Short Review of Books I Constantly Pick Up and Peruse in the Store but Have Yet to Buy (in no particular order)

The Joy of Cooking
Rombauer, et al.

I keep promising myself that I’ll buy it and use it as my new food bible. Next paycheck. Next paycheck arrives and I realize that I don’t get all that into cooking for just myself and don’t have anyone else to cook for/with right now. But maybe next paycheck. Because the beauty of The Joy is that the recipes are fantastic templates for anything you want to eventually create. Right now, I’m afraid that it would gather dust with my vegetarian cookbook as I continue to make rice and beans and Indian food out of a box.


the curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Mark Haddon

I actually read this one all the way through in the store. A feat I realized (in retrospect, of course) that is probably not something to brag about when discussions shift to store productivity at a staff meeting. If you have not yet read this book (in the store or elsewhere) grab a copy. If for nothing else than the narrative voice, it is a compelling novel of trepidation and a great outsider’s viewpoint of how relationships and societal conventions fall apart. And the chapters are prime numbers.


This Is Not A Novel
David Markson

“Realizing idly that every artist in history – until Writer’s own century – rode horseback.” Markson rejects narrative and offers a long string of interesting (true?) tidbits about the lives and (more so) the deaths of literary and artistic figures. And some etymology. And history about famous works. The juxtapositions, and new (again, true?) awareness are very enjoyable, especially when the Writer interrupts (interjects, since there is no actual story). It’s an experiment that serves to comment on art and readership as we create our own stories and meaning as we page through the seemingly random quotes and factoids.
I’ll probably wind up owning this one since I keep picking up and enjoying it. Maybe next paycheck.


Rainbow Darkness
Keith Tuma (ed.)

This is the resulting anthology of African-American poetry from the Diversity in African American Poetry Conference held at Miami University in 2003. A conference that was a week of excitement for myself and everyone else in the poetry program during that semester. One of the only reasons I have yet to buy this one is that I keep trying to let other people know about it when they ask for my recommendations. It’s a fantastic collection: Lorenzo Thomas, Harryette Mullen, Terrance Hayes, Natasha Trethewey, Wanda Coleman… wonderful, powerful and creative voices in American writing. This collection does recreates the experience of that week – by reading through the poems and essays, you feel the different opinions and passions that were shared; you discover new poets who have been operating below national recognition and you see the reasons why they are right next to the poets who garner a lot of attention. I will buy this book. It’s just a matter of how many people I’ll sell it to first.


Upcoming reviews- The Tent by Atwood, Icelander by Long, and Speaking of Faith by Tippett.