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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
sarahgilbert has commented on (8) products
Baboon
by
Kate Banks
sarahgilbert
, December 08, 2009
I love a bedtime book that I can read in a whisper, and this book is a melody of soothing tones. The language is amazing; it's lovely to read, non-repetitive, and truly evocative of the quest for any mother (baboon, human, whomever) to describe the world to the hungry eyes of a young child. I'd pick this every night for bedtime reading if I could.
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Torch
by
Cheryl Strayed
sarahgilbert
, November 01, 2009
'Torch' is a beautiful book that describes the process of losing a mother, a wife, a friend in such luminous detail that you cannot help rethinking your relationship with the people in your life, you cannot help understanding everyone's failings more fully. Cheryl Strayed develops her characters with such complete and unconditional love that it is no surprise to learn the novel is based on events in her own life; it is, however, a surprise to learn how much compassion you have for these characters who each, with a less masterly touch, could be charmless cliches. No. They are real and fully-devised and rift with humanity and the tender imagination they deserve. I'm looking very forward to Cheryl's upcoming memoir; I long to know how many details from this book come from her life.
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Northwest Herb Lovers Handbook
by
Mary Preus
sarahgilbert
, September 30, 2009
A fantastic resource for those who would seek to use herbs in cooking or for medicinal use. Mary's tone is both conversational and informative and friendly; I feel that I spent a few hours with a vastly knowledgeable aunt, peered into her cupboards and had a cup of her mint tea. The photographs are both lovely and useful in identifying wild herbs in a garden or meadow, and the recipes are better than in most herb books. I only wish she could cover more herbs and present many more recipes for tinctures and teas and the like.
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Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects
by
Solomon, Karen
sarahgilbert
, September 14, 2009
this book is both satisfyingly broad (pickles! bacon! crackers! pasta! jam! limoncello di crema!) and disappointingly shallow. with a title like "jam it, pickle it" I expected quite a few more jam and pickle recipes. three jam recipes (and one "curd") and four pickle recipes is a bit of a let-down. what's here sounds fabulous -- I'm off to secure several pounds of fresh olives this fall for my own cured olives, and I'll try many of the liqueur recipes -- and the photography is stunning and will, I'm sure, inspire many a reluctant jam-pickle-curer. the big drawback of this book is that it embraces an out-of-the-grocery-store philosophy and yet skips many of the important lessons (there's no talk about eating the the seasons, for instance, nor can a budding home preserver have a clue how to deal with large quantities of, say, fruit off a backyard tree, or an *entire* salmon, despite the rather oddly titled chapter, "hunt it") and suggests using many grocery store ingredients, like canned tomatoes (even though canning one's own tomatoes is, in my opinion, preserving 101). the book is inspirational and cute and crafty. a bible of preservation methods it is not. most definitely belongs as a coffee table complement to a very robust preserving library.
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Splendid Tables How to Eat Supper Recipes Stories & Opinions from Public Radios Award Winning Food Show
by
Kasper, Lynne Rossetto and Swift, Sally
sarahgilbert
, July 22, 2009
This gorgeously laid-out and chatty book is an excellent visual representation of Lynne Rossetto Kasper's addictive, lyrical radio show, "The Splendid Table." Lynne and crew (the reader very much feels as if she's listening to a group of smart women, nodding and chatting over a weeknight supper table) unfurl an enormous quantity of simple kitchen knowledge without feeling unwieldy or undoable. On the contrary: this book is all about its low barrier to entry, whether you're opening it to make your first salad dressing (and discover a "formula" on which you can base all future salad dressings) or looking for a new way with noodles. The cultural authenticity is relatively deep for a book in its easy-peasy category, and the many variations proffered give even the most tremulous cook a feeling of confidence. My main criticism of this book is that the tips vary wildly from the folksy to the well-researched to the technical. And tip's titles often give you no clue what you're about to read: one called "The Aluminum Pot Conspiracy" gives you the results of experiments in cooking yams in different sorts of pots, and tells you when to use aluminum (I expected a conspiracy!). In the middle of a recipe for risotto is a quote: "Cooking Rule: If at first you don't succeed, order pizza." But this is a _cookbook_! I'd also like to see more use of successive dishes, the way most weeknight chefs cook; for instance, a pot of slow-cooked beans on Sunday can be beans and rice on Monday and burritos on Tuesday. In the end, it's sweet and helpful and interesting and full of vibrant bits, and a wee bit manic. Just like Lynne.
