February 2022 Reviews

 

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (Evening Edition book club)

Alix Chamberlain is a woman used to getting what she wants. She runs a successful confidence-driven brand, has two small kids, and a loving husband. She's not thrilled about moving back to Philadelphia from New York City, but it only made since once the second child came along. Now she can have the big, beautiful home to complete her family life. One night there is an emergency and Alix calls her regular babysitter Emira Tucker to take their two-year-old daughter out of the house while they deal with the police. Emira takes Briar to the nearby grocery store where the toddler loves to look at all the food. But while they are there another customer and the store security guard confront Emira and accuse her of kidnapping Briar. A bystander films the encounter. The crisis is averted when Emira calls Mr. Chamberlain who rushes over and reams out the store security guard. The bystander offers to email Emira the video in case she wants to press charges or anything. Then later Emira runs into the bystander again and they start dating. What Emira doesn't know is that her new boyfriend, Kelley, used to date her boss Alix and according to Alix, Kelley ruined her senior year of high school. After an explosive Thanksgiving dinner where this all comes to light, Emira struggles with the overlapping of her personal and professional lives. Then someone leaks the video and Emira thinks only she and Kelley have access to it. Such a Fun Age is an incredibly well-written novel with lots of twists and a surprise ending.

I honestly wouldn't have picked this book up except for one of my book clubs reading it, but I LOVED it. Reid does an incredible job with both the main characters. Alix has a weird fixation on Emira and truly thinks they can be real friends even when it's super obvious they can't. Emira really enjoys babysitting Briar and seems to appreciate her quirky personality more than her own mother does. There are a lot of interesting dynamics at work throughout the book with all the characters. Very well done. I can't wait to see what Kiley Reid comes out with next.

All the Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks

Ruth Coker Burks is at the hospital visiting her friend who's just had surgery. While there she witnesses three nurses drawing straws to see who will go in to care for a patient in a room marked "biohazard." Curious, Ruth goes over to the door and hears someone calling out for help - realizing none of the nurses are going in she goes in and ends up sitting with a young man dying of AIDS for several hours until his death. This starts her work with the local AIDS community. Soon hospitals are calling her at home when another AIDS patient is dumped off at the hospital for their final hours of life. Soon she is helping men who are sick, but not yet dying. She finds social services for them, housing, dumpster dives for food to cook for them - all while working and taking care of her daughter. She expands into helping spread information at local gay bars and drag shows, then moves on to strip clubs. Once she realizes the scope of the work she just dives in despite the fact that not many people want to help her and most of the town treats her like a pariah, but she just carries on doing the work she knows needs to be done.

This is an eye-opening book about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the South where there already wasn't much acceptance for homosexuality. It was infuriating to read about how the doctors, nurses, and hospitals treated these suffering people. But, sadly today there's still some of that with hospitals talking about refusing treatment for unvaccinated COVID patients (not that this is on the same scale, but in the same vein) because your "choices" led to this. Almost as infuriating was the overt sexual harassment Ruth faced just about everywhere - trying to find jobs, at AIDS conferences - men telling her they couldn't hire her because they would want to sleep with her. This book started in the mid-1980's but I was still surprised just how blatant it was and yet she just shut them down and moved on. This is really an amazing story of how one woman really stepped up to help people just because she saw the need and felt like it was the right thing to do. When these men were dying and their own families turned them away Ruth was there for them right up to the very end. Definitely a woman and a story worth knowing about.

Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans 

Rachel Held Evans was well-known in certain Christian circles. She was an incredible writer and never shied away from the hard questions in Christianity. She died so young and unexpectedly and this was the book she was working on at the time of her death. Her husband asked a close friend of hers to put this book together from what she had written so far at the time. If I hadn't known that on the front end I would have never guessed that this book was finished by someone else. A friend of mine wrote in her review of this book that it feels like you're sitting down and having a conversation with a friend and I completely agree with that assessment. This is more a collection of essays about what Wholehearted Faith might look like or what it looks like to Rachel Held Evans. There are things I don't agree with Evans on, but I absolutely LOVE the way she writes and how she continues to wrestle with her faith even when it's hard and even when she doesn't feel like believing. She is such a great example of real faith and I hate that this is the last book we'll ever get from her.

