Touring America by Automobile in the 1920s The Travel Journals of Hepzy Moore Cook by William A. Cook

This one another biggest dreams I have: to visit the USA on the road.

The beauty of the USA in fact is in its diversified landscapes, rivers, beautiful natural attractions, original people who you wouldn't never met if you just stop by in a big city.

So when I decided to request this book I knew immediately that I would have loved it.

Dear Old America I love you so badly.

Touring America by Automobile  in the 1920s The Travel Journals of Hepzy Moore Cook by William A. Cook published this May 2 by Sunbury Press, Inc. is an extraordinary book that if you love history, if you love to rediscover the country under a different perspective, you can't miss to buy.

You know what happen: time pass by, someone before us leave some old journals somewhere and then we read it, and we found that not only this material is interesting but realistically wonderful and a great portrait of the USA during the 1920s.


It's what happened to William Cook. His grandmother loved to keep journals like also loved to send letters and postcards to her family and friends.

Correspondence was common in the internal territory of the USA because sometimes a friend or a relative could live for example in the other part/coast of the USA and visits impossible often. So, letters, journals, postcards the only way for keeping updated with the latest novelties.

The grandmother of William Cook  Hepzy Moore Cook was a voracious writer.

Everyday describes fascinatingly well their trip started from Vermillion South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park, and return  years later.

In total 3.180 miles of adventures, troubles, dangerous encounters, stunning views I can tell you that reading this book is dreaming.

You will find along the way coyotes, geysers, abandoned cities, wonderful sites known personally only thanks to movies, people, and that wild landscapes and life that you can just classified as real and so dear and unique as it is the one of the USA. as, don't forget it, the hot. 
With her the husband William A. Cook and the father Ralph Moore.

You would have waited wonderful roads and streets, great automobiles in the USA of 1920s.
Forget it.
Of course it was a luxury an automobile and a trip more than an adventure for this couple and father. If it wasn't a story of wheel it was the engine, if it wasn't the engine it was the gasoline tank, or some other problems. A car wasn't a joke.

Roads at the same time were in a very bad state and a trip so long like the one attended by the three ones a real adventure in the unknown.

But Americans are not just adventurous but able to sort out all the problems with a smile taking advantage also from negativities.

Hepzy won't disdain to keep updated all her family and friends buying postcards and letters very often wherever there was the occasion for sending them constantly news about all their adventures.

At the same time everyday Hepzy found the time for compiling her journals plenty of, as you will see, informations about people, landscapes, places that they were passing and stop by. 
I imagine her after dinner, close to a fireplace created not distant from their tent,  writing down these long notes for the posterity and for the pleasure of remembering, better, impressing in a piece of paper an extraordinary moment of her life.

It is beautiful this corner of America told by Hepzy, wild and real. At some point during the trip the lady will write: "A reproduction cannot carry the impression of the original." Hepzy loved sketches as well but can we try to capture the essence of the beauty?

Of course there were encounters with wild animals like bears attracted by beacons and jam. And do we want to speak of phantom hotels or fishing in mythical rivers some great yummy trouts?
The Scott's had a tent loved to plant when there was the necessity of staying somewhere for some time as told and it gives the idea of a healthy outdoor life.

Then the return in 1927 passing through South Cincinnati, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama. This time without Ralph.
Kentucky appear suggestive and superb, like also the cities with their campus and colleges. Once left Kentucky and the production of tobacco, other adventures lived  through immense cotton field, black people and their children, in the State of Georgia, pictures taken of landscapes and people, postcards bought for familiars and friends and memories to remember and share thanks to the journal always accurately kept updated.
Ah, what a wonderful world would have sung Louis Armstrong. 

 Mr William A. Cook the husband of Hepzy, died at 101 years and  asked to put in his gravestone:

"The greatest thing a man can leave behind him in life is a wide circle of friends."
 
Wise man don't you think so?


I thank NetGalley and Sunbury Press.


Anna Maria Polidori

Beautiful Smoothie Bowls by Carissa Bonham: 80 Delicious and Colorful Superfood Recipes to Nourish and Satisfy

Beautiful Smoothie Bowls by Carissa Bonham: 80 Delicious and Colorful Superfood Recipes to Nourish and Satisfy is a colored, wonderful, beautiful succulent book that will satisfy you. For sure.Yummy!, the author developed this book sharing informations with healthy food bloggers and enthusiastic instagrammers.Each recipe is gluten-friendly and you can find recipes for vegans as well. Other are gluten-free and there are also paleo recipes. I didn't know this state but there are people who can't eat grains, diary. Other recipes are dairy free. The beauty of smoothies in general I don't know you, but it is what I feel when I drink one of them is this sensation  of cuddle ourselves, like when you prepare a tea or a mug of chocolate.
The first smoothie bowls found in Brazil in 1970s.
Ms Bonham told she joined a program with a smoothie for breakfast, a smoothie for lunch another snack and a healthy dinner. What she noticed with many smoothies was this: the missing chewing that it is so indispensable and normal in our daily life.
That's why Carissa decided to choose another type of smoothies: the smoothie in a bowl so that people can eat and chewing being plenty, full and satisfied after their meal.
Carissa Bonham will later explain the type of tools you should use, introducing later the so-called superfoods,  the rainbow food that we should all eat everyday. Food of all colors, positive food for our body and mind. From Acai, Avocado, bananas, carrots, cherries, ginger, goji, to green tea, honey, mango, oranges, peaches, strawberries, yogurt, naming some of them.
Recipes are all succulent and delicious. Apple pie, banana berry,cherry cobbler, a bowl full of cherries, sunshine day,carrot cake, there re many many recipes for all tastes, occasions and seasons. Of course Carissa and the various contributors add that it's better to choose seasonal fruits and veggies.

Enjoy these sunny cookbook and happy happy smoothies bowls! to everyone.

I thank NetGalley for this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

 

My Garden of Prayer Beloved Prayer Poetry from Helen Steiner Rice by Helen Steiner Rice

A prayer is the key that opens our heart, and no one is unheard. In difficult times we should all find a moment for praying in a place where to rest and ask thanks to God for what we have or for what we need.
Tender, sweet, profound, delicate for every occasion, My Garden of Prayer Beloved Prayer Poetry from Helen Steiner Rice by Helen Steiner Rice is the best gift you can donate to a friend or the best book you can buy for yourself for keeping alive or review your personal relationship with God.It will be published by Barbour this July 1.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, every day, these prayers/poems written by Helen Steiner Rice  are a joy and a feast for the heart and mind like at the same time a meditation of the meaning of God and our relationship with Him according to my point of view.

