February 2013

Stuff I’ve Been Reading: The February 2013 Edition

1. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making – Valente, Catherynne M.
2. The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There – Valente, Catherynne M.
3. The Fourth Bear – Fforde, Jasper*
4. Clay’s Ark – Butler, Octavia E.
5. Pure – Baggott, Julianna
6. The Fitting Room – Minter, Kelly
7. Death of an Artist – Wilhelm, Kate
8. The Revisionists – Mullen, Thomas
9. Sherlock in Love – Naslund, Sena Jeter
10. Dreamsnake – McIntyre, Vonda M.
11. Treasure in the Heart of the Tanglewood – Pierce, Meredith Ann
12. Frankenstein – Shelley, Mary*

Asterisks indicate audiobooks. Italics indicate library books (n.b. 50%!). I didn’t finish reading numbers seven or eight.

This was a bit of an indifferent reading month for me. I was pretty ambivalent about most of the things I read, except the Valente and Pierce books. The two audiobooks were good, and my reread of Naslund was as fun as expected, but the number, variety, and entertainment value of my reads were all down from last month.

Hopefully March will pick me back up again. I’m thinking of tackling Tess of the d’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy, a classic I’ve never attempted, and a book on writing for my nonfiction choice.

WWW Wed Feb 27

I may not blog otherwise, but by golly am I good at remembering it’s Wednesday.

What are you currently reading? Nothing. Strangely, this is not the first time recently I’ve found myself unaccountably between books of a Wednesday. Which makes for a boring post. Sorry.

What did you recently finish reading? Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus. This mystery is translated from the German, in which language the author is a bestseller. Eleven years ago in the town of Altenheim, there was a double murder of two teenage girls whose bodies were never found. Just released from prison after serving the maximum sentence for the crimes, Tobias still cannot remember what happened that night after the fair. As the police force slowly uncovers layers of hatred and duplicity in the town, Tobias meets another young woman who looks just like one of the murdered girls, the one they called “Snow White.”

What do you think you’ll read next? The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks. I intended to begin reading this book during my lunch break today, but my boss took the office out for lunch instead, so I didn’t get a chance. (Between free food and an hour of reading, I’m honestly not sure which I would have preferred. No, I am sure, and if you know me, you’re sure too.) However, this evening I also picked up three books on reserve for me at the library, so my resolve might waver in favor of the new short story collection by Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove. I didn’t care for Russell’s novel Swamplandia! but greatly enjoyed her first short story collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.

Audiobook update. Finished Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and began The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Despite its being read by a female–I prefer to listen to male readers–I am enjoying the first disc. I read the novel only once in…was it really February 2011? Two years exactly. So that must be why the story feels fresh to me.

WWW Wed Feb 20

What are you currently reading? Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre. Snake is a healer who uses snakes to heal, but her most powerful snake, the dreamsnake, has been killed. The book won a Hugo in 1979. I’m one chapter in and have little so far to report.

What did you recently finish reading? Sherlock in Love by Sena Jeter Naslund. I reread this book as a comfort fling; I’d abandoned the two previous books I attempted (Death of an Artist by Kate Wilhelm and The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen) and needed something short and light and fun that I knew I already liked. An aged Watson recalls the adventure he and Holmes shared surrounding the intriguing violinist V. Sigerson, and also Mad King Ludwig.

What do you think you’ll read next? Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood by Meredith Ann Pierce. It’s a book I haven’t read by an author I’ve consistently liked. Or possibly In the Forests of Serre by Patricia A. McKillip, for the same reason as above. I have a bunch of books reserved at the library, but they are all just released and still on order, and must afterwards be cataloged, so March will have quite a few new reads.

And I have had some event every evening this week, and I’ve barely been at home and I haven’t written much, and I’m tired, and good night.

Sunday seems to be soup day

Sunday has its own routine, mostly involving chores and cooking.

We get up and get ready for church; on our way out the door, I throw a load of bedding in the wash so we don’t have to listen to it. We go to church, and then we go to Chipotle, where our orders are memorized and the staff say, “Good to see you again.”

Sometimes afterward we run to the grocery store or the bookstore or the library, but usually we go home.

At home, I put the laundry in the dryer and usually make cookies, although sometimes applesauce. This week, I made two dozen chocolate chip and pecan cookies by halving the recipe on the back of the Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips, adding 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon to the flour and 1/2 c. each of chocolate chips and chopped pecans. They came out yummy. I hope the women in my Bible study tomorrow think so too.

The afternoon can have different dimensions but usually goes something like this: I talk on Skype with my friend, I write three short articles for work, I watch a TV show, I make soup for dinner, the leftovers of which are designated for my lunch for a couple of days. In the evening I read.

The soup I am making today is a variation or, more properly, a conglomeration of several chicken tortilla soup recipes I viewed online. Its chief attraction is that it has only six main ingredients, plus spices.

Mexican Chicken Soup

1. Dice a medium onion and saute in vegetable oil in the bottom of a soup pot until soft (with minced garlic if you have some).
2. Add these items to the pot: a can of fire roasted tomatoes, a can of white and yellow corn (drained), a can of black beans (drained), an 8 oz. can of chicken, a 32 oz. box of chicken broth or stock. Instead of the can, you can also boil a chicken breast and shred it with a fork or dice some leftover chicken, which is much more my style.
3. Optional: garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, red pepper flakes, cumin, paprika, fresh or dried cilantro, or a jar of salsa instead of the diced tomatoes.
4. Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 15 minutes. Longer is better.
5. Serve with, according to taste, tortilla strips, avocado, shredded cheese, sour cream, or chips and salsa. Serves 6 (appetizer) or 4 (main course).

It seems pretty foolproof to me, but I’ll let you know how it turns out.

WWW Wed Feb 13

What are you currently reading? Nothing. I’m between books. And last week when I said I was between books but picked out the book I was reading next, I ended up finishing three other books before I finally read it. So this week I’ll just list the two books I bought today: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler and Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre.

What did you recently finish reading? The Fitting Room by Kelly Minter, whose study on Ruth I prefer to her nonfiction. Before that, I read Pure by Julianna Baggott (will not read the forthcoming sequels) and Clay’s Ark by Octavia E. Butler (not as good as Lilith’s Brood and certainly not Bloodchild).

What do you think you’ll read next? Death of an Artist by Kate Wilhelm, a standalone mystery by the author of Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, about clones, which I read last year. I’ve selected it because I’ve used up all three renewals, and the library finally wants its book back.

On Audiobooks. Listened to The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, a Nursery Crime novel featuring detectives Jack Spratt and Mary Mary. Am a third of the way into Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, which is so quintessential an example of literary romanticism that I often burst out laughing.

WWW Wed Feb 6

What are you currently reading? The Fitting Room by Kelly Minter. This is a–gasp–nonfiction book by the author of the Bible study that the women in my Sunday school group are doing, Ruth: Loss, Love & Legacy. It’s a good study. Perhaps the book will be good too. (I’ve firmly decided to read it, though I haven’t begun yet. This counts as ‘currently reading.’)

What did you recently finish reading? The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente. I finished it last night, and it was one of the most enjoyable sequels I’ve ever read.

What do you think you’ll read next? A friend gave me her extra copy of Tess of the d’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy. I’ve never read anything by Thomas Hardy, but if he’s an author whose books are worth owning two copies of the same title, I will certainly consider it. Also remaining are two of last week‘s three library books I haven’t gotten to yet. Come to think of it, they might be due soon.

An aside: It is evident that I work in a law office, because I distinctly remember dreaming the sentence, “The foregoing facts are herein incorporated by reference in haec verba,” which is something you write in a legal document, because if you tried to write it anywhere else, you would get pelted with tomatoes.

Hours per week

So it takes forever to read even a short book when you only read half an hour a day.

I’m reading The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente, which I am enjoying a lot. However, I’ve had hardly any chance to read it in the last three days.

On Sunday, I went to church, came home, made four dozen cookies, did two loads of laundry, wrote three articles, went to a Super Bowl party (where all four dozen cookies got eaten), came home and read for thirty minutes before falling asleep in the chair.

On Monday, I went to work, ran an errand during lunch, read for thirty minutes, worked and came home, wrote in the evening, and read for less than twenty minutes before falling asleep in the chair.

And today during lunch I ran another errand and read for only thirty minutes. The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland is 272 pages long, so even if I read two pages a minute, which I don’t, I haven’t spent enough time reading in the last three days to finish anything.

So now I am going to give it a good hour and a half to see this thing through. Because tomorrow for WWW Wednesday, I cannot still be reading the same book I was reading on Sunday. That would be nonsense.