More Books!

This is the first semester in my entire university career in which I have had the time to read books. And by books I mean a collection of fastened pages written by authors who have no affiliation with my school life. These books are also known as NOT TEXTBOOKS! In fact, this semester has me reading very small amounts of textbooks. This isn't normal and the more I think about, it is quite eerie. Am I missing something here in terms of my reading outlines for school? I certainly hope not.

Anyway, as I was saying, I have had this strange time lately which some may consider to be "spare time" in which I spend about a half hour every night reading a book which isn't a text book. Since the end of December I have finished two books and am now working on my third.

The first one was Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I spoke of this book a good while back when I was just starting to get into it. When I got about half way through this book I realized that what I was reading would definitely impact the way I eat from hereon in. On more than one occasion this book brought me to tears as I read about the horrible ways in which the animals we eat are treated from their birth to their slaughter. The fact that there are no strict laws which disable people from treating these poor creatures in ways in which I choose not to repeat at the moment, is beyond me. There is a definite lack of emotion and relationship with the animals we choose to consume and I wonder why this is. Do we need to disassociate our brain from out stomachs by trying to not think where this lovely steak or chicken kiev really came from? I believe that if everyone knew how these animals lived and died then we would dramatically change the way we eat. I strongly encourage everyone to read this disturbing book so that you can have an educated idea of the sacrifices which were made for your nutritional needs. And before you ask, the answer is no. I have not bought any meat from any supermarket since I finished the book a couple weeks ago. I've thought about it and even picked it up once or twice...but I always place it back in the cooler and walk to the soy-foods aisle instead. I just really hope that soy plants are treated well or else I don't know what I'm going to start eating.

Tip of the Day: if you want to stop eating fast food, or more specifically KFC for good, do some research on the cruelty of the chickens that goes on for their establishments.

The second book I read was a book I got for Christmas called Love, Lust and Faking it; The Naked Truth about Sex, Lies and True Romance, written by Jenny McCarthy. What can I say? I enjoy a good trashy novel just as much as the next girl. It felt good to just turn off my brain and read this book. It was an easy read and you could tell that the author was not a professional author. Yes, I know that she has written several books which landed on the Best Sellers list, but that does not mean that she's a talented author. She's famous and hilarious therefore she will consistently land on these kinds of lists as long as she has something to say. Now I love Jenny McCarthy. I think she's super funny and entertaining and I enjoyed reading the book. It made me laugh out loud more than once and she had me sucked into her stories many times. Her story of how she got into posing for Playboy the first time was absolutely hilarious and I applaud her guts to get in there the way she did. I don't think the book was worth the price my mom paid for it to give to me as a gift, but it was a decent read nonetheless.

Now I'm reading The Girl Who Played with Fire which is the second book in the famous trilogy by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. I loved the first one (which I read over Christmas break) so I went out the other day and bought #2. I'm only about 70 or so pages in but I'm thinking it's going to be good like the first one. I very much look forward to reading it.