Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman.

Having been a fan of Chuck Klosterman for so many years, I've gotta say.... I really enjoyed this.
However, Klosterman, who is nothing if not self aware, seems to be a little... reflective of his status as a literary/pop culture phenomenon. He's trying to be a little less gimmicky, a little less crazy connection to a crazy conclusion... which is in ways both good and bad.

I honestly don't think that this book is as good as some of his other works. But I find that the more I love an author, the more I'm disappointed by a work the first time I read it. And as I'm a huge Klosterman fan, my expectations are naturally gonna be way too high. I mean. It recalls the first time I read the last Harry Potter.... that should probably be The Last Harry Potter. I loathed it. I was angry and disappointed. But when I got over myself and went back and read it again... I've read it probably twenty times now.

I adored Klosterman's new distancing from his previously formulaic wacky connection works. But even though I appreciate him delving a bit more into the philosophical part of the subjects he's been writing about, I think I just wanted to read a new chapter or two out of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and that isn't really fair to Mr. Klosterman, the book or myself. So I'm gonna stick to loving his dissection of the Chris Gaines/Garth Brooks experiment and of course... I almost peed myself with his essay about Rivers Cuomo. I'll pick it up and read it again later and develop a more fair and balanced sort of perspective on it... which is exactly the sort of thing any of his writings demand. These are bar essays, toilet essays--the sort of thing you can pick up at any time and start a conversation about, with anyone, and it's guaranteed to take you places you never thought you'd get by just talking to someone.

I'd definitely recommend this to anyone, possibly even as a first foray in the world of Klostermania. Because let's face it... it's what it's become.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton

Having read de Botton's book How Proust Can Change Your Life when I was an undergrad and deeply interested in how abstract, stuffy, 'underrated' philosopher/writers could change my perspective... you know, to prove that I was deep and interesting. Either way, I fell in love with de Botton's writing style.

So, having been unemployed for an embarrassingly long period of time and forced to slough through the mires of the job hunt, in the middle of a terrible depression (both country-wide and personal), I found this book and fell right in again. Each portion focuses on different people in different careers, ten in all.

So while I walked through undergrad and tried to find myself academically and intellectually, de Botton kept me warm at night. And now that my college career is pretty firmly behind me, de Botton helped me keep perspective looking for how I'm going to spend my day to day bringing home the bacon. I've found it again in the walls of my retail bookstore... and although I love it, a job is a job is a job. And although it's interesting and sometimes fascinating to see what goes into being a rocket scientist or a dock worker or a biscuit manufacturer, every job and every day has its ups and downs, its moments of beauty in unlikely places and annoyances.

And hey, that's just life, ain't it?

Chicken Soup for the Soul Cookbook

Yeah, I read these books. Sue me. My grandma used to get them all the time and we'd read them together. I have a pretty soft heart and anything like this tends to make me tear up, at least a little.

Though honestly, there was this one woman who apparently is a big deal in the cooking world (or at least in her her own head) and apparently is friends with the rest of the editors. And she wrote half the darn book. Seriously, it's sweet that her first husband died and she feels like her second husband was selected by the dead one just for her and they have this incredible bond, but still. I got tired of cute stories about Debra and Ted or whatever their names were.

Also, because these were selected primarily for the recipes, a lot of the stories were poorly written or completely unrelated to the dish they showed a recipe for. There were a couple cute stories, but all in all, none of the food sounded that great. One was even a rip off of Thundercake! Which was one of my favorite stories of all time as a kid! Lame, says I.

All in all, I kinda enjoyed reading it but it didn't exactly change my life. I probably should've spent the time on reading Anubis Gate, since that's next on the list.