Category Archives: Recommended Reading

Fabulous Reads for the Single Girl

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This one is for the single ladies- all those super awesome independent ladies that live by their own rules and don’t let their lives be ruled by their relationship status (or in this case, lack thereof).

In fact, I read an article recently that predicted the rise of the single female professional, and how they would eventually take over the workforce.

Who knows? Girls really might end up running the world.

Here’s some of my my favorite fabulous reads for all of you fierce females out there:

One of the quintessential books for single women would of course have to be Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I loved it as much as every other woman that read it, but I think her follow-up, Committed, is definitely underrated. Part essay, part memoir, it’s a pretty interesting look at the institution of marriage and how it has shaped our culture.

If that doesn’t make you re-think the way we look at weddings and marriages these days, then you’ve got to take a look at Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages in Literary London 1910-1939 by Kate Roiphe. You’d be surprised at how many marriages were just as messy as modern ones, except their society had a much lower tolerance for things that are more readily accepted today: Mistresses! Open relationships! Polymory! If you’re a bookworm and you like gossip, this one is for you.

Bachelor Girl by Betsy Israel is another walk through history with a different slant: in it she chronicles the trials and tribulations of the single woman, starting with the spinsters who were put into homes as an act of charity, to the working women of the early 1900s forced to room together in tiny, cramped rooming houses with marriage as they only means of escape. If anything, it will remind you of the privilege you have of being a single woman who is able to read this at her leisure right now.

If you read any book on this list, I hope it’s On My Own: The Art of Being a Woman Alone by Florence Falk. I read it after a really bad break-up and it was a real epiphany; even if you’re in a healthy, committed relationships I think it’s still an important read. Even though it’s aimed at widows or women going through a divorce, it’s not really a book about grief, or life after marriage. It’s about learning how to enjoy your own company, the importance of exploring one’s own interests, and ultimately fostering a healthy relationship with one’s self. As women we place far too much of our self-worth on our relationships and what we can give to other people. Folk’s message is a gentle reminder that being alone allows one the time and space to give back to yourself.

I’m not knocking relationships; it can be really nice to have a partner. But it’s my firm belief that relationships only work if you can still remain true to yourself, and your own interests and values. They key is finding someone that you can learn and grow with along the way. If you’ve found that person, great. Still searching? Sometimes people enter and exit our lives for good reason; most of it is just meeting the right person at the right time.

But if you’re still feeling bad, consider this: you get to have the bed all to yourself.

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I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.

 

Good Laughs with Geriatric Sensations

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I’m no expert on things fashion or beauty, but I’ve decided that 90 is officially the new 30. Or 25. Or whatever.

The point is, seniors don’t often get the starring role in most stories, but recently I’ve come across some examples that made me think it’s time we stopped overlooking the elderly as a source of entertainment.

Take my 94-year old grandfather, for example. His memory may be lacking, but he still manages to be the center of attention wherever he goes, bursting out into little ditties of his own invention, and referring to everyone he meets as “old chap” or “lovey”. (He’s very British). However, we sometimes have to be careful- his advanced age and state of mind means his social graces can be somewhat lacking, as he’s never afraid to point out (often loudly) when someone has a “tremendously large bottom”. (His words, not mine).

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Before his decline in health, my grandfather’s fierce independence put me in mind of the title character of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. It’s both a heartwarming and hilarious tale about a man determined to make peace with an old friend as she lies dying in a hospice miles away, and the lengths he goes to achieve his goal. Literally. It was one of my favorite books I read last year, alongside The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg. It’s another story about a spunky senior who breaks out of the retirement home where she lives, along with a gang of unlikely friends.

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If you like break-out stories, The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is another tall tale out of Sweden that delivers one hilarious hijinck after another. (It was an international bestseller, and got made into a movie in Sweden. The author, Jonas Jonasson, has a larger catalogue of work that’s recently been translated into English that’s worth checking out if you enjoy his dry, Scandinavian sense of humor.)

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (which is one of my most frequently borrowed books) features six separate story lines, one of which involves a struggling, eccentric publisher trying to escape the retirement home where he feels he has been wrongly imprisoned by his rich, conniving brother. I’m biased because Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite books, but those who find it too heavy or convoluted may find comic relief in this particular character. (Jim Broadbent played him in the movie and he’s pretty funny.)

One of the things I admire the most about my grandfather is the love and affection he had for my grandmother; the quiet strength he showed getting dressed in his suit and hat and driving down to the nursing home first thing every morning just so he could be the one to feed her breakfast. He did this for seven years straight until her death in 2011. It’s one of the truest, most honest love stories I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing.

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In honor of their love I feel obliged to include a romantic story on this list, and in this case I think Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson is the most fitting. It’s beautiful and well-written, so well-written you often to have go back and re-read a sentence before Simonson’s humor makes itself apparent. When it does it catches you off-guard- I was surprised at how often this book made me chuckle out loud, and how it made me cry just as often.

Major Pettigrew is a lonely widower in a small English village who finds himself forming an usual friendship with the owner of the local corner store. It’s so touching to see their relationship gently blossom underneath the shadow of race and class tensions within the community, and within their own families. I was remiss in leaving this off of my list of favorite books of 2016- that’s how much I loved it.

Climbing out windows, impromptu cross-country hikes, art gallery heists- the things these retirees get up to makes my list of accomplishments look a little boring. Ok, so maybe I’m not aspiring to anything as daring (or in some cases, illegal) but these fun, quirky characters that remind me of my grandfather also give this young whippersnapper some hope for the future. They’re literary proof that frail bodies don’t necessarily equal frail hearts.

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I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.

Best Books of 2016

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I’ve had the same New Year’s resolution for a few years running now (if you haven’t been following along, check out this post here). To recap: I was sad about giving one of my favorite hobbies such a low priority in my life, and I wanted to challenge myself to include more reading in my routine.

I use my Goodreads account to track and rate all of the books I read, and to encourage myself to keep up the pace on my reading challenge. (This year’s goal: read 60 books.) I’m not affiliated with Goodreads in anyway but I find having a visual way to monitor my progress very beneficial.

However, I’ve since discovered something that’s helped me even more.

It’s this blog, and more importantly, you guys (the readers). There has been nothing more special to me as a bookworm than to find a community of kindred spirits like yourselves to share all my deepest, bookish thoughts with, and to commiserate on all of the books we’ve read, both good and bad.

I’m amazing too, to connect with people across the globe, regardless of race, religion or age. We all have something that brings us together in spite of our differences and I think that makes us pretty special.

So thank you, my dear readers, for making this year a great one, both in blogging and reading adventures.

Here are some of my favorite titles that I’ve read this year:

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Fiction

For someone who relies so much on their sight to read, it seems a little ironic that two of my favorite books of this year were about blindness. For instance, the appropriately-titled Blindness by José Saramago resonated so much with me that I included it on my list of reads that have shocked my poor sensitive system. Just imagine if everyone in your city started going blind- you’d be shocked too.

A little less scary, but no less interesting or beautiful, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is about a blind girl struggling to survive through World War II, and a treasure hunt that will leave you wild with excitement.

If modern-day horrors scare you even more than post-apocalyptic worlds and war, be sure to pick up a copy of Lionel Shriver’s So Much for That. It’s one of the many books this year that really made me stop and think, and its darkly humorous take on a family devastated by cancer made it another contender on my list of books that you should read at your own risk.

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas is another controversial, albeit more gossipy book, about the aftermath of a suburban barbecue where a parent slaps a child that is not their own. No matter where you stand on the discipline issue, the secrets and lies that unravel as a result made this book hard to put down.

Among the serious titles I’ve read this year, I’ve come across a couple of favorites that are a little more light-hearted. The Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg turns the Scandinavian crime genre on its head with the role of the scheming villain played by an aging pensioner just looking for better treatment. (Ok so maybe it’s a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek look at the way we treat our elders, but it still had me in stitches all the same.)

Finally, one of my favorite fiction books of the whole year has to have been Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It’s everything a good book should be- funny, bittersweet, thoughtful and surprisingly compelling considering it’s actually about a super-long walk across the English countryside.

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Poetry

Once in a while a book of poetry finds its way to my shelves, and my list of favorite books this year wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention how much I loved this slim volume of poetry and creative prose by Canadian author (and now friend!) Joel Thomas Hynes. Straight Razor Days is a collection of thoughts about nearly everything in Hynes’ life- his hometown, his childhood, his relationship with his son- and even though it seems like he uses just about anything that crosses his mind as material, the works here still maintain a sense of cohesion. It’s beautifully written, so even if poetry isn’t always your thing, I still suggest that you check it out. (And he doesn’t even know I’m telling you that!)

Update: This title isn’t currently available on Amazon, so I encourage you to hunt it down in your local bookstore, or check out some of his other titles. They’re all good!

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Non-Fiction

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman was a great education for millennials like me in how global events in the 80s and 90s have shaped the interconnected world we live in today. Keep in mind I was just a young’un when a lot of these changes were taking place, and this book helped shed some light on some of the things I didn’t fully understand.

I can’t say enough good things about Elizabeth Gilbert’s creative manifesto, Big Magic. I won’t go on too much about it because of the gushing review I wrote here, but if you’re anyone who has ever felt inclined to do any artistic thing ever, you will find this book valuable.

Do Over by Jon Acuff will forever go down in history as the only career-related book that got me in the feels. If you’re looking to make a change in your career, or just tired of accepting the status quo at your current job, this one is for you. (Don’t believe me? Read the review I wrote about it here.)

KBwB-BFlower-50What were some of your favorite books that you’ve read this year? Send me your list at keepingbusyb@gmail.com or better yet, let’s be friends on Goodreads so we can snoop each other’s virtual bookshelves. Want to see even more of what I like to read? I love talking about books here, here, here and here. Or comment below and let me know what you think of my list. How many books have you read this year? I need to know it all!

 

Read at Your Own Risk

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I’m not really a scary movie person; around this time of year when people invite me to re-watch some of the classics with them my response is usually, “I’m fine, thanks. My imagination scares me enough as it is.”

It’s not a line- this is 100% absolutely, totally true. As a kid I was plagued by crazy, reoccurring nightmares and as I grew older and learned about the horrific historical events that paved the way to our modern society- wars, genocides, holocausts, disease. These things almost scared me more than the ghosts and demons I conjured up in my imagination,

Hearing and watching these stories always shook me to the core- to this day, I still can’t stand watching people torture and kill each other, even if it’s imaginary. War movies are out. I was a mess at the end of Game of Thrones’ sixth season. No, really.

It seems silly to accumulate a list of scary books when the things that frighten me seem like no big deal to other people. “Read at your own risk” is more of a warning then to those of us softies who find this sensitive reading material. Even if you have seen your fair share of blood and guts, I hope my selections are still enough to disturb (if in a quieter, more subversive way).

Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume is subtitled “The Story of a Murderer” but really should have read “The Story of a Sick, Sick Man That Will Make You Shudder in Equal Parts Horror and Disgust”. It makes you wonder what kind of guy Suskind is in real life, although I’m sure he’s very, very nice.

So Much for That by Lionel Shriver is kind of the modern-day horror story that’s uncomfortable to read because at the back of your mind you know that every procedure that she details, and all of the suffering she describes is actually real, but it’s worth the read for the light it sheds on the frightening reality we live in.

You have to have lived under a rock if you haven’t heard of Room yet. Canadian author Emma Donaghue’s novel was a smash hit that got turned into an award-winning movie and it’s easy to see why- it’s both gripping and tender, funny and frightening. Even so, it was still a tense read for a sensitive soul like myself.

I read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne when I was baby-sitting one night. (It’s so engrossing and short that I’m sure you could, too.) As it happened I reached the end just before the parents came home, so when they walked through the door they found me sobbing hysterically. Needless to say, I had to include this book for the shock it gave my system. The ending was like a sucker-punch.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell sounded like the kind of quirky, fun read that was right up my alley and at first it was. Russell’s writing makes the heat of the swamp shimmer off of the page; it’s so easy to get caught up in the heady landscape that when things start to get sinister it feels like the slither of an alligator inside you. I ended up being so disturbed.

Honorable Mentions

I couldn’t talk about creepy reads without listing a few of the books that have made my blog before. They’re worth a second mention for the chills they gave me.

  • Even if you’ve seen the movie Gone Girl, the novel of the same name by Gillian Flynn is worth the read so you can see just how psychotic her characters were intended to be.
  • The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins is the classic unreliable narrator mystery, and it feels particularly disturbing reading it as a woman watching the main character submit over and over again to addiction, and leaving herself vulnerable and exposed. It’s a reminder that women’s safety continues to be an issue.
  • I have to include the novel Blindness by José Saramago as the premise alone is enough to give me the chills.
  • The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett is a short, yet devastating read.
  • If it’s magic and things that go bump in the night that you want, then Andrew Pyper’s The Demonologist is for you.

