February reading

 I've really struggled to sit down and read this month. Not entirely sure why. So a very short one!

Prophet Song. We did this for book club. I'd not heard great things about it. I normally don't like Booker Prize winners. This though, what a great book! I really loved it. In terms of writing - it has some really lovely phrasing and ideas. One inconsequential one that stuck with me (probably because it's where we are at) is the mother saying they used to be a family of five but were now 4 and would soon be only 3. I feel that shirnking and the little people lost (to the wonderful adults they've become). 

The book is a mother trying to keep a family together when their country is thrown into war under an authoritaian regieme, let's say. I loved at the start she's still thinking they've got a holiday in Canada booked and the disbelief of what was actually happening. I found it all very realistic.

It's written in the present tense (I think I read somewhere it's written in the tense of doom, and I thought that was perfect). It's urgent and uncomfortable a lot of the time. I thought it was such a brilliant and engrossing read.

It makes you re think your understanding (lack of) of Syria and other countries, of refugees and war when it hits a norm city like in Ukraine. I really enjoyed it intellectually. (I listened to the audio on Borrowbox).

"The world gives to chaos, the ground you walk on flies into the air and the sun shines dark on your head."

I mentioned in this post my questions on White Bread, so am currently listening to this on Audible. It is fascinating. History told by a food historian. Here are some of the things I've learnt:

It was women who stormed Versailles (and the now fabled ‘let them eat cake’ moment was because the women were from the markets and there was no bread to sell). It was the women’s march that forced the French Royalty into house arrest (more or less) in Paris. When lead to the guillotine the women put bread on sticks and waved them at the carriage as it went past. I had always been told it was farmers or ‘the people’…

Modern plant breeding (in part due to the requirements of industrial food processing) has increased the amount of gluten in wheat.

At the turn of last centurywomen's hemlines went up for reasons of hygiene and contagion- it was part of embracing science and medicine (as was the term Home economics, to focus on the science behind running a household, feeding a family and so on).

Sliced bread appeal was because of the symmetry - having each slice exactly the same; white bag bread was made so soft as it’s softness was associated with freshness (bags were not clear plastic but paper, so you couldn’t see but you could feel).

The move from home made bread to store bought was slightly before that (sliced) and in part because it took a lot of time to make bread everyday but also for hygiene. Having bread made without hands touching it, by machines, was viewed as healthier, less risk of contagions (& typhus? That was unproved but rumoured).

Then it became cheaper to buy bread than make it and that meant you could afford other foods, so bread went from being 80% of the diet to 20% (beer is a bread related product in dietary terms apparently).

There is a whole lot of purity and racism attached, the reason the vitamins got added was in part because a lot of the American population had night blindness and scurvy and other diseases from lack of adequate vitamin intake and that was no good for the people being called up for war to be soldiers. And that stuck.

I've still a little to go but it's fascinating, and also got me realising that history is just a story we are told and the details often tell a very different version. The reasons behind the event may be different to what you think it is. 

And yes, I didn't not read a single page this month! Must get back into the routine.

Linking with #TalkaboutitTuesday #Bookdate #AnythingGoes #AgoodBook #StackingtheShelves #SundaySalon #SundayPost . #SundayBookends #MonthlyBookWorms