Category: NonFiction

Geometry of Love

gr4c5Leave a comment

Visser, Margaret. The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church. New York: North Point Press, 2000.

Reason read: Saturnalia Solstice in Rome happens in December.

Author fact: Visser was born in South Africa.

The Sant’ Agnese fouri le Mura church is named for a twelve year old girl named Agnes who was murdered in 305 A.D. Her throat was cut after she refused to marry the son of a Roman prefect. The name literally means “Saint Agnes Outside the Walls”. In addition to a physical description of the church Visser supplies a mental and spiritual picture as well. She takes the reader on a journey back to the roots of Christianity with etymology lessons thrown in for good measure. My favorite part was the comparison of church to theater. Of audience and performance. Evocation of imagination and emotion in both arenas. Geometry of Love is for anyone with a good imagination and wants to “see” Sant’ Agnese fouri le Mura church for him or herself.

My one criticism is the etymology. Visser pauses to tease apart words to reveal their deeper meaning quite often. Words like remember, mind, theatre, nave, orientation, gospel, error, heresy, pilgrim, passion, orthodoxy (I could go on and on and on) are explained. It reminded me of trying to have a conversation in the woods with a good friend who happened to also be an avid birder. Every sentence was punctuated or interrupted with “Did you hear that? That was a female Hylocichla mustelina…adolescent, of course.” And then we would pause to listen to the bird that, to me, sounded like every other brown bird in the trees. Having a normal back and forth conversation was damn near impossible.

Quotes I liked, “…the sea is a major metaphor in Greek literature for fate and necessity, or circumstances otherwise beyond human control” (p 62), “Today, the lambs arrive at Sant’ Agnese’s by car” (p 120), and “For anyone who is not spiritually allergic to churches, to walk into a beautiful church is to encounter understanding, to hear echoes of the soul’s own experiences” (p 125).

Book trivia: Despite the fact this book focuses on a particular church there are no photographs of it in Geometry of Love. Bummer. I really would have liked to see the statue of Agnes since Visser describes it so lovingly.

Nancy said: Geometry of Love is “the study” of the Sant’ Agnese fouri le Mura church.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Roman Holiday” (p 189).

On the Ocean

gr4c5Leave a comment

Pytheas of Massalia. On the Ocean. Translated by Christina Horst Roseman. Chicago: Ares Publishers, Inc., 1994.

Reason read: December is a good time to visit Greece, if you are so inclined to travel this holiday season.

Probably the biggest take-away I got from Christina Horst Roseman’s translation of On the Ocean was that Pytheas did not intend it as a sailing guide. What is amazing is that despite eighteen known ancient writers making reference to Pytheas over an 850 year-span, his original writings do not exist at all. It is obvious that On the Ocean was an important document but what happened to it? How was it not preserved in some way? In addition, Roseman states, “special problems are also raised by the work of two authors who probably made use of Pytheas, but in whose surviving work he is not named” (p 18). Wouldn’t that be considered plagiarism…if they had such a thing back then? A great deal of Roseman’s text is comparing what Strabo, Polybios and Pliny wrote as they were considered rivals of Pytheas.

Author fact: Roseman admits that through the years, because not a shred of Pytheas’s original writings exist, “assumptions have been accepted” about On the Ocean. I think that would be true of anything without substantiated proof. Rumor becomes real after awhile.

Book trivia: On the Ocean has an index of Greek words but no dictionary. There are quite a few passages in Greek without translation so right away I found it inconvenient.

Nancy said: not much aside from the writings of Pytheas don’t exist anymore.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Here Be Dragons: the Great Explorers and Expeditions” (p 111).

Wherever You Go

gr4c51 Comment

Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are: mindfulness and meditation in everyday life. Read by Jon Kabat-Zinn. California: Renaissance Media, 1994.

Reason read: Mindfulness around the holidays is good to have! I’m starting early.

If you are reading Wherever You Go just to say you have read Wherever You Go (like I am) this will take you no time at all. Sometimes a page is as short as a paragraph or just a couple of sentences. But, if you are looking for mindfulness it is best to read this book slowly. Let each section sink in and be sure to savor each line. It is a basic introduction to Buddhist meditation without of mumbo jumbo.

As an aside, I thought this went well to follow MindValley creator Vishen Lakhiani’s book Code of the Extraordinary Mind.

Lines I really like, “best to meditate…” Whoops. Scratch that. No part of Wherever You Go may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever. No favorite quotes for this review.

