Baking and Reading

Isn't that beautiful? Pasadena's Farmers Market has the best strawberries. And one of my favorite cooking blogs, had a great recipe for strawberry cake. Serendipity. This has not been a good weekend for any diet. Adrian baked his best deep dish pizza ever. And I baked this luscious cake today. We will live, just a bit rounder. The good thing is that I also got a bunch of vegetables at the FM, so the rest of the week might save us.

I've been reading a lot lately. First is a book about Don Benito Wilson. It's paper and it's for one of my PALAC groups. As always, love the group. Bill is the leader, but he couldn't last week, so I lead it. I do love the group, but the book is ridiculous. I'm sure the writer is a very nice man. Everyone in the area seems to know him. Bill and Jaine heard him speak about this book. He's just not a very good writer. A really not very good writer. Just two more sessions.

The rest of my books are digital. These are most of the books I've listened to recently:

Brothers, Rivals, Victors - I just got this one. It's about Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley. Most of the action takes place in WWII, but it also tells the history of each man. I'm a third of the way done. One really interesting thing is that Patton was the grandson of Don Benito Wilson. Some say they were a lot alike. Poor Mrs. Wilson. The book is well organized and well written, always a plus. Another plus is that these are three very interesting men during a very interesting era. Highly recommended.

Screwtape Letters - I've read this before and found it again when looking for books read by Ralph Cosham. This book is perfect for his soothing tones. CS Lewis wrote a lot of books about Christianity. His most famous are The Narnia series. Screwtape is a devil who is writing to his nephew Wormtongue. He is guiding Wormtongue through his attempts to seduce a human into Hell. Lewis was one heck of a writer. Screwtape's explanation about how humans work and think, how they can be corrupted, how they can be lost to "our father below." I recommend this to believers and non-believers. Why should either group lose out on great literature.

A Cure for All Disease - Reginald Hill writes detective stories based in Northern England. Sometimes they focus on detectives Dalziel and Pascoe. I like those best and this is the best I've ever listened to from that series. First, the narrator, Jonathan Keeble, is excellent. He has a lot of people to voice; they are all distinct which makes the book easy to listen to. Second is the way this book was written. The book begins with Dalziel in a convalescent home after a very serious injury. His doctor has suggested that he records his feeling on a tape recorder, which Dalziel has named Mildred. We hear his recording through much of the book, particularly through the first half. These recordings are interspersed with the emails that a young girl is writing to her sister. Lovely.

The middle of the book is a third person narrative. Fascinating. I must remember to listen to this again.

Drawing Conclusions - Another detective story, this one is written by Donna Leon featuring her Venetian detective Brunetti. Well written. I don't know if you remember these stories. They always focus on a social issue. In this case it is about the poor and the elderly and nursing homes. It's amazing how many soap boxes there are to climb on in that gorgeous city. Probably true of any city. Although I liked this book, it isn't one that I would read again. I listened to it over night which means I heard it all at least twice.

Born in Shame - Oh, shame on me. Nora Roberts trash. Third book from one of her trilogies. Yes, I listened to the other two. In fact, the reader was so breathy on the first one it took me a while to get into it. I guess I did eventually. I wasn't born in shame, just reading in shame. Only if you like Nora's books.

George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm - This one took me forever to finish. That's because I really wanted to hear every word, so I had to be awake and aware for every second. George V of England, Nicholas II of Russia, and Wilhelm II of Germany were cousins, all grandchildren of Queen Victoria. They were all affected by WWI, one more adversely than the others. Although the most interesting part of the book was how they blundered into that horrible war, it was all highly readable.

Of course, we all know that Victoria reigned forever. Her son, Edward, took over after she died. Wilhelm and Nicholas had reigned for some time before George got his chance to reign. Despite their biologic closeness, there could not be three more different men. I recommend this one.

Guardian of Lies - for when you need a spy thriller. I recalled that I like Paul Madriani stories. This one is a little far-fetched, but good to listen to as you go to sleep. All of this using books as a sleep aid has reminded me that podcasts are made for that purpose. I've learned this month that I fall asleep within 15 minutes of plugging in. Some of these books are 14 hours long. What a waste. My NPR Shuffle podcasts are about 25 minutes long. So much less to catch up on the next morning.

The Rapture (Updated)

Just a brief word on the Rapture, which is to take place tomorrow, 5/21/2011. Some people are calling this the end of the world. Here's a quote from the bible verse this is based on:

.. and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord

This sounds fair. It wouldn't be bad if that happened, unless you were standing by a graveyard. Spooky to see all the dead in Christ rising from their eternal rest. Also pretty off-putting it would be to see those who are alive and remain being caught up and drawn into the clouds. But if that pleases them, go for it. Some countries will be less crowded. Some political parties would be less crowded. But don't let that discourage you true believers. We will miss you. Really, many of my best friends and family are true believers. In that sense, I'm hoping this is yet another false prophecy.

