Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn) on Sunday

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/ / CC BY 2.0

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn's Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, is a collection of essays about women in extraordinary circumstances that the two journalists met and interviewed. Yet despite the horrors each of these women faced, an inner strength kept them from giving up. The authors describe the despicable conditions and horrid treatment in painful detail. So, the book is hard to read, to realize people can be treated that way, to understand that rising up and out of those circumstances remains so difficult. The culture condones it in some cases. Corrupt police look the other way or take advantage of the situation themselves in other cases.

Take Meena Hainsa, an Indian Muslim. She was kidnapped, trafficked, sold and kept enslaved in a town in Bhihar, near Nepal's border. She like many girls from poor village families in Nepal, India, and Cambodia are taken to town by middlemen with promises that they will work as fruit sellers. Instead, they are sold to brothels. And even if there was a chance to escape--where would they go? Their own family would not even take them back after learning their daughter lost their virginity, was taken by men.

Given the subject matter, I struggled with the brunch I would pair with the book club's discussion of the book. The women, who come from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, from Cambodia, Thailand, and India, are vastly different in terms of language and culture. Yet, all come from economically impoverished backgrounds and so the idea of serving opulent food was at odds with the women being represented in our reading. Playing host for such a book was proving more difficult than I thought.

So as I drove home from a busy morning downtown, I stopped at the new Whole Foods grocery store in Inner Bay in Seattle. Whole Foods, wholesome foods, and then I knew what I would cook. The book is about subsistence, the raw elements of human nature are all we have left when we find ourselves abandoned. And it is their strength of character that makes these women survive when all seem against them.

Subsistence is simple. Subsistence is fresh. Subsistence is to satisfy basic needs. So, I chose the egg. I cooked simple french omelets. Cheese. I shredded a bit of cheese on top, a small luxury: Morbier A.D.C. raw Mile, Les Trois Comtoi. Apparently morbier cheese is known for how it is treated. During the cheese processing, beer, water, or wine is poured over the rind and so the cultured cheese takes on a kind of nutty flavor.

I used salt and pepper to flavor the omelet and a little butter. The very basic of basic seasons. I bought a loaf of fresh bread from Whole Foods as well. Heated in the oven so the crust was flaky. Then despite extra carbohydrates, I fried potatoes as well, adding a little salt and pepper as well as garlic for spice.

On the table I had fresh grapes and strawberries, and a bit of watermelon. I made a pot of Darjeeling tea as well as brewed some coffee.

Bread, egg, potato, fruit. Of course the meal was a luxury far more than many of the women in this book had.

Those of us who read the book know that it was a stroke of luck that we were born here in the US versus in the small villages of Ethiopia, Congo, or Cambodia. But the crux of a book like this is to realize that we have the capacity to help, to change things on a small scale or even a large scale. A book like this opens the world wide to knowing why and how.

Nicholas Kristof's columns in the New York Times

Nicholas Kristof's channel on YouTube

Sunday Brunch Menu

French omelet with Shredded cheese: Morbier A.D.C. raw Mile, Les Trois Comtois
Potatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic
Bread
Butter and French Cantalet cheese
Goat cheese
Strawberries
Red grapes
Watermelon
Coffee
Darjeeling tea

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (Elizabeth Gilbert)

By the best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love, the sequel, Committed takes us with Elizabeth Gilbert as she comes to terms with a life-changing decision. In fact, she's committed to the decision. Committed to a significant other, ring or not. Committed to make marriage vows, like them or not. In this most recent book, Gilbert meditates on her reluctance to marry Felipe, a Brazilian man she had been dating and living with for two years.

He is the same man Gilbert fell in love with at the end of the sojourn she chronicles in Eat, Pray, Love, now being made into a motion picture with Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem.

Gilbert is not alone in her decision not to marry, as it is shared by her significant other. It is that they are forced to make this choice when no other is left available. Felipe is permanently blocked from returning to the US after "overusing" his tourist visa, according to the Homeland Security guard that "deports" him back to Australia, where he has citizenship but no longer a home, and hasn't had a home there in over ten years.

