WONDROUS WORD: Cevapcici
This week’s word comes from Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan, the author of Booker Prize winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Death of a River Guide is set in Tasmania and is told by Aljaz, said guide, who has a vision of his father:
(T)here it is, smoking and spluttering, Harry’s celebrated barbeque, spitting and flaring, the griddle full of roo patties on one side and cevapcici on the other(.)
Ćevapi is a grilled dish of minced meat, a type of skinless sausage, found traditionally in the countries of southeastern Europe (the Balkans), originating during the Ottoman Period. According to Wikipedia, they are considered a national dish in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and are also common in Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, as well as in Albania, Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania. They are usually served 5–10 pieces on a plate or in a flatbread with chopped raw onions.
From Persian kebab, sometimes with the South Slavic diminutive ending -čići.
Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.
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gamboge: a gum resin from various Asian trees of the genus Garcinia, used as a yellow pigment; yellow or yellow-orange.
Tyrian purple: a crimson or purple dye obtained by the ancient Phoenicians from gastropod mollusks (sea snails); also known as Tyrian red, royal purple, imperial purple.
My seven-year-old grandson whose usual comment on my cooking for the past year-and-a-half has been consistently only “good”, pronounced these potatoes as “GREAT”. I’d have to agree. As Gilbert says: “They’re hot and crisp and supremely garlickly, a noble base for the delicately light, flaky, herb-, lemon-, and butter-flavored fish fillets.”
. The Vietnam War plays a large part in the adult lives of the two main characters John & Owen, and I haven’t yet read a better book to explain (from the side that wasn’t protesting for peace) the emotions and politics of that war in the USA than 
. It’s nothing if not thought-provoking.
shows the life of the South Vietnamese people during that War, particularly the headmaster of an elite school. Seeing troubles on the horizon Percival Chen, said headmaster, sends his son to live in China, from where his parents emigrated decades earlier, not realizing that China is undergoing even greater change under Mao than Vietnam. 
set in mid-twentieth century China. Peasant Wang Lung’s very life is tied up in cycles of that earth that he works so diligently to acquire. 
set in the Rocky Mountains on the Colorado/Wyoming border. The author, James Galvin, brings home the hardship of winter, a theme addressed more comedically, in Cathie Pelletier’s 
. It’s the third book in her Mattagash, Maine trilogy. I’ve just finished reading the first title: 
. (I hate reading books out of order, but this just happened.) That finishes up my version of this month’s Six Degrees of Separation – in Maine, next door to Irving’s New Hampshire where we began our journey.
by Ernest Buckler (Literary Fiction, Vintage, Canadian author, Atlantic Canadian) 
It’s the story of three generations of the Canaan family, particularly David Canaan of the last generation, and illustrates the eternal struggle between generations and the subsequent breakdown of families.
by Marina Endicott (Fiction, Contemporary, Canadian) 
Open Arms, a finalist for the 2003 
But I wasn’t aware that Regeneration is based on real-life decorated British officer, poet, and pacifist 
One of Pym’s favourite subjects is the behaviour of anthropologists as they study the behaviour of others. In Crampton Hodnet, she again examines this through a young anthropologist who has moved into her mother’s village home in North Oxford to complete a paper. She cannot help observing the inhabitants of the community. This, of course, serves as an outlet for Pym’s observations of human nature. This story is a little more “tied-up” than some of her others and was first published posthumously in 1987.
When a full-page photo of his 
The protagonist, J.P. Beaumont, is retired from policing when some papers belonging to his deceased ex-partner surface and raise perplexing questions. J.P. reminisces about a particular case with said partner and does some current sleuthing to find the answers.
This stars Nicolaos, a young Athenian in 461 BCE, just after the (still unsolved) assassination of 
Okay, this one I remember – but not fondly. MacNeice, police detective in the southern Ontario Canada industrial city of Dundurn, investigates the murder of a beautiful young musician.
Set in modern Nigeria, this book follows Kingsley Ibe, a young village man, who wants to fulfill the responsibilities of oldest son and is encouraged to do so by his traditional parents, who think that education is still the way to a well-paying job. But rapid changes in modern society have altered “the rules” and Kingsley finds himself turning to a black sheep uncle who involves him in 
Georges and his parents have recently had to sell their house in Brooklyn and move to a near-by apartment. There Georges meets Safer and his younger sister, and reluctantly joins their spy club.
McCoy wrote in the 1930s in a contemporary setting. This story revolves around Ralph, a small-town hick who’s come to Hollywood to break into pictures, and his roommate Mona who is equally desperate to become a star. McCoy didn’t sugar-coat the reality of Hollywood life or the effects of the Depression on Americans of all stripes. 
Fourteen-year-old Miles undertakes a mission for an ailing elderly friend, and finds himself transported from today’s Vermont to the English countryside of 1928. There he must find “a girl and a secret”. With not much more than that to go on, he bravely sets out to fulfill his mission.
Reviewer Trixie says: “After writing about London settings, Pym returns to the small country village of her beginnings. But, this village lacks the comfortable traditionalism of her earlier Some Tame Gazelle. Much of the book dwells on the changes that have come about in the English countryside by 1980.”
