my bedside

I don't own a TV. Never have in my life, come to think of it. So living solo again, I catch Top Chef as I can, where I can, how I can. Generally iTunes and comrades come through, but I've got a stopgap: I picked up Kitchen Confidential. Am I happy I did? Well, it was a fun read, but I did have to work hard to shoulder past the bits of obligatory misogyny, the typical saltpeter of toughguy pyrotechnics:



While I'm onto my recent reads ... I had hopes for this book, with which I was unfamiliar till I spotted it on a shelf. Stilted, not very insightful:



This book made my heart ache. I kept getting the feeling as I read The Road that I was suddenly so grateful for all the words Coetzee left out of his slim dystopias. Because McCarthy seems to have picked them all up and gathered them here. And they sting.



A wacky snack, this next one. Good for fans of Hempel, Lutz, Slavin:



And like most folks observing an absence, I picked up Liam Rector's latest. It's also sent me back to Don Hall's poetry. Without, in particular. Such beautiful poems in there.