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Past
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2009(1)
WELCOME TO THE ESCAPE ZONE!
BOOKS
ARE A MAGIC CARPET, a flight of imagination,
a key to the treasury, a relief from too much depressing
world and economic news. Without hassle, security, crowds,
airline food or lack thereof, we can be transported
by books to a rich emotional life, to worlds as far
away as other galaxies and as close as behind a neighbor’s
closed door. We can be creatively stimulated, educated,
captivated, and spellbound. All of this is
available in unlimited amounts without leaving the comfort
of our homes. In these hard economic times, spending
money for travel can be out of the question for many,
something for a better day. But we can ALL explore places
we dream about through armchair travel, live the life
of an action hero in another era, solve mysteries, and
enjoy a multitude of experiences without lifting a finger
for more than turning a page. This issue, through
the enchantment of words, you can be transported at
the speed of thought to exotic kingdoms, live adventure
through others’ tales, and, in your dreams, take
the journeys yourselves!
We have some truly excellent
fiction and nonfiction featured below, art books that
open our eyes and minds to creative achievement, and
cookbooks that share family stories and will have you
in the kitchen, measuring cup in hand, before you know
it! As always, for those nights when you want to skip
the mundane offerings of television and view something
extraordinary, stimulating, and thought-provoking, we
offer films you may not have thought of or have been
meaning to see. Our goal
is always to offer you ideas and inspiration through
culture. Please enjoy and let us know your favorites!
-- Rosemary
Carstens/Carstens3.JPG)
Editor
NOTE: For your
convenience, if you run your cursor across any of the
book covers, a window will open allowing you to order
right then from Amazon. There are a few selections,
though, that do not offer that feature, but if you click
on the cover you'll go to the page on Amazon so you
can order.
IN
BETWEEN ISSUES OF FEAST, look
for updates on books, art, food, film, and travel at
our blog: http://carstensFEAST.blogspot.com
COMMENTS
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FICTION THAT BLEW MY HAIR BACK:
The
Girl with No Shadow, Joanne
Harris. William Morrow 2008. At last! If
you loved both the book by Joanne Harris and the film
Chocolát, you will be as delighted as I am with
the sequel! And it is beautifully,
lyrically written, filled with delightful new characters
as well as the ones we grew to love—Vianne
Rocher and her daughter Anouk, and (think Johnny Depp)
that sexy gypsy, Roux! Vianne and Anouk have taken on
fresh identities in a small Montmartre area of Paris,
along with baby Rosette. Vianne is maintaining a low
profile and insists her daughters do the same—she
wants to stay put this time and not draw the dark winds
or the attention of the “kindly ones,” those
so sure they know what’s best for everyone else.
But, blown in on a gust
of no good and rain, Zosie appears on the scene wearing
high-heeled ruby slippers and carrying evil intent from
the highlands of Aztecan Mexico. We
now have a recipe for disaster and identity theft, with
just a dash of chiles and magic mushrooms to spice things
up! This book is for you if you like stories that carry
with them more than a touch of imagination and a spark
of light vs. dark, good vs. evil, all rolled into something
that will melt in your mouth—
To hear a BBC interview with the author about
this book: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/ram/2007_19_wed_01.ram
The
Garden of Last Days, Andre Dubus
III. Norton 2008. This book took about five years to
write and Dubus created a complex story told from seven
characters’ points of view. The story came to
him when, after 9/11 he
read that some of the men who had taken part in the
hijackings had visited strip clubs in the south Florida
area in the days before they undertook their suicide
missions. This led to this multifaceted
story of a group of people—a single mother and
stripper, a housewife, a widow, three terrorists, a
bouncer, a man separated from his wife and child because
of a thoughtless act of violence, and a three-year-old
girl—whose lives intertwine around events taking
place in a small strip club. Some have said Dubus wrote
a book sympathetic to terrorists, but it’s just
not so. He wrote a book about the complexities
of human beings, how all are flawed to various degrees,
and the ways our actions can ripple out to affect others.
For interesting background, go to http://www.bookpage.com/0806bp/andre_dubus.html
American
Cream, Catherine Tudish. Scribner
2007. I love a good story, don’t you? Catherine
Tudish writes well—as she should since she teaches
English at the Bread Loaf School of English. This story
focuses on the passing era of the family farm and what
happens when a lonely widower remarries a bit too soon
for the comfort of his adult children.
