Mabith's 2014 Non-Fiction

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Mabith's 2014 Non-Fiction

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1mabith
Editado: Dic 23, 2014, 5:02 pm

This year's goal is adding in a bit more South American history!

The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough
Games Without Rules by Tamim Ansary
Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre
Masters of Sex by Thomas Maier
The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz
Dreamland by David K. Randall
Breaking the Maya Code by Michael D. Coe
The History of Money by Jack Weatherford
The King and the Cowboy by David Fromkin

The Rise of Rome by Anthony Everitt
Earth: A Visitor's Guide by Neil Gaiman
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon
1941: The Year That Keeps Returning by Slavko Goldstein
800 Years of Women's Letters edited by Olga Kenyon

Secrets, Sisters, and Sacrifice by Susan Ottaway
Forgotten Voices of the Somme by Joshua Levine
The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! by Richard Ned Lebow
The Diary of Thomas A. Edison by Thomas A. Edison

Dave Gorman Vs the Rest of the World by Dave Gorman
Persian Fire by Tom Holland
Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat
The Battle of Blair Mountain by Robert Shogan
Memoirs of a Medieval Woman by Louise Collis

The Plantagenets by Dan Jones
Imagine There's No Heaven by Mitchell Stephens
Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall by Spike Milligan
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
Inventing a Nation by Gore Vidal

Rez Life by David Treuer
Alice's Piano by Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki
Savage Kingdom by Benjamin Woolley
Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan
Latino Americans by Ray Suarez

The Gifts of the Crow by John Marzluff
The Good Spy by Kai Bird
The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History by Colin McEvedy
Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman
Self-Inflicted Wounds by Aisha Tyler

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
The Pirate Coast by Richard Zacks
Civil War in West Virginia by Winthrop D. Lane
America's Women by Gail Collins
Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss

Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog
The Sinking of the Lancastria by Jonathan Fenby
Mean Little Deaf Queer by Terry Galloway
The Making of a Poem edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland

A Man and His Ship by Steven Ujifusa
Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead
Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang
Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King

How to Be Sick by Toni Bernhard
Empire of Sin by Gary Krist
Rommel? Gunner Who? by Spike Milligan
Parisians by Graham Robb
Stay: A History of Suicide by Jennifer Michael Hecht

The Belle Epoque of the Orient Express by M. Wiesenthal
Ireland: A Concise History by Paul Johnson
Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne
Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
The Eastern Front 1914-1917 by Norman Stone

Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
13 Bankers by Simon Johnson and James Kwak
The Woman Who Would be King by Kara Cooney
Which Side Are You On? by Thomas Geoghegan

The Earth Moved by Amy Stewart
Bible and Sword by Barbara Tuchman
Help Me to Find My People by Heather Andrea Williams
Monty: My Part in His Victory by Spike Milligan
Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome by Anthony Everitt

You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes by Laura Love
The Riddle of the Compass by Amir D. Aczel
Falco: The Official Companion by Lindsey Davis
Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
The Getaway Car by Donald E. Westlake

A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson
A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild
The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane
Just My Type by Simon Garfield

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson
Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale
As You Wish by Cary Elwes
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund
Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry
Away From the Vicarage by Noel Streatfeild
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

American Rose by Karen Abbott
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary
The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay
How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman

100

2mabith
Ene 1, 2014, 8:11 pm

I wanted to keep my book total for last year 156, but had days to spare, so I saved up the last bit of this for today.

1 - The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough

If I were giving this book a subtitle it would be "Probably More Information Than you Ever Wanted About the Panama Canal." That being said I loved it.

The only thing I really knew about it beforehand was Teddy Roosevelt's interest, which was a shame. The whole thing was fascinating and appealed to my general wide-eyed wonder at any large engineering feat. I'd had no idea that the French were the original force behind the canal and I think I was actually totally ignorant about the fact that Colombia was holding Panama (though it wasn't surprising).

This one made me feel a bit bad about my distrust of engineers (I heard about a certain bridge collapse constantly as a kid), and caused me to vow to read more about South American history.

Highly recommended.

3drneutron
Ene 1, 2014, 8:24 pm

Welcome back - someone else just reported finishing this one and I can't remember who...

4qebo
Ene 3, 2014, 8:33 am

2: I was going to say this one's on my wishlist, but even better, I actually have it in hand.

Happy New Year!

5mabith
Editado: Ene 5, 2014, 5:59 pm

4 > That is much better!

6mabith
Ene 9, 2014, 8:54 pm

2 - Games Without Rules by Tamim Ansary

Despite not reading the series I keep accidentally typing Games Without Thrones. Sigh.

This is a book about the history Afghanistan and a view from the inside of the various invasions of British, Russians, and Americans. It talks about the similarities of all the invasions, of the fate of rulers both conservative and progressive.

It's certainly an important book, especially for Americans, and I think Ansary does the job very well. Having read his Destiny Disrupted I've already developed a great liking for his voice and style. He brings in humor when he can, but it's very much a serious work.

The aspect of "view from the inside" especially comes in towards the end, when you're looking a news coverage of certain events from an especially western point of view and missing the more important part of the story.

7mabith
Editado: Jun 8, 2014, 6:51 pm

3 - Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben MacIntyre

This is the story of the elaborate ruse set up to make the Nazis think the Allies were not invading Sicily but going for Sardinia instead. When I say elaborate, I mean, ridiculously elaborate.

A fake identity was created and attached to a corpse who was set afloat with military papers implying invasion of Sardinia. It was made to come ashore in Spain where it was hoped the intelligence would be passed on to Germany. They created a girlfriend for the corpse, a back story, gave him club receipts, all this stuff yet also left details unattended so that checking on some minor point would show the identity as fake.

The book details all of that and the men and women behind the plot. It also deals with the declassification of the operation, the fight to publish the story first, the real history of the dead man, and the later clamor to identify him.

It was an interesting book, and well-written, though at times it felt tedious. Not the fault of the writing, but of the elaborate plan and the men working it. Sometimes I just wanted to shout at them as they quibbled over minor details and rewrote the letters that would be with the corpse over and over.

Recommended if you have a deeper interest in WWII.

8mabith
Ene 17, 2014, 2:00 pm

4 - Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson by Thomas Maier

I've been aware of Masters and Johnson for a long time, and there was a fair bit about them in Mary Roach's book Bonk (which I loved). I certainly didn't know anything about them personally though, or have a deeper look at the therapies they developed. Apparently there's a Showtime series about them, which is... interesting? It struck me as a little odd, I admit. Maybe it will start a trend and HBO will do a show about Dr. Ruth, which would be quite interesting.

The book follows their separate lives and histories, their working relationship, and their working life. It doesn't go into knowledge gained from different experiments all that much, but more into how those impacted their books, how the books were received, their differences, etc...

It was interesting to me all the way through, especially their approaches to therapy and the way the pair formed a far greater whole for many years.

Recommended, but more so if you have an interest in psychology and this kind of research.

9mabith
Ene 19, 2014, 7:02 pm

5 - The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

This family memoir centers partly around possessions, particularly a set of 264 netsuke taken from Japan to France in the late 19th century. Netsuke are used on cords for robes, at the top of a pouch or bag. The author traces the purchase and the trend of collecting Japanese art and discusses the first owner, a Parisian, before spending the bulk of the book on the next possessors, his great-great-grandfather and below, who lived in Vienna.

The author talks about his own journey to the places his family had lived, his reactions to those places, the histories of those cities when they lived there, the family reactions to the netsuke, etc... I enjoyed the back and forth, and it made the story more interesting. If this had been told as a strict family history I'm sure it would have still been well-written but far less interesting to read. You get pictures of the pre-war and war period in Austria, as well as the post-war period in Japan. The author is very good at creating the atmosphere of the places as well as the family relationships.

Generally recommended, but I wouldn't rush out to buy it.

10mabith
Ene 25, 2014, 4:43 pm

6 - The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz

There's a fair bit of controversy surrounding this book, about the escape from a Russian prison camp and took an 11-month trek to British India.

I tried to treat it as a story more than a true account, but couldn't really enjoy it. The writing style was fairly dull and it made the events seem dull, which is quite the feat. The writing mainly left emotional experience out of the picture.

Not really recommended.

11mabith
Ene 27, 2014, 9:20 pm

7 - Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall

A book about various areas of sleep science and their affects on how we live, the criminal justice system, etc...

First off, the audiobook is a certain type of hell. The reader does voices (all incredibly nasal) for whoever he is quoting. His English, Irish, and Australian accents are incredibly bad. It was so bad I was considering leaving the book. I decided to give it a bit longer on the off-chance that there would be fewer quotes. There were and I powered through a lot of it while playing a silly time management game.

There was a lot of interesting information in this one, especially about our sleep cycles and how they've changed due to modern technology. There's a large section on sleepwalking and court cases, probably in part because the author's own sleepwalking led him to write this book.

Averagely good popular science book. Recommended if you're interesting in this sort of thing.

12mabith
Ene 30, 2014, 11:34 am

8 - Breaking the Maya Code by Michael D. Coe

It took me a very long time to finish this book. Usually with library books I commit to reading at least 50 pages a day. This title I just had such a hard time wanting to read though. I read The Riddle of the Labyrinth at the end of last year, about deciphering Linear B, and really enjoyed that. Breaking the Maya Code is a very different animal, however.

It is very technical in terms of language, of course, and I had a hard time following some of the technicalities, which are incredibly numerous for written Mayan. The author wants to sometimes write casually, making light jokes and such, but it's very much a scholarly work, not a popular history, and when the writing strays from that I don't think it helps the reader.

The history of the decipherment of Mayan writing is also very long and annoying in terms of "so-and-so got one thing right, everything else wrong." There are a LOT of those personalities. Of course the person who helped the most was ridiculed and lambasted by the people who got maybe one important thing right and otherwise just muddied the field. Due to the course of things the big accomplishments aren't made to seem very big, and none of the personalities of individual researchers really stand out.

Back to the style of the writing, the author switches indiscriminately between referring to people with first names, last names, both names, three names, and then suddenly first and middle name for one person. It was incredibly annoying and I would like to strangle the editor who let him get away with that. It's also possible that because the author is a scholar in this field, was present for many of the events described, he has been excited about the subject for so long that he is not able to translate the excitement of these events for the casual reader.

I don't know who I'd recommend this to. Definitely don't read it just because you enjoyed The Riddle of the Labyrinth. I am glad I finished it, but slightly wish I hadn't picked it up.

13mabith
Feb 2, 2014, 5:15 pm

9 - The History of Money by Jack Weatherford

I've really enjoyed the other books I've read by Weatherford, and have been very slowly reading books about financial matters so thought I'd tackle this one. I find his writing easy to follow and and it seems to keep me interested.

This one follows currency, as you'd guess, and the various problems that affect it (inflation, coin to paper, leaving of gold/silver standards, etc..). It goes in chronological order, which I find helpful. It was first published in 1997 though, and while perhaps there was some additional information added for the 1998 paperback, it's a shame there hasn't been a revised edition since Paypal and the huge variety of similar services have risen to such prominence.

Last year I read Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber, which was an exceptional read. It would be interesting to read those two together, since I think they're quite complimentary.

Recommended to the non-fiction enthusiast, rather than those who only read NF occasionally (for the occasional reader I'd say definitely read Debt, which was quite amusing and incredibly interesting).

14qebo
Feb 2, 2014, 6:04 pm

13: Not a topic I'd've thunk to look for, but now that you mention it, both books go onto the wishlist.

15mabith
Feb 4, 2014, 8:51 pm

10 - The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward the Seventh, Secret Partners by David Fromkin

So, the subtitle and description of this book...TOTAL LIES. As in, you could summarize their partnership in two pages. Also, the reversal of billing in the title versus subtitle annoys me.

The book was largely background on Edward VII, then background on Roosevelt, then background on Wilhelm and the various Entente Cordiale agreements. It was interesting stuff, and a period I have an ongoing interest it, but it should have had a different title and the descriptions which largely talk about the relationship between Roosevelt and Edward VII should be changed.

Not really recommended, as I think there are a better books that cover this subject in more detail. This one wasn't badly written or really boring or anything, but it's short and most of it is just background on the various figures.

16mabith
Feb 9, 2014, 6:49 pm

11 - The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire by Anthony Everitt

This is a nice overview of Rome's early history, up to Caesar crossing the Rubicon, including the mythical and rather fanciful stuff. Great for the beginner who's interested in ancient Rome. I like Everitt's writing, and I think he's mindful of pointing out when something is obviously a story, when a story might be motivated by bad will, when deeds are assigned to one person but were probably carried out by numerous people, etc...

The emphasis does usually seem to be on the fall of Rome, or anything post Julius Caesar, so this is a good refresher for previous events. Most of this was refresher for me, but it's nice to see it laid out together and with a lot of context.

Recommended to anyone with an interest, even a tiny budding one. Rome is amazing to study (and never boring).

17mabith
Feb 13, 2014, 12:53 pm

12 - Earth: A Visitor's Guide by Jon Stewart

Whoops, forgot to post about this one. A short, humorous look at our planet and the human race, written as a guide to aliens visiting after we've destroyed ourselves.

Randomly amusing, but not enough. Definitely not something I need to own.

18mabith
Feb 14, 2014, 2:55 pm

13 - How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon

The first thing that drew me to this book was the title. I asked my library to order it and they did (best feeling ever), but before it came I saw some negative reviews.

I'm glad I didn't listen to those to the extent of not reading the book. I can't review this book of personal essays in literary terms. Any book that lets me into an experience that is removed from my own is a good book. Any book that is honest about life in the US is a good book. Any book that reminds me of my privilege and reminds me of the aspects of US life that we'd rather forget (or pretend that ended 50 years ago) is a good book.

Laymon is honest about philosophizing, honest about doubting insights, honest about the core truths of his experiences. The concept behind the title, struck me hard with immediate truth.

It was a good and important book for me to read.

19mabith
Feb 23, 2014, 12:11 am

14 - 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning by Slavko Goldstein

This book is about Croatia, past and present. The author was 13 in 1941, the year the Ustasha regime came to power and separated Croatia from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In that year his father was jailed and killed, his mother was jailed then released, and they joined the Partisans.

The format is interesting, as most chapters begin with events in 1941, but the author carries through to the implications on later events in Croatia. He always follows up on pretty much everyone involved in the 1941 events. Then the next chapter starts with the next event of 1941. Generally I dislike when books aren't written in pretty strict chronological order, but it works really well with this book and with the author's intent (in showing how the events of 1941 impacted the later big events in the region).

One thing I wished this book had was a map of Croatia's borders in 1941 overlaid over the current country borders in the area.

Highly recommended to anyone with a WWII interest (or interest in the more recent conflicts in that area).

20mabith
Mar 2, 2014, 8:48 pm

15 - 800 Years of Women's Letters edited by Olga Kenyon

A wonderful compilation of women's letters grouped into various categories, though very much focused on westerners. It was great to read through, but I can see why it was remaindered.

The organization, editing, and short commentary on the letters really needs some improvement. Sometimes Kenyon made it sound like a letter would include certain things when it didn't, and sometimes her short blurbs before each letter didn't contain enough background information. The cover was also kind of bad, and that really does matter in books. She also occasionally uses letters from novels, which rather annoyed me.

It was a little depressing at times, given how so many of the women's problems and concerns are still our problems and concerns. It's hard to read these things, and books like A Room of One's Own, and feel like we've made no progress (obviously we have, in many arenas, but prevailing social/cultural attitudes take a lot longer to address).

Really a treasure trove of neat letters and perspectives, but I feel like there are better collections out there.

21mabith
Mar 3, 2014, 8:24 pm

16 - Secrets, Sisters, and Sacrifice by Susan Ottaway

A good book about two amazing women, who served in the SOE (Special Operations Executive). Both served in France, helping the resistance, one captured, tortured, and sent to concentration camps, eventually escaping once the allies were on the German's tail.

It's an amazing story, which deserves far more press, and I found the book interesting all the way through, with no lags. Given the events I don't think anyone could find it dry.

22qebo
Mar 3, 2014, 8:52 pm

>21 mabith: A blurb says this was discovered when one of them died as the cat lady.

23mabith
Mar 3, 2014, 9:14 pm

Yes, that's true, though she wasn't actually the recluse they made her out to be. She didn't want any stories about her service while she was alive (she was Eileen Nearne, the one who was tortured and sent to Ravensbruck and another camp).

24mabith
Editado: Mar 6, 2014, 4:44 pm

17 - Forgotten Voices of the Somme: The Most Devastating Battle of the Great War in the Words of Those Who Survived by Joshua Levine

A personal history of the Somme offensive, told by many men and many ranks, with different jobs, different battles, and different end view-points.

Levine divides the book into sections, and gives brief commentary at the beginning of each, especially about the different battles and more of an over-view of the situations, but he lets the soldier's words do the rest. It begins with passages about recruitment and general life in the trenches, before sharing some experiences of Verdun, as it led to the Somme offensive being pushed ahead and made more a battle of attrition in order to relieve pressure on the French. Then a short section about the lead up to July 1 and the first attacks before the first experiences of going over the top on July 1, then more of the specific battles and finally a very short section where the soldiers are looking back on their experiences.

There are a few perspectives on the war, Haig's leadership, etc... but they boil down to "bloody butchers," "everything was necessary and correct," and "it was hell but I loved it" (the first camp certainly had the most voices). Very few had anything bad to say about the Germans.

No complaints about this book. First hand testimony is so important for events like this, and I'm extremely glad we have it. I thought Levine laid out everything quite well, gave enough detail on battles but not too much, and never tried to talk over the men. Each bit of testimony includes the man's name, rank, and unit (if that's the word I want), and you hear from some (perhaps most, I didn't pay that much attention) men multiple times.

25mabith
Mar 7, 2014, 6:07 pm

18 - The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

I remembered this book when I was going through my old ER requests. It's very short, but important. Of course it does not represent all autistic people, but it is first-person, it is not a care-giver or parent or teacher speaking for autistic people and that's the biggest thing. It was a wonderful insight.

I was heartbroken at just how much the word "normal" was used, at how hard people had obviously tried to force the author to conform (and for such silly things as eye-contact). Higashida talked about "tells us if our behaviors are bothering people, we don't want to bother people" when of course allistic (non-autistic) people do annoying things all day long and we just deal with it, we would never approach them to ask that they stop, or feel we could ask them to control their child from doing "normal" things which are annoying. Even more seriously annoying/disturbing behaviors are rarely brought up, as we're taught it's rude to do such things, only suddenly that's okay when the person is autistic or thought to have ADHD etc...

In getting more involved with the disabled activist community and issues of ableism I've learned a lot more about autism in the last two years. That means I came at this book from a different point than I would have three years ago, a better place, I think.

26mabith
Mar 11, 2014, 3:03 pm

44 - Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World Without World War I by Richard Ned Lebow

For me, the best thing about this book was the binding (it lay nice and flat). So that tells you something right away.

What If books are a common thing anymore, and a world without the world wars is a common topic in them. Lebow takes a different tack than I've seen before. What I've read prviously makes me think that Germany and Austria-Hungary would have used any slight pretext for war, and lacking a good one would have created one themselves. Lebow sees them as more cautious but doesn't ever explain way.

Organization is a big problem in this book. The very last chapter "A Look Back at the Real World" actually focuses mainly on the What If world, and rather than summarizing and strengthening his positions he uses it to bring up topics he's barely addressed in the rest of the book.

He switches between the real world and What If world in the middle of paragraphs, and the only real separation comes when he talks about the differing lives of specific people in the middle chapters. He mentions changes as if he's already explained them but that explanation comes chapters later or not at all.

At times he directly contradicts himself. First he mentions in passing that JFK's older brother Joe, killed in WWII, would become president without the world wars. Then later he says JFK never would have been nominated without the wars due to pervasive anti-Catholic bias, then chapters later he's back to Joe as president, nothing about how he overcame the more severe Catholic bias of the imagined world. There were several of these contradictions.

Lebow gives a random date for the creation of a League of Nations in a world without the wars, but no explanation for why it would come about at that time. He speculates that a certain person would have been a patient of Freud solely because they were Jewish and most of Freud's patients "came from Jewish professional families," with no mention of what problems would have brought the patient there. He spends 2 1/2 pages speculating on the possible career of an artist who actually died as a teenager. I made a lot of similar notes throughout the book.

In the end he offers almost no justification for any of his ideas about the world without the wars, even the most basic ones. It almost seems like this book was an outline or proposal for a novel, rather than a stand-alone piece of non-fiction writing.

I do not recommend this to anyone.

27SteveJohnson
Mar 11, 2014, 10:36 pm

I think it works better if you're a meso-American junkie because figuring out how to decode the Mayan language has answered so many questions about the history and culture of maybe the most important pre-Columbian culture of the Americas. I've always been enthralled by the mysteries and ironies and tragedies so common to archaeology -- the hundreds if not thousands of Mayan texts that were burned by Spanish priests, one of whom also wrote down an attempt at translating a text that ended up providing important clues to deciphering the language; a Soviet academic who never visited the Americas who unexpectedly figured out some key concepts (and was roundly ignored, because he was a Communist); and a dominating Type A academic (Eric Thompson) who ridiculed anyone who didn't agree with his thesis that the texts were all calendrical observations by peace-loving priest-astronomers -- when most of them --at least on the large monuments -- are historical documents about one chief's conquest of his neighbors.
I agree, there's heavy slogging, so it's recommended only for those who are into figuring out the Mayas. But I have to point out that this all happened only fairly recently, in the past 25 years, so for some of us, at least, it is an amazing tale of how a fairly small group of specialists used some smart guesses and really good acrostic skills to figure out a letter here and a syllable there and eventually managed to read entire texts that recreate a thousand years of meso-American history.

28mabith
Editado: Mar 13, 2014, 10:25 am

Oh it's definitely an amazing tale and the people were amazing personalities as well. That's really why I was so sad I didn't love the book. It's exactly the kind of story I should be interested in, and the kind of thing I like to read. That's where I do think the author was so deep in the subject that unless you've had a longer term interest in those exact people and that exact process it's hard to enjoy his writing about it (since that was his life). When that stuff is being given a general rather than a solely academic market I think it's often better written by an interested outsider.

29mabith
Mar 13, 2014, 10:25 am

20 - The Diary of Thomas A. Edison by Thomas A. Edison

Edison only kept a diary (that we know about) for a short period in 1885, basically two weeks in July. This is after his first wife died, and just after he meets the woman who would become his second wife. I slightly wonder if he kept it for her, really (I've done that myself), or perhaps he was just feeling so uplifted finally that he had to write.

The book features a bit of biographical information, quite a few pictures, and then photocopies of the diary pages. His handwriting is so lovely. A mix of script and print, and very neat (once you get used to the loopy Ls and a few other little things).

The really great thing about this work is the humour! Edison was quite the card (lots of puns). It's also interesting for the random scientific observations and the way words have changed. I'm kicking myself for not writing any down, but there will be a word which is not quite in it's current form, with slightly different parts attached but obviously on its way to being our word. Skimming back through I found one - architectualist versus architect. Not my favorite example, but you get the idea. He also recounts his dreams quite frequently.

"...Darwin has it right. They make themselves pretty to attract the insect world who are the transportation agents of their pollen. Pollen freight via Bᵉᵉ line."

(Being raised on a steady diet of Rocky and Bullwinkle shows, I have a weakness for such humour. Rather than groaning at Peabody and Sherman punchlines I love myself laughing.)

30mabith
Editado: Mar 21, 2014, 4:30 pm

21 - Dave Gorman Vs The Rest of the World by Dave Gorman

A book about Gorman's experiences after he asked Twitter if anyone wanted to play a game. He travels about playing different games with different people. Some are well-known classics, some are oddball niche creations, some barely known vintage offerings, and a couple newer German board games.

It's a neat little book, and Gorman is good at giving us the experience. It was a nice little break and interesting to think about what can build up around playing games ('real' games, not computer games). A nice reading break for me.

(However, Mr. Gorman, Americans are not actually confused by the word autumn.)

31mabith
Mar 17, 2014, 5:21 pm

22 - Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland

A rather fun book about Xerxes' attempt to conquer Greece. I don't know enough about this period to judge the history. Holland states in the beginning that there are differing views about the events but doesn't point those out through the book. What he's giving you is a story of action and adventure, rather than a detailed history.

For me, that was fine. It's probably a good overview and starting point, plus a nice adventure read. I didn't enjoy it as much as Holland's Rubicon, but ancient Rome is my biggest period of interest and there are more historical sources to use as well.

32mabith
Editado: Mar 21, 2014, 4:30 pm

23 - Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat

This is Danticat's family memoir which focuses on her father and uncle, who was a second father to her (taking care of her and her brother for the eight years before they joined their parents in the United States).

It's a wonderful book and if you've enjoyed her fiction I think you'll appreciate the chance to know more about the author and her life. It of course involves the political situations in Haiti throughout her family's life.

The book does an excellent job of immersing you in her family and their strong relationships. I enjoyed it for that, temporarily being a part of another family with such different experiences from my own. The ordering of the book was smart and worked well for me and the writing is very good, though of course not the lovely prose of her novels. Recommended.

33mabith
Mar 22, 2014, 10:36 am

24 - The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising by Robert Shogan

This book mainly focuses on the events leading up to the battle, rather than that event itself. If you've already read most of the books about this subject (as I have) then this one doesn't fill a gap. I don't think it really provides more information about the event than Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields, which is the most comprehensive book about the West Virginia Mine Wars.

However, if you've never read about the unionizing of WV's southern coal fields, where the UMWA had their hardest fights, then this book might be a good introduction. It's a relatively short book and gives a good taste of the conflict and some of the largest events. Two books have been released since this was published that would have likely effected the text, I think. Matewan Before the Massacre (which I've started but put on hold for now) and When Miners March which is directly about the Blair mountain incident, written by the son of the principal march and battle leader.

I got this as an ARC about ten years ago, and wow, it had more typos than any ARC I've ever seen (and between working in a bookstore, being a librarian's daughter, and LT I've seen a lot). It was so odd. It got a little better in the second half of the book, but there were a lot of double spaces or lack of space things. They were just odd typos. I mean, it had Welsh instead of Welch (a town) the first five or six times it mentioned the name.

34mabith
Abr 1, 2014, 11:33 am

25 - Memoirs of a Medieval Woman by Louise Collis

Margery Kempe was a hyper-religious, middle class woman from Norfolk, England. She had conversations with god, visions, screaming and crying fits and went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela, among other places. She eventually dictated a book, which is thought to be the first autobiography written in English.

This book is not a copy of her dictation, and frankly, that would only interest me so much (and in terms of her conversations with god and preachings on how to live, not at all). It's interesting to me for her strength of will to do these things and the obstacles she faced along the way. Collis brings in quotes from Kempe's book several times per page and that's about all the Middle English I can handle. Collis allows you to see the wider picture by talking about what was going on in the world while Kempe was alive, how that affected her actions and actions taken against her, etc... You do get all of Kempe's story, her visions, her travels, how she survived, and the gist of her conversations with god (who always loved and approved of every thing she did). Collis also brings in some quotes from accounts by other travelers in the period, especially to give you a better idea of conditions along the way and how things were done at the sites and in Jerusalem.

It was a really interesting read, and certainly recommended.

35qebo
Abr 1, 2014, 11:41 am

>34 mabith: Huh. Never heard of it. I'm not gonna run right out and get it, but I can see it being an intriguing addition when I'm in the appropriate phase.

36mabith
Abr 1, 2014, 1:24 pm

I read it while I was also listening to The Canterbury Tales, which complemented each other nicely. Definitely if you're reading anything else from or about the period it is a great addition.

37mabith
Abr 14, 2014, 10:34 am

26 - The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones

I was not very far into this book when I started asking myself why ON EARTH I wanted to read such a long, wide-ranging book focused on kings and queens. It wasn't a bad book by any means, though rather dry, this just isn't a topic I have enough interest in to warrant reading this type of book.

Some really interesting things happened in this period of course, and you can't really read about most of English big-picture history without a royal focus. I think though, what I really wanted was a book focusing on the challenges to royal authority in the period.

If you like a wide-sweeping history book and don't mind it being quite dry, this might be for you. If you're already interested in the Plantagenets then this is probably too broad and too repetitive for you. If you're trying to spree-read all of English history then this would fit that project well.

38mabith
Editado: Abr 16, 2014, 7:41 pm

27 - Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World by Mitchell Stephens

This was a very lukewarm book for me. I was happy and eager to learn about the history of outspoken atheism, and fine with that tying into a bigger picture of modern innovations and lack of faith allowing further prodding into the universe. However, the 'creating the modern world' aspect was not really discussed all that much, and when it was I sometimes found the leaps kind of ridiculous (mostly in regards to modern art movements). I didn't mind that it wasn't addressed much, because the history was the interesting part.

However, there were aspects of this book which truly annoyed me. In the opening chapter the author states that "one of this book's purposes is to search for an ethic of atheism." This came up regularly throughout the book, but not so much that you'd guess this was one of his purposes. While old-time atheists felt the need to come up with proofs and evidence that religion was false, they lived in a very different world, one in which professing disbelief could be a death sentence and religion had a much more prominent role in daily life, not to mention the legal system. I am an atheist but it's simply shorthand for "I don't believe in any gods." I find it disturbing when atheism is turned into a philosophy (just become a Buddhist if you want that).

The author seems, at times, convinced that atheists can't be good, moral people without a specific ethic to refer to. He states that "Most of our conclusions about what is good and what is worthwhile can be connected...to myths, revelations, commandments, prophecies, gospels..." This seems to ignore that humans are communal animals, and that quite a lot of good behavior stems from having to live successfully in communities. I did not grow up with any religion, but learned every important moral lesson just from being part of a family and being in school. "Non-believers must contemplate His (god's) absence," was another line that had me scratching my head, along with we are "just discovering how to find meaning without relying on some external dispenser of meaning."

I could go on point by point, to some other things I found odd and annoying, but this is really long enough. The tone of the book makes me feel like the author must have been a very sincere believer in god at least until age 18 (vs just a body in a pew). These questions are so far removed from my experiences, or those of my parents (who WERE taken to church each week as children, attended Sunday school, went to church camp, etc...).

In the end, the history of early outspoken atheists was very interesting, the writing isn't a joy to read but it isn't (generally) painful to read either (at times it read more like it was meant to be a spoken lecture), and main concern of the book seems to skip around a bit. I feel like there are probably better histories of atheism that are both more complete and don't go on about giving atheism a specific philosophy.

39mabith
Abr 16, 2014, 7:40 pm

28 - Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall by Spike Milligan

A short, largely humorous memoir full of typical Milligan lines but also some serious talk about the war and the fear. The sudden shift to a more serious note can be a little jarring, but that's kind of how life is.

40qebo
Abr 17, 2014, 9:42 am

>38 mabith: "Non-believers must contemplate His (god's) absence,"
Huh? I'd suppose this to be true of people who once had a god and lost faith, and have to reconfigure their mental world, but I didn't grow up Christian or anything else, so I'd have trouble in the opposite direction.

ethic of atheism
Hmm... Be respectful, be kind, be honest, give what you can, fix what you broke, leave it better than you found it... No Voice of Authority necessary.

41mabith
Abr 17, 2014, 11:43 am

It was really baffling how complicated he seemed to find atheism. Definitely not the questions for those of us who didn't grow up religious, and so distracting from the purported aim of his book. The people I know who were raised very religious and who did believe pretty strongly all just felt relief when they stopped believing. They didn't feel lost, they didn't feel any behavior was acceptable, they didn't feel their lives had lost their meaning, they were just relieved and somewhat less conflicted about how to be a good person (these were Mormons, Jehovah's Witness and Catholics not, say, Episcopalians).

One of his 'shadow gods' which I found oddest was the claim that if you believed you should do what you can to help other people and the world at large then that's a shadow god. Yet he's talking about an ethic for atheism...

42mabith
Abr 22, 2014, 3:03 pm

29 - The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley

This is not a good book. This is the definition of bad popular science writing, as it over-simplifies everything to a massive extent and completely ignores some really important things. Seeing just how bad this was in the areas where I am knowledgeable means I couldn't trust a word of what he said in the areas where I'm less knowledgeable.

Matt Ridley thinks everyone is too pessimistic, and while the news does tend to be (probably because it attracts more attention), I feel like people, on a whole, swing the opposite way. But maybe that's because I'm an optimist. Ridley repeatedly states how great your ancestors would find modern life, as if that has any meaning in these debates.

A good example of the book's flaws is his whole section of Wal-Mart and the fact that it's been a good thing for "poor people." Well, no. It's been a good thing for a small section of people, in terms of saving them money shopping (which is also debatable, since these stores thrive on convincing you everything is a great deal but then in fact charging more for certain items, relying on your laziness about actually comparing prices). It's also been instrumental in creating food deserts, so that many low income people who cannot get to the closest Wal-Mart (often 30 miles away in rural areas) now rely on convenience stores and dollar stores for food, all of which is heavily processed, often high in salt, sugar, and fat, and more expensive than raw ingredients.

Ridley largely seems to confuse being concerned about an issue with being pessimistic about humanity's future. He often doesn't seem to understand "the other side's" point of view beyond a newspaper headline simplification.

If you go by what he says then being pessimistic didn't actually hurt us at all, so big whoop. There could be a good book in this, if it had more regard for the complexity of these issues and wasn't so reactive. Not recommended.

43mabith
Abr 25, 2014, 2:16 pm

30 - Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, and Jefferson by Gore Vidal

A great first step into early American history. It is definitely just the first step into our history beyond the pap they teach you in high school, as it's quite a short book. Would be a great gift for someone just starting to explore this period of history.

Vidal keeps it pretty punchy and it certainly made me want to go on a founding fathers spree. He gives a fair bit of attention to Hamilton and Madison as well. This is the book I'll buy for each of my nieces and nephews the year they take American history in high school.

44mabith
mayo 2, 2014, 1:38 pm

31 - Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life by David Treuer

This book is a combination of memoir, journalism, and history, which allows it to be more effective and forceful than if it were strictly one of those genres. It is an important book, and I were teaching American studies at the high school I attended it would be on the curriculum (a place where teachers actually have complete control over the syllabus and books used).

The most important thing I picked up from it was in regards to judging our progress as a society. Well-meaning people apologizing for past or current crimes of their nation is not the marker, whether or not the bigots are FORCED to apologize for their racist remarks/actions is. That's the real win when you're in a marginalized group (in regard to that specific issue), not that fact that more people behave as they should. It was not something I'd thought of before, but immediately felt its truth in an abstract and a personal sense (as a disabled woman).

45mabith
mayo 7, 2014, 1:01 pm

32 - Alice's Piano: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer by Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki (Also titled A Garden of Eden in Hell)

This is an excellent biography of a fascinating woman, until this past February she was the oldest Holocaust survivor, at 110 years. Born in 1903 she saw an immense amount of change in her life. The book was an easy read, something you just want to keep on with until you're done. If I hadn't been in such an awful state this week I probably wouldn't have finished in a couple of days.

Alice was a concert pianist and piano teacher in Prague, well-regarded by many, imprisoned in Theresienstadt when he son was very young. She credits music with saving her life, and being a talented musician certainly did save her life in a very literal sense. The book brings in many statements from people who heard her perform, in Theresienstadt and out, and the effect her playing had on their will to survive. It also talks of the specific character of certain pieces of music and her relationship to them, including the 24 Chopin etudes, which Alice devoted significant time to mastering after her mother was sent the camps.

The book is well-written and very well constructed. When certain pieces of music were being discussed I had them playing as I read, which adds a lot, especially when they're talking about the etudes. I am so glad she agreed to have this book written. Highly recommended.

46Helenliz
mayo 7, 2014, 1:31 pm

>45 mabith: I saw her obituary and made a mental note to find the book and read it. Thanks for the reminder, and good to know that such a life is a rewarding read.

47mabith
mayo 10, 2014, 11:53 pm

33 - Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America by Benjamin Woolley

Not a bad book at all, though I wasn't as gripped by it as I should have been. The writing could have been a bit less dry. I have a personal interest, as one of my ancestors was there and survived all his time there (and eventually one of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren had two children, a boy and a girl, and named them Francis and Frances, which I find hilarious).

Mostly this left me thinking how excited I'd be if Candice Millard or Caroline Alexander tackled the Jamestown story.

48mabith
mayo 18, 2014, 7:26 pm

34 - Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan

A long book, but very worthwhile. I'd had a different WWI book by MacMillan on my list, but read some criticisms that made me give it a miss for now (I've read a lot about the war already, and have plenty of other books about it on my list). I knew almost nothing about the working out of the treaty though, and found this book to be a great study of it.

MacMillan sets out to give us a thorough view of the process, the people involved, the nations involved, good intentions swiftly left behind, and the ferocious scrabbling for new territory. She does not deal in speculations in this book at all, except in terms of refuting those made by others. I appreciated just getting the facts.

I'm in a group where strangers choose books from your TBR list for you to read, and this was the choice. I wasn't exactly in the mood for such a long audiobook (26 hours), but the tapes flew by once I started. Recommended. If you only feel the need to read a couple WWI books in your life, make this one of them.

49mabith
mayo 24, 2014, 4:06 pm

83 - Latino Americans: The 500 Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation by Ray Suarez

This is the companion to a PBS series, apparently, though I didn't know that when I started it.

I found it well-written and organized and my interest certainly never flagged. It covers a lot of bigger events and issues in brief, which was good for me. It's a nice start for some more in-depth reading and certainly worked at filling gaps in my knowledge.

Recommended.

50mabith
mayo 25, 2014, 7:19 pm

36 - The Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave like Humans by John Marzluff

I listened to this eight-hour audiobook in a single day while I obsessively worked on my own digital version of Jane Mount's Ideal Bookshelf paintings (sorry Ms. Mount, my mama raised me to think "Hmm, I can do that myself" when looking at most everything).

So yeah, I really enjoyed this one. I love crows, always have. Even though sparrows, starlings, robins, morning doves and such birds freak me out, I've always liked crows (and most big birds). This book gave me an extra respect for them and made me really regret that it's illegal to have them as pets (which I really don't understand, given that people can keep parrots and all manner of other birds). Though, at the same time I've generally felt that if you love birds how could you keep them as pets? Different for injured animals who can't return to the wild though.

This review really shows I've had two beers (being on muscle relaxers = takes nothing to feel tipsy!).

It was really a great book, recommended to everyone whether you like birds or hate them. It's really fascinating stuff, and by god don't ever piss off a crow. If you even suspect there's a dead crow nearby DON'T GO NEAR IT, the crows will blame you and harass you for a seriously long time (one guy moved house!). On the other hand if you're nice to them they'll leave you shiny trinkets!

51mabith
mayo 28, 2014, 9:53 am

37 - The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames by Kai Bird

This book contained was comprised of almost entirely new information information for me. Middle-eastern history post-WWII isn't something I've studied even superficially and barring some large events (Iran Contra, Six Days War, etc...) I was in the dark.

That said, this was an excellent book to start me off in that direction. While it follows the life and work of one man, a CIA agent, it does give you a lot of background so you're able to understand his work more. The book is very well-written and incredibly readable. The were moments where I felt the author speculated a little too wildly, but I only had that reaction a couple times out of the entire book.

Though it might be said that Ames' work was in vain, I'm so glad this book was published. It's easy to become cynical, especially when it involves the US government and the middle east, but being reminded of good people who worked hard for a good cause helps. That said, I find it incredibly disturbing that for decades in the CIA being an intellectual was seen as detrimental (and I wouldn't really want to assume that attitude has changed).

Highly recommended. I've been in a bad state lately, so getting myself to pick this up was always hard, but once I did it always gripped me.

52mabith
mayo 30, 2014, 1:25 pm

38 - The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History by Colin McEvedy

This review is based on the original publication and not the revised version which was published in the 90s. I hope they took out the casual racism along with fixing historical mistakes (and adding sources)...

This book uses a fixed map encompassing Europe, the near east, and a tiny bit of northern Africa. Over this he creates three types of map. One showing the boundaries of countries and dominions, one showing the boundaries of eastern and western Christianity, and the third showing trade routes and goods. It's the kind of book would have ADORED as a kid (particularly the ancient history edition).

McEvedy was not a historian and he does not provide sources. His writing style is relatively interesting, and not dry. He provides commentary on each map page basically catching you up on the changes from the previous map. It starts in 406 AD and most are set about 20 years apart, but it differs a fair bit.

This was written in 1961... "Ireland, which had been slipping from the English grip for over a century, finally drifted to its aboriginally squalid freedom."

Another one that made me blink a bit for the randomness... "It is un-Marxist to suppose that a merely human event some three and a half thousand miles away could influence the inexorable progress of history... Most of us bourgeois, however, fell that the Khan's demise saved central Europe from a very nasty ravage."

I'm going to look through the revised editions and if they check out I'll send them off to my oldest niece and nephew. The niece takes after me and my dad in slightly preferring non-fiction.

53mabith
mayo 31, 2014, 4:17 pm

39 - Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

This books delves into the problems with textual analysis of Biblical texts (because there aren't originals and because the oldest copies we have differ, sometimes in key ways). It also deals with why changes happened, whether it was to appeal Pagan critics or because a particular story didn't seem in-character or to edit women out of texts. He spends a good bit of time on how we can tell which version of text is likely to be the changed one.

I am not religious, and I'm not looking to debate religious people, I just like having this information. The Bible has had a huge impact on the world and I think any fan of history reading is interested in religious history too. I really enjoyed Ehrman's book Forged, but Misquoting Jesus didn't me grip quite as much. I think it's probably of more interest to believers, in general, though I'm not sorry I read it.

Of course I left it feeling like he's not said anything particularly shocking or upsetting or radical, since there's scholarly basis for all of it, and then find there are at least two reaction books about how everything he said was wrong. Sigh.

54mabith
Jun 3, 2014, 1:16 pm

40 - Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation by Aisha Tyler

Well, subtitle is certainly an accurate reflection of the book! This consists largely of very short chapter about the wide variety of humiliating things that have happened to Tyler. In the process we could a general picture of the stages in her life and the beginnings of her comedy career.

I only know Tyler from her voice work, so being familiar with her comedy career isn't necessary for enjoying this book. It was a fun, quick read, and I'm sure there are one or two stories that anyone reading can relate to.

55mabith
Jun 8, 2014, 9:40 pm

41 - Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

I don't think I've read anything directly about the Spanish Civil War, so this was an interesting start. It's very good writing of course, and the mix of nationalities fighting makes it such an interesting conflict from modern standards.

It is quite an annoyed book in terms of Orwell's feelings about basically everything. Most chapters are "they (militia, press, government, peasants, etc...) should have been THIS but instead they were doing THAT and it is so frustrating!"

