Book Review: The Gallery of Regrettable Food

Author: James Lileks

Pages: 191

Date: 2001

Genre: Non-Fiction, Comedy, Pop Culture

Personal Rating: 5/5

From the back cover:

WARNING: This is not a cookbook. You'll find no tongue-tempting treats within -- unless, of course, you consider Boiled Cow Elbow with Plaid Sauce to be your idea of a tasty meal. No, The Gallery of Regrettable Food is a public service. Learn to identify these dishes. Learn to regard shivering liver molds with suspicion. Learn why curries are a Communist plot to undermine decent, honest American spices. Learn to heed the advice of stern, fictional nutritionists. If you see any of these dishes, please alert the authorities.

Now, the good news: laboratory tests prove that The Gallery of Regrettable Food AMUSES as well as informs. Four out of five doctors recommend this book for its GENEROUS PORTIONS OF HILARITY and ghastly pictures from RETRO COOKBOOKS. You too will look at these products of post-war cuisine and ask: "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?" It's an affectionate look at the days when starch ruled, pepper was a dangerous spice, and Stuffed Meat with Meat Sauce was considered health food.

Bon appetit!

I thought this book was absolutely fantastic based mainly upon it's uniqueness. Basically Lileks makes fun of recipes he has found dating from the 50's to the 70's. It had incredible photos of the dishes, retro fonts and colors, and a cool layout. I laughed out loud several times. He shows pictures of each dish and then "talks" about that dish. Most of the dishes are just plain disgusting. There were two chapters near the end that dragged a little but besides that it was a very fast read. I plan on keeping it on my coffee table so people can grab it for a good laugh.

MY FAVORITE QUOTES:

Ladies, serve toast--and well-groomed twins in tuxedos will want to have sex with you!

Perhaps that circle is not a cross section of a spine, but a blowhole (ahem) of sorts--of a false eye to confuse predators. Put it on the floor and watch it frighten the dog.

This looks very much like a magnified cluster of warts. Although warts don't usually come with parsely.

I don't know, and I don't want to know. I just don't. It's a cucumber fun house, perhaps: notice how they seem to be pressing against the sides of the mold as if demanding our attention. Help! We're being felt up by smelly salmon in here --let us out

James Lileks has a website "The Official Institute of Good Cheer" on which the Gallery of Regrettable Food is based.

Book Review: PLACE LAST SEEN

The Place Last Seen

Author: Charlotte Freeman

Pages: 292

Personal Rating: 3/5

From the back cover:

During an idyllic autumn-day hike in the Desolation Wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas, the Baker family is hurled into a nightmare. Playing hide-and-seek with her older brother, Luke, six-year-old Maggie runs away-and she cannot be found. Her father, Richard, and mother, Anne, search desperately before racing down the mountain to call in a Search and Rescue team. The team arrives with experienced trackers, volunteers, dogs, and topographic maps and begins a thorough search from the place where Maggie was last seen. But the search is complicated by an unpredictable factor: willful and energetic, Maggie baker is also a Down Syndrome child, and there is no telling how she will move as she wanders in the wilderness. Richard, Anne, and Luke can only wait and hope that she will leave a clue, a trail that will lead them to her.

The story is told from two viewpoints, the family and the search and rescue team as they look for Maggie. You never get a chance to personally “meet” Maggie as she is already lost when you begin the story but you get to know her from the emotions and descriptions from her family members. The story covers only a few days and not much happens (they look for Maggie). The focus is on the emotional nightmare that all the people involved face and how it comes at different people from different angles. I really disliked the mother and felt so sorry for the “big” brother (10 years old?). At times I wanted to strangle the mother myself and wondered how do search and rescue teams actually deal with people like her?

I also wondered how people can endure such stressful and terrible situations. How would I react if I was in that situation? I think until you’re there you will never truly know.

The 3/5 rating was given because it was a little slow and boring at times but still a very good read that I would recommend.

Book Review: SISTER INDIA

Sister India

Author: Peggy Payne

Pages: 275

Personal Rating: 3/5

From the inside cover:

The lonely Planet guidebook recommends the Saraswati Guest House in Varanasi and meeting its proprietor Madame Natraja, ' a one-woman blend of East and West', as a worthwhile side trip for the adventurous traveler in India. Over the course of one weekend, several guests turn up at the Saraswati, shocked to encounter a nearly four-hundred-pound surly white woman in a sari. Jill Thornton, thirtyish and single, has come only to rest and see the sights before home from a business trip to New Delhi. T J Clayton, a swaggering southern bureaucrat, has arrived in India on a grant to study the pollution-plagued River Ganges. And Marie Jasper, nearly eighty years old, has ventured to Varanasi alone, after the death of her husband, to find peace by the holy river.

But as happens so often in India, Natraja's guests find more than what they came for. When a series of Hindu-Muslim murders rocks the peace of this sacred place, the entire city is placed under curfew indefinitely - no one may leave his home. Natraja's guests unwittingly become her captives, and the guardians of her secrets. So begins a period of days blending into nights, as Natraja and her Indian cook become entangled in the web of religious violence. And their guests each fall slowly under the spell of Varanasi - both enthralled and repelled by its wandering holy men, public funeral pyres, and pilgrims bathing in the Ganges at dawn. They feel the rumble of their own inner revolutions as they are drawn further and further into the folds of their captive city.

I decided to read this book based on my travel to China a few years ago. Since then I’ve been interested in reading books set in different countries, especially those in Asia. I’m hoping to travel again someday soon hoping to “experience” the different cultures like I did in China. I’ve been enjoying books where the experience of being there is as important as the story. I felt like I was in Varanasi when I read Sister India. It made we want to travel there.

