Can’t get a read on what your friends and family want for the holidays? Here’s the ultimate list of books to GIVE this holiday season brought to you by FOF book critic Linda Wolfe, the award-winning author of 10 books and a 12-year veteran of the National Book Critics Circle.

Then comment below for a chance to RECEIVE one of Linda’s top picks–”Then Again,” Diane Keaton’s new memoir. (Three FOFs will win.)

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FOR CELEBRITY MEMOIR BUFFS:

“Then Again” by Diane Keaton.  Random House.  291 pages

Keaton’s memoir, “Then Again,” is not just her story, it’s her mother’s as well.  Dorothy Keaton Hall, who died at the age of eighty-six, left behind her eighty-five journals and scrapbooks that Keaton never bothered to read while her mother was alive.  But in 2008, after her mother’s death, she began ploughing through them, in the process discovering things about her mother she never knew – among them her mother’s thwarted ambitions and her early fear of memory loss.

Keaton uses Dorothy’s diaries as a scaffolding from which to explore and recount her own life: her girlhood insecurities and her adult strengths, her stunning career, her love affairs with Woody Allen, Al Pacino and Warren Beatty, and her late-in-life realization that despite the persona she’d cultivated as a woman who, like Garbo, preferred being alone, her life felt empty without children.  At the age of 50, she adopted two of them, and became as engaged a mother as her own had been.

The book is a bit scattered – as one might expect a book of Keaton’s to be – with hasty entries and more thoughtful ones, reflections that are to the point, and others that are vague and puzzling.  It’s really rather like a scrapbook itself, a collection of observations, reflections, and images, rather than a straightforward memoir.  But it’s charming, just like its author.   We learn that this famous beauty was so critical of her body that she became bulimic, stuffing herself with favorite foods only to void them right after consumption.  It’s also poignant.  We learn how sad it makes Keaton feel to consider the difference between her own life and that of her mother:  starting in her fifties, after her children grew up and left her with an empty nest,  Dorothy endured years of loneliness, whereas Keaton in her fifties has been able to come “out of isolation into a kind of family-of-man scenario, complete with an extended family, new friends and much needed ordinary activities.”
The book is an homage to her mother, a tribute to her own children, and an affirmation of woman’s ability to keep growing throughout life.

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“Bossypants” by Tina Fey.  Little Brown, 277 pp.

Tina Fey, creator and star of TV’s “30 Rock” and former head writer and occasional star on “Saturday Night Live,” has written not a memoir, exactly, but a collection of chronological essays about important periods of her life – including the one where she gets her first period.  Her mother gives her a starter’s kit: some sanitary napkins, panty liners, and two pamphlets, one for a girl to read, the other for her mother to read and discuss with her.  That 10-year-old Fey’s mother hasn’t bothered to read her pamphlet but just turned it over to her daughter isn’t half the fun here; what’s funnier is that Fey remains totally unprepared for her first bleed, and doesn’t even recognize what is happening to her when her underthings turn red.  “I knew from commercials that one’s menstrual period was a blue liquid you poured like laundry detergent onto maxi pads to test their absorbency,” she writes. This wasn’t blue, so…I ignored it for a few hours.”

If you don’t find this funny, you’d best stop reading.  Period. (Pun intended.)
The book contains Nora Ephron-like tips for women entering the male-controlled work world: “No pigtails.  No tube tops.”  And “You’re not in competition with other women; you’re in competition with everyone.”  Of interviewing for a job on “Saturday Night Live,” Fey writes, “Only in comedy does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity.”  Of going to college at the University of Virginia, “I spent four years attempting to charm the uninterested.”  Of turning forty, “I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home.  I didn’t used to have to do that. But now I do.”  Of doing a photo shoot, “The makeup artist will work methodically on your eyelids with a series of tickly little brushes for a hundred minutes,” and “at really fancy shoots, a celebrity fecalist will study your bowel movements and adjust your humours.”

