One Girl's Books

More food books

I haven't been reading many books lately and it has hurt the blog - I admit it. I blame the Internet, mainly. I did just finish The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution
by David Kamp. Here.

I recommend for anyone who can relate to the term "foodie." It traces the history of America's love of the gourmet, beginning with James Beard and Julia Child, stopping in Berkeley with Alice Waters and moving through the rise of the Food Network and more.

I'm thinking about reading Michael  Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilema as my next food-related read.

Up next is Pat Barker's Life Class - a book about a relationship torn apart by WWI. Cheery!

Sort of back

I know. I know. No posts for ages.

I have plans to return to the blog, but can't seem to make it though a whole book lately, which sort of goes against the whole "one girl's books" idea. I'm several pages into six different novels and for the first time in recent memory, reading isn't holding my interest.

It hasn't stopped my from buying books, of course. The weekly Amazon shipment came a couple days ago. It included:

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (always wanted to read this even though the movie looked terrible)

Shakespeare's Kitchen by Lore Segal  (read a review somewhere, sounded good, now seems annoying)

and The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver (another one I read about somewhere and put on my wish list)

I've started on The Post-Birthday World. Perhaps it will be post-worthy.

The Blind Side

Haven't been reading as much as in days past, but today I finished The Blind Side by Michael Lewis.

The Blind Side is the improbable and inspiring story of Michael Oher, a young man poised for NFL greatness after an early life of bleakness in the worst part of Memphis.

Lewis has written a number of sports-themed books and this is the first I've read. The book blends the story of how Oher is taken in by the wealthy, white, sports-mad Tuohy family with the rise of the left tackle position in pro football. Non-sports fans will appreciate the book for the finely drawn portrait of race relations, what it means to be a family and the up from the ashes tale of Oher.

Sports fans will appreciate Lewis' insight into the NFL. The first chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Here.

Before I Die

Sorry for the lack of posts.

Just finished Before I Die by Jenny Downham. A haunting and beautiful novel about a 16-year-old girl facing death. Tessa has been fighting leukemia for four years and time is running out. She has a list of things she wants to do before she dies (sex, drugs ...). I know this description sounds sort of trite, but the book is so well-written, that any chance of schmaltz overtaking the story is averted through Downham's strong prose.

Buy it here.

Although I haven't been posting, I have been buying lots of books. Does that count?

I just started Roddy Doyle's The Woman who Walked Into Doors and it will be the subject of a future post.

One source I've been using for book recommendations lately has been Nick Hornby's column in The Believer. Check out his Stuff I've Been Reading columns here.

The Road - not taken

Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Oprah's and the Pulitzer committee's much-loved post-apocalyptic novel. I didn't love it. At all.

I really wanted to be moved by the story of an unnamed father and son making their way through the bleak nuclear winter of America after "the end of the world." They stop. They shiver. They eat tinned peaches. Repeat. They hide from cannibals. They push a cart. They investigate long-deserted houses. Repeat.

Some of McCarthy's language just annoyed me. He only uses contractions for certain words. Conversations have no quotations. Certain words are repeated endlessly like laved for washed, for example.

Worth reading, but not enough back story. Not enough character development. Here.

Annoyed.

Quick homework assignment

A couple months ago I asked people to provide book suggestions they thought everyone would like and I think the responses I got were pretty interesting.

So, another assignment...

One book you think everyone should read.  Either because it is so damn good, or it moved you or it makes other books make sense or any number of reasons. Provide the name of the book and why you think it needs to be read.

Here's mine...

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I know, sort of annoying, right? To me it encapsulates all that can be great in a novel. Any coming-of age-story written in the last hundred plus years owes at least a small debt to Dickens. Yes, even Holden Caufield.

It is sprawling and funny and sad and ridiculous. The characters are the key to the book. Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep and Betsy Trotwood are classics who make appearances (in many other forms) throughout English literature. The book is huge and daunting to start, but take it in small pieces and you won't regret it.

This is one of my favorite lines:

Gentlemen,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'do with me as you will! I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants - I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements.'

About Time

I am a sucker for time-travel stories.

I've been intrigued by the concept since I was a kid. Backwards in time; forwards; whatever. The following provides a small sampling of some of my favorite time-travel tales.

The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger  - This is the class of the group. An extremely well-written and beautiful book. It took the first 50 pages to get used to the time shifting, but after that the story of Clare and Henry really moved me. Henry suffers from Chrono-Displacement Disorder which  causes him to move involuntarily through time.  It is during one of those time shifts that he meets a young Clare who years later becomes his wife. Don't hold it against the book that book clubs all over the country have this on their reading list. Here.

Time and Again by Jack Finney - I think this was the first time travel novel I ever read. Si goes back to 1880s New York with the help of a mysterious government agency. Finney wrote a couple sequels because people loved the book so much. It's a classic. Here.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - Maybe it's just me, but a story involving Victorian manners, the bombing of Coventry during WWII, time travel and Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat can't miss.  I read this in 2001 for the first time and have picked it up three or four times since.  It's a comedy science fiction mystery. One of my favorites. Here.

Also....

Shortcut in Time - This is a very low-key novel. An alleyway provides the "gateway" for time travel. But the travel is only 15 minutes back. I enjoyed the concept. Here.

The Diana Gabaldon Outlander series is very popular too. Not a lot of time travel, but good romance. The first one is probably the best. Here.

Smart families are all the same?

I've been meaning to post something about a favorite small sub-genre of mine - "the eccentric family novel."

The ultimate expression of this genre is J.D. Salinger's Glass family who make appearances in several of his books, most notably Franny and Zooey. If you've only read Catcher in the Rye, you are missing out. Read Franny and Zooey first, but  just read them. Here.

Another excellent example of this genre is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. The Mortmain family lives in a crumbling English castle and younger daughter Cassandra chronicles the family's ups and downs in a series of journals. One of my all-time favorites. How can you not like a book that begins, "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink...."? Here.

A screenplay suggestion - Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums owes a huge debt to Salinger. If you've seen the movie, try the screenplay. Hilarious. Here.

When the genre is done poorly, it really, really fails. So, don't read A Taxonomy of Barnacles by Galt Niederhoffer. The Barnacle family is not eccentric; they are boring. The Barnacle family is not quirky; they are annoying.

Blog Strike

The blog has been on strike.

The blog has not been inspired.

The blog has seven books going and can't finish one.

The blog will be back this weekend.

This the blog promises.

A Whole bunch of Online Resources

So I've been finding some pretty cool book sites out in the wilds of the Internet that I thought I would share them here. Many of these sites feature free ebooks. I'd rather read an actual book rather than reading a book on a screen, but free is free!

1.The Forbidden Library - an interesting site detailing efforts over the years to ban certain books because of their "dangerous" content.  Here.

2. The World Public Library is the world's largest digital archive of pdf ebooks. Lots of stuff to look at! Here.

3. Librarian Chick - a wiki site that has tons of resources for educators and others, including an easy search tool for ebooks. Here.

4. Bibliomania - Books, articles, reference books, dictionaries and much more. Here.

5. Free audio books - this site has many digital audio files. Many of them are iTunes compatible. Here.

6.Lifehacker.com is an excellent blog about all sort of good stuff. They did an amazing post on all the best places to get free books online. Here.

7. FullBooks - the name sort of says it all. A simple site with lots of ebooks. Here.

It is a strange and beautiful world.