Amazon.com
Pop quiz: Where are American kids taught the nuances of being millionaires as part of their junior high curriculum? Where do guests at a posh outdoor party grouse about the defects of high-end flushable Porta-Johns? Where does a school auction rake in $439,000? The answer: Silicon Valley, of course. David A. Kaplan captures all that excess and more in The Silicon Boys.
Kaplan's book is a history of the Valley, from the time when Stanford professor Frederick Terman encouraged David Packard and Bill Hewlett to establish their own company to when Sequoia Capital invested $1 million in a startup founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo. In between are the many Valley legends, including Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Kleiner Perkins, Apple, Oracle, and Netscape--as well as some of its most notable failures and tragedies, such as William Shockley and Gary Kildall. While the book begins with the opulence of Woodside, California, it ends surprisingly enough in Portland, Maine, with Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, who fled the Valley for something "fresher" and "more alive."
As he traces the short history of the area, Kaplan, a senior writer at Newsweek, detects a not-so-subtle change in its values. He writes, "Nobody appears to be having quite as good a time in Silicon Valley. Passions have become mere professions; impulsiveness is now compulsiveness.... The Valley once was a new machine. It changed the world. It may do so yet again. But the machine has no soul anymore." Here's a thoughtful and colorful read for anyone interested in one of the most dynamic places on the planet. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
In "the best book to date on the subject" (San Francisco Chronicle), prize-winning journalist David A. Kaplan brings to life the culture and history of Silicon Valley. The symbol of high-tech genius and ineffable wealth, a place that competes with Hollywood and Washington in the zeitgeist of success and excess, the Valley is the epicenter of the New Economy. Depending on yesterday's stock market close, roughly a quartermillion Siliconillionaires live in the Valley. And they're building megalo-mansions and buying Lamborghinis as fast as they can. Combining reportorial insight and biting wit, The Silicon Boys tells the unforgettable story of dreams and greed, ambition and luck, that has become the
Valley of the Dollars.
Customer Reviews:
Enthralling.......2006-02-18
I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. For anyone interested in the culture of Silcion Valley it is a must read. Yes, as other reviewers pointed out it jumps around quite a bit. Both in terms of pace and interest. However, taken as a whole it provides exciting stories of busines, personal flare, finance, and technology. A good read for anyone with at least a vague interest in the subject matter.
Good Description of Silicon Valley.......2003-02-04
"The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams" is a well written description of Silicon Valley at it's peak. It describes the culture of the valley during the nineties. It is an interesting peek into the a world of driven software developers and venture capitalists and everyone else in their galaxies. It focuses on companies and names we've all heard of: Apple, Oracle, Netscape, Microsoft, Intel, and many more. For anyone in the technology industry, this book is a good window onto the 90s - pre dotcom mania.
Solid Silicon Story.......2002-10-19
This was one of the best Silly Valley stories I've read yet. Kaplan does a very good job offering a historical and chronological storyline that educates the reader while holding interest. Hence an educational book that also happens to be very unique and authentic.
Silicon Boys Book Review.......2002-07-11
The non-fiction book The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams is written by David A. Kaplan. It is about how Silicon Valley started and why it is important to be near all the silicon in California. Also it explains who invented and invents the processors and software. It talks about Intel, then Apple and Microsoft, after that Oracle, then Kleiner Perkins, Mozilla, Microsoft, and finally Yahoo.
David A. Kaplan used many correct facts and you can see who his sources are in the back of the book. It is organized chronologically starting at the early `70s when "The Traitorous Eight" first started developing processors. It concludes in 1999 when Microsoft was developing Internet Explorer and Yahoo was popular. Each chapter talks about a company or person or both.
I think it was a very good book. It told me a lot about the computer industry and the people behind it. If you don't care much about computers you shouldn't read this book but if you even have a slight interest, you'd like this book. The author did a very good job explaning the aspects of the computer industry, so even if you don't know much about computers you can understand this book.
Fun romp.......2002-01-07
Great read on the culture of the Silicon Valley and how tycoons like Jobs, Yang, Ellison, Andreesen, and Clark built their companies. Learn about how the "biggest legal creation of wealth in history" all happened. Kaplan does an excellent job writing in a witty biting way.
