The Story of B

I read this book a couple of weeks ago, but I never got around to reviewing it because I wanted the review to be something special. See, the book itself, by Daniel Quinn, is not really very different from Ishmael. Much of the story is the same, which is to say, it's actually a series of lectures about how we look at the world and what we might ought to rethink. (You like my Oklahoma-ism there? Might ought? Such a great way to express that. Wait. Is that an Oklahomaism? Or would that be might should? Hm. Food for thought.)

But the effect it had on me this time, for my personal life and living everyday, was much greater. I liked Ishmael's point but I thought it didn't apply to me as much in that I was already heading in that direction, it didn't give me a lot to think about that I'd never ever ever thought of before, it just sort of highlighted it for me. Still important, but this time I feel even more spurred into action, and I've realized what it is that I can and should be doing to help.

Anyway...this story is about a priest who is asked to investigate the teachings of a person who is called B, with the intent of finding out if he might be the Antichrist. I have to say I liked the actual STORY part of this book better than Ishmael, but it's still obviously not the point of the book, I think. I think the point of the book is to get the message across, and in that way, I loved the ending. But also, this book reminded me of something very important. You see, I tend to be of the "live and let live" school of thought. I often just sit there and stay quiet, stay under cover really, when people say things that I think are outrageous, or misguided, or whatever. For an example, when a certain person I know was discussing alligators and crocodiles and how she doesn't see any point to their existence and we don't need them and let's get rid of them all and blah blah blah...I was thinking Good Lord, how self-centered can humankind be, that if we don't personally recognize a need we have for them we think they shouldn't exist? It's not like they're a threat to her, it's not like she's ever going to see one face to face, but we humans seem to have a lot of trouble letting other creatures be...we seem to think we need to control it all, a right to control it all, and I think that is oh-so-wrong. But I didn't say anything. I just sat there.

Not anymore. This book reminded me that it's important to spread your message. Especially when that message might help some people stop thinking in ways that are potentially going to be very detrimental to life on this planet. Of course, the croc example is just a very minor, minute kind of example of more broad ways of thinking, but if I want my children and my children's children and so on to have a real chance at living sustainably on this earth instead of destroying it, it starts with me. And, I want my children to know how I feel about things, what my values are. I can't do that without putting them out there!

Therefore, read The Story of B. Everyone should at least be exposed to its ideas, whether or not you agree. And for the record, I don't necessarily agree with every single piece of the lectures. But for the most part, I think these are things people need to be considering and sharing with others. And now that's what I'm going to try to do more of.

In Defense of Food

This is Michael Pollan's latest. A couple of years ago he published The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has been quite popular, and was quite good, and I happen to like this one even more. In both books, he examines American eating habits and the impact and morality behind different sources of our food and ways of eating--but this book is much more about what we can do about it, how we can, as he says, "escape" from The American Way of eating, which is so bad for us and for the world.

The book's advice can really be summed up quite easily, as is proclaimed on the front cover: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. But the author really delves into how we can navigate this somewhat obscure directive, as well as why it's so difficult for us to do that in the prevalent food climate.

Here's most of his advice points, taken from the last third of the book. My additions are in parentheses and are not in italics.

Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.

Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high fructose corn syrup.

Avoid food products that make health claims. For a food product to make health claims on its package it must first have a package, so right off the bat it's more likely to be a processed than a whole food.

Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. (He goes on to suggest farmers' markets, CSAs, and growing your own.)

You are what what you eat eats too. (Thus feedlot cattle are not nearly as healthy for you to consume as 100% grass-fed.)

Eat like an omnivore. (Biodiversity is a good thing, for quite a few reasons.)

If you have the space, buy a freezer. (You can get a lot of good quality meat at once for cheaper...You can buy in season at the farmer's market and freeze for year-round local produce...)

Eat well-grown food from healthy soils. (How we treat the earth can affect the nutritional quality of our food. Thus, organic practices ARE important for our health in ways we might not have noticed or thought of before.)

Eat wild foods when you can.

Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism. (Sure, maybe someone might come along with one that might be good for you or at least not bad for you. But history is not behind that claim.)

Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet. (Don't try to isolate the omega-3 from the fish, for example.)

Pay more, eat less. (Your food dollar can work for you and for the world in this way.)

Do all your eating at a table.

Try not to eat alone.

Lucky You

I read this Carl Hiaasen book yesterday. It's about a black woman and two racist white men who have to split the Florida lottery, and how the newspaperman sent to write up the story gets involved, and all kinds of other things.

I generally really like Hiaasen books, and this was no exception. I just love his bad guys. They're so slimy and dirty and crazy, or good-looking and vain and selfish, and always just too too much. They always get what's coming to them but you also can always almost feel sorry for them.

Of course I also enjoy how the author manages to have some sort of environmental, save-Florida's-green-spaces type of theme. And I love how he manages so many separate storylines, keeps you interested in each one, and brings them all together.

My only complaint about this particular book is that there were almost too many different characters to keep track of. But only almost. A good quick read.

