The Blooding

Sally Ann Berk

The Martini Book: 201 Ways to Mix the Perfect American Cocktail

"The Martini Book" includes dozens of delicious new recipes and even more useful information on creating flawless versions of our most popular and enduring cocktail. It's classic, sublime, and America's favorite indulgence? the martini. As the symbol for sophistication and "cool," it stands alone. The traditional "dry martini," made with gin and a hint of vermouth, may be the starting point but "The Martini Book" takes it to the next level, offering hundreds of modern twists in addition to the tried and true original. Make no mistake, the classic versions of the drink are here, complete with tips for making them perfectly every time. But for those who are more adventurous or looking to expand their drink repertoire, new recipes include the Flirtini, the GreenTeani, the Frosty Mango Martini, the Ginger Snap Martini, and many, many more. There is also practical information on stirring and shaking, a list of essential bar tools (including glassware), and a list of must-have ingredients for any home bar. The beautiful full-color photographs provide inspiration and a guide to making drinks that are as beautiful as they are satisfying.

Halford R. Ryan (Editor)

The Inaugural Addresses of Twentieth-Century American Presidents

The essays in Halford Ryan's The Inaugrual Addresses of Twentieth-Century American Presidents explore how presidents have used their addresses to empower themselves in office. The volume's construct holds that the president delivers persuasive speeches to move the Congress and the people, and to move the people to move the Congress if it is intransigent. Even on Inauguration Day, a largely ceremonial occasion, the president seeks acquiescence and action from Congress and the people in his first rhetorical deed as the nation's chief executive officer. Since scholars agree that the rhetorical presidency arose in the twentieth century with Theodore Roosevelt, the book commences with Roosevelt's address, followed by all subsequent presidents' inaugurals--including that of Bill Clinton. The authors' methodology applies classical rhetoric to the nexus of political discourse--the interrelationships between the speaker, the speech, and the audience--discussing vox populi, elocutio, inventio, and actio. Each of the chapters analyzes the political situation with regard to political purpose, giving special attention to genre criticism and to the themes of campaign rhetoric that were or were ...

John Updike (Author)

Self-Consciousness

John Updike's memoirs consist of six chapters in which he writes of his home town, his psoriasis, his stuttering, his discomfort during the Vietnam war, his Updike ancestors, and his religion and sense of self. These essays together give the inner shape of a life, up to the age of fifty-five, of a relatively fortunate American male. He has attempted, his foreword states, "to treat this life, this massive datum which happens to be mine, as a specimen life, representative in its odd uniqueness of all the oddly unique lives in this world." In the service of this metaphysical effort, he has been hair-raisingly honest and beautifully eloquent, not to say, in a number of places, self-effacingly funny. He takes the reader beyond self-consciousness, into sheer wonder at the world and its fabric.