By Joachim Castellano

The Story of Buddha A Graphic Biography book cover

Money, power, and beautiful women, three desires of countless men throughout the ages. Imagine a man who has all three. A charmed life indeed, promising years of comfort and pleasure, yet he finds nothing but emptiness. He rejects this life to pursue one of meaning and purpose, and after great struggle, he finds true happiness and enlightenment. Of course, this is the story of no ordinary man, but that of Buddha, the legendary spiritual leader whose teachings have been passed on for thousands of years.

In The Story of Buddha A Graphic Biography (Ichimannendo Publishing, Inc., $10.95) Hisashi Ota tells of Buddha’s life through manga (Japanese comics) in a 248-page softcover book filled with comic panels. Focusing on Buddha’s transformation from the wealthy Prince Siddhartha to a spiritual teacher, I found myself drawn into a world paralleling modern day pressures: opportunities to escape reality and the expectation to live a typical life set by societal norms.

I enjoyed following the story through the expressive faces of the author’s characters, and I especially felt Siddhartha’s struggle to stay true to his own chosen path of life. Chapters end with Siddhartha’s insights, seeds that later blossom into the tenets of Buddhism. It was engaging to learn about Buddhism through the progressive rhythm of a narrative story with stylized visuals instead of a dry historic text.

Hisashi Ota, author, The Story of Buddha A Graphic Biography

Ota poured feeling, action, and passion into each page. The story felt like a mirror to reflect upon modern life. Ota’s book pulses in the present, not the historic past, introducing Buddha’s teachings to audiences new and old, perhaps inspiring others to find joy and meaning in life.

I found Ota’s manga approach to Buddha’s story appealing because of the art form’s cinematic visual style. Ota, a graduate of Nagoya University’s School of Science, has been drawing manga for 20 years and his manga about Buddhism in Japan has been published regularly. Born a Buddhist, to this day Ota continues his training at the Jodo Shinshu Shinrankai Buddhist center in Toyama, Japan.

Photos: Tetsuji Yamamoto, Ichimannendo Publishing, Inc.

By Joan Leacock

The Venice Experiment book cover

Photos: News & Experts

In this book, the author shared the story of how he quit the rat race of Florida in the United States to live as a resident of Venice, Italy. He and his wife took a year long journey, a cultural exchange from their lifestyle and expectations, and threw themselves at the mercy of living and being Venetians, experiencing the oddities of being foreigners abroad.

Having visited Venice many years ago and only vaguely remembering taking gondola rides up the Grand Canal, I found myself easily transported to the squares, bridges and streets of Venice and imagining all the characters mentioned in the book, as easily as if they were long lost friends. The Venice Experiment: A year of trial and error living abroad (Savory Adventures Publishing 2011, $14.95), a 238-page book by Barry Frangipane with Ben Robbins, captures the flavors, smells, warmth and frustrations of the year he and his wife spent living in The Floating City. I fell in love with Venice, through the eyes of the author, all over again.

Frangipane navigates the problems he encounters as a foreigner living abroad well. I laughed and moaned at the difficult situations he found himself in, as he and his wife fumbled their way through the narrow corridors of the Italian language, the city’s unique history and diverse personalities.

Barry Frangipane, author, The Venice Experiment

The book provides a concierge service of do’s and don’ts surrounding the legalities of moving to Venice. It became a fun expose of the complexities he experienced with language, assumptions and misinterpretations of cultural norms and, in particular, time management as he wondered at the beginning of their adventure, “Would I learn to see things from their perspective? Given a whole year to figure it out, how hard could it possibly be?”

Overall, I found this book to be an easy read with wonderful references to use and visit should I ever find myself in that part of the world. It is a quaint, funny and informal source of relevant information. The author provides a humorous induction of his move to this city, by cleverly disguising and exposing the red tape that he encountered. I was left with a comprehensive checklist of doable tasks in relation to the transferring of pets, visa requirements, how not to organize a lease for an apartment, the choice of ground floor versus first floor apartments, postal boxes, water taxis, vehicle parking and where to purchase everyday items in unexpected places.

Ingredients for chapped lips balm recipe

Herbal enthusiasts wishing to find home remedies for simple maladies have a new resource, Grow Your Drugs: Easy Recipes for Natural Remedies and Beauty Fixes (Reader’s Digest, $19.95) by James Wong, host of a BBC series by the same name. There are 60 recipes for natural teas, creams, lotions, balms, gargles and cough syrups in the 224-page hardcover book with 150 color photos published earlier this year.

Many of the recipes are accompanied by color photos and step-by-step instructions. The book is divided into: Introduction, Getting Started, Remedies, Top 100 Medicinal Plants, Resources, Index and Acknowledgements. Wong provides recipes to deal with skin ailments including Athlete’s foot, eczema, insect bites and stings, acne, sunburn, age spots, fungal conditions, burn scars, poor foot circulation and chapped hands; digestive issues like bad breath, heartburn and indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, flatulence, and diarrhea; children’s needs such as vitamin booster, head lice, ear wax build-up, and colic; Aches and Pains: Water retention, varicose veins, aching muscles, arthritis; and women’s problems like hot flashes, night sweats, morning and travel sickness, PMS, and cystitis.

He also offers suggestions for colds and flu, coughs and sore throats, cholesterol reduction, hangover, cold sores, immune system booster, mouth ulcers, restorative, memory enhancer, insomnia, migraine prevention, anxiety, hair strengthener, body scrub, bath and massage oil, deodorant, face mask, hand care, exfoliator, face toner and hair rinse, tired or red eyes, glycerin soap, plaque remover and gum soother, and chapped lips.

We placed the lip balm in a glass jar with a wide neck and kept it refrigerated

We tried the chapped lips recipe which required organic and fragrant rose petals, vitamin E oil, bees wax, honey, cheesecloth and aloe vera gel (optional). The biggest challenge was obtaining organic fragrant rose petals in our area. We located organic roses at the local branch of a national health food chain although the fragrance was rather muted. We couldn’t find bees wax so we substituted honeycomb for the bees wax. The resulting balm solidified in the refrigerator although it seemed too soft to carry around.

Author James Wong

James Wong, who grew up in Malaysia and Singapore, trained at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew and received an MSc in Ethnobotany from the University of Kent graduating with distinction. His research has taken him to highland Ecuador, as well as to China and Java. The University of Kent lecturer, an enthusiast about the utilitarian value of plants, co-designed and built two medal-winning gardens (in 2004 as the youngest medal winner and again in 2008).

Click here to buy Grow Your Own Drugs

Article and photos by Gary Cox

The New Book of Soups

Soup is a universal food. From the earliest days of mankind with an iron pot dangling over the fire to modern cuisine in the most exclusive restaurants, soup is one of the most versatile and flexible forms of cooking. The extraction, blending and concentration of flavors in liquid form can be a quiet challenging medium for the novice and experienced chef alike. It has been said that the best way to judge the capabilities of a new chef is to have him or her make a soup with the ingredients on hand.

Reviewing a cookbook can be a challenge, particularly one that requires the reader to possess specific skills or a talent for cooking. What I liked about The New Book of Soups (Lebhar-Friedman Book, $35) by the Culinary Institute of America is that it is well organized, making easy to pick up and start cooking. Also, there is quite a bit of information in the front of the book on processing ingredients, making stock and other topics useful for various skill levels.

It was gratifying to find that even having skipped past all the preparatory material, the recipes still produced great tasting results. We tried the Double Chicken Broth recipe and found it excellent and a memorable addition to our ongoing repertoire. Even substituting a mixture of mushrooms for the shitake ones in the recipe, the resulting soup was tasty and disappeared quickly.

Double Chicken Broth Soup made following the recipe in The New Book of Soups

An excellent test of a cookbook is to make a familiar classic recipe and evaluate the flavors and ease of performing the recipe steps. The next soup I made was the Onion Soup Gratinee, a rendition of the classic French onion soup. The instructions were easy to follow and produced a terrific tasting soup using easily obtainable ingredients. This time of year, Vidalia onions are widely available and they resulted in a slightly sweet and flavorful rendition of this longtime favorite.

The ingredients for the Onion Soup Gratinee

Our version of the Onion Soup Gratinee based on the recipe in The New Book of Soups

There are still many recipes I look forward to trying in this second edition of the 249-page The New Book of Soups. The book is divided into Soup Basics, Broths, Hearty Soups, Stews, Cream Soups, Pureed Soups, Bisques and Chowders, Cold Soups, and Accompaniments sections with many full color photos to illustrate the desired end result. I might even rely on the material in the front and take a lash at making my own stock or some of the other basics to improve my overall skills. It is not necessary to study the basics to get great results, but it is nice to know they are there if I have questions or an interest. Excellent for the beginner or perhaps even for experienced chefs, this cookbook makes a great addition to my library.

Click here to buy The New Book of Soups

Part of the Pride My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa book cover

Although Kevin Richardson had a reasonably normal childhood in Johannesburg, South Africa as an adult he became extraordinary by virtue of his ability to interact safely (mostly) with predators in captivity. Lest we think rubbing nose to nose with male and female lions and hyenas in an enclosure, handling a lion cub while sharing space in the same enclosure with the lioness mum, filming commercials and entire feature length movies, often outside the safety of a park enclosure, is something any zoo staff member can do, it’s not.

It is dangerous work. No one, not even Kevin Richardson, denies that. How and why is this possible? In Part of the Pride My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa, published in 2009 (St. Martin’s Press, $25.99) he discusses his growing years and the path that led him to his amazing interactions with some of Africa’s big cats raised in captivity at the South African Lion Park and the Kingdom of the White Lion. With the help of Author Tony Park, he shares his experience as a self taught lion whisperer.

Kevin Richardson with his lion family (back cover of the book)

The 243-page hardcover book, easy to read in his candid first person style, is divided into 14 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. For lion lovers and fans of Richardson’s work (some videos on YouTube show him in action) the book answers many questions. It made us eager to watch the two film projects mentioned in the book including White Lion: Home Is a Journey due out soon.

Photos courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

Click to buy Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa