More Kingsolver

To honor Earth Day in April we elected to read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Later I borrowed a gorgeous book of essays that touched on similar themes called Small Wonder that must have been a precursor to AVM. I’ll save you some time if you’d rather not continue reading: read these books.

Again, readers will be familiar with my love of Kingsolver’s work (here and here). These books aren’t novels of fiction, but rather Kingsolver speaking directly to the reader through essays about what she is passionate about.

I would start with Small Wonder which is a collection of essays written about motherhood, sustainability, and politics in a post-9/11 world. I was very impressed. Each essay is so well-crafted that you could read one and savor it all day long. The exception would be the essay on her relationship with her mother that I think was written more instinctually than with her writer’s eye, but is nonetheless lovely.

In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle we get a more in-depth look at the Kingsolver-Hopp family’s journey through a year of eating only what they could grow or purchase locally. I was very impressed and totally intimidated. The book follows the growing season through the year and includes recipes and passionate advocacy for genetic biodiversity (which is a lot more interesting than it sounds), the local food movement, and sustainability practices. I’m not at all ashamed to say that I conscientiously bought the whole thing hook, line, and sinker. I’ve been passionate about sustainability for years and reading AVM was like coming home. My lifestyle isn’t quite where I’d like it to be, but I’ll get there.

As I’ve said before, I adore Kingsolver’s books and will treasure them for the rest of my life. I love the gentle way she explores the human condition and advocates for authentic human connection with the earth. I hope you find books that move you as these have moved me.

The Hunger Games

In March our book club elected to read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and I’ll be forthcoming and admit that I was not thrilled. I have a devious little streak in me that avoids whatever books are selling really well because I don’t want to buy into the hype. The problem is, if my readers will remember from an earlier post, sometimes there’s hype for a reason.

As it turns out I read the entire trilogy in ten days. They were totally absorbing. I cried. I despaired. I gasped aloud. The story was just terrible enough to be appalling, romantic enough to be hopeful, and set in a futuristic place that nonetheless was familiar enough to make is scary. And they must have been well-written because I didn’t notice otherwise.

I appreciated the appeal of the stories to boys and girls, and ultimately, to my husband who is not a terribly interested reader. His comment was that he knew they must be good because all his 8^th graders were reading them (not just the girls), and so were all the teachers. I was pleased that he read them along with me and we had a great time sharing the suspense.

In the end, middle school would be my threshold for young people to read these books. The themes are pretty violent and I would want to make sure my child had the cognitive capacity to process the story somewhat politically. Without that they revert to a “Team Peeta vs. Team Gale” romance fixation that seems to have begun with the Twilight series (a bandwagon I don’t think I’ll get on). This is too bad because the author didn’t sexualize her at all, that wasn’t the point of the story. If not that pitfall, children may fixate on the violence and not be able to comprehend the story at all. I wouldn’t want this either.

I highly recommend this series, particularly to folks who are into dystopian literature, political uprisings or coups, or if they’re looking for a female protagonist with grit. I’m not buying many books these days but this is a series I will absolutely read again.

Catch-Up!

It has been a while since I’ve been able to contribute to the delightful folly that is our little book club. 2012 has been terribly encumbered.

I won’t catalogue each book I’ve read since January but here are some highlights:

•  After being on the list for weeks I finally got a copy of Anne Ursu’s Breadcrumbs and it was very sweet. It seemed like the author was borrowing quite a bit from classic children’s fiction but the story was darling and it took place in Minneapolis so that was fun.
•  I started Madeline L’Engle’s Time series after my mother told me for years that I’d love it. I found that while the stories are compelling, I think they’re actually pretty strange. I’ve read the first two (A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door) and will probably finish the series.
• Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman will take you an hour and a half and is absolutely gorgeous.
•  I also took my own advice and have been re-reading some beloveds from childhood: Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart trilogy, Morning Girl by Michael Dorris, and L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series, which I never actually read as a child.

Overall it’s been a good year in reading. I hope to not take such a prolonged absence as the last six months became and I hope that if you’ve read something lovely or terrible that you’ll share it.

Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt At A Time

By Georgia Pellegrini

The author was recently featured on MPR Midmorning.  She described fascinating tales of her hunting experience in search to track down the ingredients for the meals she prepared as a classically trained chef.  Other callers relayed their experiences with wild game hunting, including a college student at Bemidji State who hunts and eats mostly wild game and avoids the college cafeterias.  I added the book to my reservation queue at the library, and just had the chance to read it now.  Here are some of the stories she highlights in her book:

• Turkey and duck hunting in the southern United States
• Elk hunting in Wyoming, where she encountered a shady character and had some discussion of poaching
• Squirrel hunting in upstate New York
• Grouse hunting in Montana
• High class hunting on a British estate
• Hog hunting in the south west, with tracking and hunting hounds

For each type of game she encounters, Georgia includes recipes at the end of each chapter.  Knowing that we all don't have easy access to wild game, she includes modifications with more common meat items from your local grocer.  You can also read more at her blog: http://georgiapellegrini.com/topics/blog/

Along with the hunting skills and tips, she shares some local trivia from the various places she visits.  While in Wyoming, she mentions that it was never supposed to be a state.  "If Ulysses S. Grant had his way, the land would have been split among Idaho, Montana, Colorado and South Dakota.  But the citizens of Wyoming put more people on the official rolls than actually inhabited the state.  They begin naming babies before they were born, and they were the first to give women the right to vote because they needed all the voting power they could get" p 71.  Go Wyoming!

