Month: June 2022

made by Workman ~ artist Sarah Walsh ~ 1,000 pieces

I liked this one a little better than Dare to Dream, although I had the same issues with skin sensitivity, easily solved by wearing vinyl glove fingertips. This one didn’t have any peeling or damaged knobs. It does have more plants in the picture! and once again, I enjoyed being able to identify so many, in spite of their simplicity: monstera, dracanea, pothos, bird’s nest fern, calathea, pepermoides, maybe a ponytail palm and zygo cactus. And I like to think the plant she’s holding is a bay laurel tree.

from CList- bought used

by Alice Oseman

A book off my pre-teen’s stack. She asked me if it would be “okay” for her, so I agreed to read some of it first, curious myself as I’ve never read a book with an asexual character before. Having started, I kept reading to the end, even though it was rather long. The short chapters (some only a page or two!) were just right for my abbreviated attention span right now (still recovering from the car accident). I suggested my daughter read it when she’s older- there’s plenty of frank discussion on sexuality. (Nothing shocking or offensive, but I think it would make her uncomfortable right now for sure).

The main character is Georgia, who at the end of high school is somewhat dismayed to have never kissed anyone. She loves the idea of romance, but when it comes to experiencing it, nothing works for her. Has she just never met the right person yet? She’s determined to find love while at college, in spite of never having had feelings for anyone before- male or female. Her two best friends are at the same college, and she gets assigned a roommate; soon the four of them are often together, attempting to put on a Shakespeare play. Things get messy and complicated when Georgia rather unwisely decides to use her friends to experiment with her ability to feel attraction. Her roommate and her friend Pip seem to hate each other at first, but just can’t admit they really like each other. It’s not until Georgia comes across a group of LGBTQIA students that she starts to realize that not feeling attracted to anyone might simply be who she is. And that it doesn’t at all mean a diminished life, or one devoid of love, because her friendships can be just as strong and supportive as any romance.

It’s a good story with some nice points about relationships and being considerate of other people feelings (by showing how badly it goes when you’re not). But it kind of dragged on for me. Several parts where other characters explained things to Georgia, felt like an info dump. I didn’t mind too much though. The incredibly short chapters made it easy to dip in and out of this book, which was just what I needed right now.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
426 pages, 2021

More opinions: Good Books and Good Wine
anyone else?

by Tara Westover

It was hard to listen to this book. I found the story compelling, the phrasing adroit, but the descriptions of abuse and horrible injuries, difficult to hear. In this memoir, the author describes growing up in a large family on the side of a mountain in Idaho. Her father was a fundamentalist and survivalist- to the extreme. They stockpiled food, ammunition and gasoline. They shunned government “handouts”, avoided doctors and didn’t send their kids to school. The author says she was homeschooled, but it didn’t sound very structured or consistent. Her father owned a junkyard where he dismantled automobiles and sold the metal for scrap. He made his kids work in the junkyard- there were few safety precautions, and frequent injuries. Some quite severe. At home, her mother (reluctantly at first) trained to be a midwife, used herbs and tinctures to treat people (including her family) and eventually ran a business selling essential oils. Tara suffered a lot of verbal and emotional abuse from her father and older brother, who eventually also turned violent. It’s shocking how much a blind eye the family turned on this behavior. It’s appalling the kind of excuses they made for it. Later on, looking back, Tara suspected that her father suffered from bipolar disorder, and her brother may have started acting violent after a head injury. More shocking than all that, is that she managed to leave this situation.

One brother left the family and managed to go to college, Tara determined to follow suit, even though she’d never been to school at all. She didn’t have a GED, but somehow she studied enough to take the ACT and managed to get into BYU, then later did a term of study abroad at Cambridge and attended Harvard. I’m still not sure how- she didn’t explain much of the culture shock she must have suffered, sitting through her first classes. Interacting with the other students, being ignorant of so much- from basic history to popular culture. The last part of the book becomes very retrospective, as Tara attempts to face her past. She gets counseling, suffers an emotional breakdown, and returns home to confront her family about the abuse- but they for their part seem to think she’s been led astray by the world in her quest for an education. It’s a story that leaves you feeling very unsettled and disturbed, yet admiring too- that she could come so far from such beginnings. Although plenty of people have thrown doubt on her story- saying it’s exaggerated or falsified. A brief look at any stack of reviews online will show you that. I don’t know if any of it is contrived, I just know I was captivated by the words, even when I wanted to turn away.

Borrowed from the public library. Audiobook, 12 hours read by Julia Whelan.

Rating: 4/5
352 pages, 2018

made by Buffalo Games ~ artist Steve Read ~ 750 pieces

This is one of my daughter’s puzzles, that we did together recently. It was fun, though not really my kind of picture. I find the “busy” ones with collections of small items jumbled together kind of a headache- having to peer at the box or provided poster to figure out exactly where that marble or tiny jewel in a corner belongs! We were frustrated at the end, too, because at one point our cat knocked over the puzzle board. Have looked all over the floor and surrounding surfaces, can’t find the last three pieces. The assembly went faster than normal for me, because I had a helper! (She put together all the cats).

borrowed from my daughter

Life Among the Emperors

by Lindsay McCrae

Really good book about a wildlife photographer’s trip to Antarctica to film emperor penguins during harsh winter conditions. This is when the penguins breed and raise their chicks on the sea ice. The author describes first his own background- his interest in nature from a young age, how how he became involved in filmmaking and got the invitation to go to the Antarctic research station. His descriptions of what it was like living on the station for eleven months reminded me a lot of Ice Bound. McCrae faced a lot of the same struggles dealing with the long separation from his family (he’d just gotten married and his first son was born while he was on this trip!), the feeling of isolation and confinement, the very very cold weather conditions, even the boredom with food when supplies started to run low and meals became monotonous. But he also tells how his team and other people at the station kept their spirits up (one of his perks was learning to ride a unicycle he’d brought along).

Mostly though, the book is about his work filming the penguins. First finding the best way to approach the colony, dealing with the cold- both enduring its assault on their bodies and how it affected their gear, and timing their trips out onto the ice to capture key moments in the penguin’s breeding cycle. He was keen to see how the penguins courted and mated, to witness an egg being born, to see the moment a female returning from the sea- where she’d been feeding while the male brooded the egg- saw her own chick for the first time. My favorite parts, as always, were reading about the animal behavior and interactions, especially the unexpected incidents, though of course not all were pleasant. He witnessed an adult penguin kidnapping another’s chick- behavior that had never been seen before. He went out to the colony during a severe storm to film how the male penguins huddled to survive the cold. He saw a bunch of penguins get trapped in a gully when a crack opened in the ice, and after observing a long time, tried to help them escape. Not all chicks or even adults survived the conditions, and when he left he worried constantly about the warming temperatures- if the sea ice melted too soon, the chicks wouldn’t have adult feathers that enabled them to survive in the freezing waters. A reminder that even in a region so far distant from most of us, human activities have an impact.

I’d really like to see the film he produced. Especially after reading so much about it!

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
292 pages, 2019

More opinions: Melody’s Reading Corner
anyone else?

made by Cardinal ~ artist Jacek Yerka ~ 500 pieces

I completed this puzzle about a week ago. I hadn’t heard of this artist before but looked online- some really interesting surreal artwork! Not my favorite type of actual puzzle though (box looks just like Ceaco and once again, the surface makes my fingers hurt and leaves a slightly orangish film on glove tips) and the pieces all have rather blocky shapes with small knobs/indents- but I enjoyed it regardless. The top part- sky, house and trees- was pretty easy. I really thought the sediment layers and molten lava below was going to drive me crazy– but actually it was fun. This was a great thrift store find.

a thrift store find

There’s going to be more puzzle posts here for a while. I was in a minor car accident a week ago, have an ankle injury. Not supposed to walk on it for a week, maybe two. Yesterday was the first day since the accident I was able to spend any length of time using a screen or even reading. Was getting headaches. Couldn’t even watch more than twenty or thirty minutes of television at a stretch. It gets boring real fast, not being able to do all my usual physical activities plus not even read! Pretty much the only thing I was able to do for any length of time this past week was puzzles or listening to audio books. Even puzzling a bit difficult, as it’s awkward to find a position at the table to keep my foot elevated. Book review posts might be brief, if I don’t have the focus to write much. I didn’t want to swamp this blog with a bunch of puzzle pictures, but I kind of have a backlog now and I do enjoy sharing them. So I’ll intersperse them with the book stuff, but just note I probably did them a while before actually posting. (As if that matters, ha).

Stories from a South African Childhood

by Trevor Noah

The Daily Show host and comedian tells what it was like growing up poor in South Africa, just before and after apartheid ended. His mother was black and his father a white Swiss/German man, so he kind of fit in nowhere. He knew quite a few tribal languages, as well as English so could find a way to communicate and get along in most situations- except for the one date he had with a girl he couldn’t talk to! – but didn’t really belong anywhere. In fact his very existence was considered criminal because it was against the law at the time for people of different races to marry or even have intimate relationships (police would spy in people’s windows. No kidding). His descriptions of what it was like to flit between all the different groups, to live in the township in poverty, to grow up with a stepfather who gradually became increasingly violent, was so compelling and well-told with a large dose of humor as well. It sounds like his mother was an amazing person, determined to let nothing stand in her way and raise her children well, in spite of all the obstacles and difficulties they faced. The story stops short of telling how he came to the States and became a famous comedian, it’s just about his childhood and teenage years. It is so thoughtful and insightful, especially on topics of racism, inequality, and downright humanity, that I could listen to him talk for hours more. I only wished it had been longer. Some awful things happen, but the way they are told and the way he worked through them, make you only admire the man more.

Borrowed from the public library. This was the best audiobook yet. Hearing Trevor Noah tell his own story was great. He does different voices for all the characters- himself as young boy, his stepfather, his mother, different kids, police, those speaking various South African languages including Afrikaans. His voice made this so enjoyable.

Rating: 4/5
304 pages, 2019

by Maia Kobabe

Graphic novel memoir by a nonbinary author and artist, who describes what it was like struggling to understand gender norms and personal identity throughout childhood, adolescent and college years. In Kobabe’s family nobody really followed the “norms” per se- the father wore his hair long, the mother never wore makeup or shaved her legs. But Kobabe felt the lack of femininity much more profoundly. This book is very frank in exploring feelings of sexuality and comfort with one’s own body. Everything from difficulty in finding comfortable clothes (yes including underwear), to a first kiss, mental trauma and fear about menstruation, bad experiences at the gynecologist, using different pronouns and having to correct people, exploring self-pleasure, first dates (both awkward and not), and finally: understanding the differences that happen in the developing fetal brain that cause some people to have a distinct feeling of disconnect between their inner self and their physical body’s gender. To the point of mental and emotional distress. This last was most useful to me, as it was explained so clearly. I did find it funny how the author’s first kiss came about: needing to write a romantic scene in fanfic, a dating site was used to find someone to experience that with!

Some things to note: this book isn’t all about gender issues. There’s a love of snakes. Struggles learning to read, which then flipped and became a lifelong love of books. Another scene that amused me involved family members playing a board game which I instantly recognized, but apparently it couldn’t be named in the book (probably due to copyright). This was a scene where the author told an aunt and cousin of the wish to use different pronouns- not a funny page at all per se, just amusing to me because of what the game was.

I did not find this book offensive, nor did it make me super uncomfortable. I was a bit surprised at how open the author was about certain very personal experiences, but I also respect the bravery it takes to put that on paper. Yes, there are images with nudity. The drawings are simple enough that you immediately know what’s going on but don’t get too much detail. The simple fact that this is a person born female who feels male when it comes to sexuality means there are some images and ideas in here that a lot of people will find objectionable. But it’s about one person’s life and experience. No right to judge that. I think there’s great value here for others who are going through the same journey in finding out who they are.

All that said, I did not let my eleven-year-old read this book. It came into my hands because she checked it out from the library- she has a lot of curiosity about gender right now. Which is fine- but I think this book is appropriate for older teens and adults, not elementary or middle-school age kids. I simply told her she can read it when she’s older.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5
240 pages, 2020

More opinions: Waking Brain Cells
anyone else?

Discovering the Secrets of a Mythic Animal

by L. David Mech

I always though I would read L. David Mech’s book The Wolves of Isle Royale first, but I found this one browsing the library shelves. It was written very recently- looking back at the first study Mech did on Isle Royale as a young graduate student in the 1940’s. Isle Royale is a large island in Lake Superior- far enough from mainland that few animals cross the ice or swim to the island. There are moose there, and wolves that prey on them. Mech tells about other wildlife on the island too, and how the species have changed over the years- sharp-tailed grouse used to live there but don’t anymore, for example. Foxes and sometimes coyotes also live on the island, lynx have been seen, otters suspected, etc. But the focus of this book is the wolves. As the moose and wolves rarely leave or come to the island, it was seen as a perfect place to study predator/prey interactions. When the study began, radio tracking wasn’t a thing- so Mech counted wolf numbers by flying in a small airplane over the island in winter, when animals were easily visible from the air. There’s none of the intimate detail I usually enjoy in books about wildlife studies- close observations of behavior being scanty- but he got some surprisingly good sightings of wolf hunts. From collecting scat and moose jaw bones on the ground, he was also able to determine more about what other animals the wolves ate, and the condition of their prey- age and general health. At the time, most people thought wolves were vicious wanton killers that just ate anything they wanted, so his findings that they actually failed in most hunts, and tended to eat weaker, sick or young animals, was key in changing popular opinion about them. What I found most interesting was at the very end of the book, where Mech sums up what the years of study revealed- predator and prey don’t exactly live in a perfect balance. Environmental factors had just as much to do with fluctuating moose numbers as the wolf predation. It was something that surprised me, and I like being surprised with learning new things.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
188 pages, 2020

DISCLAIMER:

All books reviewed on this site are owned by me, or borrowed from the public library. Exceptions are a very occasional review copy sent to me by a publisher or author, as noted. Receiving a book does not influence my opinion or evaluation of it

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