All Gone (A Memoir of My Mother's Dementia, with Refreshments) by Alex Witchel

My 2 cents:

I like a book that includes recipes. Alex Witchel's new novel is called All Gone (A Memoir of My Mother's Dementia, with Refreshments). Every chapter ends up with at least one recipe; some are Jewish comfort food, some are retro 70's fare, most look fairly easy to do, and all belong in somebody's cookbook. And that's just dessert!

The main course of the book is the lovely story of a mother and daughter; the good and bad, the beginning and the end, some of it funny, and some of it, of course, sad. Alex Witchel chronicles her mother's illness, a stroke-induced form of dementia. She weaves doctor's visits and nerve-wracking, late-night telephone calls together with memories of her own childhood, lavish get-away-weekends, holidays with relatives, and stories from her mom's career as a college professor.

If you're facing the challenge of caring for a parent with dementia, or you have a teen or adult child whose grandma or papa is losing their memory, All Gone is a book worth checking out. It will have you nodding your head, chuckling, and running off to the kitchen to see if you have the ingredients to make potato latkes.

Length: 211 pages

Worth Your Time? Yes. If you've ever read the “Feed Me” column in The New York Times Magazine,

you've already read Author Alex Witchell's work. Ms. Witchell's book is Adult Non-Fiction.