Author Archives: al

The Sisters Brothers

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I finished reading this book while sitting at the bar last night. Like Cold Mountain, The Sisters Brothers is set in America in the 1800s, only a little earlier (1851) so it seems natural to compare the two books. The Sisters Brothers is also something of an odyssey with lessons learned along the way but on a much smaller scale than in Cold Mountain. The mood is lighter too. Not that there aren’t some humourous moments in Cold Mountain, but there is less continual hardship and hunger in The Sisters Brothers.

This book is very easy to read. The story is fast-paced and swept me along with it. There are a few wonderful, thought-provoking passages which slowed me down a little. I think Cold Mountain trumps it in terms of scale and atmosphere but The Sisters Brothers is just as satisfactory a tale.

(9th in 2012)

The Radleys

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I picked this up in the library because I had seen it reviewed on The TV Book Club. It is very easy to read and the references to modern middle class life are quite funny. But, although it passed the time, I can’t recommend this as a good read. Apart from all the mentions of blood it feels like it’s written for children, albeit older ones. It’s unconvincing somehow. Seems silly to be saying that since it’s about vampires, but The Time Traveller’s Wife is convincing and time travel is a fantasy too.

EDIT: Just found out it is in fact for teenagers from the Guardian’s review.

(8th in 2012)

London

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I went to London for a a couple of days. Got some Virgin advance tickets (absolute bargain at £15 return from New Street to Euston!) and met up with uni friends for Sunday afternoon tea. Louise baked some amazing eats, wish I’d taken photos. Among the delights were a goats cheese and spinach quiche, a carrot cake with pistachio (Ottolenghi) and sausage rolls. Louise is a brilliant baker. She recommended Dan Lepard’s baking book to me. Great food and fantastic to see the crew again, who are about the nicest, cleverest and most eclectic set of people I know.

On Monday afternoon I visited Myth down in South London and had a play with the Orton kids:


After heading back into central London I walked around near London Bridge station to take photos:


Later I settled into a pub to read my book with a glass of red. On Monday night I went to The Angel pub in Bermondsey with Rahul and Lukman to play cards, drink and eat several packets of chilli peanuts. Oh, and to take in one of the best views in London:


On Tuesday morning I had a couple of hours to kill before my train back so I went to the British Library:


where I went to see its treasures. There are so many wonderful objects to see there.

I love London. The home of so much history, famous landmarks and the buzz of millions of people. In London anything seems possible.

To do lists

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Recently I have found that I’ve just not been getting the basics done in a timely fashion. I’m talking about really basic things like cleaning my teeth twice a day. So I decided to print off a list of daily basics each day and cross off each task after it was done. There is room on each sheet for extra tasks too. I’ve used this system for two days now and it works amazingly well!


To do lists on the computer have never seemed to work particularly well for me. Some time ago I read an article on the net which explained why to do lists on paper, and specifically on post-it notes, are better than digital ones. There are plenty of others that concur with the ‘paper beats digital’ argument. I think this one nails the reason why on the head for me: the paper list is physically far away from other distractions such as email and Facebook.

Cold Mountain

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This book starts off unpromisingly. I went back to the beginning a few times because I kept losing interest during the first chapter, abandoning the attempt then forgetting what I’d read when I picked it up to try again. But after the first couple of chapters the protagonist starts to have interesting adventures which held my attention.

It also took me some time to get used to the language which is of the time the book is set in: 1865. Although I had to look up many words at first, I remembered their meanings when they appeared again. Then my reading flowed and I was transported back in time. It was so enjoyable that I wouldn’t mind reading it again. It’s a story of adventure, friendship, hardship, love and nature. It is something of an epic.

There is a lot more to the book than the language and the plot. There are recurring themes, symbolism and so on but I didn’t look into those aspects in much detail this time around. The Guardian book club examined the book and there are some good notes on the novel here.

(7th in 2012)

Samosa

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I made these samosa tonight. They look good but the picture doesn’t reveal the lack of crispiness in the cases. I phoned my mum after I’d made them to find out why the cases turned out more chewy than crispy and she told me I was supposed to make the dough with some oil in it. I have used oil in samosa dough before but because I’ve been in a breadmaking mindset lately, tonight I made my samosa dough in the same way as bread dough i.e. without fat. Doh!

Other points to note: As with all potato-based food, the filling needs a reasonable amount of salt. The pastry also need salting and some lemon juice too. I tried cider vinegar as an alternative but it wasn’t as good.

1 Feb 2013
I made samosa tonight using the recipe in the Indian Vegetarian Cooking book. I’ve found that you can cut down the oil in the dough by a sixth. Also, add the juice of half a lemon when doubling the book’s recipe for tasty and crispy pastry. Also, instead of making neat parcels how Mum taught me, I just made quarter-circle shaped ones by simply folding over a semicircle in half and gluing and pinching together the edges. This makes them visually bigger and gives lovely crispy edges. They seem to cook quicker too, I suppose because there aren’t any double layers of pastry. Next time I might try trying them with the lid on to see if that makes any difference.

3 Feb 2013
Now that I’ve perfected the pastry I have found that the samosa are best freshly fried. They don’t ever get quite as crispy when reheated in the oven. I could part fry them but it would be best to fry them just before serving.

The Lovely Bones

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I’ve just finished reading this. I’d already watched the film, so I knew how the story was going to end, but I still enjoyed it purely because it is so easy to read. I didn’t think it lived up to the hype though. For a start I don’t think it’s very well written. Considering the material it covers, the book seems very benign. It’s a good story though and I like Sebold’s very original (as far as I can tell) idea of having the narrator tell the story after her death.

It’s rare but in this case I have to conclude that the film is better than the book, though I can’t say for certain that I would maintain that position had I read the book before I’d seen the film. Of course the film simplifies and accelerates the book, as films have to, but still I found Peter Jackson’s adaptation to be visually breathtaking and the suspense was masterful.

(6th in 2012)