Sunday Salon: Re-re-readathon!

Good morning! It’s cold and cloudy here in SoCal, perfect weather for curling up with a book (or several in my case). Hopefully the weather changes for the better for everyone who’s planning on barbecuing this Memorial Day weekend.

Today is also my read-a-thon with Christina (Ardent Reader). It’s pretty informal so we start and finish whenever we want. It’s just our way of celebrating the end of the semester. I’m starting right after I finish writing this post. If you’re planning on reading this weekend, why not join us?

Last week I had a great reading week. I read 11 books! I’m pretty sure that I didn’t break any records but it felt good to do so much reading. My favorite books from last week are The Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky, and The Lonely Book by Kate Bernheimer. You can expect reviews for all three books in the near future.

Here’s my reading stack for today and the rest of the week:

• Under the Green Hill by Laura L. Sullivan
• Me and You by Niccolό Ammaniti, translated from Italian by Kylee Doust
• Home by Toni Morrison.
• Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman
• Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
• Not pictured: Zahra’s Paradise by Amir & Khalil

I’m already deep into Under the Green Hill. It’s a fantasy middle grade filled with fairies and old magic. I’m really enjoying it.

Now I’m off to read (and eat pancakes). What are you doing this weekend?

*Photo courtesy of Evil Erin Flickr/Creative Commons

 

1st Update:

Finished Sullivan’s Under the Green Hill. What a fantastic read. The short: 5 out of 5 stars. Now I’m trying to figure out what else to read. I decided to just return Are You My Mother?  and Me and You unread to the library since they’re due back in a few days. I’m also eager to read a few books from my own shelves. Hmmm. . .

Wordless Wednesday 2

My bookstack for today

For more Wordless Wednesdays, visit here.

Mini-reviews: Alcestis, Forgotten Country, and The Sigh

 I’ve read a lot of books so far this year but because of school and my own laziness, I haven’t reviewed most of them. So here’s a few short reviews on what I’ve read in 2012.

Alcestis by Katharine Beutner. Published in 2010 by Soho Press. Source: Personal library.

 The more that I read novels based on Greek tales, the more I realize that I really need to read The Iliad and The Odyssey. When ancient Greeks thought of the ideal wife, Alcestis came to mind. She was a woman, who took her husband’s place when Hermes came to claim his life. The book was an interesting read that took some fantastic turns once Alcestis was in the underworld. I love the imagery of Hades (the place and the god) and the interactions between Persephone and Alcestis. The ending was fantastic. I just wish I didn’t have to wait until the second half of the book for the action to pick up. My rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

 

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung. Published in 2012 by Riverhead. Source: Publisher.

Since childhood it’s been Janie’s job to make sure nothing happens to Hannah, her younger sister. It’s not an easy job as the two sisters are opposites. Protecting Hannah becomes even harder once she goes off to college and disappears. The girls’ parents blame Janie and it’s her job to find Hannah and close the rift between the two sisters once and for all. This is Chung’s first book but you couldn’t tell reading Forgotten Country. I found the language to be beautiful while the descriptions of Korea breathtaking. There were many passages that I read aloud to myself just to hear them. The family’s issues and the revealed secret from the past were believable. I’m glad that this was a family who wasn’t dysfunctional but more like they misunderstood each other. Forgotten County is a book that I didn’t want to end. I won’t hesitate to pick up Chung’s next book. My rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

 

The Sigh by Marjane Satrapi. Published in 2011 by Archaia. Source: Library

The Sigh is the fairy tale-like story of Rose, the daughter of a rich merchant who wishes for the seed of a blue bean. When her father is unable to find one, a mysterious creature has exactly what Rose wants but it’s comes at a price. What I think: The Sigh is a cute book. That’s it. It’s more like something that you give to your kid as a present and less like something you publish. The Sigh doesn’t have any of the strength or purpose of Persepolis or Embroideries. My rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

Sunday Salon: Summer Reading, Read-a-thons, and Read-alongs

Technically, summer doesn’t start until June 16^th here but when you’re a student, it starts the very second you’ve finished with your last final. Since my last final is over tomorrow afternoon, I’ve started picking out potential reads for my short, (less than a month long), summer. To say I’m excited is an understatement. I’ve been waiting for this day probably since Easter vacation. The chance to read as much as I want without worrying about grades or homework is my idea of heaven.

