Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

If you are a big reader you may well read A Storm of Swords as one book. However, if you are like me, reading a book longer than Anna Karenina is no small undertaking.

To make it easier I read Part 1 earlier. Even so, it is still a meaty novel, twice as long as your typical one. What a novel it is though. The more I got into it, the more I could not put it down.

I have only seen Game of Thrones up until the end of series 3 and A Storm of Swords goes beyond that so for the first time in the series I was breaking new ground.

There is a special circle of Hell in which George R. R. Martin will be subjected to all the things he has done to my favourite characters.

As with any instalment of A Song of Ice and Fire, lots of people died. Some of them I was pleased about, some I was annoyed about, some of which I was just surprised at.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel Margaret Atwood. It describes a near-future dystopian world in which democracy has been replaced by a fundamentalist Christian military government and re-structured society.

In said society women are divided into functions for men. The protagonist, Offred, is a handmaid. She is used for breeding purposes only. Still, better than being a Martha, or shipped off to the colonies…

The final piece of the puzzle of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series (a trilogy in seven parts). Forward the Foundation follows Hari Seldon from the time he decides to work on psychohistory (at the end of Prelude to Foundation) and the founding of the First Foundation on Terminus.

Once you have read all the other books, you pretty much know what is going to happen. However, it is still an entertaining read. Everything slots in and completes the story.

Food For Free is a book by Richard Mabey on foraging. I got the pocket-sized edition which is great for travelling around with.

It contains descriptions of loads of different plants you will find it Britain and each one comes with an illustration and a photo. It describes what it looks like and what you can do with it. All good stuff.

On the negative side, it is very insistent that you use a real identification guide, which it claims this is not. I felt that distracted a lot from the purpose of the book. Why make it pocket-sized for example if you’re not taking it into the field?

It is also arranged alphabetically whereas I felt grouping similar plants together would be more useful. If I see a plant I want to be able to find that section and work out which one it is. That way also has difficulties – how do you find the section you want if you already know what it is, and how do you judge what is similar? However, on balance I think the trade off would have been worth it.

It does however address any concerns you might have that you could accidentally pick something poisonous by telling you it will probably be fine. I feel much better after that…

I almost gave up on The Rosie Effect. Sure, I enjoyed The Rosie Project. But it did not make me feel like I had to read the sequel. So I mulled over striking it off my reading list. However, just before I did I went back to Bill Gates’ blog to re-read his post about it. It raved about it, so I kept it on the list.

I’m glad I did. As Gates points out, life through the prism of autism provides a surprisingly identifiable view of the human condition.

It picks up a while after The Rosie Project finishes and tells the story of Don and Rosie as they prepare to start a family.

I also found out that “cross-nursing”, the practice of swapping babies to feed, can be beneficial for the immune system of the child. However, a little research suggests there are serious risks and other complications. Anyway, something to discuss with Elina later…

This book is simply horrible.

I mean, I don’t know what I was expecting when I decided to read a novel that was essentially a love story between a 12 year old girl and a pedophile, but it was definitely worse than I had anticipated. Though at least the details of their carnal acts were glossed over.

I have sometimes seen Lolita costumes on eBay. Who could possibly think that was a good idea? Only, I vainly hope, someone who had not read the book.

What a literary feast of science fiction. Isaac Asimov delivers a superb 6th instalment to his Foundation series.

This article contains spoilers.

Prelude to Foundation follows the adventures of the young Hari Seldon from when he first arrives on Trantor. He soon finds himself exploring the various different cultures and sectors of the planet.

It has a wonderful ending. At the back of my mind, there was something wrong with Chetter Hummin as a character. If he was a mere news reporter, how would he have so much power and influence? How could he go so un-noticed? Then, when he turned out to be Eto Demerzel, it all clicked into place beautifully!

If that wasn’t enough, there is then the whole extra layer of him turning out to be Daneel Olivaw as well, who we learned about in Foundation and Earth! A great ending to a great book.

So this is it then. I’m at the end of Discworld. With Sir Terry sadly gone there is no more Discworld to look forward to. There is supposed to be another novel to be published posthumously, but it is a Tiffany Aching novel, so nobody is looking forward to that.

As a way to go out though, it was good. Moist von Lipwig is a cool character and Pratchett is not afraid to introduce big changes to the Discworld universe, possibly because he knew he wouldn’t have the chance to make many more.

More importantly, who doesn’t love trains?

Hugh’s Veg Every Day! book is probably my favourite cookbook so far, so I was eager to see what River Cottage Every Day has to offer.

It’s not as good, but still useful. Mostly I think it is just a bit more hit and miss. The rabbit stew for example was rubbish. Whereas the home-cured bacon chops were pretty good and the breaded fish fillets were a winner.

The biggest challenge can often be getting the ingredients for the recipes. I haven’t dared schedule in devilled lamb hearts and oxtail stew yet in case my butcher can’t supply the foods, and the Thai seafood soup required squeezing a trip to the fish market into my lunch break.

The best part is probably the bread though. Hugh’s focaccia recipe has quickly found a regular place in our kitchen.

We have a One Pot cookbook already and it’s reasonably good. At least in theory, when I use it it has been good, though I rarely do. This book is a much larger (size wise it is A4, though not long) and similarly well presented with large photos and simple instructions with clear timings.

All of that is brilliant.

It is let down by the rest of it though. Many of the recipes just do not work very well and often they take longer than 30 minutes. They also differ from the one pot philosophy (dump everything into a pot and cook) with a variety of different cooking styles, though I’m not too fussed about this.

There are some nice recipes that I am sure we will be doing again. The meatballs worked quite well. However it look quite a quite to narrow it down to the ones that work and the ones that do not, which was a frustrating process.