Favorite Books of the 21st Cent.: 1. Food Rules, illus. by Maira Kalman

Have you seen lists of Best Books of the 21st Century (so far) going around?
I noticed them first on Facebook, then saw the NYTimes is one of many who put together a list--their "100 Best Books".

Some of my favorite books aren't on any of the lists I've seen.
(Most especially the book I always rave about--All Systems Red, the 1st and best of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.
I bet it turns up on "Best Sci-Fi", but I haven't look at such a list.)

And then, half the write-ups are awful--swollen with adjectives and hyperbole--they don't make me want to read the book.

I jotted down some words from the reviews--as a reminder to myself NEVER TO SAY:

"unpack / locate/ navigate / bear witness/ silenced...
human animals/ human debris/ late capitalism/ rampant neo-imperialist capitalism...
necessary/ urgent/ delicious/ beloved/ heartbreaking/ Tolstoyan/ rare / fragile/ visceral/ fresh/ labyrinthine/ destabilizing/
insanely good/ silently exploding/ quietly devastating"
 
The one I hate the most is "necessary" applied to a book.
Water and air are necessary.

Now, fueled partly by annoyance and partly by love, I have to write up some of my favorites and see if I write anything better, something I'd like if I were me (but hadn't written it).

I started on Facebook with an easy one:
Michael Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, 
Illustrated Edition (2013) with art by Maira Kalman.
Easy because she's one of my favorite artists and her pictures speak for themselves.

I did see Food Rules on a list, but only the one, and it was the first ed., 2009, which has no pictures. Michael Pollan said that all rules you need to know he put on the cover of the first edition. You might remember?
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I liked that, but it's the illustrations that make this edition a "Best of" for me because of the sensory joy they bring. It's like you can EAT the book now, with your eyes.

Pollan added more rules to this edition, some of them suggested by readers. They aren't rules in the army sense, though. They aren't beat-yourself-up weight-loss rules. They are suggestions of ways we could to pay more, better, loving attention to food and to the people we share it with (including the people who grow and make it).
Like, "put flowers on the table".

He asked Maira Kalman if she wanted to illustrate it.
She says on her website page for the book that she said yes, but told him that "Cheez Doodles had a beloved place in our family history".

This was not an impediment. Kalman writes,
"He did not hold that against me. This is a great country. VAST. Complicated. With plenty of room for extremes.":

_________

Play with Your Food

I'm never good at making myself do things that are good for me if the things are unpleasant.
Who is? (Maybe you?)
I've been writing about trying/wanting to eat better and cook more, and this book helps because it's about adding pleasantness.
This illustration, below, encourages me because it makes cooking look like the circus.
"We will always make time for the things that MATTER. Cooking matters."

It gives me a fun idea too:
DRAW MY FOOD.
The nutrition app I am free-trialing is all about words and numbers: track this, count that. It is unpleasant to me, so I don't do it.

No one suggests playing with your food. "Try dancing with your food."
What if I sketched some of the things I eat? That would help me enjoy food more.
(Eating too much isn't really enjoyable.)

Hm. For the next print-class project, we are introducing color. Maybe I would like to carve some beautiful or fun foods... Like Cheez Doodles!
______________________

Thinking about what a good mini-review of books would be...
It might/should say...
1. What the book is (what's it about?)
2. Why it's special--lots of people write about food--why is this book different? (No froth, please.)
3. Why you care--and why we might

I'm making mine a list of my favorite books, not "the best". I'm not judging them for literary merit, but by how much I liked them.
______________

Shorter is better on Facebook though, so I kept it simple. Also, I only have a few (51) "friends" there, but some are coworkers and remote relatives, and I don't like to expose myself there like I do here.

And anyway, a picture does the work: