October pleasure reading, part 4

This month I also read two other John Grisham books, The Associate and The Client.  Both of these books were less depressing than the first Grisham books I read, so that was refreshing.  They both ended in slightly ambiguous ways but at least I can tell myself that the main characters got their happy endings (instead of knowing that they died or something).  When I return these books to the library I'll see if there are any remaining Grisham books that I haven't read, but I also have a few biographies that I want to read so maybe I'll get to those first :)

October pleasure reading, part 3

This month I also read The Existential Detective by Alice Thompson.  Honestly, I only picked this book up from the New and Noteworthy section of the Duke library because I saw my name on it, but it turned out to be really interesting and a quick read.  It was a story about a private detective who was hired to find a man’s wife.  Throughout the course of the story,  he keeps flashing back to earlier points in his life where we find out he had a daughter who was abducted and never found.  Anyway, the book has a nice, if weird, ending and that’s really all I need from my books.

October pleasure reading, part 2

At BMES 2011, I was able to read some on the plane/in the airport and during conference down time.  I borrowed a book from my friend on an impulse and I enjoyed it.  The book was called Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon and it was not really the type of book I would usually read, but that's okay.  It was short and quick but a bit sad because it was basically about two women that fall in love with the same man and each make big sacrifices to try to be with him.  It did parallel The Little Mermaid a bit, but this was definitely a lot darker, like the actual fairytale by Andersen.  It really makes me want to go on a Disney-watching binge...

October's new dish: Beef stew

This month I made beef stew, the first time I’ve ever used our Crock Pot to make a meal!  It’s not an awesome Crock Pot (I bought it for about $1 at a yard sale the summer I graduated undergrad hah) but it did the trick.  I followed this recipe for the most part, except I just bought two frozen bags of stew vegetables from the store instead of chopping all that stuff, but it turned out nicely!  There was so much left over that Keegan had lunches for an entire week, so that was nice.  I made this recipe because it’s getting chilly and also because stew beef was on sale at the grocery store.  I lucked out with timing for things being on sale because the meat, frozen veggies, and beef broth were all on sale.   I would make this recipe again but I think I’d scale it down a bit; there were a LOT of huge chunks of veggies in it so it took longer to cook than it should have.  I could also let them thaw more before starting this because the recipe was not for frozen veggies.  I also need to figure out the best amount of “browning” for the beef before I add it to the stew because this beef didn’t pull apart as nicely as beef in other stews I’ve had.  I guess now is the part of the marriage when Keegan gets to endure my cooking experiments! :)

This week I stocked up on chicken because it’s about 60% off; as a result of that and some crazy sales on Greek yogurt, this week we saved $38 and spent $56.  I’ve really been falling behind tracking our grocery spending so I’m missing about 3 weeks of information (basically since campout) but oh well.  The receipts keep a running tally of how much we’ve saved with our MVP card so I’ll just have to look at that the next time I think about it.  Then I can at least ball park what we saved in those weeks.

October pleasure reading

This month I finished Heat Rises by “Richard Castle” and The Appeal by John Grisham.  Both books were enjoyable and I got through them really quickly.  A lot of that is because I was at Ethicon on Raleigh on Monday and Tuesday last week so I had a lot of opportunities to read because I don’t have access to the Internet while I’m there.  I finished them both over the weekend.

Anyway, Heat Rises is loosely based around the show Castle, so that automatically is a point in its favor.  This was one was a bit different because the roles were reversed from how they usually are in the show.  For example, in the show, one of them is seriously injured but in the book the other was seriously injured.  I’m sure it’ll turn out alright in the end, but it’s interesting to draw some connections between the show and the books.  I also like the sense of humor of whoever is this ghost writer that takes on the name of the author on Castle.  He had one quip about George Michael’s song “Careless Whisper” and another scene where some agent tells the author in the book that he “sorta looks like that guy who roamed outer space everybody’s so crazy about” to which the character in the book replied, “Malcolm Reynolds?”.  First of all, I LOVE Firefly, and secondly, the actor who plays the author character in the show is the same actor who played Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion).  Just a little humor for the hardcore fans I guess.

Now, I’m still entertained by the John Grisham books, but I’m noticing the theme that none of them ever ends well.  Not a single one.  You want that execution stayed?  No such luck.  You want that juror to survive?  Well too bad, she dies.  You want that appeal denied?  Today’s not your day.  I've started reading The Client and I feel like I should just go ahead and assume they never discover the body they’re looking for and the young protagonist is murdered by mobsters.  It’s not worth hoping it’ll turn out well.