365 Thank Yous

Just read about 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life by John Kralik on npr.org:

After a particularly bad 2007, lawyer John Kralik decided to start 2008 with a serious New Year's resolution: to be thankful for the good things and people in his life. So he spent the next year writing one thank you note for each day — to family, friends, co-workers, even the barista at his local Starbucks. Those notes make up his new book, 365 Thank Yous: The Year A Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life.

I've always been a big proponent of handwritten thank you notes (and digital thank you emails) so I was thrilled to read about this book.

Hope my local library carries this book!

Friends' Recommendations

Three friends each recommended a book this week:

• Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Farmer by Tim Stark
• One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century by Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
• I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire

The first book is a memoir about producing organic veggies on a small farm in Pennsylvania Dutch country, after giving up his city life in Brooklyn, NY.  Using an old Toyota pickup, he transported his first auspicious crop of Hill Billies, Tiger Toms and Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifters to the Union Square Greenmarket and soon began to sell his produce to New York's posh kitchens.

Considering my ongoing interest in gardening, and my enjoyment of books related to organic food, I think I would rather enjoy this book. Though I'm not sure I've got time for it.

Click here to read an excerpt of Heirloom.



One Party Country is by two The Los Angeles Times journalists -- Wallsten covers the White House and national politics and Hamburger is an investigative reporter.

The author's premise is that despite the Bush Administration's current unpopularity, the Republican domination of American politics is unlikely to end anytime soon due to the powerful Republican machine. Thanks to Karl Rove and others, the Republicans have identified and commodified every potential vote in the nation through large-scale fundraising, targeted single-issue marketing, manipulative gerrymandering, and more.

Definitely relevant to this year's presidential election and possibly worth reading, but not sure it'll jump to the top of my list of books to read.

Click here to read an excerpt.



And the last book is about the history of marriage from Adam and Eve to modern times. In irreverent laugh-out-loud-funny prose, Squire argues that marriage was developed to establish paternity by controlling the sex life of women. It received a favorable review from Slate's Dahlia Lithwick in her New York Times book review "I Now Pronounce You Totally Confused" published September 5, 2008.Click here to read an excerpt of I Don't.

I'm always interested in learning about the history of our traditions so I Don't is definitely my kind of book. I'll have to put it on my list to read next year.

Funny that all of these books were featured on NPR -- guess that's what everyone's listening to these days.

The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson

I've been enjoying Trevor Corson's The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket, which I heard about in Jay McInerny's New York Times June 2007 review titled "Raw." Corson is also the author of the acclaimed The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean (I haven't read it).

This book has been entertaining and educational so far!

My family loves sushi and I've eaten it for as long as I can remember. Growing up, we had make your own sushi for dinner at least once a month.

My dad's side of the family in particularly can't get enough of maguro (bluefin tuna) sashimi.

And still I've learned so much from this book!

I learned that yanagi, the name of one of my family's favorite sushi restaurants, means willow and is the name of the primary knife used by sushi chefs, a long, slim, 10 inch blade that ends in a point (and is said to resemble a willow leaf).

I also learned about the other knives used by a sushi chef: usuba (a rectangular blade used to cut vegetables) and deba (a triangular blade for filleting fish).

I found the chapter describing the process of making miso (fermented soybeans) particularly educational and engaging.

I especially liked this quote about the use of MSG (the artificial form of glutamate found naturally in miso and soy sauce) in Western foods from page 23, "The Buddhist vegetarian condiments of ancient Japan are now used to make American factory meat palatable."

I suppose that appeals to me since I've recently read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.

I’m about halfway through the book and eager to learn more!

To read an excerpt from the author’s website, click here or visit NPR to listen to Corson speak about the book.

Back to reading!

Letters of a Portuguese Nun: Uncovering the Mystery Behind a 17th Century Forbidden Love by Myriam Cyr

I just got back from the library (returned Authentic Happiness and The Happiness Hypothesis) and of course I couldn't leave without picking up yet another book:

Letters of a Portuguese Nun: Uncovering the Mystery Behind a 17th Century Forbidden Love by Myriam Cyr

I read the title and I had to borrow it.

Here's what this real life story is about. In 1669, a Paris bookseller published a dainty volume called Portuguese Letters. The five letters were addressed to an unnamed French Officer who had been stationed in Portugal, where, between battles, he met, seduced and then left a beautiful twenty-six-year-old nun called Mariana.

It was small enough to fit in the palm of a hand or in a shirt pocket, but its passionate story inspired poets, painters, and academics for hundreds of years.

The inside flap cover says:

The letters spoke of love in a manner direct and unapologetic, unequivocally sensual and sexual, sending shivers through the sophisticated stratums of polite society. When they were made public in the salons of Paris, people assumed they were the fictional creation of a French aristocrat. The consensus was that no woman could write words of such stunning truth and beauty. The volume became a best seller while the officer [to whom the letters were written] maintained a chivalrous silence until his death.

The author first heard about these letters in the form of a play at Montreal’s Théâtre de Quat’ Sous and this book is the result of her three year investigation into the mystery surround these letters.

Cyr concludes that the nun, Mariana Alcoforado, existed and that the passionate letters were all her own work.

Click here to read an excerpt on the NPR website.

Sounds very intriguing to me! I'm looking forward to reading it...though I've got 11 other books that I'm planning on reading before I get to it.