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Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found
Cabich, bird fude, nodiles, buttmilk, dog yogurt, bannes, hare sope, cream of salary soup.
What do these things have in common? They're all items from real grocery lists. Whose lists? Who knows. The lists were found discarded in shopping carts, dropped on supermarket floors and parking lots, even tucked in returned library books. But the fact that they were discarded is not what's interesting about them. It's that they were found - found and/or collected by Bill Keaggy , proprietor of Grocerylists.org and the author of the world's first compilation of lost grocery lists. This book.
If we are what we eat, then this book reveals deep and strange truths about the average food shopper (not to mention more mundane facts like a lot of people love vodka, banana is actually very difficult to spell and that butter used to be dyed yellow using marigolds).
Separated into chapters - funny lists, sad lists, unhealthy lists, organized lists - the book also includes humorous commentary by the author and some delicious recipes created from found grocery lists. Quirky sidebars and odd food facts round out the menu.
* Cabbage, bird food, noodles, buttermilk, dog yogurt (duh), bananas, shampoo, cream of celery soup.
What do these things have in common? They're all items from real grocery lists. Whose lists? Who knows. The lists were found discarded in shopping carts, dropped on supermarket floors and parking lots, even tucked in returned library books. But the fact that they were discarded is not what's interesting about them. It's that they were found - found and/or collected by Bill Keaggy , proprietor of Grocerylists.org and the author of the world's first compilation of lost grocery lists. This book.
If we are what we eat, then this book reveals deep and strange truths about the average food shopper (not to mention more mundane facts like a lot of people love vodka, banana is actually very difficult to spell and that butter used to be dyed yellow using marigolds).
Separated into chapters - funny lists, sad lists, unhealthy lists, organized lists - the book also includes humorous commentary by the author and some delicious recipes created from found grocery lists. Quirky sidebars and odd food facts round out the menu.
* Cabbage, bird food, noodles, buttermilk, dog yogurt (duh), bananas, shampoo, cream of celery soup.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published April 24, 2007
38 people are currently reading
1373 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 176 reviews
June 13, 2009
another genius idea that seems simple at first, but there is so much to appreciate here. it is what it is - a book of peoples grocery lists. the fun of it (besides mr. sad chairs' commentary) is the amount of detail to be examined: the kinds of stationery , the quality of the handwriting, the juxtaposition of items on the lists, the doodles... my lists seem pedestrian by comparison. i have learned that americans eat healthier than we are purported to eat, unless the healthiest people are also the most likely to litter and leave their lists behind in carriages, either smugly or obliviously. i learned that a lot of people buy, but few can spell "bananas". i learned that a grocery list can sometimes make you feel sad. and i laughed aloud three times.
January 30, 2015
I laughed at a bunch of these lost but found grocery lists. Poo paper, itchy butt cream and ass-pair-agus. Also liked the tib-bit facts located all through out this book. This took some time and a good eye to find the lost lists. I come across more coupons in carts them lists. Genious idea. Great book.
January 2, 2016
This is a book about grocery lists (the found type), which the author has here collected for 10 years (much more now, of course). It's probably fun to imagine stories behind each. The oldest shopping list is the one found in a UK Roman fort, from c.80 AD - there's also one from 1950s and 1970s shown. At the end index items on each list are listed, from 'A&W root beer' to 'zucchini'. Scattered on pages are also fun facts, like how many variations of rice exist (100,000), that Native Americans invented baked beans, how long food stays safe after loss of electricity, how much Americans consume sugar daily (19 teaspoons on average), etc.
A great page for guidance in doing shopping should be read by anyone, but now I list the list-types:
This is a really funny, sad, interesting view on what people can reveal of themselves, and makes you think what you personally would choose to put on a list - what would other people think about *your* list? Worth owning, certainly :)
(There's more lists on grocerylists.org - though the place hasn't been updated since 2014.)
A great page for guidance in doing shopping should be read by anyone, but now I list the list-types:
This is a really funny, sad, interesting view on what people can reveal of themselves, and makes you think what you personally would choose to put on a list - what would other people think about *your* list? Worth owning, certainly :)
(There's more lists on grocerylists.org - though the place hasn't been updated since 2014.)