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I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.

Kids Books to Read All Over Again

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A lot of people who have seen my movie collection sometimes make fun of me because it’s comprised mostly of movies that involve singing and/or princesses. I’m cool with that. I tend to hold onto the things that make me the happiest, or feel the most lighthearted, because I’m the type of person who is prone to fits of moodiness.

I guess that’s why every so often I return to some of the books that I loved as a child, because they evoke memories of a time when things were simpler, and my outlook on the world was just a tiny bit rosier.

That’s one thing that all of these books have in common: they all feature characters, who, against all odds, still manage to retain some kind of hope that the world is good.

To tiny people like the characters in The Borrowers, for example, almost everyone and everything in the big, wide world poss some sort of threat. You’ll have to read the book yourself (if you haven’t already) to see how they survive against the odds, but the real charm in this book for me as kid was the way in which this small group of people (pun intended!) managed to carve our comfortable lives for themselves and find happiness despite such large challenges. (That pun was also intended.) If you’re my age you may also remember the series, The Littles, about a similar family, although for some reason they had tails.

In stark contrast, Mary, the main character in the novel The Secret Garden, seems to be determined to be miserable in her new home in her uncle’s lonely English manor- but who could blame her? Simultaneously neglected and spoiled from an early age, then orphaned and spirited half a world away from her homeland, Mary’s story starts out pretty bleak. It’s her ability to find beauty even when there seems to be none that transforms this book into a happy and hopeful one. I remember my mother reading it to me as a child. She still gets choked up when she re-reads it.

It would be remiss to talk about hopeful characters without including the infamous Anne Shirley of the Anne of Green Gables fame, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I was obsessed with the story of this plucky orphan when I was younger. I inhaled the rest of the Anne books (and pretty much the entirety of L.M. Montgomery’s work), but this one still remains my favorite.

You wouldn’t normally characterize Cinderella as an intelligent, spirited young woman but in Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine manages to do just that, framing Cinderella (or Ella, in this case) not as a good-natured, submissive servant to a cruel stepmother, but as the unfortunate victim of a curse that renders her unable to disobey a direct command. Ella’s journey to find her own free will is a terrific metaphor for a coming-of-age story about a young woman finding her own voice. Meeting a handsome prince and finding love along the way are just happy coincidences. (For those of you who have seen the movie, I promise you that the book is totally different.)

But for me, the strongest and most hopeful character featured in any of these books has to be Mrs. Frisby, from Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. There’s no tale of survival that’s quite like that of a mouse living in a farmer’s field, and in a world where rats and humans alike terrorize mice, and predators lurk around every corner, Mrs. Frisby’s love for her children shines like a beacon of light through the darkness. (If you’ve read the book, or seen the movie as a kind growing up in the 90s, you’ll know what I mean.)

So what if I’m old enough to be having my own kids instead of reading the books that I enjoyed as a child (and still do?) Being an adult can get pretty tiring, and reading about adults also tired of being adults doesn’t always provide that much of an escape. Instead, I can pick up a book and pretend I’m a mouse, or at least small enough to fit underneath someone’s floorboards. I could be an orphan in a new place, or a servant in my own household, held captive under a spell.

When you’re a kid- and a reader- you can be anything. And that’s kind of the joy, isn’t it?

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What were some of your favorite books as a kid? I had a terrible time trying to narrow this post down to a few, but I’d still love your input. Comment below or drop me a line at keepingbusyb@gmail.com and let me know if there’s any I should add to a future kid lit list. Who knows? Maybe we even loved some of the same things.

I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.

Required Reading

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Am I a nerd for admitting that I kind of liked high school? At least, some parts I did. Mostly the academic parts. Not so much the emotional part. Looking back on those years, I remember them being something like this:

By the way, that is entirely accurate.

All teen angst aside, part of the reason I really liked school were the English classes. Smarty pants like me who performed well in their first year and maintained a certain grade point average had the opportunity to take an advanced English course with twice the amount of reading, and twice the amount of work.

