A Practical Wedding: Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration - Meg Keene (Da Capo Press, 2012)
Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides - Ariel Meadow Stallings (Seal Press, 2010)
Ladies, thank you for helping save my sanity (so far). The blogs A Practical Wedding and Offbeat Bride came across my radar pretty quickly after I succumbed and created a (private) wedding Pinterest board. They seemed chill, and interested in bumping up the parts of a wedding that I cared about, and savvy about how to help you downplay the parts that weren't important to me. (And also really awesome about the fact that everyone's going to have their individual lists of what is and isn't important.)
But there are also books! Stallings's book (well, the first edition) predated the blog, and Keene's came out of her blog. And I tried to get them both from the library, but when OB proved hard to get, I went to the store. And after reading my library copy of APW, I was back at the store to get my very own.
[Note to the universe: would LOVE LOVE LOVE more independent bookstores in my area]
I'm going to suck at reviewing these, and perhaps the most important reviews will come after the Big Event, but both were complementarily (a word?) so helpful. Keene's book made me weepy pretty much once a chapter, while Stallings was more likely to make me giggle. Both are filled with history and examples and ideas about how to navigate the path from getting engaged to getting hitched (or not). And both offered hugely practical advice. (Keene: cross out almost everything on those other sites' "to do" lists, which reminds me, the Offbeat Bride checklist has made me really really happy, even if still overwhelmed. Stallings: consider all the aspects about who will be your best wedding party members, if you have a wedding party.) There's tons of overlap, although Stallings is geared toward a decided more eclectic crowd.
I've set the books aside, as my December is filled up with non-wedding stuff, but you had better believe that come January, these babies will get all sorts of use.
Showing posts with label non-fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-fiction. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Addressing the void
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death - Irvin D. Yalom (Jossey-Bass, 2008)
One nice thing about having a blog which few (if any!) read is that I can be fairly forthcoming when it comes to self-disclosure. So I can tell you that this book was recommended to me recently as I've been going through a struggle with anxiety that has taken the form - in part - of death panic.
It seems so banal somehow to state "I'm afraid of dying" and so I've perhaps had a difficult time doing that. And my reluctance to just say it gives the fear more power. In this fear, I must realize, I am far from alone. Which is one of the many helpful takeaways from Yalom's work.
Oddly, as I start to try to describe the book, I find it slipping away from me. I'm not sure why that is. But let me try to reel it back in. Yalom explores the prevalence of death anxiety, and ways in which he has found the words of past thinkers helpful. He uses copious examples from his own work as a therapist. He challenges us to consider what about death terrifies us, and in what ways we can find comfort in confrontation.
I was also struck by his emphasis on connection. It's a theme that I've come back to again and again in my life, particularly in challenging times, and in this book I almost felt as though my focus was being validated.
This is almost useless as a book review, so let me try to sum up my reading experience. I struggled at times with this book, finding myself alternately receptive to its message and entirely the opposite. I argued with it, and raged over the places where it seemed to be speaking to someone entirely other than myself. I even found myself wishing for more spirituality, although Yalom very eloquently explains his reasons for the omission. And yet, these experiences enriched the book, because they forced me to ask myself why I reacted so strongly. For an introspective reader, this book offers ample food for thought, and certainly a dose of comfort.
One nice thing about having a blog which few (if any!) read is that I can be fairly forthcoming when it comes to self-disclosure. So I can tell you that this book was recommended to me recently as I've been going through a struggle with anxiety that has taken the form - in part - of death panic.
It seems so banal somehow to state "I'm afraid of dying" and so I've perhaps had a difficult time doing that. And my reluctance to just say it gives the fear more power. In this fear, I must realize, I am far from alone. Which is one of the many helpful takeaways from Yalom's work.
Oddly, as I start to try to describe the book, I find it slipping away from me. I'm not sure why that is. But let me try to reel it back in. Yalom explores the prevalence of death anxiety, and ways in which he has found the words of past thinkers helpful. He uses copious examples from his own work as a therapist. He challenges us to consider what about death terrifies us, and in what ways we can find comfort in confrontation.
