Because the pen is mightier than the sword.

Feeling inspired by our look at the Paris literary scene, or our recent musings on the power of the written word? Come with us as we turn the page to yesteryear and revisit some of our favorite essays on the power of books to stir us into new ways of thinking, living and working together.

“Several years ago, I decided to write the entirety of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time word for word on grains of rice – about 1.5 million words. I don’t remember how I initially thought of it. Maybe it was just something meditative to do. The intent is to house all the grains of my “translation” in a single, giant hourglass, where the rice kernels replace grains of sand. This project will take at least a few more years to complete…”

Heartbeat: Trong G. Nguyen Writes On Rice In His Library Series

It would be nice to say that the books you’ll find here are a little off the “Best of 2011″ beaten track on purpose – that, after pouring over the year’s more mainstream winners, these less-nodded-at tomes are overlooked gems that deserve more attention than they’re getting. But the fact is I have The Marriage Plot, Swamplandia! and The Tiger’s Wife sitting right here on my desk, uncracked for no other reason than different books – the following choices among them – happened to catch my interest…

Book ‘Em: 10 Best Reads From 2011

“As someone who has written about ‘women in pain,’ women dealing with the death of a child, for example, I think that the premise of your question is problematic,” novelist Ayelet Waldman tells me. “All interesting stories are about someone in crisis – in ‘pain’ if you will. Who wants to read about happy people doing happy things? Story is conflict, conflict is story. The Corrections was about people in crisis. Does that fall into your category of ‘victim-literature?’ If it doesn’t, then I think you should take a good look at the question you’re asking, and consider whether it isn’t inherently sexist.”

From Chick Lit to Victim Books: Problems with the Woman’s Book Club

“There is a place for radical stances – Greenpeace with the whales, some of the anti-mountaintop-removal stuff going on in Appalachia. And you can actually sometimes succeed by taking the really hard-line position. But much more often, if you talk to the people doing the work and getting things done, it’s a gut-wrenching compromise every day. You have to cultivate extremely wealthy people. You have to cut very imperfect deals with industry.”

January’s EcoSalon Man We Love: Jonathan Franzen

No one would advocate handing material on complex subject matter to young students without teaching it. Try this on: Material regarding safe sex has unsettling terms and concepts that teenagers can’t “get” on their own. Best not to teach it. Doing so might create a (gasp!) uncomfortable classroom situation. Come on, people. Our job is to teach our children – to offer them context. This is not always a comfortable task – for them or us.

Teachers Teach, Parents Parent, But Leave Huck Finn Alone

For some people, a good book makes life better. It’s that excited feeling of discovery that usually hits somewhere around the first chapter – you’ve found a page turner, and you’re not going to stop until you’re finished. A good book means you get to step away from the computer, hang your feet over the edge of a chair, and lose yourself completely for as long as you can spare…

20 Must Read Books For Women

Images: Trong G. Nguyen, Paul Lowry, shutterhacks, david_shankbone, eflon, khrawlings and Horia Varlan.

The post From the Vault: The Power of Books appeared first on EcoSalon.

Said Slate writer Arthur Allen as he was about to criticize Oprah Winfrey, “Chastising a celebrity is an exercise in futility. You feel like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck, scrabbling wildly in the air without drawing blood.” The man has a point. What other celebrity out there has a daily invitation into American homes, whose mere mention of a tip or product can inspire hysterics? Sure, one could argue that Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck might impose the same influence on a select group of Americans. But then, Oprah isn’t as politically polarizing as Palin or Beck. Or is she?

The career of a media mogul inevitably will be marked with scandal and lawsuits, particularly with a figure who commands as much influence as Oprah Winfrey. There is no denying that she can throw down some serious authority when she’s up for it. A mere mention of mad cow disease on her show in the 1990s brought on an infamous defamation suit from the Texas cattle industry. Angry cattle rustlers claimed her show caused the industry to lose 11 million. Free speech prevailed and Oprah was exonerated, but it showed the world that this woman has a voice that could be instantly magnified by millions.

Just how loud is Oprah’s voice? Just one example is her book club which got America reading and made instant celebrities and sometimes millionaires of the authors. (This includes EcoSalon’s January Man We Love, Jonathan Franzen.) Critics of her book club tutt-tutted what seemed to be blind masses following her every word. Even Franzen notoriously worried that her selections, essentially perceived as “chick lit,” may alienate a male audience. But others pointed out she was getting people to read. So what’s the problem?

