Tag: books

The books this month seem to be more of “passing time” books than anything. Nothing groundbreaking here. Although, I did like Me & Orsen Wells. When is that movie coming out, anyway?

Read
Keeping Faith: a novel
Jodi Picoult
Engrossing story with dumb title, I quite enjoyed the twists and turns. It wasn’t high literature (even for my low standards) but it was a fun read.

Side note. In the author interview at the end of the novel Picoult mentions that she researches like crazy for books because she can’t stand to have errors. I found two, one of which was quite glaring: the grandmother character, who is in her 50s mentions that the War of the Worlds broadcast “scared her and her husband to death.” I find this to be amazing, because the novel is set in 1999. This puts the grandmother’s character as being born in the early to mid 40s. So, not only would the grandmother not have been married in 1938 when the broadcast was first aired, but she also woudn’t have even been alive. Also, there was a reference to a nail being put “in Jesus Christ’s side.” I found this to be off and three minutes of googling has indeed revealed that Jesus’ side was pierced by a spear. Geez oh Pete, for an author who is a stickler for accuracy, these should have been cleaned up early on.

The Last Blue Mile
Kim Ponders
I checked this out because this story of a female Air Force Academy Cadet does not intersect with my own life experiences in any way. The book provided a nice window into Air Force culture. Based on what I read, I’m glad for the window and will not be seeking a door into Air Force Culture any time soon.

A Model Summer
Paula Porizkova
The book that convinced me there is little actual glamor in modeling. How does a sheltered fifteen year old girl spending her summer working as a model in Paris fare? The answer is not surprising. As the quote on the back of the book says, the novel “bravely offers no easy answers.” Engrossing and disturbing.

Me & Orson Wells
Robert Kaplow
The “voice” in this novel is fun and fresh and the novel itself is a fun time capsule to 1930s Broadway and Orson Wells. I found out about halfway through that Zac Ephron will be playing the main character which didn’t match the picture in my head at all, but I look forward to seeing Orson Wells recreated for the screen and this book also inspired our next choice for the Shakespeare Project: Julius Caesar.

Sideways
Rex Pickett
I found this movie to be highly annoying–the main characters were incredibly juvenile and idiotic. Someone nicely summed up the movie as “Dumb and Dumber do Wine Country.” So why read the book? Though I hated the movie, the story and characters have stuck with me, and when I came across the novel on the library shelves I figured the book might provide a little more insight.

Indeed, I liked the book much better than the movie. The book had the advantage, as books do, of letting us into the minds of at least one of the men. This humanized him for me and softened my judgment. The story is well written, clips along, has some incredible passages and uses vocabulary that had me reaching for the dictionary several times. Don’t get me wrong, the men are still idiotic, but much more human. This would be a nice vacation read.

Unplugging Philco
Jim Knipfel
My initial reaction was enjoyment. This futuristic novel is set in New York City, where massive amounts of freedoms Americans enjoy today have voluntarily been given up due to “the Horribleness”–an incident that flattened Tupolo. This novel was clearly written to skewer the post-9/11 world we live in. However, as the story dragged on, the life Wally Philco lives left me sad. Near the middle of the book, things look like they would work out for him in some small way, but I realized I was about two chapters away from the end and this wasn’t going to end well. I put down the book for a few days, and eventually returned to find that, indeed, the ending was not what I was looking for. Not only that, I found it to be not believable. Two days later, I’m still thinking, “But wait. If the ending is true, then how did X work?” This is not a good sign for a book.

The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns
Elizabeth Leiknes
A slim novel, this initially had me tittering as I read along. But somewhere in the middle–which I guess would be about page 80–it bogged down and I lost interest. This was a clever premise, but not the best execution. I’m interested to see if Leiknes‘ next novel will be a bit better.

Started but did not finish
Braided Lives
Marge Piercy
It’s the 1950s and Marge Piercy’s main character doesn’t want a man to posses her. Hmmm. Good luck with that. Having just read her memoir, I can tell that large portions of this novel are inspired by her own life. It seemed like things were going to be grim, and so my attention waned. Also? Horrible 80’s-esque cover. So bad it is almost good.

Past Caring
Robert Goddard
I never really got to caring about the character, so I couldn’t move through to past caring. When I hit page fifty and I’m still wondering if I will start to be interested soon, it is time to put down the novel.

Our Lady of Greenwich Village
Dermot McEvoy
A manly novel, that takes the men in it too seriously. Pete Hamill writes better novels set in bars. This suffers from the book equivalent of the movie problem of “too many identical white guys in suits.” About the fifth time I asked myself, “Who is this person and why are they on the page right now?” I decided I really didn’t care and gave up.

Every year Steve Duin, columnist for the Oregonian holds a reading contest to see who can read the most pages during the year. The winner always reads some number that even I, a voracious reader, think insane. Like over 100,000. This year, I sent in my entry of 21,177 pages read which was 71 books. I sent this note along with with spreadsheet.

Dear Mr. Duin,

My page total isn’t anywhere near winning, but my goal this year was to actually get my entry to you. I’ve never been able to keep track of pages read on my own—that extra step of flipping to the back and seeing what the last pages was has always eluded me. In the back of my journals, I’ve kept track of “books read” since 1987, but in 2008, I began using Goodreads. At the end of last year I discovered I could export my list of books read and they listed page numbers. This year I just had to export, sum and save in Excel and voila! I finally enter the contest.

This was not the best fiction reading year. Around March I got annoyed at all the unsatisfying novels I was reading and just started re-reading things I liked. Hence the appearance of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer. Things picked up mid-summer and I devoured some books during my August vacation. I would say the most quietly delightful “what if” sort of novel was Abraham Lincoln: A Novel Life, by our own Tony Wolk. What if Abraham Lincoln showed up in 1950’s Illinois? My absolute favorite novel, if forced to choose, was Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife. Aside from being an engrossing story, the novel itself was a gentle reminder that the famous people I know (and judge) everything about, may in fact be media creations. Which reminds me, the other favorite novel I read the year—do your readers really actually stick to one? I can’t imagine—was Three Girls and their Brother by Theresa Rebeck. A commentary on the media culture in our country, the voices of each character are amazing. This book also wins the “don’t judge a book by its cover” award as its cover was hideous and not at all reflective of the novel.

Nonfiction-wise, it was a smashing year. I discovered permaculture theory and, thanks to the library, devoured many books on the topic. I have a tiny back yard, but I think I’m a farmer at heart, and due to the permaculture books I read, I am transforming my “land” into a more sustainable environment. The best non-fiction book I read was Urban Homestead, your guide to self-sufficient living in the city. Unlike 99% of the books I read, I finished my library copy, returned it and immediately bought my own copy. Reading the various tutorials on growing and foraging for food, making bread, cheese and preserves, all I could think was “these are my people.” What could be more fun than that?

Next year, I aim to not only enter my number of pages, but also write an essay. Until I retire (30 years hence) that seems to be my only hope for winning your contest.

Good reading,

Patricia

6/25/10 Note: I just looked at the contest results (published 2/1/10) and I got 34th! Not bad. But seriously, do those 100,000 plus pages people ever go outside?

Here is the list of books people chose as their favorites. (Published 2/1/10)

Here is the annual column about the reading contest. I, sadly, am not mentioned (Published 2/1/10)

For years I’ve been describing one of my favorite kind of books as listed above. Who knew that there was one word to say all that? Well, probably a lot of people. And, more importantly, librarians, who not only printed up a handy sign, but had a whole bunch of buildungsromans set out for us to check out. Thanks librarians! And also thanks to the clerks who probably fetched all the books!

I only read three books this month! Three! I started a bunch over Thanksgiving, though and so December will have more books. Also, alas, the books I read weren’t very good this month.

Read
Little Earthquakes
Jennifer Weiner
This suffers a bit from some of the characters being just a bit too much. The control freak was just a bit too controlling, the mother-in-law from hell was just a bit too hellish, the depressed one was too depressed. It distracted from the story. Though I probably won’t remember much about this book in five years, the characterizations of early motherhood were nicely done and I enjoyed the humor sprinkled throughout the book.

The Elements of Style
Wendy Wasserstein
Oh, how I detested this book. This was disappointing, as I enjoy Wasserstein’s plays, and was hoping that this book would recapture some of that magic. It didn’t. Stuffed full of entirely unlikeable, incredibly wealthy Manhattenites, who attempt to navigate their very privileged lives in a post-9/11 world. I could care less about them, their “problems” and their entirely vapid hopes. I only finished reading this novel because it was the only thing in the house and it was slightly more exciting than the back of soup cans. Not recommended.

Revive: How to overcome fatigue naturally
Jill Thomas
I attempt to combat my seemingly unending fatigue by reading this book and another one. This was the far superior version. Not surprisingly, I need to eat more vegetables and fruit as well as up my fiber intake in general and recommit to regular exercise. The inexplicable red font was a bit distracting, but other than that, the quiet helpful and succinct tone of this manual was just what the Naturopath ordered.

Started but did not finish
Honey in the Horn
H.L. Davis
Oh, how I want to be the type of reader who actually reads classic literature. This isn’t even very old. My Grandmother was in her 20’s when this won the Pulitzer Prize. It’s set in frontier Oregon, the narrative is a strong one. I just couldn’t force my lazy reading self to keep on keeping on. Alas. If you are made of sterner stuff than me, enjoy.

The Exhaustion Cure: up your energy from low to go in 21 days.
Laura Stack
This did not speak to me as much as Jill Thomas’ Revive, though people not familiar with Naturopathy might be more comfortable with it. Includes quizzes, but also a lot of product placement, which I ultimately found distracting.

Lapham Rising: a novel
Roger Rosenblatt
There’s good quirky (Wonderboys) and then there is a bit too quirky. This fits into the latter category. The sculpture of the ex-wife sitting at the kitchen table; the bazillionare’s mansion being built across the street with a device that air conditions the entire property; the skinny-dipping Realtor; the dog that actually speaks? It was just too much.

A nice balance of fiction and nonfiction this month. I should check and see what my usual ratio is.

Read
Toolbox for Sustainable City Living
Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew
A great book, not as friendly and chatty as “The Urban Homestead” but is required reading for anyone contemplating a gray water system. Also, good information about how to grow bugs, which your chickens (you do have chickens, don’t you? Yeah, me neither.) love to eat.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
I read this first at the end of my junior year of high school, at the same time I was realizing I liked a boy. It turned out he liked me back and this book has always been linked in my mind with that boy ever since. In a year of somewhat “eh” fiction offerings, I was eager to read it again. I most wanted to get to the part where Francie is an older teenager, on the cusp of her first relationship. That part of the book loomed large in my mind and this time through I was surprised to find what a tiny section of the book it is.

The other surprising thing was how much of the story was lodged in my subconscious. I can’t tell you how many passages I read and thought, “Oh yes! That was in this book!” This is a great story, of course, how else would it be a classic novel? The writing sometimes can be a little Dick-and Jane-y, a bit pedantic. Due to the lack of italics, I also sometimes got confused as to if a character was talking or thinking. But I recommend this book because the story is such a wonderful one.

Freddie & Me: A Coming-of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody
Mike Davis
The book section of the Oregonian recommended this to me and I missed the fact that it was a graphic novel. As I’ve said before, I’m not the biggest fan of the genre, and reading this I realized why. There are no paragraphs. Each picture has a sentence or two, but then my eye has to move a great expanse across the page to the next sentence. It is too choppy for me and there isn’t enough description. I like description better than pictures.

But this book was okay. Davis and I are essentially the same age and I enjoyed his connecting Queen songs to various points in his live as well as following Wham!, his sister’s favorite group. In my opinion, the book should have ended long before it did, the final 20 pages felt very tacked on.

The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
I found this story very readable–it took me less than a weekend to finish it. Walls’ descriptions are clear and the portrait of her family life is very well painted. Aside from that, halfway through the book I found myself getting impatient. Just as Dan Brown engineers each two-page chapter to end in a “dum, dum, dum” cliff hanger, so I found that every vignette in this book ended in a way that seemed to be manufactured for the liberal middle-class reader to think some form of “oh, those poor children!” or “what irresponsible parents!” or “how did they ever survive?”

Reading the book, I am amazed that not only did Jeannette Walls escape the situation she was born to, but that of the four children, three because productive citizens. There is a lot to discuss upon finishing this book: nature vs. nurture; the role of citizens to interfere in family life; what choices make sense for parents to make for their children; how we treat children who come from different situations; which parent was more to blame. This would be a good reading group selection and I am surprised my edition did not include the reading group questions I find at the end of so many of the books I read.

The Cactus Eaters
Dan White
There isn’t much for me to say after finishing Dan White’s chronicle of hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. There were a few “read out loud” passages, especially describing nerds and drug use on pages 200-201, but I mostly found this book “fine.” I read it, I finished it, I judged him perhaps too harshly for his post-trail decline and that was that. I heard about this book through the Multnomah County Library’s blog An Embarrassment of Riches. Here is part of what Tama had to say:

So far it’s the funniest book of my still new summer reading season. I’ve forced friends and loved ones to listen to entire paragraphs. The other day I was laughing so hard it actually made my son pause Lego Star Wars II to ask if I was ok. I couldn’t wait to finish it yet I was sad when I did, and in my world that is the sign of an excellent book.

High praise indeed and the reason I put it on the list. However, while I found parts of the story amusing I don’t think I ever actually laughed out loud. Though there may have been a few snorts.

So, read it, don’t read it. It’s all the same to me.

Henry IV part II
William Shakespeare
Good god, but this was boring.

The Birth of Venus
Sarah Dunant
An intriguing premise (dead pious 16th c. nun discovered with large tattoo of snake on her body.) An interesting time (Florence during the end of Lorenzo de Medichi’s life and with a fiery catholic priest making trouble.) A girl who just wants to paint. How does she end up the pious nun? How does that tattoo get on her body? Read and discover!

Started but did not finish
Edible Forest Gardens Vol I
Dave Jacke
Very textbook-y,and I mean that in a nice way. I would have finished this, but it is very thorough, and others at the library are in line behind me. This is permaculture for the east coast of the United States, which works better for me than permaculture for Australia. I’ll reserve this again, and am contemplating buying it.

Some good fiction reading this month…

Read
Eat, Drink and Be From Mississippi
Nanci Kincaid
I grabbed this book because I had no fiction on hand and the train was coming. I was a bit leery, both because of the title (a bit too cute) and the way the author spelled her first name. Yes, I judge a book by its cover, it’s author’s name and its title, along with a host of other things. But 5o pages in, I was hooked and want to read everything Nanci Kincaid has ever written.

The synopsis of the book is a bit off. Don’t get impatient because you are pretty far in and the “troubled teenager” hasn’t shown up yet; he arrives in the second half of the book. The first half is a leisurely meander though Truley’s life, getting him from Mississippi to California and from high school student to successful entrepreneur. After that enjoyable setup we can make room for the troubled teenager.

Every once in awhile I get to read a book with delightful characters. Funny, interesting and flawed, I fall in love with them all. Add to that, the fact that Kincaid has some nice turns of phrase and you can take my recommendation that you sit yourself down with a nice book.

The Prophet of Yonwood
Jeanne DuPrau
The third book in the Ember series, this is billed as a prequel. I thought it failed on that front as the first 281 pages seemed to have no connection at all to the city of Ember, or the people of Sparks, for that matter. The story was interesting enough, but I kept wondering when I would find out how this connected to the previous books. If you are a reader similarly inclined, simply turn to page 182 and read “What happened after” first. Knowing the connection to the previous books, you can now begin the story at the beginning and read it on its own terms.

The Diamond of Darkhold
Jeanne DuPrau
After I finished The City of Ember, and before I realized there was an Ember series, I spent a few days wondering what, exactly the builders were thinking. Their whole setup seemed great for 200 years, but there seemed to be no plan for how the people of Ember would survive above ground without the collective knowledge of human history. I myself have a smattering of knowledge of how to grow food and consider myself handy, but I’m not sure if I could make it through a winter on my own, and I was raised on frontier novels with survivor tips disguised as plot points. The people of Ember had never seen a sunset, or experienced seasons, or even snow. What exactly were they supposed to do for food and shelter?

The first chapter of book four in the Ember series lets us know that the builders were thinking of how hard the emergence would be and explains that they decided to do something to give the people of Ember a head start–to make it easier on them. The builders put this mysterious something into a time-release vault for the people of Ember to find when they come above ground. After this setup, we are plunged (yay!) back to the village of Sparks where the former citizens of Ember and current citizens of Sparks are attempting to survive their first winter. We follow Lina and Doon as they find evidence of this thing that will make it easier on the Emberites. Being the Lina and Doon we know, of course they decide to solve this mystery on their own.

Now knowing the thing that the builders prepared, I have to say, “eh.” Sure, the item was helpful to the village of Sparks and allowed a great many things to happen, as we find out in the last chapter, but really. That’s what they thought of? A few books on creating food and shelter as well as natural medicines might have served the citizens a bit better.

That said, I enjoyed this seemingly last book in the Ember series. Like the first and second book, it was full of action and moral quandaries and Lina and Doon are great characters.

The Divorce Party
Laura Dave
Can you think of any circumstance in which it would be okay for your fiancee to neglect to mention that he has been married before? How about the fact that his family is worth half a billion dollars? Maggie, one of the two main characters in this novel discovers both of these things on the way to meet her fiancee’s parents for the first time. What’s worse, they are attending her future in-law’s Divorce Party.

I found this to be a nicely written novel with sympathetic characters and a few interesting plot twists. The last chapter in particular was a nice completion of a circle. At a brief 244 pages, this might be a nice vacation or rainy weekend read.

American Wife: a novel
Curtis Sittenfeld
I spent this weekend devouring this novel, and what a lovely way to pass a late-summer weekend. I heard Sittenfeld on Fresh Air when this book was first published and it was obvious to me that she was in love with her main character. This love comes through in the writing of this book, which I found added to my love of the book.

While many novels explore the compromises people make to remain with their married partner, most people won’t have to face the level of compromises that Alice Blackwell, the main character, makes over her the lifetime of her marriage to Charles Blackwell. The first third of the book explores Alice’s upbringing, and was where I fell in love with her too. She is a deeply sympathetic character.

The middle part of the novel–the troubles in the Blackwell’s marriage, was not as interesting to me, but if your attention starts to waver, stick it out. Because, what if you wanted to live your life essentially a private person, but your husband, who you deeply love, first runs for governer and then later runs for, and is elected, President of the United States of America? And then what if, early in his presidency a huge national tradegy occurs and your husband decides to start wars in two countries and eventually becomes one of the most hated sitting presidents in US History? How would you arrage your life?

Aside from being an entertaining story (the part where the Blackwell matriarch explains the reasons why Alice Blackwell needs to return to her alcoholic husband was a particularly fun few pages for me) this was a gentle reminder to remember that there are people behind the personas we see in the media. Also, Sittenfeld is a fabulous writer and I will be including several phrases and passages from this book in my quotes page. Highly recommended.

Sarah’s Quilt
Nancy E. Turner
Somewhat like a Michael Bay movie with it’s pretty much uninterrupted action scenes, this is the continuation of Sara Prine, the woman I first met in These is my words. Sara’s grammar is fine now, but she has a lot of problems, most of them stemming from the drought. As with the first book, about three-quarters of the way through I grew weary of all the hardship that come Mrs. Prine’s way. However, the force of her character kept me reading to the end. I’m taking a break from her for awhile, but I will return to read the next book in the series.

Food Not Lawns
H.C. Flores
This took me a long time to read, but it was worth it. Flores spends about one third of this book discussing how to build community, though there are suggestions/tips about permaculture, which she calls “paradise gardening.” A good solid recommendation for permaculture reading.

Started but did not finish

The Believers
Zoe Heller
I didn’t like the people peopling this book, so I dropped it before I even found out what the secret was.

Figures in Silk
Vanora Bennett
I started this, but it didn’t grab me and it is due tomorrow at the library. Back it goes.

The First Days of School
Harry K & Rosemary T. Wong
If I had unlimited time, I would dive into this again. However, my fiction slot has been taken up by Food Not Lawns for so long that I never even opened it. Perhaps when I get that first teaching job I will consult this.

Hope and Despair in the American City: Why there are no bad schools in Raleigh
Gerald Grant
I stopped reading this short, readable book before getting to the “hope” section. Reading about the decline of Syracuse just made me mad. Even though I haven’t finished it, this book will always be the book that opened my eyes to the fact that the mortgage subsidies most homeowners get add up to much more of a subsidy than welfare recipients get.

Ordinary Springs
Lenore Hart
You know how you think the book is going to unfold even when you are on page 20? You know how sometimes you read just to find out if you were right? This wasn’t one of those times. I couldn’t get into this.

The Solar Food Dryer: How to make and use your own high-performance, sun-powered food dryer.
Eban Fodor
A compact little book about how to do just what the title says. Fairly good instructions and it also include recipes. A bit of it is available on Google Books if you Google the title.

Did not even start

Troll: A love story.
Johanna Sinisalo
Perhaps it is the fact that this was translated from the Finnish that kept me from enjoying this novel with a great premise? I usually love books that are set in apparent modern times, but with just one or two fantasy elements. In this one, the fact that trolls exist wasn’t enough to keep me reading.

Even if you didn’t know what it was called.

Growing up, I read many books covered in buckram. Though they are becoming scarce on the library shelves (Multnomah County Library discards books like crazy) I love to see the colors and the patterns.

Vacation reading combined with a new permaculture obsession made this a quite-fruitful month of reading. Also, it was hot and I had some trouble sleeping.

Finished
J Pod
Douglas Copeland
Disappointing. Copeland gets all meta on us and both the storyline and the writing style are lacking. My favorite Copeland books have characters who care about others. They might be whacked out quirky and odd, but their emotions are familiar. This book had neither of these qualities. The author inserting himself into the narrative in a very “heh heh” way did nothing to redeem this story line.

These is my words
Nancy E Turner
A really good novel of a hard-as-nails Arizona pioneer woman. The kind of frontier book I grew up reading, but seems to not be a current feature of adult fiction. In the first 50 pages, Sarah Prine encounters tragedy enough to break you and me, but she perseveres. Written in journal fashion, and supposedly based on one of the author’s relatives, it can be a bit unbelievable in places (i.e. train robbery) but the main character’s voice kept me reading to the end.

Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture
Rosemary Morrow
A bit too much information for the potential peraculturalist with a back yard instead of a back 40, but very thorough and clear in its teachings. The author is Australian, which means that many of the species she uses for examples are not really ones I as an Oregonian would choose, but it’s fun to hear her discuss how planting this or that plant will encourage the kangaroos and the wallabies.

Getting started in Permaculture
Ross and Jenny Mars
Many (over 50 according to the cover) different projects you could do to encourage your permaculture garden. Some are simple, like converting milk jugs into scoops and some are more complicated, like making paper. The authors want you to reuse, so many of these projects could be free or cheap. However, the book is written by Australians and the metric systems references can be confusing. I don’t blame them for this confusion, I blame the US and our inability to make the transition the rest of the world has. We put a man on the moon but….

Gaia’s Garden
Toby Hemenway
This author lives in Oregon and so the plant suggestions were good for me. A guide that is less of a textbook and more of a back yard users guide to permaculture. It gives a thorough lesson in ecology and how the different systems fit together. Highly recommended. This is the first edition, the second edition currently has over 80 holds at the library. This may be one to purchase.

The Urban Homestead: your guide for self-sufficient living in the city
Kelly Coyne & Erik Knutzen
These are my people! They discuss growing your own food in your tiny city lot, sure, but they also thoroughly explore foraging(!), chickens and other livestock(!), greywater systems(!), transportation(!) solar cooking(!) as well as canning, fermenting, cheese making, bread making, and creating your own cleaning products. Their tone is informational, not preachy and at times the two authors discuss why they disagree about a subject, such as starting from seed vs. buying starts. Rarely do I finish a book from the library and want to purchase it. But this is jam packed with information and I will be spending my hard-earned cash. This is a rare five-star review. I love this book!

