Book 34 for 2025: “Samarkand”, Caroline Eden and Eleanor Ford

August 20, 2025 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

I enjoyed the previous book by Caroline Eden so much I searched for this one. I doubt I will ever make it to Samarkand or Tashkent, places sort of on my bucket list, so what I do is read everything I find about these fabled cities on the Silk Road. The sub-title of this one is “Recipes and Stories From Central Asia and The Caucasus”. It starts with Samarkand and the story of Tamerlane, the legendary hero who conquered a lot of this area and a large portion of surrounding areas in 1370. He was a military genius who loved chess and made up his own chess game with twice the number of pieces.

What foods show up in both the stories and recipes? Beets, fruit–dried and fresh for which the area is famous, tomatoes, cucumber, pomegranates, cabbage, lentils, rice, lamb and mutton, and all sorts of kebabs and flatbreads. I learned there is a huge beach on Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. It is one of the world’s largest alpine lakes and in summer people from Russia and all over Central Asia flock to its shores. People who own guest houses there make all their money for the entire year in the brief summer between mid-July and mid-August.

In the remote mountains of Azerbaijan lies the small town of Gyrmyzy Gasaba above the Qudiyaleay River, a town where all the people are Jewish. Even though Azerbaijan is a predominantly Shia Muslim country, the people in this town have peacefully lived here for hundreds of years. This town is considered the last surviving pre-Holocaust Jewish town untouched by WWII.

If you are a lover of apples, then consider this country, Kazakhstan, the place where apples originated. All apples in the world today come from the original apples here. The name of the largest city, Almaty, whose older name was Alma-Ata means fatherland of apples. In Ile-Altalan National Park on the northern slopes of the Tien Shan mountain chain thousands of acres of wild apples flourish.

Even though this book was published less than ten years ago in 2016, a lot of people must have been interested in reading the stories and recipes because the copy the library found for me is not in the best condition. Before I return it, I will copy some of the recipes to try.

Summer in Carpenteria, California

August 18, 2025 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Laid back beach town

Families eating ice cream

Main street organic market

Ocean breezes ruffling hair

Book 19 for 2025: “Tell Me Everything”, Elizabeth Strout

May 20, 2025 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

This latest Strout novel takes the reader back to Crosby, Maine, the site of most of her other novels. The same cast of characters appear, Olive, the Burgess boys, Lucy, William, Margaret, and all the others. This one, however, has a new twist, a heinous murder occurs. The most obvious suspect is the victim’s reclusive son who lived with her. Bob Burgess is hired as his lawyer. Lucy starts visiting Olive and they tell each other stories about people they have known , what Lucy calls “unrecorded lives”. Meanwhile, Lucy keeps asking, “What does anyone’s life mean?” Lucy and Bob take walks every week, spending the time talking about all the things they feel they cannot talk about with anyone else. William becomes more obsessed with the parasites he is studying and never quits talking about them.

This, like all of Strout’s novels, focuses on relationships, the good and the bad, and how they sustain us, sometimes transform our lives, sometimes nearly ruin us. Although, readers do not have to read her novels in sequence and this one could be read alone, I think it would make more sense to the reader to at least read three others first: “Olive Kitteridge”, “The Burgess Boys”, and “Oh, William”.

Strout has a unique, easy to read style, that is both simple and profound. She talks about people as they are with empathy and concern. She talks about the many forms of love–“…it is always love. If it is love, then it is love.”

Book Four for 2025: “The Shell Collector”, Anthony Doerr

January 29, 2025 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

After reading his other collection of short stories, I ordered this one which is an earlier collection. Once again, he does not disappoint. One of the stories, “The Hunter’s Wife” won the O’Henry Award and has to be one of those most touching and unusual stories I have ever read. One main character, the man who makes his living guiding hunting parties in Montana, becomes obsessed with a young woman he sees in a magic show and follows her everywhere. When he first meets her, she is underage and he does nothing. Later when she is older he relentlessly pursues and marries her. After years of enduring the hardships of living in a remote cabin in the mountains, she leaves. She has always possessed the ability to feel the emotions of both other humans and animals and begins to make her living using this ability to help people. After never seeing her for twenty years, the hunter comes to one of her events. The story details the years between their first meeting and what happens when the hunter attends this event.

