Cream puffs in My Brilliant Friend

After just discussing this month's book, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, I see that the Guardian has a post about food in books, complete with a recipe for pistachio cream puffs.

Book trailer for Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart

We read Gary Shteyngart's memoir, Little Failure, last year, but I have neglected to post this youtube trailer.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on TEDx

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/We-should-all-be-feminists-Chim

Shelley shared with us this TEDx talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called 'We Should All Be Feminists'.

Boy Kings of Texas

https://youtu.be/DjnhGwxQkFk

Domingo Martinez' memoir, Boy Kings of Texas, begins with the song, El Rey, and, yes, it is on Youtube sung by Vicente Fernandez.

On reading fiction

Some thoughts on reading fiction by 'Brecht' at dailykos in his post The Books We Talk About.

Great books, when they enchant our souls, do this and much more. They show us new ways of thinking, they teach our tongues to dance dozens of new steps with language, they blow the roofs off our minds and rain upon us visions of different people and worlds. I remember how, in my childhood, book after book set my mind ablaze with magical adventures, far beyond my own experience: Greek myths, Narnia, Middle Earth, Outer Space, millennia yet to come . . . they showed my imagination new colors to hunger and hope for.

His post is partly inspired by Tim Parks' writing in the New York Review of Books. Here Tim Parks writes about how he reads books.

As I dive into the opening pages, the first question I’m asking is, what are the qualities or values that matter most to this author, or at least in this novel? I start Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage and at once it is about a man who has been excluded from a group of friends without knowing why; the mishap has plunged him into a depression that seems disproportionate to the damage suffered. So I begin to look for everything relating to community and belonging, to the individual’s relationship to the community, to loneliness and companionship. I underline any words that fall into this lexical field. Is the community positive or negative or both? Are there advantages to being excluded, even when it is painful? Do loneliness and depression produce strength, creativity? Is the book aligning itself with the position of the person excluded?

Divisadero by Ondaatje

Discussion questions presented by Marlo:

Random House discussion questions

University of West Florida's discussion questions

something from a site called Free Patents Online

I honestly did not understand this review.

a link of poetry by Ondaatje

From Shelley: a piece on Divisadero from The New Yorker

Reviews of Divisadero:

by Pico Iyer in the New York Review of Books

by Elizabeth Waddell in the Quarterly Conversation

at Quill and Quire

at Bookishness by Charles Matthews

at Kim Werker

250 books by women all men should read

Absolutes are usually over the top but I thought this list is worth a look. This list was generated in response to Esquire's magazine list of books for men, of which included only one female author.

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

Our book for June is Excellent Women by Barbara Pym.

The Barbara Pym Society seems to be the place to go to find everything you need to know about Barbara Pym.

Wikipedia on Barbara Pym

The Guardian on Barbara Pym, 'Very Barbara Pym'.

She wrote about worlds of genteel poverty and longing with great warmth and wit. Excellent Women is one of the 20th century's most endearing and amusing novels, writes Alexander McCall Smith

Amazon site

A blogger on Barbara Pym

Quotes by Barbara Pym . Here's one choice quote:

"Of course it's alright for librarians to smell of drink."

What was Charles Darwin's illness?

AP on recent speculations about the connections between Darwin, his travels and his illnesses.

Junot Diaz on disaster, Haiti, globalization and more

Junot Diaz's essay in the Boston Review.