You don’t get too many novels about elderly detectives, but Only to Sleep is that rare bird. The Estate of Raymond Chandler the author behind the iconic hard-boiled PI has commissioned writers to spin the character into different directions and Lawrence Osborne takes him to Mexico, on the hunt for a real estate developer who died leaving his widow with a nice life insurance policy.
Throughout sleepy and not so-sleepy small Mexican towns, Marlowe follows the trail of betrayals to the bitter end and just might actually retire for good this time.
Now, to drink with this book, it’s gotta be light so you can keep up with twists and turns of the plot so how about…
Cervecería de Colima and their Cayaco Light lager or try Boomtown Brewery and their Euro lager Bad Hombre to tie Los Angeles and an old city nickname back into frame. Or you can go big and have the tequila barrel version of Otra Vez Gose from Sierra Nevada.
Alcoholism and the treatment of is a fascinating topic to view through the historical lens and Christopher Finan goes back in time with Drunks to look at it.
What really stands out is a weird omission from America’s weird relationship with alcohol. Prohibition is effectively swept past with nary a chapter. Yes, talk of the prohibition movement is woven through but Drunks is more concerned with those who are trying to understand and eradicate drunkeneness. Either through kindness or a complete lack thereof.
Once, you key into the format chosen, this works as a look into those who are trying to understand and possibly fix when people are lost in alcohol. But it seems from this reading that nothing has really been learned about the core of why one person may quickly and completely succumb and another drink more but be in control.
Genetics? Nature vs. Nurture. Finan’s book doesn’t really answer this. It all comes back to AA, which is fine. I, personally, don’t have any quibbles with how they approach this problem. In fact, I believe it is probably the best avenue overall. But that makes this book a long windup to a quick answer. You need a village to raise a child and to monitor those who drink.
Maybe, I am in the mood to learn more about the modern recovery and abuse issue industry and how it works and fails and charges way too much.
I almost put Adjustment Day down multiple times. Pretty much every time that Palahniuk mentioned Fight Club as a meta reference. The central revolutionary thesis is fine and probably plays well to a certain crowd who want to burn Trump down or split away from the 1/2 of the country they don’t agree with.
But I thought the idea that a country needs to cull itself of excess testosterone (i.e. males) to keep the country moving to be a much more interesting tack than the whole “adjustment day”.
I also wasn’t really super keen on any of the characters. I am fine with no central lead or an anti-hero but there was no character that I could really follow all the way through the through-line, as it were. Especially through all the spasms of violence that occur.
So, I can’t recommend this one but I can recommend some beers that would pair with it, if you are intrigued by the book or a Palahniuk completist.
Ninkasi Brewing – Day of the Red Eugene gets name checked in as one of the centers of revolution so go with this horror themed beer from Ninkasi.
I have listened to podcasts with and read magazines edited by John Holl and have found him to be straightforward with loads of beer knowledge. I have also disagreements with some of his points.
And all of that is on display in the new book, Drink Beer, Think Beer. From the mis-use of Quality Control instead of the more accurate consistency control, to the repeated cry of bad beer from “craft” (wait, he doesn’t like that term or “independent”) breweries, I feel like setting the book down, only to find a great argument on the next page.
This gives the book a debate club sort of feel. There is no doubt that Holl has had a great many beers and a lengthy beer education but whenever I am about to be persuaded to his side, he undercuts by siding with big macrobreweries or proclaiming that the word balanced in a review forgets the effects of yeast or water.
Seriously, in that case, all beer reviews forget water literally ALL the time and yeast a vast percentage too.
Regular readers will know that I hate the regurgitation of beers ingredients in books and though Holl shifts the focus a bit, it still comes off as quick primer material. Same with glassware. Which may be fine for non-beer geeks but I don’t think this book is pitched to the non-believers.
And though I do like his opinionated nature and he backs up those opinions with reasons why he likes/dislikes something, I found the book frustrating as a whole and not adding as much as could have been to beer discussion. There also seemed to be slight digs aimed at beer fans, beer bloggers and brewers that could have been left out. It left me thinking he was ticked off or on the fence leaning toward pessimism.
Personally, I would have liked perhaps more of a book about the problems and issues that breweries face before they open, after they open and in the future. I think his insights after visiting so many breweries would really shed light on the industry and be a new and vital topic.
Drink Beer, Think Beer seems to be an uneasy melding of the traditional and overdone, beer primer mixed with industry issues and the two just don’t work together in this book.
I am a sucker for beer history. Maybe since I have been blogging about craft beer for just about ten years now, I have seen fads and trends pass, breweries come and go and morph into new forms. But I still want to know more. What happened on the brewdecks and the sales calls and the places in between.
The Widmer Way by Jeff Alworth has the added bonus of being set in Portland (AKA Beervana) at the dawn or very early morning of craft beer. The best service that this book provides is to transport the reader back to those bootstrap start-up days and show that Widmer Bros. becoming what it is today wasn’t a sure bet.
