Book Lovers Club
Comments
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jelson! Thanks for the heads up on Dyer! I Google him each week and read EVERYTHING he writes! I'm a Dyer junkie! Thankfully, his next book will be published in March. Amen!
From Paris Review, here is one of my favorite Dyer columns....
http://theparisreview.tumblr.com/post/58507918360/...Hilarious and sooooo clever!
Tim Parks.....I never read him before and I'm now hooked!
Yay!
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I just wanted to share as a proud mommy my dog was recognized on our library's thankful card showcasing various library programs.
My Jack is in the lower left hand pic being read to by a young lady. He loves the library as much as I do!
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Ah, so sweet!
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Katy - how wonderful that you are volunteering at the library. Way to go.
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Minus- Jack is volunteering. I just drive him around and make sure he gets to his appointments on time,
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Jackbirdie
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Way to go Jack!! Your Mommy is great to drive you to all your appt's too.
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If anyone wonders why I adore Geoff Dyer's writing, read this essay. Be forewarned, it is long and IMHO brilliant.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/06/based...
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VR- thanks. Love him too. This was my favorite:
"The appeal of a book such as Touching the Void is dependent absolutely on Joe Simpson being roped to the rock face of what happened.
Very entertaining and I got about 25 suggestions for things to read too!!
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VR - Dyer's article is magnificant, along with all the comments from the other authors. Yes it's long, but so much worth reading. Thank you for posting.
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Jackie and Minus....I'm so glad that both of you took the time to read the other essays as well! I also got a few book recommendations from the list.Moreover, I learned that I have already read some of the books that Dyer has read. That said, were his ideas extraordinary or what? I know Berger has had a huge influence on him....but his own ideas, they are, as Minus said, "Magnificent.". Reading his ideas helps me to see things so differently. My opthamologist said, after reading, The Missing of the Somme, is Dyer sees things that often escape most of us and can brilliantly describe not only what we are looking at, but also feel the emotion that he has in seeing whatever it is that he is looking at. I think that pretty much sums up Dyer's writing.
Now for what I saw yesterday that I think is Dyeresque....
So, there I was yesterday, smack in midtown Manhattan. What I was doing there is beyond imagination! VR usually foregoes trips to the city between Thanksgiving and New Year because the streets are a mess due to the tourists. However, VR decided to do what most tourists were doing, so she looked at the department stores' holiday decorated windows along with the masses. So, you might be wondering which holiday scene VR loved the best. Well, I'll tell you. No window compared to the sight of the little boy who stood at the curb with his father in front of Lord and Taylor. While the masses were enjoying the windows, their backs were facing the most incredible scene. A Salvation Army volunteer had set themselves up on the curb and beside him was a recorder blasting Pharrell's song, "Happy." And, as the song was playing, this little one was dancing to the song while ringing the volunteer's bell! It had to be one of the most wonderful sights that I ever saw in the city, a sight that so many others were clearly missing while looking at the windows....
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VR - good catch!
just finished The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman - whom I haven't read in many years. It takes place in NYC in 1911 - a year of many changes - main protagonists are a young immigrant Orthodox Jew and a girl raised in a, to be blunt, freak show in Coney Island. A fascinating look at one year, which notably included the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the destruction by fire of much of Coney Island's attractions and the opening of the NYC Public Library on 5th Ave. . Unfortunately, I am obsessing about Hoffman's perhaps erroneous descriptions of the currents in the Hudson River - in which, and by the shores of which, much action takes place...I am researching this..... anyway - an enjoyable read.
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VR - great story. I'm like you. I don't venture into the City or the stores after Thanksgiving. Since decorations now seem to go up before Halloween, I still get to see some.
Cleaning out stuff & found two lists of books. The 100-Book Library, Your Lifetime Reading Plan put together by Clifton Fadiman in 1959, and Books you Should Have Read (by the time you become a college freshman) from The College Student's Handbook by Abraham Lass - a long time NY educator - around 1965. These include non-fiction, essays, novels, poetry, plays, etc. Well, how embarrassing. I was an English major in college, and even a junior high English teacher for awhile, and there are lots of these recommendations I STILL haven't read. To be fair, there are some that I just didn't want to read. Others that sat on my shelves for 40 years before I finally realized I wouldn't ever read. But I expect both lists contain books that would no longer make the list of 100. Most lists now are by category (here we go again VR about fiction vs. non) and have totally dropped out authors like Locke, Mill, Montaige, Emerson, history, art, psychology, Einstein, and the US Constitution, etc. Just for grins, here's one list below & I still am deficient.
