Books and More Books

I've been on a reading kick lately. Here are a few novels I've enjoyed:

Part mystery, part family drama, I finished this novel in two days flat. Great writing. Highly recommended.

I loved the premise of this book - a post-apocalyptic re-imagining of the Lewis and Clark saga - but it didn't quite live up to expectations. If you like post-apocalyptic stories, you'll enjoy this. If not, don't bother.

 

This is the best book I've read in years. A gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.

I loved this book. Set deep in the Appalachian wilderness between the years of 1779 and 1784, The Land Breakers is a saga of early America and the homesteading life. If you like historical fiction, this book is for you.

Fall is Coming...here's a recipe!

Seafood Chowder

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large onions, diced
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 4-6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3-4 tablespoons seafood seasoning (such as Old Bay)
• 1-quart chicken or vegetable broth
• 6 potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 cup water or white wine, as needed to cover (optional)
• 4 cups whole milk, or more as needed
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2-ish pounds thick cod fillets, cut into 1-inch pieces
• Add a few scallops, clams, shrimp, or whatever additional seafood you’d like
• ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions

Cook onion in olive oil until softened, about 5 minutes; season with salt and pepper. Stir in garlic, white wine, and seafood seasoning and cook and stir 2 more minutes.

Pour in chicken (or vegetable) broth and stir in potatoes; add water if needed to cover vegetables. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low; simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Stir in milk and butter until butter has melted. Bring the soup just to the boiling point and stir in cod and parsley; cook, stirring occasionally, until fish flakes easily, 5 to 8 minutes.

Season with additional Old Bay to taste. Serve with Parmesan cheese and hot sauce on the side.

Some Dark Titles

Not everyone loves the holiday season. Personally, I go back and forth on it. Sometimes I enjoy all the festivities and sometimes I can't wait for it to end.

If you're more like the latter, here's some great, dark novels for you to enjoy this holiday season.

A well-written, violent account of the American west.

A short book about a man avenging the death of his dog.

An epic novel about an old man, his orchard, and two abused sisters who end up living with him.

A fictionalized account of a North Korean man who works for the military and struggles with the "Dear Leader".

Bone Broth

Since reading an article in the NY Times about the benefits of bone broth, I find myself doing two things - cooking a lot more, and shopping at Save A Lot. 

As for the first one, cooking is something I've enjoyed for a long time, although I tend to lean heavily towards soups, stews, and anything that can be made in the crock pot. Oh I'll do a little baking now and then but noting fancy. One-pot meals are my specialty.

This is, of course, why I was pleased to read that drinking broth is good for you (except for the sodium, which I'm working on. Broth is packed with all kinds of nutrients and, frankly, it's delicious as hell. And so now I find myself cooking more of it.

This leads to my second new habit - shopping at Save A Lot.

If you're not familiar with Save A Lot, I guess you could call them a deep discount grocer. Considerably smaller than Shaw's or Stop and Shop, as far as physical store size goes, they have fresh produce, a full meat department, dairy, frozen foods and assorted other stuff, most of it private label.

Anyway, I'll cut right to it. Now that I'm a bone broth aficionado, I know that often the cheapest cuts (and bones) make the best broth. I'm talking about chicken feet and cow's tails, here. 

And since Save A Lot carries all the cheapest cuts, that's where I've been shopping. Now before you get all snobby on me, consider this: one giant pot of soup with ingredients purchased at Save A Lot costs me approximately eight dollars.And that includes everything from the bones to the veggies and the spices. 

That one eight dollar pot of delicious soup lasts me more than a week and forms the basis of several meals. It also freezes well.

So there you have it. Amazing the things you write about on a snowy New England morning.

Stephen King's Third Chance is a Charm

Around the time I turned twenty years old, I gave up on Stephen King.

To my mind, his best work was behind him and, for the most part, this turned out to be true.

But then I read his book On Writing and was impressed all over again. This lead to King's second renaissance for me.

My mistake after that was attempting to read The Dome, which is when I gave up on Mr. King yet again. It was just too damn long.