Author fact: Kabat-Zinn is the founder and director or the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Book trivia: this didn’t come with my copy of Wherever You Go, but Zinn mentions a series of mindfulness meditation practice tapes that are to be used in conjunction with the book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Help Yourself” (p 110).

Jingle the Books

gr4c5Leave a comment

December is going to be a crazy month. I need to run 93  miles. I will be hosting my in-law’s Holiday party for the first time. I’m going to the Christmas Eve Patriots Game. What else? Oh. The books!

Nonfiction:

  • Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming ~ in honor of December being the best time to visit Peru
  • Rainbow’s End by Lauren St. John ~ in honor of Shangani Day in Rhodesia.
  • Paul Revere and the World He Lived in by Esther Forbes ~ in honor of Revere’s birth month (I’m guessing since he was baptized on January first.)
  • On the Ocean by Pytheas (translated by Christina Horst Roseman) ~ in honor of finally finding a copy of this book!
  • Geometry of Love by Margaret Visser ~ in honor of Rome’s Saturnalia Solstice.
  • Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre ~ in honor of December being the best time to visit India.

Fiction:

  • Tu by Patricia Grace ~ in honor of New Zealand being discovered in December.

Series:

  • Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright ~ in honor of finishing the series started in September in honor of Enright’s birth month.

Early Review:

  • Yoga for Athletes by Ryanne Cunningham ~ for LibraryThing

The Fifties

gr4c5Leave a comment

Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Villard Books, 1993.

Reason read: November is clean up month. The last month to finish books started during the year.

The 1950s. The greatest generation. To put it into perspective, Churchill announced America was poised to be the most powerful country in the world by 1950. The 1950s also gave birth to the microwave oven, Lucy and Desi, desegregation, Holiday Inns, the photocopier, McDonald’s restaurant, the credit card, the polio vaccination, hip=shaking Elvis, the discovery of DNA, the color TV…I could go on and on but Halberstam does that for me brilliantly in The Fifties. He covers everything from inventions to politics; from fads to phenomenons; from people to places.

One of the best things about The Fifties is the insight into personal lives. For example, who knew that General Douglas MacArthur was a mama’s boy? She “took up residence in a nearby hotel for four years” (p 80), while MacArthur was in school. Or that Lucille Ball was adamant about her real Cuban husband playing the role in I Love Lucy?

As an aside: you can’t launch into the 1950s without backing up and talking about the mid to late 1940s. Expect a little history lesson before the history lesson.

Author fact: Halberstam’s coming of age happened during the 50s. This era is “his” generation.

Book trivia: As one would expect, there are photographs. Just not enough of them.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “David Halberstam: Too Good To Miss” (p). Nancy Pearl mentioned this is one of her Halberstam favorites.

Baby Doctor

gr4c5Leave a comment

Klass, Perri. Baby Doctor: a Pediatrician’s Training. New York: Random House, 1992.

Reason read: November is National Health Month.

Think of Baby Doctor as part memoir, part journal and part collection of essays. Klass starts from the logical beginning, her first night on call as an intern. Fresh out of medical school she finds herself in the neonatal intensive care unit with a three pound baby who can’t breathe. Over the next 300 pages she tells us what it’s like to worry about a young mother’s ability to care for a newborn, what it’s like to watch a patient die, what it’s like to fear the accusation of child abuse in her own home and even, shockingly, what it’s like to be stalked and harassed. As her knowledge progresses and her confidence grows, Klass encounters new challenges such as resident. Klass also addresses heavier topics such as feminism and playing God; when to intervene and when to let nature take it’s course. I found both sections enlightening.

Eye opener: which came firstI can’t imagine what it takes to be a doctor, never mind a pediatrician, charged with caring for ill people children all day. I can’t imagine being a writer, thinking about your next essays at the same time as being a pediatrician, either.

Honest quotes to quote, “I don’t even try to like lost of people” (p 80) and “It is considered bad form to arrive at the destination hospital, leap briskly from the ambulance, and throw up” (p 243). True.

Author fact: Being a doctor wasn’t enough for Perri Klass. She wanted to be a writer as well.She graduated from Harvard Medical School and wrote for the New York Times.

Book trivia: I don’t know what kind of photographs I was hoping for, but they weren’t there either way.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Physicians Writing More Than Prescriptions” (p 185).

Living Poor: a Peace Corps Chronicle

gr4c5Leave a comment

Thomsen, Moritz. Living Poor: a Peace Corps Chronicle. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969.

Reason read: Ecuador’s war of independence ended in November. Moritz travels to Ecuador for his stint in the Peace Corps.

