Susanna Fraser's Blog, page 30
May 8, 2012
What I've read while editing
I turned in my developmental edits for An Infamous Marriage on Sunday night, so I figure it's time to return to the land of the blogging.
The edits kept me too busy to read much, but over the past couple weeks I did finish five books toward my goal of at least 75 books this year:
40) Bar Sinister, by Sheila Simonson. Simonson published four traditional Regencies about a linked set of characters, and I've now read them all. I almost hesitate to call them romances--the love story here is more a subplot, an undercurrent, than anything else. But Simonson has a knack for creating fully realized communities of characters, and I'm always pleased to run across another writer who knows her Peninsular War and Waterloo military history cold.
41) How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm, by Mei-Ling Hopgood. Explores a variety of childcare practices around the world that would be mutually appalling to members of other cultures. Fascinating if you're at all interested in cultural anthropology, and gives the overall cheering message that children are fairly resilient and adaptable.
42) The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, by Caroline Preston. Coming-of-age story of a 1920's New England girl, "a novel in pictures" featuring vintage memorabilia. I don't think I'd enjoy a steady diet of such books--most of the time I'd rather read the words and let my imagination supply the pictures--but this was a fun way to pass a sunny Sunday afternoon reading out on the deck. That said, I get so TIRED of stories where a young woman goes off to the big city, only to ultimately return to her hometown and the boy she left behind. For some us the big city really IS that much better than what we left behind.
43) Capturing the Silken Thief, by Jeannie Lin. I often think the very short novellas in the Harlequin Historical Undone line are too short to convince me of the couple's love and commitment unless the couple already know each other well--reunion stories, friends-to-lovers, and the like. But I make an exception for Jeannie Lin's Undones, because she makes me believe the hero and heroine's chemistry will have staying power, and I enjoy the unusual Tang Dynasty China setting.
44) The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal. Part of my never-ending quest to make myself more efficient at time management and less stressed. I checked it out from the library, but I think I'm going to buy the Kindle edition and work through the chapters slowly. It's well-written and full of scientific, evidence-based insight on what works and what doesn't when one is trying to cut back on a self-destructive behavior or work harder toward a goal--e.g. shame and guilt are pretty much useless as motivators to change. (INWARD shame, that is--threat of public exposure has been shown as a useful deterrent to things like shoplifting or hiring a prostitute.) Also, it's better to acknowledge the fact that one is, say, craving chocolate or anxious about going to the dentist than to tell yourself if you really wanted to lose weight you wouldn't want chocolate, or that if you weren't such a coward you wouldn't have this pesky dental phobia.
The edits kept me too busy to read much, but over the past couple weeks I did finish five books toward my goal of at least 75 books this year:
40) Bar Sinister, by Sheila Simonson. Simonson published four traditional Regencies about a linked set of characters, and I've now read them all. I almost hesitate to call them romances--the love story here is more a subplot, an undercurrent, than anything else. But Simonson has a knack for creating fully realized communities of characters, and I'm always pleased to run across another writer who knows her Peninsular War and Waterloo military history cold.
41) How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm, by Mei-Ling Hopgood. Explores a variety of childcare practices around the world that would be mutually appalling to members of other cultures. Fascinating if you're at all interested in cultural anthropology, and gives the overall cheering message that children are fairly resilient and adaptable.
42) The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, by Caroline Preston. Coming-of-age story of a 1920's New England girl, "a novel in pictures" featuring vintage memorabilia. I don't think I'd enjoy a steady diet of such books--most of the time I'd rather read the words and let my imagination supply the pictures--but this was a fun way to pass a sunny Sunday afternoon reading out on the deck. That said, I get so TIRED of stories where a young woman goes off to the big city, only to ultimately return to her hometown and the boy she left behind. For some us the big city really IS that much better than what we left behind.
43) Capturing the Silken Thief, by Jeannie Lin. I often think the very short novellas in the Harlequin Historical Undone line are too short to convince me of the couple's love and commitment unless the couple already know each other well--reunion stories, friends-to-lovers, and the like. But I make an exception for Jeannie Lin's Undones, because she makes me believe the hero and heroine's chemistry will have staying power, and I enjoy the unusual Tang Dynasty China setting.
44) The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal. Part of my never-ending quest to make myself more efficient at time management and less stressed. I checked it out from the library, but I think I'm going to buy the Kindle edition and work through the chapters slowly. It's well-written and full of scientific, evidence-based insight on what works and what doesn't when one is trying to cut back on a self-destructive behavior or work harder toward a goal--e.g. shame and guilt are pretty much useless as motivators to change. (INWARD shame, that is--threat of public exposure has been shown as a useful deterrent to things like shoplifting or hiring a prostitute.) Also, it's better to acknowledge the fact that one is, say, craving chocolate or anxious about going to the dentist than to tell yourself if you really wanted to lose weight you wouldn't want chocolate, or that if you weren't such a coward you wouldn't have this pesky dental phobia.
April 26, 2012
In the editing cave...
I'm deep in edits for my November 2012 release, An Infamous Marriage. Once they're turned in, I'll go back to blogging--and to work on my next manuscript!
April 17, 2012
Reading report, week of April 17
I'm now over halfway to my goal of 75 books read in 2012! Hopefully I'll make 100.
38) The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, by Lauren Willig. Fourth in the Pink Carnation series of Regency romance/spy romps with a modern framing story. I enjoy Willig's voice, and I can rely on her books for a fun read. I liked this book's central couple. I don't think I'd want a steady diet of such cynical heroes and heroines, but these two seemed so very well-matched, and I'm glad they're going to go be cynical together instead of her curing him with her youthful innocence or anything of the kind.
39) White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf, by Andrew Bobrow-Strain. An engrossing look at how America embraced industrial white bread during the early and mid-20th century, then gradually turned away from it from the 70's onward. I was born in 1971, and when I was little we had store-bought white bread on the table every night. By the time I hit middle school, Mom was buying whole wheat bread and doing some of her own baking, and there was no bread on the table at all if we had rice or potatoes with the meal. Back then I thought she was trying to eat healthier because of specific health conditions she and Dad had or were at risk for. Now I see that she was, consciously or not, moving with the trends.
And now my 8-year-old lectures us over the whiteness of the baguettes and ciabatta loafs we occasionally eat. "Don't you know whole wheat bread is more healthy?" she proclaims in all the certainty of her youth. I wonder what our grandkids will be telling HER in 30 years or so.
38) The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, by Lauren Willig. Fourth in the Pink Carnation series of Regency romance/spy romps with a modern framing story. I enjoy Willig's voice, and I can rely on her books for a fun read. I liked this book's central couple. I don't think I'd want a steady diet of such cynical heroes and heroines, but these two seemed so very well-matched, and I'm glad they're going to go be cynical together instead of her curing him with her youthful innocence or anything of the kind.
39) White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf, by Andrew Bobrow-Strain. An engrossing look at how America embraced industrial white bread during the early and mid-20th century, then gradually turned away from it from the 70's onward. I was born in 1971, and when I was little we had store-bought white bread on the table every night. By the time I hit middle school, Mom was buying whole wheat bread and doing some of her own baking, and there was no bread on the table at all if we had rice or potatoes with the meal. Back then I thought she was trying to eat healthier because of specific health conditions she and Dad had or were at risk for. Now I see that she was, consciously or not, moving with the trends.
And now my 8-year-old lectures us over the whiteness of the baguettes and ciabatta loafs we occasionally eat. "Don't you know whole wheat bread is more healthy?" she proclaims in all the certainty of her youth. I wonder what our grandkids will be telling HER in 30 years or so.
April 14, 2012
I'm on Pinterest
I'm on Pinterest now. At first I resisted. Did I really need yet another place to hang out on the internet? It's not like I have so many hours of spare time, after all. And I'm not even an especially visual thinker. Would I have anything to say in a place that's all about the pictures?
