Non-Fiction

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance

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by Elna Baker
ages: adult
First sentence: “I am at the New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance.”
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This book was: Sometimes funny. Often self-indulgent. Also, quite pretentious. But then, what memoir written by a 27-year-old isn’t?

I found Elna to be: overly obsessed with her body. And overly obsessed with finding a boyfriend. The first, I find worrisome, which probably says more about me and my reaction to our culture than it does about her. She loses 80 pounds, starting at 250, and is obsessed with controlling her weight. She doesn’t dwell on her obsession with her body, but it comes out; and when she does, she has justifications for it. From the “pretty points” to her eventual decision to get plastic surgery; I’m trying not to judge (it’s not my life, after all), yet finding myself concerned that a person would do that to their body. On the other hand, the second — the boyfriend (though not marriage) — made the feminist in me growl. I’m a hypocrite, though: when I was single, I rarely went without a boyfriend. And I did the “right” thing and got married at age 20 — almost 21! — to another member. Still. Her quest to find the “perfect”, “right”, “best” man drove me bonkers. I wanted to shake her and say that there is no perfect, right, best (I almost cheered when her mom told her that), and that perfect, right, best is what you make of it not what you find.

In addition, I have no idea who would read this book. It’s not written for Mormons, specifically; she goes through pains to describe our beliefs, not in excruciating detail and not everything, but enough to get her points across. That, and I’m sure there are many members of our church who would judge her much more harshly for some of the decisions and choices she makes. And yet, I’m not sure what the appeal of the book would be to a person not of her faith. Yes, it’s a general coming-of-age discovery story, but it’s one seeped in Mormonism — faith, practices, customs. Yes, it’s kind of a wink-wink look: like she’s saying “look at us Mormons! Aren’t we so silly?”, but at its heart it’s a thoroughly Mormon book. Perhaps others are interested in it — for curiosity’s sake — but I wonder if they’ll connect with the book or if they’ll just find it an oddity.

But… there was something in her story, in her journey that I found fascinating. Not just because I’m Mormon, though that’s part of it, partially because I can empathize with her inner spiritual life, her doubts and questions. And, yes, partly because Elna’s is an interesting, if pretentious and self-absorbed, journey. She’s lived a fascinating, unusual (privileged, yes) life, and she can be a funny and observant writer. Even if, in the end, the book was only just okay.

Marching for Freedom

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Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary
by Elizabeth Partridge
ages: 10+
First sentence: “The first time Joanne Blackmon was arrested, she was just ten years old.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I’m sure this was on my radar before SLJ’s Battle of the (Kids) Books began, but the decision of Gary Schmidt prompted me to delve into it.

And he’s right: it’s a remarkable book.

It’s the story of the Selma, Alabama marches in 1965 as told through the eyes of the children and teenagers that were involved. Partridge’s words and photographs from the time paint a vivid picture of the stories of these children, their parents, and the general plight of African Americans in the south before the mid-60s. The sacrifice that these people made to get what many people now take for granted is awe-inspiring. Sure, the civil rights leaders show up — Dr. King, Rosa Parks, among others — but the real heart and soul of the book are the children that faced the billy clubs, cattle prods, tear gas, and were consistently arrested and rearrested. It’s enough to bring one to tears.

Honestly, two thoughts kept going through my mind while I was reading. First was that I think that this book couldn’t come at a better time. Sure, it was 40 years ago, but I think we need to constantly be reminded of, and remember to teach our children about, the sacrifices that were made. I think — and this just may be me talking — that we tend to become apathetic about what we have, and forget all the people that worked to make it all possible.

Second was that if I wasn’t a voter, I’d be very ashamed. In fact, the next time someone tells me they don’t vote, I’m going to hand them this book. It’s a right, it’s a privilege, and — dang it — we should take advantage of that.

Enough soapbox. The book really is worth your time.

