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The Woods All Black is equal parts historical horror, trans romance, and blood-soaked revenge, all …
This ended up not really being my thing; the supernatural stuff didn't work for me and it was offering a kind of catharsis that I'm not looking for. But I liked the historical fiction stuff a lot and I'm glad I read it nonetheless
The Woods All Black is equal parts historical horror, trans romance, and blood-soaked revenge, all …
it's been a while since I felt totally engrossed in a book and this is hitting the spot
The Bachelor's Life by Nathan, George Jean is a book that explores the life of …
I know this was meant to be arch but the tone was unbearably smug and the misogyny and racism seemed excessive even for 1941. It also, insult to injury, dispenses with talking about bachelorhood about a chapter in and digresses into fully just this guy complaining about things (mainly how rich he is)
Marguerite Florian has spent her life acquiring and selling information, using whatever means necessary. When …
This appeals both to my desire to read some fluff, and to my interest in hypothetical pre-industrial supply chain logistics for salt
War machines and AI gods run amok in The Archive Undying, national bestseller Emma Mieko …
This was a frustrating read because I liked so much about it, but I thought it floundered a bit in the second half and also it was just so much. I wish it had done way less and spent more time with the story. I felt like the impact of revelations was diminished by the sheer volume and frequency they came at. The world was really interesting, but important parts didn't feel fleshed out (like the entire government and how it operated, logistically)
During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the …
I'm really liking this but you'll be shocked to hear that this book about a soldier and a nurse in WWI is pretty bleak so far
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by …
What an absolute delight. I haven't read this in a decade and didn't realize how thematically in line with Jeeves and Wooster it is
For just a moment, things seem to be under control for the soldier known as …
I didn’t think this book was as strong as the start of the series; it got a little… whimsical? and some of the character dynamics didn’t make a ton of sense to me, but I still was very happy to revisit this
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing …
I've been on a bit of a re-reading kick and this was so fun to revisit
A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town …
dead parents and john prine; they got my number for this one
Volume 1 of The Mirror Visitor Quartet
Winner of the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire
Where …
This really did not hold up to a reread; perhaps knowing how disappointing I found the later books colored it. But it was an escape when I needed one.
One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century: the story of the …
This was a delightful quick read; lively and engaging and ultimately sad
Six murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations. . . but only one is …
I would like to say, since I continue to wish I didn't have to stumble on other people posting their Cain's Jawbone solving thoughts, that I'm not going to post any of my Cain's Jawbone solving thoughts. Just, if anything, genuine, uncritical reactions to the text.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled …
I found this touching and hopeful, I liked how poignantly the characters were drawn, and the themes of kindness and the vicissitudes of life.
My main complaint was that I think the simulation theory stuff was basically an unnecessary macguffin and didn't add to the themes (at least as far as they interested me).
I found this book a little disappointing because of how it's organized and how much of baking it tries to cover. It starts out with a ton of information about baking as a profession, tools, and technical information about baking (like tables of different gelling agents, and bread techniques and terminology). All of that information is really good, well curated, and clear, but I wished that the techniques specific to certain kinds of baking were placed with the recipes, rather than all together at the beginning. It also spends a lot of time, understandably, on professional bread techniques, and a lot less on pastry techniques. It feels at times like a bread book with some pastry recipes included.
There are tons of recipes, but often they are variants on a theme (like banana, chocolate, or lacenut tuiles) but no basic recipe and no information on how to modify the recipe …
I found this book a little disappointing because of how it's organized and how much of baking it tries to cover. It starts out with a ton of information about baking as a profession, tools, and technical information about baking (like tables of different gelling agents, and bread techniques and terminology). All of that information is really good, well curated, and clear, but I wished that the techniques specific to certain kinds of baking were placed with the recipes, rather than all together at the beginning. It also spends a lot of time, understandably, on professional bread techniques, and a lot less on pastry techniques. It feels at times like a bread book with some pastry recipes included.
There are tons of recipes, but often they are variants on a theme (like banana, chocolate, or lacenut tuiles) but no basic recipe and no information on how to modify the recipe yourself or what makes the modifications work. The pastry recipes aren't terribly well organized, not much time gets devoted to different types, and there are big omissions (like macarons).
I think it is just too ambitious to have a single book about "baking and pastry"!