The tale begins at the first brewery that Rob and Kurt put together and details the major part that their father had to play in keeping the brewery going that only a real handyman could and then tracks the brewery from their initial Alt bier to the flagship Hefe that the brewery is now known for.
You also read up on the strategic partnership with Anheuser-Busch and how the brothers were admired by the patriarch of the clan. Certainly a much different time for the now foreign owned beer giant. What follows is the eventual formation of the CBA – Craft Brewers Alliance. Both of these financial moves set a precedent for breweries to either use or reject in the future.
I do wish that the book was longer. It is a common complaint of mine, I know. But I would like to have learned more about the Brewers who followed the brothers. Or more about the Widmer’s place in the shifting landscape of Portland beer. I guess more about the beer in general.
Overall though, the writing is sharp and precise and never veers into boring history. Alworth has a firm grasp on each sentence, paragraph and chapter.
And by the end, you will want to drink a Widmer Hefeweizen, maybe with a lemon.
This is a sad but fascinating topic for a book. The 1986 fire at the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Books burnt, books waterlogged and so much knowledge lost. Thankfully Susan Orlean is more than up to the task with The Library Book.
The book toggles from Orlean’s library memories, to the possible culprit of the fire, to the City of Los Angeles library history and to the fire itself. The book is nimble and still easy to follow. I found the roster of head librarians to be the most fascinating section of the story followed by how the main branch recovered to become the low slung showplace that it is today which I still try to walk through whenever I am close enough to it.
Since we didn’t really have a brewery downtown in the time frame that the fire occurred, I will have to pick from current spots.
First up is the close by Karl Straus DTLA outpost. Wreck Alley Imperial Stout. The stacks of books had to be sent to industrial food warehouses and kept cold to keep mold out. I can imagine aisles of wrecked biographies and mysteries.
There are beers named Library. Such as Hopworks Urban Brewery and their Library Lager, or The Local Library German Pils from Books & Brews in Indiana. But maybe, and not to be morbid, you should find a smoke beer to sip while reading this fascinating slice of Los Angeles history.
We are deep into the NFL 2018-19 season and the Chiefs and Rams have turned heads and life seems positive if you are the Commish. But in Big Game by Mark Leibovich, you go into the rooms where the owners and players and nugget miners work and you see a whole different portrait.
Leibovich is a veteran political reporter and he has chosen to write about another contentious world. This one he’s a fan of and despite his Patriot-ism, his writing is engaging and funny and world weary all at once. He is able to write about the aforementioned nugget miners, the journalists who once wrote columns who now compete to be the first tweet on who has been traded or fired or drafted.
Concussions loom large over this book and despite the growing mound of evidence, there seems to be little being done. This leads to somewhat repetitive passages where the PTE question comes up but is never really resolved. The same with Tom Brady and his health guru. While Brady is in great shape now, I don’t believe this is due solely to his program and the longer he plays, the worse off I think he will be when he hits 50 or 60 years old. Maybe that is a different book.
Leibovich is able to do the impossible and square the circle of being a fan while still dissecting the bad of the NFL office and the owners.
You gotta drink tailgate beers when you read this book and Flat Tail from Corvallis, Oregon does the Tailgater Kolsch. If you are in Wisconsin, Titletown beers would be a no brainer. But the basic choice would be something canned and something connected to Trump since that lying blowhard is in the book for his political chicanery and his failed bid to be an NFL owner, so maybe a can of Sam Adams 76 lager.
Beer travel guides were once all the rage but like most travel books, things change. It is harder to update a book than a website. But Kirk Richardson is trying something much harder. Surveying the entire nation in Craft Beer Country.
Part one is the Western United States. From Alaska down to Hawaii. That includes my neck of the beer woods, Los Angeles. I will be interested to see what Richardson says about my locals and which ones are featured.
Considering that there have been slight incursions into mixing Sake and craft beer, it is probably high time to learn more about the Japanese spirit, and Sake-Pedia from Jeff Cioletti looks to be a good place to start.
Cioletti is an International Kikisake-shi, think Cicerone or Sommelier but for Sake, and his goal with the book is to take Sake from misunderstood to enjoyed.
You might know Jespe Jarnit-Bjergsø from his brewery brand Evil Twin or his on again / off again feud with his twin brother but you can also call him author.
He has curated the Where to Drink Beer guidebook. Populated with “real experts – 500 of the world’s most revered brewers reveal the little-known, eclectic, and surprising destinations they visit for their ultimate beer.”
Typical of a Phaidon book, it looks great and is packed “with 1,600 listings in more than 70 countries – and detailed maps, reviews, key information, honest comments, and suggestions.”
It joins a series that also includes coffee, pizza and drinks.
