It was 10 degrees in New York this am. Our extended Indian Summer with temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s in December are long gone. The frigid weather is setting in. Last Christmas I won a faux fur blanket in a Yankee Swap. WHAT A TREASURE!!! Everyone in my family fought over it during the coldest nights in January and February, even the dog!!!!! (I kid you not). This year we are armed for the frost…everyone is ready with their own blankets. No more sharing for me. I urge you to try one. Not only are they soooo amazingly warm but they look so chic folded on a bed or over a chair.
This week’s selection has been a difficult choice for me. I keep hearing how amazing and unlike anything ever read before, the story, A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara is, yet also how hard some parts of the story are to read. The plot goes like this….
Brace yourself for the most astonishing, challenging, upsetting, and profoundly moving book in many a season. An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the darkest places fiction has ever traveled and yet somehow improbably breaks through into the light. Truly an amazement—and a great gift for its readers.
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
In rich and resplendent prose, Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and transcendent hymn to brotherly love, a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance. (Amazon.com)
This book is sitting in my wish list on Amazon waiting to be purchased but for some reason, I cannot pull the trigger. Not sure I can handle the parts of the abuse but I am dying to read it. If anyone has read it, please leave your comments below or in the facebook comments and tell us what you thought of the book.
I am taking a short break to spend time with my family. Don’t worry, I will be working on bringing you some of the best posts with the latest and greatest in 2016! We will also have amazing guests on the Radio Show starting in January. If you missed any of the past segments you can listen HERE. Happy New Year!!!
Since I host Thanksgiving, Christmas becomes mainly about my husband and three children. We always have a special breakfast, after the gifts are opened. I usually make some kind of casserole for us to share. I search and search the internet for a new recipe weeks before Christmas morning. I like to set the table so that it looks merry and bright. I found this French Toast casserole that was labeled “THE BEST”. I cannot wait to try it and see what my little elves think! Happy Cooking!!!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 brown sugar
1tbs ground cinnamon
12 sliced sandwich bread
6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 pinch salt
Coat a 9X13 inch baking dish with melted butter. Spread any remaining melted butter over bottom of dish.
Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon evenly over melted butter.
Arrange bread in two layers over brown sugar mixture.
Beat eggs, milk, and salt in a bowl; pour over bread.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Baked until golden brown, about 30 minutes.
