simple to prepare, tasty vegan recipes. includes a whole section on microwave meals for the dorm room gourmet. the decadent brownies have impressed a number of people who would never have guessed they are vegan.

i’ve tried a half dozen recipes from this book and enjoyed all of them. the only “complaint” i have is that some are under-salted. but that really is a matter of taste and easily fixed. the noodle dishes are especially good. note that this is published in england. conversions for the measurements are given, but you might not know that an aubergine is an eggplant and a courgette is a zucchini. easy enough to look up though.

if you’ve ever tried cooking indian recipes and wondered what was missing, you need this cookbook. some of the recipes may look daunting with their long lists of ingredients, but usually they are mostly spices. everything i’ve prepared so far has come out amazing. even the simplest dishes come out full of complex flavor.

Bounces around a lot but stories are starting to come together. Most interesting to me is the culture of the Philippines, something I knew nothing about.

Fun, mind candy sort of read. Kept surprising me with twists I didn’t quite see coming. Extreme behavior abounds.

A woman narrates as she slowly turns into a pig. Is she crazy or actually becoming a pig. Very engaging. Finished in an afternoon.

The main character spends most of the story obsessing over whether or not he’s still attractive proving it to himself by drawing men willing to worship him sexually, drawing the numbers. His reason for being is completely tied up in being able to attract men. And he seems to equate not being attractive with death. Walked away from this book feeling really sad for the guy.

Also, it’s an interesting look into a part of the gay scene I knew nothing about. There are gay men perfectly happy with blowing other attractive men with nothing in return. Many even pay for the privilege. As a woman, this is hard for me to imagine. I just can’t see there being a known gathering place where many people (men or women) await the privilege of going down on you with nothing expected or wanted in return. If there is such a place, the address needs to be publicized. I’m sure inquiring minds want to know…

A collection of short stories that explores the concepts of God and religion from a science fiction viewpoint. The last story was written like bible verse and I just couldn’t manage to read it.

I almost didn’t finish this. There’s a part in the middle somewhere…a sermon that goes on and on. After that it kind of lost me. I might have enjoyed it more if I knew or cared anything about Catholic dogma, Irish politics, or could have read it for long stretches at a time. My reading is mostly confined to the bits I can manage before I fall asleep at night. And that’s simply not enough to really get you into this book. I found it much more interesting during those half hour or so stretches that I could devote to it.

I wish I could dispute the “Americans are crazy” theme of this book. Except that I can’t. Although I find it interesting that these thoughts come from a character living in the land of tenticle porn.