Starved for Story

It has been hectic lately. A lot of time/energy spent preparing for parent-teacher conferences. It's also basketball season, so there have been some games to watch (Go, Duke!) I don't watch a lot of T.V. but it seems several of my favorite shows are up and running new episodes at the same time: Lost, Heroes, and Top Chef. So I realized today that I have not been reading any fiction for a couple of weeks. And I am missing it. The power of Story to refresh me, to invigorate me, to get me to think and feel, and to give me an escape from hectic times, is amazing. When I go for a while without reading fiction, I start missing it with increasing intensity. And I feel duller.

Well I finished up conferences today, so now I'm ready. The only problem is deciding what to dive int0: Shall I finally dive into Neal Stephenson's latest (Anathem)? Would a mystery be lighter fare I would enjoy after working my brain hard? What about the new Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book) that Aaron & Abby gave me for Christmas? Or should I start rereading the Orson Scott Card Ender books, as I have been wanting to after listening to the first part of an audio adaptation of Ender's Game?

Eat, Pray, Love- Finale (possible spoilers)

I finished Eat, Pray, Love recently. Overall I enjoyed the book and found things in it worth considering. The last section on her time in Indonesia was involving. I was looking forward to it especially after reading the title for that section: "36 Tales about the Pursuit of Balance." Balance is something that I am focusing on in my own life: balance between school life and personal life, balance in where I put my energies at school, balance in terms of being centered and thoughtful in my life. The balance the author is seeking is between pleasure and spirit, or as she put it "what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God." While she seems to find some sense of this by the end of the book, I found a sense of let down as I finished it. In part I found the focus of her quest distracted by romantic developments (will she or won't she), though that is certainly one form of enjoying the world's delights. I also would have enjoyed more at the end about her return to her "regular" life. Pursuing pleasure in Italy and God in an ashram in India are one thing (or two?), but bringing what she learns back to modern day life in our culture would be quite another.

What to Eat

In addition to the book I am currently reading in a start to finish way, I like to keep some books at hand that I occasionally pick up and read from. A lot of these are non-fiction. It takes non-fiction with a strong narrative thread to get me to read it cover to cover (like the book I am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love.) Other non-fiction is more for dipping into now and then. What to Eat by Marion Nestle is a book that often sits on my bookshelf. It is not a book to read straight through (at least for me,) but it has a lot of encyclopedic information about the food we eat. I recently read the section on eggs which gave me food for thought, so to speak. I feel fortunate (especially after reading the section on eggs in this book) in having good sources for local eggs. The book organizes foods both by type and by the area of the supermarket where they are usually found. There's a lot of information about food and nutrition as well as explorations of how food is produced in our country, how it is marketed, etc. At times it offers more info than I really want to know, but it is a great reference.

Eat, Pray, Love

At the top of the pile on my bookshelf is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, subtitled One Woman's search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia. I intercepted it as it was being passed from one person to another. My daughter-in-law finished it while we were spending the holidays in the Smoky Mountains together. She offered it to my husband, knowing that he regularly meditates. It is a book I have been wanting to read. I heard the author interviewed a couple of years ago on NPR and on one of my favorite podcasts, KCRW's Good Food. So I took temporary charge of the book.

So far I am in the Italy section of the book where she explores the pleasure of food, the Italian language, and a culture that values pleasure. Her overall desire voiced early in the book is "what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God." That seems an interesting challenge. After Italy I will follow her to an ashram in India and to a medicine man in Indonesia. It promises to be an interesting journey.