15 Minutes a Day

Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category

I seem to be picking up lots of books lately. I find the variety amusing. Perhaps you will too. Each book has a different reason for interesting me.

• Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts – This is a look at the lives and times of the women behind the Founding Fathers. Not only the wives, but also mothers, sisters, and daughters. I’m only part way through this book, but I’m planning to buy copies for all of the women in my family. This is an often overlooked side of our history and Cokie Roberts does a good job of examining it.
• Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales - Have you ever had books you just thought you should read? That’s why I’m reading this one. So far I’m pretty disappointed. I like the ones you’d expect – Cinderella, Rapunzel, and a few others. Mostly however, I’m left scratching my head and wondering how most of these fairy tales survived to the present. It’s a very pretty book though – Green leather cover with gold lettering and gold edges on the pages.
• The Assault on Reason by Al Gore – This is a good book for those who embrace reason and wonder why more people don’t. Mr. Gore does a good job of explaining how the Right Wing is using fear to influence Americans rather than allowing reason and facts to be the guide that the Founding Fathers wanted it to be. I’m only part way through this book and will write a book review when I’m done.
• Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business by Eric Qualman – This is a fantastic book for anyone diving into social media and is concerned about how to use it and how it can positively or negatively affect your business. Again, I’m only part way through this book and will write a book review when I’m done.

On my waiting list:

• The Pillars of the Earth (Deluxe Edition) (Oprah’s Book Club) (Paperback)
  
• Lean Six Sigma Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide
• Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot
  
• Ethics, the Heart of Leadership
  
• Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration’s War on American Values
  

What are you reading right now? Is there anything you can recommend to me? I’m open to just about anything. Please post your recommendations in the comments below…

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian story about a world where Christian Fundamentalists have taken over the government of the United States and suspended the Constitution. Women have NO rights. Minorities are expelled – Jews are specifically discussed, but there is no mention of any other ethnicity other than white. There are also fertility problems that are, naturally, blamed on women – not men. The women who are deemed to be fertile are declared to be Handmaids.

Handmaids are forced to join an organization that brainwashes them into subservience and obedience. Once they are officially inducted they are identified by the red dresses and white wimple. The Handmaids are sent to “postings” where they are expected to become pregnant by the male head of the household (Commander or member of the government) during a ceremony where the Wife is present. Each Handmaid lives with this “family” for two years during this effort to conceive. If no child is born, she is moved to another posting. If she fails to conceive after three different postings, she is sent to “the colonies” to clean up toxic waste and die.

There are three other classifications for women in the world of The Handmaid’s Tale. They are Wives (who wear blue dresses and are married to the Commanders), Marthas (who are domestic servants and wear green uniform dresses) and Econowives (who wear stripped dresses and are married to lesser men in the government). There are no old women in this society. When women of little status become too old to work, they are also shipped off to “The Colonies.” Women (of all status levels) are also not allowed to read or write as the current government sees teaching women to read and write is one of the mistakes that society made in the past.

Now I know that the story I’ve described so far does not sound like a fun and cheery read. It’s not and it doesn’t get any better – though it is a well-written story. However, I do feel that it is important to read stories like this from time-to-time because we can see some of the elements of this cautionary tale in US society today. The Tea Party, the rise of mega-churches and fundamentalist Christianity, the vitriol against immigrants, gays, and other religious philosophies like Judaism, Islam, Atheism, and other belief systems that do not conform to the majority’s belief systems.

I would recommend this book to all women, teenage girls and men who love strong women. The world portrayed in The Handmaid’s Tale could come to pass if it is allowed to through in-action and apathy. As with all prejudices and systems of hate, people of good and moral character have to speak up and say “Stop” in order to prevent the folly such systems would bring. Parables like The Handmaid’s Tale warn us of what could happen in order to make us aware and enable us to avoid going down that undesirable path.

