End of the Year Book Round-up

I love to discover a good book. It’s like getting on the scale and finding you dropped a few pounds without even trying. You feel all warm and fuzzy inside and want to tell everyone.  Here are two of my favorite e-books from this past year.
My cookbook library was lacking until I found The Science of Good Cooking by The Editors’ of America’s Test Kitchen and Guy Crosby, Ph.D.  At last, a cookbook for geeks! Chock full of recipes, the authors also explain the science behind what happens in the kitchen. It’s written for the layman and easy to understand.  The maple orange ham glaze was particularly tasty.
At over twenty dollars it was pricey for a Kindle book, but I had a gift card so what the hell. (Can I add a short grouse—publishers have some nerve charging huge bucks for an ebook. Who’s getting rich on these things? Not the authors. Grrr.)
I’ve been fascinated by codes and secret writing ever since I learned how to make invisible ink in the second grade and wrote Tommy is a Poophead all over my brother’s homework. He never found out and I was hooked. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh gives a fascinating overview of code makers and breakers from ancient times to modern and how they affected war and politics. Makes you wonder how any secret ever remains hidden. (P. S. Tommy is still a poophead.) Happy reading! Hope you find lots of good books in 2014.