weary as water

every time i blink i have a tiny dream

Tag Archives: books

overthinking a plate of beans. (and some stuff i really like)

Here’s the deal. I’m only going to write about things I really like. Not every single book I read. Not every single trip I take. Only the things I really truly like. I’m not trying to be a critic (but I am undeniably a consumer).

OK, now that’s out of the way. So here’s some stuff I’ve read this year that I really like:

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth
I grew up in Miles City, MT, same as the author, and when all of my facebook friends from high school started talking about this lesbian coming-of-age novel set in my hometown, I immediately bought a copy and began reading. I really liked Cameron Post (the main character) – so much so that I was a little disappointed in how the story ended because I wanted to see what happened next.

I was completely overwhelmed by how accurately emily m. danforth portrayed Miles City. There’s a little tiny bit of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that talks about Miles City (mainly, a motorcycle shop that still existed when I was growing up there, and a night spent on a park bench in Riverside Park) – and when I was super homesick I would read that book over and over, feeling a little pretentious but mostly just waiting for chapter 8.

That’s pretty much how I felt the entire way through ‘the miseducation of cameron post’. I haven’t been back to Miles City in 14, maybe 15 years. And when I read this novel, I was transported back instantly. Granted, there were a lot more lesbians in ‘The Miseducation of Cameron Post’ than I remember from my high school days. And even though Cameron Post & I had very little in common (I was the misfit church kid from town in band and choir), her story about growing up different in Miles City, MT was not so different from mine.

P.S. You can imagine my excitement when I was first getting into vinyl and tracked down a copy of “13 Steps’, Fugazi’s first EP, because it had this song I really liked – “Waiting Room” – on it. On the back cover of the record is a photo of the band, sitting at a lunch counter that I knew for a fact was in Miles City, MT. (Not out of recognition – it was probably either taken at Ben Franklin’s lunch counter – but in the background of the photo you can see the top of a flag, proclaiming “MILES CITY BIG SKY”). DUDE. FUGAZI HAS BEEN TO MY HOME TOWN.

P.P.S. I know I’m supposed to be talking about this awesome book I really like, and not my hometown. Sorry. You should check the book out, anyway.

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The last book I read that I really loved was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It’s about a game between two illusionists, and a magical circus (or a circus of magic?), and there’s not much more I can say about it without spoiling some of it’s secrets. The writing flows really well, and I basically devoured this book over the course of a weekend. There’s not much more I can say about it without taking away some of the magic, so you’re going to have to read it for yourself.

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I also really liked the film Melancholia, but you probably shouldn’t watch it if you’re already depressed. It’s not a suspense film – you know from the opening scene that the Earth will be destroyed by colliding with the planet Melancholia. It is probably the very best depiction of depression that I have every seen.


The Polyphonic Spree put on a superb show at Bottletree in February. I don’t even particularly LIKE the Polyphonic Spree, although I’ll definitely go to another live show if I can. I described them as “what would happen if the arcade fire took a bunch of ecstasy and then went to church camp.” The crowd was super fun at this show – and the glitter guy threw confetti instead of glitter – and I stayed out much later than I intended (a good thing in moderation).

IMAG1248

A few weeks ago, my work buddies and I pranked a guy on his birthday by blowing up a bunch of ballons (the old fashioned way – there’s a worldwide shortage of helium!) and filling his office with them. Lots of people helped.. One of these days all the pranks I have pulled on people at the office on their birthdays are going to come back and haunt me. Not yet, though!

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Until next time.

Book 2: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

All of the stories you heard were true: Steve Jobs is an asshole. But he’s also a genius, and part of being a genius is knowing how to get what you want. This biography is a little dry at times (and I’m a nerd, so you know it is REALLY dry) – but it is also a gently honest, no-holds-barred type of book that discusses Jobs’ failures as a human being as well as his triumphs and his legacy. A little fanboy-ish but pretty good, overall.

3.5/5

Book 1: Eating With The Enemy: How I Waged Peace With North Korea From My BBQ Shack in Hackensack by Robert Egan

So Kim Jong-il died, and someone on the interwebs posted about this book review on motherjones. The book sounded super intriguing – basically, it’s a memoir of a high school dropout from New Jersey who started a bbq restaurant and somehow got involved in North Korean diplomacy. The book was just as exciting as I expected (a real life spy novel!) with the sort of escapades one might expect (bird hunting with north korean diplomats! being given truth serum by the north koreans! pissing off the fbi!). Really a fun book to read.

4/5

Book 40: The Demon in the Freezer by by Richard Preston

I picked up this book because I’ve been interested in microbiology & infectious diseases for a long time – even before I went to grad school – and I thought it would be interesting. It was interesting, but also terribly disjointed. When I started the book, I thought it was going to be about the anthrax attacks that happened shortly after 9/11. It started out that way, but then started bouncing around through the history & eradication of smallpox before finally ending up talking about the resolution of the anthrax cases. Or, in a case of rather sloppy journalism, the book incorrectly pinpointed Steven Hatfill as the culprit. Hatfill was designated as a “person of interest” by John Ashcroft in August 2002, but charges were never brought against him and the government eventually blamed another scientist, Bruce Ivins for the attacks. (Bruce Ivins killed himself before charges could be filed against him). I’m not sure if there are newer versions of the book that correct this information, but I thought it was pretty weak sauce.

256 pages
2/5

Book 38: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

Pretty interesting book about the ultra-running phenomenon. It focuses on the Tarahumara Indians, a reclusive tribe located in a desolate set of canyons in Mexico. These people like to run. They run for days at a time (seriously!) and even *like* it. Christopher McDougall spent some time in Mexico, trying to get more information about what makes them tick, and this book is his story.

Now if running were as easy and enjoyable as *reading* about running…I’d be set.

304 pages
3/5

Book 37: Concierge Confidential by Michael Fazio

To tell you the truth, I kind of freaked out a little when writing that last book review. I’m only at book 37…and I’m supposed to read 52 books by the end of the year. Yeah, probably not going to happen. Consider this one a desperate attempt at fixing my procrastination problem. (Tell-all memoirs are hunky romance-esque dirty secret.)

So – yeah. Rich people want things but they don’t want to do them, and that’s what concierges are for. Big surprise. :) The book was an easy enough read – a little condescending but also entertaining…just the way I like them.

271 pages
3/5

Book 36: The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

The Tiger’s Wife is a collection of stories within stories, of myth and folklore and a history that includes both. Natalie, the narrator of the book, is on her way to volunteer at a medical clinic in parts of the rural former Yugoslavia when she gets news of her grandfather’s death. From there the story spins through Natalie’s memory – of going with her grandfather to the zoo to see the tiger, of the copy of ‘The Jungle Book’ he kept in his pocket, of being a teenager during wartime and following her grandfather, by then an old man, through abandoned streets until they finally see an elephant being walked through the streets to the zoo. Natalie asks if there are any other stories “like that”, from before, and he tells her the story of the tiger’s wife. But the story is not just of the tiger’s wife – it is also a story of a deathless man, and of the myths surrounding the small village her grandfather grew up in.

I liked this book alot – I liked the pacing of the stories and the depth of the writing (no speed reading for this one!).

352 pages
4/5

Book 35: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

1Q84 (the Q stands for QuestionMark) is typical Murakami. Very lyrical writing (thanks to Jay Rubin – who translated it into English) and a multifaceted underlying story with parallel universes (1984 & 1q84) that are somehow connected. OK – so there were some parts of this book that really creeped me out (hint: basically all of the sex scenes – most of them are awkward and one in particular was super disturbing). The book is a bit on the long side, and the “Little People” are a “Little Annoying”, but man, what an imagination Murakami has. It is a gift I’m glad he shares with the world.

On a purely physical level, the book is gorgeous. It has a very thin ricepaper-like dustcover and super smooth newspaper-like pages. I probably like the book more than I should because of these details.

944 pages
3/5

update: here is a nytimes book review article that is worth reading

Book 34: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

Predictably, I loved Anthony Bourdain’s tell-most book about the professional cooking world. The book goes through the formation of Anthony Bourdain’s career – from his first experience of amazing food, through his drug addled coming of age in kitchens up and down the east coast, to culinary school, a string of failed restaurants, and eventually – a lucky break that opened the door to famous kitchen. The book is full of stories about kitchens and restaurants, but is also has some brotherly advice about how to outfit a home kitchen and why you shouldn’t order fish in a restaurant on a Monday or open a restaurant just because your friends love your cooking.

324 pages
4/5