Arts & Entertainment No more teachers, no more books? A look at some hot reads for summer Bt [SSaees tyscepoe wi ils cn to pli: WEE Sl oa te fn sp slap of flip flops on sidewalks. The battleship grey skies and monsoon rains of a west coast winter finally give way to sunshine. There’s the fantastically fresh smell of just- cut grass in the air, shorter sleeves, bare kneecaps and iced coffees containing more whipped cream than coffee. This short and sweet season encourages beach days, impromptu “sick” leave from work and lazy afternoons in the backyard (on the deck, balcony, or other facsimile) soaking up UVB rays while cat-napping between book chapters. Summer seems to offer more indulgent hours for reading, a kind of personal reward for enduring another monsoon winter, too many root vegetable dinners and an indoor-based life. “No more teachers, no more books” might be the chant of elementary students, but for those of us who are older and wiser college undergrads, summer spells out the joy of recreational reading. My summer list of must-reads increases every Saturday as I scour the Vancouver Sun “Books” section. My trust in Oprah has faltered a bit after slogging through Elizabeth Gilbert’s whiney Eat, Pray, Love. 1 prayed for the book to get more insightful, I loved when the book came to an end and I could move on. My unassisted- by-Oprah summer sunshine picks include: The Film Club by David Gilmour (true story, Gilmour lets his 15 year-old son drop-out of highschool if he promises to watch three films a week with dear old dad), An Arsonists’ Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke (Sam Pulsifer accidentally burns down Emily Dickinson’s house and spends ten years in prison), and Buttertea at Sunrise: A Year in the Bhutan Himalaya by Britta Das (a memoir of her work in a remote Bhutan hospital). I have pulled together four titles that I read this winter (of my discontent) which fall into the category of Ambitious Adventure Reads. Even from a reclined position, these books will motivate and inspire you to think bigger. Collectively, they might provoke you into thinking of how you would answer the cliche September essay question: “What did you do for your summer vacation?” If you need some riveting ideas, surely, any of the authors reviewed in this article will spark one of your elements. Each non-fiction book focuses on the grueling attempt at a self-imposed challenge ranging from a disastrous culinary foray in French cooking, following a caribou herd on foot to Alaska, giving up tropical fruit, flour and coffee because it’s good for the Earth, and a brainy test of reading endurance displayed in reading the entire set of Encyclopaedia Britannica (33,000 pages). Knovw-it-all: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World By A.J. Jabobs Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 389 pages Talk about _ self-directed learning! The editor at large of Esquire decides to attempt | what his father failed at. He | announces to his wife Julie _ that he is going to read all 32 ' | Know-It-All | _ volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica (his father abandoned the mission at Borneo). For tidbit junkies, this book is a gem. However, you will find as Jacobs did, that digesting so much information is nearly unbearable. How and when do you begin to pepper conversations with information on glottal stops (the momentary stoppage of the airstream caused by the glottis closing), the Czetwertynskis (a princely Polish family), Mussolini, olive oil ‘and the Taiping Rebellion? Beyond the bleeding eye strain and fatigue of holding the four pound encyclopaedia upright, Jacobs discovers he can inject facts about nearly every topic that is discussed, much to the chagrin of his wife who is often at the receiving end of his knowledge. He actively tests his newly acquired knowledge with Mensa members, chess masters and other Jeopardy! contestants who are equally unappreciative of his braininess. Know-it-all isn’t just a regurgitation of the Britannica highlights; there is also a witty thread about A.J. and Julie’s attempts to get pregnant during his read-a-thon. Jacobs pre-existing neurotic genius is evident, and his mind and its workings are an intriguing place to visit. Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously By Julie Powell Back Bay Books, 307 pages A.J. jacobs Julie Powell bravely attempts to make every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. There are graphic kitchen scenes of a jaded Julie gouging marrow out of a cow bone for Bifteck Saute Bercy. She weeps over bathroom floods, city- wide black-outs, gizzards and maggots. She mutilates artichokes, resigns herself to searches for obscure yet critical ingredients and endures the softening of her body from all the beurre blanc and fromage/cream sauces. Throughout her epic culinary adventure, Julie blogs about her emotional fragility and frying pan flops. The recipes themselves read like lines from a stomach- turning B-rated horror flick. Calves feet gelee anyone? How about oeufs gelee? Julia Child apparently liked her gelees and her oeufs, a lot. Julie’s friends rally around her and endure several nights seated at the Powell dinner table picking at unidentified French cooking objects while drinking mass amounts of alcohol. When all else fails (and it usually does in her shoebox New York kitchen), cooking related frustrations seem to be massaged nicely over the duration of the year with vodka gimlets and Julie’s patient husband Eric, quietly ordering in jalapeno bacon Domino’s Pizza, again. The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating By Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon Vintage Canada, 266 pages The 100-Mile Diet was particularly interesting to me as the writers are Vancouverites, and their year of eating local takes them around the fields and backroads of the Fraser Valley. Their attempt is admirable, but a banana-mango-coconut free life? This is a tale of what our lives will probably come to in a decade or so with the rapid effects of climate change. The startling statistic (from a public health department in Waterloo, Ontario) is that “a typical distance from farm to plate is around 2,500 miles, the distance from San Francisco to Miami, or from London, England to Baku, Azerbaijan.” Alisa and J.B. decide to confront this statistic and take delight in braised dandelion greens, crushed bull kelp and a lot of potatoes sans Mrs. Dash. The writers have created a diet cult following despite their exasperating tale of pioneer-like eating in a grocery-store-on-every-corner city. This summer Paperny Films of Vancouver will be filming a dozen Mission families who have committed to a total 100- mile diet for 100 days. This translates into: no coffee, no tea, no caffeinated products, no sugar, no beer, no soda pop, no chocolate and only fruit grown within 100 miles of Mission. If there were ever a time to test drive such a diet, a Canadian summer would be it, with our bounty of local blueberries and raspberries. The 100- Mile Diet includes recipes if you are ready to test your mettle. I’m just waiting for the wisecracker who invents the 10 Mile Fast Food Diet that would include a different chain burger and specialty coffee everyday for at least two weeks. Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with an Arctic Herd By Karsten Heuer McClelland & Stewart, 235 pages In Being Caribou, Karsten Heuer (a wildlife biologist) and his wife, Leanne Allison, decide to join 123,000 Porcupine Caribou on a five month journey to their traditional calving grounds in Alaska. The sacred area is being eyeballed by bigwig American oil companies ready to seize the barren wasteland for profit. The couple undertakes a treacherous migration with the caribou, over roaring and sometimes thawing rivers, encountering hungry bears and wolves along the way. As the seasons change they move from bone-shattering -35 temperatures and winds that rip at their tent pegs, to swarms of mosquitoes that envelop them like flying Chihuahuas. They are humbled by the knowledge that the average caribou cow covers 2,800 miles a year on trails to the calving grounds that are over 27,000 years old. Karsten and Leanne suffer frost- nipped appendages, sun blisters and marital boxing matches but the further they follow the caribou, the closer they come to the dynamic cycle of life and death that is so evident in the animal world. Seeing the struggles and sensitivity of the caribou, they become empowered to share their story on a larger scale when they return. Video diaries and footage of their expedition was produced by the National Film Board of Canada (Being Caribou, the film, was directed and written by Leanne Allison and Diana Wilson) and has won several international film awards. If you find yourself still in an uninspired reclined position this summer scoffing at a wild caribou chase through the Yukon, or turning up your nose at sauteed calf’s liver with cream and mustard sauce, you are guaranteed to have at least found some stimulating cocktail party banter. Rest assured, when you return to classes in the fall, the stack of textbooks under your arm won’t seem as intimidating after reading A.J. Jacob’s Know-it-all.