SFist Reads
Remember last week when we said we had a whole bunch of books we'd been dying to read from the online reserve system? Well, we hated almost all of them. Doesn't it blow when you've heard so many great things and checked it out or bought it, only to find that you can't stomach it? Has this ever happened to you? Let us know in the comments.
With all the rhetoric surrounding religious violence from without the country, and the politics of fundamentalism within the country, SFist Jackson found Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven an incredible look into how rapturous piety and antiestablishment sentiment can go horribly, horribly wrong. The book examines the events surrounding the murder of Brenda Lafferty and her daughter Erica by their own family, brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, and how it ties into a fundamentalist offshoot of the Church of Latter Day Saints. By exploring the history of America's largest home-grown religion and the psychology of self-proclaimed prophets, Krakauer muses on the broader issues of how deep faith, however sincere or misplaced, can trump reason and lead to extreme behavior. The prose is gripping, and the subject and tone harken to American classics such as In Cold Blood.
Needing to turn away from the media-induced images of rich people all being despicable conspicuous consumers ("My Super Sweet 16" on MTV, anyone?), SFist Jer is rereading an old favorite, The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. The book is full of surprising facts, figures, and anecdotes about who the bulk of the people in this country accumulating wealth are -- and shows that doing so has much more to do with how you use what you have versus how much you make. Although not strictly a "how to guide," there are some good lessons to be learned here. It gives Jer a sense of hope in the face of some unfortunate, sewer-backup-related spending he'll be doing shortly.
SFist Derrick is reading George Pyle's Raising Less Corn, More Hell, which describes how American agribusiness has left us teetering on the brink of an agricultural catastrophe. The subtitle says it all: "The Case for the Independent Farm and Against Industrial Food." While he's not finished yet, the book is giving him a strong urge to either start a farm or curl up in a corner and give up. He's also just begun to read Emile Peynaud's Knowing and Making Wine because you can never be too geeky about wine, right?
SFist Rita recommended that SFist Eve read Kat Albrecht's The Lost Pet Chronicles and Eve doesn't know how to even begin to thank her. There's a dry and deadpan wit to this memoir of a K-9 officer turned pet detective that keeps her going through the tragic and the sentimental. Albrecht is the best kind of animal lover -- responsible, practical and compassionate without ever personifying them or forgetting the gap that separates us from them. It's a fast and engrossing read she never want to end. If Sniffy, Monkey, or Franny ever go missing (heavens forbid), Kat and her canine companions are the ones Eve will call.