Reading and Eating
“This is how humans are. We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we REALLY believe, and those we never think to question.” -Ender, Speaker for the Dead I’ve read four books recently, and one of them was so good, the other ones pale by comparison. If you’ve read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, but haven’t gone on to read the other books in the series… you have a treat waiting for you. Ender’s Game was originally meant to be a prologue to the Ender Saga. The true story starts with Speaker for the Dead. This book is about philosophy, religion, how we treat people who are different from us, and it’s also a fascinating, compelling story. The Ender Saga changed my views of science fiction in the same way Harry Potter changed my opinion of fantasy. If you told me I would be reading a book where people cast spells and fly around on brooms, I would have said it sounds ridiculous. But in the world of Harry Potter, it totally works. The same goes for Speaker of the Dead. Oh, this guy is three thousand years old due to relatavistic time of interstellar travel? Makes perfect sense. I can’t really talk much about the plot of this without spoiling Ender’s Game. All I’ll say is- if you like (or even can tolerate) science fiction, READ IT. My son is finishing the next book in the series, and I’ll be reading it as soon as he’s done. Anything after that would be anticlimactic, and unfortunately the next book I read was… not very good. I almost DNF’d after two pages because the writing was so poor, but I stuck it out because- I’ll admit it- the story was intriguing. The premise is that a couple finds out their sperm donor, for the baby the wife is carrying, is a serial killer. That alone was interesting enough to make me keep reading. The problem was, as the story went on it became more and more preposterous. :Even a couple days later I find myself thinking back on it angrily: “The police wouldn’t do that! No one would act like that! No lawyer would say such a thing!” But I’ll say this- it was a quick read. I finished it in two days, so at least the experience wasn’t too drawn out. The other two books fall somewhere in the middle. The House on Mango Street is a beautifully-written book that I enjoyed, but I’ll be honest- not a lot of it stuck with me. I’m trying to think of something to say about it other than it was well-written, and I can’t. The Late Mrs. Willoughby is a MUST READ if you love Jane Austen. This is the second book in Claudia Gray’s Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney mystery series (the first one is The Death of Mr. Wickham, and they must be read in order!) If you don’t love Jane Austen, I don’t think these books are for you. The mystery alone isn’t enough to carry the book- but if you like hearing more about Marianne, Elinor, and characters from other Jane Austen novels, you would probably enjoy this. Let’s move on to food! On Monday Birchwood Pie shared this recipe for braised tofu, and I knew I had to make it immediately. Obviously, it was delicious! How could it not be? And, just to prove that we do eat something other than tofu, rice and broccoli, for Father’s Day my husband requested deep dish pizzas. I use this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction, with the following modifications to make it vegan: Earth Balance instead of butter, Violife vegan mozzarella cheese, and my husband and son had Beyond Sausage on their’s (yuck.) Anyway, we all enjoyed it, and in the background you can see raspberry almond thumbprint cookies from Nora Cooks, which my husband requested for dessert. Have you read any of these books? What meal would you request if someone else were cooking?