Sometimes it pays to just wander the stacks at the library. That’s what I was doing when I came across this interesting and beautifully illustrated book by Kevin Crossley-Holland (illustrated by Peter Malone). I should say, first that it’s a youth non-fiction book. Still, it’s an engaging and well-researched guide to the basics of Arthurian lore. Crossley-Holland “translates” the Olde and Middle English so to be more accessible, and really covers every aspect (including some of the more obscure tidbits) of King Arthur and the stories that surround him. I found it fascinating, but then as I’ve said before, I’m one of those who are drawn to the Arthurian legend. Even if you’re not, it’s a great starter book to the world of King Arthur.
Non-Fiction
The Road from Coorain
Amira suggested this one by Jill Ker Conway way back when, and I’m glad I finally got around to reading it. Conway led a very insteresting, and possibly uniquely Australian childhood, and it was fascinating reading about it. I enjoyed her vivid descriptions, both of the landscape around her and of the people she came in contact with in her life (a phrase she used in describing a friend — “dazzling cornflower eyes” — really struck me). I was amazed at the horribleness of her mother. It took Conway years to realize that her mother was being, in our current language, abusive and get the nerve to get out of the relationship (which isn’t easy when it’s your own mother!). Still, it never occured to her mother that she was being that way. Which led to some interesting reflection on Conway’s part. As did being a woman in a very male society. Her account of her discrimination when applying to and her ultimate rejection from the Australian Department of External Affairs was very insightful. A good book.
The Mommy Myth
I have to admit up front: I bailed on this book by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels after a chapter and a half. It’s an interesting idea: a couple of female professors (one at Smith and one at University of Michigan) study the effect of the media on motherhood and how it relates to the feminist causes from the 1970s. Why did I bail? I read The Price of Motherhood by Anne Crittenden a while back, and it seems to me that she had pretty much the same idea (motherhood is unrecognized by the government and society as a viable occupation) and went about it in a more interesting way. The thing that irritated me most about The Mommy Myth was all the snide and snarky comments by the authors. They assumed that whoever was reading this book was already pretty angry that society encourages mothers to stay home and not work, and set about mocking the non-feminist/liberal point of view. As a side note, though, it did deepen my resolve to get rid of the Barbies.
However Long and Hard the Road
I picked this one up off our shelf of Church books one morning when I couldn’t sleep. I think I needed the boost Elder Holland gives in it. For all it’s worth, However Long and Hard the Road, by Jeffery R. Holland is essentially an extended pep talk: You can do it, keep it up, try harder, don’t give up. Which is something I really needed to hear. That, and to be reminded that everyone has trials and they’re there to make us stronger.
A much-needed (re)read for me.
America’s Women
Every so often, I read a non-fiction book that entertains me while it educates. America’s Women by Gail Collins was one of those. It’s a basic portrait of women’s lives from pre-colonial times to the present. Yes, she highlights the women who made names for themselves — Elizabeth Stanton, Abigial Adams, Annie Oakly, Eleanor Roosevelt — but this book is so much more than that. It’s a view of what life was like for a Puritan woman, or a Victorian woman, or a slave woman, or an immigrant woman. It made me very glad that I didn’t give birth in the early 19th Century. I admired those who endured hardships, who tried to make the world a better place. It reminded me of the need to keep journals and correspondence with other women. Most of all it made me proud to be a woman. An excellent book.
Seven Days of Possibilities
Seven Days of Possibilities: One Teacher, 24 Kids and the Music that Changed Their Lives Forever, by Anemona Hartocollis is the (true) story (I don’t read much non-fiction, thought I’d mention that this one is) of Johanna Grussner. She’s a singer from Aland — an island off the coast of Finland and Sweden — who moved to America to go to school and ended up teaching music at PS 86 in the Bronx. The title gives the book high expectations, but it’s not that pretentious. I liked it — it was an interesting story of how one person can affect the lives of many, especially if she has the will and the means — but the writing style bugged me. It’s not exactly something I can put my finger on; I just didn’t like the way Hartocollis put the story on paper. It’s a decent story though.
