As Joseph Addison once said, “Reading is to the mind as exercise is to the body”, and following on from Time For A Change I mentioned how I felt my English writing was suffering the consequences of not reading more books. Well, I’m certainly over the lack of enjoyment I originally had whilst reading through books and the lack of patience I showed and I’m now enjoying reading at least a chapter a night and sometimes more throughout the day and as a result I feel much more confident and oddly, alert, than I was, perhaps Addison was right…

Well so far I’ve read through the Ben Mezrich book mentioned in my previous post, ‘Ugly Americans’, which was quite entertaining, but not exactly the thrill ride that I got from ‘Bringing Down The House’. Ugly Americans centers around a young American graduate from Stamford, Malcolm, who travels to Japan and trades on the Japanese stock exchange, the Nikkei, and millionaire traders from the United States who were able to amass fortunes within 24 hours of trading. It was based on a true story, though the protagonists of the book did have their identities hidden, but you do get a rather clear story of the trials and tribulations faced by the young Americans, but all too often the terminology of the stock market just went over my head, I guess a similar problem people had with ‘Bringing Down The House’ in regards to poker, and if you understood the stock market and trading then this wouldn’t pose a problem.

I’ve also read through half of ‘Belle de Jour, the Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl’ (a catchy title, I know), which is better known to the Television watching public of Britain as ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’ starring Billie Piper. I know I said I was sick of half reading books, but this isn’t so much a book as it is a series of events formulated through a diary that I believe was posted on the Internet. Again, the people in ‘Belle de Jour’ are given aliases as to hide their true identities, but it works rather well, adding a further layer of mystery to the whole thing. The book itself is rather excellent at times, some entries rather interesting and as far as the stories go, it does ‘go there’ in terms of a graphic nature, but never to disgust or intimidate the reader, instead dragging them along on a voyeuristic adventure. It’s something that I am able to turn to if I need a quick reading fix. You also don’t feel overly connected with the TV series, which, for me is definitely a good thing as they can co-exist as two different entities.

The third book was Gordon Ramsays, ‘Humble Pie’, the autobiography of the ‘celebrity chef’, a term I know he hates but has come to accept. As a biography it was both excellent and lacking in equal measures. At times it was incredibly in-depth and very vivid in its descriptions such as the drug problems of his brother or the abuse he received from his father who he later disowned. It’s a great insight into why he’s become arguably the Worlds most famous chef, certainly Britains. A three-michelin starred chef, a highly successful restaurateur and a culinary TV megastar. I found his book a very enjoyable read, especially learning about the people he has worked with, but I would have preferred more information regarding who had worked for.
Gordon also comes off as more of a regular person in this book rather than the shouty-screamy persona that he’s known for and explains why he has that fire in him.
If you have any interest at all in cooking or enjoy Ramsay on TV then I thoroughly recommend this book, I found it very informative and an easy read.

As I enjoyed Ramsays book so much I went on to another autobiography for a chef, this time arguably the greatest British chef of all time, if not the world, Marco Pierre White. This is an interesting one for me because from what I have seen of him on TV, I didn’t like him, but what I couldn’t take away from him is what he has achieved in his life, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’m currently only 1/3 through the book but so far I am really, really enjoying it immensely, it’s often laugh out loud funny and the stories he tells from working in the 3 best restaurants growing up are fantastically realised. It’s a battle of the Great British chefs (Ramsay worked for MPW at Harveys for those who don’t know) and I’m looking forward to finding out which is the best.

So all in all, I have been rather busy reading books :p.