50 Books, 52 Weeks

I have been reading, just not posting. I'll catch up eventually.

As many of you don't know, I am attempting to start a local Food Not Bombs here in Chillicothe. You may not know anything about Food not bombs and I encourage you to look into it. But in a nutshell the 3 word name explains the beliefs of FNB almost exactly. It originated from the slogan "Money for food, not for bombs" and developed to their current name. It is the goal of FNB to reduce waste and use food that would otherwise be discarded to create meals for the less fortunate or anyone who wants a free vegetarian meal. I agree with them that in a country with such abundance of food, no one should go hungry.
It is going to be a lot of work but people have been really helpful and my hopes are high. I've been reading a lot online about how to go about this and I finally got ahold of a book.
This book was really helpful in properly defining the goals and means of Food Not Bombs in 7 steps. It explains the advantages of vegetarianism and solidarity. and also has some great vegetarian recipes for 100+ people.
Step 1- Get a location/address for FNB
Step 2- Create flyers to spread awareness and announce events
Step 3- Arrange the use of a Vehicle to get and transport food.
Step 4- With flyers in hand, Look for sources of food.
Step 5- Deliver your collected food to meal shelters and soup kitchens, to build connections
Step 6- Once the network is established, work out a system to save food for your FNB
Step 7- Once a week get people involved in publicly distributing the food you create.

These steps seem very simple, but very intimidating at the same time. I'm hoping to get this going within 2 months.

Total Pages in Book: 128

I LOVE THIS BOOK! I also love this author. This is Probably Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s most famous book, and for good reason. I'm bad with summary's so I just copied one from wikipedia.
Chaplain's Assistant Billy Pilgrim, a disoriented, ill-trained American soldier, is captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans imprison him and other PoWs in a disused slaughterhouse in Dresden. During Allied air raids, PoWs and guards alike hide in a deep cellar; because of their safe hiding place, they are some of the few survivors of the city-destroying firestorm.

For unexplained reasons, Billy has come "unstuck in time." He meets, and is kidnapped by, extraterrestrial aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who exhibit him in a zoo, with movie star Montana Wildhack as his mate. The Tralfamadorians, who can see in four dimensions, have already seen every instant of their lives. They believe they cannot choose to change anything about their fates, but can choose to concentrate upon any moment in their lives, and Billy becomes convinced of the correctness of their theories.

Billy travels forward and back in time, reliving occasions of his life, real and fantastic. He spends time on Tralfamadore; in Dresden; in the War, walking in deep snow before his German capture; in his post-war married life in the U.S.A. of the 1950s; and in the moment of his murder.

Billy's death is the consequence of a string of events. Before the Germans capture Billy, he meets Roland Weary. At their capture, the Germans confiscate everything Weary has, including his boots, giving him clogs to wear; Weary eventually dies of gangrene caused by the clogs. Weary's friend, Paul Lazzaro, vows to avenge Weary's death by killing Billy, because revenge is "the sweetest thing in life". Time-traveler Billy, already knows where, when, and how he will be killed: Paul Lazzaro hires someone to shoot him after a speech in a balkanized United States on February 13, 1976.


One of my favorite quotes is from this book, and I want it as my epitaph-
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt"
READ KURT VONNEGUT!

Total Pages of Book: 215

So I haven't had internet so I haven't been able to post the books I have read.
I started to fall a little behind so I have been reading relatively small books.
'Cut' by Patricia McCormick is about a book a girl in her teens struggling with depression. She is placed in a mental health facility by her parents in the hopes that she will 'get better'. While Callie is in the hospital she meets other girls with similar problems. It is an alright book, but it is directed to a teen audience. Also if you have ever read 'Girl, Interrupted' it is very similar. But a quick, easy read.

Total Pages Read: 768

This book written in 1988 by Steven Hawking was surprisingly quite enjoyable! I learned soo much and still was incredibly fascinated. People would look at the book and go "oh wow, black holes, Quantum mechanics, astro-physics... Uhm is that for school? There is no way you are reading that for fun." But I was really liking it. I wanted to read it after having numerous conversations with my roommate and his cousin about black holes and space-time, and although I could gather and even add a couple things here and there in the conversation, I felt like I wasn't grasping the theories. I'm still no professor, but I feel informed.
The book is laid out in such a way that if you just put even a small amount of effort in absorbing information, you actually feel you understand it. Yes even me, who took algebra 1 twice could start to grasp quantum mechanics, black holes, worm holes, and even thinking about the 4th dimension(of course I learned about the concepts, not the math!)







I read updated/tenth anniversary edition of the book and it is broken down into twelve chapters:
One- Our Picture of the Universe
Two- Space and Time
Three- The Expanding Universe
Four- The Uncertainty Principle
Five- Elementary Particles and the Forces of Nature
Six- Black Holes
Seven- Black Holes Ain't So Black
Eight- The Origin and Fate of the Universe
Nine- The Arrow of Time
Ten- Wormholes and Time Travel
Eleven- The Unification of Physics
Twelve- Conclusion

I think you should get used to me saying this, but everyone should at least glance at this book. It is not too difficult of a book to read, and Hawking does an amazing job at making sure an average person can understand some of the most complicated things in the universe! A really cool read, I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up. I only wish I had read it sooner.

Total Pages Read: 617

The first book I have read this year is called Watchmen. It is a graphic novel written in the 80's by Alan Moore. It is set in an America on the brink of a nuclear war. The story line follows a group of former costumed heroes called The Minutemen, and their life after the Keene Act which outlawed masked vigilantes.

The story begins when one of the former members of the Minutemen, Edward Blake aka the Comedian(smoking the cigar in the picture) is killed. Rorschach(front and center), another masked avenger, suspects a mask killer conspiracy rather than a political killing.Another aspect of the story follows Dr. Manhattan(the Blue man in the photo), a former scientist who because of an accident with some equipment was blasted into just particles. After this he was presumed to be dead, but he somehow recollected himself and became almost like a god. He is able to control matter, teleport, and multiply himself(did I mention he knows the future). He and the Comedian were soon hired by the united states government to work in Vietnam, perform experiments, and serve as a military defensive weapons.
The book also goes back to tell the back stories of the other members of the Minutemen, like Nite Owl, Rorschach Captain Metropolis, Ozymandias, and Silk Spectre. All of the group, except for Ozymandias, went back to their normal lives. Well except for Rorschach, and Ozymandias. Rorschach refused to give up his life of fighting crime after the Keene act an continued to work outside of the law. Ozymandias on the other hand gave up crime fighting and began marketing himself, becoming the richest man in the world.
Nite Owl and Silk Spectre put on their suits once again when Rorschach was framed with a murder an thrown into jail. Nite Owl, convinced of his innocence gets dressed up once again to help his 'friend'.


I would continue with an explanation but I just want to give a short intro, not a school paper. Also, I wouldn't know when to stop without giving too much away. I encourage everyone to read it(it only took me about two days), or at the very least see the movie that comes out later this year, which from the previews seems to follow the novel pretty closely.


Total Pages Read:416
Next Book: A Brief History Of Time By: Steven Hawking