The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

by Michael Pollan

(New York: Penguin Books, 2006)

Trade Paperback, 450 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780143038580, US$16.00

From the Cover: Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. Will it be fast food tonight, or something organic? Or perhaps something we grew ourselves? The question of what to have for dinner has confronted us since man discovered fire. But as Michael Pollan explains in this revolutionary book, how we answer it now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may determine our survival as a species. Packed with profound surprises, The Omnivore’s Dilemma is changing the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.

My Review: About a month and a half ago, I received a pretty hefty package from the writing program director at Western Washington University (I’ll be attending the grad school there in the English department and teaching Composition 101 to freshmen while getting my Master’s). Upon opening the package, I was delighted to discover that I had received a copy of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma which, under the Western Reads program, all incoming freshmen at WWU will receive a copy of, and which I—as a teaching assistant—will be using as a text in Comp 101. I dove in almost immediately, but because of one thing or another I was unable to fully devote my attention to the book (which I needed to finish before Comp Camp begins at WWU on September 14th) until recently. So, with yellow highlighter in hand I jumped in with both feet.

t was slow going, but only because since I’ll be teaching this book, I wanted to make sure I was thorough about it. The writing director sent this in an email sometime after mailing out the books and I used it as a sort of guide for going through the book:

As I get ready for the fall, I find myself thinking more about imagination rooted in reading before the act of writing. If you examine the Introduction to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you’ll see Michael Pollan framing his book in terms of a genuine intellectual problem: what should we have for dinner? He researches and analyzes an ordinary concern to reveal a complexity that typically remains unnoticed. Pollan thus provides a useful intellectual model for the kinds of complex problems we aim to teach our students to imagine and pursue in English 101. Much of what we do in the teaching of writing addresses how we get ready to write, as well as what to do once we have written. Since academic writing usually begins in learning to “make a reading,” one central task we face as teachers is to help students to reconstruct the rhetorical problems that lead the author to write in the first place.

So it was with this idea that I was reading Omnivore. This is not to say that I didn’t read it for my own edification and to help me make better informed decision about how and what I eat as I strive for better health (physical, mental and spiritual), I did … but the idea of how Pollan goes about making his argument is something that I found fascinating, because as is stated in the book’s introduction and as the director emphasized, Pollan’s book stems from a very simple question: What to have for dinner?

Pollan goes about answering this question in three ways: by tracing the industrial food chain, the organic food chain and the forager’s food chain. He very methodically traces the way food reaches our tables through these three ways and points out the advantages and disadvantages to each path, usually centering on fossil fuel usage, price, environmental impact, ethical considerations (such as animal abuse, health, working conditions, etc.), as well as the relative transparencies of each chain. In this way, Pollan is able to make comparisons between the three food chains and present the Reader with all the information that he or she needs to make their own decisions regarding how and what to eat.

I found the most interesting aspect of the book to be that Pollan does not take sides in the debate. He manages to maintain a modicum of journalistic objectivity when discussing the problems and virtues of each food chain, and in spite of his bias toward one or the other of the three, he avoids pontificating and condemning and simply presents the facts as he saw them in the fields and lets the Reader make the ultimate decision and become responsible for their own food choices. This is not to say that Pollan does not have a somewhat defeatist view of the American food culture (such as it is), he does, in some ways, one might consider The Omnivore’s Dilemma to be a jeremiad of sorts, but the book is not all “doom and gloom and fire and brimstone.” The Omnivore’s Dilemma is not a polemic against industrial/processed food or a soapbox from which Pollan harangues the masses about the virtues of organic, beyond-organic, pastoral eating or even foraging that one so often sees in books of this type. Pollan is ever the journalist at heart and presents the facts and then stands back. It really is a stellar piece of writing looking at it from this angle; Pollan, in my mind, manages to pull off the ultimate academic/journalistic writing trick: to write a first person piece and then manage to remove oneself from the writing. Pollan does it, and it is a beautiful thing. What this rhetorical trick manages to do is make the Reader trust Pollan and lends considerable credibility to Pollan’s arguments.

On a more personal note, I learned a lot not only about how and what we eat in America’s food culture, but about how and what I eat personally. Knowledge is a two-edged sword, and Pollan certainly presents knowledge in spades! It has made me a much more aware consumer. One who takes a lot more time in the supermarket than before reading Pollan’s book. I am now a shopper who reads labels a lot more closely than before (you’d be surprised how much corn is hidden in any given product). I also feel a lot guiltier for going through the drive-thru or into the supermarket, especially the big box stores. This change has been in the works, slowly, for a long time for me, though, and Pollan’s book is just one more theses nailed to the proverbial door in my global consciousness. Slow food, local food, natural food … these are all part of a change that I and my wife have been slowly implementing in our family. Eating more consciously. Avoiding processed foods. Trying to buy products that don’t contain high fructose corn syrup or red 40. Growing a garden and using our own produce. Trying to make dinner rather than just heat it up or pull it out of the bag. We’re not perfect but we’re trying to live more healthily and eat more consciously.

Pollan makes the point in the book again and again that food should not just be something we eat, but something we also think, and that is a philosophy that I am more than willing to embrace. It’s taken nearly ten years to break myself of a lot of bad consumer habits, and I’m not 100% there yet, and I’m not even sure it’s 100% possible just given the pure fact of living in America (buying a book, for example, often is an exercise in subsidizing commodity corn since the glossy book covers are made using commodity corn products), but I am willing to try. I have taken the information that Pollan presents and made some conscious decisions about what to do with that information in my life, and it all involves not just eating food, but thinking food.

Other than the fact that I took my time going through Pollan’s book, in every way is this book satisfying: it is well-written, funny at times, sobering at others, informative, discusses an interesting topic, objective and to “preachy.” In short, The Omnivore’s Dilemma has everything I look for in a nonfiction book, and something that every American needs to read. If it doesn’t make you change the way you eat, then at least it will make you more aware about the consequences of the choices you make in regards to food, no matter which food chain you choose to follow: industrial, organic or forager’s.

This review can also be found at Bryan’s Book Blog.

