Book mini-reviews from 2010

I've been wanting to mini-review the books I read in 2010 and New Years Day is a great time for that so here goes. I hope I don't forget too many of them, and they are in no particular order.

Life of Pi, Yann Martell

I started reading this years ago and wasn't at all interested in the first few pages, but a friend of mine urged me to try it again so I did. The quality of the writing is truly breathtaking; I sometimes take notes of my favourite parts, but there were so . I can't say much about the story without spoiling it, but I can say that although the story has a mundane start (a schoolboy talks about his life as the son of a zookeeper in India) it soon spins off into a dizzying adventure.

Very readable, full of vivid detail and exciting.

Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martell

I was excited to read Martell's latest book, as it is a long awaited sequel to his prize winning Life of Pi. Surprisingly, this is a very different kind of book. The narrator is a succesful author, who has written a prize winning book and is trying to write a worthy sequel. Hm, sound familiar? The protagonist finds an interesting looking taxidermist store and befriends the owner. In fact, befriend is not quite the word since the store owner has very poor people skills to say the least. Nevertheless, recognizing his customer is a famous author, asks him for help writing his book "Beatrice and Virgil" which is an allegorical tail alluding to the Hollocaust.

Just like Life of Pi the writing is beautiful, but this is a very different kind of book to the adventure novel that Life of Pi is. This is more of a pondering and thoughtful story, where you're never quite sure whether you are hearing the words of the real life author, the books narrator, or the characters within the book. Can we say it's like the movie Inception, without the action and the girl?

Worth a read for sure.

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Beautifully written tale of a shepherd who leaves home to find his fortune. The core philosophy of the book is that if you really want something, the Universe will help you get it. Presumably you have to take the risks and put the effort in also.

Thanks to a friend for lending me this (she had 10 of them on her for a book club), and I read it in a day. Partly because it's short, and partly because I didn't want to stop reading.

Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

Having read "The Tipping Point" a while back I was keen to check out anything by Gladwell. Blink is about the subconscious and very rapid abilities of the human mind. There are examples of how succesful professionals working in Marriage Guidance, law enforcement, art valuation and medical diagnosis, use very short periods of experience to make succesful judgements. This being contrary to our expectations that a slow rigorous analysis should yield better solutions. It appears that in many cases, our gut feel is right.

Just like his previous books he talks with authority and depth on the subject, spinning his research into fascinating yarns that makes it a very enjoyable and informative read.

Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell

Just as in Blink, the anecdotes are richly detailed and compelling. This book is about the people that succeeded in life in a big way, and why. Comparing them with others around them that had the same level of intelligence or diligence, yet not the right environment. We like to think that hard work and talent can get you to the top, but this book explores the uncomfortable truth that the right school, the right neighborhood, the right race can make all the difference. Would Bill Gates have been the man he was if he hadn't had access to one of the very few time sharing computers in the US? If he hadn't had family connections to get his first programming work?

In addition to exploring the successes and how they may have been aided by their situation in life, he explores the failures. Christopher Langan, an extremely bright man with an IQ of 196 who now works on a horse farm. Born into an environment with nobody to help him, he had to find his own way. According to Gladwell the lack of an appropriate environment prevented Langan from achieving the academic and worldly success he could have had.

I can't help feeling that his examples of success are extreme "lottery win" kind of life stories not that applicable to 99.99% of most of the population. The same goes for Langan's story. How many people with exceptional minds would fail to get a scholarship and into a good college today? Only a very few outliers I would expect.

Summer Blonde, Adrian Tomine

This is one of many graphic novels I picked up in Vancouver Public Library, where they have an excellent selection. Summer Blonde is a collection of four short stories. They are pretty dark and gritty exposes of the lives of regular people. Both the characters and the artwork have a fine detail that makes it believable. The stories are of peoples difficulties relating to each other.

A Drifting Life, Yoshihiro Tatsumi

This is a beautiful looking book that I've seen in local bookstores a few times but didn't think it looked worth the $50 Canadian coverprice. Having picked it up at Vancouver Public Library I think I was right, but it was definitely a good read. In this manga work, Tatsumi writes the story of his late teens and early professional life. Full of detail and fascinating insights into the hard work and thought processes that go into becoming a huge success at what you do. Also you can enjoy it as a coming of age story, as Tatsumi and his peers emerge from their teens and become men in the real world. Even if you're not particularly interested in the technical and philosophical ideas of manga as Tatsumi discovers and relates them in the book, it's a very entertaining read.

