Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the second book by Barbara Kingsolver that I have recommended on this blog. The first being The Poisonwood Bible - still one of my all time favorite reads. But back to Animal Dreams. I first read it about 10 years ago but I recently was in need of good book so I picked it up again. Wow! Ten years later, I read it with a completely different perspective and understanding. I must admit I didn't enjoy it quite as much this time around but I still think it is worth reading. Especially because Kingsolver is such a talented writer. I apologize if this is a copout - but I am stealing the summary from the back of the book:

"Animals dream about the things they do in the day time just like people do. If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life." So says Loyd Peregrina, a handsome Apache trainman and latter-day philosopher. But when Codi Noline returns to her hometown, Loyd's advice is painfully out of her reach. Dreamless and at the end of her rope, Codi comes back to Grace, Arizona to confront her past and face her ailing, distant father. What she finds is a town threatened by a silent environmental catastrophe, some startling clues to her own identity, and a man whose view of the world could change the course of her life. Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American legends, Animal Dreams is a suspenseful love story and a moving exploration of life's largest commitments. With this work, the acclaimed author of The Bean Trees and Homeland and Other Stories sustains her familiar voice while giving readers her most remarkable book yet.

I would rate this PG-13 for language and adult scenes.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

"While running for judge, Cowen roamed all over Dallam County and saw firsthand how the dirt-packed winds were taking the life out of the place. He drove for days without seeing a single green thing. He saw farmhouses without a chicken or cow. He saw children in rags, their parents too frightened of dust pneumonia to send them to school, huddling in shacks shaped into wavy formations on the prairie, almost indistinguishable from the dunes." (The Worst Hard Time, pg. 177)
"The dust in Kansas was falling in heaps; a team of scientists calculated that during the storms of March and April of 1935, about 4.7 tons of dust per acre fell on western Kansas during each of the blizzards" (The Worst Hard Time, pg. 188)
"How to explain a place where black dirt fell from the sky, where children died from playing outdoors, where rabbits were clubbed to death by adrenaline-primed nesters still wearing their Sunday-school clothes, where grasshoppers descended on weakened fields and ate everything but doorknobs? How to explain a place where hollow-bellied horses chewed on fence posts, where static electricity made it painful to shake another man's hand, where the only thing growing that a human or cow could eat was an unwelcome foreigner, the Russian thistle [tumbleweed]? How to explain fifty thousand or more houses abandoned throughout the Great Plains, never to hear a child's laugh or a woman's song inside their walls? How to explain nine million acres of farmland without a master? America was passing this land by. Its day was done." (The Worst Hard Time, pg 306)
The Worst Hard Time written by Timothy Egan is a powerful record of survivors of the dust bowl of the 1930's. During an already dark and dismal nation-wide depression, the great plains suffered almost a decade of blowing dirt and dust that almost completely wiped out this part of the country. I had heard a little of this catastrophe - one of the worst in American history. In reading The Grapes of Wrath, we learn about people who escaped the disaster. This book is about the people who stubbornly hung on to what was left of their farms and lives and waited it out. One thing I found very interesting about this story is that it reveals the cause of the dust bowl - it wasn't just drought - and also how it was man that actually helped to remedy the problem.
I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend this book.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Whew, I will never ever ever ever ever ever eat fast food again, and if you love fast food and don't want to give it up don't read this book.  Okay, this book was totally fascinating.  It was kind of long and I thought it would take me a few weeks to plow through, but it read very easily and was very interesting.  It has loads of information in it.  One of the most interesting parts of the book was the history of fast food and Ray Kroc (McD's founder) and Walt Disney.  The book covers the history of the industries involved with fast food, the workers, the meatpackers, the processors, the ranchers, e coli, advertising to children, and much more.  It has some truly important things to say and will definitely raise the bar on your social awareness.  I really do recommend this book to anyone.  

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

I read this book last spring and was really inspired. This is a non-fiction book by one of my favorite fiction writers. Barbara Kingsolver and her family decide, in the name of being more environmentally responsible to eat, for a year, only the food they raise or purchase within a 10 mile radius of their home. It is incredible. They opt out of the traditional food chain we all belong to. They eat abundantly and become incredibly self-reliant. I was motivated, to say the least, to try and expand my gardening repetoire and to learn how to can and preserve my food so that I can enjoy my garden year round and be a little more eco-friendly in my eating habits. If nothing else it is a fun read to see how their kitchen is drowning in zucchini and squash and tomatoes around August.