March Book Review

First of all, can I just ask… how the hell is it April already? I can’t believe March has already come and gone. There were so many things I had planned to do that I didn’t get to in those 31 days… like March’s book review, for one. But since I’m not a total slacker, I do have it done despite the fact that it’s technically a day late.

This month’s selection was A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice & Fire, the first book in the series by George RR Martin, and I will say that it definitely lived up to all of the hype. Dane, as well as many of my friends, have already read the whole series and have been urging me to read it for quite some time. And it really was as great as they said it would be! It’s a book jam-packed with drama and action, with some extraordinary fantastical elements thrown in too. I’d already seen the first season of the TV show so many things weren’t exactly a surprise, but there were definitely a few interesting differences. Overall I found it to be very entertaining, and quite well-written. And despite its extensive length, it was actually a pretty easy read.

One of the things I appreciated most about this book was that it had elements of fantasy but wasn’t so completely outrageous that it required buying into another universe. I’ve tried to read some of the other fantastical books that Dane and our friends love, but found a lot of them to be too crazy for me to really get into. I like a book that’s a little on the believable side, ya know? Martin did a great job of making his world seem like the kind of place I might actually find myself if I’m not careful.

Well it’s onto the second book for me. What are you reading these days?

February Book Review

After last month’s reading of Mademoiselle Boleyn, I had fully intended to read its pseudo-sequel, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn. And I did actually start reading it. But halfway through the book I was honestly kind of bored, and a little tired of hearing about Anne Boleyn. But I had this book floating around in the back of my mind, and decided to pick it up instead.

In talking about healthy habits with my doctor at an appointment earlier this month, he mentioned Michael Pollan and his books about better eating. I’ve always been a bit of a buff about the economics and science of eating anyway – I’ve seen every documentary from Food Inc. to Forks Over Knives – so this book, In Defense of Food, sounded right up my alley.

And it totally was. Even though In Defense of Food reads a lot like a textbook, it was really interesting and I zipped right through it in a matter of days. It touched on a lot of really key points about the American way of eating. The first section focuses on “nutritionism,” which is essentially the American obsession with values and numbers associated with food – calories, fats, carbs, and the like – as a result of our processed food-induced health crises. This has driven the American food industry to create all sorts of hugely processed “health foods” or to fortify those processed food products already on the shelves, further worsening the problem rather than making it better. He talks about how food companies are slapping health-related labels onto everything from chips to cereal to try to fool American eaters into thinking that the junk they’re consuming is actually good for them. And basically, if the makers of a food product feel the need to put a health claim on the package, chances are you shouldn’t be eating it.

Another section of the book focuses on the industrialization of the American food system over the last 100 years or so, and how it’s completely changed the way we eat. The big changes started around WWII, and resulted in a massive push to create as much energy-dense food as efficiently as possible. The focus changed from quality to quantity. Convenience became crucial. And by the 1980’s the food on the average American supermarket shelf hardly even resembled food anymore – a problem we still face today. Most of today’s food products are just that – food products. Refined carbohydrates and hydrogenated oils with preservatives and salt and artificial flavorings to make it taste like it might really be food, when it’s really devoid of anything even remotely close to what we should be putting in our mouths. Even presumably healthy foods, like yogurt, for instance, are often so laden with artificial sweeteners and food colorings that they’re really more of a science experiment than food. Pollan makes an excellent point that if your great-grandmother wouldn’t be able to tell what a food product is, there’s a good chance that you shouldn’t be eating it either.

And even though I feel like I already knew most of this stuff, it was still the eye-opener I needed to take the next step in my healthy-eating journey. It’s been a huge encouragement to think more critically about what I buy at the grocery store, and about the quality of the food I put into my body. Sure, if I eat only 1600 calories per day in 400-calorie increments 4 hours apart, I’ll lose weight. But if the quality of those calories is poor, am I really becoming healthier or just thinner?

In today’s world, it’s nearly impossible to completely cut out anything processed. But now that I’m more aware of how really important it is, I’m challenging myself to eat as minimally processed as possible. I found this really amazing app the other day called Fooducate – which will take just about any packaged food you can find and grade it based on its ingredients and nutrition content – and it’s been extremely helpful in making good choices at the grocery store. I’d highly recommend checking it out.

I’ll definitely be checking out another of Michael Pollan’s books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, soon. But in the meantime I feel the need for something more entertaining and less educational. All of my friends have been reading the Game of Thrones series, so that might be next…

…until next time. 🙂

January Book Review

As you may remember, one of my New Years resolutions was to read one book a month this year. Well, would you believe that this month I actually read two? Look at how much of an overachiever I am, tehe.

The first book I read this month was White Jacket Required, by Jenna Weber. I’ve been a long time fan of Jenna’s blog, Eat, Live, Run, so I was very excited to read her book. When I received it for Christmas I started reading it right away!

To give you a brief synopsis, this is Jenna’s autobiographical account of her post-college years. During this time Jenna experiences somewhat of an existential crisis, and a life-long love of food is what ultimately drives her to go to culinary school. We get an honest and heart-warming account of what culinary school was like for her, and it wraps up with her life-changing decision to move to California afterward. And, just like on her blog, Jenna is sure to share some delicious-sounding recipes along the way.

It was a very easy read… I managed to finish it in a matter of days, in fact. And while it was certainly interesting and not poorly written by any means, I couldn’t help but feel that it lacked something. It felt a touch superficial, as though she barely scratched the surface on what could have been some really deep, emotional stories. Given that the book covered a rather short period of time and was rather short itself, I felt that she could have expanded on some of these profound experiences more, so that we readers were not left wondering about some of the finer details. But as a first book for this long-time blogger, overall I’d give it a B. Strong effort for sure, but just a touch on the amateur side. I’m sure this will not be Jenna’s only book, however, and I’m still very excited to see what she does in the future. And in the meantime, I’ll definitely still be reading her blog!

My second book this month was Mademoiselle Boleyn, by Robin Maxwell. This book was also given to me for Christmas, by a good friend of mine who shares a great interest in the legendary Anne Boleyn. Almost everyone knows about the famous second wife of England’s Henry VIII, who became the first queen ever to be executed by her own country. My real interest in Anne Boleyn developed a few years ago when I got totally sucked into Showtime’s series, The Tudors. The show isn’t always historically accurate, but it sure is entertaining! And a large portion of the first and second seasons is devoted to the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn. So when Dani gave me this book, I was quite intrigued to see what it was all about.

This book is actually about Anne Boleyn pre-Henry. It’s all about her coming of age experiences during the several years her father sent her to essentially be a spy at the French Court. We get a first-hand account of Anne’s development from a naive little girl into a rather cunning and wise young woman. We’re also treated to some rather provocative tales of the goings-on at the sexually liberated French Court. (It’s all very tastefully written, however… no frank smut here.) While it certainly contains more than a few historically inaccuracies, it is a well-written and enchanting novel, and one I would definitely recommend to any Tudor-era history buffs out there. Its sequel, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, is next on the to-read list!

Thanks for allowing me to share some insight into what I’m reading these days. If you’d like, feel free to follow me on GoodReads!

Happy reading everyone!