This is a biography - or a memoir - that reads like one very very long and wordy obituary. Robert Peace had a tough beginning but he also had things tThis is a biography - or a memoir - that reads like one very very long and wordy obituary. Robert Peace had a tough beginning but he also had things that are rare: loving parents, close friends, brilliance, mentors. Those things can’t be bought. The story of how he squandered his gifts and was unable to escape his origins should have been fascinating - but it wasn’t. Hobbs included too many people and too many details for Rob’s story to be compelling. There were ample opportunities to build tension - mini climaxes, say - almost all of which were squandered. I can’t speak to whether or not this story honestly represents him, but it fails to really explain how someone with such brilliance fell back into poverty and drugs when he had all the capacity in the world to be more. It therefore fails to provide a roadmap for how to do better with other young men like Rob. By simply telling the story without any drama, Hobbs cheats the reader - and Rob - of what must have been a roller coaster ride of a life. Every story, truth or fiction, has climaxes and denouements. Failing to convey this made Rob’s story what I called it in the beginning: a long and wordy obituary. I finished it because I felt I had to, but I would not recommend this...more
Short, fascinating discussion of the Cloisters (Met) and Cluny (Paris) unicorn tapestries, explaining their discovery, their likely origins, their symShort, fascinating discussion of the Cloisters (Met) and Cluny (Paris) unicorn tapestries, explaining their discovery, their likely origins, their symbolism, and their place in history. ...more
Perhaps you haven't spent much time thinking about "hysteria," that catch-all diagnosis applied mostly to women throughout Well, THAT was interesting.
Perhaps you haven't spent much time thinking about "hysteria," that catch-all diagnosis applied mostly to women throughout time. Or perhaps you've thought about it in the context of psychiatric fads among adolescent girls: the Salem witch accusers, or anorexia in the 80's. Rediscovered childhood traumas through hypnotism in the 90s. Etc. Perhaps you were vaguely aware that the diagnosis of "hysteria" was disproportionately applied to women, and thank goodness we know enough not to do that anymore. Or perhaps, like me, you were helping a child understand and research The Yellow Wallpaper, and this book fell in your lap.
Hmm. Maybe that's just me.
At any rate, Maines has taken a risqué subject and written an academic dissertation on it. Beginning with a quick overview of hysteria - catchall diagnosis applied to women, thought to be rooted in the uterus and other female parts/functioning, she rapidly switches to a different explanation of hysteria: that it was rooted in female sexual satisfaction. Whether this is true or not, she makes a good case for her explanation, as a primary means of treating hysteria from ancient Greece through the begining of the twentieth century was the "vulvar massage," which is exactly what it sounds like. Maines' understanding of the historic medical literature on the subject is that physicians took no pleasure in the vulvar massage, which was often outsourced to midwives, but was deemed successful when it relieved "pelvic congestion" and stress, and induced greater ability to sleep, usually after a great convulsion or spasm. She makes the case that what was clearly orgasm was not thought of in sexual terms by medical providers and that the vulvar massage was deliberately described as non-sexual - in spite of the fact that it clearly was intended to bring about orgasm in its subjects. Apparently, fatigued by the great efforts required in vulvar massage, physicians were relieved when the vibrator was introduced in the late nineteenth century. Hydrotherapy, seen in common usage around the same time, was also used to substiute for vulvar massage. Maines points out that the vibrator was initially a medical instrument, although by the time of the Chicago World Fair, it was also marketed as a household device. Advertisements for the vibrator are seen in mainstream publications through the 1920s - and then, when it began to be used in blue movies (early porn), the ability to pretend that it wasn't what it was dissipated, and the vibrator disappeared from mainstream "polite" usage and conversation. When it burst onto the scene again in the 1960s, it was in a purely sexual context, which is how it has remained.
There is, of course, more to read in this book than I have laid out here. Maines provides a wealth of information about this particular medical condition, or at least the evidence supporting her position; and discusses extensively the "androcentric" view of sex and orgasm that she believes led to this "medicalization" of female pleasure. It's a relatively short book, readable, with lots of fairly entertaining illustrations. I'm not sure I buy the argument in its entirety, since I haven't come across it in this stark a format before, and that includes psychology courses, medical school, training and clinical practice. But does it add to what I knew before? Totally, and it's absolutely diverting. Not titillating, if you're worried about that. Worth it...more
Really wonderful reference, very readable. I used this to help me in a book section I was writing, and I highlighted liberally, but this isn't just foReally wonderful reference, very readable. I used this to help me in a book section I was writing, and I highlighted liberally, but this isn't just for an academic or research setting. Whaley tells the stories of these women in a very readable, chatty way. I've commented before on biases in nonfiction and while Whaley has some, they aren't terribly overt, and I felt that she conveyed the information in a pretty unbiased way. The one exception is the referral to many positions taken by men & authorities towards women as misogynistic, and while I totally agree that it's misogynistic to subscribe to the belief that women are what happens when nature makes a mistake, and men are the stronger, more capable outcome of gestation, I'm not sure that calling it out as such is unbiased. Nevertheless, she did an amazing job with this book. Highly recommend to anyone interested in the topic....more
Looking to become more independent in the kitchen? Trying to design your own recipes? This is a great place to start.
I read this because I was researLooking to become more independent in the kitchen? Trying to design your own recipes? This is a great place to start.
I read this because I was researching gluten free recipes. As the parent of a celiac kid, I am constantly looking for ways to make things better. And there aren’t always recipes for what I want to make. I was hoping this would help me create recipes where none exist.
The discussion of the ratios is really interesting. I don’t think it is a perfect application to gluten free cooking because wheat flour behaves very differently from GF substitutes, but I learned a lot and I think it will be helpful...more
On May 3, 2010, a sharp-eyed janitor at Birmingham International Airport notified authorities about the suspicious behavior of a passenger in the EmirOn May 3, 2010, a sharp-eyed janitor at Birmingham International Airport notified authorities about the suspicious behavior of a passenger in the Emirates lounge. That passenger was Jeffrey Lendrum.
This vignette begins The Falcon Thief, a tale that spans decades and continents. Focusing primarily on Lendrum and McWilliam, the wildlife officer instrumental in that Birmingham arrest, Hammer’s book details the uber-wealthy sport of falconry, exotic bird breeders, and the high-stakes wild raptor theft that accompanies them.
Going into this book, I knew absolutely nothing about this topic except that falconry sometimes showed up the occasional medieval romance novel I read, so the entire book was an education. I think the story lags s bit at the beginning with McWilliams’ background (mostly not germane to the story, IMO), and the discussion of falconry is interesting but lacks the real rhythm of a story, so the book slows there as well. However, once Hammer gets into Lendrum’s exploits it’s quite interesting.
It’s not quite a four star book, but it’s definitely more than 3.5. Enjoy!...more
This is a fascinating and readable account of the history of the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus. It was published fifteen years ago, so theThis is a fascinating and readable account of the history of the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus. It was published fifteen years ago, so there is probably a lot of new information that has emerged, but I wanted to read something devoid of current opinion: people live in their own times, not ours, and I was not interested in a book that would see them through that contemporary lens.
Mann is a journalist IRL and the reader can tell because the book was meticulously researched and written in a digestible, readable way. This is a topic that has the potential to be very dry - after all we are talking about weather patterns, fossil records and archaeological sites plus lots and lots of speculation - but I found the book fascinating. It was a little too dense for me to plow through all at once, but that’s fine.
I agree with prior reviewers who say that Mann injects some of his own views here, particularly around equivalency of Mesoamerican and European societies in the category of cultural advancement. There is no doubt that these earlier cultures were capable in some very unique ways and yet they never developed a system of writing that could be used by all. This does not denigrate their other achievements in math, astronomy, agriculture, art, etc.
The thing that I enjoyed most about this was learning so much about the history of this part of the world. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, we learned none of this, and I doubt my kids are learning this today. The whole question of how humans reached this part of the world - the idea of societies whose ruins are submerged- the democratic structure of Northeastern native cultures - the multilayered history of Central and South America, especially around agriculture - it was fascinating. Learning that this land was not the untouched, virgin land I had always believed it was when Europeans arrived was eye opening.