56mabith
Jun 21, 2014, 10:11 pm

42 - The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks

Well, I didn't pay much attention to the subtitle when I started this book, so I was expecting more pirates and less Jefferson, but it was a very interesting book. This is the same author who wrote Island of Vice by which time he'd refined his style just a bit.

This one covers a fair bit of territory and an interesting, little studied piece of American history. It is rather disturbing just HOW little American history gets covered in an entire year of school here though.

It was interesting, not the best book ever. I didn't feel transported there, or exceptionally eager to commit this to memory. Recommended if you want a random slice of founding fathers history (with hints of scandal!) or if you have a deeper interest on why the marines sing about the shores of Tripoli.

57mabith
Jun 21, 2014, 10:43 pm

43 - Civil War in West Virginia by Winthrop D. Lane

This is collection of period writings about the labor struggles in WV in the first few decades of the 20th century. They were written originally for a newspaper series, for the New York Evening Post, and then collected into a book, possibly with a few extra chapters added or just some slight editing to make it feel more like a book. Lane spent six weeks in the area and attempts to present a balanced view of the situation. Sometimes made hard by the company views/actions.

It was very interesting to me since the vast majority of what I've read about the conflict was written in the 1990s. Lane interviews operators, miners, union leaders, etc... and tries to cover as many of the issues as possible, though there's a lot he leaves out. That's especially evident in the disagreements between the UMWA and many WV miners (leading to unofficial work stoppages not sanctioned by the union and a bit of a extra bad blood between union-seekers and companies). The typical things the union fought for weren't necessarily wanted in WV, where some general practices were different, including some major things like the company town aspect that completely dominated the southern mines, where workers did not own their houses and weren't given even a week's notice before eviction, and the fact that they were paid in scrip and could only shop at the company store.

It's such an interesting period in labor history and deserves so much more attention (the whole of it, not just bloodiest bits). Really glad I finally got around to reading this, especially since it took me ages to track down a copy (I bought mine via ebay, the seller was in Yorkshire!).

Large companies are so short-sighted. If they'd simply paid the workers in actual money, let them buy their own houses, and employed checkweighmen, then they wouldn't have had to raise wages for decades or had much union trouble. Walmart could take a hint...

58drneutron
Jun 22, 2014, 2:06 pm

Gonna have to keep an eye out for The Pirate Coast. That one sounds like it would be right up my alley.

And yeah, it's amazing how much history I find that's pretty fascinating and never taught. It makes me wonder how interesting class would be if history was really taught well!

59mabith
Editado: Jun 27, 2014, 12:12 am

That's the trouble with history really, you can't get to lots of it. My high school (tiny boarding school) focused on a few topics in each history class and covered them in depth rather than trying to cram loads of surface information into us, and used adult non-fiction books for our texts rather than high school textbooks. Since they have to reteach you most everything in college history courses anyway, why not?

60mabith
Jun 27, 2014, 12:12 am

44 - America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins

I little surprised at the shortness of this book when I first looked at the audio information, though it does say it's 600 pages on Amazon, possibly lots of appendixes and notes? The reader was slow, and I actually increased the speed a bit for my listen.

It stays pretty basic, a good first step for readers, and definitely a good thing to get for the 10-14 year old set to start them off. For me it rarely focused on anything I didn't already know.

61mabith
Jul 4, 2014, 10:29 am

45 - Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

A very interesting read, though nothing really surprising in it. It did make me kind of glad I don't eat much processed food anymore. My parents tried to keep all junk out of our house entirely (barring birthday parties), and I think they pushed it too hard early on since my sister and I became complete junk food junkies (it's not like we didn't get to have it at friends' houses). I spent every penny I got on candy and chips for a long time (it did mean I was pretty good at mental math and excellent at calculating tax at age six).

The only thing that surprised me had nothing to do with junk, actually. It was about Lunchables (eww) being marketed to working moms who didn't have time to fix their kids lunches in the morning. Which, first, why are you fixing them the night before and second, why aren't your kids making their own lunches!! I made my own from third grade onward, and I admit I felt pretty smug that I did it myself. I talked to a women's group I'm in and apparently there was quite a feeling of "I wish my mom did it for me" but I suppose that's the difference in how I was transitioned to it. I'm sure my mom couched it in terms of "Now you're old enough to do it yourself! Congrats!" She was sneaky like that

Anyway, the book is worth reading, though I wouldn't call it necessary reading if you already have a dim view of processed food.

62mabith
Jul 10, 2014, 10:50 pm

46 - Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

This is an incredible book. It's extremely informative but just, the level of straight talk and myth busting about abuse, abusers, the abused, the courts... I am in awe of it. Bancroft makes no bones about the fact that most abusers are men and most abused people are women. Other scenarios are talked about, but the facts and ratios are set plainly out. Bancroft points out that he was a believer in some of the myths until he started his more intensive study of and work with abusers.

I was briefly involved in an emotionally abusive relationship, though thankfully it ended before things got really bad. There is nothing like the feeling of being so on guard, so mindful of how you ask for what should be simple, standard things, constantly skittish. Yet there's always a good side to the relationship, especially early on, the person knows how to be occasionally wonderful and the world feels so lopsided. You feel so tiny and insignificant and worthless.

Everyone should read this book, but especially every woman. Disabled women like me are at a far greater risk for abuse. I read it now in part because I saw this quote from it:

“Myth #6: He loses control of himself. He just goes wild.

Many years ago, I was interviewing a woman named Sheila… She was describing the rages that my client Michael would periodically have: ‘He just goes absolutely berserk, and you never know when he’s going to go off like that. He’ll just start grabbing whatever is around and throwing it…. And he smashes stuff, important things sometimes. Then… he calms down; and he leaves for a while. Later he seems kind of ashamed of himself.’

I asked Sheila two questions. The first was, when things got broken, were they Michael’s, or hers, or things that belonged to both of them? She left a considerable silence while she thought.

Then she said, ‘…I’m amazed that I never thought of this, but he only breaks my stuff. I can’t think of one thing he’s smashed that belonged to him.’ Next, I asked her who cleans up the mess. She answered that she does.

I commented, ‘See, Michael’s behavior isn’t nearly as berserk as it looks. And if he really felt so remorseful, he’d help clean up.’”

63mabith
Editado: Jul 15, 2014, 10:43 pm

47 - Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog

This was a really fascinating book about humans' relationships with animals. The divide between pet and food and pest, the way we literally expect our pets to want the things we want (namely things in general).

I tend to feel like I have a country/farm girl attitude towards animals despite never living on a farm. I like them, but I don't agonize over eating meat. I try to eat local meat when I can, and get farm raised eggs (and those are basically pet chickens). I don't have the financial or mental freedom to agonize over it though. I have a cat, but I don't have her to save a pet, I have her because it distinctly benefits me to have a pet. i love her individually but I'll love the next cat just as much, if for different reasons. I have no trouble admitting that if pets didn't benefit humans we wouldn't have them.

One part of the book talks about gender differences in regards to attitudes toward animals, and I don't think the author talks nearly enough about socialization being a factor in differences (and I don't really know why he looked at that aspect anyway, other than some men being obsessed with inherent differences between the sexes). Barring that, it was an excellent and interesting book. Beware the audiobook as the reader does accents (his attempt at Oxbridge is just beyond awful).

Nice little pop. science read. Recommended.

64mabith
Editado: Jul 16, 2014, 5:28 pm

48 - The Sinking of the Lancastria: The Twentieth Century's Deadliest Naval Disaster and Churchill's Plot to Make it Disappear by Jonathan Fenby

That subtitle is a lot more provocative than the truth. Also there's only a page or so focused on the "plot" to cover it up.

It is, however, a little known fact of history, the sinking of a ship carrying nearly 6,000 people (at minimum estimates), military and civilians, wherein over half were killed. One survivor put it correctly in my eyes "War is war, but this was murder" (paraphrasing).

An interesting account, written largely to honor the victims and survivors.

65mabith
Jul 20, 2014, 12:21 pm

49 - Mean Little Deaf Queer by Terry Galloway

This is an absolutely amazing memoir, which doubly pleased me, as it was my pick for a diverse books group I'm in for books about disability. To be clear, most deaf people do not consider themselves to be disabled, and nor do I, but I think there's a line between having a disability and being disabled (and unable to work a traditional job).

Galloway talks a fair bit about her own ableism towards those with more severe disabilities, ableism she experienced, and the feeling of not being "disabled enough." I feel like that's something people in most marginalized groups can understand, not being ENOUGH to fit in somewhere. She addresses the "them" that haunts so many disabled lives and the feeling of being "other."

Her life has been interesting and difficult and loving and all over the place. It's beautifully written, though I'm sure some will find it harder reading than others. She also struggles with episodes of mental illness. She grows so much in this memoir and I found it impossible not to love her.

The audio edition is very well read.

66mabith
Jul 20, 2014, 12:23 pm

50 - The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland

(Given that is a book about poetic forms, rather than simply a book of poetry, which is often not fiction anyway, I'm including it in my non-fiction reading.)

Well, I'm conflicted about the quality of this book. First off, the paper and cover are so cheap, like it's designed almost as a throwaway book for college courses.

I bought it because I like poetry and having something that addressed the various forms would be nice. Each section starts with the rules of the form, but the rules could stand to be more detailed for some and they cover SO FEW forms (only seven, plus a section on stanzas, and then elegies, pastorals, odes and open forms). Some forms don't work as well across languages (such as the haiku), but many of the other European forms should work fine with English and surely they could be covered even if only a few examples are used? They also include poems which do not meet all the rules for a form but don't talk about why they were specifically included. I'd have also liked them to be in chronological order in the sections with date written attached to each poem (they sometimes seemed to be chronological, but I can't be sure).

At first the balance of male to female poets was good but it dropped off sharply in the second half of the book when we'd moved to elegies, pastorals, odds, and open forms. I can understand why they're not using poems in translation in the first half, because then they'd no longer meet the rules of the forms, for the second half they certainly could have. The book is dominated by British and American writers, with three Australians, and maybe six poets from Europe (only I think at least three of those were army brats born in other countries, but not really part of those countries). Didn't even see any Canadians when I glanced through the author summaries.

If you're familiar with Norton anthologies the 330 pages here (not including indexes) will seem incredibly short. If they'd bothered to look at more forms, to be more detailed about the rules, to at least give the rules for forms from other countries that we don't have English language poems of (though I imagine we do for all of them), they could have easily filled this out to the normal length for their large anthologies. I also find it slightly odd that the cover blurb is from a review in the magazine Elle...

67mabith
Jul 20, 2014, 2:31 pm

The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina

Somewhere in everyone's head something points toward home,
a dashboard's floating compass, turning all the time
to keep from turning. It doesn't matter how we come
to be wherever we are, someplace where nothing goes
the way it went once, where nothing holds fast
to where it belongs, or what you've risen or fallen to.

What the bubble always points to,
where we notice it or not, is home.
It may be true that if you move fast
everything fades away, that given time
and noise enough, every memory goes
into the blackness, and if new ones come--

small, mole-like memories that come
to live in the furry dark--they, too,
curl up and die. But Carol goes
to high school now. John works at home
what days he can to spend some time
with Sue and the kids. He drives too fast.

Ellen won't eat her breakfast.
Your sister was going to come
but didn't have the time.
Some mornings at one or two
or three I want you home
a lot, but then it goes.

It all goes.
Hold on fast
to thoughts of home
when they come.
They're going to
less with time.

Time
goes
too
fast.
Come
home.

Forgive me that. One time it wasn't fast.
A myth goes that when the quick years come
then you will, too. Me, I'll still be home.

-Miller Williams

(Sestinas have six stanzas of six lines each followed by an envoi of three lines. The same six end-words must occur in every stanza but in a changing order following a set pattern and must occur in the envoi as well. I like how Williams cheats a bit in the fourth stanza.)

68mabith
Jul 24, 2014, 12:29 pm

51 - A Man and His Ship by Steven Ujifusa

This book follows the life and career of William Francis Gibbs, the naval architect behind the SS United States, perhaps the greatest ocean liner ever built. The unfortunate truth, however, is that it was built at the tail end of the liner era, 1952, and was in use for only a little over a decade. It still holds the fastest time for westward transatlantic crossing. It's true speed capacity and propulsion system were classified until the 1970s or 1980s (I forgot which).

Gibbs wanted to design this particular super liner since he was very young. He was born to a wealthy family, but the wealth was lost by his college years. Gibbs struggled horribly with math all through his school and never finished college. Most of his spare time was spent working on his ideal super liner design with his brother. WWI allowed them an opening into the world of ship design and his career took off from there, albeit going fairly slowly. It follows his big projects but the focus is definitely on the SS United States

The book is well written, and completely in chronological order (which pleases me). It's very accessible, and gives you a short history of passenger liners in general along the way. My favorite new bit of knowledge is that the propulsion system was designed by a woman, Elaine S. Kaplan. She left the engineering business when she had children, though Gibbs tried to keep her with promises of nannies, daycares, and flexible hours.

My grandparents, mom, and aunts sailed on the SS United States in 1963, as the first step in their journey to Egypt. My grandmother said she would be fine to move there but insisted they make the atlantic crossing by boat, not plane. My granddaddy had a time convincing his bosses to pay for it, but he did, and gave my mom and aunts a remarkable experience. I have the menus from their trip and good god, the luxurious food!
Here's one of the every-day dinner menus: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-menus3_zps6cf6d285.j...
Luncheon: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-menus2_zpsabeeb45b.j...
Breakfast: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-menus1_zpsa564d902.j...
Gala Dinner: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-GalaDinnerMenu_zps92...

Safe to say that my mom at 12 and her sisters (9, 7, 4), did not appreciate the food.

69mabith
Jul 24, 2014, 12:50 pm

52 - Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara

A short book about Pilkington's mother's escape from an aboriginal settlement "school" and 1500 mile trek back home along the rabbit-proof fence. The book doesn't try to be incredibly precise (that would be impossible). Due to reports filed about the girls and search parties sent out I don't think there's ever been any doubt that they did this.

The book is best read with the view point of an old aunty telling you a story, with other aunties breaking in at times with extra detail. It was very easy to listen to and just amazing. The sheer act of audacity in attempting to escape at all took so much courage.

What's horribly sad is that the author spent most of her early life in the same facility her mother escaped from. Very worthwhile read, and short enough that everyone should pick it up.