Overloaded Donkey Cart OR My Life as a Donkey

The last couple of months have been “interesting.” There is an old Chinese curse that says “May you live in interesting times.” 2010 has definitely been that for me! In the last couple of months my post-concussion syndrome headaches have reasserted themselves. They haven’t been as bad as they were initially, but they’ve still been very hard to deal with. I’m on a different headache preventative Rx, but they still come and go. They just make dealing with everyday life difficult. So I decided to make a few changes in my life in order to try to relieve stress and, hopefully, prevent headaches.

1. I decided to take a break from school. I’m not quitting. I’m not even stopping working on my dissertation. I’m just taking a few months off from classes. I’m thinking that I will start back up again after the New Year. I’ve just been so tired with everything and everyone but school has made the sacrifices for me. Work has been wonderful. My family and friends have been supportive. Mark has been phenomenal! I just need to take some time to relax a bit.
2. I’ve decided to stop watching so much TV. I have already cut out the commercials by recording everything I watch on DVR first, but so much of TV is just pure drivel lately. Even the “educational” channels like Discovery, TLC, National Geographic, and Biography have turned to mush with sensational, shallow, and hollow TV shows. It’s really quite sad… Not even the SciFi (now Syfy) Channel has embraced the lowest form of SciFi for movies and gone away from its original mission and started showing “professional” wrestling and Ghost Hunters.
3. To replace all of my TV watching I’ve decided to read more. I suddenly find myself in various stages of several types of books, depending on my mood. I just finished The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (more on that later…). I’m also reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Ethics: The Heart of Leadership, Socialnomics (as an Audible.com book), and Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason (another Audible.com book). All are interesting and the topics vary pretty widely.
4. I’ve also decided to take on a mini-project called Photo365. The idea is to take one photo each day for a year and post it on the web to share. Yes, this is another social media thing. I’m going to start on September 1st and go through August 31st, 2011. Once I start uploading photos, I’ll post them on http://365project.org/ and share them here, on Twitter, and on Facebook. It will be interesting to see what comes out of it.
5. I also plan to blog more often. I’m considering starting some series on life, photography, interesting questions to ponder, the aforementioned reviews of what I’m reading, and probably some op-ed pieces too.
6. I’ve taken a break from Toastmasters. I was in two clubs and was also being encouraged to participate in leadership roles. While I enjoy the Toastmasters program and have learned a LOT about public speaking, I find that a) I want to dive in and fully participate right before b) I collapse in an exhausted heap from even thinking about diving in and participating fully. I will return to it, but I just found myself having to say “No” and feeling lousy because I really wanted to say “Yes” to everything I was asked to help with.
7. Finally, I’m going to get into an exercise regimen. I joined Curves and really enjoy the program, but all of the headaches I’ve been having, coupled with all of the pressure I’ve been under lately, have made getting there to DO the exercise quite difficult. Starting Monday, I’m getting back on that horse and will go AT LEAST 3 days each week.

Have you ever had to do anything like what I’ve done here? How did you handle it? Any advise? Please comment. I’d love to hear from you.

I first heard about this book on NPR’s Weekend Edition in an interview with the author. As weird as this premise sounds, Seth Grahame-Smith makes it work. He writes from the perspective of a wanna-be writer who gets handed the gift of the long-lost private diaries of Abraham Lincoln. These journals start with his ambition to “kill all of the vampires in America” and lays out the tale of how that led him to the White House. Grahame-Smith writes a wonderful story that explains some of the mysteries in American history and how it shaped the country.

If you like to read…

• Pure History: you will like the way this work of fiction weaves real historical fact into the story.
• Vampire Lore: you will like this book because vampires permeate this story. You  may need to suspend a bit of belief because some of the good guys are vampires. A vampire purist may not like this yarn because after the first century, vampires can walk in the sun.
• Well written and imaginative fiction of any kind: then you will like this book because it’s a wonderful yarn and will make you say (with a wink and a nod) “Ah, that explains it!”

Have you read this book? If yes, what did you think? If you like history (any kind or era), vampire lore, or alternate history, what books would you recommend? Please feel free to share here. I’d love to hear YOUR recommendations!