Samara: 2 Larisa : 1

Well, Larisa is off on a whitewater rafting trip this weekend.  And while I’m sure she’s reading Everyman between rapids, like a cat, I pounced on this opportunity to complete my 2nd book, and move ahead once again.  Score!  Not that this is a contest.  It’s really about the books after all, right?  The books, the books…. oh yes, so the book I finished was In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.  And while I didn’t find any earth-shattering revelations in this little book, I found it quite interesting.  Pollan writes about our toxic American food culture – the so-called ‘Western diet’ of refined grains and sugars and the changes over the past 50 years or so in how and how much we eat.  While there are probably a lot of Americans who don’t know jack about the topics in this book, I consider myself a fairly informed food consumer and felt like there were many things I was already aware of – like how corn-derived substances have infiltrated just about any type of food you can think of, and the horrors of the industrial farming system.

But I found the section on the Western Diet and diseases associated with it quite interesting and his suggestions on what and how to eat useful.  And it’s only 200 pages.  Now, if I could just finish The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  But it’s just so damn long.

So, I’m still reading Empire of the Sun and A Wild Sheep Chase.  I’m about half way done with both, and while I’m not finding either particular page-turners, they’re both good reads thus far.  I’m shooting to be done with one of those next week.