Open: An Autobiography

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by Andre Agassi (with help — credited in the acknowledgments — from J. R. Moehringer.)
ages: adult
First sentence: “I open my eyes and don’t know where I am or who I am.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I’m a sucker for memoirs, especially well-written ones by interesting people. I was doubtful — at first — that this one would be well-written, but was game to read it anyway: I’ve adored Agassi for years. And I was pleasantly surprised: while the writing style took some getting used to (there’s conversations, but no quotation marks, which bugged me at first), thanks to the help of Moehringer, this book was honest– almost brutally so — and interesting.

It’s basically Agassi’s story about his relationships: with tennis, with his father, with the women in his life, with his trainers and coaches, with himself. It’s not an easy road: he was (you get the impression, by the end, that he isn’t anymore) a very tortured individual. He was often depressed, conflicted, unsure of himself. You would think it would be a very depressing book, a harsh read, and yet it’s not. Partially that’s because it’s fascinating (I thought, anyway) to see Agassi’s tennis career from his point of view. It’s interesting to see the inner conflict between his hatred of the sport and the fact that he had this natural talent for it. It’s interesting to see his career ups and downs from his point of view — like how much losing to Pete in Slam finals really ate at him, and how much winning the 1999 French Open meant to him. He breaks down most matches he played, talks about the men he played against (dislikes Connors, loathes Chang, and hates Becker; respects Borg, Federer and Sampras), and talks about what’s going through his mind. I found it interesting to see the game from the inside (even if it was tortured), to get a feel for what goes on in the head of a player on the court. Fascinating stuff.

But, what really made the book for me was when he finally got to his relationship with Steffi (he calls her Stefanie, since that’s what she prefers, which I think is really sweet) Graf. She’s a running theme through the book, an aside here and a mention there (I wonder if it really happened that way, or if he’s just remembering it that way because he loves her), but his recollection their first “real” meeting (they met in 1991 and 1992, and she brushed him off) in 1999, before the French Open, is so incredibly sweet, you can’t help but smile. And for the rest of the book, the tone changes: he’s a better man because of her. (Well, that, and he finally realizes that doing something for someone other than yourself is a helpful thing; he’s so incredibly proud of the school he’s helped build and the good its doing.) Maybe he’s not a better player — he still wins some and loses some — but he’s less conflicted, more sure of himself.

I’m not sure if your average reader would like this book, though. It’s for fans of Agassi, of tennis. But for us, it’s fantastic.

Charles and Emma

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The Darwins’ Leap of Faith
by Deborah Heligman
ages: 12+
First sentence: “In the summer of 1838, in his rented rooms on Great Marlborough Street, London, Charles Darwin drew a line down the middle of a piece of scrap paper.”
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I’ve read a couple of books on Darwin and his theory — not enough to consider myself in any way an expert (or even incredibly interested) — but this one took an approach that intrigued me. It’s not so much about Darwin, his history and his theory, as it is about Darwin and his relationship with his wife, Emma, and their constant tension between her belief in religion and his belief in science.

It’s a fascinating story — the ebb and flow of their relationship, anchored in their love and respect for each other, as well as respect for their philosophical differences. It’s fascinating because it humanizes Darwin (he’s too often demonized!), as well as puts his evolutionary theory in context with his life and the times. The book isn’t preachy: both religion and science are given fair time, and its possible, I think, to see how the two could compliment each other, as Charles and Emma did. Most of all, though, I think it champions free-thinking, accepting differing opinions as just that: differing opinions. I think, too often, that we forget that people can still be likable, even if we disagree with them strongly. And this is a story of two people who disagreed and yet loved each other.

On top of that, the book is really very well written. It’s aimed toward a younger crowd, and so was a bit simpler and choppier in areas than I would have liked. But, if it gets young people interested in Darwin, and gives them a reasonable base for the study of evolution and science, then it’s done its job. And, the fact that it’s an interesting story is just an added bonus.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

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by Lynn Truss
ages: adult (but it’s not inappropriate for anyone really interested in punctuation)
First sentence: “To be clear from the beginning: no one involved in the production of Eats, Shoots & Leaves expected the words “runaway” and “bestseller” would ever be associated with it, let alone upon the cover of an American edition.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I am just geeky enough to truly love this book.

I loved it when it came out — Hubby bought it for me in hardback (and its sequel) — and, even though I haven’t picked it up in years, I found that I still laugh hysterically at the examples, and I find myself still being a complete and total stickler when it comes to punctuation. (Am I the only one who edits my friends’ Facebook statuses, if only in my head?)

So this is not quite a review. More of a love letter to Truss and her oh-so-funny look at punctuation. (And yes, I’ve gone back and checked and double-checked to make sure it’s all right. And it’s probably not.)

I think what I loved most was her examples. Sure, she pulled examples from literature, but she also would just throw things in as she went along. Like this (it’s my favorite):

Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots … you stop.

How can you not love that? Or this:

So it is true that we must keep an eye on the dash — and also the ellipsis (…), which is turning up increasingly in emails as shorthand for “more to come, actually … it might be related to what I’ve just written … but the main thing is I haven’t finished … let’s just wait and see … I could go on like this for hours …”

I also loved that, while it’s funny and accessible, you actually learn things. Or, at the very least, you’re reminded of things. Like the uses of apostrophes (or not). Or when to use the dash versus when to use parentheses. Or exclamation points! Or… (yeah, those things, too.)

Most famously of all, the apostrophe of omission creates the word “it’s”:
It’s your turn (it is your turn)
It’s got very gold (it has got very cold)
It’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht (no idea)

But, learning aside, the best part of the book is really the geeky part. Truss is persnickety about punctuation, and it makes me laugh.

Now there are no laws against iprisioning apostrophes and making them look daft. Cruelty to punctuation is quite unlegislated: you can get away with pulling the legs off semicolons; shrivelling question marks on the garden path under a powerful magnifying glass; you name it.

Sticklers, unite!

The Year My Son and I Were Born

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A Story of Down Syndrome, Motherhood, and Self-Discovery
by Kathryn Lynard Soper
ages: adult
First sentence: “No. Oh, no.”
Review copy sent to me by the author.
Support your local independent bookstore, buy it there!

Some books can just be summed up in a few words. The words for this one: Honest. Brave. Beautiful.

I’ve been working on this review for two days now, and I am still at a loss how to adequately sum up this book. It’s a story of a mother learning to accept her newborn son’s diagnosis of Down Syndrome. It’s a story of a woman who’s dealing with depression. It’s a story of a person who has been dealt an unexpected set of cards trying to come to terms with her faith and her community.

It’s not the story that makes this book compelling, though it’s a compelling story. What drew me in, and kept me there even though I thought I couldn’t relate, was the writing. There’s always a self-indulgent aspect to memoirs: one has to think they’re unique or important enough to write a memoir in the first place. But Soper takes an incredibly unflinching, honest tone, and uses spare, beautiful writing. Both of these combine to give the book an emotional wallop, making Soper’s journey not only captivating, but accessible and understandable to those who haven’t had the same journey. We come to care about Soper and her family. We become emotionally invested in them and their lives.

It’s also an unexpected story, which gives it a raw edge. Soper doesn’t take everything just fine. There are ups and downs, both emotionally and medically. It’s a hopeful ending — I almost wished for an epilogue; how is her son, Thomas now? — but it’s not a pat ending. There will be bumps down the road; Thomas will have medical problems, there will be discrimination, there will be trials. But, by the end, Soper (and the reader) have come to a new enlightened state, where everything is, if not happy, then at peace.

I do have one more word: remarkable.

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

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The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body
by Courtney E. Martin
ages: adult
First sentence: “I have carried this book around inside of me for years.”
Support your local independent bookstore, buy it there!

I was conflicted while reading this book. On the one hand, it’s chock full of useful and relevant insights — my library copy is fairly dog-eared, and at times I thought that this would be one that I’d like to own. On the other hand, I felt like a foreigner in a strange land. Martin kept talking about “my generation” and “my parents generation”, and I’m sandwiched between the two. I can relate to some of the issues with the body that Martin pointed out as “common” among women — either in myself or in my friends — but, either I/we are in a much better place than “most” women, or maybe it’s just with the women Martin knows and younger that these issues of hating ones body are prevalent.

That said, this book did scare the hell out of me when it comes to raising my girls. There’s SO much that can go wrong with raising girls, and much of it is placed on the shoulders of the mother. (Though, much to my satisfaction, there’s a chapter on the influence fathers have in the lives of their daughters. Which I made Hubby read.) And so, while I was reading it, I was hyper sensitive to everything my girls did. (I even asked them straight up what they thought of their bodies; both M and C looked at me funny and asked if I was feeling okay.) I have to give Martin credit for tackling all the tough subjects: not just the out-and-out eating disorders, but all the gray area in between. Porn, guys expectations, pressure we women give each other, the drive for perfectionism, exercise, college, high school, sex, faith (or lack thereof). It’s all out there, candid and honest, and Martin discusses how all of it relates to how we look at our bodies.

This book is imminently accessible, which is both a positive and a negative. Positive, because it’s mostly a series of personal essays, vignettes about Martin, her friends, and the girls (and men) she talks to. This approach makes a tough subject interesting, or at least not-boring, and she keeps you turning pages. However, the drawbacks are that Martin lacks authority, which makes the book easier to brush off. Sure, she quotes psychologists and scientists, but the book lacks weight. It’s easy to feel as I did: these are other people. These are people she knows; it isn’t my world.

I’ll leave you with a little taste of the book, a few quotes from the many pages I turned down:

Our bodies, our needs, our cravings, our sadness, our weakness, our stillness inevitably become our own worst enemies. It is the starving daughter within who must be shut down, muted, ignored… eventually killed off.

Being thing may get you noticed, but it will not get you seen, and it will never get you truly, fiercely loved. Only all four dimensions of your beauty — spirit, soul, mind, and, yes, body — will get you that. Both men and women are trapped in this maze of self-scrutiny, weight or shape preoccupation, preening and primping, searching and spending. But love doesn’t dwell at the end of this maze, even if you do find your way through…. There is no one-size-fits-all beauty, no perfect girl, no ideal guy. There is only a fit, plain and simple and miraculous.

True health is “the middle path,” along which control is sometimes lost, sometimes won, without much fanfare. There are unexpected and delightful detours along the way. There is no “good” or “bad”, only “right now” — tastes, moods, the occasional craving, like different kinds of weather, all welcomed and satisfied without judgment,. True health is balance. Balance is freedom.

You know what is really, powerfully sexy? A sense of humor. A taste for adventure. A healthy glow. Hips to grab on to. Openness. Confidence. Humility. Appetite. Intuition. A girl who makes the world seem bigger and more interesting. A girl who can rap. A loud laugh that comes from her belly. Smart-ass comebacks. Presence. A quick wit. Dirty jokes told by an innocent-looking lady. Hooded sweatshirts. Breakfast in bed. A girl with boundaries. Grace. Clumsiness. A runny-nosed crier. A partner who knows what turns her on. Sassy waitresses. Pretty scientists. Any and all librarians (okay, maybe this is my issue). Truth. Vulnerability. Strength. Naivete. Big breasts. Small breasts. Doesn’t matter the size, they all fascinate. A girl who can play the blues harp. A girl who calls you on your bullshit but isn’t afraid to love you inspite of it. A storyteller. A genius. A doctor. A new mother. A woman who realizes how beautiful she is.

Here’s to accepting our bodies.

