2023! Halfway through the year, I gave birth to my second kid. My 2.5 year old kept us very busy, though we kept him in daycare so while on maternity leave and looking after the new baby I was able to do some multi-tasking and reading. I started the book reviews a bit earlier (something about finishing the 2022 reviews in August 2023 made me want to try getting on top of it sooner). I can’t believe this will be the 6th year since I started doing summary book posts! Its been a nice way to help encourage thinking about what I read and what I thought of it.
Books I regularly reread are the Dune trilogy by Frank Herbert, A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. Its a rarity for me to add new books to my “Want to Reread Sometimes” list (this list needs a catchier name). However, multiples from my 2023 reading have earned a place on this list: Adrian Tchaikovsky’s writing in Children of Time and Children of Ruin and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I recommend reading all the books listed in this paragraph.
I also watched the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica (For the first time!) AMAZING: How have I skipped this before?
A valuable read for trying to conceive or trying not to conceive; good information. I learned things about my body I didn’t know, that I think are valuable to know. The book is pretty long (and non-fiction!) which made it daunting for me to start, but wasn’t a hard read once I opened it. And the information is invaluable to have for understanding the rhythms of my body.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I haven’t read anything since The Expanse by James S. A. Corey and A Fire Upon the Deep/A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge that has made me gripped. This is fast paced like The Expanse, but the universe has a lot that makes me think of Vernor Vinge’s world building (Sympathetic spiders; though I believe the author claims to have not read these). Avrana Kern is so interesting narratively, as are the spiders. There are later chapters that give me similar feelings of horror as Ridley Scott’s Alien, and the end gives Star Trek homage. Uplift by David Brin (but I haven’t read) also seems to have some similarities. Sci-fi fun all around. A must read if you enjoy sci fi.
Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Octopus! Also really fun. I think I preferred the first but both were binge read. More terraforming, more humanity survival. Plot twists and OH MAN surprises.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
I typically don’t read books like this (I typically primarily read sci-fi, fantasy, and non-fiction). But I LOVED this book. Shortly after starting reading, I was hooked. I loved the characters of Sam and Sadie.
This book follows Sam and Sadie from their meeting in a hospital video game room, to them meeting in a chance encounter when both in university, to creating a video game together, to the troubles their relationship suffers over the years. The book follows good times and successes – it is so satisfying reading about success sometimes – but also pain and failure. The ups and downs of life.
This book is about video games: Playing them, loving them, making them. I am not the biggest video game nerd by any measure, but I have a big appreciation for them.
This book is about friendship and relationships. They are complicated. How we relate to others, what is said and unsaid. I felt deeply when reading this book.
I recommend trying this book even if it sounds like something you usually wouldn’t read. It will sit with me for a while and probably end up on my reread shelf sometime, which doesn’t happen often, and has not happened for a non-sci-fi book.
One aside: There was a moment in the book which kind of broke my immersion in the story, which is weird given I read sci-fi and fantasy where things are wildly unrealistic. The author describes one of the characters as working on a video game so hard and long that their fingers started to bleed as they typed. I don’t think this is normal?, though maybe someone who works on video game crunch time schedules can correct me.
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
This is the second book from the Oxford Time Travel books I read. I had a much harder time getting into it but when I did I loved the ride it took me on. Highly recommend. Much lighter than Doomsday Book, so if you’re picking between the two pick this if you want light and the other if you want heavier.
The premise and happenings are really awesome. I had a great time reading this and highly recommend for other sci fi fans (if you liked reads like The Expanse especially I can see this one having a chance of going over well).
Marcus, the owner of an asteroid mining ship, is hijacked by a wealthy heiress Miranda to run a dangerous heist. I also was burnt by the last heist I read so was a bit skeptical. This was great though!
I didn’t like the main character’s internal monologue at times, even though I’m usually a fan of flawed protagonists. I think this is because the flaws of the male lead are sex driven thoughts, and I’m not usually in the mind of a man.
Educated by Tara Westover
Very dark and not what I usually read. As a mom of two young kids I just can’t fathom how parents would not provide for their children medical care, safe employment/hobbies. I was gripped reading, though, and inspired by Tara’s break away from the darkness of her childhood.
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Oh this was fun! I am glad I didn’t read this peak Covid. The time travel/historians elements are very fun, and the writing style had me eager to find out what happened next (and satisfyingly guessing some of the surprises). The historical elements merged with near future sci-fi was very fun. I look forward to reading more of the Oxford Time Travel books. Highly recommend if you want to read something “Time Travel” – but if you want something lighter, pick one of the other books by Connie Willis.
Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I just really like Tchaikovsky’s writing, and this book is no different. While I preferred the first two, there was enough happening here too to keep me interested and gripped. Keep reading if you made it this far and read this one too! There are always surprises.
Any Man by Amber Tamblyn
This was very dark but surprisingly gripping. Lots of trigger warnings: Rape, assault, and more. The writing style is very divisive and I can see some people not liking it, but I loved it. Some parts of the book are poetry, some are written as dating app message logs, some are written as computer pop up notifications. If you feel like something dark and upsetting, this is a good read.
The Writing of the Gods by Edward Dolnick
This is interesting! I had a slow read of this though. Nonfiction can be hard for me to pick up.
A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Mass
I thought I’d hate this because I’d found Nesta so annoying in other books, but this was written so I actually ended up finding Feyre and Rhysand annoying. I gave it 4 stars but this is generous, the actual fantasy plot was not gripping to me. Yet, I had a fun time reading this so 4 it is!
Things I disliked: Baby in danger of killing the mom pregnancy trope. HATE THIS trope. The friendship sleepover vibes kind of took me out of the fantasy universe. Felt very modern day 90s. Though I guess cutesy and nice and fun. The actual fantasy part of the plot re: finding the Dead Trove.
Things I liked: The sex scenes really did it for me. Spicy, good. Nesta’s redemption arc: Nesta and the stairs, training, library, etc. Cassian.
The Montessori Toddler by Simone Davies
I like the descriptions of set ups for encouraging independence in your home, but I think a lot of Montessori set up has drifted into parenting culture that I didn’t get a lot out of this. It wasn’t bad, but like all non-fiction, more something I want to skim (and feel I skim many days on e.g. Instagram).
Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey
This was really great. There is an Apple TV series I might check out on this when I finally finish watching Battlestar Galactica.
At parts it jumps to new POV characters and at first I was always hesitant, but always liked their stories as I got into it. I liked that the stakes were real for the characters. Terrible things happened as a result of their decisions and they had to live with the consequences. Dystopias are also interesting to read and discover: How did the world end up like this? Who is lying? What is freedom? What is truth?
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
A fun queer romance with time travel on the subway in NYC. This was one of the fluffier reads I had this year. At times it was a bit annoying; I can’t fully place why I feel this, but it was a light read and good to mix up amidst some heavier books this year.
For Small Creatures Such as We by Sasha Sagan
I wanted to like this, but I found it not concrete enough to help. I love the idea of “Ritual”, but I think I wanted something more grounding to help determine how to create ritual from scratch. There was a lot of reflection on different rituals and such from many cultures and religions, but I don’t know that I got a lot out of this.
How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by K.C. Davis
This book has some great ideas, but I would listen to Good Inside episode on this book instead of reading the book itself.
Some ideas to immediately incorporate: Reframe chores as self care/setting household up for ease later (for example, doing the dishes clears counter space to make mornings with kids easier; and then when enough counter is clear you have permission to stop), not seeing not doing chores as a reflection of your self worth, and brainstorming ways of tasks that work for you. Your house should work for you, you shouldn’t work for your house. K.C. Davis’s example is having a “Family Closet” and instead of folding laundry, sorting it unfolded into bins for each family member.
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
I don’t know why but I didn’t really enjoy this book. Another one I wanted to like. I may try it again sometime since its a sci fi series and those are nice to get into so I don’t have to pick a new book to read after finishing the first, second, … and so on.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
This book is very ‘navel-gaze-y’. Its a collection of chapters, like essays, about random topics. Some had tidbits where I thought “aha” and others felt very self absorbed. I liked a chapter on Phone use, one on parenting boys and how with girls parents point to all a woman can be but boys we don’t point to all the good ways men can be, and others (these are just some I can remember now while sitting down to write this).
Anthem by Ayn Rand (reread)
This is one of the second sci-fi-esque books I read, via high school English (the first was The Giver by Lois Lowry). I’d been mostly into fantasy prior.
Its a quick read and I also knew I could up my 2023 book count by wrapping it up at the very end of the year 😉
Its interesting. Another of those sci-fi books. I now look at books like this that uphold a dystopia that is so dark and miserable so fully, and wonder … HOW. Like, I understand if one group is miserable to the benefit of another how those benefiting may uphold what is going on. But if everyone except a small group of bureaucrats is no smiling, laughing, experiencing joy enough. How effective is drilling in misery from childhood (these books always have a stronghold on the education system)? We have to be really careful about ensuring the education systems remain free thinking so they don’t get taken over into a monoculture that may be incorrect or oppressive.
This book isn’t really about exploring that, it’s about exploring individualism vs collectivism. And its short so I don’t expect it to have all those answers. Just something I’m thinking about.
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
UGH. I wanted to like this. Mech sci fi inspired by Chinese History. However, the protagonist was supremely unlikeable and her arch makes no sense. They didn’t motivate how she became so staunchly feminist when all the others who grew up like her were not. Her form of feminism is… Destroy everyone and everything in her way? There is one moment where another character says that they had to sell her out to protect her own kids, and the protagonist kills her immediately. What? Completely unsympathetic. There is a full love triangle and polyamory which is interesting…. but even these love interests and why they fall in love/like each other feels forced in some ways.
A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet
Another unlikeable protagonist, for me. She seems defiant just for the sake of defiance, and when that defiance falls… I don’t know why she falls for her love interest. She thinks guys are ew gross until she all of the sudden is in love with the guy who kidnapped her? Not sure why she suddenly likes him. She is inconsistent, immature, and annoying to read (Especially because its first person narrative). The sex scenes are unsatisfying to me. I don’t know. Just couldn’t get into the protagonist and so can’t like the book.
I already liked the podcast of the same name, Good Inside, so checked the e-book out from my local library on Libby and gave it a read. I really liked it.
Here are some assorted thoughts on the first 18 chapters or so, at random:
I ran out of steam summarizing more, I ended up highlighting a lot of this book. If you’re raising a toddler or young kid and struggling with screaming – you or your kid! – check it out.
The idea of multiplicity: Two things can be true
This comes up a lot and I think is a really healthy attitude to have in parenting, relationships, and life.
Two things can be true: our feelings and someone else’s feelings can both be valid. We can love parenting and still need a break from our kids. We can be playful but still have firm clear expectations. We can do what’s right for our family, and our kids can be upset. I can be happy to have a roof over my head but still wish I had something different. I can be a good parents and still yell at my kids sometimes.
“When things feel tough, I remind myself of this ultimate “two things are true” statement: I am a good parent having a hard time. It’s so easy to slip into a “one thing is true” mentality here: “I’m a bad parent, I’m messing everything up, I can’t to do this, I’m the worst.” This self-talk fills us with guilt and shame, and when we’re in that mindset, change is impossible”
Convincing is at odds with this; when we try convincing someone their perspective/feelings are completely wrong, we are saying one thing must be true. Sometimes there is one truth (read: science). But in emotional relationships, oftentimes both our perspectives have grains of truth and usefulness. “Two things can be true” is the opposite of convincing: it fosters curiousity and connection. Why do you feel something different than me? How can this bring us together, even though we have different views on this?
Kids jobs (Feelings) vs our jobs (Boundaries/Safety)
The main goal of boundaries is to keep our children safe. We step in, when our kid is doing something they may not yet have good decision making about (obvious example: running into a road). Kids may not like this. This is fine. Their safety is more important than being 100% happy all the time.
Some boundaries:
When kid out of control/dysregulated hitting people and screaming, I will move you to a safe spot for you to feel your feelings
Our kids jobs is to feel feelings. Our job is to keep our kids safe.
“I am doing my job of keeping my child safe. My child is doing their job of expressing feelings. We are both doing what we need to do. I can handle this.”
Keeping our kids safe includes helping them process and regulate their emotions. Having big emotions can make a kid feel unsafe in their body, like a fire raging. Before we fireproof the house, we must first put out the fire.
Its never to late for repair
We aren’t always perfect but when we mess up we can Repair. This means acknowledging what we did so kids don’t succumb to self doubt: Did my mom/dad really say those loud and mean things? I love my mom, and she loves me so probably not.
We want kids to trust their feelings and experiences of the world. We don’t want them to think bad things are only happening in their head – picture when they someday have a romantic partner, we want them to trust their judgement if the relationship goes awry. So when we Repair, we state what we did. We apologize. We state we will try to do better. We connect after an intense disconnect.
“Mommy was having big feelings that came out in a yelling voice. Those were my feelings and it’s my job to work on managing them better. It’s never your fault when I yell and it’s not your job to figure out how I can stay calmer. I love you.”
Resilience > Happiness
We don’t just want our kids to feel happy and ignore all other feelings; we don’t want to rewrite their experiences. They will feel the full range of human experiences. Therefore, before happiness, they must experience regulation of the negative feelings.
When our kids are tantruming it sure feels like we just want that to end. But really we want them to process that feeling.
“…as we start thinking, “Ah! I need to make this feeling go away right now,” the distress grows and grows, not as a reaction to the original experience, but because we believe these negative emotions are wrong, bad, scary, or too much. Ultimately, this is how anxiety takes hold within a person. Anxiety is the intolerance of discomfort. It’s the experience of not wanting to be in your body, the idea that you should be feeling differently in that specific moment. And this isn’t a product of “being a downer” or “seeing the glass as half-empty”; it’s a product of evolution. Our bodies will not allow us to “relax” if we believe the feelings inside us are overpowering and frightening. So, where’s the happiness here? Well, it’s crowded out. It cannot surface”
“When we tell ourselves that we just want our kids to be happy, we take on the job of happiness police, eager to help our kids avoid discomfort instead of teaching our kids how to cope with discomfort. This wires a child for a circuit that says, “Discomfort is bad, wrong, and a sign I need immediate ease. I need to look for that ‘better’ feeling because I never learned how to tolerate distress.” This is very different from the circuit built by nurturing resilience: “Discomfort happens, discomfort is where I learn. I am not scared of discomfort because I learned to tolerate it in my childhood—because my parent tolerated it in me.”
Behaviour is a Window
“I also feel compelled to point out that in my family, when my older child grabbed a toy from a baby sibling, the baby usually didn’t care. And because I was less attached to the behavior itself and more interested in what the behavior was telling me, I would often . . . do nothing. I’d pause and wait. I wouldn’t make my child give it back. And these were some of the most amazing moments: I saw my kid as good inside, I wasn’t scared the behavior would continue forever, and so I didn’t react. I knew the underlying issue had nothing to do with the toy and everything to do with his feelings, and, no joke, more times than not my child would return the toy on his own.”
Behaviour modification can appear really successful for people pleasers (kid really wants to please you!). This is convenient in parenting and childhood, but can lead to issues like reluctance to say no, prioritizing others over oneself, inability to assert one’s needs in adulthood.
When we instead see behaviour as a window into the soul, rather than something to be corrected, we can help address the underlying need rather than whack a mole behaviour shut down fixing shut down fixing. The issue will keep coming back if we don’t see to the underlying issue. Behaviour is information.
Another reason to connect instead of behaviour modification: We need a sturdy foundation if we want kids to want to be with us, connected.
Here are some questions to get you started, to ask yourself after any tough moment:
What is my most generous interpretation (MGI) of my child’s behavior?
What was going on for my child in that moment?
What was my child feeling right before that behavior emerged?
What urge did my child have a hard time regulating?
What is a parallel situation in my life? And if I did something similar, what might I have been struggling with in that moment?
What does my child feel I don’t understand about them?
If I remember that my child is a good kid having a hard time . . . what are they having a hard time with
Seeing what the behaviour is a window to is HARD.
Reducing Shame
“here’s what’s critical to understand about shame: it is an evolutionarily adaptive feeling. Being alone as a child is synonymous with being in danger, so shame works, within the attachment system, as a signal to a child to hide the part of them that does not successfully gain attachment. Shame feels so awful because it awakens our body to a painful but important piece of information: You will not get your needs met if you keep on being who you are right now. Instead, you will be met with rejection—often in the form of judgment“
Kids when ashamed will often freeze. If a kid feels ashamed they may refuse to apologize, lie. If we further shame or do a time out or something a kid may feel abandoned. Put aside the goal of an apology for the moment. Here’s an intervention that doesn’t help to reduce shame: “Irha, you have to say sorry. It’s a simple word! You’re making the situation worse! How could you care so little about your sister? COME ON!” Here, Irha is put in the “bad kid” role and spirals further into her badness, and further into her frozen shame state.
