Editors Books

This was one of the most beautifully written, memorable books that I've read pertaining to writing and the writing life.

Lott's section about rejection was both motivational and inspiring, particularly page 148, where he quotes Psalm 118: "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone." His description of pursuing publication as "near bravery coupled with a kind of brazen humility" and his view of "the tenacity . . . steadfast stubborness . . . dogged perseverance . . . faith" required to write and publish would make anyone feel proud to be a writer who has been rejected, yet continues to write.

In addition, Lott details his Oprah experience with admirable honesty. He writes about receiving the phone call from Oprah on the same day he discovered that a close friend, another writer, had died. The conundrum of both celebrating and grieving during this time in Lott's life is poignantly illustrated.

This book was a brilliant read. I would recommend it to anyone who has experienced the "good" and "bad" of the writing life, yet continues to do it, anyway.

I have to say, I accidentally found this book in the new section at the library and have really enjoyed it. As a fledgling writer myself I will take any guidance I can get. I have read many books on this topic and this is one of my new favorites. I was encouraged that even a writer who has been in Oprah's book club struggles with getting manuscripts accepted. I also loved the chapter about submitting to publishers. He gives a realistic, but somehow encouraging view of the process. I will go return my library copy now, and buy a copy for my personal bookshelves. Thank you, Mr. Lott.

When Bret Lott writes "I don't know" or "I know nothing" about the feel-your-way-as-you-go approach to the literary arts, he does it so eloquently that one can only say he "doesn't know" so very well. But he's right. Writing, art in general--there's no manual for it. And if there was, it would no longer be art. It would be reduced to a technical skill. And while skills can be learned, the extra mile beyond that gives life to a work of art can only be accomplished by the attitude Lott describes in his "practical memoir of the writer's life:" approaching the blank page, the blank screen, with an openness and acceptance for the wonder to come.

"What knowing nothing means, finally, is that one must strip himself of all notions of what he believes he knows about the world and the way it works," writes Lott. "...now it's new terrain, undiscovered, left to this new explorer, the one who knows nothing and who now, armed with this ignorance, stupidity, and tendency to stare, sees things newly... what this explorer will ultimately discover is his own heart, who he is in the midst of all the know-it-alls of the world."

Finding one's own way is the only way. From the beginning, Lott expresses his reverence for the written word. As a small child, he holds his first book--Book of Psalms, puzzling over how the words "somms" could be spelled so strangely. He writes his name, several times, for the first time, on the title page of this book, and in that moment of writing, making claim, and connecting with the written page, the writer is born.

Lott warns, even while reminding us that writing must be done in solitude, that crawling too deep into one's cave of solitude has its own dangers. We must know the world, and explore it fully, to write about it well. We must be a part of it. There is a balance to be achieved, with involvement, acceptance, immersion, and then withdrawal again. In short, one must live fully in a world with others, but one must write about it alone.

Chapters included in this book are each one crucial to the writer, a light in the dark to the beginner, but a healthy reminder to the well practiced and established, too. Lott's chapter on remembering the reasons for writing is priceless. One enters the horrors of writer's block only when one forgets the purpose for writing--and mistakenly gets caught up in the false pursuit of publication. While acknowledging that it is quite human to wish to share one's story once it is written, wanting that connection between writer and reader, if the writer becomes too obsessed with it, too caught up with it while writing, then the art quickly becomes bogged down and stalls hopelessly. The cause of writer's block, he says, is the writer him or herself. Writing is its own reward. The rest is another story.

The importance of simple words, character detail, narrative and passage of time, pitfalls of technique, risking failure, accepting rejection, these are all topics Lott addresses. Perhaps the best chapter is on rejection. Lott has published 9 books, one of them rescued from oblivion by American icon, Oprah, but even so, he keeps counting up rejections (he's up to 597 at the writing of this book) and he keeps each and every one (except one, that he threw away in a temper tantrum, but later admitted, he learned from this one, too, as he did from all of them). Rejection, he reminds us, is inescapable in the arts. No use fighting it. All the more reason not to become obsessed with it. The writer must be, he says, "moved to write not by a will toward fame or fortune or even posterity, but because the work of writing is good work, and the reward inherent to writing is the writing itself." Lott writes candidly and honestly about how much he feels the hurt of the pink slip, and in some ways it never gets easier, but he also presents a system that works for him. Basically, to keep submitting. He keeps a careful log of where his work has been, is being, will be submitted, and makes a point of sending out his submission the very day it lands back in his mailbox rejected. There is always reason to hope.

Lott's memoir of his own writing life is one of the most practical, yet most beautifully and honestly written books on writing I've read in many, many years. He writes with wisdom even when he is being most humble (and therein lies his charm). He writes with a down to earth voice on a level with all of us, no matter what our level, and in doing so, inspires.

I was expecting a compiling of hard to wrangle recipes.. but from the few that I have tried so far.. all of came out smashingly!! I made a pork chili.. which was to die for.. (although i did spice it up a bit more).. the louisiana mussels.. were not quite as good.. i prefer a lighter sauce for the mussels..and this was a HEAVY tomatoe sauce.. but the real winner was the mahi mahi with orange viniagrette and cilantro pesto served with crushed potatoes.. I prepared it a couple of days ago..and WOWed everyone.. it was such a beautiful dish, easy, and tastey!.. even better those two sauces can be used for practically any fish.. (I plan on adding some ginger to the orange vini and use it for a dipping sauce for boiled shrimp!!

The Best of Gourmet series is predictable for offering the best cookbooks out there every year. The photos are gorgeous, the recipies are delicious and easy to follow, the menus are brilliant and perfect for entertaining, and there are an astonishing number of recipies from easy ones for the novice cook to challenging ones for the gourmand chef. The photos are so good that I often flip through the pages just to enjoy the beautiful photography, whether I feel like cooking or not. I believe no serious chef's collection is complete without the Best of Gourmet series.

The Best of Gourmet 1999 Featuring the Flavors of Spain

Reviewed by Liz Waters Copyright 1999, all rights reserved

You can always count on Gourmet magazine and its annual compilations of recipes published by them to be elegant taste experiences presented in such a way that their preparations are surprisingly easy. This volume is no exception. While it is the practice of this reviewer to prepare at least one recipe from each book we review, I have prepared over a dozen from this volume. Each has been greeted with cheers by family and friends. This book includes 27 Summer Brunch, a Picnic at a Lighthouse, and a Summer Lunch by the Sea are a few of the menus offered. In addition to these, a special section featuring the foods of Spain offers a rich of Spanish recipes which are easily prepared in the modern American kitchen

...that we had to own the 20th Anniversary Edition. Our 10th Anniv copy is well-worn. We love that book for its Four-Cheese Baked Bow Ties recipe alone. Gourmet offers remarkably clear, detailed instructions. We also enjoy the organization of the books.

As life progresses, my taste for good food is being refined. My New Orleans Creole heritage is connected to good food, so encountering a great cookbook that adds to my life is always a joy. The Best of Gourmet: 20th Anniversary Edition, A Year of Celebrations, will be more than a fancy cookbook to place on your shelf for its beauty. I found inspiration on the pages and, of course, new things to cook as I embark upon maintaining my health (as a baby boomer). Try the Stir-Fried Chinese Broccoli (p. 132) or the simple pound cake with blueberries and lavender syrup (easy to make and not hard to modify).
Produced by Conde Nast Publications, the book offers sections on celebrations, the menu collection, the recipe compendium, in addition to tips for using the gourmet's recipes. If you are a cook or simply a lover of food, The Best of Gourmet: 20th Anniversary Edition, A Year of Celebrations should be on the top of your list for new experiences as your life evolves.

`The Best of Gourmet 20th Anniversary Edition' by the editors and writing staff of `Gourmet' Magazine appears better to me than I was expecting, especially if you are fond of entertaining between 8 and 12 people at a clip. If you are a regular subscriber to `Gourmet', I guess this book can be something of a tough decision, as virtually all the material herein is from the magazine. In fact, I would be willing to bet that practically all the recipes from the magazine in the last year are in this volume. I suspect it should be labelled `Everything but the Duds'.

The book has three main sections. The first, `Celebrations' is a collection of nine (9) menus based on specific common plus unusual twists on common events from around the world such as `A Russian Easter Feast' and `A Bohemian Thanksgiving'. Two things which immediately appeal to me about these menus aside from the excellent selection of themes is the large number of recipes per menu and the fact that the recipes are written to serve up to 10, rather than the usual 4 to 6.

The second, `The Menu Collection' is also recipes organized by seventeen (17) different themes conceived by season and occasion with some additional international themes and some menus for a somewhat larger than usual home entertainment gathering. Samples are `Dinner for a Dozen' and `A Modern Irish Supper'. I'm hard pressed to really see the difference between these two sections except that the first section is generally more formal.

The third section, `The Recipe Compendium' is organized like a conventional cookbook, except that it covers some topics such as breads and sandwiches which is not usually covered in conventional cookbooks.

Although I subscribe to `Gourmet', I have never found it as good a source on general cooking as `Cooks Illustrated', `Saveur', or `Fine Cooking', but it is a very good alternative to, for example `Cooks Illustrated' in that its recipes are created more to impress than to be practical for the amateur cook. Like all recipes published in periodicals, they have the advantage over individual authors in that they are reviewed by a standardized vetting process carried on by both culinary and literary (copy) editors, and I happen to know the `Gourmet' copy editor is very, very good.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the magazine's recipe style, I find they typically have little commitment to doing ethnically accurate recipes, but they are never entirely `easy' or entirely uninterested in ethnic recipe sources. On the one hand, for example, their recipe for the Spanish (Catalan) condiment, alioli is not only revisionist in the sense that it includes eggs, it is totally un-Spanish by including bottled mayonnaise as a principle ingredient. On the other hand, the recipe for Russian Easter bread which I have made several times and which I have compared to `authentic' versions is quite similar to recipes cribbed directly from the steppes. This book does me the special favor of being able to discard my worn copy of the `Gourmet' issue with this bread recipe, and I can ignore the mayonnaise alioli and rely on my various Spanish cookbooks for the real thing.

With a few exceptions, `Gourmet' generally doesn't go out of its way to give you quick versions, although the truly excellent index common to all recent `Gourmet' collections makes a point of identifying those recipes which can be done in 30 minutes or less. For all recipes, it does give the `active' time and the total time from start to finish. I suspect these times are for the experienced amateur cook. These books also have a truly excellent reference in the back for where to get any and all unusual ingredients or kitchen tools.

If you reallylike `Gourmet' magazine and you don't have a lot of cookbooks, this is an excellent `value added' collection of their recipes, which takes up less space than 12 issues. If you already own 500 cookbooks, it still has value in that it has some of the best entertaining material I have seen this side of Martha Stewart. I believe that if entertaining dinners is your thing, a complete set of these books may be as good or better than many books on entertaining, except for Miss Martha's classic `Entertaining'.

Better than I expected!

As background material for this book, the reader is referred to "The Scientist in the Crib" (Dr. Gopnik, et al; Perrenial, 2001). It offers a fresh and detailed evaluation of the language acquisition process by infants. At about 6 months of age, a critical change seems to occur. The specific pronunciation patterns of the language(s) heard begin to be retained in a very focused manner. Also see "The Monday Tape" (The Snow Water Corporation) at Akilo.com for more insight into this process. This audio tape, one of a series, provides multilingual speech patterns for infants. These tapes are available exclusively through Amazon.com (not available in stores). It appears that they should help an infant (birth to age 2) gain good pronunciation skills for many widely used languages.

I recently read this book during my pregnancy, having read other books like, "What to expect when you're expecting", and the Mayo Clinic Guide, and this was the best book out of all of the books I have read. I found it well-organized, concise, easy to understand, and extremely informative. I highly recommend it to any expectant mother or father!

This is a great baby book (and I'm not just biased because I'm one of the baby models in it!). There are plenty of helpful facts and ideas, as well as a lot of useful how-to.

I honestly LOVE this cookbook. It has a lot of pictures of the finished dishes, all of which are easy to fix and don't require weird ingredients. It's a great cookbook to set the kids at the table with and say "hey, YOU guys pick the meals this week". It's THAT good, and you will not be disappointed. The crockpot section is very good too and will be perfect for during the school year when our family's schedule gets hectic again. My family gives this cookbook the all thumbs up!!

This is one of my favorite cookbooks. Great family-type recipes that don't feel like 'diet food' in any way.

This cookbook has awesome recepies that fill you up! Try the Beef Tortilla Bake, the Chicken Nacho Bake, Cheeseburger Calzones and so much more! Everything I have made from this cookbook has been a winner at my house. My boyfriend is a very picky eater, I am too, and we love these meals! They are so satisfying, low calorie and low in fat. And for the price, it should be a no-brainer. You need this cookbook!

This is a very good book on Pasta and I have added the book to my cooking library.

Yes Folks, I think Betty Crocker is the all time best and most emancipated Women's writer. We need more recipes by women, and recipes about making Pasta are doubly important. This easy to use book instructs us how to appease our little starving children and hungry hubbies. New Pasta is a revolutionary book about that tasty member of the food group, and is guaranteed to satisfy all palates! Eat Pasta everyday! And with this book you CAN! Add cheese whiz to these recipes to create an even more enjoyable, rustic, and all american meal.

This book contains a wide variety of meats and sauses in easy-to-follow directions. Thorough description of pasta types and what pasta matches to what type of sause. Excellent book!

Exactly What It's title advertises - an alphabetical listings of players and personalities associated with the Negro Leagues of Baseball. Ranks with "Only the Ball Was White" and The works of John B.Holway as essntial to a study of the subject. Definitely recommended.

Editor James A. Riley is a renowned expert on the rich history of Negro League Baseball. His crowning achievement is honoring more than 4,000 players and those involved in management between the years of 1872-1950 in this comprehensive biographical encyclopedia.

Included are biographies and statistics on each individual and team, a bibliography that lists the materials used in the research, along with a register of the interviews that Riley conducted.

The Negro Leagues had a major economic and social impact in the black community, featured some of the greatest players & teams that the sport has ever had and was an integrated business on the diamond, inside the front offices and in the stands.

I have always compared the play in the Negro Leagues v. the white MLB to that of the AFL v. NFL and ABA v. NBA; that it was on par or superior to the other major league. The encyclopedia is a celebration of the legacy left by those who not only challenged the institutionalized racial hatred of the times, but triumphed in ways that we can learn from and must never forget.

...I question that love if you do not have this book. This is the most concise collection of biographies, stats, and information about every human involved with the development, management, and participation in every Negro League that ever existed. Even players whose first name was not known is listed with at least a few words about when they played and for whom. And the players with extensive history is detailed along with stats and other great side stories about them. There is even information on the teams in the Negro Leagues, which I found most interesting. I don't know of any other book that has as much information on the lesser-known players and behind-the-scenes people in the Negro Leagues than this one. If you are a Negro League fan, you probably already have this book. But if you are a baseball fan in general, you MUST have this book.

This is the indispensable Christmas guide. I used it before the Christmas holiday last year and never had so many compliments on everything from the table and gift ideas to the chocolate ruffle cake on the cover, Give it to a friend as a gift and buy one for yourself. You won't regret it

This is one of the best cookbooks I own. My husband is a very picky eater and usually I can use just a few recipes from the whole cookbook, but this one clearly stands out. When just browsing through it for the first time, it made my mouth water and I just couldn't wait to make all these goodies.

The recipes are not intimidating and they do not require lots of hard-to-find expensive gourmet products. Some recipes are accompanied by step-by-step instructions, which I especially like.

This book is out of print, so hurry and buy one on Amazon Marketplace. Mine was listed as used, but it was in a perfect condition and at just 3$ it's a steal! Did I mention it is beautifully printed too?

This is a really lovely large format book for holiday baking, entertaining, and gifts from the kitchen. It has little, or perhaps no, redundancy from Bon Appetit magazine, so there is plenty for subscribers and non-subscribers to enjoy. The book has 17 chapters. Four chapters address one entire holiday feast each, with each meal in a different style. Five chapters provide recipes especially suited for other holiday season festivities such as a tree-trimming supper, a dessert buffet, a cocktail party, and an open house. Other chapters are dedicated to specific types of food, rather than entire meals. These include chapters on: breads, cookies and cranberry sauces as well as Christmas puddings, a buche de noel, an elaborate chocolate cake, and a croquembouche, whose chapters include step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to construct these holiday masterpieces. The "Gifts from the Kitchen" chapter offers an array of 22 recipes for cookies, candies, sauces, jams, breads and more that are easy to make and sure to impress. Every recipe isn't accompanied by a photograph, but there are many large color photos throughout the book. The paper is also of very nice quality. "Bon Appetit Christmas" is a worthy addition to the library of any cook and makes a lovely gift for those who like to bake or entertain.

Got the book free from bridal expo. Excellent source for invitation wording and thank you writing. Book is well worth the price. Would highly recommend.

This book was an excellent guide for planning my wedding. It also is an excellent resource for those sticky questions!

This book was my favorite and I bought about 10. This one was the most complete and helpful in planning and sticky etiquette.

...hearing Murrow's "This is London." The first time was while visiting my grandparents. My grandfather took me into the kitchen and closed the door before turning on the radio because my grandmother didn't want to hear it. I was only 10 years old, and I'm sure I didn't understand the full significance of what I heard until much later. Nevertheless, it has stuck with me. It was one of the nights when Murrow was outside and we could hear the air raid siren in the background. (If I stop to think about it for a moment, I can still hear the siren's distinctive wail in my "mind's ear.") Seib's book is a superb addition to the shelves of books about the beginning of World War II because it deals with an aspect of how U.S. involvement came about that I do not recall reading elsewhere. The focus is on Murrow because he was so influential in forming Americans' opinions about the importance of sustaining England as it fought the Nazi menace alone, but the work of other journalists is also cited. (I have a small nit to pick here: the name of The New Yorker writer is Mollie Panter-Downes, not Painter-Downes.) Seib writes well, and his narrative moves quickly and to the point. There are no wasted words. Anyone with an interest in the early days of the war should read this book.

The difference between reporting the news and leading the country has never been clear, and Edward R. Murrow was a master at both.

While reading this book on his broadcasting from London during the early days of the war, don't forget his broadcast that ended the career of Joseph McCarthy. Murrow understood that his reporting influenced American public opinion.

There are those who rail against his sense of ethics in combining reporting the news with what you might call propaganda. Perahps he should be judged instead by the result. He helped prepare the US for a war that we could probably not avoid.

This is the story of a strange time, and what one key player did.

BROADCASTS FROM THE BLITZ: HOW EDWARD R MURROW HELPED LEAD AMERICA INTO WAR is for any who would understand early broadcast journalism's effect on war and peace. Murrow's 'This is London' opening brought the blitz home to Americans who would've otherwise been distanced by war events: he told why Americans wouldn't be able to avoid involvement, and he prepared the country with his moment-by-moment broadcasts of events. His agenda was to bring America into the war - and more than any politician, he alone helped prepare the American public for such involvement. This far-reaching story will interest a wide audience, from students of broadcast journalism to those interested in military history and social issues alike. Highly recommended indeed.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch