Customer Reviews:
Three Joe Leaphorn Mysteries.......2005-07-24
---"The Blessing Way"---
"He stirs, he stirs, he stirs, he stirs,"
"Among the lands of dawning, he stirs, he stirs.
The pollen of dawning, he stirs, he stirs.
Now in old age wandering, he stirs, he stirs.
Now on the trail of beauty, he stirs,
Talking God, he stirs..."
It is in the 1970's pre-cell phone where parallel lives take place. We have an Indian wanted for a stabbing who turns up dead. Not just dead but in the wrong place. Not the wrong place but in a mysterious way. There is also a team of archeologists looking into which craft (they just may find it). One archeologist seems to be missing. A strange Navaho has his hat stolen but the silver hat band left. A woman is coming to visit her fiancé is in for an adventure she did not count on. From all of this Joe Leaphorn must make some sort of sense.
It is the descriptiveness of Tony Hillerman that goes beyond the mystery to pant a picture of a different world that we get to glimpse in the process of reading.
Read the book but the addition of the voice of George Guidall ads a dimension to the story by helping visualize the people and correcting pronunciation of certain words. I suggest you read the book and listen to the recorded version.
----------------------------------------
---"Dance Hall of the Dead"---
The Fire God is missing
Twelve-year-old Ernesto Cata (Zuñi) is practicing to be the Fire God in a local ceremony. His best buddy George Bowlegs (Navaho) is a Zuñi wana-be.
Ernesto is missing and there is a pool of blood by his bike. The next day his buddy George runs off. It is up to Sgt. Joe Leaphorn to find the boys before anything happens to them (if it has not already.)
As with most of Hillerman's novels everyone has different agendas and stories that overlap. There are alleged stolen artifacts form and archeological dig, and possibly a drug interest. They may or may not interact. We also get a good dose of Zuñi culture, and a feel that we are in the area.
Hillerman is nice enough to leave sufficient clues to let you figure out the mystery before Leaphorn and you then get to watch as he finally comes around to your way of thinking.
Another book by Hillerman "The Boy who Made Dragonfly" further describes the dance hall of the dead (Kothluwalawa.)
Author's Note:
"In this book, the setting is genuine. The village of Zuñi and the landscape of the Zuñi reservation are depicted to the best of my ability. The characters are purely fictional. The view the reader receives of the Sha'lak'o religion is as it might be seen by a Navajo with an interest in ethnology. It does not pretend to be more than that."
--------------------------------
---"Listening Woman"---
A great cliff hanger
Joe Leaphorn can put the loose ends together even when no one else realizes there are loose ends. The story starts out with an old man being bludgeoned and later Leaphorn is intentionally almost rundown by a mysterious man in gold rimed glasses. He tries to tie these together. Then he uses an old robbery as an excuse to get out of a Boy Scout commitment and track down the antagonist. Needles to say the story gets more convoluted for everyone but Leaphorn.
This is an excellent story with the added plus of the description of the area and the Navaho that occupies this area. What seems at first to be over description later enhances the final scenes.
Speaking about the location and Navaho, even the schools, this story is even more enjoyable if you read "Seldom Disappointed" first. Tony describes how he comes by the plot and the people. He even goes out to locations first as research.
I have read the book but the addition of the voice of George Guidall adds a dimension to the story by helping visualize the people and correcting pronunciation of certain words. I suggest you read the book and listen to the recorded version.
You'll Enjoy Hillerman's Flights of Imagination.......2000-07-17
In this volume, encompassing three novels, we are introduced to Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, educated at a White college yet living on the reservation, and discover some of the ways of the Dineh, the people. The subject novels -- "The Blessing Way," "Dance Hall of the Dead," and "Listening Women" were written between 1970 and 1978, and deal with the effects of jealousy, greed, rage, and revenge brought onto the Navajo reservation by outsiders. Hillerman has an unerring talent for using small bits of Indian culture to weave convincing stories laced with an inticate pattern of mystery.
From day one, Hillerman has been a successful mystery writer. He writes with integrity about the lives of the Southwest Indians (emphasis on the Navajo) with perception and understanding. Hillerman has won many fans with his series of mysteries but some in the Navajo nation are disturbed over a White author writing about their "ways" even though Hillerman doesn't get into secret tribal matters. Regardless, Hillerman has fostered a lot of good will for the Navajo, the Zuni, and the Hopi with his large audience of readers.
Over the years, the possibilities inherent in the mystery formula have become exhausted. Hillerman has developed, within the framework of the formula, a Navajo policeman who solves crimes with a mixture of modern and ancient skills and also educates readers about Navajo beliefs. Hillerman's stories don't challenge a reader's intellect. That isn't the author's intention. What he produces is a likable hero, descriptions of fabulous scenery, unobtrusive murders, and the absorbing lives of the Navajo. The author ably works the White and the Idnian worlds as he explains the reality of Whites and some off-reservation Indians intruding on the reservation and the resulting conflicts. In Hillerman's mysteries the reservation Indians always win.
The author's writing skills are evident as he mixes the acts and thoughts of different individuals smoothly and coherently in "The Blessing Way." The author employs McKee, a close friend of Leaphorn, to do most of the work. McKee deduces, faces danger, solves dilemmas, but Leaphorn actually ties the loose ends together at the finale. Leaphorn reveals clues but you'll be none the wiser unless you have some knowledge of Southwestern weather, fauna, hieroglyphics, Indian beliefs, and similar arcana.
The author uses the "Dance hall of the Dead," to really educate a reader in SW Indian lore. The central point to the story is an archeological excavation and the disruption brought by the White man to the reservation. Navajo mysticism pervades this murder mystery. We learn about the Beautiful Mesa Families, who elected to die when Kit Carson arrived in 1864; Zuni Indian spirits who join the Kachinas and become one of them; the Navajo Chindi who spread sickness and evil among the Dineh; and the Shalako Ceremony which grants fertility to crops and brings needed rain to the desert regions of the reservation.
In the "Listening Women," Hopi ways are introduced as are the Navajo concepts of -- Remaining in harmony with the universe; Navajo wolves identified as men and women who turn from harmony to chaos and assume the guise of Coyotes, Dogs, Wolves, and Bears in order to spread sickness among the Dineh; Disharmonious sand paintings which can cause death; and Destruction of tradtitional Kiowa medicine bundles when the Buffalo disappeared. While this quantity of information might seem daunting to a reader, author Hillerman allows Joe Leaphorn to solve a murder while smoothly inculcating a reader in Native American lore.
The author has applied a gentle and refined twist to the mystery formula by creating an intriguing product employing Southwest Indian lore, the masterful Joe Leaphorn, and a little murder or two wrappoed up in a pleasing package. Try Tony Hillerman's mysteries, you'll enjoy his flights of imagination.
My first Hillerman book, it made me buy all the others!.......1997-11-10
The Joe Leaphorn mysteries by Tony Hillerman have become one of my favorite reads. I never thought that I would be interested in mysteries set on an indian reservation but this book changed all that. After reading this book I found and read every Hillerman book I could find and watch the lists for new ones. I have also learned a lot about reservation life and have a new-found respect and understanding of what life is like for the American Indian today. Kudos to Tony Hillerman!
Average customer rating:
- Good and interesting read
- Compare and contrast
- Dance Hall of the Deat
- Among Hillerman's Best
- The Fire God is missing
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Dance Hall of the Dead
Tony Hillerman
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Listening Woman (Joe Leaphorn Novels)
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The Blessing Way (Joe Leaphorn Novels)
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The Dark Wind (Jim Chee Novels)
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The Ghostway
ASIN: 0061000027
Release Date: 2004-10-05 |
Book Description
Two young boys suddenly disappear. One of them, a Zuni, leaves a pool of blood behind. Lt. Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police tracks the brutal killer. Three things complicate the search: an archeological dig, a steel hypodermic needle, and the strange laws of the Zuni. Compelling, terrifying, and highly suspenseful, "Dance Hall of the Dead" never relents from first page til last.
Download Description
Loaded with e-book extras (not available in the print edition), including Tony Hillerman's running commentary on his work, his series heroes Leaphorn and Chee, and a special profile of the Navajo nation.
Customer Reviews:
Good and interesting read.......2007-06-17
My first book by this author, and if I get a hand on another I will gladly read it. The mystery plot is quite decent and the cultural background mixed into it makes the reading also a learning experience. It is not a bad thing to pickup bits and pieces of information about topics that one would never make inquiries into. Even though that some experts in the field might argue that the author does not portray the native Indian groups involved in the novel correctly, I think that it is still quite sufficient for a general knowledge, after all if you really want to know about native Indians you would not get it out of mystery novels.
Compare and contrast.......2007-01-13
George Bowlegs is a curious and unusual Navajo boy. There are certain things George is not allowed to know. Ed Pasquaandi is the Chief of Police, Zuni. He is discussing a jurisdictional dispute with Joe Leaphorn. Leaphorn is summoned to help find George Bowlegs. Leaphorn had had a Zuni roommate his freshman year at Arizona State.
Leaphorn finds that two boys are missing. In addition to Bowlegs there is a Zuni boy named Ernesto Cata. Cata is to be Shulawitsi, the Fire God, in a Zuni ceremony, the Shalako. Leaphorn learns from a younger brother that George Bowlegs is running away from the Kachina, a mask representing ancestral spirits. The younger brother believes that Ernesto is breaking a taboo in talking to George about Zuni rituals.
George had intended to find out about the Kachina in school; but he had run off when he learned that Ernesto was missing and investigators had found blood. Ernesto had stolen something from the archaeologists. Leaphorn interrupts Ted Isaacs, apprentice archaeologist and graduate student, digging at the site of a Folsom hunting camp. He learns that a more senior archaeologist sent the boys away from the site several days earlier and that they had not returned.
It seems that George is studying to be a Zuni, really an impossibility, although a nineteenth century arcaeologist, Frank Cushing, had been made a member of the tribe. George is claiming that Ernesto can make him a member of the Badger clan. Visiting some white people, 'hippies', at a hogan deserted by the Indians since there had been a death there, Leaphorn sees the man-bird, the Kachina.
At the hogan of the Bowlegs family, Leaphorn discovers Shorty Bowlegs, George's father, dead. The hogan of the Bowlegs family is visited by Leaphorn after his observation of the funeral rites for Ernesto Cata who had also died.
In reporting the deaths offically, Leaphorn finds that there are two investigators involved, one from the FBI and the other from the Bureau of Narcotics. Leaphorn is driven to realize that he doesn't respect the FBI agent, O'Malley, and O'Malley doesn't respect him since there is a refusal to share information.
In the end the solution to the deaths, (George Bowlegs dies, too), lies in understanding the essential nature of majoritarian and Indian cultures. Joe Leaphorn is shocked. The reader shares his dismay. The book is a marvel.
Dance Hall of the Deat.......2005-08-16
Tony Hillerman's stories are always captavating and this is definately one of the best.
Among Hillerman's Best.......2004-12-08
First published in 1973, DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD was and is still considered among the best of Tony Hillerman's "Joe Leaphorn" novels, a series set on Southwestern Native American lands and following the adventures of Lt. Leaphorn as he investigates crimes on the reservation. In this particular novel, Leaphorn, a Navajo, is summoned to Zunni lands to assist in a particularly unpleasant crime: a Zunni teenager's blood has soaked the land, but his body is missing--and so is the Navajo teenager who was with him.
As usual, Hillerman writes in a strong prose voice, and much of the novel's interest stems from his depiction of the character, traditions, and lore of Native Americans who live on the reservation. Unlike some other Hillerman novels, the plot is fairly tight and does indeed live up to its description as a mystery--but even so the mystery here is remarkably transparent; even the most niave reader should be able to spot both killer and motive in the first quarter of the novel. That is unfortunate--but still, Hillerman's expert prose and his portrait of Native American society make DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD an interesting, entertaining, and often informative read. Generally recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
The Fire God is missing.......2004-10-23
Twelve-year-old Ernesto Cata (Zuñi) is practicing to be the Fire God in a local ceremony. His best buddy George Bowlegs (Navaho) is a Zuñi wana-be.
Ernesto is missing and there is a pool of blood by his bike. The next day his buddy George runs off. It is up to Sgt. Joe Leaphorn to find the boys before anything happens to them (if it has not already.)
As with most of Hillerman's novels everyone has different agendas and stories that overlap. There are alleged stolen artifacts form and archeological dig, and possibly a drug interest. They may or may not interact. We also get a good dose of Zuñi culture, and a feel that we are in the area.
Hillerman is nice enough to leave sufficient clues to let you figure out the mystery before Leaphorn and you then get to watch as he finally comes around to your way of thinking.
Another book by Hillerman "The Boy who Made Dragonfly" further describes the dance hall of the dead (Kothluwalawa.)
Author's Note:
"In this book, the setting is genuine. The village of Zuñi and the landscape of the Zuñi reservation are depicted to the best of my ability. The characters are purely fictional. The view the reader receives of the Sha'lak'o religion is as it might be seen by a Navajo with an interest in ethnology. It does not pretend to be more than that."
Customer Reviews:
Three Joe Leaphorn Mysteries.......2004-11-02
---"The Blessing Way"---
"He stirs, he stirs, he stirs, he stirs,"
"Among the lands of dawning, he stirs, he stirs.
The pollen of dawning, he stirs, he stirs.
Now in old age wandering, he stirs, he stirs.
Now on the trail of beauty, he stirs,
Talking God, he stirs..."
It is in the 1970's pre-cell phone where parallel lives take place. We have an Indian wanted for a stabbing who turns up dead. Not just dead but in the wrong place. Not the wrong place but in a mysterious way. There is also a team of archeologists looking into which craft (they just may find it). One archeologist seems to be missing. A strange Navaho has his hat stolen but the silver hat band left. A woman is coming to visit her fiancé is in for an adventure she did not count on. From all of this Joe Leaphorn must make some sort of sense.
It is the descriptiveness of Tony Hillerman that goes beyond the mystery to pant a picture of a different world that we get to glimpse in the process of reading.
Read the book but the addition of the voice of George Guidall ads a dimension to the story by helping visualize the people and correcting pronunciation of certain words. I suggest you read the book and listen to the recorded version.
----------------------------------------
---"Dance Hall of the Dead"---
The Fire God is missing
Twelve-year-old Ernesto Cata (Zuñi) is practicing to be the Fire God in a local ceremony. His best buddy George Bowlegs (Navaho) is a Zuñi wana-be.
Ernesto is missing and there is a pool of blood by his bike. The next day his buddy George runs off. It is up to Sgt. Joe Leaphorn to find the boys before anything happens to them (if it has not already.)
As with most of Hillerman's novels everyone has different agendas and stories that overlap. There are alleged stolen artifacts form and archeological dig, and possibly a drug interest. They may or may not interact. We also get a good dose of Zuñi culture, and a feel that we are in the area.
Hillerman is nice enough to leave sufficient clues to let you figure out the mystery before Leaphorn and you then get to watch as he finally comes around to your way of thinking.
Another book by Hillerman "The Boy who Made Dragonfly" further describes the dance hall of the dead (Kothluwalawa.)
Author's Note:
"In this book, the setting is genuine. The village of Zuñi and the landscape of the Zuñi reservation are depicted to the best of my ability. The characters are purely fictional. The view the reader receives of the Sha'lak'o religion is as it might be seen by a Navajo with an interest in ethnology. It does not pretend to be more than that."
--------------------------------
---"Listening Woman"---
A great cliff hanger
Joe Leaphorn can put the loose ends together even when no one else realizes there are loose ends. The story starts out with an old man being bludgeoned and later Leaphorn is intentionally almost rundown by a mysterious man in gold rimed glasses. He tries to tie these together. Then he uses an old robbery as an excuse to get out of a Boy Scout commitment and track down the antagonist. Needles to say the story gets more convoluted for everyone but Leaphorn.
This is an excellent story with the added plus of the description of the area and the Navaho that occupies this area. What seems at first to be over description later enhances the final scenes.
Speaking about the location and Navaho, even the schools, this story is even more enjoyable if you read "Seldom Disappointed" first. Tony describes how he comes by the plot and the people. He even goes out to locations first as research.
I have read the book but the addition of the voice of George Guidall adds a dimension to the story by helping visualize the people and correcting pronunciation of certain words. I suggest you read the book and listen to the recorded version.
Customer Reviews:
The Fire God is missing.......2006-11-18
Twelve-year-old Ernesto Cata (Zuñi) is practicing to be the Fire God in a local ceremony. His best buddy George Bowlegs (Navaho) is a Zuñi wana-be.
Ernesto is missing and there is a pool of blood by his bike. The next day his buddy George runs off. It is up to Sgt. Joe Leaphorn to find the boys before anything happens to them (if it has not already.)
As with most of Hillerman's novels everyone has different agendas and stories that overlap. There are alleged stolen artifacts form and archeological dig, and possibly a drug interest. They may or may not interact. We also get a good dose of Zuñi culture, and a feel that we are in the area.
Hillerman is nice enough to leave sufficient clues to let you figure out the mystery before Leaphorn and you then get to watch as he finally comes around to your way of thinking.
Another book by Hillerman "The Boy who Made Dragonfly" further describes the dance hall of the dead (Kothluwalawa.)
Author's Note:
"In this book, the setting is genuine. The village of Zuñi and the landscape of the Zuñi reservation are depicted to the best of my ability. The characters are purely fictional. The view the reader receives of the Sha'lak'o religion is as it might be seen by a Navajo with an interest in ethnology. It does not pretend to be more than that."
The Fire God is missing.......2006-09-17
Twelve-year-old Ernesto Cata (Zuñi) is practicing to be the Fire God in a local ceremony. His best buddy George Bowlegs (Navaho) is a Zuñi wana-be.
Ernesto is missing and there is a pool of blood by his bike. The next day his buddy George runs off. It is up to Sgt. Joe Leaphorn to find the boys before anything happens to them (if it has not already.)
As with most of Hillerman's novels everyone has different agendas and stories that overlap. There are alleged stolen artifacts form and archeological dig, and possibly a drug interest. They may or may not interact. We also get a good dose of Zuñi culture, and a feel that we are in the area.
Hillerman is nice enough to leave sufficient clues to let you figure out the mystery before Leaphorn and you then get to watch as he finally comes around to your way of thinking.
Another book by Hillerman "The Boy who Made Dragonfly" further describes the dance hall of the dead (Kothluwalawa.)
Author's Note:
"In this book, the setting is genuine. The village of Zuñi and the landscape of the Zuñi reservation are depicted to the best of my ability. The characters are purely fictional. The view the reader receives of the Sha'lak'o religion is as it might be seen by a Navajo with an interest in ethnology. It does not pretend to be more than that."
Product Description
Four paperback books are in a Slip Case.
Product Description
SLIPCASE WITH FOUR PAPERBACKS; A THIEF OF TIME, PEOPLE OF DARKNESS, SKINWALKERS, AND DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD.
Amazon.com
Be warned: In many ways this is a terrifying book. It deals with a subject--violence against children--that most of us never want to consider. But, as Gavin de Becker stresses, such situations, though rare, can occur, so all parents must deal with the facts in order to protect their children properly. De Becker's aim is to create awareness of potential dangers and provide parents with the knowledge necessary for prevention and control. As he emphatically states in Protecting the Gift, much of this knowledge is already hard-wired in the form of intuition: "This natural ability is deep, brilliant, powerful. Nature's greatest accomplishment, the human brain, is stunningly efficient when its host is at risk, but when one's child is at risk, it moves to a whole new level, one we can justifiably call miraculous." The trick, he stresses, is trusting and acting on intuition.
In this valuable, even necessary, book, he shatters many myths about the typical profiles of regular offenders and the prevalence of such problems as sexual abuse and kidnapping. He also deconstructs the wisdom of traditional maxims such as "Never talk to strangers" and "If you are ever lost, go to a policeman." Without offering a compendium of every conceivable danger, he identifies warning signals and real risks that are often easy to spot once you know what to look for. He offers practical advice on recognizing signs of sexual abuse, choosing a baby sitter or nanny, how to prepare kids for walking to school alone, and how to teach children about potential risks without making them afraid to venture out of the house. And he continually stresses that denial and ignoring intuition are the biggest mistakes that parents make in protecting their kids from those that mean them harm. Well written and infinitely informative, Protecting the Gift affords parents more confidence and less reason for unnecessary worry. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
Safety skills for children outside the home
Warning signs of sexual abuse
How to screen baby-sitters and choose schools
Strategies for keeping teenagers safe from violence
All parents face the same challenges when it comes to their children's safety: whom to trust, whom to distrust, what to believe, what to doubt, what to fear, and what not to fear. In this empowering book, Gavin de Becker, the nation's leading expert on predicting violent behavior and author of the monumental bestseller
The Gift of Fear, offers practical new steps to enhance children's safety at every age level, giving you the tools you need to allow your kids freedom without losing sleep yourself. With daring and compassion, he shatters the widely held myths about danger and safety and helps parents find some certainty about life's highest-stakes questions:
How can I know a baby-sitter won't turn out to be someone who harms my child? (see page 103)
What should I ask child-care professionals when I interview them? (see page 137)
What's the best way to prepare my child for walking to school alone? (see page 91)
How can my child be safer at school? (see page 175)
How can I spot sexual predators? (see page 148)
What should I do if my child is lost in public? (see page 86)
How can I teach my child about risk without causing too much fear? (see page 98)
What must my teenage daughter know in order to be safe? (see page 191)
What must my teenage son know in order to be safe? (see page 218)
And finally, in the face of all these questions, how can I reduce the worrying? (see page 56)
Customer Reviews:
A parent must have!.......2007-09-11
Wonderful book that teaches you how to trust yourself for the sake of your child.
Gavin De Becker is THE REAL DEAL! Absolute BEST!.......2007-06-29
De Becker is the only one I trust on this topic. He is dead-on accurate. Are you tired of the simplistic & false 'don't talk to strangers' type platitudes? He dispells them & gives you something much better. The truth.
It takes time and critical thinking to REALLY prepare our children to be safe. De Becker thinks it through & relates it with clarity. Don't waste your time with the 'stranger-danger; good touch/bad touch' stuff.
ALSO: Although his first book, "The Gift of Fear" is also excellent, this one does stand alone just fine.
Parent or not; priceless peace of mind........2007-06-25
You'd think, being a 25-year-old girl with a peaceful past (aside from having a loving, unviolent but drug-addicted mother--thankfully blessed with a single, first-time father who somehow knew how to do everything right), that this book wouldn't serve me at all. I have no children yet, and have experienced blessedly minimal trauma in my life. Few deaths in my small family, even from natural causes, have spared me from the fear most have earned from the terrible experiences that life has to offer.
But it seemed all of my life that fear prevailed. It was the fear that preceeded the constant, daily worry that I was long overdue for something awful to happen to me, and that the only thing I couldn't prevent was the outside interaction of some terrible predator.
Gavin de Becker's books were recommended to me by my new boss, and I have to say I have rarely gotten such sage advice in my life before. Though I am not a parent, this book (along with "The Gift of Fear") have provided me with one vital piece of information that has all but cured me of my irrational worries about the world: we are human, but we are far more capable of protecting ourselves than we realize, and protecting our children is just as simple.
Having read this book, I who was once a girl terrified to leave the front stoop of her home know that I can not only live my own life, but someday have my own children and know that I am capable of not only raising them in a healthy, aware existence, but know that I am fully capable of someday being the fierce lioness that protects them.
Gaving DeBecker Is The Best!.......2007-04-20
This is my all time favorite book that schools you in the fine art of safe living and keeping your children safe also. Enlightening, engaging, Gavin is a gifted story teller - I could not put the book down! You'll read it again and again and find new things each time. Very worth the read.
Regarding the audio CDs:.......2007-03-14
Obviously, there are plenty of positive reviews out here that attest to the quality of the material (and its presentation) found in this book. There is no need for me to echo it here once more.
I just wanted to point out a niggling annoyance found in the edition of the audio CDs I have (assuming it hasn't since been corrected). Each CD is one, long 60-70 minute track. If you're trying to pick up where you've left off in a previous listening session, or find something you want to hear again: good luck. You'll wear out your knuckle on the scan buttons.
This may or may not be a big deal to some folks. It definitely shouldn't be a deal-breaker for you if you plan on purchasing the CDs. Just be forewarned that if you're a "skip-arounder" or a "thumb-througher", the actual printed book may be a better fit for you.
Book Description
What Bill Bryson did for trees and walking shoes and Mark Kurlansky did for cod, Peter Kaminsky now does for pork in Pig Perfect 'I love ham and I love this book.' -Annie Dillard o you crave a juicy pork chop? An old-time country ham? Or maybe some Southern-style barbecue? Then you'll want to join Peter Kaminsky on his pilgrimage in search of the perfect pig. Part travelogue, part cookbook, part naturalist's encounter, and part love letter, Kaminsky's book takes us from Kentucky, Burgundy, and Madrid to the Yucatn and back to Brooklyn to tell the tale of the pig. From the wondrous techniques of tailgate chefs to Mayan home cooking, competitive barbecuing, and the ancient rite of the pig killing that has bound communities together over the centuries, Pig Perfect brings together an oddball pork-loving band of chefs, farmers, and food lovers and offers a tasty history of the oft underappreciated pig.
Customer Reviews:
I couldn't put the book down.......2007-07-11
This book is brilliant. The author keeps the readers engaged from cover to cover. It is definitely a book for foodies, particularly those of us who are obsessed with pork, but it would be an entertaining read for most anyone.
Hog Wild about Pig Perfect by Peter Kaminsky.......2007-02-04
Owning a gourmet retail shop gives me the opportunity to taste more cured meats than most. Before reading this book, I had no idea how obsessed I'd become about pork! A good customer dropped off Pig Perfect and said, "I think you will like this." Now there is a picture of an Iberian pig on our store desktop and I am scheduling a ham tasting for the Slow Food Movement. If you like culinary anthropology, obsessive travel for a good meal, and great story telling, Peter brings it all together in Pig Perfect. It's a great read and for such a small book, it is packed with well researched information that will make you hop on a plane to experience authentic pata negra.
Entertainig and Absorbing.......2006-12-13
I am not much of a book reader -- I would rather read the Economist and the CS Monitor, but when I picked up this book I literral spent the weekend reading it. As owner of [...] an online source of Spanish food, I approached the boiok as an obligator task. But Peter is wonderful- what great humor and what inquisitive mind!
The section on the jamón ibérico was tops -- his desciption of the ritual "sacrifice" of the pig (that's the beautful word the Spaniards use -- not slaughter) in the farming communities could not be better. His discussion of the taboos of Jews and Muslims were fascinating and imaginative. They are described above in another review.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough -- for the scholar, the gourmet, the curious. Pigs are all around you (four legged ones) so why not learn and chuckle at the same time?
Excellent Foodie agenda and read. Buy it now!.......2006-07-05
`Pig Perfect' by culinary and fishing journalist, Peter Kaminsky is almost like the flip side of Eric Schlosser's 'Fast Food Nation', in that Kaminsky is in search of the very antithesis of modern American industrial pig husbandry. One very important note is that while the title of the book brings the whole pig to mind, Kaminsky really spends over half his book dedicated to the ham, and more specifically the hams created from the `iberico' black pig of Spain and southwestern France.
I really have to love a book that engenders connections between widely dissimilar areas such as the opening scene of the movie `2001 A Space Odyssey', Jewish and Muslem dietary laws, and analysis of linguistic usage. The first of this triad arises when Kaminsky discusses the speculation that the origin of the large brained arthropod in Africa came about when a particular tribe developed a taste for animal fat and protein, thereby scoring the nutrients which fed a larger brain. As you remember, the great epithany in the first scenes of `2001' was the teaching of tool usage to proto-hominids, who used the tools to kill their piggy looking competitors for scarce grass on the veldt. This brings up the third leg of this triad, where Kaminsky rapsodises over the `humane' language of the Spanish farmers who `sacrifice' their pigs, in contrast to the American usage where pigs and other food animals are `slaughtered'. Kaminsky imagines the first word establishes a stronger connection between the two levels of the food chain, the humans, and their meat animals. I will offer the thought that Kaminsky is reading far too much into this difference in wording, as my consulting Webster's confirms that both words are simply two different words for killing animals. The first is for killing them simply for food, the second is for killing them as an offering to the gods. Both words are intimately connected with animals, just as the German verb `fressen' means an animal's eating. But then, I'm really just playing Kaminsky's game here, as both of us are simply `playing with words'.
Kaminsky's review of explanations for why middle eastern cultures such as the Jews and the Arab Muslims both forbade eating pork or any other meat from an animal with cloven hooves.
The first reason is traced back to Egypt, where pigs are hardly ever mentioned because, as Kaminsky speculates, they were raised by individual families, as it was very inexpensive to support a pig or two, in contrast to cattle, sheep, and goats, which required state supported resources. It also meant that cattle, sheep, and goats were a lot easier to tax, as their husbandry was more involved and required larger establishments. Thus, states preferred endorsing those animals whose herds produced better tax income.
The second reason is the fact that pigs are major competitors with humans for the major Middle Eastern grains, wheat and barley. So, the pigs had to go.
The third reason was always my favorite. It is based on the fact that historically, the Arabs and Jews both arose from nomadic tribes, and pigs are a lot harder to herd than cattle, sheep, or goats.
Kaminsky's favorite expert has a fourth reason. He theorizes that with everything else going against pigs, they were immediately replaced by chickens which were even cheaper to raise in small homesteads, did not compete for wheat and barley, and could be easily slung over the mules when the tribe travelled from place to place.
The point of all this theorizing is to strengthen the picture for those cultures in Spain and France where the pig had exactly the opposite reception and was treated as the mainstay of the culture's animal protein. This brings us to Kaminsky's central venue, western Spain and its oak forests, where pigs can happily grow fat on its abundance of chestnuts. From Spain, Kaminsky takes the story to colonies of the black `iberico' pig in the United States and how superior the fatty meat is in these animals compared to the commercially raised white pigs.
Kaminsky also reviews all the facts which back up Emeril Lagasse's famous explamation that `pork fat rules'. It is well known to me by now that lard is superior to butter and to all other common animal fats in its level of unsaturated lipids. This advantage has been bred out of American pigs to create `the other white meat' which seems to be a pale shadow of its more active and more fatty `artisinally raised' porkers.
I delight in the prospect that this book may add another pebble to the movement to return to a better source of pork, just as Julia Child was able to change supermarket stocking habits by demanding on `The French Chef' that she needed her shallots and leeks!
Good luck, Peter, for all of us who look forward to a better porky future.
This is a great culinary read, with a worthwhile agenda to consider. Not exactly `Silent Spring', but not chopped liver either!
Hamthropology.......2006-01-30
A self-described "hamthropologist," Peter Kaminsky takes us from Andalusia to ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day North Carolina hog farms as he shares his quest for delectable pork in the book Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them (2005, Hyperion).
"Cooking" might not be strictly accurate, as it's cured pork in all its forms that really fuels Kaminsky's fire. Although there are a few recipes, they're not the point of the book. I haven't tried any; they look tasty, but some are not for everyday use, such as the recipe for cocido. It's an incredibly hearty Spanish stew with an ingredient list almost 2 pages long. We've had it in Madrid and it's delicious, but it took me hours to eat, all day to digest, and from the looks of it, a mighty long time to prepare.
No, read this for the story of the pig. Kaminsky delves into history, and produces fascinating economic reasons why pork is forbidden to the Jewish and Muslim faiths. He discusses the role pigs and their ancestors may have played in shaping our landscape. He travels to Spain, where the famed jamon iberico rules, and learns about black pigs and pasturing. Rare in North America, where they're a "heritage" type, these breeds are also very well suited to being farmed using time-tested methods. Allowed to forage for a traditional diet of acorns, they are actually healthier to eat because their fat is monounsaturated. They're also tastier because pigs take on the flavours of their feed, and the meat is more thoroughly marbled with fat as the pig exercises as it forages.
These methods date from before pigs were mass-produced as "the other white meat." Pork is white because the pens in most modern farm systems don't allow pigs to move, and because they're slaughtered so young (just 6 months of age). Kaminsky observes: pork can be deeply coloured, with a corresponding increase in flavour, when the pigs have had a chance to exercise. In contrast, a modern sow might bear and suckle multiple litters of piglets and never ever see them because she can't turn around in her pen. When you think that pigs are at least as smart as dogs, indignation is natural. However, Kaminsky never dips into sentimentalism. He describes the huge factory-like plants in North Carolina where millions of pigs are slaughtered, called CAFOs or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, but his arguments against them are logical and based on a wide variety of interviews. As Kaminsky convincingly portrays them, they are bad for the environment with their acres of untreated lagoons of chemical-laced sewage; bad for the farmers economically and for the neighbours healthwise; bad for the pigs themselves; and ultimately, bad for the consumer because the final product just doesn't taste that great. He mentions that a lot of award-winning barbecue is made with pork from Sam's Club, but what kind of pork ambrosia would result if those techniques were applied to high-quality meat?
One of this book's real strengths is Kaminsky's rapport with people and his ability to capture their unique voices. He interviews a number of them, all diverse - competitive barbecuers in the American South, anthropologists, Spanish cooks and farmers, an energetic elderly woman living alone on an island filled with Ossabaw pigs (the descendants of the very first pigs brought over by Spanish explorers), food activists, French cheesemakers and gourmands - and their personalities keep an already lively writing style hopping.
The other great asset Kaminsky brings to the table, so to speak, is his undiluted enthusiasm for piggy eating experiences. He actually ends up facilitating a network of like-minded pig aficionados, and connecting heritage-minded farmers with suppliers of Ossabaws, transporting some of the meat up to New York to meet with the hands of Italian-based ham-makers and the tastebuds of chef Daniel Boulud. Overall, his book is not only a great read with a mouth-watering topic, but a thought-provoking look at how our food interacts with the world around it, and how it can bring people together.
Books:
- The Last Battle (Werewolf: Time of Judgement)
- The Marshal and the Madwoman (Marshal Guarnaccia Investigation)
- The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2: One Lonely Night, The Big Kill, Kiss Me Deadly
- The Moving Finger: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries)
- The Quality of Mercy
- The Raven in the Foregate (Brother Cadfael Mysteries)
- The Riddle of the Traveling Skull
- The Samurai's Daughter
- The Siren Queen (Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court)
- The Watcher in the Pine (Soho Crime)
Books Index
Books Home
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- Shoot the Moon
The Jim Chee Mysteries: Three Classic Hillerman Mysteries Featuring Officer Jim Chee: The Dark
Tony Hillerman: The Leaphorn & Chee Novels : Skinwalkers, A Thief of Time, Coyote Waits
Tony Hillerman: Leaphorn, Chee, and More: The Fallen Man, The First Eagle, Hunting Badger
Talking God (Jim Chee Novels)
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