Prayers for a Womans Heart Creative Devotional

Prayers for a Womans Heart Creative Devotional is a beautiful, coloring book, plenty of devotionals, 52 in total, available for you this at the beginning of October by Barbour.
This book has been thought for giving to any woman beauty, relaxation, hope, comfort, and a beautiful, inspiring book where to praying, where to searching for some peace after a long and stressing day; a book in grade to let you discover with grace a creative moment of relaxation for you, God and your fantasy.
Every devotional open with some verses from the Scriptures, then there is an inspiring religious comment.

I thank NetGalley and Barbour Press for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

God is Good (all the Time): Devotional Inspiration for Life's Ups & Downs by Rae Simons

God is Good (all the Time): Devotional Inspiration for Life's Ups & Downs  by Rae Simons   is a beautiful and inspiring book by Barbour.
It is difficult to think sometimes that God is good all the times; it's impossible to understand why certain things happen in our life or in the life of our dear ones and we think: where was God?
In a society less devoted to praying, and less believer than the one of the past, understanding God's way is more difficult. That's why there is this precious book by Barbour.
I suggest you to read it in company, while you pick up the perfect theme for your day or the moment; discussing parts of these reflections with other people, sharing thoughts, and the moment will be helpful; at the same time you will create a God's moment, where to see, where to capture that essence: that God is good all the Time.

I thank NetGalley and Barbour for this eBook.

Anna Maria Polidori

Elements of Surprise Our mental Limits and the Satisfaction of Plot by Vera Tobin

Do you want to discover why we are so delighted, when we go to the cinema for seeing a movie, or when, reading a book, we agree because of the happy end? Are you curious to discover how, our various mental options, while reading or watching a movie, are  directed in the direction that the creatives want to give to our mind?

If, for work or for pleasure, you want to discover more of what there is behind certain mental choices in literature or movies, there is nothing better than: Elements of Surprise Our mental Limits and the Satisfaction of Plot by Vera Tobin. Published by Harvard University Press, the author explains brilliantly how, a beautiful story, a mental construction of an intuition becomes a wonderful tale or movie but also how, certain mental directions, can be appreciated or not, - and why - by readers or viewers.

The analyses of beloved works like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, The Sixth Sense, a novel about Sherlock Holmes, and many other beloved books and movies will be revelatories of our mental process.

The author will also express some considerations regarding rereading.
It is opinion of a lot of academics that the first reading of a classic or a book in general is not sufficient for appreciating, understanding it and that rereading would be the best thing to do; after all a real reader should be classified a rereader.

A rereader is someone who wants not just to appreciate a book he/she had previously read but someone absolutely interested to add new shades at the story he previously read maybe too stressed for understanding the most of that in the previous reading. Not only: rereading in different ages of our life gives more profundity.

Tobin will also take in consideration the so-called curse of knowledge. A novel, a movie is a mental invention, in most cases a very well structured work. The readers, or viewers in the while have built during their existence a consistent amount of knowledge, knowledge given by studies, reading,  life, experience and so they will "read the book" or "see the movie" using their own interpretation and expectations based on their sense of the reality.

Beautiful book, structured in eight chapter, it is a captivating, intense, interesting reading.


I love the cover, with Alice in Wonderland as protagonist. More than any other character she projects the reader in a land of fantasy.

Highly recommended to everyone and in particular to bookworms and cinema-lovers.

Happy reading!

I thank Harvard University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

A Match Made in Heaven? by Sun Chara

A  Match Made in Heaven? by Sun Chara is a beautiful, sunny and funny book exactly like the author who wrote it. Sun Chara starts with a special wish: "To all the believers … May you catch a glimpse of the angels at work in your life …" And yes, Angelic presences will be spotted here and there in this book, thanks to Mirabella, but you will also find a lot of action-humor, comical situations, and  the happy end, because Sun Chara's books and life are not a sad land, but a beautiful and exciting place where to spend happy time. Yes, also when there are problems; the author is in grade to see the good side of the story in every possible event and it makes the difference. She is a modern Pollyanna.
The story: Samantha Carroll is a girl ready for the big step: she will marry in a few minutes Johnny. A pretty agitated scenario, two years later, a big belly, Sam is waiting and the big discovery through a letter: the couple is not formally married. Sam's mother believes at the appearances and that's why Sam is so devastated. If she will learn that she is not yet married...And with that belly... Her friends...Panic.
Sam discovers that fixing the problem is not so simple. Plus, a man liked  by Sam's mother Michael Scott is always in the mouth of Johnny. With him, Sam would have a different life. Sam's in love with Johnny. Johnny doesn't have money, but Samantha loves him so badly. Canine Resort Kennels their new "estate." No electricity, mouses around, Sam thought that the beginning maybe could have been better. In the while, Sam knows Mirabella, the angel sent by God for fixing the problem of this couple...
Substantially this sunny book by Sun Chara focuses on these points: the help of God through his angels (I am a strong angel-believers so I start to thank the author for this super-natural touch) and the difficulties that sometimes two people born in different environments meet when they decide to build an existence together. Sun tries all his best for let us see the big gap, differences  and distances of the two protagonist and why the existence for Sam would be better maybe economically with another man close to her; difficulties for Johnny are many; but, at the same time Sun wants to remark with great strength love,attraction, appreciation, existing in this couple like also the arrival of a baby.

Wonderful romantic book, I highly suggest it to you. Read it, for finding a happy land, a good place where to live in and because the author is a born-optimistic person in grade to project her positive vibes in your heart. We need optimism and good people in our daily life so badly!


I thank Sun Chara for this eBook.

Anna Maria Polidori

The Hope Jar Book One Free Extended Preview by Wanda E.Brunstetter

The Hope Jar Book One Free Extended Preview by Wanda E.Brunstetter  is another masterpiece of a story-teller in grade, each time, to touch the heart of readers in profundity.

The story starts with Sara Murray in Newark, New Jersey. This girl is 25 years and she lost her mother just few weeks ago. Sara doesn't know her mother's grand-parents, or other important members of her family like the name of her dad, because her mother has always kept secret, for herself, this part of her personal story.
Sara grew up, anyway, happily; maybe as it happens often, she didn't accept completely the new companion of her mother, the arrival of a brother, but her life is solid.
Sara found in a special place an important letter, where her mother revealed to her the name and last names of her grand-parents. So...She isn't alone in this world. She sends them a letter immediately. Arranging a visit...

Michelle lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a devastating life. She was abused by her parents when little, she, once abandoned that disgraceful family, tried to going on all alone; at the moment she lost her job and she needs to abandon another time the place where she is living in because she can't pay the rent anymore; her boyfriend, known just a month ago is an abusive guy...
What a messy life.

One day an elderly couple of Amish searching for their grand-daughter  meet along their way, Michelle.
"Are you Sara, for case?"

Michelle knows the reputation of Amish like their drastic choices of living without the latest technological devices, in an old-fashioned way and world, but, after all, who cares? Why not to tell to this couple an innocent lie? She doesn't have a place where to stay, she doesn't have, no, better, after all she hasn't never had a family, so why not to do that?
And she answers: yes. Yes, I am Sara.

What a dream to Michelle living for once a peaceful life, in a real bedroom, and in a house where calm, harmony, a simple life is in grade to restore a mind and body in constant stress.

Trust me, when I tell you that the peace, benevolence, good atmosphere, beautiful place, healthy work, presence of God, great food, beautiful companu, good and natural contacts with domestic animals discovered at the family of Sara's grand-parents makes the difference in the life of this girl.

I imagined the little things making the difference in the mind of Michelle, restoring her soul, like also a happy future in the Amish community.

You see, my reader, the terrible past of Michelle inspires great benevolence: of course she told a lie, a lot of lies, a series of unfortunate lies, but Michelle is desperate and these reassuring people are the best choice to her. She is interested to help them in a daily base, baking, cooking, cleaning up the stables of the animals.
I imagine the horror-family where she was born in, and I also try to imagine this girl in an harmonic family; a joy she hasn't never experienced.

And I think that everyone should be happy.

I can't stop to think that maybe in the next book this elderly couple also when they will discover the mountain of lies told by Michelle won't leave her alone but will help her, keeping her safe from the horrors of her past.
After all, Sara, will understand.

Superlative.

Highly, highly recommended!

I thank Netgalley and Barbour for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

Lessons from the Lobster Eve Marder's Work in Neuroscience by Charlotte Nassim

Lessons from the Lobster Eve Marder's Work in Neuroscience by Charlotte Nassim is the beautiful biography of ms Marder a neuroscientist who studied for more than 40 years lobsters and their neurons; published this June by MIT press every book by MIT is not just captivating but interesting and entralling; this one, if you love neuroscience will be spectacular.

The story of ms.Marder is fascinating.
In love for reading, nature, animals, she had a great anger for learning since she was very little. She studied with success and then, few girls still had that priviledge, because in the 1960s, she started to work as a researcher in the biology department of the university of San Diego.

Our brain counts ninety billion available neurons interconnected via synapses. Lobsters, the animals Eve Marder studied for a life have a modest number of neurons, just thirty in total, but studying them in profundity, neuromodulation, homeostasis, neuronal network, so, the life, behaviors of lobsters, Marder understood that her discoveries could open other intuitions for the study and research of the dynamics of human brain.
From 1978 ms. Marder has run her own laboratory at Brandeis University.
President of the Society for Neuroscience in 2008, she won a lot of awards including the 2016 Kavli Award in Neuroscienceand the 2013 Gruber Prize in Neuroscience.

I thank MIT Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Pancake-Money by Finn Bell

In general I don't tend to read and review thrillers, but I found Pancake-Money by Finn Bell for people in love for the genre, particularly captivating for writing-style, energetic and explosive, informative and detailed, fresh and plenty of dialogues; dialogues as the ones you would hear if you would be sat watching on TV your favorite crime/thriller TV series or fiction; it won't be boring time, because if you are in love for these stories, with this book you will find what you search for. Everything starts in the so-called Pancake Day; Bobby Ress and mr Pollo the detective  follows  the case of a priest murdered in a horrible way.
Just it happens that this sequence of horrible murders will continue, but, at first, no one will understand the reason.

I thank online book club for this eBook.

Anna Maria Polidori

Praying with Jane 31 Days through the Prayers of Jane Austen by Rachel Dodge

Praying with Jane 31 Days through the Prayers of Jane Austen by Rachel Dodge is a new book by Bethany House released this October 4.

160 pages, if you are a fan of Jane Austen, beloved author of masterpieces like Emma, Sense and Sensibility, you will be thrilled to reflect thanks to these three prayers written directly by Jane Austen to God; each of them, verse after verse explained in a modernized vision, starting with a meditation, some anecdotes of Jane Austen's life, an invitation to pray and then a prayer. Jane's father George was an Anglican clergyman and the family took pretty seriously prayers during the various moments of the day as also happened everywhere in the past, with many prayers and long moments dedicated to God.
I found this book original and very well done and I think that it is a good gift for all Jane Austen's passionate avid readers and estimators but also for all the other people who wants to pray accompanied by the gentle touch and nature by Austen.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Bethany House for this eBook.

Anna Maria Polidori

Diary of an Ogre (Dear Diary) text by Valeria Davila, Monica Lopez, Illustrations by Laura Afuerrebehere, translated by David Warriner

Diary of an Ogre (Dear Diary) text by Valeria Davila, Monica Lopez, Illustrations by Laura Afuerrebehere, translated by David Warriner is a cute children's book released this Aug.28th for all that kids and children fascinated by the world of this terrifying mythological character.
Upset because of the misinformation that there is about his category an ogre promises of starting a new school. He will teach original, pretty felt and loved topics, appreciated by all little ogres. But why starting this school?
Because, the ogre writes at the end: "Training little ogres is going to put a smile on my face and make the world a more horrible place!"

Very well illustrated, this children's book is so funny, illustrations are beautiful and terrifying!
I am joking :-)

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley for this eBook.

Anna Maria Polidori

A Tale of Two Hearts: Book 2 in Once Upon a Dickens Christmas by Michelle Griep

A Tale of Two Hearts: Book 2 in Once Upon a Dickens Christmas by Michelle Griep is a moving love-story by Barbour.
Every chapter starts with a quote from a beloved book by Charles Dickens and the novel is surrounded by a Dickensian spirit.
London 1853, more precisely Golden Egg: Mina Scott is the daughter of Jasper Scott, owner of the inn. Avid reader of Dickens's books, (although her dad doesn't want that she reads because according to his point of view, she wouldn't find any man) Mina Scott secretly loves William.
William stops by at that inn once in a week for some ale.
One day he asks her a big pleasure: to become his wife for deceit.
After all William thinks, Mina is culturally prepared; she will avoid bad figures.
The purpose of William? He would want to be the heir chosen by uncle Barlow; mr Barlow is a man with a great property and pretty wealthy; Will has a serious problem and for this reason he is searching to become the heir.
But, you know: it would be perfect, considering that in the past he hasn't been a saint, to introduce a reassuring good girl, a wife, in grade to "present him" a good reputation as a good man at the eyes of his uncle Barlow.
Mina is in love for Will and of course she loves to make him happy although she understands that not all the people involved in this story are so clear.
She also understands visiting that estate various times, that more than luxury it is important to be beauty inside, it is important to be good and honest people. This important message will also be launched by Will, when he will decide to help someone lost.
With the time Mina understands why Will wanted to be so badly the heir, and although this story starts with a crush, a deceit it will end with a wonderful happy end for all the protagonists, and all the problems will be, for once, like in a dream, or better, I should write, in a book, sorted out.

Keep close to you a box of Kleenex because some passages of this book are truly moving.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Barbour for this eBook.

Anna Maria Polidori

Eye by Marianne Micros

Eye by Marianne Micros is a beautiful, enchanting, true book published by Guernica Editions about Greek folklore, customs, traditions and the so-called old-world. In the past people were more connected with the natural world and they believed in witches, fairies, the enchanted world, and the sphere connected with the unknown often spoused or the devil and creatures associated to him, or fairies.
This book is dedicated to Alice, the mother's author dead at the age of 91. She was an healer and someone in grade to repel the evil eye.
Let's start by here: why this title?

It was tradition, also in our land, to think that someone could curse with his/her eyes someone from the beginning (but people could be cursed also once adults) and so this baby would have always had a special eye, the evil eye; or someone, wishing him all the bad of this world, would have seen modified his/her future; in this case you searched for a healer in grade to see if it was true; they used water and oil and if the answer was positive the healer would have broken this curse with special prayers, herbs and lotions.
In this sense the first tale, involving a kid affected by this dangerous eye will reveal hidden answers able to be known just if the person had  that terrible eye.
In other tales we will discover the love of a mother for a magical creature, an intruder of the magical world in their family, while her son was back after 20 years of absence. The answer will be drastic.
Another short tale will focus on a girl transformed in a cow by Hera because jealous of the attention that Zeus, a great play-boy, (with all the respect) dedicated her.
In other tales we will meet  difficult realities, painful ones, sometimes, existences surrounded by mystery and superstition but every tale is magical, pure magical, trust me.
Go for it if you love these kind of books and stories. The stories, are narrated with the language and style of a story-teller; plus I love this book so badly because part of these stories are part of our folklore as well.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Guernica Editions for the ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

The Christmas Prayer by Wanda E. Brunstetter

The Christmas Prayer is the new acclaimed novel by Wanda E. Brunstetter, published at the beginning of September by Barbour.
The most beloved writer of Amish fiction this time will present to her readers the perfect novel for Christmas; perfect for thinking that the festivity will realize all their dreams, including the most impossible ones.
Independence, Missouri, 1850. Cynthia Cooper and her mother are leaving for California in company of other people. Cynthia, orphan of her dad who left both of them penniless, is constricted to marry, once arrived in California, Walter, a man she doesn't love at all for character. The girl keeps a diary for all the time she will spend in this, as she says: "2000-mile journey west."
The girl, understands during the trip that no, Walter is not the proper man for her, for too many reasons, and she prays that her destiny could change, also thinking that that one isn't the best solution for her. Of course she doesn't want to upset her mother and she is ready to marrying Walter for making her happy.
Of course she doesn't want to upset her mother. Walter would mean the solution of their financial problems.
The day of Christmas all her problems will be sorted out and Cynthia will realize her project of happiness with someone else close to her with which she discovers in the while, more affinities.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Barbour Press for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

What was Literary Impressionism? by Michael Fried

Let's imagine the Impressionist's period: canvases of Monet, Manet,  Van Gogh were appreciated because in grade to capture the instant, nature, outdoor life of people. Like a picture taken distractedly, Impressionists reported with dramatic truth the reality that they were living while it was happening, while it was in motion.

Let's imagine writers and the big question that this artistic movement created into their souls: would they have been in grade to do the same using pen, ink and paper instead of a brush and a canvas so that the reality, the visualization of a scene would have been perfectly possible while reading their books?

A bunch of them did it with great success as explains in What was Literary Impressionism? Michael Fried, in this new book by Harvard Press opening with his original theory maybe a new, different future for these writers. You won't never read them as you did in the past after that you will have read the observations and theories of mr.Fried.

A dynamic, "interactive book" as you will see, mr. Fried doesn't just speaks of Literary Impressionism, but with passion, devotion, and great enthusiasm keeps this latest work open to everyone, involving the reader in an active and enthusiastic reading of examples, extracts, passages, written letters so that it will be possible to see where it is more present and more real, vivid, the Impressionist's style.
Mr.Fried takes in consideration very known books like also minor plays.
Writers taken in consideration are: Ford, Joseph Conrad, Burroughs, Crane, London and many more.


I thank Harvard University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Facebook Society Losing Ourselves in Sharing Ourselves by Roberto Simanowski translated by Susan H.Gillespie

Facebook Society Losing Ourselves in Sharing Ourselves by Roberto Simanowski translated by Susan H.Gillespie is an illuminating, philosophical but very accessible book regarding  great thematic: where do we go thanks to social medias?
In the past there was reading (personally I continue to prefer this dimension) and reading was good. Very good.When we read we create solid culture, we are absorbed in the story, we remember it because there are no distractions, and we enter magically in another world. We are lost in reading and later, that words, that characters, impressed in that book we read will remain with us, consciously or unconsciously for the rest of our existence.

Social medias and Facebook in particular with its own society where transparency and where socialization should be the most important factor, eradicated other concepts in the society.
That after all we should share with everyone our existence, that maybe we should "sell" it,  metaphorically and non, with other people and..companies.
I was and I still think that the biggest problem of FB is privacy.
I am also on MySpace and the big difference between these two platforms is that MySpace keeps (no sure if it does it anymore) private all messages written to a friend.
Facebook, differently, thinks that we should share ourselves with everyone.
We should search for everyone. Our old schoolmates never seen from an age and who knows which are their thoughts now, what kind of life they built; we should add our co-workers, with sometimes dangerous results, people we don't know, because measuring with our moral values, maybe we think that everyone is as good as we are but...

This book starts from the assumptions that this one is becoming a life not just lived virtually but without a proper connection with reality, although people don't have this perception; as adds the author we are losing an attitude in the past common: concentrated reading and it means that we will become more poor regarding complex thinking that it is one of the pillars, one of the bases of the society.

Delegating our existences to a social media and what that social media thinks of us, means a big problematic.

Without to count,  there is mental dispersion, thanks to social medias also common friendship are altered or it is more difficult to establish a healthy friendship because of the use of social medias.  It's a different world this one created by social medias.

The author then remembers the role of imagines, taken without, in most cases, living the moment, living the present. It's like if temporally we wouldn't be there for living the moment but for let live that one at our smart phone and then for sharing it on Facebook, the biggest archive of our existence.

People are becoming narcissist, they feel a sort of importance for being in a social media, protagonists of their own existences; feeling this sensation of importance is the main cause of something else: to lose the best that there is in life: memories, moments to live with intensity. Without smart phone and Facebook.

Descartes was famous for a phrase: "Cogito Ergo Sum" in our society, adds the author it became: "I narrate, therefore I am" because what it is done realistically it is sometimes a very detailed description of the existence of the person with the paradoxical problems created by it.Not only: the existence is constantly archived. People are archived. Virtual archives.

Solitude increases in a condition where for existing and for being in this world and big virtual stage, the most important thing to do is to share, or to post.

I didn't know why Mark Zuckenberg thought once of creating a social media like Facebook:the author explains it.  Refused by some exclusive Harvard's clubs he thought that it would have been wonderful to create an inclusive place where everyone could tell his/her life-story and where everyone could share pictures and important moments of his/her existence.

Thanka to this frustration he created a big success.

This book reminds us that we mustn't lose ourselves. We are human beings, with a brain and with a possibility: the one of disconnecting the dependence from FB, sharing less and living more.

Very readable book, I am sure that you will find it very captivating and absolutely informative.
I just can tell you that I read it in a few hours.

Highly recommended.

I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

3-Minute Devotions from the Proverbs Wisdom for Women by Barbour Staff

3-Minute Devotions from the Proverbs Wisdom for Women by Barbour Staff is a beautiful, enchanting and poetic book of reflections and meditation about life, starting by a verse for every meditation taken by  the Book of Proverbs, my favorite Biblical book and one of the most wonderful books of all the entire Bible. After the little sacred verse, an encouraging meditation and then a little prayer for Lord. For being good, for accepting the life you live, for trying to understand God's desires for your existence and also for understand yourself much better, looking at yourself with God's Eyes.
Bring this precious book wherever you go, after all three minutes of meditation are just a little moment of your busy day to dedicate at yourself and at the divine contact with Lord; but it will make the difference, you will see!


I thank NetGalley and Barbour for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

31 days of Gratitude: Create the Life you Desire by Shilamida

31 days of Gratitude: Create the Life you Desire by Shilamida is one of the most exciting self-help books that you can find around and I highly suggest you to buying it, if you need to develop some aspects of your existence, and if you search for...more gratitude.
Gratitude to give, gratitude to receive.
It's a great self-help book, but also a workbook and journal, you mustn't never forget this: the author doesn't want your passivity, while you are reading it, but enthusiastically wants to stimulate you to write down what you feel, going deep in the profundity of your soul for searching the good that there is in yourself. The gratitude you feel.
Writing down your gratitude will be a first step for understand yourself if discomforted by some situations that you are living; if you are discouraged.
Shilamida will be in grade not just to add that spark in your life that you deserve so badly, but also to propose you of discovering by yourself why you should be grateful in this life.
Shilamida examines all the possible areas of your existence where maybe there are problems, shadows, worries offering answers, suggesting of being positive, thinking positive, because there won't be abundance if you complain; there won't be success if you don't believe in yourself, there won't be harmony if you don't live in peace.
Gratitude is important because it is the first step for let you appreciate life, people close to you and your life itself.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

La Casa di June, June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Complicated, absorbing, pretty stressing, sad, captivating. It's this and more La Casa di June or June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore . Published by Marsilio Editori, I felt a powerful attraction when I discovered this book because of the title and plot. I love stories about houses, old houses, and hidden secrets.

But first of all: do houses have a soul? Of course they have a soul; of course they absorb the mood of their people, their loves, their hates, their discussions, their amiability, harmony, hospitality.
A house has a soul and she influences its people; she loves them, she hates them; Two Oaks will be one of the protagonists of this book.

St.Jude, Ohio: an apparent common story this one; the grand-mom, June, of the protagonist, Cassie, dies and leaves the house at her niece.

After a month from her arrival, the house is still in miserable conditions and Cassie is unsecure about the future of the house, because she is work-less, she broke up with Jim her boyfriend.

One day, someone urgently rings at the bell of Two Oaks, and Cassie discovers thanks to this person, a good-looking man called Nick that she surprisingly inherited wagons of million of dollars and properties around the world thanks to an actor, Jack Montgomery, passed away some weeks before. A stranger to her. Never met him, never seen him. Why this?

The arrival of Tate Montgomery, Jack's daughter, who peacefully wants to try to discover if realistically Cassie is the daughter of a son her dad had had while he was working in St.Jude in 1955, will be saluted like a dream by Cassie. She admires Tate from a life.
It is interesting this book for understand how the life around an actress or an actor is structured and organized; the book is spectacularly detailed. From food eaten by the star, to the rest of her day.

At the same time Cassie remembers her granny June and also her grand-dad: two morigerated common people. Possible that her grand-dad wasn't the dad of her dad? Possible that granny June lived with a secret like this one for all her life?

While the protagonists of this story will search for answers reading old letters, contacting old people, trying to reconstruct the summer of 1955 when a troupe from Hollywood afforded to St.Jude, the book will tell us also what happened in 1955 in the little town of St.Jude.

1955: Jack Montgomery and Diane DeSoto are arrived to St. Jude for filming a movie. Everyone is excited including young June and Lindie. The second one, lesbian, obtains a work as PA on the set and when June will be interested to meet Jack, because she was waiting her boyfriend, but the boyfriend deluded her because he didn't appear to the horizon, she will arrange, although in love for her, all the appointments with him. It will be simple for June, so young and dreaming to fall in love for Jack.

Pity that the game will be discovered and the two girls will be heavily blackmailed.

It's a very sad story but interesting, real because sometimes in this life there are many chains caused by past facts in grade to change a life forever.
The destiny of June and Lindie will always be connected after that summer of 1955, because of a brutal fact happened in the town, and discovered. Since there, a murder and a birth were kept secrets for an entire life: a destiny of a life, maybe good, maybe bad, who knows? broken and changed forever.

Sometimes, this book teaches, people pay an entire life indirectly or directly for the errors of other people but without any regret.

The description of actors, actresses, sets, parties are vivid, realistic, and pretty well described.

I also found devastating the discovery made at a certain point by Tate regarding the dna. A very strong book, it will leave for sure traces in your soul.

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio Editori for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Grandma Moses Painter by Tom Biracree Introduction Essay by Matina S.Horner

I found at the second-hand bookstore Books for Dogs (but you can also discover great used clothes, shoes, objects for your house at a very cheap price) located in Umbertide and created for helping dogs of various local realities an used book pretty touching, beautiful and extraordinary: Grandma Moses Painter by Tom Biracree Introductory Essay by Matina S. Horner President, Radcliffe College. This biography is part of American Women of Achievement, a collection of 50 books dedicated to the most important ladies who made the difference in the USA published by Chelsea House Publishers.

Anna Mary Robertson was born close to New York in 1860 in a family of farmers. It meant to her a lot of chores and the understanding of the diversified works of a farm.
Anna Mary left her house at 12 years.
Employed at the Whitesides, a rich couple of farmers, childless, she spent there difficult years.
Later, she married Thomas Salmon Moses with which she decided to start an existence in a beauty and big farm in Virginia.
Grandma Moses has had a lot of children; some of them as it happened during that hard times died before to become adults; she was busy, and extra-busy with every kind of chores but in particular with her...butter. Yes, because with the time, her excellent product started to be appreciated, sold and very request with great success.
With a life like this one there was no time for painting, but after the sudden departure of her husband, after that she helped the family of her daughter, disappeared abruptly, at the age of 70s she started it as a form of relaxation.

Her luck and her becoming Grandma Moses as the public knows her, maybe the most loved and appreciated painter of the USA, thanks to a man, Louis Caldor, an engineer.
He stopped  for eating something at Hoosick Falls, a little reality close to Albany,noticing in that local some paintings of Grandma Moses. He started to ask questions of this painter. Who the painter was and so on, fascinated by the simplicity and purity and what he was seeing.
The owner at the drugstore was not so encouraging in this sense: he told him that no one after all appreciated that paintings, or made any kind of great remarks, compliments for their existence in his store. But mr.Caldor knew something else: that a new talent would have been brought at light pretty soon.
He talked with Grandma Moses, asking for more paintings, and from there, and thanks to a big launch in a prestigious art exhibit in NYC, the celebrity "Grandma Moses" became reality. Loved by everyone, including all the American Presidents, stars, Hallmark launched pretty soon greeting cards of Grandma Moses's landscapes.
After all, Grandma Moses arrived in the scene in a particular moment: the end of the last Second World War conflict: who, better than her could speak at the heart of Americans who wanted to put behind them that conflict?  She was pacific, sober, at the same time, a tranquil, fervid, wise lady. The best example and the best encouraging answer for a Nation in search of peace. A radiant example.