Still, I got an account and started playing around with it. To my surprise, it's strangely addictive. It's less formal than a blog post, but without the strict character limit of Twitter, so I can spend the occasional stray half hour pinning pretty book covers or places I've visited or paintings that remind me of one of my heroines. Playing, basically.
If you want to visit my virtual scrapbook, you'll find me here.
Still, I got an account and started playing around with it. To my surprise, it's strangely addictive. It's less formal than a blog post, but without the strict character limit of Twitter, so I can spend the occasional stray half hour pinning pretty book covers or places I've visited or paintings that remind me of one of my heroines. Playing, basically.
If you want to visit my virtual scrapbook, you'll find me here.
April 10, 2012
Reading report, early April 2012
I'm taking a couple weeks off before diving into edits for An Infamous Marriage and/or starting my next project, a novella with the working title Widow's Choice. I figured I'd spend those weeks doing nothing but read, read, read, but so far it hasn't turned out that way. I speed-read one book after deciding I had to find out what the fuss was about, then got caught up in something more scholarly:
36) The Hunger Games? Entirely lives up to the hype, IMHO. I read it in less than a day, and I loved Katniss for her toughness.
37) The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster. Though I know Austen so well I've practically memorized many passages from her novels (and NOT just "It is a truth universally acknowledged..."), I came to her work after completing my formal education, so I've never analyzed it from an academic perspective. So I found this book intriguing as a different angle on a familiar author. Some of the essays confirmed what I expected based on my knowledge of Austen's era--e.g. that she chooses a middle way between the extreme conservative and liberal views of her time, advocating both the established hierarchy and the ability of worthy individuals and families to rise within it. Others brought up issues I hadn't consciously noticed and kicked myself for missing--e.g. the different way POV and dialogue are handled with the outgoing Emma for protagonist vs. the retiring Anne Elliot of Persuasion.
36) The Hunger Games? Entirely lives up to the hype, IMHO. I read it in less than a day, and I loved Katniss for her toughness.
37) The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster. Though I know Austen so well I've practically memorized many passages from her novels (and NOT just "It is a truth universally acknowledged..."), I came to her work after completing my formal education, so I've never analyzed it from an academic perspective. So I found this book intriguing as a different angle on a familiar author. Some of the essays confirmed what I expected based on my knowledge of Austen's era--e.g. that she chooses a middle way between the extreme conservative and liberal views of her time, advocating both the established hierarchy and the ability of worthy individuals and families to rise within it. Others brought up issues I hadn't consciously noticed and kicked myself for missing--e.g. the different way POV and dialogue are handled with the outgoing Emma for protagonist vs. the retiring Anne Elliot of Persuasion.
April 8, 2012
52 Cookbooks - Week 23, Just Chocolate Cookbook
This week for Easter I drew a Christmas cookbook, the Christmas at Home Just Chocolate Cookbook, which I got as a stocking stuffer a couple years back.
Not being in the mood for Christmassy cookies or cakes, I turned to the breakfast section at the very back. I rejected pumpkin and banana breads with chocolate chips as things I already make all the time and tried my hand at this:
Chocolate Apple Bread
1 c and 2 tsp sugar, divided
3/4 tsp cinnamon, divided
3/4 c walnuts, finely chopped and divided
2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 T buttermilk
2 c apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped
1 c semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl, combine 2 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 c walnuts; set aside. In a medium bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, remaining cinnamon, and nutmeg, set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and remaining sugar together; add eggs and vanilla. Gradually add the flour mixture and buttermilk. Fold in apples, remaining walnuts, and chocolate chips. Pour mixture into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan. Sprinkle with the sugar, cinnamon, and walnut mixture. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. Allow to cool for 20 minutes before removing from the pan.
I cooked it for more like 75 minutes, since when I tested for doneness at 1 hour it was still runny. It came out like this:
Apples and chocolate may sound like a strange combo, but this made for a tasty Easter breakfast and a worthy addition to my cookbook repertoire.
Not being in the mood for Christmassy cookies or cakes, I turned to the breakfast section at the very back. I rejected pumpkin and banana breads with chocolate chips as things I already make all the time and tried my hand at this:
Chocolate Apple Bread
1 c and 2 tsp sugar, divided
3/4 tsp cinnamon, divided
3/4 c walnuts, finely chopped and divided
2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 T buttermilk
2 c apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped
1 c semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl, combine 2 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 c walnuts; set aside. In a medium bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, remaining cinnamon, and nutmeg, set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and remaining sugar together; add eggs and vanilla. Gradually add the flour mixture and buttermilk. Fold in apples, remaining walnuts, and chocolate chips. Pour mixture into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan. Sprinkle with the sugar, cinnamon, and walnut mixture. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. Allow to cool for 20 minutes before removing from the pan.
I cooked it for more like 75 minutes, since when I tested for doneness at 1 hour it was still runny. It came out like this:
Apples and chocolate may sound like a strange combo, but this made for a tasty Easter breakfast and a worthy addition to my cookbook repertoire.
April 5, 2012
Too many anniversaries
Had I won the Mega Millions lottery last week, I would've spent a large part of the next few years on battlefields. If you're interested in military history, as I am, our time is filled with anniversaries. We're 200 years out of the later parts of the Napoleonic Wars, a year into the American Civil War's 150th, and World War I is coming back into public consciousness as we approach its 100 year mark.
Tomorrow (April 6) my hypothetical rich self would need to be two places at once. It's the 200th anniversary of the Storming of Badajoz, which plays a significant role in my first book, The Sergeant's Lady.
Badajoz was an unusually gruesome battle for its time--the elite Light Division lost 40% of its fighting strength. The aftermath was even worse, as the victorious British sacked the city in a rampage of looting, rape, and murder.
It's also the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh, which at the time was the bloodiest battle in American history.
Badajoz and Shiloh are both grim enough to make me stop and question my own fascination with military history. I'm by no means a pacifist, because I think there are some evils that can't be stopped short of a war. World War II and the Civil War, viewed from the Union side, both strike me as just and unavoidable. But I'm also by no means unthinkingly militaristic. Few things make me angrier than seeing good men and women sacrificed for no worthy purpose in an unjust, unnecessary war. I find World War I all but unbearable to contemplate precisely because it was so damn pointless, and if it served any purpose beyond decimating Europe and making World War II all but inevitable, I've never been able to find it. And even the most just of wars...well, I'll quote William Tecumseh Sherman in May 1865:
So, I don't love war, but I can't look away from its history. Maybe it's in the blood--though I'm not an Army brat, I've got a lot of soldiers in my family, both in the present and living memory and at least as far back as the American Revolution. (Though, as noted above, I firmly believe the Union had all the right on its side in the Civil War, my roots in Alabama go deep enough that I'm the great-great-granddaughter of a Confederate soldier. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of that fact--it simply is what it is. He was a product of his place and time. If anything, my eligibility for the Daughters of the Confederacy, which I would never, ever join, is a useful reminder to occasionally ask myself what injustices I condone unthinkingly because they're normal for where and when I live.)
Whatever the cause, I expect I'll continue studying military history and writing about soldiers--the glory, moonshine though it be, and the horror, and the courage, honor, and sacrifice. And there's one anniversary I intend to make. Barring catastrophe, I'll be at Waterloo on June 18, 2015.
Tomorrow (April 6) my hypothetical rich self would need to be two places at once. It's the 200th anniversary of the Storming of Badajoz, which plays a significant role in my first book, The Sergeant's Lady.
Badajoz was an unusually gruesome battle for its time--the elite Light Division lost 40% of its fighting strength. The aftermath was even worse, as the victorious British sacked the city in a rampage of looting, rape, and murder.
It's also the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh, which at the time was the bloodiest battle in American history.
Badajoz and Shiloh are both grim enough to make me stop and question my own fascination with military history. I'm by no means a pacifist, because I think there are some evils that can't be stopped short of a war. World War II and the Civil War, viewed from the Union side, both strike me as just and unavoidable. But I'm also by no means unthinkingly militaristic. Few things make me angrier than seeing good men and women sacrificed for no worthy purpose in an unjust, unnecessary war. I find World War I all but unbearable to contemplate precisely because it was so damn pointless, and if it served any purpose beyond decimating Europe and making World War II all but inevitable, I've never been able to find it. And even the most just of wars...well, I'll quote William Tecumseh Sherman in May 1865:
I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.
So, I don't love war, but I can't look away from its history. Maybe it's in the blood--though I'm not an Army brat, I've got a lot of soldiers in my family, both in the present and living memory and at least as far back as the American Revolution. (Though, as noted above, I firmly believe the Union had all the right on its side in the Civil War, my roots in Alabama go deep enough that I'm the great-great-granddaughter of a Confederate soldier. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of that fact--it simply is what it is. He was a product of his place and time. If anything, my eligibility for the Daughters of the Confederacy, which I would never, ever join, is a useful reminder to occasionally ask myself what injustices I condone unthinkingly because they're normal for where and when I live.)
Whatever the cause, I expect I'll continue studying military history and writing about soldiers--the glory, moonshine though it be, and the horror, and the courage, honor, and sacrifice. And there's one anniversary I intend to make. Barring catastrophe, I'll be at Waterloo on June 18, 2015.
April 3, 2012
52 Cookbooks - Week 22, Mariners Cookie Book
(Yes, I skipped a few weeks. I was too busy to blog while working toward my deadline on An Infamous Marriage, so I'm going to re-do the cookbooks I experimented with those weeks, when I drew a run of challenging, chef-y cookbooks that deserve proper blog attention. Maybe next time I won't have to deliberately choose the easiest recipes because I'm so busy, either.)
When I first moved to Seattle, the Mariners Wives did annual fundraiser cookbooks for local nonprofits, and I bought their 2002 Cookie Book but never tried any recipes from it. Paging through it as I worked on my shopping list last weekend, I saw a lot of the same recipes I'd eaten at church potlucks and the like growing up. But I wanted to challenge myself with something new, so I picked Ichiro and Yumiko Suzuki's submission:
Sweet Potato Cookies
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/4 c butter, softened
1/2 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and boiled
2 eggs
1/2 c milk
3 T granulated sugar
1/2 c whipping cream
confectioner's sugar
Preheat oven to 375. In a mixing bowl combine flour and baking powder. Add butter and mix well. In another bowl mash potatoes. Add eggs, milk, sugar, and whipping cream. Mix well. Add dry mixture to egg mixture. Knead dough with hands until smooth. Refrigerate for 1/2 to 1 hour. Roll out dough on a floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on a greased cookie sheet and puncture cookies with a fork to take out any air. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.
I would've been better off sticking with chocolate-peanut butter no-bake cookies or cupcakes made from cake mix, but with chocolate chips stirred in. Because there's something wrong with that recipe. I'm wondering if something got left out, either inadvertently or by omitting rather than substituting for a Japanese ingredient. First of all, when I mixed the ingredients, I ended up with not a dough but a batter. Now, "sweet potatoes" can mean different things in different places. I used what Amazon Fresh calls yams and I call sweet potatoes. The pretty orange kind. But I don't think any of the things calling themselves sweet potatoes are so different once cooked and mashed that using the wrong one would make a dough into a batter.
Time to improvise, I thought. I tasted the batter and discovered it was nigh-flavorless, which isn't much of a surprise based on that ingredient list. I'd noticed the absence of salt, spice, and the like, but thought maybe the sweet potato would be strong enough to make up for it. Nope! So I stirred in a teaspoon each of salt and vanilla extract plus several good shakes of cinnamon. When I tasted the batter again, it was decent, though subtle, so I poured it into a loaf pan and baked.
It baked up into a pretty pale-orange quick bread with a nice texture, but even with my additions it was so bland I decided to throw it out. I'd love to taste these cookies however Yumiko Suzuki actually makes them, because what ended up in this cookbook just can't be it. As a fan of pumpkin bread I'm intrigued by sweet potato cookies...but my bread was just Bland City.
