Book review: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

David Wroblewski’s debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel , sends the reader on a rare journey. The main character, Edgar, grows up on a fourth generation farm where his parents breed and train Sawtelle dogs (a fictional breed.) When Edgar’s father dies suddenly, Edgar’s plan to confront his murderer backfires. For fear of spoilers, I leave the general discription as simply as that.

This is a raw and intriguing book which made me reconsider my perceptions of words like fair, justice and legacy. The continuum of life–as generation after generation of dogs are bred and placed–is ever present. From main stage to minor support, I found all the characters–both canine and human–very believable (even my favorite: Ida Paine, a minor supporting character).

I didn’t want the book to end, and was sadly resigned when it did. I read this book after it received high praise from author Steven King. I echo King’s endorsement, jealous of those who begin this book for the first time–for they journey they’ll encounter as they turn each new page.

Book review: In the Heart of the Sea

Sometimes fact is better than fiction. It can be more unbelievable, more appaling, more unnerving. This kind of thing just can’t be made up.

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (Dover Giant Thrift Editions) is a well-known work of fiction which has engrossed readers for more than a century. But, perhaps, it gets better. Melville’s story was inspired by the real-life events of the Essex sailing crew from Nantucket 1819-1820, familiar to all the whaling industry in that time. It is a story of a whaling ship sunk far in the Pacific Ocean by a vengeful sperm whale. But where Melville’s story ends, the real adventure for members of the Essex had only begun.

Through In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, Nathaniel Philbrick recounts the journey of the crew through their own historical accounts–journals, sea logs, published books. Philbrick weaves together the unimaginable story of being lost at sea for three months, covering 3,000 miles of open sea. Winner of the National Book Award and named to the New York Times Bestseller list, this is an engrossing nugget of U.S. history.

Book review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

First published in 1943, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith is an instant and endearing classic I wished would never end. As Anna Quindlen describes in the book’s forward, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is not the sort of book that can be reduced to its plot line. The best anyone can say is that it is a story about what it means to be human.”

Through the eyes of young Francie, the reader is drawn to Brooklyn circa 1919 where Smith weaves realistic issues of race, poverty, alcoholism, gender roles and immigrant status at the turn of the century. This book has been a favorite of my book club.

Book review: The Worst Hard Time

Timothy Egan’s The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowlis undeniably one of the best, most engrossing, books I’ve read in a long time. If all of history was written this way, I believe more people in our country would know and appreciate the years and events which have shaped this nation. Egan’s book is more than just history. He weaves together an engaging saga of real life, where fact is more compelling than fiction. This is an outstanding book–a ‘must read’.

While Steinbeck wrote of plainsmen who fled the dust storms of the 1930’s in The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition), Egan tells the gripping realities of those who remained. Using their own words from journals and newspapers, their story is haunting and raw. This is the grit and determination which has shaped people of the Great Plains. As one pioneer wrote, “It was not a rain cloud. Nor was it a cloud holding ice pellets. It was not a twiter. It was thick like coarse animal hair; it was alive. People close to it described a feeling of being in a blizzard–a black blizzard, they called it–with an edge like steel wool.”

Natural disasters occur with regularity around the world. Earthquakes, flooding and ice storms are all part of the earth’s cycle. The dustbowl of the 1930’s is different in that it was a completely man-made natural disaster. As ecological stewardship gains in popularity in the 21st century, this book recalls the same pursuit during the dirty ’30s. As politicians today debate the merits of a number of government programs in light of a struggling economy, Egan brings to life the people and circumstances behind several of Franklin Roosevelt’s policies during his presidency.

The end of the book references a film created in 1936, describing the erosion of both soil and spirits in the Great Plains. The film, The Plow That Broke the Plains, was inducted in 1999 to the National Film Registry of “artistically, culturally, and socially significant” films. The first half of the film is available online at http://www.archive.org/details/PlowThatBrokethePlains1.

Guest post: Book review: Mindless Eating

My friend Rachel was really jazzed about a book she listened to (on CD). CBS has promoted this book as a “Freakonomics of Food” and  ABC’s 20/20 ran a segment in 2007 on the book and its premise. I asked Rachel to write a guest post about the book, to which she graciously agreed. Following are her reflections.

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Recently, I enjoyed listening on CD the book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink.  Originally a native of Correctionville, IA, Wansink’s Iowa connections appealed to me in addition to the book’s topic.

I thoroughly enjoyed his humor and also how he combines health, psychology, and consumer behavior. Wansink shares results from a number of experiments that he and his team of graduate students had completed, centered around why we eat the foods we do.

Wansink’s chicken wing example is fresh in my mind.  He and his students hosted a super bowl party for a number of college students.  During the party, the students were offered unlimited chicken wings.  In half the restaurant, the wait staff was told to clear the empty baskets of chicken wings.  In the other half of the restaurant the wait staff was told to leave the empty baskets of chicken wing bones on the tables.  They discovered that if the wait staff removed the visual cue (the empty chicken wing basket), the students consistently ate more chicken wings than the students for whom the baskets were not cleared. Students with no baskets before them did not realize how many chicken wings they actually ate, (the empty baskets had been removed and they no longer could see the remains of what they had gobbled up!) whereas students who visually saw the baskets of bones pile up conscienciously limited their consumption.

