Melissa > Recent Status Updates

Unfortunately the way he lays out the garden plans, with icons and no photos, doesn't compute for my brain. Disappointing

One of the better books I've found when it comes to showing and describing individual plants. Includes recommendations on what to pair it with for planting, as well as general info on height, spread, growing conditions.

Let's see what the controversy is about.

There is so much I didn't know about fermenting foods. Like...everything, apparently.

"Between 1890 and 1917, 158,000 mechanics and laborers were killed in railroad repair shops and roundhouses. in 1888-89 alone, of 704,000 railroad employees, 20,000 were injured and nearly 2000 killed." ...but yeah, we don't need public health and safety protections.

Maybe it's just because I'm reading this after reading three relatively heavy books about race, but this narrator is whiny AF and I don't know whether or not it's ever going to get better....

One of the (many many) things I love about this book is that it also acts as a wonderful literature review of past works on agriculture, nature, and our relationship with both. From Song for the Blue Ocean: "The promise that any honest inquiry into the reality of nature also yields insights about ourselves and the dramatic context of the human spirit."

"Ask me then, if I believe in the spirit of the things as they were used, and I'll say yes. They're all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time ... we'll never touch it."

I can't believe I'm almost finished...might have to start all over and reread it.

Her writing is simply incredible. "...and yet there was cement in her soul. It had been there for a while, an early morning disease of fatigue, a bleakness and borderlessness. It brought with it amorphous longings, shapeless desires, brief imaginary glints of other lives she could be living, that over the months melded into a piercing homesickness."

"Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult? No sanctuary in life? No fleshly citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights?"

"Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult? No sanctuary in life? No fleshly citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights?"

"She had the lovely high cheekbones for arrogance."

Pretty sure after 10 years, I still hate Hemingway. Hoping that'll change soon...

Why do I feel like I've read this book before? Is it really that similar to other campaign books (Game Change, etc)?

I didn't realize this book was so long! Really enjoying that he's digging into a lot of issues in very in-depth ways.

With well-written books, I tend to get really into what I'm reading...with this book I'm certain that 1, I'm going to die of cancer, and 2, that everyone else is too. Happy reading.

This book had such a huge influence on the way we look at political behavior and polarization that it has transformed the way we talk about these subjects--therefore I feel like I've already read this book, in a sense, since it has been so influential on many of the other political books I've read. Still, it's good to read the original research.