Catching Up

46. Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

 

Chang spends three years in China, following the lives of several young women who have moved from rural China to find jobs and money and success and love in urban China. This is not the story I’d been expecting; city life turns out to be a big plus for most of the women in this book. Those for whom city life is not so well suited quickly return home, usually to try again on another day. For the most part, the women have a place to stay and are earning money. There are sad stories, too; companies close down and fail to pay their workers and women find they are working incredibly long hours for minimal pay. But the women generally begin to adjust to the six day work week and the long hours per day. Soon the women want to find ways to improve themselves and move up in the company hierarchy. This, too, is possible in the big city.

 

The only jarring note for me was Chang’s side story about her own family; why was this included in this book? No one in Chang’s family was a factory girl. Had I been Chang’s editor I’d have saved this story for another book.

 

47. The Amateur Gormet: How to Shop, Chop, and Table-Hop Like a Pro (Almost) by Adam D. Roberts

 

Roberts, like an increasingly large number of young authors today, keeps a blog about his experiences in learning to cook. The book is composed of pieces taken and expanded upon from the blog. It’s not a bad book, given that it is one man’s attempts at becoming an amateur gourmet. It’s not the end-all of books about learning to cook and shouldn’t be read with that expectation. It was a gentle little read, but nothing more.

 

48. Stuffed: An Insider’s Look at Who’s (Really) Making America Fat by Hank Cardello (with Doug Garr)

 

I wish Cardello hadn’t needed a writer to help him with this book. The book suffers a bit from the writer-helper’s attempts to polish up Cardello’s thoughts. But it obviously would have been much worse without the additional writer. And it is not a bad book. It’s not a beautifully written book either, but that’s okay. It gets its points across. The strength of the book is the expertise Cardello the insider offers the reader. And does Cardello ever have insider knowledge. The food industry comes across as morally indifferent to the tremendous increase in the size of the average American over the past thirty years. Should it be indifferent? Cardello nods his head, asserting that the food industry is only obligated to be concerned with increasing its profits. Where then can we turn? How can we slow or stop the growing obesity of our country? Cardello states that we must make it profitable for the food industry to be concerned with Americans’ health.

 

49. Epilogue: A Memoir by Anne Roiphe

 

Roiphe’s husband dies unexpectedly and she is terribly lonely. Her daughters try to help her by taking out a personal ad for her. She tries to help herself by going online and using a service. She gets calls and she goes on dates. It is all a tremendous disappointment.

 

Time passes and Roiphe gives up on the outside dating help. She gradually comes to find a peace in her solitariness. She decides to wait and see if love comes to her.

 

50. Testimony by Anita Shreve

 

Three young men at a private school ruin their lives when they get drunk and are videotaped in compromising situation with an underage girl. This book is the story of the young men and their families and their teachers and the young girl.

 

I found the strength of the book to be in the way it was told. I liked the way the author told the story in chapters using various points of view. It felt very real.

 

I thought the tale was a bit too Oprah-ish, the social problem of the week. None of the characters was terribly likable, except for Silas who seemed to have been caught up in the drinking amid family difficulties and was a victim of circumstances.

 

All in all, a ho-hum Shreve.

 

 

1 | Comment (0)