Friday, March 23, 2007

What is Peter Ames Carlin reading?

Peter Ames Carlin is the TV critic for The Oregonian newspaper in Portland and author of Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson.

Ralph Heibutzki's praise for Catch a Wave led me to ask Carlin about what he has been reading.

One title he mentioned:
A Moveable Thirst, a book about the Napa wine region by my friend Rick Kushman (like me a TV critic by day) and Hank Beal. The second half of the book is a guide to actual Napa wineries, but the first half is pure narrative, about the guys' adventures touring the wineries themselves. It's charming and funny, but also smart and a nice tutorial for aspiring wine buffs. As such it reminds me of the other wine book I read this year, Brian Doyle's The Grail, which is essentially a series of essays about a year at an elite winery in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The grail in the title is the perfect pinot noir ... which a lot of people (including Brian's subjects) have come awfully close to creating.
Read about the other books on Carlin's current reading list.

--Marshal Zeringue