Book Club

Yesterday was the monthly book club meeting. For this month we read and discussed the book World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. This is not an overnight easy read, this is one of those books where a chapter a day is almost to much information at one time. The book is easily and well written for the lay person and not the scientists. The book is based on the premise that humans just vanished from the planet and what would happen to the earth based on the things that we have left behind.

Mr. Weisman writes about how long it would take for a city to be destroyed, how long it would take for the oil fields and refineries to burn if they burn, what plants and animals would survive etc. One thing that he did talked about that I am thinking of is a green burial.

Now, when one is buried there is a coffin, then a concrete box, and in some cases this is again enclosed in a metal box. Where even with embalming after so many years all this is protecting is human soup. In a green burial there is a hole dug, the body tossed in, buried where it can then nourish the earth like it should.

This month we are reading The Zero, by Jess Walter. I am only a few pages into this book and I can tell that I am going to have a hard time reading it. This book seems to be not focused, and written from inside a depressed mind (the main character). I have a hard time with books like that maybe because I work with a lot of people with mental disabilities. I don't know I will have to wait and see what happens.