Here’s a few things that I’m looking forward to this summer:

Photo by EvilErin Flickr Creative Commons

Christina over at The Ardent Reader is another blogger/college student who’s celebrating the beginning of summer, so we’re decided to host a small informal read-athon exactly a week from today. It’s called the School’s Out! Summer Read-a-thon. Feel free to join us. You can read as little or as much as you want.

In case you didn’t know, Sheila over at Book Journey is hosting a read-along of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden throughout the month of May. On the 31^st, she’s hosting a virtual garden party with discussions on the book and giveaways.  The Secret Garden is one of my annual spring reads but I wasn’t able to get to it this year. I plan on re-reading the book, watching the movie version, and re-reading Ellen Potter’s The Humming Room which was inspired by The Secret Garden.

The Chunky Book Club is hosting its next book club discussion starting June 7^th for The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna. I can’t wait to read this. The book was a finalist for the Orange Prize, won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best Book, and is an Essence Magazine Book Club pick. You don’t have to be a participant of the Chunkster Reading Challenge and you can read this in any format.

Now I’m off to cram study. What are you reading today?

Weekend Cooking: Cinnamon-Sugar-Doughnut Muffins

Weekend Cooking is a weekly foodie meme hosted by Candace over at Beth Fish Reads.

Ever since I bought The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook, I’ve been paging through it trying to figure out which recipe to try first. There are recipes such as the Pecan-Chocolate Coffee Cake, the Ham and Cheese Pastry Puff, and the classic Carrot Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting. They all look delicious but I decided to try the Cinnamon-Sugar-Doughnut Muffins.

Cinnamon-Sugar-Doughnut Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

For the Muffins:

• 3 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder, preferably aluminum-free
• ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
• ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 2 tablespoons buttermilk
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 large eggs

For the doughnut coating

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

To make the muffins: Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350◦F. Lightly spray 12 large muffin cups with vegetable oil spray.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cardamom. In a medium bowl, combine the milk and buttermilk.

In a large mixing bowl, using a handheld mixer on medium speed, cream the butter for 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the speed to low and gradually add the sugar. Continue to mix until the mixture lightens in color. Add the eggs one at a time, beating just until combined. Add the dry ingredients in thirds, alternating with the milk mixture, mixing just until smooth; do not overmix.

With a large ice cream scoop or spoon, scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them approximately two-thirds full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are firm to the touch and lightly golden.

While the muffins bake, set up two bowls to dunk them in. In one bowl you will have the melted butter, and in the other bowl you will have the cinnamon sugar.

Let the doughnuts cool completely on a wire rack. Dunk them in the melted butter, and then coat them with the cinnamon sugar. The muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Note: I don’t have the print version of the cookbook, just the ebook so this was my first time trying a recipe on my Nook. I found cooking using my ereader to be a little messy. There’s one thing to get sugar on a printed cookbook but it’s another to get it on an ereader. I wish I could have printed the page, (Barnes and Nobles, are you listening?), but I will use my Nook again to make more recipes.

What the cookbook didn’t tell me is that it took more than an hour to make the muffins from start to finish. I didn’t mind but if I had known, I would have made them first thing that morning. Part of the problem is I didn’t keep in mind that my muffin cups are huge! They’re twice the size of regular muffins cups. So it took about 15 minutes longer to bake. Plus, I’m not use to making things from scratch so I didn’t know that putting everything together would take so long (about 20 minutes).

The muffins were moist and perfect. They were cakey and the cinnamon-sugar coating was a great touch. I made the muffins with the help of the kids and it turned out to be a nice kid-friendly recipe to try. Sorry that I don’t have any pictures to show you all. The muffins were too good to stop and take a picture of. Just imagine a muffin with tons of cinnamon and sugar!

Now I can’t wait to try the cookbook’s recipe for Cinnamon-Sour Cream Coffee Cake.

What are you making this weekend?

It’s May already?

What is up with 2012? I usually don’t feel like time is starting to fly by until April when summer is just around the corner. Instead, time has been slipping away since January.

