All reviews copyright 1984-2008 Evelyn C. Leeper.
REMARKABLE READS edited by J. Peter Zane:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 10/29/2004]
REMARKABLE READS (edited by J. Peter Zane, ISBN 0-393-32540-7) is a collection of essays by various authors on "the most something- est book I read". For example, Denise Gess writes about "The Most Important Book I Read" (Albert Camus's THE STRANGER), and Nasdijj writes about "The Saddest Book I Read" (Louis L'Amour's TO TAME A LAND). Some essays are more interesting than others, of course, so you will probably want to pick and choose. As such, it is probably better to get this from the library than to buy it.
To order Remarkable Reads from amazon.com, click here.
EAT THIS, NOT THIS: THOUSANDS OF SIMPLE FOOD SWAPS THAT CAN SAVE YOU 10, 20, 30 POUNDS--OR MORE! by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/21/2008]
I looked at EAT THIS, NOT THIS: THOUSANDS OF SIMPLE FOOD SWAPS THAT CAN SAVE YOU 10, 20, 30 POUNDS--OR MORE! by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding (ISBN-13 978-1-594-86854-2, ISBN-10 1-594-86854-9) in the store. It will supposedly help you pick less fattening foods in restaurants, the supermarket, and so on. But the problem is that all too many of their examples are obvious, and not helpful. For example, at Outback Steakhouse the "good" meal they show is prime rib, and the "bad" meal is a strip steak. But the "good" meal had green beans and a sweet potato as the sides, while the "bad" meal has sauteed mushrooms and a baked potato *loaded* (with butter, sour cream, and bacon). Well, duh! What would be useful is a comparison of just the prime rib to just the steak. (The answer is that the prime rib is 480 calories, with 38 grams of fat, while the strip steak is 900 calories, with 60 grams of fat. This is almost entirely due to the fact that the prime rib is 8 ounces, while the steak is 14 ounces. In fact, the steak has less fat per ounce; the problem is that it is almost twice as large.) It also suggests not ordering spicy tuna roll in a Japanese restaurant, because the filling has mayonnaise. Seriously, now, how much actual mayonnaise is there in a spicy tuna roll? With large, flashy pictures, the pages have space for only a few items per restaurant. You'd be better off getting the restaurants' nutritional information charts and reading those. This strikes me as a possibly interesting book to flip through, but not to buy.
(I am reminded of Morgan Spurlock, the maker of SUPER SIZE ME, who gained so much weight by eating only at McDonalds. The fact that he had non-diet sodas at every meal may have contributed to this more than he acknowledged, as well as his policy of always accepting the super-sizing option. Yes, if you eat as stupidly as possible, you will gain weight.)
To order Eat This, Not This from amazon.com, click here.