Book Description
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Preface.
"An important contribution to the contemporary critique of high tech industry."
— Contemporary Sociology
"Offers a lot for the general reader. The authors must be congratulated."
—International Migration Review
"Powerful and passionate exposé"
— Journal of American Ethnic History
"An important contribution to the environmental sociology literature."
— Choice
"Powerful, compelling and revealing. Pellow and Park weave a fascinating story of both the historical and current domination of gender, class and race in Silicon Valley."
— Alternatives Journal
"
The Silicon Valley of Dreams . . . exposes the numerous inequities that plague the area, from the huge number of temporary workers, the highest per capita in the nation, to the obvious absence of union jobs."
—Conscious Choice
"The authors of [this] important [book] share a sense of compassion for and commitment to the struggle of labor, community, civil rights and environmental activists."
—Los Angeles Times
"The Silicon Valley of Dreams provides a progressive intervention into environmental sociology and into public discourse on the relationship between immigration and environment."
— American Journal of Sociology
"Critical reading for students and scholars in ethnic studies, immigration, urban studies, gender studies, social movements and environmental studies, as well as activists and policy-makers working to address the need of workers, communities and industry."
—Educational Book Review
Next to the nuclear industry, the largest producer of contaminants in the air, land, and water is the electronics industry. Silicon Valley hosts the highest density of Superfund sites anywhere in the nation and leads the country in the number of temporary workers per capita and in workforce gender inequities. Silicon Valley offers a sobering illustration of environmental inequality and other problems that are increasingly linked to the globalization of the world's economies.
In
The Silicon Valley of Dreams, the authors take a hard look at the high-tech region of Silicon Valley to examine environmental racism within the context of immigrant patterns, labor markets, and the historical patterns of colonialism. One cannot understand Silicon Valley or the high-tech global economy in general, they contend, without also understanding the role people of color play in the labor force, working in the electronic industry's toxic environments. These toxic work environments produce chemical pollution that, in turn, disrupts the ecosystems of surrounding communities inhabited by people of color and immigrants. The authors trace the origins of this exploitation and provide a new understanding of the present-day struggles for occupational health and safety.
The Silicon Valley of Dreams will be critical reading for students and scholars in ethnic studies, immigration, urban studies, gender studies, social movements, and the environment, as well as activists and policy-makers working to address the needs of workers, communities, and industry.
Customer Reviews:
Groundbreaking.......2005-02-11
"The Silicon Valley of Dreams" by David Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park is a groundbreaking book that connects the environmental justice (EJ) movement with struggles pertaining to immigration, gender, workplace, and globalization. The authors present a new historiography of Santa Clara County, California that reveals a pattern of exploitation of people and resources dating from the Spanish Colonial period to the present. The book makes a compelling case that sustainability will remain elusive as long as for-profit capitalism rules the day.
Pellow and Park study the area's historical development to find common threads between the past and the present. Each economic period was marked by the despoilation and depletion of California's natural resources, and in all cases, the production system was characterized by the exploitation of predominantly poor, immigrant and female labor.
Interestingly, the authors show how the powerful have been consistently supported by their government sponsors even as the rights of the poor have been systematically denied. We find that the Spanish government's funding of the missionaries was not substantially different from the U.S. government's support of the California gold mining industry of the 1800s, the canneries of the early to mid twentieth century or the highly lucrative defense industry of today. Yet the indigenuous peoples and the poor immigrant workers who have labored in the fields and the factories have been consistently denied their political and economic rights. In this light, the fact that the poor suffer disproportionately from environmental injustices should not be surprising, or that the struggle to overcome the powerful interests that profit from the system remains difficult.
The authors show how the electronics manufacturing that dominates Silicon Valley today is not the "clean" industry that is often promoted by corporate public relations firms. We learn how the so-called "immaterial" economy is in fact produced with enormous amounts of energy inputs and demanding physical labor. Management's criminal silence on issues pertaining to workplace safety and the pollution of the local environment clashes severely with the industry's oft-repeated hyperbole about the open and empowered society that is purportedly fostered through information technology.
The author's analysis is supported with moving testimonies from flesh-and-blood workers who have suffered the ill effects of toxic exposure. Their heart-wrenching stories bring home the human costs of our high-tech culture in a deeply compelling way. But the authors also relate how grass-roots organizations have won modest victories in their attempts to protect workers and the community from harm. Clearly, the empowerment of women and minorities and respect for the environment is critical to achieving a sustainable and egalitarian society.
I recommend this highly readable, insightful and important book to everyone.
Book Description
What accounts for the growing income inequalities in Silicon Valley, despite huge technological and economic strides? Why have the once-powerful labor unions declined in their influence? How are increasing waves of immigration and ethnic diversity changing the workplace in the Valley? Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream examines these questions from a fresh perspective: that provided by the history of women in Silicon Valley in the twentieth century.
Silicon Valley is internationally renowned. It is less well known, however, that the Valley once contained the world’s largest concentration of fruit-processing plants, set in a sea of fruit orchards. Despite the many differences between the fruit and electronics industries, one important thread connects them: the production workers have been preponderantly immigrant women. (In the early part of the twentieth century, the newcomers came primarily from southern Europe; in the latter part of the century, they came mostly from Asia and Latin America, especially Mexico.) The author examines both industries, both work forces, and the changing nature of the local power structure. Although she documents the many sources of vitality and ferment that have undergirded the region’s economic might, she also demonstrates that its wealth has not been equally distributed.
Average customer rating:
- a fascinating discourse on many aspects of information
- Wonderful book
- A fascinating and captivating book!
- A memorable book -- too bad it's out of print
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Silicon Dreams: Information, Man, and Machine
Robert W. Lucky
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Culture
| Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
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Software Engineering
| Computer Science
| Computers & Internet
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| Design Tools & Techniques
| General
| Information Systems
| Methodology
| Multimedia Information Systems
General
| Computers & Internet
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ASIN: 031205517X |
Customer Reviews:
a fascinating discourse on many aspects of information.......2007-04-01
Althought this book has been written 20 years ago, it is still very
fresh today. The bandwidth with which we communicate, and
our capacity for storing information have increased in the intervening
years, however the fundamental questions that are addressed here
have not changed much. In the first couple chapters, the author starts
with a very precise definition of what information and capacity mean.
This part is merely 50 pages in length, but makes this book worth
owning on its own - I wish somebody gave it to me when I was
learning about information theory.
The remainder of the book is devided into chapters dealing
with different aspects of information: text, speech and pictures,
including problems associated with their storage, processing
and intrepretation. The presentation is insightful, informative,
and, given that it is addressed to an audience of non-mathematicians,
surprisingly precise. Each chapter ends with a ligh-hearted essay,
some of which I found to be deceptively deep and insightful.
Wonderful book.......2003-12-17
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I'd strongly recommend this book for anybody interested in how things have evolved in computing. Great insight into stuff we take for granted like compression algorithms, error correction.
A fascinating and captivating book!.......2000-03-30
I read this book over and over and love it every time. It covers topics that I teach from the standard texts, but it covers them in a way that makes it all make so much more sense to my students. This truly is an amazing book!
A memorable book -- too bad it's out of print.......2000-02-19
This is a popular computer book about data compression and data representation. It was first published way back in 1989 and now eleven years later it's not in the slightest bit out of date. How many popular computer books can you say that about?
Average customer rating:
- I was part of the bust
- Poorly written
- Good concept, terrible execution
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Down and Out in Silicon Valley: The High Cost of the High Tech Dream
Mel Krantzler , and
Patricia B. Krantzler
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Business Life
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
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General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
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High-Tech
| Industries & Professions
| Business & Investing
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General
| Psychology & Counseling
| Health, Mind & Body
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Pathologies
| Psychology & Counseling
| Health, Mind & Body
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General
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ASIN: 1573929263 |
Book Description
Leaving their families, their friends, and the lives they had known behind, thousands of young information technologists flocked to northern California in the 1980s and 1990s to live the Silicon Valley dream of overnight wealth and power. What they didn't know was that the Silicon Valley dream is really just the American Dream gone ballistic, a place where money and power are the only things that matter in life.