If it does happen, know that I am on earth, waving you a very fond adieu.

Update - Oh, I see. The Final Judgement is part of this Rapture thing. Non-believers get to enjoy a fiery Hell on Earth. I guess that would prove global warming. Seems a little negative to me, but that threat would probably keep your followers in line.

Looks like we will have an interesting day ahead.

A FESTIVAL of Books

This is the 33rd year of The Times Festival of Books (FOB). Or it seems like it. I feel like I was 33 years younger when this started. FOB was moved from UCLA to SC this year. There were many justifiable complaints, but it is a more compact layout. It was very hot, but clear and dry.

Karen drove down Friday and spent the night on my living room floor. I am so accommodating to guests. We ate pizza, drank wine and planned our next day. Everything but who was driving. Karen drove, I directed and we only had one mis-step in getting to valet parking. Yes, valet parking. Karen got a Panel Pass the moment they were available and got one of the few valet parking passes available to the general public. The lesson is to plan ahead and go with Karen.

Our first panel was Edmund Morris speaking with Scott Berg. Morris has written his third book about Teddy Roosevelt. He also wrote that controversial book, Dutch, about Ronald Reagan. He is a charming speaker. His best line of the day was about Reagan. Morris met with him often at the White House. Morris calls Reagan a consummate actor who played the role of president well. When they were alone together, Reagan was a zero. Morris was shocked that he could be President without a thought in his head. But he was a better actor than I ever imagined.

Here is my sister at lunch. We had trouble finding places to eat. Hopefully they will do better with signage next year. It was a lovely place to eat, once we found it.

Friend John and Murphy's Flaw have been playing at the FOB for years, in many iterations. They played very well. I like the new singers, now that I can hear them. They were unmiked at the coffee house were I first saw this configuration. They were out in the sun, which wasn't great. But that was a small price to play for good music.

We went to a panel about the movie Brokeback Mountain. Interesting, sometimes repetitive, not picture worthy. The next panel was called From Henry Hudson to California Dreams. All the guys pictured above teach history at SC. Kevin Starr was the star. He is a fount of information about all CA history. The other two were also knowledgeable and interesting. It was a great way to end this day.

But wait, there was more! We made our way to pick up the car from valet parking. Karen identified the woman leaning against a light pole there as Maxine Hong Kingston. I knew she was from the bay area. For some reason, I thought Karen knew her. Karen had surprised me before when she knew the secret life time achievement award winner, Ishmael Reed. Karen did go over to talk to Hong Kingston while I sat down. She returned to tell me they were waiting for the author bus. Our car came and I couldn't figure out why we were leaving Karen's friends stranded. So I asked which hotel they were staying at. It was ours, The Luxe. We took them there and it wasn't until after our chatty drive that I learned they were not old friends of Karen. Pretty funny.

We returned to California politics on Sunday morning. This one was Going Under? Broken Government. The highlights were Joe Mathews, a former Times' reporter who has written the book California Crackup, was moderate and well reasoned. He does feel that a radical revision of how CA's government works is necessary, but he was very conservative next to Chris Hedges. Chris wants riots and protests in the streets. This was a very exciting discussion. Joe is right middle and Chris is far right. But only in the picture above.

We walked over to the Cooking Stage to listen to Thomas Keller. There were very few seats out of the blazing sun. He is a very interesting and charming man. I was happy to sit in the sun for a while to listen to him. I have never been to The French Laundry, but Karen and I both realized we had visited another of his restaurants in Napa called Bouchon. He is a very good and thoughtful chef.

Democracy and It's Discontents would have been good without the moderator and the snarky little man sitting next to her. Scott Martelle and Barry Siegel are old Times reports and know how to talk in public. In fact, I would be interested to read Barry's book called Claim of Privilege about the Supreme Court's finding for the government on a civil suit against them. He has a real passion about good writing, as opposed to sarcastic revelations.

Finally, our last panel group may have been one of the best. One of my favorite reporters, Henry Weinstein, was there as was Erwin Chemerinisky and John Dean. The panel was The Living Constitution. None of them have much hope for us as long as those idiot Supremes are still on the bench. My solution was to send cake and cookies and fois gras to Thomas until he explodes. Other than their death, we will just lose our rights by a thousand cuts.

Still, we weren't depressed. It was a stimulating weekend. We finished our Sunday by going to Frying Fish in Little Tokyo. They have a conveyor belt that passes sushi to all seated around the bar. Pretty fun. We also ordered a special roll and eel from the chef in the middle. Fun. Fun weekend all around. I am so happy that I have Karen as my sister and FOB partner.