read: 4 February 2010
rating: [+]

I read this book during a week that I was blogging for BoingBoing. As a result, the book is full of little scraps of paper where I put a note to look more stuff up about whatever topics online. I enjoyed reading this book, enjoyed Brooks' tone and felt like he did a lot of the extra work that took interesting science problems and conundrums and made them into a book that was a fascinating read, in many times inteviewing people who had been at the heart of a science controversy several decades ago. I have the same criticism that other people had -- the book suffers [to my mind] from the inclusion of homeopathy which [again, to me] falls more into the “woo woo” scale of non-sensemaking then say “why is the universe continuing to expand?” sorts of questions.

My Darling, My Hamburger   
by Paul Zindel (1984)

read: 2 February 2010
rating: [+]

I haven’t read this book probably since high school or possibly college. It’s aged sort of weirdly. It’s like many young adult novels are nowadays, full of drama and bad parents and girls getting pregnant. However, unlike books nowadays, the teen who gets pregnant doesn’t have the legal abortion option, so the drama is even more dramatic and depressing.

Zindel always had a good ear for kid/parent interactions and each of these kids is so clearly a product of their weird families and the baggage that they bring into their young adulthood. At its core, it’s the story of two girls who are friends, the popular one with the terrible stepfather and the dumpy one with the decent family. The popular one is mean to the dumpy one, etc etc. I still enjoyed it, quick read that it was because the kids seem so teenlike. Even though I’m now reading it through an adult’s eyes, it really felt like the high school that I remember, hellish and dramatic and not as big a deal as I thought it was at the time.

Heat   
by Bill Buford (2007)

read: 2 February 2010
rating: [+]

I’m sure that Bill Buford is a delightful man, but this book struck me as another in the series of “Bill hangs out with people who are vaguely sociopathic and makes what they do seem almost noble” stories. If you’re a foodie, you’ll really love the explanations of what goes on in a three star restaurant kitchen, and you might enjoy the tantrums and general bad behavior from the fancypants chefs. I enjoy Buford’s writing a great deal but he always seems to hang out with assholes who I get tired of reading about.

Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome   
by Jason Kingsley (1994)

read: 13 January 2010
rating: [+]

People seem to have a fascination lately with reading books by or about people with Autism. Temple Grandin is a well known author and the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was also very popular. There’s even a television show that features someone with presumed Asperger’s who is played for humorous effect. That said, there are very few books written by people with permanent and yet not debilitating or degenerative disabilities. This is one of those rare books. It’s written in interview style where the two authors Jason Kingsley and Mitchell Levitz have conversations with their parents and other family members which are then transcribed and grouped loosely into chapters. The book spans the authors' late teenage years and sees both of them through their high school graduations and planning for the future.

Both men are the product of very caring close families and both were born when very little was known about Down Syndrome. Mitchell’s mother was told he would likely never sit up or speak; her obstetrician suggested the boy be immediately institutionalized. The families grew to know each other through local channels and helped their sons grow into aware and able young men. Most of this book takes place in their own words and involves them talking about subjects like how they get along with other kids, how they interact with their families, what their hopes and dreams are for the future. I was a little sad to not be able to find more information about Mitchell and Jason online to see where their future took them after this book -- which has been reprinted in the last few years -- because I was curious to see what happened after the book ended which I think is a sign of a captivating read.

You Are Not a Gadget   
by Jaron Lanier (2010)

read: 8 January 2010
rating: [+]

I read this book under deadline. I did a short interview with Jaron Lanier that is set to appear in Library Jounrnal. I had an uncorrected proof of the book and I enjoyed reading it and wildly writing in the margins. You can read my interview online here.

Over the Next Hill: An Ethnography of RVing Seniors in North America   
by Dorothy Ayers Counts (1996)

read: 14 December 2009
rating: [+]

This book was recommended to me by someone on MetaFilter as a good book to read for people considering living in their vehicles. It’s a really great ethnographic study of people who live in their motorvehicles or who are otherwise part of the lifestyle of RVing. This ranges from people who live in 100K motorhomes to the people in pickup trucks with poptop trailers who go out bookdocking or sepnd the winters at The Slabs. I didn’t know much about the larger culture of RVers and this book has a good combination of a lot of interesting history while also having a lot of personal interviews and anecdotes by people who are actually living this way. The authors are Canadian so there’s more of a general North American look at this lifestyle [special considerations given to Canadian health care concerns for example] but I didn’t feel that this detracted at all from the useful information available to anyone living like this. Of particular interest was the descriptions of the various membership clubs available to RVers from Escapees to the Good Sam Club. The writing in this book is readabe and interesting though it’s obviously more of an academic work than just a reference tool. If you can find a copy, pick it up.

The Whole Five Feet   
by Christopher Beha (2009)

read: 13 December 2009
rating: [+]

This book took me months to finish. I got a copy of it from the author and then, later, another copy from his publisher. Not sure what that was about. I wrote Chris an email to tell him that I’d finished his book, seemed like the decent thing to do, and since I’m terribly lazy about getting reviews up, I’ll paste some of it here. If you’re a bookish sort, you’d like this book....

“Hey I finally finished this!

...It was slow going at times because even though your story is... sort of narrative there are a lot of big ideas that are tied up in it and it’s not an airplane read -- both owing to it being hardbound but also because it’s worth attention.I’ve been going through my own family health stuff this year [not me personally] and the story of Mimi and her role in the family and the time you spent both with her and reminiscing about her and thinking about her were a particularly poingnant part of it for me.

