Clam Shares Books & Cheeses ❂ 2025 ~ Part I ❂

Happy 2025 good people!

My only goal is to remember to share more of the cheeses that I consume. I'm relatively decent about the book titles, even if I am often skimpy with the in-depth reviews.

>2 Bookmarque: That's perfect! Thank you.

>1 clamairy: Oooo, that is a dreamy photo. May your reading year give you much joy.

>1 clamairy: Wow! That is an amazing cheese board.

Happy New Cheese Thread for 2025. Have a great year.

>1 clamairy: Cheese and books. What else would any Pub denizen require of life? May you enjoy listening to many good books this year.

Happy new year! I hope you read lots of good books in 2025.

>2 Bookmarque: That's a good one. ;)

Happy New Year and happy reading!

>1 clamairy: Oh, wow, these cheeses are amazing.

Happy New Thread! Have an amazing reading year :)

>4 MrsLee:, >5 pgmcc:, >6 jillmwo:, >7 libraryperilous:, >8 Narilka: & >9 Alexandra_book_life: Thank you!

Happy New Year, happy new thread and happy cheese-ing. Looking forward to books and cheese this year.

Of all the assorted cheeses in my house right now this is the one I can hear calling to me the loudest. It's Beemster Classic, which is an aged Gouda from the Netherlands, Northern Holland to be more exact. They leave it for 18 month, and it develops these tiny crystals. They had it at Costco a few months ago and I stocked up, and showed great restraint be saving two of the three wedges for the holidays.

Happy new year and happy new thread (and happy consumption of cheese ...)!

Happy new year, Clam! To many good books and lots of good cheese :)

>12 clamairy:
I suspect you are attempting to introduce Cheese Bullets to the Green Dragon. That is a bit of sharp shooting right there. I will keep my eyes peeled for it.

>12 clamairy: Those tiny crystals are addictive. They are what I love about Coastal Cheddar.

>11 Karlstar:, >13 haydninvienna: & >14 curioussquared: Thank you!

>15 pgmcc: I am sure you will love it.
>16 MrsLee: I have found them in only a few other aged cheeses, and they all deserve great appreciation. :o)

Here are my added books for 2024. Sadly some of the covers aren't loading.

https://www.librarything.com/stats/clamairy/year

Happy New Year! I look forward to following your reading this year.

>12 clamairy: This is indeed a cheese bullet! I'll keep this one in mind :)))

Happy new thread! I look forward to the books and the cheeses!

>19 karspeak: & >21 foggidawn: I'm so happy you found my thread.

>20 Alexandra_book_life: I hope you can find it.

James was my fist read of 2025, and as luck would have it, it's a five star. This was my first Percival Everett book, but it will surely not be my last. I remember littlegeek raving about this one, and it won a bunch of book awards, so I snagged it right before Thanksgiving. I rarely pay full price for a Kindle book, but this time I let the moths fly out of my virtual wallet. Worth. Every. Penny.

It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.

I have not picked my next read yet.

>23 clamairy: i was completely blown away by this book and decided to read trees that man has a dry sense of humor Ican appreciate. will be reading more of him

>24 cindydavid4: I definitely was not expecting the humor. Thanks for the plug for The Trees. It's going on my TBR.

>25 clamairy: Wait, so does James have humor in it? I had been avoiding it because I thought it might end up being a deeply grim reading experience.

>26 jillmwo: Well it's not what I would call a funny book. The humor is very dry, but it's based on Twain's Huck Finn, and he stayed true to the essence of the tale.

James is on my “to get” list. Me thinks I’ll have to get it sooner rather than later. :)

>12 clamairy: Oh my, that looks beautiful and tasty! I applaud your restraint.

Happy New Year and new thread! I'm sorry I missed it before. :)

James is showing up in a lot of places, and is now officially on my TBR list. Percival Everett sounds like an interesting writer, looking at his other works, too.

>23 clamairy: Darn! While checking out at B&N last week, James was mixed in with the stuff they try to get you to buy while to wait in line. I considered getting it, but already had my quota of purchases.

I want to read James, but I never actually read Huck Finn, so I feel like I have to get to that one first. Too many books on the TBR!

>28 catzteach: & >29 terriks: I hope you both enjoy it when you get to it.

>30 Karlstar: Quota, schmota... I hear you, though.

>31 curioussquared: I think you could get away with reading a good synopsis. I am thinking of listening to it some time in the next few month.

I finished The Dragonbone Chair! It took me a month, but it was almost 34 hours long, and I kept having to rewind because I was missing stuff while decorating for the holidays, or driving around with my brain in a fog. I liked it! I will definitely keep going, but not right away. I might borrow the ebook just so I can find the bits I'm hazy about. Also, I have to say there were a bunch of things that reminded me of A Game of Thrones*, and this was published eight years before that book. So now I am wondering how much of a Tad Williams fan Mr Martin is/was.

The narrator was quite good, and he created interesting accents for the different ethnic peoples. It was easy to forget I was only listening to one person.

I have already started listening to Late Migrations and I am appreciating it so very much.

*A huge battle with an invading force of undead ice demons with glowing blue eyes, for one.

>33 clamairy: I believe Martin has said that he got a lot of inspiration from Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

>34 Karlstar: I'm happy to hear he admitted it. I was wondering.

My only complaint about the book is that it's a sausage fest. There are only three or four female characters, all on the periphery, and dozens of males. I guess that's typical of 1980s fantasy, though.

>35 clamairy:. What a wonderful phrase used to describe the overabundance of male characters (sausage fest) I had never heard it in this context and it's so very on-point. As I read War and Peace yesterday, I was thinking about George R.R. Martin. I wonder if he has read Tolstoy. The section I was in was very much a sausage fest. ;>)

>36 jillmwo: Now see; my first thought was how sausage is made, not the end product😜

>37 2wonderY: Oh my - you thought of a grinder?! In this instance (sausage fest), that sounds like a kind of torture imagery to me, but what the heck do I know? ;)

>36 jillmwo: I guess I had only heard it used to refer to films, but it certainly seemed appropriate. :o)

>37 2wonderY: & >38 terriks: Ha ha. Definitely not the sausage making process. Just a collection of them.

I really like sausage. All kinds of sausages. In fact, I had some sausage for breakfast. *walks away humming*

>40 MrsLee: :o)

>40 MrsLee: 🤣

Happy New Year and Happy New Thread! I hope that 2025 brings you wonderful books and cheeses among other good things.

>12 clamairy: Mmmmmm ... aged Gouda ..... mmmmmmm

>23 clamairy: A friend gave me James for Christmas. Sounds like I need to bump it up to the top of the TBR pile.

>43 Sakerfalcon: Thank you! I'm always happy to have you visit. I do hope you enjoy James as much as I did.

I had heard nothing but praise for Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss and it was well-deserved. I bought the ebook, and the Audible version came with it. I've read a bunch pieces in the NY Times by Margaret Renkl, who is a keen observer of nature. This book is a collection of various essays, mainly from a blog she started while caring for her aging mother and her in-laws. The bits about the natural world she sees in her own yard and on her walks hit very close to home, as did the parts about grief.

The end of caregiving isn't freedom. The end of caregiving is grief.

Oh, the lives we grieve in their going.
Oh, the lives we grieve in their going on.

This one got four and half stars from me. (Only partly because it reminded me of Annie Dillard.)

I needed something light and fluffy after that last one, so I snagged The Bookstore Wedding as an Audible freebie. I had already read the first novella, The Bookstore Sisters, back in 2022. It was pure fluff, but Alice Hoffman is such a good writer she can still make you care.

I have already started listening to The Covenant of Water. It is excellent so far. This one came from Amazon Music. If you have Amazon Music Unlimited, which I do, they have added one free Audible book a month to the benefits. They had a very wide & varied selection to choose from. I already picked out books for March and February. LOL

I finally ventured to one of the local cheese shops today. They had Morbier! I also got some Red Witch and some Taleggio.



If you're looking at this on your phone you might want to turn it sideways so the photo isn't smooshed.

>45 clamairy: Oh my, that does sound heavy! But lovely and poignant writing.

I tend to pick up something fluffy, too, after reading something like that. Fluffy or funny, either way it lightens the mood. :)

>47 clamairy: I do not know any of those names, but wow! That's quite a display case!

I like most cheeses, the main exception being the blues. I just can't seem to get there.

>48 terriks: Yes, fluff and humor are great palate cleansers.

>49 terriks: They let you taste anything you want to try. I like most blues, but some of them need to be mixed with other things. I love them crumbled on a salad or in the dressing.

>45 clamairy: Good quote. That sounds like a book I would like, but perhaps do not want to read right now.

>51 MrsLee: Yes, definitely wait.

>47 clamairy: Okay, true confession time! Thus far in 2025 (10 days in or so), have you spent more on cheese or on books? (I mean, you mention three different types bought in the shop.)

>53 jillmwo: Definitely cheese. I think I've spent between $50 and $60 on cheese so far. All of my Kindle purchases have been books on sale, and I did use two Audible credits, worth about $25 combined.

>47 clamairy: That is a thing of beauty!

>47 clamairy:
WOW!

>47 clamairy: Wow! That's a magnificent display case! Cheeeeeese :D