October Reading Notes

I am reading...

More Home Cooking - Laurie Colwin

I have heard so much about Colwin's food writing and her Home Cooking and More Home Cooking have both been in my Amazon cart for ages.  This was my first opportunity to sit down and read any of her essays, and my opinions are mixed.  On one hand, hurray for articulate, thoughtful, often humorous food literature!  On the other hand, Colwin goes a bit far into the realm of the food snob to have me fully behind her.  Many of her recipes sound frankly disgusting to me, but I wasn't reading her for cooking suggestions and I believe More Home Cooking was published almost twenty years ago when for all I know tastes were very different.  There was just a lot of rah-rah organics, everything made from scratch, 'knowing about your food', mothers knowing where their children's food came from, etc. etc.  It was tiresome.  All that being said, actually I am enjoying it and have a good ability to skim over annoying prose anyway.

On Rereading - Patricia Meyer Spacks

Spacks is a retired professor of English literature and writes exactly like a retired professor of English literature.  In fact, her entire first chapter carefully outlines what she plans to write about in subsequent chapters.  I just found this odd.  She's articulate and interesting and so far I find that I'm picking this book up and putting it down multiple times.  It hasn't gripped me yet, but that being said I am a die hard rereader myself and really want to hear what she has to say about the subject.

Pilgrim At Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard

I actually saw Dillard's name on a list somewhere recently about books people found helpful in their religious journeys.  I can't say I really understand that but I have absolutely found Pilgrim At Tinker Creek eye-opening for my nature walks.  Her way of looking at the world - observing the huge and the minuscule - is beautiful.

Life Among The Lutherans - Garrison Keillor

The American Stephen Leacock!  This was my first time reading Keillor and he was very, very funny in a dry, cold, Minnesotan way.  We church people are a never ending source of humor, I tell you.

My reading this past month has been pretty sporadic what with the start of homeschooling, a very large event at the church, an overnight trip away that involved air travel and not a little planning on my part.  Hopefully October will see a few more books achieved, especially as I'm hoping to best last year's reading total of 62 books.  So far this year I have read 57.