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If the length of the list of books I’m currently reading makes you think I’m a bookworm, you’d be mistaken. I have a very short attention span when it comes to reading, and my nightstand is littered with books I slog through in small, sometimes random chunks. I figure this pile of books is as good an excuse as any to kick the tires on the Amazon.com affiliate program and give my 16 readers some insight into where my half-baked ideas come from. You’ll notice there is no fiction in this list - narrative requires a level of commitment I’m rarely willing to make to a book. With the extra time afforded to me by unemployment, I might even finish reading some of these…

Omnivore’s Dilemma - Michael Pollan
The new book from the author of one of my all time favorites Botany of Desire. Omnivore’s Dilemma looks to be a deeper take on the well tread Fast Food Nation ideas with a healthy wallop of the grim oil economy realities explicated in Richard Manning’s brutal tome Against The Grain. Pollan has a gift for approaching his subject matter with a certain contagious awe and I’m guessing this will be one of those rare books I’m compelled to read straight through in one sitting.

Oil - A concise Guide to the Most Important Product on Earth - Matthew Yeomans
I snatched this off of Emily’s book pile on a lark and proceeded to devour the first third of it without a pause. The history of mans short relationship with petroleum distilled into a readable and engaging book. Answers a number of questions about oil so basic you’ll be surprised you never thought to ask them.

The Emperor of Wine The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr and the Reign of American Taste. - Elin McCoy
Here I fell prey to the Amazon recommendation engine and ordered a copy of this story of the controversial wine critic who transformed the way the wine industry does business. What parallels might be drawn between this story and the coffee biz remain to be seen - I’m guessing Kenneth Davids doesn’t get that many death threats related to his coffee reviews for instance.

Open Economy Politics The Political Economy of the World Coffee Trade - Robert H. Bates
Really dry but deeply researched case histories of the political and economic complexities in the Latin American and East African coffee trade. An informative yet effective sleep aid in doses as small as 2 to 3 pages.

Pharmako/Dynamis - Dale Pendell
Pendell gave me my first introduction to absinthe many years ago and his recipe for making it in his earlier book Pharmako/Poeia is probably the most thorough. Pharmako/Dynamis wanders through the thickets of mans relationship to stimulants from coffee and cocoa to nutmeg and MDMA using poetry intermingled with botany, chemistry, archeology and politics to create a dense but engaging tome of grade A drug lore.

Understanding Me - Lectures and Interviews - Marshall McLuhan
Transcripts of 19 lectures and interviews by the seminal media theorist (and recurrent personal intellectual obsession). In public speaking McLuhan’s ideas seem much more lucid than in his written works and there are some pretty strong pieces in this collection. I’d still recommend people curious about the dude first check out the excellent Essential McLuhan or his intense 1969 Playboy interview available here.

Hacienda La Minita - Bill McAlpin
A book of photos and essays from a quality focused coffee farm in Costa Rica. McAlpin speaks with a passionate voice about his mission as a coffee farmer and the shifting landscape for specialty coffees. Some great photos in here. My pal Kevin from Gimme Coffee recently visited La Minita during harvest and posted some photos.

The Physiology of Taste - Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
First published in 1825, this book seems to pop up on the reading lists of intellectual foodies and after encountering a reference to it in something Hakim Bey wrote I figured I’d break down and pick up a copy. It seems like a book that can provide a bit of amusement when opened at random but would probably be tiresome to wade through page by page. But now I own it, and owning is half the battle, or something.

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