Nonfiction (general) Archives - Page 4 of 16

Lab Girl

by Hope Jahren

This was great. It was not what I expected all round- I delighted in reading about experiments on the lives and methods of plants (especially details about tree biology, which read as little independent essays), how Jahren and her fellow scientist Bill came up with their ideas, the meticulous work involved, the scrounging for lab equipment and funding, the long hours and sleepless nights, the road trips and field work . . . What took me by surprise was to find myself also reading about mental illness, the mania and depression of bipolar described very frankly. And to read a birth story when she had her son. It kind of all is one long birth story- the story of how Jahren found her life\’s work in science, and struggled to grow into the best person she knew to be, doing the best science, hoping it would all get seen someday. Some parts are laugh-out-loud funny, some parts are very tense, and some incredibly insightful. Definitely keeping this one to enjoy and learn from again. Wish I could say more about it but not finding a lot of words right now. It is rather significant the things the author did not tell throughout this memoir, but they didn\’t really bother me until I read some other reviews and thought about them more. For example: she tells about a nearly-disastrous, ill-planned road trip to a conference where she\’s supposed to present a paper, but then there\’s nothing about the conference and only one comment about the presentation itself. Hm. Well, I liked it regardless. Might read it more closely next time. There will be a next time.

Rating: 4/5 290 pages, 2016

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Vulpes Libris

Weeds- simply Feisty Seeds

Ra for All

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Nonfiction (general), Travel/Adventure

The Reason I Jump

The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
by Naoki Higashida
translated by K.A. Yoshida and David Mitchell

This book was written by a Japanese boy who has autism. He couldn\’t speak, but learned to use an alphabet board and later a computer- touching one character at a time- to write out his thoughts and responses to people\’s questions. It\’s clear that in spite of his difficulty with speech and sensory input, he\’s quite intelligent and perceptive. His body just doesn\’t do what he wants it to, most of the time. I didn\’t expect the format though- it\’s not written as a narrative (except for a few very short stories) here and there- but instead a series of question-and-answer: things like why do you echo questions back at the asker? or why do you write letters in the air? or Do you have a sense of time? and of course What\’s the reason you jump? This was interesting- very intriguing to learn some of the reasons for what seem odd behaviors to most of us, and others were honestly surprising to me. There were a few things he simply couldn\’t explain, but he was honest about it. It\’s mostly about the difference in perceptions, in how his brain processes things. It\’s also a huge plea for understanding and patience: he says more than once in the book- I know I do this over and over again, but please don\’t give up on me. Please remember that I\’m human. He speaks for himself in particular, and for autistic people in general- noting clearly the cases in which he feels differently than other autistic people. I was reminded strongly of a book I read years ago called I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes– in that both are about a person who is unable to communicate until they have a tool which gives them a voice.

The introduction written by David Mitchell is particularly thoughtful. (There\’s a very good article by Mitchell here (his son also has autism) including some excerpts from this book). I got nearly as much out of that as from the body of text itself. I also really like the illustrations by Kai and Sunny. This book was written over a decade ago, so I was immediately curious to see what else Higashida may have written since: Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 sounds like this is more about his actual experiences so I really want to read it too.

Borrowed from a family member.

Rating: 3/5 161 pages, 2007

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Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
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Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Nonfiction (general)

Talking to Strangers

by Malcolm Gladwell

I finished a book. I didn\’t really like it, so am having a hard time thinking what to say. The subtitle: What We Should Know About the People We Don\’t Know. Which seems to be, in a nutshell: you\’ll never be able to judge strangers accurately. You will misread their facial expressions, truthfulness and intentions more than half the time. This book has lots of examples from famous court cases, encounters with police gone badly wrong, incidents of sexual assault and pedophilia, meetings between enemy leaders of countries, high ranking FBI agents who were duped by spies for years and so on. All about how people who are trained to pick out the lies and find the wrongdoers are so very often wrong. There\’s a part about studies that show how deprivation and torture makes prisoners very bad about providing information- it affects the brain, the memory- so the info they do give is probably inaccurate. So why do people keep getting tortured in order to extract information? There\’s another section all about suicides- in particular with details on Sylvia Plath- which I found educational to read in one sense, and very upsetting in another. The takeaway seems to be: as a human race we\’re bad at judging people we don\’t know. We guess wrong. So stop trying? It doesn\’t really give any suggestions on that. Only that we shouldn\’t be too harsh on people who were taken in by strangers or misled, because it\’s so very easy to fall prey. I found the implications depressing honestly. There\’s a lot more, but I don\’t really feel like thumbing through the book to remind myself of them right now. Check out Goodreads, or some of the links below. Lots of different opinions on this one.

Borrowed from my sister.

Rating: 2/5 386 pages, 2019

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Book\’d Out
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
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Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Current Reads, Nonfiction (general)

Unbound

Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity
by Arelene Stein

A sociologist examines the choices made by several individuals who had elective surgery to remove their breasts. Most- but not all- identified as male and had the procedure to address gender dysphoria. I thought this was going to be a volume of personal stories- their personalities, struggles, reasons for choosing the surgery, how their lives were changed by it, and so on. It is, but it\’s also a lot more. The book is just as much about social norms and how they are changing in regards to gender identities, how perceptions are shifting and how they might continue to evolve. It\’s got quite a lot on the history of LGBTQ rights. It\’s about the importance of people feeling comfortable with who they are, and making the choice to do something often considered drastic- altering body parts- so that other people will see them as they see themselves. Those who agreed to share their stories here- the author meets them in the surgical clinic, visits them in recovery, and follows up with a few several months later to see how they are doing- are very different in circumstance. They don\’t all have the same reasons or needs- one doesn\’t even identify as trans. Some have family support and others don\’t. Some felt dysphoric and others didn\’t. I\’m glad the author shows people beyond the stereotypes. Sounds like they were all happy with the results. It was really interesting to read the more detailed examination of how their lives were different afterwards- not only how it affected their families, their employment, the reactions (or rather, easy acceptance) of strangers to their changed appearance, and their own individual self-perception. I did think it a little strange when the author compared trans men to lesbians, going into some tangents on how the feminist movement has changed over recent years as gender is being understood in new ways. This book is a lot more dense with more information than I expected it to contain, so I\’ve actually been reading it in pieces over the past six weeks. Sometimes it was just difficult to get through a single chapter. While I didn\’t always agree with the author\’s viewpoint and some of her statements made me feel uncomfortable, I do feel like I have a better understanding now. Or at least, I would hope that I do.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5 339 pages, 2018

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

Becoming a Veterinarian

Masters at Work
by Boris Kachka

Little book packed with stuff. Kind of an overview about what it takes to be a vet, it follows several different veterinarians through what led them to the career, how they got into vet school and fulfilled their on-the-job training, what motivates or discourages them, what keeps them going- including job switches when they start to face burnout. The author follows one rural vet to farm visits treating cattle- it\’s not at all like it was in the James Herriot books, he keeps pointing out. Then there\’s a day spent in a small animal practice, one in a busy city on a mobile spay/neuter unit providing low-cost services, another in an animal hospital ER, and a high tech specialty treatment center where innovative procedures are created. Kind of shows a little bit of everything- hectic working conditions, co-worker conflicts, difficulty with finances, managing owner\’s expectations and making decisions based on their ability to pay, long hours and stress. How veterinary medicine compares to the very similar work in human medical care- although the gap is closing in many ways (procedures available more and more for animals that used to be just for people), the pay certainly isn\’t. Some of the chapters- the one in the small animal practice in particular- felt very jumpy, abruptly moving from one moment to the next but it just shows how fast-paced that can be. I was surprised and pleased to read about how much animal care has improved in shelters across the country. It was also nice to see how many varied types of jobs are actually out there- some veterinarians end up working in public health or in education, not being hands-on with the animals. Some people enjoy the tension and challenge of a high-pressure environment like the ER, others find they like working at a slower pace and getting to know patients better at small local practices, or that they prefer the technical side of things, not being near animals at all. Of course there\’s a good number of very brief case studies in here, telling how the animals were treated- but mostly the book\’s intent was to give an honest look at the realities and options out there for work in the field nowadays, and I think it probably does a good job of that.

Borrowed from the public library, found browsing the shelves.

Rating: 3/5 152 pages, 2019

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

Depression and Bipolar Disorder

Your Guide to Recovery
by William R. Marchand, M.D.

Following No Love Allowed, I wanted to know more about bipolar and this was the only other book on the subject when I browsed the shelf, though I have since made a to-read list from the catalog. It\’s a very thorough guide (as far as I can tell) on mood disorders- mostly concerning depression and bipolar but also others such as anxiety. The book details what is known about mood disorders and brain chemistry, how a diagnosis is reached, what to expect when visiting doctors, how treatment choices are made, management of symptoms, prevention of relapse and more. It\’s all very methodical and straightforward. Not much about what it\’s like to live with the disorder, or to know someone who has it, but more about how to seek treatment and manage care. I appreciate that the author outlined his credentials, explained how trials are done on medications, what risk factors actually mean and how to find credible sources of information. It all appears to be very useful and factual. I feel it\’s a bit unfair for me to give this book a rating, because I didn\’t really read all of it- I skipped lots of pages that had charts on medications, forms to track symptoms and the like. Or parts that just weren\’t that interesting. But I did go through it entirely front-to-back and feel like I learned quite a lot from what I did read- the majority.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5 360 pages, 2012

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

Eating Animals

by Jonathan Safran Foer

This book has made my heart heavy. It put a lot on my mind and now I hardly know where to start talking about it. It starts as a personal narrative- the author had waffled for most of his life about eating meat or not- and finally decided to do some research on it: why do we eat animals? where does it come from? how are the animals treated? He also tells quite a few family stories, illustrating how important food is in culture and family heritage, emphasizing how difficult it is to change, and to reason out why. A lot of it is about how screwed up the food system is in our country, particularly factory farming of animals. The author took a very close look at all this. He interviewed many: a man who runs a large operation, a small scale farmer who personally knows all his animals, an activist who sneaks into chicken sheds. It’s not just about how appallingly the livestock is treated in the poultry, cattle and hog farming industries, it’s about how terribly they pollute the environment, how dangerous they are for our health, how wretched the working conditions are for humans employed there. How the power of the corporations enables them to shrug off fines or ignore audits and inspections that don’t get enforced. I was shocked to read that over ninety percent of the meat now sold in America comes from large factory farms. Humanely raised animals are so few- not from lack of demand, but because the system makes it so hard for small farmers to function- they would never feed us- not even one city. Apparently even fish isn’t a good choice- if you’re not worried about mercury poisoning, or alarmed at how devastatingly commercial fishing ravages the ocean (killing hundreds of species for each one they actually keep), farm-raised fish isn’t all that better: the conditions on fish farms are just as bad for the animals as those in land-based facilities, and are even less regulated. Foer makes it sound like the only way to avoid being part of all this nastiness and horror is to simply not eat meat. For the first time it sounds like a proper idea to me.

This book was written a decade ago- I’d like to think that things have improved, but I’m rather pessimistic about that. However, there are at least two restaurants near me that specialize in farm-to-table fare, we are definitely going to patronize them although it’s expensive (for good reason) I will just eat out less. As if I did much before, anyway.

Rating: 4/5

341 pages, 2009

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words by Annie
Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

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

Small Wonder

by Barbara Kingsolver

Collection of thought-provoking and beautifully worded essays. On everything important, it seems. Many are very personal and close to home- she writes about family life, what it means to be honest, raising food for yourself, connections with the land. She writes about her youngest daughter\’s chickens. She writes a letter to her teenage daughter, and another to her mother- very heartfelt. Other essays range more broadly- the importance of biodiversity, and what currently threatens it (I did not realize before, just how scary GMOs are), the nonsensical pervasiveness of war, patriotism wrought into a fervor against others, how large impassionate corporations are pushing out small business. In particular I liked her essay about writing, love of books, how small independent bookshops helped her career as a young writer, her feelings for the importance of poetry in schools, and the time she first wrote sex scenes into a novel (makes me look at Prodigal Summer differently, I admit). There are also has several essays written in response to 9/11, and to the Columbine school shooting. I struggled a bit with the first of these, but dealt better with the other two, later in the book. Woven seamlessly through these essays are also some lovely bits of nature writing- observations on habitats in Arizona where she lives part of the year, especially the delicate, richly diverse belt of riverside plant and animal life. Close look at a hummingbird building a nest. Retelling of an account where a bear apparently nurtured a young child until it was found. And so much more. Homelessness. The strength of being a woman. The dangers of ignoring what\’s going on around us. Why she doesn\’t have a TV in the house. How fiction can teach truths, why mythology is important. Definitely a book that\’s staying on my shelf, that deserves many re-reads, that inspired me to give another honest try at appreciating her early works The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven (I\’ve attempted both a few times, never got far). Also, she has made me want to read Middlemarch, even though I am not really a fan of Victorian novels.

Rating: 4/5 267 pages, 2002

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

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly

A Physician\’s First Year
by Matt McCarthy

Narrative of a doctor\’s training year working in a New York City hospital as intern, this one caught my eye browsing library shelves. Probably because I had Farmer\’s work on my mind, which not surprisingly the author references once himself. Compared to an older book I\’ve read about internship, this one is very modern (so modern that I got a little tired of the author referencing popular TV shows and describing his co-workers by what famous actor their looks or manners reminded him of). (Also tedious is his frequent use of swear words in tense situations- particularly the F one). But mostly it was a good read, one I constantly found interesting and hard to put down. Even when some scenes were distressing. McCarthy did a small stint in surgery- realized it wasn\’t for him- and then worked in the critical care unit, then intensive care, also doing some time in general practice. The book is really about how his skills as a doctor were built up- from nervous and fumbling to confident and leading teams himself. He describes the structure of the hospital; the different teaching styles various supervising residents gave him, panicky moments when he made a wrong diagnosis, the checks that saved his butt from serious error, the difficulties in figuring out what was wrong with unconscious (or just uncooperative) patients, the long hours and incredible stress of it all.

A lot of it is not only about his learning curve in practicing medicine- how to actually do procedures, use the equipment, etc.- but about how he gradually develops a better bedside manner, starts to connect with his patients, finds the balance between keeping himself dispassionate (so he can think critically about a case) and showing the patient that someone cares. Some of the doctor-patient interactions he describes are very touching, others actually nerve-wracking. He describes his euphoria at being part of a team that literally brings a person back from death- and the depression when it goes the other way. The second half of the book also has a lot of internal quandry and fear, as he accidentally gets a needle stick from a patient with a serious, highly infectious disease- then has to take a severe regimen of medication proactively, while waiting for his own diagnosis. It really gave him some perspective on how patients might feel about their treatment.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5 323 pages, 2015

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Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Medical/Health, Nonfiction (general)

Mountains Beyond Mountains

the Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World
by Tracy Kidder

I admit I\’d never heard of Paul Farmer before, although I recoginzed this title. He was a brilliant doctor and anthropologist who as a medical student had already traveled to third world countries, and appalled by the lack of medical care for poor people, started doing something about it. In particular he focused his efforts on a community in Haiti that lived above a lake caused by a dam which had flooded their farmland. Most of them never moved anywhere else, just up the hillside, and suffered from starvation because they could no longer grow enough food. Widespread tuberculosis and other diseases were exacerbated by poor nutrition and squalor. Farmer set up facilities and procedures to treat and cure tuberculosis among hundreds of impoverished families, but he did so much more than that. He learned about their native culture especially voodoo beliefs and how it affected their view of illness. He traveled personally (sometimes hiking an entire day to read isolated huts) to visit the sick in their homes, especially entire families affected by tuberculosis. He made efforts to provide the poor with clean water, concrete floors and tin roofs for their modest homes (replacing dirt and leaking thatch), and dietary supplements. He conducted studies to find out exactly what types of treatment would have the best results, and worked tirelessly to bring the plight of thousands to the attention of the global medical community, raised money, started programs in other countries. Peru and Russia are featured large in the book although Haiti was always his base. It amazed me that he was so dedicated to his patients- insisted on treating people even when medication for tuberculosis was expensive, unavailable to the poor- and of course they couldn\’t pay- and proper treatment took years. Missed or late doses caused drug-resistant strains of TB to arise (it\’s a bit more complicated than that) so Farmer would often personally go find the patients to find out why they had missed their appointments- sometimes tracking them down to prison and extracting them in order to give them medical care (his phraseology). I learned so much more about tuberculosis than I ever wanted to know.

I am in awe at the work this man did, the far-reaching influence he extended, even when others didn\’t believe in his methods at first. For example, when he found out how horribly expensive medication to treat drug-resistant strains of TB were, he personally did things to drive the price down. And it had a cascading effect. He also worked with AIDS patients in parts of the world and among impoverished communities that no one else wanted to touch, saying it wasn\’t worth the effort. This book is kind of a jumble- it leaps around some, tells of the author\’s connection with Farmer, but not much explanation about how he managed to earn the role- travelling around with Farmer to learn what he was doing in order to write this book- reminiscent to me of In Africa with Schweitzer by Dr. Edgar Berman- also his habit of questioning Farmer about his views and then noting them down in the text. Several chapters tell of Farmer\’s childhood and how he got to where he was when Kidder met him. The rest is a complex, eye-opening account of his life\’s work, ranging from squatting in mud-floored huts to take the blood pressure of his patients to flying around the globe for various meetings and conferences in his quest to do whatever it takes. Wow. (Another similar read: Witness to War by Charles Clements, inasmuch as they both deal with bringing medical care to marginalized people who desperately needed it). Did I mention? Farmer founded Partners In Health, and was a renowned infectious disease expert (among other things). There are a lot of other people in this book, who worked alongside Farmer or donated or otherwise helped with his cause, but I can\’t possibly name them all. You have to read the book!

Rating: 4/5 322 pages, 2003

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Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Nonfiction (general)

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