'Heat' by Bill Buford

Heat, Bill Buford (3.5)

I read this book years ago and remembered it fondly. Rereading it now had some major pluses and minuses. The book follows the journalist, Mr. Buford, along 3 major cooking adventures: working in the kitchen of a Mario Batalli restaurant, traveling to Tuscany to learn how to make homemade pasta, and returning to Tuscany to apprentice with a butcher. Given our recent interest in cooking – particular all things Italian – I loved the kitchen and pasta sections. Given my pescatarian/vegetarian predilections (I was a carnivore during the first reading), I found the butcher section almost unreadable. Mr. Buford has a somewhat annoying habit of bending towards the superlative (i.e. everything is the best, most wonderful, only possible….you get the drift) that gets a bit tiresome. That being said, the characters he meets along his journey come alive in his writing and are extremely likable and interesting. I will add that many of his passages made me worry about Mr. Batalli’s health (can anyone eat and drink that much and stay out till 4am???). If you like meat, cooking and Italy – this is probably a 4.0 book. It’s also worth reading if you are just interested in a behind the scenes look at a famous restaurant in New York City.

'Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter' by Mario Vargas Llosa

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa (3.5)

This book took a bit for me to latch onto, but as it progressed, I found it very charming and couldn’t put it down. A semi-autobiography written in 1977, it is the story of a young man (Mario) in Peru going to law school and working at a local radio station. The two characters in the title are the big influences on Mario during that time: his divorced aunt-by-marriage and the passionate Bolivian scriptwriter brought in to write serials for his radio station. By far, the most interesting character in this book is Pedro, the scriptwriter. His odd proclivities (Argentinians are horrible, man’s best age is his – 50) show up humorously in each story. The book intersperses Mario’s life (becoming crazy as he falls in love with his aunt) with the emotional stories of the serial. As Mario’s life runs out of control, the scriptwriter’s stories do as well. The beauty of this book is in the language, the creativity of the stories and the humor spattered throughout (loved the naked stowaway with 1 tooth!). The characters are a bit cartoonish and the serial stories can be quite confusing, but it you stick to it, the reading experience can be quite entertaining. I found the ending brief and relatively sad, though that did not appear to be the intention.

'The Screwtape Letters' by C.S. Lewis

The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis (3.0)

Why ‘Screwtape’, ‘Wormwood’, ‘Slubgob’ and other odd names used throughout this book? C. S. Lewis says he brainstormed nasty words such as tapeworm, scrooge, thumbscrew, slob, etc. and used them to form the names of his devils. The main devil is Screwtape and the book is comprised of letters he writes to his nephew, a demon in training. Throughout the story, Screwtape is advising Wormwood how to capture a soul for their team and not His. Lewis has cleverly made the Devil a boss micro managing his Dilbert-like nephew as if they were selling paper in Slough. He set the time during World War II, but advises not to let their charge die during the war, as he is leaning towards the other team and they could lose his soul forever. I was most surprised by the prescience of Lewis with several subjects, such as the Devil’s advice on lowering women’s self-confidence (one of his many suggestions to Wormwood to turn people to the dark side). Though published in 1941, he could have been talking about the body image issues we face with the media and girls today. Given his transition from atheism to Christianity, some of the devil’s irony and sarcasm were a bit much for me, but I could understand given the author’s journey. The book is quite short, but rather difficult to read and digest, mainly due to the language. I would have given it a ‘4’ had it been more accessible.

'Dust' by Hugh Howey

Dust (Silo #3), Hugh Howey (4.0)

Hugh Howey finishes his Silo trilogy with this book, a relatively satisfying ending. He answers many of the questions brought up in the first book (Wool) and not quite answered in the second (Shift). A quick recap: thousands of people are living underground in multi-level silos in order to be protected from the apocalyptic world outside. In the second book, more of the dwellers realize there are multiple silos and we are given the back-story of how this all came to be. Book three is where the rubber meets the road – will the rebels be punished for their uprising? Will the originators of this system be punished for their hubris? And ultimately, will anyone break the cycle and escape their ‘prison’? Overall I enjoyed the series for its uniqueness. I found fault with some of the logic – particularly a few things at the end – but I enjoyed the journey. I will add a warning – this is not a trilogy for claustrophobics!

'Machiavelli Goes to the Movies, Understanding 'The Prince' through Television and Film' by Eric T. Kasper and Try A. Kozma

Machiavelli Goes to the Movies, Understanding ‘The Prince’ through Television and Film, Eric T. Kasper and Troy A. Kozma (2.5)

Unfortunately the title of this book turned out to be more intriguing than the book itself. I stumbled into it at the University library and thought ‘what a great idea’. The chapter titles such as: ‘Pick a Side and Stick to Your Decisions in Politics: The Contender, Harry Potter, and House of Cards’ sounded like such a great joining of Machiavellian philosophy with modern films and TV. The book spawned from papers written by the two authors, both professors in Poli-sci and Philosophy at University of Wisconsin campuses. They used the TV show, ‘Breaking Bad’ to illustrate concepts from Machiavelli’s book, ‘The Prince’. They decided to broaden their scope with regards to other TV shows and films. I think the main negative of the book is the dry nature. Anyone who has read ‘The Prince’ knows that while many of its topics are exciting and provoking, it’s told in a chapter-by-chapter ‘how-to’ manner. This book follows that pattern to a fault. I also found some of the comparisons a bit of a stretch. While it was easy to see that ‘Annihilate While Taking Power’ would use Michael Corleone in ‘The Godfather’ as a perfect example (as he killed the Mafioso’s who tried to kill his father and killed all the family heads the day he took over for his father), it is harder to see the connection between ‘Miserliness is Better than Liberality’ and ‘Ghostbusters’. If you are a fan of Machiavelli, maybe you will read this and understand the connection. If not, you can take my word for it.

'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' by Charles M. Blow

Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Charles M. Blow (3.0)

You may recognize Charles Blow’s name as an Op/ed columnist in the New York Times. He happens to hold the distinction as having written the only op/ed to which I felt compelled to respond. His specialty is using data and graphs to illustrate his various points. In one case, I felt he had picked certain data in order to skew his results. As an engineer, I had to call ‘foul’. Needless to say, my letter to the editor was not published, but when I heard he had written a memoir I was curious to read it. Mr. Blow grew up in rural Louisiana as the last of 4 boys born to a poor and principled mother. His father reigns as the missing ingredient to much of his happiness. In addition to getting kicked out of the house relatively early in Charles’s life, he doesn’t seem capable of showing any love or attention to his children. The author is a relatively young man, so the book mainly covers his childhood and college years, as he explains their context to his ‘formative’ development. His story is clear about what possible causes led to his issues with relationships (of all types) and closeness. While I was disappointed in the quality of writing (a bit stilted given the context), I appreciated the description he brought to the times and people from the perspective of a black youth growing up in rural Louisiana. His ability to overcome hardship and broken relationships of his youth is heartening to read.