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9440.100_Best_B...
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jel...so funny that you mention Hoffman's book about Coney Island. I picked it up last year, but never got to finish it....I grew up next to Coney Island! On Saturday, I'm heading to The Brooklyn Museum because they have a Coney Island exhibit!
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/coney_i...
Recently, I attended a lecture about the exhibit, and, a few months before that, I attended a lecture about it's history! AND, since most of the researchers at Sloan Kettering's Rare Breast Cancer Lab are European, I've been trying to get them to meet me at Coney Island! I want them to experience the area and of course, ride the Cyclone with me! It is the best rollercoaster! EVER!
Now here is a bit of trivia....way, way, way back in the day, I used to see Donald Trump in Coney Island, before he became, as of today, known world wide. His father owned a group of buildings in Coney Island, known as The Trump Village, but we called it The Trump Projects!. Many of my high school friends lived there and I would often visit. Often, I would see this lanky guy, the younger Trump, in the management office or I watched him sweep the lobby area leading to his office! Yep! I can say I knew Trump, way back when!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/0...😱
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Ha!
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Love it, Ruth!
Haven't been here for a while but have been reading steadily, apparently right in line with Glennie! Read through the entire Department Q novel series this summer and by Sept was on book #6 The Hanging Girl, in Oct it was the new Sue Grafton X, and in Nov it was A Man Called Ove. Read The Survivor, the 'new' Vince Flynn with you VR, it was OK. Posthumous books continuing a series are a disturbing trend and some are better than others. Just picked up Kickback, the 'new' Spenser novel by Ace Atkins channeling his inner Robert B. Parker. He's done a few now and they're pretty good IMHO.
Appreciate the book recs and will look for several including Chestnut Street (TY Jelson, I am a fan of short stories and Maeve Binchy), Enchanted April (lovely little movie), the new Preston & Child, and one about the lost ravioli recipe.
Also have The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, the new book of short stories by Stephen King, and The Blondes by Emily Schultz. The latter was an impulse pick off the new book shelf but it looks fun: an epidemic of a rabies-like disease is carried only by blonde women, all of whom must go to great lengths to conceal their blondness.
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Hi Badger! You must report in on The Blondes,, that sounds interesting.
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I just finished reading The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker. It was really fascinating and eye-opening about what has happened to the food industry in this country. Lots of science in here, but I think he could be dead-on about what has caused the upsurge of obesity in this country.
Basically they have worked hard to create more productive crops. Tomatoes are modified so they are disease-resistant and have tougher skins to get to market without bursting. But all of these modifications have wrecked the flavor. So what do we do? Drown it with dressing (added calories) Chickens are bred and fed so that they can go to market much faster but chickens need to get to a certain age before the meat has flavor. So again,, flavor is added before it is sold,,, you can see "natural flavors" added to the ingredients on the package. And because chicken tastes bland, we cover it up with all kinds of stuff to make it taste good.(more calories) Our primal bodies think if it tastes good, it has good nutrition. And this is how the food scientists have fooled us. They make Doritos, etc taste so good,, and there is no nutrition in them,, yet we crave them.
I found it also interesting that the author quoted from some old cookbooks where it was stated that you needed a chicken of a certain age to make the dish. A 4-5 month old bird is recommended which is quadruple the age of today's sold chicken.
So it's not really a "diet" book, but it is quite the interesting look at food. You truly are what you eat. And I think it could be really difficult,, if you can't grow your own veggies,, to find good quality food. I think I'll be checking out the farmer's market more often.0 -
glennie! I'm so glad you enjoyed reading The Dorito Effect! I recommended it to an acquaintance yesterday and she just gave me a dazed look! I'm sorry the author chose that title because I think it can be off putting! I'm so glad you got so much out of it! A.Great.Book
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http://www.amazon.com/Fannies-Last-Supper-Re-creat...
Here is another GREAT book to read about FannieFarmer and her recipes from 100 years ago. The author ATTEMPTED to cook a meal based on the 100 year old recipes so one could get a "taste" of what foods tasted like then
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I'll have to look for that, VR! I also want to look for the old cookbooks that Mark mentioned in The Dorito Effect.