When I first moved to Seattle, the Mariners Wives did annual fundraiser cookbooks for local nonprofits, and I bought their 2002 Cookie Book but never tried any recipes from it. Paging through it as I worked on my shopping list last weekend, I saw a lot of the same recipes I'd eaten at church potlucks and the like growing up. But I wanted to challenge myself with something new, so I picked Ichiro and Yumiko Suzuki's submission:
Sweet Potato Cookies
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/4 c butter, softened
1/2 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and boiled
2 eggs
1/2 c milk
3 T granulated sugar
1/2 c whipping cream
confectioner's sugar
Preheat oven to 375. In a mixing bowl combine flour and baking powder. Add butter and mix well. In another bowl mash potatoes. Add eggs, milk, sugar, and whipping cream. Mix well. Add dry mixture to egg mixture. Knead dough with hands until smooth. Refrigerate for 1/2 to 1 hour. Roll out dough on a floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on a greased cookie sheet and puncture cookies with a fork to take out any air. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.
I would've been better off sticking with chocolate-peanut butter no-bake cookies or cupcakes made from cake mix, but with chocolate chips stirred in. Because there's something wrong with that recipe. I'm wondering if something got left out, either inadvertently or by omitting rather than substituting for a Japanese ingredient. First of all, when I mixed the ingredients, I ended up with not a dough but a batter. Now, "sweet potatoes" can mean different things in different places. I used what Amazon Fresh calls yams and I call sweet potatoes. The pretty orange kind. But I don't think any of the things calling themselves sweet potatoes are so different once cooked and mashed that using the wrong one would make a dough into a batter.
Time to improvise, I thought. I tasted the batter and discovered it was nigh-flavorless, which isn't much of a surprise based on that ingredient list. I'd noticed the absence of salt, spice, and the like, but thought maybe the sweet potato would be strong enough to make up for it. Nope! So I stirred in a teaspoon each of salt and vanilla extract plus several good shakes of cinnamon. When I tasted the batter again, it was decent, though subtle, so I poured it into a loaf pan and baked.
It baked up into a pretty pale-orange quick bread with a nice texture, but even with my additions it was so bland I decided to throw it out. I'd love to taste these cookies however Yumiko Suzuki actually makes them, because what ended up in this cookbook just can't be it. As a fan of pumpkin bread I'm intrigued by sweet potato cookies...but my bread was just Bland City.
April 1, 2012
I'm back!
Late last night I turned in the manuscript for An Infamous Marriage, so today I'm starting to catch up on everything I missed in the two weeks all my spare time was spent in the editing cave. (This afternoon it's mostly about laundry.)
Today is also the second anniversary of getting The Email from Angela James offering to buy my first book, The Sergeant's Lady. And yes, getting an offer on April Fool's Day did mess with my head. 90% of me was thrilled, while the other 10% nervously eyed the calendar and thought, "Hm, do you have any enemies or friends with cruel senses of humor who A) know you well enough to know you sent the manuscript to Carina and B) have the skills to convincingly fake an email from Angela James?"
This year Mr. Fraser did manage to catch me out just after midnight. Normally I don't much trust anything he says on April 1--if he told me it was raining I'd look out the window myself to confirm--but in my head it was still March 31. So he starts spinning this tale of a job offer from a former employer that would be a slight pay cut from his current work, but a much shorter commute. He told it so plausibly that I was seriously weighing whether the pay cut would be worth it to have him working on this side of Lake Washington again, whether going back to the former employer was a wise career decision, etc. He closed with, "And I already know what I'm going to say?" Me: "Really?" Him: "APRIL FOOL'S." Me: SNARL
Today is also the second anniversary of getting The Email from Angela James offering to buy my first book, The Sergeant's Lady. And yes, getting an offer on April Fool's Day did mess with my head. 90% of me was thrilled, while the other 10% nervously eyed the calendar and thought, "Hm, do you have any enemies or friends with cruel senses of humor who A) know you well enough to know you sent the manuscript to Carina and B) have the skills to convincingly fake an email from Angela James?"
