FlatPack Universe... Some Assembly Required

15 March 2008 books

2008-03-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

The Assassin's Song by M. G. Vassanji

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

Black Man by Richard K. Morgan

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

Dragon Lady : The Life And Legend Of The Last Empress Of China by Sterling Seagrave

Effigy by Alissa York

Glasshouse by Charles Stross

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Our Posthuman Future : Consequences Of The Biotechnology Revolution by Francis Fukuyama

Passing For Thin : Losing Half My Weight And Finding Myself by Frances Kuffel

Survival Of The Prettiest : The Science Of Beauty by Nancy Etcoff

The Yiddish Policemen's Union : A Novel by Michael Chabon

hit and run update

2008-02-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

A quick list of my recent and current reading:

Blackwater : the rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army by Jeremy Scahill
-on the last chapter

Infernal - read
Crisscross - read
The Keep - read
The Barrens and other Stories - read
Black Wind - got half way though and got bored
Diagnosis, terminal : an anthology of medical terror - read
all by F. Paul Wilson

Good calories, bad calories : challenging the conventional wisdom on diet, weight control, and disease by Gary Taubes

How to read a french fry : and other stories of intriguing kitchen science by Russ Parsons

The pirate's dilemma : how youth culture is reinventing capitalism by Matt Mason

A question of torture : CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror by Alfred W. McCoy

The shock doctrine : the rise of disaster capitalism by Naomi Klein
- started

The snarling citizen : essays by Barbara Ehrenreich
- almost finished - dated but interesting

The story of tea : a cultural history and drinking guide by Mary Lou Heiss

Tantalize by Cynthia Smith
- read - great YA book

What is Tao? by Alan Watts

Turtle Valley by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
- read - readable CanLit... wow!

2008-01-25T15:27:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know I haven't written about the books I got from the library last week but I don't want any to get lost in the shuffle, so here's what I picked up yesterday:

Buried bones by Carolyn Haines

Tall, dark & dead and Dead sexy by Tate Hallaway

Dexter in the dark : a novel by Jeffry Lindsay - I'm going to have to dig up the first two and re-read them to refresh my memory

The queen of fats : why omega-3s were removed from the Western diet and what we can do to replace them by Susan Allport

Shop till you drop : a dead-end job mystery by Elaine Viets

Some lovely juicy fiction there... light and fluffy and distracting, just what I need. . . and the dishes? maybe they'll get washed this weekend...

vocabulary 1

2008-01-25T15:22:00.000-08:00

Muskeg: a northern/arctic bog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskeg

Today's trip to the library

2008-01-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

Picked up a bunch of books from the library today:

Culinary Boot Camp: Five Days of Basic Training at The Culinary Institute of America by The Culinary Institute of America and Martha Rose Shulman

Wasn't what I was looking for... but I'd love to do the Boot camp sometime.

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford

Fascinating! The description of line cooking in Mario Batali's restaurant was less macho than in the Bourdain book, but still showed the toughness necessary for a professional to make it. A good look at the kitchen politics and cliques. The sections on learning in Italy were utterly absorbing. I kept asking what about this mans family though? In the later Italy section his wife gets brief mention, but where are his two teenagers? (mentioned on the book flap) . What did they think of this obsession?

I Like You: Hospitality Under The Influence by Amy Sedaris

Not what I was after at ALL... I didn't find it funny, the recipes were unappealing and the nasty 50's ads and styling was off putting in the extreme. Maybe if it had made me laugh...

In Bad Taste?: The Adventures and Science Behind Food Delicacies by Dr. Massimo Marcone

For a professor, what an unworldly, unsophisticated person. For a book that supposedly centers on the science of food there was perhaps a bit much detail and focus on his relationship with G_d, but he did see quite genuine and honest in his beliefs. For someone who seemed so shocked to find vehicles in Africa to be old clunkers and who really didn't seem to have any idea about the world he is extraordinarily kind and generous about the people he meets. I liked that about him a lot. The book would have been much, much better if someone had confiscated his exclamation mark key before he started... two, three or more exclamation points on a page and I start to think the person writing should also be dotting their I's with hearts, like a girl in grade seven.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

Wow! A tough look at the tough guys doing the hard sweaty work in the kitchen. Over flowing with testosterone, bluster and ego very much like the author. Still an excellent peek in to what goes on behind those swinging doors your food passes through.

The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones by Anthony Bourdain

Contains the best possible review of his previous book [which I'm going to have to insert here later]. Some really good articles. I have to say, I like his style when it comes to prose, I'd love to find out if the same goes for his food.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee

Fascinating! I'm going to have to get a copy of this for myself.

Why all the books on chefs and professional kitchens?
Last week I came home from work and in my mail box was the course catalogs I'd requested from George Brown College - I've been toying with the idea of going back to school to become a chef and they have one of the best programs in the area. Also I'll be getting (yet another) new manager some time soon, and I always panic and assume things are going to suck... thus the looking around for another option not that I want to leave the hospital (or the 17 years worth of seniority I've got here).
The second thing in the post that day was a catalogue from Ashton Green which has some of the SWEETEST cooking tools around.
Once I got upstairs I checked the messages on my phone. There was a call from Liason College, a cooking school here in Hamilton, letting me know that they are moving, but they've still got my information on file should I want to take some classes with them.
The next day, on my way to work, I noticed a HUGE bright yellow billboard, right across from the hospital advertising George Brown's chef program.
Is the universe trying to tell me something? I'm not sure. Hopefully these books will help me make up my mind; either confirm that, yes, this is the passion I want to follow or scare me enough that I'll put up with what ever torments a new boss might have in store for me.

If that wasn't a big enough load of books, I also grabbed

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs - he writes for Mental Floss magazine which is one of my favourite read-on-the-bus mags.

Many Bloody Returns by Charlaine Harris - a mixed bag of vampire short stories.

Top 100 Unusual Things to See in Ontario by Ron Brown - for my own knowledge and so I can suggest things to visitors to my fair province.

So... do you think I'll be getting the dishes washed this weekend? this week?

The story so far...

2008-01-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris - The first book in her Harper Connelly series.
I like Charlaine Harris' books; this series and her Sookie Stackhouse series. They are engrossing, well paced, and have just enough sex and supernatural happenings to keep my interest. They're not rocket science, the search for g_d or a deep introspective historical novel of 1500 or so pages... they're fun, enormously engaging fun. Her heroines are real people... they wash the dishes, they worry about the little things, they have lives they just can't drop and run off to solve a mystery. People in them change, grow and make mistakes. Because of that I think they can't just be written off as fluff or shouldn't be, despite their entertainment factor.

Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris

Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul by Karen Abbott - A fascinating look at Chicago's best brothel at the turn of the last century.

The Cannon - see previous post - and I know I included it in 2007 books, but I didn't actually finish it until after new years.

Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital - Rendition... suspicion... contracted out military operations... black sites... torture... extra-judicial imprisonment... interrogation... paranoia.... insanity...
Who can you trust?
The person sleeping next to you?
A childhood friend?
A colleague?
Family?
How well do you know any of them?
How well does Leela-May Magnolia Moore know any of these people?
How does a person journey into the underworld to rescue their beloved in a post 9-11 world?
Read this book.... Read the damn thing while we are still living in the moment it describes.

Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals by Robert M. Sapolsky - I love anthropology articles and books... I crave an understanding of the human condition and the biological aspects of it fascinate me.

Ha'Penny by Jo Walton - Sequel to Farthing (see previous post) Every bit as good as the first novel. Inspector Carmichael (with domestic scenes this time), another run in with members of the Larkin family, a first class mystery and Hitler himself... who could ask for more? More? Only in the form of more books in this series... I hope Jo Walton will give us more, I haven't felt this thrill of excitement from an alternate history book since I first discovered Harry Turtledove

Rereading
The Cabinet of Curiosities by Lincoln Child and Douglas J Preston - part of their Relic series.

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm also reading:

The iPod Book: Doing Cool Stuff with the iPod and the iTunes Store by Scott Kelby and iPod & iTunes For Dummies by Tony Bove and Cheryl Rhodes
I finally joined the new millennium thanks to my Christmas present from my sister; an iPod nano.
Being obsessive compulsive me, I must know all about it... but stooping as far as a "Dummies" book?
Sometimes I embarrass myself.

Memorable Books of 2007 - Part 1

2008-01-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick list of books that I read last year and why they were interesting, why you should read them too...

Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures by Carl Zimmer - NonFiction - Scarier than any Stephen King novel out there. They surround us, they live within us, they are the stuff of nightmares, gross out ugly, they drink our blood, eat our flesh, control our actions, they kill us and we can't survive without them: Parasites. This book absolutely fascinated me and it frustrated me too, no one wanted to discuss it and for the week I spent reading it, no one wanted to eat a meal with me.

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier - NonFiction - Think you know your science? You still need to read this book. Were you lucky enough to have the one science teacher in your high school who was not only interesting but laugh out loud funny? (I was, Thanks Mr. Heaslip! *wave*) No? It's not too late. Angier presents the bedrock basics of the sciences in clearly understandable layman's English embellished with much humour.
This book is a true pleasure to read. Don't' be surprised if you find yourself able to explain the concepts covered here to anyone, including small children, it's that clear.

Farthing by Jo Walton - Fiction - Alternate History: Gosford Park with a Nazi twist. A well written murder mystery in a post WWII Britain very different from ours. Fascist Britain, Hitler in control of the Continent, a murder victim at a posh country home found with a yellow Star of David pinned to his bloody chest and a police Inspector with his own secret. Works beautifully as both a mystery and alternate history. I'm currently reading the sequel Ha'Penny, and I'm positive it will be mentioned again.

Welcome

2008-01-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

Welcome to FlatPack Universe...

Mostly I'm going to use this blog to talk about what I'm reading - books, articles, or anything that interests me.