Fifty Places to Drink Beer Before You Die by Chris Santella

Fifty Places to Drink Beer Before You Die by Chris Santella and published by ABRAMS last Sept 20th is the most amazing, wonderful, extraordinary trip you can do in the world of...Beer!

Practically every corner of the world is covered, and like says in the foreword Jim Kock founder of the Boston Beer Company and Brewer of Samuel Adams: "This book will inspire you to keep your favorite beer and suitcase."

Extraordinary, many States of the USA visited by the author, like many foreign places.
Germany of course, Austria where beer is a national monument, Prague, where beer is the beverage more drunk pro capite every year (and the place where beer is also more drunk of the entire world.)
Northern Italy. Although wine is the favorite alcohol beverage there are many estimators as we call them here of the "blonde."

Ireland with Dublin. Great old tradition.

Different kind of beers, different situations.
Some of the people who started a brewery for example in Birmingham Alabama or other corners of the world told that beer was not a known alcoholic beverage at first, but that slowly slowly thanks to their passion it was possible to build interesting realities.

Impossible to believe but the same London affected by a terrible beer since at recent times, when pubs decided that maybe it was better to give a best local product. At the moment many breweries are able to give a good beer.

Beer is synonymy of smiles, company, good time spent together.

This book is extraordinary and will let you discover in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, USA, but also in Zimbabwe what beer means.

A wonderful trip and wherever you will stop by... a great pint of beer!


Wonderful gift for Christmas!

I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

4 Essential Steps of Big-Hearted Change For Our New World Rising by Marcia West

Marcia West is for sure a great writer and an inspired lady.
In her latest book:  4 Essential Steps of Big-Hearted Change For Our New World Rising by Marcia West published by First Edition Design Publishing last May 3 she helps all of us to re-balance our world, our vision of the world and our self.

First of all the author analyzes changes. There are many constant changes in our life. We change work, city, we change familiar situations. Are we ready for it and in what way we answer this question? This one is a fundamental first step that can make the most important difference. If we start any change with optimism it will be a success. In opposite case it can be more problematic the acceptance of a new course.

Then the example of three bikers on a road. Who will be in grade to drive joyfully?

(I don't want to ruin the surprise...)

Change can be a great opportunity because of course it's possible to  discover new people, situations, and the soul grow up.
Substantially it mustn't happened anything dramatic or particular joyous for seeing changes. Everyday is a constant change and growing.

Love build bridges between people, countries.
As the author explains love in this book is not a romantic perception but the material with which has been created world: love.
It mustn't never been fractured or it will create unbalance forces.

Who motivate changes? It can be fear or love says the author, just these two words says all.

Fear means that maybe the person is committing an error because she doesn't react with lucidity but with an impulse of the moment. Love means that the reaction has been pondered and mature, responsible.

According to the author we are constituted of three elements, the masculine part, feminine part and the so-called inner child.

When one of these part is unbalanced the inner child will suffer for it.
This book wants to help people to discover a new renewal starting from inside, our inner journey.

An example of the Big-Hearted Change? Let's stay optimistic and let's imagine that all the cards on the life's table are OK. People understands us, share our passions. Plus: imagine a world based on the construction of love.

This is what this book is offering to the readers.

The four steps of Big-Hearted Change includes a first chapter with a physical description of our heart and functions of our heart.

Let's trust love and let's avoid negativity. In the while let's pay attention at our thoughts. Various, diversified origins they have a profound meaning.

We must always end well a chapter of our life for starting a new one says West.
Sometimes it can be very painful and stressing of course. New re-start are never simple.
Many advice from the author for being helped during this moment of transition.

It is also important to release the misaligned. Losses asks for some releases.

Being each of us unique, we have our own time and path write West.

In the fourth part the explanation of the perfect balance between the three part of us: the feminine, masculine and inner child.
When these forces, internal forces are united then there is harmony.
Marcia assures the reader that we must mainly focus on our inner self.

And if you want to renew your self much more other indications from her.

We can't receive love and miracles if we don't let go our past and mistakes.

The author will also have ready for you many exercise that you can do explaining also later with encouraging, beautiful words how you can start to develop a best, bright future for you and your loved ones.

Beauty book for sure. It's great for Christmas if you know someone who needs some encouragement.

I thank NetGalley for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers By Bobby Seale

The 60s will always be remembered for the change that they brought to the world.

A new wind was born also thanks to John Kennedy and after his assassinations movements of various sort, born in the universities, spread all around the USA.

They were composed by pacific people who believed in a different world.
Dreamers, and dream-makers and builders of peace. That generation, wanted to build a best future for the humanity.

The 60s were altruistic years.
Years that should be taken always as example, because people were able to look positively at the future with the idea that changing the world for better was not only possible but an imperative, and that it was important this change for helping all the rest of the humanity.

There was a revolution in act although it was mainly pacific, sometimes a bit violent, but always most of the time constructed because based on healthy ideals.

Each of us dream equality, each of us dream justice, each of us the possibility of express ourselves and live a free life.

But, when for some reasons people can't afford in the same school of white people because of the color of their skin, can't enter in the same cafes, can't live the same honest life of white people where is this equality? Where is this justice?

People in the 60s, of course we speak of youngsters, felt that yes, they were living in a good world, but that also that world needed to be changed for being as more perfect as possible at the big ideal of justice existing in the world. Because there were still too many big injustices.

In this humus, composed by the ascension and big success of Martin Luther King and his message of brotherhood and equality in the USA for black and white citizens, (living well together is an enrichment for the society) like also the more tormented story of Malcolm X assassinated as was King, born on October 15 1966 at Grove Oakland the movement of the Black Panther Party.

The USA has always lived unfortunately a big big racial story and these young men, some of them at the University in the mid of 60s started to think that it was better to take action, to start to give dignity, opening the eyes at the black people if these ones were still closed.


Stephen Shames and Bobby Seale the second one co-founder with Huey Newton of the movement and  the first photographer of the movement authors of Power to  the people - The world of the Black Panthers - that will be published by ABRAMS this October 18th.

The book is articulated in chapters and in a long interviews with the various co-founders and most influential exponents of the movement like Kathleen Cleaver, Elbert Howard, Ericka Huggins, Emory Douglas, William Jennings.


The idea of Seale? To tell the most remarkable moments in a book in photographs and  words.

The impact is impressive. Thanks to the pictures, you can feel that atmosphere of rebellion and the words are a powerful contribution for understands every step of the Party.
The Party active in all the possible social fields existing at this world.

They started very soon the Free Breakfast for Children for trying to create in the society a  national movement for economic independence,  education. "No kid should be running around hungry  in school" said the founders, but other programs involved free shoes, free clothes, free food as we will see and the creations of free clinics where people could be cured with dignity, and much much more.

Although with a sentence of 1954 of the Supreme  Court black people couldn't be segregated anymore at schools,  nothing changed.

Seale and Huey Newton the founders  of the Party grew up in this scenario and they  wanted to change the situation of their people and  of the country as well.

The two were the second  migration of black Americans.They escaped from the South but the migration at West didn't avoid other racism and injustices.

These young men plenty of great ideals. Anti-war  Vietnam supporters,  they started to fight for every kind of injustices afflicting black people and for changing  the world, making a better place for everyone, black&white. This movement was not born against  white people in fact but for keeping high the pride of the black people.

Black people couldn't vote in the 60s, black people couldn't live a normal  existence. Segregation was the word.

For these two teenagers Malcolm X was an idol.
Self-defense as seen is one of the most powerful  voice for Americans and started to be the most  powerful flag for these two leaders when they  created the party.

The Ten Point of the Platform of the Black Panthers,  vivid and real. Education but also freedom, job, good houses. A point I will write exactly as  proposed: we want an immediate end to police  brutality and murder of black people.

