Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books

Weekend Cooking: Cheese Please!

2012-01-28T01:32:00.000-07:00

According to Chuck Hughes from Chuck's Day Off, there is a renaissance of artisan cheese making happening in America right now, and I really have to agree with him. In the '80s it seemed like there were only three kinds of cheese: Velveeta, Kraft, and Philadelphia. Admittedly I was pretty young in the '80s, so my recollection might not be that great, but nowadays you can get so many different specialty cheeses in the grocery store. That definitely wasn't around when I was a kid.

When I was living in Oklahoma, there was a fromagerie--aka cheese shop--in the town I lived in, and I started to become obsessed with all trying all the different types of cheeses that were available. Then, while watching The Big Cheese one night, I started to wonder if there was a way to make cheese in a home kitchen. Although I doubted it (I figured you needed raw milk and specialized equipment I definitely wasn't going to buy), I put the question out on twitter. I probably could have googled it, but sometimes I just like to ask questions on twitter to see what will happen. Sandy from You've Gotta Read This said she'd just gotten a book called Artisan Cheese Making at Home that looked like something I'd be interested in.

My library had it. Yay! This book has absolutely fabulous, delicious-looking photographs that make me crave cheese like a crazy person, and recipes for everything from marscapone cheese to Stilton; as well as yogurt, butter, and recipes for dishes to make with your home-made cheeses. It's also very informative about the types of cheeses you can make and starts out with the easier stuff (ricotta, butter, yogurt, etc.).

That being said, I had the same problem with this book that I did with many of the bread-making books I looked at last year: even though the recipes are scaled-back for home kitchens, they still require a lot of special equipment and ingredients. In other words, it's written by a chef (Mary Karlin, in this case) who is writing what are "simple recipes" from the perspective of a chef, which is still way more time, money, and work than the average person wants to put into it.

Just for example, Karlin's recipes are in what she calls "small batches" of ONE OR TWO POUNDS of cheese. Do you know how long it would take my family to eat a whole pound of cheese, assuming they would even agree to eat it? That is not a practical-sized batch for the average household. Another pet peeve of mine: her butter recipe requires a food processor, which 1. isn't listed in the required equipment chapter, probably because she just assumes EVERYONE must have a food processor; and 2. is something I don't have. Even Karlin's simplest recipes require ingredients I've never heard of. Take the ingredients for her ricotta recipe, one of the first in the book:

1 gallon pasteurized or raw whole cow's milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon citric acid powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt

What the heck is citric acid powder? How many people just have that sitting in their cupboard? The recipe also calls for sterilized equipment, nonreactive-strainers, -bowls, and -pots, and butter muslin instead of cheese cloth. Cuz that's totally necessary.

Fortunately, Sandy also gave me a link to a simpler ricotta recipe she found in Food & Wine magazine by Helm Sinskey; otherwise I never would have attempted to make cheese. By comparison, this recipe uses easily-found ingredients and the batch is 1/2 the size of Karlin's:

Ingredients:
    1.    2 quarts whole milk, preferably organic
    2.    1 cup heavy cream, preferably organic
    3.    3 tablespoons white vinegar
    4.    1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
    1.    In a medium pot, warm the milk and cream over moderately high heat until the surface becomes foamy and steamy and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the milk registers 185°; don't let the milk boil [note: at high altitudes, milk will boil at this point. wah-wah]. Remove the pot from the heat. Add the vinegar and stir gently for 30 seconds; the mixture will curdle almost immediately. Add the salt and stir for 30 seconds longer. Cover the pot with a clean towel and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours.

    2.    Line a large colander with several layers of cheesecloth, allowing several inches of overhang. Set the colander in a large bowl. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the curds to the colander. Carefully gather the corners of the cheesecloth and close with a rubber band. Let the ricotta stand for 30 minutes, gently pressing and squeezing the cheesecloth occasionally to drain off the whey. Transfer the ricotta to a bowl and use at once, or cover and refrigerate.

Make Ahead The fresh ricotta can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Notice that this recipe also uses less salt and more cream than Karlin's. I followed this recipe (halving it), and it turned out fabulous! Very fluffy and creamy. It takes about three hours to make, but only thirty or so minutes of that requires your attention. Here are some pictures:

Making the cheese:

Of course, once I'd made the ricotta, I had to figure out what to do with it. Here are some of my recipe attempts:

I decided to make this after Memory from Stella Matutina said she liked ricotta with honey. This has honey and pepper sprinkled over it. It was okay, but a little bland, and not very filling.

I got this recipe from Real Simple. It's ricotta, butter, lemon zest, parsley, tarragon, and chives. I added a ton of herbs and pepper, but it was still very bland--okay, but definitely missing something.

This bruschetta was pretty good. I squeezed out the tomato's juices into the bread, then chopped the tomatoes, which made them easier to eat. The basil and prosciutto added a lot of flavor.

This is a pretty similar recipe to the bruschetta, but adapted for pizza. This was by far the best of the snacks I made. The only thing I would change is to add more tomato paste.

I also wanted to try making a dessert with the ricotta, and chose this recipe from Noshtopia for ricotta chocolate pudding. I had my doubts about turning cheese into a chocolate pudding, but it was really good!

So that was my cheese-making experience. It went pretty well (I count any cooking experiment that doesn't end with me in the ER a success at this point), and I am definitely encouraged to try to make different cheeses and butter. However, I don't think I'll be trying the recipes in Artisan Cheese Making at Home any time soon. They probably do taste better than the very basic cheese and butter recipes I've found so far, but I'm looking for easy at this point. It's a great resource if you're an experienced cook ready to put a lot of time, patience, energy, and money into making cheeses; but I think for the average person it's more like a book of food porn than something for practical use.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

Love Is a Leap

2012-01-26T01:03:00.001-07:00

Does anyone besides me remember The Butcher's Wife (the trailer is too cute!)? It's a romantic comedy from the '90s starring Demi Moore and Jeff Daniels. Demi plays a clairvoyant named Marina who travels to New York City with her new husband, a butcher. Her husband is freaked about Marina's ability to see into the future, so he sends her to a psychiatrist played by Jeff Daniels. It has so many elements that I love in a story: charm, humor, a sense of community, destiny, clairvoyance, self-discovery, and love of course. It's what so many romcoms strive to achieve but never do.

There are tons of great lines in this film, but the one that's stuck in my head the most is "Love is a leap that won't be denied." TOTALLY CHEESY, I know, but it must have permanently affected my prepubescent brain, because I completely buy into that concept. Not necessarily in real life--the jury's still out on that one--but narratively? Heck yeah.

Think about it: how much does denial really build romantic tension in stories? Personally, I hate that trope, especially when the characters deny their attraction for no good reason. Then eventually all obstacles are removed and they still STILL deny it (I'm looking at you, Castle and Bones), because the writers are under the mistaken belief that if their characters don't get together, then all romantic tension will be lost.

The thing is, people in general want to do things to ensure their own happiness. And typically being in a loving relationship does equate to happiness on some level. Ipso facto, one expects characters to take the chance on love at some point no matter the obstacles, external or internal, put in their path. There comes a point where the dithering grows tiresome and they have to either leap or find new fuel for the fire, and if that point passes with no action on the characters' part, the "romantic tension" becomes bullshit no one can buy into anymore.

I think that's one of the things I like most about The Butcher's Wife--the characters leap. Sometimes in the wrong direction, but they take chances because they think it will make them happy. Occasionally I worry that we've become a society so afraid of taking chances, we're even too afraid to write about what might happen when you do.

What words of wisdom have you taken away from romantic comedies?

Book Review: SILENT IN THE GRAVE by Deanna Raybourn

2012-01-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

"To say I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor."

Thus begins Silent in the Grave, a book that people have been recommending to me for years. It took a while, but I finally got around to it and they were right--Silent in the Grave is exactly the kind of novel I enjoy.

Lady Julia Grey is a young widow. When Nicholas Brisbane approaches her to suggest that her husband, who had always been sickly, was murdered, she dismisses the idea immediately. Almost a year later, however, she finds a threatening note in her husband's office and realizes Brisbane was right. Can she and Brisbane manage to find out who poisoned Lord Edward with almost no clues to speak of? It wouldn't be much of a mystery if they didn't, now would it?

The beginning of Silent in the Grave was fabulous--very atmospheric and morbid, but in a humorous way, like an Edward Gorey painting. I loved Lady Julia's voice (the novel is told in first person), and I am a total sucker for books where the hero and heroine argue, which Julia and Brisbane did quite a lot of. I had no idea how they were going to discover the murderer, but I wanted to find out!

That being said, the book started to lose me in the middle. I guessed who the killer was less than a third of the way into the story; Lady Julia began acting inconsistently, occasionally behaving like an idiot for the sake of dragging out clue reveals; and I didn't get any chemistry between her and Brisbane once they stopped fighting. WHY do they always have to stop fighting? Plus, Julia does tend to go on a bit. I started to skim through some sections.

Toby Stephens as Brisbane?

Brisbane is an interesting character, kind of a combination between Sherlock Holmes and Heathcliffe. But for some reason he didn't really interest me that much. Mainly all he does is brood (I'm sure he does other things, but while he's on the page it's mainly brooding). The clairvoyance struck me as cheesy rather than mysterious, and I guessed at his origins almost immediately.

Julia, meanwhile, is supposed to be going through a transformation into her own woman and all that good stuff, but I found the evidence of this was pretty shallow. A deep-cut dress does not a liberated woman make; just ask Marilyn Monroe. For the most part Julia remains as conventional as she was at the start of the story. I did like that she found nearly all the clues in the investigation; but then she does live in the house, and it took her long enough. Her family and her servants, on the other hand, were hilarious and awesome, and I wish they had had a more active role in the investigation.

So there were definitely some weak points in the story, and I'm not sure I want to continue reading the series--not because the book was bad, by any means, but because at this point I'm still not invested in Julia and Brisbane as characters, and I'm not sure I can handle another round of Julia wanting-Brisbane-to-pay-attention-to-her-but-really-not-that-much-attention. For the most part, however, I did enjoy this novel, if only for the fabulous Victorian feel of it, and I'm really glad I finally took the time to read it!

Musical Notes: "Blue Jeans" by Lana del Rey

Weekend Cooking Review: THE FOUNDING FOODIES by Dave DeWitt

2012-01-21T00:40:00.000-07:00

I was SO excited about Founding Foodies when I first saw it. I heart cultural history of any sort, whether it addresses dance, art, cooking, literature, film--you name it. Not to mention that one of my favorite things to eat is mac & cheese, and one of my favorite things to think about while making it is that Thomas Jefferson served the first dish of macaroni and cheese. How cool is that? In a way it ties me and Thomas Jefferson together. As a result, I've always been curious about Jefferson and his pals, and how their legacy can be found in food as well as politics. Since many of the men involved in the American Revolution were tavern owners and farmers, it stands to reason they knew their food.

Founding Foodies purports to tell us about the beginnings of "America's diverse food culture," as well as give us original Founding Father recipes like George Washington's beer and Martha Washington's fruitcake. How fun is that?! Unfortunately, the answer is not very fun at all, because this book fails on practically every level imaginable.

My high expectations of Founding Foodies started to plummet in the introduction. Perhaps it's just my years of being in school, but I expect the introduction of a non-fiction book to summarize the topic, lay out the central argument or point of the book, and provide a brief run-down of how that point is going to be made. What was in Dave DeWitt's intro? First, he talks about why he likes Jefferson (he went to the University of Virginia), and then he spends the rest of the introduction defining the terms "foodie" and "founding father." This was worrisome because both of these terms are generally understood by the North American public; so either we as readers are being talked down to, or DeWitt does not know what the fridge he is talking about.

Things, shockingly, did not improve from there. The first chapter doesn't start with the Founding Fathers at all, but with Sir Walter Raleigh, and it takes PAGES before food is even mentioned. The timeline jumps all over the place, from 1492 to 1850, and there is no central argument or point to be had anywhere in this book. Take the chapter on Thomas Jefferson, for example (I was sure DeWitt would at least manage a solid on this one, since he was such a self-professed Jeffersonian), which goes something like this: Thomas Jefferson, man of the world and lover of different cultures, founding foodie extraordinaire. Let's talk about him! Wait, let's talk about his slaves. He fed them! What a guy! Wait, let's talk about tomatoes. Now let's talk about ice cream, but let's discuss muffins while we're talking about that. Now let's talk about Jefferson's garden. What was his favorite vegetable? The debate rages. And why didn't we talk about tomatoes in this section? I don't know! UHG.

Even if there had been a point DeWitt was trying to make, the book is way too generalized to make it. Hey, did you know they served food at the White House? And people ate corn? It's true. They ate corn. I did like that DeWitt included a lot of information about what the slaves ate, but like much of the information in The Founding Foodies, it lacked a whole lot of context.

Furthermore, I really don't think DeWitt has any clue to what someone who would pick up a book like this would be looking for. Just as an example, at no point does he address the famous macaroni and cheese dish. If I've heard about it, it's got to be well-known; and it's one of America's favorite meals to this day. Yet there's NOTHING. ABOUT IT. ANYWHERE, other than a small note in the recipe section that Jefferson did serve a pasta dish with Parmesan cheese. No recipe, no date, no discussion. Does DeWitt know anything about his audience? Anything at all?

Frustrated, I flipped to the bibliography (there isn't a conclusion, which is probably for the best), and realized that was what I should have done in the first place, because many of DeWitt's sources are Wikipedia pages. HE LITERALLY CITES WIKIPEDIA AS A MAJOR SOURCE IN HIS BOOK! Not just a few times, but regularly. In the intro to the bibliography, DeWitt tries to excuse himself by saying he fact-checked Wikipedia to make sure it was correct. Oh, really?! You fact-checked Wikipedia? Why didn't you just use the sources you found while making sure Wikipedia was accurate then, hmmmmm?

To make it matters even worse, the writing style is stupefyingly boring. If I wasn't going to be put off by the total lack of logical organization and saddest excuse for research I have ever come across in a published book, the writing would do it. It's like reading the narration to a History Channel special, and I do not mean that in a good way.

So just to summarize: this author wrote a book that he basically researched using Google. And now we know why it sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about: HE DOESN'T.

There are some books that make me wonder how on earth people get published, and this is one of them. Even the index is a piece of crap, that's how bad this book is. You can do better. Might I suggest Wikipedia?

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

Bookshelf Boredom

2012-01-19T00:52:00.001-07:00

I was contemplating my bookshelves the other day (as I do every day), and I suddenly realized two things: one, I'm running out of space. Again. And two, my unread shelves hadn't really changed all that much since I did my last book purge/donation to the library, and it's beginning to look like it's time to do another one.

But why are my unread shelves so static? I don't read as much as some, certainly, but I do go through the books. One would think there'd be at least some change in my shelves. Then it hit me: most of the books on my bookshelves aren't books I bought. They're either books someone has loaned or given to me, or books I got for review. The books I most want to read and are excited about are usually books I get from the library (indeed, I'm reading a library book right now) because I can't afford to buy books.

Of the dozens of unread paper books I own, only a few are books I've bought for myself, and none of them are purchases made in the last year--maybe even longer than that. If I happen to buy a book these days, it's a 99-cent or $1.99 eBook (or, even better, a free eBook).

This is quite sad, no? It's no wonder I'm feeling bored with my bookshelves lately. But what should the solution be? Should I focus on reading all the books I've bought for myself and then weeding out the loans and gifts? I've already done that three or four times, and I do want to read most of the books people get me... eventually. There just aren't any books that I'm dying to read in my collection and it doesn't seem like there will be for a while.

What do your bookshelves consist of? Library books, books you own, or books people have given you?

Book Review: WONDERSTRUCK by Brian Selznick

2012-01-17T00:09:00.001-07:00

After reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was there any question of me picking up Brian Selznick's next book? Not really. Wonderstruck has very similar elements to Hugo Cabret: once again there's an orphan boy alone in a city, looking for answers about his father, and receiving help from another child. But in this case the setting is the American Museum of Natural History in 1977, not a 1930's Paris train station. Juxtaposed against Ben's story is that of Rose, a girl in 1927 New Jersey who runs away to New York City. Her story is told mostly in pictures.

Wonderstruck isn't as charming and doesn't have the same fantastical feel as Hugo Cabret, possibly because the setting is much more modern and closer to home (at least for this American reader). But I also think the way Selznick tells this particular story is grittier and more grounded in reality than Hugo Cabret was. We're more directly confronted with the death of Ben's mother than we were with that of Hugo's father, and the tools and clues Ben uses to reconnect with his father's past are much more practical. That's not to say I didn't enjoy Wonderstruck, but the tone is definitely different. While we can imagine Hugo and Isabelle cavorting among the stars in the bright lights of Paris, these characters remain firmly in the gutter, so to speak.

I loved the opening sequence of this book simply because it highlights what is so great about Selznick's novels: the illustrations aren't afterthoughts or superfluous, they really are an essential part of the book. In this case the illustrations at the beginning did a great job of pulling me right into the story, which I finished in about two hours. Selznick keeps you reading by switching between Rose's and Ben's story at the just the right moments so you want to find out what happens next, but not so often that you start to feel whiplashed.

