Reading Challenge Books #15-17

Book 15 was The Magician's Assistant, by Ann Patchett.  I enjoyed it, and managed to read it in under two days (difficult with three little kids!).  I'd previously read and loved Bel Canto by the same author, and so when I saw this one while unpacking books, I made sure to put it on my too-be-read-soon pile.  I still have no idea how this book ended up at our house though.  Neither my husband nor I have any memory of buying it.  Perhaps our books are breeding on the shelves or moving boxes, as the case may be.  Anyway, as in Bel Canto, I'll be pretending the ending just didn't happen.

Book 16 was The Age of Dreaming, by Nina Revoyr.  Interesting story, wonderful characters and plot, but a bit heavy handed on the foreshadowing.  I think this may just be a personal stylistic dislike, but I roll my eyes a bit every time the narrator flat out tells us there is something still to be revealed about his story.

Book 17 was A Gathering of Old Men, by Ernest J. Gaines.  Another book that appeared on our shelves apparently of its own volition.  This one came complete with highlighting and notes in the back.  The notes are not in either my or my husband's handwriting.  Neither of us recognizes the handwriting.  I really liked the numerous narrators.  Very good read.

Tomato Jam

We joined a CSA a few weeks ago, with a local farm called Comeback Creek.  We've been getting a ton of tomatoes, and have not been able to keep up with them.  I asked for suggestions, and someone mentioned tomato jam.  Perfect.  I googled for recipes, and settled on this one, as my husband said he'd prefer one that was more on the spicy side than the sweet.   I ended up adding a bit more cayenne pepper.  We started with this:

After 3 hours or so of simmering, I took out our stick blender to get rid of some of the larger pieces of skin:

All canned!

2012 Reading Challenge #14

Book 14 was City of Dragons, by Robin Hobb.  I realized that I was wrong, and it is not a trilogy.   Bah.  That makes my assessment of the previous book worse.  Book 2 of a series of indeterminate length is too soon for a filler book.  Book 3 was better, but it was odd to go from a book focused on only one plot line, to one that developed 3-4 new ones.

2012 Reading Challenge #13

Book 13 was Dragon Haven, by Robin Hobb.  It was pretty much what you might expect from the middle book of a trilogy:  it sets up the final book nicely, and has a few independent moments of excitement, but overall the reader is just settling into the story.  I'm glad I read it, and am looking forward to the final book, but I am also glad I decided to check the books out from the library rather than buying them.

2012 Book #12

Book #12 was Dragon Keeper, by Robin Hobb.  My father-in-law and his wife gave this to me as a Christmas gift, and I just got around to reading it this week.  I loved her Farseer trilogy, and the Tawny Man trilogy that followed in the same world, but did not enjoy the Soldier Son trilogy very much.  Dragon Keeper returns to the same world as the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies (and presumably the Liveship Trader trilogy, but I haven't read those).  My favorite part of this book was the point of view chapters from the dragons.  I sped through this book in about three days.  We're headed on vacation tomorrow, and I requested the two other books in the trilogy from my library.  That is the nice thing about finding a series after its is already written -- no waiting for the next book to come out!

2012 Book #11

Book 11 was In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson.  I picked this one up at an airport book store after finishing another book earlier than I anticipated.  I had not brought any work with me, and my iPad's battery was about to die, and I still had a good two hours before my delayed plane was to take off, plus the hour and a half flight to look forward to.  Usually when I find myself needing something to read in an airport I go for pure escape reading.  This book is not that (the Nazis on the cover should be a dead giveaway).  I was excited to see it though.  My husband bought me The Devil in the White City several years ago, and I bought Thunderstruck later based almost entirely on my enjoyment of The Devil in the White City.

I enjoyed In the Garden of Beasts very much, although probably not as much as The Devil in the White City.  I think that is largely because I did not know the story in the latter, and well, we all know how Nazi Germany worked out.  My one quibble, and it is a quibble I've had with all three Larson books I've read so far, is with his tendency to end chapters with a sort of foreshadowing, but not getting to the subject again for ages, sometimes long after I've forgotten to be on the lookout.  For example, we're told at the end of chapter 8 that meeting the young and sexually assertive Martha Young gave Hanfstaengl an idea.  The sentence that ends the chapter -- "Which gave him an idea." -- is set off as it own paragraph, clearly emphasized.  But the idea isn't revealed until Chapter 19 - eighty pages later. There are enough moving parts to the story that by the time the idea was revealed, I had forgotten to be looking out for it at all, which sort of defeats the foreshadowing.

Overall though, I really liked the book, and have added other Larson books to my to-buy list of books.

Reading Challenge Book 10

Book ten was Crown of Stars, by Kate Elliott.  The last in the Crown Of Stars series, and I am glad I stuck the series out.  (I did inadvertently skip one of the books in the middle.)  This one felt a bit rushed, especially the last few chapters.  I liked the way the story wrapped up though.  I usually hate the endings of books, and I thought this one was perfectly adequate.  My husband kept asking me throughout my time reading the series if I knew who Alain was.  From the way he was asking, I figured there must be a big reveal somewhere, but then there wasn't. I'm glad there wasn't, and glad I didn't miss some huge glaringly obvious hint from somewhere around the book I skipped.