SomeReads

As part of the most recent Weekly Geeks, I’m reviewing this book “interview style.” I received more questions from Joy Renee, and I promise I’m not ignoring her excellent questions, but they require more thought, and in the interest of just getting this posted, and I’m going to have to skip those.

What is Julie and Julia about?
Julie Powell was 29 years old, working as a secretary in post-9/11 New York City, and was basically having an existential crisis. After running across Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking at her mother’s house, Julie came up with the idea of cooking all the recipes in the book over the course of a year. Her husband, Eric, suggested she blog about it and thus started the Julie/Julia Project. The blog became extremely popular and ultimately Julie got a book deal out of it, the finished product being Julie & Julia. The book is not just a republishing of the blog in book form, but instead it is Julie’s recounting of her experience cooking and blogging her way through the project. Another one of the questions was is this non-fiction. Yes, it is.

Please share your impressions of Julie as a person.
This one is a tough one. If you’ve read my previous post about this book, you will know that maybe 1/3 of the way through the book I realized I went to high school with Julie. She was a year younger than me, and we didn’t really know each other, but I definitely knew who she was. Especially since she dated someone who eventually dated one of my best friends and, um, me, sort of. So while reading this book, I couldn’t keep from picturing her as I remembered her from almost 20 years ago and trying to reconcile that memory with what I was reading. Hard to do when you didn’t really know the person other than in passing. I actually know way more about her now than I ever did then! One funny thing. At the point in the book where I began to really wonder if this might be the same Julie I remembered, she mentioned being on her high school drill team and that the only reason she had tried out was to prove she couldn’t make it, but then did and had to suffer through it for the year. I distinctly remember being *very* surprised way back when that she was on drill team – she just didn’t seem the type. I guess I was right! Getting back to the real question though. I really liked Julie in the book (even before I realized who it was). I’ve seen some scathing reviews, and a lot of people really disliked her, but I thought her humor was great. She may have been a little obsessive (can’t really say much there, as I think I would be the same way if I were doing something like this). The one thing that seemed a little weird was her VERY STRONG dislike of Republicans. Now, I’m a Democrat, but I thought some of the things Julie said about her Republican coworkers was just downright mean.

The book came out of a cooking project and a blog. Did it inspire you to take on a similar project of your own?
It made me think this could be a cool idea, but I don’t think I could ever take on anything like this. I am way too picky of an eater to work my way through an entire cookbook. I could see wanting to cook all the recipes that I would *eat* maybe… Or all the desserts in a book. Hmmm…that’s not a bad idea!

Addendum: (I originally wrote out these responses last Friday, and I’ve thought more about this since then.) While I could never take on an official project like this, I did buy a copy of The Foods and Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas last night, and I have every intention of attempting as many recipes out of this book as possible. I even will likely blog about it (among other food-related things) at a yet-to-be-created blog which I will call “Hold the Onions, Please.”
Have you ever tried to master the art of French cooking? Would you want to?

No and no! I wouldn’t mind dabbling a bit, but French food’s not my thing really. Or maybe it’s just this impression of French food I have that’s not my thing.

Did you feel that Julie adequately conveyed the humor and struggles of trying to live up to a famous cookbook author? How would this book have been different if she’d tried taking on Martha Stewart, for example?

Yes, I thought Julie did a really good job at this. I’m not sure the book would have been that different had she been trying to be Martha. Different struggles, but probably similarly frustrating.

Edited to add this question…Did you find any good recipes in the book?

This wasn’t a cookbook, per se, so no. There were references to a few recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking that sounded good, though, that I might one day hunt down. Don’t remember what they were, though….

I passed this book along to a friend of mine this past weekend that I went to high school. She was much more informed than me. When I asked, “Do you remember Julie Foster?” she said, “Yes! Didn’t she write a book or something?”

This book will fill the “J” title category in the A-Z challenge.

I received a nice B&N gift card today from one of my supervisors, so Jimmy and I went shopping tonight after dinner. I’m still really resisting buying new fiction books, since I have so many to read. I ended up with a cookbook (The Food and Wines of Spain), Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, and a wooden Tangram set with a neat book that has a lot of historical information about these neat puzzles, as well as tons and tons of designs to create. My desk calendar last year was a tangram calendar, and I’ve missed doing them. This will be a nice coffee table item. So, one fiction book to add to the stack, but it’s a classic, and I don’t mind adding classics…

I am in a reading slump. Seriously, I just can't get excited about anything I pick up. I started As If Being 12 3/4 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mom's Running for President (an ARC I picked up at TLA) on Friday and decided not to read it. I found it annoying (the main character is a spelling bee winner and has a tendency to spell words out in the middle of sentences, among other things) and decided not to waste my time with it. It got pretty good reviews on Amazon, so I'm thinking it just isn't my style. So after work, before we left for Austin, I grabbed Shogun. I really want to read this, but it is an immense book and the font is tiny. At this time, I just can't get into it. I'm thinking that once I start riding the bus to work in a few weeks, that might be a good time to pick it back up (or whenever it pops up on my randomizer again). So now I have grabbed Taken by Edward Bloor, but I fell asleep about a page into it last night, so time will only tell if I
stick with this one.

So where am I?

On my commute, I am with Lady Jane Dudley (previously Lady Jane Grey) in the tower of London. I'm at the very end of this book, so I'm not going to say anymore, in case you don't know how Jane's story ends. (To tell you the truth, I'm so unfamiliar with this time period, that even being 50 minutes from the end of the book, I'm still not completely sure what's going to happen!) (The Innocent Traitor by Allison Weir)

And at bedtime, we are at Camp Half-Blood with Percy and his other demi-god pals. We just discovered why the book is titled what it is. (The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan)

Play along at http://raidergirl3-anadventureinreading.blogspot.com. And yay! Hopefully this is the last time I'll have to post this via e-mail, since next week I'm on vacation and the next week I'll be in a new job where my access to blogger isn't blocked!

I had hoped to get my reviews/questions written but haven’t had a chance, and now we’re heading out the door for a quick trip to Austin. I just wanted to let all of you have asked questions know that I do plan to answer them!

Today I am in Cape Cod, probably in the 60s or 70s at Blackbird House. (I actually haven’t picked it up yet today, but since the last story took place in the late 50s, I’m guessing at the time period for the next.) My family is the 7th or 8th generation of occupants of this old house, which has quite a history. (Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman)

What is it about colds that make it so hard to read? You’d think that when you’re feeling under the weather and don’t really have any desire to do much else besides lay on the sofa that that would be the ideal time to lose yourself in a book. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way for me, so my reading time hasn’t been taken advantage of today. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better tomorrow…

I’m reading Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman and am enjoying it when I feel like reading it.

My reading time is either getting ready to take a plunge or get boosted in the next few weeks. I was offered a job at our downtown library on Friday (yay!) and am going to start taking advantage of the Park & Ride service instead of driving, to save my sanity and, more importantly, on gas. Hopefully this is going to give me prime reading time before and after work, but I may also use it for knitting/crocheting. That would almost be the best of both worlds, though, since I could listen to an audiobook while knitting. I’m sure I’ll get all obsessive about how I divide that time. Reading in the morning, audiobook/knitting in the evenings? Reading one day, audiobook the next? I’m sure I’ll find some way to make this way more complex than it needs to be!

Lori at Lori’s Reading Corner is giving away a copy of The Host by Stephenie Meyer. Hop on over for a chance to win!

This week’s Weekly Geeks is a variation on last week’s theme, in which we picked one of Dewey’s books and asked questions for her to answer in a review. However, this time it’s reversed. We’re supposed to choose books that we need to review and ask YOU, our devoted readers, to ask questions for us to address in a review. I currently have 3 books waiting to be reviewed. You aren’t limited to one particular book, as this isn’t a giveaway (the library might not be too happy with me for giving away 2 library books!), so ask me about any or all of these three books. Leave your questions in the comments, and I will post about these books later in the week.

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
Wait for Me by An Na

I haven't done this in a few weeks for some reason…

I just started a new book last night and am not very far into it. I believe I am in California working in my parents' dry cleaning business. (Wait for Me by An Na)
We *finally* finished Peter and the Starcatchers, so at bedtime we are now in New York City where we just fought off a bunch of cannibals in a really ferocious game of dodge ball. (The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan)
On my commute, I will be in England where my parents and Thomas Seymour are trying their darnedest to get me married off to the king. (The Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir)

Play along at http://raidergirl3-anadventureinreading.blogspot.com.

I think this book made it to my wishlist after a mention in either (the now defunct) Pages or Bookmarks. I always find it interesting to begin books that have been on my wishlist for a long time, because in most cases I’ve completely forgotten what it was about them that grabbed my attention in the first place. Such was the case with The Icarus Girl.

Jessamy Harrison was born in England, but her mother is Nigerian and her father British. Jess has always been a moody, quiet child, but when she meets Titiola (Jess calls her TillyTilly because she can’t pronounce Titiola) while visiting family in Nigeria things start to get weird.

Overall, I really liked this book. However, the end left me a little mystified. Honestly, I’m not sure how it actually ended. So I had to knock half a star off my rating, giving it 3.5 stars instead of 4. Also, Jess is supposed to be an 8-year-old little girl, and she is much too wise and articulate for a girl of that age, in my opinion. Oyeyemi was only 18 when she wrote The Icarus Girl, which I find very impressive!

This fills the “I” title spot in the A-Z challenge.