Archive
2012’s 5 Star Reads!
Last year I decided to dedicate a separate post from my annual reading stats post to the 5 star reads of the year. I not only thoroughly enjoyed assembling that post, but I also still go back to it for reference. It’s just useful and fun simultaneously! Plus it has the added bonus of giving an extra signal boost to the five star reads of the year.
Please note that if the 5 star went to a book in a graphic novel series, I am just listing the whole series. If it’s a non-graphic series, then the individual book is listed with a note about what series it is in. With no further ado, presenting Opinions of a Wolf’s 5 Star Reads for 2012!
Acacia: The War with the Mein
By: David Anthony Durham
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: Doubleday
Genre: Fantasy
Themes: the complexities of good and evil
Summary:
The Akarans have ruled the Known World for twenty-two generations, but the wrongfully exiled Meins have a bit of a problem with that. They enact a take-over plot whose first action is assassinating the king. Suddenly his four children are flung to different parts of the Known World in exile where they will need to come to terms with who they are, who the Mein are, and the wrongs past generations of Akarans committed in order to help the Known World make a change for the better.
Current Thoughts:
I have to catch myself whenever I start to say I don’t like high fantasy now, because I do like it. I like it when done right. When it questions patriarchy and race and tradition in the context of a fantastical world. I definitely feel like this book has cross-over potential, so I recommend it to anyone with an interest in multi-generational epics.
Dark Life
By: Kat Falls
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Genre: YA, Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi
Themes: ocean exploration, pioneering
Summary:
Ty was the first person born subsea. His family are settlers on the bottom of the ocean, a new venture after global warming caused the Rising of the seas. Ty loves his life subsea and hates Topside. One day while adventuring around in the dark level of subsea, he stumbles upon a submarine and a Topside girl looking for her long-lost older brother. Helping her challenges everything Ty believes in.
Current Thoughts:
I still sometimes think back to the delightfully creative underwater world that Falls presents in this book. This is a YA book that manages to avoid the painful tropes that a lot of them fall into, plus it has a great setting. I will definitely be reading the rest of the series.
Diet for a New America
By: John Robbins
Publication Date: 1987
Publisher: Stillpoint Publishing
Genre: Nonfiction–Diet, Nonfiction–Environmentalism, Nonfiction–Science
Themes: health, responsible choices
Summary:
John Robbins was born into one of the most powerful corporations in America–Baskin-Robbins. A company based entirely on selling animal products. Yet he took it upon himself to investigate the reality of animals products and their impact on Americans, American land, and the world overall. This book summarizes his extensive research, including personal visits to factory farms.
Current Thoughts:
Although I already knew a lot of this information before reading this book, I believe that Robbins does an excellent job both of writing it out clearly and backing it up with respected, academic citations. It’s my go-to book to hand to people who want to know why I’m so against factory farming and what the scientific arguments in favor of vegetarianism are.
A Dog Named Slugger
By: Leigh Brill
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Genre: Nonfiction–Memoir
Themes: animal/human relationships, disability studies
Summary:
Leigh Brill recounts in her memoir her life before, during, and after her first service dog, Slugger, a golden retriever with a heart just as golden. Leigh had no idea her cerebral palsy could even possibly qualify her for a service dog until a similarly disabled fellow graduate student gave her some information. Her touching memoir tracks her journey, as well as the life of Slugger.
Current Thoughts:
My love for animals means that any book about relationships with them tends to top my list. This one stands out for its focus on issues for the disabled, and I believe that Brill’s love for her dog, both for his personality and how he helps her, really shine through. I’d recommend this to any animal lover or to those curious about life with a service animal.
The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change
By: Roger Thurow
Publication Date: 2012
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Genre: Nonfiction–Social Justice
Themes: hunger, farming, global warming, putting a face onto the issues
Summary:
Smallholder farmers make up the majority of Kenya’s food production and yet they face multiple challenges from inefficient planting techniques to bad seed markets that lead to an annual wanjala–hunger season. One Acre Fund, an ngo, saw the gap and came in with a vision. Sell farmers high quality seeds and fertilizers on credit, delivered to their villages, on the condition they attend local farming classes. Roger Thurow follows four families as they try out becoming One Acre farmers.
Current Thoughts:
I credit this book with giving me perspective in the worldwide hunger and GMO debate, and of course with giving me that ever-useful reminder that in some ways I have been very lucky. What I tell people in order to get them to read this book is one of two things. Either read this book because it will show you the true face of hunger or read this book to understand why some GMOs are necessary. Most of all, I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the worldwide food debate.
Sisterhood Everlasting
By: Ann Brashares
Publication Date: 2011
Publisher: Random House
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Themes: the pain of growing up and maturing, changing relationships
Summary:
The Septembers are all 29 years old now and spread out all over the globe. Bee is expending her energy biking up and down the hills of San Francisco while Eric works as a lawyer. Carmen has a recurring role on a tv show filming in NYC and is engaged to Jones, an ABC producer. Lena teaches art at RISD and lives a quiet life in her studio apartment, except for the one day a week she practices Greek with an elderly woman. Tibby took off to Australia with Brian months ago, and everyone else is in limbo waiting for her to get back. They all feel a bit disconnected until Tibby sends Bee, Carmen, and Lena tickets to come to Greece for a reunion. What they find when they arrive is not what anyone expected.
Current Thoughts:
It’s unfortunately rare that a series grows up with the characters, but Sisterhood has. Although a lot of women’s fiction with similar themes frustrates me, this series works because I started reading it as a teenager when the women were teenagers. I understand where they’re coming from and am more willing to give them a chance. If you ever read any of the Sisterhood books but neglected to finish the series, definitely pick them back up. It’s worth it.
To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War
By: Tera W. Hunter
Publication Date: 1997
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Genre: Nonfiction–History
Themes: race, class, gender, Atlanta, domestic workers
Summary:
Hunter examines the lives of southern black women, particularly southern domestic workers, by narrowing her focus in on the development of the city of Atlanta after the Civil War. Since many ex-slaves moved to Atlanta and then migrated again north during the Great Migration decades later, this makes for an excellent focal point for the topic. By examining black women’s lives in Atlanta both in and out of their employer’s homes, she is able to dissect the roles of race, class, and gender in the elite’s attempts to maintain dominance in America.
Current Thoughts:
This book not only gave me the thought-provoking examination of the intersection of race, class, and gender, but it also gave me an awesome historical introduction to the city of Atlanta. I always think of this book whenever Atlanta comes up. It’s also a great example of readable, accessible nonfiction history writing.
Vegan Vittles: Recipes Inspired by the Critters of Farm Sanctuary
By: Joanne Stepaniak
Publication Date: 1996
Publisher: Book Publishing Company (TN)
Genre: Nonfiction–Cookbook–Vegan
Themes: down-home cruelty-free cooking
Summary:
A farm sanctuary is a farm whose sole purpose is to save animals from farm factories and slaughter. The Farm Sanctuary in upstate New York was started in 1986. In this cookbook, one of the proprietors has gathered vegan recipes inspired by farm life. Think down-home cooking that is cruelty-free.
Current Thoughts:
The recipes I selected out of this cookbook have solidly entered my repertoire and are repeated hits with omnis and veg*ns alike! They are simple, easy, and adaptable. They also fill that comfort food niche I had honestly been missing. Highly recommended to anyone who loves comfort food.
The Walking Dead
By: Robert Kirkman
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: Image Comics
Genre: Graphic Novel–Horror
Themes: creation of a new society, living in fear, unjust wars, truthiness, self-protection, zombies, Georgia, survival
Summary:
When cop Rick wakes up from a coma brought on by a gun shot wound, he discovers a post-apocalyptic mess and zombies everywhere. He sets off for Atlanta in search of his wife, Lori, and son, Carl, and soon teams up with a rag-tag group of survivors camped just outside of Atlanta.
