Miracle

There are some books that are not only great reads, but can also change the way you live. One such book is “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” by Barbara Kingsolver, which I finished last weekend.

Kingsolver and her family decided to spend a year eating only food that they grew themselves or was grown/produced locally. They had many reasons to try this experiment, chiefly their horror at realizing the “carbon footprint” of the food that most Americans eat: We consume 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen for agricultural use, and each item in a typical American meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles from farm to plate.

Another reason for going local? Food simply tastes better when it is fresh and in season, Kingsolver says, and I couldn’t agree more. There is nothing worse than the mealy tomatoes currently available in Boston supermarkets, and I would never dare to buy peaches or strawberries in February – who knows how long it has taken them to get to my neighborhood grocery store?

The experiment turned out well for Kingsolver – she and her family were able to grow most of the vegetables they needed, raised chickens and turkeys, made bread and cheese, and obtained most of their other food from other farmers in their Virginia county. By canning and otherwise preserving food, they had plenty to eat when winter rolled around. No one broke down and went to the grocery store for Twinkies and Jello (at least not that they admitted).

Reading about this “locavore” experiment, which has now become a minor movement, has inspired me to try to adopt some of Kingsolver’s ideas. Of course I live in an apartment in an urban area, so I will not be growing my own food, though I do want to try growing some basil in my window :) However, I did just sign up for a program that delivers fresh produce from local farms to drop off points in Boston and Cambridge. It starts in June, and I can’t wait!

Meanwhile, my friends Catherine and Andrew, who live in California, are doing their own local food experiment. They buy local produce and other foods, make their own bread and pasta, and have even learned how to can vegetables. I am completely inspired by them. They are keeping a blog to document their efforts, check it out!

Beach reading

While packing for my recent trip to St. Thomas (destination wedding, woo hoo!), I decided I needed a good beach book. For me, a good beach book is not a trashy Danielle Steele, rather something that is light and engrossing but also requires a little bit of intellectual engagement. I decided on “In the Company of the Courtesan,” by Sarah Dunant, which ended up being a very good beach (and poolside) read.

Part of the reason I liked this book so much is that it is set in one of my favorite cities, Venice. It’s one of those places that you hear so much about it, you think it can’t possibly be as beautiful as everyone says. Then you get there and realize it really is. The book is set during the 1520s, and focuses on the life of a courtesan (basically a high-class prostitute) and her companion dwarf.

At the time, Venice was one of the most powerful cities in Europe, a leader in commerce and art. It was also known for its beautiful courtesans, whose clients included leaders of government and religion. Dunant paints a vivid portrait of the lives of Venetians: the intrigue and scandal, set against the beautiful backdrop of the watery city. The book is full of interesting characters, from high-class nobles to a famous artist and a mysterious healer/witch.

This is probably one of the best historical novels I have read, along with one of Dunant’s earlier novels, “The Birth of Venus,” which is also set in Italy (Florence).

More disaster

There is no way I could resist a book with this blurb from the NY Times on the cover: "A classic disaster tale." The book is "The Worst Hard Time," by Timothy Egan, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction last year. The disaster in question is the Dust Bowl, which transformed the American prairie from fertile farmland into a living nightmare during the 1930s.

I had heard of the Dust Bowl, of course, but until I read this book I really didn't know quite what it was. I thought it was just a really bad drought. Well, it was much, much worse. Egan relates the long history leading up to the natural disaster:

The prairies of Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle were originally populated by tall grasses, bison and Native Americans. The land was perfect for growing grasses, but not much else. Then, after the U.S. government decided to remove both bison and Native Americans, settlers were encouraged to rip up the grass, build homesteads and plant wheat. This worked out pretty well for a few years, until wheat prices bottomed out during the Depression, and more and more grassland was dug up by farmers desperate to break even. Well, it turns out the soil is not so fertile once you take away the grass that is literally holding it in place. Wind storms, which had always been common in the prairie, started picking up the dirt and carrying it in massive storms that could blot out the sun for hours at a time.



For years, people who lived in the Dust Bowl endured these dust storms, several per month. Livestock died from swallowing so much dirt, and it wasn't very healthy for humans either. The worst of the storms traveled all the way to the East Coast, coating New York and Washington DC in prairie dirt.

Naturally many people decided to leave the plains, but it was hard to find another place where they would be welcome. Many others decided to stick it out, either because they loved the land too much or had no other place to go. Egan follows several families through their Dust Bowl experiences, which really makes the story come to life. I highly recommend this book—it illuminates a part of American history that most people probably don't know very much about.

I know I have not posted in a while, but I HAVE been reading :) I just finished a novel that I will blog about soon...

