#TopTenTuesday Food, Glorious (And Not So Glorious) Food

Top Ten Tuesday newTop Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post. Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists. Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is Books That Make Me Hungry. I’m not sure all the food mentioned in the books in my list whet my appetite but all the books certainly feature food in one form or another. Links from the titles will take you to my review.

20200717_093842-1Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees – in which Edith Graham, teacher turned spy, sends coded messages from post-war Berlin hidden in recipes

Feast of Sorrow by Crystal King – Roman gourmet, Marcus Gavius Apicius, is obsessed with sampling fine meals from exotic places

A Ration Book Christmas by Jean Fullerton – with not always enticing alternative versions of recipes due to wartime rationing

Summerland by Lucy Adlington – in which refugee, Brigitta, experiences for the first time some British ‘delicacies’ and her dictionary proves unequal to the task of translating Toad in the Hole into German

A Clean Canvas by Elizabeth Mundy – in which Hungarian cleaner, Lena, attempts her mother’s recipe for goulash

The Olive Garden Choir by Leah Fleming – “secrets, love and redemption under the Greek sun” and recipes for some of the mouth-watering traditional dishes served at the local taverna

An Edwardian Christmas by John S. Goodall – a feast is prepared for the festive luncheon (see below)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – in which a pork pie is stolen

V For Victory by Lissa Evans – in WW2 London even a tin of corned beef or peaches counts as a treat

The Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson investigate the theft of an item destined to be served for Christmas dinner

#TopTenTuesday Questions I’d Ask Authors

Top Ten Tuesday new

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is Questions I Would Ask My Favourite Authors. I thought I’d turn the tables by posing the questions to them they posed to us in their book titles.  Links will take you to the book description on Goodreads.


So, Agatha Christie, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Come on, give us a clue.

Look here, Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her? or not?

I completely understand, Dorothy L. Sayers, why you may not want to say for fear of spoilers but Whose Body? 

Sorry to press you again, Agatha Christie, but which was it – N or M? 

Spill the beans, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir Why Did You Lie?

3781Finally, to mark the anniversary of John Buchan’s birth on the 26th August 1875, five questions posed to Mr Memory by members of the music hall audience in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film version of the author’s most well-known novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps. (The scene does not appear in the original book…nor for that matter does the character played by Madeleine Carroll.)

  • How old is Mae West?
  • What causes pip in poultry?
  • What won the Cup in 1926?
  • How far is it from Winnipeg to Montreal?
  • What are the Thirty-Nine Steps?

The last two are asked by the hero, Richard Hannay, played by Robert Donat.