September in Review

Books Acquired:
Asian Pickles: Sweet, Sour, Salty, Cured, and Fermented Preserves from Korea, Japan, China, India, and Beyond by Karen Solomon
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde & Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

Books Read:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Saga, Volume 5 by Brian K. Vaughan

The first book in the acquired list this month was a random gift from my girlfriend! A book on pickling that looks fantastic. I love kimchi and pickled radish and hot sauce and anything with a good funk to it, so she picked me up this book to start trying it on my own, knowing full well that I’m going to make her eat weird things because of this. That is a noble sacrifice if ever I’ve seen one.

I’ve already tried one simple recipe, pickled shallots. The nice thing is these recipes are meant to just be in the fridge for a few weeks and not canned, so you don’t have to fuss with boiling jars and all that. I’ve been thinking about incorporating more recipe books here, in an attempt to jumpstart my cooking the same way this blog has impacted my reading, but I’m still thinking about how I’ll do that. Maybe post a few recipes and then review the cookbook as a whole once I’ve sampled it. I’ll think on it a bit.

I mentioned in the last wrap-up, since it was posted late, that we went camping in Tofino. While there, I picked up a copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde & Other Stories from Mermaid Tales Bookshop, which is a small bookstore with a great collection. It really felt like they took care in choosing what to stock. I’ve already read Jekyll and Hyde, but this a slick looking edition with stories I haven’t read yet.

We also spent a day on Salt Spring Island later in the month, where we visited Black Sheep Books. I found the complete collection of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger books that I’m kicking myself a little for not having picked up, but I decided instead to buy a used Penguin Classics edition of The Double and Notes from Underground. It’s a cool shop with a lot of old and unusual collectible books.

Movies watched:
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) – I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. I guess the last couple of movies featuring Wolverine set the bar quite low, but this was really great.

High Fidelity (2000) – I read this last month, and my girlfriend hadn’t seen the movie, so I figured it was a good time to re-watch this. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I remember enjoying it a decade ago. In the book, I feel like a lot of his grief and neurosis stayed in his head, but in the movie Cusack was way more physically erratic. Half the time I was worried he was going to smack his ex-girlfriend.

Spy (2015) – My girlfriend is mildly obsessed with Miranda Hart, so she’s been wanting to watch this for a while now. I thought it was going to be horrible, but it was actually surprisingly funny in parts.

TV watched:
Parks and Recreation: Season 2 (2009/2010) – I think we finished this in August actually, but I forgot to mention it. Great show, great cast, and this season was better than the first. We’re going through this one slow, but we’ll start the third season soon I think. It’s not on Canadian Netflix, so that’s slowing us down.

Portlandia: Season 1,2,3 (2011 – 2013) – It took a while for this show to hook us, I think we were averaging one episode every six weeks, but this month something finally clicked and we burned through every episode on Netflix. It’s rare that a skit show is so on point. Usually you’re wading through a lot of average bits looking for gold, but this show is consistently hilarious.

Games played:
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) (PC) – I finally beat this! It was great! Let’s never talk of it again!

Hearthstone (2014) (PC) – I became rather obsessed with this for a couple of weeks, but I think I’m over it now. It’s a blast to play, but the matchmaking can be frustrating when you find yourself up against opponents with ridiculously powerful rare cards.

Rocket League (2015) (PS4) – I still play a few rounds on this every couple of days. They expanded the ranked mode now, but without consistent teammates it feels like a bit of a crapshoot.

What have you been reading/watching/playing this month?