It's rare that I come across a book-review or -recommendation site that fills me with joy, but Flashlight Worthy absolutely does. Their choices are thoughtful and interesting and the lists into which they're grouped are useful and fun.
A few that jumped out at me:
Great Books About Magicians and Circuses
Culinary Memoirs That Make Perfect Beach Reads
Favorite Reissues of Neglected Books
Creepy Houses That Must Be Explored
The Chocolate and Peanut Butter of Noir and Speculative Fiction
A Practical Fiction List for Surviving After the Apocalypse
The Queens' P.O.V.: Books About How Henry VIII Got Past First Base
Their twitter feed looks like a gem too. Now I'm triple-craving a week by myself in a cabin on an island in the middle of a lake with towering piles of books and firewood.
Showing posts with label I read. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I read. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
What I've been reading...
[edited to add: Blogger wouldn't publish the post with links -- kept giving me weird html error messages. You're on your own to find them now, but I trust that you'll be fine.]
Going Bovine, Libba Bray. They announced that she won the Printz Award while I was in the middle of it, so I had some external validation for my enjoyment of the book, not that that matters overmuch. (I just like being right.) It’s a quest story, a twist on Don Quixote, that's both bittersweet and wacky: teenage guy gets diagnosed with Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, has a visitation from a punk angel while he’s in the hospital, then busts out and goes on a road trip with a dwarf and a sentient yard gnome on a mission to save the world from (I think) getting sucked into a black hole.
A Bad Day for Sorry, Sophie Littlefield. Stella Hardesty is in her 50s, lives in rural Missouri, and killed her abusive husband several years before the book opens. She now has a business where she basically beats up other women’s abusive husbands and boyfriends for them. Also, she runs a sewing machine shop. Littlefield manages to write a book that's quirky-charming without ever veering into quirky-contrived and writes a heroine who is one of my favorite things, a salty broad.
In the Garden of Iden, Kage Baker. Time-traveling cyborgs. Forbidden love. The Spanish Inquisition. An extraordinary narrative voice. Botany. For the love of all that’s holy, read this book.
Faithful Place, Tana French. The third in her phenomenal Dublin-set crime series, this time written from the perspective of Frank, the undercover detective. I actually found this the least compelling of the three, partly because he’s dealing with a cold case and partly because he’s a more closely guarded character than the other two narrators and I felt held at arm’s length a bit. But even the least compelling of her three books is still better than 98% of what I read.
This seems like as good a time as any to mention that I finish less than a quarter of the books I start, maybe less than a tenth. Life’s too short.
In the Land of White Death, Valerian Albanov. I’m indulging a fancy for stories about polar exploration; this is the first I’ve finished. It’s a first-person account of a doomed 1912 Arctic expedition out of Russia, based on Albanov’s diaries. Their ship was locked in ice for more than a year, so he took 12 people with him and decides to walk/kayak back to civilization. Two of them survived, the ship was never seen again.
Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi. Awesome post-apocalyptic fantasy. World without oil, protagonist is a young teen boy, Nailer, who works on a salvage crew, crawling through the ductwork of abandoned oil tankers to collect copper wire and the staples affixing it to the sides of the ducts. He also has a terrible father who is a criminal and a drug addict and manipulative and MEAN. After a storm, Nailer finds a wreck with a girl alive on it and has to decide if he should kill her and keep all of her stuff, becoming the wealthiest person around, or go on the run with her, being chased lots of people who want to kill them, including his father. Outstanding world-building and pacing and intense action scenes. There were parts where I caught myself quite literally holding my breath and had to remind myself that it was a first-person YA story – the narrator would come out okay.
The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin. This book deserves its own post when I’m feeling more eloquent, but for now: She’s a genius.
Going Bovine, Libba Bray. They announced that she won the Printz Award while I was in the middle of it, so I had some external validation for my enjoyment of the book, not that that matters overmuch. (I just like being right.) It’s a quest story, a twist on Don Quixote, that's both bittersweet and wacky: teenage guy gets diagnosed with Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, has a visitation from a punk angel while he’s in the hospital, then busts out and goes on a road trip with a dwarf and a sentient yard gnome on a mission to save the world from (I think) getting sucked into a black hole.
A Bad Day for Sorry, Sophie Littlefield. Stella Hardesty is in her 50s, lives in rural Missouri, and killed her abusive husband several years before the book opens. She now has a business where she basically beats up other women’s abusive husbands and boyfriends for them. Also, she runs a sewing machine shop. Littlefield manages to write a book that's quirky-charming without ever veering into quirky-contrived and writes a heroine who is one of my favorite things, a salty broad.
In the Garden of Iden, Kage Baker. Time-traveling cyborgs. Forbidden love. The Spanish Inquisition. An extraordinary narrative voice. Botany. For the love of all that’s holy, read this book.
Faithful Place, Tana French. The third in her phenomenal Dublin-set crime series, this time written from the perspective of Frank, the undercover detective. I actually found this the least compelling of the three, partly because he’s dealing with a cold case and partly because he’s a more closely guarded character than the other two narrators and I felt held at arm’s length a bit. But even the least compelling of her three books is still better than 98% of what I read.
This seems like as good a time as any to mention that I finish less than a quarter of the books I start, maybe less than a tenth. Life’s too short.
In the Land of White Death, Valerian Albanov. I’m indulging a fancy for stories about polar exploration; this is the first I’ve finished. It’s a first-person account of a doomed 1912 Arctic expedition out of Russia, based on Albanov’s diaries. Their ship was locked in ice for more than a year, so he took 12 people with him and decides to walk/kayak back to civilization. Two of them survived, the ship was never seen again.
Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi. Awesome post-apocalyptic fantasy. World without oil, protagonist is a young teen boy, Nailer, who works on a salvage crew, crawling through the ductwork of abandoned oil tankers to collect copper wire and the staples affixing it to the sides of the ducts. He also has a terrible father who is a criminal and a drug addict and manipulative and MEAN. After a storm, Nailer finds a wreck with a girl alive on it and has to decide if he should kill her and keep all of her stuff, becoming the wealthiest person around, or go on the run with her, being chased lots of people who want to kill them, including his father. Outstanding world-building and pacing and intense action scenes. There were parts where I caught myself quite literally holding my breath and had to remind myself that it was a first-person YA story – the narrator would come out okay.
The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin. This book deserves its own post when I’m feeling more eloquent, but for now: She’s a genius.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
What I've been...
...Reading: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. For me, this is the kind of book that the library was made for; an epistolatory novel with a dying preacher writing to his young son sounds terrible, no matter how lyrically written. Especially if it's lyrically written. But when I can request a book online, get an email when it's available and pick it up at my leisure, all for free, I'm more inclined to try out some stuff that I've heard good buzz about but wouldn't be excited about otherwise. (I know it's not a new book, but I've seen it mentioned a few places recently, so it's low-level buzz at this point.) And I'm so glad I did. It is lyrical, but it's also wry and warm and full of joy and humor. I'm really enjoying it. And I have nothing against lyricism, but tend to be annoyed at books that are more interested in style than story. IT SHOULD NOT BE AN EITHER/OR SITUATION.
Also, Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives by Helen O'Neill. I've been meaning to read this for a few years and have not been disappointed. She was born in (seriously) rural Australia, was a singer in a troupe that traveled around Asia in the 1920s, pretended to be a French couturier in London, married a member of the high society, turned out not to have been actually married to him but then made him move to Australia when he had an affair — and I'm not even a quarter of the way into the book. Eventually, she becomes a famous and successful wallpaper designer and is brutally murdered in her studio, but I still have a lot of ground to cover before I get to that point.
And I've been rereading Wolves at Our Door as I fall asleep at night. I really dig this kind of first-person account of field research. The people in this instance are documentary filmmakers who live with and film a captive wolf pack for six years to observe the way the pack interacts. It's pretty amazing stuff, plus I spent three months in that area six years ago and it's kind of fun to recognize the references ("I've totally done that drive from Ketchum to Stanley! It's so twisty and moutainous — of COURSE all the puppies were throwing up! I nearly threw up myself!") The writing itself is a little ... obviously written by people who are not writers, but the material is good enough that it doesn't really matter.
...Watching: I finished up the third season of The Wire and will get started on the fourth season sometime soon. I finally drank the Battlestar Galactica Kool-Aid and am maybe halfway through the second season of that. I'm feeling the need for something a little girlier to balance out all of the space and guns, but not sure yet what that's going to be.
...Failing at executing: Blood orange curd. It seemed like such a promising idea: take all that gorgeous ruby juice, make it into curd and use it to fill a layer cake. I had promised to bring a cake to a birthday party Saturday night and had gotten it in my head that I wanted do something dramatic and fancy with layers and filling and possibly pink frosting, the kind of cake capital-L Ladies would be served, a Lady Cake. I found a recipe for an orange layer cake that sounded tasty as well as pretty and thought a nice, tart filling would be a good balance. And when I found a really cheap bag of blood oranges at Trader Joe's, it seemed like everything was coming up Stephanie.
I juiced the oranges:
Got all of the supplies out, even thinking ahead and adding a lemon because I knew the oranges weren't tart enough to produce an ideal result:
I heated the juice and zest with the butter and sugar and added the beaten eggs, whisking merrily while listening to Marlene Dietrich. And as "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" played, I had one of those moments in which I was aware of being perfectly happy — all of my senses were engaged, I was in the middle of an enjoyable project in furtherance of a larger enjoyable project, I had a weekend full of good plans ahead of me, plus Dietrich always makes me think of my late friend Jimmie, who used to do a drag cabaret act in her character, and he's someone I always enjoy thinking about.
And then something happened that has never happened to me in all of the times I've made anything with a custard base: the eggs cooked too quickly in the hot liquid, in effect scrambling them and ruining everything forever.
That photo is from when I tried, heroically, to save the day by pushing the curd through a fine sieve, which worked well enough to take out the cooked egg pieces. Unfortunately, the remaining curd had an unpleasantly grainy consistency that I couldn't think of any way to undo. It was sad. And it made doing all the dishes even more annoying since I didn't have anything to show for them.
...Baking, with great success: After the emotional highs and lows of Friday night, I wanted something simpler and failproof, yet still impressive and fantastically delicious. EP and I had been brainstorming about cakes and she suggested that I make Nigella Lawson's Guinness cake, a choice of which I admit to having been a bit dismissive since I was still picturing a towering, pretty, pink Lady Cake, maybe with the names of the birthday people piped on top or, simply, YAY CAKE! But after CurdFail, when my spirit was broken and I was exhausted from sweeping up and throwing away the glittery, broken shards of my layer-cake dreams, I looked at it again and figured what the hell, Nigella has never steered me wrong. We seem to have similar palates and approaches to food and any of her recipes that I've made have turned out really well. Plus, I think she would be a blast to talk about boys with while painting our toenails.
The recipe is in Feast, but also here. I followed it exactly, except that I added both half a teaspoon of almond extract and the juice of half a lemon to the frosting. Oh! And I used a cup and a half of regular white sugar and half a cup of dark brown sugar instead of two cups of superfine sugar.
