Dr. Panda’s Christmas List
Dr. Panda’s Christmas List
It’s hard when you’re buying for relatives without true thumbs.
Happily ebooks don’t have pages that tear with your claws, though sadly most of these might require some care. Now, most stuff reviewed here is fiction, but when you’re a cursed scientist living as a panda in Area 51, fiction tends to be too tame.
So let’s look at a few gift ideas for the ursine in your life.
The Anarchist’s Design Book - Christopher Swartz
I’m not sure why the author used anarchist instead of anachronist because the theme is going back to when stuff was made for use, not looks. I’ve sworn off doing chairs along time ago but after reading this, I’m reconsidering. Swartz starts with staked furniture, looking at old forms and goes through making saw benches, tables, stools, and chairs using mostly hand tools. So the methods are accessible to someone starting out. He later moves into board-based items including a coffin you can you as a bookshelf until needed. It’s a fun read and one of the better texts on woodworking for beginners. Now if I can just figure how to adapt a bit-and-brace to a pseudo-thumb.
A Very Chinese Cookbook – Pang and Pang
Despite the high quality New Mexican food UberEATS delivers, sometimes you want a taste of home. There are a lot of good Chinese cookbooks out there recently and Dunlop (below) has done wonderful work. But Chinese cooking adapts to the local ingredients well, and the Pangs (patris et filii) address the Chinese food developed and made outside of China. Full of wonderful pictures and precise recipes, it’s got the quality one has come to expect from America’s Test Kitchen (Translation – the recipes work as written). The fried rice dishes and dandan noodles are wonderful. Then there’s the dumplings – no wonder I’ve get a belly. This is a great book to start with if you are new to Chinese cooking and is my go-to when one of the guys upstairs asks about how to cook a Chinese dish.
Yeah, I wasn’t Chinese before the regrettable incident, but I always loved the food.
The Collectors Course on Medieval Arms and Armor – Andrew Garcia.
I’ve collected swords and other bladed things for a while now, hence Amanda and Marco’s wedding gift. However, I wish this book had been around when I started. Garcia sells some of the nicest pieces on the market and the book is a distillation of his long experience with European arms and armor. Starting with some guidelines for collectors, he then addresses armor and arms in separate chapters based on types like plate, mail, swords, etc. Ending with a dip into metallurgy, it’s over 400 large pages of information. A great book for browsing on those wintery night with Fluffy at your feet.
3D Printing Failures – Sean Aranda
When you need a new halter for a unicorn or a lease for your dragon pup, and you’re in the middle of nowhere New Mexico, it helps to have a 3D printer. With the recent advances in them, they’re both inexpensive and easy to use. However, failures do occur, particularly as you design your own stuff, say like the housing for a laser gun for your snake men. This book is probably the best guide to troubleshooting and fixing problems with your #D print I’ve seen. It even contains enough material science to make you dangerous.
Invitation to a Banquet – Fuchsia Dunlop
One of the few or possibly only of Dunlop’s books not to contain recipes, this is kinda of history of Chinese cuisine. Kinda because while it starts with things cooked over a fire, it soon moves more into topics like rice, water vegetables, fish, etc. The stories are delightful and the author clearly reveals her love of both Chinese food and China. It ranges widely, tapping into idioms -perch and water shield as a kenning for homesickness, traditional verse, and local legends. A wonderful read.
And if you would like some fiction, and find out how a panda with a PhD ended up friendly with Amanda and Marco, I suggest reading the Love at First Bite and Honey from Hell series by Declan Finn. It doesn’t discuss the regrettable issue with the huxian, but it does cover our meeting.