Redirect

This blog has gone on permanent hiatus, but if you want to find me, I'm still jawing away on the internet - head on over to Slice of Lime.

Reading List 2012

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Machine Man - Max Barry

Big Babies - Sherwood Kiraly

Taft 2012 - Jason Heller

Why We Broke Up - Daniel Handler

The Gates - John Connelly

The Infernals John Connelly

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

*current as of May 25, 2012*

Reading List 2011

As with the last part of 2010, I haven't put effort into blogging lately, though I'm still a frequent library visitor. Here are the books of 2011. As always, please leave a comment if you have any questions, and especially if you have a good recommendation.

My Year of Flops - Nathan Rabin

The Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki

One Day - David Nicholls

The Irresistible Henry House - Lisa Grunwald

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Stieg Larsson

Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3) - Suzanne Collins

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea - Barbara Demick

Gunn's Golden Rules - Tim Gunn

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk - David Sedaris

The Spellmans Strike Again - Lisa Lutz

The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot

How I Became a Famous Novelist - Steve Hely

The Dead Fathers Club - Matt Haig

Flashforward - Robert J. Sawyer

Half Empty - David Rackoff

A Red Herring Without Mustard - Alan Bradley

The Passage - Justin Cronin

Bossypants - Tina Fey

Unfamiliar Fishes - Sarah Vowell

Going Bovine - Libba Bray

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead - Sara Gran

Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me - Chelsea Handler

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

Detours - Jeffrey Ricker

Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher

Spook - Mary Roach

A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - Mindy Kaling

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick - Chris van Allsburg

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows - Alan Bradley

The First Husband - Laura Dave

Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante

*current as of December 31, 2011*

This American Life

I've often said that at some point, I'd really like to visit all fifty states. Ideally, I would see at least one point of interest in each one; in other words, sitting in the Minneapolis airport for a couple of hours doesn't count. Since the beginning of the year is always a fun time to get organizational stuff done, here's the list as it stands. Crossed out states are well and visited. Parenthetical states can technically be checked off the list, but it would be better to go back and see more (witness the short drive and corn purchase in North Carolina). The rest I have never set foot in, unless it was one of those disqualified layovers or something similar.

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
(Arkansas)
California
Colorado
Connecticut
(Delaware)
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
(North Carolina)
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
(West Virginia)
Wisconsin
Wyoming

And for good measure...Washington, D.C.

Now, let's get to work on crossing more off the list. Road trip, anyone?

Reading List 2010

I've gotten a good jump on my 2010 reading, and happily, the books I've started with are already a generally better bunch than the majority of the ones I got to in 2009. As always, if you've read something wonderful, please leave a comment. My to-read list has dipped to a dangerously low number.

Persuasion - Jane Austen
Lady Susan - Jane Austen

Whenever I hear Jane Austen discussed, it's always Pride and Prejudice this and Sense and Sensibility that. I liked both of those books just fine, so I was surprised to find that I enjoyed Emma more than either of them. It turns out that it wasn't just a fluke, because Persuasion is a wonderful novel, and also outranks those two superstars. Anne Eliot, the protagonist, strikes me as more emotionally mature than many Austen heroines, which shapes the story a lot differently than some of the other stories that involve an innocent girl navigating the social scene to land a man. Anne actually once had a crack at the man she loves, but allowed herself to be talked out of the relationship. When he re-enters her life years later, she has to vie for his affection again. She also has to deal with an embarrassing social climbing family, and the stings of their snobbery and overspending are by turns cringeworthy and hilarious, and are still relevant today.

Lady Susan is not as well-known. It's an epistolary novel, and one of the most interesting things about it is that it features the only full-on, unapologetic, manipulative bitch in the entire Austen collection. There are plenty of distasteful Austen characters, but Lady Susan is above and beyond in her selfishness and scheming. The Post Office gets a workout, as letters from all the characters fly back and forth, describing Lady Susan's attempts to break up marriages, subdue her daughter, and establish her superiority over her sister-in-law. There isn't much in the way of actual events, but my fascination with a purely evil Austen character made it worth the read.

Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes - Mark Bittman

I'm always interested in what I'm eating and how it's prepared. Mark Bittman wrote How to Cook Everything, which is the best cookbook in my arsenal. It seemed that this book would be a nice marriage of the two, but unfortunately, it didn't tell me much I didn't already know. As with a lot of current books and movies that outline the problems with the way Americans eat today, if you've read Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, you've already heard it all before. Artificial ingredients bad. Plants good. Got it. Even the recipes in the book were disappointing. If you've never done any digging into the world of "moral" eating, you could do worse than this offering, but that's about the highest praise I can offer.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley

This was one of the first books I read this year, and got the reading list off to a rousing start. Flavia de Luce is an eleven-year-old girl who lives in a small English town, and who spends all of her time studying chemistry, which is her great passion. Her father is distant and her sisters are obnoxious, so she retreats to her lab, where she carries out her research and experiments. It's the only source of her happiness. That is, until she finds a dying man in the cucumber patch, and excitedly resolves to solve his murder. Her ensuing adventures are grand fun, and made this a terrific read. I'm clearly not the only one who thought so, as the library's waiting list for the second Flavia de Luce book is a mile long.

Death Match - Lincoln Child

Over Christmas vacation, I spent a week down at LabRat's parents' house in the mountains of Georgia. Once I'd wiped out my library books, I scanned their shelves for something to occupy my time, and happened across this mystery. Dr. Christopher Lash used to be a forensic psychologist for the FBI, but agrees to take on work for a private company. This company is about the most powerful entity in the world, because they are a highly successful...computer dating service. No, really. They hire Lash because some of the couples they've matched up begin committing joint suicide, and they want to know why. Though there are some interesting avenues explored, the story goes beyond implausible into silly, and at one point, Child mixes up the names of some characters. I guess by that time, even the editors were too bored to pay attention.

First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde
The Big Over Easy (Nursery Crime #1) - Jasper Fforde

I go back and forth a little bit on the Thursday Next novels. Some are better than others, and yet all of them leave me with a feeling of "Mmmm. That was fairly good. It didn't blow my socks off, but it was interesting." Welcome to First Among Sequels: Not An Exception. I did like the disparate plotlines in this one more than I have in others, but aside from The Eyre Affair, all of the Thursday Next books tend to wander in a hundred directions, and could do with some focus.

Focus which is finally achieved in the Nursery Crime series (at least the first one). I guess when it comes to Thursday Next stories, Fforde can sprint off in whatever direction he likes, and so he picks all of them. In The Big Over Easy, he must adhere to a more traditional nursery rhyme plot basis, and so the tangents are thankfully reined in. This first book deals with detective Jack Spratt and his new assistant Mary Mary, who are working to solve the murder of Humpty Dumpty, found shattered beneath a wall. Though they must wade through familiar territory in departmental disputes, red herrings, and motives aplenty, the book gives a lot of nods and winks as it tweaks traditional mystery "rules". Though the Thursday Next series can be enjoyable, this one really tightened up the narrative.

The Enthusiast - Charlie Haas

Hmm. What's this book about? Well, supposedly, it's about an aimless guy who seeks purpose in working at a string of magazines about other people's hobbies. In reality, it's a rambling tale in which nothing really happens, and nobody really cares, least of all me. This earned a rare one-star review over at Goodreads, and made me wonder who the audience for such a pointless non-story is.

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President - Josh Lieb

This book is 97% hilarious. It's the story of evil genius Oliver Watson, who is unfortunately stuck with the fact that he is twelve years old. That doesn't stop him from setting up shell corporations to make his fortune, inventing new gizmos to terrify and annoy, or torturing his overly earnest father with faux stupidity. However much he hates his father, he still wants his approval, and so Oliver sets out to win the election for class president, which he figures will be a cakewalk. He soon finds that overthrowing African dictators is far easier than convincing pre-teen assholes to like you. I mention the 97% figure, because as funny as this book is, it doesn't have much of a payoff. Though the ending is mildly disappointing, the rest of the book more than makes up for it, and I'd certainly recommend a reading.

A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel - Sophie Littlefield

Was "A Crime Novel" really a necessary addendum? Wouldn't anyone who picked this up and read the flap realize that this is a crime novel? In any event, it is a crime novel, and frankly, a pretty paint-by-numbers one. Stella Hardesty was an abused wife, until she got fed up and killed her husband. Now she's an aging badass, and quietly hires herself out to intimidate other abusive men in the rural Missouri area. If the book had thoroughly explored this plotline, it would have been an interesting read. As it is, Littlefield runs out of steam with that train of thought, and so throws Stella into a violent showdown with the mob that comes out of nowhere. Putting aside the laughable idea that an organized crime syndicate would need a base of operations in Nowheresville, Missouri, I wish this book would have picked one story and stuck with it. As it is, it's a novel with the kernel of good idea, but that kernel never pops.

Revenge of the Spellmans (Spellman Series #3) - Lisa Lutz

As evidenced by the title, this is the third of the Spellman books. I really liked the first two, though I didn't enjoy the second as much as the first. This caused me to worry a bit that Lutz started out with her strongest material, and would never be able to recreate it. That didn't happen, though, because Revenge of the Spellmans is really good. Isabel Spellman is still trying to navigate the tricky waters of her manipulative, secretive family, but she also has some actual detective work to get done as well. It's very funny stuff, especially when added to Isabel's reluctance to attend court-ordered therapy.

Personal Days - Ed Park

This book struck me as the love child between The Company and The Boy Detective Fails. From the former, it's a successfully harrowing tale of trying to forge a career in a company where nothing gets done, and your job may be lost at a moment's notice for no particular reason. From the latter, a disjointed writing style that keeps your nerves on edge (in a good way). As with many books I've read lately, the ending doesn't quite live up to the rest of the book; it seems many authors either paint themselves into a corner or just want to be done with the damn thing already. That's not to say I don't recommend this book, though. It was engrossing to the point that I stayed up way too late, just so I could finish it.

Shatter - Michael Robotham

Sometimes, I'm in the mood to read one of those dime-a-dozen crime thrillers that get dropped by the truckload on the public. Then I'm always surprised when they don't turn out to be spectacularly good. Strange. I don't have any strong objections to this book, which is about a clinical psychologist who tries to solve the apparently motiveless suicides of local women. By the same token, I don't have much to praise, either. It kept my attention from beginning to end, but it indulged in an annoying ploy wherein trained psychologists and police officers don't leap to the most obvious conclusion, which of course turns out to be the key to the whole thing. These books are the literary equivalent of potato chips; they're simple and they pass the time.

I, Lorelei - Yeardley Smith

Yes, that Yeardley Smith. I like to read a mix of genres, and what better way to mix it up than a children's book by an actress whose work I thoroughly enjoy? The story is fleshed out very well, and is told via a diary that describes the events of a few short months, during which Lorelei Connelly mourns her recently-deceased cat (whom all the journal entries are written to), tries out for the school play, and tries to make sense of her parents' rapidly-crumbling marriage. In a very refreshing turn of events, the family problems are not wrapped up in a tidy little package by the end of the book, but Lorelei has certainly matured during the journey.

This is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper

This is ostensibly the story of Judd Foxman, who loses his father (to cancer), wife (to infidelity), home (to aforementioned infidelity), and job (to aforementioned infidelity, which took place between aforementioned wife and Judd's boss) all in quick succession. Really, it's about the Foxman family, who is utterly screwed up, and whose members all pretty much detest one another. When Judd's father dies, he's told that the old man's dying wish was for the family to sit shiva together for seven full days. The family doesn't even like spending seven minutes together, but they agree out of what little sense of filial duty they have left. Over the course of the week, all of the family issues come out and fought over, but as you can probably guess, Judd is able to resolve some longstanding problems and get a fresh start on life. It was a good read, even if some of the passive-aggressive sniping hits a little close to home.

Friends Like These - Danny Wallace

A fun non-fiction book that strikes a chord with a lot of people, including myself. A guy who's about to turn thirty is horrified to discover that he's growing up, and is beginning to act like a boring, responsible adult. His response to this is to track down childhood friends, long since out of touch, to see if they're going through the same thing. The journey finds him traveling the world, reforging relationships, and coming to terms with what's expected of him in the next phase of his life. It's extremely funny, and packs an unexpected emotional wallop, as well.

John Dies at the End - David Wong

I guess the title kind of lets the cat out of the bag, eh? I have to say, a lot of books claim to be "scary", by which they mean "gross". This book, on the other hand, actually unsettled me. And yeah, was pretty gross, too. It's difficult to summarize in a few sentences, but basically, there's a new drug on the street that causes the user to be aware of all of the otherworldly beasts trying to destroy the human race. Two slacker dudes who find themselves saddled with this "gift" do their best to fight against the encroaching holocaust. They suck at it. It's actually a very good read, though I wish someone would have told me it's one of those cliffhanger books that doesn't have an actual ending.


So... after the above list was written, the Age of Blogging slowed to a crawl. That doesn't mean I stopped reading, however, so let's wrap up the list with the rest of the books I read in 2010. No reviews - just the titles and authors of the books in the order I read them. Some were great, some were so-so, and some sucked, so if you're reading this at some point in the future, and have questions or comments about one of the books, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.

True Confections: A Novel - Katherine Weber

My Mother's Keeper - B.D. Hyman

Official Book Club Selection - Kathy Griffin

The Hole We're In - Gabrielle Zevin

The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson

The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde

Triangle - Katherine Weber

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag - Alan Bradley

I Was Told There'd Be Cake - Sloane Crosley

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime - John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

Lockdown: Escape From Furnace - Alexander Gordon Smith

Insignificant Others: A Novel - Stephen McCauley

These Children Who Come at You With Knives, and Other Fairy Tales - Jim Knipfel

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang - Chelsea Handler

The Great Perhaps: A Novel - Joe Meno

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook - Anthony Bourdain

How Did You Get This Number - Sloane Crosley

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition - Daniel Okrent

I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food - Jennifer 8 Lee

Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties: A Practical Guide by Miss Edythe McFate - Lesley M.M. Blume

The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment - A.J. Jacobs

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex - Mary Roach

Man of the House - Stephen McCauley

*current as of December 31, 2010*

Jug Band

LabRat and I stop just short of actively worshipping Dionysus. Okay, not really, but wine does flow freely through our veins. Local business owners somehow sensed this, and opened a wine shop -- complete with reasonably-priced membership club -- within walking distance of the apartment. And that, as they say, was that. Rather than sticking to old favorites, we began trying new wines at a rapid pace. Some were fantastic. Some were blah. Some weren't fit for human consumption. LabRat, knowing of my affinity for list-making and organization, set me to the task of keeping track of the many, many, many types of wine we now encounter. After all, when you're half-sauced, it's important to have a written record of the highs and lows. Feel free to take the following notes as recommendations (or anti-recommendations), but they're mostly just for reference.

EXCELLENT

White

Borealis White Blend
Columbia Winery Gewurztraminer
Hahn Estates Pinot Gris
Mar de Frades Albarino

Red

Brujeria Red Blend (Misfit Wine Co. of Southeastern Australia)
Hahn Estates Pinot Noir
Layer Cake "Primitivo" Zinfandel
Meiomi Pinot Noir

Other

PRETTY DARN GOOD

White

Bloom Gewurztraminer
Columbia Winery Riesling
Fetzer Gewurztraminer - (our go-to choice for affordable, "weekday" white wine)
Kung Fu Girl Riesling
Rabbit House Chardonnay (especially considering that chardonnays usually top out at a "meh")
Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio
Seven Daughters White Blend
Blonde Bombshell White Blend
Bin 36 Chardonnay

Red

Rabbit House Pinot Noir
Seven Daughters Red Blend
Gnarly Head Zinfandel (would be "meh" if expensive, but very good for a cheap wine)

Other

MEH

White

Bloom Riesling
Covey Run Gewurztraminer
Shoofly Viognier
Caymus Conundrum White Blend

Red

Wyndham Estate Bin 555 Shiraz
Genesis Syrah

Other

Turkey Flat Rose
Twin Fin Rose - (Great, considering it rarely cracks five bucks)

SWILL

Red

Tiz Red Blend
Gnarly Head Pinot Noir

White

Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
Nahe Weingut Gewurztraminer Spatlese
Star Lane Sauvignon Blanc
Freaky Muscato

Other

Pink Ink Rose (LabRat likes this one, but I hate it, and I'm the one with the password to the blog)

That's the Thing

It's a progressive era, and I feel I can come out of the closet with this:

We all get particular cravings. As I sit here typing this, my frequent yen for sushi is flaring up, and it's not even ten in the morning. That causes some raised eyebrows when I admit it in mixed company, though nobody bats an eyelash when someone else admits to eating a pound of Starburst jellybeans in one sitting. This kind of bias cannot be allowed to continue. The sweet tooth majority gets all the press in our society, but that's over. I'm compelled to speak up for the silent millions who must share my devotion to the more savory aspects of the flavor wheel. It's time to garner support for the Salt Tooth.

Now, I like dessert as much as the next guy. Hell, I devote a full section of the blog to it. A well-made key lime pie will make my day. All that aside, I never crave sweets. If you told me tomorrow that I'd never again be able to eat another candy bar, I'd be disappointed. If you told me I could never experience another unagi platter, I'd lose my damn mind. My mom could spin you stories of how, when I was growing up, my after-dinner answer to "What would you like for dessert?" was, more often than not, "The rest of the wild rice."

