By now, you know I love food and travel and this book combined those two quite well. This was written in autobiographical style by Child's nephew (or great-nephew?) after many conversations together and re-reading many of her letters. It starts with her move to France for her husband's government job in Paris. Prior to this move, which happened in her late 30s, she had never been interested in food or cooking. As she begins her foray into French food her tastes evolve and she ends up going to Le Cordon Bleu for culinary school. The books goes on to describe writing her cookbook and the success that follows. I really enjoyed learning about how she wrote the cookbook - she was extremely scientific and would toy with recipes for days and days making many batches until she got it perfect. I wasn't necessarily impressed with her as a human being as she doesn't strike me as someone cozy or nice. But overall I would definitely recommend this if you love reading about good food and/or traveling.
This book came about with the Story Corps project. Dave Isay started Story Corp in 2003 with the the goal of providing all Americans with the opportunity to have their stories recorded and preserved. They have booths set up in various locations around the country, like Grand Central Station, and a few traveling booths. Its usually set up with one individual interviewing someone they know (family or friend) with a booth facilitator there as well. This book is 48 portions of these amazing stories transcribed. They book is divided into several categories ranging from love, the journey to September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. It is such an excellent read. The stories are really quick to read and this would be great to read to read on a road trip, as long as you're okay with crying in front of the person you're with. 
I have been interested in this book since I started reading the blog a few years ago and I bought the book off of Amazon months ago but have been saving it to read. Rubin spends one year of her life focusing on her "Happiness Project." She researches happiness and decided to spend one month of the year focusing on a particular subject (marriage, kids, money, career, etc.) and works on certain goals to make herself happier. There are so many interesting things she does in writing this book from becoming a "treasure house of happy memories" to starting a young adult book club and beginning the blog based on the premise of the book. While I don't agree with everything she does (she isn't a Christian so I'm still wrestling with the "me" emphasis of the project) and don't have a year of my life to simply dedicate to doing things to making myself happier I definitely took a lot away from this book. I could write a whole post just about this book and if I end up doing my own mini project you'll hear about it. 
A friend of mine recommended this book over a year ago and I'd been looking forward to finally reading it. But it was very different from what I anticipated. In my mind I would dive in to a flowery story about two people that meet and have a lovely friendship despite religious differences. What I got was that intertwined with a history of the conflict in Palestine. Bashir is a Palestinian man who goes to the home he was forced from as a young boy and meets Dalia, a Jewish woman, who ended up living in the same house. From there their unlikely relationship begins and develops over decades. Honestly, I knew very very little about the Palestinian conflict prior to reading the book (I still don't know much) and, at first, found it challenging to really embrace. It took me a little while to get through but I slowly became engrossed with the story. Because the conflict still exists there the book just seems to drop off without much resolution, but that's the way it goes. I would definitely recommend it if you have any passing interest about the Middle East. 
Where do I even begin? First, I would like to thank Entertainment Weekly for the recommendation :) John Green is a young adult author who tackles the heartbreaking subject of pediatric cancer. He writes about Hazel, a 16 year old with terminal cancer held at bay by a new drug. Hazel ends up meeting Augustus Waters and guess what happens? But really, this book gave me a new appreciation for YA lit, despite the cheese and the fact that teenagers do not really talk like that. It also made me cry on a plane, which is just embarrassing. I really was so so good. 