There are prayers for peace, prayers for patience, prayers for hope, prayers for good times, prayers for thanking Lord for what we have received, prayers for the periods in our life when we are more discouraged and we don't have close to us anyone to listen to us. God will be there listening to us. There are prayers for blessing us, our house, for expressing joy, gratitude, thankful and happiness.

Enjoy this precious book because one of the best prayers book you can buy and you can treasure!

The cover is amazing! Celestial I would add.


I thank NetGalley and Barbour for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori
 

Letters to Strabo by David Smith

What a wonderful book is Letters to Strabo by David Smith published by Matador.

Beautifully written with an amazing researched, absorbing english, it seemed the transposition of a Woody Allen's movie in literature. There are in fact all the elements dear to the famous director.

When I asked at Matador to read this book I thought that it was a travel book. It's much more and what a joy!

Like it happened centuries ago, when nobles traveled across Europe experiencing what it meant visiting the best part of our corner of the world for pleasure, the same does Finn, Adam Finnegan Black, American of 28 years  starting in 1977 and fascinated, and that's the part I love the most by Strabo and its Geography and by Mark Twain and it's Innocents Abroad's book.
Finn will try to find portions of Strabo's works in many European's cities he will stop by like also Twain and Einsten's anecdotes and whoever possibly influenced this world through history or literature. .
His erudition will include James Joyce. Finn will follow the steps of this great writer as well as Hemingway.

Why, am I fascinated by this travel book? Because it's....Unusual and truly beautiful what Finn did because he is young.

It's unusual that a young erudite man wants to follow the past, in particular thanks to some old authors, for discovering the present and looking at the same monuments, roads, streets, panoramas, sunlight as did someone else lived some centuries ago.

For Americans traveling across Europe is a joke, because in comparison to the USA Europe is very small. True, plenty of monuments, culture, a different lifestyle but more reachable and accessible.

This book is a jewel.

Thanks to Finn, the protagonist we discover that not only culture and erudition is possible but I can tell you that it is truly fun and never boring if you do that in motion, with some gossip and following Finn! with his lot of sexy adventures, girls, encounters, food, sometimes a homicide when someone wanted to abuse of a girl, mixing up all with James Joyce, Shakespeare and Company, Peggy Guggenheim, art, Tintoretto, museums, galleries.

Every place is described meticulously, under every aspect and nothing is left at the imagination of the reader.

I wasn't pretty satisfied of the description of Rome. A place of passage. It would have been possible to write this world and the other of this city but I know that Americans don't fall particularly in love for Rome.

But...Thanks to these old thinkers, Strabo and Mark Twain the explorations of these lands more complete, more culturally elevated, and please, don't think I am snob because I am not, I don't travel from a life! just I love to seeing the best of this world, and I think that each of us should search for it and should look at places searching for the best and not just stopping by in touristic sites visited by everyone.

The fascination of the narration is more intense if you think that this man in love for a girl called Eve, a name I guess chosen for a precise reason. With this girl he will start a long-term correspondence.
Postcards, letters, phone calls, meetings somewhere in Europe when it was possible with also other sexual intercourse in particular with a girl called Francoise, pretty weird and rich.

The end is bitter-sweet like life is, but it will present to Finn the greatest gift he could have received from life and an existential choice pretty defined.

Highly suggested.


I thank Matador for this book review copy.


Anna Maria Polidori

The Radium Girls The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

The Radium Girls  The Dark Story of America's Shining Women written by Kate Moore will be published this next May 2 by Sourcebooks.

I didn't have doubts: it's a masterpiece.

A masterpiece of humanity, comprehension, love, understanding, and a great reportage.

A book with a perfect, fluid, narrative historic reconstruction of what happened to the "radium girls" and where respect for the victims it's at the first place.

It's a book very readable, a serious, passionate book of what happened along the way and during the decades at many of these girls.

A book, The Radium Girls where these girls are back in life, thanks to  the humanity expressed by Kate Moore in writing this book.

You can see the various girls of the society of Radium Dial in Newark and Ottawa smiling and laughing, happy and satisfied of their life,  you can look at their life in motion, their desire of a good life for themselves still very young and their loved ones.
You can see them wearing beautiful dresses and hats, sunny and beautiful.

They were after all the "Shining Girls." At Ottawa Illinois these girls for joke, when they had some free time loved to add the potion of radium and other substance they used during their work in their eyes, mouth, eyelashes, then they rushed in the darkroom and oh: they were beautifully shining!

A basket of life, dreams and desires to realize for all of them.
Life was all a smile and life was very good to them.

After all they were the dial painters of an important society and their work very well paid. They could buy with their pay whatever they wanted because what they earned was a lot and a lot of money for sure and sometimes the pay much superior at the one received by their parents.

Kate Moore visited all the places in the USA where the girls involved in this history, lived firstly and worked later and she talked with the relatives of the so-called "Radium Girls."

She told that while she wrote this book she put all the pictures of these girls close to her and I don't doubt a second that there was also their guidance behind a beautiful book like this one. A whisper from the other world.
A book helped by good spirits will always be a masterpiece because the force who guide the author is not just human.

I didn't know anything of this story.

I have always loved fluorescent objects and since now I still had in my bedroom some fluorescent rosaries and other luminous objects. I don't love darkness. While I was reading this book I thought that it was better to remove everything from the bedroom! throwing away these objects.

You mustn't think that this one will just be the story of these girls, this one without any doubt can be considered also a narrative historic book according to my point of view and it would be crucially important that everyone would read it by because of  the importance of the damage caused by radiations and radioactivity.
These facts should be known by everyone.
Maybe with the time we have forgotten but we mustn't never forget.

The story starts in 1917 in Newark but ends up in recent times.

Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898. It appeared more than clear that this substance was great for treating cancer internally. Radiotherapy is called like it for this reason.
Curie remarked that the external use was toxic and burned the skin.

Radium started to be drunk, radium became a sort of magical potion. Unbelievable but true.

The story starts when Katherine Schaub starts to work at the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation based on Third Street, Newark New Jersey.

The girls working in that society were 70 before the first world war conflict but during the war the number tripled and there was space for everyone. Cousins, friends, sisters.
There was of course great joy and happiness although during the war girls worked under pressure.
Picnics were often organized and in general all the girls were very social.
Radium was  the "wonder drug" to everyone.

Grace, Irene, Mollie, Ella, Albina, Edna, Katherine, some of the name of the protagonists of this story.

A story of "Lip-Dip-Paint."

The girls while they were not painting put the brush in their mouth all the time. It was a custom, a habit. Their bosses told them to do that.

During the war the 95% of radium painted on military dials.

The first one to fall sick was Hazel although slowly most of the girls started to be very sick.

It was a problems of tooth at first.

A mysterious illness destroyed, dismantled, better, their mouth involving later their throat as well.

The illness started from the tooth, they fell with great simplicity, and we speak of very young girls of 20 years! giving at first  ulcerative problems, pus.

Then the illness penetrated in profundity demolishing all the rest of the mouth's bones.

A dentist "rceived" the jaw of one of these girls in his hands while he was exploring her mouth. It simply fell in his hands.

It was a horrible illness with a lot of sufferance and a devastating death for all of them.

I picked up some pictures to add at this review and well I looked for case at a pic of a girl dead for the devastation of radium. It was terrible to see but important.

At first dentists, physicians, and doctors excluded the radium; the first girl dead was diagnosed with syphilis but who knew her, knew that it couldn't be possible.

Later dentists and physicians tried to discover if this one wasn't a case of phosphorus poisoning considering that the girls worked in a society where they managed some chemical substances. Radium couldn't never be taken in consideration because it was an amazing new substance.

Many more Radium Girls fell sick and some of these ones became, when the stadium of the illness profound, unrecognizable.

At the end a family of one of these girls preferred to avoid the vision of the corpse to friends and relatives after the death.

At the same time in Ottawa, Illinois a town of 10.000 people more or less all catholic, a town plenty of churches, old habits, good people, a town that no one could reach with great simplicity the radium company decide to open a new radium society at the beginning of 1920s.
There was of course a lot of excitement between the female young population.

Work was very well paid and a lot of them joined the company with the same procedure adopted by their colleagues of Newark: let's: "Lip-Dip-Paint."

In Newark it was the chaos, ignored by the cheerful and happy girls of Ottawa, Illinois. At the beginning, they thought of a great life: for sure this one was the sign of a great present and a better future.

It was still unknown in fact the turmoil that was going on in Newark, and the desperation of dentists and doctors unable to cure with the known therapies these girls.

Doctors simply hadn't never seen a devastation like this one and although they tried to stop this illness with all their knowledge and best medicines, no one could diminish the process of demolishing of the the mouth of these girls.

Their hair became snow-white, they became very anemic, weak.
If the illness didn't start with tooth problems these girls started to limp.

There is also to add something else: we are in the USA and there wasn't public health assistance so it means that slowly slowly once these girls fell ill it was clear that they needed intensive cure ergo a lot of money  spent for a lot of cures.

One of them operated at the mouth 25 times!!! and the company at first didn't want to give them any buck because they didn't recognize any responsibility for what was going on, although with the time they introduced periodical controls and exams for the workers, and although the workers didn't never know the results of these tests.

All the money spent, the girls, proud, constricted to ask money to their families.

A boyfriend for helping his girlfriend married her because in this way she would have accepted his money.

Being this one an unknown illness sometimes doctors didn't want to be paid because of course to them these girls were subject of study but of course not all the times.

At the end one of these girl afforded to New York City where a famous doctor mr. Blum understood without too much difficulty that this one was a radioactive intoxication.

Mr Blum without any kind of shyness wrote to the radium company asking for money for curing the girl. The request was rejected, but later Marguerite found an attorney and filed suit against the United States Radium Corporation for 75.000 dollars one million of modern dollar.
Marguerite opened the road at a sort of "class action" and the case started to be known slowly also in the little and pacific town of Ottawa where the first symptoms of this illness started to appear in the girls like  panic.
The luckiest ones, the ones who didn't die immediately were later affected by leukemia, bone cancer and suffered severe cases of osteoporosis.

As wrote Kate Moore the legacy of the radium girls didn't just simply set different standards at work giving also a great contribute to science and medicine, but their legacy was also left in terms of legislation.

More than 100 of these girls were later exhumed and many bodies donated to the science for experiment. In general bones and tissues of the corpses of these girls reduced in ashes and then analyzed. The girls were radioactive.

The Radium Girls without to want to be that, and this is very sad because the process passed through their devastating death and their fight for recognizing that in that society something was terribly wrong,  were real, real fighters for a good, honest and safe workplace.
Dignity and health at work should always be at the first place.
That work that should have brought food on their table, joy, happy marriages, children, happy times, meant to them death. Only death and sufferance.

Work shouldn't kill anyone.

In more modern times the signs of their fight for obtaining justice recognized also after the second world war.

The USA bombarded with two atomic bombs Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the Pearl Harbor attack and the devastation of the signs left behind terrible.

President Kennedy signed so the international Limited Test Ban Treaty which prohibited atomic tests above ground, underwater and in open space.

The danger of radiations ad radioactivity recognized by everyone.

On Sept 2 2011 the city of Ottawa   unveiled a statue dedicated at the Radium Girl and the governor of Illinois proclaimed that day the day of the Radium Girl.

This book is tremendously beauty also during the most difficult parts, when the girls start to be sick, when they start their crucifixion in terms of visits, hospitals, because told with true love, real passion, devotion for this story. You can visualize and see the various dentists and doctors at work. You can see their impotence and their trouble, like also their determination for trying to discover something more.

It was a battle.
The battle of the girls for trying to survive, the battle of the doctors and physician for trying to curing these girls, the sufferance of the relatives.

It's a story told with great heart and impact and I know that you will love it so badly.

These radium girls  courageous.

The courage to find an answer and where no possible the courage to change, the courage of sufferance and obstinacy for obtaining that dignity that the company didn't want to recognize.

The courage to fight against giant and silence.
Some of them complained that something wrong was going on when still in health but no one listened to them because that society was giving work at so many people.

Some of these girls tried to change work but of course once radioactivity is in the body there is nothing to do.

You will discover wonderful characters also in terms of doctors and physicians. These people as said changed the course of history.

I want to remember Von Sochocky one of the boss of the radium society, also dead because of radium.
Fired from the company decided to help with all himself these girls doctors and dentists, still in trouble and desperate for trying to find a proper cure at this strange horrible illness revealing the secret formula used by the radium girls at work but not only: Von Sochocky developed also the first tests for seeing if the girls were radioactive opening so the road to radioactive future exams.

Highly highly recommended to everyone!


I thank so much NetGalley and Sourcebooks for this wonderful and so wanted book!



Anna Maria Polidori

Photo credits: Pics from the website of the city of Ottawa and if I remember well the working Radium Girl's pic from the Chicago Tribune.

Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith

It's a cultural human trip that could have been done just thanks to books, just thanks to public libraries this one chosen by Ali Smith for celebrating culture with Public Library and Other Stories published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Not only this book is an immersion in great, touching stories and memories, but also an homage to the best beloved British authors.

Books and culture present the possibility of enlarging horizons and perspectives and that's why public libraries so crucial.

Participated, with the contributor of 30 intellectuals, you can really enjoy this jewel of the British author.


I thank NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.