And I was all like, where do I sign up?

Even though the following books were all required reading at some point time or another in my high school career, I’m not ashamed to say that they were some of the the things that I enjoyed the most during my time there.

Like, whoever was the genius who put Rule of the Bone (Russell Banks) on the course list should have gotten a raise. There wasn’t one kid in my class who didn’t rush out to read it. The characters were skipping classes, smoking spliffs, and having sex with highly inappropriate people- we were sixteen and we loved it. The whole class finished it, every single one of us.

Lord of the Flies, too, is the perfect example of a sinister book that works well in the classroom. William Golding’s classic novel sends a dark message in a time where students are prone to squaring off into social factions and in some ways I think it’s an appropriate and timely read.

Why none of John Wyndham’s novels haven’t been transformed into modern-day, big-budget sci-fi thrillers yet is beyond me. The Chrysalids is particularly creepy and perfect reading for a moody teenager. Although we were never required to read them for school, I would recommend Chocky and The Day of the Triffids as well.

Another popular (yet disturbing) read among my classmates was Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage, a dark re-telling of the Noah’s Ark story. It’s a fascinating read and one that opened the floor to a really interesting discussion, but it’s definitely not for the faint-of-heart. Newcomers to Findley’s work may want to try The Wars first for something a little less controversial.

Canadian authors like Findley always have a place on the reading lists of high school students. Some considered it a drag to be forced to read something simply because the author was born in the same country. I, on the other hand, was happy to discover that not only did Alice Munro and I share a birth country, we share the same birthday. Maybe I’m a little biased, but she’s one of my favorite Canadian authors and I have my high school English teacher to thank for that. Who Do You Think You Are? was the first collection of her stories that I read and it was the perfect read for a teenager trying to find her place in the world.

Lastly, a list that features books that I loved and read as an adolescent wouldn’t be complete without Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Before The Twilight Series, it has to have been the favorite read of moody teenage girls everywhere. Heathcliff is kind of a bad boy, and Cathy is all angsty on the moors, and there’s an impossible love triangle, and ghosts and lots of fog- who knew an English lit class could get so emo?

Certain books hold up to the test of time because they deal with themes that are no less relevant in the world we live in today than the historical contexts in which they were originally written. Even though we experience adolescence differently today, we strive for the same things as these characters and identify with their struggles.

In that sense I think reading can provide great comfort to teenagers who feel isolated and misunderstood. I know reading was a great outlet for me while growing up, and although some of these books may come across as a little old-fashioned or slow to the quick-talking, Snapchatting youth of today, I hope they still might find some value from one of the classics on their high school course lists.

After all, that’s why they call it “required reading”.

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I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.

Graphic Novels for Beginners

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You’ll remember in the movie Beauty and the Beast that Gaston couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that Belle enjoyed reading books without any pictures.

(This is not strictly true- when she’s waltzing around the town with the book in the opening scene and starts reading it to the sheep, she opens it to a page with a picture on it. Go figure.)

I kind of always had the opposite opinion. I love books without pictures. I read my first one when I was six years old and pretty much never looked back. There was a certain magic in not having any pictures to rely on you to tell the story- instead, you had the interpret and invent your own version of what you were reading. The ability to make my own (imaginary) contribution to a story was huge for me as a six-year old.

So there, Gaston.

It’s pretty safe to say then that I never particularly warmed to the idea of graphic novels. They just seemed like longer, more complicated comics for adults and seeing as I was never that interested in comic books as a kid (see above). I guess I just figured that now I was older, it was too late to give them a try.

Until I dated a guy who at first described himself as a reader. Naturally I thought we were a match until I found out his reading material consisted mostly of graphic novels. And they were mostly of the Batman variety. I pride myself on my willingness to read everything I put my hands on so I cast my doubts aside and gave it a go.

Don’t think I’m knocking Batman, because I’m not. In fact, I’ve changed my mind about Batman. I think I kind of like him.

Because what I didn’t count on was discovering a different kind of magic- the kind where an illustrator has the ability to draw evocative, emotional scenes that actually leave the reader filling in the blanks where words would normally do the talking. It’s magic as well, that an illustrator can perform this task in tandem with an author who writes around the scenes rather than describes them. The words, in this case, set the tone and context. It’s the pictures that truly tell the story.

I didn’t realize that graphic novels had the ability to do that; to grab and pull at the imagination and allow a story to take shape using images rather than words to give their ideas meaning.

Having said that, reading Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Saga was kind of a springboard for me into the world of graphic novels. Arkham Asylum, however, remains one of my favorites as well, if only because it’s possibly one of the creepiest things I have ever read.

Persepolis is another graphic novel that stands out in my mind as one of the more unique books that I’ve read. Before I started dabbling in the world of graphic novels I had read just one, which happened to be this one, for some women’s studies course in university. I don’t even remember the name of the class, but I do remember the book, which goes to show how much I enjoyed the book (and how little I enjoyed the course).

My foray into graphic novels also happened in conjunction with the release of two films based on graphic novels, Watchmen (2009) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010).

I loved Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim and enjoyed seeing all of the familiar sights around Toronto where it was filmed, and where the story actually takes place. The movie adaptation is actually just one part in a series of books starting with Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, and the novels give a little more backstory as to how he got his superpowers. (Hint: he’s a video game nerd.)

I wasn’t particularly compelled to read Watchmen after suffering through the three-hour movie. It left me with so many questions, like, who are these people? And, why is this happening again? A friend insisted reading the novel would help me gain a better appreciation of the movie, and he wasn’t wrong. I now think that the reason why Watchmen is so misunderstood as a movie is that it’s not so much a story about superheroes as it is a story about what it is to be a superhero, and what that means to the ones you love and know around you.

I’ll never my abandon my picture-less novels completely (sorry, Gaston) but I can definitely say that I’ve enjoyed adding more graphic novels to the mix over the years. They may be a slightly different art form than the one that I’m used to, but that doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

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I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.

What’s on My Cookbook Shelf

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I didn’t come by my fabulous talent for baking naturally. (Okay, so maybe I’m just an average baker who’s just the teensiest bit obsessed with her own work.) True, I started baking when I was very young but I honestly think it was my love of reading absolutely anything and everything I could get my hands on that made me a better baker. My mother, an actually fabulous baker (no exaggeration), had a secret mission to collect every recipe that was ever written so our kitchen boasted an expansive cookbook collection, and its shelves sagged with even more recipes clipped from magazines and newspapers, waiting to be filed.

Now that I’m an adult (so they tell me) I’ve got my own sizeable recipe collection, although admittedly it’s a little bit more organized. I’ve tried to cut down on a lot of the paper in my life by storing many of my recipes electronically but I still have quite a few cookbooks hidden here and there on my shelves.

In some ways, owning cookbooks is way more fun than having just a collection of typed recipes. Recipes suddenly come into their own being in real technicolor. Photographs, illustrations, text and graphics interplay to create a mouthwatering reading experience. Cookbooks are designed to be pored over and loved, to inspire and entice.

Here’s some that I can’t get enough of:

1) I was so in love with the photography and design of the beautiful Martha Stewart Living Magazine that I was a subscriber for many, many years. During this time I acquired Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook and still remains an old favorite. Some may knock this homemaking guru for the unrealistic expectations that her elaborate work may set for housewives everywhere, but personally think she’s kind of great. Let her make her crazy cakes. They look gorgeous.

2) and 3) might be familiar to any Canadians in the crowd. Jean Paré got a similar start to Martha Stewart, catering brunches and party foods to small crowds out of her home kitchen until things got busy and Paré turned into a business. Her Company’s Coming line of cookbooks were published to meet her customers’ demands for recipes and the series boasts virtually hundreds of titles. You used to be able to find them in grocery stores everywhere and I still happen to have three of them: Most Loved Brunches (because it’s the best meal of the day), 150 Delicious Squares and Gifts from the Kitchen (not pictured here).

4) My mom is from Sweden so when I think of Sweden I think of baking, and I think of one of my most treasured cookbooks appropriately and succinctly titled Swedish Cakes and Cookies. It’s my absolute go-to guide for all of my Swedish baking traditions. (For example: did you know Swedes make seven different types of cookies at Christmas time? Check out mine from last year here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

5) So many people would grab 500 Chocolate Delights off of my shelf to read that I eventually just stuck it out in the open so that my guests could peruse it any time they wished. It’s so small and pretty and filled with so many delicious chocolate things that from time to time I find myself gazing at it as well.

