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Books and Bites
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
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Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Books and Bites podcast. Each month we bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them. I'm Carrie Green and I'm here with my co hosts Michael Cunningham and Jacqueline Cooper.
Michael: Hello.
Jacqueline: Hello everybody.
Carrie: This month we're discussing Books with Maps, one of the prompts on the Winter- Spring Books and Bites bingo sheet.
If you haven't completed this prompt yet, you might be surprised at all the different genres that include maps. You know, the first thing you think of is travel, but there's so much more, especially in fiction. What kind of books were you finding with maps?
Michael: Fantasy. A lot of fantasy series have maps.
Jacqueline: Science fiction, a lot of them have maps.
Michael: Yeah.
Jacqueline: And, yeah. Historical fiction.
Michael: Oh, yeah. Nonfiction, especially like any kind of military or adventure type.
Jacqueline: Yeah, that makes sense.
Michael: Will have a map. Especially ones with maybe those insert, photos usually in the [00:01:00] middle will have a map in there at some point.
Carrie: Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm. You know, the book I read today is a historical mystery. So, yeah, lots of different kinds of books with maps. So, we've got lots of suggestions on our book list that you can find on our website, on our Books and Bites page. So there are lots of additional books there if the ones we talk about today are not your jam.
So we are reaching the end of our Winter- spring bingo. June 30th is the last date to enter your bingo cards for this sheet and enter the drawing to win either a Kindle or Joseph Beth gift card and of course pick up your reward pin.
Michael: Yeah.
Jacqueline: Oh yeah, I love my pin.
Carrie: You know, if you have any last minute prompts you need to finish, you can always check our website for those lists of [00:02:00] suggested books.
Visit our Facebook group and, you know, maybe, maybe get in your, bookmatch bundle requests, although we are getting a lot right now, so you may have to allow us a little extra time to get those to you. So, since we're wrapping up things, kind of, for, for June, What has been the favorite book that you've read so far this year?
Michael: I guess I saved the best for last because I think this book, of all the prompts we've read so far this year, has ended up being my favorite.
Carrie: Okay.
Jacqueline: That's cool. I really like the one I read, too. Of course, it was fantasy, so.
Michael: You do love your fantasy, Jacqueline.
Jacqueline: I do love my fantasy.
Carrie: What was it? Romantasy?
Jacqueline: Romantasy, yeah.
There is a little romance, the one, Divine Rivals is the one I'm going to talk about, and it's romance historical fiction, I don't know how you would [00:03:00] I don't know if we could put those together.
Carrie: Yeah, I don't know. If there's a clever term for that, we'll have to come up with one.
Jacqueline: Yeah.
Carrie: Yeah, I think my favorite one was the one I read for Women's History Month, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, and it surprises me that a book with like 600 pages, and it was also a book with a huge bibliography, was one of the favorite books that I read this year.
Jacqueline: The book I read for that prompt, too, was really good, and it was, The Lovely War, and it had a lot of author notes, and you really learned a lot about the time period and stuff, so I did enjoy that as well.
Carrie: And then there are some prompts we haven't talked about on the podcast. We have still made book lists for them. [00:04:00] Was there a favorite book for a prompt that we didn't discuss? Like a book that you read for one of the prompts that we haven't discussed on the podcast?
Michael: I would say a book with a bibliography.
Carrie: Mm hmm.
Michael: I read The Wager by David Graham about the, British ship that crashed on the island. And then a group makes it back and then another group makes it back to England and it's like, oh, the first group mutinied against the rest of the crew. It's fascinating. I don't know how he dug this story up out of the archives of British history, but it was fascinating.
And apparently Scorsese is going to turn it into a film.
Carrie: Oh yeah. Cool. Cool.
Michael: But yeah, it was.
Carrie: That sounds like it would qualify for an adventure story, too.
Michael: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Carrie: How about you, Jacqueline?
Jacqueline: I read Killer Instinct. It was kind of like a suspense book, and it was, it is the second one. It's by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, which is [00:05:00] she wrote the Inheritance series, which is really super popular right now, but you don't hear much about this series.
And I'm kind of mad because I can't get the third one. It's like a 10 week hold or something, so it's really good though.
Carrie: And did that qualify for one of the prompts?
Jacqueline: It
could
qualify as a mystery, but I didn't read that. I just read that on my own.
Carrie: Oh, okay. Yeah, it was hard for me to pick my favorites for the prompt we didn't discuss.
