Book Description
This is the real story of Albert Speer, manipulator of history and architect of his own legend. On the stand at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials, Albert Speer was alone among the accused in showing anything like remorse: he denied any direct knowledge of Hitler's Final Solution yet accepted his share of the guilt as an unwitting collaborator. But was he really what he claimed to be? In this hard-hitting biography, Dan van der Vat reveals Speer as a sham and an opportunist, a "good Nazi" of another sort: a dedicated party servant who, promoted from his role as Hitler's architect to minister of wartime production, also became the Nazis' principal exploiter of forced labor. The first biography to be written free of Speer's personal influence, this is the fullest, most incriminating portrait yet of a ruthless, masterly actor who deceived the world in the role of a lifetime. A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Best Book of the Year!
Customer Reviews:
A book you can enjoy.......2006-05-08
Yes, the author is biased but he makes no secret of it so you can agree or disagree with him without having to read between lines.
What I think of Albert Speer is irrelevant so I am not going to "judge" the guy but the book.
What I liked the most is that contrary to recent books on the subject like Joachim Fest?s one on Speer, this one gives us a LOT of information about what was happenning in the enviroment around Speer (German politics, other countries, etc) before presenting actions by part of Speer so it is a very interesting way of understanding facts that in other biographies of Albert Speer are presented more or less like a shopping list. In other words, Speer?s life and actions are presented in a much broader context of connections and causes and consequences. Isn?t it what a person?s life is after all?
Besides, the author has a nice sense of humour and writes very well. Be it that you agree or disgree with the book?s content, the book is very readable.
Last but not least I expected to find -given the author?s confessed bias against Speer- facts that I could feel, having read a lot of books about Speer, that were not true or were presented in a questionable way. This is not the fact and all information presented concours and concatenates with what it is now common knowledge about Speer.
In short, a very good book about a very interesting person in the history of the 20th century
Highly illuminating, but too black-and-white.......2005-01-31
Dan van der Vat makes no secret of his purpose with this book. It is to damage Albert Speer's reputation by exposing him as a hypocrite and a liar. He wants to drag him down in the dirt. In my view this was completely unnecessary. Speer was a war criminal, and there was nothing inherently "good" about him. The things that have made bestsellers out of the books by and about him have very little to do with his personal dirty laundry.
Van der Vat's basic ambition is to prove that Speer must have lied when he said he didn't "know" about the atrocities against the Jews. He invests a lot of effort in convincing his readers that Speer "must have known" where he only admitted to "should have known".
Knonwledge is never just "on" or "off". It's a matter of degrees. The process starts with input data that get filtered and interpreted as information. It continues as a state of awareness that gets deeper or shallower as time goes by, and more or less conflicted internally. Van der Vat overlooks this. He turns the matter into a black-or-white issue. This is the greatest weakness of the book.
The best part, on the other hand, is about the developing conflict between Speer and his old friend and helper Wolters in the last years of their lives. Not because of who they were or what they did, but because of the deep symbolism of what they were disagreing about.
Nobody in Germany had absolutely no information about what was going on. Everybody knew something about persecution. Speer knew more than most, but less than some, but everybody knew about neighbours who had been evicted, colleagues who had lost their jobs, shops that had been sacked and relatives who had had their spouses arrested. They didn't know for sure that these people had been deported or murdered. But they must have noticed that there was nowhere any trace of them. No letters, no phone calls. Nothing. They had disappeared into something that must have appeared, even at the time, rather similar to the Nazi name for the system that swallowed them up. It was called "Nacht und Nebel", abbreviated NN, and it meant "night and fog".
This term was not widely known during the war. But significant parts of the reality behind it were. And what did people do with it? Nothing! They turned their backs on the scraps of information that they couldn't avoid altogether, and they went on with their lives as best they could. Individually, they were powerless. The shock of the exposure after the war wasn't just about seeing something that hadn't been realised before. On a deeper level, it was the shock of seeing something that everybody "should", as opposed to "must" have known. The suspicion must have been there, and this is the basis of the collective responsibility.