Self Care
I really like “Hot cocoa breaths”, for me it was really regulating: Breath in like you’re smelling hot chocolate, slowly breath out so its like you are blowing on the hot chocolate as if to not have the marshmallows fall off.
Acknowledge, Validate, Permit (AVP) Avoiding your feelings never ends the way you want it to. In fact, the more you avoid distress or will it to go away, the worse it becomes. Our bodies interpret avoidance
Label your feelings and validate them: “Today was a difficult day”, “I’m noticing a lot of worry right now”, “My chest feels shaky and stressed”. Your feelings make sense, you can add something about “Today was a difficult day, caring for two kids while they fight each other while doing renovations and making dinner… no wonder today was so hard!” This helps give us permission for these feelings.
Your self care is allowed to inconvenience others. When you ask for a break, its okay if the person helping you isn’t thrilled at having to pick up the slack.
Visualize yourself on one side of a tennis court and someone else on the other side. Remind yourself, “I am over here . . . I have my need and my decision on my side. He is over THERE, on his own side. His feelings about my decisions . . . those are on HIS side of the court, not mine. I can see them, I can even empathize with them.
Here’s a list of small self-care activities to get you started: Drink one glass of water in the morning, Meditate for two minutes, Drink your coffee while it’s hot, Cook yourself a legitimate breakfast, Listen to calming music, Read a few pages of a book, Have a good cry, Take five hot cocoa breaths while seated, Rest in child’s pose, Color, Talk to a friend, Brush your hair, Journal.
Repair, as we do with our kids, can be done with ourselves as part of self care. Place a hand on your heart and tell yourself: “It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to not have it all together. Even as I am having a hard time on the outside . . . I remain good inside. I am good inside.”
Building Connection
Play no phone (PNP time): Basically what it sounds like. Set your phone aside and play with your kid (one on one). This can be just 10-15 minutes. Show that you’re setting it somewhere to the side (maybe have a special basket; can help demonstrate this skill for when kid has a phone someday). Then, let your kid pick the play and you notice, reflect, and participate as they would like. You can describe what they are doing (“you’re building a red tower!”), mimic (do what they are doing next to them, for example copy their drawing style), do reflective listening (mirror back what they say, e.g. they say “the cat wants tea”, you say just that back “the cat wants tea!”).
Using our words to build connection when kid is upset:
“That sounds really hard.” “That stinks. It really does.” “I’m so glad you’re talking to me about this.” “I believe you.” “Being a kid right now . . . ugh, it feels so so hard. I get that.” “You’re really sad about that. You’re allowed to be, sweetie.” “I’m right here with you. I’m so glad we’re together talking about this.” “Sometimes we don’t have a way to feel better right away. Sometimes when can do is talk nicely to ourselves and talk to people who understand.” “I love you. I love you the same no matter how you’re feeling and no matter what is happening in your life.”
Actions when kid is upset:
Sit on the couch or the bed with your child as they talk to you. Say very little as they talk. Nod. Look sympathetic. Offer your child a hug while they’re upset. Breathe deeply together
Be Playful:
Silly dance parties, talent shows, Making up songs or rhymes. Family karaoke. Playing dress-up, playing house, or other fantasy play. Building a fort. Use playfulness as a first response to missed manners, not listening, or whining. Examples: “Oh no, the thank-yous are missing again! Okay, okay, where can they be . . . oh wait, wait, I found them! Under the couch! Let me get them back into you. Okay! Got it. Whew!” Ask yourself: “What did I like to play when I was a kid? What did I always want someone to do with me?” I once worked with a family in which the father really struggled to play with his kids; he lit up as he remembered playing the game Crossfire as a child, then ordered it online to play with his own children. This was the first step down
Storytelling: You can use stories from your own childhood to relate to your kid. “Did I ever tell you the time when…” and then share something similar that happened to you long ago. It can help share problem solving and relation to similar situations. Use this strategy when they are already calm. And you don’t need to point out the exact parallel to what just happened in their life, you can keep it vague.
Repairing vs Apologizing: Sometimes apologies can end the conversation. But repair opens the floor for more discussion. “I’m sorry” is the beginning of the repair, not necessarily the part where we close and move on. Share that you’ve been reflecting. Acknowledge the other person’s experience. State what you would do differently next time. Connect through curiosity now that things feel safer
Kids not listening to you
“Not listening” is really “not cooperating” with us. This could be because of a relationship barometer – in which case the connection strategies above can be helpful. The more connected we feel to someone, the more we want to help someone and comply with them.
Further, often when kids aren’t listening to us its when we are asking them to do something that is helpful for us as the parents, but inconvenient and somewhat undesirable for the kid. The example given is, Imagine someone said to you, “Hey, cancel your lunch plans and help me clean the toilet!” How would you feel? That is kind of how a kid feels when they are asked to get in their car seat when they are in the middle of playing with toys.
So some strategies are: Connect BEFORE you ask (using one of the connection strategies above), give your kid a choice (Me: I have found this to be mildly helpful at best, a lot of the time my kid picks “Something else”), use humor in the request,
Script examples: “Wow, you’ve been working so hard on that tower. I know it’s going to be tricky to pause and take a bath. If we do a quick bath now, you will have time to build more before bed.”, “I know it’s so hard to end playdates, because you’ve been having so much fun! We have to leave now, but Matias’s mom and I can set up your next playdate really soon.”, “Oh no . . . your listening ears are lost! Okay, wait, I think I found them. Oh my goodness, can you believe this . . . I found them in this plant! How did they get there? Let’s get them back on your body before they sprout into a flower”
Tantrums
Tantrums are normal. They often happen when a desire is unfulfilled. Go back to “Both things can be true”: I want you to memorize these words: “Two things are true: I’m in charge of this decision and my answer is no. You’re in charge of your feelings and you’re allowed to be upset. Nothing is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with my child. I can cope with this.”
When our kids are dysregulated we often fall into self-blame or wonder what is wrong. Nothing. This is normal.
Some strategies:
Name the wish: Say out loud what the kid wants
Validate the magnitude: Sympathize with the feeling. You are SO MAD. You want those crayons so big as big as this room. As big as the whole house! No- the city!!
Remember your job – to keep your child safe and remain calm, not to end the tantrum. Your kids job is to feel their feelings.
Aggressive tantrums occur when a kid is feeling overwhelmed and scared of their own feelings. They lash out and have explosive terrifying feelings coursing through their body. When you think of your child as terrified rather than bad or aggressive, you’ll be more able to give them what they need. Their lashing out is intense self-protection mechanism.
Strategies:
I won’t let you… and follow up: Tell them what you won’t let them do, then remove them or the problem from their surroundings so they can’t do it. “I won’t let you hit your little sister” and move the little sister to another room. “I won’t let you jump on the table” and pick them off the table. “I won’t let you hit me” and standing up/blocking the punch. Try to keep “I won’t let you” for only the biggest boundaries
Differentiate urge from action: Wanting to bite is ok, biting a person is not.
A firm boundary—stopping a child from doing something that is dangerous—is sometimes the highest form of love and protection. It signals to a child that their emotional fire will not take over the entire house or yard or birthday party.
To try: Pick up kid and take to a small room, close the door, sit with them. Remove anything they can use to hurt you, themselves, or their surroundings. Sit with them and do whatever it takes for you to stay calm: Hot cocoa breaths, Tell them: “My number one job is to keep you safe, and right now safety means carrying you to your room and sitting with you there. You’re not in trouble. I love you. I’m here.”, Prevent aggression, demonstrate to your kid that you can withstand their emotions and their emotions won’t destroy you. Don’t try to reason, don’t lecture, don’t punish, don’t say too much at all. Your child is in a threat state; they cannot process any words. Before you talk to your child, find your slow pace and soft tone. Loud, chaotic tantrums need calm, steady voices. Tell your child some of the following, more slowly and quietly than feels natural, while looking off to the side or to the ground, because when a child (or adult) is in fight-or-flight mode, direct eye contact can be interpretedas a threat by a kid having a hard time. I’m here. I love you. Do your thing. You’re allowed to feel this way.” Or try to sing a simple song over and over, very slowly. Something like, “Blake, Blake, it’s okay . . . Blake, Blake, it’s okay . . . Blake, Blake, it’s okay . . . let’s take a deep breath,” and then take an audible slow diaphragmatic breath.
After it is all done, tell the story of what happened rather than ignoring and moving on.
Sibling Rivalry
“We don’t do fair, we do individual needs”. Fairness can lead to watching each other trying to make sure things are eternally equal. “And there’s a longer-term reason why we don’t want to aim for “fairness” in our families: we want to help our kids orient inward to figure out their needs, not orient outward. When my kids are adults, I don’t want them to think, “What do my friends have? What are their jobs, their homes, their cars? I need what they have.””
Zero tolerance for putting each other down or name calling: Aka, bullying.
Try to let them sort it out on their own. Step in if there is actual danger, otherwise take a step back. Maybe narrate what is happening. Let them sort it out otherwise.
My first year reading with a full fledged toddler! There is definitely less sitting; I am now chasing after my son. He can walk, run, and climb. That said, I am still impressed with how compatible avid reading can be with kid life.
I also got pregnant with my second child towards the end of 2022. First trimester had me very sleepy, so when I read, I would end up falling asleep and napping on the couch as my toddler ran circles around watching TV.
What is harder with Toddler Life for me was finding time to sit down and write this. Whenever I sit at a laptop, my toddler demands I look at pictures of cats. I think when we first showed him a computer this is what we did. Now he thinks they are devices for looking at pictures of cats. This is not entirely inaccurate.
Anyways, I am finishing this review post in August 2023 after my second son has been born (he is 7 weeks old now!). 8 months into 2023. I really should try writing the reviews as I read so I remember more. The notes on many of the books are shorter than they have been in past years. But, it’s better short and late, than never.
The last book in my favourite series of all time did not fail to deliver. This was an emotional Expanse year, as the TV series also concluded. I feel the authors really gave the characters deserved ends that felt complete and fair storytelling wise. I’m very satisfied but hope to see more in this universe (including the Telltale Video game coming out in the future!).
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
What a bizarre story. But also had me hooked once I got through some of the intro! Would recommend.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Wow, I can’t believe this was a short story. The amount of world-building packed in is astounding. I really enjoyed this one.
From One Mom to a Mother: Poetry & Momisms by Jessica Ulrichs
Mom poems that hit just right; some had me sobbing. Fair warning but beautiful.
The poems are of varying quality and some definitely are more worthwhile/impactful than others.
I shared some with one of my online mom communities and it was always EMOTIONAL DESTRUCTION.
Dune by Frank Herbert (reread)
This is one of my favourite books. I’d actually forgot I reread it last year and was thinking of reading it again on this maternity leave, which is a review in of itself. If you haven’t read it, do. I love the first 3 of the Dune series.
Scythe by Neil Shusterman
First book I read in 2022 and I don’t remember much about this? I remember it being fun, but even reading the synopsis doesn’t really jog my memory, so that tells you something in of itself.
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Very fun story of Kaikeyi from the Ramayana, which I know NOTHING about so a lot of this I’m sure would read differently to someone who does. Kaikeyi’s magic is really interesting and gripped me.
All I See Is You: Poems and Proses on Motherhood by Jessica Ulrichs
More mom poems, I felt the collection had less bangers than the other one I read. Still some good ones in here, though.
Cozy Minimalism by Myquillyn Smith
How to do home decor! I moved into a house and just wanted to think a bit about home decor. I believe the book had a list in the appendix, would only read that and skip the rest.
My big takeaways were to do things in this approximate order (I’m working from memory so may miss something):
First figure out the room layout – set furniture up & live with it that way, play around with it
Get Rug (its easy to match drapes and paint to it later)
Then get drapes and paint
Then do artwork
Then do nick knack decor stuff
The Sins of Our Fathers of James S. A. Corey
The last piece of Expanse writing from James S. A. Corey I get to read! It was enjoyable. I am going to miss this world but look forward to what new worlds the authors bring us to in whatever projects they do next.
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas; A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas
I hated the first book in these series but 🔥hot damn 🔥do I like where the series goes. More of a sultry fun read than any deep thinking. Interesting enough fantasy plot. I liked the characters and character chemistry here MUCH more than the first book.
Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right by Jamie Glowacki
Ideas seem good enough. Writer’s tone is very annoying. Will write a review when I actually try doing this stuff.
No Bad Kids by Janet Lansbury
I have more notes for this one because I kept notes while I read. Mostly in the form of quotes. I read this BEFORE my baby had fully morphed into a defiant wild little toddler. Its really helpful and grounding rereading some of these quotes now as I parent a 2.5 year old.
Your own expectations
“Babies are whole people… they are natural learners, explorers and scientists able to test hypotheses, solve problems, and understand language and abstract ideas.”
“Children are ready to listen, primed from birth to begin decoding our words and intuitive our unspoken messages. They are also unique individuals who quickly develop ideas, opinions, and wills of their own. Babies and toddlers often understand exactly what we want but choose to do the opposite.”
“During the toddler years, the most reasonable expectation is the unreasonable” YES
“Be preventative, prepared, proactive: there’s an excellent chance our toddlers are not going to follow our directions or agree to our limits”
“Find support: the toddler years are an intense time. To remain mostly unruffled, parents of toddlers need a shoulder to cry on, and some may need the support of a coach, counselor, or therapist. Let your children be the inspiration to get the help you need.” I have personally found the best parenting advice FOR ME is to work on ways to keep myself calm when faced with stress: Deep breathing, knowing my limits and when to step back.
“Toddlers can’t just agree and comply out of respect. They test their power and will by resisting us. Defiance is normal and Healthy.”
Your responses to your toddler/baby/child
When kid is upset, check if they need: Food, drink, or comfort
Your emotional state matters when you set limits/boundaries with your child: Try to be unruffled. The kid must BELIEVE you’re unruffled
Bad state: Frazzled, frustrated, confused
Good state: Confident, clear, concise, calmly (like a CEO), matter of fact delivery
“Lack of discipline is not kindness, it is neglect” OK this is worded VERY harshly. But I get the intent. Be really deliberate of when saying no and setting boundaries though because if its something I give into after a lot of screaming and tantruming, I start feeling “Mom Guilt” re: not having good discipline.
“Loving our child does not mean keeping him happy all the time and avoiding power struggles. Often it is doing what feels hardest for us to do: saying “no” and meaning it”
Allow kids to express feelings
Turn no into yes (if you can word things affirmatively, do so)
End responses with periods; no “Okay??”
Sibling interactions: Sportscast; narrate the situation without assigning blame or guilt.
How to stay calm when kids aren’t: Breath, call a friend, eat dark chocolate.
“Discipline is training that develops self control, character. Latin disciplina: instruction, knowledge”.
It is educating children to understand consequences. Those consequences should be logical, reasonable, age appropriate.
“Thank you for your opinion. Here’s the plan”
No – things book advises not to do
No time outs My commentary: What’s the difference between alone time, quiet deep breaths, and time outs? My toddler when really upset requests alone time. He chose this. Its not abandoning him, its giving him space to self regulate.
No discipline for crying
No spanking
No lectures – a sentence or two suffices. Don’t assume their feelings, only state what is certain.
No accommodating whining. Ask the child to restate their request clearly and politely. Commentary: This is very hard for me.
No gimmicks. Would you say this to an adult? If so don’t do it.
No false choices where they can’t say no.
No distractions to end misbehaviour
No ending sentences with questions
No yelling
Routines/Behaviours
Speak in the first person when possible. Not, “Its not nice to hit.” add a personal connection.
Routines set a predictable environment with realistic expectations.
Give natural consequences: E.g. if we don’t get dressed, we can’t go to the park Commentary: My toddler just wouldn’t want to go to the park then… Yay! we can watch TV!!
Show love frequently. Unconditional love. Don’t withdraw love as punishment
Talk normally
Make daily rhythms Commentary: Could use more of this, re: when we watch TV etc. But we are only 6 weeks into life with a baby brother so makes sense life is chaos. He gets some consistency from being in daycare.
Curiousity rocks Know when what they are doing is ok.
Give place for autonomy early on.
Say yes to safe exploration and self directed play
“Give boundaries when child is testing, give boundaries during transitions, long before annoying you. You can set boundaries to protect your mental health.”
“It helps to be strongly attuned to our own inner rhythm – to know what your needs are and to convey this to your family so they learn to respect your needs too”
New Sibling
Have reasonable expectation: Kid likely to be overwhelmed by many new emotions.
Encourage them to express feelings. When kids act out ask what their emotions are. Casually bring up subject of negative emotions
“Being a big brother is hard sometimes. If you feel any of these things I want to know. I will always understand, love you, and want to help you.”
Kids that seem more accepting/tolerant may be struggling the most and need extra support to express feelings
Don’t guilt/judge/sweat the small stuff
Give them quality one on one time
Foster baby’s independent play
Respect child’s continual need for boundaries and calm helpful parents
Misc.
Respectful parenting isn’t passive parenting
“Basically most parents are afraid of disciplining their children because they are afraid of the power struggle. They are afraid of overpowering their child, afraid they will destroy the child’s free will and personality. This is an erroneous mistake.”
Don’t give too many choices, or ask was that a good choice. Sometimes kids need Clear Decisive Definitive.
“There is no way over indulged children are going to be happy, because they seldom get direct honest responses from their parents. When you say no really mean it. Let your face and posture reflect no as well”
“A positive goal to strive for when disciplining would be to raise children we not only love, but in whose company we love being.”
Not passivity. Mindfulness!
1) respectful honest first person communication 2) acknowledge desires and feelings 3) keeping directions simple and concise 4) a confident matter of fact unquestioning tone 5) gentle following through 6) limit screens and overestimating toys. 7) belief in child’s ability to actively participate in creating solutions
Reading some of my old notes is helpful when thinking about parenting my first kid as a 2.5 year old with a new baby brother.
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
A classic short story and a quick read if you haven’t been forced to read this in school already. And even revisiting it if you have read it for assignments may be worthwhile; something about reading for your own enjoyment vs. filling in English class worksheets should make it more enjoyable.
Deception Point by Dan Brown
Fun thriller, not what I’d usually read. An enjoyable binge read.
Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
A fun enough story and premise, the writing style just rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t like the protagonists internal voice. The villain reveal felt way too obvious and cliche, which makes it less interesting in some ways.
Artemis by Andy Weir
I wasn’t a fan of the character Jazz. She felt brash and not like a complete character. I usually love Weir’s sci fi books; The Martian and Project Hail Mary are fantastic! But the character here was so unlikeable and her first person narration so …. unrelatable? unrealistic? sexual? … I don’t know… that I had a hard time getting into the story. I also wasn’t very interested in the heist plot vs some of the sci fi elements from his other books. Too bad.
Prior to 2020, I averaged about 25 books/year. In 2020, I had a spike to over 50 books/year in part because of the exceptional nature of the COVID-19 Pandemic, working from home, cancelling trips, and social distancing. In 2021, while life isn’t back to “normal” and COVID impacts are still present, life isn’t “normal” still for other reasons too. I welcomed my first kid into the world! Life with a baby (now, almost toddler!) is very different.
In preparation for having a baby, I adjusted my expectations of reading lots downwards (and even give myself the grace that if it doesn’t happen at all, that is all Okay!) or potentially upwards. In Canada, it is more typical to take longer maternity leaves (our EI program covers maternity/parental leave up to 55% of your salary for 12 months, and your job is protected for 12-18 months – this is a simplified explanation, but suffices for my plans). So I won’t be working for most of 2021 as I primarily adjust to being a mom.
To prepare for this before the baby came, I looked at some ways to read that may be more compatible with baby feeding, stroller walks, and other parenting life aspects.
I anticipate it being easier to put earbuds in to listen to books rather than read books on my Kobo e-reader
Turns out I actually didn’t like e-books very much
Re-reading favourites
I created a shelf of wanna-reread, I wanted to have a list of books that if I fell asleep/got distracted listening to them they would be easy enough for me to get back into them because I’ve read them in the past.
Being open to adding reviews to children’s books to this list 🙂
A friend asked if I would be writing a serious review for the books I read to my child, and I will consider this.
If I do, it will be a separate section or post.
In the end, I read 26 books total! With my son approaching toddlerhood and me going back to work in February 2022, I expect this to slow down again.
Writing the reviews was especially a challenge – in fact, I only wrote 1/3 of the reviews in a timely fashion. The rest are being done on my last week of maternity leave as my kid transitions into his daycare.
Now on to the reviews! I added a (fantasy), (sci fi), (non fiction), (parenting) tag to books so you can check out the genres that are most of interest.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND – 5 STARS made me think a lot, in different ways for each book. recommend reading
Okay, so this was a fun read! I binge read it over 2 days as I waited for my baby to be born. I had already seen the movie, but the book was written with a likeable protagonist (Mark Watney), exciting satisfying problem solving, great science, and suspense. I struggled to set it down!
Mark Watney, NASA, other folks on Earth, and more do brilliant smart problem solving when faced with problems. It was so nice.
That said, I have two (very small) complaints.
First, while Mark Watney was brilliant in his survival via his scientific brilliance, I found the character’s continual affable mental state improbable. Given how many times he is faced with certain death, given how isolated he is, I think he would have been ‘broken’ more and struggled more. Its POSSIBLE. But it seems unlikely. I think even the people I know who are sociable and without signs of mental illness have struggled with the much-less-extreme isolation of COVID-19. And Mark Watney doesn’t even have digital communication with people. And he is constantly almost dying. In the end of the book, it briefly mentions him seeing a psychiatrist, however, his entries in his log were too happy go lucky to be believable for someone in his condition.
Second, it is not particularly ‘deep’ on some of the tradeoffs and hard decisions made. I usually like my sci-fi to go into that. The book lightly discusses how immense the cost for Mark Watney’s survival, and how that cuts into other space exploration missions. It seems brutal to think about ‘letting’ someone die, but the book continually points out how his odds of survival are so low. He has disaster after disaster thrown at him. If it weren’t a book, he would die.
There is a part where someone working for the Chinese Space program has to scrap their planned scientific probe, knowing that the probe will never happen now: they briefly acknowledge the loss for science and learning and knowledge this brings (“It could have been a lasting legacy of scientific research. Now it’s a delivery run. We’ll get a Chinese astronaut on Mars, but what science will he bring back that some other astronaut couldn’t have? This operation is a net loss for mankind’s knowledge.”… “Well, it’s a net gain for Mark Watney.”). There are parts where NASA scavenges from other planned missions and there is internal politicking as the teams know this delays their own research & launches. When resources are limited, does it make sense to throw them at one man’s improbable survival? I would have liked the book to explore this a bit more, but acknowledge it isn’t that kind of book. And I heavily enjoyed it anyways, so I’m probably asking too much of it.
Other random thoughts: As much as I love space and science fiction, I kind of hope my child doesn’t want to become an astronaut (so much stress and worry!). And at odds with that: The near future of this book has SO MUCH space exploration. I want to live in that world. Someone must take these risks to learn more about our galaxy.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Wow! I really enjoyed this. This is the first book I read post baby (on Kobo). I finished it when my son was 3 weeks old.
I haven’t engaged a lot with Greek classics, beyond reading Homer’s Odyssey last year. I much prefer this retelling to a translation. The flow felt “better”, and the characters felt more likeable than Odysseus.
The relationship between Patroclus and Achilles was touching, intimate, seductive, fun, and heartbreaking.
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Okay, 😭
This book literally starts with the main character giving birth and meeting her son, and I started it just weeks after my own delivery of my son.
The Best We Could Do is a beautiful illustrated memoir about how Bui’s parents history impacts their parenting and her childhood. It is sometimes painful, sometimes lovely, and always so reflective. I learned more about the Vietnam War, an event Bui’s parents lived through, and enjoyed her reflection on how different events led to how they were the parents they were. What does it mean to be a parent, and how do you move from your own childhood and being a child to that new role?
Possibly a bit too heavy to read postpartum (I am a tad bit more emotionally affected by all things motherhood, babies, and parenting at the moment) , but highly recommend to read sometime.
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
(listened to as an audiobook)
This was a re-read (listen!) of the first book in one of my favourite science fiction series of all time, in preparation for the last book coming out. And the final season of the TV show on Amazon Prime. The audiobooks for The Expanse are wonderfully narrated.
I forgot how gritty and … horror… this early book is. Vomit Zombies. Lovely.
Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey
I can’t believe the series is over. This book was an excellent conclusion, tons of moments that hit right in the feels for various character arcs.
I don’t know what I’m going to do without The Expanse to fan over and wait for. I haven’t been this into something since Harry Potter as a youth.
Circe by Madeline Miller
I loved reading this, and binge read it as much as I could with a tiny human wiggling around. There are moments my heart sobbed, as I connected in motherhood with Circe of myth.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
I really enjoyed this book. I kept binge reading it and wanting to ignore all other obligations and plans. I don’t want to hang out with my friends, I don’t want to log onto Skype to play D&D, I just want to finish my book.
There are warnings that this book is the first in a trilogy, where the third is long awaited and not near completion, so if you don’t like starting something without an ending, that’s your fair warning. But I read the first and second and loved both, even if I never get to read the final book.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
tw: abuse
This was a hauntingly beautiful read. Just lovely.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
(listened to as an audiobook)
I listened to this at 2x speed. I think it is a worthwhile quick listen. There are some good ideas, but they can also probably be summarized more succinctly than the book, though the book does help solidify remembering the tips.
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
I feel like this has some great ‘scripts’ for dealing with toddler through school year age parenting struggles. That said, I didn’t find things particularly ‘revolutionary’, nor particularly science backed (or, if they are, this book did not give me any evidence as to why these approaches may help raise thriving children).
The book has MANY frameworks/analogies for thinking of, well, thinking. I find some of them get a bit patronizing, but here they are, summarized:
River of Wellbeing: One bank is chaos, the other is rigidity. We don’t want to get too close to either bank, and it is our job as parents to help keep our children closer to the middle of the river, away from either bank.
Right vs Left Brain: Right Brain is emotions, images, personal memories, intuition, and gut feelings. Left Brain is logical, linguistic, and literal (and doesn’t really come into play until kids start asking “Why?”). When a child is having a big feeling, this comes from the Right Brain. It is not helpful to try talking down a tantrum with logic. Instead, “Connect with the right” and then “Redirect with the Left”: Engage with the emotional side FIRST, before talking through the logic Left Brain side of things later.
Upstairs Brain vs Downstairs Brain: Upstairs brain is where we make decisions, show empathy, have control. Downstairs brain is instinctual and instant: Fight, flight, freeze. Again, wait for the kid to calm down before rationalizing with them (I’m not sure I really understand how this is different from the Left/Right Brain point).
“Stuck on the rim” of the wheel of awareness: Who you are is the hub, which ‘integrates’ many rim points. However, sometimes we get “stuck on the rim”, where all we focus on is a few “rim points” and we lose touch of the other parts of who we are that keep us happy, peaceful, and accepting. Help children get back to the Hub. You can do this with what is basically mindfulness, by pointing out to the child the other parts of their hub (for example, here are times you’re not sad)
Mindsight is the ability to understand one’s own mind as well as the minds of others.
Integrate, integrate, integrate: Help ALL Parts of the child’s brain work together, from left/right brain, upstairs/downstairs, and more.
And here is a quick list of the strategies to help children integrate and work with all the above analogies/frameworks (the book’s “Whole Brain Strategies #1-“):
Connect & Redirect: FIRST listen & comfort using your own right brain. Then Redirect with the left. That is, use logical explanations now.
Name it to tame it: Help children retell frightening or painful experiences. Help them tell the story: Have them tell as much as they can, and help fill in details. Do this several times to help fears lessen. Include both the emotions and the logical sequence parts of the story.
Engage, don’t enrage. Think about which part (upstairs vs downstairs) of the brain you want to appeal to. Appeals to authority may trigger the downstairs brain, which may enrage. But sometimes you can take the moment to spur their negotiation, communication, and compromise skills instead.
Use it or Lose it: Let kids make age appropriate decisions throughout their day to exercise their upstairs brains. Help them deal with big emotions by expressing their feelings in a safe way (e.g. punching a pillow vs punching a sibling). Encourage empathy (“Why do you think that baby is crying?”).
Move it or Lose it: Moving the body can help with brain chemistry. Regain balance through encouraging movement in times of distress.
Use the remote of the mind: replaying memories. (Note: I feel like this is just a variation of “Name it to tame it”). Storytelling of a painful moment, but you tell the story and the kid can “Pause” when they want and “Fast forward” past the painful parts. By fast forwarding to the end, they can remember the story ends well even when ‘reliving’ the painful parts.
Making recollection a part of your family’s daily life: What did we do today, how did we feel? What’s one good thing, one tough thing, and one thing of kindness we did?
Let the clouds of emotions roll by: Remind kid that their feelings come and go (though storytelling/recollection/etc). (kind of a part of mindfulness)
SIFT: Pay attention to what’s going on inside. Focus on Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts. (more mindfulness)
Exercise Mindsight: Getting back to the hub. Help the kid realize they can get back to their “Hub” via all the tools of “Mindsight” (me: Mindfulness?). For example, helping them realize they can notice other things outside their feelings in times of distress (what do you hear, see, smell, feel, taste, etc). Or, they can visualize a place they feel calm and peaceful (e.g. swinging in a hammock and Grandparents, reading in bed, etc)
Increase the Family
Connect Through
The book also suggests teaching your kids explicitly about these analogies (E.g. upstairs/downstairs, hub and spoke) as a way to deal with their emotions.
In conclusion, this is an okay book. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t get a bit more neoroscience nerd-y, and felt a bit patronized to with some of the examples. I need more convincing why THIS is the best approach, though they do seem like decent ideas for engaging with children. Indeed, they seem like decent ideas for engaging with yourself when having big emotions. The most useful for me, is the idea of the hub and spoke: Take a moment to go back to the hub where I can see not just the ‘negative’ spokes (I’m so tired, I don’t do enough for myself) but also the ‘positive’ spokes (Kid did something SUPER cute, I love being a parent, I am reading so much).
Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson
(listened to as an audiobook)
I really enjoyed this, and the narration is very well done in my opinion.
That said, it starts out very heavy, very dark, and quite gross.
But an excellent end to a trilogy that I very much enjoyed!
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
This was a really fun read, although it is about disease so reading it during a pandemic is maybe not so fun. But its about an ALIEN disease! I haven’t heard anyone claiming that of COVID!
Highly recommend.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
This was really fascinating. I loved how many angles the book was able to take in storytelling: The person story of Henrietta Lacks, her family, and her life. The medical side, on what HeLa cells do and how they were discovered and used. I had no idea about any of this!
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Chaos by Lucy Knisley
(tw: miscarriage)
A graphic novel on pregnancy. I read this after being pregnant and giving birth and it hit deep.
War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi
Super fun world building, super fun characters, very dark story. Apparently if you know more about the history of the Nigerian Civil War (the book does have an author’s note at the end with a quick summary to get you up to speed, cause I certainly wasn’t), this sci fi story is even more interesting.
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Second book in a trilogy (the first was The Name of The Wind), not quite as good as the first but still a really enjoyable read.
The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
I love how magic is dealt with in this fantasy novel! Among with the Rothfuss books I read this year, some of my favourite fantasy novels I’ve read. I tend to lean sci fi but these books were great.
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam
Since I knew I’d be returning to work in 2022, I picked a book to read on balancing life as a mom. This one was a more optimistic take, looking at working moms who did feel they had good balance in their lives. There are some books that focus more on the societal issues that can set parents up for failure in work vs home, but I wanted to read something that might have recommendations I might use sooner. Changing society is hard and takes time, so I’m not holding my breath!
I really did like this book BUT I’m writing this review before I’m back to work. So this review may need an update later as I try integrating these ideas into my life.
I also think this book could be read by Dads too, to help provide balance in their working vs home lives with their partners.
I’m not writing a review in my own words, but including some of my favourite quotes (in italics) from the book below, sometimes with light commentary from me:
General:
I want to push back against this expectation of a stress-free life, because it keeps us from seeing the sweet moments
“Full-time” implies that work consumes all your time – the full amount of your time – but it clearly doesn’t. If you work 40 hours a week and sleep 8 hours at night, that leaves 72 hours for other things, which is almost twice as much time as you’re working. The adage that “you spend the majority of your waking hours working” is only true if you’re working more than 56 hours a week (if you sleep 8 hours a night).
On the book’s discussion of ‘remote’ work: obviously COVID has changed the amount of workplace open to more partial remote work places. This increased flexibility should be to my and other family’s benefits.
You don’t build the life you want by saving time. You build the life you want, and then the time saves itself. Recognizing that is what makes success possible.
Even if you want to do nothing, when you have young kids, it’s impossible to do nothing. You’ll do something, but it may not be a something any of you enjoy. A little intention goes a long way
[You may] think, “I’m tired’. And you are. But to me, another secret of happier parenting is to realize that with small children, I will always be tired. So what? I can be tired lying on the couch while the children whine, or I can be tired driving them to a nearby creek where they can distract themselves from the whining by tossing pebbles in the water. At least in the latter case I’m outside in the fresh air.
In life, and particularly in a life with little ones, happiness is a choice.
Life is stressful and life is wonderful. There is no contradiction here. These facts exist side by side.