I read How to Be Both by Ali Smith and I've talked about Ali Smith on the podcast multiple times. She's one of my favorite authors. You could count it for either the LGBTQ plus author or the award winning book. Another book that I mentioned on the podcast was Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle by Claire Hunter, and that could also qualify for the Women's History, although , you know, one of the fascinating [00:06:00] things about it was that needlework and embroidery was not traditionally just the, you know, the role of women,
like men did and do that too. And that would also be a book with a bibliography, but yeah, so we do. We do sometimes read other things other than what we talk about.
Jacqueline: Yeah, I read several books in between our, usually between our books and Bites Bingo because, well, I have to read, I have to have something to read, so.
Carrie: All right. And we, and we hope you're reading other things too. And we look forward to getting your bingo sheets and seeing what you've been up to these past six months.[00:07:00]
Jacqueline: My choice for this month is Divine Rivals, a young adult fantasy novel by Rebecca Ross. Divine Rivals is book one of the Letters of Enchantment series. After centuries of sleep, two ancient gods are warring again using human armies. Forrest, 18 year old Iris Winnow's older brother, joins the war, leaving Iris to hold the family together.
When Forrest goes missing from the front line, his mother, Aster, tries to drown her sorrows. So when Aster loses her job, Iris is forced to quit school and compete for a job as a columnist at the Oath Gazette. Iris writes letters sending them to her brother through a magical wardrobe in hopes that they will get to him.
Each morning, she checks to see if he's written back, but Iris' letters go astray into the hands of cold, handsome Roman Kitt, Iris' rival at the [00:08:00] paper. At first, he just writes back saying he's not Forrest, but then they both keep writing. They open up about things they don't share with anyone else. Although Iris does not know that Roman is the person she's writing to, Roman figures out right away it's Iris.
When Iris ends up losing the columnist competition, she decides to join the war to look for her brother. She applies for a job as a war correspondent at the rival newspaper with her typewriter in tow. She learns that her typewriter was only one of three magical Alouette typewriters made and named after a sick girl, and two of them were given to her friends so they could communicate.
One of her friends was Iris' grandmother. Learning that the magic is in the typewriter, she continues to send letters to her anonymous friend. Although the friends to enemy plot are often standard tropes in romance novel, the work is innovative, historical fiction meets fantasy. Ross interweaves information and fact pertaining to World War I [00:09:00] to establish its setting throughout the novel.
The letters are engaging, beautifully written, and make the work stand out. I enjoyed the writing and read pretty much non stop till the end. Ross addresses the dangers of war and alcoholism in this book, making the content more appropriate for ages 13 and up. There is a little bit of spice, but nothing too explicit.
For my bites, I chose a simple plum recipe from newspaper dot com. Plum puddings and chocolate were common emergency rations during World War I that was eaten by individuals trapped behind enemy lines. This recipe calls for ginger, cinnamon, currants, and raisins. And you can find this recipe if you type in World War I era recipes, Simple Plum Pudding.
Carrie: Sounds good. You've learned a lot about cooking during World War I this year.
Jacqueline: Yeah, two of my books were, were, had World War I. [00:10:00] I didn't know that when I picked this, but
Carrie: I just finished a book that took place during World War One, , The Bookbinder by Pip Williams. And I had talked about her first book, I think last year for last year's Books and Bites.
I can't remember. Yeah, they did do some cooking, but. A lot of it was like potatoes and, you know, onions and, you know, that kind of thing. Potatoes and sausages, that's what I remember from the book.
Jacqueline: Yeah, they mentioned that, potatoes and mutton and these were things that people,
some of
the things that were available during World War I.
And they also talked about, or the author also talked about like victory gardens, so I guess that's where the potato comes in as well.
Carrie: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, there was, there was a garden like that in this book, too. [00:11:00] She works at the Bindery at Oxford University Press, but she lives in a longboat on the river, but they had, like, a little garden, you know, nearby.
Jacqueline: Yeah. Two of her friends had the garden and like, of course, the soldiers trampled it at one point and they had to like, go back and rescue it. So they did bring a lot about war into this book. I didn't really, you know, just for this short scenario, I didn't like,
dig
too deep into it. But if you want to learn a little bit about World War I and have a history and fantasy and romance, this is the book for you, I guess.
Carrie: And just a sneak preview, one of the prompts next time is going to be a book that is a hybrid that combines two different genres in one. So Jacqueline, that would count for the next bingo sheet as well.
Jacqueline: Oh, shoot. I've already [00:12:00]
Michael: Is it a series?
Jacqueline: It is. I mean, I could read it, but maybe just not as part of the podcast, but I could still read it.
