My book club is an interesting collection of people with quirky taste in literature. The woman hosting this month has turned us on to some different types of work. First was House of the Scorpions, which was an interesting YA novel about clones grown and harvested for organs. The next was "Truck: a Love Story," by a humor writer living in backwoods Wisconsin, working as a paramedic and restoring one of those International Harvester trucks. She's a librarian by profession, so knows about books others might miss.
This time she had us read The Book Thief, another YA novel. I kept forgetting to buy it and finally got it a week before the club, only to discover to my dismay that it was 500+ pp. I wasn't keen on the subject -- a little girl growing up in WWII Germany. I mean how many books about WWII can one read? But this was pretty amazing. Oh the writing, and the characters and the vivid images therein. One character has lemon hair and another eyes the color of the swamp.
I haven't quite finished it because I'm dreading the end. More traumatic than the bombing of Dresden in Slaughterhouse Five, I just know.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Excellent point about veg-vangelism
I'm wrapping up Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and she makes an excellent point about people who think they're more ethical/moral because they're vegetarians.
"Globally speaking," she writes" the vegetarian option is a luxury. The oft-cited energetic argument for vegetarianism, that it takes 10 times as much land to make a pound of meat as a pound of grain, only applies to the kind of land where rain falls abundantly on rich topsoil. Most of the world's poor live in marginal lands that can't support plant-based agriculture." If they didn't raise chicken and goats, in other words, many of the poor in many parts of the world would die of starvation.
About vegans in particular, especially a celebrity vegan actress who "dreamed" of creating a safe haven ranch where cows and chickens would live idyllic lives:
"Wait til those cows start bawling to be milked," I warned. "Having nursed and weaned my own young, I can tell you there is no pain to compare with an overfilled udder. We wondered what the starlet might do for those bursting Jerseys, not to mention the eggs the chickens would be dropping everywhere."
She also notes that vegetarianism also kills animals. "Unaccountable deaths by pesticide and habitat removal -- the beetles and bunnies that die collaterally for our bread and veggie burgers are lives plumb wasted."
"Globally speaking," she writes" the vegetarian option is a luxury. The oft-cited energetic argument for vegetarianism, that it takes 10 times as much land to make a pound of meat as a pound of grain, only applies to the kind of land where rain falls abundantly on rich topsoil. Most of the world's poor live in marginal lands that can't support plant-based agriculture." If they didn't raise chicken and goats, in other words, many of the poor in many parts of the world would die of starvation.
About vegans in particular, especially a celebrity vegan actress who "dreamed" of creating a safe haven ranch where cows and chickens would live idyllic lives:
"Wait til those cows start bawling to be milked," I warned. "Having nursed and weaned my own young, I can tell you there is no pain to compare with an overfilled udder. We wondered what the starlet might do for those bursting Jerseys, not to mention the eggs the chickens would be dropping everywhere."
She also notes that vegetarianism also kills animals. "Unaccountable deaths by pesticide and habitat removal -- the beetles and bunnies that die collaterally for our bread and veggie burgers are lives plumb wasted."
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's newest book right now -- really more skimming it because it's my contribution to my book club's post-holidays celebratory book exchange. It provides an interesting context to her marvelous "Prodigal Summer."
The premise: Kingsolver's family moved from Tucson to an old family farm her husband owns in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. The family will spend a year living on either food they grow and raise themselves or buy from only local farmers. Kingsolver includes essays by her eldest daughter and husband and a lot of detail about the locally grown movement.
When you buy produce from supermarkets, as well as processed food, you're contributing to global warming because of all the petrol burned to get the food to your plate. Not only that but corporate farms churn out more calories than anyone needs and they fill our food with corn syrup and other processed stuff so they have a market for it.
But as I read I have some questions. I cannot see removing citrus or avocados from my diet. Do you have to reject all exotic food? What about wine? The nuts and shade-grown coffee help encourage preservation of the Amazon rain forests, don't they? What about olive oil from Italy? Or cheese from Spain?
I might just have to make the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan my next serious read.
The premise: Kingsolver's family moved from Tucson to an old family farm her husband owns in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. The family will spend a year living on either food they grow and raise themselves or buy from only local farmers. Kingsolver includes essays by her eldest daughter and husband and a lot of detail about the locally grown movement.
When you buy produce from supermarkets, as well as processed food, you're contributing to global warming because of all the petrol burned to get the food to your plate. Not only that but corporate farms churn out more calories than anyone needs and they fill our food with corn syrup and other processed stuff so they have a market for it.
But as I read I have some questions. I cannot see removing citrus or avocados from my diet. Do you have to reject all exotic food? What about wine? The nuts and shade-grown coffee help encourage preservation of the Amazon rain forests, don't they? What about olive oil from Italy? Or cheese from Spain?
I might just have to make the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan my next serious read.
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