Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl

Not a course book. A delicious, light read. Pun intended, please hold your groaning.

I picked up this book on a friend's recommendation.  It is the true story of a New York Times restaurant critic who goes undercover to keep people from recognizing her.  She pulls off a slew of fun disguises with complete characters to back them up and discovers the difference that an appearance can make for how the world treats someone.  I loved it because it was fun, light reading, but extremely well-written.  Being a restaurant critic, Reichl has an excellent turn of phrase.  She also lives more through her senses than I do, so it was fun to read such vivid descriptions that I could never imagine thinking, let alone writing.

I thought I would not like a food book -- I can't watch food-TV without feeling both fat and hungry.  However, this book proved me wrong.  Final conclusion: read it!

To Begin Again

It is not given to us to begin; that privilege is God's alone. But it is given to us to begin again--and we do every time we choose to defy death and side with the living.
~Elie Wiesel
This poor blog started its demise through neglect when I became a student again.  I hope to reinvigorate it with a two-fold strategy: recommitment and blogging about school books.  The former will hopefully be a natural result of my sheer stubbornness of character.  The latter means that the blog will be slightly skewed toward religious (Catholic) books.  Even if they are not your cup of tea, please do check in to see what is not academic theology, or maybe to find something new you can learn about Catholicism.