Non-Fiction Books
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer
A Thousand Days in Tuscany
A Gift From Childhood
Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps
The Natural History of the Senses
India Calling
King of Bollywood
The Disappearing Spoon
The Lincolns
Same Kind of Different as Me
Guests of the Sheik
2010:
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
Nine Parts of Desire
Ugly as Sin
Dance With Them
Nurture Shock
The Waiter Rant
The Frog Scientist
Eat, Pray, Love
Confections of a Closet Master Baker
The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance
Marching for Freedom
Open: An Autobiography
Charles and Emma: The Darwins Leap of Faith
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Year My Son and I Were Born
2009:
Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters
Oracle Bones
Trail of Crumbs (DNF)
Mission Control, This Is Apollo
From Cover to Cover
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works
The Prince
My Life in France
Why Darwin Matters
Girl Force
Don’t Call Me a Crook! (DNF)
We Are the Ship
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry
The Diary of a Young Girl
So Many Books, So Little Time
Banker to the Poor (DNF)
Somewhere in Heaven
A View from Jerusalem
Becoming Jane Austen
The Four Agreements
The Geography of Bliss
A Year in the World
2008:
Founding Mothers
John Adams
84 Charing Cross Road
The Glass Castle
Apples and Oranges
Marie-Therese: Child of Terror
The Orchid Thief
Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life
Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window
My Life as a Furry Red Monster
First Kiss (then tell)
The Year of Living Biblically
If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny
Omnivore’s Dilemma
2007:
The Royal Road to Romance
The Color of Water
An Embarrassment of Mangoes
Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank
Eight Feet in the Andes
The Outermost House
Reviving Ophelia
Girls Gone Mild
The Redemption of Love
You Can’t Get There from Here
Around the World in 80 Days
The Art of the Common Place: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Climbing the Mango Trees
2006:
Plain and Simple
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer
Julie and Julia
The Man Who Ate Everything
Look Homeward America
Crunchy Cons
Enslaved by Ducks
Three Cups of Tea
Home Buying for Dummies
The Five Love Languages of Children
When in Rome
American Jezebel
Talk to the Hand
No god but God
Candy freak
Journey from the Land of No/Cursed by a Happy Childhood
2005:
Tales of a Female Nomad
A Girl Named Zippy
Wild Swans
Early Bird
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong
Riding the Bus with My Sister: a True Life Journey
Under the Tuscan Sun
Holy Cow
Garlic and Sapphires
Setting the World Ablaze
Glimpses into the Life and Heart of Marjorie Pay Hinckley
The World of King Arthur and His Court
The Road from Coorain
The Mommy Myth
However Long and Hard the Road
Baghdad Without a Map
America’s Women
Seven Days of Possibilities
Storyteller’s Daughter
Ladies of the Lake
Non-Fiction Potpourri: Sex, Freedom, Econcomy and Community; Deadly Persuasion; On Paradise Drive; How the Irish Saved Civilization; Miles from Nowhere; Nickel and Dimed; On the Rez; Queen of the Turtle Derby; Schools we Need
Biographies/Memoirs: Life and Death in Shanghi, Mormon Enigma, Tender at the Bone, Hunger of Memory, On the Other Side of Heaven, In the Fire of Our Faith, Broken Music, A Hope in the Unseen, The Lobster Chronicles, The Right Stuff, White Christmas
Improvement Books: Bonds that Make Us Free, Reading Magic, Mommy I’m Scared, $100 Holiday, Unplug the Christmas Machine
Bill Bryson Books: I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Lost Country, Notes from a Small Island
Non-fiction Potpourri
Books with no other place to go….
Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, Wendell Berry
A book that is enjoyable, thought-provoking, sometimes challenging (such as his defense of the tobacco industry or attacks on “modern Christianity”) but always interesting and worth reading. It’s my belief that everyone, at one point or another, should read Wendell Berry.
Deadly Persuasion, Jean Kilbourne
An important book for women to read. It discusses the impact advertising has on women in society and what to do about it. It made me more aware as a person, and especially as a woman.
On Paradise Drive, David Brooks
An interesting little book about American?s drive, no passion really, to make things “better” for the “future”. I expected more, though there was some food for thought.
How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill
A good solid, interesting piece of Irish history.
Miles from Nowhere, Dayton Duncan
I got this for Russell our first Christmas together; it’s taken me this long to get around to reading it. An excellent place book about life in the “contemporary frontier” in counties that have less than 2 people per square mile. A good read.
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
An upper-middle-class woman writes about her experiences with trying to live on minimum wage. A completely false set-up, (and a very liberal take) but her stories are interesting nonetheless.
On the Rez, Ian Frazier
Part of my on-going search for good travel/place books. An interesting portrait of life on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena, Julia Reed
Not a great book, but there were several essays that just had me rolling. Ah, it’s fun to live in the South.
Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them, E. D. Hirsch
An provocative book on national curriculum and standards in the public schools, though it was a bit dry for my taste.
Biographies/Auto-biographies/Memoirs
I’m not one who enjoys reading biographies or autobiographies. I usually find them dry and boring. Hence, I don’t read them very often. Here are the one’s I’ve managed to get through:
Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Chang
An excellent book on her life during the Cultural Revolution written by a woman who spent 7 years in prison because of false accusations during Mao’s time.
Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, Linda King Newell and Valleen Tippets Avery
A well-written and accessible peace of scholarship. Newell and Avery are thorough in their research and very eloquent in their writing. It was quite an interesting and informative book. Though I have to admit, ever since I’ve read this book, I’ve been looking (though admittedly not very hard) for a decent biography on Eliza R. Snow.
Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichel
Her autobiography as told through food. Yummy. She’s written a “sequel”, but I have yet to read that one.
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, An Autobiography, Richard Rodriguez
Challenging to read because of what he writes. Though, honestly, I read this so long ago that I don’t remember why.
On the Other Side of Heaven and In the Fire of our Faith, James Groberg
It’s been a while since I’ve read a Church book. I really enjoyed Heaven; his missionary experiences in Tonga were incredibly interesting and faith promoting. Fire was okay; it was about his experiences as mission president mostly. I enjoyed his take on being a single missionary in Tonga better than him being a mission president.
Broken Music, Sting
I’m a sucker for anything Sting, and I justified this one by checking it out rather than buying it. That said, he really is a good writer, and I found myself genuinely interested (rather than being interested for trivia’s sake) in the story he was telling.
A Hope in the Unseen, Ron Suskind
This was a well-written, objective (as possible), intriguing book on one boy’s journey from a terrible high school in Southeast DC to the Ivy League (he got into Brown). It opens ones eyes (without being preachy) to the ills of the public school system and, conversely, the triumphs of one person as he puts his mind to succeeding. It’s an challenging, and excellent, book.
The Lobster Chronicles, Linda Greenlaw
I thought this would be what I call a “place book”, but it turned out to me more of this woman’s memoir of one lobster season. Still, it was pretty fascinating. It made me want to read her other book about her experiences as a deep sea fishing boat captain. There’s also All Fishermen are Liars, which I didn’t like as much, but it had a couple of fascinating deep-sea fishing stories.
The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
I’m not sure if this really fits as “memoirs”, but since it’s about the early space flight program and the fly boys that were part of it, it’ll work. I’m not a huge fan of Tom Wolfe (I tried reading Bonfire of the Vanities but didn’t get very far, and haven’t attempted anything else of his), but I loved this book. It’s so totally over the top, and full of lots of little bits of triva and information about both the space program and the Air Force pilots, that it was a totally enjoyable read.
White Christmas, Jody Rosen
A fascinating look at Irving Berlin, his most famous song and the impact it had on both popular music (of the time) and the Christmas season.
Improving Your Life
Bonds that Make Us Free, C. Terry Warner
Given to us by a friend of Russell, this book really is a “selfless help book”. It’s all about moving outside of oneself and becoming more aware of treating other people as people rather than as objects of our own invention. I know I’m not doing the book justice by writing this; it truly needs to be read. I wish I could say it changed my life; it did change my perspective and I’m working on the life-change. A very powerful book.
Reading Magic, Mem Fox
This book reaffirmed my love of reading to my kids (and my love of children’s books) and helped me see what I’m doing right (reading lots to them) and wrong (I would sit with Megan and make her sound out words rather than allowing her to catch the “spirit” of reading) in teaching my children to read. Not a hard book to read, but an important one.
Mommy, I’m Scared, Joanne Cantor
I got this book because I thought it would give me some tips on how to deal with Megan’s fear of movies. Instead, it gave me insights as to why she’s scared. The tips? Essentially, let your children avoid anything scary until they get older. Good enough.
$100 Holiday, Bill McKibbon
An idealist’s look at Christmas and how to make it simpler and more meaningful. An interesting history of Christmas and an interesting case for making Christmas less commercial and more spiritual, more family/friend/community-oriented and more fun and relaxed. Worth reading.
Unplug the Christmas Machine, Jo Robinson and Jean Coppoch Staeheli
Good, practical book for Christmas organization.
The Book Nut 