Sunday Sweetness

Last week I received The Great Penguin Bookchase curtousy of Penguin. It's basically a book version of trivial pursuit with adorable little books that you have to put on your shelf whenever you get a question right. Needless to say, I enjoyed myself decorating these tiny novels.

But I wasn't the only one who was tickled pink with this present. As you can see, Molly was delighted with the box it came in which she now prefers over her very own chair, go figure!

The Ambiguously Gay Duo

Jon Hamm, Jimmy Fallon and Steve Carell star in the latest episode of this partly animated and hilarious SNL sketch about two superheroes (Ace and Gary) whose sexual orientation is brought into question. Bighead and his henchmen have hatched an evil plot to finally find out if they're gay.

Articles by Rebecca Benoot

I had an epiphany on Tuesday while I was working on my articles namely, I really need a website / log with all of them on there. Not just for my own benefit, I do tend to forget what I've written about quite quickly, but also because I can finally show people what I've been writing about these past 2,5 years.

I already have a lovely website which the Pumpkin made for me but it hasn't been updated in over a year as I always have to bother my in-house designer whenever I get the need to change something, which is often.

So... I made a blog, (whoopie!) seeing as it's the easiest, although not really the most professional, way I can catalogue my articles. Low maintenance and easily adjustable. The only downside is that I now have to copy-paste several dozen articles which while probably take me a while.

Anyway, if you're curious what I've been scribbling the past years check out: http://rebeccabenoot.blogspot.com/ (updated daily)

A Day of Writing

I took the day off today to finally get some writing done and it was bliss. No interruption, no stress, just me and a blank page, heaven. If only I had some more time to get some “other” writing done… My word count has increased the past week but only slightly, did you notice?

Now, I had to interview Luc Herman last week about Nora en de Feiten which was kind of awkward seeing as I had to put on a major poker face because I didn’t particularly like his novel. It was also weird having to “judge” one of my former professors but I survived. Writing the article however, was quite a challenge seeing as I wanted to be objective, didn’t want to sugarcoat it but I also didn’t want to offend because I know a lot of my former teachers and ex-class mates will be reading it so I’ll be a little on edge next week when it’s published.

I have to admit that although I still don’t like the novel, he did shed a lot of light on it, luckily. His aim was to stay true to the genre code of crime fiction and create an old-fashioned whodunit that invites the reader to solves the puzzles which in a way he has succeeded in doing but the fact still remains that the novel is too analytical / academic to please the general crime fiction loving audience who are just looking for some light entertainment, which I supplied by writing 4 reviews today to accompany the article.

Needless to say, I drank a lot of coffee, did a lot of procrastinating but I eventually got the job done.

Leon: Ingredients & Recipes

aka the most beautiful cook book ever!

Leon is a trendy London restaurant chain that specializes is easy, tasty and affordable food for people in a hurry, nothing fancy but scrumptious, healthy and colorful, just like their luscious first book which is simply to die for and even comes with complimentary stickers making me as giddy as a schoolgirl.

I had been eyeing up this book for two years now but decided I wasn't going to buy it until I visited the restaurant which we finally did a few weeks ago.

The 300+ page visually stunning book is divided in two gorgeous sections (I cannot stress enough how pretty this book is) each with its own ribbon: ingredients and recipes.

Ingredients is basically self explanatory and is divided in several sections: vegetables, herbs, dairy, meat,... telling us where they come from, what to look at when buying, which are in season, how to prepare them, that sort of thing. It's filled with fun photo's drawing, charts, useful tips and everything you ever wanted to know from cheese to chillies.

The second part, recipes, ranges from breakfasts to desserts and everything in between. There's one chapter on meat but the rest of the book is vegetarian. Needless to say there will be a lot of cooking going on this weekend.

Feast your eyes on this:

Thursday's trailer

Whimsical Weekend

I attended several author interviews this weekend starting with Willy Vlautin who was at the store on Thursday night to promote his book Lean on Pete. I had no idea who he was or that he had written several novels or that he was the lead singer of country band Richmond Fontaine. For this I thank Google.

He was a really friendly guy, that's what struck me the most and the fact that songs don't necessarily need a chorus. Go figure!Seriously, he sang a song for us which was basically a story with a little music. At first it was really weird because he just kept on going no breaks no nothing but it really worked. He talked about the book and why he loves writing but that's about it. It was short but sweet.

We also saw Herman Koch on Saturday whom the pumpkin loves from his Jiskefet years, no comment. I haven't read his latest novel Zomerhuis met Zwembad yet but I really loved his last book Het Diner. If you want to read some edgy and contemporary Dutch fiction, Koch is definitely the way to go. During the interview he mainly talked about the medical world in the Netherlands seeing as his main character is a GP. It was interesting and illuminating but I couldn't get over the fact that not more people are interested in hearing / meeting great authors.

I've been to a lot of these things lately and that's what still makes the biggest impression: if you're a Dutch author, don't expect a fanbase.

Next up was Annelies Beck, who I interviewed myself a few weeks ago so nothing new there but the pumpkin wanted to see her in person so I indulged him.