The Bright List

A Memoir of Obsession and Duck Fat - Daniel Duane's New Audiobook on How To Cook Like a Man

How To Cook Like a Man: A Memoir of Cookbook Obsession, by Daniel Duane

“Obsession, according to somebody who knew what he was talking about, binds anxiety.”

Daniel Duane was an author, a man,  looking to cope with the anxiety of having a new baby. How did he deal with his fear of new fatherhood? He threw himself into a cooking obsession that knew no bounds. 

Appropriately enough, Duane starts by learning from one of his first teachers: Alice Waters. Yes, Duane had been one of her tiny preschool students when she was a Montessori teacher. Cooking through the Chez Panisse cookbooks, Duane becomes obsessed with learning his craft: hunting pigs on Maui and fishing for salmon in Alaska. He even gets private lessons from Thomas Keller!  Sit down with your spoon and fork, and enjoy this memoir of obsession and duck fat. 

Narrated by James Patrick Cronin.

--Willow Pennell

Straight Girls Guide to Sleeping with Chicks-- on Audio, with Sauce!

The Straight Girl’s Guide to Sleeping with Chicks, by Jen Sincero

"You can't swing a dead cat at a bridal shower without hitting a straight chick who's slept with another woman, who's thought about it, or who's ready to make the move as soon as someone breaks out the booze."

- Author Jen Sincero

I'm a bi-girl who finds a confident title like The Straight Girl's Guide to Sleeping with Chicks irresistible.

Can I still use the guide, even though I'm not straight? After reading, I'd say anyone would find this book hilarious, practical, and sexy. There are  a few boys I'd like to show this to. 

Jen Sincero is the "authority" who knows how to pull it off. She interviewed hundreds of straight girls who've slept with lesbians, straight on straight girls, and all those girls that wanted to, but didn't— yet! 

The Straight Girl's Guide covers: 

· The super-huge importance of sticking your hand down your pants

· The straight girl's starter kit -- from nail clippers to cocktails to get her in the mood

· "And Boy Makes Three!" -- how to have a threesome that's genuinely fun for all

I'm ready to grab my coat and head out the door right now! The biggest problem after reading this book is to decide what to do first. 

Narrated by Romy Nordlinger.

-Aretha Bright

 

Daniel Duane is Caught Inside -The Surfer Memoir That Changed Everything

Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast, by Daniel Duane

Daniel Duane moved to Santa Cruz in the mid-90s, looking for something. He dove down a dark, watery rabbit hole, living by the tides and swells of the Pacific Ocean.

What started out as a hobby turned into an obsession— and it's no lie to say Duane pulled more men in with him, than Neptune could've ever imagined. Caught Inside became the definitive surfing bible of the modern middle class surfing generation.

Duane takes his listeners into the "lineup" to experience the localism, the stink-eye, the beauty and danger of surfing.

 

"Flea" Virostko, Middle Peak, about to drill a Less-Lucky Fellow

Coming from a VERY outside place, Duane understands there's an "inside" place to be, and he gets guided in to find his own bearings— a story any man, in or out of the water, will relate to.

 

--WMP & SB

photo credit: Ossicles Entertainment

"I May Have Been Banned in Boston, But I Sure As Hell Will Be a Star in Heaven"

10.17

Banned in Boston: The Watch and Ward Society’s Crusade Against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil, by Neil Miller 

Neil Miller is one of my favorite history writers— a gifted poet on the history of sexual liberation and suppression.

Miller's fascinating history of the New England Watch and Ward Society depicts their efforts to keep Boston free of lasciviousness and “vice.” Neil is a  wizard of  juicy anecdotes, period details, and the sort of narrative that puts the story in history.

The pre-curser to today's religious hypcorites were Boston's notorious "Watch and Ward." They excelled at kink while they were trying to "protect" Boston from  prostitutes and "fantasies of urination. Plus ça change...

Miller looks at the warring dogmas of free speech and puritanism that set precedence for legal and culture wars  that we see unfolding today. If you want to know why Americans became famous for their absurd prudery, this is your map and compass.

 

 

Matt Kailey Lays It Out -- The Transssexual Experience

Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide to the Transsexual Experience, by Matt Kailey

Author Matt Kailey answers all the questions cisgendered people might be too polite to ask--- about what it's like to change from living as a woman, to living as a man. 

Just Add Hormones has behind-the-scenes details on the female to male transitioning process, with both humor and serious contemplation.

This book assumes you don't know about the process already, and explains the basics while moving into  every detail. —From the therapist sessions to the chest surgery, the testosterone shots to the "clit-dick!" 

-Aretha Bright

The Erotic Virtuosity Aaron Travis- His Very Best, On Audio

 

No Shades of Gray: The Best Erotic Fiction of Aaron Travis, by Aaron Travis

Aaron Travis is my favorite erotica writer of all time.

When I read "The Hit" in  Best American Erotica 2003, I never looked at sex stories the same way again. I compare all the erotica I read to Travis. 

In that light, it's with great honor that I announce a "best of" audio-omnibus of Aaron Travis' work: No Shades of Gray. 

Stories include: 

"Blue Light"

"Crown of Thorns"

"Getting Timchenko"

"Kudzu"

"Slaves of the Empire"

... And of course, "The Hit," the story that started it all for me. 

Back in his Drummer days, Travis set out to write a sex story in every genre possible. Film noir? Ben Hur? Hitchhiker to hell?  Check. Check.  

Travis delivers show-stopping climaxes where  the reader is coming in their pants— and often simulataneously in tears. 

Fans will be delighted to have all these classics together. —And for novices, you'll be a "Slave of Aaron" in no time. 

With much love, 

-Aretha Bright

The Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs Go Back Hundreds of Years

Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs, by Isaac Campos

Home Grown is the Mexican brother-in-law to Traffik, but unlike the movie and TV mini series, author Isaac Campos will make you more incredulous and angry than heartbroken.

Why? There are so many players in the “game,” and so many political angles, it made my mind reel. If at all possible, the Mexican government might be in a worse situation than the U.S. in the War on Drugs.  The display of policy ignorance on marijuana will make you cringe, and the power of fear-mongering at its strongest on display will make you rage.

A well researched book, written for a general audience, about the drug trade and business in Mexico that goes back hundreds of years. You  will not be able to stop listening. 

Narrated by Ray Chase.

 --Aretha Bright

Chaos, Not the Earthquake, Destroyed San Francisco— Sound Familiar? Listen to the Story!

The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself, by Philip L. Fradkin

This is the thrilling account of the 1906 Earthquake in San Francisco that literally set the whole town on fire. Author Philip Fradkin argues that most of the damage was done by “people in chaos,” not by the earthquake itself. This book uncovers all the things I didn't learn in 4th grade.

Told in a "you're there as it happens" narration, the stories of the depraved things people did to each other wouldn't seem out of place on AMC's The Walking Dead.

Narrated by Arthur Morey.

—Aretha Bright

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Brightly Burning Fire -- On Audio, at Last!

Emerson: The Mind on Fire, by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.

A masterpiece. Emerson is a benchmark in American biographies.

Devour the vulnerable and era-changing details about the man who was the leading voice of intellectual culture in the U.S.  

As an essayist and poet, Emerson spearheaded the Transcendentalist movement, spoke for the rights of the individual (including opposing slavery), and famously mentored Henry David Thoreau, who wrote Walden while living on Emerson’s land. He was the most influential writer of 19th-century America, and Richardson’s critically-acclaimed biography more lives up to that legacy. A tour de force.

Narrated by audiobook legend Michael McConnohie, who many of you know and love from his narration for Barry Eisler and Stuart Kaminsky's books.

—Aretha Bright and Chris Hall

Gerald Asher on the Dirty World of Wine & Les Politiques de Vendanges

 

A Vineyard in My Glass, by Gerald Asher

and

A Carafe of Red, by Gerald Asher

Gerald Asher is a redoubtable British "wine personality" who has the enviable career of traveling to exotic countries, drinking the best they have to offer, and then writing about it.

A Vineyard in My Glass is the dashing memoir of Asher's vineyard apprenticeship in Europe when he was a young man, plus lots of local history about all the places he visited.

Warning: You will be extremely jealous.

In A Carafe of Red, Asher takes the reader on a spectacular history-road-trip of wine in France, Spain, Italy, California— going back ages. This is not a "where-this-wine-comes-from-blah-blah" kind of book— no, there are all sorts of dirty politics and criminal activities.

Carafe and Vineyard complement each other and I hope the author was enjoying a glass while he wrote them.

Narrated by the the star of "Little Man Tate,"  P.J. Olchan.

—Aretha Bright