The Thin Red Line

I have to say right off, going in, that I really wanted to like Clifford A Wright’s Bake Until Bubbly– The Ultimate Casserole Cookbook.   But Wright in several ways made that very hard for me to do.    The first time in the early pages he decried using canned cream of whatever soups in favor of freshly prepared bechmael sauces.  All of what I would call the easy steps in casserole-preparation have been replaced with extremely labor-intensive recipes which seem as though designed to show just how much hard work is normally replaced by the use of canned soup in casseroles that by the end of the 450 page plus new 2008 release I was mainly seized by an imperative urge to hurl the bloody book across the room.   This one is Not Recommended.

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Pack your bags and get ready for the ride of your life.  The Space Tourist’s Handbook  tells you all you need to know about vacationing in space.  Written by Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, this $16 book is part brochure for the range of trips offered by Space Adventures, part introduction to various aspects of space travel and 100% All out of this world.

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I have to confess, right off, that there is no theme, no connection no rhyme or reason behind today’s book selections.   These are five that just caught my eye and found their way home with me and each is just so unusual and interesting that I just had to share it.    Ranging from a huge 10 inches tall by 14 inches wide to a squat and chunky 6 inches square, from the Duba plains in Botswana (Africa) to the foot, err feet  of Texas, from the islands of the South Pacific to the crayon factory, these five books are just All over the map.

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I am Way over due to give some link love to Claire. I has noticed that her simple but very clever cartoons reminded me of Eric Carle’s work and had intended to dedicate a review of Carle’s newest board book, but that was the day the computer and Earthlink ate my post three times and I ended up posting only a hastily written note describing how difficult it had been to post that day. So when Claire teamed up with Chelle on their newest photo contest– What Was Willy Reading? , I just knew this library drone would Have to provide some insight into Willy’s reading list….

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This one is for Claire who asked for a book about hiking.   I realize that Journeys of a Lifetime is probably not what she had in mind,  but wait until you hear about the hikes I am recommending to her.

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   If you are in the habit of clicking on my eye candy selections and getting them from the library to gawk at,  be assured that Trisha Wilson’s Spectacular Hotels will not disappoint in that regard.    I have some reservations about this book but if you’re in it for the eye candy,  they don’t matter in the slightest.     Wilson is an interior designer who has worked on a number of spectacular hotel projects all over the world, and her book is perfect for armchair travel from Africa to the Americas to Europe and the Islands.

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After ‘ooohing and ahhing’  over the spectacular log mansions, I came across two more very eye-catching books,  that focus on very modern and high tech versions of the vacation cabin.   The Texas hill country vacation home pictured on the cover is a big glass box that’s been designed to be energy efficient and cool in the heat of the day.  It is just one of the oh-so-stunning vacation residences featured in Modern Cabin by Michelle Kodis.    Each featured vacation home is shown in multiple day and night exterior photos and multiple interior shots.   The floor plans for each home are also provided as are details of the use of recycled and eco-friendly materials and the incorporation of design elements and systems to make these homes low impact on unspoiled natural areas.

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I really wanted to like Faith Willinger’s Adventures of an Italian food lover.   Recipes from 254 chefs all over "The Boot"  collected by a woman in Florence, Italy famous for writing about the best of its native restaurants and cuisine, charmingly illustrated with water colors of the featured chefs and food.    It seemed like a sure thing.

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Earth Then and Now is a unique pictorial geography book showing dramatic changes to the earth’s surface all over the world. Consisting mostly of before and after photographs and some other before and after depictions of human impact on the earth in a particular country or region.

One of the most dramatic photos is a single photograph (not two before and after photographs) that shows the edge of the Gifford Pinchon National Forest where land owned by timber giant Weyerhauser has been clear cut to a straight line reflecting the boundary of the National Forest. I’ve been to the Gifford Pinchon forest and it is a magnificent special place. And this is just one of over 100 comparisons.

An abandoned open pit mine in Cornwall, England that has been transformed into a lush garden and a biosphere ecology exhibit is one of many comparisons that highlight a positive outcome. The spectacular reconstructed cathedral on the site of the Brandenberg Gate in the now unified Berlin, Germany is another strikingly positive comparison. The site of the former twin towers of the World Trade Center and a photograph of New Orleans on sunny day in March 2005 and flooded out following Katrina are among the more somber before and afters.

This one is definitely worth checking out to spend some time perusing and contemplating these very striking images. Recommended.

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My first thought on seeing this latest Rough Guides publication was that it was proof positive the brand is so diluted that the Rough Guides imprint and logo means nothing at all, where once it had clearly meant a line of destination travel guides with an attitude.

You’d have to have Lots of money and endless vacation time to ever be able to do all 1,000 of these things. For most of us, this is a kind of neat round the world brochure for some of the more amazing things this planet has to offer. A Rough Guide To The World (Recommended.)

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There was a time after I got laid off from Earthlink and before Joel got too sick to travel that we went on a kind of non-stop vacation. My current budget doesn’t permit me to travel very far at all these days, though I hope I will get the chance to roam again. And I also find I sometimes enjoy a bit of vicarious wandering through some of the excellent books about far away places that pass through our library.

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