Wordless Wednesday: Iris

To participate in the Wordless Wednesday meme, add your link here.

An Armchair BEA Giveaway -- and Initial Thoughts on The Penelopiad

My friend Bellezza at Dolce Bellezza and I are reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad this week, as part of the Read-A-Myth Challenge – and some other bloggers have decided to join in as well! We’re going to post our reviews on May 30. The book is short, there’s plenty of time, so please feel free to join us as well!

So after an evening of reading, here are my initial thoughts and questions about what I’ve read. And there’s a giveaway too!

First, I was not prepared for how funny it was going to be:

After her wedding to Odysseus:
“And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat. A package of meat in a wrapping of gold, mind you. A sort of gilded blood pudding.” (pg. 39)

Also, Penelope is a far saucier character than I imagined!

On her mother-in-law:
“That Anticleia would freeze the b*lls off Helios.” (pg. 61)

I am wondering about Penelope’s mother. I had no idea that she was a Naiad. Is that in the original story? Isn’t it interesting to give the most steadfast character in Greek mythology the flightiest of mothers? So far I absolutely love the book. I hope everyone else is enjoying it as well!

The Giveaway

To celebrate my Armchair BEA, as well as our book buddy read-along, I’m giving away the winner’s choice of any of the books in the Canongate Myth series available through the Book Depository (so the contest is international, but you must live in a country where Book Depository offers free delivery). To enter, just follow this blog on GFC (below, right) and leave a comment with your email, so I can contact you! Each entry will be assigned a number, and I'll use random.org to pick the winning digits! Giveaway is open until May 27.

The Canongate Myth Series allows modern authors to reimagine traditional myths from many cultures. For those of you not familiar, here are the books in the series:

A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Weight, Jeanette Winterson
The Helmet of Horror, Victor Pelevin (trans. Andrew Bromfield)
Lion's Honey, David Grossman (trans. Stuart Schoffman)
Dream Angus, Alexander McCall Smith
Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith
Binu and the Great Wall, Su Tong (trans. Howard Goldblatt)
Where Three Roads Meet, Salley Vickers
Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Dubravka Ugrešić
The Fire Gospel, Michel Faber
The Myth of Izanagi and Izanami, Natsuo Kirino
Orphans of Eldorado, Milton Hatoum Mythology of Amazonia
The Hurricane Party, Klas Östergren
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman

Good luck, and thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to check out the other giveaways at Armchair BEA Central!

Armchair BEA Day 1: Why Col Reads

Getting tenure is a crazy thing. You read and you research and you research and you read until you think you never want to see another book! At least that’s what happened to me. When I finally got the fabulous news that I had indeed earned tenure, I had what I call an “end-of-the-wedding” moment. You know what I mean: you realize you’ve been so fixated on the current goal (throwing a huge party, having a baby, securing employment for the rest of your life, insert life altering event here) that you forgot to think about WHAT COMES NEXT!

It dawned on me that without the avenging Erinyes breathing down my neck, I could actually have some FUN. So I did what any nerd would do: I went out and bought a novel that had absolutely NOTHING to do with my work! And I read it in one sitting. It was awesome.

Right then and there I decided what gift I wanted for earning tenure: the gift of reading for pleasure again. And that, my friends, is why Col Reads!

My first thought was to join a book group, but I didn’t know anyone who was part of one. I didn’t know that many people in town – there’s nothing like the tenure track to make a hermit out of even the most social being – so starting my own book group wasn’t really an option. So I did some research online, and found my first reading challenge, the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge hosted by Beth Fish Reads. I needed someplace to park my reviews, so voila: a blog was born.

Because I read for pure pleasure, I read a quirky and eclectic mix of books: international literary fiction, classics, non-fiction and mysteries are my favorite genres, but there’s almost nothing I won’t try at least once! I love the social aspects of book blogging, and I’ve “met” some wonderful people from around the world with similar reading interests – not easy to find in a small college town! I love to use challenges to find new reading ideas and new blogs to follow. If you leave me a message and a link, I’d love to check out yours!

Hope you’re enjoying Armchair BEA!

Weekend Cooking: Sweet Potato Pie Pancakes

When Saturday night’s dinner leaves you with a leftover sweet potato, plan on these pancakes for Sunday morning. In fact, if you don’t have sweet potatoes on the menu, it’s worth throwing one in the oven, just to make this breakfast treat!

Col's Sweet Potato Pie Pancakes*
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
1 large sweet potato, baked
2 cups coconut milk
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 Tblsp. agave nectar (brown sugar or honey would work fine)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Sift dry ingredients, including spices, into a large bowl.
2. Place peeled sweet potato, milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla into a blender. Blend to puree sweet potato.
3. Pour sweet potato mixture into the dry ingredients. Whisk to combine, but don’t over mix.
4. Butter a griddle; pour ¼ cup of mixture onto griddle for each pancake. (The sweet potato has a tendency to burn, so I keep my griddle lower than with other pancakes – about 325 degrees F.) Flip the pancakes when the bubbles around the edges burst and remain open.
5. Serve with maple syrup or whipped cream. Walnuts would be a fine idea too!

*I know I owe you a pay-off shot, but the kids ate the pancakes so quickly I didn't get a shot of them on the plates!


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 anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting!

Saturday Snapshot: Orange Azaleas

Despite the rainy weather, the orange azalea in front of our porch is starting to bloom. I love the peachy blossoms!

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme, bloggers are asked to post a photo that they (or a friend or family member) have taken, then leave a direct link to your post on the Saturday Snapshot site. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. All she asks is that you don't post random photos that you find online. Thanks to Alyce at At Home With Books for hosting!

Book Review: The Mistress of Spices

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices has been on my TBR list for some time, so when Jess over at Desperado Penguin and I were looking for our next foodie simul-blog, I suggested it. It seemed to have at least three elements I love in a novel: a strong, female protagonist, a focus on food and a clash of cultures. And I was right. Divakaruni has written a very modern novel steeped in magic realism with interesting, likeable characters and a real multi-cultural vibe. I should have loved it. But somehow, the balance was just a bit wrong for me, like a curry that has too much cumin and not enough ginger to smooth it out. It was good, it was punchy, but it wasn’t totally satisfying.

I think one problem might have been the balance of the story arc. We meet Tilo, our mystical Mistress of Spices, in Oakland, California, a seemingly ancient spice vendor with an Indian grocery in a rough part of town. Tilo’s first person narration dispatches two former “selves” – her childhood as a sorceress and her young adulthood as a pirate queen – in just a few unflattering pages. So when she arrives at the Island of Spices to begin her long apprenticeship to learn the magic arts of healing through spices and become an immortal mistress charged with helping the people of the subcontinent wherever they are in the world, I wasn’t convinced that the selfless, diligent life of a Spice Mistress represented her real destiny.

The other problem was the spices themselves. Who knew condiments could be such demanding characters? Divakaruni emphasizes their individual properties by naming each of her chapters after different spices. But rather than giving them unique personalities or voices within the book, they function together as a kind of harping Greek chorus. First they love Tilo. Then they’re angry at Tilo. They do her bidding. Then they don’t. But Tilo is still Tilo. At the end of the novel, Tilo is still a fabulously gifted but restless woman who doesn’t listen. She didn’t listen to her parents. She wasn’t content on the pirate ship. Why would we think she could follow the rules of a collection of seeds and leaves somewhere on the Pacific Coast?

Tilo how little you have understood. From the deep the voice is a hiss, like water on a hot iron. Or is it a sigh? Like the waterfall the avalanche the forest fire, we do not hate. We only do what we must. p. 304

What saved the book for me was the very quirky, forbidden love story that winds through the novel. Raven, Tilo’s “American,” is the only one who can see through her ancient body to the beautiful, immortal woman underneath. His story is one of the most interesting aspects of the novel. I loved Divakaruni’s musings on the expectations that people bring to multi-cultural relationships. And the story brought a great deal of tension to the end of the book, as I wondered whether or not Tilo could ever find a way out of the mess she’d made by interfering with the work of the spices.

Magic realism lovers and lovers of South Asian fiction will definitely find something to like in this title. It has a trippy, romantic feel that would probably be very appealing to chic lit readers – and indeed, my 16-year-old, chic lit-loving daughter adored this book. For me, it was a good but not great read. But it was a fun simul-blog, as it provoked some fun twitter chatter as we were reading. Why don’t you head over to the Desperado Penguin and her review?

This book also counts for two challenges, the South Asian Challenge and the Immigrant Stories Challenge. Thanks to Swapna and Colleen for hosting!

Booking Through Thursday: Age Inappropriate

Question: In contrast to last week’s question–What do you think of censoring books BECAUSE of their intended age? Say, books too “old” for your kids to read?

A great question. I am absolutely against anyone designating a book inappropriate for a child because of reading ability. Sometimes the best way for a child to make a “leap” in his or her reading skills is to stretch and read a book that is a bit too hard, because they are particularly interested in the content or because their friends or siblings have recommended it. My younger daughter finally stopped being intimidated by “big books” when her best friend went Percy Jackson-crazy. She needed help with a bunch of words, but by the end of the book she was doing great – she’d taken a huge step reading-wise, even though the book was probably a bit too difficult.

Of course, content is another issue. A parent or a teacher who knows a child well may have enough information about his or her emotional state to worry about themes being too frightening or disturbing for a child. I would never say “Never” to a title, but I would discuss with my daughter what I saw as the pros and cons of a book. I would even read a chapter or two with her. Most of all, I try not to let my own feelings, tastes and prejudices keep my daughters from titles that might be right for them. Perfect example: I would never pick up a title like Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. But a teacher recommended it to my oldest daughter in 10th grade, and she absolutely loved it. Sometimes your kids do know best!

And sometimes family norms and values allow for books that others would never dream of reading. Our kids live in a family where a quirky – even a dark – sense of humor is highly prized. Around here, Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies is bedtime reading around Halloween. Twenty-six kids coming to 26 elaborate ends might not be the stuff of sweet dreams in every house, but it’s so very absurd that my kids and I absolutely crack up!*

What about you? Is anything age inappropriate at your house?

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme about (mostly) books and reading. To participate, just copy the week’s question, answer on your blog, and link the answer in the comments for that week. Thanks to Deb for hosting!



*Weird, I admit, but realistic child violence is really disturbing to me, and cartoonish mayhem not at all. Adults, like kids, need to know their limits!