6) Jamie Oliver’s cookbook, Jamie at Home, may seem a little out of place in the midst of so many sweet, pretty baking manuals, but I just love this English chef’s conversational tone and this cookbook’s emphasis on good, fresh food (and how to grow it yourself!) It’s been a great resource for growing and cooking with a few herbs and vegetables of my own, so I had to include it here for those who may get their kicks from cooking more than baking.

I’m not one to work my way through a cookbook religiously- I’ll probably never make all of the recipes found in these pages, and the ones I do try will probably not be half as good. Hey, they may not even turn out to be my taste! But just because cookbooks weren’t necessarily meant to be read from cover-to-cover doesn’t make them any less valuable to my book collection, or any less enjoyable.

And the result of reading cookbooks? Delicious food- and that’s often the best part.

KBwB-BFlower-50If you liked books and baking, you’ve come to the right place. (Also, can I be your best friend?) For those of you who are new, here’s where you can find all the books I’ve been reading lately and here’s where you can see what’s been keeping me busy in the kitchen.

Recognize any of the titles on my shelf? What are some of your favorites? I’d love to hear your suggestions at keepingbusyb@gmail.com or spread the love (and the good cooking) by commenting below.

 

 

A Secret Garden of Reading

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I love flowers. Duh.

I risked showing you my bad phone photography to prove how much I loved flowers in this post here. Flowers come up a lot in my baking too (the arrangement in exhibit A, the decoration in exhibit B, the wrappers in exhibit C and the cake stand in exhibit D). Even my logo is a flower.

Obviously, there is something missing in my life.

I don’t have a garden. Instead, I have a little patio just outside my apartment window that faces out onto our building’s back parking lot. It’s not much but each year I try to compensate by filling my outdoor space with plants and flowers. My apartment is filled with them too. It’s such a sweet and pretty space and I find tending it very fulfilling.

And yet…

When the weather starts to feel more spring-like, you’ll often find me drifting aimlessly around in the bookstore until I wind up in the gardening section. Maybe you’ve seen me there. I’m the one ogling the books about floral arrangements like they’re dirty magazines. It’s not that I’m not happy with my little garden. I just sometimes like looking at the other gardens and wondering what could be. That’s not cheating on my patio, right?

Over the weekend I treated myself to a latté and a little wander around my local bookstore to see if I could dig up a little inspiration as to how to style my porch this year. (Haha. See what I did there?) Here are some of my favorites:

For those who are clueless about flowers but love having them in their home, The Flower Chef offers simple step-by-step “recipes” on how to imitate eye-catching floral arrangements with attention to color, shape and time of year. Even if your home isn’t full of flowers, it’s kind of like flowering porn for the gardening set.

For the ecologically-concerned gardener (or in my case, person), The Bee-Friendly Garden is part-design book, part-biology and altogether a compelling (and beautifully photographed) argument for why bees are an such an important thread in the delicate fabric of our ecosystem.

For those who want to drool over impossibly gorgeous gardens that you’ll never have in your lifetime, Secret Gardens is worth a flip-through. I needed to physically remove myself from the store before I marched up to the cashier with the three remaining copies.

For the gardener who’s also kinda crafty and talented at all the things, you’ll want to add The Crafted Garden to your collection. This is not a book about crafts from your garden: this is a book about crafts from your garden and how you too can create beautiful vases, wreaths and other decorations from the home using bark, twigs, and other plant materials. Sounds like garden sorcery to me.

For the gardener who hails from Toronto, you may remember Frankie Flowers from the news from many, many years ago, but since then he’s also published several gardening books. I like Pot It Up one because it offers gardening advice based to my particular climate zone, but there’s tons of other great practical tips for the makeshift gardeners like me that rely on planters, pots and hanging baskets to create a little green vista in the big city.

For those who want to get in touch with their inner hippie, A Wilder Life is your modern guide. There’s literally something for everyone in here, whether you’re looking for new skills like star-gazing, or if you feel like making your own natural beauty products. Oh, and there’s lots and lots of plants for you to gaze at adoringly as well.

My dreams of having a giant garden in which I can frolic may still be a long way off, but in the meantime, a girl can read. And dream. And drool. Really soon, I hope to be doing just that outside one on my patio chairs. The reading and dreaming part, I mean. Definitely not the drooling.

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I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.