The Ramen King and I (2009)

It is a foolish man who looks for the meaning of life in a bottle of booze. But how about a cup of noodles? American journalist Andy Raskin recounts how he made instant-ramen inventor Momofuku Ando his spiritual guru — despite never actually having met the man — while attempting to discover why he sabotages relationships with women. The result is intermittently funny, particularly when dealing with Far East culture. ''If something in Japan takes longer than it's supposed to,'' Raskin notes, ''your watch is probably wrong.'' But The Ramen King and I is, appropriately if disappointingly, a fairly forgettable literary snack rather than a memorable meal. B–