The Real Culmination of “The Honors Project”

April 24, 2013 by Christina

If you’ve wondered where I have disappeared to in the last few months and why reviews have been so spotty around here, I’d like to point you in the direction of the photograph above, which shows what I call the real culmination of The Honors Project. (And sometimes that was the nicest thing I had to say.) Although, I stopped reading books for that project at the end of 2012, I have spent the last four months researching and analyzing […]

Categories: Honors Project

“The Honors Project” In Review

January 3, 2013 by Christina

At the end of 2011, I launched a reading project for myself for 2012 centered on preparing to write my honors thesis entitled “The Honors Project”. Given that 2012 has come to a close, I am wrapping up this project and preparing to move on to the writing stage. As I stated in my introductory post and on my project page, I concentrated on non-fiction books about food, economics, and geography. Food is the central topic of my thesis, but […]

Categories: Bookish Notes, Honors Project

The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward

October 16, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Simon & Schuster, 2012. 380 pgs. Borrowed from family member. Woodward’s twelfth book covers the 2011 debt ceiling crisis in the United States, a particularly partisan time in American politics where neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were willing to compromise to reach an agreement over raising the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, neither party had enough votes to ram their own bill through both the House of Representatives and the Senate since control was held by the Republicans […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Economics, Honors Project, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Bob Woodward

America’s Food by Harvey Blatt

October 1, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. MIT Press, 2008. 336 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “What You Don’t Know About What You Eat”, Blatt delves right into the specific horrors and problems with America’s food system — the use of fertilizers to enrich our depleted soils at the expense of our environmental health, the use of pesticides to grow specific crops at the expense of our biological health, and the fact that the average American eats his or her body weight in food additives […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Food, Honors Project, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Harvey Blatt

The Cartoon Introduction to Economics by Grady Klein and Yoram Bauman (Volume One)

September 26, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Hill and Wang, 2012. 212 pgs. Library copy. I spotted this book back in July when I was still living in Seattle and had run out of reading materials. I was tempted to buy it but settled on a different book and noted the title down for future reference. It wasn’t until I was at the local public library on Saturday that I spotted the book and remembered my prior interest. Klein and Bauman introduce readers to […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Comics, Economics, Honors Project, Nonfiction • Tags: Grady Klein, Yoram Bauman

The Crisis Caravan by Linda Polman

September 20, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Metropolitan Books, 2010. 240 pgs. Library copy. As you might have gathered from the subtitle, Polman begs the question of what exactly is wrong with humanitarian aid to her readers. After all, humanitarian aid is meant to provide assistance to the most desperate among us, those who live in war-torn regions or have survived natural disasters. The problem, of course, is that humanitarian aid rarely appears to accomplish what it set out to do. Survivors of the […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Africa, Genocide, Honors Project, Nonfiction • Tags: Linda Polman

Fat Land by Greg Critser

August 16, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 232 pgs. Library copy. I had my own health wake-up call back in May so I was intrigued by the title of this book after spotting it on the library shelves. Most Americans know that we are facing an epidemic of obesity that shows no sign of stop with nearly 60 percent of us overweight, but no one can really pinpoint why. Healthy food and vegetarian activists claim the  extra pounds come from our […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Food, Honors Project, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Greg Critser

Big-Box Swindle by Stacy Mitchell

August 15, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Beacon Press, 2006. 318 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses”, Mitchell traces the growth of mega-retailers — from big boxes like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, and Old Navy — and the precipitous decline of independent businesses. She goes on to explain the impact these companies and the big-box mentality on everything from increases in gasoline consumption to rising poverty rates, failing family farms, and decimated small towns. […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Economics, Food, Honors Project, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Stacy Mitchell

Drawing the Line by Mark Monmonier

August 14, 2012 by Christina

Subtitled “Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy”, Monmonier’s book attempts to explain how people make the erroneous assumption that maps are inherently truthful. Approached with none of he skepticism people bring to written information, maps are rarely recognized as the ideological symbols and propaganda they are. Map viewers should question the very basis of a map: Do you accept the maker’s view of the world, their explanation for a geographic patter, or their brand of cartographic presentation, rather than that of […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Cartography, Honors Project, Nonfiction • Tags: Mark Monmonier

From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow by Mark Monmonier

August 9, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. University of Chicago Press, 2006. 215 pgs. Source: Library. Subtitled “How Maps Name, Claim, and Infame”, the title of Monmonier’s book is clearly meant to grab attention and make people stop in the middle of the bookstore. It certainly succeeded; I couldn’t put the book back on the library shelf after it caught my eye. The book is not nearly as salacious as the title might make you believe. Instead, Monmonier takes readers into the world of toponymy […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Cartography, Honors Project, Middle East, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Mark Monmonier

On the Brink by Henry M. Paulson Jr.

July 23, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Grand Central Publishing, 2010. 496 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System”, Paulson’s book details the three years he served as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the world’s most cataclysmic financial crisis since the Great Depression. Major institutions like the government-sponsored enterprises of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and private corporations including Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Citigroup teetered on the edge of collapse – […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Chunkster, Economics, Honors Project, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Henry M. Paulson Jr

Overhaul by Steven Rattner

July 20, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. 315 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry”, Rattner explains the events behind the splashy headline (“Car Czar”, anyone?) and partisan politics of the auto bailout. I like to think of myself as politically aware but even I was stunned at what”Team Auto”, as Rattner called his group, was doing in the background, cutting through the government bureaucracy and making decisions without the […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Economics, Honors Project, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Steven Rattner