70mabith
Jul 29, 2014, 6:39 pm

53 - A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead

As the title says, this is the story of women in the French Resistance, specifically those who were captured and sent to concentration camps. While statistics are given throughout about the total numbers of French women deported, this book focuses on a group who were together through three camps (Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Ravensbruck). The beginning is taken up with their lives and activities, and why they were arrested, before moving on to their remarkable survival.

While I feel some of this may be altered remembrance, the group seems to have been able to remain remarkably close through their experience, refusing to give in to selfishness. They shared food when they were allowed packages from the outside, they tried to help others in the camps, they certainly helped each other survive the roll calls, and they took moral stands at the risk of their own lives. One was a nurse or doctor and was made to help with medical experiments in Auschwitz. She took a stand saying she would not keep doing it, and a friend forged paperwork saying she'd died and smuggled her back to Birkenau. When they were leaving Ravensbruck one woman smuggled out film which showed the medical experiments there.

They were a remarkable group of women, and though in our eyes so few survived, statistically more than you'd expect survived. They stayed close after the war, and as with many survivors of the camps had difficulty talking about their experiences with their children but opened up far more to their grandchildren.

The end of the book pulls no punches about the number of French who collaborated or who was honored after the war (aka, not women at all) or the ignoring of the huge numbers of people deported and the French role in that. An excellent book, adding another lesser known chapter to your WWII knowledge.

71mabith
Jul 31, 2014, 11:51 am

54 - Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang

I found this to be a very interesting and well-done book. Unlike some others I did not go into it with an idea of Cixi already formed. There have been criticisms that Chang excuses the executions directly ordered by her, but I didn't feel like this was so. She talks about why they were done or thought to be necessary by Cixi, but I don't think that's the same thing as justifying or excusing them, that's just an important part of the history.

Given the very different pressures and expectations on female rulers (even today), I find it amazing she didn't have to deal out more death, honestly (there were maybe 10 at most, and one cold-blooded, direct murder at the very end of her life). No matter how Cixi acted there were always going to be people making up their own truth about her, to fit in with misogynistic views. If she had truly been the devastatingly cruel ruler historians made her out to be should would not have stayed in the picture for so long, and she would not have been allowed to rule in even minor ways. She did not have an army or a league of spies and assassins on her side to threaten people and could easily have been shut away. She had a few loyal friends and her talents kept her involved.

The most interesting thing to me is the constant push and pull between traditional China and the modern world, which happened to everyone involved. The modernizers had their faith and loyalty to traditional things, and the traditionalists had their own weaknesses, I think particularly after seeing the leaps and bounds made by Japan and the military gains of modernization. She was not a paragon of virtue, but what ruler could have been, particularly anyone trying to change a culture so much?

72banjo123
Ago 1, 2014, 1:07 pm

A Train In Winter sounds fascinating. I have it wish-listed.

73mabith
Ago 8, 2014, 2:02 pm

55 - Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King

This book is just what it says, about Leonardo Da Vinci and the painting of The Last Supper. Both about him, and his life during that period, and the painting itself (the symbolism, where it came from, restoration efforts etc...).

It was very interesting, since the general conscious thought about Da Vinci is fairly different than the reality. He finished very few paintings in his life, he was pretty slap-dash (aka why the painting started deteriorating so quickly), he would not have a good rating on Angie's List!

I did think there was occasionally more information than necessary about Bible matters that didn't relate directly to the painting, but it didn't happen too much. I was also disheartened that the author felt the need to address things stated in the book The Da Vinci Code. Plus, isn't all of that also in a "non-fiction" book? So the author could have at least referenced that one instead.

All in all, a good read.

74mabith
Ago 8, 2014, 2:15 pm

56 - How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill by Toni Bernhard

I've had two disabling chronic illnesses for almost 10 years now, so this book is really a bit late for me. Many of the lessons in it I'd already gathered from my personality alone, having four much older siblings, and going to a Quaker high school (not to mention coping with my illness for so long).

It generally deals with coping with our new lives and restrictions. Accepting that suffering is always a part of any life, learning to take joy in others' joy, allowing ourselves to be sad/recognizing that something is hard, building new communities, learning to refocus or drop our stressful thoughts. It will definitely be helpful for some.

One aspect of it I disliked. The mantra "There is sickness here, but I am not sick." Though Bernhard is no longer able to work she always says sick, she never uses the word disabled in reference to herself (though she certainly is disabled, and I wonder if this comes from internalized ableism). For me, disability is an important part of my identity. For one thing it's important for raising awareness about inaccessible spaces and ableism, but it's also just who I am now. It's not ALL that I am, but it's an important part of me. I much prefer my version "There is sickness here, but sickness is not all there is."

75mabith
Editado: Ago 10, 2014, 1:12 pm

57 - Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist

This review is based on an advanced reading copy (uncorrected proof). I've never pointed out when something is an ER book the way many do, should I? I'm going to review the same way no matter what.

Empire of Sin covers a thirty year period of New Orleans history, focusing on the vice industry which was initially legal, but sectioned off into one area of town, Storyville, in the early 1890s. To the white, New Orleans elite jazz also came under a heading of vice.

I enjoyed this book, and found the writing good if not amazing. The flow between topics worked well, as Krist introduces us to well-known people in this period and we follow them off and on throughout the book. The murder aspect of it (following some major crimes of the era) sometimes seemed out of place, especially since there were no moral campaigns directed in that area.The scope of this title is a little hard to pin down, it is both a big picture and narrow history book. This didn't bother me while reading though, just while thinking about my review!

New Orleans has a somewhat unique place in southern US history, due to it's outside status early on and initially more liberal society (compared to the rest of the deep south). The author is quick to point out privilege and racism where necessary, and I appreciated that. This is also the period where Jim Crow started to take hold in New Orleans (later than most of the south), and much of the will behind campaigns against vice was directed at making 'racial mixing' illegal.

I would recommend this book for people who enjoy US history, and want a clear view of the progression and effects of the 'moral' crusades of this period (including prohibition). It is not the deepest book, due to covering various topics, but it's a great primer for developing deeper interest in these topics.

Also great for anyone interested in the birth of jazz! Those sections were so interesting. Wish I'd thought to play some of those artists while I read.

76mabith
Ago 12, 2014, 1:55 pm

58 - Rommel? Gunner Who?: A Confrontation in the Desert by Spike Milligan

The second in Spike Milligan's war memoirs. This one has more serious moments than the first, as they approach the fighting lines and there's more contact with German shelling. It's still WWII at it's funniest, of course. I admit I do find the switch from manic comedy to serious wartime fears to be a little jarring, particularly since I'm listening to audio editions read by Milligan himself. In this book also is his first awareness (though I think not meeting) of Peter Sellers and another future Goon, though now I forget who.

77mabith
Ago 16, 2014, 4:37 pm

59 - Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris by Graham Robb

I'm afraid I found this "Adventure History" rather dull. The format didn't work for me at all, and going from the summary and introduction, I was expecting something quite different.

My impression was that this would be a jaunt around Paris, a specific walking path and would tie in monuments and sites that were less well known and talk about the adventurous history behind them. Perhaps someone more familiar with the city would feel that was accomplished (other than the walking tour aspect), but I did not. More over, the various tales from history weren't really told in an exciting way, things that should have been interesting and exciting were rendered dull. Perhaps it was the fault of the audio edition. Whatever the issue, I just couldn't get into this.

This was actually my second go at the title, the first time I listened I found I just kept spacing out, so I stopped after the first hour. This time I was more determined, but it was a struggle.

Not really recommended. Try to read a chapter or so first before you buy if it seems like something you'd like.

78mabith
Ago 18, 2014, 2:40 pm

60 - Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It by Jennifer Michael Hecht

I have Hecht's book Doubt, about the history of atheism, on my life, but not being up for a 24 hour audiobook, I picked up Stay. It seemed like timely reading, of course.

It is a good book, dealing only with depressive (and other similar) types of suicide, not with end-of-life care during fatal illnesses. It talks about the history of reactions to suicide, as well as bringing up many arguments against it from a wide variety of philosophies. It also includes a lot about the contagious nature of suicide, and the sometimes small actions that encourage or discourage it.

Having had a front-row seat, so-to-speak, for the suicide of a teenaged cousin when I was in high school, certainly affected my attitude towards the act. Watching his mother struggle afterword was a real education.

There were many ways this idea was expressed, but this was my favorite:
Suicide “takes from the universe the goodness that is you.”

79mabith
Ago 20, 2014, 2:11 pm

61 - The Belle Epoque of the Orient Express by M. Wiesenthal

You would think from the title and the fact that the book is full of pictures from 1880s to the early 1920s, that this is a book about the golden age of the Orient Express or the train during the Belle Epoque period, NOPE!

This book is a sort of travelogue of someone's third class journey on the train in 1976. Only is it a normal travelogue that waxes on about the train and its history? NOPE! It's like a beat poet travelogue in the worst sense which tells you nothing interesting or useful about the trip. It includes imaginary conversations between the writer and the (seemingly fictional) basis for a Tolstoy character.

It was awful, but short, and I needed it for my ROOT rainbow reads. Here is an excerpt from the imaginary conversation section:
"Let me tell you, my dear friend, that time doesn't exist. It is just another absurd invention of those who want to find logic in everything."
The watermelons of Trieste are large and red.
"The idea that there is logic in the world belongs to Aristotle who was a cretin."
The melons of Trieste have writing on their skin.
"The worst thing that one can be in this life is a classic cretin like Aristotle, a cretin with a face like a bust."
The figs of Trieste show the red pulp of their heart through their bursting skins.
"The whole of European culture comes from Aristotle. And that's why it's stupid."
Trieste is the city of fruits.

80mabith
Ago 24, 2014, 9:43 am

62 - Ireland: A Concise History from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day by Paul Johnson

Really this is a history of the English in Ireland, which isn't too surprising for the later centuries especially, but well over half the book focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries. I couldn't help but feel anything not related to the English in the earlier years was skipped.

It was an okay read, not a great read, probably not the best of its kind. I also felt there was a pro-Britain bias at times.

81mabith
Ago 25, 2014, 4:30 pm

63 - Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker & the Rise & Fall of the Comanche Nation by S.C. Gwynne

I have mixed feelings about this book. Gwynne uses the the word civilized way too much and it's only occasionally sarcastic (likewise savage), and it really wasn't necessary. There were also some dodgy bits, talking about how few people preferred life with a native tribe about one in a white community. From everything I've read that's not true. Jamestown had quite a problem with settlers running off to live with the native Americans and having to be dragged back. Plus, among child captives (the subject here) there don't seem to be any who were willing to return to white society.

There was also the matter of the statement that native Americans were "naturally violent." Later he points out that nearly all peoples at the level of technology behaved the exact same way. When he talks about white settlers having a clear idea of "good and evil" and being horrified by native attacks that involved kidnap and rape, well, are we saying whites with their clear, Christian code didn't do those things to the tribes or African slaves or their own servants? White morality often seems ONLY to apply to other whites of the same or higher social standing (and often the person judging doesn't apply the standard to himself). I was a little surprised this was written in 2010.

It was an interesting book on the whole, with a lot that I was interested in, barring my reactions to some of his language and statements. I can't judge the accuracy of the information in general, of course. The organization of the material could have been better in parts. On the whole it seems like a good portrait of the area's history (mainly Texas) during the middle and end of the 19th century.

82qebo
Ago 25, 2014, 4:39 pm

>81 mabith: Empire of the Summer Moon
I got this book spontaneously a year or so ago without knowing anything about it beyond the cover description; haven't yet read it. Yeah, in 2010 I would not expect any culture or its members to be described as "naturally violent" or morally superior. Disappointing. Still, the content looks interesting.

83mabith
Ago 25, 2014, 5:18 pm

I think it's still worth reading, in a lot of ways. Gwynne was perhaps overly-focused on the fact that the idea of the totally peaceful native American tribe at harmony with everything had become a pervasive part US culture, which isn't generally accurate. While it's good to represent things accurately, and the Comanches were nothing if not a warrior society, it seemed to infect his language and tone.

84mabith
Ago 31, 2014, 9:21 pm

64 - Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Just as an upfront, the book is really nothing like the TV show. There are some personalities taken for the show, and a very very few events.

It's an interesting topic, and Kerman generally handles it well. Her own awareness of her part in the drug trade evolves as she spends more time among women in jail for drug charges. Given how much time passed between knowing she would go to prison and actually going, she was able to really prepare herself, and of course her experiences come from a very privileged place.

She did rub me the wrong way sometimes (as did the show), and showed her ignorance at times (equating a trans woman's voice lowering because she wasn't given access to hormones - estrogen doesn't affect voice pitch). What really bothered me was when she said hairy armpits were a masculine trait. Bothersome but also made me laugh, because are her pits naturally smooth? Pretty sure it's a human trait. She also throws around phrases like "dykey looking" pretty frequently, which annoyed me as well. At least she gets it right that Alderson prison is in WEST Virginia and not Virginia (unlike the TV show and I hope someone got fired for that).

If you're wanting to gradually prepare yourself for more detailed books about current prison life or drug trade/use prosecution, it's probably a good starter.

85mabith
Editado: Sep 3, 2014, 8:18 pm

65 - The Eastern Front 1914-1917 by Norman Stone

This is a very dry book, originally published in 1975, and its age shows a bit (partly in the random French quotes which aren't translated, I am so glad that is no longer common, and it's really difficult in an audiobook). It's full of figures and wanted me to keep track of a million names which I did with varying degrees of success.

However, I've read almost nothing about the eastern front, and that's a problem. I imagine/hope there are more recent books about it, and quite possibly Soviet archives were opened on this subject since the book's publication, but I think this gave me a good base for further reading.

Ultimate takeaway: bad leadership was responsible for Russian troubles, not material shortages or 'lack of will' on the parts of the men (artillery men hoarded shells, deciding the infantry would waste them or they were a waste if used to help the infantry). The Russian generals were idiots, but luckily so were the German and Austro-Hungarian ones, so they cancel each other out a bit. The end of the book focuses on the economy and social situations in Russia just before the revolution.

Recommend for the WWI completest. There's a more recent book Battles East, which I'll probably try to get in the future. It was published in 2007 and the description still talks about only a handful of books being published about the eastern front!

86mabith
Editado: Sep 3, 2014, 8:18 pm

66 - Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim

This is a review based on an ARC.

