Everyone has a story to tell, a past to share, a lesson to impart.

Collecting and retelling the personal histories of "everyday people" is the passion of Dave Isay, an author and National Public Radio producer. Mr. Isay founded StoryCorps to enable ordinary people to record their personal histories.

Mr. Isay writes that he collected the most compelling of those stories because "if we take the time to listen, we'll find wisdom, wonder and poetry in the lives and stories of the people all around us."

Listening is an Act of Love (Penguin Press) collects edited transcripts of oral histories recorded by StoryCorps participants, with introductions by Mr. Isay. Although the verbatim stories are told by the StoryCorps participants in their own words, Mr. Isay's talent as an editor allows readers to appreciate the poignancy, and the poetry, of these personal histories.

Trained StoryCorps facilitators record participants' recollections, eliciting memories with questions like these:

"What are the most important lessons you've learned in life?

"What did your mother sing to you when you were a baby?"

"How do you want to be remembered?"

StoryCorps participants impart important life lessons, like the advice that Jhee-Sook Lee gave her granddaughter, about the three phrases that, when regularly repeated, reiterate the emotions that make for a happy marriage: "I love you"; "Thank you"; and "I'm very sorry."

Listening is an Act of Love succeeds because it tells stories of everyday heroism, like the personal history that William Jacobs recorded with his grandson, Seth Fleischauer. During WW II, while Billy Jacobs was hospitalized after a car accident, the mother of his girlfriend, Claire, came to tell him that Claire didn't know that she was infertile, and that Billy shouldn't marry her unless he were willing to adopt children; Billy married Claire, and later earned Seth's admiration for the way he cared for her after Alzheimer's Disease enveloped her.

Listening is an Act of Love is unforgettable reading, because the stories it tells remind us of who we are and where we come from.

We are what we eat. Eating is a biological imperative; cooking, however, is a cultural imperative.

Cooking is like a language: the ingredients are the vocabulary; the techniques the grammar. You can mix and match across different traditions absorbed from the people and influences you've been exposed to," Jennifer 8. Lee writes, in The Fortune Cookie Chronicles (Twelve Publishing). Ms. Lee is a reporter for The New York Times (the "8" in her name connotes prosperity in Chinese); she explains that Chinese cooking is exceptionally adaptable to different environments because it applies Chinese cooking techniques to locally available ingredients.

The adaptability of Chinese cooking, and of the Chinese immigrants who staff the restaurants, explains why more American restaurants serve Chinese food than any other type of cuisine. According to Ms. Lee, "There are some forty thousand Chinese restaurants in the United States—more than the number of McDonald's, Burger Kings and KFC's combined."

Ms. Lee tells how the American version of Chinese cooking evolved, and explains that what passes for Chinese food among Americans is foreign to native Chinese, who favor spicier, broccoli-free fare.

Americans have been clamoring for Chinese food since at least 1896, when the craze for chop suey began in San Francisco… or maybe in New York: no one knows for sure which city was the birthplace of Chinese-American cooking. After they were excluded from other lines of work, many Chinese opened and staffed restaurants. Americans like "Chinese" restaurants because the food is affordable and widely available, predictable and familiar… and mildly exotic.

Later, in the 1970's, Chinese restaurants pioneered free home delivery, giving Americans yet another lazy lifestyle choice.

Ms. Lee explains that the list of Chinese dishes that were actually invented in America includes not only chop suey, but General Tso's chicken, beef with broccoli, and sweet-and-sour pork.

The fortune cookie hails from Japan; it became a cherished part of American "Chinese" restaurant ritual because, in the 1930's, many Chinese restaurants were owned by Japanese-Americans, who were deported to "relocation camps" during World War II. In 2005, when an improbably large number of lottery players chose the winning numbers in the multi-state Powerball lottery, officials were suspicious until they learned that the winning numbers had been listed on a fortune, distributed in the triangular cookies served in Chinese restaurants across the United States.

Ms. Lee is a perceptive cultural commentator; her next book could be about how American fast food – and American pop culture – are changing China, and its billion-plus inhabitants.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is a delicious book, which should be savored. Ms. Lee tells us that Americans eat Chinese food more often than they eat apple pie; that American "Chinese" restaurants really serve an American cuisine that "just looks Chinese"; and that "Chinese" food has become an American "comfort food." She's right: we are what we eat.

©2008 LCNS2ROM, INC.