Ina Garten, former owner of the specialty store "Barefoot Contessa" and star of the Food Network's television show of the same name, has a new cookbook out called "barefoot contessa at home". Reviews of the cookbook and some recipes are in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News. Ms. Garten just seems like such a nice person and a fantastic hostess.
Showing posts with label book reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book reviews. Show all posts
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Monday, November 27, 2006
Book Review -- Flower of the Moment
My book review of Flower of the Moment: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Best 100 Flowering Plants is up at Garden and Hearth. This book is gorgeous and would make an excellent Christmas gift for a gardener.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Book Review -- Hoot
Originally appeared in Haruah on 03 May 2006 in One for the Book.
Hoot
by Carl Hiaasen
published by Alfred A. Knopf
New York, 2002
ISBN 0-440-41939-5
Carl Hiaasen brings his sense of humor to a young audience in Hoot, a delightful novel filled with quirky characters and their sometimes zany, sometimes sensible antics. Set in Florida, the book is a light comedy with a mystery centered around endangered owls and a national chain of fictional pancake houses.
Roy Eberhardt, the new kid in town, is being squished by the local bully, when he sees a boy running barefoot alongside the school bus. The boy veers away from the bus, clearly not going to school, and Roy's curiosity is piqued. He waits several days until he sees the boy again, then jumps off the bus and runs after him. What follows is a series of events in which he outwits the bully, solves the mystery of the truant boy, and exposes criminal doings at a construction site, while making new friends and adjusting to his new home.
There were two things I particularly liked about Hoot. The first one, and the big one for me, is the portrayal of the main character and his family. Roy is a good kid, who loves his parents and wants to please them, and he is normal. His parents are both alive, married to each other, and normal. When Roy has a problem, he talks to his parents. They listen to him and he listens to their advice. In true kid fashion, he doesn't share everything with them, he doesn't follow their advice to the letter, and he doesn't behave perfectly, but he does try to do the right thing within the limits his parents have defined for him.
The second thing I liked may be considered a bit of a spoiler for the ending, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. Roy solves the central problem of the book by thinking the problem through and using legal means to prove his case to his parents and enlisting their support. No calling the bad guys and having them meet him in a dark alley. No elaborate plans involving booby traps. This brought the story into the real world for me. A middle-school kid could not take on a corporation in the real world. He would need to recruit adults to his cause, and that is what Roy Eberhardt does.
Hoot is a Newbery Honor winner and a New York Times bestseller. A movie version is due to be released in theaters in May. Carl Hiaasen has written many novels about ecological problems in Florida and the offbeat characters who solve them, though this was his first written for a young audience. He has since written a second novel also aimed at ages ten and up called Flush.
I highly recommend this book for the younger readers in your life. Or read it yourself. It's a hoot.
Hoot
by Carl Hiaasen
published by Alfred A. Knopf
New York, 2002
ISBN 0-440-41939-5
Carl Hiaasen brings his sense of humor to a young audience in Hoot, a delightful novel filled with quirky characters and their sometimes zany, sometimes sensible antics. Set in Florida, the book is a light comedy with a mystery centered around endangered owls and a national chain of fictional pancake houses.
Roy Eberhardt, the new kid in town, is being squished by the local bully, when he sees a boy running barefoot alongside the school bus. The boy veers away from the bus, clearly not going to school, and Roy's curiosity is piqued. He waits several days until he sees the boy again, then jumps off the bus and runs after him. What follows is a series of events in which he outwits the bully, solves the mystery of the truant boy, and exposes criminal doings at a construction site, while making new friends and adjusting to his new home.
There were two things I particularly liked about Hoot. The first one, and the big one for me, is the portrayal of the main character and his family. Roy is a good kid, who loves his parents and wants to please them, and he is normal. His parents are both alive, married to each other, and normal. When Roy has a problem, he talks to his parents. They listen to him and he listens to their advice. In true kid fashion, he doesn't share everything with them, he doesn't follow their advice to the letter, and he doesn't behave perfectly, but he does try to do the right thing within the limits his parents have defined for him.
