Books and Other Miscellany

This blog is moving!

2010-05-01T18:59:00.003-06:00

I am moving this blog from blogger to wordpress. If you subscribe to the feed, you will need to resubscribe to the new blog's feed. This is the last post at this url; from now on please use the following url and feed:

URL: http://booksandmiscellany.wordpress.com/
Feed: http://booksandmiscellany.wordpress.com/feed/

Thanks for reading and looking forward to seeing you at the new address!

Rilla of Ingleside (thoughts)

2010-04-23T12:32:00.003-06:00

Rilla of Ingleside, by L. M. Montgomery, is the eighth and last book in the Anne of Green Gables series. It is really not about Anne at all, but about her youngest child, a daughter named Rilla. It is Rilla's coming-of-age story, and takes place during WWI. It is the only book I have read by Montgomery that contains specific dates; most of her books are more vague about the precise year and could be taking place anywhere from the late 1800s to pre-WWI. It is also by far the most serious book I have ever read by Montgomery. With her beautiful, lyrical writing, Montgomery evokes the pain and agonies, joys and sorrow, experienced by the (mostly female) characters in the book left behind at Ingleside as their sons, brothers, friends, and lovers go off to fight in the war. Montgomery does not let her reader escape from the realities of the war because her characters can not. Rilla, who is a teenager during this time, matures immensely. She rises to the occasion, doing what needs to be done and growing in courage and inner strength. The book contains heart-breaking tragedy, another thing I have not encountered in other Montgomery books (I will not be more specific so as not to reveal anything to readers who may not have read it), but is ultimately a beautiful story about life and love.

It is clear from the book that Montgomery herself lived through WWI. She writes about it with a perspective and attitude that only someone who has been through it can hold. I find it difficult to understand the sense of duty and sense of fighting to rescue the world from evil that captivated those living during that time, but I respect that people wholeheartedly felt this way. Montgomery captured and conveyed the sense of that time for future generations through her honest and heartfelt coming-of-age story.

On a slightly lighter note, one of my favorite characters in Rilla of Ingleside was Susan, the Ingleside housekeeper. She is a delightful and true-to-life character, initially interested in nothing but the goings-on of their small town, but quickly becoming passionate about the war and eagerly awaiting the newspaper every day. She has depth and her own journey of growth, and says some of the most insightful things in the book.

I highly recommend Rilla of Ingleside, but do not expect the same degree of light-heartedness that mark Montgomery's other books.

Woman: An Intimate Geography (thoughts)

2010-04-17T22:10:00.003-06:00

This will be a short review, because I don't have too much to say about Woman: An Intimate Geography, by Natalie Angier, other than it is a wonderful, amazing book and you should go read it now!

The book is, as the title suggests, an exploration of the physical female body. Angier takes all the different parts of the body that are specific to women and discusses each one in separate chapters. In addition to the obvious female body parts, she has several chapters on hormones, and discusses aggression, muscle, and the chemistry of love. In the second-to-last chapter she tears apart evolutionary psychology, which has often been used to uphold patriarchal ideals. Her approach is biological and evolutionary. I learned many things I did not know and gained a new appreciation of the complexity of human beings. Angier has an amazing talent for conveying complexity understandably. Evolution is an extremely complex process; we do not know why or how most things in our body evolved to be the way they are now, and we most likely never will. So much of pop science writing tries to simplify things and paint a black and white picture. Angier does the opposite and shows her readers why we cannot take those black and white pictures at face value. One example of this that struck me was her discussion of testosterone and aggression. The commonly held view in our culture is essentially that testosterone equals aggression, and therefore men are inherently more aggressive (and have a stronger libido) than women. In fact, the studies trying to show this have been inconclusive. Angier takes the reader deep into many different studies to point out that things are much more subtle and complex than the simple equation with testosterone allows.

Woman is a reminder that we are all animals, a part of nature rather than separate from nature, and that we are amazingly complex biological systems, but it is also a celebration of what a woman is and an embracing of what that means. It breaks women out of the small boxes into which society likes to put us and shows us that women can not be defined simplistically. I highly recommend it!

Sunday Salon

2010-04-11T16:57:00.002-06:00

Happy Sunday all! Despite missing Sunday Salon last week I don't have too much to write today. I finished one book since my last post, The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman. It is the last book in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy. Just like the first two, it was very engaging and kept me on the edge of my seat. I regret slightly waiting so long to read it, because I didn't remember the details of the first two books that well and it does rely on them. It is really one long story broken into three books. However, once I got into it it was hard to put down. I also found that, unlike the other two books, this one switched contexts between more characters more frequently, which was a little disconcerting at times. The ending was satisfying and bittersweet. The premise of the series is original and creative and the ending does not let you down or turn it into a more run-of-the-mill storyline. Overall, I definitely recommend the series!

I'm almost done with another book, Woman: An Intimate Geography, by Natalie Angier. I am finding it fascinating and learning a lot. The human body is an amazing, complex system.

I have a desire to re-read the Harry Potter series and am debating whether to get the first one next time I go to the library (if it's available). I am a little worried that re-reading it will be a little bit of a let down. But I enjoyed them so much the first time around I don't see why I wouldn't enjoy them a second time.

In other random thoughts, I am thinking about moving this blog to wordpress instead of blogger sometime soon. I moved my other blog, Musings on Peace, to wordpress a few weeks ago and I like wordpress a lot better than blogger. So keep an eye out for a post about such a move and please follow me over to wordpress when the time comes!

Sunday Salon

2010-03-28T18:36:00.002-06:00

I feel as if it has been a long time since my last Sunday Salon, although it has only been two weeks. Last weekend I was out of town and did not use the internet for the entire four days - it was quite a nice break! On my trip I brought with me the book Sarah: Women of Genesis, by Orson Scott Card. It was an enjoyable, well-written light fiction that made good travel reading. I had no idea Orson Scott Card wrote historical fiction; I previously associated his name only with science fiction (and had never read any of it). Sarah is a thoughtful and well-researched interpretation of the biblical story of Sarah and Abraham. I highly recommend it, and I plan to read his other "Women of Genesis" books at some point.

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I was reading a trio of books on Unitarian Universalism. Before my trip I finished the second one, A Pocket Guide to Unitarianism, edited by Harry B. Scholefield, and after I got back, I started the last one, Our Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism, by John A. Buebrens and F. Forrester Church. Once I've finished it I will review all three at once. However, it may be a little while because I am currently taking a break from it for something a little bit lighter: The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman. This is the third and last of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy and promises to be just as good as the first two.