If you don’t love Fey, I’d say you don’t have a sense of humor, let alone good bodily semifluids.

FOR FICTION LOVERS:

“The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides. FSG, 406 pp.

Like a Jane Austen novel written for our own times, the plot of Eugenides’ engaging new book, “The Marriage Plot,” concerns a young woman, her suitors, and her quest for a lifelong partner.  But our world is a far more confusing one than the marriage-means-happy-ending society inhabited by Emma and Elizabeth and Austen’s other heroines. Finding one’s way in it is far from simple, and Eugenides’ heroine, Madeleine, as well as her two suitors, Leonard and Mitchell, are having a hard time when the book begins and the three of them, students at Brown in 1982, are about to graduate.

Madeleine, a  literature student who’s pretty, rich, and sexually-inquisitive, is desperately in love with Leonard, a brilliant but bipolar science student who initiates her into physical intimacy but can’t quite commit to their relationship.  And Mitchell, fascinated by religion and philosophy, is in love with Madeleine, who couldn’t care less.

After they graduate, Madeleine, unsure of what kind of career to pursue, flounders. Leonard learns that brilliance isn’t enough, and Mitchell, searching for life’s deeper meanings by working with Mother Teresa in India, loses his youthful idealism.  I won’t tell you who Madeleine ends up with, but, without giving away too much, I want to say that despite having known a few manic-depressives and read a great deal about that illness, the way Eugenides shows us the awful progression of the disease beats any rendition I’ve ever read in fiction. Equally special is his satirical take on the absurd literary theories in vogue in the eighties.

Witty and moving, this book about love, sex, and coming of age, gets being young in the eighties altogether right.  And I suspect it’s pretty accurate about the pleasures and problems of being young in any decade.

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“State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett.  Harper/HarperCollins.  353 pages.

I reviewed this book at length earlier this year, so I’ll be brief and just say here that if I had to tell you my choice for the “Number One Best Book of 2011,” it’d be “Age of Wonder.”  With more than a touch of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” this book is a stirring evocation of a primitive world, a mystery tale, and a deft exploration of the character of two brilliant women.  In the depths of the Amazon, the heroine, self-effacing Dr. Marina Singh, must discover the secrets that the imposing Dr. Annick Swenson, a one-time mentor of hers, is hiding from the rest of the world. She also must learn how to live and even thrive in barbarous surroundings, and become psychologically strong enough to defy her teacher.

You’ll be with Marina, learning her thoughts as if inside her head and experiencing her alien surroundings with her distinctive eyes and ears, throughout this stunning tale.

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11/22/63 by Stephen King. Scribner.  849 pp.

I’m not a fan of horror stories, don’t like reading about cars with minds of their own, killer viruses or crazed fans, so I rarely read King.  But this book is about horror of a different sort–and it’s terrific. The horror in “11/22/63″ is time, an adversary that each of us must do battle with, and which always, whatever our circumstances, defeats us, taking away our abilities, our strengths, and all that we most prize.

A science fiction tale with that hoary old subject, time travel, “11/22/63″ recounts the experiences of a Maine schoolteacher, Jake Epping, who goes back into the world of the late nineteen-fifties bent on a mission: to stop Oswald from assassinating John F. Kennedy. King recreates that world with meticulous and delightful detail, from the vibrant preservative-free taste of root beer, to 19.9 cents-a-gallon gasoline, to music you could really dance to.  But the past has its drawbacks.  “It’s a time,” King points out, “for which a lot of people felt nostalgic.  Possibly because they had forgotten how bad the past smelled.”
Not only does the past smell bad, it’s rife with poverty and racial strife.  Yet the good-natured Epping begins to prefer the past, with all its unsavoriness, to his actual present.  He takes a job as teacher in a small Texas town, gets to know the Oswald family and–this will delight conspiracy theorists–tries to determine if Oswald was the only person responsible for Kennedy’s death.  He also falls passionately in love with the school librarian.

