Conversationally Speaking

Ah, you’re back. I know, I know. My caffeine high wore off and I couldn’t focus properly on your fuzzy green sweater anymore. I wonder where you go when I’m not paying attention to you…. Oh, but I don’t mean to interrupt. You’re leaning forward like you want to ask me something, tucking that wayward strand of reddish hair behind your ear as you frame your question.

Where do you find the time to read?



I shift my weight, re-crossing my legs on the other side, buying a spot of time. It’s a oddly uncomfortable topic. As no doubt you know from our weekly contact, my baby is about five months old now.

Well, I lick my lips, he was a bit of a slow eater to start, and I was falling asleep waiting at least thirty minutes for him to breastfeed, ten times a day the first month. So I started reading a book during our sessions and was soon reading more than four books a week using only that time. Not small books either, I shrug. Took me one week to blow through The Help by Kathryn Stockett. He’s faster now, bigger too, but I can still get through at least two books a week that way.

Don’t you love that books are so portable? So easy to squeeze into whatever rifts shuffle through your day? But you’re right, during those ten minutes my eensy monster is asleep without me, I’m unlikely to spend my free time reading, I stop to breathe deeply. Forgive my ramble.

What about audio books? you ask.

How did you know? I wonder, narrowing my eyes. You know me so well, it's nearly evil.

Indeed I am now listening to audio books while rocking the little guy into one of the naps he so resists taking, lying next to him every evening as he drifts away. One per week, at least. That’s on top of the regular old, flappable, page-style books.

Just last week, I finally caught up with Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — something I’ve been meaning to read for ages — which is beautifully read and whips smoothly along.

Oh and there he is now, cooing to himself from the bed. I’ll bet he’s sucking on one of his socks, smiling up at his old friend the ceiling fan. I scurry toward the bedroom. Grab you some more tea while I’m up?

Review: The Handmade Marketplace

Crafters are a genial bunch, helpful at the core. So who better to ask for business advice than several dozen of your crafting peers? The Handmade Marketplace is a commonsense guide to beginning a craft business given in an organized, start-to-finish format with pop-in tidbits from more than 20 craft-friendly neighbors.

Written nearly as informally as a roundtable discussion, Chapin's encouraging tone urges you along. Crafters often stumble into a business following a homemade product's accolades from friends and relatives. They then cluelessly navigate the business world with how-to books geared to brick-and-mortar stores, not small, handmade items made in living rooms.

Most useful sections for newcomers include publicity advice — blogging, putting together press kits, developing marketing networks. Use Chapin's tips on how and where to sell, with pricing recommendations, and your business will flourish from the start.

A few years ago, I launched a knitting business, selling hand-knit wares at craft shows and one brick-and-mortar store, which swiftly folded. If I'd had Chapin's advice, I'd have started the blog and online sales first and sold through the store with a backup plan in mind. But with limited resources, I spent money on the wrong ones and ended up closing shop within two years.

Here's what you can do instead: pick up The Handmade Marketplace and make use of professional, artisans' perspectives, flush with advice that's easy to follow.

Handmade Marketplace: How to Sell Your Crafts Locally, Globally, and On-Line
Kari Chapin
Storey Books, Paperback, February 2010
$14.95
View the book at Barnes & Noble

Review based on a free copy of this book, courtesy of the publisher.

Review: The Vegetarian Option

Laid out a bit like your grandmother’s holiday table — everything in its carefully doilied place —, The Vegetarian Option separates recipes by ingredient into more than fifty small sections. Despite this fusty approach, Hopkinson manages a feat most vegetarian cookbooks don’t even attempt: singular focus on the vegetables. While he turns to a handful of rice and pasta dishes at the back, Hopkinson embraces even unpopular veg like watercress, sorrel, and turnips with expert ease. Imagine what he does for the usual suspects.

Recipes range from quick, two-step prep to several complicated paragraphs of work before a final, though impressive, meal emerges. Simple dishes like spaghetti al aglio and peperocino (i.e. garlic and pepper) and broiled eggplant with pesto are hearty and manageable dinner options for even novice home cooks. Or spend a few hours creating the asian fried turnip paste or mushroom cannelloni, multi-step meals with breathtaking results.

Despite the high level of ingenuity in his recipes, Hopkinson’s ingredients are widely accessible and budget friendly. Some of the more creative dishes, the tomato jelly with basil and goat cheese for example, feature ingredients like agar agar — an easy to use vegan thickening agent rarely used outside of the raw food realm but available at a decent supermarket. It's the experimental pairings and texture variations that set this cookbook apart.

A few sample recipe titles:
Cheese-crusted fried parsnip stripes with romesco sauce
Cream of fennel soup with garlic butter
Red pepper and potato stew with jalapeno relish
Warm asparagus custards with tarragon vinaigrette

Hopkinson’s compiled a thorough, adaptive collection with enough diversity to keep you thumbing its pages seasonally. Though he's thrown in a few easy ones, his recipes aren’t the simplistic, 30-minute fare so popular lately. But if you’re looking for a vegetarian Sunday dinner that will impress people, start your browsing here.

The Vegetarian Option
Simon Hopkinson
Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Hardcover, April 2010
$15.99

View the book at Barnes & Noble

Review based on a free copy of this book, courtesy of the publisher.

You Know You Love... Science Fiction

Okay. Time to talk science fiction. I know, I know, it’s old hat. Desperately unpopular territory now, felled by flashier paranormal titles. Which I also like. But braving a nerdy classification of my own, I say science fiction can be fantastic reading.

