book

Omnivore's Dilemma - A Natural History of Four Meals

This is a great book for the insights it provides, but in my opinion, is flawed from an analytical perspective because the author writes from a painfully biased point of view.

Overall it provides an amazing review of the current modern food industry in the United States. From industrial, to organic-industrial, to organic, to handmade the book reviews four major sectors of how food might end up on our plates. It is in the final section about a home-grown meal that the bias heads to the point of being naive in it's presentation of the information. The "perfect meal" (as the author describes it) involves eating a nearly extinct sea creature and driving hundreds of miles in an SUV to gather one ingredient. I fail to see how those are sustainable practices worthy of being called "perfect."

If those hypocrisies of the perfect meal were addressed in some way I would have loved this book. As it stands...the first three sections are great analysis and the fourth is a nice romantic story.

Don't Make me Think: by Steve Krug

This is a pretty solid book. It was recommended to me by a lot of people that I respect so I figured I had to read it. As a bonus, it's quite short. As a minus, it probably could be a lot shorter! Which is ironic since Krug prides himself on having eliminated all needless words.

Regardless, it was great. Especially the chapter about guerrilla usability testing has inspired me to do more of that...

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