Reading and eating (3 March 2009)

• Nick Hornby has a table full of his book picks at Waterstones bookshops. I especially like this part from his Times article:

  "...it’s one of the reasons why I am a constantly hopeful reader, even now, prepared to believe that the paperback I’ve just picked up will absorb and inspire and change me"

• More from Waterstones: They've picked 12 "new voices" of which I've only heard of two.
  
• From Books on the Nightstand, a book club I would love to be part of:

  "When Nova Scotia's Loquacious Compendium Book Club grew too large to meet in members' homes, they didn't just split off into smaller groups. Instead, they did what any good book club should do: they built a bar."

• Iain Sinclair talks about Hackney in this great video and interview with The Guardian.

  "The rhythm of Iain Sinclair's life has always gone something like this: walk, write; walk, write; walk, write. There have been interruptions, of course. In the old days, before he was a published author, he had to make a living just like everyone else - he painted the white lines of the football pitches on Hackney Marshes, he mowed the grass outside Hawksmoor's London churches - and there were his children (Farne, William and Madeleine) to be fed, watered and generally brought up. Mostly, though, there has just been the walking and the writing, the writing and the walking. His books, sprawling and arcane, would not, could not exist without the walking, which means that to visit him and then fail to propose a walk would be wilfully perverse, like meeting Lucian Freud and turning down the chance to see his studio."

• With the whole Korean tacos fad going on in LA (which we'll have to hear from my sister about, as she was chasing the taco truck on Saturday), Serious Eats has a Korean burrito recipe.
• Over at Smitten Kitchen, some crispy chewy chocolate chip cookies that make my mouth water.