Book Synchronicity

There are moments when the book you're reading just resonates with something else in my life. I am reading a historical fiction and the next day, read an article about the very same topic. Or I am reading a novel which heavily involves spinning yarn, soon after I learned to spin myself.

But it is very odd when two books I'm reading complement each other. It just happened to me and it was magical. I had just finished listening to Janis Ian's autobiography Society's Child. Ian, for those who may not know, was a pretty famous folk and pop singer in the 60's and 70's, and rubbed elbows people like Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen. She was heavily involved in the folk music movement with the likes of Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. She talked a lot about the other performers she sang with, toured with, and befriended. I really enjoyed hearing her tell her story, peppered with bits of her songs, some of which I knew, and others which I hadn't.

In her autobiography, Ian is pretty frank about how the music industry has changed through the decades since she started recording, and in her opinion, not for the better. She implies heavily that the industry has lost its heart and instead of fostering and nurturing its artists, it is too focused on money and protecting the bottom line. As she had to make a comeback several times in her career and had been performing since she was a teenager, she has many thoughts on this subject.

While I was finishing up Society's Child, I picked up a review copy of a young adult novel that is coming out in May called Devil and the Bluebird. It is the debut novel of Jennifer Mason-Black, and if this first book is any indication, she will have a place on my insta-buy list. It is just that good and my first solid five-star read of 2016.

In Devil and the Bluebird, we start off at the crossroads at midnight and watch Blue Ridley make a deal with the devil: her voice in exchange for magic boots that will lead her to her missing older sister, who had run away from home shortly after their mother had died. Armed only with her guitar, she follows the path the boots lead her. The story is reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Seanan McGuire's Sparrow Hill Road, but is still completely unique. Unlike a lot of young adult books these days, Devil and the Bluebird is not focused on the here or the future. There are no name droppings of current movie stars or pop artists. There aren't worries about designer clothes or the latest iProduct. Instead, this book is nostalgia personified, and takes place in a part of America that still remembers people busking by the side of the road, exchanging a meal for a story or a song, and finding a shared language in music.

Reading this on the coattails of Society's Child was pure book synchronicity. It was kismet. The folk revolution that Janis Ian described and took part in was still going on in the roads Blue traveled in Devil and the Bluebird. The ghosts of folk music past are in these pages, and Blue learns the difference between making music for fame and fortune (the real deal with the devil) and making music from the heart and the soul.

I cannot recommend both books enough. And if you read them back-to-back, you may find your own moment of book synchronicity.

Society's Child by Janis Ian is available in audiobook from Audible, and in print at all major retailers.
Devil and the Bluebird by Jennifer Mason-Black is out May 17th from Amulet Books.

Book Review: The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received a free ARC from the publisher via Netgalley.

This is not Swedish literature as I have known it. It's not dark, or heavy, or full of deep introspection, or grisly, or creepy. This book, is in fact, the antitheses of what I would have thought of when I think of Swedish literature. It is charming and sweet, quirky and fun. It made me smile a lot, laugh a few times, and wish I could actually meet the people of Broken Wheel in real life.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a love letter to books. It is about how books and reading can enrich a person's life, while at the same time, about Sara's personal journey to live a life beyond her books.

The story is a familiar one, of an outsider walking into an insular community and upsetting things and breathing new life into the community and its people. It's been done before, but Bivald made it her own. Sara is a consummate bookworm who travels to small-town USA to visit her pen pal--only to arrive and find that Amy had just died. She decides to try staying in Broken Wheel, and eventually opens up a bookshop in Amy's memory, determined to turn the citizens of Broken Wheel into readers.

I fell in love with Bivald's characters and cheered for them all. I loved watching them move out of their comfort zones and become happier with life because of Sara and the changes she causes in the town, both directly and indirectly.

Because, books broaden horizons. Readers of fiction have more empathy and are more open to new ideas and people -- this is something that has been shown in scientific studies. And the people in Broken Wheel found their horizons broadened and how. In return, they taught Sara that there was life outside of books, and that human connections were as important as fictional ones. I like to think that Sara was Amy's dying gift to Broken Wheel and vice versa.

Lastly, I love quotes. Adore them. I like my wisdom pithy. And The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend was full of wonderful, amazing quotable quotes about reading, books, and life.

For example:

Never live your life according to the idiots' rules. Because they'll drag you down to their level, they'll win, and you'll have a damned awful time in the process.

I greatly enjoyed this book and hope that Bivald writes more, and that we see her future works translated for the US market.

Review: The Spawn

The Spawn by Ken Nolan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It really says something about my reading taste that I had to add a new bookshelf to my GR shelves in order to shelve this horror book. When I opened my first Lit-Cube box and saw this book, I immediately wanted to toss it directly into the donation box. Because NOPE. Not a fan of horror. Not even close. And there were weird demon monster hands on the cover.

But I reminded myself that I joined these boxes to expand my reading, so I kept it. It sat on my shelf for a few weeks until I finally forced myself to start reading.

And...it wasn't scary. At all. I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or not.

It was an engaging book and the author kept the story moving along at a pretty fast clip. I read this in a day. I started it in the afternoon, went out with some friends for a few hours, and then finished it before bed.

That said: Boy did Nolan need an editor. There were paragraph breaks in the middle of sentences. Lines of dialogue without a paragraph break. And then at the end, at the pivotal scene, a magically reappearing gun which had gone missing just the page before.

