'Imperfect Birds' by Anne Lamott

I picked this book to read because I have liked some of Anne Lamott’s non-fiction work in the past; her book Operating Instructions about her son’s first year was lovely. This book is fiction and tells the story of a tense mother-daughter relationship. Elizabeth, the mother, is a recovering alcoholic; Rosie, the daughter, is 17 and rebellious. They live in California with Elizabeth’s second husband, James. The book follows the family as Rosie becomes more lost in a mess of teenage drugs and lies.

I'm of the opinion that you don't really need to go out searching for profound experience in order to properly appreciate the universe, but Lamott's characters seem to constantly want to hammer it into my head. They spend so much time reflecting on amazing, intellectual things that their revelations completely fail to impress or amaze me intellectually.

The point of a good book isn’t really about liking the characters in the story; people who are not especially likeable can be engaging and interesting. That being said, I didn’t really have any sympathy for the characters. I thought that Elizabeth was wimpy and pathetic and Rosie was hateful and self-centered. Have I just described the dynamic of every parent-child relationship? Possibly. Maybe that’s the point of the book; everyone in the world is awful beyond description. But I was still frustrated and irritated with these people. It’s a given that the daughter is making bad decisions, but the mother makes some of the dumbest choices imaginable too. I guess I’ll have to wait until my daughter is 17 before I pass judgment.

‘For all the tea in China’ By Sarah Rose

Do you wonder how tea production moved from China to India in the 19th century? I certainly never did, and I suspect that you’re in the minority if you spend your time thinking about that sort of thing. Even though I had never wondered about Asian tea production, I decided that For all the Tea in China sounded like an interesting book. Sarah Rose follows the travels of Robert Fortune, a British Horticulturist, as he travels to China to learn tea production methods and smuggle plants and seeds out of the Chinese mountains. I’m always impressed by how well documented some people’s lives are; even though he lived over 100 years ago, Fortune’s movements in China are very precise. It is fairly obvious that some parts are imagination on Rose’s part – a smile, a meal, a wince of pain, are these really things that can be proven by historical records? But these interactions that I’m assuming are not necessarily factual are probably good educated guesses on the part of the author.

There was a short mention of something in the closing paragraphs of this book that bothered me a little bit, mostly because the subject had been nagging at me the entire time I was reading. Rose brought up the fact that imported plants can overrun indigenous plants and wreak havoc on natural habitats. As the subject of this book is Robert Fortune’s botanical espionage and not environmental conservation, I can understand that much time was not spent on the subject, but Rose spends so much time putting his actions into context, that it seems awfully abrupt the way this in mentioned.

For all the Tea in China manages to be adventurous and engaging, while also sparking an interest in other historical events that provide context for the tea trade (such as the opium trade and health benefits of tea). Hopefully readers of this book will not only be tea aficionados; the story and writing is sure to appeal to a wide variety of other readers as well.