Showing posts with label non-fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-fiction. Show all posts

Thursday, June 27, 2013

REVIEW: Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick



Never Fall Down
by Patricia McCormick

"I see all this, smell the blood, like raw meat. And my eyes see it. But I don't feel anything. If you feel, you go crazy."

Eleven-year-old Arn lives in his village in Cambodia, selling ice cream and listening to Elvis. There is a war going on, but it is distant. That is, until the Khmer Rouge, the communist enemy, come to his village claiming the Americans were coming to bomb it, and they "evacuate" the people to farming camps. The children are separated from the adults, and any intellectual or rich citizens are killed. The population becomes smaller and smaller as the Khmer Rouge find increasingly specific reasons to kill people. Arn does what he can to survive as his friends and family die around him in the Killing Fields. He volunteers to participate in a band that tours other camps, singing of the glory of the communist party and the paradise they have brought. He is soon able to protect a small group of kids because he has become "a little bit famous." But with so much death facing him every day, he must become like the Khmer Rouge to survive. Will he be able to ever find himself again?

This book was absolutely brutal. It was the most gory and graphic thing I have ever read, or seen, including Game of Thrones or Joe Abercrombie or Battle Royale. I do love me some dark and gory stuff from time to time, but it was too much for even me. I couldn’t go a page without someone drowning in shit, or having a person explode and parts of their body are hanging from the trees, or a kid shoots himself in the face. I felt like I was being sandblasted with violence, and the nonchalance with which it is treated in the narrative made it so much worse. It certainly put you in the mind of the character, where you had to at some point turn off your emotions or your attachment to anyone because they were going to step on a land mine sooner or later. Often, the writer would tease you with hope, only to have that hope snatched away offhandedly a page or so later.

The worst thing is, this happened. To a real person. I did not realize this until about ¾ of the way through the book. I thought the author was taking all the worst parts of what happened in Cambodia and giving it to one boy, but no, this is almost verbatim what happened to Arn Chorn-Pond, the real man.

That is the difficulty of this book. On the one hand, it is really brutal and gory and extremely difficult to get through, but on the other hand this happened to someone. The world needs to know that this level of evil happens in the world. We need to honor the dead by reading their stories and try to find ways to prevent this from happening again. I feel like people will have different reactions to this book: some will rise and fight against the evil, and some will feel overwhelmed and hide.

The most intriguing part of the book for me is the way Arn’s brain handles the situation he is in. In order to survive and protect the people he cares about, he plays along with what the Khmer Rouge want. However, after being given some small perks and power, he slowly begins to turn into them. He becomes what he hates most in order maintain his sanity and stay alive. Once he is safe, he struggles with who he is and what he has done. How do you have a normal life when you have seen what he has seen, and killed people?

It also makes me wary of believing what I hear or read. The Khmer Rouge used heavy manipulations, lies and propaganda to get people to do what they wanted, and there were deep consequences for those who believed them.

Hope only comes in the very end of the book, almost in the post script, where you find out how Arn decided to channel his anger and pain and use his experience for good. 

Here is an interview with Arn Chorn-Pond and Patricia McCormick:


I believe that this book is important for everyone to read, but you must be prepared for its contents. 

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

REVIEW: Let's Pretend this Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson


Let's Pretend this Never Happened 
(A Mostly True Memoir)
by Jenny Lawson

“You should just accept who you are, flaws and all, because if you try to be someone you aren't, then eventually some turkey is going to shit all over your well-crafted facade, so you might as well save yourself the effort and enjoy your zombie books.” 

It is difficult to discribe this book, so I will give you the Goodreads description: "For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris—Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut. Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In the #1 New York Times bestseller, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text."

This. Book. Is. Insane. I loved it. It was like listening to your crazy best friend tell weird stories for hours and hours. Jenny's misadventures include a bathtub of raccoons, getting her hand stuck up a cow's vagina, the day her family's pet turkeys followed her to school and got in the cafeteria, having her father throw a bobcat at her boyfriend as a joke, and hundreds more stories you have to read to believe. All of them are highly entertaining.

