The baking season is upon us! From now until the end of the year, kitchens will be full of bakers creating delectable delights to share with family and friends. But with so many recipes to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are a few cookbooks that are sure to lead to holiday baking success!

Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi. New York : Clarkson Potter, 2020. 191 pages.

Snacking Cakes is the perfect book for small gatherings or for people who don’t have time for elaborate bakes. All of the cakes in Snacking Cakes are one bowl recipes, and generally bake in about 45 minutes or less. Throughout the book, variations are given for both flavors and sizes of cakes, allowing bakers to customize according to their taste. Instead of elaborate buttercream frostings, Arefi opts for glazes and dustings of powdered sugar, perfect for those who find frosting too sweet. One recipe that would be perfect for holiday baking is the sticky whiskey date cake, which takes the popular English dessert of sticky toffee puddings and recreates it on a larger scale. Full of warm spices and a delicious glaze, this easy to make cake is sure to stand out on any holiday table. This cookbook is perfect for anyone who wants recipes that are unfussy but delicious.

Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking by Cheryl Day. New York : Artisan, 2021. 400 pages.

Cheryl Day is a James Beard Award nominated baker who operates the renowned Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Georgia, and is viewed as an authority on southern baking. Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking collects savory and sweet recipes, and offers both staples of southern cuisine and soon to be classics. Readers can find recipes for classic fluffy buttermilk biscuits, cheese straws or peach cobbler alongside recipes like wildflower honey buns and strawberry black pepper butter.  Bakers will not only enjoy the recipes, but also the history that Day provides.  Gorgeous photos also accompany these recipes. This is the perfect book for anyone who wants to learn what makes southern baking special.

The All-Purpose Baker’s Companion by King Arthur Baking Company. New York: The Countryman Press. 2021. 568 pages.

The Vermont based King Arthur Baking Company might be best known for their flour, but they have grown quite a following for their excellent recipes as well. The All-Purpose Baker’s Companion is an invaluable resource for the home baker, as it covers everything from bread making to pies and cookies. Variations are given for almost every recipe, and there are helpful tips on topics like how to get crisp crackers or prevent waffles from sticking. The soft cinnamon roll recipe is the perfect holiday morning treat, made soft by using the Chinese technique of making a tangzhong starter, which results in pillowy, delicious rolls. This cookbook is perfect for the baker who wants to try a variety of recipes to build their baking skills.  

Elizabeth Weislak is the Youth Services Coordinator at the Alamance County Public Libraries. She took a deep dive into baking during the pandemic, and we have all benefited from her experience. She can be reached at eweislak@alamancelibraries.org

“Breaking Bad: A Cultural History” by Lara C. Stache; Rowman & Littlefield (236 pages, $38).

AMC’s Breaking Bad spent five years presenting its audience with the tale of Walter White, a brilliant but unfulfilled high school chemistry teacher, husband, father of two, and recently diagnosed cancer patient who would go on to slowly but surely become the meth kingpin of the American Southwest. As Mr. White and former student turned partner Jesse Pinkman become deeply entwined in the deadly underworld of making and selling narcotics, their narrative leaves a trail of bodies strewn across the show’s five seasons, marking a story that resulted in more than 15 Emmy awards as it developed into one of the most critically acclaimed TV shows ever made.

In Breaking Bad: A Cultural History, author Lara Stache offers her readers an engaging analysis of the program, focusing on the show’s fascinating characters and complex story lines. Stache gives the show its due reverence, but also suggests new ways of understanding and critiquing the series as a part of the larger culture in which it exists. The author looks at how the program challenges viewers to think about choices made in the narrative, analyzes what design choices did and did not work, and determines the program’s cultural significance both before and after the show’s conclusion.

Stache also explores how Breaking Bad grappled with themes of morality, legality, and anti-drug rhetoric and looks at how the marketing of the series influenced the ways in which television shows are now promoted. Key scenes from Breaking Bad are retold within this book along the way, often to celebrate the fantastic story threads or engaging scenes of the show, and other times for the sake of the critical analysis of the inner workings of Breaking Bad’s narrative. Either way, it makes for a fun way for fans to revisit their favorite scenes from a new perspective or for not-yet-fans to enjoy a little appetizer of the show.

Setting aside the thrilling character-driven plots of Breaking Bad, very subtle but intentional symbolism is often used in the show’s set design and character actions. These artistic flairs by the show makers always fascinated me, and I’m glad this book elaborates upon them in detail, quoting interviews with the show creators to help solve the mysteries behind these interpretive design choices.

The use of symbolism in Breaking Bad is so barely focused on that you can easily miss it, but once you’re aware of it you’ll begin to see it in every dramatic scene! One example is the set designers carefully using the color of environmental lighting or a character’s clothing to symbolize morality and intent prevalent in the scene. Certain hues of color represented lawful society, other hues represented the criminal underworld, and some colors represented morally gray areas in-between or other concepts like greed or despair.

