Last month on this blog I wrote about a book titled The Shameless Carnivore, and have since run across a couple other odes to meat-eating. Melissa Lion, who writes reviews on food-related books for Bookslut, checks in this month with a review of Meat: A Love Story (Putnam, $24.95) by journalist Susan Bourette. It may not make you want to buy the book but you'll savor every bit of Lion's wit and biting commentary. Bon Appetit!
The very first entry on this blog featured a book titled American Band: Music, Dreams, and Coming of Age in the Heartland (Gotham Books, $26) — a book that appealed to the former Midwestern band geek in me.
Good news! The book's author, Kristen Laine, recently was awarded the L.L. Winship/PEN New England award for nonfiction. The award is given annually to books written by New England authors and/or books on New England topics. While the book is all about Midwestern teenagers, Laine lives in New Hampshire, which allowed her to qualify for the prize. (For a list of all the winners, check out the PEN New England Web site).
Author Kristen Laine
Last year's Winship winner in the nonfiction category was Sebastian Junger for A Death in Belmont.
To learn more about American Band and read more reviews, visit Laine's Web site. The paperback comes out in September.
On the back cover of Scott Gold's The Shameless Carnivore: A Manifesto for Meat Lovers (Broadway Books, 355 pages, $24.95), there is a multiple-choice quiz. Question No. 3 asks:
The following meat is NOT approved for retail sale in the United Sates, even with USDA inspection:
a) Armadillo
b) Kangaroo
c) Iguana
d) Island fox
The most alarming thing about that question is not which one is NOT approved but that the other three ARE!
You have to read the book to find the answer. I've been skipping around the book and haven't found the answer yet.
Fair warning to vegetarians: You will not like this book. It is an unapologetic celebration of sizzling animal flesh.
"I don't get it," Gold writes. "Where at one point in American history a vegetarian would have been branded as a godless communist and advised to return forthwith to the CCCP, abstaining from the consumption of animal flesh these days is largely viewed as an enlightened life decision, even though it's not what most of us do."
I chose today's entry because of my fascination with mountain climbing. I have never been mountain climbing, nor do I plan on ever mountain climbing. I'm simply fascinated by those who risk their lives for a thrill.
Certainly it is more than the thrill that motivates some climbers — not to mention skydivers, racecar drivers and extreme hot-air balloonists like Steve Fossett, who not too long ago was declared dead after he and his 'round-the-world balloon disappeared. There are still folks out there who take pride in setting a goal and accomplishing it.
But according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Kodas, getting to the summit of Mt. Everest has turned ugly, and more dangerous due to commercialism and greed.
In High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed (Hyperion Books. 357 pages. $24.95), author Kodas recounts, from personal experience, a once pure pastime muddied by misguided motivation.
Anthropologist David Givens has decoded the body language of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein for the Department of Defense and now he's written a book to help the average person do the same thing.
In Crime Signals: How to Spot a Criminal Before You Become a Victim (St. Martin's, 210 pages, $24.95), Givens gives real-life examples of crimes and survival.
The book title and the cute little boy playing chess on the cover are what drew me to Nerds: Who Are They and Why We Need More of Them (Tarcher/Penguin, 253 pages, $24.95) by David Anderegg.
In his attempt to change our thinking about long-standing stereotypes that start affecting our children and younger and younger ages, Anderegg, a psychology professor and child psychologist, dissects the terms "nerd" and "geek" — a uniquely American stereotype, by the way — in a way that is engaging and understandable. Just check out some of the chapter titles...
I've got a secret. But I'm certainly not going to write it here.
I might consider writing it on a postcard and sending it to Frank Warren, though. Ever since Warren started his "Post a Secret" project several years ago, folks have been writing down their deepest secrets on postcards and sending them off into the universe.
Warren's third book in the project, A Lifetime of Secrets (William Morrow, 288 pages, $26.95) is as depressing as the first two, but I couldn't put it down.
How often have you gotten into shoving matches or fistfights at work over the last three years?