Darwin Slept Here: Discovery, Adventure, and Swimming Iguanas in Charles Darwin's South America

by Eric Simons

(Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2009)

Hardcover, 258 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9781590202203, US$24.00

“There’s a danger in labeling someone a genius; it makes them inaccessible. Darwin the Genius is beyond the reach of sympathy. But Darwin the person—the one who stood and watched the sunset over this same river, the one who would happily join in with Josh and I in skipping rocks—well, he was a lot like us. He was us. His career-crowning idea of evolution by natural selection is a triumph of human achievement that sprang from the perfectly achievable endeavors of careful observation, meticulous note-taking, and joyous, boundless curiosity” (224).

From the Cover: One snowy day in Ushuaia, Argentina, the self-proclaimed “southernmost city in the world,” writer Eric Simons picked up a copy of Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle. Simons had just hiked the mountains overlooking Beagle Channel, and he found himself engrossed in Darwin’s account. Like Simons, Darwin was in his mid-twenties when he traveled to the continent. Simons followed Darwin further into South America—to stand where Darwin had stood and to explore the histories, legends and people that had fascinated him two centuries before. Simons trekked to as many of the locations Darwin wrote about as he could find to see if he could see these places through Darwin’s eyes, and to learn what South Americans know about Darwin. 2009 is a double-anniversary year for Darwin: the 200th anniversary of his birth in February, and the 150th anniversary of publication of The Origin of Species. Darwin Slept Here is an innovative and thrilling new look at a familiar subject from a compelling new writer to watch.

My Review: A week or two ago I was helping my brother move furniture in anticipation of their coming baby. While we were taking a break he threw a book in my lap and said “This book made me feel like a loser.” I raised an eyebrow and my brother continued: “I went to high school with Ricky. We were in journalism together. He’s got a published book on Darwin. I’m in school for the second time.” (We’ll leave off the fact that it made me feel like even more of a loser, since I have finally gotten my Bachelor’s degree after fourteen years of higher education.) I asked my brother if I could borrow it, since I was near finishing the book I was reading at the time, and as soon as my plate was cleared, I dug into Darwin Slept Here.

Now, after having finished this book, I come away from it with mixed feelings: I have a new respect and admiration for Darwin the man (not that I ever didn’t respect him, but he was always a “distant” historical and literary figure) but I’m not sure what to think of the author. It’s hard to separate the two of these ideas, since for Simons Darwin is—for whatever reason—inextricably linked in his (Simon’s) mind with himself, but I will do my best to separate the “idea” of the book and the “execution” of the book.

After my brother tossed the book into my lap, I flipped open to the introduction (enticingly titled “Introduction: The World’s Most Famous Iguana Hurler”) and read the following:

Evolution had done the thing right. The marine iguana of the Galapagos Islands swam well. Dined well. Lounged well. It basked in the sun, it munched seaweed, it strutted out for an occasional constitution-improving swim, all until one cloudless, sweltering September afternoon in 1835, when a young man stepped ashore and ruined everything.

Charles Darwin had not yet conceived of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Five months shy of his twenty-seventh birthday, tall and thin and already distinctively heavy-browed, he had not yet acquired a reputation as a scientist, had not yet published a celebrated travelogue about South America (or an influential treatise on tropical corals), and had not yet had a species of ostrich named after him. His visit to the Galapagos came at the tail end of a five-year trip around the world, and it did not act on him as one of those Sistine-Chapel-ceiling, hand-meets-hand kind of moments. But Darwin was in the midst of a travel-induced transformation, combining his childhood love of exploration and biology with an increasingly sophisticated ability to catalogue nature. When he published The Origin of Species twenty-four years later, it was notable for the meticulous observational detail Darwin used to support his theory. For someone who delighted in scientific inquiry, the reptilian megafauna swarming the Galapagos was a scaly, ugly, crawling—and terrific—learning opportunity.

Darwin spent one day studying tortoises, chasing them, riding them, and upending them to see if they could right themselves. He spent another day with the marine iguanas, and it was not a good day to be a member of the lizard kingdom. He cut up the iguanas to see what they were eating (seaweed), and in his journal, he disparaged their color (“dirty black”), their disposition (“stupid and sluggish”), and their looks (“hideous”). He and a co-conspirator tied one animal to a rock and dropped it off their boat, the Beagle, to see what would happen (“when, an hour afterwards, he drew up the line it was quite active”). He also noticed that some of the iguanas seemed to like the water, and he wondered: How well did they swim?

On the morning that Darwin chose to answer this question, it became evident that in one way, at least, evolution had failed the iguana: It had given it no recourse at all for dealing with thrill-seeking British naturalists. Darwin strode across the craggy rocks toward a napping “imp of darkness,” cornered it, snatched it by the tail, and hurled it into a pool left by the receding tide. The iguana, no doubt wondering what had gone wrong on a day that had started so pleasantly, swam straight back to its sunning rock.

Charles Darwin was a scientist at heart, and a good scientist always repeats his experiment. As the aggrieved beast climbed dripping from the pool, Darwin jumped forward again, clasped the iguana firmly in hand, and drew back. And then, in the name of science, discovery, and swimming iguanas, he hurled it into the sea. (11-13)

You can probably see why I was intrigued. The rest of the book plays out in much the same vein: with Darwin iguana hurling, discovering of a new species of ostrich through eating the poor creature, señorita-watching in Buenos Aires, travelling gaucho-style in the Argentinean pampas, experiencing the Concepción Earthquake of 1835, touring the gold mines of Chile and, in one of the more surreal moments, Simons attends a performance of what can only be described as a Monty Python-esque musical (appropriately titled “The Adventure of the Beagle”—El espectáculo del fin del mundo) in Tierra del Fuego which chronicles the Beagle’s expedition, as well the return of three native Fuegians (oddly named by the English who had traded for them, and this is true, York Minister, James Button and Fuegia Basket (there was a fourth who died shortly after arrival in England who had been saddled with the name Boat Memory)) to their home.