Later after listening to the analysis of this study, I went to a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed baskets of chips and salsa—and lo and behold the wait staff removed the baskets when they were empty, replacing them with full baskets and fresh salsa.  Hmmm….how many chips had I eaten, or for that matter how many baskets had I eaten? 

Throughout this book, you often find yourself in these Ah Ha moments, where you realize that you have been eating mindlessly.

Check out Mindless Eating at http://mindlesseating.org/ for more insightful information.

Book review: Eat Pray Love

I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s memior, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, for my book club last month. Following an extremely low point in her life, Gilbert embarks on a journey of self-discovery to global locations which she perceives to have mastered specific areas of well-being: physical (Italy), spiritual (India), emotional (Indonesia).

Throughout the book, I was reminded that this option–of abandoning all responsibility for an extended period of time–to travel the world to “find” one’s self is a luxury very few people can afford. Financial and non-financial implications for the average reader make this book somewhat of a farce from the onset. Clearly the international travel added glamour to the book, though a person could probably just as easily ”find” themself within the cultural variance of traveling within the continental United States. Gilbert’s writing was rather tidy and convenient–noting that this trip was for the specific purpose of producing a book–leading the authenticity to be suspect.

On a side note, I wondered if this is not the “new” American Dream. Sure, the house with 2.5 kids, a dog and a white picket fence remains a standard for achieving the American Dream. Yet it seems that once those things are accomplished, there is a drive to abandon it all…to find freedom from the responsibility all that Dream imposes.

I also wonder if this need to “find” one’s self, to identify some kind of meaning and purpose in our lives is an American phenom which is somehow related to our Dream pursuit. Do people of other cultures wallow in their need to be affirmed that they are doing something worthwhile with their lives? Have we as a culture repressed our ability for pleasure for the pursuit of achieving some great meaning of life? Is this not an upper-middle class (and upper class) luxury? A good friend of mine often reminds me of the perceived Italian way to a satisfied life: good food, good wine, good women (or men). Has the American way paved too complex of a road that we miss the simplisity of a good life?

Book review: Dakota: a Spiritual Geography

Kathleen Norris’ Dakota: A Spiritual Geography is a delightfully raw and reflective book of the people and culture of western North and South Dakotas. Overlooked among the vast population demographics in the United States, the people of the Dakotas–with their seemingly “rough edges”–are often misunderstood by other people groups.

Norris writes in a soothing, meditative style. (The vast and barren geography Dakotas, after all, impose reflective sabbath on those who stay any length of time.) However, she reveals the underlying tension of change and stability, of hospitality and insularity, of hope and despair, between open hearts and closed minds which plagues many rural communities. Norris is careful to not “tell” the reader about the Dakotas. Rather, she “shows” via stories of people and places to help the reader identify and understand this culture and people group.

Dakota was chosen by a member of my book club. Norris visited my workplace (a private, liberal arts college in northwest Iowa) a few weeks ago. Living near the Dakotas and having traveled to small rural communities in western Dakotas and eastern Montana, I resonated with Norris’ premise to appreciate and value the quirks and imperfections of the places I grew up and where I now live. I really enjoyed this book.

Book review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life

I received Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, as a Christmas gift a few months ago. What an inspirational book!

Kingsolver and her family set out to live one year off the bounty of their local county in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. Throughout the book, Kingsolver addresses energy issues and the loss of small farms to support our need for fresh strawberries and spring greens in February. Where our food lives come largely from one can or another, Kingsolver inspires readers to take a more active role in our own food production. Let’s face it, at the rate we’re going with genetically altered/mass processed food, we’ll be eating Dolly in no time–not even remembering what real lamb tastes like.

In response to this book, I am committed to the following steps:

1) Support a local farmer who raises egg-laying chickens. Starting with 1 dozen per week, farm fresh eggs will become a staple for my family. Farm fresh eggs are a better source of protein and omega-3 fatty acid than commercially produced eggs due to the diets of the egg layers & the fact that those layers are not deceived into producing an abnormal quantity of eggs within the daylight cycle.

2) Increase my support for my local farmer’s market. I have been a casual patron in recent years, but expect to become a more invested customer this summer. In the absence of my own garden, I plan to utilize this venue to can and freeze a healthy portion of my family’s food for the upcoming winter. Eventually I would like to begin a new garden and add a few fruit trees/bushes (cherries & blueberries). My husband & I are currently trying to sell our house. Once we find a new location, these will become higher priorities. Finding a house with a lot to support this new venture will be on my mind.

3) Better support the local meat market. Over the years, the meat market has offered free-range chickens. The beef they sell is locally produced. I need to check to see if they accept CAFO livestock (something I’d rather avoid). Having an old-style meat market in a small town of 5,000 is unique. Better supporting this business is good for the community, and good for my family.

4) Making my own cheese. Yes, that’s right. Kingsbury notes the ease–and relative less expense–of making one’s own cheese. Using her supplier, I have ordered two kits: one for soft cheeses (mozzarella & ricotta) and one for hard cheeses (Gouda, cheddar, Monterey Jack, etc.) Each kit contains enough ingredients (sans the milk) for 30 lbs. of cheese. The soft cheeses can be made in 30 minutes. The hard cheeses must age, depending on the kind, anywhere from 8-18 months. I am eager to give these kits a try with my kids this coming weekend.

Food plays a significant role in our lives–what we eat, how it’s made. It sustains us. It affects our dispositions, can “regulate” our bodies and protects us against toxins and allergens. Food is centered for both celebrations and wakes. It draws us together as families and friends. We have handed over this responsibility to pretty cellophane packaging and empty calories with scarcely another thought. Reclaiming the goodness of joining in the process from seed to leaf to flower to produce makes us intentional about what, and how, we eat. I can hardly wait for summer.

Book review: The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead by David Callahan

I read The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead for a business ethics course I’m taking for a Masters degree. For required reading, I was really engaged in this book. Callahan writes openly about the cultural change in America over the last 50 or so years–contributing influences and world events which have modified the moral compass of ethically appropriate behavior. For instance, the individualistic of the ’60s paved the way for the laissez-faire, materialistic generation of the ’80s. It wasn’t how the former generation expected it to turn out, though they contributed to it nonetheless.

Of life before the 1960’s Callahan says, “Freedom for individuals meant freedom to speak openly, freedom to worship as we wished, and freedom to live where we wanted. It did not mean freedom to operate outside the norms established by the community, family, and religion. A young man could go west to start his own business and enter politics; a young man could not leave his wife and kids to go west, and he couldn’t open an X-rated movie theater once he got there” (p. 109).

While most Americans would never consider shoplifting a pack of gum, Callahan asserts that about 50% of Americans commit a felony every April 15. The rules of the game have changed. Unethical behavior is permissible because “everybody does it”. The social injustice surrounding tax evasion is appalling. The mainstream would suggest that if you don’t cheat the system, you’re only cheating yourself. However, the far reaching, trickle-down effect of these kinds of choices is vast.

Callahan charges both political parties and the Church with varied failings in their responsibilities to curb the cheating culture. Of the cultural shift in the early 1980’s he writes:

“Liberals were too busy worrying about Star Wars, the Contras, and Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork to attack the money culture. Also, somewhere along the line liberals had lost their ability to talk about values and their skills for moral storytelling. …Among other things, this abdication allowed the right to successfully attack some parts of the new individualism while allowing other parts to flourish. …Conservatives had little to say–then and now–about the moral downsides of the money culture, such as greed, cheating, materialism, envy, and the ways in which careerism elbowed aside family and community. For all their invocations of God, it seemed that the right’s moral missionaries had only read every other page of the Bible–ignoring the incessant warnings in both testaments about the evils of becoming obsessed with riches and growing callous toward the less fortunate.

“From the early ’80s on, the individualism spawned by the ’60s evolved in a deeply lopsided way. Conservatives championed those individual freedoms associated with the free market, while deriding the hedonism associated with the counterculture. It became not all right in our society to express yourself by altering your consciousness with drugs or getting naked with strangers. But it was all right–admired, in fact–to express yourself with a Rolex, a Porsche, or a pedantic mastery of French wines” (p. 113-114).

The gap between the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-poor could be acceptable if the means of becoming ultra-wealthy made sense. Callahan uses examples from professional baseball to Wall Street to show that the widening gap is not healthy for America. People who cheat, says Callahan, often do so because they perceive injustice toward themselves. Callahan uses one example after another of national leaders and organizations or small firms and everyday people which could happen anywhere.

At times Callahan’s ideas are left of center. Any hard-core Republican he would likely offend. For instance, he suggests that government can, and should, play a large role in helping people realize the middle class dream. He stops short, however, to say that the role of government should be a catalyst for these dreams–not a free-ride.

Throughout the book I found myself conducting a self-evaluation of my own moral compass, considering the filter for my own actions. This is a fantastic read. I highly recommend it.

Book review: Plain Truth by Jodie Picoult

Picoult’s Plain Truth is based on the discovery of a dead newborn in an Amish community reads quickly. The characters on this novel are endearing and their story-lines are well-developed. I was pleased with Picoult’s sensitivity to the Amish culture, generally misunderstood by the mainstream public. The contrast of Amish and “English” cultures is a regular source of friction for the eighteen-year-old Plain teen on trial and her Sod lawyer from Philadelphia.

One thing from the book that struck a cord with me is how Amish forgive unconditionally and without judgment–a contrast to our own society which weighs heavily motive and sincerity in everything from consumer advertisements to business dealings. The Amish life of peace and simplicity is one which many people seek, though few people achieve. The desire of Amish members to blend in as a group is a stark contrast to our culture of individualism. As Picoult notes repeatedly: being Amish is something you are, not something you do.

This book was chosen by a member of my book club. I would consider it a typical summer “beach book”–an engaging “feel good” book.