Harriet the Bookaholic: January 2015

I have started out this year with a literary bang, and frankly I couldn’t be happier about it. People often ask me how I read so much, and the short answer is that I typically devote at least 2 hours a day to reading. I read during my lunch break, I listen to audiobooks while I work out, and I always read for 20-30 minutes before I go to sleep. Reading is my jam, apparently, and days where I don’t spend a chunk of time with my nose (or ear) in a book I feel…adrift. I think that’s the right word. Reading keeps me generally alert and thinking clearly and broadly throughout my day; and I don’t get mentally exhausted from reading like I do from binge watching Netflix. So, I read. I’m a nerd who reads a lot; I accepted this long ago.

I’m excited to get back to a regular, monthly post of the books I’ve read and my reactions to them. I have found lately that I’ve been reading book after book in a single category and then a few weeks later switching to another topic. So, for now, that is how I will format these posts with recommendations on other books I’ve read in each category.

Brains/Neuroscience:

Brain on Fire, by Susanah Cahalan (3 stars). I wanted to love this book, I truly did. Cahalan suddenly falls victim to a bizarre virus-thing where the body attacks the brain and she spends a month in the hospital while doctors try to figure out what is going on. I think the premise is fascinating, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not as well written as House, it’s not as medically intriguing as anything written by Atul Gawande…it just…it wasn’t enough.

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, by David Eagleman (4 stars). What do you get when you mix psychology with neuroscience, and then throw in a side of economics and physics? You get this book. It was equally informative, entertaining, and also–at times–a bit over my head (hello, physics). But, I loved the arguments that Eagleman brings up–backed by fact and experiments/case studies–about the malleability of the brain, and also about how easily damaged it can be, and the sometimes disastrous consequences.

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human, by V.S. Ramachandran (3 stars). I absolutely LOVED the first half of this book; I excitedly texted people about things I learned and inserted neuroscience facts in any conversation I could. However, at almost exactly the half-way mark, Ramachandran seemed to run out of topics that he had both studied in depth or had any case work for, including viable statistics. And this is where he lost me. He spent the next 150 pages “debunking” theories that he gave very little information on, only to put forth his own theories that also included zero statistics, perhaps an anecdote, but that’s all. He takes quotes from Charles Darwin *completely* out of context (a personal pet peeve of mine), and spends 50 pages on the superiority of Indian sculpture and art. Which, fine, it’s lovely, but was certainly the weakest part of the book. A man who self-proclaims not to be very interested in, or know much about art, spends two full chapters trying to lay out 9 essential rules and laws for “good, high art.” Yet he doesn’t describe any conversations he has with artists, has zero brain scans of artists vs non-artists for comparison, and frankly, seems to know NOTHING on some of the basic premises of art, both technical and emotional. Minus two stars, Ramachandran. I went back in my personal copy of this book and wrote in large letters on page 150 “STOP! DO NOT KEEP READING! NO, I’M SERIOUS, PUT THE BOOK DOWN, NOW!”

Additional Recommended Reading: Complications, by Atul Gawande; A Whole New Mind, by Daniel Pink; Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

Racism/Slavery/Apartheid:

Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, by Eric  Metaxas (5 stars). This was fascinating and wonderful, heartbreaking and hopeful; I loved it. Wilberforce was a British politician who fought his entire life to end the slave trade in the British empire and abolish the practice of slavery. He brought a bill before Parliament every year for decades before it finally got enough votes to pass. This book detailed the very worst of humanity, and also highlighted the very best kind of men and women, those who spend all their energy fighting the evil and injustice in the world. We need more people like Wilberforce and those who fought with him, perhaps now more than ever before.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (5 stars). I have heard about Uncle Tom’s Cabin for years and years but never read it; people, you all should read it!!! First of all, I should point out that the version in The King and I is not at all the story of the book; some of the characters, yes, but that’s it. Even though this was written pre-Civil War, it remains a beautiful and heartbreaking tribute to the lives of black slaves in the American south, and the white folks who oppressed or helped them. The most revolutionary part of the book at it’s publishing was that black people were–gasp!–human, they had feelings and relationships and hurts just like white people. Stowe has often been credited with writing the “spark that lit the powder keg” of the Civil War, and she has some pretty direct calls for ending slavery, for white people, especially Christians, to work diligently to help the blacks obtain an education and become members of their “civilized” society. This is such a wonderful book, I highly recommend it. (I listened to this, all 20+ hours of it, and cannot recommend that route enough.)

Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela (4 stars). I knew about 2 paragraphs about Mandela; Robben Island, political prisoner, apartheid, etc. However, I had no idea the system that both created and tried to continue apartheid in South Africa. No idea. Did you know that political “criminals” in South Africa (which is what Mandela and his freedom fighters were sent to prison for) are banned; they cannot travel, cannot speak in public, their words and photo cannot be published in any media. They are just…gone. It’s bizarre, and that system is what supported apartheid until the 1990’s. I can’t even fathom this kind of “judicial” system! Shows how much I take for granted the freedom of the press; the power of words, and the fear of words.

South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, by Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger (4 stars). Fittingly, I read this entire textbook on Martin Luther King, Jr./Civil Rights Day, and I really appreciate how Clark and Worger set up the historical context for apartheid and the economic and social drivers that both created and cemented it into place in South Africa. I am still baffled by how prevalent racism and racial segregation and oppression was in S.A., and how recently (Blacks couldn’t vote until 1994!!) I read this after Mandela’s autobiography, and it helped me place him in better context with the history of rebellion–non-violent and violent–within S.A. and appreciate more the ending of apartheid. Recommended.

Additional Recommended Reading: A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry; Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris; Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton; The Power Of One, by Bryce Courtenay; Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain; To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.

Other Topics:

Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis (3 stars). Dry British humor, sarcastic, acerbic, some misogynist bullshit, of course, because this was written by a man in 1954, but a hilarious portrait of mid-century postwar life for a failing first year professor at a mediocre English college. Funny, a little fluffy, and if you are an adjunct professor you may find this a wee bit too close to home. *Read for my library’s book club.

Additional Recommended Humor Reading: The Diaries of Adam and Eve, by Mark Twain; A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson; Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach

Women With Big Eyes, by Angeles Mastretta (3 stars). This collection of short stories is about dozens of “Aunts” in Puebla, Mexico and their experiences as feminists, out-of-the-20th-century-Puebla box, sexually liberated women. I enjoyed these stories, but I dind’t realize this book was just a collection of short stories without a cohesive thread, other than all the women live/lived in Puebla. Some stories are just a page long, while others are more in-depth. These women all have different stories, lives, dreams, hopes, lovers, religious affinity, and motivators but for the most part they are all saucy, vivacious, and independent. And that is the part I really liked. (Shocking. I know.) *Read for my library’s book club

Additional Recommended Reading by Latino Authors: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz; One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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Who is coming to dinner?

I have a list that I constantly add people with whom I’d like to have dinner; any of my now-dead grandparents, Madeleine Albright, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie, Benazir Bhutto, Harriet Tubman, Corrie ten Boom, Jane Addams, Joan of Arc, Simone de Beauvoir, Zelda Fitzgerald, Pearl S. Buck, Eleanor of Aquitane, Sylvia Plath, Betty Friedan, Georgia O’Keeffe, Eva Peron, Gloria Steinem, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Louisa May Alcott, Cleopatra, Mary Wollstonecraft, Indira Gandhi, Audrey Hepburn, Maya Angelou, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, Gertrude Stein, all of the recent Supreme Court Justices who are women: Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayer, Elena Kagan….

It just occurred to me that outside of my grandfathers, this list is entirely made up of women. Not that I have anything against men, nothing like that, but I would rather have dinner with a brilliant, well-spoken, creative, passionate woman who I can learn from and bounce ideas around with, than with a (probably brilliant and well-spoken) man. I’m not quite sure why this is, I mean, I can probably think of a dozen men who have fascinating and brilliant ideas and lives that I would love to learn more about and from, but if I had a magic genie who could bring one person to me for two hours of dinner conversation, I’d rather that conversation be with a woman, a role model I can learn from and look up to without trying to translate their success and hurdles across a gender divide. I want to know what challenges were unique to them due to their gender, and I want to know how they managed to succeed despite living and working in a world that continues to discriminate against and even belittle powerful, smart, dedicated, and driven women who focus on something other than child-raising.

I should point out, that both of my grandmothers were focused on raising their children, and I love and adore them and would never criticize that choice. But, as it is about 98% likely that I will not spend my life raising children, I need some additional role models in other spheres.

