December 1st 2008

7/10/08

A chain of reading! A wild fire!

Kirsten picks this book up off Anna's desk, reads it to her seven-year-old niece, tells Cheffie about it. Cheffie considers reading it, even amid her reading of Second Nature and Walden.

posted by DRUNK N SAILOR at 2:03 pm

1 comment, labels: what we're reading

7/10/08

Sean's Books Day and Night

For daytime, Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen. "Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son. Shadow Country traverses strange landscapes and frontier hinterlands inhabited by Americans of every provenance and color, including the black and Indian inheritors of the archaic racism that, as Watson's wife observed, 'still casts its shadow over the nation.'"

And for the night, Out Stealing Horses by someone Norwegian.

posted by DRUNK N SAILOR at 1:48 pm

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7/10/08

Harry's Latest Read

But don't get too comfortable-- this dude eats books for breakfast, and he's almost done with this one.

"Seattle sailing instructor by day, rock musician by night, Jay Becker leads a life others only dream about...until he meets his new sailing student. A German beauty named Marlene, she soon sparks trouble beyond Jay's darkest imagining: beyond the lies about her "employer" - a shadowy figure known only as Albatross...beyond the brutal deaths surfacing in her wake...Soon Becker will be drowning in a sea of stolen U.S. defense secrets and high treason, trapped by a cold savagery that will test -or break- his last mortal fiber..."

posted by DRUNK N SAILOR at 1:43 pm

1 comment, labels: what we're reading

7/10/08

A book made for the subway

Last year I was given this book as a birthday gift. Finally, on my way to work each day, I've begun it.

"If, sooner or later, we all face the challenge or pleasure of eating alone, then Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant provides the perfect set of instructions. In this unique collection, twenty-six writers and foodies invite readers into their kitchens to reflect on the secret meals they make for themselves when no one else is looking: the indulgent truffled egg sandwich, the comforting bowl of black beans, the bracing anchovy fillet on buttered toast."

Imagine my surprise learning that Diner gets a nod in one of the stories compiled in this book! Jami Attenberg writes, "There's a long bar in the center of the restaurant lined with comfortable leather stools perfect for the solo diner, although I sometimes feel I'm sitting too close to the person next to me." There's even a recipe for Caroline Fidanza's Roasted Beet and Cucumber Salad with Ricotta Salata.

posted by DRUNK N SAILOR at 1:39 pm

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7/9/08

Why are old book covers so cool?

"A great crack opens in a volcano under the sea. There is an explosion of hot lava and burning ashes. The lava piles higher and higher.

Slowly, an island rises up in the sea.

There is no life on this new island. Yet, years later it is green with growing plants and teeming with living creatures.

Here is a wonderful story of the birth of an island. It is also the story of how plant and animal life come to any island in the world."

This book cost 35 cents when it came out.

posted by DRUNK N SAILOR at 2:00 pm

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7/9/08

The Old Diner and the Sea

I'm totally stealing this book off Anna's desk. The back cover reads: "We came from the sea, and we would be nothing without it. Without the sea, no clouds, no rain, no rivers, no life. Seven-tenths of the world's surface is sea. We play at its edges, we put down nets and feed from it, we send cargo across its ruffling surface. And yet it remains the wildest, strangest and least-known part of the planet: a puzzle. Science knows more about the surface of the moon than it does about the ocean floor (somewhere between ten million and a hundred million unclassified species live there; science has still to find out). We do not quite know how the sea works. Is it rising? Warming? How much pollution can it take? How many of its island states will disappear?

The sea is the natural arena for adventure, mystery and catastrophe (the Odyssey, Moby Dick, the Titanic, El Nino). But air has replaced water as the transporting element of the twentieth century, and the sea has been retreating in the imaginations of the West.

For too long we have turned our backs to it. This issue of Granta looks outward again."

Leah

posted by DRUNK N SAILOR at 1:47 pm

3 comments, labels: what we're reading

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