May 2022 - Dogear Diary

Forest Floor

made by Sure-Lox ~ artist unknown ~ 1,000 pieces

I’m disappointed the box doesn’t name the artist of this puzzle- the picture is really lovely. The puzzle itself, not quite so much. It’s one that has almost no shape variation (two knobs, two indents on every piece), it’s a bit dark and overly shiny so hard to see details or colors on individual pieces until they’re in the puzzle (like the birds in fern one) then they jump out sharp. Except the reddish fox fur, of course! It’s one I bought used, hoping the previous owner was honest when he said there were no missing pieces. Wrong. Bottom corner, four absent. Doesn’t quite bother me enough to make a patch. I can’t decide which was harder to do- all that moss, or the ground with the tiny twigs.

Gift via Ebay purchase

Tags: puzzles

This Much Country

by Kristin Knight Pace

Memoir by a woman who right out of high school fell in love with a man she met through an online dating site. They married but it didn’t work out. The breakup and eventual divorce devastated her. Looking for a new start, she moved to Alaska where she took a job living in someone’s cabin to care for his sled dogs during the winter. She learned to survive the rugged harsh conditions, and found a great love of the deeply cold, widely open landscape, and of mushing sled dogs. Decided to run in the Iditarod. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that far in her story. Not sure why. It’s the kind of book you’d think I’d love. Personally, I wasn’t that interested in her love life and breakup woes, but slogged through the first few chapters hoping it would get better when it was more about Alaska and living with the sled dogs. It did, but only marginally. Something about the prose, in spite of how much the landscape and nature filled her soul, left me feeling distracted, mind wandering everywhere else. Particularly the way she put words in the dogs’ mouths- literally, in conversational quotes like a person was talking in the room, but with odd spelling (think “lolcat” cute) it really threw me off. Every single time it came up. Which got more and more frequent. Sorry, couldn’t read this one.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: Abandoned

327 pages, 2019

Tags: 0/5- Abandoned, Animals Nonfiction, Bios / Memoirs

Beyond Words

What Animals Think and Feel

by Carl Safina

Discusses the depth of animal perception and emotions. The main ones featured in the book are elephants, wolves, chimpanzees, dolphins, orcas and other whales. Quite a few others were mentioned too: parrots, crows, dogs, octopus, tortoises and so on. A large section of the first section is from time the author spent accompanying an elephant researcher, viewing the elephant families in a protected park while she told him what was going on among them. The strength of their families, their tenderness towards the young, their apparent curiosity about and sometimes concern for humans, was striking. When the book moves on to wolves, it’s a lot about how much they need to roam, to travel, to be doing things. Again, how important family and care of the young is to wolves. And the section about whales, also featuring many passages where Safina describes conversations and time spent with a whale researcher, also has much about their family bonds, intelligence, and awareness of humans. I had already read in many places before, some of the examples in this book that display the keen awareness and clear thought processes animals are capable of. Not that I minded hearing them again, and from so eloquent a writer! But the final pages, about dolphins and whales, included a lot of information on how terribly we have treated the animals. We haven’t been very kind to elephants and wolves, either- but the stories of whales were new to me, so I was struck with appalling shame (for the human species) and anger. This book covers so much material, I can’t begin to describe it all. It was moving, eye-opening, and saddening at the same time. I borrowed it as an audiobook from the public library. This one was narrated by the author- which I liked, except that he spoke a bit too quickly. It would have been easier to follow if the pace was a tad slower, for me at least. This is one I definitely want to read again as paper in hand, and add to my own library collection too.

Rating: 4/5

496 pages, 2015

More opinions:
Book Chase
Rhapsody in Books
anyone else?

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads

Why is the Penis Shaped Like That?

and Other Reflections on Being Human

by Jesse Bering

I’ve not yet read Mary Roach, and David Sedaris sometimes makes me squirm- but I picked this one up at random off a library shelf because well, the cover immediately caught my eye (it’s my favorite color), and the title was sure attention grabbing. It’s a bunch of essays that I think were originally magazine articles, written by a research psychologist. The chapters are short, speckled with humor and sometimes really get too personal. A lot of them are about taboo subjects- why the shape or mechanism of our private parts have evolved that way- men and women alike. What’s different about the brain in people who are attracted to things the rest of us find inappropriate- feet, animals, young children, the same gender, pain. Why do we have hair down there, and its texture. Why do we get acne and other primates don’t. What are the circumstances and mindset that can lead someone to end their own life. It even veers into subjects that don’t seem related to the rest- such as laughter in rats and gorillas, the cruelty of teenage girls to their peers, and some odd discussions on religious fervor. I didn’t always agree with the author’s opinion on things, but it was interesting to think about some of this stuff. He lists a bunch of notes and sources but some reviewers question the science behind his conclusions. Note: the author is homosexual, which very clearly influences his attitude and perception of the topics. This book is such a mix- lighthearted, snarky, astonishing and cringeworthy by turns. Answers some questions on things you might have had fleeting curiosity about, including many I had never ever considered but now know of in spite of myself. Frustratingly, there’s a few essays where he just muses on the question and never has any answers or explanations at all.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5

301 pages, 2012

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Nonfiction (general)

Never Out of Season

How Having the Food We Want When We Want It
Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future

by Rob Dunn

The title is a bit misleading: this book isn’t just about how our main food crops have become monocultures of single varieties, and why that’s bad news. It’s about so many other details and nuances in how the plants we depend upon for food are interconnected with the lives of pests, pathogens and pollinators and how they are affected by climate variations. In ways that are far more subtle and delicately balanced that I had imagined. It’s about how the seemingly casual choices of explorers centuries ago influenced the types of foods we know today. It’s about how diversity is fast disappearing in plant species across the world and why that’s so alarming. It’s about plant genetics and breeding, the scramble of scientists to understand food webs and plant diseases, the cause of disasters in the past like the Irish potato famine, how crucial it is to avoid another in the future- yet we seem to be lining everything up for such a calamity to happen again. It’s about how agriculture arose, and changed drastically very recently, and why that has caused funding to shift away from the very scientists who might save us from loosing our food plants. It’s about the importance of saving nature- not because wild animals are interesting or have their own right to live, but because there are so many unknowns out there that might be key to adaptations in a fast-changing world. I thought most of the discussions in this book would be about food crops, and for the most part they are: bananas, cocoa, coffee, corn, wheat, wine grapes etc. But there’s also a chapter all about rubber trees, diseases that strike them, and problems on rubber plantations. Lots of history and the importance (and amazing dedication) of seed collectors too. I think the page I found most striking though, standing out in my mind hours after finishing the book, was the description of a room the author visited- a museum collection of plant pathogens and diseases- pieces of leaf, stem, seed, branch, etc. all afflicted in some way, arranged around the room in disarray- for the collection was no longer properly maintained or cared for. He said it was “an unkempt wilderness of our oblivion” and therein was a piece of wood which the elderly curator showed him:

On the wood grew a serpentine monster of a fungus. “That was a fungus from the collection that escaped and started to eat the building”, he explained. The same collection, in other words, that could shed light on some of the most significant events in human history could also eat at civilization. The piece of wood had been preserved, the curator noted, because it emphasized the power of fungi and, I supposed, the fallibility of humans.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5

323 pages, 2017

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, Gardening / Food, Nonfiction (general)

The Children of the King

by Sonya Hartnett

I read another book off my eleven-year-old’s library stack. And this one was really good. Now I’m going to look for all other books my library might have by this author. I love her way with words, and the characters are so well drawn. The style and wording makes me think of both Frances Hodgson Burnett and Helen Griffiths- a rich setting, people who are both kindly and cruel, sharpness in the turn of phrase and keen observation of children’s natures.

It’s set during both WWII and much further back in history- a story is told within this story, and eventually you see how they interconnect (though the ending was a bit vague). Two siblings, Jeremy and Cecily, are sent with their mother away from the dangers of London to stay in the countryside with an uncle, who has a grand old house. Another child evacuee joins them, due to Cecily’s whim to help out, her desire for a playmate and, to be honest- to have someone she can boss around. (Only it doesn’t work out that way!) Cecily is not the smartest child, and not always the nicest, either. But she felt so real to me. She and May wander the grounds, while Jeremy frets about not being allowed to go fight, or at least do something for the war effort. On the edges of the estate in the forest, the children discover a ruined castle. And two boys hiding there. At first they think the boys are also evacuees from the city, run away from their host family perhaps. But their manner is odd, their clothing too fine and out of style . . . May is the one who realizes who they might be, when the uncle tells them about two princes who were shut up in a tower four hundred years ago and never seen again . . . a piece of history I had heard before, but never quite with this slant. I wasn’t expecting a ghost story- but by the time the book got that far, I was too interested in the characters to leave it be. Cecily struggles to face difficulties and hardships, Jeremy fights with his mother and runs away, the boys in the ruined castle are sometimes there and sometimes not, fading and fretful. There are discussions and debates about war- the morality of killing an enemy, the wastefulness of lives, suffering and destruction. A lot about power. How power corrupts, how powerless the children feel in the throes of larger events and especially, told more subtly through the actions of the children themselves, how power can only be held over someone who allows you to. Sometimes it gets a bit dark for a children’s story. Although troublesome and sad in parts, with children who act unpleasantly, it was beautifully told. The ambiguous ending puzzles rather than annoys me. I’m glad to have read it.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5

266 pages, 2012

More opinions:
Charlotte’s Library
Waking Brain Cells
Becky’s Book Reviews
The Children’s War
Semicolon

Tags: Current Reads, Historical Fiction, Juvenile Fic

The Chicken Chronicles

Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories

by Alice Walker

The chapters are very short, taken from the author’s blog (I didn’t know she had one). Mostly they’re about her chickens, but veer into other subjects as well, such as visiting the Dalai Lama. The quality- or at least my personal reaction to them- varies widely. On the one hand, her observations of chicken behavior, relating little incidents, bemoaning the death of some (one got its head shut in a door, another was eaten by a predator) and extolling the beauty of their feathers, made for a nice read. I even learned some things (chicken combs get brighter in color when they are laying eggs, which makes me think how fishes color up vividly when they’re breeding). On the other hand, she gets so effusively enthusiastic and emotional about the chickens I’m either scratching my head or feeling a tad uncomfortable. She ties chicken musings into spirituality and life lessons- some of which seemed spot-on to me, others left me baffled. I felt like I was reading a book written by someone whose life experience and though process are very different from my own- something to respect and admire, but I just couldn’t connect sometimes. Interesting that for all the love she has for her chickens (she writes them letters from her travels and calls herself their ‘Mommy’), the author will occasionally eat chicken. Sometimes she feels guilty about this, sometimes not. She writes a bit about the morality of eating animals, mostly leaning to the opinion that if they were treated humanely, it’s okay (as far as I could tell).

Some things that made me laugh, or sit up and think: she says gophers eat chickens (I don’t think this is true). She has a favorite emotion: astonishment. I have favorite books, foods, people, places to visit- but emotions to feel? Honestly I never thought about this before! She also kept using this term “space nuts” that she made up (referring to people) which she explained but I didn’t really get it.

Audiobook- read by the author herself, which was lovely. Three hours forty-five minutes listening time. Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5

208 pages, 2012

More opinions: Farm Lane Books Blog
anyone else?

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Nonfiction, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads

TBR of readers’ beloveds

I found through Annie of A Bookish Type, an article at Tor about books readers love, that they feel nobody else has ever heard of (much less read). The richness is in the comments, where other readers chimed in with all their beloved, unknown favorites. I myself left an embarrassingly long comment. And wrote down a long list of titles that have now caught my interest. To my happy surprise, the first two are even in my public library’s catalog!

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
My Teacher is An Alien by Bruce Coville

of course, most of them are not found at my library:

Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea
Ludo and the Star Horse by Mary Stewart
The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman
Prince Ombra by Roderick MacLeish
Rude Tales and Glorious by Nicholas Seare
The Unicorn Window by Lynette Muir
The Beginning of Unbelief by Robin Jones
Terror Wears a Feathered Cloak by Thelmar Crawford
Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly
The Hunting of Wilberforce Pike by Molly Lefebure
David and the Phoenix by Edward Ormondroyd
Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliffe
Spirit Gate by Kate Elliot
Two Thumb Thomas by Barbara Freeman
I Will Go Barefoot All Summer for You by Katie Lyle
The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan

The Vision of Stephen by Lolah Burford
The Light Maze by Joan North
Lydia, Queen of Palestine by Uri Orlev
Silver Chief by Jack O’Brien
The Long Afternoon of Earth by Brian Aldiss
Land of the Lord High Tiger by Roger Green
The Blind Knight by Gail van Asten

I really feel like I might have read My Teacher is An Alien and Silver Chief when I was a kid, but I have almost no recollection so a re-read would feel like new. Happy news: of all the books not available at my public library, I found two on Project Gutenberg, and many many more at Internet Archive- except those I can’t download for keeps, just for a two-week borrowing period. So will have to plan when to access them, but I’m thrilled that I can!

Tags: TBR additions

Bald in the Land of Big Hair

(a true story)

by Joni Rodgers

This book is also about cancer. It has a completely different tone than the last one. The author’s personality is pretty much a polar opposite, she was an actress (teaching children theater classes, doing voices on the air, commercials, etc) married in a loving relationship with two children when cancer struck. It’s so similar to the last read in terms of describing the shock of diagnosis, the difficult treatments, the awkwardness of people not knowing what to say, absolute drain of being so ill for so very long. The strangeness she felt when it seemed to finally be over: she’d made it, she’d survived, but fighting off cancer had consumed her life for so many years- nothing felt the same. Unlike the prior read (I can’t help compare the two so closely)- which seemed to take place in solitude and hospital stays, not much family present in the book- this story is permeated with the author’s family. How terribly hard it was for them. How confused her young children were about some things, totally accepting of others, angry when she was unable to care for them, and so on. All the ups and downs, how they made it through. Especially with her husband. I admit, some of the parts about how cancer treatment affected their love life was told a bit too intimately for my taste! And for such a very long time her relationship with food was affected afterwards. What it’s like to go through this illness and survive it is described in such brutal detail, it can be hard to read- but it’s all lightened by her humor. Jokes everywhere. They didn’t always make sense to me (or make me laugh), but still I think this book might be a keeper, to stay on my shelf, just because it’s such a contrast to the other. Something else took me by surprise- her exploration of faith didn’t bore or exasperate me (my usual reaction nowadays to reading someone’s religious effusions). What she said made sense, I respected and appreciated how she worked her way through re-evaluating life, and also explored some alternative ideas and views along the way (once consulting a shaman, another time visiting a naturopath, for example). It’s a very candid, forthright story about one woman’s journey through the black gulf of cancer and out the other side.

Parallel read: Autobiography of a Face

Rating: 3/5

253 pages, 2001

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Medical/Health

Autobiography of a Face

by Lucy Grealy

Lucy Grealy suffered from cancer in her jaw as a child. It was treated with surgical removal (an entire third of her jawbone), chemotherapy and radiation. She survived the cancer but her face was forever disfigured. It sounds like she spent most of her childhood and young adult years in and out of hospitals, or convalescing at home- years and years of reconstructive surgeries that failed, when the grafts were reabsorbed by her body. It’s difficult to read about the loneliness and pain she endured (including a family that rarely discussed things). But to her those were almost nothing, compared to the mental and emotional suffering by how people saw her afterwards. Such was the internal life of a child, for a long time she didn’t even realize how sick she was, she had no idea what chemo and radiation would do to her body. She found comfort and security in the sameness of the hospitals, being surrounded by other patients, not seen as someone unusual or unattractive there. It was when she returned to school and other kids cruelly made fun of her, that she finally understood how her appearance differed. For a long time after she always hoped that the next surgery would be the one to restore her face, to make her look normal again. She was baffled by women in a plastic surgeon’s office who were there to alter their noses or breasts- thinking she’d be happy to have just regular features like them. College years followed, where she finally found friends who saw past her appearance, where she cultivated an air of otherness, honed her writing skills as a poet, and longed to be loved by someone.

There were also horses. She worked in stables, briefly owned a horse when a friend moved and couldn’t take him (it died suddenly), then had another years later when her parents were able to buy her one. She talks a lot about how comforting it was to be around the animals, to work closely with them. And how restorative the non-judgemental attitude of her co-workers in the stable, people who like her just mostly cared about the horses. On another note, she also found comfort in words, philosophers and poets, explored Buddhism, existentialism and even Christianity. I admit sometimes I didn’t quite get what she meant, her thought process was occasionally obscure to me, but her musings on the nature of beauty, the importance of knowing people for who they are, really struck me. So many painful words, insightful and beautiful ones too

She was friends with Ann Patchett, who wrote about their relationship in a memoir Truth and Beauty. However reading accounts like this makes me have some reservations on reading it or not.

There’s an interview with the author here.

Rating: 4/5

223 pages, 1994

More opinions:
Books on the Brain
Draft No. 4]
anyone else?

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Medical/Health

Month: May 2022

made by Sure-Lox ~ artist unknown ~ 1,000 pieces

What Animals Think and Feel

and Other Reflections on Being Human

How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future

Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories

(a true story)

RATINGS / SUBJECTS:

How Having the Food We Want When We Want It
Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future