New Year Reading Recommendations

By Lynn Farquhar

2003 was a year of amazing book releases. Once it came out in paper, Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" finally got the attention it deserved, and "Fast Food Nation" by Schlosser and Kingsolver's "Small Wonder" continued, deservedly, as bestsellers in paperback.

The self-censoring atmosphere of 2002 gave way to bestsellers like Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country", Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them" and Molly Ivins' "Bushwhacked". Even Jim Hightower's "Thieves in High Places" and Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival" got incredible attention. Thomas Friedman continued to enjoy tremendous acclaim over his pro-globalization "Lexus and the Olive Tree" and "Longitudes and Attitudes", but in 2003 there were many books that questioned assumptions and gave us more to chew on, like Amy Chua's "World on Fire", and Noreena Hertz' "The Silent Takeover"...not to mention Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".

The "New Internationalist" put out some great little books like "The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization", "The No-Nonsense Guide to Fair Trade" and "The No-Nonsense Guide to Indigenous Peoples" as well as a great resource that surpasses the "CIA Factbook" in scope, their "World Guide 2003-2004" which gives the lowdown on every nation's GDP, birth rate, human rights status, etc.

So after all the exposés of corruption and fascistic proclivities since the election and corporate shenanigans in 2000, then what? My hope is that people will start paying more attention to the connection between human rights and the environment, for one thing. There are a number of excellent reads out there that deal with the delusions of our auto-centric culture worth exploring: Katie Alvord's "Divorce Your Car" is one...and Crawford's "Carfree Cities" is another. As someone who recently converted to a carfree lifestyle (not so willingly or enlightenedly: my car was totaled when an SUV ran a stop sign), I feel it is my duty to make a pitch for these erudite arguments for weaning ourselves from the car/oil habit. Thom Hartmann's "Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" is a must for anyone interested in exploring the paradigm shift he suggests must take place for human survival when we can no longer consume oil at the present rate.

Also I can't recommend highly enough Lester Brown's new "Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble" for its wake-up call for us to pay attention to the 'bubble economy' produced by our business-as-usual Plan A. Plan A is rapidly depleting the earth's resources without giving adequate thought to sustainability. Though a depressing read when you consider the magnitude of what Brown is asking us to look at, he does offer some realistic hope in his 'Plan B.' Plan B proposes rising to the challenge with sweeping changes in land and water use, personal lifestyle choices and 'creating an honest market.’ This is something refreshing to hear from an ecologist usually more associated with scientific data when we look at how economic disparity via NAFTA has hurt Mexico, not to mention the domestic economy.

Another book along these lines that truly lives up to its title in being ESSENTIAL reading is "The Essential Agrarian Reader," which is edited by Norman Wirzba, with a terrific forward by Barbara Kingsolver. This book has pieces by Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva and David Orr, among others, and is loaded with beautiful essays that nearly had me cheering and weeping in gratitude for their depth and spirit. In 2004 I believe we can look forward to many hours of excellent reading, whether new books or essays published on the internet (like on Commondreams.org) as people rise to the challenge of the election ahead and creating a sustainable, peaceful future.