Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

I'm intrigued by Daniel Pink's idea that type I folks - folks who are intrinsically motivated - are not born but can be made -- and perhaps more importantly, he offers some practical advice for helping to create "intrinsically motivated" types in the workplace.

In Drive, Pink's basic premise is that we have long believed that the way to motivate people at work in business and industrial settings is with extrinsic rewards: money, benefits, recognition. Pink argues that these rewards, while necessary, are not sufficient. In fact, the highest and best performances are those that are intrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation is the pleasure you get from doing the task.

Pink argues that extrinsic motivation works very well for motivating workers performing routine tasks and can inspire them to perform such tasks more quickly. But for complex and creative problem-solving, Pink argues, using extrinsic motivation will actually narrow the focus of workers and is likely to hamper or stifle their creativity.

To support his claim, he presents evidence from a variety of experiments - one done in India for the Federal Reserve Bank by economists, including Dan Ariely of Predictably Irrational famel another done with schoolchildren; and most importantly, the candle problem, a famous experiment from the 1930's more recently recast with incentives. (Pink also used this example in his TED lecture, which you can view at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y).

The candle problem, an experiment created by psychologist Karl Duncker, goes like this:

You're given the following materials, laid out on a table next to a wooden wall:

A candle

A book of matches

A shallow cardboard box of tacks (this works better with pictures)

and given these instructions:

Attach the candle to the (wooden) wall so that the candle's wax does not drip on the table.

Typically, folks struggle trying to attach the candle to the walls with tacks or attach the candle to the wall by melting the side of the candle and then sticking to the wall.

The solution is to empty the box of tacks, tack the box to the wooden wall with several tacks, and stick the candle in the box which protects anything below the box from the candle's wax.

The experiment is designed to assess a subject's level of "functional fixedness," i.e, whether the subject can conceive of a new use for the tack box to solve the problem.

A few decades ago psychologist Sam Glucksberg wanted to test how a reward for solving the problem quickly affected the ability to solve conceptual problems. He gave the candle problem to two groups.

He told the first group that he was timing how long it took them to solve the candle problem in order to establish an estimated time required to solve the problem.

He told the second group that if they finished in the top 25% of all folks solving the problem, they would receive $5 -- and, to the faster finisher, he offered $20.

"Motivation 2.0" predicts that the group with an incentive for performance will perform more quickly. In fact, the second group, on average, took three and a half minutes longer to solve the problem.

Pink explains that the results occurred because rewards narrow our focus. A narrowed focus is distracting from creative problem solving, when you have to "think outside the box."

Pink says that goal setting, something that many of us do in our personal lives as well as our work lives, can be counter-productive. This may come as a big relief for anyone who's ever failed at meeting a personal goal!

The reason why this is important, Pink explains, is that "Motivation 2.0" often worked fairly well for routine tasks but the conceptual, nonroutine tasks of the 21st century require different behaviors on the part of employees and they need, in essence, to be self-motivated, self-monitoring and -directed and to be creative thinkers. What motivates the creative thinkers of the 21st century? Well, in part, the joy of the task itself, and also, the opportunity to have autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Pink devotes a chapter to each of these three topics: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

The last part of the book is a toolkit, and its purpose is to provide practical directions for using autonomy, mastery and purpose to motivate people (regardless of whether they're in your family or in your company). And there's a reading list of 15 "essential" books that includes, of course, Outliers.

The new research about happiness, motivation and performance, and authors like Ariely, Pink and Gladwell, give us an opportunity to listen to scientists talk about what matters in why we make the decisions we do and how we can use that knowledge to improve our lives. I think that's really exciting.

A Question of Belief by Donna Leon

Commisario Guido Brunetti is good company. He isn't tortured like Harry Hole, of Jo Nesbo's Devil's Star, and he isn't a fixer and political favor trader like Aurelio Zen.

He has his moments of cynicism and even despair over governmental corruption and the gap between law enforcement and justice.

But he's defined by his relationships - with his wife, Paola, a member of the aristocracy, an English professor and an expert on Henry James, and with his Inspector, his closest professional colleague, Vianello.

In this novel, Venice is choked by August heat and humidity. Vianello comes to him with a personal problem; his aunt is giving large sums of money to an astrologer. This conversation leads both of them to ruminate on the changing roles of men in their families.

Someone else comes to him with some evidence of judicial corruption. Both investigations proceed slowly, until, on his way to a vacation in the mountains where it's blissfully cool, Brunetti receives a phone call informing him that the principal in the second case has been murdered. Brunetti catches a train back to Venice and the investigation kicks into high gear.

This investigation really turns on the personal quirks and passions of a three families living in a luxury apartment building, which it turns out, has ties to someone of great influence.

After reading Dibdin's Zen novels this mystery seems domestic and genteel; I enjoyed this novel but found myself missing the edge in the Zen books.

On the other hand, Jo Nesbo's Devil's Star and the Zen books included moments of what I would call "grotesquerie" which I don't enjoy and didn't miss at all. I wouldn't say that they interfered with my enjoyment of the Zen books, but in the case of Devil's Star, that was the memory that comes to mind immediately whenever I think of that book.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

I've already forgotten where I picked up my used copy of Angela's Ashes, and I didn't mean to start reading it now .. I have so much to read right now. But I did start reading it and almost couldn't stop. Three quarters of the way in, as McCourt chronicled his family history, I thought to myself, do I have to read it to the end? After all, I know what happens, right? But I did have to read it all the way to the end.

After I'd read the last page, I started to read the laudatory blurbs and I had to say that of course, what makes this book is not the content but the style. And, of course, that's not exactly right: McCourt is a great storyteller, who recounts vignettes from his childhood with economy and humor, with elements of the mock heroic style at times. That leavens the grim recounting of grief and disappointment. To be honest, especially after having read Teacher Man, I know that telling a sad story in a funny way is a way of coping, and writing a funny/sad memoir is a way of healing the past, and for McCourt is a special achievement in that setting down this story is the fulfillment of a decades-old goal.

I asked myself at one point, do you see the adult you met in Teacher Man anywhere here? I thought that, after all, I met him when young Francis was asked to write an essay on Jesus and wrote one entitled, "Jesus and the Weather." Limerick's wet climate was a major character in the story.

It's that same abrupt originality that inspired the assignment, in Teacher Man, of excuse notes from famous people in history.

I imagine that many people have heard of this memoir, winner of a Pulitzer and now about 15 years old. Folks exposed to publicity for it probably already know the outlines of the story: Frank's family relocates to Ireland during the height of the Depression. In Limerick they go on the dole. Frank's father is a cliche: an old Republican, whose business in New York was escaping the long arm of the law, he's unable to support his family and can't lay off the booze. His abject enslavement to a pint is so extreme that it's funny at the same time that it makes you want to weep and scream.

It's a perfect storm of poverty: Frank's mom is a good person but she's weak: she can't control her husband and she lets her mother and sister speak to her, her husband, and her children in a way that's probably also pretty scarring to young Frank and his brothers. It's not enough that Frank's dad is a drunk; they complain about the fact that he comes from the North as if it's a communicable disease that Frank had unfortunately caught: the "odd manner". What the heck is an odd manner? Frank's grandmother also accuses her son-in-law of being a Presbyterian, laughable since he was an altar boy.

The memoir is laced with a wonderful series of story pieces that would make any playwright proud. For instance, Frank and his brothers (including their baby brother, in the pram) go out to steal food when their mother is sick. They're all deeply innocent but Michael is perhaps especially so and tells a nice lady the whole sad story of his mother's illness and his brothers' crusade to get food. Of course, the truant officer soon arrives, ending this holiday (of a kind): all the while the truant officer confronts the boys he keeps shaking his head, repeating mournfully, "desperadoes."

