I think this is the first time I’ve reviewed a cookbook here, but Michael Symon’s Live to Cook: Recipes and Techniques to Rock Your Kitchen is kind of special.  I grew up in Ohio and I was a frequent guest at Lola long before I ever saw its owner on TV Food Network.  That face, that laugh…and that food! As often as we could afford it, we had a table or a seat at the bar and some of the very best food in town.

Lola Bistro is now Lolita and there’s a new Lola downtown.  We don’t hear that laugh as often anymore when we come by for dinner, but we do hear it on Iron Chef America.  And it’s still the best food in town.  Even better, I’ve now got the recipes for some of my favorite dishes and Symon’s advice on how to be a better cook. [Read more →]

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Paul Rudnick is one of those names that I was complete unfamiliar with, until I read his book.  As he told his stories, I kept thinking “oh!  I remember Sister Act!”  “I’ve heard of Allan Carr!”  “He wrote The Addams Family?  I never knew that!”  It was part discovery, part reunion, full of funny bits, a little gossip, and some entirely fictional chapters that were, perhaps, my favorite parts.  It is wickedly funny, even — maybe especially — when recounting the worst stories.  All in all, it was a pleasure to read.

I Shudder isn’t exactly a memoir, although it’s full of funny stories about his family, his Hollywood contacts, the plays he’s written and the people he’s met.  Between these stories, there is also a (hopefully) fictional memoir, “An Excerpt from the Most Deeply Intimate and Personal Diary of One Elyot Vionnet.”  Elyot is a bizarre character, a semi-retired substitute teacher living in a perfect studio apartment that almost overlooks Gramercy Park.  One worries about what he might be teaching those impressionable young minds:

As this is my most deeply intimate and personal diary, I am assuming that it will one day be introduced into evidence at my trial.

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The Book of Lies is a tough review to write.  There is so much going on, so many interesting side stories that I want to tell you about, but I don’t want to spoil the surprises you have in store.  There’s Cain and Abel, a kid named Jerry Siegel, a dog named Benoni, a tractor-trailer full of melting shrimp, and the difficult relationships between fathers and sons.  Add a healthy dose of mystery, ties to several real-life stories, and you’ve got The Book of Lies, a great mystery from a great mystery writer.

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I swear, this is the last Jane Austen mash-up I’m going to read.

I also swear that I will not break out into Dear Jane letters, as Elizabeth is inclined to do at critical junctures of the book.  The Postal Service could not be terribly reliable in Europe in her day, but the letters provide an easy way for Elizabeth to share her deepest secrets with us, as well as with Jane, and so she keeps writing.

I found Mr. Darcy, Vampyre to be a breezier read than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  It’s not written to be funny, although it is occasionally ridiculous; it seems a more serious attempt to extend the romance of Elizabeth Bennett and her beloved Mr Darcy.  From the glorious morning of their wedding day to the novel’s final sunrise, they stay true to the world Austen created. [Read more →]

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On any given Sunday, have you ever wished that you knew a little more about football?  You’re watching with friends, everyone is yelling about the lousy blocking or the zone defense and you wish you knew what they were talking about?  Or maybe you wish your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse could get as excited about the pass coverage as you are?  This may be just the book you need.  A Sportscaster’s Guide to Watching Football will teach new fans and old a little more about the game so many of us love.  The author, Mark Oristano, spent thirty years working for/with the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers.  Along the way, he picked up a lot of helpful information:

When you’ve finished, you won’t be able to immediately spot “Cover Two” or know which receiver broke his route off too soon or whether the ref made the right call when he signalled intentional grounding.  But you will understand, for example, why first-down plays are the most important play of any offensive drive. [Read more →]

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Green Eyes in the Amazon is a very timely book — almost too timely.  Fundamentalist religious groups are conspiring to control society and stifle scientific advances by any means necessary, including violence.  It is set in a hazy but not-too-distant future.  No more cellphones and SUVs, now we all have vidcoms and autopiloted cars.  Central America is a Dead Zone, university professors and students have to swear loyalty oaths and religion is on the rise.  In this contentious climate, a brilliant young biologist may have ushered in the next step in human evolution — but what will the religious zealots do to stop him? [Read more →]

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Vampires are all the rage these days.  True Blood on HBO, the Twilight series and movies, Being Human on BBC America has a vampire, even the recently (and sadly) departed Blood Ties on Lifetime (and the books by Tanya Huff) – those bloodsuckers are everywhere.  And for the modern woman who can’t resist a real bad boy, Diana Laurence has written How to Catch and Keep a Vampire: A Step-By-Step Guide to Loving the Bad and the Beautiful. This fun bit of fluff is billed as a modern-day dating guide for the gal who wants her very own vampire boyfriend.  It gives you all the inside info you need on where to meet a vamp, how to attract his attention, how to avoid a deadly dinner party…it even reveals The Secret of the Red Satin Ribbon.  Follow that advice at your own risk. [Read more →]

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The Brutal Telling is a first-rate detective novel.  The mystery is complex and well-plotted, while the beautiful Canadian scenery and charming characters breathe life into the story.  It is a look into the very darkest corners of the human heart, a reminder that we never truly know what another person is capable of, or what secrets they may keep.

The book starts with a story, told in the dead of night by a crackling fire.

“Chaos is coming, old son, and there’s no stopping it. It’s taken a long time, but it’s finally here.”

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Sometimes, when a book is really good, you start counting the days until the sequel comes out as soon as you finish the last page. Back in April, I reviewed Patrick Carman’s Skeleton Creek and I immediately started clamoring for a sequel. The book ends with a real cliffhanger — it involves ghosts, a broken leg, a dead battery and a secret room — and I wanted to know what happened next!  In his follow-up novel, Ghost in the Machine, Carman continues the story of Ryan and Sarah and the Crossbones Society.