I enjoyed reading this book for several reasons.  One, it makes you face the reality of where some of our food comes from.  I respect Georgia for her research.  I've taken comparative anatomy and done plenty of dissections, but I haven't mustered up the courage to ever fire a gun. Second, it makes me appreciate the efforts of my family who are more than happy to share their bounty of venison, fish and the occasional bit of elk.

Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch

By Sally Smith Bedell

After reading a book on Catherine the Great, Goodreads.com recommended me this book on Queen Elizabeth.  So I added this recently published book to my library wish list, and got in line for it.  At close to 600 pages, you have to be in for a dedicated read in order to finish it before it is due back to the library.  This was not an issue as it was a very engaging read to learn more about the path of this monarch who has helped lead her Commonwealth through many ups and downs of recent history.  As I read about Elizabeth's more private side with her friends and family, I couldn't help comparing her to my grandmother, who would have been close to the same age.  They're both matriarchs with a strong sense of community and familial duty.  My grandmother may not have had the same scope of influence, but I saw many similarities into how these women guided people without telling them exactly what to do.  Some of my favorite passages are highlighted here:

The Queen and Prince Phillip were being honored at a dinner, and the question came up on why it took the monarch so long to prepare for the evening.  Her private secretary responded "The Queen needs her tiara time!".  She has a kit to decorate various tiaras with optional pearl or gemstone drops.  p 320.  This part just cracked me up.  Up until this point, the Queen was portrayed with a great sense of seriousness, and this passage made her a bit more human in my eyes.  I would want a similar kit if I had a few tiaras to choose from.

A powerful source of the Queen's success as a sovereign has been her inscrutability and avoidance of controversy.  With the exception of a few relatively inconsequential remarks over the years, her political views remained a matter of conjecture.  p 488.  While living in the United States with all of the celebrity drama, and in the age of YouTube and Facebook, this passage summed up quite a bit about the Queen and how her style is quite different.  For the most part, she does not openly or forcefully exert her opinion.  It took quite a bit of convincing to get her to live broadcasts as TVs became commonplace.

"One of the main purposes of the monarchy is to unite the country and not divide it," said Kenneth Rose.  When the Queen took the throne at age twenty-five, she was a blank slate, which gave her a great advantage in maintaining the neutrality necessary to preserve that unity.  It was a gentler time, and she could develop her leadership style quietly.  But it has also taken vigilance and discipline for her to keep her views private over so many decades.  p 505.  Like the previous passage I shared, this again highlighted the leadership style the Queen has used in her almost 60 years on the throne.

The goal of the author was to publish this book in conjunction with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  Her challenge "was to show her private side while explaining how she has handles her public role" p  532.  After reading this book, I'd say the author met her goal and would recommend others who want to know about this monarch to try this book.

Southern Italian Cooking

Recently, three members of our book club participated in a southern Italian cooking class.  In preparation for this class, our optional reading selection was The Love Goddesses Cooking School, by Melissa Senate.  In this light read, Holly inherits her Italian grandmother's cooking school / deli and needs to improve her technique and skills to make the business thrive.  It was a decent read, but I think our cooking class was much more entertaining.

The instructor teaches all over the metro area, and has different themed cooking classes.  He has been a chef in several well known local restaurants, and now runs his own catering business and does these types of cooking classes.  In this course, we students mostly watched as he demonstrated techniques and prepared recipes.  I say mostly watched, because we did have the hands-on experience of making our own gnocchi, filling cannoli, and preparing the panzanella salad.  I think we also taught the instructor and the class some valuable lessons, like the importance of composting your leftover produce and egg shells.