One of the themes in Wonderstruck is that of collections and how they tell a story about the person who owns them. They're called mini-museums, and collectors are amateur curators. Ben owns a box filled with "treasures" that he carries with him and that reveals stories about his past. That made think about my own collections--to be honest I don't collect that much. I don't like spending money on things with no practical purpose; plus I never saw the point of gathering things that are just going to collect dust. The one notable exception is images--I "collect" images of St. George and the Dragon, for example, not by actually buying them (unless it's a postcard), but by writing down where I saw it and/or taking a photograph of it. It also seems like most of the trips I take develop image themes. The image theme for my trip to Washington DC, for instance, was boats. I suppose in a sense I am curating an museum of images in my mind, although I thought of it like that before.

In any case, I think this novel will inspire readers (adult readers, anyway) to look at their collections in different ways, and I do think it's a good book that's worth reading. I definitely wasn't disappointed.

Weekend Cooking Review: WHAT I EAT by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio

2012-01-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, when I reviewed What the World Eats by Menzel and D'Aluisio, Amanda Gignac suggested I try out What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets by the same authors. Although it contains similar content--photographs of what people eat from around the world--Amanda was totally right when she said that What I Eat is a lot better than What the World Eats. It has better photographs, essays, and doesn't have as many generalizations or preachy moments.

In What the World Eats, Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio photographed families from around the world with a week's worth of food, focusing on how much each family spent. Although it was an interesting idea, the format invited large generalizations. By comparison, What I Eat focuses on individuals and what they eat during the course of one day. This is much better, because it connects food more specifically to a person's lifestyle rather than their nationality. A trucker, for example, logically gets most of his/her food from gas stations and fast food restaurants and needs something that can be eaten one-handed; a German biermeister is obviously going to drink a lot of beer!

The book is organized by how many calories each person eats in a day. I really had no idea what the average calorie intake for an individual was before I started reading this book, but it seems like most people eat between 2200 and 3000 calories per day. Below 2000 calories is mostly athletes who need to be light (my aunt, a competitive rower, once told me she limited herself to 1200 calories a day during racing season--now I know just how low that is!), extreme dieters, workaholics who don't have time to eat, or people living in poverty. Even the fashion model Menzel and D'Aluisio photographed, Mariel Booth, eats 2400 calories a day. One might think that at the other end of the spectrum--people who eat 4000 calories or more per day--there would also be athletes who need energy. But actually, this group is almost entirely made up of men who work outdoors, particularly cold outdoors--with the notable exception of an English housewife who binge eats at 12,000+ calories.

If there's one thing I've learned from this book, though, it's that how many calories you eat doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with how much you weigh, despite what we hear on television. Viahondjera Musutua from Namibia eats about 1500 calories a day and weighs 160 pounds, while João Agustinho Cardoso from Brazil eats more than three times as much--5200 calories a day--yet weighs twenty pounds less! How many calories a dish has and how much food you're actually getting through it also seems to vary wildly: even though extreme dieters Rick Bumgardener and Mackenzie Wolfson eat less than 2000 calories a day, there seems to be a lot more food in their calories than there is in Chinese student Chen Zhen's 2600.

Part of the reason, as explained in Bijal P. Trivedi's excellent essay "The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Calorie," is that all calories are not created equal. When calories were "discovered" by Wilbur Olin Atwater in the 19th century, he was basically looking for a way to measure the amount of energy a person can get from food. But each calorie is made up of different values and behaves differently depending on what you do to it (processing, cooking, etc.), so what exactly goes into a "calorie" and how it will affect your body can be extremely variable.

There are several good essays in this book, which helps to mitigate the preachy tone I didn't like in What the World the Eats and elevates What I Eat to a more serious study of how humans relate to food. Trivedi's essay and Michael Pollan's "The End of Cooking," where he talks about the irony of America's obsession with foodie television and the fact that less and less people are cooking for themselves, were my two personal favorites.

Overall I found this to be a book worth tracking down and think it should definitely be of interest to anyone who likes reading about food. It would also be a great resource if you're planning a trip to any of these countries and want to find out what a typical meal might be.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

Book Review: WHEN NIGHT FALLS by Jenna Ryan

2012-01-12T23:51:00.001-07:00

Remember a few months ago when I ~~begged~~ asked for help finding two books I'd read a really long time ago? Well, this was the first book! I actually found it!

When Night Falls was published in 1993, which means I was either 12 or 13 when I first read it, and my recall of the details was actually pretty spot-on. Cassie, a crime scene photographer in London, follows a mysterious figure from the scene of brutal murder, straight into 1790. The man she followed, Anthony Lazarus Morgan, is a butler in the house of a baronet--and in his spare time, he travels through time investigating crimes. It turns out the murders in Cassie's London were committed by Jack the Ripper, who is also a time traveler, and he's now in 1790. Dun dun dun!

I'm happy to report that this book is as much fun as I remembered. Here are some of the things I heart about this book:

The hero is a butler. Morgan isn't a lord something-or-other (not even a secret one), or someone who is rich, but a butler. Hallefreakinglujah! A hero with an actual profession, can you imagine?!?
It's set in Georgian England! This is actually a little odd, because the atmosphere of the book feels very Victorian, and there are a lot of references in the book--everything from Charles Dickens to Courier and Ives--that come from the late 19th century. But I can see why Jenna Ryan pushed the setting back another century, because it gives a fresh twist to the whole Jack the Ripper plot thing.
Mystery! Although the mystery starts to seriously drag in the second half of this novel, it's my favorite part of the book. There are tons of suspects who are all interesting, and Ryan keeps you guessing as to which one is Jack the Ripper. Even having read the book before, I was surprised when the killer was revealed.
It's the heroine's story. This isn't the type of romance novel where it's all about the hero. The star of the show is Cassie, and it's upon her that the main action in the book hinges. She's smart, tough, quickly adaptable, and also the sexual aggressor in her relationship with Morgan.

Of course, there are some inconsistencies in the story I don't remember noticing when I was 12. Why is Morgan allowed at every crime scene and why do people keep asking his advice on how to investigate, for instance? I don't know! It's a time travel romance, maybe he altered time so that butlers are considered good crime scene investigators. It also bugged me that women of Georgian England kept being referred to as weak-willed and passive, especially when two of three Georgian-era females in this book were pretty damn bossy and clearly in charge of their own domains.

Overall, though, this is a pretty entertaining read. The romance is much more of a subplot than the mystery is, but it develops over the course of the novel and there's no instalove or -lust going on. Jack (the Ripper) also gets his own scenes, which are weirdly enjoyable because he's basically Norman Bates in the 18th century. I'm super-happy I found this book and I'm never letting it out of my sight again! Exclamation mark!

Musical Notes: There's really no logical reason for this, but "Walk Like a Man" by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons kept running through my head while I was reading this.

Book Review: DARKER STILL by Leanna Renee Hieber

2012-01-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

In 1880's New York City, a young girl who is mute falls in love with a painting. This may seem like an usual plot, but actually there's a long tradition of stories and fables where art either comes to life, traps a live person, or seems to be alive to the point where someone falls in love the subject. What do they all have in common? They all have something to do with sex and the gaze. They all suggest that a truth lies in the image that's hidden by ordinary life. And they're all more interesting than Darker Still.

I really wanted to like this novel. Leanna Renee Hieber was one of the first authors to connect with my blog because I reviewed her first book, and I think she's a great writer. As an art historian, I tend to read every book that has something to do with art I come across and, in a very weird coincidence, I wrote about runes in painting for my master's thesis. Also, Colette from A Buckeye Girl Reads got a copy of Darker Still signed and then mailed it to me! Wasn't that nice of her?

With all that, one might think this book and I would be sure bets--I certainly thought so--but I wound up not finishing it. Perhaps it might be because I know too much about the subject, but I don't think so. I don't expect total historical accuracy from novels, especially in a subject as obscure as the occult in art. However, I DO expect a good story, and that simply didn't happen here.

Darker Still started out okay. It's "framed" in the way novels from the nineteenth century tend to be, as part of a police file that includes the main character's journal. At first I thought this was pretty brilliant and clever, but I was quickly bothered by the fact that the "journal entries" didn't read like journal entries, but like a regular novel in the first person.

When I really knew this book and I wouldn't get along, though, was the first time Natalie sets eyes on the portrait of Lord Denbury. This is basically the meet-cute of the book, yes? Even if it's just a painting, I expected something--some spark, some chemistry, or at the very least something interesting--to happen. But alas, nada. I read over the scene three times just to make sure I hadn't missed a key word or sentence that would tell me why everyone found this portrait to be so intriguing.

To be sure, the portrait has a somewhat curious history (although nothing sensational) and the subject is handsome--or so we're told. But the problem is that as a reader I cannot see this portrait. I'm told Denbury is handsome, but the way he's described makes him sound like Zoolander. The rest of the painting was related in a very stark, bare-bones manner, and sounded like a totally orndinary portrait. Rather boring and old-fashioned, in fact; certainly nothing to cause a Madame X-level of buzz.

