The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School (by Kathleen Flinn)

A nice and entertaining read. If you’re into cooking. I was surprised that – even though I’m vegetarian – I found a book interesting that goes on and on to describe different ways of stuffing meat with meat and then maybe wrapping it in some more meat. What’s wrong with the French? And why is everyone so crazy about their food? But that’s a different story…

the flying troutmans (Miriam Toews)

Welcome to a universe of the confused. The sun is Min, a mother of two and sister of the narrator, who has been in and out of the psychiatric hospital since she was a kid. Circling around her are her sister, ex-husband, 11 year old daughter and 15 year old son. All of them are pulled towards her trying to safe her and pulling away, trying to safe themselves. The book is nevertheless somewhat funny (in a sad smile kind of way) and a fast read.

Harriet (the sister) comes back from her latest escape to Paris to take care of the kids while her sister is admitted again. Because she can’t think of anything else to do, she takes them on a confused road trip to try and find their father, who has been out of touch for a long time.

What I love are all these weird little side shows that they see while traveling through the US:
“We witnessed a robbery while we were in the store. A young guy, about twenty, came running in and grabbed as many bags of Huggies diapers as he could carry. He went tearing past us and one of them fell, and Logan picked it up and shovel-passed it to the guy, who said thanks, man and kept on running.”

The Leisure Seeker (Michael Zadoorian)

My husband asks me: “Why do you read books that make you sad?” and seriously considered taking it back to the library before I finished it. And that is a good question, why do we read books that make us sad, that remind us of the fact that our parents will die and that, more often than not, they will grow old and frail and forgetful and suffer a whole lot, before doing so?

Well, the Leisure Seeker doesn’t just make me sad but makes me laugh (the “get-stuck-in-your-throat” kind of laughter though). An old woman with terminal cancer decides that she and her husband with Alzheimer’s don’t need to spend their last years (or months) suffering from medical treatment that will not heal them but can just as well sneak away in their old Leisure Seeker (camper) and travel across the country to Disney Land.

They are a very ordinary all-American couple, with two grown up kids and a lot of memories of road trips, staying at Wigwam motels and eating burgers. Going down the old route 66, visiting ghost towns and trailer parks, they go down their own memory lane.They do have their tender moments, but nothing is sugar coated or overly sentimental – and in the middle of their sweetest husband-and-wife moments, his eyes will glaze over and he won’t remember who she is and ask: Are we at home?

I don’t know why it feels good to read books that make me sad, but it feels like I expand my understanding of the world by seeing it through another person’s eyes and it’s an easy training for real life, if you start by following fictional parents of other (fictional) people…