Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)

Barbara Kingsolver, best known (at least in my house) for her excellent and engaging fiction, invites readers into her own house in this very compelling read. It chronicles the Kingsolver/Hopp family in an ambitious year-long food experiment: eating only what they have grown themselves or purchased from local producers. The chapters are full of entertaining and fascinating stories of raising heirloom turkeys, maintaining an impressive garden, shopping at local farmers’ markets, and even canning vegetables and home-making cheese.

This lifestyle experiment was largely a reaction against an American food culture that is corporation driven, environmentally irresponsible, and nutritionally inadequate. Yet, this book is not a preachy diatribe against a dependency on fossil fuels and greedy CEOs, as one might expect. Rather, the tone is uplifting and inspiring: a celebration of the pleasures of community, family, and simplicity. It’s not about saying “no” to enticing guilty pleasures, but saying yes to savoring delicious food, spending time together in the kitchen, and enjoying the fruit of your own labor.

I do not have a green thumb, and I am really proud just to get a home-cooked dinner on the table, even if it contains non-organic meat and veggies that were frozen in California. But Kingsolver’s argument is compelling, and I’m thinking of small ways that I can try to think more about the food we consume.

Sarah’s Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)

This World War II novel focuses on uncovering the tragic story of over 4,000 Jewish people who in one day were taken from their homes in Paris and sent to their deaths in concentration camps.  It is a dual narrative: the story of July 1941 told by a little girl who was a witness/victim to this event, and a modern-day woman who is uncovering the story as part of a journalistic assignment.

The story is captivating and heart-wrenching.  I read as I fed Abby and then let her take her whole nap in my arms so that I could stay in my recliner with my book.  I felt desperate to see these pitiful characters find some peace.  I was left feeling a little let down; the conclusion was not completely bleak and hopeless, but neither was it a satisfying, triumphant redemption.

The major theme of the novel is that knowledge of the truth, however unpleasant, is better than ignorance.  So I suppose I am a better person for knowing the about these 4,000 lives wasted (mostly women and children).  But be forewarned- read this during the daylight and pick something uplifting as a follow-up.

A Thousand Miles in a Million Years (Donald Miller)

If your life was turned into a movie, would anyone want to watch it?  As he worked to write a screenplay for Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller was driven to do some soul-searching.  What are the elements of a great story?  And why do so few of us find those elements in our own lives?

Miller offers an interesting insight into the art of storytelling, and draws some thought-provoking conclusions about improving the main character and overall plot of his everyday life.

Freakonomics (Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner)

If you are interested in the answers to the following questions, you might like this book:

-How are teachers and sumo wrestlers alike?

-How is your real estate agent working the system against you?

-What really caused the downfall of the KKK?

-What are the whitest names for your baby girl?

-What parenting decisions matter the most?

-What impact does a person’s name have on his or her future?

-How do you catch a cheating teacher?

-Why do most drug dealers still live with their moms?

-What is the connection between abortion and crime?

I thought this was very entertaining.  Funny, witty, and sometimes thoughtful, Freakonomics was a surprisingly pleasant read.  I’m looking forward to the sequel.

The Birth of Venus (Sarah Dunant)

From Publishers Weekly

“In this arresting tale of art, love and betrayal in 15th-century Florence, the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant seeks the freedom of marriage in order to paint, but finds that she may have bought her liberty at the cost of love and true fulfillment. Alessandra, 16, is tall, sharp-tongued and dauntingly clever. At first reluctant to agree to an arranged marriage, she changes her mind when she meets elegant 48-year-old Cristoforo, who is well-versed in art and literature. He promises to give her all the freedom she wants-and she finds out why on her wedding night. Her disappointment and frustration are soon overshadowed by the growing cloud of madness and violence hanging over Florence, nourished by the sermons of the fanatically pious Savonarola. As the wealthy purge their palazzos of “low” art and luxuries, Alessandra gives in to the dangerous attraction that draws her to a tormented young artist commissioned to paint her family’s chapel. With details as rich as the brocade textiles that built Alessandra’s family fortune, Dunant (Mapping the Edge; Transgressions; etc.) masterfully recreates Florence in the age of the original bonfire of the vanities. The novel moves to its climax as Savonarola’s reign draws to a bloody close, with the final few chapters describing Alessandra’s fate and hinting at the identity of her artist lover. While the story is rushed at the end, the author has a genius for peppering her narrative with little-known facts, and the deadpan dialogue lends a staccato verve to the swift-moving plot. Forget Baedecker and Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. Dunant’s vivid, gripping novel gives fresh life to a captivating age of glorious art and political turmoil. “
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Enjoyable. But quite earthy, so be forewarned.

