Mark Carroll's Journal

The Wasp Factory made a nice change for me and is a lovely example of how a decent novel needn't be a thousand pages long. It's also quite a different kind of story from the typical.

The cooking-history books were more carefully chosen but the other cookery books are mostly a matter of luck in what I stumbled upon at good discounts yet chose to retain long-term. A particularly lucky find was The Complete Cookery Manual in that it appears to be for entry-level culinary students so explains all the basics clearly, from various rouxs to dealing with a whole raw chicken, which makes a change.

The history selection somewhat reflects my adult learning on being an Englishman transplanted to the US, I read everything from Helter Skelter: The True Story of The Manson Murders (Bugliosi, Gentry) to The Tunnels of Cu Chi: A Remarkable Story of War (Mangold, Penycate) in learning the background of my adopted country, all worthwhile but once through was enough so I didn't buy them.