A Moveable Feast: Life Changing Food Encounters Around the World by Don George, Lonely Planet

I needed something I could read in small, digestible bites (pun intended) and what better than a collection of essays focusing on food and travel? Of course, most of the life-changing experiences in food written about here will never be something my picky palette will encounter, but each story was emotional and to-the-point, and compact. It felt like I was reading a full story each night with no obligation to recall any previous details. My brain needed that. It has been overloaded lately.

The most touching and consistent aspect of these stories was the idea of food as a symbol of hospitality. The willingness of people to offer up their best food, in some of the poorest parts of the world, to complete strangers and foreigners speaks to the kind heart of humanity (which is sometimes hard to see these days.) Being able to feed guests and make them feel special through food is a rite some cultures will not be denied and that very idea brought me into these crazy stories of eating the strangest food (strange being defined here by someone raised on pizza and grilled chicken.)

Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern make appearances in this collection as well as other illustrious food and travel writers, but their celebrity only serves to grant them access to their experiences or at least motivate them to travel off the beaten path. You don't feel like you're reading something from an "expert" but rather it's just a story of an experience from an Average Joe who happens to have an adventurous spirit.

This was a nice break from novels and made-up worlds, and alternate realities. Compilations area always great when you need a break from a story that takes hundreds of pages to complete and I highly recommend finding one that fits into your own interests if you are looking for a little break from best sellers and whatnot too.

The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman

Another trilogy complete. I was very excited to see where this one would end up and am only slightly disappointed with the conclusion. Overall, this book lacked the intensity of the other two, a trait of the books, I'd come to expect.

Looking back, I've been working through this trilogy since 2011 which explains why some details were a little hazy to me this time around. Grossman teases certain facts out enough to jog your memory a bit on any events he references from the previous books, but it might have been beneficial for me to have done some rereading before starting this book just to be current on everything. Regardless, I made it through just fine; only slightly disappointed as I've said.

In this book, the magical world of Fillory, which our hero, Quentin Coldwater, has been kicked out of, is dying. Quentin is back in our world as sort of a wandering soul, grasping at whatever he can to root himself back in magic. He temporarily returns to Brakebills, the college he learned magic from, but when that goes sour, he becomes a magical hand for hire. Unknowingly, his first hired job draws him back into the plight of Fillory.

Everything comes together with the casting of a very powerful spell, an old journal, and the reuniting of friends. You want it to be a complex and intense story, but mostly it falls short. Yes, there is one awesome battle scene, complete with a flying pool table, and one encounter with a supernaturally magical being that gave me the chills, but overall, the plot felt thin. The ending comes on very quickly and without much fanfare with Grossman using a pretty pivotal character, in my opinion, as a means to explain everything at the last minute. A little weak if you ask me. But, overall, I liked this trilogy a lot. It's the darker version of a Narnian world - where magic exists beside the world we know, but here most beings aren't too nice. There's no sense of utopia here, no supreme, infallible being and I really like this take on the environment. I just wish there was some additional, compelling element to this final book, a grand send-off instead of just a quiet departure.

Check out my reviews of the first two books in this trilogy:

• The Magicians
• The Magician King

Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson

There's no point, really, in reviewing this book in a traditional sense. It's only going to appeal to a small group of readers including: Bryson fans, History buffs, and Linguistic lovers, so, if you don't fall into any of these categories, you might want to skip this entry.

The title is a little misleading (and very long) since this is not a dictionary with word origins and histories, but rather it's a selective history of the U.S. focused on significant events and time periods and the words that evolved as a result. You learn how new words came about but also how preexisting words had their meanings changed by circumstance. It's just an awesome book, plain and simple (I fall into the Linguistic Lover category.)

I ended up reading the book in small bursts between mostly fiction and this would be my only suggestion for other readers. It helped me stay very interested in the book as a whole to take a little breaks and not overwhelm myself with the information. Too much of a good thing after all can be overkill.

The way Bryson shares information is as appealing as the information itself. He talks about everything with such a casual tone and never feels compelled to tell you everything. He makes his points, finds what's interesting and leaves the reader more educated than when they started the book on whatever topic he's covering. And you want to tell other people about what you're learning! Bryson makes me happy because I know I'm going to enjoy reading one of his books before I even crack the cover open. 

Language is an ever-changing entity. New words are constantly worming their way into everyday vernacular, old words are being redefined and reintroduced, and new terms and phrases are constantly emerging. I think about terms like social media or how people can now "tweet" something and it blows my mind that what meant nothing just a few years ago are now terms commonly understood by everyone.

Language is amazing and I loved learning more about its history, especially within the confines of something already familiar - the history of the United States.

Other Bill Bryson books reviewed in this blog:

• At Home: A Short History of Private Life
• The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde

I have stuck with this series for a long time now. I have actually read just about every book Fforde has written, but my gateway book was the first in this series about Thursday Next. The first book, The Eyre Affair, was brilliant and literary and perfect for us lovers of the classics. It was the reality Fforde created for Literary Detective Thursday Next coupled with the literature itself coming alive that got my attention and made this series a favorite.

I still love Thursday. She has been through a lot over the course of this series (and it isn't over yet,) but while this latest book was jam-packed with adventure, the literary side was sadly absent.

No longer a detective, Thursday now heads up the library in Swindon, her home. It's a huge honor and a surprisingly dangerous post. Eventually, she gets sucked into a plot by the evil Goliath Corporation who's beginning to destroy specific pages from old, seemingly unpopular books. There's a bigger twist at work here, but in the midst of figuring it out, Thursday must help prevent her son, Friday, from committing murder and help redirect a smiting from the Global Standard Deity in the center of town.

It's a busy week (yes, this happens in just a single week) full of improbability, mathematics, nonsense, and complicated "what if" scenarios  resulting from the disbanding of the Chronoguard who were able to time travel until it was discovered time travel won't actually be possible. But, with everything going on in the real world, the book world is only an abstract character and nobody from the literary world, no well-known characters from universally loved books, make an appearance at all. If left me a little wanting when I finished the book.

Still very smartly written and vastly entertaining, the book was a good read and the series remains one of my all-time favorites. It was just a bit of a downer as far as my expectations, so be prepared if you've been reading this series from the start.

The complete series of Thursday Next books is, in order:

• The Eyre Affair
• Lost in a Good Book
• The Well of Lost Plots
• Something Rotten
• First Among Sequels
• One of Our Thursdays is Missing (which I've reviewed here)

Fforde also has three other series he works on in different intervals that are all very unique and interesting. 

• Nursery Crime Series
• Shades of Grey Series (note there are not 50 shades here)
• Last Dragonslayer Series