That's it on the left and Erin's pear upside-down cake on the right. I made it Saturday afternoon and it was good that night, but something very special happened to it overnight and by late Sunday afternoon it was a whole different creature. The texture shifted a bit, becoming more velvety and dense, as well as less overtly chocolate, with more of an indefinable, slightly bitter undercurrent. I'm not generally crazy about chocolate cake (I'd rather just have the chocolate, thanks, or a piece of plain butter cake with fruit, not unlike that one up there, as a matter of fact) but this was outstanding. I will absolutely make this again. The cake itself is very moist and just fantastic, plus very quick and easy to throw together = WIN.
...Knitting: Yank, still. I'm just past the initial bind-off at the armholes on the back. Then two sleeves, one front band and the collar to go. I'm still not convinced I have enough yarn, but I'm getting closer to finding out.
...Planning: 1. A cardigan out of the most un-Stephanie, yet delightful, color ever.
It's Louet Riverstone Bulky in strawberry, a very bright orangey pink. I can't explain the attraction, but I love it. I also really like the way it looks against any shade of grey or navy or black or smoky purples (i.e., everything I own). I washed the skeins when they arrived because when I knit Owls out of the same yarn, there was a noticeable difference in the softness and fluffitude, not to mention an overpowering chemical scent when the wool hit the water. Although I should note that the dye was absolutely fast and no visible dirt washed out.
2. A number of sewing projects. It's about this time every year that I start to think about sewing again (and wishing that I were better at it). I have a few projects lined up that should be relatively painless.
a. Two denim skirts. I know I meant one of the denims to be the simple, a-line version and the other to have either the ruffle or the flouncy gore things, but I can't remember which. Whichever I bought more of, I suppose.
(I'm a little scared of all of those women in their cheerful skirts, I have to admit, like they're coming, armed with smiles, to drag me off to their neighborhood barbeque. At which I am to be the entree.)
b. Some pretty patterned cotton for a Built by Wendy top.
(Somehow, the faceless figures with broken necks scare me less.)
c. Two coordinating cotton prints that I know I had some grand plan for that involved a Built by Wendy top out of one of them and a skirt out of the other with either the ruffle or gores done in the shirt print so that I could either wear them together or separately. I *think* the smaller print was planned for the top. My mind's eye likes that better anyway, so that's what we're going with.
d. I have enough of this Mociun hand-printed hemp/silk for a dress, but I'm afraid of ruining it. See? I haven't even taken it out of the packaging.
I think I'll do something with that if/when all of the above projects are done. Juno and I have been having some pre-sewing pep talks — one of my pre-sewing tasks was a public declaration of intention and potential project round-up, so cross that off — and a recurring theme in our conversations has been building in a system of rewards, e.g., after we each make something that we would happily wear in public, we can spend an afternoon in the garment district; after we finish a big, ambitious project that will involve learning new skills (mine is a shirtdress), we can design and order custom fabric from Spoonflower. What can I say? I'm a simple creature; I respond to treats.
Also, Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives by Helen O'Neill. I've been meaning to read this for a few years and have not been disappointed. She was born in (seriously) rural Australia, was a singer in a troupe that traveled around Asia in the 1920s, pretended to be a French couturier in London, married a member of the high society, turned out not to have been actually married to him but then made him move to Australia when he had an affair — and I'm not even a quarter of the way into the book. Eventually, she becomes a famous and successful wallpaper designer and is brutally murdered in her studio, but I still have a lot of ground to cover before I get to that point.
And I've been rereading Wolves at Our Door as I fall asleep at night. I really dig this kind of first-person account of field research. The people in this instance are documentary filmmakers who live with and film a captive wolf pack for six years to observe the way the pack interacts. It's pretty amazing stuff, plus I spent three months in that area six years ago and it's kind of fun to recognize the references ("I've totally done that drive from Ketchum to Stanley! It's so twisty and moutainous — of COURSE all the puppies were throwing up! I nearly threw up myself!") The writing itself is a little ... obviously written by people who are not writers, but the material is good enough that it doesn't really matter.
...Watching: I finished up the third season of The Wire and will get started on the fourth season sometime soon. I finally drank the Battlestar Galactica Kool-Aid and am maybe halfway through the second season of that. I'm feeling the need for something a little girlier to balance out all of the space and guns, but not sure yet what that's going to be.
...Failing at executing: Blood orange curd. It seemed like such a promising idea: take all that gorgeous ruby juice, make it into curd and use it to fill a layer cake. I had promised to bring a cake to a birthday party Saturday night and had gotten it in my head that I wanted do something dramatic and fancy with layers and filling and possibly pink frosting, the kind of cake capital-L Ladies would be served, a Lady Cake. I found a recipe for an orange layer cake that sounded tasty as well as pretty and thought a nice, tart filling would be a good balance. And when I found a really cheap bag of blood oranges at Trader Joe's, it seemed like everything was coming up Stephanie.
I juiced the oranges:
Got all of the supplies out, even thinking ahead and adding a lemon because I knew the oranges weren't tart enough to produce an ideal result:
I heated the juice and zest with the butter and sugar and added the beaten eggs, whisking merrily while listening to Marlene Dietrich. And as "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" played, I had one of those moments in which I was aware of being perfectly happy — all of my senses were engaged, I was in the middle of an enjoyable project in furtherance of a larger enjoyable project, I had a weekend full of good plans ahead of me, plus Dietrich always makes me think of my late friend Jimmie, who used to do a drag cabaret act in her character, and he's someone I always enjoy thinking about.And then something happened that has never happened to me in all of the times I've made anything with a custard base: the eggs cooked too quickly in the hot liquid, in effect scrambling them and ruining everything forever.
