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Fresh Off the Boat
Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir by Eddie Huang Published: 2013 Narrated by: Eddie Huang Length: 07:55 (288 pages) I haven’t seen the sitcom of the same name that was created from this book, but I have seen clips of Eddie Huang’s show on Vice. I wasn’t sure if I liked him then, and now after reading this I’m still not entirely sure what I think of him. Eddie Huang is a restaurateur and a chef, with a successful Manhattan restaurant called BaoHaus that specializes in baozi, which are steamed Chinese meat buns. He became a known food personality after hosting a few shows on the Cooking Channel and, more…
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The Alchemist
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Published: 1988 Translated by: Alan R. Clarke (from Portuguese in 1993) Length: 167 pages I’ve been hearing about this one for a long time now. At first I was excited to get to it, but as the years passed I started thinking it probably wasn’t for me. My girlfriend had a copy, though, and really loves the book, so I thought I’d give it a go. This is the story of a young Shepard who discovers that his Personal Legend is to travel to the Egyptian pyramids to find his fortune. He is met at the beginning of the book by a king who tells…
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Splutter in Senseless Sounds
The last post was getting a bit full of quotes, so I thought I’d leave these two slightly longer excerpts to their own post. They were too good not to share. The first on his attitude towards work: It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost…
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Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome Published: 1889 Narrated by: Steven Crossley Series: Three Men Length: 06:44 (184 pages) I can’t remember where I heard about this, I think this time last year it was unknown to me, but I would like to extend an enthusiastic thank you to whoever brought this to my attention. I absolutely loved this novel. This follows three men, and a dog, as they take a two-week holiday to travel down the Thames by boat. This was originally meant to be a serious travel guide, but it quickly become more about the humourous insights that occurred along the way. He tried to…
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She
She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard Published: 1887 Series: She #1 Narrated by: Peter Joyce Length: 12:15 (317 pages) I was under the false impression that this was the second Allan Quatermain novel, but it’s actually an entirely new set of characters. It’s a novel that does scratch that same itch, however, as it’s still a story of the Lost World genre in which a group of Englishmen travel to Africa (this time landing somewhere on the eastern side of the continent) to find a hidden civilization. That is simplifying it a little unfairly, but the two books do have a similar feel. A professor at Cambridge,…