Mmmmm deee-licious

Titillate your tastebuds with reading... and social bookmarking?

Good food and good books shared with good friends—those things form a big part of my life. This week, besides sharing a few good books, I want to share a delicious new way to learn, grow, and share one's interests, whatever they may be. You guessed it, I'm talking about del.icio.us. Del.icio.us is a Web-based social bookmarking site that makes it easy for users to move from site to site while always returning with one click to his or her list of favorites. Not only that, del.icio.us provides new opportunities for readers (or Web surfers) to network with other readers (and surfers) with similar interests.

For example, fans of C. S. Lewis might wish to tag Lewis’s unofficial Web site Into the Wardrobe. Once you’ve tagged the site, you will not only find that 172 other people have tagged the site, you will be able to view other sites those 172 people have tagged that may also be of interest to you. [Disclaimer: naturally, you don’t know those people or how reputable or appropriate for your purposes their favorites may be. You should still always be diligent in checking the reliability of any source, especially any internet source, before singing its praises.]

Now, speaking of C.S. Lewis and all things delicious... Lewis once said that if you wanted to interest children in reading, you should write about things that interest children—things like, for example, food. Perhaps that's why we find so much eating in the world of Narnia—from sumptuous afternoon teas with fauns to fresh fish feasts with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver to turkish delight with, well, let's just say someone who proves in one gesture why children should never accept candy from strangers.

Lewis also offered some pretty delectable fare for the grown-up palate with his classic Garden of Eden allegory, Perelandra, set on the watery world of Venus. Written in the 1940s, the science may be dated, but the story is timeless—and you'll never forget Lewis' description of the Perelandran gourds, that are neither sharp nor sweet, neither savory nor voluptuous.

In any case, if you want to create a world to delight your readers, one where they may immerse themselves as one of the natives, there is no better way than though the cuisine. Here are just a few of my favorite visual and literary feasts that touch on the power of sharing a meal, a recipe, or a culinary custom:

Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto
Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel
Neveryona, by Samuel R. Delany
Babette’s Feast (movie)

Please share your literary feasts with me, and if you find good sources for more, don’t forget to tag them and then share your tags with me!

More of a dinner-and-a-movie type? Don't forget to check out 000h How I Loved That Movie for plenty of film, food, and fun.

Book About Books, Part Deux

My last entry promised you another book about the power of books, and so I offer you Brock Clarke's darkly humorous, deftly poignant novel, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. When habitual bumbler Sam Pulsifer returns from serving a 10-year prison sentence for torching the Emily Dickinson house in Amherst, other famous writers' homes start going up in flames and Sam is the only suspect. Sam's efforts to unravel the mystery lead to a series of comic misadventures that examine the power of literature on our lives. Word of note: If you've ever been in a book group (and even if you haven't), and you don't find Clarke's ruminations on book groups, memoirists, and stoically cynical New England writers funny, well, if you don't find that funny let's just say I'm a little concerned about you. You need to cheer up. Go read the section on Vogon poetry in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Laugh. Please.

If you'd prefer your books about books to be a little less out there, you might enjoy memoirist Julie Powell's Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. When out-of-work actress and secretarial temp Julie Powell finds her life stuck in a rut, she decides to spice things up by cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking--over the course of 365 wild and flavorful days. Her culinary adventures lead to a blog, the blog leads to a book contract, and the book contract leads to a hilarious and heartfelt homage to good food and the inspiration that can come from one well-loved and much-thumbed-through tome. So, buck up, bloggers, we may have a purpose after all.

Thanks to all of you who shared with me your favorite books about books. I encourage everyone reading to check out Sara F.'s excellent review of House of Leaves on The Birdhouse, and if you know Martha Bayley, be sure and ask her about The Shadow of the Wind. Until next time...