Book Description
Fruits and Vegetables
You won't have trouble getting children to appreciate fruits and vegetables with this vividly illustrated learning book in English and Spanish. Each page introduces the reader to a wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables using carefully selected mouthwatering words. A complete pronunciation guide is included in the back of the book for quick and easy reference. Healthy and nutritious foods have never been made more appealing to children. They'll eat it up! 22 pages, 4.75" x 5.875"
Frutas y vegetales
Es fácil hacer que los niños aprecien el valor de las frutas y los vegetales con este libro de aprendizaje en inglés y español de animadas ilustraciones. Cada página presenta al lector una amplia gama de frutas y vegetales frescos usando provocativas palabras que han sido cuidadosamente seleccionadas. Al respaldo del libro hay una guía de pronunciación que sirve como consulta rápida y fácil. Los alimentos saludables y nutritivos nunca antes habían resultado tan apetitosos para los niños. ¡Sin duda se los comerán todos! 22 páginas, 4.75" x 5.875"
The Benefits and Features of the English • Spanish Foundations series include:
• Helps teach vocabulary and other oral language concepts
• Summary page at the end to recap and instruct
• Helps kids get ready to read
• Helps develop phonemic, print, and numeric awareness
• Large bright colorful pictures to keep kids engaged
• Rounded corners for children's safety
• Laminated to protect from spills
• Board book so they can last
• Great size for little hands
• Simple but engaging text
• Useful for beginning Spanish at any level
• Useful for beginning English at any level
Customer Reviews:
Fruits and Vegetables.......2006-08-09
The thing that I really like about this book was that all the sentences weren't the same. It did not just say "these are bananas, these are tomatoes" all the time, but integrated questions, and even characteristics of the fruits and vegetables. The pictures are bright and colorful, and made me want to go buy a piece of fruit right then. I would highly recommend this book as a useful and practical tool for learning the names of basic fruits and vegetables in both English and Spanish. It is very likely that you will find yourself practicing these words at home when you are eating a piece of watermelon, or chopping a pepper for dinner.
Book Description
Where does pepper come from? Why do bears hibernate? And why do snails carry their houses on their backs? Because they like to go camping? Of course not!
This book asks some of the things kids wonder about, and offers some really creative (but WRONG!) guesses. But you can't fool the kids in this book—they know all the answers!
Customer Reviews:
Great for questioning.......2007-05-29
I used this book in my Science class to get my kids to "wondering"- funny book!
Book Description
The essential guide for making sure your food is safe
A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives is back again, in an updated sixth edition. This valuable reference gives you all the facts about the relative safety and side effects of more than 12,000 ingredients that end up in your food as a result of processing and curing, such as preservatives, food-tainting pesticides, and animal drugs. For example, drugs used to tranquilize pigs may sedate diners!
There are hundreds of new entries to this edition, and topics covered include information about recently discovered resistant strains of bacteria credited to the antibiotics added to animal feed, as well as startling statistics on the amount of money spent on certain additives each year—$1.4 billion—on just flavorings and flavor enhancers.
A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives is a precise tool that will tell you exactly what to leave on supermarket shelves as a reminder to manufacturers that you know what the labels mean and which products are safe to bring home to your family.
Customer Reviews:
Know what you're eating........2007-07-14
This is a very nice resource to learn of the ingredients in the foods we consume today. Every house should have a copy of this book.
a good starting point.......2007-05-04
if you need a quick overview and have no real knowledge about ingredients, this is helpful. but if you are looking for thorough definitions and origins of certain ingerdients, like i was, it's not the book to get. i thought the book would read more like a dictionary, with definitions and sources of ingredients found in many products; specifically i was looking to see from where ingredients were obtained, whether or not ingredients were animal based or animal by-products. unfortunately, this is not the case. the descriptions do not follow a pattern as far as including the same types of information for each entry. some will simply list other products which include the entry ingredient, other times you will find a random sentence fragment that goes no where. some definitions seem like the information was gathered from a number of reference materials and then thrown together in a gibberish mish-mash of words. there are apparently a lot of assumptions that the author made with regard to how much her readers already know about some of the entries. i think a better editting job would improve the book a bit, but this is the sixth edition, so it's not like they haven't had a chance to review the material. i really think referring to this book as a dictionary is inappropriate, it's more of a reference book.
