I'm really struggling in the aftermaths of reading Jonathan Safran Foer's book about the meat industry. Eating Animals, you can tell from the title, has a slate to the information presented, but even so, the conditions he describes in chicken, turkey, pig, and cow farms are horrifying. Even fishing isn't off the hook.(Come on, how could I resist that pun?)
The sad thing, and Foer writes this, is that we all know that something's not right with our meat industry, but none of us really want to know the specifics. And it's true. I want my shredded beef burrito, my sushi, my chicken soup, and I don't want to think about tiny chick getting pitched in a grinder, or live cows hung by one leg, conscious seven minutes into their "processing". It's horrifying (see there's that word again.) He describes much worse in his book (don't get me started on the things they're fed) and then attempts to grapple with the moral turpitude that we must all suffer from--how else can you account for the massive cruelty and disgusting evolution of factory farming?
I don't know that this book turned me into a vegetarian. But I know I'll never look at a $4.99 rotisserie chicken from Costco the same ever again.
More later,
Tammar
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Not cool
I just finished reading the mega bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love. As you may have noticed, I don't like reading mega-bestsellers, kind of the same way I refused to have a crush on the same red-headed 7th grader all the other girls had a crush on in Junior High. And yes, in Junior High you can decide who you have a crush on.
With EPL, though, I'd read about it when it first came out and before everyone went ga-ga over it and thought it sounded really cool. But then everyone else thought so too and I cooled off on it. Who wants to go out and be friends with the most popular girl in school?
But that was a couple of years ago and Elizabeth Gilbert just came out with another book picking up where she left off and my curiosity got the better of me.
The general gist of her tale is that she had a horrible divorce followed by a horrible affair that just about destroyed her. So she sets off on this Marco Polo-esq adventure going to Italy to eat, India to pray and Bali to learn how to put the two together (I know, I know, Bali?). The thing that is so cool about Elizabeth Gilbert is her amazing ability to meet people and make friends where ever she goes. I'm flat out in awe of that. She meets awesome people in Italy, makes friends in India, and pretty much picks up a new family in Bali. For anyone who's ever been shy, tongue-tied, lonely, and full of wishful thinking about how great it would be to have awesome friends all over the world, well, this lady is like some kind of guru.
But I tell you, it takes one heck of a silver tongue to turn a situation where you instigate a divorce pretty much because you changed your mind about being married to this person, rush off to have this hot and steamy affair while said divorce is happening, and then have the gall to say "woe, woe, woe is me and the pitiful situation I find myself in." Gilbert does just that and as a reader I don't hate her for it. Should this woman go into politics, she'd be unstoppable.
Overall, it was a good read. She's engaging and so well traveled she's got great tales to tell. But she does fall into ruts and starts ruminating on the same few pieces of cud she's already chewed through a few times. Read it to be an armchair traveler (I sooo want to go to Bali now!) and for some interesting thought on G-d. But don't go looking for your new best friend. Elizabeth Gilbert already has too many.
More later,
Tammar
With EPL, though, I'd read about it when it first came out and before everyone went ga-ga over it and thought it sounded really cool. But then everyone else thought so too and I cooled off on it. Who wants to go out and be friends with the most popular girl in school?
But that was a couple of years ago and Elizabeth Gilbert just came out with another book picking up where she left off and my curiosity got the better of me.
The general gist of her tale is that she had a horrible divorce followed by a horrible affair that just about destroyed her. So she sets off on this Marco Polo-esq adventure going to Italy to eat, India to pray and Bali to learn how to put the two together (I know, I know, Bali?). The thing that is so cool about Elizabeth Gilbert is her amazing ability to meet people and make friends where ever she goes. I'm flat out in awe of that. She meets awesome people in Italy, makes friends in India, and pretty much picks up a new family in Bali. For anyone who's ever been shy, tongue-tied, lonely, and full of wishful thinking about how great it would be to have awesome friends all over the world, well, this lady is like some kind of guru.
But I tell you, it takes one heck of a silver tongue to turn a situation where you instigate a divorce pretty much because you changed your mind about being married to this person, rush off to have this hot and steamy affair while said divorce is happening, and then have the gall to say "woe, woe, woe is me and the pitiful situation I find myself in." Gilbert does just that and as a reader I don't hate her for it. Should this woman go into politics, she'd be unstoppable.
