Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.
Random House, 2009. 349 pages.
After a spirited round of emails and rampant date-swapping, The Cellar Door Book Society meets to discuss Colum McCann's wonderfully named and wonderfully covered Let the Great World Spin. This rich and rewarding read spurs conversation that undoubtedly raises the group's National Ranking a few ticks. We decide that the book is about time and place and people-- about lives intersecting and overlapping in profound and subtle ways. It's about the sweeping vagaries of collective experience and about the intimate importance of isolated moments forever framed in memory. It's a novel that breaks the heart and heals it in the span of a New York minute. It is, NWC offers, a very New York story.
Random House, 2009. 349 pages.
After a spirited round of emails and rampant date-swapping, The Cellar Door Book Society meets to discuss Colum McCann's wonderfully named and wonderfully covered Let the Great World Spin. This rich and rewarding read spurs conversation that undoubtedly raises the group's National Ranking a few ticks. We decide that the book is about time and place and people-- about lives intersecting and overlapping in profound and subtle ways. It's about the sweeping vagaries of collective experience and about the intimate importance of isolated moments forever framed in memory. It's a novel that breaks the heart and heals it in the span of a New York minute. It is, NWC offers, a very New York story.
Special recognition to SC for finding a reading connection-- albeit a morbid one-- between Gertrude Bell's Body Count (see Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations in Non Fiction and Biographies) and Let the Great World Spin's Death Hack. Also to GW, for her spot-on recollection of NBC4 New York's Chuck Scarborough and his New-York-is-Constantly-Reinventing-Itself soliloquy. There is talk of Hair, as in The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical and of hair, as in The Trimming of KMJ's Bangs. Lesser book societies falter and fumble and fall with a resounding literary SPLAT when confronted with a highwire read like this one. But not us, no sirree, we merely exchange the book's all-too-familiar white woman look and say, Let the Great World Spin.
Everyone appears to enjoy the omnipresent spinach-artichoke dip. MH opines that the accompanying jalapeño dip is hot-but-not-too-hot. Lots of dip. Lots and lots of dip:
Spinach-Artichoke Dip
1 8.5 oz can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 box frozen spinach, thawed and well-drained
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp minced onion
4-6 drops hot sauce
Heat oven to 325*. Combine all ingredients in food processor and place in oven-proof dish. Bake approximately 20 minutes or until bubbly. Serve warm with crackers and veggies.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan.
Penguin Books, 2006. 450 pages.
This yummy cornucopia offers insight into food consumption in the twenty-first century, describing three important food chains that feed and sustain us all: the industrial, the organic, and-- our personal favorite-- the hunter-gatherer. As we search for chicken in our McNugget drive-by, browse leafy greens at the local farmers' market, or happily rummage for roots and berries in the Great Swamp, Pollan encourages us to examine the ethical responsibilities and political ramifications of food selection.
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan.
Penguin Books, 2008. 244 pages.
Just in time for the high-eating holidays, we turn our attention to more best-selling nonfiction about nutrition and eating customs. In this one, Pollan challenges both societal and personal thoughts about what constitutes healthy eating, arguing that real food consumed by real people in past generations is systematically being replaced with commercialized, scientifically altered foods that offer no health benefit and may cause us serious physical damage. Some of the images Pollan so vividly conjures up give us pause-- and threaten to cause us significant psychological damage.
Book closed and New Year begun, we are encouraged to take a fresh look at the way we eat and to revisit some basic nutrition rules: don't dine on anything that Grandma wouldn't recognize as food. Don't nibble on food-like objects that could easily double as packing materials. And for goodness sake, don't put on airs and serve these unrecognizable food-like objects in a big fancy bowl.
Penguin Books, 2006. 450 pages.
This yummy cornucopia offers insight into food consumption in the twenty-first century, describing three important food chains that feed and sustain us all: the industrial, the organic, and-- our personal favorite-- the hunter-gatherer. As we search for chicken in our McNugget drive-by, browse leafy greens at the local farmers' market, or happily rummage for roots and berries in the Great Swamp, Pollan encourages us to examine the ethical responsibilities and political ramifications of food selection.
Penguin Books, 2008. 244 pages.
Just in time for the high-eating holidays, we turn our attention to more best-selling nonfiction about nutrition and eating customs. In this one, Pollan challenges both societal and personal thoughts about what constitutes healthy eating, arguing that real food consumed by real people in past generations is systematically being replaced with commercialized, scientifically altered foods that offer no health benefit and may cause us serious physical damage. Some of the images Pollan so vividly conjures up give us pause-- and threaten to cause us significant psychological damage.