Aside from the iguana hurling, I found the story of Simons’ time in Tierra del Fuego and his attendance at El espectáculo del fin del mundo to be the most amusing portion of his travelogue. The musical, as Simons describes it, is nothing short of ridiculous (in a good sense) and, as I mentioned above, sounds like a Monty Python version of events. For example, here are some of the lyrics to the songs, as Simons provides. The sailors on the Beagle sing by way of prologue: “We’ll fight the roaring seas / We shall face no defeat / All across the Seven Seas / The Beagle will succeed” and later on, Darwin sings “There’s no way to go on / And there’s no turning back / Nowhere to run / Nowhere to hide / I’m torn inside” (136-137). Oh, and did I mention that Simons reports that there is “a twenty-foot-tall dancing sloth fossil that sang to Darwin that ‘you can try to deny what your eyes meet … but think you fool, don’t be a mule … I am as real as these bones’” (137)? Well, there is. (Also, according to Simons there is a strange homoerotic overtone between the actor playing the Beagle’s captain and one of the native Fuegians, which—to both Simons and me—seems an oddly placed interpretation.) It would almost be worth travelling to Tierra del Fuego just to see El espectáculo del fin del mundo!

Simons’ enthusiasm for his subject cannot be denied. He drags often reluctant friends across the South American continent in search of historical sites that Darwin visited during his time on the Beagle, accosting locals, travel bureaus, museum proprietors and once strolling right up to the gates of the largest gold mine in Chile and asking—unannounced and without any sort of introduction or recommendation—if he and his friend can look around, since that is what Darwin did: visited mines in Chile. He badgers locals about Darwin, most of whom could care less about the naturalist and often didn’t even know that Darwin had even visited their sleepy little corner of the world in the Nineteenth-Century. It is here that I found the distinction between Simons’ “idea” or “subject” and Simons’ “execution” to wear a little thin.

Simons repeatedly comes across as taking the stance that Darwin is immutable, infallible and utterly correct and that anyone who does not believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (especially those who believe in the Biblical account of Creation) are backwards bumpkins who are living in the Dark Ages (not his words, but certainly his sentiment). As someone who does believe in a Creator, but also believes that evolution, natural selection and a Creator are not mutually exclusive ideas Simons stance comes off as condescending at best and antagonistic and belligerent at worst. Simons states that he has no use for evangelism at all and when he does meet up with missionaries at one point (on a penguin viewing boat tour in Port Desire, Argentina) he spends his time avoiding them, rather than engaging with them about Darwin and his interests (I know that this probably would have worked since the missionaries in question were from my own Church and are—for the most part—open to discussion as we believe, as I stated above that evolution, natural selection and a Creator are not mutually exclusive ideas.)

All too often, however, Simons’ fanatic devotion to Darwin plays out in a way that seems quasi-religious in its own, rather ironic, way, and this gets in the way of Simons’ ultimate point that The Origin of Species overshadows The Voyage of the Beagle; that Darwin is too often seen as the white-bearded evolutionist that his later work in life presented him as, and we almost always overlook the fact that Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle was that of an enthusiastic and curious twenty-something who liked to throw iguanas into the sea, ride with gauchos and crawl over every mountain and hill he could get his hands on (as well as ogle the señoritas in Buenos Aires). Darwin was a man of science, yes, but he was also a human being who loved life, was curious about the world around him and had an insatiable desire to learn.

This is the Darwin that we all need to get to know and love, and in spite of the shortcomings and/or biases of Simons as an author, the book, overall, manages to present a wonderful picture the formative experiences of a young man cut loose in South America to learn and explore and who goes on to change the face of science as we know it, as well as the devotion and obsession of another young man, nearly a century-and-a-half later who goes in search of his idol across the vast backdrop of South America. It is a good read, maybe even a great read, and one I would recommend—with some reservations, as mentioned above—and a great book to read in this year that is the bicentennial celebration of Darwin’s birth as well as sesquicentennial celebration of the publication of The Origin of Species. (The website for Darwin Slept Here can be found HERE.)

This review can also be found at Bryan’s Book Blog.

The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science: 64 Daring Experiments for Young Scientists

by Sean Connolly

(New York: Workman Publishing Company, Inc., 2008)

Hardcover, 208 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780761150206, US$12.95

STAND BACK! GENIUS AT WORK!

ENCASE your little brother in a giant soap bubble.

DROP Mentos into a bottle of diet soda, and stand back as a geyser erupts.

LAUNCH a rocket made from a film canister.

From the Cover: Here are 64 amazing experiments that snap, crackle, pop, ooze, crash, boom, and stink. Giant air cannons. Home-made lightning. Marshmallows on steroids. Matchbox microphones. There’s even an introduction to alchemy. (Not sure what that is? Think “medieval wizard.”) None of these experiments require special training, and all use stuff found in the kitchen or garden shed. You’d be irresponsible not to try them.

ATTENTION, PARENTS: Yes, your kids may need your help with a few experiments. And yes, sometimes it may get a tad messy. But it’s not pure mayhem. The balloon rocket whizzing through the garden? It demonstrates Newton’s Third Law of Motion. That chunk of potato launched across the kitchen from a tube? Welcome to Boyle’s Law. EVERY EXPERIMENT DEMONSTRATES REAL SCIENCE, at its most memorable.

My Review: The word “FUN” doesn’t begin to describe this book, but perhaps I should give a little background. I apologize in advance to those who know me in real life, as this may be repetitive. As parents, my wife and I have made certain decisions regarding the type of parents that we want to be. These decisions are ones that most people would describe as “crunchy” and include not vaccinating our children, not circumcising our son, extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, and homeschooling through such methods as Montessori, Waldorf and Unschooling.

Under unschooling, we follow our son’s lead. If, as we did recently, he shows an interest in crocodiles, then we get crocodile books and videos from the library and read through them and learn all about crocodiles. We do science experiments at home and that’s where Connolly’s book comes into the picture.

The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science is a book that is perfect for this kind of education. Connolly’s experiments are fun and exciting, easy to follow and even better, each one comes with a “Scientific Excuse” (as Connolly terms it) that links each experiment to the scientific principle that allows it to occur, making each one of these experiments the perfect learning opportunity.

Whether it is something as “old school” as dropping Mentos into diet cola or as exotic as making a self-propelled Viking funeral boat or causing a CFL bulb to light up using only a balloon and a head of hair, Connolly has put together a wonderful collection of fun and exciting scientific experiments for the homeschooler and backyard mad scientist alike, and I know that we will definitely be including Connolly’s experiments and explanations into our son and daughter’s homeschooling curriculum.

Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook

by Francine Segan

(New York: Random House, 2003)

Hardcover, 272 Pages, Cookbook

ISBN: 9780375509179, US$35.00

“Now, good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!”

