Is that or is that not, the best phrase you've ever heard?

Gastronomic Mono-Culture.  When I first heard it I was so taken by it that i repeated it out loud.  More than once.

I was listening to the CBC during my drive home from work, and they were interviewing Taras Grescoe, a Montreal-based journalist who has just published a book called The Devil's Picnic: Around the World in Pursuit of Forbidden Fruit.

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Yay! It's Christmas morning. I've already played with everything that was in my stocking (which mysteriously filled up just before my mom left last night). And let's pause for a moment and raise a glass to the Santa who rounds out puzzle books, chocolates and socks with Chanel No. 5. Yay Santa! So here I sit, a bit of a mess, not yet showered but man, I smell great.

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So - I've been reading Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants, by Robert Sullivan. And I'm liking it.  I'm a sucker for what I call "parallel histories"; books that trace aspects of our history by looking at something that runs parallel to us.  Like rats.  Or drinks.  Or salt.

Anyway - that's not the point of this entry.  The point of this entry is this sentence - paraphrased:

Most likely if you are, while you are reading this sentence, in any major city in America, then you are in proximity to two or more rats having sex.

I defy anyone to read that sentence while laying in bed without instantly ensuring that all of your little piggies are safely tucked up under the blankets. I went from my full 6-feet to about 5-2 in a heartbeat as I pulled my feet up to safety.

* Presuming that you haven’t decided that the problem with Reading Lists is that people keep Reading Lists.

For the true reader, the reading list doesn’t do its job. It certainly fails to present a snapshot of what I’m really reading at any given time. That’s because the lists only reveal books that you’re reading at length - but not too much length.

There are two types of books.The first are the books that you sit down and consume in a sitting or two. These are the most common books.

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