Oeno Biblio

Exposing some of the myths regarding Italian wine

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:03:47 +0000

There are many myths surrounding Italian wine, particularly the best types of Italian wines that are available. Perhaps one of the most notorious myths is that a bottle of Italian should only be an accompaniment to an Italian dish. The truth is that Italian wine can be enjoyed with many other Mediterranean dishes, such as Spanish Paella, a French carbonara or a classic Greek moussaka. Italian wine compliments a wide variety of dishes and just not be limited to the cuisine of its country of origin.

There is also another myth that Chianti is a cheap, consumer wine. However, thanks to the demand of Chianti wine in countries like the US, the vast majority of these wines are of excellent quality. Many bottles of Chianti wine sell for 25 to 30 dollars in the US, however, there are still plenty of cheaper bottles than can be bought for as little as 10 dollars.

Another popular myth is the idea that the best Italian wines are red. Despite the fact that the country does produce a significantly higher volume of red wine than white wine, there are still plenty of excellent examples of the latter that are grown in the regions of Campania and Tuscany. These include Fiano di Avellino, Vermentino and Soave. What may be relatively true about Italian white wine is that most varieties tend to taste fairly similar. This is because the climate and the conditions that Italian white wines are grown tend to create a universal dry, crisp taste that is not usually that flavoursome.

Some of the best Italian wines under 20 dollars include the Villa Sandi Prosecco, a sparkling northern Italian wine and the rich Righetti Amarone. Many supermarkets may provide special offers for hr software from octopus HR and certain types of wines, such as two for one or half price deals.

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Why do I have to be judged?

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:33:04 +0000

Sometimes I like to spend a little time by myself, enjoy a glass of wine and to read a book. I am very much into both, but it does seem as if sometimes my love for each seems to cause people to judge me and treat me in a certain way. Its almost as if they think I must have problems if I am choosing to sit by myself and drink a glass of wine, or read a book.

I was sat in a well known coffee shop today, with a coffee, and a copy of Forbidden History, which by the way is an absolutely fasonating read. A guy walked in wearing a bespoke three piece suit, and when he saw what I was reading, he made a comment under his breath. Now I didn’t catch his words but I did gather that he thought I was a bit of a loser or something. He ordered an expresso to go and walked out looking overly full of himself.

This made me start to think about how people perceive you to be a certain way when you read books, especially when they catch a glimpse of the title and it sounds a little ’out there'or ’whacky.'I’m sure if I was sat there with just a glass of wine in my hand, which sometimes I do, I’m sure his reaction towards me would have been completely different.

It is almost as if just because you are reading a book, and not getting tipsy on a glass of wine, you must be a bit strange and very boring.

I have also been in situations where, people look at me as if I am a lonely drunk, when I am sat on my own drinking a glass of wine, and men seem to think that they should step in and save me from depression by offering their super company. Can I not simply do what I like, on my own sometimes without being judged as one thing or another. As crazy as it sounds, I actually enjoy reading a book on my own sometimes!

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A 5 star debate

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:03:05 +0000

As a lover of both books and wine, I am in my element at Christmas: I get gifts of both in equal measures, seeing as you can get a decent bottle of wine for a reasonable price, and the same goes with books. Much as I love getting the books, there is one thing I am wary of: books which have 5 star reviews on Amazon.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if I enjoy a book and think it couldn’t have been better I will give it a 5 star review. But 5 star, to me, signifies complete perfection. It means that it couldn’t have been written better, plotted better, or had a better ending. Do I think that about most books? In all honesty, no. There is nearly always a potential for improvement, and that goes for the biggest selling authors out there.

Take the book I recently bought from Amazon, as a fine example. The book was about how to fix an Apple Mac, and got stunning reviews (I mean they were ALL stunning, and at no point did any of them say anything negative, or even remotely negative). But when I read the book I found that actually it was missing a lot of information and felt very rushed; as if it had been put together by someone in a serious hurry. So I gave it a 3 star review on Amazon, which I believed to be fair enough, only to have people moan at me in other reviews. My opinion? It’s just that, my opinion.

5 star reviews can be misleading, and that is certainly something to keep an eye on when buying

Without pointing a finger at the author of the book, I found out all the answers I needed and more at the following web address: http://www.coretechnicalsolutions.co.uk

The company seem to have their finger on the pulse of everything Apple Mac related and provided me with a completely fool-proof service (which was really what I was after when I bought the book).

So the lesson here is that 5 star reviews can be misleading, and that is certainly something to keep an eye on when buying any product. Me, personally, I look for a good range of reviews spanning various different stars. I don’t always expect perfection, but I do want honesty!

(Update: I did recently purchase a book which had an absolutely horrendous cover. I expected it to be hopeless and guess what? It wasn’t, it was really good. How’s that for complete and utter confusion?)

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Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E Ambrose

admin — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:33:22 +0000

I was stuck waiting for transport in Bristol a couple of weeks ago, and decided that I needed something to read. So I went into the Fopp store on Park Street, and for an unfeasibly small amount of money I bought a copy of a book called Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E Ambrose, who’s now best known as the author of Band of Brothers, which became a hugely successful miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks for BBC and HBO.
Like Band of Brothers, Citizen Soldiers is a story of the American forces in the Western Front during World War 2. But where Band of Brothers focuses on a relatively small group of people and follows them through the whole conflict, Citizen Soldiers takes a much broader view across the entire European Theatre of Operations. But the cleverness of it is that alongside taking a broad view, and critiquing some of the decisions made by people like Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley and Patton, it also focuses on the experience of individuals - soldiers, airmen, doctors, nurses. It really brings home - without adblue comment - the reality of what it was to go to war, through using the verbatim accounts of the individuals who went through that experience.
As a piece of history writing, it is comparable to Band of Brothers in the sense that it uses verbatim accounts. But in some ways it’s a stronger book in that it brings together those experiences with taking a global view of the conflict. Well worth a read.

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The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe By Peter Godwin

admin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:33:06 +0000

Zimbabwe has been in the limelight for quite some time due to the various stories coming up every now and then of gory bloodshed and violence. Amidst the almost indifference to the violence these days, comes the book “The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe” written by Peter Godwin.

The book begins in the backdrop of Zimbabwean presidential elections of 2008 and depicts a poignant tale of violence and political gangster-ism.

The book starts with the realization of Mugabe about the fact that his days being the de-facto president are going to be numbered. The book goes on to describe in detail the events depicting why and how Zimbabwe’s current government was thrown together.

The book was written by Godwin on the basis of first-hand experience when he had entered Zimbabwe incognito during the election. Soon after, the description of the horrors seen and tolerated by the citizens is given in great detail. If you have an active imagination and a weak stomach you may want to read this sparingly because it can be graphic.

The book is an important piece of literary phenomenon due to the precious and most accurate account of atrocities that the people of Zimbabwe went through two years ago, while the rest of the neighbors of the country as well as the international community did nothing but watch.

If I should ever bump into Godwin while filling up with Red Diesel Cardiff one day I will certainly give him the thumbs up for this book.

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Review of the Book “The Hybrid Leader”

admin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 07:40:37 +0000

The book “The Hybrid Leader” has been written by Trudy Bourgeois who is an expert in leadership and workforce issues. In this book, Trudy comes up with a plan that will bring forth a new leadership style after combining the strength and storage of both the male and female leadership values and style.

The book is highly recommended for those who are students of Business Management and will enter the management industry in the near future, and also for those who are involved in business and its issues.

The book has been well written and well researched, and goes through the problems that afflicts leadership and management issues and comes out with solutions effectively. The book is easy to read and contains many simple principles that are easy to understand and implement by those who are new in business management. However, the reader must be ready and willing to change his or her way of thinking for attaining the full benefits of the book.

Another great feature of the book is that it has many tips on how to use your power and mind to nurture and motivate your employees and also how to build up an effective relationship with the employees and how to react to their problems.

It tackles the issue as to why most of the workforce feels undervalued, unappreciated and disengaged and hate to go to work every morning. Reading the book will teach you the art of motivating your employees and how to change their attitude, which is what most leaders do, and develop a stable and authentic relationship between the management and the employees.

In the book you will also learn how to apply everything that you have learned so that both you and your employees remain happy. If you really want to be an effective leader and motivate your employees for your mutual benefit, then you should definitely obtain a copy of “The Hybrid Leader” and read its contents. If you apply the theories outlined in the book, you will surely become an effective leader which is one of the most important things in business management.

Don’t Forget About John Wyndham!

admin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 07:39:47 +0000

I have always been a big fan of Science Fiction novels and one of my favouritest writers of all has to be John Wnydham. He may not have written that many books, but the ones he did write really were top banana.

In some ways it is probably easier to create a Sci-Fi story these days because just about every idea, no matter how outlandish it may sound, is totally acceptable. However, back in the 50s and 60s, when Mr Wyndham was in full swing, it was a different matter altogether… No-one had ever really written about walking plants, psychotic alien children or friendly, telepathic extra-terrestrials. Wyndham was breaking new ground with each of his novels and, without his input; Science Fiction would be nothing like it is today!

Modern Sci-Fi writers would simply not get away with their way-out stories of Venusian werewolves, time travelling sorcerers or demonic email marketing software had it not been for authors like Wyndham. Novels such as, ‘The Day of the Triffids’, ‘Chocky'and ‘The Midwich Cuckoos'changed everything forever in this exciting genre!! Suddenly it was perfectly acceptable to write a novel about the very strangest of things!

It is a little weird how we will hear so much about the likes of H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov or Michael Crichton… when poor old John Wyndham rarely gets a mention. And yet, without his Triffids and unearthly Midwich children, these other Science Fiction writers would never have found a market for their stories at all.

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The Missing Rose – Serdar Ozkan

admin — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:13:31 +0000

An inspiring story with mysticism to charm you into a spiritual journey of self discovery and the essence of life is what The Missing Rose can be described as. In line with the works of great authors like Paulo Coelho, who wrote the Alchemist, this book describes the unearthing of a world or realization for a self obsessed daughter named Diana who lives in San Francisco. Diana lives in a world where is she envied for her beauty, knowledge and money etc., and has many people who adore and surround her till the time she finds herself completely alone even in this crowd of friends and well wishers. Her mother dies and leaves her grappling with a piece of clandestine information about her twin sister.

Feeling utterly at odds with the world all of a sudden, and shaken, Diana embarks on a journey to find this twin sister of hers who has knowledge of the unknown and was apparently a doting daughter herself with only one wish, to be with her mother. The story transgresses to the magical lanes of Istanbul in which you can feel the enchanting mood of the city through the book. In Istanbul Diana has to deal with breakthroughs which defy logic such as learning the ability to talk to roses which in turn will help her unravel the mystery of her untraceable sister who she awaits to arrive in this city in Turkey.

Your journey through the book will be nothing less than a gift which will help you value yourself for what you really are and also in turn remind you of what true happiness really is, something which you cannot really achieve even while playing the best solitaire online game. The author, Serdar Ozkan is very young and brings a freshness to her story that shows the pool of talent that she has to unleash on the world waiting for her next piece of work.

The Road, by Cormac Mccarthy

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:03:11 +0000

I came across the book while looking at a piece by artist lawrence coulson in an old bric-a-brac shop. It looked like someone had put it down and absent-mindedly walked off, as it was a newish copy. Most people will know The Road as the recent film starring Viggo Mortenson. Set in a post-apocalyptic America, the book – as with the film – follows the journey a nameless man and his son make as they battle the elements and the strange social dynamics of the time to try and survive in a world where there is only chaos.

With a summary like that you could easily be forgiven for thinking that The Road is a fast-paced action thriller. In fact, the book and the film are fairly slowly-paced. Rather than focussing on the terrible things that people do, it’s more character based and subtle. But one thing the book and the film do have in common is the nauseating feeling that runs throughout, making you feel like at any moment the duo’s luck could change for the worse…

For those wondering how the book compares to the film, be happy: the film is basically a direct translation of the incredible book. And thought the film was very much a Hollywood affair, all the painful elements that made the book so enthralling are there, making for a dynamic read that will move even the most immovable of minds.

The book, it must be said, it somewhat less accessible than the film, and this is probably its only criticism. This is no bad thing, and it’s all down to the fact that Mccarthy writes very lucidly, with the bare minimum of punctuation throughout. But personally, I’m a fan of this style of writing: it makes for great reading, and really pulls you in and makes you think: how would I cope?

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Great setting, disappointing book - Her Fearful Symmetry

admin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:03:02 +0000

When Audrey Niffenegger released ’The Time Traveler’s Wife'back in 2003, it took the modern fiction world by storm with its carefully crafted, non-cheesy and intelligent love story. To boot, it was entirely believable - no mean feat when the subject matter concerned itself with a time traveling husband.

We were kept waiting for quite some time before the follow up, Her Fearful Symmetry, hit the shelves (in the mean time, Niffenegger managed to play her valuable cards well and held the rights for the novel almost to ransom, netting a gigantic advance along the way). Her first novel was an excellent exploration of character relationship in a speculative setting, and we were promised more of the same with Her Fearful Symmetry.

So did it deliver? Unfortunately, not really. Unlike the titular character of the first novel and her husband, the characters of Symmetry are not amazingly warm or likable. The speculative element in this one - the ghost of a previous tenant haunting a flat - is unconvincing and seems very forced, as do the motions the characters as they move through the plot.

But it’s not all negative. It is a good novel, just not by Niffenegger’s previous standard, but one shining point is the setting - Highgate Cemetary in London. It’s a beautiful cemetery in real life, and it is portrayed beautifully and accurately throughout the novel. After reading, if you’re nearby we heartily recommend a tour of the cemetery as you’ll notice many landmark places used in the novel and also meet staff who we’re convinced were the inspiration for some of the characters.

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