Tag: admin1 reading

Book read by Admin1

Roast Chicken

For our family dinner today we had A1’s lovely roast chicken with halcyon potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, mixed vegetables, stuffing and gravy, followed by tiramisu ice cream (which took a lot longer than the recipe’s stated 5 minutes to thaw), followed by the quiz at which we scored a sadly deficient 8, bringing our average down below 10.
A1 is rereading The Three by Sarah Lotz. A2 is rereading Spook Street by Mick Herron.

Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Woke up this morning, sun shining through the rain. Looked for the rainbow and instead saw, through the rain-blurred glass, what seemed to be a giant black and yellow bee sitting on a cornflower. Got a better look; it was a goldfinch eating the cornflower seeds. The rainbow arrived later. Here it is:
Meanwhile A1 is reading The Third Nero* by Lindsey Davis.

For Fox Sake

A bold fox crossing next door’s garden on its way to meet another fox lurking in the undergrowth in our garden.
A1 is reading Desperate Undertaking* by Lindsey Davies, in which a series of elaborately staged theatrical murders in Ancient Rome are investigated by a well-drawn heroine. Entertainingly written and light-heartedly gruesome, LD’s Rome bears more than a passing resemblance† to Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork (by no means a bad thing), with its eccentric inhabitants and somewhat cynical approach to policing. A fun read.
A2 is reading Ghost-Eye* by Amitav Ghosh, an engrossing saga combining reincarnation, psychic powers and environmentalism.

† It turns out LD is a big fan of TP, and cheerfully acknowledges “tribute plagiarism”.

Happy Birthday Dave

It’s Commonwealth Day and also Dave’s birthday so we ate Swedish meatballs to celebrate his origins and A1 served up a lovely cake with candles, peach slices and sprinkles on top. Afterwards we did the quiz with Ivy as quizmaster and scored a steadying 10.
A1 is reading Death at the Sanatorium* by Ragnar Jonasson. A2 is reading The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler.

First Poppy

Welcome to the first big poppy of spring, fresh out of the bud and attended by bees (NB technically it is the second poppy, but the first was way down beneath the leaves and inaccessible to wildlife or cameras).
A1 is reading The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, an alternate-history sf novel set in 1952, when a meteorite hits the east coast of the US and wipes out most of the government. The ensuing threat of catastrophic climate change kick-starts the space program, and we follow a female “computer” — as in real life, the maths was done by women, many black — as she attempts to join the program and become an “astronette”. This book won just about every sf award going in 2018, including the usually reliable Sidewise award. But despite the laudable examination of gender and racial issues, the book comes across as … well, rather soppy and girly. It must have been a fallow year for good sf.

Dinner with the Royals

The first Jersey Royals of the season have arrived in the shops and immediately there is an argument about whether they should be cooked starting with cold water or boiling water. The packets were no help; they gave opposite instructions. But anyway they were delicious, served with salmon and creamy cheesy leeks and followed by A1’s scrumptious pineapple upside-down cake.

Sadly Gez and Bob were absent from our gathering so we only scored 7.5 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler. A2 is rereading (though I don’t remember reading it the first time, twenty years ago) The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw.

Healthy Veggie Food

We had brassicas for Africa this week, and Gez is dieting for health, so our food for today was cauliflower cheese with coleslaw and a garden lettuce salad followed by fruit salad, after which we scored 11 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading The Edge of Darkness* by Vaseem Khan. A2 is rereading Death at the Sign of the Rook by the ever-enjoyable Kate Atkinson.

Welcome Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS)

Another marvel from the Dwarf Mini; captured by A1 in the wee small hours in a gap between trees.
More info on Roast with a bonus North America Nebula. Update: Here’s a better photo, taken the next morning:
Our bathroom book is The Single Helix 100 short science essays by Steve Jones, which has well-timed chapters: one for a no.1, two for a no.2.

Critter of the Day: Tit

A little bird sitting on the weather station.
A1 is reading The Bells of Westminster* by Leonora Nattrass. A2 is reading Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. I don’t generally like reframings of well-known works of literature but Atwood’s reprise of The Tempest as an avant-garde production in a prison with the producer hell-bent on revenge was a joy and an education.

Happy International Women’s Day, Ladies!

Here’s a delicious cherry bakewell cake to celebrate, after the main dish of pork in cider and before we scored 12 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading Quantum of Menace* by Vaseem Khan, who should stick with Indian detectives rather than pseudo-American thrillers and (as here) feeble James Bond tie-ins.
A2 is reading The Bells of Westminster* by Leonora Nattrass.

Booktally Day

It’s Booktally Day! Since we started counting we have read 3390 books; a mere 240 up on last year, but many of them were enormous, eg IT, ICE and assorted Neal Stephensons.
Out today is Nonesuch by Francis Spufford (see above) which A2 is about to read. A1 has just started rereading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds so he’ll have to wait his turn.

Happy Pancake Day, Ramadan, Chinese New Year and Birthday Bob!

So much to celebrate! We had more food than you can shake a chopstick at, followed by A1’s sublime chocolate cake with 10 candles and 10 Lego minifigures sunk knee-deep in ganache.
A1 is reading HHhH by Laurent Binet. A2 is rereading Valis by Philip K Dick. We scored a most excellent 11 on the GSQ.

Critter of the Day: Goldcrest

Regulus regulus, so good they named it twice. We have never spotted this King of the Birds before but it’s easily overlooked, being barely bigger than a bumblebee.
A1 is rereading Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds. According to our records, I originally read this on 5 Sep 2021. But I have absolutely no memory of it at all — and I would have remembered it, as it’s a much-anticipated continuation of AR’s Revelation Space sequence, with many recurring characters. Excellent, though the ending is a bit of a cop-out.
A2 is reading HHhH by Laurent Binet, an absolutely brilliant non-fiction novel about the attempt to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, documenting the writer’s struggles with his subject and including many encomia to Prague, which A1 and A2 also love.

Chicken Tonight

Another family dinner. A1 roasted a delicious chicken with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, carrots and broccoli and A2 made a wobbly trifle. We did this week’s and last week’s GSQs and scored 10 on the first and 10.5 on the second.
A1 is reading It’s Not a Cult by Joey Batey, a debut horror/fantasy novel about an alt-folk band in northern England who manage to conjure up a legion of Solkats — small gods of trivial things like empty glasses and bruises. JB (day job: actor) claims to have been writing for years without getting published, and you can perhaps see why: it’s horribly over-written. Some interesting ideas and touches of humour, but he’s clearly been paying obeisance to the Solkat of purple prose.
A2 is reading Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds.