The Help and The Bachelor

My book club just read The Help. At first I thought, Oh, no, not another book about oppressed blacks. I mean, I grew up in LA where people mainly oppress the Mexicans, so black oppression is not a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Plus I was afraid it would be sad and I'm all about happy down time.

Still, both my book clubs (California and Germany) are reading this book so it was like a twofer and I dutifully ordered it and started reading. And it was AWESOME. What a fine, well-written book. I highly recommend it. That's all I'm saying.

Last night I watched The Bachelor at my friends' house. It was the final episode where Jake chooses Verruca over Placenta, or whatever their names were. After several clearly scripted dates, the main point of which was to show off three sets of oversized fake white teeth, we were treated to a drawn out taking leave of Placenta, during which she wept and thanked Jake for showing her how to love again. After Verruca got her ring and recited a touching speech about soul mates there was a talk show to discuss why on earth Jake prefered Verruca over Placenta.

The talk show host actually said, 'America is talking about this,' and I thought, 'Yeah, right, people don't have anything better to talk about.'

Little did I know. This morning in the car Jake's controversial choice actually was the big topic on every radio station I tried.

I feel so current.

On Lame People and Infused Water

To continue the thought from my recent post about the Josephine trilogy:

In the end, Napolean was defeated not by brilliant strategy but by the greed, mediocrity and lack of gratitude of those closest to him. He divorced Josephine in order to provide a 'blood heir' to France, although most of his family who shared his blood deserved slow death.

It was sloppy, sentimental thinking on his part but then he didn't have me to advise him.

Anyway, the Josephine trilogy was a great read that did not leave me wondering why I bother with book club.

Now a few words about infused water.

One evening last week after dinner Ralf presented me with a gift certificate for an Ayurveda relaxation massage. Yes, I know, he's taken. Anyway, Ayurveda relaxation massage is code for 'scented oil rubdown.' This includes a scalp massage, which I think is why people get massages in the first place.

After the massage I was given a glass of water infused with herbs. Very refreshing.

I frowned speculatively at the herbs floating in my water, thinking I could do that myself at home. So when I got home, I filled a big pitcher with filtered water, a stick of cinnamon, and a handful of cloves and cardamoms, then let it sit for a bit. It tasted great!

Now I'm all about infused water. I'm going to try cucumber and mint next.

Josephine

My book club is reading the Josephine trilogy by Sandra Gulland, which is a historical romance written in a diary style. Not at all my type of book.

(I prefer sci fi romps with political undertones where the bad guys get told off scathingly before they die.)

And yet, it's really good. Believable. Intriguing. The villains are strangely charming and likable. Josephine is a kind person trying to keep her children safe while taking enormous risks to help others. Napoleon is scrawny but still kind of hot, with his cold grey eyes, huge personality and complete lack of humor.

The worst people in the book are Napoleon's immediate family. I hate them. I want to slap them upside the head. Whereas I have a sneaking fondness for the architects of one of the most monstrous civil wars of all time.

Everyone is in debt, everyone socializes with murderers, everyone is feckless and desperate and yet... you gotta like 'em.

Now, that's good writing.

More OnThe Hornet's Nest

My name is Bondssen. Johann Bondssen. From Wisconsin.

I'm about halfway through The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and so far ich liebe es, although I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe it's the strong female protagonist, maybe it's the whole idea of overturning a government conspiracy, maybe it's the clever, understated dialog, hell, maybe it's the fish sandwiches. Whatever, I haven't enjoyed a new book so much in a long time.

On the other hand, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in the Swedish secret police. Since the original bad guys are more or less dead, it's unclear why the new generation is so paranoid about keeping old secrets buried. Also as villains go they're pretty lame. I mean, it's convenient for our heroes that the secret police don't know seem to know the first thing about counter-espionage and have to hire a tame burgler to break into someone's apartment and don't realize the significance of PDAs and other handheld devices, but I find myself thinking, 'Really, Stieg?'

For crissake, people, I'D be a better spy than these guys. I even know someone who knows how to tap phones. But so far the plot seems to depend on them being not very good - and, to their credit, not evil enough to kill innocent people - or the book would have been over after the first chapter.

Also it's an interesting study of the Swedish political system. Even once the Prime Minister and about half the government and police force have been informed and agree there's a problem and want to stop whatever's going on, it still isn't anywhere near over because no one seems to have any actual power. It's a bureaucrat's Shangrila.

Please note that these are just my preliminary observations since I haven't actually finished the book yet. Knowing my boy Stieg, he still has something up his sleeve to tie it all together neatly and surprise me. I'll keep you posted, although I won't spoil the ending for you.

BTW for some reason blogger is not emailing me comments reliably, although I can check them directly in the posts. Is anyone else having this problem?

Perhaps they are being intercepted by the Swedish secret police, which probably has some sort of search engine looking for references to 'Stieg Larsson' and 'fish sandwiches.'

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

The third Stieg Larrson book just arrived. It's fat. I'm excited.

A word about the trilogy's heroine, Lisbeth: She is a genius with a photographic memory. She is perfectly peacable as long as people leave her alone. If they try to harm her, she takes over their computer, then kills or maims them.

It's easy to see why these books are so popular.

Putting Away Childish Things

I finished The Girl Who Played With Fire yesterday. The ending was a bit over the top if you think that someone who's been shot in the head and buried alive wouldn't normally be able to dig themselves out and go on a killing spree but I still enjoyed it and just ordered the third book.

While I was making dinner for the kids I overheard this conversation:

L (4 years old): Santa is just a man in dress up.

Ex-cuse me? Where did that come from?

K (6 years old): You're not supposed to say that. I know it, and Mommy knows it, but Papa doesn't know it.

Really?

L: Oh.

K: You can't tell Papa or he'll be sad.

L: OK.

Poor Ralf. I'll have to try to find the right moment to break it to him.

Peaceful Easy Feeling

Ralf is in California. The girls are with their grandparents.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

It often surprises people to hear this - I guess because I'm kind of loud - but I am an introvert. Some of you may already know this, but being an introvert does not mean you fear people or spend all your time in creepy chatrooms while hacking into the national security database. It simply means you recharge when you're alone, as opposed to extroverts, who recharge in the company of others.

Before having kids, I used to spend several hours a day alone, or at least incommunicado, mostly reading with a cup of coffee (add a fish sandwich to that and I could be mistaken for a Swede!). If Ralf or some other boyfriend wandered into the room, my curt responses soon drove them off again, unless they came bearing food.

If I didn't get this downtime I got kinda cranky.

Fast forward to married me with a job and two kids. I've adjusted my expectations and no longer expect to spend two hours a day reading with no interruptions. Which is good, because I'd be very cranky indeed all the time, instead of just mildly cranky.

When Ralf is gone the girls get to sleep in our bed with me and the sound of their peaceful snuffly breathing fills me with such deep happiness I can't describe it.

But when everyone is gone for a day and night, I get to be me again. Here are the exciting things I've done since last night:

1. Fixed a tray of bread, cheese, prociutto, grapes and a glass of red wine.

2. Watched 3 episodes of Buffy, season 5. I've seen them all before but still enjoy them. Riley recently took off and Buffy's relationship with Spike is evolving. I miss Riley, he's competent and clean cut like Ralf, but I like Spike, too.

3. Went to bed at 10:30 and woke up at an extravegant 9:30.

4. Enjoyed 2 cups of hot, fresh coffee and homemade biscotti in absolute silence while reading The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. Despite everyone being a bit slow to follow up on various leads, it's an excellent read.

5. Although not particularly religious in a churchy way, prayed for Stieg Larsson and thanked him for providing me with such a peaceful and enjoyable morning.

At 15:00 I'll go to my Nike Fighting Fit class, then pick up the girls. Tomorrow we'll hang out at home and watch Year Without a Santa Claus together.

I wish you all a peaceful weekend.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

For the first time ever, I finished a book after book club. Usually if I don't finish before I don't bother. But The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was an exception, even though I already knew how it ended.

It's a smart book, well written with good dialog. The main character Mikael Blomkvist is plausible and likable. There's a gripping plot with a murder mystery and a twisted serial killer. There's a mysterious violent background. There are politics and high tech and big business.

All the elements, in short, of a best seller.

There is also an intriguing aura of 'foreigness' that permeates the book, possibly due to the large quantities of coffee, extramarital sex and fish sandwiches enjoyed by most of the characters. I'm not saying there aren't Americans that drink a lot of coffee or cheat on their spouses or even both - but fish sandwiches? I don't think so.

The book is the first of a trilogy. I just ordered the second book.

Sadly, the author is dead, after stating he knew exactly which literary elements to include in a best seller and then writing said best seller.

That seems wrong to me.

Naked tush and Scarpetta spoiler

Sounds like a juicy post, doesn't it?

Well, not so much. The naked tush in question belongs to L, my baby who turns 4 next week.

While Ralf and I were in California for our conference L and K stayed with their German grandparents. On the last night a pair of wet PJ bottoms was discovered carefully hung over the side of the bath tub. Upon further investigation, a naked tush was discovered air drying in L's bed while the rest of her was completely buried in blankets. New PJ bottoms were put on and the blanket was adjusted to a more normal position.

Fast forward 2 hours and a second pair of PJ bottoms was found lovingly hung next to the first pair and the same scene greeted her grandparents in her room, i.e., naked tush in the air.

She's not even Generation Y.

This is the sort of thing you miss when you travel.

On the plane home I read Scarpetta, the most recent Cornwell installment involving freak mutations and an inside job. In the last book I read by her, one bad guy had a condition that made him look like a werewolf and the other bad guy (who turned out to be his brother) was an inside guy in the FBI special forces. So I kind of stopped reading Cornwell books until this last one and was annoyed by the similar plot.

I mean, you can't always have the cop being the bad guy, it undermines trust.

Other than that, however, it seems I missed a lot: Benton is alive again, Lucy is filthy rich, Rose is dead, Fielding's still bitching about life, Marino is into clean living and Kay Scarpetta, the gifted forensic specialist who once solved a case by knowing about some rare disease that makes you smell like maple syrup, has evolved from moderately attractive to a famous, gorgeous CNN spokesperson that now goes by her last name.

Kind of like me, although if you ask me, Honeypiehorse is way cooler than Scarpetta.