I read this because my kid was doing explorers in school, and she wasn’t getting a true or even handed presentation of the history. I have more to read, but I feel more capable now of teaching her what was here, what happened, what was good, what wasn’t. ...more
Irreversible Damage: The book that has been the source of an extraordinary amount of controversy for dealing with a hot-button issue in a not-so-politIrreversible Damage: The book that has been the source of an extraordinary amount of controversy for dealing with a hot-button issue in a not-so-politically correct sort of way. And one of the best books I've read in a very long time.
The book is not, as some have postulated, transphobic. Nor is it homophobic, or hateful. What it is: an exploration of this topic - the rapid onset gender dysphoria that seemingly took down Lisa Littman, an ob-gyn and public health researcher - with a critical eye. The literature, medical/psychiatric/therapeutic professional associations, schools, media and online world are in lockstep: if a child announces that s/he is transgender or otherwise gender nonconforming, we should accept and support this announcement without questioning what led to it. Shrier asks a few simple questions: - How does this differ from transgender identification in the preceding century? - Why these girls, and why now? - Are these girls getting better with this blanket support? -What are the outcomes of the current medical/psychiatric approach to trans-identification?
As I noted in the last nonfiction book I read, even in nonfiction, authors always imbue the text with their own opinions, and Shrier is no different. She clearly has an opinion on this topic, but as noted above - she is neither transphobic nor homophobic (accusations that have been leveled at her). She is, however, skeptical and analytical - two features she points out are missing from most of the treatments (medical and therapeutic) provided to these girls. Like Littman, she notes a frequent co-occurrence of gender nonconformity among girls in a given school or among groups of friends, which is a statistical impossibility. How can this be? And how can society - especially those tasked with helping adolescents - ignore this?
I'm first a parent and second a physician, and my overwhelming sense after reading this book is that we have a whole generation of girls who are not getting what they really need from their parents, teachers, physicians and support system. They're getting lost on the internet (which I think is true regardless of the transgender issue - it's a huge problem, esp now with pandemic) and they are not receiving the mental health treatment they need. Depression, anxiety, social isolation, imperfection of body, stereotypical perspectives on what is masculine and feminine - kids are struggling with all of these issues. Some will navigate adolescence with bumps and bruises and emerge unscathed on the other side. Others will not, and the evidence provided by Shrier is that these kids are not getting support for the underlying issues. Instead of pursuing the things that may have led to their identification, they are receiving therapy and support for the identity they embrace. In fact, questioning why a teen suddenly identifies as transgender is anathema.
Shrier covers the history of this recent phenomenon and interviews physicians and therapists who have treated and studied innumerable transgender individuals. She interviewed multiple transgender adults, families of daughters who suddenly transitioned in adolescence, and some people who detransitioned. Of course, as in any social science book, her conclusions are informed by those who she interviewed, but this is a fairly unique and unstudied population. In the absence of other data, this is what she has to go on, and unless - and until - academic institutions create well-designed studies around this population, investigative reporting is the only source of information that counteracts the most popular views on this topic.
Shrier notes that in the end, some of these girls are transgender. Some of them are lesbians. Some of them are neither, but have other mental health issues that have not been adequately addressed or treated. She analogizes this rapid onset transgender identification to teenage clusters of anorexia, or multiple personality disorder, or recovered memories of abuse, and makes the point that providing life-altering treatment, or encouraging social transitioning, is not benign and should not be undertaken without full evaluation of the individual, as was done in the past (pretty much up to 2015). Finally, she makes some important points about womanhood: it is hard to get through adolescence, and the changes girls' bodies undergo are amazing and horrifying, but in the end they are wonderful beings with the ability to do just about anything they want to do without regard to their sexuality or degree of masculinity or femininity. And being a woman (and a girl) is an incredible thing.
As I said at the beginning, I think this book was fabulous. As a parent and a physician, I worry about ANY treatment that has the potential to cause harm, and I constantly weigh risks and benefits when dealing with my children, my patients and my community. I don't like to give antibiotics when they won't clearly provide benefit, even if patients want them, because they can cause harm. I don't support further hybrid/remote learning because I believe the risks of keeping our kids home outweighs the benefits. And I view this much the same way: risks and benefits must be evaluated for these girls. They should receive counseling for depression. Their parents should be asked for a social and psych0logical history, as I have been each time we have worked with a new mental health professional for my own children. A BASC should be completed by parents, children, teachers. And if after much therapy - focused on evaluating root causes of unhappiness and body dissatisfaction - a teen is found to have persistent gender dysphoria, transition should be discussed. In other words, treatment should be rooted in full assessment and an accurate risk/benefit analysis.
I strongly recommend reading this, especially if you disagree with the ideas postulated here. We've reached a bizarre point culturally where people believe they will be harmed by reading things they don't like. That makes no sense. If you read something you disagree with, you can then make a cogent argument refuting its points....more
In June 2018, I was glued to the newspapers and television along with the rest of the world, hearing first about the Wild Boars’ entrapment by floodwaIn June 2018, I was glued to the newspapers and television along with the rest of the world, hearing first about the Wild Boars’ entrapment by floodwaters and following the story daily for updates. Like everyone else, I waited to see if the soccer team would survive the ordeal of being trapped deep in a Thai cave. It was a nail-biting, terrifying story - riveting and unifying at a time when, frankly, we spend more time arguing with each other over idiocies than finding things about which we can agree. As a parent, it was horrifying.
All Thirteen is Christina Soontornvat’s retelling of these events. Her background as a children’s author shines through: the content is written in youth-friendly language and could easily be read by a middle grade reader. That was actually fine for me: reading this story engendered so much stress I was happy to have easy prose. She peppers the book with explanations of cave geology, water management, Thai culture, and Buddhism -among other topics - which broke up the tension and offered explanations for event development and the choices made by rescuers.
All in, a worthwhile read. Really enjoyed it. Fine for adults, but IMO targeted at middle/high school readers of adventure stories. A bit much if you have a scared kid though!...more
"Ghostland" isn't quite the book you expect: Neither a horror nor a fantasy, but a review of various "haunted" locations around the US, the history be"Ghostland" isn't quite the book you expect: Neither a horror nor a fantasy, but a review of various "haunted" locations around the US, the history behind the venues, and speculation as to the etiology of the ghost stories associated with them. Some of the places - e.g. the Winchester house - are well known and well reviewed; while others will be unfamiliar to all but local denizens. Dickey skips around the country: Oregon to Detroit, New York to Louisiana, Nevada to California, with stopovers in Ohio, Tennessee, Kansas and Missouri, to name a few. He tells of historic mansions forever associated with their prior owners, eerie cemeteries, a slave auction site, ruined buildings, old asylums. In short: it is a brief tour of Americana and American architecture seen in the light of local lore. Who told the stories about the place? Was the ghost seen by a former slave just a member of the Klan? How many stories came together to form the tale of unrequited love in a cemetery? All along, he compares stories to what he was able to uncover via old records, often pointing out that there was no proof that such a person existed, or that such an event occurred.
As others have remarked, Dickey is not an unbiased reviewer. A clear skeptic, he sees little reason to believe any of these stories. Full disclosure: I am open to the possibility that things exist that we do not understand, cannot perceive or cannot explain. I believe we do not fully understand the human brain or the depth of perception, and I am unwilling to discount the unexplainable simply because we don't have an answer to the questions asked today. I understand that for others, anything that is concrete and measurable cannot exist. Dickey squarely falls into this latter camp and that comes through in his retelling of the stories of the lives lost and the sad histories of some of these places, and to be honest, that's disappointing. By discarding all of these stories to the rubbish pile of old tropes, sad memories and guilty feelings, he implies that none of them have any truth - though by his own admission, some of the stories he tells have no discernible alternate explanation.
