Book Log 2020 #18: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Unknown to most people, Barcelona is the home to the Cemetary of Forgotten Books, a labyrinthine (and possibly magical?) library of obscure and abandoned books. A ten year-old Daniel Sempere is taken there by his father, and allowed to take out one book. He chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, and falls in love with the book after reading it.

Daniel looks for more works by Carax, but finds none. In fact, he learns that his copy of the book may be the only one left, as someone has been buying up copies and burning them. Daniel decides to learn more about Carax and why someone would want to destroy his work. This takes us back to 1919, where a story within the story tells us about Carax and how his life led to someone looking to erase his work forever.

This is the first book in a series, and if the rest of the books live up to this one it'll be well worth reading them all. It's not an easy book to define, as it's at points a mystery, a work of magical realism, and a Gothic novel. But it all works together, creating a higly engaging and atmospheric story. 

 Book Log 2020 #17: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

When their parents have to go to Singapore for unexplained reasons at the end of World War II, a brother and sister wind up in the care of the family's lodger, who introduces the pair to his eccentric band of friends (and coworkers? fellow smugglers? criminals of some type?), all of whom seemed to have some ill-defined role in the war effort. The siblings are given a sort of practical education and helped to find work. The brother becomes convinced that their mother is still in Britain - perhaps even in London - and after more than a year of absence he sees her again, briefly, before being sent off to boarding school in the US.

Jump ahead a dozen years, and the brother is working for the Foreign Office in an intelligence capacity, and he uses that position to try to learn more about the work his mother (and the people who take care of him when she left) did during the war.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, both as a mystery about what all of the adults were doing during the war and as an examination of how the past can shape your present. Very much recommended.

 Book Log 2020 #16: Black Diamond by Martin Walker

A wave of anti-Asian crime hits the French village of St. Denis, from an attack on Vietnamese shop vendors to the burning of a local restaurant. While this is going on, a local truffle expert (and former intelligence agent) is murdered. Does the influx of cheap Chinese truffles connect the crimes, or is it just a coincidence?

Once again, local police chief Bruno wades into the mysteries to find the guilty, dispense some local justice where appropriate, and, most importantly, keep the village running as close to normal as possible. We also get a healthy dose of Bruno's personal life as well, between a return of his former girlfriend (who is climbing the ranks of the national police) and interest in someone closer to home.

As with the previous entries in the series, this is a good mystery wrapped in a travelogue that make me wonder why I haven't moved to the Dordogne yet.

 Book Log 2020 #15: Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi

This isn't a completely new entry in the Old Man's War series, but a retelling of the previous entry, The Last Colony, from the viewpoint of Zoe Perry, the adopted daughter of John Perry and Jane Sagan. It does fill in a lot of gaps, and helps to explain Zoe's role in the events of that book. The book also marks the series transition away from the main characters and towards a broader story about the warring factions trying to claim parts (or all) of the universe.

I liked the book, and appreciate the transition to a different focus for the storytelling. If you like this series you should like this installment.

 Book Log 2020 #14: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

The main thesis of this book is that the east-west exchange fostered by the Silk Road - the trading routes between Asia and Europe - played a much larger role in the development of Western civilization than normally credited, and should be thought of on par with the influence of Greece and Rome. Or to riff off of another book about global interconnectedness, the world was flat well before Thomas Friedman came along.

I gave this book three stars on Goodreads, so there was something I found a little off about this book, but I don't know what it was. The book comes in at over 600 pages, so maybe I found it a bit repetitive? Or maybe I just wasn't a fan of Frankopan's writing style. Or I found the idea that Europeans were influenced by Persia and peoples farther east to not be that surprising. Don't know. It's probably worth a read (a 2018 update adds coverage of China's Belt and Road initiative).

 Book Log 2020 #13: His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

I apparently had a thing going for fiction presenting as fact in 2020. In this example, we are presented with "found" documents relating to a 1869 triple murder in a Scottish village. There's no question that the killer is local teen Roderick Macrae. The real question is why he did it - did Roderick kill to take revenge against the constable that made his life a living hell, or did he have some sort of mental or moral defect that led him down the path to murder?

The documents provide various views of the motives for the crime, most notably the narrative penned by Roderick himself.  They also tell the story in a unique way, once that provides plenty of room for different interpretations of motive, as well as room for doubt as to the veracity of the narrators. It's also notable that the time the novel is set in is not that long after the development of the M'Naghten rule, a jury instruction developed in cases where an insantiy defense is given. This tension between crime as a moral failing or a sympton of illness adds to the conflict at the heart of the book.

This was short listed for the Booker Prize (it lost to Paul Beatty's The Sellout), and is apparently the best-selling book to be shortlisted (though I wonder if it was passed by The Testaments). It's easy to see why it became so popular, between the gripping murder story and the thorough depiction of grinding poverty in rural Scotland. Very much worth reading for fans of crime fiction or even true crime.

 Book Log 2020 #12: The Last Colony by John Scalzi

The third book in the Old Man's War series, we find former solider John Perry and his family settled down, at least until they're given an offer to lead a new colony, made up of residents from other previously colonized planets.

Only problem is that the Conclave, an alliance of races seeking to limit human expansion into the universe, discovered the location of the planned colony, forcing the Colonial Union to send the homesteaders to a new planet. Which they have to settle as damage to their ships prevents them from going home. And which they have to settle without the use of current technology, so the Conclave won't find them. 

And eventually, as you'd expect, the Concalve does find the colony, and it becomes embroiled in the politics between the Concclave and the CU, leading to an inspired - but possibly treasonous - solution.

As with most series, if you've liked previous books you'll like this one.

 Book Log 2020 #10: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

On Valentine's Day 1900, the students and some of the staff at an Australian girls' school go on the titual outing, which ends in tragendy. Several girls and one of the teachers have gone missing.  The search for the missing takes place on a backdrop of suspicion and mistrust, which as you might imagine wind up taking a toll on the school and those associated with it.

The book is written as if the events may actually be true, and most of the locations in the book actually exist. This, combined with the disappearances going unsolved, led to a bit of a national phenomenon with speculation over what happened to the missing women. This was answered by the eventual publication of the book's excised last chapter in 1987, which detailed what actually happened. That it was followed shortly by another book where other writers depicted their own alternate endings gives you a sense of how attached people in Australia were to this story.

I did not develop the same sort of attachment. The book is fine, I just never got that swept into the mystery. I also found the Victorian era manners and attitudes a bit irritating, but I suppose people of the age did as well.

 Book Log 2020 #9: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This sequel to The Handmaid's Tale is set 15 years after the original book, and tells of the beginnings - and end - of that theocratic state through the stories of three women. Two are younger and have little to no functional knowledge of a time before Gilead. The third, Aunt Lydia, tells of the beginnings of the state and how she earned her role within it. Their stories interact with each other - and with the history of the first book - leading to a world-changing conclusion.

I did re-read the first book before the sequel, and I think it's a worthwhile move if you haven't read it in a while. The original book felt a lot more personal to me - which I guess makes sense as it's one woman's personal story rather than the wider-ranging narrative of the sequel - but both are told powerfully and are very much worth reading, even if you've been watching the TV show.

 Book Log 2020 #8: Broken Harbor by Tana French

Once again a member of the Dublin Murder Squad has to balance an active murder investigation with events from their past. Here it's "Scorcher" Kennedy, who is investigating the deaths of a man and his two children, while their wife/mother is in intensive care. It appears to be a case of the man snapping under financial strain - the family lives in a development that's half-finished, a casualty of the Great Recession - but as Kennedy and his rookie partner look into the case, they find that it's not so open and shut.

The past comes in the form of Kennedy's sister Dina, who is prompted by the new case to dredge up an incident from their past that Kennedy believed he had under wraps. 

If this feels familiar it's because most (if not all) of the books in the Dublin Murder Squad series have this sort of set-up, where the main character is investigating a case that dredges up part of their past and brings it into the present. In lesser hands this would get formulaic, but French brings enough difference (both in terms of the narrative and the main character's persona) that the recurring framework doesn't feel old.

