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I finished reading Cradle to Cradle this morning, and this is definitely a book to read if you have concerns about the environment, the things we use, and making the world a healthier place.

Cradle to cradle is not about getting rid of everything we have, it’s not about throwing out all our technical progress, it’s about taking a different but possible approach. It’s well thought out, and they guys who wrote it practice the stuff they talk about. It’s a pleasant change. It’s interesting to look at many of their complaints about recycling, since what we recycle now can’t be reused at the same quality level, it has to be used as something at a lower level, so it’s not really recycling, it’s downcycling.

It’s really fascinating since I only know about efficient and effective sewage treatment. This is similar to that, but in other ways seems a whole 20 steps ahead.

Here are a couple of people (and a design firm) who have managed to make inroads to companies in different parts of the world showing them that they can save money doing things smarter. They did design for a cloth factory in europe (making cloth for wheelchairs) where the fabric is biodegradable, and the factory has no hazardous wastes… their effluent is cleaner than the water they take in, so the factory prefers their own waste water to the river water. I mean… damn. that’s pretty neat.

Maybe we aren’t going to kill ourselves off so easily after all…. I hope.

I finished reading Flight Volume One. I really like the book and the organization of the collection. The theme was vague enough to give the artists an amazing range of freedom, yet gives a strong cohesion to the book. I first heard about the book back when it was published because Vera Brosgol was involved and she mentioned it on her site.

I liked Vera’s piece, it’s very different from rts, and to me that is a bit of a hats off anyway. Of the 24 pieces, Jake Parker, Vera Brosgol, Jen Wang, Khang Le, Rad Sechrist, and Clio Chiang are particularly worth checking out.

If this type of stuff floats your boat, Flight Volume 2 is due out March 23 (yay!) and Jeff Smith is one of the contributors on the list.

A couple of months ago my friend Brad sent me a book. I’d been tied up reading other things and didn’t have a chance to read it until Sunday, and I finished up last night. David Sedaris’ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is a lot of fun. It gave me the chance to see another person’s family dramas and get a good laugh at the same time.

It’s exactly what I needed to run into, since I’ve been feeling a little frustrated, or like I was taking crazy pills. It’s not just me, lots of people have this insane circus going on.

Observations on sibling communication were excellent, but I had two favorite bits in the book. One was the discussion of who Santa Claus is in the Netherlands (that excerpt was read on NPR), I laughed so hard that my mother really thought I was losing it. The other was the recount of his brother’s wedding. I won’t really go into details, because I would hate to spoil the book for everyone. It’s full of many excellent chuckles and insights, and well worth the time to read.

I finished reading Life of Pi today. The story was an excellent exploration of animals, zoos, and religion. It would make more sense if you read it I suppose.

There were so many poignant moments in the book that I don’t really feel like I can pick out one, but there is a point that I thought was a lot of fun… the idea that you have to tell people what they want to hear in order for them to accept it.

The Dark Tower series has had me very excited, so after I finished reading the last nonfiction book I was working on, I decided to take on another Stephen King piece. This time I read The Eyes of the Dragon.

Some folks would say it’s different because it’s a more “normal” fantasy than King would normally write. I don’t think that’s entirely true. The narrative voice is a lot of fun, and I imagine a rather gruff lackluster storyteller behind the whole thing. To me, that was a lot of the attraction of the whole thing.

The story does move fairly slow, and I certainly found myself ploughing through the second half of the book at a happier clip than the first half. The characters were still well developed, in keeping with a strong ability, even though the story wasn’t quite as compelling as others I’ve read. However, as fairytales to tell children go, I liked this a whole bunch. The chapters are short enough that you could give a three chapter a night dose easily and keep the book going for a long time with an interested kid. The edition I have has rather lackluster illustrations, but otherwise i thought it was a neat venture.

Though it took me a little too long, I finished reading The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers. It was a great read, and as someone who likes writing, the advice is both humbling and enlightening. Best of all, there’s that feeling that the walls that I run into are not out there for me alone. There’s something very encouraging about that.

Betsy Lerner is very candid and open with her insights, and her style and prose is both relaxed and encouraging while still stern. She offers a lot to learn from in the world of publishing, and anyone seeking to get a piece in print, or seeking to continue to keep things in print has something to learn from this book.

I’ve just been a bookworm of late. Yesterday I finished reading Cory Doctorow’s Eastern Standard Tribe. It was a fun romp, and as a lightweight it’s no wonder I finished reading it so soon.

