What I Read in December 2018

It's book talk time!

I feel like my reading slump is finally over, thank goodness. It happens every now and then, and I'm always so relieved when my reading mojo fires up again. Of course, that usually means I want to read ALL THE THINGS, with no time to read them all, soooooooo....

Anyway, here's what I read in December 2018.


1. Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs, and Rituals- George Robinson

Oof, this is a hefty tome! To be honest, it's probably better left as a reference, but of course, fool that I am, I read it straight through. It's incredibly information-dense and delves deeply into a lot of heavy subjects- the sections on Talmud and mysticism were a bit beyond me, to be honest- but if you're wanting to learn more about Judaism (I enjoy learning about religion), this is definitely a book you should look into.


2. Between Gods: A Memoir- Alison Pick

Pick wasn't an adult until she learned her father was Jewish, and most of that side of the family had perished in the concentration camps of World War II. As she learned more, Judaism, which is a matrilineal religion, struck a chord with her, and she became interested in conversion in order to reclaim her heritage and take her place where her soul felt at home. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite that easy for her to convert, and this memoir covers her journey through that, along with her struggles with depression.

This was really lovely, and her frustration comes through on the page very well. She's Canadian, and Canadian Reform congregations are a little stricter in terms of conversion than American ones (which I hadn't known until I read this). I deeply enjoyed following the ups and downs of her story, and shared in her joy when she finally came home to where she needed to be.


3. Semitism: Being Jewish in the Age of Trump- Jonathan Weisman

Written before the murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pennsylvania, Weisman writes about the uptick in anti-Semitism during and after the 2016 elections. He vacillates from "It's bad" to "It's not that bad," and honestly, I'd like to see this updated, now that it's obvious that it really is that bad (I attended an interfaith memorial service at the local synagogue where family of the two brothers who were murdered attends. It was moving and heartwrenching). A Jewish friend of mine wrote in her review, "Overall, it felt a little rushed and shallow," and I agree with her.


4. Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home- Leah Lax

Oh my goodness, this was fascinating. Leah Lax grew up mostly secular and became Hasidic (ultra-Orthodox) at 16, got married a few years later to a man who was basically a stranger, and raised seven children in this lifestyle. And at some point, it was no longer a good fit, and Lax struggled to break free from the bonds she willingly wrapped around herself.

There's a lot to digest here. Lax is attracted to women, but brushes this off early on in order to try to be the person she thinks God wants her to be. Motherhood is wonderful and restrictive, amazing and mentally and physically exhausting, there's never enough time, enough money, enough attention, enough of her (which is a common complaint, I think, for many mothers, but in Hasidic life, the demands and stakes are even higher). She writes in secret, she goes back to school, she cares for her husband when he's diagnosed with cancer... I'm amazed that Lax lasted as long in a Hasidic lifestyle as she did; pretending to be something you're not and trying to squeeze yourself into a mold that doesn't quite fit can be soul-crushing, but Lax managed to come out on the other side seemingly okay, and her writing is beautiful.


5. My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew- Abigail Pogrebin

I loved this! Pogrebin decided that she needed to learn more about the holidays and threw herself into a year of observing every holiday. She studied, she learned, she attended a zillion different shuls of all levels of observance, she interviewed rabbi after rabbi after rabbi. And on the way, she came to appreciate a lot of different things about her faith (although she seemed as baffled by the counting of the Omer as I am, which made me feel better!). I very much appreciated her honesty and sense of wonder as she traversed the Jewish year, and I quite enjoyed every chapter of this book.


6. Once You Go In: A Memoir of Radical Faith- Carly Gelsinger

LOVED THIS.

Despite not growing up in a family who regularly attended church, Gelsinger joined a Pentecostal church as a teenager, in what seemed like a combination of a need to connect with God and fit into some sort of a group, but fitting in wasn't easy. The youth group was cliquish, and Gelsinger had a hard time connecting to the normal (for this church) practices of speaking in tongues and sobbing and crying on the church floor during services. She persevered, however, another example of working hard to squeeze herself into a mold not entirely shaped for her. It nearly broke her, and after her life crumbles when a wildfire destroys her house, the bottom begins to drop out and Gelsinger lets herself finds the faith that truly speaks to her heart.