(Check out the trailer for Ghost in Machine here.)

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I love a good adventure novel!  Exploring the Arctic, searching for the source of the Nile, exploring the Amazon basin, all from the comfort of your local library. Most of us will never in our lives go anywhere that is truly unexplored, but I have great respect for the men (and occasionally women) who were unafraid of the unknown.  In The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, author David Grann presents not only a great tale of adventure but also a great mystery: what happened to Colonel Percy Fawcett? [Read more →]

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In the Private Papers of Eastern Jewel, Maureen Lindley looks at the life of a notorious Chinese princess from a forgiving angle.  Eastern Jewel, also known as Yoshiko Kawashima, was considered quite scandalous in her day: a Chinese princess raised in Japan, a promiscuous young woman who wore men’s clothes, she drank and smoked opium, she spied for the Japanese and was eventually executed as a traitor.  Lindley suspects that she was not inherently evil, but a product of her very peculiar upbringing and headstrong temperment.  She paints a very compelling story. [Read more →]

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It took a little convincing to get me to read this book.  I got an email about the book and they almost lost me with “as only a dog could tell it.”  A dog telling the story is almost always a recipe for disaster.  In this case, instead of disaster, there’s a pretty terrific story and a narrator with an interesting viewpoint (and one heck of a vocabulary for a terrier). [Read more →]

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In preparation for Banned Books Week (September 26-October 3rd), the American Library Association has released their annual list of the books that the pro-censorship crowd tried to pull from library Shelves.  You can read the list here, as well as get prepped for the holiday with t-shirts and posters.

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.  One does not love breathing.”
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Now, I understand a parent wanting to know what their kid is reading, I really do.  I have a little sympathy (still not much, to be honest) with parents who are concerned about books in their schools.  I mean, I might agree that The Joy of Gay Sex is not suitable for a middle school library – but that isn’t where people tried to censor it.  They wanted to remove it from the public library, where adults also check out books.  So they didn’t just want to make sure their tween son or daughter didn’t have access to it, they wanted to make sure that NO ONE had access to it — and you haven’t seen cranky until you try to take my books away. [Read more →]

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I love after-the-apocalypse stories.  I always have.  As a kid, I was always planning for what I would do after the zombies attacked, after the nuclear warheads fell and it was just me and a rag-tag band of survivors.  There is something appealing about the start of a whole new world order, a chance to find a different place for myself, a chance to show just how resourceful I could really be.  I am not the only one interested in how the world will end, as evidenced by the thoughtfulness and creativity in Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse.   This collection of twenty-two stories looks at post-apocalyptic life from all sorts of angles.  Some are sad and desperate, others funny, still more are crazy with imagination of what people could become. No matter what your plans for the apocalypse, there is something here that might be useful. 

Here’s one of my favorite end-of-the-world scenarios, by the way:
Carniverous plants.

“The End of the World as We Know It” by Dale Bailey

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Gary Gray wants nothing more than to be “normal.” He wants to fall in love, get married, have children, go to church, go to Disney Land and live the American dream. He’s got one little problem, though: he’s in love with his roommate, Russ, and lusting after other men is frowned upon at Southern Florida Christian College. [Read more →]

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This is the last, great beach read of the summer.

Let’s Get It On is the rather fanciful tale of LaShaWanda P. Marshall and her friends, Lydia Beaucoup and Acey Allen. They are the owners of a successful “full-service spa” (in other words: a brothel) for women in Reno, and they are opening their first franchise, on a yacht off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. These entrepreneurs are hoping to find a host of wealthy black women on the island who are willing to pay for the company of virile young men, if only the government will stay out of their way! [Read more →]

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One of the problems with reading historical fiction is that you usually know how the story ends. You can write a book about the Titanic, but everyone knows that the boat sinks. The same is true, to some extent, about Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman: most people know at least a little about the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men, falsely charged with raping two white women and sentenced to die in the electric chair. So, how does an author turn this into a fresh, interesting story? [Read more →]

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In the late 18th century, a fabulous new scientific oddity was the toast of Europe. The Turk, a chess-playing automaton built by Wolfgang von Kempelen, was defeating chess masters across Europe. It was a true marvel of the times — a machine, built after the fashion of a Turkish ruler, that was capable of thought. Built for the amusement of Empress Maria Theresa of Hungary, it played chess, the game of kings, against rulers and commoners alike.  In 1808, it played its most famous foe, Napoleon Bonaparte.  The Turk was eventually retired, sold, and was destroyed in a fire at Peale’s Chinese Museum in Philadelphia in 1854.  But what was the secret behind this machine that dazzled royalty and astounded the court machinicians?  Robert Lohr devises a tale for The Turk full of intrigue and heartbreak in his novel, The Chess Machine. [Read more →]

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Web Goodhue is a jerk. He’s down to his last friend, he’s got no job, he sleeps all day and he is going nowhere. (Sound like anyone you’ve dated? Yeah. Me, too.) At least, that’s what you see on the surface. There’s a lot more to Web than you see at first glance — a lot of good in him, and a lot of hurt. When his best (only) friend Chev insists he take a job with their buddy Po Sin, Web doesn’t have much choice and he’s too tired to argue about it.

That’s how Web ends up cleaning crime scenes. [Read more →]

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I live in a college town and we have our fair share of tattoo parlors. There are 2 shops almost next door to each other on the main drag through town and a tattoo and body piercing place down at the end of a row of bars, near where I turn onto my street. That one has an interesting crew that hangs around outside — both people and animals — and Tattoo Machine made me want to stop in and hang out with these guys a little. It’s full of great stories (and you know a busy, urban tattoo shop has to have a million of them), inside jokes, and even some talk about the art of tattoos. Johnson makes it a wild and entertaining ride. [Read more →]

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