The Black Panther organized also a boycott campaign  against all that stores refused to support them or didn't hire black people, asking at the same time to the people to support all that stores friendly with the Black Panther Party.

A newsmagazine was released although the founders met a lot of problems but at least they were in grade to spread the word also thanks to a powerful vehicle: written word.


At the end the movement didn't look anymore at skin  color, gender, class, sexual orientation. The  movement fought for gay rights for example.

The legacy left is of course very important.

Why the authors wrote this book?

One of them writes that  they look at the future.
This book is for all people  oppressed in every corner of the world because  injustice doesn't know a place a skin, a gender.
Injustice happens.

The book will be released close to the  50th anniversary of the creation of the movement  but a lot must yet be done. Racial  condition between black and white is again a big  problem that I just hope soon or late will be sorted out. Forever.

Beautiful, important historical book.

It's a book important for the newest generations because it is crucial to understand that ALL the freedoms we have at the moment were the product of the sacrifices also of these youngsters, who, thanks to biggest ideals more big than their same lives opened their heart at a mission more big than themselves: saving the world, changing the world, making a difference, leaving a legacy in political, social terms. Some of these young men lost their lives for these dreams and ideals, the luckiest ones went to prison, most of them received a lot of humiliations for fighting for a better future, for everyone and for all the future generations.
These young men understood before the society itself that without dignity a person can't be called a person.

This one mustn't never be forgotten.

A great great gift for Christmas!

I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book!



Anna Maria Polidori

A Baxter Family Christmas by Karen Kingsbury

You'll need to keep close to you a box of Kleenex because A Baxter Family Christmas, by Karen Kingsbury, it will be published this Oct 25 2016 by Howard Books, is a wonderful moving story.

I hadn't never read I confess, any adventures of the Baxter Family and so at first when I started to read the book pretty worried: and now, I thought?

It was more simple than what I thought and Karen Kingsbury has a new reader!

Her writing-style is so passionate, so felt, so extraordinary beautiful that while you read the book you feel a great participation. Problems, joys, sorrows, are told by the author as if they would have been lived by her in first person. And you can't stop to smile or to cry.

I loved so badly the couple of Ashley and Landon. In their case love remained untouched by the force of the time.

The story this one: John Baxter (and his numerous family) two years before lost his beloved daughter in a car accident.
Erin passed away and with her also the husband and three of their children. The only one who survived, Amy, lives with aunt Ashley and uncle Landon.

Of course it was a moment of profound sadness for the family Baxter although believing in God they were in grade to survive, enriching where possible their life with new and touching experiences and adventures.

In the while organs of Erin donated. John discovered later who had the heart of his daughter, a certain Kendra. Kendra was a not-believer, so this one a big difference for the family Baxter, true God's believer.
Reading this book you meet God in every page. Kendra lives a profound existential crisis with her husband.

John starts to call her, to send her letters. He wants to stay connected with her. The sound of the heartbeat of his daughter to him incredibly beauty from the beginning.

When she grew up, when she wished him all the best the day she left the house and then she died, the day of course she was born.

John wants to meet Kendra and decide to invite the lady for Christmas Eve dinner.

The family is divided. Why inviting a perfect stranger in a special day like Christmas Eve is?
But is Kendra a perfect stranger after all? She has the heart of Erin.

Luke and Ashley decide to spend their Christmas Eve apart because they don't want to meet this lady.
Ashley fights a lot with her dad although of course very sorry for it, because she loves her dad from the bottom of her heart.

John starts to think that this one won't be a great Christmas Eve after all with his family divided.

At the same time another young love-story: Connor falls in love for Maddie, the daughter of Brooke Baxter West while they're preparing a Christmas Show but Maddie can't love him because of what happened when she was little to her sister.

Beautifully felt I don't want to ruin the rest of the tale.

Go for it with the certainty of finding a wonderful product, for another moving adventure of the Baxter Family.

At the end of the book also the favorite game of the Baxter Family and  some recipes for a perfect Christmas.

The cover of A Baxter Family Christmas is captivating, truly dreaming. It gives a sense or warm and unity. The perfect  portrait of the Baxter Family!

I thank NetGalley for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

Love Letters to the World by Meia Gedde

Love Letters to the World by Meia Geddes and published this first October is a lyrical private message to the world in letters.
Divided per chapters the book treats and space every possible existential problem and the letters addressed to the world with honesty, the world treated as if it would be sometimes a friend.
Love, sex, language, the skeptical idea of a perfect existence... You will find all these considerations in a very delicate treat.
Reading this book is like entering in a room tiptoeing where you will find poetry and delicacy.
The author gives her best with a sophisticated language.
It's an intimate book plenty of fascination.

I love the delicate cover of the book.

I thank NetGalley for this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

The Good Fork by Sohui Kim

The book: The Good Fork by Sohui Kim will be released on Nov 1 by ABRAMS and it's the personal story of ms. Sohui Kim, her passion for food and the idea of opening this local, The Good Fork in Brooklyn.

Sohui Kim tells her passion for cooking and her idea of course of studying for becoming a cook. The idea of opening a restaurant a consequence of this passion/work.

But why The Good Fork? Thank you thank you thank you!

Because of Italians. Sohui knows that Buona Forchetta is an expression for "Someone who eats with good appetite and love to taste a lot of food" I would say.

And best name couldn't be put at her restaurant.

Yes, because looking at the book, the restaurant is located at Brooklyn, you can find many diversified multi-cultural dishes and I love it so badly.




Sohui is not generic in her cooking. She researches not just the italian, french, American dishes but  exotic dishes that you can't taste in every place, but surely in The Good Fork, yes.
She loves to visit everyday the world in...a dish.
A wonderful, cultural food-travel around the world every day!


A great book if you don't want to cook everyday the same dish, if you want to add veggies in your diet, if you want to discover every day new dishes.

Of course, another superb cook book of ABRAMS to present to someone you love for Christmas!


Many thanks to NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

Pigments of Your Imagination, 2nd edition - Creating with Alcohol Inks - by Cathy Taylor

Pigments of Your Imagination, 2nd edition - Creating with Alcohol Inks - by Cathy Taylor published last Aug 28thby Schiffer Publishing is the perfect book for a painter or a passionate of painting that wants to try something knew.

Everything started with this group of friends, creators later of a group of alcohol inks enthusiastic creative.

One day one of them. Sally stopped by in a store specialized for selling acrylic colors. The lady suggested her to try a new alcohol ink color. Less problems more brightness, she knew she would have loved it.Plus look, extremely expensive.


It was true.

These colors open a myriad of worlds where the most beautiful, sunny, colored world can start to born, blooming under the experts hands of painters or passionate.


It is amazing what you can do with alcohol inks and using the most diversified techniques.


It is very cheap alcohol inks if compared with other colors, and we know that most people can't  paint because of the high costs of colors and other materials. It's an expensive hobby in most cases.

With alcohol inks you obtain the same results, maybe better, than not with other much more expensive colors.
So: why don't you give a try abandoning your frustrations?

In the book you will find many many projects of this enthusiastic creative group, on tiles, paper, fabric, glass, metal, and so on, I think that all possible materials existing in the world explored with the same result: a great success.

Impressive the paintings I have seen. I love textures, colors of these creations. I haven't found sadness, but joy of expressing the self and life and this is great.

The book can be used by everyone, from the beginner to the so-called affirmed painter with the same result: an explosion of vitality and creativity.
So, don't wait other time, read this book and start to become the next Van Gogh of this world!

 I find the cover extremely beauty and captivating! Great taste.

I thank NetGalley for this wonderful colored book!



Anna Maria Polidori

Prayer for the Day Volume II - 365 Inspiring Daily Reflections by BBC 4

Prayer for the Day Volume II - 365 Inspiring Daily Reflections by BBC  4 is a book that will be published by Watkins on October 18th.