Some quotes I liked:

"Wholeheartedness means that we can be doubtful and still find rest in the tender embrace of a God who isn't threatened by human inconsistency. Wholeheartedness means that we can ask bold questions, knowing that God loves us not just in spite of them but also because of them - and because of this searching, seeking spirits that inspire us to want to know God more deeply. Wholeheartedness means that we can approach the throne of grace in the confidence of the God who made us, the God who redeemed us, and the God who accompanies us." (p. 38-39)

"Anyway, most of the openhearted wanderers I've encountered are looking not for a bulletproof belief system but for a community of friends, not for a spiritual encyclopedia that contains every answer but for a gathering of loved ones in which they can ask the hard questions." (p. 53)

"There's a common misunderstanding among many Christians that God is equal parts love and wrath, and the trick is to strike a theological balance between the two. But the Bible doesn't teach this. The Bible teaches that God's entire essence is love." (p. 87)

"One of the reasons I'm still a Christian is that this faith liberates me from a fear of death. In doing so, it delves into one of the deepest receptacles of human fear, looks it in the eye, and declares, 'I am not afraid.' I am not afraid to name the things that are bringing death to the people I love and calling them wrong. I am not afraid to say that the church has stifled holy imagination for the sake of the preservation of its own comfort...I am not afraid to say that, if the church in the US is dying, let it die. Let it die to the old ways of hegemony. Let it die to violence. Let it die to control. Maybe the church in the US is already dead. But the fear of death is the province of those who do not believe in resurrection. Aren't Christians supposed to be living testimony to the miracle of the resurrection?"101-102)

"This is one of the things I've been missing in many contemporary articulations of Christianity - a raw, unadorned expression of how much things can truly suck. There is no judgement, at least not as we think of it. There is no condemnation of the psalmist's wallowing, no admonition that he ought to be something other than what he is or feel something other than what he feels. There is no patronizing suggestion that this is all part of God's plan." (p. 148-49)

How (Not) to Read the Bible by Dan Kimball

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this book, but was drawn to check it out solely based on the title. And I'm glad I did because it was AMAZING. Dan Kimball you are one of my new heroes. In this book Kimball explores 5 areas of "crazy" things found in the Bible - weird Old Testament laws, misogyny in the Bible, the Bible vs. science, the claim that Christianity is the only path to God, and violence in the Bible. The first section of the book explains in further detail the importance of reading the Bible "correctly" which really means how it was originally intended. One quote he says a lot that I very much appreciate is that "The Bible is written for us, but not to us." Basically, as a Christian the Bible is for us, but it's not meant to be an explanation of every question for all of time. Kimball does a really, really good job of breaking things down and explaining the historical context of the different books of the Bible and how we can use these books today as Christians. It's all very common sense, but sadly many people don't have any common sense and want the Bible to be a literal roadmap for our lives or want to apply everything in it in a literal way and that is just not how it was written or how we are supposed to use it. I'm not a Biblical scholar, but I do read a LOT about a lot of things and I was beyond impressed with this book. This is one I am definitely going to buy!

Some quotes I liked:

"I love that the Bible itself says that some of the Bible will be hard to understand. So when we struggle with something in the Bible, we have to remember that even Peter admitted that not all of it is easy to understand. It also says that people will 'distort' the Bible. This reaffirms what we've been learning, that it is critically important to invest time and effort into understanding how to and how not to read and study the Bible." (p. 33)

"In general, Jesus did not focus on specific civil laws or governments, but addressed the desires and motives of the human heart." (p. 98)

"Overall, the world that Jesus lived in and the world the church was born into did not have equal respect, value, and rights for men and women. So when we read what Jesus did with regard to women, it should be recognized as countercultural, highly shocking, and extremely challenging to the religious leaders of his day. We see Jesus striving to change the culture he lived in through the way he treated women - with respect, dignity, and equality." (p. 121)

"Jesus could have appeared to anyone after his resurrection, but he chose to reveal himself first to women...According to Jewish law, women were not allowed to bear legal witness. Yet Jesus gave them the honorable task of being the very first to see him resurrected and the very first to tell others about it." (p. 124)

"Every time we see a list of gifts that God's Spirit gave to enable the church to function on mission, we see no distinction made between men and women. We never see in these lists of what we call 'spiritual gifts' in the New Testament that only certain gifts were for men and some were only for women. Read those lists and you will not see any such labeling." (p. 127)

"Dr. Rodney Stark, a sociologist, writes in his book The Rise of Christianity that 'Christianity was unusually appealing [to women] because within the Christian subculture women enjoyed far higher status than did women in the Greco-Roman world at large.' He notes that the early church 'attracted an unusual number of higher-status women.' Has the church throughout the ages used certain Bible verses against women in wrong, even harmful ways? Sadly, yes. There have been - and still are - some churches and Christians who misuse the text to create misogyny in God's name. But when you study the Scriptures and seek to understand them in their cultural context, it's clear that the Bible is not against women, but an advocate for women." (p. 147)

