Meth Monday: A Quick Cook

Hello, Readers Mine! We're just in from a deliciously long weekend out of town that included naps, room service breakfast, lunches and parties with friends, and remembering why we got married in the first place. We haven't been back home long, and the holiday isn't officially over, so this week's "Meth Monday" is gonna be a short one.

In Wanna Cook? news, we learned late last week that Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad is being translated into Portuguese for publication in Brazil! I'll link to the publisher's site and hopefully a pic of the Brazilian cover as soon as I can. So that means that Wanna Cook? has been published in 3 continents in 3 different languages - and that, friends and neighbors, is pretty frellin' cool!

As for the rest of this Memorial Day post, enjoy this lovely little parody where Taylor Swift meets Walt and Jesse (thanks to @_ath3na for sending this our way!):

Until next week - Keep Cookin'!

Meth Monday: International Edition, Partie Deux

Hello, Reader's Mine! Sorry for the gap last week, but the weekend leading up to last Monday was full of me loping across a stage under a giant Quonset hut while wearing funky sleeves in order to receive an empty degree-holder as a symbolic representation of my MA. Here's proof:

There are the authors of Wanna Cook? as you probably never expected to see us. Suffice it to say that while it was a fun weekend, it was also an exhausting one, and Monday was all about recovery and starting to get my bearings now that I am living in only one place for the first time in four and a half years. So "Meth Monday" just kinda slipped through the cracks. Sorry about that.

In any event, while I might be laying down on the job Breaking Bad was not, winning Best International Series at the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards, beating out House of Cards and The Returned for the honor. This is a pretty big deal as BrBa has a rocky history when it comes to being available in the UK. At one point, UK viewers were almost a year behind as various broadcast and streaming rights were worked out between AMC, Sony, and Netflix. Still, the show was just as popular there as it was here.

Which brings me to the other international news about Wanna Cook?our official, UK publication date came and went last week on 13 May, and we celebrated with our UK publisher, Myrmidon Books, and you can also find our cousins across the pond at @WannaCookUK, where they're busily selling copies to all our Anglo-Saxon-Celto-Nordic friends! In fact, Wanna Cook? was featured as the book of the day at O'Mahony's Booksellers in Limerick, Ireland (they do just sort of write themselves, don't they?)

Of course, you don't have to live in the Splendid Isles to get your own copy. You can toddle over to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Powell's, or your favorite independent bookseller and get your copy today! Who knows? Dale and I might be coming to a town near you in the next several months, so you could get your copy signed! Stay tuned here, and over on Unfettered Brilliance for updates on that! That's it for this week, Readers Mine - see you next week, and

Keep Cookin'!

Meth Monday: International Edition

Hello, Readers Mine! Well it's been a hell of a week at Solomon Mao's (or at least in the pocket of space-time where the author of Solomon Mao's lives). I wrapped up graduate school completely last Wednesday, making me a Master of the Arts (History) at long last, and spent the weekend just past celebrating my wedding anniversary, saying some good-byes, and moving everything from the apartment back home. That's right, after four years of marriage and one co-authored book, Dale and I will actually be living together on a full-time basis at last! Who knows? This might result in more books!

But you don't come here for updates on my personal life, so onward to our shared obsessions: Breaking Bad and Wanna Cook!

So Vince Gilligan had an interesting encounter down under at the Sydney Writers' festival this weekend, where he got to meet some of the people who helped make Australia the number one nation for illegal downloading of Breaking Bad episodes in the world. Gilligan apparently proved that Southern-by-way-of-LA charm is just as effective on Southerners-by-way-of-the-Tropic-of-Capricorn as it is on any other group of folks, and responded with his trademark mix of modesty and gratitude. (It's also worth noting that Gilligan made a nice pile from Breaking Bad - and deservedly so - so he can literally afford to be gracious!) Check out the full story in The Guardian. 

In Wanna Cook? news, I got a peek at the German cover of our book! Working with ECW, the German publisher Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf was translating Wanna Cook? as we were writing it, and the result will be available to the public on 1 June 2014 (according to Amazon.de). So, pretty cool in-and-of itself, right?

It gets better: It seems that fair use copyright law in Germany is a bit broader than in the US, Canada, and the UK, so our book got a new title, and a new cover. Check this out -

Wanna Cook? in German, by Guffey und Koontz!!!!

That. Is. AWESOME!!!!!!! We get a couple of author's copies, and I can't wait to see em! What do you guys think?

For those of you who read German, you can pre-order your copy today (but watch out for shipping and VAT!) For those of you who, like me, can basically only manage ja, nein, bitte, and volksgemeinschaft however, you can get your copy in English right now! And for those of you who not only speak and read English, but live in the Splendid Islands themselves, you can get a copy from Amazon.co.uk! So go, buy our book, enjoy it, and let us know what you think by writing review or two!

So that's it for this week, Readers Mine. Until next time - Keep Cookin'!