Book reviews

Cooking for Mr. Latte, Amanda Hesser

I was recently scavenging through a cupboard for a snack when I found a small bag of raw almonds that I had misplaced in the previous year. As I tossed a few into my mouth I thought, "Hmm, I didn't know almonds could sprout." Then I realized that almonds don't sprout, they hatch. I'm sure this has never happened to Amanda Hesser, a New York Times food editor and the author of Cooking for Mr. Latte. This book spans the first year of Hesser's relationship with a new boyfriend. The story isn't particularly interesting, but the food sounds divine and it contains ample food etiquette; Dahling, never order a latte after 8:00. The novel traipse from one exquisitely cooked meal to another and each relatively bland chapter concludes with a handful of recipes that I highly recommend if creme fraiche and truffle oil are two of your favorite things.

Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde

Oh how I love Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels, set in an alternate world where fictional characters and novelists are considered celebrities, but every time I try to recommend them to a friend, I find myself struggling to describe why they are so fantastic. So here we go, a top 5 list of why I love these books:

1. Grammasites are parasitic life-form that lives inside books (and websites?).

2. There's an upsurge in performance enhancing drugs for novelists.

3. A baby who learns to speak in Lorem Ipsum, a fake latin used in text layout.

4. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle is a Jurisfiction agent.

5. The Cat-formerly-known-as-Cheshire--the town lines were moved.

Sigh, I'm still not sure if I've done the books justice. If you are a language lover, you must check these out! Hmmm, if a food lover is called a foodie, should a book lover be called a bookie?

The Zen of CSS Design, Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag

This may be my favorite book of the year. Dave Shea wanted to encourage Web design folks to start using CSS for website layout. He created a website, www.csszengarden.com, that where all of the layout exclusively used CSS. He then started up a little competition where Web Designers could create their own CSS Zen Garden websites. They were not allowed to change the provided HTML file, so all of the presentational information for the website must be in the CSS. The last time I checked there were 803 designs posted on the website.

The amazing power of CSS is only one exciting part of this book. Because there are so many designs all with the same content, it's a great place to study how information works in different formats. Shea and Holzschlag use examples from the site to discuss Design, Layout, Imagery, Typography, and Special Effects.

Poetry