So for nearly a year, the two of them travel from one cheap hotel in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, or Indonesia to another. All the while, Gilbert researches the history of marriage in the Western world and interviews married women, not all of them Western.  She interviews a Hmong woman in Vietnam as well as her own mother and grandmother to find out  if they were happy to be married and if they were okay with whatever they gave up in getting married.

Gilbert's book interested me, not only because I thoroughly enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love, but because as a single woman Gilbert's own age,  I, too, have thought a great deal about marriage, its benefits and detriments. And in comparison, other kinds of commitment that don't involve an exchange of vows and a signed, witnessed piece of legitimacy. For as Gilbert discovers in her research, and I have read and heard before, studies show marriage benefits men much more than women. Women who marry are more likely to be depressed than their single sisters; they are less healthy in general; and they don't make as much money or go as far in their careers. The inverse of all of these is true for married men. They are richer, healthier, and more successful when compared to their bachelor brothers.

Albeit, I have no statistics or studies to back me up, I'm going to go out on a limb so say that  not all single men are like my good friend Scott who dines out more often than he uses his own kitchen.  And not all single women are akin to the Cosmopolitan-drinking, weekends-on-the-town with Carrie and friends on Sex and the City. Because unlike these women, I like to cook. As do many men I know.  Likely all of us for the same reason.  We like really good food, and food worth eating does not come from a box or a carton that is reconstituted with oil and water or nuked in a microwave.

Here's another tidbit that women reading this may recognize. For a great while, I found myself reluctant to admit I liked to cook, because what often followed was a comment that my liking to cook would make me a good wife (and note here that I know full well that this comment was always meant as a compliment), but it was a comment that I never took lightly.  For what I heard, nice or not, was that my culinary aptitude was akin to a job qualification, or was it a designation?

So, I was relieved that Gilbert was not the chief cook in her book, or was that purposeful? She purposely mentions that it is her boyfriend, Felipe.  I can name a number of men that cook delicious food, but I can also imagine that not a one of them have been told that he would make a good husband, based on his skill in the kitchen.  Because a woman who cooks is akin to a woman that cares for a man and her children. That's how I would interpret the comments I received. A caretaker. Someone who brings comfort as well as sustenance to those she loves. Gilbert has no inclination for children, unwilling as she is to make the sacrifices she sees her own grandmother and mother made in marrying and starting families.

So, if I were to cook or to dine, I would not choose the caviar and champagne moments associated with marriage proposals. For Gilbert, like me, does not take the decision to marry lightly. Rather it is a decision mulled over, journalled about, researched, and talked about endlessly into the night.  And in times of stress and strife, what do we normally turn to? Comfort food would be "it" for me. Mac 'n cheese, of course. Cheesey, creamy bowls of macaroni noodles. Or a bowl of minestrone and a long fresh baguette. A glass of Beaujolais. Food that stirs tastebuds, brings back memories of the cozy kitchens we felt at ease in. Because for all the hesitation I have to be a mother, I loved being mothered. Does this make me "unwomanly or unnatural or selfish," adjectives Gilbert uses to describe the attitude some may have toward women who are not dying to have children or get married? I certainly hope not.

Because the truth is I would readily invite my whole neighborhood over for a Friday night cocktail or a Saturday barbecue of grilled salmon. And my nephew knows he has got me wound around his little finger when it comes to spending time with him. Because I have never for a minute doubted the joy that children bring.

More on Elizabeth Gilbert: http://www.elizabethgilbert.com

Hunting and Gathering (Anna Gavalda)

I lucked out big time when I was invited to join this book club. Not only do we talk about intriguing books, but the food we eat to accompany the conversation is worthy of a five-star restaurant. So, henceforth, I will review books from this book club alongside the menu.

March 14, 2010

Perhaps most perfect is the most recent book club read: Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda. I say the "most perfect" as food is central to the gained intimacy of the characters, and an amicable setting for friends to gather and discuss books.

Around our real table, Carol proudly admitted to using Volume 1 of Julia Child's original cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And it sounded like she and her husband spent many hours following the recipes to a tee, complete with all the butter. It wasn't the first time. The book looked well worn, with stains like bookmarks on favorite recipes.

