Communities

Between Andi’s beginning of the semester madness and my week with a cold that makes me want to hide under my covers, we’ve been a little slow about getting some discussions up about David Kamp’s The United States of Arugula, our most recent pick for BookClubSandwich.

To whet your appetite for the discussion post which should go up tomorrow, I pulled some of my favorite thought-provoking quotes from the book, which looks at the evolution of American food through the chefs and foodies that helped make it possible.

It’s been another very slow reading week for me, and not because of anything wrong with the book I was in the middle of, The United States of Arugula by David Kamp. I just ended up being unexpectedly busy, a week where I spent more time doing — playing soccer, getting drinks, eating out, protesting injustice, and watching movies — than reading. I didn’t finish a single book all week, and that made me feel out-of-sorts.

It also got me thinking about how to balance between the time I need to myself, absorbing stories and new ideas from books, and the time that I need to spend outside of what is, for the most part, a solitary activity. What’s the way to balance between being a reader and being a do-er? What is the point at which a solitary hobby turns into a way to enable a tendency towards solitude?

Since I did a couple of musings on reading posts already this week — asking about a perfect reading month and thinking about reading and remembering and forgetting — I think this post is going to be just a little bit random.

I haven’t done much reading this weekend because Boyfriend and I did a Lord of the Rings movie marathon. This was a big deal because I’ve been pretty adamant with him about how much I dislike those movies (don’t shun me!). The first time I watched them I thought they were too long and too confusing — I’ve never read the books, so I just got lost. But this time I actually focused, asked questions, and ended up enjoying them, even if we did stay up until 1:30 in the morning finishing the last one.

I think when I read too many review copies of books in a row, I start to get a little stir crazy. February was the month I planned to focus on review books, and I read five of them, with a couple library books in the middle for good mix. I read review copies with a little more focus than books I’m just reading because I want to, which I think gets tiring.

This week I decided to take a little break — TBR Dare, be damned! Forget you, overflowing bookshelf! Get away, review copies! I want to read freely and at random.

I am happy to report that I finally got over the reading slump I wrote about last Sunday, and actually finished three books this week.

Despite finally getting over my slump, I probably won’t get a lot of reading done today. My book club is meeting to discuss The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, and then right after that boyfriend and I are heading to our wine tasting group. It should be a fun day, even without a lot of reading.

This is a weird Sunday Salon post to write, since I actually haven’t finished a book since I wrote about The Happiness Project last Sunday. That feels so out of character for me, since I normally finish one or two books in a week.

The biggest reason I haven’t finished anything is because I couldn’t find the motivation to read the book I started last Sunday — Ugly Beauty: Helena Rubenstein, L’Oréal, and the Blemished History of Looking Good by Ruth Brandon, a book I received for review from Harper.

I have been on the library hold list for Gretchen Rubin’s memoir, The Happiness Project, for months. So when the book came into the library a day after Madison was smashed with a giant blizzard, I didn’t think twice about trekking through the cold and snow to go pick it up the first chance I got.

I also walked through the bitter cold to a local indie bookstore to pick up the copy of War and Peace they special ordered for me so I could join a War and Peace Read-Along, but that’s just because I’m crazy.

This Sunday has been pretty slow, but in a good way. I spent the morning finishing up my eighth book of the month, The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, which capped off a great month of reading. I spent the early part finishing up the  nonfiction reads for the Indie Lit Awards, plus some other nonfiction I’ve been excited about for awhile.

I’m excited to tell you that BookClubSandwich, the online bookclub for foodies and wannabes, has picked our third book — The United States of Arugula: The Sun-Dried, Cold-Pressed, Dark-Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution by David Kamp.

For a little background, BookClubSandwich is an online book club I host with the lovely Andi at Estella’s Revenge. We’ve been around since last June, and so far have read Coop by Michael Perry and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The discussions all happen online, and it’s open to anyone who is interested in reading some great (we hope) books about food.