In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
Author: Michael Pollan 2007 205pp
My rating: 3*
Started January 27 2008, Finished January 29 2008
A quick, informative and frequently provocative read which though as ever enlivened by Pollan’s supple prose, is not as essential as his previous disquisition on food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Whereas TOD explored how food is produced in the US, In Defense answers the question begged by its predecessor: given the various environmental and ethical problems with how most of the food available in the US is grown (manufactured?) what should one eat?
The first part of the In Defense discusses “nutritionism”, attempts by science to understand the health consequences of various foods in terms of a small subset of their nutritional components, a terribly reductive, only-game-in-town approach which has result in much wrongheaded (and often-conflicting) dietary advice. Nutritionism, combined with the ingenuity of the food processing industry and government agriculture policy, Pollan writes “has ushered a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be both overfed and undernourished.” The second part of the book dares to provide specific dietary recommendations: eliminate processed food – food related substances that “your great-grandmother” would have trouble identifying, eat primarily vegetables though a little meat is fine and may actually be salubrious and finally, practice moderation – don’t eat too much. This advice may seem commonsensical, but Pollan points out its message has been lost to us in a world where toxic concoctions of hydrogenated fats and high fructose corn syrup receive heavy promotion while the time tested panaceas over in the produce aisle languish in “the silence of the yams.”
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Person of Interest
Person of Interest
Author: Theresa Schwegel 2007 372pp
My rating 2.5*
Started January 24 2008, Finished January 25 2008.
Way better than Grisham, about equivalent to lesser Cruz Smith, but not at the level of such paragons of the mystery genre as Presumed Innocent or Gorky Park. The protagonist is the cop’s wife, an interesting angle; the female POV was a nice change of pace. I didn’t really buy the complete lack of communication between Leslie and Craig or Craig’s obsession with the undercover operation or the entire character of Niko. The book scores a decent five out of ten for suspensefulness, but the ending was a somewhat abrupt and a little bit of a letdown, particularly the way the villain is revealed and dealt with.
Author: Theresa Schwegel 2007 372pp
My rating 2.5*
Started January 24 2008, Finished January 25 2008.
Way better than Grisham, about equivalent to lesser Cruz Smith, but not at the level of such paragons of the mystery genre as Presumed Innocent or Gorky Park. The protagonist is the cop’s wife, an interesting angle; the female POV was a nice change of pace. I didn’t really buy the complete lack of communication between Leslie and Craig or Craig’s obsession with the undercover operation or the entire character of Niko. The book scores a decent five out of ten for suspensefulness, but the ending was a somewhat abrupt and a little bit of a letdown, particularly the way the villain is revealed and dealt with.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency
Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy
Author: Charlie Savage 2007 330pp
My rating 3.5*
Started January 12 2008, Finished January 21 2008.
A thoroughly reported, factually dense account and damning account of how the Bush/Cheney administration repeatedly disregarded the checks and balances of the US Constitution in order to further their agenda, in the process undermining the rule of law and transparency of government upon which 200+ years of American democracy are based. The primary legalistic means the administration used to ignore the laws of the land were internal legal opinions authored by hand picked, ideologically compatible cranks (John Yoo) or Presidential Signing Statements whereby Bush provided his “interpretation” of newly passed legislation, essentially directing the executive branch of the government – all the myriad agencies, bureaus, departments and so forth – to not comply with the sections of bills he did not agree with on the grounds that those bills infringed on his constitutionally designated rights as Commander in Chief or that they limited the power the founding fathers intended the President to have under something called the Unitary Executive Theory which was based upon a selective misreading of the Federalist Papers and the validity of which had already been denied by the Supreme Court. The author indicates that almost every President from FDR on had tried to increase the power of the Presidency, but that Bush/Cheney were the most brazen and shameless in doing so, greatly helped by an enabling Republican Congress and the cover provided by national security concerns in the wake of 9/11.
One of this book’s primary strengths and weaknesses is its immediacy, much of what it recounts is so fresh that it straddles the line between history and journalism. While the freshness of its theme certainly imparts relevance – it’s not to late to do something – on the other hand, some historical remove might help separate the really important incidents from those that will not be of much import in the long run and lead to a more thematic structure, rather than a linear chronological account of the administration’s activities. It may behoove the author to publish a second edition or at least an afterword once the administration has left office and all the court cases have been settled, at the very least, because the book went to press with some of the most important issues e.g. military tribunals, still pending before the Supreme Court.
Author: Charlie Savage 2007 330pp
My rating 3.5*
Started January 12 2008, Finished January 21 2008.
A thoroughly reported, factually dense account and damning account of how the Bush/Cheney administration repeatedly disregarded the checks and balances of the US Constitution in order to further their agenda, in the process undermining the rule of law and transparency of government upon which 200+ years of American democracy are based. The primary legalistic means the administration used to ignore the laws of the land were internal legal opinions authored by hand picked, ideologically compatible cranks (John Yoo) or Presidential Signing Statements whereby Bush provided his “interpretation” of newly passed legislation, essentially directing the executive branch of the government – all the myriad agencies, bureaus, departments and so forth – to not comply with the sections of bills he did not agree with on the grounds that those bills infringed on his constitutionally designated rights as Commander in Chief or that they limited the power the founding fathers intended the President to have under something called the Unitary Executive Theory which was based upon a selective misreading of the Federalist Papers and the validity of which had already been denied by the Supreme Court. The author indicates that almost every President from FDR on had tried to increase the power of the Presidency, but that Bush/Cheney were the most brazen and shameless in doing so, greatly helped by an enabling Republican Congress and the cover provided by national security concerns in the wake of 9/11.
One of this book’s primary strengths and weaknesses is its immediacy, much of what it recounts is so fresh that it straddles the line between history and journalism. While the freshness of its theme certainly imparts relevance – it’s not to late to do something – on the other hand, some historical remove might help separate the really important incidents from those that will not be of much import in the long run and lead to a more thematic structure, rather than a linear chronological account of the administration’s activities. It may behoove the author to publish a second edition or at least an afterword once the administration has left office and all the court cases have been settled, at the very least, because the book went to press with some of the most important issues e.g. military tribunals, still pending before the Supreme Court.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The Botany of Desire
The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
Author: Michael Pollan 2001 267pp
My rating 3*
Started January 12 2008, Finished January 16 2008
Basically, an excuse for the author to investigate four types of flora that he found particularly interesting: apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes. The unifying concept is the relationship between the plants and humans – what properties the plants contained that caused humans to widely cultivate them. The (three star) section on apples was fairly interesting, primarily a study of and meditation on John Chapman (aka Appleseed) who “once punished his own foot for squashing a worm by throwing away its shoe”. The middle sections, Tulips and Cannabis, with their musings on color and consciousness barely held my interest. However, the five star final section on potatoes, which can be viewed as a prolog to Pollan’s must read, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is essential reading for anyone interest in how the food we eat gets to the table. After reading it, I will be unlikely to buy non-organic spuds again. It also has some eye-opening things revelations about GMO russets, which incorporate a pesticide into their genetic structure: among other things, the FDA did not feel a need to issue a determination on their fitness for human consumption since it does even consider these potatoes to be a food, instead classifying them as a pesticide which placed them under the jurisdiction of the EPA which for its part, without conducting any studies or tests, concluded that since it combines a safe food with a safe/approved pesticide, the GMO “New Leaf” potato is ergo fine to eat.
Author: Michael Pollan 2001 267pp
My rating 3*
Started January 12 2008, Finished January 16 2008
Basically, an excuse for the author to investigate four types of flora that he found particularly interesting: apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes. The unifying concept is the relationship between the plants and humans – what properties the plants contained that caused humans to widely cultivate them. The (three star) section on apples was fairly interesting, primarily a study of and meditation on John Chapman (aka Appleseed) who “once punished his own foot for squashing a worm by throwing away its shoe”. The middle sections, Tulips and Cannabis, with their musings on color and consciousness barely held my interest. However, the five star final section on potatoes, which can be viewed as a prolog to Pollan’s must read, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is essential reading for anyone interest in how the food we eat gets to the table. After reading it, I will be unlikely to buy non-organic spuds again. It also has some eye-opening things revelations about GMO russets, which incorporate a pesticide into their genetic structure: among other things, the FDA did not feel a need to issue a determination on their fitness for human consumption since it does even consider these potatoes to be a food, instead classifying them as a pesticide which placed them under the jurisdiction of the EPA which for its part, without conducting any studies or tests, concluded that since it combines a safe food with a safe/approved pesticide, the GMO “New Leaf” potato is ergo fine to eat.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Tree of Smoke
Tree of Smoke
Author: Dennis Johnson 2007 614pp
My rating 4*
Started January 6 2008, Finished January 12 2008.
Robert Stone goes up river in Vietnam to find Colonel Kurtz. Five stars for the potent middle half with its accumulating sense of convergence and foreboding, but three stars for both the slow moving, Stone-like implausibly talky (oratorical?) first 150 pages and the inconclusive final hundred pages where much that was building before sputters out. Overall, Tree of Smoke’s combination of high ambition and top flight prose outweigh the under plotting and earn it very high marks. Another big plus: in this book, Johnson does as good a job as I can remember of giving each character a unique, believable voice.
After reading this book, I read Michiko Kakutani’s New York Times review and was surprised by how many of her observations agreed with mine.
Anachronism watch: In a chapter set in 1968, a character remarks that “those F-16s sure tore the shit out of our mountain.” The F-16 first flew in 1974 and did not enter active service until 1978.
Author: Dennis Johnson 2007 614pp
My rating 4*
Started January 6 2008, Finished January 12 2008.
Robert Stone goes up river in Vietnam to find Colonel Kurtz. Five stars for the potent middle half with its accumulating sense of convergence and foreboding, but three stars for both the slow moving, Stone-like implausibly talky (oratorical?) first 150 pages and the inconclusive final hundred pages where much that was building before sputters out. Overall, Tree of Smoke’s combination of high ambition and top flight prose outweigh the under plotting and earn it very high marks. Another big plus: in this book, Johnson does as good a job as I can remember of giving each character a unique, believable voice.
After reading this book, I read Michiko Kakutani’s New York Times review and was surprised by how many of her observations agreed with mine.
Anachronism watch: In a chapter set in 1968, a character remarks that “those F-16s sure tore the shit out of our mountain.” The F-16 first flew in 1974 and did not enter active service until 1978.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Peter Hessler's China: River Town and Oracle Bones
RIVER TOWN: Two Years on the Yangtze
Author: Peter Hessler 2001 402pp
My rating 4*
Started Dec 14, Finished Dec 19
Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China
Author: Peter Hessler 2001 489pp
My rating 3.5*
Started Jan 1 Finished Jan 5
Apparently it’s harder for me to convey what I like about a book than what I don’t – words are failing me as I try to express why I like River Town so much. River Town is more than an insightful and engaging account of the two years the author spent teaching English literature at a teacher’s college in the Chinese hinterland, primarily because of the window it provides into lives in “middle China”. Much of the drama of the book comes from Hessler’s attempts to learn Chinese (which he apparently knew not a word of before a two month crash course he received from the Peace Corps when he first arrived in China) and to get understand his students and some of the people e.g. fellow faculty members and local tradesmen that he encounters in his daily routine. The story has a straightforward chronological structure which works very well, as the reader takes pleasure in his triumphs with the language and his concomitant ability to relate to the Chinese – the more versed he becomes in their language, culture and history, the more understandable and sympathetic they become. The vast differences between recent Chinese history and that of the west, particularly the US, become increasingly clear, for example after some of his peers, faculty colleagues born in the 60’s, reveal as if it were no big deal that starvation was the leading challenge of their childhoods in the midst of the Cultural Revolution.The parts of Oracle Bones that function as a sequel to River Town were for me usually the best parts – every progress report on his former students was heartfelt, humorous and revealing. Likewise the sections on Polat, the Uighur moneychanger and would be emigrant to the US. The chapters on the Beijing’s attempts to impress the Olympic selection committee and “Encapsulated Prime” matched anything in River Town. However, while Hessler has grown as a writer since RT, I found Oracle Bones slightly less satisfying than the first book, primarily because the narrative is less unified, consisting of several disparate threads, some of which have nothing to do with the others – many of the chapters could be rearranged without the reader noticing. Furthermore, the overarching story line, the tale of the Oracle Bones (the earliest extant examples of Chinese characters) and their discover and his sad fate under the totalitarian Maoist regime, for me lacked in immediacy compared to the story lines set in the present and failed in its purpose of uniting the whole. On the whole, though, the book is well worth reading and is a must read if you had enjoyed its predecessor as much as I did.