It sometimes goes off the rails. She has arguments with her editor in the text, and tangents upon tangents (much like talking with your friends!) Sometimes I wanted her to get on with it, and sometimes it was part of the charm. And while initially I was frustrated with the "mostly true" warning in the title, I ended up being incredibly grateful for it, because I was able to choose which of her stories or actions to believe (see the chapter "A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to my Husband" and you will see what I mean). 

And it is not all fluff and hyjinks. Jenny struggles with generalized anxiety disorder (which does not mean that she has a vague sense of anxiety; it means she has anxiety about everything.) Her chapters describing her panic attacks, hiding in the bathroom (and in wooden chests) and her stress-induced word vomit are both hilarious and strangely comforting for those of us who suffer similar ailments. 

In the end, after the dust has settled and the mischief is managed, it is a book about the crazy people and events in our life that make us who we are. And more often than not, we are better off for it. 

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

REVIEW: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed


Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
by Cheryl Strayed

“The thing about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, the thing that was so profound to me that summer—and yet also, like most things, so very simple—was how few choices I had and how often I had to do the thing I least wanted to do. How there was no escape or denial. No numbing it down with a martini or covering it up with a roll in the hay. As I clung to the chaparral that day, attempting to patch up my bleeding finger, terrified by every sound that the bull was coming back, I considered my options. There were only two and they were essentially the same. I could go back in the direction I had come from, or I could go forward in the direction I intended to go.” 

Ever since she lost her mom, Cheryl's life had fallen apart. Divorce, drugs and sex to fill the void, family members pulling away, giving up on college. And that is just the beginning. She hits rock bottom, and on an impulse, decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail which spans from Mexico to Canada. She is unprepared for the rigors and dangers of the trail, but through tenacity, luck, stubbornness, and sheer will, the trail turns from enemy to old friend. It breaks her down and builds her back up again as she tries to remember the child she once was and the woman she wants to be.

I always have a hard time reviewing memoirs. How do you review a person's life? I have never had something as devastating as Cheryl's mother dying make my life implode. I stand on the outside looking in, wondering if the same thing would happen to me. Part of me scoffs at the thought of me falling so irreparably apart that I destroy every other good thing in my life. Part of me fears that I would. 

This is what makes the first half of Cheryl's memoir so bafflingly heart-wrenching. When yet another mistake or tragedy rears it's ugly head, you don't know whether to laugh in disbelief or cry. The sequence with her mother's sick horse captures that feeling perfectly. It just gets more and more painful and you go right through "morbidly humorous" and right out the other side into sickeningly awful again. 

The trail starts the same way. Cheryl is woefully unprepared (or over-prepared, judging by her overstocked backpack) for the trek. She overestimates her walking stamina. She encounters bears, rattlesnakes, skeevy skeevy men, dangerous snow and ice, looses her shoes, misses her supply packages, and runs out of money several times. She looses 6 toenails and gets cuts and bruises and blisters all over. And yet, through it all, she perseveres. She learns from her mistakes. She builds muscle, and confidence. She makes friends with strangers. She navigates the wilderness. She braves hostile animals and humans. She rediscovers the strength within herself. She learns to forgive, and she is finally able to let her mother go. 

Cheryl's transformation was a joy to read. She goes from flailing about to fill the hole in her heart to finding peace in simplicity. It is written by an older Cheryl Strayed, looking back at this time in her life when she was 26. As a 28 year old, I had to keep remembering that this was not a mid life crisis book. This was someone younger than me who had experienced this huge upheaval and forced herself through a crucible of transformation. 

Many people have criticized this book for two things: 1) her seemingly horrible life choices and 2) her blind naivete on the trail which could have lead to her death, and now she is encouraging others to do the same thing. To those people, I say 1) Walk two moons, people. 2) Cheryl made no bones about the dangers of the trail, and how most of her survival was shear luck and the kindness of strangers. 

Cheryl learns. She changes. She overcomes. Regardless of the decisions she made in her time of trouble, she comes out transformed. 

An inspiring read!

