a random page
 3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
 4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
 5. Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


"And then I had a bad thought and a good plan. I wrapped a dirty blouse around the music box and put it in the basket of clothes."

- page 174

THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES
by Amy Tan

Pub. Date: December 2010
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Format: Paperback , 368pp
ISBN-13: 9780143119081