I have been sadly delinquent as a blogger and reader this month, for some reason. I have only finished one book! It was a good one though: “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by Jon Krakauer, which I read for my book group.
The book is about Mormonism, specifically a breakaway group of fundamentalist Mormons who still practice polygamy. Coincidentally, this story about a compound of Fundamentalist Mormons broke while we were reading the book. I had no idea that so many Mormons were still practicing polygamy, but, as Krakauer describes it, there are several towns in the Western U.S., Canada and Mexico where there are still enclaves of polygamous Mormons.
The Mormon church officially condemns polygamy, but these fundamentalist groups say that true believer must practice it, because it was proclaimed by the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. Smith claims that he received a revelation from God saying that polygamy was an essential sacred practice, but it seems like the truth was more like he decided he wanted to sleep with women other than his first wife, especially younger women. (His first wife was not very happy about this.)
Under pressure from the U.S. government, the church outlawed polygamy in 1890, but as illustrated recently in Texas, the practice still continues. Disturbingly, many of the “wives” are barely older than 15.
Krakauer focuses on the history of the development of fundamental Mormonism. As an extreme example of such fundamentalism, he relates the story of a murder that took place in 1984. Ron Lafferty, a Mormon who had decided he wanted to practice polygamy, claimed he received a revelation from God telling him to kill his sister-in-law, Brenda Lafferty, who he felt was obstructing his efforts to expand his family.
Krakauer’s descriptions of fundamentalist Mormons reminded me of another book I read recently, “The Looming Tower,” about fundamentalist Muslims. In both religions, when taken to extremes, followers believe that not only is their brand of religion the only valid one, but non-believers, or anyone else who gets in their way, must be killed.
There are so many bizarre aspects of Mormonism, from the founding revelation of the church, delivered by an angel named in Moroni in upstate New York, to the long undergarment that all devout Mormons are supposed to wear every day. But to be fair, all major religions have elements that are really strange if you think about them at all. It’s just easier to pick apart Mormonism because it developed so recently and its history has been documented extensively.
Not surprisingly, the book was not very well received by the Mormon church. Amusingly, one day while I was reading it on the T, a young Mormon missionary (I could tell by his nametag) got on the train and sat down across from me. I tried to obscure the cover of the book, I don’t think he noticed it. Phew!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
"It's not you, it's your books"
I love this essay from yesterday’s New York Times.
I have never broken up with anyone over their taste in books, though it seems like something I am capable of doing. I tend to agree with the author quoted in that essay saying, “It’s really great if you find a guy that reads, period.” Even better, I found a guy with pretty good taste in books—he even borrows mine sometimes ;)
I have never broken up with anyone over their taste in books, though it seems like something I am capable of doing. I tend to agree with the author quoted in that essay saying, “It’s really great if you find a guy that reads, period.” Even better, I found a guy with pretty good taste in books—he even borrows mine sometimes ;)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Ghost stories
OK, I have finally gotten around to writing about “The Ghost Map.” :) This is another in my series of books about death and disaster, which I so enjoy reading. In this installment, the agent of destruction is the bacterium that causes cholera, and the setting is 1850s London.
I don’t think I would really have liked living during this time period. For starters, the city was overrun with sewage. It was also a place where illness and death constantly lurked, in the air you breathed, in the water you drank. And the worst of it was, people had no idea what was causing cholera or any of the other diseases that periodically broke out in the overcrowded city.
As author Steven Johnson writes:
“To live in such a world was to live with the shadow of death hovering over your shoulder at every moment. To live was to be not dead yet… As a matter of practical reality, the threat of sudden devastation—your entire extended family wiped out in a matter of days—was far more immediate than the terror threats of today.”
One London physician, John Snow, suspected that cholera was transmitted through drinking water, but his theory was sneered at by most of the medical establishment, who believed the disease was “miasmatic,” or carried in the (very stinky) air that arose from London’s overflowing sewers and cesspools.
During one outbreak in August 1854, Snow determined that the vast majority of those who fell ill had drunk water from a particular neighborhood well. Even when he presented this map to city health officials, they clung to the miasma theory, but eventually Snow was able to persuade them he was right. That realization led Londoners to built one of the most extensive sewer systems in the world and essentially eliminate cholera in the city.
In fact, the development of modern sewer systems, according to Johnson, was one of the key factors that allowed cities to develop into places that can sustain huge numbers of people.
This book is loaded with historical detail and Johnson does a good job of placing the 1854 outbreak into a broader historical context. It’s also a definite page-turner. I highly recommend it, especially if you share my taste for books about disease and disaster…
I don’t think I would really have liked living during this time period. For starters, the city was overrun with sewage. It was also a place where illness and death constantly lurked, in the air you breathed, in the water you drank. And the worst of it was, people had no idea what was causing cholera or any of the other diseases that periodically broke out in the overcrowded city.
