Don’t forget your towel!

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

Creating Blameless

I first looked at this because I quite liked “Soulless” and am looking forward to the next book in the series.

However, this is worth watching because it’s fascinating to watch a cover being created.

A is for Aztecs

(warned you not to expect anything from me this week)

Or perhaps I just should have.

I’ve read some good books recently. And… um…

Hey, look at the time! Gotta run!

Just finished packing up more boxes of books, and will take them to the post office here shortly.

One surprise going out–no Shawn, it’s not you. ;)

Still have a large box left, but things are much better!

(And to the recipient of the surprise, if you already have these, then just send ’em along to someone else.)

All requests from the Great Book Giveaway went out Saturday. Our favorite postal worker was at the counter, so we actually enjoyed the entire process (and there was someone at the other window, so we weren’t holding everyone up).

Oh. Hmmm… I just realized I forgot to send Susan’s books out. Ooops!

There are still lots of books left, so wander on over and see if anything catches your eye.

Between the holidays and the unusually cold weather, I’ve been baking up a storm.

Now, I love baking cookies, but after all the Christmas cookies I made, I wanted to make something different. Since I don’t like cake, I decided to try breads (pies are okay, but I find pie crust more frustrating than fun).

Now I have lots and lots of cookbooks, however, over half of them are for desserts and cookies and sweets. I discovered I really only had a couple good resources when it came to bread.

First was the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. This is this first book I grabbed of the shelf when looking for a specific bread recipe (such as the Challah I decided to make over the holidays). This is a very good all purpose book. The recipes always turn out well (unless I make unexpected substitutions without planning ahead), and they always taste good. I use King Arthur flour in my baking, but any quality flour will work fine I’m sure. Of course the advantage of using KAF, is that you don’t have to worry about regional variations in the gluten levels of the flour.

From the Baker’s Companion I made Challah and Italian bread, both of which turned out very well.

An advantage of those recipes is they called for all purpose flour. Yes, you can make substitutions, but if the recipe calls for one type of flour, you’re always better off sticking with that kind of flour. This is of course an advantage if you don’t bake frequently, and are unlikely to use the bread flour before it goes bad.

Now if you like lots of pictures, this is not the book for you. There are a handful of pictures, but for the most part this is your standard cookbook with very few pictures. Not that there’s anything wrong with this, it just means this book isn’t as pretty as some of the others out there.

As far as the recipes, they’re simple, and I very much like the way the recipes are laid out: all the ingredients are listed at the top, and if an ingredient is used multiple times, it is listed multiple times. Since I have a habit of leaping before I look, I find this very useful.

The next book I grabbed was a Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman. My aunt & uncle gave me this book for Christmas several years ago, and my pizza dough is based upon the recipe in this book.

The first chapter is dedicated to discussing different baking techniques, ingredients and tools. Most good baking books start this way, but it’s actually important to know how the author does things–especially if you don’t measure your ingredients by weight.

There are plenty of pictures here, showing everything from end results to intermediary steps. And they’re not just gorgeous pictures, but pictures of foods it looks like a normal human could bake. (I love Baking with Julia, but the photography only serves to make the book more intimidating, and I almost never use that book out of fear.)

The recipes are clear, and there are plenty of side notes, explaining different tricks or asides.

As I said, I very much like her pizza dough recipe and techniques, and have used that recipe for quite awhile. I also decided to branch out and tried her “BLT Bread” loaf. That turned out extremely well, and Grandmom particularly liked that bread. We made grilled cheese sandwiches from this bread, and they were fabulous. I also tried her cinnamon bread recipe, however, I attempted to substitute white wheat for all purpose (which I have done with several recipes from KAF) and although the bread tastes fine, it didn’t rise much, so that was somewhat disappointing. But again, that was the fault of the baker rather than the recipe.

And finally, I ordered The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, which I am slowly working my way through. He goes into great detail regarding technique, and I am learning a lot, but it is a bit overwhelming. Nothing like a good book to make you feel like you know nothing.

So that’s what I’ve been reading. And unlike most of the other books I read, these are leading to so fabulous and delicious results.

So I have a big old pile o’ boxes to take to the post office on Saturday.

Pretty impressive, isn’t it?

But I still have plenty of unloved books that are looking for a new home.

If you’re interested, you can wander over to the Great Book Giveaway 2010 post and see if anything interests you.

Yup. It’s that time again: Time to cull the bookshelves, before I lose the ability to move around the basement without toppling a pile of books.

Since I missed the book donation last year, some of these are leftover, but there is a full box of books from this year added.

Most of these books are used, however, and handful are new and unread, as on multiple occasions I pre-ordered the same book twice (damnit).

As I did last year, I’m giving away these books for free. If you want to repay me postage, (or just be nice) you can get me something from my Amazon wish list or send me a new bookmark (always needs those around here), but really, I need the space.

You want something, mention it in the comments and then e-mail me (random@klishis.com) your address so I can send the books out.

(more…)

Janiece’s post on house cleaning just reminded me… It’s time for another great book culling.

If there is interest, I’ll post pics (and maybe type the names & titles) of the books I’m getting rid of, and send them to anyone interested.

If the weather ever clears, we’ll take a trip to Half Price Books in Pittsburgh, but I’d rather y’all had first dibs, if you were interested.

Anyone?

Then the little children would heat copper coins on the stove and press them against the glass until the roundest of holes would melt in the ice; through each of these peeped the lovelies little eye: one belonged to a little boy and the other to a little girl. His name was Kai and hers was Gerda.

I read a lot of books this year. 147 books to be precise (unless I read another book today making it 148, but that seems unlikely).

I found several new series that I quite enjoyed:
The comic NYX, is a slightly older series that tells the story of three teens who are trying to deal with their mutant status.

Another comic I enjoyed was Madame Xanadu.

Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series was made into a comic with Mercy Thompson: Homecoming. It tells how Mercy came to the tri-city area.

Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler is a supernatural fantasy that is quite different from others out there, as the creatures are more out of folklore than horror.

I also stumbled upon Soulless by Gail Carriger, which is a Victorian fantasy with vampires and werewolves. I love Victorian settings.

Rob Thurman started a new series (at least I hope it’s a new series) with Trick of the Light. I love Trickster characters, so she was going to have to work to not make me like this book. She also had a new book in the Cal Leandros series out, Deathwish.

Faith Hunter’s Skinwalker series was a nice surprise, although I was less enamored with her Rogue Mage series.

If you have not read Sergi Lukyanenko Night Watch series, this is a good time to go back and do so, as Last Watch just came out in English.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines–a nice twist on fairy tale characters. Not quite as good as Fables, which also has a new volume out, with The Dark Ages but both are very good.

Several good anthologies came out in 2009 as well. Mean Streets was one of my favorites, with stories by Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, and Thomas E. Sniegoski. With the exception of Laurell K Hamilton’s story (which I didn’t bother to read), Never After was another good anthology, with stories that are twists on the happily ever after theme. The anthology Strange Brew has stories by some of my favorite authors, including Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, and PN Elrod. One of the things I love about good anthologies is they introduce me to new authors, and this series gave me Faith Hunter and her character jane Yellowrock.

Of course I read far more books than these, and lots of books that had been published in previous years, but these are my highlights of 2009.

Check ’em out!

What does it say about me that upon seeing the following in my Inbox:

I immediately thought, I hated HIGHLIGHTS! Why do I want a radio station for it?

I recently read a fabulous supernatural fantasy called Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler.

Just go ahead over to my book blog and read what I had to say about it there.