(Macbeth, III, iv, 39-40)

From the Cover: Francine Segan introduces contemporary cooks to the foods of William Shakespeare’s world with recipes updated from classic Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century cookbooks. Her easy-to-prepare adaptations shatter the myth that the Bard’s primary fare was boiled mutton. In fact, Shakespeare and his contemporaries dined on salads of fresh herbs and vegetables; fish, fowl, and meats of all kinds; and delicate broths. Dried Plums with Wine and Ginger-Zest Crostini, Winter Salad with Raisin and Caper Vinaigrette, and Lobster with Pistachio Stuffing and Seville Orange Butter are just a few of the delicious, aromatic, and gorgeous dishes that will surprise and delight. Segan’s delicate and careful renditions of these recipes have been thoroughly tested to ensure no-fail, standout results. The tantalizing Renaissance recipes in Shakespeare’s Kitchen are enhanced with food-related quotes from the Bard, delightful morsels of culinary history, interesting facts on the customs and social etiquette of Shakespeare’s time, and the texts of the original recipes, complete with antiquated spellings and eccentric directions. Fifty color images by award-winning food photographer Tim Turner span the centuries with both old-world and contemporary treatments. Patrick O’Connell provides an enticing Foreword to this edible history from which food lovers and Shakespeare enthusiasts alike will derive nourishment. Want something new for dinner? Try something four hundred years old.

My Review: Two aspects of my personality have converged to make this book an inevitability for me: (1) I am a Shakespeare nerd and (2) I am a foodie. So, when I saw it on the shelf at my local library as I was browsing cookbooks, I had to pick it up.

This is a simply marvelous book. I sat down and read through it one night as the kids were going to sleep and I could not put it down. I kept waking my wife up to read her various recipes. She may have been put out with me, but she was also interested, tired as she was, because I spite of it all, these recipes are both delicious and fascinating in their flavor combinations, and as an added bonus, Segan has included in certain instances the original recipes for these Elizabethan dishes, and these are absolutely delightful to read. Take, for example, the following period recipe for “Courage” Tart, which Segan states refers to sexual prowess and was a recipe for an aphrodisiac:

Take two Quinces and two or three Burre rootes, and a potaton, and pare your Potaton and scrape your rootes and put them into a quart of wine, and let them boyle till they be tender, and put in an ounce of Dates, and when they be boyled tender, draw them through a Strainer, Wine and all, and then putte in the yolkes of eight Egges, and the brains of three or foure cocke Sparrowes, and Straine them into the other and a little Rose water, and seeth them all with Sugar, Synamon and Ginger, and Cloves and Mace, and put in a little Sweete butter, and set it upon a chafingdish of coles, betweene two platter, and so let it boyle till it be something bigge. —The Good Wuswifes Jewell, 1587 (215)

Isn’t that great? Quince tarts with sparrow’s brains. Of course, Segan omits the brains from her contemporary version of the recipe. I also love the actual text of the 1587 recipe. The language is so beautiful, isn’t it? Is it just me?

Anyway, this is a great cookbook with lots of fun and tasty-sounding recipes, as well as a lot of fun history, commentary and plenty of original recipes—all in the vein of “Courage” Tart. Segan also includes an appropriate Shakespearean quote with each recipe, as well as a little color commentary. It really is a book that is a lot of fun to read through, and one that is perfect kitchen addition for the Shakespearean fan, foodie, or both in your life, or just for yourself if that Shakespearean fan/foodie is you. It really is a treat to look through, and perhaps it can give you some inspiration for your Shakespearean birthday celebration this next April the 26th … The Bard of Avon will be 446 in 2010, and perhaps you and your guests would like to celebrate with some of “Queen Elizabeth’s Fine Cake,” Banbury Cake, Sweet Beets in Puff Pastry with Crème Fraîche and Ginger, or maybe even some “Courage” Tarts. Let me know if you try them with the sparrow brains.

This review also available at Bryan's Book Blog

Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible

by David Plotz

read by The Author

(Newark: Audible, Inc., 2009)

MP3 Audiobook, 145.1 MB, 10.5 Hours, Nonfiction

ISBN: N/A, US$24.95

“Whoa, good Bible.” —Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly episode 6, “Our Mrs. Reynolds”

From the Cover: Like many Jews and Christians, David Plotz long assumed he knew what was in the Bible. He read parts of it as a child in Hebrew school, and then attended a Christian high school where he studied the Old and New Testaments. Many of the highlights stuck with him—Adam and Eve, Cain versus Abel, Jacob versus Esau, Jonah versus whale, forty days and nights, ten plagues and Commandments, twelve Tribes and Apostles, Red Sea walked under, Galilee walked on, bush into fire, rock into water, water into wine. And, of course, he absorbed from all around him other bits of the Bible—from stories he heard in churches and synagogues, in movies and on television, from his parents and teachers. But it wasn’t until he picked up a Bible at a cousin’s bat mitzvah—and became engrossed and horrified by a lesser-known story in Genesis—that he couldn’t put it down. At a time when wars are fought over scriptural interpretation, when the influence of religion on American politics has never been greater, when many Americans still believe in the Bible’s literal truth, it has never been more important to get to know the Bible. Good Book is what happens when a regular guy—an average Job—actually reads the book on which his religion, his culture, and his world are based. Along the way, he grapples with the most profound theological questions: How many Commandments do we actually need? Does God prefer obedience or good deeds? And the most unexpected ones: Why are so many women in the Bible prostitutes? Why does God love bald men so much? Is Samson really that stupid? Good Book is an irreverent, enthralling journey through the world’s most important work of literature.

My Review: It should come as no surprise, to those who know me at least, that I read and listen to Slate.com. One of the podcasts that I subscribe to is the Slate Political Gabfest, in which David Plotz, who is also the editor of Slate participates. It was through the Gabfest that I was first introduced to Plotz’s book—Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible—and it was as a loyal listener of the Gabfest that I was “rewarded” with a free download of Good Book from Audible.com (the Gabfest’s sponsor).

