Preference Personnelle
Monday, August 23
 
Not for the first time, here I go with a cursory review of a book followed by wholesale cribbing of the author's Web bibliography. Webliography. Wow, does that sound lame.

I just finished reading Steve Almond's 'Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America.' It's pretty decent, for folks who like candy. Kind of in a Dave Eggers/David Sedaris kinda vein (one of those comparisons is stolen from the book jacket--and, since Amy provides a blurb, arguably both), one of those memoir-writ-large numbers, Almond manages to connect his own candy-addled life history with a tour of old-fashioned and boutique candymakers (albeit the kind of tour that leads not to Jacques Torres but to places like Sioux City, Iowa) and some rumination on megacorporations (in this case, Nestle, Hershey's and M&M/Mars) squeezing out the little guy. Is there any industry on the planet for which this isn't the case? I sure hope so, but it's difficult to think of one. But I digress. Almond is an engaging writer. If one has any interest at all in candy, and I suspect that a large portion of my readers do, it's a quick, light, funny read. Also, it led me to Joel Glenn Brenner's 'The Emperors of Chocolate,' a history of Mars and Hershey.

Okay, here are the links (descriptions are Almond's):
Candydirect.com
Sweet Nostalgia
Chocophile
Valomilk
Idaho Spud
Goo Goo Cluster
Palmer Candy
Lake Champlain Chocolate
National Confectioners Association
Some guy who likes candy bars
Name That Bar
Steven Almond, fortuitously-named author
  4:21 PM
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