Category: Books

Even if you didn’t know what it was called.

Growing up, I read many books covered in buckram. Though they are becoming scarce on the library shelves (Multnomah County Library discards books like crazy) I love to see the colors and the patterns.

Vacation reading combined with a new permaculture obsession made this a quite-fruitful month of reading. Also, it was hot and I had some trouble sleeping.

Finished
J Pod
Douglas Copeland
Disappointing. Copeland gets all meta on us and both the storyline and the writing style are lacking. My favorite Copeland books have characters who care about others. They might be whacked out quirky and odd, but their emotions are familiar. This book had neither of these qualities. The author inserting himself into the narrative in a very “heh heh” way did nothing to redeem this story line.

These is my words
Nancy E Turner
A really good novel of a hard-as-nails Arizona pioneer woman. The kind of frontier book I grew up reading, but seems to not be a current feature of adult fiction. In the first 50 pages, Sarah Prine encounters tragedy enough to break you and me, but she perseveres. Written in journal fashion, and supposedly based on one of the author’s relatives, it can be a bit unbelievable in places (i.e. train robbery) but the main character’s voice kept me reading to the end.

Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture
Rosemary Morrow
A bit too much information for the potential peraculturalist with a back yard instead of a back 40, but very thorough and clear in its teachings. The author is Australian, which means that many of the species she uses for examples are not really ones I as an Oregonian would choose, but it’s fun to hear her discuss how planting this or that plant will encourage the kangaroos and the wallabies.

Getting started in Permaculture
Ross and Jenny Mars
Many (over 50 according to the cover) different projects you could do to encourage your permaculture garden. Some are simple, like converting milk jugs into scoops and some are more complicated, like making paper. The authors want you to reuse, so many of these projects could be free or cheap. However, the book is written by Australians and the metric systems references can be confusing. I don’t blame them for this confusion, I blame the US and our inability to make the transition the rest of the world has. We put a man on the moon but….

Gaia’s Garden
Toby Hemenway
This author lives in Oregon and so the plant suggestions were good for me. A guide that is less of a textbook and more of a back yard users guide to permaculture. It gives a thorough lesson in ecology and how the different systems fit together. Highly recommended. This is the first edition, the second edition currently has over 80 holds at the library. This may be one to purchase.

The Urban Homestead: your guide for self-sufficient living in the city
Kelly Coyne & Erik Knutzen
These are my people! They discuss growing your own food in your tiny city lot, sure, but they also thoroughly explore foraging(!), chickens and other livestock(!), greywater systems(!), transportation(!) solar cooking(!) as well as canning, fermenting, cheese making, bread making, and creating your own cleaning products. Their tone is informational, not preachy and at times the two authors discuss why they disagree about a subject, such as starting from seed vs. buying starts. Rarely do I finish a book from the library and want to purchase it. But this is jam packed with information and I will be spending my hard-earned cash. This is a rare five-star review. I love this book!

Landscape you can eat
Allan A. Swenson
An older book, but one with good information about choosing and planting fruit trees in your backyard. Some of the information is out of date, but the author’s enthusiasm is the best part of the book.

Landscaping with fruit: a homeowners guide
Lee Reich
Filled with lovely photos that will make you want to go out and buy a bunch of fruit trees and vines to fill your backyard. Each fruit featured includes how to care for it, its basic needs, how much fruit you can expect as well as the authors three point scale rating. There are also some plans for incorporating fruit into different kinds of backyards: suburban house, child’s garden, etc.

Renewing Salmon Nation’s Food Traditions: a RAFT list of food species and heirloom varieties
Gary Paul Nabhan, ed.
From Cascade Moose to Octopus to Thimble berry, Eel grass, Oregon White Truffle and Bing Cherries, find the foods of Salmon Nation. This slim guide discusses the domesticated crops, sea foods and wild foods of Salmon Nation (roughly: Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.) Each entry gives the common and botanical name, the habitat range, the items availability and if it is at risk. There are also mini-essays scattered throughout the book. A bit depressing, if you are just reading it (“At risk.” “Culturally at risk.” “Endangered as a Food Tradition.”) however, it is quite invaluable if you are looking to locate some traditional food traditions in your own landscape.

I have to confess that my favorite part of this book is the last page which has a full color RAFT (Renewing America’s Food Traditions) Regional Map of North America’s Place-Based Food Traditions. While I live in Salmon Nation, I grew up in Pinyon Nut Nation, have lived in Clambake Nation, Bison Nation and just came back from a visit to Corn Bread & BBQ Nation. The map explains that it features “totem foods” and goes on to say: “These totem foods are more than important commodities–community feasts, household rituals, song, stories, and the nutritional well-being of residents have revolved around these foods for centuries.” Cool.

The basics of permaculture design
Ross Mars
A slender book with nicely drawn illustrations about incorporating permaculture into your landscape. The information included is good and solid and won’t overwhelm you. The book also has a chapter with tips to incorporate permaculture education into schools. There is a chapter on urban permaculture and I learned that every permaculture land should have, at minimum, worms, bees and chickens.

Started but did not finish
Until I Find You
John Irving
I’ve read 250 pages of this book. I slogged through the “looking for the father in tattoo parlors across Europe” portion but I’m not going to make it though the “entirely inappropriate interactions across many years between a boy and a girl six years older than him” section. Every time I start to read, all I can think is “Hello! Child abuse! Molestation!” I’m tired of feeling uncomfortable and it has been more than 100 pages. I’ve given up the hope of moving on to another phase of the story and am moving on.

Did not even start
I started everything this month!

Ah, school (my class) has ended and school (the school year part of my job) has ended. Plus, I went on vacation. This bodes well for the book reading this month.

Read
How to change your life by doing absolutely nothing
Karen Salmansohn
A good book for people who need to boost their quota of “books read” as it takes about 20 minutes to read it from cover to cover. A good book also for people looking to add meditation into their life without a lot of effort. The 10 do-nothing relaxation exercises are: 1)Wake up and smell the coffee; 2) Shower power; 3) Mellow Yellow; 4) Like attracts like, glee attracts glee; 5) Hear the beat to beat the blues; 6) Listen to sounds for a sounder mind; 7)Smells like relaxation 8)Thought for food; 9) Strong mind; strong body; 10) Wake up your senses before bedtime. What does all that mean? Spend the 20 minutes and read it for yourself to find out.

Committed to memory: 100 best poems to memorize
John Hollander, Ed.
My poetry project has me reading more poems; I need to read poetry to know what I want to memorize. This has some great suggestions, including “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. Most people only know the final few lines of this sonnet: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddle masses yearning to breathe free.” It also includes “Casey at the Bat” and other gems, as well as some more obscure ones.

A walk in the woods
Bill Bryson
Having read Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and several times laughed until I cried. And having read that this book was incredibly funny, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. It was amusing and I enjoyed reading it, to be sure, but it wasn’t quite as funny as I expected. Funny, yes, which means I smiled to myself while reading. Hilarious, no. That would require me to laugh out loud, or stifle my laughter while on the train. So, ultimately: good book, failed due to too high expectations. Ratchet yours down and you will probably enjoy it.

Little House in the Big Woods
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Growing up, I was first read this series by my mother, and then read it myself as my reading skills grew. Every summer I would read the series, forward or backwards. Backwards was fun because Mary would suddenly regain her sight. Now that I’m trying to cook more with traditional foods/methods, I reread this for some tips. This book in particular is a very good do-it-yourself guide. Do you want to make hominy? The recipe is there. How about braiding hats from straw? Some basic instructions are included. Smoking meat? Yep. How to use the different parts of a slaughtered pig? You got it. Churning butter. Right there. Now I see this not only as a classic, but a reference for country living.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Gregory Maguire
I have a sneaking suspicion I either read this before, or at least started it back in the late 90s. I finished it, but I wasn’t in love with this book. I never really fell for the characters and Maguire himself seemed to hold them at arms length. The setting was interesting, but I think that I kept comparing this to Wicked, which I loved. I think the difference was that Wicked’s Oz setting was quite magical, but this book’s setting was historically interesting, but not enchanting.

City of Ember
Jeanne DuPrau
I really loved this book, much more than the movie, which was surprising because I really loved the movie. The book has less drama than the movie, but in the book Doon and Lina work together to find their way to the city of light. Adults aren’t really present. This is, of course, how teenagers see the world. It makes sense that in the movie there would be more adult involvement, to draw more audiences, interest adults more etc., but I preferred this story.