That is the charm of this book, the surprise and wonder of finding humor in this portrait of this family and its city.

Reading now ..

Still trying to make my way to end of Purple Cow .. dipping into Paco Underhill's What Women Want - great ideas about how to make female business travelers more comfortable in hotels - dipped into Ron Hansen's A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion which has a great title, a great cover, a great plot and is also well-written and which I will not finish - because I know it does not have a happy ending (it does have a noir quality about it - it would probably make a great screenplay) .. and Donna Leon's A Question of Belief and another bit of Deresiewicz's book on Jane Austen which I really admire.

Superfreakonomics

I listened to this book on audiobook over the summer. In many ways, it was very entertaining. It was very well narrated.

I had seen Steven Leavitt speak after the publication of Freakonomics and he talked about the importance of incentives in influencing human behavior. It was a great talk. Leavitt began by talking about his experiment in speeding up potty training by using M & Ms as an incentive. His wife predicted it wouldn't work. His wife was right.

But I have a couple of problems with this book. I have to offer my thoughts with a grain of salt: because I listened to the book on audio, I may well have lost the thread several times.

My first big problem with the book is that the last chapter, on global warming, was completely opaque to me. I really didn't understand the points Leavitt and Dubner were trying to make, and it sounded as if they were saying, "Everything you know about global warming is wrong," which might actually be happy news, but they seemed to then go on to espouse a ridiculous, Rube Goldberg solution for addressing global warming. Who knew? I guess I feel that they didn't make their case, and what's worse is that my confusion prevented me from enjoying the chapter merely as a really good story. I don't like it when someone messes with my story!

It also happens that through sheer luck, I found myself driving at high speeds when I finished the CD with the story of the high end call girl who offered her story to the authors. I was forced to listen to it a second and then, a third time. This gave me an opportunity to observe how cliched the story was and to wonder what the real point was. I suppose that it's another example of how people's economic behavior can be influenced by incentives but even that story doesn't show that everyone can be incentivized to follow a particular behavior.

But I loved learning that drunk walking is even more dangerous than drunk driving -- isn't that fact really counterintuitive? In general, I continued to find that learning about the "hidden side of everything" was entertaining if not entirely persuasive.

Clutter Rehab: 101 Tips and Tricks to Become an Organizational Junkie and Love it! by Laura Wittman

I picked up Clutter Rehab because it had an attractive cover, and in many ways this book is like a magazine article: organizing is a favorite women's magazine topic, this book is short, with numbered entries, and illustrated with attractive photos.

And, it must be said, if you're someone who avidly consumes organizing articles while you're at the hairdressers, you'll find that you've come across many of these tips before or are already using them: using a pot or vase to hold spatulas and other kitchen utensils is a method that makes them easy to see and easy to grab; using drawer organizers, closet organizers and under bed storage boxes are all popular and common ways to create more storage space or use the space you already have more efficiently (to store more stuff!).

What I appreciated about this book was the fact that it took some time to talk about root causes of clutter -- that is, how clutter accumulates -- with practical suggestions for tackling the problem of "stuff," whether they're papers, magazines, clothes, or sentimental items that are cluttering up our lives.

For instance, one cause of clutter are the sentimental keepsakes we hang on to because they represent a cherished memory or an important moment in our lives. This author suggested taking a photo of the item and then -- get rid of it! Still, I can imagine some sentiments are more powerful than the good advice to get rid of it.

What I loved best about her discussion about addressing clutter was her acknowledgement of the barriers to beating clutter and her very practical advice for coping with those obstacles. My three favorite tips: Tip No. 49, "Don't Look Up," which advises you to keep your head down while moving through a pile, or table, or closet, or room of clutter (literally -- stepping back and looking at all you have to do may make be so discouraging that you'll abandon the effort or never get starting in the first place, so just do one thing -- and then another -- and then another); Tip No. 62, "Embrace Plan B and Let Go of Perfectionism"; and Tip No. 99, "Focus!": don't let yourself be distracted by a trip down memory lane when you're sorting through clutter (if there are some old yearbooks that tempt you, set them aside and look at them after you've finished the task, using it as a reward).

Wittman has some innovative ideas, like abandoning sorting clothes by color for simply giving each family member a hamper and washing all their clothes as one load. No more struggling to match up socks. Wow!

And, yes, I've been inspired to throw some things out: historic preservation article reprints, old music scores, old computer software textbooks. I might even find some space for all of those darn books I bring home!

Laura Wittman writes that her passion for organization began when she had a new baby, experienced a job loss and suddenly found herself a work-from-home mom. In fact, many of her tips are about how to keep children's things organized, from their toothbrushes to their toys and there are plenty of new ideas for that, as well. If you're interested in learning more about her and her ideas, she has a website at orgjunkie.com.

"The Accidental Guru" by Danielle Sacks

If you look up the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction in paperback, you'll discover, if you look at all 35 books on the list, that all of Malcolm Gladwell's books are on the list.

Outliers is number 3 on the list; The Tipping Point is number 9 on the list; Blink, which I thought was a delightful book, was number 16; What the Dog Saw is number 34 (I find that especially amazing; it's a collection of articles and I think that might be less accessible to many people than a "book length" idea although I like short stories and articles, too).

I found a book at the library called Fast Company's Greatest Hits: Ten Years of the Most Innovative Ideas in Business because it had an profile of Malcolm Gladwell, by Danielle Sacks, called The Accidental Guru.

Sacks reports that since The Tipping Point made the bestseller lists in 2000, Malcolm Gladwell "has made the leap to marketing god." I find that remarkable because, after all, Gladwell is not trained in business, is not a marketer or a businessman. Yet, I think it must be true and that that's why his books continue to sit on the bestseller list.

The reason for it must be his skill as a writer. He says in this article that he strives to find phrases that are memorable and will give his readers a handle on a concept -- help them to understand and to remember it. One example is the phrase, "momentary autism" (from Blink), which he coined to express the failure of the cops in the Amadou Diallou case to read his facial expressions and body language correctly -- something that we do do most, but not all, of the time -- and led to a tragically unnecessary shooting.

Today's marketers face challenges their predecessors did not. It's simply not possible to advertise the heck out of something and by doing so, successfully create brand awareness and loyalty. It seems natural to me, therefore, that marketers and salespeople are interested in learning about the "mavens" and "connectors" that can launch a new product or service. Gladwell's discussions of these concepts from The Tipping Point and the impact of first impressions and "thin-slicing" would be of great interest to businesspeople.

Gladwell has been criticized by some for failing to communicate some of the aspects of the research findings he presents, and even his Wikipedia entry contains the criticism that his desire to show that those who are successful benefit from a great deal of luck of various kinds was motivated by guilt he feels about his own success.

To me, the lesson of this story is that Gladwell sells his ideas with his skill as a storyteller and that the persuasion of the well-told story is more important than any credential.

Reading now ..

Whew! I think it's time for a breather, at least kind of.. I'm reading Clutter Rehab 101, a book I picked up because it had an attractive cover, and which has a number of good ideas. Well worth the investment of an hour or so.

And I'm reading Seth Godin's Purple Cow, which I bet everyone else has already read but I'm finding it interesting. Also just read a profile of Malcolm Gladwell.

Outliers: the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

I'm a big Malcolm Gladwell fan and I loved this book. Because I found this book more personal than any other, I enjoyed it more.

I appreciate that Gladwell often presents research conclusions or other evidence that is counter intuitive or contrary to "received wisdom."

Gladwell's thesis in this book is that there are many factors that contribute to success or simply permit it to take place that are structural. To some extent, I think we all sense that to be true. For instance, we know that because the economy is so bad now, this is a terrible time to be a new graduate. Opportunities that existed four years ago don't exist today.