(view spoiler)[I also did not like how the author used Charles's demon rape as a platform to make a gay sex joke. Because super poor taste. And the fact that he used Charles's doctor to do so was even worse. Just UGH. (hide spoiler)]

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Review: Tiger Heart

Tiger Heart: My Unexpected Adventures to Make a Difference in Darjeeling, and What I Learned about Fate, Fortitude, and Finding Family Half a World Away by Katrell Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received a free advanced review copy from the publisher via Netgalley.

"Today, our teacher told us about the number zero, which has no worth," she said.
"But put it next to another number, and it makes that number important. The more zeros you add, the bigger the number gets. So know that if you are feeling like a zero, you do have great worth with teamwork."

That quote basically sums up the entire message of the book for me. Katrell Christie's mission of bettering the lives of these girls in Darjeeling, India would be impossible without help.

I've heard of The Learning Tea before. I'm a bit of a tea obsessive, with cupboard overflowing with the dried leaf. I remember finding the website at some point, looking at the tea and considering buying some. I ended up not, only because I am not a fan of darjeeling tea, finding it lacking the depth and subtlety of flavor that I find in teas from China, Japan, and Taiwan. But The Learning Tea stayed somewhere in the back of my mind and when I saw this book on Netgalley, I immediately requested it.

Tiger Heart is part memoir, part call to action, part marketing material, and part feel-good "find the good in the world" missive. It's deceptively simple, with clear writing and short chapters interspersed with motivational quotes from well-known thinkers or writers. On the surface, the book is simply Christie's journey that led her to create The Learning Tea, and where The Learning Tea is today. But it's more. It's also the story of one person making a difference -- but not on her own.

I think that's the most powerful message in this book. Unlike another international development NGO founder who was outed to be a fraud after writing several best-selling books, Christie never portrays herself as the hero, single-handedly moving mountains. She's honest in what she doesn't know, what she had to learn. She's humble in her quest, focusing on helping the individuals she can. And she's upfront with her failures.

She could have very easily sensationalized her story, and it was a bit of a shock when I came across this:

I’ve made it through two armed robberies, one attempted carjacking at gunpoint, one knife holdup, and one hijacked train. I was smuggled through a political war zone in the hatchback of a car covered in burlap. I’ve tossed on a burka to be able to ride the train by myself. Throw in a handful of death threats. And then there’s bullying from people who don’t want my low-caste scholars to take seats away from their rich kids at school.

Because Christie, while making it clear throughout the book that it was incredibly difficult and draining to do what she does, never up until that point toward the end of the book, mentioned it was also dangerous.

But the story wasn't about her and her being the hero. It's about the girls who are being helped, and India.

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The Martian: Book vs. Movie

I had read The Martian by Andy Weir earlier this year and it was hands-down one of the best reads I'd read in a long, long time. There are so many things I loved about the book.

1. I adored Mark Watney, who we really only see in his mission logs and in some communications he has with NASA and his crew. He is snarky as hell and I loved it.
2. Science. Science saves the day and it's freaking amazing and awesome.
3. The supporting cast. They are smart, driven people who I'm sure all hold higher-level degrees, mostly in the hard sciences.
4. Did I mention science? 'CAUSE SCIENCE!

After already falling in love with the book because of the plotting and the characters, I realized something that made me fall in love even more. The cast of characters, this group of highly intelligent, highly capable people, are never defined by Weir by their looks, race, or ethnicity. And that? Is really awesome. No one's physical appearance is ever described, so it's left up to the reader to determine how these people looked like. There are obvious context clues from names (Mindy Park as Korean, and Venkat Kapoor as Indian, Bruce Ng as Vietnamese, and Martinez as Hispanic), but for the most park, these characters are blank slates regarding their ethnic backgrounds. They are defined by their names, their jobs, and their competencies.

The other really amazing thing was that the characters' genders are also fairly glossed over. We find out Commander Lewis is a woman because Watney mentions he is part of "her" crew. The fact that the commander of the Ares mission is a woman is no big deal. Weir doesn't focus on the gender of any of the characters, male or female, other than using the correct pronouns and their names. And I loved this. Because the fact that there were women on the mission (one leading the mission), working at NASA, etc. isn't a big deal in the future world of The Martian. It just is.

Which brings me to my thoughts on The Martian, the movie.

I was super excited when I learned there was going to be a movie. I obsessively read the articles, watched the promo spots, and made plans to see the movie with everybody I knew who had read and loved the book. But the one thing I was hesitant about was the casting choices. Which appeared rather ... white.

Disappointingly white. Overwhelmingly white.

Yes, Michael Peña and Chiwetel Ejiofor were cast as Martinez and Kapoor, respectively. I was delighted to see Donald Glover as Rich Purnell. But there was a white woman cast as Mindy Park, taking away some diversity I thought had been assured because of the character's name. Every other major character, with the exception of Bruce Ng and the Chinese scientists, were white.

So the movie missed the opportunity to add additional much-needed diversity not just to Hollywood, but to STEM.

That said, I loved the movie. Adored it. Will be seeing it again this weekend, and nagging everybody I know to do the same. Because at the end of the day, it is a story about science, ingenuity, perseverance, and intellect winning the day. If you loved the book, you will love the movie. It was not 100% faithful, but it was pretty damn close. There were a few things that were cut out, the movie neglected to mention that Watney was an engineer in addition to being a botanist (Why? It would have been so easy to just slip in), and one scene was rewritten to add additional drama. But overall, it was the book translated to the screen in a way that preserved both the story and the spirit, while being entertaining.

