Gosh, I have been a busy girl, haven't I? A lot of this was pure excitement at getting a Kindle Paperwhite. Anyway, here are some quick notes (and my */5 ratings) on the books I read last week. I may keep doing this, I may not. We'll see.
Clovenhoof - a hilarious tale of Satan being kicked out of hell and sent to live in the Midlands. It helps that I wanted to like it because it was written by a friend of a friend, but it really does stand on its own merits. I gave it 4/5 stars. I got it for 99p on the Kindle Store, but it's gone up a bit since then.
Red Dwarf and Better Than Life - the first two Red Dwarf books, written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who conceived and wrote the TV show. I found these in my local charity shop, when I went in to donate some other books. In places, it's like reading a collection of episode summaries. Elsewhere, it expands on things that were only throw-away lines in the show.
The series is actually a trilogy, but both Grant and Naylor had different ideas about how they wanted it to go, so they each wrote their own ending. I'll have to track them down one of these days. I gave the first one 4 stars and the second 5.
The Children of Green Knowe - a children's book that's been in my unread pile for years. I read it to get it out of the way. 3/5.
In the Red - a non-fiction story of a Scottish woman who got £30,000 into debt and spent a year cutting back to try to pay some of it off. Since her idea of cutting back is buying a £24 kettle rather than a £50 one, I'm not surprised she was so far in debt. I like these little slice of life things though. It reads similarly to Save Karyn or How I Lived on a Pound a Day. 3/5 stars. This was a library book.
Baked - a short story from the Kindle store that showed up on Kind of Book for 77p. A love story between a scabby little jam doughnut and a big trollopy eclair (direct quote). Cute and well written, but a little expensive for the length. 4/5 stars.
Princess - a disturbing psychological thriller, and that's both a direct quote and my opinion. Another 77p short story, which I bought from my Kindle Device after finishing Who is Sarah Lawson. Very disturbing. My grandmother would like it, she loves all those creepy murder shows and magazines. It reminded me a lot of the Point Horror short stories, particularly John Gordon's Bone Meal from 13 More Tales of Horror. 4/5.
Who is Sarah Lawson - another Kind of Book rec. 62p from the Kindle store. You can read the full review here. Short version, interesting but amateurish. 3/5.
The Perfect Escape - a collection of short stories from female light romance writers. Free on the Kindle Store. It's designed as an advert for the writers' other books, so it contains a little introduction for each author and a free chapter from those books as well. The stories are pretty decent, except for one, which isn't actually a story - it's an essay on Ryan Gosling movies, based around how attractive he looks in each one. Seriously? 3/5.
Try-It Diet: Vegan - a short introduction to veganism. I was a vegan, but I stopped due to monetary restraints and disordered eating habits. In short, it hasn't psychological healthy for me to try to be vegan recently. However, I'm now in a better place, and since I'll be starting work and earning more money soon, I really want to be a vegan again. I really enjoy it.
I did download the free sample of this first, but, unfortunately, it's so short that it cuts off before you see a single recipe, so I took a 46p gamble and bought it.
There's an entire series of these books, it turns out. The basic premise is that they give you a meal plan and recipes for two weeks, so you can try out a diet and see if it's for you. I kind of want to get the Paleo and Gluten-free versions too, just for the sake of an honest comparison. I was a vegan for two years, and I found that I was able to eat lots of yummy things, that I was more enthusiastic about cooking, and that I could eat whatever I wanted and maintain a weight on my low-side of normal. Since April, when I decided not to feel guilty and started eating more meat and dairy, I've gained 6lbs, and I just don't feel as well. So I know that veganism works better for my body than an omnivorous diet does. I also feel that veganism is the choice that aligns with my morals best, which is why I would like to return to it as long as I don't hurt myself by doing so.
I've known a lot of people who've done very well on Paleo diets (though the idea that it's based on what our ancestors ate is utter bullshit), and I've heard very positive things from people who've cut gluten out of their diets, even if they don't have an allergy. I would really like to see what happens to my body if I did either of those for six weeks. But, I'll be honest here, the idea of cooking a ton of meat for that period, like I think I'd need to for the Paleo isn't good. And gluten-free seems like it would involve lots of ingredients I've never heard of, with scary names. Which is a silly reason, because so did veganism. I'll think about it when I start work.
Going back to this book; the recipes were interesting. Some I'm really interested in trying. The author has a tendency to rely on egg-replacer, which, fortunately, is easy to make, but still. I really prefer recipes designed to be vegan from the get-go rather than recipes which are translated from omnivorism. Also, most of the cake recipes use a "boxed-cake mix". You can tell that it was written by an American, right? Though, in fairness, apart from the boxed cake mix, the ingredients are all pretty standard in the UK.
A note for Americans; we can buy boxed cake mixes here, but they're for children. It's something you'd spend an afternoon making with a child. It's not something you'd seriously buy and make and serve to adult guests. So when we see adults using 'recipes' that include boxed cake mixes, we kind of look at you like we would an adult who had stabilizers on their bike.
Anyway, I gave the book 3/5 stars, and I probably will try it at some point. The majority of the recipes seem to be within my skill level, and only slightly outside of my comfort zone. Plus, I just remembered that Tesco do a 22p own-brand cake mix, so if that's vegan it might be kind of fun to play around with.