I accept this premise as true and I think that quite a few other people do, too. (For instance, Fran Lebowitz made this point in the Martin Scorcese-directed documentary, "Public Speaking.") However, I'm not sure that I ever thought about it before I read -- or listened to -- this book.

I can't help but wonder if there have been readers who were misled by the title into thinking that they would learn how to be successful and were disappointed to learn that what they would learn, from reading this book, is that factors besides one's own merit and talent greatly affect our success. As Gladwell shows here, who your parents are, when and where you're born, and who your friends are may all be factors that shape your opportunities for success.

He opens the book by showing that students' hockey teams are inordinately composed of children who were born in January, February and March. That's because January 1 is the cut off; students born on that date or after are assigned to the next year's team. As coaches observe and assess students they focus on students with greater speed, strength and coordination and not coincidentally, that's often the students who have a few months on their peers.

Another example Gladwell offers is that Bill Gates' school had a computer lab. When his school ran out of resources for the computer lab, Gates and the other students were actually hired to do some computer work at a local company. Had his school not had a computer lab, things might have been very different.

I enjoyed the last chapter, about Gladwell's own mother, the most. I found his grandmother's determination to give her girls a better life very moving. I also learned that Gladwell is Canadian, from Ontario, something I hadn't known before - I'd also assumed he'd sprung, fully formed, from The New Yorker.

I listened to this book on audio and I hugely enjoyed it. I have no idea how hard Malcolm Gladwell worked on reading the book but he was right to do it because he's very good. It was a pleasure to hear him read it; he's a natural storyteller.

Fast Food My Way by Jacques Pepin

I adore this book. It was published in 2004 and is a companion to the TV series of the same name.

My favorite recipe is the only one that I've made; I don't think I'm alone in enjoying browsing cookbooks while knowing there's little chance I'll ever make any of the recipes. This recipe is called, I think, "Smoked Salmon Timbales."

This recipe is for a starter, a "timbale," which I think here is used in the sense of being like a tartlet in size.

It calls for layers of thinly sliced salmon, goat cheese with chives, red onion and apple, with a dressing of diced cucumber and capers in olive oil. It is essentially very simple and its delight to me is the combination of favorite ingredients: salmon, red onion, goat cheese, apples, capers, and olive oil. Of course, I love it - and it's so easy to prepare that even I can do it. I am both astounded at how much I enjoy this combination of flavors and how this recipe seems to deliver what it promises.

On the one hand, I never have goat cheese or smoked salmon "on hand." (Nor do I even have cucumbers "on hand" as much as I love them.) These ingredients are expensive. But, it was so easy to make .. it was a perfect after work at 10 pm meal.

Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner

Well! I've finally finished Too Close to the Falls.

I'm rather astounded by this small-town childhood memoir, set in Lewiston, New York, close to Niagara Falls. Gildiner had an amazingly eventful childhood: she saw Marilyn Monroe in her slip! To me, that's only one in a series of amazing events, not even the most exciting or surprising. I find myself feeling amazed that a small town in western New York had so many real events to offer.

For one thing, the young Cathy lived close to Niagara Falls where sledding, a favorite winter pastime, contained the danger that if you didn't control your sled you'd land in the river with its fatal whirlpools.

Cathy was really smart, really restless, precocious, and had a surprising family. Her mother didn't work, had household help, and her chief interest was local history. I find this amazing. Her father was a hard-working man who quietly accepted his more-than-surprising daughter.

At the age of four, the local doctor suggested that Cathy, because of her restless energy, go to work in her father's drugstore. There she spent much of her time with Roy, with whom she made delivery runs. As her father said, Cathy did the work of an adult. It's possible that this was the single most interesting aspect of the novel to me. I was amazed by Cathy's precocity and admired it, too. And Cathy did a bunch of other things: she was athletic, she was a gifted writer, she mingled with every part of Lewiston society.

My favorite chapter was "Roy." I liked Roy, as Cathy did. I thought that Roy and Cathy together enjoyed an enviable position: they were certainly living at the margins but their work as prescription deliverers gave them entry to every part of society. Possibly my least favorite chapter was "Mother Agnese."

