brief bookblog & linkblog.

Over the last couple of years I've gone through several very frustrating times—which I like to attribute to schoolwork but which actually have much more to do with ill health—during which I've been more or less unable to read prose at length. I can always read short fiction and listen to audiobooks, and I can generally cope by playing text-adventure games, inasmuch as that counts as reading (watch this space for the long-delayed posts on 80 Days and Open Sorcery), but the inability to sit down with a novel is a painful thing. I seem to be finally coming out of one of those periods now, having this past week finished in the space of two days two awesome new books.

One of them was My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris, which just came out this February. It's a big, weird comic about growing up in Chicago in the late sixties, presented as the spiral-bound notebook/sketchbook/diary of narrator Karen Reyes. Karen wants to be a monster and draws herself as a wolfgirl; I loved the ins and outs of that obsession, and the horror comic covers that signaled the chapter breaks. I loved even more the scenes set in the Art Institute, especially the sequence when Karen's older brother Diego is teaching her how to look. Like a lot of the books I like best, it makes me want to write academic analysis; unfortunately the second volume is yet to be released, and until then there's a lot left unresolved.

The other book isn't only new, it's not even out yet: it comes out this coming week. A few weeks back I won an ARC of Weave a Circle Round, by debut author Kari Maaren, from a Tor.com giveaway, and this weekend I finally managed to read it. It's very, very good. It isn't from Tor's YA line, but it's about teenagers, and (partly because the protagonist, Freddy Duchamp, is only fourteen) it reads less like an adult novel or modern YA than like really good children's fiction. Early reviews have been comparing it to Diana Wynne Jones, which is more or less right (the way Maaren plays with memory reminded me a lot of Fire and Hemlock in particular). It's fun and absorbing, all about stories and time travel and growing up. The thing it's most like is Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary. That's a frustrating comparison to have to make, because almost nobody's read Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, but I can't think of a better pairing. They're both YA-ish fantasy about time travel and strange neighbors and difficult siblings; they're both deeply interested in poetry and folklore, and they both pay a close and careful attention to the mundane worlds of the characters. I think of JGR as a darker and more frightening book, and the central thematic concerns are different, but even so I want to read them side-by-side. I'm glad people are still writing books like this.

At the moment I'm reading A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar, a gorgeous and worldbuilding-dense fantasy novel that reminds me of what I love about Calvino, and I'm also reading Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys. Winter Tide is one of those revisionist takes on Lovecraft that we get so many of now, and although Lovecraft-qua-Lovecraft isn't all that interesting to me it's a genre I tend to enjoy. This one is a continuation of the short story "A Litany of Earth," which I've loved for years, and I think anybody who likes that story will like the novel too. I'd also point the curious to this interview with Emrys, from the podcast Cooking the Books, which interviews sf/f authors about food. The page at the link includes a recipe for honeyed saltcakes, which the characters in Winter Tide eat. I mention it here so as to note that I've already made the recipe twice. They're very good crumbled into oatmeal.

A handful of other links. I hardly ever play games that aren't text-adventures, but after reading this review I immediately bought and played Yorkshire Gubbins, a really good game that I'll probably write about eventually. This video is unaccountably hysterical to me. This article on sandwiches is unaccountably fascinating. This profile of a Japanese roboticist is accountably fascinating, as is a charming short story in Uncanny about a robot writing fanfiction. I'm sure everyone's already read about Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey, but I haven't stopped being excited about it. And this is a very good essay about one of my favorite comics, which I link as much for my benefit (so I don't lose the link) as for yours.

what is best in life?

General: We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Warrior: The open steppe, a fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
General: Wrong! Conan! What is best?
Conan: A ripe mango.
General: That is good! That is good.

(See also. It's worth noting that I haven't seen the movie Conan the Barbarian, and when I first composed the above text I accidentally wrote Cohen instead of Conan. Who else remembers Cohen the Barbarian? The comments are open to any and all discussion of Cohen the Barbarian, also Rincewind and Twoflower.)

Today, in between poking at revisions on a short story, I managed to produce a very credible version of this mango pie from The Woks of Life. (Used five mangoes and no lime zest, and I couldn't be fussed with the whipped cream—otherwise I followed their instructions to the letter.) The short story's rather questionable, but it sure is nice to have a completed first draft of something. There's no first draft that's worse than the blank page was, as the fellow said, and while I'm certain that there'll be expansions and additions and deletions I do at least have something that might sensibly be called a short story.

