Books finished, February 2010
I managed to finish five books this month.
7: Cocktail Shakers, Lava Lamps, and Tupperware: A Celebration of the Lifestyle Design from the Last Half of the 20th Century, by Wayne Hemingway. I remember reading in ARTnews back in the late 80s about a controversial show at the MOMA called something along the lines of "High and Low". The gist of the show was that low art...comic books, graphic novels, package design, graffiti...was as valid as your ordinary museum-quality high art, seeing as it was all influenced in some way by high art. Or, remember the big speech in The Devil Wears Prada when Miranda gives Andrea the lecture about how her bargain-bin blue sweater was actually conceived by haute couture? It's the trickle-down theory of design, basically. This book is laid out along the same lines. You had your lovely expensive classic groundbreaking Eames chairs, sure, and eventually that whole look ended up in the Sears catalog. This is a British publication, and thus also includes samples from the English, German, French and Scandinavian equivalents of the Sears catalog. Highly entertaining and very witty, and contains a surprising number of references to sex, especially in the part about faux-animal fur rugs.
8: Style Evolution: How to Create Ageless Personal Style in Your 40s and Beyond, by Kendall Farr. This is better than the other book I read about dressing for my age. This one had actual shopping advice and everything, although I'm not sure I actually learned much. I mean, it's great advice for building a work wardrobe, but it's also kind of like what I think every time I watch "What Not To Wear" and Stacy suggest someone buy pointy-toe high heel shoes for her weekend casual wardrobe. I don't know anyone who dresses like that in the actual real world. However, if you need to reboot your work wardrobe and need to get some ideas, it might be worth a read.
9: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fighting Fatigue, by R.N., B.S.N., Nadine Saubers. Oh book, I needed you 10 years ago when I was so exhausted I could barely stand up straight, before I already learned everything you told me just now. In a nutshell: see your doctor, take your meds, eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep. You're welcome.
10: The Nonrunner's Marathon Guide for Women: Get Off Your Butt and On with Your Training, by Dawn Dais. I actually bought this one from Amazon Marketplace because the library didn't have it, and I'm glad it was cheap. Dawn is a couch potato in her mid-20s, whose grandfather dies of a stroke. Shortly after, she receives a notice about a charity marathon benefiting the American Stroke Association, and signs up to honor her grandfather. She gets a coach and a partner, raises her $1000 buy-in from sponsors, and does a 16-week training program in order to run the Honolulu Marathon. The book is her insights and journal excerpts. She makes much ado about being slow and fat and hating running, but she carries on, and finishes...but barely, among the walking wounded, in a time frame which remained undisclosed. On Amazon, one of the big criticisms of the book is that her coach set her up for failure with the 16-week schedule and she went too far, too fast, and that's why she blew out her knee. The general tone of the book is, "Hey, I hate running! And once I finish this marathon business I'm never running again! But if I can do it, you can too! Even though I'm never doing it again!" I hear she's written a new book about cycling a century, too, and I can just guess how that went for her. I'll probably keep this one for a while and read it again just for kicks, then give it to the library.
11: Half-Marathon: You Can Do It, by Jeff Galloway. I checked this one out because Debbie is badgering me about doing a half-marathon with her in October. I'm still not sure if I'm going to do it, because that's a LOT of running, and I'll just have to see how things go on Sunday and with running clinic (timed miles tonight, 13:20 for me. Although I wasn't the slowest, at least 6 other girls are slower than me. But I digress). And also I wanted to read the section on nutrition, because I don't think I'm eating right at the moment. Anyway, Jeff's big claim to fame, besides being an Olympic runner and 2:16 marathoner, is pushing the use of walk breaks on long runs instead of running the whole way through. He says you recover faster and can actually finish faster if you take brief walk breaks every so often. That's right up my alley, even if serious runners don't buy it and make fun of "gallowalkers". Jeff is the complete opposite of Dawn above, and he suggests that a sedentary couch potato take 38 solid weeks of training to go half as far as she did. This book would be helpful for anyone contemplating a half-marathon training program, because his schedules would be completely do-able for just about anyone. It does get repetitive at times, and Galloway does push some products by name A LOT. I wonder if he gets paid by Accelerade?
7: Cocktail Shakers, Lava Lamps, and Tupperware: A Celebration of the Lifestyle Design from the Last Half of the 20th Century, by Wayne Hemingway. I remember reading in ARTnews back in the late 80s about a controversial show at the MOMA called something along the lines of "High and Low". The gist of the show was that low art...comic books, graphic novels, package design, graffiti...was as valid as your ordinary museum-quality high art, seeing as it was all influenced in some way by high art. Or, remember the big speech in The Devil Wears Prada when Miranda gives Andrea the lecture about how her bargain-bin blue sweater was actually conceived by haute couture? It's the trickle-down theory of design, basically. This book is laid out along the same lines. You had your lovely expensive classic groundbreaking Eames chairs, sure, and eventually that whole look ended up in the Sears catalog. This is a British publication, and thus also includes samples from the English, German, French and Scandinavian equivalents of the Sears catalog. Highly entertaining and very witty, and contains a surprising number of references to sex, especially in the part about faux-animal fur rugs.
8: Style Evolution: How to Create Ageless Personal Style in Your 40s and Beyond, by Kendall Farr. This is better than the other book I read about dressing for my age. This one had actual shopping advice and everything, although I'm not sure I actually learned much. I mean, it's great advice for building a work wardrobe, but it's also kind of like what I think every time I watch "What Not To Wear" and Stacy suggest someone buy pointy-toe high heel shoes for her weekend casual wardrobe. I don't know anyone who dresses like that in the actual real world. However, if you need to reboot your work wardrobe and need to get some ideas, it might be worth a read.
9: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fighting Fatigue, by R.N., B.S.N., Nadine Saubers. Oh book, I needed you 10 years ago when I was so exhausted I could barely stand up straight, before I already learned everything you told me just now. In a nutshell: see your doctor, take your meds, eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep. You're welcome.
10: The Nonrunner's Marathon Guide for Women: Get Off Your Butt and On with Your Training, by Dawn Dais. I actually bought this one from Amazon Marketplace because the library didn't have it, and I'm glad it was cheap. Dawn is a couch potato in her mid-20s, whose grandfather dies of a stroke. Shortly after, she receives a notice about a charity marathon benefiting the American Stroke Association, and signs up to honor her grandfather. She gets a coach and a partner, raises her $1000 buy-in from sponsors, and does a 16-week training program in order to run the Honolulu Marathon. The book is her insights and journal excerpts. She makes much ado about being slow and fat and hating running, but she carries on, and finishes...but barely, among the walking wounded, in a time frame which remained undisclosed. On Amazon, one of the big criticisms of the book is that her coach set her up for failure with the 16-week schedule and she went too far, too fast, and that's why she blew out her knee. The general tone of the book is, "Hey, I hate running! And once I finish this marathon business I'm never running again! But if I can do it, you can too! Even though I'm never doing it again!" I hear she's written a new book about cycling a century, too, and I can just guess how that went for her. I'll probably keep this one for a while and read it again just for kicks, then give it to the library.
11: Half-Marathon: You Can Do It, by Jeff Galloway. I checked this one out because Debbie is badgering me about doing a half-marathon with her in October. I'm still not sure if I'm going to do it, because that's a LOT of running, and I'll just have to see how things go on Sunday and with running clinic (timed miles tonight, 13:20 for me. Although I wasn't the slowest, at least 6 other girls are slower than me. But I digress). And also I wanted to read the section on nutrition, because I don't think I'm eating right at the moment. Anyway, Jeff's big claim to fame, besides being an Olympic runner and 2:16 marathoner, is pushing the use of walk breaks on long runs instead of running the whole way through. He says you recover faster and can actually finish faster if you take brief walk breaks every so often. That's right up my alley, even if serious runners don't buy it and make fun of "gallowalkers". Jeff is the complete opposite of Dawn above, and he suggests that a sedentary couch potato take 38 solid weeks of training to go half as far as she did. This book would be helpful for anyone contemplating a half-marathon training program, because his schedules would be completely do-able for just about anyone. It does get repetitive at times, and Galloway does push some products by name A LOT. I wonder if he gets paid by Accelerade?