and justice for some

Bronx D. A.: True Stories from the Sex Crimes and Domestic Violence Unit  by Sarena Straus (320 pgs/read 130) 2006

The Bronx District is one of the highest crime areas of the country, with one of the lowest conviction rates.  Maximum burn-out time for a D.A. is 5 years.  Straus shares her experiences during her 3 years.

Not particularly gripping.

talking trash

Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion  (56 pgs) by Loree Griffin Burns 2007

I’m in love with NPR.  Every author they have on their programs is infinitely interesting.  This one was no different.  This slim kid’s book on the past and current experiments tracking the ocean’s surface currents was engaging.  More a call to arms against ocean pollution than anything else, it was nonetheless interesting to see how oceanographers have learned what they have.  Write-ups of studies tracking massive spills of tennis shoes and bath tub toys lead to discussions of the way ocean currents create massive garbage patches and how ghostnets are damaging reefs.  My favorite imagery: one of the scientists, when asked why we can’t just go to the garbage patches and pick up the plastic piece by piece said “it would be like mowing the state of Texas- twice.”  Bonus: I now know the difference between flotsam and jetsam, and yes there really is one.

take 5

I’ve been thinking recently about my what my ”desert island” books would be.  You know, the books I would take with me if I was stranded on a desert island.  Assuming it was the leisurely type of stranding that would give me time to pick up the books.  And assuming I didn’t go in for the practical  (Boat Building 101 or Wilderness Survival) or the ironic (Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson).  Here they are, in order of awesomeness.

1. Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

I love stories told in journals.  There’s something about the immediacy and personalness that really resonates with me.  And this one has the added benefit of being a post-apocalyptic distopia- my favorite genre.  Olamina, an young “sharer” feels any pain she witnesses, regardless of who it’s inflicted on.  In response to the chaos around her, and influenced by her upbringing as a preacher’s daughter and her status as a sharer, Olamina forms a new religion and begins gathering followers.  The religion is intriguing and the story of the persecution the followers face is heartwrenching, and the sections with Olamina’s estranged daughter coming to terms with her mother are compelling.  Talents is the sequel to Parable of the Sower (also excellent, would be #6) which tells the story of Olamina’s formative years and how she came to her beliefs. 

2. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

I only discovered this book a couple months ago, but it instantly earned a spot on my top ten books of all time.  A young girl, nameless even to herself, grows to womanhood imprisoned with a group of women.  None of them know why they are there or what has happened in the outside world.  For a time they are silently guarded by a small group of uniformed men, but they are forbidden from asking questions.  When sirens break the monotony, the men disappear, and the women are forced to escape to avoid starvation.  What they find is no better than their previous imprisonment.  They wander a desolate land marked only by bunkers of women who weren’t fortunate enough to escape.  The young narrator, being a child at the time of the mysterious catastophe, long outlives her companions.  The book serves as a contemplation of what it means to be human.  Are you still human if you never touch another person, if the only voice you hear is your own?  If you have no goals, no purpose in life?

3. The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987: Bilingual Edition by Octavio Paz

My favorite poet, Paz reads like watercolor paintings of Mexico.  The sensuality and imagery are amazing.  He’s a master of connotation and flow.  It’s the kind of poetry you savor.

4. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge

A priveledged young woman, groomed from birth to be her nation’s ambassador, is charged with multiple murders when an accident claiming several hundred people seems to be her fault.  She is sentenced to solitary confinement in a virtual cell locked inside her mind.   How she deconstructs and reinvents her sense of self, both during and after her confinement, is an engaging exploration of identity.

5. The Stones Cry Out by Hikaru Okuizumi

 At the end of WWII, hundreds of Japanese soldiers were hiding out in the jungle, unaware that the war was over.  In this novel one such soldier, Tsuyoshi, tells of his platoon languishing in a cave.  Tsuyoshi is the sole survivor to return to civilization, but in his mind he never really leaves that cave.  As his companions lay dying, he saved his sanity by focusing on a small stone, and after the war he becomes obsessed with geology.

All my favs share a theme of loneliness and isolation.  Well, except for the poetry, but even there Paz’s writing carries a flavor of desert solitude.  (Slightly ironic for stranding time.)  And the fiction ones are all about life after the end of a world- through social collapse, apocalypic event, or personal tragedy.  There’s something supremely compelling and primal about discovering your personal strength through crisis.

angst & vampires

Twilight  by Stephenie Meyer (498 pgs) 2005

My favorite type of reading is the “just-one-more-chapter,” “up-way-too-late,” “excited-to-get-back-to” kind.  Twilight fits the bill perfectly. 

When Bella moves from sunny Phoenix to gloomy Forks on the Washington coast, she resigns herself to a miserable existance.  Instead she finds herself drawn to the mysterious and compellingly handsome Edward.  As she becomes entwined in his life, she discovers that Edward and his kin are vampires (luckily of the non-human-eating variety.)  The star-crossed love that grows between them is of the most unusual variety: human and vampire.