When her father has an accident, Virginia agrees to
spend the summer at the farm tending to the crops and
the dairy cows—in spite of her active dislike
of his new wife. She takes her city-boy son and leaves
behind her doctor husband to help out “back home.”
This is a book about the dynamics of strain
on loving relationships, when times and people have
reached new stages of life.
The
Commoner, John Burnham Schwartz. Doubleday 2008.
Schwartz creates a unique
imagination of life as a commoner who marries a Japanese
prince after WWII. I would love to hear
the story of how the author gathered his material as
there are very believable details about supposedly secret
rites during the waning years of the Japanese empire’s
ruling power. Haruko, the commoner, is a beautiful,
educated, accomplished young woman who attracts the
Crown Prince’s attention as he searches for a
mate. Their “courtship” is necessarily tightly
constricted by rules, rituals, and mythology concerning
the history of the royal family, and so they
marry without Haruko fully understanding that she is
giving up her personal identity for life, that
she will be under the watchful eyes of the Empress and
the people of Japan forever. A fascinating tale—
http://www.johnburnhamschwartz.com
/41vJe1FL6CL__SL160_.jpg)
Falling Under, Danielle Younge-Ullman.
Plume 2008. A fearsome childhood spent being torn between
two angry parents and some traumatic romantic losses
have left talented artist Mara Foster traumatized, agoraphobic,
and with a paralyzing fear of intimacy and abandonment.
How she fights to free herself from the past and to
begin life anew is a
story told with great feeling and compassionate attention
to how a sensitive person can find herself alienated
from everything she needs to feel whole.
This is the author’s debut novel. http://www.danielleyoungeullman.com/
City of Thieves, David Benioff.
Viking 2008. Benioff is a masterful writer and this,
his second novel, proves it once again.
This is a story of the Leningrad Siege, the suffering
of the Russian people as the Germans close in, and particularly
about two men on a mission. A mission for eggs!
Lev Beniov is 17 and Kolya, a handsome, carefree soldier
who has deserted his unit, meet in a cell at the Crossroads
prison as they await execution. Through a fluke and
the whim of a powerful colonel, they are given a week’s
reprieve to find a dozen eggs for his daughter’s
wedding cake. There are no eggs in Leningrad—what
people are trying to subsist on is shocking—so
they must venture behind enemy lines in their effort
to save their own lives. Benioff is brilliant
at creating compelling characters and at describing
the context of this historic period. NY Books
Q&A with Benioff by Boris Kachka: http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/47040/
The
Alibi Man, Tami Hoag. Bantam 2007. What
causes your heart to beat faster, your
eyes to race across a page to see what happens next?
That would be a Tami Hoag suspense novel. This one brings
back Elena Estes, a street smart heroine from a previous
book, and plunges you into the privileged, ultra-rich
world of world-class polo, predatory self-indulgent
wealthy men, and girls who play sex games as they hope
to hit the marriage jackpot. Hoag knows how
to pace her story to the drum beat of your pulse as
she pounds home twist after twist with characters
you fear for, would love to know, would love to know
in the biblical sense, and those you can easily despise
as you long for their well-deserved demise. Will
the bad guys get what they deserve—you bet your
sweet alligators! http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/tamihoag/
Goldengrove,
Francine Prose. HarperCollins 2008. People sometimes
ask “what is a literary novel?” It’s
tough to describe, to point definitively to what constitutes
the genre—it’s like a good meal, you know
it when you’ve found it. Goldengrove
is a finely written literary tale about a young girl
who loses her closest and dearest friend—her sister—and
what the unthinkable does to her and her family.
It’s a story of becoming unmoored, of drifting
rudderless through unfamiliar and unimaginable events,
of learning to go on when there is a hole in your heart,
in your family, that can never be entirely stitched
back together again. Told from the viewpoint of Niko,
a thirteen-year-old girl, Prose writes brilliantly
and deeply about loss, love, and the mysteries of death.
Home,
Marilynne Robinson. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2008.
Robinson’s Gilead won a Pulitzer and I loved it’s
slow pace and thoughtful exploration of end-of-life
issues. So when Home came out, I was eager to read it.
I was not disappointed—it’s beautifully
written and, once again, explores
deep family issues that often plague us all.
