Bookshelf: Mark Huetsch, Co-owner, Pie House

The book on my shelf with the most sentimental value is The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. One of the main characters is a space pioneer who builds his own spaceship. Characters with that type of individualism helped inspire me to start my own business. In fact, I would really like to be able to leave Earth’s atmosphere at some point in my life, but I’ll have to sell a lot of pies to be able to do that!

On the subway I read QQ messages on the phones of strangers.

The book I wish I’d written is A Pie on Every Lazy Susan: How Pie Became a Traditional Chinese Icon. [FYI, readers: this book does not yet exist. Sounds interesting though, huh? –Ed.]

I’d like to be Nightcrawler from the X-Men comic books because he can instantly teleport to any location he pleases. No more traffic jams! You know, I haven’t read those comic books for almost 20 years, but I literally think about that guy at least twice a day since I’ve moved to Beijing.

Naturally, the character in a book I’ve had a crush on is Rogue from the X-Men comic books.

The last book I read was Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, who founded an online shoe store called Zappos. The book is all about Zappos’ fanatic obsession with good customer service. I’m really trying to internalize the lessons of the book with Pie House since Beijing’s average level of customer service is ... uhhh ... perhaps a little lacking, and I really want our bakery to stand out.

The book I’ll bring on my next travels is Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I like to understand things from a historical perspective, so hopefully this will be able to shed some light on how the world’s financial system functions.

Mark Twain frequently ate half a pie with a quart of milk as his lunch and would finish off the second half with his dinner. His alleged favorite was “apple mush” pie, which was something like apple sauce in a double crust, with whipped cream. That flavor and texture pairing seems a little off to me, but to each his own.

My favorite quote from a book: “It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.” – Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

If all this reading makes you hungry, check out www.piehouse.com.cn.

Click here to see the April issue of the Beijinger in full.

Photo: Sui