Portrait of a Thief by Grace Li (Community Read, Books & Banter, Evening Edition)
Five Chinese-American college students are invited to steal back 5 pieces of Chinese artwork. Will, the art history major at Harvard is the leader, his sister Irene studying public policy at Duke is the smooth talker who can talk her way into and out of just about anything, Lily, Irene's roommate at Duke and an underground street racer will be the getaway driver, Alex, dropped out of MIT to work for Google and will be their hacker, and Daniel, applying to med school and life-long friends with Will and Irene has an in with his father working for the FBI. Can this unlikely group of college kids pull off not one but five museum robberies without getting caught? Why does each one say yes to the secretive Chinese billionaire who hires them? What will happen if they succeed?
This is my library system's Community Read title. I had mixed feelings about the book. Parts of it I enjoyed and wanted to know what would happen next. But overall, it had a very teen angsty feel to it. About halfway through I realized it reminded me of the TV series 90210 but with older kids. In both, these teens/young adults are mostly privileged, yet constantly having existential crises along the lines of "Is this all there is to life?!" Yeah, going to Ivy League schools where you can basically write your ticket to life is SUCH a downer. A lot of the character focus was on these Chinese-America kids and their divided identity - are they Chinese enough? Are they American enough? Can they live up to their parent's American Dreams for them? These are not made up problems, but I don't see how robbing museums will fix any of that for them. The whole heist aspect was ridiculously unrealistic. If a dragon had flown in and handed them one of the Chinese zodiac heads it wouldn't have been completely out of place with the level of fantasy here. Overall, it was pretty over the top with the plot and the characters were VERY angsty and not really fully developed. If you can suspend belief enough it could be an enjoyable read.
Some quotes that stood out to me:
"...Lily in jean shorts and a battered t-shirt, her brown hair tangled from years of salt air." (p. 19) [Does she not shower or have a hair brush? Growing up at the beach doesn't change your hair texture. You can't still have salt-curled hair when you're NOT AT THE BEACH.]
"Of everyone in this crew, the two of them were here for the same reasons. Not out of a love for art, like Will, and not loyalty, like Daniel and Irene. Not even as a test of their skill. They were here because they couldn't not be, because it was a chance to be more than they were. Sometimes this heist was the only thing that made Alex feel like she existed at all." (p. 160) [I just don't get how an insane and unlikely to be successful art heist is the only thing making you feel alive.]
A Life in the Garden by Barbara Damrosch
Barbara Damrosch grew up in New York city but would visit her mother's family in Louisiana where her grandparents grew most of their own food and Damrosch was exposed to gardening. After a short marriage, Damrosch and her son moved to Connecticut to be near her parents and she rediscovered the gardening bug. She started working at an organic farm and then became a landscaper and landscape designer. In 1991 she met Eliot Coleman in Maine and soon they married and started their own small farm in Maine. Eliot Coleman is known for his 4 season gardening even in a harsh climate like Maine and has written several books about organic gardening. I wasn't familiar with his wife before stumbling on this book. It's a beautiful ode to gardening - whether you're farming for a living like them or just wanting to grow some of your own food in your yard. Damrosch is a great writer and her descriptions really bring their garden to life for the reader. The book is divided into 5 sections - Why I Grow Food, Where to Start, The Garden Year, Sharing the Garden, and What to Grow. She gives a lot of great tips and suggestions but it's not an instructional book - it's really all about A Life in the Garden. If you're not already gardening, this book will definitely inspire you!
Some quotes I liked:
"People who view gardening as backbreaking are probably using their backs when they should use their brains. It helps to vary the position as well as the task. If you're weeding, kneel on one knee, then the other, then sit, crouch, or squat. It's easy to get caught up in the project and ignore what it's doing to your body - until the next morning when you try to get out of bed." (p. 34)
"One of the most limiting factors of our country's garden culture is that it's a popular summer pastime, not a life support system. We are not used to thinking of food growing as the necessity it once was. Anywhere you lived, adaptations had to be made, by means of crop choices, storage, and protective devices, to make sure the supply was year-round." (p. 130)
The 5-Minute Gardener: year-round garden habits for busy people by Nicole Johnsey Burke
Nicole Burke wrote The 5-Minute Gardener for busy people like herself who want to garden and grow their own food but feel like they don't have the time they need. Her premise is that in 5-minutes a day you can grow some of your own food. I picked this one up because I'm always looking at gardening books to get ideas. I also tend to procrastinate (or time just gets away from me) when it comes to my garden so I thought this book could help me work on the garden year-round in smaller increments.
What I liked:
She doesn't organize the book by Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Instead she organizes it by Cold Season, Cool Season, Warm Season, and Hot Season - because the months that these fall for you will be different depending on where you live. I really liked that. Also, she emphasizes you don't have to start at the "right" time - just start in whatever season you're currently in and do a few things, then build up over time.
What I didn't like:
She is VERY into sprouts and microgreens, which is fine, but that was a LOT of the daily 5 minute suggestions and recipe suggestions, especially in the cold and cool season chapters. It's also pretty repetitive overall. I found myself kind of skimming toward the end because the tips and suggestions were almost all the same just with different plants depending on the season.
Overall, it does have some good tips. If you're into sprouts and microgreens you will definitely enjoy this one. I found the book too repetitive for me personally but I do think it highlights that you can do a little something everyday to create a garden or build up good habits.
The Owl Handbook: investigating the lives, habits, and importance of these enigmatic birds by John Shewey
Owls are such fascinating birds and in The Owl Handbook you will learn all about them. The book is divided into 5 chapters - the first is owl facts and fictions, LOTS of info about owls and how they have been perceived throughout history, the second chapter is more detailed information about the owls of the US and Canada, the third chapter is about owling or trying to spot or photograph owls in the wild, the fourth chapter is about how to help owls, and the last chapter is a less detailed listing of many other owl species from around the world. Throughout the book there are TONS of great photographs and information. Prior to reading this, I didn't realize that owls would eat other owls! There is also a lot of great information in the "give a hoot" chapter about how to help owls or create better environments for them in your yard/community. Overall, this is a really great book and one I might buy just for all the great photographs. If you're interested in owls this is definitely worth checking out.
Men Who Hate Women: from incels to pickup artists: the truth about extreme misogyny and how it affects us all by Laura Bates
This is not a fun read AT ALL. But it is a necessary read. Laura Bates explores several of the main groups of Men Who Hate Women - everything from incels, Pick Up Artists, Men's Rights Activists and much more is covered. I was familiar with some of the groups she talked about but honestly the chapter on "men who don't know they hate women" was by far the most disturbing to me because this was middle- and high-school age boys who are being exposed to misogynist content via YouTube and not even realizing how wrong and messed up it is. After reading a book like this you have to remind yourself that the internet is also a good thing because this REALLY highlights a big chunk of the bad side of the internet. Misogyny and sexism isn't dying out with the Boomers - it's getting revamped via the internet for a whole new generation. Bates does have a few suggestions in the last chapter, but overall this book is not a happy one and doesn't give tons of hope at the end either. But, this is reality and everyone should read this book so that you're aware of the scope of this issue and try to combat it when/if you can.
Some quotes I liked:
"In the small flurry of online articles that has emerged about incel groups, particularly in the wake of mass killings, there are two clear, polarized groups. The community is either characterized as darkly violent and misogynistic, dangerously promoting violence against women, or as a mischaracterized and disadvantaged group of lonely men, widely smeared by association with a tiny number of bad apples who could exist in any movement. The reality, which almost nobody seems to have confronted, is that both stories are true. That extended exposure to the violent rhetoric of the most extreme ideologues slowly desensitizes and draws in other members too. And it is this combination that is perhaps most explosive of all." (p. 48)
"As I spent hours poring through these posts, I realized just how much offline impact it can have when men are immersed in incel forums day in, day out. And I started to register just how many of the stories men told about manifesting incel ideas in their daily lives echoed and matched the thousands of stories I receive every year from women who are being harassed, assaulted, and abused." (p. 53)
"But what MGTOW [Men Going Their Own Way] has in common with the majority of the other groups that make up the manosphere, perhaps best exemplified by MGTOW itself, is the special quality of being a group supposedly exclusively devoted to men whose near-total focus is women. In the case of MGTOW, this fundamental dichotomy builds inevitable self-destruction into the very core of the movement. It is, one imagines, very difficult for a man to release himself completely from the toxic and damaging impact of women and all they represent - blissfully freeing himself to live a life of simple, manly fulfillment - while remaining entangled within a community feverishly obsessed with, well, women." (p. 100)
"So when we tell women to simply switch off, spend less time online, or stop visiting certain websites, what we are really saying is that they, not their harassers, should suffer the negative consequences of trolling. They, not the trolls, should be excluded from hostile spaces. Like Lee-Kennedy was compelled to, we are suggesting women should sacrifice their careers as the price for escaping online abuse. There is also a real lack of public understanding of the psychological impact such abuse can have, even in the absence of physical harm." (p. 156)
"Yet some of the world's biggest social media platforms repeatedly throw up their hands and imply that the problem is too difficult to solve, claiming to be taking extensive action against harassment but also refusing to disclose detailed reports of their records or procedures for tackling it. They release polished PR platitudes about working hard to keep everybody safe online, even as women reporting rape and death threats or graphic images of sexual violence are receiving automated responses telling them that the content 'doesn't violate our community standards.' These are companies with an income equivalent to some small countries. The idea that they couldn't tackle this problem robustly if they wanted to or certainly make enormous improvement very swiftly is laughable." (p. 161-62)
"Writing in the New York Times, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci described how, no matter what average video she started out with, YouTube's algorithm would quickly send her down a spiraling rabbit hole of associated but far more hardcore content. 'Videos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism. Videos about jogging led to videos about running ultramarthons,' A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed the same phenomenon." (p. 277)
"Then there are the ways in which online abuse, underestimated and repeatedly belittled, bleeds into offline abuse. It is a reality consistently ignored in the response from authorities. The lackluster reaction to online threats against female politicians. The dismissal of cyberstalking as a tool used by bullying ex-partners, until an escalation from online to offline violence proves fatal and intervention is too late. As case after case reveals that the police have missed opportunities to intervene before women are murdered by their stalkers, frequently failing to join the dots between multiple incidents and forms of harassment, these are very real concerns." (p. 322)
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (Evening Edition)
Linus Baker works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY) as a case worker. His whole life is boring and dreary but he does feel a responsibility to the children in his cases. He is summoned by Extremely Upper Management to go on a secret assignment to check up on a secret orphanage for magical children. The six children in this orphanage are some of the most extreme magical youth Linus has seen - the Antichrist, a were-pomeranian, a wyvern, a gnome, a sprite, and an unidentified green blob. Their caretaker, Arthur Parnassus, is fiercely protective of the children. He is also hiding his own secret that could threaten the future of the Marsyas Island orphanage. Linus goes in intending to be objective and do his job - but in a month he begins to really connect with each of the children and Arthur. The House in the Cerulean Sea is a beautifully written, feel-good story that highlights the importance of found family, community, and acceptance.
I had only heard good things about this book but I tried to not have too high of expectations. I did love it. Was it somewhat predictable and obvious? Yes. I've also read there has been controversy after Klune said in a podcast that his inspiration was somewhat based on the Sixties Scoop - in Canada when Indigenous children were essentially kidnapped and adopted out to White families or kept away from their families and cultures in Indian schools. Most of the backlash has been about Klune being White and "taking" a story that's not his to tell and turning it into a sci/fi/romance book. I personally didn't see an obvious link between this book and what's happened in both Canada and the US to Indigenous people/children. I could see almost any "other" group being the inspiration. The "see something, say something" posters reminded me more of the McCarthyism/anti-communist period in the US. I'm personally not going to hold Klune's inspiration against him. I liked the book. It had a lot of good messages and I LOVED the children - especially Chauncey, Theodore, and Sal. Even though I don't read a ton of fiction anymore, I'll definitely pick up the sequel to see what happens next on Marsyas Island.