In this enlightening critique, counselors Mel and Pat Krantzler contend that Silicon Valley is more than just the name of a geographical area, it is the name for a psychological obsession found anywhere people believe that instant fame and fortune can be gained through silicon chips and Web sites. Building on this foundation, they reveal that the obsession nourishes itself on an illusion of power and instant gratification. And like heroin and cocaine, it is highly addictive, promising total happiness, but often ending in disarray and despair, leaving even wealthy and successful individuals feeling "down and out." The first book of its kind, DOWN AND OUT IN SILICON VALLEY is as up-to-date as today's headlines.
Customer Reviews:
I was part of the bust.......2006-03-08
These people have no clue what they are talking about. The book is is an obvious attempt to cash in on the glee some people have of seeing the tech bubble burst, because they were not part of it. Most of us have moved on. Most have moved on to other high tech jobs, but some to the law, medicine, politics, finance, and even back to tech again. Most of the people in the tech world are either very happy because they get to do the work they love, or they got out because they were here for a quick buck. The individuals these people see in their practice need help. The ones who thought that moving to the bay area would fix their life had problems to begin with. Duh.
Poorly written.......2003-01-10
You can almost smell the envy and the "I told you so" attitude of the writers. Ironic when this book is no more than attempt to cash in (while of course, occupying the moral high ground) on the .com
mania so bitterly missed by the authors.
I noted that one of the chapter titles misspells the word
"Silicon" as "Silcon"...
There are many fascinating stories to be told about fear and greed in the valley --this book has none of them.
Good concept, terrible execution.......2002-12-06
There's a lot to be said about the dark side of Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, Mel and Pat Krantzler aren't the ones to say it. I picked up the book hoping for a comprehensive study of the Silicon Valley area, it's people, the suicide rates, divorce rates, amount of time spent sitting in traffic, and obviously the health and mental problems of its denizens.
Instead, what I got was page after page of anecdotal evidence. One example was the chapter entitled: "The myth of gender equality." What I expected from the book is a survey of women working in Silicon Valley companies. Instead, the chapter was dominated by an interview with ONE successful woman. The other chapters are similar.
As a Silicon Valley resident of more than 10 years, I'm disappointed. There is much to criticize in the valley, but the criticism should be factual and statistical, rather than anecdotal. (The two authors run a counselling service, so obviously, the only people they ever encounter are people who need help!)
Average customer rating:
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Silicon Dreams
Rh Wood
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
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jp-unknown1
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 059522637X |
Book Description
She was a supermodel, the daughter of an assassin, and an intelligence agent. Wealthy and beautiful, Kim Song Johnson had everything she'd ever wanted, but it meant nothing until she met the shy genius that was Ethan McHenry. Together they fight to save the country and the people they love from a madman who found the way to control any computer in the world. Of course, her parents might have something to say about that.
Average customer rating:
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Silicon Dreams
Joe Hutsko
Manufacturer: Knightsbridge Pub Co Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1561292168 |
Average customer rating:
- Great stories by great authors.
- 50/50 shot
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Silicon Dreams
Manufacturer: DAW
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Anthologies
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
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Adventure
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
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Anthologies
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| Science Fiction & Fantasy
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General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
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ASIN: 075640018X
Release Date: 2001-11-01 |
Book Description
Fresh from the data banks of today's most popular science fiction writers comes this all-new collection of original tales. The subject is technology-from robots and androids to computers with minds of their own-and the stories definitely give new meaning to the words "intelligent life."
Customer Reviews:
Great stories by great authors........2003-05-28
The stories in this book made me laugh, they made me sad and they made me think. But of course, they happen to be by some of the greatest sci-fi authors ever. You DON'T get bad stories from James P. Hogan, William H. Keith Jr., Jody Lynn Nye and the rest within this book. 12 stories that you CAN'T be without if you love articial intelligence, robots or sci-fi in general.
50/50 shot.......2002-12-03
Of the twelve stories in this collection, about half are really outstanding for their story-telling and their ability to make the reader feel empathy with the characters. Each story is fairly original as the front cover claims, the robots aren't just servants, they represent social conflicts, have personalities, and sometimes are the only characters around. For me, that isn't enough, I have to want to keep reading because I care about the characters. The best story is a tie between Rusch's touching tell of a poor family in 'A Helping Hand' and Nye's equally touching 'Sacrifices' where a fairly wealthy but constantly moving family loses one of its "own". The worse is easily 'K-232' by Collins because its really more of a short essay on what its like to explore the universe than anything that really pushes our concepts of humanity or paints a future picture. And that is important since one of the editor, Larry Segriff, says that this is a collection about our children, humanities children in the form of robots.