In April, I read 17 books including:

• Hades by George O’Connor
• The Humming Room by Ellen Potter
• The Behavior Gap by Carl Richards
• Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• Alcestis by Katharine Beutner
• Bake Sale by Sara Varon

They were all good reads but with the exception of Hades, they weren’t great. Reviews are coming soon for all of them.

The next three weeks promise to be chaotic as the semester comes to an end. My reading stack for May is going to be small at best. Since April was such a mediocre month for reading, I’m checking my shelves for books that are beautiful yet devastating. I want to read something that rips my heart out. Here’s what I’m hoping to read this month:

• Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman
• Continue reading Game of Thrones with M
• Land to Light On: Poems by Dionne Brand
• The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
• Beloved by Toni Morrison (re-read)
• Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
• What Looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage (re-read)

I’m also participating in Joy’s Reader Workouts, a weekly event hosted by Joy at Joy’s Book Blog. Bloggers share their exercise goals and cheer each other.

My monthly exercise goal for May is to ride by bike every other day for at least two miles. Two miles isn’t a lot but I’m trying to make riding my bike a habit again. I hate getting on my bike after being off of it for weeks and feeling so tired so fast.

Those are my goals for May. What are you looking forward to this month?

NPM: Toast by Leonard Nathan

Toast

Leonard Nathan

 

There was a woman in Ithaca

who cried softly all night

in the next room and helpless

I fell in love with her under the blanket

of snow that settled on all the roofs

of the town, filling up

every dark depression.

 

Next morning

in the motel coffee shop

I studied all the made-up faces

of women. Was it the middle-aged blonde

who kidded the waitress

or the young brunette lifting

her cup like a toast?

 

Love, whoever you are,

your courage was my companion

for many cold towns

after the betrayal of Ithaca,

and when I order coffee

in a strange place, still

in a strange place, still

I say, lifting, this is for you.

 

From Good Poems for Hard Times: Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor

Sunday Salon: There’s never enough time

Good morning! The sun is up, the birds are chirping, and the smell of cinnamon and sugar is in the air. That’s because my family’s polishing off the last of Cinnamon-Sugar-Doughnut Muffins. I used a recipe from The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook. I plan on writing a Weekend Cooking post about the recipe later on this week but if your library has a copy of it, I suggest getting your hands on it now.

It’s hard to believe that this is the last Sunday of the month. Time goes by so fast and it seems like I can never cross off everything on my to-do list. I do love trying through. Today is one more hectic day since I need to make dinner soon, finish reading a book for one of my psych classes, and read another 100 pages of Game of Thrones. M and I are reading it together. We agreed to just read 100 pages a week but soon realized that we want to read more of the book, way more. I’m so glad that I bought into the hype of this series and bought the book.

There’s so many books that I want to read right now. Unfortunately, the semester is coming to an end and there are a million things to do before then. I never did get to all the poetry books that I wanted to read this month. Hopefully once the semester is over next month, I will still be interested in my book stack. You know how short the attention span of a book blogger can be once you put some new books in front of them! We’ll see how everything goes.

Sorry for such a short post.  What are you reading today?

NPM: Today really is Poem in Your Pocket Day

No, seriously. Today really is Poem in my Pocket Day. So if you thought you missed it yesterday, you didn’t. Here’s the poem that I’m carrying around:

Welcome Morning

by Anne Sexton

 

There is joy

in all:

in the hair I brush each morning,

in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

that I rub my body with each morning,

in the chapel of eggs I cook

each morning,

in the outcry from the kettle

that heats my coffee

each morning,

in the spoon and the chair

that cry “hello, there, Anne”

each morning,

in the godhead of the table

that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

each morning.

 

All this is God,

right here in my pea-green house

each morning

and I mean,

though often forget,

to give thanks,

to faint down by the kitchen table

in a prayer of rejoicing

as the holy birds at the kitchen window

peck into their marriage of seeds.

 

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

 

The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard

dies young.

 

From, Good Poems: Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor

NPM: Poem in Your Pocket Day

Here’s the poem I’m carrying in my pocket today:

 

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

by e.e. cummings

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

 

i fear

no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E.E. Cummings