I also finished Rainbow Valley, by L. M. Montgomery, since my last Sunday Salon. I enjoyed it, but it is not really about Anne or even about her children - the main characters are actually the children of the new minister in town. They are friends with Anne's children, so Anne and her family are certainly present, but the story is definitely about the minister's children. I enjoyed it, as I do all of Montgomery's books, but I did not find it as grabbing as the earlier Anne books. I just got the last book from the Anne series, Rilla of Ingleside, from the library and am looking forward to it.

Today was a beautiful spring-like sunshiny day, and I spent a good part of the afternoon outside on a bike ride. After I got back, I lay on the couch and read and enjoyed the sun in the living room. It was nice to just sit and read on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps I'll spend part of my evening that way as well :)

How was your Sunday?

Sunday Salon - brief thoughts on my week

2010-03-14T15:20:00.003-06:00

On Monday I finished The Bastard of Istanbul, by Elif Shafak, and immediately posted about it. It was one of those times where I felt inspired to write about it right away because I wanted to share with the world the amazing experience of the book. It felt good to feel that and to be able to write a review right away (although it did result in my going to bed a bit late).

After a bit of ambivalence about what to read next, I picked up the seventh Anne of Green Gables novel, Rainbow Valley. However, I also felt a bit like reading non-fiction, so I turned to a trio of books on Unitarianism and/or Universalism that I recently inherited from my grandmother. I attend a Unitarian Universalist church and am exploring what that means. I chose the most difficult one first and made it through a 90-page monograph titled American Universalism, by George Huntston Williams. I think it was the sort of thing that only theology students would normally read! But I did find bits and pieces of it interesting. The other two books are geared more towards lay-people and I think will go more quickly (A Pocket Guide To Unitarianism, with numerous authors, and Our Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism, by John A. Buebrens and F. Forrester Church). After I've read them all I'll probably do a joint post/review about them.

Today it is raining and would be a good day to curl up with a book, but I have been busy with church and grocery shopping and will soon have a friend over for tea. So not as much reading today as I might like (but of course raining days are also appropriate for tea and good company :) ). How was your week in reading?

The Bastard of Istanbul (thoughts)

2010-03-08T22:00:00.003-07:00

I just finished The Bastard of Istanbul, by Elif Shafak, this evening, and I am still caught up in it. It is one of those books that puts me in awe of the author - seemingly effortless writing conveying emotions and scenes so well that I don't feel as if I am reading, I simply feel that I am there, with the characters, in the story. With lyrical, beautiful writing, Shafak weaves an intense, heartfelt tale about remembering and forgetting, about the past and the present, about identity, love, and pain. The story centers on two young women, one Turkish and one Armenian-American, who meet in the present and have intertwined pasts. The characters are eclectic and unique and original; most importantly, they feel real. The style took me a little while to get used to; it is what one might call tangential: the narrative will be describing a scene in the present and then go off on a tangent to tell some part of the character's past before returning to the present. After I became accustomed to it, the story quickly engrossed me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is intense, but it is well worth it. Although this review is short, I felt that the book was highly deserving of its own post. I will leave you with a few quotes.

This place was out of time and space. Istanbul was in a constant hurry and yet at Cafe Kundera only lethargy prevailed. People outside the cafe stuck to one another to disguise their loneliness, pretending to be far more intimate than they really were, whereas in here it was the opposite, everyone pretending to be far more detached than they really were. This spot was the negation of the whole city.

It is almost dawn, a short step away from that uncanny threshold between nighttime and daylight. It is the only time in which it is still possible to find solace in dreams and yet too late to build them anew.

Time is not a scarce commodity in suburbia. People use it as lavishly and freely as hot water.

And from near the very beginning of the book:

Rain is an agony here. In other parts of the world, a downpour will in all likelihood come as a boon for nearly everyone and everything - good for the crops, good for the fauna and the flora, and with an extra splash of romanticism, good for lovers. Not so in Istanbul though. Rain, for us, isn't necessarily about getting wet. It's not about getting dirty even. If anything, it's about getting angry. It's mud and chaos and rage, as if we didn't have enough of each already. And struggle. It's always about struggle. Like kittens thrown into a bucketful of water, all ten million of us put up a futile fight against the drops. It can't be said that we are completely alone in this scuffle, for the streets too are in on it, with their antediluvian names stenciled on tin placards, and the tombstones of so many saints scattered in all directions, the piles of garbage that wait on almost every corner, the hideously huge construction pits soon to be turned into glitzy, modern buildings, and the seagulls....it angers us all when the sky opens and spits on our heads.

The Promise of Mediation (thoughts)

2010-03-05T12:52:00.002-07:00

Note: I also posted this at my other blog, Musings on Peace.

I read The Promise of Mediation: The Transformative Approach to Conflict, by Robert A. Baruch Bush and Joseph P. Folger, because I am trying to understand why I believe in mediation. When I first became interested in it, completed my training, and started doing mediations, I did not think much about the values and world view underlying mediation. I just felt that it was a positive thing that I could be good at. I discussed my thoughts on why I became a mediator in more detail in my post last week at Musings on Peace on "Why Mediation?" (written before I finished The Promise of Mediation).

The Promise of Mediation sounded particularly interesting to me because it discusses "the potential that mediation offered to foster and support positive human interaction within conflict." This book surpassed my expectations, providing me with significant food for thought on what mediation is, what it should be, and what the role of the mediator is. Bush and Folger do not just present a framework for the mediation process itself. They go far beyond that, discussing the values and worldviews that underpin both the transformative framework and the more common settlement-oriented framework. They delve deep into what mediation should be and what its promise is.

In the rest of this post, I will first present a summary of transformative mediation, contrasting it with settlement-oriented mediation, then discuss the presentation in the book, and lastly give some final thoughts. I will likely be posting more of my personal thoughts on the subject in a subsequent post at Musings on Peace.