Books like this:
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart
Hamlet's Dresser by Bob Smith
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin



Friday, November 16, 2012

REVIEW: An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy



An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793
by Jim Murphy

I absolutely loved this book. I was shocked that it was for kids! It was so gory and psychologically scary, and utterly compelling and informative. I definitely recommend it for people who love zombie plague stories. Or the 1700s. Or both!

This book tells the story of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. It starts out slow, listing one death, then several in a boarding house. Then, it spreads down the street and to other portions of the neighborhood until the entire city is infected. It chronicles the panic, how people left the city in droves, and abandoned family members. It describes in detail the horrifying symptoms (complete with illustrations), including vomiting black blood and bile. And it tells of the heroic efforts of those who stayed in the city to help, which to me was the most interesting part of the book: the survival efforts, what happens when government breaks down, the unlikely heroes. It concludes with the sociological aftermath, those who wished to forget the plague, those who pointed fingers, those who had to defend their actions. As an afterward, it tells of the discovery of the causes of yellow fever a century later, and a vaccine in the mid 20th century. It ends with a warning that there has been no recent vaccine for yellow fever, and if it reemerges, we would be almost powerless to stop it. Upbeat ending for a children’s book, huh?

And that is exactly why I loved it. I enjoy kids books that don’t pull punches. They tell it like it is. I feel that what kids fear most is the fear of the unknown. The things parents are whispering about, but won’t tell them straight up. The monster in the dark that you can’t see. I feel that adults are this way too. Once you know what something is, once you can name it, once you know how to fight it, it loses some of it’s power.

This book is not only compelling, but it is highly informative. Jim Murphy did extensive research into primary sources, including letters, diaries and personal accounts of those who were there. Because of this, he was able to build a very intimate and highly descriptive narrative without embellishing with fiction. It does what the best nonfiction does: place you there in the dirty, quiet street, watching another cart full of dead bodies creak by. You feel you know the historical figures personally.

I would recommend this book to my adult friends too! Nowhere in this book did I think for a moment that it was “dumbed down” for children. I think it is comparable to John Adams by David McCollough (though a lot shorter) or Devil and the White City by Erik Larson (but with less speculation)!

If you want a quick, informative, highly disturbing glimpse into a moment of real life in the 1700s, this is the book for you!

I recommend this book if you liked:
Devil and the White City by Erik Larson
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

REVIEW: The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart



The Winter of Our Disconnect:
How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with her iPhone) 
Pulled the Plug on their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale 
by Susan Maushart

"'If you ever want to know what was going through Frodo Baggins' mind as he stood clutching the evil ring over the lava pits of Mt. Doom in The Return of the King,' wrote Norman, 'buy an iPhone.'"

Susan Maushart sleeps with her iPhone. Her kids are always listening to their iPods, playing computer games, or surfing the web. Finally, Susan has had enough and she decides to do an experiment: the family will unplug for 6 months. This means no TV, no computers, no iPods, no cell phones. They go from constantly being connected to actually making a connection.

This was one of those books I put on my list never really intending to read. Non-fiction isn't really my thing. However, immersive journalism is. I was struggling with my own media addiction and needed a palate cleanser after so many YA and juvenile fantasy books, so I picked it up.

While this book is rather frustratingly structured (she tries to go chronologically, but then also by theme, so you end up with a lot of repeated information and you get lost in the timeline), the content really struck a chord with me.

There are two large worries that prevent the modern person from attempting an experiment like this: the fear that we will be bored, and the fear of loosing connection. The family struggles with both of these. The children whine and go to friends houses to use their technology, at first (the experiment is limited mostly to the house). However, then a transformation occurs. The family starts talking to each other. The kids spend time in each other's rooms looking at magazines and listening to CDs. They help their Mom cook dinner, and actually spend time at the table, rather than gobbling and racing off to play more video games. Friends came over for board game nights and sing-alongs around the piano. They looked at actual photo albums and told stories.

The most incredible change really resonated with me: the son used to love the saxophone, but then when he got a monster gaming station, he let it fall by the wayside, and said he would pick it up again "when he had more time." I say the same thing about my violin. However, when technology was forbidden him, he picked up the sax again, practiced for hours every day, had jam sessions with his friends, and started a band. He discovered he wanted to be a musician as a career. Think of what we could do if we didn't have computers. Susan makes an excellent point that often boredom is the mother of invention. It pushes you to fulfill unmet needs, to be determined, prepared, patient and experimental.

