Month: March 2010

Breaks In Reading?

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

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Do you take breaks while reading a book? Or read it straight through? (And, by breaks, I don’t mean sleeping, eating and going to work; I mean putting it aside for a time while you read something else.)

I have three books on the go right now. Sometimes I have more. I have tried sticking to one book, but it just doesn’t work like that for me, I seem to need the variety. I’ll be reading one book and find myself wanting to read something different, which is why I often have one book of non-fiction and a variety of fiction at hand to turn to. But there always comes a point in each book where that book takes over and I read it through to the end without interruption from the others. At the moment it’s The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters that is taking precedence, closely followed by Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, with Being Shelley by Ann Wroe trailing behind in third place.

It can become difficult if I have put a book aside for a while and then I have to start reading it again from the beginning! It gets even more difficult when I’ve been to the library and want to start all the books I’ve just borrowed.

And so it goes on …

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Wondrous Words Wednesday, run by Kathy (Bermuda Onion),  is a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading.

This week I have just two words from The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, which I haven’t finished yet.

Myxoedema:

‘You’ve considered epilepsy, I suppose?’  ‘It was my very first idea. I still think it may explain some of it. The aura, producing queer sensations – auditory, visual and so on. The seizure itself, the weariness after it; it all fits to a degree. But I can’t believe it’s the whole story.’

He said, ‘How about myxoedema?’

Myxoedema means a diseased condition due to deficiency of thyroid secretion, characterised by loss of hair, increased thickness and dryness of skin, increase in weight, slowing of mental processes and diminution of metabolism.

Paternoster:

Caroline said, ‘I hate this bit. It’s like having to hurl oneself on a paternoster lift.’

Paternoster lift is a lift for goods or passengers, consisting of a series of cars movin on a continuous belt, the floors remaining horizontalat the top and bottom of travel.

I don’t fancy that as I have enough difficulty getting onto an escalator.

Teaser Tuesdays – Crime on the Move

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Share a couple or more sentences from the book you’re currently reading. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your ‘teaser’ from €¦ that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

My teaser this week is from Crime on the Move: the Official Anthology of the Crime Writers’ Association of 2005, a collection of short stories edited by Martin Edwards. The last one in the book is Seeing Off George by David Williams.

Disposing of the body was so often the undoing of conspirators like Tristan and Laura, and she knew it. But not only had she lighted upon the perfect solution to their problem, she had also devised a credible story to account for George’s disappearance which would purportedly take place more than a thousand miles away from Farringly. (page 318)

I’ve now finished reading this book, which is an excellent selection of crime stories from a number of authors who were new to me, as well as some very well known ones.

Crime Fiction Alphabet W is for Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I’m returning to Agatha Christie to illustrate the letter W in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet series, with Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? The copy I read is one of the Collected Works series with the original illustrations by Patrick Couratin and Sylvia Dausset. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? was first published in 1934.

Why didn't they ask evans

The book begins with Bobby Jones playing golf with Dr Thomas on a golf course on a misty day by the sea. They find a dying man, who had fallen off a cliff. He has no identification on him, just a photo of a young woman that Bobby finds in his pocket. At the inquest Mrs Cayman said it was a photograph of her and that she was the dead man’s sister.

Bobby tells Mr and Mrs Cayman her brother’s last words, which apparently are meaningless and of no importance.Then Bobby is drugged with enough morphia to kill him (he survives) and he realises that the photo in the dead man’s pocket was not Mrs Cayman.  Frankie, (aka Lady Frances Derwent), his aristocratic friend decides that the dead man must have been pushed over the cliff and the killer is determined to kill Bobby too. She and Bobby then set out to discover the dead man’s true identity.

Neither Poirot, nor Miss Marple feature in this book. Bobby and Frankie solve the mystery with a little help from the police in the form of Inspector Williams. The novel as a whole is light-hearted with staged accidents, as Bobby and Frankie, a self-confident and rather bossy young woman relish the adventure of it all, despite being bound and gagged by the villain. There are disguises and subterfuges throughout, drug addicts, an American heiress, a sinister doctor with a questionable sanitorium, suicides and a charming  “ne’er-do-weel”. Bobby says:

You can’t mix up too many different sorts of crimes. (page 59)

But Agatha Christie manages it admirably.

Weekend Cooking

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

This week I’m writing about chocolate – or more precisely Green and Black’s Chocolate Recipes.  On the front cover:

Chocolate makes otherwise normal people melt into strange states of ecstasy. (John West)

Described as the “ultimate chocolate cookbook”, this book is filled with recipes from Chocolate Soup, Swedish Chocolate Coffee Lamb, Chilean Chocolate Sausages to Chocolate Drop Scones, Chocolate Cakes and Biscuits, Mousses and Truffles and many more.

Green and Black’s produce organic chocolate from cacao from the Mayan Indians in Belize. Throughout the book there are photos of not only the recipes, but also of the beans and the people who grow them with information about the growing and cultivation process.

There are chapters such as “Magic”, “Melting”, “Licking the Bowl”, “Mystical”, and “Wicked”. In the “Mystical” chapter there is this recipe called Dark with Coffee. It’s made with:

  • 150g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
  • 2 tablespoons filter coffee
  • 60g unsalted butter
  • 3 large eggs separated
  • 3 tablespoons castor sugar
  • Cocoa powder

Melt the chocolate with the coffee and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Remove from heat (let it cool a bit) and stir in in egg yolks until smooth. Whisk egg whites into soft peaks, add sugar and whisk until stiff and glossy. Fold a ladleful into the chocolate and then add the rest of the egg whites carefully retaining as much air as possible until no white spots remain from the meringue.

Spoon into a serving bowl or individual dishes and chill for at least six hours. Dust with cocoa powder before serving.

This will serve  up to six people, or unless you are like my husband, who made this recipe and spooned the mixture into two chocolate cups (but we didn’t eat it all in one go!) – truly a chocolate treat.