Egg-cellent Family Easter Reading

Easter Sunday: a holiday to celebrate Jesus dying for our sins and then rising from the dead in a most surprising and cheerful manner and every one being very happy about it...He then picked up a rabbit from the garden and said "You are now the Easter Bunny. You will deliver chocolate eggs to all those who have given it up to mark my time in the desert, the eggs should be decorated with baby things like lambs and ducklings as they're cute and show the joy of spring time!"  

Or....Christianity got muddled with a pagan Springtime ritual of some sort, but I much prefer my slightly blasphemous version, apologies if you don't.    

Most people associate Easter with Jesus, chocolate and a very-much-needed bank holiday, but not necessarily a family holiday. However, when my flatmate and I were discussing how we were both spending Easter with our families, she commented that "It's like Christmas, but without the pressure." Which is so true! No worries about presents or everyone getting along, just lots of food and sitting around together in a if-you-feel-like-it sort of way, it's even sunny...some years.  

Apparently it's a German thing...we like it

In my parents' house there is a definite feeling of confusion that it isn't Christmas. It's cold outside, my dad is having constant battles with the fire, we're drinking a competitive amount of wine and reading in silence a lot, we even have a tree (see photo). 

We tend to do a lot of reading here, speaking is done during meal times but otherwise it's a pleasant quiet of page turning and the low rumble of the fire. Often a conversation will take along time if we do try to have one because someone will either say something while walking out a room, or forget the rest of us weren't privy to the earlier bit of the thought process that had happened inside their head, or we're all so engrossed in what we're reading that we only give half answers and any external person would think we sound like monosyllabic maniacs. 

 So it's better to keep quiet. Like Ents, if we're going to talk then it's better not to waste words.  

After giving you that bizarre insight into the strange little microcosm that is the Prysor-Jones household, I thought I would give you a bit more and tell you what we're all reading.

I am currently curled up in the corner of the comfy sofa and have just finished reading Skulduggery Pleasant, Playing with Fire, the second in Derek Landy's wonderful series about a skeleton detective. It actually makes me laugh out loud, much to the annoyance of some family members who think I'm too old to get this much pleasure out of children's books. I said it's because I want to work in children's book publishing that I have to read this sort of thing, but actually it's because it's brilliant. 

To broaden my mind, however, I am now reading Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It tells the story of Antoinette, the daughter of a white slave-trader on a Jamaican island. In the first part we see her traumatic childhood seen through her eyes with her strange and dramatic family, then in the second part, the part I have just started, a new voice begins to narrate. This voice belongs to a rather famous Mr Rochester? I do hope you have heard of him? He has married this young, beautiful and exotic woman but in the hazy heat and tension of the island he starts to doubt that everything is what it seems. Knowing the next bit of the story from Jane Eyre's perspective, I am looking forward to seeing how it felt for the person hidden away. This copy was my mum's when she was at school, it was published in 1968 and cost five shillings. I'm enjoying it so far, especially how the jarring and muddled way the writing is fashioned encourages the reader imagine the stifling environment and to feel the trauma, passion, fear and, dare I say, madness of the characters. 

My dad has just informed me, in an overly casual fashion I felt, that's he has been 


reading The Lord of the Rings in Italian. I suppose if you're learning a language then reading a book you know really well is a good idea...but Lord of the Rings? How often is he going to need to know how to say 'Orc' in Italian? He is now researching lamb recipes, this I am actively encouraging, especially after he said something about butter, garlic and rosemary. Yum.  

I just sneaked a look at my sister's Kindle to see what she's reading and it's in Spanish...I am feeling irritably inferior. I also don't feel this is a fair representation of her usual reading habits. Honor reads more than anyone else I know, and reads everything, if we ignore her slight disregard for hilarious skeleton-detective books. Apparently her book is like The Three Musketeers but Spanish, at least, someone is a captain and they keep getting into fights in taverns. But, it's annoying her because she thinks she would really enjoy it in English.

Previously, she read Love in Idleness by Amanda Craig, which apparently is A Midsummer Night's Dream in modern day Tuscany. It sounds fabulous to me, A Midsummer Nights Dream being my favourite Shakespeare play and Tuscany is one of my favourite places. Honor says she really liked it, especially the characters and the relationships between them. Apparently it took her a while to figure out the Shakespeare element and it was only when people started making potions that the penny dropped. But a fun and easy read and I would like to borrow it from her, apart from she read it on her Kindle - biggest downfall of technology in my view. 
















 My mum reads a lot too, she's a member of a book club so ends up reading many strange things not of her choosing. This one, Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann, is one she is thinking of suggesting. The book is about a woman in New England who is bored of her life and marriage, but the story, genre and everything you are expect completely changes when there is a gristly discovery behind a tennis court years later. The title of the book comes from a poem called Disillusionment at 10 O'Clock by Wallace Stevens. A poem that draws upon the dreariness of a life that has no colour, no imagination, the exact sort of disappointing life the main character Nick, finds herself in. Mum thought it was intriguing and a page turner, but not one for the book group as she couldn't face reading it again. 

