Reader's Place: November 3, 2023
FICTION AND NON-FICTION FOR THE HOLIDAYS: The holiday season starts in earnest with Thanksgiving, followed by Chanukah, solstice, Christmas and Kwanzaa. Time to feast and read together.
Everyday grand: Soulful recipes for celebrating life's big and small moments, by Jocelyn Delk Adams with Olga Massov, 2023. Catalog
Jocelyn Delk Adams believes every day deserves to be celebrated, from seemingly mundane weekdays to exuberant weekends and holidays. Her approachable take on comfort food features Southern-steeped recipes that are jazzed-up, remixed classics, all sprinkled with the vibrant, colorful personality she's best known for.
Mrs. Jeffries and the midwinter murders, by Emily Brightwell, 2021. Catalog
Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas.
Jewish holiday cooking: More than 200 delicious recipes for celebrating , by Joshua Korn & Scott Gilden; with Kimberly Zerkel, 2022 Catalog
Holiday meals vary widely from Sephardic to Ashkenazic and Mizrahic traditions, meaning that for Jewish people, there's no one right way to celebrate. With nostalgic recipes and new dishes inspired from Moroccan, Russian, German, and more cuisines, these dishes rich in variety and heritage are sure to satisfy and delight.
Finding perfect: A novella, by Colleen Hoover, 2022. Catalog
Friends Daniel, Six, Holder, Sky, and Breckin are planning to celebrate the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with a Friendsgiving dinner at Sky's parents' house. But things have been off within the tightknit group and when Daniel reaches out to Six to ask the hard questions he hasn't dared to bring up since they last spoke about their shared secret, he's dismayed to learn that it's this very secret bringing a cloud over the holiday.
Indian for everyone: 100 easy, healthy dishes the whole family will love, Hari Ghotra, 2023 Catalog
Hari Ghotra's mission is to demystify Indian cooking so everyone can enjoy its benefits. She explores the many perks of traditional Indian spices-including reducing inflammation, lowering blood pressure, and easing pain-and shows how to stock your pantry with the most versatile ingredients. Many of the recipes are naturally vegan or vegetarian, but can easily be made with meat as well, as detailed in the substitutions section.
Peanut butter panic, by Amanda Flower, 2022 Catalog
Thanksgiving is Bailey King's busiest holiday weekend. This year promises to be even more hectic, since Bailey's candy shop, Swissmen Sweets, is providing desserts for Harvest, Ohio's first village-wide Thanksgiving celebration. Yet, even with a guest list close to seven hundred people--Amish and English alike--the event's organizer, Margot Rawlings, is unfazed ... until she discovers her mother, former judge Zara Bevan, will be in attendance. Zara's reputation as a harsh critic is matched only by her infamy as a judge who has actively harmed the Amish community.
Kissing Kosher , by Jean Meltzer, 2003. Catalog
Avital Cohen’s chronic pelvic pain has forced her to sideline her photography dreams and her love life. It’s all she can do to manage her family’s kosher bakery, Best Babka in Brooklyn, without collapsing. She needs hired help. And distractingly handsome Ethan Lippmann seems the perfect fit. Except Ethan isn’t there to work—he’s undercover, at the behest of his ironfisted grandfather. As they bake side by side, Ethan soon finds himself more interested in Avital than in stealing family secrets, especially as he helps her find the chronic pain relief—and pleasure—she’s been missing.
Three Holidays and a wedding , by Jalaluddin & Stapley, 2023. Catalog
With Christmas, Eid, and Hanukkah all converging, an emergency landing finds Anna, Saif, Maryam, and her sister's entire bridal party snowbound at the quirky Snow Falls Inn in a picture-perfect town, where fate has Anna's actor-crush filming a holiday romance. As Maryam finds the courage to open her heart to love of her life Saif, and Anna feels the magic of being snowbound with an unexpected new love--both women soon realize there's no place they'd rather be for the holidays.
Compiled by Ina Rimpau