Additives Galore.......2007-04-09
This is a great book for anyone who is concerned about food additives. This is my second book. I use this book more than any other book that I have regarding additives. It is my food bible. It is the most informative book about additives that I have come across so far for the price.
Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives Ruth Winter.......2007-02-08
This is a comprehensive list of good and not so good stuff that goes into your food. With this in hand everyone can make the best decisions of what to eat in order to stay healthy. See also her other books including her Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients.
Too narrow, not enough health information.......2007-02-06
I was very disappointed when I received this book. I was hoping for something that would arm me with knowledge and enable me to make truly smart choices when reviewing the ingredients on packages. However, what I got was a very narrow, "FDA approved" listing of the uses and possible side effects of many ingredients. I have always been a label reader and I have done research on many chemicals and additives and know that there are 1000s of KNOWN carcinogens, mood destabilizers, & biological disrupters that are in our food and household products. But, when I looked them up in this book it would say something like : "used mostly as an artificial sweetener." Duh. Thanks. Now could you please tell me what it does to the human body?
I promptly returned the book. You can find less "censored" info with some research on the internet.
Average customer rating:
- My son's favorite book
- A requested favorite over and over
- I thought it would be better based on reviews :(
- breathtaking
- A Beautiful Book
|
Alphabet Soup
Scott Gustafson
Manufacturer: The Greenwich Workshop Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Alphabet
| Basic Concepts
| Baby-3
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Ages 4-8
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Literature
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Linguistics
| Words & Language
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Classic Fairy Tales
-
Animal Orchestra
-
Rhymes & Reasons
-
Peter Pan
-
Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose
ASIN: 0867130253 |
Book Description
Otter invites his friends to bring their favorite ingredients for an alphabet soup house-warming party.
Customer Reviews:
My son's favorite book.......2006-08-16
I purchased this book for my 2 1/2 yr. old son. He LOVES this book and we read it every night. I'm amazed that he has memorized the entire book.
A requested favorite over and over .......2005-10-18
I first checked out this book from our library and it has proven to be one of our best book selections ever. Our 3 year-old son has requested it every single night since we brought it home and he loves studying the illustrations. He is especially amused at the jaguar making a jam sandwhich at the end of the story. I often find him looking at this book on his own. It has truly sparked his interest in letters!
I thought it would be better based on reviews :(.......2004-12-28
I bought this book for my four year old daughter being it received high reviews on Amazon. I was a little disappointed. About mid story, my daughter was bored with the whole concept and pretty much wanted to go on to reading another book. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed but I think it would be better for ages kindegarten and up rather than preschool or younger. Sorry...
breathtaking.......2004-08-24
I am a Scott Gustafson fan and so is my husband and my nearly 3-year-old son. We bought this book as a Christmas gift for my son at a local gallery (as well as couple of others and a print) two years ago. I too had a hard time finding it at chain bookstores. This is by far my son's most favorite book--not only did he learn all his letters from it, but he tests his parents knowledge by asking us questions from the book, ie, "What does the zebra bring for the soup? Zuchini!" I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in original and intelligent art.
A Beautiful Book.......2003-04-21
We were givin this book last Christmas to read to our baby and have now bought it for a housewarming gift. This is a beautiful, whimsical book that will delight all ages. I'm glad that Amazon.com carries it because we've found that NOBODY shelves it in stock, which is a shame because I think more people would love this book if they saw it on the shelves. The paintings are simply fantastic, and the words delight even our little 16 month old.
Amazon.com
A man of Rabelaisian appetite, with the exquisite palate of the true gastronome and the literary flair to match, A.J. Liebling (1904-1963) was a formidable eater and a remarkable man, and his nostalgic recitation of his years and meals in Paris is a pleasure to read, dream on, and drool about.
Liebling treasured a good appetite as a prerequisite for writing about food, as his accounts of substantial meals (two portions of cassoulet, one steak topped with beef marrow, and a dozen or so oysters, for example) attest. For the poised, precise, literary, and humorous flavor of his writing, you need only crack open the book--any page will do. Liebling recounts how to dine superbly without being lead astray by too much money, and he digresses magnificently on the evils of abstemiousness ("No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures; no ascetic can be considered reliably sane"). In this age of diets and pragmatic health care, it's refreshing to read such an inspired and inspiring ode to pleasure. As a means of savoring a love affair with Paris, sparking an interest in a trip to France, restructuring your priorities for the trip you've already planned, or gearing up on the flight over for the gastronomic debauches to come, Liebling is unsurpassed. --Stephanie Gold
Book Description
New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling recalls his Parisian apprenticeship in the fine art of eating in this charming memoir.