Her paintings, with which in most of them she represented the places where she lived in, enchanted everyone for their simplicity and because they reached the heart of people.

Grandma Moses promised to everyone that she would have reached  100 years and she maintained this promise! Stubborn, she wouldn't never wanted to abandon her beloved house as it happened the latest months of her existence, and once she died in 1961 it was a terrible departure for everyone.

This lady is an example: Grandma Moses suffered of a lot of bones pain caused by the massive chores she did when she was young, a common problem for farmers, but she continued to create her paintings with joy, satisfaction, humility, surrounded by the love of a country in love for her and later, by the entire world.

Highly highly recommended. To everyone.

Anna Maria Polidori

Chronicles of Old Paris Exploring the Historic City of Light by John Baxter

Chronicles of Old Paris Exploring the Historic City of Light by John Baxter is part the the volumes published by Museyon Guides.
Beautiful if you search for a guide not just touristic but historical and in grade, if you will visit Paris, if you plan to do that, if you wish to do that or you are there with this book in your hands, (John Baxter is a passionate of the topic) to let you appreciate at its best a city plenty of history and fascinating stories.
Paris is not a  common city: it's the city of love, art, fashion, sin, Impressionism, food, kings, revolution, emperors, beauty, painting, art.
Through this book you will learn the story of the saint of the city, Denis, but also the sad and unhappy love-story between Heloise and Abelard. Romanticism is abruptly broken by the arrival of De Sade, a man with strong sexual appetites, writer of dangerous, scandalous, erotic books. He spent most of his time in prison for this reason; it couldn't be forgotten the "genial" invention of Guillotin. This man tried his best for invent a method in grade of killing people without too much pain for them, cutting the head with mathematical precision.
Marie Duplessis's life explained with great pathos, like also the success arrived after her departure thanks to Dumas and the fictional character created inspired by her. The Gustave Eiffel's Tower couldn't be forgotten; remembered a genius like Lutrec, but also Marcel Proust, Coco Chanel and her little black dress, Ernest Hemingway to Paris, the Student Revolution of 1968 and much more.
A final section is dedicated at suggestive, beautiful, unforgettable walking tours.

The best guide for a memorable trip to Paris!

Highly recommended.

I thank Museyon for the copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Fabulous The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric by Madison Moore

"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible" said the protagonist of The Portrait of Dorian Gray in the masterpiece by Oscar Wilde. How much important is appearance? How much appearance define us and our way of being and living?
Fabulous The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric by Madison Moore a book published by Yale University Press has the answers to these questions and more.
Who is a beautiful eccentric? asks the author. Someone with his/her proper unique style, someone who escapes the monotony of life and proves to everyone else that he/she can be fabulous wearing eccentric clothes, adding a lot of accessories and developing with the time his/her own style. The author doesn't believe at all at trends. Trends passes, people, well OK also, but we are here, affirm the author for being special also with our style, with our unicity and special touch. 

Four interesting conversations with creatives for closing with one of the most iconic pop stars of our time: Prince.

I thank Yale University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Flash! Photography, Writing, & Surprising Illumination by Kate Flint

Flash! Photography, Writing, & Surprising Illumination by Kate Flint published by Oxford University Press is one of the most beautiful and brilliant book that you can pick up if you are a a curious, passionate reader of photography and in particular of the history of flash as a compenatrating part of the world of images.
I remember the old flash used at the end of 1970s by my relatives when they returned here loving to take wagons of pictures, also during the evenings and in prohibitive conditions. It was a joy. Memories of good time spent together. And a magic, to me, at that time a toddler.
I have always been a picture addicted and I try to bring with me my digital camera and smart phone wherever I go. I am a reporter and I consider pictures for their visual impact one of the best part of our life for remembering moments, instants, people, writing apart.
A picture is this one, also when taken during the night.
It is true that photography is a dream as well.
The invention of photography meant first of all the possibility of impressing an instant of the life of someone for the posterity and eternity. A pic becomes history immediately after taken and it is forever because in grade to immortalize our living, giving back not just dignity, but possibility and power: which one? That the picture could be seen and shared by many other people after a lot of generations.
Places and people could return to be alive, in the tales of folk anxious to remember the dear good old times, admiring customs and traditions maybe lost forever.
Not sure if these thoughts are taken in consideration in an era in which we are immersed in an ocean of pictures, images, and where photography, thanks to smart phones, tablets, is becoming complex, articulated, funny, deformed, hilarious, serious, vintage, painted, colored, retro. In a word: modified and common.

But, flash... what did flash mean for photography?
Well, it was the answer at the discovery of photography and at the other side of that story: the nocturnal aspect at first not immortalized.

How could it be possible to taking pictures during the night? Or in a room without sufficient lights?

We all know, as also explains the author with a brilliant tale, that there are natural flashes. Let's see the ones, flashes of lightning caused by a temporal: but...How could it be possible to recreate a condition, an artificial one in grade to give us answers and a good picture?
Magnesium was the answer. This metal extracted in combination with other ones at first was very expensive. Magnesium and tools in grade to give good pictures and answers, (price decreased with the time) took a lot of time, and...various experiments, as you will read.
The arrival of flash was saluted with joy, surprise, magic, enchantment, retinic problems! and later also with anger, fear.
Yes, because flash was seen also under a different aspect; a picture "stolen" thanks to a flash at a celeb by a paparazzo, or in an embarrassing situation was and still is reason of anger for the violated privacy.

The book analyzes all the aspects of flash, death...including, for arriving at the use of modern flash telling also in a chapter what it meant for reporters the utilization of the more modern flash in the first decades of 1900s (first ones were not so practicals), starting to use it for every kind of news, from a murder to a happy event. Newsmagazines discovered a new opportunity: close to the article, pictures of people, events,  taken in consideration. Most of these pictures don't have an owner, just hands who took them. Reporters were not credited, but these pictures maybe for this reason are powerful: they were the first ones.

I highly suggest this book to all of you, passionate of photography, picture addicted, people constantly with a digital camera or a smart phone in your hands ready to take a picture for posting it on Instagram or just for saving it, remembering the moment.

Not just beauty, this book thanks to the bubbling narration made by Kate Flint is a brilliant reconstruction of flash plenty of facts, curiosities, and of course...pictures.