On the personal level, Speer was also relatively powerless when his friend Karl Hanke told him in the summer of 1944 that he must never ever accept an invitation to inspect an unnamed concentration camp in Oberschlesien. Speer wrote later about that conversation that "the whole responsibility had become a reality again". Van der Vat pounces on the last of those words (page 217). To him, it means that Speer must have known earlier that atrocities were going on. Therefore, he must have been a liar when he didn't admit it. To me, on the other hand, the word "again" means only that this can't have been the first time that Speer was troubled by his conscience for things he had good reason to suspect, and which he had managed to turn his back on for the time being.
Speer's masterstroke in Nürnberg was to admit to a principal share in this phenomenon of collective guilt, and to offer himself up as a national sacrifice for it. An atonement in the good old tradition, the Christian myth about the man who takes on himself the guilt of others, and expunges all their sins. It was a risky strategy, but it worked. The judges were were OK with hanging people, but they didn't want anything to do with what could have been seen as a symbolic crucifixion. That is, in my opinion, the reason why Speer got away with 20 years in prison while others were executed.
Van der Vaat does a good job of showing how shamelessly Speer treated his old friend and helper Wolters towards the end. I can understand his indignation. But I have worked professionally with interpersonal conflicts for over 20 years, and I've seen such things happen again and again to basically decent and honest people. That it happened to a war criminal like Speer sholdn't surprise anybody. The thing that ought to catch the reader's attention is not that Speer and Wolters fought, or what they did to each other, but the nature of the underlying problem. The real issue was not personal. It was political, and one could almost say that it bordered on the religious.
Wolters' point of view was that Speer never should have admitted any responsibility in the first place. According to him, Speer's biggest sin was to drag the German people down into the dirt with him, because there was no such thing as individual or collective guilt in the first place. And even if there had been a collective guilt, Wolters must have felt that there was no way that Speer's punishment could atone for it. Speer was a bueraucrat, not a saviour. Wolters punished Speer by making sure that his lies should come to the surface after his (Wolters') death, not in order to avenge the Jews (far from it), but in order to drive a wedge between "the liar" Speer and the "innocent" German people.
Dan van der Vat has done a good job of dragging his subject down in the dirt. And in the process of exposing quasi-lies, real lies and marital infidelity, he has also managed to throw some light on the most important and still unresolved issues that have made bestsellers of the books by and about Albert Speer.
Bad History.......2004-07-17
This book claims Albert Speer was far worse than he himself confessed, though his confessions were quite full. It builds a case against him of even greater crimes - complicency in the holocaust - on two extremely flimsy and unrelaible pieces of evidence - that he might - or might not! - have been in a room when Himmler mentioned killing Jews, and he knew Jews were being deported by the Nazis from Berlin - though there is no evidence he knew where.
Speer served a little over 21 years in prison, more or less in solitary confinement with a couple of other Nazi leaders, for having used slave-labour in World War II. He committed a major crime, but certainly received a major punishment. He did not attempt to minimise his guilt in this matter, accepted the sentence - the only Nazi to do so - and seems to have been sincerely repentant. This book, lacking evidence that he was even worse than he admitted, bolsters its "case" with emotional overkill - for example saying Speer behaved oddly the day he was released after serving 21 years prison - well, he would, wouldn't he?
I think this is another book trying to exploit the Holocaust and prove again that "There's no business like Shoa business."
The book has a bombastic, sneering tone not only towards Speer but generally. Although the author claims to be a naval writer, one notices mistakes when he touches on naval subjects. He was co-author of a book containing an outstandingly ridiculous conspiracy-theory on the Titanic, which seriously claimed it had been swapped for a different ship and delibertely sunk. Yeah! And the Captain, first officer, engineers and a lot of the crew went down with it to keep the secret - that's company loyalty for you!
Insightful, Shocking Examination of Nazi Albert Speer.......2002-06-07
Like many contemporary works of non-fiction, "The Good Nazi" provides support for the axiom that truth is often stranger than fiction. Albert Speer remains in many ways one of the most enigmatic figures of the 20th century, admired for his singular and seemingly forthright admission of guilt and culpability for crimes committed by the Third Reich during the Nuremberg War Trials, but reviled by many later for conducting a campaign of disingenuous prevarication to justify his actions and stances before during and after the war. Speer spent two decades years in the allied prison at Spandau as one of the few members of the Nazi hierarchy to escape the death sentence, and wrote a best-selling book that he secretly smuggled out over the course of the twenty years with the cooperation of his wife and family. With its publication in the early 1970s, he became internationally famous, and he shamelessly used the bully pulpit of his own notoriety to forward his own revisionist notions about what really happened during the 12-year reign of the Third Reich.
The present book revolves around the complex nature of the issues raised during this post-prison campaign. On the one hand, Speer was the only of the accused former Nazis to admit his own guilt and complicity in the crimes and misdeeds of the Third Reich, yet on the other hand he always denied any direct knowledge of the Holocaust. This terrific biography by Dan vander Vat, subtitled `The Life and Lies of Albert Speer'. represents a well-documented and penetrating investigation into the admittedly contradictory aspects to Speer's explanations, justifications, and rationalizations of his own role and conduct during and after the Second World War. The author lays an exhaustive groundwork for his claims that Speer was in actuality the ultimate opportunist, one who used his charm, position, and influence both to rise shamelessly through the Nazi ranks to become the second in command and who subsequently ployed these obfuscating skills to further ingratiate himself with the world at large.
The essence of the author's argument is that Speer was basically an amoral and extremely ambitious opportunist who did whatever was necessary to further his own life situation, whether it be that of a rising Nazi official or as a prevaricating apologist for a shameless German past. Thus, at one point Speer is depicted as the ultimate company man, a dedicated Nazi zealously and shamelessly pursuing the maximization of forced and slave labor in service to the Reich's war objective, deliberately and systematically exploiting the millions of captive peoples, most usually to the point of physical exhaustion and death. Try though he might, Speer could never adequately explain away his own behavior and actions during the war, and it seem quite evident that he did indeed conduct a campaign of deliberate obfuscation and prevarication regarding his own role in the Nazi murder machine. This is a book that sometimes makes one uneasy because of the nature of the facts it is investigating, yet which also does so with great care and endless levels of scrupulous detail. I heartily recommend it for anyone who cares to peer into what Hannah Arendt so memorably described as being the utter `banality of evil'. Enjoy!
Speer has already taken full blame, so why?.......2002-01-08
I do not understand the purpose for this book. Albert Speer had admitted that he knew something was going on in the concentration camps, but could not bring himself to investigate it. For this, he claims, that he should be held responsible for these atrocities. He wanted to be tried and treated as if he knew fully what was happening. So, what does it matter if he really did know or not, when he took full responsibilty for it anyway? He does not claim to be a "good" Nazi nor would he want to be. He did not try to scam anybody. He stood up in front of the judges at Nuremburg and claimed himself to be as guilty as one can be. If the author feels that the punishment was lenient, he should be critical of the judges who decided on the sentence, not on Speer.
Make no doubt about it. Albert Speer was a Nazi and an evil man, if for nothing else than being a part of that regime and for not investigating further into its atrocities which was his duty. I do not think anyone disagrees with this point. He did spend twenty years in jail and was not let out until he was an old man.
I recommend reading Speer's INSIDE THE THIRD REICH which allows alot more insight to how the whole nation of Germany could be seduced by such an evil man as Hitler, and how he was too. I do however give this author credit for taking the other side of the argument and the unpopular view.
Book Description
The reissue of this definitive biography heralds the one-hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight.
Brilliant, self-trained engineers, the Wright brothers had a unique blend of native talent, character, and family experience that perfectly suited them to the task of invention but left them ill-prepared to face a world of skeptics, rivals, and officials. Using a treasure trove of Wright family correspondence and diaries, Tom Crouch skillfully weaves the story of the airplane's invention into the drama of a unique and unforgettable family. He shows us exactly how and why these two obscure bachelors from Dayton, Ohio, were able to succeed where so many better-trained, better-financed rivals had failed. 50 b/w photographs.
Customer Reviews:
I couldn't put it down.......2007-09-05
An absolutely fascinating story of how two boys from Ohio without college educations, through sheer will, determination and confidence in their own abilities, invented a machine that literally changed the world. It is almost laughable the way they kept plodding along, ignoring the fact that many eminent scientific minds of the period (One can almost hear them dead-panning, "What's that have to do with us.") had repeatedly failed, often catastrophically, to fly a heavier-than-air machine.
Book Is Very Boring & Talks To Much Of Their Father's Life.......2005-09-30
This book was a major dissapointment for me. I could not finish the book. The author dwelled more on the problems of the Wright Brother's father, and the chaos he delt with in their denomination. I felt like I was reading their father's life story. Historical bio's are my favorite reading, but this book I had to lay down. After several re-starts, I finaly gave the book away to another history friend. I will choose another bio if the Wright Brothers
Very good biography, but who _were_ they?.......2004-01-11
Very good biography. Details the events of the Wright brothers' lives quite well. I found especially interesting the section on their family lineage and background. It gave a feeling of them as once-removed from the frontier lifestyle, and also well described their place in midwestern American society, with the father leading the church efforts, their "modern woman" sister attending college, etc.
The book doesn't go into a great deal of technical detail on their inventive process. Crouch's colleague Peter Jakab has written an excellent book, "Visions of a Flying Machine," which fills that niche excellently.
My only qualm with the book was that as I was nearing the end, I couldn't help but thinking, "Yes, this is all the stuff that happened in their lives, but who WERE they?" Crouch is very exhaustive in covering all the events, esp. their fight for proper credit for the invention. But in the end, I didn't feel as if I had a feel for who they were as people.
Ironically, I felt that Jakab's "Visions" book told much more about who they were as people. This book focused on the invention period, and by really showing how they worked and thought, gave more of a feel of their personalities and humanity
In the end somewhat disappointing.......2003-08-05
Tom Crouch does a wonderful job in bringing the story of the Wright brothers to life. He explains their social interactions, their different personality types and the family's ideals.
However when he starts to tell the story of the invention of the aeroplane (airplane) the disappointments mount. At this point the author could have focussed on the insightfulness and engineering brilliance of the Wright brothers. However the author seems unwilling or incapable of expressing how the Wright brothers were able to distil and redefine the ideas of their predecessors. The redefinition of Smeaton's coefficient, the choice of a dynamic approach to restore equilibrium, the experiments and formulae required to calculate the basic forces of flight and efficient propellor design are all given scant attention. The book's phobia of technical detail is epitomised by its reference at one stage to increasing the octane rating of the fuel to increase power. Unfortunately octane and its potential to produce greater power would not be understood until the '20s. The book then appears to have great difficulty in differentiating what the Wright brothers did in comparison with their rivals. Instead of demonstrating why wing warping was the basic concept behind all control systems in aeroplanes, the author resorts to bold assertions such as the Wright brothers were aware of ailerons and fully described them in their patent application. This is highly debatable and in my opinion WRONG! Furthermore any patent issue which may have gone against the Wrights is always described as a legal loophole and not given any further regard. Instead of defending the Wrights on their own merit the book seems to be compelled to detail feel good stories or nicknames of distant relatives and associates. The relevance of Orville's flying students' ancestors defeating the British (I'm assuming not single handedly as implied by the book) in the battle of Lake Erie in 1813 does seem somewhat irrelevent. I enjoyed the enthusiastic style of the writer, but in the end felt that the book was somewhat flat in conveying what the Wright brothers actually achieved on that historic December day in 1903.
The Bishop's Boys is FABULOUS.......2003-05-21
Hi. I've read this book from cover - to - cover so many times that it's actually falling apart. This book is fabulous and I would reccomend it to anyone iterested in flight!
Amazon.com
Getting proper advice is the first step in having great skin, but finding truth amongst all the hype is easier said than done. Instead of relying on your favorite cosmetic counter or this week's magazine cover story, try starting with Audrey Kunin's The DERMAdoctor Skinstruction Manual; not only is it a great starting point for separating medical fact from pretty packaging, it covers nearly everything that can ever happen to your skin, from teenage acne to post-menopausal dryness.
Arranged alphabetically by topic, its design makes finding the information you need a breeze--and Kunin's casual, conversational style is enjoyably readable. If you've ever wished you could corner a dermatologist at a dinner party and ask about that odd little rash or bump that just won't go away, you'll love the tone. Along with clear explanations of a range of complaints, she provides an even broader range of possible solutions, including prescriptions to discuss with your doctor and simple over-the-counter remedies. Some are her own formulations; even more are not. Whatever the answer is to your problem, it'll be as practical as possible: None of those 19-step daily skincare routines here.
With her background in non-surgical cosmetic dermatology, she's quite open to treatments (like Botox and steroids) that some prefer to avoid. At the same time, her medical background provides her with a solid research base that allows readers to feel that they're getting accurate answers to questions like, "Is mad cow disease communicable via collagen injections?" or, "What's the minimum SPF to look for in sunscreen?" Whether you're trying to prevent skin cancer, control psoriasis or keep on top of your complexion throughout the coming years, Kunin's detailed advice will help get the job done. Jill Lightner
Amazon.com Exclusive Content
Special Interview with Audrey Kunin, MD
"I believe consulting with a dermatologist should be convenient, informative, and economical--that's why I moved my office online," says Dr. Audrey Kunin, a practicing, board-certified dermatologist, creator of DERMAdoctor Specialist Skin Care, and founder of DERMAdoctor.com®, where her focus has been to inform and educate customers on nonprescription treatments for conditions ranging from crow's feet, stretch marks and cellulite to rosacea, discoloration, bruising, male-specific concerns, and a far broader range of skin issues "rarely spoken of, and even less frequently embraced by cosmetics," she observes. Amazon.com contributor Jill Lightner spoke with Dr. Kunin, who shared some tips on how to discern fact from fiction when it comes to skin care advice, and how to make the most of your visits to the dermatologist. Read our interview.
Customer Reviews:
Info about all sorts of different skin care ailments!.......2007-07-28
I liked this book because it gives you an overview of so many different skin care problems, and it gave me tips about problems I didn't know I could fix. This is a good reference book to keep around, in case you get a new ailment that you need to learn about.
nothing fancy...the review i mean.......2007-07-17
This book in question is a masterpi...welll not quite. It is a very basic book. THis would be a great gift for a teenager. Or it would be a quick fun read for someone who knows nothing about skin care. Just like everyother book out there written by an expert expalining to non educated people.
Do not take that offensively. It's just a very basic book. Nothing fancy. But if you know nothing about skincare you'll learn from this book. If you know the basics, then it's a quick read. Entertaining as it is written by a woman who is bubbly. She is not serious at all, just fun to read.
Clever Infomercial .......2006-02-08
This book was written with the idea of promoting the author's own product line. Sad, because otherwise it is a well written book backed with a good clinical background. If you can get over her commercial intention it is an ok read.
An informative skincare encyclopedia!.......2006-01-01
I can't give it a five, because she does plug her own products. But having a mini-encyclopedia of skin diseases and conditions is a great thing. I wish I had purchased a book like this a long time ago. I have a dermatologist, but she doesn't take the time to really explain, in plain English, what is happening and why. The Dermadoctor does that for the kind of condition that you might seek help for (acne, eczema, hair loss, psoriasis) and also for somethings that we may not immediately seek help for, such as cellulite, cold sores, chapped lips, hives, and dandruff.
This isn't a book to read front-to-back, but if you are into healthy skin, I really think this is a great book to have around the house.
Great if you like infomercials...........2005-12-22
This book has some interesting superficial information about certain skin problems, but every time she suggests products for an affliction, she lists only her own product line, with the occasional prescription product thrown in. (Oddly enough, she often finds her own concoctions better, stronger, or less damaging [pick your adjective] than the prescription products--and forget any of those worthless skincare products you can pick up in department stores.) If you're just learning about different skin conditions, this book may be mildly helpful; but if you're a long-term acne sufferer, or fighter of wrinkles, you've most likely heard all this information from the plethora of skincare commercials already out there.
The next time I buy a book about dermatology, I'm going to look for an author who doesn't have his/her own skincare line to plug.
Customer Reviews:
not totally vegetarian.......2006-11-10
i was looking for a strict vegetarian sushi book and this book often uses bonito which is a fish product...
Vegetarian Sushi?.......2005-06-30
This book has everything it needs to pass as great to the majority of the population; glossy photos, cute names, and it's about sushi.
Very trendy.
As a Vegan, I was not as impressed. The stock recipes include bonito (dried fish), and offered no substitutions for it. Several of the recipes called for the stock, or water. Water doesn't add any flavor to food, obviously. So it's either fish, or a substandard dish. The author also includes seafood suggestions on nearly every page. The last time I checked, fish are living creatures. Fish are not vegetables.
I expected a few mentions of egg or dairy, it is a supposedly Vegetarian book. But I can't say I expected flesh to be involved in the cooking process.
Before becoming Vegan, I had never eaten sushi due to my allergy to seafood. So if you have a similar allergy and are looking to enjoy Sushi, I would recommend searching elsewhere.
Good, Better, BEST!.......2004-09-12
Book layout is beautiful...each recipe has own color photo.
Ingredients easy to find.
Recipes are easy to follow with easy techniques.
Food is delicious.
Great for cocktail parties!
Beautiful photos - makes me want to prepare sushi right now!.......2004-03-19
There is lots of variety in this little book. The introduction gives you a fine initiation into the sushi-making realm with recommendations on tools and products available. Recipies are straight-forward with easy-to-follow instructions. In fact, I didn't know that there were so many types of vegetarian sushi available! So, what's wrong with my local sushi restaurant? The photographs are also a wonderful asset to this cookbook.
Definitely recommended for people who want to learn how to make their own sushi (without worrying about contamination and food borne illnesses associated with raw fish). An asset to any vegetarian/vegan cookbook collection.
Good ideas but NOT 100% VEGETARIAN.......2004-02-22
This is an OK book for gathering ideas for vegetarian sushi, but appears to be written by somebody that has no clue what a vegetarian is. There are recipes that are vegan, and others that are ovo-vegetarian, but Brigid seems to be clueless as to what a vegetarian is, as her dashi recipes all call for fish flakes. Also, she lists seafood possibilities for various sushi types.
It's not a bad read, and there is good information, but it's yet another book written by a non-vegetarian without bothering to ensure that the recipes are at least lacto-ovo.
It's a disappointment that in a book called vegetarian sushi, there are so many refs to seafood and recipes that call for meat products. Especially considering that the typical American mis-conception of sushi is fish, and this book claims to provicde vegetarian recipes.
Customer Reviews:
This book never came!!!.......2006-08-17
I ordered this book in May and was really looking forward to having it. Every month they postponed my order, and then told me they couldn't get it, which is too bad because I'd really like to have it. My question is, why is it still avalible for sale if they can't get it?
Stock issues?.......2006-07-10
I ordered the book in March of 2006, and every month I was required by Amazon to approve a delay. It's July and still more delays.
I only mention this because while the experience may be unique to me, you might want to reconsider ordering it as a birthday gift or other time-sensitive occasion.
This happened to me with another cookbook, and another customer reviewer mentioned long delays in her review, and I found it helpful so I thought I'd mention it with this one.
Simply delicious vegan delights!.......2006-05-12
I picked this book up about 6 years ago. I am a vegan and enjoy making veggie sushi and other Japanese dishes. This book is really great. I make one recipe from it about twice a month -- it's called tofu and braised leeks, I think. Anyhow, it's great. My wife and son love that one! The best thing about the recipes is that they are really simple and require few ingredients. I highly recommend it!
Finally, a non-fish/non-poultry Asian cookbook.......2004-07-30
I was pleasantly surprised to finally find an Asian vegetarian cookbook that does not contain any fish or poultry ingredients. Most that claim to be vegetarian,aren't. This book is different. Even the recipe for dashi is purely plant based. If you are vegan, the author does note what you can do to alter the recipe as egg is sometimes listed as an ingredient.
The recipes are easy to read and a delight to prepare. One of my favorites is the egg omlet. The flavor is very light, delicate, and slightly sweet. What a change from traditional Western omlets. This is great sliced and sprinkled across rice, rolled up into sushi, added to soups, or just eaten on its own.
If you are looking for a cookbook that provides more of the authentic Asian flavor, this is it. Mirin, sake, soy sauce, and rice vinegar are sauce staples. If your local grocery store does not carry these items, ask them. If they won't, then either order them online or search for an Asian market within driving distance.
It would have been nice if the book displayed the picture on the same page as the recipe itself. Even though there are a limited number of photo pages, there are multiple dishes per page, but I wasn't certain which dish represented which recipe (some were easy to figure out). More pictures would have turned this into a 5 star review.
A good, simple cookbook.......2002-09-24
"Japanese Vegetarian Cooking: From Simple Soups to Sushi" is a fantastic beginners guide. The language is simple, the instructions easy to follow and the ingredients easy to find. Many recipes use Sake, Japanese Mirin wine and varieties of Tofu and Seaweed. These are the most difficult ingredients to locate.
Although the recipes are simple, they are very good and can be the base of a daily Japanese menu. Full dinners, snacks, lunches, soups and all that are available for cooking. Rice is a main component of most of the dishes, but there are some excellent potato recipes and more vegetable-rich dishes. The glossary of ingredients is a usefull addition.
I have made many meals using this cookbook, and I will make many more.
Book Description
Vegetarian Sushi Made Easy introduces over 40 recipes for delicious, easy-to-prepare sushi made with vegetables instead of raw fish. The authors have grouped the recipes into finger sushi with vegetable toppings, sushi rolls, sushi balls, stuffed sushi pockets, tossed sushi, and sushi cakes. Many of these are made with sushi rice in several colors—white, pink, yellow, and even green—so they are not only delicious to eat, but also beautiful to look at. Vegetarian Sushi Made Easy is the perfect introduction for all cooks, both amateur and experienced, to the wide world of healthy, delicious sushi.
Customer Reviews:
If you love sushi..............2007-03-09
You will love this book. If you are a vegetarian and love sushi then this book will send you straight to sushi heaven! Great pictures and easy to understand. You will be on your way to creating beautiful tasty sushi in no time at all.
food for the eye ... an inspiration.......2001-06-10
If one skims this book, one is impressed by the creativity and the beauty of the various sushi recipes. The recipes depend upon technique in rolling to create flowers, yin-yang symbols, cones, barber cones ... There are some of these designs based upon dyed rice, ineatible leaves, or exotic serving pieces - all techniques opposed to my cooking style. These recipes also depend upon ingredients not common in an American kitchen e.g. black beans, soy beans, red soy beans, fresh green soy beans all required for a single recipe. The problem becomes one of obtaining the necessary ingredients in small quantities or how to use the remainder if bought in normally available quantities.
However, if you approach this cookbook not in terms of actual recipes but for inspiration, this is an excellent book - it allows one to move far beyond avacado rolls, cucumber rolls, Seattle rolls, California rolls i.e. the mainstays of sushi beyond the raw fish sushi. It has wonderful photos of presentation possibilities - food as pleasing to the eye as to the palate. It provides ideas for using Asian vegetables in small quantities; you learn if you like the taste and texture before betting a meal on it. It's only flaw - you're left on your own for dipping sauces and other condiments - a flaw that allows one to search for pickling recipes or even chutney/salsa recipes to add some flavorful "zing" to the meal.
Visually stunning...but tasteless!.......2001-01-30
This book is visually stunning, with some of the most inventive sushi I've ever encountered: nigiri colorfully topped with slices of carrot and lotus root tied together with a green stem; sushi rolls cut to reveal a pattern of plum blossoms, hearts, roses, or a checkerboard; a cute sushi ball topped with a shiitake mushroom cap that resembles an Oriental hat; others wound with shreds of vegetables to look like multicolor silk balls. There's sushi presented in a pumpkin cup, several varieties of stuffed tofu sushi, a sushi-and-vegetable "pizza," sushi salads, and even fruit sushi. Each recipe is illustrated with a mouth-watering full-page color photo, and the extremely clear directions feature rolling or assembly diagrams. I pounced on this book not only for its visual artistry and as Japanese Food Host at BellaOnline, but to make special vegetarian treats for my vegan son and his friends.
Yet, there's a central problem with this book. All the recipes I tested are virtually tasteless!
I'm sorry, but plain sushi rice topped with a slice of carrot boiled in saltwater does not make it in my culinary estimation. Nor do the beautiful sushi rolls that consist solely of rice wrapped in nori-however eye-appealing they are-or the assortment of boiled, saltless beans served over brown rice! And grapefruit cup sushi made of okra, carrot, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and grapefruit sections tossed with rice and stuffed into a grapefruit half? Yuck!
Even the basic rice recipes are peculiar: the one for white sushi rice calls for seasoning the rice with apple cider vinegar and honey instead of a standard sushi-su made from rice vinegar and sugar. A brown rice version uses salty plum vinegar and mirin. I've been trying to figure out if this book is meant to embrace Zen macrobiotic diet principles. But no, then honey wouldn't be called for. Also, for reasons unknown, the authors do not even mention wasabi in the book. Likewise, soy sauce is never suggested as a dipping sauce to accompany the sushi recipes. (Indeed, there's little soy sauce used throughout the book, and then almost exclusively to cook shiitake mushrooms or tofu pockets). And, despite several attempts, my sushi rice seasoned with plum vinegar did not turn out a bright pink as is shown in the book-or even pale pink. The authors might be using a different brand of plum vinegar than what's available in my area, but nowhere was that brand specified.
Of course, one can always add beet juice or food coloring to rice to achieve that lovely pink shade, or incorporate Japanese pickles to liven up the flavors of fillings, or add a smear of wasabi, or serve the sushi with a wasabi and soy sauce dip. But these ideas are not brought out in the book.
If you intend to use this book as inspiration and let your imagination soar, then this may be a great resource for you. However, if you are the kind of cook who needs to follow recipes exactly, or are seeking to re-create a Japanese restaurant taste experience, you are apt to be sorely disappointed with the results of the recipes in this book. Caveat emptor!
The most creative sushi book I've seen.......2001-01-07
I purchased this book on a whim, wondering, "What does one do with vegetarian sushi?" The answer to that question might be, "What CAN'T one do?" I have read more than 4 books on making sushi, several of which were very favorably reviewed. Those were traditional sushi,containing fish. "Vegetarian Sushi Made Easy" incorporates many artistic possibilties. This book provides simple, step-by-step instructions on making sushi in a variety of designs. One feature that I've not seen in other books is the use of colored rice to add a new dimension of possibilities. Another lovely feature is mounds of rice "wrapped" in thin strips of vegetable...very colorful. There are directions for sushi rolls, mounds, cakes, "pizzas", stuffed tofu pockets, nori stuffed and cut open to look like figs (the fruit), and sushi rolled to incorporate designs such as hearts, ladybugs, flowers, a "free form" sushi presented much like a composed salad, and others. I took this book to work with me and showed it to a number of people. Even those who swore that they would never try sushi were captivated by the book and liked the idea of sushi sans fish. The directions are the most clearly written that I've seen so far, and EVERY design has a full-page color photograph followed by directions. I highly recommend this book to those interested in learning to make sushi. It is technically and artistically stunning.
Vegetarian Sushi Made Easy.......2000-02-03
I have been waiting for a book like this for years! I find Japanese food intriguing but was unsure as a vegetarian where to start looking for meatless alternatives for sushi. Although some of it is involved and some of the ingrediants are difficult to come by if you are not within relative distance to an asian market,so I would recommend this as an excellent book for special occasions and holidays.
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