I’m going to try to be more chill about my home and let messes and untidiness happen: No matter how much we clean and tidy, children just create messes. If we absorb messages of how pristine other people’s houses are, we may devote precious minutes to these things when its ultimately futile, and those moments could be spent differently
I’m trying to use this to keep the level of difficulty we will face in the near future in perspective. My son won’t be a baby/toddler forever: The problem is that we form our understanding of parenthood when the kids are little. This makes sense; the baby and toddler years are a searing season.
Ideas on Work:
Plan your week before you’re in it… do it on Friday afternoons (when you’re often feeling a bit unproductive end of week brain fog anyways). Block your professional/personal priorities into your days. Send any e-mails to set up meetings for the next week. Also, knowing you have a plan for the next week can help prevent weekend worries.
Mentor
Take real breaks vs. fake ones that don’t actually leave you rested
Say no to the non-important stuff
Foster and adopt good meeting culture: Why are people there? Tell everyone what they’ll do with every minute. What do you expect of them – critique? Feedback on style, not content because the content is set in stone? New ideas? Call on people by name to get broad participation.
Plan your week before you’re in it. Rather than planning on Sunday evening, do it on Friday afternoons (when you’re often feeling a bit unproductive end of week brain fog anyways). Block your professional/personal priorities into your days. Send any e-mails to set up meetings for the next week. Also, knowing you have a plan for the next week can help prevent weekend worries.
Mentor
Take real breaks vs fake ones that are not actually nurturing (e.g. scrolling facebook)
Say no to the non-important stuff
Foster and adopt good meeting culture: Why are people there? Tell everyone what they’ll do with every minute. What do you expect of them – critique? Feedback on style, not content because the content is set in stone? New ideas? Call on people by name to get broad participation.
Don’t invest too much time in organizing your email. Unsubscribe from useless lists.
I’m super guilty of this, I have a really bad habit of checking all emails even ones that aren’t ‘important’. This will be a hard habit to break: Don’t do Inbox Zero – huge time sink. Unread emails are fine. You’ll never reach the bottom of your inbox. Better to realize that anything you haven’t addressed after a week or so will have gone away, or someone will follow up pushing on it more
Think of the opportunity cost of everything! (example: email)
Ideas on Family
Think through your evenings and your mornings. Be intentional, have a plan. Think of this time as usable time.
Play: Be present, don’t multi-task with housework.
Share a family meal, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be dinner. Breakfast is just as good! Give yourself credit for more meals together on weekends even if the weekdays are a hodge podge. Share your day (but not any stressful worries i.e. impending layoffs) such that they hear about successes/challenges.
Say yes to chaperoning kid excursions – Especially dads!
Do one on one time with your kids
Recognize even the mundane tasks of daily life can be one on one time, this elevates tasks.
Be active together – exercise!
Plan adventures.
Make a list of 100 dreams – what you want to do or have more of in your life.
Idea: Each year have every family member come up with 2-3 items they want to do. Do one a month (within reason).
Give yourself credit!
Ideas on Relationship
Make a nice dinner together after kids asleep, or watch a movie. Sit on porch together.
Friday beers to discuss & plan the weekend
Saturday morning coffee dates during kids activities (multiple kids? Have in same lessons at the same place – brilliant)
Savor the moments as they come, a lot of time and life management is mental. Wander less to worries, which steal happiness, and more on happy musings.
Seize opportunities that exist!
Ideas on Self
Outsource everything you can (and can afford to): Housekeeping but really outsource it (2x a week AND do laundry), weekly grocery delivery
Think about what you can stop doing: Tidying toys, making fancy lunches (pay for school lunches or get older kids to make it). Be chill about clutter and mess: Toys will come out again the next morning. There is no prize for having a clean house at 11pm.
You have ~30 hours of leisure time a week lets say – what would you do with that time? If you know, when time pops up you’ll use it wisely
We often fail to recognize where leisure time might be, means we use it mindlessly
Brainstorm leisure activity you can dip in and out of easily! Crocheting, reading, etc.
People quit for one reason only: they were burnt out, tired of working long hours and traveling. – but they also had vacation time that was unused. Use your vacation time!
Extend your childcare a bit so you have time kids are cared for, that you aren’t working
Consider signing up for your own activities
Get into a state of flow for a personal project
Spend 15 min on Wednesday thinking about what you want to do on the weekend and make arrangements. 3-5 fun activities (fun for grown ups) is the right balance between a weekend that feels wasted and a weekend that feels draining.
Transition between work and home with rituals. Probably especially important for working from home, with no commute.
Pursuing passions post-children: “You’ll still find a way to do the things you really want to do.” Sure some things she didn’t care about “sort of disappeared”. But the things you are passionate about, make time for. Drop the ones that don’t matter to you
Learn to estimate how long things will take (home & work) – step 1: Estimate, step 2: keep track of how long it actually took. Then keep estimating.
How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber and Julie King
I like the concepts in this book a lot, but wouldn’t read the whole book cover to cover again. It has great little cartoons in the book that go through some examples of ‘scripts’ for how to talk so little kids will listen. I think skimming these alone would give you the gist of the book.
That said, my Little Kid is only 1 year old so who knows how well this book holds up!
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
(listened to as an audiobook) This is my least favourite of the Wayfarers novels written. Three strangers of different alien species are stranded due to an accident. They are stranded at a pit stop (fuel, food, stretch legs) that is run by another alien and her child. They must just wait it out and so interact. The book is a lot about first impressions: they all start as strangers, and with that and their different species’ histories, they have different preconceptions and biases about each other. Over their time, they bond and overcome prejudice. Everything is written with extreme care. All of the characters are … Too perfect? … in their discussions on social issues their species deal with. This leads to the book coming across as flat instead of deep and insightful on how we can overcome these social issues. The narrative and dialog just feels cheesy.
This review describes it as “The Breakfast Club but with aliens” which is very accurate.
I still look back on the previous 3 Wayfarers books, so if you haven’t checked those out and they hold interest, have a look!
The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer by Harvey Karp
(book read and review written before having a baby)
This is a book by an author who is obsessed with his method to the point of broadly saying it is a cure-all, even doubting evidence to the contrary. I think the idea of the fourth trimester and the “5 S’s” is compelling enough to try if you have a fussy baby but (1) I find the author not really good at evidence and (2) I find the ideas not worth reading this book for (a classic complaint I have when I read non-fiction: Poor verbose writing that could have been better summarized as a succinct blog post).
I liked a tip on teaching self-soothing: Let baby fall asleep however they like (while feeding, rocking, etc.). Set them down in the crib. Tickle their feet or chin to gently awaken them for a second, then they should fall back asleep and learn how to do this and get used to waking up when they were asleep and finding themselves in their crib.
I liked the idea of the “5 S’s” as a framework for trying to get baby to sleep or calming them when they are distressed. I have not yet
What it is about
Karp hypothesizes that babies are born ‘too early’ and have a missing ‘fourth trimester’. Therefore, to sooth them, we must replicate the soothing conditions of the womb.
This is done via the “5 S’s”:
Swaddle: A baby flailing with their arms not attached to their sides will not be able to calm themselves. In the womb towards the end of the third trimester and their debut into the world, they were tightly snuggled all the time. Swaddling replicates this.
Side/stomachposition: While baby should sleep on their back, calming fussiness is worst in this position. “Activate” the baby’s calming reflex by holding the baby on their side, on their stomach, or over your shoulder.
Shush: Use white noise and shushing, a baby will not calm themselves without this soothing sound. The womb had many loud noises.
Swinging: The womb was moving all the time as the mother walked around. To replicate this, babies like swinging and rocking motions.
Suck: To cement this all in and leave the baby resting, give them something to suck like a pacifier.
The first three get the ‘calming reflex’ started, the next two break the crying by triggering the ‘calming reflex’, and the last one keeps the ‘calming reflex’ turned on, according to Karp.
Evidence presented for the fourth trimester, ‘calming reflex’ and the 5 S’sefficacy
The author uses a bunch of anthropologic evidence for his hypothesis of the fourth trimester and the ‘calming reflex’ and against other hypotheses. I personally always struggle with anthropological evidence in that you can typically think of alternative narratives that the same evidence would fit. This is possibly a ‘me problem’, though, where these sections could be compelling or interesting to others. Karp does seem to have a fluctuating tone towards other cultures (both past and present) in how he either talks kindly or a tad condescendingly of primitive societies, which is also a turn off.
One thing I didn’t like about Karp’s statement of this being the ultimate method, is he built in multiple ways of making it so if it doesn’t work, its not the method’s fault but YOURS.
If it doesn’t work at first, its because you need to keep trying it, or trying it for longer, or trying it differently (you’re doing it wrong). Later in the book he says the most common reason the 5 Ss fails is you’re not doing it right: Helpful! /s. I think that it is honestly true there is no super cure for babies. I think that there will be pieces of this that will ‘work’ for my family, and pieces that don’t fit under this 5 S framework that will also ‘work’.
I also didn’t like that Karp tried to state benefits of his methods that are not actually backed in the evidence. For example, he says: “Does swaddling reduce SIDS? Probably! If parents who fell asleep with their children on the couch because they were overtired had been using the 5 S’s instead, maybe they wouldn’t have fallen asleep.” (paraphrased) This is a theorizing, not evidence. Similarly, in a section describing how the 5 S’s could help breastfeeding, he states that it is hard to breastfeed a fussy baby. “If the moms were better at soothing, maybe they would not have given up breastfeeding at one month.” Again, theorizing, and both of these statements are kind of offensive and condescending.
He explicitly states a study that finds that sleep sacks had lower rates of SIDS than swaddling, but then goes on to say that he “has concerns with this, since the babies arms are flailing”. In other words, he has concerns about any evidence that doesn’t fit his predetermined narrative.
He has a few weird tangents he goes on about how the “5 S’s” saves lives by saving babies from being shaken or abused by parents. This felt jarring in a book that is likely to be read by parents who probably have no intent on ever harming their babies. At the very least, it could have been written better. Like other claims, it is unsubstantiated.
He says that swaddling reduces postpartum depression (PPD), because colicky babies have higher rates of maternal PPD and that swaddling reduces colick. But nowhere does he show evidence, as far as I could tell, that there are studies showing swaddling reduces colick. If he could, that would certainly be compelling and interesting and by implication could indeed help with PPD.
However, researchers who looked into this apparently did not find evidence of his method working vs a control: “In 2010, researchers studied the effects of video instruction concerning swaddling, side positioning, white noise, jiggling, and sucking on parents’ ability to calm fussing babies. The results against a control group were statistically insignificant compared to traditional methods.” (Wikipedia).
I personally have an intuition that any baby comforting regime that doesn’t explicitly start with “Is the baby hungry?” (or, is there some other unmet need) is foolish. If an adult was crying, I’d probably first try to find out if something is bothering them before jumping into a systematic routine. I also personally have an intuition that there is no ‘magic pill’ to getting babies soothed and to sleep, and each baby is unique in which of the techniques/methods will work (though I’d love if he could test this using science and show to the contrary, it would make parenting MUCH easier I’m sure).
I don’t doubt that some of these techniques work some of the time (and I’m sure I will put them in my roster of things to try when I’m struggling to get some quiet time with my own newborn soon). I have a Dohm White Noise Machine that I myself find comforting to sleep with; I will try it with baby. I have one or two swaddles to try, and several sleep sacks to see which works best for my baby. I currently only have a bouncer but if my baby is only comforted by fancy rocking, I’m sure I’ll be up late looking at fancy rockers (and subsequently getting targeted ads following me everywhere promising me comfort).
So a note to future, sleep-deprived me from my clueless child-free self: Try some from the 5 S’s, try some others, talk, sing, and cuddle baby, and know that sometimes the baby just won’t stop crying and it isn’t your fault. Someday, baby will grow more, learn to sleep more; this is a temporary phase.
The Happiest Baby on the Block and the Snoo
Something really interesting about The Happiest Baby on the Block: When this book first came out in the early 2000s, Karp used his website to sell the book, video training on his methods, and training. His website looked something like this (Wayback Machine).
Nowadays, though, it looks like this (happiestbaby.com). And is primarily used to sell the SNOO Smart Sleeper. Sprinkled throughout The Happiest Baby on the Block book, Karp had mentioned parents can turn to a “smart sleeper” to turn to their sleep woes. Now, the SNOO is the ULTIMATE smart sleeper.
When I first got pregnant and started reading about what we would need to look after our baby, the SNOO would come up in some online chatter as a must have. The SNOO implements Karp’s 5 S’s and is indeed affiliated with The Happiest Baby. It is also $1500 (!!!!) and is only used for the first ~6 months of a babies life. It can be rented, which presumably brings the cost down. But this is insane!
Karp successfully rebranded The Happiest Baby to match the Silicon Valley glossy tech aesthetic and is now part of the tech industry. This is just so interesting to me, how the original book, rebrand, and SNOO invention. The New York Times writes a bit about it here, and I’d seen a more interesting post somewhere on the internet but have since lost the link.
Conclusion
I don’t think this book is worth reading because it is verbose, the evidence overstated and weak, and not super interesting. However, I think it is worth having Karp’s 5 S’s in your repository of things to try when baby is screaming and you want to try helping baby sleep. I think it will work for some babies, not for others, and that is okay.
EDIT: Notes after having a baby
My son really liked being swaddled for a while (we dropped when he started showing signs of rolling, but he didn’t actually end up rolling until a month after we’d dropped it), but only using funny ‘arms up’ swaddles (example: Love to Dream swaddle) and we still use white noise to help him sleep. He never really took to a pacifier, and he never really liked swinging motions (though he did love napping in baby carriers when we were on walks). As soon as he could roll himself over, he started sleeping on his stomach. So some of these S’s ended up applying really well to our kid, some didn’t.
All that said, after we got out of the initial Tiny Newborn stage, where he’d needed to eat every 2-3 hours and woke up screaming and we were all exhausted, he generally has slept pretty ok. I think that’s just his innate nature. He goes through pretty nasty sleep regressions every 3-6 months, but otherwise just seems to be okay at night sleep. Naps, however, are a different story…
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Uncompelling Beauty & The Beast type story. I didn’t buy the romantic chemistry AT ALL. Apparently later books get better? But I’m not interested enough to try.
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
(tw physical & domestic abuse)
I actively disliked reading this book. Not just the trauma the main character experienced, but the sci-fi multidimension world, and how the societies were set up (felt like forced dystopias to just make the setting super shitty, but kind of unrealistically so). They were frustrating to read about.
And then abuse and stuff. Wasn’t into reading this.
Octavia’s Brood, multiple authors
This is a science fiction collection by multiple social justice activists dedicated to one of my favourite authors, Octavia E. Butler. Its a neat idea, but I think the delivery comes across uneven and weak as a whole.
Part of the challenge comes in that some of the contributors to this work aren’t science fiction authors, so while I’m sure they have interesting ideas to share, they have not (yet?) developed a way of telling them in interesting ways within the framework of a science fiction story. Or maybe its the nature of the stories being short stories that is the challenge. I’m very picky and a bit defensive of the genre; I want something I read to have an interesting level of depth, complexity, and nuance. It could also be that some of the social justice writing sees the world as very black/white without the nuance I have come to enjoy in some of the deeper science fiction stories. The stories here often feel like they are observing something bad that happens in some part of society today, that is already at a precipice of changing/activism trying to change, but instead envisions what could happen if instead that bad thing spread out to all of society. I find this slightly uninteresting to read about.
There are some stories that are particularly interesting throughout but as a whole I didn’t really enjoy this short story collection. I ended up not finishing this short story collection, because unlike one of Octavia E. Butler’s own short story collections I didn’t know what I was going to get as I started each story: Something enjoyable, or something feeling unfinished, or even something conceptually inconsistent or unnuanced.
With a baby due in literally a week when I read this, I felt it of higher value to try reading something that had me wholeheartedly hooked throughout.
Next Year, for Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson
This was a kind of sad book about a couple trying non-monogamy. Kathryn and Chris seem to love each other, have solid communication, have strong relationship history. But Chris has a crush on someone else, Emily. Kathryn encourages Chris to pursue this crush. The book follows what happens.
I’m not a huge fan of how the author writes dialog, and there is A LOT of dialog in this book. The characters are interesting enough. The book deals with some interesting enough topics around relationships and friendships (there is a side plot of Kathryn drifting apart from her best friend that felt very painful to me). It all felt a bit sad because Kathryn and Chris started the book with not a lot of friendship outside of their relationship (so, pretty codependent). Lots of emotional conflict in this novel.
See first half of the year here (30 other books!). This post has reviews for 21 books. I read a bit less as I got more and more pregnant. For a while I knit instead of reading. For a while I did neither. COVID-19 social distancing/isolation/etc. kept changing up existing routines.