And now, after reading Revival, King's latest and much more reasonable-sized novel, I'm giving him a third chance.

King's latest is a fun read and a book he likely couldn't have written in his younger days anyway.

Is this book the King of old, the guy who wrote The Stand, Salem's Lot, and The Shining? No. But who is the same person decade after decade?

Next up is 11/22/63 for me. I'll let you know how it goes.

If you're interested in some recent books I've read or ones I want to read, check out my Goodreads page.

Some Great Obscure Books

I've been on a reading kick of late. Here are the last few books I've enjoyed.

Revamping Funerals

Why must funeral parlors be called "parlors"?

Aside from being an outdated term - what house has a parlor anymore? - the whole funeral industry could do with a little revamping if you ask me. Even the more modern "funeral home", with its fancy couches and dark wood is antiquated.

I say it's high time to add some pizzazz to the death business.

I'm not suggesting we completely do away with the serious send-offs currently in use, especially if that's what people want. But isn't there a little wiggle room here? Why must we always be so stiff and formal? (Ok, stiff I get. Formal, not so much.)

Why not a funky funeral den with, say, a seventies theme? Sunken couches, green glass ashtrays, maybe a little Led Zep or Floyd in the background, a smoke machine. Or for those so inclined, an eighties sendoff, complete with parachute pants, Izod shirts, and the smell of Aqua Net wafting through the air. Cyndi Lauper singing Time after Time could be looped over and over.

How about an "adventure funeral" where friends get to celebrate being alive by jumping from an airplane or dangling from a bungee cord? Although, as a confirmed coward where heights are concerned, I'm not sure how these activities help people celebrate life. But to each his own.

For the more civic-minded among us, we could hold charitable funerals by cleaning up a public park or something equally altruistic. For deceased sports fans we could have baseball or football games.

When you think about it, the possibilities are endless. Yet here we are with the same white funeral homes with black shutters, fancy cars, and empathetic-looking ushers that keep wake lines moving. Just once I'd like to experience something different. Before I croak myself, that is.

Other countries seem much looser with their death rituals than we Americans. In Greece, one funeral tradition was to invite the funniest man in the village and mourners spent the night laughing and celebrating. Tibetan Buddhists practice “Sky Burials” by chopping their dead into pieces and feeding them to birds. The Taiwanese hire bands of strippers to attend funerals and entertain mourners.

So it's not like the whole alternative funeral thing is without precedent. And sure there are pockets of individuality here in the United States . Biker funerals can be pretty interesting, for example. But that's about it as far as I can tell.

Were I to die tomorrow, I'd want all my friends and relatives to come over my house and have their way with my belongings. See a book you like? By all means take it. Know a Grateful Dead fan who might like the 300 or so live shows I've collected over the years? If you do - and chances are, you don't - they're yours for the taking.

After everyone took whatever they wanted, I'd want someone to sell off the rest my belongings and either throw a giant party or donate it to charity. Since I'm already dead in this scenario, I'll leave the choice up to someone else.

On Writing Nothing

Is there anything scarier than a blank page? Not to me there isn’t. 

Some people don’t like deadlines or public speaking. Others fear death, heights, even dogs. For me, it’s the glowing white Microsoft Word, screen, the one without any words on it. Just thinking about it makes me tense. My jaw clenches, my shoulders stiffen and I get that funny tic under my left eyelid. 

On the days (mornings usually) that I end up filling the empty page with words, I feel myself relax. And the more words I write, the better I feel. Writing is equal parts therapy and exercise. I feel as satisfied after writing 1,000 good words as I do after playing a vigorous game of racquetball. Each activity leads to a sort of peacableness of existence for me.

But when the opposite is true, when the words don’t come, I sit there stiff as a tree branch and stare into the monitor until I give up in frustration. When this happens, I’m tense for most of the rest of the day. Sometimes this lasts for days or weeks, this tenseness. And even though it’s always gone away, granted after varying lengths of time, I always wonder the same thing: will I ever write again?