The idea of a troupe of people around the world working on a certain homeland’s sleep schedule doesn’t surprise me at all, and of late I find myself doing just that because of network issues. It’s hot and stuffy, and if I get up at 4AM, I can chat with my East Coast buddies while they’re still at work. It’s fun to see that extrapolated out in a book, and of course, being a MA native, I enjoyed seeing the MassPike’s E-ZPass mentioned and suggested as the tool to launch something exciting.

I didn’t find the whole book as intriguing or thought provoking as Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, but I do get the feeling of someone who knows what I’ve been going through, living and working abroad while still having a deep seated cultural connection to someplace else. Besides, the book is just a lot of fun.

The reason I picked up Hunting Unicorns is that it reminded me of Ruth Ozeki for some weird reason. Interestingly enough, inside the back cover is an ad for a Ruth Ozeki book. I have a fascination with contemporary British writing. Look at my list of favorite writers, and the number of UK folks should stand out.

Bella Pollen’s foray was a quick read for me. Two days of reading that would have been finished in one if I weren’t hanging out with friends.

Culturally, I find myself best able to identify with books that crash cross-cultural and identity issues straight into each other. What can I say, I am fascinated by anything that may bring me closer to some internal revelation.

That is certainly ground covered here. The main characters are pushed into an awkward romance and the awkward terms of their own cultural identities. Some folks love celebrity gossip, but I eat this stuff up.

Without selling out the book too much, I’d like to point out my favorite writing device in this book. The story is revealed by two narrators, which is not strange, but one of those is dead. This is not some mythical sci-fi twist or even spiritual aspect of the plot, rather just a matter of fact. The post-mortem witticisms of tht extremely flawed narrator are spectacular.

In the end, it certainly gives me some new thoughts on the role of narrator in the story.

In this US, the book is still in hardcover, though for UK friends it is already in paperback, which is the edition I picked up here in Shanghai.

I’ve already spoken before about reading The Gunslinger, but now that I’m three books further into The Dark Tower, I’d like to revisit.

Firstly, I can say that I found the whole thing engaging and captivating. There was a huge break between publishing The Drawing of Three (book 2), The Waste Lands (book 3) and Wizard and Glass (book 4). I can definitely see why.

The Drawing of Three brings in more players in the story from our world. Seeing the cross between the dying world that The Gunslinger set up, and our current world, and how Roland sees things is a pleasure. The book read really fast, and I found myself on the edge of my chair and rooting for the characters. This even though I didn’t like some of them.

The Waste Lands was exhausting and a large story in and of itself. Any Stephen King readers know that the books are no lightweights when it comes to page count. Watching Roland and Jake reconcile their obstacles left me tired and worked up. The idea that a story can be told well enough to exhaust me is impressive.

The other joy in such a long story is to watch the continual growth. In a good book the characters grow, they are dynamic. Well, in this series the characters grow pretty continually and are very dynamic. In Wizard and Glass, Roland learns to feel again, and we are introduced to his past. Not only is he feeling, but he’s able to admit it. Learning about his past and his ghosts gives an even greater depth and added mystique to a rough stone-like man. I cannot contemplate composing 2100 or so pages of text while maintaining any kind of mystique.

Still, all this reading and taking a break and I feel tired again here after Wizard and Glass. It’s a long journey, not only for the characters but also for the reader, and I’m glad I won’t be able to get my hands on the rest of the books for a little while. The 7th book won’t be published until late September. The Dark Tower series is excellent, if you ask me, but certainly something to pace yourself through. Granted, I need multiple inputs and read several books in the same time frame (though haven’t while reading this… the multiple storylines were engaging enough that, supplemented with some online reading, I was fine).

Today I was adding along to a post over at domynoes.network forums and found that what I posted there about my favorite authors was worth bringing up over here.

Let’s see… people who move me and make me drop things to read their stuff….

That’s actually a tough question since a lot of people I like to read are dead… makes it hard for them to put something out I want to get a hand on…

Caryl Phillips
Julian Barnes
Jeanette Winterson
Neil Gaiman
Zadie Smith who has written a great bit about the American book tour
Mark Kurlansky… a man who I see as the best researched writer, something i admire and aspire to.
Ha Jin… someone who reminded me that you could be a good writer, and even write about the Cultural Revolution in China and still write about people.

People who I read, but feel less of a need to drop the phone:
Mercedes Lackey
Stephen King
Douglas Whynott (i loved his book on the bluefin… though I didn’t realize he was a Mt Holyoke professor when I had the time to go say hello)
Kate Christiansen
Orson Scott Card

Also, if you find tight harmonies and writers to be your thing, you should check out the song “My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors” by moxy fruvous.