These books, the first has been released time ago written following the programme broadcasts from many decades by BBC Radio 4.
The programme is followed by more than half millions of people of various  confessions and it is a quick reminder in a daily base for living at your best your christian day.

This book contains for every day of the year a reflection of the topic taken in exam the day you have chosen to read and then a little prayer. I choose to read days of certain months of the year finding always fresh answers to my questions.

It is a wonderful christian book for sure!

A great gift for Christmas or simply a book you will want to keep close to you in a daily base.

I thank NetGalley for this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Taverns of the American Revolution by Adrian Covert

There wasn't the Net. There wasn't Twitter. Facebook didn't exist, Whatsup just an expression used by people for asking what was going on and people, mainly men, in 1634 or something if seriously wanted to meet someone else, had to go out, they had to go in a tavern during the cold winter-nights of the East Coasts of the USA. Face to face with other friends, a pint of beer close to them.

Taverns have been for a long long time the protagonists of political changes in the USA and first of all of the American Revolution.


Taverns of the American Revolution written by Adrian Covert and published by Insight Editions last June 26, will explore the taverns that largely contributed at the American Revolution. This book is a precious jewel in terms of history, passion and devotion.

Can a public place become the center of something more important than just an innocent chat?

Of course it can, and taverns the best places for speaking of policy and current events.
After all taverns were populated by merchants, business men, politicians and moods were all on the table exactly like alcohol was.

The author visited a large quantity of taverns.  You will find all the 171 still existing taverns all listed in the book.

They became with the time: seventy-two restaurants or bars, forty-nine museums, thirty-six inns, twelve community buildings, and a smattering of offices and cafés.
Other 140 colonial taverns became private residences and they are not listed in the book.

But if you want to explore the USA through these 13 States for searching for these special place, this one is your book!

Covert at first started the research following the indications of a book written by Elise Lathrop, "Early American Inns and Taverns" published in 1926.

Adrian Covert worked hardly for giving a name and a location at these special places that made with the main political protagonists the history of the USA.

Most of these ex taverns are not listed on the net, and they don't have any kind of website. They have maintained where possible their own originality, serving just typical dishes and producing their own beer.

According to the author these taverns not only made the history of the USA but "These are 250 years old conversations about politics, culture, food, and life."
What it is more impressive is that when you will stop by in these places you will enter in the History, because it was in these taverns that Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson created the America as Americans know that.

After a historical reconstruction of the first taverns, the problems taverns sometimes could give. Of course they weren't all the times great places, morality sent to hell, a lot of people drunk, politicians worried for youngster, lost in these places for too much time.

In particular Adams advanced these perplexities, but although taverns couldn't be the best place of this world they have been the engine of the change.

Puritans the ones who had in their hands the control of alcohol and so starting from the end of 1600 prohibited in some places of the East Coast alcohol or it had to be drunk with moderation.

These restrictions for using largest quantities of alcohol in ships and vessels.

Other fines invested also sexual behaviors of men and women and other sphere of their life as well.

It was a custom to believe that a moderate consumption of alcohol accepted, tolerated because it was good for health according to the Puritans.

The same George Washington invented his own beer.

Franklin passed at the story also for this saying: "In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria."

The 71% of tavern keepers, you think were men considering the environment, isn't it true?

Wrong.

Women, in particular if their beloved husband had left this world for good.
They could obtain in case they were widows a license for keeping a tavern.

It happened in Massachusetts, where the 71% of women kept a tavern.  The 25% only in Boston.

At the same time close to the taverns brothels started to born vivaciously and later closed to Boston.

How much cost to a client spending some time in a tavern? Let's see. The author discovered that The Wayside Inn kept records of that old times.

Lodging 4 pence, a normal dinner 12 pence, an abundant dinner 20 pence. We are in 1748.
22 shillings per gallon on July 19 1769.

The book includes also a dictionary of words used by the clients of the  taverns, recipes, many many other historical facts and every tavern visited by the author described enchantingly with so many historical facts, anecdotes, specificity. This one a superlative, historical trip in places that contributed to change the USA. The author built bridges with the present and what these places became with the time.

It is a wonderful gift for birthday, for Christmas if you know someone in love for History.
There are beautiful pictures, old illustrations, newsmagazines pages of the time.

I thank Netgalley and Insight Editions for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori 

Angels by Reverend Jack Graham

I love angels. They're are the most directed connections with God. I always speak to my guardian angel Andrew for my necessities. My idea is that God is too busy sometimes for hearing from us and he needs these messengers that I call the postmen of God.

Once I have had the privilege of seen one of these creatures. I was in a very sad phase of my existence, it was morning and my day was to starting. I looked in a corner of my bedroom and appeared this vision. A golden kid. A kid I couldn't precisely tell the age of. Although he was smiling, these eyes impressively profound had seen a lot of world and had a profundity for that age that couldn't be so young, but much more old.
He was looking at me and he was smiling of a tender and warm smile. He was sat, and with an arm he was holding up his head. His ears were extremely long and thin. He had a round face, beautiful eyes and hair. He was completely golden.

Later I thought: now I will watched somewhere else because the angel will remain. But no....The angel disappeared. Some golden sparkles appeared as for saying me that He left and then nothing else.

I have angels in every corners of the house, in my bedroom, in the kitchen, in the corridor. My favorite angel is Clarence from the movie by Frank Capra because he is human and very often we meet as also tells the author in Angels a lot of Human Angels as well.

Said that, I requested with enthusiasm the book written by Reverend Jack Graham Angels published by Bethany House this past June 21st through NetGalley.

It was summer-time and unfortunately I couldn't read it at that time.It wasn't still time.

I did it these past days and I was truly shocked for the beauty of this book. I am catholic and I read every Sunday at the mass so I know the scriptures. It was an enchanting experience.

More than a book about angels, and trust me it is a book about angels, it's also the story of our Christianity thanks to many important, fundamental Bible passages, daily life anecdotes of the author or people he met during his life.

Angels are connected with God but we mustn't never forget that WE must live our existence, not our angels. We can't ask to them the impossible.
There are specific roles, says the author, that can't be played by those celestial creatures.


I was impressed while I was reading the book about the religiosity of this pastor. Reverend Jack Graham discovered God and Jesus since his early childhood because his parents very religious and enthusiastic. Then once, close to their Arkansas' village afforded a pastor in a tent for a week and the vision of Jesus exploded in the mind of little Jack vividly and it hasn't never abandoned him.

The Bible passages for discovering the power of Angels? The encounter between Saint Mary and Archangel Saint Gabriel announcing her the arrival of Jesus Christ, while she was the promising spouse of Joseph.

Then the story of Abram ready to sacrifice his son for God, a sacrifice unwanted by God, who tasted the religiosity of Abram, then the story of Hagar...

The book wants to focus also on our actual condition.

We rush. Always, and everywhere. We rush when we are at home, we rush to the office, we rush when we return home, we rush for going to the cinema.
We rush while we pray.


We have a lot of fears: the fear of losing our job, the fear of losing our health, the fear of dying, the fear of terrorism the fear of living.
But insists the author, in Jesus, and God we can find a firm and proper answer.

Angels will always watch over us.
Not only: reverend Graham is more than sure that each of us has a guardian angel and wagons of angels watching over us.


Reverend Graham gives us also some suggestions for living better.
An old saying: "Show me your friends and I will show you your future" is one of them." Like also: "Walk with the wise and become wise." (From the Proverbs.)

And if you want to search for angels: "Hang out with lightness, you'll get brighter."

Graham tells that the three quarters of angels have chosen God and not Lucifer, the other ones became fallen angels, and that the Golden Army close to God, is experiencing an existence of Light close to the Creator.

A lot of anecdotes while you will read the book you will see, will involve also the sphere of darkness, so Lucifer, and the mundane temptations.

At the end of the book the author remembers that sometimes we need some hope. A special section with precious advice directly from the Bible.

