Title: Candy Freak
Author: Steve Almond
Genre: Memoir/humor/non-fiction (?)
Candy Freak is a semi-amusing book about one man’s love of and relationship with candy explored through visiting and researching small candy factories and producers in the US.The author’s style is quite funny and entertaining but the subject matter isn’t adequate for a book. An extended essay would have been better I think.
I much preferred the author’s short story collection, The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories.

Title: Case Histories
Author: Kate Atkinson
Genre: Fiction
I suggested this book to my former book club because some members had really wanted to read a mystery. I don’t like mysteries much but it’s good to have diverse selections for a book club. Turns out this isn’t much of a traditional mystery at all, I suspect that’s one of the main reasons I liked it so much. Several mystery situations arise (murders, disappearances, etc) but they aren’t dealt with in a traditional mystery format and there is no real crime and punishment ending that ties up loose ends. I enjoyed the writer’s narrative style and prose very much and was genuinely surprised by a few twists (and I wasn’t disappointed with the twists I saw coming a mile away). There was one recurring theme in the book that I wasn’t terribly fond of but overall it didn’t take away from my enjoyment. Highly recommended, a very enjoyable book.

Title: Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
Author: Julie Powell
Genre: Non- Fiction, Memoir
Julie Powell was rapidly approaching 30, unhappy with her job, frustrated with where she was in her life and unsure where she was going. All of this sounds way too familiar to me to allow me to even consider not reading this book.
At that edge of 30 Powell decided to cook every single recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I over the course of one year. It was a monumental undertaking to say the least and it changed her life in ways she never imagined. Through her year of MtAoFC she kept a blog updating her progress and pitfalls and all the normal blog fodder. I read her blog a couple times in 2003 while the project was underway but at the time it didn’t mean much to me so I paid very little attention to it.
This time round though the book means very much. Again, blame it on my familiarity with the general subject matter (sometimes overwhelming ennui) but I came away from the book feeling optimistic. Not because Powell ended up with a book deal, writing gigs, and got to ditch her white collar worker bee job, but optimistic because she was a bit different at the end of her project, a bit happier, a bit better.
Powell’s style is very blog-ish in the best possible way -friendly, familiar, conversational. Even at 300+ pages the book is a breeze to get through and the cooking success and tragedies are well blended with stories and anecdotes form other parts of the author’s life. There are no photos and no recipes, it’s not a cookbook, just a really good retelling of a time of serious change in one woman’s life.