Also, the book gives an explanation of how the City of Ember came to be. I found it incredibly sad, but it answered a lot of questions I had, both while reading the book and watching the movie.

College Girl
Patricia Weitz
The end of the school year is nearing (finally) and to reward myself, I stopped by the library after work, grabbed this book and read it in one sitting. I even stayed up late on a school night to finish it! Delightful! Like the main character, I transferred to a large state university that was big on basketball and like this main character, I had trouble making friends and made a few bad choices. Finding a novel which parallels your life is fun, and I enjoyed reading this.

The Devil Wears Prada
Lauren Weisberger
My book theme for my trip was “Books that I first encountered as movies” which turned out to be an enjoyable way to spend spare moments in my vacation. This was the first read and I really enjoyed it. Reading it, I could envision the Hollywood people saying, “This part totally needs to go… and can we add some illicit sex?” Much like Gone With the Wind, I liked the story for the better plot line and the movie so I could see the clothing.

In Her Shoes
Jennifer Weiner
This was also a book that was adapted well into movie form. Reading the book, you get pretty much the movie, but with extra scenes, including Maggie’s time living secretly at college. This book also has a warm spot in my heart because it includes the power that books have to change people’s lives. I’d not read anything by Jennifer Weiner before, but I will read more of her.

Started but did not finish
Goodnight, Nebraska
Tom McNeal
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I had this book on my to-read list. The cover looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I read to about page 100, and then one line caught my attention. I had read this before! After that one line, the plot came tumbling back and I decided not to keep reading. It’s a good book and well written, but sadder than I wanted to experience. It turned out that I had requested this book from the library because the author wrote the short story that the movie Tully was based on.

The Poem I Turn to
Jason Shinder, ed.
Famous people pick out their favorite poem and some of them read them for you on an enclosed CD. I got this for ideas for my poetry project and found some good candidates. Also, someone chose the poem I am memorizing this month as their favorite poem. So that was fun.

Speaking to the Heart: Favorite Poems
Wendy Beckett
I was interested to see what kind of poems an Art Historian nun enjoys. Now I know.

10 Weeds You Can Eat!
Urban Edibles
Part of my plan to learn about food I can forage for, this tiny zine is Portland specific, clearly illustrated and shows you, as you may have guessed, 10 weeds you can eat. I haven’t gone out foraging yet, but I’m moving in that direction.

Did not even start
I’ve not been bringing home extraneous books lately. Good job me.

Yet another month with not many books read. Thank goodness I am getting a good amount of sleep.

Read
Positive Discipline in the Classroom
Jane Nelsen
This book challenges you to make a better classroom by giving over control of every aspect of it. The school I teach at uses the Positive Discipline philosophy as our discipline policy and I’ve seen how well it works. The book includes many different activities from starting your positive discipline from scratch, and answers the many questions and objections you may have.

Prodigal Summer
Barbara Kingsolver
Because I cannot seem to find good fiction, I have decided to reread some of my favorites. This is my favorite Kingsolver book and probably a top-20 favorite overall. I love this book because the characters are so vivid and likable (especially the crotchity old man), but also because it shows the many ways our lives are woven together without our awareness. I love books that take the time to wonder where a chair on a cabin porch comes from , and later provides you with an answer.

Aside from memorable characters and a wonderful plot, the discriptions of the forest and farm settings make me want to spend more time outside. Kingsolver carefully weaves in a lot of ecology, without making it sound preachy. Nearly a perfect book.

Plenty
Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon
I’m guessing that in a couple of decades, I will look back and recognize this as a seminal book in my life. I have no plans to offically restrict my diet to within 100 miles of my house, as these authors did (and started a movement), but I’ve begun to look at the landscape with a different eye. This book was also laugh-out-loud funny, which I didn’t expect and was a pleasant surpise. The authors also are about my age, and some of the life questions they wrestle within their chapters are very familiar to me. This book is the opposite of preachy, but its humor and thoughfulness have changed my life and might change yours. It also includes recipies. Mmmmmm.

Started but did not finish
Joe Jones
Anne Lamott
I was seduced by the modern cover of this book, thinking it was new. Ten pages in, I realized I had read it years ago. Tricky republishing industry.

