Before I picked up this book, I only knew as far as cooking shows on TV - so interesting. In the book, the author while taking us through her journey of Pillsbury contest, gives an inside look into her approach to cooking.While the contest did seem like an exam, post contest stuff of being rushed to and from shows, and what the author gathers about 'presentation on TV' makes one wonder about the make believe there.As a cooking contest memoir, its interesting to see the focus on main incident maintained and not veering off into the whole life, but still relating relevant incidents to keep the story wholesome.The best revelatory, ungarnished truth for me was when the author realised that the whole hype about the shows was about the hosts themselves.Ellie Mathews was asked by Oprah, 'What did you bake?' when she appeared on her show as a winner of Pillsbury Bake Off contest with her Salsa Couscous Chicken. She thought,"Of course, I handnt baked a thing(in the winning recipe),but is a natural question,given the contest's name." Turns out that a list of ingredients for Curry Dinner Rolls started me on baking. True to the spirit of inspiring.This is what I like about non-fiction: real consequences.
In the Womb: Animals by Michael Sims
Recently I heard that French bull dogs give birth by caesarian. I found that very surprising. Naturally, this book `In the Womb Animals' caught my attention, open to all the strange things that might be in the animal kingdom.
The author chose dog, dolphin and elephant and compared the time and stages of phases of development, from the beginning to where the offspring can stand on its own. He says that if all the considered babies were to start at the same time, then by the time an elephant baby sees the light of the day, puppy junior could soon be a mother.
Interlaced in these kinds of interesting facts, the author very comfortably pulls the information flow to different abstractions, talking at cell level one time, comparing minority mammals in their nurturing habits and so on.
The strangest thing I read was that Dolphins descended from land animals, and elephants from marine animals. There is even a picture of the terrestrial ancestor of dolphin. Pictures are the quick attraction of this book.
All along, there is a reference to the changes in the species due to evolution, which almost takes a powerhouse form - it should know, where the world is headed.
This book for one, will finally have you run for a field guide to birds. What with the mention of the different kinds of birds, the author comes across in different places. When you read something like 'Canada geese urge on fluffy yellow goslings that look nothing like their black and white parents', you cannot but help to want to know more about them. With the author moving from one place to another, not only is she finding her ultimate place, but also fixing the geography of birds. This for the bird lovers.If you can handle more serious stuff, theres history of waste management interfering with water management requiring water treatment. Water is another major theme in this book.The only way that I could do justice to this book as a reader was to follow the places on google maps.The author's message about nature, its preservation, knowing local history of the vast resources comes across very strongly.Its surprising to see adventures of mountain climbing and glissading along with the Erin Brockovichy work.Some best chapters are on June Lake, CA and the chapter introducing Whatcom and Bellingham. Towards the end it slightly got difficult to read for me.
Its an absolute treat to read essays that inform and make one see the short comings of modern life.Consent of the Governed - must read. new concept - corporate cloaking as individual for rights.The Black Mesa Syndrome - cant wait to read the book on Bechtel.The Faux falls - something totally apart from the world famous cliche of Niagara.The Edges of the Civilized world - ecotourism.On Waste Lonely Places - poeticThe Riddle of Apostle Islands - what is wilderness? Do traces of human presence mar it?Beyond Ecophobia - Steve Moore's interesting study on Earth week curriculum effect in classroom.These Green Things - The San Francisco Garden Project of and by Cathrine Seed.Designer Genes - if cloning is unethical, then this is super cloning.The Pirates of Illiopolis - PVCWinged Mercury and the Golden Calf - The other side of 'The California Gold Rush' coin.In the Name of Restoration - questioning the real sense of projects.The Idea of Local Economy - corporate way of life posing danger to vocation is not the only bad effect.The Culture of owning - interesting concepts of 'polluter-pays' 'harm-benefit test'
The book goes like a true story of parts of nature.Wood frogs: Their rituals(awake for only few months a year and still thriving) seem weird. The author doesnt just stop at this observation. He goes about setting up little experiments to prove or dispute the possible explanations.Bald-Faced Hornet Nests: Hornet paper, a Talisman to ward off all evil predators from a vireo's nest.The Blues: Why ants dont eat blue butterflies?Mud Daubers and Behavior: Can you imagine being born in an encasement with food provided?Artful Diners: Rolled leaf caterpillars and dried leaves with still a bit of green at a spotThe sketches and pictures add to the magic.
This book has loads of information on tree classification, forest classification, methods used to study dynamics of forest structure, air space, the similarities in the tributaries of rivers to branching in trees, study of epiphytes.Wind breakers. Shade grown coffee. Significance of dead wood. Edge effects.Insistence of demand for original oak corks for the oak tree conservation against being replaced by other trees in demand. This brings up a point to think of - utitlity with regards to conservation.EthnobotanistDendrochronologistCanopy studiesPalynology - pollen studiesworld treetree sittingThe broad range of poems on trees,show how in the Montverde forest - and in the book - the author has learned much by combining science, art and the humanities.
Floods can fill quarries with water. The development of gas lighting with its soot made people choose brownstone over marble.Talking about Robinson Jefers house built in carmel Granite, the author introduces us to Terrane theory that explains geology of northwest north America.In Deep time in Minnesota, one gets comfortable talking about the events on earth on the timescale of million and billion years.
If you miss illustrations in books, whats a better way to go through the sketches and while you are at it learn a few things like contour drawings and gesture drawings. These workouts will get out the shy artist in you who has always wanted to draw but did not know how. Sort of like screaming to hear your own voice.Exercises like field observation, memory walking,meditative sketching, capture the day, listing will surprise and satisfy you with their outcomes.Examining negative space, varying psychic distance are other promising ways of entering the world of sketching .
Lessons of love and their intelligence in sensing impending death or trouble are abound in books like A cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers. The author's first lessons from animals she lived with from her childhood are pretty much the same. So we can believe her lessons from her long experience with animals in foxhunting.The news for me are the ones about dog shows antiquating some breeds by their nature, hunting behavior of owl, fox, listening to the animal, disabled animals being shunned, a child's tears might not get you a toy unless the toy is a suffering animal, hierarchies in herd and pack animals, patience, coat characterstic dependence on heat tolerance.
Being here has brought me to a knowledge both tangible and ineffable, of a world apart, completely distinct, from that of my own kind. - David M Carroll, Following the Water.The 'here' is the waterlands that the author has been wading in at certain times every year for almost 2 decades, watching and documenting the various turtles. Since most of them are the same ones, there is a meaning to his work, resulting in a study.He overlooks the color blue of the sky in the water,to see what is under that. Much is being done by the way of conserving nature and wildlife, but we, the general public should find that 'world apart'.
If you come across this book, you cannot skip it without reading. Its like a code or like a never ending story for a kid.The full page analysis of certain paintings are engrossing.Las Meninas of Diego Velazquez and The Art of Painting by Jan Vermeer with the painters in the picture will make the future analysis of paintings make you imagine the painter too.Pope Innocent X of Diego Velazquez, reinterpreted by Francis Bacon and Dejeuner sur l'herbe (main characters from The Judgement of Paris) of Eduard Manet interpreted by Picasso make you appreciate the importance of knowledge of history of art.After reading this book, I look for lighting source in a picture, what composition means, have come to know of painting where a character can be repeated(The Tribute Money), have a favorite painting(Primavera).
I recognised the bird on the cover as a shoebird from a national geographic article but didnt know that it was the 'most patient feeder'. This book is about the record holders. If it were just that it could have come out on cards with stats. The book is at its best with its explanation for flamingo's long legs, ostriches large eyes, jacana's spread out toes tied to their environment.The literature goes into more depth about say a humming bird's flight with its digits beyond the fast wing-beat rate. Having seen the shorebirds always on ground, looking at a picture of godwits in flight, it came as a surprise to me that they and plovers migrate so far.'Biggest communal nest' of sociable weaver had me thinking of beaver's house.
Until I saw a picture of newly born porcupines, I never thought about how they could be born with bristles. Ways to get rid of their smell was about the only thing I gathered from a movie about the spiky animals. While the first two chapters tell us about the ways of hedgehogs, the drama does not start until the third chapter where the hedgehogs are about to be shunned as bird population destroyers. Having heard calls of stilts at the sight of feral cats, I can imagine the havoc created by people about hedgehogs as culprit. The author with his radio tracking for previous study, paint blotting for identification and counting saved them from the fate of dangers of rounding up by a factor of 10.It is interesting to note that different rules apply to three legged animals released back into the wild after rehabilitation based on the role of the foot in feeding and keeping clean.
As the book is of various buildings over ages, it is also a chunk of minor history. In each description, there is the narrative of towers as gods dwellings in mountains, the innovativeness of concentric castles.The description of the buildings makes you look forward to identify the features in the pictures. The alternating curved and triangular pediments in Palacio Real, Winter Palace could not escape my attention after having read of them in Palazzo Farnese description.The aerial picture of Vauban's Fort carre made the influence easy to match in Fort Henry.John Soane. Christopher Wren.
The book begins with getting rid of r (substitute) symbols for birds (substitute). I have read of triangles in reading an artists work. In one of the methods in the book, we start with the traingle framing our subject in it.Getting the measurements to draw a thing is far from my idea of an artistic endeavour. But getting a thing right as it is, is a goal. And without such positional aids, it is hard to get anything on the paper, much like the blank page staring at the writer. While looking for angles in the picture, you are no longer thinking about how or what of the picture can you transfer onto your page. With so many details, you are only more confident of getting the drawing right. After all this study of a pear, I can appreciate still life drawings and paintings.If you dont know about values, then you really need this book. I could use the steps in the book to draw profile pictures and landscapes from a magazine lying around. After observing the skys gradations in a picture, I saw that a sunrise picture on the back of a grocery truck is not just one colour.The lesson on bridging reminded of creation of music.The authors renderings from the pictures are very instructional.
