Book Chat Issue #34

The ups and downs of being human

Hello reading friends

How are you travelling this week? I’m feeling a bit restless for no particular reason.

A friend said recently that when she retired she wanted to have a life just like mine, and it made me feel bad that I wasn’t more appreciative of everything I have. I guess everyone has their ups and downs. I wrote this short piece last week about getting older, which gives you some idea of where my mind is at.

I’ve been reading a few newsletters where people are very honest about their mental health and although I feel like I’m connecting with these writers, I’m not sure whether this is what you signed up for with this newsletter? On the other hand, we all struggle at times, and not just with questions about what to read next, although that’s something I think about quite a lot.

I read an article about toxic positivity in the New York Times. It said that being relentlessly cheerful can result in ignoring problems such as poor mental health, but I like to think that this newsletter brings you some small measure of comfort, or perhaps just some mild distraction in a sea of bad news.

Perhaps you’d like to comment?

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What I’ve been reading

The Sleeping and the Dead by Ann Cleeves

My friend Catherine lent me this book which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s one of the author’s early books which has been re-published in the wake of her fame. In the preface, she says that the book didn’t sell very well the first time around, which made me feel vaguely hopeful for some reason. As you probably know, Ann Cleeves is the author of the Shetland series as well as the Vera books. The plotting is always excellent and the characters well drawn, but I do find the endings a bit flat. She doesn’t go in for big twists at the end, the way some other authors do. Nevertheless, you feel like you are in good hands, because she’s a more than competent writer and very prolific.

Here’s a fascinating interview with Ann, where she talks about her life and career and how she came to live on the Shetland Islands.

Born in 1954, Ann grew up in Herefordshire and Devon. After secondary school she spent a year providing childcare for a family in London before reading English at the University of Sussex. She dropped out of her degree course, and by chance, was offered a job as assistant cook at the bird observatory in Fair Isle, despite not knowing how to cook, nor anything about birds. She met her husband Tim there, who came as a visiting bird watcher.

Listen to the podcast for the full story - Desert Island Discs

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More great reads

Here’s a new newsletter called Reads and Reveries, written by British writer, Tasnim. This is an excerpt from her piece on listening.

It requires a specific kind of bravery, I think, to voice that you’re in need of help and a particular kind of care and attentiveness to recognise when you’re in a position to offer it but I think that in this way we bear witness to one another and what is more life-affirming than that?

Read the whole article by clicking on the link below.

Chapter 1: I didn't mean to overhear this conversation but I think I was supposed to...

Another newsletter that brings me joy is In Good Taste by Emily Grim-Throop. The latest edition made me want to jump on a plane and visit Chicago.

in good taste, vol. 79: good goût

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What I’ve been cooking

Every cook has the occasional cooking disaster, and that’s been true for me this week. I made a glorious beef and mushroom pie on Saturday night and then followed it up on Sunday night with the worst pizza I have ever made. It was meant to be fluffy and delicious but it was flat, doughy and almost inedible. My lovely hubby bravely chomped through some of it before giving up. Fortunately, I had a frozen apple pie in the freezer, so we had something nice for dessert.

On reflection, I know that it didn’t work out because I didn’t follow the recipe! I was making a slow rise dough (in the fridge) but then randomly decided to add some flour after the first prove and give it a bit of a knead which was definitely not in the instructions. I knocked all the air out of it with my fiddling around.

Yesterday, I tried to make some home-made granola from this recipe and overcooked it, so it’s VERY toasty. I added some dried cherries (from Aldi) and it tastes ok. I also tried to make some custard in the microwave to go with the leftover apple pie and managed to let it boil over, resulting in a sticky mess everywhere. Disaster…

So instead of a recipe, I’m going to share this UK House and Garden website which gives me hours of enjoyment.

I might even try out this vanilla cake recipe which claims to be foolproof. Ha ha, we’ll see.

Simple vanilla cake recipe from UK House and Garden

Well that’s all for this edition,

If you’d like to share this newsletter, I’d be thrilled to bits.

Warm wishes,

Marg xxx