"A Million Steps" by Kurt Koontz (2014)

In 1995 I spent a semester in León, Spain.  It was there that I first learned of the Camino de Santiago because one of the major stops is on the Camino is in León.  The Camino is a pilgrimage across Spain that thousands of people walk or bike each year.  The most popular route starts just across the Pyrenees from Pamplona, Spain and runs for almost 500 miles to Santiago de Compostela in the Galicia region of Spain, north of Portugal.  I don't have a bucket list, but if I did this pilgrimage would be on it.

The author of this book was a successful businessman from Idaho who was able to retire at the age of 36.  In 2012, in his late 40's, he walked the Camino in 28 days.  This book documents that journey.  

I really enjoyed this book.  It is a very quick read and has short chapters that made it easy to pick up and put down whenever I had a few minutes to read.  I was taken by the personal insights he gained on the Camino and the ways he was able to think about how to put those insights into action in his life after the Camino.  I enjoyed reading about the people from all around the world that he encountered while on the journey, and how they popped in and out of his life along the way.  I don't think anyone can read this book and not come away wanting to do the Camino him/herself. 

I have always had the Camino in the back of my mind, but it is now something I think I might need to find a way to do.  I don't know that I would do the entire 500 miles; but I think I will more seriously consider now doing at least part of it.  It seems like a life-changing journey.

"Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court" by Sandra Day O'Connor (Random House 2013)

In March of 2014, I went to visit my parents at their winter home in Arizona.  One of my main objectives while I was there was to go to the Tucson Festival of Books at the University of Arizona.  I am a big fan of book festivals and this was my second time at this particular festival.  I am a US Supreme Court junkie and wanted to see a talk by retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.  We were really lucky we got in as the line was already long by the time we got there and I think I and my parrents were literally the last people they let in.  My dad didn't even get a seat. Her talk was primarily about her work as an advocate for civics education in schools.  It was interesting, although I was hoping to hear more about her experiences on the Court.

At the festival, there is a tent where you can buy books by the authors presenting there.  That is where I picked up this book.  It was a quick read and generally enjoyable, but I think it is targeted towards people who are largely unfamiliar with the Supreme Court and its history.  I didn't really come away having learned anything new, aside from the fact that there is a basketball court above the courtroom.  That I didn't know.

I also wasn't thrilled with the style of writing, which again I think is because of its target audience.  The language is a bit too informal for my liking for this kind of topic.  For example, I tend to not like the use of exclamation points in nonfiction work as a way of emphasizing a point.  There were a lot of exclamation points in this book! (irony intended).  Also, there was a lot of repetition of facts from chapter to chapter which was distracting for me but probably a good reenforcement technique for readers new to the topic.  Law can be a bit dry and this book isn't at all dry.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the book.  It certainly wasn't a waste of time because it only took me a few days to get through and I always like to hear about "behind the scenes" aspects of the Court from the point of view of a Justice.  I would definitely recommend this book for those less familiar with the Court and I will add it to my list of recommended reading for my paralegal students who are interested in this topic.

Recipe Review -- Strawberry Preserve Cupcakes

This recipe comes from the cookbook "The Cupcake Bible:  More than 150 recipes for fun and delicious cupcakes" (Publications International, Ltd. 2011).  The recipe is on page 70.  It is basically a doctored up boxed strawberry cake mix and includes a small scoop of strawberry preserves in the middle of the cake.
 

Because it uses boxed mix, the recipe was very easy to make.  The only tricky part was the filling of the cupcake cups.  You put in a small amount of batter, add the preserves, and then cover with more batter.  I had a hard time figuring out how much batter to start
with, and as a result I ended up filling the cups more than I probably should have.  As a result, I only got 18 cupcakes rather than the 24 the recipe said it would yield.  I used a vanilla whipped variety of prepackaged frosting, and I topped the frosting with pink sugar.


Overall, these were not successful. They taste fine, and the strawberry preserves give it a fresher strawberry flavor than you would get from just the box mix.  The biggest problem was the filling.  In the picture in the cookbook, when you cut the cake open the preserves were intact (think of what the filling in a Hostess cupcake would look like if you cut the cake open).  However, as you can kind of see in my picture, the preserves got completely absorbed into the cake, leaving a hole.

In the end, while I will enjoy eating these, I don't think I'd make them again.  Strawberry isn't one of my favorite flavors to begin with and there just isn't the payoff from the preseves that I was hoping to get with this cake.  I'm also not sure what I could do differently to prevent the absorption of the filling.

"Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle" by The Countess of Carnarvon (Broadway Paperbacks 2011)

After a very long hiatus, I am back with a new book review!

www.barnesandnoble.com

 

I am a big fan of the TV show "Downton Abbey," a British period drama currently set in the 1920s and televised on PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre."  The fourth season (or series, as they say in Britain) has just concluded and I am already looking forward to the next.  Unfortunately, British television series  are very short so we won't get any new episodes until January 2015.

The show is set at the fictitious Downton Abbey, which is filmed in part in the real-life Highclere Castle.  Highclere Castle is currently occupied by the 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon.  The book that I am reviewing here is about Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon.  She occupied Highclere Castle during World War I.  Her husband, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon is famous, along with Howard Carter, for discovering King Tut's tomb in Egypt.  But Lady Almina's life was interesting in her own right.

Much like Lady Cora on "Downton Abbey,"  Lady Almina was a wealthy heiress who brought a large fortune to Highclere.  She proved to be adept at managing affairs at Highclere and hosting lavish parties.  However, she is best known for establishing a hospital at Highclere during WWI, which may have been the inspiration for Downton Abbey doing the same.  Lady Almina was an excellent hospital administrator and closely oversaw the workings of the hospital.  She was highly involved with patient care and spared no expense to make sure the hospital was successful.  The majority of the book focuses on this time period.

I admit I was skeptical when I picked up this book, which was part of a "Downton Abbey" display at Barnes & Noble.  I wondered if it might end up being a poorly written book meant to take advantage of the success of the TV show.   However, being a fan of the show and wanting to know more about its real-life setting, I figured it was worth a shot.  I'm glad I took that chance as I thoroughly enjoyed the book.  I don't know how much the current Countess of Carnarvon was actually involved in writing the book or if it is ghost-written.  Regardless, it's worth a read for anyone interested in "Downton Abbey" or WWI Britain.  In fact, there's a companion book that I have since purchased that covers the life of Lady Almina's daughter-in-law, the 6th Countess of Carnarvon.  I hope I enjoy that book as much as I did this one.