Clovenhoof - a hilarious tale of Satan being kicked out of hell and sent to live in the Midlands. It helps that I wanted to like it because it was written by a friend of a friend, but it really does stand on its own merits. I gave it 4/5 stars. I got it for 99p on the Kindle Store, but it's gone up a bit since then.
Red Dwarf and Better Than Life - the first two Red Dwarf books, written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who conceived and wrote the TV show. I found these in my local charity shop, when I went in to donate some other books. In places, it's like reading a collection of episode summaries. Elsewhere, it expands on things that were only throw-away lines in the show.
The series is actually a trilogy, but both Grant and Naylor had different ideas about how they wanted it to go, so they each wrote their own ending. I'll have to track them down one of these days. I gave the first one 4 stars and the second 5.
The Children of Green Knowe - a children's book that's been in my unread pile for years. I read it to get it out of the way. 3/5.
In the Red - a non-fiction story of a Scottish woman who got £30,000 into debt and spent a year cutting back to try to pay some of it off. Since her idea of cutting back is buying a £24 kettle rather than a £50 one, I'm not surprised she was so far in debt. I like these little slice of life things though. It reads similarly to Save Karyn or How I Lived on a Pound a Day. 3/5 stars. This was a library book.
Baked - a short story from the Kindle store that showed up on Kind of Book for 77p. A love story between a scabby little jam doughnut and a big trollopy eclair (direct quote). Cute and well written, but a little expensive for the length. 4/5 stars.
Princess - a disturbing psychological thriller, and that's both a direct quote and my opinion. Another 77p short story, which I bought from my Kindle Device after finishing Who is Sarah Lawson. Very disturbing. My grandmother would like it, she loves all those creepy murder shows and magazines. It reminded me a lot of the Point Horror short stories, particularly John Gordon's Bone Meal from 13 More Tales of Horror. 4/5.
Who is Sarah Lawson - another Kind of Book rec. 62p from the Kindle store. You can read the full review here. Short version, interesting but amateurish. 3/5.
The Perfect Escape - a collection of short stories from female light romance writers. Free on the Kindle Store. It's designed as an advert for the writers' other books, so it contains a little introduction for each author and a free chapter from those books as well. The stories are pretty decent, except for one, which isn't actually a story - it's an essay on Ryan Gosling movies, based around how attractive he looks in each one. Seriously? 3/5.
Try-It Diet: Vegan - a short introduction to veganism. I was a vegan, but I stopped due to monetary restraints and disordered eating habits. In short, it hasn't psychological healthy for me to try to be vegan recently. However, I'm now in a better place, and since I'll be starting work and earning more money soon, I really want to be a vegan again. I really enjoy it.
I did download the free sample of this first, but, unfortunately, it's so short that it cuts off before you see a single recipe, so I took a 46p gamble and bought it.
There's an entire series of these books, it turns out. The basic premise is that they give you a meal plan and recipes for two weeks, so you can try out a diet and see if it's for you. I kind of want to get the Paleo and Gluten-free versions too, just for the sake of an honest comparison. I was a vegan for two years, and I found that I was able to eat lots of yummy things, that I was more enthusiastic about cooking, and that I could eat whatever I wanted and maintain a weight on my low-side of normal. Since April, when I decided not to feel guilty and started eating more meat and dairy, I've gained 6lbs, and I just don't feel as well. So I know that veganism works better for my body than an omnivorous diet does. I also feel that veganism is the choice that aligns with my morals best, which is why I would like to return to it as long as I don't hurt myself by doing so.
I've known a lot of people who've done very well on Paleo diets (though the idea that it's based on what our ancestors ate is utter bullshit), and I've heard very positive things from people who've cut gluten out of their diets, even if they don't have an allergy. I would really like to see what happens to my body if I did either of those for six weeks. But, I'll be honest here, the idea of cooking a ton of meat for that period, like I think I'd need to for the Paleo isn't good. And gluten-free seems like it would involve lots of ingredients I've never heard of, with scary names. Which is a silly reason, because so did veganism. I'll think about it when I start work.
Going back to this book; the recipes were interesting. Some I'm really interested in trying. The author has a tendency to rely on egg-replacer, which, fortunately, is easy to make, but still. I really prefer recipes designed to be vegan from the get-go rather than recipes which are translated from omnivorism. Also, most of the cake recipes use a "boxed-cake mix". You can tell that it was written by an American, right? Though, in fairness, apart from the boxed cake mix, the ingredients are all pretty standard in the UK.
A note for Americans; we can buy boxed cake mixes here, but they're for children. It's something you'd spend an afternoon making with a child. It's not something you'd seriously buy and make and serve to adult guests. So when we see adults using 'recipes' that include boxed cake mixes, we kind of look at you like we would an adult who had stabilizers on their bike.
Anyway, I gave the book 3/5 stars, and I probably will try it at some point. The majority of the recipes seem to be within my skill level, and only slightly outside of my comfort zone. Plus, I just remembered that Tesco do a 22p own-brand cake mix, so if that's vegan it might be kind of fun to play around with.
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