Aside from color, many other subtle artistic symbolic choices are made in the show. Walter White often visits his family’s seldom used backyard pool when he wants to be alone with his thoughts, where the state of the pool itself will give the audience a peek into his state of mind. Walter also picks up subtle but distinct mannerisms from those who die due to his actions throughout the story, as though he’s taking a little piece of their soul with him on his descent ever deeper into the criminal underworld.

A few Biblical themes even manifest themselves in the characters towards the end of the series, fitting with the show’s heavy themes which explore the vices and virtues of its character cast. It’s wonderfully creative design choices like this that help the show be a treat to watch even on second or third viewing. You’ll always spot a new detail you missed on last viewing!

Lara Stache is clearly a big time Breaking Bad fan, and her book does a fantastic job of exploring the show’s narrative from both the perspective of the audience and of the writers. Breaking Bad: A Cultural History captures the spirit of the series and examines how the show had an impact on viewers like nothing before it. This book will be of interest to fans of the show as well as to scholars and students of television, media, and American pop culture.

Donavon Anderson is a reference library assistant at May Memorial Library. He can be reached at danderson@alamancelibraries.org.

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang. New York, NY : Harper Voyager, [2022].

Content Warnings: Racism, Colonization, Racial slurs, Slavery, War, Death of parent.

Babel is one of the best book club books I have ever read.  Set in an alternative version of 1800s Oxford where England’s technological revolution runs, not on standard technology, but on magic made with silver and translated language, the novel explores imperialism, linguistics, and what it means to be an outsider.

The book follows Robin Swift, a Chinese boy spirited away from his home in Canton by the mysterious British benefactor, Professor Lovell.  Lovell tells Robin that he has a glorious future ahead of him as a member of Oxford’s Translation Institute.  As one of the few people in Britain to grow up fluent in both Mandarin and English, Robin has the chance to make magic.  If he works hard, Robin may be able to find elusive match-pairs, words that, in translation between languages, have just enough difference in meaning between them to change the material world.

Soon enough, Robin finds himself immersed in the study of language.  Academics become his entire life.  The more he learns, however, the more Robin discovers that there is a dark side to The Translation Institute’s work.  While silver magic continues to make Britain richer and more powerful, it also funds conflict and poverty in China and the East Indies.  While Robin and his classmates are supposedly the heart of British progress, they also are taunted, beaten, and abused for existing in Britain while being non-white.  Students who do not measure up academically disappear or die without warning.  Behind the scenes, a secret society is plotting against The Institute and Robin is not sure if that is a bad thing.

R.F. Kuang is known for her character work in her hit series The Poppy War.  This same strength can be seen in Babel.  The book teleports readers to an alternative version of the past and into the heads of characters different from themselves while making those characters thoughts and internal logic make sense.  I may not have agreed with half of Robin’s choices, but I viscerally understood why he made them.

In Babel, Kuang also makes excellent use of footnotes.  The novel is marked with extra information given by a very opinionated narrator telling the reader more about quotations, history, and characters in the book.  Set within Babel’s lectures about languages and textbooks, this makes readers think about how we understand history and who we learn it from.

Babel, however, is not simply titled Babel.  The novel’s full title is Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution.  Readers should know that this is not a happy story.  Throughout its 560 pages, Babel repeats cycles of hurt and confusion as Robin becomes more cynical and hopeless about the state of the world.

This leads to the greatest flaw in the novel: The book focuses so much on Robin’s story of loss that it bypasses more complex and interesting ideas.  The narratives of amazing side characters are relegated to single chapters or footnotes while the novel’s imagery and foreshadowing becomes repetitive and heavy-handed.  The book ends with the conclusion of Robin’s story, but other plot points feel left at loose ends.

Babel by R.F. Kuang is a book for those looking to reminisce about academia, learn more about linguistics, or think seriously about the implications of imperialism.  I recommend it to those who liked the idea of The Poppy War, but could not stomach all three books of the trilogy or wanted something at least a little more hopeful.  The audiobook is particularly spectacular, capturing the voices and languages of all the characters from all over the world.  Love them or hate them, Babel contains characters that will stick with you forever and a haunting ending that will make you wonder if we are doomed to repeat history forever.

Rebecca Mincher is a library assistant in children’s services at the Graham Public Library. You can reach her at rzimmerman@alamancelibraries.org.

How to Keep House While Drowning: a gentle approach to cleaning and organizing by K. C. Davis. New York, NY: Simon Element, 2022.

Content Warning: Ableism, Mental Illness.

Prior to the Covid-19 shutdown, I blamed my untidy home on time management. My spouse and I both worked forty hours a week, and most weeks it was as much as we could accomplish just to keep up with the dishes and laundry.

