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May 10
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Katherine
gave
 
to:
Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)
by Anthony Bourdain
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Katherine said:
"Basically, it's memoirs told in restaurant industry stories: you may secretly believe that they're at least half bullshit, but they're so damned entertaining that not only do you remember them, you commit them to memory in order to pass them on.
D...more
Basically, it's memoirs told in restaurant industry stories: you may secretly believe that they're at least half bullshit, but they're so damned entertaining that not only do you remember them, you commit them to memory in order to pass them on.
Did you guys hear about the time the head chef caught one of the suppliers grifting him?...less
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May 05
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New comment on Jason's review of
Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag
reply to this comment
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Katherine
gave
to:
Love in the Time of Cholera (Paperback)
by Gabriel García Márquez
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Katherine said:
"I am now convinced that the sincere, intelligent love story is the hardest one to tell. I continue to be awed by Garcia Marquez.
You know what I like about him? He never rushes. He knows exactly what he's going to do and exactly how he's going to ...more
I am now convinced that the sincere, intelligent love story is the hardest one to tell. I continue to be awed by Garcia Marquez.
You know what I like about him? He never rushes. He knows exactly what he's going to do and exactly how he's going to do it, and you're going to shut up and watch. :)
Love in the Time of Cholera is the real thing. Along with sly little inferences that this might not be the epic, iconic romance we all secretly need to see.
(My take, with as few spoilers as possible: I believe Garcia Marquez is making the point that love and passion are inherently disrespectful of social boundaries. And therefore, if we're going to thrill when the poor boy gets the rich girl, we're going to cringe when... well, you'll see.)
And good god, it's glorious....less
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Katherine
gave
to:
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Paperback)
by Patrick Süskind
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Katherine said:
"This is the kind of book that shows up on the recommended reading list for a college creative writing class. The way the writer evokes scent alone makes it worth reading.
For example, we all know what leather smells like, but how would you describe...more
This is the kind of book that shows up on the recommended reading list for a college creative writing class. The way the writer evokes scent alone makes it worth reading.
For example, we all know what leather smells like, but how would you describe the smell of leather? And once you have to describe more amorphous scents, such as perfume, how can a writer change a sensate experience into words? (The film adaptation ran into the same issue. Trailer here: http://www.perfumemovie.com )
I'm unsure whether Perfume has any deeper meaning beyond being stylistically innovative and fun to read - and oh my, it's fun to read, it's sassy, irreverent, filthy, and gleefully satirical. And yes, the end is bizarre, but can you imagine this one ending any other way?...less
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Katherine
gave
to:
The Odyssey (Paperback)
by Homer
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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April 30
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Katherine
gave
to:
Blow-Up: And Other Stories (Paperback)
by Julio Cortazar
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Katherine said:
"Mmmm, surrealism.
Reading a Cortazar story is like opening a cabinet in your kitchen and having gallons of water pour out on top of you. In the moment before you run for a stack of towels, you'll stand there in your soaked clothes wondering "...more
Mmmm, surrealism.
Reading a Cortazar story is like opening a cabinet in your kitchen and having gallons of water pour out on top of you. In the moment before you run for a stack of towels, you'll stand there in your soaked clothes wondering "How did that happen? Why did it happen to me?!"
...Okay, I was trying to go for "clever and strange, like Cortazar" in this review, but I think I got "stupid and strange" instead. Whatever. Read this book....less
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April 29
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Katherine
gave
to:
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Paperback)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Katherine said:
"More like The LiveJournal of Rainer Maria Rilke. I loved this.
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is an experimental, surrealistic novel in episodes, and reading it is like finding a lost artifact. Our narrator is a young Danish nobleman...more
More like The LiveJournal of Rainer Maria Rilke. I loved this.
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is an experimental, surrealistic novel in episodes, and reading it is like finding a lost artifact. Our narrator is a young Danish nobleman, estranged from his family, disillusioned with the romance of being a starving artist in Paris, and searching for a symbolic story that fits his experience. Malte's journeys are lush and visual and delightfully weird, and we get to follow him through the down-at-heels parts of Paris and into his childhood of epic romances and unquiet ghosts.
And did I mention that it's funny?
Perhaps much of the humor is situational, as I'm also young, disillusioned, living in a strange city, and subsisting mostly on unemployment. Several passages had me cackling on the bus in self-recognition.
"I am twenty-eight years old, and I have done practically nothing. To sum it up: I have written a study of Carpaccio, which is bad; a play entitled "Marriage," which tries to demonstrate a false thesis by equivocal means; and some poems. Ah, but poems amount to so little when you write them too early in life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines."
I'm grading on a curve here as well. I think if this were any other author, I'd buy ten copies and try to force all my friends to read it....less
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April 27
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Katherine
gave
to:
The Waves (Paperback)
by Virginia Woolf
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Katherine said:
"Look, I can sit here and describe The Waves all night, but you just have to see this.
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Katherine
gave
to:
Bone (Hardcover)
by Fae Myenne Ng
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Katherine said:
"This is another book with an unusual narrative structure that at first feels disjointed, but then reveals itself to be an essential part of the author's grand design. Like floors in a building, or like layers in an archaeological site, each chapter m...more
This is another book with an unusual narrative structure that at first feels disjointed, but then reveals itself to be an essential part of the author's grand design. Like floors in a building, or like layers in an archaeological site, each chapter moves a little deeper into the narrator's family history and identity. Almost as though Ng were excavating the narrator's sister's suicide rather than describing it.
There, I've just tried to mimic how she does it. Go check this one out - it's very underappreciated....less
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Katherine
gave
to:
The Metamorphosis (Mass Market Paperback)
by Franz Kafka
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Katherine said:
"Old classic. Probably one of the first "grown-up" books I ever read, which may tell you more about me than I intend.
Say hello to one of the greatest opening lines ever: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found...more
Old classic. Probably one of the first "grown-up" books I ever read, which may tell you more about me than I intend.
Say hello to one of the greatest opening lines ever: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." This story works so well because it's so emotionally resonant. Who has not felt used-up, corrupted, or loathsome after a long period of crushing stress?
Fun fact courtesy of the internet:
"Vladimir Nabokov, who was an entomologist, insisted that Gregor was not a cockroach, but a beetle with wings under his shell, and therefore capable of flight - if only he had known it."...less
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