Book Advent Calendar Day 11: After the storm

Well, it wasn't quite a storm though we did receive 17 cm of snow officially (about 8 or so inches) all through the day and night yesterday.  Here are some photos (click on each to make them bigger) I took during my walk today.  I will let the photos speak for me about my thoughts for the day:  peace, and stillness, during this holy season. May you find the time to reflect on what means most to you as we approach the end of the year.

One good thing about being home is that I do have the time now to reflect, and I am becoming aware of how much I love silence, and solitude, in balance with all the noise and activity (and love!) that comes with being part of a family.  I need both solitude and to be part of my family.  I am grateful to have both.

Book Advent Calendar Day 10: Food and books, and cookbooks stash

   I love Terri Windling's blog Myth and Moor.  On Friday, December 5 she blogged about food blogs that have to do with books.  You have to scroll down to Dec 5's post.  She has put up photos of the most amazing foods recreated from novels, photos of dishes that several bloggers have been recreating  from various literary sources, or from poets and author's diaries and journals.  They are fascinating to look through.  I have listed all of the blogs she mentions under a new setting on my sidebar, Food and Book Blogs.  I will be going to peruse each one in depth.  Some have the most delightful stories and anecdotes about authors.  Glorious pictures about food.  I am so delighted to discover these blogs.  I love the idea of eating the food that characters did, or authors loved.  Especially older books.  Who can resist trying to recreate Jane Austen's Brown Butter Bread Pudding Tarts? 
 Or Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell's Black Forest Raven Cake?

                                                

I also love Terri's blog because she talks about the creative process, what it's like to be an artist in today's world, the struggles to be creative.  She discusses nature, and fairy tales, and so many other interesting topics.  The post on Dec 4 is about the folklore of food.  In this post she talks about books that feature food, like Joanna Harris' Chocolat.  Her blog is interesting, creative, soul-nurturing.  And now I have all these lovely new-to-me food and book blogs to go visit!  This has been like a Christmas present for me, so this was my advent calendar opening for the day.

For your treat, I thought I would show a few photos of the cookbooks I currently have. Cath at Read-Warbler did a post last week on Show Your Bookstash,  from Carolyn at Riedel Fascination who come up with this idea.  Margaret at Books Please and Pat at Here, There and Everywhere blog did a post on Dec 7. So here are my cookbooks stash, on their bookshelf in the dining room:

The only cookbook not on the shelf is The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Lane, which is on my classics shelf with the Jane Austen books.   If I feel like shaming myself in revealing just how double-booked my shelves are in my reading corner, I'll take some photos for you tomorrow.

I'm interested in the history of food, how we eat, how the way we cook and serve food has evolved over the centuries.  A book that I just realized you can't see on my shelves because it was hidden by some papers is Kate Colquhoun's Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking.  That's a book I've dipped into on occasion and loved.   The magazines on one of the shelves are all food magazines, which I love to look through and cut out recipes from. 

An idea I am forming is that I think in 2015, one of my goals is to start using my cookbooks more.  I like the idea of cooking my way through a book, like Julie Powell did with Julia Child in her book and the movie, Julie and Julia. 
      

I loved how she cooked her way right the way through the cookbook.  I might try something like cooking a recipe from every cookbook I own, or something along those lines.  I need to try expanding my cooking.  I love how cooking is a marriage of magic and alchemy in the kitchen. I love the comfort I get from making good food for my family, that tastes good and I know is nutritious and healthy.  I definitely want to explore taste and colour and spices more.  And maybe I'll check on those book and food blogs for some other creative ideas to do with cooking over the next year.  A literary feast sounds fun, doesn't it?

Of course I confess I haven't read Julie & Julia, I've only seen the movie.  And I haven't read Chocolat or Like Water For Chocolate yet, though I have seen those movies as well.  *hangs head in shame*

Here is something soul-comforting and immensely nurturing that I baked yesterday:
                                                   

The taste of homemade chocolate cookies is sublime.  Yum.

So what are some of your favourite books that feature food?  Have you discovered a favourite recipe/dish/food because of a novel? 