Anna Maria Polidori

The Pony Express Romance Collection Historic Express Mail Route Delivers Nine Inspiring Romances by Barbara Tifft Blakey, Mary Davis, Darlene Franklin, Cynthia Hickey, Maureen Lang, Debby Lee, Donna Schlachter, Connie Stevens, Pegg Thomas

The Pony Express Romance Collection Historic Express Mail Route Delivers Nine Inspiring Romances by Barbara Tifft Blakey, Mary Davis, Darlene Franklin, Cynthia Hickey, Maureen Lang, Debby Lee, Donna Schlachter, Connie Stevens, Pegg Thomas published by Barbour recently are beautiful short tales involving the pony express orphans and their race across a territory, the one of the USA, immense.
The service was active for just 19 months, covering the West and East Coast of the USA.

The tales are all human, simple, adventurous, accompanied by a Christian perspective.
God is everywhere.
In the hope of the protagonists, in the mind of the various believers. You'll meet the most diversified situations and plots but each of these authors will be in grade to donate you with their short tales a moment of reflection and beauty, an immersion in the past reinvigorating.


I thank NetGalley and Barbour for this ebook


Anna Maria Polidori

Simple Fare Spring and Summer by Karen Mordechai

Simple Fare  Spring and Summer by Karen Mordechai is a cook book published today by ABRAMS.
The author offer to the readers, thanks to her influences in term of food while she was living in Jerusalem from all over the world what it means to cook seasonally.

Not only it's healthier but it also means to help farmers.

Simplicity, velocity is another word I found functional.

For example Karen Mordechai propose a quick bread, able at the same time to make everyone happy without to lose too much time in the kitchen.

I liked the "Pickles suggestions" and the breakfast section.
It's of course the most important moment and meal in the USA but... WOW! So inventive and yummy! thanks to diversified sweet and salt dishes with eggs or fruits, and the inclusion of fish.

Bowls a section loved for the meaning of just eating in a bowl, toasts couldn't be missed because very loved by everyone, and you will find the perfect recipe for every taste also in the vegetable section.

The author takes in consideration for elaborated dishes a quickest preparation considering that this edition is dedicated at the warmest time of the year.

At the end a section for making your own dairy products.

There is a lot of fantasy in these recipes and variations I love a lot and I am sure that this cookbook will be appreciated by every food-lover.

Highly recommended.


Anna Maria Polidori

Pizza Camp Recipes from Pizzeria Beddia by Joe Beddia

Pizza Camp Recipes from Pizzeria Beddia by Joe Beddia published today by ABRAMS  offer you the possibility of becoming a real "pizzaiolo" following the step-by-step passages offered by Joe Beddia.
Calabrese origins, but born in the USA,  he grew up with the good homemade bread made by his family members once per week and memories of great pizza thanks to the pizzeria of one of his relatives.


When he was 18-19 years old he worked in a Ralph Lauren's outlet and later discovered that there was the possibility of working in a bar. Later again the introduction at the world of pizza.

To Joe, as for many Americans with italian origins the real pizza is the one created with italian ingredients X0

With the time he discovered that he could create a great pizza also with local ingredients.

Instruments, dough, the making of pizza will be revealed without any more secrets, like also many delicious recipes for a wonderful pizza.

You'll understand that substantially what it is crucial is the dough.

All the rest, what you will put/add in the pizza, will be up to you and your fantasy and Joe Beddia describe it very well explaining the role of a multitude of ingredients, from mushrooms to salame, from mortadella, to many herbs and veggies that you can add to your pizza alone or with red sauce.

So, what can I add more? Buon Appetito everyone! with this yummy pizza-book!

I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

White Sand, Blue Sea by Anita Hughes

I don't discourage any writer. I try to write all the best about books but with Anita Hughes months ago the opposite. Not only I gave her one star, but my review was very negative. Yes: Christmas in Paris not a great book.

I am a good person and I don't want to be nasty with anyone so I thought a lot at that negative review. After all I picked up that book. Maybe, just it wasn't for me and my soul.

When I was re-contacted by St.Martin's Press for reading another book by Hughes I said yes enthusiastically because I wanted to give her a second chance.

If Christmas in Paris appeared very superficial, don't wait a complete change of route with this new book: White Sand, Blue Sea . It's a book about escapism and beauty.
The atmosphere is exotic, cocktails help and the vision of life of Hughes  incredibly good. I would want to have her same opinion of life and her same lightness.

Sure: I can't understand why there is not a different profundity....

A girl who doesn't see her dad for more than 20 years can't react like Olivia react when she meet her dad after such a long time. It's not normal although it would be great to live in the lightness proposed by Hughes. We would  surely avoid a lot of big or small dramas.

My impression is that Hughes doesn't want to explore the human feelings,  although it would add much more at a novel. Her writing-style in fact is great. I don't want to say that she should arrive at a Woody Allen's level but it would help.

To me Anita Hughes wants to present a light product for permitting to all of us, women, to read a novel for de-stressing the mind. If the book is read in this way it's perfect for its genre.

What Hughes loves the most are exotic places, beautiful places, great cocktails, sand, sun, beautiful houses, rich people, sometimes pretty superficial.

I suggest to this writer again to try to go in profundity choosing a story able to let her travel across the world, in beautiful locations like St.Bartz can be but that, at the same time can let explore her, if she wants, the human feelings left alone according to my point of view in these books too much.

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



Anna Maria Polidori

The Unhappiness Syndrome 28 Habits of Unhappy People (and How to Change Them) by Ryuho Okawa

Some people love to live unhappy.

They start to develop unhappiness and then they love to living with this feeling all the time.
They're not anymore able to return to a surface of joy and happiness, devastated like they're by what they feel, thinking that, after all world is a negative place where to live in.
And surprisingly not only as said before they love to feel these feelings but often they communicate them to other people as well.

Confirms arrive from several part: illness, current events...Is the world a good place where to stay? Aren't there many confirms that problems exist?

It is, this one a real pathology thinking better, and Mr Ryuho Okawa defines this illness, the unhappiness state, giving it the status of a real syndrome: the unhappiness syndrome.

In his book: The Unhappiness Syndrome 28 Habits of Unhappy People (and How to Change Them) published this April 15 Mr Okawa will give us a clear explanation of what happen when we are overwhelmed by unhappiness and how we can restore our previous happy self.

It can be an attack of envy for someone, fear of being hurt, some past failures able to block our creativity at long, a person still trapped in his past, lack of confidence, pessimistic thoughts, old secrets, It's not important if your syndrome will affect work or family or your spiritual life. Mr Okawa will drive you to start to be conscious of your energy, potentiality, positive thinking, re-directing firstly your thoughts, because there is nothing, nothing more powerful than your thoughts for changing in better or in worse your life. Like also of course, your vision of life.

At the end you will re-discover a new energy and motivation and you will start to see again colors and joy in your life.

