What an Owl Knows: the new science of the world's most enigmatic birds by Jennifer Ackerman
I've always been fascinated by owls and so I was interested when I saw this book. Then I realized I had already read one of Ackerman's previous books, The Bird Way. Even though I remembered that her previous book had been pretty science-heavy, I was still interested enough in owls to check this one out. It was very interesting, but also very science-heavy and not always the easiest read. There are nine chapters that focus on different aspects of owls from how they mate and nest, raising owlets, their vocalizations, all the way to how owls are seen in different cultures (as a harbinger of death or revered as wise). I did learn a lot and I realize now just how rare and special the times I've actually seen owls in person are as owls are VERY elusive even to skilled scientists who exclusively study owls. I did really like that there were lots of pictures, both in black & white and also a section in the middle of color photos. Overall, it was an interesting book but not a quick read.
Some quotes I liked:
"It's easy to love a living tree, with its lush foliage and canopy of greenery. But snags are like skeletons. They've lost their leaves, sloughed their skin. Their bones are furrowed with insect tracks, riddled with holes, rotted at the core, and their tops are stunted and snaggled. But what life they support! More than a hundred species of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians use snags for nesting, roosting, denning, and feeding, including these magnificent owls." (p. 138)
"Mott describes a nesting hollow in a tree that had been used for more than ten years by a pair of Powerful Owls. Fires ripped through the area and burned the tree from the inside out. After the fire, the pair sat in an adjacent tree. 'Large forest owls make a really obvious grieving noise when they've lost a chick,' she says. 'And they did the same thing for this tree hollow. It was quite heart-wrenching.'" (p. 142)
"In the United Kingdom, it's legal to buy a pet owl if the bird is captive bred. You don't need a license or any credentials. Moreover, owls bred in captivity can be sold without any regulation, and it's a lucrative trade. A Snowy Owl can bring in about £250. In the wake of Harry Potter, so many people bought pet owls in the UK, only to dump them after realizing the cost and complexity of caring for them, that a special animal sanctuary opened to adopt the unwanted birds." (p. 212)
[On caring for injured owls] "They restore essential flight feathers on the wing and tail through 'imping,' a remarkable technique in use since the thirteenth century in birds used for falconry. 'We clip the damaged feather near the base, leaving a hollow keratin sheath,' explains Pierce. A matching feather molted from a donor bird is cut to length and inserted into the sheath with a tiny keratin dowel and then superglued to keep it in place. 'If all goes according to plan,' she says, 'the imped feather serves as a good replacement for the original feather until the bird molts it naturally, dropping the imped feather and growing a new one.'" (p. 216-17)
"Owls can also offer surprising glimpses into the ecological past. It's an idea raised in Anthony Doerr's beautiful novel Cloud Cuckoo Land. In the sanitized virtual world he has been hired to create, the book's main character surreptitiously undermines the system by slipping in the truth in the form of little owls, 'owl graffiti, an owl-shaped drinking fountain, a bicyclist in a tuxedo with an owl mask,' writes Doerr. 'Find one, touch it, and you peel back the sanitized, polished imagery to reveal the truth beneath' - the calamities, drought, famine, and suffering of the real past. There is a deep hunch here. Owls may be mirrors of our souls, but they're also windows into what life was like long ago." (p. 267-68) [I had forgotten about that part of Cloud Cuckoo Land and how much owls played in that storyline.]
This Country: searching for home in (very) rural America by Navied Mahdavian
Navied Mahdavian and his wife Emelie were living in the San Francisco Bay Area when they visit rural Idaho and decide to buy some land there. Hoping that by living off the grid they can afford to actually work on their passions instead of jobs to pay the ever higher bills in the Bay Area. Navied is Iranian-American and so stands out even more in rural Idaho. They both seem shocked by the racism and extremely conservative political views of their neighbors. While they do make some friends and try to make it work in Idaho, once their daughter is born they decide that they don't want that ultra-conservative rural culture to be what she grows up around. So they move to Salt Lake City, Utah - no ultra-conservatism there I'm sure... This was a quick read and there were some interesting parts to their story, but I didn't love it. It felt like this was a VERY quick overview of their time there and could have been better or at least had some of the parts more fleshed out. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this one.
Emotional Labor: the invisible work shaping our lives and how to claim our power by Rose Hackman
Emotional labor is often viewed as a problem of privileged white women, but it literally affects every person on the planet - just some more than others. And often it is women who perform the majority of emotional labor. Rose Hackman does a great job of exploring the issue of emotional labor from several points of view. I personally mostly think of it as issues within a marriage or household, but she highlights aspects from service jobs, caregiving (hospital workers, childcare, and elderly care), racial identity, violence against women, how it affects men, and even how prison creates more emotional labor for the family (and often women) on the outside. I was really impressed with how broad her scope was in the book. It's frustrating to read how many people still say things like "Oh, women are just better at _____, that's why they do it." I do think Hackman gives some good suggestions and ideas for recognizing the importance of emotional labor and how to make it more equal in a variety of circumstances. I do think some of the chapters were a little long and repetitive, hence the 3 star rating. But, a good overview of all the myriad ways that emotional labor impacts us all.
Some quotes I liked:
"One of the cleverest tricks of patriarchy is that it transforms all work deemed feminine into fixed, subliminal expressions of femininity - however much work involves active time, effort, and skill. The best way to maintain a system in which women work for little to nothing, and for the benefit of others, especially men, is to convince society that they are not working at all." (p. 8)
"The point with emotional labor is not that it inherently points to an injustice. When seen, when valued or appreciated, or when part of an exchange, a mutuality, an ecosystem where love is power - then it needn't be exploitative. Quite the contrary: doing emotional labor for people who are doing it for you is the goal, not the problem." (p. 66)
"When women are told to 'smile' by a stranger on the street, they are being reminded of this through harassment. When women going about their business are accused of having a 'resting bitch face,' they are being reminded of their expected constant enthusiastic performance for the benefit of the world. A man not smiling while going about a task is never told he has a 'resting dick face.' He's likely treated as busy and important, if his expression is noted at all." (p. 87)
"As opportunities to be in the public eye have hugely expanded for women over the last decades - as previous formal barriers to public life have lifted - so, too, has the volume and level of feedback audiences inflict on them. This is true whether audiences are parents at a swim lesson, friends and acquaintances on social media, or television viewers of a political debate...This reality, instead of receding with women's legal progress, has only intensified. Today, women are more scrutinized, and more set up for humiliation than ever." (p. 92-93)
"The threat of rape and assault has a paralyzing effect on our ability to live life to its fullest, our willingness to jump on a bike, take a walk, use public transportation, explore the world. It has a paralyzing effect on our freedom...This constant lookout is a form of emotional labor that conditions us to double, triple think, to be hesitant and impose limits on ourselves and on our lives. To be a strong, empowered woman does not mean no longer taking precautions; it means making painstaking decisions about freedom versus safety, saving versus safety, economic opportunity versus safety." (p. 114-15)
"Homicide stands as the fourth leading cause of death for girls and women one to nineteen years old, and the fifth leading cause of death for women twenty to forty-four. Unlike male victims of homicide, who are mostly killed by members of the same sex, 98 percent of killers of women are men." (p. 118)
"An extraordinarily grim academic article from 2009 looked at the marital outcomes of 515 patients diagnosed with life-threatening diseases, observing groups battling malignant primary brain tumors, other forms of cancer, and multiple sclerosis...When the patient was male, and supporting spouse female, divorce happened in 2.9 percent of cases. When the patient was female and the supporting spouse was male, divorce happened in 20.8 percent of cases - it was seven times more likely to happen...the disparity is too big to brush under the carpet. It shows a severe gender gap in terms of who steps up to provide care and emotional labor in the most essential times, and an incredible gender gap in terms of who benefits." (p. 188-89)
Deadly Declarations by Landis Wade
When 96-year-old Matthew Collins dies and a hastily written will is found that revokes his previous will and leaves his fortune to Sue Ellen Parker, the most hated resident at the Indie retirement community, Collins' friends Yeager and Harriet rope in new resident and recently retired lawyer Craig Travail to help solve this mystery. But they quickly uncover a new mystery involving the Meck Dec, or Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, that may have led to their friend's demise and could also land the three of them in even more trouble. The characters in Deadly Declarations prove that there is more to retirement communities than card games and crafts - sex, lies, secret relationships, local historical mysteries, courtroom drama, and more follow these characters throughout the novel. Several twists and turns keep you guessing until the end.
While this is not the type of book I normally read - 1) Landis Wade is a local author and has participated in library book club discussions of his book and has done several other program about writing for the library and 2) this is the book chosen by a community for their community read program and they've asked me to come speak at their event. I figured the least I could do is read the book and participate in the whole event.
Wade is a good writer. While I didn't love every aspect of the story and there were some pretty outlandish things thrown in, it was funny and well written enough to keep my attention. I loved the character of Craig Travail and how his story was told and expanded throughout the book. I did feel like a few parts were a little melodramatic and over the top - but again it kept my attention and even with some crazy things I wanted to see how everything played out in the end. Overall, it was good but not my personal cup of reading tea.
