Read Women Month Tag

For today's Read Women Month post I thought it would be fun to make a quick tag post. Turns out questions for tags are a lot more difficult to think of than I expected, so the more interesting of these questions were actually suggested by Saruuh, who is a true godsend.

So, without further ado, the Read Women Month Tag.

Your favourite book written by a woman

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

The last book you read that was written by a woman

Heist Society by Ally Carter

Your favourite non-fiction book written by a woman

How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

Your favourite series written by a woman

The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling (Obvious and predictable but true)

Three favourite female authors

Meg Cabot, Rainbow Rowell, JK Rowling

A book you love, written by a female author, that you don't think enough people have heard of

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

One woman writer you've been meaning to read but haven't yet

Tahereh Mafi (I will get around to reading Shatter Me one day, I swear!)

Your favourite female-written book that people often look down on

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (I have a sneaky feeling most people might say this one)

Your favourite female character in a book written by a woman

Mia Thermopolis from Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries series

Your favourite female friendship in a book written by a woman

Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter series

A male-written book you wish had been written by a woman

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (Really I would just love to see any of Hemingway's plots written by a woman and with a female protagonist.)

And that's it. Short and sweet!

I'm going to tag Saruuh, Jen, and anyone else who wants to do it. You don't even have to be taking part in Read Women Month, I just want to share the women writers love!

If you do decide to do this tag then please let me know, I'd love to read your answers!

Do I use too many exclamation points? I think I might.

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My Read Women Month TBR

1. Campari for Breakfast by Sara Crowe

Life is full of terrible things. Ghosts of dead relatives, heartbreak... burnt toast. 

In 1987, Sue Bowl's world changes for ever. Her mother dies, leaving her feeling like she's lost a vital part of herself. And then her father shacks up with an awful golddigger called Ivana. 

But Sue's mother always told her to make the most of what she's got - and what she's got is a love of writing and some interesting relatives. So Sue moves to her Aunt Coral's crumbling ancestral home, Green Place, along with a growing bunch of oddballs and eccentrics. Not to mention the odd badger or two... 

There she fully intends to write a book, fall in love, and learn to live decadently.

I mentioned Campari for Breakfast in my Top 5 books I'm most excited for in 2014 post at the start of the year and I've actually already started reading it. I'm only about 100 pages in but so far I'm really enjoying it. I love the setting and the characters and I'm already fairly certain that this one is going to end up being a favourite.

2. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

Fabulously fashionable Polly Hampton - with her startling good looks and excellent social connections - is beginning to wilt under the glare. Groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, Lady Montdore, Polly instead scandalises society by declaring her love for her uncle 'Boy' Dougdale, the Lecherous Lecturer, and promptly eloping to France.

Love in a Cold Climate is the sequel/companion to Mitford's The Pursuit of Love, which I read earlier this year. I found The Pursuit of Love a little hard to get into at first but did ultimately really enjoy the story and the writing style and I've heard that Love in a Cold Climate is considered by some people to be the better of the two books so I'm really looking forward to reading it this month.

3. Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klausmann

Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summers at Tiger House, the glorious old family estate on the island of Martha's Vineyard. As World War II ends they are on the cusp of adulthood, the world seeming to offer itself up to them. Helena is leaving for Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is to be reunited with her young husband Hughes, due to return from London and the war. Everything is about to change.

Neither quite finds the life she had imagined, and as the years pass, the trips to Tiger House take on a new complexity. Then, on the brink of the 1960s, Nick's daughter Daisy and Helena's son Ed make a sinister discovery. It plunges the island's bright heat into private shadow and sends a depth-charge to the heart of the family. 

I bought Tigers in Red Weather sort of on a whim last summer and at the time I was really excited to read it but I guess I just got distracted or something and it's been sitting on my TBR shelf ever since. I really am hoping to finally get around to it this month though because all the synopses I've read make it sound really interesting and exciting and definitely like something I would enjoy.

4. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

For years now the Ramsays have spent every summer in their holiday home in Scotland, and they expect these summers will go on forever; but as the First World War looms, the integrity of family and society will be fatally challenged.