Kim was born in South Korea, and moved to the US with her family when she was 13. A journalist and novelist, Kim visited Pyongyang on various trips for some years, seeing the very little Westerners were allowed to see. In 2011, however, she goes there to teach via PUST (Pyongyang University of Science and Technology), which has been completely paid for by donated from fundamentalist Christians, and features only foreign teachers. Kim is only posing as a believer, however, her real intent is to produce this book.

Here she is teaching English to the sons of the elite of North Korea, and able to glean far more about the country and especially its youth. The attitude of the young men is never particularly surprising, given what they've been taught, but it was an interesting journey. Especially interesting since both the staff and the student body are confined there. Some of the students haven't seen their parents for a year, many have siblings doing their military service only six or seven hours away but haven't seen them in four years.

What I'm so confused about is why the Christian groups set this school up. They're not allowed to mention anything about religion, or to talk too much about their home countries (and they are serious about following that rule), so no student will be converted or lifted too much out of the isolation. If they cannot actually bring Christianity to these students, then it really feels like this project is for their own self-satisfaction or brownie points from god.

Kim's writing is fine, though at the start of the book there were a few too many flowery, novelistic phrases. Generally recommended, though I wouldn't make it your first book about North Korea (I'd go with Nothing to Envy, which is extremely well-done).

87mabith
Sep 7, 2014, 12:47 pm

67 - The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

This is one that has been on my to-read list since it was released about ten years ago. Having finished it, I'm a little surprised that it was so popular at the time (I was working in a bookstore when it came out). Perhaps this is one of the titles that led the charge into a more creative type of popular history writing and that accounts for it, but I don't know.

Frankly, the two stories, that of the fair and a serial killer, did not need to be combined. They're completely unrelated to each other. The killer did not use the fair to stalk his victims, there's just no connection. Larson also wasn't the most skilled at switching between the two stories, and since the threads never meet that may explain it somewhat (I was comparing it to Candice Millard's skill in telling two stories in Destiny of the Republic).

Likewise, I'm not sure where the magic mentioned in the subtitle comes in. There definitely wasn't any magic and I find it annoying it was shoved in just to make a list of three things. The fair in and of itself would have been a great topic for a book, and I can't help feeling that some interesting details of it are left out to make room for the murder story, likewise the serial killer story would have been perfectly fine in it's own book.

Not particularly recommended. I'm not annoyed I read it, but I wouldn't give it to anyone.

88Bill_Masom
Sep 8, 2014, 10:22 am

I finished The Devil in the White City a couple of months ago, it to had been on my TBR list for some time.

I think the Magic in the title was meant to represent the technological (and other) wonders on display at the fair. At least that is how I took it to mean.

It looks like I liked the book more than you did. I agree that the two stories could have been two separate books, but I liked his telling of both stories. And I think the murders did have something to do with the fair, in that it made it easier for him to commit the crimes, as well as find victims.

But yeah, I was constantly thinking how different the story of the fair would have been if told by someone like David McCullough. (I read 'Path Between the Seas' some years back).

Regards,

89lorax
Sep 8, 2014, 10:50 am

I've had that book on my TBR shelf for years (it was a gift). I haven't read it because the serial killer story sounds awful, even though the fair story sounds good. How separate are they - can I skip every other chapter or something and just get the "good parts version"?

90mabith
Sep 8, 2014, 1:44 pm

>88 Bill_Masom: I didn't really feel like the fair did make it easier to find victims or get away with it. Young people had already been coming to Chicago for jobs, mostly unrelated to the fair, and his victims largely came from that group, not people in town just for the fair. Fair or not, the victims families probably still wouldn't have always gone to the police since they didn't think it would help, and the police probably wouldn't have paid any more attention without the fair going due to the victims not being wealthy or important.

>89 lorax: I'm not really sure what the layout of the chapters was like, as I listened to the audiobook. The killer was a bad one, but I didn't think those sections were particularly graphic in the way they'd be in a true crime book. He had a special chamber built he could flood with gas and suffocate people (versus chopping them up or something), so it's not so bloody, the focus is more on his personality maybe. There are some other books on the subject, maybe less detailed but with more pictures. The World's Colombian Exposition by Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing looks pretty nice.

91Bill_Masom
Sep 8, 2014, 4:23 pm

lorax,

Yes, the two stories were separated by chapters, so you could read only one story by skipping every other (or so) chapter, without it ruining the thread of the story you wish to follow.

And like you, the serial killer part was not the part that interested me the most, but it was not bad. You could always start to read those chapters, and if uncomfortable, stop. Again, as I recall, the two stories are separated neatly by chapters.

mabith,

Given the state of forensics (non-existent), police procedures, and lack of communication, during that era, solving the crimes would have been very difficult. Even today, serial killers often go uncaught, or are only caught after multiply crimes, hence the serial part of the killers. And yeah, while not intertwined exactly, the two events were happening at the same time, in the same place. I think she was trying to tell a "tale of two cities" kind of thing. The World's Fair as a grand achievement for humanity in general, and Chicago in particular, along with the seamy underside of a serial killer at work at the same time. Again, I think I liked the book more than you did, though.

By the way, I enjoy your book reviews very much, and look forward to seeing what you have to say about what you have read. I also enjoy discussing mutually read books with other readers.

Regards,

92mabith
Sep 15, 2014, 2:16 pm

68 - 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson and James Kwak

I admit my brain had a bit of a meltdown during the sections heavy with financial-ese, but I think it was a valuable read for the larger concepts. The big story was the way the financial advisers and industry changed in terms of going from bankers to Wall Street investors and the very different attitude that came with it. The later half of the book focused on the "too big to fail" issues.

Recommended, though parts might be hard to focus through.

93mabith
Sep 27, 2014, 11:42 pm

69 - The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney

Writing about ancient Egypt is a difficult task, and Cooney leaves us with an interesting book which gives us a lot to think about. One of the big problems with writing about the rulers in ancient Egypt is that the king-ship was seen as a sacred position, and the holiness of it could not be sullied by recording in writing political struggles, coups, how an heir was chosen, etc...

Cooney does go far in her suppositions, but she is upfront about when she's going out on a limb. The book provides a lot of sources and notes about the differing views between Egyptologists, and the reasons for her views in particular.

The key thing with Hatshepsut is that she seems to have been an incredibly intelligent, capable, and bold woman. It seems clear that she was involved in the large decisions during her husband's reign and that the priests and generals were happy for her to continue as regent when he died, despite her young age.

I enjoyed this book, and felt like I got a lot out of it. I think Cooney's suppositions are generally reasonable, barring the idea that Hatshepsut truly believed in the religious visions she describes and uses to justify her rule. She does not have to have been grasping or power-hungry in order to use religion to her own ends, there is a middle ground (and Thutmose III was still too young to rule at this point).

94mabith
Sep 30, 2014, 8:39 am

70 - Which Side Are You On?: Trying to be for Labor When it's Flat on its Back by Thomas Geoghegan

First off, this is a review of the first edition of this book published in 1992 or 1994 (I forget which). There was an updated edition published in 2004, though I think it's too bad he didn't wait until 2010 or so. The book does read as dated, but is useful all the same.

Geoghegan's style is very loose, the chapters are more like individual essays and it's all a bit stream-of-consciousness, but it generally worked for me and made for quick reading. There's a fair bit of latent misogyny oozing from the pages and some language regarding race that made me check the publication date (he refers to someone as "a black" where he never said "a white" but always "a white man"). He writes "I almost said..." constantly and by the end I did rather want to scream "Well, why didn't you?!" at him. He at least never pretends to really understand the lives of the workers.

The labor history I'm most familiar with is West Virginia's (covering 1900 to the early 1930s) and the country's at large in the 1930s, so it was a good primer for me about what was happening in the 70s and 80s. Particularly in regards to the legislation that weakened unions so much.

I'm very curious to see what's been added to the updated version, but I doubt I'll read it just to compare any time soon (would have read it, instead of this old one I own, but the library didn't have it). It is an important read, and I'm glad I picked it up. Oh, actually has a new one about the labor movement published this year, so I'll probably pick that up at some point.

I'd recommend anyone interested pick up the updated edition. If you're not already interested in labor history this probably isn't the best book to start with.

95mabith
Oct 2, 2014, 11:07 am


160 - The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms by Amy Stewart

This is a short, popular science book that I picked up at random. I have some of Stewart's other books on my to-read list and saw this one on the library's e-lending site just when I was looking for something quick.

It was quite enjoyable and interesting, reminiscent of Mary Roach's writing style, though with less humor (there is still some). It made me want Stewart and Roach to be best friends who go and tour odd facilities together.

Recommended in general, particularly for gardening enthusiasts looking for a quick science book.

96mabith
Oct 7, 2014, 7:04 pm

72 - Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour by Barbara Tuchman

An interesting account of England's relationship with Palestine (and Israel). One has to keep in mind that this was written in 1956. It seems a thorough, chronological account, and I always enjoy Tuchman's writing style.

While there was no perfect action, and I understand the desperate desire for a Jewish state, I have to wonder at anyone who felt that displacing people was a wise or reasonable option. To be okay with displacing a population you do effectively have to dehumanize them and consider them "less-than."

97mabith
Editado: Oct 16, 2014, 1:16 pm


73 - Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery by Heather Andrea Williams

Williams divides this book into three parts: Separation, The Search, and Reunification. She spends much of the book giving background to the ads the were written searching for information on family members. She talks about specifics of separations, such of that of enslaved children and separation between husbands and wives. In giving the background she talks about the facts of marriage between slaves, the fact that ceremonies left out the line "let no man tear asunder" and the agreements that were worked out between owners in reference to marriages across plantations.

The book also includes white attitudes toward these separations and towards their slaves in general. If you've read much about the period it's mostly the familiar paternalism combined with a complete lack of empathy and often the insane shock and surprise some owners confess to when understanding that no, their slaves aren't going to come running back to them.

The Search is divided into two sections - searches during slavery and after emancipation. The final section talks about the reunifications we know about and what led to firm recognitions (and the difficulty of the renewed relationships).

Williams organizes the book well, and gives us all the background we need to appreciate what a monumental task it was to find family after separation during slavery. Certainly recommended, especially if you're a frequent reader of American history texts.

98mabith
Editado: Oct 16, 2014, 1:16 pm


74 - Monty: My Part in His Victory by Spike Milligan

The third in Milligan's humorous war memoirs. Not to much to say about it, but they are very enjoyable and interesting.

99orsolina
Oct 15, 2014, 5:29 pm

#93, do you really think it's unreasonable to assume that any ancient Egyptian (sovereign or peasant) took religion seriously? I think it's unreasonable, and unscholarly, to assume the opposite.
As for the visions described by Cooney, those are entirely her imagination and do not belong in a book that is supposed to be nonfiction.
Hatshepsut does say that she acted by Amun's command, but what she really means by that we don't know: whether she had a dream or vision, or whether she believed that a project was divinely inspired. ("That's a great idea--it must have come from Amun himself!")

100mabith
Oct 15, 2014, 8:03 pm

I don't think it's any less reasonable than the people saying they have religious visions nowadays, but I don't think it's common (taking religion seriously is a far cry from visions and voices). Most religious people don't think god is sending them complex visions and direct speech, and I don't think that's much different now vs then, especially with the people ruling a country. My point is more than Cooney was basically giving a choice between wholehearted belief in these elaborate visions (it was far more than "that's a great idea, must have been sent from god) and Hatshepsut being completely scheming and power hungry. There are a lot of shades of grey in between.

101orsolina
Oct 15, 2014, 10:23 pm

From ancient Egypt there is actually very little evidence for people claiming to have visions, although drinking during festivals was apparently thought to bridge the gap to the world of the gods (Prof. Betsy Bryan has written about this). Day-to-day overindulgence, however, was frowned upon, as witnessed by references in the wisdom literature.

When I responded above, I omitted the other way deities communicated with humans: oracles. These were generally public events that involved the god's sacred barque or portable shrine and priests who carried it, as well as the individual(s) to whom the decision was addressed, the priest in charge, and any number of interested spectators. Hatshepsut makes reference to oracles in two or three texts, but unfortunately there isn't enough information for us to understand exactly what was going on. In one of these texts--"a command was heard from the great throne"--it's not clear that an oracle was involved. That's the one I was thinking of when I mentioned divine inspiration.

102mabith
Oct 16, 2014, 1:15 pm

Again, my main point is that Cooney presents it as an either/or. Given Hatshepsut's position as God's Wife of Amen, she is in a place to be viewed as a type of oracle herself. She's also so close to the priests and ceremonies that it is more likely that she maintains some skepticism. It is not something we'll ever know. Given that she was a woman trying to rule, she needed every bit of help she could garner and being divinely chosen to rule would have been extremely important (given the Egyptians' feelings about their rulers).

103mabith
Oct 16, 2014, 1:37 pm

75 - Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome by Anthony Everitt

Everitt has a very enjoyable style, and this is the third book I've read by him. It's well organized and he's able to communicate the excitement behind these events. Though, I am speaking as someone who just adores reading about ancient Rome, as it was my first history love born from reading the Asterix comics as a kid.

The books takes us in chronological order, and you'll be reading a fair bit about Trajan as well. While we don't have a huge wealth of information about Hadrian, the book still felt full. Excellent read.

104mabith
Oct 16, 2014, 2:04 pm

76 - You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes by Laura Love

Laura Love is a musician I had the privilege of seeing twice on Mountain Stage, a local live radio music show (aired on many NPR stations). Her music is often referred to as Afro-Celt, but I'm not that sure where the Celtic part comes in, it's more bluegrass than Celtic and sometimes there's yodeling.

I was looking up something about her and saw that she'd written a memoir, so I snatched it up immediately. I didn't think I'd read it so soon, but after glancing at a few pages I couldn't put it down. I almost read it in one sitting, but staying up past 2 am never leads to anything good.

Love had a very difficult childhood. Her mother has paranoid schizophrenia, and had episodes requiring hospitalization several times during her childhood. Money was also always a struggle for them. Born in 1960 and living in Nebraska she was also dealing with a lot of racism. Love is candid about the reality of the times, and she's also honest about her own mistakes.

It's a wonderful little memoir. It only follows her up to age 19 or 20, so I hope she writes about her young adulthood and getting started in the music industry at some point. Knowing more about her now I want to listen to all her albums again.

105mabith
Oct 20, 2014, 11:53 am

77 - The Riddle of the Compass by Amir D. Aczel

While waiting to find Aczel's Pendulum, I thought I'd pick up this short work on the compass. It is needfully short because there just isn't a large amount of information about the invention of the compass. I appreciate that the work wasn't drawn out too much.

There a claims that an Italian of Amalfi invented the compass, but if he did it was after the Chinese invented it (as per usual). Aczel goes through what we know and might know and suspect.

This would be an excellent book to give to children. It's short, deals with the difficulty of assigning credit for some things, the idea of a single thing having multiple inventors and multiple uses, and of course the vast importance of the compass. Certainly appropriate for age 11 and up, and I'd say it's find for any child of reading age with an interest. The scientific jargon is minimal and the ideas behind the compass generally understandable to kids. Plus, can you ever give someone a book TOO early?

106mabith
Oct 20, 2014, 12:15 pm

78 - Falco: The Official Companion by Lindsey Davis

Having been a fan of Falco for nine or ten years I jumped at this book. It includes a little mini-autobiography of Davis, and she has not had an easy life.

I loved the sections where she talks a little about each book, particular researches, dilemmas, etc... She also goes into detail about each main character and some more minor characters who appear in more than one book. She talks about the writing process and influences, people who write in with corrections, her history with getting her work published, etc...

In the end she talks about the places in Falco's Rome, gives a timeline, and deals with basic aspects of life in Rome during this period.

What the book really did was made me love Lindsey Davis even more. She's so sharp and funny and I just want her to adopt me or become traveling companions with my mother. My mom gave me the first Falco book soon after I had to leave university due to my illness. I was stuck at home, depressed, and in pain.

Falco became an absolutely necessary companion for me, and I still re-read the books regularly. Few other historical novelists manage to put me so completely in another time and place. Davis manages to flood her books with historical detail without it feeling forced or like a history lesson. She is simply a wonder and a treasure.

107orsolina
Oct 20, 2014, 11:08 pm

I'm really looking forward to reading this one, Mabith. I am another Falco fan; I remember alternating between brainstorming on my dissertation and reading Shadows in Bronze--I just couldn't put it away!

Lindsey Davis is one of the few historical novelists, especially among those who write about the ancient world, who deals with familiar aspects of life such as acne (Rome as a city full of pimply necks), travellers' diarrhea, and parents worrying about the parties their kids might want to attend in a few years. While I didn't study Rome, I was familiar with concerns about unpaid debts, wardrobe deficiencies, and obnoxious adolescents from my own graduate research, so Davis' stories really strike a chord. I recommend them to everyone!

108mabith
Oct 22, 2014, 10:21 am

That really is what makes her so special. She brings the every day aspects of life for various classes into her books. She reminds us how similar to our lives human life always is. Her book See Delphi and Die is a favorite for her commentary on tourism and package tours. Plus, she's just SO funny!

I find it strange I don't meet more Lindsey Davis fans, honestly. With that many books out I feel I should run into more. Her book Master and God, though using the probably less accurate view of Domitian, was really good as well, as was The Course of Honor. Her first Flavia Albia Falco spinoff I found a bit disappointing. I didn't recognize Albia as a child raised by Falco and Helena in terms of views, personality, etc... If that's the only disappointing writing from her after 20 golden Falco books though, no matter!

109mabith
Oct 25, 2014, 2:22 pm

79 - Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Cahalan had a rare auto-immune problem which presented itself via seizures, extreme paranoia, hallucinations, and other symptoms of psychosis.

The story is fascinating, and she was so incredibly lucky to be where she was, to have the family she had, to have insurance, to have the money to pay for the out-of-pocket expenses, to get just the right doctor, etc...

Extremely interesting book, and well put-together. Definitely recommended.

110qebo
Oct 25, 2014, 2:40 pm

>109 mabith: That one keeps inserting itself into my wishlist...

111mabith
Oct 25, 2014, 2:57 pm

It's a bit of a "watch the train crash" book, but so so fascinating (and she does get better, of course). Brains are just amazing.

112drneutron
Oct 26, 2014, 5:52 pm

Yep, my Wishlist too.

113mabith
Editado: Oct 27, 2014, 9:25 pm

80 - The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany by Donald E. Westlake

This was a wonderful collection of articles, reviews, forwards, introductions, and a tiny bit of unpublished memoir. It made my fondness for Westlake grow. His wit and sharp intelligence shine through. The writings about the mystery/detective/crime genre and how it has shifted through the decades were particularly interesting.

I would only recommend it to the longer-time Westlake fan, if you've read ten or more of his books, say. There were a couple little things I skipped, when the author and genre he was talking about was far from my tastes or interests, but mostly I read them and found enjoyment in them despite the disinterest.

An interesting observation from the man himself, talking about his Abe Levine works:
"I had written myself into a terrible corner, the one in which the character himself has become the world in which the story is set. (A simpler and sillier example of this is Batman. Somewhere around 1955, the evil activity most pursued by the criminals in Batman became the uncovering of Batman's identity! If Batman didn't exist, they wouldn't be criminals. In self-referential fiction, I can think of no peer to Batman.)"

114qebo
Oct 27, 2014, 5:33 pm

>113 mabith: That brings some memories up from the depths... I read a bunch of Donald E. Westlake in high school or thereabouts; probably because my father was a fan and the books were around.

115mabith
Oct 27, 2014, 5:41 pm

My dad introduced me to his Dortmunder novels as the tender age of 11. There were amazing audio editions read by Michael Kramer. I mean, he just did a stunning job, really brought all the characters to life, did women's voices really well, had very distinct voices without being muddled... I got the rest of the Dortmunder books from the library in middle and high school, though I feel after the first nine the quality went down. I've read some of his author work, but not lots of it.

Those first nine are serious comfort reading/listening for me, and I still find them utterly brilliant.

116mabith
Nov 2, 2014, 4:22 pm

81 - A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

This book takes the most fundamental concepts from A Brief History of Time and simplifies them. I admit to still scratching my head at some points. Maybe I'll re-read it every year and eventually it will all sink in.

117mabith
Nov 2, 2014, 4:47 pm

82 - A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson

This is an incredibly rosy look at life in Victorian Britain, largely the lives of the upper and middle classes. He says the workhouses weren't really grim at all, guys, they were great! Phew!

While presenting interesting information, as one would expect, the author sometimes inserts opinions about modern life that don't really have a place in the book and grated on me (there was a line about how we're "obsessed with political correctness today," which, sorry, we're more aware of how language hurts and the histories of certain words and less willing to cause further hurt by some ridiculous refusal to change vocabulary, it's not about correctness or politics).

Then, especially in the last quarter or so of the book, he repeatedly talks about how colonization was actually good and imperialism shouldn't be a bad word. Yeeaah... I stopped the audiobook with forty seconds to go because it was frankly a little disgusting.

Not recommended.

118mabith
Nov 5, 2014, 6:53 pm

83- A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild

This is the first volume of Streatfeild's memoirs, covering her young girl-hood, from about age 11-17. She felt compelled to use different names for her family but not to really disguise that it was a memoir.

It is a very self-focused memoir, and for that period it almost has to be. She felt like the odd one out as a child, the one who wasn't at all gifted, and felt guilty yet annoyed for the way people pitied her father the vicar for having her as a daughter. While her family was generally quite loving, that love wasn't always expressed in the way best for the child, and individual needs were not really considered (things would be done the way they'd always been done for all the children, of course!).

It was a very enjoyable book for me, both for being put smack in the Edwardian period, and for learning more about one of my favorite children's authors. Streatfeild had a wonderful gift for portraying children as they really are, and showing relationships where two children or an adult and child tried but just couldn't get on the same page about an issue. The way she was able to write sibling relationships and show that “not like the others” feeling was also wonderful. I can't wait until my niece and nephew are old enough for her books.

119mabith
Nov 5, 2014, 7:02 pm

84 - The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert MacFarlane

This was a very calming book. The author talks about various old paths that he walks, mostly in Britain, but some outside it. It is both a book about the tracks themselves and their histories and about the act of walking and the people who are so driven to walk. While I read it in one go, it's a great title to pop in and out of over a long stretch. If I had a more hectic life I'd probably keep a copy about just for that purpose.

Admittedly, it's made me rather sad, as even taking a relatively short walk about the block isn't something I'm physically able to do, and being in a wheelchair on even average sidewalks is very uncomfortable. However, now I'm more driven than ever to get out into the woods if we have anymore fine, warm-ish days, and schedule a camping trip as early in the spring as I can.

120mabith
Nov 7, 2014, 9:29 pm

85 - Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield

I was never a hardcore font nerd, I think only graphic designers and such professionals really approach that territory. However, I did notice fonts a lot and have an eye for them. I've been using computers since I was 4 though, and I love text and design (and of course I grew up staring at book covers and noticing their design!). When I started identifying fonts when out and about with my mom as a kid I think she was always vaguely puzzled.

It was quite an interesting book for me, though I think it would bore most people. You do need a strong interest in fonts, their design, and history to enjoy it.

121mabith
Nov 7, 2014, 9:46 pm

86 - Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

This is Chast's memoir of the last few years of her parents' lives, dealing with caring for them, arranging their care, and her own distaste for the entire task.

Her childhood was hard and she consistently felt like an intruder in her parents' tight duo. Her mother also had a temper and no patience with normal childhood wants (they were also far older than her peers' parents). She is not close to them, and they are both very difficult to deal with in their own ways. Chast is honest about her guilt for not being able to be the devoted caretaker but also her enduring feelings of just not wanting to be there.

I grew up seeing her cartoons, and loving her drawing style. Depending on where you are in life (and in your parents' lives), it could be a very difficult read. I found it rewarding. Chast does her best, but she cannot magically summon a loving relationship with her parents, and no matter how loving the relationship is all people in caretaking positions will be frustrated at various points.

122qebo
Nov 7, 2014, 10:26 pm

>121 mabith: Oh, she had a full page? multi-page? cartoon in a recentish New Yorker, I suppose a excerpt from this.

123mabith
Nov 13, 2014, 4:33 pm

87 – Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War by Virginia Nicholson

This was a simply wonderful social history. It was thorough (albeit confined to British women) but felt very balanced, going all over the country (and following some subjects overseas) and through various classes. The information comes from interviews, memoirs, and diaries from the Mass Observation project.

Absolutely recommended. A very important book.

124mabith
Nov 13, 2014, 5:44 pm

88 - Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

I had my faith shaken in this book by a mixed review (where I believe the problem was that the reader didn't bother to read a description of the book), but was then eager to read it again after a great review from someone I follow here on LT. I should really write down where I get book recommendations from (especially since their reviews are always much more helpful than mine!).

This was a great read. The story of this specific trial and Mrs. Robinson's life, the background information on her closest friends and fads of the day, the general background of divorce cases and the requirements of the court... Loved it!

125qebo
Nov 13, 2014, 7:18 pm

>124 mabith: On my wishlist already, glad to see another positive review. I read The Suspicions of Mr Whicher a few years ago, and it is similarly constructed: a specific case in the context of the times.

126mabith
Nov 18, 2014, 10:52 am

Review of an ER which I could not finish. I tried for MONTHS.

Dumbing Down America: The War on our Nation's Brightest Young Minds (And What We Can Do to Fight Back by James R. Delisle

(While the use of the word 'gifted' for these accelerated programs is something many people dislike I use it here since it's the term that was used when I was growing up and it's used in this book.)

By page XV of the preface of this book the author shows just how un-gifted he is. I could not get past page 30 in this book, it made me so angry (not for the right reasons) and even sitting down to write this review has my heart beating faster than is normal.

In the preface the author states that gifted children are "our nation's most neglected minority." (Wow, REALLY? Like he SERIOUSLY thinks that?) While the cover of the book says this is “a passionate call to fix America's school systems” he is actually ONLY concerned with gifted programs, and states that is the most important thing to fix first. Well, no. While I understand that his dislike of the statement that gifted children will just take care of themselves, the ones IN gifted programs will. It's the gifted children who are not tested, whose parents don't want them in 'special' classes, or who are already turned off from the system who are done the greater disservice, and improving gifted programs won't help them. Perhaps later he suggests that all children be tested for the program, but unless there's a law requiring it, plenty of parents won't agree.

Delisle also spends time talking about how, NO, gifted programs are not racist, classist, ableist, etc... Which, the idea in abstract isn't, but it's PEOPLE who run these programs. All of us in the US have issues with latent racism, misogny, and ableism just from growing up in this culture, and it's incredibly ignorant to think that teachers are immune from this (not to mention the teachers who are overtly racist, etc...). Parents often don't know the gifted programs exist in a school, and it's teachers who pick children for testing and who administer the tests. In my school I know for a fact classism featured in who the teachers paid academic attention to. There were at least three children who definitely should have been in our gifted classes but they had the misfortune of not just being poor, but poor and dirty. They always did well in class but it wasn't until middle school that a good teacher looked past their exteriors and to focus on their intelligence (everyone in my gifted program was middle or upper middle class). He does not even admit the possibility of discriminatory teachers, administrators, and counselors. I'm not sure where he's living, but it's not the US...

I am passionate about education, but fixing the 'regular' schooling will help far more gifted children than focusing on these programs (a tiny minority). Improving teacher training (in terms of teaching multiple methods for learning and testing big concepts), getting rid of standardized testing, and making class sizes smaller would be of immediate benefit. Making sure administrators and school board members had experience in teaching or were willing to listen to those who did would be another step. It is not THAT hard to improve education, when people get out of the way and let you do it. I've lost count of the number of great teachers I've known who have left the profession due to the way schools are run and the terrible curriculum they're expected to use.

While I struggled to read this book I spent a lot of time talking to my mom about her experience with our school system's gifted programs, which my siblings and I all went through. We all got into it in different ways. My brother was bored in school and my mom thought he needed for more of a challenge, so she asked that he take the test and he was skipped a grade. My sister took it because she started kindergarten at age four (birthday in November) and that was the requirement. I went to a much better elementary school than they did, so my mom wasn't worried that I be tested. At the beginning of third grade the teacher told her I needed to take the test. In my school almost all the children were picked out by the teachers and I know there were several kids whose parents didn't want them in the gifted program. By the time we got to middle school they'd destroyed the program (and the teacher wasn't as good), and in 7th grade created an honors program with a large class-size, which forced our small gifted group to take pre-Algebra for a second time (except for me, my mother insisted they put me in the 8th grade algebra class). The gifted teacher from third to fifth grade was someone we adored, who understood us. It could have certainly been more rigorous, but I don't think it needed to be (it was just English and Math, if there had been a gifted history course that would have actually been way more helpful).

This is the only ER I haven't been able to get through, but reading it was seriously bad for my blood pressure.