The title story, “The Shell Collector”, details the life of a blind expert on certain kinds of sea shells and the marine life that inhabit them, some of which are poisonous. He moves to a remote Pacific island, becomes familiar to those who live there. After a local child becomes ill and her father thinks the shell collector saves her, his peaceful life as he has known it becomes totally upended.

All the stories are notable but another one I found fascinating is “Mkondo”. The main character, Ward Beach, works for a natural history museum and goes to Tanzania to study and collect specimens. While there, he becomes fascinated with a young woman he sees rapidly running through the forest. The rest of the story details his pursuit, their life together, their separate lives, and questions the meaning of what is considered success in life.

I generally am not a short story reader but Doerr’s stories are unique, insightful, touching, and carry a sort of magic not found in many novels or stories.

Autumn

September 2, 2024 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

As a summer person, I’m less excited than others I know to see it end. This abecedarian poem allowed me to experiment with words without searching for profound meanings, allowed me to play.

Autumn

brings

chills

dreary

evenings

fog.

Gone

heat

intense

joy.

Kindness

lingers while I

meander

near

oceans

playing

quickly,

running in

sunshine.

Tomorrow

under a

vanishing

wind in a

xeroscape

yard, I will

Zoom my next meeting.

Weekend Trip to Northern Baja

March 19, 2024 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

This past weekend I headed to Mexicali in Northern Baja to visit the town of San Felipe and see a new development about an hour south of there. San Felipe is a small fishing town of approximately 20,000 people where there are no fast food restaurants and no Starbucks. Excellent restaurants and good coffee can be found but not at the places mentioned above. They do not exist there. The town of San Felipe has a long boardwalk right along the Sea of Cortez with restaurants across the street. This past weekend they were holding a ceviche contest and fiesta on a cross street. This is shrimp season and the city is known for its shrimp. Unlike the Pacific side of Baja, there is no large commercial fishing allowed in this part of the Sea of Cortez because it contains many endangered fish and the place where whales come to mate. Locals can fish and you see smaller fishing and shrimp boats in the sea. Not only is the Sea of Cortez protected but so are the plants and animals in the desert. Certain plants, like ironwood trees, are ancient and rare. If you want to build a road, it has to be around them. Many other species are also protected.

Unlike the Pacific side of Baja, the water in San Felipe is safe to drink from the tap. It comes from an aquifer up in the mountains to the west.

We spent most of Sunday at the new green development (it is totally off grid) called Rancho Costa Verde. Solar is used for power and each house has a large underground water tank where water comes from an aquifer up in the mountains. This is a newer development so although many of the lots are already sold, except for beachfront, many houses are just now under construction.

This is a very modern beachfront property with marble floors and a glass wall facing the Sea of Cortez.

This photo is of the clubhouse and looking the opposite direction toward the mountains. Here I am standing on the roof of the house in the previous photo.

Here I am in front of the pool in front of the clubhouse facing the Sea of Cortez. The house in the first picture is on the left in the distance.

This is desert land where even though it can get hot in summer, the sea breeze keeps it relatively cool.

The plant on the right is ocotillo which is protected. If you are building a house and it is in the way, you have to move it elsewhere. You cannot just get rid of it.

Monday was a big adventure trying to cross the border. We arrived in Mexicali only to discover no busses could cross the border there so we had to take the highway to Tijuana and cross there. To do this you must cross a mountain pass. What a feat of engineering building this road must have been. It is quite incredible and as you climb higher and higher the views go on forever into the far distance. The following are photos I took from the bus window as we drove higher and higher.

These mountains are made of rocks of all sizes that are just stacked on top of each other. Here only these small blue-green plants seem to thrive.

