Fun Summer Stuff

Hi friends!

So this summer I have a number of things I'm looking forward to, but there are two that I promised to blog about so here they are:



Normally I don't get excited about family history. It just seems like one more thing to do and just the thought of scouring the internet for all those names and dates makes my wrists ache. I really, really haven't caught the vision--except for when it comes to the lifewriting aspects family history. I firmly believe that every single person on the planet should create some sort of writing about their life. It will bless their children, it will bless their grandchildren, and the individuals will themselves be blessed by the act of writing. That's why I'm excited about the Colorado Family History Expo. Not only are they holding classes about how to use Google (that's for the old people), but they are also offering a number of classes about writing. My inner artist is looking forward to the down-to-earth info these types of events offer. Any of you readers living in Colorado should really consider coming. Or, if you live in Wyoming or in Salt Lake city they have options for you too!



I didn't participate in LDSPublisher's contest last summer and I regretted it. Thankfully, she's doing it again this year. I know a few of my readers are already heavily invested in LDS writing, but I also know more than a few of my readers think most LDS fiction is poorly written, soporific, romantic garbage. That is not true. There are a lot of quality LDS/Mormon fiction titles out there and this is a great opportunity to read some--and maybe even win something!
I've also vowed to read a little less this summer and write a little more (I've read 45 books already this year!)so I'm keeping my list modest.

Books on hold at the library: Lately I have only wanted to read books that have no bearing on real life. In keeping with that I've on the list for Shannon Hale's River Secrets and Austenland and Jessica Day George's Sun, Moon, Ice and Snow. I also want to borrow George's Dragon Slippers sequels from a friend.

Books coming through inter-library loan: The Conversion of Jeff Williams by Doug Thayer and Long After Dark by Robert Todd Petersen. I've been meaning to ILL that last one for a loooong time; it's award winning! I also requested Abinadi by H.B. Moore but because it's a new book the library would have to buy it and I won't know about that one for awhile. (If any of my friends want to buy this and lend it to me, I would love them forever! I'd even make them dessert!)

Other books: Dorian by Nephi Andersen is online in it's entirety for free. I'll probably start with this title. I also want to reread The Earthkeepers by Marilyn Brown. Oh, and I have a bunch of books from my dad's Mormon literature class at BYU--Under the Cottonwoods by Doug Thayer, Frost in the Orchard and The Rummage Sale by Donald Marshall, and an anthology called 22 Young Mormon Writers that was published in 1975.

I'm not sure I'll get to all these books but I know I'll enjoy the ones I do get to. How about the rest of you? If I promise to post on Dorian next week will you try to read it by then?

Happy Summer Reading!

Book Review: Room for Two by Abel Koegh

I usually end up posting my in depth reviews on my other blogs: A Motley Vision and LDS Readers, but my reaction to this book was too personal (and therefore unprofessional?) for AMV and too conflicted for LDS Readers (they have a policy of not saying anything negative--which makes it difficult to review stuff. . .) so I'm posting this here.

Anyway, the book was a memoir, Room for Two by Abel Keogh. It literally starts with a bang--that of gun that Keogh's pregnant wife's has aimed at her own head. He runs to the bedroom of their apartment and holds Krista while she bleeds to death. You see Krista was born to two people who met in a mental hospital--her father was manic depressive and her mother was schizophrenic--and was given a genetic legacy of mental illness which manifested itself as severe depression. Keogh sits numbly through the police investigation and then struggles through the nine days of his little baby girl's life. Because Krista killed herself the baby had to be delivered nearly four months early after being deprived of oxygen for an extended period of time. It is a sad, sad, complicated story.

But that only occupies the first fifty pages--less than a quarter of the book. The other one hundred and sixty-six pages chronicle Keogh's search for a new wife and drives home the point that a person can get over these things. You can love again. You can be happy again. You can move on.

I should probably stop at this point in the review and say this: I respect Keogh's experience and his right to move on. I am glad for him and his current wife and children. I'm sure he has helped a number of people through his openness and honesty about the pain he suffered as a widower. I applaud his courage to tell a story a lot of people in LDS culture wouldn't. I am glad he is happy.

But. . .

As a depressed LDS woman, I'm a little hurt. As a woman who struggled with perinatal depression three times and with PPD three times and is now fighting run-of-the-mill depression every day, I feel a little betrayed--not by his remarriage or his eagerness to move on, but by the fact that he abridged his wife's incredibly complicated and IMPORTANT story into fifty pages and managed to spend one hundred and sixty-six on what it was like to hold hands for the first time again. I mean, love IS magical, but depression is a transforming experience too. If his book is a true reflection of his experience, he didn't seem to spend more than few days wondering what his wife must have been suffering. And, what is perhaps the worst part to me, he didn't seem to even try. It was as if he thought that since he wasn't mentally ill there was no way to comprehend the strangeness of her experience so he closed himself off completely from any type of sympathy for her. He missed her after she was dead, but, from the way the book reads, he seems to have misunderstood her while she was alive. And that makes me sad.

Granted, I might have taken Keogh's book a little too personally and my reading may not be an accurate reflection of his experience; he might be horrified to find that I feel this way. But I wish that he had chosen to spend a little more time in the rush and tumble of the storm cloud and a little less on the silver lining.

It also angered me that this book perpetuates a lot of stereotypes about depression:

*His wife had been on Prozac for a long time previous to her pregnancy and chose to go off it because of the baby. Now, he may or may not know this, but SOME antidepressants are safe to take during pregnancy and most OBs and psychiatrists agree that if the mother's health--mental or physical--is at risk. I wish he had taken the time to correct this misconception while he had an audience.

*As luck would have Keogh's second wife also has depression--although obviously not as severe as his first wife's. She herself says she's never been suicidal. When his soon-to-be second wife tells him this he praises her for not taking medicine and handling it through excessive running (I say excessive because she ran at least three marathons in a single year, one of which was run on a broken femur). He says, "Her [solution] intrigued me. Maybe it was because I had spent so much time with Krista's family, where prescriptions were preached as the cure-all for every ailment; this was the first time I'd heard someone say they'd rather not be on anti-depressants [sic] . . . Some people would say there's nothing you can do about the way you feel. Take a pill and enjoy the ride." His soon-to-be second wife replies, "I'm not saying the medication isn't helpful. I just think people have more control over the way they behave and act than they think" (165-166). Now there are a lot of things that bother me about this conversation but the glaring misconception is that medicine is an exclusive option, an all-or-nothing deal, a zero-sum game. I've blogged about the stereotypes surrounding antidepressants before and I've blogged about the wonders of CBT and therapy too, and I hope that people are beginning to understand that antidepressants and therapy (and exercise) work best in combination! It's not an either/or scenario. Taking medicine is not a cop-out. What it is, is a responsible choice. Oh, and it doesn't take away your agency. If anything it restores it after illness has taken it away.

*Another problem in the book's treatment of depression was its complete silence on the fact that depression has spiritual ramifications. The above conversation illustrates this and the implication--and all too Mormon idea--that we are better off doing things ourselves and not asking for help. This is echoed by the author's insistence that he doesn't need to see a therapist and that others around him aren't "progressing" as much as he is because their grief lingers longer than his. The way he present himself in the memoir, he comes off as proud that he was the one who actually suffered the most and needed the least help. This idea of needing to do things alone and for ourselves is not only untrue, it is absurd. Yes we have our agency and we are accountable for our actions, but the point of this life is to learn to partner with Christ. There is no way to yoke ourselves with Him without asking for help--both temporally and spiritually. The idea that we need to pull ourselves up by our spiritual/emotional boot straps keeps too many depressed people from seeking the help they need and from building the support structure they cannot live without.

I could probably go on but it would cease to be helpful. There's just one more thing that I feel like I need to mention: depression is a deadly illness. For all the pain Keogh's first wife's death caused, he only barely links her death with her depression. If the memoir is an accurate depiction of his mind's workings it takes him months to realize/accept that Krista was not in her right mind when it happened--that she could not have done something different. So I'll say it again: depression IS a deadly illness. It needs to be taken seriously.

Anyway, I'm not trying to slander Keogh or disrespect his experiences. They are his and I'm grateful to him for being willing to start a scary conversation. I just disagree with the way the story was framed. Like I said before: I would have appreciated a little more time of the storm cloud and a little less on the silver lining. It might not only have been more interesting, but have done a lot more good.


P.S. It is interesting to me that Keogh blogged through much of the aftermath of his wife's suicide and almost none of it is included in his book. The blog posts are raw and, a few of them, powerful and interesting. It seems natural to me that, as a writer, you would want to use some of what you had already written about the experience. After looking at his blog his memoir feels sanitized.

Book a Week update

I feel like haven't mentioned any books here in quite awhile but I am still plugging away at my book a week challenge. Here's the update:

Books read: 44
Pages read: 14,054
Recent favorites:

Maus by Art Spiegelman. Read my review at LDS Readers.

This is What I Did; by Ann Dee Ellis. Read my review and an interview with the author at A Motley Vision because I am now an official blogger there. (It's the coolest LDS arts and culture site out there. Definitely worth checking out!)

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan (because everyone should read some tween lit every now and again!)

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall. (More delightful tween lit.) Read my review at LDS Readers here.

I've started more research for my book on Deaf Holocaust survivors and so my reading has taken a rather grim turn. I'm trying to alternate sad books with light books. I'll let you know if I come across any other good ones.

What books have you all read lately? Anything you'd recommend? Be sure to tell me in the comments!

Breaking Dawn: A Review but Not a Spoiler! (hopefully)

Before I get into this post I want to say thanks. Thanks for all your considerate words about my aunt. And especially to those of you, Jessica and Myssie, who have children with RTS--thank you. I can't imagine the things you deal with everyday but I also know I can't imagine the blessings you receive because of your sacrifices and love. I consider the people who loved and took care of Barbara as heroes and you definitely are too. Again, thank you all for being a part of her passing.

And then there was Stephenie Meyer. When I recently blogged about the first three books in the Twilight saga I didn't know the fourth one was coming out so soon. I also didn't know I'd be getting my hands on it so soon. I know a lot you are interested in it and haven't read it yet so I will do my best not to spoil it for you. If anyone is looking for plot synopsis I'm not doing that here. These are just my thoughts about how it felt to read the book.

My opinion of the first three books was mixed. I enjoyed reading them but was a little disturbed by some of the more erotic moments and some of the violence and the mixture of the two--especially in the third book. I had also been bothered by the lack of character development and what I refer to as the "theme mallet". (The theme mallet is employed when an author relies on the frequent repetition of key facts and ideas rather than artistic skill or the reader's ability to convey meaning in a book.) A friend of mine who is pretty much a superfan of the Twilight saga said she had read one interview (sorry I don't have a better source for this quote) in which Stephenie Meyer basically said, "I'm not a good writer, per se. I'm a good storyteller." That is how I felt about the books. They weren't particularly well written (from an arty/literary point of view) but they were great stories, even if they were a bit disturbing. After all was said and done, I did want to find out what happened.

The fourth book fell into my hands rather serendipitously. Our ward had a quarterly Enrichment activity Tuesday evening and a sister and I had gotten into a heated debate about whether or not Bella and Edward "made out". (For a fleeting moment I was pretty sure I was fourteen years old again!) After a few glances from our perplexed Relief Society president the other sister asked me if I had read the fourth book. "No," I snorted. "I don't even know anyone who owns it. Short of buying it, I have no idea how to get my hands on it." The other sister offered me her copy so long as I promised not to harm it in any way.

So it was that I picked up Breaking Dawn with trepidation. As I read the first few pages Bella was her usual self-deprecating yet competent self. Edward was the same, old, mercurial Ken doll. I sighed and settled in for what felt like the vampire novel version of a sitcom. But then something surprising happened. What is normally the denouement for a sitcom season finale, the wedding, happened in the first hundred pages. With 600 plus pages left to fill I was absolutely lost as to what Ms. Meyer planned on talking about. And she continued to surprise me until the final page, although the ending was not quite as satisfying as I'd hoped.

I finished it quickly and with a relatively light heart--a lot of the things that had bothered me about the first three books weren't problems in the fourth. Since Edward and Bella get married the teenage eroticism is toned down quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty details about how their intimate affairs are going but the tension is gone. Once they are married it just doesn't feel as dirty. Instead of Bella trying to be a sexpot and seduce Edward it becomes more of an exploration of female sexuality and how it works in a marital relationship, which isn't necessarily inappropriate.

Anyway, Edward and Bella's sex lives aside, the book was just better written. Meyer takes a few narrative risks and changes point of view in different sections of the book. Those sections are a like opening the curtains in a stereotypical vampire's crypt: such a welcome change! She'd tried it for a few paragraphs at a time in the other books, but here other narrative voices are firmly fleshed out. (Jacob fans, get excited!) The theme mallet was still in operation but I let it go since these books are aimed at teenagers. Bella also becomes more nuanced. In the fourth book I start to appreciate her as a character and not just as a plot device. Edward and Jacob don't grow as much but they have their good moments too. Oh, and Meyer finally trusts the reader to remember how much Bella likes Edward's eyes and chiseled chest. She refrains from mentioning them every other sentence. (Thank goodness!)

