It's been another month of working my way through my Goodreads list, with a few extras tossed in. I still have probably about a year and a half to go before the list is done (there are going to be some books that hang out there for a bit, since the library doesn't have them. Some I may order online; others, I'll just wait until they magically appear in my life, I guess!). When I'm done with the list, I'll start reading my way through my own shelves (along with reading some library books here and there for variety, of course), but that'll be a while yet.
Anyway, here's what I read last month.
1. Little House Living: The Make-Your-Own Guide to a Frugal, Simple, and Self-Sufficient Life- Merissa A. Alink
I follow Merissa's blog, Little House Living. It's a lovely blog with tons of recipes for everything from shampoo to oven cleaner, and the book is no different. It's almost information overload, so recipe-heavy is this book. If you're looking for a way to simplify the products you use, this may be something you're interested in. Merissa leads an interesting life, and I wish I knew what her schedule was and how she crams in making all of this stuff! There are times when my bottle of homemade floor cleaner sits on the counter for weeks until I can get to it...
2. Out of Orange: A Memoir- Cleary Wolters
If you've watched Orange Is the New Black on Netflix or read Piper Kerman's memoir of the same name, you know that Piper wasn't alone in the wrongdoings that lead to her imprisonment. In the series, her partner in crime (literally) is known as Alex Vause; in the memoir, she's known as Nora. In real life, Cleary Wolters was the woman who persuaded Piper to join her in international drug trafficking, and in this memoir, she shares her side of the story.
There's not a TON about Piper or about prison itself in this memoir; the vast majority of it had to do with her time as a drug trafficker, which, to be honest, didn't sound at all glamorous to me. The drug lord she worked for sounded terrifying; so much of her work involved waiting around for weeks on end; the stress of trying to enter a country with suitcases crammed full of drugs would have given me enough heart attacks to kill every last elephant on the planet ten times over. I didn't see the appeal to that kind of life whatsoever, but it was interesting to see what Cleary had to say. I just so happened upon this book at the library; I'm not sure how I managed to miss that it even existed, but I'm glad we crossed paths.
3. Girl in a Bad Place- Kaitlin Ward
The story of a teenage girl whose best friend gets caught up in a dangerous cult.
Well-written, fast-paced, and intense. Not quite what I was expecting, but still a great read, especially if you're interested in cults and closed groups like I am.
4. Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors- Jeanne E. Arnold, Anthony Graesch, Elinor Ochs, Enzo Ragazzini
A deep look into what working families own, and how they store and use those items, along with the spaces they live in. If you've ever wanted a glimpse into what people's houses look like when they're not blog- or company-ready, this is your book.
I'll be honest. The pictures in this book seriously stressed me out. So. Much. CLUTTER. I went on a massive cleaning rampage after reading this. I do not want any part of my house to look like what I saw in these pictures. It's bad enough when my kitchen table gets covered in papers (or apples and butternut squash, as it is now); the amount of STUFF people crammed into their houses made me feel claustrophobic, and the mess- not just clutter, but straight-up mess- made me anxious.
Everyone has different standards of living, and if these people are happy with their houses, then that's cool. My anxiety about what their houses look like is fully on me and not them, so please don't think this is judgment. It's not; it's more of a testament to what I need my living space to look like in order to feel mentally calm (and I don't always succeed in that, either! It's hard when you're trying to keep up with the belongings of four people, three of whom don't share your desire to not have all their stuff hanging around on every flat surface!). Reading this also reconfirmed my desire to rid myself of superfluous possesions, those things that I own but that I don't use or love. I don't want to have large collections of stuff surrounding me like many of these pictures showed. Too much for me, thanks! This was a seriously neat book, though.
5. Tales From a Traveling Couch: Psychotherapist Revisits His Most Memorable Patients- Robert U. Akeret
This was one from my own shelves, which I read in bits and pieces while I was waiting for interlibrary loan books to come in. I'd picked this up from the thrift store for a quarter a while back. It was...odd. Interesting, but he had some patients who were...just odd. Not even ill in the way that I think most people would classify someone as mentally ill, but... Like, there was a patient who had fallen in love with a polar bear at the circus where he worked, to the point of climbing into this polar bear's cage so he could, um, attempt to be amorous with her.
It didn't go well for him.
It's a great concept for a book, though; I've often wondered if the therapists I've worked with in the past ever think about me, so it's nice to know that they do. :)
6. Scraps, Wilt & Weeds: Turning Wasted Food Into Plenty- Mads Refslund
A gorgeous book that's part-educational, part-cookbook, all about the bits of food that you thought were trash but are actually edible (like, uh, fish scales. I...might pass on that one). This is where I learned that you can actually dry pumpkin skins/rinds/whatever you call them and then grind up those dry whatevers and add the powder into baked goods, so I'm definitely planning on doing that. The recipes in this book were a bit too fancy for what I consider to be everyday cooking, but if you're more of an everyday gourmet, this might be right up your alley.
7. Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History- Bill Schutt
Speaking of recipes...
This book had none.
What it did have was more information on cannibalism in both animals and humans than I've ever seen in one place before. Not that I've spent a lot of time looking; I can't think of anything I've read that focused solely on cannibalism before. I was kind of expecting more about human cannibalism, and the front half of the book focuses a lot on animals, which didn't necessarily interest me as much, but it was still a deeply intriguing read. Also kind of gross, especially where the author ate a few bites of a woman's placenta (cooked, of course) as research for the book.
It tasted somewhat like veal, in case you were wondering.
There.
That's a thing you know now.
8. The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store- Cait Flanders
The title pretty much sums it up. It's pretty much a memoir, by a woman who seems to be prone to many forms of addiction (human brains can be such jerks, right? It's a roll of the dice, and I'm sorry for anyone who struggles with any form of addiction). She'd struggled with food and alcohol in the past, and after she tackled those issues, she decided to look at her shopping habits, because mindlessly consuming wasn't making her happy, and she realized that she was buying things not for who she was at the time, but for who she wanted those things to make her.
That's something I think we're all guilty of, myself included. We all have those stacks of books gathering dust, because we swore we'd learn woodworking or accounting or French cooking, and then we never did. Flanders's method of dealing with that problem was to give those things away, whereas mine is to use those things to become the best version of myself (for the most part. There are things I've gotten rid of!). I want to become the person who's going to use that yarn and sew that fabric and learn all of those things, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That said, I'm mostly not acquiring new things, just dealing with the things I already own, because there's a limit to all the things I can become!
I liked this. Didn't love it, but it was a good quick read.
9. The Surrendered Wife: A Practical Guide To Finding Intimacy, Passion and Peace- Laura Doyle
10. First Kill All the Marriage Counselors: Modern-Day Secrets to Being Desired, Cherished, and Adored for Life- Laura Doyle
Lumping these two together, because they're pretty close to being the same book.
I'm not sure what to say about these books. I don't think Laura Doyle's totally full of it; she has some good ideas, and a few of the things she wrote made me realize some areas where I could improve, but quite a few times, I went, "Um, what???" Regarding one of her ideas, I asked my husband, and he is absolutely not interested in me letting him drive one hundred miles in the wrong direction just so I don't challenge his masculinity or somesuch; he'd much rather me let him know that he missed the exit or took a wrong turn so that we're not late or wasting gas. I mean, maybe your husband is different and would rather miss his best friend's wedding or that super important work meeting while you sit silently next to him, having seen the exit he was supposed to take three miles back. If so, then Laura Doyle probably has other great advice for you, too, but I have to wonder about anyone whose sense of self is THAT fragile.
I also didn't buy half of the stories she told in the book. Things like "Mary came to me sobbing. Her husband never helped with the fifteen children or the house, and he'd been chronically unemployed for the past twelve years, preferring to spend his days and nights with his golf buddies. Once Mary started following my methods, he surprised her by cleaning the house from top to bottom, taking all the kids to Disneyland so she could stay home and rest, and starting his own company. Today, his company is at the top of the Fortune 500, and he and Mary are deliriously happy!"
I'm not buying it, and most of the stories in this book sounded pretty much like that. There's never any contingency plan for what to do when her methods don't work- she guarantees they will, and I think that discounts a large portion of human nature. She also comes dangerously close to dismissing some forms of abuse (and putting it on the wives to change, instead of the husbands), which made me extremely uncomfortable.
So if you read these, I suggest a grain of salt, maybe even the whole shaker. Take from it the good parts, run screaming from the rest. They're those kinds of books.
What did you read this month? Do you keep track of what you read?
*post contains affiliate links
No comments:
Post a Comment