January 2020 Reviews

The Preacher's Wife: the precarious power of evangelical women celebrities by Kate Bowler

In The Preacher's Wife Kate Bowler explores how women in evangelical churches and circles have managed to carve out their own place in the world of the evangelical celebrity. While most evangelical churches don't allow women to be in positions of authority, many of the women in this book have managed to circumvent that rule, at least on the surface. But, because their power hinges on the men in their lives, that power is precarious and the double-standards and rules for women are overwhelming. Bowler explores the various ways evangelical women's precarious power plays out - the preacher, the homemaker, the talent, the counselor, and the beauty, but almost never in the pulpit or leading an entire church. The Preacher's Wife is meticulously researched, yet very readable. It took me longer than it should have to get through this book because it was also a hard read in a lot of ways. In the evangelical church there are two views of women: egalitarian (men and women are equal in all ways) and complementarian (belief that God has ordained men as the head of the family and the church and women cannot lead men in any way). I am firmly in the egalitarian camp, but I'm also an evangelical Christian. Reading about how so many evangelical churches continue to treat women as second class Christians is just hard to read for me. I truly don't understand why Christian women would work so hard to keep themselves in a lesser position when I do NOT believe that is what God intends for us. But, Bowler does a great job with this topic and it is very eye-opening. I'm hopeful that in another few decades we'll look back and see how evangelical women have made more strides in equality within the Church.

Some quotes I liked:

"For women, this is an era of almost - almost feminist, almost patriarchal, almost progressive, and almost regressive - and in these pages we hold the prism of their experiences up to the light. The lives of public women invite us to ask again what Americans expect from women in the spotlight; and whether they will ever grow used to women's presence in the main seats of power, in the pulpit, in the corner office, or in the White House. The women of megaministry are exceptional, but they are not simply exceptions. They are religious reflections of almost-mythic American ideals of women as wives and mothers, pillars and martyrs, in a culture divided over whether women should lean in or opt out." (p. 16)

"The roles of wife and mother took on a decidedly populist tone in Christian circles with the campaign to stop the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In 1970, the National Organization for Women (NOW), founded by Betty Friedan, stepped up public pressure to amend the American constitution to include a ban on sex discrimination. Within two years the House of Representatives and the Senate had adopted an amendment that then had to be ratified by thirty-eight states. But by the mid-1970s, a vocal and well-organized STOP ERA effort effectively made celebrities out of two women who professionalized their roles as politically savvy mothers. Phyllis Schlafly, a lawyer and Catholic mother of six, found the Eagle Forum, and Beverly LaHaye, mother of four and wife of famous pastor Tim LaHaye, launched the Concerned Women for America..." (p. 73)

"'It's part of why our church doesn't allow husbands and wives to be on staff together. I think it's been a great thing because it prevents too much power from being concentrated in one place. It's also our rule that only one person from every family can be on staff, so a son can't be on the same board as his father, for instance.' Many of the largest non-denominational churches, especially from prosperity gospel traditions, did not have strong governing institutions outside of the pastoral family, and, as Donna [of Westover Church in Greensboro, NC] observed, this policy asked a great deal from both husband and wife." (p. 108)

"A counseling degree offered women in evangelical contexts a large measure of freedom. These degrees, or corresponding degrees in social work, qualified them for work in a variety of roles, from religious schools, private practice, children and family services, hospitals, and funeral homes to homeless shelters. In a congregational setting, the work of counseling did not seem to trigger the same concerns around authority and oversight." (p. 171)

"As bearers of children, women's bodies are gatekeepers of life and death. In a culture largely reluctant to make news of miscarriage and stillbirth public, women's ministries became a sanctuary for the enormous range of emotions that arise when some lives begin and others end...The separate sphere of women's ministry was opened to reveal a place of holy sorrow." (p. 179-80)

"Likewise, Beverly LaHaye initially felt sorry for a woman being berated by her husband for looking tired on a date, but then sympathized with the husband for not having a wife with a little more pride in herself. 'What a pity to see a Christian woman who has developed her inner beauty but has done nothing to the frame she must house it in,' she fretted. The common argument given was that men were visual creatures, which made women's appearance a part of her wifely duties. Her beauty and sexuality were not her own...[and when male pastors cheated or pursued infidelity] There was always a woman to blame for a man who strayed." (p. 222-23)

"On a more basic level, these concerns about dangerous sexuality made it difficult for women to operate in ministry without fear of the 'appearance of evil,' a commonly used extra-biblical phrase to indict unsupervised male-female interaction. Though women were lauded as keepers of the home, they were often treated as temptresses. Take, for instance, the common practice of refusing to allow a man and a woman to be unchaperoned. Billy Graham famously made it a policy that he would never be alone with a woman other than his wife...However, in practice, it had two significant effects. First, the consequence of sex-segregated spaces was that women would find it very different to gain powerful mentors...Secondly, it sexualized interactions between the genders." (p. 227)

"As we have seen in each chapter, the heights to which Christian celebrity women could rise depended on their ability to master the rules of complementarianism and capitalism, finding financial stability without appearing to be theologically overreaching. Women found a public voice in credentialing themselves as wives, mothers, and homemakers. From Elisabeth Elliot to Joanna Gaines, audiences rewarded those who opened the door to let them into their famously Christian homes. The title of 'wife and mom' was so powerful that even the popular writer Rachel Held Evans was rejected by a Christian publisher on the grounds that, since she was not yet a mother, she could not write authoritatively about Christian womanhood." (p. 243)

[When Beth Moore responded to the Donald Trump audio tape of "grab 'em by the pussy."] "She [Tweeted]: 'Try to absorb how acceptable the disesteem and objectifying of women has been when some Christian leaders don't think it's that big a deal. I'm one among many women sexually abused, misused, stared down, heckled, talked naughty to. Like we liked it. We didn't. We're tired of it.'...For her boldness, she was asked by male evangelical leaders to repent, and she was deserted by some of her female supporters. Attendance at her events dropped, and some women swore they would never buy another of her bible studies again." (p. 245-46)

Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

Sylvie and Amy Lee are sisters, but grew up very differently. Sylvie spent the first 9 years of her life in the Netherlands being raised by her grandmother, aunt, and uncle while her parents got established in the United States. When Amy was 2 years old her parents brought Sylvie back to live with them in New York, but the time apart was hard on Sylvie who felt like a stranger to her parents. Fast forward 20+ years and Sylvie disappears while back in the Netherlands for her grandmother's funeral. Amy flies out there to try to find out what happened to Sylvie and uncovers a huge family secret that may explain Sylvia's disappearance.

I REALLY liked Jean Kwok's previous two books, but I did not like this one. The beginning with Sylvie's disappearance is interesting, but once you start finding out more about what happened during her visit to the Netherlands it was just a lot of really weird stuff that seemed very forced. The pseudo-sexual relationship between Lukas and Estelle is SUPER weird. In fact all the Netherlands characters are VERY VERY odd and just didn't make sense or help the story. The ending with what really happened to Sylvie is the WORST. Not to give anything away, but it's not a good ending. This was just a weird, weird book and I would not recommend it. I was interested enough in the story despite the weirdness to keep reading and find out what happened to Sylvie though.

The Old Farmer's Almanac Vegetable Gardner's Handbook by Old Farmer's Almanac

Even though I'm a semi-experienced gardener, this is a book that I might buy because it had so much helpful information. The first part of the book "Ground Rules" goes over different types of gardening (raised beds, container gardening, etc.), testing and building soil, composting, starting seeds and knowing when to plant. Part 2 covers Vegetables and Growing Concerns. In the Vegetables section each vegetable gets a few pages that covers planting, care, common diseases and pests, and harvest. In Growing Concerns dealing with disease and pests are covered in more detail and watering and fertilizing are also covered. There are also several journal pages throughout the book for keeping notes about your garden. There is a LOT of really good, helpful information in this book for a beginner or more experienced gardener as there is always more to learn with gardening.