I thank NetGalley and IRH Press for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

Lincoln and his Boys by Rosemary Wells and illustrated by P. J. Lynch

Abram Lincoln didn't love a big beautiful house.
He didn't love eating a lot either.
He was a frugal man.
You could make him happy presenting him a good book, or time for creating memories with his children, the treasures of his eyes or inviting him to see some shows.
He was a man of true sentiments, a man who wouldn't never have wanted a war and the secession of a part of a country. A man who fought for setting free from slavery black people where the South politicians repeated that there was the necessity of keeping the slavery a reality.
It was a slow process and a process paid very highly from both sides in term of human lives.


It's a moving book this one written by Rosemary Wells and illustrated superbly by P. J. Lynch: Lincoln and his Boys.

It's a children's book but I can tell you that it is a book that will enter in your soul also if you are an adult.

Why this title: Lincoln and his Boys?

Because the President had continuously around him, historically true, these two sons, Willie and Tad. They loved to spend most of their time with him also while he was working and also when he became President.
He didn't mind if they stayed in his company.To him it was a joy.
He was happy and very cheerful to see them around.

This book starts with Lincoln as a Presidential candidate, later as the President, and in these pages you will live the adventures of Lincoln's family's life. Public and private.

We will see Lincoln's family passing through a horrible pain, the departure of a first child, to the election of Lincoln as President. A new devastating pain, while the Secession war was going on devastating a country.

What I found beautiful was the character of this president seeing through the lens of Tad one of his sons imaginary narrator thanks to the inspiring powerful words written by Wells.

Lincoln is essential, humble, mature.

Lincoln didn't study in proper universities, he was a man of culture but without the support of a university like Harvard although he loved to improve his culture everyday.

Being humble, he didn't mind at all if the presidential house where they lived as presidential couple beauty or not. Once he suggested to his wife of not spending the money of people for embellishing too much that place.

Thanks to the illustrations, vivid dialogues and narration the perception is this one: to be there with family Lincoln while they are sat for dinner, or  they are excited for some trip; while Willie and Tad accept some muffins from a baker or profoundly sad, Abram Lincoln and Tad together to bed, devastated by the same pain.

The warm, opened and a bit melancholic smile of Abram Lincoln, warm the soul and keep this giant of American policy much more close to the youngest generations.

I can tell you that this book is perfect for your children because I was once a child and I would have loved to read it if a kid!

There are just few tricks with children for let them love history: put facts in a simple, domestic way. Put it as a fairy-tale. Let them fall fascinated by famous families, like the one of Lincoln one was. Let them fall in love for the discovery of the past. They will understand that discovering the past they will discover and touch the present.

Rosemary Wells and P. J. Lynch are with this book the perfect teachers.

All the rest it's up to you!

Highly highly recommended to everyone.


I thank Candlewick and  P.J. Lynch for this book.

 

Anna Maria Polidori

The Jefferson Bible by Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was born this day in 1743 and he was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, the author of the Declaration of Independence, third President of the USA. Not only: Jefferson has been a philosopher, writer, and the founder of the University of Virginia.

He was a real thinker.

Yesterday I went to Umbertide and I stopped by in the second-hand book shop of the charity Books for Dogs.

I was intrigued by a little book called: The Jefferson Bible by Thomas Jefferson with an introduction by F.Forrester Church and an Afterword by Jaroslav Pelikan published by Beacon Press, Boston.

Jefferson in his life, New Testament close to him and with various versions of it, never satisfied from the translations he received from Greek, French "re-wrote" Jesus Christ's gospel taking by the New Testament the best part of it.

He wasn't interested in dogmatic chapters like the virginity of Saint Mary or the Resurrection of Jesus. As he added: "I am materialist."


He wanted to let see to everyone why Jesus Christ was so important and which were his best characteristic so that everyone could  follow His teaching.

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Extracted textually from the gospels in Latin, Greek, French and English) wants to be a book of moral to everyone.

When he was younger Jefferson and his religious' ideas close to the one of Deists, but when he understood that there was a high probability that he could become the third President of the United States he started to take Christianity in great consideration, considering also the role of religion in the social tissue of a country and strong of a common opinion: "It is in our lives and not in our words that our religion must be read."

Jefferson studied maniacally the life of Jesus Christ comparing Jesus to Socrates and Epictetus, because He didn't write anything.

Jefferson will add in a letter sent to a friend: "A system of morals is presented to us, which, if filled up in the true style and spirit of the rich fragments He left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man."

In a letter wrote to Rush he revealed the sense of Christianity to him: "I am a Christian in the only sense He wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing He never claimed any other."

The strongest sides of Jesus Christ according to Jefferson: "There are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorism benevolence sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed."



Anna Maria Polidori 

Fix-it and Forget it Baking with your Slow Cooker by Phyllis Good

What a paradisiacal book is Fix-it and Forget it by Phyllis Good released by Good Books. A joy for eyes and mouth.

This book is a real dream because it will teach how to start to bake and cook with a slow cooker, so in a longest process but at the same time obtaining the same result, maybe better, than not cooking in the traditional way.

It's a cook book that can interest everyone in this busy world where spending hours in  the kitchen a dream but why not to serve a great dessert, a delicious pizza, a wonderful pie? Why not serving all the best we can although the time we can spend in the kitchen less than in the past?

With this cook book you will sort out all your time-problems with some tricks ;-) saving time for your self and your busy schedule and at the same time seeing how great can be a slow cooker. I can tell you that you'll be in grade to make all your family more than happy and cheerful during lunch-time, or dinner-time, or brunch, breakfast or a special occasion.

You will find 150 wonderful, colored, delicious recipes for every occasion and you will appreciate a different tranquillity and freedom because you can do also something else while the slow cooker will work for you.

Divided in sections: quick breads, muffins and cupcakes, cakes from scratch, shortcut cakes, bars and brownies, crisps and cobblers, pudding and custards, pies, quiches, yeasts breads, pizzas and granolas, you will discover a different world and dimension.


In the section recipes you will find a crazy-crust pizza! a pepperoni one, a granny's potato rolls, a tomato herb bread, an english muffin roll, a daily bread, a breakfast torte, an asparagus Quiche, a fresh tomato basil pie, an Amish corn pie, a blueberry ginger tart, a rosemary raisin tart, the little Boston Brown Loaves...Some recipes are accompanied by a "Why I love this recipe" at the end of it in which the author explain in handwritten pink written words why she loves that kind of recipe with also many TIP advice!

Indispensable cook book for every busy girl and woman.

I love the colored cover, like also all the beautiful pictures inside.

I thank Good Books for this wonderful ebook.



Anna Maria Polidori

The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak

The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak by Simon & Schuster is a funny, nice, book with a lot of thematic inside, some of them heavy and this book is just apparently light.

