Books finished, January 2010
Here it is the last day of the first month of 2010, and I'm gonna try to be better about updating the monthly book post this year. Hopefully we won't have any hospitalizations or other drama to throw me off track like last year. Crossing fingers.
1: Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen, by Jason Sheehan. Man, the first 3/4 or more of this book is FANTASTIC. The gist is that Jason Sheehan is a really talented, really fucked up young chef, who bounces from restaurant to restaurant, each time getting higher and higher on the food chain. He documents what really goes on back in the kitchen of your favorite swill-hole, and it makes for amazing reading. Eventually, though, he burns out on cooking and talks his way into a job as a food writer, and at that point the book becomes less interesting. However, he admits that fact his own self ("Writing about cooking is considerably more interesting than writing about writing") and by then you're almost at the end of the book anyway, so it's still all good. Two thumbs up.
2: Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong, by Jen Yates. Based on the blog of the same name. This is a fast read, because the book is mostly pictures. However, they are very funny pictures which will have you rolling with laughter, tears welling from your eyes. Most of the book content is previously unpublished so you will probably enjoy it even if you already read the blog. Sophie liked this book a lot, and wants her next birthday cake to be just like the hideous bridal-veiled unicorn monstrosity found in the middle.
3: In CHEAP We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue, by Lauren Weber. I dunno about this one. It starts off fascinating...an analysis of Puritanical emphasis on thriftiness and good old Benjamin Franklin and Poor Richard and his thrifty ways, and then it's WWI and WWII and we're rationing and buying War Bonds, and then all of a sudden, boom, we're in the 80s. So far so good. But THEN Lauren starts hanging out with Freegans and going dumpster-diving for gently-used trash, and the whole project turns all preachy instead of historical. I guess overall I enjoyed it, but at the end I felt that I had been misled by what appeared to be the original premise.
4: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, by Michael Pollan. Anyone looking to tweak their diet in 2010 or just eat better in general needs to read this little book. It's short and fast...only 140 pages...and gets right to the point. Two thumbs up.
5: ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running, by Danny Dreyer. I finished this book on the plane while flying back from Colorado, and I think there's some good ideas in there that I might ought to put into practice. Before I return it to the library I need to either read it again, photocopy a bunch of pages, or buy my own copy (used, preferably). The premise is that certain Tai Chi principles can improve your running and make it easier on your body. You're supposed make your core tough as steel and your limbs soft as cotton and to let your chi pull you forward instead of propelling yourself with your legs. I'm not sure I understand it, exactly, but hey, whatever, if it works. Right?
6: Pure Ducky Goodness: The First SHELDON Collection, by Dave Kellett. Sure it's a collection of comic strips, but I have decided that they totally count as books for the purposes of my yearly count. It's not as if I read tons of them anyway. This one is cute and amusing, with good geek jokes. I had originally ordered it from Dave Kellett's website for Aidan's 8th birthday next March, but then I noticed it was signed, and that it's selling for $118 (!) on Amazon Marketplace, so now I'm not so sure I'm going to give it to him. I might put it in a lockbox and save it 10 years till he's 18, so he can sell it when he goes to college and buy a textbook or something.
1: Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen, by Jason Sheehan. Man, the first 3/4 or more of this book is FANTASTIC. The gist is that Jason Sheehan is a really talented, really fucked up young chef, who bounces from restaurant to restaurant, each time getting higher and higher on the food chain. He documents what really goes on back in the kitchen of your favorite swill-hole, and it makes for amazing reading. Eventually, though, he burns out on cooking and talks his way into a job as a food writer, and at that point the book becomes less interesting. However, he admits that fact his own self ("Writing about cooking is considerably more interesting than writing about writing") and by then you're almost at the end of the book anyway, so it's still all good. Two thumbs up.
2: Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong, by Jen Yates. Based on the blog of the same name. This is a fast read, because the book is mostly pictures. However, they are very funny pictures which will have you rolling with laughter, tears welling from your eyes. Most of the book content is previously unpublished so you will probably enjoy it even if you already read the blog. Sophie liked this book a lot, and wants her next birthday cake to be just like the hideous bridal-veiled unicorn monstrosity found in the middle.
3: In CHEAP We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue, by Lauren Weber. I dunno about this one. It starts off fascinating...an analysis of Puritanical emphasis on thriftiness and good old Benjamin Franklin and Poor Richard and his thrifty ways, and then it's WWI and WWII and we're rationing and buying War Bonds, and then all of a sudden, boom, we're in the 80s. So far so good. But THEN Lauren starts hanging out with Freegans and going dumpster-diving for gently-used trash, and the whole project turns all preachy instead of historical. I guess overall I enjoyed it, but at the end I felt that I had been misled by what appeared to be the original premise.
4: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, by Michael Pollan. Anyone looking to tweak their diet in 2010 or just eat better in general needs to read this little book. It's short and fast...only 140 pages...and gets right to the point. Two thumbs up.
5: ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running, by Danny Dreyer. I finished this book on the plane while flying back from Colorado, and I think there's some good ideas in there that I might ought to put into practice. Before I return it to the library I need to either read it again, photocopy a bunch of pages, or buy my own copy (used, preferably). The premise is that certain Tai Chi principles can improve your running and make it easier on your body. You're supposed make your core tough as steel and your limbs soft as cotton and to let your chi pull you forward instead of propelling yourself with your legs. I'm not sure I understand it, exactly, but hey, whatever, if it works. Right?
6: Pure Ducky Goodness: The First SHELDON Collection, by Dave Kellett. Sure it's a collection of comic strips, but I have decided that they totally count as books for the purposes of my yearly count. It's not as if I read tons of them anyway. This one is cute and amusing, with good geek jokes. I had originally ordered it from Dave Kellett's website for Aidan's 8th birthday next March, but then I noticed it was signed, and that it's selling for $118 (!) on Amazon Marketplace, so now I'm not so sure I'm going to give it to him. I might put it in a lockbox and save it 10 years till he's 18, so he can sell it when he goes to college and buy a textbook or something.