I'm looking forward to the second one.
Carrie: Yeah.
So my book is The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra. Set in colonial Bangalore, India in 1921, The Bangalore Detectives Club is the first in a new mystery series. If you like your mysteries on the cozy side and enjoy learning a little history and culture while you're at it, this might be the book for you.
Main character, Kaveri, is a young newlywed who is continuing her math studies at home because she hopes to go to college. Although her doctor husband, Ramu, is supportive of her studies and ambitions, she hides them from her mother in law, [00:13:00] who disapproves of women pursuing an education. Early in the novel, Kaveri and Ramu attend a dinner party at the Century Club, the only social club in Bangalore that allows both British and Indian members.
The other attendees include Ramu's hospital colleagues and their wives. Naturally, someone is murdered at the party. But it's not one of the attendees. The victim is an outsider who is initially described as a thief. Kaveri had seen the victim earlier in the evening when she'd slipped outside for a few minutes.
He'd appeared to be threatening a beautiful woman who was also a stranger to her. Kaveri tells the police what she saw and learns that the murdered man was a pimp. When Kaveri's milkman and his pregnant wife become suspects, she's determined to help investigate the case. Luckily, and perhaps a bit [00:14:00] improbably, both Ramu and the police detective are supportive of Kaveri's detective work.
Along with Kaveri and Ramu's older neighbor Uma, they work together to solve the murder. The Bangalore Detectives Club offers just the right amount of background information on colonial India, providing context without overwhelming. I especially enjoyed learning about this place and time from the point of view of the colonized rather than the colonizer.
I also appreciated the book's focus on women's issues. Unlike most female cozy mystery detectives, Kaveri is supported by the men around her, including her progressive husband and the police detective. The novel avoids some of the usual tropes while still highlighting the treatment of women at the time, including as victims of sexual slavery.
And while there are serious underlying topics, overall the tone is joyful, a rare thing in books these [00:15:00] days, even in cozy mysteries. It's true that the ending didn't exactly surprise me, but the likeable characters and richly detailed setting kept me engaged throughout. In the back of the book, the author provides several recipes that Kaveri, who is still learning to cook, makes. They all sound delicious, but I was most intrigued by a dish that isn't included, lemon rice.
Kaveri and Ramu take it on a picnic, quote, neatly wrapped in banana leaves and tied with twine, unquote. According to the blog Cook with Manali, lemon rice is often eaten as a quick lunch and served with pickles and papadum. Kaveri and Ramu eat theirs with mango pickle.
Michael: That sounds good.
Carrie: Yeah, it
does, doesn't it?
Jacqueline: I love rice, too.
Carrie: Well, we will link to that recipe on our blog.
Michael: You don't hear many books that take place in colonial [00:16:00] India.
Carrie: Right, and are written by people who are Indian. Yeah, I, I think that is really rare. And so that, that was something that I enjoyed about the book. Kind of like you said, learning something from the book that you read.
I felt like I learned some stuff in this book.
Jacqueline: Yeah. I can see that. I'm actually interested in reading that. I like mysteries anyway. So this seems like it's going to have a sequel. Is it kind of like going to be a series? Do you think?
Carrie: Yeah, they're, they're saying that it's the first in a series, but this just came out, I think, this year, so the other books haven't come out yet.
Jacqueline: It'll be a bit. Yeah. It sounds good, though.
Carrie: Yeah, I enjoyed it. Like I said, the ending wasn't, you know, it was kinda
Michael: A little predictable?
Carrie: It was a little predictable, but, you know. You don't realize the ending is going to be predictable until you get to the ending, so it didn't really bother me up [00:17:00] until then.
Jacqueline: I think it's interesting the detective is married, because a lot of detectives, you know, they have these strong female figures, but they're usually not married.
Carrie: Yeah, and not only that, she, you know, it's an arranged marriage. So I think it kind of works against some of the stereotypes that, you know, you know, Westerners have about arranged marriages because it's a very happy marriage and her husband is really supportive of her.
You know, it's not like, you know, what, what I think we would sometimes assume an arranged marriage would be, so.
Jacqueline: Yeah, I mean, there's, there's still a lot of arranged marriages in India. I'm not sure what the Who, who all has arranged marriages, but I had a professor that had an arranged marriage.
Carrie: Mm hmm.
Jacqueline: And I was just kind of like surprised, but it's not, I guess it's pretty common
Carrie: over there.
Mm hmm. Yeah.[00:18:00]
Michael: I recently saw Alex Garland's Civil War Theater and immediately wanted to read something similar. One title that kept showing up on lists was American War by Omar El Akkad. This book takes place over two decades beginning in 2075 during the outset of the second U. S. Civil War. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia have seceded from the United States after vehemently opposing the Sustainable Future Act that outlawed oil production after the rising sea levels forced the coastal population further inland and the US capitol to relocate to Columbus, Ohio. In this post apocalyptic world, We follow the story of Sarah T. Chestnut, who goes by Sarat, after a teacher's mistakenly added her middle initial to her first name. She lives in a shipping container with her family in the border state of Louisiana, near what is now the Mississippi Sea.
When tragedy strikes and the fighting [00:19:00] in Texas encroaches on their land, she and her family flee to a refugee camp deep in the war torn, free southern state of Mississippi, near the northern border with Tennessee. For six years, they scraped by at Camp Patience with other refugees from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and a few from South Carolina, a state that has now walled off after the U S government unleashed a contagious virus that got out of control that put the fiery insurrectionist residents into a comatose state.
When they encamp, Sarat, now a fearless teen, strikes up a friendship with a mysterious man that visits the camp regularly dressed in neat pre war suits. He gives her a job running errands. And as time goes on, he starts teaching her all about the injustices inflicted on the South by the North. And as the war drags on, and the brutality of war unfolds around her, Sarat is slowly molded into a finely tuned weapon of vengeance.
There are quite a few parallels to the first U. S. Civil War. with fossil fuel [00:20:00] standing in for slavery, and there's even an event in South Carolina that eerily mirrors Fort Sumter. It also takes our complicated history of Middle East conflicts and inverts it with a new empire that takes advantage of the war playing both sides.
The narrator sums up the book quite well in the prologue. Quote, This isn't a story about war. It's about ruin, end quote. The world building was fascinating. Personally, I would have liked a more detailed exploration of the world and its political landscape, but that could have easily turned this into quite the doorstopper of a book.
But between each chapter are excerpts from texts, oral histories, news articles, etc. that provide important context of the war. And there are two interesting maps included, one of the United States and one of the Free Southern State from 2075, to give the reader a better idea of what the United States looks like, where the fronts were, and the sites of important locations from the story.
Pair this with a square of Mississippi [00:21:00] mud pie, a delicious southern dessert that will take the edge off the sobering book. This recipe from tasteofhome. com calls for chocolate pudding mix, cream cheese, whipped topping, and chopped pecans.
Carrie: Yeah, I can't go wrong with that.
Michael: Oh no.
Jacqueline: Sounds good.
Carrie: So, it's interesting that, I mean, we were just kind of talking before we started recording about having trouble reading the news, and yet you seek out a book that's like this movie about Civil War.
Can you explain that?
Michael: Well, this one has, I guess, where the movie Civil War is more about the immediate what's going on now, where this one tackles more about what we've done in our past, like with the US, the first US Civil War. And there's a lot of. I guess, parallels to things in [00:22:00] that war to this war and also what we've done in the Middle East over the years and inverse that and having that done to us now.
So I think it kind of, takes what we've done and it kind of reflects it back on us. It's like, this is kind of
what
you've done where maybe it's not like we're, we're, we're The movie shows you like, this is, this, this is really could happen where this shows you what maybe has happened through, I guess, the context of a future
war. Does that make sense? Kind of?
Carrie: Yeah.
Michael: It's maybe not as immediate or newsworthy, some, some of it is, but like, yeah.
Jacqueline: I think it's, it's not real. So it's easy to, to distance yourself or even if it's in the past, you know, when it's coming on right now, it's just like overwhelming sometimes. I think when I'm listening to stuff like you want, you want to be able to do something,
but you [00:23:00] can't, of course, if it's fiction, you know, you don't have that anxiety or whatever that relates to it. Maybe.
Michael: Yeah. I think it more like takes, takes the first U. S. Civil War and kind of like what would happen, what would, what would look like now if it happened today, in that kind of context.
Carrie: Mm hmm.
Michael: Along the same kind of borderlines, the South and the North, and how would that play out?
Carrie: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Michael: And what the downfall of America will look like. What would internationally, what would that, what would that look like? Not good.
Well, that was depressing.
Wasn't horror this time, but I mean, close.
Carrie: Thanks for listening to the Books and Bites podcast. To learn more about Books and Bites Bingo, visit us at [00:24:00] jesstpublib.org/books-bites. Our theme music is The Breakers from the album In Close Quarters with the Enemy by Scott Whiddon. You can learn more about Scott and his music at his website adoorforadesk.com.