Overall, it was a good read. She's engaging and so well traveled she's got great tales to tell. But she does fall into ruts and starts ruminating on the same few pieces of cud she's already chewed through a few times. Read it to be an armchair traveler (I sooo want to go to Bali now!) and for some interesting thought on G-d. But don't go looking for your new best friend. Elizabeth Gilbert already has too many.
More later,
Tammar
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Mandatory Reading
There are books we read for escape, books we read for mental stimulation, and there are books we read to be better people. Under this last category falls: America, the owner's manual by Senator (and former FL governor) Bob Graham.
The basic point of the book is that we Americans treat civics as a spectator sport. We sit back and watch our politicians enact inane laws, ignore abuses that should be curbed, and lead us with something less than the basic common sense we all hope for. When we have a problem, from something as small as parking issues, to as a large as drunk driving, most of us vent to our friends and family and then shrug it off as something we have to live with, like mosquitoes in the summer.
What Senator Graham does in his book is show how if you have a certain grievance how to figure out which level of government's management it falls under (local, state, Federal) and then takes you step by step on how to air your grievance before the right people and convince them it needs to change.
It was such an inspiring book to read. Immigrants have to take a citizenship test before they can become naturalized American citizens. The rest of us, fortunate to be born into American citizenship, should read this wonderful manual about our amazing, cumbersome, Byzantine government.
More later,
Tammar
The basic point of the book is that we Americans treat civics as a spectator sport. We sit back and watch our politicians enact inane laws, ignore abuses that should be curbed, and lead us with something less than the basic common sense we all hope for. When we have a problem, from something as small as parking issues, to as a large as drunk driving, most of us vent to our friends and family and then shrug it off as something we have to live with, like mosquitoes in the summer.
What Senator Graham does in his book is show how if you have a certain grievance how to figure out which level of government's management it falls under (local, state, Federal) and then takes you step by step on how to air your grievance before the right people and convince them it needs to change.
It was such an inspiring book to read. Immigrants have to take a citizenship test before they can become naturalized American citizens. The rest of us, fortunate to be born into American citizenship, should read this wonderful manual about our amazing, cumbersome, Byzantine government.
More later,
Tammar
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Life List
It's funny how some books seem to stalk you.
I first bumped into Life List, a biography of Phoebe Snetsinger about six months ago. My local paper ran a review and when I read it I thought, "here's about book about bird watching, which I really don't know anything about, or care that much about, but it sounds really interesting." Which was about as far as it went. I didn't go seek it out or read more about it, or even really think about it again.
A few months later, the St. Pete Reading Festival featured the book's author, Olivia Gentile, as one of its speakers. I read her impressive biography (Harvard undergrad, Columbia MFA). Saw her beautiful author photo. And thought, wow, what an interesting story. And I didn't go.
And then, I'm not really sure how, but I heard about it AGAIN, and this time I found out she's pregnant and married to Andy Borowtiz, who has a really funny column that I follow, and I thought, why haven't I picked up her book already? So I did.
And it's fascinating, although to be honest, why in the world Olivia Gentile chose such an obscure figure to chronicle for her first book or spend so long doing it (7 years) is as compelling as Phoebe Snetsinger herself, who was the first person to see 8,000 species of birds (which is almost all the species in the world, and is very, very, very hard to do.) She got herself killed doing it. At least, I think that's what happens. There have been all sorts of crypic allusions to the way she died in 1997, that I feel fairly confident that birdwatching killed her. Birding got her raped, at any rate, by 5 thugs in New Guinea when she was 55 years old.
It's hard to mesh my view of bird watching with extreem danger and obsessive behavior, but that's a common misconception, apparently. The closer one is to the tropics, the birdier it gets, leading dedicated birders into some very sketchy countries and areas. Also, keeping a list of all the species one has seen seems to lend itself to stiff compition with fellow birders and with one's own number goals.
Reading the book has made me much more aware of the birds in my area. And living on the gulf coast of Florida, there are some amazing birds in my backyard, raptors, pink sponbills, herons and egrets.
