ridiculous number of books pt 1
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke RE-READ
After watching the BBC mini-series based on the book, I had to reread it. I found i remembered absolutely NOTHING, other than that there was magic and it was historical fantasy. The mini-series was good, and well cast and acted, though of course very changed and condensed, due to the length of the book and only having 7 episodes for it.
The way the book is written, really in a narrative non-fiction style, is extremely effective. While it's quite a long book, it doesn't feel long while you're reading. It feels as real as an alternate universe where we have magic can. I absolutely LOVE all the footnotes.
Highly recommended for everyone, and an excellent example of historical fantasy.
The Bromeliad Trilogy: Truckers, Diggers, and Wings by Terry Pratchett RE-READ
This was the second thing I ever read by Pratchett, and I really loved it. It's a children's fantasy trilogy about Nomes. A group of Nomes living outside in the world need to find somewhere better to leave. They climb onto a truck and are taken to The Store (a semi-old fashioned department store), which has a community of Nomes living in it, most of whom think the Store is the entire world and there is no outside.
It's a wonderful world Pratchett created, full of fun characters. They also seem to have counterparts with the rats in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. The store is going to be demolished and they have to leave, but getting hide bound Nomes to risk going Outside is a difficult proposition. The book is interspersed with passages from the Nome bible, heavily influenced by the Store signage (the great enemy being Prices Slashed and the beneficent one is Bargains Galore).
Highly recommended. It's a fun read as an adult, and a great one for your elementary and grade school aged kids.
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book (would it refer to blatant propaganda works or something else, etc...), but figured it would be interesting no matter what.
And it was! This was the book I really needed right now. I think it would be a good read for anyone who likes books. The text focuses on the Victory Books Council and the invention, production, and distribution of the Armed Services Edition paperback books, specially designed for easy use by troops in any conditions. This program brought US publishers into cooperation, helped spur the production of paperback books in general, created a generation of serious readers, and made The Great Gatsby a classic (a book I don't enjoy myself, but oh well).
It is also a love story to the importance of reading and the great emotional rewards we gain from books, particularly when we're in strife. What I found most lovely was the popularity of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which I ADORED) among the servicemen, even though it's narrated by a young girl. Betty Smith received an average of four letters per day from servicemen and answered all of them. Books frankly became the most valued luxury, with men trading money and cigarettes to move up a few places on a hold list.
It was heartwarming to see how seriously those involved took their role in getting books to our boys (service women were not provided with books, annoyingly). They were also serious about fighting censorship, as they argued part of the purpose of the war was to fight censorship and the banning of books.
Wonderful, relatively light read. Recommended to all readers.
In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
Judy Blume was a middle schooler in Elizabeth, New Jersey during the eight-week period when three planes crashed in the town. Her father, a dentist, helped to identify some victims from dental records. This novel is built around those crashes, with a wide cast of characters including adults and children. A list of characters with a brief description would have been helpful, and I hope one is included in the print book. I still enjoyed it via audio with no character list to help though.
The novel merges the everyday and the extraordinary in a way that I found effective and realistic. While three deadly plane crashes in one town is a type of 'close to home' disaster most of us will never know (inshaAllah), our daily lives do exist in conjunction with extreme events in our state, our country, and in the world. The 24 hour news cycle and the internet ensure that we're much closer to the extraordinary than we used to be, but our daily lives and struggles don't lessen because of that awareness.
It was a good read for me (though I've decided to forget that the last chapter exists, as I don't think it was necessary, it's the "catch up 20-30 years later type), if not one that I'm likely to re-read. I don't know how longtime Blume readers will find it, as it's my first Blume read ever! We didn't own any of her books, and I was a non-fiction and historical fiction kid, not given to reading "normal teens with normal problems" books. Still seems ridiculous that I went through chlidhood not really aware of Blume's work.
He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and his Daughter's Quest to Know Him by Mimi Baird
First, I love this cover. It's so effective and well designed.
Mimi Baird's father was a brilliant doctor who began to study manic depression around the time he began to seriously suffer from it. He was an early believer in a biochemical root for the disorder but was unable to continue research as his illness worsened, his medical license was revoked, and he was institutionalized. His daughter was a young child when this happened, and did not see him again.
As an adult she looks to his brothers for more information about him, and is led to a manuscript her father wrote, a diary of sorts about his actions and experiences in various mental institutions. She lets the book alternate between her narration, her father's manuscript, and his medical records.
It's a short book, one without a satisfying conclusion. The institutions are largely horrific places, her father's life and work are eventually just a footnote in the history of the study of manic depression. It was a very interesting read though, and an important one. Many of the well known stories of mental illness in the 20th century are success stories. They may include poor or abusive treatment in institutions, but through support, new discoveries, etc... the patient finds their way back to the good life. Those are the exceptions, however, and Baird's story is the more common one. It's important to keep that in mind.
Related to the audiobook - Of all the books that have multiple readers (for different narrators), this book needed it the least. It's totally obviously when there's a switch because the style, point of view, and references are vastly different. I found myself really annoyed since there are many books that would benefit from multiple readers. At the very least the reader for Dr. Baird's manuscript could have also read the hospital records portion. I will never understand how audiobook publishers think.
On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits by Wray Herbert
I like that it took a second look for me to 'get' the cover image.
If you're going into this book, I'd ignore the subtitle. It's a standard popular science book and spends almost no time on how to avoid our brain's foolish mistakes. The trick there is in the title - give everything a second thought, examine why you've decided on something, etc...
It's another good title in the "our brains really do some illogical things" series. This one focuses on cognitive heuristics, paths our minds subconsciously and automatically take.
Good book, recommended. In the same vein as You Are Not So Smart and Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, but with a slightly different focus.
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley
This was not a good choice for audio, at least not without a detailed character list. I pressed ahead anyway, but I think I'll try to reread it in print eventually as I believe I'll enjoy it more.
Smiley gives us a book with the style of a Norse saga that sprawls over the difficult lives of the Greenlanders over the course of a few decades.
It's an interesting book, though perhaps not one that would be beloved across the board. It's a hard one to review for me, in part because I'm well behind on reviews, and because I know the audio version impacted it negatively. I absolutely loved the dialogue. There was just something about the way she wrote it that felt true and right.
Recommend for those who a more unique piece of literature maybe? Definitely read it in print.
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall
This is the second Penderwicks book, and was rather a let-down. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book (though it's been long enough that I don't remember it well), and expected more from Birdsall.
The four Penderwick sisters have lost their mother to cancer (happens right at the start of the book). Per the mother's instructions their aunt gives their father a letter four years later in which the mother instructs him to start dating again. The girls are upset, which is natural, but also decide to sabotage the dating (picking out awful women) so their father will give up. Right there is where I lost my interest. The older girls are also dealing with crushes, etc...
The beginning made me think of Sonya Sones' One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies. I didn't find the children's actions realistic, and I feel like Birdsall is conflicted about her style. The book isn't set in any specific time, but it feels neither fully contemporary nor vintage. I felt like she wanted the book to be like Swallows and Amazons or Ballet Shoes, but didn't commit to setting it back in time.
I probably won't read the third book in the series, and I don't recommend this one.
The Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davis RE-READ
This is probably my favorite of the first five Falco books (yes, I have to break it down into fives). As usual for the early books Helena and Falco have a misunderstanding that leads to a fight. Both are stubborn, both want the other to bend, both have difficulty expressing their love exacerbated by the gulf between her patrician class and his plebeian upbringing and life. Both worry they'll only do the other harm. Their tentative relationship always feels very realistic to me.
One of the reasons this is a favorite is for the travel, and firm relationship to past and current (to the book) events in Germany and along the Rhine. The presence of the very poorly behaved Augustanilla (Falco's niece) also makes it quite fun. I feel like Davis captures the way Falco's upbringing, and the society of Rome in that time, with his internal fight against pre-programmed notions about women, foreigners, etc... Historical fiction where men are just 100% feminist all-good guys might be nice from time to time, but it's so unrealistic given that even the best of us are still struggling with internalized sexism, racism, ableism, etc...
It's such a great series. I enjoyed all the books, but Davis doesn't quite hit her stride until the third and fourth books.
Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil by Paul Bloom
While I really enjoyed this popular science book, I feel the title and subtitle are a little misleading. While a number of studies with babies and toddlers are mentioned, they generally serve as starting points, with more of the book dedicated to studies in adults.
It does seem that babies are basically born with some sense of right and wrong, or at least fairness, built in, and observable at as young as three months old. And of course the studies in that line are fascinating. True to humanity of course, while a baby or toddler might see lack of sharing as bad in others/puppets/etc... it's a different story when they're expected to share their OWN things.
An interesting, quick read. Recommended to the popular science fans, just take the title as a loose guideline rather than descriptive of the book as a whole.
Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
Grandin is an autistic woman who has always found animals easier to understand than people. She has spent years working to make slaughterhouses more humane and make the review process simpler so that plants are shut down when they need to be. (Because a 50 item checklist means if a slaughterhouse fails one or two items, no matter how serious, inspectors are more likely to let them slide.)
The book covers some of her work, including various experiments around animal intelligence, the work of others, and how our own human biases can affect the animals we live with (and the way experiments with animals are done). It also talks about why her autism has made it easier to understand animals. There is a lot of "normal people" talk in reference to allistic/neurotypical people, just as a warning.
It's a really fascinating book, and well worth a read for anyone who has pets (especially dogs) or deals with horses. The book covers a large swathe of information, but horses, dogs, and cows probably get the most time.
Goblins by Charles Grant
I started watching X-Files as a way-too-young kid when it first started. It was one of the few shows I was really really into (The X-Files and Sailor Moon, slightly strange bedfellows). I read some of the novels the sprung from it in middle school and really liked them, particularly Ground Zero and Ruins, both by Kevin J. Anderson. I'd thought those were the first, but then stumbled upon this title (and a second, Whirlwind) by Grant, which were actually the first two published.