Oracle Bones

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A Journey Between China’s Past and Present
by Peter Hessler
ages: adult
First sentence: “From Beijing to Anyang — from the modern capital to the city known as the cradle of ancient Chinese civilization — it takes six hours by train.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I picked this one up because I thought it was a travel book. I think I first saw it in Powell’s, in the travel section, and upon reading the blurb, I thought it sounded interesting. I know little about China, and have a passing interest in the country, and this sounded like a good overview.

And in may ways, it was. A series of essays and vignettes about Peter Hessler’s experiences in China, initially as a teacher and then as a foreign correspondent, spotlighting the people he met and their experiences in modern-day China, interspersed with histories of various artifacts from the oracle bones of the title to the development of Chinese language.

It was an uneven book for me: some sections — his stories about his friend Polat, an Uighur who eventually sought refuge in America, or the chapter about Hu Xiaomei, a radio talk show host in Shenzhen — were incredibly fascinating. The intersection between history, Communism and progress in China is a vibrant, conflicted, exciting thing, and there were times when Hessler caught that just perfectly.

Unfortunately — and it may just be me — there were many times in which what Hessler was trying to do just fell flat. I ended up skipping most of the Artifact sections; they were long, they were boring (to me), they didn’t add to the arc of the narrative. And then there was the fact that I wanted a travel book. Yes, the people he met were fascinating enough, but I didn’t come away with an overall picture of his experiences, his time in the country. Which disappointed me, in the end.

But, I’d be interested to hear the opinions of those who are actually interested in the area (Amira and Jennie, I’m thinking you…) to see if it was just me.

Mission Control, This is Apollo

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by Anderw Chaikin/paintings by Alan Bean
ages: 8-12
First sentence: “Until 1961, space travel was something that only dreamers and science fiction writers thought about seriously.”

This is an absolutely gorgeous book. Oversized, glossy pages, beautiful paintings by former astronaut Alan Bean — it’s a book that I want to own just so I can page through over and over again, looking at it all.

And the text supports the beauty of the book. Chronicling the Apollo moon missions (Apollo One, and then Seven through Fourteen), Chaikin details the work, the amazement, the passion that the astronauts had for exploring the moon. It’s not a book that’s done in great detail — it is for younger kids after all — but there are some interesting facts in it. Instead of delving into the details of the missions, Chaikin chose to highlight the enthusiasm for space and the moon, the drive to get men there, and the dangerous job they had to do. There were also pages throughout about the practical side of space travel — from going to the bathroom to adjusting to zero G, to the explanation of why astronauts were held in quarantine — fascinating tidbits that made this surreal experience (especially for those of us who weren’t alive when this was happening) more real.

It’s a fabulous book, one that hopefully will inspire people to study space, to want to return to the moon. Or, at the very least, you’ll react like me, and want to watch movies and drag the family to NASA in Houston, just to get another glimpse at this remarkable time in history.

From Cover to Cover

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Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s books
by Kathleen T. Horning
ages: adult (I’m sure teens could read it, if they’re interested).
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I think it was Liz who mentioned this book in passing, though the title immediately intrigued me. Lucky me: the library had a copy, so I stuck it on hold.

I never intended to read the whole thing: much of the book is on evaluating and understanding picture books and easy readers, neither of which (while I enjoy reading them) I’m interested in learning how to review better. So, I skipped ahead to the last two chapters: on reading and reviewing fiction.

And, while (as Liz pointed out) this book is a bit outdated (being published in 1997, before the Harry Potter phenomenon) and I’d be curious to see what she thinks about the book blogging communities, it is an interesting book. I learned that what I write (and I probably knew this) is less of a proper review and more of a reaction, and I found that I’m okay with that. I don’t take notes as I read the book — though sometimes I’ve thought I should; I would be able to remember things about the book more when I’m finished — and I don’t really think about themes or style or impact. My approach is to enjoy the book (or try to, anyway), and then blog about that. I am interested in trying to stretch myself, so maybe I’ll pick up a notebook, and start taking notes on the books I read. We’ll see….

Anyway. Not a bad little primer on “proper” book reviewing.