Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom

I read Albom's Five People You Meet In Heaven a couple years ago. It is a great book, but made me cry so much that I was not eager to pick up another one of his books (even though I was sure it would be good.) In Tuesdays with Morrie, Albom goes back to visit his dying college professor, Morrie. Through their weekly talks, Morrie imparts his wisdom about life, love, and relationships. The relationship between Albom and Morrie is a little stereotypical - student gets lost in capitalistic stressful American society, idealistic ailing mentor teaches him to slow down and smell the roses. But, despite the trite nature of the story, it is told in such a tender way that I couldn't help crying by the end. This book is short enough to read in one sitting, but it's one I would recommend reading a small bit at a time - in hopes that the message will sink in - and we'll all remember to tell our friends and family that we love them, and try to live our lives today instead of putting everything off until tomorrow.

The Descendents - Kaui Hart Hemmings

http://www.kauiharthemmings.com/ - This book was written by a Stegner Fellow living in San Francisco, who I went to elementary school with back in Hawaii. Set on Oahu - with a side trip to Kauai, The Descendants tells the story of a wealthy descendant of missionaries (Matt King), who has two out of control daughters, and a wife lying in a coma after a boating accident. As King wraps up his wife's affairs by informing her relatives and close friends of her condition, he discovers one secret affair that he must figure out how best to confront. I feel like I've been on a string of so-so books, and it was making me think I needed to take a break from reading. But, I raced through this one and really enjoyed it, which made me a happy reader again. The main father character was frustrating at times in his cluelessness about who his wife and daughters really were, and sometimes I felt like the dialogue was trying too hard to be "hip" or "real". But, I loved the character of Sid, King's oldest daughter's maybe-boyfriend, who while a little lost himself brings some perspective to the rest of the characters. I recommend this for a good book about the awkwardness and frustrations of family.

The Nimrod Flip-Out - Etgar Keret

http://www.amazon.com/Nimrod-Flip-Out-Etgar-Keret/dp/0701178094 - I can't remember where I got the recommendation for this book, but after seeing the cover, I couldn't resist. This is a collection of off-the-wall short stories by Israeli writer Etgar Keret. The stories are creepy, silly, implausible, and a little inappropriate (read: adult themes) - but they were fun to read on a weekend morning over coffee on the deck. As with many short story collections I've read, I wouldn't recommend reading this in one sitting all the way through - instead, I'd keep it lying around. Read one while you're waiting for the oven to pre-heat or while waiting for the bus. They're a good momentary break from real life.

Wintering - Kate Moses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath - This is a fictional biography of Sylvia Plath based on her final collections of poems, published post-humously by her philandering husband, former Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes. Lisa gave me this book years ago and I started it right away. I became fascinated with Plath in high school when I first read The Bell Jar. I then studied her poetry when I was in college. The book is written in a beautiful poetic style, but knowing it would end with Plath's suicide, about half-way through I found that I was too sad to continue reading it. So, I put it on the shelf. Feeling somewhat melancholy myself last week, I picked it back off the shelf and finished it out. This is a difficult read, but Moses has clearly done her research. While a number of the scenes are not grounded in fact, she elegantly captures Plath's mental illness, and her struggle to find happiness and meaning in her family and her work. Plath's death at the age of 30 was a tragic loss of a brilliant writer, and I feel that this novel is a powerful tribute to her work. In the Acknowledgments, Moses thanks Stanford English Professor Diane Middlebrook (in whose class I studied Plath as an undergrad). Middlebrook recently published a non-fiction book called Her Husband: Hughes and Plath: A Marriage, which focuses on the marriage between Plath and Hughes, and the impact her suicide had on his life's work.

Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780140293449-0 - I am a huge Nick Hornby fan. I love his sense of humor and get a warm cozy feeling whenever I read his writing. So, I decided to pick up this book, which is a bit of a memoir focused on Hornby's obsession with football (or soccer, depending on the country). This was like a sports version of The Orchid Thief. I am not a fan of soccer, don't know the players or the teams. Yet, I enjoyed this book. Sometimes he gets a little heavy on the game details, but he tells enough stories about his childhood and uses soccer as a metaphor for enough things in life that this held my interest. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves soccer (Arenal is Hornby's team) or Hornby in general. It's also a frightening glimpse into the nature of obsessions - I've always found people who love one very specific thing so much that they revolve their lives around it to be quite fascinating. Not a must-read, but not a bad way to pass the time.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780545010221-1 - The final installment of the Harry Potter series! I was excited to see how it would all turn out, but wanted to read it slowly so that it wouldn't be over. This book is full of surprises - happy and sad - for the true Harry Potter fan. I came across the first book in the series (The Sorcerer's Stone) in the children's section of my local bookstore during law school. I had never heard of it, and bought it on a whim, took it home and read it in one night. The second had already come out, so I rushed right out to get it. I've been hooked ever since - and love the movies too. I won't get into any plot details - they won't make sense for anyone who doesn't like HP, and anyone who does won't want to read a spoiler. But, I will say that I am very satisfied with how Rowling chose to wrap everything up. There is a small cameo by Sirius - my favorite character of the entire series. And my other two favorites, Snape and Neville, end up just as I would have expected (but not without doing a few surprising things first!). A truly amazingly wonderful series. I look forward to reading it all again...but not for many many years.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/ - I was reluctant to read another "food ethics" book so close on the heels of The Omnivore's Dilemma, but since I started at #74 on the waiting list for this at the library, I figured I better read it when it arrived. And, I'm glad I did. This is Kingsolver's (with her husband and two daughters) attempt to live for one year only eating what she raises and grows, and what she can buy from local farms and farmer's markets. Kingsolver is a wonderful writer (she had me laughing and crying in alternate chapters), and the book is peppered with political pieces by her husband, and great essays by her college-aged daughter on nutrition and suggested recipes. There are so many little tid-bits and tips throughout - I kept wanting to grab a pen and paper to write them down or email everyone I know with them (like, did you know it's considered bad luck to say "Thank You" to someone who gives you a plant as a gift? It will cause the plant to wither and die!). Kingsolver's family raises animals to eat, which I would never do - but I am very much going to try to follow her other examples of eating foods in season, and trying my best going forward to avoid meat produced by CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations - or basically any US farm that supplies meat to grocery stores). As Kingsolver's daughter points out in one of her essays - what we choose to eat is one of the most personal decisions a person makes - and no one likes to be preached to in this area. I have always felt this way - which is why I won't preach the miracles of this book to everyone I meet. But, I really truly recommend reading this and thinking about how, if at all, you can change your habits and use your purchasing power to make a difference. I also felt as if there was a lot in Kingsolver's book about just slowing down - appreciating life, family, and friends - and trying to undo so much of what has made us into a "right here, right now" society. It's not just about food, but food is certainly a delicious metaphor.