Customer Reviews:
A Treat.......2006-07-30
Did anyone ever love Paris, or at least eating in Paris, like Liebling. I share his love for the city and for the cuisine. Perhaps this colors my view but I really enjoyed this book.
reading between the meals.......2005-06-08
This book was strongly recommended to me by a friend who is from Europe and is very discerning when it comes to American writers. I'm glad that I have it.
While not nearly as zany or as challenging as Kerouac or Burroughs, this work, at its best, is rich, insightful and intensely funny: "What he called his pipes("ma tuyauterie"), being insufficiently excercised, lost their tone, like the leg muscles of a retired champion. When, in his kindly effort to please me, he challenged the escargots en pots de chambre, he was like an old fighter who tries a comeback without training for it."
The language is elegant and piercing, despite what the hypercritics have said; and the work stands as an opus to epicurean bliss.
It's well worth the read before, after, or in between the wonderful meals!
A Taste for Life. .......2004-12-21
I have to say first of all that I'm a sucker for all of the "Paris in the early part of the twentieth century" literature. I love Celine and Miller, but my favorite was Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Well, Between Meals is no A Moveable Feast but it certainly is a high quality read that I can unquestionably recommend to you.
Liebling, make no mistake, is a top notch writer and his sentence structure, use of metaphor, and style have much to offer aspiring wordsmiths. He has an eye for the essential and this is particularly true if you're at all like me as far as food is concerned. Liebling is a true gourmand and, even though I am completely unlearned and unappreciative in regards to fine dining, I still enjoyed his narration and memories of that splendid age.
The best of these essays is "Passable" where he recalls his old girlfriend from his student years. Liebling informs us that he does a poor job in reconstructing her but his description of their romance is quite compelling. I loved that essay just as I did the one on Mirande. This is a world long gone but we're fortunate that books like this are still in print. Reading it will give you a snapshot of beauty that will hang like a Renoir in the corridors of your mind.
Makes you long for the good old days..........2004-09-30
This is a fantastic book, but if you've never cracked The New Yorker open before, you might not like the style. Very in the moment and tongue in cheek, Liebling is a master wordsmith leaving no offense done to him by the onset of modernity unheckled. Some of the greatest tidbits come when he derrides the famous Michelin Star rating system for French restaurants, now a standard that chefs have literally killed themselves over - Liebling reminds you that its just a rating from a TIRE manufacturer and that he feels it marked the decline of real French cooking.
I read passages of this book out loud to friends and family, most notably the ones dealing with the immense amounts of food, and always got a laugh. This is not a book dealing with the upper crust of French high society, but rather a street wise, in the guts little tome that entertains and educates - though sadly, it is unlikely one can find the Paris that Liebling describes anymore.
What a bore! One star is an over-rating!.......1999-12-07
Before purchasing this book, I read all the customer comments which gave nothing but praise. I just don't get it. I wish one of the reviewers would have given me tips on how to stay awake while plodding through each sentence/paragraph, along with where to find a single nugget in these pages worth remembering. Okay, I'll probably always wonder how the author's love of boxing was deemed worth inclusion, but then I wonder why the entire book was printed. I feel suckered! And can't think of anything to recommend this book. My advice is to spend your money on ANYTHING written by M.F.K. Fisher, "The Tummy Trilogy" by Calvin Trillin or "Blue Trout and Black Truffles" by Joseph Wechsberg for much more pleasurable reading.
Book Description
At last, what every Westerner in a Japanese restaurant or market needs: the first truly comprehensive dictionary of Japanese food and ingredients. Standard dictionaries can often mislead us--with akebia for akebi, sea cucumber for namako, plum for ume. Hosking's dictionary includes not only dishes and ingredients, everything from the delicate mitsuba leaf to the dreadful okoze fish: colorful appendices disclose such aspects of Japanese culture as the making of miso to the tea ceremony and the influence of vegetarianism.
