false 6 54 53 true 5867654 read 0 true 306189 currently-reading 1 true 306188 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74480428 to: Interpreter of Maladies (Paperback) by Jhumpa Lahiri
I don't read much fiction, but Jenny has been recommending this for a while.

She was right -- it's a nice collection. Some of the stories are a bit self-consciously sentimental, but a lot of them are just really nice vignettes. I especially enjoyed the India-set stories. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74065575 to: The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky (Paperback) by Joel Spolsky
Fantastically curated by Joel Spolsky.

It's interesting -- this book easily could have been a web site, but I'm not sure I would have read it or even found it. But this still works fairly well as a print product. In fact, I wish it would become an annual thing. There's so much stuff online and sometimes it's hard to find the best of it. Spolsky did a great job of weeding through it all. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71790715 to: The Accelerated Learning Handbook: A Creative Guide to Designing and Delivering Faster, More Effective Training Programs (Hardcover) by Dave Meier
An interesting concept, but the ideas are never really fleshed out. There's a lot of repetition and lists. Skimming the introduction pretty much gives you the entire book.
Some in-depth dissection of AL lessons and techniques would have gone a long way. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69781223 to: Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes (Hardcover) by Mark Bittman
Bittman basically advocates for not eating any processed food and eating less meat and dairy.

Reading the book, everything he says seems fairly obvious, but the connections he makes never occurred to me, so they can't be too obvious. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69329898 to: The Man Who Ate the World: In Search of the Perfect Dinner (Hardcover) by Jay Rayner
A really wonderful, amazing book!

I picked it up out of curiosity, having seen Rayner as a Top chef judge, but this is probably one of the best food books I've ever read. Rayner understands that you cannot separate food from culture, so his explorations of the global food culture are almost sociological. He doesn't just talk about what's on the plate; he also discusses how it got there and why it was put there.

Also, Rayner strikes a great balance between breathlessly fawning over expensive food and needlessly putting it down. He really gets across how inconsistent dining experiences can be. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68661073 to: The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket (Hardcover) by Trevor Corson
Amazingly well-researched, but even more impressively, amazingly well-written. It's good history and food science, but it reads like something a lot less dull and academic. Corson has an amazing gift for parceling out information so the reader doesn't feel bored or overwhelmed, while at the same time, giving readers an utterly complete overview of EVERYTHING about sushi.

This really blew me away. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/67444387 Gerry's review of The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket (P.S.)
by Trevor Corson

I feel a little guilty about what I did to that homeless guy. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/67645952 to: The Killing Fields (Paperback) by Sydney Schanberg
Very short but powerful.

The movie is actually very faithful to the article (this is just a book version of a Times magazine article).

Considering the article is about Dith Pran, it's kind of shocking Pran's voice and thoughts aren't more present. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/67645894 to: Seahawk: Confessions of an Old Goalie (Paperback) by Bruce Valley
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66952929 to: Ben-Gurion: A Biography (Hardcover) by Michel Bar-Zohar
Very interesting.

Bar-Zohar is obviously a huge admirer of Ben-Gurion. While the vast majority of the book is almost fawning in its devotion to B-G, the epilogue is shockingly critical. I'm not sure of the significance, but the shift from devotion into criticism felt a little jarring. ]]>