A Spontaneous Explosion of Books and Drinks and Other Fun Things

Hello friends,

I am in the midst of a very heavy structural edit on Book 2, and my brain’s capacity for anything creative besides writing Mari and Leo’s romance is about *pinches thumb and forefinger together* this big.

But I don’t want to leave you bereft, so instead of tidily formatted paragraphs and recipes, you’re getting…

Things That Have Made Me Happy Recently

Seeing Stop Making Sense for the first time. I liked Talking Heads already, but this film of one of their concerts is like the greatest dance party ever (This ain’t no party! This ain’t no disco!). It is sweaty and joyful and a little goofy, and even if you don’t think you like indie music/Talking Heads/concert movies, you must at the very least watch the triple of “Slippery People”, “Burning Down the House”, and “Life During Wartime”. It is wicked.

Reading The Hermit of Peking by Hugh Trevor-Roper. A set of pornographic diaries by an eminent early twentieth century British expert in Chinese history and politics, Sir Edmund Backhouse, sent Trevor-Roper down a very convoluted rabbit hole. As he investigated, he discovered that Backhouse was no mild-mannered scholar but a prolific liar, forger, and fantasist who fooled preeminent British government ministers and businessmen alike. The book begins a little dry, but as the story gets wilder and wilder, you’re right there with Trevor-Roper as his astonishment grows and grows at the sheer audacity of Backhouse’s cons.

Eating at Oma, a new Eastern Mediterranean restaurant at Borough Market in London. If going on a vacation to Greece or Turkey isn’t on the cards for you anytime soon, I highly recommend going here for amazing breads, dips, and grilled lamb. I also really enjoyed sharing a pint of shell-on prawns and taramasalata with a friend at The Three Compasses in Farringdon.

Sipping a white label sixteen-year-old Speyside whisky called “Marmalade Pipe Tobacco” at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. This was rich and spicy and sweet and one of my best drinking experiences so far this year. Also a Saturn cocktail, a gin-lemon-passionfruit-orgeat business made according to Richard Godwin’s recipe in The Spirits.

I hope you enjoy all these things too! Fingers crossed, I should be back to my usual three-books-and-a-cocktail-business once I have the headspace again.

P.S. If you are based in the US or Canada and use Goodreads, you can enter to win a free copy of The Slowest Burn! The giveaway’s open until Monday June 10.