Thirteen Tale, Diane Setterfield

One of the few I reviewed right after reading it. See here

Real World Haskell, O'Sullivan

A nice, fat, accessible book on Haskell. Just as the title promises it's filled with real world applicable code. For example a functioning bar code reader is developed, as well as examples of GUI, DB and web programming.

The beginning is well paced and I advanced quickly, but the mid-section of the book becomes a bit harder to follow and you find the code jumping through abstract looking hoops in order to complete the most basic of imperative tasks. I don't know if that's just the way Haskell is, or whether the authors just think that way.

Definitely worth using this book to kickstart your Haskell learning if you want to use the language.

The World According to Garp, John Fielding

Thanks to a twitter friend, I discovered this excellent John Fielding 1978 book. Something like a cross between Henry James and the UK's Tom Sharpe, this is funny, sexually explicit tale following the weird and exciting life of Garp, the illegitimate son of a large than life, rebellious and independent nurse. Like the author, who also spent time in Vienna, Garp and his mother also spend time in that city, but most of the story takes place in the up-market boarding school where Garp's mother takes care of the students.

Highly enjoyable, I look forward to reading more by Fielding.

Inu Yasha and Fruits Basket

Two of the biggest selling manga series, and I checked them out due to their ubiquity. Neither of them compelled me to read past the second book. They are probably aimed at teenage girls, but regardless I wasn't entertained in the least.

Genshiken, Shimoku Kio

This story of a group of Otaku college students who join and run a club called "The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture" is now my favourite manga series (although I have not read many), and I truly wish it were longer.

It follows the group through their college lives as they hang out, play video games, create and sell their own fan fiction and deal with the school administrators. Highly nerdy, it even includes reviews of characters from an imaginary video game at the end of each chapter. The characters are great, the story is epic in its lack of excitement, and yet compelling as hell. I love it.

Darwins Radio, Greg Bear

This scifi tale reads more like a Tom Clancy thriller, as scientists try to find a solution to a virus that is causing women to miscarry. It's about the characters conflicts with government agencies and corporate politics rather than futuristic science, and I didn't enjoy it that much. It was interesting to read up on some of the science behind the book though...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer

Effective Java, Joshua Bloch

I read this book as I'm currently working a Java server that is designed to handle 10 to 50 thousand users at one time, so efficiency and concurrency is vital. Bloch is a fantastic communicator, and the book is very to the point, organised in highly effective (sorry) way.

That's all for now, there's another few I've forgotten that will appear in a later post.

Redeeming my family cook-cred with chicken in leek sauce

COOKING FACTS

Time: 25 minutes

Score: 9/10

Jamie ate it: Yeah

The last couple of efforts I've made to wow Corbey and Jamie with my slow cooker stews and bean soups have not been wildly ecstatic. So, because we're going to be out this evening I decided to cook a nice lunch, with whatever we had around.

What we did have was half a packet of leek soup mix, which I used for one of my slow cooking recipes, some chicken, a lot of onions, peppers and potatoes. Oh, and some fresh parsley.

The result as you can see was sauteed chicken and vegetables with leek sauce. I added mostly milk and water to the sauce, but also some cooking white wine.

Potatoes were boiled then mashed with chopped fresh parsley, black pepper and butter.

Not an impressive or difficult meal by any means, but was a real hit with wife and kiddo! So I'm giving this one 9/10, since Jamie ate his plate clean. Most rare.

Not that this needs much explanation but the procedure was to soften the onions and peppers on low in a frying pan, with some salt and pepper and olive oil. Then I put those to the side and fried the chicken on medium high until brown. Then in a jug I added 1/2 cup of water and milk, and about 1/3 cup of cooking white wine and added that to the chicken with the leek soup mix.

After simmering for about 10 minutes it was good to go.

Slow cooking update

So we just ate the meal I mentioned earlier . Although I had it cooking for 8 hours the potato's were still firm and not soft like I like them, but passable. Again I found the recipe kind of bland, I think I'd probably quadruple the amount of garlic and paprika next time, and this time it was saved by a lot of ground black pepper.

Still the recipe itself was good, the chicken and leeks were cooked perfectly. I added milk to the leek soup mix instead of just water, and I may try some light cream next time and some white wine.

