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Banned Books Week: Twisting Recipes Into Banned Book Baked Goods

I’m fairly certain, in a completely un-scientific way, that if you asked anyone worth asking what the two best things are in the world (bar oxygen and anything that merits an NC-17) they would agree: books and food. As made obvious by the mere existence of banned book week, one way books have been made increasingly compelling over the years is (ironically) when groups of moral decide to ban them.

So now here’s another to make those banned books even better: pair them with cupcakes, or a tart! Following is a carefully curated list of some truly delicious baked goods with literary aspirations.

The Fahrenheit 451: Red Hot Cinnamon Cupcakes (The Domestic Rebel): Maybe not quite hot enough to burn books, but certainly spicier than the typical frosted dessert.

The Great Gatsby: Pink Champagne Cupcakes (Cupcakes by Tattooed MarthaSabayon by A Food Centric Life): Because if Gatsby and Daisy didn’t teach us about the perils of overindulgence, they certainly showed how fun it can be while it lasts. Plus, you know, champagne is delicious. To get the most out of the flavors, I swapped out the champagne frosting included in the cupcake recipe for a champagne sabayon as a slightly less pink topper.

The Huckleberry Fiin: Huckleberry Cupcakes (Martha Stewart): Huckleberries are a surprisingly underutilized fruit, but with a book like this classic there really isn’t a choice.

The Things Fall Apart: Coffee Cake Crumble Muffins (Table for Two): Fall apart. Crumble. It’s a dreadful pun, sorry. I embellished on these a bit by topping them with a simple fruit sauce (recipe below), using fruits native to Nigeria. The tang also balances out the sweetness of the crumble.

Posted by Maia Brown-Jackson

Fifteen Books for Fans of Haruki Murakami

 
 
I am an admitted addict of Haruki Murakami's work—if he's written it, I've read it, and possibly written a paper on it. The English translation of his latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, comes out this week. If you’re a crazed fan like me, someone who has enjoyed the odd work in the past, or you clicked on this link through pure happenstance: well, here's a list of what to read when you're finished.
 
If you like reading, and especially reading Murakami, then you’re in the right place. Murakami’s hard-to-pin-down style is often considered magical realism, and most of his fans are told repeatedly to read the (thoroughly brilliant) works of Marquez. But here are fifteen books you might not know about that you ought to check out while waiting for your next fix.

Posted by Maia Brown-Jackson