I was also struck by his emphasis on connection. It's a theme that I've come back to again and again in my life, particularly in challenging times, and in this book I almost felt as though my focus was being validated.
This is almost useless as a book review, so let me try to sum up my reading experience. I struggled at times with this book, finding myself alternately receptive to its message and entirely the opposite. I argued with it, and raged over the places where it seemed to be speaking to someone entirely other than myself. I even found myself wishing for more spirituality, although Yalom very eloquently explains his reasons for the omission. And yet, these experiences enriched the book, because they forced me to ask myself why I reacted so strongly. For an introspective reader, this book offers ample food for thought, and certainly a dose of comfort.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Institutionalized Injustice
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - Michelle Alexander (The New Press, 2010)
Alexander provides an impassioned monograph arguing what we - if we're to be honest with ourselves - already know: the criminal justice system in this country has systemic problems that make it racially biased. And our criminal justice system legitimizes ongoing and permanent discrimination against those that fall into its hands. In effect, we have created a new set of structures that mimic many of the effects of Jim Crow.
What I found particularly compelling was Alexander's analysis of the impact of the War on Drugs, and how a "public consensus was constructed by political and media elites that drug crime is black and brown." Furthermore, court decisions have essentially given a green light to racial profiling. And what is especially fantastic about this is that African Americans engage in illegal drug behavior at no greater rate than Caucasians. And yet they are caught and punished so far disproportionately that it becomes a joke.
I might have been precisely the target audience for this book. And yet, in reading, I sometimes got caught up with things that took away from her argument. Like following footnotes to discover sources, and seeing how often the reference was another scholarly work, not the primary source itself. (And then in one case spending a whole bunch of time online trying to look up old Congressional Records in order to figure out whether the cited source attributed a quote to the correct person.) This made me cranky, which seems particularly unfair of me when you consider how few works of popular scholarship offer footnotes whatsoever. But this, I fear, is just who I am.
Give this book a shot. It broadened and deepened my understanding of the incarceration crisis in this country, and made me wonder how taking voting rights away from felons isn't a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. And so on. Excellent food for thought.
Alexander provides an impassioned monograph arguing what we - if we're to be honest with ourselves - already know: the criminal justice system in this country has systemic problems that make it racially biased. And our criminal justice system legitimizes ongoing and permanent discrimination against those that fall into its hands. In effect, we have created a new set of structures that mimic many of the effects of Jim Crow.
What I found particularly compelling was Alexander's analysis of the impact of the War on Drugs, and how a "public consensus was constructed by political and media elites that drug crime is black and brown." Furthermore, court decisions have essentially given a green light to racial profiling. And what is especially fantastic about this is that African Americans engage in illegal drug behavior at no greater rate than Caucasians. And yet they are caught and punished so far disproportionately that it becomes a joke.
I might have been precisely the target audience for this book. And yet, in reading, I sometimes got caught up with things that took away from her argument. Like following footnotes to discover sources, and seeing how often the reference was another scholarly work, not the primary source itself. (And then in one case spending a whole bunch of time online trying to look up old Congressional Records in order to figure out whether the cited source attributed a quote to the correct person.) This made me cranky, which seems particularly unfair of me when you consider how few works of popular scholarship offer footnotes whatsoever. But this, I fear, is just who I am.
Give this book a shot. It broadened and deepened my understanding of the incarceration crisis in this country, and made me wonder how taking voting rights away from felons isn't a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. And so on. Excellent food for thought.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
How to be a writer
Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers - Carolyn See (Ballantine Books, 2002)
I've always loved writing without really having any real conception of how I could be a writer. Do I want to be? Do I not? Reading this book didn't really help answer that question, but See is just about all you could want in a mentor. She is honest and witty and eccentric and self-aware.
The book covers the preparatory period, and ways to psych yourself up for writing. (This includes writing "charming notes" to those you admire.) It then moves on to the writing process, and how to conceive of major aspects of writing, such as plot, space, characters, etc. Her assertion that the 10 "most important" people in your life are your characters led me make my list, and realize that there were some surprising names on there. And finally, the last section is about all the work YOU have to do to get your work out there, and published, and promoted, and everything else. It all sounds exhausting, to be honest.