In this photo you can see the highway where we had just traversed.

Here you can see how at this height the mountains are nothing but stacked rocks of all sizes.

After the summit as we went down toward the town of Tecate, it started to rain and it rained most of the way to Tijuana. The Pacific side of this part of Baja gets rain and it was lush green this time of year while the Sea of Cortex side is desert.

I do not recommend crossing at Tijuana in a large bus. Even though we had sent all our passport information in advance, they made the bus sit there for nearly an hour and wait. Meanwhile those on foot and in cars were just zooming along at a rather rapid pace. Then we had to get out of the bus with all our luggage and everything and wait more. I crossed the border (not in a bus) last April and it did not take long at all. I have heard that Tijuana is the busiest port of entry from one country to another in the world but have not verified that. It certainly was busy yesterday.

Cruise of Lights at Huntington Harbor

December 20, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

For more than sixty years this cruise has benefited their local orchestra. I signed up through a local tour, rode the bus to a shopping center at Huntington Beach, strolled around, and then later rode the bus to the actual harbor to board the boat that took us through all the canals that made up the harbor. The houses are close together and right on the water. Many are three story because no room to expand except upwards. While some are smaller, many of the houses are large with landings where they have large vessels docked. It was not easy to take photos because the boat was moving rather rapidly at times. It was a warm night and not very windy so perfect for this little adventure.

One Book a Week, 36-39: See notes below plus “Mrs. Caliban”, Rachel Ingalls

September 14, 2023September 14, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

“Mrs. Caliban”, once called “The Perfect Novel” by the New York Times, was a book ahead of its time. A sort of magical realism story, its message remains relevant over the decades. Mrs. Caliban’s husband just lives with her and only returns home to eat, and after going out for the evening, to sleep. He’s polite and indifferent. One day a green, sort of humanlike, highly intelligent monster shows up. He is hiding from the authorities who found him and experimented on him. She listens to his relating the horrible things done to him and hides him in the guest room where her husband never goes. He transforms her life. In the meantime, she goes to visit a close friend and listens to the friend’s stories of multiple simultaneous affairs she is having with multiple men friends. They give each other advice, exchange stories about various people they know. Mrs. Caliban tells no one about her house guest. Then a shocking accident and astonishing information she never guessed occur.

This short novel reveals so much about life, human behavior, and the status of men and women. I highly recommend it.

Note: The other three books I read for a project and cannot discuss them at this time.

One Book A Week-27: “Lucy By The Sea”, Elizabeth Strout

June 22, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

A short, honest, realistic view of life, this book by Strout, written from the viewpoint of Lucy
Barton, continues the story started in her book, “Oh, William”, where Lucy and her ex, William, go to Maine to seek out his long lost sister whom he did not know existed until he took a DNA test. Once again they head to Maine, but for a much more stressful reason, the Covid pandemic. They both live separately in NYC where Covid hit early and hard. After accurately assessing the danger, William finds a large, old house to rent on the Maine coast and convinces Lucy to go with him there to save their lives. He convinces one daughter to leave NYC but the other insists on staying.

The book addresses the issues of isolation brought on by the pandemic and how people deal with stress and isolation differently and with the difficulties which arise when once close families can no longer see each other. It also shows that isolation can bring the positives that can be found in a more quiet life. Strout’s uniquely simple style emphasizes the emotions and stresses as well as the joys life can bring to all of us.

An Afternoon at Laguna Beach

May 9, 2022 / Juliana Lightle / 2 Comments

Every year Laguna Beach has a Garden Tour. We decided to take a look and celebrate Mother’s Day one day early–my daughter, grandson, his girlfriend, and I. To be honest the tour was a bit disappointing but Laguna Beach itself definitely was not. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and will return.

We decided to do the cardio tour–yes, that is what they called it. The shuttle drops everyone off at Garden 1, you follow a map, and walk the rest of the tour. The option is to take the shuttle just about everywhere. We did not do that. Here are a few photos I took along the way.