a journal of the plague year [grey & dry ‘nuary reviews]

Read a Danish novel Ø by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen, directly translated as island in other languages (incl. French), which was a b’day gift from my wife, a book about the longing of uprooted Faroeses for their island,  rather than about the mathematical meaning of the empty set!, and the connection between a young third generation young woman and her grand-mother’s story. Very well written, with a side entry on Faroese recent history, incl. the British occupation during WWII, just before they invaded Iceland. (And feeding my hopes to visit the Faroe in a near and brighter future!)

Cooked more (Flemmish) red and (curried) white cabbage. Moved to baking spelt bread with spelt yeast as it takes less than ten minutes of actual work!  Attempted an Ethiopian meal with key wat (beef) stew,  a vegetable version, and injera (pancakes) when I realised the teff cereal could be replaced with buckwheat, a basic staple in Breton households! But the injera tasted and looked more like a galette, so this was not the real thing… Nonetheless a nice family meal.Watched the second instalment of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared, which is the straight continuation of the former if not as funny. (And not directly linked to the books.)

Read Time of Contempt, second volume in the Witcher’s novels. Not particularly impressive, with a lot of infodump chitchat, an almost absent Yennefer, a (thankfully short-lived) threat of the return of the magicians’ boarding school!, a gratuitous (?) visit by the Wild Hunt myth, some Star War inspired monster, an incomprehensible and highly predictable coup on the magicians’ council, and a teenage gang (in a Mark Lawrence rewriting Lord of the Flies spirit!), an inexplicable collapse of the balance of powers between the kingdoms. And I found the rendering of the rape scene at the end of the book most disturbing…