Saturday, September 1, 2018

What I Read in August 2018

And now, book talk!


I find libraries so relaxing. Ahhhhhhhh.


I'm going to start backtracking at the end of each month and go through everything I've read throughout the past month. Maybe you'll find something good to read, too! Side note: I'm still working through my Goodreads To Read list, and a LOT of that is nonfiction, so if you're not a huge nonfiction reader, bear with me while I plow through the rest of the list. I promise, I do read fiction! Sometimes I read heavy stuff; other times, I read lighter stuff, which is like a delicious dessert for your brain (I enjoy cheesecake, if anyone's offering). It all balances out. :)


1. Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living- Elizabeth Willard Thames

Ohhhhhh, I loved this. I really enjoy the Frugalwoods blog; her style is so relaxing and approachable, which makes for an incredibly engaging read. The book is written in the same style, telling the story of how Thames and her husband came to save up enough money to buy the rural homestead of their dreams and be financially independent. My goals and dreams aren't the same as hers, but I still found her story really inspiring.


2. Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions- Susan Tive and Cami Ostman

A collection of essays on women at various points in their religious journeys, in what you may or may not find extreme (as the authors cover in the foreword, extreme is in the eye of the beholder, or, in this case, the believer or non-believer). This wasn't *quite* what I was expecting, but still a very good read, as I'm a huge fan of reading about other people's experiences, especially when it comes to religion, which I've always found endlessly fascinating.


3.The Things They Carried- Tim O'Brien

I was lucky enough to be able to hear the author speak last week at a local high school as part of a parent education series. This book is a fictionalized account of a man's experiences before, during, and after the Vietnam War. Some of the experiences were very similar to what happened to the author; others were not, and he discussed that in his talk. It's moving and some parts are hard to read, but it's worth it to push through, because this is something that needs to be understood, as far as we can understand another person's wartime experience. My son's English class is reading this this year, so I'm curious as to how he'll perceive the book.


4. The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel: The Rise of a Village Theocracy and the Battle to Defend the Separation of Church and State- Louis Grumet with John Caher

If you're not familiar with Kiryas Joel, it's a village in New York whose residents are almost entirely Hasidic, of the Satmar sect. Their public school district has been very controversial, and this book deals with the first major legal case against that district. Again, it wasn't quite what I was expecting; there was a LOT of legal talk that was, on occasion, a bit over my head, but it was still fascinating.


5. The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages- K. David Harrison

Super fascinating book written by a linguist who travels around the world, documenting languages that are dying out or are in danger of dying out. Hopeful, heart-wrenching, intriguing...


6. Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America- Helen Thorpe

 Loved this! Thorpe documents the final parts of high school and all of the college years of four friends, all of whom were born in Mexico. Two are here legally; two don't have documents. The struggles that the undocumented young women faced are gutting, from healthcare to jobs to school, to driving legally, to being able to rent an apartment, to being able to care for their family and younger siblings... My heart absolutely broke for those two girls over and over again. This book was published in 2011 and I'm deeply curious as to how the women are faring today. If anyone knows of any updates, PLEASE let me know. This was a great, great book. I've read Helen Thorpe before and have enjoyed her, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her in the future.


7. Almost Amish: One Woman's Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life- Nancy Sleeth

This started out well. The back cover made it seem like the author had gone on a journey to slow her life down, and here's what she tried, and here's what worked and what didn't, etc. She told the story of how she and her physician husband realized their lives weren't exactly working for them and how he quit his job and they reworked everything in accordance to their newfound religious faith.

I'm not particularly religious myself, but I have no problems reading about others' deeply held beliefs. Rachel Held Evans has some delightful books, and I deeply enjoyed John Pavlovitz's A Bigger Table (this one *really* made me think, which I appreciated!). I also really enjoy the writings of Rabbi Harold Kushner. But about halfway through, this book switched from pleasant to preachy, and I found myself disappointed.


8. What I Eat: Around the World In 80 Diets- Peter Menzel and Faith D'Alusio

A large coffee table-style book, full of great photographs of people from all over, surrounded by a spread of everything they ate on that particular day. It's arranged by calories taken in, ranging from somewhere in the 800's to over 12,000. It was a pretty neat look at how diets differ based on not only where you live but what class you belong to. There's quite a bit of text in this photo-heavy book, so prepare to be holding this giant book up for a while!


9. Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America- Linda Tirado

Tirado wrote this book after a post she wrote on poverty went viral. There's a lot of hard truths in here about what life is like for poor people- what society demands from them (but not from others), how they're viewed and treated, the ways they help and hurt themselves (and sometimes they have good reasons for doing so). This is an excellent book. For me, it was preaching to the choir (but I'm still glad I read it, huge thanks to I Heart Tightwads for making me aware of this book). I haven't experienced the type of prolonged poverty that she has, but I've worked those jobs where management doesn't schedule you but threatens your job if you don't come in every single time they call you to come in an hour before they want you to start working (this was also the same job that forced me in after I'd been awake all night vomiting. Yes, it was retail. Yes, I worked face-to-face with customers, several of whom commented on my ghastly appearance. And we wonder why cold and flu season is so awful in this country? DING DING DING). I've been food insecure, I've had to put medical stuff off for financial reasons, and I was extremely lucky to have a dentist who worked with me on paying off an extremely large amount of dental work. Like Tirado, my dental issues were through no fault of my own- hyperemesis gravidarum is not good for your teeth- but I still dealt with people who judged me for their state, and I still felt that shame.

If you're sensitive to swear words, you should steel yourself before diving in, because she uses them a lot. I'm not bothered in the least, but even if you are, this is a really important book. I was surprised by the Goodreads reviews. It seemed to me that a *lot* of people there absolutely missed the entire point of the book, and that disappointed me. Far too many people ignore the humanity of others, and think that serving the public is an undignified job and thus the people who do it are worthy of their scorn and derision. If you've never worked a crappy retail job where customers threaten your life for policy created by someone that makes hundreds of times more than you, try it out and see how great it feels to make about fourteen cents a minute for that experience (that's actually more than I made when that happened to me. Yay, minimum wage!), and then try to pay rent and buy your kid new shoes and pay off that hospital bill from that surprise bout of pneumonia and see how grateful you feel to that employer. Tirado covers all of this and more.

Super important book right here, one that I feel like a lot of people could benefit from reading, because I see far too much scorn and disgust thrown at low-wage workers.



I finished a book today and started a new one, but I'm not sure if I'm going to keep going with it. It's one my son recommended to me, and the writing style is very good, but I'm not sure I'm in the greatest headspace for it. It's rare for me to abandon a book, especially one from my To Read list, but I'm' already feeling a bit down because of my back issues (more about that on Monday's recap), so I might move on to something more appropriate for the place I'm at right now. :)


What about you? Read anything good lately?




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