I have picked up several pretty good reads lately that have been pretty interesting. I just finished Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost. This was the follow up to his Sex Lives with Cannibals. Side-splitting funny, these are light-hearted travel logs of the author's years in the South Pacific. If you have ever lived on an island or in Asia then you will find yourself having to come up for air from so much knowing laughter--otherwise you will probably find it highly amusing. I have even forgiven the Troost from expressing admiration for the most pompous of all travel writers--Paul Theroux--whom I thoroughly despise.
I used Getting Stoned to lighten up after Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach. You might think that Bonk was light enough on its own but if you read it, I recommend planning something light and frivolous to follow up with. Bonk is a highly interesting and informative read but my mind still boggles and cringes from some of the crazy things people do all in the name of hormones and friction.
Currently I am reading Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. LeBlanc weaves an engaging yet heartbreaking story of how hopes and dreams remain ephemeral and unattainable as the cycle of abuse, drugs, poverty, and violence shroud an extended family. The book is so depressingly sad that I am glad that I am also reading Martha Beck's The Four Day Win: End Your Diet War and Achieve Thinner Peace. Although this sounds like a diet book and in many ways it is but just as equally in many ways it isn't. It is more about achieving your goals by understanding the way your emotional side interacts with your logical side and being gentle and kind with yourself. Beck's twisted humor makes it entertaining and her logic keeps you hopeful. It is a good read even if you are not among the 65% of us Americans that need to drop some pounds.
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