The Conundrum by David Owen

The Conundrum is not your typical tome extolling the virtues of green living.  Rather, it is an unflinching look at the history of technology and the development of more efficient ways of using energy, and whether these things improve our luck with the future or hinder it. The author does not look with a kind eye [...]

The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing

I love short story and essay collections, because I can pick and choose the ones I like, read them out of order, and not feel compelled to read the whole book. That’s what I liked – and very much – about The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing, although the quality within is so good, I found [...]

An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler

An Everlasting Meal is less a cookbook than an extended musing of the possibilities that are often under the cook’s very nose.  The author is a strong advocate of using as much of produce or piece of meat as is possible.  What the average reader would throw away impudently she shrewdly eyes for its place in a future [...]

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

On the aftermath of her mother’s death and a divorce, Cheryl Strayed hiked a large portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, the west coast cousin to the Appalachian Trail that cuts through blazing desert and snow-logged mountains alike.  The trail at first began as a sort of escape, and Cheryl thought initially that she’d prepared properly, [...]

The Great Northern Express by Howard Frank Mosher

The author, in his 60s and recovering from cancer, takes to the road on a book tour with mixed results.  In Mosher’s mind, his trip is a tribute of sorts to Reg Bennett, his honorary uncle, whose life observations greatly inspired him.  In fact, he and Reg fully intended to make such a trip together, but it wasn’t meant to be.  Still, his uncle and [...]

What’s the Economy for, Anyway? by John de Graaf and David K. Batker

For most of the past seventy years, the almighty Gross Domestic Product has been the prime determinant in figuring and keeping track of economic growth.  In recent times, though, with a hard-to-shake recession, it’s becoming harder to accept the GDP, or economic growth itself, as an accurate measure of how well our economy really works, and whether it serves us [...]

Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan

As a collection of essays, Pulphead touches on pop culture, curmudgeonly southern writers, early 19th century naturalists, and other topics.  It’s easy to get lost in Sullivan’s writing, and for the most part, it’s a worthy immersion. Some of the subjects of these are potentially tired, in that they’ve been written on plenty in previous times [...]

I Have Fun Wherever I Go by Mike Edison

Self-described college dropout Edison takes the reader on a bombastic joy ride through his tenures writing for (how shall we say it?  alternative magazines) High Times and Screw magazines, observing and sometimes participating in the culture of wrestling,  and traveling the world playing in punk and experimental rock bands.  To say this is a memoir of outrage is an understatement.  For [...]

Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Okay - a title such as Blood, Bones & Butter is not enough in itself to inspire one to a nirvanic eating binge.  Reading the book will, or at least in places.  The author writes an unbridled memoir of her unconventional childhood and her troubled early adulthood, where food and the preparation thereof is an all-consuming motif.  Her French mother ran a [...]

The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather

At first glance, The Feast Nearby appears to be a cookbook of sorts, but is way more - it’s a meditation on losses, life changes, and the joys of rural living and the seasons. The author was a renowned food writer with the Chicago Tribune until a few years ago, when the newspaper laid her off and her husband divorced her.  Left with limited [...]