What a sanctimonious piece of cooking advice. I could really not deal with the author's passive-aggressive "hints" and opinions about everything in a person's home - from the clutter of non-cooking essentials in the kitchen to which pots and pans are acceptable for use. I picked this up from the library because I want to make vegetables and grains more a part of my diet, moving them from side dishes to main events. I did not need a lecture on the morals of animal-based diets or farming. And for someone who insists that her love of cooking made her unsuitable to go to cooking school or become a chef, the author sounds like any other foodie when she harps on only using fresh herbs or a thousand ingredients for her dishes.

The author has a cooking show on public broadcasting television, and you can feel the NPR/PBS-smugness coming off in waves during the introduction sections of the book, which included her background, what kitchen tools and supplies are needed, and what to stock your pantry with (hope your budget can take all her "good" suggestions). What the book lacks in pictures or descriptions of techniques, it makes up for with trying to complicate dishes such as tomato bruschetta or mashed potatoes. The fifteen pictures found in the middle of the book were of the aforementioned bruschetta and asparagus spears dressed in lime juice....nothing from the more complex dishes. There is an abundant reliance on tofu, tempeh, and TVP based dishes, none of which interested me. The very small desert section featured either fruit with honey/maple syrup or some kind of tofu pie. She mentions all the different grains in the stocking the pantry section, then uses pasta for almost every dish in the entrée sections. Bulgar and quinoa each gets one recipe.

I will say the one dessert I liked was a Basmati Rice Pudding (made without dairy or eggs). The recipes I want to try come from the salad and appetizer sections, along with eggplant meatballs (so I can make a vegetarian version of Italian Wedding Soup). Nothing new or original, no pictures, plus condescending tone equals a lackluster effort.

This was a fast read, but heartbreaking look at the America's "golden era" (post-WWII to 1973). The author is an artist and art professor who works mainly in video and photography; this book is more or less a literary version of her gallery work. It is also deeply personal, as the author was one of the babies surrendered and adopted during this era. The book opens and closes with the author's journey to finding her birth mother.

This book is HIGHLY repetitive, to the point that the repetition becomes almost satirical. Every woman profiled is/was white, middle class or upper middle class, Christian, from a two-parent heteronormative family, and never had sex education (either by parents or an organization). Their stories started to blend into one another. The author does broach the subjects of class, race, and religion in the last two chapters devoted to the women and explains why the women profiled were all from the same background. Those chapters were the most interesting from a intersectional feminist historian angle. There were inclusions of women who were date-raped, but at the time did not have the information (or even the words) to understand they had been raped until much later in life. For most of the women, they went in search of their children or made it possible to be found by their children; the author does go into the methods and organizations that are working with both groups to reunite families.

These are heartbreaking stories, even if they run together in the readers' heads. Families were particularly cruel to the pregnant teen, but the staff at hospitals and homes for unwed mothers were even more so. They sheer amount of lies, money, and judgment the adoption industry created in the post-WW II years was astounding. However, this book is not anti-adoption, a claim that is brought up in many reviews. They adoption process/legal rights is vastly different today than it was during this time period (much of that is credited to the work of the unwed mothers and surrendered children of this time, who banded together in the late 1970s and early 1980s).

I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in maternal issues or women's history.

Scott McGaugh wrote a decent book about the military medicine corps and how they changed the battlefield throughout America's history. McGaugh is not a historian, which is clear from his choices to profile and how he structured the book; he is a communications director for a museum and so his writing reflects a public relations-type of delivering information. 

The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War I each get one chapter that was very much an overview of the wars and where military medicine stood. Each of these chapters felt very similar, as the military was never really mindful of the medics, equipment, or processes that were advancing in the civilian world...until fighting broke out and men were dying. There was a lot of improvisation and development came from the Army branch. The highlight of this section was the mobile ambulance trains; I got to see and explore one on my trip to York's National Railway Museum.

This was followed by six chapters on World War II, five of which were devoted to the Marines fighting in the Pacific Ocean. And this is where the book fails a little for me - the one chapter on Europe dealt with the Army's advancement in medicine, but it was a total love fest between the author and the Marines. There was one chapter devoted to medical corpsmen who were POWs under the Japanese which was the most interesting chapter World War II section had.

And the Marine love-in continued in the one chapter on the Korean Conflict, even though the highlight of this era's medical advancement was the concept and execution of M.A.S.H. - Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (emphasis mine). Vietnam got two chapters, both dealing with Marines yet again. Ditto for the one chapter on Iraq (combination of Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, which was another fail for me as each operation was very different other than location), although for the first time a female medic was profiled. The lone POC profiled came in the chapter on Afghanistan, but you also get another group of Marines as well.  

Did I mention that my branch of service, the USAF, received 0, nada, nothing, Not. One. Damn. Word. about our medical corps? Yeah, this still annoys me a week after reading the book.

At the end of each chapter, there was a paragraph or two that just spewed stats about the number of troops involved in that battle/war, the number dying, the number injured - but no real analysis. It was interesting to read, but really only recommend this to military history buffs or medical history readers.

This was a fun read for those baseball fans that are bewildered by how baseball teams build and manage said teams. My husband enjoys watching the Oakland A's, which is the subject of this book; but like other Lewis' works, this one is more about the culture and industry than just the this one team. I honestly wished other team managers/owners see the value in at least some of the ideas of Billy Beane and apply them to their own teams (*cough* NY Yankees *cough*  - yeah, maybe we could have avoided the problem that is A-Roid). I also like the fact that Lewis drags Bud Selig through the mud a little. Petty yes, but still fun reading. There was a lot of math involved and detailed descriptions of what stats actually mean, so I had a slower time reading this book than previous Lewis works.

I really enjoyed reading Maj (Ret.) Jeffrey McGowan's memoirs about being gay in the US Army during the Regan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. His story is more than about his sexuality; it is also a snapshot of a great shift within the military. He describes the Regan years as a military focused on one particular enemy (the Soviets) and flushed with money and equipment that gave service members a swagger and confidence in their careers. McGowan gets a front row seat to this as his first assignment is in Germany. As the Cold War ends, the Middle East wars begins; McGowan really grows up here in the desert as both a person and as a military leader. All the while, he is conflicted about his sexuality and his place in the military. Once Desert Shield/Desert Storm is over, he goes Airbourne at Ft Bragg; the military goes through an upheaval as well, as the Clinton administration comes into power. Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell becomes policy after much compromise, but McGowan really doesn't see a change in his fellow service members' perceptions of LGBT* serving (even thought they have always served!). McGowan becomes a commander of an unit that ends up putting him in the position between following the old guard and discharging a hard working private or risk defending said private and accidentally outing himself. He ends up defending the private and starts making his way toward leaving the military on his own terms.

McGowan had such a fresh voice and easy writing style; no matter where in the world he was writing about, you really get a sense of time and place. His heartbreak is real, but his growing confidence in himself to come out was something to root for. This was written and published 5 years before DADT was repealed.