Stacked-Up Book Thoughts: Sound Recommendations & a Reading Experiment

Happy Labor / Labour Day to my American and Canadian friends. We did our grilling out and lazing about yesterday, though I'm not planning to work a full day today. If you're celebrating the holiday weekend, I hope the weather was as beautiful where you are as is/was for us.

What I Listened To: I've managed to squeeze in quite a lot of listening time lately as I've increased my time in the kitchen and am back to my daily walks. Thank goodness the temperatures have moderated here in central Pennsylvania. I love that hint of fall and the cool evenings.

First up was a nonfiction book that has changed the way I buy and consume food. Real Food Fake Food by Larry Olmsted was an eye-opener. Don't be thrown by the title, this book is not another treatise on buying fresh food or nonprocessed food. It's actually about the shockingly lax food laws in the United States (and other countries). Some things you may know about: the big olive oil controversy and the sawdust in so-called Parmesan cheese. But I had no idea that the labeling and regulation of fish, other cheeses, honey, red meat, and wine was so, well, almost nonexistent. Let's just say that I don't think I'll be ordering fish in a restaurant ever again. Fortunately, Olmsted provides buying tips, so you can probably find some good sources for some of the questionable food items. Yikes! The audiobook (Highbridge; 12 hr, 5 min) was read by Jonathan Yen, who was expressive, impressive with the accents, and kept my interest. More on the audiobook in AudioFile magazine.

The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies is, I suppose, historical fiction, but  it's really a look at the Chinese American experience during four critical times over the last 150 years or so. The first part looks at an orphan who was sold by an "uncle" in China to another "uncle" in America with the order to get rich and send gold back home. He eventually becomes involved with building the cross-continental railroad. The second part looks at a half-Chinese woman and her experiences in the early days of Hollywood. Next we meet a young Chinese American man who witnessed a hate crime in Detroit as the auto industry started to collapse. Finally we journey to China with a half-Chinese man and his white wife who are on their way to adopt a child. Circumstances and fortunes may change, but family duty and the limbo experience of being a first-generation Asian American remain eerily the same through time. The novel is especially interesting in light of the current Muslim American situation in American. The audiobook (Brilliance; 10 hr, 38 min) was read by James Chen. His accents and characterizations combined with his subtle emotional performance worked for me. Again, see AudioFile magazine for more.

What I'm Reading: I have a ton of books on my list for September. This month is traditionally crazy full of new releases, and I hope to work my through a bunch! Top though on my list is The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (with Douglas Abrams). I'm approaching this book in a unique (for me) way. I plan to read one chapter a day throughout September and record my thoughts in the companion journal I was given by one of my favorite marketing people at Avery Books (Hi, Farin!). I'll be sharing a quote, a thought, or an inspired photo every day in September over on Litsy. The book won't be out until later in the month, but I can't wait to get reading. I hope I succeed at this experiment.

From the introduction, I learned that the conversations captured in this book are not about being a Pollyana, are not about embracing one religion or another or any, are not about forgetting science or the world's troubles or your own stresses. Instead it's about altering your reactions to the negative -- not pretending they don't exist but trying to respond in a way that can change "the very quality of human life on our planet." Can I do it? Can you do it? Even if the answer is no, I want to see what these two men have to say.

What are you reading or listening to?