Reviews!

I'd apologize for the break in posting, but it's called grad school and a job so there's really no excuse for it (grin). Straight to book reviews then. These are from Sacramento Review.

My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm

 

By Manny Howard Scribner, $25.00, 273 pages
There is no doubt that Manny Howard is an outstanding writer. His articles have been featured in some of the most predominate magazines in this country. The doubt is whether or not he could carry over his style into a book format. My Empire of Dirt, his first book, does live up to that reputation Manny has painstakingly crafted over the years. He is bestowed with the task of building a working farm in his backyard and he must be able to live off the food grown (or raised) there for over thirty days.

This Brooklyn born and raised city dweller, without any farming knowledge, struggles as he uses his only virtue and flaw, spontaneity, to try and succeed. Life on “The Farm” is tough, strenuous, and ultimately dark. It feels perverted to enjoy Manny hurting himself, and to be the voyeur as his marriage slowly crumbles. It’s like watching a train full of puppies colliding with a bus full of dynamite. Hard to watch, but hard not to stare at the wreckage.

Each chapter draws in the reader to Manny’s self-involved world and it’s refreshingly addicting. The book’s goal isn’t to parade his sick twisted life in front of the reader. The book tries to prove that we should leave farming to the professionals, and for city-dwellers to take a closer look at their consumer products. Go the local super-mart and imagine how much time and effort goes into one simple carrot.

It’s eerie to wake up and actively acknowledge how dependent society is today on grocery stores and mega malls. Sure, even my mom grows little tomato plants in her tiny gardens outside, but she would never raise chickens to feed herself. Let alone kill, pluck and de-bone one of nature’s feathered friends. My Empire of Dirt is a great book that shatters the perception that this country could ever go back to being a state of independent farmers — at least not without a lot of hard work and an examination of our inner human nature.

Reviewed by Kevin Brown

Fury: A Memoir

 

By Koren Zailckas Viking, $25.95, 319 pages

Koren Zailckas is mad as hell and she wrote a book about it. Her second novel is no less absorbing or self-deprecating than her first, Smashed: A Story of a Drunken Girlhood. The first book exposed and identified the pain connected with alcoholism among young adults while her second novel connects a similar audience with rage. The fury of a former alcoholic is hypnotizing to behold and helped this reader at least identify her own anger.

Following a breakup, Koren moves back to the U.S. from England and back in with her parents as she survives a paralyzing heartbreak, leading her to feel everything except rage. At least until her research for a book on anger, work with a shrink, and self-medication with homeopathic remedies lead her to confront the most basic and powerful of passions: her anger. Unleashed, Koren’s rage is ruthless and a balm to her wild confrontation with family and her own identity. Koren’s story isn’t just her own, but puts a voice to a generation with their own issues with rage.
Reviewed by Axie Barclay

Magazines for Writers

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Calves, Calves, Calves... and Books!

Eleven calves so far and one unconfirmed, with four to five cows left to calve. Pretty good considering they weren’t supposed to calve until September! August was a dizzying month considering and now with the back to school and milking doubles, September looks to be just as insane.


I’ve got some book recommendations today, stuff I slotted to write about in August but lost time to sick babies, new babies, tagging babies…well, you get the idea. First up is a book by an author I hadn’t read before: Jocelyn Drake Nightwalker. It’s written from the point of view of the vampire which is a cool switch. Problematic when the vamp dies for the day, but Drake handles it well. Another vampire book that truly blew me away was 12 by Jasper Kant. The review for this one is up on San Francisco Book Review, see below. Also just discovered Jacqueline Carey, a Michigan writer and big name in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Unfortunately, her book was the one with the repeated pages I talked about in a post a few weeks ago so am stalled on that book until further notice. :( Instead, I turned to Molly Gloss and her book, Wild Life. It’s based on journals from Gloss’s grandmother and other pioneer women. Her writing is truly a gem. So while I wait in earnest to find out Imriel’s fate after page 576 in Kushiel’s Scion, to the rest of you, Happy reading!

Link:
            http://www.sanfranciscobookreview.com/featured-fiction/bullet/

http://www.sanfranciscobookreview.com/cooking-food-wine/eating-local-150-recipes-from-the-farm-to-your-table/ I didn’t review it, but a subject close to my heart and perhaps soon my masters portfolio. 

http://www.sanfranciscobookreview.com/science-fiction-fantasy/five-odd-honors/

http://www.sanfranciscobookreview.com/science-fiction-fantasy/a-matter-of-magic/

http://www.sanfranciscobookreview.com/science-fiction-fantasy/twelve/

http://www.jocelynndrake.com/

http://www.jacquelinecarey.com/

Passion. Again.

It’s hard to believe school’s getting ready to start again already. After two years off, it still seems like summer’s entirely too short. :) I’m enrolled for three graduate classes this semester and it should either be a blast or terrible. I’m hoping for the former and expecting the latter, just because I’m a farmer and that’s what we do, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. My honey is an insufferable optimist and of course sees no issues with returning to college. I suppose that’s the difference between enjoying your undergrad and suffering through it. Guess which one of us did which? The best part about my undergrad was doing a senior thesis project in creative writing with a professor who really loved my work and I really loved her input and the first day of classes after I graduated when I realized that I never had to go back. Now here I am again, staring at course schedules and wondering what the hell I got talked into. I guess we can never get too comfortable or complacent in our circumstances. I stuck my head under a cow for a year and that’s been a wonderful experience. I’ve gained a lot of confidence and a lot of determination that I need to do something else with my life besides milk cows. I still love it and love the animals, but it’s way too hard and backbreaking work for too little pay to retire out of it. So while I’m working for my creative career to take off, I might as well learn to run a business and build websites.

If only we could look into the future and know if our choices were right or good. Maybe there are no such things as right or good, maybe there’s just the different paths we take and the different places we end up because of them. I rather think the latter since two people can make the same choices and still end up different places because of them. And maybe the choice wasn’t the right one for one person and he or she had to fight twice as hard as the other for the same thing since their heart wasn’t in the work. Whatever choices we make, our hearts must be in them. For that is, I’ve found, at least one key to happiness. You must give yourself over to what you do, completely and without reserve, and not expect to get anything back, but thoroughly enjoy it when you do. But that’s just me, and that way might not work for everyone. :) So don’t just listen to me, listen to everyone, and, as an old cowboy told me, find out what works for you and for your horse on that day. It might not work every day, so listen, try different things, stay flexible, and, above all, stay passionate.

A Day in the Life

Up 5:30 a.m. Wake up on friend’s couch to drooling 120 pound black lap staring. Get rousted and drink coffee and chat with rest of household until time to take off for Mount Pleasant to meet with former mentor. Early, so read and write in car and at table until she shows. Chat for an hour before she must go see to flooded office and I must go home to check in and treat a sick calf. Go home, catch up, take a quarter beef to Flint (hour drive) and hang with bf as he picks up parts in Lapeer and goes to KU to weld and test parts until 10:30 at night. Head home early next day, workout and call butcher (while still wet and half-naked from shower)and need to pick up and deliver beef. Drive to Saranac (45 minutes) and pick up beef (15 minutes) drive home and load beef in coolers and pretend not talking to dead steer as sweat ass off in 90% humidity heat. Drive like hell 2 hours to Van Burean and deliver meat. Follow bf home and do laundry. Leave early in am to brave Ann Arbor rush hour traffic and pick up Gram by 9 am. Drive hour forty-five home and have calf on the ground. Drop crap and have time to workout after helping Dad replace cutter bar in mower conditioner. Run to town for bank and groceries. Catch Dad by five so can treat calves and go to work, work 6:30 to 11. While at work some punk-ass kid who can never work his own shift asks to take his (again) but is unable to take one later. Say will do for $15 (extra hour and a half wages). He agrees. So home, check calves (one of which is still not nursing, trying to but too excited to get on the tit, decide to leave for morning) nap fast, up late (8 am) check email and workout, first calf is nursing and have another calf to treat so treat him and go to work (11am) and do double. Home at 11:30 pm, finish drafting book reviews, and fall into bed by 2 am. Work another double that day and hook up with bf at night. Too tired to go out and eat so fix a freezer pizza and pass out before he gets out of the shower. Wake up next day and its gonna be a good day. ;) Make breakfast, check cows, go to town for a few things, start canning peaches and fixing supper for 6, as we have Gram and a friend coming over for supper. By 9 pm too tired to stand any longer and retire to bf’s lap as conversation slowly diminishes around the room as others get tired as well. Retire to bed only to realize that current fav book is missing the following hundred pages, another hundred pages from a previous portion of the book being repeated in their place. Disgusted, throw book down and roll over to cuddle hard with the honey. First thing tomorrow, call bookstore.

For those of you who’ve been wondering where I’ve been, this sums up the past couple weeks. Can anyone spell chaos and insanity?

Farmer Up

I've been a fan of this phrase for awhile, but have been unable to refer those who ask me about it to the place where I found it. So here it is.

http://www.fb.org/blog/index.php/2007/05/24/farmer_up

Definition:
Farmer Up - We've all heard the saying, "Anything worth having in life is worth fighting for." In my opinion, this is true when you look at a career in agriculture. Sure there will be tough times, and many days when you work longer and harder than you would at an 8 to 5 job, but when times get tough, FARMER UP and work that much harder.

Farmer Up - When times were tough for our parents and grandparents, they didn't run away, they stood their ground and worked that much harder to provide for their families and our country. I know from talking with my grandparents that farming 30 years ago was no walk in the park like the movies want viewers to believe. They had just as many worries and struggles as we do today in farming but they never gave up. So when times get tough, or you hear a young person say there is no future in an agriculture career, FARMER UP and help spread the TRUTH, help tell the story of Agriculture!

Book Review: Strip by Delta Dupree

Strip by Delta Dupree is part of Kensington’s Aphrodisia line. It’s a particularly sultry line of erotic romance that can be sneaky to find. Here in Lansing, the only book store that I’m aware of that doesn’t try to sneak it in with all the romance is Schuler’s. While sexually explicit, the plot is more what’s based on sex than some lines of erotic novels (I’m thinking the Black Lace series, a British version of Harlequin romance with sex acts of some kind in every chapter).

The book itself is hot and features strip club owners Rio Saunders and Bryce Sullivan. They are opposites in most senses of the word: she’s black, he’s white, she’s middle aged, he’s in his late twenties, he’s fire, she’s water. And neither one of them plans on a particularly sexy dance becoming something more. The real treat in this novel are some of the supporting characters. Rio’s business partner and friend, Galaxeé, is a riot and a half. But through shady business deals, strip teases that’ll leave you gasping, and a mock kidnapping, it’s entertaining to say the least to read on as these two characters argue their way into bed, and sometimes onto the desk, again and again. It's fairly typical for erotic romance. Personally, I like my erotica with a little less romantic drama, but there's plenty of sheet time and the characters are developed enough to carry the heavy erotic themes. Worth a look. I mean, after all, male strippers! =D

Other titles by this author are Cuffed Heat and Purely Sexual. Blind Heat is her forthcoming work. Delta Dupree is a reformed tomboy who learned the art of making love and not war. Find her at http://www.deltadupree.com/.