Average customer rating:
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Silicon Dreams-
Robert Lucky-
Manufacturer: St. Martins Press-
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000P0WYK4 |
Average customer rating:
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Silicon Valley : Sand Dreams & Silicon Orchards
Sally Richards
Manufacturer: Heritage Media Corp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
California
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Pacific Northwest
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1886483450 |
Book Description
This rich history of Silicon Valley describes the changes that have occurred over the past 11,000 years and looks at visionaries' predictions for the next 100 years. From the time preceding the arrival of the first Spanish-funded entrepreneurs to today's Internet craze, Sand Dreams & Silicon Orchards tells the story of how a place built on dreams strives to meet its future challenges.
Book Description
In this outrageous and delectable new volume, the Man Who Ate Everything proves that he will do anything to eat everything. That includes going fishing for his own supply of bluefin tuna belly; nearly incinerating his oven in pursuit of the perfect pizza crust, and spending four days boning and stuffing three different fowl—into each other-- to produce the Cajun specialty called “turducken.”
It Must’ve Been Something I Ate finds Steingarten testing the virtues of chocolate and gourmet salts; debunking the mythology of lactose intolerance and Chinese Food Syndrome; roasting marrow bones for his dog , and offering recipes for everything from lobster rolls to gratin dauphinois. The result is one of those rare books that are simultaneously mouth-watering and side-splitting.
Customer Reviews:
Great read.......2007-05-16
So well written. Easy to read even if you are just a mild foodie. Jeffrey is so funny and personable on paper.
Steingarten is hands down the best food writer in America.......2007-01-04
The long-time Vogue food critic (and frequent Iron Chef America judge) returns with his second, and equally excellent, compilation of his best foodie columns. He again provides whimsical yet detailed accounts of his various food-related forages. His highly entertaining food pilgrimages and other food-related adventures as well as plenty of self-depricating humor make this one very delicious and very funny read cover to cover. Few books are this entertaining and educating at the same time. His topics are always well-researched. The information always beyond reproach and presented as only Steingarten can. I don't think you need to be a serious food person to really enjoy this book. If you enjoy reading about the history, quality, and preparation of food from around the world, then your copy will soon be well-worn. I have bought several copies for friends and family.
If you missed his first book, "The Man Who Ate Everything," save yourself the time and order it now, too - the preface alone is hilarious, and both books are equally enjoyable. I can't wait for his next book, which will certainly be much more fun than wading through the ridiculous over-abundance of overly-sexed and perfumed ads in Vogue magazine to hunt down his fine work.
Highly entertaining.......2006-02-01
This book was a gift that I was not excited about receiving, but I picked it up one evening when I was desperate for something to read. At that point I was unfamiliar with this Steingarten fellow and did not expect much, as I do not find it terribly enjoyable to read about food. As it turns out, the book was a good read that kept me entertained and wanting more. I thought a few of the chapters dragged a bit, but most were about the right length. The bit on pizza was a highlight that inspired me to try his recipes for the sauce and dough. The sauce was not anything special, but the pizza dough recipe is another story. After trying literally dozens of recipes in search of the perfect dough, I can finally rest because this book provided it. That alone was worth the price of admission!
As appetising as his "The Man Who Ate Everything".......2005-08-24
It is interesting that a lawyer can write so well about food as to make one salivate! Entertaining, funny (perhaps witty) and informative, sprinkled with social commentary and hugely entertaining. Buy both books if you love food and its history, preparation and glories.
Superb Tutorial in How to think about Food. Buy It!.......2005-08-04
`It Must've Been Something I Ate' is Jeffrey Steingarten's second collection of Vogue columns, following the earlier `The Man Who Ate Everything'. Monsieur Steingarten is certainly better recognized these days among the foodie masses as he has appeared as the anchor judge on many of the new Food Network `Iron Chef America' shows, and adds gravity to the show as one of the few people who can trump commentator Alton Brown's perceptions on food.
I was always puzzled by the fact that a magazine like Vogue, which I have never once picked up to read, and which I perceived as a home largely of advertisements for goods appealing to women who have more money than they know what to do with (sic). I was chastised somewhat when I discovered that Mr. Steingarten's role at Vogue was formerly staffed by none other than Elizabeth David, one of the most interesting and respected culinary writers of the 20th century.
Mr. Steingarten's writing has a `family resemblance' to Ms. David's work, but they are really doing a slightly different kind of dialogue with their readers. Elizabeth David took conventional food writing with recipe plus commentary and elevated it to its highest level. Her closest students were Jane Grigson and Claudia Roden. Like James Beard with American cooking, her knowledge of food, especially European and Mediterranean food was encyclopedic.
Steingarten is doing something different! I would even argue with the blurb on the cover of my Vintage edition that states that he `knows more about food than any man now eating'. That perception may be due to the fact that Steingarten looks into food issues more deeply than almost any other writer I can cite, with the possible exception of Harold McGee. But Steingarten is a much better writer than McGee, so he is much more enjoyable to read. I think of him as being a culinary Sherlock Holmes who uses, or who has friends who use all of the very best scientific methods for tracking down the scoop on interesting food issues.
A classic example of his `modus operandi' is the article on differences in the varieties of salt. The jumping off point for the story is the fact that appreciation for salt has reached levels formerly lavished on olive oils. The heavy of the story is fellow food writer Robert Wolke who published a series of articles that claimed that the differences from one salt to the next are small and are largely due to the shape of the salt crystals. Like me, Wolke comes to culinary matters from a background in chemistry. And, since I know, like Wolke, that virtually all forms of salt are simply 98% Sodium Chloride. And, the odds are that the remaining one or two percent of the chemical composition is composed of inorganic compounds which simply do not register either on our tongue or nose. This is not to say that there are not important differences between salts. Kosher(ing) salt, for example is truly superior to table salt for seasoning simply because it is easier to handle while cooking.
Since Steingarten and his colleagues are more attuned to the culinary aspects of things than chemist Wolke, Steingarten felt Wolke was missing something. So, he enlists some pretty serious medical and statistical talent to conduct a true double blind test of the differences in taste. To make the experiment even better, the differences in crystal shape is factored out by doing the tasting of a 2% solution. I am very quickly getting the feeling that it is not Steingarten but the famous science writer, Stephen Jay Gould who I am reading.
Since it makes a great story, Steingarten is not at all shy in confessing that statistically, the first experiment showed very little difference in the various salts. Steingarten did not lose me when he felt that further investigation was needed. The aesthetic perception of something that not everyone can appreciate is an entirely familiar story. Just scratch the opinions of ten people at random to ask them what they think of Jackson Pollack's oil paintings and you will find more than half believing they are shams. Steingarten and his high priced scientific talent repeat the experiment with somewhat different conditions but with no loss of scientific rigor and come up with some, but not compelling statistical basis for saying that the tastes of one or two of the salts was different from the table salt controls.
Steingarten was probably constrained by the space allotted him on the pages of Vogue, but I would have liked him to take things just one step further and consider the relative costs of the `artisinal' salts compared to the perceived differences in taste. I suspect that Steingarten won this battle, but the salt enthusiasts may have lost the war to establish the greater culinary cachet of arcane salts.
But, unlike scientist Gould's work, this book is simply not about whether Steingarten reaches either the right or the desired conclusion. It is about the vistas opened to ways of thinking for yourself about food and the enjoyment you get from Mr. Steingarten's immensely talented way of writing about food. As with the case of the investigation into salt, I may have agreed with Professor Wolke's conclusion, but I think Steingarten was superior in every way in how he approached the issue. Wolke is good, but Steingarten is better.
Very highly recommended culinary reading!
Books:
- The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less
- The Well of Eternity (WarCraft: War of the Ancients, Book 1)
- They Had No Choice: Racing Pigeons at War
- Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control
- Torn Allegiances: The Story of a Gay Cadet
- Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First
- Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion
- War in the Air: The World War Two Aviation Paintings of Mark Poslethwaite GAvA
- Warren Ellis' Stranger Kisses
- What to Expect the First Year, Second Ed
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