But, I digress. Here are the three books I did complete this month:
1. For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage by Tara Parker-Pope
I enjoy reading marriage books, and this one was a fast read with some interesting stats and information in it. Much like other conventional marriage wisdom, I had to be prepared for the fact that they were going to deem my marriage as more likely to fail because of our age when we married (early 20s), but I'm secure in all that now. (Why yes, I take statistics in books personally, don't you?) For the record, we have plenty of other factors in our favor (bachelor's degrees, married parents, etc). Anyway, the book wasn't earth-shattering, and when they read it over at A Practical Wedding for the book club, many of them didn't like it. I did get some interesting tidbits out of it though and thought it was a pretty good read.
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
This was one that I almost couldn't put down - lots of times I almost tell myself I should read, or try to push myself into sitting down and reading, but I whizzed through this book because it was a fast read and so fascinating. As a quick synopsis, Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman who died of cervical cancer in Baltimore in 1951. Unbeknownst to her, some doctors did a cell culture on a sample of her tumor and unlike many other human cells, they kept reproducing over and over again and didn't die. It would be hard to encapsulate everything into this paragraph, but Henrietta's cells and the work done on them has changed medicine significantly in the last 60 years. There was also a strong social justice element of the book in the sense that Henrietta's family didn't know about the cells for years after the fact. Anyway, as I said, I flew through this book because I couldn't put it down, and I highly recommend it!
3. French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano
I really enjoyed this book. It intersected with my recent interest in eating healthfully and reasonably, reminded me about seasonal and unprocessed foods, and above all brought me back to my days studying abroad in Italy when I witnessed how fresh and simple but incredibly delicious the cuisine and the food culture is. Realistically, I won't follow each thing the author suggests in the book (for instance, let's be honest, I pretty much always eat watching TV since I've been living by myself), but there were a lot of useful things to think about, and the overall encouraging sense that I can fully enjoy food and feel satisfied without overdoing it. It just strengthened my commitment to the farmer's market and local seasonal food, and just in time for summer!
So that was my month of reading. I do have a confession though - I gave up on a book this month. In theory I should have been all over it, it's about an Iranian-American woman, and I used to study Muslim societies and countries in college. The thing was though, that I was struggling to keep getting through it and just didn't find the narrative that compelling. I was reading it when I'd just finished Henrietta Lacks, and the comparison was night and day. Eventually I decided that I only have so much time to read for pleasure before law school starts, and I want to enjoy the experience of reading, not be impatient with it, so I went ahead and retired that book to move to something else. Ah well.
It was a month full of non-fiction but I'm working on some fiction at the moment, so I will have more to share in that department in about a month!
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