Another element to the boredom debate that Susan touches on is the myth that parents need to entertain their children 24/7. That they feel like a deficient parent if their kids are bored. Not only that, they feel deficient if they are not on call to help their kids out with every little problem. Susan learns through this experiment, and through her research, that boredom is actually a good thing. Kids learn best when they are able to figure things out for themselves. It gives them ownership over the knowledge. However, if a parent is constantly trying to IV entertainment into their kid's bloodstream, or doesn't let their kids get lost and have to find their own way back (even at age 23), they will never be self-sufficient. It is no wonder that 30 is the new 20. People remain children a lot longer because they don't know how to take care of themselves.

Fear of loss of connection was a huge issue for them (and would be for us). 1) Cell phones. What if an emergency happens? What if I am late to pick up someone, how do I tell them? It turns out, if there is an emergency, they will find you some how. The son was in a car accident, got a ride home, and called his mom afterwards. He handled the situation himself. And it turns out that if you set up a time to pick someone up, and neither of you have a cell phone, they will be there on time. Planning ahead. Who knew?

2) Missing news: newspapers. A huge theme of this book was, if you need to know, you will find out. You don't need to drown in minutiae. If something important happens, you will be told. Relax.

3) Loosing connection. It turns out, people feel more connected when they don't have the internet. The surfacey texting, IMing, Facebook messaging and e-mailing does a lot less for you than sitting down with someone face to face and having a conversation. This connected feeling we crave is really the need for human contact. Which is ironic, because the internet makes us feel like we are getting that, when we are really not.

The book also touches on the now well-known research about the Millennials (and us now) and how they (we) are lateral readers (surface over depth), and think the easiest research is the best research. No concept for reliable sources, multitasking actually doesn't exist and is detrimental to focus and performance, high computer/tv use leads to depression and atrophied social skills (possibly autism), those kids who had family meal times at the dinner table had more well adjusted kids than those who didn't, etc. She actually mentions a lot of books I had already read about the subject.

One thing that surprised me, though is that what we think of as normal teenage behavior (unresponsiveness, weird sleep patterns, surliness, sitting on the couch, eating junk food, and watching tv for hours, AND not expressing natural adult behavior until -gasp- 28) is actually not natural. People say it is natural because it is an epidemic, and every teenager does it now, but that was not always the case. It is a combination of inactivity, over-parenting, lack of sleep due to technology, and the perpetuated myth of the "this is how I am supposed to act" surly teen.

Within all the studies and research, Susan gives the reader concrete examples about how her family has reflected the studies.

Another nice thing about this book is that she does not take sides. It may seem that she is heavily anti-technology, but the relief she feels when she gets back her technology says otherwise. She has learned from the experiment to live in moderation.

I really recommend this book for anyone who had that nagging feeling that they should be doing something else other than Facebook.

More Books Like This:
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
A Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment by A.J. Jacobs

Thursday, October 13, 2011

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment (6/30/11)


The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment
by A.J. Jacobs

"The goal is that you're able to keep the good parts and not descend into insanity. That the pain of the experiment will end up making life better in the end. And that your spouse will forgive you. For, as I've been told many times, my wife is a saint. A saint, I might add, who doesn't tolerate these experiments lying down."

List of some of A.J.'s experiments in this book (from goodreads):

• He outsources his life. A.J. hires a team of people in Bangalore, India, to take care of everything in his life from answering his e-mails to arguing with his spouse.

• He spends a month practicing Radical Honesty -- a movement that encourages us to remove the filters between our brains and mouths. (To give you an idea of what happened, the name of the chapter is "I Think You're Fat.")

• He goes to the Academy Awards disguised as a movie star to understand the strange and warping effects of fame.

• He commits himself to ultimate rationality, using cutting-edge science to make the best decisions possible. It changes the way he makes choices big and small, from what to buy at the grocery store to how to talk to his kids. And his revelations will change how you make decisions, too.

