Food Rules!

  I started on a walk this morning and made it across the street.  Curious as ever about what showed up in the box... this morning was Out by Natsuo Kirino, Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry and surprise, surprise for this feasting week:  Food Rules by Michael Pollan.  Here's a review by the incomparable foodie who set the table in my Mom's kitchen growing up, none other than Jane Brody.

  Here are a couple of my favorite food rules from Pollan.  I realize some think Pollan's a bit preachy, but this book is really just full of excellent, practical food advice in a food landscape populated with many disastrous detours.

#19:  If it came from a plant eat it, if it was made in a plant don't.

# 22:  Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

#25:  Eat your colors.

# 30:  Eat well grown food from healthy soil.

and especially in light of this week's feasting:

#39:  Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

Enjoy the day!  So much to be thankful for, now for that walk.

Winter Walking

  Hi book folks.  It's Turkey week and the start of the Holidays.  I'm grateful for so many things including all the book contributions we continue to see in the Library Box.  This week alone saw twenty new books.  Count 'em Twenty new books!  Way cool.  Beyond way cool one of my favorite comedic writers showed up:  Bill Bryson.  Who ever picked up Wild, or anyone who enjoys a tale of misadventure... there's a gem in the form of Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

  Bryson is just drop dead, English dry humor infused, satisfyingly funny writing.  He's also a walker which is close to my heart as well.  The difference between Bryson and someone like Paul Salopek is that Bryson is more about the people and culture while someone like Salopek is quite the serious athlete/scholar.  Bryson is fun, Salopek is seven years serious about his Stroll Around the World.  Both are worthy reads for the winter ahead.

Thanks again neighbors!  

S

Catch Up

Just back from some California work & family time.   I hit up a couple neighborhood LFLs while down south & then caught up with Hope Crandall from the Friendly Park LFL this afternoon. The Friendly Park Library opened today and it's a perfect fit for a park with lots of young kids.  Similar to Whitty Storeys the box is roomy and was already attracting the attention of neighbors & kids.

Hope Crandall, showing a kids book @ Friendly Park

 Here's a sampling of what I borrowed from two California libraries.  I hadn't really thought of periodicals, but New Yorkers are welcome plane trip reading so I gave it a go.  My sister says these magazines are a sure sign that her south Bezerkeley neighborhood is truly gentrificating.

Some New Yorker mags & a McCall Smith book from California boxes

Anything New?

  When I travel for work I'm usually traveling solo.  I describe the dynamics of seat assignment as airline seat roulette, namely you never know exactly who'll end up sitting next to you.  It might be a harried parent who immediately apologizes that you've hit the jackpot of sitting next to a precocious six year old who will keep you entertained for the next five hours.  Or you might end up sitting next to a spreadsheet crunching business person whose entire body is vividly expressing the do not talk to me sign.

  When someone does sit beside me and via words or body clues is interested in talking I quite often ask what they're reading.  As in... what's that novel?  Fact or Fiction?  Living or Dead?  The last of these questions referring to whether or not the author of said book is with us or a voice from the past.  My version of the airline seat jackpot is someone who'll introduce me to an author I've never read or a genre I've never seriously considered.

  I've noticed two things about the box of late.  First that it's primarily living authors.  I'm sure a book seller could give you the stats for what proportion of books in circulation are living versus historical authors.  I think the box reflects living authors because that's pretty much what folks buy.  I hear an author interview and buy Wild by Cheryl Strayed, my seatmate coming back from Hawaii once was reading a Colin Thubron novel and I was introduced to Shadows of the Silk Road.

  Have you read a different author who showed up in the box?  There have been so many new authors (the second thing I've noticed) that I've seen books come & go before I even had the chance to peruse them and even think of reading them.  I will recommend a new copy of The Places In Between by Rory Stewart.  I'm a huge fan of this book which shares a similarity with Thubron's book, or Cairo to Capetown (Correction: Dark Star Safari, Overland from Cairo to Capetown) by Paul Theroux which is another informative, eye opening travelogue of world places most of us will never dust with our boots.

  Check out the box... interesting Portland/Brooklyn literary magazine called Tin House that showed up, a new set of kids books (go Ninja Turtles) and a spattering of historical authors such as Middlemarch by George Elliot.  Ninja Turtles to Cormac McCarthy and a nineteen century woman writing as a man, to an Ursula Le Guin essay in Tin House.  Quite a variety for the neighborhood.

 And here's a nice note from a passerby:  Beautiful ~ I will make one on my street!  For poetry & for books.  Thank You So Much, Candice.

Wild PCT

  OK so it's time for my personal recommendation.  Last Spring I was working in California and heard the NPR interview of Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild, Lost & Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Very much unlike me I went out & bought the hardcover edition of this book.  I passed it onto a friend and then recently it came back home and Linda read it on vacation.

  Cheryl's story resonated with me in part because as a young man (well kid really) I had hiked the Pacific Crest and her experiences rang true.  Now her story has a lot more sex, drugs and personal travails than my own and that's part of what makes this book work.  She's startlingly honest about her lack of preparation, inexperience and bumblings down the PCT.  What comes home with this book is not just the beauty of long distance hiking but the personal journey that helped her overcome life struggles.

  I've recently heard that PCT hikers, particularly women PCT hikers are on the uptick.  This new surge of through hikers has been branded as the "Wild" effect.  Regardless if this book sends you down the trail, it's quite well written and gets the PCT hiker's veracity seal of approval.  I'll drop the book off this pm and see how long it lasts in the box.

  Cheers... S