Inside Jacket

The seven-year-old and I are making Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast on Saturday. Here is the recipe we are following – it’s not exact because that’s how I operate in the kitchen. I don’t believe in exact quantities because I never have the exact quantities required.

A pile of fresh spinach
1 clove of crushed garlic (optional)
3 or 4 beaten eggs
Salt & pepper
A few slices of bacon

Wash the spinach (although it’s fine to just check there are no rogue slugs present), fry with a little oil, drain away most of the water after it has boiled down (and be amazed once more at how spinach just disappears like magic), add the garlic, salt and pepper and then puree it.

Scramble the eggs, then add the spinach puree and mix it up without mercy until the eggs are greener than green, green grass of home.

Cook the bacon and place the green eggs next to the bacon in an attractive pile on the plate. Place the plate in front of seven-year-old.

Of course, you could just use food colouring but have you seen what goes into food colouring?

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Josh Sundquist is one of our guest bloggers during the week of January 18th. If you have any questions for Josh Sundquist, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some more information about Just Don't Fall:

A remarkable odyssey that John le Carre calls "inspiring, courageous, sometimes heartbreaking"

Josh Sundquist was an energetic and inquisitive nine-year-old when he was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a virulent cancer that eventually claimed his left leg. His extraordinary journey takes him from his small southern town-with his father, an aspiring pastor questioning his faith, and his mother, a rigidly conservative homeschool teacher- through a dizzying array of hospitals, on to high school, and then to the mountains, where Josh learns to ski.

On the slopes, Josh's world bursts wide open and he finds within him the drive to become a champion skier, despite his disability. While he navigates the dramas of high school and an unstable home life, Josh keeps his eyes on the prize-the 2006 Paralympics in Turin, Italy.

Just Don't Fall isn't just the story of a boy becoming a man, but of a champion realizing his greatest aspiration.

Just Don't Fall

Josh Sundquist – author

$25.95 – add to cart

Book: Hardcover | 5.51 x 8.26in | 336 pages | ISBN 9780670021468 | 21 Jan 2010 | Viking Adult | 18 – AND UP

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The world of Deadtown is haunted by demons. They come out at night: shrieking, howling, and tormenting the vulnerable. Vicky Vaughn, Boston's only professional demon slayer, is there to send your demons back into the ether–if you can afford her fee.

In Deadtown there are two kinds of demons: those that are conjured and those that have independent existence. Personal demons, the ones Vicky kills for her clients, are conjured demons. They don't exist until someone summons them and gives them form. The summoning can happen deliberately–as when a sorcerer conjures Harpies (revenge demons) and sends them to attack an enemy-or it can happen unconsciously. Without intending to, people can conjure their own demons.

How does that work? When you don't face a fear, worry, or regret, the issue tends to grow. It visits you as you lie in bed at night, creeping into your thoughts and maybe–if you manage to sleep–invading your dreams. The bigger the problem grows, the more demons it conjures. Personal demons gobble up fear, guilt, and other negative emotions like candy.

But Vicky's the demon expert, so I'll let her explain. In this snippet from Deadtown, Vicky is being questioned by two homicide detectives, Stephanie Hagopian and Daniel Costello. One of Vicky's clients is dead, and they want to know whether he could have been murdered by demons:

Hagopian jumped. Then she nodded and opened a notebook. She cleared her throat twice. "The death was . . . well, it wasn't normal," she said. "We know from documents found at the scene that you were there last night in your, ah, professional capacity. We'd like your opinion on whether Funderburk died as the result of a demon attack."

I shook my head. "I exterminated the whole pod. Besides, demons don't kill. They torment. That's how they feed. If the victim dies, the party's over."

"What do you mean?"

"Demons are conjured entities. They don't exist until someone invokes them. That someone can be a sorcerer out to hurt someone-that's where Harpies come from-or it can be the victim himself." Hagopian flinched, and I added, "Or herself."

"People conjure demons against themselves?" She raised a plucked-half-to-death eyebrow.

"Not on purpose. But strong feelings of guilt or shame or fear can bring demons swarming to a victim like honeybees to a rose garden. Eidolons are personal demons that feed on guilt. Drudes feed on fear. They're pretty similar, except Eidolons attack while you're lying awake at night and Drudes invade your dreams."

Hagopian shuddered, and I got the feeling she'd had a personal encounter with a demon or two. Too bad that now wasn't the time to make my sales pitch. Not that she'd be buying, seeing as how my last client turned up dead. I remembered his happy, off-key humming after the extermination. Poor old George.

"Harpies," I continued, "are revenge demons. Eidolons and Drudes can take many forms, but Harpies always look the same: They've got vulture bodies and Medusa heads, with snakes for hair and a beak for a mouth. They smell like garbage that's baked in the sun for a week. Their screeching"-I tried to find a way to describe the brain-shredding noise Harpies made, but there were no words for it-"well, their screeching alone can drive a person insane."

Both detectives were watching me openmouthed, like kids listening to a scary campfire story they didn't want to hear. Too bad. They'd dragged me here; they deserved all the juicy details. "Harpies attack from the outside. You're lying in bed, and suddenly you can't move. These hideous things-worse than any nightmare-fly through the wall and land on you, tearing into you with their talons. Then they begin to feed. It feels like they're ripping out your vital organs. The agony lasts all night. The next morning, there's no physical damage. But you can count on them returning night after night after night."

"What about the other kinds, the"-Hagopian consulted her notebook-"the Eidolons and the Drudes?" Her voice had diminished to a croak. Costello shot her a questioning look, but her eyes were fixed on me.

