A Guilty Pleasure?

When I was a senior in college, I took a class on 19th century British literature. It was a fantastic class. We read and dissected works by Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, Thackeray, … I don’t even remember who all we read, but I do remember that I loved everything.

One day, at the start of class, the professor (I can’t remember his name now) asked what were our favorite “guilty pleasure” reads. No one spoke up, probably because most senior literature majors don’t have time for pleasure reading, so the professor admitted that he liked “wasting” his time on novels by Philip Roth.

Philip Roth! Really? A guilty pleasure? I had never read anything by Roth at the time, but I was very much aware of his presence in the literary world. I knew that he had won the Pulitzer and National Book Award, and every year his name is thrown around as a possibility for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Anyway, I’ve always remembered that professor’s assessment of Roth’s work and have wondered if there is any truth in it.

This month I finally got around to reading Philip Roth‘s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, American Pastoral which won the award in 1998.

The plot of the story revolves around Seymour “Swede” Levov, a successful business and family man in the 1960s. His life is more or less ruined when his daughter, as a protest to the Vietnam War, plants a bomb in the local post office/general store and then disappears after the bomb goes off killing a man.

Obviously there is a lot more to the story than that brief synopsis, but you’ll have to read the book yourself if you want to find out more. I will tell you that the whole story is very bleak, and there is no happy ending. Despite the subject matter, and lots of profanity it is a very readable book, and I will most likely be reading more Philip Roth in the future.

But is it a “guilty pleasure” read? Maybe. Especially if you compare it to the likes of Vanity Fair or Wuthering Heights. But I think it has a lot to offer on its own merit, and I definitely wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen reading it on the subway.

Too funny

I saw this and it made me laugh, so I thought I would share it here.

It's Celtic!

I love Celtic music and have a pretty extensive collection of it. Since St. Patrick’s Day is coming up in a couple of days, I thought I would share some of my favorite artists and songs with you.

My all time favorite Celtic singer is Connie Dover. Here she is singing Ubi Caritas. When I hear her sing the line “Seacula per infinita secularism” around 4:20, I always get goosebumps. So very beautiful. I was actually lucky enough to see her in concert once and recommend anything she sings.



A choral group I enjoy is called Anuna. You might remember them from the height of Riverdance, as they sang on that soundtrack. Here they are singing Siuil a Ruin.



Another group that has recently become popular is Celtic Woman. I love them and want to be one of them. 


No discussion of Celtic music would be complete without Enya. Her music is so soothing and peaceful. My favorite album of hers is The Memory of Trees, but my favorite song is I Want Tomorrow from her album The Celts.



A mostly instrumental duo that I love is called Secret Garden. I’m not sure they are considered Celtic, since they hail from Norway, but a lot of their music sounds Celtic to me. All of their albums are great. White Stones is particularly beautiful, but it can quickly put me in a melancholy funk. My favorite of their albums is Once In a Red Moon.



On a more upbeat note, I dare you to listen to this song by Leahy and not tap your toes.



Two other groups I enjoy are The Chieftains and the Corrs. Here they are together.


I recently saw a movie called The Secret of Kells which has a beautiful Celtic soundtrack.
I wish I had seen this on the big screen, because in addition to having a nice soundtrack, it is very visually appealing. See it if you get a chance. Here is a bonus clip from the movie to show some of the beautiful animation.


Those are just a few of my favorites. What Celtic music do you love?

It's Jewish!

I'm not Jewish, but I like some things that are.

One of those things is challa. Challa is a yeast bread, typically eaten on the Sabbath in Jewish homes. The dough is easy to make, and its braided shape makes a beautiful loaf.

I hadn't made challa in a long time, so I decided to make a loaf yesterday. The recipe I've always used seemed to be hiding, but several of my cookbooks have recipes for it. I ended up following one from How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. It turned out ok, but I think there are better recipes out there (like the one I couldn't find).

Here are the ingredients for the loaf I made.

5 cups flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
1 Tbsp honey or sugar
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups water or milk, warmed

In his cookbook, Bittman makes all his breads in a food processor. I don't have a food processor large enough to make bread, and probably wouldn't do it that way even if I did, and I think his instructions for making it by hand are goofy, so I'll just tell you how I make it.

First, dissolve the yeast in the water with the sweetener. Add the salt and stir in the eggs. Stir in the flour and  knead until the dough is ready. I let my KitchenAid do the hard work and I think I let it knead for about 6-7 minutes. Then cover the dough and let it rise until doubled. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces and roll the pieces into ropes about 20 inches long. Braid the ropes together to make a loaf shape. Let rise again. Before baking, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with some coarse salt. Bake at 375 degrees for around 45 minutes.

When it is finished you will have something that looks like this.

Even though it is a little more complicated than only using three strands, I like the way a loaf braided with four strands turns out. Six is even better, but I haven't quite mastered that technique yet.

Happy baking!

February reads

I usually read around ten books a month, but this February, I only read four. I'm not sure why I didn't get more read. Let's chalk it up to the fact that it was a short month.

I did, however, read my Newbery and Pulitzer selections.

In honor of President's Day, I chose a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Russell Freedman which won the Newbery Award in 1988 titled Lincoln: A Photobiography.

As the title suggests, this book tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's life from his humble beginnings to his tragic death. Except for a lot of pictures of Lincoln, and some interesting Civil War photos, there is really nothing remarkable in this book. The story is easy to read and includes a very simplified account of the Civil War.

Overall, it's not great but not terrible either. Take it or leave it.

For my Pulitzer read, I chose last year's winner. Tinkers, by Paul Harding is not at all what I expected. The story is about a dying man named George. While his life is ebbing away, he remembers moments from his past. Interspersed with his story is that of his father, Howard, a peddler and misunderstood epileptic.

I want to like this book, and while it is well written with some truly beautiful and poetic passages, I really can't recommend it. It is just too hard to get into and stick with, and at times, overly difficult to follow. Even though it is just under 200 pages, it seems much longer.

February's reading was pretty disappointing. March will be better. I made a trip to the library yesterday and have a large stack of books that I am anxious to work my way through.

Happy reading!