December 23, 2015
When I saw this title, I knew I had to get my greedy hands on it.
This is so clever, now we get to peek inside people's lives! I mean, eventhough just a 'simple' grocery list, it is still someone's thought process or mood we get to see.
I can see this website (grocerylists.org) being a hit. You get to be interactive with others. You can share a list to go viral.
However, as a book this is so much harder to get through. After just a few lists it becomes monotonous. There are trivia bits thrown in to break it up, but usually those were pretty random and had nothing to do with either the chapter theme or the list before/after it.
What irked me the most was the commentary on the lists. Which was more mean-spirited than funny. Jokes on how someone must be stupid, because of misspellings.
Anyway, did you know?
2.5*
This is so clever, now we get to peek inside people's lives! I mean, eventhough just a 'simple' grocery list, it is still someone's thought process or mood we get to see.
I can see this website (grocerylists.org) being a hit. You get to be interactive with others. You can share a list to go viral.
However, as a book this is so much harder to get through. After just a few lists it becomes monotonous. There are trivia bits thrown in to break it up, but usually those were pretty random and had nothing to do with either the chapter theme or the list before/after it.
According to U.S. Food & Drug Administration regulations, ground paprika is allowed up to 20% mold, 75 insect fragments and 11 rodent hairs per 25 grams, and tomato puree may contain 9 fly eggs and 1 maggot per 100 grams.
What irked me the most was the commentary on the lists. Which was more mean-spirited than funny. Jokes on how someone must be stupid, because of misspellings.
Are you stupid or what?
Anyway, did you know?
Skunk eggs: Cowboy slang for onions
2.5*
January 3, 2018
Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found
by Bill Keaggy
This was a fun, light read.
You learn a lot from grocery lists in America because many people here have really bad penmanship as well as spelling. I wondered what grade level they had completed. Some use apostrophes incorrectly, such as listing items like pears and apples as “pear's,” “apple's.” Maybe these items own the grocery list. Then there was the spelling: banannas. I should talk, but at the same time it seems that at least the schools should have been able to teach grammar in regards to making up a grocery list. And I admit, yogurt is a hard word to spell. One grocery list had it spelled, “yogert.” I always had a hard time with the word, “spaghetti,” but I found no misspelling of it in this book.
The author makes funny comments about each grocery list, even talking about how old people's writing is shaky. I wonder if that will happen to me. What I have noticed is this: Since I type all my letters to friends, when I do write by hand my hand doesn't know what it is doing anymore. I am probably trying to write as fast as I type. I don't know, but I can write a great hand printed grocery list, and sometimes I put items down in the order that you find them in the store. Where I get caught in writing is that I never remember when to add a comma or a semi-colon, etc. And at least if I can't spell something there is always spell check on my computer, but I really don't learn to spell that way, because I don’t pay attention.
My favorite grocery list was the one my own grandmother gave to me when I was around 8 years old. She sent me down the street to the corner market with only a few items on the list, the list being only three to four items that i was to remember. I forgot everything but the raisin bread.
Then on the way home I began eating the raisin bread. I purposely passed her house and walked around the block, and by the time I got to her house again, I had half a loaf left. She scolded me, not for eating the bread, but for forgetting the other items.
So, if you have a lazy day ahead and don't want to read anything where you have to think, this is the book for you.
by Bill Keaggy
This was a fun, light read.
You learn a lot from grocery lists in America because many people here have really bad penmanship as well as spelling. I wondered what grade level they had completed. Some use apostrophes incorrectly, such as listing items like pears and apples as “pear's,” “apple's.” Maybe these items own the grocery list. Then there was the spelling: banannas. I should talk, but at the same time it seems that at least the schools should have been able to teach grammar in regards to making up a grocery list. And I admit, yogurt is a hard word to spell. One grocery list had it spelled, “yogert.” I always had a hard time with the word, “spaghetti,” but I found no misspelling of it in this book.