On books

My German book club is reading a book called 'Hawaii' by James Michener. Unfortunately, it's one of those epic books that start with way too much color commentary about the dawn of creation when the tectonic plates were shifting. Although I haven't been able to get past the first two pages, I did leaf through the book sufficiently to form an impression of hundreds of pages of horrible things endured and committed by an enormous ethnic cast across multiple generations, punctuated by really boring dialog.

I ask you: Who needs it?

At the moment I am reading Cafe Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, who also wrote The Flanders Panel. So far I am intrigued but a bit baffled by his esoteric similes, such as '...a youthful expression, like that of a cartoon rabbit in a dead-end street.' What the hell does that mean? Or: 'In literature, time is like a shipwreck in which God looks after His own.' Excuse me??

Arturo. Don't try so hard.

G recently posted a list of 100 books people claim to have read. How do your own reading habits stack up?

Be honest, now.

Instructions: Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read and a * after those you loved.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen -X**
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien -X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte- X**
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -X***
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee- X*
6 The Bible- X - parts, anyway, but wow is it boring
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte- X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell- X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens-X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott-X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy-X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - yeah, right, the complete works?
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien-X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger- X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - X
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - I tried but failed
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy-X
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams- X*
26 The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner - guy book
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky- depressing git
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck- X - or in Chinese, 'The Angry Raisins'
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll- X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame-X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy- X**
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - not sure
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis -X*
34 Emma - Jane Austen-X*
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen-X*
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis-X*
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne- X*
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell- X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown-X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez-X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - X*
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery-X**
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood -X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding- X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert-X*
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons-X*
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen-X*
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - X**
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens- X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley- X*
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon- X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez- X
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding-X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville- I started it and quickly realized I'm more of a Jane Austen girl
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens-X*
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett-X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante - X - had to read it in HS, bit pointless I thought
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray-X*
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens-X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - X
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White- X*
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - X*
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery-X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams- X good but sad, I liked Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nihm better
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare- X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So, I've read 54 of these, of which I really liked 23. What does that mean?

People of the Book

First the fun one: Outrageous Fortune, recommmended by LadyFi. I'll let you read her review, which has enough detail to tell you if this is the right book for you. Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed it and thought the writing was a cross between Douglas Adams and Haruki Murakami (who is kind of a Japanese Douglas Adams).

There isn't a German Douglas Adams that I'm aware of.

Now the other one, the one I had to force myself to read: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. It was excellent but heavy going, although she writes with a skilled light touch. I don't usually read books like this because they're gloomy, not to mention informative, but it was a book club book. So I exerted myself.

What a good but sad book. The heroine's difficult life didn't move me much as her personal challenges were microscopic in the face of the historical background of the book she restored (an exquisitely illustrated Jewish Haggadah). The writer did a very clever job describing clues in the Haggadah, such as salt or wine traces, then telling a story about how they got there. The reader gets a front row seat at particularly ugly episodes of human history: the bombing of Sarajevo, the coldly merciless Nazi hunt for both Jews and Jewish books, the Spanish Inquisition, the ancient wars between the Spanish Christians and the Moors.

People of the Book offers some fascinating insights into history, although I'm not a history buff and don't swear to have all my facts straight so please don't be too nit picky. For example, if the Jews hadn't bankrolled the ancient Christian war against the Moors, might the Jews and Muslims have avoided their age-long enmity? And would the Jews still have been expelled from Spain when Torquemada - evil, evil, evil, I didn't even like Googling him in case his evil spirit somehow lives on in the Internet - claimed that the victory made possible by Jewish gold came from God?

Plus I'm thinking Ferdinand and Isabella weren't so crazy about owing all that money with interest and were probably already pretty open to the idea of exiling the Jews in order to avoid paying it back. So I guess the lesson here is that it's never wise to put extremely powerful people too much in your debt, even if funding a brutal war doesn't give you any qualms.

And perhaps if this same victory hadn't put so much power into the fanatic and unscrupulous hands of the Christian church they wouldn't have gotten away with the Inquisition, which was a fascinating study in pure premeditated evil. Watching the priests calmly burning books - and people - that so much as hinted at the goodness or holiness of anything non-Christian and deliberately suppressing knowledge that conflicted with the silly mumbo jumbo taught by the Church in those days (like the earth is flat) was absolutely horrific. I needed a shower.

And you can actually witness the stage being set as early as the 14th century by the architects of the Spanish Inquisition for the later anti-Jewish sentiment in (disgusting, venereal disease-ridden) Vienna that was the warning bell for the horrors of WWII.

I finished the book feeling more repulsed than usual by the history of Christianity. But wait, the Christians weren't the only bad guys in People of the Book, although they do stand out a bit thanks to Torquemada and his disciples. Because everyone pretty much everyone else sucked, too.

The Jews are depicted as matter-of-factly mercenary when it came to looking out for their own interests, and one weak rabbi used the money he received to help his impoverished flock to feed his own gambling addiction, which was illegal and put his entire family at risk of horrible death. That was the hardest chapter for me - which is saying a lot - because I kept worrying about his children sleeping at home, unnecessarily put into deadly danger by his actions.

Tito callously abandons his underage army to their fate.

The Serbs are bloodthirsty murderers with no real agenda beyond killing their peaceful Muslim neighbors.

The UN peacekeeping force is a pathetic joke.

The rest of us are apathetic losers that won't lift a finger to help dying children.