• He attempts to follow George Washington's rules of life, uncovering surprising truths about leadership and politics in the twenty-first century. He also spends a lot of time bowing and doffing his hat.

• And then there's the month when he followed his wife's every whim -- foot massages, Kate Hudson movies, and all. Depending on your point of view, it's either the best or worst idea in the history of American marriage.


-----
I love A.J. Jacobs, and his writing is very funny, but I felt that something was lacking in most of these experiments: a deeper, soul-searching core. While his other books delve into issues like the nature of intelligence, or the spiritual meaning behind the rules and rituals of religion, these essays flit across the surface of problems like what it is like to be a celebrity or if you can outsource your life to India.

I was intrigued by some of his experiments, like a month of uni-tasking to cure his multi-tasking mania, the month of following George Washington's rules of decorum (which appealed to the 18th century person in me), or the month of thinking rationally (as opposed to reacting with his subconscious brain). These, I felt, had a lasting lesson to teach A.J. and us, and he was changed for the better because of them. His commitment to the experiments, and the imaginative lengths to which he goes to complete them are always fascinating, hilarious and brave. I really related to him during his last two books as a compulsive knowledge seeker, myself.

However, there are moments in this book where I felt he was being a dick. He accommodatingly admits it and is uncomfortable about it, but I felt bad for his family and his Indian assistants. Luckily, his long suffering wife is there to bring him back to earth every so often.

Still an entertaining summer read!

If you liked this book, you may like:

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

ARCHIVED REVIEW: Kate Remembered (12/2/10)


Kate Remembered
by A. Scott Berg


So I finished this book a while ago and have moved on to reading Harry Potter again before summer.

But this book was wonderful and engaging. It is the memoirs of a professional biographer and his long friendship with Katherine Hepburn. He felt he couldn't do a real biography because he loved her so much, he couldn't be objective.

It is incredibly beautiful and incredibly sad as we listen to Katherine reminisce to Scott about her life, her patient, quiet, and giving love of Spencer Tracy, her ups and downs, and how Scott himself remembers the slow tragedy of her death.

She was a hell of a woman. She went swimming every morning in the lake, no matter what the temperature, even into her later years. She always insisted everyone make their beds in the morning (she scolded Michael Jackson when he told her he didn't know how), and she spoke her mind at every turn. She was blunt and harsh and told the truth as she saw it, and people loved her for it. She made many flops, and she acknowledged them openly, but she also gave some of the most brilliant performances the world has ever seen (my two favorite are Lion in Winter and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner).

This book is not a biography, so it may frustrate some people when Scott Berg starts talking about the other books he was writing at the time and not about Kate, but it is worth it to hear her story from her own mouth, and from one who loved her.

ARCHIVED REIVIEW: Essential Writings of G.K. Chesterton (10/21/10)

Essential Writings of G.K. Chesterton
Edited by William Griffin

(the cover of the book is boring, so here is a fun caricature of GK).

This book is a collection of G.K. Chesterton's non-fictional writing on philosophy, social commentary and religion.

With this book, I have fallen in love with GK Chesterton: the man, if not the writer. He was an enormous man, with a fat walrus mustache. He dressed so shabbily that his wife dressed him in an opera cape, strange hat and a sword cane so that people wouldn't notice his shabby clothes because of the eccentricity of his dress. He ate a lot, drank a lot, and was merry a lot. He was jovial and generous, very spiritual, and yet not afraid to live in this world to the fullest. He valued Humor and Humility above all things, loved a good joke, and reveled in paradox.

All of this is revealed throughout his writing. In one essay, he expounds upon the luckiness of a man who thinks he has discovered a new land, but realizes upon arrival that he has sailed back to England. He gets both things that man needs most: the uncertainty and excitement of adventure and wonder, and the cozy stability of home. In another, he talks about how you should love the world for all its gladness, and if it is sad, you should then love it more. In another, he expounds upon how a child sees a tree and a lamp post with equal wonder, and how we should retain that wonder at every day life as we grow up. He talks about how the spiritual man is the only sane man, because he can see the smaller and the larger picture by the light of his belief, that virtue is not the absence of vice, but a "vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell." He wrote a series of essays entitled, "Why I am Not a Pagan," "Why I am a Christian," "Why I am a Catholic," "Why I am an Elf," and "Why I am a Clown." He talks about the silence of the universe being not emptiness, but mercy, because if we could hear the laughter of the heavens and experience the "frantic energy of divine things" we would be knocked down "like a drunken farce."

You see why I love him.

His writing does get convoluted at times, and his logic often does not follow. He runs very much on emotion and humor to get his point across, and you can very easily poke holes in some of his arguments. (There is a debate between GK and GBS at the end of the book, and this is extremely apparent when juxtaposing their styles of argument). However, I don't think he cares. He feels something, and wants to tell you why he feels that way. More often than not it is just because it is beautiful or awe inspiring, not because it is logical.

If you liked this book, you may also like:
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Devil in the White City (10/6/10)




The Devil and the White City
by Erik Larson

The book is non-fiction and tells of the vision, brilliance and underdog tenacity that it took to bring about the Chicago World's Fair, and the serial killer who haunted its streets.

I did not think I would like this book but I loved it! It did exactly what I think history books should do: plunk you down in the middle of the noisy smoky street in Chicago in the late 1890s, next to David Burnham (the main architect for the World's Fair) as he asks you the time. In other words, history books should be a TARDIS. 

It gives you all the sights, smells, and textures of the world and the sighs, tears, chuckles and fury of its players. The reader becomes as familiar with them as with their hometown and its denizens. Sometimes this goes a little far, often putting the reader alone in a room with the serial killer as he revels in his kill, which teeters on the realm of historical fiction, but the author acknowledges those moments in the back of the book, and cites the sources by which he reconstructed the scene.

The book is an tantalizing juxtaposition of the hope and struggle of Burnham and the Chicago people to create the forefather of Disneyland, and the cold and seductive machinations of H.H. Holmes, the man who used the fair as bait.

I recommend it even if you don't like non-fiction. It is, in fact, a non-fiction gateway drug.

If you liked this, you may like:
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Steampunk Fiction

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Library at Night


The Library at Night
by Alberto Manguel

Ok so I have been done with this book for a while, so I can't really remember a lot of it. I'm grasping at fleeting impressions, and using a few notes I took.

This book examines libraries through the lens of different concepts: Library as Myth, Library as Space, Library as Power, Library as Identity, etc.

I was not prepared to like this book, as the author spent most of the first chapter expounding on how awesome libraries are, his in particular. But then he got into the historical bits and I loved it!

For example, there were public libraries dating back to ancient Rome. People would read aloud to themselves, before the idea of silent reading caught on, the Warburg library was cataloged more by the movement of the world soul than by logic. And that ancient libraries were very like our own:

“May Ishtar bless the reader who will not alter this tablet nor place it elsewhere in the library and may she denounce in anger he who dares withdraw it from the building.” – Mesopotamian tablet 7th cent B.C.

I also found it rather uncanny that when I was having difficulty cataloging the Luce, the book would talk about the difficulties of cataloging, and when I was running out of space, it would talk about the problems of fitting your books where they need to be.

And it had great quotes and ideas:

“If an image of the cosmos can be assembled and preserved under a single roof (as King Ptolemy must have thought) then every detail of that image – a grain of sand, a drop of water, the king himself – will have a place there, recorded in words by a poet, a storyteller, a historian, forever, or at least as long as there are readers who may one day open the appointed page. There is a line of poetry, a sentence in a fable, a word in an essay, why which my existence is justified; find that line and my immortality is assured.”

“According to an early hadith, or Islamic tradition, “one scholar is more powerful against the Devil than a thousand worshipers.”

“A library’s value was determined only by its contents and the use readers made of that contents, not by the rarity of its treasures.”

“There is an unbridgeable chasm between the book that tradition has declared a classic and the book (the same book) that we have made ourselves through instinct, emotion and understanding: suffered through it, rejoiced in it, translated it into our experience and (notwithstanding the layers of readings with which a new book comes into our hands) essentially become its first discoverers, an experience as astonishing as finding Friday’s footprints in the sand.”

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Middle Place (6/2/10)



The Middle Place
by Kelly Corrigan

"Even when all the paperwork-a marriage license, a notarized deed, two birth certificates, and seven years of tax returns-clearly indicates you're an adult, but all the same, there you are, clutching the phone and thanking God that you're still somebody's daughter."
- Kelly Corrigan (The Middle Place)

This book is basically about a woman who is still her parent's daughter, but also the mother of two children. Hence the "middle place."

I liked parts of this book very much. I loved the stories of her growing up a Corrigan, as part of a galumphing and gregarious Irish family with a dad called Greenie who would shout "Hello World!" out the window every morning and make friends with everyone. I loved the stories about her kids, and how when she would yell at them, they would slyly divert her onto a conversation about how fish don't have noses and all is forgiven.

However, I had a really hard time liking Kelly Corrigan herself. There were moments when she was growing up when I understood her. And I completely understand that when both you and your dad have cancer, you are not in the best state of mind. But a lot of times, I thought she was just crazy! And I have never had cancer, so I don't know what that would do to me, but the way that she was so controlling over her father's treatment because she knew better than anyone else, or how she would get so angry when her husband called his parents to say hi, or the fact that she went out to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy $400 worth of stuff to replace her parent's old things while her mom was out just because she thought the place looked shabby without asking if it was ok...

I just would look at her and say "Really? Let go, girl. Just let go." There were so many moments like that that I had a hard time enjoying her as a narrator.

If you liked this book, you may like:
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Letters of John and Abigail Adams (6/2/10)



The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

"My bursting heart must find vent at my pen." — Abigail Adams


This book is a selection of letters between John and Abigail Adams, the couple who shaped and experienced the birth of the United States of America.

First let me say that I have always had a huge historical crush on John Adams ever since I saw 1776. Because of this, I see John Adams through William-Daniels-colored glasses.

I loved this book because of who was writing, and the small kernels of love and knowledge and wisdom that spoke to me. It is the style I had difficulty with.

You would think that an epistolary book would be easy to compile, and easy to read; one person writes, the other person responds. Not true. One person writes 5 letters and waits for a friend who is traveling in that direction to take them. They tie them all in a packet, and it takes weeks to get to the destination. In the mean time, the responder has done exactly the same thing. So you have 5 letters that have nothing to do with each other, all written at during the same month or so. And then you have the responses to all of the letters at once in another letter, followed by several more.

And that is not to mention the letters that were tossed overboard or stolen by spies.

So it is not exactly a linear conversation.

A good 50% of the conversation is "I miss you so much, write me more letters." Another 40% is recounting raids and skirmishes in Boston.

But the last 10% is filled with beautiful moments, and passions I want to hug them for.

Like John's insistence that education, exercise, simplicity, and virtue are the keys to a well-lived life. And how while changing history, all he wants to do is go home to his farm and his family. Or the comical descriptions he gives of his barber (he is not allowed to tell anything about the Continental Congress, which is hugely disappointing, as I would have loved to have this detailed of a character study for them.)

I love when she gets impassioned about the rights of women. Everyone knows the famous "remember the ladies" letter, but I think the better one is in regards to female education. It is the first time I can tell she is angry.

In response to John's rant about the deficiency of education of men in the country, she writes:

"If you complain of neglect of education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it? With regard to the education of my own children, I find myself soon out of my depth, destitute and deficient in every part of education.

I most sincerely wish that some more liberal plan might be laid and executed for the benefit of the rising generation, and that our new Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging leading and virtue. If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women. The world perhaps will laugh at me and accuse me of vanity, but you, I know, have a mind too enlarged and liberal to disregard the sentiment. If much depends, as is allowed, on the early education of youth, and the first principles which are instilled take the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments in women."

All in all a difficult book, because it was not in narrative form, but it gave me joy to hear the words of my heroes.