Although this could be said to about the books that Schwalbe and his mother read and discussed as she underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer, it really is about Mary Ann(e) Schwalbe: her life, and her battle with that cancer. If you know that going in, you might not find this as disappointing as I did.
Bridget was already divorced; Bill left his family; they’ve booked their hasty wedding—Bridget has breast cancer—at a Massachusetts inn that another college classmate owns. Instead of inviting current friends and extended family, they have chosen to gather their college classmates. 
, compiled by Bill Rompkey and Bert Riggs (Non-Fiction, Epistolary, Memoir, WWI, Newfoundland) 
In 1916 Fanny Cluett, a nurse from Belleoram Newfoundland, volunteered to serve in the nursing corps in WWI France. During her journey, training, and posting in Europe, she wrote letters to her mother. Many of these have been collected and reproduced in this book, along with a foreword by Nfld politician Rompkey.
Two young immigrants from the Indian community in the city have been murdered. Maisie is hired to find the killer
As the obesity issue in North America becomes critical, we want to be informed consumers. This fine piece of investigative journalism by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Moss is not so much a shocking exposé of the processed food industry as confirmation of what we’ve suspected all along.
When the civil war in Sierra Leone came to Ishmael Beah’s village, he was a thirteen-year-old boy, doing what other boys all over the world do: hanging out with friends, listening to music and practicing dance moves. In fact, he was in a neighbouring village to enter a competition. He was not able to return to his home village that day and he never saw his family again
This is the feeling encapsulated in Pym’s story. 
I didn’t really understand what this book was about before I started it, and had expected a story set in a home for “juveniles with disabilities” to be darker than this ultimately is.
who weaves words into art so lovely you’ll be bewitched by her language even when her stories don’t have the impact you wish they did.
Beautifully written, this modern-day story feels like a folkloric myth and although it is based on Japanese lore, it has universal appeal and could easily be Ukrainian, Finnish, or Native American.
The adult children of Robert & Gretta Riordan converge at their mother’s house after their father disappears one morning on an errand to the corner store.
Drew Silver’s life is in the toilet: he’s divorced from the woman he loves, estranged from his teenage daughter, and he’s living in a community of other pathetic lonely divorced men who are also waiting for their wives to take them back. When he’s diagnosed with an aorta that’s going to split and kill him, he opts to not have surgery since he feels his life isn’t worth living. Instead, he’ll use the remaining time to repair relationships with the people in his life.
This is a new series starring Drew Farthering, a young member of the gentry, who is pressed into service as a detective when an obviously murdered body turns up at his parents’ country estate during a weekend party. This first offering is set in 1932.
Cameron Flaherty, downsized from her corporate job, has moved from the city to take over her inheritance: her great uncle’s farm in rural Massachusetts. There, she sets up a 
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED
At first, only the ideal of the academics in southern Nigeria, the move to secede gained impetus after a shift in government power that resulted in ethnic killings, based on tribal lines. The “take-no-prisoners” approach to battle launched the country into a bloodbath from 1967-1970.
This book revolves around four aging people who work together in an office that seems to have been forgotten by the company they work for. All four, two men and two women, live alone in varying circumstances. Although they are not close friends, the four have only each other in their lonely lives. When the two women retire (and are not replaced) the dynamics between the four changes.
Set in various locations across Canada, but especially in Ontario, the stories have varied themes and feature characters that include a young man struggling with whether or not to report a good friend of his wife as an unfit mother, a naïve young woman trying to launch a network marketing business, and a woman at her deceased neighbour’s yard sale. Her characters and themes are universal and guaranteed to make you squirm in recognition.
What emerges [from the correspondence between the two men] is a brilliant and eye-opening meditation on the relationship between ‘truth’ and ‘accuracy’(.)” The book is presented in the form of emails between D’Agata and Fingal. Both men ‘push the envelope’ to make points that contribute to the overall premise of the book: just how negotiable is a fact in non-fiction?
Although there are some heroic deeds performed, the author does not lose sight of the reality of war.
Publishers’ Weekly says: Jin’s quiet but absorbing second novel (after In the Pond) captures the poignant dilemma of an ordinary man who misses the best opportunities in his life simply by trying to do his duty—as defined first by his traditional Chinese parents and later by the Communist Party. 
The book is much more a novel about “coming home”. But, as the book jacket says:: “Where do you go when home is Detroit?” 
by A.A. Milne (Mystery Fiction, Vintage, 1920s England)) 
The Red House Mystery is A.A. Milne’s only mystery novel; he is better known for his humorous writing, children’s stories (including the timeless Winnie the Pooh), and poems. 
I began more impressed with this first in the series featuring Will Anderson, scion of one of Detroit’s leading electric car manufacturers, circa 1910, who by necessity turns detective.
This is the fourth installment in the Mickey Rawlings series of baseball novel. Rawlings, an up and coming baseball player living and playing in the early part of the 20th century, turns detective in the name of social justice. 
