Recommended Reading

Before the coronavirus crisis began, fortuitously I had made a trip to the bookstore and stocked up on reading material.  As I have said numerous times before, I am a dinosaur.  That extends to Kindle also.  I much prefer having an actual book in my hands.

Here are a few of the books that I recommend.  Bookstores are not open at the present time, but you could order them online.

"Cooking for Picasso" by Camille Aubray was a very pleasant read.  It deals with a young American woman who finds out that her maternal grandmother, growing up in the south of France prior to World War II, cooked for Picasso.  She travels to France to uncover the family secrets, and to find out if the artist had indeed painted a portrait of her grandmother.  If you have an interest in France, French cuisine, or art, you will probably enjoy this book.

"The Huntress" by Kate Quinn is a much darker book, but I found it gripping.  The murderous mistress of a Nazi commander had a reputation for making a sport out of hunting and killing her victims.  But after the war, she seems to have vanished into thin air.  The hunt to bring the war criminal to justice brings together four unlikely people...  a female Russian aviator, a British war correspondent, a former GI, and a 17 year old girl from Boston who dreams of becoming a photographer.  It is a real page turner.

 At the moment I am reading "Alias Grace" by Margaret Atwood, who is well known as the author of "The Handmaid's Tale".   This novel is not about a dystopian future, but is based on a true incident from the 1840s.  Grace Marks is convicted and imprisoned for the murder of her employer and his mistress.  Many believe that she was innocent, and they hire a young doctor who specializes in mental illness to probe her memories of the crime.  Don't be put off by the unconventional beginning with newspaper quotations and a poem about the murder.  As you get into it, the novel becomes quite engrossing.  It has been made into a Netflix series which I intend to watch after finishing the book.