The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: A foodie Eat, Pray, Love, written by a journalist turned Cordon Bleu student. I loved the recipes, cooking advice, and classroom anecdotes (the school sounds terrifying), but could’ve done without the romantic stuff.
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster: A must-read for consumers, this book details how luxury businesses emphasize marketing over product quality to maximize profits. Dana Thomas also throws in juicy anecdotes about people like Miuccia Prada and Bernard Arnault.
Freaks and Geeks: We’ve only seen the first six twelve episodes, but wow. Absolutely brilliant, painful, funny, and true.
Misquoting Jesus: Solidly written, occasionally dense book on the way early scribes changed the Bible. I gave this to Mom for her birthday, so haven’t read it through (she did, though, and loved it). Sample bit: John 8:3-11 (“Let the one who is without sin among you cast the first stone”) was not in the original gospel.
The Bugle: Funny Guardian podcast featuring John Oliver (The Daily Show) and Andy Zaltzman.
Mario Unclogged: Short videos of Mario Batali talking about things like restaurant playlists, how to sauce pasta, and his tiff with Marco Pierre White.