Split into four sections chronicling the years 1965, 1966, 1967 & 1968 Living Poor starts at the most logical place, Thomsen’s application. His expertise as a pig farmer made him the perfect match for helping Ecuadorian farmers raise chickens and pigs and grow vegetable gardens. His first assignment,  La Union was short lived due to a lung infection that sent him back to the States. His second “tour” landed him in Rio Verde. I have to wonder what the natives of La Union thought of his departure after he took so long to fit in with them. It was no different in Rio Verde. The community, poverty stricken and on the brink of starvation, is suspicious of Thomsen. Every effort he makes to better their environment is met with stonewalling and infighting. When he does create relationships with key members of the community everyone else is jealous and tries to sabotage their efforts. While Thomsen is humorous in parts, for the most part his retelling of his experience is bleak and seemingly hopeless.

As an aside, even though I write in my own books all the time I cannot stand getting a library book that has been underlined, drawn or written in.

Quotes worth quoting, “The village that lived in my mind was at the end of the world, but by God, you didn’t have to walk twenty-five miles to get there” (p 25), “…the truth is that nothing looks romantic from a banana truck” (p 28), and “Well, it wasn’t funny to me, although the madness and chaos of the meeting had me on the verge of hysterical laughter(or else so frustrated that I simply wanted to bite someone.)” (p 195). I have been there myself.

Author fact: Thomsen applied to volunteer for the Peace Corps when he was 48 years old. Personally, this took me by surprise because my father advised my 17 year old self to join because I appeared lost and without direction. In truth, I just didn’t want to admit my passion was to become a librarian.

Book trivia: this book had an interesting beginning: Thomsen went to the San Francisco Chronicle and offered to write essays about the Peace Corps. The paper declined, but Thomsen sent them his writings anyway…which they published.

Book trivia two: the illustrations are fabulous. No credit is given in my copy.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Peace Corps Memories” (p 175).

 

We Interrupt Myself & Moi

gr4c5Leave a comment

Can I talk about books and running at the same time? I just have to. In the August batch of the Early Review program for LibraryThing I “won” a book called The Boy Who Runs by John Brant. I was pretty excited to read it because as you may have guessed from my other ramblings besides books I’m pretty excited about running. [Reading about running is probably the next best thing to running.] Notice I said I was pretty excited to read it. Past tense. Was. It would have been all well and good if I had actually received the book. Because I haven’t. Not yet. Bummer.

Fast forward to this week. Another message on LibraryThing. “Congratulations, you have won Yoga for Athletes by Ryanne Cunningham.” Another Early Review book! Under normal circumstances I would be beside myself with joy. Besides being excited about books and and being excited about running I am pretty excited about yoga for athletes. [I’ll give you an example: I won Yoga for Runners by Christine Felstead in 2014 and I STILL use it as a bible for routines both before and after runs. I not only read and reread her book, I went on to buy not one but two of her yoga videos. I became a huge fan all because of LibraryThing and the Early Review program.] But, getting back to my original rant. Notice I said would be beside myself with joy. Would be. I’m not beside myself with joy because in the past 12 months I haven’t received three books (four if you count Dorothea’s book that I can’t seem to get ER to acknowledge). Given that track record there is a chance Cunningham’s book won’t make it to me. Bummer. It’s not LT’s fault. I know once I’ve “won” a book it’s up to the publisher to get it to me.
The good news is Cunningham’s book is slated to be published this coming Tuesday. I’ll wait a month and borrow it from my local library.

 

Code of the Extraordinary Mind

gr4c5Leave a comment

Lakhiani, Vishen. The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: Ten Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life & Succeed on Your Own Terms. New York: Rodale, 2016.

Reason read: I learned about it from a running magazine, so you know I just had to read it.

From just the introduction Code of the Extraordinary Mind is intriguing. Lakhiani shares that he was born “…with a mind that loved learning how to hack life…” (p xvi). His book gives the reader permission to dare to question perception as well as reality. This may be considered a self-help book but I also consider it part memoir. Lakhiani shares a bit of himself through the book. He is not shy about unveiling past personal failures or triumphs. I found his methods of parenting enlightening, and even though I don’t have children I want others to apply his techniques! Is that rude of me to say? Seriously, when he asks his child what do you love about yourself or what are you grateful for, my heart melted.

Quotes that grabbed me: “It’s time to uninstall what isn’t working” (p 32) and “Our definition of what is normal is nothing more than what is programmed into us” (p 56). I would add to this last quote by saying I believe our definition of normal is also defined by commonality. If everyone had three heads the idea of just one would be foreign. You believe what you know.

My only pet peeve. I am not a fan of repetitiveness and I found Lakhiani mentioning MindValley (his company) too often. It began to sound like a sales pitch after awhile, especially when he promised “more information” on that site.

Author fact: Not only does Lakhiani have his own website, he actually has three. Look ’em up.

Book trivia: Lakhiani includes “napkin” drawings. Kinda cool.

 

The Ape and the Sushi Master

gr4c5Leave a comment

de Waal, Frans. The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Reason read: October is gorilla month.

Frans de Waal believes in the possibility that animals have culture. In the beginning of his book he spends some time talking about how we, as humans, apply human emotion to animals. He uses the example of Binti Jua, the ape at the Chicago zoo who “saved” and protected the little boy back in 1996. He couldn’t comment on the incident at the Cincinnati zoo when Harambe was shot dead for fear of purposefully drowning a child. What would he have said about that? As an aside, I admit I am guilty of applying emotion to animal behavior. When my cat Cassidy went missing I swore her “brother” missed her. Do I know that for fact? No. But, he did act strangely for the duration of her absence so I would like to think he did.
But, back to the point. Do animals have cultural instinct that they follow? Do they learn by copying others? Is habit passed down from one generation to another?

My only pet peeve? I felt as if part of The Ape and the Sushi Master was a plug for Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape, another book written by de Waal. He spent a great deal of time in Ape/Sushi referring back to the sexuality of bonobos discussed in Bonobo. As they say, sex sells so I have to wonder how many people looked up this other book after reading Ape.

Lines to grab my attention: “As someone who occasionally forgets where he has parked an item as large and as significant as his car, I am impressed by these peanut-brained birds” (p 58).

Author fact: At the time of publication, Frans de Waal was a professor at Emory University.

Book trivia: The Ape and the Sushi Master has great illustrations as well as photographs.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Our Primates, Ourselves” (p ). As an aside, I think Pearl took the chapter title, “Our Primates, Ourselves” straight from a Ape and the Sushi Master quote. Early on de Waal says his book is “about how we see animals, how we see ourselves, and the nature of culture” (p 6).

Know Your November

gr4c52 Comments

I am trying to move into this month without cracking up or breaking down. I’ve lost the run temporarily and even a small interruption sets me back. You know it is with a mental stability that isn’t quite that solid. I don’t want to say anything more than that.

Here are the books. Nonfiction first:

  • Living Poor:  a Peace Corps Chronicle by Moritz Thomsen – in honor of the month Ecuador’s civil war for independence ended.
  • Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn – (AB) in honor of the holidays and how much they can stress you out. I’m reading this and listening to it on audio.
  • The Fifties by David Halberstam – in honor of finishing what I said I would.
  • Baby Doctor by Perri Klass – in honor of National Health Month.

Fiction:

  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton –  in honor of National Education Week. This should take me a lunch break to read.
  • Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman – in honor of Gaiman’s birth month.
  • Advise and Consent by Allen Drury – in honor of November being an election month (and is it ever!).

Series Books:

  • Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright – (EAB = electronic audio book) to continue the series started in September in honor of Enright’s birth month.
  • A Toast To Tomorrow by Manning Coles – to continue the series started in October in honor of Octoberfest.
  • Love Songs from a Shallow Grave by Colin Cotterill – to END the series started in May in honor of Rocket Day.

Books and Spooks

gr4c52 Comments

If you have been keeping up with me, myself and moi then you know we love Halloween. Odd. Odd because we can’t watch Walking Dead or go to Fright Fest without peeing our pants. What I love about Halloween is the potential for witchcraft, darkness & something intangibly spooky, if that makes sense. I love mysteries and there is no greater mystery than death. Right? Jack-o-Laterns glowing on doorsteps. Ominous crows watching silently from the trees. Candlelight shadows wavering on the wall. Cemeteries shrouded in the fog…I love it all.
In other news, I bailed for the first time ever on a half marathon but made it home-home to put up a ceiling for my mother. And speaking of Monhegan, we almost got caught in Hurricane Matthew! Somehow we managed to get out just in time.
Having said all that, unrelatedly here are the books:

  • The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright – to continue the series started last month in honor of Enright’s birth month. Took me two days to read.
  • Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill – to continue the series started last May in honor of Rocket Day. Took me two days to read.
  • Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau – in honor of magical realism month. Took me the entire month and I still didn’t finish it.
  • A Blessing on the Moon by Joseph Skibell – an audio book in honor of Halloween (this was my favorite story).
  • Drink to Yesterday by Manning Coles – in honor of Octoberfest in Germany. Another really short book.
  • The Ape and the Sushi Master by Frans de Waal – in honor of Gorilla month being in October.
  • The Aeneid by Virgil – in honor of Poetry month (celebrated in Great Britain).
  • Hush by Jacqueline Woodsen – an audio book in honor of kids. This was only three discs long.

