Kind: Reads

reading a book, magazine, newspaper, other physical document, or online post

Categories
Food

Read Cucina Povera

Read Cucina Povera: The Italian Way of Transforming Humble I…

Tuscan native and accomplished home cook Giulia Scarpaleggia shares the wholesome, comforting, and nostalgic recipes of cucina povera—Italian peasant cooking that is equal parts thrifty, nourishing, and delicious.

The Italians call it l’arte dell’arrangiarsi , or the “art of making do with what you’ve got.” This centuries-old approach to ingredients and techniques, known as cucina povera, or peasant cooking, reveals the soul of Italian food at its best. It starts with the humblest components—beans and lentils, inexpensive fish and cuts of meat, vegetables from the garden, rice, pasta, leftovers—and through the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the cook, results in unforgettably delicious and satisfying meals. In 100 recipes, Cucina Povera celebrates the best of this tradition, from the author’s favorite, pappa al pomodoro (aka leftover bread and tomato soup), to Florentine Beef Stew, Nettle and Ricotta Gnudi, and Sicilian Watermelon Pudding. Soul satisfying, super healthy, budget-friendly, and easy to make, it’s exactly how so many of us want to eat today.

Too many meat dishes for a pescetarian and a lot of handmade pasta (which is not unexpected in an Italian cookbook but I’m still too lazy 😉). Not many recipes caught my eye. The bean dishes were interesting, but not enough to buy the book. I made two recipes and they were both decent: tuna and bean salad and fresh pasta and chickpea soup.

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Categories
Society Technology

Notes from Doppelganger

Read Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self―a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against?

Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us―and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

“Ideas are tools of transformation, personal and collective.”

I read through page 95 of the hardcover.

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Categories
Places

Notes from belonging by bell hooks

Read Belonging: A Culture of Place by bell hooks

What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong?

These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic bell hooks examines in her new book, Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which hooks moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began–her old Kentucky home.

hooks has written provocatively about race, gender, and class; and in this book she turns her attention to focus on issues of land and land ownership. Reflecting on the fact that 90% of all black people lived in the agrarian South before mass migration to northern cities in the early 1900s, she writes about black farmers, about black folks who have been committed both in the past and in the present to local food production, to being organic, and to finding solace in nature. Naturally, it would be impossible to contemplate these issues without thinking about the politics of race and class. Reflecting on the racism that continues to find expression in the world of real estate, she writes about segregation in housing and economic racialized zoning. In these critical essays, hooks finds surprising connections that link the environment and sustainability to the politics of race and class that reach far beyond Kentucky.

I didn’t finish reading this, but I’m trying to be better about recognizing I don’t have to finish a book to get something out of it 😉 I believe I just read the first essay, Kentucky is My Fate.

(Archive.org copy of belonging)

“Many folks feel no sense of place. What they know, what they have, is a sense of crisis, of impending doom.”

“We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.”

“Living away from my native place I became more consciously Kentuckian than I was when I lived at home. This is what the experience of exile can do, change your mind, utterly transform one’s perception of the world of home.”

“It was a way to avoid being subjugated by the geographical hierarchies around me which deemed my native place country backwards, a place outside time.”

connection between geographical location and psychological states

dominator culture

Categories
Art and Design Resources and Reference

Read Universal Principles of Color

Read Universal Principles of Color: 100 Key Concepts for Understanding, Analyzing, and Working with Color

A comprehensive, cross-disciplinary overview of color, Universal Principles of Color presents 100 core concepts and guidelines that are critical to a successful use of color. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, it pairs clear explanations of every topic with visual examples of it applied in theory and in practice.

The book is organized alphabetically so that principles can be easily and quickly referenced. For those interested in addressing a specific color challenge or application problem, the principles are also indexed by pathways based on nine topics of color study ranging from science, art and design, and industry. ”

Each principle is presented in a two-page The left-hand page contains a succinct definition, a full description of the principle, and examples of and guidelines for its use. Side notes, which appear to the right of the text, provide elaborations and references. The right-hand page contains visual examples and related graphics to support a deeper understanding of the principle.

Whether in a branding campaign or a healthcare facility, a product’s packaging or a software user interface, the color we see is the culmination of many concepts and practices brought together from a variety of disciplines to increase appeal, influence perception, and enhance usability. By considering these concepts and examples, you can learn to make more informed and ultimately better color decisions. This landmark reference is the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their understanding of and expertise in color.

There were some interesting things I gleaned from this, and good examples they showcased, but structuring it as 100 random concepts without any other organization was very confusing. I think it would have been more useful as a learning aid to group like concepts and build up a foundation first.

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Categories
Romance

Read The Earl Who Isn’t

Read The Earl Who Isn’t

Nobody knows that Andrew Uchida is the rightful heir of an earl. Not his friends, not his neighbors, not even the yard-long beans growing in his experimental garden. If the truth of his existence became public, the blue-blooded side of his family would stop at nothing to make him (and anyone connected with him) disappear. He shared one passionate night with the woman he loved…and allowed himself that only because she was leaving for Hong Kong the next morning.

Then Lily Bei returns, armed with a printing press, her irrepressible spirit, and a sheaf of inconvenient documents that prove the very thing Andrew wants that he is actually the legitimate, first born son of the Earl of Arsell.

What’s Andrew to do, when the woman he’s always desired promises him everything he’s never wanted? Andrew’s track record of saying no to Lily is nonexistent. The only way he can avert impending disaster is by stealing the evidence… while trying desperately not to fall in love (again) with the woman he shouldn’t let into his life.

Andrew is such a charming character, kind and thoughtful and goofy, always taking care of others and excited about growing things. Lily is outspoken and passionate but doubts herself, and it’s wonderful to see her grow out of hurtful beliefs about herself. As ever with Milan’s books, tropes are subverted or redirected in unexpected ways, and the relationships that grow or are mended include the other people important to them, not just the love interest. <spoiler>I was happy that the secret doesn’t last the whole book, and the surprise brother was handled well. I was delighted by the resolution.</spoiler> The Suffragette Scandal is my favorite Milan book; this was like a sister novel, complementary but totally different.

Categories
Comics Memoir Outdoors

Read Be Prepared

Read Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol

All Vera wants to do is fit in—but that’s not easy for a Russian girl in the suburbs. Her friends live in fancy houses and their parents can afford to send them to the best summer camps. Vera’s single mother can’t afford that sort of luxury, but there’s one summer camp in her price range—Russian summer camp.

Vera is sure she’s found the one place she can fit in, but camp is far from what she imagined. And nothing could prepare her for all the “cool girl” drama, endless Russian history lessons, and outhouses straight out of nightmares!

Really cute art, which is mostly why I finished it  Your classic summer camp story. Yep, sucks to be the weird kid out…

Categories
Humor Romance

Read The Marriage Game

Read The Marriage Game (Marriage Game, #1)

After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn’t know he’s arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door…

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he’s forced to share his space with the owner’s beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

Spoilers in review.

I didn’t like how the love interest was ogling her at first meeting, and that the heroine was obviously in the wrong, but I set that aside because it seemed like the book would be funny. The premise was ridiculous and illogical, but that’s the point in these kind of stories.

The gag was funny for a while, but I feel like what Layla should have been learning was confidence in her ability to make good choices for herself, and yet she decides to follow through with meeting her father’s picks at the ending when they have all been terrible. I was disappointed by how the ending shook out, and especially Sam’s choices, which I don’t think should have been rewarded.

The auntie stuff was overdone in a few chapters; I was unclear whether the family was accurate or stereotyped?

Categories
Comics Memoir

Read How to Be Ace

Read How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual

Growing up, Rebecca assumes sex is just a scary new thing they will ‘grow into’ as they get older, but when they leave school, start working and do grow up, they start to wonder why they don’t want to have sex with other people.

In this brave, hilarious and empowering graphic memoir, we follow Rebecca as they navigate a culture obsessed with sex—from being bullied at school and trying to fit in with friends, to forcing themself into relationships and experiencing anxiety and OCD—before coming to understand and embrace their asexual identity.

This was equally about autism and anxiety as it was about asexuality. I was underwhelmed by the story, maybe a bit distant telling?

Categories
Comics Science Fiction

Read SFSX Vol. 1

Read SFSX (Safe Sex) Volume 1

In a draconian America where sexuality is strictly bureaucratized and policed, a group of queer sex workers keep the magic alive in an underground club called the Dirty Mind. Using their unique talents for bondage and seduction, they resolve to infiltrate the mysterious government Pleasure Center, free their incarcerated friends, and fight the power!

Love the Tula Lotay covers. I liked the more realistic style interior art towards the beginning; I thought the more cartoony chapter felt off for the dystopian fare. There was a lot of violence and torture, though it didn’t squick me out as much as Monstress. The characters were underdeveloped as this was very plot-focused, with constant action — I’d have liked more between Avory and George, especially earlier in the story. I think there could have been more interesting things going on on the 13th floor — the villains were a little one-note. I didn’t like the ending <spoiler>because it sets up a repeat of the same plot in book 2</spoiler>.

Categories
Art and Design

Read A Life In Pattern

Read A Life in Pattern: And how it can make you happy withou…

Orla Kiely has opened her archives to explore a life dedicated to print. From her earliest and most iconic pattern, Stem, to the evolution of her print design encompassing the worlds of fashion, homewares and beyond, Orla shares the full range of patterns and designs that she has produced since establishing her brand in 1995.

This is a celebration of Orla’s entire body of work – of colour, of print and of a handbag loved by women all over the world.

This had a decent blend of patterns and the materials in use — I would have weighted the patterns themselves a bit more, especially in the second half which focused on clothes and home goods. I liked best where they showcased variations on patterns or designs, showing how one motif can be endlessly explored.

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