Landscape you can eat
Allan A. Swenson
An older book, but one with good information about choosing and planting fruit trees in your backyard. Some of the information is out of date, but the author’s enthusiasm is the best part of the book.

Landscaping with fruit: a homeowners guide
Lee Reich
Filled with lovely photos that will make you want to go out and buy a bunch of fruit trees and vines to fill your backyard. Each fruit featured includes how to care for it, its basic needs, how much fruit you can expect as well as the authors three point scale rating. There are also some plans for incorporating fruit into different kinds of backyards: suburban house, child’s garden, etc.

Renewing Salmon Nation’s Food Traditions: a RAFT list of food species and heirloom varieties
Gary Paul Nabhan, ed.
From Cascade Moose to Octopus to Thimble berry, Eel grass, Oregon White Truffle and Bing Cherries, find the foods of Salmon Nation. This slim guide discusses the domesticated crops, sea foods and wild foods of Salmon Nation (roughly: Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.) Each entry gives the common and botanical name, the habitat range, the items availability and if it is at risk. There are also mini-essays scattered throughout the book. A bit depressing, if you are just reading it (“At risk.” “Culturally at risk.” “Endangered as a Food Tradition.”) however, it is quite invaluable if you are looking to locate some traditional food traditions in your own landscape.

I have to confess that my favorite part of this book is the last page which has a full color RAFT (Renewing America’s Food Traditions) Regional Map of North America’s Place-Based Food Traditions. While I live in Salmon Nation, I grew up in Pinyon Nut Nation, have lived in Clambake Nation, Bison Nation and just came back from a visit to Corn Bread & BBQ Nation. The map explains that it features “totem foods” and goes on to say: “These totem foods are more than important commodities–community feasts, household rituals, song, stories, and the nutritional well-being of residents have revolved around these foods for centuries.” Cool.

The basics of permaculture design
Ross Mars
A slender book with nicely drawn illustrations about incorporating permaculture into your landscape. The information included is good and solid and won’t overwhelm you. The book also has a chapter with tips to incorporate permaculture education into schools. There is a chapter on urban permaculture and I learned that every permaculture land should have, at minimum, worms, bees and chickens.

Started but did not finish
Until I Find You
John Irving
I’ve read 250 pages of this book. I slogged through the “looking for the father in tattoo parlors across Europe” portion but I’m not going to make it though the “entirely inappropriate interactions across many years between a boy and a girl six years older than him” section. Every time I start to read, all I can think is “Hello! Child abuse! Molestation!” I’m tired of feeling uncomfortable and it has been more than 100 pages. I’ve given up the hope of moving on to another phase of the story and am moving on.

Did not even start
I started everything this month!

Ah, school (my class) has ended and school (the school year part of my job) has ended. Plus, I went on vacation. This bodes well for the book reading this month.

Read
How to change your life by doing absolutely nothing
Karen Salmansohn
A good book for people who need to boost their quota of “books read” as it takes about 20 minutes to read it from cover to cover. A good book also for people looking to add meditation into their life without a lot of effort. The 10 do-nothing relaxation exercises are: 1)Wake up and smell the coffee; 2) Shower power; 3) Mellow Yellow; 4) Like attracts like, glee attracts glee; 5) Hear the beat to beat the blues; 6) Listen to sounds for a sounder mind; 7)Smells like relaxation 8)Thought for food; 9) Strong mind; strong body; 10) Wake up your senses before bedtime. What does all that mean? Spend the 20 minutes and read it for yourself to find out.

Committed to memory: 100 best poems to memorize
John Hollander, Ed.
My poetry project has me reading more poems; I need to read poetry to know what I want to memorize. This has some great suggestions, including “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. Most people only know the final few lines of this sonnet: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddle masses yearning to breathe free.” It also includes “Casey at the Bat” and other gems, as well as some more obscure ones.

A walk in the woods
Bill Bryson
Having read Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and several times laughed until I cried. And having read that this book was incredibly funny, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. It was amusing and I enjoyed reading it, to be sure, but it wasn’t quite as funny as I expected. Funny, yes, which means I smiled to myself while reading. Hilarious, no. That would require me to laugh out loud, or stifle my laughter while on the train. So, ultimately: good book, failed due to too high expectations. Ratchet yours down and you will probably enjoy it.

Little House in the Big Woods
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Growing up, I was first read this series by my mother, and then read it myself as my reading skills grew. Every summer I would read the series, forward or backwards. Backwards was fun because Mary would suddenly regain her sight. Now that I’m trying to cook more with traditional foods/methods, I reread this for some tips. This book in particular is a very good do-it-yourself guide. Do you want to make hominy? The recipe is there. How about braiding hats from straw? Some basic instructions are included. Smoking meat? Yep. How to use the different parts of a slaughtered pig? You got it. Churning butter. Right there. Now I see this not only as a classic, but a reference for country living.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Gregory Maguire
I have a sneaking suspicion I either read this before, or at least started it back in the late 90s. I finished it, but I wasn’t in love with this book. I never really fell for the characters and Maguire himself seemed to hold them at arms length. The setting was interesting, but I think that I kept comparing this to Wicked, which I loved. I think the difference was that Wicked’s Oz setting was quite magical, but this book’s setting was historically interesting, but not enchanting.

City of Ember
Jeanne DuPrau
I really loved this book, much more than the movie, which was surprising because I really loved the movie. The book has less drama than the movie, but in the book Doon and Lina work together to find their way to the city of light. Adults aren’t really present. This is, of course, how teenagers see the world. It makes sense that in the movie there would be more adult involvement, to draw more audiences, interest adults more etc., but I preferred this story.

Also, the book gives an explanation of how the City of Ember came to be. I found it incredibly sad, but it answered a lot of questions I had, both while reading the book and watching the movie.

College Girl
Patricia Weitz
The end of the school year is nearing (finally) and to reward myself, I stopped by the library after work, grabbed this book and read it in one sitting. I even stayed up late on a school night to finish it! Delightful! Like the main character, I transferred to a large state university that was big on basketball and like this main character, I had trouble making friends and made a few bad choices. Finding a novel which parallels your life is fun, and I enjoyed reading this.

The Devil Wears Prada
Lauren Weisberger
My book theme for my trip was “Books that I first encountered as movies” which turned out to be an enjoyable way to spend spare moments in my vacation. This was the first read and I really enjoyed it. Reading it, I could envision the Hollywood people saying, “This part totally needs to go… and can we add some illicit sex?” Much like Gone With the Wind, I liked the story for the better plot line and the movie so I could see the clothing.

In Her Shoes
Jennifer Weiner
This was also a book that was adapted well into movie form. Reading the book, you get pretty much the movie, but with extra scenes, including Maggie’s time living secretly at college. This book also has a warm spot in my heart because it includes the power that books have to change people’s lives. I’d not read anything by Jennifer Weiner before, but I will read more of her.

Started but did not finish
Goodnight, Nebraska
Tom McNeal
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I had this book on my to-read list. The cover looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I read to about page 100, and then one line caught my attention. I had read this before! After that one line, the plot came tumbling back and I decided not to keep reading. It’s a good book and well written, but sadder than I wanted to experience. It turned out that I had requested this book from the library because the author wrote the short story that the movie Tully was based on.

The Poem I Turn to
Jason Shinder, ed.
Famous people pick out their favorite poem and some of them read them for you on an enclosed CD. I got this for ideas for my poetry project and found some good candidates. Also, someone chose the poem I am memorizing this month as their favorite poem. So that was fun.

Speaking to the Heart: Favorite Poems
Wendy Beckett
I was interested to see what kind of poems an Art Historian nun enjoys. Now I know.

10 Weeds You Can Eat!
Urban Edibles
Part of my plan to learn about food I can forage for, this tiny zine is Portland specific, clearly illustrated and shows you, as you may have guessed, 10 weeds you can eat. I haven’t gone out foraging yet, but I’m moving in that direction.

Did not even start
I’ve not been bringing home extraneous books lately. Good job me.