The pace is slow, as is needed to develop some of her
themes that can’t be addressed in a sound bite,
so it’s not the read for everyone. But, if you
are willing to linger over excellent writing and character
development, I promise you a thought-provoking book
you’ll long remember. This is a story
about the conflicts of love when children are not who
we think they should be, when a child feels alien in
a family even though it’s a loving one. Robinson
explores the struggles of a minister to love all of
his children equally, even his prodigal son. And her
key character, the man’s youngest daughter, finds
herself a bridge between father and son even as she
fears she may have to let go of her own long-held dreams
to give them hope. For a lot more detail about this
wonderful writer: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4774827.ece
The
Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski.
HarperCollins 2008. We don’t often review or feature
best-selling books on FEAST, not because we’re
against them, but because many fine, unique books never
become bestsellers due to missing promotional budgets.
But this book is so unique, by an incredible writer,
that we had to include it. It has been nominated for
several awards and is an Oprah pick (if that matters
to you)—it is also a damned
good story! It’s monumental in
length at 561 pages and is not a book you race through
for story only—it’s stories within
stories, each to be savored, if for no other reason
than the writing, the descriptive prose, the deft handling
of words. The overall plot is of a boy and
his dog, but oh, so much more. Edgar Sawtelle is mute
from birth and grows up on a remote farm, an only child,
using a personal sign language to communicate with his
parents. The Sawtelle’s raise dogs and over generations
have created a breed of superior intelligence, temperament,
and training. What happens when Edgar’s father
dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances and a domino
fall of events, including a disliked uncle offering
his mother comfort as she grieves, leads Edgar to run
away from home with three of his pups trailing behind.
The depth of discussion
about the dogs, their training, the North Country landscape,
and the exploration of love, grief, and loneliness will
stay with you long after the last page.
This author has great promise and I personally look
forward to his next effort. Author's website: http://www.davidwroblewski.com/
The
Madonnas of Leningrad, Debra Dean. William
Morrow 2006. A delightful discovery! One of our favorite
things at FEAST is to revisit books that didn’t
stay around long enough to get discovered or read by
many who would love them. This is such a book. While
this is ostensibly a story about one young woman’s
dire circumstances during the Siege of Leningrad, it
is more deeply a story
about the power of the mind, the richness that can still
be present when all else fades away.
Carefully researched, it provides remarkable detail
about the lives of a small group of workers who stayed
on throughout the siege at the Hermitage Museum, the
deprivations they suffered, the efforts of some to retain
“memory palaces” of all the magnificent
art that once hung on its walls, and the effects on
all of a once vibrant city brought to its knees by the
Germans during the harshest winter on record. For the
story behind the book: http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=1281
COMING
UP AND NOT TO BE MISSED IN 2009
Angelology,
Danielle Trussoni. This debut novel caused a huge stir
in publishing circles and was jumped on by Viking. Although
not confirmed, rumors
say this manuscript got an advance well into six figures.
Word has it that this Da Vinci Code style story follows
a young nun in upstate New York who, in uncovering correspondence
between the former mother superior and Abigail Rockefeller,
unwittingly reignites an ancient war between a society
of angelologists (a group that studies angels) and the
Nephilim (the monster-like descendants of angels and
humans). The book pulls from a variety of religious
and mythical histories and, if you are into that kind
of thing, should be an entertaining read!
JUST
THE CAPTIVATING FACTS - RECOMMENDED NONFICTION:
In
Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl,
Mariane Pearl. Conde Nast Publications 2007. Mariane
Pearl, widow of murdered investigative journalist Daniel
Pearl, decided that the
best way to show their young son that there is more
than just violence in the world was to take on a project
of hope. This book contains thirteen
stories about women around the world, in some of the
most desperate of situations worldwide, who are actively
seeking peace and protection for others. They are activists
against great odds, risking death and, in some cases,
torture to fight for a better world. With a foreword
by Angelina Jolie (who portrayed Mariane in the film
version of her memoir A Mighty Heart), this is a
heart-rending, powerful collection of stories that reinforces
the notion of the power of an individual’s actions.
For more about The Forgiveness Project: http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories/mariane-pearl
The
World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.