Needless to say I jumped at the chance to download an audio book for free, though this can often be a crapshoot. However, in this instance I was well rewarded. David Plotz’s Good Book is one of the best books that I have read/listened to this year. Hands down. To set it up, Plotz—a Jew—was at a family member’s bat mitzvah and bored and so picked up a copy of the Torah and opening up to a random passage, started reading. What he came across was the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob/Israel. If you do not know the story, it is in Genesis 34. If you do know the story, then you can understand why Plotz would be shocked and dismayed at reading the story and wondering why he had never heard it before. It was, in Plotz’s experience conveniently left out of both the Hebrew school he attended and the Episcopalian school he attended. It was then that the seed of Good Book was planted. Plotz began to wonder what other stories in the Bible he did not know were in there, and so, he started reading and began chronicling his discoveries and reactions at Blogging the Bible, from there, it turned into Good Book.

(One caveat up front, as a Jew, Plotz skips the New Testament and reads only the Torah or Old Testament, so when he says “Bible,” he means the Hebrew Bible.)

Anyway, what I liked most about Good Book was Plotz’s openness to the stories and messages in the Old Testament. Much of what is in there is very different from the Sunday School versions we are all taught (which are often “cleaned-up” for young ears) and which we think we know. Plotz approaches the Bible as something in which he doesn’t really believe, but which he respects and which he can understand why people treat it the way they do. He is respectful of other’s beliefs in the Biblical stories, even if those beliefs are not his own. I bring this up and emphasize it because I find it very agreeable. At about the same time I started listening to Good Book, Bill Maher’s Religulous arrived in our mailbox via Netflix. Unlike Plotz, who approaches religion from a standpoint of respectful skepticism, Maher’s supposed documentary and inquiry into religious beliefs across the world is not respectful in the least. Maher comes at religion from a stance of complete disbelief ad disrespect. There is no courteousness in Maher’s approach. He treats all those in every religion he “investigates” as insane and stupid for their beliefs. We turned it off after about 20 minutes.

Back to Plotz. In spite of my own belief in God and the stories in the Old Testament, I found Plotz’s experiences with and commentary on his reading of the Old Testament to be enlightening, fascinating and refreshing. Just for my own background, I am LDS (Mormon) and, as a Sunday School/Gospel Doctrine teacher have taught the Old Testament at least three times over, so I guess you might say I am relatively knowledgeable about the Bible and Old Testament. So, to hear Plotz’s take on these 39 books was, as I said, refreshing, because unlike a lot of other books about the Old Testament, Plotz came to it as a complete neophyte. By his own admission, his past experience with the Torah was very limited, and so when he decided to read the Bible from cover to cover, he eschewed all Biblical commentary and extraneous reading and decided to take the Old Testament on, mano-a-mano. Good Book contains only Plotz’s and his Bible and his own personal reactions to and thought on the stories he is reading.

It was a fascinating listen, especially since it is Plotz himself who reads the audio edition, and really, would you want anyone else reading such a personal book? Plotz has a friendly and likeable style that greatly adds to the engrossing tale he is telling as he goes chapter by chapter through the books of the Old Testament.

His style is made all the more likeable due to the “every man” reaction he has to the stories he is relating. In describing Biblical stories, figures, events, and laws, Plotz endlessly makes references to pop culture and modern life, including (in no particular order): 9½ Weeks, Abercrombie & Fitch, The A.C.L.U., Adam Smith, After-School Specials, All About Eve, Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Bar Scene, Big Brother, Bob Dylan, The Branch Davidians, Brokeback Mountain, Bugsy Siegel, The Byrds, Casablanca, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cinderella, Cold Fusion, The Congressional Medal of Honor, Cormac McCarthy, C.S.I., David Koresh, Divorce Lawyers, Doctors Without Borders, Donald Trump, Edgar Allan Poe, Entourage, Ernest Hemingway, Flowers in the Attic, Frat Rushes, Freddy Krueger, The Gap, George Orwell, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, Good Cop-Bad Cop, Grifting, Hippies, How To Win Friends and Influence People, Hustler Magazine, Jack Nicholson, Jane Austen, Judge Dredd, The Justice League, K-Rations, A Knight’s Tale, Last Tango in Paris, Law & Order: SVU, The Life of Brian, The Lifetime Network, “The Lottery,” Macrobiotic Diet, Madame Bovary, The Madness of King George, Maoist Economics, Married, with Children, Martha Stewart, Mata Hari, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Midnight Cowboy, Michael Jackson, Miss Manners, The Miss Universe Pageant, Monty Python, Morgan Freeman, Muhammad Ali, The New Yorker, Nixon’s Historic Visit to China, Oprah Winfrey, Penélope Cruz, Penthouse Forum, P.E.T.A., Pete Seeger, Pimp My Ride, Pol Pot, Portrait of a Lover, Pretty Woman, Project Runway, Pro-Wrestling, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Real Estate Deals (Crooked and Otherwise), Restraining Orders, Rogaine, Salma Hayek, The Saw Franchise, Self-Help Books, Shirley Jackson, Soap Operas, Sports Talk Radio, Stage Moms, Stephen King, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Three Dog Night, The Three Stooges, Total Home Makeover, Ty Pennington, Viagra, William Shakespeare, Woody Allen, The X-Men, “Yo Momma” Jokes, Yuppies, and in what is quite possibly my favorite statement in the book, Plotz refers to Ezekiel as “the Groovy Whole-Grain Hippie Prophet,” and, even more amazingly, he makes it all work and seem natural to the stories of the Bible.

Another fun aspect of Good Book is Plotz’s Appendix, which contains Useful, and Not-So-Useful Bible Lists:

• The Bible’s 12 Best Pick-Up Lines
• The 11 Best Miracles in the Bible and 1 Very Lame One
• The Bible’s 13 Most Spectacular Murders
• The Bible’s 9 Best Parties
• 10 Bible Prostitutes
• 11 Biblical Heroes You Don’t Want to Be Named After
• 9 Truly Hellacious Biblical Punishments
• The Bible’s 8 Trippiest and Most Important Dreams
• 9 Weird Biblical Laws
• The Bible’s 6 Most Important Business Deals
• 6 Abuses of Animals Rights in the Bible
• The Bible’s 10 Most Important Meals

These are pretty self-explanatory lists and actually a lot of good-natured fun with the Bible.