That photo is from when I tried, heroically, to save the day by pushing the curd through a fine sieve, which worked well enough to take out the cooked egg pieces. Unfortunately, the remaining curd had an unpleasantly grainy consistency that I couldn't think of any way to undo. It was sad. And it made doing all the dishes even more annoying since I didn't have anything to show for them....Baking, with great success: After the emotional highs and lows of Friday night, I wanted something simpler and failproof, yet still impressive and fantastically delicious. EP and I had been brainstorming about cakes and she suggested that I make Nigella Lawson's Guinness cake, a choice of which I admit to having been a bit dismissive since I was still picturing a towering, pretty, pink Lady Cake, maybe with the names of the birthday people piped on top or, simply, YAY CAKE! But after CurdFail, when my spirit was broken and I was exhausted from sweeping up and throwing away the glittery, broken shards of my layer-cake dreams, I looked at it again and figured what the hell, Nigella has never steered me wrong. We seem to have similar palates and approaches to food and any of her recipes that I've made have turned out really well. Plus, I think she would be a blast to talk about boys with while painting our toenails.
The recipe is in Feast, but also here. I followed it exactly, except that I added both half a teaspoon of almond extract and the juice of half a lemon to the frosting. Oh! And I used a cup and a half of regular white sugar and half a cup of dark brown sugar instead of two cups of superfine sugar.
That's it on the left and Erin's pear upside-down cake on the right. I made it Saturday afternoon and it was good that night, but something very special happened to it overnight and by late Sunday afternoon it was a whole different creature. The texture shifted a bit, becoming more velvety and dense, as well as less overtly chocolate, with more of an indefinable, slightly bitter undercurrent. I'm not generally crazy about chocolate cake (I'd rather just have the chocolate, thanks, or a piece of plain butter cake with fruit, not unlike that one up there, as a matter of fact) but this was outstanding. I will absolutely make this again. The cake itself is very moist and just fantastic, plus very quick and easy to throw together = WIN....Knitting: Yank, still. I'm just past the initial bind-off at the armholes on the back. Then two sleeves, one front band and the collar to go. I'm still not convinced I have enough yarn, but I'm getting closer to finding out.
...Planning: 1. A cardigan out of the most un-Stephanie, yet delightful, color ever.
It's Louet Riverstone Bulky in strawberry, a very bright orangey pink. I can't explain the attraction, but I love it. I also really like the way it looks against any shade of grey or navy or black or smoky purples (i.e., everything I own). I washed the skeins when they arrived because when I knit Owls out of the same yarn, there was a noticeable difference in the softness and fluffitude, not to mention an overpowering chemical scent when the wool hit the water. Although I should note that the dye was absolutely fast and no visible dirt washed out.2. A number of sewing projects. It's about this time every year that I start to think about sewing again (and wishing that I were better at it). I have a few projects lined up that should be relatively painless.
a. Two denim skirts. I know I meant one of the denims to be the simple, a-line version and the other to have either the ruffle or the flouncy gore things, but I can't remember which. Whichever I bought more of, I suppose.
(I'm a little scared of all of those women in their cheerful skirts, I have to admit, like they're coming, armed with smiles, to drag me off to their neighborhood barbeque. At which I am to be the entree.)b. Some pretty patterned cotton for a Built by Wendy top.
(Somehow, the faceless figures with broken necks scare me less.)c. Two coordinating cotton prints that I know I had some grand plan for that involved a Built by Wendy top out of one of them and a skirt out of the other with either the ruffle or gores done in the shirt print so that I could either wear them together or separately. I *think* the smaller print was planned for the top. My mind's eye likes that better anyway, so that's what we're going with.
d. I have enough of this Mociun hand-printed hemp/silk for a dress, but I'm afraid of ruining it. See? I haven't even taken it out of the packaging.
I think I'll do something with that if/when all of the above projects are done. Juno and I have been having some pre-sewing pep talks — one of my pre-sewing tasks was a public declaration of intention and potential project round-up, so cross that off — and a recurring theme in our conversations has been building in a system of rewards, e.g., after we each make something that we would happily wear in public, we can spend an afternoon in the garment district; after we finish a big, ambitious project that will involve learning new skills (mine is a shirtdress), we can design and order custom fabric from Spoonflower. What can I say? I'm a simple creature; I respond to treats.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Heaping helping of random
1. I've been going out a lot lately. Like, a lot. It's the inward-looking, hunkering-down state of mind that leads to good blog fodder, but more outward-directed phases are essential too, what with the talking to people and seeing new things that are involved. But I don't have any knitting to show, is what I'm saying.
2. On the other hand, I did fall down the other day and order yarn for what might be the most adorable sweater ever (from here).
I got this in charcoal. Louet has a gorgeous range of colors, but somehow teal or fuchsia owls just seem wrong.
3. I've been doing reasonably well with my 9 for 09 challenge, having finished two of them already and working on a third. I got through The Book of Lost Things a few weeks ago and though I had really wanted to like it — darker fairy tale stuff, a London Blitz setting, a quest! — I didn't think it was anything special when it came to the actual execution. I had better luck with Good People, which I finished last night while stuck for an hour on a stopped train. When I went to hear the author, Marcus Sakey, read a few months ago, he talked a lot about his time spent with detectives learning Cop Stuff, as well as what-all Cop Stuff he learned, and that shone through pretty clearly. I thought it was a good story that did exactly what it set out to do and though I saw some of the twists coming from that proverbial mile away, there were definitely some surprises.
I interviewed him last summer and he falls squarely into the category of Good Egg, so I'm very happy to have liked the book too.