I’d be lying if I said I read every excerpt or if I can even remember some of the earlier chapters [I started reading it about when you sent it to me] but my favorite parts were the parts where your personal life was sort of mirrored in what you were reading. Some of the Darwin stuff and the explorer guy before him who was in California [tempting to look it all up just to feel like I have some memory left :)]. I also liked the storied of your family’s place up north since I live in rural Vermont and that idea of a family homestead is one that is sort of foreign to me.

Also the subtext of class that goes all through it -- this is just my personal sociopolitical lens -- the arts and letters aspect, the Harvard aspect the club you could stay in in the UK because of some reciprocal arrangement with whatever club you and/or your family are associated with in New York, I liked how that sort of bounced off the original ideas ofhaving books that were for everyone... and how it seems in a lot of ways maybe that isn’t how they turned out...”

Genius Squad   
by Catherine Jinks (2008)

read: 13 December 2009
rating: [+]

A fun YA novel a lot like the one that came bafore it. A lot of scene setting, some intrepid “what’s going on stuff” a big scary chance and a nice resolution. I’m not sure if I will like the third installment of this book since the first two follow a fairly familiar narrative structure, but I enjoy the character of Cadel Piggot and I like listening to pretty much any author who can convincingly write about technology whether it’s being used by a band of savvy teens or something else. Jinks maintains my interest and I feel that I should check out more of what she’s written.

The Secret of Invisibility   
by John Ralston (2009)

read: 11 December 2009
rating: [+]

I’ve been enjoying John Ralston’s comics online for years and was very pleased to see that he had come out with a young adult novel. I read this book back to front in a few days. It’s the story of an awkward boy who moves to a new town where he doesn’t know anybody and encounters a secret.... He also spends a lot of time at the library and meets a kid in town who enjoys doing the same things. The story rings true and is reminiscent of one of my favorite stories of all time Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars. There are neat little naming jokes and complementary illustrations throughout. It’s a good read, feels good in your hands and looks great.

The Shaker Image   
by Elmer Pearson (1974)

read: 11 December 2009
rating: [+]

There’s something about the Shakers that inspires almost an insta-nostalgia for me, some sort of road not taken. I grew up near Harvard MA, the site of one of the Shaker communities and remember learning about them when I was little. I’m not much into organized religion but I love their furniture and believe, sort of like they did, that there is attainable perfection in design. This book is full of photos of Shaker communities with stories about the people in them. The Shakers used to pretty much keeps themselves entirely separate from “the World” and at some point they decided to shift this approach somewhat. These photos are in some sense promotional materials and in some other sense sort of a glimpse into a world most of us know very little about. The research that has gone into this volume, from Pearson and his two co-authors, is impressive.

The Dark Room   
by Minette Walters (1996)

read: 27 October 2009
rating: [+]

Got this book for a dime at the Des Moines public library booksale. Didn’t have high hopes for it but it turned out to be quite a gripping read. Sort of a “who done it when you can’t remember what happened” story, this tale of a woman whose fiancee leaves her to marry another woman. The finacee is then found brutally murdered [along with the other woman] and the spurned woman attempts suicide, or does she? I thought it was going to be a shlocky sex-crime filled book but okay for the airplane and it wound up being a pretty inteersting twisting and turning crime novel.

Dangerous Laughter   
by Steven Millhauser (2009)

read: 25 October 2009
rating: [+]

The only thing I did not like about this collection of short stories is that I’m a pretty serious an of Millhauser already so I had already read a few of these stories when they were originally published. Thus the book went by too fast and I was left at the end of it sooner than I would hav eliked. Millhauster is an amazing master of several types of stories -- the meticulous explanatory stories, the teen coming-of-age Bradbury-esque stories, the almost-normal-but-not-quite stories -- and it’s always a joy to see what he comes up with. Starting a story of his I’m always wondering just how he’s going to manage to turn the idea on its head just a little bit and I’m always surprised and delighted. Fun book, wish it had been longer.

Isaac’s Storm   
by Erik Larson (2000)

read: 12 October 2009
rating: [+]

[review pending]

A Stranger in the Kingdom   
by Howard Frank Mosher (1990)

read: 12 October 2009
rating: [+]

I had read Mosher’s more recent book On Kingdom Mountain recently and really fell on love with the Vermonter vibe and the family of people and their neighbors who lived in the Northeast section of Vermont. As someone who, while maybe not a Vermonter, at least lives here, it’s fun to be able to notice neat little geographic locations and think “oh hey, I know where that is!” This story takes place in the 1950s whereas the one I read later actually takes place earlier. I recognized the location but sometimes had a hard time lining up the characters from one book to the next.

This book takes on the sticky topic of racism when a black preacher comes to town and a town normally pretty well unified -- except for the rift within the church -- splits up over a crime that happens within the town that some think implicates the new preacher. Mosher draws a lot of different characters with a lot of differing motivations and perspectives and all of this set against the lovely Vermont background and the aditional themes of baseball and old-time newspaper journalism made this a wonderful and rich read.

One Square Inch of Silence   
by Gordon Hempton (2009)

read: 2 October 2009
rating: [+]

Didn’t like this book. Didn’t finish it. I found that contrary to the other nature book I was reading at the time -- One Man’s Wilderness -- Hempton seemed to want the outdoors to be a specific way: quiet. While I appreciate and understand this goal, it seemed like he was perpetually fussy about any and all noises and at the same time drove a rattley VW bus around. I found his distractions at all the noises distracting to me as a reader and by the end of a few chapters was less interested in his campaign about noise and more interested in going outside myself. Neat idea, but didn’t like the book.