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Returned, The

 Send It Back Author: Jason Mott I’m seriously considering a new policy of avoiding all buzzed-about books: they never live up to the hype, and more often than not, I feel like I didn’t even read the same book as the one everyone else is raving about. My streak continued with Jason Mott’s debut novel The Returned, where an intriguing premise — dead people start randomly showing up, apparently alive again, all over the planet — fizzled out into a heavy-handed, strangely unaffecting morality play. Set in the present, the story begins as Harold and Lucille Hargrave open their door [...]

2016-12-31T17:55:52-07:00October 16th, 2013|Tags: , , , |

Joy of Liberace: Retro Recipes from America’s Kitschiest Kitchen

Rhinestones and Recipes Authors: Michael Feder and Karan Feder Not too long ago, I had a Liberace-themed costume party, as you do, and naturally I wanted the refreshments to be as authentically Liberacean as possible. Liberace did publish his own cookbook in 1970, Liberace Cooks!, but it’s out of print and hard to find these days. Luckily, Michael and Karan Feder have revived some of its retro-est recipes in a new cookbook, Joy of Liberace: Retro Recipes from America’s Kitschiest Kitchen. At first glance, this seems to be mostly a novelty coffee-table book. From the garish, eye-popping artwork to the [...]

2023-05-29T23:51:40-07:00October 12th, 2013|Tags: , , , , , , , |

Guilt Trip

I just finished reading Elizabeth Becker's Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, and I kind of wish I hadn't — not because it isn't good, but because it opened my eyes to some of the significant negative impacts of international travel. I don't like having to feel bad about traveling, dammit! But it's hard to ignore the author's persuasive arguments about the immense environmental, economic, and historical damage we're doing through our unquenchable thirst for global travel experiences. You probably won't be too surprised to hear that cruises are among the most environmentally damaging kinds of international travel [...]

2023-07-03T14:32:41-07:00September 8th, 2013|Tags: , , , |
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