And there’s the charm of Oprah. To many, she is “everywoman.” To others, she’s mocked as “everywoman.” With a media empire and range of influence that remains unchallenged, she still oozes reliability and empathy with every interview. You feel like you could tell her anything – and hundreds of her guests have done just that. And when she’s dealing with an uncomfortable subject, she is quick to express some variation of “we’re here to learn from your experience, not to exploit your pain.”

And, people respond. Hell, do they respond. Even when she gave away a car at her final “favorite things” show in 2010, she proposed that the utter hysterics in the audience, which she herself called a parody and Saturday Night Live skit, was really about the joy of something unexpected happening during the day. And not, you know, about the free cars.

But when has she gotten it wrong? She publicly scolded author James Frey for fabricating his supposed memoir of drug abuse, A Million Little Pieces. She later apologized for doing so, saying she had felt personally duped and therefore lashed out.

Oprah also infamously featured Jenny McCarthy on her show, an actress on a quest to link vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been completely exonerated in their connection to autism. But has the damage been done? David T. Tayloe is president of the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians. As he told Slate in 2009, even before this latest information came to light, “If you give her a bully pulpit, McCarthy is going to make people hesitate to vaccinate their children. She has no medical or scientific credentials. It disturbs us that she’s given all these opportunities to make her pitch about vaccines on Oprah or Larry King or U.S. News or whatever?”

For better or for worse, Oprah is a cultural force that cannot be ignored. Her power (or empowerment, perspective!) shows no sign of abating. As her epic show ends its run, the media mogul has turned her sights on an entire network, OWN. Now the world of basic cable can hold the hand of the media queen and her all-star spawns, such as Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Suzy Orman and more. Will it be a success? That remains to be seen. I’m willing to bet on the Big O before I discount her. Now excuse me while I get shaken like a kitten.

Image: Fuzzcat

The post Oprah: Friend or Foe? appeared first on EcoSalon.

We may have mentioned that we’re a fan of the men. Give us a guy who can quote Gloria Steinem or Michael Pollan (or Gloria Steinem quoting Michael Pollan) and we will show you a guy we’re dancing around like vegan Bacchante. For December, we brought you the greatness that is Ryan Gosling. Now for the new year? We’re agreeing with Time and Oprah on this one: author Jonathan Franzen is our January Man We love.

Why is he of the well-written word so cool? As our editor-in-chief Sara notes, “I love how he notices textures, his sense of humor, and that great big brain. It’ll be fun to see if he lets out his mean streak in future books. And, he’s adorable, tall, and watches birds. What’s not to like?”

Further, his list of accomplishments as a writer is the stuff of dreams for this one. There’s his National Book Award in 2001 for The Corrections, a New York Times best seller. He’s a Pulitzer Prize nominee. He’s been called “The Great American Novelist” by Time Magazine and he’s tangoed with Oprah Winfrey, only to come out on top as her final book club selection ever with his latest tome, Freedom.

So yes, there’s a wee bit of fawning of the Franzen. But a recent interview got us thinking about what this man is doing for the environmental movement with Freedom. Freedom tells the story of Walter Berglund, a “greener than Greenpeace” environmentalist who takes on the task of negotiating strip mining for a bird sanctuary.

Walter wants to save a warbler species that Grist, in an interview with Franzen, points out leads his to make “a Faustian deal with a mountaintop-mining coal company.” Franzen works with the American Bird Conservancy, which is dedicated to helping wild birds of North America. But when asked if Freedom is an activist book, Franzen makes the point that modern day environmentalism includes many shades of gray. As he mentions,

There is a place for radical stances – Greenpeace with the whales, some of the anti-mountaintop-removal stuff going on in Appalachia. And you can actually sometimes succeed by taking the really hard-line position. But much more often, if you talk to the people doing the work and getting things done, it’s a gut-wrenching compromise every day. You have to cultivate extremely wealthy people. You have to cut very imperfect deals with industry. People have said to me, about Freedom, “Oh, you must be satirizing this poor Walter Berglund who gets corrupted when he sets out to do good.” In fact, what I was after was a purely realistic portrayal of contemporary conservation work in Appalachia.

Franzen further points out that his way of turning people’s attention to certain interests is to hook them on the human story first. He concludes that “engaging people on the environment is really, really hard” and cautions that people should not lose sight of that.

Franzen’s subtle exposure of the modern-day environmentalist in his latest work is fantastic. But he also knows how to motivate his acolytes. He recently told The Guardian, “It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.” Point taken, Mr. Franzen. (She writes, as she sits on her hands to avoid clicking on the latest headlines.)

Photo courtesy of Chris Buck for The Guardian

The post January’s EcoSalon Man We Love: Jonathan Franzen appeared first on EcoSalon.