Let’s not pretend I’m turning to my battered Shakespeare collection with fifteen minutes to spare while the baby naps. My getaway reading materials are never romance novels and rarely chick-lit happy ending fluff. For comfort, I’ll reread a beloved Hardy Boys or Sweet Valley High title. But, most often, I turn to science fiction to carry me away. And, when it’s good, it always does.

Since reading Brave New World at thirteen, I’ve been an avid fan of the sci fi. Quality science fiction, that is. But what gives science fiction writing a sense of quality anyway? Apparently, the answer varies, since many titles are crap reading. For me, quality work means the writer creates an entirely new world. Whether it’s a parallel, post-apocalyptic earth, an entirely new planet, or the vast array of in-betweens that pepper the genre, the world created has different values/ideals, a rich history and, if the writer is excellent and thorough, a unique and distinct vocabulary. And that’s all alongside a strong central character. At least that’s what I like.

My prime example and all-time favorite being Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which I read again each year, sighing and laughing and groaning throughout. Eerily relatable despite its strangeness, Huxley’s world promotes equality to the point of complete homogenization of the population — a theme that’s been replicated or outright copied in books and film far beyond the complimentary gesture.

Another author with a thorough imagination for detail and characterization is Margaret Atwood. While her writing spans several genres, my favorite tales can be categorized as science fiction: The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake and 2009’s follow-up The Year of the Flood.

Recently, I’ve loved two newer series: Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series and Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series, which starts with The Furies of Calderon (maybe I should dig into the Dresden Files series?). While both offer singular, visionary worlds, Westerfeld creates brand spanking new dialogue with its own cadence and slang — reminding me of (my idol) Joss Whedon’s writing style. His other books, though wildly entertaining, aren’t as thoughtfully crafted.

Lately, I’ve been catching up on all the great Science Fiction titles I’ve missed over the years. Yes, I read one of those votable book lists on GoodReads, then cross-referenced it with several other online lists of lesser popularity and finally added a few friends’ dog-eared faves. Recent recommendations included Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Stephanie Meyer’s The Host, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower —Is the book’s poor editing supposed to confer authenticity on the diary status of its main character? Even if so, it’s distracting.—, M.T. Anderson’s Feed and Ayn Rand’s Anthem. And these are the ones I’m recommending of the larger bunch.

Feeling your way around the science fiction genre? Junior classics like A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams are crowd favorites for a reason, and easy entry to the genre, while War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, often raved as the pinnacle work, is imaginative but such a dry telling. Wells loses my interest in even the best audio version.

As for me, I’m still actively hunting for new worlds.

Next up, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (though it’s still working its way down my library hold list — #44 of 119 requests, so it might be a while), Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I’m thrilled that all three of them are series, desperate to love at least one and have several more books to look forward to.

If you’ve got a fabulous title I’ve missed, by all means, send me an (unscientific but handy) email. To wild future reading!

Review: The Devotion of Suspect X

A smart whodunit with precise timing and alarmingly clever curveballs, The Devotion of Suspect X matches the murderous progression of a mathematics teacher's proof against a physicist's logic and a detective's intuition. Despite knowing what really happened from the first chapter, this book will have you quickly thumbing pages, eager to figure out the end.

When Yasuko and her daughter Misato strangle Yasuko's brutal ex-husband Togashi after a threatening encounter in their apartment, their quiet neighbor Ishigamo unexpectedly steps in to help, taking care of the body's disposal and carefully crafting the women's responses to the police questions sure to follow. As the formal investigation progresses, it seems that Ishigamo, a genius math scholar currently teaching at a local high school, has thought of everything. Kusanagi, the detective in charge of the inquiry, finds the facts flimsy and turns to his former classmate, Yukawa, a brilliant physicist with a predilection for amateur sleuthing and Ishigamo's erstwhile competitor. Adding Yukawa to the equation is a factor that even Ishigamo and his legendary logic hadn't considered, but will it matter in the end?

Review: The Divvies Bakery Cookbook

There's no better motivation for creating allergy-free desserts than raising a wee one with serious health issues, as I found out myself several months after receiving this cookbook. Though it's written with children in mind, Divvies showcases a sweet collection for all ages, treats that inspire worry-free sharing — possibly the true definition of dessert.

From more traditional classics like Robin's Apple Pie to unique bake sale treats like her Popcorn Snowmen, Sandler's included an extensive list of allergy-free fare. Some of the Divvies Bakery's signature recipes, Benjamin's Chocolate Chip Cookies for example, are what you'll find for sale on shelves at Whole Foods. Especially enticing recipes include a Strawberry-Rhubarb Oatmeal Cookie, a nice update on the classic oatmeal-raisin, and Oh Fudge!, a dairy-free chocolate concoction with a pleasantly smooth mouthfeel.

Review: Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

Nellie Oleson, Little House on the Prairie's rotten rich girl in ringlets, may have mellowed on the show's final years, but viewers could rely on a pinch of her savagery in every performance. As it turns out, the jack-in-the-box element of mean surprise that made Nellie compulsively watchable is actress and comedian Alison Arngrim's saving grace.

One of three television shows I was allowed to watch as a child, Little House on the Prairie, already in re-runs, was my favorite for several reasons, most pivotal being my braided and buck-toothed resemblance to Laura Ingalls. But even without such a fierce affinity for the show's central character, I couldn't deny Nellie Oleson's spoiled allure. I still remember episodes with such clarity, it's like I watched them only yesterday when more than twenty years have slid past since I've seen the credits roll. So when the actress who gave Nellie her edge from the wee age of nine writes a memoir, I read it.