Goblins is, unfortunately, not a good effort. I'm sure this is partly because it was published in 1994, and the series started in 1993. That resulted in Mulder and Scully not actually acting much like Mulder and Scully. In Anderson's efforts he really writes the characters as they are in the show, which makes a huge difference. The plot and pacing also just weren't done well. The concept was somewhat boring and not really suspenseful. Putting Mulder and Scully with inexperienced partners for the case also didn't make any sense whatsoever and didn't serve any purpose from a narrative or character development standpoint.
While I'm sure the other X-Files novels prospered from my young age when I read them (12-13), I know I was so engrossed in the show that getting the characterization wrong would have certainly killed the books for me, and they began with more interesting concepts as well.
Not recommended for anyone unless you're doing a dissertation on the development of the X-Files as a cultural phenomenon (I'm sure someone's doing that).
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier RE-READ
A favorite book by a favorite author, and my first re-read via the audio edition. This was one of the first long books that I read in one sitting. I picked it up as a teenager, on the recommendation of a family friend I was visiting (a librarian). It was, I think, everything I really wanted in a fantasy novel.
It is historical fantasy, set in early medieval Ireland and England (post Saxon invasion, pre-Norman, vikings not quite in full swing), a bit of fairy/folktale retelling, and extremely character focused with realistic characters. No one is 100% good, no event is !00% happy or sad, good people make mistakes and are held accountable, etc... Our duty of protection towards those who need it is a theme in Marillier's books, and characters' actions are never excused with "oh that's just how they are." The characters also pretty much fit their times, and live within social norms and familial expectations barring a few cases.
Sorcha is the 7th child of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters (himself a seventh son), the only daughter, whose mother died after giving birth to her. Her brothers are kind and protective of her, while their father is largely checked out. Colum and the older boys are caught up trying to regain an island occupied by the English. Life is going relatively smoothly until Sorcha and her brother Finbar rescue a prisoner who has been tortured and their father comes back from a trip engaged to a wicked woman who wants to tear the family apart. The fantasy element comes from elements of their religion and folklore being true, but no mythical creature serves as a main character, and the plot is always a mix of the human and fey issues.
Marillier has a great gift with characters, and with sucking me into a story. Even though I've read this a fair number of times I still felt so anxious and upset towards the end with one of the great villains (he's a real Villain's Villain). I would say her work all strives to build empathy. Even with her recent YA series, which is full-on fantasy, and not something I loved or will read again, I still had to read the last book in one sitting.
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
I was so impressed with Lai's first novel, Inside Out and Back Again, and loved her perfectly descriptive writing. She was also so adept at getting into the child's head and keeping her characters believable. In that her narrator is a young girl whose family just manages to get out of Saigon before the fall. Her father was missing, and she, her mother, and brothers are sponsored by a family in Alabama.
In Listen, Slowly our narrator is a 12 (almost 13, thank you) year old girl who has grown up in the US. Her parents came from Vietnam as children, and her father goes back every year to perform surgeries in poor areas. This year she is made to go so someone can stay with her grandmother as she returns to her village for the first time, as a detective has found some news of her husband, who was taken a few years before the family had to flee. Mai is not happy about this. She can understand but not speak Vietnamese and was planning a summer at the beach with her friends. At the same time she loves her grandmother and she is curious about her parents lives as refugees, but frustrated that they would never tell her about it.
It's an accurate picture of life at that age, I think. Wanting to get far from parental authority and being stroppy and dramatic, but caring deeply about your family and still being able to appreciate them. As an adult (and as a youngest child who had to constantly put up with being at events for older siblings) I sometimes wanted to shake her, but it was pretty realistic.
Lai's writing is beautiful, and I really recommend the audio edition so that you can hear the Vietnamese spoken. Her books are the ones that will spur children into wanting to turn a beautiful phrase.
The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us by Jeffrey Kluger
I found this book really interesting, and I appreciated the writer having three siblings he grew up with (and two much younger half-siblings). He covers a lot of ground, including our feelings about only children and whether or not they do face disadvantages. I have four older siblings ranging from five to fourteen years older than me, the oldest two didn't live with us, and the younger two both left home when I was ten (one to live with an aunt to get away from delinquent friends, and one to boarding school). After feeling left behind or lost in the shuffle as a younger kid it was interesting (and good for me) to be a sort of only child for a bit.
He also talks about birth order traits, which I roll my eyes at. My closest siblings and I are basically the opposite of what those traits say we should be. There are so many other issues that impact children's personalities which easily alter that birth order stuff, not least of which are the parents' own personalities and the age differences between siblings. My parents are both oldest siblings, both very independent, and neither one cared at all what their siblings were doing. They had no understanding of the level of teasing (and general harassment) I went through because they couldn't understand wanting to bother with a younger sibling in the first place.
Kluger alternates his own experiences with various studies, and it is quite effective. Recommended to anyone interested in the subject. I don't feel it will be particularly helpful on a parenting level, so I wouldn't get it just for that.
The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs
This was Bellairs first novel for children/young adults. It was initially written for adults and then rewritten for children at the behest of a publisher. I feel like this shows in the work, in terms of some odd pacing especially, and I'm wondering if the second in the series will feel different. I was a die-hard fan of Bellairs' Johnny Dixon series but didn't read any of the other series for reasons not entirely clear to me (I think I just felt too devoted to Johnny Dixon).
The pacing and mystery in this one felt odd, but I did like the characters. There are almost no women in the Johnny Dixon series, but this features Florence Zimmerman, a somewhat crochety older woman who I loved. The protagonist Lewis Barnavelt was good too. An over-weight, awkward, bad-at-sports boy with an interest in history, and Bellairs is not afraid to have his male characters cry, something I love. Johnny Dixon is also awkward and a lover of history (the history love is part of what drew me in as a kid).
Bellairs died quite young (51), and I think he'd be doing some really amazing things if he were alive today. I'm going to look for The Face in the Frost, his only adult novel soon. It's a fantasy book that was judged quite good when it was published. I will eventually read the next Barnavelt title, but my heart still belongs to Johnny Dixon, and I do sometimes wish that Bellairs could let his awkward protagonists be friends with OTHER awkward kids (vs popular kids).
The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens
If you were 8 or older when the movie The Rocketeer was released you probably enjoyed it. It's such a solid action/adventure movie, with some great humor, great settings, and the most villainous of villains. I knew it was based on some comic stories, but I'd never been able to find a complete edition. Happily I noticed they'd recently released it, and bought a copy for myself and one for my brother (rather regretting getting two at this point, at least it should be a solid resell to a used bookstore).
The comics have a very different feel and pacing from the movie (not too surprising) and are lacking in the charm and humor of the movie as well. They certainly feel geared toward the young, entitled, adult male audience. Jenny in the comics is basically Bettie Page, including doing nude pin up shoots (Page herself credited the comics, published in the early 80s, with revitalizing interest in her). She really just seems to be there so Stevens has an excuse to drawn a semi-nude woman (and as a reason Cliff needs to keep the jetpack, of course).
All in all, I'm somewhat disappointed. You rather expect the print source of a movie to be something special, but sometimes the movie is just so much better. Even without the movie to compare it to, I wouldn't have liked these comics.
The Pixilated Parrot by Carl Barks
This is the sixth volume of Barks' Donald Duck comics published (though technically it's volume 9 in the series). I wasn't familiar with any of the comics in this album, it didn't seem to have a particularly well known Duck story, but that might just be me.
Still a book full of solid stories and Barks' wonderful humor. I really appreciate the short essays on the various stories in the back of these volumes.
Sole Survivor by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
I could have sworn I updated with this book. I have distinct memories of fixing the touchstone.
McCunn is writing about Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor who survived 133 days on a raft in the Atlantic ocean. This is the longest "survival at sea" to date, and all the more impressive given that Poon Lim was not an experienced sailor. He was a second steward on the merchant ship SS Benlomond when it was sunk by a German U-boat in 1942.
This was an early work in terms of non-fiction being written in a more novelized form, and it's very successful. Poon Lim was on an odd sort of raft with no sides, which undoubtedly helped him survive a particularly rough storm. His resourcefulness led him to make fishing hooks out of the spring in a flashlight and one of the nails on his raft. His system of drying and storing fish led to him being in much better physical shape than sailors rescued after shorter periods at sea.
It's an interesting book, and a good read for me. I'm weak for sea survival stories. It's not the most compellingly written book ever, but given difficulties in translation and communication I don't think it ever could have been. Recommended for fellow sea survival lovers.
Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell
This is a novella by Gaskell, the last one she wrote published in 1864. It was interesting, since I've read all of her novels, but won't be a favorite.
A young man, Paul, (our narrator), working in a different part of the country is urged to call on a distant-ish cousin there. He is welcomed into the family and is quite taken by them, especially the daughter, Phillis. It's a simple story mostly about the young people and their attractions (relatively predictable, but two more parts were planned and unwritten, so it's hard to say where it would have ended up).
It is supposed to be the best of her novellas and a fitting run-up to Wives and Daughters. I can see that, certainly, and there's a slight similarity with one plot point. An interesting read for this Gaskell fan, though not one I loved or will feel the need to re-read.is text haven't aged well, I think, but it was an interesting read. July's People by Nadine Gordimer
This is a classic banned South African novel. Gordimer gives an alternative world where the white South African establishment has been violently overthrown. July has worked for a white family for some time and helps them escape to his village.
The main thrust of the novel is how even in this situation the white family still feel entitled to whatever they want. The fact that they would have left the country already but they couldn't get their money out in time. Though July is their savior they still treat him as a servant, despite being Good Liberal White Folks. Gordimer's choice to focus on characters who see themselves as opposed to racism but do not examine their choices, words, or actions for casual racism was a good one.
Some aspects of this text haven't aged well, I think, but it was an interesting read.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
An excellent work, though the length limits its scope. Dunbar-Ortiz examines various policies and acts by the US government against American Indians, and how the legacy of the Indian wars remains in standard military vernacular (referring to enemy territory as Indian country, often shortened to in country, and using the phrase "off the reservation" for a rogue agent/person, among others).
Well done, interesting, important read. Recommended.
What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
And now for something completely different...
I had such hopes for this classic of the 1870s. The main character, Katy, the oldest sibling, wants to be good but can't help getting into a bit of trouble. So much more spirit than milk-sop Polly of Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.
Things were bad enough with their disabled cousin coming and being that perfect, patient, kind, beautiful trope of disability. Therein included the line "A sick woman who isn't neat is a disagreeable object," which makes me rage (when you have a chronic illness looking neat so people don't dislike you really isn't top of the list of priorities).
Then of course Katy was injured and disabled and oh she was just soo mopey until cousin Goody Two Shoes gives Katy the speech her father gave her when she got ill - basically "this is god's way of making you good and sweet and pleasant, it's god's school of pain." Obviously Katy couldn't stay disabled, so becoming patient and perfect cures her.
An excerpt of a poem Katy writes:
"I used to go to a bright school
Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn;
But idle scholar that I was,
I liked to play, I would not learn;
So the Great Teacher did ordain
That I should try the School of Pain."
I was enjoying this book and then BAM two fists full of ableist nonsense and disabled character tropes.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
This book deserves all the praise and attention it's received. It is such an important work and I recommend everyone read it. It is a letter Coates writes to his son, about his fears, about his attitudes shaped by a childhood vastly different than the one his son has had, about the difficulty in living in a world of institutional racism.
I'd especially recommend you give it to white people who deny having white privilege because they are part of another oppressed group (female, LGBT, disabled, poor, etc...). I think it will help people understand the nature of privilege and intersectionality. Our lives are never ruled by a single issue.
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Another great non-fiction read, and an important subject for everyone. It's likely that towards the end of your life you'll need help from someone and they may have to make decisions on your behalf or that you'll be the one helping someone else.
Gawande talks about the changes in eldercare, the switch from parents living with their children until death to living independently or in nursing homes, he talks about the ways doctors can do harm in these situations, and includes the backdrop of his own aging parents.
Content warning for a whole lot of ableism and total discounting of the lives of people with disabilities, often of the "I'd rather die than be in a wheelchair," variety. I wish Gawande had brought this up, or at least said "actually once people get to that point they don't kill themselves, they just adapt." Since that attitude is so prevalent you'd think able-bodied people would be more concerned with accessible spaces, but no (I mean, anyone can become disabled at any time, it's in your own best interests to fight for accessibility on all fronts).
The big thing to take from this is that we don't get to choose what kind of life is worthwhile to someone else. These choices are hard, and they may frustrate or anger us, particularly if the person is not set on extending their life, but we don't get to decide for our parents.
Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell
This was an interesting graphic novel, focusing on two step-siblings who both seem to have a mental illness which involves auditory and visionary hallucinations (their grandmother seems to as well). The story revolves around that and around extremely ordinary aspects of daily life for teens. It ended very suddenly and strangely. An interesting book, but not quite my cup of tea.
The drawing style was mostly great, but sometimes got way too sloppy in terms of facial expressions. It's a minor criticism, but the rest of the style wasn't really messy and it was very jarring to me.
A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka by Lev Golinkin
This memoir of Golinkin's childhood in Russia and his family's escape was a fascinating read. The attempt to get Soviet Jews out in the latter half of the 20th century is one of those events that don't register in our memories when we think of the refugee experience. Golinkin's internalized anti-Semitism, taking many years to overcome, is so heartbreaking.
The book mostly deals with Golinkin's childhood perspective with added information about the process of leaving Russia and the way various organizations worked. He did return Austria (their way-station before going to the US) as an adult and attempt to answer questions he had about their particular circumstances.
This is an under-represented part of world history, definitely recommended.
Jovah's Angel by Sharon Shinn RE-READ
This is the second in Shinn's Samaria trilogy. It takes place roughly 150 years after the events in Archangel during a period of upheaval and change. In Samaria the angelic race (who have functioning wings) have specific prayers to sing to the god, Jovah, which effect changes in weather, rains of medicines or seeds, and lightning strikes. Different angel holds support each region of the country, lead by the Archangel (chosen by the god, changed every 20 years).
Samaria is now beset by rain and storms, and Jovah does not seem to hear the prayers the angels send up (for weather intercessions). Only the angel Alleluia is able to reach the god. When the archangel Delilah is injured in a storm and no longer able to fly the god chooses Alleluia as her replacement. Samaria has also advanced technologically, having gas and electric lights, and a newly developed combustion engine. New factories are changing the face of cities and the usual teething problems of industry are present, as well as friction between the nomadic Edori and the settled merchant interests. Alleluia is quiet, dislikes singing in public, and is the last person most want as Archangel (including herself).
I can't say too much about this without big spoilers, but I really love this series and the huge reveal in this book. In my re-read of Archangel I loved picking up on all the pretty darn obvious foreshadowing that I didn't notice in my first read (I live in the characters' moments when I read). It's still a really fun concept, and I love the discussions of technology and religion. Unlike others in the series this one doesn't have a real villain. It's very much a humans vs nature book.
Dragonsong Dragonsinger Dragondrums by Anne McCaffrey (Harper Hall Trilogy) RE-READ
First read (and listened) to these when I was in middle school. I really love the first two, which should just be one longish book (but you know how publishers are). The third is fine, but pretty removed, and I could never feel comfortable with a main character doing something that would bring disrepute and dishonor to the Harper Hall and those who had helped him. There are questionable medical ethics as well from our otherwise shiningly good characters and it doesn't sit well.
Highly recommend the first two especially to any middle grade readers. I really admire McCaffrey's skill with world building, and the way that she uses familiar language for foreign foods and technology that's immediately understandable for the reader without any extra explanation. I've read a few of the early Pern books and enjoyed them well enough, and really liked at least the first couple of Acorna books. Even if she's not to your taste, she's a writer to be admired.
The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos by Leonard Mlodinow
I think maybe the subtitle presents this book as having more of straight line chronology than it actually does, but it was a good read. It examines how our minds differ from those of the smartest primates, and how knowledge and research into the universe progressed.
Not bad writing at all, and worth a read so long as you're not looking for something too deep and focused. I'm not stupendously science minded, so as we got to the modern age my brain had a harder time focusing.
The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry
This is a YA novel with a great premise that didn't quite pay off. The headmistress of a small (tiny really) boarding school and her brother die at dinner, both presumably poisoned. While the girls don't care all that much, they also don't want to be sent home, so they try to cover up the deaths when the neighbors come. That hooked me right in, especially since one of my favorite movies as a kid was Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.
Berry sets this book in the Victorian period, but other than her telling us that there's not much to place it precisely there. She tries to parody Victorian (I'd say more 20s-50s really, or Edwardian at the earliest) girls boarding school life, but the farce doesn't really go far or deep enough. The pacing is strange as well and the end a bit too neat.
Not really recommended for anyone. I was expecting a lot more out of it.
Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain From the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times by Lucy Lethbridge
I found this to be a really fascinating read on a number of levels, and I think it's well written and organized. The upper class being so confused as to why young women would rather slave in a factory than go into service is pretty hilarious. This held a special interest for me when she talks about how awkward people become with servants later on. I qualify for a home health aide and it's a huge struggle (most of us aren't brought up to be sitting while someone cleans our things, for one).
The book brought up some memoirs of servants that I've now put on my list to read (mostly Margaret Powell's). Upstairs Downstairs was my mom's thing to watch after we kids were all in bed, and I greatly enjoyed it once I was 13 or so.
I will say the audiobook is pretty annoying. I wish non-fiction readers would understand they really don't have to do accents for quotes. If they're great at the accent fine, but most of the time it's not relevant that so-and-so they're quoting was American. If it is relevant the text will remind us of that multiple times. So sick of hearing terrible American accents in non-fiction audiobooks.
Recommended if you have an interest in labor history, trends in servants, etc...
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander RE-READ
This is my first re-read of this since the single reading I did as a kid. Then and now I preferred Alexander's other work to his very high fantasy series (Vesper Holly, of course, and Time Cat and The Wizard in the Tree). I'd forgotten how old this was, having originally been published in 1964.
The age actually makes the book more impressive, because while it is a high fantasy story, Taran (protagonist, would-be hero, and assistant pig keeper) has most of his expectations of how hero-ing should go dashed. Alexander gives us this story but also pokes fun at it, and there's nothing easier to joke about than high epic fantasy.
It's definitely a fun one, if not a favorite of mine, and I'd recommend it for any child interested in fantasy.
Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth
Blyth has written an extremely readable and readily understandable book on one of the most important economic recovery theories we face today. At the beginning he covers the answers you'll find in the book, and divides it up so that if you want to know A just read section A, if you want a quick overview just read section B etc...
You can feel how passionate Blyth is about understanding the recent financial crash and the responses to it, and discovering what really helps a country recover. He gives us historical and current examples and examines the instances when it's claimed austerity worked in detail, pointing out factors that were ignored or erased.
American readers take note that Blyth is Scottish and uses the term liberal in the UK political sense, more akin to libertarian, not how we use it in the US. The book is concise and the writing never feels dry or overly academic.
Highly recommended.
Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier RE-READ
This is the second in Marillier's Sevenwaters trilogy, and my favorite of the series (I think it's tied with Wolfskin for my favorite Marillier book). I don't pick up books specifically for romantic storylines (Marillier's books usually have a relationship that's part of the bigger plot), but my favorites are always those that start out with the eventual couple bickering and disagreeing and misunderstanding each other. I'm not sure if this is because I'm fairly emotionally guarded myself or just because I'm an argumentative person!
This is a historical fantasy book, set in a real place and time (old Ireland, maybe 6th or 7th century CE). They focus on the house of Sevenwaters, which has struggled to put itself back to rights after facing destruction in Daughter of the Forest. While that first book focused on Sorcha, the second focuses on her daughter Liadan (and the third moves down another generation). When I first read the book this made me sad, because I was attached to other characters, but after re-reads of most of her books, I think that style of linked book works best for Marillier.
Liadan is the good, quiet daughter who was supposed to give them no surprises (guess how that works out). When her sister, Niamh, chooses a partner the older generation finds disastrous, she is packed off in a hasty marriage leaving Liadon and her twin Sean confused about why the man was so unsuitable. As Liadon travels part of the way to Niamh's new home she is abducted by a band of mercenaries who need her healer's skills to treat a comrade.
I suppose some parts of this are just setting up the third book in the series, but it's a complete story in its own right. Marillier is really exceptional about sucking me into the characters lives and feelings. She doesn't avoid hard questions, she doesn't avoid moral quagmires, her characters are realistically flawed. The characters deal with secrets, anger, jealousy, fear, prejudice, and pretty much every issue we face. As is often the case with Marillier's writing, characters (even the good guys) have to face up to their mistakes. Though in this one the older sister's tendency to cruelly lash out when she's upset is excused way more than I think it should be (I have a sibling who does that, and you know, we all get stressed, we don't all take it out on easy targets and expect them to forget it).
I still love this book, though the audio edition really needed a younger sounding reader (she gets better as the book goes on, but still). Marillier's books have gotten more than their share of poor audio editions. I'm not sure if that's because Marillier signed away rights to them early or she just doesn't care much. Her newest book one of the readers is an American even though it's still historical fantasy set in 6th-7th century Scotland. Her Bridei chronicles books all have editions read by the wonderful Michael Page now, at least.
Enabling Acts: The Hidden story of How the Americans with Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority its Rights by Lennard J. Davis
I was slow in starting this book, in part because of feeling generally depressed about how the ADA has failed in enforcement, particularly when it comes to employment protections. This is especially rich since the Republican justification for it was always “then more disabled people will be employed and won't need benefits.” After it passed the early court decisions totally shrunk the scope of what is or isn't a disability, to the extent that when two pilots were denied employment at United Airlines because they were nearsighted if they weren't wearing glasses/contacts, the court said they didn't have protection under the ADA because their impairments were corrected via glasses. Only they were still denied based on an impairment... This ruling affects wheelchair users as well, and anyone whose impairment is corrected with a device or medication. I know many people who were denied employment because they needed the accommodation of sitting down behind a checkout counter. That tiny thing, which causes no financial impact to a business, is still keeping disabled people from working and keeping us in poverty.
Once I did start the book, it was a good, compelling read, though don't believe the cover blurb about it being “a spellbinding political thriller.” Davis writes well, and with some insight into disability pre-ADA (his parents are both Deaf), but he is not disabled and he does fall into ableist language at times (though being disabled doesn't necessarily prevent that, of course). The organization of the book is good though, and he describes the people involved well. The ADA was unusual in it's formation, as there was a strict agreement that meetings would go on behind closed doors (mostly without any disabled people there, by the by) and no one would talk to the press. That way there would be less press and public pressure and response to specifics of the legislation, meaning more politicians were willing to back it.
It wasn't quite a five-star read for me (and I can't help but wish it had been authored by a disabled person). I recommend this book to everyone, really, in part to increase understanding of being disabled in the US (and keeping in mind this is one of the easier places in the world to be disabled). It's also an important reminder of just how different things are now, post-ADA. Curb cutouts, elevators in metro stations, accessible buses, these are relatively new and now (mostly) ubiquitous things. There are still many architectural barriers to accessibility, but it is so much better now, and it's easy to take those seemingly simple changes for granted. I made a lot of notes in Enabling Acts, some of which I'd like to share, but didn't want to make the review even longer. First, a few criticisms.
(pg 80) “Feldblum, herself lesbian and bisexual...”
--Uhh... If he didn't know her identity, or was confused due to Feldblum herself changing her self-identification, he could have just said she was a member of the LGBT community.
(pg 90) “Because Senator Dole had a disability, he didn't have to actively endorse any bill to get the votes of people with disabilities.”
--Because that's how we vote. Riiight. Not to mention that disability encompasses an enormous range of issues (most of which are not embodied in Dole).
(pg 131)
“The idea in the poem was that the lives of disadvantaged people should not be ignored or dismissed “with disdainful smile,” that their existence was as important as those with beauty, power, and wealth.”
--Because disabled people can't be beautiful? We are already seen as sexless in general, we don't need books about the ADA falling into that.
Now for the interesting/infuriating bits and pieces.
He begins with a treatment of section 504 of the Rehabilitation act of 1973, which included these lines to tie it to other civil rights legislation (getting people to recognize that disability was a civil rights issue was an important part of the ADA process):
No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United Sates, as defined in section 7(6), shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
If there hadn't been intense legal backlash to the protections in Section 504, the ADA might never have been written. A wide interpretation of 504 would have sufficed.
(Pg 33) “When the Office of Management and Budget, headed by David Stockman, well-known proponent of trickle-down economics, proposed further changes that would be coming two months later, these were also leaked. They included a particularly odious provision that said you could weigh the necessity of providing an accommodation against “the social value” of a particular person. Bob Funk commented: “this was a cost-benefit analysis of how human you are.”
This led to a backlash of 40,000 angry letters over a few years, and led to Bush's (George H. W.) first statement of support for disability legislation. Bush's support might well have been what propelled him to victory in the Presidential election, as Dukakis was conspicuously silent on disability rights.
(pg 37) Lex Frieden, who broke his neck in a car wreck and was quadriplegic, applied to Oral Roberts University as it was newer and had a more accessible campus, but was told flat out he was denied because of his disability. This was his first big setback and a spur to becoming a leader in the fight for the ADA. “We were sending men to the moon. It was just another one of those challenges in life that people have. Then, when I was told I couldn't do something-the only thing I thought I could do-that I wasn't able to do it because of my disability, then I felt guilty. I felt like, my God, I screwed my life up worse than I thought here. That was really traumatic.”
(pg 53) I was continually amazed while reading at the ridiculous “logic” used against ADA language.
The case then went to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that “otherwise qualified” was a tricky term. Essentially, the court said that a person might be “otherwise qualified” but particular disabilities would disqualify him or her from taking a job. The court used the example of a blind person who was applying to be a bus driver.”
If you want a job driving a bus then knowing how to drive already is part of “otherwise qualified” since you're not qualified if you don't already know how to drive!
On the employment side I get so frustrated. Stores often aren't willing to let someone sit behind a checkout counter, and they get away with it because of the narrowing of ADA definitions and because generally we disabled people don't have the time, energy, or money to fight this stuff. The other side is healthcare based. For those of us at the very bottom of Social Security Disability payments, you receive help paying for Medicare premiums and co-pays and such from Medicaid. If your income goes up $1 you lose that, and usually we can't make enough to cover that loss in help. If you only break-even on that then it's better not to get a job (and thus have no chance of finding just the right employment opportunity that would help raise us out of poverty).
(pg 86)
“Coelho didn't get the diagnosis of epilepsy until he tried to enter the priesthood in 1964, inspired to do some good in the world after the shock of the Kennedy assassination. His parents, frat brothers, and girlfriend of five months were all aghast. In his physical exam for the seminary, he was properly diagnosed. The physician, John Doyle, told him, “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you're unfit for military duty. The bad news is that you will not be able to become a Catholic priest, because canon law, established in 400 AD, said that if you have epilepsy you're possessed by the devil.”
1964!!! What the hell.
(Pg 94)
“Owens ended with a sweeping statement of inclusion. He noted that he had recently learned the term “temporarily able-bodied” could be applied to all “non-disabled” people. The phrase indicates that being “normal” is only a temporary state. He went on: “When you think about it, our entire country is made up of disabled people and temporarily able-bodied people. The people we are protecting are not a mysterious, distant 'them,' but rather ourselves.”
So a lot of religious groups wanted exemption from having to follow the ADA, and that really upsets me. Like, churches, temples, mosques, etc... you should be automatically making them accessible! Come on.
(pg 207) Regarding the Chapman ammendment that would remove protection for HIV+ people:
“The reality is that many Americans would refuse to patronize any food establishment if an employee were known to have a communicable disease.”
I laughed hysterically at this, because in general Republicans don't seem to think restaurant workers deserve paid sick days and encourage “right to work” legislation so workers can be fired for such things as, oh, calling in sick. People with communicable diseases are constantly making our food!
(pg 235)
Case of golfer who couldn't walk the PGA course and wanted to use a cart for the tour was denied it. He sued, won in lower court, PGA tour appealed to the Supreme Court. Court ruled Martin could use the cart because he had a disability, the PGA was a place of public accommodation, the cart was a reasonable accommodation, and walking was not an essential activity of golfing. The only two justices dissenting were Scalia and Thomas.
“Scalia's withering dissenting opinon contested what he called the “Kafkaesque” role of government in determining the rules of sporting events.
This is the kind of stuff that really really gets to me. This is the kind of exclusion that disabled people face on a daily basis, for no good reason. We have a serious problem with internalized ableism, and one way it manifests is discomfort around people with disabilities, and the idea that productivity equals worth and if you're not working you don't deserve the same things working people have.
After watching the BBC mini-series based on the book, I had to reread it. I found i remembered absolutely NOTHING, other than that there was magic and it was historical fantasy. The mini-series was good, and well cast and acted, though of course very changed and condensed, due to the length of the book and only having 7 episodes for it.
The way the book is written, really in a narrative non-fiction style, is extremely effective. While it's quite a long book, it doesn't feel long while you're reading. It feels as real as an alternate universe where we have magic can. I absolutely LOVE all the footnotes.
Highly recommended for everyone, and an excellent example of historical fantasy.
The Bromeliad Trilogy: Truckers, Diggers, and Wings by Terry Pratchett RE-READ
This was the second thing I ever read by Pratchett, and I really loved it. It's a children's fantasy trilogy about Nomes. A group of Nomes living outside in the world need to find somewhere better to leave. They climb onto a truck and are taken to The Store (a semi-old fashioned department store), which has a community of Nomes living in it, most of whom think the Store is the entire world and there is no outside.
It's a wonderful world Pratchett created, full of fun characters. They also seem to have counterparts with the rats in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. The store is going to be demolished and they have to leave, but getting hide bound Nomes to risk going Outside is a difficult proposition. The book is interspersed with passages from the Nome bible, heavily influenced by the Store signage (the great enemy being Prices Slashed and the beneficent one is Bargains Galore).
Highly recommended. It's a fun read as an adult, and a great one for your elementary and grade school aged kids.
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book (would it refer to blatant propaganda works or something else, etc...), but figured it would be interesting no matter what.
And it was! This was the book I really needed right now. I think it would be a good read for anyone who likes books. The text focuses on the Victory Books Council and the invention, production, and distribution of the Armed Services Edition paperback books, specially designed for easy use by troops in any conditions. This program brought US publishers into cooperation, helped spur the production of paperback books in general, created a generation of serious readers, and made The Great Gatsby a classic (a book I don't enjoy myself, but oh well).
It is also a love story to the importance of reading and the great emotional rewards we gain from books, particularly when we're in strife. What I found most lovely was the popularity of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which I ADORED) among the servicemen, even though it's narrated by a young girl. Betty Smith received an average of four letters per day from servicemen and answered all of them. Books frankly became the most valued luxury, with men trading money and cigarettes to move up a few places on a hold list.
It was heartwarming to see how seriously those involved took their role in getting books to our boys (service women were not provided with books, annoyingly). They were also serious about fighting censorship, as they argued part of the purpose of the war was to fight censorship and the banning of books.
Wonderful, relatively light read. Recommended to all readers.
In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
Judy Blume was a middle schooler in Elizabeth, New Jersey during the eight-week period when three planes crashed in the town. Her father, a dentist, helped to identify some victims from dental records. This novel is built around those crashes, with a wide cast of characters including adults and children. A list of characters with a brief description would have been helpful, and I hope one is included in the print book. I still enjoyed it via audio with no character list to help though.
The novel merges the everyday and the extraordinary in a way that I found effective and realistic. While three deadly plane crashes in one town is a type of 'close to home' disaster most of us will never know (inshaAllah), our daily lives do exist in conjunction with extreme events in our state, our country, and in the world. The 24 hour news cycle and the internet ensure that we're much closer to the extraordinary than we used to be, but our daily lives and struggles don't lessen because of that awareness.
It was a good read for me (though I've decided to forget that the last chapter exists, as I don't think it was necessary, it's the "catch up 20-30 years later type), if not one that I'm likely to re-read. I don't know how longtime Blume readers will find it, as it's my first Blume read ever! We didn't own any of her books, and I was a non-fiction and historical fiction kid, not given to reading "normal teens with normal problems" books. Still seems ridiculous that I went through chlidhood not really aware of Blume's work.
He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and his Daughter's Quest to Know Him by Mimi Baird
First, I love this cover. It's so effective and well designed.
Mimi Baird's father was a brilliant doctor who began to study manic depression around the time he began to seriously suffer from it. He was an early believer in a biochemical root for the disorder but was unable to continue research as his illness worsened, his medical license was revoked, and he was institutionalized. His daughter was a young child when this happened, and did not see him again.
As an adult she looks to his brothers for more information about him, and is led to a manuscript her father wrote, a diary of sorts about his actions and experiences in various mental institutions. She lets the book alternate between her narration, her father's manuscript, and his medical records.
It's a short book, one without a satisfying conclusion. The institutions are largely horrific places, her father's life and work are eventually just a footnote in the history of the study of manic depression. It was a very interesting read though, and an important one. Many of the well known stories of mental illness in the 20th century are success stories. They may include poor or abusive treatment in institutions, but through support, new discoveries, etc... the patient finds their way back to the good life. Those are the exceptions, however, and Baird's story is the more common one. It's important to keep that in mind.
Related to the audiobook - Of all the books that have multiple readers (for different narrators), this book needed it the least. It's totally obviously when there's a switch because the style, point of view, and references are vastly different. I found myself really annoyed since there are many books that would benefit from multiple readers. At the very least the reader for Dr. Baird's manuscript could have also read the hospital records portion. I will never understand how audiobook publishers think.
On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits by Wray Herbert
I like that it took a second look for me to 'get' the cover image.
If you're going into this book, I'd ignore the subtitle. It's a standard popular science book and spends almost no time on how to avoid our brain's foolish mistakes. The trick there is in the title - give everything a second thought, examine why you've decided on something, etc...
It's another good title in the "our brains really do some illogical things" series. This one focuses on cognitive heuristics, paths our minds subconsciously and automatically take.
Good book, recommended. In the same vein as You Are Not So Smart and Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, but with a slightly different focus.
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley
This was not a good choice for audio, at least not without a detailed character list. I pressed ahead anyway, but I think I'll try to reread it in print eventually as I believe I'll enjoy it more.
Smiley gives us a book with the style of a Norse saga that sprawls over the difficult lives of the Greenlanders over the course of a few decades.
It's an interesting book, though perhaps not one that would be beloved across the board. It's a hard one to review for me, in part because I'm well behind on reviews, and because I know the audio version impacted it negatively. I absolutely loved the dialogue. There was just something about the way she wrote it that felt true and right.
Recommend for those who a more unique piece of literature maybe? Definitely read it in print.
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall
This is the second Penderwicks book, and was rather a let-down. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book (though it's been long enough that I don't remember it well), and expected more from Birdsall.
The four Penderwick sisters have lost their mother to cancer (happens right at the start of the book). Per the mother's instructions their aunt gives their father a letter four years later in which the mother instructs him to start dating again. The girls are upset, which is natural, but also decide to sabotage the dating (picking out awful women) so their father will give up. Right there is where I lost my interest. The older girls are also dealing with crushes, etc...
The beginning made me think of Sonya Sones' One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies. I didn't find the children's actions realistic, and I feel like Birdsall is conflicted about her style. The book isn't set in any specific time, but it feels neither fully contemporary nor vintage. I felt like she wanted the book to be like Swallows and Amazons or Ballet Shoes, but didn't commit to setting it back in time.
I probably won't read the third book in the series, and I don't recommend this one.
The Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davis RE-READ
This is probably my favorite of the first five Falco books (yes, I have to break it down into fives). As usual for the early books Helena and Falco have a misunderstanding that leads to a fight. Both are stubborn, both want the other to bend, both have difficulty expressing their love exacerbated by the gulf between her patrician class and his plebeian upbringing and life. Both worry they'll only do the other harm. Their tentative relationship always feels very realistic to me.
One of the reasons this is a favorite is for the travel, and firm relationship to past and current (to the book) events in Germany and along the Rhine. The presence of the very poorly behaved Augustanilla (Falco's niece) also makes it quite fun. I feel like Davis captures the way Falco's upbringing, and the society of Rome in that time, with his internal fight against pre-programmed notions about women, foreigners, etc... Historical fiction where men are just 100% feminist all-good guys might be nice from time to time, but it's so unrealistic given that even the best of us are still struggling with internalized sexism, racism, ableism, etc...
It's such a great series. I enjoyed all the books, but Davis doesn't quite hit her stride until the third and fourth books.
Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil by Paul Bloom
While I really enjoyed this popular science book, I feel the title and subtitle are a little misleading. While a number of studies with babies and toddlers are mentioned, they generally serve as starting points, with more of the book dedicated to studies in adults.
It does seem that babies are basically born with some sense of right and wrong, or at least fairness, built in, and observable at as young as three months old. And of course the studies in that line are fascinating. True to humanity of course, while a baby or toddler might see lack of sharing as bad in others/puppets/etc... it's a different story when they're expected to share their OWN things.
An interesting, quick read. Recommended to the popular science fans, just take the title as a loose guideline rather than descriptive of the book as a whole.
Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
Grandin is an autistic woman who has always found animals easier to understand than people. She has spent years working to make slaughterhouses more humane and make the review process simpler so that plants are shut down when they need to be. (Because a 50 item checklist means if a slaughterhouse fails one or two items, no matter how serious, inspectors are more likely to let them slide.)
The book covers some of her work, including various experiments around animal intelligence, the work of others, and how our own human biases can affect the animals we live with (and the way experiments with animals are done). It also talks about why her autism has made it easier to understand animals. There is a lot of "normal people" talk in reference to allistic/neurotypical people, just as a warning.
It's a really fascinating book, and well worth a read for anyone who has pets (especially dogs) or deals with horses. The book covers a large swathe of information, but horses, dogs, and cows probably get the most time.
Goblins by Charles Grant
I started watching X-Files as a way-too-young kid when it first started. It was one of the few shows I was really really into (The X-Files and Sailor Moon, slightly strange bedfellows). I read some of the novels the sprung from it in middle school and really liked them, particularly Ground Zero and Ruins, both by Kevin J. Anderson. I'd thought those were the first, but then stumbled upon this title (and a second, Whirlwind) by Grant, which were actually the first two published.
