Buffalo Lockjaw

This one hurt me, it made me really, REALLY sad while I was reading it. Lockjaw reads like an indie movie:Almost 30 something returns to home town to deal with family, discovers nothing (much) has changed, fights alcoholic impulses, loses against impulses...Plans to kill mother.

No, this isn't an oedipal thriller, it's a a good introduction to the ethics and morals of euthanasia.
The main's mother was one of those lioness women that inspire a whole group of people, a mom that would end up being called by ex-girlfriends, that fed the neighborhood and in one way or another raised any child or teen that came with in 5 feet of her.

If I hadn't grown up with women like her I'd agree with some of the reviews I read that Mom was a little "too perfect". But they wonderfully and fantastically do exist. That's why this book hit me so hard, I went through this...Twice. And now watching my fiancee deal with the same.

You never expect it to happen to them, that slow as molasses change, first it's just being absent minded...then weirdness...You walk in the door and they're just standing there with a lost look, bra over their shirt and make up smeared on their face...and she doesn't know you. She raised you, inspired you, terrorized you, kissed your knees, made you laugh when you cried...

And you are a stranger to her.
You take her hand and she flinches, you speak softly and lead her back into her room, set her down, gently touch her hands, tell her before you start giving her manicure to her (carefully because the snicking sound scares her)
Then leave.
Again and again.


Ames got that, the reaction, the guilt, anger, helplessness. All there.

And apparently football...which I don't get at all but apparently for many readers THAT'S what stuck with them.

Go figure.

200 pages in

and this book is breaking my heart.

I need a hug.

It hurts sometimes

I don't know if I like it when a book stabs me in the heart in the first three pages. I think this one my be a little too close to home.
It's been almost 4 years since my mom passed away, I hadn't seen her in in almost three years when she finally let go. The years before that were weekly visits to the nursing home and calls in the middle of the night, screaming they were hurting her.
Throw on clothes speed over to the home....She sits there calm as a Buddha, smug in her ability to make me jump. I stand there in my backwards, inside out shirt fuming at her.
All you can do at that point is sigh, hug her and try not to strangle her while you do it. I get the orderlies to load her up to go outside for a smoke. She wants me to do her nails, rub her hands...she wants to be touched.

Damn.

55 was too young to be an bedridden nutcase.

Buffalo Lockjaw looks interesting if it doesn't make me throw it at the wall.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

Huh..umm well.
Ok I can't help it...I HAVE to read.
It's a compulsive disease adn I can't hold out until the 5k starts...
I just...


Can't.

Sigh

Especially when a good read shows up and because of my job they do in a magical and very heart-lightening frequency this time of year.
So suck it Brian, I'm posting another review. I thumb my nose at competitions.

This one showed up today in an envelope with three others...It's rough mat cover immediately got my attention (tactile gal, me..i touch everything) Its was one of those that was made for booksellers like me...Obviously a fully realized piece of "pick me up, read me, make me loved!"

it's a tri-fold , Matthew Pearl entices me with an anecdote of a long past poker game, a novel idea tossed around, a friends history explored and a promise squeezed out.

It's a literary thriller, along the lines of The Labyrinth by Mosse and various others taking parallel plots in two time periods.
There's folk magic involved a bit, the cunning women vs the puritans (Salem, I failed to mention that, oops) modern woman vs doctoral thesis.

And a dog.

Funny thing blogging books, I'm so in the habit of carefully not spoiling books for my customers I refuse to give too much plot away...It's paced well I picked it up around 1pm and finished it out about 8:45pm...I got off work at 4.

When it comes out definitely check it out, it's a nice escape with good research. I actually recognized some of the recipes and folk spells from my Grandmother Irene stories and plain weirdness from my mother's side of the family. (I have some really, REALLY, interesting stories I don't break out until someone knows me well enough to realize i can't lie for shit)

And I KNOW, the 5k hasn't started.
I was bewitched.

Cheap food

this is not a cannonball post, but what the hell, might as well do other stuff here too.
So a lot of us are poor and lazy and would much rather go to a counter or drive through to manage caloric intake because it's a pain in the ass to cook. My Fian is one of those absolutely, that and I think he lives on air and beer like some arboreal plant. (though I have gotten him to eat Hummus, mmm, Hummus)
I fortunately got myself off the fast food tit for the most part 10 years ago by only allowing it once or twice a month forcing me to get creative and learn to cook. Don't always have the time to do a fancy meal but i can go into anybodies fridge and pantry and come up with something and it often ends up tasting pretty good.