Trying to “pick out” the plotline is difficult because the story wanders back and forth between the past and present and the various people in the guest house. Yes, they are all under curfew but there is no one “goal” everyone is working towards or a unifying idea happening. It’s more each person’s individual experience tied together by the curfew. I think this is fine but it isn’t for everyone.

I gave Sister India 3/5 stars because even though it gave you the experience of being in India it had the potential to be one of those books that LOTS of people would read and enjoy. If it had focused on fewer events in more detail and had better character development I think it could have been a fantastic book. As is it is a “good” book.

Book Around the World Challenge

I'm addicted to challenges. Since this one did not have an end date I figured I would add it to the list. As I've been reading through blogs and reviews I've found myself becoming interested in books set in different countries. This challenge seems perfect since I already have a few of these books around and I was planning on buying a few in in the future.

AFGHANISTAN
The Bookseller of Kabul

ANTARCTICA
AUSTRALIA
BOLIVIA
BRAZIL
CANADA

CHINA
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Women of the Silk*

CUBA
EGYPT
ENGLAND
FRANCE

GERMANY
The Book Thief
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas*

HONG KONG

INDIA
Sister India*

IRELAND
ISRAEL
ITALY

JAPAN
Memiors of a Geisha *

KOREA
Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood *

MOROCCO
NEW ZEALAND
NIGERIA
PORTUGAL

RUSSIA
The Madonnas of Leningrad

RWANDA
SCOTLAND
SPAIN
SRI LANKA
SUDAN
TURKEY

Books I have but haven't read yet...
The Alchemist (Spain)
Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris (France)
Anil's Ghost (Sri Lanka)
Astrid and Veronika (Sweden)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (China)
Bel Canto (South America)
Beneath a Marble Sky (India)
The Birth of Venus (Italy)
The Blind Assassin (Canada)
The Blood of Flowers (Iran)
The Bonesetter's Daughter (China)
Borderliners (Denmark)
Breath, Eyes, Memory (Haiti)
Brick Lane (Bangladesh)
The Brief History of the Dead (Antarctica)
The Burning Times (France)
Chocolat (France)
The Crimson Petal and the White (Great Britain)
Crocodile on the Sandbank (Egypt)
Damascus Gate (Israel)
The Devil's Arithmetic (Poland)
Dreams of My Russian Summer (Russia)
The Dress Lodger (England)
The Egyptologist (Egypt)
Exodus (Palestine)
Fall on Your Knees (Nova Scotia)
Fieldwork (Thailand)
The Fig Eater (Hungary)
From Baghdad with Love (Iraq)
The God of Small Things (India)
Harem (Iran)
Holder of the World (India)
The House of the Spirits (Chile)
I, Mona Lisa (Italy)
The Intelligencer (Great Britain)
Kabul Beauty School (Afghanistan)
The Kite Runner (Afghanistan)
Koko (Vietnam)
Like Water for Chocolate (Mexico)
A Long Way Gone: Memiors of a Boy Soldier: (Sierra Leone)
The Looking Glass (France)
Love in the Time of Cholera (Colombia)
Madame Bovary (France)
Map of Bones (Germany)
The Map of Love (Egypt)
The Masque of the Black Tulip (England)
Napoleon's Pyramids (Egypt)
Peony in Love (China)
Pig Island (Scotland)
The Poisonwood Bible (Belgian Congo)
Pompeii (Italy)
The Reader (Germany)
River God (Egypt)
The Robber Bride (Canada)
The Samurai's Garden (China)
The Shadow of the Wind (Spain)
Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China
The Shipping News (Newfoundland)
The Sixteen Pleasures (Italy)
Slammerkin (London)
Soul Mountain (China)
Star of the Sea (Ireland)
A Thousand Splendid Suns (Afghanistan)
The Twentieth Wife (India)
Waiting (China)
Wide Sargasso Sea (West Indies)


Book Around the World

* = didn't make "the list" but I'm still including it anyway

Cardathon Challenge

Challenge starts January 1st 2008 (but can really begin anytime)

To qualify for the Cardathon Challenge a book needs to meet one of the following criteria:

1) a book written by Orson Scott Card
2) a book edited/compiled by Orson Scott Card
3) a book with an introduction by Orson Scott Card
4) a book reviewed by Orson Scott Card on his official website.

No requirement on the number of books. Six to twelve are recommended.

Becky at Becky's Book Reviews has set up the challenge. The blog is Cardathon Challenge

MY TENTATIVE BOOK LIST TO CHOOSE FROM

Magic Mirror
Invasive Procedures
Seventh Son (Alvin Maker)
Red Prophet (Tales of Alvin Maker, Book 2)
Rachel & Leah
Rebekah
Lovelock
Cruel Miracles
Enchantment
The Folk of the Fringe
Homecoming: Harmony
Saints
Songmaster
The Worthing Saga

I needed to linked them because I kept forgetting what each one was about.

Themed Reading Challenge

January 1st 2008 - June 30 2008

Choose at least 4 books that share a theme. Write a review about each book you complete and a final wrap up at the end of the challenge.

POSSIBLE THEMES:

* Set in Asian countries

* Cozy (never read before)

* Softball or baseball

* Involve genetics

I ended up going with none of the above! My theme is...
Books by Lois Lowry

1. The Giver by Lois Lowry (completed 1.27.08)
2. Gathering Blue
3. The Messenger
4. Number the Stars

Link to the blog here: themed reading challenge hosted by caribousmom

Just4thehelluvit Reading Challenge

No time limit, no lists. The only rule is your books cannot cross over to any other challenges. You read a book or books just for the helluvit.

Here is the link to the blog: just4thehelluvit

Books I've Read for the Challenge: