I got this book because I'm sort of a sucker for the off-beat diet books, but this one is actually really smart. Not long, not complicated, but written by someone almost entirely outside the food / diet industry and loaded with facts about the basic things that influence how we eat: plates are bigger so servings have gotten bigger, and the real thing we need to do is relearn how to see what a real serving looks like and put it on a decent-sized plate to get out brains to think it looks like a real meal and not a skimpy mess.

Brilliant.

The only thing I found wrong with it is that there's not a single mention of seconds and slowing down your eating-- you should definitely eat smaller portions, but you also shouldn't eat three platefulls of them, and you should eat slow enough that while your brain is telling you you've had enough, your stomach has time to agree so you don't keep eating forever, despite the smaller plate size. It's the freest and most reasonable "diet" I've ever seen. And it's mostly about how culture has messed up all the comparisons, not at all about how food has gotten worse for us (even though it has) or how we all have become weak and stupid (which we probably haven't, mostly).

Highly recommended.

Digital domains edited by Ellen datlowl

This is exactly what an anthology is for: a taste of what's out there, and a good sampling of different styles and takes on a variety of topics. There's fifteen stories in here, and all of them are amazing. I sobbed lIke a baby during The Monkey King's Daughter, I felt like I was dreaming during Pansolapia, I was sucked in to each and every story. And there's one from Kelly Link and one from Andy Duncan, and both are excellent writers. Best of all, there's a feeling that the stories, thought all very different, all lean toward the same ending feeling, that they all want to change around the furniture inside your head. It's exactly why I love anthologies, and it's exactly why I love Datlow anthologies.