Land developers destroy natural resources and historical works of art such as cave paintings with a greedy eye to personal profit.

The heroine's own mother, a WASP I believe, turns out to be unbelievably cold-blooded and self-centered.

Although it's supposed to be about individual heroism and sacrifice to save a beautful book, this is not a book about nice people. Then again, I guess if it were, the Haggadah wouldn't have needed to be saved so many times.

Interestingly, the real heros of the book tend to be young girls of both Jewish and Muslim faith. And the Muslims also come out of it pretty well, risking their lives to save a young girl from Nazis, not to mention saving the Haggadah several times throughout history.

Anyway, although it was a very well-written book it was hard, hard going and I felt extremely sad about the human condition and all its victims by the end of it. This is going to sound trite, but can't we all just get along? And if we can't, could we at least leave the children out of it???

Now I'm reading Lily White by Susan Isaacs, recommended by Jessica. Way different genre. Very intelligent and witty. Plenty of insights but no uncomfortable soul searching. No gratuitous millionaire love interests. Just what the doctor ordered.

Cause She's Got. . . Personality

. . . and naturally blond hair and a sweet disposition and lots of money and and legs that go on forever. . .

OK that's actually someone else but I DO have personality because Gracie said so. Thank you, Gracie!

So, here's how it goes. I tell you seven personality traits of mine then tag seven of you to be queen for a day. You also get this lovely banner.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you already know everything about me. You know where I stand on politics, economy, gay marriage, non-gay marriage, television, education, books and parenting.

But do these things actually characterize me?

Well, yeah, they kind of do but I like to think there's more to me than my passionate activism and effortless parenting. For example:

1. I am an introvert. I know, you didn't see that coming at all. This doesn't mean that I cringe in the corner when someone talks to me, it just means that I recharge when I'm alone and expend energy when I'm with others. I'm also rubbish at small talk so I almost never strike up an acquaintance in the park or at the grocery store. And I rarely pick up the telephone.

2. I can spot trends. Give me a few data points and I can tell you what the possible outcomes are, with relative probabilities. I'm not like Data on Star Trek NG but I have very good instincts about large trends. Unfortunately I can't predict things like who will win the World Cup or which average looking B actors People Magazine will try to market as the 100 Most Beautiful People but you'll have a better chance guessing correctly yourself if you distance yourself from my guess.

3. I worry about things. For example, if you send someone a really funny email and they laugh so hard they choke on their lunch and die, is that manslaughter?

4. I talk to myself. I often have imaginary conversations with people in my head. Ralf makes fun of me when he catches me arguing with a colleague who isn't actually in the room. I am the star of the show that is my life and I direct on all the roles, write the script, design the costumes, manage the lighting, produce the sound track and give myself all the good lines. And I always get the last word.

5. When I was small I had a huge crush on Christopher Robin. Yes, he's a cartoon, but even today I think he's pretty cute.

6. I believe that inspiration is all around us. In addition to the many conversations directed by me that go on in my head (see previous point), I also communicate with something outside myself when I need a second opinion. Something bigger than me with way better ideas.

7. I am very visual. When I design software I see a pattern, although 'see' might not be the right word. When the design is done the pattern is almost complete. It has integrity. Patterns also help me tell if things are true, although knowing something isn't true is not the same as knowing the truth so it's not the big life changer you'd think it would be. Interestingly they've done study on frozen water that has been impressed with concentrated feelings of love and hate and the loved water forms the most beautiful, intricate patterns. Hated water loses its pattern. For more information see The Secret of Water, it's a kids' book.

Now I have to tag some of you and believe me, it's not easy because all of us have personality. That's why we blog, right, to have an outlet for all that extra personality.

I've decided to tag some fresh faces this time around as a thank you for dropping by, following this blog and exposing yourselves to my excess personality.

Shawna - Shawna is a student at UC Davis getting ready for a year abroad in Turkey. She is curious, open minded and a good person.

Unworthy - Anyone who calls themselves Unworthy gets my personality vote. Unworthy is a new blogger with one post so far so hopefully this will give her more to blog about. Not sure if you're stopping by regularly but if you see this, consider yourself tagged.

Wendy - Wendy was recently listed on Blogs of Note but I FOUND HER FIRST. Well, with about 70 other people until the Blogs of Note gig and then it was. . . erm. . . more. Her blog bursts with red neck (her own words) personality and she conveys a deep love of small town life that is very captivating.

Jen Maclean - I like Jen's blog. It kind of reminds me of my own, although it looks completely different and has a totally different focus. But every time I visit I find a unique recipe or a useful tip or a really beautiful picture and think, 'I could have posted that.'

Patti - If anyone has a great personality it's Patti, who just lost her hair from chemo and is totally rolling with it. She will probably make medical history, proving the link between positive attitude and healing. Go, Patti!

PattyP - Patty and I work together so I not only get to enjoy her well-written blog, I also get to read her memos and company updates. She's a very good writer and unlike me, she only posts when she has something to say.

Fiona - Fiona is an expat living in Switzerland and. . . liking it. The dot dot dot was because the Germans think the Swiss are a bit odd.

Cee - Cee is another new blogger who is doing a great job and deserves some bloggie love.

OK that's 8 but I couldn't decide.

Congratulations and let the personality dissection begin!

The Reader, or 'Secrets Not Worth Killing For'

Last night my book club discussed The Reader. Generally speaking, we all thought it was a good book and were more or less in agreement that as far as shameful secrets go, not being able to read is about on a par with not being naturally blond - in other words, not a compelling reason to become a concentration camp guard and also not a reason that most other people, or at least non-Californians, can relate to.

I, of course, am from California and naturally blond.

Few of the women in my book club found Hanna sympathetic or could relate to the decisions she had made. And one has to wonder, 'Couldn't she just ask someone to teach her to read?' But aside from her strange tetchiness about her own illiteracy, I felt uncomfortable writing Hanna off as a bad person because I'm not so sure she was that unusual.

After WWII the next generation of young Germans accused their parents for the horrors they had committed and permitted. Can you imagine what a time that was for parents - standing accused by their own children, not just of the actual crimes but of allowing them to take place?

When my girls grow up they will no doubt accuse me of many things. For example, K might say, 'Mom, how could you just stand by and watch while President Bush and his cronies and your entire generation destroyed the environment?' To which I will protest, 'But darling, I didn't just stand by, I blogged about it and voted for President Obama. I even sent money to the Sierra Club and took a Cap It picture to help the Environmental Defense Fund lobby for better legislation!'

At which point she'll probably don her gas mask in disgust and flounce out of the room.

But hopefully she will not accuse me of attempted genocide.

It's easy to judge people for failing to take action so let's talk about human nature for a moment, which is endlessly weak and fascinating. Don't worry, I attended a liberal arts college and know all about human nature. I even read Plato's Republic as a Freshman so you're in good hands.

We (people) have several assessment mechanisms that help us navigate the world without dissolving into terrified weeping blobs of jelly that are of no use to anyone, not to mention no fun to be around. These mechanisms aren't bad but they do tend to block action where it's needed.

Here is how most people assess a situation in order to decide whether or not to act:

1. Will this impact us (me/friend) or them (you/stranger)?

2. Will it happen sooner or later?

3. Are the facts disputed or undisputed?

4. Is it easy or difficult to solve?

5. Will I (we) benefit or will someone else (they) benefit?

6. Will I act alone or will other people help?

...and, perhaps not as important as the others but has been known to tip the balance:

7. Will there be food?

These 7 little questions are, for the most part, what prevent the human race from responding to problems before they become problems. For example, most people don't bother to save energy or reduce their carbon footprint because they aren't sure, or they have bigger problems, or it feels too overwhelming to take action. Plus there doesn't seem to be much point unless everyone pitches in because the freeloaders will just be laughing at you from their air conditioned SUVs while you waste time growing a scraggy beard and gathering rain water in an aluminum container.

What it comes down to is basically just mental laziness but it's also a personal survival mechanism that ironically, will probably get us all killed.

But that's not the end of the story because we also ask ourselves: Who's in charge?

Responding to someone who seems to be in charge is the MOTHER of all behavioral triggers because we crave approval and belonging.

In The Reader 300 Jewish women burned to death in a church. Hanna didn't start the fire but she was responsible for guarding the women and she didn't let them out, although she could hear them screaming. There was some ambiguity about whether a key was available but the main reason seems to be that she was trying to do a good job.

So, the evil of Hanna is not that she actively wanted to hurt people, which is how we generally imagine evil. Her crime was that she was unwilling to break rank in order to help them.

What would you have done? asks Hanna at one point during the trial. Before you answer that, please note that there have been ample experiments conducted proving that the most average, friendly people are willing to inflict unbearable agony on others if someone plausible in a white lab coat sternly tells them to do so.

Side note for people with ADD that don't mind constant interruptions: In a book called Good Omens by Neil Gaimon and Terry Pratchett there is a disquieting reference to 'low-grade evil.' The idea is that evil isn't some grandiose thing, it's an accumulation of petty irritations combined with failure to take moral action. It's a fairly clever, funny book if you're looking for something a bit different.

Anyway, you'll be happy to hear that in my intensely scientific study of human nature I have concluded that most of us don't have an inner Hitler. He was something especially vile that doesn't show up that often in human history, thank goodness.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that most of us probably have an inner Hanna.

Althoguh personally, I'd rather have an inner Kate Winslet.

Or at least her hair.

Thanks, you

Since I was so free with my literary advice this week, it seems only fair to accept yours.

After all, I don't want you to think I'm an ungrateful minger or a whore of the Infidel.

So, I have just ordered books by Emily Griffen and Susan Isaacs, as well as Outrageous Fortune by Tim Scott. Thanks, Lawyer Mom, Jessica and Ladyfi.

And in return I offer you: Anna Maxted, whose specialty is Fairly Serious Topics with a healthy dose of hilarity. I love her books. Well, Tale of Two Sisters was kind of boring but the others were great.

Oh, and Sara, about the Michael Damien date, I was only 13 and he was a perfect gentleman.

This Charming Man

Nope, nothing to do with Ralf, although he has his moments.

It's a book by Marian Keyes. Although Ralf did ask if it was about him when he saw the title and I told him it was more about how incredibly charming German men are in general, which wasn't exactly true but I think he bought it.

Yesterday I may have given the impression that I don't like chick books but actually, I enjoy a good beach read as much as the next person. In fact, I'm reading one right now.

I started This Charming Man by Marian Keyes yesterday and so far it seems to be following the same old, 'I have no self-control and systematically screw up my own life until I marry a millionaire' formula of books I generally dislike BUT this book is a cut above the others.

For one thing, the heroine is going through a bad phase that isn't 100% her own fault. I mean, her boyfriend is marrying someone else and she's bummed, it could happen to anyone. For another, Marian's heroines don't usually get a totally over the top and completely undeserved happy ending, which always makes me feel like I just wasted two hours.

Also, these points notwithstanding, Marian Keyes can really write. The passages where the heroine Lola chats with the kindly Muslim waiter Ibrihim and secretly worries that he's thinking 'Whore of the Infidel' about her while taking her order are hilarious.

Best of all, she's Irish, so I'm picking up all sorts of useful phrases like 'fizzog' and 'minger,' and 'great feed of beer.'

So if my next posts are all, 'minger this' and 'minger that' and 'shut your fizzog,' that's why.

P.S. I don't think it's her best book but so far I have no plans to publicly trash it unless, say, our Lola ends up marrying Bono after blowing up Charing Cross station in a freak accident that everyone forgives her for because she's so inexplicably lovable.

That would vex me.

Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic and other books

I'm reading several books this week. Well, I already finished the easy one, which was Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. I have read other books by her and like the fact that they can be read in about an hour and there's always some 'so there' moment for the heroine. However, I had been avoiding Shopaholic because I feared it would distress me - you may recall from my 'She's Come Undone' spoiler that I have issues with books about people who create their own problems.

I am happy to report that Shopaholic did not disappoint and was in fact extremely irritating. It followed a fairly standard pattern: Single white female without a vestige of self-contol in some key area (could be eating, spending, fashion sense, etc.) goes through a difficult spell caused by said lack of self-control but emerges triumphant due to the loyalty of her super cool friends and her own pluck.

Here's the spoiler: Girl in her twenties with a low-paid job has no - wait for it - self-control over her spending. She gets piles of dunning statements from the banks and ignores them, going shopping to feel better. Her attempt to save results in her spending even more money as she equips herself in style to make her own lunches and coffee. Not that I'm some kind of genius financial planner or anything but I found myself yelling, 'STOP SPENDING, WOMAN, YOU'RE IN DEBT YOU SILLY COW!!' Of course, typical of the genre, she has a loyal and rich best friend who lets her live in her trendy apartment for very low rent. Anyway, her attempts to earn more turn out badly and she completely messes up the lives of her parents' neighbors with her own incomepetence and disinterest in others but not to worry - by the end of the book this very average girl has a high-paying TV career and is dating a multi-millionaire, after dumping another multi-millionaire.

Although, to be fair it wasn't quite as irritating as Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner (which appropriately enough means 'Jennifer Crybaby' in German), which I read a couple of years ago. I have to admit it got off to an unusual and creative start, with the overweight heroine's boyfriend writing an article about how it feels to date a fat girl. I thought that was a cool twist and figured this would be the story of someone who changes their life through hard work and discipline, and with luck a final satisfying humiliation of the crappy boyfriend. But no, the heroine continues to mope around, although she somehow manages to parlay her mopeyness into a BFF relationship with a famous actress, who takes her on fabulous, all expenses paid vacations and introduces her to handsome movie stars. Naturally, the richest and handsomest movie star falls for her but he's not quite what she's looking for so she ends up marrying a wonderful, kind, considerate doctor instead, who is also completely crazy about her. Totally believable. Oh, and did I mention she's pregnant? Of course, it goes without saying that her friend the actress decorates their new home with a gorgeous designer nursury as a wedding present.

Side comment: This is obviously just silly because my mom was once best friends with one of the Young and the Restless actresses and I got, like, a sweater for my birthday and a date with Michael Damien. Which was quite nice and I think a bit more realistic, don't you? Or when was the last time Julia Roberts outfitted your house with $50K worth of Pottery Barn furniture? So, nice fantasy but I prefer heroines that work for their happy ending.

I am also reading The Reader by Bernhard Schlink for book club, although I am reading it in German (Der Vorleser) and it's a bit too serious for my taste. I know, I'm hard to please. But frankly, the affair of a teenage boy with an older woman, told from the perspective of the boy, isn't exactly my go to genre.

And finally, I am meandering my way through The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami, which is a fascinating juxtaposition of classical and quantum theory that concludes that consciousness, rather than matter, is the underlying fabric of the universe. In other words, matter doesn't cause consciousness, consciousness causes (or collapses the wave function of) matter. I'll probably revisit this one in a later post because the implications are pretty interesting. Maven - your husband might like it.

The Hour I First Believed

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while may remember that I had to read The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb for my German book club. You may also recall that I detested his first book, She’s Come Undone .

I have now read The Hour I First Believed and for about the first 300 pages I pretty much hated it. But over time (it’s a big book), I grew to hate it less. Although I never learned to care about any of the characters in the book, I found myself admiring the author’s technique in more than a few places, as well as being impressed by the sheer breadth of the subject matter. Love him or hate him, Wally does his research and obviously put a lot of thought and effort into crafting this complex book. And it’s a surprisingly fast read.