Goblins is, unfortunately, not a good effort. I'm sure this is partly because it was published in 1994, and the series started in 1993. That resulted in Mulder and Scully not actually acting much like Mulder and Scully. In Anderson's efforts he really writes the characters as they are in the show, which makes a huge difference. The plot and pacing also just weren't done well. The concept was somewhat boring and not really suspenseful. Putting Mulder and Scully with inexperienced partners for the case also didn't make any sense whatsoever and didn't serve any purpose from a narrative or character development standpoint.
While I'm sure the other X-Files novels prospered from my young age when I read them (12-13), I know I was so engrossed in the show that getting the characterization wrong would have certainly killed the books for me, and they began with more interesting concepts as well.
Not recommended for anyone unless you're doing a dissertation on the development of the X-Files as a cultural phenomenon (I'm sure someone's doing that).
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier RE-READ
A favorite book by a favorite author, and my first re-read via the audio edition. This was one of the first long books that I read in one sitting. I picked it up as a teenager, on the recommendation of a family friend I was visiting (a librarian). It was, I think, everything I really wanted in a fantasy novel.
It is historical fantasy, set in early medieval Ireland and England (post Saxon invasion, pre-Norman, vikings not quite in full swing), a bit of fairy/folktale retelling, and extremely character focused with realistic characters. No one is 100% good, no event is !00% happy or sad, good people make mistakes and are held accountable, etc... Our duty of protection towards those who need it is a theme in Marillier's books, and characters' actions are never excused with "oh that's just how they are." The characters also pretty much fit their times, and live within social norms and familial expectations barring a few cases.
Sorcha is the 7th child of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters (himself a seventh son), the only daughter, whose mother died after giving birth to her. Her brothers are kind and protective of her, while their father is largely checked out. Colum and the older boys are caught up trying to regain an island occupied by the English. Life is going relatively smoothly until Sorcha and her brother Finbar rescue a prisoner who has been tortured and their father comes back from a trip engaged to a wicked woman who wants to tear the family apart. The fantasy element comes from elements of their religion and folklore being true, but no mythical creature serves as a main character, and the plot is always a mix of the human and fey issues.
Marillier has a great gift with characters, and with sucking me into a story. Even though I've read this a fair number of times I still felt so anxious and upset towards the end with one of the great villains (he's a real Villain's Villain). I would say her work all strives to build empathy. Even with her recent YA series, which is full-on fantasy, and not something I loved or will read again, I still had to read the last book in one sitting.
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
I was so impressed with Lai's first novel, Inside Out and Back Again, and loved her perfectly descriptive writing. She was also so adept at getting into the child's head and keeping her characters believable. In that her narrator is a young girl whose family just manages to get out of Saigon before the fall. Her father was missing, and she, her mother, and brothers are sponsored by a family in Alabama.
In Listen, Slowly our narrator is a 12 (almost 13, thank you) year old girl who has grown up in the US. Her parents came from Vietnam as children, and her father goes back every year to perform surgeries in poor areas. This year she is made to go so someone can stay with her grandmother as she returns to her village for the first time, as a detective has found some news of her husband, who was taken a few years before the family had to flee. Mai is not happy about this. She can understand but not speak Vietnamese and was planning a summer at the beach with her friends. At the same time she loves her grandmother and she is curious about her parents lives as refugees, but frustrated that they would never tell her about it.
It's an accurate picture of life at that age, I think. Wanting to get far from parental authority and being stroppy and dramatic, but caring deeply about your family and still being able to appreciate them. As an adult (and as a youngest child who had to constantly put up with being at events for older siblings) I sometimes wanted to shake her, but it was pretty realistic.
Lai's writing is beautiful, and I really recommend the audio edition so that you can hear the Vietnamese spoken. Her books are the ones that will spur children into wanting to turn a beautiful phrase.
The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us by Jeffrey Kluger
I found this book really interesting, and I appreciated the writer having three siblings he grew up with (and two much younger half-siblings). He covers a lot of ground, including our feelings about only children and whether or not they do face disadvantages. I have four older siblings ranging from five to fourteen years older than me, the oldest two didn't live with us, and the younger two both left home when I was ten (one to live with an aunt to get away from delinquent friends, and one to boarding school). After feeling left behind or lost in the shuffle as a younger kid it was interesting (and good for me) to be a sort of only child for a bit.
He also talks about birth order traits, which I roll my eyes at. My closest siblings and I are basically the opposite of what those traits say we should be. There are so many other issues that impact children's personalities which easily alter that birth order stuff, not least of which are the parents' own personalities and the age differences between siblings. My parents are both oldest siblings, both very independent, and neither one cared at all what their siblings were doing. They had no understanding of the level of teasing (and general harassment) I went through because they couldn't understand wanting to bother with a younger sibling in the first place.
Kluger alternates his own experiences with various studies, and it is quite effective. Recommended to anyone interested in the subject. I don't feel it will be particularly helpful on a parenting level, so I wouldn't get it just for that.
The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs
This was Bellairs first novel for children/young adults. It was initially written for adults and then rewritten for children at the behest of a publisher. I feel like this shows in the work, in terms of some odd pacing especially, and I'm wondering if the second in the series will feel different. I was a die-hard fan of Bellairs' Johnny Dixon series but didn't read any of the other series for reasons not entirely clear to me (I think I just felt too devoted to Johnny Dixon).
The pacing and mystery in this one felt odd, but I did like the characters. There are almost no women in the Johnny Dixon series, but this features Florence Zimmerman, a somewhat crochety older woman who I loved. The protagonist Lewis Barnavelt was good too. An over-weight, awkward, bad-at-sports boy with an interest in history, and Bellairs is not afraid to have his male characters cry, something I love. Johnny Dixon is also awkward and a lover of history (the history love is part of what drew me in as a kid).
Bellairs died quite young (51), and I think he'd be doing some really amazing things if he were alive today. I'm going to look for The Face in the Frost, his only adult novel soon. It's a fantasy book that was judged quite good when it was published. I will eventually read the next Barnavelt title, but my heart still belongs to Johnny Dixon, and I do sometimes wish that Bellairs could let his awkward protagonists be friends with OTHER awkward kids (vs popular kids).
The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens
If you were 8 or older when the movie The Rocketeer was released you probably enjoyed it. It's such a solid action/adventure movie, with some great humor, great settings, and the most villainous of villains. I knew it was based on some comic stories, but I'd never been able to find a complete edition. Happily I noticed they'd recently released it, and bought a copy for myself and one for my brother (rather regretting getting two at this point, at least it should be a solid resell to a used bookstore).
The comics have a very different feel and pacing from the movie (not too surprising) and are lacking in the charm and humor of the movie as well. They certainly feel geared toward the young, entitled, adult male audience. Jenny in the comics is basically Bettie Page, including doing nude pin up shoots (Page herself credited the comics, published in the early 80s, with revitalizing interest in her). She really just seems to be there so Stevens has an excuse to drawn a semi-nude woman (and as a reason Cliff needs to keep the jetpack, of course).
All in all, I'm somewhat disappointed. You rather expect the print source of a movie to be something special, but sometimes the movie is just so much better. Even without the movie to compare it to, I wouldn't have liked these comics.
The Pixilated Parrot by Carl Barks
This is the sixth volume of Barks' Donald Duck comics published (though technically it's volume 9 in the series). I wasn't familiar with any of the comics in this album, it didn't seem to have a particularly well known Duck story, but that might just be me.
Still a book full of solid stories and Barks' wonderful humor. I really appreciate the short essays on the various stories in the back of these volumes.
Sole Survivor by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
I could have sworn I updated with this book. I have distinct memories of fixing the touchstone.
McCunn is writing about Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor who survived 133 days on a raft in the Atlantic ocean. This is the longest "survival at sea" to date, and all the more impressive given that Poon Lim was not an experienced sailor. He was a second steward on the merchant ship SS Benlomond when it was sunk by a German U-boat in 1942.
This was an early work in terms of non-fiction being written in a more novelized form, and it's very successful. Poon Lim was on an odd sort of raft with no sides, which undoubtedly helped him survive a particularly rough storm. His resourcefulness led him to make fishing hooks out of the spring in a flashlight and one of the nails on his raft. His system of drying and storing fish led to him being in much better physical shape than sailors rescued after shorter periods at sea.
It's an interesting book, and a good read for me. I'm weak for sea survival stories. It's not the most compellingly written book ever, but given difficulties in translation and communication I don't think it ever could have been. Recommended for fellow sea survival lovers.
Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell
This is a novella by Gaskell, the last one she wrote published in 1864. It was interesting, since I've read all of her novels, but won't be a favorite.
A young man, Paul, (our narrator), working in a different part of the country is urged to call on a distant-ish cousin there. He is welcomed into the family and is quite taken by them, especially the daughter, Phillis. It's a simple story mostly about the young people and their attractions (relatively predictable, but two more parts were planned and unwritten, so it's hard to say where it would have ended up).
It is supposed to be the best of her novellas and a fitting run-up to Wives and Daughters. I can see that, certainly, and there's a slight similarity with one plot point. An interesting read for this Gaskell fan, though not one I loved or will feel the need to re-read.is text haven't aged well, I think, but it was an interesting read. July's People by Nadine Gordimer
This is a classic banned South African novel. Gordimer gives an alternative world where the white South African establishment has been violently overthrown. July has worked for a white family for some time and helps them escape to his village.
The main thrust of the novel is how even in this situation the white family still feel entitled to whatever they want. The fact that they would have left the country already but they couldn't get their money out in time. Though July is their savior they still treat him as a servant, despite being Good Liberal White Folks. Gordimer's choice to focus on characters who see themselves as opposed to racism but do not examine their choices, words, or actions for casual racism was a good one.
Some aspects of this text haven't aged well, I think, but it was an interesting read.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
An excellent work, though the length limits its scope. Dunbar-Ortiz examines various policies and acts by the US government against American Indians, and how the legacy of the Indian wars remains in standard military vernacular (referring to enemy territory as Indian country, often shortened to in country, and using the phrase "off the reservation" for a rogue agent/person, among others).
Well done, interesting, important read. Recommended.
What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
And now for something completely different...
I had such hopes for this classic of the 1870s. The main character, Katy, the oldest sibling, wants to be good but can't help getting into a bit of trouble. So much more spirit than milk-sop Polly of Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.
Things were bad enough with their disabled cousin coming and being that perfect, patient, kind, beautiful trope of disability. Therein included the line "A sick woman who isn't neat is a disagreeable object," which makes me rage (when you have a chronic illness looking neat so people don't dislike you really isn't top of the list of priorities).
Then of course Katy was injured and disabled and oh she was just soo mopey until cousin Goody Two Shoes gives Katy the speech her father gave her when she got ill - basically "this is god's way of making you good and sweet and pleasant, it's god's school of pain." Obviously Katy couldn't stay disabled, so becoming patient and perfect cures her.
An excerpt of a poem Katy writes:
"I used to go to a bright school
Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn;
But idle scholar that I was,
I liked to play, I would not learn;
So the Great Teacher did ordain
That I should try the School of Pain."
I was enjoying this book and then BAM two fists full of ableist nonsense and disabled character tropes.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
This book deserves all the praise and attention it's received. It is such an important work and I recommend everyone read it. It is a letter Coates writes to his son, about his fears, about his attitudes shaped by a childhood vastly different than the one his son has had, about the difficulty in living in a world of institutional racism.
I'd especially recommend you give it to white people who deny having white privilege because they are part of another oppressed group (female, LGBT, disabled, poor, etc...). I think it will help people understand the nature of privilege and intersectionality. Our lives are never ruled by a single issue.
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Another great non-fiction read, and an important subject for everyone. It's likely that towards the end of your life you'll need help from someone and they may have to make decisions on your behalf or that you'll be the one helping someone else.
Gawande talks about the changes in eldercare, the switch from parents living with their children until death to living independently or in nursing homes, he talks about the ways doctors can do harm in these situations, and includes the backdrop of his own aging parents.
Content warning for a whole lot of ableism and total discounting of the lives of people with disabilities, often of the "I'd rather die than be in a wheelchair," variety. I wish Gawande had brought this up, or at least said "actually once people get to that point they don't kill themselves, they just adapt." Since that attitude is so prevalent you'd think able-bodied people would be more concerned with accessible spaces, but no (I mean, anyone can become disabled at any time, it's in your own best interests to fight for accessibility on all fronts).
The big thing to take from this is that we don't get to choose what kind of life is worthwhile to someone else. These choices are hard, and they may frustrate or anger us, particularly if the person is not set on extending their life, but we don't get to decide for our parents.
Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell
This was an interesting graphic novel, focusing on two step-siblings who both seem to have a mental illness which involves auditory and visionary hallucinations (their grandmother seems to as well). The story revolves around that and around extremely ordinary aspects of daily life for teens. It ended very suddenly and strangely. An interesting book, but not quite my cup of tea.
The drawing style was mostly great, but sometimes got way too sloppy in terms of facial expressions. It's a minor criticism, but the rest of the style wasn't really messy and it was very jarring to me.
A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka by Lev Golinkin
This memoir of Golinkin's childhood in Russia and his family's escape was a fascinating read. The attempt to get Soviet Jews out in the latter half of the 20th century is one of those events that don't register in our memories when we think of the refugee experience. Golinkin's internalized anti-Semitism, taking many years to overcome, is so heartbreaking.
The book mostly deals with Golinkin's childhood perspective with added information about the process of leaving Russia and the way various organizations worked. He did return Austria (their way-station before going to the US) as an adult and attempt to answer questions he had about their particular circumstances.
This is an under-represented part of world history, definitely recommended.
Jovah's Angel by Sharon Shinn RE-READ
This is the second in Shinn's Samaria trilogy. It takes place roughly 150 years after the events in Archangel during a period of upheaval and change. In Samaria the angelic race (who have functioning wings) have specific prayers to sing to the god, Jovah, which effect changes in weather, rains of medicines or seeds, and lightning strikes. Different angel holds support each region of the country, lead by the Archangel (chosen by the god, changed every 20 years).
Samaria is now beset by rain and storms, and Jovah does not seem to hear the prayers the angels send up (for weather intercessions). Only the angel Alleluia is able to reach the god. When the archangel Delilah is injured in a storm and no longer able to fly the god chooses Alleluia as her replacement. Samaria has also advanced technologically, having gas and electric lights, and a newly developed combustion engine. New factories are changing the face of cities and the usual teething problems of industry are present, as well as friction between the nomadic Edori and the settled merchant interests. Alleluia is quiet, dislikes singing in public, and is the last person most want as Archangel (including herself).
I can't say too much about this without big spoilers, but I really love this series and the huge reveal in this book. In my re-read of Archangel I loved picking up on all the pretty darn obvious foreshadowing that I didn't notice in my first read (I live in the characters' moments when I read). It's still a really fun concept, and I love the discussions of technology and religion. Unlike others in the series this one doesn't have a real villain. It's very much a humans vs nature book.
Dragonsong Dragonsinger Dragondrums by Anne McCaffrey (Harper Hall Trilogy) RE-READ
First read (and listened) to these when I was in middle school. I really love the first two, which should just be one longish book (but you know how publishers are). The third is fine, but pretty removed, and I could never feel comfortable with a main character doing something that would bring disrepute and dishonor to the Harper Hall and those who had helped him. There are questionable medical ethics as well from our otherwise shiningly good characters and it doesn't sit well.
Highly recommend the first two especially to any middle grade readers. I really admire McCaffrey's skill with world building, and the way that she uses familiar language for foreign foods and technology that's immediately understandable for the reader without any extra explanation. I've read a few of the early Pern books and enjoyed them well enough, and really liked at least the first couple of Acorna books. Even if she's not to your taste, she's a writer to be admired.
The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos by Leonard Mlodinow
I think maybe the subtitle presents this book as having more of straight line chronology than it actually does, but it was a good read. It examines how our minds differ from those of the smartest primates, and how knowledge and research into the universe progressed.
Not bad writing at all, and worth a read so long as you're not looking for something too deep and focused. I'm not stupendously science minded, so as we got to the modern age my brain had a harder time focusing.
The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry
This is a YA novel with a great premise that didn't quite pay off. The headmistress of a small (tiny really) boarding school and her brother die at dinner, both presumably poisoned. While the girls don't care all that much, they also don't want to be sent home, so they try to cover up the deaths when the neighbors come. That hooked me right in, especially since one of my favorite movies as a kid was Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.
Berry sets this book in the Victorian period, but other than her telling us that there's not much to place it precisely there. She tries to parody Victorian (I'd say more 20s-50s really, or Edwardian at the earliest) girls boarding school life, but the farce doesn't really go far or deep enough. The pacing is strange as well and the end a bit too neat.
Not really recommended for anyone. I was expecting a lot more out of it.
Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain From the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times by Lucy Lethbridge
I found this to be a really fascinating read on a number of levels, and I think it's well written and organized. The upper class being so confused as to why young women would rather slave in a factory than go into service is pretty hilarious. This held a special interest for me when she talks about how awkward people become with servants later on. I qualify for a home health aide and it's a huge struggle (most of us aren't brought up to be sitting while someone cleans our things, for one).
The book brought up some memoirs of servants that I've now put on my list to read (mostly Margaret Powell's). Upstairs Downstairs was my mom's thing to watch after we kids were all in bed, and I greatly enjoyed it once I was 13 or so.
I will say the audiobook is pretty annoying. I wish non-fiction readers would understand they really don't have to do accents for quotes. If they're great at the accent fine, but most of the time it's not relevant that so-and-so they're quoting was American. If it is relevant the text will remind us of that multiple times. So sick of hearing terrible American accents in non-fiction audiobooks.
Recommended if you have an interest in labor history, trends in servants, etc...
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander RE-READ
This is my first re-read of this since the single reading I did as a kid. Then and now I preferred Alexander's other work to his very high fantasy series (Vesper Holly, of course, and Time Cat and The Wizard in the Tree). I'd forgotten how old this was, having originally been published in 1964.
The age actually makes the book more impressive, because while it is a high fantasy story, Taran (protagonist, would-be hero, and assistant pig keeper) has most of his expectations of how hero-ing should go dashed. Alexander gives us this story but also pokes fun at it, and there's nothing easier to joke about than high epic fantasy.
It's definitely a fun one, if not a favorite of mine, and I'd recommend it for any child interested in fantasy.
Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth
Blyth has written an extremely readable and readily understandable book on one of the most important economic recovery theories we face today. At the beginning he covers the answers you'll find in the book, and divides it up so that if you want to know A just read section A, if you want a quick overview just read section B etc...
You can feel how passionate Blyth is about understanding the recent financial crash and the responses to it, and discovering what really helps a country recover. He gives us historical and current examples and examines the instances when it's claimed austerity worked in detail, pointing out factors that were ignored or erased.
American readers take note that Blyth is Scottish and uses the term liberal in the UK political sense, more akin to libertarian, not how we use it in the US. The book is concise and the writing never feels dry or overly academic.
Highly recommended.
Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier RE-READ
This is the second in Marillier's Sevenwaters trilogy, and my favorite of the series (I think it's tied with Wolfskin for my favorite Marillier book). I don't pick up books specifically for romantic storylines (Marillier's books usually have a relationship that's part of the bigger plot), but my favorites are always those that start out with the eventual couple bickering and disagreeing and misunderstanding each other. I'm not sure if this is because I'm fairly emotionally guarded myself or just because I'm an argumentative person!
This is a historical fantasy book, set in a real place and time (old Ireland, maybe 6th or 7th century CE). They focus on the house of Sevenwaters, which has struggled to put itself back to rights after facing destruction in Daughter of the Forest. While that first book focused on Sorcha, the second focuses on her daughter Liadan (and the third moves down another generation). When I first read the book this made me sad, because I was attached to other characters, but after re-reads of most of her books, I think that style of linked book works best for Marillier.
Liadan is the good, quiet daughter who was supposed to give them no surprises (guess how that works out). When her sister, Niamh, chooses a partner the older generation finds disastrous, she is packed off in a hasty marriage leaving Liadon and her twin Sean confused about why the man was so unsuitable. As Liadon travels part of the way to Niamh's new home she is abducted by a band of mercenaries who need her healer's skills to treat a comrade.
I suppose some parts of this are just setting up the third book in the series, but it's a complete story in its own right. Marillier is really exceptional about sucking me into the characters lives and feelings. She doesn't avoid hard questions, she doesn't avoid moral quagmires, her characters are realistically flawed. The characters deal with secrets, anger, jealousy, fear, prejudice, and pretty much every issue we face. As is often the case with Marillier's writing, characters (even the good guys) have to face up to their mistakes. Though in this one the older sister's tendency to cruelly lash out when she's upset is excused way more than I think it should be (I have a sibling who does that, and you know, we all get stressed, we don't all take it out on easy targets and expect them to forget it).
I still love this book, though the audio edition really needed a younger sounding reader (she gets better as the book goes on, but still). Marillier's books have gotten more than their share of poor audio editions. I'm not sure if that's because Marillier signed away rights to them early or she just doesn't care much. Her newest book one of the readers is an American even though it's still historical fantasy set in 6th-7th century Scotland. Her Bridei chronicles books all have editions read by the wonderful Michael Page now, at least.
Enabling Acts: The Hidden story of How the Americans with Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority its Rights by Lennard J. Davis
I was slow in starting this book, in part because of feeling generally depressed about how the ADA has failed in enforcement, particularly when it comes to employment protections. This is especially rich since the Republican justification for it was always “then more disabled people will be employed and won't need benefits.” After it passed the early court decisions totally shrunk the scope of what is or isn't a disability, to the extent that when two pilots were denied employment at United Airlines because they were nearsighted if they weren't wearing glasses/contacts, the court said they didn't have protection under the ADA because their impairments were corrected via glasses. Only they were still denied based on an impairment... This ruling affects wheelchair users as well, and anyone whose impairment is corrected with a device or medication. I know many people who were denied employment because they needed the accommodation of sitting down behind a checkout counter. That tiny thing, which causes no financial impact to a business, is still keeping disabled people from working and keeping us in poverty.
Once I did start the book, it was a good, compelling read, though don't believe the cover blurb about it being “a spellbinding political thriller.” Davis writes well, and with some insight into disability pre-ADA (his parents are both Deaf), but he is not disabled and he does fall into ableist language at times (though being disabled doesn't necessarily prevent that, of course). The organization of the book is good though, and he describes the people involved well. The ADA was unusual in it's formation, as there was a strict agreement that meetings would go on behind closed doors (mostly without any disabled people there, by the by) and no one would talk to the press. That way there would be less press and public pressure and response to specifics of the legislation, meaning more politicians were willing to back it.
It wasn't quite a five-star read for me (and I can't help but wish it had been authored by a disabled person). I recommend this book to everyone, really, in part to increase understanding of being disabled in the US (and keeping in mind this is one of the easier places in the world to be disabled). It's also an important reminder of just how different things are now, post-ADA. Curb cutouts, elevators in metro stations, accessible buses, these are relatively new and now (mostly) ubiquitous things. There are still many architectural barriers to accessibility, but it is so much better now, and it's easy to take those seemingly simple changes for granted. I made a lot of notes in Enabling Acts, some of which I'd like to share, but didn't want to make the review even longer. First, a few criticisms.
(pg 80) “Feldblum, herself lesbian and bisexual...”
--Uhh... If he didn't know her identity, or was confused due to Feldblum herself changing her self-identification, he could have just said she was a member of the LGBT community.
(pg 90) “Because Senator Dole had a disability, he didn't have to actively endorse any bill to get the votes of people with disabilities.”
--Because that's how we vote. Riiight. Not to mention that disability encompasses an enormous range of issues (most of which are not embodied in Dole).
(pg 131)
“The idea in the poem was that the lives of disadvantaged people should not be ignored or dismissed “with disdainful smile,” that their existence was as important as those with beauty, power, and wealth.”
--Because disabled people can't be beautiful? We are already seen as sexless in general, we don't need books about the ADA falling into that.
Now for the interesting/infuriating bits and pieces.
He begins with a treatment of section 504 of the Rehabilitation act of 1973, which included these lines to tie it to other civil rights legislation (getting people to recognize that disability was a civil rights issue was an important part of the ADA process):
No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United Sates, as defined in section 7(6), shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
If there hadn't been intense legal backlash to the protections in Section 504, the ADA might never have been written. A wide interpretation of 504 would have sufficed.
(Pg 33) “When the Office of Management and Budget, headed by David Stockman, well-known proponent of trickle-down economics, proposed further changes that would be coming two months later, these were also leaked. They included a particularly odious provision that said you could weigh the necessity of providing an accommodation against “the social value” of a particular person. Bob Funk commented: “this was a cost-benefit analysis of how human you are.”
This led to a backlash of 40,000 angry letters over a few years, and led to Bush's (George H. W.) first statement of support for disability legislation. Bush's support might well have been what propelled him to victory in the Presidential election, as Dukakis was conspicuously silent on disability rights.
(pg 37) Lex Frieden, who broke his neck in a car wreck and was quadriplegic, applied to Oral Roberts University as it was newer and had a more accessible campus, but was told flat out he was denied because of his disability. This was his first big setback and a spur to becoming a leader in the fight for the ADA. “We were sending men to the moon. It was just another one of those challenges in life that people have. Then, when I was told I couldn't do something-the only thing I thought I could do-that I wasn't able to do it because of my disability, then I felt guilty. I felt like, my God, I screwed my life up worse than I thought here. That was really traumatic.”
(pg 53) I was continually amazed while reading at the ridiculous “logic” used against ADA language.
The case then went to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that “otherwise qualified” was a tricky term. Essentially, the court said that a person might be “otherwise qualified” but particular disabilities would disqualify him or her from taking a job. The court used the example of a blind person who was applying to be a bus driver.”
If you want a job driving a bus then knowing how to drive already is part of “otherwise qualified” since you're not qualified if you don't already know how to drive!
On the employment side I get so frustrated. Stores often aren't willing to let someone sit behind a checkout counter, and they get away with it because of the narrowing of ADA definitions and because generally we disabled people don't have the time, energy, or money to fight this stuff. The other side is healthcare based. For those of us at the very bottom of Social Security Disability payments, you receive help paying for Medicare premiums and co-pays and such from Medicaid. If your income goes up $1 you lose that, and usually we can't make enough to cover that loss in help. If you only break-even on that then it's better not to get a job (and thus have no chance of finding just the right employment opportunity that would help raise us out of poverty).
(pg 86)
“Coelho didn't get the diagnosis of epilepsy until he tried to enter the priesthood in 1964, inspired to do some good in the world after the shock of the Kennedy assassination. His parents, frat brothers, and girlfriend of five months were all aghast. In his physical exam for the seminary, he was properly diagnosed. The physician, John Doyle, told him, “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you're unfit for military duty. The bad news is that you will not be able to become a Catholic priest, because canon law, established in 400 AD, said that if you have epilepsy you're possessed by the devil.”
1964!!! What the hell.
(Pg 94)
“Owens ended with a sweeping statement of inclusion. He noted that he had recently learned the term “temporarily able-bodied” could be applied to all “non-disabled” people. The phrase indicates that being “normal” is only a temporary state. He went on: “When you think about it, our entire country is made up of disabled people and temporarily able-bodied people. The people we are protecting are not a mysterious, distant 'them,' but rather ourselves.”
So a lot of religious groups wanted exemption from having to follow the ADA, and that really upsets me. Like, churches, temples, mosques, etc... you should be automatically making them accessible! Come on.
(pg 207) Regarding the Chapman ammendment that would remove protection for HIV+ people:
“The reality is that many Americans would refuse to patronize any food establishment if an employee were known to have a communicable disease.”
I laughed hysterically at this, because in general Republicans don't seem to think restaurant workers deserve paid sick days and encourage “right to work” legislation so workers can be fired for such things as, oh, calling in sick. People with communicable diseases are constantly making our food!
(pg 235)
Case of golfer who couldn't walk the PGA course and wanted to use a cart for the tour was denied it. He sued, won in lower court, PGA tour appealed to the Supreme Court. Court ruled Martin could use the cart because he had a disability, the PGA was a place of public accommodation, the cart was a reasonable accommodation, and walking was not an essential activity of golfing. The only two justices dissenting were Scalia and Thomas.
“Scalia's withering dissenting opinon contested what he called the “Kafkaesque” role of government in determining the rules of sporting events.
This is the kind of stuff that really really gets to me. This is the kind of exclusion that disabled people face on a daily basis, for no good reason. We have a serious problem with internalized ableism, and one way it manifests is discomfort around people with disabilities, and the idea that productivity equals worth and if you're not working you don't deserve the same things working people have.