The other thing that struck me about the first three books was how "nonmormon" they felt--besides the fact that Bella and Edward hadn't, shall we say, consummated their relationship (which is the main subject of book three), there was nothing there that made them intrinsically Mormon. Which I guess was a little disappointing. I guess some small part of me was hoping that the success of these books pointed to a little bit more opportunity for LDS writers to go mainstream and that just wasn't so. However, the fourth book is very LDS in its overtones and values. It turns out that signature LDS doctrines (like forever families and agency, to name a couple)were driving the books all along. Who knew?

Anyway, to sum up the review: these still aren't my favorite books but they were fun to read. And while I am still uncomfortable with the combination of violence and eroticism in the books I can see why so many readers are pleading that us literary types just let these books be.

3 books in 3 days (thanks, Stephenie Meyer)

It's probably because my husband is out of town and I don't sleep well when he's not here, but I just read three books in three days. So much for being burned out on reading!

A friend of mine(Hi, Jerilyn!) wisely realized that I wasn't truly burned out on reading. I just needed a change of pace. So she brought me some books she'd been meaning to give me for quite some time now. What are the books? Well, they happen to be the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer.

Now, I have had several lengthy conversations with friends and family about these Mormon vampire books so I will try to keep it brief here, but they really gave me a lot to think about.

Twilight was the 29th book I've read this year, New Moon the 30th, and Eclipse the 31st. I picked them up having read a lot of the internet stuff about it. How can you live in America and not know about these books? I was trying to keep an open mind though. After all, so many people think these books are the only thing to fill gaping void that Harry Potter has left in their hearts. However, plenty of people also seem to think these books are, well, bad--with the definition of that word ranging from poorly written to inspired by Satan. Well, after having FINALLY read them I don't sit in either camp.

Don't get me wrong. Stephenie Meyer is definitely talented, especially when it comes to finding a popular nerve and stiking it just right. If you are wondering if that is actually a talent just check out how many impoverished writers are haunting the coffee shops in Borders stores all over America. Knowing what a massive audience wants to hear and producing it fast enough to keep them happy is a huge talent and one that so many writers lack.

Also, as far her craft goes, I was able to appreciate how she seamlessly interwove archetypes from romance, horror, and fantasy genres. I didn't find any of the characters themselves new or original (Edward might as well be named Angel for the way he mirrors Buffy's exceptionally sensitive vampire lover and Bella is SUCH the stereotypical romance ingenue I could pracitically predict how many paragraphs it was unitl she was going to do something) but I do think the combinations are interesting. However, as Edward and Bella entwined their fingers in each other's hair and smacked their icy/hot lips together for the gagillionth time I found myself wondering about Carlisle's story or even Rosalie's. For me the books would have been a lot more fascinating had the story been about Carlisle's tranisition from pious preacher to bloodlusting monster to "vegetarian"-vampire-surgeon and spiritualist. Alice was a hoot until she got to be such an obvious foil for Bella that I thought I was the psychic one.

What really made the books interesting for me was not the story line or the characters (no surprise there, huh?) but the puzzle of their cultural significance. My mind seemed to come back to two questions: Why were these books so fascinating to so many readers? And how did they square with Meyer's being LDS?

As for the first question, I came to a couple of conclusions. First off the books are deliciously distracting. I read each one almost straight through not realizing how many hours ticked by. That was fun. Also, of course, the books are titillating and in some places, downright erotic. And pop culture loves eroticism like it loves Paris Hilton. It was the eroticism that led my mind to a darker, more complicated conclusion too.

Now, maybe this the literature degree in me, but I couldn't help but read Edward as a curious mix of the sexual predator and knight in shining armor. For as much as he is the classic abusive boyfriend he is also the classic prince charming. As I understand it, for as long as they have existed in literature vampires and their lethal bites have been thinly veiled versions of rape stories.(Poor Rosalie! What an ironic moment!) And, to me, Edward's physical affection with its intensity and roughness fits with this. The disturbing part to me was how hard Meyer worked to rescript all this as goodness and how much Bella liked the violence and desired it--with such fervency that it gave her ardor an almost pornographic air. To be sure, the books aren't pornographic nor are they dirty--if they were I wouldn't have read them--but they have a tone that seems similar to those things. And I wonder if that isn't why they are so popular. There is something about that aspect of the books that jives too well with the gender stereotypes presented in hip-hop music, the tabloids, and even in our politics. There is a level of sexual hype or stimulation that our current American culture demands--and is quickly normalizing--that these books tapped into. And I find that a little disturbing. Especially considering these are supposed to YA novels. I just couldn't shake the violence lurking behind every "loving" gesture--whether it came from Edward or Jacob, Bella was being crushed every time she was being "loved"--and that creeped me out. That's not what sex should be and that certainly isn't what "true love" is.