Prodigal Summer

I am a huge fan of Barbara Kingsolver, and it seems like I might just read all her books in the period of a couple of months--although for most of them it's a re-read. This one is my hands-down favorite of all her fiction. It is dear to my heart. It's about the connection of all living things and how fragile it is, how easy to upset. It's about challenging the human mistake of thinking that we are more important than other living things. It's about human relationships with other humans and with nature. It's about respecting nature. And it's also about some real, true people, people you care about, people you could meet on the street or at your local library.

This is the book I chose for my book club this month, and I have to say, no one else LOVED it the way I do. But I feel like much of this is due to the strong ties I have to the ideas in the book, the relevance it has to my life, and the affinity I have for this author, and the fact that, for example, one of the girls who didn't like it is just in a completely different place in her life than I am in mine. It was great to get to discuss this book with others, though, because I have a hard time figuring out how "outsiders" might view this book. To me, it's so lively and brilliant, and I love how it combines the author's passion for the topics with the truth of a really great novel. So it was good to hear that others picked up on the little details the author drops in your lap and then ties together later, and that the dialogue is for the most part very real-feeling. And interesting and fabulous to get to discuss the ideas of the book more in-depth. We had a great discussion on predators and why humans fear them and want to eradicate them and how damaging that practice is to the whole world, humans included.

One of my all-time favorites, still. LOVE IT!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This is another Barbara Kingsolver (yes, my life is full of her books lately. It's a good thing.). It's also another of my "personal philosophy" books. And it's especially interesting to me because I enjoy books with combined elements like this one has--it contains personal elements of the life of one of my favorite authors, as well as the chronicle of one year of their lives in which they vow to get all their food locally and in season, as well as the history of many different areas of agriculture, and why it's important to buy local and grow your own.

The writing is lovely, the recipes sound delicious, and at the end, I feel much more connected to what's on my plate and more motivated to remember the intrinsic human skill of providing for myself. Good stuff. A great last read of the year.

Small Wonder

It seems I always find myself re-reading my "personal philosophy" books at the end of the year. Perhaps this is just a good time to reaffirm my personal values, what's important to me, how I want to live my life, as we face a new year and new beginnings. Having Faith and Easy to Love are two such books, and this is a third. It's by Barbara Kingsolver, and it's a collection of essays that are beautifully written and passionately argued, all about why we should care about things like genetic engineering and heirloom plants, or why we should think carefully about war as a solution to violence. As the quote on the front says, it's "A passionate invitation to readers to be a part of the crowd that cares about the environment, peace, and family." And as I mentioned, it helps me remember how important certain things are and helps me feel galvanized for the new year, to keep these things prioritized in my life and in my growing family. This is one of my all-time favorite books as well.

A couple of quotes I like to keep in mind follow. There would be more, and maybe a more comprehensive set, if it weren't for the fact that my husband needs the computer in a minute. =)

Page 39: "What we lose in our great human exodus from the land is a rooted sense, as deep and intangible as religious faith, of why we need to hold on to the wild and beautiful places that once surrounded us. We seem to succumb so easily to the prevailing human tendency to pave such places over, build subdivisions upon them and name them The Willows, or Peregrine's Roost, or Elk Meadows, after whatever it was that got killed there....Barry Lopez writes that if we hope to succeed in the endeavor of protecting natures other than our own, 'it will require that we reimagine our lives...It will require of many of us a humanity we've not yet mustered, and a grace we were not aware we desired until we had tasted it.' And yet no endeavor could be more crucial at this moment. Protecting the land that once provided us with our genesis may turn out to be the only real story there is for us. The land still provides our genesis, however we might like to forget that our food comes from dank, muddy earth, that the oxygen in our lungs was recently inside a leaf, and that every newspaper or book we may pick up...is made from the hearts of trees that died for the sake of our imagined lives."

Page 248-9: "Most of the time I go right on growing tomatoes and basil and broccoli simply because they are good, we like them...I do it because the world has announced to me, loudly, that it's time to make a choice between infinite material entitlement or a more modest, self-reliant security, and this is a step I can take in the right direction."

Page 262: "Every time I read an argument justifying further oil drilling in sensitive places, I notice that it begins with the caveat, 'Unless Americans are wiling to accept a drastic lifestyle change.' As if that were the one thing that could never happen. As if many new kinds of shortage weren't already on the docket, scheduled for arrival, period, before my kids get to be my age. Scientists have been trying gently to remind us that the 'fossil' in fossil fuel is not a metaphor or a simile. That oil is going to dry up eventually, and no political voodoo can indocue dinosaurs or prehistoric fern forests to lie down and press themselves into more ooze for us on the timetable we require."

Better OFF: Flipping the Switch on Technology

Eric and Mary Brende are brave people. They decided to live as technology-free as possible, and in their search for a low-tech life, they went and lived with a pseudo-Amish group for 18 months. This book is the story of their adventure, and it is beautiful.

It's funny, interesting, and galvanizing. It made me jealous for their life, while also pointing out some practical problems with our use of technology--and why it DOESN'T make sense to condemn all technology offhand.

I'm keeping this short so I can get through all my reviews, but I LOVED this book and I think Ben would too...so if he ever has free time for a book again, I'll be shoving this in his hand ASAP.