With another wedding, this time in D-town, Mr. BookPairing and I have decided to make it into one of those epic, cross-country road trips (with plenty of audiobooks in tow of course) across the Midwest. We mapped where we wanted to go, who we wanted to see, and dubbed it Heartlandia.

We’ll be taking off for this roadtrip at some undisclosed point in the future, but before then, I’m stocking up on books that I can read along the way and then post about afterwards. I’m looking for books that speak to the soul of the cities we’re visiting: Dallas, Austin, Nashville, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, or Kansas City. Perhaps even books that speak to the long open stretches of road we’ll face along the way.

We’ll also be hitting up the local bookstores! I already have my sights on Parnassus Bookstore in Nashville which is owned by Ann Patchett (swoon), but need some more ideas.

This is where you all come in. Recommend books, bookstores, even places to eat as we make our way across Heartlandia! Thanks!

The post A Tour of the Midwest: Heartlandia! appeared first on BookPairing.

Bout of Books is still going strong until Sunday, so if you want to join in for a few days, head on over to their blog or follow @boutofbooks on Twitter for new updates. You can also join in on a Twitter chat on Saturday at 10 AM CST. I joined up with a chat on Monday and it cah-razy awesome.

My Daily Recaps 

5/12

Pages read: 139

Today #insixwords: Sunrise reading while smoking a brisket

Total number of books I’ve read: Finished one of the half-read ones I wanted to get to–Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. It was absolutely fabulous.

5/13
Pages read: 265

Today #insixwords: Amazing chat, great quality reading time!

Total number of books I’ve read: Finished another half-read book, Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago, and got a good way through another half-read, Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston. I have way too many half-reads lying around the house. Seriously.

5/14
Pages read: 14. Yep. Fourteen.

Today #insixwords: I don’t know if I read (that many.)

Total number of books I’ve read: Two and a half. Same as yesterday :/

More about Bout of Books 

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 13th and runs through Sunday, May 19th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 7.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

The post Friday Wrap-Up: Bout of Books Recap appeared first on BookPairing.

First off–this book was made for pairing. With a blend of champagnes and rosés, there was plenty to drink along with the book. The whimsical books we paired with it, including The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland… and The Night Circus, are lovely books for spring afternoons.

I think the biggest draw about the book came after watching the movie adaptation of it. The weaknesses of the book–a rather slow start, some one dimensional characters–were resolved in the movie.

I certainly enjoyed the novel, but parts of it felt immature. Since he also worked on the movie, it seemed that he was able to overcome some of these through that process. In that, some of the more secondary characters became the highlights of the movie. I mean, Robert De Niro as a flamboyant pirate? You don’t get much better than that. The relationship between Tristan and Yvaine also seemed more developed in the movie as well.

As for the two endings, I wanted to like the sweet movie ending more, but the book’s ending seemed more realistic and fitting for the story. It also leads to some of the best lines of the books, in my opinion.

What did you think about the book and the movie? Did you enjoy the Stardust Books Decanted pairing?

The post Books Decanted: Stardust Wrap-Up appeared first on BookPairing.

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, brings us another book that is just as wide in scope and purpose, and yet, the subject of which confronts us every day.

In Cooked, Pollan proposes that “cooking is one of the most interesting and worthwhile things we humans do.” If this isn’t enough, he goes on to elucidate the hypothesis that the very ascent of civilized humans may have been directly tied to the rise of cooking (easier calories = bigger brains), that our modern barbecuing still pays an homage to ritual sacrifices, and that fermented foods may hold some of the fundamental cures to our modern woes, including allergies and gut problems.

Pollan manages to make these big statements in a quiet way, by bringing us into the kitchen with him and introducing each idea in the context of his small, very focused areas of study. The book is divided along the four elements–fire, water, air, and earth–and in each of them, he tackles another realm of cooking, respectively–barbeque, braising, bread, and fermentable foods, such as sauerkraut, cheese, and beer. He chooses this approach because, as he says, ”Each element proposes a different set of techniques for transforming nature, but also a different stance toward the world, a different kind of work, and a different mood.”

So, while we are examining the very backbone of ritual and religion, we are also with Pollan as he watches whole hogs tossed onto a decades-old smoker in North Carolina. When he talks about the civilizing influence of cooking things in pots and how that introduced us to new types of food, we are also teasing out the different onion mirepoix-type bases that seem to come up in every single cuisine. (Ah-mazing answer for why this may have occurred–turns out onions and garlic are some of the most potent anti-microbial foods, thus making foods safer to eat. So cool!) We read about the cultural shifts associated with bread while Pollan bakes with a surfing zen master of bread making who works with wild yeasts. I even tried for some of the health benefits expounded on in his fermentable chapter, see photo below, but may have overdone it with sourdough, raw milk cheese, and sour beer all in go. *Gurgle*

In all, Pollan remains approachable in a way that characterizes his other books. In the same chapter that debates at-home cooking with larger feminist arguments, he also takes a light-hearted trip to the grocery store with his son to prepare for “Microwave Night.” Spoiler alert: The $30 load of microwaved meals they buy ends up taking 40 minutes to cook with all of the family eating at different times. Incidentally, its the same amount of money that Pollan uses to buy the ingredients at a farmer’s market for a classic braise that feeds his family a much nicer meal… with some leftovers.