4. I dig this "seconds" line of dishes by Jason Miller in a deeply covetous way. Calculated imperfection really does it for me. [Via Oh Joy].jpg)
.jpg)
5. On Monday, EP and I took a longish lunch and went to a dumpling place nearby-ish that is doing some seasonal hand-pulled noodle soup. We hadn't been since the summer, when they do some seriously great Hawaiian shave ice along with the dumplings. It was snowing in earnest as we sat at the counter, looking out at the inexplicably open windows across the street.
We both got the dumpling noodle soup, which puts their tasty, tasty dumplings IN the soup. It sounds better than it was though; the dumplings got a bit waterlogged and the dough part fell off. So it was noodle soup with meatballs and some extra dough bits, which was fine, but I would have been happier with plain soup and pan-fried dumplings on the side.
The greens were fresh, the broth was delish, but the noodles were a touch on the gummy side. Still, satisfying and yummy.
6. Last night, a couple of friends and I went to my favorite local live music venue, the Bell House, for a Lost premiere party that included a band whose gimmick is singing songs that recap previous Lost episodes. They're called, naturally, Previously on Lost. And I have to say, they were pretty good, definitely better than any of us were expecting. "The Island Won't Let You Die" was especially good live. The music was catchy, they were clearly having a lot of fun, and they managed to include all three of my favorite band tropes.
An accordian:
A ridiculously Brooklyn-adorable frontman:
And a dude in headband, bikini underpants and tube socks:
They also have a theremin.
7. And speaking of gimmicks, my current favorite goofy blog is Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling, which is sort of like the I Can Has Cheeseburger of pretending Ryan Gosling is your boyfriend who calls you 'girl' all the time.
2. On the other hand, I did fall down the other day and order yarn for what might be the most adorable sweater ever (from here).
I got this in charcoal. Louet has a gorgeous range of colors, but somehow teal or fuchsia owls just seem wrong.3. I've been doing reasonably well with my 9 for 09 challenge, having finished two of them already and working on a third. I got through The Book of Lost Things a few weeks ago and though I had really wanted to like it — darker fairy tale stuff, a London Blitz setting, a quest! — I didn't think it was anything special when it came to the actual execution. I had better luck with Good People, which I finished last night while stuck for an hour on a stopped train. When I went to hear the author, Marcus Sakey, read a few months ago, he talked a lot about his time spent with detectives learning Cop Stuff, as well as what-all Cop Stuff he learned, and that shone through pretty clearly. I thought it was a good story that did exactly what it set out to do and though I saw some of the twists coming from that proverbial mile away, there were definitely some surprises.
I interviewed him last summer and he falls squarely into the category of Good Egg, so I'm very happy to have liked the book too.4. I dig this "seconds" line of dishes by Jason Miller in a deeply covetous way. Calculated imperfection really does it for me. [Via Oh Joy]
.jpg)
.jpg)
5. On Monday, EP and I took a longish lunch and went to a dumpling place nearby-ish that is doing some seasonal hand-pulled noodle soup. We hadn't been since the summer, when they do some seriously great Hawaiian shave ice along with the dumplings. It was snowing in earnest as we sat at the counter, looking out at the inexplicably open windows across the street.
We both got the dumpling noodle soup, which puts their tasty, tasty dumplings IN the soup. It sounds better than it was though; the dumplings got a bit waterlogged and the dough part fell off. So it was noodle soup with meatballs and some extra dough bits, which was fine, but I would have been happier with plain soup and pan-fried dumplings on the side.
The greens were fresh, the broth was delish, but the noodles were a touch on the gummy side. Still, satisfying and yummy.
6. Last night, a couple of friends and I went to my favorite local live music venue, the Bell House, for a Lost premiere party that included a band whose gimmick is singing songs that recap previous Lost episodes. They're called, naturally, Previously on Lost. And I have to say, they were pretty good, definitely better than any of us were expecting. "The Island Won't Let You Die" was especially good live. The music was catchy, they were clearly having a lot of fun, and they managed to include all three of my favorite band tropes.
An accordian:
A ridiculously Brooklyn-adorable frontman:
And a dude in headband, bikini underpants and tube socks:
They also have a theremin.7. And speaking of gimmicks, my current favorite goofy blog is Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling, which is sort of like the I Can Has Cheeseburger of pretending Ryan Gosling is your boyfriend who calls you 'girl' all the time.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Books, forward and back
The last couple of years, I've resolved to read 52 books over the course of the year, figuring one a week isn't a whole lot to ask of myself. I just did my count for 2008 since I'm pretty sure I won't be finishing anything up in the next day and a half, and ended the year having read 71 books. So, go me! And there were a lot of really good ones in there too, the kind of book you call your friends when you finish and urge them to read immediately. My favorites of the year, in no particular order, would have to be:
I'm still going for the 52 books a year number for 2009, but with an additional angle. After reading about the 9 for 09 challenge on Kim's blog the other night, I went to my shelves immediately to pull my own books. These are all books that I own, and have owned, in some cases, for a very long time. It's not that I don't want to read them — I do! otherwise, I'd get rid of them! — it's just that for whatever reason, I don't. This looks like a good exercise to get me reading the stuff I already have.
Long: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susannah Clarke. I've tried to listen to this as an audiobook a couple of times, but the story is just too complicated for me to follow without actually seeing all of the words and names in front of me. I think I'll have better luck on paper. Amazon says it's 1024 pages, but I'm pretty sure the edition I have is more like 800, so either bigger pages or smaller print....
