Friday, August 28, 2009

Friday Finds (28 August 2009)

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading

The problem with reading blogs is that I can't help adding more and more books to my TBR pile.
Hungry: A Mother and Daughter Fight Anorexia by Sheila Himmel (via Book Addiction)
Unbeknownst to food critic Sheila Himmel – as she reviewed exotic cuisines from bistro to brasserie — her daughter, Lisa, was at home starving herself. Before Sheila fully grasped what was happening, her fourteen-year-old with a thirst for life and a palate for the flavors of Vietnam and Afghanistan was replaced by a weight-obsessed, antisocial, hundred pound nineteen-year-old. From anorexia to bulimia and back again—many times—the Himmels feared for Lisa’s life as her disorder took its toll on her physical and emotional well-being.
Hungry is the first memoir to connect eating disorders with a food-obsessed culture in a very personal way, following the stumbles, the heartbreaks, and even the funny moments as a mother-daughter relationship—and an entire family—struggles toward healing.
The Longshot by Katie Kitamura (via Baby Got Books)
Cal and his trainer, Riley, are on their way to Mexico for a make-or-break rematch with legendary fighter Rivera. Four years ago, Cal became the only mixed martial arts fighter to take Rivera the distance — but the fight nearly ended him. Only Riley, who has been at his side for the last ten years, knows how much that fight changed things for Cal. And only Riley really knows what's now at stake, for both of them.
Katie Kitamura's brilliant and stirring debut novel follows Cal and Riley through the three fraught days leading up to this momentous match, as each privately begins to doubt that Cal can win. As the tension builds toward the final electrifying scene, the looming fight becomes every challenge each of us has ever taken on, no matter how uncertain the outcome.
In hypnotic, pared-down prose, The Longshot offers a striking portrait of two men striving to stay true to themselves and each other in the only way they know how.
The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction by Samuel R. Delany (via Omnivoracious)
This ground-breaking work of criticism by master of science fiction Samuel R. Delany was first published in 1977 and has long been out of print. The edition is significantly revised and updated. Delany was one of the first writers to eloquently speak for the power of science fiction's language, not just its gadgets and its landscapes. He believes that science fiction, like poetry, is something that we must learn how to read. To that end, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw contains close, insightful textual analyses of writers such as Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. LeGuin, Roger Zelazny, Joanna Russ and others. Some of his most famous essays are here, including About 5,750 Words and To Read The Dispossessed. This book will be useful to any student of science fiction and is a must-have for Delany fans.

The Pied Piper by Nevil Shute (via Leafing Through Life)
It is the summer of 1940 and in Europe the time of Blitzkreig. John Howard, a 70-year-old Englishman vacationing in France, cuts shorts his tour and heads for home. He agrees to take two children with him.
But war closes in. Trains fail, roads clog with refugees. And if things were not difficult enough, other children join in Howard's little band. At last they reach the coast and find not deliverance but desperation. The old Englishman's greatest test lies ahead of him. 

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