Pollan’s greatest argument is that, “Cooking has the power to transform more than plants and animals: It transforms us, too, from mere consumers into producers.” When we cook, we can no longer disassociate ourselves from the types of food we eat, where it comes from, and how it’s produced. In this way,Cooked proves to be a stunningly insightful and interesting read (as in, running out to my husband after each page with a new factoid), that will certainly shape my own cooking and activities in the kitchen.

Basically, I’m going to start fermenting more. Get ready for some kimchi folks.

Have you read Cooked yet? 

The post Food Riot: Michael Pollan’s COOKED appeared first on BookPairing.

A Jay-Z produced soundtrack? Check.

A Lurhmann explosion of color and energy? Check.

Leo? Check.

I’m excited to see The Great Gatsby movie for all of the aforementioned reasons and to see how the novel shines through in the adaptation. Maybe since I didn’t grow up reading the Gatz, I’m not terribly worried about how the movie will stay faithful to the book, but do want to know how they’ll take that crazy energy shown in the trailers and tone it down during the quieter parts of the novel.

For some inspired pairings for the movie, check out the series of posts I did when the movie was first announce

• The Waldorf, Champagne, and the Gatz
• Historical Gins Jazz Up Our Gatz Party 
• 11 Thoughts on The Great Gatsby

What about you? Will you be going out to watch the movie this weekend?

The post Friday Wrap-Up: Let the Gatz Begin! appeared first on BookPairing.

But why science on this Thursday afternoon? We’ve got yet another comeback on the blog by Bill Bryson with his absolutely fantastic A Short History of Nearly Everything which is, truly, about the scienciest you can get in a book. At least before your brain starts to hurt.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is about, well, just that. Bryson starts with what he can learn about the Big Bang Theory (distilled into everyday terms as much as he can) and continues through to volcanoes and atoms and weather and the conception of life and finally the evolution of man. Phew. It sounds like a heavy book, but it’s my second time reading (well, listening to) it because it’s such a fun take on all of the subjects.

What Bryson does so well in his books, and this one especially, is to pull out the interesting tidbits from history and use these to carry the narrative of what would have been a dry text. Scientists are our main characters in this story and they are a fantastically crazy lot.

It’s safe to say that Newton is our protagonist through much of this. At one point, he randomly notes that he had calculated the mass of the Earth a few years ago and had, well, lost it on a piece of paper somewhere. As Bryson explains, this would be akin to someone saying he or she had cured cancer, but had misplaced the cure.

Newton is also shown sticking a needle into and around his eye to try to understand the theory of colors. Likewise, he is nearly coerced by fellow scientists to sit down and write some of his theories and, when he does so, ends up writing the ground-breaking Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica which not only elucidates the laws of motion, but also gravity. After this, he goes back to his main study of alchemy.

Speaking of motion and gravity though, you’d do well to drink Bryson’s book with another product of science in hand, Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo Extra IPA. In a way that Bryson would surely appreciate, the brewers over at Sierra Nevada decided that their dry hopping step just wasn’t giving the hops enough time and surface area to interact with the beer.

What they created was the Hop Torpedo, a stainless steel device packed with hops and sealed against pressure through which beer is circulated and then run back into the fermentation tanks. In this case, science won and we are left with a beer that is packed with flavor and is delightfully hoppy, but not in the pinched mouth bitterness an extra IPA might suggest.

Have you read any of Bill Bryson’s books? Tried any of Sierra Nevada’s beers? 

The post [He] Blinded Me With Science appeared first on BookPairing.

Here’s a bit more about Bout of Books:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 13th and runs through Sunday, May 19th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 7.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Interested in joining me? Head on over to their blog to sign up. You can keep up with my updates on this post along with a wrap-up one later next week. I’ll also be over on Twitter chatting it up with @boutofbooks.

Time Devoted to Reading: Evenings after work and between working out and general house thingies

My Goals: To read at least 3 books: 1 that I’ve been putting off finishing, 1 business one, and 1 random other one

Books to Read: Fo sho, Children of God (unless I finish it before then) or Contents May Have Shifted, Pinterest Power, and Dragonfly in Amber or Silver Sparrow. 

Updates:

5/12
Pages read: 139

Today #insixwords: Sunrise reading while smoking a brisket

Total number of books I’ve read: Finished one of the half-read ones I wanted to get to–Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. It was absolutely fabulous.

5/13
Pages read: 265

Today #insixwords: Amazing chat, great quality reading time!

