Book Chat - #23

Why you should read this newsletter and a great recipe for hummus

A big hello to old and new subscribers!

I thought I’d start off this edition with a brief explanation of what this newsletter is for, and who should read it.

There are millions of books in the world with thousands more being published each year, so we are spoilt for choice. Despite this, I sometimes find myself casting round for my next great read. I’m a fussy reader, very influenced by the weather and my general mental state, but I do like well-written, plot driven books that are enjoyable and not too heavy. There’s no point in grinding through something literary because everyone else is reading it. Life is short folks.

The purpose of this newsletter is to help you narrow down your choices and point you in the direction of some great new books. The recipes are an added bonus because who doesn’t like a good recipe?

To my mind, books are like food. Sometimes we need a fresh tasty salad and sometimes we crave warm apple crumble.

Who should read this newsletter?

Since we may not have met in real life, I’m going to assume that you are a curious, thoughtful person, who takes delight in simple pleasures. I’m glad you’re here.

What I’ve been reading

I recently joined a little online book group that started as a splinter group from a writing course I did last year. A few of us have been getting together on a semi-regular basis to share our writing and we decided to start a book club as well. The first book we read was Gold Mountain Stone Sky by Australian Author Mirandi Riwoe. I don’t normally read historical fiction, so it was a very different read for me.

It’s written from the perspective of two young Chinese people working in the Queensland gold fields in the late 19th Century. The author, who has a Chinese-Indonesian background, was very conscious that although there were thousands of Chinese people in the Goldfields, their voices are seldom heard.

The book was well written and very interesting, although I found the writing to be a bit flowery for my tastes. Here’s an excerpt.

And in the dim hut, his thoughts shatter like porcelain – crumbling fragments of confusion, shards of lucidity. The pieces shift and tremble in the cavity of his skull. Some come together, neat, with only tell-tale fissures in the glaze, but mostly they float in the air, broken.’

I note that the book won the ARA Historical Novel Award in 2020 along with $50,000 in prize money, but what I enjoyed most was the incredible amount of research the author had undertaken. You can listen to an interview with Merandi here, where she talks about her research process. She’s a delightful person and I recommend listening to this wide ranging interview.

What I’ve been writing

I thought I would share a couple of my favourite blog posts this week:

LOVE YOUR WORK is about how I’ve been doing the same job for most of my life, but I only realised this recently.

BACK TO WORK is about re-imagining myself as a writer.

What I’ve been cooking

I’m a big fan of hummus but I can never get mine to taste as good as the one you buy at the supermarket, or in a good Lebanese restaurant. Mine always seems to be a bit heavy and grainy in texture.

I decided to make a vaguely middle eastern style lunch for my daughter recently and this involved making flatbread and hummus. After a bit of research, I read that you should really over-cook the chickpeas so they are nice and mushy. You can cook dried chickpeas or simply re-cook the tinned ones for an extra thirty minutes, which is what I did.

And it worked! The result was a lovely smooth hummus, not too garlicky, with a nice lemon kick. It was so nice that I forgot to take a photo and had to snap a quick shot of these leftovers the next day. Here’s the recipe.

Well that’s all for now folks. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please send it to a reading friend and ask them to subscribe.

Warm wishes

Marg xxx