Book Collection

Donna · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 827 Location: Oakland, CA

I forgot to mention a book we received as a gift this weekend. It's called Don't Try This at Home. It is full of HILARIOUS stories by chefs - of catastrophes in and out of the kitchen. I opened to one by Anthony Bourdain which told of a New Year's eve disaster. I was laughing out loud and my DH kept trying to pull the book away to see what was so funny!

Really - ROTFL!! LMAO!!! Erin - maybe you wrote a chapter? I'm sure you would relate!
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L'appetit vient en mangeant. -Rabelais

Erin · Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 12:36 am Post subject:

I love Tony Bourdain! I will have to check that out, it sounds like a fun collection. Thanks Donna.
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"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

"It's hot ham water."

David · Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 4:27 pm Post subject:

Donna, i agree,Harris is wonderful I'd forgotten how brilliant Five Quarters of the Orange is!

Brief caveat about A High and Hidden Place---it is a bit bleak! But so well done!
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Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

sweetbabyjames · Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 357

Erin, your post elicits over 10,000 views! My, aren't we a voracious bunch?

I'm in the middle of The Master and Margarita. It's a frustration though. I've been so busy with work that whenever I sit down to read my eyes sag straight away. What's worse, I just bought the Grass Harp this weekend, which I can't start till I put The Master to bed.

Meanwhile my Amazon shopping cart swells with various Vonnegut and D.F. Wallace, Weatherford's Genghis Khan (did you know he abolished torture and granted religious freedom wherever he went?) de Tocqueville and finally, most urgently bringing up the rear, Jack Turner's Spice.

It's a literary traffic jam. Such torture!

bulkarn · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 32

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (Sp?) The most gorgeous prose in print. Forget the movie ifyou saw it, reading his poetic language is a must for anyone who loves language.
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Helen in San Francisco

Griffin · Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 932 Location: England

My favourite trilogy is Titus Groan / Gormenghast / Titus Alone. I am an utter bookaholic and couldn't dream of not having books... well I could dream of it, but I'd wake up screaming!!!

I also loved Secret History - a fascinating book. Wilkie Collin's I think is better than Dickens (oooohhh, controversial!! Wink

) But also the Brontes are good. Emily's Wuthering Heights is still my favourite along with her poems, but Charlotte's Jane Eyre is deservedly a classic. I also like Gothic Romanticism - The Mystery of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe is nicely taken off in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. Matthew Lewis' The Monk is hysterical in both senses of the word!

I admit that I like 19th century fiction too tho'. The Tales of Hoffman by ETA Hoffman are interesting, and Erin, try Edgar Allen Poe for American 19th century fiction that is interesting and readable. I also struggle with Henry James and Willa Cather, but I'm going to have another go when I've finished the books I bought today.

My greatest prize is an 18th century book tho'. An 8th edition of Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Simple and Easy. I only have a small collection of antiquarian books but that's one of the stars. It has a hand-written recipe for blancmange stuck inside the front cover with sealing wax too, which is why I bought it for the not that princely sum of £40!

I have yet to dare to try and make anything from it tho', I am not quite that brave. A television cook here in the UK did make a couple of things from it - hare was one of them and a curry was the other. Apparently they were very good and worked!! But she's a trained chef and I am not.

I wouldn't touch the Da Vinci Code after another curator I know who had dragged herself through it pointed out that he hadn't done his museum research. Also, it's not symbology, as any fule kno, it's iconography, which reminds me, the Molesworth trilogy by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle - Down with Skool / Back in jug agane and Whizz for Atoms will have an undoubted giggle. Penguin books do the three of them as one. V. Funny as Bridget Jones would say.

Oh yes, and P.G. Wodehouse - anything by him is a giggle.
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Confusion comes fitted as standard.

MarieC · Joined: 16 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: Shanghai, China

I love to read and have been suffering from a drought of good English language books for the past 2 years as I've moved to Shanghai for work. I've this "thing" for Latin American fiction and love the work of Julía Alvarez, Esmeralda Santiago, Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. Just finished reading a copy of Dan Brown's Digital Fortress which I bought off a man (probably) selling pirated knick-knacks. I wasn't exactly happy to find out that the book was missing text every other page.
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Te amo y no te amo como si tuviera
en mis manos las llaves de la dicha
y un incierto destino desdichado.

Mi amor tiene dos vidas para armarte.
Por eso te amo cuando no te amo
y por eso te amo cuando te amo.

sweetbabyjames · Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 357

Whenever I'm bored with a book I'm reading, or in between books and feel like something short I like to pick up a little Pushkin.

I'm reading Capote's Grass Harp now and happened to notice Pushkin on the shelf. Almost wishing I were bored with Capote but I'm not, so Pushkin will hae to wait.