With Japanese-English and English-Japanese sections, A Dictionary of Japanese Food explains the nuances and eliminates the mysteries of Japanese food.
Customer Reviews:
A valueable pocket guide to take shopping.......2006-11-26
This ten-year old dictionary remains unsurpassed
as a guide to the ingredients, methods and utensils
used in japanese cooking. It is a portable volume
with romanized, kana and kanji versions of all the
names and so is ideal for a trip to the market
where many unfamilar ingredients may be presented
to the english--speaking food lover.
There are seventeen useful appendices that cover
topics like:
Chopsticks
Katsuoboshi
The kitchen and its utensils
Kombu
The Meal
Miso
Sake
Salt
Sansai
Soy sauce
Sushi
Tea
The tea ceremony
Umami and Flavor
Vegetarianism
Wasabi
Wasabon Sugar
In addition, many of the entries have enough
detail to be useful to the Western chef who
wants to incorporate Japanese ideas into his
or her cooking. Hoskins is an admirably concise
writer who packs a lot of information into a
small amount of graceful prose.
Be aware that this is not an encyclopedia. If
you use the English-Japanese section to look
up `mushroom' for instance, you'll find the
translation `kinoko' but not a comprehensive
list of Japanese mushrooms or techniques for
cooking them.
So leave the browsing to other books and keep
this one for trips to the market You'll be glad
to have it.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books. ISBN 9781601640005
Very useful book.......2006-10-29
I recently spent a month in Tokyo and I enjoy cooking. I found this book along with a good Japanese cookbook to be very useful both in the market and the kitchen. I would have like it to included a kana (Japanese syllabic writing) to English section, but understand most English speakers are not familiar with this Japanese syllabic writing. Luckily all Japanese know our alphabet and my fellow shoppers were always happy to help me find what I wanted. In fact, I believe they appreciated my interest in their food and culture.
Essential if you plan to shop in oriental markets.......2006-03-17
This book was the connection I needed between the recipes in my Japanese cookbooks and the local Asian market. Many of the packages have no English word on the package. I have used this book every time I have shopped; when I can't figure out what I am looking for, I take the Japanese word (the book cross references in English and Japanese) to the service desk. The young Japanese woman takes me to exactly what I am looking for. It has saved hours of decoding the ingredients.
This is great for descriptions and translations, not for cooking assistance; it discusses pairings of flavors for ingredients you look up. It is the perfect dictionary to keep close to the Asian cookbooks.
Super Tool for Japanese Food Lovers.......2006-01-20
For those people who love Japanese cuisine but don't know much about the Japanese language, this pocket size dictionary is a wonderful tool. It focuses on most terms and words used in Japanese cuisine including drinks, entrees, ingredients, food terms, even some cooking and food container names. The dictionary allows readers easy to look up information. It is arranged in three sections: Japanese-English, English-Japanese, and Appendices with some interesting topics in Japanese cuisine. Each entry in the Japanese-English section provides the Japanese term in Roman script, Japanese character, as well as Kanji, along with the English definition details and possibly some additional culture notes. Truly, this dictionary is a MUST!
(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 19-Jan-2006)
Authentic, resourceful, handy and enjoyable.......2005-12-03
As a Japanese native and a food enthusiast, I first approached this book skeptically. I must say that I am impressed. Another reviewer says that this book does not contain everything, but hey, it covers much more than I expected. I keep it handy when I cook Japanese food for guests, so I can answer questions without guessing all the time. Finding books like this one --straightforward and packed with trustworthy, interesting information -- is a joy.
Book Description
This valuable study guide provides the most up-to-date vocabulary for conversing effectively in everyday situations and during travel. As students learn new words, carefully planned exercises provide immediate opportunities to practice them. Correct "answers" permit prompt self-correction. This handy, indispensable reference includes chapters about air travel, public transportation, museums, and shopping at the farmer's market. It's ideal for new and advanced students, to supplement class lessons and improve grades, or for solo study.
