The House Of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

This is like a Russian doll, a story within a story within a truth, and all woven together and very well told. I found this because it was long-listed for the Booker Prize (and in my opinion, which is never asked for nor heeded, it is better than a number of those that made the short list) and is a wonderful story. Some events have been changed to suit the story, but the true part goes like this. Ethel Proudlock took her husband’s revolver and shot a man dead at her house in Malaysia in 1911. She claimed the victim, William Steward, had arrived unannounced and attempted to kiss her. But her trial pointed to a deeper story, one that lifted the lid on the culture that spawned it. She was a member of Kuala Lumpur’s expat community, a conservative outpost nicknamed Cheltenham-on-the-Equator. Her rumored infidelity, combined with her concealed mixed-race background, made her a pariah and in a surprising turn of events, she was found guilty. This widely known scandal would later be refitted to form the basis for The Letter, an acclaimed short story by W Somerset Maugham, who makes an appearance in this book as a house guest of Robert and Lesley Hamlyn in Penang--he is a world famous author at the time, but he is also on the downhill side of his career, with quite a few skeletons in his closet to keep hidden. The book is a meditation on how and why we tell stories, but it’s also a political saga of sorts, charting Lesley’s journey towards self-empowerment and embrace of social activism, a window into when and where and how colonialism loses its attraction as well as its glitter.

Fernandina Island, Galapagos, Ecuador

Fernandina is the westernmost island in the Galapagos Islands, the third largest and youngest of the islands, less than one million years old. It is the most volcanically active and sits at the center of the hot spot that created the Galapagos Islands. It first appeared on the navigational charts and crude map produced by the British buccaneer Ambrose Cowley in 1684. He named it Narborough Island in honor of Sir John Narborough, an English naval commander of the 17th century. Its Spanish name, Fernandina, was given to honor King Fernando of Spain, who sponsored the voyage of Christopher Columbus. The island is most famous for its continuing series of volcanic eruptions. Many of the early visitors to the archipelago commented on dramatic changes in the landscape, smoking craters, and actual eruptions. The most famous of these is the description of a violent eruption in 1825 by Benjamin Morrell, the captain of the New York-based schooner Tartar. Another important historical event was the discovery and collection in 1906 by Rollo Beck of the California Academy of Sciences Expedition of the only giant tortoise ever found on Fernandina.

There is a lot of shore life on this island, but the highlight is the massive groups of marine iguanas that can be found gathering on the black lava rock onshore or swimming and eating in the ocean nearby. The California Academy of Sciences houses the largest collection of specimens brought back from the Galapagos, most notably a finch collection so significant that it continues to help modern-day researchers answer scientific questions.

My Government Means To Kill Me by Rasheed Newson

This book took me a while to get into the rhythm of it, but as it went along I really fell in step with it and loved it. It is the only work of fiction that I have read that has extensive footnoting to edify the reader as to who some of the well known people that play a role in the story are, as well as what significance some of the places hold. This is the story of Trey Singleton, who is the one who tells it. He is a teenager who lives at the crossroads of the Civil Rights and Gay Rights eras. His parents are wealthy former Black Panthers whose politics have simmered into careers as a speechwriter and policy advisor (his mother) and a pharmaceutical lobbyist (his father). Overly concerned with the image their family projects, Trey’s parents are not fond of his apparent gayness and evident femininity; in addition, they hold a grudge against him for his involvement in his younger brother’s disappearance, something they all seem to regret, and on various levels played a role in, to their collective chagrin. Trey is ready to leave home at the age of seventeen and to make his way in New York City. Trey’s savings don’t last for long, and he suspects that his family is surveilling him from afar, but he does achieve independence, with all the precarity that entails. By the time he’s eighteen, he’s well on his way to becoming a scrappy activist in his parents’ former stead. His primary cause is HIV–AIDs activism, and he achieves prominence as a founding member of ACT UP. He is tender, intelligent, exposed to the early AIDS era at a young age, and he does not look away, he leans in. Some of the scenes in this novel are set in Mt. Morris, a defunct bathhouse that was once a haven for gay black men in Harlem. Trey experiences it as a shadowy set of corridors, replete with private and open sex rooms, locker rooms, and revealing bath towels. His descriptions of the site are immersive and dangerous. As a non-gay, non-black reader, I felt led by the hand through a world I would only know through fiction.

Nyad (2023)

This is at core a pretty standard story of an uplifting sporting feat, a familiar tale of triumph over adversity, in this case man versus ocean, ocean almost always winning--but not every single time. The story is told by married documentarians, who earned an Academy Award for their jaw-dropping 2018 film “Free Solo,” so while it is a docudrama, the story is told in a recognizable documentary format. Nyad was a legendary long-distance swimmer and former ABC “Wide World of Sports” correspondent and the movie tells the tale of her quest at age 64 to swim from Cuba to Florida, a brutal stretch of 110 miles. When Nyad finally crossed successfully, with the help of a crew of coaches, kayakers, and a medic, it was her fifth attempt. We witness all the setbacks, all the ways in which the journey went frustratingly wrong before it went right. An unexpected encounter with a swarm of box jellyfish provides a harrowing scene of nighttime horror, the weather is a constant battle, the current along the route is relentlessly not on the swimmer's side, as examples. Warning, Nyad is not a nice person--she is egotistical, narcissisticly self-centered and self-important, perhaps qualities one needs to accomplish this feat, but she is not great girlfriend material. Despite all that, this is a very enjoyable movie with great to watch, Annette Benning as Nyad and Jodie Foster as her coach and friend do a phenomenal job acting, and this is a rightful Oscar contender. Streaming on Netflix.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

According to a review that I read James McBride cites as his inspiration a camp outside Philadelphia where he worked every summer as a college student during the 1970s. At the time, it was called The Variety Club Camp for Handicapped Children. The remarkable camp director taught him lifetime lessons about inclusivity, love and acceptance--but he hasn't been able to write about it directly, so he gives us this, a novel about Pottstown, Pa., and a historically Black and immigrant Jewish neighborhood called "Chicken Hill." The Jews are moving on, looking to improve their lot in life, but not all of them, and this is a story that revolves around community, helping each other even if you don't look the same, and what that does for you and others around you. It is about this and so much more, but it is a beautifully told story and I don't want to give too much away, just read it.

Punta Vicente Roca on Isabela Island, Galapagos, Ecuador

Isabela Island is the largest of the Galápagos Islands, with an area of 4,586 km² and a length of 100 km. By itself, it is larger than all the other islands in the chain combined and it has a little under 2000 permanent inhabitants. The island straddles the equator; we crosed it twice as we circumnavigated it.

The Galapagos flightless cormorant is an endemic species to Galapagos, and is not only the heaviest cormorant species, but also the only one out of 29 species which cannot fly. They are therefore confined to the lava shoreline and beaches of Isabela and Fernandina Islands. These were so close to our panga that you could have touched them--in fact, one nipped the bum of one of our co-passengers!

BRown noddies in Galapagos are closely related to the tern family and are the largest of all noddies, easily distinguished by its cousin the Black noddy thanks to its larger size and feathers. It resembles a pigeon of sorts, with a greyish-white cap at the top of their heads that fades into the dark brown feathers that cover the rest of their body. Their white eye-ring is a distinctive feature in adults. The brown noddy is rarely seen near the land as a result of being pelagic, flying out for extended periods in the warm tropical waters, searching for small fish and/or squid, swooping low and using how-dipping and contact-dipping to catch its prey. They nest on these shoreline cliffs.

Mastering The Art Of French Eating by Ann Mah

I read a review that kind of summed up my feelings--there is nothing ground breaking here, but it is endearing and enjoyable--and best of all, it launched me further down the road towards planning my next trip to France. Like the author, I am thoroughly charmed by the whole country's priority on food, how to prepare it, when to eat it, how to eat it, and to be reverent of the process along the way. The book starts off with she and her husband getting a dream diplomatic posting in France, and then he gets deployed to Iraq for a year, so she essentially lives alone in Paris, mostly feeling sorry for herself at the outset, but then settling in on writing about the quintessential dish from various regions around France. The story of pistou, a traditional Provencal summer soup is hilariously accurate when it comes to how when in France you must do it the way it has always been done, no veering off on your own variation. She doesn't go to the Perigord, but we witnessed that adherence to tradition when it came to fois gras. The other is about crepes in Brittany, a region I have not been to, but am now very much looking forward to visiting. If you are a Francophile and especially if you like to both cook and eat, this will be an enjoyable read.

Miskay, Quito, Ecuador

My dad died recently, this is the first holiday without him and it really has me thinking. One thing is that I wish I had told him exactly what I am grateful about that he and my mom taught me, but I am going to be writing a lot about it, I fear. So here is where I start. My parents love food and love travel and my recent trip to Ecuador was walking in the footsteps of a trip they took when they were my age, and this was my first meal there, at a restaurant that serves native Quechuan food. He would have loved this ceviche, which we have vowed to try to replicate at home, at least the shrimp one (there is also octopus and a fish one pictured here), but we never got the chance.

I think he would also have enjoyed the traditional Ecuadorian side dish that is served with ceviche--popcorn, corn nuts, and plantain chips! So good. I traveled south of the American border with my parents on a number of occasions and came away with a love of the food and the urge to be able to speak to people. At the time I did not think of it as the language of conquerors, which it is, but the silver lining is that often it is a second language for both of us, which makes it easier for me to keep up.

Say It Loud by Randall Kennedy

This is a tough read. The author makes clear, over and over again, in the 29 essays collected here, by implication or sometimes by stating it, that he is not optimistic about race relations. He spends a lot of time here pointing out where people are wrong in their things, all the while carving out a middle road between left- and right-wing political positions that non-extremists could comfortably accept. He recognizes the persistent racial injustice in America and criticizes a conservative Supreme Court for crippling some of our social advancements. Yet he does not follow liberals in their calls to abolish the police, denounce all references and statues of past racists on campuses or penalize instructors who enunciate “nigger” for pedagogical purposes. He correctly notes that there is a “double sidedness of policing” — Black people in this country are paradoxically both over- and under-policed. He has a whole a chapter devoted to the topic of black pride —which he argues is problematic because one should not feel pride in something one inherits. Just as it is inappropriate for the rich to feel pride in their inherited wealth, so too is it inappropriate for anyone to feel pride in their inherited race. Personal achievement, he posits, is the correct token for pride. And personal achievement he has in excess--what isn't to be found is any ray of hope that there might be a way out of this, that we might find a path.

Santiago Island, Galapagos, Ecuador

Santiago, originally named James Island after England’s King James II, was the second of the Galápagos Islands visited by Charles Darwin. The Beagle arrived there on October 5, 1835. There they found a party of Spaniards who had come from Charles Island to dry fish and salt tortoise meat. About 6 mi inland they discovered two men living in a hovel, who were employed catching tortoises. Santiago had long been a source of water, wood, and tortoises for buccaneers and whalers, as well as Captain Porter of the USS Essex from 1812-1814.

Everyone has heard of Darwin's finches, but it was the mockingbird that convinced Darwin that evolution was at work in the molding of species on our planet. Darwin's plant collections were all clearly marked and documented, as Henslow had taught him. But Darwin did not always record the exact island where he found each Galápagos bird. "It never occurred to me, that the productions of islands only a few miles apart, and placed under the same physical conditions, would be dissimilar." Too late, he realized that many organisms were unique to each island-a fact confirmed by his mockingbird specimens. Darwin sorely regretted the lost opportunity to do a systematic study of each island, writing, "It is the fate of every voyager, when he has just discovered what object in any place is more particularly worthy of his attention, to be hurried from it."

Nobody Gets Out Alive by Leigh Newman

I am not a big fan of short stories, but this one is full of stories that are set in Alaska, and mostly more rural Alaska, not Anchorage, which is a hybrid frontier experience. Geography serves to link the stories, and the isolation of Alaska causes tension throughout the collection. Several stories unfold in the lower forty-eight states, but they always connect back to the north. The distance serves as a source of conflict: to leave, to arrive, to travel to Alaska are all essential to the experience of the place. The collection shares the characteristics that the people come and go, but the stories otherwise stand on their own. The characters are deeply crafted and filled with complexity that are reminiscent of real life humans. While their reappearances extend their individual histories, even when contained within a single story, we see multiple dimensions: good and bad, flaws and strengths. So not altogether likeable, laudable, nor repugnant. Overall, I would recommend it because it will leave you thinking.

Potato Pancakes

It has been forever since I last made potato pancakes, definitely since before I had cancer which means at least nine years ago, but I would bet it has been longer. I really only eat them once a year, or at least just in this time of year, and if someone else makes them, then I don't and that has happened pretty routinely, it turns out. I am writing this down because it avoids the thing I like least about making them, which is when the potatoes get grey before they are cooked. 3 lbs. potatoes, grated (I use the food processor) 1-2 onions, grated 3-4 eggs 2-4 Tbs. of flour, potato starch, or bread crumbs salt and pepper to taste Grate the onions and potatoes together, and submerge in water until ready to start frying. Drain and pat dry, add the other ingredients and start the oil up to fry them immediately. I used a #30 scoop but you could go smaller. Fry until you can see them browning nicely then flip. Makes enough for 10 people to have quite a few.

A History of Burning by Janika Oza

I enjoyed this book, which spans four continents and five generations of an Indian family as they’re forced to migrate again and again for political and economic reasons. In 1898, 13-year-old Pirbhai, the oldest son of a poor family in western India, heads out to find work. He’s conscripted to a railroad builder in Kenya, where he labors for several years. After the project is finished, he lucks into a job at a store run by an Indian family and later marries their eldest daughter, Sonal. The couple then moves to Uganda to work at a pharmacy. In 1972, Pirbhai’s son Vinod and his wife and three daughters, who have sunk roots into Uganda, are exiled by Idi Amin, with most of the family moving to Toronto, before their lives are disrupted again by the 1992 racial uprising. The book vacillates between several characters and we never really get to know any one of them very well, so the take home message is more the situation, how families come to be immigrants not just once but multiple times, and how that feels. It is well written and a promising first novel.

Bartolomé Island, Galápagos, Ecuador

Bartolomé Island was named after Sir Bartholomew James Sulivan, a friend of Charles Darwin who served as principal surveyor and second-lieutenant aboard the HMS Beagle. Bartolomé is a barren islet in Sullivan Bay to the east of Santiago Island. Bartolomé is home to a distinctive and recognizable site of the archipelago: Pinnacle Rock. Pinnacle Rock, a volcanic cone, was formed when magma was expelled from an underwater volcano; the sea cooled the hot lava, which then exploded, only to come together and form this huge rock made up of many thin layers of basalt. You may recognize Pinnacle Rock from the 2003 movie “Master and Commander.”

The Galapagos Penguins, the second smallest penguin species in the world, have established a small breeding colony in a cave behind Pinnacle Rock. In 1982, these creatures suffered a massive decline during El Niño when the overall population in Galapagos declined from nearly 15,000 to fewer than 500 birds and they have been slow to recover. The most recent cause of concern came in July 2008 when a Plasmodium parasite species was found in Galapagos Penguins. Researchers are worried that this parasite could potentially lead to avian malaria.

This lava is so uncomfortable. Pahoehoe lava is a type of basaltic lava that is smooth and thicker (higher viscosity) than aa lava. In Hawaiian, pahoehoe means smooth, unbroken lava. It creates interesting shapes and natural sculptures across the landscape. As it flows a skin or crust forms on the top layer which then gives way allowing another flow – which forms a skin, and so on.

The Dead Are Arising by Les Payne

Malcolm X's autobiography has sold millions of copies since it was published in the aftermath of its author’s assassination and it shaped how we view the fiery black revolutionary traveling from street criminal to statesman. This biography, which is the results of decades of work, sets out to provide a much fuller picture of the life and death of Malcolm X, drawing on interviews with his friends and family to assess his contribution in the context of the times. It is as much a history of US race relations as it is a biography of the black revolutionary. The opening chapters focus on the world and family Malcolm X was born into, exploring the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan and the climate of racial terrorism that prevailed after the US civil war. Malcolm’s mother and father, Louise and Earl Little, met in the Universal Negro Improvement Association and were high up enough in this, one of the most important black organizations of the 20th century, that its leader Marcus Garvey would spend time working at their home. As a child, Malcolm would listen to his father preaching the Garveyite tenets of black pride, independence and repatriation to Africa. His parents’ influence was at the core of the Malcolm who became famous. Malcolm never really changed: his “basic philosophy was Garveyism” from childhood to the grave. The rise and fall of the Nation of Islam in Malcolm X's live and leading ultimately to his assassination is well chronicled, as are some truisms he posited (most memorable for me was his reframing of the issue of interracial sex, pointing out that white men have been reproducing with black women for centuries in the United States, and that the issue is white women. White men don't want them to have the same. Good point). Malcolm X developed one of the most sophisticated understandings of racism and also a practical, global, radical program in response. He saw through the false promises of reform and that we need to look for radical solutions.

From a Window by Christian Wiman

Incurable and unbelieving in any truth but the truth of grieving, I saw a tree inside a tree rise kaleidoscopically as if the leaves had livelier ghosts. I pressed my face as close to the pane as I could get to watch that fitful, fluent spirit that seemed a single being undefined or countless beings of one mind haul its strange cohesion beyond the limits of my vision over the house heavenwards. Of course I knew those leaves were birds. Of course that old tree stood exactly as it had and would (but why should it seem fuller now?) and though a man's mind might endow even a tree with some excess of life to which a man seems witness, that life is not the life of men. And that is where the joy came in.

Three Girls From Bronzville by Dawn Turner

This memoir is set in an historically Black neighborhood, a bit of land on Chicago’s South Side known as Bronzeville, and three Brown girls – the author, her sister, Kim Turner, and best friend Debra Trice – who were shaped by this milieu while growing up in the 1970s. Their families moved northward in the Great Migration, escaping the lynchings and unpredictable violence of the Jim Crow South. Dawn, Debra and Kim all had a leg up in life, as so-called children of the dream: the first generation to realize the hard-won freedoms of the civil rights movement. But only Turner was able to grab hold of the advantages, entering the University of Illinois at Urbana on the early tide of affirmative action, one of just a thousand African American students in a sea of 34,500. They were raised in the same environment, a land of milk and honey soured by neglect both benign and intentional — redlining, contract buying and other policies that extracted Black wealth, opportunity and hope. They ended up with entirely different fates, and the author takes the reader through each of them while trying to make sense of it all.

North Seymour Island, Galápagos, Ecuador

Named after the English nobleman Lord Hugh Seymour, North Seymour was formed by a series of uplifts of submarine lava along with Baltra (also called South Seymour) and the northeastern part of Santa Cruz, resulting in flat plateaus. In the early 1930s, members of the Hancock Expeditions moved approximately 70 land iguanas from Baltra Island to North Seymour in order to provide better conditions for their survival, as introduced goats were destroying the habitat on Baltra and contributing to their declining population. Land iguanas are not native to North Seymour Island.

The trail on North Seymour includes a loop that goes along the coast then veers inland, providing visitors with ample opportunity to observe the largest colony of magnificent frigatebirds in Galápagos, blue-footed boobies, and land iguanas, shore birds, as well as sea lions and marine iguanas along the coast.

So many babies!! We were never again so close to nestsm and so many of them. It is very close to the airport, and a wonderful first day introduction to the islands.

To Name The Bigger Lie by Sarah Viren

This is both very good and very well written. It is a memoir that explores the meaning of truth by examining two different times in her life when men hurt her by spinning a narrative of lies--so it is two interwoven stories about manipulative men and how they affected her, how she responded to them, and what she learned about herself and the world around her as a result. The first is a high school teacher who is a homophobic Holocaust denier who promulgates his paranoid world view in the guise of teaching philosophy and the questioning of the world around you. The other is a man who she had a casual acquaintance with who uses a sexual harassment lie to try to sink both her and her wife's academic careers. She uses these two life changing events to unfold a story of who she is and how she came to be that way. The author makes it plain, if it isn’t already to everyone, that an escalating disregard for reason and fact poses an existential danger to individuals and democracy alike. She is warning us-- the resurgence of antisemitism and white supremacy expressed in hoary conspiracy theories are a sign of rising totalitarianism. Do with it what you will.

Asteroid City (2023)

As is so often the case with Wes Anderson movies, I am not always sure that I totally get it, and Asteroid City is no exception to that rule. Anderson's scrupulous and stunning production design transports us to a time of novelty sunglasses, letter writing, talent shows, and counselors who play the ukulele. The adapted screenplay, written with Roman Coppola, is witty and infused with heart. The soundtrack of classic rock tunes from the era complements the visuals and story perfectly. It is a quirky and heartwarming coming-of-age story set in the nostalgic backdrop of a 1950s summer camp. With his signature aesthetic and odd characters, this emerges as a tapestry of childhood adventures, touching relationships, and laugh-out-loud humor. The cast of lovable misfit kids are largely adventure-seeking yet sardonic. Their interactions are humorous and touching, showcasing the fleeting friendships and learning experiences kids have at summer camp. This is primo Anderson in peak form. He has crafted a film full of imagination, adventure, and humanity. It's a rewarding watch for both adults and kids, with universal themes about childhood and self-discovery.

Foreign Bodies by Simon Schama

There is a lot of material packed into this volume, and it is all good information, but for me, the message was a little muddled. I can agree that the health of a nation economically depends on the physical health of it's citizens, and therefore when pandemics inevitably happen, the powers that be are looking for someone to blame at least as much as they are seeking solutions. That happened with COVID and it has happened repeatedly through history. The 18th-century development of vaccination was spurred by the mutation of smallpox into a potentially fatal virus. The English discovery that a small dose of the pus from someone with active disease worked as a shield against full-blown infection. Meanwhile, inoculation by insufflation—blowing dried, powdered pus up the nostrils—was state policy in China. The Victorian age of globalization showed that disease moved as easily as goods through steamship and rail. The need for international coordination was obvious, but rivalrous powers resisted restrictions. So was born both vaccination and the skeptics who questioned it's utility and safety. The author goes on to tell the saga of cholera, and with it, all the prejudices that were fanned across the globe.

Mediterranean Zucchini Fritters

I really love everything about Yasmin Kahn's cookbook Ripe Figs. I loved reading it cover to cover, I loved the story behind it and what she did with it, and I have loved many of the recipes that I have made from it. I do find it hard to believe that I got all the way to October before I made a zucchini fritter this summer, but some things do not come off as planned. The zucchini went in late this year, and everything else followed that. 3 medium zucchini (grated) 4 green onions (finely chopped) 3 garlic cloves (crushed) Large handful dill (finely chopped) Large handful parsley (finely chopped) 1 t. ground coriander 1/2 t. sweet paprika 4 large eggs (lightly beaten) Zest of 1 large lemon 1/2 C. all-purpose flour 1/2 t. baking powder 2/3 C. feta cheese (crumbled) Neutral oil (for frying) Salt and black pepper Grate zucchini into a colander and sprinkle with 1 t. salt. Toss to combine the zucchini with the salt. Let the grated zucchini drain for about 30 minutes. Squeeze the excess water out of the zucchini. You want to get the zucchini pretty dry. Combine all of the other ingredients (except the feta) into a large bowl. Mix to combine. Add 1/2 t. salt and freshly-ground black pepper to the mixture. Stir. Stir in the crumbled feta. Heat 3 T. oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, spoon small pancake-sized scoops of the batter into the hot oil. Fry on each side for about 3 minutes. Use a spatula to press the fritter down into the oiled hot pan. When the fritters are crispy on each side (after about 6 minutes total), remove them from the pan and let them drain on a paper towel. Repeat with additional batches of the fritters. You may need to add some additional oil for additional batches. I pan fried about 3 fritters in each batch. Serve warm. Garnish with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and some chopped dill.

Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow

There is a trend in memoirs where the author loses their mother at an early age, and this one does not buck that trend. The author spends this whole memoir struggling to comprehend her mother’s death in 2004 and finds herself often rushing to glimpse her memorial. She considers herself unique in a traditional Chinese family that refused to openly grieve in that she admits it is still hard--that in and of itself tells you a lot about what you need to know. As a tribute, she vibrantly tells the story of her mother’s life with great dexterity and in luminous detail. Her mother was born in China, then immigrated to America to attend college and ended up charming her father at a tag sale, which led to a problematic marriage riddled with bickering, unrest, and money problems. Honoring her family’s ghosts, the author also writes movingly about the crushing death of her brother just an hour after his premature birth, the steady decline of her mother’s health as cancer ravaged her, and how the early deaths of the women in her family gives her both pause and cause for concern. Her mother hid internal aches she blamed on age but were later revealed as symptoms of her terminal disease. There is levity braided into the memories, as well: Chow’s mother telling her, at age 9, that she wanted to be stuffed after her death so she could keep an eye on them (which is just creepy in retrospect), fun family road trips, and her mother’s penchant for practical jokes. By uniting family memories, elements of Chinese culture, and an intimate perspective, Chow wraps tragedy and history into an affecting memorial.

Mint Mark, Madison, WI

We had a remarkably good meal here, and I cannot wait to go back. The good news is that we have a niece living there for another year and a half--maybe longer, fingers crossed--and we can choose to go back. The other good news is that while the restaurant is small, and reservations are limited, you can show up at 4PM when the bar opens and put yourself on the list for a table, and often be seated by the time the kitchen opens at 5PM. One of the charms of the place is an extensive and eclectic cocktail menu, so there is something to keep you busy! The atmospher is lovely, small and cozy with a botanical theme, which is not something that I inherently love, but it really works here. On to the food. It is a shared plates style, with 1-2 plates per diner being about right. We were there on a Friday night, so we did opt for the Wisconsin Fish Fry--it is a tradition in Wisconsin and we had dodged it until now, so dove in, and no regrets but I wouldn't necessarily plan my return for a Friday, but would opt for it again if it coincided. The coleslaw was some of the best restaurant cole slaw I have had. This was not, however, the highlight! For me it was the vegetable forward menu and the interesting presentations and flavors they married together. Admittedly, the biscuit with garlic honey and cultured butter is not innovative, but do not miss it--delicious! The carrot ravioli was my favorite dish, but everything was amazing.

Everything I need I get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany

The subtitle of this book is How Fangirls Created the Internet As We Know It--reading this book made me realize that there is so much more going on with social media than either I know or that I want to know. She uses “the first internet boy band” One Direction as a foundation upon which to explore how digital hyperconnectivity can transform personal passions into complicated and communal online lifestyles, and while she would argue that there is good in this, it really kind of creeped me out. She moves from the sold-out arena shows around the world and deftly articulates the perfect storm of social media, hysteria, and mythmaking that made such a success possible. She herself is/was a superfan herself, and she invites readers into the trenches of Tumblr and Twitter to chronicle discussions with significant players in a diverse swath of fan scenes. Throughout the book, she embraces online slang, unabashedly detailing the nuances between stanning and shipping among a lexicon of new, evolving terminology. Discussing the popular trend of circulating niche, nearly incomprehensible One Direction memes. Using all of this, leaving me at least a bit dizzy in the process, she explains how their viral success was engineered by the fans themselves.

Fromagination, Madison, WI

This cheese shop, which does have some cheese tht is not made in Wisconsin, but it excels at high end cheese that is made in state, and they happily greet you when you enter the store, make conversation with all, offer tastes of cheese, and are equally comfortable with light banter and serious cheese talk. We mentioned we had a friend who is a cheesemake in Missouri and two people behind the counter said "Green Dirt Farm?"--yes! We knew them before there was a Green Dirt Farm and are well aware of their acocmplishments and awards in the artisanal cheese world--but so were they, and that is the sort of service you are getting, that and access to cheese that is so pricey that it's cost is advertised in the 1/2 lb. (less sticker shock that way. On the upside, if you want access to this level of cheese, this is the place to go, and they have an on line store, and free shipping to the area, including Iowa. We love Uplands Pleasant Ridge Reserve and we has a chance to taste it as well as buy it. This is well worth the visit if you love cheese and want to know more about what is happening with cheese in Wisconsin. We left poorer, but also a little richer.

The Encantadas by Herman Melville

Having read Moby Dick (which I loved) and now this, I come to several conclusions. One is that Melville wrote what he knew, and the other is that he was a cranky man. His father died when he was 13 and the family finances went from precarious to worse. Melville was not a gifted student, nor could he teach, and so, at the age of 20 he signed on as a cabin boy for a merchant ship called the St. Lawrence, which traveled from New York City to Liverpool, England, and back. Two year later he embarked on his second sea voyage after being hired to work aboard the Acushnet, a whaling ship. After arriving at the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia in 1842, Melville and a crewmate deserted the ship and, soon after, were captured by local cannibals. Although Melville was treated well, he escaped after four months on board another whaling ship, the Lucy Ann, and was jailed after joining the crew in a mutiny. He eventually wound up in Hawaii before catching a ride back to Massachusetts on the USS United States, arriving home more than three years after he left. What he lacked as a sailor he made up for with his powers of observation, and this short novella is a summation of his impressions--not favorable ones--of the Galapagos archipelago. To be fair, he had a point about their lack of hospitability for human habitation, but he completely missed their other charms, or they were wasted on him. It is possible that he would have had a chance to read Darwin's account of his journey on the Beagle, but it did not open his eyes in the least.

The Meaning of Birds by Simon Barnes

This book is beautifully put together, with lots of gorgeous line drawings of birds gracing it's pages, and the chapters are outlined with an eye towards the non-scientist. If you are a backyard birder (as I aspire to be) there are a lot of charming and interesting facts. I have been preparing for a birding trip to the Galapagos, and have spent the last several months beefing up my birding knowledge, so as a result it gets harder and harder to learn something completely new. My pearl from this is that there are three things that are responsible for the color of feathers: Porphyrins, carotenoids, and melanin. Porphyrins are produced by modifying amino acids. Although the exact chemical structure of each porphyrin differs, they all share a common trait. They fluoresce a bright red when exposed to ultraviolet light, much the way certain rocks and minerals are known to do. Porphyrins produce a range of colors, including pink, browns, reds, and greens. Porphyrins are found in some owls, pigeons and gallinaceous species. They can also produce the brilliant greens and reds of turacos. Carotenoids are produced by plants, and are acquired by eating plants or by eating something that has eaten a plant. Carotenoids are responsible for the bright yellows seen in goldfinches and Yellow Warblers as well as the brilliant orangish yellow of the male Blackburnian Warbler. Most important for me in the short run is that they are responsible for the blue feet on the Blue Footed Booby, and that the bluer the male's feet are, the more attractive a mate he appears to be. The final pigmenting agent is melanin. Melanin occurs as tiny granules of color in both the skin and feathers of birds. Depending on their concentration and location, melanin can produce colors ranging from the darkest black to reddish browns and pale yellows. Melanin provides more than just coloration. Feathers that contain melanin are stronger and more resistant to wear than feathers without melanin. Feathers without any pigmentation are the weakest of all. Many otherwise all white birds have black feathers on their wings or black wingtips. These flight feathers are the ones most subject to wear and tear. The melanin causing the tips to appear black also provides extra strength.

Odyssey: Young Charles Darwin, The Beagle, and The Voyage That Changed The World by Tom Chaffin

This is one of two recent books about Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle--both are quite good, and one would have sufficed if it wasn't that I am going to the Galapagos and wanted to read any and all available material in order to get the most out of it (for me, going to the literature is a sure fire way to enhance my enjoyment, but it is not for everyone). The other has been previously reviewed by me, and this one, in contrast, makes Darwin out to be more of a heroic adventurer, and it relies more heavily on quotes, or Darwin's accounts, in his own words. I liked the other better, but if I had read this first, and only this, I would have been satisfied. Despite their differences in style and voice, the two books feature the same stories. Darwin got his job because the Beagle’s Capt. Robert FitzRoy wanted a gentleman conversation partner to abate his suicidal tendencies. Before departure, Darwin had already been steered into geology; he trained in field skills with the geologist Adam Sedgwick; and was presented with Volume One of Charles Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” as a gift from Capt. FitzRoy. Darwin was a keen observer and hardworking specimen-collector who experienced no eureka moment regarding natural selection during the voyage. Immediately upon his return, Darwin sought out the geologist Lyell as a mentor and champion. In time, Darwin would designate Lyell as the man to edit his radical theory in the case of Darwin’s unexpected death; it was also Lyell who secured a publisher for his magnum opus.

Galapagos Crusoes by Bryan and June Nelson

This is kind of an unusual book. It is a new, less focused on the science and more focused on the experience, updated version of the celebrated 1968 title by the renowned late ornithologist Bryan Nelson, with additional, previously unpublished reminiscences and lively and irreverent memories from his wife June. Now, nearly 60 years later, June Nelson has extracted a more limited version of the story of that extraordinary year and complemented it with her own recollections. I am not sure what to make of it. It was the 1960's and maybe people, even naturalists, were doing ill advised things. On the one hand, it breathes new life into a classic work of natural history, and that will likely appeal to bird lovers and Galapagos -lovers alike. Although it is billed as a scientific study, the authors light touch and the extraordinary hardships and how they made do with living in total isolation with no means of rescue should things go wrong, make it a pretty good read. The couple’s research and findings remain relevant and interesting, so plenty of wildlife descriptions are retained, but it is the mischievous anecdotes that make you wonder exactly how much exacting science went on that year, and how much was just escaping everything and everyone.

The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner

This book won the Pulitzer Prize the year that it was published, which was almost 30 years ago. It is a book about two biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, who were studying rapid changes in the birds on the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin observed the same creatures in the 1830s. The Grants, along with their investigative team, spent decades capturing ground finches on Daphne Major, banding them, taking measurements and blood samples, and then observing their mating (amongst several other features). They were able to see adaptive change happen almost literally before their eyes, putting what Darwin hypothesized happened into very specific time, place, and reason as to why finches change, flourish, and flounder over the course of years, not millennia. Throughout the book, Weiner jumps effortlessly from Darwin’s world to that of the Grants. He is able to juxtapose the two experiences both in Galapagos and back at their respective homes perfectly, highlighting both their methods of research in various, yet specific, ways. This is a great peak at evolution in action, even if you are not about to go to the Galapagos to see it for yourself.