Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Kate

I am late to The Martian party, people. I was told by every person I know (and a few people I didn’t) that I would LOVE this book. And, I said, “Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I’ll put it on the list.” And, I did put it on the list. Then, they made a film out of it and I thought, “Oh, I’ll read it before I see the film.” And, then the film was released and I thought, “That really does look good.”

And, then my friend gave me the audio book to listen to on a road trip. R.C. Bray read the audio book and he nailed the main character. I’m in love with Mark Watney. Seriously. If Mark Watney were a real dude I’d have his poster in my office. He’s like the Chris Hadfield of fictional astronauts. Mark Watney might be my new book boyfriend.

In case you don’t know the story, it’s like this: We’ve gone to Mars! And, Watney is an astronaut on a Mars mission who accidentally gets stranded on the planet. Oops. The whole novel is about how we works to survive on the surface. How he feeds himself, how he makes contact with NASA, how he’s eventually rescued. There were so many tense moments and so many funny moments and so many wonderful, “let’s work this problem” moments. This book reminded me why thirteen year old Kate wanted to work for NASA. (She didn’t want to be an astronaut. She wanted to be one of the nerds on the ground that runs eleven thousand different scenarios so that things don’t explode or go wrong (and so there is a back up plan when things do explode and go wrong.) Thirteen year old Kate, much like [redacted] year old Kate is claustrophobic and could never be an astronaut. Riding on the subway freaks out her a little. Especially when it stops between stations, for the love of god.)

So, this was a really excellent book and I want to sing the praises of the narrator of the audio book for a moment. I can’t say enough good things about them. Bray did such an amazing job that two things have happened. 1. I’ve looked for other audio books they’ve narrated just because they narrated it and 2. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m never going to see the movie because Matt Damon isn’t Mark Watney. He won’t sound right.

I highly recommend this book. If you somehow also missed the hype and you’re interested in space, suspense, and occasional comic relief, she should pick this book up!

This counts as my Audiobook for the Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge.

Review: Mysterious Acts by My People by Valerie Wetlaufer

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Kate

So, full disclosure: I’ve known Valerie Wetlaufer since high school and I’m tremendously proud of her. You should also know that I have no idea how to review a book of poetry. But, since I have this book of poetry it only seemed natural to me that I would should read it (and not just a poem here and there whenever it catches my eye from its spot on my desk) and say a few words about how I feel about it.

Sometimes, the words and the structure of the poem seem so spare; like you’re only getting a quarter of the story when you really prefer the whole thing. But, then you are happy to only have part of the story because just a brief glance has already brought a tear to your eye (Your Body will Haunt Me). I loved the jealous and angry in this book (Bad Wife Spankings). And, I’m so curious about the secrets (Letter to A.) I love the breathless rush of it (I gave you my–)

I think that is what poetry can bring into our lives. This reminder that we’re only ever privy to part of any act or event and that our reaction to it can be mixed (heartbroken but happy) and genuine and our own.

Mysterious Acts by my People is from Sibling Rivalry Press and is Ms. Wetlaufer’s first full length book. (She has also published some chapbooks, which are shorter. I’m also woefully ignorant of the ways of poetry publishing.) It has three sections and each of the sections has its own flavor. Some of the poems have stuck with me. (I find myself quoting “The One with Violets in her Lap” and I just discovered the title was taken from a poem from Sappho.)

This book also won a lammy for best lesbian poetry last year

I really enjoyed reading these poems and I really look forward to Wetlaufer’s second book coming out this year.

This Month in Reality: Witches, Midwives and Nurses! Oh, My!

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Kate

2016 has really started off with a bang. You could maybe tell by my lack of posting? I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. But, I have managed to get a little reading done (just not a lot of review writing. I have been writing, but that’s another story.)

The bang 2016 started out with was a family member in the hospital. (They’re fine now.) While they were in the hospital, I tried to do my best and not panic. If I’m calm, they had no reason to not be calm, right? They had to be taken out of the room for various tests (Again, they’re fine now) and to occupy myself while they were out of the room I read a book on my phone. I read Witches, Midwives, and Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English.

I thought that was an appropriate thing to read in a hospital.

This is a short pamphlet of a book written in the 1970s. It discussed midwifery, the rise of medical professionals (as opposed to healers), the popular health movement of the 1830s and 40s, and feminism and the need for women in medicine today. This was a really short book; it was only 59 pages, but I learned a lot from it. I didn’t know about the popular health movement. Or, I knew about it tangentially because I know a little bit about patent medicine from visiting the Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta. (And, even though there was probably a lot wrong with some of the ideas the popular health movement was spreading, there was also probably a lot right about it.) Ehrenreich and English tell us a story about the movement pushing the equivalent of know-your-body courses (still a good idea) and also supporting a lot of self-advocating amongst patients. (The movement is described as espousing the virtues of frequent bathing, loose-fitting clothing for women, temperance and eating whole grain cereals. Any of that sound familiar?) The movement they describe also seems to have been initially supportive of women and minorities and in line with the cause of civil rights. While some of the professional societies out right banned women and minorities from their ranks, schools in the popular health movement did not do so (at least with the same frequency.) Unfortunately, from the description that Ehrenreich and English give, it would also seem that women threw other minorities under the bus in order to gain legitimacy and when favor to their causes. No cool, bros. So, I learned a little about the insidious underbelly of the history of the women’s rights movement.

What I found most interesting about this book (and also incredibly sad) were the conclusions. They conclude that the medical profession isn’t just an institution that discriminates against women, it is one that has been designed to exclude them. That was probably true in the 70s and it is still true today. Last year I reviewed the book the First Twenty Minutes and one of the things I found hardest to swallow about that book was the amount of research the author presented that was done only on male bodies. Women and men are different! There is a fairly large amount of scientific evidence to support that! (Also, there’s probably not just men and women! Gender as a binary is probably not a real thing!) Just as examples from recent news: women have different heart attack symptoms than men (and new research shows women aren’t aware of this) and women with ADHD present differently than men. They also conclude that we have become mystified by science and don’t know how to argue for what we need in the face of a scientific (or scientific sounding) argument. (Recent blow ups of twitter about whether or not the Earth is round seems to show that we still have a lack of scientific literacy.) They suggest that there needs to be an opening of the medical profession so that all women can have access to medical expertise when they need it. I still think that’s true.

So, this was a good read and a quick read. Not a bad way to start out the year in reality!

What I’m Reading: sad girl poems by Christopher Soto

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Kate

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Update: Preferences on Bookish Emails

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Kate

I am working on putting up a page that will contain links to books and authors that can serve as suggestions for anyone looking to diversify their reading stacks this year. I was just going through my BookBub emails from the weekend and I googled all of the authors of books that interested me and noticed that they were not all that diverse. So, I went to check what my preferences were set to. There are categories that are just LGBT and African-American interest. I just changed my settings today, so hopefully this will bring a little diversity to the subjects and authors in my daily emails.

It does, however, raise a really obvious question: If LGBT and African-American interest are separate categories, then who is served by all of the other categories (which are subject based and not demographic based)? This is why diverse reading challenges are important. Books with African-American characters aren’t only of interest to African-Americans and until readers start demanding diversity in the genres they read, this kind of categorizing won’t change.

(That being said, since African-American and LGBT voices aren’t well represented in broader categories, I think this kind of categorization is needed and important.)

Books that Rocked My Face Off in 2015

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Kate

Beth has given you her list and so I am here giving you mine. As with last year, I’m going to give you my top faves and my most dislikeds. I feel it is important to remember when celebrating the end of something that there were terrible parts, too.

1. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

I read this book on my phone in two days. I loved it. I loved Cath, I loved Wren. I loved Reagan. I loved Levi. I loved Cath and Wren’s father. I loved the little bits of fan fiction that got mixed in. No, I haven’t yet gotten to Carry On but I am looking forward to it.

2. The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Raise your hand if you are surprised Maggie Stiefvater is on this list! You there! In that back! You should probably read the blog more often! This is the second in the 4-book Raven cycle. There was some much needed character development in this book, which just made me love the raven boys even more. I cannot wait for the fourth book to come out in 2016!

3. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

I will definitely be reading more of Okorafor’s books in the future. This was such a neat world that she created, full of things that were beautiful and tragic. Onye, the main character, is such a badass and the supporting characters were interesting and thoughtful and lovely.

4. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

The second of Rainbow Rowell’s book on my list, it was adorable and touching. Set in a pre-2000 newspaper in Omaha, Nebraska, this novel is full of wonderful characters, awkward situations and really touching moments.

5. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

I really enjoyed Beauty Queens because Bray created a funny and ridiculous situation into which she put a bunch of interesting characters. This novel is like Lord of the Flies if it were only beauty queens on the island and if the island was actually a secret base for a company trading with a country that is under sanctions. It was interesting, funny and fun.

6. Revolution by Russell Brand

Russell Brand talks about love, spirit, the planet, and what we could all be doing to make the world a better place. That’s a terrible description because it was a really enjoyable book. Brand is his usual self (which I find funny) and he presents on a wide range of topics that were interesting and thought provoking.

7. What if? by Randall Munroe

Randall Munroe is a smart guy and he’s also hilarious. I love the concept of this book. He takes a hypothetical (often ridiculous) question and answers it with everything he knows about science (which is a lot). Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a mole of moles? Well, stop wondering and read this book.

8. Fledgling by Octavia Butler

Best vampire book ever. Social commentary, interesting characters, beautiful writing. Perfect.

9. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

We read an award winner before it was an award winner! I loved Marie Laure and Werner and their families. This was such a beautiful book.

10. The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon

OH MY GOD THIS BOOK! This book, this book, this book. I finished this book and immediately re-read The Bone Season and then came back and read this one again. (Stuff like this is why I’m perilously close to not finishing this year’s book challenge.) Paige is one of my favorite heroines. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s determined and she’s a good person trying to do good in the world. This is a spectacular book.

And, now that we’ve seen the Top, here are the bottom:

1. The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte

I can see what she was trying to do with this book but it was so poorly edited and full of unanalyzed views and positions that I couldn’t get behind it. To quote past-Kate, ” It was like reading someone’s notes or inferring a deeper meaning from a series of pinterest posts.” Ugh. It was awful.

2. Blood and Absinthe by Chloe Hart

There was nothing good about this book. Also, it made me so angry because of how it didn’t seem to know what consent is at all.

3. Adultery by Paulo Coehlo

I am Bill Nye and this book is every woman who thinks the universe is sending them messages.

That, right there, is better than this book.
4. Dark Guardian by Christine Feehan

I actually had to break out the Nopetopus for this review, that’s how much I disliked this book.

5. Live it! by Jairek Robbins

This is the book that has convinced me that next year’s This Month in Reality needs to be about something other than self help. So, good job, Jairek Robbins?

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge.

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Kate

bookchallenge2016image

Beth and I have done a lot of talking about the kinds of things that reading can do for a person. It really is a magical thing. It can transport you to different worlds. It can imagine new history. It can see potential futures. Studies have even shown that reading literary fiction can help you relate better to other people. So, with this in mind, we’ve put together our first reading challenge. Inspired by #weneedmorediversebooks, we’ve come up with a challenge to make us think about who we are reading and what we are reading about. Our challenge has three sub-challenges: one related to characters, one related to authors, and one related to books themselves. Each sub-challenge is only ten books long, so you can do any of the sub-challenges without changing how you read for the whole year. As a reader, you can tackle the whole challenge or one or more of the sub-challenges.

I will be maintaining a page here on this blog full of possible books to fulfill the challenge that I find in my reading travels. Of course, any suggestions will be helpfully added to the list. Part of what makes diversifying your reading difficult is that you don’t always know something is diverse going in. We are going to endeavor to make that easy by keeping a separate page of suggestions.

Since this challenge is only 30 books, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of diversity in literature and in life, but we hope that this list and the books that are read because of it will create interesting and thoughtful discussions. We hope that you will consider taking the challenge and reading along with us in 2016!

Review: Live it! by Jairek Robbins

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Kate

I don’t want to be a soda can. Metaphorically speaking, whether or not that can is full or empty, I don’t want to be it.

I have to stop buying self-help books. There was nothing new or interesting in this book. There was a lot of dialectal behavior therapy stuff and with some magical thinking thrown in. But, you know, DBT without any of the psychological support that you’d get from doing DBT with a therapist. But, if you don’t need the support and you think you can get by on 30 day challenges from an author alone, then do it. This book might be for you! Get in there! Or, something

It wasn’t for me. I picked this up in a BOGO sale from audible and I’m happy to report that I actually liked the other book I picked up with it so this wasn’t a total waste. This book, however, is dull and unoriginal. I even managed to doze off while listening to the part where the author describes his own personal brush with death. I don’t know if that makes me an exceptionally callus human being or if it makes him a bad storyteller?

Plus, Robbins reads the book as if Every. Sentence. Is. The. Most. Important. Sentence. In. The. Book. It irritated me. And, it made it hard to focus on what actually have been important.

I’d give this book a 2/10. I wouldn’t recommend it but if you read it and loved it I wouldn’t ruin your gushy good mood by telling you how much I hated it.

This Year in Reality 2015

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Kate

When Beth and I decided we were really going to get on this thing and use this space and do some writing, we decided that we both needed a recurring series. Beth has been doing the Series You Should Check Out. These have been enjoyable to read (and have definitely put books into my TBR pile) and they’ve even gotten us a couple of author retweets. (Which, I have to say, was super exciting for both of us!) I decided to go in a different direction and review at least one non-fiction book a month. I flippantly titled this recurring series This Month in Reality. And, while not getting us any retweets, it has at least gotten me the personal satisfaction of engaging in some topics that I’ve had an interest in but have maybe not have made time for. The books that I read this year can probably be divided into three categories: Self help (dating advice,exercise, etc, New Years resolutions and Mesoamerican History! *only self-help for me because I study Mesoamerica*. ) Pop Culture Interest (the life and times of Kim Gordon, Piper Kerman and Orange is the New Black,Pop Physics,Travel as a metaphor for personal growth, Oscar winners ) meditation (Meditation and Science, meditation and practice, meditation AND pop culture). I’m so proud of my accidental consistency. I plan to continue this column in the coming year and I will also endeavor to be consistent, although more intentionally so. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past year considering who holds space and who is asking for it in our society, so expect to see books that help me meditate on and answer that question in 2016. But, before we get to 2016, I’d like to say goodbye to 2015 to revisiting my favorite reads/listens in reality this year! So, in no particular order:

<a href=https://stacksexceedlifeexpectancy.com/2015/07/31/this-month-in-reality-love-and-revolution/> Revolution by Russell Brand</a>.

This book hit me right in the feels. In a moment of synchronicity, I listened to this book at the exact right time for me because the messages of his book, that love is important and should be cherished and cultivated and that if something isn’t working we have to try something new and endeavor to make it better, were both things I needed to hear. It feels a little trite to say that a celebrity known for being a dirty hippie who once did a lot of drugs said the things that I needed to hear (especially when those things are stuff like, “your reality is the result of your attention and intention” and “sometimes you have to realize that the only power you have in a situation is the power to make it worse”) but it’s true so I might as well own it. I think Brand is a funny dude and I think the ideas he discusses are worthy ideas. So, if you’re feeling despairing and fed up with what the world looks like, take a break and hang out with this squirrelly English dude. Maybe he’ll say what you need to hear, too. (Or, maybe you’ll hate it and it’ll be one of those hate reads which is also cathartic. I don’t know. You do you.)

I wanted so badly to hate this book. No, really. I wanted to hate this book because knowing barely anything about Elizabeth Gilbert (except the general plot of this story) I had decided that Gilbert was a selfish person who does what she likes and (mis)uses foreign cultures to justify her self-serving decisions. Now, maybe my original judgments about her are true and maybe they aren’t. But, try as I might to hate this book, I just couldn’t. I found this book to be tremendously enjoyable. In the book someone suggests to her that every person and every city has a word that sums them up. When you find the city that you match, you’ve found your home. This is a clue to her that it is time to move on. I really liked this idea and I spent a long time considering what my word is. I just went back through a bunch of text messages with a friend who loved the book to see if I had come to a decision about my word. I think it might be “chameleon”. But, I’m still not sure. This book was a beautiful, painful, wonderful read. I’m so happy I picked it up!

<a href=https://stacksexceedlifeexpectancy.com/2015/10/31/this-month-in-reality-mesoamerican-history/>Maya to Aztec: Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed by Professor Edwin Barnhart</a>

I picked up this lecture series from audible because I thought, “What the hell? You know practically nothing about the historical context that gave birth to this language context you study, what could it hurt?” Nothing, I decided. And, I’m so glad that I picked it up. It covers the Toltecs, Olmecs, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Tarascans, Aztecs, and Mayans: all of whom had empires in Mesoamerica prior to the arrival of Columbus. Did you know that? Prior to reading this audio book, these were names I knew, but I didn’t realize the the history that these names conveyed. These were huge empires that had sweeping impact on the culture, the people, and the land. How cool is that? Audible has an entire series of lectures, so if you’re interested in learning a little about anything, you might find something that will capture your interest! I, of course, recommend starting in Mesoamerica.

I hope that you have enjoyed learning a little this year along with me and that 2016 will bring us more knowledge about this cool and exciting world we live in!

This Month in Reality: Scroogenomics

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Kate

I saw this book on Eleventh Stack earlier this month and decided that it might be the perfect read for the holiday season. We’ve been reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens on Periscope, so this seemed to be the perfect foil to the original story. I still feel that way now that I’ve listened to it. This book is written by Joel Waldfogel, an economist whose specialty seems to be investigating something called dead weight loss. Or, more generally, the efficiency with which resources are put to use. In the book he lays out an argument for more efficient gift giving (or not giving).

The argument goes like this: I give you a sweater worth 50 bucks but you only get 20 bucks worth of enjoyment out of it. My gift of that sweater destroyed 30 bucks worth of value. Or, worse: I give you a sweater worth 50 bucks but you enjoy it 20 bucks worth. However, you would have bought yourself a different $50 sweater that would have given you $80 worth of enjoyment, so now the $50 sweater gift destroyed $60 worth of value (what you would have enjoyed minus what you are enjoying). Waldfogel walks us through all different ways that value can be measured and how economist collect and analyze that data. He also discusses what that means, not just for gift giving, but also for giving to charity and government spending (which he used as examples).

The book was really heavy on data, so be warned. More than a few reviews on goodreads panned it because it had too many numbers in it. (Personally, I would have been disappointed with fewer numbers. The book was written by an economist and published by Princeton University Press. Knowing those two facts, I expect to see a lot of data.) But, Waldfogel made some really great arguments for being thoughtful about what you give to whom, and I liked that. He also made some great suggestions for how to give more efficiently. One of the suggestions that he made was using the holiday season to give through people instead of to people. Which is to say: giving a gift in the name of someone to a charity or an organization. One of the things that we can do is give people money to give to charity. He hypothesized a charity gift card scheme that I haven’t seen but I do hope to eventually see. The idea would be that you’d give someone this charity gift card that they could then log into a website and give to the charity of their choosing. What a beautiful idea.

To bring this back to Scrooge and A Christmas Carol, what this book kept making me think about was the value and usefulness of something. And, this is a message that also keeps coming up for Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Twice now in the story so far (if you’re keeping up with us on periscope or katch), Scrooge has been confronted with something from his past or his present that made him rethink the value of something or someone in his life. Remembering what it is like to be alone at the holiday season makes Scrooge wish he’d been kinder to a caroler. Seeing exactly who the ‘surplus population’ is makes him regret his callous statements about the poor. Gift-giving is wonderful and provides us an opportunity to let people we care about know that we appreciate them. And, as Waldfogel points out, in many instances it is mandatory. You can’t not give a gift to your mother-in-law just because you don’t know her very well and you think anything you’d give her would just be wasted. So, since you have to give, strategies for how to give better can only be a good thing. We can be thoughtful about how we give when we give so that, in general, some good comes from our giving. The goal isn’t to hoard, but rather not to waste.

I enjoyed this book immensely, and if you’re interested in the economics of giving, you might want to give it a spin.

I got this book from audible.com

2 Women, So Many Books

Our "to read" stacks way exceed our life expectancy

Author Archives: Kate