Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

About the Author
Novella Carpenter grew up in rural Idaho and Washington State. She went to University of Washington in Seattle where she majored in Biology and English. She later studied under Michael Pollan at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism for two years. She's had many odd jobs including: assassin bug handler, book editor, media projectionist, hamster oocyte collector, and most recently, journalist. Her writing has appeared in Salon.com, Saveur.com, sfgate.com (the SF Chronicle 's website), and Mother Jones. She has been cultivating her farm in the city for over ten years now, and her neighbors still think she's crazy. It all started with a few chickens, then some bees, until she had a full-blown farm near downtown Oakland, where she lives today.

Synopsis

An unforgettably charming memoir, Farm City is full of hilarious moments, fascinating farmer's tips, and a great deal of heart. When Novella Carpenter — captivated by the idea of backyard self-sufficiency — moved to inner city Oakland and discovered a weed-choked, garbage- strewn abandoned lot next door to her house, she closed her eyes and pictured heirloom tomatoes and a chicken coop. The story of how her urban farm grew from a few chickens to one populated with turkeys, geese, rabbits, ducks, and two three-hundred-pound pigs will capture the imagination of anyone who has ever considered leaving the city behind for a more natural lifestyle.

Novella Carpenter loves cities — the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents' disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea of backyard self-sufficiency, Carpenter decided that it might be possible to have it both ways: a homegrown vegetable plot as well as museums, bars, concerts, and a twenty-four-hour convenience mart mere minutes away. Especially when she moved to a ramshackle house in inner city Oakland and discovered a weed-choked, garbage-strewn abandoned lot next door. She closed her eyes and pictured heirloom tomatoes, a beehive, and a chicken coop. What started out as a few egg-laying chickens led to turkeys, geese, and ducks. Soon, some rabbits joined the fun, then two three-hundred-pound pigs. And no, these charming and eccentric animals weren't pets; she was a farmer, not a zookeeper. Novella was raising these animals for dinner. Novella Carpenter's corner of downtown Oakland is populated by unforgettable characters. Lana (anal spelled backward, she reminds us) runs a speakeasy across the street and refuses to hurt even a fly, let alone condone raising turkeys for Thanksgiving. Bobby, the homeless man who collects cars and car parts just outside the farm, is an invaluable neighborhood concierge. The turkeys, Harold and Maude, tend to escape on a daily basis to cavort with the prostitutes hanging around just off the highway nearby. Every day on this strange and beautiful farm, urban meets rural in the most surprising ways. For anyone who has ever grown herbs on their windowsill, tomatoes on their fire escape, or obsessed over the offerings at the local farmers' market, Carpenter's story will capture your heart. And if you've ever considered leaving it all behind to become a farmer outside the city limits, or looked at the abandoned lot next door with a gleam in your eye, consider this both a cautionary tale and a full-throated call to action. Farm City is an unforgettably charming memoir, full of hilarious moments, fascinating farmers' tips, and a great deal of heart. It is also a moving meditation on urban life versus the natural world and what we have given up to live the way we do.

Courage is not an Image

"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is that quiet voice at the end of the day that says...I will try again tomorrow."-Mary Anne Radmacher.

Courage comes from our mind and from ourselves according to the existing conditions. When we think about courage, generally, heroes and their heroism come to our mind but it is a quality of spirit that enables you to face danger or pain. It's a quiet voice that gives them the strength to go on for another day. And it shows our confidence level and of sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Courage automatically comes out from our minds but should not be estimated by showing external physique or personality.

In our day-to-day lives, the virtue of courage doesn't receive much attention. Courage is a quality reserved for soldiers, firefighters, and activists. But sometimes people who always afraid of certain things show their courage when the situation comes. Not only at hurdles or troubles or fearful things, but one should be courageous in doing the things like in decision-making, helping others, to comment others or to complement others and so on.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.

And we have the quote: Fortune favours Brave.

CHANGE: Change or Accept

Change is not easy. But it is simple. We know that Things will always change. And we do not have a choice about that change, but we do have a choice on how we react to change. It is in our hads how to react to that unbelievable or believable change. The choice really boils down to this...either we manage change, or it will manage us. As a leader, however, deciding to make changes is the easy part. Getting your people on board is much more difficult. Why is that? Quite simply, change is an emotional process. We are all creatures of habit who usually resist it, and welcome routine. Uncharted waters are scary! The truth, of course, is that change can be a wonderful gift. In fact, it is the key that unlocks the doors to growth and excitement in any organization. And, most importantly, without it...your competition will pass you by. And we can say, change should be mandatory. Change should be there. As a leader, a big part of success will be your ability to inspire your team to get out of their comfort zones; to assure them that even though they are on a new path, it's the right path, for the right reasons.

