Wednesday, May 12, 2010

secrets everywhere!

Friends, we have a sister-blog!
visit Secretlycookish.blogspot.com to see the latest and greatest tips, recipes, and SF finds. Books, food, friends...what else does a woman need?

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Choices for June 29th

Hello friends,
June is a 5 week month, and July is the time of vacations! The 4th is right around book club time so I though we could bump this round up a week. Let me know if that doesn't work for anyone!
Brittany gives us our options, a lovely selection below:

Garlic & Sapphires
by Ruth Reichl
Garlic and Sapphires is Ruth Reichl's riotous account of the many disguises she employs to dine anonymously. There is her stint as Molly Hollis, a frumpy blond with manicured nails and an off-beige Armani suit that Ruth takes on when reviewing Le Cirque. The result: her famous double review of the restaurant: first she ate there as Molly; and then as she was coddled and pampered on her visit there as Ruth, New York Times food critic.

What is even more remarkable about Reichl's spy games is that as she takes on these various disguises, she finds herself changed not just superficially, but in character as well. She gives a remarkable account of how one's outer appearance can very much influence one's inner character, expectations, and appetites.

As she writes, "Every restaurant is a theater . . . even the modest restaurants offer the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while." GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is a reflection on personal identity and role playing in the decadent, epicurean theaters of the restaurant world.

Good to Great
by Jim Collins
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

* Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
* The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
* A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology
* Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
* The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

The Hiding Place
by John & Elizabeth Sherrill
Corrie ten Boom was a woman admired the world over for her courage, her forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's concentration camps. But she survived and was released—as a result of a clerical error—and now shares the story of how faith triumphs over evil.

For thirty-five years Corrie's dramatic life story, full of timeless virtues, has prepared readers to face their own futures with faith, relying on God's love to overcome, heal, and restore. Now releasing in a thirty-fifth anniversary edition for a new generation of readers, The Hiding Place tells the riveting story of how a middle-aged Dutch watchmaker became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's death camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century.

June 1st- Special Topics in Calamity Physics

good choice gals! I think you're going to enjoy this one. But get cracking- it is a lengthy read (but delightful all the way).


Special Topics in Calamity Physics

A novel by Marisha Pessl

This mesmerizing debut, uncannily uniting the trials of a postmodern upbringing with a murder mystery, heralds the arrival of a vibrant new voice in literary fiction

Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge—and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah's friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide—or misguide—her.

Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class and containing ironic visual aids (drawn by the author), Pessl's debut novel is complex yet compelling, erudite yet accessible. It combines the suspense of Hitchcock, the self-parody of Dave Eggers, and the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt with a dazzling intelligence and wit entirely Pessl's own.