Furthermore, while reading about the painting I kept being distracted by inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story. For example, Natalie describes Denbury thusly: "Tiny traces between his nose and the corners of his pursed and perfect lips indicated that his mouth would grow lines of an often wide smile as he aged." First of all, that's a pretty tortured sentence (one of many). And second of all, what seventeen-year-old thinks about how a person is going to age? The whole scene is wrapped up by Natalie declaring, "And yet, there was something terribly compelling about him." UHG. Insta-love much? Not only is that the romance cliche to end all romance novel cliches, but I don't find him compelling, and there's no reason why Natalie does beyond the fact that everyone else seems to.

I kept reading in the hopes the book would improve when Natalie went into the portrait, and it did a bit, but Denbury seemed silly rather than mysterious, and the villains were cartoonishly obvious. I was laughing a whole hell of a lot, and not because the book was trying to be funny. It was because of cheesy scenes like this:

I studied the particulars of the scene. The book The Girl remained jutting out from the shelf.

And then I noticed a new shift. Something else out of place. Different.

On his desk, the pristine blotter bore droplets of ink, and the quill was lying on its side rather than upright in the shaft of the inkwell. Two words seemed to scream up at me from a note that faced my direction on his desk.

Yes, you!

Haha! Denbury wants YOU! Yes, you! Just in case you thought he was telegraphing the cat. Or when Natalie finally meets this supposed 19-year-old heart-throb and he commences with the desk-pounding and exclamation-marking:

"Denbury pounded his fist on his desk in fury. 'The bloody bastard!'"

Two pages later...

"'I'd just begun to live!' He pounded his fist against the desk..."

At this point I'd started to feel like Darker Still was an adaptation of The Nutcracker and Mouse King, where a young girl becomes nonsensically obsessed with a painting instead of a nutcracker. But rather than turning out to be a prince, the guy is a bombastic octogenarian Whig; and instead of sweeping her off to an enchanted palace made of candy, he takes her to a 9x11 office cubicle with a fake fireplace. Très romantic.

On top of all this, I really hated Natalie as a character. Her personality basically IS that she's mute. That's it. There doesn't seem to be any reason for what she does beyond the fact that someone else wants her to do it, or any reasoning behind her ideas other than someone else thought it. Of course, she never really NEEDS to think, seeing as how who is good and who is evil and what exactly is going on and what she needs to do about it is all telegraphed to her, in a painfully obvious fashion. Snorz!

I heard a saying the other day that "A cat sat on a mat is not a story. A cat sat on another cat's mat is a story." This book is about a cat who sat on a mat. Everything just happens, with no conflict or intrigue to keep the reader engaged. There's no sense of atmosphere, historical place and time, characters with personalities, or stakes. And this why it read so young to me--as if it was written for 8-11 year-olds rather than teens or adults--because there's really no depth to the story at all. What you see is what you get, and that's pretty damn boring in art, life, and literature.

Downton Abbey Season Two Episode One Recap!

2012-01-09T13:05:00.002-07:00

Today I'm co-recapping the fist episode of Downton Abbey's second season at Edwardian Promenade. Check it out and share with us what you thought!

Weekend Cooking Review: FED UP WITH LUNCH by Sarah Wu

2012-01-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

You know those people who tweet about what they had for lunch? Well, Sarah Wu made a whole blog about it and then turned it into a book! Blogging "undercover" as the anonymous Mrs. Q, the elementary school teacher mobile blogged pictures of her and students' lunches every day for a year, along with descriptions of what the food was, how it tasted and looked. What did Wu learn from her Supersize Me-like experiment?

I had never visited (or even heard about) Wu's blog, Fed Up with Lunch, until this book came out; but in the interest of learning more about the author and where she's coming from, I looked over her lunch posts. I can definitely see why Fed Up with Lunch is so popular--the blog is really fun and interesting. Most of the attraction lies in Wu's photographs, which aren't professional by any means, but offer a fascinating glimpse into another world. Because most of the food is prepackaged or an appetizing shade of brown-ish, you have no idea what it is until she tells you. The writing itself is really lively and vibrant, but also short--probably about 100-300 words per post. It's said food is a window onto a culture--if that's the case, then the culture of the Illinois school system is like something out of the Jetsons. Their lunches are really bizarre and look like they came out of a space port.

Don't expect any of that from this book, though. This is a memoir of how and why Wu started the blog and her experiences with it, including meeting Jamie Oliver (she had the good fortune to start her blog just as Oliver was airing Food Revolution), being interviewed for Good Morning America, and so on. The pictures of food, which are the heart of Wu's blog, are reduced to 1-inch-square images so small you can't tell what you're looking at, and Wu actually doesn't describe the food she ate that much at all (with the notable and horrifying exception of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich).

Wu states in her book that she felt like a journalist, and I can see that on her blog, but it doesn't translate to this book. If this book is journalism, it's of the fluff variety. She says up-front she's not a food expert, which is fine, but it also shows in that the book reads more like the ruminations of a mom on how we need to watch kids' nutrition, etc. etc. While that's certainly true, as a call to action it's not terribly effective.

There was one really good chapter in the book based on Wu's experiences in the food industry. She worked for Kraft for several years (something she only bothers to mention in chapter seven?), and talks about how food corporations need to show an increase in sales to keep their stock prices up, even though food consumption naturally remains steady. That was really interesting and explained a lot about how food is produced in America.

If you watched Oliver's Food Revolution, you're probably aware that communities' reaction to changing their school food system tends to be met with anything ranging from apathy to antagonism. This book certainly doesn't do any better job than Oliver's TV show at changing that attitude--I have to admit, I'm kind of stuck on apathy at this point. If anything, I'm less inclined to care than I was before, and Wu's really preaching to the choir when it comes to me! While feeding kids freshly-made gourmet meals in cafeterias sounds nice in the abstract, in the concrete I have to wonder if, first of all, kids will actually eat this food; and second of all, who's going to pay for it? Wu didn't persuasively address either question in this book.

If anything, this memoir is an argument for parents to take a more active role in learning about food and cooking freshly prepared meals in their own home. If a revolution begins at home, then Wu did so with her own life, and I think Fed Up with Lunch may influence other parents to do the same.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend.

Mystery vs Suspense in THE MADNESS OF LORD IAN MACKENZIE by Jennifer Ashley

2012-01-04T00:44:00.000-07:00

One of the linchpins of a good story, I think, is the element of mystery, which obviously isn't the same as suspense. Mystery is more cerebral while suspense is more visceral. I think that's one of the reasons why suspense works so well in movies. You eat pictures with your eyes but you eat words with your brain, especially when those words are on paper.

In Little Women (the movie with Winona Ryder), Jo says something that has stuck in my head for years: books aren't about what you know, they're about what you don't know. You have to want to know about the characters or what's going to happen to keep reading. Unlike in movies, where information is limited to what's before your eyes, in books your mind has to be engaged. You have to wonder about something. That's why mysteries took off with the rise of the novel.

Unfortunately--I think probably because of the dominance of TV and movies in our lives now--this art of capturing one's interest and stringing it along with questions is really pretty rare in fiction these days. Most of the books I read seem to follow Hitchcock's edict that it's better to have an audience know about a bomb under a table for fifteen minutes than surprise them with an exploding bomb for five seconds. Of course, Hitchcock was making suspense movies, not writing books.

That's why it was nice to read The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie, because the author, Jennifer Ashley, does a great job of telling this story by building up the reader's questions about the Mackenzie brothers and then surprising us with turns in the story. "What is up with these Mackenzies, why are they all crazy?" you wonder soon after the story starts. Along with, "Why does Detective Fellows have it out for Ian?" The characters don't act like tropes, but like actual characters with motivation, and I loved how unconventional Ian and Beth were. Beth is a window who, through a series of unlikely events, has risen out of an East End London workhouse to become an elegant heiress. Ian, the younger brother of the Duke of whatever, probably has Ausberger's or a mild form of autism, and was institutionalized as a young boy. But he's not the only odd person in his family--all of his brothers are crazy and obsessive, and as the story unfolds we begin to understand why.

I really loved this book and can't believe I waited this long to pick it up! Even the murder mystery in the novel was very well-done and had me engaged and guessing until the end. The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie restored my belief that great story-telling is still to be had in historical romances.

Au Revoir, Romance Month

2012-01-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

It's January, which--the last time I checked, anyway--follows December. That means Romance Month is over. Sadface. Thank you to all the people who wrote guest posts and read along with me this month! You deserve cyber cuddles, which sounds uncomfortable but is totally worth it. {{{cuddles}}}

In case you like lists, here are all the posts for 2011's Romance Month:

Counting the book I'm currently in the middle of, I read five romances and chucked seven mid-way through, which aren't the greatest stats in the world. I feel like I accomplished a lot more than that! I think I've become a very jaded romance reader at this point in my life, which is why there were so many DNFs. I really wanted my interest to be engaged and to be shown something new, and that didn't happen with a lot of the books I picked up.

