Books News & Reviews Cookbook cues: Fiesta at Rick's by Rick Bayless with Deann Groen BaylessErin Hanusa on Wednesday 09/01/2010 2:00 pmRemembering the fact that chef Rick Bayless is riding a career crest in the last couple of years -- first winner of Top Chef Masters, honorary chef at a White House state dinner -- you might understand why the man is in the mood for a party. Happily for us, we're invited. >More  Madame Fromage: A look at the 2011 Wisconsin Cheesemaker CalendarTenaya Darlington on Wednesday 08/25/2010 2:00 pmJeanne Carpenter runs one of my favorite blogs, Cheese Underground. Since early 2006, she's been documenting artisan cheesemakers in Wisconsin and writing about them. This month, Carpenter released the first Wisconsin Artisan Cheesemaker calendar. >More A Book A Week: Lima Nights by Marie AranaBecky Holmes on Monday 08/23/2010 6:00 pmYears ago I read Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa. I don’t remember much of the story but I do remember the setting: Lima, Peru, in the 1950s. I remember the atmosphere of elegance and faded glory in the grand European-style apartment buildings and along the boulevards, the mix of haves and have-nots, and also my total unfamiliarity with the topography. >More A Book A Week: Red Bones by Ann CleevesBecky Holmes on Thursday 08/19/2010 6:00 pmI love Ann Cleeves' mystery series set in the Shetland Isles. I love the cold wet climate, the isolation, the sheep. Weird, I know. But even if this setting sounds awful to you, if you are mystery fan, you will enjoy Red Bones. >More A Book A Week: Shanghai Girls by Lisa SeeBecky Holmes on Tuesday 08/17/2010 6:00 pmI am conflicted about Lisa See. I think she excels in writing about places and time periods but isn't so good at creating original characters. The sisters in Shanghai Girls have a relationship that is clichéd and predictable. The dialogue is almost painfully banal. Yet the settings (1930s Shanghai, 1940s and '50s Los Angeles) are great, very evocative and filled with detail. >More A Book A Week: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen SimonsonBecky Holmes on Wednesday 08/11/2010 6:00 pmHelen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is as good as everyone says it is. Helen Simonson has written an old-fashioned story and interjected some surprisingly contemporary elements, with great success. >More Isthmus on the isthmus: Dinner and drinks with The Quickening author Michelle Hoover (video)Ben Reiser on Friday 08/06/2010Join author Michelle Hoover, in Madison on a book tour last week, at The Icon on State Street for a discussion covering her work, growing up in the Midwest, ordering wine and empanadas. >More A Book A Week: The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. LeeBecky Holmes on Friday 07/23/2010 6:00 pmI like to read books about colonialism, especially the British in India and in Ireland. I can't really explain why these books appeal to me, except as a part of my larger interest in books that deal with class issues. >More A Book A Week: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy ChevalierBecky Holmes on Thursday 07/22/2010 6:00 pmTracy Chevalier writes excellent historical fiction. Best known for Girl with a Pearl Earring, Chevalier is also the author of several of my favorite historical novels, including Falling Angels, which includes several scenes set in Highgate Cemetary, in London. >More A Book A Week: A Proper Education for Girls by Elaine diRolloBecky Holmes on Wednesday 07/21/2010 6:00 pmWhat a discovery this was! Elaine diRollo's A Proper Education for Girls is very funny and very original. >More Cookbook cues: In the Green Kitchen by Alice WatersErin Hanusa on Wednesday 07/21/2010 2:00 pmAlice Waters wrote her newest book with the primal relationship between humans and their food in mind. She envisions the "green kitchen" not just as an eco- and economy-friendly space, but one in which simple, time-tested kitchen tools (think mortar and pestle, not Cuisinart) and a bastion of basic techniques learned by heart make for heartfelt cooking and eating. >More A Book A Week: Naming Nature by Carol Kaesuk YoonBecky Holmes on Monday 07/12/2010 6:00 pmCarol Kaesuk Yoon's Naming Nature is a nonfiction book about the history of taxonomy. It falls into a category that I call "science lite," written for a nontechnical audience. I really like these kinds of books, but good ones are hard to find. >More Harvey Pekar and me: The late comics writer had an Isthmus connectionDean Robbins on Monday 07/12/2010 2:30 pm, (4) LikesReading the first reports of Harvey Pekar's death on July 12, at 70, I noted this line: "Mr. Pekar had been suffering from prostate cancer, asthma, high blood pressure and depression, police said." >More A Book A Week: Frankie and Stankie by Barbara TrapidoBecky Holmes on Friday 07/09/2010 6:00 pmWithin the space of a few weeks several people recommended that I read Barbara Trapido. Because I always do as I'm told (!) I picked her 2003 novel Frankie and Stankie, in part because it was set in 1950s South Africa, a time period/location combination that was completely new to me. >More A Book A Week: The Man From Saigon by Marti LeimbachBecky Holmes on Thursday 07/08/2010 6:00 pmHaving studiously avoided most Vietnam War literature, I thought I could try one book written by a woman, about a woman: Marti Leimbach's The Man from Saigon. Okay, I tried it. It was good, but it sure didn't make me want to read more about that awful war. >More A Book A Week: Sacred Hearts by Sarah DunantBecky Holmes on Wednesday 07/07/2010 6:00 pmI wasn't trying to read two books in a row about nuns, but I did: Danielle Trussoni's Angelology followed by Sarah Dunant's Sacred Hearts. In Sacred Hearts, the sisters can't summon angels, but they do have power, in their own limited (but more realistic) way. >More Cookbook cues: Culinary memoirs by Laura Schenone, Fuchsia Dunlop, and Moira HodgsonLinda Falkenstein on Wednesday 07/07/2010 2:00 pm, (1) LikeIf you had told me a year ago I would be hooked on the genre of the culinary memoir, I would have given you the old doubty face. For one thing, I have never been able to read a page of M. F. K. Fisher's food nonfiction without nodding off, and she is generally considered the gold standard in this area. >More A Book A Week: Angelology by Danielle TrussoniBecky Holmes on Tuesday 07/06/2010 6:00 pmI like books where fantasy and reality intermingle. Where you can pretend that maybe there really is a race of angels (called Nephilim) who live secretly among us, descended from the biblical union of heavenly angels and human women (the "sons of God and the daughters of men") as described in Genesis. Except wait, maybe not, because these guys are seriously scary and not very nice in Danielle Trussoni's Angelology. >More Cookbook cues: Desserts by Bill Yosses, David Lebovitz, and Warren BrownErin Hanusa on Wednesday 06/23/2010 2:00 pmI've been drooling over three dessert cookbooks for the past few months and am eager to tell you about them. All three come from well-known pastry chefs, but each has a unique perspective and range of recipes. >More Cookbook cues: Rachael Ray's Book of 10 by Rachael RayLinda Falkenstein on Wednesday 06/02/2010 2:00 pm, (3) LikesRachael Ray has become one of those celebs who people love to hate, so in a sort of perverse way, I wanted to like this cookbook. I wanted Rachael Ray's Book of 10 to charm me and win me over. I figured it might fall under the category of "cookbooks to actually use" -- after all, it is billed as "more than 300 recipes to cook every day" -- rather than "cookbooks to daydream over." >More A Book A Week: The Condition by Jennifer HaighBecky Holmes on Tuesday 05/25/2010 6:00 pm, (1) LikeI thought Jennifer Haigh's The Condition was unremarkable. Janet Maslin, writing in the New York Times, did not agree. I wish I had enjoyed it as much as she did. >More A Book A Week: This One Is Mine by Maria SempleBecky Holmes on Monday 05/24/2010 6:00 pm, (1) LikeSemple avoids the worst of the Hollywood-novel clichés. This One Is Mine is a character-driven story, and the shopping and real estate are pretty peripheral, if not completely absent. >More Isthmus Reads: King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records, The Soul of a Tree: A Woodworker's Reflections, A Gate at the StairsIsthmus Staff on Thursday 05/20/2010 4:00 pm, (1) LikeIt seems somewhat hard to believe there's never been a lengthy attempt to tell the story behind legendary independent record label King and its various associated imprints. But finally, more than 40 years after the death of label founder Sydney Nathan, King is getting some love in print. >More Cookbook cues: My Bread by Jim Lahey with Rick FlasteErin Hanusa on Wednesday 05/19/2010 2:00 pm, (1) LikeUntil I read Jim Lahey's My Bread, I felt similarly dubious about the no-knead bread craze. Maybe growing up watching my grandma knead on her floured board just felt too sacred a memory to jettison in favor of "easy" bread. The whole idea seemed, once again, to take away the satisfaction of breadmaking in service of a faster end product. >More A Book A Week: The World to Come by Dara HornBecky Holmes on Friday 05/07/2010 6:00 pm, (1) LikeLike a noisy crowded party, it can sometimes get annoying, and not all the guests fit in as well as others do, but it's a lot of fun. And at the end it turns into some kind of drunken hallucination where you can't figure out what is real and what is not, just like some parties do. >More |
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What is the best delivery method for a new Central Library in downtown Madison? "Mr. Bill" "Consider spending your money somewhere besides the University Bookstore" Jack Craver"Love those self-service reserved book shelves at the Madison Public Library" Peter Patau"Just ask -- Madison Public Library as Santa Claus" Peter Patau"I've taken note of a couple of local fiction writers I want to check out" "etwasinspired"The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin book tour hits Madison Joshua Norton Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Phillipines and the Rise of the Surveillance State by Alfred McCoy is "a major read by one of the university's finest faculty members" Kyle Szarzynski "For those who doubt Madison can pull off the $10 million in private fundraising needed to make our new Central Library really special, just go talk to my friend in Potosi" Dave CieslewiczA few favorite excerpts/quotes from The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin by James Norton and Becca Dilley Jeanne CarpenterA report on the UW Distinguished Lecture Series appearance by behavior economist Dan Ariely John Benninghouse"I never expected back in August when I made the decision to try for this in my capital budget, that the new library would be approved with so little contentiousness in the end" Dave Cieslewicz"Why not put a community garden on the roof of that new downtown public library?" Peter Patau
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