false 51 141 139 true 5689880 read 0 true 544373 currently-reading 2 true 544372 to-read 10 false 807409 poetry 10 false 804903 comics 9 false 1609000 partly-read 3 false 840087 cyberpunk 2 false 4836407 reread 2 false 4997709 sci-fi 1 false 7120414 cooking <![CDATA[Peter added 'The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73822524 to: The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen (Paperback) by Jacques Pépin
bookshelves: cooking
Pleasant, sumptuous, evenhanded democratic view of good food, from low to high cuisine, with lots of interesting stories thrown in, and recipes to boot!

Also, tons of cooking videos featuring Pepin available online -- here's one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc2kghrzX... ]]> <![CDATA[Peter added 'The Foundation Trilogy']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72320110 to: The Foundation Trilogy (Paperback) by Isaac Asimov
bookshelves: sci-fi
I'm really so pleased with this trilogy. Genre fiction at its best! Some mild signs of aging, and a few weak parts of the story, but a great, vigorous projection of imagination--so central to Sci Fi--picturing how history and society might replicate outward.

As a first-generation sci-fi writer, it seems clear that Asimov was drawing on influences outside the genre, which bodes well for the new genre-blending season we seem to be entering in the literary arts, and I feel, art in general. ]]> <![CDATA[Peter added 'The Year's Best Science Fiction: 25th Annual Collection']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55461581 to: The Year's Best Science Fiction: 25th Annual Collection (Paperback) by Gardner R. Dozois
bookshelves: sci-fi
It's really fun to be reading science fiction written in the last five years, since so much of our real-life experience of technology has changed in the Internet era.

A few thoughts on what I've read so far...

I'm struck by the manner in which science fiction has both anticipated and reinforced the computer age. To me, sci fi has always been about the excitement of technology, taking what it presently enables and adding imagination to speculate on where it might take us in the future.

In 1950 the vision was space flight and flying cars. These days, the Internet seems a huge influence on the science fiction imagination. Several of the short stories I've read imagine a future of impossibly dense worlds of information and virtual experience: virtual selves gone rogue and replicating themselves infinitely, worlds within worlds, and the chance to "download" your consciousness into different selves in each of them--a kind of immortality. These traits alone tie back to the "copy and paste" world of everyday computing, and the avatars and virtual realities of Second Life, Halo, or World of Warcraft.

As mentioned before, it's fun to see our present life now cast forward into the future, a telescoping imagination of what might be. ]]> <![CDATA[Peter is on page 672 of The Year's Best Scie... ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55461581 Peter is finished with The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection ]]> <![CDATA[Peter added 'The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness, and the Making of a Great Chef']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/60191329 to: The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness, and the Making of a Great Chef (Paperback) by Marco Pierre White
Has me thinking about gourmet cooking... Needs to be read with some distance, as the author still holds a rather high opinion of himself. Book still manages to provide a window into the adrenaline of haute cuisine, and I enjoyed that aspect of the work, as well as the author's passion for food and presentation, which became quite infectious.

The book was coauthored by a tabloid journalist, and has a "People magazine" tone to it, perhaps mixed with a dash of "Time". :) ]]> <![CDATA[Peter added 'Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/26015020 to: Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (Paperback) by Suketu Mehta
Now about 300 pages in. Fun to read while in India for two weeks with Eternity Church. I was in Bombay for about 2 hours at a time, transferring between planes, saw some features from the air that seemed familiar.

Much more detail about the police force, film industry, red light districts in Bombay/Mumbai. Interesting, kind of exhausting. Wondering how Suketu will tie things together in the end. Occassional flashes of bad writing, turns of phrase that are trying too hard to be poetic, but overall, very capably done, and carefully presented. Seeing layer upon layer of the city.

My favorite section so far deals with the simple difficulties of living in the city: finding a plumber, a maid, getting propane. India as a "culture of No" seemed to make a lot of sense with some of the gnarled infrastructure I glimpsed during my own visit. This book speaks very specifically to Bombay, less than being an expandable glimpse of India as a whole, as I hoped it would be.

>>

I'm about 150 pages in. It's giving me a good sense of how variegated, dense, beautiful and chaotic Bombay/Mumbai is. I'm guessing that is to some extend a picture of India as well, though a friend described Bombay as the NYCity of India, which suggests it is the extreme rather than the medium for intense juxtaposition and the dynamic of teeming masses in India.

>>

I want to read this in preparation for my trip to India later this month--two weeks in Chennai and Shadohl with my church. Read an interesting writeup on this book on BoingBoing, and hope it can give me a sense of the ethos of Indian city culture...and somehow do everything else needed for my trip. ;) ]]> <![CDATA[Peter added 'The Island of Dr. Moreau']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/56202940 to: The Island of Dr. Moreau (Signet Classics) by H.G. Wells
I started this for the Frankenstein-esque adventure angle, I'm pleasantly surprised by the speculations on what makes something human.... ]]> <![CDATA[new comment from Peter]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55461581 Peter's review of The Year's Best Science Fiction: 25th Annual Collection
by Gardner R. Dozois

Interesting connection! I agree that imaginative uses of duplication goes back pre-Internet, probably starting with the machine replication of the assembly line and the Industrial Revolution. Amazing to consider how far things have come... ]]> <![CDATA[new comment from Peter]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55109442 Maddy's review of A Princess of Mars (Barsoom 1)
by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Let me know what you think of the story, I would be curious to compare notes after reading the Martian Trilogy myself last year. :) ]]> <![CDATA[new comment from Peter]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/54979485 Peter's review of Watchmen
by Alan Moore

Yes, I have read Maus. It's very good! Graphic novels/storytelling is a genre that can handle a wide range of topics, and do some really cool things with them. Spiegelman's work on Maus is amazing, and was really groundbreaking as well.

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