December 8, 2013 Christmas Wish List Event
- Thread starter Gail Anderson-Dargatz
- Start date
Hi Mary, it was a pleasure to read with you at the IFOA in Toronto, and what an exciting excerpt you read from Muse! Women tied to bells at the top of belltowers in the middle of furious lightning storms in medieval Italy. Just a taste, I'm sure, of the wonders of Muse.
On the looking forward front, I'm eagerly anticipating new novels from Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (All the Broken Things), coming in January, and Padma Viswanathan, (The Ever After of Ashwin Rao), later in the spring.
On the looking forward front, I'm eagerly anticipating new novels from Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (All the Broken Things), coming in January, and Padma Viswanathan, (The Ever After of Ashwin Rao), later in the spring.
Yes, best wishes to all, and thank you, Gail. Before I go I'm posting a recipe for summer, which is just around the corner, yes? Yes! So simple, and so delicious, a thirst-quencher for hard-working writers. Here’s how to make a perfect g&t:
A gin & tonic should be served icy cold and in a sleeve, the thinner the glass the better.
Fill the glass to the very top with ice cubes, cram them in!
Pour in 1/12 to 2 ounces of gin that has been stored in the freezer
Add one lime wedge, squeezed
Pour in chilled tonic water
Stir, and enjoy
A gin & tonic should be served icy cold and in a sleeve, the thinner the glass the better.
Fill the glass to the very top with ice cubes, cram them in!
Pour in 1/12 to 2 ounces of gin that has been stored in the freezer
Add one lime wedge, squeezed
Pour in chilled tonic water
Stir, and enjoy
I stepped away for a few minutes and came back and am struggling to catch up and realizing I'm out of time... Wow, so many ideas. Always the problem, too much to read, too little time.
I was out for lunch with friends last week and we started talking christmas gifts and one woman said all her gifts would be experiences this year. Of course, that set my mind off in some racy directions, but while I was off the forum, it got me thinking about reading experiences.
One of the things I like to do when my wife and kids are away during the summer and I'm home alone is read a book a night. It's an interesting experience, a much different way to go through a book than I normally do and I think it increases the impact. Start at 6 or so, finish up at midinght. Obviously you can't tackle too big a book. Another of course is reading aloud. My wife and I used to have books that we'd read on our own then books we'd read aloud to each other. That's something we've tried to do with the kids too but it used to be a challenge to find one book everyone would like and now it's more of a challenge to find one time everyone's here.
So, that's my last thought--trying to figure out how to give a book/reading experience for Christmas...
I was out for lunch with friends last week and we started talking christmas gifts and one woman said all her gifts would be experiences this year. Of course, that set my mind off in some racy directions, but while I was off the forum, it got me thinking about reading experiences.
One of the things I like to do when my wife and kids are away during the summer and I'm home alone is read a book a night. It's an interesting experience, a much different way to go through a book than I normally do and I think it increases the impact. Start at 6 or so, finish up at midinght. Obviously you can't tackle too big a book. Another of course is reading aloud. My wife and I used to have books that we'd read on our own then books we'd read aloud to each other. That's something we've tried to do with the kids too but it used to be a challenge to find one book everyone would like and now it's more of a challenge to find one time everyone's here.
So, that's my last thought--trying to figure out how to give a book/reading experience for Christmas...
Nerys, it was great to see you at the festival reading in Ottawa and best of luck with your own work. Thanks for the good words about Accusation. So many of us have personal stories that become points of entry for the subject matter of what it feels like to be accused. Even small accusations can upturn lives, larger ones even more so. (And then there are the circuses in the novel. Child performers create a social circus: with huge energy and little money, they take social messages into communities using the power of circus arts.)
I'm sure I'm speaking for all the writers here--and for everyone who reads this wonderful forum later--in thanking Gail for this splendid idea. The book recommendations have been marvellous, with lots of unorthodox suggestions. It's been grand fun talking to writers I don't get to meet in person very often and very pleasant making new friends here.
Thanks, Gail!
Thanks, Gail!
By coincidence I'm halfway through a Tuscan Black Kale soup right now. This time of year I crave soup and I'm always haunting the "remaindered vegetables" section of my local supermarket and making soup of whatever they have on at reduced price. I found the recipe in a book called Mediterranean Vegetables by Clifford A. Wright. Wish I could attach the smells coming out of my stock pot.
Steve
Steve
Wow, I can't believe it's over. Just used a toaster that used to belong to Maurice Sendak to make my lunch!
Tour memories: the great events, including the oh-so-lively Sexual Politics panel at Wordfest in Calgary, and the chance to hear so many accusation stories from people while on the road (touched by the openness of the young men in a lit class at UNB Saint John), happy to find the amazing thrum mittens also in Saint John, NB (a gift to myself). And the slightly guilty pleasure of surrendering to Jo Baker's Longbourne as an audiobook on the long drive between readings in Fredericton, NB, and Wolfville, NS, which allowed me to be simultaneously in rural Nova Scotia and the 19th-century world of the Bennetts' house, from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the Bennett sisters upstairs and Baker's characters living their own lives below. Need another long drive to get to the end of it!
Thanks so much, Gail, for organizing.
Going to keep warm making chocolate chip cookies this aft!
Tour memories: the great events, including the oh-so-lively Sexual Politics panel at Wordfest in Calgary, and the chance to hear so many accusation stories from people while on the road (touched by the openness of the young men in a lit class at UNB Saint John), happy to find the amazing thrum mittens also in Saint John, NB (a gift to myself). And the slightly guilty pleasure of surrendering to Jo Baker's Longbourne as an audiobook on the long drive between readings in Fredericton, NB, and Wolfville, NS, which allowed me to be simultaneously in rural Nova Scotia and the 19th-century world of the Bennetts' house, from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the Bennett sisters upstairs and Baker's characters living their own lives below. Need another long drive to get to the end of it!
Thanks so much, Gail, for organizing.
Going to keep warm making chocolate chip cookies this aft!
I enjoyed The Book Thief as well and happened to see the movie last night. It was well done, though I had trouble with the narrative injections from "Death." Didn't like it that much in the novel either, but everything else was so wonderful I can overlook the parts I enjoyed less. Has anyone read Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel? If we're going to talk about Holocaust literature? It is beyond devastating. I was partly destroyed at the end and it took me several days to recover.
Wanda, Ruth's book is fantastic, a meditation on time, impermanence, style and the strange coincidences that draw people together across this interconnected globe. And yes Oliver features heavily in it and every time he made an appearance in the book I had to chuckle. I highly recommend A Tale for the Time Being.