A great reading. I suggest the book to everyone and in particular to all that people, Angel lovers who wants to discover the most important passages in the Bible and New Testament where these creatures play a big role. The book is also tremendously inspiring for living a good and christian life.

Surely a gift very appreciated for this Christmas.


Anna Maria Polidori

Healing Herbal Teas Learn to Blend 101 Specially Formulated Teas for Stress Management, Common Ailments, Seasonal Health, and Immune Support by Sarah Farr

Healing Herbal Teas Learn to Blend 101 Specially Formulated Teas for Stress Management, Common Ailments, Seasonal Health, and Immune Support by Sarah Farr  will be published by Storey Publishing this DEC 27th.
I can tell you I love and love and love this book so badly because it is very complete. Pity it's expired a long time ago. One of the first ones I downloaded thanks to NetGalley.

First of the book focus on the importance of the various herbs and herbal teas and why we should drink them. Herbs in the past were our medicines and herbal teas can be absolutely curative, sometimes more than chemical medicines or like chemical medicines for most seasonal disturbs, like it can be a cold, flu, but also for many many other little illness or disturbs that we can experience.

In a section a database of recipes for every every possible exigence.

Another chapter will treat the cultivation of the various herbs, for having a special corner, pesticides free with all the possible herbs you can use for your herbal tea..

A book, every tea lover should keep in the house!


Anna Maria Polidori

Classic German Baking The Very Best Recipes for Traditional Favorites, from Pfeffernüsse to Streuselkuchen by Luisa Weiss

Written with love and very yummy!
This one is Classic German Baking  The Very Best Recipes for Traditional Favorites, from Pfeffernüsse to Streuselkuchen by Luisa Weiss. The cook book will be published this Oct 18th b Ten Speed Press.


Luisa introduces herself saying that, no, she didn't have any kind of German heritage. Half italian and American she grew up to Berlin and later Boston. In this melting pot atmosphere she tasted  various diversified German recipes thanks to a bakery store located close to her school.
She discovered, eating these delicious German desserts that her main inspiration was the one to become a good baker, and here she is.

Married with another baker from Saxony, she started to discover important stories regarding German cuisine.
And Luisa is right when she says that German baking is the base of American bakery.

Christmas cookies, doughnuts and other recipes are German recipes adapted once the people arrived in the New World.

She is an enthusiastic, Luisa and she explains that most of these recipes are old decades or sometimes centuries. Some of these recipes require calm and before to see the final result it's necessary to wait also long time, but Luisa remembers that each recipes is for every occasions the most informal one or the special event, like it can be a feast, Christmas, Easter, or a birthday.
The book, after a first and sunny introduction at the main ingredients and how to treat them from eggs, to butter, passing through vanilla extract, yeast powder etc, the sections I guess will intrigue the most: cookies for starting.

You can try the butterkekse  the most common but delicious butter cookies.
I love to bake them and once someone said me that they have the taste of childhood and this is true!

If you have some almonds go the Sandy Almond Sugar Cookies.

If you search for a touch of winter goes for the Cardamom Snap Cookies.

In the section you find also pretzels, bars and other wonderful and delicious treats.

Then it's the turn of cakes.

Many apple cakes for all the tastes, but also various cream rolls recipes, and fruits cakes.

The section of Yeasted Cake is for very consistent cakes. We find a sugar cake, a butter-almond cake, if you want to die of sweetness goes for a honey-almond caramel cake ;-) There are  chocolate cakes as well.

A characteristic of Germans are strudels. Strudel is the most known and baked sweet treat during the Christmas time.
In tortes and strudels an apple strudel recipe, and some jam and fruit strudels and tortes.

Savories a portion of the book dedicated to salt recipes.

Breads and rolls will introduce you to the richness of German breads and rolls, made with a lot of ingredients, salt and sweet again for all tastes and occasions.

Christmas Favorite opens with the Lebkuchen the old-fashioned German gingerbread. Then you can find the sweet Christmas Bread, and many other recipes for a sweet Christmas.

I fell in love for this cook book immediately after I downloaded it. One if the first I requested to NetGalley. Many thanks again.

The author has put all her love, all her joy in writing it and you can see it reading it.

Recipes are explained with great enthusiasm. It's like to read a book "alive" thanks to the strong connection that the author is able to create with the baker or potential one.

It can be a great Christmas gift and it will become one of your favorite cook book!


Anna Maria Polidori

Making Love Potions by Stephanie L. Tourles

Making Love Potions - 64 All-Natural Recipes for Irresistible Herbal Aphrodisiacs - is a magical book that will be published on Nov 29th by Storey Publishing.

The book  is dedicated to all that people in love in search of a best relationship and intimacy with the partner.

Herbs once were our medicines and we know for sure that most of them have some aphrodisiac effects in our body, bettering our mood, relaxing our mind, giving more vitality.

As the author remarks, there is not a perfect aphrodisiac for our body. Each of us must discover the proper one and I am more than sure that thanks to this book you will find the best one for you and your companion.
All the recipes presented are great for the most diversified occasions.

The book starts to analyze the Hibiscus a sort of pink tea, but without coffein, then cranberry lemonade, cherry kissing cordial, chocolate vanilla cordial.

A special explanation will involve the cordials and their arrivals on the table with various recipes.

Scentual treasures is a chapter for the personal body hygiene and cure. Body powder, perfumes, oils, able to bring joy and happiness and stimulate love with appropriate recipes for him and for her.

Then it's the turn of the Aromatic Bath (salt etc) and then the so-called lubricants.

Love potions another interesting chapter with more than a touch of magic.

The book then will treat in special sections  the herb, fruits, plants spices discovered in this love-conspiracy-travel through these pages. The author will give  you informations, contraindications and all the necessary for every herb, fruit, spice, for trying to see if that kind of product is the best one for you or your partner.

Richly illustrated and colored I warmly suggest to you this book. It can be good also as a gift for someone special in your life in every moment of the year.

I thank NetGalley for this book!

Anna Maria Polidori

The Christmas Town by Donna VanLiere

"My life is the same." Always the same...

Synthesizing this one is the existential condition in which the main protagonist of the latest Christmas novel by Donna VanLiere is living in.


The Christmas Town will be released published by St.Martin's Press on Oct 18th.

Lauren Gabriel, the protagonist (who knows if the last name Gabriel chosen by the author in honor of the archangel Gabriel?) is a cashier in a store.

She is just 20 but her life has known a lot of sufferance during all her still brief life. Very disgraceful parents without any kind of responsibility or maturity abandoned her de fact but also emotively. Later many foster homes, many other people but no one she could called: family.  Lauren hasn't never been in grade to call a place "My house" and people living there, "My family."

Lauren has never, never been surrounded by a real family.

The most horrible moment of the year for Lauren is the Christmas Time.

It should be a time of joy, happiness, a moment for staying together, putting up the decoration on the Christmas Trees, singing carols during Christmas Day, choosing presents for relatives and friends the days before Christmas, baking gingerbread cookies, but she doesn't know these feelings.

She hasn't never proved these emotions.

She hasn't never been happy.

But a family...

Someone who love you, someone who think that you are important and treasure your life. There is no price for a dream like this one thinks Lauren.

Lauren in a moment of discomfort but also of great lucidity posts on Facebook her most profound and at the same time hidden dream: spending the Christmas Day in a real family as if that family would be her own family. After all why not?
A family would be the best Christmas gift to her.

She receives just ironic, sarcastic and disenchanted replies so she deletes the post.

She posts on Craiglist and there, someone is truly interested to give her a chance for spending a Happy Christmas Day with a good family.


At the same time a car accident where Lauren is the most important ocular witnesses bring her back to Grandon a place at a hour of distance from her town. The attorney of the woman involved in the car accident needs her help. The man of the truck must be recognized.

