bread

The Pull of the Stars + Irish Barmbrack

January 26, 2021 by Megan Leave a Comment

Emma Donoghue’s latest novel, The Pull of the Stars, includes a couple of elements that would normally turn me off of a novel — and, in many cases, DNF one: no quotation marks and extremely long chapters. Luckily, it also is made of things I often look for in a new read: a female-centric story, a strong sense of place, and an utterly gripping storyline. In the end, the good far outweighed the bad. I loved it.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue — Available on Bookshop.org and Amazon

The story takes place over just a few days in an Irish maternity/flu ward during the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. Nurse Julia Power is tasked with taking care of flu-ridden laboring mothers and their babies until they're able to go home. The ward is really nothing more than a room, three beds cramped together without much support aside from Nurse Julia and an inexperienced volunteer. As you would expect with early 20th century childbirth on top of a devastating pandemic, the story is emotional. In it, Donoghue touches on such timely (or, in some ways, timeless) themes as healthcare, pregnancy/motherhood, societal expectations and abuses of power.

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A Gentleman in Moscow + Dill Bread

December 15, 2020 by Megan Leave a Comment

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I have had A Gentleman in Moscow sitting on my shelf for what feels like forever. I recognized it at a used book sale and scooped it up for a dollar. But then it sat there. The size really intimidated me. When I was presented with an opportunity to partner with the Book Club Cookbook for their Book Blends Bash, I knew now was the time to push myself to read it!

Well, I’m mostly just disappointed I waited so long to pick Amor Towles’ novel up! It was really quite lovely — almost a 5-star read. In it, we follow Count Alexander Rostov, who is sentenced to house arrest by the Bolsheviks in the early 1920s. The rest of the story takes place in the Metropol, where the Count will be staying; to step out onto the street would mean being shot dead on the spot.

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Kids Edition: Pippi Longstocking + Braided Poppy Seed Bread

October 24, 2020 by Megan Leave a Comment

Welcome to another Kids Edition post on The Hungry Bookworm! Today we will be talking about Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.

I never read Pippi Longstocking as a child, but I do remember a movie. The thing that stuck out the most to me was her long red braids and freckles. What I learned in the book is that Pippi is also very strong — she can lift a horse on her own! — and she likes to have fun in her own way. Pippi is a little bit like Peter Pan, in that she doesn’t want to grow up.

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Women Talking + Whole Wheat and Spelt Bread

March 16, 2019 by Megan 1 Comment

Miriam Toews’ latest novel Women Talking was one of my most anticipated reads of 2019, and though it wasn’t exactly what I expected going in, I’m happy to say that it did not disappoint. It was a bit slow to start but ended up being a powerful read. I probably should’ve expected nothing less from Toews, who I discovered later, was raised in a Mennonite community until the age of 18. She has been working on telling this important story for years.

The majority of the novel is exactly what the title describes, or as one character puts it, “just women talking.” Eight Mennonite women sit in a hayloft to discuss a series of sustained attacks on the females in their closed community. The women have learned that men within their own community drugged and attacked the women in their sleep, and they must decide how best to protect themselves and their daughters moving forward.

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The Dreamers + Almond Croissants

March 9, 2019 by Megan 4 Comments

For those of you who have been with me since the beginning, you may recall my love of Karen Thompson Walker’s previous novel, The Age of Miracles. Because of that, I have been anxiously awaiting her follow-up The Dreamers since I first heard about it months ago. I was lucky enough to get it from the library on its release day, and I wasted no time getting right to it!

Like The Age of Miracles, The Dreamers starts with a seemingly innocuous anomaly. This time, a college girl falls asleep and doesn’t wake up. Her roommate, Mei, is unable to wake her, and the girl is brought to the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep and then another, people begin to worry. The dorm is put on lockdown. As the mysterious illness spreads, the entire college town is quarantined, doctors are flown in to investigate and the National Guard summoned to keep order.

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Mother, Mother + Lemon Blueberry Scones

August 4, 2018 by Megan Leave a Comment

I read Koren Zailckas’ memoir Smashed about her “drunken girlhood” over a decade ago, and I absolutely loved it. It was a sober (and sobering) look at her past that also touched on the societal and social pressures that cause many young women to drink so heavily in the first place. Not only was her story powerful, her writing was as well. So, when I came across her novel Mother, Mother at a used book sale a little while back, I didn’t hesitate to scoop it up.

In the Hurst family, no one is perfect. The oldest daughter, Rose, has seemingly had enough and run off with her mysterious boyfriend, leaving her sister Violet struggling to cope with an ever-changing home life. Will, the youngest, clings most closely to his mom who has been homeschooling him since his recent diagnoses with Asperger’s and epilepsy. Meanwhile, their father, Douglas, is mostly absent and, when he is home, distracted and taking phone calls in whispers. In the center of it all is Josephine, the Hurst matriarch, a narcissist and master manipulator. Hiding behind her facade of caring homemaker, she may just be the worst mother ever.