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glennie.....when Mark mentioned that if a person who lived 100 years ago returned today that they would never recognize what we call is a chicken really shocked me. It also reminded me of the Fannie Farmer book. I have my mother's first cook book. Sometimes I look at it and I am flummoxed! That said, my younger son got The Food Lab cook book and told me to get the book. I did! And I'm STILL flummoxed! I think I will stick to READING cook books. I guess some of us were not blessed with cooking skills!😨
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Yes, I really learned a lot from that book. I had no idea how different chickens had become. And I don't think I could cook the way they did either! I can follow a recipe,, but it can't be too hard!
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Lots of women say they can't make fried chicken like their grannies. It's because grannie's chickens (when I was a kid)weighed 2 1/2 or 3 pounds. The meat got done on those small pieces before the coating burned. Can't do that with a 5 Pound mutant chicken.
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http://nypost.com/2015/04/26/why-nothing-especiall...
Here is an excerpt from The Dorito Effect about chickens!
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NICE !!
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Really interesting, and that is about right for the size I remember in the late sixties
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this discussion reminds me of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World by Andrew Lawler - but without the recipes. Having recently read the book, I found myself accompanying a Burmese friend to a local Asian Market - where in my effort NOT TO LOOK in the fish tanks - I found myself staring into the fresh poultry shelves - filled with wrapped chickens - the scrawniest little birds I had ever seen and some had Blue/Black flesh - my reaction prior to reading the book would have been - why would someone buy these fleshless wonders, but having read the book I realized that these are what used to be normal chickens, exotic to us, but what is expected and demanded in the Asian community. They also explained some of the tasty dishes I have been privileged to be offered by my Burmese friend - noodles or rice or yellow peas and vegetables, often cilantro, a symphony of sweet, sour, crunchy, hot and salty with small pieces of delicious chicken. Not the slabs of bland breasts I have become accustomed to.
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oooo, Fascinating, Jelson,,, so an Asian market might be a good source of good chicken.
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aaaahhhhhh!!! The.Asian.Market! Now that we are sooooo off topic...I have 3 Asian markets near my home. I only go to them when my Indian friend or my Jewish friend who spends a lot of time in Asia accompanies me because I haven't a clue what half of the things in the stores are....never mind how to cook them.....And the smells in the store are, from what I understand, the scents you would find if you were in Asia. Two of the stores have takeout and we usually grab a bite while we are there! And the fish section, Jelson! One of the stores' fish sections, rivals the New York Aquarium!!!!!😁
Back to The Food Lab book, many of the recipes in the stews and soup section call for "2 bay leaves." I love the taste and aroma of bay leaves and use more than 2 in many of my recipes. The younger DS does lots of cooking and often calls me for my recipes. Back in the day, I told him to buy bay leaves for a recipe and he bought a bottle of " Bailey's Irish Cream" liquour! Had a good laugh straightening out the difference!😁
Now back to my Indian friend... One of my favorite Kosher supermarkets just opened another store a few blocks from our library....really! Can it not get better than that???!!!! So after our library visit, I asked my friend if she wanted to go to the store with me because they have THE BEST produce! So of course she accompanied me and has been raving about the store ever since! Looks like we will now have to make the Kosher market a destination after we attend the library!
Now for the last thing I will say about the subject of food because I recently learned something from my Indian friend that I'd like to share. Curry powder and Curry leaves are NOT the same! Go look that one up! I LOVE curry leaves!
Lastly, another point about The Dorito Effect....while we all might be upset about how our food is made, we must temper our disdain for the process. There have been some developments along the way that have helped us keep healthy. One example is the fortification of certain nutrients in our food supply. If you research spina bifida, you will learn that the folic acid U.S. mandate has led to fewer spina bifida diagnoses. For sure, we would all like to have "fresh" and "Natural" food and many of us are trying to move in that direction. But, as pointed out in The Dorito Effect, even if all our food came from our own farms, our food STILL would not taste like it did 100 years ago! And I'm not so sure we would like it! My father passed a mere 35 years ago. He loved to eat watermelon. I sometimes wonder when I buy seedless watermelon what he would think of it. I also think of him when I eat seedless grapes! As I write this I wonder will fresh pit free cherries be in my future? Now wouldn't that be great???😇
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