Recent Non-YA Reads

March 30, 2016 |

Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey

Every once in a very long while, I’ll willingly read a piece of nonfiction longer than a hundred pages. This was my most recent pick, which was gifted to me by someone who knows how much I love Indian food. Madhur Jaffrey is an Indian food writer, chef, and actress, and this is her food-laced memoir of growing up in India in the 1930s and 1940s. It’s interesting both for its descriptions of the food, which are mouth-watering (a couple dozen recipes included in the back) as well as the details of her life during that time in that particular place. She writes of huge dinners where forty or more of her extended family were in attendance, and of how they got everyone in a single car to go downtown to shop (three layers of people, a child sitting on an adult lap who in turn sat on another lap). She writes extensively of the commingling of various cultures – mainly British, Muslim, and Hindu, and how her family took bits and pieces of all three. She writes about the Partition and its subsequent violence as well. Madhur’s memoir is a good pick for foodies (I craved mangoes badly after reading this and haven’t stopped craving them) as well as those who are simply interested in this part of the world during the 30s and 40s. Madhur’s writing is steady and descriptive, providing an individual account of everyday life in a time and place many of us here are not familiar with.

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead

I’m a little torn on Rebecca Stead. I thought her Newbery winner, When You Reach Me, was a lovely book and a great pick for the Newbery, but I can’t say that I loved it. Ditto First Light, which had a similar sort of subtle SF bent to it. Goodbye Stranger is probably my least favorite of hers, though I will admit that it’s well-written and finely crafted and would certainly appeal to a certain kind of middle grade reader. Such a reader wouldn’t have been me at that age, though. It consists of two different story threads that ultimately converge, one in third person and another in second person. Second person narration is tricky, but overall this worked, and quick readers will pick up on who the “you” is soon enough. It’s difficult to say exactly what this story is about; there’s no good elevator pitch for it. It’s about friendship and bullying and first love. It features a girl, Bridge, who was in a terrible car accident a few years ago and is still recovering from how it changed her life, in ways not readily visible. It also features her two friends, one of whom is being pressured to send progressively more revealing photos to a boy. And then there’s Sherm, who befriends Bridge and has his own backstory. If I had to come up with a pithy description of the plot, I’d say it’s about a group of middle schoolers growing up. Which isn’t terribly descriptive. It doesn’t have enough of a plot to satisfy seventh grade Kimberly, but I’m sure there are other seventh graders who will enjoy reading about these kids’ ordinary – but not necessarily boring – lives.

Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick

Though I buy all the picture books for my workplace, I don’t get much time to actually sit down and look through them. I made a point to pick this one up after it won the Caldecott, and I can see why it got the honor. Sophie Blackall’s illustrations are quite child-friendly, I think, but what stuck out to me most is actually Mattick’s story. I had no idea Winnie the Pooh was based on an actual bear, and Mattick’s real-life connection to the real-life Winnie is lovely to read about. The way she frames it – as a conversation between herself and her son, ultimately revealing to him that the man in the story is her own grandfather, whom he is named for – is sentimental without being saccharine. It turns the traditional bedtime story into something very personal and profound.

Recent Non-Fiction Reads

August 27, 2015 |

One of the benefits of slowing down my reading this summer has been wandering through a list I’ve kept of books I thought sounded interesting but that I hadn’t yet picked up. Most of the titles on this list are non-fiction and most of them are adult non-fiction. It’s a category of books I’ve always loved, but I don’t gravitate toward them as much as I once did.

Over the last few months, though, I’ve found myself seeking them out pretty voraciously. It’s not just in the act of slowing down, but it’s also because I’ve been working really hard to readjust some of the flow and focus of my life. I’ve really become invested in trying new things and pushing my thinking and creative limits in new ways. This has manifested in taking some risks and completing projects I’ve thought about but never found the [fill in the blank excuse] to do. This summer, I relearned how to cross stitch and picked up needle felting. I signed myself up for a class on pursuing your dreams for the fall, and I am really ready to dive right in to trying my hand at art journaling. I did a massive house cleaning that required renting a dumpster for hauling away the things I no longer needed, wanted, or had room for in my life.

Choosing to pursue the things that are interesting me at the moment means that I am finally picking up those books on the list. They tend to fall under the category of interesting reads on specific topics. I’d call them microhistories, but it’s not quite the correct term, nor does it encompass the books outside of this particular category I’ve been reading.

Here’s a look at some recent non-fiction I’ve read. Each of these ticked a box for me in some way, and I’m really eager to keep pushing through my list and reading more books that are outside of my comfort/quick pick zone. Having decided to finally try my hand at reading on my phone and using the free trial at Oyster (note: that’s not an affiliate link!), I made a big old list of books that have caught my attention and I’d like to dedicate some time to.

The Monopolists by Mary Pilon

How much do you know about the history of Monopoly? This was a fast-paced read that totally took everything I thought I knew about the classic game and turned it on its head. And, perhaps most interesting and/or infuriating about this, was the history of the game was one of removing the female creator.

In 1904, Lizzie Magie created a game that would become the model for Monopoly. Yet, her side of the story was never told when the Parker Brothers began producing it during the Great Depression. Anyone who has purchased the game — at least, I think it’s still the case in modern editions — knows the “story” behind the game comes in the box. But it’s incomplete, and Pilon’s book offers up the underbelly of greed and scandal.

At times, the legal elements of the book weigh down the narrative, but one of the things that works so well for me when it comes to non-fiction is that these parts are easy to breeze through without feeling like I’m missing out. This book lent itself perfectly to that. The parts that really fascinated me I could linger over and the less-interesting elements I could pass by without feeling like I wasn’t getting something from the read.

An easy, readable book that fans of board games, social history, and the overlooked contributions of women to business should pick up.

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble by Zac Bissonnette

Readers of a certain age probably remember the huge beanie baby phenomenon of the late 90s/early 2000s. This book takes a deep dive into the craze, including what caused it and what eventually made the bubble pop. It’s particularly fascinating for anyone who grew up in the Chicago area; I hadn’t realized that all of this sort of originated in my own backyard. It made a lot of the “craze” that surrounded the trend make more sense to me now, as an adult. I have memories of my mom taking me to O’Hare airport — back in the days before security! — so we could hit up the beanie baby store that was inside.

What made this book so compelling was just how rigid and gross Ty Warner was as a leader of his company. Bissonnette isn’t particularly sympathetic, but the way Ty is rendered — and his ego — is well done and eye-opening. “Limited” and “retired” beanie babies were little more than tools used to raise profits for the company, which anyone who understands basic business understands, but what made this fascinating was how those who collected these, hoping to make a profit, were the ones ultimately put out the most, as their toys didn’t do what they thought they would do. The insight into how Ty worked with McDonald’s for the Happy Meal beanies was a particularly interesting element of the book.

Remember old and new face teddies and how having an “old face” bear meant you had something valuable? The reason the bear’s face changed was 100% because of cuteness. Ty’s focus was on creating the cutest toys possible at a price point that virtually anyone could buy into, though his choice in the stores the toys were available in was very purposeful. You couldn’t get them at large retailers, but rather, at specialty stores only.

This was easily one of the better non-fiction titles I’ve read, and I would recommend it to anyone curious about the behind-the-scenes of a huge phenomenon.

Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off The Grid and Beyond The American Dream by William Powers

I’m fascinated and appalled by the tiny house trend. I hate-watch House Hunters: Tiny Homes pretty passionately. It took me a long time to sort of put my finger on what it was that really annoyed me about the trend and the people who are living this way, and it comes down to this: the same people who are being “eco-conscious” and “budget conscious” in purchasing tiny homes are the same people who would quickly ridicule the people who live in trailer homes because they have no other options. It’s exceptionally privileged, especially as many tiny housers end up getting free land from family to park their custom-built shacks.

Enter Powers and his radical plan to live in a 12×12 tiny house outside of Durham, North Carolina. When I started to read this one, I hesitated a bit, worried that it would be about how enlightened he became to this new way of life and how phenomenally important it was to do things this way in order to be a good human. But this book is not that at all. Instead, Powers talks about the very things this lifestyle affords people who are privileged, and he has enough self-awareness to pick apart the choices he’s made in his own life to see how much of a White Man With Privilege legacy he’s left. The insights are smart and thought provoking, and they don’t shy away from talking about race and racism, including what he witnesses on the property where the tiny home is parked. It isn’t his home, either — it’s one he’s borrowing while a local well known doctor who owns the place is off gridding out west.

What really resonated with me, and the biggest take away from this book, was how Powers talks about what purpose we as people should have on Earth and how it is we should figure out our calling. He does this through noting that the tiny house life and choosing to “do less” isn’t the answer. It can be a means to an answer and it can be a distraction to those who think it’s an answer. Rather, everyone has to have periods where they focus and think through their lives and what it is they can do to improve the world. His own moment of enlightenment wasn’t about how he traveled to other countries and “helped the poor” — in fact, he says he regrets some of the White Savioring that he took part in during those trips — but rather, about how he can enter into the world, respecting the world, and offering himself wholly to it as it is. For him, it’s about doing one nice, selfless thing per day for someone else. It’s simple, but it’s powerful.

I loved Powers’s tone and how he navigates himself through complex social and sociopolitical/economic issues. I’m eager to pick up another book of his because I feel like a lot of how he approaches life offers up much for me to chew on. And that’s what he gets at, too: no one can tell you the answers to your life’s mission and no one can tell you the answers. It’s your responsibility to think about it for yourself, listening to others who have forged their paths and taking/leaving from that what does/doesn’t/won’t/can’t work for you. The answer to his life wasn’t in the tiny house.

All three books are available now and were borrowed from either the library or via Oyster.

Audio Review: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

June 9, 2015 |

I mentioned that Under the Banner of Heaven was next on my list after reading a couple of memoirs by Carolyn Jessop, who escaped the FLDS. Krakauer’s book focuses on the murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica in 1984 by her brothers-in-law Ron and Dan Lafferty. The Lafferty brothers were not members of the FLDS, but they subscribed to many similar fundamentalist Mormon views, most notably polygamy (aka “celestial marriage”). For a period of time, they were involved with a group called the Crossfield School of Prophets, but mostly they acted separately from any recognized religion or cult. Ron soon came to believe that God told him to kill Brenda, whom he believed was responsible for his own wife leaving him.

While Krakauer’s investigation of the double murder is the central part of the book, the whole scope is actually quite broad. His intention was to explore “violent faith” as it occurs in fundamentalist Mormons. He chose Mormonism for this exploration because he grew up around a large Mormon population, though he was not Mormon himself. He writes about this in the last chapter of the book, and it’s strongly implied that the conclusions he draws about the origins of Mormon extremism are applicable to other faiths.

To get to those origins, Krakauer takes us on a long journey through Mormonism’s history. The modern, mainstream Mormon church vociferously distances itself from people like the Laffertys and the FLDS, but the seeds of the fundamentalist sects were planted in their shared history. Krakauer writes about Joseph Smith, the Mountain Meadows massacre, Brigham Young, the many violent clashes between Mormons and non-Mormons before the trek to Utah, the introduction of polygamy to the religion and its eventual abandonment of the practice due to pressure from the federal government (and its subsequent acceptance into the mainstream American culture). He brings up the point that because Mormonism is so new and came of age in the modern era, it’s subjected to a great deal of scrutiny, and its skeletons are harder to hide. Consequently, I knew about much of this before I read the book, but I still found Krakauer’s exploration of the personalities behind Mormonism’s founding immensely interesting. What draws me to nonfiction about cults (and religions in general) is my desire to understand what makes people believe what they do, especially when such beliefs are not widely accepted. Krakauer write at length about Smith and Young and their magnetic appeal, as well as the appeal of the messages they spread.

Krakauer also touches on a variety of Mormon fundamentalist offshoots, including the FLDS and the School of Prophets. He writes briefly about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping as well, and his interest seems to be not just the organized Mormon fundamentalist cults like the FLDS, but also how mainstream Mormons’ beliefs give way to individual fundamentalist beliefs, such as was the case with the Laffertys.

Krakauer talked at length with Ron Lafferty, who is in prison serving a life sentence (his brother Dan was executed). He’s quoted in the book frequently, and his account of the murders and the “revelation” he received from God are disturbing. I normally stay away from true crime because of this, and I can’t say I enjoyed the details of Ron’s acts, but what he revealed to Krakauer about his thought process and the development of his religious beliefs (which have changed in radical ways since he went to prison) was fascinating. I also found myself picturing what it would be like to be in Krakauer’s shoes, sitting across from Ron as he talked about his crimes.

This was published in 2003, four years before Carolyn Jessop wrote her memoir Escape. It was interesting to read the snippets of FLDS history with the knowledge of what Jessop would write about a few years later and the raid on the YFZ ranch that would soon follow. I wonder how Krakauer’s own book would have changed if it were written after these events (though the FLDS is not the focus).

Krakauer narrates the book himself, and he’s well-suited to it. He infuses a lot of personality into it, and he’s got a few unique mannerisms that I found interesting. Often when he’s quoting someone (Ron in particular, but also others not involved in violent acts, but merely witnesses to it), he’ll emphasize consonants. He’ll draw out the first “n” in anything and the “t” in pretty (as in “pretty much”). Sometimes it makes the dialogue come across as slightly mocking (very effective for Dan), sometimes just musical – it’s got a rhythm to it that is often missing from audiobooks narrated by their authors.

If you’re interested in the subject matter, I highly recommend this one.

Audiobook borrowed from my local library.