June 2013
I haven't been on this page in a long time. In fact, I'd forgotten that I set it up. I've actually had time to do some reading lately and I remembered it... Oops. I'm so not a good blogger.
Far From the Tree
Too much info... I always felt like the author was saying that it is impossible to put these people into categories because some of them are this way and some of them are that way and others are neither this way nor that way while yet others evolve from this to that or that to this... I mean it gets a bit unmanageable when one is so worried about not restricting people through categories. Still, the book has a lot of incredible insights nevertheless.
I especially like the complicated reality of the interaction between deaf and hearing within families. Wow. That did shift my paradigm about life and handicaps. The chapter on downs syndrome children was touching also. The chapter on trans children left me thinking. There were some real characters in the chapter on criminals but it was less satisfying because of how impossible it is to really make any broad statements.
Sigh...
Leaving Dirty Jersey.
Want to read a tear-jerker of a biography that will make you feel totally inadequate as an individual? Oh, it's also very well researched and illuminating regarding parts of the dynamic in the WWII pacific theater.
Well... I just finished reading such a book. I cried and I wiped my nose on my sleeve so I wouldn't have to get up to look for kleenex. JUST KIDDING, I had tears, but never enough to produce sinus problems.
So... I can't find my copy of this book right now. hmmm.... can't seem to remember the title or the author's name (a woman). As soon as I do, you can bet that I'm going to write it in here. Stay tuned...
I haven't been on this page in a long time. In fact, I'd forgotten that I set it up. I've actually had time to do some reading lately and I remembered it... Oops. I'm so not a good blogger.
Far From the Tree
Too much info... I always felt like the author was saying that it is impossible to put these people into categories because some of them are this way and some of them are that way and others are neither this way nor that way while yet others evolve from this to that or that to this... I mean it gets a bit unmanageable when one is so worried about not restricting people through categories. Still, the book has a lot of incredible insights nevertheless.
I especially like the complicated reality of the interaction between deaf and hearing within families. Wow. That did shift my paradigm about life and handicaps. The chapter on downs syndrome children was touching also. The chapter on trans children left me thinking. There were some real characters in the chapter on criminals but it was less satisfying because of how impossible it is to really make any broad statements.
Sigh...
Leaving Dirty Jersey.
Want to read a tear-jerker of a biography that will make you feel totally inadequate as an individual? Oh, it's also very well researched and illuminating regarding parts of the dynamic in the WWII pacific theater.
Well... I just finished reading such a book. I cried and I wiped my nose on my sleeve so I wouldn't have to get up to look for kleenex. JUST KIDDING, I had tears, but never enough to produce sinus problems.
So... I can't find my copy of this book right now. hmmm.... can't seem to remember the title or the author's name (a woman). As soon as I do, you can bet that I'm going to write it in here. Stay tuned...
MAY 2011
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War. by Deb Olin Unferth (2011)
At first I wasn't very keen on this book. I was expecting to read a book with real information about the revolution and Central America in this period (late 1980s). When I figured out that this book was really a kind of memoire (albeit very selective about the info. divulged), I began to read it with a different attitude.
Yes, I really liked it and, yes, it did give me a slightly new take on Central America in the 1980s even though I shudder at its (almost flippant) "historical analysis."
The things I didn't like: "Helados vainillos"... there is some awkward Spanish (I'm not going to look for the entire phrase) - She doesn't pretend to speak Spanish well, so why does she put these phrases in? This one was particularly galling because it was so unnecessary.
There are times where she repeats herself excessively - in a way which was probably supposed to mimic stream of consciousness and to emphasize how unsure she is of her memory. I think she could have achieved this with less repetition. (For example: My boyfriend abandoned me, only maybe he didn't... Also she goes on a bit much about why she seems to remember events surrounding the reopening of a newspaper in a certain way.
YES - OKAY - We get it.
I seriously wondered if a few sections were "filling" - because it is a shortish book.
What I did like (and why I would recommend this book). ONE: The author. By the end of the book, I really like her. Not because she's giving us a pretty picture of herself, but because she's trying to be honest about certain key aspects of herself. TWO: She's honest without over-sharing to come across as shocking...- THREE: In spite of the fact that the book feels pointless about three-quarters of the way through, she pulls it all together with a kind of obsessive need to find out what happened to the Christian boyfriend (she's from a Jewish family) who became her fiance in El Salvador and whom she broke up with before the end of the book. This part of her feelings about her past and her present seemed completely real, almost universal, to me.
OK - this is a lousy attempt to critique this book and explain my feeling after I read it. I do have mixed feelings, I guess. But, when I finished it, I was glad I'd put in the time.
