Mailman: my wild ride delivering the mail in Appalachia and finally finding home by Stephen Grant
In March of 2020 Stephen Grant was laid off from his marketing job at the very beginning of the COVID pandemic. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer, so he needed to find a job with insurance and fast. After several weeks of looking, he ended up applying to work as a mailman and ended up getting a job in his hometown of Blacksburg, VA. Grant does a really good job of combining his personal story with the inner workings of the US Postal Service. This is HARD WORK. Especially for someone who has had a career in knowledge work, not working with your hands and being out in every kind of weather, year-round. His initial smugness at picking up the job so easily is quickly humbled once he's out on a route by himself. It's hard work and you're alone with a LOT of time to think. But he perseveres and ends up working in the job for over a year - a lot of newbies don't even last the first week. The experience is both humbling and a source of pride for Grant. He shares the highlights, the times he almost quit, the memorable customers (both good and bad), and everything in between.
I really liked Grant's writing and he was pretty funny too. He did a great job of combining his back story with his time working as a mailman. I also appreciated that while the entire timeframe of the book is during peak COVID, there was not tons of talk of masks/vaccines/politics. There was some of all of that, but it wasn't the dominant topic. I also appreciated his descriptions of how physically taxing this job is and his newfound respect for mail carriers. Now I understand more why my mail woman drives like a bat out of hell - she has a LOT of work to do in a very short amount of time. I really enjoyed this one and would highly recommend it.
Some quotes I liked:
"What carrying the mail taught me is that modern life has made us strangely weak in many ways. Weak memories for space, for numbers, for language. Our bodies are capable of walking tens of miles every day, of memorizing every fold of huge territories, of tolerating great heat and great cold, yet in our modern life all these capabilities are latent. When I think about the way that carrying the mail changed me, I wonder how much of it was tapping into this different experience of being human." (p. 101-102)
"I had worked jobs in my twenties, thirties, and forties that I had wanted to quit so bad that it created a physical sensation like tinnitus, a palpable bodily unease similar to but distinct from depression. I say this with a connoisseurship of both job hatred and depression that has been cultivated over a lifetime of experience. This was different. This was about actually trying and coming up short, and it was really fucking with me. The reality of just how slow and inaccurate I was dominated my waking thoughts. At night I dreamed about losing the mail, about being behind." (p. 109)
"There is an actual route in Arizona that delivers to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, by burro. Do you think the USPS makes money on these customers? Profit is irrelevant. The law says your mail gets delivered." (p. 135)
[About a particularly unpleasant customer/resident] "She had the gaunt look of a militant vegan who was professionally miserable." [If you can't picture someone like this immediately, count yourself lucky]
Table for Two by Amor Towles (Books & Banter book club)
I really enjoyed The Lincoln Highway by Towles, so I was really looking forward to reading this one. I didn't love it. All of the short stories are just odd - odd characters, odd storylines, odd endings, just odd. Maybe because I was actually looking forward to reading it, I ended up disappointed. Towles is a great writer - none of the stories were poorly written. But some of the stories and many of the characters were overly pretentious. I just didn't love most of the characters. And I agree with several reviews I read that the book didn't need the novella at the end. I think the New York stories as a collection would have been fine on their own. If he wants to write a follow up to Rules of Civility, then do that as a separate novel. And not having read Rules of Civility that novella was harder to get into for me - the first half was pretty slow. It did pick up in the second half, but like the short stories it ended too abruptly for me. Overall, it was OK verging on good, but not great.
James by Percival Everett (Evening Edition book club)
James is a retelling of Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from runaway slave Jim's perspective. When Jim learns he is going to be sold away from his wife and daughter, he decides to run away and figure out a way to either buy his freedom and theirs or come back for them. Coincidently, the same day Jim decides to run away Huckleberry Finn decides to fake his own death to run away from his abusive father. Now Jim realizes that he'll be blamed for Huck's death too if he's caught. Jim and Huck go on the run together and wind up in several surreal and terrifying situations before Jim is finally able to get his wife and daughter and escape to the North on the brink of the Civil War. Everett's writing is fantastic. But this is still a hard book to read. Even though Jim's story turns out better in the end - he is reunited with his wife and daughter and gets to freedom - his time as a slave can never be erased. The sheer brutality is always horrifying to read about even in fiction. This book reminded me a lot of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. A hard read, but well written and a unique look at a well-known Twain character.
The New Perimenopause by Mary Claire Haver, MD
As a woman in my mid-to-upper-40's, I knew I was probably in perimenopause but no doctors were talking to me about it at all. I had seen some videos from Dr. Haver on Instgram and so when I saw this book I decided I should probably read it to understand more about my current stage of life. And I am so glad I did! I realized that almost ALL of my current health issues can be tied back to perimenopause - things like suddenly my cholesterol and a1c numbers are up, my already pretty short fuse being markedly shorter, frustration, joint issues, weight gain - ALL OF IT is tied to the changing hormones of perimenopause. In America we have sick care, not health care, so as Dr. Haver points out most doctors aren't trying to be dismissive of your symptoms, they are just doing what they've been taught about perimenopause and menopause - which is next to nothing. Dr. Haver began doing more research as she began to get into menopause and is now sharing what she's learned and how she's changed her own medical practice to better address women's health needs throughout their entire life. Dr. Haver shows how just about every system in the body is affected by changing sex hormones during perimenopause. She also gives tips about what you can do to find some relief for each of those area/issues. She reiterates that this is not a one-size-fits-all situation and lifestyle (sleep, diet, exercise, etc.) definitely plays a role as well. This was a VERY eye-opening book for me and I'm so glad I read it now. If you are a woman who is in your 40's even if you think you're too young for perimenopause - you're not and you need to read this book.
Some quotes I liked:
"But another complicating factor is that perimenopause requires a symptom-based diagnosis rather than a lab-test-based one. There are currently no lab tests that allow for a conclusive and straightforward diagnosis of perimenopause, so a doctor must rely on their knowledge of symptoms related to this reproductive transition to make that diagnosis. Well, this is a big problem since doctors aren't being educated about symptoms. I was never taught during my residency that perimenopause had any symptoms other than disrupted periods. The majority of clinicians don't have a bank of knowledge to rely on for the diagnosis and treatment of perimenopause, so many sadly default to dismissive condolences." (p. 16)
"This is why I've been working hard to promote the message that perimenopause is a metabolic event, not just a reproductive milestone. If we're not looking at the whole picture - including cholesterol, inflammation, blood sugar, and fat distribution - we're missing key opportunities to protect women's health." (p. 111)
The Company of Owls by Polly Atkin
During the pandemic Polly Atkin and her partner Will have the opportunity of being home all the day and start noticing an owl near their home in Grasmere, England. Soon they are seeing more and more owls and even a few clutches of owlets. Being home during the pandemic allows them to notice more of the nature around them that was always there, just was often lost in the busyness of life. Atkin has health issues that prevent her from going out as much even when pandemic restrictions are lifted. Her connection to the local owls is a bright spot during the pandemic lockdowns and beyond.
I wasn't super impressed with this book. I agree with some other reviews that I wish she had included some pictures of the owls and the area where she was observing them. I also felt like I needed at least a chapter of background on her. She mentions her illness once, but I am not familiar with it and the limitations it would bring. It was more of an owl journal about when they saw owls or other animals. To me this is not a memoir because I don't really know any more about Atkin than I did from the book description. Overall, it was OK and I think there are better owl books out there. The cover of the book is great though.
