Book
Coffee Roasting at Home Magic Bean Coffee Books
Coffee Roasting at Home Magic Bean Coffee Books
This book contains easy, step-by-step instructions and recipes which enable you to roast coffee at home using household appliances. Includes instructions for a hot air popper method, stove top method, oven method, and for home roasting machines. Roasting coffee at home is easy and fun to do. Using high quality green beans you can quickly create a roast to surpass specialty coffee roasts.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Disappointing…to say the least
At $17.95 I figured this book would be useful for both the beginner & advanced roaster. It is barely useful for the beginner. You can easily obtain all info contained in this book plus much more by going online, typing “coffee roasting” in your search engine, & hitting the “go” button. This book might be worth $5.00!
5 Stars A Fun and Informative book for the First time coffee roaster
I was surprised at how easy it was to roast your own coffee at home. We tried the cowboy coffee on a camping trip and it was a big hit. A good, easy to use reference.
5 Stars Great for Beginners
I read this book, dusted off my popcorn popper, and using their instructions was roasting my own, GOOD coffee rather quickly. I highly recommend this book to people who have not roasted their own coffee before and I highly recommend roasting your own coffee. You can buy green coffee for 1/4 the cost of roasted if you purchase it in bulk and you will be surprised to find out how tasty and fresh your own coffee can be. This book shows 4 (of) 5 different ways to roast your own coffee, I will try the other ones in future. Very pleased to have found this book. I am now hooked on roasting my own coffee!
5 Stars Great home roasted coffee
I never expected roasting my own coffee to be so easy. For the cost of green beans and surrendering an air pop popcorn popper to the job, I’m hooked. I’m one of those people who has been grinding beans for brewing coffee for years. Fresh roasted is even better than expensive beans from your favorite vendor…
Coffee Roasting at Home is a great little book with lots of tips. If you are a coffee fanatic, try roasting your own
2 Stars Not worth the price. Romatic, repetitive, without substance
I read this 145-page booklet in less than one hour. It uses very large print (perhaps nice for readers with poorer eyesight), but it also limits the amount of information that the book contains. It is a self-published book, which clearly would have benefitted from the services of a professional editor. For example page 94 says “Vienna is in the Danube Valley in Italy”. While Vienna is indeed on the Danube Valley, the city is the capital of Austria and the Danube river doesn’t even come close to Italy! Page 106 says “the basic proportion for Frech press or drip brewing is two heaping teaspoons (sic) of coffee to 6 ounces of water”. Every acknowledged coffee expert (T.J. Castle, Corby Kummer, Kenneth Davis) emphasize two TABLESPOONS as the correct proportion. A typo? Maybe. But if the book gets such basic, major issue wrong, what else is wrong? The reader is better off buying any of the books by the above-listed authors at similar prices.
I got the impression that the authors are nice people that decided to self-publish their coffee roasting notes in a folksy engaging style. The book, however, lacks substance. There are five coffee-related, cute and romantic short-stories that belong on a creative writing book and not on a “how to” manual. Finally most of the information is repetitive. How many times do we need to be told “to be careful, the beans are hot when coming out of the roaster”?
The book is not a total loss. Some people may like their step-by-step guides for the true beginner that is looking for a “cheat sheet” The enquiring, serious coffee aficionado looking for guide on roasting coffee at home should look elsewhere
Putting the thrill back into espresso machines An article from Tea and Coffee Trade Journal
Putting the thrill back into espresso machines An article from Tea and Coffee Trade Journal
This digital document is an article from Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, published by Lockwood Trade Journal Co., Inc. on November 1, 1990. The length of the article is 851 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Putting the thrill back into espresso machines.
Author: Jonathan Bell
Publication: Tea & Coffee Trade Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 1990
Publisher: Lockwood Trade Journal Co., Inc.
Volume: v162 Issue: n11 Page: p8(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
The Spy in the Coffee Machine
“Timely and balanced, their book The Spy in the Coffee Machine is a scary treatise about the way technology has eroded privacy and continues to do so … The chief lesson of this excellent and potent short book is that we have to learn how to live with these actualities.” — A. C. Grayling, The New Scientist
“Offering a wealth of recent detail, O’Hara and Shadbolt provide a singular update and perspective on the accelerating predicament of privacy in the modern age.” — David Brin, Science fiction writer, futurist, and author of Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
“Kieron O’Hara and Nigel Shadbolt have offered an engaging and thought provoking roadmap for the emerging field of Web Science. They crisply survey what lies ahead as the Web becomes ubiquitous, and they invite everyone — not just academics and experts — to think about how to preserve the Web’s magic while avoiding its most unsettling prospects.” — Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, Oxford University
“This book will give anyone concerned about the growing number of CCTV cameras in our streets or the way young people expose their secrets on Facebook a sound appreciation of the wider issues. It will also arm them with a better ability to judge the trade-offs that we are asked to make on a daily basis between public and private.” — Bill Thompson, BBC Focus Magazine
“While critics have variously demanded control over the internet, the practical means have been ignored; O’Hara and Shadbolt readdress this, offering detailed accounts of how technology that threatens privacy can be used to protect it.” — Times Literary Supplement, May 27, 2008
I Love Coffee Over 100 Easy and Delicious Coffee Drinks
I Love Coffee Over 100 Easy and Delicious Coffee Drinks
“A powerful link between the coffee professional and the coffee consumer. The technical information is presented clearly and “smartly,” the humor is professional…and the recipes and photos are extraordinary.” — Miles Small, Editor CoffeeTalk Magazine
“Coffee recipes or references, coffee facts or fun – whatever your reason for pouring into the vast world of coffee, Susan Zimmer teaches it all in this “how-to” coffee handbook.” — SAECO Canada Ltd
“Indispensable new coffee book…filled to the brim with 111 recipes and a wealth of information from bean field to barista.” — The Gourmet Retailer
“Susan Zimmer shares information about exotic coffee drinks…for all occasions, with easy-to-read instructions. Her knowledge and passion for the drink are evident throughout.” — Library Journal
“The BEST book on coffee on the market, for all occasions. Susan’s profound knowledge…makes it a very interesting and a most enjoyable coffee read. It’s a must for everyone who likes or loves coffee!” — Espresso Canada Inc.
“The definitive resource for anyone who loves coffee. This book explores the intricacies of serving the perfect cup; enjoying the various flavors, textures and aromas of coffee in all of its glorious forms.” — P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Inc.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars good recepies with pictures for coffee lovers
Me and my husband love coffee, and we like trying out new recepies. It is a nicely presented book with good recepies. It has nice pictures as well. you may find the information about coffee and beans in most of the coffee books, but since the writer has been in coffee bussiness for years it also gives hints.
Nice book, worth it.
5 Stars More information than I could have hoped for.
Tons of facts about the origins of coffee and different types, along with the different methods used to prepare it and their advantages and disadvantages. The recipe section at the end has a lot of great recipes that span just about every type of coffee drink you could imagine.
5 Stars coffees
I love coffee and I love this book. Lots of great history and recipes–regardless of the type of coffee maker you have.
5 Stars home brew
This was a very good and informative book on the ins and outs of making a great coffee, and other coffee flavored drinks. The author did a lot of research on coffee’s and the history of making the perfect cup. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to master the art of becoming a home Barrista.
5 Stars Great at home resource for the coffee afficianado
I work part-time as a barista, and I picked up this book to get some ideas for flavor combinations that we could introduce into our cafe. Certainly, this book has tons, featuring unusual flavor combinations- think chocolate/orange/hazelnut- and also holiday ideas (eggnog for Christmas, creme de Menthe for St. Patrick’s etc.) as well as the classics. Even more importantly, it gives you the know-how to make your favorite latte combinations at home. As odd as it may seem, one of my favorite things to do at work is to steam milk- I love the look and feel of the foam. Zimmer explains how to do that almost perfectly using a pan, a whisk or handheld mixer and your stovetop. (Sadly, this doesn’t work as well for me with soymilk, but with practice I’m sure I’ll get it.) She also explained how to do a stovetop espresso with the classic Bialetti espresso maker. Since it retails for about $35, that’s a heck of a lot cheaper than a souped up espresso machine and would almost definitely pay for itself after about ten lattes; you may never need to go to your local cafe again.
However, I disagreed with her instructions for many of the flavored lattes and mochas. She advises pouring in the milk first and then the syrups and espressos; I find the flavor is distributed better if the shot and syrup are in first and then followed by the milk. But that’s probably more a matter of preference than anything else- your results may differ.
This is also a comprehensive reference for beans and roasting, and she even gives instructions for roasting your own beans at home. Seriously, she leaves the reader pretty much no excuse not to have the best cafe-level coffee in your own home.
Highly recommended.
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
An outstanding debut story collection, Z.Z. Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere has attracted as much book-world buzz as a triple espresso. Yet, surprisingly, there are no gimmicks in these eight stories. Their combination of tenderness, humor, and apt, unexpected detail set them apart. In the title story (published in the New Yorker‘s summer 2000 Debut Fiction issue), a Yale freshman is sent to a psychotherapist who tries to get her–black, bright, motherless, possibly lesbian–to stop “pretending,” when she is sure that “pretending” is what got her this far. “Speaking in Tongues” describes the adventures of an Alabama church girl of 14 who takes a bus to Atlanta to try to find the mother who gave her up. Looking around the Montgomery Greyhound station, she wonders if it has changed much since the Reverend King’s days. She “tried to imagine where the ‘Colored’ and ‘Whites Only’ signs would have hung, then realized she didn’t have to. All five blacks waited in one area, all three whites in another.” Packer’s prose is wielded like a kitchen knife, so familiar to her hand that she could use it with her eyes shut. This is a debut not to miss. –Regina Marler
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Refreshing & thought-provoking
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere was my “car” read; a book I could read under the dryer at the beauty shop, provided it was a slow conversation day. I read the story about Brownies, which touches so much: leading versus following, speaking up, the paranoia of race, and the fun and stress of Brownie camp. I laughed, reflected, and moved the book from my car to my nightstand. Excellent read. Aww Sookie Sookie: Omar’s Revenge
5 Stars Beautiful
Beautiful and breath-taking. Ms. Packer is a truly gifted story teller and a keen observer of the world around her.
5 Stars A new voice reminiscent of Baldwin and O’Connor
It’s been several months since I read the eight stories in “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” and I can still recall the precision and beauty of ZZ Packer’s prose, the building tension in several scenes, and the uniqueness of the outsiders who populate her stories. Although hers is a vibrant, new voice all its own, Packer echoes the rawness of Baldwin’s stories in “Going to Meet the Man,” while her alienated protagonists recall the redemption-seekers of Flannery O’Connor’s fiction. Like both of her literary predecessors, Packer doesn’t always feel the need to elucidate why her characters behave as they do; instead, actions and their consequences are burdened by personal histories, human emotions, and social expectations that are often beyond explanation. “I don’t know why I said it,” Dina reflects in the title story. “Until that moment I’d been good in all the ways that were meant to matter.”
What Dina said, during her college freshman orientation games, was that the one “inanimate object” she’d want to be is a revolver–a response that launches a chain of events that insures her status as an outcast. One imagines that if she had been a white, football-playing fraternity brother, her quip would have been taken as a cynical if inappropriate attempt at sarcasm. But she is a young black girl from a poor part of Baltimore, and her retort is filtered through the alien prep-school eyes of her new classmates and teachers. She is doomed not to fit in.
In “Brownies,” another story with a similar theme, the tables are turned: a Brownie troop plans ways to taunt the summer camp’s “Disney characters,” a group of white girls with “complexions a blend of ice cream: strawberry, vanilla”–only to find that their would-be victims are not who they seem to be. In Packer’s world, as in the real one, behavior is predicated not only by personal choices but also by social pressures, societal prejudices, and the near-inevitability of misapprehension.
In addition to the title story, there are two other stories here that rank among the best I’ve read in recent years. “Speaking in Tongues” describes a 14-year-old runaway who escapes to Atlanta from the confines of her religious rural upbringing, falls under the sway of a streetwalker and a hustler, and becomes part of their sensual, harrowing existence. The “Ant of the Self,” the story from The New Yorker that introduced me to Packer’s world several years ago, concerns a young man, Spurgeon, whose father, freshly bailed out of prison, corrals him on a journey to the Million Man March to sell exotic birds to the crowd (selling birds!?! –the eccentricities again evoke O’Connor). Here, an exasperated son’s destiny is limited by his love-hate relationship with his father; it’s easy enough for an “outsider” to say what Spurgeon should have done but family ties can mess up anything. (” ‘Why you gotta act like everything I ask you to do is gonna kill you? You my son. I tell you to do something, you obey.’ I do obey, and hate myself for it….”)
I’ve outlined my favorites, but there’s not a rotten apple in the bunch. Savored one at a time, they most clearly bear out Mavis Gallant’s advice for readers: “Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.”
5 Stars A Story With A Don Quixote Flavor
ZZ Packer is a gutsy, tough, funny, wise-beyond-her-years young writer. Always an outsider, a brainy black girl living a segregated life, she views the world from which she came and the world to which she has entry with a sensitivity beyond her years. In “Speaking in Tongues,” one gets the feeling her character would like to be able to prove herself within her church and her family by speaking in tongues, but it just doesn’t happen. And while she remains an outsider in that regard, she and her friend Marcelle are “the only saved students in Rutherford B. Hayes High, roaming the halls together in their ankle-length skirts, their long-sleeved ruffled blouses while the others watched.” The rest of the story is a fairy tale that might have actually happened–rural girl runs away to the big city and finally, after misadventure after misadventure, returns home relatively intact. The story has a Don Quixote flavor to it.
Then there is Doris in “Doris is Coming”, watching television with old Stutz in his shop, viewing integration with Dr. Martin Luther King somewhere else. Oh, she gets ideas that no nice Pentecostal girl should have. After much thought, even consultation with her preacher, she decides to do a one-[almost] woman sit-in at Clovee’s Five and Dime.
She sits even after being told that she can not be served. She takes out her World History book and starts to read. No one throws her out; no one pays much attention to her. “When Doris closed her book, about to leave, she said, ‘I just want you to know I’m leaving now. Not because you’re making me or because I feel intimidated or anything. I just have to get home now.’ She starts for home. She knew that she should hurry, but she couldn’t. She had to stop and look. The sky had just turned her favorite shade of barely lit blue, the kind that came to windows when you couldn’t get back to sleep but couldn’t quite pry yourself awake.”
Packer writes complicated, thoughtful stories with skill and surprises. She introduces me to a world I do not know.
by Judith Helburn
for StorycircleBookReviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women
4 Stars Loved It
Packer is one of my favorite writers. This book was a refreshing read for me.
The Complete Idiots Guide to Starting and Running a Coffee Bar
The Complete Idiots Guide to Starting and Running a Coffee Bar
Brew up your own business.
This is a step-by-step guide to realizing what for many people is a cherished dream: opening a successful coffee bar. The Complete Idiot
Its Not About the Coffee Lessons on Putting People First from a Life at Starbucks
Its Not About the Coffee Lessons on Putting People First from a Life at Starbucks
After a working life spent building Starbucks from a chain of 28 stores to an international coffee business through positions such as executive vice president of sales, founding president of Starbucks International and president of Starbucks North America, Howard Behar tells of the strategies he used to establish the business into the success it is today. Behar shares the soft skills that helped to construct the company from a regional outlet to a corporation with international reach. While the book occasionally brings in examples from other companies, sharing anecdotes from Starbucks itself is Behar’s strong suit. The most interesting sections involve stories behind products readers may know from their own visits to the coffee retailer. Thoughts behind the bottled Frappuccino product’s launch or the have it the way you like it approach to beverage making are revealed. While revolutionary ideas are outnumbered by more standard good business practices, the voice of experience and in-house examples from a popular company make for a decent read for those wanting to develop or refresh basic business leadership skills. (Dec. 27) A Q&A with Bob Delaney (Oct. 29) identified the coauthor of Covert as Bill Walton. The book’s coauthor is Dave Scheiber; Walton wrote the foreword.
Copyright
How to Open a Financially Successful Coffee Espresso and Tea Shop How to Open and Operate a
How to Open a Financially Successful Coffee Espresso and Tea Shop How to Open and Operate a
The explosive growth of the coffee shops across the country has been phenomenal. Few people realize Coffee is now the largest food import to the United States! There is money to be made on those beans! Here is the manual you need to cash in on this highly profitable segment of the food service industry. This new book is a comprehensive and detailed study of the business side of the specialty coffee and beverage shop. This superb manual should be studied by anyone investigating the opportunities of opening a coffee cafe, tea shop or coffee kiosk. If you enjoy meeting people and love coffee, this may be the perfect business for you, but keep in mind Specialty coffee retail looks easy, but as with any business, looks can be deceiving. This complete manual will arm you with everything you need including sample business forms, leases, and contracts; worksheets and checklists for planning, opening, and running day-to-day operations; sample menus; coffee drink recipes; inventory lists; plans and layouts; and dozens of other valuable, time-saving tools of the trade that no coffee entrepreneur should be without.
While providing detailed instruction and examples, the author leads you through finding a location that will bring success, learn how to draw up a winning business plan (The Companion CD Rom has the actual business plan you can use in MS Word tm.), how to buy and (sell) a coffee shop, basic cost control systems, profitable menu planning, sample floor plans & diagrams, successful kitchen management, equipment layout and planning, food safety & HACCP, successful beverage management, legal concerns, sales and marketing techniques, pricing formulas, learn how to set up computer systems to save time and money, learn how to hire & keep a qualified professional staff, brand new IRS tip reporting requirements, managing and training employees, generate high profile public relations and publicity, learn low cost internal marketing ideas, low and no cost ways to satisfy customers and build sales, learn how to keep bringing customers back, accounting & bookkeeping procedures, auditing, successful budgeting and profit planning development, as well as thousands of great tips and useful guidelines.
The manual delivers literally hundreds of innovative ways demonstrated to streamline your business. Learn new ways to make your operation run smoother and increase performance. Shut down waste, reduce costs, and increase profits. In addition operators will appreciate this valuable resource and reference in their daily activities and as a source of ready-to-use forms, web sites, operating and cost cutting ideas, and mathematical formulas that can be easily applied to their operations. The Companion CD Rom contains all the forms in the book as well as a sample business plan you can adapt for your own use.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Great reference book.
Lots of good information. Some things I would never have thought of. I was very glad that I purchased this book and continue to use it frequently.
5 Stars Short, Sweet & to the point w/ handy practical advice.
This is a great book chock full of “to the point” advice.
I like the fact that you can use it not only as a “reading” book but also a “reference” book.
5 Stars great book, shipped very quickly
This book is great and doesn’t treat you like a “dummie”…..it
was delivered much quicker than I expected. Excellent!
5 Stars WOW!
This is the best book if you are serious about opening your own business! They thought of everything. LOVE IT & recommend it completely!
5 Stars A Fascinating Start
“HOW TO OPEN A FINANCIALLY SUCCESSFUL COFFEE, ESPRESSO & TEA SHOP” by Elizabeth Godsmark, Lora Arduser and Douglas R. Brown.
Coffee is a huge industry across the country and around the world. In the introduction of “How to open a financially successful coffee, espresso & tea shop” the authors point out that the coffee industry is a $5 billion industry, which is growing more and more every year.
Anyone who is interested in starting his or her own coffee, espresso, or tea shop is going to be fascinated in this book. The authors start at the beginning with developing a business plan. The give examples and even offer a CD program that has preformatted documents. Licenses, business name, choosing suppliers, and equipment requirements are all discussed in the opening chapters.
Many aspects of running a successful coffee, espresso & tea business are discussed throughout this book. The authors have done a tremendous job in giving an introduction to opening this type of business. They talk about profit planning and advertising, as well as choosing the best equipment and managing your operating costs.
Without a doubt this is a definite must have book for anyone even thinking about starting this kind of business. The author’s are able to skillfully introduce all the major concerns with opening a coffee, espresso & tea business. They provide a wealth of information that will help clarify a person’s views of what is actually required to open, operate, and run a financially successful coffee, espresso & teashop.
Home Coffee Roasting Revised Updated Edition Romance and Revival
Home Coffee Roasting Revised Updated Edition Romance and Revival
This nation’s obsession with coffee continues to evolve. Coffee addicts who have already traded up to the latest bean grinders and brewing machines now have a new frontier to conquer: roasting their own beans. Davids’ updated edition of his earlier work addresses the technological advances that have made home roasting even more accessible. After surveying the history of coffee roasting and the machinery invented for that purpose, Davids scrutinizes the world’s coffees, comparing their varietal characteristics so that home roasters can anticipate which beans will produce coffees that best suit their tastes. His quick guide to home roasting methods clearly delineates the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative, from the most expensive home roasting machines to simple stove-top and microwave oven techniques. Beginning home roasters may be surprised to find that one of the simplest coffee-roasting machines is a hot-air popcorn popper. Davids’ clearly written instructions make home coffee roasting sound easy and should extend the process to a broad audience. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright
The Coffee Trader A Novel Ballantine Readers Circle
The Coffee Trader A Novel Ballantine Readers Circle
Liss’s first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper, was sketched on the wide canvas of 18th-century London’s multilayered society. This one, in contrast, is set in the confined world of 17th-century Amsterdam’s immigrant Jewish community. Liss makes up the difference in scale with ease, establishing suspense early on. Miguel Lienzo escaped the Inquisition in Portugal and lives by his wits trading commodities. He honed his skills in deception during years of hiding his Jewish identity in Portugal, so he finds it easy to engage in the evasions and bluffs necessary for a trader on Amsterdam’s stock exchange. While he wants to retain his standing in the Jewish community, he finds it increasingly difficult to abide by the draconian dictates of the Ma’amad, the ruling council. Which is all the more reason not to acknowledge his longing for his brother’s wife, with whom he now lives, having lost all his money in the sugar trade. Miguel is delighted when a sexy Dutch widow enlists him as partner in a secret scheme to make a killing on “coffee fruit,” an exotic bean little known to Europeans in 1659. But she may not be as altruistic as she seems. Soon Miguel is caught in a web of intricate deals, while simultaneously fending off a madman desperate for money, and an enemy who uses the Ma’amad to make Miguel an outcast. Each player in this complex thriller has a hidden agenda, and the twists and turns accelerate as motives gradually become clear. There’s a central question, too: When men manipulate money for a living, are they then inevitably tempted to manipulate truth and morality?
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars His Destination: Amsterdam, 1659 — A Mysterious World
“The Edgar Award — winning novel A Conspiracy of Paper was one of the most acclaimed debuts of 2000.
In his richly suspenseful second novel, author David Liss once again travels back in time to a crucial moment in cultural and financial history.
HIS DESTINATION: AMSTERDAM, 1659 — A MYSTERIOUS WORLD of trade populated by schemers and rogues, where deception rules the day…..”
[from the back cover of audio CD case]
3 Stars A painful read
Like many here I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the machinations of the varied characters. As much as I enjoyed the characters, however, I was left feeling the more interesting ones were pushed into secondary roles: Geertruid Damhui or Alferonda, for instance. The book should have been about them. Joseph Conrad or Cormac McCarthy may have found the jewels of insight that were lacking here.
I found the book painful to read. Just when I thought nothing worse could happen, it would…with cups of salt rubbed in. Humanity has no redemption (except maybe some of the errant women). Perhaps that is true, but it doesn’t make an enjoyable read.
3 Stars Might as well be Wall Street today…
The Coffee Trader is a well-drawn tale that takes place in 17th century Amsterdam at a fascinating time – the dawn of the financial exchange. Amsterdam was an extremely open and cosmopolitan society relative to other European countries at the time. Central to this story is the fact that Jews were permitted to practice their faith openly while the Inquisition was still going strong in Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.
The protaganist of the story is Miguel Lienzo, who is part of the community of Portuguese Jews living and working in Amsterdam. Miguel is attempting to rescue himself from financial ruin by setting up a scheme to corner a new commodities market – coffee.
The writing is excellent and evocative. Although I’ve never been to Amsterdam, by the end of the book I could recognize neighborhoods, rivers, markets, taverns and even smell the city. It is worth reading the book just for the history. It is also quite a page turner, as the suspense builds up and keeps you guessing as the novel moves along.
The reason I only gave the book 3.5 stars is because the characters, while interesting, lacked an emotional depth that I require in order to LOVE a book. You want to have something to grab onto in a character, whether good or bad, in order to set your allegiances. The story here was great, but I just didn’t care that much about most of the characters one way or the other.
The most interesting aspect of the book was in its parallels to what is happening in today’s economy. This book depicts the origin and birthplace of “exotic financial instruments,” and then, just like today, the trading of these instruments led to some pretty seedy behavior. Behavior that was at best questionable and at worst entirely despicable. If it weren’t for the setting and the funny clothes, customs and speech, the novel could have taken place on Wall Street!
5 Stars A thriller that uses the mind, not dead bodies, to move the story forward
One of my favourite genres is that of the historical novel, whether it be a romance or not. An author that I have recently discovered for myself is David Liss, who crafts intricate stories of family ties, betrayals, money and Judaism, all told with splendid research and an ability to draw the reader into the past.
This time, my excursion took place in the seventeenth century city of Amsterdam, where religious tolerance lives side by side with frantic trade. In this world is Miguel Lienzo, a Secret Jew (or converso) who has managed to escape the Inquisition in Portugal, and made a fortune in sugar futures, only to have them collapse and reduce him to poverty. Now he’s living in his brother’s basement, trying to evade his creditors, and rebuild his life.
Problem is, those creditors include a man intent on revenge, Joachim, who had been involved with Miguel’s sugar scheme, and his own brother, Daniel, who is both jealous and contemptuous of Miguel. And then there is Solomon Parido, one of the Jewish community’s leaders and a member of the Ma’amad, a council that oversees the behaviour and practices of the community. He too has a very personal connection with Miguel, and would enjoy nothing better to see him banished from the Jewish community and excommunicated under a sentence of cheder.
But Miguel also has allies, among them a moneylender named Alonzo Alferonda and a beautiful Dutchwoman named Geertruid. At the start of Geertruid is introducing Miguel to the delights of a new drink with its origins in the mid-East — coffee. At first Miguel is disgusted by the taste and smell and sight — it’s a thick, ugly brew and nearly undrinkable. But quickly enough he’s under its spell, and Geertruid tells him that with work on both of their parts, they’re going to make their fortune. Miguel is skeptical, but Geertruid makes him a gift of a sack of coffee beans, and tells him to meet her again in a week or two to discuss the offer…
And so begins one of the best stories that I’ve read about finance, money, lust and religion. David Liss weaves in a multitude of plots in this story, and explores the world of Amsterdam at the high of its trading power in an entirely new way for me. Most of the novels set in this time have dealt with painters such as Vermeer and Rembrandt, or the craze over tulips, but this time, it’s something very different.
It was the Dutch merchants who helped to create what we now think of as modern finance, where shares are sold in a company (at that time it was shares in a shipload of cargo), you could wager on the prices of various commodities going up or down (what we now call ‘futures’), and where fortunes could be made or lost in a matter of minutes. But what is wonderful about David Liss’s storytelling style is that he doesn’t make the process at all boring — quite different in fact. I was enthralled by all of the little details, and the emotions of the people involved — given the current economic climate of 2009, I was both chilled and reassured that very little has change in human nature over the centuries.
Which leads me onwards to the other aspect of Liss’s writing. His characters are very distinct and very human, every one of them a bold mixture of good and bad, and having to make decisions that not just have consequences on themselves, but also on everyone around them. Miguel is my favourite sort of character, a man who isn’t perfect, and has plenty of flaws to himself, but also manages to be an honourable man with temptation all around him. But he isn’t so perfect that it makes him boring — the relationship that he has with Hannah, his brother’s wife, is terrific to watch unfold. I won’t reveal here what is involved, but it’s a delight to read about.
Many of the scenes are drawn so vividly that I could easily imagine myself in the Amsterdam of that time, and for me, a novelist’s ability to create such a vivid time and place in my head is one of the hallmarks of an enjoyable book for me. But what really amazed me was Liss’s knowledge of Jewish law, and how he wove the religion into the story without it being preachy or dogmatic. It was very well done, and helped to make many of the characters’ actions and emotions make sense.
Along with the narrative itself, the author has included a historical note, a lovely bibliography of sources that he used, an interview with Mark Haskell Smith and a series of questions for reader’s groups. For those who are curious about further works by Liss, there is also an excerpt from the novel, A Spectacle of Corruption as well.
This book gets a handy five stars from me. It’s the sort of book that I take great pleasure in reading and finding, and my only regret is that I can’t rediscover it all over again. David Liss is turning into one of those writers that I will buy sight unseen, and I’m looking forward to more books about the Lienzo/Weaver family in the future.
3 Stars More Caffeine, Please
Set in 17th century Amsterdam, this book concerns itself with on Miguel Lienzo, a Portugese Jewish commodities trader….In an attempt to rebuild his fortune and reputation, Miguel goes into partnership with a comely Dutch widow in a scheme to corner the market on some new-fangled thing called Coffee…and the games begin…Financial skulduggery, personal vendettas, comely lasses in doorways, and the ruling body of the Jewish community, all conspire to thwart Miguel at every turn. but he is his own worst enemy
i was disappointed in this book, more for its pacing than anything…with a wealth of historical information and obviously thorough research…the “story” started to drag about halfway through..and , while i finished the book it was a chore..too bad, that because the ending is very good…given that no character herein was very appealing…none was repulsive…in the end Miguel may have recovered his position…but he lost much more….. not his self-confidence, however.
