I am currently reading two books, both nonfiction, both humorous, entertaining, and slightly educational. The first I began on my Kindle. I actually bought it (shock!) because I wanted to read it, was being pissy about ILL that day, and don't have room for more books at home.
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown is, well, exactly what is says on the tin. Astronomer Mike Brown is one of the people responsible for changing Pluto's status as a planet to dwarf planet. His account of how this happened is inevitably a memoir about his life at the time, but unlike other books I've read of the type, it's NOT BORING. He outlines his beginnings as an astronomer, even the roots from childhood. He jumps around sometimes with the chronology, but in a good way. Along the way, I have learned more about the formation of the solar system, the Kuiper belt, and the history of telescopes.
He also convinces me that he is right about Pluto in the first chapter. Bastard.
I am a genuine astronomy geek. I have lots more the learn, but I have always been fascinated, and even considered a career in the field (in truth, I would prefer astrophysics). Perhaps to someone without any background or interest in astronomy, planets, and random chunks of ice that revolve around our Sun this book IS just a dull memoir. To each his own. My interests in the topic, my sadness at losing planet Pluto, and the humor in which Brown approaches life and his work make this a really enjoyable book for me. I am looking forward to each part - what will I learn about objects in the Kuiper belt now?
A few months back a discussion at work about rooftop gardens led to my interest in My Empire of Dirt by Manny Howard. Through a little more hoopla than I would like I finally got it ordered for my library and in my hands to read. The person who recommended gave me the impression that it was yet another book about the glories of local food, sustainability, and urban gardening. And it is, but it isn't. Manny Howard is a journalist. He doesn't have too much of an opinion on the locavore movement. New York Magazine asked him to build a farm in his Brooklyn backyard and write about it. So he did. And then he turned it in to a book. Not the greatest premise, I know. But Manny Howard is a character in his own right that makes this book read almost like a fiction novel. He jumps headlong in to The Farm (as he calls it) without knowing a thing about how to start or run one. He's never even had a small garden. Half-way through, and we've just gotten the topsoil delivered and the plants put in the ground (a month late). Then there is his grand scheme to create a tilapia farm. Some reviews I have read have given My Empire of Dirt one star and such because it didn't live up to their expectations of another manifesto on growing your own food. This is silly. The book is funny. If you know anything about farming and gardening (I only marginally do), then it's even funnier. I am only half-way through, but I am looking forward to his adventures in rabbit breeding, and seeing how all those potato plants turn out.
One synopsis I found put it beautifully:
“With My Empire of Dirt, Manny Howard has created a new job category, gonzo agriculturalist. The squeamish and the vegan-hearted shall enter at their own risk, for this is no gentle Farmer’s Almanac. It’s more like war reportage—on one side, angry rabbits, crazed chickens, and a patch of backyard clay so dry it makes concrete seem loamy; on the other, a Brooklyn-raised City Boy, who won’t take crop failure for an answer. Howard takes living off the land to an urban extreme that will make people think even harder about where their food comes from. Ultimately, though, as tornadoes come and fig trees nearly go, he discovers a marriage that needs tending to, proving that when it comes to love, at least, you shall definitely reap what you sow.”
—Robert Sullivan, author of Rats and Cross Country
I am sort of a locavore, I guess. I belong to a CSA that is only two miles from my home, and pick up fresh veggies once a week May-November. I grow tomatoes, herbs, and peppers on my wee apartment porch. I believe in eating food, not processed food substitute (if you can bear the soapbox haranguing tone, Michael Pollen's In defense of food broaches this topic). I think that community urban gardens are both awesome and necessary. Studies have shown that lower income urban dwellers have less access to affordable and healthy food than elsewhere, and this is leading to the high levels of obesity and related diseases among the urban poor. Gardens are good. But I am not without a sense of humor about the subject, nor am I blind to the difficulties of farming and gardening. Farmers have one of the most back-breaking jobs in the world. And that is why, though I went in to Manny Howard's book seeking revelations and joys of urban farming, I am satisfied with the humor of his plight, and his very apropo subtitle: "A cautionary tale."
Mannyland