The author makes funny comments about each grocery list, even talking about how old people's writing is shaky. I wonder if that will happen to me. What I have noticed is this: Since I type all my letters to friends, when I do write by hand my hand doesn't know what it is doing anymore. I am probably trying to write as fast as I type. I don't know, but I can write a great hand printed grocery list, and sometimes I put items down in the order that you find them in the store. Where I get caught in writing is that I never remember when to add a comma or a semi-colon, etc. And at least if I can't spell something there is always spell check on my computer, but I really don't learn to spell that way, because I don’t pay attention.
My favorite grocery list was the one my own grandmother gave to me when I was around 8 years old. She sent me down the street to the corner market with only a few items on the list, the list being only three to four items that i was to remember. I forgot everything but the raisin bread.
Then on the way home I began eating the raisin bread. I purposely passed her house and walked around the block, and by the time I got to her house again, I had half a loaf left. She scolded me, not for eating the bread, but for forgetting the other items.
So, if you have a lazy day ahead and don't want to read anything where you have to think, this is the book for you.
July 6, 2009
the concept for this book is awesome - and i thoroughly enjoyed the lists themselves in this compilation of found grocery lists. the author's comments however were mean spirited and in no way added to the fun of the lists. on almost every page i found myself wishing that he would just shut up and leave me to read the lists, which were so much more entertaining and insightful than the comments that he put with them.
July 19, 2007
What I learned from this book is that I'm a sucker. I heard some review of the book where grocery lists were described as modern-day haikus, and I had to have the book.
Again, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have not read all of this book--it's not really that kind of book. It's more of a coffee-table, skim-it-during-commericials-or-during-solitary-meals-or-boring-phone-calls kind of book.
I've long found lists poetic. There was a middle-aged hippie in my first-semester Arabic class in college, and I remember discussing the previous weekend one Monday (in English, not Arabic--remember this was the first-semester class), and his achievements for the week had included reading, walking around, mixing some cement. I remember thinking that mixing cement sounded very romantic.
Anyhow, Milk Eggs Vodka is a cool concept, but I don't think it's necessarily worth killing trees to view these lists and the usually (but not always) witty commentary and factoids in a book. Save a few books and a few trees, and check out grocerylists.org instead.
Again, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have not read all of this book--it's not really that kind of book. It's more of a coffee-table, skim-it-during-commericials-or-during-solitary-meals-or-boring-phone-calls kind of book.
I've long found lists poetic. There was a middle-aged hippie in my first-semester Arabic class in college, and I remember discussing the previous weekend one Monday (in English, not Arabic--remember this was the first-semester class), and his achievements for the week had included reading, walking around, mixing some cement. I remember thinking that mixing cement sounded very romantic.
Anyhow, Milk Eggs Vodka is a cool concept, but I don't think it's necessarily worth killing trees to view these lists and the usually (but not always) witty commentary and factoids in a book. Save a few books and a few trees, and check out grocerylists.org instead.
January 10, 2009
Ok, it's a book of found grocery lists, but trust me: it's so much more. It's a look into the lives of people, based one one specific group of criteria: what they planned to buy at the store on a particular shopping trip.
Author Bill Keaggy breaks down the lists into categories and puts them in chapters such as: "Doodles and Noodles," "Organized Lists," "Unsure of Myself," etc., including my favorite, "The Grocer's Apostrophe." Then, he does what makes books like this work so well: he attaches funny commentary to each list. He makes the mundane seem comical, not unlike Wendy McClure's book of diet recipe cards from the 1970s, "The Amazing Mackeral Pudding Plan," or James Lileks' book "The Gallery of Regrettable Food. When writers poke fun at everyday things around them, it takes a clever touch to find the balance between lame and mean, and Bill Keaggy achieves that.
Design-wise, I love this book. I totally get off on seeing the original found lists on the pages. The book was designed by Grace Ring and she did a great job showcasing the lists in a way that makes them pieces of art themselves.
This is another book my son refused to let me read in public, as it made me laugh uncontrollably. I've shown the book to co-workers and, strangely, they did not have the same response that I did. Hmm...go figure. And I still start laughing whenever I think of an item on one list, "I can't believe it's butter."
**P.S.** I just looked through the book again (a dangerous move as I'm at the reference desk right now), and ok, some of his comments are mean. But they're so damned funny....
Author Bill Keaggy breaks down the lists into categories and puts them in chapters such as: "Doodles and Noodles," "Organized Lists," "Unsure of Myself," etc., including my favorite, "The Grocer's Apostrophe." Then, he does what makes books like this work so well: he attaches funny commentary to each list. He makes the mundane seem comical, not unlike Wendy McClure's book of diet recipe cards from the 1970s, "The Amazing Mackeral Pudding Plan," or James Lileks' book "The Gallery of Regrettable Food. When writers poke fun at everyday things around them, it takes a clever touch to find the balance between lame and mean, and Bill Keaggy achieves that.
Design-wise, I love this book. I totally get off on seeing the original found lists on the pages. The book was designed by Grace Ring and she did a great job showcasing the lists in a way that makes them pieces of art themselves.
This is another book my son refused to let me read in public, as it made me laugh uncontrollably. I've shown the book to co-workers and, strangely, they did not have the same response that I did. Hmm...go figure. And I still start laughing whenever I think of an item on one list, "I can't believe it's butter."
**P.S.** I just looked through the book again (a dangerous move as I'm at the reference desk right now), and ok, some of his comments are mean. But they're so damned funny....
August 24, 2010
The idea of this book sounded better to me than the actual book did when I got it. It is a bunch of grocery lists that the author has found or people have sent him. It is interesting to see how many different ways people found to spell banana or to try and figure out what people actually mean by some of the things they list (what are you shopping for when your list says ‘smelly stuff’ or ‘hookers’) but it can become monotonous after a while. I would suggest going slowly instead of going through the whole book in two days like I did because, no matter what they are written on, in the end they are just shopping lists and they all start to look the same. I understand that part of the point of reading the lists is to make fun of the people who wrote them. But there is a fine line between poking fun and being mean and I think the author sometimes crossed that line. Some of his comments are funny but after he called four people in a row losers because they spelled yogurt wrong on their own personal reference material it not only sounded mean, but was not even very clever or witty anymore. The fun food facts on the edges of the pages are very interesting and should not be skipped over. (Did you know that honey is the only human-consumable food that will never go bad, or that the banana plant is a gigantic herb?) I enjoyed the book but I think it would be better ingested slowly, a little at a time, a list here and a list there, instead of sitting down and reading it through.
January 28, 2016
Milk Eggs Vodka - Grocery Lists Lost and Found by Bill Keaggy is just that, a book containing all kinds of shopping lists that have been found in shopping trolleys, shopping centres and car parks all over the USA.
This collection isn't for everyone, but it does give the reader a unique glimpse into the minds of shoppers. Some of the spelling mistakes made me laugh out loud (burd fude anyone?) but I also enjoyed the categories Keaggy sorted his lists into.
Some of the chapters included:
- Paar-ty!
- Sad Grocery Lists
- Badd Spellrs
- Organized Lists
- Healthy (and Hygienic) Lists
The strange combination of items together on the same list were interesting, although the novelty does wear off by the end.
This is a good book to read while watching TV; or in my case, during the ads while watching the Australian Open.
A book to flick through at the library but not one to buy.
This collection isn't for everyone, but it does give the reader a unique glimpse into the minds of shoppers. Some of the spelling mistakes made me laugh out loud (burd fude anyone?) but I also enjoyed the categories Keaggy sorted his lists into.
Some of the chapters included:
- Paar-ty!
- Sad Grocery Lists
- Badd Spellrs
- Organized Lists
- Healthy (and Hygienic) Lists
The strange combination of items together on the same list were interesting, although the novelty does wear off by the end.
This is a good book to read while watching TV; or in my case, during the ads while watching the Australian Open.
A book to flick through at the library but not one to buy.
