Half of a Yellow Sun

It is through works of fiction that I often get insights into historical events, particularly recent ones. Through Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones, I learned about the appalling and gruesome details of the massacre that took place in the Dominican Republic in 1937, when President Rafael Trujillo commanded his army to kill Haitians in the country. Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb gave me a glimpse into the revolution in Ethiopia in the early 1970s. Shauna Singh Baldwin's The Tiger Claw enlightened me on the Nazi Occupation of France during the Second World War. In fact, my dislike for purely historical books have led me often to pick up books that are based on historical events that I could learn from.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, however, caught me off guard completely. I knew from the back cover that this book would be about Nigeria—but I must admit my ignorance here: I had never heard of Biafra until I read this book. While it's true that Africa has always been a bit of an enigma for me, I was still very shocked to learn that I had no prior knowledge of this secessionist state that existed in south-eastern Nigeria for nearly four years.

In the first part of the book, we become acquainted with the main characters: Olanna, the "illogically pretty" Igbo woman, who forsakes her high-end life in Lagos to live with her lover, "the revolutionary" Odeningbo; Ugwu, the houseboy who works in the house of Odeningbo and who enjoys listening quietly to the friends that gather at his master's house every evening. Olanna's twin sister, Kainene, does not share Olanna's good looks but is an ambitious business woman, who in her own way also rebels against her parents; and Richard, the white man and Kainene's lover, who learns to speak fluent Igbo and almost considers himself as one, while being reminded by everyone around him that he is not.

When the events of the late 1960s hit them, it comes as a bit of a shock. The effects are all the more dramatic because we have become acquainted with the characters, whose lives are suddenly and profoundly overturned by the events. Although the book recounts well the diversity of people living in the area, and their contrasting lives depending on whether they live in villages, cities, those who have lived abroad, the servants, etc., the lives of everyone—regardless of their status before the war (unless, of course, they can afford to skip the country)—are hit equally hard by the events.

Ultimately, the book is a love story; a book about love and betrayal. I was particularly struck by the strong words of Olanna's aunt, who reproaches Olanna's devastated state after Odeningbo's first betrayal:

I now know that nothing he does will make my life change... My life will change only if I want it to change... You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man... your life belongs to you and you alone.

The book that one of the narrators in Half of a Yellow Sun wrote, titled The World was Silent when we Died, reminded me of a book I read a few years back: We did Nothing by Linda Polman. When I first read Polman's book, I was appalled to learn how powerless the UN is, and at the dismal state of peace-keeping missions to civil war-torn places such as Haiti and Rwanda. But after a few years as an insider, I now know the process quite well. As Polman demonstrates in her book, it is not the UN that fails, but rather, the Member States; "the UN can do nothing by itself... it can only do what its Member States allow it to do".

If I only knew how to act, and not to be silent, when masses in places faraway die.

Assault on Reason

I'm not going to hide the fact that I am a fan of Al Gore. Perhaps it's because he reminds me of my childhood hero Christopher Reeve, the superman. Or maybe it's his passionate crusade for the cause of global warming. I must admit that when an e-mail newsletter that I subscribe to recently pulled a prank for April fool's with the headline "Gore will run for president as independent", I was so delighted that I believed it for a full day, until I realized that no other media seemed to have caught on to the excitement!

Despite my biases, I was impressed with the latest book by the former Vice President (or, the President that should have been: after finishing the book, one cannot help but wonder what the world would have been like if Gore was the one currently in power, not Bush). This well-researched book presents a convincing case on what we all know: something is wrong with the United States and its president. It is a scathing attack full of well-presented arguments on how the current presidency has succeeded in assaulting reason and thereby democracy, which is based on it.

Gore identifies five enemies of reason and democracy: fear; blind faith; concentration of power to a few (i.e., the wealthy); dissemination of lies; and impinging on the right of the individual. They have all been used by Bush; Gore describes how the Bush administration has chosen to lead by inciting fear after 9/11, thereby "using the war against terrorism for partisan advantage and introducing far-reaching changes in social policy in order to consolidate its political power". The way in which the evolution of media--from the printing press to radio, then to television has succeeded in creating a one-way medium, which is now controlled (i.e., programming and distribution) by those with large amounts of wealth--is convincingly described.