I won't be doing anything new when I observe that baking a pie is far more immediately rewarding than writing—this is as good a time as any to cite Grace Paley's lovely "The Poet's Occasional Alternative":

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper

The rest is here. A pie, as she notes, needs no revisions. Although what she doesn't say that's also true is that a good poem and a good story last forever. A good pie lasts a few days at most.

See? Sic transit gloria mundi.

It turns out, in any case, that what's best in life is tea and pie in the garden in the early evening with one's family. Shock finding.

two recipes, somewhat adapted.

A while ago I made these "chaidoodles" from Butter Me Up, Brooklyn. They were good, but I don't make many cookies—they always seem like so much effort, and there are so few cookie recipes I really love. The best thing that came of these was that after making them I had leftover chai doodle sugar; I tried it in my tea and fell in love with the result, and though I've never made the cookies again I regularly make a batch of the sugar and keep it in a jar next to the other tea things. We have real chai regularly, but it takes time to make and this is an easier way to get the fix.

• one cup (220 g) sugar
• one and a half teaspoons cinnamon
• one teaspoon ginger
• one teaspoon cardamom
• half a teaspoon nutmeg
• half a teaspoon black pepper
• half a teaspoon allspice
• a quarter teaspoon cloves

Those are the basic amounts, and the amounts pictured, but I generally make a double recipe. There's no reason not to make extra, since it lasts forever. Use in any tea in place of ordinary sugar—I'd recommend going for a slightly smaller amount than you usually do since this has a stronger flavor. I'm reliably informed it's good in coffee too, but I haven't tried that myself because coffee is revolting.

The other thing I've been making recently is granola. The base of my recipe is Cookie and Kate's Cranberry Orange Granola, but you have freedom of conscience with regard to basically everything except the oats and the ratio of solids to liquids. And even then—I was making a batch the other day and found that I didn't have as many oats as I'd thought. I made up the difference with powdered milk, whole wheat flour, and cornmeal. A success story! My one dogma is that I disagree strongly with the instruction to use one teaspoon of sea salt or three-fourths of a tablespoon of table salt. I've always used a full teaspoon of table salt; as far as I'm concerned, one of the strengths of this granola is its saltiness and you'd be a fool! a fool I say! if you did anything to compromise that.

Cookie and Kate prescribe orange, cranberries, pecans, and cinnamon; my most recent endeavor, and I think the best I've managed, used lime, apricot, almonds, and cardamom. It works with any citrus (I've also used lemon and tangerine), any nuts (I always use almonds), any dried fruit. The fruit can be increased, reduced, or jettisoned. You can even lose some or all of the nuts if you must, though you'd do well to make up the difference with extra oats. The olive oil could be coconut oil, I guess, if you're into that? The honey could definitely be maple syrup.

All together, now: in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. With pleasure I now present In Dubiis Libertas Granola.

• no less than a tablespoon citrus zest
• three tablespoons sugar
• four cups oats
• one and a half cups raw nuts
• half a teaspoon cinnamon (or other spice)
• one teaspoon salt (be generous)
• half a cup olive oil
• half a cup honey
• one cup dried fruit

Preheat to 350 Farenheit. Mix the zest with your sugar, rubbing it with your fingers to release the oils. Then put it into a larger bowl and add the oats, nuts, cinnamon, and salt. Mix well before adding the liquid, and then mix again. Bake for twenty-two minutes on a large baking sheet, and stir halfway through. If you like it clumpy, use the back of your spoon to press it down after stirring, and after removing it from the oven let it cool in the pan before you disturb it. Definitely cool it completely before adding fruit. Eat with yogurt, milk, or in handfuls while wandering through the kitchen. A banana would not be ill-advised.

NB: I bake for twenty-two minutes and it almost always comes out with a few burned bits. I have no idea whether this will happen to you or not, but to be honest I'm kind of into it. I like bitter flavors. If you don't, maybe watch it more carefully than I do? Or line the sheet with baking paper.

(Who thinks I should start a recipe blog called In Dubiis Libertas?)