APRIL 2011
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Really interesting and worth reading, especially, I think, for the insights on how complicated the war on drugs is (hundreds of million dollars later and all one can say is: cocaine production isn't growing exponentially anymore.)
The book's chapters often begin with a jolting switch in subject, and that may be a product of multiple authors as well as their long writing process. This "journalistic expose" (as the book cover calls it) was written during what turned out to be a five year long captivity for three U.S. soldiers, oops, I mean privately contracted intelligence personnel who were captured by the Colombian guerrilla group (Las FARC) when their (inadequate-for-the-job) plane crashed while they were collecting information.
There are also parts of the book that feel superfluous. I mean, I sometimes wondered if the private life of one of the hostages (Colombian lover and children) really needed to be in there... But, whatever the flaws, to me it feels like the extended writing process helped the authors better understand the whole picture.
I have to mention how satisfying it was to read about the eventual release of the hostages --the result of a brilliant plan by the Colombian military.
There are also parts of the book that feel superfluous. I mean, I sometimes wondered if the private life of one of the hostages (Colombian lover and children) really needed to be in there... But, whatever the flaws, to me it feels like the extended writing process helped the authors better understand the whole picture.
I have to mention how satisfying it was to read about the eventual release of the hostages --the result of a brilliant plan by the Colombian military.
Mao's Great Famine. The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962. by Frank Dikotter. 2010.
I once used an article on the famine for a writing class I taught - and I'd always wanted to learn more. So, this book just grabbed me from the New Book shelf of my library. And, I've read it, and I do know more now, but I'm frustrated that I didn't get more. My new understanding is about the complex relationship between China and the Soviet Union (specifically, how Mao's tense relationship with Khrushchev fit in to events). There's a wonderful scene in which a swimming Mao (p. 44) speculates in front of Khrushchev about China's grain surplus (in 1958).
Oh, I gained other insights - and I'd recommend reading his final chapter on the trouble with calculating how many people died. Wow. Clearly the author has dedicated years of his life to understanding this tragedy and has left us with an incredible resource.
The problem with this book for the general reader is that it becomes overwhelming - there is too much to cover. In every chapter there are so many examples of tragic events (Chapters are divided into themes which at first center around official acts: steel fever, shopping spree, the end of the truth and then move toward the more gruesome, "Children, accidents, disease, cannibalism, etc.") At a certain point in all this one just feels as though one knows less.
"I get it. Humankind is capable of incredible depravity." But... (well, I've tried to write this sentence a number of times and nothing sounds right). I guess that it is the numbing effect of anecdote after anecdote - some of which, in different chapters, contradict others. Of course all this stuff exists simultaneously and there was nothing simple about the famine. I ended many evenings of reading with this idea: There has to be a better way to tell this story and to deal with these facts.
I guess China is too big, period. This event was too much, period. It's not going to be easily captured in one book. (The article felt so much more coherent because it had a easier agenda - Shock the uninitiated reader.) This book assumes the reader knows something (For example, there's the reference to sparrow hunting -p. 291- that I understood only because I'd read the article).
Darn it. I lent that article to a friend who never returned it, and I can't remember the title or the author.
MARCH 2011 - I picked up some non-fiction books while at the library finding a book for my son's presentation on Down Syndrome. I mention that only because I don't usually spend so much time reading medical books.
Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis by Lisa Sanders, M.D. (2009)
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This journalist/doctor used to write columns in the New York Times magazine which I loved. I grabbed the book mainly to skim it for the “stories” and I did a bit of skimming. Still, eventually I got caught up in the text between the case studies – that is, Sanders’ points are almost as compelling as the patients.
Not going to say much more except to point out a “text to text connection” (my son’s seventh grade English teacher would approve). As I read Sanders describe the lost art of the physical exam, specifically one point about how most doctors no longer recognize heartbeats which indicate specific heart problems (we rely instead on expensive imaging and technology), I was reminded of something I read about a group of island people who’s sense of direction was at the center of their social interactions and, thus, had remained incredibly strong. As we get smarter and smarter, we just have no idea of the knowledge we’ve lost.
Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA: Superbug by Maryn McKenna (2010)
I heard the author on the radio and, so when my son wanted to join the wrestling team, I SUPPORTED him... My husband vetoed it.
Now that I've read the book, I'm glad my husband won.
She sounded so calm in the NPR interview, discussing all the easy and practical ways to protect oneself: "hygiene, hygiene, hygiene." And, if you read her book and reach p. 110-120, you see the logic behind her attitude.
BUT - before you get to p. 100, you've been subjected to some pretty scary things.
Seriously, it felt like the last time I read a Stephen King novel (in High School probably - because I don't do scarey... I read The Shining).
The recommendation: Read it, but don't lose perspective.
