Ardent Reader

Tomatoland

Christina — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:08:04 +0000

It has been my experience that reading about modern industrial agriculture can be incredibly overwhelming if an author takes on the entire system without focusing on a single element – pigs, milk, tomatoes. Therefore, it’s also harder to change consumers’ habits when they feel overwhelmed and cannot figure out which item(s) to change. I was so intrigued when I heard about Estabrook’s book because it focuses on a single item that I use in almost every meal I eat.

I heard many people express disgust over how tasteless commercial tomatoes are but, honestly, I really have never noticed that much of a difference between my garden tomatoes and the tomatoes we purchase at the grocery story. I have noticed a difference in the texture as the seasons change and marveled over how the tomatoes at the grocery store always look the exact same no matter if it’s the dead of winter or the middle of summer. If you think you’re getting variety by purchasing grape or cheery tomatoes instead of slicing tomatoes think again – they are all from the same type of tomato and only differ in appearance.

At the halfway point of Estabrook’s book I was ready to decree no more tomatoes for my family other than those we grow in our garden during the summer because, if you’ve had a tomato from Florida, you’ve had a tomato picked by a slave. If that wasn’t bad enough, Estabrook explains how tomatoes are flavorless because of when they picked and the pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers used are poisoning both the land and the people who pick them. Yikes!

The book ends on a bit of a high note so please don’t think it is a depressing slog through the tomato fields of Florida. It’s actually a very informative, eye-opening read, especially if you enjoy tomatoes in your salad no matter the time of year.

Book Mentioned:

Estabrook, Barry. Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. Riverside, NJ: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2011. Print. 224 pgs. ISBN: 9781449401092. Source: Library.

The Honors Project:

I read this book for The Honors Project, my own personal challenge to read more books about economics, food, and/or geography in preparation for writing my honors thesis. My goal for this project is to learn as much as I can about these topics so I can formulate better questions and, in turn, produce a better honors thesis. You can find out more information by checking out my introductory post, project post, or spreadsheet of titles.

Book Cover © Andrews McMeel Publishing. Retrieved: January 10, 2012.

There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom

Christina — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:05:35 +0000

Bradley Chalkers is the biggest liar anyone at his school has ever met. No one wants to sit next to him until the new kid Jeff arrives and tells Bradley he’s not so bad. Bradley’s response? Give me a dollar or I’ll spit on you. It’s not until Carla Davis, the new school counselor, arrives and convinces Bradley that he can change, if only he wasn’t afraid to try.

Although the title of this book is very memorable, I remembered nothing of the book when I pick up the book recently for a reread. I also forgot the title really had nothing to do with Bradley. The character development is very strong despite its short length. The story is quite good, a reminder not to assume someone is a terrible person and that everyone can change.

Book Mentioned:

Sachar, Louis. There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. New York: Scholastic, 1997. Originally published 1987. Print. 195 pgs. ISBN: 9780590590891. Source: Purchased.

Book Cover © Scholastic. Retrieved: January 10, 2012.

Charlotte’s Web

Christina — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:11:20 +0000

One morning, young Fern wakes up to find her father heading out to kill the runt of a recent litter of pigs. Fern immediately protests the injustice and becomes the proud mama of a pig named Wilber. But Fern is forced to sell Wilber to her uncle after the pig becomes too large and soon Wilber finds himself without friends and suddenly very lonely. That is, until he meets Charlotte the spider and her wonderful web.

Named a Newbery Honor book, there isn’t much more I can say about White’s wonderful tale that hasn’t already been said. I remember the animated film version of the book more than the actual novel but it is a story that I loved as a child. Regardless of form, the story is a wonderfully charming tale that celebrates life and friendship. Such a comforting reread.

Others’ Thoughts:

A Room of One’s Own

Book Mentioned:

White, E.B. Charlotte’s Web. New York: Scholastic Trade, 1974. Originally published 1952. Print. 184 pgs. ISBN: 9780590302715. Source: Purchased.

Book Cover © Scholastic Trade. Retrieved: January 9, 2012.

Little House on the Prairie

Christina — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:10:48 +0000

This book, the second in the series, follows the Ingalls family as they move from Wisconsin to the wide-open prairie of the Kansas Territories. Pa is frustrated with how populated Wisconsin has become and decides the family needs to move away to area less populated.

I continue to be surprised at the issues I overlooked while reading the Little House series as a kid. I also never noticed how selfish Charles comes across as he decides to relocate his whole family. Caroline, Laura’s Ma, seems incredibly unhappy with the decision to move to Kansas, and I could not shake the feeling that Pa wasn’t as perfect as I thought he was a child.

At one point in this novel Charles (Pa) makes the comment that the Indians must move off the land in order to make way for white settlers who have an inherent right to the land. Never mind the fact that he is squatting on Native American land legally closed to non-Native Americans. There were also moments where Ma would grumble that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”. Throughout the novel Indians are portrayed at savages while hard-working, white families are presented as having a superseding right to land Native Americans have called home for generations. I know their comments are historical accurate and reflect the prevailing sentiments of the time but I was surprised at how little the prejudices of the characters registered with me as a child.

But one can still appreciate classic literature through modern eyes. Despite its offensive portrayal, I in no way think this book should be banished from shelves. It provides an entertaining and informative tale of the prevailing sentiments of the day as well as life as a pioneer during the 1870s.

Others’ Thoughts:

Book Mentioned:

Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie. New York: Scholastic, 1963. Originally published 1935. Print. 335 pgs. ISBN: 9780590488181. Source: Purchased.

Book Cover © Scholastic. Retrieved: January 9, 2012.

The World That Trade Created

Christina — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:53:36 +0000

Pomeranz and Topik attempt to dispute the idea that intense globalization and interactions across cultures is a relatively new phenomenon. According to Pomeranz and Topik, the world has been interacting across national boundaries long before the invention of the airplane and the computer. Trading amongst and with indigenous groups across the group knitted small societies to the larger society established by exploring Europeans since the 1400s. Never mind the fact that this trading involved humans trafficking, people being forced to hand over commodities, and the exploitation of indigenous groups as large labor pools.

This was my second attempt at reading Pomeranz and Topik’s book on “Culture, Society and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present”. The first attempt occurred during my sophomore year of high school for my class on world history. I found the book to be incredibly dry and difficult to understand and ended up abandoning the book. Now, five years later, I still find this book to be dry and hard to read and while I did not end up abandoning the book, I did struggle to finish it.

(Note: The cover at right is of the second edition of the book, published in 2005. I read the first edition.)

Book Mentioned:

Pomeranz, Kenneth and Steven Topik. The World That Trade Created: Culture, Society and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. Print. 280 pgs. ISBN: 9780765602503. Source: Purchased.

The Honors Project:

Book Cover © M.E. Sharpe. Retrieved: January 9, 2012.

Recent Finds

Christina — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:19:31 +0000

It’s been a while since I shared book titles that caught my eye thanks to my fellow book bloggers. (Hence the length of this list.) My goal to read more books off my shelves this year is incompatible with this list so I probably won’t be picking them up any time soon. No rush. They will all still be here when I decide I’ve read enough off my shelves.

1835 (James Boyce) – Thanks to a review by Lisa of ANZ LitLovers LitBlog.
Baby Catcher (Peggy Vincent) – Thanks to a review by Rebecca of Rebecca Reads.
Desert Divers (Sven Lindqvist) – Thanks to a review by JoV’s Book Pyramid.
The Fat Years (Chan Koonchung) – Thanks to a review by Jackie of Farm Lane Books Blog.
Flower Confidential (Amy Stewart) – Thanks to a review by Jeane of Dogear Diary.
The Free World (David Bezmozgis) – Thanks to a review by Kim of Reading Matters.
The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson) – Thanks to a review by Alex of The Sleepless Reader.
The Good Muslim (Tahmina Anam) – Thanks to a review by Lisa of ANZ LitLovers LitBlog.
I Curse the River of Time (Per Petterson) – Thanks to a review by Kim of Reading Matters.
I Was Born There, I Was Born Here (Mourid Barghouti) – Thanks to a review by JoV’s Book Pyramid.
Lost Mountain (Erik Reece) – Thanks to a review by Jeane of Dogear Diary.
The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander) – Thanks to a review by Eva of A Striped Armchair.
Perfect (Ellen Hopkins) – Thanks to a review by Heather of Book Addiction.
Push Has Come to Shove (Steve Perry) – Thanks to a review by Vasilly of 1330V.
Rivers of Smoke (Amitav Ghosh) – Thanks to a review by Lisa of ANZ LitLovers LitBlog.
Song For Night (Chris Abani) – Thanks to a review by Kim of Reading Matters.
The Story of Stuff (Annie Leonard) – Thanks to a review by Eva of A Striped Armchair.
Wandering Falcon (Jamil Ahmad) – Thanks to a review by Lisa of ANZ LitLovers LitBlog.
The War Machines (Danny Hoffman) – Thanks to a review by Eva of A Striped Armchair.
When She Woke (Hillary Jordan) – Thanks to a review by Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness.

Little House in the Big Woods

Christina — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:02:54 +0000

As I said earlier this month, the Little House series are the books that come to mind when I think of childhood favorites. This book, the first in the series by Wilder, fictionalizes her life in the woods of Wisconsin in the 1870s. Living with her sisters, Mary and Carrie, along with her Ma and Pa, Laura grows up in an environment long gone from the American life by the time Wilder penned this novel.

Looking back now, though, I am surprised I did actually love this book. I grew up very anti-hunting and the book is dominated by Pa’s hunting exploits. The book is also very anti-wolf, anti-bear and it’s easy to see now why these animals were or came close to eradication in America. Some of the stories told in this book do not make sense knowing the habits of bears because unless the weather was more severe or bears did not hibernate in the 1870s, the bears should have been in hibernation during many of Pa’s and Laura’s stories.

Regardless, I still loved dipping back into this period of time and the life of the Ingalls and am glad we still have these books to provide these glimpses in time. I’ve heard many people refer to the Little House series as a sanitized version of history and while I understand their argument, I always appreciated that Wilder didn’t sanitize the fictional version of herself. She was still a young girl who sometimes did and said the wrong thing. I was not a perfect child and neither was she.

Others’ Thoughts:

A Literary Odyssey (Books 1 through 5)
A Room of One’s Own

Book Mentioned:

Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House in the Big Woods. New York: Scholastic, 1959. Originally published 1932. Print. 238 pgs. ISBN: 0590488171. Source: Purchased.

Book Cover © Scholastic. Retrieved: January 8, 2012.

Holes

Christina — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:56:44 +0000

I once had a birthday party based entirely around Sachar’s Newbery Medal winning novel. A small group of friends and I saw the book adapted to stage at the local children’s theater. My mom made a cake with holes in it, and each of my friends took home a copy of the novel as a party favor. I absolutely adored this book.

And I still adore the story of Stanley Yelnats and his time to Camp Green Lake, a boys’ detention center where the boys build character by spending every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. Stanley soon catches on that the boys are digging holes because the Warden is looking for something. The problem is that nobody – but the Warden – knows what it is.

The premise seems simple, no? But it’s actually a very rich story that addresses a series of issues – racism, juvenile detention – without hitting you over the head. Even though I could probably tell you the whole story without missing a beat, I still enjoyed seeing how Sachar tied everything together.

Growing up I did not read a lot of books with boys as the main character, which is why I never read about Huck Finn and was originally turned off the idea of Harry Potter. Luckily, though, I did not allow this one to pass by simply because Stanley is a boy. Reading this book is kind of like going home.

Book Mentioned:

Sarchar, Louis. Holes. New York: Yearling, 2000. Originally published 1999. Print. 233 pgs. ISBN: 0440414806. Source: Purchased.

Wanting

Christina — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:37:47 +0000

Flanagan’s novel is set in Van Diemen’s Land (present-day Tasmania) and intertwined two storylines set over twenty years apart – Sir John Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane, as they adopt an Aboriginal girl named Mathinna during Sir John’s tenure as governor of Van Diemen’s Land and, later, Charles Dickens as he helps refute (at the request of Lady Jane) a popular story that Sir John resorted to cannibalism once lost in the Arctic.

I picked up this novel for Australian Literature Month largely because of its portrayal of the Tasmanian Aborigines. The novel kicks off with a fantastic start on that front, describing how adoption of English clothing and English food left them sick and dying after losing a war between themselves and white settlers, which the later won. The adoption of Mathinna is largely seen as a social experiment – can the “uncivilized savage” be civilized?

But then Charles Dickens is interjected into the story. His relationship with his wife is on the rocks after the death of their daughter, Dora. In fact, his whole life on the rocks and he interjects his own feelings of being lost and lonely into the play he and Wilkie Collins write refuting the idea that Sir John is now a cannibal. (A little searching after finishing the novel informed me that Sir John Franklin was, in fact, a real and famous Arctic explorer. I had no idea.)

I think it was Flanagan’s attempt to blend these two stories into one that cause the whole thing the fall flat for me. Was it a fictionalized story about Charles Dickens attempting to explain the emptiness and wanting of his writings? Was it a fictionalized story about the injustices done to the Aborigines in the name of civilization? It certainly could not be both because it did not work as both. I could not gel the two stories together in mind; just about the time I would become comfortable with one I would be thrown into the other.

Others’ Thoughts:

Book Mentioned:

Flanagan, Richard. Wanting. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2009. Originally published 2008. Print. 272 pgs. ISBN: 9780802119001. Source: Library.

Australian Literature Month:

I read this book for Australian Literature Month, hosted by Kim of Reading Matters. The idea is simple: read Australian books in January and share in the love of Australia. I have read very little Australian literature since I started blogging in 2008, and I thought I would try my hand at reading some more Australian literature.

Knowing Yellowstone

Christina — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:57:42 +0000

Subtitled “Science in America’s First National Park”, Johnson’s book introduces readers to ten different studies – ranging in topics from the home ownership around the park to brucellosis in cattle, bison, and elk to policy marketing for Yellowstone – and invents them to consider how science shapes our understanding of and commitment to preserving Yellowstone. Each chapter detailing a study is written by the primary researcher with most researchers hailing from Montana State University.

This book reaffirmed my own personal beliefs about management of the park: Wyoming needs to stop feeding the elk, people need to stop building theirs home so they border the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the three states home to Yellowstone should embrace the reintroduction of the wolf. Alas, no new knowledge here.

The most interesting aspect of this book for me was the varied uses of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which is the focus of my geography major. Just about every researcher used the software to map the locations of homes or track the movements of large mammals or, even, map the bottom of Yellowstone Lake. Very interesting, indeed.

Book Mentioned:

Johnson, Jerry. Knowing Yellowstone: Science in America’s First National Park. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2010. Print. 184 pgs. ISBN: 9781589795228. Source: Library.