We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu (memoir, audiobook) Recommended by a friend, memoir of Simu Liu growing up in Canada all the way up to him getting the part in Shang-Chi. He documents his family in a very honest but loving way. He gets very emotional about his grandparents death. His parents and him did NOT get along and I am impressed that they even have a relationship now. There was both physical, verbal, as well as emotional abuse. It sounds like there was a long period of time where they were estranged. And that perhaps they both did some hard work to get back to where they are a family again today. As a person without a great family relationship myself I was glad to hear it. He didn't go into detail and frankly it should be one of those books where you hear all the gory I said/they said details. So no, you don't hear a tell all, but he doesn't shy away from saying how bad/hard it was and how it will always be a management of the relationship going forward. He tried to do all the things but he was just a different kid than the one they wanted. And now, perhaps they see that wasn't the right way to go about treating another autonomous person.

I Haven't Entirely Been Honest with You by Miranda Hart (memoir, audiobook) I really enjoy her comedy and I knew a small part from interviews what the book was about. Miranda Hart spent most of her life incredibly ill with a chronic illness that was never diagnosed until recently. She got lyme's disease as a child when she visited the states and then went home to a country that didn't have the disease and no one ever caught it until 40 years later. She would ask doctor's to help diagnose her whenever she got another illness and they would give her all sorts of advice but it was never quite right. One day with another doctor she was explaining her issues again and he wrote TATT and she was thrilled. Finally! what is that? he told her it was what they wrote when they didn't know what was wrong. Tired All The Time. She had reached a point where she had fallen down in her house and had absolutely no way of picking herself up. She could see out the sliding door that it was a nice day and so instead of focusing on why she couldn't do, she focused on what she could. She could watch the nice day. She eventually got her diagnosis and is working on improving her health, but as you can imagine she has setbacks. 

Then Again by Diane Keaton (memoir, audiobook) Memoir of growing up in California with her parents. She parallels it with her mother's journals. So she compares herself to her mother at different stages. She talks about the loss of her father to a brain tumor and her mother to alzheimers. she talks about adopting children at 50. I wanted to read this bc we lost her so recently. It is really a book of love and family and loss. 

Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg (memoir, audiobook) Story of her life as a journalist and how she in an early part of her career called Bader Ginsberg to ask a point of law and they became friends. She follows the trajectory of their lives. jobs, and families. She is a journalist of the supreme court proceedings. So she understood more about Bader Ginsberg's work (when she finally did get elevated to that position) and while they never talked about current cases Totenberg often interviewed her for events. It really was a book on friendship and how friends truly help each other thru all the points of their life.

Totals: 14 books read
Women 9 Men 2 Bipoc 4 Lgbtq 3 audio 11 electronic 2 hardcopy 1 Library 14

 First book of the year: Vagabond by Tim Curry (memoir, audiobook) a good memoir about growing up and becoming and actor. All your favorite movies he's been in and the details. As well as his life on the stage and voiceover work. I do not recommend the audiobook as much since his stroke. But his story is so compelling I bumped up the speed to make his speech pattern less slow for me. I tend to listen to books when I do other things and the slowness of his voice would let my mind wander and I would get lost and mad at myself for not paying attention. (A me problem not a him problem) I enjoyed this and am glad I read it.

Simply More by Cynthia Erivo (memoir, audiobook) Both a memoir of her life as well as maybe verging on self-help. This short book gave the story of her life and tips on things she does to keep herself healthy and active. Some of the book compared life to running, as she likes to run and finds many things about running comparative to life events. I enjoyed listening to her voice and hearing her stories.

Future Boy by Michael J Fox (memoir, audiobook) This centered only on the time of his life that he was making Back to the Future. He worked a full day at Family Ties and then a full 8 more hours in the night to make Back to the Future for several weeks bc of the overlapping schedule. It had lots of inside stories of my wife's favorite movie. (She did read this before I did. And when we both finished we watched the movie again together.) I really enjoyed this. He has an infectious happiness about him that makes me glad I read this.

Tucci Table (Cookbook) Cookbook of recipes he makes with his wife. Some recipes he made with his former wife that he has tried to reconstruct over the years with his kids. Family stores and discussions of why they like certain things. In some ways I am really drawn to him and his work. and in other ways I wonder if he is one of those exacting people who would drive me around the bend in real life.

You've Got to Laugh by Alison Hammond (audiobook, memoir) If you've watched any of the recent Bake Off's you will recognize Alison Hammond. She and Noel Fielding are the 2 folks who narrate most of British bake off and interact with the contestants but aren't the judges. Alison has an infectious laugh. she's quite a delight. She also hosts a morning talk show. This is a sweet memoir about her life growing up in Birmingham and how she went on to work in television. I listened to this and she gets a kick out of herself and is quite a lovely reader.

Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman (Book #2) I'll admit it. I've been bitten by the Carl the Dungeon Crawler series and I love it. I read the first one as a read along with a friend and I liked it so much I waited for my library holds to read the 2nd. The first book Carl is outside when the aliens came to claim the earth and anyone inside a building was killed immediately. Anyone not killed was allowed to enter the dungeon and put on the dungeon crawler reality television series shown throughout the galaxy. Carl, and his ex girlfriend's prize show cat, Princess Donut, are in a game where people must kill and fight for their life to level up to the next floor. And if you are popular? you get to be interviewed (Princess Donut loves being interviewed)! We join Carl and Princess donut on level 3 in this installment. They are in trouble pretty quickly and end up on 2 separate quests which could get them killed. If you like RPG games like DnD and you don't mind some graphic descriptions of made up creatures being killed to get them to the next part of the game I recommend this. Honestly I wasn't expecting to like this and yet I am thrilled to now be a fan.

Paper Girl by Beth Macy (memoir, audiobook) Beth grew up in Urbana OH. Her family didn't have a lot of money and her mom did a lot of odd jobs to get by. Her father was the town drunk. Beth became the paper girl who delivered the news and then she went and got a degree as a journalist. She had the ability to be poor but go to good schools and find a way to college and get herself out into the world. But whenever she returned to visit family it appeared the town was crumbling. The schools weren't helping the poorest kids anymore. Her family had many hot button issues to walk around and not talk about. As her mother was dying she decided to try and learn what had happened to her town and see if she could understand what is happening to middle america. As I am also from the midwest and have seen similar things I was interested in this. She worked on building bridges with friend and with family to see if she could understand why there is such a divide. She made friends with kids she felt had similar issues and traumas and tried to see if she could give them the help she received when she as their age. I found this good. well researched. and possibly a bit depressing (but granted as I have similar relationships in my life with the midwest I might be adding my own feelings about how things are going) recommend, but know it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

W 3 M 4 Bipoc 2 Lgbtq 1 audio 5 electronic 1 hardcopy 1 Library 7

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske. Gay Fantasy Romance. Alternate Victorian-ish London, Robin Blyth takes a job and finds out that he has been put in charge of informing the PM about the magical goings on in England. He meets Edwin Courcey, his counterpart on the magical side of things. Unfortunately the reason the post had been vacant for Robin is that his predecessor has gone missing. On his first day of the job he is magically cursed. Edwin decides to help him by taking him to his family's estate and their library. Somewhere in all those books there must be a way to remove the curse. Even tho this is alternative England, being gay is still illegal. (Oscar Wilde's trial is referenced as "just a few years before") Both men fall in love. Definitely steamy romance bits. The next book will be steamy Sapphic romance.

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske. Gay Fantasy Romance. Maud goes to America to bring home magician to England. Unfortunately the woman is killed before they even set sail. Trapped on a ship with the killer she decides to find the killer before the reach home. She enlists the help of Violet and others. And along the way discovers that she has feelings for Violet. FUN! looking forward to the next one.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers. Sci Fi. 3 different ships land on Gora to wait their turn for their wormhole timeslot. Gora is a nothing planet, but it happens to be at the intersection of lots of wormhole space hops. And the people who live there spend their time catering to the needs of the different people who space hop. The Five-Hop One Stop is run by a woman and her son who try to cater to everyone's needs. On this day there is a space accident above them and the 3 different people are trapped on Gora until it can be cleared. It goes along well, until it doesn't. And they have to make a decision to help each other. All of Becky Chambers books are about good and hope and caring for each other. I am sad to have finished all 6 of her books in like 3 months.

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd. (Bess Crawford #2) Historical Fiction, Mystery. Set during the first war Bess Crawford is a nurse. She happens to see a woman giving a tearful goodbye at the train station to a soldier. But she knows that face. It is the wife of the soldier she just brought back to the convalescent home. Bess goes back to the front. And a newspaper several weeks old shows the woman's face, saying she had been murdered and if anyone can come forward about information Scotland Yard would appreciate it. I like Charles Todd books, and I really like the Bess Crawford series. Looking forward to the next one.

Stats: 57 books
W: 35 M: 21 NB: 1 AOC: 14 +1(illustrator) LGBT: 19 Library books: 51

The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu - set in Singapore in the 1930s. Singapore is a British outpost, and a murder happens at the Governor's house. Su Lin is an educated girl who is trying to avoid marriage arrangements by her family. She appeals to her headmistress at the school who wants to place her as a housekeeper with the local inspector. Instead she goes with him to the scene of the crime and ends up taking the place of the nanny who has died. It has all that British snobbishness, but is told from the perspective of Su Lin (and some occasional viewpoints of Inspector LeFroy.) I really enjoyed this one. I am finding I enjoy Yu's writing and really look forward to her other books. 

Cook Korean! by Robin Ha This is a very good cookbook. Every recipe is illustrated and is 2 pages long. So within the 180 page book there are over 60 recipes. She has some pages explaining details of ingredients as well as some discussions of why a type of food is popular. This was lovely (altho dense) to read. Her illustrations are clear and interesting. I enjoyed this and it inspired me to cook some squash this weekend to put onto noodles. She has a blog I should bookmark called Banchan in 2 Pages. https://banchancomic.tumblr.com/

Stats: 45 books
W: 25 M: 18 NB: 2 AOC: 20 LGBT: 11
Library: 35

Another dinner idea. I was going to make risotto with butternut squash, but Sue bought 2 bunches of gus-gus and so we did this instead.

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/spring-risotto-with-asparagus-peas.html

The only thing different I did was about 10 minutes before it was finished I added lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice to brighten it up. I think I will do that with risottos from now on. It really made it so much nicer.

Sue was thrilled. She loves peas in things. I was thrilled bc I made a HUGE batch of chicken stock from the freezer. 

I really need to make myself some hainese chicken rice.
 

I am going to repost things from other journals I read.
They say it far more eloquantly than me.

kathrynt startles me with a fact you should know.
One of the reasons -- one of the BIGGEST reasons -- why Haiti is so poor is that their wealth was stolen for them for 120 years. After the successful slave rebellion, France, Britain, and the United States slammed Haiti with a crippling trade embargo, plus the threat of an actual war, unless they repaid the French the worth of every slave "lost" to them in the rebellion. That's right; the Haitians bought their freedom with , and then were forced to buy it again with gold. The cost was 150 million francs, which is the rough equivalent of 21.7 billion dollars in 2010. The amount was later reduced to 90 million francs, but it took the Haitians until 1947 to pay off the debt, despite exporting every penny they made. The loss of 120 years of revenue, plus the continued crippling interest and brutal terms of the various international loans they've taken out to stay alive, are what keeps Haiti so poor. And while the IMF has offered Haiti an additional $100 million in loans in the aftermath of this devastating earthquake, it comes with those same conditions, which include the requirement to RAISE the price on utilities like electricity and prohibit a lot of infrastructure development.

And kellidunham writes this. I agree with her entirely.

What they apparently teach about covering Haiti in journalism school.
1. Don't bother to learn the name of the neighborhood you're reporting from. The generic term "Port au Prince slum" will work fine, even though "slum" has no precise meaning or purpose beyond othering the area.
2. Feel free to proclaim a specific area "devastated" by the earthquake without ever looking at any "before" pictures to see if that's actually true, otherwise folks might be reminded that we've been ignoring how bad things are in Haiti for a while now.
3. Always make sure to describe expressions of sorrow in their most extreme physical manifestations so as to continue with the othering mentioning in #1.
4. Photographers, always show white people calm and black people not calm.
5. The more the subject in a photograph is suffering, the closer the shot should be. If you encounter a person who is very close to and is actually screaming in pain, the camera lens should actually touch their face.
5. Describe all people who eat food procured in ways other than taking what is handed to them by white people as "looters." These same people should be described as "traveling the Port au Prince slums in lawless gangs" even if they are just a family out searching for drinking water.

But would anyone have a fermentation bucket I could borrow for about a month?

specifically: One 5-gallon food-grade plastic bucket with spigot, lid and airlock?

I am wanting to try to make hard cider for Halloween... and I would be pleased to share my hard cider with someone like the person who let's me share their fermentation bucket!

A spoof of the NOM ad, but hysterical.. esp for Takei.

Sigh. "you don't need a lot of dar to spot the gay" made this whole article for me.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2009/03/12/DDTA16CKB1.DTL

OK this is just for my own memory.. but someone on the west coast had a Gashlycrumb Tinies party and the costumes were AWESOME!! I do love me some E. Gorey.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/984137@N20/pool/