What’s Math Got to Do With it?
Jo Boaler
I was reading this slowly because it was so good, and the only reason I didn’t finish it was because someone else had it on hold and I had to return it. Boaler questions the way we teach math in the United States. When so many Americans proudly proclaim they “can’t do math” and “aren’t good at math” why is there such a push to continue teaching mathematics the way our parents and grandparents learned? Boaler highlights innovative ways teachers, at home and abroad, engage their students in learning and move math from a “drill and kill” experience to one where students become mathematicians, not just rote memorizers.

Did not even start
I started every book I finished this month!

It’s not just the title of a book.
Every once in awhile I realize that I have no fiction to read. How does this happen? I like non-fiction okay, but I need to retreat into made up worlds on a regular basis. If I don’t, I can actually feel it in my body. I’ve also not been reading much in general, what with work and school etc. So I can’t really describe the thrill I had bringing home these five books. I can’t imagine a better Friday night than collapsing on the couch with a heap of new books. Pure joy.

Audio books aren’t my thing. For me, the act of reading has to involve my eye moving over a page of some sort. I don’t count audio books as reading and I’m a bit of a snob about it. For me, reading is the one thing in my life that I do by itself. When I’m reading, I ‘m not watching television, or washing the dishes or cleaning, it is just me and the book, on the couch, relaxing (or on the train, or waiting for an appointment, etc.) Smoking used to provide that time for me in my life, the do-nothing time, but I’ve sacrificed that vice for my health. I sill miss the not-doing time. There is no way I’m going to take time away from do-nothing reading time and replace it with do-something audio book time.

I don’t think I’ve ever voluntarily started an audio book, but this one came recommended by An Embarrassment of Riches, which is a blog written by our librarians. Because of the like in the post, I was under the impression (misguided, as it turned out) that the book only came in Audio book form. Plus, it was the dreaded spring pledge drive and I had cooking to do. One can only listen to so many hours of reasons why you should support OBP (and you should, don’t get me wrong. And I do.) So away we went into audio book land.

So Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, is probably a really good audio book. The premise is that a teenager finds a package addressed to him containing seven audio cassette tapes. When he plays the first one (in the garage because the old stereo in the shop area is the only one with a tape player) he hears the voice of Hannah Baker, the girl who committed suicide two weeks prior. She explains that there are thirteen reasons why she ended her life, and each one is a person. Each side of a tape discusses one of the thirteen people and every person who received the package must listen to all of the tapes and then send them to the next person on the list. If they do not do this, then the tapes will be released in a very public way.

So wow, good premise. And good reading by the two actors who played Clay and Hannah. Maybe a little too good. They perfectly captured the adolescent angst of both teenagers, with Debra Wiseman particularly hitting the mark of Hannah. Aaaaaand that was the problem. Hannah Baker drove me crazy. By person/reason four all I could think was “Seriously? You ended your life because of this? There better be something really good later on, because this isn’t cutting it.” I think if I had been reading the book, the voice I supplied for Hannah would not have been as grating. Debra hit her mark, alright, but the sarcasm/angst/anger level she hit was hard to listen to for six hours, even if it did feel authentic.

One of my fellow workers actually read this book recently, no foolin‘, because her 12 year old daughter read it and told her mother she must read it, it was such a good book. The fellow worker correctly summed it up as, “entirely unfulfilling for adults because there is no adult translation of those very strong adolescent feelings. They are just very present.” And that was what drove me crazy. Still, I kept listening, at first to see what number the main character was, and later because I couldn’t stop. There is something fascinating about listening to a voice from beyond the grave, especially if that voice is explaining why she is now beyond the grave.

In book form, I probably would have consumed this in a day. In audio book form it took me about a week, which gave me more time to think about different parts of the story. When it was all over, I still wished I had read the book.

There were a lot of missteps this month. I hope the drought is almost over.

Read
Full Catastrophe Living
Jon Kabat-Zinn
I read this book as part of my “get rid of psorisis in 2009” campaign. In my research, I read about a study where patients undergoing UV treatment for psorisis who listened to the body scan meditation associaited with this book showed more improvement than patients who didn’t. I’m not undergoing UV treatment, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to see what this book has to say. Plus, I was intrigued by the title.

This is not a thin book. It is very, very long and as my library due date approached, I had to read 50 pages per night to finish it. However, despite it’s length, this book does more than any other book I have come across, to take the woo-woo out of meditation and yoga.

