Finished reading Dead Country by Max Gladstone, book seven or one in a series, depending how you count. (It’s seven, I think.) Anyway, interestingly, this book sort of rhymed with Gladstone’s previous, Last Exit, sharing some motifs, but I think this was the better book: tighter and with less clumsy preaching.
My pile.org redesign for 2023 is changing the botanical iconography from black pepper to coffee. Still a little wonkiness with how the coffee beans are centered, but it’s acceptable for now.
Added a bit of nuance (?) to last night’s screedlet.
This weekend’s kitchen victory: butter chicken for us and the kids’ friends.
Finished reading The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. I almost put this one down unfinished: The setting and story are incredibly inventive, and the characters’ portrayal and motivations very one-dimensional and clumsy. I actually found myself skimming parts, which I almost never do with fiction.
Current earworm: “Change of the Guard” by Kamasi Washington.
Finished reading Babel by R.F. Kuang, about the translators’ college at Oxford in the 1830s that worked magic based on the tension between imperfectly-translated terms, and thus fueled the British Empire. About empire of course, and appropriation and systemic racism and such. I enjoyed this.
Tonight’s kitchen victory: carbonnade à la flamande with homemade fries! (I used Joël Robuchon’s cold fry technique, which worked great.)
Tonight’s kitchen victory: roast chicken, skillet-roasted potatoes, and charred green beans. Lots of rosemary and garlic. The house smells pretty good.
Got a couple inches of snow overnight, already melting by the time I got up.
Had Mom over for dinner.
Finished reading Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, about plague, time travel, and the simulation hypothesis. Includes some more-mature forms of her standard tropes, plus links to other parts of the St. John Mandel Literary Universe. Quite good.
Have gotten to the point of fasting where basically any food I think of sounds incredibly delicious.
Finished reading Joan by Katherine J. Chen, historical fiction about Joan of Arc. Chen, properly, wrote her own interpretation of Joan, one who’s less a holy maid with visions and more “the Thomas Edison of handing a dude his ass” (note: not a quote from the book). The final part of the book was difficult to read — it’s a tragedy after all — but at least we don’t get to her being (spoiler for approx. six-century-old history) burnt at the stake.
Side note / content warning / complaint: In the book, Joan’s sister is raped (offscreen, and handled delicately, but). I hope someday we can find a better plot point to motivate the main character.