Deep Economy

Well, Booktalk.org is at it again. This time, one of the books is Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben. (Here’s the link to the Booktalk.org discussion forum.)

This one is hitting me close to home. I worked the opening day of the local Farmers’ Market (I’m the manager), came home, and picked up Deep Economy to read McKibben’s discussion on farmers’ markets — and the studied fact that people have 10 more social interactions there than they do in a supermarket.

I could’ve told  him that!!

McKibben believes in communities — the idea that as individuals we make decisions that (seem to) affect only us, but with an awareness of our community, we make decisions that have deeper consequences. [It's a big book, lots of ideas, and I'm writing this in an office with no circulation on a hot day at 6 p.m.. Bear with me on my simplistic synopses. ]

For example, if I’m just thinking of myself, then I’ll go to the local Walmart and buy the cheapest coffee on the shelf. But, if I were aware of my local community, I’d go to the grocery store in town that may have a higher price tag, but where I know that the management cares about their staff and pay good wages. If I were thinking of the broader community, I’d go out of my way to buy fair trade, shade-grown coffee, and by-pass the big corporations abusing the people of the coffee-growing nations. But, if I were really thinking of the greater community, I’d stop drinking coffee altogether, as the fossil fuels needed to bring that coffee to me, no matter how it’s grown, are damaging our environment. (Plus, they’re running out. Might as well overcome the coffee addiction now, before I’m forced to, down the road!)

This is a huge discussion…that I don’t feel like undertaking at this moment. Perhaps in the comments??

“Merry Bookmas!”

Luckily, I’ve married into a bookish family, and my man is bookish, and his friends are…and my mother has been trained to give me a book gift certificate every year.

Books and consumables are the best presents (consumables…you know — wine, cheese, cookies, jam…).

This year was a nice mess of books:

I found The Art of Blacksmithing by Alex Bealer for Metro. He’s always talking about how he’d like to learn more about it, etc. Well, now he can.

Metro’s sister found him John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise.  An odd book of satirical essays and the like…perfect.  The same sister sent me the Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

I put a lot of browsing time to use in my local 2ndhand bookstore…made my husband a list of books that were there, that he could pick up for me. And he took me up on it, and bought me the rather unusual Truly Wilde: The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar’s Unusual Niece by Joan Schenkar. I’ll have to blog on this book individually one day, soon.

Metro also got me two more books — I feel spoiled! The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls was one. New York Times bestseller, winner of various awards…I think that’s the next book I’m reading. He also bought me Think: Why Crucial Decisions Can’t be Made in the Blink of an Eye by Michael R. LeGault. The interesting thing about this book is that LeGault wrote it in reaction to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink…Blink essentially glorifies the decisions we make subconsciously, in the moment, while I believe LeGault’s point is that we need to put more thought into our decisions. I’ll let you know more when I’ve read LeGault’s book (I’ve already read Gladwell’s).

Funny thing, is that our friends sent us some books too…one is Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, and appropriately enough, Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels — from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe by Anthony Arthur. His sequel will have to include Gladwell & LeGault.

The final book on the list is Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. This one is also from the same friends…and again, a good call. We bought this for Metro’s mother last Christmas, so it’s been on our radar for awhile.

So, leave me a comment to tell me what books you got for Christmas!!

A generation that can’t spell??

As many of you have heard, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has stated that while they

“…still strongly discourages students from using anything other than full English, but that credit will be given if the answer ‘clearly shows the required understanding,’ even if it contains text-speak.” (CNN)

So, essentially, this is a concession to students that may have a grasp over the topic, but in the pressure of the test, may forget that r is actually spelled are?

Ever hear of audience? Register (Linguistics. a variety of language typically used in a specific type of communicative setting: an informal register; the register of scientific discourse. Source.)?

What the hell are you doing, allowing a whole generation of young people to get away with a casual social register as their only form of expression? Hey, every group has its own jargon — that’s fine. But it’s not brought into the broader social sphere, or the general workplace.

Those kids that take the Qualifications Authority up on this concession may discover that those doing the marking may not actually be able to read text-speak.

Stick to learning to spell. You may need it for the rest of your life.

Great news and a literary tie-in

Just heard some brilliant news on the radio — three Mexican fishermen, presumed dead/drowned by their families in September, have just been found, after drifting (almost literally) halfway around the world.

Can you imagine the joy and celebration right now with their families?!? I picture stunned silence, followed by crazed jubilation, then a huge party in the town square. It’s still 2 weeks until the fishing boat they were picked up by gets into port…then they have to be sent home. Time enough, I hope, to get that lean, hungry look out of their eyes before seeing their families again.

Three cheers for rainwater! Hip hip hooray!

A great real life story, mirroring, in some ways the Booker Prize winner from 2002, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.

Okay, so maybe the only parallels are the being stranded at sea for months — but I see the world through books (and sometimes movies), so sue me if this is the first thing that came to mind!

If you haven’t read about the Indian boy, Pi, who grew up learning about the animals in his father’s zoo, then subsequently got stranded at sea in a lifeboat with a tiger, then well, go to the library today, and pick it up. It’s a book that pulls you in and keeps you there, with its anecdotes about animals, comments on life and religion, and moments of magical realism.