The second thing I liked may be considered a bit of a spoiler for the ending, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. Roy solves the central problem of the book by thinking the problem through and using legal means to prove his case to his parents and enlisting their support. No calling the bad guys and having them meet him in a dark alley. No elaborate plans involving booby traps. This brought the story into the real world for me. A middle-school kid could not take on a corporation in the real world. He would need to recruit adults to his cause, and that is what Roy Eberhardt does.
Hoot is a Newbery Honor winner and a New York Times bestseller. A movie version is due to be released in theaters in May. Carl Hiaasen has written many novels about ecological problems in Florida and the offbeat characters who solve them, though this was his first written for a young audience. He has since written a second novel also aimed at ages ten and up called Flush.
I highly recommend this book for the younger readers in your life. Or read it yourself. It's a hoot.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Book Review -- Sweetness in the Belly
Sweetness in the Belly
by Camilla Gibb
The Penguin Press, 2006
ISBN 1-59420-084-X
A story about an orphaned British girl growing up in Africa under Islam, this novel examines love, faith, longing, and regret. Lilly, the main character, starts the novel as a nurse in England in the early 1980s. Here, we are introduced to her faith, her traditions, and her hopes and fears. Soon the novel shifts back in time to Harar, Ethiopia in the early 1970s and the end of what Lilly calls a pilgrimage, but what we soon learn is a flight. As these two timelines progress, Lilly's life unfolds with all the trials of a being a foreigner in a fairly closed society and being a girl growing up without family and having to make her own ties to the community.
Ours was a rich and good life in a small and peaceful place, a self-contained universe hooked up to its own generator. But after seven years of devotion – measuring the weight of every word, savoring the hard edges, feeling them dissolve in my mouth as I stood, as I kneeled, as I pressed my forehead to the ground – the insularity of our bubble burst.
When Lilly is fifteen, her life of study ends and the next phase begins. Her life in Harar is difficult when the local sheikh refuses to honor her adopted father's wishes that she be allowed to continue her studies. He sends her into the streets of Harar where she knows no one, not even the language. One of the sheikh's wives takes Lilly to a relative for shelter. Lilly soon finds she must earn her own way and earn the respect of the community, things she has taken for granted her whole life.
The revolution in Ethiopia which deposed Emperor Haile Selassie sends thousands of Ethiopians across the world as refugees, among them Lilly. She leaves behind the man she has fallen in love with and the family she has grown into and returns to England, a place she doesn't remember. She settles in with the other refugees, resisting assimilation for as long as she can, holding out hope that someone she knows will also surface and she can again find that sense of community for which she worked so hard.
To me, Ethiopia has always been that country on the news where people starved to death and the government allowed it. I knew little about the daily life of the people or the war that followed those images on the television. With beautiful prose, Camilla Gibb explores this time and place and lets me peek into what might have been.
New Articles
I've been hiking for the last few days, so I haven't been keeping the blog updated.
I have a book review up at Haruah. Jamaican Me Crazy: A Christmas Escape is Christian chick lit, but don't let that scare you. There's no preaching and you don't have to know anything about religion to enjoy the silliness in this book. It's good, clean fun.
Garden and Hearth has published my snapdragon article. Snapdragons are one of my favorite flowers for their color and easy care, as well as that nifty snapping sound their jaws make.
I have a book review up at Haruah. Jamaican Me Crazy: A Christmas Escape is Christian chick lit, but don't let that scare you. There's no preaching and you don't have to know anything about religion to enjoy the silliness in this book. It's good, clean fun.Garden and Hearth has published my snapdragon article. Snapdragons are one of my favorite flowers for their color and easy care, as well as that nifty snapping sound their jaws make.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Book Review -- The Complete Organic Pregnancy
Three-word summary: Wish I'd known.