Author: Peter Hessler 2001 402pp
My rating 4*
Started Dec 14, Finished Dec 19
Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China
Author: Peter Hessler 2001 489pp
My rating 3.5*
Started Jan 1 Finished Jan 5
Apparently it’s harder for me to convey what I like about a book than what I don’t – words are failing me as I try to express why I like River Town so much. River Town is more than an insightful and engaging account of the two years the author spent teaching English literature at a teacher’s college in the Chinese hinterland, primarily because of the window it provides into lives in “middle China”. Much of the drama of the book comes from Hessler’s attempts to learn Chinese (which he apparently knew not a word of before a two month crash course he received from the Peace Corps when he first arrived in China) and to get understand his students and some of the people e.g. fellow faculty members and local tradesmen that he encounters in his daily routine. The story has a straightforward chronological structure which works very well, as the reader takes pleasure in his triumphs with the language and his concomitant ability to relate to the Chinese – the more versed he becomes in their language, culture and history, the more understandable and sympathetic they become. The vast differences between recent Chinese history and that of the west, particularly the US, become increasingly clear, for example after some of his peers, faculty colleagues born in the 60’s, reveal as if it were no big deal that starvation was the leading challenge of their childhoods in the midst of the Cultural Revolution.The parts of Oracle Bones that function as a sequel to River Town were for me usually the best parts – every progress report on his former students was heartfelt, humorous and revealing. Likewise the sections on Polat, the Uighur moneychanger and would be emigrant to the US. The chapters on the Beijing’s attempts to impress the Olympic selection committee and “Encapsulated Prime” matched anything in River Town. However, while Hessler has grown as a writer since RT, I found Oracle Bones slightly less satisfying than the first book, primarily because the narrative is less unified, consisting of several disparate threads, some of which have nothing to do with the others – many of the chapters could be rearranged without the reader noticing. Furthermore, the overarching story line, the tale of the Oracle Bones (the earliest extant examples of Chinese characters) and their discover and his sad fate under the totalitarian Maoist regime, for me lacked in immediacy compared to the story lines set in the present and failed in its purpose of uniting the whole. On the whole, though, the book is well worth reading and is a must read if you had enjoyed its predecessor as much as I did.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
800 Days on the Eastern Front
800 Days on the Russian Front: A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II
Author: Nikolai Litvin (translation and notes by Stuart Britton) 2007 159pp
My rating 2*
Started December 29, Finished December 31 2007
Everything I’ve learned about the eastern front of WWII, the arena where the USSR fought Nazi Germany, indicates that that was the decisive theatre of the war to the degree that it makes the western theatre, where the Americans and British were engaged with the Germans and the Italians, seem like a minor sideshow. Combat in the east seems to have covered a greater area, involved more battles with more troops, incurred far more military and civilian casualties, lead to far more and greater atrocities by both sides and been waged with a take-no-prisoners ferocity that makes what happened in the west (think Saving Private Ryan) seem almost civilized by comparison. The ferocious nature of this combat combined with the indifference the Soviet leadership seemed to have had for the well being troops as individuals has long made me curious as to what life in the Soviet army was like but any attempts I made to investigate this issue came up empty – there didn’t seem to be any commonly available works on the subject. A couple of years ago, when Catherine Merridale’s Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army came out, I thought my curiosity would finally be satisfied; this was not the case though, as the book contained little of the detail I sought with the author herself commenting that the veterans she interviewed were reluctant to say anything negative that might besmirch their great achievement of crushing the fascist invaders and saving their nation during their service in The Great Patriotic War. Thus when I saw 800 Days described as “the best memoir to date of a Red Army soldier in World War II”, I immediately put it on my reading list. Alas, another disappointment: the book, written in 1962, 17 years after the last of the events it describes transpired, while it does contain some riveting detail (in early 1943, the author’s unit was completely without provisions and subsisted for two weeks on a found horse carcass) is fragmentary and incomplete (whose memory wouldn’t be after 17 years?), again generally lacking in the sort and quantity of specifics I sought and also hampered by the author’s reluctance to say anything negative about the great undertaking he was involved in. Also, I would also venture that at this remove, there is such a gulf between the frames of reference of this coddled 21st century first world reader and a mid 20th century Siberian proletariat, barely removed from peasantry, that things which would seem like extreme hardship to me, were routine parts of daily life for Litvin and thus not even worth mentioning. Other reasons why the book may have lacked the sort of harrowing detail I expected, are firstly, that it starts in 1943, when the tide had already turned – the Germans were in retreat – and by which time the Soviet materiel position had greatly improved and secondly, that for most of the narrative, the author was a driver for high ranking officers and thus usually not involved in front line combat operations.