I did not like Mother Agnese; I thought, frankly, that she was crazy and given her privileged background ignorance was not an excuse. Here was a world in which women were more explicitly powerless than today: I wondered if the joy she took in her vocation was partly inspired by her desire to escape the limitations of living in the "patriarchy." After all, as principal, she was powerful to the pupils of the school of which she was head. She seemed very judgmental and I found her remarks to the young Cathy to be abusive (she attacked Cathy's faith, and, in fact, attacking her in any way seems inappropriate according to today's standards). It should be said, however, that this is my view and not the author's. I may have found it difficult to divine the point of view here, or it may be that the view of Cathy, as a youngster, is very different than that of Catherine Gildiner, adult. I read the book club edition and in it there was an interview with Gildiner in which she clearly saw Mother Agnese differently than I did after reading the book.

Gildiner's description of her feelings as an adult toward Mother Agnese are far more respectful than my own would be. (Cathy was a skeptical and questioning person, which clearly put her on a collision course with Mother Agnese; Cathy was also a little bit of a Franciscan, which I also admired and which was also dangerous.) Finally, Gildiner's remarks tacitly acknowledge that they were rivals. This is what bothers me so much but it's human nature: I think Mother Agnese was so hard on Cathy because she saw her as a threat on both a practical and deep psychological level.

Gildiner said in an interview in the back of my paperback copy that it was natural for her to end the memoir when she did, just before her father sold the drugstore and the family moved to Buffalo, which I'm sure was a wholly different world. She said that she felt her childhood was innocent and that she had really changed by the time the Buffalo part of the book took place. That innocence is part of the attraction of this story.

Gildiner is also the author of a second memoir, After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties (2010) and a mystery novel about the philosophy and history of psychotherapy, Seduction.

Easy Virtue

Easy Virtue is a 2007 film by Stephan Elliott (the director of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). It stars Jessica Biel, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth and Ben Barnes. I'd never heard of it until I saw it when I was browsing the videos on Thursday; when I saw that it was an adaptation of a Noel Coward play I thought I'd be likely to enjoy it.

And I really did enjoy it very much, although in some ways it was not what I expected.

I thought that Kristin Scott-Thomas would act beautifully, and so she did. In fact, I thought I could bank on the certainty that her performance would be excellent and I was not disappointed. I had thought that Jessica Biel might be good, and I thought she was very good. Colin Firth was wonderful: his part didn't have much dialogue but what there was, was choice. His acting was beautiful, and gave the film some gravity I think, without which, it could not have succeeded.

I was surprised by the ending but it was immensely gratifying.

The film was beautifully photographed and the costumes were wonderful. They were beautifully designed; I found myself mesmerized by the very contemporary but very "art moderne" motif in the fabric of the cloche that Jessica Biel wore in one scene. I could scarcely pay attention to the dialogue.

I'd strongly recommend the commentary by the director and his co-writer Sheridan Jobbins (who has a beautiful speaking voice). They're Australians, and I'm still bewildered by all their slang, but variety is, after all, the spice of life. At the end of the commentary, Jobbins says to Elliott, her co-writer, that it's a beautiful film and I think it is. I marvel at the alchemy that permitted some very talented people to put together a jewel box of a film with the slenderest of means.

Not knowing much about the technology with which films are made I found the director's discussion of the work of the sound men fascinating as they labored to remove the sound of a hovering helicopter or to insert the sound of a grandfather clock.

Finally, the music. Very surprising and very excellent.

And yes, there's something for you here if you also loved There's Something About Mary.

Great Grilled Cheese and Grilled Cheese Please! by Laura Werlin

 

Author Laura Werlin has the thanks of a grateful grilled cheese eater -- me. Before giving Great Grilled Cheese as a gift to someone who is an avowed grilled cheese lover, I never thought about grilled cheese. Here's why grilled cheese is important: it's quick, it's easy, and it's a perennial favorite.