And I was heartened to see that while the main cast was not as diverse as I wanted, there was diversity in the background characters/extras.

The Martian is a nerd's movie. I loved it.

Review: The Bollywood Bride by Sonali Dev

The Bollywood Bride by Sonali Dev
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received a free advanced review copy from the publisher via Netgalley.

Ria Parkar is a Bollywood star. She returns home to Chicago for her cousin's wedding, and comes face-to-face with her first love, Vikram, whose heart she broke in the most horrible way.

I waffled between three or four stars for this book. I did really enjoy reading this and liked the characters. Ria was so broken that I wanted to reach into the book and give her a big hug. But at the same time, the angst reached almost unbearable levels a number of times, and much of the problems could have resolved themselves easily if Ria actually opened up to somebody instead of defaulting to avoiding her feelings or running away.

I liked this book enough to go buy Dev's first book, which one the main characters I noticed had a brief cameo in this one. So readers who enjoyed A Bollywood Affair would get a nice smile from that.

I appreciated that Dev avoided many of the pitfalls of the romance genre, with characters and plots that seemed cliched and fake. Her characters were human, with flaws and real emotions that despite all the drama in their backstories, never veered into soap opera levels of unbelievable. The obstacles between Ria and Vikram's happily ever after are personal and self-inflicted. There are no outside forces keeping them apart. It would have been very easy for Vikram's meddling mother to have been given a larger part in the story, and I appreciated that she wasn't. Instead, the main characters had to work through their own issues and come to terms with them.

This was a very warm book, despite the darkness in Ria's past. Dev showcases love in many forms, not just romantic love. Familial love, friend-love, and love within a community are all present. And throughout the entire book, there is love of culture. Dev, through Ria, shows the love and respet she has for Indian and Hindu culture, and it was enlightening as an outsider to see it through Ria's eyes.

So I obviously appreciated the book a lot, and enjoyed reading it. Why then did I choose 3 stars instead of 4? Because at the end of the day, as invested as I was in the character and the story, I still felt there was a veneer of shallowness to everything. Not that the book was superficial - it wasn't. "Ice Princess" Ria as the POV character seemed as stand-offish to the reader as she was to the other characters in the book. Her voice made me feel as if there was an invisible wall between me and the story, which made me unable to fully immerse myself as I would have liked.

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Review: The Only Woman in the Room by Eileen Pollack

The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club by Eileen Pollack
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received a free advanced review copy from the publisher via Netgalley.

The description for this book is a bit misleading. The first half is Pollack's memoir of her own experiences as a student from childhood in public school in a predominantly Jewish area through college at Yale as one of the few female physics majors. The second half of the book is more in line with what I had been expecting given the description, and includes anecdata from other women who Pollack had known or interviewed from her own generation and the later generation of female science majors and scientists, as well as recaps of interviews with her former professors and teachers who we had met in the first half of the book.

This is a deeply personal story for Pollack, but at the same time it is also deeply personal for every girl who thought she wasn't smart enough, or every woman who decided to drop out of a science major, or every student who didn't even try for a science degree in the first place. This book was deeply personal for me.

Pollack's experiences are not every woman's or minorities' experiences, but they are similar enough that many can relate. One of my criticisms of this book is Pollack's weakness in connecting women's experiences with the similar experiences of minorities and economically disadvantaged students. She does mention that several times, but it is definitely a message that can be strengthened. Towards the end of the book, Pollack noted that some students, even if they enter into college at the top of their high school graduating class, find themselves floundering and behind other students because they were not privileged enough for their schools to offer certain courses. I wish Pollack had highlighted that more because it's a problem that systemically places students from under-served, poorer schools at a disadvantage in college.

I write this review the day after a 14-year-old Muslim boy with brown skin was detained by his school and arrested for bringing in a homemade clock to show off to his science teacher, which another teacher reported as a bomb. That is an extreme case of the educational culture discouraging a minority from entering a STEM field, but it highlights the challenges that some students face by virtue of their sex or ethnicity.

Pollack's story is an important one, and both its strength and weakness is its reliance on anecdotes (what I referred to as "anecdata" earlier) from her own experiences and gleaned from interviews or missives with other women or minorities. She does mention the results of a few studies of bias against women in STEM, but the bulk of the book are anecdata rather than empirical controlled studies. The anecdata bring the problems to life in a way that pure numbers don't, yet at the same time anecdotes are easy for those in the sciences to discount because they are not data (hence why I have been referring to them as "anecdata" because, well, it can be argued that the plural for anecdote is data).

Given the larger conversation that has been on-going for the past few years of women in the sciences, and the blatant misogyny that I keep running up against from big names (Google "Richard Dawkins women"), The Only Woman in the Room is an important book, and very timely. Remember in June when Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine Tim Hunt said at a science conference in South Korea, “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry”? Or last November when European Space Agency Rosetta Project scientist Matt Taylor gave public interviews after the Philae space probe landed on a comet while wearing a shirt covered in nearly naked women? It is heartening, I guess, that all of these incidents have lead to huge public outcries and public apologies (in the case of Taylor) or firings (in the case of Hunt). A decade or two earlier, they would have been the status quo.

I hope that Pollack's book inspires change in STEM education at all levels, and I hope that it also inspires women to pursue STEM educations and careers.