My love of salty food is so broad that it gets broken down into sub-cravings. Sometimes, my urges are focused on strong, fishy flavors -- anchovies, sardines, smoked trout and/or salmon, sushi, caviar, pickled herring, and so on. Sometimes, the focus is more on the general snacks that incorporate salt, like pretzels or chips. Whoever thought up the sea salt/vinegar combination deserves a Nobel prize. Then, there are times when my taste buds call out for savory sauces. This is where the words "soy" and "Worcestershire" get thrown around a lot, and Chinese restaurants find their phones ringing off the hook. There's almost no end to the delights a salt tooth can seek out for himself. Strong cheeses. Spicy soups. Margaritas.

As I call attention to the plight of the poor, ignored salt tooth, a conflict brews. Just as the Civil War tore households asunder, I must, in the interest of full disclosure, report that I live with a sweet tooth. Check that, I live with King Sweet Tooth. While I'm tossing capers onto my sandwich to give it a salt boost, he's digging around in the cabinet to make sure we have enough cocoa powder. At barbecues, my plate is loaded with gherkins, his with brownies. A friend of mine once gave me tins of sardines for Hanukkah. All he asked for one Christmas was for his mom to make a chocolate pie. In truth, the war analogy is not a particularly apt one, because our parting of the ways actually benefits both of us. I'd imagine others would get a bit snappish to find their Valentine's Day candy plundered by the loved one who gave it to them, but I'm content to hand over the buttercreams if he doesn't object to me snatching the dill pickle off his plate at delicatessens.

My salt cravings are strong, but I'm not ruled by them. I can generally fight the urges, if need be. LabRat is not so fortunate. He's a full-fledged addict, and when the sweet tooth calls, he cannot help but answer. Not only that, but I learned soon after we started dating that he is almost constantly under the thrall of his "thing". No, not like that, perv. LabRat's "thing" is the food that he's completely devoted to, eating it at every opportunity, until he finally gets bored with it, and moves on to the next "thing". I generally cast around for variety in my salt fixes. LabRat demands consistency.

Shortly after we met, and started spending more and more time together, I noticed that LabRat was awfully devoted to Fudgsicles. Once in a while, we'd get the variety pack of popsicles (banana, root beer, lemon, and lime for me -- cherry, raspberry, grape, and strawberry for him), but the lion's share of his attention went straight to the chocolate.

One day, we decided to try a couple of the Mrs. Edwards ready-made pie slices. LabRat got the Butterfinger pie, and that was all she wrote for the Fudgsicles. Every day or so, another small box with a single slice of pie would appear in the freezer, only to disappear soon after. Hilariously, LabRat would never buy the full-sized pie, claiming he only wanted one slice. This particular "thing" was the only one that was tragically not terminated by LabRat himself. The pie was discontinued, and his ravenous sweet tooth was forced to find another outlet.

After a brief foray into a gummi bear "thing", he found a doozy in ice cream, which spread into a multi-month, three-part "thing", starting with Breyers vanilla ice cream with Hershey's syrup on top. This combination held strong until it became a bit too tame (or too vanilla, dare I say), and he moved on to the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup flavor. This lasted for a good, long while until the grocery shrink ray hit. Then came the pinnacle of the ice cream "thing": Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean. Not just "vanilla". "Vanilla Bean". Even this resident salt tooth must admit that it's an extraordinary flavor. LabRat would have happily taken his paycheck in pints of the stuff, given the chance.

His passion for it eventually waned, though it took several months. He had a little withdrawal, even spending a couple of weeks without a "thing". It was not to last, though, and just about the time we moved into our new apartment, the Little Debbie Nutty Bar "thing" took root. I'm firmly convinced that the sale on multiple boxes of Little Debbie products offered by the local grocery store came about because they noticed that Nutty Bars were flying off the shelves. They just didn't realize they were all flying to the same place.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the Nutty Bars weren't omnipresent on the kitchen counter anymore. There goes another "thing"! I was curious to see what would take their place. Then, we made one of our occasional jaunts to the nearby Steak 'n Shake. I, of course, was all over the chicken fingers. On a whim, I also decided to try their new specialty shake, made with Hershey's Special Dark flavoring. LabRat asked for a sip, and his eyes lit up. Uh, oh. Sure enough...

We're well into this new "thing" now. And I got him hooked by giving him his first taste! This must be how drug dealers get started.