I predict I will read more romances in 2012 than I did in 2011, but right now there are bunch of YAs calling my name. :) I hope you all enjoyed romance month as much as I did, and thank you again to everyone who joined in!

What Was Exciting and Awesome In 2011?

2011-12-30T01:23:00.000-07:00

Looking back time! What did I write and think about the most this year?

Harry Potter!
Ah, Harry. Not only did I finish making my way through all the audiobooks, the final movie came out this year as well. Sadface. I gushed over Snape, wrote about HP's connection to WWII, completed surveys, and basically did all I could to break down, revive, and hold dear the series.

Twilight!
With Breaking Dawn, Part 1 coming out in November, naturally I came down with a touch of Twilight fever and reread New Moon, rewatched all the movies (Eclipse was actually pretty good, weirdly), and ate Twilight chocolate. Good times.

Photographs!
Wow, I read a lot of books about photography this year. Photographs of Yale and Detroit; photographs by George Hurrell, Emile Zola, and Man Ray; and a book about 19th-century western photography.

Jane Austen!
Okay, so maybe Jane Austen pops up frequently on my radar every year. But it seems like there was a lot of Austen-related articles and news and spin-offs this year, no?

Classic Hollywood!
I read about it, I watched it. I now know what the phrase pre-code means. I'm all up with it.

Drinking games!
I amused myself muchly this year by inventing drinking games, both for movies during Hitchfest and for books like The Magician King.

Caw, caw.

Ballet!
For some super-odd reason, this was the year of ballet for me. It all started when I saw Jennifer Homans, author of Apollo's Angels, on Charlie Rose. Then I read her book (well, actually just the first chapter, because that's all I could get for free on the Kindle). Then there was Black Swan, which I saw in the theaters; The Nutcracker that I wound up researching and then reading ETA Hoffmann's Nutcracker and Mouse King; I read The Ballerina, the Gymnast, and the Yoga Instructor; and I watched Mao's Last Dancer on TV. Why is ballet all of sudden the 'it' thing? And why am I watching movies about it? Do not know.

What was trending in your life this past year?

Audiobook Review: O JERUSALEM by Laurie R. King

2011-12-28T00:59:00.000-07:00

Dang, this book is long.

Mary Russell is the young partner-in-detection to the officially retired Sherlock Holmes. In the first Mary Russell "memoir," The Beekeeper's Apprentice, there is a small side note that she and Sherlock Holmes went to Palestine on a secret mission for the British government (and also to get out of the country) that's treated basically like this: "We went to Palestine for a year and it was kinda awesome and also the longest trip evar. Then we got back, yay!" O Jerusalem, the fourth book in the series, jumps back to that time period to tell us everything that went on during Russell's and Holmes' briefly-mentioned trip, to wit: they wander around Palestine for what isn't forty years but definitely feels like it; there are a lot of sheep; Sherlock Holmes gets almost-killed a bunch of times; and then they finally get to Jerusalem, where Russell starts geeking out and they stop a terrorist plot.

I can understand why Laurie R. King gave Russell's trip to Palestine its own book, because there was not way to do justice to it otherwise. As I mentioned before, this book is long. And meandery. It isn't quite that it doesn't have a plot, because it does; the reader just doesn't know what the plot is until maybe the final quarter of the book. They wander around and around with what appears to be no direction, and at some point it's like, "Just get to Jerusalem already!" Even worse, I listened to this on audio, which I really only do while cleaning or folding laundry, and thus it took me two months to finish.

I'm not going to say this book should have been shorter--mainly because I can't remember everything that went on at this point--but it does require a considerable amount of patience. It's well-researched and -written, as are all of King's novels; but I'm not a huge fan of "journey" books to begin with, and mystery books where the mystery is incidental outright annoy me most of the time, so I can't say I'm a huge fan right now.

What I did find really interesting, though, were the dynamics of Russell's and Holmes' relationship. Chronologically this is several years before they get married, before we even get a hint that their relationship is anything other than platonic. But in O Jerusalem, you definitely get the sense that the foundation of their marriage is being formed here, especially on the part of Holmes. It was more sentimental and sexual than I was expecting (not that, I'm sure, I would have interpreted it that way had I read the books in chronological rather than release order), and I think it's an awesome way to tell the story--to play with what we already know about the characters and add more layers to them that what would otherwise be there.

This probably won't be listed among my favorite Russell and Holmes books, but if you're already reading the series, naturally you want to read this one. If you're not reading the series, you're missing out on some great writing!

Book Review: THE THORN AND THE BLOSSOM by Theodora Goss

2011-12-27T00:28:00.000-07:00

Proposed alternate title: It's Not Easy Being Green

Evelyn is an American studying at Oxford, when she decides to traipse down to Cornwall for a week. While there, she wanders into a used books shop and meets the handsome son of the store's owner, Brendan (this is my dream, by the way). But will they ever be able to get together after her vacation?

This book is marketed heavily for its binding, which is in an accordion style, with Brendan's story on one side and Evelyn's on the other. Hence the subtitle of "A Two-Sided Love Story" (fun fact: one-sided love stories are also called stalking). Plus, it's nicely illustrated and designed. Although the binding is an unusual idea, I wanted to read this book because of the story, not its packaging.

The story is based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (or at least a Cornish version of it), which I really enjoyed. I am totally down for any book that bases itself off Arthurian romances. You see, Evelyn and Brendan are locked in a 1000-year cycle of falling in love but never being together, thanks to a giantess' curse. The cyclical nature of these star-crossed lovers' relationship is reflected in the binding of the book. Clever, eh?

I started with Evelyn's story. Unfortunately, I didn't like her character at all and I thought her story was rather pointless. There were a lot of inconsistencies between what we're told about Evelyn and how she acts that don't make her believable. She's supposed to be in her last year at Oxford, so one would assume she's spent some time in England, but she acts like she's fresh off the boat. She's supposed to be studying literature, but on a week-long vacation by herself, she doesn't bring a single book. She writes poetry and sees fairies, but is supposed to be cynical. And so on.

As for character development, I didn't get anything from her. Emotionally, it felt like her story started and stopped in the exact same place (location-wise, it did, actually--that didn't help). Oh, girl's got problems, but those problems have nothing to do with Brendan. It was like at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, where Belle sings, "Little town, full of little people, every day like the one before." Now imagine if Belle had stayed in the town and married Gaston, and you have an idea of my frustration with Evelyn. She's stupefyingly conventional and never seems to think through her decisions.

Thankfully, Brendan's story saved this book for me. Although he seemed like kind of a prat in Evelyn's side of the book, he clearly is the hero of this story and I felt like there were challenges he had to face during the course of the book that helped him grow emotionally and wind up in a place where he could achieve his dreams. It's interesting that even in books with "two sides" to the story, and ones written by women to boot, the female is still written as such a passive character. Not that Brendan is a particularly active character, of course, but at least he made conscious decisions and used his own judgment.

Although this book didn't blow me away, there's a lot packed into its eighty pages. It's definitely not your run-of-the-mill romance, either in the binding or the way the story is told. I would definitely recommend it if you're at all interested, especially if you happen to be an Anglophile or a medievalist.

Obligatory Christmas Post with Haiku

2011-12-25T14:40:00.001-07:00

I'd like to share a
few Christmas songs here
as I do every year.

Be sure to click on
the snowflake at the
bottom for extra wassail

Happy happy lot
Happy happy much
Happy holidays to you!

The Girl Who Slept

2011-12-23T00:41:00.000-07:00

Johannes Vermeer, Girl Asleep, 1657

Have you ever noticed that women in romance novels sleep a lot? Naturally we all need sleep, but with something so ordinary it doesn't seem worth mentioning in a book unless there's a point, like going to the bathroom. So what's the point of all the sleeping? Tired writers? A zombified nation of near-catatonic workaholics who can only sympathize with people in a similar state of ennui? Or does it mean something?

While rereading New Moon last month, I couldn't help but notice that Bella kept passing out--or almost passing out--a lot. And not during entirely appropriate moments (like, you know, bed time), either. Of course, the story is based on Sleeping Beauty, so I figured that had something to do with it, and set the issue aside to think of it no more.

BUT THEN, since I was already thinking about it (despite my resolve not to), I kept noticing heroines in nearly every romance I picked up afterward had a similar problem! It seemed as soon as these women encountered an extremely tense, emotionally-wrought, or high stress environment, they decided they needed a nap because they were super duper tired. "Here I am, alone in the house of a rake who wants to ravish me. Snnnnooorrrrzzzzzzz." Really?

At first I guessed that it was some passive-aggressive way of avoiding conflict--kind of like how Scott Pilgrim runs off to the bathroom as soon as he's faced with a potentially awkward situation. But it seemed odd that so many heroines would fall asleep in different books and situations. "What purpose does this serve the story?" I wondered to myself (actually it went more like, "WHAT THE HEEEEEEECK?!?"). Reading about women who keep falling asleep isn't exactly exciting.

John Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781

It was an embarrassingly long time afterward that I remembered sleeping women in art history=SEX ALL OVER THE PLACE! Exclamation mark! The most famous example being Fuseli's wildly popular The Nightmare. Pointed toes, arched back, and expression of combined agony and bliss--that woman is totally having an organism. And what's being done to the horse behind that curtain? You don't know; and judging by its expression, I don't want to know.

Aside from the pulled-out chair and open doorway that suggests recently vacated company, Vermeer's Girl Asleep is, according to your friendly neighborhood symbologists, full of allegories for temptation, love, and intercourse. It also looks like there's someone under the table, and I don't think they're picking up silverware. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

In literature, too, a sleeping women is often a symbol of passive sexuality--think of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, for instance. Again, this is reflected in Twilight: there's a reason why the dynamics of Edward watching Bella sleep puts mamas' panties all in a twist. Or take the scene in New Moon when Jacob sneaks into Bella's room to tell her the Very Important Thing about him being a werewolf and she can barely keep her eyes. Of course, the fact that she doesn't fall asleep while he's around could indicate that she's not as 'available' to him as he'd like her to be.

For hundreds of years, at the least, a sleeping woman has suggested a sexually available woman. Do I think romance novelists are deliberately using this imagery to make their heroines seem more sexualized? Perhaps--Meyer employs it very effectively--but I think at this point it's become such a part of our culture that we don't consciously take note of it, especially in contemporary-set novels. Most people aren't looking for allegories or subtext in books; if they were, it would make reading certain novels really uncomfortable (I'm looking at you, Lewis Carrol). Even if they aren't consciously aware of it, however, on some level it is clear that the heroine, while asleep, is more vulnerable to the hero. If she's dropping off to sleep, then obviously she trusts him.

Elizabeth Siddal, 1860. Photo courtesy of lizziesiddal.com.

Have you ever noticed this narcoleptic heroine phenomenon? Do stories where the power dynamic is reversed and a woman observes a man who's sleeping have the same subtext?

Guest Post by Becky R.: JUDGING A COVER BY ITS MAN-FLESH

2011-12-22T00:24:00.000-07:00

Our last guest post before the holidays is from Becky at One Literature Nut! A few weeks ago Becky casually made an observation about romance novel covers that I thought was pretty brilliant, and I ~~begged~~ asked her to write a post about it. I'll let her tell you about her theory and you can judge for yourselves!

A couple of months ago, my good friend Tasha at Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books posted a great review of the romance novel Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis. Having just come off a couple of quick contemporary romances myself, I thought it was interesting that the hero in the novel was a wounded soul. Here’s why that was interesting—the cover seemed to predict where we were headed. If our heroes could speak, here’s what I anticipate they might reveal to us:

Fully-Clothed Hero, Up Close:

"Hi. I’m a wounded soul. I’ve probably been through a terrible accident, been ditched by a woman, been a witness of a crime, or been emotionally shut down for years. Basically, someone close to me lets the girl know, and it melts her grown-girl, independent heart and allows her to wiggle into my world (take that as you will). I’m the quintessential softie that knows how to be a man’s man, but prefers to be a romantic bard at heart."

Partially-Clothed Hero, Up Close:

"I’m a bit trickier. Showing some man-flesh might just be showing my rugged, manly side to the world, but that’s not all to me. I still have a secret that keeps me aloof and yet strangely appealing to women. Even though I might act like a jerk, I’m probably profanely dedicated to my woman (to the point of murder), and once I reveal that gut-jerking wound, the bond with my woman is eternal. Don’t mess with me!"

Fully-Clothed Hero with Fully or Partially-Clothed Heroine:

"Listen, girl. I’m not the type to 'need' to chase you. I can seem intimidating in my power suit or native dress, to the point of being unapproachable, but women throw themselves at me every day. I probably 'get around' quite a bit—just enough to make YOU think I’m the ultimate bad boy that you need to tame. I like to think that you don’t get me, and I’ll hold out to the very last second to let you know what I think. In fact, you better have some serious take charge brutishness of your own or powerful boardroom woman-power to catch my attention. No worries. Once I get that we both wear the 'pants' (so to say), I’ll be your bad boy that is secretly your good guy that you managed to tame."

Partially-Clothed Hero with Fully or Partially-Clothed Heroine:

"Nowadays, I don’t like to jerk a girl to my chest just to watch her heaving bosoms rage or flowing hair escape into the moonlight. Nope. Now I like to grab a girl to me to look her in the eyes to show her she has underestimated or misunderstood me on so many levels. Yes, I might look ruthless in my bare chest and jeans or ripped open shirt and kilt, but I’m a man-beast with some serious rage over some past wrong. Oh, and don’t call me a man-whore, because it’s probably pretty likely that I’m nowhere near that title—people just think I am. Unlock my wound, show me some nurturing, and my eyes (ahem, I mean hot bod) will be yours forever."

Of course we have some funny exceptions to these general, four heroes, but when you really take a look at the romance novels you’ve read recently, you might see some of these traits playing out. Gone is Fabio with his long hair, open shirt, and half-dressed vixen. Today we’re seeing more modern themes, paranormal characters, and strong female leads to match their men. It is kind of interesting though to see covers start to reveal even more about those leading men!

Which male lead is your favorite, and have you seen any covers to match their description?

Thank you so much, Becky! I love the phrase, 'unlock my wound,' someone should definitely put that on a cover! :)
You can find out more about Becky on her Twitter page as well as her blog.

Virtual Advent: NUTCRACKER AND MOUSE KING by ETA Hoffmann

2011-12-21T00:08:00.000-07:00

"She tossed her little coat on and flung open the door. Little Nutcracker was standing outside, with his bloody sword in his right hand and a wax candle in his left hand." Illustrations by Artus Scheiner, 1924.

It's not Christmas without The Nutcracker Ballet, which my mom makes me watch every year (the Mikhail Baryshnikov version). Although I do enjoy it now, when I was a kid I thought it was a little boring. For one, why is that girl all into a nutcracker? If I'd gotten that for a present at seven years old, I'd have been like, "What am I cracking again?" For another, once the nutcracker turns into a prince and things FINALLY start to get interesting, there's just a bunch of nonsensical dancing by people who are NOT the prince and princess for an hour and half. Plus, it has the type of ending I hate, where the girl wakes from the dream and says, "It was so real! And you were there, and you were there..." GAH.

I could say the ballet all makes sense these days, but honestly I feel the exact same way. I appreciate dancing and costumes more than I did when I was a kid, but my opinion of the plot is still pretty much what it was when I was seven. The Nutcracker is something that sounds great on paper--something that I always thought would make an awesome story--but in the end the ballet's never really about the story, so I'm disappointed.

I'd been under the impression for years that The Nutcracker was something Tchaikovsky had made-up; so imagine my surprise (and excitement) a few weeks ago when I learned that the ballet's actually based on a book! By famed Gothic writer ETA Hoffmann, written in 1816. I had never heard this before--or if I had, it didn't sink in--but naturally I immediately had to check it out and compare the two. I love it when the things I think will make a good book are actually books!

"Indeed, the godfather was altogether a very artistic man, who even knew a thing or two about clocks..."

Tchaikovsky's ballet is actually pretty similar to Hoffmann's original story, although a simplified version (I have to say, he did an excellent job of adapting it). It's about a little girl who gets a nutcracker for Christmas, saves him from an evil mouse king, and travels with him to another land where everything is made of candy, including his marzipan castle. But Nutcracker and Mouse King is a more cleverly told story, less linear and less fantastical than the ballet. In tone it's closer to the magical realism of something like Pan's Labyrinth--the magic isn't confined to dreams, it exists in the waking world and can bite you pretty damn hard in the ass.

What makes the book creepy are two things: first of all, no one believes Marie about the Mouse King. She's on her own trying to protect herself and the nutcracker. Second of all, there's Pate Drosselmeier, who is a benevolent character in the ballet, but not so much in the book. It's not that he's necessarily bad, or good, but that no one knows WHAT he is. He makes mechanical toys for the kids, but they're so delicate and sophisticated the children can't really play with them (and don't really want to). He mocks Marie one second and tells her stories about the nutcracker the next. He's not entirely trustworthy, which is terrifying because he seems very powerful.

"Actually, Marie didn't want to leave the Christmas table, for she had discovered something that no one else had as yet noticed."

The scary factor didn't have too much of an impact on me as an adult reader, but what I did really like about the book version much more than the ballet is that Marie's interest in the nutcracker here seems logical: he's not a Christmas present, just something she notices and gloms onto in the weird way kids have. Her dad tells her specifically he's not her present, but it becomes clear fairly quickly that she's adopted him anyway. Once the nutcracker starts coming to life, he shows a great deal of personality, has sparkling eyes, fighting skillz, and a romantic streak. Who wouldn't like the little guy?