Free: Tin Horns and Calico, Henry Christman. This is set in the part of the Hudson Valley where I grew up and is the true story of a bunch of farmers revolting in the 1840s and overthrowing what was basically a feudal system. This copy was in my house growing up and I've been meaning to read it for at least 15 years. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I believe that I may have written a book report on it when I was in high school without actually having read it. Bad Stephanie! Apparently, you can read the whole thing here.
Dusty: Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin. I have had this book for a long. freaking. time.
Used: A Conspiracy of Paper, David Liss. Yep, bought it used. As I mentioned above, I really loved The Whiskey Rebels and have high hopes for this one too, which I think may have either won or been nominated for an Edgar.
Letter: Oh, I didn't pull this to get into the photo, but I have a copy. Good People, Marcus Sakey. There were a bunch of Ss in the running, but this one had a K too.
Strange: Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, Jason Brown. I don't typically read short stories. Plus, I borrowed this from someone a truly inexcusable length of time ago and it's way past time I get it back to her.
Distance: The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell. I'm choosing to interpret this category as allowing for a distance through time as well as physical distance.
AN: Arthur & George, Julian Barnes. Short-listed for the Booker. I bought this is a book-buying binge a few days before I got laid off in Feb. 2006.
Cover: Originally, I was going to read The Devil's Gentleman by Harold Schecter for this category, but have since decided that the cover of The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly more effectively blows my skirt up so am subbing that one in instead.
- Agent Zigzag, Ben McIntyre. Completely engrossing non-fic about a double agent in WWII.
- The Genius, Jesse Kellerman. I like books that are set in the seamier corners of New York City (or anywhere, really), especially when they're beautifully written mysteries.
- Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras, Scott Westerfeld. What can I say? I'm a sucker for well-written dystopian fantasies. Also really liked Peeps.
- The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins. Seriously, I love dystopian fantasies. I reviewed it here.
- Garnethill, Denise Mina. Very dark, very Scottish, very good.
- The Wild Trees, Richard Preston. About the exploration of canopies of super-tall trees and the previously unknown biosystems that exist up there. Kind of mind-blowing, really.
- The Whiskey Rebels, David Liss. You can read my officially official review here.
- A Place of Execution, Val McDermid. I read two of her others this year too, The Distant Echo and A Darker Domain, and really tore through both of those as well, though PoE is in a class by itself. She's going to be in New York Feb. 10 — anyone want to go to the reading with me?
- When Will There Be Good News? Kate Atkinson. Just as good as Case Histories, which is really saying something.
- In the Woods and The Likeness, Tana French. Just so good.
I'm still going for the 52 books a year number for 2009, but with an additional angle. After reading about the 9 for 09 challenge on Kim's blog the other night, I went to my shelves immediately to pull my own books. These are all books that I own, and have owned, in some cases, for a very long time. It's not that I don't want to read them — I do! otherwise, I'd get rid of them! — it's just that for whatever reason, I don't. This looks like a good exercise to get me reading the stuff I already have.Long: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susannah Clarke. I've tried to listen to this as an audiobook a couple of times, but the story is just too complicated for me to follow without actually seeing all of the words and names in front of me. I think I'll have better luck on paper. Amazon says it's 1024 pages, but I'm pretty sure the edition I have is more like 800, so either bigger pages or smaller print....
Free: Tin Horns and Calico, Henry Christman. This is set in the part of the Hudson Valley where I grew up and is the true story of a bunch of farmers revolting in the 1840s and overthrowing what was basically a feudal system. This copy was in my house growing up and I've been meaning to read it for at least 15 years. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I believe that I may have written a book report on it when I was in high school without actually having read it. Bad Stephanie! Apparently, you can read the whole thing here.
Dusty: Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin. I have had this book for a long. freaking. time.
Used: A Conspiracy of Paper, David Liss. Yep, bought it used. As I mentioned above, I really loved The Whiskey Rebels and have high hopes for this one too, which I think may have either won or been nominated for an Edgar.
Letter: Oh, I didn't pull this to get into the photo, but I have a copy. Good People, Marcus Sakey. There were a bunch of Ss in the running, but this one had a K too.
Strange: Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, Jason Brown. I don't typically read short stories. Plus, I borrowed this from someone a truly inexcusable length of time ago and it's way past time I get it back to her.
Distance: The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell. I'm choosing to interpret this category as allowing for a distance through time as well as physical distance.
AN: Arthur & George, Julian Barnes. Short-listed for the Booker. I bought this is a book-buying binge a few days before I got laid off in Feb. 2006.
Cover: Originally, I was going to read The Devil's Gentleman by Harold Schecter for this category, but have since decided that the cover of The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly more effectively blows my skirt up so am subbing that one in instead.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Random Friday
1. My little bit of Christmas knitting: two cashmere/silk cowls for my mom. Yes, one of them was going to be for my sister-in-law, but I said screw it, Mom will like it better. I was aiming for 20" around and 13" long for each of them, but apparently blocked the burgandy one pretty hard to open up the lace and it's bigger than that. So it's even better than I was planning — she'll have one close-fitting cowl and one that'll be looser and more drapey.
2. The knitting I've been doing for myself is not really photo-worthy at the moment (the beginnings of a long black cardigan in 1x1 rib and the nascent Amelia), but I took this lousy picture of where I am on Amelia this morning purely for documentation. This is the same cashmere/silk yarn I used for the cowls in a different color. I really stocked up at School Products about five or six years ago.
Note to self: paint your nails.
3. For this week's Spectacle Spectacular (Bill Clinton), Liz and I had planned to make shrimp and grits with greens on the side. However, she had a pretty bad reaction to some shrimp a few days earlier (tongue swelled up) and was leery of trying again so soon. So we ordered some awesome pizza instead.
One margherita + one pugliese (broccoli raab and sausage) + one bottle of chianti = two happy couch potatoes.
