forestofglory | Birthday Rec Party

It's my birthday so I thought I'd host a rec party. I love both giving and receiving recs! It's fun to tell people about things I love and it's fun to discover new things that other people love.

So in the comments either recommend something you think I'd like or ask for a rec. Or both, both is good too.

You can rec or ask for recs of books, short fiction, fanfic, vids, music, meta, manga, recipes or anything else that comes to mind.

I'm always interested in cool ecological worldbuiling; fiction with lots of food; architectural and urban planning themes; and stories about moms. However don’t feel limited by this list I’m happy to hear about all kinds of things you like. Please do warn for dead moms and children in peril. If you want to see what I've been into recently you can check out my media roundup tag.

Happy recing!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lunabee34

I would like to rec The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's been so long since I read it that I cannot remember if it has any children or moms in peril. It's very short but the world building is so so interesting.

From:

forestofglory

That's actually one of my least favorite Le Guin's because one of the viewpoint characters is an awful imperialist rapist and I really hated being in his head. But the worldbuilding is indeed great. I just hated that dude.

From:

jesse_the_k

Indeed, I bounced off the book three or four times because who wants to be in that dude's head?

It was particularly meaningful once I'd escaped his viewpoint, since there was a Viet Nam war in progress.
Reading it during the Vietnam War

From:

forestofglory

I'm glad its not just me! And I felt similarly about Le Guin's Voices and the Iraq war.

From:

mrissa

That entire series--Voices and the other two--felt so magical and right to me, like they were books I had loved my entire life from the first time I read them.

From:

mrissa

(Also happy birthday.)

From:

lunabee34

And this is why my biggest reading project (even if it going sooooo slowly because of the volume of books that come into this house LOL) is to reread my own shelves; some of the books there I haven't read in close to 30 years and don't remember a lot about them beyond liking it. LOL

From:

forestofglory

That sounds fun, but also maybe a little sad if you discover problems with books you once really liked.

From:

lunabee34

*nods*

It hasn't happened so far, but I expect it will eventually. I mean, I'm still in the Bs, so it's going to take awhile. LOL

It has also given me the freedom to get rid of some stuff, mostly books I had to read for college. I reread Aristotle, and now I'm done. I can give it away.

From:

clevermanka

Happy birthday!

I don't know if K-pop or mashups are your thing, but someone just told me about this U-Kiss vs. SHINee vs. Super Junior vs. Nirvana mashup and I am living for it. If mashups and/or K-pop aren't your jam, let me know what kind of music you do like and I'll see if I can figure out something else that might appeal.

From:

forestofglory

That was super fun! I'm currently trying to figure out what my musical taste even is. I have a auditory processing disorder and I didn't listen to music for a long time. But recently I've become friends with other people with auditory processing problems who really like music and that's made me want to explore it more, and I've started making more time for it.

From:

clevermanka

Oh, how fun that you're getting to explore music again! I have wide-ranging tastes so I'm happy to send stuff your way if/when you can give me examples of the sorts of thing that doesn't make your auditory processing freak out.

From:

forestofglory

Thank you! I tend to do better with songs with not too much going on at once. But I've learned that lots of people, even people with normal auditory processing skills look up the lyrics, and I've found that can really help. Also I've been enjoying vids a lot because it helps give me some more context for songs.

From:

trascendenza

I have some links to AtLA meta I found interesting in this old post of mine, perhaps that would be of interest to you!

From:

forestofglory

Thank you, that looks very intersting.

From:

alexseanchai

Embers by Vathara (start with "Theft Absolute") includes a lot of what I think falls under the heading of "ecological worldbuilding". It's an Avatar: the Last Airbender AU; one of the points that comes up is, Air Nomads (before the war, of course) didn't know the difference between Earth Kingdom land, where dropping a herd of ten-ton flying beasts on the ground wasn't going to do any particular damage to the soil, and Fire Nation land, where a single sky bison tromping around a field might make the field impossible to grow things in for a couple years. Also, the OFC Amaya isn't Zuko's mother nor is she trying to be, but, like, that's not not how to think of her either? (There are both dead moms and children in peril, but those warnings apply to the canon, too. In fact, leaving out some original characters' mothers, all of whom died before the fic starts, and ignoring anything in comics or Korra, it's possible to argue that the dead-mom warning is less applicable to this fic than to canon.)

From:

forestofglory

Oh, I've had that on my ereader for a bit because it was mentioned on Be the Serpent. I didn't know it had ecology too! I'm a bit intimated by how long it is but it sounds really good.

I don't really understand FF.net how does the version there compare to what's on A03? (https://archiveofourown.org/works/3591783/chapters/7921653) The version I have is form there.

From:

alexseanchai

I have not read through the AO3 version to compare with, but I know for a fact the AO3 version did not have Vathara's name on when it went up.

From:

forestofglory

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you should read an compare. That's defiantly too much work! Hmmm... the AO3 version currently has note saying its their with the author's permission. I guess I'll have to do some digging and figure out what's going on. Drat, its much easier for me to read long fic on my ereader.

From:

jesse_the_k

FanFicFare is software to create ebooks from hundreds of fic sites, including fanfiction.net. It's what the AO3 now uses to create ebooks.

It's available as a webservice here:

https://fanficfare.appspot.com

You have to login with a google id -- it just uses this to minimize spam.

Go to a story's home page, copy the URL, and paste it into the box on FanFicFare. Choose mobi for Kindles and epub for others.

Submit the request, and then wait. FFN limits how many requests it accepts, so the FanFicFare service magically asks slowly. Keep the page open, and eventually it will tell you "Done!"
Plug in the FFN url and it will chew away and download

From:

jesse_the_k

Ooops -- the URL you'd need for Embers

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5398503/1/Embers

From:

forestofglory

Thank you!

From:

jo_lasalle

Happy Birthday! *\o/* Hope you're having a great day!

My rec, though maybe you already know it: the podcast Revisionist History, and more specifically the episode about McDonald's french fries. (It sounds like an odd choice of podcast topics but I loved that episode.)

From:

forestofglory

Thank you! It's been a good day so far, and I have plans for dinner with family and friends.

History and food! That sounds right up my alley!

From:

bookgazing

Happy Birthday :D I'm sure you'll have read it already but just in case I'd like to rec Packing by T Kingfisher. Also, I think you might be interested in Planet fall by Emma Newman if you haven't read her stuff before.

From:

forestofglory

I was just thinking about Packing the other day -- its such a good story.

Planetfall was good too!

From:

suncani

Happy birthday! Hope you're having an excellent day.

I have two recs and a request. Can you recommend me a recipe, please?
On to the recs, the first you may have read - Umbernight by Carolyn Ives Gilman. Lots of weird plants/ecology but also CN it's not the happiest. It's about ambition, youthful optimism not being enough to save you, and the battle between rationality and emotion.

The other is La Heron by Charlotte Ashley which is about dueling with the fae and a contestant is matched with an unexpected second.

From:

forestofglory

It's been a good day so far.

Here's a recipe for Butterscotch Brownies, originally form Mark Bitman's How to Cook Everything.

2 sticks or 250g butter (I've used both and its been tasty either way)

2 cups brown sugar (as dark as you can get, sometimes I add extra molasses)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cup (4.5 oz) flour

9" by 13" pan, greased.

Melt the butter on the stove and the sugar and stir until smooth.(If you start with large sauce pan you
Add the eggs and vanilla mix in until smooth
Add the flour and mix until smooth
pour batter into pan.

bake in a 350F/180C oven for 25 minute. Let cool for about 10 minutes then cut into squares.

I haven't read either of those, so I'm excited to check them out.

From:

suncani

Thank you, that's this weekend's baking sorted :)

Glad I found something you hadn't read :D let me know what you think of them when you get round to them.

From:

ambyr

Have I recommended Wrede's Caught in Crystal to you yet? If not, let me recommend Caught in Crystal, everyone's (well, okay, my) favorite high fantasy quest adventure featuring a widowed mother and the two kids she treks across the continent with because it's not like anyone is offering babysitting services while she's off to destroy Evil.

From:

forestofglory

I've read that! It's great and I wish there where more books like it.

From:

ambyr

Yeah, it’s sad that thirty years later I have a hard time thinking of other books that cover similar territory.

Hmm. Sanderson’s Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell?