Eat the City by Robin Shulman (Giveaway Included)

Part Of The Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

New York is not a city for growing and manufacturing food.  It's a money and real estate city, with less naked earth and industry than high-rise glass and concrete.  Yet in this intimate, visceral, and beautifully written book, Robin Shulman introduces people of New York City - both paste and present - who do grow vegetables, butcher meat, fish local waters, cut and refine sugar, keep bees for honey, brew beer, and make win.  In the most heavily built urban environment in the country, she show an organic city full of intrepid and eccentric people who want to make things grow.  What's more, Shulman artfully places today's urban food production in the context of hundreds of years of history, and traces how we got to where we are.

In these pages meet Willie Morgan, a Harlem man who first grew his own vegetables in a vacant lot as a front for his gambling racket.  And David Selig, a beekeeper in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn who found his bees making a mysteriously red honey.  Get to know Yolene Joseph, who fishes crabs out of the waters off Coney Island to make curried stews for her family.  Meet the creators of the sickly sweet Manischewitz wine, whose brand grew out of Prohibition; and Jacob Ruppert, who owned a beer empire on the Upper East Side and the New York Yankees.

Eat the City is about how the ability of cities to feed peoples has changed over time.  Yet is is also, in a sens, the story of the things we long for in cities today:  closer human connections, a tangible link to more basic processes, a way to shape more rounded lives, a sense of something pure.

Naturally, most food and drink consumed by New Yorkers hundreds of years ago was grown and produced within what are now the five boroughs.  Yet people rarely realize that long after New York became a dense urban agglomeration, innovators, traditionalists, migrants, and immigrants continued to insist on producing their own food.  This book shows the perils and benefits - and the ironies and humor - when city people involve themselves in making what they eat.

There are times I like to pretend that I have not been living in the Midwest since about 1990.  Before that I moved around a lot and lived just about everywhere.  I was born on the shore of Lake Superior but have lived in Houston, the Los Angeles area, and gone to school in New Orleans.  I've lived in the country and have lived in a city for over 14 years now, of course comparing Wichita, KS to New York, NY is like comparing a dik-dik to a giraffe.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I pretend to be more worldly than I am, I like to think I know everything there is to know about living in a "big" city, but books like Eat the City prove me wrong time and again.  They show me what it means to really understand city living, and that most of us have no clue about what's going on in their streets we walk everyday.

How many of us would be comfortable with having several bee hives on the roof or our apartment building?  Would we begrudge our neighbor growing a grape vine up the back of his house?  Would we complain if the vacant lot down the street was taken over by our neighbors who want to grow their own vegetables?  Or would be celebrate the fact that even amongst the miles of pavement and high rises, some of our fellow city dwellers are working with their own hands to produce the food for their kitchen table.  That they are rethinking how our food is produced and deciding that maybe the old days were better for us.  Maybe it's a great idea for those of us who live in urban setting to rethink what we've been doing and allow ourselves to fully appreciate what food means to our culture and our heritage.

Now I'm not saying I'm going to start keeping bees or growing my own tomatoes out on the balcony.  I don't have the space or the time.  That and the was summers have been going, I'm not sure how long those plants would even stay alive.  But I am curious to find out what, if any, local food is being produced in the city of Wichita.  Robin Shulman in her examination of New York and it's history of food production has made me want to know about what took place in and around Wichita over the last 100 years.  I want to know about our past cattle and dairy industry, signs of which can still be found today in and around downtown.  I'm curious to know how many bootleggers roamed the city of Wichita during Prohibition.  I want to know the fishing history of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers as they flow through the city of Wichita, waters of which I would not being eating out of today.  Robin Shulman has not only given me a glimpse of New York, it's history and it's present, but she has given me the desire to know more about my own city and how food has and continues to impact the people of Wichita.

The wonderful people at Crown have allowed me to give one copy of this book away to one lucky winner.  The giveaway is only open to the US and will run until 11:59 pm CST, on August 21st, 2012.  To enter, please leave comment about food.  Is there a local speciality that you love.  Or do you have a memory of your childhood centered around a garden?  Whatever it is, I would love to hear about it.  You also need to leave your email address so I can contact you if you are the winner.  I will use random.org to pick the winner.

Mailbox Monday for 8/6/12

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme created by Marcia at Mailbox Monday and is being hosted all this month by 5 Minutes for Books.

I received a trade paperback of Following Atticus by Tom Ryan for an upcoming TLC Book Tour.

I won a trade paperback of The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg from the Chunkster Challenge Blog.

The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Synopsis From Back Cover:

A corpse - somewhat charred around the edges - has been discovered in the linen closet of the Spencers' fabulous Maine retreat.  No one has a clue as to who she is or how she got there.  Certainly not Carol Spencer; who has arrived to open her isolated family house for the summer.

Unfortunately, Carol seems to be the prime suspect judging from the questions the police are asking.  She has one advantage over the police:  she knows she didn't do it.  But now the servants have disappeared, all the telephones have been removed, and, as night rapidly falls, a dangerous killer is closer than she thinks....

So this makes my eighth Mary Roberts Rinehart review for the year, with two more books finished and waiting their turn.  Add in the eight from last year, and this will be the sixteenth review.  So that makes eighteen of her books I've read in a very short period of time.  This is the first time I've stopped to think about how many of her books I've read.  I guess the obvious point is that I really like her writing.

Nothing changes with The Yellow Room, actually I think my fondness for her has only grown by leaps and bounds with this one.  This was one of the most enjoyable books of hers yet, and considering how much fun I've been having, that says something.  Everything was perfect; from the setting, to the characters, to the crime itself.  Carol is the quintessential Rinehart heroine.  She is wealthy, pretty, but above all else, intelligent.  She uses her brains, and in this case her own investigative skills, to her advantage.  Now that's not to say that she does all the work on her own, far from it.  Like most of Rinehart's heroines, Carol is more of an asset for the male protagonist, the love interest if you will.  This time around she gets out and helps in the field, but it's the male hero that saves the day.  I don't want to sell Carol, or her contemporaries short, though.  It's often their eyes and memories that make all the difference.  Without her, the male hero wouldn't have a chance of solving the case.

But what I love the most about this book, and every Rinehart book I've ever read, is the setting.  She is able to create a world, that no matter how big, always feels small and claustrophobic.  It's the one skill of hers that I admire more than any other.  For me, the setting is almost more important than anything else.  If the story being told doesn't fit within the world the author created, I can never buy into.  If I can't imagine myself there, in the locale, I can't enjoy what I'm reading.  If the atmosphere, especially in a mystery, surrounding the characters doesn't raise goosebumps on my arm, I feel let down.  Luckily, Rinehart has not yet failed to do just that.

Challenges:  VM (Occupational Hazards)

My Life In Literature Meme

I have seen this meme at two different blogs lately, and I really felt like joining in.  It's been a while since I've done one of these, though I'm going to compromise between the two posts I've seen.  Adam, at Roof Beam Reader, used books he's read over a lifetime and Bev, at My Readers Block, used books that she has read this year.  I'm going to meet them in the middle and only use books I've read since I've started blogging.


Describe myself:  The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie

How do I feel:  Dying For Mercy by Mary Jane Clark (I need relief from the heat)

Describe where I currently live:  31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan

If I could go anywhere, where I would go:  In the Woods by Tana French

My favorite form of transportation:  On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony

My best friend(s) is/are:  A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen

My friends and I are:  The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones

What's the weather like:  From Hell With Love by Simon R. Green

Favorite Time of Day:  Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

What is life to you:  A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

You fear:  The Haunted Lady by Mary Roberts Rinehart

What is the best advice you have to give:  Bless the Child by Cathy Cash Spellman

Thought for the day:  Murder Never Takes a Holiday by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain

How I would like to die:  Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell

My soul's present condition:  Wishin' and Hopin'  by Wally Lamb

The Twilight War by David Crist

Part Of The Synopsis From The Dust Jacket:

For three decades, the United States and Iran have engaged in a secret war.  It is a conflict that has never been acknowledged and a story that has never been told.

This surreptitious war began with the Iranian Revolution and simmers today inside Iraq and in the Persian Gulf.  Fights rage in the shadows between the CIA and it's network of spies and Iran's intelligence agency.  Battles are fought at sea with Iranians in small speedboats attacking Western oil tankers.  This conflict has frustrated five American presidents, divided administrations, and repeatedly threatened to bring the two nations into open warfare.  It is a story of shocking miscalculations, bitter debates, hidden casualties, boldness, and betrayal.

I dare anyone to walk into a mall, stop 10 people, and ask them the capital of Iran.  You may even ask them to point to Iran on a map.   I would be surprised if more than two people were able to do either thing.  Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if none of them could.  Think it's just a problem with Iran.  Do the same thing for Syria, Egypt, or for that matter Germany.  You will more than likely get the same results.  The idea of most Americans not being able to answer those questions, scares the hell out of me.

I'm not going to sit here and say that the present day is any more dangerous than those that have came before them.  I think human civilization has always lived on the brink of self annihilation, but we are living in a world that makes that outcome a lot easier to accomplish, and in less time.  I think at a minimum, we should at least know the players in the game and the history behind the present circumstances.  Wanting to grow my base of understanding is the whole reason I chose to read/review this book.  Our history with Iran is one that I know very little about, and I wanted a resource that could put our relationship into context.

Now I'm not going to say that The Twilight War is for the casual reader, because it's not.  At times, I felt as if I was back in school reading a well written text book.  It's a dense tome, full of dates, names, and events.  Granted, those dates, names, and events are the meat of the book and could not be left out.  With them, Crist paints a broad and concise picture of our relationship with Iran since the Carter administration.  He chronicles our failures and our successes with a country that most Americans don't understand, but should know more about.  It's one of those books that everyone, who is wanting to get a better understanding on the Middle East, should read.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review the book.  Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.

Gef's Favorite Fictional Character --- Leonard "Bones" McCoy

Horror is one of those genres that I really enjoy but for whatever reason I don't seek out when I'm picking new books to read.  Over the last few years of blogging I think I've only reviewed about twenty books that would be in some way classified in the genre. When it comes to movies though, I would say about half of what I watch are horror movies, the reviews I've done seem to back that up.  I really do need to start doing the movie reviews again, but that's beside the point.  My point is that as much as I love horror, I don't follow that many horror blogs.  I find most of them to be way over the top and almost depressing to even look at.  One of the few bloggers I do follow, actually the first horror blog I followed, is Gef at Wag the Fox.  You can tell Gef really enjoys what he reviews.  He is a horror fan and proud of it.  What I love about his blog is that he still has a sense of humor about the whole thing and it comes across.  He takes what he does seriously, but still has fun with it.  It's a trait that many of us could benefit from.  So even if horror is not your usual cup of tea, he does review other genres as well, please go by and say hi.  I think you will all enjoy his blog as much as I do.

When I sat down to write about one of my favorite fictional characters, the first name that popped into my head was McCoy. Out of all the characters from Star Trek, Bones is the most memorable by far. Now, I enjoyed the J.J. Abrams reboot from a couple years back with Karl Urban cast as McCoy, but there's only one man I picture when I think of the ship's doctor--and that's DeForrest Kelley.

While Captain Kirk had the swashbuckling air about him reminiscent of the Errol Flynn style of characters, and Spock had the robotic detachment you might expect from an alien in a sci-fi film, Doctor McCoy felt like a character that had stepped right out of a western. And as a boy who enjoyed watching westerns on the weekends with my Dad, Bones stood out from the pack. He was empathetic, but he didn't suffer a lot of bull from his patients, and he had no qualms with cracking down on Kirk whenever the captain of the Enterprise wanted to tear off half-cocked into a battle after having his ass handed to him. Bones also had a bit of complexity, with his aversion to certain technologies like the transporters, though he did rely on his tri-quarter pretty much all the time when he needed to diagnose a patient.

Bones was a bit of a racist prick, too. At least when it came to Vulcans. Or maybe Spock just knew how to push his buttons. That green-blooded goon could be a bit of a prick when he wanted to be. In fact, some of the best scenes from the show involved Bones and Spock arguing with one another over some dilemma or philosophical question. Sure, Spock tended to when those with logic and facts, but Bones appeal for humanity, instinct, and good old-fashioned gut feelings held a lot of sway.

Aside from steely glares and acting as Kirk's conscience half the time, Bones could sling catchphrases with the best of them, too.

"Dammit, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!"

or how about: "He's dead, Jim."

The guy was a one-man drinking game.

I haven't watched an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series in years, but there are certain scenes and moments from the show that apparently hardwired into my brain now, because I can envision them with no effort at all, like the episode where Bones had to re-implant Spock's brain after it was stolen--yes, stolen. The show is one of my earliest TV memories, as the reruns ran every Saturday when I was a kid, and I never tired of them. And one big reason for cherishing the show so much is because of DeForrest Kelley as Bones.

Guest Post At The Christmas Spirit

My good Friend Michelle of The Christmas Spirit, and tons of other blogs, asked me to come by and talk about some of my favorite Christmas Cards, Edward Gorey fans will love my choices.  Please come on by and check it out.