SFist Reads
We were so happy to hear that SFist Jackson is using the first SFPL branch we ever used in San Francisco, the North Beach library. He's even reserving books! Yay, Jackson. Meanwhile, SFist Derrick uses our fine local independent bookstores to get his Reads on. That's right, there's room for all sorts here at SFist.
SFist Jackson is reading "the new Dumas," The Knight of Maison-Rouge. Actually, it's a novel that hasn't been translated into English for over 100 years, so it's more "new to anglos." The story revolves around a chivalrous Republican who falls in love with a beautiful loyalist and agrees to help her spring Marie Antoinette from prison. Our only problem so far is that the translation is a little too 'familiar' in its modernity -- he prefers the older translations because they don't pull so many punches with the language to cater to young people and modern colloquialisms. He's tempted to cross out 'citizeness' and replace with the elegant 'citoyenne,' and can't believe the effusions of 'hey' and 'heck' should be so liberally used. Still, the endnotes are thorough and edifying, you simply can't go wrong with Alexander Dumas, and with the autrichienne's beheading, you're guaranteed a happy ending.
SFist Derrick was over the moon to discover that Jane Grigson's classic Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery has been reprinted in the UK. The formerly out-of-print book jockeys for nighttime reading with Patience Gray's Honey From a Weed, considered by uber-foodies to be the best Mediterranean cookbook you'll find. Derrick drifts to sleep with visions of octopus and pork fat dancing through his head.
SFist Jer is reading the new Atlantic Monthly -- the cover story on online dating, by Lori Gotlieb, is a fascinating look at how these sites compile data and try to make matches. A special "150 years of the Atlantic" section focuses on civil rights & black identity; it reprints pieces that originally appeared in the Atlantic by Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail." Jer had actually never read the latter before (he blames his California public school education) and found it extremely moving. Also insightful was a piece on checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers, wherein author Ted Conover discusses his experiences on both sides of such checkpoints--with soldiers and with Palestinian commuters.