My Brain on Books, Part 2

Ok, to continue, here are some other books that I’ve been reading lately:

4) Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (Kozol). I read Kozol’s Savage Inequalities over 15 years ago, and am still haunted by what his book had to say about the state of education in our country. This 2005 publication should receive equal notice, in my opinion. Kozol’s dark description of the way that districts in the US are busily disregarding the Brown decision makes me cringe. As a methodologist, I must admit that Kozol’s work is less about a thorough investigation of the situation than a sensationalistic appeal to the reader’s values—the statistics provided at the end feel to me as if there’s some cherry-picking going on. But it’s not hard to sensationalize an issue this important. And living so close to Charlotte (which has returned to “neighborhood schools,” becoming more segregated than ever), I feel especially implicated in what Kozol has to say. Rating: Diet Mountain Dew (a certain amount of artifice, but I feel motivated to act anyway.)


5) This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader (Gussow). This book came out at about the same time as Fast Food Nation and provides a nice complement to it—if you’ve read FFN and feel horrified about the US food industry (you will), Gussow provides the average American with an interesting scenario about what can be done at the individual level about the situation. Gussow talks about her own experience growing enough food (produce, that is) for her family on a normal-sized suburban lot in New York State. She also talks about the true cost of food and the importance of buying locally, shooting down most counterarguments, without being at all preachy. She also offers lots of recipes for home-grown produce (yum). I will say that the passages that describe how she sprinkles her dead husband’s ashes on her garden as a substitute for bone meal creeped me out a very great deal. However, this is an excellent intro to the question of sustainable agriculture—don’t be put off by the cover, which shows an elderly woman waving a beet. Rating: Ripe Tomato.

6) The Bondswoman’s Narrative (Hannah Crafts, ed by Gates). If you haven’t heard about this book, you should have. Scholar Henry Louis Gates found the manuscript for this novel (written around 1850) at an estate auction, and apparently it is the oldest known novel written by an African-American woman—possibly the only known novel written by a slave. Gates describes his search for the author (mostly fruitless), which was fascinating to me, as part of my own novel deals with this kind of research. Crafts actual narrative is astonishingly good, given the circumstances under which it must have been written. The book’s content isn’t all that original (lots and lots of Gothic conventions—very comparable to an Alcott novel), but it stands up to many of the works that we study as literature—for example, she uses the same plot device as Twain in Puddenhead Wilson—biracial twins switched at birth, but a good 30 years before he does. As a sociological phenomenon, the book provides fascinating insights into racial consciousness, from an essentially untapped perspective. I bet Gates’ colleagues are pea green with envy. I know I am, on their behalf! Rating: Devil’s Food Cake.

7) Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion (Ayala). This book, which was written by a Spanish-educated former priest turned astrophysicist, provides an interesting point of view on the compatibility of evolutionary science and traditional religion. For people like me who are largely over this issue, it’s nice to read somebody who basically confirms everything I think. For people who currently wrestling with these questions, I think it would be a heartening read. It’s also a nice counterpoint to the book I wrote about last time, Before the Dawn, which dwells a good bit on evolutionary psychology (which I find largely unconvincing.) Rating: Whole wheat pita wrap (it makes me think of unleavened bread, which always reminds of communion, somehow).

I’ve also been reading a number of other things that are noteworthy, including
-Pilgrim (Timothy Findley) Rating: Ratatouille—interesting but not wholly satisfying.
-People’s History of the U.S. (Zinn) Rating: Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. (I feel like I might burst, but I’m glad I did it anyway…)

So I’ve been having a grant old time, gorging myself on all the new books lying around my house. And—better yet—there’s a used booksale tomorrow at a local church—just in time!