While pointing out its problems, Gore touts the internet as the new medium which could allow multiple-way communication--and thus allow democracy--to flourish again. This is because unlike the radio and the television, internet can not only disseminate truth, but pursue it.

For me, it was quite frightening to learn about the amount of information and warnings that had been available to Bush prior to 9/11 and Katrina that could have been used to prevent the tragedies. It was just as horrifying to learn of the way the Bush administration has succeeded in actively ignoring the climate crisis by systematically dismantling environmental regulations and through public demeaning of scientists whose research results contradict the administration's stance against global warming.

Another man who is harshly critical of Bush and his policies is Kurt Vonnegut. In his memoir A man without a country, Vonnegut laments the fact that Amreicans are hated all over the world, for good reason: "our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want... we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class". He declares that "there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power". Although these two people habour completely different worldviews and beliefs--Vonnegut was an Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, and Gore does not forget to remind us throughout Assault on reason that he is a good Christian--they come to the same conclusion: they are both appallingly embarassed by the state of affairs in their country.

Throughout Assault on reason, Gore poses the question of what the Founders of the United States of America would think of the current administration--and concludes that "our Founders would be genuinely concerned about... recent developments in American democracy and... they would feel that we... are facing a clear and present danger with the potential to threaten the future of the American experiment". The problem with this American experiment is that the results affect not just those within the country but have monumental implications to all of us sharing the planet with them.

Harvest for Hope: A guide to mindful eating

A delightful book written by Jane Goodall, aka the "chimpanzee lady", most famous for having made the groundbreaking discovery that our next of kin not only use tools but also make them. Her kind, wizened face framed by tied-back long grey hair is easily recognizable from the numerous animal documentaries/ shows on TV that she has been in. I did not realize until I read this book that she was a student of Louis Leaky, the famous evolutionary anthropologist. Since the late 1980s, Goodall has focused her activities on conservation/animal rights, and has been awarded numerous accolades for her efforts.

For someone who has been buying organic food for more than 10 years (starting with buying some vegetables in the late 1990s to becoming more rigorous since 2002, gradually shifting to almost 100% organic in the past two years), some new things in this book convinced me that what I've been doing is right: that eating locally-grown organic food is not only good for our bodies (no toxic chemical pesticides & fertilizers, antibiotics, GMOs, sewerage sludge going into our bodies), but also for the environment (less strain on our planet's environment, biodiversity and water resources, fewer resources spent on packaging the food then fossil fuels used to ship food long distances) and such food tastes better as well!

When friends and family hear me say this, they inevitably say: aah but you are lucky that you can afford to buy organic food. But, as Goodall demonstrates in her book, non-organic vegetables or meat from factory-farmed animals are cheaper than organic vegetables and pasture-raised animals only because the true costs of conventional vegetables/animals are hidden from us. After all the costs are taken into account--taxpayer's money going into government subsidies for agribusinesses; clean-up of environmental pollution caused by factory farming (estimated to be 9 billion USD a year in the U.S. alone!); treatment of illnesses, weakened immune systems, and food poisoning caused by eating animal meat saturated with antibiotics and hormones--the true cost of organic meat or vegetables is comparatively less.

Some of the horrifying details of "conventional food" described in Harvest for Hope are quite shocking:

• liquid manure from pig factory farms is "the number one pollution threat to the rivers and waterways of the U.S.", and that these farms are intentionally located in poor and minority communities;
• a study on local salmon caught off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, showed that some had lumpy spleens, orange-stained livers, or vital organs that melded together, and that swabs taken from salmon covered with sores were crawling with bacteria;
• behavioural problems such as violence and verbal abusiveness are strongly linked with increased consumption of fatty foods (fast foods) and processed sugars (soft drinks).
  

The parts of the book that I enjoyed the most are her little stories and anecdotes; the fascinating tale of sacrifice at the "giveaway buffalo" on Grande Ronde Indian reservation in the U.S.; the heartening story of a 20-year-old cow Trippel, in the Netherlands; zoo animals choosing organic vegetables when given a choice, or peeling the skin off non-organic fruit (while not for organic fruit).

A book that was instrumental in changing the way I view food was investigative journalist Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: What the all-american meal is doing to the world, which I picked up at a bookstore in Japan 6 years ago (the film loosely based on the book that came out in 2006 sadly does not do justice to the details documented in the book and is not worth seeing). The book gives an excellent account of the evolution of the fast food industry in the U.S., its relationship with the increasing use of automobiles, growth in industrial farming, exploitation of teenage/migrant labour and increased robbery of fast-food restaurants, proliferation of food poisoning, and upsurge in obesity in children. Although I must confess, I spent one summer working at a fast-food joint as a college graduate in the U.S., I haven't stepped into a fast food restaurant in over 5 years.

Harvest for Hope may be a bit wanting for those of us used to reading scientific material, as it has virtually no references (there is a small section in the end where one can find more information, but virtually no claim made in the book is backed by a scientific article/book). A book mentioned often in Goodall's book and recommended to those interested in reading a more thoroughly-researched material is Eat Here: Reclaiming homegrown pleasures in a global supermarket. Written by a researcher working for the Worldwatch Institute, the book tells us "why eating local food is one of the most significant choices you can make for the planet and for yourself". For more interesting information on eating sustainably, read his blog. Virtues of eating local are also well-documented in Barbara Kigsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, which I reviewed last year.

Jane Goodall's preachy tone used in the book does not offend but rather drives the points made in Harvest for Hope deeper: we need to vote with our mouths to change the world, and that it is possible for each and every one of us to make a difference by making the right choices every time we shop for food and everytime we eat in a restaurant.

The Weather Makers

It took me nearly two years to finish this book. I bought it in early 2006, only a few months after it came out, because I had read a great review about it. I saw the book piled up in every bookstore that I entered when I was in Australia last year (as the author Tim Flannery had won some prestigeous award in his country), but I could only look away in shame because I had yet to finish it. It was only when I promised myself that I would not read another book on the topic of climate-change--and oh there are so many of them these days!--that I forced myself to finish reading it.

The lesson to be learned here (at least for me, anyway) is--NEVER, ever, purchase a hardcover book. If you can not carry the book during commutes/travels on the train/aeroplane, you will not read it. Wait until it comes out in paperback, and it can be read whenever, wherever, you fancy.

In this book, Dr Flannery predicts that the day will arrive, sometime this century, "when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all natural factors. Then, the insurance industry and the courts will no longer be able to talk of acts of God...". The book is a must-read for any one of us who feels responsible for our actions, being a member of beings on earth that are now making the weather.

This informative book is amazingly easy to read--it is probably one of the most accessible accounts of climate change available (one that is backed by scientific data), starting with explanations of basic concepts related to the issue (including, for example, greenhouse gases & CO2) followed by a history of how climate change has shaped the evolution of earth. As it is clear from above, the reason why it took me so long to finish the book is because it was too bulky to carry on my travels/commutes, NOT because it is a difficult read.

After learning about the various horrific attempts by "climate sceptics" (such as the "Global Climate Coalition" that spent tens of millions of dollars in political donations and propaganda to spread misinformation and doubt on the "theory of global warming"; chair of the US House Energy and Commerce Committee who bullied three of the country's eminent climate researchers!) to oppress and counter efforts to combat climate change, one cannot help but throw our hands up in the air in dispair. One also wonders whether ours is a civilization that is heading towards collapse--as Jared Diamond aptly describes in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In his book Diamond has developed a five-point framewok of contributing factors that lead to a society's collapse: (1) environmental damage (2) climate change (3) hostile neighbours (4) friendly trade partners (5) the society's responses to its environmental problems. Could our civilization be heading down the same path that the Easter Islanders, Anasazi, Maya and Greenland Norse went? It is a depressing thought.

One thing (of the many) that I learned from The Weather Makers is the difference in the cleaner energies that are available. I had previously (and naively) thought that there was not much of a difference between the alternatives. But, as it is made clear in the book, hydrologen and nuclear mean survival of the big power companies (as the production of power would be centralized), whereas wind and solar open the possibility of power being generated by every one of us--what an empowering thought!

Dr Flannery must be an optimist, however, as his last chapter, titled "over to you", encourages us to take action now to reduce our impact and attain the 70% reduction in emissions required to stabilize the climte.

Here is his list:

1. change to an accredited green power option
2. install a solar hot water system
3. install solar panels
4. use energy-efficient appliances
5. use a triple-A-rated showerhead
6. use energy-efficient lightbulbs
7. check fuel efficiency of next car
8. walk, cycle or take public transportation
9. calculate carbon footprint
10. suggest a workplace audit
11. write to a politician about climate change

Living in a small apartment in Paris makes it difficult for us to do 2. & 3. (where is the sun these days, anyway?); we can pat ourselves on our backs for doing 4., 6. & 8. already (and no need to do 7., as we do not own a car). 10. has been recently done at my workplace. Although my rudimentary French language skills may prevent me from doing 11. in France, I have decided that I will navigate the way towards making 1. happen. Any advise on how to do it would be very much welcome!

As an environmentalist, a book that I often refer to in order to minimize our impact on the climate is "Wake up and smell the planet: The non-pompous, non-preachy Grist guide to greening your day". This book was developed by one of my favourite environmental websites: http://www.grist.org/. The authors tell us that the "most important choices you can make in terms of air and water pollution, global climate change, and ecosystem destruction are those that relate to transportation, household efficiency, and food consumption" and give us numerous hints on how to make these choices. As the title suggests, the book is not at all preacy, and that's what I like about it!

The Stone Gods

In her latest novel, Jeanette Winterson takes us through three worlds, all of which are at the brink of collapse. The first is Orbus, which is "evolving in a way that is hostile to human life", despite the fact that its residents have managed to slow down global warming, stabilize emissions, drain rising sea levels, replant forests, and stop using oil, gasoline or petroleum derivatives. Winterson then takes us to Easter Island, which looked as if "some great creature with hot breath had flown above and scorched all below", just at the moment when the islanders fell down the last palm tree. The third is an unamed world, much like our own today, which has just suffered a nuclear attack. In this post-World War Three era, people no longer use money. The world is run by a global trding company that rents out everything--houses, cars, clothes, even leisure. This is a welcome change from pre-3 War era when "Nobody ever had enough money. Rich or poor, money was scarce. The more we had, the less it seemed to buy, and the more we bought, the less satisfied we became. It was a relief when money was gone".

As with all Winterson's novels, the plot is not complicated; it is the beautiful prose, and the ill-doomed and unconventional love between beings--between two women, between two men and between robot and human--that makes us read and re-read her books over and over again. But in this novel, her prose is not only thought-provoking, but at times very political:

"... life cannot be calculated. That's the big mistake our civilization made. We never accepted that randomness is not a mistake in the equation--it is part of the equation".

"The truth is that I've spent all my life with my binoculars trained on the Maybe Islands, a pristine place of fantasy... maybe if I hadn't done this, or that or... But the truth is I am inventing the maybe. I can only make the choices I make, so why torture myself with what I might have done, when all I can handle is what I have done? The Maybe Islands are hostile to human life".

"What it means to be human... is to bring up your children in safety, educate them, keep them healthy, teach them how to care for themselves and others, allow them to develop in their own way among adults who are sane and responsible, who know the value of the world and not its economic potential. It means art, it means time, it means all the invisibles never counted by the GDP and the census figures".

I had the opportunity to see Winterson read extracts of this book last year, which was a delightful experience. Winterson does not mean to paint a dismal future for our planet; she claims to be an optimist and believes that humanity deserves better. We must act fast, however, to try to change the possible course that our planet is taking. To see videos of her reading, go to: http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=493

Winterson is one of my favourite authors, and I have read almost all her novels. Although I cannot say that "The Stone Gods" is one of my favourite of her books, it is a thought-provoking one that I know I will keep on coming back to. The book has succeeded in inspiring me in the work that I do--to try to make the world a better place.

Our Stolen Future

In "Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?--A Scientific Detective Story", three scientists raise an alarm over the proliferation of manmade chemicals in our environment. By mimicking natural hormones, these chemicals threaten to undermine our future. It is a truly captivating and terrifying book, as it makes us realize that danger lies all around us--in the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the food we eat.

A good part of the book gives us details of sinister signs in wildlife--bald eagles born deformed, beluga whales whose level of PCBs qualify them as hazardous waste, polar bears and seals whose reproduction rate is in decline, dolphins succumbing to epidemics, frogs disappearing. In addition to habitat loss and changing climate, endocrine-disrupting chemicals are a major threat to the world's biodiversity.

But hormone-disrupting chemicals do not just threaten wildlife; they "act broadly and insidiously to sabotage fertility and development" of humans as well, as indicated by the drop in sperm count and increase in sperm abnormalities. The fact that such chemicals have profound effects on the fetus is even more serious a concern, as contaminants accumulated in a woman's body are transfered through gestation and and breast milk. The authors suggest that abnormal tendencies in our society such as increase in learning problems, attention deficit disorders, aggression and violence are possible long-term effects such hormones have on people. As Sandra Steingraber has eloquently informs us in "Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood", environmental hazards threaten each crucial stage of infant development.

In my view, "Our Stolen Future" is just as important as "Our Common Future" aka the the Brundtland Report (published in 1987), which placed environmental issues on the political agenda. As the authors themselves imply, the book should be considered a sequel to the groundbreaking work by Rachel Carlson. The major difference between this book and Carlson's is the call for the need to "move beyond the cancer paradigm", because hormone-disrupting chemicals are not classical poisons or typical carcinogens that kill people or make people sick; rather, they "diminish individuals without making them sick". Such "deficits" can have serious consequences over not just the lifetime of individuals but for the society as a whole. The authors raise concern of the "power of hormone-disrupting chemicals to undermine and alter the characteristics that make us uniquely human--our behavior, intelligence, and capacity for social organization".

Since it was published over ten years ago, "Our Stolen Future" has drawn widespread attention to the issue of hormone-disrupting chemicals, and has been successful in influencing government policies in the US and elsewhere. See http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/ for the latest developments in the field of endocrine disruptor scientific research. Both "Our Stolen Future" and "Having Faith" should be mandatory reading for everyone and anyone who cares about our future and our environment. It is the responsibility of each and every single one of us to keep ourselves informed; after all, as the authors state, "children have a right to be born chemical-free".

The Diversity of Life

A fascinating book, which describes the miracle of life: how the world came to be as diverse as it is. Wilson has succeeded in giving an entertaining "ecology 101" course by writing such an accessible book. I could not put the book down--and this is coming from someone who managed to get a bachelor's degree from a liberal arts college without taking a single biology course! Had I picked up this book 15 years ago, when it first came out, I may even have become an ecologist! But alas, the two books that changed the course of my life were Eric Wolf's "Europe and the People Without History" and Karl Marx's "Das Kapital", and that is why I am an anthropologist today.

But I digress. The highlight of this book, which begins by demonstration of the resilience of ecosystems, is Wilson's account of how species are born and how, in 3 billion years, came to be as diverse as it is now. He then moves on to describe extinction of species--over 98 % of all species that ever lived are now extinct, but the world is currently at the peak of biodiversity. Wilson's depiction of the "unmined riches" of nature is also fascinating. In the last chapters of the book, Wilson tells us, in a rather preaching tone, that we must save the world's biodiversity from going extinct, and provides some concrete (but rather ambitious) actions that can be taken do so.

The only problem I had with the book is the species-centric view of the world; as is typical for books written by ecologists, people are described only as destroyers of nature, and a description of the rich interactions between humans and nature is only given two pages in the 400-page book.

This book should be compulsory reading for all those politicians and CEOs of multinational corporations, who are not convinced that we need to take immediate actions to conserve the environment. After all, as a Sengalese conservationist is quoted in the book, "In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught".

Hocus Pocus

An intriguing tale of the life of a man currently awaiting trial for masterminding the greatest prison break in American history. His reminiscence takes us back to his high school's science fair, which led him to a career in the US Army that took him to Vietnam; then as a professor at a school for the learning-disabled; then as a teacher, then a warden, of a prison. During his life he fathers a son about whom he does not find out until the day he is arrested; marries a woman with a strain of insanity on her mother's side of the family, which becomes evident when her mother, then herself, becomes crazy at middle-age; he has numerous affairs with women (the number of women he has slept with is exactly the same as the number of people he killed during the war in Vietnam, which happens to be a lot).

Vonnegut's impeccable sense of dry humour makes this book a joy to read: World War II is referred to as "Finale Rack of so-called Human Progress"; foreign businesses buying American land, enterprises and facilities are called "an Army of Occupation in business suits"; and the modern times are descibed as human beings "killing the planet with the by-products of their own ingenuity". Here's my favourite: Harvard Business School is full of "movers and shakers who were screwing up our economy for their own immediate benefit, taking money earmarked for research and development and new machinery... and putting it into monumental retirement plans and year-end bonuses for themselves". It thus comes as no surprise to find that Vonnegut was a humanist and has criticized the Bush administration and the Iraq war.

I only became interested in Kurt Vonnegut's books after I read his obituary after his death earlier in the year: it turns out that we had two things in common: one, that both of us had obtained our MA in anthropology; and two, neither of had decided to get a PhD in anthropology. I found "Hocus Pocus" an enjoyable read, much more entertaining than his more famous "Slaughterhouse-Five". I look forward to reading more of his books.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

A truly delicious read (literally! Reading this book made me constantly hungry, I recommend that you only pick up this book when you are full, after a home-made meal of locally bought products) that traces the four seasons during which a family of four ate only local vegetables and animals. The year of eating local begins in spring, when the asparagus shoots emerge from the ground; thereafter, the family subsides, as much as possible, only on what they harvest or collect from their farm, what they can purchase at the local farmer's market, and what their friends give them. This takes us through seasonal eating of heirloom vegetables, potatoes, wild mushrooms, carrots, chickens and their eggs, cheeses, tomatoes (lots of them!), turkey, and pumpkins. Kingsolver, with her husband, does not neglect to give us lessons on why we should eat organic or local foods that are in season—the implications of food traveling 1,500 miles to reach our dinner table, genetically modified crops, the problem of overfed but undernourished Americans, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), subsidies paid to keep "conventional" industrially grown foods cheap—and why we should cook our meals from scratch and avoid, as much as possible, eating processed foods. In beautiful prose, Kingsolver also takes us through her trips to north-eastern part of North America and Italy, and the slow food movements there. We learn that aside from the rare items (such as fair trade coffee, wheat grown out of state, and breakfast cereals), the family succeeds in their efforts—and saves money in the process.

Kingsolver makes a case that organic food should not be seen as an elite privilege; penny-pinching should not be "an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains". We also learn that liberation of women from the home into the workforce, but WITHOUT the liberation from housework, has meant that less and less food is cooked at home—as Kingsolver notes, nobody looks forward to cooking at the end of a long day—and this is where a profiteering industry comes in: “hey ladies... go ahead, get liberated. We'll take care of dinner”. But cooking is not only "the great divide between good eating and bad"; "home-cooked, whole-ingredient cuisine will save money" and also "help trim off and keep off extra pounds". How could we possibly argue against that?

My only problem is that Kingsolver mentions next to NOTHING about the problems of eating fish and seafood—such as overharvesting and depletion of fish, the dangers of eating large ocean fish as well as fish from most rivers in the US due to toxic poisoning, and aquaculture and its negative effects on the environment, to name a few. She mentions that when she and her family denounced CAFOs, they would only order vegetarian or seafood menus when they ate at restaurants, but the cultivated shrimp typically found in American restaurants are just as likely to have had negative environmental impacts and ethical concerns as CAFOs. But the book is, as the title suggests, about animals and vegetables, and another whole book would have to be written to delve into such issues. Kingsolver is one of my favourite authors since I first read her work as a college student in the U.S., and I have read almost all of her books. In particular, "Prodigal Summer" and "Small Wonder" deal with topics that I can really identify with. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" will be an addition to my bookshelf that I am likely to pick up often, whenever I need an inspiration—whenever I am tempted to succumb to eating out or order take out, after a long day at work.