The other thing that really fascinated me in this novel was, weirdly, the glass cabinet. The glass cabinet has all of Herr Drosselmeier's "presents" to the kids on the top shelf, and Marie's and Fritz's toys on the two bottom shelves, and it's where the nutcracker lives. I loved this because, one, the German propensity to collect knickknacks and then put them into cabinets never ceases to amaze me. You should see my grandparents' house, for realz. And two, this reminded me that as a little kid I was totes obsessed with all the things that were in my mom's and grandparents' glass cabinets. I wasn't allowed to touch any of them, which was guaranteed to make me wonder WHY and really want to look at them. The glass cabinets seemed like chests of tiny treasures, full of mystery and possibility, which was the perfect tone to strike in this story.

Finally, I really liked that Hoffmann's tale had a happy ending. In the ballet, it's all a dream, and Marie has to resign herself to a normal life after living in a fairy tale castle, which is a total bummer. But in Nutcracker and Mouse King, it's all real--and like Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth, at the end she gets to return to the fairy tale castle with her prince.

"Soon, rising like clouds of mist, Marie watched the silvery gauzes, in which the princesses, the pageboys, and Nutcracker swam."

This is definitely a story written to be read aloud to kids, and perfectly evokes the magic of Christmas from a child's perspective. There's not a much of a line between fantasy and reality, and Hoffmann makes no effort to draw one. The translation in my version was a little hinky (not that I have any of Hoffmann's other work to compare it to, whether German or English; but I'm going to go out on a limb and say he at least knew how to use pronouns correctly), but it was still a delight to read and reminded me what it was like to be a kid on Christmas Eve, which is awesome. I definitely recommend this book for kids of all ages!

Musical notes: "The Nutcracker Suite," of course!

This post is part of the 2011 Virtual Advent Tour. Check out the website for more postings.

Guest Post by Penelope Watson: FESTIVE AND FROSTY, PENELOPE'S HOLIDAY INSPIRATION

2011-12-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

It's almost Christmas! Are you in the holiday spirit yet? If you're not, I have the perfect person to help bring some cheer and wassail into your life: Penelope Watson is a blogger and romance author who writes Christmas romances. Welcome, Penny!

I have an unusual writing challenge. I write a holiday romance series about Santa Claus and the North Pole 365 days/year--The Klaus Brothers Series, published by The Wild Rose Press. Even during the hot, muggy months of summer, I need to feel frosty and festive. I accomplish this in several ways. One thing I do is surround myself with holiday decor all year long. Tiny Santas hang near my desk, whispering encouragement as I write. Wreaths adorn the windows. Antique Christmas knick-knacks line my shelves. Sometimes I play holiday music, especially my favorite Celine Dion Christmas album (don't laugh).

In the fall and winter, I grab a gingerbread latte from Starbucks every morning before I start writing. It really gets me in the holiday mood. I also love to simmer hot apple cider for the family. I put cinnamon sticks, cloves and mulling spices in a pot with apple cider, and bring it to a simmer on the stove top. The kids love it. And the adults sip it with a shot of Calvados (apple brandy). When the whole house smells like cinnamon and cloves, it definitely inspires holiday spirit and creativity.

Christmas is a huge holiday at our house. We entertain the entire family with good food and festive cocktails. I serve "kiddie-friendly" drinks for the younger crowd... sparkling apple cider, or our own concoction we like to call "Gin and J." It's 1 part ginger ale mixed with 1 part orange juice. Put it in a festive glass with some fruit (orange slices, maraschino cherries, etc) and the kids feel like they are getting a big treat.

My new favorite grown-up Christmas cocktail is called The Gingerbread Man. It packs a wallop, and it's the perfect drink for the holidays. If you're feeling brave, give it a try! (Here's the original link from Drinknation.com). I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season, and a Happy New Year!

Please stop by my website for more information about The Klaus Brothers Series: http://www.pennywatsonbooks.com/.

The Gingerbread Man Cocktail

1 part Bailey's Irish Cream
1 part Goldschläger
1 part butterscotch Schnapps
1 part vodka

Combine in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake it up, strain into shot glasses. Enjoy!

Thank you, Penny! I don't have that much alcohol in my entire house, I don't think. :(
If you want to find out more Penelope and her books, check her out on her blog, twitter, and FaceBook. Also check out Penny's latest release, Sweet Magic!

Guest Post by Colette Chmiel: ARROGANT HERO SYNDROME

2011-12-18T00:52:00.000-07:00

Today one of my blogging buddies, Colette from A Buckeye Girl Reads, is here to talk about her favorite type of romantic hero. Colette and I have a long-standing debate over one of the heroes she mentions in this post, so let's bring it! ;)

Everybody has a favorite type of hero. I'll be the first one to admit that I have a hero problem. I almost never go for the nice guy love interest for the heroine. No, I go to for the one that is moody, slightly boorish, demanding but has a heart of gold that only shows itself when he realizes he’s in love with the heroine. Yes, I have what I call the Arrogant Hero Syndrome. I just love those guys who with one line like: “One day you will kiss a man you can't breathe without, and find that breath is of little consequence.” (Barrons, Bloodfever by Karen Marie Moning) will totally win me over to their side with a blink of an eye.

I'm not sure when I developed the Arrogant Hero Syndrome, but I blame it totally on James Mallory, the hero of the first real romance book I read. He was the hero in A Gentle Rogue by Johanna Lindsey. He was this tougher then tough guy who totally melted for Georgie and I was hooked from that moment on for tough guys.

I don't know why I can't like the nice guy heroes. The ones who are charming, nice and would do anything for their heroine. With a few exceptions the nice guy heroes tend to bore me with their charm and obvious love for the heroine. They are open books, and what makes the arrogant hero so desirable to me is that you never know where they are coming from or going to. The ultimate example of the Arrogant Hero is Barrons from Karen Marie Moning's Fever series. There's almost nothing redeemable about him, but he's so mysterious, blunt and jerkish how can you not just love him? I'll be in the middle of wanting to smack him for lines like this one: “I'm sorry your pretty little world got all screwed up, but everybody's does, and you go on. It's how you go on that defines you.” (Bloodfever) Then we get a gem like this one: “You're leaving me, Rainbow Girl," (Dreamfever) and it makes me love him again. What can I say? I have book boyfriend issues!

Tell me, what kind of hero do you like best? The ones with the hidden heart of gold or the ones who are super sweet?

Some of my favorite Arrogant Hero Quotes:

"You undo me, Merit. Wholly and completely. You don't take me at my word. You challenge me at every opportunity. And that means when I'm with you, I am less than the head of this House... and I am more than the head of this House. I am a man." He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. "In my very, very long life, I need you more than I have ever needed anything. (Ethan, Twice Bitten by Chloe Neill)

He paused, then tapped a finger against the box. “This is a wish,” he said quietly, “that even after four hundred years of existence, a man can be strong enough to accept the gifts he’s given.”
“Ethan—,” I began, but he shook his head.
“I’m prepared to wait for a positive response.”
“That’s going to take a while.”
Ethan lifted a single eyebrow, a grin lifting one corner of his mouth. “Sentinel, I am immortal.” (Ethan, Twice Bitten by Chloe Neill)

“You know I do, aye? Love you right, Chessiebomb.” (Terrible, City of Ghosts by Stacia Kane)

“I am cursed with a terminal case of curiosity," he said. "I am jealous, selfish, acquisitive, territorial and possessive. I have a terrible temper, and I know I can be a cruel son of a bitch." He cocked his head. "I used to eat people, you know.” (Dragos, Dragon Bound)

Signs you have The Arrogant Hero Syndrome:

5. You find yourself skimming over parts of the book that don't have the bad guy love interest in them.
4. You have trouble reading books with Beta heroes in them.
3. Eye rolling occurs when the nice guy hero appears.
2. Shouting occurs when the heroine dares have a paragraph alone with the nice guy hero.
1. You find yourself defending heroes like Barrons and Ethan all over the place.

Thank you, Colette! I don't think I have arrogant hero syndrome, thank heavens. :)
You can find out more about Colette by checking her out on twitter and FaceBook.

Book Review: HURRELL'S HOLLYWOOD PORTRAITS by Mark A. Vieira

2011-12-17T00:15:00.000-07:00

When people think of Hollywood's "Golden Era," images of beautiful actresses and formidable leading men captured in a black-and-white that seems sharper and more brilliant than any color film dominates in one's mind. To a great extent, the definable "look" of Classic Hollywood is attributable to one man: photographer George Hurrell.