Every nostalgic ex teenager of the 1980s will love it so badly.

Robert Redford in 1987 hadn't won yet any Oscar, the movie this gang of three friends loved to watch compulsively for 18 times Kramer vs. Kramer with Dustin Hoffman. Not bad. A gang of intellectuals but teenagers in the 1980s were a mix of all of it. Brain and hormones.

Tom Cruise was the protagonist of Top Gun, Michael Jackson a genius, Carol Alt a beautiful model.

While I was reading this book I thought at the differences of our actual society and  the one of the 1980s.

Reality was completely different.
There was a different candor in the 1980s, a different approach to life, there was shame, there was the idea of sin but also there were adults that didn't want to give anything to teenagers or children before their proper age.
This, I guess, for avoiding any kind of hurt in the harmonic development of their personality.
 
World is now a free land where nothing is prohibited but normal and the old taboos all gone.

In the past society more closed, more structured, and it's in this historical moment that we fall like magically. It's 1987.
World was going on well, people appeared all happy and cheerful.

Problems of course existed but mainly were the ones lived by the protagonist of this book and his friends: how to enter in possess of some issues of Playboy with the current Wheel of Fortune starlet Vanna White in cover without veils, so after all not great problems. Apparently.

It would be a comical book this one because the boys try all their best, spending a lot of money, for searching to buy this magazine but this book wants also to let us reflect, not just smile.

In this little town of New Jersey there is a store owns by a certain Zelinsky and his daughter Mary.
It sells a lot of stuff magazines and newsmagazines included.

Billy Marvin the protagonist of this story is not at all great at school. At home he has a PC. If you lived your teen age age in the 1980s you will remember BASIC, Pascal, Cobol lessons at school.

Well: It wasn't just a story of codes. It was possible also to create games with that PCs and well Billy wants to do this in his life.
A primordial Internet thanks to CompuServe.

Billy thanks to Mary the daughter of mr Zelinsky  discover that there is a competition for the best video-game.

The one Billy developed lately pretty embarrassing. It was the imagine of this naked girl and his friends still complaining because not yet perfect.

Maybe The Impossible Fortress a best choice.

The Impossible Fortress is a video-game of a princess and someone who should reinstitute her freedom after a long fight.

Billy abandoned by his dad, is grown up by his mom with a lot of sacrifices. At school he is misunderstood by teachers because not receiving good votes teachers think that he is incompetent, while simply Billy wants to do something else in his life and also, if he put all his energy for the creation of video-games he can't study a lot.

Billy & Friends want to obtain in a way or in another Playboy prohibited to them but how can they do that?

They ask to Billy of stealing the secret code of access of the store of mr Zelinsky. Billy in fact goes there every day for working with Mary at the development of the video game The Impossible Fortress.

And he promise to his friends to do that.

A lot of problems for Billy but Billy won't be the only one who is hiding something important.

Mary will also hide him a secret too big for being shared with lightness.


I can't tell you that you will just find lightness reading this book, because the life of this teenagers very complicated, with problems at home, at school, with love and sex, society, relationship and with the construction of their own character and identity.

I can just tell you that this book is a jewel because it portrays a year the 1987 and a society perfectly.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon &Schuster for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

The Book Review of Death a classic murder mystery by Richard King

It's the third book of a trilogy called: The Bookshop Mysteries The Book Review of Death a classic murder mystery by Richard King published by Bonnier Zaffre and it's not just a book about some murders.

It's also a great book if you want to understand how it works the book industry from the inside and how can count a review of an influential reviewer.

In general publishing houses asks to be honest in our reviews, but what happen when a big reviewer for maybe just destroying a writer, or for being nasty try all his best to sink his latest book and its launch? We are not anymore in the field of: "I tell what I think, let's hope I won't be damaged by my ideas." We are in the field of being nasty for being nasty and for destroying other people's lives.

We don't speak of a common reviewer with a little audience and unable so to make a great difference but of someone able to make THAT difference, and so to change the opinion of a lot of people, masses, who, once out will go to a bookstore for buying or leave there that certain book because of the word written by a reviewer.

It can be a big problem.

Hate, is in general, a big problem because bring with it other problems, murders as well.

The story told  in first person. The protagonist of this story owns the Dickens & Compagnie Bookstore in Montreal.

Being the third episode of the series, and I didn't read the previous books, the narrator tell to the new readers something of the past: at first in the first episode, accused of a murder and slowly when discovered the real killer, he became a friend with Gaston the local police man who follows the investigations.

Thanks to him he met also his companion Gisele, the sister of Gaston although at the moment their relationship is moody.

Dornal is the book reviewer. For certain reason he find joy and happiness destroying, being another maybe missing author, the career of who, for a reason or another arrived at the top.

That night, someone obviously tired of this behavior, kill him.

The body discovered only the day after and at first. The man strangled and left reversed on the laptop,  at first supposed that he was sleeping.
Once discovered the truth, detective Gaston will return in the scene of the murder for sorting out this problem.

Many the people who could have wanted the departure of the man but the first suspected will be Ben.

I love this book because times are perfect. There is no rush, there are according to my point of view the times of a murder's investigation, not frenetic but precise and there is the element surprise.

Enjoy this book and enjoy what you can learn from it!

I thank NetGalley and Bonnier Zaffre for this book.

 

Anna Maria Polidori

Five Ways to Cook Asparagus (and other recipes) The art and practice to Making Dinner by Peter Miller

Ironic, nice, brilliant, Five Ways  to Cook Asparagus (and other recipes) The art and practice to Making Dinner by Peter Miller a book published by ABRAMS this April 11 plenty of wonderful dinner recipes.

Mr Miller owns a book store in Seattle and in the past published a book: "Lunch at the Shop" where he explained what and how to cook while we are working. I know the feeling, because I experienced it a lot of times.

What it is important to do, says mr Miller is eating well, diversifying food.

Some people think that dinner is "a more difficult chapter if compared to lunch" in terms of preparation.

Miller affirm that the main trick, for someone busy like him and so in the rush is to keep in the house fundamental ingredients. The rest it's up to us and our fantasy.

Of course you can't miss to cook veggies, from asparagus to the rest of all the wonderful green food you can see at the supermarket or in the local farm where you buy them if of course you can't grow them directly.

We will discover the joy of eating great food, passing through good condiments like olive oil and our italian parmigiano Reggiano.

You will meet wonderful recipes of rice, five ways to cook spaghetti, I love them! or also recipes with asparagus, one of the first veggies we meet once winter is over, broccoli, carrots, onion, and so on.
Everytime important tips for cooking and for create wonderful dishes.

In the book a chapter dedicated at the base of our meals focusing the attention on legumens, rice, pasta with yummy recipes.

Of course Miller won't forget meat, fish, and desserts and also more elaborated meals for the week-end.