Towards the beginning of this book, Dickey says: "History is not just written by the victors; it's written by the literate."
Clearly, this opinion informs his view of events: if there is not extant proof of an event, or if he can uncover alternate rationale, then the written version must be true. However, we come from millennia of oral storytelling. As anyone knows from "whisper down the lane," stories mutate over time as they are told and re-told, and that is perhaps why much of the Biblical stories are clearly allegorical rather than purely factual (and by saying that I am not implying a belief or lack of in G-d, but that the books we use to worship are a mix of fact and fiction, which is entirely in keeping with the likelihood that the stories were told for years prior to being written down, and that original copies of texts no longer exist). However, oral tradition is not necessarily untrue; and conversely, the written word reflects the view of the author, or his patron. We need look no further than two newspaper articles in the present day. In two hundred years, will anyone know or care or understand which newspapers were liberal and which were conservative? They will have to look at the articles and the records and draw their own conclusions. Today, we have so much information at our disposal that it seems the truth can be easily elucidated from documents, but I would argue that record keeping was much more sparse in the past, and it would be easy enough to hide a mistress, or a wife, or a child, or a prior life of crime and so on.
Anyway. I could go on, but it doesn't really matter in this context. The stories are interesting enough, but vary in readability. The book would have benefited from a photographic index - I would have loved to see what I was reading about. The degree to which stories were personalized or humanized varied greatly, and I found the narration more interesting when Dickey was more personally connected to it, though he did get preachy in a few places and that made the text less interesting.
All in - it's really a solid 3. If the topic is interesting to you, it's a worthwhile skip around the USA, visiting lost souls, their histories, and the stories that have warped over time....more
Yellow fever - carried by the Aedes aegyptii mosquito - plagued first the US colonies and then various states, striking with various levels of intensiYellow fever - carried by the Aedes aegyptii mosquito - plagued first the US colonies and then various states, striking with various levels of intensity each time. As a native Philadelphian, the epidemic with which I have been most familiar up to this point is the 1793 epidemic that decimated Philadelphia, leaving it a hollow shell of itself.
Crosby's story begins with the 1878 epidemic in Memphis, but the focus of her book is really on the search for the etiology, and thus control, of yellow fever. In many ways this search parallels our current race against time as we seek to understand and control SARS-CoV-2 (aka COVID-19), except the battle they were fighting took place with fewer resources, far less technology, and some pretty sketchy medical ethics. Shh, I'm going to give the end away: the mosquito vector is finally confirmed by Walter Reed (of Walter Reed Medical Center fame) and his team; and some years later, the virus was discovered as well.
But did that solve the problem?
Well, it helped: aggressive mosquito-control measures were instituted, and after centuries of waxing and waning epidemics, it was finally wrested under control. However, as is true of any vector- borne disease, it cannot be eradicated, and outbreaks continue to periodically occur.
I enjoyed this book, though Caldwell is not an unbiased reporter of the facts. Things that stood out: the focus on Memphis to the exclusion of other cities. Snide comments about US medicine and US physicians - and I felt that much of her criticism (and, conversely, her praise) was undeserved. There was also a fair amount of description and scene setting that definitely drew me in and made the book readable, but didn't feel entirely true. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile read....more
Truly tragic memoir by Ishikawa, whose naive parents emigrated from Japan to North Korea with him and his siblings in search of a better life. Of courTruly tragic memoir by Ishikawa, whose naive parents emigrated from Japan to North Korea with him and his siblings in search of a better life. Of course that “better life” never materialized, and after 36 years of struggle, starvation and an unimaginably difficult existence, he escaped to China. Luckily, he encountered a number of people who helped him, and eventually repatriated him to Japan. Unfortunately, he continued to struggle in Japan, and likely lost most of his family to starvation and other struggles in North Korea.
From an artistic standpoint, the writing in the book is mediocre, but the story is awful and worth reading. This is not the first book I have read by an escapee; the mean existence of the North Koran populace is truly heartbreaking, and the willingness of China to return escapees to North Korea is shameful. And vile. Sadly, this is a problem without any obvious solution.
I hope Mr. Ishikawa’s life improved after the publication of this book. ...more
In this devastating memoir, Sonali Deraniyagala tells the story of her family, lost in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. She devotes only a small portIn this devastating memoir, Sonali Deraniyagala tells the story of her family, lost in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. She devotes only a small portion of the story to the day of the wave: curiosity, then fear, then sheer terror and then... loss. The way the water rolled in, innocuous at first, and then sweeping everything in its path away, filling cars, tipping them over. Sweeping people inland and drowning them, and then washing them back out to see. As a parent, I found that part of the story difficult to read: I completed it in fits and starts, gasping, wondering if I could go further.
And yet that is not the story Deraniyagala has told. Instead, this is a story of grief, how it morphs over time, and how, in some ways, it never leaves. It is also a love letter and obituary: a way to capture, forever, the way her sons were as little boys and her husband was as an exuberant student and then a loving husband and father. The parents who loved her and guided and her and who, in the end, died as well. Seen through the rose-colored glasses of memory, they are a family anyone would want: enthusiastic, intelligent, creative, funny. I am sure, as anyone else who has read this must be, that they were not perfect. Children fight and husbands annoy and parents nag. Yet they form the fabric of our lives and to lose them all in one instant means that the little irritations are subsumed under the weight of grief and the memory of the beautiful and ordinary things.
This was incredibly difficult to read, and as I was working my way through the last of it, today, I turned to my sister and told her I was depressed. "Maybe it's because you're reading that book," she said. Maybe it was....more
When the Nazis occupied Poland after Czechoslovakia and Austria, citizens had a choice: go along with the Nazis and risk death or fight back and risk When the Nazis occupied Poland after Czechoslovakia and Austria, citizens had a choice: go along with the Nazis and risk death or fight back and risk death. This was not necessarily a battle against anti-Semitism: anti-Semitism was common in Poland. However, it was a fight against occupation and terror.
This book tells the story of Witold Pilecki, a 39 yo Polish resistance fighter who volunteered for an Auschwitz transport and spent the next two and a half years behind barbed wire. He bore witness to the escalating Nazi atrocities, including the pioneering of gas chambers, the industrialization of murder, and the development of large-scale crematoria the Nazis forced inmates to use to burn the several thousand dead Jews and political prisoners daily. Pilecki was instrumental in the creation and sustenance of a underground movement within the concentration camp, and although a large scale revolt was never executed (or even possible), his actions permitted multiple escapes and enabled many people to live additional days.
Through Fairweather’s incredible retelling of this story, we see the shocking brutality of the Nazis - Poles, Soviets, Jews were subject to random shootings, revenge killings, death in the gravel pits, starvation, typhus, euthanasia, medical experimentation and so on. Pilecki was a helpless witness: sheer numbers and firepower meant that the Nazis’ victims could not fight back most of the time. Sadly, this explains the willingness of prisoners to participate in Nazi brutality: they truly had no choice. Pilecki sought to reduce the brutality by helping prisoners recapture their humanity and willingness to care for one another. To lose that, he argued, was to let the Nazis win.
Unfortunately, there’s no happy ending to the story. Pilecki eventually escaped Auschwitz and went on to work with the Polish uprising, fighting against Nazis and then Soviets in an effort to retain Polish control of Warsaw. After the war, Poland came under Soviet control, and the Soviets were a little better than the Nazis. As history has shown us, Stalin was a brutal ruler and responsible for the deaths of many millions as well. It would be many decades before Pilecki’s story could be told.
Jack Fairweather has written a spectacular novel that takes well-known history and delivers it to the reader as if it were an action packed thriller. It is difficult to put down the book. We all know how the story ends: it’s no secret. And yet, we keep turning the pages, as if we are hoping to discover a surprise. Maybe, in this version, the Warsaw Uprising succeeded. Maybe the prisoners at Auschwitz did overwhelm the guards. Maybe they destroyed the gas chambers and no Jews were killed. But no, that’s all just fantasy. Still, Fairweather makes the reader believe, while reading, that it’s possible.
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