by Brian Halweil
The title should perhaps be not “reclaiming” but “exploring” as it is less a discussion of how and why to reclaim “homegrown pleasures” than a description of the changes different communities around the world are making in response to an ever more global food economy.

[Read more →]

Bored in Vernal, just so you know, I’m still working on my answers to your interview questions.
GameBoy, CatGirl and I spent the day at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. It’s billed as the “country’s largest celebration of the written word”, and as devout readers, we try to make an annual pilgrimage to […]

[Read more →]

the Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
by Ann Fessler
I just finished reading this harrowing, gut-wrenching, and emotional book. There were moments that I wanted to throw up, moments that I couldn’t stop crying, and moments that made me want to stand up and shout from […]

[Read more →]

by Kathleen McGowan
When walking through the airport last year sometime, I ran out of airplane activities (I’m somewhat limited these days) and found myself in an airport bookstore. Two books caught my eye: Labyrinth, by Kate Mosse and the Expected One, by Kathleen McGowan. Both appeared to be (in the little time I had to […]

[Read more →]

This is the final half of Elaine Frei‚Äôs two part review and reflection of Krakauer’sUnder the Banner of Heaven.
In Part I of this review, I explored the story of Ron and Dan Lafferty and how they came to murder Brenda and Erica Lafferty, the wife and daughter of their younger brother, Allen.¬† While that story […]

[Read more →]

by David Leeming
I just finished this. I picked it up at a recent trip to the library where, predictably, I was trapped for hours in the stacks pulling book after book off the shelves and flipping through them. I enjoy reading too much to speed read (I taught myself how in grade school because I […]

[Read more →]

I went with friends to see Elaine Pagels speak on the Gospel of Judas yesterday. The people at Chapman University introduced her by pointing out that her book, The Gnostic Gospels, is one of The Modern Library’s one hundred most influential non-fiction books of the 20th Century. Whatever credence you may give such […]

[Read more →]

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Witness the second little fruit of my resolution to review every book I read this year! It’s also evidence of my current Steampunk kick.
The Difference Engine is a poster-child of Steampunk, and Steampunk is a visually rich sub-genre. Anime and film capture, for example, the armored, […]

[Read more →]

Accelerando by Charles Stross
Science Fiction is a literature of ideas, and Accelerando is a dozen Science Fiction books in one.¬† From the first few pages Stross bombards his readers with a barrage of ideas–he puts novel back in the novel. This book is dense like star stuff with scientific extrapolation. From self-replicating […]

[Read more →]

After months on my sidebar, I finally sat down and finished reading Estelle Freedman’s No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women. Freedman has managed to write a history and a survey of global feminism that is at once accessible, activist and academic.
The compact size and the colorful comic-inspired cover […]

[Read more →]