"God punished Egypt with a series of ten plagues to knock down the arrogance and confidence of Pharaoh, the Egyptian leader, and force him to release Israel from slavery. The plagues God chose were not random events - they were quite intentional. Each of the ten plagues was a direct assault on one of the gods of the Egyptians. For example, Egyptians worshiped the god Hapi, the Egyptian God of the Nile River, and it was believed that the god Osiris had the Nile River as his bloodstream. God demonstrated his power over the river - and the Egyptian gods - by turning the river water blood red." (p. 167)

Bad Blood: secrets and lies in a silicon valley startup by John Carreyrou

Elizabeth Holmes was pegged as "the next Steve Jobs" while working to start her company Theranos. Holmes claimed that Theranos would revolutionize the medical testing world by being able to run hundreds of tests on just a few drops of blood. The only problem? The technology she claimed to have didn't work or really exist. But that didn't stop her from lying to everyone from venture capitalists to Generals in the US military to bully her way into selling Theranos devices. The company basically ran on red flags from the very beginning and fired anyone who dared ask a question or doubted what the company was doing leaving an insanely long trail of former employees in it's wake. Holmes also had no problem suing or threatening former or current employees with lawsuits if there was even a whiff of a breach of the many confidentiality documents they had to sign to work there or quit. When a few brave former employees did start whistleblowing Theranos came down on them HARD. And when the story was eventually told through The Wall Street Journal Theranos fought the newspaper just as hard, but thankfully the paper was more prepared and stood by their journalist John Carreyrou. Within two years of the first article exposing the fraud at Theranos the former "unicorn" of Silicon Valley was done. But, the damage was done especially for many of the former employees - especially one awful case where the employee committed suicide. At the time of the book publication no criminal charges had been filed, but since then both Elizabeth Holmes and her business partner and former boyfriend, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, both were indicted on criminal fraud charges.

I remember when the Theranos fraud story first came out, but I didn't read too much about it at the time. When I finally picked up this book I was hooked from the first chapter. I don't know how a company literally made out of red flags EVER got as far as it did. It really makes you wonder about the process for getting funding for a start up company because NO ONE who gave money seemed to do any kind of research or required anything from her other than verbal assurances. Can someone give me $10 million dollars because I'm confident and a good speaker? I'm also curious in cases like this did Holmes intend to defraud people and lie? Or did she truly think she could make this idea work and when it was increasingly obvious it never would she just kept hoping that if they could get more money somehow it would miraculously work? I was also blown away by the insanely toxic work environment at Theranos. She blew through employees like kleenex - and these weren't unskilled Walmart cashiers, they were top of their fields scientists and engineers who were literally fired on the spot for asking obvious questions. Carreyrou does a great job with this story and it reads more like a spy/thriller movie than a non-fiction book about the rise and fall of Theranos.

Some quotes I liked:

"It was all beginning to make sense: Holmes and her company had overpromised and then cut corners when they couldn't deliver. It was one thing to do that with software or a smartphone app, but doing it with a medical product that people relied on to make important health decisions was unconscionable." (p. 229)

"Balwani had tasked a Theranos software engineer named Michael Craig to write an application for the miniLab's software that masked test malfunctions. When something went wrong inside the machine, the app kicked in and prevented an error message from appearing on the digital display. Instead, the screen showed the test's progress slowing to a crawl." (p. 262)

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

When Qian was seven she and her mother moved from China to America to join her father who had left three years earlier. In China Qian's parents were professionals and they lived a comfortable life, but in America they are reduced to working in a variety of sweatshops and low-end jobs. Qian is thrust into American public school speaking no English and with basically no help from the school. She's transferred to the "special needs" classroom where she teaches herself to read English. Even once she's proficient in English she is always doing the wrong thing and not understanding American cultural norms. Her parents struggle even more with having to work menial labor jobs for pennies when they are both highly educated. The years Qian is in New York City are years of contradictions - America is the "beautiful country," but the family is almost starving and barely scraping by. Qian struggles to fit in, but finds enormous comfort in reading and the public library. Her family moved to America with hope for a better future, but they are also afraid of standing out too much and possibly being deported. Eventually, the family is able to move to Canada and legally obtain citizenship and Qian realizes her dream of becoming a lawyer. But, her traumatic childhood and dysfunctional family scars still threaten her. This book is the product of her working through her childhood and finally reconciling her past with her present and future. An incredible memoir that will make you thankful for everything you have.

Some quotes I liked:

"'Qian.' He was holding the essay from the day before. 'Did you write this?' Was it a trick question? Maybe it was another question that was actually an answer. 'I don't think you wrote this, Qian.' Maybe it was one of those jokes he loved to make but that no one got. 'Then who did?' I squeaked out. 'This is...this is not the type of writing I see at PS 124.' 'But I did write it.' 'Are you sure?'...It was the first of many similar encounters I would have with white teachers to come. For the rest of my time in Mr. Kane's class, I made sure to add spelling and grammatical mistakes before handing anything in." (p. 201-2)

"Male teachers, I had learned by then, were rarely impressed with stories about girls. Mr. Kane was always telling me to read something more worthwhile, like Hatchet. But I didn't understand why a boy's stories about growing up were more worthwhile than a girl's." (p. 243)

Sourdough Culture by Eric Pallant

In 1988 Eric Pallant was given some sourdough starter from a colleague who said that starter dated back to the Cripple Creek gold rush from 1893. In the early 2000's Pallant had been using the starter continually and suddenly thought about how that starter had been with him longer than his children. He wondered if he could verify the origins of his starter. He also began to wonder about how sourdough bread started in human civilization and how it migrated from those origins to his gold rush starter in Colorado in 1893. Those questions led to this book that is as Peter Reinhart writes in the Foreword: "Eric's book invites us to ride along and see how scientists, theologians, laborers, bakers, soldiers, and bread lovers have interacted with sourdough since the dawn of Western civilization." (p. xii) While at times the level of scientific and historical details are high, the book is still very readable from a non-scientist/historian viewpoint. I was also pretty impressed overall with Pallant's drive to know EVERYTHING about sourdough bread. Each chapter offers a few recipes related to the contents of that chapter. Overall, definitely an interesting book especially if you're a bread baker or interested in baking your own bread.

A quote I liked:

"In the 1960s, when Wonder Bread reigned in America, sourdough bread was a form of protest - as was, come to think of it, simply baking a loaf at home." (p. 233)

Food Saved Me by Danielle Walker

I might be one of the few people to read this book who is not suffering from an autoimmune disease. I picked it up based on the title because I'm a huge proponent of eating real food. While I don't have any autoimmune diseases, I did find that when I changed my diet in 2010 I didn't get sick nearly as much as I did before. I cut out most processed foods, fast food, and any meat or eggs not local and regeneratively farmed/raised. I also learned to cook from scratch more and can my own produce - both of which used to be normal household skills, but not something most people do today. I was impressed with Danielle's story and her transparency about her struggles. I honestly can't imagine being that sick and also not always knowing what would trigger a flare up. I wasn't really familiar with her before this book, but I had heard of the cookbook Against All Grain. The book was definitely interesting and engaging even for someone without the types of health issues she has. It still blows my mind how many doctors tell people that illness/disease IN THEIR DIGESTIVE TRACT don't have anything to do with food - it shows how far removed we are from the importance of food/diet/health in our country. Overall, a well-written and inspirational book about the power of food.

Some quotes I liked:

"After consulting with two GI specialists and undergoing a battery of scans, biopsies, and blood tests in some of the most sophisticated medical facilities in the Bay Are, who would have guessed that the most thorough explanation of what I had and how I might have gotten it would come from a doctor in a dilapidated two-room hospital in the middle of a developing country." (p. 54-55)

"I couldn't quite make sense of what he was telling me. If it didn't matter what I ate, why had two different GI specialists specifically instructed me to eat totally different things? Dr. Stark had also said that the way food is grown and prepared can affect the body. Dr. Benedict just prescribed fish oil and potassium supplements - but weren't those two nutrients I could get by eating actual fish or bananas? Given that my particular disease involved the colon, where food is digested...weren't they all making the case that food does in fact play a role?" (p. 69)

January 2022 Cookbook Reviews

 

Cooking at Home by David Chang and Priya Krishna

This makes me feel so old to say this, but I hated this cookbook. First of all a cookbook with no recipes? WTH. Second there was so much weirdness going on with crazy text/fonts/text size/color/etc. that I found that extremely distracting. Literally every page was text in different sizes and colors, I felt like a Kindergartener put it together. I know David Chang and Priya Krishna are both very well-known chefs and cookbook authors, but I did not like this one at all. Looking at other reviews so far, I'm obviously in the minority as well, but I still didn't like it.

This Must Be the Place by Rachel Ray

This is going to sound weird, but I never liked Rachael Ray's TV show yet when I would see her interviewed or featured on another food show she seemed really likable and down to earth. I did read her memoir/cookbook Rachael Ray 50 with essays and reflections from turning 50. So, after reading that one I thought I would give her newest cookbook here a try. She was inspired to write it during the beginning of the COVID epidemic, so there are diary-like entries then a few recipes that she created during lockdowns and when she was trying to continue her cooking show from home. In just the first few months of COVID she and her husband relocated from NY City to their home in upstate NY - then her 15-year-old beloved dog Isaboo died, and their second/upstate home burned down - all in the middle of a pandemic! I felt so bad for her that so much was going on in her personal life on top of trying to deal with COVID too. While I did enjoy the diary-entries and how despite her being a celebrity she was still dealing with a lot of the same stresses the average person was during COVID, I didn't love the book overall. There weren't really any recipes I wanted to try and I personally couldn't relate to her huge fear of COVID. I think if you're a die-hard Rachael Ray fan you'll love this one, but it just wasn't for me.

The Complete Autumn & Winter Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

This is a really thorough cookbook that focuses on the fall and winter seasons. In the introduction there is a nice overview of that time of year, how to prep for holidays/parties, what produce is in season, etc. They also include some sample menus and suggested tools/equipment. The recipes are organized by type - soups/stews/chili, sides, breads, etc. but I also liked that there were a few chapters on specific produce items like pumpkin and apples that are best in the fall/winter. I also loved that the last chapter was on food gifts. Overall, I was really impressed with this cookbook. The only (small) downside for me was many of the recipes had a LOT of ingredients or steps, so it's not necessarily a beginner's cookbook. But, there were lots of recipes I'd like to try from this one. And it was perfect timing when I got it from the library since we're in the winter months now.

Milk Street Vegetables by Christopher Kimball

I love vegetables, so even though I'm not vegetarian or vegan I still love to look at vegetable cookbooks. This one is organized like a typical cookbook with chapters on types of recipes - salads, soups, pasta/grain dishes, etc. I like that at the beginning of the book all the recipes are listed by vegetable, so if you wanted to find recipes for a specific vegetable you can do it that way more easily. Also throughout the book there are one page articles about a specific vegetable with some history and best uses for that vegetable. I didn't find tons of recipes I wanted to try, but I did find a few. Overall, a good vegetable cookbook.

January 2022 Reviews

 January did not start off great for me - my husband and I both got COVID and because of that I didn't read ANYTHING for two weeks. So, my 2022 reading took a hit right away! Here's to the rest of the year being better.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (Evening Edition book club)

The premise of this book sounded so good, but it was a huge flop in my opinion. The writing was just awful with so many weird sexual things/descriptions and just really odd ways of describing things. I would have quit reading after the first chapter if this wasn't for book club. And you never find out what actually happened - I think that's worse than all the weird writing. Just give me an afterword or one chapter about what the catastrophe/attack/plague was! As one review I saw perfectly summed it up: Leave This Book Behind.

Nomadland: surviving American in the Twenty-first century by Jessica Bruder (Books & Banter book club, re-read)

Nomadland explores a unique segment of the US population - retirement age people who are essentially homeless, living in old RVs, vans or cars and traveling all over the US doing seasonal work and meeting up as a community of "vandwellers." While many people saw media coverage of the tent cities that popped up around the country during the 2008-9 recession full of out of work people who had been foreclosed on or evicted and were now homeless. While some of the vandwellers enjoy their lifestyle, most if not all were forced into this lifestyle and are now trying to make the best of it. Jessica Bruder buys a van to live out of for months at a time so she can truly get to know the vandweller culture and experience this lifestyle. Bruder interviews many people, but mainly follows Linda May, a woman in her late sixties who worked a variety of jobs in her lifetime, but yet couldn't seem to make ends meet paying rent, utilities, etc. but with no rent and much lower expenses she can work toward her dream of buying land and building an Earthship house one day. The most eye-opening part of this book for me was how many seasonal jobs are geared toward older adults as extra retirement income, but the reality is these people depend on these jobs and will probably never really be able to retire. Amazon is a huge recruiter of "camperforce," older people who have RVs/campers/vans to live out of and will travel to Amazon's huge warehouses as seasonal workers during the holiday rush between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is extremely physical and demanding work that is needed round the clock. I also didn't know that many National Parks advertise for "campground hosts" who help rangers keep campsites clean, clean public showers and restrooms, and check in campers. While there's nothing wrong with either of these jobs, it just felt sad that many of these people can't find any other full-time work because of their age. It also felt somewhat predatory and while that shouldn't surprise me about a huge corporation like Amazon I guess it still does. This is a unique story about a hidden part of our population, but there is also just an undercurrent of sadness too. These people do have a genuine community and help each other, but there are many that fall through the cracks when they have a health crisis. Definitely a book I'll be thinking about for a long time.

Some quotes I really liked:

"Amazon had recruited these workers as part of a program it calls CamperForce: a labor unit made up of nomads who work as seasonal employees at several of its warehouses, which the company calls 'fulfillment centers,' or FCs. Along with thousands of traditional temps, they're hired to meet the heavy shipping demands of 'peak season,' the consumer bonanza that spans the three to four months before Christmas. Amazon doesn't disclose precise staffing numbers to the press, but when I casually asked a CamperForce manager at an Amazon recruiting booth in Arizona about the size of the program, her estimate was some two thousand workers [that was 2014]...The workers' shifts last ten hours or longer, during which some walk more than fifteen miles on concrete floors, stooping, squatting, reaching, and climbing stairs as they scan, sort, and box merchandise. When the holiday rush ends, Amazon no longer needs CamperForce and terminates the program's workers. They drive away in what managers cheerfully call a 'taillight parade.'" (p. 45)

[Talking about how physically demanding the Amazon temp work is on anyone, but especially older bodies] "Many of the RVs I entered [in CamperForce] were stocked like mobile apothecaries, with Icy Hot Pain Relieving Gel, tubs for soaking tired feet, Epsom salts, and bottles of Aleve and Advil. If the workers ran out of pills, that wasn't a problem - Amazon had wall-mounted dispensers offering free over-the-counter painkillers in the warehouse." (p. 55-6)

"Along with many of the wayfarers he came to inspire, Bob [Wells who created CheapRVLiving.com] saw things differently. He envisioned a future where economic and environmental upheavals had become the new American normal. For this reason, he didn't package nomadic living as a quick fix, something to tide folks over until society had stabilized, at which point they could reintegrate with the mainstream. Rather he aspired to create a wandering tribe whose members could operate outside of - or even transcend - the fraying social order: a parallel world on wheels." (p. 78-9)

Update to re-reading for book club:

While I wasn't as shocking reading the book for a second time, it's still hard to believe there are so many industries that target older people for hard seasonal work. It makes me very thankful for the pension I still have through my work and my affordable home. Re-reading this book also makes me want to NOT shop with Amazon anymore, but it's almost required since there are so few mom-and-pop type retail stores anymore. Is Target any better than Amazon? Probably not. I'm curious to see how the discussion goes since the majority of my book club members are older women who are retired. Still a great book that shines a light on a dark corner of US society.

Some new quotes I liked:

"The folks who run CamperForce reiterate the belief that older workers bring a good work ethic...[Kelly Calmes a CamperForce administrator says] 'The benefit to our workamping population being, for the most part, a little bit older is that you guys have put in a lifetime of work. You understand what work is,. You put your mind to the work, and we know that it's a marathon, it's not a sprint. It's kind of like The Tortoise and the Hare.'...Beyond that, Amazon reaps federal tax credits - ranging from 25 to 40 percent of wages - for hiring disadvantaged workers in several categories." (p. 59)

"Meanwhile, Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers had been making headlines since 2011. That's when an investigation by the Allentown Morning Call newspaper revealed what were - quite literally - sweatshop conditions. When summer temperatures exceeded 100 degrees inside the company's Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, warehouse, managers wouldn't open the loading bay doors for fear of theft. Instead, they hired paramedics to wait outside in ambulances, ready to extract heat-stricken employees on stretchers and in wheelchairs, the investigation found." (p. 98-99)

"(A few years later, Amazon created a webpage for CamperForce applicants called 'Winterizing Your Rig' that advised covering windows in shrink-film and putting reflective insulators over vents. Links were provided so readers could purchase both materials at - where else? - Amazon.com.)" (p. 110)

Nowhere Girl: a memoir of a fugitive childhood by Cheryl Diamond

Cheryl Diamond grew up in an extremely unusual family. They were a white family, but practiced the Sikh religion (typically an Indian religion - Cheryl was originally named Harbhajan), were vegetarians, and they were also fugitives on the run. They never lived in one place long and all three children (Cheryl being the youngest) were expected to know their current cover story and identities at all times. None of the children even knew their parents real names or where the family documents were hidden. Yet, oddly to me, their father encouraged all three children to compete in sports - even driving them to try out for the Olympics. That seemed so odd for a family on the run to get attention and be involved in sports/activities. Cheryl is especially driven in whatever she does, never wanting to disappoint her father. But, as she gets older Cheryl begins to see more and more how domineering and abusive her father and family are. But where else can they go? They have no IDs, no history, and don't even know their own parents real names. Eventually the older two children run away or are pushed out of the family and it's just Cheryl and her parents. By this point she has begun modeling which is a whole new world of abuse. While modeling Cheryl begins to get sick and is eventually diagnosed with Crohn's Disease - an autoimmune disease that can be brought on by extreme tension or post-traumatic stress - yet she can't tell the doctors of her whole life of trauma and stress so she continues to hide everything inside. Eventually Cheryl and her mother leave her father and go back to Cheryl's grandparents. There Cheryl starts to come to terms with her life, her father, and everything from her past. She finally starts to heal and create her final identity as Cheryl Diamond.

This was really a roller-coaster of a book that again highlights the old saying that the truth is stranger than fiction. Cheryl had an insane childhood and so much trauma it's hard to even imagine there could be more as you keep reading. I think the absolutely worst part for me was when Cheryl's brother who she absolutely adored started molesting her. She felt like she couldn't tell her parents because Frank would have nowhere to go. And her father was something else. I don't want to give away the reason they were running, but by the end it really seemed like he just enjoyed the chase and feeling like he was outsmarting everyone. Definitely a huge narcissist who thought he was smarter and better than everyone. This is definitely one to add to the super dysfunctional family memoir list!

Some quotes I liked:

"Watching Mom work steadily, I frown. Dad is always so strong and daring in his decisions, but it's actually Mom who seems to pull it all together. I hadn't noticed it before...I guess you rarely notice the person doing most of the work, because they're always busy and the other one has more time to talk." (p. 38)

"Adults are always saying that kids don't know enough to appreciate their youth. But I disagree. My siblings and I feel the magic of this summer. After moving around constantly, these endless days, the smell of chlorine and sunblock lingering on our skin, are special. For the rest, there will always be next summer, next year. For us, everything we are tasting may be for the last time." (p. 53-54)

"I can't stand feelings. They are messy and frightening, trying to cling to me like slime. I brush that shit off. But here, in secret, it feels so, so good to cry. Huge gulping sobs, my head buried in her shoulder. For a moment, I can still be a desperate child, as she lies and tells me it's going to be all right." (p. 171)

"When Frank called me the strong one, that day on the phone, I was flattered. But hearing it again now, I see the words for what they are. Not a compliment, or a fact, but an excuse. A way to leave me to sort everything out on my own. I've never broken down, because I thought they wouldn't be able to handle the extra stress. But now I wonder - are they coming apart because they know I never will?" (p. 209)

"There is something people rarely tell you about war, and that is how another battle begins when it is over. I thought I was brave when I felt nothing, when I forced myself to be numb, but what's really scary is peacetime. I want so desperately to be normal, or at least some version of it, but the past, these emotions rushing back, are far more confusing and unsettling than numbness ever was. It would be much simpler to keep parts of myself forever locked away. Because to truly feel would mean opening myself up to being hurt again. War is simple. Perhaps it's the aftermath that requires real courage." (p. 293-94)

"Life will unfold in its own way, in its own time; we have little say in the adventure. We only have power over what we learn from our story, what we decide to make of it. The difference between heaven and hell is simple: It's not what happens to us, it's not what other people do - it's what we choose to hold on to." (p. 306-7)

What the Amish Teach Us by Donald B. Kraybill

This is a small, short book that is packed with really interesting information. Donald Kraybill grew up in a Mennonite home, which is somewhat similar to the Amish but the Mennonites allow more technology in their lives (electricity, cars, etc.). In college he decided to study Amish culture and the question of how do the Amish who spurn modern-day technology and advances still thrive in such a modern, technological world. This book is a collection of what he's learned over the years studying the Amish and their world. These 22 areas highlight some of the Amish traditions and how in many ways they are ahead of their old-world time - for example creating rideshares long before Uber. The main theme of the book is how the Amish negotiate with modernity - they don't just out right spurn all new advances or technology - they look at how something will affect their community and decide what aspects of a new technology could help and what could hurt. I think this is definitely something missing in our non-Amish society. Whatever the newest thing is everyone just HAS TO HAVE IT with no thought about how it's affecting us - smartphones being the perfect example. I found the book to be very interesting and thought-provoking, but it's also so foreign to think about living not as an individual, but as a representation of your community. I will definitely be thinking about this one for awhile.

Some quotes I liked:

"For me, Amish ways disturb and disrupt. They disturb some assumptions that I take for granted. They disrupt my old habits, my predispositions, and my fixed understandings of how I think the world works. They certainly uproot my a priori assumptions about progress and prod me to question why I do what I do. In this sense, the Amish are silent social critics - offering a critique of modern culture that is intellectually provocative yet always practical." (p. x)

"It was just three words: bigness ruins everything. A cute throwaway quip? Not this one. It had intellectual depth and breadth. I never forgot it, and I soon came to realize that it's writ large across Amish life." (p. 23)

"Hackers exemplify how a culture of restraint, ironically, spurs innovation and invention." (p. 84) [Not hacking in the traditional computer sense, but rather figuring out ways to make things work within the confines of the Amish rules around technology]

"Nature, enthused one Amish person, is like a window into heaven." (p. 109)

Freedom Farmers: agricultural resistance and the black freedom movement by Monica M. White

Freedom Farmers explores the often overlooked or ignored history of black farmers and farming/food cooperatives that were formed in the time of the civil rights movement in order to help black families survive and thrive in the South. Monica White starts by showing how three influential black men started this agricultural freedom movement - Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Then she goes into the history of cooperative farming movements giving another three examples - Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm Cooperative, North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, and The Federation of Southern Cooperatives (the only one still in operation at the time of publication). The last chapter focuses on the history and current urban farming movement in Detroit, Michigan. The whole book shows the importance of food freedom. When you are not starving and have access to healthy, quality food you can then focus on other issues. The book also highlights some of the shameful historical parts of the South where white people worked overtime to keep black people "in their place." I was shocked to read about white, Southern government officials purposely stopping federal funding to some of these cooperative agencies - funding that was specifically for poverty issues. That's why books like this are important so we can see how those parts of history have shaped the way things are today. I will say my only complaint with this book was that the tone was very scholarly. It was not a super-easy read even though it's only 147 pages. I saw a few reviews that said they wished she had included more personal stories from people in the cooperatives and I would have liked that as well. I think more personal stories would have made it more readable as well. But, overall and important book about food and freedom.

Some quotes I liked:

"[George Washington Carver] was what today would be called a permaculturist, one who believes in the value of developing 'Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre, and energy for provision of local food needs.' Carver's work used sustainable products from organic, natural sources...In an era when few appreciated its significance, Carver waxed eloquent about composting..." (p. 46-47)

"One measure of the respect Carver's inventions gained in their day is that Henry Ford asked him to assist with the development of peanuts and soybeans to create fuel, paint, and plastics for the burgeoning automobile industry. Thomas Edison also offered Carver a six-figure salary to move to New Jersey to work in his labs. In a demonstration of his dedication to his work with black farmers, Carver refused, preferring to stay at Tuskegee." (p. 49)

"Down where we are, food is used as a political weapon. But if you have a pig in your backyard, if you have some vegetables in your garden, you can feed yourself and your family, and nobody can push you around. If we have something like some pigs and some gardens and a few things like that, even if we have no jobs, we can eat and we can look after our families. - Fannie Lou Hamer" (p. 65)

"While it is important to analyze the problems that ultimately led to the demise of the [Freedom Farm Cooperative] in 1975, we should not undervalue its successes. Given its time, scope, intention, and liberatory vision, as well as the fact that this vision was enacted within a pervasively oppressive and racially hostile environment, the movement - while relatively short lived - was a manifestation of self-reliance and the capacity of a community to come together for the provision of food, housing, shelter, education, health care, and employment. This radical experiment constituted an important chapter in the black freedom movement." (p. 87)

The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi (Books & Banter book club)

Lakshmi escapes an abusive marriage and leaves her small, rural village for the larger city of Jaipur. In Jaipur Lakshmi works hard to establish a life for herself and creates a very successful henna business. Just at the point where she is finally building a house for herself and realizing her success her estranged husband tracks her down - and he's not alone, he brings her sister along. A sister she didn't know existed. Lakshmi's sister Radha completely upends her ordered life in Jaipur in several ways. Eventually a chain of events starts that ends Lakshmi's henna business, but opens a new opportunity for her as well. Set in India in the 1950's, this is a well-written story of a young Indian woman who decides to make her own way in a time and place where that just wasn't the norm.

This is not at all the type of book I would normally read, but it was highly recommended and one of my book clubs selected it. I will admit I was really enjoying it until Radha arrives. I'm not an expert on Indian culture in the 1950's, but her character did not seem to match someone with her history/background. She was incredibly selfish and ungrateful to her sister and was basically a spoiled brat. The ending also seemed pretty far fetched as well, but I was happy to see Lakshmi find a new business opportunity and possibly a new romantic opportunity as well. I did want to see what happened, but I wasn't as invested in the story once the sister showed up and derailed things. Overall, I mostly liked it, but it went in a direction I wasn't expecting and didn't love.