Menage à Trois Bingo

Tammie has been following Charlaine Harris's "Southern Vampire" series, and I've read and enjoyed a few of the books as well. So when _TrueBlood_ showed up on HBO, based on that series, we set it to record on the DVR. We've now watched the first four episodes, and I can't say as I like it. octette and I had a conversation to this effect after I'd watched the first one, and I haven't much changed my opinion since. ( Read more... )

Thursday night, we went to Left Bank Books to hear Tristan Taormino read from her new book, Opening Up: a guide to creating and sustaining open relationships. I don't quite know what I expected her to be like, but whatever it was, she was unlike it. The book, which I have now already read, is a very good and basic guide to different kinds of polyamorous relationships. Of the three poly guidebooks we have so far, it is the one I'd feel most comfortable giving to a poly newbie or a curious non-poly person. There were not too many things in it that were new to me, but there are some good resources all-in-one-place for legal and practical issues. We've already had one request to borrow it.

After the reading, we went across the street to Llywellyn's for dinner. The chicken salad sandwich was excellent, and after dinner Tammie looked at me and asked, "Shall we see whether they have some pie-like substance?" Sure enough, while they didn't have pie per se, they had cherry cobbler.

Now, Tammie and I have a long-running but amicable dispute over what the word "cobbler" means. In her family and her traditions, it's a one-crust pie: pie filling in a pan with a standard pie crust sealed over the top and baked. Like this:

In mine, it's different: the pie filling in a pan is the same, but instead of pie crust it is topped with biscuity globs of dough that are usually (in my own baking) flavored with a bit of cinnamon. Like this:

Apparently the "cobbler" dispute goes beyond House Rivendell, because both of those images show up on the first page of results in the Google image search "cobbler".

In any case, Llywellyn's cobbler was of the second sort, and a very good example of it indeed. The biscuity globs were spicy and flavorful (nutmeg and cloves) and contained chunks of pecans. The cherry filling was just the right blend of tart and sweet, and if it had ever known the inside of a can I'll eat my lime-green sparkly fedora.

Verdict: delicious, and a welcome entry in the pie and near-pie realm.

Just a random shoutout to matociquala and truepenny that I'm currently reading A Companion to Wolves and loving it very much. You-all have already made me cry several times. It is beautiful and heartwrenching, like the land.

My soon-to-be second-grader is reading...( Read more... )

For ona_tangent, particularly, a link to my review of Word Play by Peter Farb.

Yesterday afternoon, just before I would have left work, jilly_bear sent me an email telling me that Jim Butcher would be appearing that night! at a B&N in St. Peters. In less than an hour, we had arranged to go and drag along some friends. (Rivendell Gang, Scott, Becky & Woof)

It rocked. He answered questions for about 45-50 minutes--he tells good stories (Has your German Shepherd ever saved your child from a bear? My Bichon Frise has!)--and then signed a big bunch of books. Chris got his wizard staff signed.

I was so proud of myself! I had a topic of conversation in mind for when I arrived at his table and I actually remembered it! (Amber. He mentions Zelazny and Amber in the author's note at the end of White Night. So I asked about it and he's played both AmberMUSH (now defunct) and the ADRPG--he told me it got him an in with arcaedia his agent, and I said, oh yeah, I know her too. From Ambercons.)

A few more tidbits. I asked, during the Q&A, when we'd find out what happens to Fidelacchius. He said he intends to put that in the next book, which has the working title "Small Favors". (But he had also mentioned previously how books sometimes get away from the author.) And he told someone who asked that he had never been to Chicago until about two books ago. It's all research and local informants, and making stuff up. The reason the books are set in Chicago is this: He had wanted to put them in Kansas City, but Laurell Hamilton had just recently gained attention and the powers that be felt two books of similar genre both set in Missouri was too much. So he looked at a globe in his writing teacher's office, and there were three cities marked on the US. New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. "When you don't know the answer on a multiple choice test, always choose B."

We went out to eat afterwards at Waffle House (last of the big spenders, us...but with Chris out of work it's about our limit). Rosa and I got up after eating and spontaneously danced in the aisle for a few minutes. She said today that it was the best thing about yesterday. *big mommy smile*

The SF & Fantasy meme

This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy
novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club.

Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize
those you started but never finished, and put an asterisk beside the
ones you loved, and add a question mark if you can't remember for sure.
(R's note: That's not complicated at all!)

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien *
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
"Hated" is probably a bit unfair. I got through the whole book and a
couple of sequels back in high school, but it hasn't stuck with me and
I've never had any desire to reread it.
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury *
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. *
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett ****
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison ?
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
I used to love the Pern books but I've gone off them these days. They
seem so repetitive. I gave all mine away a few years ago.
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card *
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever,
Stephen R. Donaldson
I can't stand Thomas Covenant as a character. He's a whiner, and
he ( Spoiler )s someone for no apparent reason.
After that I really didn't want to read the book anymore, but I finished
it because it was a gift from a friend.
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling ****
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams ****
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin *
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny *
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut *
Vonnegut inspires very ambivalent feelings.
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
The book's okay. The movie sucked.
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

But there's no symbol for "am actively avoiding" or for "I know I read
this but I can't remember how I felt about it" or for "never heard of
the book nor even the author" nor for "I keep meaning to read this".

Last night, when I picked Rosa up from her grandmother's house, she
demanded to be tickled. I tickled her, and she giggled and giggled. It
was "tickle time!" It was still tickle time for the two-three hours when
we got home until bedtime, and even a little bit this morning.

I asked her who she was and what had become of my daughter, because Rosa
has always *hated* being tickled. She would laugh a little but would
demand that the tickling stop immediately. I've never seen her so bouncy
and giggly, either.

Then at bedtime, she wanted me to read The Wolves in the Walls.
Again, a departure from the normal Rosa. I tried to read it to her when
I first got the book, but she was scared and told me to stop. I was
worried that she'd be frightened of the new house afterward, but no.
This time, we read the whole story, and afterward she made up a
song. ( Kid's book spoilerage )I've got to find a computer microphone and get her to
sing it into a .wav to send to officialgaiman. He'll probably
be amused.

Original link: http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=bookwhores_anon&itemid=1949

Another of my all-time favorite books, one which I reread about yearly, is Tigana. Yesterday I realized I was yearning to read it again, and tonight I've just reread the first section for what is probably the tenth or twelfth time. And still I cried at this passage:

[Devin] said, "Then this is something that has been stolen from me all my life. Will you...give it back to me? Will you tell me the name of the land where I was born?"


Those two sentences summarize much of the plot of the novel: a defiant province has had its name erased by the sorcery of the conqueror, and its people strive to regain both their freedom and their name. You could learn that much from the cover blurb. What you might not realize from it though is how stunningly beautiful the book is and how much you will be caught up in the struggle.

No one I have recommended this book to has failed to like it.