Go on – tell me you’re not haunted by the idea of your own books larking about in the near-dark. Mine certainly waltz, trade bookmarks, and commiserate about the recent purge.

And elsewhere on the internet, a very talented reader, Melyssa, made a painting inspired by Mary Quinn! Check it out at her Tumblr.

What are you up to this week?

During my PhD program, I had to write two comprehensive exams, aka comps: they were supposed to make me a specialist in English literature in general, and Victorian literature in particular. Think they can’t test you on all of English literature? You’re right. But they can try, and that’s even more frightening.

The process began in May, when my fellow candidates (hello, Katharine and Tanya and Sean!) and I received suggested reading lists from our professors. We read hundreds of books – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, lit crit, history. We researched ideas and movements and philosophies and clubs and quotations and obscure sidekicks and and and and… you get the picture. This would all culminate in two 4-hour exams in December.

It’s fair to say that we all went a little crazy, that summer and fall. I developed a thing about colour-coded index cards. I tested pens for nib size and ink flow, and practiced handwriting as much as possible so I could write for 4 hours straight without cramping up. I made a nightmare of a timeline (17 pages!) to represent the history of English literature and refused to take it down, even though it freaked out my officemate (sorry, Katharine). I calculated how much time I should spend on each subsection of the exam. I wrote practice exams. And I read. I read like I’d never read before, and never will again: with anxiety digging its nails into my shoulders.

The first exam – the General – went smoothly. I even thought I’d passed, though actual results would take a couple of weeks. The next day, we sat down for our Specialist exams. I opened the sealed envelope and took out 3 blank booklets, for writing my answers. And… nothing. No questions.

I looked inside the envelope: still nothing.

I looked around the exam room: the other 3 had different exams and were all busily reading through their questions.

My first thought was, “They’re messing with me.” My second was, “This is an elaborate game. They want me to create my own questions, as well.” My third, “I’m doomed.”

It took me a long time to persuade the invigilator that I had thoroughly checked my envelope and that yes, I was very, very, very sure that I didn’t have any questions. She then left the room for what felt like 3 days, in search of the missing questions.

I was in a blind panic. The only thing I could do (apart from weep) was to write a list of every Victorian novel I’d read in preparation for this exam. I was on page 2 when the invigilator came back with the missing exam.

It’s a happy story in the end, friends. I wrote. I passed. (With distinction, even.) And I haven’t written an exam since. But every December, I think about that exam, and about exam-takers everywhere. If you’re in the midst of finals right now (or will be soon, in January), I’m thinking of you, too. Best of luck!

Do you know what the most beautiful sentence in the English language is, when uttered by busy and normally responsible adults? It’s, “Hi, Mom. What’s for dinner?” Okay, that’s 2 sentences. But that’s where I’m at, right now. I feel very lucky and extremely loved and totally indulged.

I’m reading this:

and this:

And I’ll reflect on these in a future edition of A Reader Reports. But at the moment, it’s raining outside, I’ve just had very hot shower, and I’m eating a steaming bowl of black rice pudding with coconut milk in an almost-silent house. Life may get better than this, but right now I just want these few minutes to last as long as possible.

How are you faring, this November? What’s new with you?

I mean, I wouldn’t want to sit next to this character on a long-distance bus ride…

I had an fantastic Hallowe’en surprise yesterday when this was delivered to my door:

Food52 is a place where anyone can join to enter their recipes in contests (or you can just hang out, comment, and drool over the gorgeous food photography). They give out lovely prizes and compile the winners into cookbooks such as this one. The site is now extremely competitive; casual cooks beware! But back in the days when things were, shall we say, still in my league, I won a contest with my recipe for Overnight Steel-Cut Oats. It’s here, now, in the first Food52 Cookbook and I’m absolutely tickled.

What did you get up to for Hallowe’en? Were there any surprises – pleasant or otherwise – in your day?

Our daughter is finally here. She is, possibly, the loveliest baby in the history of babies. (No, I’m not biased. Why do you ask?) And there are so many things I’d forgotten about newborns! Among them:

1. Their breath smells magic. You want to inhale when they exhale (the opposite of what you do with adults).

2. The Poo Cannon. Their timing is impeccable. Enough said.

3. Finally, if you spend your days and nights nursing, changing diapers, helping them sleep, and maybe returning some phone calls or going to the doctor (one or the other; not both), that’s a full and exhausting life, my friends. I have the involuntary twitch under my left eye to prove it – just like Harkness.

So while we’re all well, and utterly in love with our new girl, and marvelling at the miracle of her existence (we made a person!), my blogging will be sporadic over the next few weeks. Thank you for understanding, and I hope you’re all having a splendid June. We certainly are.

- frolicked in the snow

- marvelled at its relentlessness when all signs of shovelling were obliterated after an hour

- waited for my brother to say he’d arrived safely in Toronto

- built an elaborate railway only to dismantle it after the bridge fell down 15 times in as many minutes

- chanted “Pease Porridge Hot” approximately 50 times

- made cookies

- and played a game based on this book (which my mother-in-law found at a jumble sale, and which is utterly charming):

I didn’t know it until yesterday but writers, like kids, get snow days. Another reason to call it the finest job on earth! What did you do in the snow?

P.S. I’ve done a short interview for Kingstonist. My interviewer was Caitlin Fralick, a public librarian, which feels like an all-round win.

Turns out I'm the murder-mystery house party type, after all...

Photo by my host, the fabulous Annette Willis.

Here’s O’Hara reading it:

This is the full text of the poem, at the Poetry Foundation archive.

And here’s the abbreviated version my husband & I joked about improvising, in the event that I lost my specially marked-up reading-aloud version (the one with S – L – O – W ! scrawled at the top of the page):

Having a Coke with You

(with apologies to Frank O’Hara)

is more fun than going on a bender with a Eurail Pass.

Art is all right.

But not as all right as you.

Congratulations, Sarah and Steve. I love you – and your taste in poetry.

This is how I fritter away time on the internet at the moment:
India Knight’s Posterous: lovely, lovely things, curated for you by the Sunday Times journalist.
Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century: um, self-explanatory. But curiously addictive.
The Catastrophizer: my friend Sarah Sweet, on a soapbox.
Making it Lovely: again, self-explanatory. It helps if you like pink, brown, and hand-crafted things.
The Beat that My Heart Skipped: terrific name, and new to me. We shall see how we get on.

You’ll notice a preponderance of design stuff, and nothing at all book-related. I’ll compile a list of great writing and publishing blogs another day. In the meantime, I hope I’ve persuaded you to part happily with another precious quarter-hour you’ll never get back. Hah!

A prefatory note: this is a North American recipe in which ingredients are measured pseudo-scientifically in cups. By volume, a cup is 250ml/8oz. A cup of flour weighs about 140g/5oz; a cup of sugar about 225g/8oz. Thanks, Fannie Farmer.

Vegan Carrot Muffins (makes 18)

1 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
half a nutmeg, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup loosely packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons flax seeds, ground and mixed with a generous ½ cup water; let stand until it thickens to texture of beaten eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup vegetable oil
4-5 cups add-ins: finely grated carrots, pineapple, apples, coconut, raisins, nuts or whatever else you fancy

Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar and flax seed mixture until creamy. Add vanilla and vegetable oil. Mix together wet and dry ingredients. Add carrots, etc.

Smooth batter into pans. Bake for 12-14 minutes for mini-muffins, 18-20 minutes for regular-size muffins, and about an hour for a large loaf pan.

Next week, we’ll get bookish again and take a look at German cover art.