That's what hooked Phoebe Snetsigner in the first place. A neighbor took her bird watching in St. Louis and showed her birds she'd never seen before. The fact that these amazing creatures had been in her backyard her whole life and she never noticed them stunned her and started her down a new path.
So what have we been blind to in our backyard?
More later,
Tammar
I first bumped into Life List, a biography of Phoebe Snetsinger about six months ago. My local paper ran a review and when I read it I thought, "here's about book about bird watching, which I really don't know anything about, or care that much about, but it sounds really interesting." Which was about as far as it went. I didn't go seek it out or read more about it, or even really think about it again.
A few months later, the St. Pete Reading Festival featured the book's author, Olivia Gentile, as one of its speakers. I read her impressive biography (Harvard undergrad, Columbia MFA). Saw her beautiful author photo. And thought, wow, what an interesting story. And I didn't go.
And then, I'm not really sure how, but I heard about it AGAIN, and this time I found out she's pregnant and married to Andy Borowtiz, who has a really funny column that I follow, and I thought, why haven't I picked up her book already? So I did.
And it's fascinating, although to be honest, why in the world Olivia Gentile chose such an obscure figure to chronicle for her first book or spend so long doing it (7 years) is as compelling as Phoebe Snetsinger herself, who was the first person to see 8,000 species of birds (which is almost all the species in the world, and is very, very, very hard to do.) She got herself killed doing it. At least, I think that's what happens. There have been all sorts of crypic allusions to the way she died in 1997, that I feel fairly confident that birdwatching killed her. Birding got her raped, at any rate, by 5 thugs in New Guinea when she was 55 years old.
It's hard to mesh my view of bird watching with extreem danger and obsessive behavior, but that's a common misconception, apparently. The closer one is to the tropics, the birdier it gets, leading dedicated birders into some very sketchy countries and areas. Also, keeping a list of all the species one has seen seems to lend itself to stiff compition with fellow birders and with one's own number goals.
Reading the book has made me much more aware of the birds in my area. And living on the gulf coast of Florida, there are some amazing birds in my backyard, raptors, pink sponbills, herons and egrets.
That's what hooked Phoebe Snetsigner in the first place. A neighbor took her bird watching in St. Louis and showed her birds she'd never seen before. The fact that these amazing creatures had been in her backyard her whole life and she never noticed them stunned her and started her down a new path.
So what have we been blind to in our backyard?
More later,
Tammar
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Grateful
It's easy to forget sometimes.
More later,
Tammar
Friday, November 20, 2009
Deadlines
I love deadlines, I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. I can't remember who said that, but it's so true!
I didn't have a deadline with Light Years, so that fact that I took 5 years to write it is no big deal. But High Dive, well, I missed my deadline on that one. By a year. Twice.
So it's a very big deal that I turned in my new manuscript not just on time, but early! Yes folks, Kindred is in my editor's hot little hands and you'll be able to read it yourselves Spring, 2011.
I know, I know, it sounds crazy. The book's all written, the hard part's done. But there's cover design, layout, advance reader galleys to print and send out, there's a ton of out of sight work that has to be done, so there's nothing to do but be patient. Those who know me know that I am not a patient person, but in the meantime, I'll be hard at work on another novel and if there's anything juicy, like a cover, to share, I promise I will.
More later,
Tammar
I didn't have a deadline with Light Years, so that fact that I took 5 years to write it is no big deal. But High Dive, well, I missed my deadline on that one. By a year. Twice.
So it's a very big deal that I turned in my new manuscript not just on time, but early! Yes folks, Kindred is in my editor's hot little hands and you'll be able to read it yourselves Spring, 2011.
I know, I know, it sounds crazy. The book's all written, the hard part's done. But there's cover design, layout, advance reader galleys to print and send out, there's a ton of out of sight work that has to be done, so there's nothing to do but be patient. Those who know me know that I am not a patient person, but in the meantime, I'll be hard at work on another novel and if there's anything juicy, like a cover, to share, I promise I will.
More later,
Tammar
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Cindy Hudson--guest blogger
I'm doing something a bit differently today, delegating blogging to another author. (Does that mean I'm in management now?) Cindy Hudson wrote a book on how to start mother-daughter book clubs. I love this idea. My mom and I are always sharing books and we usually have very different thoughts on them. It's interesting how someone I'm so close to can see the same book in such a different light.
Cindy offered to tell you guys a bit about what inspired her to write a book on mother-daughter book clubs and maybe, inspire you to start one of your own. So, without further ado, here's she is.
More later,
Tammar
There’s no shortage of advice to moms on how to stay close to their daughters as they grow. You can find it in popular magazines, books on parenting and through multiple online resources. Yet, with all the suggestions you’ll find, none may be simpler than discussing books you read together.
How can reading books together bring you closer to each other? Books open up worlds of thought and information you may not be exposed to in your daily life. Books let you broach topics that may otherwise be too embarrassing to bring up on your own. They also lay out the whole of human experience—what it means to be a friend, part of a family, or even a citizen of a country.
Some of the best discussions I’ve had with my daughters, who are now 18 and 15, have been while we were reading books for our mother-daughter book clubs. Often we read aloud to each other, so we talk about what’s happening on the page while we read. We talk about it again at our book group meetings, where we get to hear other moms and other daughters weigh in with their opinions.
Over the years we’ve broached many topics that we may not have otherwise. Some of them have been historical, as when we read Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang on the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Zlata’s Diary about a young girl’s life in war-torn Sarajevo. We’ve talked about friendships and blossoming romance, such as that in Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen, and Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. We discussed living with personal tragedy when we read Light Years by Tammar Stein and Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce.
Together we have laughed and cried and puzzled over hatred, racism, sexism, and the ethics of cloning humans. We learned about our country’s history, and political as well as historical situations in other countries around the world. We talked about what these things mean to us, and every time we did we revealed ourselves to each other, something that’s often difficult to do in parent-child relationships.
Yes, staying close to your daughter through the years is more a combination of actions as opposed to just one thing alone. But you’ll never be sorry you spent time searching for common ground within the pages of a book.
Cindy Hudson is the author of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs (Seal Press, October 2009). She is a mother-daughter book club consultant, journalist, and editor. Hudson has more than twenty years of experience as a marketing and public relations professional. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two daughters. Visit her online at www.motherdaughterbookclub.com and www.motherdaughterbookclub.wordpress.com.
Cindy offered to tell you guys a bit about what inspired her to write a book on mother-daughter book clubs and maybe, inspire you to start one of your own. So, without further ado, here's she is.
More later,
Tammar
There’s no shortage of advice to moms on how to stay close to their daughters as they grow. You can find it in popular magazines, books on parenting and through multiple online resources. Yet, with all the suggestions you’ll find, none may be simpler than discussing books you read together.
How can reading books together bring you closer to each other? Books open up worlds of thought and information you may not be exposed to in your daily life. Books let you broach topics that may otherwise be too embarrassing to bring up on your own. They also lay out the whole of human experience—what it means to be a friend, part of a family, or even a citizen of a country.
Some of the best discussions I’ve had with my daughters, who are now 18 and 15, have been while we were reading books for our mother-daughter book clubs. Often we read aloud to each other, so we talk about what’s happening on the page while we read. We talk about it again at our book group meetings, where we get to hear other moms and other daughters weigh in with their opinions.
Over the years we’ve broached many topics that we may not have otherwise. Some of them have been historical, as when we read Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang on the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Zlata’s Diary about a young girl’s life in war-torn Sarajevo. We’ve talked about friendships and blossoming romance, such as that in Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen, and Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. We discussed living with personal tragedy when we read Light Years by Tammar Stein and Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce.
Together we have laughed and cried and puzzled over hatred, racism, sexism, and the ethics of cloning humans. We learned about our country’s history, and political as well as historical situations in other countries around the world. We talked about what these things mean to us, and every time we did we revealed ourselves to each other, something that’s often difficult to do in parent-child relationships.
Yes, staying close to your daughter through the years is more a combination of actions as opposed to just one thing alone. But you’ll never be sorry you spent time searching for common ground within the pages of a book.
Cindy Hudson is the author of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs (Seal Press, October 2009). She is a mother-daughter book club consultant, journalist, and editor. Hudson has more than twenty years of experience as a marketing and public relations professional. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two daughters. Visit her online at www.motherdaughterbookclub.com and www.motherdaughterbookclub.wordpress.com.
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