Category Archives: Hunger Games

EDIBLE BOOK CONTEST SATURDAY, JUNE 21

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  Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. —Sir Francis Bacon, English author (1561 – 1626)

We’re holding our first ever EDIBLE BOOK CONTEST here at Tales of the Lonesome Pine, and we’re really looking forward to it!

What is an edible book, you ask? Well, it is a clever and consumable representation of a book that you liked. For example:

twilight

or

humpty dumptyor

20000 leaguesor one of my personal favorites:

grapes of wrath

All of these are edible book contest entries from other places, and they’re all lovely. (I suppose Twilight was inevitable, yes?) Anyway, bring your edible book to Tales of the Lonesome Pine’s Second Story Cafe  Saturday, June 21 for 2 pm and join the fun. Judging will be done by our guest shopsitter JanelleJanelle Bailey (a staff member of the Wisconsin Book Festival and high school English teacher). Janelle and her two youngest daughters will be minding the shop for a week while Jack is in Scotland. She will be joined in judging by Second Story’s official dessert Erinbaker Erin Dalton, who is pretty much Emily Dickenson reincarnated.

Still confused about how to make an edible book? You can google the concept – there are lots of great pictures out there – and here are the rules:

  1. Everyone can participate: the young, the old, the professional and non-professional, residents and non-residents, and even groups.
  2. Entries must be book-related. Examples of this can be found online.
  3. Entries can be made out of anything, as long as it is edible.
  4. Entries must be family-friendly.
  5. Entry is free and does not require pre-registration. Just bring your edible book to the shop for display at 2 pm. (If you’re going to need to assemble it here, come earlier. We regret that you may not enter the cafe kitchen, but we can loan you some basic tools or heat something if you need us to. You’re not allowed in the kitchen. Health stuff.)
  6. Winner will receive either a free weekend trip to a mountain cabin, or a $100 gift certificate to the bookstore – winner’s choice. All entries will receive a $10 gift certificate to the bookstore.

So get cracking and make us an edible book of such tastefulness as will set Big Stone Gap talking – not that that takes much, but you get the idea. Come one, come all, and let’s have some fun.

edible book

Jack’s Anti-Book Book Review

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In his weekly guest blog post, the normally mild-mannered Jack gets a bit exercised – –

When I started reading The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom I was fascinated. The book sets out the theory that human cultural groupings act as ‘super-organisms’ that transcend the notion of the individual need. My mind went back to long-ago classes in economics and educational motivation – maximizing utility and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs etc.

Bloom’s theories seem to go against all the accepted rules, but he argues that there is plenty of evidence throughout history that human groups will gather around what he describes as a ‘meme’ that will drive a particular group to dominance. The need to dominate is, in turn, driven by a desire that the group should have the greatest access to the ‘fruits of the earth’. He draws parallels with behavior in ant colonies, bee hives and families of apes and baboons, then introduces many instances of human activity to back his argument, such as the need for recognizable uniforms to distinguish ‘us and them’ as well as the value of having an enemy and the power of hatred.

When I started this book I was drawn into it by his many references to there being ‘a better way’ forward that could somehow avoid wars and the violent overthrow of existing hierarchies. As a Quaker I’m always keen to investigate anything that promotes a more peaceful world and this book seemed to be offering possibilities. However as I read on all I seemed to be reading about was the inevitability of this continual cyclical overthrow of existing dominant groups by the next kid on the block: Christians/Muslims, Capitalists/Communists, Democrats/Fascists, and so on.

Finally I reached his answer (drum roll, please)…..

America had to stay on top and learn how to remain there indefinitely.

Yes – really. Never mind anyone else; get on top and stay there, and that’s good enough.

Maybe Douglas Adams had a better answer – – – 42 makes more sense than “stay on top of the pyramid by keeping ‘lesser people’ on the bottom, and life will be grand– at least, for you.”

As Dorothy Parker says, “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”