Total number of books I’ve read: Finished another half-read book, Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago, and got a good way through another half-read, Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston. I have way too many half-reads lying around the house. Seriously.

5/14
Pages read: 14. Yep. Fourteen.

Today #insixwords: I don’t know if I read (that many.)

Total number of books I’ve read: Two and a half. Same as yesterday :/

The post The Bout of Books appeared first on BookPairing.

In any case, I did get some great reviews up on those March reads. My Beef and Guinness Pot Pie stew with Blue Cheese Crust recipe is as much as a mouthful as the title is. Paired with Kevin Hearne’s Hounded, it’s absolutely magnificent.

I kicked off my Required Reading series with Hamlet and followed up with the Inferno. Both ended up being spectacularly fun to put together. Seeing all the connections these classic works have with new adaptations has really put me back into the pairing mindset.

I re-read two of my favorite novels–Contents May Have Shifted and The Sparrow–and gave them shiny new pairings, one of travel and one of time travel to a classic post-apocalyptic novel.

Finally, we’ve been having some fun over on the Facebook page with our Books Decanted club, as well as some blog recaps for everybody over here.

I did end up finishing 5 five books this month with a few more close, but not quite yet finished:

• Stardust by Neil Gaiman 
• 500 Ways to be a Better Writer by Chuck Wendig
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
• Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston
• Cooked by Michael Pollan (oh my gosh, read now!)

I also have loved writing over at Food Riot and couldn’t get away without sharing some of my favorite posts of the month from over there. 

• Best of the Brews: I’ve taken on Arizona and California IPA craft brews, while fellow Rioter Laura took on Virginia
• Details of my 17 hour adventure smoking a brisket
• What to do when you have way too many eggs from your chickens
• What I learned about cooking from my moms and grandmothers
• And, perhaps my favorite, an outpouring of love for the tiny fruits and vegetables

What did you read in April? Any favorites? 

The post Friday Wrap-Up: Best of April appeared first on BookPairing.

We are full swing into Books Decanted over on Facebook. Neil Gaiman’s Stardust always makes me feel sparkly and pretty, hence many of the updates over there.

Last week, we focused on books to pair with Stardust. I love how Gaiman created a new fairy tale with this book–with the same whimsical language you come to expect in those.

It made me think of other books that are creating new fairy tales for readers. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente specifically came to mind, while Amanda thought of the many fairy tale retellings that have been so popular lately.

Likewise, the lyrical beauty of Stardust made me think about other “pretty” books that could be read for the same mood, including Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus.

This week we’re focusing on wines to pair with Stardust–likely the most exciting pairs of them all. For a wine that tastes like springtime, go for Tavelo’s Le Chant du Soleil, a rosé with a nice balanced sweetness that is also warm and earthy. (Oh hey–PSA, we’re bringing back rosé!)

For bubbly, champagne popping excitement to drink with the end of the novel, try one of my favorite sparkling wines, Francis Ford Coppola’s Sofia.

Are you reading Stardust? What have been your favorite pairings for the book? 

The post Friday Wrap-Up: Best of Books Decanted appeared first on BookPairing.

Dante’s Inferno is a tough slog for new readers, but Dante’s wicked imaginings of hell have permeated our culture by this point and his commentary on the gossip of his time is a fascinating look at an older society.

New readers to his work have access to many re-tellings and re-imaginings that can liven the experience of reading Dante’s epic poem. After reading the Inferno with these pairings, you may just be brave enough to work onto Purgatorio and Paradiso, the other sections of The Divine Comedy.

Books

Mary Jo Bang’s modern translation of the Inferno is a riotous trip through Dante’s hell and written in an English vernacular that matches Dante’s own use of the common language for his poem. She updates the poem with references to our own cultural personalities from Shakespeare to Stephen Colbert.

Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle is the story of one man’s trip through a personal hell after surviving a car crash only to be confined to a hospital for the burns that now cover his body. A mysterious sculptress soon befriends him and leads him towards other hells, with stories of the past and her own manic tendencies. It’s a mesmerizing, opulent tale that is rife with allusions to Dante’s original work.

Other Media

New readers to the Inferno can now take an active part in Dante’s journey in the action-adventure game, Dante’s Inferno. Players fight their way through the nine circles of hell to free Beatrice (aww) from the hands of Lucifer.

Want Dante’s work in the palm of your hand? With Dathalon’s app, Dante: Divine Comedy, you can now read the classical English translation complete with 2000+ annotations. You can also search within the text, find conceptual maps of Dante’s world, and view over 100 illustrations for the book.

Murder by Death’s album, In Bocca al Lupo, was partially inspired by the Inferno, especially with the album’s themes of sin and punishment. If you don’t already know, I adore Murder by Death and this album is one of their finest, especially songs like “Brother” and “Sometimes the Line Walks You.”

What other pairings can be used to illustrate Dante’s classic text for a modern audience?  

The post Required Reading: Dante Alighieri’s Inferno appeared first on BookPairing.