I had the hardest time finishing this book, and for the life of me I can't say why. It's divided into 4 chapters, each dealing with a different cultivated plant: apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes. All the chapters are filled with fascinating data on the history of the plants, and the interaction of these plants with humans over the centuries ( Read more... )

I'm not going to say I understand all the poetry here, but I do understand some of it so I'm starting to feel very much encouraged -- this is such an improvement over my previous poetic cluelessness ( Read more... )

Gosh I'm reading a lot of poetry lately, I wonder if this is some sort of mid-life change? Anyway, this is a recent collection of Oliver's work, published in 2012, and most of the poems I like here are too long to quote, tho there is this one:

Three Things to Remember ( Read more... )

This book has made it very clear to me why I could never be an explorer: never mind the deprivation, the hardship, the weather, the hundreds of miles of walking, never mind the large animals that can eat you or the small fish that can eat everything, I would be undone by the endless clouds of tiny stinging and biting and burrowing-into-skin insects ( Read more... )

I swore I wasn't going to start any new books until I'd finished Through the Brazilian Wilderness and, technically, I have not.  I first read this book, and In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, years ago so I was actually futzing around with re-reading.  I'm not going to bother to defend that, I'm just upholding accuracy.I bought these two at a ( Read more... )

Click to view

Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, by Laila Lalami.  This interesting and well-written book follows the experiences of four Moroccans before and after they attempt to immigrate illegally to Spain.  The characters include a Murad, a young man who had grown tired of trying to hustle tourists into paying him to take them around to writer Paul Bowles ( Read more... )

I have to admit I’d been avoiding Eggers, for a ridiculous reason: I heard so much about him when his first book came out that I’d gotten sick of him before I ever read a single word he wrote. I sometimes get put off TV shows and movies for the same reason. Well, that reaction did me wrong, I love this book by Eggers.

In A Hologram for the King, ( Read more... )

I found this book sitting outside the thrift shop at the corner of my street. Since the shop hadn’t opened yet I figured it was a donation and made free to take it. I’ve read Pilgrimage before, as well as the sequel, The People: No Different Flesh, and I’ve always had an odd relationship with it.

On one hand, it’s a sci fi novel that gets deeply ( Read more... )

A collection of short stories by an author I’ve never heard of before, and I can’t say now that I’m surprised. I don’t mean that to be dismissive, because she is a good writer and tells a story well - even a fantastical story, which is rather harder to pull off than an ordinary day one - but having read and enjoyed the stories in this book I have ( Read more... )