Amazon Daily

If you travel a lot for business like I do you're probably familiar with many of the most common hassles--lack of space in your carry-on, running out of batteries, too few power outlets in airports and coffeeshops, etc.  Here are what I consider to be the three most essential gadgets to stick in a laptop bag that help address some of these issues.

1. eneloop Travel USB Charger--Like many people, I have more and more gadgets on hand that use rechargeable Li-Ion batteries, but I still have a few things that take batteries such as my Flip camcorder.  The eneloop USB charger and its two AA batteries are sufficient for me, and in addition to easily using my laptop to recharge my batteries, the charger and AAs fold up smartly into a little package smaller than a deck of cards.

2. Powermonkey eXplorer with Solar Charger--On those occasions where you just can't get to an outlet, the Powermonkey provides a quick charge for cellphones, PDAs, portable gaming devices, etc.  Its solar charger means you can just leave it on the table next to your coffee for a bit and have ready-to-go power for the next day or so.  Plus, it comes with a ton of cord tips that fit almost every popular gadget on the market.

3. Monster Outlets-To-Go--If you've ever stood in an airport staring forlornly as the one outlet in the terminal is occupied, or if you found yourself in a less-than-4-star hotel wondering whether to unplug the TV or the alarm clock so you can plug in your laptop, you'll appreciate this.  It fits easily into a carryon and provides an extra four outlets so you can plug in all your devices or share an outlet with a coworker (and thus avoid his/her disapproving look because, hey, you got there first).

--Aric A.

Why it’s significant: Not only is Boy the first album that launched U2's prolific career which spans decades, but this month's anticipated remastered re-release edition includes b-sides, live tracks and rarities as well as a 32 page booklet with previously unseen photos, full lyrics, and explanatory notes by The Edge. While many a critic and fan alike adore their mid-career anthems like Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby as well as other great releases in recent twilight years, only a cursory listen to Boy is needed to understand why U2's strident trajectory into rock stardom began here in both attitude and spirit for the Dublin lads.

Starting off both the original album and this month's special edition is one of U2's all-time greatest tracks, "I Will Follow," which repeats a ringing chord and slides into themes of adolescent angst and evolution echoed throughout the track as clearly as Edge's trademark delay on the six string. Other elements of his guitar style started to develop here and can be heard on tracks like "Twilight," "A Day Without Me," and "The Electric Co" where his signature sound pans left to right and ricochets beneath Bono's vox with an edgy mix of chorus, delay, and reverb.

There were few if any other albums in 1980 that carried the musical technique and lyrical bombast offered on Boy. With innocent perspective and callow creeds, U2 stepped into the limelight unaware of the accolades to come as well as the journey ahead.  The band now celebrate the beginning of it all on this special reissue with new media to add perspective to the roots of their legacy.

NYT bestselling author Michelle Richmond is a bit of a chimera: her novels certainly have mainstream, commercial appeal but there's often a dark core to them, along with influences that include Italo Calvino and Paul Auster. This gives them a lot more depth than the breezy covers might suggest. Her latest, No One You Know, is as much Borgesian mystery as it is the story of a complex relationship between a woman and her sibling. Twenty years after the murder of Ellie Enderlin's sister, Lila, Ellie acquires a strange book of mathematical equations that might hold the key to finding out who killed Lila. What follows is a fascinating exploration of the past, of family secrets, and of a centuries-old mathematical puzzle.

Richmond's other books include The Year of Fog and Dream of the Blue Room. Her stories and essays have appeared in Playboy, Kenyon Review, and the anthology Logorrhea. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son. I recently interviewed her via email. She replied from her home office, "which is a small room in a small house ten blocks from San Francisco's Ocean Beach. It's chilly and foggy today, as it is most days in June, and there's a bit of sea air coming in from one of the bedroom windows at the back of the house, which I had to open because I just burned a pan of cornbread. Really! I'm thirty-something years old and spent the first twenty years of my life in Alabama, and yet I haven't mastered the art of not burning the cornbread. Books everywhere. Papers scattered about. The closet door has come open, and various things are falling out of it: a kiddie croquet set, an exercise step, and a Trader Joe's bag filled with books I need to send out to people who have been nice to me. I've got Lloyd Cole playing on the computer speakers."

                          

Amazon.com: This is your second novel for Delacourte. Does writing a novel get easier each time?Michelle Richmond: A little, maybe. There's no formula for writing a novel, so in a way one reinvents the wheel each time. But I definitely write more efficiently now. I've become more focused over the years, less likely to write an entire chapter that is ultimately expendable. With The Year of Fog I cut upwards of a hundred pages in editing, but with No One You Know I ended up omitting only about fifty pages in the final draft. I rarely know how the novel is going to end when I begin it; I tend to figure out the plot as I go along. However, from the moment I begin, I do have a very clear idea about characters, theme, and structure, as well as a strong handle on what the emotional and intellectual centers of the book should be.

Amazon.com: Was there a particular spark or catalyst for the writing of No One You Know?
Richmond: It's difficult to pinpoint a specific catalyst. However, I knew from the start that I was interested in the fine line between fact and fiction, and the way stories shape our lives. I was interested in the idea that the stories others tell about us can have enormous repercussions. I knew that I wanted San Francisco to be the setting for the book, but not as much a character in its own right as it was in The Year of Fog. And I also decided at the outset that I was going to tackle something I've avoided my entire life--math. The narrator, Ellie, is a coffee buyer, but her sister, who was murdered 20 years before, was a math prodigy. While I didn't want the novel to hinge too much on mathematical esoterica, I did want the flavor of mathematics to be part of the book; so while the narrator is as math-phobic as I am, she is able to appreciate some of the stories behind mathematics with a layperson's eye. I have always been drawn to "found texts" in fiction, so it was great fun for me to have Ellie come across Lila's math notebook from her days at Stanford.

Amazon.com: Would it be correct to call this a lit. mainstream novel that happens to contain a mystery, or do you see it as a mystery novel?
Richmond: I see it as mainstream literary fiction that happens to contain a mystery. One of the reviewers called it a "literary thriller," which surprised and delighted me. While I never specifically set out to write a mystery, there's definitely a strong element of mystery at play in the book. I think there's room in the world of literary fiction for writers to play with all kinds of genres. Fortunately, that's something that is a lot more readily acknowledged and accepted these days--a blurring of the lines between mainstream, literary,  fantasy, mystery, science fiction, erotica, etc.

Amazon.com: There's a centuries-old mathematics puzzle involved in the plot. That strikes me as a slightly Borgesian element. Are there any ghosts of other writers lingering behind the pages of No One You Know?
Richmond: Ah, yes, I've been in awe of Borges for many years. Talk about fictional labyrinths, stories within stories! I was also reading Paul Auster at the time I was writing the book, and was fascinated by the idea of coincidences that he explores in The Red Notebook, as well as in his fiction. In the first chapter of No One You Know, Ellie runs into someone from her past--the man implicated in her sister's murder--in a small cafe in Nicaragua. On the surface it seems strange that their lives should intersect at this point, but the day I wrote that passage, my husband called from London to tell me he had just run into a friend of ours from San Francisco at Heathrow. And I've had my own strange experiences of running into old college friends in Budapest, or bumping into a couple I'd met in Iceland at my favorite movie theater on the Upper West Side. Coincidence, probability--it intrigues me.

Before I started writing No One You Know, I had lunch in North Beach with a writer friend and teaching colleague, Juvenal Acosta. Juvenal mentioned how much he admired Graham Green's The End of the Affair. I went right out and checked the book out from the library, and six months later it was still sitting in my office, full of post-it notes. Eventually I returned it, paid the fine, and bought my own copy, which I've marked up liberally. The End of the Affair provided an opening impulse for the book, in the line "A story has no beginning and no end. Arbitrarily one chooses the moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead." This is the motto of Ellie's sophomore English professor, Andrew Thorpe, who makes the huge ethical blunder of publishing a true crime book about Lila's murder. Ellie wonders where her own story begins and ends. The End of the Affair is the story of a love affair gone wrong, with the mystery of the beloved's death front and center, but it's also a book about writing, about finding one's story and figuring out the best way to tell it. I was definitely giving a nod to Graham Greene when I had Ellie recall bits of writing advice that Thorpe had given her when she was a student in his literature class.

Amazon.com: What part of the writing life is the most enjoyable to you?
Richmond: Coffee early in the morning, and a blank page. Figuring out the puzzle--how things relate to each other, what associations will be surprising or enticing or illuminating to the reader. Even when I'm having trouble with a scene or a plot point, there's always something joyful about trying to get the story right. And I love being able to believe that there is always another book in my future. I think very few writers ever actually write the book they intended to write. There's always something more you wanted to say, or some element of the character that got left on the editing room floor. So one is always looking forward to the promise of the next book, which has not yet been written and which, therefore, still holds the possibility of perfection.

Amazon.com: When a book comes out, what's the most stressful part of the whole PR cycle for you?
Richmond: Readings! I actually enjoy giving readings, and I have a blast when I'm in front of a crowd, telling stories and connecting with the audience. Honestly, I think if I had the opportunity for an entirely different second career, I would have loved to be an actor. But there's a lot of anxiety before a reading, because I never know if anyone is going to show up. It's painful to stand in front of a room full of empty seats. Almost of my writer friends share this anxiety with me. So if you're a reader who's wondering whether you should make the effort to go to a reading and meet an author whose books you like...go! Please! They will be happy to meet you and thrilled that you made the effort. They might be so grateful they invite you over for dinner.

Michelle Richmond will be on tour this summer in support of No One You Know. Her tour schedule is posted on her website.

Happy 4th of July, readers! In the event that you are inside scouring the Web for grilling recipes, instead of outside enjoying sunshine and watermelon, we've got one last day of recipes in our 4th of July series. For our final recipe, it seemed good to end on something savory and satisfying. Though I'm still thinking of making the beef and andouille burgers I recommended a couple weeks ago, I have to admit that I find a salmon burger hard to resist. And I don't think it's just because I live in Northwest! They're simple to prepare, are generally at least moderately healthy, and have a way of filling you up without leaving you totally stuffed. Which is great, because you'll have lots of room left for s'mores, which is really what grilling is all about, right?