Book Christmas Advent Calendar - Day 9: distracted by shiny things

So I was supposed to do a post today on my favourite books in other genres I read this past year, however I've been distracted by shiny things and am changing my post to The Books I Most Want to See Under My Tree this year.  I have to warn you, I am not greedy I just love new books - shiny and sparkly too!  So there's a fair number I'm excited to look for:

Mystery:
A Dark and Twisted Tide - Sharon Bolton (Lacey Flint #4)
One Was a Soldier - Julia Spencer-Fleming ( Rev Clare Ferguson # 7)
Through the Evil Days - "     "        "            ( "       "         "           #8)
Thin Air   -  Ann Cleeves (Shetland mystery #5)
Murder in Thrall - Anne Cleeland
 The Fire Engine that Disappeared - Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo (Martin Beck #5)

SF
The Martian - Andy Weir
Forty Signs of Rain - Kim Stanley Robinson
The Echo - James Smythe

Fantasy
City of Dragons (Bk 3, Rain Wild Chronicles) - Robin Hobb
Blood of Dragons (Bk 4,  "      "        "            )         "      "
The Dream Thieves   (Book 2 The Raven Cycle) - Maggie Stiefvater
Year of the Griffin - Diana Wynne Jones

Horror
Parasite - Mira Grant
Blackout - (Newflesh Book 3) Mira Grant
Mayhem - Sarah Pinborough
Coldbrook - Tim Lebbon

Folktales
The Fabled Coast - Legends and Traditions from around the shores of Britain - Sophia Kingshill, Jennifer Westwood

Nature
H is for Hawk - Helen MacDonald

History
London - A Social History - Roy Porter
If Walls Could Talk - Lucy Worsley

Poetry
Anything by Jo Shapcott
Penguin Selected Poems and Prose - Edward Thomas
To Be the Poet - Maxine Hong Kingston
A Thousand Mornings - Poems - Mary Oliver
Evidence    -                                     "   "
Thirst -                                            " "
White Pine -                                    " "

Ok, I don't have a reasonable expectation of receiving all these for Christmas.  That would be rather wonderful spectacular, wouldn't it?   I think I did this list - which I am giving to my husband and eldest son  as they prepare to go out in to the wilds of Ottawa to Christmas shop over the next two weeks -  just to show myself that even if I can't read for long yet, I have high hopes that I will soon.  In the meantime, these are the books that I  want to have ready lined up on my shelf for when I do begin to read a lot again. 

What do you want to see under the tree this year for yourself?  Do you have any particular books picked out yet, or on a list given to a loved one? 

*shiny*     *sparkly*  new books!!!!!

Book Christmas Advent Calendar, Day 8: Mystery books for the Christmas tree - meme from Kerrie

    Kerrie over at Mysteries in Paradise has a cool meme going, where she lists the 10 books she would give as presents this year.  The 10 books are the 10 best mysteries she has read this year.  Her post is here.
      I think this is a super idea.  The 10 best books read, or you could do 10 best books in a genre, or whatever you like.  So I was looking through the list of books I've read this year - 78 so far, including 34 mysteries - and this is the list of books I would give as Christmas presents this year.  I don't do a points rating like Kerrie does, I go by how I remember the stories and if they have a hold on me still.  And how much I enjoyed them!

Susan's 10 Mystery books for the Christmas tree
1. Like This, Forever - Sharon Bolton.  LOVED this mystery. Review here.
2. The Detective's Daughter - Lesley Thomson.  Reviewed here last week.  I just gave a copy to my mother for her birthday (so already given!). 
3. Talking To the Dead - Harry Bingham.  Another different main character, she suffers from Cotard's disease, where she thinks at one point earlier in her life she is dead.  Now recovering, Fiona Griffiths starts working as a constable.  Very interesting character, and the other characters are good.  Really enjoy the second one, as well, Love Story, With Murders.
4. True Murder - Yaba Badoe.  Chilling.  Suspenseful.  Wonderful characters, and creepy in places. Highly recommended.  Unforgettable gut-clenching ending. 
5. The Man on the Balcony - Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.  Number 3 in the Martin Beck mystery series from Sweden.  A chilling story of the abduction and murder of young girls, and how the police have to hunt for him with very few clues.  Will they find him, or not?  A mistake is made early on by Beck, which makes the reader (at least I did!) spend my time going, "come on Martin!  Think!"  The painstaking investigation is representative of a true policeman's work.  Very good and suspenseful.
6. To Darkness and Death - Julia Spencer-Fleming. Reviewed here.
7. Invisible City - Julia Dahl. Reviewed here last week.
8. The Magus of Hay - Phil Rickman. Reviewed here.
9. White Bones - Graham Masteron.  Reviewed here.
10. The Outcast Dead - Elly Griffiths.  The latest in the Elly Griffiths mystery series, as good as all the others.  This series is consistently good with all the characters, though sometimes the plot can be a little uneven. Not in this case. A set of bones is uncovered during an excavation, and Ruth is called in.  She identifies a female skeleton and a child's skeleton.  The female skeleton has a hook for it's arm.  Norfolk just happens to have a historical figure of a woman in the Victorian century who ran an orphanage for unwanted children, and several disappeared.  She was hung for the murder of them.  Is this her skeleton?  Dark, disturbing, and at the same time sad.  Ruth doesn't believe in the folktale told about Mother Hook who sold her children to the resurrection men for money.  For, along with the bodies, she uncovers a journal.  Very good mystery, unputdownable as ever with Elly Griffiths.  Several side stories also advance, which I love to see in a mystery series.  And we discover a little more about Ruth herself and her relationships in her family.  A solid mystery with several macabre elements.  Highly recommended as they all are in this series.

