ps

totally forgot in my recent restaurant non-fiction marathon that the best one was
cxvii. the sorcerer's apprentices, lisa abend
fascinating look at el bulli and the free work that they are provided with by chefs who are desperate to do a stage there! and also the monotony of perfection and the mythology of the entire concept

plus i just finished
cxviii. medium raw, anthony bourdain
i like his conversational yet violently descriptive writing style. this was a bunch of essays mainly about the industry and people in the industry - the ones about david chang and justo thomas were particularly interesting.

not a best of year list

cxv. eating animals, jonathan safran foer
as a former student of agriculture i did not find many things surprising in this book though i think i was supposed to. ultimately, the argument for being vegetarian rather than eating only well-cared-for animals was not made well, neither was there any sort of discussion about the ethics of animal products and therefore veganism. fail, big fat fail. nowhere near as incendiary as its reputation.

cxvi. weight, jeanette winterson


lxxi. bill cunningham new york
as an avid amateur photographer this was extremely fascinating! passion as art as life.

lxxii. the cave of forgotten dreams
this was interesting and beautiful but herzog's philosophical musing was a little too unsubstantiated and whimsical for a historical doco.

lxxiii. we need to talk about kevin
tilda swinton tilda swinton, what else is there to say? there actually isn't much dialogue in this film, it's all the silences that count.

lxxiv. the ides of march
oh political machinations. it was good i suppose. ryan gosling's midface is a little depressed, i don't get what all the fuss is about.

lxxv. melancholia
i felt the same thing as when i saw antichrist, which is to say i felt like i was stuck watching it forever. interminably long. and yet engrossing. and i probably won't watch it again. ultimately lars von trier has drawn out the minutiae of relationships in strange situations, and yet he is just showing it, not really evoking or provoking anything extra. i liked the tree of life more.

well guess what this is a list of

cix. ash malinda lo
cx. heat bill buford
cxi. the nasty bits anthony bourdain
cxii. the secret diaries anne lister
cxiii. not buying it judith levine
cxiv. the mind's eye oliver sacks