What this book asks you to do is not easy: spend 45 minutes per day meditating or doing yoga. One of the points made by the author is that in order to integrate this thing that will make your life easier into your life, you must first deal with making your life harder. It is a pain to make time every day for “the practice” but by week four three people asked me if I’d been on vacation lately. “You look so calm” they said.

Looking like I’ve been on vacation without actually going? I can get on board with that.

Sorcery & Cecelia
Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
I love books that seem to take place in normal time–either today or in history, but then have a slight twist that throws them a little bit into the fantasy realm. This is one of those books. It takes place circa Jane Austin and the two main characters have the same cares of concerns of young unmarried ladies of that day.

However, in this book’s world, sorcery is common, although looked down upon by some, including Cecelia’s Aunt. This is, when you get right down to it, a mystery, but the historical setting and the inclusion of sorcery give it just enough twist to make it different. For people who enjoy books composed of letters between main characters, this book provides that. In a reading year that hasn’t been very spectacular, I enjoyed this greatly.

The concise guide to self-sufficiency
John Seymour & Will Sutherland
Self-sufficiency looks so lovely when illustrated so beautifully. This is a smaller version of a larger book, designed with urban, or semi-urban people in mind. Includes instructions of how to kill and dress your chickens, among other things I will most likely not need to do.

Trellising: how to grow climbing vegetables, fruits, flowers and trees
Rhonda Massingham Hart
Good resource. Discusses the different kinds of trellis one would want and the different kinds of things to plant on them. It also has a very good section on espaliering trees.

Arches and Pergolas
Richard Key
Very nicely illustrated book about how to build several kinds of arbors. You may see an arbor from this book taking its place on the front porch.

Started but did not finish
Waking the Dead
Scott Spenser
I sort of liked this movie, but found it a little lacking and so I checked out the book to see if it could give me more. It didn’t.

My sister’s Keeper
Jodi Picoult
I could see where this was going. That, combined with the fact that I was more sensitive than usual to descriptions of medical procedures (they give me the heeby-jeebies) meant I wasn’t long for this book.

Did not even start
An irresponsible age
Lavinia Greenlaw

Man, 2009 isn’t shaping up to be a good reading year. I’m not sure what is wrong.

Read
What on Earth Have I Done?
Robert Fulghum
Nice collection of very short thoughts by the most famous Unitarian Universalist minister in the world.

The Given Day
Dennis Lehane
Okay, the only person who does star-crossed love better than Dennis Lehane is Aaron Sorkin. Based on the Boston Policemen Strike in the early 1900s, this is an action packed book that I devoured over a weekend. Great characters, great action, really bad villains, and Babe Ruth! Did I mention star-crossed love? Dennis Lehane rocks! Plus, a good reminder of the importance of the labor movement in our country.

Gardening When it Counts
Steve Soloman
Soloman gives advice about how to grow food when you don’t have much money and really, really need the food. I like this book because it is one of the few that repeatedly says, “you don’t need this and that and the other thing.” You only need these few things and you can get by without some of them.

Gardening Without Irrigation, or Without Much, Anyway
Steve Soloman
Specific to the Pacific Northwest, Soloman explains how to grow food without dragging the hoses around all the time and running water. I wondered how our pioneer ancestors watered everything without running water and this book sheds insight on that process. Very small book, but good information.

Started but did not finish
Your Backyard Herb Garden
Miranda Smith
Nicely illustrated informational book about the many different kinds of herbs you can plant for medicinal and culinary purposes. It also contains suggestions for a fragrant herb garden, a kitchen herb garden and a medicinal herb garden. I liked this book so much I bought it.

What Color is Your Parachute?
Richard Nelson Bolles
The classic “figure out who you are so you can find something you like to do for a living” book. I checked this out to read more about informational interviewing.

Did not even start.
A Perfect Revenge
Annabel Dilke
Maybe in the afterlife I will meet all these books I check out from the library and return unread. I will die, and then the first thing I will see after I go toward the white light will be hundreds of books I picked for their cover and never even cracked open. I’m not sure what will happen after that. Maybe I will perform an apology ceremony and move on toward the pearly gates. At any rate, this book will be among them.

Ugh! I didn’t love anything I read this month! Okay, Tales of Beedle the Bard was fine, I didn’t hate it. But it was a small wisp of a book. Every single book I finished this month I would have been fine with not finishing. Oh wait. I really liked the How to Hepburn book. But overall, I’m in a disgruntled stage with my reading right now. I think it doesn’t help that I’m currently reading six books right now. Usually I have 2-4 books started, but I read steadily through one, then pick up another. I’m trying Matt’s rotation method (reading bits of many books at once) and I think it doesn’t work for me. Perhaps my March plan will be to finish all the books I have started and focus on no more than three books at a time. Also, if you can recommend me some good fiction books down there in the comments, I would be forever grateful. Just one or two good fiction books you have read recently. Please!

Finished
Life on the Refrigerator Door.
Alice Kuipers
Quick read. You know those notes you scrawl back and forth to the people you live with? The entire book is composed of the equivalent of those. It’s an interesting exercise, but it turns out I missed all the description, etc. Still, even without all of those things the ending was a tear-jerker.

How to Hepburn
Karen Karbo
Karen Karbo appears occasionally in the Oregonian and I enjoy her voice. This was an interesting combination biography and “self-help” book, though it was really more of the former and the latter was a bit tounge-in-cheek. I liked the biographic details of Hepburn’s life, but my favorite part was the commentary by Karbo. Her musings on friendship, women and marriage and women and work were astutely observed. She is funny, too.

Tales of Beedle the Bard
J.K. Rowling
I liked these tales just fine, but learning about the charity the book is supporting was really interesting.

Confinement
Carrie Brown
How could I love one of this author’s books (The Rope Walk) so much and not like any of her others? This started out well: Jewish immigrant and his son from Austria by way of England becomes a driver for a wealthy man in upstate New York. The flashbacks to pre-WWII Austria were interesting at first but the whole pace of the book was a bit plodding to me. I do have to give her props for writing about vastly different characters and settings in each of her novels.

Sunshine
Robin McKinley
This started out great. It seemed to be set in present day, with a brassy main character, happy with her life as a baker in her family’s cafe. Then details crept in and it turns out that was at first felt like present day is set in some parallel universe with “wares” and “suckers” and troubles. Then the main character is kidnapped by Vampires. I was totally into it, excitedly telling people about the book, even people who I know don’t read books. Somewhere near the last quarter, though I lost interest. The story kept going, but lost its edge for me. Alas. Still, better than Twilight. By a lot.

Om Yoga Today: Your yoga practice in 5, 15, 30, 60 & 90 minutes.
Cindi Lee.
I liked the workouts, though I only did the five and fifteen minute versions. The illustrations were sparse, literally stick figures, so I would say this isn’t a book for beginners, but rather people already familiar with the poses. I liked the illustrations, but I would have preferred there also to be some indication of “breathe in” and “breath out.” If I end up buying this book I will add my own symbols. Overall, a good book to have around, I would say.

Started but did not finish
Comedy at the Edge: How stand-up in the 1970s changed America
Richard Zoglin
A good academic study of comedy, which was a bit too academic for me at this point in my life.

American Photobooth
Nakki Goranin
I started to read the essay about the evolution of the photobooth and got distracted and didn’t finish it. But most people will get this book for the photobooth pictures, which were striking.

The James Beard Cookbook
James Beard
Someone recommended this cookbook to me as a nice basic one, so I thought I would investigate the library’s copy. Indeed, it appeared to be a nice basic cookbook.

Telex from Cuba
Rachel Kushner
I wanted to like this novel set in the pre-Castro Cuba. But I just couldn’t get into any of the characters.

Geometry Success in 20 minutes per day
Debbie Y. Thompson
I was feeling blue about my upcoming Praxis exam and so checked out this book to supplement my Geometry learning. I took the quiz at the beginning at got an 84% and felt much better. So I sent the book back without doing the rest of the activities. I did like that the author had a message at the beginning asking people who check the book out from a library not to mark answers in the book. She even helpfully suggested that you mark your answers on a scratch sheet of paper, advice that someone before me ignored.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Julia Child
I was thinking of using this to find fun new ways to cook vegetables, but now is not the time for me to find fun new ways to cook vegetables.

Didn’t even start
I started everything. Though a lot of good that did me.