EAT YOUR VEGETABLES. I MEAN IT.

Books read:
Peter Carey, His Illegal Self
Marion Nestle, Food Politics (about two thirds of the way through, but I've got the gist)
Roger Hargreaves, Mr. Men series
Martin Amis, Lionel Asbo, State of England
Tim Kasser, The High Price of Materialism
Carlois Ruiz Zafran, La Sombra del Viento (first few pages of)

Hello, great reading public of about five people! How are you? I am feeling particularly smug because I have a sleeping child AND did not myself become exhausted in the process of achieving said asleep child. In fact, here I am propped in my bed with my laptop preparing to send my blather out into the blogosphere and still have time to read a few more pages of Food Politics before I conk out.
First off, Peter Carey - this book came to me via a fairly dubious route. Newish friend (who is very nice, but who is sufficiently new that I don't have a good sense of his book taste yet) picked it up off the street in San Francisco (as in, it had been actively discarded/rejected by someone else) and took it home and never read it. He then had a party in which he gave/loaned away all his books (because he was moving) - rejection number two for this book - and it was taken home by my sister, who decided she didn't want to read it herself - rejection number three - so she passed it on to me. hmmmm...... but I did read it, and it was sweet, if a little farfetched. It's about a boy who was the child of crazy bomb-setting sixties radical parents who is inadvertently kidnapped by a woman who used to work with said radical parents, and they wind up in a hippie commune in the Australian outback where initially all the inhabitants are stoned/sinister/passive-aggressive (or some combination of the above) but magically at the end turn out to be radiantly helpful and good, which, I dunno, just seemed a bit improbable. For half the book, the boy doesn't know properly where he came from and what happened to him, and for most of the book I will confess I was equally if not more confused - there are a few crucial plot points that are only alluded to fairly cryptically - but the prose is nice in bits, and I'm glad I read it. (I was a bit surprised that it got a Man Booker prize nomination, but that probably just means that one of the judges for the Man Booker prize used to live on a hippie commune in the Australian outback and was feeling nostalgic.)
The Martin Amis book also found its way to me with no effort on my part - it was a gift from babydaddy which he had heard reviewed on NPR and thought I would like, (presumably because it has the word 'England' in the title...?)  I am a little skittish about Mr. Amis, because he is reliably such a downer (see previous entries) but this one again was an enjoyable read while at the same time feeling just a little improbably optimistic. What are the chances that a young man who lives in a poverty & crime-ridden neighbourhood, whose teenage mother died when he was 12 and who was raised by a completely, but COMPLETELY delinquent and derangedly narcissistic violent uncle, would somehow be consistently sweet, educated, polite, mostly law-abiding, faithful, honest and reliable. (And the one illegal thing he does do - have sex with his grandmother at the beginning of the book, feels totally, um, unrealistic). And the one genuinely bad thing that psychotic uncle does to nice young man (when he finds out about the granny-banging) isn't even a bad thing!! it's a 'wow that COULD have been really bad!!! but it wasn't actually!!!!' so hmmm. Perhaps Martin Amis has discovered Prozac. Dunno.
Speaking of antidepressants, I might be in need by the time I finish _Food Politics_, Marion Nestle's devastating, immaculately researched, horrifically readable deconstruction of the food-industrial-complex. To save you the pain of the gory details (and they are gory), here's the summary: the junk food industry is more gigantic and powerful than you can possibly imagine. The government is helplessly corrupt and can do nothing to stop it, and in many cases has simply been purchased outright by the junk food industry. The junk food industry is knowingly out to make every single person on the planet sick, fat, and unhappy. Eek! WTF. I am going to buy a copy of that Jane Smiley book, "Ordinary Love and Good Will" in which a family goes completely off the grid and take notes on how they do it, and then declare myself a rogue nation. While we were eating dinner tonight, I made a point of giving the baby a kiss every time she had a bite of vegetables, to reinforce the message. If you eat your veggies, I'll send you a virtual kiss as well. And vote yes on Prop 37 if you're a California voter.
The Tim Kasser book is decidedly more 'lite' - it was recommended by a friend as being the best book they'd read all decade, which is stretching it a bit, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. He takes some 200 pages to say the same thing over and over (and over) again: studies apparently consistently show that materialistic people are more miserable and more anxious than non materialistic people, and once you have your basic needs taken care of (food/shelter/warm/clothing) then more possessions just make you unhappier. So eat your vegetables and get rid of your stuff.
I mention the Roger Hargreaves Mr. Men books just as a reminder to myself that I really did love them when I was little, because I really, really, really hate them now, having had to read each one of them about five thousand times. There are a few that I particularly particularly hate (Mr. Greedy, Mr. Small, Mr. Jelly) that I find myself accidentally on purpose kicking under the sofa where they please GOD will not be discovered for a bit, and we might have a few days respite from them.
La Sombra del Viento I ordered off the internets because it was recommended by the same friend as the Tim Kasser book - I was nervous about it because I am veerrrrrryyyyy slow reading in Spanish, and I wasn't sure how highbrow it was going to be, but I cracked it open a few nights ago and laughed out loud at the ginormous font size, so I think I'll be OK.
Back to Food Politics, which I can't put down - it's like a really detailed, calm description of Armageddon. If the baby's not dead of diabetes related complications by the time she's five, I'll consider it a victory.