dispatches from book expo america
May 2010

The only thing worth schleping out to the Javits Center, a huge wasteland of a convention center in NYC on 11th avenue (did you even know New York had an 11th avenue?) is for Book Expo America . And schlep I did. So here’s a sneak preview of what’s to come over the next few months, reported in no particular order and tied together solely by the fact that I’m crazy about these books. Keep an eye out for them as the come down the pipeline; they’re worth waiting for.

To the End of the Land
by David Grossman
Knopf, September 2010
When Ora’s youngest son leaves to take part in a major military operation in Lebanon at the end of his Israeli army service, Ora takes to the hills—literally—with a close childhood friend to escape the possibility of bad news. Like Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking, To the End of the Land uses the logic, thought patterns, and sentence construction of trauma to force the reader close and closer to what it feels like to live in the suspended state of enormous loss. Hoping that both her constant motion and the telling of Ofer, her son’s, life story will keep him safe, Ora and Avram embark on a journey driven by “magical thinking” across the country that all three of them have sacrificed enormously to protect. Grossman, as always, writes brilliantly about the psychological, social, and familial effects living in a state perpetually engaged with the threat of war has on its people—be they the aggressors or the victims. I read this 630-page novel in a frenzied day and a half. I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t think about anything else. To the End of the Land does what truly great books do: it changes you; when I finished reading it the world was the same but I was different.

All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost
by Lan Samantha Chang
Norton, September 2010
Set at a renowned writing school, two young poets, Roman and Bernard are drawn into orbit around a brilliant, harsh, and captivating professor and poet, Miranda. As both men strive to win her attention and respect, “the boundaries between mentorship, friendship, and love are blurred.” Once they leave school, Miranda’s presence continues to cast a shadow on their lives and their art, serving to illuminate the different paths that they’ve chosen as they each labor to reach the heart of their ambitions and art. A fierce, captivating gem of a novel. Lan Samantha Chang is a stunning and under-read writer. All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost is destined to make her a household name.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Scribner, November 2010
A not-just-readable but riveting “biography” of cancer. Mukherjee writes about cancer from virtually every way possible—from its first documented case thousands of years ago to the patients he is serving today. And he comes at his subject with a researcher’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s infatuation. Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Mukherjee’s book will totally change not just who is reading science or medical literature but how it is being read. On every level, this book is a game-changer.

Great House
by Nicole Krauss
Norton, October 2010
If you read The History of Love you’re already familiar with Krauss’s dexterity of voice-driven, intertwined, first person narratives (and if you haven’t read The History of Love you will put this down right now, go rustle up a copy, and not come back until you’ve read it—trust me, you’ll thank me later). Great House employs all of those techniques again but because they are being employed by a master, it really doesn’t matter that we’ve seen that routine before. The novel tracks four narratives, connected across time and place by the appearance and disappearance of looming, bulky desk, which was supposedly owned by Lorca at some point in its past. Warning: Great House is neither as well-written nor as well-edited as History of Love. In places, the structure feels messy and poorly handled and her characters' voices sometimes meld, but the book is worth reading if only because when Krauss hits it, there is nobody better. Like her previous two novels, Krauss focuses on nothing less than the struggle to create meaning out of madness, and the enduring and, at times, suffocating power of memory.

going green, one book at a time
July 2009

As far as green goes, books aren’t exactly top of the environmentally-sound list.  But, frankly, a literate society is worth a little more heat and a little less iceberg.  In an attempt to help you miscreants reduce your carbon footprint, I offer up these five titles:

If you want to make up for the number of books you buy, say, check out John
Seymour’s charming volume, The Concise Guide to Self-Sufficiency.  Besides being a visually attractive book—excellent illustrations, well-formatted, clearly organized—it covers the basics of what you need to hurl yourself into the delightfully isolating realm of self-sufficiency.  The book is organized into seven sections, which are designed to get you started with everything from cultivating your own garden, to the housing and feeding of pigs.  Want to learn about wind generators or the fine art of basketry?  This book’s got you covered.  The book is chocked full of practical advice; in fact, I would say it’s comprised entirely of practical advice and I love that the author takes for granted a certain basic skill level and willingness on the part of his readers.  Take the chapter on meat, “Building a smokehouse is a matter of common sense and a little ingenuity.”  That someone on this planet believes that I might actually build a smokehouse, is reason enough to love this book.   But the author pushes on and assumes that I’ll not only build it but use it.  And, I suppose, anything’s possible.

Two books, The Urban Homestead  (Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen) and Toolbox for Sustainable City Living  (Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew) fix their environmentally-friendly gaze on city dwellers.  Take, for instance, the section on fruit foraging in The Urban Homestead which instructs readers on the dos and don’ts of picking from trees that aren’t yours, “The law states that any fruit growing in a parkway strip, or on branches hanging over a sidewalk or alley is in public space and therefore fair game for you to pick.”  And, a la Emily Post, the authors further state, “Of course it is better to ask permission when you can, and of course we don’t need to tell you not to break braches, climb on fences, or otherwise behave like a hooligan when you are picking fruit.”  Yeah!  And keep your elbows off the table, while you’re at it!  Both of these books look at utilities, gardening, and transportation from an urban perspective, and their advice is applicable whether you’re in a Brooklyn brownstone or a Santa Cruz dorm room.
Already compost your food and, ahem, bodily waste? 

Ready to take the next step?  Welcome to Green Remodeling: Changing the World One Room at a Time by David Johnston and Kim Master.  This book is a great starter how-to for when you’re ready to start tearing out those walls.  It preaches to both the choir and the unconverted by taking the reader through the energy, cost, and health advantages of doing a green remodel.  And for those of us who, though capable of building a smokehouse, may be less familiar with general home construction principles, it’ll get you up to speed.  Finally, the book outlines key green renovation solutions, ie foundations, framing, roofing, plumbing, electrical, insulation, water heating—basically everything that I hope to one day pay someone else to do for me—in a clear, interesting, and fabulously-readable way.

If, like editors Bryan Bell and Katie Wareford, you’re ready to start thinking globally, check out their book, Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism.  Questioning how design can improve people’s daily lives, the editors map out the growing landscape of architectural activism.  This book looks all over the world, at all kinds of architectural projects, and offers a compelling argument and call to arms for architecture as activism.  The essays are fantastic—lively, fascinating, diverse, and thorough, and the design of the book is awesome.  It’s got a bright, hip, and modern aesthetic that actually works, not irritates.  And the ways it couples text, images, graphics, and photographs enhances the reader’s experience.  I rarely say this about a book of this type, but Expanding Architecture is a do-not-miss title.

So, there you have it.  Break out the sickle, spade, and solar panels and hoe your way to a more sustainable tomorrow.  As the first literate American president in almost a decade says, “Yes, we can!”

chew on this: books about eating
June 2009

Read a Fucking Book has been getting a lot of inquiries about health and fitness books, lately.  (Though why you’d want the snarky RAFB advice columnists giving you any sort of life advice is beyond me.)  But you asked for it, you got it; don’t say I didn’t warn you.

When I think of health and fitness, I think of one thing: dinner.  And, if I’m honest, breakfast and lunch.  So, I’ll leave the task of teaching you Pilates, or the art of macrobiotic living to someone else, and bring you, instead, cured meats, artisan cheeses, and the most politically infused foie gras a girl can find.

I don’t often read, let alone recommend, any sort of “best of” anthologies.  But for The Best Food Writing, 2008 (ed. Holly Hughes), I will happily make an exception.  The collection that Ms. Hughes pulled together has convinced me that the only thing better than sitting down to a big meal is reading about one.  Drawing in food writer heavy weights like Colman Andrews, Anthony Bourdain, Frank Bruni, Bill Buford, Barbara Kingsolver, Madhur Jaffrey, Ruth Reichl, Raymond Sokolov, and Jeffrey Steingarten, to name a few, The Best Food Writing, 2008 will have you salivating before you finish the first essay.  The book casts a wide net, covering a range of food-related topics and its table of contents boasts such gems as: “Let Them Eat Pate: Notes from the Foie Gras Underground” (by Peter Sagal, the hilarious and, apparently, food-savy host of NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me), “The Salami Maker Who Fought the Law,” “Fat’s What I’m Talking About,” and “Butter: A Love Story.”  If I had to pick one food book, this would be it.

If you want to temper the gluttony a little, try picking up Michael Pollan’s books, The Omnivore’s Dilema and In Defense of Food (or you could attempt the record of being the one, single person in America who hasn’t read either).  They’re both great and, not surprisingly, go well together.  The Omnivore’s Dilema takes four meals (or food making processes), industrial, big organic, local organic, and personal and follows the respective food chain involved in each from the ground to the table.  In Defense of Food is basically damage control for when you’ve finished Omnivore’s Dilema and refuse to buy anything from any supermarket ever again, but woefully lack the nineteenth-century skill-set required of you to actually procure your own food.  In other words, it makes sure you don’t starve.

Laurie Colwin is the mother of funny food writing.  Besides giving Gourmet Magazine an unstuffy breath of fresh air when she was a columnist for them (a feat which she should be knighted for), Colwin does readers of the world the favor of bringing them such essays as, “Stuffed Breast of Veal: A Bad Idea,” “How to Avoid Grilling,” and “Repulsive Dinners: A Memoir.”  A down to earth, insouciant New Yorker with, at one time, “a one-room apartment a little larger than the Columbia Encyclopedia,” Colwin is one of those writers whom you feel you know personally, from the casual nature of her prose.  Her musings on all things food related feel like they’re coming from your funny neighbor across the hall.  I mean, how can you not love a woman who writes, “I began with toasted cheese, that staple of starving people who live in garrets?"  She’s got two fabulous collections of food writing, Home Cooking  and the cleverly titled More Home Cooking.  As a side note, Colwin is an excellent short story writer and her collections, The Lone Pilgrim and Another Marvelous Thing are well-worth reading.

You can’t talk about food writers without talking about MFK Fisher—John Updike called her the poet of the appetites—I won’t even attempt such heretical behavior.  But—and I’m sure I will be stoned for this—the only one of her food writing books that is worth reading is How To Cook a Wolf, leave the rest for some fanatic apostle.  But, when she’s on, she’s unbeatable.  As the literary bigwigs have been singing her praises for years, and they certainly do a far better job, I’ll defer to W.H. Auden, who said, "I do not know of any one in the United States who writes better prose," and James Beard, who wrote, “She writes about fleeting tastes and feasts vividly, excitingly, sensuously, exquisitely. There is almost a wicked thrill in following her uninhibited track through the glories of the good life."

So, there you have it: the good life, distilled down to its most edible form.  Eat up!  And, as always, happy reading.