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The "Chefs" issue means most of the articles are written by chefs, name-dropping other chefs. There's some element of bashing Food Network personalities, although didn't food TV bring us chef-as-celebrity and over-the-top glorification of food that brought Lucky Peach into existence in the first place?

To paraphrase Mr. Spock, "it's only logical."

I read once that there is an innate human need to explain things, to draw clear lines between cause and effect. Humans also tend to put themselves at the center of the universe. Religion, therefore, is what we get.

It's a little frightening to hear what some of this year's Republican presidential candidates have to say about faith. People, people, people...can't we get past some of this?

I wanted to like this book more. I really did. It was just so bulky (in hardcover), and harsh (in events).

My favorite characters (out of what seemed like thousands) were Gus, Newt, and Janey. I also liked Clara, until she went off on her rant at Call near the end of the book.

Maybe I'd enjoy the miniseries more.

I wanted to like this book more. I really did. It was just so bulky (in hardcover), and harsh (in events).

My favorite characters (out of what seemed like thousands) were Gus, Newt, and Janey. I also liked Clara, until she went off on her rant at Call near the end of the book.

Maybe I'd enjoy the miniseries more.

Interesting idea, less interesting book. Everything interesting about Dave Bruno's 1-year experiment could have been covered in a magazine-length article. As a book, Bruno gave us lots and lots of filler information that was tangentially related to the challenge.

Other reviewers quibble about the flexible boundaries of counting "100 things," and Bruno himself described his own ground rules that allowed him to count his library as one thing, and to exclude any of his family's shared belongings. These semantics didn't bother me as much as the overriding tone of Bruno's religious faith. His bible counts as a separate thing, but the rest of his library is a massive, other thing?

While an interesting commentary on our culture's focus on consumption, the book was rather weak as a memoir.

(And I do not own this book. I borrowed the Kindle version from the library.)

I liked the second half, when events finally start to come together, much more than the earlier sections. Erin Morgenstern spent much, much time setting the stage. And setting it. And setting it. There were some fabulous elements to her magical circus, and I suspect that sometimes words couldn't do justice to her vision.

This book presented many stark visual contrasts: fire and ice, black and white. The obvious contrast that's missing is good and evil; the only "bad guy" seemed to be the passage of time--and even "time" was not necessarily a bad thing, just something to be manipulated.

Each chapter is prefaced with a place and a date, and I almost didn't notice some overlapping time frames.

Another "time" trick was Morgenstern's use of describing everything in current tense, so that events happen now, not before now.

I was not particularly swept away by the love story, nor was I engaged with any of the characters. They felt like set pieces more than people.

Recommended for: Harry Potter fans, all grown up.

This was the best of the "Red Princess" mystery books. I was engrossed in the setting (the Three Gorges area of China, shortly before the dam was finished) and I enjoyed catching up with the lead characters.

In Dragon Bones, Inspector Liu Hulan and her attorney husband David Stark investigate various crimes that may or may not be related: the theft of ancient artifacts, the rise of an unlawful cult and several gory murders. Along the way, characters explore Chinese nationalism, mythology, the greed for power, and personal sacrifice for the common good.