On each of our plates, Carol had placed a menu:

Potage Parmentier (Leek and Potato Soup, blogged about here: http://cookinginpajamas.onsugar.com/Mastering-Art-French-Cooking-Potage-Parmentier-aka-Leek-Potato-Soup-3462687)

Salade avec Sauce Vinaigrette (Salad with French Dressing, the dressing copied here: http://bad-girls-kitchen.blogspot.com/2010/04/sauce-vinaigrette-french-dressing.html)

Quiche a la Tomate, Nicoise (Fresh Tomato Quiche with Anchovies and Olives, and I thought I didn't like anchovies. How wrong I was!)

Quiche aux Champignons (Mushroom Quiche)

The dessert, Carol added, had been too much after cooking the other dishes for most of the day. So, instead, after the meal, she pulled out frozen containers of lemon and raspberry sherbet.

Anna Gavalda

Carol had cooked French food because the book of the month, Hunting and Gathering, had been originally published in French as Ensemble, C'est tout. It was Anna Gavalda's fourth book. It's the story of a oddball group of four characters brought together despite their history, baggage, and circumstances in a timeless apartment where they are all little more than temporary squatters.

Camille Fauque, the central character, is a failed artist. Anorexic thin, we meet her when she has given up all hope and resolved to get by as a cleaning woman at night. Yet, living with Philou and Franck and eventually Franck's grandmother, Paulette, she finds herself wanting to find her way back.

Philou, the endearingly tall, awkward and stuttering fellow that Camille invited over one evening for dinner, becomes the catalyst that eventually brings Camille into the apartment after he finds her deathly ill. He comes from an aristocratic family, but has little affinity for them. His interest lies in by-gone centuries, and he opts to sell postcards on the street.

Franck is a womanizing, seemingly selfish and conceited fellow, who works six days a week as a chef. And yet, he becomes essential to the nourishment Camille needs for her transformation. She requests the food he cooks so that she will "be warmer and more appetizing," she says.

(An interesting idea--that good food can make us more lovable. All the more reason for us to talk about a book around a meal!)

The three, led largely by Camille, kidnap Franck's doddering grandmother, Paulette, from the public home to live with them in the apartment. Paulette is slowly slipping into dementia, but "with it" enough to recognize Camille needs a house as much as a home. She is by far my favorite character, especially after she comes into her own, teaching Camille how to plant and care for a garden.

(Again-food! Subsistence and life force, but thanks to birthplace and privilege, a taste-bud buffet stringed chemically to our feel-good meter.)

But why oh why was the French title translated into "hunting and gathering?" The French, "ensemble, c'est tout," translated imperfectly, is "together, that's everything," a more accurate title, if you ask me. Living together, despite squabbles and irritations, is infinitely better than living alone. And that friends, dear, dear friends, can provide a sense of belonging when family is absent or cancerous.

If my one gripe is that the ending is too predictable, I have to still admit that I kept reading with the same fascination 'til the end. Probably because a skeptic like me expects failures too often. Failed relationships. Failed love. Failed careers. And each one of these characters has failed. Failed in big ways. And still, these characters find solace in each other, making me realize that human compassion, love, and hope survive calamity. So long as there are others and that they stay together. That's everything.

Now a motion picture, starring Audrey Tautou. Trailer for the movie at: http://www.huntingandgathering.com.au/


PS Stay tuned. Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times is up next. And I'm the chef. Any suggestions for menu items?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery)

I knew that Elegance of the Hedgehog was a best-seller sensation, and like most folks, I'm drawn to books with such a reputation. And don't return the book to the library until I'm finished either, even if it is two weeks overdue. All to savor the sensation itself.

Apparently, the first printing was only 4000 books, and the demand in France soon skyrocketed. But what exactly is the appeal, I ask myself now, having finished every page.

Curious characters, perhaps? Two characters balance the narrative. A French concierge, Madame Renee Michel, who lives in a posh Parisian neighborhood, inconspicuous to the other tenants because she feigns the kind of personality an old, crotchety, not-well-off concierge would have. Her secret, however, is that she is a voracious reader of philosophy, literature, an art, music, and film affectionato, especially Japanese cinema. The other character is as much of an oddball. Paloma Josse is a 12-year old, unhappily living in the same building with her family, whom she regards as shallow. Resigned to this fate, she believes, Josse decides that on her 13th birthday, she will burn the apartment and commit suicide with the sleeping pills she has been sneaking from her mother. What upsets the isolation of these two is the moving in of a wealthy Japanese businessman, Monsieur Kakuro Ozo. He sees right through their disguises.

Or is the allure the drip-dropping of famous Japanese directors, philosophic musings, allusions to Tolstoy--both Michel and Ozo's cats are named after Tolstoy characters? Perhaps not surprising is that the author trained in and then taught philosophy. And that she currently lives in Japan with her husband. Take a look at her own blog: http://muriel.barbery.net/. I adore the pictures and the reflections--short and deep. So perhaps now I am merely in awe of the author, hoping some of her talent rubs off on me.

But why oh why end the book in the way it does? Take away the quills of Michel's porcupine self, which in more ways than one, are the weapons to protect her. For me, the wrap up is too tidy, too neat. And just plain disappointing. That's all I can say, as I cannot be a spoiler, and thus I trust you will read the novel and come to your own conclusions.

The Beggar Maid (Alice Munroe)

A series of short stories follows Rose and her not-quite-ever-broken ties to her stepmother Flo in Hanratty, Ontario, an economically impoverished town. It is these ties that bind, entwine, and squeeze too tight that become a running theme through each story. The ties that become a tug-of-war between the real self she tries to leave behind in Hanratty and the imagined self she presents to others, such as to Patrick Blanford, heir to a chain of department store. And yet he does the same; he falls in love with the idea of Rose as a beggar maid, the innocent, ragged imp he hopes to fashion into someone refined and glamorous. And Rose, liking the attention and possession he feels, lets herself be taken in. Neither in marriage nor in the go-nowhere affairs does she find satisfaction or fulfillment, the latter marked by endless "watchpot thinking," waiting for hours and days, strangled by hope; "the waiting would be interspersed with such green and springlike reveries." So characteristic, perhaps, of Rose who has in fact escaped the fate of others from her hometown, and yet never escaped. She becomes an actress and then a teacher of drama, play-acting for others and continually doubting herself. Perhaps not surprising is that she finds her closest connection with a classmate whom she briefly sat next to in class. It is with Ralph Gillespie--famous for the imitations of others he does--that she feels kinship. Munroe's book is not a quick read for the beach or for the plane, as the language she uses must be savored and swallowed slowly to be fully appreciated.

Arthur & George (Julian Barnes)

Funny how two people's lives can be so interesting to a reader, even before the twists and turns of the plot ensnare you in their stories. Such is the case with Julian Barnes' 2006 novel, Arthur & George. These characters as you might guess from the title are Arthur and George, seemingly ordinary blokes, until their fictionalized characters become recognizable in history as Sir Aurthur Doyle and George Edalji, a solicitor who gained notoriety in England for being unjustly accused of a crime he didn't commit. Arthur, already a world acclaimed crime writer, inventor of the one and only Sherlock Holmes, feels compelled to help George who has written to Arthur of his case. A case of two men, whose philosophies propel them forward into what become at length undesirable and barely enduring. For Arthur, whose grows up in a family of women, honor is a missive he holds upright, almost as if he lays it upon this pedestal. While George is blighted by his own adherence to the law he believes to the bitter end will save him. Barnes is a gifted writer, whose shifts back and forth between these two men's lives lived simultaneously feels natural. Albeit the tangent of their meeting begins late in the book, when the intrigue of a crime fighter against the prejudices of a small village unfolds, there is much before and after to keep a reader up late nights reading.

What I'm reading

Why read just one . . .

John le Carré's The Constant Gardener (got to read it before I see the movie!)

Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope--excellent!

