In a BBC story about a woman left with brain damage from a detox diet not based on any medical mechanism balances the two sides of the story: Side one: * the nutritionist (training unregulated) who recommended the detox and said that vomiting was a normal part of the process. * the reflexologist (training unregulated) […]
My employer just switched to those bio-degradable bags made out of corn instead of petroleum based plastic bags. They are so popular with the patrons that they *take extra bags home* in addition to the ones they use for their books. This says something about something.
From a review of a currently EU/Japan only DS product (not really a game) Cooking Guide: We’d recommend putting your swanky new red DS in a Ziploc or something if you’re going to fry pork next to it.
Nominative determinism is a recurring theme on the BBC News Magazine Monitor (which also has a Twitter presence), so I am perhaps primed to see it in this story about the new blocky milk jugs: “Just tilt it slowly and pour slowly,” Ms. Tilton said… But then, she would, wouldn’t she?
Lavinia, Le Guin. Yes. Yet another story you should know told from a non-traditional point of view; this one has a slightly different texture that was a little too on-the-nose for me at the beginning, but I was not put off too much or too often.
Gargantua; Rabelais, tr. Brown. No. I have frequently run across references to the Rabelaisian sense of humor (well, usually “humour”, in the contexts where I’m running into it), to the point that I thought I should investigate beyond inferring that it’s sesquipedalian for “fart jokes”. I may try again later with a different translation, but […]
A Spot of Bother, Haddon. Yes. I didn’t enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the Dog in the Night-time. Haddon very nearly overdoes the bother (I recall thinking at one point that if he didn’t settle down, I was going to give up on it), and it’s not clear to me he knew exactly […]
Always, Griffith. Yes. I found myself wanting to recommend this book to almost everyone I know, mostly because different aspects of the book reminded me of many people I know. The only aspect of the writing that I found a bit distracting was Griffith’s ruthless verbal touring. It seems as though she gives the reader […]
Gifts, Voices, and Powers; Le Guin. Yes. I read these out of order, starting with Powers because I didn’t notice it was part of a series (one of the hazards of avoiding knowing anything about a book before reading it). The reading didn’t suffer much from the different sequencing. These are sturdy young-adult works, exploring […]