Synopsis:
A&E’s “Extreme Cleaning Expert” Matt Paxton shares all he’s learned in the years he’s been working with hoarders.
Review:
I puffy heart Matt Paxton. Not only does he tackle cleaning jobs nobody else can handle, he genuinely cares about the people he works with. I loved The Secret Lives of Hoarders and hope he writes another one! Oh, and check out his podcast, Five Decisions Away. It’s only just started but already I love it.
Synopsis:
How the cells from the cancerous cervix of an impoverished black woman from Baltimore came to be the foundation for basically all scientific research with cells in the world.
Review:
I was very excited to learn that my public library was going to begin lending Kindle books. The list was pretty dismal, but I had heard good things about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks so I decided to give it a try.
Henrietta Lacks was born and raised and ultimately died in poverty. A black woman who married her first cousin and had her first child by him when she was only 14, she died of an unusually aggressive form of cervical cancer that ultimately took over her whole body. While she was being treated at Johns Hopkins, researchers took samples of her cells, as they did with many patients, in the hopes of creating a line of cells that would be immortal–that is, continue to grow and divide infinitely. It had never been done before, but it happened with Henrietta’s cells, dubbed HeLa.
Henrietta didn’t know her cells were taken, nor did her family. Most researchers didn’t give a thought to the real woman behind the cells that offered countless possibilities for scientific inquiry. There were no laws or regulations to cover this kind of usage, and when her family found out, they were angry. But they didn’t find out for decades.
This is a fascinating hybrid of science and biography. Fortunately for Skloot, the Lacks family is colorful beyond anything that could be made up, and the science is easy to make accessible. Great read and a nice non-fiction break.
Synopsis:
A compendium of trivia, history, biology, and references to art, mythology, poetry, and literature for 19 different birds.
Review:
Winged Wonders is a real rara avis of a book. Basically, it’s a collection of all sorts of information related to a bunch of different birds, like the raven, the heron, the cuckoo, the falcon, and many more. There are poems, myths, historical references, and basic biological facts, all of them really compelling and quirky and fun.
What I really love about this book is how well it’s curated. Sure, you could Google any of these birds and learn a few things, but it takes real discipline and passion to put together a book that’s so readable, fascinating and valuable. I will definitely be keeping this one for the homeschooling library.
Many, many, many thanks to BlueBridge for the review copy.
Synopsis:
Subtitled “Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream,” this book analyzes the housing crisis and reflects upon ways that America can move forward with affordable, environmentally sustainable architecture.
Review:
The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome is a good companion piece to James Howard Kunstler’s A Geography of Nowhere. Author John F. Wasik offers a cogent overview of the current housing crisis along with an analysis of the unsustainability of the current fads in American housing. He explains trends in environmentally conscious architecture and building, and offers his ideas about what it will take to put the American dream back to rights.
I was most interested by his discussion of “spurbs,” housing clusters that are not connected to a metropolitan area, offer no public transportation, are not walkable, and are interspersed with strip malls and shopping centers. I grew up in a suburb of Baltimore and now I live in Queens, NY, so I’m not intimately familiar with these areas. They sound like nowhere I’d want to live. I love what I read about the New Urbanism, one of whose central tenets is “get people outside.” I love that I can walk everywhere–sure, it’s a 30 minute walk to the park but that’s great exercise, and it’s so fun to bump into people I know along the way.
Synopsis:
The journals of a teacher reveal how the mistakes that children make reveal a lot about how they are failing to learn–and how schools are failing to teach.
Review:
How Children Fail was riveting reading. I loved how John Holt paid attention to the kids he encountered so that he could help them learn. He came to realize that teachers were seeking to impose structural forms on the minds of children, where children are best served by being led to develop those forms for themselves.
Since I am hoping to homeschool Superfast Baby, this book was incredibly instructive. It was initially published in 1965, so I would hope that schools have changed some and that its critique is out-of-date. The insights into the process of learning (or “not-learning,” as it were) were fascinating. The techniques he employed for teaching math reminded me a lot of the Montessori school I went to, and I will definitely explore those methods when that time comes around for us.
Synopsis:
A rebuttal to the key arguments against Christianity and apologia for the tenets of the Christian faith.
Review:
Rev. Tim Keller is legendary among Christians here in New York City. He is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, a large church that has planted a number of daughter churches throughout the area, including the one that we attend. He is known as a great explicator of Scripture and people often attend services at Redeemer on top of their regular church attendance just to hear him speak. We don’t do this, because we really love our pastor, but I remember one Sunday near Christmastime when my church was between pastors, and Redeemer was sending us a rotation from their roster of associate pastors. Since it was the holidays, very few people were at church that week to behold a true miracle–Tim Keller had come to speak to us! We all felt happy that we had stayed in town.
In The Reason For God, Keller sets out to answer critics like Sam Harris, David Dennett and Christopher Hitchens with a point-by-point argument against the key charges against Christianity:
Keller’s thesis is that these atheistic claims are actually beliefs, and he deconstructs the origins of and fallacies inherent in these beliefs. I found his arguments convincing, but as I’m inclined to believe him, I’m not sure I’m the best judge of whether or not they are successful.
Part two concerns itself with the reasons for faith, and is about as well-executed an apologia as any since CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Indeed, Lewis’s influence shines on every page, but to his credit Keller develops Lewis’s ideas into idioms and imagery that will connect with people today.
I would love to know what a non-believer thinks of this book. For me, it gave me good reasons for my faith, and some ways in which to respond to questions that might be raised of me in conversation. I think it has earned a place in the canon of classics of the Christian faith.
Synopsis:
People are rude–and here’s what you can do about it.
Review:
I would like to see everyone in the world read The Civility Solution. It always baffles me how much rudeness is out there in the world. When I was pregnant, I was constantly amazed that people would not give me a seat on the subway, for example. Or the ever increasing hordes of cell phone yakkers. As my best friend would say, “The nerve of some people’s children!”
I suppose endorsing this book makes me a prig, but I don’t really care. I hate dealing with rudeness. I bemoan the disintegration of the public square. I blame reality television and Free to Be You and Me. I wish people could be ticketed for stopping short on a crowded sidewalk.
PW Forni offers practical solutions to common rudeness issues with friends, coworkers, acquaintances and strangers. His responses are direct and tactful and likely to incite rage in those to which they are directed, because people just aren’t used to being confronted in their rudeness. Never fear, because Forni addresses these scenarios as well. The Civility Solution is helpful, and when I finished reading I felt like I had just had a personal coaching session with a very polite and kind person.
Synopsis:
A parenting book that looks at the bigger picture of raising adults, not children.
Review:
Grace Based Parenting really resonated with me. I’ve been a bit frustrated as I read about parenting, because it seems like everything has to be a method, a program, or a way of life. I have really been searching for a framework in which to carve out my own path with Superfast Baby, and this book gave me just that.
Dr. Kimmel is a youth pastor, and I have to admit that I almost didn’t read this book for that reason alone. However, I’m glad I got past my prejudices against the book’s Evangelical* trappings because the lessons here are sound to the core.
Dr. Kimmel breaks things down into three (it’s always three) things kids need, and four freedoms that families should offer.
Kids need:
Families should offer:
There is so much wisdom in this book. What I like is that you can use these guidelines within a a reasonable spectrum of parenting styles, and that you’ll be protected from some of the more extreme forms of legalism or permissiveness.
The book is geared towards Christians, but I think that these concepts would apply no matter your family’s belief system. Good stuff.
*I am one of those Evangelicals who wishes there weren’t so many buttheads in our number–or maybe I’m just carrying a ton of baggage because none of the boys in youth group ever asked me out.
Synopsis:
A reassuring guide to help parents promote healthy eating habits.
Review:
Superfast Baby has not shown much interest in solid food, so My Child Won’t Eat was really helpful for me. Basically it reassured me that I can trust my instincts that she is getting the nutrition she needs from breastmilk, and that quality (ie, healthy food) is more important than quantity (no force feeding).
Milk, Money, and Madness by Naomi Baumslag and Dia L. Michels
Mother’s Milk by Bernice Hausman
I’m researching an essay on breastfeeding practices and ended up reading these two dense and serious tomes that delve into America’s abysmally low breastfeeding rates. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for at least a year, and the World Health Organization recommends at least two. Yet many women opt out of trying, or give up at some point well before a year.
Milk, Money and Madness examines the myriad ways in which formula overtook breastmilk as the food doctors recommended for babies. She also shows the tactics used by formula companies to undermine breastfeeding, practices that can prove deadly for babies born in areas without easy access to clean water and to parents who lack the material resources to finance formula. She also spends a great deal of time explaining why breastmilk is the optimal food for babies and toddlers. It’s a hardcore lactivism advocacy read.
Mother’s Milk is more academic, exploring the discourse of breastfeeding in America. So much food for thought, particularly her insights into race and class. The book reminded me of the wonderful article Watch Your Language.
You may be seeing a lot more breastfeeding books on here because I’m starting the process to become a La Leche League leader–yay!
