Chronicle Books Contest!

Chronicle Books is having a contest which I am entering even as I am writing about it now!  In order to enter the contest, the blogger makes a list of titles from the Chronicle Books catalog up to $500 in value (which means there will be math involved in this post) and, if they win, they win their list of books.  And here's where it gets interesting for you.  If I win, one person who comments on my blog post will also win my list.

And, one imagines, if one doesn't win, one has just posted their first Christmas wishlist of the year on their blog entirely from the Chronicle Books catalog.  Well played, Chronicle Books.

So, here is my wish list:

1.  I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita $14.99- Somewhere at the beginning of the new year, I have slated to read Marcel Proust's Rememberance of Things Past.  I think owning a good macaron cookbook is going to be essential for this project.

2. Dante's Divine Comedy boxed set by By Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders $100.00- I read about this version back when I was deciding which version of Inferno to read this past year.  I ended up passing on it because of the uncertain line between version and adaptation, but it is a work I've read very good reports on.  Considering the full Divine Comedy is coming up in my Harvard Classics series, this is one I would love to have and am very curious about.  Curious enough to blow 1/5th of my make-believe money on it.

3.  This is NPR  By Cokie Roberts, Susan Stamberg, Noah Adams, John Ydstie, Renee Montagne, Ari Shapiro, and David Folkenflik $29.95-  Laurie and I are rabid NPR heads and everyone knows it.  My step-daughter, completely unprompted, knew that the perfect Christmas gift for me would be a season of This American Life.  One of the most exciting things that ever happened to me was when Robert Krulwich wrote on my blog comments urging me not to really vote for him for president.  We get most of our news from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.  This would be the perfect coffee table book for our home. 

4.  San Francisco Ballet at Seventy-Five By Janice Ross $60.00- A venue of world class proportions so close to us that we would both like to visit someday.  This looks like a gorgeous book and one that both Laurie and I would enjoy.

 5. Tea & Crumpets: Recipes and Rituals from Tearooms & Café By Margaret M. Johnson $19.95- Ah, something for the twee, cardigan wearing, Pooh Bear Paul.  I love tea, European culture, and comforting foodie books.

6. Coffee: Scrumptious Drinks and Treats By Betty Rosbottom $14.95- However, as a bohemian, an Americano, a fervent J.S. Bach fan, and one who rages against his natural tendency to sleep about 10 hours a night left to his own devices, I also love coffee.  Having worked in a few coffee houses in my past, I also am a bit of a coffee snob.  Also, I make elaborate coffee drinks.  I think I would get a lot of use out of this book.

7. New Vegetarian: More Than 75 Fresh, Contemporary Recipes for Pasta, Tagines, Curries, Soups and Stews, and Desserts By Robin Asbell $19.95- As vegetarians, we are always looking for new recipes.

 8.  Absinthe Cocktails: 50 Ways to Mix with the Green Fairy By Kate Simon $19.95- Favorite drink of most of the stark raving mad historical figures I read about.  Picasso, Lautrec, Van Gogh, Poe, Wilde, Baudelaire,Verlaine, Rimbaud, Alfred Jarry, Erik Satie.  I hear Mark Twain used to drink absinthe too.  Due to its scarcity and my poverty, it seems likely that this will be more of a pretty decorative book and conversation piece than anything practical, but I think it would still be fun to have in my library.  However, should we ever happen upon the Green Fairy, this seems like to book to have.

9. Cheese & Wine: A Guide to Selecting, Pairing, and Enjoying By Janet Fletcher $24.95- This is more our actual speed.  It's a book about two of Laurie and my favorite gustatory delights.

10. Dean & DeLuca: The Food and Wine Cookbook By Jeff Morgan $35.00- Anyone who has read my blog know that I consider myself a Classicist.  One of the reasons for that is that I like to go directly to the excellent and stay there without wasting time wading through a bunch of muck to find the diamonds.  This translates to music, movies, and, indeed, cookbooks for me as well.  The product description touts this volume thusly :

 In the alphabet of gourmets, D stands for Dean & DeLuca, long considered one of the finest food emporiums in the world. Now they bring their vast culinary expertise to this stunning new cookbook with over 80 inspired recipes, each complemented by carefully chosen wines. 

Sounds like a book I ought to own.

11. Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile By John Ochsendorf $60.00- Also, those who follow my photo dumps on my other blog know of my fascination with architecture.  This book looks just gorgeous.

12. Edie: Girl on Fire By Melissa Painter and David Weisman $29.95- Edie Sedgwick is a cultural figure I find absolutely fascinating.  A figure from (arguably also a casualty of) the Warhol scene, Sedgwick was one of those doomed figures of the glamorous life of the fat days of mid-last century America.  It's a piece of space-time shared with Warhol, Truman Capote, The Velvet Underground, Taylor Mead, Dennis Hopper in his arty period, Candy Darling, Studio 54 and all of that jazz straddling the gilded age between the Hepburns and the Hiltons (wow.  I may as well submit this for a writing position with E!)

13. Ramayana: Divine Loophole By Sanjay Patel $29.95- I've heard wonderful things about this artistic adaptation of the Ramayana.  Contemporary religious art is of great interest to me.

14. Paris Out of Hand: A Wayward Guide By Karen Elizabeth Gordon With Barbara Hodgson and Nick Bantock $22.95- Someday.  Someday.

 So, there's my list.  I hope I win it.  If you would like a chance to win this entire list too, comment (on the blog.  If you're reading this in a Facebook cross post, you're going to have to go to my original blog post to comment)!