I think I've pretty enthusiastically recommended the books in this series in the past, and do so again here.

Book Log 2020 #7: The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin

This fitting climax to the Broken Earth trilogy sees the mother and daughter orogenes (humans who can control earth processes like quakes) square off in their plans to save or destroy Earth.  I won't go into details (mostly because I'm writing this up a good 2+ years after reading the book), but will say that this book was incredibly satisfying both on a storytelling level and on wrapping up lingering questions about the world of the Stillness. 

If for some reason you've not read these books you should do so at your earliest convenience.

 Book Log 2020 #6: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

Humans have established a foothold on the moon, and are now looking to make the jump to Mars. The first mission is being planned, but the powers that be have left women off of the crew, not wanting to put them in harm's way during such a dangerous mission.

This leaves the popular "Lady Astronaut" Elma York at her current job, flying between the Earth and the moon. She wants to go to Mars, but isn't sure how to get herself - never mind women in general - included. She's also not sure if she should go in the place of other astronauts, who like her have been passed up for not being a white male. On a more personal note, she's also trying to balance advancing her career against starting a family, as she'll definitely be grounded once she's pregnant.

It's interesting to see all of these challenges play out over the planning and eventual execution of the mission, though at times the issues feel more contemporary than those prevalent in the 1960s (though the international make-up of the astronaut corps and the looming planetary disaster would give some explanation for that).

I did like this book, and appreciated how it furthered the story and characters without being too obviously working to set up the third book. 

 Book Log 2020 #5: The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters

A local widow has given her home to the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but on the condition of an annual rent payable to her of a single white rose from the house's garden. Which isn't normally a problem except for the year 1142, when the man renting the house returns from a job to find the rose bush hacked away at its base, and a young brother from the abbey (who had been asked to be released from his vows due to his feelings for the widow) dead beside it.

Just as Cadfael and the sheriff start their investigation, the widow who owns the house suddenly disappears. Both events appear related, and engineered to void the charter that rented the house to the abbey. Cadfael follows the clues and the consideration of who would stand to benefit from these events, with the expected results.

I generally liked this entry in the series, but it does have what may be the cheesiest ending of them all. Almost cheesy enough to put me off of the book. Be forewarned.

 Book Log 2020 #4 Even the Dead by Benjamin Black

Pathologist/amateur detective Quirke is back on the case, or cases, as he gets pulled into investigating the suspicious death of a young man (whose death is made to look like an accident or suicide) and the disappearance of a pregnant woman who is a friend of sorts of Quirke's daughter, Phoebe.  Quirke pairs up with police inspector Hackett to look into these cases, which appear to involve some old foes from the Catholic church. The involvement of the church also provides a personal connection for Quirke, whose time in an orphanage - and the treatment he received there from the priests running it - has led to medical issues as he moves further into middle age.

I like this series best when it delves into the power structure that ran Ireland in the mid-20th century, as I don't think the average reader would really understand how ingrained the Church was in the running of the country at that time. Those power structures also provide a more engaging - and often enraging - foe for Quirke. 

 Lentorama 2020: Forty Days of Food

Day 15: fanesca

I wrote about fanesca last year when talking about Easter traditions in Ecuador, it's a grain-based soup that's so popular during Lent that there are competitions between restaurants to see who makes the best version.

For this post I was going to write about this year's competition, except that there wasn't one. Covid-19 forced the closure of pretty much all of the restaurants. What this did lead to is a growth in people making the soup at home (note: the page is in Spanish). This also had some challenges, as people were restricted as to when they could go to the market, and the markets had to implement their own procedures to keep shoppers safe. The pandemic also made it hard to get some ingredients due to disruptions in the supply chain, but the prices of the ingredients were often lower than usual because the restaurants weren't buying them. Such are the connections between food, public health, and religion.

 Lentorama 2020: Forty Days of Food

Day 14: pinca

Pinca is a bread made in parts of Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia (Istria and Dalmatia primarily). It's made with an enriched dough, and using eggs and sugar means it's not repentant enough to be eaten until the end of Lent. 

