February reads

An unexpected bathroom remodel ate into my reading and research time in February, but if I stay up late, there's still lots of time to read!

I read another batch of Italian cookbooks, looking for the perfect spicy sauce recipe... my 35+ year old recipe needs some tweaking. So far I've read Ciao Tuscany, Assaggio Ristorante (from a Seattle restaurant), Rustic Italian Food, Osteria, My Southern Italian Table, and Tony Casillo's Family Cookbook.

I also finished up the last books in Kathryn R. Wall's series, and when I checked her website for the next title, learned that there may be no more Bay Tanner books. Her husband just passed away after a long bout with Alzheimer's, and it sounds like she's lost heart, at least for a while. I can understand. But, I hope she returns to writing. She's a very talented writer, and I can't wait to see what happens to her characters in the next book.

One day while browsing the Choice Reads in my local library, I found Shannon Hale's "Austenland" and "Midnight in Austenland." Being a lover of all things Jane Austen, I couldn't resist taking these home. Yummy books; the first will be a movie this spring. (If you're an Austen fan, I can also recommend the movie "The Jane Austen Book Club." Also yummy.)

Another topic of interest in February has been books about the Hood Canal area, Lake Cushman, the Olympics, and the Mosquito Fleet. I spotted Michael Fredson's photography guide to the history of Hood Canal and its communities while in the Shelton historical museum, and it's fascinating.

I've been interested in high-dynamic range photography ever since I bought my ultrazoom Canon, which can be programmed to take three simultaneous shots of the same scene (underexponsed, correctly exposed, overexposed). When combined into a single image, you get a photograph that has much more dynamic range than a single shot. It's been fun to play around with this, and Harold Davis' "Creating HDR Photos" is a good instructional book.

Also from the Choice Reads wall in the library came Jojo Moyes' "The Last Letter From Your Lover." Amazing, wonderful book set in 1970s London and modern day London, full of beautiful characters and rich vocabulary. If you're looking for a choice for a book club, I highly recommend this one.

I'm well into another stack of books for March... stay tuned.