Awesome, awesome book.


7. This Is Not A Love Story: A Memoir- Judy Brown

Brown (author of the phenomenal Hush, under the pen name Eishes Chayil) grew up in a Hasidic family in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, with a brother no one understood. He was 'crazy,' they said, because that was the only word they had to describe his behavior. Today, we would easily recognize his behavior as severe autism, but back then, it wasn't as widely recognized, and the entire family struggled and suffered under the strain of trying to live with a boy no one knew how to help.

This is an emotional read. Brown, as a child, is under extreme stress (at age ten, she's already deeply concerned about her marriage prospects because of her brother's condition, a not-unfounded fear if you know anything about Hasidic matchmaking traditions, and she worries that whatever is wrong with her brother is contagious), and her behavior toward her brother is pretty terrible- not her fault, no one knew what was going on, but it's occasionally tough to read. Her brother is sent away for the second time to relatives in Israel and finally receives a diagnosis of autism in 1993, and it's then that his life begins to change. Brown meets up with him after several years of intensive schooling, and he's improved so much that she's finally able to get to know him and stand in awe of who he is as a person.

Truly a fascinating, emotional story.

8. Escape: My Lifelong War Against Cults- Paul Morantz with Hal Lancaster

Morantz is a lawyer whose career has been dedicated to working against cults and abusive psychotherapists. Among the groups he's litigated against have been Jim Jones and the People's Temple (of the famed Jonestown), Synanon, Rajneeshpuram, the Moonies, est, and Scientology. Members from Synanon made an attempt on his life by placing a derattled rattlesnake in his mailbox (fortunately, he made it to the hospital in time, although he had to stay there about a week). Truly a fascinating life and career, although maybe a little too fraught with danger and drama for my tastes!

I liked this but didn't love it; the writing style felt a bit scattered to me, and a lot of the end chapter could have been cleaned up a little more, but overall it was worth the read.

I've been listening to the What Should I Read Next podcast as I fall asleep at night. It's absolutely lovely and I highly recommend it. After I finish up my current stack of library books, I'm going to delve into some fiction, I think. I have SO much nonfiction on my Goodreads Want to Read list that I've been completely neglecting fiction reading and this podcast is making me drool over so many of the books they discuss, so that's definitely a reading goal for 2019.

May your New Year be wonderful and full of epic reads! Happy New Year to you all! :) 

A quick update!

Hey, friends! Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate, and a lovely December to those of you who don't!

Sorry for disappearing so abruptly. If you remember, I got sick after shoveling the driveway. That set of some kind of...exhaustion flare of some sort. Every once in a while I get this fatigue that will not die, where the most I can handle doing is the bare minimum to keep my house and life going, and the rest of the time I spend either sleeping or wishing I could sleep. And that's what happened there. I'd get up in the morning, slog through the day, nap for two hours in the afternoon (and wake up still feeling like I've been hit by a truck), slog through the rest of the day, doze on the couch in the evening, and then go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And then my daughter got sick, too.

Basically, the past two or three weeks have looked like some version of this:

No one's getting anything done here.

My daughter got slammed hard. Nasty respiratory infection with a cough that was so violent, she vomited often when she coughed, plus a double ear infection. She barely slept at all from Sunday to Thursday that week, so once again, bare minimum just to exist and keep the basics of life running.

And then I got sick AGAIN. My ears (or maybe it's my sinuses and just feels like my ears? Who knows) are totally clogged and everything sounds like it's coming through a tunnel, and I've been coughing again like crazy (when I'd almost kicked it before my daughter got sick). Kids, the adorable little germ factories that keep on giving!

Couple that with what little I've managed to do in regards to Christmas prep, and the chronic pain (the last set of injections don't seem to have helped at all) and it's just been exhausting. Give me a bit to recover from all the holiday traveling and I'll be back, I promise! :)

May you all have a lovely new year! 

What I Read in November 2018

It's book talk time!

I still feel a little book-slumpy. Some months I can blow through 12-14 books, no problem, and other months, reading feels like a slog. I do tend to pick up with my reading after the holidays pass, so I'm definitely crossing my fingers that that happens again this year. :) It doesn't help that right now, I'm reading an incredibly information-dense book on religion. It's interesting, but slow-going because there's so much information to process- plus the book is over 500 pages. I may be reading this for a while...

Anywhere, here's what I read in November this year.


1. The Marrying of Chani Kaufman- Eve Harris

An interesting novel about the lives of a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews (I recently listened to a podcast which featured a rabbi from one of these sects; he prefers the term Haredi or Charedi, although I don't know if that's universal or if it differs between the sects). Chani is nervous over her upcoming wedding to a man with whom she's barely had a handful of conversations; Rivka, the wife of the group's rabbi, feels claustrophobic in her life. All the unknowns in Chani's future are contrasted with the twists and turns of Rivka's past that have brought her to this point, and I deeply enjoyed learning Rivka's story (which wasn't quite what I'd expected).

The reviews on Goodreads are mixed, which surprised me. I enjoyed the look into a world I wouldn't normally otherwise get to see or learn about, and some of the reviews seem unnecessarily harsh (one woman is criticizing the author for her characters wondering about bacon, which, of course, is forbidden by the Jewish kashrut laws. "They wonder about bacon," the reviewer says. "Because another culture's diet is REALLY what a curious person would think about." Uh...I find other culture's diets and dietary restrictions to be endlessly fascinating. Jewish kashrut laws? Fill me in. Seventh Day Adventists and their vegetarianism? Let's talk. Jungle tribes who have never seen a grocery store? I WANNA KNOW ABOUT IT. Seriously, I love that stuff, hence the enormous book on religion- not my own, nor has it ever been- that I'm currently reading). So this was a book I enjoyed reading, and apparently other people did too, if it was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, but apparently if you're the type of person who doesn't believe that curious people can find other cultures interesting, I guess stay away from it? :D


2. Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free- Linda Kay Klein

This is an emotionally heavy book dealing with the purity culture that sprung up in evangelical churches in the 90's. I was raised Catholic and so I never had to deal with this (although Catholicism, like any religion, comes with its own strife! And hey, see! I'm interested in the behavioral standards of another group! IT HAPPENS, GOODREADS REVIEWER!!!), but I've had my issues with purity culture for as long as I've known about it.

I won't get into the deep pain felt by Klein and the women she interviewed, but this was really, really good and I hope it finds its way to those women who would most benefit from its message.


3. Thin- Grace Bowman

The painful memoir of a woman who suffered from anorexia, the long road back from it, and the aspects of it that still creep up even though she's in recovery.

The format- sometimes it's like a novel, sometimes it's more like an essay- made it a little hard to read at times, and if you're looking for answers on how to help someone you love who struggles with an eating disorder, this probably isn't your book. But if you're wanting to examine and understand what the mindset of someone with anorexia looks like, what it feels like to be them, the anguish and constant pressure they feel to be perfect, this is a good read.


4. Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime- Ron Stallworth

The true story of a police officer who spearheaded an undercover investigation into the most notorious American hate group.

Mr. Stallworth obviously couldn't go undercover himself- he is, of course, black- so he teamed up with a partner who played him while he himself did the phone work and the behind-the-scenes research. The book suffers a little for that- it's a seriously compelling story and absolutely needs to be told, but it's hard to keep up momentum when you're not the one performing the actions and the story in which you set the ball in motion is carried out by others (and now I'm wondering if the story would have been better served by being told in third person...). I'm looking forward to seeing the movie they're making of it. :)


5. Journeys: An American Story- Mark Tisch, Mary Skafidas

A collection of essays on the wonder and vitality that immigrants bring and have always brought to America. Definitely necessary in these trying times.

