I have always been a big fan of libraries. When I was little, I went far more often than I do now, and checked out videos, cassette tapes, and books on a weekly basis. My mother took me to their children’s activities, like puppet shows and seasonal craft projects. And every summer I participated in their summer reading program and won fabulous prizes, like gift certificates for free pizza. They got me young.
Right now I’m lucky to live in Kalamazoo County, which has one of the nicest public library systems in the nation. I go about once a month. I usually make out a list beforehand of what I want, and check it against the online catalog to make sure those books are in. Then, while I’m there, I pick up the books on my list and browse a bit, picking up one or two unfamiliar titles. It gives me the same feeling of excitement that impulse buying does, except it’s even better because the books (or cds, dvds, whatever) are free. I don’t currently attend any of their book clubs or other events, but I am aware of them, and I often mention their free computer education programs to my more computer-illiterate friends (or older relatives of friends, as the case more often may be).
The book I’m reading now is The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. It’s a difficult book for an omnivore like me to read. I have trouble with the idea that the acts of using animal products (milk, eggs, honey, wool) and killing animals in order to eat them (meat) and otherwise use their components (fur, leather, feathers, bone) are in and of themselves unethical, no matter how someone goes about them. I guess part of the reason I feel that way is that I have farmers in my family, only one generation away. My maternal grandparents and my mother’s brothers still run the family dairy farm. Their cows get to hang out in wide, grassy pastures during the day. Their chickens are free-range and have the run of the farm. But, then again, I’ve never thought to ask my relatives about the type of feed they give their animals, or whether or not the milk and eggs they produce are organic. It’s kind of a funny question, because once upon a time, everything was organic. Now organic is the exception, not the rule. But regardless of the ethics of our long existent practice of hunting/trapping/fishing wild animals and farming livestock, this book has informed and convinced me that industrial agribusiness as it exists now is unsustainable. (I had done some reading on the subject before, but this is the first time I realized just how bad the situation is.) It’s not good for animals, it’s not good for the environment, and it’s not good for people. Sure, low prices are great, but, as this book points out, not when the reason for those low prices are externalities that are paid by all of us in other ways. I already don’t eat meat every day, but I’m willing to cut back even my own consumption. I guess I’m willing to eat out less in order to spend more money on groceries to get more sustainable food. But, especially in America, it’s a kind of privilege, evident of both my education and class, that I am able to do so. And I suppose the argument could made that if the leather jacket is already in the thrift store, the egg is already laid, the animal is already slaughtered and the steaks are in your grocer’s freezer, then it’s far better to use these things rather than to let them go to waste. It’s a very complicated issue and one that I feel is very inter-related with the idea of frugality. (As usual, this is not me telling you what you should do, hence me not citing outside sources other than the book itself. Do your own research on the subject and make your own decision.)
On a happier note, another book that I read and enjoyed over the past month was To Say Nothing Of the Dog, by Connie Willis. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but if you like British humor, romance, and/or time-travel, pick it up. The writing’s lovely and the story’s zany.
I realize that it’s somewhat hypocritical to talk about saving the environment in a post about books, as paper comes from trees, etc. (I once performed a self-written monologue about the odd inherent horror of seeing a paper sign tacked to a tree that ended with me screaming “It’s trees! Paper is trees!” a la Soylent Green.) But you can think of it this way: in a world where many books are produced and then read only once, or never at all, using the library is the equivalent of carpooling.