As for my second question, about Meyers' religion and the role her Mormon worldview plays in these books, I was a little disappointed. I remembering reading in an interview somewhere (I'm sure her superfans can cite the source for me) a statement by Meyers saying that these books were built on essentially Mormon themes of unconditional love and redemption. Those are definitely themes in these books, but only in the most general way and certainly not in any way that alluded to Mormon theology and doctrine. I don't hold that against her or anything. I just wish it had given me a little more to think about there. But really, her being Mormon had nothing to do with the books at all.

I know most of you readers have an opinion on these books so let me know what you think! Most of my friends tell me I think too hard and that's probably true in thise case too :) Oh, and just for Maryam, let's do a quick poll: Edward or Jacob? Be sure to comment!

Updates: My box is better than your box! and more books

I have now been a CSA member for an entire month and I am still really enjoying it. Since we were out of town for two weeks a friend of mine (Hi Danica!) picked up the box for me. She said we got a lot of lettuce and spinach and some herbs. The garlic scapes pretty much stumped her. When I picked up what was left of the second box there was a lot of lettuce (honestly, five heads a week! Not even rabbits eat that much!), spinach, mint, dill, and grilling onions. And the garlic scapes. I spent that entire night freezing the spinach and the mint (it's a waxy herb so it should be frozen. Read more about storing herbs here.) and hanging the dill to dry.

I had to pick up my next CSA box just a couple days later. Again, five(!) heads of lettuce, a bunch of spinach, mint, dill, and onions. As I was loading the stuff into my own bags and taking them to my car a couple other CSA members took a peek in my box. "Oh! Look at that! She got broccoli in hers," one said. "What? I didn't get broccoli in mine? Am I missing something?" replied the other. "Oooh and she got two kinds of peas and more grilling onions! It must be because she got the family share." I felt my face flush and I stood up a little taller. It sure felt good to be the envy of all the other girls. I never thought I'd feel so cool carrying produce.

Anyway, I spent that night (again) freezing spinach and preparing herbs (more cilantro!) for freezing and drying. I was little burned out on all the food preserving until my husband pointed out that we now have a good supply of spinach for the winter and at least our year's supply of dill (more like two or three years--I don't know what to do with it besides put in on fish). That made me feel pretty good about the whole thing. Besides my kitchen smelled like a pack of gum(thanks to the giant pile of mint). How can one not feel good about that?

For the mint I tried making mint syrup. I boiled a couple cups of leaves in about three cups of water with 3/4 cup of sugar and a little lemon juice for a long time--about as long as it takes to get a five year old, a two year old, and an 11 month old to bed. I pulled out the leaves and squeezed out all the liquid when I remembered that they were on the stove. If you add pectin you can turn it into mint jelly, but I'm trying to figure out a way to make my own mint extract for use in ice cream, brownies, or frosting. I'll let you know how my "mint syrup" works. I'm going to attempt ice cream on Monday.

Oh, I also got turnips in my box. Any good ideas for those? Let me know in the comments!

And a book update: I've been struggling this week to get through Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". I'm enjoying it but I'm not enjoying reading it. I'm not sure what to make of that. I think it's because I'm burned out on reading. Horror of horrors! I haven't had that problem since college. (I took three survey courses in one semester. I had to read two or three books a week and write papers on them. I shudder just remembering it.) I also wonder if it's because my reading time and my writing time are competing against each other. I'm starting to get anxious about my book that is begging for revision. . . anyway, I think I'm taking a break from the reading. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make up the books later in the year. . . maybe that makes me a quitter. Or maybe it makes me good at prioritizing. (After all, the publishers said if I could get the book rewritten they'd read it again and be interested in publishing it. Vague and encouraging--in other words, par for the course in the publishing world.

Oh and keep your eyes on Segullah. Their summer issue is coming out soon and I've got an essay in it. It isn't out yet, but I thought you all might like to peruse their spring issue. It's free online and some of the poems are downright beautiful.

Notes from the brink

Of civilization that is. We've been on vacation in Yellowstone and Idaho and have been off the grid for awhile. It's been good to change up the routine and embrace so many new experiences. It's given me a lot of blog fodder. I'm excited to write it all up when I get home. Anyway, while we've been out I've been doing some reading. (A good book makes everything more enjoyable!) So here's the latest update on my book a week challenge.

#26 Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. This book was given to me by a friend (Hi Sarah!) who usually hands me really worthwhile non-fiction. This book was no exception. The story chronicles "one man's mission to promote peace [in Pakistan and Afghanistan]. . .one school at a time." Driven by the death of his beloved sister and a failed attempt to scale K2, Greg Mortenson was lost in mid-winter in the Pakistan mountains. Rescued by a generous tribe of Balti he found direction and hope in the eyes of young Pakistani children who held classes without teachers and tried to teach themselves to read while drawing in the dust. The ups and downs of his journey are interesting but it was his personal philosophy about the Middle East and the roots of conflict that were most interesting to me. I highly recommend this book. Besides being a good read it was a great introduction to the history of this important region and a little softer than some of the other popular books about the Middle East (like The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns).

#27 The Little Prince by Antoin de Saint Exupery. I read this one while doing laundry at our motel in West Yellowstone. This is a classic and I thought it was quite nice. I'm glad I read it. It was a nice reminder to treasure my children's point of view and to see things through their eyes--which made some of the sights in Yellowstone more meaningful.

#28 The Bat-Poet by Randall Jarrell. I first discovered Terry Tempest Williams as a teenager when the family vacationed in Moab. Talk about eye-opening. I was hoping to stumble onto something similar while in Yellowstone, but besides a copy of an old domestic handbook for women which I couldn't bring myself to buy, nothing really fit the bill. Then I came across The Bat-Poet. While it definitely isn't Terry Tempest Williams, it was the right read for the trip. This little story of a bat who wants to sing like a mockingbird but can't and turns to poetry instead is short and sweet and thought-provoking. I can't wait to share it with my kids. If you have elementary aged readers in your home, or if you like poetry, this book is definitely for you.

28 books down, 24 to go. My page count now totals 8,198. What wonderful books have you all discovered lately?

Book a Week Update (or, Why I Joined a CSA)

Since I know that what I am reading is ENDLESSLY fascinating to you all ;) here's a quick update on my most recent books:

#22 Heresies of Nature by Margaret Blair Young. I enjoyed this book. I started out really loving it and then began hating a couple of the characters and then, by the end, really enjoying it but also feeling deeply saddened. This book follows the foibles of a Mormon family struggling with their mother's multiplesclerosis. Everyone in the book makes some big mistakes (adultery and fornication chief among them)--even the poor, sick mother makes the mistake of trusting the one woman she shouldn't. But everyone seems to weather it all and, while the ending isn't happy, it is uplifting. This is a good read for anyone seriously trying to understand LDS lit and its current trends.

#23 Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. I've always struggled with Dickens. The only other book of his that I managed to finish is A Christmas Carol, so reading all 800 pages of this book feels like an accomplishment. I can now fully articulate why his style drives me nuts. I will spare you all the details of Dickens' shortcomings as a writer and my shortcomings as a reader (I get pretty fired up about it and then get longwinded), but suffice it to say I also hate Jane Austen, so apparently the whole genre/time period doesn't work for me.

#24 In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (non-fiction). This book, which seeks to encourage readers to begin making healthier food choice by shopping and cooking to a new mantra ("Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants), is excellent--although some of Pollan's suggestions are a bit impractical. The thing I really took away from this book was his scathing criticism of the way the Americans are encouraged by our politicians and our scientists to consider food in a strictly "nutritionist" vacuum. By doing a sort of meta-analysis of the food analysis, looking at the way we think and study food, he sheds light on our culture's food biases and how they are compounding the very problems we are trying to solve. Talk about missing the plants for the nutrients. . .

#25 The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I actually liked this book even more than I liked In Defense of Food. This book was full of interesting information (want to know how many different kinds of processed corn are in your food? Or how about how much petroleum or barrels of oil it takes to get dinner on your table?) all couched in a personal journey to answer the question, "What's for dinner?" Pollan follows four different types of food chains, examining all the links along the way, and eventually creates what he believes is the perfect meal. Pollan's perfect meal is not my perfect meal (he hunted his own wild boar in the backwoods of the Sonoma valley!), but the thoughtfulness he's encouranging totally jives with me. His section on sustainable farming was so inspiring and convincing that I joined a local CSA in order to avoid the grocery store. The man is a good writer. This book is definitely worth getting on the waiting list at the library or even buying. It will change the way you approach food, I guarantee it.

Anyway, that's the current list. I'm about a week ahead. I've now read 7711 pages this year. Go me!

Mormon Literature Roundup

In my effort to read one a book a week this year I've been using the Inter-Library Loan desk a lot. I cannot say enough good things about the ILL program. If you people don't know how to use or aren't using it, you are missing out! It has been especially handy lately as I've been on a Mormon book binge. Here's the roundup of my latest reads:

Book #17--The Backslider by Levi Peterson. This is single-handedly the most male (or should I say phallic?) book I have ever read. It was all about brawls, hunting, drinking, the male sex drive, and, oh yeah, the Church. It covered every touchy Church subject from polygamy to inter-faith marriage to birth control to 'jack' mormons (does anyone know the polite term for that?; I hate using 'jack', but the concept is different than a "less-active" or "inactive" member. . .). I believe it was published in the 80's and maybe part of the author's goal was to break down some barriers and talk about things LDS church members don't usually discuss, which I appreciated. (For reviews read here.) I'm not sure, though if I would recommend this book. I know a lot of my LDS friends would be offended/shocked by it. And, because the main character spends most of the book misunderstanding our theology and relationship with God, I would hesitate to recommend it to any non-LDS readers. That said, I think I liked it. There were so many golden moments in the prose; I just had to stop and read them over and over. The characters were strange (especially Alice--who is a man who castrates himself on a hunting trip), but real. The vision at the end of the book about the Cowboy Jesus was tantalizing (the fact that the vision occurred in a urinal, I'm not so sure about. . .) I don't know. Maybe Peterson is sort of the Dostoevski of LDS lit. The book is dark and full of guilt and sadness, but the redemption is nice and, perhaps, justifies the journey.
If any of you readers have some insight about this book, please comment on it! I wish I read this in school so I could talk about it with people.

Book #18--The Pictograph Murders by Patricia Karamesines (who would be my mentor if only I lived close enough to really pester her. As is, I just have to wait breathlessly for her to post on AMV or Times and Seasons or BCC). I LOVED this book. I wasn't sure about it at first because the main character did not seem very likable. I don't know what it was about Alex that bothered me, but I just didn't get her vibe. Of course, as I read more I think that was intentional. Alex's character unfolds and reveals itself not only to the reader but also to Alex. This, in the end, made her a relatable character. The novel is a murder mystery, but really it's more. The reader has no doubt about the "whodunnit" question. It's the why's and the what if's of the book that really get you. My favorite aspect of the novel, the thing that won me over, was how Karamesines interwove Native American coyote myths with the story. It gave the book a Madeleine L'Engle feel (who would also be my mentor, if she wasn't dead. As is, I just have to reread her books and published memoirs all the time). This is a book I would recommend. In fact, I'm doing so now: Read it, people! Read it!

Book #19--Hooligan by Douglas Thayer. Um, this was another male book (although not so phallic). I really didn't get it. I read Thayer's Under the Cottonwoods and other stories a few years back and appreciated it. But his memoirs, not so much. Maybe it's because I'm the mommy of little baby boy, but I found a lot of the stories horrifying. I can't believe Thayer and his friends would trick other boys into climbing into underground tunnels and then try to collapse the tunnel on top of them. I can't believe they killed SO MANY birds, rabbits, and other small animals all the time. I can't believe those boys gathered piles and piles of cardboard to build cities out of and then set them on fire for fun. However, the most horrifying story to me was that if they were mad at someone they would tie the boy to the tree, light a fire at his feet, and then pee on it so the tied-up one would have to smell the horrible fumes and get splattered by hot urine. ICK! Where were their mothers?!? (At home ironing and washing dishes and scrubbing floors and working to make ends meet during the Depression . . . all right, fine, I won't blame it on their mothers.) All I can say is, if these are a boy's natural inclinations I can see why the Boy Scout Program is a must.

Book #20--Angel of the Danube by Alan Rex Mitchell. This might actually be my favorite Mormon book to date. Barry Monroe, the protagonist, had such a distinct narrative voice and the way he interacted with LDS theology was so on track with how I experience it that I felt like I had (sort of, since Barry is a guy and a missionary) found myself. Funny thing about it: it turns into a romance novel at the end. Normally I hate romance, but it caught me so off guard I found myself rooting for the characters and really hoping they'd end up together. If a book can make me do that, it must be doing something right! I'd recommend you all go out and buy it right now except that it's out of print! So, hey, go ILL it!