As author Steven Johnson writes:
“To live in such a world was to live with the shadow of death hovering over your shoulder at every moment. To live was to be not dead yet… As a matter of practical reality, the threat of sudden devastation—your entire extended family wiped out in a matter of days—was far more immediate than the terror threats of today.”
One London physician, John Snow, suspected that cholera was transmitted through drinking water, but his theory was sneered at by most of the medical establishment, who believed the disease was “miasmatic,” or carried in the (very stinky) air that arose from London’s overflowing sewers and cesspools.
During one outbreak in August 1854, Snow determined that the vast majority of those who fell ill had drunk water from a particular neighborhood well. Even when he presented this map to city health officials, they clung to the miasma theory, but eventually Snow was able to persuade them he was right. That realization led Londoners to built one of the most extensive sewer systems in the world and essentially eliminate cholera in the city.
In fact, the development of modern sewer systems, according to Johnson, was one of the key factors that allowed cities to develop into places that can sustain huge numbers of people.
This book is loaded with historical detail and Johnson does a good job of placing the 1854 outbreak into a broader historical context. It’s also a definite page-turner. I highly recommend it, especially if you share my taste for books about disease and disaster…
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Expectations
Yesterday was an exciting day – I finished TWO books that I have been reading for a while. I’ll start with “People of the Book,” by Geraldine Brooks. I was really looking forward to reading this book because I really enjoyed all of her others. I even bought it in hardcover (though it was pretty cheap on Amazon :) ) I had high expectations, but I have to say they were only partially met.
The book is set in 1996 Sarajevo, where a book conservator named Hanna is asked to examine a very old manuscript, an illustrated haggadah (used during the Passover seder) known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. There is an actual Sarajevo Haggadah that inspired the novel, and its real history is fascinating – Geraldine Brooks also wrote a piece in The New Yorker recently about how it was saved from the Nazis by a Muslim librarian during World War II.
Anyway, back to the novel – it alternates between scenes from Hanna’s life and her study of the book, and flashbacks to critical moments in the book’s history, all the way back to its creation in the late 1400s. I would say that the book only half fulfilled my expectations because the historical chapters were very good, but the chapters that focused on Hanna seemed very unrealistic. They reminded me of “The Da Vinci Code,” but not in a good way (contrived plot twists, lame dialogue).
Both of Brooks’ earlier novels were historical fiction, and one of them won a Pulitzer Prize, so I’m hoping that she will return to that genre in her future work :)
I’ll post something soon about the other book I just read, “The Ghost Map,” by Steven Johnson. Stay tuned…
The book is set in 1996 Sarajevo, where a book conservator named Hanna is asked to examine a very old manuscript, an illustrated haggadah (used during the Passover seder) known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. There is an actual Sarajevo Haggadah that inspired the novel, and its real history is fascinating – Geraldine Brooks also wrote a piece in The New Yorker recently about how it was saved from the Nazis by a Muslim librarian during World War II.
Anyway, back to the novel – it alternates between scenes from Hanna’s life and her study of the book, and flashbacks to critical moments in the book’s history, all the way back to its creation in the late 1400s. I would say that the book only half fulfilled my expectations because the historical chapters were very good, but the chapters that focused on Hanna seemed very unrealistic. They reminded me of “The Da Vinci Code,” but not in a good way (contrived plot twists, lame dialogue).
Both of Brooks’ earlier novels were historical fiction, and one of them won a Pulitzer Prize, so I’m hoping that she will return to that genre in her future work :)
I’ll post something soon about the other book I just read, “The Ghost Map,” by Steven Johnson. Stay tuned…
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Take your broke rack home
I have never really liked Scrabble. But for some reason, when you put it online and give it a catchy new name, I become addicted to it. I refer of course to Scrabulous, the most excellent time-waster I have ever seen. I am really not very good at it, but I usually have at least five games going at once. (I have to draw the line at playing at work though – I would never get anything done!)
Inspired by my new addiction, I decided to finally read a book that I bought a few months ago but hadn’t gotten around to yet – “Word Freak,” by Stefan Fatsis. The author is a Wall Street Journal reporter who decided to devote a year to Scrabble to see if he could become an expert level player.
Fatsis started hanging out with several of the best Scrabble players in the U.S., a motley collection of mostly unemployed, unsocialized young men who spend all of their time memorizing word lists and quizzing each other on anagrams. At first he is somewhat disdainful of all the time they spend on Scrabble, but soon enough he becomes sucked into the crazed world of competitive Scrabble.
These people are not joking around – it’s not unusual to see words like SUQ, ZINCOID, LIAISES and ACAROID appear on the board. Players compile and study lists of the letter combinations most likely to produce bingos (which use all 7 letters on your rack), lists of two letter words, lists of words that include BOAT, etc, etc.
An aside: My most glorious Scrabulous moment so far involves making ZANY with a triple-word score, with the Y hooked onto JAUNT to form JAUNTY. That totaled about 80 points, which is nothing compared to the moves that the elite players make all the time.
Fatsis profiles many of the major players and delves into the history of Scrabble as he relates his personal quest to reach the expert level. The game was invented by architect Alfred Butts in the 1930s and eventually bought by Hasbro (Mattel owns the international rights). Both companies have been making quite a fuss over the huge popularity of Scrabulous and are threatening to shut it down. In my opinion, that would just alienate all of the new Scrabble fans (like me!), which seems like a marketing fiasco. Hopefully they can come up with some kind of agreement… I’m optimistic that it hasn’t been shut down yet :)
Btw the title of this post comes from this fantastic song, “Scrabulous,” a parody of “Glamorous,” passed on to me by Mimi37 (who always beats me at Scrabulous! Grrrr). My favorite line: “If you ain’t got no vowels take your broke rack home.”
Inspired by my new addiction, I decided to finally read a book that I bought a few months ago but hadn’t gotten around to yet – “Word Freak,” by Stefan Fatsis. The author is a Wall Street Journal reporter who decided to devote a year to Scrabble to see if he could become an expert level player.
Fatsis started hanging out with several of the best Scrabble players in the U.S., a motley collection of mostly unemployed, unsocialized young men who spend all of their time memorizing word lists and quizzing each other on anagrams. At first he is somewhat disdainful of all the time they spend on Scrabble, but soon enough he becomes sucked into the crazed world of competitive Scrabble.
These people are not joking around – it’s not unusual to see words like SUQ, ZINCOID, LIAISES and ACAROID appear on the board. Players compile and study lists of the letter combinations most likely to produce bingos (which use all 7 letters on your rack), lists of two letter words, lists of words that include BOAT, etc, etc.
An aside: My most glorious Scrabulous moment so far involves making ZANY with a triple-word score, with the Y hooked onto JAUNT to form JAUNTY. That totaled about 80 points, which is nothing compared to the moves that the elite players make all the time.
Fatsis profiles many of the major players and delves into the history of Scrabble as he relates his personal quest to reach the expert level. The game was invented by architect Alfred Butts in the 1930s and eventually bought by Hasbro (Mattel owns the international rights). Both companies have been making quite a fuss over the huge popularity of Scrabulous and are threatening to shut it down. In my opinion, that would just alienate all of the new Scrabble fans (like me!), which seems like a marketing fiasco. Hopefully they can come up with some kind of agreement… I’m optimistic that it hasn’t been shut down yet :)
Btw the title of this post comes from this fantastic song, “Scrabulous,” a parody of “Glamorous,” passed on to me by Mimi37 (who always beats me at Scrabulous! Grrrr). My favorite line: “If you ain’t got no vowels take your broke rack home.”
Sunday, March 2, 2008
"The Penelopiad"
This month’s book group selection was short but entertaining: “The Penelopiad,” by Margaret Atwood. It’s part of a series in which well-known authors retell famous myths – in this case, the story of Odysseus’ wife, Penelope.
I thought Atwood did a nice job of shedding more light on what was going on at Odysseus’ palace while he was off gallivanting with sirens, goddesses, etc., leaving his wife to the mercy of the gluttonous suitors. In the book’s introduction, Atwood writes that she has always been curious about the lives of the 12 maids whom Odysseus hanged upon his return, ostensibly because they were sleeping with the suitors. In Atwood’s retelling, the story is much more complicated and ambiguous. The maids and Penelope offer differing versions of events, leaving the reader to wonder who is the more reliable narrator.
Most of us agreed that while the novel was insightful and fun to read, Atwood could have gone much deeper into the subject. The book weighs in at less than 200 pages, though it seems like brevity is one of the intended features of the series, according to this article.
For our next book group selection, we decided to branch into non-fiction and will be reading “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by Jon Krakauer. It’s about Mormons, specifically some of the more radical sects. I loved his book about climbing Mount Everest, “Into Thin Air,” so I am looking forward to this one.
I thought Atwood did a nice job of shedding more light on what was going on at Odysseus’ palace while he was off gallivanting with sirens, goddesses, etc., leaving his wife to the mercy of the gluttonous suitors. In the book’s introduction, Atwood writes that she has always been curious about the lives of the 12 maids whom Odysseus hanged upon his return, ostensibly because they were sleeping with the suitors. In Atwood’s retelling, the story is much more complicated and ambiguous. The maids and Penelope offer differing versions of events, leaving the reader to wonder who is the more reliable narrator.
Most of us agreed that while the novel was insightful and fun to read, Atwood could have gone much deeper into the subject. The book weighs in at less than 200 pages, though it seems like brevity is one of the intended features of the series, according to this article.
For our next book group selection, we decided to branch into non-fiction and will be reading “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by Jon Krakauer. It’s about Mormons, specifically some of the more radical sects. I loved his book about climbing Mount Everest, “Into Thin Air,” so I am looking forward to this one.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
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!
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!
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