Aw, thanks mystery customer. We want to tear you out of a magazine and circle you in pink marker, too!
On Succoring Berber Crybabies
June 27th, 2010 § Dustin
The townsfolk came out to welcome the shaykh Abu ‘Abdallah al-Zubaydi and to welcome Abu al-Tayyib, the son of the qadi Abu ‘Abdallah al-Nafzawi. On all sides they came forward with greetings and questions to one another, but not a soul said a word of greeting to me, since there was none of them that I knew. I felt so sad at heart on account of my loneliness that I could not restrain the tears that started to my eyes, and wept bitterly. One of the pilgrims, realizing the cause of my distress, came up to me with a greeting and friendly welcome, and continued to comfort me with friendly talk until I entered the city, where I lodged in the college of the Booksellers.
That is Ibn Battuta or, more properly, Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Lawati ibn Battuta, from his remarkable fourteenth century travelogue, the Rihla. He has just arrived in Tunis after the first leg of his trek to Mecca. He is feverish, most likely fasting (it is Ramadan) and tied to his donkey for lack of strength. Booksellers to the rescue!
Well, not booksellers exactly. The college he mentions is a madrassa, one of three in Tunis at that point, and it most likely got its name by being situated in the booksellers’ quarter. Still, the booksellers were allowed to abut the madrassa and its accompanying mosque because theirs was one of the cleaner professions, unlike, say, the leatherworkers.
All of this is from a book I spent some time with this morning, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, by Ross E. Dunn. The book uses Ibn Battuta’s famous travels as a spine around which to array the ribs of context. Dunn gives us some history of each place the wandering scholar visits: generally much more than Ibn Battuta himself could have provided. In a sad exchange, however, he tends to omit some of the traveler’s more fanciful tales of miracles performed by given saints and Sufis. The book is a great introduction, thus far, to a period of time (the fourteenth century) and a place (the entire Dar al-Islam, I suppose) about which I know strikingly little. I’d recommend it unhesitatingly to anyone with even a spark of historical curiosity. But by being so good an introduction, its forays are necessarily brief and unsatisfying. At least it can point me in the right direction; the chapters about the Marinid, ‘Abd al-Wadid, Hafsid and Mamluk sultanates quote heavily from the work of Tunis’ greatest scholar, Ibn Khaldun.
The point is, whether it was our direct hospitality or not, on behalf of bookmongers everywhere I’d like to say you are welcome Ibn Battuta. Godspeed on your travels and, if you think about it, maybe go easy on the wives and concubines you begin to acquire but don’t much mention.
§ 0 CommentsThe Most Miserable Existence of All
June 24th, 2010 § Dustin
“The merchant, under pressure of his customers, who are eager to get something for nothing, brings pressure on the manufacturer to supply him with shoddy goods; he leads perhaps the most miserable existence of all, compelled to be servile to his customers, hated by and hating his competitors, making nothing, organizing nothing.”
That’s Edmund Wilson quoting Michelet discussing various classes in his The People, from page thirty of the NYRB Classics edition of Wilson’s To the Finland Station, which book has been my lunchtime reading much of this month and, if I don’t read it at any other point, will continue to fill my scant between-bite blocks of attention for something like the next two years, a prospect which I actually rather look forward to because of its breadth, graceful prose, and obvious cant, whether or not much of its detail has later been discovered to be inaccurate if not, particularly when it comes to Wilson’s approach to Lenin and Stalin, dangerously wrong.
§ 0 CommentsMoney-Saving Tips for the End of Days
June 23rd, 2010 § Dustin
This book, for those who haven’t seen it, is full of great tips for saving money in your everyday life. As a gimmick, it comes with a shiny new penny lodged in the cover. Someone has pried the penny out of this particular copy. That’s right, a single penny.
I’ll be taking your wagers as to how long exactly it will be until we are all living in Jim Crace’s Pesthouse. The winnings will be paid in expired spam and tears.
§ 0 CommentsBlind Item
June 17th, 2010 § Sam
I just finished Jonathan Franzen’s forthcoming novel Freedom (which was very, very good, but will probably still anger all the people that are angered by Franzen), and buried in the back is this passage:
And this is really all the autobiographer has to tell her reader, except to mention, in closing, what occasioned the writing of these pages. A few weeks ago, on Spring Street in Manhattan, on her way home from a bookstore reading by an earnest young novelist whom Jessica was excited to be publishing, Patty saw a tall middle-aged man…
What bookstore–located near Spring Street, frequent host of earnest young novelists–could the character be walking from?
§ 0 CommentsThe Truth the Dead Know
June 6th, 2010 § Sam
Apropos of the month (and, somehow, this weird weather), here’s this, a grim poem by Anne Sexton:
The Truth the Dead Know
For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church, refusing the stiff procession to the grave, letting the dead ride alone in the hearse. It is June. I am tired of being brave. We drive to the Cape. I cultivate myself where the sun gutters from the sky, where the sea swings in like an iron gate and we touch. In another country people die. My darling, the wind falls in like stones from the whitehearted water and when we touch we enter touch entirely. No one's alone. Men kill for this, or for as much. And what of the dead? They lie without shoes in the stone boats. They are more like stone than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.§ 0 Comments
Beards V. Beards
March 8th, 2010 § Dustin
As it turns out, deadly bearded men on motorcycles are only slightly more popular in this country than dead bearded men with pens. Elif Batuman explains here.
And don’t forget to hear Elif in person alongside Keith Gessen at her reading in our store on Monday March 15th.
§ 0 CommentsIf Werner Herzog read Madeline
March 2nd, 2010 § Dustin
The Year’s Best Cookbooks and Food Writing
January 8th, 2010 § Dustin
by Cheryl Pearl Sucher
I’ve lost weight this year, mostly because I wasn’t able to eat for a week after my 5 1/2 hour back surgery, but also because I’ve sated my appetite by reading a selection of this year’s extraordinary books on the culinary arts. The diversity is explosive. On the one hand, there is a popular trend towards veganism in all its incarnations from urban to skinny bitch; and on the other hand there is a spate of texts by accomplished chefs who have moved beyond the scientific mastery of molecular gastronomy to creating recipes utilizing every edible part of humanely slaughtered animals. There have been cookbooks that describe how to transform chocolate into purses and others that describe how to make delicious bread without kneading. Memoirs have described how to cook one’s way back to health, out of depression, and into sado-masochistic obsession while others bemoan the dearth of contemporary Kosher delis, the importance of wine and the mastery of international cuisines. Mouth watering, I read many of these extremely literate books that wore me out to the point that I forget my hunger and fell asleep. While there are numerous food writing books of extraordinary merit, these are my favorites for giving and keeping.
1) CLEAVING by Julie Powell – (Hachette, $24.99) Alternately hilarious and shocking, Julie Powell lets go of the ghost of Julia Child to tell her compelling tale of what happens when your dreams of becoming a famous celebrity writer comes true. Tempted by the ferociously brutal seductiveness of a former boyfriend, she shatters the shell of her outwardly perfect marriage to pursue a compulsive, unhealthy affair while encouraging her husband to do the same. When it all turns to custard, she decides to transform her violent longing into the violent craft of butchery. Yes, the book can be cut by the last 100 pages, but until then you will be riveted.
2) LA MAISON DU CHOCOLATE by Gilles Marchal (Stewart, Tabori, Chang, $40.00) There is chocolate, and then there is CHOCOLATE. The famous Parisian chocolate shop, La Maison du Chocolate, produces CHOCOLATE. Now Gilles Marchal, who has recently taken over the helm of this sacred institution, has produced THE chocolate cookbook. Not only will you learn how to make black and white cookies and divine chocolate mousse, you will learn how to make chocolate fettucine and chocolate handbags. And, of course, the layout and the photographs are divine.
3) MY BREAD by Jim Leahy – (W.W.Norton, $29.95) The other day, two former employees of the Sullivan Street Bakery came into the store to buy this book by their former boss. They told me that customers used to rave about Jim Leahy’s secret bread recipe, and now it’s been published. My Bread explores his revolutionary no-work no-kneading technique. So for those of you who have been afraid to knock yourself out over a yeasty loaf, here’s your opportunity to bake delicious homemade bread in your own kitchen without the fuss and bother.
4) THE CRAFT OF BAKING: Cakes, Cookies & Other Sweets with Ideas for Inventing Your Own by Karen de Masco and Mindy Fox – (Clarkson Potter, $35.00) Karen de Masco was the beloved pastry chef at Tom Collichio’s Craft and now holds the same position at Andrew Carmellini’s Locanda Verde. In this wonderfully illustrated and described cookbook, she helps you develop your craft while relaying her own recipes for such delights as Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Cream Filling, Jasmine Rice Pudding and that all-time favorite, Chocolate Babka.
5) THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PASTA by Oretta Zanini de Vita – (University of
California, $29.95) This is a truly original and creative encyclopedic research effort. Senora Zanini de Vita, a respected Italian food critic, describes 310 different types of pasta in alphabetical order, utilizing lovely line drawings to illustrate their creation. Not only does she provide their specific geographic derivation, she tells us the perfect sauce to align with each unique pasta.
6) AD HOC AT HOME by Thomas Keller – (Artisan, $50.00) We all know that America’s home-grown Thomas Keller is one of our greatest chefs, and now he has written a cookbook filled with family recipes for those home cooks who worship at the altar of Ad Hoc, Per Se, The French Laundry and Bouchon. Inspired by his late-in-life reunion with his long lost father who he cared for until his recent death, Keller has written a beautiful, accessible primer for those of us who weren’t born to aspic or are fortunate enough to possess sous vide equipment. Merci, Maestro Keller.
7) HOW TO ROAST A LAMB by Michael Psilakis – (Little Brown, $35.00) I don’t know if I love this cookbook so much because Chef Psilakis is the culinary mastermind behind my favorite Upper West Side eatery, the fabulously successful Kefi, or because he demystifies the art of preparing elegant lamb, or because the photographs of his Greek family’s dining room in the 90′s is identical to images of my Jewish family’s dining room in the 70′s. This isn’t Zorba the Greek makes moussaka and baklava, this is a truly wondrous exploration of the new, healthy classic Greek cooking. It might be my favorite cookbook of the year.
STIR: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition by Barbara Lynch – (Houghton Mifflin, $35.00) Lynch is the self-taught chef who created the landmark Boston restaurant #9 Park. It’s hard to imagine the Academia della Cucina de Italia ever believing that regional Italian cooking would disappear after the Second World War, what with the current profligacy of amazing Italian cookbooks, but Stir is unusual for it is truly intuitive and creative. Who would ever imagine a tomato tarte tatin, chicken and vegetable soup with caraway gnocchi, fritto misto with caramello sauce? This isn’t innovation for the sake of originality, these recipes are the result of a refined technique and a gorgeous palate. Well worth the wait.
9) MOMOFUKU by David Chang and Peter Meehan – (Clarkson Potter, $40.00) David Chang is the Mary J. Blige of ramen. Peter Meehan is the scribe who managed to tell this tale of the Trinity College graduate who transformed his Korean heritage and love of Asian cuisine to a New York noodle phenomenon. The hit of the season.
10) LIQUID MEMORY: Why Wine Matters by Jonathan Nossiter – (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, $26.00) Everyone has a friend, a cousin, an uncle, a husband or a wife who is mad for wine. This beautifully written exposition by this acclaimed filmmaker traces his lifelong obsession with the art of terroir and the making of magnificent wine. A treasure.
§ 0 CommentsSabotaging Our Own Readers
December 29th, 2009 § Dustin
Also this month we have Julie Powell coming in. That’ll be the evening of January 12th. Can you tell I’ve been working on our event publicity today? Anyhow, I want to link to this not-altogether-favorable review of Powell’s Cleaving by Rebecca Marx, not because I agree with it (I haven’t read the book) but because I think it’s interesting. And because I think you, readers of our blog, are smart enough that a bad review won’t make you dismiss a book, or a reading for that matter, but will may actually stoke your curiousity.
§ 0 Comments
