Ghettonation: A Journey into the Land of Bling and the Home of the Shameless / by Cora Daniels

The original "ghetto" was a section of late Renaissance Venice where Jews were partitioned in to separate living quarters by Catholic authorities. Over the years, the term has evolved from a physically sequestered area of a city reserved for a certain demographic to something altogether different. Nowadays "ghetto" is a social and cultural phenomenon. It connotates a demeanor, appearance and a manner of affectation which identifies an individual with a certain class of people and various objects of a like association. It is a mindset not limited to a certain ethnic group and no longer reserved to specific geographic locations. It is found in urban areas as well as the most desirable suburbs; in corporate settings and living rooms, from Hollywood to the Heartland and abroad as a packaged item in a variety of mediums where its themes are reiterated and emulated.

From award-winning journalist and professor at NYU Cora Daniels comes a provocative, entertaining expose on "ghetto" culture. Few Americans remain uncensored from "ghetto" attitudes, appearances and lifestyles; and from its effect on individuals, communities and the American ideal. Daniels' shows how corporate America has essentially embraced the idea of a ghetto persona as a lucrative hip marketing tool, realizing its significant mainstream appeal and promoting it through the media, sidelining the implications that it's essentially a manner of social conduct which degrades women, undermines education and celebrates the worst negative stereotypes. It's a fun 'way' to be though. Throughout the book Daniels infuses humor and entertaining, colorful anecdotes as well as taking deliberate shots at a more than a select few public figures. For any readers completely out of the loop, one section is written entirely in ghetto slang and contains a snide, often derogatory glossary for many of the most commonly parroted terms. Ghettonation is a timely and engrossing report on a widely visible but controversial paradox of society. (307.3 DANIELS)

In Defense of Food: an eater’s manifesto by Michael Pollan

From the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: an eater’s manifesto looks at the history of Nutritionism and reductive science and their effects on the Western Diet. The first two sections of the book examine how the Western diet developed into a diet based largely on processed foods. Pollan explains the science and the politics behind this journey and the potential devastating effects it can have on our physical health.

The third and final section of the book suggests how we may modify our diet in order to lead a healthier life. Pollan is an advocate for a whole foods diet that limits the amount of processed foods and meat in the diet. He also recommends that people in the Western world, specifically North Americans, need to change their relationship to food. Eating shouldn’t be about eating as much as possible for the lowest cost in the shortest amount of time. Instead, eating should be an experience of preparation, reflection, and socializing like the diets of the French, Japanese, and those living in Mediterranean communities.

Don’t let the “manifesto” in the title deter you from reading or listening to this book. Pollan uses a factual approach to explain his case for adjusting the Western diet. The book does not preach at the reader, but rather suggests adjustments that need to be made to the modern diet in order to sustain a more healthy lifestyle.

In Defense of Food is available at the library in large and regular print, as well as in audio format. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is also available in regular print. These books are shelved in the general non-fiction area of the library. People interested in food and its context in social history may also want to read Paradox of Plenty: a social history of eating in modern America by Harvey Levenstein, Fast Food Nation: the dark side of the all-American meal by Eric Schlosser, and An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage.

I Am Charlotte Simmons / by Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe has published dozens of books (The Pump House Gang, The Right Stuff, Bonfire of Vanities, etc.) during his tenure as one of America's foremost contemporary authors. Here he chronicles the freshman year of a poor scholarship student at a prestigious eastern university where wealth and privelege seem to necessitate debauchery and corruption.

Well-nestled (read: isolated) in Appalachia is the town of Sparta, North Carolina--lifelong home to one Charlotte Simmons. Accolades aplenty have showered Charlotte for her scholastic merits; culminating in a full-ride scholarship to illustrious DuPont University. It's here where "she's certain to find people like herself, people who actually have a life of the mind, people whose concept of the future is something beyond Saturday night . . ." (p.19). In a general sense there are people like her at DuPont; but more generally there's the insatiable depravity of everyone else: vulgar boys in her dorm's only co-ed bathroom, a roommate who "sexiles" her to the hallway, protocol binge drinking, drug use, obligatory profanity, rampant cheating, smut-laced lyrics blasted 24/7, etc. It's as far from intellectual utopia (or even Sparta's redneck n'er-do-wells) as her beloved Beethoven is from Dr. Diss's perversity-fueled raps.

Fortunately not all's examined through Charlotte's eyes. Other parts of the college swirl are experienced through peripheral characters like frat boy Hoyt Thorpe, nerd Adam Gelin, and basketball player Joseph 'Jo-Jo' Johansen. It's a world where "hookups" are tantamount to social validation, where 'winter formal' is code for 'decadent orgy', and where the lifeblood of academia--the faculty--must submit to a bureaucratic empire or face termination.

Anyone who loathes hearing the words "read" and "book" in the same sentence should provide for this one exception. Wolfe gets it. He is as good as it is (in the English language) with descriptive realism and social dynamics. Some people (everyone) may be more than a little unsettled by the raunchy-ness of it all, albeit genuine Americana. But forget Animal House or any of its pathetic derivatives. Wolfe refuses to lampoon degenerate behavior without revealing its frighteningly destructive consequences. In essence, 'Charlotte Simmons' elucidates twenty-first century youth culture; reinventing the wheel to some degree with its depiction of the collegiate microcosm.

Ironic Footnote: Wolfe researched several colleges for this book including Duke University, where he noticed the vigorous influence of lacrosse players on the raucous campus social scene. 'Charlotte Simmons' was published in 2004.