Traveller's Tales' A Woman's Path

Robert Ray's The Weekend Novelist

Molly Gloss's The Hearts of Horses--so, so

And just found this site: http://www.bookbrowse.com/top_reviews/

An Artist of the Floating World (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Kazuo Ishiguro, who also wrote “The Remains of the Day,” is a highly lauded Japanese author, born in Japan, then moved to England at the age of six. The novel follows Masuji Ono, a much accomplished artist from October 1948 to June 1950. The background is a Japan recovering and rebuilding after World War II. Ono-san had joined the patriotic fervor leading up to the war. Confrontations with Mr. Kuroda, his former pupil, along with suggestions from his daughter Setsuko’s hint at past transgressions as does Ono-san believing his role in the war may hinder his daughter Noriko’s miai, or marriage arrangement. The new generation—Suichi, Setsuko’s husband, and Taro, his new son-in-law—regard the newly embraced democracy as tantamount to a happy future, even if, as Ono-san sees it, Japan remains in the shadow of America. He is old, retired, belittled by his two daughters, and so he passes his time reinterpreting conversations he’s had and sharing scenes of his past. Ono-san’s thoughts often glide in and out of these scenes even as his present life carries on, glimpses of past glories haunt the present in the same way Mrs. Kawakami’s traditional bar is soon overshadowed by multi-story offices. Unfortunately for this reader, the pacing of the novel is slow, and the meaning of those recounted episodes not evident until the reader has nearly finished the book. Still, perhaps the genius lies in the irony of a man stuck in the floating world of the past. And despite his break with Mori-san, his former mentor, Ono-san realizes the break was anything but clean. Ono-san’s words, thoughts he realizes may have been molded from his former teacher, show his life not so far removed from the one he so criticized in his former mentor. So, this inheritance--stuck as it seems in the floating world--only comes to fruition when he learns to break free.

Stiff (Mary Roach)

I remember one of my students recommending her book to me, so when it came up as a suggestion for my book club, I jumped on it, knowing only that it was a book about dead bodies. Boy, am I glad I finally had the chance to read Roach’s first book. It’s as entertaining as it is informative, one of the best combinations for remembered fodder that tends to pop up in conversations long after the last page is read. “Oh! That reminds me of this thing I read in Stiff . . .” Which I brought up recently after watching X-Files the movie, in which two women had disappeared, and Bolder and Scully track down some Russian scientists trying to keep a man alive by transplanting his head to the live woman’s body. In Chapter 9, Roach covers the history of scientists working toward this goal of keeping heads alive, using dogs, with limited success. Roach covers the gamut of what happens to donated bodies and their parts along with what we have discovered thanks to these generous dead folks. Plastic surgeons practice face lifts on donated heads, the history of cadavers’ use in anatomy classes, and experiments with dead bodies to test bullet-proof vests, air bags, army boots, just to name a few. For me, I intend to settle down to read her next books, Spook and Bonk, the next chance I get!

The Heart of Horses (Molly Gloss)

A story of a remarkable, independent-minded young girl named Martha Lessen at the turn of the century, the twentieth century, that is. She is like the horse whisperer a century earlier. And a girl, that is. Despite any intentions whatsoever, Martha warms her way into the heart of the townspeople through their unruly, bad tempered horses. For me, I loved the idea of putting a girl in such a milieu and giving her the kind of character that Martha has. But the book was slow for me, much attention paid to the horses Martha trains to ride, or “breaks to saddle.” The climax, when adventure speeds the plot up, is far too late and the ending far too conventional for me to give the book another read.

Narrative Non-fiction links

The Narrative Journal
http://poynter.blogs.com/narrative/

The Narrative Digest's Narrative Library
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/narrative/resources.aspx

The Narrative Digest's Essays on Craft
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/narrative/essays.aspx

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/NiemanFoundation/Audiences/JournalistsAndWriters.aspx

Loving Frank (Nancy Horan)

Loving Frank could be said to be akin to Kate Chopin's The Awakening in that it is a woman's awakening to her own sense of self, her needs and aspirations apart from her partner's or her responsibilities as wife, lover, or mother. Written as if Mamah Borthwick Cheney was writing her own memoir in third person, the fictional story brings to light a largely secret chapter in a real-life affair with the same woman, a largely secret chapter in Frank Lloyd Wright's larger-than-life history. Beginning in Frank Lloyd Wright-country, Oak Park Illinois, in the early twentieth century, the clandestine lovers eventually leave their respective spouses to live a life together. But a description based on just the love affair or the "awakening" of a woman realized falls short of the Horan's prose, which is intoxicating with feelings of desire, guilt, shame, thrills, and quiet moments of determined resolution that this reader adored. So much so, that the page-turner disaster that closes the book and scars the infamous Taliesin house in Hillside, Wisconsin leaves shock and heartbreak in the wake of the last page read. Loving Frank is Nancy Horan's first novel. But her previous life as a journalist and the years living in Oak Park herself has brought this beautiful story alive on the page. For Horan has given voice to Mamah, a woman whose voice and life were all-too-soon silenced by the passing of years and a seemingly passing shadow towered over by the life of a world-famous architect like Frank Lloyd Wright.

Death of a Red Heroine (Qiu Xiaolong)

I adore books that cast me in a midst of a country, immerse me in all the senses, especially taste and smell, not withstanding a complicated culture and history like China's. Granted, Xiaolong has written the protagonist of his first crime novel--Chief Inspector Chen--as one of a kind. Chen is an English and literature scholar well versed in Chinese and Western poets, who writes and recites poetry throughout the novel. Added to that is Chief Inspector's penchant for good food, which he describes in succulent detail. So, the promotion to head of a "special" crime force seems strange to not only the reader, but to his colleagues as well. When he is placed on a case that involves the murder of Guan Hongying, a designated "national role-model worker" in the reign of Chairman Mao, everyone doubts Chen will be able to solve the case. More so when the case turns political and the high cadres--the upper echelon of the Communist Party--may be involved. The prose itself is tough to read, a stilted, unnatural English, which may lie in the difficulty of the translation or the style of the author. The author loses some points for the deux ex machina to conclude the novel, however clever the interweaving of the Chinese setting and conflicts fascinate me in this mystery story.

The Seven Sisters (Margaret Drabble)

Half of us in the book club were split on whether The Seven Sisters was a good read or not. Sure, I respect the limited perspective offered by Drabble's main character Candida in this novel, as the world is seen only through her somewhat naive glimpses of the world around her. We never find out full truths or explore beyond what Candida can see. She, in her intimidated way, rarely ventures out beyond what her imagination allows. So, even the move to one of London's seedier sides from her very comfortable married life in Farlingham is a surprise. A move motivated by the infidelity of her husband Andrew, the acceptance of the upper class community of his affair with a mother whose daughter committed suicide. Candida's move also motivated by an isolation from her own three daughters, communication and closeness being her weaknesses. But I couldn't get past the affected writing, the shifts in perspective that turn out to be lies, and the pretenses of death. So, that the drama is as superficial as the world as I understand it through the main character's eyes.

No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)

After reading The Road and hearing the movie, No Country for Old Men, was receiving accolade after accolade, I was determined to read this 2005 McCarthy book. Boy, oh, boy was I glad I did. What a read. I had trouble putting it down. You know, those books that you read right before sleep, where your eyes grow heavy and your head starts to nod. Well, that just didn't happen with this book. In fact, I literally felt my adrenaline start to race, and my eyes scanned quicker, trying to keep pace with McCarthy's writing, flipping pages, curious as all hell to see what happens next. The dialogue is one of the best I've read, even though the truisms coming from bad-to-the-bone Anton Chigurgh and welder-on-the-run Llewelyn Moss sound like they could have come from the same character. I love what the book jacket depicts as the theme: "an enduring meditation on the ties of love and blood and duty that inform lives and shape destinies." The characters all seem to embody the belief that they are, not was or will be, just are. So be their demise. The only one that seems to escape this predetermined existentialism is Sheriff Bell, who follows the characters throughout the book, only to make his own decision on whether to stay with the killer til his own bitter end or to make a change that might save his own life, regardless of right or wrong.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)

Kingsolver never fails to send me flat in awe-struck wonder at her non-fiction prose and send me reeling from the truths that sink in after a read. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is no different, save for contributions to this book from husband Steven Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver. Moving from dry, water-deprived Tucson to verdant farm in the Southern Appalachians, Kingsolver and her family resolve to live on what they can grow in their garden, raise in their chicken and turkey coops and buy locally. What the book becomes is a diary of that experience, including recipes for each season, and a testament to how possible this venture can be. A book club book, we came together on May 3rd over a completely local dinner, determined to change our shopping ways after reading this book and understanding better the distances our food travels to our table and at what cost to our local farms and dependence on oil. I went to the local farmer's market to buy the book club dinner I was hosting. Spinach so crisp, I ate it like lettuce the entire week. Cilantro, long, bushy, so smelly. A thick slap of halibut that melted, flaked when grilled. Asparagus, spicy red potatoes. And wine from Bainbridge Island and Mt. Baker. Over and over I heard from my book club friends how wonderful the meal was . . . and all I can say is that I did very little but cook it. It's the love and work the farmers put into that food that brought out flavor we so miss when we buy sub-quality food from the grocery store.

What is the What? (Dave Eggers)

What is the What? is a sad, sad, story. How could it not be? It's the story of Valentino Achak Deng, a "Lost Boy" from war-ravaged Sudan. Albeit it's not pure autobiography, the disclaimer by Deng says that much of the story is true. Eggers tells Deng's story through a series of flashbacks, flashbacks during and shortly after a violent robbery of Deng's apartment in Atlanta, Georgia, ironically his sanctuary after years of suffering, starvation, and deprivation running from one group or another in his native Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya.All proceeds from the sale of the book go to t he Valentino Achak Deng Foundation: http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/. For me, the story brought to life the reality of the suffering of what remains ongoing in Sudan--now in Darfur, Sudan. It makes a news headline or a story more than just a place far-far away. It's a person like you or I, suffering in fear, starvation, without family or love, and without shelter. What the book leaves you with is to answer the question of what exactly is the what that will make a deranged world sit right.

The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

Gruesome. Scary. Devastingly awful. That's what I thought of the bleak scene painted in Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, as I read it in a two-night marathon. I couldn't put it down. The world as we know it has ended, and yet what has caused the end is never told. The land is covered with ash, in many places, the trees are burnt, the tires of cars melted, bubbled into softened pavement. Corpses sunken, beyond recognition lie along the road, in empty, decrepit houses. And a father and a son, both also never named, travel this road trying to survive despite long periods of starvation, lack of water, of shelter from the snow and wind. More grievous, more threatening are the tribes of "bad guys" as the son calls them who scavenge, steal, rape young boys and women, and then kill all they encounter to eat--that's the "bad guys" version of surviving. Beyond all hope, the boy and his father endure until the very end. What a read. An unusual read, to be sure. But considering I could not put it down, perhaps it was because of that pull of love amidst the destruction and waste that would have devastated most that kept me reading on.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Erik Larson)

When I started this book, I was thrilled that I'd be going to Chicago for my sister's wedding, right to the heart of where the story takes place. Only, when I was there, I kept trying to figure out where oh where was the World's Fair and the time-consuming structures that had been erected over a century ago, where had it been located? Later, nearly at the end of the book I find out that very little of the landscape or architecture survived beyond that year in 1893. Much of it was destroyed in riots, none of the buildings really meant to last. All the effort for a single year. Unbelievable. Behind the design and the construction is architect Daniel Burnham who oversaw the building of the fair. George Washington Gale Ferris, too, left his mark, little known until his namesake left an indelible mark on every fair and festival thereafter with his Ferris wheel. The Ferris Wheel was almost a losing bid among the others who attempted to outdo the Eiffel Tower, if you can believe it. And the creepiest of creeps, Herman W. Mudgett, lived just a few miles away, committing murder after murder in a building he'd designed himself, complete with hidden doors and gas pipes exposed, vats, and kilns big enough for bodies. It's the shadow of this evil that darkens the otherwise white city, so named because all the buildings erected for the fair were painted white. Larson does an admirable job tying these story lines together, and bringing in bits and pieces of history, a history that includes Susan B. Anthony, Buffalo Bill, and even the sinking of The Titanic. A must read, if you believe me.

Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi)

Marjane Satrapi's book Persepolis is a graphic novel both history of Iran during the period of the Shah, his downfall and then Iran's war with Iraq, and autobiography. It is the story of her early childhood--pre and post teenage years, when she first begins to think she'll grow up and be the first female prophet. Only she vacillates between becoming a prophet of God or a prophet of Marx. The disappearance of family members and friends, the charged marches, the bombing by Iraq, and forced dress--the burqa and the scarf--from this little girl's eyes is disturbing, even if her way of coping makes you laugh. Reading a graphic novel is a different experience, but not necessarily a bad one. The pictures and the captions leave many more interpretative gaps to the reader, which may make for a powerful read.