[Book] The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Book cover (paperback) This is the 1989 book that later became a movie (which I never saw).  This won the Booker Prize.  We follow a quintessential British Butler named Stevens sometime after World War 2 on a journey to look up an ex-employee.  The journey itself is beautifully and descriptively written. While the main thread is the journey, the bulk of the story is Stevens' recollection of his past....

11 Jul 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Food] Homage to Pizza Gone By

Gone Not too far from where I live is a "turn key fully equipped restaurant" for lease.  The restaurant that was there until a few weeks ago was called Pizzaniste. Pizzaniste had really good pizza.  Gourmet, all fresh ingredients, coal fired, whole-wheat crust as an option; even gluten free as an option.  Partly because they also made custom fresh salads, there were some unexpected ingredients: Real anchovies, fresh basil, artichokes, black beans, corn, cilantro, carrots, chickpeas, eggplant, hard-boiled egg, zucchini and two types of olives to choose from (along with all the other things you might expect every pizza place to have)....

7 Jul 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] eyE Marty by Marty Feldman

Book cover Marty Feldman is probably most famous for playing Igor in the 1974 Mel Brooks movie, Young Frankenstein.  He died in 1982, and his autobiography sat in the attic of his widow's home until her death in 2010 when it was discovered by Mark Flanagan.  Flanagan had it transcribed, exactly as it was found, including photo inserts and published without further editing. This book is in desperate need of editing....

4 Jul 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Ohio by Stephen Markley

Book Cover This follows four main characters who had gone to high school together back in the early 2000s, and on one night in 2013, all came back home to their hometown of New Canaan, Ohio. After the prelude, the first section of the book follows Bill Ashcraft, a drifter who is loaded up on drugs.  Appropriate to the character - for the parts where we are following his narrative - the story is jumping back and forth between his past and present with no direct warning in-between, full of non-sequiturs, and frankly - hard to follow....

27 Jun 2018 · 4 min · Gary Allen Vollink