Customer Reviews:
A place to start........2006-03-14
Schaum's Outline of Russian Vocabulary would be useful to a student during the very earliest introduction to Russian. This book's material is duplicated in other introductions to the language. An advantage of these outlines is the large number of excersises for practice, all with answers.
some glaring issues, but otherwise ok.......2006-03-11
I bought this book after purchasing the truly stellar "Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar" expecting this to be of the same quality. The book *is* useful and *does* have a lot of information packed in there, and the organizational structure does have some good ideas that make the exercises (which are good) hang together well. I have two main problems with the book beyond this. First, you are absolutely sand blasted with vocab. This may be good or bad, depending on your point of view, but I found it to mostly be bad, because it wasn't designed with absorption/acquisition in mind. I think this would be a great review or refresher for someone who was already very advanced with both grammar and vocabulary. Not so much for somebody trying to build up to that point.
The bigger problem is that unlike the Grammar Outline, or basically any other Russian course on the market, the vocabulary is presented without any accent marks. I can't imagine why they did this, since a word's stress is so critical to developing proper Russian pronunciation (much more so than for say, English or Spanish). Especially since stress shifts in case endings or verb conjugations can lead to hilarious or tragic misunderstandings or no understanding at all, this decision just doesn't make any sense to me.
A good idea gone bad! Forget it!.......2000-08-02
Schaum's "Russian Vocabulary." This is supposed to a text in vocabulary building for everyday situations. However, the authors/publisher really missed the proverbial boat: There are no accent marks for any of the words in this book! The book title should be "We'll Show You What the Words Look Like in Print, But We Won't Tell You How to Pronounce Them Correctly." Any student of Russian knows how unpredictable the stress of Russian words is. It's really a rather nasty little joke to sell you a vocabulary book without the accent marks. You would have to look each word up in a dictionary to find out how to say it -- an impossible task. Ironically, accent marks are included in Schaum's Russian Grammar book. In short, this book is totally useless for learning new vocabulary unless you want to risk putting the accent on the wrong syllable (and perhaps totally changing the meaning of the word). What were they thinking!
Book Description
Master French vocabulary and ace your exams with Schaum's, the easy-to-follow guide that pumps up your language skills and reduces study time. The answered exercises will sharpen your test skills and result in a larger vocabulary, faster learning curves, and higher grades. Divided into units that are organized by themeÑtravel, services, and entertainment, to name a fewÑthis outline puts the information you really need at your fingertips. Schaum's Outline of French Vocabulary is a comprehensive study guide that can be used with any textbook... but itÕs so complete itÕs ideal for independent study!
Download Description
In this helpful guide, you will find: New sections that will update your vocabulary of technological-, sports-, and lifestyle-related phrases; English/French and rench/English glossaries and key word lists; Clear definitions of everyday words and phrases;
Customer Reviews:
Very useful book..........2007-08-26
I studied French for many years. I can tell you much of the vocabulary in this book is very, very useful. I would fancy that an American student of French would benefit from this than a Canadian one, since they would be less likely to cover these terms in French courses on the high school in the U.S., and they wouldn't cover these everyday words in Canadian French university courses or American ones. You are dealing with terms related to cars, sports, travelling, hotel reservations etc.. I think that is useful, and you can't feel fluent without knowing these terms. I have a very old version of this book (1985), and I eventually want to get this newer one and compare.
Schaum's Outlines of French Vocabulary.......2007-03-17
I have given this product a hundred per cent rating because:
1)it is easy to understand and
2)it is comprehensive; it contains some topics, such as "L'enseignment" and "Au travail" that are rarely found in other books of its category.
I recommend this product to anyone who wants to learn French fast and easily.
Perfect for the intermediate learner.......2000-04-14
The first time I saw the book in a book shop, I didn't buy it because it looked like it was meant to be used by students cramming for exams. Maybe this is indeed the purpose of the book. I am an adult learner trying to learn French on my own. Since I don't have to pass any exams, I didn't think the book would be of any use to me. The second time I saw the book, I bought it anyway because it wasn't so expensive and I thought maybe I would pick up some useful vocabulary anyway. The book is surprisingly good. In fact, this is the best book I've found on vocabulary building. Its 46 chapters and the appendixes cover the words and phrases needed in a wide variety of situations. Maybe advanced students may find the book easy, but the level of difficulty is just about right for an intermediate learner like me.