The instructor was quite the riot and didn't mind making the occasional mess.  I've found most of the community ed instructors to be quirky for the classes I've enrolled in, and that makes them all the more fun.  My goals from this most recent class are to:
1)  Make my own marinara sauce
2)  Try making pesto (even if the food processor I just bought didn't work!)
3)  Whip together a panzanella (bread salad).  Who knew mixing together raw vegetables that I normally don't like on their own could be wonderful in a mix with toasted bread and a vinaigrette?
4)  Prepare at least one batch of gnocchi, even if it means I have to learn how to properly bake a potato

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming

By Mike Brown

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  If you've been through a science class in school, it can seem that science is an orderly process, well thought out, without a lot of controversy.  This book delves into a subject and illustrates what scientific discoveries really look like - months or years of research before making announcements, controversy, and perhaps more time analyzing data on a computer than actually collecting it via telescopes.  Mike Brown does it in a way that is engaging and easy to understand.  Here are some points on the origin of planets, and how the definition has changed in recent years:

p 21 - The original ancient Greek meaning of the word planet was simply "wanderer," or something that moved in the sky.  As the sky slowly revolves throughout the year, the stars stay in fixed patterns while the wanderers move separately and conspicuously through the constellations of the zodiac.  There are five visible planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

p 21 - 22 - Our basic units of time are based on the sky: A year traced the time it took for the sun to go all the way around the sky to reappear at the same location again, while a month ("moon"-th) is the amount of time it takes for the moon to circle the earth.  The seven days of the week are even named after the seven original planets.  Sunday, Mo[o]nday and Satur[n]day.  Tiw was an ancient Germanic god of war, as Mars was to the Romans, so Tuesday is actually Mars' day, Wednesday is Woden's day, the carrier of the dead, equivalent to one of the roles of Mercury.  Thor was the Norse god of thunder, similar to Jupiter in Roman mythology.  Friday is the day of Venus in the guise of the Norse Frigga, the goddess of married love.

p 27 - On the discovery of Pluto - some astronomers didn't want to call Pluto a planet, and thought perhaps it was better classified as an asteroid.  Though it looked like and behaved like no other planet known, there was no other way to classify it, so it became accepted as the ninth planet, had the element plutonium named after it, and remained unchallenged for almost seventy years as the tiny lonely oddball at the edge of the solar system.  In the early 2000s, there were discoveries made that showed that Pluto is actually part of a vast population of the Kuiper belt.  The new discovery of the Kuiper belt would force astronomers to reconsider the status of Pluto.

p 69 - On naming things in the sky - There are rules, decided upon by the International Astronomical Union, for the naming of most everything in the sky.  Craters on Mercury have to be named for deceased poets; moons of Uranus are named for Shakespearean characters.  For objects in the Kuiper belt, the rules said the name had to be a creation deity.

Mike Brown continues to relay his story of making discoveries of possible planets on the edges of our solar system.  It is an educating and entertaining tale of the work it takes to do this, how the scientific community is informed of the progress, how he nick-named and formally named his discoveries, how he kept (or didn't keep) a work-life balance, and ultimately, how one of his discoveries affected the status of Pluto.

(This picture isn't of Pluto or the Kuiper belt, just an image of my favorite planet, Saturn)

Invaluable References

In high school or college, at some point a dictionary was a required reading companion for most of us.  I still keep a dictionary / thesaurus on my reading shelf and try to make use of it when I need to look up the meaning of a word.

As I was reading Catherine the Great a few months ago, I realized how helpful it would be to have an atlas.  My husband must have caught the hint as I repeatedly mentioned this statement and he presented me with the National Geographic Collegiate World Atlas for my birthday. It is fantastic!  Besides the detailed geographical maps, there are additional maps with economic layers, etc.  Here are a couple of pictures from my newest reference:

So far I've used it while finishing up Catherine the Great to follow her conquests into Turkey, Poland and some of the other Baltic areas.  It also came in handy while reading Thunderstruck to see where the trials took place for setting up wireless communication in the early 1900s in England, Canada and New England.

At some point, I should have a review of Maphead by Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy whiz from a few years book.  Apparently we share a similar fascination of maps, and I'm on the wait list at the library... to be continued!

Childhood Memories via Universal Studios

During a recent trip to Universal Studios, Orlando, I found plenty of reading reference material for my next few blog posts.  Early in my childhood, Dr. Seuss books were a favorite after I graduate from the Richard Scarry books, of course.  The Seuss Landing portion of the Islands of Adventure theme park had plenty of scenery to stir up fond childhood memories.

It would be hard to pick a favorite Seuss book, but The Lorax is up towards the top for me. He may have been my first environmentalist / tree hugger influence.  It may be thanks to him that I received the "Environmental Award" in 5th grade, which is still posted at Lakeview Elementary.  Who knows, my current career choice may have been influenced me as well.

Then there was the Cat in the Hat store:

Another store within this area of the park claimed "Books By The Dozens For You and Your Cousins".  Here's a snap shot of a nice collection of Seuss books within this store:

Birth: The Surprising History of How We are Born by Tina Cassidy

A great collection of stories and history of the birthing process as far back as documented! She does a great job of integrating and organizing the information. It made it very fun to learn the history of how we've come to give birth the way we do. I recommended for all expecting parents to get a handle on what to expect, get started on processing questions and a birth plan, and just to help get into the fun of the pregnancy and birthing process!