I accidentally read a book this week. I had started the new Kazuo Ishiguro when I glanced at the galley for Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl. I couldn’t resist the allure! I am a food lover. Mr. Bookdwarf and I save up to go eat at fancy restaurants. I cook most nights of the week and make my own pizza dough. So to read the tales of Reichl’s tenure as the restaurant critic for the NYT was unresistable to me. And does she have stories to tell. I love her accounts of transforming herself into different characters to visit each restaurant. It’s also rare for a critic to let you see the real person, flaws and all, beneath them the critical veneer, but Reichl lets it all hang out. My only beef with the book, aside from the fact that the Penguin US site sucks and has no link to the book, is the cover.
Couldn’t they have done better? Her other two books look so much better! Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this book until the very end, where she sort of rushes to finish. If you love food, check out this book.
Monthly Archives: March 2005
Now this is Rather interesting
Thanks Michael Sch-wab (heh, just kidding, don’t hit me) at Bookslut for showing me this article from the NYRB. James Goodale investigates the Independent review panels’ analysis of the Rather fiasco. It’s not at all what I thought had happened.
Edit away!
From a USA Today article on how books end up on bestseller lists:
“In many ways, editing yourself is the most important part of being a novelist. … For every page in a published novel, I wrote 10 that ended up in the trash.”
— Dan Brown from www.danbrown.com
Brown stats: 29 million copies of Da Vinci Code in print worldwide; more than 1 million of The Da Vinci Code: Special Illustrated Edition in USA
Too bad the entire book didn’t make it there.
The Elephant in the Room
Marc Cooper writes a passionate critique of not only George Lakoff’s bestseller Don’t Think of an Elephant, but also of the troubled Democratic party for this month’s Atlantic. Luckily, Powell’s has the entire review online since the magazine is subscriber only.
My dirty mind or they should reconsider the title of this book
This title leapt out at me among the deals in Publishers Marketplace: BUSH JUSTICE. Is it just me or does it not sound dirty? Here’s what the whole thing says: “NYT reporter Eric Lichtblau’s BUSH JUSTICE: The Remaking of the American Legal Landscape, about the unprecedented changes in the Justice Department since George Bush became president and their far reaching implications for the American legal system, to Hillel Black at Sourcebooks, in a very nice deal, by Ron Goldfarb at Goldfarb & Associates.”
Just a suggestion.
Bob & Dave
Veteran interviewer Robert Birnbaum speaks with film critic David Thomson over at the Morning News.
“And as you know movie people are not overly critical of their own passion. It’s a hot bath they want to jump into and stay there. This is a book that in many ways raises questions and worries. About the overall achievement and culture of film. It asks the question, ‘Is it really an art? Are we doing it justice when we treat it as an art? Or isn’t it something more complicated and a bit less than art?'”
“Wrong” About Japan
Kakutani scolds Peter Carey today about his book Wrong About Japan. She pretty much says that there is nothing redeeming about this book. Ouch. Seppuku anyone?
Weekly Globe Roundup
Ah, another Sunday, another Globe Books section to devour. Ideas section> WTF?! Slim pickings this week. There are only 3 full reviews and only 4 fiction book reviewed in the entire section (1 ‘full’ review [full actually means a quarter of the page since they feel the lead review needs a giant illustration always], 2 in a short column and one in the ‘Short Takes’ section). Are they following the NYT’s lead with multiple Chronicle type columns?
Continue reading
Pow, Amazon, to the moon!
Moby linked to this article about Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and his plan for the recently acquired 165,000 acres in West Texas. “Over the next 30 to 40 minutes, Simpson said Bezos told him the goal of his venture – known as Blue Origin – was to send a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically, like a rocket.” Huh. Not sure what to make of this.
In unrelated news, did anyone else know that there’s a movie coming out this summer based on the television show The Honeymooners? It stars Cedric the Entertainer as Ralph Kramden and Mike Epps as Ed Norton.
Nominee for Douchebag of the Year?
So you write an 11 sentence introduction to a book on 9/11, which was published to raise money for the families who lost someone on that day. 11 sentences. And you get $76,000 in royalties? Which you pocket? Sure, he gives money to charity already, but c’mon! There are no words for this guy. We have to create new ones for his kind.
(found story on Bookslut)
Bookdwarf 