I think it's good.......2000-01-23
I borrowed this book from a library but I think I need to spend a bit more time on it so I have decided to purchase my own copy. Basically it's different from the other vocab. books which it has exercises for you to do for each unit, and the materials are not very condensed, as with other vocab. books where they just categorize and throw a bunch of vocabs at you. Learning vocab needs drill and exercises, not pure memorization and I think this book does well in this area. I think if you really follow the book and work on all the exercises you will learn a lot. The only thing which made me take a star out of my rating is that the pictures and perhaps the layout of the book is a bit boring...ZZzzzz and outdated but actually the book wasn't very old at all.
I am also going to try out the grammar book and I hope that works well for me.
Fantastic, an art to itself.......1999-09-15
The book is a very good collection of French Words and is properly indexed with word lists. A must for any student learning french at any level.
Average customer rating:
- Great Book!
- Book order
- Good Choice
- We Use It In Class
- I had to buy it
|
Communicating In Spanish (Novice Level)
Conrad J. Schmitt , and
Protase E Woodford
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Education
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Instruction
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Spanish
| Instruction
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Study & Teaching
| Words & Language
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Study Guides
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Education
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
All Amazon Upgrade
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Professional & Technical
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Reference
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Professional
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Reference
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Schaum's Outline of Spanish Grammar
-
Easy Spanish Step-By-Step (Step By Step)
-
Conversational Spanish
-
Schaum's Outline of Spanish Vocabulary
-
Album: Cuentos Del Mundo Hispanico (comes with CDs)
ASIN: 0070566429 |
Book Description
Communicating Series
Don't be reduced to silence. Give yourself the power to communicate by using ... the Communicating Series!
Customer Reviews:
Great Book!.......2007-07-23
For any novice Spanish speakers, this book is GREAT! I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn to communicate in Spanish. It focuses on dialogue and conversations rather then strictly vocabulary.
Book order.......2007-06-13
Fast delivery, book was in great condition and was exactly as promised; would do business with this seller again
Good Choice.......2007-04-07
Once you've had all the basic grammar classes and you want to begin finding resources for building your vocabulary this is a good choice. I suggest looking at the "look inside this book" table of contents. It offers a variety of themes one might encounter while living or spending time in a Spanish speaking country and being able to communicate in these situations.
We Use It In Class.......2006-03-14
We use this book as core material in our Beginning Spanish class. Our instructor supplements the book as need be, but in general it provides enough material, as do the follow-on books in the series, to give our students an excellent introduction and capacity in the language.
I had to buy it.......2006-02-25
I the book is o.k. as it was required for my class. There is no attempt to instruct in grammer or increase the understanding of how to use the language. Also it is geared towards using the language in Spain. If ,,, that is what you want it is o.k. Some of the illustrations are hard to read without a magnifying glass. As a part of a comprehensive course in spanish it is o.k. but you are not going to learn how to make converstion spontaniously with this book.
Amazon.com
A gorgeous, dark, and sensuous book that is part cookbook, part novel, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Join Tarquin Winot as he embarks on a journey of the senses, regaling us with his wickedly funny, poisonously opinionated meditations on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of a menu, from the perverse history of the peach to the brutalization of the palate, from cheese as "the corpse of milk" to the binding action of blood.
Book Description
Winner of the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel and a New York Times Notable Book, The Debt to Pleasure is a wickedly funny ode to food. Traveling from Portsmouth to the south of France, Tarquin Winot, the book’s snobbish narrator, instructs us in his philosophy on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of the menu. Under the guise of completing a cookbook, Winot is in fact on a much more sinister mission that only gradually comes to light.
Customer Reviews:
Beautifully Distasteful Allegory.......2007-07-17
John Lanchester tips his hand early in this beautifully
crafted novel. The narrator-who is named for the earl of
Rochester-professes the need for a full-blown 'erotics of
dislike'. For a gourmet, he spends a lot of time on his
aversions and pretensions and little on the joys of food
and tasting.
And that's the heart of the matter. This thoroughly
unlikeable narrator has perverted the goodness of food
because he himself is, well, a particular kind of malevolent
pervert. Lanchester's genius in this novel is that he
slowly reveals the nature of his narrator.
What starts out for the reader as a mildly satisfying
glimpse at an esthete who's way too tighthly strung ends
up as a portrait of an extraordinary evil disguised
by good manners and precious tastes.
Lanchester may well have intended this to be a spoof of
the arch postures of coddled foodies. As a parody, this
certainly works. Recent events on the world stage may have
made this more apt as a satire of those who pretend to
lofty idealism while dabbling in the basest realities.
