Bread and Chocolate

all stories were ok...but the best was the wave machine.!!! ( )

Collection of short stories from a woman better known for her historical fiction. UItimately forgettable however

A book of short stories.

As with all these things, I felt the standard varied, (at least in terms of plot ideas if not writing quality itself). Bread and Chocolate - the first story - is wonderful - so had me hooked right away. The other gem is The Wave Machine.

Others not as good. Indeed there are a lot about married housewives to whom life has been a bit disappointing or lacklustre in some way, which will not appeal to everyone and got a bit tiring. (Biased as it may sound I don't see men really enjoying these stories!) The ones I preferred the most tended to have other themes - which were quite varied.

Not read any of her other works. I suspect I'd enjoy her historical novels more. ( )

I think one of the reasons the little book appealed to me was the sheer variety of the stories inside. Some of them are scary, with freaky supernatural occurrences. There’s a sensual-food story (like Chocolat if you ever read that; one of those books where the descriptions of food are mouthwatering and you can taste the words as you read) from which the title Bread & Chocolate comes from, wherein a famous chef renowned for her ‘wicked’ cakes tempts a priest while he’s on her cooking program to showcase the bread he bakes for his monastery. All but one of the stories take place in England, and several of them feel very “cozy” to me. By cozy I mean that there’s a celebration of domesticity; many of the stories focus on women who are stay-at-home wives or artist-types without out a 9-to-5 job, and even though each woman has her set of problems I can’t help but envy them, because there’s nothing I want less than to drive to an office or a shop every day and work and fight in the corporate rat race. But that’s not every story. A young anthropologist works on his ground-breaking study of the Nloko people which will launch him into stardom, never stopping to consider that the Nloko may have their own plans for him. One man cheats on his wife but she tricks him into staying; another man cheats but his wife gets revenge instead. There’s this wicked glee in the stories that occasionally pops up in Gregory’s novels, but she uses it very effectively here. ( )