I thank Oxford University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Of Green Leaf Bird and Flower Artists' Books and the Natural World edited by Elisabeth Fairman

Of Green Leaf Bird and Flower Artists' Books and the Natural World is a joyous catalog born for accompanying the art exhibit Of Green Leaf and Flower Artists' Books and the Natural World; the catalog was released by Yale Press in collaboration with Yale Center for British Art.
A poetic homage of passionate lovers and curators, edited by Elisabeth Fairman senior curator of rare books and manuscripts at the Yale Center for British Art, with essays by Robert McCracken Peck, Molly Duggins, David Burnett.
Yale University was gifted by a passionate naturalist Paul Mellon, founder of this Yale's branch and although American, Mellon was a true lover and estimator of the British countryside, houses, parks. With the time Mellon accumulated a lot of prestigious, beautiful manuscripts, rare ones sometimes, and once dead most of this stunning collection donated to Yale.
This exhibit reveals thanks to the pages of passionate authors, observers, known people devoted to the natural world for the most diversified reasons, the absolute stunning beauty of nature, thanks to wonderful imagines, sketches, pictures.
This catalog and exhibit takes in consideration books starting from the XV century.
There was who tried at first to classify plants, animals; soon in UK people created a lot of nature local clubs for all passionate; later in particular women's traveller during the 1700s created beautiful journals and books thanks to scrapbooking, collages, annotations,  observations. Men were also voracious botanical passionate. John Stuart Mill didn't pass at history just for being a philosopher and a great, important thinker but also for being  a great collectors of herbs; his massive herbarium counts twelve thousand plants; yes the man didn't joke! at all and thanks to his numerous friends and connections and the ability of sharing, swapping he collected herbs from places that he has never visited, located sometimes in the most remote corners of the world.
Analyzed also Victorian period and the reaction at the beauty of natural world, and a stunning portrait of an artist of 70 years in a wheelchair, great collaborator of Oxford University Press and children's book's author Sister Margaret Tournour.
Enjoy The Field Guide to the British Countryside where the most magnificent illustrations, paintings, modern realization will let you discover the beauty, dreaming landscape with its flora and fauna of UK.

While I was reading this catalog, observing these poetic pictures, images, drawings I thought that it's inspiring. Inspiring for going into the wood, into that wild world in particular for people living in a big city for searching for a wonderful connection with nature, animals that want just to welcome us and let us celebrate their beauty. It is possible to share this catalog with children as well encouraging them at the creation of beautiful journals, or scrapbooks where they will collect tree-leaves, flowers, starting to discover nature. If they are also talented little painters, it would be great to see their creations in motion. It's important to appreciate, love and nurture nature and its poeticity. It will save our world and our soul presenting us beauty and relaxation.
I was watching last night on TV the second movie of The Lord of the Rings and I thought at the last name of mr. Mellon; in the elfic language invented by Tolkien it means friend.

Highly recommended to all the adventurers, explorators and appreciators of the natural beauty of the world.

I thank Yale University Press for the physical copy of this catalog.

Anna Maria Polidori

The Return Reflections on Loving God Back by Lacey Sturm

What happens when a teenager wants to die, try to kill herself, survive  and is back to life? What is life for someone who didn't want to live anymore?
It becomes the best trip she has ever experienced and all of it, thanks to the help of God.
The Return Reflections on Loving God Back by Lacey Sturm is an intense book of reflections regarding the love God presents us, unique people in a world sometimes upsetting but always wonderful.
Lacey does more: she presents us many pages of her journals.
She reads Bible two times everyday; she doesn't never forget to thank God for the second chance presented to her; back to life, she is grateful, recognizing that the beauty of life is everywhere and we mustn't never forget it.
Twelve chapters with meditations, succulent recipes, prayers, poems,
what-to-do lists, pictures, drawings, shared with her readers.

Wonderful, inspiring book for not losing hope; for continuing to see the light also during a long dark night, because where there is God obscurity can't reign.

I thank Baker Book Bloggers for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

The Bookstore of Beauty Thoughts

Located close to Bar Bosone and Ottica Baldelli, its name is The Bookstore of Beauty Thoughts, La Libreria dei Pensieri Belli. It's the new, magical bookstore opened at Gubbio.
I discovered the publishing house Edizioni del Baldo eight years ago. When my brother fell sick and stayed per months to the hospital of Foligno, I found two beautiful books published by them in the newsagency of they hospital. They intrigued me for their beauty. They relaxed my mind. I interviewed mrs Zanoncelli later about the publishing house, their future projects, how they work, what they search.

It's a wonderful and sunny space the one created by these ladies. They admit that no, they're not from Gubbio.
All these bookstores are pretty nice in terms of price because there are no other passages apart publishing house and bookstores. No distributors; just them.

At the moment The Bookstore of Beauty Thoughts discounts a part of books, the one close to the corner, along the street: the one close to the so-called ex Bruna's Bar.
Three books for just five euros.
You can find Astrology, all Salgari's books, if you want to present an important gift to your children, some classics, a lot of guides; I loved the one for the creation of artificial nests for local birds. But also: beauty thoughts, religion and spirituality, journals for every occasions; books for the garden; there is a little booklet with various enchanting greeting cards ready to be cut, written and shipped; horror books, if you like the genre; a lot of books of recipes. From bread to desserts, you will find all that you want.
If you'll shop why not buying also a tote bag? They are colored, all beautiful, with a special thought and a fantasy that will enchant you. They are discounted: one costs 6 euros each but if you buy three tote bags they cost just 10 euros.

Del Baldo desires to create a beauty and colored world, and it is what each book does, with precious, old-fashioned illustrations, devotion, research and love.
It is not important if it will be a cookbook or an inspirational book. Go for it with the certainty that it has been written with love and dedication.

Launch yourself in a never-ending adventure plenty of great readings and happy and beauty thoughts.

Anna Maria Polidori

ps: curious to see what I bought for five euros? Here we are...

Catalina and the King's Wall by Patty Costello, illustrated by Dianne Cojacaru

Catalina and the King's Wall is a children's book written by Patty Costello, illustrated by Dianne Cojacaru, released by Eifrig Publishing with profound meanings: the fear of the other, the inability of being opened with the so-called strangers, the impossibility of dialogue.
Catalina works at the dependence of a King and this King goes crazy for her cookies and her sweet treats. Catalina is happy to work in such a beauty place, the Court, being an appreciated appreciated, but she is still missing her family. She counts to see them soon, but the idea of the King shared also with her is pretty scaring: the king would want to create a wall of separation with the closest kingdom where his relatives live.  Why? He doesn't love that people at all. Better to stay away from them.
What to do? She tries all her best, with spectacular solutions at the end she will win against the terrible idea of the king of creating a wall of separation in the area.

In Europe we experienced it with the city of Berlin; just in 1989 that wall that, de facto, divided a city in two parts, the Communist one and the Occidental one was destroyed; entire families, separated just because they lived in different areas of the city, reunited.

This children's book is indispensable for let appreciate to kids their freedom, possibility of traveling, seeing the world and experiencing a world free from walls but it wants to be also a reflection because we must pay attention: walls of every kind, symbolic or reals are built everyday: where walls are physicals they want to avoid the passage of people in a land where there is maybe more freedom and possibilities or for political reasons, for not being in contact with a certain government.
Strong of the fact that history repeats itself, it's important to monitoring what it is going on in the world for building a society composed by freedom, peace and harmony.
It's up to us and to our integrity, honesty and open-minds, and it's up to educators, parents, relatives and friends to growing up children opened and inclusive.
I love the illustration plenty of strong and vivacious colors.

I thank Patty Costello and Library Thing for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

Minds Make Societies How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create by Pascal Boyer

Minds Make Societies How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create by Pascal Boyer published by Yale University Press, is a profound reflection about humanity, and the meaning of it, seeing in a kaleidoscope where nothing is left out, and "visualized,"observed thanks to the incorporation and integration of evolutionary biology, psychology, sociology and much more.
Definition of humanity, groups, ethnicity, political parties in grade to incorporate a lot of people "under their wings," social conditions and variants that can occur, situations of conflicts, religions; differences between  various situations that men experience choosing of embrace a religion or just asking for an advice at a religious specific character as a shaman can be; the born of religions for the soul as I would define the Hinduism and Buddhist ones, the meaning of information, crusades of every sorta of problems in grade to attract people causing conflicts and debates, their power and their lacks; the  junk culture permits to experience various kind of distortions in the beliefs and certainties of people.
The author will also analyzed the meaning of family, and the invention of modern western family as we know this little society, the various different typologies of families pretty diverse in the world, passing through the attraction of a man and a woman and how a man or a woman picks up a potential partner, defining also the domestic oppression that a woman can suffers at many levels.
The final chapters are dedicated to the cooperation between minds, asking in the final chapters if humans minds understand societies, in all their complexities.
Yes, because what it is real for us, and a certainty, for other societies not true because there are another systems of living and loving, thinking, creating an existing.

Beautiful, captivating reading, I couldn't put down this book.

I suggest this book to everyone interested to discover more about ourselves, our minds, why sometimes we act and reacts in certain ways, why sometimes we can't understand other ones, felt as enemies or "strangers"; but the most important aspect of this book it's that it will open a lot of chances and possibilities of inclusions thanks to a new modality of understanding of this world, minds, societies, human beings in a world always more projected to create a humanity close, peaceful, united, thanks also to its differences and diversities.

Highly recommended.

I thank Yale University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

May I Quote you on That? A guide to Grammar&Usage by Stephen Spector

May I Quote you on That? A guide to Grammar&Usage by Stephen Spector published by Oxford University Press is a solid, funny, grammar book in grade to conquer everyone for sure.

Teachers can make the difference and mr.Spector is in grade through quotes of celebrities like Johnny Depp, Billy Crystal, Lady Gaga, Woody Allen, but also writers as Mark Twain and many others to explain us with great lightness and a joyous approach formal english and how to use it properly in every situation.

The approach with people can't be too informal if we don't know them well: if we speak or interact with someone important we must keep a decent distance and a different, more polite language.
Is it difficult?
No, if we follow the directions and advice of a passionate grammar teacher like Stephen Spector is. There is not another best book to me for learning a wonderful formal english than this one. I am a passionate of every book written by mr Spector, because thanks to him, it's simple and a pure pleasure to learn a language - I am italian and so my process of learning will continue forever -
Original approach, inclusive, passionate, intense and felt each lesson explains the rules of words, their best usage in modern formal english, history.
If you are a writer, a journalist, a student, a teacher, you should read this book, but...If you are single as well!
If you are looking for someone, remember that a good grammar is one of the most important qualities in a romantic partner.
People with a solid grammar knowledge are in grade to write beautiful romantic, passionate letters.

Highly recommended grammar book.

I thank Oxford University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

La ragazza che cuciva lettere d'amore, The Forgotten Seamstress, by Liz Trenow

La ragazza che cuciva lettere d'amore, The Forgotten Seamstress, by Liz Trenow , book published in Italy by TEA and Mondolibri is the touching story of Maria Romano. After that she lost her mother Maria was brought in an orphanage where she learned the art of sewing. Because particularly good Maria and Nora, her best friend were requested at Buckingham Palace.
One day they met also the young and future king, we are in the 1910s . He is still a teen-ager and a boy constricted at a rigid education considering his future role.
The Prince of Wales, expansive, finds fascinating Maria from the first time. Maria at the same time dreamed to meet one day the prince alone.
The prince was searching for the normality of some moments spent with a common girl; Maria for the exceptionality of these meetings.
A love was born; but, an impossible one treasured by Maria for the rest of her life thanks to her stunning and precious quilt prepared with all her love for all the protagonists of her tormented life.

This secret union will bring the arrival of a baby and Maria, for this reason, still pregnant, will be removed from Buckingham Palace and placed in a psychiatric structure where they will steal her newborn baby and where she will be kept sedated the first years; she will live there for more than 50 years, rescued just by Nora, her best friend at the times of Buckingham Palace.
I tell the truth: this part didn't make me sleep well per two-three days, thinking that, a "problem" like this one could be sorted out with such heartless perspective; the entrance in scene of masonry, a "phantom" that knew everything of it destabilized me a lot as well.

London, our times, present us Caroline, a girl plenty of problems. She lost her job, she left her boyfriend, her mother suffers of Alzheimer and she finds the quilt of Maria one day at her mother's house. The adventure starts from that moment and Caroline will discover a shocking truth hidden in that quilt, plenty of love and, after all, no regrets.

Highly recommended.

If you are interested to create Maria's quilt here the directions

https://liztrenow.com/the-forgotten-seamstress/marias-quilt/

I bought this book at Club per Voi a very good italian book club.

http://www.clubpervoi.com/


Anna Maria Polidori

Pulitzer's Gold A Century of Public Service Journalism by Roy J.Harris Jr.

Pulitzer's Gold A Century of Public Service Journalism by Roy J.Harris Jr. published by Columbia University Press is a beautiful book that, according to me every journalist should read about the most important and serious award assigned every year to the most important reporters/newsmagazines/magazines in the USA: the Pulitzer.
This book was revised and updated because the Pulitzer celebrated 100 years in 2016.

Wanted by Joseph Pulitzer, the purpose and inspiration that animates this award is still the old one: to remark with a prize the best public service journalism recognizing the key role of a good information, in grade to make the difference in the society.

The Pulitzer followed all the biggest events of these 100 years: from the arrival of the Great War, to  the courageous choices of the Commercial Appeal of Memphis; the newsmagazine, in fact, started a crusade in the 1920s against the Ku Klux Klan; in some cases reporters and their newsmagazines won the award because they defended  the right of free press or because they followed cases involving corruptions, gambling, environmentalist problems, a rape; great resonance has had the Watergate scandal treated by the Washington Post like also the incredible and horrible story of the pedophile priests followed by the Boston Globe.

The system of assignment of the Pulitzer changed thanks to Gene Patterson member from 1973 to 1984. Latinos, black, women for example the past decades were not taken in consideration; the board decided to publicly naming finalists for the award. Journalism categories expanded from 13 to 14.

I highly suggest this book to everyone because it is a fascinating discovery in the world of the best American Journalism.

The Pulitzer is a mirror: the mirror of a journalism free and healthy, courageous, in grade to vibrantly ask some changes thanks to the cases put at the attention of readers, sometimes causing "quakes" for the love of truth, integrity, passion, devotion.


I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

The Vintage Baker More Than 50 Recipes From Butterscotch Pecan curls to Sour Cream Jumbles by Jessie Sheehan photographs by Alice Gao

If you know me, you also know my fascination for the past; of course this passion passes also through recipes. I lost the count of American baking and cooking eBooks that I downloaded in the past trying to research in particular old recipes. I feel attraction for American recipes of all sort thanks to my numerous connections in the USA and also because baking an American cake, or some cookies means anyway always a real success, also for someone not yet exactly a chef or the best baker of the world; after all, you know this sensation is more than comforting. There is a stability of ingredients and a simplicity in these recipes that it is difficult to find in other countries.

All of it thanks to the fusion of cultures in grade to make the difference and in grade to speak pretty well to the palate of people with joyous treats, great cookies, and stunning cakes and pies.

