The List: January 2014

As 2014 was being rung in and new year wishes were zig-zagging across the globe, I got an e-mail from a very dear friend; she wished me a year "where not too many extraordinary things happen but the usual everyday things bring a lot of joy and comfort". Isn't that a lovely sentiment?

Gratifyingly, January was just that kind of month for me, where life chugged along pleasantly. After the busy social calendar of December, I found time to spend cozy evenings with a pile of books. 

Reading

I finally got my hands on a cookbook that I have wanted to read and cook from since it came out in 2006- Cooking with Pedatha by Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain, traditional vegetarian Andhra cuisine. A few months ago when I finally got around to looking for this cookbook in our public library system, it was not in their collection. I was about to say "oh well" and click away when I realized that I could request for the book to be added to the library's collection. And sure enough, they had a form on their website where I could fill in some details and send in a request in a matter of minutes. And they bought a copy and reserved it for me! I've said it before and I will say it again: public libraries are awesome. From now on, I'll be happily requesting books that I don't find in the library catalog. 

January was a month of graphic memoirs. Like every other kid I knew, I grew up on a steady diet of comic books- Archie and his teen drama, Marvel comics with the superheroes, and homegrown ones with mythological stories like Amar Chitra Katha. But comics, poor things, were always rather looked down upon. You resorted to hiding comics inside textbooks while reading them to dodge the disapproving looks of grown-ups. They were the snack food of the reading world, quick and easy to consume; nothing but empty calories. So I put down comics in middle school and never picked one up again until last year. That's when a couple of brilliant graphic novels spurred my interest again and reminded me that there can be tremendous depth to stories told with line drawings and few words.

This month I read two incredible graphic memoirs.

Image: Goodreads

Relish by Lucy Knisley is a story of childhood and young adulthood told through memories of food, by someone who has been a "foodie" from her toddler years. A funny, warm and joyful memoir that will make you very hungry. I promise you won't regret reading this one.

Image: Goodreads

Calling Dr. Laura by Nicole J. Georges is also a graphic memoir but with the much more difficult subject matter of a dysfunctional family and unstable childhood, but written/drawn with a lot of heart. And I adored the multitude of dogs featured in nearly every panel.

The other rollicking good read this month was a work of non-fiction, Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer. The lives of parasites are facts stranger than fiction and this book nearly left me breathless.

Finally, I read another non-fiction work in the true crime genre that was a difficult but gripping and very thought-provoking read, People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry.

Making

Fabric covered computer mouse-pads using this tutorial from Gen X Quilters. You really can sew a sheet of cork- amazing.









Mittens for Lila. These are sturdy enough to survive being dragged through the playground.





Supporting a campaign to empower women in India by helping them take charge of their own safety. While I live my pleasant and uneventful life, I do know that there are millions of women who face violence and injustice as part of their everyday life. A reader named Gayatri reached out to me and told me about a campaign she's working with- to provide tools and self-defense classes to women in India. Gayatri describes the campaign on her blog and here is the link to the fundraiser. Please take a minute and read about this.

So what have you been eating, reading, making, watching this January?