In this book, film scholar and photographer Mark A. Vieira discusses Hurrell's career and photographic techniques from 1925 to just before WWII. The book isn't as scholarly--or gossipy--as Sin in Soft Focus, also by Vieira, but it is the best book book about Hurrell that I've encountered so far. It's true that Vieira doesn't break a lot of new ground here (most of the information he gives about Hurrell's encounters with Hollywood's famous stars and his technique can be found in Hurrell Style), but he does present what he wants to discuss in a very readable and accessible writing style. There are several themes running through the book, but Vieira isn't heavy-handed with them, and for the most part this is a straight-forward mini-biography of a photographer. Also, the pictures in this book are very well-chosen to both illustrate the text and demonstrate the best of Hurrell's technique.

Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits sketches the story of an artist always impatient and on the move--Hurrell rarely stayed in one place more than two years before boredom had him dropping everything and moving on to something new, and that included college. Whitney Stine described Hurrell as a painter who turned his hobby of photography into a chance career; but the fact was that even though Hurrell went to school to be a fine artist, he had years of experience working as a retoucher and portrait photographer in Chicago. Even though he kept painting throughout his life, by the time he moved to California in the 1920s, he knew painting was too slow a process for him to make a career out of.

Please note this caption contains a typo; the subject's name is spelled Novarro.

The distinctive "Hurrell style" was characterized by sensuality, what Vieira calls an "almost-scientific" clarity, and abstraction achieved through unique lighting and framing of his subjects. When Hurrell started in photography, portraits where based on paintings (logically enough) and were very stiff and posed. They were also typically in soft-focus: the popular photographic style at the time was pictorialism, also known as the fuzzy-wuzzy school. Although pictorialism was artistic, there were practical reasons for it as well, since negatives at the time weren't very light-sensitive. Photographing someone in soft-focus was much easier on both the subject and the photographer.

Hurrell changed the soft-focus, posed portrait, at least within Hollywood. Partly because of new film and lenses that made it possible to create very sharp images, partly due to his new lighting technique, and partly due to the retouching techniques he adapted for both. Of all three, the lighting was probably the most innovative: Hurrell designed a boom light (like a boom mic, except for lighting) that he could hold and use to highlight the subject from any angle.

Traditionally portrait photographers used three stationary lights to highlight the subject from the front, back, and to shine on the backdrop. Hurrell didn't bother lighting the background, used the boom light to highlight their hair, and then had a reflective surface or another boom light them from below. And because he could move the boom light anywhere he wanted, he could pose the stars wherever he wanted, including the floor (incidentally, photographs of actresses lying on the floor were called "oomph" shots--and if you want to get an idea of what Hurrell's sessions for an oomph shot were like, according to the studio publicity department anyway, all you need to do is watch this scene from Blow-Up).

Flexibility with lighting and more light-sensitive film also gave Hurrell the opportunity to abstract his pictures into patterns of light of dark. He refused to let the stars wear foundation make-up while photographing them because he wanted to sculpt their faces with highlights and shadows that make-up flattened out.

Vieira's descriptions of Hurrell's photographic technique are solid and well worth the read if you're interested in photography. Not surprisingly, though, I was left wanting in his analysis of the images. He only briefly touches upon the abstraction that Hurrell was aiming for, and doesn't go into too much depth in placing Hurrell within the broader context of American photography or fine art.

Vieira also argues in some places that Hurrell captured some of the inner emotions and true character of his subjects. But I think in this case he's being torn between admiration for Hurrell and trying to make him appealing given our culture's current obsession with verism. If Hurrell did happen to catch a star's inner character, then I suspect that it was totally by accident and incidental in any event. From the very beginning, what Hurrell was really gifted at was making fantasy seem like reality. When Ramon Novarro, Hurrell's first celebrity client, showed his series of photographs by Hurrell to his friends, one of them said, "This isn't you, Ramon." That was the point--Novarro wanted to move from silent films to opera because of he was afraid his accent would make him unappealing in 'talkies,' but how to convince people he'd believable as an opera star? The answer was to pose in various operatic roles and have Hurrell photograph him.

And it worked! When Novarro showed the photographs to a studio exec, he was immediately cast in a movie where he could sing four light-opera songs. Likewise, Norma Shearer, Hurrell's next celebrity client, was such a straight-arrow that her own husband didn't believe she could star as a vamp in The Divorcee, until Hurrell took a series of photographs of her in a silk kimono.

What Hurrell and the studio publicity departments fed the public wasn't reality--it wasn't anything close to reality. Take, for example, this photograph of Joan Crawford before and after retouching. Even taken with my crappy cell phone camera, you can see a dramatic difference in the two images. Before retouching, Crawford has wrinkles, sunspots, and freckles; after retouching, she looks not just twenty years younger, but probably better than she looked when she was twenty years younger! The Joan Crawford of Hurrell photographs never existed, and the images in his portraits are idealizations, not reality.

In the opening paragraph of this book, Vieira wrote, "Hollywood aped our culture, fed our culture, and to certain extent was our culture." Considering that, one has to wonder if he's drunk a bit of the glamor koolaid. If he has, one can hardly blame him--everyone drank the koolaid, even the people who were actually living the reality! Hurrell himself said of pre-War Hollywood, "Those days were like a storybook.... We were the children of the gods." When Cecil Beaton visited Hollywood in 1930, he wrote, "Apollos and Venuses are everywhere. It is as if the whole race of gods had come to California. Walking along the sidewalks... I see classic oval faces that might have sat to Praxiteles. The girls are all bleached and painted with sunburn enamel." Ann Sheridan reflected, "There was a certain kind of fantasy, a certain imagination that is not accepted now. The world is too small."

I think Sheridan has the right of it: pre-War Hollywood was a time and place where the line between fantasy and reality was indistinct, maybe even non-existent, and the pictures--both still and moving--that were based on fantasy were so powerful they produced their own reality. It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. That may not be true--in fact, photographs often need words in order to make sense--but I do know a picture, no matter how fabricated, is more memorable and convincing than any description in words. The stars of Hurrell's portraits were envisioned as eternally young, beautiful, and ready, and thus that's their enduring image.

Book Review: SNOWBOUND WITH THE NOTORIOUS RAKE by Sarah Mallory

2011-12-16T00:02:00.002-07:00

Proposed alternate title: Rosemary for Remembrance

Rose, a sensible widow, is stranded in a hunting lodge over Christmas due to a blizzard. The lodge's owner, Sir Lawrence Daunton, is there all alone, drinking himself into oblivion and having a pity party. Although Sir Lawrence's rakish reputation precedes him and Rose is determined not to fall for another rogue, they decide to crank the spit and roast some chicken anyway--IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN--and they fall in love. But will Sir Lawrence be able to convince Rose he's a changed man before she marries someone else?

This book is what's called a "cabin romance"--kind of like a house party romance, but with only two people. Trapped alone together in a tiny space. Who knows what could happen?! The charm of a cabin romance is that two people who would otherwise not normally socialize have to cooperate and get to know one another very well by simple necessity. Unfortunately, in Snowbound with the Notorious Rake, Rose and Lawrence are of a similar social set and I'm not sure the 'cabin' part of their romance was necessary for them to 'fall in love.'

The book started out pretty good, if extremely silly. I really liked that Rose was practical and experienced, as well as the sexual aggressor in the relationship. Once the romance moved out of the hunting lodge, however, the story lost a lot of momentum and seemed to go into a rejection repeat cycle. There are reasons for Rose to be cautious about a relationship with Sir Lawrence, but since he never behaves in any way that's remotely rakish during the entire course of the novel and is pretty obviously reformed, her repeated rejections don't seem justified.

Any connection between the two characters is indicated through tell and not show--the author tells us they feel a connection, but Rose's actions suggest rather that she believes Sir Lawrence has the moral compass of a Goldman-Sachs executive. Furthermore, it gets more and more difficult to sympathize with Rose because she's actually kind of mean; at one point she says, "I cannot imagine any sensible person asking you to stand godparent to their child." Wow, really? It's not as if he's a pedophile. Instead of telling Rose to go eff herself in a snowbank--which is what I would have done in his shoes--Sir Lawrence just brushes it off; but one has to wonder exactly how and why Rose is in love with someone of whom she has such a low opinion.

As for Sir Lawrence, he's just kinda there. He's actually actually very nice and polite and thoroughly bland. Rose's fiancee-the-second-time-around (don't most people usually break up after one of them decides they shouldn't get married?) is a total prat, yet she persists in thinking he's an upstanding citizen, which is another nail in her relatability coffin.

Overall this book is way too long, with tons of silliness that quickly descends into nonsensicalness. The characters aren't believable, and nothing very interesting happens. I will say that Rose's son, Sam, was the perfect balance between incorrigible child and convenient plot device, but beyond that I didn't find a lot to enjoy in this book.

Musical notes: "Last Christmas" by Wham! Eighties fashions!

Guest Review II

2011-12-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! Just a heads up that Violet Crush has a post about Lisa Kleypas' Hathaway series up in honor of Romance Month. Check it out!