My only complaint in all of what Plotz has to say about the Bible was his over use of the word “feckless” (which, according to dictionary.com, is defined as: “1. ineffective; incompetent; futile 2. having no sense of responsibility; indifferent; lazy”) in describing at least five Bible personages that I can think of off the top of my head, and there is possibly more that I can’t remember. It is not because it was in any way offensive to the person, or my personal belief about them, they were all apt descriptions of these people, it was just an overexposure to the word that I took a dislike to. Kind of like Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” … it was alright the first time you heard it at the end of Titanic, but after it played on the radio ad nauseum you were sick of it, and it grated every time you heard it. That’s the way it was with the word “feckless” in Good Book.

Other than that one, little nitpick, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent listening to Good Book, and I found the conclusions that Plotz makes upon finishing his reading of the Bible to be very inspiring and thought-provoking, coming as they do from a starting place of disbelief and no faith and even skepticism. It made me rethink my belief in the Old Testament and the stories it tells, not in a bad way, but in a way that challenges my faith and makes me want to strengthen my own conclusions about God and the Old Testament’s teachings, moral and otherwise, and those things I took on “blind faith” and what I thought the Biblical story was saying and teaching.

I don’t care whether you’re religious or not, skeptic, atheist or believer, whether your belief is Christian, Jewish or Whatever … Good Book, at the risk of a cliché, has something for everyone, and I guarantee you’ll enjoy the journey of one man’s quest to read “every single word of the Bible.” (And for a real treat, you have to try it out on Audio. Plotz’s intimate reading is a wonderful experience.)

This review can also be found at Bryan's Book Blog.

Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters

by Nancy Pelosi with Amy Hill Hearth

(New York: Doubleday, 2008)

Hardcover, 180 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780385525862, US$23.95

“Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren’t just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and our granddaughters today we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters now the sky is the limit.”

—Nancy Pelosi, after being sworn in as Speaker of the House

From the Cover: When Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House, she made history. She gaveled the House to order that day on behalf of all of America’s children and said, “We have made history, now let us make progress.” Now she continues to inspire women everywhere in this thought-provoking collection of wise words—her own and those of the important people who played pivotal roles in her journey. In these pages, she encourages mothers and grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters to never lose faith, to speak out and make their voices heard, to focus on what matters most and follow their dreams wherever they may lead. Perhaps the Speaker says it best herself in the Preface: “I find it humbling and deeply moving when women and girls approach me, looking for insight and advice. If women can learn from me, in the same way I learned from the women who came before me, it will make the honor of being Speaker of the House even more meaningful.” This is a truly special book to share with all the women you know. It is a keepsake to turn to again and again, whenever you need to be reminded that anything is possible when you know your power.

My Review: A week or two ago Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was the guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She spoke about politics (as can be expected) but she also plugged her new book, Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters. I was intrigued by the title since I have a daughter, and seeing as this was a book written by the most powerful woman in America … I figured it was something that I should read. Surprisingly (he said, the words dripping with sarcasm) I did not have to put the book on hold at the local library. (It’s one of the few perks living in one of the most Redly Conservative counties in the nation that there is no waiting list for books such as this.)

Pelosi’s book is one part biography and one part political manifesto and honestly neither is very effective. Pelosi’s writing is pedantic at best and she Name Drops like nobody’s business. Every page contains five or six names that she throws out for no good reason other than to show who she knows and while Pelosi’s rise from housewife to Speaker of the House is a fascinating story … for the most part, the telling is dry. There is no spark here … and while I consider myself fairly liberal and am all for making a principled political stand, refusing to rent an otherwise perfect home in San Francisco while you, your husband and four children are living with your mother-in-law just because the owners of the home are leaving to work in Nixon’s administration … that sort of fanaticism (for lack of a better word) falls flat, especially when later in the book Pelosi claims that she is first and foremost a mother; the early story of the Nixon-house negates this claim of motherhood first.

However, all that being said, the final third of this book (titled “Know Your Power”) is where Pelosi shines. Her tale of becoming Speaker of the House, her stands against the excesses of both Bush Administrations and her message to the rising generation of women and girls is what every parent of a daughter and woman needs to read. Pelosi makes an authoritative call to power for women and girls everywhere. Really, if you are interested in reading Know Your Power, skip the first 119 pages and read the final section of the novel. This is where the heart of Pelosi’s message and the real power of her pleas lay. (Though the whole novel is a very quick read … it took me under 24 hours to get through it, so if you wanted to slog through the first two thirds, it wouldn’t take that long anyway.)

Despite the book’s initial flaws, by the end Pelosi is a powerful writer, an inspirational leader and—even more rare—an apparently honest politician. She is a woman and leader who deserves our respect and is one who, in eight years, I could see myself voting for if she chooses to run for President of the United States (after Barack Obama becomes President, of course). Hillary Clinton I had problems with; Nancy Pelosi is someone I could get behind as I have gotten behind Obama and Know Your Power shows why.

The Daily Show: Nancy Pelosi (July 28, 2008)

This review can also be found at Bryan’s Book Blog

Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever

by Susan Warren

(New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2007)

Hardcover, 245 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9781596912786, US$24.95

Early to bed,

Early to rise,

Work like hell and fertilize

—Emily Whaley

From the Cover: Every year, the race to grow the biggest pumpkin in the world draws a rowdy crowd of obsessive gardeners to county fairs and weigh-offs across the country. The competition is furious; there's sabotage and treachery and the heartbreak of root rot, and many a weigh-off ends in tears. This year more than just the grand prize is at stake. The Holy Grail is within reach: the world's first fifteen-hundred pound pumpkin. And Ron and Dick Wallace will stop at nothing to get it. Backyard Giants follows a tumultuous season in the life of a close-knit tribe of competitors as they chase down the ultimate pumpkin prize. In the grueling and gut-wrenching quest for truly colossal fruit, vacations are postponed, marriages are strained, and savings accounts are emptied. Backyards are converted into leafy laboratories of biogenetics and toxic chemicals—to say nothing of pumpkin sex. Riding shotgun with Ron and his father Dick, Wall Street Journal editor Susan Warren brings to life a winning and unforgettable crew of pumpkin lunatics: the newbie who shocked everyone by growing the big one last year; the pro-bono slime scientist; the groundhog assassin; and the safety trainer who risked electrocuting himself to save his patch. Funny, sharp, and engaging, Backyard Giants is a romp through a charming corner of American life, as quirky and enchanting as the big pumpkins themselves.

