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fahrenheit 451
ray bradbury
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| This book is wonderful. I read it whilst in 9th grade and will re-read it again. It says everything I feel about TV and society's atrophy because of technology. Soooooooooo good. It's set in the future. |
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reviewed by: kristen |
September 2000 [link] |
recommend
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fall on your knees
ann-marie macdonald
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| At 508 pages, this is not a light read. This sucker spans lifetimes (note the plural.) Some characters that die at the end of the book aren't even born until the middle of the book. It is quite "spanning". That being said, I stayed up until 2 am to finish it one night and then tossed and turned the rest of the night because I was a bit disturbed by some of the events that took place but it was intriguing so I think that's why I was compelled to finish it. The story takes place in Nova Scotia in a family of all girls. Lots of births and deaths. Throw some sexual abuse in there, freaky parents and now you know why I tossed and turned after reading it. This was one of Oprah's book choices which is a curse and a blessing. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
January 2003 [link] |
recommend 2 thumbs up
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fantasyland: a sportswriter's obsessive bid to win the world's most ruthless fantasy baseball
sam walker
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in 2004, wall street journal sports columnist sam walker begged his way into the country's most elite rotisserie baseball league, made up of some of baseball's oddest, freakiest, and most well-respected stat-nuts. he proceeded to take a year off from his job, and spend over $50,000 by visiting spring training facilities, attending baseball's winter meetings, and hiring a small staff (one of which came from NASA).
sam walker wanted to prove that one cannot win the major league world series of rotisserie baseball on stats alone. his theory was that, as effective as number-crunching can be in predicting a player's upcoming season performance, there are factors that cannot be gleaned from a database alone. he spoke with potential players in the clubhouse, annoying many in the process. he consulted scouts, general managers, family members, and even a 'baseball astrologist'. using his team of experts, he entered values into his advanced number-crunching algorhythms that represented life events in a player's life (marriage, religious conversion, birth of a child, divorce, arrest, etc.). and sometimes, in defiance of the laws of fantasy baseball, he went with his gut, or with how much he liked a guy on a personal level.
it's thrilling to watch sam walker spiral out of control. his family life suffers. he misses major life events. he loses sleep. he travels across the country in a rental car filled with bound books of statistics and notes. his equally obsessed "staff" fall asleep in the office. all of this to win a game which offers no prize, no trophy, nothing.
a story such as this could very easily come off as a narrative that only a statistics geek could enjoy. but walker, being an outsider himself (he had never played one game of fantasy baseball and somewhat despised the seamhead types), injects the narrative with gracious amounts of humor, objectivity, humanity, wonderful character explorations, and suspense, that it will appeal to a much larger audience than the last great baseball bestseller, moneyball. i loved moneyball. but i couldn't put fantasyland down. it's really that good. |
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reviewed by: ericS |
March 2006 [link] |
recommend
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farm city: the education of an urban farmer
novella carpenter
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"Farm City" is a lot like a fav of mine, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", which explores small-scale farming as a means of self-sustainability. In "Farm City", author Novella Carpenter grows an oasis in an abandoned lot in the midst of crack dens and bodegas in Oakland, California. She starts with just fruit trees and vegetables but eventually broadens her farm to include bees, turkeys, chicken, ducks, rabbits and two pigs that she buys as piglets. The constant work that is involved is incredible but the payoff is rewarding and, at times, disappointing. A turkey flies over her fence into a junkyard and is ripped apart by a dog. Someone steals an heirloom-variety watermelon she was growing. And she has to deal with the fact that animals that she has named and cared for will ultimately wind up on her plate. Carpenter is witty, brave and – it has to be said – crazy, as well as a superb writer. This book will inspire you to eat differently and appreciate the food on your plate.
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reviewed by: lisa may |
October 2009 [link] |
recommend
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fat girls and lawn chairs
cheryl peck
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| Liz recommended this hilarious collection of essays and I truly laughed outloud through out the book. Peck writes about life as a plus-sized, gay woman living with her cat, Babycakes and includes lots of anecdotes about her family as well as the adage about how fat girls need to avoid lawn chairs at all costs (if you have to ask why, you'll never understand.) Mingling in with the essays are also original poems that prove Peck is an all-around talented writer. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
October 2004 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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feeding a yen
calvin trillin
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| Trillin is one of my favorite New Yorker writers as well as my favorite food and humor writers. Okay, he's one of my favorite writers, period. "Feeding a Yen" is a compilation of various essays on New York food and far-flung specialites like pimientos in Spain and posole in New Mexico. He reveals his Register of Frustration and Deprivation of items he can only get in their place of origin and some he can't get anymore at all - like hard little pumpernickel bagels his daughter Abigail would move back to NY for if only he could find them... |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
November 2006 [link] |
recommend
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food lover's guide to paris
patricia wells
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| even if you're not going to paris, this book is a wonderful read. divided into sections of restaurants, cafes, pastry shops and more, patricia wells does what she does best: writes about mouth-watering food. she can even make pig's knuckles and boiled cow's head sound delightful. also included are recipes from her favorite paris eateries. bon appetit! |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
January 2004 [link] |
recommend 2 thumbs up
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food matters
mark bittman
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| What Mark Bittman proposes – eating less processed food and less meat - isn't exactly rocket science. But he tried this new "diet" and quickly lost 35 pounds in addition to clearing up some health issues. Of course, you have to have the poundage to lose but Bittman's overall message is "change your eating habits now, save the world tomorrow". The beginning chapters focus a lot on the science of eating and how out of control the food and marketing industry as become. Bittman references how eating meat is one of the single-most damaging things you can do to the earth and thus his book urges we eat less meat and less processed food. The book includes 70 recipes which are really horsy and oaty for my tastes but the book definitely has me rethinking what I eat and what I feed my family. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
April 2010 [link] |
recommend
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foreskin's lament
shalom auslander
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A book of essays on being an ex-orthodox Jew whose ever present fear of God has become a personal, cuss word-filled growling match with the almighty.
The first chapter of this book had me howling and nudging Chris to let me read it to him (he said no: I want to read it on my own, OK? I am doing the crossword now).
The second chapter was pretty great, but as I made my way through the book (note, I did not say "sailed on waves of laughter" but "made my way") it felt thematically overworked.
There were still some great moments and the essay on circumcision made me cackle knowingly, but I think I would recommend borrowing this and skipping the chapters that don't grab you by the knedelach.
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reviewed by: adina |
January 2008 [link] |
recommend
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frannie & zooey
j.d. salinger
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| I think this is a re-review as well. This Frannie story was so utterly moving (oh how I love the word utterly). As I've said, I often cite "I wish I had the courage to be a complete nobody.". This book also inspired me to check out (of the library not slang) "The Prophet" by Gabril, but alas I couldn't finish it as I must be dumb still. Anyway Frannie is an excellent glimpse into an intelligent college girl's life. This book continues to blow my mind away. (I don't even remember the Zooey story except something about him being in the bathtub.) |
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reviewed by: kristen |
September 2000 [link] |
recommend 2 thumbs up
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fraud: essays
david rakoff
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| There is some funny sh*t in this collection of essays that you may have heard on This American Life but reading them brings Rakoff's hilarity to a whole new level. His first essay is about leaving the confines of NYC and going hiking with a guy that climbs Mount Monadnock in NH everyday. Rakoff quips that the hiking boots that he would've be caught dead in (which cut his feet as though they're lined with cheese graters) might actually be the boots he's caught dead in. So funny. Other essays detail his time working in an ice cream parlor in Toronto in 1982 and a great account of a trip to Tokyo. Reviewers on Amazon seem to be stuck on him not being David Sedaris - I guess because they're both Davids, both on NPR and both funny they have to be EXACTLY the same. Freaks. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
January 2006 [link] |
recommend 2 thumbs up
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freakonomics
levitt steven
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| A cool quick read that looks into the hidden side of economics which at heart is the study of incentives. Chapters include a look at why real estate agents and the KKK have so much in common, the real reason behind falling crimes rates, and my favorite chapter - why drug dealers live with their mothers. If anything, pick up the book and read the drug dealer chapter alone - it's pretty stunning. Another chapter looks at the influence of names - mostly what the difference is between black and white names. The author also gives a list of names predicted to be "hot" in 2015. Ella AND Grace are on the list. Guess I did to my daughter what my parents did to me by naming me "Lisa" in 1974. (There were seven Lisas in my grade...and one of my best friend's name is Lisa. Yeah, yeah, Lisa-Lisa and the Cult Jam. Good one.) |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
June 2005 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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fried butter
abe opincar
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This book originally caught my eye because - well, fried butter - YUM! Opincar's slender little book contains vignettes from his life all revolving around food. Everything from the pungent chopped liver he makes for Passover, the pomegrante trees he used to climb when he was a kid and some ripe, sweet tomatos he once had in Italy, served only with olive oil and sea salt. He relates food to his travels around the world as well as his relationships with friends, family and loves. By the end, I too started thinking about how special food reminds me of different times in my life. A rich, buttery read.
