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Ok, so I added a new sidebar feature of authors whom I read with regularity - it is an eclectic mix, weighing in heavily on the romance but also including food and natural history. I will continue to add to it as I find more websites and start sorting my library as I unpack.

These are all fantastic authors, some brilliant, some brilliantly funny, some both, some just fun. Right now I am especially liking Victoria Dahl, whose novella The Wicked West was a fabulous short break from thesis revisions this past week. She may have saved my sanity...

Recommend, please...

Now that the thesis if mostly done (keep your fingers crossed for the defense), I am looking for summer reading suggestions. As most of you probably know, I have a voratious and insatiable narrative greed and summer break is the one time I can indulge it unchecked by most other resopnsiblities. And I read really quickly, so I go through books at an astonishing rate...

So, what I am looking for...

In the romance vein: Historical and straight contemporary, by which I mean not paranormal or romantic suspense, not the orientation of the protagonists - as I am a bit burned out on those subgenres... I have my must reads, but I have noticed recently that my scope is rather narrow and I am looking to expand. The voracious narrative greed means I tear through my favourites, even with re-reading. Also, I would not be adverse to expanding in the BDSM direction, as I have heard good things in that direction. But I need names...

In the fantasy vein: I am talking fantasy here, not sci fi. I am cool with magic, but the machines have to be pretty damn cool for me to read about them, as my relationship with the machines in my life is rather love/hate - I think this is also because, as a rule, I read for character over plot and fantasy does that better than sci fi. Anyway...

In the foodie vein: Anything that is good - I read cookbooks like novels, and I love food memoir as well, so really, anything that is good. I am always looking for new ideas in the kitchen...

In the Classics vein: I am planning on revisiting my favorite Jane Austin titles, but over the course of my MA I realized just how much classic literature I had skimmed - or skipped altogether - as an undergrad. So, what are your favorites?

What else would you recommend? I would be happy to venture outside these paths, if the narrative pay-off is there...

A note on formats: I am down with ebooks, though I won't have a reader until the financial shock of moving across the country wears off. I am not so good with delayed gratification, but needs must. But I will get to them, so don't let format be a limiting factor.

Please share - a desperate reader needs to know!

um, yeah, that's why I am a snob...

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd." - Edith Sitwell, English biographer, critic, novelist, & poet (1887 - 1964)

Finally, I know - my genius makes me above the opinions of the crowd.
=)

A peek at the thesis, unpolished...

an excerpt:

The section on plum pudding also demonstrates well the ways in which Mrs. Beeton’s text conveys both imperial codes and pragmatic domestic practice using traditional methods of female discourse. The instructional aspects extend far beyond the preparation of the food. Passages on currants, grape varieties, raisins, brandy and citron are interspersed between the recipes, providing a view of the state of commerce, both throughout the Empire and at home. These insertions also indicate the rising middle class audience the Book served.
When talking about currants, Beeton informs her readers, “When gathered and dried by the sun and air, on mats, they are conveyed to magazines, heaped together, and left to cake, until ready for shipping. They are then dug out by iron crowbars, trodden into casks, and exported.” This information is seemingly disconnected from running a Victorian middle class home. However, the facts surrounding this process demonstrate the commerce-based nature of the empire. A thrifty and economical housewife knows where her food comes from and how it is produce, so she can get the best deals when it comes time for her to purchase what is needed for the household she runs. Knowing that “the fertile vale of “Zante the woody” produces about 9,000,000 lbs. of currants annually,” arms the purchaser with a view of the market that she must enter in order to provide the socially acceptable table required by her class. The fact that “we could not make a plum pudding without the currant” requires certain knowledge of the housewife, what currants are and how and where to purchase them, in addition to how to incorporate them into a domestic practice. What seems to be learning without purpose is in fact driven by the economic factors of middle class living in the British Empire.

Sex, Sex, Sex... Yay!

Mary Roach has written a book called Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex and here she talks about 10 things you didn’t know about orgasm: