I haven't read many pregnancy books or memoirs in the last 20 years, even though there was a time before that where I voraciously consumed them for a while. There as a lot here to really like and also places where even I felt like it might have been TMI. For folks who like those gory detailed books like Stiff or The Book of Eels, this book is for you!  I love the raw honesty and her take on the complexity of pregnancy and birthing, even while I cringed in places it went farther than I cared for. I do always love normalizing the many ways that bodies birth and the Big Feelings that are experienced while trying to navigate the judgment and pressure of growing babies.

For people in that phase of life, I can see this being a great resource, but otherwise I am not so sure it is worth the time.

Not not recommend.  

This book was a slog. More than 700 pages of pretty dry biographical writing was a lot to get through, but I definitely learned a lot. I would say that I had came in with a pretty negative opinion about Hoover, both as a person and as a president, and after reading the book, I have to say that was based on a ton of misinformation.  

Orphaned at a young age, he was taken in by Quaker relatives in Oregon who cared and provided for him.  He learned the value of honesty, hard work, and public service -- all of which he held fast to his entire life.  I had no idea his commitment to ending hunger and his work in getting food distribution systems in place for civilian populations impacted by war and economic instability.  I was impressed at the value he placed on community service and his early use of media to influence social change rather than through legislation was fascinating, as well as the ways in which it backfired against him.

Having seen the play and movie Annie more times than I can count, I associate Hoover strongly with what I thought was his empty political promises: a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. The idea that he fundamentally believed that everyone should be fed and that we had the capacity to make sure that no one went hungry and that everyone's prosperity should rise together was completely lost on me before reading the book.  I didn't understand that his commitment to everyone collectively tightening their belts for the good of the community during hard times was used against him in the way it was.  The politics of that was fascinating.

His relationship with his very independent wife was equally interesting, as she controlled the finances and essentially lived where we wanted and did as she pleased while he pursued his career around the world.
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I can't say that I would necessarily recommend the book -- and certainly not for the average reader-- but for political or historical buff, this is actually a really good read.

​Not not recommended.

Having the information in this book probably makes it worth reading.  The writing is rough.  Much of the book feels like a 5 paragraph essay, where there is a vague opening paragraph that tells us what the essay is going to tell us, then spends three paragraphs with introductory sentences giving an overview of the forthcoming paragraph, and then a paragraph summing up what has been told to you.  It is unfortunate that this format means the material in the book has been made into a book instead of into a long essay.  So much of the book should just have been cut.  I was so bored as paragraphs, maybe chapters, were spent telling us that we should came about indigenous folks from Central and South America without telling us why or giving us the details of the ways in which they have been oppressed and excluded.  The points in the book where we finally got to the details of these things were really interesting.  But getting there was so painfully slow going that what I really want is for everyone to spend time learning about the topic, but in a different, more efficient format.

Not not recommended.

This is the rare memoir that really explores a childhood of abuse and neglect with raw insight.  The poverty, emotional abuse, assaults, and neglect that these kids experience is couched in the context of the emotional highs of being in a family struggling with mental health and addiction.  The systemic failures of schools, child welfare, and communities are rampant and painful.  Even as we can see what is coming, it still is a shock to hear related.

It isn't as easy as providing housing, since much of the time the parents made choices to live in cars or uninhabitable spaces when housing was available.  They made decisions to prioritize adventure and a counter-cultural lifestyles at the expense of stability, feeding themselves candy and alcohol while the children actually starved. They moved when child welfare became involved, made the children leave behind their most precious possessions for no reason, and vacillated between telling the children they were smarter and better than everyone and vicious teardowns.  

All of the abuse their mother experienced at the hands of their father existed in contrast to his sometimes adventurous, carefree, fun-loving charm in ways that caused so much confusion for the kids.  While their mother was experiencing this violence, though, she failed to protect them not only from their father, but also from sexual abuse by the random people that circulated around them.  The layers of trauma the kids experienced and lack of outside support to put it in perspective is well described here, culminating in a moment in college where the author is taking a class on poverty.  When discussing homelessness, the teacher calls on her to discuss the causes and she responds that sometimes, people just chose that lifestyle. This was absolutely consistent not only with her childhood, but also with her parents' situation at the time she was taking that class.  The teacher shames her in front of the class, asking, "What do you know about poverty and homelessness?" and once again, no one steps up to validate her experience or provides her with support.  It was just a absolutely heartbreaking that even when she is building this new life that might pull her out of that poverty, this is what she is met with.

I was disappointed that the ending didn't do much to tie up themes and bring things together in the way I have come to expect from a really good book.  Granted, this is harder to do in a memoir of a life that is still being lived, but I nevertheless was left unfulfilled in the end.  Even with that, I think it is worth reading.

​Recommend.

This is a story about stories, a sort-of memoir that writes about writing.  I really liked the premise of the book, which, in a nutshell, is to notice the stories we tell ourselves and others about our lives and to think about how those stories impact us and those around us.  I loved the narrative that reminds us to break intergenerational cycles of storytelling that harm us and our children. The indigenous lens focused perspectives I don't often read.  There was so much to appreciate here and to reflect on. 

The only problem was that the book did not draw me in.  It took me a very long time to finish. It was like the opposite of a page-turner--I got stuck on parts, put it down, and forgot to come back to it. It's slow pace, reflective voice while soothing and thoughtful just could not keep me engaged. The fact that this made me feel like it was a personal failing of mine that I could not mount the kind of love for this book that many people I really respect did just made me feel insufficient, which is of course a reflection on me and not the book, but nevertheless leave me unable to recommend the book, despite how much I really wanted to be the kind of person who would recommend it.

​Not recommended.

The premise of this book is that sleep is important and the entire world would be a better place for everyone if we all slept more.  I particularly loved some of the facts that have come from the research and there were a lot of suggestions that I would love to see implemented. For example, everyone knows and research supports that we need sleep to heal from all types of physical and mental difficulties.  So, why aren't hospitals designed to facilitate sleep?  With so many useless beeps and alarms that just get ignored anyhow, why can't we figure out a way to keep things quiet in the room where a patient is sleeping and have the needed alarms go off at the nurse's station?  Such common sense.  I hadn't thought of that before.

Another thing I learned, which I love, is that we do our very best learning in the time just before we are ready to fall asleep.  The narrator told us that if we fall asleep while he reads the book to us that he won't be offended because 1, sleep is important and 2. knowing that we are learning the most when we are falling asleep means that he is happy that we are learning.  I have to say, it did change how I react when students yawn in class or look like they might be nodding off.  Now, I just look at them and think that is the part of the lesson that they will retain the longest.

All of that said, it took be months to finish this book, which is really unusual for me. I just kept falling asleep and having to go back to pick up where I left off, which was often only a couple of minutes after I started,  The narrator really lulled me to sleep fast.  Because I was borrowing it from the library, I had to reorder it multiple times--waiting for ages since there is a long long waitlist for it. And I most definitely could not read it while driving or getting exercise or really doing anything other than nodding off.  Given how much trouble I had finishing it or staying focused enough on it to stay awake, I don't know that I can really recommend it, unless you are looking for something lovely and interesting to listen to as you enter your most effective learning window before you fall asleep.

​Not not recommended.

I wasn't sure what to make of this book when I started it.  The first half of the book is a fairly dry history of the KKK in the mid-west in the 1920's. The subtitle of the book is The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, so I kept waiting for the woman who stopped them to show up in the story.  She definitely did not show up the way I was expecting. 

I think we all know that there is a correlation between men who join the KKK and men who rape and assault women, but this book is a brutal account of that part of their history. We don't talk enough about this connection. This book explores that and focuses on  an unusual court trial.

Well worth the read.

Recommend.

Once in a while a new biography is released about someone I know nothing about that tells the story of a part of history that I don't know anything about that just blows me away. This WWII spy story was published in 2019, but I didn't hear about it until this year and I really want everyone to read it. I have been sharing this story with lots of people because it is inspiring and so unknown.

Virginia Hall was an American woman living in France before and after it was occupied by the Nazi regime and she developed a shockingly effective network of spies and intelligent agents. The sexism was blatant and adding to that was the discrimination she experienced as an amputee. Her network included sex workers and nuns, farmers and shopkeepers, locals and immigrants, and the everyone underestimated her, if they even noticed her. She used this to her advantage in the most clever ways. She was committed to fighting fascism from the inside and she was a brilliant strategist.  I was inspired by her willingness to stay and return even when she after her cover was compromised -- going so far as to have her teeth filed so she would look different. That she managed to hide in plain sight, even with her disability reflects both her braveness and the discrimination all around her.

This is a profile in anti-fascist courage that is a must read, especially in an era where examples of bravery should be celebrated.  Read it!

Highly recommend.

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​By the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this is a captivating read about Venice, particularly in the context of the fire that destroyed La Fenice Opera House in the late 1990s.  While to a large extent focused on who started the fire and why, this book branches out from the main storyline in interesting ways, painting a detailed portrait of a unique city. Filled with politics, culture, history, and, of course, an unsolved mystery, I loved not only the exquisite writing, but the interviews and depicts of people.  Instead of being a distraction, the side stories were just as interesting as the main fire plot.

Highly recommend.

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Written in 2015, I couldn't remember if I had read this years ago when it was released or if I had just heard about it and read excerpts, so I dug in and read it in its entirety and it holds up.  In fact, almost all of the main topics covered in this book about living beyond the gender binary and heteronormativity to which our systemic structures are beholden could have been written today.  These topics were not new in 2015, but this book was written at a time when the emerging, radical ideas from the era that preceded it had been academicalized and solidified with enduring language and a coherent world view that has stuck. 

This memoir is steeped in Queer theory and is well worth a read.

Recommend.

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