(Thanks to Adina for this generous birthday gift. I'm so happy to have it on my bookshelf.) |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
September 2004 [link] |
recommend
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from doon with death
ruth rendell
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| I find it sort of hard to remember what this book was about because I’ve read so many of Ruth’s books (she is easily my most often read mystery writer as I LOVE her Inspector Wexford mysteries). I think this one is the one that takes a jab at the wealthy rich and has longing and desire by the melancholy detective. Ruth has excellent plotting skills and often portrays the darker vane in light people. Her excellent series with Reg Wexford portrays murder and mayhem in the lovely English countryside. I first read her because my beloved Jeannette Winterson (see archives) thanked her in 'Written on the Body'. |
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reviewed by: kristen |
September 2000 [link] |
recommend
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funny in farsi: growing up iranian in america
firoozeh dumas
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Froze Dumas' "Funny in Farsi" is a lighthearted and sweet memoir of her years spent in California as well as in Iran. Her family first moved in CA in the 70s and their acclimation to American life is hysterical – from learning English to her father's love of Disneyland and Las Vegas, Dumas recounts stories of her youth with love and a bit of incredibility at her parent's behavior such as when her father appeared on the show "Bowling for Dollars". Not only does he bowl his worst game ever, the family can't ever remember a contestant only winning seven dollars. Dumas also writes about the difficulty people have with their names – she doesn't divulge her maiden name (Dumas is her married name - she married a Frenchman) but tells of the time at a doctor's office where she was called "Frizty DumbAss". She also mentions her cousin Neggar's name loosely translated as "She Whose Name Incites Riots".
Coupled with her recollections of time in the states are stories about Iran, before and after the Revolution, as well as stories of the close-knit ties Iranian families have and her family is no exception. Her husband's family had issues with his marriage to a Muslim and eventually, they lose contact with them. It's their loss, as Dumas is funny, warm and a gifted storyteller and writer with a wonderful family and that translates brilliantly into any language.
And yay! She has another book that was published last year: "Laughing Without an Accent"! |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
July 2009 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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funny that way
joel perry
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My name is Kristen, and I’m shallow… I picked this book from the long line-up of new non-fiction because of its cover. It was a beautiful pink and orange striped cover with a nice-looking man upon it. This was one of several books I picked up. I tried reading it once, and it didn’t take. I wasn’t desperate for reading material, so I read this book last. It’s an easy read because it’s in an essay form. This was very David Sedaris-y but much much gay-er. I found it to be like Michael Mouse from "Tales of the City" writing a gay essay book.
At first Jack’s style of writing got on my nerves. It was too cutesy, smarmy, and gay. But infectious. I picked it up again and happened upon a surreal moment: he was writing about the lame gay bar scene of Wilmington, North Carolina (which is where I live). Oh how funny! Then even better, in a further essay, he THANKED me for reading his book by saying if there was any straight person reading his book, he wanted to thank them for their open mind. Of course I felt guilty then for initially thinking his writing too gay (and in the final analysis, it’s no Tolstoy – although I haven’t read but five deep pages of Tolstoy before it got a bit dark for me).
This was a great subway, beach, summer read. Of course it’s quite possible to read it in the winter as well as anything gay can be made deep.
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reviewed by: kristen |
June 2001 [link] |
recommend
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