Crockpot cooking

From First snow 2010

I was rather disappointed with my cooking efforts last weekend. I made a stew in the slow cooker following this recipe:

http://family.go.com/food/recipe-cp-629856-chicken-and-sweet-potato-stew-t/

Copied from that site in case it moves:

Hands-On Time: 15 minutes

Ready In: 6 to 8 hours (LOW) or 3 to 4 hours (HIGH)

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1⁄2-inch slices

1 can (28 ounces) whole stewed tomatoes

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon celery seeds

1⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1⁄8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1⁄8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup nonfat, low-sodium chicken broth

1⁄4 cup fresh basil, chopped

Directions

Combine the chicken, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, salt, paprika, celery seeds, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and broth in the 4 1⁄2-quart CROCK-POT® slow cooker.

Cover; cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours.

Since we didn't have a sweet potato I used some salad potatoes instead; the sweet potato seemed to be missed by the rest of the ingredients. Although it had potential it was a bit too watery (probably too much water), and a bit lacking in flavour. Also despite being on for 8 hours the potato's were not quite as soft as I'd have liked.

Although my wife Corbey said she liked it, and it was good enough for left overs the next day, Jamie wasn't keen, and I thought it was about a 6/10.

The only thing I improved upon from my earlier attempt at slow cooker stew was that I put the chicken at the top and the potatoes at the bottom. Carrots and tomatoes were in the middle. My instinct was to stir the whole concoction to get the flavours nicely mixed up, but that stopped the potatoes cooking properly, as they need to be in the hottest part of the pot at the bottom.

Anyway, I love stew and we have some leeks that need using so I'm trying this one tomorrow:

http://www.food.com/recipe/slow-cooker-potato-leek-chicken-192771

Copied:

Ingredients:

2 1/2-3 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs, can use any combo of boneless pieces

5 medium white potatoes, cut into small chunks

2 large coarsely chopped leeks, white and light green parts, washed well

1 (1 7/8 ounce) envelope leek soup mix

1 cup water

2 minced garlic cloves

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon pepper

salt, if needed to taste

Change Measurements: US | Metric

Directions:Prep Time: 10 minsTotal Time: 6 1/4 hrs

1place potatoes in slow cooker. Arrange chicken pieces on top of potato slices. Place leeks on top of chicken pieces.2In small bowl, whisk together leek soup mix, water, garlic, paprika and pepper until well-combined. Pour over top of everything in the crock pot.3Cover and cook on Low 5 to 6 hours or until chicken is no longer pink.4Add salt, if needed, to taste.

This time I've ensured we follow the recipe exactly, I went out and bought some white potato's and some leek soup mix, so I have my fingers crossed for something more in the 8/10 range.

Vacation day 7 : Valemount to Vancouver

Date of trip 27/08

Distance travelled 746km

Valemount to Vancouver

This last day would be our longest drive so far, but by now we were confident veterans. We stopped halfway at Kamloops again, this time by accident we found the hotel we stayed in our honeymoon in 1999! Deciding to stop and check it out, we were hungry enough that a fried Breakfast at Denny's seemed like a good idea, and it certainly was. While we ate we got to listen in on a bunch of tweens comparing different pain killers in terms of the high, and the side effects. I remembered being in the hotel room back in 99 watching out the window as Friday night revellers stopped by Denny's, fighting and laughing with each other in the car park.

From Valemount to Vancouver

The drive from Kamloops to Mission went quick and soon we were in Langley but it seemed to take forever to get from there to Port Moody, even using the new toll bridge. I guess you get used to just hitting 120km along the highway, just slowing down for the occasional semi or RV as they struggle up the steep mountain roads.

From Valemount to Vancouver

We arrived home and back to summer, as it was still bright and sunny in the late afternoon when we got to our apartment. That was it, then end of the trip. In a week we'd covered over 3000km, and discovered a new Canadian city. Despite previously not being keen on the car part of the trip, I actually found it way more enjoyable than I expected, and it's so convenient on vacation to have your own vehicle with you. Now I'm wondering when we will next be able to spend the day at Waterworld, and at the same time planning a new road trip, this time south of the border, possibly to California!

Vacation day 6 : Edmonton to Valemount

Date of trip Thu 26/08

Distance travelled 488km

Edmonton to Valemount

We got up early and spent an hour in the hotel pool, which we had to ourselves, then had cereal before starting the long drive home, which we would do in two parts. The first leg was to Valemount, which we'd already passed through, but today we would be spending the night at the Motel 7

From Edmonton to Valemount

It was the second last day of the vacation and my turn to drive, so Corbey directed me out of Edmonton, and it was her turn to make a mistake with navigation so we ended up driving around random suburbs, not for the first time, before we made our way back to the highway. On the way I noticed some cool place names like Camp He Ha Ho and a big Ranch called Mokoyoko (or something similar).

We stopped at Hinton for lunch which is about a third of the way to Valemount, and is a small town with some big stores and lots of chain restaurants. Sadly it would be our last fill up at Albertian gas prices.

From Edmonton to Valemount

Arriving at Jasper National Park gates we told the cashier we took the option to not pay the park fee, which means you're not allowed to stop in the park at all, but that was fine with us. It takes 40 minutes or so to drive through it and we had no time to visit Jasper again anyway. Although you're not allowed to stop in the rest areas, so this option means emptying your bladder before you enter.

The day was a little overcast, and Valemount was very quiet when we arrived in the early evening. The Super 8 motel was run by a young woman who seemed to do everything there; when she wasn't at the front desk greeting guests she was doing a tour of the rooms with towels, light bulbs and solving other problems. Despite her efforts there wasn't much that went smoothly with our stay. The room had only one bed instead of two, there weren't enough towels, and there was no lightbulb in our bedside lamp. So I took quite a few trips to the front desk. Jamie and I checked out the spa, which was one very old hot tub, a sauna that was marked closed with yellow tape and a steam room that was locked with a "staff only" sign on the door. Bizarrely it was one of the most expensive hotels on our trip, and she congratulated us on getting such a great rate.

From Edmonton to Valemount

Regardless we were comfortable in the hotel, and after a few minutes research I decided we were going to the Caribou Grill for dinner. The restaurant is a giant log cabin a couple of km off the highway, filled with authentic looking Cowboy and Indian knick knacks, including moose heads, saddles, bow and arrows and guns. I had a really good feeling about the place which increased when the waitress was super speedy and friendly. The food was fantastic, probably the best I've had in BC; I had Pork Tenderloin. In fact it was so good I had my arm twisted into having dessert. The NY Cheesecake was also excellent. It was about 9:30pm and dark when we left, happy, rosy faced and barrel shaped.

Caribou Grill

Happily we drove back to the hotel and went to bed. Next door to the hotel was a tiny greyhound depot, and a couple of times in the night a large bus arrived and backed up right past my window. Being a light sleeper I was wide awake for quite a bit of the night. Waking up about 6am I opened the curtains to find a large old bare chested man looking up at me from the patio, and disturbed I went back to bed for another hour.

From Edmonton to Valemount

Vacation day 5 : West Edmonton Mall - Galaxyland

Edmonton day 2

After we ran around at Waterworld on Tuesday until we were exhausted we slept in a bit later today, but Corbey managed to get Jamie and I out of bed before the maids arrived, just. We had breakfast cereal in the hotel (yes I'm thrifty and I plan ahead) and went to the mall again for one more day.

From Edmonton day 2

First we went to Galaxyland, which like most of the mall is somewhat dated, and a few of the rides were closed for maintenance. The most exciting looking ride, a roller coaster, I couldn't quite bring myself to go on, because Jamie wasn't tall enough and would have been way to jealous. We did go on a medium sized roller coaster instead, and made up for the lack of extremity by screaming and laughing all the way around. Honestly, I didn't think Galaxyland was that great; and by the time I'd spent $50 on ride tickets and lost a few tokens in crappy broken arcade machines I was ready to check out the rest of the mall.

From Edmonton day 2

We had lunch in the food court, then checked out the ship in the centre of the mall, which is nicely maintained. It's a replica of the Santa Maria, the ship Columbus sailed to America. We paid a couple of bucks to go in it, and were apparently the only people inclined to do so. Funnily enough the ship was built in Vancouver and had made the same journey that we just had, also by road, to it's home in the WEM. One striking thing was how small the ship felt, when you considered that the crew of 30 lived below deck together for the 70 day long voyage.

From Edmonton day 2

Santa Maria

Also interesting, although we didn't go inside, was the Sealife Caverns. They have a giant tank right in the mall where sea lions and other large creatures do shows throuhgout the day. Without paying for the attraction you can watch the shows from behind a glass wall, just 15 feet or so back, which was fine for us. Throughout the day we did a bit of shopping, almost entirely window shopping. We took advantage of Alberta's low sales tax to buy clothes for Jamie, and he spent his saved up pocket money on an awesome Star Wars lego kit.

From Edmonton day 2

Next we played adventure golf, which was a little crowded so we spent more time waiting than playing shots, but pleasant enough for an hour of fun. Later in the evening we watched a handful of local kids, who could skate like NHL stars, whiz about on the ice rink in the centre of the mall, while we drank coffee in Tim Hortons and tried to ignore the staff mopping our feet to encourage us to leave.

From Edmonton day 2

Here's a handy page with the facts you need for WEM