Hump of the Week

Day 191...and my mom is immersed in the newest issue of Glimmer Train (all stories, all the time) and various issues of the Christian Science Monitor, because she is actually paying for a year's subscription after being hooked by a 6-month "come on."

"We're reading things here we don't read anywhere else," she says, an excellent point. She means, in print periodicals, acknowledging that this information may be quite accessible on the web, but she's not looking for it there.

I finished Dreamers of the Day, by Mary Doria Russell, and liked it just fine, though wasn't as wowed as I was by The Sparrow, where the cultural anthropology and the departure into the fantastic were perfectly entwined and justified by the science fiction aspect. I don't mind anyone's genre twisting, but I am pulled more by realistic fiction, which engages me in the same complexities and conflicts I see in my own life. Amazingly, this happened in The Sparrow, too, though it was mostly set on another planet, entirely imagined. Thread of Grace had its realistic World War II context, and I was happy to re-learn that history that particular way. Dreamers of the Day was delightful...enlightening...and is done. With me admiring the delivery system more than the place I was delivered to.

Meanwhile, I am immersed in The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman, and we are deep into computer technology, and IPOs, and rather far from the cookbook collector at the moment, on p. 161. I can say that I really, really liked her book Intuition, and its close look at contemporary science and how it's done, specifically the male/female dilemmas still inherent in it, and that I really, really appreciate this book's elegance as it reveals the technology issues. This is in high contrast to the Stieg Larsson books, which I liked for different reasons, and the way he brandished brand names and made the technology "insider" knowledge separate from me. Goodman makes it intimate instead. More to come on this.

Today's Diane Lockward "chocolate" (poem of the day from What Feeds Us) is a tomato. No, a peach. No a tomato. It's the poem "The Tomato Envies the Peach," and they are both luscious, as, surely, is she.

Not Really Cooking with Pooh

Day 164 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and my book group is going to be reading The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman, because Kim and Suzie heard about it on the radio coming to the meeting where we discussed The Wishbones, by Tom Perrotta.

I have read Intuition by Allegra Goodman, and enjoyed it, and so has Kim, who borrowed it from me, but she doesn't remember that right now, because she has been drinking red wine. Intuition is about science, what goes on during research projects, and the male/female competitive aspect. And the different ways men and women may approach science. I found it fascinating and made little marginal notes that I forgot about when I lent her the book, but she enjoyed them, even if they were personal.

Cookbook Collector is about sisters! AND antiquarian book collecting. Oh, gosh, this is going to be one of those books I wish I'd written. AND about business, so I hope to learn a lot about a world I do not understand, just as I did with Jane Smiley's book about real estate and greed in the 80s, Good Faith.

The discussion of The Wishbones was fun. We had:

--wedding cake

--Cheetos (for cheating)

--wine (including Red Guitar and one with a cock on the label)

--almonds (like Jordan almonds but not; instead Almond Joy almonds and York Peppermint almonds)

We mused on whether Dave had done the right thing (at various times, no spoilers here), and the patterns of panic and cold feet before weddings, and whether guys can really grow up in time to marry, or at all. We are a mixed bunch--gay, straight, married, not, etc.--but all women, so we have a fine bunch of experiences and perspectives and appreciated seeing how men think in this novel. Perrotta was compared to Nick Hornby, called an American Hornby, and there was talk of The Wedding Singer, with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.

And then we watched this, made for and shown by the daughter and son-in-law of one of our members:

The Road to the Reception (8 minutes of fun that the wedding guests watched while waiting for the new couple to enter the reception)

You will know which one she is when you get there.