Our new Oprah pick for February-A mountain of crumbs by Elena Gorokhova

I just came back from the bookstore with our new February Oprah pick, "A Mountain of Crumbs" by Elena Gorokova. I still love the feel of a new hardback in my hands. I don't know what it is, but I think it might be the potential inspiration yet another writer will impart upon me.

On the cover jacket there's a quote by Billy Collins, the former U.S. Poet Laureate. " ...Gorokhova has written the Russian equivalent of "Angela's Ashes", an intimate story of growing up into young womanhood told with grace and humor." Well, it never hurts a writer to have our former National Poet Laureate praise the writing.

Although Elena grew up in St. Petersburg Russia, most of her life it was know as Leningrad, at the age of 24 she married an American and now lives--where else? New Jersey. A far cry from Russia, but if it's anything like the New Jersey I recall from my days living on the East Coast--there are a lot of people there with ancestors from Russia.

All of my relatives are from Russia. The older parts. Lithuania. So this should be an interesting read for me. The author dedicated her Memoir to her mother and I m planning to dedicate mine to my Mom too who recently passed away. OK here is a teaser: I love one of her opening lines on page 1.

"Born three years before Russia turned into the Soviet Union, my mother became a mirror image of my motherland:overbearing, protective, difficult to leave...She presided in our kitchen over a pot of borsch, a ladle in her hand, ordering us to eat in the same voice that made her anatomy students quiver. A survivor of the famine, Stalin's terror, and the Great Patriotic War, she controlled and protected,ferociously.

Let's read or if you can't get the book-feel free to comment on the blog anyway. Anyway, let's get inspired to be creative.