Bookhaul

Walking and Book Buying and Peanut Butter & Sweet Potato Soup

PETERMBALL Journal , , , , ,

Yesterday I caught a train out to West End, walked to my friendly local independent bookstore, unexpected caught up with Trent Jamieson while he was working there, bought a copy of the new Michael Cunningham novel alongside a few other books (Hell’s Angels, A Fairwell to Arms), walked from West End to Anzac Square Arcade in Brisbane city, bought more books from Pulp Fiction – my favourite bookstore in the world, bar none – and then caught a train home whereupon I collapsed on the couch and watched old episodes of NCIS until I fell asleep.

And really, that was yesterday, and we call it a win. Exercise and books are an unbeatable combination.

‘Course today I’ll be dead on my feet at the dayjobs, forcing myself to stay awake, but these are small problems and entirely worth it.

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My friend Laura Goodin is an American ex-pat living out in the Australian wilderness (well, Woolongong), writing stories and plays and, if I remember this correctly, the occasional opera or symphony  cycle (I can’t remember which, specifically, because it occurs me that  know too many people writing such things, which is one of those odd things to realise about your life).

She also cooks many tasty things, including this Sweet Potato and Peanut Butter soup recipe she’s just posted for public consumption.

I got a copy of the recipe not long after Laura and I met in Clarion South back in 2007, and it’s one of those meals that you occasionally make for people and they say you know, this is rather good, can I have the recipe please? and you have that lovely moment where you can be either magnanimous or cackle like a comic book villain and say no, it’s a secret.

The latter can make you look cruel, but it will also prepare you for the hard decisions and harsh realities of eventual global domination.

But the Peanut Butter soup really is a nice meal, one that’s become a staple of my winter diet and one of my sister’s default shift-work meals, and since I tend towards magnanimousness I give you the link to try for your own self.

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Got one of those pleasant do you mind if we reprint this story? emails today, which also conveniently ticks off one of the entries on the secret list of writing goals I very rarely speak of.

I’m always caught by surprise when people want to reprint things. Especially since it’s rarely the things I  expect people to want to reprint.

6 Days ’til Worldcon

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , , ,

So this morning started with a trip out to my not-so-local post office to check my mailbox, largely on the assumption that a terribly efficient postal system stood a very small chance of delivering a hardcover book from England to Brisbane in the space of a week. Admittedly I figured it was a long shot, but if I didn’t check today I wouldn’t get a chance until after Worldcon, and at the back of my mind was this constant what-if-what-if-what-if…

And lo, when I opened my PO Box, my faith in the postal system was rewarded with this:

Angela Slatter’s Sourdough and Other Stories in all its fabulous, hard-covery glory. And it is freakin’ glorious – a hardcover and with a placeholder ribbon that’s packed to the gills with stories that rock the freakin’ casbah. Plus it’s one of those books that looks just as good without the dust-jacket:

And, as with all good books that enter the house, it was in my hand all of six minutes before the Spokesbear clamoured to start reading:

 

Personally, I suggest you head head over to  Tartarus Press and snag one of the remaining copies before the limited run of 300 are gone. ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m just going to torment you with my copy for the rest of your days.

Mmm, new book smell

PETERMBALL Journal ,

I don’t normally buy remaindered books, what with the fact that they’re financially dead for the authors who wrote them and I’m in favour of authors getting paid, but today I made an exception based on the grounds of being very broke and finding a trio of Hard Case Crime books at a very low price while shopping for groceries.

The part of me that feels bad about buying remaindered books wages a quiet war with the part of me that thinks picking up pulpy, hard-boiled paperbacks in a supermarket is one of those experiences I thought lost forever. It confused the hell out of the woman on check-outs too; she had to be convinced they were store product, rather than library books I was carrying around while picking up bread and milk.