When I discovered that Chronicle Books released a cookbook about the topic I thought: I want to see it.

The Vintage Baker More Than 50 Recipes From Butterscotch Pecan curls to Sour Cream Jumbles by Jessie Sheehan photographs by Alice Gao is a cultural, historical old-fashioned reconstruction of baking recipes, passing through old recipe booklets. This trend of recipe booklets was common in the USA starting from the end of XIX century thanks to various brands that promoted their products.
Not just this, the author remarks like decade after decade ingredients of recipes changed like also ads, more captivating, inviting and dreaming.

In these recipes, what the author did in some cases was to fix the recipes for the tastes of people of our historical moment. Feel free to try of course, the original recipe.

I loved the molasses doughnuts with chocolate ginger glaze. Not just spectacular: you start your day with a chocolate-dream.

But, of course why not launch yourself in a world of aromas with the vanilla yogurt coffee cake?

You will have always close to you friends if you invite them for the afternoon tea with this Swedish tea rolls recipe.

Are you a fan of butterscotch? Try the butterscotch-potato chip balls, and if you are in love for a spice sophisticated like cardamom is, enjoy the deep-fried cookies; if  you want to cuddle your dear ones, the Blueberry Angel Food Dream recipe is there, waiting for you, like also the milk chocolate malted pudding, a dreaming dessert for everyone like also the yummy  baked Alaska Sandwich. Maybe you'll want to try your pop corns while you are watching a movie with cinnamon red hots, maybe adding also another treat: honey-roasted peanut brittle.

Beautiful cookbook, highly recommended to everyone in love for old tastes with some touch of modernity.

I thank Chronicle Books for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo Written by Marlon Bundo with Jill Twiss Illustrated by EG Keller

Chronicle Books fights for a lot of rights. Born in 1967, it does it with its books, words, colors, adding  beauty in this world. Original, clever, this publishing house makes the difference also regarding social thematic.

This time protest passes through A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo written by Marlon Bundo with Jill Twiss Illustrated by EG Keller.
This children's book was born in collaboration with Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, sponsored by The Trevor Project, an association born for preventing suicides in the young LGBTQ's community and for helping  people. Last Week Tonight's proceeds will be donated to the Trevor Project and AIDS united. This one is an association born for fighting against AIDS thanks to policies of prevention, access to care, harm reduction and advocacy.
The CEO of AIDS united Jesse Milan Jr "By celebrating Marlon Bundo's differences, the book's authors have created a powerful tool for teaching young people the value of diversity."

I start to tell you that this children's book is absolutely adorable, cute, sweet, tender. Illustrations are amazing and they penetrate the adorable soul of this sunny animal.
This one is the story of Marlon Bundo. He lives alone, he doesn't share his life with anyone. He lived in Indiana but then the family afforded to Washington D.C.
One day, going out he meets a beautiful, brown rabbit called Wesley and the two discover a lot of things in common ending up to love each other.

Their happiness with a proper marriage sounds improbable. Someone will try to ruin their happiness, although the rest of animals all united will sort out the problem.  The love-story between Marlon and Wesley will end very happily.

I suggest this book to all that parents who want to start to introduce to their children a thematic like the one of homosexuality and marriages between couples of the same sex. It's crucial and important that all children would be prepared to this reality, because it is becoming always more known and always more real in every country. Marriages included.

Questions will be many, children are curious, and you must be prepared.
First of all you should explain what sex is, why it exists.
Then, proceedingly gradually, why sometimes someone in the body of a male, feels that he is more close to the brain, body of a woman, and so feeling special sentiments more for another man similar to him than not to a woman, because substantially he couldn't love a woman as she would deserves, because he feels he is a woman himself, falling in love for a man that will be a woman to him; it will be an intriguing conversation because love is not just sex but feelings, sentiments in grade to make the difference.

I thank Chronicle Books for the physical copy of this children's book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Cottages Ornés The Charms of the Simple Life by Roger White

Nothing else in the english, Irish, Scottish countryside is more beauty and suggestive than a cottage.
This little or also big building, house, most time created with stones or brick is immersed in the peaceful British countryside and it speaks to the heart of people of tranquil moments, serenity, joy, happiness; of a life where the time is timeless; these buildings are in fact romantic, old-fashioned and researched thanks to the poeticity that they transmit.

This book Cottages Ornés The Charms of the Simple Life by Roger White published by Yale University Press is an enchanting trip in the essence of cottages ornés.

Cottages Ornés are typically British, "exported" later thanks to the expansionistic and colonial policy of UK  in the USA, in particular in the East Coast, with wonderful examples in Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts, but also in Oceania, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
Some of them have been built by rich people and in this case it is possible to "track" the cottage's realization, what the owner desired. For working and middle-class people it was a different story, because generally they found the cottage built, most times not orné; it was up to them what they wanted to do with it and the interior was up to the taste of the family.

Some towns are spectacularly beauty with these little houses that you would say that they're part of another universe; like to enter in a fairy-tale. I proved that when I saw what created the town of Shanklin in the Isle of Wight. Sometimes a house or more houses can make a difference, because they present beauty and a harmonic fusion with the landscape in grade to speak to the heart.

Plenty informative and divided in ten chapters, Cottages Ornés covers all the aspects of these buildings. Born after twenty years of researches, Cottages Ornés is not just a tome rich of anecdotes, architecture, styles, historical periods, but ,last but not least also the story of the fascination created by these little, peaceful houses during the centuries.

Highly recommended to everyone.

I thank Yale University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

The New Localism How Cities can Thrive in the Age of Populism by Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak

The New Localism How Cities can Thrive in the Age of Populism by Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak a book published by Brookings Institution Press.
Extremely interesting and intriguing The New Localism was born after the last Second World War Conflict and its motto can be summoned in: Think Globally, Act Locally.

This book has been born after the election of President Donald Trump for being an answer to the advent of strong populism and rejection of political establishment.

Maybe it's better to focus on little realities. Maybe it's better to re-start from communities,  from little, or big urban realities where local governments, mayors, philanthropists could and should make the difference without to wait for the arrival of the central government for help. Minds in grade to fixing the problems of their own communities.

A dream?

No, in this book we will assist at a shockingly, beautiful, wonderful happy end!

The authors in fact, focus their attention on realities of wonderful cities that, thanks to beautiful minds, ethical, honest local administrators, philanthropists and mayors created stunning cities in grade to shining sometimes internationally, like in the case of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Copenhagen, Denmark. Other cities taken in consideration Kansas City, Missouri and so on.

The New Localism wants to be of course the answer to a central government sometimes too delusional.

The cities taken in consideration in this book adopted The New Localism  when in profound crisis, but thanks to new and bright, genial ideas, great proposals of beautiful minds of administrators, philanthropists in grade to looking forward for a best and more rich and fertile future for all their community, more work for their citizens, more chances and possibilities for youngsters, considering the constant rising of income inequality and the depression that the middle class is experiencing with less opportunities and more sacrifices in comparison with the decades before, they have been in grade, working hard and creating the best humus and strategic plans to resuscitate their realities from  the shadow where they fell in.

A wonderful book and a great reading for everyone.

Highly recommended.

I thank Eurospan for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori