If you're a Vayniac, you already know that Gary Vaynerchuk came out with a book called 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World. Marisa announced the book here at Slashfood about a month and a half ago, and I just got my hands on a copy a few weeks ago.

I didn't put it down until I had at least looked at every single wine on the list. It's Gary first list of favorite and recommended wines, and it's chock full of enthusiasm, energy, and genuinely great recommendations.

Here are some ways this book can be useful for you:

• Exploring wine if you've never really tried wine before and have no idea where to start.
• Choosing great wines for specific occasions from Gary's very cleverly organized and insightful lists for any event.
• Finding the best wine for that flavor profile you really like (best dry Reisling, best "fruit bomb" red, etc.).
• Learning how you can become better at recognizing what you like about wine and what wines you're passionate about (hint: drink more wine!).
• Understanding that wine can be fun, and that it doesn't have to be serious or snobby.

What I really love about this book is the genuine authenticity that just reverberates from everything that Gary has to say. Each individual wine write-up is like getting to read an episode of Wine Library TV, chock full of enthusiasm, honesty, and insightful wine wisdom. The only thing I would change about the book is that, for a truly ignorant wine novice like myself, it's hard to tell which wines are white or red, etc., which is important for me since I have a hard time really enjoying reds and wanted to go through and pick out all of the wines that I knew I would want to try right off of the bat. A quick cheat sheet or wine primer at the beginning of the book (Petite Sirah is red, Reislings are white, etc.) would have been really helpful for me.

Overall, the book is well written, very straightforward in Gary's typical style, and I think it has potential to really help the everyday wine enthusiast reach a level of immersion in the wine world that many of us don't think we can reach. It can be expensive to start out in wine and buy a bottle of everything, especially if you're back at square one when the wine isn't a quality example of the genre you're trying to explore. This book makes jumping into every corner of the wine world a real possibility for every wine drinker, and that is something really worth sharing. Keep a copy handy for your own trips to the liquor store, and give a copy to a wine-loving (or wine-curious) friend!

I'm talking about alcohol.

I am about halfway through this book called The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe (which I got as Christmas gift and am just now getting to). Though it is not specifically labeled as a food book, the way Tony Bourdain's books are found near the cookbooks at Barnes and Noble, The Devil's Picnic is about the author's journeys through several countries where certain foods are prohibited: poppy seeds in Singapore, imported raw-milk cheeses in the US, and in the first chapter, hjemmebrent in Norway.

"Hjemmebrent" is the Norwegian word for moonshine, which if you're not up with your illegal vernacular, is the term for whiskey or other alcohol that has been distilled illegally, and typically, at night, under the light of the moon (thus the name). Now there may be nothing particularly interesting about moonshining, since we have quite the sordid history of it here in the United States during the Prohibition era, and even today (wine and brewing beer excluded of course). However, in Norway, hjemmebrent is distilled to 96%, making it, as Grescoe says in his book, solely for the purpose of getting completely drunk. "You were sober then you were drunk. It was grim, goal-oriented, and a little sad. And the hangover was like no other."

I finally finished reading the last half of the last chapter of Ruth Reichl's memoir of being the restaurant critic for the New York Times, Garlic and Sapphires. Let's not get into why, despite the book being very light, fast, and easy to read, it took me a good six months from the time I started to finish it. I have moved on to my next late-night read, The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe, which couldn't be a more drastic 180 degrees in style than a book could be.

The book is basically a one year trip with the author in search of "forbidden fruit" - those fruits that are highly sought after but difficult to obtain, and oftentimes deadly either because they are physically harmful, or they're illegal in the countries where they are found. Grescoe tries everything from 186-proof Norwegian moonshine, to poppy-seed crackers that are banned as "narcotics" in Singapore, to bull's testicles stewed in garlic and gravy. Basically, this guy is like a coked-up Tony Bourdain.

I've just started the book and so far, love it. I hope I make it out alive.