Overview of transformative mediation

The transformative framework of mediation is based on a relational worldview, in which "social interaction is a process of discovering and becoming fully 'who we really are,' forging an identity that is not fixed or predetermined at life's beginning." In this view, conflict is not only inevitable, but can be a positive force: "The essence of this view is that conflict interaction - precisely because it occurs at moments of great challenge to the human sense of agency and connection - offers an unusually potent opportunity to strengthen and deepen both. Conflict interaction can actually enhance social interaction, as well as the human experience of both autonomy and connection in balanced relation." Transformative mediation works within this worldview to "transform" conflict from a destructive to a constructive force:

The mediation process contains within it a unique potential for transforming conflict interaction and, as a result, changing the mindset of people who are involved in the process. This transformative potential stems from mediation's capacity to generate two important dynamic effects: empowerment and recognition. In simplest terms, empowerment means the restoration to individuals of a sense of their value and strength and their own capacity to make decisions and handle life's problems. Recognition means the evocation in individuals of acknowledgment, understanding, or empathy for the situation and the views of the other. When both of these processes are held central in the practice of mediation, parties are helped to transform their conflict interaction - from destructive to constructive - and to experience the personal effects of such transformation.

To achieve this transformation, the mediator is non-directive. His or her main role is to support the parties in going where they want with the conflict. The mediator helps the parties gain clarity through reflection of their individual views and feelings, and summary of their joint points of agreement or disagreement. He or she does not suggest options for "settlement" or carry the parties through a set process.

This view of mediation is very different from the settlement-oriented process in which I was trained. In that process, the mediator takes the parties through a set of steps with the specific goal of having them reach agreement by the end. He or she can at times be quite directive, keeping the parties "on track" and suggesting possible solutions to their problems.

In transformative mediation, settlement may be an outcome, but is not the main goal; the goal is rather for the parties to turn their conflict into a positive rather than a negative interaction. This view of mediation assumes that humans have the capability to work through conflicts themselves, and the mediator should support them in achieving that capability.

The most prominent place in which transformative mediation is currently used is the United States Postal Service REDRESS program, for conflicts within the USPS workplace.

Book presentation

The Promise of Mediation is well-written and describes the many new ideas with clarity. I feel that in reading it I have gained significant understanding of what transformative mediation is and why it is important. I have additionally gained a clearer understanding of what settlement-oriented mediation is, and am now able to think with greater clarity about what I am doing when I mediate.

The structure of the book is, for the most part, logical and progressive. Bush and Folger start by giving an overview of the four predominant views of mediation present in our society, summarizing the perspectives of each. In the second chapter, they dive in to the details of what it means to "transform" a conflict and what they mean by "empowerment" and "recognition." After finishing this chapter, I felt eager to know exactly what it meant to do a transformative mediation, e.g. what the process actually looks like and what specific actions the mediator takes during it. However, there was one more chapter before they gave those details. The third chapter situates transformative mediation within the field and gives examples of the ways in which it is becoming more widely used and accepted. Although this was interesting, I felt that this content could have come later in the book, with the case study earlier.

The fourth and five chapters present a complete transcript of a transformative mediation, with commentary after each of six segments. It was extremely interesting and enlightening, and a highlight of the book for me. Finally, the sixth chapter addresses some myths and misconceptions about transformative mediation, and the seventh chapter discusses in detail the values and worldviews underlying both settlement-oriented and transformative mediation. These final chapters helped solidify my understanding that was growing through-out the book.

Final thoughts

The premises of transformative mediation resonate with me. Reading this book has renewed and inspired my belief that mediation does have the potential to change the world and bring peace. I am continuing to process this new perspective and figure out how it fits in to my own worldview about human interaction, conflict, and the role of mediation. I expect to be writing further posts on the subject soon, over at Musings on Peace.

If you are at all interested in mediation, conflict, or social interaction, I highly recommend The Promise of Mediation. Note that there are two editions, with different subtitles, one from 1994 and one from 2005. I read the 2005 edition, which was substantially revised from the first edition, and thus cannot say anything about the 1994 edition. For more information about transformative approaches to conflict, including a more detailed summary of the content of the book, there is an excellent collection of information about it at the Conflict Information Consortium: Transformative Approaches to Conflict.

So You Want to Be a Wizard (thoughts)

2010-03-02T19:38:00.002-07:00

I've had So You Want to Be a Wizard, by Diane Duane, on my to-read list for a very long time, possibly since high school. Although it is considered a children's book, I had high hopes based on the title and description. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed with it. It felt too superficial and action-packed. The two main characters, a girl and a boy age 12, are thrown into the middle of a major wizarding crisis almost immediately, just days after they have become wizards. Their ability to handle the threats thrown at them is highly unrealistic given that they are so new to it all. The wizard-based universe concept that Duane presents is an interesting one, with unique and intriguing aspects. However, she did not develop it very well at it. It is just thrown at the reader, one idea after another, with little depth. The majority of the action is pretty dark, and frankly I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it at all as an adolescent.

I can't help but compare it in my head to two other fantasy books - Daggerspell, which I read recently, and Harry Potter. Both of them are far better developed than So You Want to Be a Wizard. Harry Potter is also action-packed, of course, but the action at least felt more realistic - there is more build-up and time for Harry to learn a few things before he reaches the major crisis.

So, all-in-all, I don't particularly recommend So You Want to Be a Wizard, and I don't think I'll be reading any more in the series. I'd be curious to hear from you if you have read it and have a different impression from me (or, for that matter, the same impression).

Who writes what I read?

2010-02-27T20:40:00.001-07:00

The answer to the question in my post title, "Who writes what I read?" is: Western, Caucasian writers, perhaps with a bias towards women. I only recently realized that this was the case. Until now, I have considered myself to be race- or ethnicity-agnostic when choosing books. I typically pay little attention to the authors at all (other than, as I said, a bias towards women) and chose books based purely on content that appeals to me, regardless of who the author is (other than reading multiple books by the same author because I particularly like the author). In fact, when I looked back recently at the books I read last year, I did not even know the race of all the authors. As it turns out, not too surprisingly, all the ones I did not know were white.

Along with noticing that the vast majority of authors I read were Western Caucasians, I realized something that I find quite problematic: that by being supposedly author-agnostic in choosing books, I am in fact reading mostly white, Western authors. I additionally became aware that if I do not consciously know an author's race, I have a sub-conscious assumption that he or she is white - and I am usually right.

What triggered these realizations? A few weeks ago, Eva at A Striped Armchair wrote the excellent post "Reading in Colour", addressing the issue of white privilege in book reading and blogging (more recently, she also had a beautiful guest post on the topic by author Silvio Sirias, "Leisure Time and Reading in a Shrinking - Yet Colorful - World"). In her post, she refers in particular to the article "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," by Peggy Mackintosh. If you have not read this before, I strongly recommend that you do so. In this article, Mackintosh explores unearned and largely unacknowledged white privilege - the advantages that white people have in our society simply because they are white. She presents a long list of the daily effects of white privilege, which includes such things as:

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.

This is directly relevant to reading, and in particular to my reading. I am white, and one privilege that comes with that is that the majority of books I encounter in the library and bookstores are by authors of my same race. Thus, if I don't pay attention to who I read, I will mostly read authors who are white. It is therefore not possible for me to be race-agnostic in my reading and assume that my reading will therefore be unbiased. There is an inherent bias in the selection of books available to me.

Having recognized and acknowledged my white privilege with respect to reading, what can I do about it? I cannot continue to claim to be race-agnostic in my reading, as doing so supports a biased status quo that I find problematic. As Peggy Mackintosh says in her article,

And so one question for me and others like me is... whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance, and, if so, what we will do to lessen them.

I would like to, first of all, be aware of the race of every author I read. I think that if I start to pay attention, it will help encourage me to seek out more works by POC - when I wasn't paying attention, I had an inflated sense of how many such works I read. I also intend to actively seek out recommendations for books by POC and make a deliberate effort to read more diversely. I cannot be comfortable with myself if I continue to read mostly white authors in this multi-cultural world.

Sunday Salon

2010-02-21T18:31:00.003-07:00

Hello fellow book-lovers! How is the world of reading going?

I finished The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie King, this week and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a unique story about a young woman who becomes Sherlock Holmes's apprentice. He is (semi-)retired to a rural part of England where he keeps bees and the young woman, Mary Russell, encounters him in the countryside someday. The story is part coming-of-age, part mystery, and part insightful look into human behavior and relationships. I believe it is the first in a series and I am delighted to have found another series I enjoy! I highly recommend it!

This week in the evenings I greatly enjoyed watching the BBC miniseries North & South. I haven't read the book, but perhaps I will at some point - the movie is very well done but I am guessing that more details are explained in the book.

It has been a snowy weekend, but I haven't read quite as much as I expected to - today I was out most of the day at various activities, and yesterday I actually went outside and played in the snow a bit :) I did start another book after finishing The Beekeeper's Apprentice, though - my interlibrary loan book, The Promise of Mediation. So far I am finding it really interesting. As I thought would be the case, it addresses the potential of mediation that I had in mind when I became a mediator - transforming the conflict to empower the parties to work constructively towards a solution and heal their relationship. I am looking forward to the rest of the book, but I'm pretty sure I'll be ready for more fiction afterwards.

Sunday Salon - a day late

2010-02-15T10:27:00.003-07:00

Ooops, I'm late for Sunday Salon again! Today is a holiday so it feels more like Sunday today, anyway. This week I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, read Condor and Hummingbird, by Charlotte Mendez, and started The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King. I also went to the library on Saturday and got four fiction and one non-fiction - yes, I am definitely in a fiction mode right now!

A couple weeks ago when I was traveling I read Daggerspell, by Katharine Kerr. It had been on my to-read list for so long I don't even remember where I heard about it, but I am so glad I finally read it. It is a great, well-written, well-constructed fantasy novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm thrilled that it is the first of a series of 15! I love discovering new series, since that gives me a new resource of books to turn to when I want something I'm pretty sure I'll like.

On Saturday a big box of books arrived for me, and I am expecting a second one to come this week. No, I did not just buy a whole bunch of books on Amazon. These are mostly books that I have owned for a long time, but were taking up space at my parent's house. I was there a couple weeks ago and went through all my books, getting rid of quite a few and setting aside many others for them to ship to me. I figured if they are books I want to keep then I should have them at my own home! They include things like Jane Austen, The Diary of Anne Frank, and some books from college. I actually got rid of quite a few of my college books, once I was able to admit that I was unlikely to ever read Aristotle or the Odyssey again, and therefore there was really no point in keeping them and especially no point in having them shipped to me. The books arriving in the mail also include some books that belonged to my grandmother, who passed away recently. Somehow it is still exciting to receive books in the mail even when most of them are books I'm familiar with and have already read!

Receiving all these books in the mail motivated me to go through the books I have here, and I picked out quite a few to get rid of - ones that I read once and didn't much like and ones that were given to me that I have never read and never will. Although I like owning books, I also want each book to be one that I enjoy owning, for whatever reason. If a book feels like it is just taking up space on my shelf then I see no point in keeping it. There is a used bookstore nearby that does book trades, so I am thinking of doing that (which will of course result in acquiring more books, but this time ones I actually want) instead of just giving them away.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (thoughts)

2010-02-13T16:30:00.001-07:00

Note: I also posted this on my other blog, Musings on Peace.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver, may be a memoir, but it is far from light reading. Phew. I thought I was familiar with all the horrors of the food industry from having read The Omnivore's Dilemma, but Animal, Vegetable, Miracle really makes it hit home. It is the story of how Kingsolver and her family embark on a year of growing and raising almost all of their own food, and obtaining the rest from as local as possible sources. They are lucky enough to own a farm in Virginia, and thus had the setting to make such an experiment work. Along the way, they comment on many of the ironies and horrific practices of the food industry. Despite the at times depressing content, the book is wonderfully well-written, with plenty of humor and entertaining passages. I recommend it! If you want to know more about the content of the book and my reflections on what I can do differently, read on.

Barbara Kingsolver and her husband and daughter make the eloquent point that we Americans have become extremely detached from the very thing that sustains us, and that there is much to be gained in rediscovering food from the source. One thing that I had thought about before but had never quite sunk in was how very strange it is for it to be snowing outside but to be able to go to the grocery store and buy fresh lettuce. Our industrialized food system has removed from us the need to know when different fruits and vegetables are in season; fresh fruits and vegetables of all sorts are transported from all over the world to allow us to have things like fresh lettuce in January in Colorado. The enormous environmental impact of this process of moving food around (not to mention the conventional methods of growing the produce, with oil-based fertilizers and pesticides) is highly ignored in our society. As Kingsolver says, "The conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners."

Kingsolver goes beyond the lower environmental impact of eating locally, however. Going into their experiment, her family anticipated deprivation, as many people would: no peaches in April, no lettuce in January, etc. However, they discovered that the pleasures of eating fresh produce in season far surpassed the deprivations. Asparagus grown locally and eaten fresh in April tastes far better than asparagus grown halfway across the country in January (note, I did in fact see asparagus at the grocery store the other day, and I was not tempted to buy any). Winter was not a deprivation either: they canned tomatoes and froze many other vegetables and fruit when they were fresh, to eat all winter along with winter squashes and root vegetables that they stored in their root cellar. Furthermore, many of the fruits and vegetables they grew were heirloom breeds that are not found in the conventional grocery stores, and which have much greater variety and more flavorful taste than the ones that have been bred for the industrialized processes. Kingsolver makes a passionate and compelling case for cooking from scratch with fresh, local ingredients and reconnecting to the source of our sustenance.

So, am I going to make changes in my eating habits after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? I find that thinking about doing so is a little overwhelming. It is a far from easy thing to do, because the impact of continuing to buy non-local and conventionally-grown food is not tangible. I know, intellectually, that it is having a negative impact that I do not like, but it is easy to disconnect my knowledge of that from my actions and continue to buy that broccoli in January that was grown conventionally in California - in fact, it takes a purposeful effort to make the connection and change my habits because of it. Furthermore, it is difficult to get good information about how sustainably grown something actually was. I know, especially from reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, that the big industrial organic companies are sometimes only marginally better than conventional ones - and that they continue to push for loosening of the organic rules.

Kingsolver does point out, thankfully, that the middle of winter is probably not the right time to start thinking about eating more locally. She is right. My town has a fabulous farmer's market that runs from the beginning of April through the end of October. I do make an effort to buy much of my produce from the farmer's market during those months, although I don't succeed 100%. I am thinking that this year perhaps I should try freezing more fruits and vegetables from the farmer's market for use during the winter. Canning scares me (and I don't have the equipment for it), but freezing is simple and, although my freezer is not that big, currently it is usually not very full. I would also like to stock up on locally grown winter squashes and root vegetables in the fall, but I am not sure I have the proper place to store them long-term, that would be the right temperature and humidity. The final change I am thinking about looking into is a local source for milk and eggs. We eat a lot of both and it seems so illogical to transport them great distances (and, I would much prefer to know that they came from free-range cows and hens raised and treated in a sustainable and humane manner).

A final thought on changing my habits: I am going to make an effort not to feel guilty, but to just remain aware of things and make changes in one area at a time when it feels doable. So many factors in the structure of our society are against eating locally and sustainably, so it takes more effort and time, at least initially, than just going to Safeway and buying anything I want. I only have so much time and effort, so I can only do so much. The most important thing that I must remind myself, the reason that the effort is worth making and the time worth spending, is that we are talking about what we put in to our bodies. Food is the very core of our existence and we should not take it lightly.

I will conclude my ruminations with a little admission. There are three items that I am highly unlikely to give up any time soon, even though I know that they are transported ridiculous distances to get to me: bananas, avocados, and chocolate. I just love them too much.

In case you couldn't tell, I highly recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It will definitely make you think, and perhaps make you look at your grocery store a little differently the next time you go.

Returning unread books

2010-02-12T10:47:00.002-07:00

I always feel a little guilty when I return a book to the library unread. I used to never do that, making sure that I only checked out things that I was sure I would read within the allotted time. More recently, however, I have been doing it more often. I sometimes check out more than I can actually read in the six weeks I'm allowed to keep the books (my library only allows one renewal). Other times, I think I am interested in a book but I realize that I just don't feel like reading it right now. I think part of my guilt may stem from feeling that if I kept other people from accessing the book for a few weeks, the least I could do is actually read it - keeping it for that time and then not even reading it feels unfair to others. I was essentially reserving it for myself just in case I got around to reading it. Of course, when I checked it out I really did think I would read it, and I usually return books as soon as I realize I'm not going to read them. So I probably shouldn't feel so guilty. Not forcing myself to read everything I check out allows me a little more freedom and experimentation in what I do check out.

The reason I am thinking about this, as you probably guessed, is that I am about to return a book unread. The book is Taking on the Big Boys, Or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation, by Ellen Bravo. I haven't lost interest in the book and I'd still like to read it someday, but I don't feel a need to read it right now, and in fact I am not sure I could handle it right now. I think this particular batch of books I got from the library had too many heavy non-fiction books in it - from the same batch (therefore, in the last five weeks) I have already read A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. The former was heavy reading on how our civilization is driving itself off a cliff and the latter was entertaining but also heavy reading on how wasteful, environmentally damaging, and unhealthy our current food production system is. So I don't really need yet more heavy reading right now on how the entire structure of business in our country is harmful to women, men, and families.

Ironically, I do intend to get another non-fiction book from the library when I go today or tomorrow, the one I put on hold through interlibrary loan the other day: The Promise of Mediation: The Transformative Approach to Conflict, by Robert A. Baruch Bush and Joseph P. Folger. I expect this to be a somewhat different type of non-fiction, and not quite so heavy. However, it is the only non-fiction I intend to get and I will probably read one or two fiction books before reading it, to make sure I am refreshed for it.

Interlibrary loan

2010-02-08T20:10:00.002-07:00

I just requested a book through interlibrary loan for the first time! The book is The Promise of Mediation: The Transformative Approach to Conflict, by Robert A. Baruch Bush and Joseph P. Folger. I am very particularly interested in this book, as I think it will discuss the sort of mediation I was envisioning when I became a mediator, but my public library doesn't have it and it is priced at $35 on Amazon (apparently there is only a hardcover edition). I don't think finding it at a used book store is very likely. So I was feeling rather disappointed when I noticed the button on the library catalog that said "search other libraries" - and voila, it came up and I could request it to be picked up at my usual library. I am really looking forward to the book and to using interlibrary loan again! I already have another book in mind to request sometime, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, by Jonathan Sacks. The only copy in my library system is listed as lost and paid. A whole new world has opened up with interlibrary loan!

Sunday Salon

2010-01-24T17:45:00.004-07:00

Happy Sunday everyone! Here are a few miscellaneous thoughts to round out the week.

This week I finished On Borrowed Wings, by Chandra Prasad. I don't intend to write a separate post reviewing it because I don't have too much to say beyond that it was really, really good. As I mentioned last week, it is about a girl who pretends to be a boy in order to attend Yale in the 1930s. But it is so much more than that. In addition to presenting an engaging coming-of-age story, Prasad manages to address many important issues and concerns, including racism, sexism, classism, homosexuality, and identity. I would put this novel in the class of literature - it is well-written, enjoyable, a good story and more than a story. I highly recommend it!

After that I started Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm not too far into yet, but it is quite interesting. Much of what she says about the state of food in this country is not new to me, since I have read The Omnivore's Dilemma, but the personal story is engaging and there are many tidbits of information. For example, I learned that asparagus is a perennial!

Friday night I watched the movie "Stardust," which is based on the Neil Gaiman book. I really enjoyed the movie and it made me want to read something by Neil Gaiman. I know he is particularly famous for his graphic novels, but I am still a bit hesitant about that form, so I think I will start with one of his prose novels.

This week I will be traveling and have been thinking about what to bring with me for reading material. I don't think I will bring Animal, Vegetable, Miracle since I don't think it is quite engaging enough for travel reading. I'm thinking about bringing Daggerspell, by Katharine Kerr, which feels slightly risky because I have never read anything by her so I may end up not liking it. But it looks good so I will take a chance. I may also bring a Robin McKinley book (which I'm confident I'll like) and possibly another paperback I have lying around.

That's all for today. Have a good week!

A Short History of Progress (thoughts)

2010-01-22T12:30:00.001-07:00

Note: I also posted this on my other blog, Musings on Peace.

My thoughts on A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright, can be summarized as follows: first, that everyone should read it, and second, that it triggered a minor existential crisis. Why, you might ask, do I think everyone should read a book that has the potential to trigger an existential crisis? Well, first of all, not everyone will react the same way that I did (the are other things going on in my life right now that likely contributed to my existential crisis; if that hadn't been the case this book may not have triggered one). But in fact I think everyone should read it precisely because of its power to make you think about and question the meaning of existence.

Essentially Wright takes you a giant step back from your daily life and gives you a bird's-eye perspective on human civilization and progress. He looks at four case studies of civilizations in human history that continued down the path of "progress" to the point of collapse. Over and over, humans have followed the pattern of overusing their environment until it can no longer sustain their numbers, continuing towards collapse even when it should be clear that they are living unsustainably. His point is that we are currently following the same exact pattern - our growth is accelerating in a clearly unsustainable manner, and we are causing environmental change that will be our downfall. However, there is a crucial difference from past civilization collapses: during the time periods of the cases he presents, there were many mostly isolated civilizations on earth, and the collapse of one did not significantly impact humans living on the other side of the world. Now, all humans are a part of one big civilization, and if it collapses it will impact all living beings on the entire earth.

Before I reached the end of the book, I started feeling that all our attempts to reverse climate change and prevent civilization collapse are both helpless and pointless. In the grand scheme of things, why does it really matter if our civilization falls apart or not? Why does it even matter if the human species continues to exist or not? Someday it will not. Someday the entire earth will fall into the sun. Deep in my heart I feel that it does matter, but I lost my grasp of why.

As I said, these questions arose for me before I finished the book. As it turns out, Wright addresses some of these very questions in the last chapter. His answers were interesting, although I think that ultimately each of us needs to figure out answers for ourselves and find our own meaning:

The most compelling reason for reforming our system is that the system is in no one's interest. It is a suicide machine... I honestly don't know what... the hard men and women of Big Oil and the far right... think they are doing. They have children and grandchildren who will need safe food and clean air and water, and who may wish to see living oceans and forests. Wealth can buy no refuge from pollution; pesticides sprayed in China condense in Antarctic glaciers and Rocky Mountain tarns. And wealth is no shield from chaos, as the surprise on each haughty face that rolled from the guillotine made clear.

Things are moving so fast that inaction itself is one of the biggest mistakes. The 10,000-year experiment of the settled life will stand or fall by what we do, and don't do, now. The reform that is needed is not anti-captalist, anti-American, or even deep environmentalist; it is simply the transition from short-term to long-term thinking. From recklessness and excess to moderation and the precautionary principle.

Wright concludes with a strong call to learn from and avoid the mistakes of the past:

We are now at the stage when the Easter Islanders could still have halted the senseless cutting and carving, could have gathered the last trees' seeds to plant out of reach of the rats. We have the tools and the means to share resources, clean up pollution, dispense basic health care and birth control, set economic limits in line with natural ones. If we don't do these things now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when times get hard. Our fate will twist out of our hands. And this new century will not grow very old before we enter an age of chaos and collapse that will dwarf all the dark ages in our past.

Now is our last chance to get the future right.

A Short History of Progress is a compelling and important book. One way you can look at the present human situation is that we can either choose to change now and become a sustainable civilization, or we will be forced to change later by unpleasant circumstances out of our control. We have the opportunity to learn from the past, but will we take advantage of it? I believe humans are capable of much more than we currently demonstrate, and if we do not make the necessary changes now we will be failing our own capabilities.

I cannot more highly recommend A Short History of Progress. To conclude, here are a few more insightful passages:

At the gates of the colosseum and the concentration camp, we have no choice but to abandon hope that civilization is, in itself, a guarantor of moral progress.

Civilizations have developed many techniques for making the earth produce more food - some sustainable, others not. The lesson I read in the past is this: that the health of land and water - and of woods, which are the keepers of water - can be the only lasting basis for any civilization's survival and success.

Capitalism lures us onward like the mechanical hare before the greyhounds, insisting that the economy is infinite and sharing therefore irrelevant. Just enough greyhounds catch a real hare now and then to keep the others running till they drop. In the past it was only the poor who lost this game; now it is the planet.

We should therefore be wary of technological determinism, for it tends to underestimate cultural factors and reduce complex questions of human adaptation to a simplistic "We're the winners of history, so why didn't others do what we did?" We call agriculture and civilization "inventions" or "experiments" because that is how they look to hindsight. But they began accidentally, a series of seductive steps down a path leading, for most people, to lives of monotony and toil. Farming achieved quantity at the expense of quality: more food and more people, but seldom better nourishment or better lives. People gave up a broad array of wild foods for a handful of starchy roots and grasses - wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, maize. As we domesticated plants, the plants domesticated us. Without us, they die; and without them, so do we. There is no escape from agriculture except into mass starvation, and it has often led there anyway, with drought and blight. Most people, throughout most of time, have lived on the edge of hunger - and much of the world still does.

The concentration of power at the top of large-scale societies gives the elite a vested interest in the status quo; they continue to prosper in darkening times long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer.

[T]errorism cannot be stopped by addressing symptoms and not the cause. Violence is bred by injustice, poverty, inequality, and other violence. This lesson was learnt very painfully in the first half of the twentieth century, at a cost of some 80 million lives. Of course, a full belly and a fair hearing won't stop a fanatic; but they can greatly reduce the number who become fanatics.