Here’s the spoiler: Our hero, a HS teacher, is married for the third time in a somewhat lackluster marriage. His wife, Maureen, seems like a nice person but she cheated on him once and he never got past it. One day, when he is out of town arranging the funeral of his aunt, two high school students shoot up their high school where Maureen also works as a nurse - this part is based on the true story of the Columbine High School tragedy. Watching the news and not knowing if she's alive or dead, he realizes he loves her and rushes home, only to find her completely traumatized and unable to recover. Apparently her dad subjected her to some ambiguous sexual molestation when she was a child that leaves her unable to move on.

Side comment: Any book by Wally Lamb has to include child molestation, it’s like his signature move.

The first third of the book is building up to the Columbine tragedy, at which point the second section begins, which is all about Maureen falling apart. She sinks into depression and gets addicted to drugs, they go through psychiatrists they can’t afford like tissues and she is not able to go back to work so our hero is working two jobs to support them. Classic Wally Lamb. Maureen is extremely annoying in this section and I found myself wishing she’d just get in a car accident or something, which is my typical reaction to Wally Lamb characters. Finally she pulls herself somewhat together and goes back to work as a night nurse, at which point my own mood improved dramatically. But my relief was short-lived because, this being a Wally Lamb book, Maureen manages to get molested on the job during this fragile period and spirals back into drug abuse, culminating in her running down and killing a pedestrian while under the influence.
Now the third part of the book begins and in my opinion this is the best part because there’s finally more going on than people destroying their own lives. Maureen is sentenced to jail without parole for five years and our hero misses her but sort of gets on with his life. Maureen starts off extremely bitter and jail is horrible but over time she finds some peace and things get better. Meanwhile back at the farm they own (but are in the process of losing in a civil suit with the family of the guy Maureen killed) our hero allows two people to rent the upstairs to earn some extra cash. One of the new tenants discovers some old papers and uses them to complete her doctoral dissertation on feminine studies. There is an interesting historical side story here that includes Mark Twain and a whole cast of interesting characters that fought for the fair treatment of female prisoners. A family mystery involving two buried baby corpses is resolved. Some things seem to be improving, in particular our hero's relationship with Maureen, who suddenly drops dead from an aneurism. Our hero moves out when he loses the farm, gets his own little place, rekindles a few old friendships and starts working through the mountain of debt Maureen's life and death left him with.

The end.

Would I recommend this book to you? Not really, unless you’re a diehard Wally Lamb fan. On the balance I suppose it was a good book but it’s long as hell and kind of boring.

Let me put it this way: It's about a week since I finished the book and I’ve already forgotten the name of the main character. It’s not a coincidence that I refer to him as ‘our hero,’ I really have no idea what his name was.

The Giver

Intrigued by one of PattyP's posts I ordered The Giver for my kids and read it yesterday to check it out.

Now I am deeply disturbed.

This is going to be a bit of a spoiler so be warned.

The first part of the books was really good, depicting life in an idyllic society where everything is planned and everyone is kind and coureous to everyone else. Parents are patient and talk at length with their kids, teachers take genuine interest, punishment is well-considered and fair and everyone follows the rules. They aren't exactly brainwashed but they do see themselves as contributors in a society and believe in the rules they are asked to follow. No one is hungry. Arguments end in respectful apologies. There is no war or want or neglect.

It sounded awesome.

Then our hero, a 12-year-old boy, nice kid, is selected to be the new Receiver for the community. We find out that this means receiving the collective memories of all people from all time, even the early days when there was war, hunger, neglect and murder. By receiving these memories he protects everyone else from having to deal with them.

This isn't the disturbing part, so far the book is still just intriguing.

What the boy discovers as he receives more and more memories are colors (which no one else in the community can see) and emotions (which no one else in the community can feel). It turns out that people have chosen safety and order over colors and emotions.

This is illustrated by what's going on at home. At first it seems like the boy has a perfect family life, with kind, patient, successful, openly communicative parents. Early on in the story his dad - not his real dad but one of the parental appointees responsible for raising him - brings home a third child, a baby boy who is not growing fast enough. The dad works with newborns until they are old enough to place in foster families and is concerned that this little boy isn't growing fast enough. He thinks he'll do better in a real home environment. The stakes are high because if the boy fails to meet his standard growth measurements he will be 'released' from the community instead of being fostered out.

So here we learn something disconcerting about the society but the dad seems like a good, concerned person who is genuinely trying to give the baby boy a chance. The whole family rallies around the baby boy, Gabe, and treats him with love and affection.

Gabe lives with them for about a year and a half at which time he has still failed to grow sufficiently and has difficulty sleeping through the night. The dad explains conversationally over the dinner table that Gabe will have to be released after all.

From his training as receiver, our hero knows this means that Gabe will be killed and is horrified by his family's casual attitude to this. He therefore decides to run away with Gabe in order to save him.

OK, I'm on board with that.

At this point the book is almost over. There are a few more pages describing his getaway with Gabe, how they hide from the search planes, how the memories he has received so far fade as he moves further from the community and finally, how they starve and freeze when they leave the cultivated community lands. By the last page, Gabe is a limp scrap of expiring life and our hero is trying desparately to keep him warm and alive with his last memories of sunshine.

Then, at random, they find a sled on a mountain top that the boy somehow knows will be there and sled down to some mysterious people that are supposedly waiting for them, which I assume is a comforting fantasy that occurs as they are both freezing to death.

