I've been seeing advertisements for the new Helen Mirren film, The Hundred Foot Journey, on TV lately. It looks right up my alley and I plan on, at the very least, adding it to my Netflix queue. The movie is adapted from a book of the same name. This got me thinking about adaptations - specifically, blogs that are now books (of some sort).
This month's Variations on Theme is Blog to Book.
Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
Julie Powell
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul.Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a tiny apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's worn, dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes -- in the span of one year.At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye.And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her outer-borough kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance
Budget Bytes: Over 100 Easy, Delicious Recipes to Slash Your Grocery Bill in Half
Beth Moncel
As a college grad during the recent great recession, Beth Moncel found herself, like so many others, broke. Unwilling to sacrifice eating healthy and well—and armed with a degree in nutritional science—Beth began tracking her costs with obsessive precision, and soon cut her grocery bill in half. Eager to share her tips and recipes, she launched her blog, Budget Bytes. Soon the blog received millions of readers clamoring for more.
Beth's eagerly awaited cookbook proves cutting back on cost does not mean cutting back on taste. Budget Bytes has more than 100 simple, healthy, and delicious recipes, including Greek Steak Tacos, Coconut Chicken Curry, Chorizo Sweet Potato Enchilada, and Teriyaki Salmon with Sriracha Mayonnaise, to name a few. It also contains expert principles for saving in the kitchen—including how to combine inexpensive ingredients with expensive to ensure that you can still have that steak you’re craving, and information to help anyone get acquainted with his or her kitchen and get maximum use out of the freezer. Whether you’re urban or rural, vegan or paleo, Budget Bytes is guaranteed to delight both the palate and the pocketbook.
Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur
Pamela Slim
This month's Variations on Theme is Blog to Book.
Julie Powell
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul.Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a tiny apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's worn, dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes -- in the span of one year.At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye.And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her outer-borough kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance
Budget Bytes: Over 100 Easy, Delicious Recipes to Slash Your Grocery Bill in HalfBeth Moncel
As a college grad during the recent great recession, Beth Moncel found herself, like so many others, broke. Unwilling to sacrifice eating healthy and well—and armed with a degree in nutritional science—Beth began tracking her costs with obsessive precision, and soon cut her grocery bill in half. Eager to share her tips and recipes, she launched her blog, Budget Bytes. Soon the blog received millions of readers clamoring for more.
Beth's eagerly awaited cookbook proves cutting back on cost does not mean cutting back on taste. Budget Bytes has more than 100 simple, healthy, and delicious recipes, including Greek Steak Tacos, Coconut Chicken Curry, Chorizo Sweet Potato Enchilada, and Teriyaki Salmon with Sriracha Mayonnaise, to name a few. It also contains expert principles for saving in the kitchen—including how to combine inexpensive ingredients with expensive to ensure that you can still have that steak you’re craving, and information to help anyone get acquainted with his or her kitchen and get maximum use out of the freezer. Whether you’re urban or rural, vegan or paleo, Budget Bytes is guaranteed to delight both the palate and the pocketbook.
Pamela Slim
Pamela Slim, a
former corporate training manager, left her office job twelve years ago
to go solo and has enjoyed every bit of it. In her groundbreaking book, based
on her popular blog Escape from Cubicle Nation, Slim explores both the
emotional issues of leaving the corporate world and the nuts and bolts
of launching a business. Drawing on her own career, as well as stories
from her coaching clients and blog readers, Slim will help readers weigh
their options, and make a successful escape if they decide to go for
it.
Walker Lamond
Rules For My Unborn Son is a
collection of traditional, humorous, and urbane fatherly advice for
boys. From the sartorial ("If you are tempted to wear a cowboy hat,
resist") to the practical ("Keep a copy of your letters. It makes it
easier for your biographer") to even a couple of sure-fire hangover
cures ("There is no better remedy than a dip in the ocean"), the book of
rules and accompanying quotations is quite simply an instruction manual
for becoming a Good Man - industrious, thoughtful, charming, and of
course, well-dressed. Hip and witty with a decidedly
traditionalist flavor, Rules For My Unborn Son is meant to evoke simpler
times when Father knew best and a suitable answer to "Why?" was
"Because I said so."
Jenny Lawson
When Jenny Lawson was little, all
she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her
fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It
did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the
strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for
it.
In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened,
Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the
surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we
want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us
the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they
were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out
loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing,
yet wonderful moments of our lives.
Christian Lander
They love nothing better than sipping free-trade gourmet coffee, leafing through the Sunday New York Times,
and listening to David Sedaris on NPR (ideally all at the same time).
Apple products, indie music, food co-ops, and vintage T-shirts make them
weak in the knees. They believe they’re unique, yet
somehow they’re all exactly the same, talking about how they “get” Sarah
Silverman’s “subversive” comedy and Wes Anderson’s “droll” films.
They’re also down with diversity and up on all the best microbrews,
breakfast spots, foreign cinema, and authentic sushi. They’re organic,
ironic, and do not own TVs. You know who they are: They’re
white people. And they’re here, and you’re gonna have to deal.
Fortunately, here’s a book that investigates, explains, and offers
advice for finding social success with the Caucasian persuasion. So kick
back on your IKEA couch and lose yourself in the ultimate guide to the
unbearable whiteness of being.
Other Blogs to Books
The 100 Things Challenge - David Bruno
Forgotten Bookmarks - Michael Popek
Happier at Home - Gretchen Rubin
Humans of New York - Brandon Stanton
Hyperbole and a Half - Allie Brosh
Post Secret - Frank Warren
Shi*t My Dad Says - Justin Halpern
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