Okay so maybe I was supposed to read To the Lighthouse when I was still at uni and maybe I just sort of skipped the accompanying lecture and seminar because I had already decided what book I wanted to write my essay on but I have honestly been intending to actually read this one ever since then. I read Mrs Dalloway in my first year of uni and enjoyed it despite the stream of consciousness narrative so I'm really hoping that I'll like this one too. And hey, Virginia Woolf was after all the woman who said 'For most of history, Anonymous was a woman' so it seems only right to acknowledge her work during Read Women Month.

5. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

A high-school sex scandal jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency and power. But when the local drama school decides to turn the scandal into a show, the real world and the world of the theatre are forced to meet, and soon the boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve.

One of my favourite university lecturers actually recommended The Rehearsal to me after she read some of my own work but with all of the books that we had to read for university I almost forgot about it until a few months ago when I spotted the kindle version being sold for a discounted price in the amazon store as part of a kindle daily deal. I've read the first few chapters already but I'm really hoping to finish it this month.

6. Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter

Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life. Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she's simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That's why Kat isn't surprised when she's asked to steal the the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners.

There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn't been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald itself keeps it for long, and in Kat's world, history almost always repeats itself. But it's the third problem that makes Kat's crew the most nervous and that is simply... The emerald is cursed.

Kat might be in way over her head, but she's not going down without a fight. After all she has her best friend - the gorgeous Hale - and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe, dodging curses, realising that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time.

Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules.

I read and reviewed Heist Society, the first book in this series, last month and really enjoyed it so I'm sure I'm going to enjoy the other two books in the series. I'm hoping I'll have time to at least read the second book, Uncommon Criminals, this month and maybe even the third, Perfect Scoundrels, but we'll see about that. I think 6 books might already be pushing it!

Are you planning on taking part in Read Women Month (you can click that handy little link to find out more if this is the first you're hearing of it)? If you are then what books are you planning on reading for it?

I'll be posting about #ReadWomenMonth on Twitter, Instagram, and here on this blog throughout the month and I'd love for you to take part!

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May book reviews.

Okay so I only read three books this month but one of them was a collection of plays and I read four of those plays so I'm going to go ahead and say that I actually read six books this month and no one can stop me!

1. The Methuen Book of Modern Drama: Plays of the '80s and '90s

This is actually a book left over from my dramatic writing module in my second year of university, when we used it to study Top Girls and The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and it's kind of a mixed bag in my opinion. I really didn't like The Beauty Queen of Leenane when I read it for uni so didn't re-read that this month but I did re-read Top Girls. There were parts of Top Girls that I liked but overall I'm not sure it's really my thing and Blasted and Shopping and Fucking are both really very much not my thing. Honestly, the only play in this collection that I actually liked was Hysteria by Terry Johnson and even that was a little hard to read in places. This book might end up in the cardboard box at the bottom of the stairs with all the other uni books I don't want but haven't found homes for yet.

Why were plays of the '80s and '90s so bloody horrible and depressing??

2. The Tempest by William Shakespeare

I think probably a lot of people who like Shakespeare would agree with me that although his work is wonderful to see performed it's often quite difficult to read. It makes sense, obviously, they're plays not books and they're really only going to make perfect sense when performed anyway, but this Penguin version of The Tempest has a few chapters of introduction before the play that actually made it much easier for me to understand and envision The Tempest while I was reading it. I did see an amateur production of The Tempest years ago when I was in school but I don't quite remember that version being as funny as the actual script is...

If you've been wanting to read any of Shakespeare's plays then I'd really recommend checking out this particular series from Penguin because of those introductory chapters and I'd definitely recommend The Tempest if you're a fan of magic or drunkards stumbling around desert islands (I am definitely a fan of both).

3. Heist Society by Ally Carter - 4/5 stars.

I was a little apprehensive going into this book because I read Ally Carter's I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You a few years ago and found it quite disappointing, but I couldn't resist this story about a teenage con artist and her teenage con artist friends. I'm really glad I gave Heist Society a try because I ended up really enjoying it. It's a lot of fun and really what more do you want from a book about a teenaged professional thief? If you're into contemporary YA with a fun adventure plot then I whole heartedly recommend Heist Society. I might even end up reading the two sequels during Read Women Month.

Have you read any of these books? If you have then let me know what you thought of them in the comments.

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May mix.

May Mix from stasialikescakes on 8tracks Radio.

Track list

Scream (Funk My Life Up) - Paolo Nutini

Chocolate - The 1975

Crash Land - Twin Atlantic

Voulez-Vous - ABBA

American Boy - Estelle

Calm After the Storm - The Common Linnets

The Mother We Share - Chvrches

Rise Like a Phoenix - Conchita Wurst

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What I've been doing this weekend.

Hanging out in Padstow again and buying lots of gorgeous local spice mixes.

Burning garlic and rosemary focaccia bread.

And eating it for lunch dipped in olive oil and fajita spices.

Trying desperately to bring my basil back to life after letting it get dehydrated! And hoping that the chives and parsley might come to life one of these days.

Listening to the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire audiobook in the garden and wishing this sun would stick around.

Planning posts for #ReadWomenMonth in June.

What have you been doing this weekend?

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Read Women Month 2014!

For the whole of June I have decided to only read books written by female authors and I'd like you to join me!

I think it's pretty common knowledge that female writers get a bad deal. Books written by women are often described as 'light' or 'fun' or, my personal least favourite, 'chicklit', whereas books written by men about the same themes are rarely spoken of in these terms. When was the last time you heard a book by a male writer described as 'light'? Nicholas Sparks is very successful for writing romance novels and yet his books are never deemed 'chicklit'. Why is that? I think you can guess.

So for the month of June I want to encourage you to only read books written by women! That's literally the only rule. You don't even have to have a blog.

If you want to talk about Read Women Month on twitter, instagram, facebook, tumblr, your blog, or anywhere else then you can use the tag #readwomenmonth and if you'd like to use the header image I've used in this post then feel free (although, of course, you don't have to at all. I won't mind, I promise.)

I'm also planning to post a few blog posts linked to #readwomenmonth throughout June so keep an eye out for those. ;) (emoticons? I know. I'm sorry. I'm just very excited about the whole thing.)

So what do you think? Let me know in the comments if you're planning on taking part and if you do mention it on your blog or anywhere else then I'd love it if you'd leave me a link so I can check it out!

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The most delicious chocolate chip cookies.

I've never had much luck with chocolate chip cookies. They're probably one of the easiest things to make but I've never been able to find a recipe I really liked. Every recipe I've tried has always been a little too greasy or a little too crunchy or the flavours just haven't been exactly how I like them. But now my search might just be over!

My aunt sent me this recipe a few months ago for cookies that are apparently supposed to taste like Millie's Cookies. I've never actually tried Millie's Cookies so I can't say anything about that but I can tell you that these only came out of the oven a few hours ago and half of them have already been eaten!

Baked goods do not last long in this house.

As well as probably being the tastiest cookies I've ever made these are definitely the most attractive. Look at those things! That's what a real cookie looks like right there. The flavour is, of course, the most important thing though, and these really are so delicious. They're crunchy around the edges and soft in the middle and they aren't horribly greasy like so many recipes I've tried in the past.

This might just be my holy grail cookie recipe (Is that a thing? I'm making it a thing), and I will definitely be making them again very soon!

Ingredients

125g butter, softened

100g light brown soft sugar

125g caster sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

225g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

200g chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4, and line two or three trays with greaseproof paper.

2. Cream the butter and sugars together. Once creamed, add the egg and vanilla extract and combine.

3. Sift in the flour and salt and mix again. Then add in the chocolate chips and give it another gentle mix to combine the chips into the mixture.

4. Roll into twelve walnut sized balls and place on the lined trays. I chose to use three trays with four cookies on each because they really do spread as they cook!

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 7-10 minutes. 7 minutes if you want them to be very soft and gooey in the middle, 10 minutes if you want your cookies to be a little more crunchy around the edges. I cooked all of mine for 10 minutes, until the edges were just turning golden.

6. Remove the cookies from the oven and leave them on the trays to harden for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a wire wrack to cool completely.

7. Eat as many cookies as you can before your parents come home at the end of the day and start eating them all!

Let me know if you try out this recipe yourself or if you have any other suggestions for great cookie recipes. I'm always on the lookout for delicious recipes!

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