For fun:

  • The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani because I saw it in a running magazine.

For LibraryThing: nada

Which Side Are You On?: Seven Social Responsibility Debates in American Librarianship, 1990-2015

gr4c5Leave a comment

Harger, Elaine. Which Side Are You On? Seven Social Responsibility Debates in American Librarianship, 1990 – 2015. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2016.

Full disclosure: I am a librarian so I read this with some bias. Also, as a librarian I took my time with this one.

Librarians do not view the world as unbiased, politically neutral robots. Some might expect we would or even should. But, we don’t. We find the facts, examine the evidence, chose a side and stick to our guns come hell or high water. It’s what we do. Elaine Harger has identified seven different debates to illustrate the inner workings of the governance of the American Library Association Council:

  1. Debating “the Speaker”
  2. Anti-apartheid boycotts
  3. Censorship
  4. Relationships with outside sponsors/corporations
  5. “”
  6. Privacy
  7. Climate change

Confessional: this book made me:

  • Borrow Which Side Are You On? The story of a song by George Ella Lyon because I leanred of the song from Natalie Merchant.
  • Look up The Speaker on YouTube (Harger includes a link)

Reason read: an Early Review book from LibraryThing.

Author fact: Like Nancy Pearl, Elaine Harger is a Seattle, Washington based librarian.

Book trivia: each chapter is punctuated by a really cool collage created by the author.

Best Game Ever

gr4c5Leave a comment

Bowden, Mark. The Best Game Ever: Giants Vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008.

Reason read: Football season starts in September. Even though Brady is out for the month I have confidence the Patriots will do well. In fact, they won their first game without Brady AND Gronk. Edited to add: 3 out of 4 without Brady isn’t too shabby.

This is the story of a football game, but not just any football game. It’s the nail biting, down-to-the-wire play by play of the December 28th, 1958 NFL World Championship Game (now known as the Superbowl) between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. I’ll pause to let that sink it…the Baltimore Colts…not the ravens nor in Denver. Anyway, Bowden takes the reader through the late 1950s and football’s growing popularity. He builds each team with mini biographies of team owners, coaches and star acquisition athletes like Frank Gifford and John Unitas. He sets the scene for their historic match-up, all the while outlining how the game has changed over the years. It isn’t until chapter six (out of eight, not including the epilogue) that Bowden gets to the night before the big game. 75 pages out of 239 are dedicated to the Best Game Ever. But, if you are a football fan of any kind, you will appreciate those 75 pages! Bowden has the ability to capture the excitement.

Author fact: Bowden also wrote Black Hawk Down (not on my list, but made into a movie). What are on my list are these two: Killing Pablo and Guests of the Ayatollah.

Book trivia: This is not unique to this book, but I really like the photos included up front: Bert Bell, the Giants in mid action, and coaches Tom Landry and Weeb Ewbank. There are other pictures but they are in the typical location, throughout the center of the book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Baltimore” (p 34). I don’t necessarily agree with the inclusion of this book in the Baltimore chapter, but Nancy says it definitely belongs.

Aught to be October

gr4c5Leave a comment

October is…another half marathon. Maybe another trip to Monhegan (not sure yet thanks to it being hurricane season) but what I’m sure about is definitely reading more, more, more books!

  • Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau – in honor of magical realism month
  • The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill – to continue the series started in May in honor of Laos Rocket Day
  • A Blessing on the Moon by Joseph Skibell (AB) – in honor of Halloween
  • Toast to Tomorrow by Manning Coles – in honor of October being the best time to visit Germany. Note: just found out this is the second Tommy Hambledon book in the series so you will probably see A Drink to Yesterday before A Toast to Tomorrow.
  • Ape and the Sushi Master by Frans de Waal – in honor of October being Gorilla Month
  • The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright – to “continue” the series started in September in honor of Enright’s birth month (yes, another series read slightly out of order).

For fun:

  • The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani. Don’t ask.

If there is time I would like to add Aeneid by Virgil in honor of Great Britain’s poetry month.