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Organic Baby & Toddler Cookbook
by
Lizzie Vann
sarahgilbert
, April 10, 2009
If you're looking for strained peas and dessicated instant oatmeal mush, it's not here. What is here? A winning argument on why you should feed your children organic food, and how your whole family might want to make the switch. There are shopping guides and facts and food stories from many cultures. Did you know cooked lentil juice and rice are used to wean babies in many Asian cultures? Sounds lots better than the contents of most of Gerber's baby cereal boxes. Instead of insisting that you just try one ingredient at a time for your young baby, the book encourages mixing vegetables and fruits together for your 4- to 7-month-old, in delicious-sounding mashups like carrot, potato, peas and corn and a fruit compote of apple, apricot, dried fig, cinnamon and raisins, simmered for five minutes and pureed. And although the amounts given are appropriate for a few meals for a small baby, most of the dishes are appetizing enough that you just might make some for yourself, as well. Vegetable and coconut korma? Works for me. When your baby gets to be one and two years old, the book still delivers, with dishes like "mini meatballs in herby tomato sauce" (which I've served to the whole family with great success) and "days out cakes," polenta-yogurt pancakes that my older boys will eat happily, too. Skip the baby food aisle and pick up this book, instead; and your child will be one of those that other parents point to as an example of why little Soren should at least try his beet-apple-carrot- cabbage-sunflower seed salad.
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Paleys Place Cookbook
by
Vitaly Paley and Kimberly Paley and Robert Reynolds
sarahgilbert
, March 05, 2009
I am unreservedly in love with Vitaly Paley and his cooking philosophy. As a writer, too, he is surprising; his stories are detailed and moving and his passion for food shines through. His deep involvement in the lives of his producers overwhelms and I find myself wide-eyed waiting for the next season of Gene Thiel's potatoes or another farmer's brussels sprouts. I honor greatly his many self-referential recipes, though his recipe for a Reuben will probably turn off many home chefs (aioli, page 203; ketchup, page 201; horseradish, page 202; braised cabbage, page 150; corned beef, this page but it'll take you 4 days and 4 hours). I, on the other hand, was enchanted and have already made the braised cabbage three times and am hoping to come by a beef brisket some day soon so I can make the rest of it. Even for the dedicated extreme chef, some of this will seem entirely too hard and costly to be borne (take, for example, the consomme, which requires at least two hours of active work and $10 of ingredients that are discarded after they've done their job flavoring the soup). And some of the stories are duplicative with the recipes, leaving you to wonder if Paley and his ghost writer were working together very well (or perhaps it's intentional; not everyone will read the stories, I suppose, and now the book's good for those who follow better through stories AND those who follow better through lists). The book is not for everyone. It IS for me, and I love it, and will be cooking from it regularly.
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Homemade Life Stories & Recipes from My Kitchen Table
by
Molly Wizenberg
sarahgilbert
, March 05, 2009
This book, in turns, delighted and foundered. Molly does have a sweet, unique voice and an emerging talent for writing. She does not, however, have a great deal of conflict in her life. She writes simple stories of her life that, on balance, are happy and quirky; but not many of them are profound. (Perhaps I'm asking too much of a food memoir.) She shines most when she _is_ talking conflict; when her father is dying of cancer, the book is extremely moving and eloquent. When her soon-to-be-husband is wooing her through emails and pancakes spelling out her name, she's less compelling, although it seems dedicated fans of her blog continue to be enchanted through the denouement of sorts, the planning and execution of her Seattle foodie delight of a wedding. As a cookbook? Her precision and detailed instructions shine, and the recipes I've tried thus far are perfect. I recommend the book to food-loving fans of optimism and youth. I wouldn't recommend it to those whose tastes run to the Oprah book club-style novels of human anguish.
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(19 of 35 readers found this comment helpful)
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