On the Coffee Table: Sarah J. Maas

Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas

via Amazon

The Throne of Glass series is our daughter's current favorite.  She even has a TofG-themed iPhone case.  She is devoted to fantasy in general and given that the story is led by a booty-kicking female protagonist, her interest is not surprising. 

I was frustrated with the book in the beginning.  Maas employs a detail-dump approach whenever she
introduces a new character or setting.  I get that imagery is important to a lot of readers.  I just prefer a bit more subtlety.  Throne of Glass is rarely subtle.

Despite my early misgivings, I got caught up in the story.  Celaena Sardothien was the most notorious assassin in the kingdom until she was captured and sent away to a slave camp.  One day, the crown prince springs her out of her misery with the promise that if she wins a competition back at the castle, she will eventually gain her freedom.  Meanwhile, there is a mysterious evil afoot.  The other competitors are being gruesomely murdered, one by one.

There aren't a lot of plot twists.  Pretty much everyone turns out to be who you expect them to be.  The most interesting narrative developments come in the evolving relationships between characters.  The people don't change much but the way they see each other does.  Celaena herself is a bit puzzling: an effective but not entirely cold-hearted killer.  There's romance along the way, too: a love triangle between Celaena, the prince (Dorian) and the captain of the guard (Chaol).

Even with the lack of subtlety, there is occasional elegance in the language.  The story is absorbing and it reads quickly.  The world building is admirable: languages, races, religions.  Overall, I'd rate the book above Percy Jackson but below Diana Wynne Jones's Howl series.  Daughter tells me the second book is better so I'm intrigued.  After all, I don't even know the saga well enough to understand the quote on her phone case yet.  There's a TV show in production, too, air date TBD.

On the Coffee Table: French Milk

Title: French Milk
Writer and Artist: Lucy Knisley

via Amazon

French Milk is Knisley's self-illustrated travel diary of the six weeks she and her mother spent living in Paris.  This was my second dip into Knisley's work, having read Relish a few years ago (see here).  Interspersed with her drawings are photographs, often of the same subjects which makes for interesting side-by-side comparisons.  Knisley's art represents simplified and somewhat idealized versions of reality.

I was a little disappointed in this book.  Lots of shopping and eating - okay, I can't say I really mind the eating as I myself do plenty of writing about eating.  But I guess I was hoping for deeper cultural insights whereas most of Knisley's material is about... herself.  The blurb on the back cover promises a personal look at the mother-daughter relationship but I'm not sure we really got much of that either.  Perhaps it is honest and realistic.  It's just not what I wanted. 

Squid Mixes: Rum Swizzle

The rum swizzle is considered by some to be the national drink of Bermuda, though others claim it is the dark 'n' stormy.  My recipe, from The New York Bartender's Guide, combines dark rum with lime juice, Angostura bitters, sugar and sparkling water.  Drinks described as swizzles date as far back as the mid-18th century.  The swizzle stick was named for the beverage.

For us, the drink was a vehicle for the Mad River First Run Rum we got as part of our Advent adventures (see here).  The lime juice supplies most of the flavor but the rum does bring a pleasant warmth to the party.

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: January 2018 Blog List

 

Greetings to all!  I hope you'll join us for the next installment of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, an online gathering of bloggers who love books.  The next meeting is set for Friday, January 26th.  If you're interested, please sign on to the link list at the end of this post.

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.  Please join us:

Cephalopod Coffeehouse: December 2017

Welcome one and all to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, a cozy gathering of book lovers, meeting to discuss their thoughts regarding the works they enjoyed most over the previous month.  Pull up a chair, order your cappuccino and join in the fun.  If you wish to add your own review to the conversation, please sign on to the link list at the end of my post.

Title: The Man Who Ate Everything
Author: Jeffrey Steingarten

via Amazon

Jeffrey Steingarten has been the food critic for Vogue magazine since 1989.  The Man Who Ate Everything is a collection his articles, published in 1997.  His work reminds me of Calvin Trillin's which I explored a couple of years ago: a comparable sense of humor, maybe slightly higher brow.  Steingarten is just as enthusiastic an eater as Trillin but he is a far more competent cook, willing to spend hours in his kitchen testing recipes.  He shares Trillin's passion for barbecue, though he is not as partial to one style as Trillin is to Kansas City.  Steingarten even pokes some fun at Trillin by name in his chapter on fruitcake.

Many of the chapters had my mouth watering, none more so than "Playing Ketchup," a self-devised taste test of numerous varieties of the ubiquitous American red sauce.  True to the title of the book, Steingarten's no snob.  While he samples all of the gourmet products he could find, he is partial to good ol' Heinz 57.  In another chapter, Steingarten justifies taking the risks of eating shellfish by resolving not to ski in exchange.  Of course, he doesn't ski anyway.

While I didn't enjoy Steingarten quite as much as I did Trillin, I'm still glad to have read the book and would happily read more.

Please join us and share your own review of your best read from the past month.  This month's link list is below.  I'll keep it open until the end of the day.  I'll post January's tomorrow.  Meetings are the last Friday of each month.  Next gathering is January 26th.

On the Coffee Table: Warren Berger

Title: A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
Author: Warren Berger

via Amazon

This is yet another of the excellent books I've been assigned to read as part of my graduate school program.  This is one of our guiding texts as we embark upon the action research thread of our journey.

Berger advocates using the inquiry process to tackle all of life's big struggles.  Rather than always seeking answers, we should embrace the power of the questions themselves.  As he shares in the book, this approach has led to such innovations as the Polaroid camera, Netflix and better, stronger, more affordable prosthetic limbs.  Successful and innovative companies such as Google, IDEO and Airbnb have thrived on developing corporate cultures that encourage inquiry and exploration.  Berger outlines a simple process for incorporating the strategy in our own lives: developing innovations in our own work, in our schools, redefining personal relationships or even planning a career move.

It's an inspiring and liberating idea.  Too often, one bucks up against the How to? in life and gives up.  But Berger shows how you can get out of that trap: with more questions.  This is certainly a book I will come back to and share with others.

Squid Mixes: Cosmopolitan

Cheers from our winter wonderland!

 A cosmopolitan, cosmo for short, combines cranberry juice with vodka, lime juice and triple sec.  I got my recipe from The New York Bartender's Guide.  The lime juice supplies most of the flavor, the cranberry juice the color.  My effort was a bit cloudy but the wife described it as lovely and asked for a second one so I guess it was a success.  Cosmos took off in the late 1990s when they were prominently featured in the television sitcom, Sex and the City.