The Complete Organic Pregnancy
by Deirdre Dolan and Alexandra Zissu
Harper Collins, 2006
ISBN 0-06-088745-1
The Complete Organic Pregnancy sums up its mission on the cover with its subtitle: "What you need to know--from the nail polish you wear to the bed you sleep in to the water you drink". The authors cover everything I researched for my own pregnancy and then many more things that never crossed my mind. Their thoroughness is evident in the lists of common products, their ingredients, and the effects of those ingredients on people.
The book is divided into three sections: Transforming, what to change before becoming pregnant; Growing, what to watch out for during the nine months; and Living, what to do once the baby is here. Each section is further broken down into manageable subsections: food, home and work environments, wellness, fitness and play, and beauty. Special subsections focus on situations unique to each time. For example, the subsection titled "Getting a Late Start" in the Transforming section offers a list of ten actions to take if you found out you or your significant other were pregnant before transforming.
Charts, lists, and sidebars organize information in an easy-to-reference fashion. Personal anecdotes from the authors, their friends and family, and well-known health and environment writers round out the presentation of information. The appendix includes several yummy and nutritious recipes, ranging from downhome to trendy.
The authors stay sane about every topic, no matter how potentially dreadful. They do not suggest that you replace all the furniture in your home if you find out the padding is toxic, or the stain contains a dangerous chemical; they do suggest steps to take to reduce any possible risks from the substances. This is not a book that would have scared me when I was pregnant, as some pregnancy books are well-known to do (and did). Rather it would have comforted me, knowing that I was doing as much as humanly possible to ensure my baby's best start in this world. And it would have filled in the gaps in my knowledge with simple recommendations for action.
The Complete Organic Pregnancy is thorough and touches on every topic imaginable. If there was one thing I would change about it, that would be to add citations for the studies and facts they quote. The copy I have is an uncorrected proof copy, so there may be plans to include a citations section before publication. I recommend this book for anyone pregnant or planning a pregnancy.
The Complete Organic Pregnancy
by Deirdre Dolan and Alexandra Zissu
Harper Collins, 2006
ISBN 0-06-088745-1
The Complete Organic Pregnancy sums up its mission on the cover with its subtitle: "What you need to know--from the nail polish you wear to the bed you sleep in to the water you drink". The authors cover everything I researched for my own pregnancy and then many more things that never crossed my mind. Their thoroughness is evident in the lists of common products, their ingredients, and the effects of those ingredients on people.
The book is divided into three sections: Transforming, what to change before becoming pregnant; Growing, what to watch out for during the nine months; and Living, what to do once the baby is here. Each section is further broken down into manageable subsections: food, home and work environments, wellness, fitness and play, and beauty. Special subsections focus on situations unique to each time. For example, the subsection titled "Getting a Late Start" in the Transforming section offers a list of ten actions to take if you found out you or your significant other were pregnant before transforming.
Charts, lists, and sidebars organize information in an easy-to-reference fashion. Personal anecdotes from the authors, their friends and family, and well-known health and environment writers round out the presentation of information. The appendix includes several yummy and nutritious recipes, ranging from downhome to trendy.
The authors stay sane about every topic, no matter how potentially dreadful. They do not suggest that you replace all the furniture in your home if you find out the padding is toxic, or the stain contains a dangerous chemical; they do suggest steps to take to reduce any possible risks from the substances. This is not a book that would have scared me when I was pregnant, as some pregnancy books are well-known to do (and did). Rather it would have comforted me, knowing that I was doing as much as humanly possible to ensure my baby's best start in this world. And it would have filled in the gaps in my knowledge with simple recommendations for action.
The Complete Organic Pregnancy is thorough and touches on every topic imaginable. If there was one thing I would change about it, that would be to add citations for the studies and facts they quote. The copy I have is an uncorrected proof copy, so there may be plans to include a citations section before publication. I recommend this book for anyone pregnant or planning a pregnancy.
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