Non-Fiction

Backtracking Book Reviews

2013, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Queer, short stories, Women /

I didn’t do a very good job of talking about most of the books I read during the #readathon, so I’m backtracking a bit.

Astronaut Wives Club — I liked it but it wasn’t nearly as interesting as I’d hoped. I see now why someone (Julie?) said she didn’t really like it very much. It was vague where I wanted more detail. I’m glad I read it but I wish it had been better.

Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate was really good — witchery popery popery witchery, it’s really much the same when you think about it, right?

Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives — a book of short stories, very good short stories. That’s saying something since I’m not really a fan of short story compilations.

Lake Geneva: Life At the Water’s Edge was a really nice coffee table type book. Great photos. Interesting. Makes me a little sad that we cancelled our mini vacation in November. We’ll do it in the spring, instead, and I’m looking forward to it now more than ever.

Day Trips From Chicago was nothing special. I didn’t find anything unusual or extra interesting. Not a bad book of day trips it was just a little vanilla.

A Short History of Myth, I think I did write about this one a little yesterday. It was ok. Dry, as you’d expect. Something to think about (or to try not to think about?) as I read the other books in the Myth series in the months ahead.

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Five Children’s Non-Fiction Books

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction /

I’m finally getting to the stack of Cybils non-fiction books that have been sitting on my library cart since JMP was here. I’m fairly indifferent about most of them but I was pleasantly surprised by one…

When I have a stack of these, I usually read them in a very specific order — the ones I suspect I’ll like least, I read first. The one I have the most hope for, I will save for last. This is usually a good strategy because I’m not comparing books I’m inclined to not like with books I was pretty sure I would like. But, sometimes none of the books turns out to be what I’d expected. This was one of those times.

I started with Dolphin Baby because I don’t usually like sea creature books, particularly about dolphins. Too cute. They’re cute enough without any forced prose to try and make them cuter. This one — pretty much perfect. Nice illustrations. Information about dolphins was presented well. Not a lot of cute mommy baby, look how adorable they are stuff. This ended up being my favorite of the batch.

Next, Nic Bishop’s Snakes. I like Nic Biship but his books are all pretty much the same — great photos, basic info, same ole, same ole. That’s not a bad thing, but I do not like snakes at all. I made it through without looking too closely at the photos, a hard thing to do with a Nic Bishop book, and I don’t think I’ll have snake-like nightmares. If you need a book with great snake photos, this is your book. I don’t need that. Hope never to see it again, but I heartily recommend it to you if your kids are snake-crazy.

Then I read Island: A Story of Galapagos because I expected to find it ok but nothing to get excited about and that’s pretty much what happened. It does a nice job of explaining how species’ adapt to their surroundings. Finches with small beaks didn’t live long enough to pass that trait along, finches with larger beaks survived so they passed that trait along. Insect eating iguanas evolved to eat algae. Cormorants don’t need to fly so their wings are underdeveloped. Nicely done. I’d have liked it more with stronger illustrations, I think.

Then there’s Looking at Lincoln. How can you not like a book about Lincoln? That’s why I saved it for the end. But this one — gah. Throwing in things like Did Mr & Mrs Lincoln call each other cutesy names? Really? Was that necessary? Also, do children understand why people say “I could have stared at his picture all day.” I do not understand why so many children’s books about Lincoln include that tidbit. (Someone remind me to ask some kids about this the next time I’m in a room of 5-8 year olds.)

Last but not least, sigh. Mrs Harkness and the Panda. I had high hopes because I find Ruth Harkness to be fascinating. Unfortunately, all of the things I find interesting about her were missing from this book.

Ho hum.

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Stuck in the Middle with You

2013, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Queer /

I like Jennifer Boylen and I liked Stuck in the Middle with You but… I also didn’t like it.

Jennifer was a dad, when she was Jim.
And then a mom when she transitioned to Jennifer.
But she was always a parent.

A parent who did change (in some ways) as a parent once she transitioned to being a woman.

The it just muddied the waters about what fatherhood, motherhood, parenthood is (or isn’t) — and why. No clear conclusions except that we’re all different, as people and as parents (and we are often different people or parents as time passes.)

Duh and also murky at the same time. Which is pretty much what life is like (for all of us.)

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Grandparents Illinois Style

2013, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

TW spotted Grandparents Illinois Style when we were at the Brookfield Zoo with JMP (the first time) — I went right home and ordered it. (Crazy, I know.)

It’s a nice book, particularly if you need inspiration for things to do with your grandchild… I don’t really need any inspiration but I still had fun reading it. (I do want to quibble about putting the Kohls Children’s Museum in the same category with the Children’s Museum that’s at the Navy Pier — they are not the same thing and they are not suitable for the same ages… younger kids will like Kohls a lot more than older ones.)

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Down Bohicket Road

1 Comment / 2013, Art, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

It always makes me smile when I see a book like Down Bohicket Road sitting on the shelf in the library. I can’t resist checking those out. Even though they make me homesick. Even though they make me question why I am adamantly opposed to moving back to Charleston when we leave here.

How about we compromise — someone buy me a Karen Whyte painting. Preferably one of Freda in a church hat…. but really, I’m not all that picky. Anything from Bohicket Road would do.

Sigh.

I particularly liked this book because not only were there paintings, there were stories. And the artist was honest about the racism she grew up with — and carried with her when she moved to Johns Island.

And, just for fun… you can “drive” down Bohicket Road, if you like…. it’s not the same as being there but…

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ROOTS: Where Food Comes From and Where It Takes Us

3 Comments / 2013, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Kindle, Non-Fiction, short stories /

The ROOTS Anthology is a BlogHer book — I am employed by BlogHer but I purchased the book myself. I was not asked to write about the book. The opinions expressed here are my own and I readily admit I’m probably a little biased.

OK a lot biased.

I know a good many of the people whose stories are featured in this anthology. I’ve spent time with them in person. I’ve read their blogs for years. I hang out with them on Chatter/Twitter and Facebook. It’s hard not to love this book because, well, these people are MY people.

It was fun to hear several of them read their stories at BlogHer Food — a little foodie community-like keynote. So fun. It was just as fun to read their stories again last week. I might even have felt tempted to make some of the recipes. (OK Fine. I might have been tempted to ask TW to make some of their recipes. Happy now?)

I loved this book. Yea, I’m biased.

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The Midwest Gardener’s Book of Lists

2 Comments / 2013, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

TW kind of made fun of me when she saw I was checking The Midwest Gardener’s Book of Lists out of the library. I shushed her and told her I’d explain later.

She made fun of me again when I picked it up to read, a couple of days ago.

I explained that the AWESOME Stacy Morrison is moving into a new house (which, TW knew) and said that Stacy saw this book and thought of me… because I am the queen of lists, at BlogHer.

It amused me. And, I thought it was interesting. Stacy bought (?) the version for her part of the world and I expect to hear awesome things about her gardening in the weeks/months/years ahead… (Also, go read her post: Eight Days ‘Til Takeoff.) I’m also kind of interested in getting the version for the region I’ll be living after we move away from this godforsaken place. Because, no — gardening isn’t really happening here.

We have my grafted gardenia. We have Elly’s lemon tree. We usually have a tomato plant in the spring, but so far none has shown up this year. Every now and then TW plants some other sort of vegetable in the porch’s built in containers. The yard has … stuff in it, that was here when we arrived. And, that’s all we’re doing.

So this book wasn’t super useful for me. It also became very clear that I know shit about gardening. The lists were fascinating (and you central Ohio people… how’s your deer problem? Seems like it was pretty bad when this book was written… almost an emergency situation or something. sheesh) but overwhelming. I needed more photos. A lot more photos. Or I needed the time and energy to look up every single thing on each of those lists because I literally could not picture about 90% of those plants/shrubs/treets/green things.

I know, I’m hopeless. Cool book, though.

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Four More Art Journaling Books

2013, Art, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

Someone stop me from reserving/checking out more of these books. Sheesh. It’s like a sickness, I tell you!

I just happened to see Creating Decorative Paper on the shelf at the library today and grabbed it. It wasn’t the best book I’ve read but it wasn’t bad either. If I had unlimited monies and more room to do art, I’d probably enjoy it more for the unusual (and sometimes time-consuming) papers in the book.

These next three books, I’d kind of like to own. There’s so much good stuff in them that I see something new every time I open the books — even though I’ve read them all cover to cover.

Art at the Speed of Life has to go back to the library early next week, someone else has it on hold!, so I’m going to spend some time tonight/tomorrow, making notes of ideas for things I might like to try. Thankfully Artists Journals & Sketchbooks and alphabetica don’t have to go back for awhile. I can take my time with them. That’s a good thing, since I just glanced down at them and saw something on each cover that I want to try.

Someone remind me, later, to go in search of more work by Lynne Perrella…

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