Blood and guts on the menu
Extreme Cuisine is a testament to machismo
Metro5 April 2012
From sampling scorpion snacks and double-boiled penis soup in Extreme Cuisine to some very untrustworthy politicians in Peter Oborne's The Rise Of Political Lying, we give you a round-up of the latest book releases...
- Extreme Cuisine by Jerry Hopkins **Ever wondered what it's like to snack on scorpion or chow down on cockchafer grubs? Jerry Hopkins noshed on some of the world's most out-there foodstuffs, theorising that if we'll happily put black pudding in our mouths, we should give in to ultimate culinary exploration. 'It's not just dinner,' he says. 'It's an adventure.' While undeniably gruesomely fascinating - he's ingested blood dripping out of the freshly severed neck of a bat - Extreme Cuisine is a testament to machismo, the apotheosis of the 'gimme your hottest vindaloo' testosterone display. Chapters are interspersed with recipes so you can whip up your own double-boiled penis soup. Marina O'Loughlin
- The Rise Of Political Lying by Peter Oborne****The idea politicians can't be trusted has never been more true, if Peter Oborne's The Rise Of Political Lying is to be believed. This meticulously researched book uses only transparent sources to illuminate his argument that the slide into mendacity, which started with Major's sleaze-ridden government, has become truly Orwellian under New Labour. The twin éminences grises of Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, he shows, adopted a postmodern approach to the truth; believing they had a right to shape it to further their party's aims. They created a stratified society of a ruling class 'in the know' and an electorate treated as dupes, with no chance to exercise their proper right to choose based on clear facts. It's a chilling indictment of how wretched our political process has become and makes for disturbing pre-election reading.Siobhan Murphy
- The Home Stretch by Erwin James****You may think prison would epitomise monotony. Yet Erwin James manages to draw such a wealth of narrative from the final years of his life sentence for The Home Stretch, his sequel to A Life Inside, that it puts paid to that myth. Constantly engrossing, his bite-sized vignettes of an open prison, commuting to work and adjusting to a world with cash machines, mobile phones and the Internet, is written with an almost monastic dignity, clarity and insight. James highlights fundamental matters of the prison system - issues which, even though we're on the outside, affect us all. Ben Sloan
- No God But God: The Origins, Evolution And Future Of Islam by Reza Aslan***Reza Aslan has created a rather beautiful account of the birth and evolution of Islam in No God But God, describing the Prophet Muhammad's creation of a new socio-religious order and following the confusion of who succeeded him and the subsequent splits that created Islam's Sunni, Shia, Sufi and dreaded Wahhabi branches. Although at times mind-boggling, overall Aslan's account remains lucid and illuminating. But he goes further by looking at what is happening to Islam now: suggesting the current perceived 'clash of cultures' is actually a struggle within Islam to establish its true path that, despite 9/11 etc, doesn't really involve the West. It's a fascinating, if contentious, view that should spark interesting debate. SM