Laura's contribution is to offer us a new way to think about grilled cheese, one that calls for new ingredients and creativity. Whether it's important to you to love Velveeta or to leave it behind will probably dictate how you feel about her suggestions.

Great Grilled Cheese introduced me to the idea of apples in my sandwich. I can tell you it revolutionized my ideas about sandwich making, and now apples frequently figure in my ideas about something interesting to put in a sandwich I want to dress - or bulk - up. (I will say that using green apple as a substitute for celery in tuna salad some time ago was, as far as I know, my own idea and another illustration of how necessity is the mother of invention).

Her suggestions include brie and apricot jam on a baguette; spinach and goat cheese on a croissant; blue cheese and fresh figs on crusty Italian bread.

I do love cheese, especially brie and goat cheese, and I am delighted to have suggestions for using them in new ways.

This is also a great book to have if you've just gotten a sandwich maker and wonder what to do with it. As appropriate, Laura offers instructions on how to make each sandwich with either a skillet ("stovetop method"), a gas grill, or a sandwich maker. And, if you've got a Foreman grill, you've got a sandwich maker.

Here you'll find variations on all the classic and beloved cheese sandwiches: Reuben, Croque Monsieur, Monte Cristo. Laura shows you how to turn classic Toad in the Hole (here "Gashouse Eggs") into a cheesy sandwich with the addition of Monterey Jack, Swiss, or Gruyere cheese.

I think that the wonderful thing about dressing up a grilled cheese sandwich with variations is that it can really be gourmet fast food, depending on which ingredients you use. It's something that you can whip up in 20 minutes with the ingredients you have on hand which is a blessing when you're both hungry and tired.

Grilled Cheese, Please! answers my need for a grilled cheese sandwich that uses Camembert ("Say Oui to Normandy" and "Camembert and Comte" with mushrooms), and offers 5 (5!) recipes that call for bacon, including Chips and Guacamole Grilled Cheese and Welsh Rarebit (which also calls for Guinness so you know it's traditional and therefore good). "Say Oui to Normandy" calls for a green apple (Granny Smith or Pippin), which you know makes me happy!

Laura offers practical tips on the best kind of skillet to use, how best to grate cheese, how best to melt cheese, which kinds of bread are best to use, great recipes from great grilled cheese joints like Hammontree's in Fayetteville, Arkansas and the all important Bread to Cheese Ratio. This volume is especially key for cheese lovers, offering recipes for cheeses from around the world, from Colby in Wisconsin to Fontina, Gruyere, Emmentaler, Gloucester or Cheshire, Mahon, Gouda, Feta, Parmesan, and Gorgonzola, in chapters titled "Veggies and Cheese," "Global Grilled Cheese," "Regional American Cheese Favorites," "Grilled Cheese on the Go," and others. There are also intriguing recipes for sandwich relishes, from guacamole to tomato jam and apricot jam.

Finally, after reading Grilled Cheese, Please! I went into the kitchen and made a quesadilla with Colby Jack, coarsely chopped red onion, thin tomato slices, fresh basil (the basil made the sandwich) and black pepper. I can't tell you how, but it was inspired by Laura.

The wonderful photos in both books are by Maren Caruso and these handsome, colorful and easy to handle books are publish by Stewart Tabori & Chang. Genius! I can't wait for volume three.

Laura Werlin is also the author of two books on cheese: The New American Cheese (2000) and The All American Cheese and Wine Book (2003).

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood

I listened to this book as an audiobook, and I found its many stories about the production of the 5 Oscar nominees for 1967 delightful, surprising and hugely entertaining. They were Dr. Doolittle, In The Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Graduate.

There are many stories here, both central and tangential. The two most interesting characters, and a real focus of the book, are Warren Beatty and Sidney Poitier. I've taken Beatty for granted, but now I understand how daring it was of him to assume the role of producer; how surprising to me that the director he regularly sparred with on the set of Mickey One became his choice to direct Bonnie and Clyde. Poitier was an actor in the sometimes unenviable role of national civil rights symbol. Harris' recounting of his frustrations as an actor and civil rights activist were entirely new to me but fascinating.

Bonnie and Clyde's costume designer had never before worked on a film and at one point, Beatty, who'd hired her, snapped at her, "You don't know what you're doing, do you?" But her designs changed fashion that year and for years to come. Beatty is rumored to have gotten down on his knees to ask Jack Warner for the money; Beatty says that's not true but Harris asserts that while he met with Beatty, Warner insisted on pointing out the "Warner Bros." water tower with the "WB" on it; Beatty replied that those were his initials.

Bonnie and Clyde was intended to reflect the spirit and aesthetic of the French New Wave (which was in turn inspired by Hollywood movies) and Robert Benton and his co-writer originally hoped to have Francois Truffaut direct and even offered the film to Jean-Luc Godard.

The Graduate reveals that Dustin Hoffman was all wrong for the role and that well into the making of the film, Mike Nichols, its director, realized that he'd insisted on hiring Hoffman because Nichols identified with him. Meanwhile, Hoffman was catapulted from obscuring to stardom by a role in which he which he sometimes felt bewildered.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? introduces Stanley Kramer, once very well-known as an "issues" director, and the complicated relationship of Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to each other and their co-star, Sidney Poitier. When I learned how Tracy spoke to Hepburn in private, I was amazed.

I learned that In the Heat of the Night was actually filmed in Sparta, Illinois because it was thought that the film's subject matter was too incendiary to safely film any farther south.

Dr. Doolittle was an attempt by producer Arthur P. Jacobs to create a prestige children's picture like Disney's Mary Poppins. It was a flop, and aspects of the production were not only hellish (elements of the original were so fantastic that they were hard to film in the pre-CGI era) but parts of the finished film seemed laughable. Why was it nominated? Jacobs invested in a significant and successful lobbying campaign. He went on to produce the very profitable The Planet of the Apes series.

This book also conveys an industry in the midst of a huge, dislocating transition, much like the period we're living through now. If you're interested in film history or the history of the sixties, I'd strongly recommend this title.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Like The Imperfectionists, this novel follows a great number of characters who are linked although not all of them know each other. The two main characters are Bennie and Sasha.

When the novel opens, we see Sasha in her psychiatrist's office, recounting a hair-raising scene involving her kleptomania. She thinks to herself that she will continue to resist her therapist's efforts to talk about her father, as she says to herself that only sorrow that way lies.

Bennie is a veteran of a punk garage band. It gave him his entree into the music busiess, as well as some emotional baggage left over from relationships in the band .. he loves Alice, Alice loves Scotty, Scotty loves Jocelyn, and Jocelyn falls in love with a much older record producer while her friend Rhea awkwardly tags along.

Bennie becomes the owner of his own label, Sow's Ear Records, and then an record executive when his company is bought out. Sasha is Bennie's assistant for 12 years. A remark Bennie makes at the end of the novel shows that while Bennie had some real affecton for Sasha, he never saw her. Sasha was, of course, stuck in every area of her life and getting fired by Bennie might have been the best thing that ever happened to her.

Egan excavates different parts of the story, spanning decades, in different chapters. She experiments with different ways of telling the story.

A friend suggested that one weakness of this novel is that the characters all have such conventional motivations for their actions: Sasha's kleptomania is motivated by her feelings of inadequacy caused by the breakdown of her parents' marriage; Bennie, and the members of his band, are motivated by their unrequited love, tearing the band apart; Lou insists on marrying a casual girlfriend because her interest in another man made him jealous.

But in Alison's slide presentation (a PowerPoint presentation telling the story of Sasha's family) Egan achieves an elegant economy of storytelling.

I liked the novel for a different reason: both Bennie and Sasha find happiness at its end.