4. I have been assimilated; please feel free to follow me on Twitter if you are so inclined.
5. I've had this song stuck in my head for most of the last few days.
6. I've been reading a lot more than I've been making stuff. I keep meaning to do real write-ups on a couple of books I've read lately, but haven't made that happen. So in lieu of real write-ups:
A Darker Domain, Val McDermid: Loved! Awesomeness with awesome sauce on top.
The Likeness, Tana French: Awesomeness with even MORE awesome sauce on top. Loved it so much that it ruined other books for me for about a week. After I finished this one, I started several books I'd really been looking forward to reading and they all turned to ashes in my hands because they weren't nearly as gripping and beautiful. More! Tana! French!
Dark Places, Gillian Flynn: Bleak, disappointing. I loved her first book enough to pitch a profile of her to my boss, but this one made my skin crawl in a bad way without compensatory goodness. Honestly, I was so disappointed that I may rescind my request to interview her. Just in-house, I mean. I hadn't approached her yet.
Free-Range Chickens, Simon Rich: Cute. Adorable, in fact. If this book were a person, I would totally want to pinch its widdle cheeks. Which I desperately needed after the truly unlikable characters and terrible behavior (like Satanic sacrifices) exhibited in the Flynn book. And I *like* dark mysteries.
2. The knitting I've been doing for myself is not really photo-worthy at the moment (the beginnings of a long black cardigan in 1x1 rib and the nascent Amelia), but I took this lousy picture of where I am on Amelia this morning purely for documentation. This is the same cashmere/silk yarn I used for the cowls in a different color. I really stocked up at School Products about five or six years ago.
Note to self: paint your nails.3. For this week's Spectacle Spectacular (Bill Clinton), Liz and I had planned to make shrimp and grits with greens on the side. However, she had a pretty bad reaction to some shrimp a few days earlier (tongue swelled up) and was leery of trying again so soon. So we ordered some awesome pizza instead.
One margherita + one pugliese (broccoli raab and sausage) + one bottle of chianti = two happy couch potatoes.4. I have been assimilated; please feel free to follow me on Twitter if you are so inclined.
5. I've had this song stuck in my head for most of the last few days.
6. I've been reading a lot more than I've been making stuff. I keep meaning to do real write-ups on a couple of books I've read lately, but haven't made that happen. So in lieu of real write-ups:
A Darker Domain, Val McDermid: Loved! Awesomeness with awesome sauce on top.
The Likeness, Tana French: Awesomeness with even MORE awesome sauce on top. Loved it so much that it ruined other books for me for about a week. After I finished this one, I started several books I'd really been looking forward to reading and they all turned to ashes in my hands because they weren't nearly as gripping and beautiful. More! Tana! French!
Dark Places, Gillian Flynn: Bleak, disappointing. I loved her first book enough to pitch a profile of her to my boss, but this one made my skin crawl in a bad way without compensatory goodness. Honestly, I was so disappointed that I may rescind my request to interview her. Just in-house, I mean. I hadn't approached her yet.
Free-Range Chickens, Simon Rich: Cute. Adorable, in fact. If this book were a person, I would totally want to pinch its widdle cheeks. Which I desperately needed after the truly unlikable characters and terrible behavior (like Satanic sacrifices) exhibited in the Flynn book. And I *like* dark mysteries.
Friday, November 7, 2008
In which I am not sure how I feel about Jasper Fforde.
So, I've heard a lot of good things about Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. It's book-centric alternate reality stuff, where characters can be kidnapped out of books and killed, leaving the plot in turmoil, and drug smuggling has been replaced by a trade in counterfeit Samuel Johnson first editions. It's supposed to be quirky and zany and fun, ringing a lot of my chimes, and I had every expectation of him becoming a new favorite author.
I'm halfway though The Eyre Affair though and just have to say: meh. I don't know. I was just expecting it to be ... better. I bought this copy during my book-buying binge in Seattle this summer and, honestly, if I didn't have actual money invested in it, I probably wouldn't bother to finish. That's why I love the library. You can take a chance on books that you've heard buzz about or are curious about or what have you and if it doesn't work out, you're out nothing.
I am enjoying the villain though. One of the elements I really like in books/movies/tv, in addition to sassy chicks who fight crime and real-life characters making cameo appearances, particularly in a historical setting, is the Cheerfully Evil and Witty Villain. (see: Spike before that whole neutered-by-a-brain-chip debacle) The villain in this case is one Acheron Hades, in a character-naming move so very on the nose that it runs straight past ham-fisted and heavy handed and comes back around to awesome. He loves being eeeeeevil. And I love him for it.
To wit:
[speaking to one of his henchmen] " … Mr. Delamare, my friend, have you committed your wicked act today?"
"Yes, Mr. Hades, I drove at seventy-three miles per hour."*
Hades frowned.
"That doesn't sound very wicked."
Delamare chuckled.
"Through a mall."
Hades wagged an approving finger and smiled a wicked smile.
"Very good."
"Shall we get to work? I haven't committed a singularly debauched act in almost an hour."
"Besides, killing civilians is never any real fun. It's a bit like shooting rabbits that have been pegged to the ground."
So, yeah. Entertaining villain, interesting world-building, but not enough there there. I think that I might find Thursday a bit hard to care about, so that might be some of it. One of my co-workers said she read the third book first and really liked it, then went back and found the first couple of books to be much slower. I don't know. I'll reserve (most of) my judgment until after I'm done.
*Never mind that they're supposed to be in WALES. Where they do not talk in terms of MILES. I hate when they dumb this stuff down for the American release of foreign books.
