Review: The Commitment by Dan Savage

If you are addicted to The Onion and podcasts, you are probably already aware of Dan Savage’s work. His primary claim to fame is his weekly sex-advice column “Savage Love” and a podcast in a similar vein “The Savage Lovecast”. Dan has also graced the world with a collection of books. The most recent one (recent being 2005) is The Commitment detailing Dan and his partner Terry’s quandary: To marry or not to marry?

Savage’s previous book The Kid was a romp through the perils of adopting a child as a gay couple, who have only been together for two years. Both books come from a place of humor and sincerity- which is much more palatable in large doses than his other books that are suited to short reads while in the can. Having been with his partner for longer than all of Britney Spears’ marriages combined, neither Dan nor Terry really see the advantage of heading to the border and getting hitched. Their adopted son tells them they aren’t allowed to get married because they “weren’t the kind of boys who marry girls,” but that they had to live with each other and be his dads. Dan’s mom is pushing the marriage issue, even though her other children are also unmarried with kids. Dan and Terry just want tattoos. [Read more]

Book Review: What Should I Do With My Life?

What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question
by Po Bronson

Like many of us, the author (Po Bronson) sought to answer this question about his own life. And, like most of us, he had to approach it in his own way. He decided he would talk to people who had answered this “ultimate question” - nine hundred of them, to be exact. He talked to about seventy of them in detail, even lived with a few, and ultimately included fifty of their stories in his book.

Despite the reader’s understandable expectation of an answer to the book’s title question: What Should I Do With My Life? Bronson doesn’t offer any career-guides or self-help advice in this book. That’s important to understand. Any guidance or judgments are purely anecdotal. If you turn to this book looking for clear-cut answers, you will quickly learn that there are none. See this post for more about that. [Read more]

Review: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

You might not consider sitting down to read a cookbook from cover to cover, but with some cookbooks you should. Through the onslaught of celebrity chefs, catch phrases and cleverly named shows on Food Network, and the bandwagon jumpers of reality TV competition format TopChefHell’sKitchenAmericanIronChef shows- its good to find out that some people still write down recipes intended for us, the huddled masses, to cook.

I have been a fan of Mark Bittman for some time now, ever since I went off to college and received his first How To Cook Everything. Honestly, Mom, I was a little insulted. “I can cook!” I thought. But with Bittman, I could cook Everything. His first book was incredibly easy to follow, versatile, and allowed me to make a meal out of whatever was crammed in the mini-fridge and some strategically spent cafeteria money. Since that first book, Mark Bittman has entered the realm of the celebrity chef. He has a weekly column in the NY Times and has a show on PBS, but I won’t hold that against him. [Read more]