Friday Reading November 22nd

[Vespasia]

It's Friday again. What have you been reading this week?


QOTW: What is your least favorite Thanksgiving food?

[charlatti]

I finished Empire of Ice and Stone by Buddy Levy, which was excellent — impressively well researched but written in an engrossing narrative style. Also finished A Golden Life by Ginny Kubitz Moyer, which was enjoyable but forgettable. Just picked up Louise Penny’s newest at the library, so I will be starting that today.

QOTW: Honestly, I think the turkey is actually my least favorite! I don’t dislike it, but I’d be perfectly happy with just the sides.

[wawa]

Continuing my way through T. Kingfisher's Saints of Steel books. Currently on #4. I don't love it as much as the other books in the same world, but they are a delight nonetheless and #2 in particular made me literally laugh out loud multiple times.

Just about finished up This is How you lose the Time War by Max Gladstone in audiobook. It's short. It's bizarre. I am not sure if I'd like it more reading rather than listening. Listening has been rocky. The language is at times really really beautiful and I just kinda sink into it, and at others I go through a whole minute of the narrator talking and am just like, "wait? what? the fuck?" More beautiful than not, but i am not sure how I'd rate it. It's certainly an experience.

QOTW - Green bean casserole. MH likes it. I do not particularly. So we make it every year because it's like THE thing that he must have or else the holiday hasn't properly happened (mine is a much longer list) but it's so meh. I tried to make it actually good one year, with fresh beans and actual mushrooms and cream and a roux and he was so sad because it wasn't right. Cans or bust.

Everything else I LOVE. Like, a plate with turkey and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and stuffing and mac n' cheese and whatever green veggie (this year we're doing collards), coleslaw, and then gravy on almost everything and a big ole dollop of cranberry sauce? LOVE. And sandwiches the next day? With turkey and slaw and cranberry sauce and mustard and leftover cheese from the charcuterie platter? Every kind of pie and you cut a sliver of each one so you have a whole pie rainbow and whip cream the whole shebang? And then pie for breakfast the next day? (pumpkin pie should legit be a breakfast food. Like, eggs, milk and squash? why not? it's almost a quiche) I'm about to drool on my keyboard.

[dearprudence]

Finished Sadie on a Plate and Pride. I liked both, but preferred Sadie on a Plate.

Listened to Just As You Are, a queer P&P retelling. Instead of sisters, the girls are roommates who work at a queer magazine, Nether Fields that gets bought by Bailey and her best friend Darius. Of all the retellings I've read, this was least true to the original narrative, but I really liked it as a story about a young woman finding herself.

Started listening to Best Served Hot, a romcom about two rival food reviewers.

Started reading Till There Was You about a culinary student and a musician in NYC.


QOTW: What is your least favorite Thanksgiving food? I could live without stuffing

[CrazyLucky]

I finished A Calamity of Souls based on so many recommendations here. For me it was just meh. Right now I'm reading James and loving it.

My least favorite is also green bean casserole. I do love other sides though. So yummy! I like turkey better as leftovers. Turkey sandwiches are the best!

[travella]

I finished When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka 3" and The Grandest Game by Jennifer Barnes 2.5*. I'm currently reading Copper River by William Kent Krueger

Qotw: No one in my family likes turkey all that much so we quit making it for Thanksgiving.
However, my least favorite has to be jello salad. The consistency makes me want to vomit.

[tacokick]

I have been listening to the Slow Horses series on audiobook and finished them! And some regular books too. I think everyone is home reading because my holds at the library are coming in faster than I can place them.

Now I need another series to listen to! I was going to do the Sue Grafton books but the narrator was horrible and reads like 20 of them.


QOTW: I really hate pumpkin pie. The smell alone makes me queasy. It was banned from our house growing up (lol) and we always had chocolate pie instead

[Vespasia]

I have made slow progress with Rust in the Root. I think part of the issue is that it's the kind of book where you have to learn a lot of new terminology as part of the world building and I didn't have the mental bandwidth for this last week. Once I got into it more it really picked up. 

QOTW: I'm late to posting because I couldn't decide. I really love all the sides and turkey is required for leftover sandwiches. I'm going to take the easy way out and say any kind of carrot dish. I like them a lot in general but they're not making the cut with all the other available veggies.