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	Miscellaneous ...Language
	I love books. Everyone in our family is what my dad calls a "book hog," and I think it's an apt description. I also love words. Again, I came by it honestly: my parents were both English majors, and when Erika and I were little, we played word games on family trips.
	These pages will have to be updated often, but for now, I'll include a few book reviews, and some links to my favorite sites involving words.
	Book reviews Language sites Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver I can sometimes be found playing Jumbalaya, a multiplayer Boggle-like game. Food in History by Reay Tannahill For a less fun, but free game, try Funster. A Darker Place by Laurie King
	Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver This is easily my favorite book. I own three copies so that I can loan it to friends and still have one for myself if I get the urge to read it. Barbara Kingsolver is a beautiful, poetic writer, and this novel particularly resonates with me for some reason. The main character, Codi, returns home to the small Arizona town where she grew up, in order to get her dying father settled. The story is told partly from her point of view, in first person, and partly from her father's point of view, in third person. The story touches on a lot of issues, including education, the environment, and family relationships. But for me, the most compelling part of the story is Codi's gradual realization that the understanding she's always had of her own past and her family's past is wrong. Codi's relationship with her younger, more confident sister Hallie is also a major part of the story, and perhaps that's why the book is one of my favorites, because my own relationship with my sister is so important to me.
	Food in History, by Reay Tannahill I found this book fascinating, and an easy read. I originally bought it for a friend, but then couldn't resist keeping it for myself once I started browsing through it. It's an overview of the history of food in society. The book goes through various civilizations and describes what they ate, how they acquired food, and how different foods became known throughout the world. (Naturally, I especially liked the brief section on tomatoes, though it should have been longer.) The book is not all-inclusive, but it's a lot of fun.
	A Darker Place, by Laurie King Laurie King is one of my new favorite mystery writers. She has two ongoing series, one about a girl who meets up with Sherlock Holmes, and another about a female homicide detective in modern San Francisco. (Both are good, but the second series is far more compelling than the Sherlock Holmes series.) She also writes stand-alone books, of which A Darker Place is one, and it's actually my favorite of her books so far. The main character is a professor of religious studies who lost her family to a cult gone bad in her youth, and since then has done occasional work for the FBI infiltrating cults. It's tense, emotional, and erudite.