Other flaws I found with the book included the editor’s use of endnotes instead of footnotes and the general lack of maps to accompany the notes. To fully comprehend the notes, the reader would either have to be extremely well versed in the campaigns Litvin was involved with or routinely consult a detailed atlas of western Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Prussia.
Overall, I don’t recommend this book to the general reader, but only to those with a deep interest in the eastern front of World War II.
Author: Nikolai Litvin (translation and notes by Stuart Britton) 2007 159pp
My rating 2*
Started December 29, Finished December 31 2007
Everything I’ve learned about the eastern front of WWII, the arena where the USSR fought Nazi Germany, indicates that that was the decisive theatre of the war to the degree that it makes the western theatre, where the Americans and British were engaged with the Germans and the Italians, seem like a minor sideshow. Combat in the east seems to have covered a greater area, involved more battles with more troops, incurred far more military and civilian casualties, lead to far more and greater atrocities by both sides and been waged with a take-no-prisoners ferocity that makes what happened in the west (think Saving Private Ryan) seem almost civilized by comparison. The ferocious nature of this combat combined with the indifference the Soviet leadership seemed to have had for the well being troops as individuals has long made me curious as to what life in the Soviet army was like but any attempts I made to investigate this issue came up empty – there didn’t seem to be any commonly available works on the subject. A couple of years ago, when Catherine Merridale’s Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army came out, I thought my curiosity would finally be satisfied; this was not the case though, as the book contained little of the detail I sought with the author herself commenting that the veterans she interviewed were reluctant to say anything negative that might besmirch their great achievement of crushing the fascist invaders and saving their nation during their service in The Great Patriotic War. Thus when I saw 800 Days described as “the best memoir to date of a Red Army soldier in World War II”, I immediately put it on my reading list. Alas, another disappointment: the book, written in 1962, 17 years after the last of the events it describes transpired, while it does contain some riveting detail (in early 1943, the author’s unit was completely without provisions and subsisted for two weeks on a found horse carcass) is fragmentary and incomplete (whose memory wouldn’t be after 17 years?), again generally lacking in the sort and quantity of specifics I sought and also hampered by the author’s reluctance to say anything negative about the great undertaking he was involved in. Also, I would also venture that at this remove, there is such a gulf between the frames of reference of this coddled 21st century first world reader and a mid 20th century Siberian proletariat, barely removed from peasantry, that things which would seem like extreme hardship to me, were routine parts of daily life for Litvin and thus not even worth mentioning. Other reasons why the book may have lacked the sort of harrowing detail I expected, are firstly, that it starts in 1943, when the tide had already turned – the Germans were in retreat – and by which time the Soviet materiel position had greatly improved and secondly, that for most of the narrative, the author was a driver for high ranking officers and thus usually not involved in front line combat operations.
Other flaws I found with the book included the editor’s use of endnotes instead of footnotes and the general lack of maps to accompany the notes. To fully comprehend the notes, the reader would either have to be extremely well versed in the campaigns Litvin was involved with or routinely consult a detailed atlas of western Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Prussia.
Overall, I don’t recommend this book to the general reader, but only to those with a deep interest in the eastern front of World War II.
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