Michael

The snarky subtitle of this book says it all: "Economics as if people mattered." Schumacher was one of the first economists to write about a genuine "third way" of organization that is neither socialist nor capitalist. While some of his examples in the book, such as a long rant against nuclear power, seem dated, it is the philosophical basis of his arguments that shine. The first principle of his economics is that work should be humanizing and fulfilling, and I find that inspiring.

I'd never read a word of Neruda until a customer came in to order a copy of his complete poems. Out of curiosity I picked up Full Woman, a slimmer volume, and found that I loved Neruda's prose-poems. In his odes to everyday objects such as salt or his suit, he employs extraordinary imagery, made plain by his clipped, rhyme-less style. With often only a word to a line, it is as if each one is a revelation.

I've been eager to read this account of the expatriate community in 1920s Paris for some time. I always felt Hemingway's greatest works are his "lighter" books, perhaps because I'm young, and find more in common with drinking one's way around France or Spain than fighting in a hopeless war. It's also because his famous prose is at its best when writing about his daily pains and joys. A Moveable Feast is full of these, as young Ernest strolls about Paris, hungry and unsure of the stories he writes, yet full of hope (and many bottles of wine).

A few years back, I read The Iliad on a whim, and found it equal parts incomprehensible and enthralling. Thankfully, this book came along to explain it. The majority of Alexander's book is a history of Homer's epic itself, and how it arose out of earlier, more traditionally styled heroic accounts. Ancient Greek and Roman writings on The Iliad are quoted, and the fact that literary criticism existed in 200 BC amazes me. The book reveals that The Iliad, in its time, broke most of the "rules" of an epic and toyed with the listener's expectations, explaining its popularity nearly three thousand years later.

I was recently given a bunch of fresh basil, only not enough for any significant amount of pesto. Pesto being all I know to make with basil, I turned to our shelves for inspiration and found The Veganopolis Cookbook. To anyone who says vegan cooking is boring, or healthy, I give you Tomato Bisque with Fried Basil Leaves! Yes, deep fried basil leaves, something I would have never tried had a vegan cookbook not told me to. I'm normally down with eggs and dairy, but these surprisingly rich recipes have me intrigued, and the quinoa burgers look tasty, not to mention these orange cashew cookies. . .

Retro is back (an odd statement in and of itself), but this time around the nostalgia isn't for the 1970s but for the hundred years before that. Call it out as a trend if you want, but you won't find me complaining that well-tailored clothing, parlor games, and whisky cocktails are popular again. A similar glut of books has accompanied this trend, but this one stands out by being genuinely witty with a hint of classic erudition. Take the entry for Flaming Wall Torches: "Transylvania-style. Affixed to your dining room walls, they could lend gravitas to a frozen TV dinner." With the addition of recipes for elaborate dishes and drinks that have gone out of style, this book is just swell.

Novels often ask us to empathize with unsavory characters, but something about the title character here seemed especially distasteful. The least we could ask of a man with four wives and twenty-odd kids is to not be lonely. And Golden Richards, the polygamist, is a bit creepy as he drives his children around in a modified hearse or curses profusely, but only with drats and darns. The author makes him sympathetic, though, by describing him only in the most pathetic terms. His family members have distinct personalities, most of them far more forceful than Golden's. He is a tragic character in a disaster of his own creation, and it doesn't appear that he'll exit the novel the same man.

Like great childrens fantasy that has come before, these chronicles juxtapose the commonplace with the fantastic in a way that makes it seem that there perhaps is real magic in the world. The fourteen stories, inspired by the wordless pictures from the original 1984 book and all by famous authors, seamlessly blend the unreal into the everyday lives of children. The stories are strange and sometimes unsettling, as when an imaginary sibling takes form out of an empty dress, or an old man's book writes itself a new ending, darker than the last. Each story is a briefly-open window into a new world, closing again before anything seems impossible and leaving the rest to the imagination.

Tintin comics are like Rube Goldberg machines, where each character and clue Tintin discovers eventually plays a part in solving the mystery. Reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy travel the globe encountering scheming villains and their vicious henchmen, yet remain two of the nicest people (a person and a dog, really) you'd ever hope to meet. In this story, Tintin comes to Chicago to report on the mob, in an America full of gangsters, industry, and Indians. Most of the lands Tintin visits are highly stereotyped versions of themselves, yet as a child they still piqued my interest about those places and made me go on to learn more. I was originally won over by the exuberant nature of the comics, and only recently picked some back up because of the recent movie. They've lost none of their charm.