This recipe comes from the July 2001 issue of Bon Appétit.

Salmon Burgers with Dill Tartar Sauce

Ingredients:
10 ounces skinless salmon fillet, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup purchased tartar sauce
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
2 sesame-seed rolls, split
Red onion slices
4 Bibb lettuce leaves

Directions:
1. Place salmon fillets, 3 tablespoons tartar sauce, 1 tablespoon dill, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Blend using on/off turns until coarsely ground. Form into two 1/2-inch-thick patties. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)
2. Prepare barbecue to medium-high heat.
3. Whisk 1/2 cup tartar sauce, 1 tablespoon dill, and lemon peel in medium bowl to blend.
4. Grill rolls until toasted. Transfer to two plates and spread bottom halves generously with sauce. Grill patties until fish is cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Place burgers atop sauce on rolls. Top each with onion slices, two lettuce leaves, and top half of roll. Serve, with extra sauce on the side.

Makes 2 burgers.

--KitchenMaus

If your long weekend includes any movie-watching that isn't in the theaters (or Will Smith), will it be something that you love to watch every Fourth of July?  Either something that takes place on the 4th, or just seems so American that it's perfect for hot-dog-and-fireworks season?  I've listed some possibilities below.  --David

1776 (watch below): This is usually the first movie I think of. It's history (the signing of the Declaration of Independence), it's a musical, and it's more entertaining (and more involving) than you'd expect.  No doubt that more people will be interested in the main character, John Adams (played by William Daniels), following the new HBO series.

The Music Man: Along with 1776, this used to be on network TV on the Fourth of July every year, and I'd try to watch one or both.  Not only is the music pure Americana (band music, barbershop, etc.), but the main action takes place on July 4.

John Adams: The aforementioned new HBO series, which I haven't seen yet.

The Patriot: Mel Gibson's Revolutionary War epic, which I did see once and haven't felt the need to watch again.

Johnny Tremain: 1957 Disney movie about the Revolution.  I still remember one of the songs: "Yes, we are the Sons, yes, we are the Sons, the Sons of Liberty."

Liberty's Kids: animated series about kids who live in the 1700s--pretty good, as I recall.

Yeah, I'm a girl, but I'm still a fanboy, which is why my inner geek is loving the promos for the new Hellboy movie, featuring the most crushworthy nerd around -- aka the title smarty from the NBC show Chuck (check it out here). Enjoy! (And thanks to fellow fanboy Dan for pointing it out.) -- Stephanie Reid-Simons, Unbox TV Freak

Every other Friday (or in this case Thursday, because of the July 4 holiday), Omnivoracious will turn the spotlight on one or more graphic novels, with future installments also including news and special features. You can let me know who or what you'd like to see featured by commenting on this post. (In October, Graphic Novel Friday will return to its normal weekly schedule.)

Some children's books are perfect for kids and adults, even if they don't include that kind of winking irony that can be required for that combined audience. In the case of Susan Schade and Jon Buller's Fog Mound: Travels of Thelonius series, there's another synergy going on as well: between comics/graphic novels and traditional kid's fiction. Each book is a combination of comics-with-words and words-with-drawings, the latter chapters being more like a standard illustrated book. This hybrid works very well, as the word-heavy sections are mostly reserved for conversations and the comics sections reserved mostly for action and the introduction of new settings.

The milieu is a post-apocalytic world in which things are coming back to life and talking animals populate the ruins of deserted human cities. Separated from his home during a flood, Thelonius the talking chipmunk, long enamored of human creations, has various surreal and miraculous adventures. The books, from Simon & Schuster are lovingly constructed and should take pride of place on any collector's shelf. The latest, Volume 3: Simon's Dream, was released in May. Highly recommended.

Corn is native to North America so it's no wonder the tasty treat is a favorite across the nation. Whether you're jonesin' for Jonnycakes in New England, or hankering for a Hushpuppy in the South, any variation of cornbread is a welcome addition to the table. This simple recipe comes from Jane Linton, and fits the bill for any 4th of July party--it's tasty, easy to make, and everyone will want some.

Ingredients:
2 cups of self-rising cornmeal
2 eggs beaten
2 cups buttermilk
2 Tablespoons bacon drippings, shortening, or vegetable oil

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch skillet with about 2 tablespoons of shortening or oil (use bacon drippings if available). Place pan in oven to heat.
2. Combine cornmeal, eggs, buttermilk, and bacon drippings. Mix well. Pour into hot skillet. Batter will sizzle. (If you sprinkle a little cornmeal in the hot pan before adding the batter, it will brown and add a crispier texture.)
3. Bake at 450 degrees F for 35 minutes or until golden brown. Serves 6 to 8.

--AndreaLeigh

From flickr. And get this--it's vegan. VeganYumYum has a recipe for it.

--Spanno