This small book of essays chronicles life experiences, has wonderful insights and exhibits the wit that we associate with the Ephron name. Amy Ephron's writing style is very down to earth and oh so readable as she tells stories about herself, her family, their experiences and the lessons that she has learned. This was a book that was a pleasure to read and one that I will no doubt return to on a rainy just because I can.

The Summer Without Men may sound like a summer beach read but it clearly isn't. Mia, the narrator, has much going on in her life with her marital problems, her aging mother, her young students. She is in a complicated place and the author talks Mia and her readers through these events quite systematically. There are flaws with most of the characters and they are dealt with sympathetically. The author's storytelling takes us to some equally flawed but satisfying conclusions in the lives of her characters. This wasn't a book that I ordinarily would have read but I am glad that I did.

Being an avowed Anglophile, I was prepared to love this book. Instead it seemed to me to be a book that was trying too hard to be oh so charming. It was fun to read factoids about the history of the Tower of London but there was so much going on in the book that it was hard to focus on their characters, much less develop a compelling interest in their issues.

This is a sweeping story of a complicated family on two simultaneous journeys. One journey is back to their roots in China and the other an emotional journey that has each woman in the novel looking at her life. It is a compelling book with universal themes--growing up and coming of age, aging and coming to grips with the past. While enjoying the book, some details were at times overwhelming and superfluous to the story. Tighter editing might have served the book well but all in all it is an enjoyable, multi-generational, multi-cultural read.

I had a difficult time actually giving this book an overall rating. There were some parts of it that were so engaging as to be almost mesmerizing but other sections were completely blah, boring and almost incomplete. The chapter transitions between characters were not easy to follow. In fact, the family tree at the beginning of the book was a constant reference point for me. Dorothy Trevor and Evelyn were great stories of women in transitional times and all they believed in and suffered for their causes were tales well told. These stories rated a 5. The later generation not so and rated much lower. These sections seemed hurried and rather dull in comparison. All in all, this was an informative but inconsistent book.

From England to Vietnam and places in between and beyond, this was an informative, and mostly fun, book to read. Writing about her adventures with her family, friends and solo were very good and Ms. Hodgson was adept at bringing her reader along with her. Her obvious knowledge of and devotion to food and its history and preparation will appeal to foodies (and make them hungry). My criticism would be that there are some parts of the book that warrant more background, detail and/or explanation but all in all, it was a book that I would recommend to readers who love travel and food adventures.

Being a devotee of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher, it was with great anticipation that I started reading Heavenly Pleasures. While an enjoyable read, the characters weren't as well defined (perhaps because there were so many of them) nor the plot as crisp as I expect from Ms. Greenwood. She is very good at setting the atmosphere and the feeling one might have being in Sydney in the fall on rainy evening but her plot in this particular book got lost among the characters, and the time and place. Perhaps this is simply a book for the beachbag and a summer's day entertainment but not one that will likely remain on one's "favorites" list.