Slobs of the web, your friend is the crock pot.

Get one.

now.

Then go grab this book.

There are cheaper recipe books, ones with fancier pictures, ones that use more canned goods but this one really is one of the most practical titles I've run into.
Crock pots are great, dump the ingredients in, turn it on and forget about it until the smells fill you place.
At 7 bucks or less a serving you can cook three times a week, fridge 2 portions of each meal and freeze one or two more and not have to cook for two weeks after that if you don't really want to.
I tend to use the leftovers to make salads,wraps and sandwiches so I don't get bored with it.

I know there's a time and place for Whataburger, but let's keep it to the time and place and not everyday, hm?

Red like a Rose or Red like a Tomato?

While reading Isabel Allende's Zorro all i could hear in my head was the overture's from Zorro: The Gay Blade. That has ever and always will be (horribly) my favorite incarnation of Zorro...I can't help it, deep in side I have a chain smoking queen in me.
Any who, back to Zorro:

Another I avoided for years, for some reason the dual covers and the color choice just turned me off even though it was written by an award winning author...The second bandaras movie had come out and I was admittedly Zorro'ed out.
So the Fian handed it to me last week and said "just read it" Reluctantly I picked it up with two fingers, sighed, flipped over on my back and started it.

Then almost finished it that night.
(sometimes i don't sleep)

Did I enjoy it? Yes. I think the translation was off (was originally written in spanish) I think in spanish it was a very musical, lyrical novel, in english it was a little florid. Diego is Mestizo along with Bernardo...His mother is a mysterious Native American wise woman...He get sent to Spain, has the unrequitted romances, hangs with Gypsies and eventually runs into Jean Lafitte.

All in all, enjoyable but not earth shattering.

5k

ok, got at least two lined up, luckily am almost finished with Allende's Zorro, the T.E. Lawrence bio and also just borrowed Wired for War from work.

By the way, 30 pages in W4W is geeky squee worthy if you missed the author on the Daily Show. History, current usage and future of robotics use in modern warfare...Chock full of nifty and cheeky references, obviously written by one of us.

Check it out, highly recommended.

(I totally read 2-4 books at one time, used to annoy the hell out of my ex-boyfriend)

Figures in Silk

I wish marketers would realize that most of the historical audience does not find a comparison to Phillipa Gregory a positive. I was actually mocking this book at the breakroom table for it's descriptions of two sisters locked in torrid affairs with powerful men. *Gag*
I decided to take it out with me whilst I smoked a cigarette and was pleasantly surprised. It has more in common with A Conspiracy of Paper, The Coffee Trader or Pillars of the Earth than some bosom heaving costumed romance.
The weft upon which the story is woven is the silk industry in England during the Tudor Plantagenet rivalries, the guild systems, and the Freewomen of London that kept all the posh people sparkly.

The writing style wasn't florid, the research was solid and I truly do love a novel that teaches all kinds of trivia about a industry or art form.

A Companion to Wolves

Any dedicated fantasy reader is familiar with the Bonded to Such and Such Animal Genre...Mostly overdone at this point, usuauly shrug inducing if you aren't 13 since they focus on very whit/black morality or some young person working their way through a horrid childhood and being rewarded with the honor of bonding.
As I said, great when you're a disenfranchised white knight in training.

Companion surprised me, the writing style was similar to George R.R. Martin in it's spare prose style, very few wasted words or descriptions...Once I got into the writing style I realized that if the authors paused to describe anything I'd better pay attention. The two female authors also did a bang up impressive job of having realistic martial male sexuality, lupine social status plays and how a combination of the two might actually work. Kudos also to them having the ballss to not give the wolves human thought, it's all empathy and smells.

The world they set up is based on Dark Ages Norse culture, well done and even includes the Jogun(ice giants) of norse mythololgy.

A free book I was happy with.

Books or new yarn,that is the question

Just started two books, one is definitely getting pushed back for the other... will have reviews up for Lawrence of Arabia, Mirage of a Desert War by Adrian Greaves (so excited about this one)
And The Weight of a Mustard Seed, An Iraqi General's Moral Journey During the Time of Saddam by Wendell Steavenson.

