What I did on my summer vacation: Books!
My summer vacation is usually a well-disguised attempt to read as many books as possible, and this year was no exception.
First up was Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs, a memoir about which, I think, almost everything has already been said, and it's all true. Exausting, sad, hilarious, hopeful, it's well worth the read. I know there's been some dispute about the facts of the book and I certainly hope so omg holy cow, which I deliberately did not research before I read it.
Next was When the Emperor was Divine, a disappointment, even more so since it was chosen as the "Vermont Reads" book for this year and I was thrilled to have a book that was not about New England for a change. More details at 50books_poc, contrasted with Abe's Woman in the Dunes, which I also read, here.
Then came Lies My Teacher Told Me, which had also been recommended to me forever, and it's also all true. James Loewen takes apart several of the best known myths of American history-- including many of the myths that led to Mammothfail, so if you followed that at all this is a great place to start. One of Loewen's main points is that if we don't understand our history-- the debates that took place, the real facts at hand-- we won't understand our current politics, and this book rather horrifyingly predicts the mistakes that led to our current military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Often if I read good books closely together, they seem to have a dialouge with each other, and the next book, Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, very much wanted to talk to both Lies and the next book on the list. There's more about this book in my 50books_poc review here, but I do want to note how much it had to say both about the importance of root causes and the primacy of community.
Thanks to the lack of an author photo, I'd been hoping The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry would qualify for 50books_poc, but the author admitted to being white in the first few pages. This is a collection of case studies of traumatized children and their treatment, and often recovery. Perry led treatment of the Branch Davidian survivors in Waco, Texas, dealt with a 'Satanic cult' investigation in the same state, and has basically built a career based on understanding that, while children are resilient, they are not invulnerable, and understanding their early traumas and treating them appropriately can help them grow up into strong, healthy men and women. Over and over Perry addresses the importance of a loving, nurturing community to support children, criticizing our societal emphasis on the nuclear family, which leaves kids with only two adults for support. It's good stuff.
I'd had enough intense for a bit, so I read The Stepsister Scheme, by Jim Hines, next. The basic concept is pure gold: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella team up to fight crime. Told you-- gold. Fortunately, for the most part, the book lives up to its promise. The girls are active, funny, and do the whole reluctant-allies-becoming-solid-team-members I love in action movies and caper fiction. There are two very notable things: One is the way Hines uses the, er, origin stories of his heroines. Many of the cultural touchstones are the same-- the ball, the prince, the sisters hacking off bits of their own foot to fit into that damned shoe-- but Hines puts his own twist on them, making them more complex and interesting in the process-- but not significantly darker or lighter than their origin. I found that pretty darned impressive.
The other is that Hines works to be inclusive, including a character of color in the main trio, and treating same-sex desire as fairly normal. Things are still set in a fairly whitebread, European world, but the tweaks are welcome (especially in light of Racefail, Coverfail, Mammothfail...). I'm eager to see what he does in the next book in the series, The Mermaid's Madness.
First up was Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs, a memoir about which, I think, almost everything has already been said, and it's all true. Exausting, sad, hilarious, hopeful, it's well worth the read. I know there's been some dispute about the facts of the book and I certainly hope so omg holy cow, which I deliberately did not research before I read it.
Next was When the Emperor was Divine, a disappointment, even more so since it was chosen as the "Vermont Reads" book for this year and I was thrilled to have a book that was not about New England for a change. More details at 50books_poc, contrasted with Abe's Woman in the Dunes, which I also read, here.
Then came Lies My Teacher Told Me, which had also been recommended to me forever, and it's also all true. James Loewen takes apart several of the best known myths of American history-- including many of the myths that led to Mammothfail, so if you followed that at all this is a great place to start. One of Loewen's main points is that if we don't understand our history-- the debates that took place, the real facts at hand-- we won't understand our current politics, and this book rather horrifyingly predicts the mistakes that led to our current military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Often if I read good books closely together, they seem to have a dialouge with each other, and the next book, Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, very much wanted to talk to both Lies and the next book on the list. There's more about this book in my 50books_poc review here, but I do want to note how much it had to say both about the importance of root causes and the primacy of community.
Thanks to the lack of an author photo, I'd been hoping The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry would qualify for 50books_poc, but the author admitted to being white in the first few pages. This is a collection of case studies of traumatized children and their treatment, and often recovery. Perry led treatment of the Branch Davidian survivors in Waco, Texas, dealt with a 'Satanic cult' investigation in the same state, and has basically built a career based on understanding that, while children are resilient, they are not invulnerable, and understanding their early traumas and treating them appropriately can help them grow up into strong, healthy men and women. Over and over Perry addresses the importance of a loving, nurturing community to support children, criticizing our societal emphasis on the nuclear family, which leaves kids with only two adults for support. It's good stuff.
I'd had enough intense for a bit, so I read The Stepsister Scheme, by Jim Hines, next. The basic concept is pure gold: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella team up to fight crime. Told you-- gold. Fortunately, for the most part, the book lives up to its promise. The girls are active, funny, and do the whole reluctant-allies-becoming-solid-team-members I love in action movies and caper fiction. There are two very notable things: One is the way Hines uses the, er, origin stories of his heroines. Many of the cultural touchstones are the same-- the ball, the prince, the sisters hacking off bits of their own foot to fit into that damned shoe-- but Hines puts his own twist on them, making them more complex and interesting in the process-- but not significantly darker or lighter than their origin. I found that pretty darned impressive.
The other is that Hines works to be inclusive, including a character of color in the main trio, and treating same-sex desire as fairly normal. Things are still set in a fairly whitebread, European world, but the tweaks are welcome (especially in light of Racefail, Coverfail, Mammothfail...). I'm eager to see what he does in the next book in the series, The Mermaid's Madness.