The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (Books & Banter book club)
When Lale enters Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps he quickly realizes he will need all of his wits to survive this place. He vows to survive and not die there. Quickly he is selected to be the Tatowierer - the Tattooist of Auschwitz. On his first day tattooing he meets Gita, number 34902 and vows that not only will he survive, but so will Gita and they will be married one day. Being the tattooist gives Lale more freedom than other prisoners, which he uses to help Gita and his friends. By helping so many people when he is in need of help, there are many willing to return the favor. Based on the true story of Lale and Gita, this fictionalized account shows how love and determination can help overcome even the worst odds and conditions.
I really wanted to like this book especially after I found out it was based on a true story. Heather Morris spent three years interviewing Lale Sokolov and getting his story. I'm not clear why she chose to write it as a fictional account instead of non-fiction. To me the story just really fell flat. The writing was very stiff and the characters just didn't come to life for me. I'm not saying miracles didn't happen in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, but Lale really did seem like a cat with nine lives to survive all the situations in the book. I personally feel like this would have been a MUCH better book as non-fiction. I really don't want to dislike a book about the Holocaust based on a true story, but I did not like this one.
Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict (Evening Edition book club)
When Clementine Hozier meets Winston Churchill she is immediately drawn to him. As their courtship continues she engages with him in politics and not just out of obligation but because she is genuinely interested. But, she never imagines what role he will eventually have in their country and in the world. After they are married Clementine continues in her self-prescribed role as Winston's equal and partner in the political arena. But, she is also running their household, dealing with an invasive mother-in-law, her own family drama, and her own children. Throughout it all Clementine continues to defy the role society thinks she should play and follows her heart to help Winston lead their country, especially during World War II.
An interesting look at an often forgotten or marginalized woman who fulfilled the saying "behind every great there's a great woman." One thing I didn't really like about the book is that the timeline was kind of all over the place. One chapter would cover a few months and the next would be ten years later. It was kind of hard to keep up with everything going on. Also, I personally didn't really enjoy all the behind the scenes drama and passive-aggressiveness between the women. I'm sure it was true, but it felt like too much of the focus sometimes. Overall, I didn't love this one, but I do think Clementine Churchill is a woman to be admired and remembered.
Your Do-Anything Kitchen by Food52
Food52 has put out several cookbooks, but this book explores how having an organized and stocked kitchen helps you cook better and enjoy it more. The book is divided into 5 chapters - setting up, stocking up, storing & organizing, cooking, and cleaning up. Each chapter has lots of illustrations and photos to help visualize the tips. I really liked that with appliances and kitchen accessories they divided lists into "must-haves" and "nice-to-haves." The chapter on cooking wasn't recipes, but more tips on food sanitation tips, prep tips, knife skills, etc. Overall, it was a really well done look at the kitchen as a whole and the best ways to set up your workspace to make cooking easier and better. This would make a great gift for a housewarming or newlyweds.
Leaving the Witness: exiting a religion and finding a life by Amber Scorah
Amber Scorah grew up in the Jehovah's Witness faith. All she knew was church several times a week and hours of "preaching" (or knocking on stranger's doors) on Saturdays. Witnesses were not encouraged to go to college, have a career, or have friends outside the faith. Amber's family was somewhat different in that her parents eventually stopped going to church and got divorced, but still remained in the faith. There were no room for doubts with the near constant Bible study and preaching. But, when Amber and her husband move to China to illegally preach there they can't meet openly as often as Witnesses do in the US and Canada. With more time on her hands and living in the vastly different Chinese culture, Amber starts to question the truth of the Jehovah's Witness faith. Slowly she begins to question her faith and eventually leaves her husband and is disfellowshipped or cut off by her church, family, and friends. She starts over in New York City only to experience as devastating loss with no church family to fall back on.
While parts of this book were really interesting, the end fell flat for me. I felt like that part of the book was rushed and just abruptly ended. I felt like with such a huge event happening the reader needed a little more information beyond one chapter. It felt like there should have been more to the ending of the book especially with what happens in that last chapter. I did find the chapters where she was starting to realize she was in a cult and how she felt during that time were very well done.
Some quotes I liked:
"For obvious reasons, earing a degree at an actual university that would have taught critical thinking skills and emphasized training for a successful career was not permissible. And sure enough, almost any Witness I knew who had rebelled against this edict was eventually disfellowshipped for something or another. But this $3,000 scam degree was no problem at all. In fact, it was encouraged by some of those in higher-up positions, who reminded us of a Bible principle I have since seen the Governing Body use to lie in child abuse court cases: theocratic warfare. Meaning, if being dishonest will do something to advance Jehovah's will, then it's okay to make an exception and keep one's clean conscience." (p. 68)
"The preacher, unlike the teacher, asks no questions of herself, as she already has the answer. There is no human so bold as the preacher. Or so blind. For they do all the talking, and none of the asking." (p. 126)
"Curiosity is a bad quality for the preacher. You preach because you are sure. You preach to people who don't need to hear it, because possibly you are the one who needs to be saved." (p. 133)
"I had been primed as a child to evade notice. I had been taught by my faith that to stand out from the crowd was to be lacking in humility, that displaying any kind of intellect was prideful, and that to pursue one's interests or talents was wrong, especially as a woman. The beloved woman was one who went about her preaching and household work with diligence, letting her husband do the speaking. I never did that well, but I tried." (p. 143-44)
"Absurdity becomes truth when enough people agree to it, and to not do so then becomes what is irrational. And so we force our belief on others. We throw them out windows if they don't agree with our truth; we kill them at Armageddon in our minds as they shut the door in our face. Only a mutiny by someone, or from somewhere, can bring some return to perspective. And it will not come easily. Because, perhaps, there is no more dangerous a human concept than that of 'truth,' and no more threatening an act than for a member of a community to stop playing along. Revolutions do not come without violence. If I hadn't come to China, I would never have even noticed. Somehow, in one of the most restrictive places in the world, I had found freedom." (p. 233-34)
Kitchen Garden Revival by Nicole Johnsey Burke
It's important (in my opinion) to grow your own food, but that can be intimidating and not everyone wants to homestead or have a mini-farm at home. Nicole Burke's solution is the Kitchen Garden Revival. Most homes up until post-WWII had a kitchen garden to provide some, if not most of their daily produce. Burke argues that we can bring that back today and not only save money on produce, but enjoy the other benefits of growing your own food. This book walks you through step-by-step to create your own kitchen garden. I really liked that she gives very detailed tips like making sure the pathways are wide enough, measuring out and marking before building, etc. But, based on the illustrations I don't think the average homeowner has the HUGE yard space for the projects shown. I have 3 separate garden areas at my house, two of them fenced in and I would LOVE to have pea gravel pathways, but that is VERY expensive. So, while the illustrations are beautiful, I don't think they are what the average person could afford - either financially or space-wise in their yard/property. But, there are good tips and I like the overall point of the book that you CAN grow your own food without living on a farm, but I would give it a 50/50 rating as far as recommending it.
Permanent Record by Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden grew up in a government and military family. His father and grandfather were career Coast Guard and his mother worked for the NSA (the National Security Agency). Living in Maryland, just outside D.C. almost everyone Snowden knew worked in some way for the US government. When 9/11 happened Snowden decided to join the military. He was already working in technology as a contractor and wanted to use his technology skills to help the country. Unfortunately he was injured during basic training and couldn't complete his military training. Instead, he ended up working for the CIA, then becoming a contractor who worked for both the CIA and NSA under the guise of his "real job" on paper with Dell. Snowden is brilliant and curious, which is what led to him finding out about the US government spying on not only other countries, but it's own citizens under the guise of preventing terrorism.
In this book Snowden tells his story in his own words. He is a very talented writer and is obviously brilliant. When he was a child at the very beginning of the internet, he discovered a security issue with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the US's nuclear research facility, and contacted them to let them know. He was genuinely concerned that someone with bad intentions could uncover this flaw and they were equally shocked to find that a teenager had contacted them about this issue. Once Snowden was working for the government either directly or as a contractor because of his pure curiosity he began to uncover not only information about governmental spying, but the actual programs created to do it and how they operated. For a few years he struggled with whether to upend his life or do the right thing. All along Snowden's intentions were to protect the US people and when he realized how blatantly the US government was going against it's own Constitution, he knew he had to act. He goes through how he decided to act and all the steps leading up to his disappearing and going into exile. His girlfriend does come visit him in Russia several months after his story broke in the media and they are now married and together in exile. I do wish he had given an update on his family - has he seen them? are they proud of what he did? Did it affect their jobs? etc. But, overall a very well-written book about Snowden's story in his own words. To me he is a hero and the fact that he is still is exile goes against everything our country supposedly stands for with democracy and freedom.
Some quotes I liked:
"My generation was the last in American and perhaps even in world history for which this is true - the last undigitized generation, whose childhoods aren't up on the cloud but are mostly trapped in analog formats like handwritten diaries and Polaroids and VHS cassettes, tangible and imperfect artifacts that degrade with age and can be lost irretrievably." (p. 14)
"I was twelve years old, and my correspondent was an adult stranger far away, yet he treated me like an equal because I'd shown respect for the technology. I attribute this civility, so far removed from our current social-media sniping, to the high bar for entry at the time. After all, the only people on those boards were the people who could be there - who wanted to be there badly enough - who had the proficiency and passion, because the Internet of the 1990s wasn't just one click away. It took significant effort just to log on." (p. 45)
"Even back then [in school], I realized that any opposition to this system would be difficult, not least because getting its rules changed to serve the interests of the majority would involve persuading the rule makers to put themselves at a purposeful disadvantage. That, ultimately, is the critical flaw or design defect intentionally integrated into every system, in both politics and computing: the people who create the rules have no incentive to act against themselves." (p. 52)
"To read the technical details of China's surveillance of private communications - to read a complete and accurate accounting of the mechanisms and machinery required for the constant collection, storage, and analysis of the billions of daily telephone and Internet communications of over a billion people - was utterly mind-boggling. At first I was so impressed by the system's sheer achievement and audacity that I almost forgot to be appalled by its totalitarian controls...There was simply no way for America to have so much information about what the Chinese were doing without having done some of the very same things itself, and I had the sneaking sense while I was looking through all this China material that I was looking at a mirror and seeing a reflection of America. What China was doing publicly to its own citizens, America might be - could be - doing secretly to the world." (p. 170-71)
"Technology doesn't have a Hippocratic oath. So many decisions that have been made by technologists in academia, industry, the military, and government since at least the Industrial Revolution have been made on the basis of 'can we,' not 'should we.' And the intention driving a technology's invention rarely, if ever, limits its application and use." (p. 182)
"After 9/11 the IC's [Intelligence Community] orders had been 'never again,' a mission that could never be accomplished. A decade later, it had become clear, to me at least, that the repeated evocations of terror by the political class were not a response to any specific threat or concern but a cynical attempt to turn terror into a permanent danger that required permanent vigilance enforced by unquestionable authority." (p. 204-5)
Adventures in Opting Out: a field guide to leading an intentional life by Cait Flanders
I was SO looking forward to reading this book because I loved Flanders' previous book, Year of Less. This one was disappointing. The premise sounded great - "opt out" of the expected paths and find your own way/adventures. She writes the book with "opting out" being an analogy to hiking. But, like many reviews said (and I didn't want to believe) it was VERY repetitive and used the same few examples over and over and over. And most of the examples were pretty vague, so it didn't have much impact. One thing I really admired about her previous book was how open and honest she was with her struggles and changing her life. This book seems half formed - a good idea with not much material to back it up. I was so looking forward to this book and it was very disappointing. I would be open to another book by her, but I would not recommend this one.
Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: a selection edited by Corey Brettschneider
I LOVE RBG and was excited when I saw this selection of her court decisions and dissents. But, I personally found it very hard to read. It's excerpts from some of the cases she's most known for, some of them from before she was on the Supreme Court. The excerpts make for choppy reading and the legal language also makes it harder to read. Overall, I would rather have a book that listed all the court cases she was involved in with descriptions in more layman language than this collection of choppy excerpts. I did like the very thorough Introduction about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her life and career, but overall there are much better books that showcase all her legal accomplishments.
A quote I really liked:
"The pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage." (p. 7)
The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
When Dawn Edelstein survives a plane crash her first thought is not of her husband and daughter, but of Wyatt, the man she loved over 15 years ago. Before meeting her husband, Dawn was going to Yale and studying Egyptology which is where she met Wyatt. But, when her mother dies and Dawn has to drop out to care for her younger brother she never gets back in touch with Wyatt. Then she meets her husband and moves on. But, at 40 she is starting to realize that she's tired to putting everyone else first. She needs to see Wyatt one more time to figure out which path to take for her future.
I LOVE Jodi Picoult. She is one of my favorite authors and her books are usually VERY unique and smart, but this one fell flat for me. There is SO MUCH detailed information about Egyptology that if you're not interested in it that gets old pretty quick. Then the whole love triangle/soul mate storyline seemed way too trite for Picoult to take up. I personally don't believe in the whole "soul mate" thing that there is only ONE person out there for you. But, I feel like our culture really pushes that and it becomes an excuse for leaving your spouse or cheating because this other person is THE ONE. I will say there is a twist in the book that I personally didn't see coming and I did feel like the way Picoult laid out the story was well done. But, overall too much detail about Egyptology and the love triangle/soul mate storyline really turned me off. I didn't like this one much, but I did want to see what happened so I did finish it, but would not recommend.
Invisible Women: data bias in a world designed for men by Caroline Criado Perez
Invisible Women explores the data gap and bias toward women and how it affects virtually every aspect of our lives. Data is crucial in our modern world and as Perez highlights in this book when you leave women out of the data collection you make every aspect of life harder - and continue to discount that women have different experiences than men. She covers everything from public transportation, AI, car safety features, academic tenure, pay gaps, emotional labor, childcare, elder care, etc. the list goes on and on. As a woman just when you think you can't be more frustrated with things this book highlights things you never thought of or knew about. I didn't know that even today in 2020 there are not anatomically correct female crash test dummies for car safety tests - much less ones for pregnant women, yet women are 50% of drivers. I did appreciate that Perez continually points out that most of this data bias isn't intentional, but rather ignored because since men are seen as the "norm" they don't recognize that women might have a different experience than they do. But, whatever the reasoning, whether intentional or not, women are NOT being counted in so much data that it's frustrating and mind boggling.
I really liked the book and am impressed with how thorough the author was in her scope. She literally covers EVERYTHING. But, there was a LOT of data and statistics that sometimes did get overwhelming. It was also a pretty big downer to read as a woman. You think we're making progress and then you read a whole chapter about how women in political office are so often threatened, sexually harassed (by their colleagues in office no less), and targeted that you want to go off and become a hermit in the middle of nowhere. But, without exposing these holes in the collection of data how can anything change? I didn't expect the author to have tons of solutions, but there was not much other than - here's all that's wrong (and it's a LOT) and we need to include women more - the end. Definitely an eye-opening book, but be prepared to be pissed while you're reading it.
Some quotes I liked:
"When in 2013 I campaigned to have a female historical figure on the back of English banknotes some men got so angry that they felt compelled to threaten me with rape, mutilation and death. Not all men who disliked the campaign went that far, of course, but the sense of injustice was still clear in the more measured responses I got. I remember one man expostulating, 'but women are everywhere now!' Clearly, given I was having to campaign so hard for the inclusion of one woman, they aren't, but his perspective was nevertheless telling. These men were experiencing even minor female representation as an iniquity. As far as they were concerned, the playing field was already level, and the entirely male line-up was just an objective reflection of merit." (p. 15)
"Until the emergence of groups like 'EverydaySexism' and 'Hollaback,' which give women a space in which they can talk about the intimidating-but-just-short-of-criminal behaviours they face in public spaces on a daily basis, public awareness of this behaviour was more of less non-existent. When police in Nottingham started recording misogynistic behaviour (everything from indecent exposure, to groping, to upskirting) as a hate crime (or if the behaviour was not strictly criminal, a hate incident), they found reports shot up - not because men had suddenly got much worse, but because women felt that they would be taken seriously." (p. 55)
"Bock claimed Google's workshops a success (he told the New York Times that women are now promoted proportionally to men), but if that is the case, why the reluctance to provide the data to prove it? When the US Department of Labor conducted an analysis of Google's pay practices in 2017 it found 'systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce,' with 'six to seven standard deviations between pay for men and women in nearly every job category.' Google has since repeatedly refused to hand over fuller pay data to the Labor Department, fighting in court for months to avoid the demand. There was no pay imbalance, they insisted." (p. 109)
"One survey of senior level women working in Silicon Valley found that 90% of women had witnessed sexist behaviour; 87% had been on the receiving end of demeaning comments by male colleagues; and 60% had received unwanted sexual advances. Of that 60%, more than half had been propositioned more than once, and 65% had been propositioned by a superior. One in three women surveyed had felt afraid for her personal safety." (p. 138)
"Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a collection of symptoms that can include among other things: mood swings, anxiety, breast tenderness, bloating, acne, headaches, stomach pain and sleep problems. PMS affects 90% of women, but is chronically under-studied: one research round-up found five times as many studies on erectile dysfunction than on PMS. And yet while a range of medication exists to treat erectile dysfunction there is very little available for women, to the extent that over 40% of women who have PMS don't respond to treatments currently available. Sufferers are still sometimes treated with hysterectomies; in extreme cases, women have tried to kill themselves. But researchers are still being turned down for research grants on the basis that 'PMS does not actually exist.'" (p. 229)
"In particular, we have to start accounting for the three themes that define women's relationship with that world. The first of these themes is the female body - or, to be precise - its invisibility. Routinely forgetting to accommodate the female body in design - whether medical, technological or architectural - has led to a world that is less hospitable and more dangerous for women to navigate...There is an irony in how the female body is apparently invisible when it comes to collecting data, because when it comes to the second trend that defines women's lives, the visibility of the female body is key. That trend is male sexual violence against women - how we don't measure it, don't design our world to account for it, and in so doing, allow it to limit women's liberty...the third trend, which is perhaps the most significant in terms of its impact on women's lives worldwide: unpaid care work. Women are doing far and away more than our fair share of this work - this necessary work without which our lives would all fall apart...Failing to collect data on women and their lives means that we continue to naturalise sex and gender discrimination." (p. 313-14)
The Size of Everything by Erin Cole
Erin Cole is known for her couture bridal business and original gowns. As a successful entrepreneur and business owner you would never know the chaos and abuse she grew up in. Her parents divorced when she was young and she and her three older siblings lived with their mom. Erin's mom, Geraldine, remarried - Geraldine and her husband Don were both horrible alcoholics who could barely hold down jobs or be bothered to provide food for the four kids living with them. Erin's Dad, Kenneth didn't remarry, but lived with a woman named Betty who was incredibly abusive to Erin and her sisters. As Erin was growing up she lived between both houses depending on which one was the lesser of two evils at the time. By the age of 16 she had moved out on her own with a friend to finish high school. She realized at a pretty young age that she could really only depend on herself - neither of her parents would help her or stand up for her. The fact that she not only survived, but thrived after moving out on her own is miraculous. My only complaint is that the book spends the majority of the time during her childhood abuses, but once she's an adult on her own there are like 2-3 short chapters that rush through 10-15 years. I would have liked more about how she started her bridal business and how her relationship with her siblings was, etc. At the very end she briefly states that she's now divorced twice, so maybe she didn't survive everything from her upbringing. I wish the book had been half about her childhood and half about her adulthood and starting her bridal business. Overall, an interesting memoir about surviving a horrible childhood.
A quote I liked:
[On going back to live with her Dad for the second time] "He couldn't possibly know how badly I wanted to stay in one place, or how hard it was for a twelve-year-old to try to choose between no rules and an iron fist; between being ignored and being beaten; between starving and being made to eat until you puked. One was no worse than the other; it was just a matter of how long I could tolerate the present situation before trading it in for the other." (p. 243)