Digital Minimalism: choosing a focused life in a noisy world by Cal Newport

Digital minimalists aren't Luddites who refuse to use technology. Instead they are people who are intentional about how they use technology, instead of letting technology use them. Newport's book is a call to Digital Minimalism in our tech-saturated world. Newport feels like we need to go beyond recent calls for "digital sabbaticals" and instead examine what digital tools we want to use, for what purposes, and when to use them. The book is divided into two parts - Foundations and Practices. Foundations describes our current tech-obsessed culture, digital minimalism, and Newport's "digital declutter" plan. Practices explores 4 lifestyle practices of digital minimalists - spend time alone, don't click "like," reclaim leisure, and join the attention resistance. This is a really interesting book. While I do use my smartphone and also have a tablet and laptop at home, I absolutely HATE seeing people just glued to their phones ALL THE TIME. I'm a big reader and I've had several people comment to me things like, "You're the only person who ever brings a book [to a waiting room]." But, I am still sucked in to mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram on my phone - habits I'd like to change and hence reading this book. I'm probably not too far away from being a digital minimalist, but this book has definitely inspired me to think about how I use technology and how I can be more selective with what I choose to use.

Some quotes I liked:

"Because digital minimalists spend so much less time connected than their peers, it's easy to think of their lifestyle as extreme, but the minimalists would argue that this perception is backward: what's extreme is how much time everyone else spends staring at their screens." (p. xv)

"Here, for example, is how Kate described [her digital declutter] experience to me: 'The day the declutter was over, I raced back to Facebook, to my old blogs, to Discord, gleeful and ready to dive back in - and then, after about thirty minutes of aimless browsing, I kind of looked up and thought...why am I doing this? This is...boring? This isn't bringing me any kind of happiness. It took a declutter for me to notice that these technologies aren't actually adding anything to my life.'" (p. 80)

"To put this in context, previous technologies that threatened solitude, from Thoreau's telegraph to Storr's car phone, introduced new ways to occasionally interrupt time alone with your thoughts, whereas the iPod provided for the first time the ability to be continuously distracted from your own mind." (p. 100)

"The smartphone provided a new technique to banish these remaining slivers of solitude: the quick glance. At the slightest hint of boredom, you can now surreptitiously glance at any number of apps or mobile-adapted websites that have been optimized to provide you an immediate and satisfying dose of input from other minds." (p. 101)

"Young people born between 1995 and 2012, a group Twenge calls 'iGen,' exhibited remarkable differences as compared to the Millennials that preceded them. One of the biggest and most troubling changes was iGen's psychological health. 'Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed,' Twenge writes, with much of this seemingly due to a massive increase in anxiety disorders. 'It's not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades.'" (p. 106)

"'[Thoreau's] intention was not to inhabit a wilderness,' he writes, 'but to find wildness in a suburban setting." (p. 110)

"In recent years, as the boundary between work and life blends, jobs become more demanding, and community traditions degrade, more and more people are failing to cultivate the high-quality leisure lives that Aristotle identifies as crucial for human happiness. This leaves a void that would be near unbearable if confronted, but that can be ignored with the help of digital noise. It's now easy to fill the gaps between work and caring for your family and sleep by pulling out a smartphone or tablet, and numbing yourself with mindless swiping and tapping...The most successful digital minimalists, therefore, tend to start their conversion by renovating what they do with their free time - cultivating high-quality leisure before culling the worst of their digital habits." (p. 168-69)

"We might tell ourselves there's no greater reward after a hard day at the office than to have an evening entirely devoid of plans or commitments. But we then find ourselves, several hours of idle watching and screen tapping later, somehow more fatigued than when we began...if you instead rouse the motivation to spend that same time actually doing something - even if it's hard - you'll likely end the night feeling better." (p. 176-77)

The Complete Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem

This is a very cute collection of the Brambly Hedge stories. I was familiar with Brambly Hedge, but I didn't realize how old the stories were - the first four books were published in 1980! I LOVE the detailed illustrations, especially the ones that show a larger overview of the whole tree stump/home with all the little rooms and passageways. It reminds me of the Redwall series (but for younger kids). My favorite two stories were The High Hills and The Sea Story - I wouldn't mind if Barklem did a few stories from the Saltapple mice family's perspective. Overall, a cute collection of stories with wonderful illustrations!

Adorning the Dark: thoughts on community, calling, and the mystery of making by Andrew Peterson

I love Andrew Peterson and think he is one of the most creative people out there right now. He's a talented singer/songwriter, has written both fiction and non-fiction books, draws visual art, and has created a community for other like-minded Christian artists in the Rabbit Room and the Hutchmoot conferences. Adorning the Dark isn't a manual for how to be a creative success, but more about how as a Christian we are all (artist/creative or not) called to try to reveal God's love in the current darkness of our day. His way of doing that is mostly through music, but also through writing. His advice for aspiring songwriters/authors/artists - just keep doing something. Because something is always better than nothing and that something might turn into the thing that reaches someone or connects you to the right person at the right time. Reading this book feels like you're just having a long conversation with Andrew and like I always do after seeing Andrew perform I feel inspired. So, whatever your talents are do something to glorify God today.

Some quotes I liked:

"I began to understand the peril of asking God to let you write songs that would comfort the lonely and brokenhearted - peril, because the only way to do that is to walk through the dark forest of loneliness and heartbreak." (p. 90)

"I decided early on that I would rather my children listen to a great song by someone who wasn't a Christian than a bad song by someone who was, so my kids grew up on not just Switchfoot and Rich Mullins but also Paul Simon and Counting Crows and James Taylor...Some well-meaning soul gave Skye a CD one day and I recoiled with horror when I saw the hot-pink cover. It was a CD of 'tween' praise and worship songs and the covered featured four well-meaning teenybopper girls with flying-V electric guitars...I planned to sneak the CD away before Skye had a chance to listen to it. But, as if in slow motion, she grabbed the CD and tore off the cellophane, then jammed it into the minivan's player...Sure enough, the music was terrible, and I drove sulkily, hands at ten and two, trying to figure out a way to repair the damage. Before twenty seconds had passed, little eight-year-old Skye ejected the CD with a wince of distaste and said, 'I don't like it. Can we just listen to Alison Krauss instead?' That, dear reader, was one of my greatest parenting victories." (p. 133-34)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

In the 1960's in Tallahassee, FL Elwood Curtis takes Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words to heart. He truly believes that any day now Jim Crow laws will disappear and he will be seen "as good as anyone else." But, being in the wrong place at the wrong time puts Elwood in the Nickel Academy, a "reform school" that is more torture chamber than school or even prison. In Nickel, Elwood meets Turner who's there for the second time. Elwood struggles to align his deeply held beliefs in equality and justice with the reality of Nickel, while Turner has learned how to carve out a safer spot for himself at Nickel by flying somewhat under the radar of the staff. When Elwood decides to seek justice during a state inspection he ends up putting himself and Turner at great risk - and only one of them will survive their time at Nickel.

As much as I loved The Underground Railroad it was a hard read. Nickel Boys is also a hard read, but in a different way. It's not nearly as graphic as The Underground Railroad, but it's almost worse in that it's over a hundred years later and white people are still working overtime to try to keep blacks "in their place" and kill them when they try to fight back or stand up. I think a lot of white people want to act like after slavery ended things were better and just want to ignore the whole Jim Crow history of our country. In order for things to truly change we have to acknowledge our history - even the hard parts - and Whitehead does an amazing job of shining a light on something many people would like to ignore or forget.

