reading - The Seventh Sphinx

Hamlet, Shakespeare* (over and over, have you seen the RSC production with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart? Highly recommended)

The DIN in the HEAD, Cynthia Ozick (essays, had been meaning to get to her for some time)

A Moment of True Feeling, Peter Handke (who has so far done no wrong in my eyes, who makes me wish I read German, whose book [one of] I bought in German in hopes of motivating myself)

French Women Don’t Get Fat, Mireille Guiliano (currently on a French women kick that shows no signs of waning, fascinated by all of the cultural data strewn throughout this kind of book)

A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories, Viktor Pelevin (the kind of stories it is more fun to read than to try to categorize. SF? Postmodern? Speculative fiction? Who cares. I like them)

*’heart-ache’ was coined in the ‘To be or not to be…’ monologue.

Huh, nearly all living writers featured this time, Shax excepted…uncommon for me.

I asked for a madeleine pan for Christmas.

Because, you know, Proust.

I defy you to read the opening chapters of Vol. 1 of In Search of Lost Time and not want a madeleine. Even or especially if, like me, you’ve never had one before.

They tend to be expensive to buy, so: literary baking! Turns out they are a bit laborious to make*, so I see why the expense. It also turns out that they are wonderful; a satisfying, delicate crunch of resistance yielding to a soft, lemon cake.

I’m amiably disposed toward them for turning out well on the first try. Curious to try some alternate flavors now, in which the butter is infused with earl grey tea or lavender buds.