Next one in the series, Comfort Me with Apples, by Ruth Reichel. I read it many moons ago, but book club liked Tender at the Bone, so they wanted to continue the memoir. Can't wait to see it with new eyes since I will be much older.

This is so funny. I am reading John of John (wonderful, BTW). The National Theatre in London films their plays live and shows them for one day in the USA. I always go. It's an inexpensive way to see the plays, and, clearly, I am not in London. Yesterday, when I was finding my seat, there were two people with John of John open on their laps, reading as they waited for the curtain. We talked about it. They were further along into it. A chance meeting of strangers!

Ann Patchett's Whistler was very good. As I started reading it, I wasn't so sure. It seemed a little "adorable". But as I kept reading, I realized that the the connection that the two main characters had was pure and perfect.Worth the wait from the library.

Enjoyed reading Reichl’s Save Me the Plums and now food essays that she edited. Could not imagine being at the helm of venerable Gourmet Mag for the demise.

Just finished Ann Patchett’s Whistler. Didn’t much care for Tom Lake and wasn't sure about this one either for more than 3/4 of the book. It was clear that the book was working its way to some big reveal to come at the end. But what wasn’t clear was whether the end was going to be a cheap plot twist or just more of the overdone and underexplained bond between the child and father figure. But the book redeemed itself as a whole, because the oversized sentiments revealed their roots at the end, which is the beginning.

What felt like overblown flimsy and frilly sentiments showed their origins credibly (e.g., ”meet my daughter” annoyingly repeated over and over is actually an inside joke calling back to a practical tip from one of the characters to the other at a desperate moment decades earlier).

Overall, a solid book (with some pretension to literature). The writing was adequate, but the author/book rests anyway on the characters, the events, and the connection.

I finished The Wedding People, and actually thought it was better than I expected it to be. It does seem like fluff, but it did have depth. It was a very good read, but I can't say it was lifechanging or anything on that level. Four stars for me.

I just started I See You Called in Dead (truly just started) which seems like it will be entertaining ...at a minimum

I am listening to-- rather than reading-- a series of books written by ECR Lorac, the pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett, a contemporary of Agatha Christie during the golden age of detective fiction. She wrote other detective series under the name Carol Carnac. They are good, solid books, perhaps a bit more consistent than Christie was --although the died younger which may account for that--but her work has largely been forgotten, in contrast to that of Christie.

I don't really have time to read without doing something else, so I have to listen, and the stories have to be easy enough to follow that I can do so when working on something else. And sometimes I do have to go back a bit and listen again.