My Review: A lot of the books that I have been reading lately come from the library. When you walk into the library there are three displays that have the New Fiction, the New Nonfiction and the Month’s Theme. I normally peruse these displays in my circuit of the library, and recently, there have been a lot of good books on the nonfiction side. Recently as I was checking out these displays, a book caught my eye. It was bright orange and had a very large pumpkin featured on the cover. The title was even more intriguing: Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever.

Now, those who know me know that I am a Fall Person. I hate Spring and despise Summer with a passion bordering on insanity. Winter’s okay, but Fall is still my favorite time of the year. It is the season of falling leaves, gray, drizzly days, the days are getting shorter and everything is just better once Autumn runs around. But, the best part of it all is the fact that it is pumpkin season. Pumpkins are, in my mind, one of the best things the Good Lord saw fit to place on this green earth … even more so than the Ultimate Cheeseburger and Seasoned Curly Fries from Jack in the Box. I love pumpkins. I love to look at pumpkins, I love to eat pumpkin, I love to cook with pumpkin … every year my wife and I try to seek out the most sincere pumpkin patch we can find to get our jack o’ lanterns for Halloween. (We have yet to find a sincere one in Utah, though, and we still pine about the one that we found one year in Redmond, Washington.) So, anyway, when I saw that this orange book was one about pumpkin growing … big pumpkin growing I had to pick it up.

Let me first say that I had no idea that the world of competitive giant pumpkin growing was so intense. The stories that Warren tells are first, hilarious and second, heartbreaking. The growers that Warren follows put so much time and money and effort (as well as blood, sweat and tears) into their pumpkin patches and often, by the official end of the season on October 7, have nothing to show for it. Disease, Mother Nature and plain and simple good old fashioned bad luck often steal potentially world-class pumpkins from these men. I can’t imagine putting that much effort into a large pumpkin only to have a possible world-record stolen out from under me because of a thieving woodchuck.

Yet … in spite of all that … there is something intoxicating about the idea of growing a pumpkin that is upwards of 1,200-pounds. It seems like it is something that I could really get into. We’re growing a pumpkin in our backyard garden now, and I’ve been paying close attention to the flowers, the vine, the leaves. I know we’ll never grow anything more than about 20-pounds (if we’re lucky) but competitive pumpkin growing is something that I can see getting into in my autumn years.

Susan Warren’s book is a wonderful window into a world that I never even knew existed. The stories she (and the growers she profiles) tell are funny and devastating and inspiring and the history of pumpkins (both giant and regular) is fascinating; for instance, the nursery rhyme “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater” may have sinister origins: PPPE’s wife was either an adulteress who was murdered and stuffed into a giant pumpkin shell, or an adulteress who was forced into a “pumpkin shell” or “chastity belt.” Believe it or not, the story Warren tells as she follows Ron and Dick Wallace and the Rhode Island growers through the 2006 season, is engrossing and actually suspenseful, especially when it comes to the question Will someone finally grow a 1,500-pound pumpkin? This is the question on everyone’s mind in the 2006 growing season and with several growers with possible contenders to that crown, you will keep turning the pages well into the night.

If you want to know more about giant pumpkin growing, check out BigPumpkins.com.

This review can also be found at Bryan’s Book Blog

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

by Ned Sublette

(Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2008)

Hardcover, 360 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 978155652302, US$24.95

“There is more gold to be gotten from men than from rivers.” —Bertolt Brecht, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

“We honor our crooks in Louisiana” —National Park Service, Jean Lafitte Historical Park and Preserve

From the Cover: New Orleans is the most elusive of American cities. The product of the centuries-long struggle among three mighty empires—France, Spain, and England—and among their respective American colonies and enslaved African peoples, it has always seemed like a foreign port to most Americans, baffled as they are by its complex cultural heritage. The World That Made New Orleans offers a new perspective on this insufficiently understood city by telling the remarkable story of New Orleans’ first century—a tale of imperial war, religious conflict, the search for treasure, the spread of slavery, the Cuban connection, the cruel atrocities of sugar, and the very different revolutions that created the United States and Haiti. It demonstrates that New Orleans already had its own distinct personality at the time of Louisiana’s statehood in 1812. By then, important roots of American music were firmly planted in its urban swamp—especially in the dances at Congo Square, where enslaved Africans and African Americans appeared en masse on Sundays to, as an 1819 visitor to the city put it, “rock the city.” The book is a logical continuation of Ned Sublette’s previous volume, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo, which was highly praised for its synthesis of musical, cultural, and political history. Just as that book has become a standard resource on Cuba, so too will The World That Made New Orleans long remain essential for understanding the beautiful and tragic story of this most American of cities.

My Review: Like a lot of the books that I have reviewed lately, this was a last-minute pick-up off of the NEW BOOKS display at my local library. I was intrigued by the title and since I have always loved the mystique of New Orleans (Naw’lens?), I checked it out and started reading.

I am divided over how I feel about Sublette’s book. On the one hand, this is a wonderful look at one of America’s most important cities and all the history and heritage and character that was lost there in August and September 2005 due to the incompetence of the federal government. On the other hand, The World That Made New Orleans seems to lack focus and often rambles off on subjects that are only tangentially connected to the history of New Orleans. This makes New Orleans a difficult book to read and follow.

The history of New Orleans or, at least, the history that Sublette presents (as he is mostly interested in the African and music histories of the city), is absolutely fascinating. One can hardly wonder that such a city existed or can ever exist again in America. Changing hands between world powers on a number of occasions as well as revolutionizing New World attitudes towards slaves and Africans, New Orleans is a city that has shaped the history of this nation, whether we realize it or not. From its very beginnings, New Orleans was a city that was famous for what it has always been famous for: parties, crime, music and debauchery. It was in fact, originally the “home of pirates, drunks, and whores” (to quote The Simpsons), since the French used the Louisiana Territory as a sort of Australia for French undesirables through the forced migration of criminals and prostitutes.