Bonus mystery:
I really wanted to add the first Anna Dean mystery, Bellfield Hall, featuring Miss Dido Kent, though I couldn't think of who likes Jane Austen type writing as much as I do.  If you know someone who loves Jane Austen, then this is the mystery book for them.  Fun, and as close to Jane Austen as we can get if she were to write a mystery.

I liked doing this so much, I think I will do a separate list tomorrow that includes the other different genres I read this year, as I read some good fantasy and non-fiction and found a new poet I love.

So there you have it.  What would you give as a Christmas present that you really enjoyed this year? 

Book Advent Calendar Day 7: Christmas tree

So it's Book Advent Calendar, Day 7 today.  18 more days til Christmas!  Not that I'm counting. Not at all.  It seems to be approaching rather quickly now.  For today's calendar, here are some pictures, as we put our tree up today.  I'm including photos of my family too after we decorated it. (You can click on the photos to get a better look). There is none of the five of us together, we haven't figured out how to do the timer on our cell phones yet.  If you look carefully, you will see tardises on the tree.  I love those Dr Who string ornaments!
 

And if you look carefully at the close-up of the tree, you will see on the book shelf a Hobbit Lego set.  A Christmas present last year for my daughter, who loves all things Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.  She's asked for Smaug this year, so we'll have to see what Santa brings her. The countdown IS on at our house for the next installment of the The Hobbit, opening here on Dec 17.  So very very excited......

Book Christmas Advent Calendar - Day 6: My daughter loves books

Book Christmas Advent Calendar Day 6:  My daughter loves books

Today my daughter became a reader, a lover of books.  She is almost 12 years old, her birthday is in two weeks' time.  Holly-Anne was slow to learn to read, and for a long time she struggled with how to hold the story in her mind while she did other things.  We kept finding books for her that she was interested in, many featuring dinosaurs or animals, as she loves animals.
                                                                      

Then early last year, she discovered the Dragons of Fire series, and she was hooked. "Dragons!" she said.  She read all the ones that had been published. (She is waiting impatiently for the next book in the series to be published next month.)  In the meantime, while she was waiting, last year all the kids in her Grade 6 class were reading this new series:
                                                        
 Spirit Animals.  Holly-Anne devoured all of them and is waiting impatiently for the next one in this series to come out, in January also.  The cool thing about this series is that popular children's authors are penning different volumes in the series, so it is a great introduction to each author's writing styles. Maggie Stiefvater, Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull (book 1), and Tui T Sutherland so far.  Some very big names.
                                                     
  In desperation this past summer after finishing the last Spirit Animals book so far, she picked up a cat series book I had randomly picked up at a used bookstore for her, Warriors: Midnight by Erin Hunter. She read it, and then discovered that the books actually started in an earlier series, so she went back to read that series first. 
                                                                   

This morning, she finished book 3 (borrowed from the library) to one of the first sets.  She was restless after.  Got up from the sofa.  Tried to watch some tv.  Tried to play her Pokemon on the 3 DS.  Finally she came to me and said, "Mom, are you going out today?"  I asked why, secretly hoping.  "I want to buy the next book.  May I?"  Well I'm never going to say no to that, am I?  Her father was going out in the afternoon, so they went out to the mall where she knew the bookstore carries the cat clan series, and she bought the next two books in the series.  When she got in the door, she promptly opened the next book and started reading it.

My little girl.  Almost a tween, and now a book reader.  She needed to know how the cat clan goes on after the big fire!!  A story lover.  She took her own allowance money to buy the books for herself.  I am so proud and delighted.  My daughter is buying her own books and reading them as soon as she gets home. 

Book Christmas Advent Calendar Day 5: Suzanne Vega - Book Of Dreams

   

This is one of my favourite songs. Her voice is light and sweet, and in the lyrics, she describes some of what dreams are like - a mix of images and things taken from the day, to reveal hidden truths.

I also keep a dream journal, and have for many years.  Over the years I have found my own recurring symbols and themes, and then it's fun when they change or added to in my sleep by what happens in my waking life!  I'm fascinated by dreams and what they reveal, and by how they  contain the same themes the world over, and  yet are different for each and every person.

In a way, this video is also like how a book can only contain what is put into it, made up of various symbols that have meaning to the author, and the miracle is when someone else understands the book, too.  How difficult communication really is, and how marvelous when it is obtained.   Books are magic, and hold so much in them.  Anyway I love this song so I thought I would share it with you as my bookish theme for today's advent calendar!