October 28, 2012
The actual point of this book, the grocery lists, were not as entertaining as I had hoped. Most were mundane and I didn't find the commentary all that funny. In one chapter the author makes fun of organized lists, then in another he advises planning ahead and being organized. I did enjoy the chapter on "Creative Recycling" as it was interesting what some people choose to write their lists on. What I really enjoyed about this book, however, were the very interesting food facts in the sidebars. I learned a lot and wish the author would write a whole book on food history and facts instead!
April 15, 2014
A mostly humorous look at grocery lists. This is probably what I think of as a 'bathroom read' - one of those books that you keep in the bathroom to pick up for a few minutes. It can be read easily and picked up several days later and you've not lost your place. There's little tidbits and trivia in the margins - it's interesting but I'm at the point where it's also slightly annoying to have to rotate the book to read it. Definitely appreciated the downloadable list at grocerylists.com. This was a fun and interesting read.
February 9, 2017
Very amusing and interesting. The little sidebar things were very informative. I enjoyed this a lot--some of the lists were laugh-out-loud funny, or else the little comments added by Bill Keaggy were. Good stuff.
April 27, 2008
This book started out as a website, just like PostSecret, Not Quite What I Was Planning, etc. I don't know why these are so addictive, but this is yet another great conversation-starter book. Without the author's commentary, however, it wouldn't be nearly so entertaining. Becky, I think you would appreciate chapter 2, entitled: Emphasis! Blatant Abuse of the Exclamation Point.
Favorite Quotes:
"Making lists is a uniquely human activity, like watching pornography or Googling yourself."
"Bananas make you stupid." (The misspelling of bananas abound on lists. Even after the Gwen Stefani learning tool b-a-n-a-n-a-s???)
Favorite List Items:
smelly stuff
hookers and blow
kitten faces
Favorite Quotes:
"Making lists is a uniquely human activity, like watching pornography or Googling yourself."
"Bananas make you stupid." (The misspelling of bananas abound on lists. Even after the Gwen Stefani learning tool b-a-n-a-n-a-s???)
Favorite List Items:
smelly stuff
hookers and blow
kitten faces
Read
April 18, 2021Mildly interesting. Photos of found grocery lists, and author's comments. Demonstrates how bad Americans are at spelling and penmanship. The food-related trivia facts were pretty good.
VERDICT: 2.5 stars.
Don't attempt the eBook versions unless you have a larger device/tablet; most of the images were not clear on my 6" greyscale eInk eReader screen. Or just visit the website at: https://www.grocerylists.org/ instead.
VERDICT: 2.5 stars.
Don't attempt the eBook versions unless you have a larger device/tablet; most of the images were not clear on my 6" greyscale eInk eReader screen. Or just visit the website at: https://www.grocerylists.org/ instead.
September 26, 2008
This book has an interesting premise, but I just didn't find the author's commentary on the shopping lists to be all that funny. Although, I will admit that the list that contained the phrase "if you buy more rice, I will punch you" did make me laugh.
July 29, 2013
Not sure what this says about my sense of humor, but I can't read this without ending up in tears of laughter. Gets me every time.
March 2, 2018
I really enjoyed this look at grocery lists. I never thought about how much they tell us about people. I also enjoyed the snarky humorous bits.
December 17, 2011
Bill Keaggy, the author of this book, which is best enjoyed in little chunks as a coffee-table treat, has been into grocery lists for some time, obviously. He operates a website, http://www.grocerylists.org/, entirely devoted to found grocery lists and stuff that is connectible to them. I do love wacky hobbies like that, I admire books about subjects that I never guessed would fill a whole volume and I can perfectly comprehend the strange curiosity that bubbles up when you find something in someone else's handwriting, which the writer did not treasure enough to keep or properly dispose of - or which someone used as a bookmark and then forgot to take out again before returning the borrowed book (you won't believe what I have picked out of libary books over the years): Your might automatically start to connect the meager dots, to spin tales around the age and gender and social standing of the person who threw away the paper, about the purpose and the destiny of the products, the poem, the exam, the calculation. Bill Keaggy's mind operates that way as well and I liked that about his book. He uses a rather snarky approach and in a lot of cases I enjoyed that as well. I had a big-time-snort-and-cough more than once reading Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found. What I did not enjoy was the condescending manner Bill tackles the lists with he assembled for his spelling-error-chapters. In fact I despised his gall to call people who and whose circumstances have to be absolutely unknown to him "dumb" and "loser" and other similarly unkind names. It might be a bit alarming that a certain pretty high percentage of the lists found by and given to the author reveal their writers' poor ability to spell correctly, but that is no reason to make generic assumptions about all these persons' intelligence or lives. There might be immigrants, tourists, children, shoppers with bad eye-sight or dyslexia and other limitations among those who - for their own eyes only - jotted down what they planned to buy. I sincerely hope that I do not lose one of my lists or reminders in the vincinity of the author's hunting ground. Who knows what label he would decide to stick on my personality?