This year Mr. Fraser did manage to catch me out just after midnight. Normally I don't much trust anything he says on April 1--if he told me it was raining I'd look out the window myself to confirm--but in my head it was still March 31. So he starts spinning this tale of a job offer from a former employer that would be a slight pay cut from his current work, but a much shorter commute. He told it so plausibly that I was seriously weighing whether the pay cut would be worth it to have him working on this side of Lake Washington again, whether going back to the former employer was a wise career decision, etc. He closed with, "And I already know what I'm going to say?" Me: "Really?" Him: "APRIL FOOL'S." Me: SNARL
March 21, 2012
Books read, week of 3/21
I'm editing like mad, since my manuscript for An Infamous Marriage is due in less than two weeks, but I've managed to squeeze in some reading time:
33) The Duchess of Richmond's Ball: 15 June 1815, by David Miller. Only of interest to the SERIOUS Waterloo geek, especially if said geek is working on a novel including a scene at the famous ball. Containes a complete guest list with mini-bios of everyone present. That said, I'm not sure how far to trust any of those bios, since I caught several errors about the Duke of Wellington's background--e.g. he gets nuances of the Wellesley family's assorted titles wrong, and he says that Wellington was 3rd of 4 brothers rather than 3rd of 5 (admittedly, Gerald managed to avoid the fame/notoriety of the other four--no sex scandals that I'm aware of, for starters--but his existence isn't exactly hidden and hard to discover). Of course, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter that Richard Wellesley was Earl of Mornington before he became Marquess Wellesley, nor that there was a less famous clergyman brother named Gerald, but still, it makes it hard for me to trust the book on areas where I'm NOT coming in with preexisting expertise.
34) How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston. One of the blogs I followed obsessively during the run-up to the 2008 election and still check from time to time is Jack and Jill Politics, so when I heard that Thurston, the blog's cofounder, had a book out, I requested it from the library. While I'm white, you can't live in America without being aware of racial issues (especially if you've got a smart kid who asks all kinds of probing questions based on snippets of commentary she hears on the radio), and this book is a satirical, thoughtful look at where we are now.
35) While at Amazon preordering Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, I noticed Proto Zoa, a collection of Lois McMaster Bujold's early short stories that I'd never read before. I'm not a huge fan of short stories, because you don't have time to connect to the characters, but I like Bujold's writing so much I bought it anyway. I'm not sorry I did. It was a nice, quick read even if I didn't love the stories the way I do her full-length books.
33) The Duchess of Richmond's Ball: 15 June 1815, by David Miller. Only of interest to the SERIOUS Waterloo geek, especially if said geek is working on a novel including a scene at the famous ball. Containes a complete guest list with mini-bios of everyone present. That said, I'm not sure how far to trust any of those bios, since I caught several errors about the Duke of Wellington's background--e.g. he gets nuances of the Wellesley family's assorted titles wrong, and he says that Wellington was 3rd of 4 brothers rather than 3rd of 5 (admittedly, Gerald managed to avoid the fame/notoriety of the other four--no sex scandals that I'm aware of, for starters--but his existence isn't exactly hidden and hard to discover). Of course, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter that Richard Wellesley was Earl of Mornington before he became Marquess Wellesley, nor that there was a less famous clergyman brother named Gerald, but still, it makes it hard for me to trust the book on areas where I'm NOT coming in with preexisting expertise.
34) How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston. One of the blogs I followed obsessively during the run-up to the 2008 election and still check from time to time is Jack and Jill Politics, so when I heard that Thurston, the blog's cofounder, had a book out, I requested it from the library. While I'm white, you can't live in America without being aware of racial issues (especially if you've got a smart kid who asks all kinds of probing questions based on snippets of commentary she hears on the radio), and this book is a satirical, thoughtful look at where we are now.
35) While at Amazon preordering Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, I noticed Proto Zoa, a collection of Lois McMaster Bujold's early short stories that I'd never read before. I'm not a huge fan of short stories, because you don't have time to connect to the characters, but I like Bujold's writing so much I bought it anyway. I'm not sorry I did. It was a nice, quick read even if I didn't love the stories the way I do her full-length books.