That man changed hair cut but not face and Lauren will give clear indications, recognizing without any doubts the responsible of the car accident.

She seems to be born for staying at Grandon, Lauren. She starts to make friendship with the lady involved in the car accident, Stacy and with her she spends some time at Betty's Bakery, where she can finds this world and the other in terms of pastry but also that human warm so necessary to her for going on. And special people, of course.
Other ladies in fact, while they are still chatting stop by Betty's Bakery as well. They are organizing a fundraising for Glory’s Place, dedicated at single mothers and families in need but they don't know how to do that, and Lauren asks to them if they have thought at a sing-a-thon.

Launched the idea the ladies, they don't know Lauren doesn't live in their town, ask her if she wants to be involved as a volunteer. She says yes.

In this town for miss "My life is the same" the re-born.

Optimism at first thanks to Ben a magical young man, with some difficulties. Employed in a store where Lauren stops by he loves to put in every shopper bag a special blessing for everyone.
At the end it pays a lot, because people feel that they are special.
Ben writes these messages personally.
People receive encouragements. They love to be cuddle with these special random blessings. Lauren is not an exception. She starts to think these blessings are real balsam for her soul.

Lauren Gabriel will discover a lot of things about her family while she is in this new town. She will discover that sometimes is no possible to recuperate people lost forever but, most important, she will learn that these wonderful bunch of new people entered for case in her life are becoming important. Lauren doesn't imagine it, but when she will suffer a personal turmoil she will be missed by everyone, because she will also start to make a difference in their life. 

What is life without love? What is life without friendship, help, compassion and human understanding?

As always the writing-style of Donna is captivating. She will create a lot of situations plenty of dialogues that will keep the reader interested and curious without forgetting her profound sense of Christianity, one of the best treats of her books.

Another jewel for your Christmas season or a great gift for sending a special message to a friend or someone you love and for let him/she know that she/he is part of your family.

I thank NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for this copy of The Christmas Town.




Anna Maria Polidori

Little Tails in the Jungle by Frederic Brremaud

 Little Tails in the Jungle by Frederic Brremaudand published next month on Oct 11th  by Magnetic Press is the story of a puppy and a squirrel, Chipper and Squizzo. They can't just stay secluded in the environment where they're born in. They want to travel the world for discover other forests, other environments similar to the ones where they live in but able also to let them discover different corners of the world. They have a cardboard box airplane with which they will explore the forests of the world. This one is the second book of this cartoon series. The Amazon Forest in South America considered the Lung of Earth, African, Asian forests, the little book is very nice. This one is a children's book that will introduce to your children a lot of exotic animals of various and distant forests: black panther, piranha, tigers, exotic birds.
Beautiful for sure and a great Christmas gift!

Anna Maria Polidori

Colonial Spirits by Steven Grasse

Colonial Spirits by Steven Grasse, illustrated superbly by Reverend Michael Alan and published last Sept 12th by Abrams, is not a book about the colonial men, souls, who made the USA. No. It's about the "spirits" that permitted at the Americans to create that country.
Won't you think that the USA would have been the same country without "spirits?"

Well, this book is not just a story of men but also and first of all of...alcohol.

This book is born as a beautiful, old-fashioned book, where History of alcoholic beverages must be the main protagonist. What the book wants to do is focus the past, and like all cook books I read by Abrams stunningly beauty because it's another historical trip in the USA and I love the history of the USA. This time History passes through the various alcoholic beverages created with the time in the USA.

The book begins with the arrival of  the Pilgrims in the East Coast.

What meant the New World for the first pilgrims? To re-start from the beginning a new life, new food, new beverages. I don't want to say that they had to forget what they left behind, but surely this one a new complete different adventure where life needed to be re-invented.

Alcohol as well to be re-invented.

Americans once arrived in the new world "tried to make booze" from everything and sometimes with funny results, writes the author.
The author describes John Smith, his devotion for women and his love for Pocahontas.

But then the author asks: "Why puritans drunk?" Surprisingly they were scared by water, it seems.

Well, although it can appears strange, maybe there is a great truth in this ironical affirmation. (And you will smile a lot reading this book because Mr Steven Grasse is truly ironic!)

The old populations, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans left us an  immense patrimony of knowledge. With the time this knowledge has known a great dispersion.

Romans loved water. Thermal baths were born with them and they truly loved good water. Well with the time all the rest of Europe, once disappeared this great Empire, unable to return at the hygienic conditions the Romans had dictated and created.

Water in Europe and in Britain not purified at all.
Water during 1600 was very dirty we can add. Who drunk water risked to start to fall sick with smallpox, dengue, yellow fever, influenza, sadness. So why to be sad when there was the possibility of drinking some alcohol? But what kind of alcohol?

Samuel Cole just arrived in 1630 from the Old World in the East Coast I guessed was missing his distant land so badly because decided to open in the social Boston the first tavern. This place became an active center where people loved to spend some time together for drinking, eating and also starting to talk of current events.

At the same time at Philadelphia some people opened a lot of taverns as well.

And now let's speak of the first chapter involving spirits: Beer.

Beer can be created substantially with barley but also with any other kind of grain. At the moment we have wagons of ales available but surely 300 years ago the story appeared a bit different.

No one will discover the real taste of ales produced by the Americans of the 1600 but something is more than sure: everyone drunk beer. Including children.

Beer substantially was made at home.
Taverns later symbolized the populist atmosphere of that age. Mr Grasse says: "It was what we drunk as well as where drunk it."

You will find great recipes for beer.

The second chapter involves cider.

Cider born thanks to apples and apples has been one of the most wonderful success of Americans. Apples trees started to be planted since 1623.
He is a real legend and wagons of books written about him: Johnny Appleseed spread love for apples in the USA.

Born John Chapman, on Sept 26 1774 in Massachusetts he spent most of his life loving animals, nature and trees traveling in many States like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and wherever he went he planted apples trees. The author specifies that the story Johnny planted seeds was maybe not real. What he did was to plant a lot of orchards trees.
Many recipes, anecdotes, utilization of cider in the daily life.

Wine: this one per centuries a complete failure for the Americans. They tried with all themselves to produce good wine from 1500 but without great results. There is to say anyway that in recent time in particular in California Napa Valley there are great improvements. Maybe the USA not a land of wine, but sure it is a land of...spirits!

Rum and punch a great chapter apart that you will find very interesting. The first one associated at piracy as well, and in another chapter you will find a lot of informations in this sense.

Then it's the turn of  Liqueurs, cordials, medicines and beverages and a final chapter dedicated at the various alcoholic beverages in the rest of the world.

What the author thinks is that without beer, without rum, without bourbon, without "spirits" not intended as ghosts but as  introduction of some alcohol in the body and so with the materialization of a parallel intelligence once drunk, the USA now wouldn't exist as we are seeing it. If rock exists, if movies exists, if many industries exists, it's thanks to alcohol adds Grasse.
For sure beer and also other alcoholic beverages are able to bring people together and they permit a good socialization.

I can tell you something: this book is precious, old-fashioned, beautiful. It seems to open (I read my copy via Adobe) an old book. If you know someone who love History and also alcohol, good illustrations, and this friend will be passionate for experimenting some of the recipes of this book  for creating a new kind of beer, punch etc, you will make a great figure for sure!

Christmas is close...

Don't lose the occasion to make happy someone you love!

The cover of the book is enchanting like all the rest of illustrations you will find inside. 


I surely thank NetGalley and Abrams for this book!



Anna Maria Polidori

100 Plants to Feed the Bees by The Xerces Society

100 Plants to Feed the Bees - Provide and Protect the Blooms That Pollinators Need to Survive and Thrive - by The Xerces Society, will be published by Storey Publishing on Dec 27th.
This one is a book plenty of great pictures, and explanations of 100 fundamental plants, flowers, shrubs, mostly native plants indispensable for bees and their wonderful honey.

Who don't love honey? Well, for having a great honey and first of all for preserving the habitat of bees, it's indispensable to prepare for them the perfect humus and the perfect...meal for their everyday summer long job.

In the book a lot of recommendations: avoid pesticides and create a genuine, beautiful, relaxing heavenly environment for bees. And for you.

Also the use of chemical sprays for sometimes parasites in plants and flowers can be dangerous for bees. It can cause their departures or  profound alterations of their life in worse.

But what bees need the most? Many wildflowers. A garden plenty of colorful wildflowers, and a rich habitat.

The book after these suggestions divided in sections: Native plants, let's remember the California Poppy, prairie Clover, Salvia, Sunflower, then Native Trees and Shrubs like Acacia, Basswoods, Blackberry, Blueberry, rhododendron, Rabbit Bush, Rose, Tulip Tree, Yerba Santa.
Another section will interest Trees and Shrubs like Orange and another one Herbs and Ornamentals, so all that plants planted by men for decoration or also for... cooking. Let's think at herbs.
These plants can be perennials and annuals and they can be: basil, coriander, lavender, cosmos, rosemary, thyme....
The sections is concluded by the Native and nonnative pastures plants like Clover, mustard.

I love this book so badly.  I love bees, we had bees once and there is nothing, nothing more delicious than eating real honey.
The honey of your bees.
You can buy and read this book with great confidence if you want to create a great, good fairy-tale environment to all your bees and if you also want to know the various herbs, plants, trees that exist in your immense territory. It is a great interesting trip.
Trust me.

I thank NetGalley for this book!


Anna Maria Polidori

The memory of things by Gae Polisner

The memory of things by Gae Polisner published by St. Martin's Press was like a magnet to me because it treats a theme very dear: the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11th 2001.
Time passed by but the memory of that horrible moments forever in our souls. It's an interesting book The memory of Things because there is sufferance, private and public but mainly private so if you lived that moments you won't precipitate again in that horrible sensations but you will live the moments of the attacks with the sufficient emotive distance, where possible.

Kyle  Donohue is a teenager of 16 years. The day of the terrorist attack at the Twin Towers, close to the scene of the tragedy.

And he starts. As many many other people, he starts...He starts to walk, to pass through the Brooklyn Bridge for return home.
For going somewhere. Distant from that horror. Distant from that absurd massacre. Distant from what it appears to be a nightmare.
And while he was walking, while he was running away he met this girl. She was wearing this strange wings, maybe she is a dancer, maybe an apparition, anyway she is covered by ash from the head to her foot. She was close to that nightmare thinks the boy. He decides to bring her home although he doesn't know anything of her, but solidarity is important in particular in moments of difficulty.

In Kyle's mind his parents. His mom and sister to LAX, the international airport of Los Angeles. They had to return home, but now?
And his dad in the NYPD as a detective...Will he be save?

Once returned home Kyle can't relax. There is uncle Matt to take care of. He has had a bad incident some months ago and in a second the old viveur, women, good life, he was a great social guy, completely gone. Now his uncle has many difficulties. For speaking, for living a decent life. He needs extra-care.

These ones told in the book are the first days, starting from Sept 11th 2001 of the...After.

This teenager will take care of this girl, who, per days doesn't remember anything of her. Who is she? He discovers something in the while but.. Her name?

Why doesn't remember anything? What is amnesia?
How can she recover soon? Kyle will also try with some mental exercises for the girl, the same exercises of his uncle Matt.

An uncle with the brain devastated, the mom and sister to Los Angeles, his dad at Ground Zero, a girl who doesn't remember anything...Kyle is the only person in that house able to keep everything under control.

This teenager is responsible and mature. He cooks, he helps his uncle, he tries to keep cheerful the girl, he cleans the house, he goes out with her (one day they will also go in a magical place where a lady will read his hand) trying, trying to live the normality of this life in the abnormality and monstrosity of the events that in the while were going on, also falling in love for this mysterious girl.

He would want to speak with his dad of this girl, but for a reason or another, they were moments of great agitation, he always give up. Once returned home they will speak.
And the girl after all will remember... And another name and another sad and sweet story will be written.

It's a tender book, delicate, because the terrorist attacks lived under the private various crosses that a family can experience in the privacy of the house.
So, there are sporadically some news, there is of course the event of the attacks at the WTC, but there is also another important message: that the show must go on.

Life, and this one is a great comfort also in moments of big disgrace don't leave us other chance than to continue to live. To going on. It's the biggest gift presented us by life apart...Living.

And Kyle will continue to live his daily routine. He has many thoughts for his age and he feels sadness for many situations, but he is also a strong teenager able to cope with all of it.


Beautiful book, I strongly suggest it to everyone! Sure it is written for teenagers but trust me it's a good balsam also for adults.

I thank NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

The Littlest Star by Richard Littledale, Illustrated by Dubravka Kolanovic

The Littlest Star by Richard Littledale, Illustrated by Dubravka Kolanovic and on sale this October is a cute, cute fairy-tale for children and for a magical Christmas season.

Once upon a time there was this little star in the big big big immense sky.

He was more little than any other star, and not so visible from humans or other stars as well. He didn't mind if people on Earth or other stars could talk because he didn't sparkle a lot. He was humble enough to stay at his place but once, the littlest stars in the sky received a special call from the most important Entity: God.
God explained him that his Son on Earth was just born and he needed some light...

And this little star, although the littlest one existing in the sky, not only was in grade to illuminate Bethlehem staying close to Jesus, Saint Mary and Saint Joseph in the humble stable chosen by the couple for having Jesus Christ, but was in grade to give light at the shepherds in visits and to all the other curious people including the three exotic men, the Magi who would have brought to this new special King precious gifts...

It's a wonderful, wonderful, tender story. One of the cutest ones I read recently and pictures are relaxing and dreaming. I am sure that they will be adored by the children.

Who once wrote it, did it for a fund raising benefiting Shooting Star Chase children's hospices,

I would accompany this perfect Christmas fairy-tale gift for your children or nephews/nieces with a book of astronomy for beginners.
It will be a joy for them to discover what the Universe is. I can tell you that for sure!

You could also launch yourself in an explanation of astronomy.

Maybe it was the comet of Halley  the light seen by the shepherds  and the three Magi.
In this tender, precious fairy-tale The Littlest Star has been in grade to become magical and something else from its nature, forgetting for once the Past where he is buried in the Universe for wrapping up the world with its bright light of novelty, bringing a message of joy, positivity and a new start for the world.

Enchanting.

Many thanks at Netgalley for this book!



Anna Maria Polidori

Becoming Andy Warhol by Nick Bertozzi and Pierce Hargan

Becoming Andy Warhol a book written by New York Times bestselling writer Nick Bertozzi and artist Pierce Hargan is the beautiful, captivating graphic novel of the first steps of this pop artist in the environment. It will be published by Abrams at the beginning of October.

Black, white and purple the colors used for this graphic novel divided in chapters. You will find it surely interesting.

Andy Warhol has been the most known artist of pop art of XX century and the most venerated icon of the sector, inspiration for hundreds of painters and creatives. What a wonderful portrait of this young man!

No sure why I have always had the impression Warhol had to be a hard man. In this book a completely different character. Sometimes a shy person, pretty introvert, in love for his mom, an enthusiast of his work.

His visions different from the creations of the past decades, at the beginning misunderstood.
Maybe the idea of buying a piece of art of a suicide not so attracting...
With the time Warhol abandoned the idea of painting. He loved to use pictures, manipulating them, pressing them, coloring them (remember the famous painting of Marylin Monroe?) for create art.

Warhol and his art recognized in every corner of the world.

This graphic novel is very beauty because it doesn't give the idea of the immensity of this talent but the one of a young boy called Andy, who, with all himself wanted to arrive. It's a fresh, young, funny graphic novel.

The book concludes the adventures of young Andy Warhol with the creation of the Thirteen Most Wanted Men mural for the 1964 World's Fair. This work launched him in the Olympus of the most known artists and painters of the XXth century.
All the rest is known...

I thank NetGalley and Abrams for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

The Suitable Inheritor by Pushpendra Mehta

What a romantic book is The Suitable Inheritor written by Pushpendra Mehta. I love everything of this book. From the softcover to the paper. This book cuddle, seriously cuddle the reader. And the cover is also emblematic with this lonely man lost looking at the immensity of the Pacific Ocean.Some birds are flying away and a key is waiting to open something...A door, a heart. Which is the key of happiness for each of us?

It was an age I didn't read, written by a man a so romantic book like this one is!
But The Suitable Inheritor is more than this.

Before to telling to you something more of this book, the story of this review must be told.

I haven't met Pushpendra Mehta thanks to Netgalley or Booksgosocial but this time through Goodreads. It was an age I didn't visit the site and I tried the giveaways. I joined various giveaways that warm summer day of July. Later I received an e-mail from Pushpendra. He said me: "You joined my giveaway. Maybe you will win a copy of my book, but in opposite case I want to send you anyway a copy of my book so that you can read it."

According to you did I win a copy of the book? In fact, the answer is correct: no, but Pushpendra maintained the promise, sent me a copy through Amazon and here I am.

I thank him immensely for this gift because he wrote a real jewel of beauty, love, friendship, good relationships, peace, understanding.

The book is very profound and it touches the most important nerves of our society little or big that it is: love and our most profound connections, physical and emotive ones with other people.

Who is Mike the main protagonist of this story? A relationship coach. One day, Andrew, the biggest one of this field living in Peru, asks to meet him to Lima, the capital. Mike lives in Chicago, USA.

"Why me?" asks to himself Mike.

And not because he doesn't have sufficient self-esteem but because substantially Andrew surely is in contact with this world and the other in the environment.

The meeting with Andrew is more a confession of his own life-story than a business talk after all.

Andrew confessed he was bewitched in a good sense by a wonderful lady called Dorothy and thanks to her he opened a magazine and became a great name in various fields becoming with the time the biggest relationship coach existing on the Planet. Dorothy his main inspiration.

"Pursue your passion, work with your intuition learn as a child and adapt as water" told once Dorothy to Andrew the first time she met him.

Mike fell in love for this woman while Andrew was speaking and when the final last message and meaning of this encounter clarified, Mike once returned to his hotel thought: "Lord, I must try to reach her."

But how?

Andrew had cut all bridges with her, because Dorothy once wanted to break with him any kind of collaboration and now Andrew didn't know where she lives. Dorothy not a lady who would have put posters in every corner of the streets.

But Mike is able to find her, and to spend with her a passionate night and to ask her to become his woman.

Dorothy can't, because her aura would have obscured the climbing for the final success of Mike and declines, going away. Mike is desperate, he cries, he is devastated, but later, at least he understands that this sacrifice is for a good cause.

He tells that he is in love for Dorothy to Andrew and he receives his blessing as well.

Once back to the USA, thanks to a lady called Meher of a publishing house, he become the first and most important relationship coach for young people as well.

And do you know the title of the most successful book? The Suitable Inheritor! It was like to read a book in another...book. A strange and magical sensation.

Success is great. This man so romantic, so compassionate, plenty of good heart, spiritual, in love with pleasures of life, discovers that anyway every night he is alone once he return home.

It's time for a promise...It's time to maintain that promise to Dorothy. It's time to search again for Dorothy and to become a real couple not just a dream.

During these years the relationship with Meher in the while become intense.
He loves her and she loves him. They love each other but they respect their feelings, because Meher knows that Dorothy is the woman chosen by Mike for spending the rest of his existence with.

A promise he did when he met her in Lima, Peru.

He is a romantic man and a man able to wait.

A suffering good-bye the one between Meher and Mike. Meher told him: "You wouldn't want to see me with another man if I would choose another man and vice versa." She can't work anymore for him and she wants to leave him. The sufferance of seeing him close to another woman, although absolutely exceptional is too much.

She prefers to return to India but who knows if Karma and USA again in her destiny?

Dorothy will find again a way. Dorothy will open another time the heart of Mike dissipating any kind of doubts and let him reach at least his total, wonderful happiness.

This book is a treasure, because it's not just a physical trip but a mental trip. An intimate trip and a trip I would add of various souls strongly connected forever.
And it is a great book for whoever want to learn more about relationships.
For once Love returns to be the main and important voice of a book, in a tender, exclusive, beautiful way.
What a magical romanticism.

Love exists, real love exists and this book wants to teach us that we mustn't lose the opportunity of experience happiness when we can.

I absolutely suggest this book to everyone.

Many thanks Pushpendra! for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

The Cabin by Natasha Preston

When I requested The Cabin by Natasha Preston launched last Sept 6th by Sourcebooks I imagined a crime book with a lot of tension and with a lot of suspense. Being an Agatha Christie fan my favorite crime stories the ones set in a house or in a defined location where a group of people for a reason or another are involved and under investigation by a good police man and maybe an investigator like could be Poirot.
No one of them can go out til the crime is sorted out. Generally pretty soon.

Forget all of it with The Cabin It's something else. A young book where murder is lived under another perspective.

Although a scaring murder consumed in a cabin the story is more complicated than at first it can appears.

First of all: the book reminds me the writing-style of some American and British friends I met online 14 years ago so that's why I read this book with big pleasure.

There is a freshness able to by-pass also the biggest tragedies of life. It's important trust me for keeping the mind healthy.

This book will keep your mind fresh, active, because it's vivacious and plenty of characters and diversified situations. No boring time, no descriptions, a lot of dialogues, some ingenuity here and there but positivity in motion.

What you will read is a complicated story of a murder but not only a murder. You will meet five apparent normal protagonists who drink, drug themselves, one is bisexual, another live conflictual relationship with his mom, another aborted at 15 years...A book where normality is just the pale idea and the surface of what reality is.

There is never never a big perception of tragedy or death and this is amazing.

The homicide that should be lived as the biggest and most horrible crime on this Earth lived as if it would be normal in the scheme of life, and with the philosophy of: "Let's going on for trying to sort out this mess." All alone. Without help. Police becomes an unnecessary nerve.

The story: Josh decides to organize with his friends a week-end in the cabin of his family. Mackenzie, Kyle, Courtney, Aaron, Josh, Blake, Megan all together for a week-end in the country-side.
Josh is not loved by them but although their contrasting feelings, also because their common friends Tilly and Gigi disappeared 8 months before in a terrible incident and Josh the main one "accused" for it, they decide to participate.

The author insists in the heavy drinking of the various protagonists all 18 years old, during the week-end.

In fact no one will hear anything when two protagonists of this story, Josh and Courtney, his girlfriend, are killed stabbed various times with a knife in the kitchen of the cabin. The cabin is quiet big and all the protagonists gone for the alcohol and maybe something else. They all sleep profoundly.

After the murder it appeared to me that the main problem were not two corpses in the kitchen or the arrival of the police or of an ambulance or the evidences that maybe police men and scientific could find, no, but the drinking of the protagonists seen also the insistence of the author of the book regarding this point and the discovery of these two corpses lived by the protagonists as a dream/nightmare.

The police man in the person of Mr.Wright will be in the entire book just a pale and insignificant character without too much intelligence for discovering who had killed who.
The key of everything for sorting out apparently (because the message of this book is clear: reality is never the one we see but there is always something else hidden somewhere) this story will be Mackenzie with Blake. Blake is the misunderstood brother of Josh. The  police men focus the attention on him.

More than to focusing on the homicide in itself, this story will reveal the personalities of the various characters, and Blake and Mackenzie will discover surprisingly that they didn't know at all the people with which they hanged out with.
Mackenzie firstly. Blake is the black sheep of the family, the one no one love or want to see around and so also for this reason he has a weird character.

As a crime novel The Cabin by Natasha Preston is young, fresh, sometimes ingenuous but surely very interesting.

I loved to read it with all my heart and I suggest it to youngsters and adults although it contains sensitive topics like alcohol abuse and uncommon drugs. I see very strong positive sides in the vision of positive dialogues and lightness of the various characters. Plenty of problems unable maybe to sorting out all their demons but able to fight with all themselves for surviving and going on in life. Mackenzie character surely the best one. I loved it a lot like also her romantic relationship with Blake. Positive also her family.



Anna Maria Polidori

The Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary by Susan Rennie and Roald Dahl

I love Roald Dahl because thanks to him and Johnny Depp with his spectacular Willy Wonka I discovered Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and an imaginary world interesting and captivating. I read all the Wonka books and I continued with many others as well.

So I requested without any kind of hesitation apart a Road Dahl biography for trying to understand much better who this author was in real life, The Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary by Susan Rennie and Roald Dahl published by the Oxford University Press thinking just later...

Bloody hell, I am italian and now?

When I opened this dictionary at first I was a bit "scared."

Well, I can tell you I would have wanted a similar italian or English or Latin or Greek or french dictionary like this one!

It's truly truly, truly funny, humorous, and your children will fall in love for it.

It is completely colored, funny, thanks to Quentin Black's illustrations and captivating. Thanks to a lot of anecdotes, stories, new words created by Dahl your children will learn with joy and happiness not just the most common English words, but also other funny new ones inserted in Dahl's books. Dahl was a creative like PG Wodehouse.

So be careful when they will speak to you after that they will have read this dictionary. Maybe they will use Dahl's words...
You can't never know..

So, dear parent don't worry, be hopscotchy! ;-) and buy this dictionary without any kind of perplexities to your children. Money very well spent trust me because, for once, I can tell you this, they will open the dictionary with love and curiosity and they will read it with interest!


I thank NetGalley for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

Pope Francis Takes the Bus, and Other Unexpected Stories by Rosario Carello

Pope Francis Takes the Bus, and Other Unexpected Stories by Rosario Carello published last First July by Franciscan Media is truly enchanting exactly like enchanting is our new Bishop of Rome and guide of the Catholic Church Francis or Father Jorge Bergoglio, from Argentina.

He is an extraordinary human being, Francis a man completely integrated with the folk and the poor and more a person is poor and more he will love him/her.

In this book many anecdotes if you still don't know Francis from the A to the letter... Z.

His integrity can't be discussed.

Once elected archbishop of Buenos Aires he avoided to going at the big mansion reserved at the new archbishop, Olivos, but preferred to stay in the Curia, in central Buenos Aires so that he could breath the city and the problematic of people.

Compassionate once a lady stopped by there for talking to him. She was very poor, she had had seven children with two different men and they had to be still baptized. She didn't have money for everything. Bergoglio helped her to organize a good feast and a good moment for her children and her friends and family.

Francis love Borges and Holderlin.

He fell in love for a girl. He was still in seminary and well he experienced his week on the clouds before to take an important decision.

Explained why he lost one of his lungs, how he communicated the news he wanted to become priest to his parents.

Fr. Bergoglio doesn't live as we all know in Vatican but at Santa Martha and everyday he says a morning mass opened to people where he loves to talk of the current events and the problematic of Church with the linearity, simplicity we discovered as main treat of his character.

Francis is frugal. He doesn't eat a lot, but he is a good cook when necessary, he had a special talent for chemistry at school and he loved to help other children when they needed some help.


Patient and compassionate, go for this joyous book where it will be revealed all you need to know and more, of this so beloved Pope.

Perfect for everyone, for a gift, for being read and re-read in family.


Anna Maria Polidori

Caramel, Caramel, & more Caramel! Sweet and savory recipes for creative caramel Cuisine by Michael Moses and Ivana Nitzan

Caramel, Caramel, & more Caramel! Sweet and savory recipes for creative caramel Cuisine by Michael Moses and Ivana Nitzan is a cook book for all caramel-lovers.
A yummy cook book, let me add. Caramel is mostly associated at sweet childhood memories :-) that's why maybe caramel continues to be so loved by everyone.

This cook book is very serious, impressive for the dishes proposed and the recipes you will find explained with great accuracy. Who wrote this book, Michael Moses is a chef with a prestigious curriculum graduated at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris with a Grande Diplome in cooking and pastry.

Most of the recipes are according to my point of view lived with the french perception of bakery. Very elaborated, cultivated, elegant you will create thanks to the instructions given by the author the dish you desire for every occasion.

Do you organize an afternoon with the schoolmates of your kid? Don't worry: from lollipops to candies, bars etc you will find the recipes for them.

Is it necessary a special dessert for ending a dinner or a lunch superbly? Don't panic: you will discover the perfect one.

You have invited your friends for an afternoon with some tea and you want to offer them something special? Go for this book.

Caramel is in fact an aliment pretty diversified and "plastic". It can be used in many recipes with great success.

Candies, bars, cakes for every occasion, from the most modern ones to the classic evergreen, passing through the desserts on a plate and...veggies with caramel touch.

Enjoy!

Caramel, Caramel, & more Caramel! Sweet and savory recipes for creative caramel Cuisine by Michael Moses and Ivana Nitzan is a book you'll love, you'll adore. Perfect for a gift, wonderful for surprising your family and friends.

Thanks to Netgalley for this sweet book!



Anna Maria Polidori

Compassion by Dani DiPirro

The new book Compassion by Dani DiPirro - it will be published next month on Oct 18th by Watkins - close to the other one, Forgiveness follows another special booklet, Gratitude, published months ago by the same publishing house. 

I love these booklets by Dani DiPirro because in a few words is able to spread important messages of hope for the creation of a best society built with that real old values still too lacking at the moment.

Important feelings and sentiments, pillars of our society, gratitude, forgiveness...

This time the author treats the sentiment of Compassion, one of the most important one for a real mature society.

What is first of all compassion?
The mixture of two words specifies DiPirro: empathy and altruism. These two words  mixed and combined together in a fusion creates compassion.

Compassion means understanding other people's "feeling" (empathy) their real sentiments, and then helping (altruism) for trying to sort out their problems where possible. Of course the attitude must be genuine.

In general compassionate people understand much better the world than not selfish people can do and they understand the dynamics of the world.

Thanks to numerous quotes of many important and known people from the past Dani DiPirro will comment the word compassion.

A fascinating trip this one in a land where there is serenity, understanding, and where all of us, all invited, can indulge for a while and re-start to love ourselves, giving up with self-criticism, being kind with our self and forgiving our character's lacks.

Compassion is an "universal" feeling  and interest every kind of creatures of this universe, not just only other human beings and this is why it's very important and crucial for the world.
A best world is also built thanks to the beauty we are able to see in the world and the beauty we are able to project in the world with our goodness.

When we help other people and when we try to sort out talking, staying close to them their problems it's a great moment also for us for learning, says the author from their errors, from their mistakes.

It is possible to stay close to someone sending in case of illness, a difficult moment, cards. I can tell you for personal experience that it works. My Memphis aunt Bobbie has been very close to us during a moment of big discomfort and illness in our family and her cards were very appreciated because truly inspiring.
I proved the experience in my skin so go for this method. It's therapeutic.

Love, energy the best sentiments you can put in motion because necessary to your neighbor, to your friend in difficulty. Remember also to try to donate everyday or every week some of your precious time to others.

At the end of the booklet the final section: how to be compassionate at work, but also home, and other situations as well.

Another beautiful, felt book by Dani DiPirro.

For all of you!

Many thanks to Netgalley for this book!


Anna Maria Polidori