127qebo
Nov 19, 2014, 8:18 pm

I’m not clear whether he wants to make existing gifted programs better or add more gifted programs, but either way... Yeah, the kids in gifted programs have advocates already, parents and/or teachers, and though there’s surely room for improvement this doesn’t strike me as the most urgent problem on earth. Creating gifted programs where they don’t exist I’d expect to require resources that don’t exist. During my brief stint of teaching in an urban public high school, a distressingly high proportion of kids dropped out after 10th grade, and tuned out sooner. Would it be better to retain and challenge the most capable and turn them into scientists? Of course. But this was a school where the teachers had to buy paper and pencils because the school couldn't afford supplies.

128mabith
Nov 19, 2014, 9:37 pm

He seems to be focusing on improving gifted programs, which of course many need improvement, but as you say, the advocates are there already. My mom's going to take a deeper look into the book, and of course she has a better view of those programs from the outside. My blood pressure just couldn't take it.

If I could change one thing about US education immediately it would be giving all public schools equal funding (according to size), not based on property taxes... I did K-8 in a county that wasn't particularly poor and always passed the school levy but our art teacher still bought a lot of the supplies. I remember running out of specific colors of acrylic paint and that was it. Then I think about all the money poured into the football teams...

Given how little we leave school knowing I do wonder what's the point (there are college students who don't seem to know who won the Civil War or who was involved in WWII). They have re-teach so much in college. I was in a second level English 101 type course and some of the papers I read were so atrocious, I'm not sure how they passed out of the lower level. My advice to the gifted in a mediocre or bad high school is to drop out, take your GED, and go to college early (or do a couple years of intensive study on what really interests you).

129mabith
Nov 21, 2014, 4:31 pm

89 - As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes

I grew up surrounded with love for both the movie and the book The Princess Bride. The humor was just the type that we all seemed to like best in my family, and of course, it's a complicated movie with stuff to love at various ages. A comedy, an adventure, a romance, and a few other things besides.

This was book lovely to listen to, read by Elwes with much of the cast involved in reading their contributions to the book (little sections about various scenes or issues). A couple hours in I had to stop and watch the movie, which I imagine is a common reaction for people reading it.

I'm really happy I picked this up. It was just a great read, and very interesting. My one quibble is his recapping the plot for "people who haven't seen the movie or read the book." Why on EARTH would anyone but fans pick up this book to begin with?? Not that you can't skip that part, but honestly, why? It's not a biography or memoir of Elwes' entire early career, so I can't see people who are just fans of him picking it up. There is a lot of "Oh everyone was just so lovely and perfect especially Cary and Robin" but it all seems very genuine.

130mabith
Nov 21, 2014, 4:43 pm

90 - Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

This is Woodson's memoir (aimed at the children's/YA audience) of her childhood, told in poems starting when she was a baby in Columbus, OH, a young child in Greenville SC, and an older child in New York City (in the 1970s and 1970s).

Sometimes books using a poetic form read like the author wrote a paragraph and then just divided it into short lines. Woodson's read as proper poems though.

It's a beautiful book, which has just won a National Book Award, which was well-deserved. It's a book I tried not to rush through, but only partially succeeded in slowing myself down. It was interesting being so familiar with the geography mentioned when she's in Ohio and South Carolina. I don't read all that much deals with familiar places.

Very recommended.

131mabith
Nov 21, 2014, 4:51 pm

91 - The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

This books follows the women married to the astronauts of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs. They are varied individuals who are reduced by NASA and the press into cookie cutter stereotypes of the perfect American wife and mother.

It was extremely interesting and I think/hope does justice to their resilience in dealing with the situation, both the dangerous and consuming work of their husbands and being forced into a mold. It was felt that only men with happy marriages would be chosen as astronauts (you'd really think they'd have gone for unmarried men, frankly) and the act had to be continued. One woman had left her husband when he begged her to come back so he'd get into the program. They were given a deal with Life magazine that included a cash settlement and life insurance for their husbands in exchange for exclusive access before and during space missions.

While the women became close through this shared experience, there was a distance kept as each woman feared she'd say something that would reflect badly on her husband (which might get back to NASA and affect his chances). They tried to be there for each other while hiding some of the biggest parts of their life (marriage trouble, mental health issues, etc...).

Highly recommended.

(Disjointed review as I need to leave the house, so I may add to this later.)

132mabith
Nov 26, 2014, 10:52 am

92 - What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund

Every reader should read this book!! I cannot stress that enough!

This book focuses on how and what we visualize when we read, and how incomplete those images really are (as they should be, since they're largely unrelated to what the character's are like as people and what's going on in the book).

It also talks about the ways we read. The way our eyes jump around picking up the most relevant information first, rather than reading one word at a time. This was a relief to me, as I thought I was the only one doing that and it worried me a bit. Obviously it won't be true for 100% of readers, I'm sure there's some variation there, but in general...

The book is filled with pictures and text effects that increase the understanding of the text. It is a short book, text-wise, and often there's just a paragraph on each page. This leaves a lot of room to make notes about your own reactions to the text and experiences of reading, which I hope to do when I re-read it. This also helps ensure that you read it more closely, rather than skimming through.

Mendelsund designs book covers and that certainly influenced the layout of the book. I can't say I love his covers, they'd rarely cause me to pick up a book on that alone, but they're not bad.

Again, everyone who loves reading should pick up this book. Highly recommended.

133mabith
Editado: Dic 5, 2014, 11:23 am

Este mensaje fue borrado por su autor.

134mabith
Dic 3, 2014, 6:20 pm

93 - Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry

I've been following the Tumblr account that Barry keeps for her Unthinkable Mind class for about year, and it's been really fascinating. I keep telling myself to do the assignments, but then I don't.

The book is a mix of the class assignments (I think it includes each daily sheet for one of the semesters of Unthinkable Mind, but I'm not entirely sure), her inspiration for the classes, and her personal thoughts and feelings while teaching them. It's a class she's purposefully gathered of many many disciplines and particularly wanted people who stopped drawing as children. I know at points she's shown videos that will stimulate a certain area of the brain and had them draw and then stimulated a different area while they draw again.

Really interesting book if you're interested in drawing at all or in arts instruction in general.

135mabith
Editado: Dic 5, 2014, 11:22 am

94 - Away From the Vicarage by Noel Streatfeild

This is the second of Streatfeild's slightly fictionalized biographies. In this one the only fictional elements seem to be a couple of heavy flirtations (this coming from one of Streatfeild's biographers), so I'm including it here.

Streatfeild was born in 1895. During WWI her beloved cousin (who had largely lived with them growing up) died, and it seems to have derailed her life to an extent. After the war is over she went to a drama school and started working on the stage, mostly in touring shows including to South Africa and Australia. I picked this now for the very different post-war life of Streatfeild versus Vera Brittain (two years older), since I was also reading Testament of Youth. The flyleaf on this book includes the great line "She drinks, she dances, she goes to bed late!"

She weaves it all together nicely, and you can see the germ of her children's books forming. I did suddenly realize (as after this I started one of her children's books that I hadn't read before), that all of her truculent, quarrelsome characters are girls. I realize it's partly because she was that character in her own family, while her brother and cousin were very calm and easy-going (of course, they didn't HAVE to be truculent since they were treated differently as boys), but come on, Noel.

136mabith
Dic 5, 2014, 11:32 am

95 - Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

What a wonderful and extremely important book. My interest was flagging very slightly in the last few chapters, as they were more "so then we did this and then we did that," versus her introspection in the rest of the book.

Brittain seems like she would have been a lovely person to know. She is thoughtful and outspoken about her beliefs (getting a good dose of feminism in a older book really cheers me), but she is realistic about her own behavior. There were several times when I was rolling my eyes at her behavior and then she would do the same to herself, putting her actions in a more realistic light.

She really lost all of her close peers in the war. Her brother, her fiance, two very close male friends. She talks in the book about how your peers are really the people who truly know you in your life, not your parents, not your children, which is true for most, I'm sure. When she died she asked that her ashes be scattered on her brother's grave, and it seems she never got over that loss.

Highly recommended. She was a remarkable woman.

137mabith
Dic 5, 2014, 1:14 pm

I forgot to include this excellent quote from Away From the Vicarage. Streatfeild's parents had a baby after the others were all grown, and Noel and her siblings are consistently amazed/amused/annoyed about the differences in her upbringing.
"That sort of sheltered life we had children don't have since the war. People ask them if they would like to do things and if they say no they don't do them. Imagine anyone asking us! Why, we were still being told what to do and what to wear when we were almost grown-up."

While it was probably partly that this was a late baby, it's probably also true that children of their class began to have a slightly less set childhood (and keeping children perpetually in the nursery and away from most of adult life faded a bit). Rather than a constant though I think that thinking has ebbed and flowed through the 20th century.

138mabith
Dic 9, 2014, 6:49 pm

96 - American Rose: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee by Karen Abbott

A biography of Gypsy Rose Lee which doesn't try too hard to figure out the inner life that Gypsy preferred to hide. It follows her childhood, her sister (June Havoc), and their undeniably warped mother.

At the same time it gives us a little history of vaudeville, burlesque, and being an entertainer during the Great Depression.

I've never had a particular interest in Gypsy Rose Lee, knowing the name more than anything else, but it was a really interesting book. It flowed well, was well written, and didn't really go in for guess work at all. The inclusion of history which wasn't strictly about Gypsy rounded the work out without feeling forced or truly off-topic. Recommended.

139mabith
Dic 15, 2014, 1:00 pm

97 - Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

This is a good set of essays that range from the personal to the politically personal to the generally political. The title comes from Gay's media derived picture of feminism when she was younger, a twisted caricature made of crude stereotypes ignoring the main goals of feminism. That's not something that I can relate to much, so in those parts of the book I was mainly puzzled.

There are sections on gender and sexuality, race and entertainment, and politics, gender and race. A lot of that was repeat information for me, as I've been pretty tuned into those discussions for the past couple years, but they were well-written and interesting even so.

There are, of course, some places where Gay screws up. I was disappointed when she listed groups left out of mainstream (often cis, hetero, white) feminism and didn't have disabled people on there. She didn't even mention disability later on when bringing up a quote from a feminist who stated that a woman who isn't working is hurting feminism (she only mentioned those who chose not to work). She mentioned trans women being shut out, but her language in the sections about birth control and abortion rights exclude trans men who often need those services as well.

Her views on trigger warnings (she doesn't really like them) ignore what to me is paramount - that a) some people have extreme PTSD reactions to triggers and b) we all know we'll be triggered in many spaces, but if you can possibly warn someone ahead of time and save them one extra moment of stress, why wouldn't you? It doesn't censor you to say, "Hey, I'll be talking about this later, be aware of that." In one place she also talked about psychopaths and sociopaths as though these were synonyms for criminality and all people with those disorders were automatically criminals.

I would certainly still recommend this book, particularly if you're not all that tuned in to these issues and particularly for high school and college women who often have that warped view of feminism. Her essays about media are especially important. I listened to the audiobook which was really well read, with all the anger and disbelief and humor present.

140mabith
Editado: Dic 24, 2014, 10:12 am

98 - West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story by Tamim Ansary

I've read two other books by Ansary, Games Without Rules and Destiny Disrupted, which I loved, so I was excited when the library had his memoir. This was his first published book, and it seems to have sprung into being after an e-mail he wrote to friends post-9/11 became widely known.

Ansary, child of an American mother and Afghani father, was born in 1948 and grew up in Afghanistan. He witnessed a variety of changes in the country, particularly when it comes to education. At 16 he started attending an American boarding school. With his sister going to an American college, his mother moved to the US with his younger brother. Their father briefly worked as some sort of ambassador or diplomat but when his fortunes fell and he was removed from that job he chose to remain in Afghanistan.

The book follows Ansary's life through college and after, an extensive trip through the middle east, and his work with charities set up to aid Afghanis during the 1970s.

It's an interesting life and an interesting book. Ansary illuminates a lot of details about Afghanistan that most Americans will be ignorant of, and I really enjoy his writing style. I think it's a particularly interesting book for others born around 1948, just to add another life experience to how they think about their youth.

Definitely recommended, though if you only read one Ansary book, make it Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.

141qebo
Dic 18, 2014, 6:13 pm

>140 mabith: I did not know about him. Three books added to the wishlist in one fell swoop. Thanks, I guess. :-)

142mabith
Dic 18, 2014, 6:35 pm

Ha, it's always a mixed blessing! He really is wonderful though. I haven't read his novel, but I have a friend who really liked that as well. He has a pretty unique perspective to add to the discussion anyway.

143mabith
Dic 24, 2014, 10:11 am

99 - The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay

This was a relatively enjoyable book, and talks directly to people who worked at the park about how they started, what the work was like, what the social aspect was like, etc... It's much less about the timeline of discoveries that helped the war effort. It's also just about the nature about having to keep this huge aspect of your life secret both during and after the war.

While the information was all interesting, the books felt scattered and disorganized. I listened to the audiobook and sometimes that can enhance those feelings, but I think this one would feel like that in print too. I'm not sure exactly what I expected from this, I've already read a book about the enigma machine and the work on that. Given what's covered in this, I'm not sure it could be organized all that well.

Recommended for the WWII completest, but maybe not the casual reader.

144mabith
Dic 24, 2014, 10:45 am

100 - How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman

Ruth Goodman is a historian who has taken part in numerous projects where she and other historians and archeologists work a farm in a certain historical period (with a pretty fixed date) for a year. I don't know if this is always called experimental archeology, but that's what they call it on the most recent show she's on. The TV shows covering this are basically my favorite thing ever, and I've grown incredibly fond of Goodman. Her focus is domestic/social history which is my favorite thing to study. She has an endless enthusiasm for this work even when it's incredibly difficult (such as all laundry forever until the modern washing machine was invented).

The book covers every day life as a Victorian by studying the routines of a single day (though I know that sounds a bit simplistic, it's not really), which is highly effective. She talks about all classes of society, differences between town and country but also between north and south, and compares the same needs at the beginning of the Victorian period and at the end.

Once I started reading the book I found it extremely difficult to put down. It's something that I could have easily read in a day, but I purposefully slowed myself down so I could enjoy it for a long period (something I rarely do). Goodman's writing is compelling and in many places she has her own experiences to add. The book is full of small pictures throughout the text as well as one small glossy section.

Highly recommended to everyone. If you read one book about the Victorian period, make it this one.