When we were sent home, my first thought was all the time I would save not having to get ready to go to work, drive to and from, and prepare food to take or eat out away from home. Surely this was what I needed in order to have a clean, organized home!

At first, my plan went well. But as the pandemic wore on, I found myself glued to the television, worried and anxious. I was also dealing with health issues, loss of half of our family income, and my spouse’s growing depression. No doubt, I was drowning.

K. C. Davis was expecting her second child in February of 2020, and she had prepared a robust support group of family, friends, and a preschool for her older child so she could have the time she needed to recover. When the pandemic stopped her from utilizing this support, she quickly slipped into postpartum depression, weighed down by lack of sleep and being the sole caretaker for an infant and a toddler. Her awakening came when she posted a lighthearted video on TikTok making fun of her own unkempt home and the challenges of keeping up with two young children. Amongst the comments, there was this one word: “Lazy.”

That word triggered the author’s shame and guilt stretching back to childhood. Even though as a counselor she knew that overwhelm was unavoidable in her situation she immediately embraced the belief that she was a failure, both as a mother and as a human. Only later, as she listed all she had been through and accomplished, did she realize that, although she was tired, depressed, and overwhelmed, she was definitely NOT lazy. She needed help, not shaming. This story resonated deeply.

Davis invites us to reframe household chores as “care tasks” that are a gift to “future you.” For example, if morning is the most difficult time of day for you, making lunches and laying out clothes the night before is a form of self-care. In this way, the author introduces the idea of treating ourselves with compassion, a powerful antidote to overwhelm.

K. C. Davis wrote this book to be accessible to the people who need it most – those who feel they are drowning. In addition to short chapters, she offers a “map” through the chapters so even readers with a minimal amount of time or attention can benefit from the material. I started by taking this “abridged” trip through the book, hoping to get it back in circulation at the library quickly. However, the short chapters were so well written that I found myself grabbing it for a quick read every time I sat down. In this way, I was able to finish the book without having to schedule the time to read it. I appreciate that Davis intentionally kept the reader in mind in this way.

This book may be small, but it is a much-needed life preserver for those of us that feel we are drowning.

Deana Cunningham is the Associate Director of Operations for Alamance County Public Libraries. She can be reached at dcunningham@alamancelibraries.org.

October is the perfect time to explore the horror genre, but with so many options, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are a few recommendations to fit readers of all tastes!

If You Want a Classic, try The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

In The Haunting of Hill House by horror master Shirley Jackson, four strangers gather at a mysterious manor at the request of Dr. John Montague, who wants to research the paranormal activities of this house. The protagonist, Eleanor Vance, takes this invitation as a chance to finally live the life she has always wanted, having spent all of her life as her mother’s caretaker. As the group begins experiencing supernatural occurrences, the tension rises. Readers may leave this story believing that the true terror is how we treat each other.

If You Are Short on Time, try Tiny Nightmares, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto

Tiny Nightmares is a collection of flash fiction, which are very short stories, all no more than 1,500 words. They are divided in four sections: heads, hearts, limbs, and viscera, and show that a story does not need to be lengthy to send a chill down your spine. This collection features a diverse group of authors and topics, and the stories vary in just how frightening they are. For readers who enjoy a little humor with their horror, “Katy Bars the Door” by Richie Navarez fits the bill, as Katy, caught in a love triangle, has to chose between her husband or her lover, both who are now zombies. If you are looking for more of a scare, “Lone” by Jac Jemc is an unnerving tale of a woman trying to enjoy a solo camping trip, only to have her peace interrupted. While some readers may wish they these stories were a bit longer, Tiny Nightmares shows that even short stories can send a chill down your spine.

If You Want to be Completely Absorbed in a Story, try House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Coming in at over 700 pages, House of Leaves is an epic narrative of a house, a lost documentary, and an unreliable narrator whose grip on reality may be slipping away. Johnny Truant learns of the lost documentary “The Navidson Record” when his friend Lude tells him about the blind man Zampanò, who wrote an academic paper about this documentary. The documentary supposedly tells the story of photojournalists Will Navidson’s new house, which is found to be expanding and changing. House of Leaves is a reading experience like no other. At times, readers will be forced to turn the book upside down, or use a mirror to decipher the text, techniques which can create a sense of claustrophobia for the reader. Those brave enough to take on this challenge will be rewarded with a truly unforgettable story.

Elizabeth Weislak is the Youth Services Coordinator for the Alamance County Public Libraries. She can be reached at eweislak@alamancelibraries.org.

Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.

Content Warnings: Murder, Suicide, Strong Language

The late 1990s.  A snowed-in old hotel in upstate New York.  Its aging manager, who remembers the building’s grand heyday but is starting to forget most everything else.  Hundreds of teenagers packed in for a music competition.  A harsh, glamorous piano teacher and her broken prodigy, now all grown-up.  All gathered fifteen years to the day from a murder-suicide that occurred in the hotel.

Twins Alice and Rabbit Hatmaker are off to the prestigious Statewide music festival before graduating high school and heading off to college.  Rehearsals start, and it appears the only odd part of the weekend is going to be the eccentric orchestra conductor – that is, until Alice returns to her room to find her roommate hanging from the sprinkler system, apparently dead, in an eerily similar fashion to the suicide that happened in the very same room fifteen years prior.  Only when the police arrive, the girl – and any evidence that what Alice said she saw happened at all – has disappeared.  Where did her roommate go, and is she still alive?  Everyone has secrets, from Alice and Rabbit themselves to their music teacher, from the head of the festival to the years-old crime’s only witness – and even the hotel itself.

Author Kate Racculia examines the relationships we form, how they change over time, and how they change us.  Characters yearn to reveal their true selves to others, but also to figure out who those true selves really are.  Love and loss change people in ways they never imagined, for better and for worse.  Bellweather Rhapsody is also a love letter to music and making music.  Passages throughout describe the process of making music in beautiful, heartbreaking language that captures how it feels to be part of something bigger than yourself, something simultaneously eternal and ephemeral.  Racculia explores the value of making music because you have a passion for it.  Some characters preach that only those who can perform at the level to make it in the professional music world are truly “worthy” and that everyone else is a failure, but ultimately this opinion is harmful and leads to burnout.  This ideological struggle will resonate with anyone who has ever felt passionate about something they enjoy that isn’t their “day job.” 

This can be tentatively classified as a mystery, as there is a mystery to be solved, but it isn’t your typical crime thriller or cozy mystery.  Fans of Riley Sager, Alan Bradley, and Rebecca Makkai may especially enjoy it.  A cast of quirky characters and several unexpected twists keep this book engaging from beginning to end. 

Joan Hedrick is a circulation assistant at the Graham Public Library.  Contact her at jhedrick@alamancelibraries.org.

To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West by Mark Lee Gardner; William Morrow (332 pages, $27).

Published in 2009, Mark Lee Gardner’s To Hell on a Fast Horse is a deep dive into Sheriff Pat Garrett’s legendary chase and final showdown with one of the wild west’s most notorious criminals: Billy the Kid. Between a thousand word of mouth retellings, the influence of melodramatic Hollywood films, and other criminals proclaiming themselves Billy the Kid to feed off his infamy, it’s a herculean task to cut through all hearsay in order to dig out the raw facts about what exactly happened in the New Mexican desert in 1881. Thankfully, Gardner has proven himself capable of that task within the pages of his book!

Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett was the bartender, customs agent, and sheriff who became famous for killing Billy the Kid. He actually became the sheriff of two New Mexican Counties, Lincoln County and Doña Ana County, making Billy the Kid’s crime spree in the region his responsibility.

Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty), also known by the pseudonym William H. Bonney, was a NYC native who ended up becoming an outlaw and gunfighter in the frontier territories of the late 1800’s Wild West. He earned his infamy by gunning down eight men before ultimately being hunted down by Sheriff Garrett.

After killing a blacksmith during an altercation in August 1877 (inspiring the plot of Back to the Future Part III), McCarty became a wanted man in Arizona and returned to New Mexico, where he joined a group of cattle rustlers. He became well known in the region when he joined the Regulators and took part in the Lincoln County War of 1878. He and two other Regulators were later charged with killing three men, including Lincoln County Sheriff William J. Brady and one of his deputies.

McCarty’s notoriety began to grow in December 1880 when newspapers began to carry stories about his crimes across the nation. Sheriff Pat Garrett captured McCarty later that month. In April 1881, McCarty was tried for and convicted of Brady’s murder, and was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on the 28th of April, killing two sheriff’s deputies in the process, and evaded capture for more than two months. Garrett shot and killed McCarty, by then aged 21, in Fort Sumner on July 14th, 1881.

Billy the Kid managed to become a wild west legend in part because after being sentenced to death and escaping his imprisonment, the general public had to wonder if this dangerous scoundrel would ever be caught, with newspapers snowballing the speculation and spectacle of it all across the nation. This infamy made him all the easier to track however, with his various names along with a photograph of himself being commonplace in newspapers and wanted posters across the region.

Mark Lee Gardner’s writing talent has painted a wonderfully detailed picture of the wild west’s villains and heroes alike here in the pages of To Hell on a Fast Horse. Even if you’re familiar with the legend of Billy the Kid, this time machine in the shape of a book will give you brand new insights on the characters of that legend and the hardships faced by both parties. Gardner holds a master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Wyoming and a bachelor’s degree in history and journalism from Northwest Missouri State University. He’s married with two kids and lives with his family at the foot of majestic Pikes Peak.

Donavon Anderson is a reference library assistant at May Memorial Library. He can be reached at danderson@alamancelibraries.org.