So, finally.... it is on our attitude about change because we know everything is predetermined and predestined. Whatever the change we observe, we have to accept or if we can't accept then we can change. Is it? Is it possible? yes. If we changed it, then it is also a change already predestined. Anyways, we welcome change, we must. Because Change is Good.

Finally....

Accept what we cannot Change or

Change what we cannot Accept.

A Circle of Souls

About the Author:

Preetham Grandhi, an India-born immigrant, explores his life parallels in a new kind of psychological thriller and debut novel, A Circle of Souls. Born and raised in the city of Bangalore, India, Preetham mirrored the struggles of upper-middle class lives, acculturation, and psychological trauma through the characters of this well-sculpted thriller. Preetham’s childhood determination for success and change leads to a new life in the USA. His hope is that the land of opportunity would close old doors and open new beginnings. In a twist of fate, he found himself working with children and their families in the inner city Bronx, families who had even more complex issues than his own. Through their eyes and life experiences, he was motivated to become someone he never thought he would become, an author.

After investing five years in writing, he then encountered the struggle of becoming a traditionally published author. Now in June 2009, in the midst of economic crises and nationwide corporation mismanagement, comes A Circle of Souls, a tale of hope, justice, and accountability. This spirit-lifting and thought-provoking story has received rave reviews.

Review:

"This is Preetham Grandhi's debut novel, but you wouldn't know that from reading the book....full of suspense and alternates between different view points which added to the thrill of the book. The author has added some medical, psychological and supernatural elements.

The sleepy town of Newbury, Connecticut, is shocked when a little girl is found brutally murdered. The town's top detective, perplexed by a complete lack of leads, calls in FBI agent Leia Bines, an expert in cases involving children.
Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Gram, a psychiatrist at Newbury's hospital, searches desperately for the cause of seven-year-old Naya Hastings' devastating nightmares. Afraid that she might hurt herself in the midst of a torturous episode, Naya's parents have turned to the bright young doctor as their only hope.
The situations confronting Leia and Peter converge when Naya begins drawing chilling images of murder after being bombarded by the disturbing images in her dreams. Amazingly, her sketches are the only clues to the crime that has panicked Newbury residents. Against her better judgment, Leia explores the clues in Naya's crude drawings, only to set off an alarming chain of events.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

About the Author

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. The most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe. He is the author of the novels Dance, Dance, Dance; Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; A Wild Sheep Chase; South of the Border, West of the Sun; and Sputnik Sweetheart; of The Elephant Vanishes, a collection of stories; and of Underground, a work of non-fiction. His work has been translated into fourteen languages.

Review

"[A] big, ambitious book clearly intended to establish Murakami as a major figure in world literature....The new book almost self-consciously deals with a wide spectrum of heavy subjects....[It] marks a significant advance in Murakami's art....Murakami has written a bold and generous book, and one that would have lost a great deal by being tidied up." Jamie James, The New York Times Book Review

Haruki Murakami is generally considered the greatest Japanese writer of his generation, but at times he seems more in tune with the culture of the West than of his native country. Throughout his work, the food, music, movies, and literature references will generally be familiar to western readers. When one of his characters makes dinner, it is just as likely spaghetti as sushi; when they read a novel it is probably Hemingway or Salinger; when one of his characters puts on an album it is British or American pop (he even named a novel after a Beatles song). This preoccupation with the cultural trappings of the West makes Murakami highly accessible to westerner readers, and accounts, in part, for his tremendous popularity here.
But he is even more successful in Japan (his elegiac Norwegian Wood sold an astounding four million copies). Perhaps Murakami is so popular with the Japanese in part because his characters seek their cultural anchors abroad. A central theme in Murakami's work is the feeling among many Japanese that they have lost the clear sense of self, the firm identity, they had before the war. And nowhere in his impressive body of work has he explored this experience more deeply, or expressed it more powerfully, than in his most ambitious work to date, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
The story begins with the disappearance of Toru Okada's wife's cat, which is immediately followed by the disappearance of the wife, herself. Mild-mannered Toru sets out to find out where they went and why. He discovers much more than he bargained for: a precocious teenager, a pair of psychic sisters, a haunted veteran of Japan's war in Manchuria, a perfectly corrupt politician, and a strangely appealing well in a neighbor's yard. In his quest, Toru only succeeds in raising more perplexing questions, but his discoveries do shed startling light on the roots of the Japanese malaise. Surreal, insightful, quirky, and surprisingly affecting, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle has further proved Murakami's status as a world-class writer.

Paint It Black

About the Author
Janet Fitch's first novel, White Oleander, a #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection, has been translated into 24 languages and was made into a feature film. A native of Los Angeles, Fitch currently teaches fictionwriting in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.

Synopsis
From the bestselling author of White Oleander comes a powerful story of passion, first love, and a young woman's search for a true world in the aftermath of loss.

Josie Tyrell, art model, teen runaway, and denizen of LA's 1980 punk rock scene, finds a chance at real love with art student Michael Faraday. A Harvard dropout and son of a renowned pianist, Michael introduces her to his spiritual quest and a world of sophistication she had never dreamed existed. But when she receives a call from the Los Angeles County Coroner, asking her to identify her lover's dead body, her bright dreams all turn to black.

"What happens to a dream when the dreamer is gone?" is the central question of Paint it Black, the story of the aftermath of Michael's death, and Josie's struggle to hold onto the true world he shared with her. As Josie searches for the key to understanding his death, she finds herself both repelled and attracted to Michael's pianist mother, Meredith, who holds Josie responsible for her son's torment. Soon, the two women find themselves drawn into a twisted relationship reflecting equal parts distrust and blind need.
Passionate, wounded, fiercely alive, Josie Tyrell walks the brink of her own destruction as she fights to discover the meaning of Michael's death. With the luxurious prose and emotional intensity that are her hallmarks, Janet Fitch has written a spellbinding new novel about love, betrayal, and the possibility of transcendence.

Tijuana Straits

About the Author:

Kem Nunn is an American fiction novelist, surfer, magazine and television writer from California. His novels have been described as "surf-noir" for their dark themes, political overtones and surf settings. He is the author of five novels, including his seminal surf novel Tapping the Source.

He has collaborated with HBO Producer David Milch on the show Deadwood and with Milch co-produced the HBO series John from Cincinnati, a surfing series set in Imperial Beach, California which premiered on June 10, 2007.

Review

"Sam Fahey, an ex-con and ex-surfer now running a worm farm, is tracking a pack of feral dogs in the Tijuana River Valley when he encounters a badly beaten Mexican woman stumbling across the dunes near Tijuana Straits, a legendary surf spot. But surfing is only a backdrop in Nunn's intense, beautifully written literary thriller; the novel's real subject is the lawless U.S.-Mexico border, and its real story revolves around three damaged lives: the Mexican refugee, an activist named Magdalena Rivera fighting for economic and environmental justice in industrial Tijuana; Armando Santoya, whose life spirals into a drug-fueled rage when his baby is poisoned by the toxic chemicals his wife works with; and Fahey himself, a fully realized antihero struggling to atone for his own troubled life. In a series of long flashbacks, Nunn relates their backstories — along with the painful history of a rugged chunk of the Southern California coast — setting the stage for a powerful, visceral denouement. The novel is an elegy of lost innocence, an exploration of the corrupting power of greed and progress on the land and the people, but its triumph is the complete integration of character and plot. This is a sad but deeply satisfying and intensely moving story. With this fifth novel, Nunn has written a terrific book that more than affirms the promise of his early work.

When Fahey, once a great surfer, now a reclusive ex-con, meets Magdalena, she is running from a pack of wild dogs along the ragged wasteland where California and Mexico meet the Pacific Ocean — a spot once known to the men who rode its giant waves as the Tijuana Straits. Magdalena has barely survived an attack that forced her to flee Tijuana, and Fahey takes her in. That he is willing to do so runs contrary to his every instinct, for Fahey is done with the world, seeking little more than solitude from this all-but-forgotten corner of the Golden State. Nor is Fahey a stranger to the lawless ways of the border. He worries that in sheltering this woman he may not only be inviting further entanglements but may be placing them both at risk. In this, he is not wrong.

An environmental activist, Magdalena has become engaged in the struggle for the health and rights of the thousands of peasants streaming from Mexico's enervated heartland to work in the maquilladoras — the foreign-owned factories that line her country's border, polluting its air and fouling its rivers. It is a risky contest. Danger can come from many directions, from government officials paid to preserve the status quo to thugs hired to intimidate reformers.
As Magdalena and Fahey become closer, Magdalena tries to discover who is out to get her, attempting to reconstruct the events that delivered her, battered and confused, into Fahey's strange yet oddly seductive world. She examines every lead, never guessing the truth. For into this no-man's-land between two countries comes a trio of killers led by Armando Santoya, a man beset by personal tragedy, an aberration born of the very conditions Magdalena has dedicated her life to fight against, yet who in the throes of his own drug-fueled confusions has marked her for death. And so will Fahey be put to the test, in a final duel on the beaches of his Tijuana Straits.