Most of these women are public, they are political, they are leaders or artists—doers—who were not content with whatever status quo existed in their lives. They made things happen, spearheaded changes, and improved the lives of thousands. And I want more of that. I want to learn how to be better at that, at breaking free of a status quo and taking additional steps towards making this world we live in a better place, particularly for those who may not have all the advantages of the dominant population. (Is that politically correct enough? Dah!)

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be, and why? What would you talk about? What would you want to learn?

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Vulnerability and Motorcycles

Over the weekend Mr. Blue Eyes and I went on our first motorcycle ride of the year. Unlike the East Coast, our weather has been in the 40’s and 50’s (F) with blue skies. Sure, a bit chilly for a motorcycle ride–motorcycling not being a typical January activity in a state with “Greatest Snow On Earth” for their slogan and a significant chunk of the economy serviced by the ski industry. But, even so, motorcycling we went.

As we were riding I started thinking about vulnerability. Really, riding on the back of a motorcycle is perhaps one of the more dangerous positions for a person while on the road. Cars and trucks and semi’s are swirling around you at ridiculously high speeds and you are a) not the one in control of the movements of the bike and b) not able to effectively and quickly communicate with the person who is in control. If something happens you are the most likely to end up in a body bag, helmet or not.

I’m sure there is an entire psychology book here about taking known risks, self-endangerment, adrenaline and peer pressure, but that’s not what I want to get in to right now.

I want to talk about my outfit.

No. Really.

I have fallen/been thrown from a motorcycle once (not with Blue Eyes) and was incredibly lucky to walk away completely unscathed except for soaking wet jeans due to landing in a puddle of slush. Over the years I have amassed quite the collection of motorcycle gear. I have a helmet—black with hot pink flames and a skull with ponytails on each side, of course—and a black and pink Kevlar-lined jacket and gloves. I like being protected, I like feeling invincible, and I like the way my full-face helmet keeps the wind out of my eyes and the sun off my skin. I like feeling like I’m in a little cocoon, looking out on the world. I imagine if I were an astronaut I would feel the same way, protected inside my suit of armor but still able to observe and interact with the strange and scary world around me.

My helmet has padding and a hard shell to protect my brains, my jaw, my chin and cheekbones. It’s so tight to my head that I can’t wear a ponytail or a braid without causing myself some serious, literal headache. I’m fine with this, of course, the helmet head AND magpie-nest hair combo is a sacrifice I’m willing to make for intact brains and cheekbones. The jacket is made of this serious Teflon-like material with layers of stuff to protect my skin. In the elbows and shoulders are these linebacker-like plates of Kevlar that make it impossible to do, say, yoga whilst in my getup, but protect me in case of a fall or crash. Along my back is a long, broad plate—extending from shoulder blades down past my tailbone–that gives me excellent posture, and layers of padding that will cushion my spine if necessary. I’ve got multiple levels of protection over my chest and organs, and zippers and cinches all over the place make sure this jacket-armor is a tight, close fit.

Honestly? I love my motorcycle gear. I mean, the hot pink flames and skulls with ponytails are fun and all, but I love how I feel behind these layers of protection. I don’t feel vulnerable; I feel safe. Even though I’m perched on the back of a speeding whir of leather, chrome, and growling engine, I feel like I can take on the world, or even the freaking asphalt. (Note: Just so we’re clear, I will never choose to take on the asphalt.).

Sometimes (ok, most of the time) I feel like I am going through my regular life decked out in a Kevlar-lined suit with extra protection over all my most vulnerable spots. Religion? Nope, it’s tucked behind this shoulder pad. Issues with my mom? Buried beneath that unbreakable plate. Self-doubt? Wrapped up and carefully zipped inside my front pocket. General fear and anxiety? Somewhat successfully contained below a layer of pharmaceuticals and another of steel-like Kevlar. Frustrations and ongoing anger towards Blue Eyes’ ex-wife? Yep, that is stuffed up into my helmet, going around-and-around in my brain with hardly a suitable outlet for expression.

So, what is my metaphor here? That motorcyclists should always wear protective gear–yes, they should. Always–and therefore I should keep all my issues under Kevlar-lock and key? No. I shouldn’t. I can’t. At the end of a long ride, you get off the motorcycle, stretch your legs, pull off your helmet and breathe. You strip off the layers of dirt and gear, sit down and relax. The walls I hide protect myself behind don’t get pulled down every night, they just get thicker and taller, and soon I’ll build them up so big I won’t be able to even see out to enjoy a sunset. As safe as I feel tucked up in my tower, it’s really time I learn to come down.

Cue: panic, deep breathing exercises, and unnecessary necessary baking. And writing. Because for me, the only way to keep the prison walls at bay is to write them into tiny little pieces.

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Good

I’m good at everything*, but I’m particularly good at:

  • Setting a pretty dinner table. Actually, I sometimes do this for fun (yes, I do; don’t judge) without making said dinner or inviting people over to appreciate my table setting skillz; sometimes I just like to make my dining room look pretty, okay?
  • Internet shopping; for several years online shopping has been my Go To for almost every possible purchase. I am not saying that I am an expert on buying everything at some kind of major discount, or that I optimize coupon codes or anything like that. I just can find almost anything online…and because of that I tend to buy almost everything online. I have yet to cyber-source my groceries because I love walking around the store and picking out produce. But, I often buy things that aren’t in my local grocery online because I’d rather they ship it to my front door than try and drive for 4 or 5 stores to track down that spice or sauce or whatever.
  • Writing lists and planning ahead. Plans always change and the lists are always left partially incomplete (see: plans change), but I am really good at writing down a plan. I cannot tell you how many lists I have in notebooks and notepads around my apartment.
  • Hosting an awesome book club; every month for three years I’ve had anywhere from 8 to 30 people in my living room spending at least a full hour discussing a solid piece of literature or writing. Honestly, it is one of the most glorious social activities on my calendar. Friends, food, books, and lots of exchanging of opinions and ideas are the perfect way to spend a Thursday evening.
  • Arranging lunch dates with friends; the only thing I like more than spending my lunch break with my nose in my book du jour is spending that lunch break catching up with a girlfriend. I probably meet a friend for lunch at least once a week, and if we’re being completely honest, more often than not I’m the one who initiates lunch dates because I just love them so very much.
  • Learning new things; I love learning new things, whether that is a pile of facts (on volcanoes, North Korean society, Charles Darwin, brain chemistry, Chinese history, whatever), or a new skill. Other more “practical” skills include sewing (as in, designing and sewing costumes for high school plays with a cast of over 100 students, been doing this for 9 years, 3-4 plays per year.), photography (helped out and encouraged by my Dad and his awesome camera toys), and about 18 months ago I took up oil painting and while I am nowhere near “advanced” in my skill set, I am certainly past the beginner stage; I paint recognizable objects with appropriate scale, shading, and color. I love the ongoing practice and experience I am gaining in all of these, but I think next year I want to try my hand at learning to play the cello.
  • Creating and hanging gallery walls; I have no less than 11 gallery walls in my apartment with one more in the works, these vary in size and scope (with a minimum of 4 pieces), but all are full of original art, fine art prints, and my own photographs. I’ve exported this tetris-like geometry skill to the homes of several other friends and there are very few vertical spaces in my home that are “safe” from the gallery wall chopping block. I love seeing art everywhere I look!

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*Um, this is obviously a total lie.

Inspired by Janssen’s post: A Few Things I’m Good At

I will and I won't

I will put clean, fresh sheets on my bed every 4 or 5 days.
I won’t make my bed unless company is coming over.

I will always have nail polish on my toes.
I won’t tend to my cuticles on a regular basis.

I will binge-watch TV shows on Netflix like it’s my job.
I won’t, under any circumstances, watch live TV with commercials. Can. Not. Deal.

I will send birthday cards to my siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews.
I won’t pretend I can do this without Google calendar and it’s 10-day reminder email.

I will work a few extra hours in the office to finish up a project.
I won’t bring work home.

I will spend my entire lunch break reading a new book.
I won’t skip taking a lunch break, and only rarely will I take less than an hour to myself midday.

I will give up sugars and baked goods and carby pastas for weeks at a time.
I won’t give up cheese.

I will kill 95% of my houseplants, despite my best intentions.
I won’t forget to buy myself some grocery store flowers, just because.

I will leave untidy piles around my apartment for up to several weeks.
I won’t always wash the dishes before I go to bed. (12 years without a dishwasher!)

I will read as much non-fiction as I can get my hands on.
I won’t read YA fiction unless it comes very highly recommended by someone that I not only trust, but who deeply understands the kind of books I like.

I will happily have you over for dinner, or invite a dozen people to a party on a moment’s notice.
I won’t dust before you come over because I *hate* dusting with the hate of ten million haters.

What about you? What will you? What won’t you?

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