Three stars, because I enjoyed browsing through the lists and I definitely had more fun time than anger-filled moments.
Three stars, because I enjoyed browsing through the lists and I definitely had more fun time than anger-filled moments.
Read
October 25, 2013Milk Eggs Vodka was the second book to actually make me laugh out loud. this book had so many funny side comments that make you want to laugh your head off! Bill Keaggy, the author really made these grocery lists come alive. there are several chapters which also signify different types of grocery lists such as: just plain funny, emphasis, chides and asides, paaar-ty!, and about 16 more! Keaggy pokes fun at what the people write or what they write on, either way it is laugh out loud funny. He makes really funny connections to TV shows and movies that are extremely funny. there are a number of different things that people write that make zero sense at all too. they attempt to write in cursive, but it ends up looking like scribbles, and you would be amazed at what people write on, you find things from pieces of homework to car payment bills! this book was amazing and I would really recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a really funny and entertaining read.
Read
June 13, 2016this is one of those quirky books. guy with a weird hobby turns it unto a blog and then a book. people abandon grocery lists in their carts. never noticed that myself, usually all I see in carts is a crumpled copy of the current store flyer, maybe a spare, ripped produce bag. nothing at all like the gems reproduced here. I was reminded of some of the lists my mother painstakingly produced, with prices and sale offers included, and the Happy Days inclusion of "TP." the compiler's side comments are what make this all the more funny.
December 14, 2007
The lists are really interesting (I'm totally a list-maker), as are the little trivia/history bites on each page.
But, the author's comments are annoying, in an ungenerous, overly critical, mean-spirited hipster kind of way. I actually thought it was part of the FOUND books, but it's its own thing.
Still, worth reading. It's very, very quick. And, is great as a coffee-table book.
But, the author's comments are annoying, in an ungenerous, overly critical, mean-spirited hipster kind of way. I actually thought it was part of the FOUND books, but it's its own thing.
Still, worth reading. It's very, very quick. And, is great as a coffee-table book.
September 9, 2008
Lighhearted and fun, and a quick read. (Grocery lists aren't exactly War and Peace.)
I don't like that the author calls people who can't spell "stupid" and "losers." I tend to think people who are poor spellers had a poor education or may have a reading disability. (It's the bleeding heart and former teacher in me!)
I don't like that the author calls people who can't spell "stupid" and "losers." I tend to think people who are poor spellers had a poor education or may have a reading disability. (It's the bleeding heart and former teacher in me!)
March 10, 2016
The author has an unusual obsession: he collects lost grocery lists. Here's a collection of some of his favorites.
I'm also a fan of weird lists, notes, and other stuff in the vein of FOUND magazine...and while this collection doesn't boast the variety of that series, MILK EGGS VODKA does reveal that Americans both have terrible diets and are awful spellers, for the most part.
I'm also a fan of weird lists, notes, and other stuff in the vein of FOUND magazine...and while this collection doesn't boast the variety of that series, MILK EGGS VODKA does reveal that Americans both have terrible diets and are awful spellers, for the most part.
May 30, 2011
Pretty straightforward, it's a book that compiles a collection of funny grocery lists. Many are laugh out loud hilarious, some are just chuckle-worthy.
Definitely a renter. No need to spend hard-earned cash to add this to the collection. Rent it or hang out at the bookstore for a while and read it. You can flip through it in less than an hour and put yourself in good humour for a bit.
Definitely a renter. No need to spend hard-earned cash to add this to the collection. Rent it or hang out at the bookstore for a while and read it. You can flip through it in less than an hour and put yourself in good humour for a bit.
November 1, 2013
Fun compilation of found grocery lists. I've always felt like a cart with someone else's list in the bottom of it was a bonus, a gift, so this book was a natural for me. Keaggy's editorial comments were pretty funny, too. Also there are recipes in the back based on some of the (more complete) lists. PS: Americans can't spell for beans.
July 7, 2010
Pretty boring and sometimes petty side comments. Calling people losers because they can't spell yogurt is just plain mean. Maybe Jimmy Kimmel should do the book on CD because it was way funnier when I saw it on his show.
April 1, 2013
Humanizing. Not a read-straight-through book, but I read it straight through because I was stuck watching dumb tv, so I think I would have liked it better or gotten more out of it in little sections.
August 5, 2014
This is a collection of found grocery lists from the website grocerylists.org, "spiced up" with commentary and food-related facts.
I checked this out in ebook format because I wanted something pop-corny to read. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, though I think a lot of that can be blamed on poor e-book conversion. Most of the images of grocery lists were too low-quality to read, the way the pages were broken meant that captions were often separated from their images and it was unclear when images were meant to go together. The food-related facts and other supplementary stuff were just tossed in at random and not well set-off from the main content, which broke the flow, especially since the "interesting facts" rarely had anything to do with the content they were placed near, and often actively and unintentionally detracted from it.
That all may be attributable to the ebook conversion, though. It was slightly better in the ePub edition that in the Overdrive read-online app, but only slightly better. My experience is that mainstream ebooks still haven't figured out how to handle anything graphics-heavy, but you'd think that something that started as a web page would have someone involved who understands the issues - apparently not.
Other than that, it mostly suffered from the "funny" commentary not being all that funny, but I probably gave that less of a chance because of the formatting issues. The best part was the index, which indexes all the items on the list by their original spelling - there are about eight entries for alternate spellings of "yogurt".
I checked this out in ebook format because I wanted something pop-corny to read. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, though I think a lot of that can be blamed on poor e-book conversion. Most of the images of grocery lists were too low-quality to read, the way the pages were broken meant that captions were often separated from their images and it was unclear when images were meant to go together. The food-related facts and other supplementary stuff were just tossed in at random and not well set-off from the main content, which broke the flow, especially since the "interesting facts" rarely had anything to do with the content they were placed near, and often actively and unintentionally detracted from it.
That all may be attributable to the ebook conversion, though. It was slightly better in the ePub edition that in the Overdrive read-online app, but only slightly better. My experience is that mainstream ebooks still haven't figured out how to handle anything graphics-heavy, but you'd think that something that started as a web page would have someone involved who understands the issues - apparently not.
Other than that, it mostly suffered from the "funny" commentary not being all that funny, but I probably gave that less of a chance because of the formatting issues. The best part was the index, which indexes all the items on the list by their original spelling - there are about eight entries for alternate spellings of "yogurt".
January 23, 2016
if you like the Post Secret books, or "Not Quite What I Was Planning", you'll like "Milk Eggs Vodka". i've been a fan of bill keaggy's website for a long time but didn't realize he had a book until i inadvertently stumbled upon it at Borders. i immediately knew i HAD to have it.
although the lists themselves are pretty entertaining, it's keaggy's comments that usually had me laughing out loud-- in spite of the fact that, yes, the comments were pretty mean-spirited. but they were still hysterical.
my favorite grocery list from the book? the one had this little phrased written on it next to the items: "If you buy more rice I'll punch you!"
although the lists themselves are pretty entertaining, it's keaggy's comments that usually had me laughing out loud-- in spite of the fact that, yes, the comments were pretty mean-spirited. but they were still hysterical.
my favorite grocery list from the book? the one had this little phrased written on it next to the items: "If you buy more rice I'll punch you!"
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