Also! Spoilers exist throughout but when I found the surprise a critical part of my reading experience I do leave it out so you can enjoy it too.
I really enjoyed this poetic flowery novel. It explores the descendants of African slave women who were tossed overboard during pregnancy/childbirth, now able to breathe underwater. This mermaid-like people are called the “wajinru”, and in it, we follow their historian Yetu.
The wajinru have a difficult history full of generational trauma, the pain of slavery and loss, and lack of belonging, and somewhere along that history a past wajinru created the role of ‘historian’. The historian holds the wajinru’s entire history within them save for a few celebratory days when they share it. This is to keep the pain from the wajinru full time so they can live in the present without being beholden to the past.
However, Yetu, the young historian, doesn’t want to be beholden to the past: She wants to be her own person, in the current.
Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by Garbes, Angela (audiobook)
Another audiobook listen! This book is a bit more on the history (from an intersectional feminist mindset) and some light looks at research (from a non-evaluative perspective, Emily Oster’s Expecting Better or something else is what you want if you want a look at the medical or scientific advice) and feelings (one woman’s own pregnancy & birth story).
I LOVED IT.
Chapter 2, Imperfect Choices, went through a lot of the history of menstruation & pregnancy, and some of the recommendations put on pregnant women. Loved the history of childbirth. Well, I don’t love what happened. But this was fascinating. It went over the medicalization of childbirth, moving labour support from community oriented ‘midwife like’ care to doctors who at the time had minimal experience actually delivering babies, and how while some of the community oriented mindset at the time maybe didn’t have ALL the best practices, it was delivering babies for the most part fine most of the time. This ended up disproportionately impacting black and/or rural women who now didn’t have the resources or access to medical school. Oh wait and I think at first it was when women didn’t really become doctors. This chapter went over feminism’s fight for better pain management during labour, originally ignored by mostly male researchers who didn’t deem it important (interesting now how I see a pendulum shift away from some of these ‘wins’, where some cultural values prioritize ‘natural’ labour).
Chapter 3, An Organ as Two-Faced as Time, discussed the placenta. HOLY SHIT. If you ever want to rant about how amazing the placenta is, read this chapter. It is AMAZING. The first ~12 weeks of pregnancy spend a good chunk of growth on growing the placenta. This is an entirely new organ within a pregnant person’s body. However, this organ is not part of their body, but the baby’s. 50% of its genetic material comes from the father! And it doesn’t get rejected by the human body. There are cells (Cytotrophoblastic cells) in it that are kind of ‘chameleons’: they copy what their neighbours do. It is a disposable temporary organ: After birthing a baby, one must birth a placenta (I knew this one but some people don’t). And more! Go Team Placenta!! That said, after she says (correctly) that there is no scientific evidence eating the placenta helps anything, she does say something that pushes aside the science (I forget the exact wording) and says that maybe culture knows something science doesn’t: Probably not on this one, it has been researched. I mean if you want to eat the placenta go for it! But I thought this was a weird thought to throw in (but again don’t read this book for medical or scientific ADVICE, for that read something else).
Chapter 4 is about the author’s experience with miscarriage. This was heartwrenching and a tough read, if you’re someone who has struggled with this you may want to skip it depending on how you’re feeling. It touches on the side of pregnancy many don’t talk about. About 10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage (more may occur before someone knows they are pregnant). Many struggle to get pregnant and it is a journey of months without getting pregnant, or having a miscarriage, or more. The journey is different for everyone. Reflecting on this and how we speak to and joke about getting pregnant can help us be more kind to those struggling.
Chapter 5, The Best-Laid Plans, is about the author’s birth plan and birth story. This is just one woman’s story. If you want more stories, there are books like that. The ways in which labour happens are myriad.
Chapter 7, Mother’s Milk is on breastfeeding. I’d seen some reviews say this goes on a pro-breastfeeding tirade, going against the part of feminism is empowering women to make their own choices. If you only listen to the first part talking about all the amazing benefits of breast milk and its physiology, then stop, I can see you thinking this. However, listen on and she tells the story of a struggling mom who in the end decides to formula feed, and discusses how formula has become more and more healthy as science has added the nutrients we learn babies need (some of which may only be breast milk depending on supplements/diet, for example DHA). In the end, it doesn’t say one is better than the other. But we must empower women to feel like they are making the choice by giving the support they need, and the lack of judgement they also need, to do so. Amen. Because breastfeeding was part of this mother’s story, she did share more of that than of non-breastfeeding.
Chapter 8 – 9 had some tidbits of interest here and there but honestly felt more about the author sharing her experience (which is fine!), I just don’t have a lot to write about them.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
I usually don’t put books that don’t make me think a huge amount in the 5/5 categories, but this was just FUN. Both authors are very prolific (Terry Pratchett of Discworld fame, Gaiman of American Gods, Coraline and more).
Armageddon is here and Crowley (a demon) and Aziraphale (an angel) have been living among humans so long they kind of don’t actually want it to happen. The Antichrist is misplaced. Other hilarious mishappenings occur. This was the kind of light and ridiculous book I needed (especially after reading some of the heavier books I’ve been reading, like Kindred).
Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy (Adapted by), Octavia E. Butler, John Jennings (Illustrations)
CW: Rape, violence, sexual assault, suicide.
Wow. Ouch. I had previously read the novel written by Octavia E. Butler in the first half of 2020 (review here). The graphic novel only adds to the brutality, horror, and oppression shown. In graphic novels, they can exploit page flips to reveal full page images that conjure emotions, and here the emotions conjured were sickness and pain. The more I read books in the genre of slavery memoir, the more I “feel” the horrors. I’ll never be able to fully understand, but do believe art plays a role in trying to help us get as close as we can. This is a very heavy read. Butler is a genius and this adaption done by Damian Duffy and illustrated by John Jennings brings further emotional power to an already brutally emotional piece.
Son of a Trickster, Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson
This was a pretty good read and intro to Jaret, a high school kid who makes pot cookies, coasts along through school, and lives with his mom in a party house. He drinks lots and has to work hard to keep parts of his home life together because his mom sure won’t. He also starts to see hints of something else in the world: magic.
This book of magical realism was a great introduction to the world Eden Robinson is trying to create, but wasn’t something I found groundbreakingly amazing or anything. The second book does pick up though, so if reading a book about magical realism based in native culture & history set in British Columbia appeals, do check it out.
Trickster Drift (Trickster, #2) by Eden Robinson
I enjoyed this one more than the first. In it, we follow Jared as he moves to Vancouver and tries to stay clean of drugs and alcohol, get on the right direction school wise, and most importantly to him, avoid all things magic.
Of course this doesn’t go entirely to plan as he is tormented by his mom’s stalker ex and has the world of magic drawn to him like a magnet. The characters were all interesting. The plot felt similarly paced to the first, with a lot of ‘life-stuff’ then ‘magic-stuff’ as it went on, though the magic came up throughout. As someone who lives here, it was interesting reading a book set in Vancouver that would share passages about parts of Vancouver (Commercial Drive, Hastings St, and so on).
The third and final book of the trilogy, Return of the Trickster, is expected in March 2021. The books are also adapted for TV with one season out and another season planned but facing some controversy right now as the legitimacy of the indigenous status of the director has been called into question.
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (reread of a favourite!)
This book is good fun. The world/universe is almost psychedelic; it is very imaginative. When humans accidentally unleash a powerful and dangerous AI type being, a family of scientists crash lands on another planet. The children end up being taken captive by wolf like creatures that ‘hive mind’ within small packs to create ‘singular’ beings.
I’m amazed at how the author is able to create and succinctly describe such a different world. The plot is all super interesting, the world is super interesting, and I’d really like more people to read this. I don’t often re-read so that alone is a review in of itself of how much I enjoy this book series.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean (Illustrator)
A cute graphic novel following a child ‘adopted’ by a graveyard, Nobody “Bod”. A quick and fun read as Bod grows up surrounded by ghosts and a vampire, and discovers some of the secrets the darker parts of the graveyard holds. Nothing particular deep with this one, just fun.
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale #2), with a brief review of The Handmaid’s Tale (read long ago)
CW: Rape, violence, sexual assaultfor both books.
The Handmaid’s Tale
I loved The Handmaid’s Tale, in a previous year it was one of my 5/5 books. The first book, published in 1985, followed Offred through her time in The Republic of Gillead, where she serves as a “Handmaid”. She has little rights and must try to procreate for other couples, never to raise her own child and facing harsh abuses for any missteps. It is a trying read but one that is very well done and fascinating. Margaret Atwood has said this of writing science fiction and this novel:
If I was to create an imaginary garden I wanted the toads in it to be real. One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the “nightmare” of history, nor any technology not already available. No imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities. God is in the details, they say. So is the Devil.
This makes it an unbelievably believable read. By trawling history for past atrocities and writing a future dystopia that is impossibly possible, Atwood wrote a novel that is so uncomfortable. By further writing the lead character as a sort of ‘unlikable protagonist”, and not some teen superhero set out to destroy the dystopia, it is more uncomfortable. For much of the book Offred for much of the book goes along with the oppressive system, not rebelling against the new order. She is not perfect: In the past before the Gillead regime took over, she had cheated on her husband.
Is this who many of us would be if placed in an oppressive regime? It sucks to think about, but probably: Self preservation is pervasive. Further, even the ‘guilty’ are deserving of human rights. The Handmaid’s Tale hammers this home in an extremely well written way.
Rather than continuing to follow “Offred”, The Testaments follows four characters: Aunt Lydia (seen in the first book), Agnes Jemima (a young Gillead woman who decides to become an Aunt), Nicole (who is outside of Gillead), and Becka (another young Gillead woman who decides to become an Aunt).
It was a good book, but didn’t land as strongly for me as the first. I think it fell a little more into the “Young Hero Works to Destroy the Regime”, which I suppose is the kind of hope we need nowadays, but is a bit harder to land in an emotionally powerful and believable way. It was interesting getting internal monologues for Aunt Lydia, someone who in the first book was so awful, and hearing how her survivalism in the Gillead regime played out. It was interesting getting at other ways of youth using the role of “Aunt” to gain some power in an otherwise powerless situation. It was a strong sequel, and a worthy read, but like many sequels to successful novels it is hard to live up to the success and impact of the first.
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
This book isn’t sci-fi and wasn’t fantasy (though the book talks about the ‘magic’ the main character infuses into her character, seemingly able to make you recall long forgotten memories), but is Young Adult Realistic Fiction. I think I read it at the right time: In December, feeling decision fatigue with the mounting stress of the world around me as we cancelled plans for the holidays, I wanted something light and airy and poetic.
This book was what I needed. It isn’t devoid of conflict or challenge but following a high school teen mom try to figure out how to achieve some of her dreams despite the adversity and poverty she has faced somehow did it for me. The main character’s love of cooking was a delight and the characters felt fun for me. This was an enjoyable read.
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
CW: Violence. This was enjoyable until the ending, which I will spoil. This is a tale of Binti, the first of the Himba people to go to the most prestigious university in the galaxy where many different people and alien races go. Her family is not super approving of this path, and she must undergo the journey there on her own knowing she will face their rejection. She will also face the rejection of those on the ship taking her to the university, who do not understand nor respect her culture’s traditions. This is all good and interesting and Binti’s difficulty balancing her connection to family and culture with striving for knowledge and discovery is great.
BUT THEN. Aliens invade the ship taking her to the university, killing everyone but her. They also want to kill the entire university, to get their chief’s stinger back (which was taken in a great disrespect to their alien culture). Binti does convince them not to do this mass murder, and instead resolve this through dialog. Great.
However, then the alien race that MURDERED AN ENTIRE SHIP and would like to do GENOCIDE is just forgiven. What? Everyone contentedly goes back to normal, ignoring the massive death the aliens caused. Here is your stinger (good, a step to reconciling peace), here is a spot in the university, and we will just ignore the murder you did. What?
The novella was written well but I don’t think I can forgive the confusing ending. Forgiveness especially in the face of murder cannot come this easy, peace even more so.
This book is about language and its impact on how you perceive the world. Its also about interstellar adventure and intergalactic space battles and excitement and intrigue.
Rydra Wong, the protagonist, is a fantastically interesting woman: competent, intelligent, strong (and remember this book was written as 1960s sci-fi, when this wasn’t always true of female protagonists: I just think of Philip K Dick’s often flat or stereotypical women and am happier reading this book). The characters other than her were harder to think of as complete and interesting for me, though, so it was hard to get into the book where only one character was really interesting and complete.
Its clear that this book was written a while ago, with computer systems using ‘reel to reel tapes’ (what even are these?) and other outdated technologies. It was a fun-ISH read, but not phenomenal. I did really enjoy the ideas explored about language and its importance on how one perceives and interacts with the world, this felt fresh, but I wasn’t a fun of the battles or other major dramatic plot elements.
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
This was a read for my work’s book club! It was really topical with the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests, though something we should have been discussing and reading long before. Before reading, I was able to view a talk with author Iljeoma Oluo which was a great survey before diving into the book itself. The book is a short read so a great way to take even just a little time to learn about the racial landscape of America. The author writes really concisely and so its not a huge effort.
What was particularly interesting about this book club is it was mostly with my American colleagues – I am based in Canada, and we have our own history of discrimination and oppression. Each country’s past shapes their current struggles. Since Canada gets a huge amount of its media and news from the US, I was aware of quite a bit. But also unaware of quite a bit too. This book and the discussions with book club were enlightening.
I hoped for some examples that were more… subtle? Current? For example, I feel like cultural appropriation examples like racist Halloween costumes or wearing headdresses to festivals is something well known to not be a good idea now (though maybe I’m in an isolated ‘bubble’ are some do not yet know this now). But maybe its a product of the times changing – maybe, when this book was written, this wasn’t widely accepted. I’m curious if there are blind spots like that now. Are there behaviours and actions that are culturally at that turning point now, or will be in the future? What are they?
My favourite sections of this (based on amount learned): Is it really about race?, What is the school-to-prison pipeline? , I just got called racist, what do I do now?, Talking is great, but what else can I do?
Actions I am trying to take (not just because of this book, many of these were put in action earlier): Adding organizations that fight for criminal justice to my donation portfolio, assessing my book to-read lists for more diverse voices.
How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn (audiobook)
Disclaimer: I did not read this because I’m particularly worried about future children’s impact on my relationship. Right now, our relationship is fantastic! That said, having never had kids, I have no idea how that will go! I picked up the audio-book copy of this to listen with my husband because reviews said it was hilarious, and we needed something to listen to on one of our long drives to visit family. We listened together and paused frequently to discuss.
This was really entertaining! And had some good insights that I think are helpful not just for relationships with kids, but all relationships (though the book is probably only something you want to listen to/read if you have or want to have kids – and listen WITH your partner and pause often for great discussion!).
Some ideas my partner & I liked: Scheduled regular date nights when kids arrive, prioritizing individual time (in particular, for the mother, who traditionally is less protective of this time), communication to divide labour rather than assuming partner is being lazy – they just might not know its an issue! or not prioritize the same level of cleanliness, allowing partner to parent in their own way and take the back seat when its their turn to do something, how fathers at the top (CEOs, in politics, in TV, etc.) can have influence to driving changes in parental style. There’s a lot there and even more in the book.
Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman
(audiobook, husband loved it)
This was an enjoyable ‘read/listen’. I think a lot of it alleviated some concerns I have about the shift to becoming a parent, in that it showed some modes of parenting that work (albeit from an outsider’s perspective watching the French way). Much of it seems kind of obvious/natural to me: let kids experience frustration, your kid can sleep through the night, let them wait (‘le pause’), have rules, etc.
I think what I liked most was just a positive perspective on parenting. As I share I am pregnant, the responses are all excited, but also often (and typically from the male half of hetersexual couples) downplay that excitement by informing me how I’ll never sleep again, enjoy vacations, have free time, have any autonomy, … I get that it will be different and overwhelming and a lot (I mean, as much as someone who hasn’t done this yet can ‘get it’), but this book presented parenting being still a lot of work, but also with an effort to stand up for your own personal autonomy & making sure to carve that out. This is something I needed to hear.
I don’t know if its so much the French vs. American way of parenting. But it does seem to present a view on parenting that I quite enjoyed.
The Wild Girls by Ursula K. Le Guin
I like Ursula K. Le Guin, but this story didn’t really do it for me. We follow two captive ‘dirt children’ in hierarchical society with a form of slavery, seeking their own justice. It was fine, but didn’t feel groundbreaking, thought-provoking, or particularly exciting to me.
How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
This story collection didn’t really resonate with me. I had loved Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. Few of the stories in here gripped me and it was kind of a slog for me to finish it.
I did enjoy two stories: Walking Awake and Stone Hunger.
Walking Awake is a story where there are multiple levels of oppression. In a future where humanity is enslaved to beings that breed and use their bodies for their own, they are given no name just numbers. Other human caretakers breed and care for them until it is time for their masters to take their bodies. The resulting story is horrific, layered, and interesting in how the oppressed can prop up the oppressor basically in a plea to save their own butt.
Stone Hunger is in the same universe as the Broken Earth trilogy, and so I think I liked it because it was nice to revisit that universe.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
Two women on either side of a Time War write letters to each other, aware they are fraternizing with the enemy and risking their own standing within their respective sides of the war. Its written as the letters back and forth, with some chapters of what each person is up to alone.
I had a hard time getting into the writing style and lyrical style with what felt like minimal hard plot. I kept trying to piece together what was going on outside of the characters budding feelings for each other, but had a hard time figuring that out. Maybe I missed something or was having a hard time focusing because I wasn’t gripped by anything in particular.
30 books and its only partway through the year! Last year I read 28 in the entire year. While I used to read on my commute to work on the SkyTrain, I now read at home before working from my home office. I’m fortunate to be able to work from home during COVID-19 social distancing. I’ve also taken up morning yoga.
A lot of my reading has been determined by looking at my Goodreads to read list, then putting a hold at my local library using the Libby app so it syncs to my Kobo. This has been great as a final decider of what I read: if it isn’t there, I don’t read it (though I have also written in about authors I feel the library should have; I believe I may have convinced my local library to get books by Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin this way).
In past years my books have been sorted by read order. This time I’m roughly in order of favourite to least favourite: That is, books earlier are ones I recommend you read.
Top books so far include Dawn and Kindred by Octavia E Butler, Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat, The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemesin, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Continue reading to see more!
Also new this year there are content warnings for rape and/or sexual assault for a few books in the list where notable. I’ll highlight this at the start of the review (even if I don’t go into detail in the review itself) for fair warning. This year has more of this than previous years so it feels more worth highlighting. This is not because I sought out this particular topic, but because I’ve read a lot more sci fi dealing with issues of gender, sexuality, slavery, and cultural violence this year. And rape and sexual assault apparently come up in a lot of sci fi about these topics. Also, I sometimes write these reviews quite some time after finishing reading so its possible I’ve missed a warning. Please let me know if so.
Also! Spoilers exist throughout but when I found the surprise a critical part of my reading experience I do leave it out so you can enjoy it too.
Lilith’s Brood (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago) by Octavia E. Butler
CW: Rape, sexual assault, violence. LOVE. I read some Butler last year but have to say that Dawn and Kindred are so far my favourites. And Dawn is, so far, my favourite book I have read in 2020. I fear writing too much about it and giving away much. In some ways, I strongly believe a good book should be written such that you enjoy it even if you’ve seen ‘spoilers’. And I think this book would be too. But I also don’t want to deprive you of feeling the mystery the main character, Lilith, feels as she wakes up in a mysterious environment and slowly discovers what has happened on earth and what is likely to be its future.
This book will make you think. And what I love is it isn’t obvious about that: It doesn’t contain long monologues describing what the author wants you to think about. The plot and narrative suffice. Its delightful. Its deeply uncomfortable. This book reminds me why sci-fi is so fantastic. Butler is genius.
Some of the many themes, may have light spoilers of the most academic dry nature: Parallels to slavery & concepts of freedom and even of white saviour complexes. Forced sterilization. What consent is possible under saviour situations? What consent is possible at all, with any coercions present? What is the matter of gender and family unit structure (*I will note here that Butler’s characters completely lacking homosexuality is a bit jarring for some plot point reasons)? What is important about being human? Is preserving that so important it’d be preferable to not exist? Does evolution change us to be non-human? What is the value of genetic purity? Themes of sexuality, gender, race, species, freedom, consent, and so much more.
I also heavily enjoyed the next two books in the series (Adulthood Rites and Imago). They follow different characters as humanity adjusts (and doesn’t) to the changes brought on by the first book. By the third book I was deeply uncomfortable with how I empathized with the changes happening on Earth, and the hope I had for some characters despite what it meant for others freedom. The whole series continually makes you think.
Salt Fat Acid Heat by SaminNosrat
Non-fiction cookbook that isn’t really a cookbook. This book has half lessons about what Samin believes to be the 4 important and underrated elements of cooking, and half recipes that help underscore the lessons you read in the first half.
I purchased this after watching the Netflix documentary of the same name. The show had me salivating and wanting to get in the kitchen to do more. My husband and I have always loved cooking: it’s an activity, when we have more time, we do together to explore new cuisines and recipes together. For example, during social distancing for COVID-19, we have taken the time to make homemade egg noodle pasta, homemade perogies, and more. (aside: the verdicts: pasta was a lot of effort but well worth it, homemade perogies were a lot of effort for only a little bit better than store bought).
We have explored many cookbooks and experimented without recipes in the past, but we have never read or explored the principles of cooking. So, I purchased Salt Fat Acid Heat and The Food Lab.
I loved this book. At the end of the section of salt, I improvised a recipe of sautéed zucchini (salted before, then pressed the water out), onions, and feta (salt). I drizzled it with balsamic vinegar (acid), and served it with a side of bacon (salt, fat) and my husband’s freshly baked baguette. I fried an egg (fat). We scooped the balsamic zucchini mixture over the bread with bits of bacon and drizzled egg yolk and it was divine. While cooking this one meal, I paid so much more attention to tasting and incorporating different flavour elements than I feel I have in my life. I’ve tasted food before, but never with such attention to balance.
And that was just after reading the section on Salt.
Each section is well-written with excellent illustrations. I love the pull-out pages that have ‘wheels of the world’: One for which fats or acids or seasonings to use for different cuisines. I love that the recipes at the end tie into the lessons in the first half of the book. As of writing this, I haven’t made many of the recipes. I have made salted caramel sauce.
In the book, there is a colour scale of how brown you want your caramel to be: Samin prefers a tad darker than you’d expect, just one tick up from ‘usual’ and one down from ‘burning’. This, she claims, gives a more refined flavour. So, I carefully whisked my butter and sugar until I saw this colour, took it off the heat, added oat milk (the recipe called for cream, but this is what I had and it worked), then whisked it. Then the important part: salting to taste until it is straddling the line between perfect and too salty. I did this so carefully and deliberately, scooping caramel and pinching salt on it to see if I added more to the batch if it would ruin it or only make it better. The first night we served it with ice cream, the second night it firmed up to the perfect consistency.
If you want to be more into cooking than you already are, you’ll probably find this book inspiring. I look forward to supplementing it with The Food Lab when I finally get around to reading it. And I look forward to more exploratory experimental cooking.
Kindred by Octavia E Butler
CW: Rape, violence, sexual assault. Gosh I ate this book up. It’s a heavy subject matter but done in such a thoughtful creative way with the time travel.
With social distancing, I’ve had more time to read but less time alone: My husband is always home. I am always home. We are in a 2 bedroom condo so can be partially separate but in practice we are around each other 95% of the time. One sunny day, he went on a walk by himself and I sat on our patio and read this book while drinking tea and eating homemade tea infused truffles. He returned from his walk but didn’t disturb me: I read on the deck in complete isolation for 6 hours, finishing this book. It was much needed and made me feel so much better to have a breath to myself: I love him dearly, but endorse having space and time to yourself, even if it is just a moment.
This book is about a black woman in a relationship with a white man from 1976 (when the book was written) who time travels involuntary into the antebellum south. It looks at race from these two angles: The still existing discrimination, and challenges of interracial marriage of the author’s present, and the harsh unjust times of slavery. What if a modern black woman found herself transported back to these times? She experiences horrific gruesome treatment, for being found as a black woman in these times could only mean one thing: She is a slave, or a runaway.
At times she takes her husband with her and he has a completely different experience of living in this past. He interacts more with the slave owners than the slaves. All of the characters are so interesting. If you grew up in these times, would you just go along with slavery? We all hope to not be that person, but we ourselves are a product of our own upbringing and culture. This is an uncomfortable question.
This book is really emotional, well-written, and provocative. I highly recommend reading it. It’s one of the top science fiction books I read, but it teeters the genres of historical fiction, fantasy, and slave memoir in a way that helps build more than just an awareness of the past, but a deep empathy. I think this is SO important when engaging with any of the terrible things humanity has done in the past: Building empathy as much as one can for something we have never lived through (nor lived through the consequences still having ripples in the modern black experience today).
I think I’ll have to reread this book to get all it has to give.
Also interesting for 2020, a movie that many say looks like it’s Kindred inspired by/rip-off is coming out: Antebellum with Janelle Monáe. I’ll have to wait for it to come out in August to see how close it is but its description certainly sounds similar:
Successful author Veronica Henley (Janelle Monáe) finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it’s too late. ANTEBELLUM is a terrifying new thriller from the producer of the acclaimed films GET OUT and US, and groundbreaking directors Gerard Bush and Christoper Renz (Bush+Renz) – an exciting new voice in filmmaking.
This book is also a reminder that you can engage with the past and the systems of oppression that came to be without reading non-fiction. Butler is extremely careful & researched in her work and this book can help build the true feelings of empathy for what horrible things our past contained through storytelling.
The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemesin
I enjoyed this series. Would recommend reading it.
In a world where the planet suffers from tectonic shifts and earthquake disasters, some people are born as ‘orogenes’ those that can control energy (the ground). They are born randomly through the population rather than as a ‘race.’ Without training, they further contribute to the tectonic instability. With training, they can help control it. It’s a fascinating world and enjoyable addictive reads. One of the most interesting concepts I feel the series explores is: “If there is a legitimate reason to fear a people, in that they could destroy the world, is society justified to discriminate against them to prevent the destruction of the world?”
In real life, most discrimination is completely unfair. In this world, the fears and scapegoating of the world’s issues on a people is partially ‘fair’ in a sense. But is it fair to then treat those people as lesser, to protect oneself? I think not, and the book does too, but explores this concept thoughtfully in a remarkably interesting world.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
CW: Violence.
I really enjoyed this book. It was not what I expected. I have read many ‘youth saves the world dystopia’ young adult fiction, so I suppose I just thought this was one of the ‘firsts’ in that. And it is in some ways. But the different plot lines beyond that were great.
Earth is searching for a military genius to be their hero in their battle against “The Buggers”. Ender, a child the result of genetic experimentation, may just be that child (his older siblings Peter – too violent – and Valentine – completely lacking in the violence necessary – were also children of genetic experimentation).
While Ender is going to ‘battle school’ to determine if he is indeed the Earth’s hero, his siblings have their own really interesting plot line going on (which I think I preferred to Ender’s story, though Ender’s battle school time was also great). Valentine and Peter use anonymity on the internet to behind the scenes begin changing the political balance on Earth.
The end of the story surprised me (I’m really good at avoiding spoilers for even old classic books, making them always an enjoyable read), and I won’t go into detail here either so hopefully if you read it you can get the same experience I had. Would recommend reading.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
This has an upcoming TV series (Wikipedia). Another dystopia where I don’t understand the existence of their system economically nor how it politically came to be! But this book is a classic.
Via raising babies made in test tubes and giving some optimal conditions and other terrible conditions in-utero, they segment society into those intelligent and those not. This is further exacerbated by ‘sleep training’ and classic conditioning to make those ‘born’ for it feel complacent in menial jobs and those ‘born’ for it feel they have power and are better than the others. Fine, I can suspend my disbelief a little for this all.
But they are also subliminally given messages to be more consumerist so their society of spending and resource use can continue. WHAT. Here is where I break. One of the amazing parts of human society is when we continually learn to more efficiently use resources. Sometimes I’m kind of… amazed… that even today there are individuals who think that corporations don’t do this now. Well, if they didn’t and their competitor did, their prices would be higher and people would probably buy their competitor’s product and then they’d go out of business. And while we do have a relatively consumerist society, the best products people are sold are the ones that have continually made our lives feel more efficient and so on: The advent of microwaves, dishwashers, computers, cell phones, and more have all given back time to use to drive MORE efficiencies or INVENT new ways to better our lives. There are certainly many products that don’t do this, and advertising can make us feel we need them by preying on insecurities. However, we have a system that incentivizes creation of the new. I would like to believe that would continue on into the future.
While the characters of this book are described as being kept in a ‘childish’ state of consumerism and play, I honestly find it kind of childish when people think the most shallow arguments about society to be true. Think a little deeper!
That said, I don’t think Huxley necessarily believes any of the above to be true about society: This is a dystopia after all. I just have an easier time suspending my disbelief if I don’t think about how its someone’s extrapolation out from today.
The characters of this were quite readable and interesting. Their stories are written well. I did really enjoy this book, I just have been struggling with dystopias lately (if you couldn’t tell from my reviews). This book will probably warrant a reread as the show comes out, though I notoriously struggle to do rereads.
Open Borders by Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith
This was great! I was already into the idea of Open Borders but this is a great graphic novel introducing the ideas, the criticisms, and addressing the criticisms. The art is great (if you’re familiar with SMBC, you’ll know Zach Weinersmith). For me it was an easy read, because I’m already familiar with the majority of the arguments. If you’re more skeptical you may want more time to think on the ideas, even though the graphic novel style makes this a more light introduction than, say, reading an academic paper or a politician’s opinion on this.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Me, dressed as Coraline for Halloween a few years back. Costumed with blue hair, button covering one eye, yellow raincoat and rainboots, and striped search.
What a delightfully creepy tale. In the forward, Gaiman shared he wrote this for his 5 year old daughter. When he finished she was in her teens but he had another daughter who was approximately 5. They both loved the book and thought it was a fantastic adventure, with Coraline the fantastic lead at the helmet of it.
Meanwhile, adults find this story terrifying.
This fascinated me because I didn’t think that a horror story would be appropriate for younger children. So hearing the interpretation there is really interesting.
I loved the Coraline movie when it came out (and one year dressed up as Coraline and The Other Mother), so am surprised I didn’t read this for a while. I’ll probably read this to my future kids someday and hopefully they will not get (too many) nightmares.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
What a beautiful book. This book is more setting than story, though.
In 2019, I went to two immersive theatre experiences put on by Vancouver theatre group The Geekenders: Alice in Glitterland and The Harry Potter Yule Ball. The former whisked me to a technicolour magical world where a plot evolved and danced around me. I was taken by the hand of the white rabbit to meet the red queen. I helped poison Alice. I saw caterpillar and Cheshire cat dances and frolic’s and emotions. The lighting and sound were completely immersive.
The Yule Ball was more interactive in that I spoke with some of my favourite Harry Potter characters: My best friend and I helped Ron woo Hermione, we helped coax Moaning Myrtle to join the ball, my best friend danced with Ron while Hermione jealously looked on, Harry Potter danced with me, we made mistakes about potions in front of a disapproving Snape.
Both of these experiences were fantastic settings. This book is similar, and it wasn’t a surprise to read that it was inspired by some immersive theatre experiences the author herself saw.
She has chapters describing “You” entering various circus tents, and other chapters describing an evolving romance between two magicians (except in this world, magic is real). While reading, I was transformed to a fantastical world: Each tent providing more of the description of the characters (they themselves are kind of flat), each tent a sort of ‘love letter’ to the other.
I did find the writing style a bit weird and clunky at first, but by the fifth chapter I was fully immersed in it, so if you pick it up and find it a bit weird, you’ll probably get used to it.
If you want something for plot or strong philosophical thoughts (like I enjoy in sci-fi), this isn’t that book. If you want something beautiful and almost 100% setting and romance, this may be one to pick up.
And if you live in Vancouver and the Geekenders put on another immersive theatre experience (or someone near where you live does this), DO go. It will be unforgettable.
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb
Reading a bit out of my comfort zone this month! While fantasy like The Night Circus doesn’t stray that far from my favourite genre of science fiction, reading books like non-fiction/self-help/psychology does.
This book follows a therapist and her patients who herself needs to see a therapist. I quite enjoyed it! It made me feel exposed to the ideas of therapy without reading dry pages about it. The characters, both her patients, Lori, and her own therapist, were very enjoyable and likeable (some weren’t likeable throughout, but that is conflict). I also felt it was a great book for talking about (without talking about) some of the reasons one would go to a therapist, and some of the internal struggles those around us may be going through without us knowing. For example, a pretty unlikeable character has his own mental barriers to getting close to others to slowly be revealed throughout the book.
I have seen a counsellor for anxiety. I myself found it really helpful: I found someone who would bluntly ask “Do you think others are really thinking that? Is there another possibility?” to scenarios where I would be worried about what others were thinking. I feel it helped me move from being a little paralyzed in social situations to speak up or talk about my own interests, to someone who wants to share and have others share with me more. I learned ways to help deal with panic attacks that, if I apply them early enough in the buildup, do help. While I still feel anxiety, especially during a global pandemic like COVID-19, I feel better equipped to deal with flare ups such that it doesn’t trickle over and leave me in a panicked daze wondering where my day went (to worrying and doom spiraling). And while sometimes I still panic, or don’t respond 100% perfectly, knowing I can breathe deeply and challenge my instantaneous thoughts makes me feel better in of itself.
If you want to hear someone else’s approach and what others may go through, this is an interesting way to do so vs. reading non-fiction descriptions. The author shares a really interesting story that had me hooked despite the genre not being one I usually read.
Between this book and Bad Blood, I think I’m learning that my favourite way to read non-fiction is narrative driven, rather than authors waxing on poetically about their thesis and ideas and ‘self-help top tips’. I will look for more opportunities to read books like this in the future that can expose me to different ideas without making me bored. I wish a lot of non-fiction were blog posts: When there is a narrative, I don’t even notice the book length. While there is ‘filler’ the filler is the story draws me in to learn more.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
What’s that, Young Adult fiction? I have not read this since I was a pre-teen/young adult myself!
A friend recommended this to me, and given the heaviness of some of the current day-to-day re: COVID-19, I liked the idea of reading something super light.
This is a cute coming of age story that gave me many flashbacks to being in university for the first time. Not that much of her story was particularly like mine: I went from a small town to a bigger city (Victoria) while she went from the largest city in her State to a smaller city, she went with a twin (I don’t have a twin and it wouldn’t be until 2 years later that my little sister would join me and we would be roommates together), she was studying creative writing or something and I studied math and statistics from the get-go. I was never super into fanfiction or fandoms, though I was a Harry Potter nerd (minus the community).
I remember when new Harry Potter books were coming out and my mom would drive my sister and I at 7am to the local news and books store. We would wait for it to open to run in and grab a copy. While in larger cities this perhaps made sense, for us, this was unnecessary: They were unlikely to sell out. However, it did give us some extra hours to start reading the book. My sister and I would take turns and have to be careful not to spoil the other if we read first.
When the Harry Potter movies were coming out, I remember waiting after high school on Thursdays for the midnight premiere with my friends. We would have snacks and all chat about it. The last movie came out when I was in university, and fortunately the friends I made in residence were also keen to see it so we lined up early to see it together.
In this YA novel, Harry Potter doesn’t exist but another wizarding boy does: Simon Snow. The author writes gay fanfiction about the Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy parallels (Simon Snow and Baz Pitch in the book).
This book was fun and light. I don’t think it’s a book about Fanfiction that much, but more of the struggles of those first steps at independence and moving away from home for the first time. Those times of meeting new friends and new lovers who become boyfriends and seeing those around you do things differently than you. Those times where more serious things start to happen, and you’re not the kid anymore: YOU are the one responsible to help those around you get through. It made me reminisce a bit and I enjoyed it.
When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
This was a beautiful but bizarre magical realism story. If you like poetic, flowery narratives, you’ll likely enjoy this unique story about two young friends. Miel is a young girl who was rumoured to have fallen out of water tower. Mysterious roses grow out of her wrists. She is shunned by many in the town, except Sam, her close friend.
Sam is a transgender boy, also on the outskirts and trying hard to keep this secret in so as to not face further derision. The book describes when Miel learns that Sam is trans, and this is handled lovingly and with care. The author themself is married to a trans man and at times this book reads as a personal love letter to their partner’s experiences.
Other characters include The Bonner Girls, four sisters rumoured to be witches who can enchant any boy they want to become interested in them. They become obsessed with Miel’s wrist roses as this ability to enchant appears to be disappearing.
The wrist rose element is bizarre. The story comes together in a beautiful way though.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
At first I was skeptical about this unrealistically messy and untidy village girl. As the plot and magic unfolded I was hooked. I really enjoyed this fantasy book, inspired by the authors childhood Polish fairy tales (it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Jaga was Baba Jaga/Yaga).
The Wood is such an interesting antagonist: a magical forest. It is mysterious and dangerous. A girl from a small village is selected to serve a wizard (“The Dragon”) and learns she herself has much to offer in protecting her region. I really enjoyed the characters dialog and relationships. I haven’t read much fantasy as of late but this was a good pick for one to read.
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
When I started reading this, I loved this by the second chapter. It’s a fun blend of fantasy and sci-fi. I recommended the book to a friend that I know enjoys fantasy.
When I reached 2/3 of the way through the book, I was… mixed.
I loved following two bizarre children through their youth together, growing up one on the side of magic and the other technology. When they were just living their lives and began bumping into each other I found it endearing how they picked up their friendship. From the woman’s bizarre witchy friends to the man’s nerdy tech friends, there was an interesting enough cast of people living in the city together. A world of magic alongside the normal world.
I am an effective altruist (“EA”; I believe in using evidence and reasoning to find the best way to help others, be it through which areas to research, advocate for politically, or mostly in my case donate). Effective altruism has been thinking about existential risk for a long time, as preventing it or being prepared for it is a highly effective way to do good. I am currently living through a global pandemic, COVID-19, pandemics being one of the things suggested society prepare for more by the effective altruism movement and by others. The nerdy tech community in this book felt a lot like the members of the EA movement as they advocated for a solution to the world’s eventual demise. However, their solution was a bit more zany. Still, I found this part of the book relatable enough and interesting.
However, when the climax of the book started I losing focus and interest. I think the book got a bit messy as it tried to pull together its plot points.
I think I would have preferred it to have less of a huge climax and stay focused on the magic and science main characters and their relationship. That said, I was hooked and rapturously read the first 2/3 of this book, so it has a lot of good in it.
Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel
This is a book I’m reading for a sex positive book club that was actually delayed/cancelled because of COVID-19. The first book had been Come As You Are (or CAYA; review not included here). I found CAYA really amazing and I want all women and people who have sex with women and people who have sex and can handle some more gender-binary language and etc. to read this book.
Mating in Captivity is the second book selected. I’m not sure if we will ever do a book club meetup for it given COVID-19 happened. I’d been exposed to Esther Perel’s ideas before via Ted Talks (example) and even seeing her live on a recording of Dan Savage’s The Savage Lovecast in Vancouver to discuss her other book, the State of Affairs. Her philisophy on attraction in long term relationships also came up in CAYA (though after reading this book I believe it was possibly diluted to be non-representative there).
I didn’t find anything in this book particularly ground-breaking or interesting, but that could just be because I’m familiar with Perel’s work already. She writes more from anecdotal experience in her own practice than the sort of nerdy science-y stuff I usually prefer, but for some that will be preferable. I guess I recommend watching one of her Ted Talks on this book and The State of Affairs with an open mind, and if you want to learn more, read her books to dive deeper into her thoughts.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
Interesting characters, setting, and conflicts, though I was less fond of the plot of this one.
A spaceship has escaped a dying Earth long ago (centuries ago!). Due to ‘resource constraint’, an authoritarian slavery and forced labour system is in place on the ship. The forced labour divides along racial lines, as slavery in Earth’s own past was. This book is pretty violent, as slavery in Earth’s own past was.
Aster is an individual living as a healer on the below decks of the ship. She investigates her mother’s long past suicide and the death of the ship’s previous leader.
Personally I found the book a bit hard to get into from the sci-fi perspective (suspending my disbelief at the elaborate resource usage of the elites on the ship was difficult), easy to get into from a division & racism perspective (I believe it is possible for this structure to arise in times of crisis, but also I believe the opposite: A book I read last year, On the Edge of Gone, explored kindness in the time of crisis), and neat to follow from a character perspective (Aster is autistic, asexual, and queer – unclear if non-binary or intersex or both).
Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E Butler
CW: Rape, assault, pedophilia, end of world, disease/pandemic.
Maybe during COVID-19 it is not the best time to read a dystopia in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. Maybe I need some positivity instead.
Well, oh well, because this book hooked me. More negativity and fear!
Except maybe it was comforting because things today aren’t that bad. I enjoyed this book, but it also irritated me in the way dystopias all annoy me these days. Are there any dystopias written in a way where I believe how they economically got there?
With book two, the rape gets worse. I have a hard time believing that in the end of days, pedophilia will be widely accepted (I think vigilante justice for folks hurting children is more likely). I have a hard time believing that most men will run around raping people in the end of days.
While it’s tempting to think in times of disaster individuals will go ‘every individual for themselves’, utter chaos unleashing, its actually been more likely in history for communities to bond together to support each other in time of crisis (example: The London Blitz). Will this change in times of increased culture wars? I hope not.
These books were way too dark for the time I read them: I was in a rough spot with my emotions about COVID-19 (early working from home, social-distancing). The second wasn’t as gripping to me. Proceed with caution.
Woman On The Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Another piece of science fiction written by a woman in the 1970s with time travel undertones! I read it right after Kindred.
A woman, Connie Ramos, unjustly sent to a mental institution is contacted by someone from a utopian future to help keep it be THE future: There is another future she catches glimpses of that is more dystopian in nature. At times it is unclear if Connie is in the ‘present’ (this book was first published in 1976 when mental institutions were more common than they are today), or some future that assumed a more full-fledged integration of mental institutions: In her present, it seems like small deviances from what is culturally defined as ‘normal’ can make one end up in a mental institution. I am not familiar enough with the 1970s beyond knowing there were more mental institutions to know if this is really how things were or if this is some imagined near future.
The utopia she travels to is similar to Brave New World’s in that reproduction is not a thing anymore. This seems to be a common trend in envisioned futures: Could this be the last great equalizer for sex, to have biological females carrying children stop being a thing?
As with all dystopia/utopias, I have a hard time taking seriously how one would get there and if things really are as ideal as the author believes them to be. The challenge with utopia is we as individuals all want different things from our life: A system where we have the freedom to do so without causing harm to others seems the most just. To me, I can’t get behind utopias that enforce everyone doing certain jobs rather than selecting (and paying more such that the undesirable jobs become worth doing for someone who wants more money to pay for whatever).
This book is a heavy read but I had a hard time getting into it ‘intellectually’: While it brings up topics like mental illness, racism, poverty, gender inequality, and more, I had a hard time figuring out what to ‘do’ with the thoughts I had. I think its partially the authors writing style: Whereas for Kindred I felt the author was really great at getting you to ‘feel’ what her main character was going through, in Woman on the Edge of Time, the protagonist is kind of unlikeable and difficult to put yourself in her shoes.
Which in of itself is interesting: Should we only provide empathy for characters (and in real life, people) we like? If someone makes a mistake but is now trying to do the right thing (or what they perceive to be), should we move forward rather than continue disliking them?
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
A humorous story written from the first person perspective of a half-robot, half-human who dubs themselves “Murderbot”.
So many people loved this book! It won a Hugo and a Nebula!
So many people found the POV character charming and relatable! “They don’t like people; I don’t like people. Leave me alone to my TV, etc.”
But I didn’t really get it. I didn’t latch on to any of the characters, nor the mystery (and I don’t think I understood how it resolved… did I miss something while reading before bed one night that made it make sense?). There are some glimpses of heavy themes that are super interesting: In this society, these half-robot, half-humans are not treated as people (though from Murderbot’s perspective, you see there are full conscious thoughts). They are created as ‘things’ only for the purpose at hand (so, Murderbot didn’t need genitals. What do you think they are, a sex-bot?). How does someone treated and thinking of oneself their entire existence integrate with a human group, so that they are comfortable? In some ways, this is an entirely relatable type of story: When there are preexisting groups and you’re trying to make friends, how do you become part of that group? How does one start making choices for oneself after its control unit is removed (I picture themes of adolescence fitting in well here).
Maybe its deserving of a reread. It is very short so worth a shot.
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
I liked this well enough for a short read. None of the stories were really huge thought starters for me. Possibly The Lifecycle of Software Objects? But even it didn’t go super deep on any of the philosophical ideas: it made me start thinking of the ideas without giving enough critical addition to what I’d thought of them before.
This story follows the creators of ‘digients’: Digital pets that exist in a virtual world. They are AI creations that develop their own thoughts and personalities. Their creators treat them as children as they ‘grow up’ and learn more and more naturally. We follow two creators, a designer and a trainer, of digients who both become very attached to them, almost like they are their own ‘children’. As the title alludes, software objects may become obsolete and a ‘newer, better’ version comes along: But is it alright to abandon an artificial intelligence, though? Isn’t that like abandoning a being?
The story deals with topics such as planned obsolescence, artificial life and what constitutes it, parenting and responsibility, consent and at what ‘age’ or level of development (for these digital beings) can make their own choices about their own existence, sex, and more.
There are other stories in this collection, of course, and they are fine, but nothing here really gripped me the way Ted Chiang’s first collection, Story of Your Life and Others (where the sci-fi movie Arrival was inspired from).
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
CW: rape. Also note: I basically spoil the whole book in my exasperated review. I am frustrated by Tess.
Oh Tess. Poor sexy girl born in the worst time, trying to make ends meet in life as men (not great men at that) fall for you and subject you to all of their questionable decisions.
Her family is poor but learns they are of an old money fancy family. She goes to meet a rich relative and asks for help. He is skeevy and weird from the start, insisting on hand feeding her strawberries and forced kisses. She doesn’t realize how big a problem this is nor how creepy he is nor what the deal with sex is because sex ed hasn’t been invented yet so her parents told her nothing helpful about avoiding creeps like this (not that any of it is her fault, even her way too sexy good looks, it’s obviously the dude should be better). He rapes her.
She is impregnated from this (of COURSE she gets pregnant the first time she has sex, life couldn’t cut her a break) by a distant relative, then to struggling with her child, to her child dying, to starting fresh at a dairy farm and falling for a man. A man who is… somehow hot shit to all the dairy maids on the farm but seems to be a bumbling fool. Whose name is ANGEL CLARE. Him and Tess get married. He confesses he once slept with someone.
Of COURSE she has to tell him she slept with someone else. Despite that being a very bad idea, it is 1891 after all. He doesn’t like this and flees. To Brazil!
She struggles and struggles and struggles through life. Her dad dies.
She gets back together with her rapist to save her struggling poor family.
Angel Clare comes back and realizes he should be with her but it’s too late.
Tess MURDERS her rapist and her and Angel go on the lam. Then end up at fucking Stonehenge where the police catch her (after letting her finish her nap??) and she is hung and the book ends.
I did enjoy this book. It’s written in an appealing way (if a bit flowery and verbose at times). But oh boy. Tess. Oh poor dear Tess
Tribe by Sebastian Junger
I am glad I read this because it made me think about community and tribe, however, I didn’t agree with much of it. It focuses more on Tribe from the male perspective, say war, First Nation coming of right trials, PTSD, sacrifice, and more. This leads to views on how violence and difficulty help reinforce our feeling of tribe. However it completely excludes the feminine aspect of community – which is fine, I just didn’t find it very useful or interesting. I also don’t believe trauma is a necessary aspect of community. Perhaps it can be a sufficient condition. But there are ways to bring closeness without this: say, working towards shared goals without the goals being based on some traumatic difficulty. It’s an interesting book but I didn’t find it altogether that convincing. Sprinkled with anecdotes (“This doctor said this telling thing” – doesn’t make it scientifically true, we need studies for that or a more complete theory), and some weird biological arguments/appeals to science that don’t necessarily scream “believe this book” to me.
I loved how short this was for non-fiction. It felt exactly as long as it needed to be to get its point across (no editor demanding higher word counts here!). I think is worthwhile to read. While he only discusses aspects of Tribe that are more important to men, this is still an interesting read and will spur some thinking. I just wouldn’t use it to believe Junger’s theories wholesale without further investigation.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
This book is from a Bill Gates recommendation list. I didn’t actually like it that much. Its split up into many parts that apparently have some neat nested story structure but I would personally rather think about deep philosophical concepts than literary concepts and convoluted reading structures. I felt it didn’t have much of the former but maybe I missed something.
The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (Part 1)
I didn’t like the first chapter/story: It felt ‘fake’ old timey. When discussing it with my husband he said that it’s amazing that J. R. R.Tolkien could invent perfect lore and languages, yet historical writers don’t use our world’s lore and languages. Besides having a hard time getting into it, I didn’t find it interesting yet.
Letters from Zedelghem (Part 1)
Letters from Robert Frobisher, a recently disowned and broke bisexual young English musician. This is really entertaining and the writing style resonates much better with me than the first section. Frobisher is a likeable playboy type character whose delight in the masculine and feminine resonates. Just fun. I enjoyed reading it and hope future sections grip me similarly.
“The journal seems to be published posthumously, by Ewing’s son (?). … Something shifty about the journal’s authenticity – seems too structured for a genuine diary, and its language doesn’t ring quite true – but who would bother forging such a journal, and why?” – Ooo. So this is interesting. The writing style of the first issue I had… is that part of the plot?
I didn’t like the first chapter/story: It felt ‘fake’ old timey. When discussing it with my husband he said that it’s amazing that J.R.R. Tolkien could invent perfect lore and languages, yet historical writers don’t use our world’s lore and languages. Besides having a hard time getting into it, I didn’t find it interesting yet.
As it went on it got better. The challenge is, I loved some of the plot lines and characters, and other characters did nothing for me. So as a whole it wasn’t entirely enjoyable. It seems to be written with some clever style that mimics the plot or something so is a fun one (if you call it fun) to write an essay about, which I don’t want to do most of the time. I want to read a book, have it jostle forth some new ideas about the world and ‘what-ifs’, think about them and discuss them, and possibly research later.
Interesting but it’s a problem that I am married to an economist. I need to find some dystopian sci-fi written by economists that spin worlds that are (1) economically/societally/politically believable (2) possibly allow distortion of the initial attempt, since politics often involves compromise and corrupt the intent to be non-recognizable. The best I’ve seen of this is the “Basic” system on Earth in The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey (important: This is not universal basic income).
But because of my context, its remarkably hard for me to suspend my disbelief. This leads to a different reading experience than if I immersed myself in the world: Instead, I think, “How could this world even EXIST?” To be fair, it is not supposed to be entertaining. The book is an example of “Exploratory engineering.”
The book explores a near-distant future (2050) where automation has left many unemployed: The main character worked at a burger joint, had a headset installed by a control unit to drive efficiencies and make sure they were using their time 100% optimally, and then less/no people were needed so they were laid off. Mass unemployment and miserable existences abound. The automation runs even the unemployed assisted housing units, and prevents you from going out of bounds and doing anything interesting. In essence, people are prisoners with nothing to do.
If this was AI gone rogue with the optimization function set up incorrectly (i.e. the “AI alignment problem”), I may believe this as possible. But while reading this, I thought about how humanity has gone through technological advancements before and yet we just find new ways to innovate and create jobs. There are sometimes uncomfortable transition points, but we do it. If a company didn’t, only automating their current state, and their competitor both used automation and humans for some yet-unknown tasks, typically of the more creative nature, the one that didn’t would make less in the market and disappear.
And I think this is beautiful! Do people really want all the jobs as they are to exist with no improvements or changes forever?
But then the character is taken to Australia where a Universal Basic Income experiment is taking place. At first I thought, “Ohhhhh. The first part was a lead up with a completely unrealistic foil to this argument, which is a bit unfair, but maybe the author gets it.”
Except not really: This is a misnomer and misrepresentation of what is described in the book, much like Basic in The Expanse is not UBI either.
Dreadnought by April Daniels
Another Young Adult novel! This time about a trans character who inherits a superhero’s powers, and with it what she has always wanted: The body of a girl.
I really wanted to like this book but I disliked it. This is a review from someone else I agree with that summarizes it better than I could (and I’m behind on my book reviews so trying not to take too long here): Maggie Gordon’s review of Dreadnought
Common Sense Pregnancy: Navigating a Healthy Pregnancy and Birth for Mother and Baby by Jeanne Faulkner
A friend lent me this book. I much preferred Expecting Better by Emily Oster. But I’m also a statistics & data nerd who prefers someone back up their statements that “Doing X is better” with data rather than feelings. Even when a lot of the data from Expecting Better was around “Thing X isn’t as terrible you’d think it would be given the shame and hatred that gets thrown at you for it”. In the end, we have to make our own choices on pregnancy and parenting. Unfortunately, the internet (mommy bloggers, comment sections in parenting forums, and more) shows a deep ideological challenge to making our own choices: c-sections/intervention = bad, natural (i.e. pain medication free) birth = good. No book has yet explained to me why this moralistic ranking has occurred. This book is no different and I maintain everyone is entitled to try and do what they want (as long as they let the doctor step in to change those plans when necessary) IF AND ONLY IF they don’t shame others for trying and doing what THEY want.
Anyways. I’m going to rant a bit about this book but honestly I didn’t hate it. It was fine, if you’re not someone easily swayed by slight moralistic judgement. Its actually quite good (if a bit United States-centric, some stuff won’t apply as much to me a Canadian). If you want a book that describes (with some judgement) different options for pregnancy, its great. If you want something that evaluates evidence for some (not all) options, go with Expecting Better.
This book does lay out some facts of what different parts of pregnancy and childbirth are and some of their pros/cons (without much data to back them up but is stating things that sound official, I’m just a citations-gal). It aims to be a “judgement free” book, but I still find it comes out pretty in favour of breastfeeding and natural childbirth, and not for reasons of data & science (read Expecting Better for that) but instead for more of a ‘moral’ stance. Data will be thrown in for a second then ignored, for example: She states that only 1 in 200 babies even get GBS anyway when the mom has it and doesn’t take antibiotics, but, if she takes antibiotics, this risk is reduced to 1 in 4,000. Then writes: “Some midwives and homeopaths offer garlic, acidophilus, or herb-based or other nondrug therapies and report good outcomes.”
… Um, ‘report good outcomes’ is anecdote and not data. The garlic probably didn’t do anything for this already really low risk thing. Why throw this in, throwing more on the table for a mother to do, when it has no data showing it will help? These non-scientific claims peppered through the book with a slight uppity tone really got to me and I don’t know why. Maybe because listing things that might help but have no substantive evidence and are probably placebos isn’t helpful and pregnant women have more to do than eat garlic to ‘prevent’ something that likely wouldn’t have happened anyways?
Anyways. Again, the book was FINE. I learned a lot about the what’s what of different pain management aspects for childbirth, the after-care of labour, and more. I would just ignore any ranking or listing of which are the best methods, since the author doesn’t have a strong statistics bent and does have a bit of an opinion on this stuff (that isn’t necessarily true).
ABANDONED
There are always some books I struggle to make it through. Typically non-fiction. Typically ones I didn’t choose myself.
Map and Territory by Elizier Yudkowsky
Listened to the audiobook of this, which given it talks about probability distributions and Bayes theorem (or was that an earlier book?) it is not great to listen to as an audiobook. I also do not know if I want to read this (the rest of Rationality: From AI to Zombies) or want to be the person who read this (so smart!). So I won’t read the rest since that is reading for signaling (not inherently bad but not something fun).
Consider this Abandoned.
Creativity, Inc. By Ed Catmull
Reading this for a work book club. I’m not finding anything super innovative or thoughtful. Growth mindset, but for creative! But then again, I didn’t get that far so that probably isn’t a fair assessment.
I think a challenge in the work book club is also the discussions focusing more on an adjacent organization, so I sometimes struggle to speak up and apply it to my own context: This is something I individually need to work on if I continue to join work book clubs.
Also, I want to re-watch all Pixar movies. During social distancing, I indeed watched all the Pixar movies I hadn’t seen yet: Ratatouille, Coco, The Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4, and Onward (my favourite was Coco followed by Ratatouille; the latter inspired me to pick up two books ABOUT cooking rather than cookbooks that will also likely have reviews for this year).
And that’s it for now!
I will continue reading the rest of 2020, of course, and will write up a Part 2 blog post later. I may also write a post summarizing some of my favourite books I’ve ever read (for example, I love Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep, but have never reviewed them). We will see! Social distancing certainly has changed my reading velocity so far.
This is my second year doing an annual book review (the first was in 2018, when I read 24)! I read 27 books this year! That is a 16% increase. Though the goal isn’t to read more, it is to read better. If the goal was to read more I’d probably ‘hack’ that goal and read all the shortest books on my to-read list first a la Goodhart’s Law. Once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Once again, it is a mostly science fiction list. I read 5 non-fiction books and 1 graphic novel. My commute as always helps me finish many books. I also did a better job of reading a book before bed, rather than scrolling various posts from social media on my phone.
One of my goals was to set down books that I didn’t like or get interested in, so I’m including a “Did not finish” section to celebrate that. This year I think I was also better at only starting books that I suspected I would like, though, so I think this section is shorter than it would have been in previous years had I been more open to quitting books.
Another of my goals was to write reviews as I finished books: I did that for maybe 5 of the total books I read (the longer reviews are the ones that this shows for).
A challenge I had in completing this is I would often finish books on my commute to work, and then it’s not like I could write my book review at work: I do, indeed, have an actual job to do. So brainstorms to get around this for next year are:
If I finish a book on my commute, write down some notes upon getting to work really quickly before starting the day.
Start the book review during my lunch break (instead of starting a new book or going on Facebook or Instagram)
Not starting a new book until I write the book review for the one I finished (this one… is not likely but it’s a nice idea)
For 2020, one of my goals is to be more deliberate with my book choices and to highlight why I want to read a book (enjoyment counts! The sci-fi isn’t going anywhere). I think this will help me read books that I’ll value and enjoy more. I’ll continue to try writing book reviews closer to when I finish the book, using the ideas above to help me do this.
Click a book you’re interested in seeing my thoughts on below!
At Christmas of 2018, I was gifted the classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Written in 1936, this book’s title tells you what it aims to help you do.
It was a great read. While there are lessons I learned and beliefs I had reinforced, my favourite part of it is that it made me think. There were some really interesting lines of thought I went down while reading it. I’ll try summarizing most of them here.
I read blogs related to data science, the industry I’m working in, and technology in general both because it can be fun and because it keeps me informed for my career. I think others should do the same.
I have a kind of ‘systematized’ approach to how I do this that I’ll share at the end of the post since I’m kind of a nerd for processes. But the main takeaway I would want to share is that staying informed in your business, and even in general career advice, can definitely be a good way to help your career. Continue reading “Discovering and Reading Content”
I have been reading many books the past few years and have decided to start writing up my thoughts on what I’ve read as a summary post. Since I didn’t do this regularly in 2018, some of the ideas in the books I read aren’t as fresh. I’ll try to do the write ups as I read in 2019.
I mostly read science fiction: I think it’s a great way to explore complex philosophical ideas about the nature of humanity. I’m trying to read a few non-fiction books in the year, but usually think that it would be more worthwhile to read the book summaries. Non-fiction books feel like they take too long to get their point across to me. In the end, it’s better to read more of what you enjoy than to force yourself to slowly go through books you hate.
Commuting 20 min twice a day really helps me power through large volumes of books, especially with a comfortably sized e-reader. Other ways to ‘read’ more are to listen to audiobooks.
The Expanse: Abaddon’s Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon’s Ashes, Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey (note: some of these would be re-reads)
Reasons to read this book instead of ASOIAF/Game of Thrones: There are two authors writing under the name James S.A. Corey, it has GRRM’s backing, and unlike GRRM the two authors are young and healthy. They also put out basically a book a year. So, if you start reading the series you will almost certainly get to read through to the end. The TV show is also amazing. The show follows the books pretty closely at first but I still think its worth it to both read and watch because of the world building, characters, and extra plot you get.
I have never been so obsessed with a series but for some reason The Expanse really does it for me. Apparently the audiobook narrator is pretty great too, so if reading isn’t your thing check that out. And/or read the books. And/or watch the show. Seriously, it will be worth it.
A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones): A Storm of Swords, A Clash of Kings, A Feast For Crows, A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
I feel like I don’t need to write much here. The books are well worth the read even if you have watched the show. GRRM is so good at politicking and writing schemes and characters. Having more internal character POVs is interesting and I found myself sad when each character’s chapter ended… only to be excited and into the next character shortly after (most of the time). And the show is on its final season now. I am skeptical I’ll ever read the end to this series but even incomplete it is worth the read.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hugo and Nebula winner 1974)
I really enjoy Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing. In The Dispossessed, we follow Shevek, who grew up in a communist-utopia style world but is a very talented physicist. In a society of equals, the egoism in putting forth brilliant works of thinking is not necessarily received well. His planet has a twin planet that has a capitalist patriarchal society, and he goes there to finish and publish his thinking. However, having grown up in a society where everyone considers themselves free and independent and equal, he struggles with the hierarchies in the twin planet. This is a book that I loved thinking about while reading and I think I will read it at least one more time to more fully absorb the discussions on anarchism, utopianism, capitalism, and probably some more ‘isms’. The storytelling style of alternating chapters from different parts of Shevek’s life really worked for me in making a gripping story.
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
Becky Chambers writes a different type of sci-fi than I usually read. Whereas oftentimes the universe and setting are the majority of the interesting changed elements, Chambers writes really great characters that are somehow (but not too) different than today. She explores alien relationships, AI relationships, sense of self, and more. These books are usually not quite as deep and thought provoking as others, but they make up for it in being purely enjoyable reads. And they aren’t completely ‘fluff’ pieces either.
Patternmaster Series: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay’s Ark, Survivor, and Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler
I really enjoyed this series. Though, enjoyed might not be the right word. It was a heavy read. Spanning a large time range from the past to the far future, following characters with telepathic and other powers, it explores some really interesting ideas. It starts following two immortals and their relationship in the 17th to 18th century. Doro wants to create a new race through selective breeding. The books follow what happens hundreds of years later when Doro succeeds, and even later when an alien plague is spreading through society. If some people have powers, and they start making up a large enough majority of society, what does that mean about the remaining powerless? Can they use their abilities and power ethically? What does it mean to be human: After these changes from on-Earth and off-Earth pressures, are the characters still human? It also explores concepts like race and gender. Sometimes it was a really dark read, but it was thoroughly thought provoking.
The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester
I read this because Daniel Abraham, one of the writers for The Expanse, wrote about it on his blog. And oh can you see the similarities in setting. Not only, much like in The Expanse, are tensions high and seeming to lead up to a war between the inner and outer planets, but also we start the novel on a destroyed ship as someone tries to survive in a tiny airtight locker. I enjoyed that the protagonist, Gully Foyle, wasn’t just a brilliant hero. He was a very terrible person who seeks revenge and does very bad things. He is someone who could have been someone with no interesting story to tell, but then feeling betrayed by humanity, goes on a rampage. As Daniel Abraham says, “Bester taught me that the future will have humans in it, and it’s a lesson I never forgot.”.
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Fun fact: I have never seen the classic movie. Now I have read the book. I have no clue how some of this was portrayed in movie form and will watch eventually. I don’t do well with long movies though, so it might be a while before I watch it. Since I try not to read details about things I intend to read/watch, I had only heard of the HAL-9000 evil computer style jokes here and there. That ended up playing a much smaller role than I had expected.
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
This is a fun ‘inverted’ detective story where you know about who did the murder and we watch the protagonist try to catch the murderer. The difficulty is, it is set in a future where telepaths are pretty commonplace. How did a murder occur in a world where murderers are caught before they murder? This book was the very first winner of the Hugo Award (in 1953)
This was a good read but nothing really stuck with me. It was interesting because the book didn’t have the feel of some old sci-fi where the predictions were all wrong, because technology isn’t mentioned much (a punch card computer is once or twice, but generally the book isn’t about technological changes). All that said, it’s still an interesting exploration into how things might play out if there were telepaths and normal people living together and some of the impacts on society.
Hyperion: Hyperion (winner of the Hugo in 1989) & The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The first book was so good, but when I reached the end it felt like it had been mostly setup. I loved the style of the characters telling their stories of what connected them to Hyperion, the Time Tombs, and the Shrike. 6 seemingly disconnected stories, though all leading back to Hyperion, blend together in a really interesting way. When I reached the end, I wished it wasn’t over. I wanted to know what happened next. I also loved the second book! The political intrigue of the characters felt so tense and good. It was stylistically very different from the first but tied story elements together. Altogether I was very satisfied. I don’t feel like reading more right now, and feel content leaving the series as is for now since the third book is supposed to be less related.
Hit Refresh (Microsoft Employee Edition) Satya Nadella
This is a book I was given when starting my new job at Microsoft in November. It was a relatively easy read, though not super deep or insightful. It was interesting learning about the current CEO Satya Nadella’s life story and thoughts on Microsoft culture. For someone not working at Microsoft, you’d probably get better value reading a blog post, news article, or Wikipedia page behind Satya Nadella’s life. That’s not to say its a bad book per se. There just isn’t necessarily enough deep content within to spend time on (though I feel that way about most non-fiction). I liked reading it as a new Microsoft employee, though, in that it gave me more perspective on Microsoft under Satya Nadella.
Southern Reach: Annihilation and Authority by Jeff Vandermeer
DID NOT LIKE. Wish I had stopped reading. The movie made it feel like the book probably explained things better. I do not think that it did. I did not enjoy my time reading these. I will not spend more time writing about them.
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil
She is pointing out things that certainly exist. I’m not sure I agree with her overarching conclusion of government intervention being more trustworthy than private companies. I agree that models and our biased datasets are dangerous, and may write more on my thoughts on this later.
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
Vampire stories may have been ruined by Twilight. This was an okay read but not one I’d rave about. It’s a bit… disturbing in some of the content and subject matter. It’s designed to make us squirm.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (Hugo and Nebula winner, 2002)
I enjoyed this book but put off writing this up too long since reading it! Really interesting world building and characters. I will probably try watching the TV adaption at some point.
