Behind the Beautiful Forevers

When I started reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, I kept wondering - is this fiction or non-fiction. Apparently it is categorized as "narrative non-fiction" which for me meant a true story that was entirely readable.

Boo takes us inside the world of the Annawadi slum in Mumbai. In the shadow of capitalism represented by the airport and adjoining hotels, Annawadi is a world all of its own - with rules and expectations and stories to fill a book (or more). And while the world around them deals with what seem to be bigger problems, the residents of the slum do their best to survive day to day while looking for opportunity. But sometimes those opportunities run counter to a neighbor's plans and when they intersect the results can be desperate and deadly.

Boo does a magnificent job of opening up this world to us outsiders while being empathetic and kind to the people who inhabit Annawadi.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog

I was a little put off by the title of this book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Tales from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook - What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing, and what I assumed would be a depressing recounting of horrific experiences of children by the psychiatrist who worked with them. I was happily surprised by what was a mostly positive take on these children and their ability to heal.

Perry recounts stories of the children he has worked with in his long career and how much he has learned about children and the impact trauma and neglect have on their development. Woven between those stories, Perry neatly explains brain development, mental health diagnoses and impacts of trauma on the brain which I had learned in my first year of Graduate School.

In the end, I was touched by how hard Perry and his team worked with each of these children and the patience and understanding they exhibited. Most of the stories have a happy, positive ending which helped make the overall book feel positive and in the conclusion, Perry makes some recommendations about the changes we need to make as a society to help minimize the impacts of trauma on our children.

I Thought It Was Just Me (But it isn't)

My friend Brie introduced me to Brene Brown and her research on shame and vulnerability through her two TED talks. After watching both of them numerous times, I decided that she was my new personal hero. What Brene had to say was so smart, so well-researched and she was so open about her own vulnerability and shame, how could you not be inspired?

I ordered her book I Thought It Was Just Me but saved it for summer break before starting it and then I savored it. Not because the language is beautiful or the topic is so wonderful, but because itmakes so much sense. It needs to be read slowly (and probably more than once) to really be absorbed.

The idea that shame makes us feel disconnected and isolated and how we can become aware and hopefully stop that shame, felt like genius as I read it. I thought of dozens of friends and acquaintances that should read it, but afterwards, I decided that every woman should read it. It might give us pause the next time we start to feel shame or if we see someone else struggling or someone pulling us into gossip, we can change direction.

Brene's work feels tangible and actionable and I hope someday that I will be able to use some of the techniques in my own practice.

Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell is the story of friendship, love and loss and we feel all of it as Caldwell takes us along in this well written memoir.

We know early on that Caldwell loses her best friend, Catherine Knapp, to cancer, but first we must learn about the tenor of their friendship to understand what comes at the end - the loss of a most important friendship, the person who just "got" her.

Two introverted writers, Caldwell and Knapp met and built a friendship because of their dogs. Taking long walks lead to deep conversations and mutual reliance. Throughout the first half of the book, Caldwell sets out to explain how they became friends, what that meant and how their similarities, including both of their struggles with alcoholism, bonded them together.

In the middle I found myself a little bored with Caldwell's recount of her struggles with alcoholism. Knapp had written about hers in Drinking: A Love Story, so I thought that maybe Caldwell felt the need to share her own experience. But later, I realized it was to show how deeply these two women were able to understand and accept each other.

By the end of the book, as Caroline is diagnosed with cancer, begins treatment and a willful battle, I was in tears. Caldwell reminds us all what a precious gift friendship is and how terrible it is to imagine (and read about someone else) losing it.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession

I picked up The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession by David Grann not long after returning from a trip to the Amazon river basin in Peru.

I was intrigued by a story of a lost city in the Amazon after seeing Machu Pichu (there could be something even greater?) and when reading the first few pages of Grann's book was hooked. It ended up being slow going at points, but I was pulled along by the wonder of El Dorado.

Grann is exhaustive in his research of Percy Fawcett who in the early part of the century disappeared in the Amazon in his quest to find El Dorado. Numerous Fawcett hunters followed suit and I feared the author would be the next victim.

After hearing about the conditions Fawcett and his party experienced during their trips in the Amazon - maggots in their skin, constantly biting mosquitoes, risk of malaria and other diseases, I was thankful for my insect repellant with lots of Deet and guides during my trip. Plus I was able to be a little more thankful for the experience and that I came out safely.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Everyone I know is reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, but it had been on my list for a while (since my sister asked for it at Christmas) and I'm glad I was able to borrow a copy from a friend.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks traces the history of the HeLa cells - cells that were taken from Henrietta Lacks and then were used to study and find cures for all sorts of diseases.

Skloot does a great job making the science digestable and weaving in the story of the Lacks family. She is fair to everyone - doctors, the family members - even when some bad stuff was going on and clearly put a lot of time and energy into tracing every part of the story.

I learned a lot while enjoying myself and would recommend this book to friends (I already have).

Under the Banner of Heaven

After reading The 19th Wife, I wanted to read more about Mormonism and polygamy so I picked up Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.

Krakauer gives the history of Mormonism and particularly how fundamentalists broke off to create sects where polygamy is still practiced. He frames it around the brutal murders of Brenda Lafferty and her daughter by he fundamentalist brothers-in-law.

The story is well told and he expanded on history that was touched upon in The 19th Wife giving a broader understanding of the faith. However, I was left with a bad taste about fundamentalist Mormonism. I know not all Mormons are like this, but the extremism and using religion as an excuse for violence was disturbing.

At one point, Krakauer asks one of the brother's convicted of the murders how he is different from the 9/11 bombers (both believe they have been told by God to act and murder) and his answer is basically that he is listening to the true Prophet, they were listening to a false prophet.

Makes me afraid for the future of our country and world.

The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods

The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia Butterfly Hill was our May book club selection.

While Julia and Luna's story is a touching one, the writing is terrible. I wanted to read this book and be inspired but Hill comes across as flighty, a lousy story-teller and very uninspiring.

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom was recommended in a yoga class. I've read other books about meditation and spiritual practice, but this book written by Rick Hanson was compelling and well written.

It read like part textbook, part meditation manual. The science in the beginning was covered in a way that made it understandable even for the scientifically challenged.

There were also example meditations to put into practice in the second half of the book and each chapter contained a recap.

Plus, the subject made so much sense. That as we evolved we retained certain tendencies that are no longer needed and can become negative in today's environment (we're no longer running from prey, but when someone challenges us, our brain tells the rest of our body that we are in danger and we react accordingly).

It put so much into perspective while giving practical solutions for managing the stresses of every day life.

Born Round

Born Round by Frank Bruni is a wonderfully entertaining story from this journalist and former NYT food critic. Growing up in a large Italian family that believes in eating well and eating a lot, Bruni struggled from a young age with his weight.

Bruni tells an honest and funny tale of his struggles throughout his life with weight, exercise and food. When offered the position as the NYT food critic, his love of food and his career intersect and while you fear that he will spiral out of control like in the past, he is able to take that love of food to a new level.

I recommend this to anyone who loves food and has struggled with their weight.

Zeitoun

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers was our book club book for September. I was reluctant to read a story about Katrina (I think I avoid books that feel like they are capitalizing on a national tragedy), but this was Dave Eggers so I should have known better than to be worried.

All the proceeds from the book go to various organizations related to New Orleans or that are important to the Zeitoun family and Eggers does an amazing job of telling a story of terrible injustice.

The Zeitoun's lived in New Orleans for years, are Muslim and have a family contracting and painting business. Abdulrahman, the father and a Syrian-American, has much to lose and take care of, so he sends his wife and children out of the city while he stays behind as the storm threatens.

His days before and after the storm are calmer than you would expect, but once the levees break, life for Zeitoun changes. Eventually, he is arrested along with 3 other men and held in horrendous conditions. They are never clearly charged, never told why they are being held - there are indications that someone thought that were terrorists.

I was horrified that this treatment occurred in this country and glad in the end that I read this story and that it was brought to me in the capable hands of Eggers.

The Quiet Room, Beautiful Boy and Tweak

I can't believe my last post was August! I have been reading, I just haven't been blogging.

I am going to do my best to catch up, so get ready for a number of new posts!

I read a number of memoirs in late August/early September. They were all stories about dealing with mental illness. As I consider my career change to social work/counseling, I want to do any "prep" work as I wait to apply to programs (and hopefully get in!), so I thought I would read some stories of mental illness.

The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller tells her tale of dealing with schizophrenia staring in her late teens into her 20s and beyond. Her story is sad and heartbreaking as she tries to find help and relief from a disease that was not well understood. While the story jumps around from different point of view, the best are Lori's chapters which feel as if you are reading Lori's journal and getting a raw view of her world of mental illness.

Beautiful Boy by David Sheff provides the parent's view as they watch their child delve into the dark world of drugs. Sheff's son Nic grows up in Northern California, but spends summers with his mother in LA. Sheff tries to determine if there is a causal link between the separation of his families and his drug addiction, but like most mental illnesses, does not get a definitive answer.

Sheff is a journalist, so his story is well written and he researches the various aspects of drug addiction and recovery - particularly methamphetamine which is his son's drug of choice. Beautiful Boy is a beautiful story of a father's love.

After reading his father's account, I tried to read Nic's young adult account, Tweak. Unfortunately, reading Tweak was too much for me. Nic's candid details made me too sad, too worried for all the teens in my life, so I wasn't able to finish it.

Born to Run

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall is one of those books that is known very well by a certain group of people - in this case runners. I was told it would change the way I run and I believe it has.

Born to Run centers on the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico who are infamous for their ability to run for multiple days in leather sandals. McDougall sets out to understand what makes the Tarahumara capable of such feats as well as their ability to stay healthy and serene while he hurts from just running a few miles.

McDougall does a wonderful job in pulling the reader along between history, biology and anthropology, tying all of it together in the world's greatest footrace through the Copper Mountains.

Bright-Sided

I read Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich for a non-fiction book club in NJ (hopefully I will be able to make future meetings of this splinter book club).

Overall, I liked the book and Ehrenreich's challenge to a standard part of the American psyche made a lot of sense to me. I think that the idea of positive thinking started out with good intentions - when you are mired in negativity, it's hard to get out of it and when you believe things can turn around they can. But thinking positively will not raise you out of poverty, will not cure an illness. And thinking something certainly doesn't manifest it into being (The Secret, the law of attraction).

When I finished the book I thought, thank you Ms. Ehrenreich for saying it's okay to not be positive all the time. That to have bad moments or negative thoughts is what makes us human. I have so many friends who have experienced challenges in life and the pressure they feel (and I too have felt) to keep up the happy facade is heartbreaking.

When we discussed the book at book club, I heard some differing views and it did alter some of my opinions about certain sections. There was discussion that Ehrenreich was still angry about the experiences she had when writing Nickel and Dimed and this was really a diatribe against the American class system.

I agree that there was an underlying feeling of frustration, but in the end I would still recommend the book to friends, especially those who have experienced some loss or adversity in life. I would hope they would experience what I did - a little understanding into why we as Americans encourage each other to "turn that frown upside down" and why that's not necessarily healthy or helpful to our development as people and a country.

Half the Sky

I read Nicholas Kristof's columns in the New York Times every week, so when I heard he had published a new book with his wife (Sherry Wudunn), I knew I had to read it.

Half the Sky is about the struggles of women around the world, but unlike so many other books, it offers solutions. Ways to get involved. Things to do. And the authors realize that even though we can't all quit our jobs and work for the Peace Corps (as much as I'd like to!), that we can each have an impact in our own way.

Ever since I heard about the cutting of girls genitals in a college religion class, I have followed the efforts to curb this practice. It's interesting to read how it has gotten some attention, but not nearly enough. Kristof and Wudunn also write about sex trafficking, maternal mortality and other gender based violence. But they use individual stories of women who often have survived the crimes committed against them to bring the point home.

The only negative reaction that I had was a question that kept popping up in my head "where are the men in this? Do they not have a responsibility?" And I get that if you educate a woman, you help an entire village, but there was some acknowledgement I didn't get from the book. However, when I checked their website (to confirm the spelling of Sherry's last name) I noticed they have a headline "Women aren't the problem. They are the solution. Along with me." Maybe I wasn't the only one.

Weekends at Bellevue

I had heard Julie Holland on NPR and was interested enough in what she had to say, so picked up Weekends at Bellevue at the library. There were parts of the book that were interesting, particularly the stories about the clients, but the details about her personal life and the scheduling and personality issues at the hospital were boring.

I guess she was a better doctor than writer.

Passing Strange

As most of you know or have at least guessed by now, I am typically a fiction reader. I read non-fiction rarely and if I do it's usually memoirs, but after hearing a segment on NPR, I eagerly picked up Passing Strange by Martha Sandweiss.

Passing Strange tells the story of Clarence King who was a successful geologist at the end of the 19th century but who eventually began to pass as a black man and married Ada Copeland, a black woman. Clarence took on the name James Todd and the profession of a Pullman porter (who were only black men) when he married Ada. Clarence/James never told any of his friends or close confidants of his marriage and subsequent marriage. Everyone assumed Clarence was a lifelong bachelor.

Sandweiss does a good job of retelling Clarence King's story - his success as a geologist, his travels West, his financial troubles and surmising how he managed to live a double life. Ada Copeland Todd was harder to construct. Most likely a child born into slavery, there is no historical record of her until her early 20s. Once she married Clarence King, there is evidence of her children and various homes.

Sandweiss weaves the two stories together effectively and it's clear that she is a dedicated researcher. Like with most non-fiction, I was left wanting to know more about the why and what they felt, but without historical evidence, there is no way to know how Clarence and Ada lived when they were together.

The Glass Castle

For a long time, I wasn't interested in reading The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. I think I had read too many memoirs and I was tired of all the "poor me" stories, but after hearing some interviews with the author about her new book, I decided I should listen to the people who recommended it and give it a shot.

Now I can't get it out of my mind. My work as a Guardian Ad Litem exposes me to the lives of people who struggle, but this book was something else all together. The life this child and her siblings experienced is unbelievable and the fact that her parents chose that life for them is even more amazing. But what is truly remarkable is the success Jeanette has experienced despite a childhood of constantly moving, of living in a house with no indoor plumbing and not always being enrolled in school. If you are going to have eccentric parents, it's best that they be voracious readers and encourage inquisitiveness.

Still, the book is well written and is definitely worth getting over an aversion to memoirs to experience.

True Notebooks: A Writer's Year in Juvenile Hall

After making it about one-third of the way through Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry, I became too confused by the Irish history and gave up.

I needed something compelling to read, so I took out Mark Salzman's True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall from the library. It was recommended to me because I enjoyed the two books Wally Lamb has edited from his work at the York Correctional Institute (thanks Kate).

It was told in a different style than Wally Lamb's two books, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Salzman narrates, explaining how he got involved in volunteering at a juvenile hall in LA and shares both good and bad experiences with the boys he works with. It raised so many questions about gangs, the juvenile justice system and the value of programs for kids who will spend their lives incarcerated.

I finished the book thankful for all that I have and all the opportunities I have been given.

A Border Passage

For September's book club, we read A Border Passage by Leila Ahmed. I only made it halfway through the book, as I found Ahmed's writing confusing and her not a very believable memoirist.

The rest of the club loved the book, so I feel like I missed something. I am going to hold onto the book and listen to an interview with Ahmed on "Speaking of Faith" and maybe it will make more sense.