Book Binge

Traveling always presents me with a unique opportunity to read...a lot. There is all that time while sitting on the plane and then there is the downtime during the vacation/travel... so I cleaned out my little library of backlogged booked in recent weeks' travels to Las Vegas and Chicago. Here are a few snippets of my favorites.

This is a follow up to the "Chinese Playground" book I had read awhile back. The author had written another book that dives into his lifelong gambling addiction and his ongoing recovery. I still can't believe that this is the same man that I know...he literally seemed like just a sweet old grandpa when I met him...because he had a head full of white hair but didn't seem geriatric, in fact he seemed very sharp and energetic. It is amazing how many layers there are to any one person.

Another returning author - apparently I just can't get enough. This is the follow up book to "The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffery Steingarten. In this book he is in search of the perfect cup of espresso, gratins, rotisserie and ponders the virtue of pet food and why it is the way it is.

I can't stand him on the Food Network (as a judge on Iron Chef America) but he is so much more interesting as a writer. I love how each chapter focuses on something like say, espresso...then he spends the entire chapter testing out every home espresso maker with various bean variations in search of the perfect jasmine scented cup. He will then usually end the chapter with what he feels is the best possible recipe for whatever that chapter was about. His job is fabulous...I am so jealous at times... The turducken chapter and the dry aged beef chapter was pretty awesome.

This was just an obligatory bit of chick lit. This is about some chick who graduates from Columbia but literally cannot deal with finding a job in her field (journalism/writing) because she will have to start at the bottom so she decides to be a bartender to keep her days free for writing her screenplay. She ends up bartending weekdays in Manhattan at an Irish pub and on weekends and some hot club in the Hamptons and dating some super rich kid in the Hamptons while basically becoming an insecure alcoholic. Entertaining but whatever - these kids need to get over themselves and realize that odds are you'll have to work your way up with experience and more often than not you won't graduate college and become an instant Pulitzer prize winning author or Oscar winning screenplay writer. I am obviously so annoyed with humanity - lol.