18-0

So, the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl, again. Sports fans in New England are really in danger of getting spoiled, what with the Patriots, Red Sox and even Celtics having so much success. During most of the games this season, I always felt that victory was assured, even when the Pats were down in the fourth quarter. You just know that they will always come back. I’m trying hard not to take this for granted and become one of those annoying, entitled fans—I just need to think back to the early '90s when their usual record was 1-15 or 2-14, not 18-0.

Anyway, to get myself ready for the playoff run, instead of watching a lot of TV hype, I read David Halberstam’s book on Patriots coach Bill Belichick, “The Education of a Coach.” It was pretty interesting to see how Belichick became the somewhat mysterious figure he is now: brilliant defensive coach, grim workaholic, uncharismatic hater of the media, icon of unfashionable sideline wear.

As the son of a longtime assistant coach at Army, Belichick started analyzing game film around age 9. When he entered the NFL as a coach, he felt he had to work harder than anyone else to prove he belonged, since he never played in the NFL and went to college at Wesleyan, not exactly a football powerhouse. He spent long days and nights studying film and was generally considered, even early in his career, to be one of the best at breaking down a game and figuring out how to stop other teams.

Belichick later tried to instill that same work ethic in his players. To him, being the one of the best players on the team also means that you work the hardest, not relax because you’ve reached the top. That, to me, that is the most impressive aspect of Belichick’s amazing run—he has somehow convinced players who are among the best at their positions to subordinate their egos to what is best for the team. He even gets them to believe they are underdogs, a ludicrous proposition.

The book was written after the 2005 season, so it doesn’t make any mention of the recent scandals that have plagued Belichick—the “Spygate” incident, where the team was caught videotaping the Jets’ defensive signals, the ongoing hostility with Eric Mangini, former Patriots assistant and head coach of the Jets, running up the score against terrible teams, and the bizarre tabloid allegations of “wife-stealing.”

In spite of all this recent dirt, Belichick seems to have gotten pretty much a free pass from the New England fans and media (a little less so from the rest of the country, who now revile New England with the kind of venom formerly reserved for the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys). This just goes to show the accuracy of one of Halberstam’s assessments of life in the NFL, which goes something like “as long as you win, people don't care what else you do."

Myths

My book group met last week to talk about "The Myth of You and Me," by Leah Stewart. Compared to the other two books we have read, this was kind of a disappointment. It's the story of two women who were best friends in high school and college, until something happens (exactly what is not revealed until the end) to end the friendship. Several years later, one of them reaches out to try to repair things. The book follows two plot lines: Will they reunite, and what drove them apart in the first place? The book was well-written enough to keep my attention as events unfolded, but there was not much originality to the story. (Turns out one of them slept with the other's boyfriend—yawn.) Anyway, it was an OK book, but I wouldn't recommend it very enthusiastically.

Our next book will be about myths of a different kind—Greek myths. We are reading "The Penelopiad," by Margaret Atwood, a retelling of the Odyssey from the point of view of Odysseus' wife, Penelope. Hopefully I will like that one better :)

Wow

I just sat down and tried to write something about “Middlesex,” but words are failing me. I stayed home sick today and blasted through the last 200 pages of it, and I feel like I have just returned from immersion in another world. So mesmerizing, so original. It touches on so many interesting subjects (immigration, race relations, Prohibition), woven into a multi-generational story of a Greek-American family. The story is narrated by Calliope/Cal, who was raised as a girl but discovered at age 14 that she was genetically male. Sounds weird, but I promise you, it is worth reading.

Top 10

The end of the year is approaching, which means that Top Ten lists are everywhere. List-making is one of my favorite activities, so I am going to do my own Top Ten list, of the best books I read this year. Most of these were not actually published this year, so the list has no real link to 2007, but that’s OK. Here they are, in no particular order:

Fiction:

“The Inheritance of Loss,” by Kiran Desai
A sad but lovely story of life in rural India (and the lives of Indian immigrants in the U.S.).

“The Voyage of the Narwhal,” by Andrea Barrett
The story of an ill-fated trip to explore the Arctic circle.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” by J.K. Rowling
The best possible ending to the series.

“Suite Francaise,” by Irene Nemirovsky
A very poignant and beautifully written story of life in Nazi-occupied France.

“The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy
Compelling and grim portrayal of a fictional but entirely believable post-apocalyptic world.


Nonfiction:

“Moneyball,” by Michael Lewis
You might not think that a book devoted to the dealings of the Oakland A’s front office would be all that fascinating. You are WRONG.

“Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert
This book made me want to follow in Gilbert’s footsteps as she traveled to Italy, India and Indonesia.

“My Life in France,” by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme
A lovely account of Child’s life.

“Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage,” by Alfred Lansing
A real life adventure story that kept me entranced, even though I already knew how it ended.

“A Walk in the Woods,” by Bill Bryson
A hilarious account of Bryson’s attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail.


Here’s to many more good reads in 2008!