S. Naipaul, Patrick French. Knopf 2008.
V. W. Naipaul is arguably one of the world’s best
writers, but those who have come in personal contact
with him can tell you he’s
not the best liked of all people. It’s
not surprising to find a writer, artist, or other creative
person who has a fabulous talent but will never win
any personality awards. What IS surprising in
this authorized biography is the access that Naipaul
gave to Patrick French, that he read over the final
draft and asked for not a single change even though
it reveals many unlovable traits. As French
says, “Of all the people I spoke to for this book,
he [Naipaul] was outwardly the frankest. He believed
that a less-than-candid biography would be pointless,
and his willingness to allow such a book to be published
in his lifetime was at once an act of narcissism and
humility.” This book is well
written and insightful about a talented, complex writer
who we love and hate, perhaps, in equal portions.
For blogging buzz about the author, see http://en.wordpress.com/tag/patrick-french/
The
Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors,
Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Hope,
Sadia Shepard. Penguin 2008. A beautifully crafted memoir
by a young woman, half Muslim/half Christian, who discovers
that her beloved grandmother was Jewish before marriage.
Raised in a US household where stories about life in
Pakistan were common ground, as Sadia grew up she felt
drawn to one story in particular—her
grandmother, who had begun life as Rachel Jacobs, was
a descendent of the Bene Israel, a tiny Jewish community
whose members believe that they are one of the lost
tribes of Israel, shipwrecked in India 2,000 years ago.
On her grandmother’s death bed, Sadia promises
to follow this history back to its source. With the
help of a Fulbright Scholarship, she arrives in Bombay
full of energy and hope only to confront numerous dead
ends and complexities in fulfilling her mission. This
is that story. Author's website: http://www.sadiashepard.com/
The
Last Gifts: Creative Ways to Be with the Dying,
Jillian Brasch. Andrews McMeel 2008. I thought at first
this book might be so depressing that I wouldn’t
be able to read and review it. I was wrong—true,
it is a book on a difficult topic, but it is inspirational
and comforting to a surprising degree.
Brasch is an occupational therapist who works with hospice
patients from all walks of life, of all ages, and of
all temperaments. Her openness to people in their last
days has allowed her to learn from, enjoy, and receive
in situations where we might have thought only she would
be doing the giving. Each vignette allows us
to see how a change in approach, in point of view, can
make days spent with a dying person richer, and not
just for them. Since we will all take our turn
on both sides of that encounter, I found that The
Last Gifts shines a light on the path.
Out
of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian
Jungle, Marc Gonsalves, Gary Brozek, Tom
Howes, and Keith Stansell. HarperCollins 2009. On February
13, 2003, a plane carrying
three American civilian contractors went down in the
mountainous jungle of Colombia. Shaken and injured,
they emerged from the plane amidst a barrage of gunfire
and were taken prisoners of the FARC,
a Colombian terrorist and Marxist rebel organization.
For the first time, Gonsalves, Stansell, and Howes tell
about their five-and-a-half-year ordeal as hostages.
That they survived at all is remarkable. They were forced
to endure isolation, brutality, and often extremely
meager circumstances, and the psychological effects
were even more challenging as they grappled with feelings
of guilt, fear, and anxiety for the families and lives
they'd left behind. This is a story of brotherhood
and survival, mental fortitude, and physical stamina
against all odds during one of the longest civilian
hostage crises in United States history. You
will not be able to put this down!
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Earthlings:
The Paintings of Tom Palmore, Susan Hallsten
McGarry, foreword by Adam Harris. University of Oklahoma
Press 2008. Tom Palmore has taken the 1970s photorealist
movement in new directions, to include not
only detailed portrayals of the animal kingdom but a
wonderful, humorous spin on the critters’ inner
lives and vanities. No one who views
his gorillas, foxes, cougars, or chickens, among many
others, can fail to appreciate his ability to render
each perfectly right down to their last hairy toe nail;
you almost expect them to jump from the canvas. But
Palmore has a feeling for what he calls these “earthlings
with whom we share this planet.” Each portrait
incorporates incongruous juxtapositions of the real
and unreal, of drawing-room settings or unlikely, whimsical
companions—such as the fox with the chicken
wallpaper behind him. This is art all can appreciate,
for its technical virtuosity as well as its imaginings
of animal’s personalities. Tom Palmores website:
http://www.flyingpaintbrush.com/
Geoffrey
Holder: A Life in Theater, Dance, and Art,
Jennifer Dunning. Harry N. Abrams 2001. A glorious book
about the amazing creative life of Geoffrey Holder,
a man who lives fully,
richly, and focuses on cultural pursuits in a way that
is quite unusual today. As he says about
his growing up years in Trinidad, “If you played
under this tree as I did as a child, you too would believe
in fairytales.” Holder is a larger-than-life figure
in every way. His whole philosophy is that “you
should do everything” regardless of age.