I'm halfway though The Eyre Affair though and just have to say: meh. I don't know. I was just expecting it to be ... better. I bought this copy during my book-buying binge in Seattle this summer and, honestly, if I didn't have actual money invested in it, I probably wouldn't bother to finish. That's why I love the library. You can take a chance on books that you've heard buzz about or are curious about or what have you and if it doesn't work out, you're out nothing.
I am enjoying the villain though. One of the elements I really like in books/movies/tv, in addition to sassy chicks who fight crime and real-life characters making cameo appearances, particularly in a historical setting, is the Cheerfully Evil and Witty Villain. (see: Spike before that whole neutered-by-a-brain-chip debacle) The villain in this case is one Acheron Hades, in a character-naming move so very on the nose that it runs straight past ham-fisted and heavy handed and comes back around to awesome. He loves being eeeeeevil. And I love him for it.
To wit:
[speaking to one of his henchmen] " … Mr. Delamare, my friend, have you committed your wicked act today?"
"Yes, Mr. Hades, I drove at seventy-three miles per hour."*
Hades frowned.
"That doesn't sound very wicked."
Delamare chuckled.
"Through a mall."
Hades wagged an approving finger and smiled a wicked smile.
"Very good."
"Shall we get to work? I haven't committed a singularly debauched act in almost an hour."
"Besides, killing civilians is never any real fun. It's a bit like shooting rabbits that have been pegged to the ground."
So, yeah. Entertaining villain, interesting world-building, but not enough there there. I think that I might find Thursday a bit hard to care about, so that might be some of it. One of my co-workers said she read the third book first and really liked it, then went back and found the first couple of books to be much slower. I don't know. I'll reserve (most of) my judgment until after I'm done.
*Never mind that they're supposed to be in WALES. Where they do not talk in terms of MILES. I hate when they dumb this stuff down for the American release of foreign books.
Friday, October 31, 2008
I was already a little bit in love with the book...
...but this line put me over the edge: "Katy had walked into danger the same way Cassie had: on the unmissable off-chance of magic." (from Tana French's In the Woods)*
Holy. Shit.
The unmissable off-chance of magic. Is there is any more perfect way to sum up what has motivated any interesting thing — good or bad — anyone has ever done?
Unmissable. Off-chance. Of Magic. Fucking perfect.
Speaking of which, I went to see Marcus Sakey read last night. I interviewed him over the summer — the only interview to date I've conducted over beers — and like him both as a person and as an author, not to mention that I feel strongly about showing support to writers, especially when I can do it just by showing up. I've been to a lot of this kind of reading and can say, with experience and the word of the friend who went with me to back me up, that it was a singular, one might even say magical, experience. First off, he didn't read. He talked about the book and how he got into crime fiction (because it combines the meatiness of moral quandries with the fun of pistol-whipping) and then took questions. I learned a lot about gang activity in Chicago, including that Chicago gang tags have been spotted around Baghdad because of back-door deals that get gang members to enlist instead of being arrested, that cops actually refer to bad guys as "bad guys," and that not believing in writers' block (lack of evidence of carpenters' block or plumbers' block was cited) may be enough to avoid suffering from it.
Not to mention that his corporate sponsorship meant there were some super-sweet gift bags. Sadly, when I got home I realized that mine didn't have the promised thumb drive, but did contain what very well might be the largest sweatshirt on the planet. So: score!
Another benefit (to me) is that going to readings and dealing with published authors spurs me on to work on my own book. Envy may fall into the mortal sin camp, but it also functions as an excellent barometer, allowing you to recognize that you're seeking change and clarify how you want to be different. Me, I want to finish and publish my book. I want to go places and tell people about it — even more people than I already have! And if some random company wants to give presents to people who show up to listen to me, that would be nice too.
*Michelle posted her favorite line too, which though also excellent, didn't have quite the sucker-punch-to-the-gut effect mine did on me.
Holy. Shit.
The unmissable off-chance of magic. Is there is any more perfect way to sum up what has motivated any interesting thing — good or bad — anyone has ever done?
Unmissable. Off-chance. Of Magic. Fucking perfect.
Speaking of which, I went to see Marcus Sakey read last night. I interviewed him over the summer — the only interview to date I've conducted over beers — and like him both as a person and as an author, not to mention that I feel strongly about showing support to writers, especially when I can do it just by showing up. I've been to a lot of this kind of reading and can say, with experience and the word of the friend who went with me to back me up, that it was a singular, one might even say magical, experience. First off, he didn't read. He talked about the book and how he got into crime fiction (because it combines the meatiness of moral quandries with the fun of pistol-whipping) and then took questions. I learned a lot about gang activity in Chicago, including that Chicago gang tags have been spotted around Baghdad because of back-door deals that get gang members to enlist instead of being arrested, that cops actually refer to bad guys as "bad guys," and that not believing in writers' block (lack of evidence of carpenters' block or plumbers' block was cited) may be enough to avoid suffering from it.
Not to mention that his corporate sponsorship meant there were some super-sweet gift bags. Sadly, when I got home I realized that mine didn't have the promised thumb drive, but did contain what very well might be the largest sweatshirt on the planet. So: score!
Another benefit (to me) is that going to readings and dealing with published authors spurs me on to work on my own book. Envy may fall into the mortal sin camp, but it also functions as an excellent barometer, allowing you to recognize that you're seeking change and clarify how you want to be different. Me, I want to finish and publish my book. I want to go places and tell people about it — even more people than I already have! And if some random company wants to give presents to people who show up to listen to me, that would be nice too.
*Michelle posted her favorite line too, which though also excellent, didn't have quite the sucker-punch-to-the-gut effect mine did on me.
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