Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I'm in the last couple chapters of the first Game of Thrones book. It was a slow start but now I'm really into it.

1984. Somehow it got left out of my literary education and I thought it was time to fill that gap.

Most excited about the Silk Road Cooking I just picked up at the library. I love it when my acquisition requests are approved! Vegan Eats & Treats convinced me that I need to look at this book, but it is expensive (big and beautiful, though) and potentially filled with ingredients I can't find, so I'm super happy to get to test drive it with a copy from the library.

I also picked up The Windup Girl as fiction to read alongside my current non-fiction book Living with Darwin which turned out to be an interesting but surprisingly heavy read. The perceived heaviness of the book might have to do with the fact that I've been using it as my bus book for my new crazy commute, meaning I try to read it before 7 am and I'm just not built for early mornings.

How long did it take to pick up? I'm 15, maybe 20% in and I'm super bored. If there's some kind of payoff coming soonish I'll stick with it.

I read two of those books and they never picked up for me. I gave up and read the plot summaries on wikipedia.

Plastic Ocean, about garbage in the Pacific

I out-lazy both of you. I read the first few pages, and it seemed so silly. I just couldn't.

I'm willing to believe that if I had stuck with it, I'd really enjoy the books.

Maybe one day.

I'm finally almost through The Time Traveler's Wife, which has only been on my "to read" list for about five years. Honestly, after the rave reviews I'd heard, I was surprised to feel like I'd been slogging through 300 pages before really getting interested.

what do you think of Dark Places? I loved Gone Girl.

I've been reading Clash of Kings for months. I'm getting pretty close to the end, but it's been slow going the entire way.

I've taken a break for a while, and have been reading other books on the side. I've been reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman on my Kindle as my main book lately. I really liked John Green's Looking for Alaska, so now I'm reading An Abundance of Katherines on my phone. Every once in a while, I'll switch to CoK and read a few pages, but those other two books hold my interest a lot better. I love having a Kindle and the Kindle app on my iPhone. It makes it so easy to read. And it's nice that I can switch to another book so easily if one isn't holding my interest, or I'm not in the right mindset to read one or the other. And using my phone too means I can still something if I leave my Kindle at home or in my locker at work.

I was reading the Shining, I read it before and when I got to the part where he finally goes crazy, I had to stop because I obviously forgot how scary it is.

So I'm reading Dreamcatcher by Stephen King and not really enjoying it to be honest.

I read it without really knowing anything about it, other than that my mum recommended it, which I'm glad about as I had no preconceptions. But yes, it does go on a bit. I think the author is a bit too in love with the two main characters, but it's a pleasant enough read.

I finally finished Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (about British food from the time of the Romans until now). The author spent loads of time on pre-WWI food and then flew through most of the 20th century (compared to how much space she gave other periods). On one hand, I can understand not focusing too much on modern stuff, but on the other, your book chronicling British food won't really stand the test of time if you assume your readers lived through part of it and will therefore know what you're talking about without any other point of reference. For example, she mentions current celebrity chefs but doesn't really say what they're known for, and it also kinda assumes that the reader is British. It also ended fairly abruptly - it was in the 80s, then suddenly it was wrapping up. It was interesting, but I would've liked more depth on recent food trends (and, biased, I know, but Donald Watson, who coined the word "vegan", was British, and the author only even mentioned vegetarianism once that I can recall).

I really didn't feel that forcing myself through those books was worth it. I read them years ago, so I'm confounded about the popularity now, but I'm wondering if maybe I just missed the strokes of genius. I read them after Lard of the Rings on a recommendation and I would have rather just read LOTR again.

I just started The Amber Spyglass, the last of the His Dark Materials series. I've really enjoyed them. Not my favorite fantasy but I can't seem to put them down for long.

I have three books on the go at the moment: Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner, The Secret History of the World by Jonathan Black and a collection of Chekov short stories.

How do you find Hardcore Zen? I picked up one of his books in the book store, opened it and happened to fall on a page where he was saying Buddhism treats women swell. It was just after I read Zen Women and learned about the institutional sexism in Zen Buddhism so all I could say was "oh, wow, you're privileged" and put it back.

I'd love to read a Zen or any Buddhist book that is accessible to young lay Westerners but not ignorant of Buddhism's Asian roots. I hit gold with Robert Aitken's work but can't find much else.

I've set it aside for now in favor of Chrissie Wellington's autobiography. Maybe I'll go back to it and maybe I won't.

I loved His Dark Materials, truly a good series. I didn't catch all the religious undertones, but nevertheless it was really enjoyable.

I'm reading The Ethical Slut, it resonated with me from the very first paragraph and I find myself agreeing with every single word. I can't believe it took me so long to get here!

this is exactly the experience i am having right now with this same book. A friend recommended it and it didn't sound like the kind of book I usually would want to read, but I felt for some reason compelled to check it out anyway, so I got it from the library and sat down to read a couple pages tonight and literally did not move from the couch once until I had read the entire thing.

I read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother over the weekend, and feeling a bit guilty that I agreed with the mom about 90% of the time.

I'm almost finished with the second Game of Thrones book, and I'm really into them. It's not super fast-paced, but I was interested from the start.

Nearly finished After Dark by Haruki Murakami. I am slowly working my way through all of Murakami's book. Kafka on the Shore next.

I'm in the middle of reading Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie right now. The way it's going is that I'm blowing through a chapter because it's so amazingly good and then going back and reading that same chapter more slowly to enjoy it. Love, love, loving it so far.

I had to try to read the first book 3 times before I decided just to power through and keep with it. Now I'm glad I did as I am about halfway done with the fourth and final book.



I have this book on my Nook and started it but couldn't get into it and gave up. Perhaps I will try again after I finish Game of Thrones.

I am also a huge Diana Gabaldon fan and am anxiously awaiting the 8th book in the Outlander series.