Born in 1930 on the cusp of one of America’s most
creative moments yet one of its most economically deprived
times, Geoffrey grew up “dancing, singing, painting,
and designing clothes . . . danced his way out of Trinidad
and on to New York City.” A tall black man with
a magnificent body and ready, joyful smile, Holder’s
style in everything he does is bold and colorful, from
his dancing to his design and choreography for such
productions as The Wiz, to his dynamic, masterful portraits
and imaginative art works.
This book inspires us all to grab life, hold on tight,
but let your feet fly out behind you as the ride begins!
An
Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private
Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators, and Designers,
Danny Gregory. HOW 2008. Ever visit an artist’s
studio and find his or her sketchbooks laid out alongside
the exhibit? Sometimes these books are more fascinating
than the finished pieces, or at least equally so. An
Illustrated Life is filled
with sketches and doodles, ideas and inspirations, by
dozens of artists, and accompanied by a discussion of
how each of them has used sketchbooks over many years,
their meaning and importance. For anyone
who constantly doodles, artist or not, this is a delightful
gathering of ideas, words, images, and introductions
to materials and techniques and to the world of artistic
journaling. You are guaranteed hours of enjoyment. Author
is on sabbatical at present--gone drawin'--but there
is a wealth of information on his website, as well as
an interesting short video about this book: http://www.dannygregory.com/
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Iron-Jawed
Angels (2004). For
8 years in the early 1920s, a group of determined suffragettes
led by Alice Paul (played beautifully by Hilary
Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O’Connor)
organized to pressure the US government to adopt a constitutional
amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. The
abuse and mental and physical challenges they faced
are heartbreaking and an important part of our history
that should not be overlooked or forgotten. Entering
WWI under the guise of bringing democracy to other countries
when so many in the US were still disenfranchised is
hypocrisy that continues today. The
brutality against these women who only wanted some say
in their own destiny and that of their children is shocking.
But this is no boring, dry documentary, as some are,
but instead a beautifully crafted and dramatic
film with strong acting that makes the story real for
a greater number of people. Not to be missed!
An HBO original drama directed by Katja von Garnier,
available on DVD. To view the trailer, click HERE.
Sketches
of Frank Gehry (2005). Frank Gehry’s
friend and director Sydney
Pollack made what could have been a dull tale of history
and buildings into a more intimate portrait of a man
and his creations. I found it fascinating!
Gehry’s story about his life and how he came to
create imaginative, magnificent buildings that gleam
against their landscape is one of hardship, anti-Semitism,
and determination to follow his own dream. Since Pollack
was neither knowledgeable about architecture nor a documentarian
at the time, he brings a very personal sensibility to
the film that I, as a layperson, found totally appealing.
Pollack’s recent passing makes this ode
to his friend even more poignant. To view the
trailer, click HERE.
The
Painted Veil (2006). Based on the classic
novel by Somerset Maugham, the title of this film is
taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet that begins
“Lift not the painted veil which those who live/call
life.” The Painted Veil is a love story
set in the 1920s that tells the story of a young English
couple, Walter (Edward Norton), a middle
class doctor, and Kitty (Naomi Watts),
an upper-class woman, who get married for the wrong
reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where she falls in
love with someone else. When he uncovers her infidelity,
in an act of vengeance,
he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged
by a deadly epidemic, and forces her to come along.
Their journey brings meaning to their relationship and
gives them purpose in a remote and wildly beautiful
region. This film is not only visually breathtaking,
it is a touching story well acted. To view
the trailer, click HERE.
