So…a survey….

1 – What’s the best book you read in 2007?

2 – What’s the best book you read in 2007 that was published prior to 2007?

3 – What’s the one book you read in 2007 that you wanted to like–that the critics liked, or loved–but you didn’t?

4 – What’s the best movie made from a book that you saw in 2007? (Didn’t have to be made in 2007…)

5 – Any books you received as gifts recently that you want to read, are reading, or tried to read (and couldn’t)?

Answer any or all……

I love holidays and like to prolong the holiday as long as possible–obviously. Our tree is still up, blue lights still line are yar and front of the house. Yesterday was the Epiphany, which is a signal to us to take down the tree, dagnabbit, but not yet. Not yet….

But Travis is back at school, and as promised, I’m back to Starletta, mostly reviewing notes and reading the first chapters, making notes. It’s good to be back.

I’m also looking for office space–just the teeniest space is all I need–in town, within a 10 minute walk. Somewhere outside of the house (know of one?). I have one lead which I’ll check out today. All of my work is pretty much home-based, so I’d love a place nearby where there’s no internet, no phone, no nuttin’ except my novel to work on.

If you work at home, how do you stay focused on your work and refuse to be distracted by email, cleaning, phone, etc., and if you have an office outside the house, when did you get it and has it helped?

Okay, ante up those resolutions, guys and goils.

My resolutions are the same as they are every morning of my life–be sweeter, more generous, more productive, smarter, eat healthier–with one additional resolution: finish Starletta’s Kitchen by the time I go to New York in April.

What about yours?

Along the lines of eating healthier, on tomorrow’s show my guest will be Melissa Clark, a food writer, who has a fun diet book called The Skinny. We’ll talk about food writing, writing essays, writing process, and what writers can do to stop or decrease zee writers’–ahem–spread.

Speaking of writer’s spread, here’s a recipe for muffins that’s in the oven as we speak–as I speak, anyhoo. Not sure how great it is for decreasing writers’ spread, but the muffins are among our faves.

I wrote a piece for the old Westways magazine some years back (the column was called Food Souvenir) and included this recipe. (It’s adapted from a recipe from the Willows Palm Springs Historic Inn, which I wrote about for the Los Angeles Times Weekend Escape.) We love it. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

Crazy for Cardomom Muffins

(Makes 15 regular muffins or 30 mini-muffins, or mix them up, as I do.)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or a cup of w/w and cup of unbleached white, or all white, depending on your inclination)

1/2 cup, plus 2/3 cup sugar

3/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts

2 large cage free organic eggs (or equivalent egg replacer)

1/2 cup nonfat yogurt (or if you like rich muffins, use sour cream. I used to use sour cream, when I didn’t gain weight just by looking at fatty delicious foods….)

1/2 stick of butter, melted

1 1/2 cup peeled and grated tart apples

1 tsp. ground allspice

3/4 tsp. powdered cardamom

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, 2/3 cup sugar, 3/4 tsp. allspice and 1/2 tsp. cardamom. Set the mixture aside. Lightly toast the walnuts in a frying pan.

Whisk eggs, sour cream, melted butter. Mix in the apples. Add the dry mixture to the wet. Add 1/2 cup of the walnuts. The remaining sugar, walnuts, allspice and cardomom will make the topping.

Fill muffin pans with paper liners or spray with oil. Fill muffin tins and top with the remaining spice and sugar mixture. Bake for 20 minutes or so, until brown (bake for less if you make the mini muffins).

I’m reading a couple of books (always, a couple of books, it seems) I’m enjoying (The Artful Edit and Claire Davis‘ Labors of the Heart), but when I’m not deep into a book, I feel … restless.

I came across Marisa de Los Santos’ Love Walked In at my local Barnes & Noble. I wrote down the title and contacted the publicity department. I wanted to talk to Santos on my show. This week I’ve been restless without a book I’m crazy about and today her book arrived (she’s on the show next month). And now that I have a book I feel I may love, I feel more relaxed.

Do you go through this, too? Without a book you’re mad about, you feel at loose ends?

People are not reading as much as they use to–or at all–so say the reports on reading and the Internet and book sales, but I’ll tell ya, I’ve been to my local Barnes & Noble a few times in the last couple of weeks and it’s busy! It’s New York busy! Lots of people milling about, looking at books, buying books, and hanging around. I love it.

What’s your bookstore like? C’mon….time for bookstore reports! (And I hope books are making up at least a portion of your holiday gifts.)

Have a great holiday…!

Seems I pick up so many books these days–for the show, mostly–that I just can get into. I don’t know if it’s me or the book. Probably a combination of both.

But I have read one that I loved: On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan’s new book. It’s received mixed reviews, and I think part of the problem is that it’s a book for older readers who’ve made choices that in retrospect may not have been the best choice.

If you haven’t read the book and plan to, then don’t read on. What’s to come is a SPOILER of sorts.

But the main character, Edward, makes a decision on Chesil Beach that changes the course of his life, that he regrets to his dying day, and realizes if he hadn’t been stubborn, if he’d reached out to Florence, if he’d been more patient and loving, he might have lived out his days with the girl of his dreams. But he wasn’t.

I don’t think younger readers can relate to that and maybe that was the problem. When you’re young, you think you’ll live your life with no regrets, that the choices you make are all valid, good ones. And later you find that perhaps not all of them were.

So what are you reading that you love? I ask this question a lot, don’t I?