I loved hearing all the stories here. I wish I knew more about my ancestors- some of them came here in the 1890's from a farm near Bergen, Norway, but that's really all I know. Many of the authors know much, much more about the family members who started their family's story in America, and it was really moving to be able to experience their joy and pain at recounting those tales. Some people came here looking for a better future; others came because they were fleeing unimaginable horror. And while we've always been a nation made up of immigrants, a nation who benefits from immigrants, our attitude toward those same immigrants has often really sucked, to put it nicely. And for far too many people, it still sucks; I've seen it firsthand and it's gross.

So read this book and learn what so many people sacrificed in order to come to the US, and hug your local immigrant, because leaving everything behind (especially to come to a place where people mock you, mock your customs, mock your language, mock your progress with English, and scream at you to go home, like they themselves did anything other than be lucky enough to benefit from their own ancestors sacrificing everything to come here) isn't easy.


6. Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist- Eli Saslow

This was a compelling read! Saslow covers the life story of Derek Black, whose father founded the internet's largest racist online community (I'm not going to dignify that community by naming it here). Derek was raised to be the movement's golden child, to inherit all the hatred and illogical, unscientific, racist claptrap that that movement pushes as fact. For years, he bought into it, stood at the forefront of the community and repeated all its garbage...until his world expanded and he started to question whether everything he'd grown up believing was a lie. (Narrator: It was, indeed, a lie.)

At times infuriating and other times hopeful, Saslow does a masterful job of portraying the slow exit of what was essentially an indoctrinated young man. He believed what he was taught until he stepped out into the wider world, and I'm ecstatic for him that he was able to move beyond the falsities his family of origin attempted to bestow upon him. May he continue to grow and and learn and question and keep fighting against the hatred he once tried to push. A fantastic book.


7. Where's My F*cking Latte? (and Other Stories about Being an Assistant in Hollywood)- Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff

Yikes! I read this hoping to get some info out of it for something I'm writing, but these stories were a bit too out there for what I needed. Still...uh...yikes. Mostly fluff, but there are a few really sad stories in here.


8. The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love With Faith- Judy Gruen

This was kind of neat. Gruen was raised in a not-terribly-religious household, but hey, things change, people stretch and grow and challenge themselves, and when she walks down the aisle, it's as someone who is prepared to live a strict Orthodox life, following the 613 commandments of the Torah, and this book details her journey from one point to the other.

I didn't always agree with her reasoning on certain things, and at the end, I felt as though a certain degree of judgment was coming through (there was one chapter in particular where she was discussing her modest dress and how random men would comment things like, "I wish more women dressed like you!" and "If more women dressed like you, we wouldn't have all the problems that we do!" I didn't find that as a point of pride; if someone said that to me, I'd be grossed out. I do tend to dress very modestly- not as a religious thing, it's just what I'm comfortable with- but those comments are a bit backhanded, praising the author while shaming other women, and I found her seeming pride in those compliments a bit remiss. How other women dress should be absolutely no one's concern but theirs. Wear a floor length skirt, wear a crop top; it's not my place or anyone else's to judge either. Everyone's journey is their own, and shaming others is no way to set an example), but I did enjoy reading the story of her increasing observance. I would've loved to hear more about her challenges raising her children in a tradition that she herself was not raised, but perhaps that's another book.


So that's what I read last month! I have about 200 pages or so to go in the hefty book on religion and then I'll move on to something...well, not lighter, but not as information-dense. I'm *still* dragging a bit from either that cold or who knows what else, but I'm definitely still not up to regular speed yet. :( Tomorrow should be a quiet day, so hopefully I'll get some rest and reading time.


What have you read lately?

Weekly recap: 12/2/2018

Uggggggghhhhhhh.

That's pretty much the overwhelming sound of this past week.

Seriously. It was so rotten that it's almost not worth writing up, so my apologies for the off-ness of this week. Hopefully next week will be better!!!

Let's get this show on the road!


MONDAY

If you remember last week's recap, I finished up by saying that my daughter and I were about to go outside to do our snow walk and start shoveling. Well...once I got out there, I realized how deep and how heavy the snow was, and I knew that if I didn't get to work right then, I wasn't going to get the driveway done at all. And since I was the only adult home...you see the dilemma.

So instead of going on our snow walk, my daughter played in the snow, and I started to shovel. And shovel. And shovel. And shovel.

Did I mention that I shoveled?

THREE HOURS. THREE HOURS OF SHOVELING. Do you know what that does to a person's back, especially when they already have back problems?

I do.

This is what pain looks like.

This is literally the only picture I took this week (and I had to go out and shovel MORE after this because the snowplow came by and buried us in again). And while I was shoveling, I kept having to blow my nose- at first I thought it was because of the exertion and cold weather, but it became apparent as the day went on that indeed, I was getting sick. YUCK. I was exhausted and sore after this, and after we ate lunch, I took a nap right along with my daughter.

For dinner, I took a ton of random leftover things in the fridge and freezer- sauteed vegetables, steamed sweet potatoes, chickpeas, pinto beans, leftover taco-flavored lentils, a small amount of ages-old frozen okra- and paired them with an onion, a can of tomatoes, and some seasonings, and turned it all into what I called refrigerator soup. And I'll be darned if it wasn't delicious! I cleaned the kitchen, cleaned my daughter's room, scraped the mountain of snow and ice off the car, and went to Walgreens to drop my husband's prescription off. That was when he texted me to let me know the trains were running late, so we went back home and hung out there until it was time to pick him up.

All I did that night was put away dinner and watch two episodes of Supernatural with my husband before bed.


TUESDAY

Everything. Hurt.

The right side of my back was pretty much screaming all day long. I had a nasty sore throat and a cough, and my daughter started the day out with an hour-long tantrum because I gave her what she had asked for for breakfast.

You read that right. I asked if she wanted her leftover English muffin pizza for breakfast; she said yes, and when I gave it to her, she threw a fit.

Just one of those days, you know?

I still managed to do my basement chores and filled and ran the dishwasher before dropping her off at school. I then ran to Walmart, where I needed cat food and litter and shampoo (of course I needed the heavy items on a day that I was already in terrible pain! *lolsob*). I came home to bring those items in, then picked my daughter up when it was time. I napped again during her nap, then unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and made a batch of dough for cinnamon rolls. I reheated the leftover soup for dinner, picked my husband up (we stopped by Walgreens to pick up his prescription), and read a book from my own shelves after dinner.

I put away the leftovers and baked the cinnamon rolls. They ended up just a tad overbaked (though everyone still scarfed them down!), so I'll bake them three or four minutes less next time, although I finally realized that I think I like the idea of cinnamon rolls more than I actually like eating them. ;) Husband and I watched two episodes of Supernatural before bed.

WEDNESDAY

Everything still hurt, and the cold was definitely in full swing by this point!

I unloaded the dishwasher and spent the rest of our time looking for my daughter's two lost library books (which we didn't find, argh! Little aggravates me more than lost library books). I dropped her off at school and ran to the library those books came from, renewing them and checking out two more books for me. After that, it was off to Aldi, where I did the week's grocery shopping and ran home to put most of the groceries away. I picked up my daughter and drove home and told her to hang out for a minute while Mama went to the garage to put away the marked-down pizzas she'd bought in the garage freezer.

And then I went out to the garage.

Where I fell.

Because of course I did. 

Fortunately, it wasn't a hard fall, but it was enough to do some pulling on my bad right side, and it shook me up pretty badly. It's not the first time I've fallen; three years ago, I slipped on an icy patch while holding my daughter and went down. She was okay, because I managed to twist in a way that she didn't get hurt, but I was really sore and my elbow, which I landed on, hurt for months. This time wasn't that bad, but already being bad off, it didn't help, either.

Nevertheless, I persisted, and during naptime, I made a lovely batch of Vegan Creamy Ginger Carrot Sweet Potato Soup. I may switch out the thyme for rosemary next time, but this ended up being surprisingly good. I also threw together a batch of vegan corn muffins to go with. I don't normally serve soup this many times in a row, but it was a cold snowy week and no one minded. :) I spent the rest of the afternoon on the heating pad, while my daughter used her doctor kit on me and tried to make me feel better by piling more and more toys on top of me. It's the thought that counts, right???

When it was time, we picked my husband up and stopped by Walgreens again so he could return his Redbox movie. I dozed off in my chair at home, put dinner away, and watched two episodes of Supernatural with my husband before bed.

THURSDAY

Injection Day Part II!!!

I wanted to get the house in order for me taking it easy, so I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen, and took out the recycling. I did my basement chores, then took my daughter to school and relaxed at home until it was time to pick her up. We met my mom at home, and I fed them lunch (I wasn't allowed to eat, because of the impending anesthesia) and packed a snack bag for my daughter, and then it was off to the pain doctor. (My mom brought her iPad and they were just going to hang out in the waiting room until I was done.)

They put me to sleep for the injection into my SI joint, and I was definitely more sore after this one than I was the last, although that could be because it was my second in the series and they'd just poked me with a needle back there a few weeks ago. Hopefully I'll get some more relief out of this; I have another appointment with him in a few weeks to see how I'm doing, and we'll go from there.

At home, I rested and dozed in the chair while my mom played with my daughter. I went with her to pick my husband up when it was time (she drove, I wasn't allowed yet because, again, anesthesia), and we had an Aldi pizza for dinner (that I'd bought the day before. I'd considered throwing something in the crockpot but decided to just give myself a break, what with being sick and all). I rested and read throughout the rest of the evening and watched two episodes of Supernatural with my husband before bed.

FRIDAY

By this point, the cold was basically sucker punching me. I was a MESS. Coughing, snot, exhaustion, the whole nine yards. I gave my daughter a bath in the morning, and then we headed off to Walmart to pick up a few things, including some cough drops. She wanted to play at a library in another town, so she played while I read my library book and avoided people. I napped again during naptime (I swear, I haven't napped this much since I was pregnant!), cleaned the kitchen and ran the dishwasher, and then we had to go to the library in our town to exchange books, where we met my husband. Dinner that night was spaghetti with jarred sauce, I finished a library book, and my husband and I watched two episodes of Supernatural before bed.


SATURDAY

My husband was pretty awesome this day; he took my daughter to gymnastics and I spent almost the entire morning in bed, feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. I did manage to unload the dishwasher and clean the kitchen, but I spent most of the day reading a library book while my husband took my daughter to play at her cousin's house. We watched two episodes of Supernatural before bed, and I spent a good portion of the night awake coughing. :(


SUNDAY

My sister-in-law came over with her son (I don't have a fever and am not throwing up, so they were okay with my germs; my nephew is coughing as well, so it's all good, haha!), so I cleaned up the kitchen and ran the dishwasher before they arrived. The kids played, and I finally finished the mitten I started knitting for my daughter over Thanksgiving weekend (I'll put up a post of the set). 

After they left, I really wanted to read my library book, but instead I dozed during my daughter's short naptime, since that's what my body decided it wanted. My husband and daughter cleaned up her room in the search for those missing library books, and I decided to make another calm, thorough search of the downstairs, where I found those two books squished in the shelf with our own books. SUCCESS!!! 

They headed off to a playplace at a mall about 20 minutes away from us. I picked up my son from his friend's house and relaxed for a while before helping him with his Music Theory homework. My husband and I watched two episodes of Supernatural before bed.

What a crummy week, right??? I'm feeling a little better this morning. My cough quieted down a bit and I would've slept perfectly fine if it hadn't been for my cat somehow getting himself stuck in the handle of a plastic bag at 3 am. Getting him out wasn't difficult, it came right off, but I have a hard time falling back asleep if I wake up, so I was awake until after 4 am. Eesh.

My son has his big holiday choir concert this week on Thursday, so I'm looking forward to attending that (a few weeks ago at the musical, I told my mom, "The holiday concert is coming- get ready for me to get sick!" Lo and behold, here I am! I have a nasty cough for this concert EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. So frustrating, and embarrassing when I'm hacking away during a solemn song). Otherwise, I'm just hoping for a more productive week around the house- at least more productive than this week has been!

I hope your week was better than mine!!! :)