Our next book is The Human Stain by Philip Roth

Philip Roth's The Human Stain earned the acclaimed novelist the PEN/Faulkner Award upon its original publication. What on the surface appears to be an indictment of political correctness and public flares of moral outrage, slowly reveals itself to be far more profound as Roth's alter ego Nathan Zuckerman discovers secrets embedded in the past of dethroned professor Coleman Silk.

We'll be meeting to discuss this book August 13th, at the Main Library in Conference Room 3 at noon.

Reading List for Fall 2008

Your votes are in! Here is our reading list for Fall 2008:

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles - Sept. 10th

American Gods by Neil Gaiman - Oct. 8th

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann - Nov. 12th

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Dec. 10th

We'll need to pick four new books around October so keep recommendations in mind.

Thanks,
Bryan the Librarian

Some thoughts about Omnivore's Dilemma

- Is this book really a "natural history of four meals," or is it about something else?

- I read reviews of the book praising the author for handling the subject matter in a unbiased manner. Do you think the author was biased in any way? Why or why not?

- There was a long sidebar towards the end of the book about the ethics of eating meat. Did this section sway you at all, or cause you to reconsider your opinions on this matter?

- The author suggests the difference in cost between industrial and organic food could easily be absorbed if people simply chose to budget for it. He uses cell phones as an example of an expense that was once considered a luxury but is now common place. Is this a good analogy?

Here are websites of two companies he discusses in the book:

Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms: http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM): one of the world's largest processors of corn and soybeans: http://www.admworld.com/naen/