Current Thoughts:
I’m still working my way through this series, but it just progressively gets better and better. Although the beginning is cliche, it does not take Kirkman long to become unique, surprising, and thought-provoking. This now also features a spin-off, non-graphic, prequel series about the villain, The Governor. I consider these to all be the same series, in spite of different formats, and I’m finding that spin-off just as enjoyable.
Warm Bodies
By: Isaac Marion
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Themes: hope, love
Summary:
R is a zombie, and he remembers nothing about his life before he was one–except that his name starts with the letter R. He and his group of the other living dead inhabit an old abandoned airport and are ruled by the bonies. They hunt the living not just for the food, but also for the memories that come from ingesting their brains. It’s like a drug. One day when he’s out on a hunt, R eats the brain of a young man who loves a young woman who is there, and R steps in to save her. It is there that an unlikely love story begins.
Current Thoughts:
This book reminds me that even a post-apocalyptic story can be hopeful. I also still look back on R’s unlikely love story with a warm heart and smile. I recommend it to those looking for an off-beat love story or a different take on zombies.
The Wind Through the Keyhole 
By: Stephen King
Publication Date: 2012
Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Themes: growing up, leaving aside childish things
Summary:
There’s a tale we have yet to hear about the ka-tet in the time between facing the man in the green castle and the wolves of the Calla. A time when the ka-tet hunkered down and learned a special billy-bumbler talent, an old tale of Gilead, and the first task Roland faced as a young gunslinger after the events at Mejis.
Current Thoughts:
The Dark Tower is just a series that is flat-out worth getting into a fan girling over. I could never ever perceive of reading and re-reading it as being a waste of time. I’ve also noticed that growing up is a recurring theme in King’s books, and apparently is one that I enjoy.
Y: The Last Man
By: Brian K. Vaughan
Publication Date: 2003
Publisher: Vertigo
Genre: Graphic Novel–Scifi–Post-apocalyptic
Themes: gender, gender norms, organization of society, Boston, United States, Israel, coming of age
Summary:
The world is changed overnight when all the men and boys in the world mysteriously drop dead. Factions quickly develop among the women between those who want the world to remain all female and those who would like to restore the former gender balance. One man is mysteriously left alive though–Yorick. A 20-something, underachieving magician with a girlfriend in Australia. He desperately wants to find her, but the US government and the man-hating Amazons have other ideas.
Current Thoughts:
Another series that I am currently in the middle of. It is also steadily improving from the first volume. It is colorfully illustrated, consistently funny, and thought-provoking.
Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century
By: Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez
Publication Date: 2008
Publisher: Penguin Books
Genre: Nonfiction–Lifestyle
Themes: getting what you want out of life, debt slavery, finances
Summary:
Dominguez achieved Financial Independence at the ripe old age of 30 and proceeded to provide his method to friends who encouraged him to offer it as a class. He finally wrote a book, and this edition is revised and updated for modern times by his friend and fellow achiever of Financial Independence, Vicki Robin. Offering steps and mind-set changes, not magic formulas, they promise that if you follow the steps, you can be Financially Independent in 5 to 10 years, no matter how much debt you are currently in or how much money you make.
Current Thoughts:
This is definitely not a quick-fix book. It’s a realistic look at your finances and debt and ways to come out on top financially independent. Following the steps is time-consuming and, admittedly, difficult to do on a month-to-month basis, but even just reading the book and following the steps for a bit gave me more of a solid structure for my finances. I paid down a significant amount of my debt in 2012 and am hopeful to pay down even more in 2013. I’m not sure I’d have been so successful with that without this book. Plus it gives hope when you’re feeling buried in debt.
Book Review: Diet For a New America by John Robbins (Diet for a New America Reading Project, Book 1)
Summary:
John Robbins was born into one of the most powerful corporations in America–Baskin-Robbins. A company based entirely on selling animal products. Yet he took it upon himself to investigate the reality of animal products and their impact on Americans, American land, and the world overall. This book summarizes his extensive research, including personal visits to factory farms.
Review/Discussion:
This is the first book in the Diet for a New America Reading Project 2012 I am hosting. The project is focused on educating ourselves on the facts behind health and preventative medicine for the well-being of all Americans, an issue that I am sure we can all agree is a serious one. If you join the project late, please feel free to come back to this post or the GoodReads group after you’ve finished the book to join in on the discussion. And now, on to the book!
There are books that you read that are so incredibly powerful you are left almost speechless. Simply wanting to hand out copies to everyone you know, everyone you meet and say, “Please, read this.” I highlighted so much in my copy that I couldn’t even do my usual of posting all highlighted quotes to my tumblr. I discovered I was practically illegally reproducing the book, hah. 😉 I thus will do my best to highlight precisely why I find this book trustworthy, why I feel inspired by John Robbins, and the most stunning facts I learned while reading the book.
Why You Should Trust This Book
As a medical librarian, I was very careful to check out Robbins’ resources for his facts, particularly for the health section, which is what this project is focused upon. Robbins drew his research from vetted, peer-reviewed, well-respected scientific journals, including ones I routinely use in my own work, such as Journal of the American Medical Association, the British Journal of Medicine, and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He also cites the studies of such organizations as the FDA, the EPA, and the National Cancer Institute. Additionally, he conducted personal interviews with real factory farmers and scientists. Additionally, all of his citations are in order. You may not like the facts he reports, but they are still scientifically backed-up facts.
The fact that John Robbins researched the effects of animal derived foods on the environment and people and decided that it is bad for everyone involved is remarkable when you consider the fact that he comes from a family whose business is based entirely on selling dairy to Americans. If the man had an innate bias, it would absolutely be on the side of carnists/omnivores, but he astoundingly conducted the research and came down on the side veg*ism. (His family reunions must really be something…) This not only makes me respect him, but trust him. Somebody must be truly convinced to convert away from a business that has made his family, and presumably himself if he had agreed to take over the business, extremely wealthy.
But enough about why this book is trustworthy. Let’s move on to discuss the astounding scientific facts revealed in the three different sections: animal rights and factory farming, health consequences of eating animal based products, and environmental consequences of meat-based diets.
Animal Rights and Factory Farming
I definitely believe this knowledge is more widely spread than when this book was first published. I have a hard time imagining growing up in America and not coming to understand the horrors of factory farming, but you never know. Robbins talks about the psychiatric fact that children who grow up abusing animals are more likely to become criminals in later life. This, of course, is a basic reason to not base an entire sector of the American economy around factory farms that treat animals horribly like cogs in a machine. Of course there are more reasons to treat animals well, such as the fact that dogs’ EEG scans are identical to human’s or that dolphins routinely save humans and other animals in the ocean or that many species of animals mate for life showing a dedication most humans can’t pull off.
The horrors of factory farming are so extensive that it’s difficult to even list them. I feel as if I could go on and on. Perhaps the best way is to tell you to imagine being in the most crowded elevator possible. Now imagine that 20 of the 24 hours you’re in there it’s dark. You’re standing on a slanted, slatted, metal floor. The food for everyone is all on one side and is dumped in all at once and you must shove and race to get to it. Of course it’s difficult to even call this food. It’s a mix of shit, paper, sawdust, chemicals, and antibiotics all spiked with yet another chemical to make it smell better to you. If you are female, then a hand periodically reaches in and artificially inseminates you, only to rip your baby away from you the instant it is born and hitch machines up to your mammary glands instead of allowing your milk to go to your baby. If you are male, you are castrated by placing a band around your testicles until they fall off after weeks of the circulation being cut off.
That is the reality for factory farmed animals. Even if you can manage to ignore the fact that these animals are being pumped full of chemicals and artificial growth hormones that you will then ingest yourself when you eat them or their products, that is still a horrifying way to get your food. These animals live in terror and pain and die in terror and pain. There is nothing natural about a factory farm. Animals were meant to live outside and graze and nurse their babies and maybe live in a herd or a flock. Not be caged up in situations so unnatural that they literally go crazy and cannibalize each other when they are naturally herbivores. That is the reality of what you are supporting when you buy factory-farmed animal products.
