Curl Up With a Book Sunday

It has been a blustery weekend. Saturday was mostly beautiful, but the rain started late in the afternoon and continued off and on through the night. Sunday started out sunny and gorgeous, but the clouds came in and we got quite wet when we went out to run a few errands. It is a perfect day for a book! It is also a perfect day for knitting and I might even finish my Gathered Pullover before bedtime. Knitting and Jane Austen (on Masterpiece) - that sounds like a winner!

Today's book is Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table, by Linda Ellerbee. This book is part travelogue, part cookbook, part memoir, and all Ellerbee. Ms. Ellerbee is a witty writer with just enough edge to keep you going, but not so much to put you off. I had the good fortune to see her at the last California Women's Conference where she and Nora Ephron held court for not nearly long enough. They played off each other well. I further had the good fortune to hit the author tables at the perfect time and had no one behind me as I had my copy of this book signed by the author herself. Of course, I completely blew my opportunity to ask any insightful questions and stuck with safe subjects like California geography and the fires that were raging as we were speaking.

I have been very lucky in that the last several books I have read have all been winners. This book takes you on travels around the world and through time. There is a thread of larger history woven throughout that keeps the book from becoming too self indulgent. That is my usual complaint about autobiographical books. The author is too close to the subject for objective views. Ms. Ellerbee's journalistic background saves her (mostly) from this fundamental flaw. This is a great rainy day read as it takes you far away from wherever you are. It would also be a perfect vacation book since it doesn't demand much from the reader beyond a taste for a little adventure.