It's Okay Not to Be Okay: moving forward one day at a time by Sheila Walsh

Everyone has experienced a moment when you wish you could start over or suffered a major loss. Whatever decisions or circumstances led to that moment, Sheila Walsh wants to encourage you to face the pain head on and start again. For many Christians it's hard to admit that you are not okay and are struggling, but throughout the Bible God tells us that He is there for us and will never let us down. In It's Okay Not to Be Okay Walsh walks the reader through practical steps to deal with whatever pain or loss you're going through and find better ways to connect with God.

I picked this book up because I really loved her previous book In the Middle of the Mess, but this one didn't resonate with me as much. While her message is good, it felt somewhat repetitive to me. But, maybe for the right reader that is exactly what they need to hear/read right now. I did like that each chapter ends with some questions for journaling/reflecting and also Bible verses to remind ourselves of who God says we are.

A quote I liked:

"'Look at where you spend most of your time and that will tell you what matters to you.' I thought about that for a while. Some seasons of life are more demanding than others...But if you're like me, we find time for what we think we need to relax. You might love to bury your face in a good book with the bathroom door closed! Or if you have an allegiance to a particular television show, you'll make time for it. I've had to ask myself, Does what I'm doing with my spare time refresh me or am I simply zoning out? Now, don't get me wrong: I think at times zoning out is just what we need, but it doesn't work toward the renewing of our mind. That's where the choices we make determine whether we're working with the Holy Spirit or not." (p. 68-9)

2019 Year in Reading

For 2019 I challenged myself to read 100 books, but didn't quite meet my goal. I did read 97 so I got pretty close, but just couldn't get 3 more books in around the holiday! I also read 34 cookbooks. Here are my top 10 books and top 5 cookbooks:

Fiction

Roar by Cecelia Ahern
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Non-Fiction

Eager: the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter by Ben Goldfarb
Pure: inside the evangelical movement that shamed a generation of young women and how I broke free by Linda Kay Klein
Save Me the Plums: my Gourmet memoir by Ruth Reichl
Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Educated: a memoir by Tara Westover

Cookbooks

South by Sean Brock
Earth to Table Every Day by Jeff Crump
Rustic Joyful Food: my heart's table by Danielle Kartes
The Food in Jars Kitchen: 140 ways to cook, bake, plate, and share your homemade pantry by Marisa McClellan
The Prairie Homestead Cookbook: simple recipes for heritage cooking in any kitchen by Jill Winger

December 2019 Cookbook Reviews

When Pies Fly by Cathy Barrow

I actually found out about this book when Garden & Gun magazine had a Facebook post with Barrow's recipes for Brown Sugar-Cinnamon Hand Pies that looked like the poptarts of Heaven. After seeing that recipe I put the book on hold through my local library. I don't make pies all the time, but I'm comfortable making dough and this book seems like "next level" pie making - not that it's harder, but just different ways to make and use hand-held pies. Barrow does a good job in the introduction of explaining pie baking and the equipment needed. There are also lots of tips along the way of how to deal with common issues like filling bursting out of hand pies. Overall, it was a unique pie book and I'm looking forward to trying several of recipes.

All About Dinner: simple meals, expert advice by Molly Stevens

Molly Stevens is a cooking instructor, but she is often asked about what she personally cooks at home. This cookbook is the response to those questions. Stevens gives a really thorough introduction with "15 Habits of Highly Effective Cooks" that includes everything from the seemingly obvious (cook what you love to eat, and read the recipe all the way through - twice) to maybe less obvious (don't rush hot food to the table and cook for fun). The recipes are divided into your typical cookbook categories - salads, soups & stews, poultry & meat, vegetables, etc. Throughout each section of recipes there are green pages with tips, tricks, and other helpful information like peeling peaches, risotto basics, and how to butterfly chicken and other birds. There were several recipes I'd like to try and this is a great cookbook for a slightly more advanced home cook or someone wanting to expand their everyday dinner menu at home. Overall, I really liked it and it had a lot of helpful information beyond the recipes.

December 2019

A Sin By Any Other Name by Robert W. Lee

When I first heard about this book I was interested, but I wasn't familiar with Robert W. Lee and his speaking out against white supremacy as a descendant of the Civil War general Robert E. Lee. Lee talks about growing up in Statesville, NC (which is only about an hour from where I grew up) and how as was age-appropriate his family told him about his famous ancestor. Lee's family didn't idolize General Lee, but his grandmother did have a portrait of him in her home and often told Lee and his brother stories about the famous Lee and many of their ancestors. When Lee went to high school he was exposed to more diversity and became friends with many African-American peers in the marching band. As he got older, he also became more uncomfortable with how his ancestor General Lee was so revered by many white Southerners. Having always felt called to ministry, Lee attended the Duke Divinity School and racial justice became part of his ministry focus. He had just started pastoring a church in Statesville when the Charlottesville, VA "Unite the Right" rally took place leading to violence and a few deaths. Because of a previous article he had written about the need to take down Confederate statues, NPR reached out to Lee for an interview. After the interview aired, MTV asked him to come and speak at the VMAs. Both of these events led to Lee being asked to resign as pastor of his church. While he was incredibly saddened to be asked to resign, he did and now speaks and writes about how the Church can play an important role in racial justice. While Lee is still pretty young, he has obviously been called to speak about this issue and has the family connection that might make some give his words more weight. His main message is that the Church should accept everyone and churches shouldn't be racially segregated and that for white Southerners speaking out against racism is the only way things will ever improve.

In my opinion, as a white Southerner, too many people put their faith in their comfort zone instead of God. Jesus was very radical, but the Church often shies away from truly being radically loving and challenging the status quo as Jesus did. In order for things to get better we need to focus more on God and less on South/North, White/Black, Democrat/Republican, Male/Female, etc.

Some quotes I liked:

"Michael Korda, in his biography of Lee, includes an observation about Lee and his legacy that's stuck with me: 'As the Confederacy shrank, [Lee] grew, symbolizing the unshakable spirit of resistance, stubborn hope, courage, and honor - beyond criticism, perhaps even beyond reason.' It's true. As the old ways of life in the South are rightfully challenged, people resistant to change cling ever tighter to Lee and what he represented." (p. 88)

[When he started getting hate mail and threats after speaking out against white supremacy and Confederate statues] "Then, several emails arrived. 'You need to be quiet,' one said. 'You're treading on dangerous grounds,' read another. The messages were vaguely threatening, but in an oddly Southern way. The words almost sounded kind, as if the senders were worried about the trouble I'd face if I kept making noise about these issues. But peel back that veneer of politeness and the message was clear: If you're gonna keep it up, watch out." (p. 123)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Books & Banter book club)

** spoiler alert ** Kya and her family are "marsh people" in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. People on the fringes of society who want to be left alone. In 1952 when Kya is six, her mother walks away from the family and never comes back. A few years later her closest sibling, Jodie, leaves as well leaving Kya with their abusive, alcoholic father. By the time she's ten her father is gone too and she's all alone. She knows the marsh like the back of her hand and can evade truant officers or anyone else who might come snooping around. Fast forward to 1969 and Kya is accused of murder. Over the years townspeople have speculated about the "Marsh Girl" and what she might be like. Is she capable of murder?

I honestly wasn't looking forward to reading this one because I had not heard good things about it. While parts of the story were good, the overall storyline was like a Lifetime TV movie - very overwrought and unrealistic. And I'm from the South, my family is from backwater beach areas and NO ONE in my family talked like the characters in this book. I was actually offended by the dialect, it felt like it was mocking. And the dialect was all over the place, in the same paragraph or sentence you would have a character speaking normal English then suddenly break into crazy phonetic fake deep-South dialect. It was also completely unrealistic that Kya would have not only survived her childhood alone, but even more unrealistic that she would become a published scientific author - get real. It was also super obvious that she killed Chase or at least tricked him into the accidental death. That was foretold by the scene when she attacks the boys harassing Jumpin'. Not that Chase didn't deserve killing, but she did a good job of faking that she didn't do it. Also, the ending felt totally rushed and weird. And how convenient that she couldn't have kids because there is NO WAY she wouldn't have gotten pregnant during her relationship with Chase. This book reminded me a lot of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - EVERYONE loved it and it was very similarly overwrought and unrealistic storyline, but at least without the terrible mocking Southern dialect.

Some particularly terrible quotes:

[On finding Chase's body] "Now, he sprawled alone, less dignified than the slough. Death's crude pluck, as always, stealing the show." (p. 25)

"'Ya gotta watch out for folks 'round here,' he said. 'Woods're full a' white trash. Pert near ever'body out here's a no-'count.'" (p. 57)

"'...more skeeters than the whole state of Jawja.'" (p. 81)

"Toting the bag of jam jars, she turned back toward her boat and motored home. Thought she's probably never go viztin' again." (p. 102)

"She hesitated; touching someone meant giving part of herself away, a piece she never got back." (p. 158) WTF, this is the stupidest line EVER. Shaking hands with someone takes a piece of yourself away forever. *rolling my eyes here*

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See (Evening Edition book club)

The Island of Sea Women follows the friendship and lives of Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds who begin working with their village's all female divers, the haenyeo, on the island of Jeju. Starting in the 1930's during the Japanese occupation of Korea, through World War II, the Korean War, and all the way to the present, Mi-ja and Young-sook grow into their roles as haenyeo and also wives and mothers. During a violent incident during the Korean war Mi-ja and Young-sook's friendship is tested and Young-sook vows to never forgive Mi-ja for what happened. But, forgiveness is not for the other person, it's for yourself. Young-sook in looking back over her life realizes how much her hate has cost her, but will she finally be ready to forgive Mi-ja and herself? The Island of Sea Women is the story of one of the hardest parts of Korea's history, but also the story of friendship and forgiveness. It also highlights the brutality of war, which is often worse for the innocent people just trying to live their lives.

I've really liked all the books I've read by Lisa See and I was excited to read this story about this unique haenyeo culture in Korea. But, unlike her other books I felt like this one kind of dragged. And there was a LOT more violence than I was expecting. I didn't like this one as much as some of her others, but the ending was powerful and really showed the importance of forgiveness.

Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on life, love, liberty, and law by Jeffrey Rosen

Jeffrey Rosen had a chance encounter with Ruth Bader Ginsburg when they were both working on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That encounter turned into a genuine friendship and over the years Rosen and Ginsburg discussed all kinds of personal and professional issues. This book is a collection of their conversations divided into topics like "Her Landmark Cases" and "Marriage Between Equals." The book is unique in that these conversations are between friends and colleagues, not just an interview with a semi-stranger. Each chapter has a few pages of Rosen writing about the topic of that chapter, the the second half of the chapter is an interview style between Rosen and Ginsburg. It's a pretty quick read, but it does give you a lot of insight into not only Ginsburg, but the Supreme Court and it's inner workings. It was really a very interesting book and I would highly recommend it.

Some quotes I liked:

[In an interview for The Docket Sheet, a newsletter for Court employees] "...asked her why she had agreed to a flexible schedule for one of her law clerks, David Post. Ginsburg replied that when Post applied for a clerkship, he was caring for his two small children during the day, so that his wife could sustain a demanding job as an economist. 'I thought, 'This is my dream of the way the world should be,' ' Ginsburg enthused. 'When fathers take equal responsibility for the care of their children, that's when women will be truly liberated.'" (p. 13)

"As co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project, Ruth Bader Ginsburg sought from 1972 to 1980 to persuade the Supreme Court that legislation apparently designed to benefit or protect women could often have the opposite effect. For this reason, she chose to represent a series of male plaintiffs who had been denied legal benefits designed for women. This visionary strategy forced the Court to articulate a standard of scrutiny for gender discrimination that could be applied neutrally to either sex...She represented plaintiffs with whom the male judges of the 1970s were most likely to identify." (p. 19-20)

"It was not so long ago that most of the social clubs in New York and Washington, DC, were men only. So whenever I was asked to speak at those clubs, I said, 'I'm not going to speak at a place that wouldn't welcome me as a member.'...My first encounter with men-only social clubs happened when my husband was working for a law firm in New York. The firm had a holiday party at a club that did not admit women. The women associates let it be known that that was improper. They weren't listened to. So the next year, none of the women associates showed up at the holiday party. The year after that, the holiday party was held at a place that welcomed women as well as men." (p. 128)

"We have in DC the first person to be given flexible time at a law firm. It was at Arnold and Porter, and the woman is Brooksley Born. When her second child was born, she elected to have a three-day schedule. She was told, 'That's okay, but you'll never make partner.' It turned out that she produced more in three days than the average associate produced in a full week, so she became the first full-time [female] partner...[what feminism still needs to work on] The two big areas are unconscious bias and what is called work-life balance. If we could fix those two, we would see women all over doing everything. Unconscious bias and facilitating a work life and a family life." (p. 207-8)

Hope in the Dark: believing God is good when life is not by Craig Groeschel

Hope in the Dark is written for Christians who are dealing with a hard time, an illness, or an on-going unanswered prayer. As Groeschel says in A Letter to the Reader, "If you're living the dream and you're on a spiritual high, stop and praise God for his goodness. I celebrate with you. But, honestly, this book probably isn't for you, at least not in this season of your life." (p. 11) My opinion is if you live long enough you will experience something that makes you question God and often that's discouraged or glossed over in church, but it shouldn't be. If you read the Bible you can see how so many of the people we admire as Biblical leaders struggled daily with doubt and fears. Groeschel models the book after the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament by have three sections to the book. The first section deals with doubting or not understanding why God chooses to answer some prayers and not others. The second section deals with waiting on God and the third covers embracing the goodness of God despite whatever circumstances you're in. While I didn't find this book life-changing, I think it is good for new Christians to see that it's OK to struggle and question things and God is still good throughout whatever we're going through.

Some quotes I liked:

"Few people just sit and watch TV anymore. Most watch TV and look at Instagram and text friends and respond to email and update calendars and pretend they're listening when someone tries to engage them. Be honest with yourself: when was the last time you sat and just had a real, live conversation with someone else, in which you took turns and genuinely listened to what they said? No devices. No TV. No music. No distractions. No wonder it's so hard for us to listen to God." (p. 70)

"As basic and obvious as this may seem, sometimes the reason we're not getting answers to our questions is that we're not willing to pause and wait long enough for God to reveal himself to us." (p. 71)

Burn the Place by Iliana Regan

I love chef memoirs even if I'm not familiar with the chef, but this one was not great. Iliana Regan grew up in rural Indiana and always felt out of place. She was gay before she really understood what that meant. She grew up on a farm and was raised growing vegetables, canning food, hunting, foraging, and cooking. While her family was super dysfunctional, she did inherit a love of food and inherent cooking skills. Alcoholism and addiction ran in her family and she was an alcoholic by high school. Unfortunately restaurants and alcoholics/addiction tend to go together so it was well into adulthood before she finally got sober. Eventually she was able to open her own restaurants and tap into the food and cooking of her childhood just in time for foraging and farm to table to become trendy in the food world.

While her story was interesting to me the book was kind of all over the place and there was a LOT of vulgarity. Even though she's very successful now, the book was pretty depressing and I just didn't like it very much.

She Came to Slay: the life and times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

Born as a third-generation slave in Maryland, Araminta Ross (who later became Harriet Tubman) knew from an early age that "...there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other..." She was fortunate in that her parents stayed together for over fifty years and kept almost all of their children. When Tubman managed to escape slavery she did the unthinkable - she went back to the South to help other slaves escape. And she went back over and over and over again. Rescuing almost her entire immediate family and dozens of others along the way. She was so skilled at her work on the Underground Railroad that the Union Army actually sought her out as a spy - but they never paid her and tried to stiff her out of her salary, she only was finally compensated for her work when she was in her 70's. But, even once out of slavery, life was incredibly hard for African-Americans and despite her celebrity Tubman's life was hard and she mostly lived hand to mouth. But, until her death at age 91 (which is miraculous for that time period, let alone a former slave) she was still fighting for the rights of women and black people. Tubman is truly a role model and an incredible historical figure that we should all look up to.

Some quotes I liked:

"His owner had promised to set him free at the age of forty-five and miraculously, this promise was kept. Ben Ross [Harriet's father] became a free man in 1841. It's natural to assume that Ben Ross's emancipation gave him reason to celebrate, but what did it mean to live as a free person surrounded by slavery? Yes, he was free, but his wife and children were not...While his freedom offered advantages, it would never give him the same privileges of white men. Paradoxically, Ben Ross's free status highlighted his powerlessness. His freedom was a reminder of his family's enslavement." (p. 25-26)

[Worried about being sold away from her family Harriet prayed that God would keep her owner from selling her or her family members] "She altered the tenor and directives of her prayers [after hearing about further financial issues of her owner]. 'I changed my prayer, and I said, 'Lord, if you ain't never going to change that man's heart, kill him, Lord, and take him out of the way, so he won't do no more mischief.'" (p. 32)

"Harriet's raid on the Combahee dealt a devastating blow to the Confederacy. Causing nearly two millions dollars in property damage and the loss of hundreds of slaves, Harriet became the first woman, black or white, to plan and lead an armed military expedition during the Civil War." (p. 94)

"Although freedom had come [in the end of the Civil War], Harriet knew that racism and bigotry would not evaporate overnight; in fact, like most black people, she assumed that she would have to fight against oppression for the rest of her life. Time would prove Harriet right." (p. 103)

When Less Becomes More by Emily Ley

Our lives feel increasingly busy with work, chores, errands, social media, family, friends - the list never ends. And while many of these areas of life are great, sometimes too much of something great can turn not-so-great. In When Less Becomes More Emily Ley explores what it might mean to create a life where less can become more - more rest, more connection, more unscheduled time. While that sounds great it can be hard to actually implement. Ley covers various aspects of life in each chapter - technology, noise, social media, home, etc. and how to reevaluate and downsize in those areas. Some chapters like rest, wellness, and faith explore how to make room for these areas once you've downsized some other aspects of your life. I liked that the tone of the book was approachable and realistic, not another impossible goal to strive toward. Ley also gives plenty of examples of her own life and how she still struggles to not get caught up in all the rushing and hustling that society demands. Definitely good timing to pick this up to read during all the craziness of the holiday season and right before New Years.

Some quotes I liked:

"I decided that I would take the reins on what information I allow into my head and my heart [through social media]. If you are my personal friend on Facebook, that means you get a Christmas card from me. That's my litmus test." (p. 45)

"I've learned, as I continue to walk out the topics of this book in my own life, that the following truth is the fundamental part of learning that less is truly more. Jesus didn't pick and choose the most confident, well-read, best-behaved people to join His table. He didn't surround Himself only with the best Scripture memorizers or the ones whose church attendance was the most stellar. He chose the broken ones. The imperfect ones. The ones who doubted and asked questions. He chose the ones with histories, and stories, and struggles. He chose you and me." (p. 122)

"Why is contentment so hard to realize in today's world? Because our world doesn't want us to be content. Our chase for more has added to our discontent in more ways than one, which is exactly what marketing agencies and corporations want. How can one be full and content when 'full' is never quite 'full' enough?" (p. 162)

The Cider Revival: dispatches from the orchard by Jason Wilson

Cider was the beverage of choice in early America until Prohibition caused many cider orchards to be abandoned or chopped down. Then dessert or eating apples took over in agriculture and many heritage cider apple varieties were lost. In the last few years cider has come back with dozens of small orchards and cider mills have popped up all over the country - mostly in Northern areas where apples grow well like the Northeast, Michigan, and the Pacific Northwest. Jason Wilson has written extensively about wine and other spirits, so he turns to cider in Cider Revival. While the book was interesting and I definitely learned some things, the description says "following the seasons" Wilson explores the cider industry, but he didn't really get into detail about what the cider industry seasons look like. It was mostly him traveling all over the place drinking cider and talking about it, so toward the second half of the book it felt somewhat repetitive. There were also a few very random anti-Trump sections in the book that just seemed randomly thrown in for no reason. Overall, it was interesting, but not amazing.

Some quotes I liked:

"I'm interested in cider makers who are revivalists, committed to hard work in the orchard, and whose ciders tell the story of a specific place and time. Whose cider have, dare we say it, terroir." (p. 13)

"Apples, similar to humans, are heterozygous. That means that they produce offspring that are unique from their parents. Every seed inside every apple has different genetic content, and each seed will grow a completely new variety of apple, distinctly different from its parents...That's why the only way an orchardist can cultivate the same apple over and over again is to graft the scion wood from that variety onto existing rootstock." (p. 28)

[Andy Brennan of Aaron Burr Cidery]...clomped straight into the thickest patch [of poison ivy], saying, 'Poison ivy is just part of it. If harvesting these [wild] apples means I get a terrible poison ivy rash, well, that's just part of the experience. I feel like the fruit from this place needs to be represented in my ciders.' Brennan also says that he gets E. coli about once a year from tasting apples that have fallen to the ground - also part of the experience." (p. 41)

"So for whatever reason, most ciders from the West Coast would be categorized as modern because of the apples used. This means that, in the cider world, the divide between modern and heritage ciders is quickly becoming a West Coast - East Coast schism." (p. 106)

The Honey Bus: a memoir of loss, courage and a girl saved by bees by Meredith May

Meredith was five when her parents split up and her mom moved Meredith and her two-year-old brother Matthew back to California to live with their grandparents. As soon as they got to California Meredith's mother got in bed and rarely got out. She left Meredith and Matthew in the care of their grandparents and they quickly learned not to disturb her. Meredith's grandfather was a beekeeper and she became fascinated with the bees and helping her grandfather. Meredith didn't understand what was going on with her family and why she couldn't see her father, but she instinctively knew that her grandfather was the only reliable, caring adult in her life. Throughout the rest of her dysfunctional childhood Meredith was saved by her grandfather and the bees. Eventually as an adult she would come back to beekeeping and try to keep her grandfather's beekeeping legacy alive.

I understand why Meredith didn't go live with her father when she had the chance. She didn't want to leave her brother behind or lose the relationship with her grandfather. But, there is no more mention of him in the rest of the book once she's an adult on her own. Did she continue to have a relationship with him? Did she ever tell him how terrible her mother was? I wish there had been more about that at the end of the book. While this book was no Glass Castle, I liked the aspect of how learning about the bees and beekeeping helped Meredith survive her dysfunctional family.

Some quotes I liked:

"As I got older, I detected a more serious undertone to his hive lessons - a gentle prodding to think beyond Via Contenta and to consider what we wanted, instead of what Mom needed. He spoke in metaphors, using the bees as examples of the proper way to behave." (p. 269)

"I could continue to define my life by all that it lacked, as my mother had done. Or I could be thankful that I had been rescued in the most profound way. Grandpa and his bees had guided me through a rudderless childhood, keeping me safe and teaching me how to be a good person. He showed me how bees are loyal and brave, how they cooperate and strive, all the things I'd need to be when it was my time to navigate solo. Grandpa had been quietly teaching me that family is a natural resource all around me." (p. 305)

Behold the Lamb of God by Russ Ramsey

I've had this book for several years and every year I tell myself I'm going to read this book during Advent and this year I finally did. It's based on the Behold the Lamb of God Christmas album by Andrew Peterson that tells the Christmas story all the way from the Old Testament to the birth of Christ. The book is the perfect thing to read during the Advent/Christmas season and it further fleshes out what is covered in the Behold the Lamb songs. We tend to divide the Bible into the Old Testament and New Testament and focus more on Jesus and the New Testament, but the prophecies and foretelling of Jesus is all through the Old Testament and really what the Old Testament is all about. Russ Ramsey does a great job with this book and each chapter is short enough to read in the morning during your devotional time. I think this will be a new Advent tradition for me to read this book and remember how the Old Testament foretells the coming of Jesus that is manifested in Christmas.

Good Husbandry: growing food, love, and family on Essex Farm by Kristin Kimball

Good Husbandry picks up a few years after where Kimball's previous book, The Dirty Life ended. Kimball and her husband Mark now have a three-year-old and another baby on the way. Their farm has grown and they now have several seasonal employees. And while things are mostly good, farming is hard and often unpredictable work. In a few years the Kimball's farm experiences injuries, weather issues, and the strain of living and working with employees and their growing family. Kimball works through what does is mean to raise children on a working farm, how do you make a marriage work when you are both working on the same farm, and the continuous struggle of farm finances. Kimball shows both the beauty of the farm and the darker side of the continuous hard work and stress of this type of lifestyle. This book definitely makes me appreciate even more the local, lunatic farmers that I support.

Some quotes I liked:

"Our farm kept trying to separate Mark and me into traditional gender roles, and I wasn't sure how to feel about it. I had been raised in a family with a full-time homemaking mother right at the end of the era when that was default normal. But I was the cultural product of third-wave feminism and had assimilated all the ideas. I had married someone who was enlightened enough to take my last name. I never doubted that I was a full and equal partner in our business. And yet I was the one who was mostly in the house, at the stove, taking care of the children, while he was running the business, managing the employees." (p. 176)

"In the beginning, when Mark and I started the farm, the past was the image that got me out of bed to do chores every morning. I thought we could create happiness by reinventing the farm of our grandparents' generation - by working hard together on something that made sense to us and fed us on all levels. After the children came, it was the future that motivated me, the hope that we could make a good and modestly prosperous life for them out of the sun and the dirt. I wanted to build something beautiful and secure enough that they would want to inherit it and continue." (p. 197)

Unfollow: a memoir of loving and leaving the Westboro Baptist Church by Megan Phelps-Roper

Megan Phelps-Roper was born into the Westboro Baptist Church family. The church was founded by her grandfather and the majority of members were family. Her grandparents had 13 children and Megan was one of 11 children herself, so the church was a vast network of aunts, uncles, and cousins with a few other members who had made the cut to join the church. When Megan was 5 the church began it's constant protesting which would eventually make it famous. The church's protests grew along with the internet - which provided information about events they might want to protest, social media as a platform, and how much of the world came to know and hate the name Westboro Baptist Church. As a young adult Megan managed much of the church's social media, especially Twitter. It was through Twitter that she eventually began to doubt the church and her family's beliefs.

The first half of the book is Megan recounting her childhood in Westboro and just how rigid and extreme the beliefs she grew up with were. The second half is her struggling with her doubts and eventually leaving and trying to figure out life outside of Westboro. She does a great job with her writing because you really feel the stress she's under once she starts doubting. While the book was really interesting, I would have liked a little bit more of her life after Westboro. The book ends just a few months after she leaves and I'm sure there were years of struggling to figure out her life. I definitely applaud her for being strong enough to walk away from her whole life and even more so for now trying to be a voice for compassion and love instead of hate.

Some quotes I liked:

"There were no chores at school, no crying babies, no laundry, no vacuuming. We only had to learn. It was the freest time we had, and became the portal to my favorite place: books." (p. 23)

"Voice dripping with disdain, my grandfather railed against 'Christians' so often in his weekly sermons that I spent my elementary school years believing the term to be synonymous with 'evil' and denying that it applied to me." (p. 41)

[In response to a lawsuit against Westboro for protesting military funerals] "The men took turns making elaborate prayers to God to kill these men that very weekend, before they had the opportunity to attack the Lord's church in this way...Our enemies did not die over the weekend, but this pervasive doctrinal shift would affect the church for years to come, pushing us ever more to the extreme." (p. 87)

"By visceral instinct more than conscious deliberation, I understood that no force silences doubt as effectively as zeal - a passionate clinging to familiar and reliable truths that quiets dissonance and snuffs out uncertainty in an avalanche of action." (p. 147)

"I couldn't believe how our love within the church had been warped beyond recognition by the elders' unscriptural will to punish. By their implacable demands for unquestioning obedience. By their pernicious need for superiority and control. They had developed a toxic sense of certainty in their own righteousness, seizing for themselves the role of the ultimate arbiter of divine truth - and they now seemed willing to lay waste to anyone who disagreed with them. It was a heinous arrogance and sinfulness that could not be denied. And in a moment of horrifying clarity, I finally saw what had eluded me for so long: We had all been behaving in the exact same way toward outsiders. It was as if we were finally doing to ourselves what we had been doing to others - for over twenty years." (p. 158-9)

"Though their ideologies manifested in vastly different ways, it was fundamentalist religious groups, from Jehovah's Witnesses to members of the Islamic State, that first permitted me to recognize the patterns of my upbringing. But as I watch the human tribal instinct play out in the era of Donald Trump, the echoes of Westboro are undeniable: the division of the world into Us and Them; the vilification of compromise; the knee-jerk expulsion of insiders who violate group orthodoxy; and the demonization of outsiders and the inability to substantively engage with their ideas, because we simply cannot step outside of our own. In this environment, there is a growing insistence that opposing views must be silenced, whether by the powers of government, the self-regulation of social media companies, or the self-censorship of individuals. At the heart of this insistence lie several false assumptions, including a sentiment that Westboro members would readily recognize: We have nothing to learn from these people. This sentiment was troubling to witness even among our tiny fringe movement, and I was relieved to abandon it when I left the church - but watching it spread among a vast and growing populace has been altogether more alarming, filling me with a growing sense of unease." (p. 276)

November 2019 Cookbook Reviews

The Soup Book: 200 recipes, season by season by DK Publishing

I enjoy soup especially in the winter, but I tend to stick with the handful of soup recipes I cook over and over. So, I decided to check out The Soup Book to get some more soup ideas and recipes. I like that the recipes are organized by season as I do like to eat seasonally as much as I can. There is also a chapter on techniques like making your own stock, ways to thicken soup, etc. There is also a chapter with bread recipes since bread and soup go so well together. There are definitely some new soup recipes I'd like to try in here. Overall, a good soup cookbook that can help you open your soup horizons more.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: the New Frontier by Ree Drummond

I've always loved Ree Drummond and her show and recipes, but many of them are so high calorie that you would need to be working cattle all day to eat like that. However, in The New Frontier many of her recipes are healthier, lower-carb, etc. while still including more indulgent recipes as well. And as is her cookbook signature, all the recipes have tons of step-by-step photographs to go along with the instructions. There are definitely a few recipes I'd like to try. Overall, another great cookbook by The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond.

Seeking the South: finding inspired regional cuisines by Rob Newton

I love Southern food so I was excited to check out this cookbook. Author Rob Newton explains that while people think of Southern food as all the same there is a lot of variation between regions of the South. So, this cookbook is organized by region - Upper South, Deep South, Gulf Coast, Coastal Plains and Piedmont, and Lowcountry and Southeast Coast. Each region's recipes are divided into appetizers, side dishes, main courses, and dessert. The last chapter includes recipes for pantry basics like pickles, cornbread, salad dressings, etc. While I really liked how he broke the recipes down by region, there just weren't very many recipes I wanted to try. But there is a lot of great information about the different regions of the South and why they eat and cook the food they do in those areas.

Half Baked Harvest Super Simple by Tieghan Gerard

In Half Baked Harvest Super Simple Tieghan Gerard gives us even more delicious sounding recipes to drool over. In this cookbook she focuses on easier/more simple recipes with either few ingredients or that you can just throw in a crockpot and forget about until dinner. I really liked that in several recipes she gives several ways to make something - crockpot, instapot/pressure cooker, or stove top. That way depending on how much time you have or what kitchen tools you have you can make the recipe any one of three ways. There were quite a few recipes I want to try in here. I'll definitely be on the lookout for more from Gerard in the future.

South by Sean Brock

This is such a beautiful cookbook that I may end up buying this one. In the introduction Brock talks about his history in the South and how he got into cooking. He also explains about the microregions of the South and how the same ingredients can be used very differently in different regions, but it's all food of the South. He also talks about the importance of eating and cooking seasonally and sourcing heirloom ingredients. The recipes are organized traditionally by snacks, soups and salads, poultry and meat, vegetables and sides, etc. Brock also gives 5 different recipes for cornbread! Throughout the book Brock has sections with other tips/topics like caring for and seasoning cast iron and canning seasonal produce. Overall, there were LOTS of recipes I'd like to try and this looks like an amazing book.

November 2019 Reviews

Be More RBG: speak truth and dissent with supreme style by Marilyn Easton

This is a quick read that will inspire you to Be More RBG in your daily life. The book is broken down into 5 parts - dare to dissent, change the world, notorious, off the bench, and supreme wisdom. Each section has quotes from Ginsberg and then some tips or ideas of how to incorporate what she's talking about in your own life. Ginsberg is a HUGE role model for women and everyone should try to Be More RBG.

The Good Neighbor: the life and work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King

Fred Rogers was a pioneer in television programming for children for over 40 years. As the creator and star of public television's Mister Rogers' Neighborhood he helped thousands of children connect with their emotions and learn that they were loved for who they were. Fred Rogers grew up wealthy, but sheltered and often lonely. Because of that he retreated into his world of make believe with puppets and music - both of which would help him create the beloved Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Throughout his career Rogers would testify before Congress about the importance of public television and its funding, write several books and operas, create non-profits, and influence adults and children alike. Almost everyone he interacted with became a close friend and his dedication to friends and family were legendary - he never forgot birthdays or holidays and even in his last days worked out what gifts he wanted to leave to all his close friends. Many people who never met Rogers wondered if the Mister Rogers on TV was a persona, but everyone who knew him commented that he WAS Mister Rogers - quiet, patient, thoughtful, and caring. Rogers became a cultural icon and even today more than 16 years after his death people still quote him and re-watch episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. This is a very thorough biography of a wonderful and creative man and his impact on our culture.

Some quotes I liked:

"And he understood that television could give him a unique opportunity to marry his skills in music and entertainment with his interest in children's education. Fred saw that there could be a career opportunity that would blend his aspirations in the more structured field of education with his powerful, more free-form creative instincts. He saw the chance to be both an educator and an artist, and he knew right away that he wanted it." (p. 68)

"Silence - Fred's willingness, as a producer and as a person, to embrace the quiet, inactivity, and empty space - and his calm demeanor were completely unexpected in the television of the 1970s. They were qualities that captivated children and their parents." (p. 194)

[A memorable meeting between Rogers and a fan] "...a twelve-year-old boy who was autistic: 'I tried to get as much information from the family as I could so Fred had an idea of what their problems were. This was a mother and father, and the autistic boy was, I think, the oldest of three. He had a sister, and he also had a younger brother, all of whom, they claimed, had never heard him speak...Fred, when he came out to visit with the family, had the King and Queen puppets on his hands, and he started talking to the family, and he finally got to the boy, who was almost as tall as Fred at that point. The child started speaking in full sentences to the King and Queen. Well, I don't know if you can imagine what the family was going through at that point, hearing their son speak for the first time.'...Lynch [Rogers' secretary] rushed upstairs to get the family their own King and Queen puppets from Rogers's office." (p. 224-5)

"Academics who've studied Rogers's work often marvel at how young children calm down, pay attention, and learn so much from this television production - and at how they remain calm and centered for some time after watching the Neighborhood. Rogers himself put great care into the pacing of the program to help children slow down and steady themselves." (p. 245)

Varina by Charles Frazier (Evening Edition book club)

When Varina Howell agrees to marry much older widower, Jefferson Davis, she expects to have a more secure life than the one she had for the first seventeen years of her life. Davis's family owns land in Mississippi and she expects to live her life there. But, when Davis decides to pursue a career in politics Varina follows him to DC and enjoys life there very much. Until Davis is appointed the president of the Confederacy, then Varina's life changes drastically, often daily. Eventually forced to flee Richmond once the war is over, Varina only hopes to save her children from whatever fate she and Jefferson face. Told back and forth through time as Varina recounts her life history, we see what her relationship with Jefferson was like and how she survived after the Confederacy fell.

I didn't love this book and Varina is not very likable at first. She did grow on me a little as you see glimpses of her character throughout her story. In my opinion, the book is somewhat over-written and overly sentimental and descriptive. But, the main point that shines through is that no one wins when it comes to war and the Civil War was brutal for almost everyone at that time. No matter the side in the end everyone was barely scraping by and trying their best to just survive. It will be interesting to see what my book club thinks of this one.

Rachel Ray 50: memories and meals from a sweet and savory life by Rachel Ray

I was never a huge follower of Rachael Ray, but she always seemed down to earth and approachable. I also liked that she didn't have children and was unapologetic about it. As someone who is childfree by choice I'm always on the lookout for other childfree people out there. This book was half memoir/essays and half recipes. Each chapter starts with a personal essay - some are about her and some are about other people who shaped her life - then there are a few recipes that correspond to that person or time period of her life. All of the chapters are divided into three categories - family, friends, and work. There are some funny stories and some heartwarming ones and lots of recipes that look amazing. I was super impressed that she keeps separate notebooks for recipes - ones for work, ones for personal/at home cooking, etc. I also loved the copies of her notebook pages on the inside covers of the book. I am also someone who still needs to write things down and loves a good list. Overall, it was an interesting collection of essays and recipes from Rachel Ray to celebrate her first 50 years.

Dirt to Soil: one family's journey into regenerative agriculture by Gabe Brown

When Gabe Brown and his wife first started farming they took over her family's farm. In the beginning Gabe did everything the "traditional/industrial" way his father-in-law taught him. But, the first four years after taking over were a series of disasters. On the brink of financial ruin, Gabe started thinking outside the box - initially just to save money. But, once he started to see how no-till and cover cropping helped not just his bottom line financially, but in the output of the crops he was hooked. He started researching regenerative agriculture and trying to incorporate ways to make his farm healthier - both financially and the health of his crops and animals. In Dirt to Soil Gabe shares his story, both the good decisions and the failures they learned from. Often failure is what helps the most if you're willing to be open-minded and learn from it. While this book is pretty detailed in the soil health aspect, there are things that are applicable even if you're just trying to grow your own food in a backyard garden and not farming for profit/career. Gabe reminds me a lot of Joel Salatin - another lunatic farmer who is embracing the counter-culture, unorthodox lifestyle.

Some quotes I liked:

"First, I realized that I had come to accept the degraded condition of our ranch as normal. Instead of reversing the degraded conditions, I had been trying to hang on not let things become worse. I was trying to sustain the operation in a poor state of health, not help it recover and improve. I know sustainable is a popular buzzword today. Everybody wants to be sustainable. But my question is: Why in the world would we want to sustain a degraded resource? We instead need to work on regenerating our ecosystems." (p. 24)

"The fusion of life transforms dirt into soil. Dirt becomes soil not simply because there is enough organic matter in the soil but because there's life if the soil - and not just any life but the full spectrum of soil biology. As Ray likes to say, without life we might as well be farming on the moon." (p. 50)

"The best thing about raising hogs, other than the bacon and pork chops, is the economic return. Our hogs finish in seven months and provide superior meat quality. Per dollar invested, on our operation, hogs are second only to honey." (p. 90)

"The owner of the apiary [who provides the honeybees for Gabe] told us that the hives placed on our property yield 19 percent more honey as compared to the hives placed on other properties. I see this high yield as proof of the diversity and health of our ecosystem. We pay them a fair price, thus helping support a local business. Then we sell the honey to our customers at a small profit. It's a win-win situation for all involved, including the bees!" (p. 103)

"He [Jack Stahl] considers the use of GMOs to be an act of arrogance, as well. 'Over the long run, you can't manipulate nature and win. It will always have the final word.'" (p. 157)

"The US government has propagated this mindset with its cheap food policy. It wants to ensure that citizens have an abundant supply of cheap food. Notice I did not say nutrient-dense food. The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world, and yet, its citizens are not healthy. Are farmers and ranchers to blame for all this? No, not entirely, but we need to take our fair share of the blame. The American public needs to take their part of the blame, as well, for allowing this to happen. Through their buying dollars, consumers have made the choice that they want this system, even as they choose to ignore the environmental degradation, the mistreatment of animals, and the overall decline in human health. And think of what else this production model has caused. It has led to tighter and tighter margins for producers. Lower margins mean producers must farm more and more land to make ends meet. Farm sizes increase, leaving fewer farms overall and fewer people operating the land. In other words, this production model has also lead to the decline of many of our small towns." (p. 177)

"In 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that diet alone, sourced from the conventional production model, could no longer supply adequate amounts of nutrients and advised all adults to take one multivitamin per day, reversing a long-standing position. The sales of supplements have since grown into a $30 billion-a-year industry." (p. 185)

"Once, when I was speaking to a large crowd of corn and soybean producers in Nebraska, I asked how many of them made a profit on their corn the previous year. One person raised his hand. Yes only one. I asked how many planned on planting corn the following year. Every hand went up. This is an example of how entrenched people are in today's production model." (p. 190)

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! by Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem is an icon, so lots of things that she's said over the years have been re-quoted over and over. In this book Steinem collects some of her most famous quotes on several different topics. The book is divided into 6 chapters - Families Born and Chosen, Changing Aging, Work is Not a Four-Letter Word, Among Co-conspirators and Adversaries, Laughing Our Way to the Revolution, and In the Street. Each chapter has a few pages written by Steinem about that topic and then there are several pages of quotes. The last page of each chapter has quotes from other feminist women that pertain to that chapter's topic. This is a short, quick read that you could probably read in one sitting. Steinem is always inspiring and this book is a collection of all her inspiring highlights. Overall, a great feminist book!

As this is a book of quotes, of course there were several that I loved:

"For instance, in Sex and World Peace, Valerie Hudson and other scholars conducted a study of violence in a hundred nations around the world. The single biggest determinant of whether a nation would be violent, both in its own streets and in military violence against another country, was domestic violence in the home. More than poverty, access to natural resources, religion, or even degree of democracy, they found that violence against females was the indicator and normalizer of all other violence." (p. 9)

"Democracy begins with owning our bodies. By that measure, women have rarely lived in a democracy." (p. 23)

"Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal inside it." (p. 32)

"We are all engaged in the task of peeling off the false selves, the programmed selves, the selves created by our families, our cultures, our religions." - Anais Nin (p. 53)

"Prostitution isn't the oldest profession, it's the oldest oppression." (p. 67)

"Not one study has proved that women talk more than men, but numerous studies indicate that men talk more than women. Women are thought to be more talkative than men because they are being measured against the expectation of female silence." (p. 95)

"The first resistance to social change is to say: It's not necessary." (p. 99)

"A woman who aspires to be something will be called a bitch." (p. 109)

"So use laughter as a guide:
- Try to stay away from places where you're not allowed to laugh, including religious ones. The absence of laughter is a giveaway that the religion in question is more political than spiritual, more about a hierarchy with God at the top than about godliness in all living things.
- Try to stay away from workplaces where laughter is absent. The degree of freedom where you work is indicated by the presence or absence of laughter.
- Try to stay away from social settings with no laughter. Your ability to laugh is a sign that you're doing the right thing with the right people in the right place. Laughing together creates instant community." (p. 122-23)

Eat Joy: stories and comfort food from 31 celebrated writers by Natalie Eve Garrett, ed.

This was a really quick read. Stories about comfort food with a recipe included at the end of each story. The stories were divided into 4 categories - Growing Pains, Loss, Healing, and Homecoming. My favorite one was the story by Anthony Doerr, but there were several really good ones I liked. It's interesting to think about how much food ties into comfort and how comfort can be for something bad or to celebrate something good. Overall, a good, quick read that made me think about my own comfort food and how much cooking is tied to love.

Together: a memoir of a marriage and a medical mishap by Judy Goldman

Judy Goldman's husband Henry suffered from back issues for many years - even having to retire early from his ophthalmology practice because of it. So when he reads an article about epidural shots to relieve back pain he's very interested. The shots are in two parts and after the first part he experiences some numbness in one of his legs, but they don't think much of it. But, after the second shot both of Henry's legs are numb and he can't feel anything from the waist down. The doctor who gave him both shots is less than helpful and doesn't have an explanation. The next several months to a year is an ordeal as they try to figure out if Henry will get any use of his legs back. Judy always saw herself as the meeker partner, but now she has to step up to make sure Henry gets the care he needs. Judy tells the story of Henry's "medical mishap" and how that situation highlighted some of the strengths and challenges of their marriage. She does a good job of blending their personal history with the story of the "medical mishap" and how they dealt with it and worked to move on with their lives.

The Little Book of Bob: life lessons from a street-wise cat by James Bowen

This is a quick read that would make a great holiday gift for a cat lover or Bob fan. In The Little Book of Bob James Bowen recounts some of the life lessons he's learned from having Bob the cat in his life. The book's stories are organized into 6 sections - lessons in friendship, what we need to be happy, how to get the most out of life, how to survive all that life throws at us, how to be good to ourselves, and lessons in day-to-day life. Each section has a few stories about James and Bob that highlight that section's theme. A quick, uplifting read.

One quote I really liked:

"Boats don't sink because of the water around them. Boats sink because of the water that gets into them. Bob seems to have the gift of not allowing what happens around him to get inside him. He merely sails serenely on." (p. 103)

Southern Women: more than 100 stories of innovators, artists, and icons by the editors of Garden & Gun 

I love Garden & Gun magazine and the books they publish are always great, so I was really looking forward to Southern Women and it did not disappoint. Organized into seven categories, performers & players, chefs & mixologists, innovators & iconoclasts, artists & artisans, singers & songwriters, writers & readers, and tastemakers & trendsetters, 123 Southern women are highlighted. Some are well-known names like Oprah Winfrey and Dolly Parton, but I liked that Garden & Gun chose to highlight some newer faces that are already making a name for themselves in various industries in the South. A great collection of stories about women that show all the diversity and drive women have in the South, both in the past and present.