Shopping day!

Oh, my devoted fans, all two of you...  Another book review is in process and should appear some time this week.  But in the meantime, here's a preview of some new books just added to the collection.

I was in NYC yesterday, walking across town, wondering what happened to the Fishs Eddy store that used to be there (Note:  the Fish's Eddy store is still there, just at 19th and Broadway, not at 13th Street, where I was), when I spied the Strand Bookstore.  My friend George is always talking about the Strand, and his inability to leave the store without a bagful of books, but my memory of the Strand was of a series of kiosks by Central Park, not a stand-alone bookstore.  In I went.  Danger ahead.

The Strand is like a bookstore on steroids.  There are miles of books there, several floors, really high, really full shelves, new, used, everything.  I only scratched the surface as I had a train to catch,  but if you go, allocate a good bit of time.  And I will give you a list of things to look for for me.

The little time I had was spent in the cooking section.  Shock and surprise.  They have an area clearly labeled for books about tea and coffee, and another for entertaining.  Most bookstores have these areas as well, but they shrink every year until they are subsumed into "general cooking."  I came away with four books - three about tea, and one about table setting.  Stay tuned for reviews of these...

I'm surprised I don't have this book from the mid-80s by Michael Smith.  But my list says no.  I need to double-check.  If I have two, who wants the other copy?

Most of the tablescapes in this book are far too unrealistic and over-the-top for me, but I'm hoping to get some good ideas.

The couple that wrote this book have a few others published as well.  All of their books are really just recipe books from their bed-and-breakfast, but I always like seeing what recipes people choose for a themed tea party.  

Although it is unlikely I will ever make my own tea from homegrown plants, you never know...

What books are you reading this winter?

Passion for Tea

I'd put this week's book on my Amazon wishlist a while ago.  The cover is so compelling...

And while I like nothing better than browsing for and buying books online, it will never beat being able to pick up a book, read the back or the flyleaf, and truly evaluate whether or not it gets into your collection.  So yes, I judged a book by its cover and failed...

Beverly Rorem's book from 2008 reminds me of nothing so much as a coloring book.  It shares those dimensions and soft-cover quality.  And while there are no pictures to apply my crayons to, the book might be improved by their inclusion.  But maybe I'm just too critical.

The author is clearly on a crusade.  She is not a tea expert (and not a writer), but a self-taught tea lover.  She opens the book saying that, "tea is sexy, tea is glamourous, tea is funky," but her examples don't demonstrate these ideas.  Just because there is a tea shop in the East Village doesn't mean that tea is funky.  The availability of more than one kind of tea at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas does not make tea glamourous.  There's just no evidence in this book that tea is sexy at all.  But Rorem is certainly ardent, if not articulate.

The book jumps all over the place in terms of topics.  It reads like a grade school book report:  I've read a lot of stuff, now let me relate it all to you.  The author mentions Starbucks twice in the first ten pages and five times by page 40, as if mentioning a popular coffee establishment will lend tea and this book credibility.  She also tells you to read Wikipedia to research certain tea topics.  The bibliography credits several articles from the Encyclopedia Britannica as sources for the book.

The book concludes with a long chapter on all of the health benefits of drinking tea and includes snippets on how tea can cure anything from ADD to Alzheimer's, and everything in-between.

Passion for Tea, while clearly passionate, is a clear example of the perils of self-publishing.  In some ways I hope the author didn't have an editor, because this work does not do anyone credit.

But the cover is pretty!