I hated the end of this book. I'm not sure where these two boys were supposed to go once they left their safe, controlled community but surely freezing to death on a mountaintop wasn't the only option.

If anyone else who has read this book has a different interpretation I'd love to hear it. I'm haunted by thoughts of sweet little Gabe today.

The big rant against everyone

For the last couple of posts I've been somewhat caught up in saccharine and probably irritating reflections on the perfection of my offspring and yes, they're wonderful, but I'm over that now.

Because... I recently finished 'The Audacity of Hope' by Barack Obama and feel an overdue political rant coming on.

To summarize the essense of the rant: What a cluster%#*!.

To be fair, President Obama presents the facts with a great deal of respect and humor so I don't think this was the impression he was trying to leave readers with when they think about Congress and the other banches of government. He clearly loves the Constitution and is a devout believer in Democracy, despite a few regretable shortcomings.

Anyway, before I get on a roll and start thumping anything but a Bible, let me just say that the book made me feel deeply respectful of Barack Obama as a person and grateful that he's at the helm during the current crisis instead of yet another geriatric-and-out-of-touch-with-reality or young-but-completely-amoral Republican. Or - let's be fair - some other well-meaning-but-indecisive-and-waffly Democrat.

That wasn't the rant, by the way, I'm just getting started.

Now it begins.

The book made me think critically about things I was trying not to think about because they're gloomy. And these unintended reflections made me mad at a fairly large cast of characters:

At the Bush government for systematically making poor short-sighted choices that brought a thriving economy to its knees and put - not to be too melodramatic here - the survival of the human race up for grabs. Yeah, sure, there were insustainable factors in place that made some sort of correction inevitable but looking over the last eight years is like watching an alien come to earth disguised as the President (and let us not forget the Vice President) and gently nudge everything toward a speedier collapse so they can take over when we're gone.

At the American people for voting for him twice. I'm going to generalize broadly here (because this is a blog and not a dissertation, which would require a little more fact checking on my end) and separate these people into two categories: the poor and the rich.

First the poor: I find it ironic that the people who have been hurt the most by Bush policies were also some of his staunchest supporters. People who go to church and probably try to lead decent lives but are unknowingly hindered by the fact that they believe gay marriage is a viable platform to base a Presidential campaign on and that Bush's tax cuts were intended to help them. As I look around at the state of the world I think they almost deserve what's happening to them now because they helped bring it on themselves.

Almost.

But not quite. Because they were seduced by very clever people whose watches cost more than their annual salary. (This is my rant against the rich, by the way.) People who sell out their employees to drive the share price up a few pennies before cashing out. Who don't want to pay a penny in taxes to the society that provides the infrastructure that allows them to live like they do. Who knew how to tap into the social power of the church for their own ends.

Speaking of which, I'm mad at organized religion, for butting into politics and choosing the wrong side. Yet again.

This might be a good time to mention that I'm a conservative Democrat who left organized religion behind years ago when I decided that unless the minister had God on speed dial, he probably didn't know any more than me about His intentions.

I'm mad at Congress for being so totally lame.

I'm also mad at the rest of us, who passively sat by or even actively contributed to the mess with our self-centered, wasteful lifestyles. I include myself in this list, by the way. I'm no poster child for enlightened living.

And finally, I'm mad at the rest of the world for starting pointless wars over non-essentials and failing to read the writing on the wall and behave better than the US.

Did I forget anyone?

So basically, I'm pretty much mad at everyone except my kids, who didn't create any of these problems but will inherit them.

Does anyone actually believe we'll never run out of stuff? That if we poison all our water and air we'll still be able to drink and breath? That it makes sense to increase the use of resources we know are running out? That money doesn't have to be backed by anything real? That a tiny super-rich elite surrounded by unrelieved poverty is a sustainable economic or political model? That the current status quo is still an option?

I doubt it. I think that most people, like me, try not to think about it because it's gloomy.

The good news is that President Obama gets it. Let's just hope he can persuade the rest of us.

To end on a lighter note, the current situation reminds me of an old joke: Earth and Mars are chatting and Mars asks Earth how she's doing. 'Not well,' moans Earth. 'I have a bad case of humans.' 'No worries,' says Mars bracingly. 'That goes away by itself.'

Let's hope it's just a joke.

Clarification on Broccoli Brownies

Just a quick note to clarify a few points of confusion and address several comments and questions:

1) I blend the broccoli to a pulp before adding it to the brownie mix. I use it instead of butter.

2) Litlove, I doubt it would fool a 14-year-old. But try it, you never know. Spinach also works - in fact, I kind of like spinach brownies. And you can tell him it's a pot brownie.

3) Maven, good point - plain old broccoli would be far less disgusting but there you have it. There's no accounting for taste.

4) And a final note about K - she liked fruit and tolerated veggies until she turned 3 and then overnight refused to eat them any more. Juice and yogurt, too. Her explanation (now that she can talk) is that she doesn't like wet food, although she likes ice cream just fine. Go figure. I can usually compel her to eat a small portion of carrots or cauliflower if she wants dessert but she won't snack on apples, grapes and bananas like other kids. But she's healthy so I don't worry, I just content myself with creating really bad memories of her mom's baking skills so she can, I dunno, roll her eyes at me in high school or something.

And if you want more sneaky recipes, check out Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook Deceptively Delicious.