Book #21--Salvador by Margaret Blair Young. I wasn't such a fan of this one, but then I read this review and came to appreciate it a little more. I guess I'm just not sure of the why behind this book. The book revolves around a young woman, named Julie, who is waiting for her divorce to be finalized and ends up traveling to El Salvador with her parents. In that idyllic setting Julie discovers which parts of her faith are misplaced and which parts are not. Maybe my problem with it is that it never got to the heart of our religion (and by extension, our culture), which is our relationship with our Savior. Plenty of the characters claimed revelation and witnesses from the Holy Ghost, but it seemed like they were all doing it as spiritual manipulation for their own gain. And Julie never had a spiritual "aha moment." She had an intellectual and emotional one, but she never reconciles herself to God. Which I'm actually okay with. I know that life and our spirituality aren't an after-school special with clear endings. Spirituality is a messy journey. I just needed the author to comment on the mess of it all. To paraphrase Simon from American Idol (forgive me, but he used an apt metaphor) this book was like ordering a hamburger and only getting the bun and condiments.

So, if you are still reading this incredibly long post, please comment and let me know what LDS books you like and what you think of any of the ones I've mentioned!

Pursue Your Passion

One of the most important things any person with depression (or any person at all, for that matter) can do is pursue something they are passionate about. Finding something that makes your eyes light up or your heart beat a little faster helps shake off the film that depression casts over your brain. I also believe that many of our passions come from God. After all, all good things come from God, and if we are passionate about something--if it makes us feel truly good--then it is probably a gift. So start a blog, climb a mountain, learn a language, volunteer. Do whatever it is that helps you remember you are alive! It might be scary at first, but the focus and the energy you'll find inside you wil be worth all the effort you put in.

For me reading/writing is the passion that brings me back to life when I need it. My writing is in limbo at the moment so I started this blog and challenged myself to read one book each week for this year. I've now read 16 books this year. Here are the most recent (if reading is not your passion then I give you permission to scroll to the end of this post):

Book 11. The Shadow of the Sun by Ryzard Kapuscinski. This book chronicled a Polish journalist's career as his paper's Africa correspondent over the last 50 years. Kapuscinski somehow managed to be at the epicenter of every major revolution on the continent. Reading his accounts and observations was riveting. I found it incredibly sad (so many things go wrong in Africa! It just isn't fair!), but also motivating. The Church humanitarian programs provide so many opportunities to help people all over the world--especially in Africa. Just in case you need a nudge to make a difference, here's the link to the current humanitarian service needs.

Book 12. Bound on Earth by Angela Hallstrom. Every good thing that has been said about this book is true. Everyone should read it! Everyone should buy it! I recommended this for my monthly book club and we had such an awesome discussion. It was marvelous.

Book 13. The Undertaking: life studies from the dismal trade by Thomas Lynch. This book surprised me in every way--which I suppose shouldn't have been surprising given that it was written by a mortician/poet. I came across it through a Frontline episode on PBS. The author was unbelievable frank about everything from the weirdness of embalming his own father to the mess of suicide to the especially vivid flatulence one gets after eating bad curry. He also had a knack for bringing poetry to places that we assume would be bereft of rhyme and reason. A very good read, but I must warn you, brace yourself for thoughts you would never have thought of yourself!

Book 14. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. This is a classic and I'm pretty sure I'm the last person in the universe to read it. So good. And so deep. I guess I need to read it again before I could organize anything interesting to add to what's already been said.

Book 15. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I guess I liked this one. I didn't not like it. Although, I did spend a lot of time while I was reading it trying to imagine how I would have felt about it if I were a ten year old girl. The conclusion: I would have liked it better.

Book 16. The Fattening of America: how the economy make us fat, if it matters, and what to do about it by Eric A Finkelstein and Laurie Zuckerman. This was pretty interesting. I really like the way economists look at the world; it just seems remarkably realistic. Anyway, this book put an economist's twist on the obesity debate in America. Not only was it funny, but it was quite informative. For the two days it took me to read it I was the sugar-police in my house and I put a little more effort into getting my kids to eat their veggies. If a book can do that it must be well-written!

Anyway, for all you readers out there (all, you know, five of you) what are your passions? What makes you feel alive enough to get out of bed in the morning? Post it here so we can all encourage each other!

Book Update:11 books down, 39 to go

I have now read two more books in my book a week challenge.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.

Could I have found another pair of books to read closely together that were more opposite than these two? The House of Mirth is one of those literary institutions: beautifully crafted, filled with compelling charcters, and sad. Very sad. Edward Tulane is, well, happy. Imagine it this way: what if the velveteen rabbit had a happy ending? That's what Edward Tulane is. While Wharton's work is all about being lost and unable to accept or find love, DiCamillo's book is all about learning to love. I did enjoy both books and I would recommend them to anyone.