King has bigger fish to fry in this work than in most of his other novels.  The book has a gripping plot and a likeable hero in pursuit of an ominous killer, but the author is also in pursuit of the answers to the Big Questions:  Would today’s world be different if Kennedy had not been killed?  Is there any way to slow time’s indifference to human life?   Is love the only thing that makes life worth living?  And, is loss always our inevitable fate?

FOR HISTORY FANS:

“Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman” by Robert K. Massie, Random House, 625 pages

Despite its heft, this doorstopper of a biography goes down as smooth as fine Beluga caviar.  It’s the story of Catherine the Great, an obscure German princess who deposed her ineffectual alcoholic husband, Czar Peter III,  in 1762, seized the throne of Russia, and ended up ruling that vast turbulent country for more than thirty years.

In Massie’s hands, the start of the story has all the elements of a fairy tale: a child scorned by her mother, plucked from obscurity by a kindly aunt (who just happened to be the daughter of the czar of Russia), decked out by that fairy godmother of a relative in furs and jewels, and married amid wild celebration to the future czar.  “An adolescent girl,” Massie tells us, “was launched on a great adventure.”

But of course, Catherine was no fairy tale princess.  And her story becomes ever more interesting as she learns to be a ruler, finding her way to gain and hold onto power despite constant threats.  A quick study, she had taught herself at an early age was always to appear courteous and humble, to be a good listener, and to mask her considerable brains.  But as she matured, her brilliance became evident to all who knew her, evoking respect even from such luminaries as Voltaire and Diderot.  “I would say about myself,” she wrote in “A Secret Confession,” a private account of her life and loves, “that I was a true gentleman with a mind more male than female.”

Catherine reformed and reorganized Russia, she encouraged the arts, education and medical care, put down powerful rebellions, survived innumerable political crises and–somewhat ruthlessly–accomplished several land grabs that greatly extended Russia’s territory.  But, aside from being an astute monarch, she was above all a woman, endlessly looking for the love she had been denied by her mother and lacked in her marriage–her husband had refused to make love to her during their nine years together. She said she was “Loath to be without love for even a single hour,” took numerous lovers, and wrote to one of them, “If you want to keep me forever, then show me as much friendship as love.”
Massie’s Catherine is not only a political genius, but a flesh-and-blood woman who at times sounds just like one’s BFF.

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“1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created” by Charles C. Mann. Knopf 535 pp.

Charles C. Mann’s best-selling “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” was a sweeping examination of life in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus.  His “1493″ takes up the story of what followed: the vast spread of plants and peoples that is known as the “Columbian Exchange.”  “After 1492,” Mann explains, “the world’s ecosystems collided and mixed as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans. The Columbian Exchange…is why there are tomatoes in Italy, oranges in Florida, chocolates in Swtizerland, and chili peppers in Turkey and Thailand.  To ecologists [it] is arguably the most important event since the death of the dinosaurs.”

Indeed, Mann tells us, it has created an altogether new ecological era, the “Homogenocene” or the Age of Homogeneity, the era in which we live, although most of us just call it “Globalization.”  Undeniably, we have become One World, where what happens in Greece affects our stock market, what happens in China  effects our manufacturing, what happens in Africa affects our hospitals.  But the process, so recent-seeming, started ‘way back then, immediately after Columbus’s history-altering discovery.

The Columbian Exchange has vastly benefited mankind, spreading foods that not only delighted, like those tomatoes and oranges, but foods that filled hungry bellies, like wheat and corn. Nevertheless, benefit and detriment are the two faces of the Exchange’s coin. Take the exchange of plants: along with its beneficence it brought pests never before known in the West and mighty difficult to eliminate. Or take the spread of peoples: the European settlers who descended on the ancient native populations destroyed them both actively and inadvertently–inadvertently because they brought with them diseases for which these populations had no resistance. Today, it is Western society that is threatened by diseases for which we have no resistance, viruses transferred from monkeys to man in Africa and then brought–by plane–to new shores.