"Eidolons attack from the inside," I answered, "like you've got some huge, venomous parasite gnawing on your bones. Guilt brought to life. Some victims can see their Eidolons; others just feel unbearable agony. Drudes are unpredictable, like dreams, and they're the source of most nightmares. If you're plagued by horrible dreams, swarming with everything you fear, you've got a Drude infestation." I glanced at Detective Hagopian, who'd closed her eyes and was breathing shallowly through her mouth. Yep. Drude victim for sure. I turned back to Costello. "Demon attacks are terrifying and painful. Hell on earth. But they're not fatal. When a victim dies, that person's demons cease to exist. That's why demons don't kill."

But some demons do kill, as Vicky knows all too well. Those are the second kind of demons, the ones that exist independently. The worst of these are Hellions, demons that feed not from personal emotions but from widespread suffering and destruction. The plague that created Boston's zombies attracted a legion of Hellions to the city, and a magical shield was erected to keep them out. But somehow the shield has been breached and a Hellion now threatens the city. And not just any Hellion–this is Difethwr, the Destroyer, and Vicky has a personal history with the thing.

To see Vicky in action as she rids a client of nightmare-causing Drudes, read Chapter 1 of Deadtown.

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Robin Ryan is our guest bloggers during the week of January 18th. If you have any questions for Robin Ryan, add a comment to any of her posts. Here is some more information about Over 40 & You're Hired!:

A vital new job search approach customized for people over forty- from the author of 60 Seconds & You're Hired!

With unemployment hitting all time highs, the over- forty crowd is struggling to land new jobs. America's top career counselor offers her market-tested program that shows readers how to effectively stand out and appeal to employers amid age discrimi­nation and floods of competition.

In Over 40 & You're Hired!, Robin Ryan will inspire readers to jump-start their careers and secure new, better-paying jobs. She encourages them to tap into the "hidden job market" (where 80 percent of all jobs are found), explains how to create targeted resumes and master the interview, and outlines how to overcome any age-related stereotypes they may encounter in their job hunt. Ryan has created a guide of valuable advice and detailed explanations culled from over twenty years of experience as a career counselor that people over forty will find indispensible as they look for work.

About Robin Ryan:

Robin Ryan is one of the most visible figures in the employment field, a tireless lecturer and teacher whose career column appears in over 100 Gannett newspapers and their Web sites. She has been a guest on over 1,000 TV and radio programs including Oprah, Dr. Phil, CNN, and NBC Nightly News.  

Over 40 & You're Hired! Secrets to Landing a Great Job
Robin Ryan – Author

$15.00 – Add to Cart

Book: Paperback | 8.26 x 5.23in | 256 pages | ISBN 9780143116981 | 29 Dec 2009 | Penguin | 18 – AND UP 

Following the earthquake in Haiti, the Baltimore Sun spoke with author Madison Smartt Bell,   who has written a trilogy about the country and visited it often. Mary McCauley notes that Bell was "worried, heartbroken – and suddenly in demand as a media expert. As he wrote in the British newspaper The Guardian: ‘Haitians are expert in survival against all odds. They had been doing it for a century before their nation had a name. … And they are also fortunate in that their cultural treasure is not so much bound up in architectural monuments (most of which, in the capital at least, are now rubble). A spiritual resource is that much more difficult to destroy.’ "

Here’s more from the Sun article, which includes a Q&A with the Goucher College creative writing teacher: The Baltimore author has written 18 books but is best known for his trilogy on the 1791 slave revolution: "All Souls Rising" (1995), "Master of the Crossroads" (2000) and "The Stone that the Builder Refused" (2004). …

Q: How are you getting your news about Haiti? A: I belong to some private news feeds that give me privileged information. What I know, I know from them. I’m not calling anyone there, though. They don’t need to be hearing from me right now.

Q: How often have you visited Haiti? A: I can’t come up with a number. I made my first visit in 1995, and I’ve been back once or twice a year since then. Initially, I went for research purposes. Now, I go back as a journalist, to attend literary conferences, and for some little projects I have up north, which doesn’t seem to have been as badly hit.

Q: What about the country first intrigued you? A: While I was researching a different project, I read about Haitian voodoo. Then I stumbled across the story of the Haitian revolution and wrote three books about it. I fell in love with the place – the culture, the religion – and I have friends there. This isn’t a good day to say it, but one of the things that I do love about Haiti is that it’s a place where magical thinking can actually work.

Q: Is there some place in particular that you stay when you’re in Haiti? A: I have a base in the countryside that’s within 20 minutes of the spot where Pat Robertson claims the Haitians made a pact with the devil. It’s actually a very nice spot.

Q: Any landmarks that are particular favorites? A: There are a couple of places around Port-au-Prince I worry about. There’s an extended community center, and it’s not built in a particularly dangerous way, but the people there have not been heard from. Also, quite near the presidential place is a compound run by the Fathers of the Holy Spirit. There is a fantastic collection of books and documents about the Haitian revolution, which I used a lot in my work. Their location is inauspicious. It’s early, though, I suppose, to be worrying about things on paper.

Q: Haiti has an infamously poor infrastructure. Are you concerned about the aftermath of the quake? A: This earthquake didn’t discriminate in terms of class the way some earthquakes do. The shantytowns were devastated, and so were the more developed areas, where there’s a lot of concrete that can fall on you. It’s hard not to be reminded of [Hurricane] Katrina at this time. Let’s hope it’s not as bad as that.