The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

From Amazon (ignore the fact that it seems to be reviewing an audio recording):

“This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with “Chrono Displacement” disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she’d known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare’s childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare’s points of view, and so does the narration. Reed ably expresses the longing of the one always left behind, the frustrations of their unusual lifestyle, and above all, her overriding love for Henry. Likewise, Burns evokes the fear of a man who never knows where or when he’ll turn up, and his gratitude at having Clare, whose love is his anchor. The expressive, evocative performances of both actors convey the protagonists’ intense relationship, their personal quirks and their reminiscences, making this a fascinating audio.”

A fun, quick, interesting read.  But there’s TONS of sex in it, so skip this one if that bothers you.  I haven’t seen the film yet, so I can’t compare.

Three stars.

Mornings on Horseback (David McCullough)

This biography of the early life of Theodore Roosevelt was quite compelling.  To prove my point, I’ll just say that it’s non-fiction, and I read the whole thing.

The only part I didn’t like was the text of a few of TR’s letters to his sister Corinne in which he analyzed Anna Karenina, which he had read while sailing down a river…on a barge…in a blizzard…while chasing horse thieves.  While reading in the aforementioned inclement circumstances, Roosevelt came up with much more profound analysis of that novel which I was not able to finish over the course of a whole leisurely summer.  Made me feel like a real bozo.

Four stars.

The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

from Amazon.com:

“What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who’s raised 17 children, and Aibileen’s best friend Minny, who’s found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.“

Everyone I know loves this book.  You should read it, too.  Five stars.

My Life in France (Julia Child)

from Amazon.com:

“Julia Child single handedly awakened America to the pleasures of good cooking with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she didn’t know the first thing about cooking when she landed in France.

Indeed, when she first arrived in 1948 with her husband, Paul, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever. Julia’s unforgettable story unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a cook and teacher and writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years.”

Quite enjoyable.  Made me wish I could speak French, but did not awaken my desire to become a French chef.  Four stars.

The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

The other day Stephen and I were trying to make conversation in the car, and I found myself apologizing, “I can’t think of anything to talk about.  I literally haven’t had a thought about anything except milk and baby diapers all day.”  I decided to give some dormant parts of my brain a workout by picking up a nice classic. I remember hating The Scarlet Letter when I read it in high school, and I wondered if I’d still feel that way now that I have twelve additional years of reading and maturity under my belt.

Hester Prynne lives in an early Puritan colony.  Her husband is believed to have been lost at sea, so when she becomes pregnant, she is jailed and punished for adultery by being forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothes.  She refuses to name her Baby Daddy, although it becomes quickly obvious that he is the beloved young preacher, Arthur Dimmesdale.  As years go by, Hester devotes herself to being a mother to her daughter, Pearl, and to performing acts of charity for the people of the town.  In contrast, Dimmesdale is weakened and tortured by his hidden guilt.  His suffering is compounded by his relationship with his “physician,” Roger Chillingworth, who keeps Dimmesdale’s guilty wound festering under the guise of medical attention.  Why?  Well, Chillingworth is actually Hester’s husband, and this is his way of getting revenge.

On this second go-around, I enjoyed the story much more, and I found it much easier to follow than I remembered.  However, fifteen-year-old me was right about one thing, which was irritation at Hawthorne’s blatant vendetta against Puritans.  I’m not saying that their “cities on a hill” were perfect by any means, but I think that they should get some respect for their place as part of our cultural and religious heritage.

Examples:

“Here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the England of Elizabeth’s time, or that of James [examples: theater, music, dancing, juggling, magic shows, Merry Andrews].  All such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid disicpline of the law, but by the general sentiment which gives law its vitality.”

“The picture of human life in the market place, though its general tint was teh sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue [Indians and Spanish pirates who come to observe the Puritan "holiday"].”

“[These emigrants] wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up.  We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety.”

…in addition to a general portrayal of all Puritans as being hypocrites and intolerant legalists.  A little harsh, if you ask me.