That question was asked of Alex Frankel during an interview for a job at Home Depot. Frankel, a writer, went "undercover" to work at some of America's biggest retail companies to find out what it is about these environments that creates such dedicated (if underpaid) employees.
Frankel, who has written about business before, in publications such as Wired, Fast Company, the New York Times Magazine and Outside, put the results of his research — two years worth — in book form this time: Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee (Collins, 208 pages, $24.95).
People of faith like to believe that miracles happen every day; not the kind that you read about in the books of the saints, but the small things: the baby stopped crying after four straight hours; finding a parking space right away on a busy street; farmer gets a rainstorm after two weeks of drought.
The big ones rarely happen, but a couple of years ago in Buffalo, N.Y., a firefighter who had been in a vegetative state for 10 years, "woke up." He started talking, and for the good part of a day was able to interact with his family and friends. Journalist Rich Blake, the cousin of the firefighter's wife, has written a riveting account of Herbert's life and miraculous awakening in The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up: A True Story (Harmony Books, 246 pages, $23) ...
I never expected to be a pet owner in adulthood — too much responsibility. What if I go on vacation, what do I feed it, it'll make my house smell, the shedding will never end, it'll get sick and die and I'll be heartbroken. But, a few years ago, circumstances led young Clarence into my life and, well, here I am, a happy cat owner.
Clarence is remarkably agreeable and, to my knowledge, has never been ill. So far, so good. He has, however, put on weight, which I don't understand because he doesn't really eat much. The vet made some dietary suggestions but I wanted to do some investigating on my own. Coincidentally The Cat Bible: Everything Your Cat Expects You to Know (Gotham, 370 pages, $17.50) came across my desk a couple of months ago...
Author Harry Mount begins his book with explanations of one of Angelina Jolie's tattoos, specifically one spelled out on her belly: Quod me nutrit me destruit.
It means "What nourishes me destroys me" — a curious little phrase to be permanently marked on one's person, but this book is so not about Angelina. Carpe Diem: Put a Little Latin in Your Life (Hyperion, 259 pages, $19.95) is a Latin primer for the layperson...
Everybody has a story to tell and if Dave Isay has his way, everybody will get a chance to tell their story. Isay is the founder of StoryCorps, the largest oral history project in the nation, and editor of Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life From the Storycorps Project (Penguin, 284 pages, $24.95)...
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (Bloomsbury, 185 pages, $19.95) is a curious little book.
The back cover asks a multiple choice question: Which of these great books have you:
A) talked about convincingly without ever cracking the spine?
B) read so long ago that you can't remember anything but the title?
C) skimmed just enough to have an opinion?
D) heard about so often that you don't have to bother reading it?
E) actually read?
As an editor, I have my personal pet peeves when reading others' work; as a writer I'm well aware that my editors may roll their eyes from time to time at some of my quirks and/or bad habits. It's all in a day's work in the business of publishing.
If I were Santa Claus' special agent in charge of picking out gifts for those who work with words, I'd stuff Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing (William Morrow, 91 pages, $14.95) in the stockings of needy writers everywhere...
What better subject to tackle on Halloween than ghosts? And who better to tell us about them than the real life Ghost Whisperer. No, I'm not talking about Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays a version of her on TV; I'm talking about Mary Ann Winkowski, whose new book, When Ghosts Speak: Understanding the World of Earthbound Spirits (Grand Central Publishing, 238 pages, $24.99), gives us her version of her "gift," in three parts.
In Part I: Listening to Spirits, Winkowski tells the story of how her maternal grandmother discovered that her young granddaughter shared her gift of communicating with spirits. Apparently it's passed down through generations but somehow skipped Winkowski's mother...
Seeing as I work at a newspaper, Porcupine, Picayune & Post: How Newspapers Get Their Names (University of Missouri Press, 181 pages, $34.95) seemed like a no-brainer when I pulled it off the shelf. I thought it would be filled with interesting, fun, entertaining stories ...
Years ago, when my somewhat newlywed sister and brother-in-law were looking to buy their first house, they agreed to purchase a house with all of its contents. Turns out, the elderly woman who had lived there recently die