Lynn Hoffman, author of bang BANG from Kunati Books.
ISBN 9781601640005
Confirms my beliefs about Iceberg Lettuce..........2007-04-24
I read this book over a weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a wicked, hilarious camp masterpiece and I found myself laughing out loud on many occasions. I agree with the other reviewers that the outcome of the novel is apparent very early on but that did not bother me one bit. The enjoyment I took away from this book was in reading Tarquin's tangental diatribes on just about everything. This is a very quotable book. My favorite portion has to be his musings on the preparation of a salad and the banality of Iceberg Lettuce. Cooks will love this book.
Mouth watering.......2006-08-27
Why the subtitle "a novel?" Because otherwise you might not know. Witty, frequently hilarious, and wicked, says one reviewer. Novel masquerading as essay masquerading as cookbook and combining the virtues of all three, says another review. Damn hard for me to review, says this reviewer right here.
Um, think of my newsletter in its most surreal moments. Remove my sense of restraint, add a few themes (ingredients) in order to reach novel length. Simmer on low heat, serve in a relaxing reading room, watch my stupid excuse for a metaphor go all to hell like a souffle that collapsed due to earthquake.
Seriously, the book features a remarkable narrative voice, strong characterization, an actual plot which perhaps reviewers neglect to mention since so much else is also praiseworthy, the extreme culinary sensibilities of an author who's also the restaurant critic for the London Observer, wit, wordplay, cleverness, surprises, wickedness, and the rare ability to write a sentence spanning two pages which is perfectly sensible and which I keep trying without success to imitate in the course of this BS caca review.
Sometimes, you just want something very different, but which you will still enjoy. This is it.
Scrumptious but unsettling..........2005-06-24
This book gave me that feeling of when you eat something very strange (maybe some bizarre sushi or sashimi) right before you go to sleep, and you get a fluttery, unsettled feeling in your stomach. The Debt to Pleasure was just that- quite unsettling.
It was also very, very funny and so engaging that I found it hard to put down. As far as the hard, pretentious vocabulary- I'm 15 and I didn't find it unreadable. It does take more time to read than your average book, but it's well worth it. The arrogance and sheer pretention of the prose are another matter, but they add to the personality of the narrator.
Darkly delicious!.......2003-12-18
What do you get when you mix dark language, delicious food and smoldering erotica in one single novel? You get The Debt to Pleasure. This is one of the most delectable novels I've ever read. John Lanchester mixes a dark and sinister plot with beautiful and mouth-watering descriptions of exotic foods and disarming erotica. Tarquin Winot is one of the most sinister characters ever written. His exploits enthralled me. I couldn't put this book down. This cookbook-cum-erotica is brilliant from beginning to end. By far, one of the best books I've read this year. Highly recommended...
Books:
- Fruits and Vegetables/Frutas y vegetales (English and Spanish Foundation Series) (Book #10) (Bilingual)
- Getting Started in Personal and Executive Coaching: How to Create a Thriving Coaching Practice (Getting Started in)
- Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth
- Greens Glorious Greens: More than 140 Ways to Prepare All Those Great-Tasting, Super-Healthy, Beautiful Leafy Greens
- Hatched!: The Big Push from Pregnancy to Motherhood
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- How To Pronounce French, German, and Italian Wine Names (Let's Learn!)
- Hurricane Punch: A Novel
- Life's Missing Instruction Manual : The Guidebook You Should Have Been Given at Birth
- Life: Picture Puzzle (Picture Puzzles)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- National Park Ranger: An American Icon
- Ginger and Petunia
- Winsor McCay : His Life and Art
- America's Constitution: A Biography
- Classic Eagles
- History: Fiction or Science
- Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Broken Circle
- Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922
- Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933-1945
- Modern Construction: Roofs
My Body / Mi cuerpo (English and Spanish Foundation Series, Book 8)
My Family and I/Mi familia y yo (English and Spanish Foundation Series) (Book #4) (Bilingual)
The Weather/El tiempo (English and Spanish Foundation Series) (Book #6) (Bilingual)
Colors and Shapes/Los colores y las figuras (English and Spanish Foundation Series) (Book #3) (Bilingual
I Can!/¡Yo puedo! (English and Spanish Foundation Series) (Book #11) (Bilingual) (Board Book)
