For the first time I understood why people come back from Alaska with fifty pictures of glaciers or return from a honeymoon in Tahiti with fifty pictures of the same sunset. The world is so beautiful in these places, it is impossible to register that there will be more, more, more. Surely this is it. Negotiate with your ailing camera battery. How can it not stay alive for this? How can you believe that twenty minutes from now there will be an even taller forest, an even wider waterfall? We are only as good as our most extreme experiences.
(A paragraph I particularly like from Sloane Crosley’s new book, How Did You Get This Number?)
February 15, 2011
To help you with your holiday shopping, Health & Swellness has 12 days of swell gift ideas for you. Today is Day 11!
For anyone who could use a chuckle. Something has to be really funny for me to laugh out loud, so the fact that Mike Birbiglia always has me laughing it up when he’s featured on This American Life and when I read his Secret Public Journal makes me super keen to read his new book. Sleepwalk with Me & Other Painfully True Stories by Mike Birbiglia, $27.99.
For anyone who loves food. The chapter where Bourdain describes the different foods he’s had all around the world had me in awe of his food writing skills (and made me antsy to travel). And overall, the book’s a must read for anyone who’s ever thought of getting into the restaurant industry. Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and The People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain, $28.99.
For the home chef. Filled with more than 100 recipes, this book will teach you how to perfectly pair pasta shape with sauce. Now, this is geometry you’ll want to learn. Love the graphic black and white design, too. Geometry of Pasta by Jacob Kennedy and Caz Hildebrand, $29.95.
December 13, 2010
Heading to the cottage this weekend and looking for something to read?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted to read the classics I’ve never gotten around to reading — think Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare — so I’m kind of excited about the new 100 Classic Books, which includes such novels as Pride and Prejudice to be read on any of the Nintendo DS systems.
(now if only the DS could emit that musty weathered book smell — I kinda like that scent, it’s oddly comforting…)
June 30, 2010
