All articles filed in Food for Thought

Paul Collins’ murder mystery is riveting because it’s entirely true.  The Murder of the Century is the historical account of an 1897 murder that enraptured the entire city of New York.  After pieces of a corpse are found in separate packages around the city, New Yorkers went wild trying to determine who the victim was and…

Can you really call this a book?  I read it cover to cover during the commercial breaks of an hour-long tv show.  Whatever you want to call it, I found Ilene Beckerman’s quick stroll down memory lane to be refreshing.  All major events in Beckerman’s life – from dates to divorces – are tied to…

After her husband leaves her for a man he met on Gay.com, Rhoda takes a sabbatical to spend some time with the Mennonite family she had broken away from.  It’s not that she’s anti-Menno, she is just an academic who doesn’t live and breathe the Mennonite lifestyle like the rest of her family.  However, she…

I started to give this book 3 stars (out of 5) but bumped it up to 4 when I realized how badly I wanted to discuss it with people.  It’s always a good sign when you can’t get a story out of your head.  Perhaps that’s why it’s called The Sense of an Ending –…

I love reading novels that center on Asian culture.  Most books I have read in this genre have centered around Chinese culture, so I was excited to find one set in India so I could learn about a new country.  Rohinton Mistry’s novel centers around four people from three different communities who are brought together…

Mindy Kaling seems like the kind of girl with whom I could stay up all night and gab.  She puts on no front and is, therefore, incredibly accessible.  We don’t always want to admit we enjoy watching trash tv, but she happily does, which makes her endearing and her writing nice and zeitgeist-y.  Essays explaining…

Most WWII stories take place in Europe, once the war is in full swing since that seems to be the most gripping point of view.  Sarah Blake’s novel, however, approaches the war from the American side, just as they are learning what is really going on in Europe.  But this story is about more than…

After reading two of Chelsea Handler’s books, I didn’t think there were any more stories she could tell.  I was proven wrong with this truly hilarious collection of essays.  While My Horizontal Life focused on Handler’s crazy sex stories, this book is centered, primarily, on the practical jokes she plays on her friends.  How she…

Okay okay, I may have read a book (or set of three books) meant for teens.  Judging yet?  How about once I tell you I absolutely LOVED it?  I would judge me, too.  The Hunger Games trilogy follows Katniss Everdeen as she struggles against an oppressive government in a post-Apocalyptic world where children are made…

I’m a big fan of the current NY Times restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, but I also have mad respect for his predecessor, Frank Bruni, who wrote Born Round not long after finishing his stint as Times critic.  Ladies, let me tell you, weight issues are not just a girl thing.  Bruni chronicles about 40 years of…