Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Review: French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure


French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure
French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Look, you can't tell ANYONE that I read this, OK?

I read it because I'm on a common-sense-glamorized-by-the-French kick, and because a coworker with excellent taste in books (the last thing I borrowed from her was an omnibus of Roald Dahl's short stories) spoke highly of it. I think diet books are stupid and weight loss is a pointless goal, but Guiliano makes me think. One of the French Women X books I've been reading says you can't sell anything in France without emphasizing the pleasure it'll give, and Guiliano has thought long and hard about pleasure, and how to maximize the pleasures of food. Her goals aren't all the same as mine, but that's never stopped me from borrowing someone's methods!



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Review: Uglies: Shay's Story


Uglies: Shay's Story
Uglies: Shay's Story by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I always like a Westerfeld fix, but this isn't the best. For me, at least, the Uglies world is much better described in words than in graphics. Still a good fix!



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Tuesday, June 05, 2012

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


Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I'd been wanting to read this one for some time, and when a friend saw me coveting her copy, I happily took her up on her offer to lend it. Just what I expected; loads of common sense (my husband pointed out that it's not so different from how we were raised, nor from the way our friends are raising their kids), but wrapped up in charming writing, chic Frenchiness, and some grounding individual experience. A great reminder to me of a lot of things I kind-of-sort-of know; it launched me on a little "French women this" and "French women that" kick at the library, but if one of the bunch stays on my shelves, it'll be this one.



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Review: Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World


Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World
Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I picked this book up while I was at a conference in Ottawa; I had brought along a reel of wire and needlenose pliers to work on a project from a recent issue of Make magazine, so the appeal was obvious. I enjoyed reading this book plenty; it made me want to pick up things I'd once dabbled in (like whittling) and maybe even some things that I'm hardly likely to enjoy (making kombucha, for example). I didn't find this book life-changing or full of new information; for me, it was cozy. Mark Frauenfelder sounds a lot like my dad, except that my mom would never have let us keep chickens, and my dad is by and large more interested in more practical projects.



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Saturday, June 02, 2012

Review: Sheepfarmer's Daughter


Sheepfarmer's Daughter
Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Read on the Kindle April 2011 (I think). Listened to the Audible version May/June 2012. The reader irritates the skin off me -- she doesn't seem to have read ahead to the end of a sentence before starting it, or to know the right intonation for some colloquialisms. She also made some odd decisions for accents; in particular, as the mercenaries travelled south, the people they met had accents that seemed more and more Celtic (as she read them); but then, inexplicably, when a particular character was described as having a "Southern accent", she did an accent from the American South! Incroyable!! Since I'd read the book already, this was OK, but I'm still trying to decide if I can bear it for the second in the series, which I haven't read before...



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