Book Journey

Kitchen Confidential, narrated by the author and well-known chef Anthony Bourdain is a “Don’t eat at a well-known restaurant in New York before you read this” type of book.  Anthony, in his typical dead pan style takes you through the ups and downs of his world of when you should and when you should not order seafood, why brunches and buffets are the dirty under belly of the food world, as well as good and bad relationships that go on beyond closed doors – or pointedly the kitchen. Kitchen Confidential will take you through Anthony’s rocky start in the world of white aprons and funny hats.  Through sex, drugs, and filet Mignon – the secrets of presentation and “how do I get my potatoes and chicken to stack tall like a restaurants, are all inside, if you dare to listen.

I have listened to and enjoyed Anthony Bourdain before in Medium Raw, another of his books on the adventures and pleasures of food.  Kitchen Confidential is, in my opinion, rawer than Medium Raw.  Anthony is more vulgar, or I suppose, honest in the relationships of the cooking world.  Let’s just say that in Kitchen Confidential Anthony readily admits that what he is sharing in this book could possibly get him fired…. if he is just being his sarcastic self, I do not know, but Kitchen Confidential is not for the  faint of heart.

Be sure before you enter into this read that you are committed to really wanting to know what is happening behind the kitchen wall.  Kitchen Confidential would easily receive a “R” rating if this were a TV show for language, drunks, sex and drugs.  Practices that you would probably rather not know about, but perhaps have often wondered (what do they really do with that bread plate that you did not eat?) are revealed. Yet it is not all stomach turning and checking another restaurant off your must try list.  Anthony also shares tips for your own cooking skills – sharing with the reader how not to be caught up in the chef knives industry and expense when really you only need one knife that is not a budget breaker and can do just about everything the bank breaking expensive sets do.

While I will admit that there are times Anthony Bourdain steps over the line of TMI a time or two or fourteen… I still enjoy listening to his stories.  Beyond the world of food and chefs, Anthony is also an incredible story-teller and if you can handle the truth (which some of we probably suspected) it is a dish worth trying.

Note:  You do not have to be a gamer to enjoy this read,Masters Of Doom is a story of friendship and living the dream of success and feeling the deep cutting pain of success as well.  Do not judge this book by its topic.  You will do yourself a disservice.~Sheila

Masters Of Doom is the true story of John Carmack and John Romero, two young gamers from broken homes that teamed up together to create games for the personal computer that changed the gaming world (and the real world) forever.  They took the flat screen square looking graphic games and brought them to life by adding screen scrolls, better graphics, and eventually… more violence.  Their biggest success DOOM was what finally tore them apart.  This book (audio) is their story from rags to riches, from binding friendship to a major falling apart of the two John’s.

Today, more money is spent on video type games than is spent on movies.  Does that not blow your mind?  Many of the population would rather spend time in a virtual world solving puzzles, crimes, or shooting or blowing things up.

Beyond my desire to know more about this story, was the narration of Wil Wheaton.  Seriously – the guy would read the newspaper to me and I would be thrilled.  If you listened to ready Player One on audio, that’s the guy!

Masters Of DOOM was an incredible listen.  I am not a big gamer, I did play some games as a kid but I was never hard core and never played DOOM or Quest (nothing bloody for me thanks), two of the games designed through this team.  I do however love the stories behind the success.  As I love the movie Social Network (the story behind Facebook), and the audiobook JOBS (the story of Steve Jobs success with Apple), I also really enjoyed listening to the rise to the top of two computer geeks who loved what they did and created an empire.

Gamers will love the behind the scenes insight of how the games were developed.  Non gamers will enjoy the amazing story of friends who were just having fun and stumbled on to something bigger than they ever could have imagined.

He or she goes by the name of A.  A lives an unusual life.  Every day that A wakes up in the morning, A is in a new body.  A may be a teenage boy or A may wake up as a teenage girl. No matter who he/she is, the only constant is that A will be 16.  A is not sure why life is this way but it is and because of this A has set up a few ground rules:

1.  Never get attached

2.  Live low… do not do anything that will draw attention to you

3.  Do not do anything that will disrupt the life of the person he/she is for the day

And all of that is working out swell until one morning A wakes up as a boy named Justin, and A meets Justin’s girlfriend Rhiannon.  Rhiannon is sweet and kind and way to good for this boy named Justin who A can tell does not value her.  And now things are all messed up.  A’s rules no longer apply… all A does is think about Rhiannon and want to be with her.

As A continues to “body jump” , A spends his time trying to find where Rhiannon is… and this is dangerous as A is taking the person he/she is inhabiting, male or female, out of their own routine to be with Rhianon.

How do you love someone who is never the same person on the outside – but always the same person in the inside?  How do you have feelings for someone who is one day a boy, and possibly the next day a girl?

Oofta.  When I picked up Every Day on audio at our library I had no idea what I was about to listen to.  David Levithan truly has a gift of thinking outside the box as it was a struggle for me to keep up with who A was next.  Defining a character as neither male or female was brilliant on Levithon’s part (even writing this review was hard not to refer to “A”as either he or she), but tricky for me, as my mind automatically made “A” male because of his love for Rhiannon.

Tricky stuff her Mr. Levithan…. tricky tricky…

Because of all of this I have a hard time saying how I feel about this book. The ending to me felt like I needed something more solid even though A had nothing solid to hang on to him, errr… herself.  It felt as though there should be a second book but I do not see any mention of this being part of a series of books. It definitely fits into my love of books that are completely different than anything I have read before.  I still am struggling to come up with a good solid response here.

So -I can say this.  If you are looking for something completely different, give Each Day a try.  David Levithan was co author of the book Will Grayson, Will Grayson (which I loved!) and he also wrote the books Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Two Boys Kissing which I have heard good things about but have not read.