Munjeli Cookbook
Archive for August, 2009
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is worth the pain. His work is dark; I dwell on it for days. I read this book in one sitting, one night after work, in spite of myself. I’m not sure why I couldn’t put it down; the language seems straight, and maybe that in and of itself is what captivates. McCarthy [...]
The Jesuit and the Skull, by Amir Aczel
Wow, what a cool book. Hard to say what made a better story, the charming, yet free-thinking priest, or the details of life among the Australopithecus. Admittedly, I am partial to this sort of tale, since I wrote a research paper on hominid evolution in eighth grade, and have followed developments in paleoanthropology ever since, [...]
Spook Country, by William Gibson
Someone told Casey, Pattern Recognition is better.. The repeat of certain characters does make the second book feel somewhat formulaic, especially with a female lead of about the same age. Still, I felt these two books were apple and orange, and each an entertaining read. Hubertus Bigend returns with his advertising empire Blue Ant, this [...]
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
My friend Casey suggested I read William Gibson after a short conversation about Steampunk. This book is his second most recent, and he followed it with, not quite a sequel, but a novel using some of the same characters. A critical theme is apophenia, the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random data (Wikipedia). [...]
The Affinity Bridge, by George Mann
Back to Sci-fi: author Hari Kunzru, at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, made a comment about the regression of entertainment to a Dickensonian mode, with those complexities and grotesques of character. The fluffy frosting of that would be Steampunk, with its anxious mix of industrial revolution, frightful electricity, and optimistic scientists. The Affinity [...]
Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell
The most recent book by Malcolm Gladwell is, as always, provocative. The author examines the phenomena of exceptional individuals, and makes a strong argument for the communities that present them. Without diminishing the issue of nature, he approaches nurture from a collective standpoint. We read about the Jews in the garment industry in New York, [...]
The Earth Hums in B flat, by Mari Strachan
The first novel of Mari Strachan, a sixtyish librarian in Wales, is a beautiful work: lovingly written, with delicate attention to the dialect and details of her home. The setting is post war, and the culture of a small town and its characters are well described. More impressively, the novel’s plot is involved and in [...]
What We Eat When We Eat Alone, by Deborah Madison
On my birthday, I, solo, consumed an entire wheel of goat camembert, nearly half a jar of Maggie Beer’s Burnt Fig Preserves, half a loaf of vienoise, and an entire bottle of the Bastianich Rosato. I’ve testified to the binge several times since then, and everyone I’ve discussed it with congratulates me. It seems I’m [...]
Inside Antarctica
I have a friend at work, Zac, who spent 6 months as a cook in Antarctica. He documented the experience on a website The World According to Z. Check out his funky photos of the base, and the continent if you’ve ever wanting to make that trip. Hey, there’s a bowling alley, and the parties [...]
Istanbul Noir, by Mustafa Ziyalan and Amy Spangler
The Noir series is a collection of anthologies each set in a different city. The series aims to explore the geographic thread as an influence in style and ambiance. I enjoyed this volume for its distinctive flavor; the stories are a showcase of contemporary Turkish authors working in the mystery/detective/horror genre. Whether it was an [...]
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