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Distant Hours, The

A Gothic Phase Author: Kate Morton I’ve been going through a bit of a gothic phase lately. No, not like back in high school, when I spent all my time sulking in my room, picking at my black nail polish and listening to the Cure. (These days I spend my time sulking in my room, picking at my grey nail polish and listening to history podcasts.) I’m talking about the silly yet addictive fiction genre in which a sensitive, bookish young single woman finds herself on some windswept island or wuthering moor somewhere in the UK, ideally near a crumbling [...]

2016-12-31T17:56:42-07:00November 17th, 2012|Tags: , , , |

Poison Pie

Halloween may be over, but I'm still elbow-deep in some very spooky reading: The Poisoner's Handbook, by Deborah Blum. I learned about this book from one of my favorite podcasts, "Stuff You Missed in History Class," since they've referred to it in a couple of episodes on famous poisoners lately. The book is about the birth of modern forensic medicine, which more or less took place in Jazz Age New York. The medical examiner's office had been a pretty corrupt and lazy department, accepting bribes to change death certificates and generally not being too ethical. Until, that is, the crime-fighting [...]

2016-12-31T17:59:06-07:00November 4th, 2012|Tags: , , , |

Cooks and Books

Summer is over, and that's OK with me. Our summer never really got going here in Seattle anyway, and there are plenty of things to love about fall: cardigans and knee-high boots, pumpkin spice lattes and freshly baked bread. Even the shorter days aren't so bad — I prefer to think of it as longer evenings for cozy couch reading. Right now, I'm reading the magical, darkly gothic smash YA hit Shadow and Bone (check out a free Kindle preview of chapters 1-5) and simmering a batch of red onion jam in my trusty Dutch oven. There's nothing like the [...]

2016-12-31T17:59:08-07:00September 25th, 2012|Tags: , , , |
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