Bossypants by Tina Fey

So, basically, Tina Fey sat down and wrote a book about her life. Hilarity ensues. (Full disclosure: I listened to the audiobook. I have found that the best vehicles for memoirs are the authors reading their own words. I feel like I get more from it.)

I labeled this as "edutainment" because it is full of life lessons, and if I were starting out in the world I would turn to it as inspiration for not letting presumptions about my gender keep me from succeeding. After all, if not for her persistence, SNL would NEVER have aired the hilarious Kotex Classic commercial.

She covers everything from her scar (questions about which say more about that asker than they do about her) to what it's like to say, in front of your father whom you admire so much, that your wonky little show has been picked up for a full season. Her prayer for her daughter is poignant and hilarious and true, and the images she includes for our viewing pleasure are honest and relatable.

This is one of those books that I'm telling all the ladies in my life to read, and if I had the funds, I would just buy everyone copies. (If you're a person who spends a lot of time in your car, get the audio. Trust me. But beware: at time I was laughing so hard I cried. That could be problematic.)

Enjoy!

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

So I was really reluctant to read these bad boys. I'm still not sure why I held off, but let me tell you that I'm a little glad I did - the first book will be fresh in my mind when it hits the theater. Because I will be seeing it in the theater. (I hope.)

I finished The Hunger Games in a day.
I finished Catching Fire in a day.
I finished Mockingjay in two.

This is not an easy task when your two-year-old wants to read what Mommy is reading. And trust me - I did not read these out loud to him. At any part.

What I did do was inhale them. And cry, several times. Not at the deaths - most of those happen off-screen, although there was one that I bawled through - but at the other moments. The moments that made Katniss and her fellow Tributes (those who are sent to the Games in order to fight to the death) seem like human beings. Not even that - Collins masterfully reminded us that these are children being sent to battle to their deaths. Children who have been forced (through war, a truly oppressive government, and circumstance) to grow up entirely too quickly and who have too much responsibility on their shoulders.

Hunger Games is a page-turner. Collins level of suspense is up there in the circles of the legends, and her restraint is just enough so that those of us suffering from constant morning sickness didn't need to put the book in the freezer. It ends with the perfect wrap-up/set-up. I honestly believe you could put the book down, smile at yourself for a nicely wrapped story, and go on your way.

But if you did that you would miss out on Catching Fire, which picks up a few months later and is chock full of tension and exposition and suspense. I have heard that it is not as good as the first, but I'm going to go on record and say that is true in the way that The Two Towers was not as good as The Fellowship of the Ring. It is the middle book of a trilogy - there to arc you from book one to book two. This one has the added bonus of a great story and it leads very nicely into Mockingjay.

Mockingjay wraps it up. It even has a nice epilogue at the end of the Harry Potter twenty-years-later variety. I was told that it felt forced, but I didn't see it. I did see a bit of Collins reminding herself that she needs to go out as strongly as she came in - and I feel that she succeeded. There is action and exposition and maturation...it's delicious.

To summarize: read these. They are awesome.

PS: I totally want this song to appear in the movie somehow:



and this one (but maybe a later movie?)








****spoilerish: there's a really great love triangle. It makes the Bella/Edward/Jacob triangle look ridiculous. It's resolved really well, too. Meyer could take a few lessons. Many, many, many lessons.****

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn

I started this book on Friday. I finished it today. (Granted, I had one of those lay on the couch and read days, but still. 4 days. It feels like record time for me, lately.)

Firstly, let's take a moment and remember how much I loved Flinn's first book, The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. Remember? Good.

This book opens with this quote:

"You teach best what you most need to learn." - Richard Bach.

That's the prologue, and then part one opens with:

"For most people, the only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude." - Julia Child

So there you go. This is Kathleen (I feel after two memoirs, I can call her by her first name) giving 9 volunteers permission to have a what-the-hell attitude in the kitchen.  You read that right: volunteers. She asked people to let her teach them basic cooking skills. Things that I feel like I know, but would still pay someone to help me hone. And Kathleen is a Cordon Bleu trained chef. Teaching these women for free. If I hadn't learned so much reading the book, I'd be much more jealous. As it is, let's just say my list of Seattle Food Writers To Stalk keeps growing and growing and growing.

She starts off with something that almost everyone lacks: knife skills. Then she moves on to some taste testing (iodized salt DOES taste like chemicals!) and approaching a whole chicken, beef (not the whole cow), soups, stocks, what to do with leftovers, and tips for planning your menu so you can shop more efficiently.

Kathleen has tirelessly researched the details she uses to motivate her volunteers and readers: Americans waste 30% of the food they bring into their homes, for example. She packs in recipes, more recipes, a hearty bibliography, and recommended reading - all of which I am grateful for (and you will be, too.)

Her volunteers all have the same thing in common: they are so removed from the process of cooing and nourishing themselves that they admit to being scared to cook. Scared of the knives, scared of chicken, scared of fish, scared of failing. They represent a lot of people out there, I think. Although they are all women, they range in age and income from early twenties to mid-sixties, from food stamps to an almost $1000 a month budget.

To help with these classes, she brings in experts: fellow chefs, nutritionists, a former-chef, a Top Chef cheftestant - they add much needed color and I found myself learning things I'd never even knew I didn't know. I also will be bringing home any bones from restaurant meals. Particularly steak bones. Hello, beef stock!

So, like I said, I know my way around a kitchen, but this book wasn't written for me, necessarily. It was written for people who have a go-to meal and then a stack of take-out menus or frozen dinners. It's a wake-up call to take back our kitchens and our mealtimes...if only to regain control of our sodium intake.

I tagged this inspirational because, well, it is, but also because I have been inspired: 2012 is the year I conquer yeast. That's what I'm scared of. Yeast. We have a fair-weather relationship and really, I just want to make it my bitch. You hear that, yeast? I'm coming for you!



Kathleen Flinn's youtube channel can be found here. It's got some helpful video tutorials in it, well worth watching. Enjoy!

(Trailer) The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn

From the lady who brought us this.

I'm two chapters in. So far: Two thumbs WAY up.

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

So you'll notice that I tagged this with "instructional" - it's not a how-to manual, per-se, but for those of us with a "how to kill someone and what to do with the body" shelf in their library, this is invaluable.

It's just about as grisly as you'd expect it to be, especially considering every word of it is true. When you stack that up against something like American Psycho (where not even Brett Eason Ellis is sure he's actually torturing those women*,) this proves that truth is often much stranger, much more shudder-inducing than fiction.

This is broken up by year/poison - it starts in 1915 and ends in 1935 - spanning prohibition, alcohols feature heavily in the text. As do things like Arsenic (the "inheritence drug") and Radium (have some Radithor for youthful vitality!) and Carbon Monoxide (still a threat.)  Blum is unapologetically on the side of Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler - the team who created modern forensics in America. They were inexhaustible and determined and enthusiastic about their cause. For the entire span of Prohibition, for example, these two - a doctor and a toxicologist - were the most vocal opponents of the Noble Experiment  due to the fact that it killed more people than it saved. This crusade is broken up by cases that were investigated by the duo: from industrial poisonings to crimes of passion.

Blum made even the chemical compounds enrapturing and I found myself reading "just one more page" despite the fact that I have a list of things to-do that's as long as my arm. I also found myself thinking that Bones and/or House and/or the new Sherlock on BBC need to do a story arc with a serial poisoner - one who's always poisoning, but changing the poison. It makes me dizzy just to think of it.

A note for those who find themselves squeamish about such things: Blum does not pull punches. If you ever wanted graphic (while remaining extremely clinical) details about what things like Arsenic and Carbon Monoxide do to you, this is your book. Just remember that some things can't be unread. You should get over your squeamishness, though. This book is THAT GOOD.

Book trailer:





* I heard that on a Fresh Air interview a million years ago, and I cannot for the life of me find it. Anyone have a source? Or did I hallucinate that?