Mann, an extremely lively writer, gives us fascinating portraits of some of the little known figures responsible for the spread of specific plants, animals, people and germs.  And he warns us about the most frightening consequences of the Columbian Exchange–not just the spread of diseases, but climate change and the destruction of ancient species.  “On the one hand,” he writes of our Age of Homgeneity, “people want the wash of goods and services that the worldwide market provides.”  But on the other hand, “Things feel changed and scary.”

You can say that again!
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Enter to win Then Again, Diane Keaton’s new memoir by leaving a comment below.

Three FOFs will win.
(See all our past winners, here.)
(See official rules, here.)
Contest closes December 15, 2011 at midnight E.S.T.

Every book that FOF Danielle Steel has ever written has been a New York Times bestseller, including her latest novel, Hotel Vendôme (Random House Publishing Group, November 2011). It follows an ambitious man as he transforms a shabby Manhattan inn into a luxurious, five-star hotel. His seemingly perfect life comes to a halt when his wife, Miriam, takes off with a rock star, leaving him to raise their 4-year-old daughter, Heloise. Is this Eloise for grown ups? Not quite… But, Kirkus Reviews says the novel will “appeal to the most dedicated of Steel’s fans,” although many readers say it falls flat. “It seems Steel has run out of story lines,” says one Amazon.com reviewer. “44 Charleston Street, about a single woman who opens her home to boarders, was disappointing as well. Now we have a hotel. What’s next, an apartment complex?”

Does FOF Book Guru Barbara Phelps agree? Did Hotel Vendôme make her want to check in or out?

Did you enjoy this book?
Three quarters of it. The description made me feel like I was owning and running a grand hotel. I could feel the passion of the owner and I was gripped by the things that he and his daughter experienced. However, the plot became a runaway carriage ride–rampant changes of scene, many emotions running high…I wanted to slow it down!

Was it a page-turner or did you have to push through it?
It was a page turner and really had me wound up in their lives and emotions.

What would you want to ask the author, now that you’re done reading?
I would ask Ms. Steel why she felt the need to try to cram so much into the last quarter of the book.

Would you recommend this to other FOFs?
I would recommend it to other FOFs–to both those who love Danielle Steel and those new to her. It was a bit different from her average plot lines.

If you had to classify this book would you call it a “must read” a “pass” or a “skim it” book?
A must-read. I did find it flying by as I read it and was excited to get back to it each day.
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One FOF will win a copy of The Intolerable Gourmet cookbook to review. By entering this contest you are agreeing to read and submit a written review of this book to FabOverFifty and to send a photo of yourself to accompany the published story.

(Contest closes 12/1/2011 at midnight E.S.T. See all our past winners. See official rules. Our panel of editors will choose winners based on the quality of their written comments. We look for clear, concise writing; creativity; and thoughtfulness.)

“Are apps making cookbooks obsolete?” Such was the headline in a popular New York Times article last week, which went on to praise Baking with Dorie a critically-acclaimed new baking app from FOF Dorie Greenspan, one of our FOFeatured Women. We went straight to the source, Dorie herself, to get the scoop on what makes apps so well-suited for the kitchen and whether or not cookbooks will go the way of the dodo.

Plus, 3 FOFs will get to try Dorie’s app. Enter, by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post.

Who knew that one of the most buzzed about cooking apps would come from an FOF chef and not a 20-something!
I’m excited about new technology. I’ve had an iPad from day one and thought it was a miracle. I have 84,000 followers on Twitter. I feel like a baking evangelist. I want everyone in their kitchens baking. Apps and social media are tools to help me reach new bakers. You thought a new app would come from someone in their 20s, but it was my hope that by doing the app, I’d reach people in their 20s. 

Do you think cookbooks are dead?
No. The best apps supplement cookbooks–they give you something that a cookbook can’t. I’m not giving up cookbooks; in fact, I’m working on a new one now. But, I’m thrilled we have this technology and excited about what it can do and how it’s going to evolve.

What does your app give someone that a cookbook can’t?
You can get my recipes in the book. The app is me with you in your kitchen. When I write recipes for a book, I try to include many visual clues so they know what they are doing is right–for instance, what color a finished cake will be and the way it should spring back when you press the top. An app brings this alive. My app has a ton of video, which gives me a way really show home bakers the techniques.

So what specific techniques are best learned from the app?
There’s a way that I knead dough that I can describe in a book, but when you see it, it’s completely different.

One feature that foodies have been buzzing about is the unique ways a user can view recipes in your app. Tell me about that.
CulinApp, the company that created the app, presented each recipe in four different ways because they understand that people learn in different ways. There’s “cookbook view,” where the recipe looks like a traditional cookbook. There’s “spin view,” where you can spin a carousel to choose pieces of the recipes you want to see. There’s “step-by-step” which is the videos in order with the steps beneath it in text. Then there’s “CulinView” which is a flow chart of the whole recipe so you get an overview of everything that needs to be done.

What’s your favorite view?
My preference is step-by-step.

So cookbooks will still have a place in our kitchen a few years from now?
Yes, for sure. Although, the other day, I saw a picture of kitchen cabinets that are built to hold iPads. I think it’s the wave of the future.

3 FOFs will test Dorie’s app. Enter to win, by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post.

By entering this contest you are agreeing to read and submit a written review of this app to FabOverFifty and to send a photo of yourself to accompany the published story.

(Contest closes 11/24/2011. See all our past winners. See official rules. Our panel of editors will choose winners based on the quality of their written comments. We look for clear, concise writing; creativity; and thoughtfulness.)

Jamie Cat Callan grew up in Connecticut, though she claims, “I have French blood running through my veins.” As a little girl she observed her French grandmother– the way she dressed, the way she cooked, the way she loved. French women don’t worry about being skinny, young enough or accomplished enough, she observed.

In her most recent novel, Bonjour, Happiness! (Citadel Press, 2011) Callan studied the lives of French women to discover the recipe for true happiness, or ‘joie de vivre,’ and to share it will all her readers. “[It] translates the joie de vivre into a language of life that is not so foreign.” wrote a book critic for Kirkus Reviews. But, what did our FOF guru, Orelle Jackson think? Is there such thing as a recipe for happiness? And if so, did she find it in this book?

1. In a nutshell, what is the book about?
Happiness. Early in the book the author points to the subtle difference between the American “pursuit of happiness” and the French term “la recherché du bonheur” or “looking for happiness.” In this, she suggests we are chasing happiness. We see happiness as something elusive – down the street, around the corner, while the French are looking for happiness. It’s as if they already know it’s there, hiding in plain sight and if they stop they will find it – Voila! The author, who had a French grandmother, suggests French women may have the edge on the rest of us when it comes to happiness or joie de vivre. In part, this book is a guide to French style and taste and the French way of life, but it also is her own journey of discovery.

2. What is the genre of this book?
This book would fall into the self-help genre.

3. Did you enjoy it?
While this is a charming book, I didn’t love it. I liked parts of it, but I found it repetitive and the whole premise problematic. I found the process of her self-discovery tedious, exasperated by her infatuation with everything French and her belief that this was the path to happiness. I was relieved to get to the last part of the book when the author finally realizes that the secret to happiness is “finding those moments in your own ordinary life, finding the people and the simple pleasures of living that will bring you happiness.”

4. Was it a page turner, or did you have to push through it?
Although it was light reading, I found it difficult to stay focused because it did not hold my attention. This is the kind of book I wanted to merely skim through.

5. What would you want to ask the author, now that you’re done reading?
I was struck by the relationship she had with her mother and wondered if she got closer with her mom before she passed away.

6. Would you recommend this to other FOFs? Did you find yourself telling friends about the book as you were reading it?
I did tell friends about the book, but I would not give it a strong recommendation.

7. What part of the book did you like the most? What parts did you like least?
One of the most poignant parts of the book is when the author goes with her mother to get fitted for a bra after her radical mastectomy. In other parts of the book there seems to be an emotional gap between the mother and daughter. In this short but beautiful section, the complexity and the beauty of the mother-daughter relationship is revealed. The chapters “Good Enough to Eat” and “Weight Watchers in France” are also interesting. These two chapters really get to the big differences between us and our French sisters – our attitudes toward food and weight! While we use food as medication, punishment, or reward, our French counterparts use food as nourishment, celebration and occasion. On the opposite end of the spectrum I could not help but notice ambiguity. If happiness comes from loving yourself “for who you are right now – your beautiful, fragile, imperfect self” then why did it feel like most of the book implied if we were only French or behaved like French women or dressed like French women, we would be happy? In some ways I felt like this book should have been two books (or two essays) one about French living and style and one about Ms. Callon’s journey of self-discovery.

8. Is this book similar to any other books you have read? Which?
I have not recently read a similar book.

9. Any other thoughts you’d like to share?
There are beautiful, elegant and happy women in all parts of the world, and while their environment and ethnicity may play a role in their happiness, it is their ability to accept themselves and to see beauty in themselves and in the world around them that accounts for their happiness. While reading this book I was once again confronted by the fact that for most of our lives we measure ourselves against others and too often, find ourselves lacking. We torture ourselves with these perceived inadequacies. We punish ourselves because we are not enough – not smart enough, not thin enough, not rich enough, even not “French” enough. It is wonderful that as an FOF we begin to gain some perspective or enlightenment and realize we are “enough.” Let’s hope we can shorten this journey of enlightenment for the women and girls in our lives.

Also, while reading the book, I kept wondering just how happy French people are, so finally I did a very basic (non-scientific) internet search on depression levels in France. The results indicate France has a high rate of depression. The World Health Organization (WHO) report referred to in this article is complex and interesting.

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By entering this contest you are agreeing to read and submit a written review of this book to FabOverFifty and to send a photo of yourself to accompany the published story.

(Contest closes 11/17/2011. See all our past winners. See official rules. Our panel of editors will choose winners based on the quality of their written comments. We look for clear, concise writing; creativity; and thoughtfulness.)

If anyone is an authority on organic food, it’s Myra Goodman, co-owner and co-founder of Earthbound Farm, the world’s largest grower of organic produce. Her first cookbook, Food to Live By (2006), was praised by a Library Journal book reviewer who compares it to The Organic Cook’s Bible by Jeff Cox (Wiley, April 2006), one of those most well-known organic cooking resources to date.

In her latest cookbook, The Earthbound Cook: 250 Recipes for Delicious Food and a Healthy Planet (Workman Publishing, 2011) Myra pairs green living tips with all new recipes. Is this cooking guide as fresh as her first? FOF book reviewer, Darla Martin worked her way through and reported back.

In a nutshell, describe this cookbook.
It is about eating well and living green. It includes lots of recipes and green living tips.

Did you read her first book?
No, but I would like to now.

Did you enjoy it?
Yes, indeed.

Was it a page turner, or did you have to push through it?
Even though it is a cookbook, I read it page by page just like a novel.

What recipes and tips did you like most? What did you like least?
I liked finding new ways to cook a few veggies. I tried the cauliflower tart which I liked very much. I have marked the Coconut-Crusted salmon (p. 134) to make soon and the Chicken and Green Olive Enchiladas (p. 109). I’ve made enchiladas before but this is a new twist. The Jicama and Orange Salad with Orange-Sesame Vinaigrette sounds like a great winter salad to make when traditional greens and tomatoes aren’t in season.

I didn’t like searching here and there for the green living suggestions, which are sprinkled randomly through out the book.