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Book Review: Textual Healing

Title: Textual Healing
Author: Eric Smith
Publisher: Self-published via AuthorHouse
Publication Date: November 2010
Pages: 280
Note: Free review copy received from the author.

The first thing I thought when I read the book description was, "This is going to be hilarious!" And, thankfully, it was. I had entered a giveaway for the book on Goodreads, and the author reached out to me and offered me a review copy. He was nice, and he had a rabbit. Of course I said yes. (For the record, I am a sucker for rabbits - my own two have learned this and do their best to be as adorable as possible so they could one day get away with murder - or at least flooding the kitchen after chewing through the fridge water hose... but that is another story.)

Textual Healing has a plot straight out of a screwball romantic comedy, only I don't think even Hollywood could have come up with some of the supporting characters here, which includes a haiku-spouting ninja flower shop owner, a lesbian romance writer who runs a writers support group, and a rich and famous movie-making best friend. Honestly, Eric Smith had me at "haiku-speaking flower-shop-owning ninja."

The book begins with Andrew Connor, a once-famous author who is suffering from one-hit-wonderdom, not having a very good day. His long-time girlfriend just walked out on him because he hasn't written anything for three years. And instead of being allowed to mope, his employee calls to remind him he had to come open up his money pit of a used bookstore. Not to mention his best-selling book is collecting dust in the clearance section (way way WAY discounted). But then, enters a girl (there's always a girl, isn't there?), Hannah, who doesn't run away screaming from the weirdness or dead-endness (yes, I'm being very eloquent tonight) that is his life.

Oh, and there's an apartment-destroying sugar glider, purchased solely as a ploy to impress said girl.

Textual Healing is laugh-out-loud funny, and a fast read to boot. BUT, (disclaimer: I am a pedant) the book really needed a good edit to fix some grammar and word choice issues, tighten up the language, and some tough love cutting of pop-culture and hipster references.

That said, go out and find a copy of the book and read it. It really is worth a read. I hope Eric writes another one.

Book Review: Do Tampons Take Your Virginity?

Title: Do Tampons Take Your Virginity? A Catholic Girl's Memoir
Author: Marie Simas
Publisher: Self-published via CreateSpace
Publication Date: September 2010
Pages: 161
Note: Free review copy received from the author via Goodreads Giveaways program.

The quality of self-published books varies across the board from truly horrendous to truly spectacular. Simas' book falls somewhere in the middle but definitely leans towards the spectacular end of the spectrum.

Ignore the title - I know, you want to react to it. Just ignore it. As horrible as it is, it did its job as it made me give the book a second look. However, it is incredibly misleading. This is the memoir of a girl, who just happens to be Catholic, growing up in a household with a controlling and abusive father. Very little is mentioned about religion; instead, Simas focuses on the abuse she was forced to endure and witness while growing up, and how her experiences shaped and affected her adulthood. Much of the oppressiveness of her household which she probably ascribes to religion is more accurately cultural norms and expectations.

Simas' parents were immigrants from Portugal. Her father was a teacher in the school district. Her mother was a homemaker who suffered from brain cancer. Simas candidly talks about how her father would beat her if she got in trouble at school or got bad marks, would come home to rape her mother, and ruled the household through intimidation and tight control of power. The short, episodic nature of the narrative mirrors Simas' own memories of her childhood and life. While she focuses on negative experiences, she does so unflinchingly and defiantly with a touch of tongue-in-cheek humor. Even her own bad behavior is honestly portrayed, particular the period in her life where she tries and asserts her own power over the guys she dates.

I gathered that writing this book was a cathartic experience for Simas, and that the process helped her move past the abuse. I imagine so, anyway, as the last few pages were much more hopeful and positive than the rest of the book. I truly admire Simas. I don't know if I could have survived in her family situation and emerged even half-way functioning.

I loved my mother, but I couldn't forgive her weakness.

Book Review: 84, Charing Cross Road

A few weeks ago, I was frantically trying to watch a few of the movies on my Netflix Instant queue before they expired on the first of the month. One that I watched was 84 Charing Cross Road, a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft as Helene Hanff, a wise-cracking New York writer with a love affair with classic English literature. Fed up with the lack of such books in America, she writes to Marks & Co, a London antiques bookshop, starting a decades-long friendship with book dealer Frank Doel (masterfully portrayed by Anthony Hopkins). I was charmed, mesmerized, and instantly smitten with the movie. It reminded me very much of Love Letters, a play by A.R. Gurney which consists entirely of two people sitting on stage reading letters back and forth.

After I finished the movie, I immediately searched online to see if it was based on a book (what does that say about Hollywood that a movie I found smart, funny, and witty had to be based on a book?) and it was! A book of letters! Actual letters, in fact, and not fictional, made-up ones. Of course, I immediately bought it, because I was sure I was going to love it. I was so sure, in fact, that I didn't just buy 84, Charing Cross Road, but the Helene Hanff Omnibus which collects all five of Hanff's memoir-esque books into one fat, delicious volume.

The book fortuitously arrived just as I was finishing The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate so I was able to immediately dive right in. I skipped over Underfoot in Show Business, the author's memoir of trying to make it as a playwright in 1940's New York, and started in on 84.

I loved it.

