Roy Moxham's Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire spent more time on the Empire portion than anything else but was a fascinating look at the history of England's association with tea.
posted by kristin at 10:56 AM

I went to Powell's last night to hear Richard K. Morgan do a reading. I picked up his Broken Angels, even though I still haven't read Altered Carbon.

While I was there I picked up Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, since they had a cheap hardcover copy and I keep hearing good things. I also bought MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country and read most of it on the way home. (Finished it before bed). It's a series of essays by people who did something to get more involved in their community and politics, interspersed with suggestion from MoveOn to make the ideas more general. When I looked the book up later on amazon I was actually surprised to note that it had shot to #2 on their bestseller list, and had a bunch of reader comments from people who obviously hadn't read the book, or hadn't read the book far enough to know that while MoveOn is progressive and so were most of their examples, all of their general ideas for getting involved are applicable no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.
posted by kristin at 10:40 AM

I've been reading, but keep forgetting to post.

I liked David Brin's Kiln People. I can't quite imagine what being able to make clay copies of myself would do to my life, but it's an interesting premise.

Barry Glassner's The Culture of Fear tackled a fascinating subject, the way the media uses our fears against us, but doesn't talk much about ways to remedy the situation.

Susie Bright's On Sex, Motherhood, Porn & Cherry Pie is a nice collection of her essays, much like her other books. Recommended.
posted by kristin at 1:54 PM

Not much reading lately, between working a lot, getting a cold, and doing way too much dancing last weekend. I finished Dan Savage's Skipping Towards Gomorrah (recommended for the non-uptight) and am now working on David Brin's Kiln People.
posted by kristin at 10:34 AM

So instead of going to bed early last night, I accidently stayed up and read all of Stephen King's On Writing in one sitting. At one point in my life I read all of his published works to-date. I've lapsed in the last few years (especially after hating Gerald's Game and finding several others only mediocre), though I still think a few of his books are excellent (The Stand and the Dark Tower series especially) and whether or not you like his subject matter you have to admit he's a hell of a story-teller. This book is part memoir, part writing instruction and unlike most of his novels isn't huge. Not a bad read at all, but not really any writing advice I hadn't heard before.
posted by kristin at 11:06 AM

For some reason Setting Free the Bears wasn't grabbing me immediately, so I put it aside temporarily and read Jerome Stern's book of essays called Radios. Highly recommended short little snippets. I also read, and enjoyed, Jonathan Lethem's Gun with Occasional Music. I've read four of his books now. The only one I didn't especially care for was Amnesia Moon. I'm definitely realizing that he has a lot of breadth to his writing. The one wasn't really anything like the other 3.
posted by kristin at 3:03 PM