Is this book similar to any other books you have read? Which?
I own and read a lot of cookbooks. This is a nice addition to my collection and I think it has a definite “California” feel.

Any other thoughts you’d like to share . . . ?
While I enjoyed the book, I don’t think I’d recommend it for everyone. Several recipes called for hard to find ingredients, such as lemongrass, or ingredients that are expensive such as truffle oil. I’m a dedicated foodie and live in a cosmopolitan area (San Fransisco Bay) so I’m willing to hunt down unusual or even expensive items. I don’t think that most people would.
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Want to review books for FOF? Apply to be a book guru, here.

The Crabby Cookbook (Workman Publishing, 2011) is a collection of humor, survival tips and recipes for the “kitchen-challenged,” written by FOF actress Jessica Harper (star of movies such as Minority Report, Stardust Memories and Pennies from Heaven). “I thought it was high time a book acknowledged that not everybody experiences the joy of cooking; that sometimes cooking for a family on a daily basis can be really irritating!” said Jessica in a January, 2011 interview. “This book, with 135 easy recipes, is for those people, crabby cooks like me!” On the book jacket, former-Gourmet editor and New York Times restaurant reviewer, Ruth Reichl, called it “soo much fun. You stand in the kitchen laughing when you should be cooking.” Does FOF book guru, Karin Zindren, agree?

What is the genre of this book?
Cookbook.

Did you enjoy it?
It’s one of the most entertaining cookbooks I have ever read.  It can be read in part or in total and you won’t miss a beat.

Would you recommend this to other FOFs?
Yes. Even as I read the book, I would call friends and family to tell them about it.

What part did you like most? What part did you like least?
I liked the stories just themselves and the recipes were a bonus. I made the Killer Pumpkin Pancakes for my granddaughters who HATE any type of pumpkin and loved these. I also made the Bruschetta with Someone Elses Tomatoes and the Slammin’ Yam Soup (I’m vegetarian so I used veggie broth and it was still great!). The Cauliflower in Disguise was great too, I even tripped up my husband with this one! Some of the recipes were too ambitious for me, probably one of the few down sides to the book.

Any other thoughts you’d like to share . . . ?
If you ever felt alone in world of cooking, this book is one you should definitely read…more than once!  Oh, and try some of the recipes, they were worth the effort.
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Want to review books for FOF? Apply to be a book guru, here.

Ruiyan Xu’s first novel, Lost and Forgotten Languages (St. Martin’s Press, 2010), is the story of Li Jing, an investment banker from Shanghai who, after a massive accident, loses the ability to speak Chinese. His wife, Meiling, is devastated that she can no longer communicate with her husband, and the two become more and more distant as the book progresses. Rosalyn Neal, an American doctor, offers Li Jing’s only hope for recovery and Li Jing ultimately falls in love with her. According to Publishers Weekly, “The characters are portrayed with empathy and care, but the suspense over Jing’s fate is lost in too many narrative digressions and an ending that falls flat.” Does FOF book reviewer Karen Smith agree?

In a nutshell, what is this book about?
This story is about language, how words bind intimate relationships and also how we see and present ourselves. Author Ruiyan Xu got the idea for her book during her childhood. Her family emigrated to the U.S. from Shanghai and she felt isolated because she didn’t speak English. Like most children, she learned it quickly and she lost her native tongue. When she returned to China in her teens, not knowing how to speak Chinese made her feel isolated once again.

Did you enjoy it?

I found it enjoyable, yet deeply troubling.

Was it a page turner, or did you have to push through it?
Not a compelling page-turner in terms of pace or plot, but steadily interesting.

What would you want to ask the author, now that you’re done reading?
I would like to ask Ruiyan Xu about her own experiences with languages lost and found: did she find herself with different personalities in English and Chinese? Is it possible to use language independent of culture?

Would you recommend this to other FOFs? Did you find yourself telling friends about the book as you were reading it?
I’d recommend it to anyone interested in a book that asks more questions than it answers.

What part did you like most? What part did you like least?
My favorite part of the book was the trip that James, Rosalyn and PangPang made to Hangzhou. That interlude shows the characters what is possible in the alternate universe of the English language, both good and bad. I found the ending unsatisfying.

Is this book similar to any other books you have read? Which?
While I haven’t read anything directly comparable to this work, the disintegration of a marriage and family because of new language barriers takes the reader into the familiar territory of love and loss, flirtation and affairs, betrayals and misunderstandings.

Any other thoughts you’d like to share . . . ?
There is a shallowness to Xu’s characters that makes it difficult to be more than a spectator to their situation. A better writer would have given the characters more depth so we could identify with them. Instead, Xu keeps us focused on the language problem itself. What would happen if you were ‘robbed’ of your native tongue in a traumatic accident? How would you talk with your spouse? What about your job? Your children?
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Calling all bibliophiles. The books are stacking up at the FOF offices and we are looking for smart, insightful FOFs to read and review them!

Here’s how it works: Apply to be an FOF book guru, here. If selected, we’ll contact you about what books we have in stock and send you books periodically. Write us a fabulous review within one month of receiving the book, and we’ll publish it and send you your next book!

A few months ago, we asked FOFs to tell us about the charities and organizations that are most important to them. FOF Shirley Enebrad responded to our call. “My little boy Cory was diagnosed with leukemia at age three. He died right after his ninth birthday,” said Shirley. “One of the things he made me promise before he died was for me to help other parents going through the same difficulties that we faced alone.” As part of this mission, Shirley joined and eventually became the president of the Candlelighter’s Childhood Cancer Foundation of Western WA, a support system and organization for families facing childhood cancer. She also wrote a book about her experiences called Over the Rainbow Bridge. Here, FOF book guru Katherine Watson shares her review of Shirley’s story.

In a nutshell, what is this book about?
Over the Rainbow Bridge follows author Shirley Enebrad on an emotional roller coaster as she deals with divorce and then, being the single parent of a terminally-ill child. In the book, Shirley recounts the years she spent advocating for and protecting her nine-year-old son Cory, who was plagued with cancer and suffered through painful chemotherapy treatments. Cory made the decision to terminate chemotherapy and end his life naturally and Shirley supported his decision.

What is the genre of this book?
It is an autobiography. Shirley tells her own story with Cory’s story weaved throughout.

Did you enjoy it?
I can’t say I enjoyed the book. It isn’t easy or pleasant to read about a suffering child. However, Shirley does a nice job of showing what Cory contributed during his short life on earth, including his words of wisdom and his description of heaven and God.

Was it a page turner, or did you have to push through it?
The issue of allowing a child to decide to end chemotherapy, motivated me to continue reading.

What part did you like most? What part did you like least?
This book helped me understand the thought processes of a grieving parent. Shirley is confronted by medical personnel who have been trained to sustain life and heal and are not always equipped to deal with emotions of patients and families.

Would you recommend this to other FOFs? Did you find yourself telling friends about the book as you were reading it?
I work in a hospital setting with pastoral care and social workers. The nurses and hospital workers I spoke with feel they deal enough with death and dying in their professional lives and would not choose this book for relaxing reading. If someone is prepared to make the emotional investment needed to read about a terminally ill child, then this is a remarkable story.

Any other thoughts you’d like to share . . . ?
This book confronts a tough ethical issue that parents of terminally ill children wrestle with — letting your child choose to end treatment. Shirley let Cory choose and he made the decision to end life naturally. Shirley’s decision was an insightful and selfless act, in my opinion, but other readers might argue he was too young to make the decision himself or that she gave up hope. Shirley was self-assured and proud of how she handled matters. Since people have different cultural backgrounds, belief systems and needs to give them direction, I’d hesitate to give this book to a parent of a terminally ill child.
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Want to review books for FOF? Apply to be a book guru, here.