It' s a consolation not being alone in this thought: thinking that cooking and baking is a magical art, as also add Miller at the end of his book.

You must "feel" to me the ingredients for having a real eatable dish.You must feel love, joy, desire.

As Miller says at the end of the book: "The most important detail is you for you must believe that it matters, that it is vital, and that you can do it. You must believe that there is even some magic to it, that a meal well cooked is a gift and a protection and an honor - and an integral part of each day."


I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori 

Patrick and the President written by Ryan Tubridy and illustrated by P.J.Lynch

On June 26 1963, so 54 years this June President John Fitzgerald Kennedy visited Ireland for four days, ending his trip on June 29.

115 years before President Kennedy's trip to Ireland his great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy left Ireland for the New World searching for more luck. 
The President said during a speech on June 27 1963 in Ireland, New Ross: "I am glad to be here. It took 115 years to make this trip. And six thousand miles. And three generations. And I am proud to be here."

This years the celebrations starting on May 29th 2017 of the centenary of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's birth.

The idea of this fictional, tender, warm and beautiful book published by Candlewick Patrick and the President written by Ryan Tubridy host of The Late Late Show and illustrated by P.J.Lynch is condensed in these important moments for President Kennedy and for Ireland and Irish as well.

Illustrations are more real than pictures, the narration is at treats moving,  creating at the same time great expectations as well. You will feel you are part of the story living the excitement of Patrick's Irish family.

It's a tender story, beautiful, genuine, fictional but intense and very felt.

The author and the illustrator imagined a common Irish family and their little boy - and their family dog as well - all excited for the arrival of the President in their little town of Dunganstown in county Wexford.

In this town there are still relatives of the Kennedys and the President stopped by for a feast organized outside by Mary Ryan her distant cousin with scones, sandwiches, Swiss rolls and tea on June 27 1963.

It's this one the day taken in consideration by Ryan Tubridy and P.J.Lynch.

In the morning of June 27 1963 the second day of the Presidential trip of John Kennedy local teachers of the various school organized some chorus. Their school-children  sang to the President various songs, including:  "The boys of Wexford" one of the songs he loved the most.

It's a precious story because I found in it the old enchantment and dream that maybe in our times we have a bit lost for very important people, and that's why I consider this book a real treasure. We see the story from Patrick's eyes but also from the eyes of his family and it is amazingly beauty.

It was an age I didn't read a story so touching, remarkable and moving.

I loved the sunny illustrations, the open smiles, the joy and happiness of  Patrick's parents and the powerful picture of the family in 1960s with its joy, hope for the future, enthusiasm.

The trepidation when on April 1963 announced that President Kennedy was coming to Ireland.

From schools and teachers busy to prepare the chorus to the President, passing through the same students all excited for the big novelty and Patrick's family with a special invitation to attend the event with the President at Mary Ryan's family's house, Patrick focused the weeks before the arrival of the President only in rehearsals.
Chorus, songs, Swiss roll responsibilities.

He didn't want to do any kind of bad figure with John Kennedy.
Big emotions, unforgettable, I loved the illustrations of an amazed Patrick close to a sunny, smiling John Kennedy and the final hug of his parents.
 
John Fitzgerald Kennedy is still the only elected catholic President of the USA, and he represented for all the Americans and for the entire world a new hope for a better future.

His contagious smile, his affability, his vision of the world.

The story of Kennedy in USA started in 1840s with the horrible potato famine. Extreme poverty eight of John Kennedy's great-grandparents left Ireland, immigrating to Boston, Massachusetts.

We know the rest of this story. John Kennedy and his brother Robert became very successful politicians like also Ted Kennedy. The clan Kennedy one of the most influential of the USA.
The realization of the American Dream.

The memory of this trip of President Kennedy in Ireland in the tender illustrations by P.J. Lynch and in the words, excited, plenty of enthusiasm and joy by Ryan Tubridy.

You must buy this book, for you for your children because it's necessary to return to feel the dream of a better world plenty of joy and enthusiasm and of...dreamers.

At the same time you will introduce to your children President Kennedy, telling them his personal story, and what he meant for the USA and the world. It will be an occasion for talking of history sharing at the same time a lot of fun! And if your are a teacher occasion couldn't be more captivating than this one because children will be all interested to hear from you the adventures lived by Patrick, the good little Irish boy who tried all his best for meeting and shaking his hand with one of them: an Irish born in the USA and now the most powerful man of the world.

I thank Candlewick and Mr. P.J.Lynch for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

The Yellow Envelope by Kim Dinan

The Yellow Envelope    a book written by travel writer  Kim Dinan tell the amazing adventures spent by her and her husband in the world. In a different world less civilized but maybe more real.

The Yellow Envelope, incredible to believe, rejected by publishing houses something like 100 times before to being embraced by Sourcebooks a publishing house opened to tell at the world histories of people very diversified.

The launch of The Yellow Envelope just few days ago. You can find the book in your local bookstore or Amazon.

It's a story this one I feel very close.

Days ago in fact I lunched with some neighbors and very close friends. We said all good-bye to a childhood friend and her husband. They decided to leave their big city, Milan for going to live to Cambodia.
A big change.
I was very worried for them and I remember I saw more negative than positive sides of this choice and I am sorry for it, I am still complaining with myself, because I projected on them all my doubts and perplexities not being at all psychologically helpful.

Reading this book I understood that there is a lot of richness in the exploration of the world.

Most people for the most different reasons decide to drastically  change their existence.

Kim Dinan didn't have any financial problems like also her husband Brian. Just she didn't love anymore her house, her job, her reality.

Her western structured civilized life where certainties were spending an entire day closed in office, in a cubicle, and then back home, in a safe home the couple decided to buy with all themselves and restored completely. Although these blessings, Kim felt that no: they were not enough to her for being happy. She wasn't searching for a comfort-zone, it became intolerant to her, she was searching for exploration, for a face-to.face with the most unknown and sometimes also dangerous world.

Kim wanted to travel, to discover the world, a different world. To write about what she would have seen and lived.

Kim was searching for a world able to enrich her spiritual life with new meaning, a world able to let her become a good travel writer and a different human being.

Her husband Brian followed her without hesitations.

In the process of selling the house once invited by a couple and for dinner this couple changed maybe the course of their future trips influencing also their future: they donated them in fact a yellow envelope with 1000 dollars with three rules:

- # Rule 1- Don't over think it. It's important not to think too much of the best thing that you can do with this money. Listen to your soul and try to do your best with this money, giving away money in any way that makes you come a life.

Rule # 2- Share your experience: people you decided to donate your money at, and why. But just what you want to tell. Keep the rest for yourself.

Rule 3 #: Don't feel pressured to give it all away.