The book is short. The first edition only clocked in at 95 pages, but boy howdy, what a 95 pages. Obviously, not every letter is included and often months or even a year or more passes between letters. But despite those omissions, the letters between Hanff and Doel (interspersed with letters to/from others at Marks & Co. and Doel's wife Nora) are everything I expected. Hanff's writing is rich, alive, spontaneous, and open - I could almost hear her shouting in my head. Doel's words are more reserved, filled with British reserve but no less warm.

84, Charing Cross Road is Hanff's loving tribute and memorial to her remarkable two-decade friendship to a man an ocean away, a man who she never met, over a shared love of books.

I do wish that there were more letters - just so that I could have visited longer with Helene, and Frank, and the others. Thankfully, as soon as I finished 84, Charing Cross Road, I was able to immediately start on The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Hanff's diary of her trip to London after the publication of 84.

"I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to."

Book Review: The Stepsister Scheme

I have always had a fascination with fairy tales: the whimsy of magic, the ability of commonborn to rise above their station, the idea of a happily ever after. Walt Disney tapped into a deep-rooted love of the fairy tale with his movies. But as I grew older my imagination stretch, I found that I like fairy tale revisionings (also know as "cracked fairy tales") even more than the original stories. I devoured Bill Willingham's Fables graphic novel series, fell in love with The Book of Lost Things' macabre fairy tale twists, and will happily read fairy tale retellings for hours on end.

So I was delighted when I stumbled across a book by Jim C. Hines called The Stepsister Scheme, the first book in a fantasy series which examines what happens after the "happily ever after."

Danielle, aka Cinderella, has settled into life at the palace and is pregnant. But then her stepsister attacks, only to be foiled by Danielle's surly maid, Talia. Danielle discovers that her mother-in-law, Queen Beatrice, has a habit of collecting fairy tale princesses -- whose lives did not end up as happy as the tales would have it. Talia is the Sleeping Beauty whose awakening was a lot darker and sinister than publicly known. And beneath the castle, Danielle meets Snow whose seven dwarves exacted a much higher price than anyone could imagine.

And when Danielle's husband Armand is missing, the three princesses go off to Fairytown to rescue him.

Hines has ingeniously re-envisioned the fairy tales, creating three-dimensional characters from two-dimensional stories. As I alluded to before, these are not the fairy tale princesses we know from bedtime stories or Disney movies. There princesses are not passive pawns in their own stories, but kick-ass heroes in their own right. They don't wait around for Prince Charming to save the day -- they go off to rescue Prince Charming!

The first book was fun, engaging, and totally original. The others in the series were in the same vein but more deeply explored the three princesses, Queen Bea, and the world they live in. I came for the cracked fairy tales and the Charlie's Angels-esque plot. I stayed for the characters.

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Stay tuned for a new sock pattern up tomorrow!

Best Books of 2010

Every year, I challenge myself to read at least 50 books and I keep track of what I read and my impressions over at Goodreads. In 2009, I had read 122 books -- so it is with some feeling of failure that I clocked in the end of 2010 with only 74 books. Still a high number, but I felt I could have done better.

Below are some of the best books that I read last year, in no particular order.

The Magician's Elephan by Kate DiCamillo
DiCamillo is known for her children's books, many of which contain a fable-esque quality. The Magician's Elephant is a very sweet story of an orphan boy, an elephant, and how wishes do come true.

"Magic is always impossible.... It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it's magic."

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
William is a farmer's son in Malawi, a poor African nation. During the midst of a famine, his family could no longer pay his tuition and he was forced to leave school. Using old textbooks available at the library, scavenged materials, and ingenuity, he builds a windmill to power his family's home, and gains international fame. The truly remarkable thing: he was only fourteen. This is an extremely inspiring story of perseverance, tenacity, overcoming adversity, and the power of learning.

"I try, and I made it!"

Soulless by Gail Carriger
This is the first book of Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, a fun steampunk romp featuring Alexia Tarabotti, a spinster who happens to lack a soul. One night at a party, she stumbles onto a plot involving vampires, a werewolf lord, and a secret society. See my review of the entire delightful series here.

"Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike."

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Major Earnest Pettigrew is a widower in a small town in England. Mrs. Ali is the widowed Pakistani shopkeeper in town. Together, the two defy societal conventions, fishmongering busybodies, and cultural differences to find deep friendship and even love. Utterly charming and delightful.

"The world is full of small ignorances. We must all do our best to ignore them and thereby keep them small, don't you think?"

The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale
A fairy tale without magic, and a love story without romance. A frumpy middle-aged Utah housewife stumbles into bestfriendship with a Hollywood heartthrob. They are from two different worlds, are complete opposites, but yet fit together perfectly. See my full review here.

"He would never abandon her, never leave a gaping hole, and even if he died someday, he was preserved like a lab specimen from all the alcohol he imbibed, so he wouldn't look or act much different."

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I have a weakness for epistolary novels. I love them, adore them, and devour them. There is a true talent in telling a complete story in only letters. Guernsey takes place after World War Two, and tells the story of Juliet Ashton and the friendship she forges with the inhabitants of the island of Guernsey through letters. She learns of the Nazi occupation of their island, and the formation of their Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (read the book to find out the origin of the name). Completely engrossing.

"We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us."

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
This book follows three women in the Civil Rights era South: two black maids, and one white woman. The three band together on a very dangerous project: to give black maids of the town a voice to tell their stories. The book is both heartbreaking and hopeful.

"All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe."

Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
Smith and Lourie are Canadian environmentalists who used themselves as guinea pigs, testing to see how much the use of normal, household products can raise their urine and blood levels of dangerous chemicals of concern. The authors also gave a thorough history of each chemical, and the potential dangers of exposure - particularly to the very young, and what we can do to reduce our exposure. This is a book I think everybody should read because knowledge is the most important thing in keeping ourselves and our children safe.

"Far from being the rock or island in the Simon and Garfunkel song, it turns out that the best metaphor to describe the human body is 'sponge.'"

Book Review: The Parasol Protectorate

Steampunk is all the rage at the moment, and has been climbing in popularity for the past few years and moving into the mainstream. In 2008, the New York Times did a piece on the subculture. Last week, the network murder mystery show Castle featured steampunk in the episode "Punked".

In the literary world, the publication of steampunk novels has been steadily increasing and becoming more frequent. (And may I just express my sincere gratitude that Stephanie Meyer's badly written faux-vampires and their clones are finally starting to move out of the limelight?) As a genre, steampunk combines Victorian-era culture with futuristic technological advances and gadgetry (this combination can occur in various forms).

I've fallen headlong into lust with a set of books called The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger that have been getting a fair amount of press among the sci-fi/fantasy set.

The basic premise is that the supernatural exists and has been integrated into British society. One can be turned into a supernatural (a werewolf, vampire, or ghost) if one has excess soul. Alexia Tarabotti is the opposite, a preternatural, one born without a soul. Along with a lack of creativity, she has the ability to negate supernaturalness with a touch, temporarily turning vampires and werewolves back into mere mortals, and (more permanently) exorcising ghosts. While London society is aware of the supernatural, it is blissfully ignorant of the preternatural.

In the first book, Soulless, Alexia stumbles into a plot in which someone is manufacturing vampires. Which brings her into contact with Lord Conal Maccon, the Alpha of the local werewolf pack and head of the government's Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR) which has jurisdiction over all things supernatural.

The second and third books takes the readers onto a dirigible ride into Scotland, and a mad dash into France and Italy, respectively. Along the way, Alexia learns more of her preternatural heritage and picks up odd companions to make up her Parasol Protectorate.

If you're looking for high literature, these aren't it. What these are are just plain fun. They're tongue-in-cheek, witty, full of a hodge-podge of eccentric characters, and enough political machinations to shake a parasol at. Plus, fantastic world-building (I'm a world-building junkie) of the supernatural/human culture. Each successive book is better than the last, and I'm eagerly awaiting the publication of the fourth book next July. (Is it July yet?)

"A vampire, like a lady, never reveals his true age."

Book Review: The Actor and the House Wife

Title: The Actor and the Housewife
Author: Shannon Hale
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication Date: June 2009

Shannon Hale is best known for her beloved young adult fantasy series that began with The Goose Girl (disclaimer: I have not read this, but it is definitely in my TBR pile), a retelling of the Grimm fairy tale of the same name. She has written a total of nine books, only two of which were for adults. This is one of them.

Hale is an extremely versatile writer. She can make you laugh, cry, and wince in sympathy with her characters. Based on her bibliography, she loves a good fairy tale and a good love story. Oddly enough, The Actor and the Housewife is neither -- at first glance. The plot is something out of a movie: frumpy housewife from Utah becomes best friends with A-list Hollywood heartthrob.

This is a modern fairy tale where the improbable occurs and miraculous things happen to ordinary people. True, there are no fairy godmothers who wave wands so that the servant girl can make it to the ball on time to meet fair prince. But there is something magical in a plot where someone ordinary meets someone unattainable. So yes, it is a fairy tale.

It is also a love story, only without the romance. The main characters meet and fall headfirst into platonic love for one another. Becky (the housewife) tried to explain it to Felix (the actor), pointing to the "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" song Gonzo sings in The Muppet Movie. Specifically, she cites the line "There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met" -- because Becky and Felix's relationship clicks from the very beginning. And like any good love story, they encounter obstacles. They are both happily married, and Becky struggles with how to have a friendship with a man. They are also complete opposites: Becky is a Mormon, Felix is staunchly secular. They confuse and confound one another, and yet they still are drawn to each other.

(Side note: Don't let the religion aspect turn you away. It's quietly there, and definitely not preachy.)

Based on the reviews I've found, this is a book you either love or hate. It should be apparent where I fall into that spectrum. I started reading the book on the train commute home from work and had to force myself to put the book down so I can do such trivial things as shower, sleep, and earn money. I laughed with the characters, cried with the characters, and fell in utter love with the entire book.

A common complaint by reviewers is how secondary Becky's family and Felix's wife are in the book. But aren't they supposed to be? We are all the stars in the movie that is our lives, and everyone around us are the supporting cast. This is first and foremost the story of Becky and Felix (just look at the title!). Hale makes no bones about that, and peppers that point throughout the text, glossing over background events to focus on the progression of the relationship between the two title characters.

The Actor and the Housewife is plotted like a movie, something that Hale did deliberately and masterfully. And like any good movie, it sucks you in and doesn't let go until the very end when the credits start rolling. Don't forget the popcorn.

"It was karma, it was kismet, it was magic. It doesn't matter how it happened, just that it did."

Book Review: Julian Comstock

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson

With Julian Comstock, Robert Charles Wilson has created a world in which oil has dried up and civilization as it was known is no longer. The peoples of the world have devolved to an eighteenth-century way of living, complete with social norms. This new society has been built on the graves of the past, literally. The title character is the nephew of the current President, sent into exile for his own safety. But then the war finds him, and safety is no longer a possibility.

First off, there was absolutely fantastic world-building. The world which Wilson creates is vivid, raw, and very much probable. It could, in fact, be our world in a century or two. The narrator, Julian's common-born best friend, speaks of the time of Efflorescence of Oil when the Secular Ancients lived, and considers it an era of gross consumption and moral degeneration.

The story revolves around Julian's rise to power, almost comical in its accidentalness. And peppered throughout is some subtle (and not so subtle) commentary on social inequality, religious monopoly, creativity and censorship, learning, the hazards of fashion, and questioning the status quo.

I was not myself very enamored with the book, but from the accolades and awards the book has garnered, I appear to be in the minority. I did love the glimpses into this brave new world Wilson has created, and for that alone it is worth a read. If you are a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction or military fiction, this is right up your alley.

"The territory through which we passed had been overbuilt in the days over the Secular Ancients, but only a few traces of that exuberant time remained, and a whole forest had grown up since then, maple and birch and pine, its woody roots no doubt entwined with artifacts from the Efflorescence of Oil and with the bones of the artifacts' owners. What is the modern world, Julian once asked, but a vast Cemetery, reclaimed by nature? Every step we took reverberated in the skulls of our ancestors, and I felt as if there were centuries rather than soil beneath my feet."

Book Review: Why Evolution is True

Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne

Book description: What is evolution? What proof is there that it exists? Jerry Coyne answers those questions in a very accessible and interesting way. He explains exactly what evolution is (and isn't), and then provides specific examples of proof that evolution exists.

Eighty-three years have passed since Scopes v. State, also known as the Scopes Monkey Trial. John Scopes, a high school science teacher, was found guilty of teaching evolution. However, due to a technicality on appeal, he was never actually punished.

But surely we have moved beyond that, right? Coyne's book starts out with some personal reflections on Kitzmiller et al. vs. Dover Area School District et al: a modern day Scopes monkey trial in which the Dover, PA school district board passed a resolution requiring biology teachers to read a short statement offering intelligent design as an alternative theory to evolution. Some outraged parents sued, and thankfully, the judge ruled in their favor. That case was in 2005.

In 2009, band members of Smith-Cotton High School (Sedalia, MO) were forced to return tee-shirts that were promoting their fall program because the shirts depicted the evolution of man. (The theme of the program was "Brass Evolution".)

Obviously, evolution is still a contentious issue. Creationism has been renamed "intelligent design" and is still being pushed to be offered as an "alternative" in parts of the country. In his book, Coyne does an admirable job in not only defending evolution but, by implication, exposing intelligent design's lack of foundation.

He begins by explaining that a scientific theory is much stronger and unimpeachable than laymen consider a theory. The "theory" of evolution is commonly accepted in the scientific community as scientific fact. There has been no evidence to contradict it, despite creationists assertions to the contrary (he also debunks a number of those in his book). And he points to evidence that not only did the planet and all plants and animals on it evolved, but that humans did as well.

I find evolution absolutely fascinating, and I am constantly amazed when I run into someone who turns a blind eye to all the evidence that it happened and that it's still happening today. I love learning how different species evolved in a community and formed relationships with other species (predator-prey, symbiotes, etc.), and within species.

Evolution has always been wrapped up in my head with the environment thanks to my college course "Ecology & Evolution" - but it does make sense. If you're learning about ecology, learning about how said ecology came about can be extremely enlightening in understanding why things are they way they are.

Just call me an evolution fangirl.

Book Review: Bird Flu

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching by Michael Greger, M.D.

Book description: Dr. Michael Greger walks the reader through the history of avian flu and its implications for us today. The threat of avian flu can be directly linked to industrialized animal agriculture which weakens the animals' immune systems, and threatens our own health.

If you are not scared shitless at the thought of a pandemic flu, you're not paying attention. While the focus has shifted from avian to swine flu, the information in this book is no less relevant. Birds, pigs, and humans form a close-knit disease vector triangle. It is strongly suspected that the 1918 influenza epidemic was an avian flu that made the leap to humans through domesticated pigs.

Human domestication of animals has had enormous benefits throughout history. Unfortunately, it also has its downsides. As humans and the animals they domesticated lived together, their immune systems became intricately linked and disease transmission became easier. Viruses by their very nature can mutate very fast. Thankfully, the avian influenza virus has not developed the mutation necessary to cause human-to-human transmission.

However, I have heard a number of epidemiologists say it is only a matter of time.

Dr. Greger lays out how intensification of animal agriculture has exacerbated the threat. By moving towards confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), animals are placed in closed proximity to each other and have suppressed immune systems due to high stress levels and poor living conditions. He argues that when the flu pandemic comes, it will be due to Western agricultural methods. He makes a very convincing case -- even after I learned he works for PETA. But Bird Flu is meticulously researched and I've read other articles and books about influenza that back up what he says.

Just because he may have an axe to grind, that does not make Greger's thesis any less true.

But you be the judge. Read it for yourself -- the entire book, including endnotes, is available online for free.

Book Review: Farm Sanctuary

Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food by Gene Baur

Book description: Leading animal rights activist Gene Baur examines the real cost of the meat on our plates -- for both humans and animals alike -- in this provocative and thorough examination of the modern farm industry.

Baur has written a book that is part memoir and part exposé of the factory farm system's treatment of animals. It is short but packs a lot in. Not unexpectedly, the author has frequent forays into "preachiness" which if you are not of a like mind can get tiring. (To be honest, it can get tiring even if you are.) Unfortunately, I doubt that many who are not like-minded will ever read this book.

Full disclosure: I am a vegetarian. I am not a vegan. While this book made me carefully consider veganism, in the end I decided against it but vowed to buy my eggs and dairy carefully to minimize my support of factory farms.

Confined animal feedlot operations (CAFOs) are one of the truly despicable inventions of the industrialized agricultural system. It is absolutely appalling and the fact that the USDA not only subsidizes it but encourages it infuriates me. Animals are sentient beings. They feel pain, fear, loneliness, and anger as well as happiness. Anyone who has ever owned a pet can tell you that. Yet, for some reason, because these animals are used for food they do not deserve the basic dignities that should be their right.

Treat a dog or a horse the way pigs are treated and the Humane Society is called. Yet here are billions of animals who give their lives so that we may eat in the manner we want and we treat them not with respect, but without thinking at all. Humans have become so far removed from the food supply chain that it is very hard to connect what is on our plates to what occurs on the farm. The idyllic picture of the family farm, cows peacefully grazing in the field next to the vegetable garden, is unfortunately no longer the norm. Through careful advertising, though, largescale agriculture tries to perpetuate that image.

It has been said that if slaughterhouses were made of glass most people would stop eating meat. But due to the high security around such places (and other aspects of CAFOs) most will never see how the cows that became that hamburger died. My coworker had the misfortune to wander onto the kill floor of a slaughterhouse. She is now a vegetarian.

Why did I decide to not go vegan? I have known what occurs in CAFOs and in slaughterhouses for a long time. Nothing in this book shocked me, though it did touch me. I did not become vegetarian for moral reasons. I have no problems with killing invasive species that are damaging the environment. I do have a problem with the way we treat animals in this society. If every farm in the country was Polyface Farm, I might even eat meat again, but unfortunately they are not. There were some American Indian tribes that thanked the spirits of animals before they were killed because the animals gave their lives so the people could live. Perhaps we should return to that mentality. The sheer waste that occurs in industrial agriculture should make every environmentalist outraged -- not least, the waste in lives that are thrown away as acceptable losses to the system, and never even make it into the food supply.

Book Review: Stirring It Up

Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World by Gary Hirsberg

Book description: Gary Hirsberg is the founder and CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm, a company that proved it was profitable to operate sustainably. Hirsberg outlines his own journey in Stirring it Up and highlights other success stories, from Wal-mart to Patagonia, of companies who have embraced a sustainable product, production supply chain, work environment, and culture -- and made it profitable.

I scoffed when I reached the section where Hirsberg points to Wal-mart, the most hated of retail giants, as an example of a company that was working to "save the world." It took me a while to reconcile my view of Wal-mart -- the blight upon rural America and destroyer of the small mom-and-pop stores -- with the Wal-mart Hirsberg described. I had to remind myself there were two sides to every coin. I still find it very hard to believe that Wal-mart's journey to being green was motivated by anything other than . . . well, green, as in money.

And it is true -- being green can save you money. It goes back to the three 'R's of environmentalism we memorized all those years ago. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Those were the tenents of the do-it-yourself environmentalism. Unfortunately, the first two seem to have been forgotten. They were unpopular in that they reminded us of the need to change our gluttonous and spoiled lifestyles. But, as Hirsberg showed with examples throughout his book, reduce and reuse can sure conserve more than just raw materials. For a business, the bottom line is hugely important.

While I am a believer in green business, I doubt it can save the world because it ignores one of the root causes of most if not all environmental problems: consumption. Green business is still firmly rooted in the capitalist framework and in the free market economy. The belief that the free market can fix everything is somewhat of a sacred cow in the United States. I agree that the market is a very powerful entity but do not think it is the answer for all the ills in the world, mainly because the free market without government intervention will most likely not take into account the externalities into the price of the product. And the free market is still based on consumption. Whenever we buy something from the store, we are directly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, resource depletion, and landfill waste. Buying "green" should also mean buying less, and reusing what you can (either yourself and giving to others) in addition to recycling.

Still, overall, a great thumbs-up to Hirsberg and other green business entrepreneurs out there.

Book Review: Three Cups of Tea

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Book Description: In 1993 a mountaineer named Greg Mortenson drifted into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not one but fifty-five schools--especially for girls--in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit. (from back cover)

I picked this book up on a whim before it made international best sellers lists and won the Kiriyama Prize, among other awards. It sat collecting dust for a little bit as I read another I had bought at the same time. I then sat down with Three Cups of Tea and I was blown away. The story of Mortenson's struggle, determination, and eventual successes held me captive and gave me hope that the world can be a better place for our children, and our children's children. After reading, I donated money to Mortenson's non-profit, The Central Asia Institute. CAI is my charity of choice now.

Mortenson's story proves that one man can make a difference in the world. He has dedicated his life to building schools in one of the most violent and dangerous regions of the world because he believes that education can truly improve the lives of people. This is something I believe myself, and I greatly admire Mortenson and others like him for promoting peace, alleviating poverty, and providing the chance for a better life through education.

This is a book that I believe everyone should read. In the world we live in full of prejudice, violence, and hate, a story of one man who set out to change the world for the better -- and did -- is a story that should be told often and shared as much as possible.