Maybe your family is not the sort who can spend hours comfortably in the same room but in different worlds. Maybe reading is not a central point that conversations pivot from. But, if you're a reader and someone else in your family is a reader than you can safely bet that they will also enjoy talking about whatever they're reading. Take an interest, ask them about it, even if it's your five year-old nephew's story about a duck with a spade or your overly loud aunt's sickening romance novel "Love in a Time of Avian Flu". Talking about books can be almost as fun as reading them. It is also something that can be done together as a family, which after all, is what Jesus and the Easter Bunny would have wanted. 

Reading & Eating...Reating

So I thought it was about time I wrote a real and serious blog post about an important aspect of publishing. It had to be something current and on-trend, something clever and insightful.

Then I thought, "Naaa. Those poor publishing folk already spend too much of their time reading important and insightful things, their brains probably hurt. What they actually want to know is what food is good or bad to eat while reading. THAT’S what is really troubling the minds of the mighty book industry, so that is the need I shall satisfy." 

It should be noted that all observations are made on the assumption that one hand is being used for holding your book, no use of book prop is allowed, and the one-hand eating technique is being applied sufficiently. The book being used in my experiments is Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch, a trade paperback of 380 pages and an excellent read. 

Dish 1: Thai Noodle Salad

For one thing, way too spicy, never trust a veg man when he says it's a mild chilli. I thought this dish would work quite well, the one-handed technique essential for reading/eating harmony was easily applied due to my intense belief that noodle and pasta eating is best done in the slurpiest manner possible. This was mistake number one: huge splash-back. Worse, orange splash-back. If I was the type to be precious about my books then I would have been mightily upset, but I'm not, most of my books have bent spines and wrinkled pages and now, orange splashes. Second mistake was the colour mix. I am usually a huge fan of colourful food, it's aesthetically pleasing and gives an extra enjoyment factor to eating. When trying to read however, it's a bit of a distraction. So dazzled was I by my colourful culinary concoction that my usually masterful book was paled in comparison. 

Dish 2: I-Can't-Afford-Meat-Salad

This was generally a success. As you see, the colour ratio was tipped in the favour of the greens so the mix didn't distract. The spatula did a bit, in the sense that considerable restraint had to be enforced so not to jump up and pretend to play All Along The Watchtower. It was mainly a one-handed meal, only a fork was necessary for the majority of the eating time and the spatula was not actually used in consumption, I just think it's funny. 

What let down this dish was the significant lack of any carbohydrate or anything, actually, of much substance. While you may imagine this would draw the reader deeper into the 'substance' of their book instead, it actually resulted in a need for crackers. This in turn led to a need for a knife and use of the other hand, therefore, the technique was ruined and downwards fell Western civilisation as we knew it. 

The Orange: Disaster! That is all I need to say. D.I.S.A.S.T.E.R

The Cup of Tea: Absolute perfection. BUT, be very careful what you dunk, risky business that can end in a very sad face.

Dish 3: Vegetarian Chilli

Finally, we have a good'n. I promise this was very nice, it just looks a little like uncooked meat and rice with tiny slugs in, but I think that's due to my poor photography skills and forgetting to take the photo before I started eating. 

I could go as far as saying this was a dream of a reading/eating meal. Just apply a nice scoop action to get a good mouthful, ensure a nice balance to the fork before raising it to the mouth to avoid dropping calamities and simply enjoy! I say 'dropping calamities' because with food that red a spillage on the clothes does tend to look like a 'I always empty the dishwasher!' fight gone horribly wrong. However, get those simple steps right and it's not a meal that involves too much concentration. I would say pairing this dish with a good book, such as Moon Over Soho, actually has health benefits. Getting lost in the story slows down the usual warp-speed inhalation usually applied to eating, which I believe, correct me if I'm wrong Michael Mosely, is good for your health. 

THE WINNER

Maybe this was an obvious one considering I'm 24 and a wannabe-publisher. Consumption definitely only requires one hand, unless it's been a really bad day and you need it quickly, then it's the double-handed motion, grasping it to your bosom like an anxious squirrel with an alcoholic nut.  

Do let me know of your experiments, the successes and the failures, together we shall gather together enough reading/eating recipes to publish a book to outsell Jamie Oliver. It shall be called 'How to Reat, a collection of one-handed recipes for those who can't put a good book down'. Some irritatingly clever person may have thought of this genius idea before me so I may need to trademark the term 'reat' as soon as possible (reading/eating for those of you who still aren't with me).