These are the books I've been tackling lately. Mariner will take a while because it's thick, and because when I have time to read, I may not always have the mental wherewithal to absorb something like that. That's why the P.G. Wodehouse is in the pile, and a humorous novel is part of the reading challenge, anyway; I didn't know what else would qualify as a "light comedic novel" - do you? The Family Table is one of two cookbooks by Shaye Elliott that I'm actually reading - I know some people read cookbooks, but I never have. Until now, and I'm really getting a lot out of it. This may also help me with the reading challenge, where I'm supposed to read from a genre I don't normally.
How to Tame a Fox is dry, but something I've been interested in for a while - the Russian experiment in domesticating foxes in Siberia for decades. Somebody just dropped off this book at the library, and I grabbed it. This Beautiful Truth is Sarah Clarkson's new book about her lifelong struggles with mental illness. She writes like a poet, and the whole story is beautiful and touching.
I made another zippered pouch.
I have Sarah's new book, I don't have any of MG poetry though Sarah has read some beautiful ones of his.
ReplyDeleteYes, I want to get some of his poetry - the one for Advent must be nice.
DeleteI am finding I do not have the capacity to cope with anything difficult, dry or cerebral at ANY time! I hope I eventually get the capacity back because there are so many books I would love to read but can't.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read cookbooks until fairly recently. What started me off was being given a booklet with excerpts from Alan Davidson's Oxford Companion to Food which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have since been given the whole unexpurgated version but unfortunately it is the second edition which is an updated version and has lost, I feel, the charm of the first edition. I love to read Nigel Slater's books and I bought Kate Young's The Little Library Cookbook a couple of years ago. In it she talks about her favourite books which mention food and then reconstructs the meals/dishes. My most recent book is Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules in which she talks about Ukrainian food and the vegetable gardens that surround their summer kitchens.
Do you like Ukrainian food, Clare? I am thinking it must be like Polish. I never look at my mother's old Polish cookbooks. The Little Library Cookbook sounds very cute - I'll have to look into it.
DeleteBefore buying the book I had never even thought about Ukrainian food. I read a review of this book and became really curious not only about the food which is lovely but also about the summer kitchens. Until recently, when couples in the Ukraine got married they were given a plot of land on which they built a tiny one or two bedroom hut in which they built an oven. This is where they lived until they and the rest of their family, in their spare time, had built a house for them to live in next to the hut. Once the house was built the couple moved into it but didn't get rid of the hut with its oven and sparse furniture (a bed, table, a couple of chairs etc) but used it as a summer kitchen when the days and nights are hot and to cook in the house was too oppressive. The photographs in the book are wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI had a Polish uncle and he always insisted on Polish food at festivals (Christmas, Easter etc) but unfortunately I never visited them then, so never got to sample the food.
Oh, a summer kitchen! It sounds more than delightful. Imagine not having to heat up the house to cook. That's a great idea. Yesterday I had to put on the AC for that very reason, and it wasn't excessively hot, but it was humid (and Dolly was wilting, too).
DeleteI looked up The Little Library, and found two of hers that I know my boss is going to want to buy for the library, plus she's coming out with a Christmas one in November! Thanks for the mention. :)