Archeology is perhaps the best tool we have for looking ahead, because it provides a deep reading of the direction and momentum of our course through time: what we are, where we have come from, and therefore where we are most likely to be going. Unlike written history, which is often highly edited, archeology can uncover the deeds we have forgotten, or have chosen to forget.

Sunday Salon

2010-01-17T20:15:00.002-07:00

I don't have too much to write about today, but I like checking in with my reading weekly. I finished A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright, midweek. It is an excellent but heavy book. Wright takes you a giant step back from your own life and gives you a perspective on the growth and collapse of human civilizations, making a compelling case for doing something about sustainability now. After that it was definitely time for some fiction, and I am now well into On Borrowed Wings, by Chandra Prasad. I am really enjoying it; it is a unique and well-written story about a girl in the 1930s who masquerades as a boy in order to take her deceased brother's place at Yale. After this I suspect I will continue with fiction or light non-fiction for awhile. I can't take too much heavy non-fiction at once!

I find it interesting that ever since my post two weeks ago where I gave myself permission to not review every book I read, I have actually felt inspired to write individual reviews for the books I have finished. One explanation may be that I am less busy right now. I also have gotten a new spurt of energy for blogging (perhaps as a consequence of being less busy). In any case, I am reminding myself now of that permission to make sure I don't ever start feeling obligated to write reviews!

Have a good Monday everyone!

Experience and Education

2010-01-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

I am very interested in education, and in particular in non-traditional models of education. Sometime last year when I was browsing at a used bookstore a slim book by John Dewey titled Experience and Education caught my eye. I had never heard of John Dewey (although I initially mistakenly thought it was the same Dewey who invented the Dewey Decimal System), but the book looked intriguing.

The book is short at 91 pages, but the writing is quite dense, with complex and long sentences. It took me awhile to get through it and a few parts were tedious or difficult to follow, but I stuck with it because the ideas are interesting. Dewey presents a lucid and logical discussion on how education can and should be based on the life experience of individual students.

Essentially, his is an argument for individualized education that looks at the particular needs and life experiences of each student in devising an educative plan for them. Here are a few quotes to give a sample:

It is not enough that certain materials and methods have proved effective with other individuals at other times. There must be a reason for thinking that they will function in generating an experience that has educative quality with particular individuals at a particular time.

What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul: loses his appreciation of things worth while, of the values to which these things are relative; if he loses desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur?

The institutions and customs that exist in the present and that give rise to present social ills and dislocations did not arise overnight. They have a long history behind them. Attempt to deal with them simply on the basis of what is obvious in the present is bound to result in adoption of superficial measures which in the end will only render existing problems more acute and more difficult to solve.

Dewey's arguments are to some extent a direct response to the thinking of the time (1930s) about education, and the concept of "progressive" schools that was arising. However, I found his points compelling and quite applicable to today. I am most struck by the fact that traditional schools still, 70 years later, use methods contradictory to his important suggestions. It is quite depressing to think how little progress we have made. If you are interested in education, I definitely recommend this book.

The Bonesetter's Daughter

2010-01-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

I was a bit disappointed by The Bonesetter's Daughter, by Amy Tan. It is the third book I've read by her, and it felt very similar to the other two (The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife). Like her other books, the main theme is a troubled relationship between a Chinese immigrant mother and her American-born daughter. The conflict and the issues the daughter struggled with in this book did not feel new to me, but rather like rehashing of the same thing that was in the two previous books I read.

One of the reviews on the back cover of my copy describes The Bonesetter's Daughter as "A strong novel, filled with idiosyncratic, sympathetic characters, haunting images, historical complexity, significant contemporary themes, and suspenseful mystery." This gave me high hopes for the book but I just didn't find it all that compelling. Besides the sense that the themes were not fresh, I also was not grabbed by the supposedly haunting parts or by the supposedly suspenseful mystery (assuming I even have the right mystery in mind - there were a couple aspects that could be considered a mystery, but neither in the detective sense).

The first part of the book is in the present day from the third person point of view of the daughter. In the middle of the book, it switches to a first-person narrative of the mother's childhood, and then the last portion of the book returns to the present day. I found myself getting bored and losing interest during the memoir-style narrative of the mother's life in China. It really did read like someone's memoir, albeit a well-written one, with very detailed and at times almost tedious descriptions of the events. I kept reading only because I was eager to find out how the book would end (which it did in a satisfying manner). Normally I like historical fiction (which is essentially what this section of the book was) so it surprises me a little that it did not keep my interest better.

Amy Tan is a good writer, and that makes her books worth reading. Overall The Bonesetter's Daughter was a good, but not great, read.

Sunday Salon

2010-01-10T20:37:00.002-07:00

Happy Sunday evening! I had a bit of a slow reading week. I finished The Bonesetter's Daughter, by Amy Tan, and felt a bit at loose ends regarding what I wanted to read next. The loose ends were not helped by the fact that it was the middle of the week and I didn't have time to go to the library until the weekend. I eventually picked up a short book from my shelf that I had acquired from a used bookstore a while back - Experience and Education, by John Dewey. I finished it today (although it is short, it is also dense) and will review both it and The Bonesetter's Daughter in separate posts.

In the meantime, I did finally get to the library yesterday. I still wasn't sure what I felt like reading so I got quite a mix. I picked out four books from my to-read list: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, Daggerspell, by Katharine Kerr, On Borrowed Wings, by Chandra Prasad, and Taking on the Big Boys, or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation, by Ellen Bravo. I also got one random book that looked intriguing: A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright. As it turns out, the book that was most appealing to me to start today was the random selection and not the ones from my to-read list! Go figure. I have noticed that some books on my to-read list sound less interesting to me several months later. So we'll see how the other books go.

From Beginning to End: The Rituals of Our Lives

2010-01-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

I read my first Robert Fulghum book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, quite a while ago, in my early teens. I enjoyed it but did not seek out additional books by Fulghum. However, last month at a thrift store, his book From Beginning to End: The Rituals of Our Lives caught my eye and I decided that for a dollar it was time to read more Fulghum.

Although I wasn't sure how interested I was in rituals, I found the book fascinating. Fulghum is a Unitarian minister and he draws on his years of conducting various ritual ceremonies, ministering to a congregation, and observing patterns in human behavior to present a unique glimpse into how rituals shape our lives and how our lives shape rituals. He structures the book around different types of rituals, drawing on many anecdotes to illustrate his insights. Among the several propositions he makes about what rituals are and what they mean are the following, which I found particularly meaningful:

Rituals are frames around the mirrors of the moment.

The function of ritual is paradoxical: to both anchor us to high places on the steep slopes of this world on which we are always losing our footing and to free us from the despair of being stuck in the world's mud.

Ritual behavior softens the phases of life when we are reminded how hard it is to be human. Ritual behavior enriches the phases of life when we are reminded how fine it is to be human.

I highly recommend From Beginning to End and I am looking forward to reading more by Robert Fulghum (as well as rereading All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten).

The Parnas

2010-01-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

A few years ago my parents were giving away some books and offered them to me. The Parnas, by Silvano Arieti, looked intriguing, so I took it. However, it sat on my book shelf for quite a while before I finally got around to reading it this past December.

Arieti is a Jewish psychiatrist who grew up in Pisa, Italy, before World War II. He left for the United States before the war, but several fellow Jews that he knew well stayed behind in Pisa. The Parnas is a fictionalized account of what happened to one such man, Giuseppe Pardo Roques. He was the parnas (chief elder) of the Pisan Jewish community, a learned, well-respected and generous man. However, he also had a mental illness, which was a phobia of all animals, but especially dogs. Due at least in part to this mental illness, he stayed behind in his home as the Nazis occupied Pisa. One night he and several people staying with him were slaughtered in his home. Arieti re-constructs and analyzes this night and Giuseppe's final words based on facts told to him by surviving neighbors. In particular, the night of his slaughter the neighbors heard Giuseppe cry out "you are animals." Arieti's thesis is essentially that Giuseppe's phobia stemmed from a fear of human evil.

I am mildly intrigued by The Parnas and Arieti's analysis. I do not know much about mental illness, and, although I don't agree with everything he suggests, some of Arieti's conclusions sound reasonable. Overall, I am not sure how much I got out of the book, but I am glad that I finally read it.

the fall in review

2010-01-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

I reviewed three books between September and now, but I certainly read more than that! Most of my reading during this time was relatively light fiction, which was expected given how busy I was and that I was traveling a bit.

At the end of September I chose The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman and The Silver Rose, by Susan Carroll, for a three-day work trip. The Subtle Knife is the sequel to The Golden Compass and was a really great choice for the plane - I think I read over 100 pages in the airport and on the plane! The world Pullman has created in these fantasy novels is very creative and his writing is captivating. The Silver Rose is the third in a historical fantasy/romance series and was also a great choice for the trip.

In October I read and reviewed Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (thoughts), The Other, by Ryszard Kapuscinski (thoughts), and Caspian Rain, by Gina B. Nahai (thoughts). After Caspian Rain, I definitely needed something light, so I turned to the young adult fantasy novel The Princess and the Hound, by Mette Ivie Harrison. At first I was a bit bored by it, but as I got into it I quite enjoyed the creative and well-written story. I don't feel a strong desire to read more by the author, however. After that, I returned to some more serious fiction with Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I really enjoy Ishiguro's writing, but I'm not sure I liked Never Let Me Go. The sense that has stuck with me a month and a half later is that of a disturbing science fiction story with a dream-like atmosphere in which things are not quite what they seem.

Over Thanksgiving I was traveling and chose Circle of Quilters, by Jennifer Chiaverini, and Spindle's End, by Robin McKinley for my travel reading. Circle of Quilters is the third Elm Creek Quilts book I have read, and I love Chiaverini's heart-warming and creative stories about people, life, and quilting. Each time I read one I think that I would like to learn how to quilt someday (in fact, I even picked up a book on machine quilting at a yard sale last summer). Spindle's End is my first McKinley book and I absolutely loved her beautiful, sumptuous writing and her creative take on the story of Sleeping Beauty. I certainly look forward to reading more by her.

In November and December I read about half of Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, by Benazir Bhutto, but I wasn't able to finish it. I was excited about it and was hoping to read it for the Politics category of the World Citizen Challenge, but I found it very tedious. Perhaps I didn't have the proper attention for it at the time, but in any case I eventually gave up on it and don't expect to go back to it any time soon. I do feel that I learned some things from the part I read, so it was not wasted time (I don't believe any reading is wasted time). Since I didn't finish it, though, I'm not sure I can count it for the challenge.

In December I read one more light fiction, The Bookman's Wake, by John Dunning, before turning to some non-fiction. The Bookman's Wake is the second Cliff Janeway mystery I've read and I thought it was even better than the first. The mystery was very creative and well-constructed, with plenty of twists and turns. The book collecting aspect added an extra bit of enjoyment. My only disappointment was that the majority of the novel took place in Seattle rather than Denver, even though the main character lives in Denver!

I then reached a lull where I had no more unread library books and no time to go to the library. I turned to my book shelf and from a small selection of unread books chose The Parnas, by Silvano Arieti. It had been sitting on my shelf ever since I rescued it from my parent's give-away pile a few years ago, but I had not gotten around to reading it. I have enough to say about it (and read it recently enough) that I will review it in a separate post. My final book of the year was From Beginning to End: The Rituals of Our Lives, by Robert Fulghum. Although it is non-fiction, it was engaging enough that I took it as plane reading when I traveled over the holidays. I will write a separate post about this book as well.

It is interesting to look back at several months of reading and analyze why I read what I did. What was your fall reading like?

Sunday Salon - regrouping

2010-01-03T17:13:00.002-07:00

With a very busy fall, writing book reviews and doing other bloggy things (including reading blogs) were not a high priority for me. Now that I'm a bit less busy, I'd like to get back into it, but perhaps with a few changes.

I've realized a few things that will help me shape this blog. The first is that if I don't review a book right after reading it, I have a hard time getting back into the feeling of the book when I do sit down to review it. I can't write as interesting, authentic, or deep of a review if too much time has passed. I've also noticed that I have the least to say about the light fiction (one might say escapist) books I read and the most to say about the thought-provoking non-fiction books. Until I became too busy this fall, I was determined to review every single book I read in its own post. However, it started to be less fun and more chore-like, which is a good sign that I need to try something different.

The first thing I'm going to change is to review in their own post only those books about which I actually feel inspired to write immediately after finishing them. If I don't have much to say about a book, I will not force myself to post about it. Hopefully I will feel inspired to write about some fiction books so that this blog does not turn into a non-fiction only affair! I may mention other books I read in Sunday Salon posts or other such non-review posts.

Mainly, I want this blog to be a place where I share the ways in which books move and shape my life. I want it to be fun for me and a way to connect with the great community of readers and book bloggers out there. Let's see where my new approach takes me!