Book Review - The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, Jennifer 8 Lee

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food

 

Jennifer 8 Lee

Category: nonfiction, food, China, Chinese-Americans

Synopsis: Lee explores many facets of American Chinese food.

Date finished: 13 February 2013

Rating: ****

Comments: Not since Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife—when I wanted Chinese dumplings for a month—have I been so hungry for Chinese food. I think I had it for six meals during the reading of the book. This was a very enjoyable, well researched, and passionate collection of “essays” about Chinese food. I learned a lot. Food delivery began with a Chinese restaurant in New York. Crab Rangoon is a Midwestern invention; folks in other parts of the country have no idea what it is. The all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet only exists in the Midwest and South (heaven help the rest of the country!). Chop Suey has been around in America since the late 1800s. General Tso (pronounced with more of a “J” or “Z” sound than an “S” sound) is an American invention. As is the fortune cookie, which most of us know, but what we don’t know—what the jury will forever be out on—is who invented it: the Chinese-Americans or Japanese-Americans? The book seems to come down on the side of Japanese. Lee travels around the world to interview people about American Chinese food and searches the world over for the best Chinese restaurant outside of China. While at times there were too many names and facts to keep straight (in fact, some of what I reported here may be incorrect, my apologies), the journey was a lot of fun. I love to read books by authors who are passionate about what they’re researching, and Ms. Lee is definitely one of those. Written with intelligence and wit, this was a fun adventure.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes, especially to Chinese food lovers.

Book Review - Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish, Joe Mackall

Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish

 

Joe Mackall

Category: nonfiction, Amish

Synopsis: Mackall tells of his friendship with a conservative Swartzentruber Amish family, the nephew of which has just left the Amish.

Date finished: 5 February 2013      

Rating: ***½ 

Comments: Yet another book that tries to give an honest look at the Amish while divorcing Amish life from Amish religion. The two are the same to the Amish, and trying to separate them does a disservice and simply isn’t factual. I got the feeling that Mackall, a journalist, thought he was writing a hard hitting Dateline expose here, but it was very average. Average in writing and average in information. I learned very few new things about the Amish way of life and very much about Mackall’s biases toward it. He, like most English, focuses on the freedoms the Amish don’t have that we do have: we can drive, use electricity and birth control, dress sexy, wear red, be capitalists, reject God. They can do none of these things, therefore, they must be “deprived.” I believe the word for this is ethnocentric.
     He goes one step further and says that we English idealize the simplicity of Amish life, hereby cutting any good feelings about Amish life off at the knees. I don’t know how anthropologists work, but I would assume that one must put aside his own prejudices in order to fully learn the culture being studied. For instance, when discussing Jonas’s excommunication after leaving the Amish, Mackall is angry and judgmental. How can one be angry at a society for enforcing its rules? Jonas knew the consequences; his parents knew the consequences; Mackall knew the consequences. But Mackall insists on holding this rule up to English society standards and calling it heartless. Another instance, the English view that the Amish are denying their children of a proper schooling by only giving their children an eighth grade education. If the Amish are anything, they are practical. An eighth grade education is enough to run a household, run a farm, and to raise a family. Their education is, for the most part, apprenticeship and modeling. Amish children are educated for their life, not for the English life. There is no need for advanced degrees—or even a high school diploma.
     Lastly, I didn’t find this book all that well written. At the end, it seemed that he reached page 200, figured he had enough pages, and just tied up the whole Jonas leaving the Amish subplot with: Jonas got his driver’s license. The end.
     I did learn one very shocking tidbit I’d not read elsewhere: these Swartzentruber, the most conservative of the Amish societies, have dating rules more lenient than most English families. On a date, a young man goes home to a young woman’s house, and they lie in bed (fully clothed) all night and talk. Even the Victorians were more strict about propriety than this! It was sort of charming.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Not really, no.

Book Review - Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats, Patricia Barey & Therese Burson

Julia’s Cats: Julia Child’s Life in the Company of Cats

 

Patricia Barey, Therese Burson

                 

Category: nonfiction, biography, celebrity, Julia Child, France, cats

Synopsis: A biography of Julia Child, focusing on her all-abiding love for cats.

Date finished: 30 January 2013        

Rating: ****½

Comments: I believe the word for this book is “charming.” Utterly. What a nice little book this was, full of humor and happiness. It offered a nice overview of Child’s life. I was charmed by her confidence and by her playful relationship with husband Paul. I took a chance on this book; I worried that it could be too cutesy (it was, after all, about cats) or too much a literary stretch just to sell another book about Julia Child. It didn’t come across as either. The authors knew their mission and knew how much material they had. They didn’t overwrite or underwrite. My only complaint was all the French with no explanation. I’m sure I missed some witty jokes, but not all of us read French. People! I’ll add My Life in France back to my “To Read” shelf, I think.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes, especially if they’re Julia people or cat people.

Book Review - Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, Conor Grennan

Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal

 

Conor Grennan

Category: nonfiction, memoir, orphans, Nepal

Synopsis: Grennan volunteers at an orphanage in Nepal and ends up reuniting trafficked children with their parents.

Date finished: 29 January 2013

Rating: ****½

Comments: What a wonderful story. It simultaneously makes you wonder if the hateful hearts of man will ever change and renews your faith in mankind. I love how this heartbreaking story didn’t dwell in sadness; Grennan knew that the story was about much more than pain, sorrow, hardship, poverty, and displacement. He knew it was about hope, joy, peace, love, unity, and harmony. It’s good to read a story like that. That said, I hadn’t wanted to read this book. I’d seen it lurking on Amazon for years, and I knew it got high reviews, but it didn’t appeal to me in the least. It wasn’t until Glennon Melton said it would be her first book club book that I softened. Then I found it for $2 at a used bookstore and knew it was a sign. So glad I bought it and read it. Was interesting to find out in the acknowledgements that he’s the Irish poet Eamon Grennan’s son.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

An enthusiastic “yes!”

Book Review - Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading, Nina Sankovich

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

 

Nina Sankovich

Category: nonfiction, memoir, reading/books, grief

Date finished: 21 January 2013

Synopsis: After her sister dies of cancer, Sankovich leads her life at a breakneck pace. Three years later, she decides it’s time to slow down again, and she sets out to read a book each day for a year.

Rating: ****

Comments: I enjoyed this, but what I enjoyed most was the “memoir” portion, not necessarily when she talks about the books she’s read. She seems to only discuss the fiction she reads—none of which I’ve heard of. And she only discusses a small fraction of what she’s read in the year. The parts about her sister (dead for several years when she begins reading the books) got tedious. I understand that she’s working through grief, but it seems as fresh three years later as it would be right after her passing. This didn’t seem healthy to me. At any rate, she and her family have some great stories, and they were enjoyable to read. I kept wondering, though, if some people are just born fast readers. She reads a 250-300 page book in four hours. I’d read it in twelve. Do I want to read that fast, though? What’s lost when you read a book that quickly? It’s like eating a full meal in one big bite. Is it good for you? Is it respectful to the cook? Is it any good for digestion? My husband made fun of her book-a-day project, wondering if she got anything out of the books or even enjoyed them. But some folks just don’t understand what “insatiable reader” means.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Probably not. The people who would be interested in this book would likely already know about it.

Book Review - Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, Pamela Druckerman

Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting

 

Pamela Druckerman

Category: nonfiction, parenting, memoir, France

Date finished: 17 January 2013     

Synopsis: An American bringing up her children in France, Druckerman contrasts French and American parenting styles.

Rating: ****½

Comments: I enjoyed this book. With the clear dichotomies between French and American parenting styles, I realized I am more French parent than American parent. That’s how I was raised, and that’s how I tend to parent and grandparent. Believing in schedules, manners, and a firm “no’s” ability to stop misbehavior, believing permissiveness and too much leniency for a child’s wishes and feelings creates chaos in the family, valuing a strong framework of expected behavior, putting an emphasis on alone time for the child as well as the parent—these are all central to French parenting. They assume it’s common sense. And to me, it is. To most Americans, however, it’s heartless, authoritarian, and impossible. Was glad to see that the parts about how children eat in France mirrored the information in French Kids Eat Everything. Doubly glad to see she has another book coming out this year.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes, especially mothers.

Book Review - Almost Amish, Nancy Sleeth

Almost Amish: One Woman’s Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life

 

Nancy Sleeth

Category: nonfiction, memoir, faith, sustainability, simplicity, Amish

Date finished: 11 January 2013

Synopsis: Sleeth examines Amish principles and discusses their place in the mainstream Christian’s life.

Rating: ***½ 

Comments: This book got kind of tedious. And I’m thoroughly convinced that she’s never actually known an Amish person, she’s just read a book about them and started comparing her life to theirs and wrote about the positive matchups in this book. It really wasn’t preachy, per se, but it wasn’t new either. A godly life involves less stuff and more faith? Less video games and more time as a family? Um, not exactly new. Still, she seems like a very nice person with a nice ministry, although this is the first time I’ve read about the belief that Jesus would have been a vegetarian environmentalist. I don’t think I believe that. Also, I wonder which Bible translation she uses—her citations were so different from the KJV that I had to reread them and marvel at the reinterpretations. I’ve made it sound like I hated the book, and I really didn’t; I just found it average.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

No.