In this warm collection of personal essays and recipes, best-selling author Ann Hood nourishes both our bodies and our souls. From her Italian-American childhood through raising and feeding a growing family and cooking with her new husband, food writer Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood has long appreciated the power of a good meal. Growing up, she tasted love in her grandmother's tomato sauce and dreamed of her mother's special-occasion Fancy Lady Sandwiches....

Reveals the personal stories behind the author's written works, describing her early years in a Rhode Island mill town and the books that shaped her love of literature, her political views, and her travel ambitions. "Growing up in a mill town in Rhode Island, in a household that didn't foster a love of literature, Ann Hood discovered nonetheless the companionship of books. She learned to channel her imagination, ambitions, and curiosity by devouring...

Twelve-year-old Madeline believes she can perform miracles. And her biggest one to date is saving her father from an avalanche. But, unmiraculously, he divorces Madeline's mother after his recovery, writes a book about the avalanche, becomes a celebrity, and marries Ava Pomme, a renowned tart maker.When he leaves, Madeline is left with her mother, who is slowly coming undone; her hypochondriac little brother, who spends his days worrying about air-bag...

The day my father was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, I decided to go and find him a miracle. Do Not Go Gentle is a transporting memoir about Ann Hood's quest to find a cure, if not an outright miracle, that would cure her father's cancer. Her "spiritual Odyssey, with a secret history all its own" would take her from Rhode Island to El Santuario de Chimayo, New Mexico, in search of dirt reputed to contain astonishing healing powers. Along...

A grieving young widow and a pregnant teenager find an uncommon friendship in a luminous, deeply moving novel   After a college student speeding in a blue Honda Civic kills her husband of less than a year, Olivia is completely lost. One hot summer day, she walks into the beachfront Rhode Island cottage she and David bought the previous August-the place where they had planned to someday start a family-and finds a stranger sitting at her kitchen table....

In the spirit of How to Make an American Quilt and The Joy Luck Club comes this novel about friendship and redemption. After the sudden loss of Stella, her only child, Mary Baxter joins a knitting circle in Providence, Rhode Island. Seeking a way to fill the empty hours and lonely days, she little realizes that the circle will change her life. Alice, Scarlet, Lulu, Beth, Harriet, and Ellen welcome Mary into their circle despite her reluctance to open...

In China there is a belief that people who are destined to be together are connected by an invisible red thread. After losing her infant daughter in a freak accident, Maya Lange opens the Red Thread, an adoption agency that specializes in placing baby girls from China with American families. Maya finds some comfort in her work, until a group of six couples share their personal stories of desire for a child. Their painful and courageous journey...

An old coin in The Treasure Chest transports twins Felix and Maisie to the island of St. Croix in 1772, where they meet seventeen-year-old Alexander Hamilton who is about to embark on a journey to New York.