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Posted on 12.29.08 by Widge @ 10:14 pm
Comments on this: just one. Add your own.  So I had no idea who Claude LaBadarian was until Bill C. e-mailed me a while back to let me know it was up my alley. Dining Late with Claude La Badarian is an epistolary story (which is a fancy way of saying it's done as a series of letters--there, my English degree was worth every penny) written by William Monahan (scribe for The Departed, that's his picture there) and published in the New York Press back in 2001. It's a completely mental adventure of the aforementioned Claude, who is both an Utter and Complete Pretentious Bastard and also hilarious. He starts off by blackmailing a publisher into granting him the titular column and money. He then goes through marital mayhem, being on the run from the law, mysteriously getting laid a lot despite being apparently not physically in his prime (shall we say), and having confrontations with his nemesis, who happens to be William Monahan. It's meta-licious. Here's one of my favorite snippets, where he's talking about a previous relationship: Categorized as: Books
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Posted on 12.01.08 by Widge @ 10:54 pm
Comments on this: 2 so far. Add your own.  I know that Pride and Prejudice is much loved in many circles. One of those circles is here in the Technocave and its attached compound. The book and of course the Colin Firth-starring version from the BBC. I tried to read it--scratch that, I finished the book--but I found that the characters--pretty much all of them--annoyed the living shit out of me. Cosette tells me that despite our dislike of the notion of a "chick flick" or "chick lit" or whatever term you'd like to use--the problem might just be that I have a penis attached to my person. However, I do applaud Seth Grahame-Smith for figuring out a way to make the story of the Bennets interesting to one such as I. Throw zombies into the mix. Maybe I can see those annoying people get gnawed upon by the walking dead! Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Brilliant! Now if we could just do the same for, say, Jane Eyre. Alas, it doesn't come out until next May. But you can pre-order your copy here. Categorized as: Books
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Posted on 11.19.08 by Widge @ 2:58 am
Comments on this: 3 so far. Add your own.  Let me explain what I am giving an endorsement to in this picture. It's the classic piece of literature Running on Empty, a joint publication from Harlequin Romances and... NASCAR. NASCAR crew chief Hugo Murphy could never forget Sylvie Ketchum, especially since he only had to look at her daughter—their daughter—to be reminded of the woman he'd loved. But she'd deserted him and Kim without a word, shattering their hopes and dreams. Nothing could fill the void—except NASCAR. Now I have nothing against NASCAR. It, like most sports, is an enigma to me. And I have nothing against Harlequin Romances. I swore if things ever got too bad I would create a female pseudonym and start writing them to pay the bills. But when you put the two together--my Ability to Refrain From Mockery fails. Categorized as: Books
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Posted on 11.15.08 by Rox @ 11:00 pm
Comments on this: just one. Add your own.   Written by: Elizabeth Stockton aka Ms. Boo Dreadful It is the holiday season and one's thoughts turn to family gatherings. These gatherings are always centered around food. And in some households there's a focus on sports, but we wont speak of that here. Food is at our core and we all seem to have recipes we like to collect and to give out as a token of our care and love to others. As a cookbook collector of sorts, I have a relatively small library of cookbooks but they are top notch. Recently I received the Vincent Price cookbook for my birthday. I have already taken on his version of Spaghetti Bolognese to a welcome success. In fact I was perusing the internet and my favorite food sites for holiday items and I found a delightful cookbook centered around the Steampunk subculture. It is called Fuel for the Boiler: A Steampunk Cookbook by Elizabeth Stockton. There are 91 pages in the book with images of the steampunk-bedecked crew members of HMS Ophelia, also known as Abney Park, as well as some good folk from Brass Goggles. There are plenty of people in the steampunk community that helped Ms Boo Dreadful (aka Elizabeth Stickton) bring this book to fruition. Such as the handy conversion chart for U.S. to Metric capacity and a very handy cooking measurement equivalents. I am sure she had received some help from our friends from across the pond. The layout and design allow the owner of the cookbook to make notations in the margins--a handy feature as I like to alter recipes on occasion. Categorized as: Books and Reviews
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Posted on 11.13.08 by Cosette @ 2:43 pm
Comments on this: none yet. Add your own.  History does not have to be boring. The fact the world (or at least the human population) has gotten as far as it has is a source of endless fascination, and a story that needs to be told and told well. We at Needcoffee find it deplorable that there are so many history texts out there that are so dry. Mental Floss' answer to these deadly dull texts is instead, as they describe it, "An Irreverent Romp Thought Civilization's Best Bits." The authors of The Mental Floss History of the World strive (and for the most part, succeed) in presenting the history of the world in a light and interesting manner. Each chapter of the book has different sections. We start off with "In a Nutshell," which lays out the basics of the particular period, followed by a brief timeline of "What Happened When." Following that are sections and tiny inset blurbs with more details about particular topics of interest (the Reformation, the cast of characters you need to know to understand the Enlightenment, etc.) Next is the "Spinning the Globe" section, which tells you what's going on all over the world during the period. Then come the bits that I find the most interesting. "Who's Up, Who's Down" explores which civilizations are doing well or poorly during the period, often with fun titles like "The Huns: Up, Down, Who Cares? As Long As We Can Break Something." Next is a section for noteworthy social trivia, often including key inventions and discoveries during the period, influential people or political and social movements. Some of the most fascinating trivia comes from this section. Finally comes "By the Numbers" with pertinent statistics from the period (apparently, Taft weighed 340 pounds in 1912). And then on to the next chapter… The sections can be a bit confusing at times because of all of the inset material, but there is enough chronological and geographical flow (and wit) within each chapter to make it easy reading. Categorized as: Books and Reviews
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