Music was an integral part of slave life in Louisiana and New Orleans (where African slaves, under the French and then the Spanish, actually had a connection to their past, unlike slaves under Anglo-American mastery) and, since there were more slaves and free people of color in New Orleans than whites (it was, until 2005, the most-integrated and racial diverse city in America), their music became the rhythm of the city. The word “rock” as it relates to music was first used, according to Sublette, in New Orleans in 1819. As a musician himself, Sublette focuses mainly on the history of the music of New Orleans, and this makes for an interesting approach to the city’s history as he is able to trace the roots of jazz and rock through the musical movements and changes that were made as slaves were brought from Africa and made their way to New Orleans via Saint-Domingue, Cuba and the Chesapeake Bay states. Sublette brings this musical history full circle to the rebuilding and resurrection of the post-Katrina New Orleans by showing how music, specifically as employed by the Mardi Gras Indian tribes, is helping to recreate the soul of the city that was lost by the diaspora that occurred in the hurricane’s wake.

While all of this history, both musical and otherwise is fascinating, Sublette loses focus (or seems to) in a number of locations throughout the book. Most notably, during his discussion of the Louisiana Purchase, Sublette expends pages discussing Thomas Jefferson’s alleged affair with his slave Sally Hemings, only to conclude, and I paraphrase, “that while history is inconclusive on the matter of whether or not Jefferson actually slept with Hemings, it did happen between slaves and their masters frequently, and therefore Jefferson did much to contribute to the condition of the slaves in the Louisiana Territory after its purchase from France.” Now, I am no prude. I also like to think that I am not starry-eyed when it comes to American history, and that what you get in your eighth grade American history class is far from the whole picture … but … I am hard-pressed to see what, exactly, Jefferson’s sex life has to do with the history of New Orleans as Sublette presents it. It was unnecessary to bring it up and had no connection to the eventual point that Sublette was making about Jefferson’s connection to slavery and the Louisiana Territory. Were this an isolated occurrence I might be tempted to let it go, but it is not. Sublette takes a number of other seemingly pointless diversions throughout the book when trying to make his point, and while a handful have to do with music (which is forgivable, since Sublette is a musician and musical historian himself) they are distracting when they occur, and even more so when, like the Jefferson Tangent, they have nothing to do with the point at hand.

However, tangents aside, The World That Made New Orleans is a thoroughly engrossing and extremely important book. What Sublette has done is chronicled not just the history of New Orleans, but her soul. He has managed to capture what makes New Orleans tick, and that is all the more important in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. When New Orleans flooded and her citizens had to scatter, much of what made New Orleans as a city was lost, quite possibly forever. Sublette’s book stands as a testament to what made New Orleans New Orleans and ends with the note of hope that New Orleans does not have to be past tense.

This review can also be found at Bryan’s Book Blog

Just How Stupid Are We?: The TRUTH About the American Voter

by Rick Shenkman
(New York: Basic Books, 2008)
Hardcover, 210 Pages, Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780465077717, US$25.00

From the Cover: Americans of all political stripes are heading into the 2008 election hungry for change, convinced that something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. Democrats and Republicans offer different explanations for America’s unhappy state: Republicans blame Democrats for waging partisan attacks on the war in Iraq and almost every other aspect of Bush’s agenda. Democrats, in turn, blame the Bush administration for its lies, manipulations, and secrecy. But Democrats and Republicans do seem to agree on one thing: However far we’ve fallen, the American people are entirely blameless. In Just How Stupid Are We?, best-selling historian Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people. The hard truth is that American democracy is more direct than ever—but voters are misusing their political power and neglecting their responsibilities. Americans are paying less and less attention to politics at a time when they need to pay much more. Television has dumbed politics down to the basest possible level, while the real workings of politics have become vastly more complicated. As a consequence, today’s voters are far less equipped than their grandparents were to grapple with the challenges facing the nation—and thus far more susceptible to soothing myths, bumper sticker slogans, and raw emotional appeals. Shenkman offers concrete proposals for reforming our institutions—the government, the media, civic organizations, political parties—to make them work better for the American people. But first, Shenkman argues, we must reform ourselves.

My Review: I first heard about this book when, to promote it, Rick Shenkman appeared on The Daily Show. His description of the book and his argument of just how stupid we really are intrigued me and so I searched for it at my local library but not really expecting them to have it, this is—after all—Provo, Utah … the Heart of Conservative America. Imagine my surprise, then, that it was “On Order” at the Provo Library. (I was the first person in line, though. Again, this is Provo, where something like 90% of voters vote a straight Republican ticket without even thinking about it, so why would they care about the “Truth” about the American voter?)

Anyway, when it finally came in, I needed something to blow through that was better written than Steinmeyer’s biography of Charles Fort was and, honestly, I found it in Just How Stupid Are We?. Shenkman’s book is an investigation into the American Voter and a deconstruction of the American myth that “We the People” know what we are doing. The fact is, all too often, we don’t. As Shenkman points out, more Americans can name the five members of the Simpsons family than the five rights in the First Amendment. (Between my wife and I we got four of them, but can name all five Simpsons without even thinking. [My three-year-old can too, much to my eternal and mutual pride and shame.])

While Shenkman’s book is mostly aimed at the ways in which the stupidity of the American voter have manifested themselves in the two terms of the current Bush Administration, he also makes a broader argument, talking about how politics have changed in the last fifty years and how television in particular has reduced politics and politicians to sound bites thus making the American voter less likely to research a particular issue, policy or politician and just rely on the evening or cable news to tell them what to think about politics (which in a world obsessed with whether or not Britney is wearing panties or if Lindsey Lohan will ever find true love is a pretty scary prospect). Shenkman also discusses the fact that in spite of all of the access that Generations X, Y, Z, Θ, Λ, Σ, Ω (and whatever other lettered generations are out there) to large quantities of information, the quality of that information, particularly as it relates to politics, is not what it should be.

I read this book with my “angry eyes” on because in the last four years I decided that the choices I was making politically were not well-informed and not intelligent, and since the birth of my son and daughter and the change in my parenting politics, I decided that I needed to become better informed about the decisions that my elected representatives were making. I still am not as informed as I should be (I can tell you who one of my two state senators is, but not who my representatives in the House are) but I am getting better, just ask my wife (I wasn’t even a registered voter when we were married in 1999). Shenkman’s book has helped me see where I was deficient in my political knowledge, where I could crib, and where I as knowledgeable enough.

Just How Stupid Are We? is an important book and one that every registered voter in America should pick up and read, in my opinion, because after reading it, I have come to be quite afraid at the type of voters that our system is encouraging, and that—friends and neighbors—is a scary prospect, considering we are, supposedly, the “Champions of Democracy” in the world.

This review can also be found at Bryan’s Book Blog