I was actually all revved up for the mustard seed until I found the Lawrence bio at work, I have ever had a serious hero crush on T.E. Lawrence. In junior high when my fellow honors English geek comrades were reading Tolkien I slogged through the Seven Pillars.

But then I also just got some premium hand died yarn for the first time and am obsessed with it...Decisions.

But hey,two reviews in the next 6 days is the goal.

White people smell like dogs when our hair gets wet

God I wanted this to be good, I really,really did. And I slogged through it having to stop every chapter or so and bitch about something to my fiancee...Was it wasted time?
Meh.
I hate it when books could have been so much more. Maybe I'm not framing in the context of when it was written and when the research would have taken place. Book came out in 2000 so we're looking at research in the late 90's. Ok , seeing as my hometown was one of the places she did go to I can see that. Houston did and still does have serious issues with race. But, and I was backed on this by some other people that read it as well, the book was too heavily weighted on african american opinion, very little information was culled from ANY other racial group...Hispanics maybe had three mentions, little or no asian, no middle eastern, carib...I mean if we're talking racial divides let us be fair.
There's definately some headnodders in it, she makes good points and gave me some insight into some behavoirs but ultimately I was unimpressed.
Waste of a good night, I should have crocheted something instead.

Gordon Fucking Ramsey

Total man crush.
Fuck it that he's married, bullocks to his kid...
He's passionate, foul mouthed and watching him baste a steak with butter just makes my panties wet.
(those chef pants? commando. chef's are hot)

Hormonal reactions aside, he's a man I can respect professionally. He eats and breathes passion about food on his table or yours. And if you're not passionate about food stay out of the fucking kitchen.
Food wasn't his first choice, really after reading this the passion obviously didn't come from family influence(drifting,grifting, musician dad...mom abused...living in caravans)
and food wasn't his first passion, soccer was.
I love food memoirs, Kitchen Confidential wasn't a revelation for me...I spent quality time in kitchens and under chefs (Stop right there) and up until I fucked my back up I was putting serious thought into the Culinary Institute of America. And yes, pre-food network most kitchens were just as he described. Dirty, sexy and drug fueled. most still are.

Surprisingly Ramsey wasn't one of the chemical brothers of the knife, nor was Marco Pierre White (raging fucking lunatic, megalomaniac, paranoid and fucking brilliant) Jesus, I can't imagine what Ramsey would have been like if he was a hedonist like Bourdain. (shudder)

So what did I get out of this one? Well, I'm getting rather well versed in British profanity use, for one. But I actually look at this as more of a management book, between reading this and watching some of Kitchen Nightmares I gave myself a real professional kick to the ass. The man is all about accountability plain and simple. No excuses, only reasons. If you aren't passionate enough about something to fight or quality then you need to get the hell out. You don't float or drift in Ramsey's restaurant group, you learn or you leave.

It's a fun read too, pick it up...Makes a great man gift.

Oh, and pick up his cookbooks, they are amazing. Asshole or not, the man gives good instruction.

Cooking and Screaming

Normally I'd be hard pressed to cough up any sympathetic reaction to the memoir of someone who got to go to Berkley, dance without it being on a pole and major in the Arts....But having a massive stroke at 21 that causes paralysis to half your body right before you graduate, that sucks.

(note to self: don't lose the damn books you're trying to review in the apartment,that or make notes...Crap)

Her condition that caused the stroke is pretty spooky to think about, she was walking with a friend to a coffee shop 2 weeks before graduation to go over her thesis, got dizzy, sat down and woke up WEEKS later paralyzed in a hospital.
Heebies,I tell you,heebies.

I think what I enjoyed most is her honesty about where you go in your mind after becoming disabled, the humiliation of dependence, how hard long term physical therapy is.

And the recipes, my god,the recipes!

My poor man had to go through me reading out recipes almost every chapter.

So check it out in February when it comes out.

Cooking and Screaming
Adrienne Kane
ISBN 1-4165-8797-7




Cooking and Screaming was a four hour read for me, the author has a nice little blog Nosherteria.

Cannonball

So i've decided to be a joiner, here I am...
hopefully will have a review up tomorrow on one or two books I read this week