But if nothing else, See reminded me how much I enjoy writing, and watching words flow from my fingers onto a page (or screen). And as I said above, she really makes quite a mentor.
I've always loved writing without really having any real conception of how I could be a writer. Do I want to be? Do I not? Reading this book didn't really help answer that question, but See is just about all you could want in a mentor. She is honest and witty and eccentric and self-aware.
The book covers the preparatory period, and ways to psych yourself up for writing. (This includes writing "charming notes" to those you admire.) It then moves on to the writing process, and how to conceive of major aspects of writing, such as plot, space, characters, etc. Her assertion that the 10 "most important" people in your life are your characters led me make my list, and realize that there were some surprising names on there. And finally, the last section is about all the work YOU have to do to get your work out there, and published, and promoted, and everything else. It all sounds exhausting, to be honest.
But if nothing else, See reminded me how much I enjoy writing, and watching words flow from my fingers onto a page (or screen). And as I said above, she really makes quite a mentor.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Hey A's
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game - Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton & Co., 2003)
In 2002, I lived in Berkeley. And somewhere along the line, I became an A's fan. Probably because they had this unreal winning streak, setting MLB records. I was at 2 or 3 of the games in that streak. And baseball was fun.
I've been wanting to read this book for awhile. I've picked up enough here and there to know that by using statistics in a different way, Billy Beane had upended all the typical rules about what you needed for a successful team. And could do it on the cheap. Coooooooooool.
Somehow, it never occurred to me that the book covered the same season that I remembered so well. But then, suddenly it did. And it wasn't just names like Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez, and Mark Mulder (yum!) that were popping up. All the people I forgot: Dye, Scott Hatteberg, Chad Bradford of the craaaaaazy pitch, etc etc etc. Oh, and Nick Swisher, who joined the A's after I left for the East Coast. Ah, sigh.
So honestly, the chapter about the game where they went for the MLB record.... that was my favorite part of the book. I was at that game. It was one of the most wild sports experiences I've ever had. It rivals the hockey stuff even. Just.... oh, it was amazing. And I bet it's fun to read about even if you aren't reliving it. :)
The book itself is fascinating too. Lewis explains Beane & DePodesta's strategy essentially like this: what's most important is ability to avoid making outs. Look for players who are good at that - focus on the stats that really matter. Find the ones who are good at that who are undervalued for some reason, and snap them up. Generally these people don't "look" like baseball players, so are discounted. And thus, your 2002 Oakland Athletics.
Of course, the A's haven't been much to look at in awhile, and I'm curious about how one would analyze Beane's tenure now. Lewis is an admirer, or was in 2002-03. I want to hear more about now (perhaps I should actually go look and see what he's written).
And yet, I say Lewis is an admirer, but he may not be entirely sold, and here was his comment to Beane that stood out, even amidst all the (lovely lovely) statistics: "Every player is different. Every player must be viewed as a special case. the sample size is always one" (p. 248).
In 2002, I lived in Berkeley. And somewhere along the line, I became an A's fan. Probably because they had this unreal winning streak, setting MLB records. I was at 2 or 3 of the games in that streak. And baseball was fun.
I've been wanting to read this book for awhile. I've picked up enough here and there to know that by using statistics in a different way, Billy Beane had upended all the typical rules about what you needed for a successful team. And could do it on the cheap. Coooooooooool.
Somehow, it never occurred to me that the book covered the same season that I remembered so well. But then, suddenly it did. And it wasn't just names like Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez, and Mark Mulder (yum!) that were popping up. All the people I forgot: Dye, Scott Hatteberg, Chad Bradford of the craaaaaazy pitch, etc etc etc. Oh, and Nick Swisher, who joined the A's after I left for the East Coast. Ah, sigh.
So honestly, the chapter about the game where they went for the MLB record.... that was my favorite part of the book. I was at that game. It was one of the most wild sports experiences I've ever had. It rivals the hockey stuff even. Just.... oh, it was amazing. And I bet it's fun to read about even if you aren't reliving it. :)
The book itself is fascinating too. Lewis explains Beane & DePodesta's strategy essentially like this: what's most important is ability to avoid making outs. Look for players who are good at that - focus on the stats that really matter. Find the ones who are good at that who are undervalued for some reason, and snap them up. Generally these people don't "look" like baseball players, so are discounted. And thus, your 2002 Oakland Athletics.
Of course, the A's haven't been much to look at in awhile, and I'm curious about how one would analyze Beane's tenure now. Lewis is an admirer, or was in 2002-03. I want to hear more about now (perhaps I should actually go look and see what he's written).
And yet, I say Lewis is an admirer, but he may not be entirely sold, and here was his comment to Beane that stood out, even amidst all the (lovely lovely) statistics: "Every player is different. Every player must be viewed as a special case. the sample size is always one" (p. 248).
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Little Things Add Up
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun - Gretchen Rubin (Harper, 2009)
Sometimes it almost feels like certain books were written just so that I could read them. (No, I swear I don't really think the universe revolves around me.) This was one of those books. My friend Siel first recommended the book around this time last year. I couldn't tell you for sure why I didn't get it then, but when a patron had me add her name to the request list, I took it as a sign that the time had come. I mean, I had already looked at Rubin's blog, and read her contributions to Slate.
There were so many little things that Rubin mentioned that made me (literally, sometimes) exclaim, "Hey, that's just like me!" For one, the Pavlovian response that taking off contacts and putting on glasses means sleepytime. Another, the need to collect what she refers to as "gold stars." I could go on in this vein for a while, and certainly I ought to talk more about the philosophical underpinning of the book, but I sorta want to skip to the good parts... by which I mean how it relates to me. (Egoism, party of one.)
Rubin's premise is that while she's not unhappy, there is room to be happier, and she owes it to herself to see if she can be. Without making crazily life-altering changes. So for a year, she pursues her Happiness Project, complete with themes for each month, specific resolutions, and a chart to mark her progress. She acknowledges that each person's project will be unique, and indeed while I read it felt very clear which parts were important to me, and what other things are important to me that she didn't need to address in these pages. And so... my takeaways:
- January: walk outside more; get more sunshine; get enough sleep - it really matters; there are so many types of clutter, and chances are you'll be happier without them; the wisdom of "engineer[ing] an easy success"
- February: embrace physical contact (it's been an interesting road for me discovering when I am and am not a touchy-feely person); seek fewer gold stars; be considerate of the ones you love
- March: have an expansive self-definition; enjoy the moment instead of always anticipating the future
- April: remember the validity of others' feelings; keepsake happy memories; honor traditions; make time for projects
- May: fun is energizing; relationships thrive on common interests
- June: connect! - keep in touch; seek out new friends (hmm, writing this reminds me of that song about friends from Girl Scouts...)
- July: don't be afraid to spend - know yourself; make and stick to decisions
- August: appreciate the moment; be grateful; what we admire in others is a quality that is nascent in ourselves waiting to be fully realized (this from a commenter on Rubin's blog). [This is also the chapter where she discusses the fear of "tempting fate" with our happiness, an idea that I have struggled with since at least my freshman year of high school.]
- September: accept what you love; push to grow within an area of passion
- October: examine your "True Rules" - do they make you more or less happy? Hold onto my own mantra: Be Here Now.
- November: be willing to laugh, even at oneself (but I personally should probably beware too much self-deprecation); value others in conversation; "Enthusiasm is a form of social courage"
- December: accountability; acknowledge what makes you happy, not what you wish made you happy
So you see, there's plenty there. I feel like I will be meditating on different aspects of this book for weeks and months (if not longer) to come. How it will inform the ongoing project that is my life is not quite certain, but I already know I am grateful for it.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Foodie in Action
I made it to the end of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I partook, vicariously, of Michael Pollan's four meals: industrial, organic, local, and foraged. I thought about my own food choices, and how to reconcile (or at least recognize) the contradictions within those choices.