With this touching gesture from their Portland's friends and the melancholy of their beautiful house sold with all the furniture inside, apart few journals and other little items saved, the couple Kim and Brian ready for leaving for Ecuador.

They arrived at La Brib.

They needed to keep clean the place where they stayed in and their main rule was to teach to children, something Kim does with pleasure although not knowing spanish at the end will confess that these children donated her much more than not what she donated them.

Agatha one of the first children interested (at the beginning the example of  the "tax driver") by the couple for the project: The Yellow Letter.

Agatha was in fact orphan of dad from a year and she was very sad, although money not only couldn't reinstitute her dad to her, but couldn't also remove the sadness in her heart. Then there was another old couple who needed a pair of shoes.

Kim felt during this process melancholy for her choice: the desire of returning to the USA sometimes strong, although she understood that what she was doing was good.

It was in Peru, La Mancora that the frictions with Brian became more serious, and where also another couple of friends started to develop problems, while another couple seemed to stay very well together. There wasn't any kind of great sex since Brian and Kim left Portland. Brian a closed man, someone who didn't want to tell his feelings to her and what truly believed of all of this story as well. The couple together from more than a decade, surely Kim knew her husband a lot and understood that he wasn't feeling great.

The couple visited Titicaca and then moved to Lima, but they also passed through other beautiful mountains like Pachatata and Pachamama, the Mother and Father Earth ending up at Amantani's island.

These populations live also of a system of collectivism. Children who wants to go to school as it happens in every other rural place in the world must go somewhere else for attending the other grades of school. For this reason to the local people of Amantini Island tourists are so important.


For some people little money mean a lot and for Veronica, another destinatary of the yellow envelope it meant richness. There is in fact a great disparity or there was, between our living system and the living-system in South America.

Sure the relationship between Brian and Kim is at the same time not going on well.
Brian quit his job and followed his wife in the world for traveling but both appear at the same time miserable.

Kim discover that maybe she doesn't want to be married anymore but Brian will continue to follow her in her trips.

After some brief moments in Germany the couple afford to India.
India is a beautiful place, absolutely, stunning for spirituality. Sure not the cleanest place of this world. Animals respected as people because Indian thinks that animals are reincarnation of their dear ones.

Many adventures and not just in India but in Nepal, Indonesia, with also a great surprise at the end of the book.

The Yellow Envelope speaks of personal growth through a radical change of life-style and if we want, certainties. The certainties of routine, work, friends, habits, customs, put behind for starting to research something new.

At the same time, the couple of Brian and Kim will grow up more solid experiencing with their same eyes what it mean to populations less lucky than them The Yellow Envelope and the word solidarity.

To some of them maybe it was a change of destiny, a big help for their children, or something able to make the difference in better.

Wherever they went, Brian and Kim didn't never forget the lesson of The Yellow Envelope.
Random act of Kindness as remark the author  very important in a world desperately in need of it.


I thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks for this book

Anna Maria Polidori

Thank you Candlewick!!! You made my day!

I am endlessly thankful to Candlewick and in particular to the illustrator P.J. Lynch for these four wonderful books I received today.

Not only they made my day but they made me also incredibly joyous and happy.

I contacted time ago  Mr Lynch asking for these four books to read and review because I noticed he illustrated all of them.

I was absolutely amazed by an imagine in his website of his illustrated edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

A book, this one, I read two times per year crying and  hoping every time  that some people like Scrooge can change their mind, starting to be good.


I didn't receive any answer and I thought that my e-mail not received.

What a great surprise! this book package today.

Thanks a lot to Candlewick, their trust, many thanks! it means a lot to me, and all the staff with which I just hope to start a great collaboration.

In the following weeks my reviews!


Many thanks again!



Anna Maria Polidori

52 Amazing Things That Became True of You the Moment You Trusted God by Stephen Kuhn

52 Amazing Things That Became True of You the Moment You Trusted God by Stephen Kuhn is a book published today by FaithWords that will help you to develop your relationship with God ad Jesus Christ.

The author remarks that when we were born we were born with the original sin because we were in Adam, although it's indispensable to think differently: we are in Christ now and Christ choose us personally orchestrating our life, helping us in moment of needs.


In these 52 inspirational, profound reflections you will find all the best resource for feeling that Christ is close to you and He is helping you in every moment of your life. You can use this book when you feel the necessity and when you search for some answer and you want to feel Christ more close to you.

The author closes the book with this quote by Brennan Manning:

Define yourself radically as one
beloved by God.
This is the true self. Every other
identity is illusion



I thank NetGalley and FaithWords for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

The Seven Letters Her Story is Lost in Time by Jan Harvey

The Seven Letters Her Story is Lost in Time is a beautiful novel written by Jan Harvey.

The story tell the adventures lived by Colette, a french girl assigned as a maid in a brothel to Paris by a commando of the Resistance.
Claudette feels something for Yves the leader of the commando. She is not prepared to afford to a big city, but she does it for patriotic spirit.

The girl, young and inexperienced jump in a let's say "colored" world where everyday she meet German men in search for sex in the special house owned by Madame Odile.

Our days: Freddy March disappears tragically. He was a close friend of Hat, Connie Webber's friend.
Freddy and Hat people of a certain age, Hat devastated by the departure of his friend a famous  playwright. His life spent surrounded by wagons of interesting people, plays, theaters, creativity and of course materials like books, papers, letters, documents, pictures. Hat can't do anything alone and she doesn't want to do that all alone asking to Connie - and later Connie asking to Matt, a potential new boyfriend for her - if she can help her to put some order in Freddy's house.

While they are cleaning a special room where Freddy loved to stay during the day they find various letters and a picture of a famous actress, remarking the German origin of Freddy.

Connie and Matt are curious. No one close to them knew a lot of Freddy's past. He grew up motherless, and without to know who was his dad. And plus: German?

The story is too much intriguing for leaving it alone and so Matt and Connie motivated to discover much more will afford for work  to Paris where they can start a good investigation that will bring them to a shocking reality and a past no one would have imagined for the various protagonists of this book.

The Seven Letters is a story about the complexity of life in time-war, when certainties gone and sentiments like fear, diffidence replace the dear old values leaving once the war will be finished unrecognizable places and more matured and experienced human being.
It's also a very fresh book about solidarity, friendship, first loves,  delusions,

Death and life, secrets and hidden, buried stories and people mixed together in a wonderful story where the present will give peace and justice to the past.

Freddy didn't spend all his life searching for the truth and his origins. Other ones will close the circle of Freddy's life once gone and this, will re-create the powerful connection and cement existing between death and life, life and death.

The author visited the various places in Paris where the story is set and the book is dedicated to the women of The Chabanais.

I thank Matador Troubador for the book review copy.


Anna Maria Polidori