Son of a Witch and the Long Emergency

Did you think I decided to curb my swearing? No dice. I thought I would change the subject a little bit. That said, thanks to everyone who has sent emails, commented etc - I may respond something short and lame, but I really appreciate all the nice things that have been said.


I recently read two books that I would highly recommend, Son Of A Witch
by Gregory Maguire and The Long Emergency
by Howard James Kunstler.

In case you were wondering if the name Kunstler makes me laugh at all, here is a picture that I took in Germany.

Son of a Witch is the sequel to another book I really enjoyed, Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. I read it on my Grand Canyon trip. It's really weird, but in a good way. I enjoyed the concept of taking a story so well know and building on it. Gregory Maguire does an amazing job and bringing Oz and the Witch to life. Son of a Witch starts at the death of the Wicked Witch of the West and follows Liir, who suspects he may be the son of the witch. One aspect of the world of Oz that I really enjoyed in these books in the animals and the Animals. Capital A Animals talk, and little a animals don't (or they baa and moo). So sometimes the characters have to try speaking to animals to see if they are talking to a goat or a Goat. If you would like to borrow either Son of a Witch or Wicked, I bought them both.

I went to a talk at UofC by James Howard Kunstler. He was a really interesting and very animated speaker. He has a few books, but his talk was specifically on the Long Emergency. I took it out from the library and it was well worth the read. The book is a about what might happen as the world runs out of oil and gas. He covers quite a broad range of topics, from resource wars to alternative fuels to gas prices to suburbs to the hydrocarbons that it takes to make wind farms. I read two relevant articles on cbc.ca today: one on predicted 2012 gas prices and one on the world's food shortage (and rice prices today). For some reason, I didn't find this book depressing, as some doomsday environmental books can be. You won't regret reading it!