ARCHIVED REVIEW: Eat, Pray, Love (5/12/10)



Eat, Pray, Love
By Elizabeth Gilbert

"As I focus on diligent joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once -- that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people." — Elizabeth Gilbert 
(Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

This is a memoir of Liz Gilbert, a 34 year old woman who just suffered through a horrific and drawn out divorce, and then an intense relationship with a rebound guy. She realizes she has never been on her own, she has always clung to a man, and so she embarks on a voyage of self-discovery. She explores pleasure (mostly in the form of food) in Italy, prayer and meditation in an Ashram in India, and balance and love in Bali.

So I went into this book thinking I was going to hate it. We read it for book club and I thought it was going to be vapid and self-indulgent. But I was actually very touched and impressed by it. I was a bit annoyed with Liz at the beginning whenever she expressed her depression, but I believe it was partially because I often felt the same way, but didn't want to recognize it in myself. So it was easy to be all judgey-judge outside of the pain, rather than mid-pain, when it is easy to sink into a mire of malaise. The descriptions of the pain and confusion she felt were a great advantage to the book, however, because she let the story run its course: she was in pain when she felt pain, and she was transcendent when she was transcendent. It allowed her a complete journey without "oh if I had known this meditation when I was feeling this pain I could have blah blah blah."

Because I had a hard time letting myself relate to her when she was in pain, I reveled in her descriptions of other people. She has a gift for making characters jump off the page with a few crisp well chosen words. I also loved the historical and cultural tidbits that she stuffed in the corners of her narrative, like how the Italian language we know today was chosen as "official" Italian because it was the dialect of Dante's Inferno, and the most beautiful of the options. Or what the hell an Ashram is and the different types of meditation. Or just how awesome Bali is.

And the wisdom that she gleaned from this journey rang true with me almost every time. I kept having moments of "omg I never realized that!" And the grace that she worked her ass off for inspired me every time.

I admire the sheer tenacity of this woman who took a year off (granted she had the money) and committed not to this decadent vacation, which is what I thought it would be, but to a rigorous, and often grueling quest for happiness.

I recommend it to all women who are unhappy with their lives, so you can be inspired to find a (less expensive) way to seek that solid core of happiness that everyone deserves, and those who are happy with their lives so that you can sit back and appreciate the happy.

If you liked this book, you may like:
A Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Year of Living Biblically (4/10/10)

(All archived reviews are from a previous book blog journal)


The Year of Living Biblically: 
One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
 By A.J. Jacobs. 

This is a wonderful story about a man's quest to discover what this religion thing is all about.

He decides to follow all the rules set out in the bible, even the really crazy ones, like stealing eggs from pigeons. Sometimes, the rules don't really affect him, but sometimes they change him in the most profound way. Like the rule in the bible about how you must always wear white. It makes him feel lighter, and happier. More spiritual.

I also learned so much about Jewish traditions, and the reason behind them. I always thought it was sexist to call women unclean during their period, but when a woman bleeds it is considered a little death. The loss of a potential life. And apparently there is a similar one for men too, but no one talks about it that much.

It is so admirable how he commits to the project, even to the inconvenience of his family. (The interplay between himself and his wife is one of the real delights of the book.)

He starts out not believing, but knowing that if he goes through the motions of the traditions, he might end up believing.

He comes out the other side a "reverent agnostic," he says. Paying attention to all the rules, resting on the sabbath, obeying laws, giving thanks, made him pay more attention to life. To the tiny every day things. 

When learning the different ways to pray, he says thanks over his hummus: "I'd like to thank the farmer who grew the chickpeas for this hummus. And the truckers who drove them to the store. And the little old Italian Lady who sold the hummus to me at Zingone's deli and told me 'Lots of Love.'" It sounded silly, but made him really pay attention to the food he was eating, and made him feel connected to all those people.

He gained so much from the different traditions he examined: Amish, Hasidic Jew, Red-Letter Christian, Snake Handers, Jerry Fallwell's parish, and the philosophy of his various spiritual advisors, like the "pastor out to pasture."

He gains a small bit of meaning from even the strangest traditions. He learned how to surrender, he broke down religious stereotypes, and learned how to live in each moment, giving thanks.

I recommend it to anyone of any religion, or no religion.