The book was often bedtime reading, and there is just something about food that makes me sleepy, so it took a while to get all the way through. And I was still reading the final pages with Michael Pollan on stage before me (more on that later). But it was worth the long haul.
The mix of fun facts and lively language kept the book moving briskly. I love random statistics and explanations, so parts that should perhaps have been boring weren't. On the other hand, you could tell that Pollan wrote the sections piecemeal, and the editing process didn't remove places where he explained or cited the same information again and again. Repetition can turn me off. (Yes, I can hear the snide laughter from all of you who have been subjected to my stories multiple times.)
Anyway, some fun passages:
Excellent to have an excuse for my sugar cravings. And, regarding pigs aerating manure into compost by rooting for corn kernels...
In fact, witnessing this "essential piggyness" is key to Pollan's philosophical coming to terms with eating meat. I can't do that chapter (number 17) to justice, but suffice it to say that I was impressed. Which goes for the entire book, really.
The book was often bedtime reading, and there is just something about food that makes me sleepy, so it took a while to get all the way through. And I was still reading the final pages with Michael Pollan on stage before me (more on that later). But it was worth the long haul.
The mix of fun facts and lively language kept the book moving briskly. I love random statistics and explanations, so parts that should perhaps have been boring weren't. On the other hand, you could tell that Pollan wrote the sections piecemeal, and the editing process didn't remove places where he explained or cited the same information again and again. Repetition can turn me off. (Yes, I can hear the snide laughter from all of you who have been subjected to my stories multiple times.)
Anyway, some fun passages:
The first bias predisposes us toward sweetness, a taste that signals a particularly rich source of carbohydrate energy in nature. Indeed, even when we're otherwise sated, our appetite for sweet things persists, which is probably why dessert shows up in the meal when it does. A sweet tooth represents an excellent adaptation for an omnivore whose big brain demands a tremendous amount of glucose [...] The adult human brain accounts for 2 percent of our body weight but consumes 18 percent of our energy, all of which must come from a carbohydrate.
Excellent to have an excuse for my sugar cravings. And, regarding pigs aerating manure into compost by rooting for corn kernels...
Buried clear to their butts in composting manure, a bobbing sea of wriggling hams and corkscrew tails, these were the happiest pigs I'd ever seen.
In fact, witnessing this "essential piggyness" is key to Pollan's philosophical coming to terms with eating meat. I can't do that chapter (number 17) to justice, but suffice it to say that I was impressed. Which goes for the entire book, really.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Of Maize and Man
Everyone stop and groan at my awful pun.
But seriously, I am corn. So says Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma. Because virtually every non-natural food item (even some organic ones) that I eat now embody our country's insane glut of corn. This isn't news to me, as I've been on a mission against high fructose corn syrup for awhile now, but it's still unbelievably depressing. And fascinating too, the way that corn and humans have achieved a symbiotic state - but a precarious one for both species.
Pollan's book is subtitled "A Natural History of Four Meals" and in the book he traces fast food, supermarket, organic, and "found" meals - one each - to their source, investigating the social, scientific, and political circumstances behind each. So far I'm still in the industrial meal, so I don't have a good basis of comparison, but I hope that the rest of the book is able to delve so fully into the basis of each meal. I've heard mixed - albeit overall positive - reviews about this, so we'll see.
(And also, um, stop shooting people. I mean, really.)
But seriously, I am corn. So says Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma. Because virtually every non-natural food item (even some organic ones) that I eat now embody our country's insane glut of corn. This isn't news to me, as I've been on a mission against high fructose corn syrup for awhile now, but it's still unbelievably depressing. And fascinating too, the way that corn and humans have achieved a symbiotic state - but a precarious one for both species.
Pollan's book is subtitled "A Natural History of Four Meals" and in the book he traces fast food, supermarket, organic, and "found" meals - one each - to their source, investigating the social, scientific, and political circumstances behind each. So far I'm still in the industrial meal, so I don't have a good basis of comparison, but I hope that the rest of the book is able to delve so fully into the basis of each meal. I've heard mixed - albeit overall positive - reviews about this, so we'll see.
(And also, um, stop shooting people. I mean, really.)
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