It's kind of like a cross between a large hot cross bun and soda bread, with the dough being more like a hot cross bun and the preparation more like soda bread (loaf-sized and with a cross cut through the top). 

This page gives a short history of the bread and links to several recipes. It looks like the Easter bread is commonly flavored with citrus, and might have some alcohol added in for extra flavor.  You don't get the dried fruit, icing, or nuts that you can get with hot cross buns, but a version made for Christmas is likely to have raisins (or more properly sultanas, based on the recipes in the link). 

There are a number of regional names for the bread, one of which, pogača, is also the last name of the winning cyclist from the 2020 Tour de France (note: this was written after the race; if I actually knew about this in March I would have hit the betting shops hard). I imagine he got some grief from the other kids about this growing up.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 13: colomba di Pasqua

There are a lot of breads specific to Easter, don't know why but I'm guessing it's something to do with making something that's risen. In any case, colomba di Pasqua is an Italian bread made at Easter, a springtime cousin to panettone or pandoro.

The reciepie for colomba di Pasqua is actually pretty similar to panettone, as far as the dough goes. The Easter bread uses candied peel rather than raisins, and it's topped with almonds and pearl sugar. It's also shaped into a dove (the name translates into English as Easter dove), rather than panettone's tall shape. 

This article from Eataly goes a little deeper into the history of the bread, and notes that it's something that's more often store bought than attempted at home. It mentions that the dough takes 30 hours to rise, which would certainly send me to the bakery for a loaf.  

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 12: sárgatúró 

Sárgatúró is a Hunarian dish whose name literally translates to "yellow curd cheese," though I think it's open to debate how much like cheese it really is.

To make it, you combine eggs, milk, and sugar, and boil until it starts to clump and resemble a curd cheese. You then add vanilla, and any other items you may want in it (other spices, raisins, etc.). You then put the solids into a cheesecloth and force out as much liquid as you can. After that, you hang it so the mass comes together, and to get more liquid to seep out.

Once it's in one solid piece, you can slice it and eat it with ham, bread, or whatever part of the Easter meal you'd like. Most of the web pages about sárgatúró are in Hungarian, but this page in English talks a little bit about it, has a recipie, and a good picture of the finished product. And by good I mean the quality of the photo; the actual appearance of the dish looks, to me, like a loaf of scrambled eggs.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 11: hot cross buns

Hot cross buns have a long been traditional at Easter, when buns were made without dairy throughout Lent.  It's not clear when they were first made, at least in some form that we would recognize. There's some record of buns being made going back to the 6th century in Greece, while the English have an origin story that goes back to the 14th century at an abbey in St. Albans. 

Regardless of where they were first made, the buns do share a distinctive cross pattern, that could be put into the buns using shortcrust pastry, a paste made of flour and water, or just cutting the cross into the dough. All of these methods seem to have to have taken a back seat to sugar icing, which is a bit more acceptable if you have your buns at the end of Lent rather than during.

While early buns don't appear to have been flavored, over time various spices were introduced, with the idea that they represented the compounds used to prepare Jesus for entombing. This has also changed in more recent times, either with the addition of dried fruit or various flavors (like sticky toffee, apple cinnamon, chocolate, and so on). 

I have to admit that I'm pretty ambivalent about hot cross buns, and find the iced ones too sweet.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 10: aquavit

Aquavit is a Scandinavian spirit brewed from grains or potato, like gin or vodka, but is flavored with various herbs and spices, with caraway typically the dominant flavor (this Eater article gives a good overview on aquavit and suggests a number of brands to try). I never associated it specifically with Easter, but it's apparently very traditional in countries like Norway and Denmark to have a glass with your Easter meal. It's just that it's also traditional to have it with your Christmas meal as well. Or any meal, really.

One thing I did know about aquavit is that there's a type called line aquavit, which is made by putting casks of the stuff on a ship and then sending it to Australia and back (the line in the name refers to the Equator). The conditions on the ship provide a specific character to the aquavit, which is not present in varieties aged on land only. There's been some attempt to recreate this process on land with machinery to mimic changes in humidity, the ship's motion, etc., but without success.