Toots
(2007). Walter Cronkite said about this bio pic,
“One of the most compelling, yet forgotten stories
of the 20th century.” Produced
and directed by Toots Shor’s granddaughter, Kristi
Jacobsen, this story of the legendary Manhattan saloonkeeper
reveals a man who was father, brother, gambler, bum,
friend to the famous, a crook to the feds, a notorious
and colorful figure in an earlier day. This
self-made man with more than a few rough spots could
verbally burn you to the ground or alternately give
you the shirt off his back. He attracted politicians,
gangsters, sports and movie celebrities such as Sinatra,
Gleason, Dimaggio, Ruth, Costello, Eisenhower, Nixon,
and Warren to his famous establishment on New York’s
West 51st street, and drinks and food regularly
arrived with a side of zingers. As Time Out
NY said when this film came out,
“A gin-soaked valentine to New York City in its
heyday.” To see the trailer, click
HERE
/fur.jpg)
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006).
Nicole Kidman
stars as the controversial photographer Diane Arbus
in this sometimes bizarre but ultimately intriguing
fable. This is the story of how it might have
been, of circumstances right out of Pan’s
Labyrinth that turned Arbus from her husband’s
studio helper into a photographer on her own pursuing
an unusual, often disturbing, body of images. The
longer you watch, the more you are drawn into a world
of “freaks” and weird pleasures—it
is bold, colorful, and a journey through wild imagination.
To view the trailer, click HERE.
/geoffrey.jpg)
Geoffrey and Carmen
(First Run Features 2009). This inspiring documentary
pays homage to artistic achievement, celebrating the
lives of dancer, choreographer, and actress Carmen DeLavallade
and her über-creative husband of some fifty years,
Geoffrey Holder. Fully devoted to one another and to
their international endeavors in dance, theater, and
the world of studio artist in Geoffrey’s case,
here is a chance to view on film some vignettes of their
fabulous, extremely well-lived lifestyle. You’ll
be attempting high kicks (careful!), turning pirouettes,
and running for your paint brush by its end! For
more about this film, go to http://firstrunfeatures.com/carmenandgeoffrey_synopsis.html.

A
Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table,
Molly Wizenberg. (Simon & Schuster March 2009).
Here’s a narrative cookbook coming to you from
the hugely successful, award-winning blog Orangette
(http://orangette.blogspot.com)
straight to your heart! Overwhelmed by the death of
her father, Molly feels unable to return to graduate
school in Seattle and heads instead for Paris, the scene
of so many memories of time spent there with him. Instead
of working on her dissertation, she finds herself wandering
open markets, pouring over recipes, visiting patisseries,
and sampling cheeses. She realizes it is not the academic
life that calls her, but food, the kitchen. The blog
that was born out of that discovery developed a loyal
following and a book deal followed. In this
delightful story/cookbook, Molly shares life with her
family, a new romance, a change in lifestyle—all
interspersed by recipes guaranteed to find new fans!
HERE's a link to the
blog post that contains one of my favorite recipes from
this book, Gâteau
au chocolat fondant de Nathalie.
/Gateau_fondant_slice.jpg)
Doesn't it look absolutely YUMMY?
It's a dense, rich, practically flourless chocolate
cake that cries out for vanilla ice cream or whipped
cream topping !!
The
Backyard Homestead, Carleen Madigan, ed.
Storey Publishing 2009. With food prices rising, money
tighter than a tic on a new-found meal,
and growing concerns about food safety, becoming a locavore
has greater and greater appeal. Whether you have acres
of ground or just a couple of raised beds on your back
patio, this new book is filled with tips for
how to grow your own fruits, vegetables, and grains—and
even, if you have the space, your own meat animals.
Step-by-step, Madigan, former managing editor at Horticulture
magazine and organic farmer, carries
you from seed to the table, from bee to honey, and chicken
to chow. It’s a great resource
and proves you can start small yet gain enormous satisfaction
and better nutrition, often with the special byproduct
of time together as a family.
For another article on the topic by Carleen:
http://www.terrain.org/columns/18/guest.htm
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As promised, here is a
list of armchair travel books—all new this
year—to carry you through the recession and help
you formulate plans and sketch out routes for your next
real journey!
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USA101: A Guide to America’s Iconic Places, Events,
and Festivals, Gary McKechnie. National
Geographic Society 2009. Now’s the time to explore
our own country, in person or aboard your favorite recliner!
Here’s a listing of 101 quirky, wholly American,
historic or hysteric destinations, events, and celebrations
from the Statue of Liberty in the east to the Golden
Gate Park in the west—and all stops in between.
If you can’t find
something to entertain here, you might as well sell
that armchair on E-Bay right now!
Walking
the Camino: A Modern Pilgrimage to Santiago,
Tony Kevin. Scribe Publications 2009. Tony Kevin, an
overweight 63-year-old former diplomat sets off on an
eight-week trek armed only with a small backpack and
a walking stick. He makes his way along
two historic trails to the cathedral city of Santiago
de Compostela, Europe’s most famous center of
pilgrimage. He’s not alone, neither the first
nor the last, as tens of thousands of people of all
nationalities and beliefs have made this long, exhausting
journey across the cold mountains and hot tablelands
of Spain. Kevin’s adventure leads to a
deep meditation on the nature of modern life,
plus practical advice for others thinking of following
in his footsteps, whether on a religious or personal
quest at an important crossroads of life.
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Mona Lisa’s
Pajamas: Diverting Dispatches from a Roving Reporter,
A. Craig Copetas. Union Square Publishers 2009. If you
are something of a Walter Mitty, here’s
a round-trip ticket for a journey to distant destinations
most will never visit but can thoroughly enjoy daydreaming
about. Copetas writes of exotic locales,
zany business ventures, artisan winemakers, and an entertaining
lot of eccentric characters that will thoroughly entertain,
make you chuckle or gasp. His vivid storytelling brings
it to life through rich detail.
Roads
to Quoz: An American Mosey, William Least
Heat-Moon. Little, Brown 2009. For those of you who,
like me, have always been drawn around every curve of
the road in search of adventure, you may recall Least
Heat-Moon’s classic Blue Highways (Little,
Brown 1982), in which he chronicled his journey along
the trail of Lewis and Clark. It’s been a long
while since then, but Least
Heat-Moon is back on the road again, this time with
his lady, tracing the lesser-known Dunbar-Hunter Expedition
of 1804 through the southern half of the Louisiana Purchase,
searching out the head of the Ouachita River in Arkansas.
He’s older now, but he’s still stopping
in along the way at small towns on roads to nowhere
in particular, meeting folks that complete the
texture of the American landscape in ways urbanites
may have forgotten or never known. It’s
rewarding to tag along and rediscover how people in
our country live out their individual dreams. For an
interesting radio interview with the author: http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/11/william-least-heat-moon/
Invisible
China: A Journey Through Ethnic Borderlands,
Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson. Chicago Review Press
2009. Legerton and Rawson
traveled more than 14,000 miles by bus and train to
the farthest reaches of China,
to meet the minority peoples who live there, talk to
farmers in their fields, monks in their monasteries,
fishermen on their skiffs, and herders on the steppe.
Recording the daily lives around them, they experience
a “visit with an old Catholic fisherman
at a church that has been without a priest for 40 years;
hike around high-altitude Lugu Lake to farm with the
matriarchal Mosuo women; and descend into a dry riverbed
to hunt for jade with Muslim Uyghur merchants.”
This story reveals there is much yet to be discovered
in the vast territories that comprise China, political
conflicts that don’t make the news, and groups
of people living in traditional ways they’d like
to retain. It’s a
remarkable look at an extremely complex society.
Central
Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife,
Marie Winn. Picador 2009. Remember the story of the
Pale Male, the Red-Tailed Hawk in New York City that
drew the attention of so many? Marie Winn wrote the
book Red-Tails in Love. Now she explores further
details of a natural world
that flourishes in the midst of a massive city, a world
of nocturnal beasts, insects, and slugs,
a dark teeming ecosphere hidden twixt and tween the
bright lights and traffic of Fifth Avenue and Central
Park West. As Elizabeth Royte of the New York Times,
says, “I’d follow Winn into the
park at any hour.” Author's website:
http://www.mariewinn.com/
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ABOUT
THE EDITOR: Rosemary Carstens is a freelance writer,
author, and publication consultant living in Longmont,
Colorado. She is the author of DREAMRIDER: Roadmap
to an Adventurous Life (Black Lightning Press 2003)
and co-author of SUSTAINING THOUGHT: Thirty Years
of Cookery at the School of American Research (2007).
She presently has a biography about American artist
Annette Nancarrow, friend of Diego Rivera and Frida
Kahlo in progress. Carstens is available for speaking
engagements and workshops on the topics presented here
and more. When not in the comma factory, she loves to
ride the Rockies on her motorcycle, the Road Goddess.
More information is available
at http://www.CarstensCommunications.com
©
Rosemary Carstens 2009. Reprints available with permission.
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