Human Health
Ok, so maybe now you don’t believe in factory farming, but what about eating animals in general? We were raised to believe that a healthy diet involves meat, dairy, and eggs, right? Surely if an animal is raised organically and humanely all will be well? Well, the meat and dairy lobbyists have done a LOT of work to hide from you the scientific studies that show their products are unhealthy for you. If you read only a portion of this book, read the health section. It is impossible for me in this discussion and review to make as eloquent a point as Robbins does. I will instead sum it up for you.
In scientific studies published in reputable scientific journals such as JAMA, vegetarians have drastically less occurrence of: heart disease, all cancers, strokes, osteoporosis, diabetes, hypoglycemia, multiple sclerosis, ulcers, IBS, arthritis, kidney stones, gallstones, hypertension, anemia, and asthma. Those who still have any of the chronic diseases are distinctly less symptomatic than the meat-eaters. Vegans (people who consume no animal products whatsoever) have even LOWER occurrences than vegetarians. This is vetted by multiple different studies run by different scientists in multiple nations. Even simply comparing the data of these diseases between countries following the standard American diet and those following a primarily plant-based diet backs these statistics up.
I am sure that those of you who read the book as I did were stunned to hear that these studies have been in the reputable journals since as early as the late 1960s and 1970s and yet we have not heard about them. Who is to blame? The meat and dairy lobbyists of course. What would happen to their businesses if the American people suddenly stopped following the standard American diet? The Dairy Council provides the nutritional packets at your kids’ schools. Think about that.
The Environment
The environmental impact of a meat-based diet has started to crop up more often recently with the increased interest in the green movement. Essentially, Robbins primarily reiterates what I believe most of us already know. The chemicals necessary to factory farm are bad for the whole planet. It takes more fossil-fuel energy, more water, and more acreage to feed one person a meat-based diet than a plant-based diet. These are things that are definitely relevant, particularly to people who don’t believe in human population control. What I personally found most interesting in this section though was the discovery that American imports meat from Central and South American nations who have been destroying rainforest to do so, and their people are still overwhelmingly on a meat-based diet. Thus these nations are destroying their own ecologies to support Americans’ wasteful meat-based diets. That is just disgusting and selfish on our parts.
My Conclusion
I am honestly a bit shocked at the extent of the facts that I didn’t know when I became a vegetarian in January of 2006. I admit I mostly became one out of an empathy for animals that I have always strongly felt, but additionally the less meat I ate, the better I felt. Becoming a vegetarian mostly eliminated the symptoms of my IBS as the scientific studies Robbins cites showed. But….I have a hard time imagining anyone reading the facts like this and not drastically changing their eating habits. So many of the economic and personal problems in the US today have to do with health. So maybe you’ve read this book and you still don’t care about animals and you still believe humans are better than them. But don’t you want to be as healthy as you can be for your lifetime? Wouldn’t you rather be a happy, healthy grandparent than a stooped-over one on multiple heart medications or going through chemotherapy? Even if you don’t care about that, don’t you want to leave a healthier planet for your children and your children’s children? The facts unequivocally show that the fewer animal products you consume, the better all of these outcomes will be.
Once we become aware of the impact of our food choices, we can never really forget. (page 379)
Source: Better World Books
Discussion Questions:
- Robbins believes that the scientific studies reported in the medical journals aren’t well-known because of the meat and dairy lobbies. Do you think this is the case? Why or why not?
- If you do think the facts aren’t known because of the meat and dairy lobbies, how can we combat this?
- If you don’t think the lobbyists have anything to do with the lack of public knowledge of these issues, what do you think the true cause is?
- Do you believe the fight for organic animal farming is doing anything to help the environmental and health issues cited in the book?
- What do you think can be done to get the meat and dairy lobbyists out of our schools?
- Would you be willing to change your diet knowing the facts about the diseases it can cause or do you think it’s not worth the effort?
- Do you believe money is better spent on treating the disease or preventing the disease?
- Do you think world hunger can be successfully combated with a change in the diets of those in the first world countries?
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 