Reading Matters: October 2013

Reading Matters

October 2013

Books Purchased:

David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes

Books Read:

David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes

            My birthday present from my husband was Malcolm Gladwell’s newest, David and Goliath. I think I read it in three days. It was so good, just like everything else Gladwell writes. The book explores the idea of the underdog versus the powers that be, and Gladwell does the usual thorough job of looking at the issue from a variety of angles. He starts by looking at how we underestimate underdogs and similarly overestimate the giants. The story of how David defeats Goliath opens the book and highlights the problem we face in deciding outcomes based on perceived strengths. I don’t want to spoil the book, but faced with David’s swiftness and artillery weapon of a slingshot, poor Goliath, weighed down by heavy armor and physical size, didn’t stand a chance.

            I really enjoyed the sections on dyslexia and its power to create both problems and advantages for people. Both my husband and younger son are dyslexic and struggle with reading and writing clearly. As someone who loves books and who can sit for hours at a time getting lost in text (in a good way, not a Jasper Fforde way), the idea of struggling to read is horrific. Yet, both of these men I life with have better aural memories than I do and can find things that I lose quite easily. Their visual acuity is sharper than mine actually. They just don’t do words very well.

            After reading the book, I realize that a little more adversity would have been good in my older son’s life. I think if he had been forced to survive through some turmoil and stand up to trouble he might be better at getting himself on track. That’s all the details I’m going to give. He’s a good guy, but he lacks some focus. I was delighted that he had a happy, relatively trouble-free childhood, but Malcolm’s insights into survivors and their strengths makes me wonder, what if . . .

            Here’s a link to a brief (12 minutes) interview Gladwell did with Stephen Fry: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2013/oct/24/stephen-fry-malcolm-gladwell-video-interview?CMP=twt_gu

            The two books by Gary Taubes were purchased in response to my latest physical and the troubling data about my body composition and blood numbers. I have been following a very healthy diet (according to American Heart Association and other supposedly reliable sources) but over the past few years I have lost a lot of muscle tone and gained quite of bit of adipose tissue (yuck). You might recall I read Body For Life last month and started weight training. Well, the doctor took one look at my body and blood work and declared that I was eating too much in the carb department and not exercising enough. The truth is that 50% of the time I eat between 100 and 120 grams of carbs, 30% of the time between 120 and 150, and only 20% of the time over 150 grams and those are usually special occasions like a birthday party or my semi-annual trip to Wingstop. (I use My Fitness Pal free online nutrition and exercise tracking, so I know what I ate during the summer.)  I did cardio three to four times a week during the summer and am averaging 2.5 times a week now that school is on. Of course, the doctor thinks I’m lying because if I have gained weight then it must be because I am overeating or not exercising or maybe both.

            Taubes’ book, Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It is refreshing. It presents the data from all of the various experiments about weight loss, and particularly fat loss, from the past 100 years. It is amazing to me the difference between what the studies actually show and what we are told as Americans. The whole “Calories In Vs Calories Out” idea that is crammed down our throats is one that the research so far has not proven to be a permanent, effective metabolic control.  

            That is startling to me because isn’t that what we have all been told? Get up off the couch, put down the remote, go walk your fat a** off. If you are overweight, it is your fault for not spending all of the calories you have consumed. The message that burning more calories will make us less fat is one based on the hope of it being true rather than any actual proof. Now, people who do exercise strenuously tend to make changes to their diets in terms of macronutrient composition because their bodies start demanding different foods. That in itself may account for the weight loss.

            Based on the evidence presented in the book, I cut out starches, sugars, and grains from my diet. I eat lots of different green veggies each day and things like nuts and avocados in addition to lean meats like chicken or ground turkey breast. In 20 days, I have noticed that I have lost weight--both fat and water I was retaining—and I feel so much better. I have loads more energy, and as long as I eat frequently enough, I feel more alert mentally. Also, I have no joint pains and am sleeping a bit better. I know this is just one person’s response to the changes , therefore anecdotal and to be taken lightly, but if you are feeling draggy and wondering why you cannot lose the weight no matter how much fat you cut from your diet, you might want to read the book and weigh the evidence for yourself (yes, pun very much intended!).

            

Reading Matters for September 2013

Reading Matters

September 2013

Books Purchased:

Crazy Busy by Eric DeYoung

The Hole in Our Holiness by Eric DeYoung

Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

How to Worship a King by Zach Neese

1300 Real and Fanciful Animals from

        Seventeenth-Century Engravings by Matthaus Merian

Books Read:

Body for Life by Bill Phillips

Crazy Busy by Eric DeYoung

1300 Real and Fanciful Animals (no words, just pictures, yea!)

Bonhoeffer (started)

        I really struggled this month to get time to read. School started in earnest. My younger son is in his senior year and between physics, astronomy, pre-calc, cello, and SAT prep, I am busy with my home-school duties. He does all of his Advanced Writing and British Literature work by himself, but I sit in on the other courses, partly because of my interest in the subjects, and also to give support and instruction (and monitor his work!). I also have all of the classes I teach outside the home to prep and grade and meet weekly. Turns out, I have lost pretty much all margin for contemplative down time. I can think on the fly, did for all of graduate school after all, but I really prefer to have time to ruminate over ideas and themes before I walk students through literature or more challenging writing assignments.

        That said, I did finish two books and made a good dent in a third and spent lots of time perusing a fourth. Let me start with the least interesting: Body for Life. Phillips “wrote” the book as part of his EAS, Body-for-Life challenge program. In this fitness makeover, Phillips teaches how to lose body fat, build muscle, and increase focus in daily life. I did the Body-for-Life challenge in 1999. Back then, in my much younger years, I lost 15 net pounds. That means, I lost probably closer to 25 lbs of fat and gained 10 lbs of muscle. Now, just 14 years later, I probably need to lose 35 of those ugly fat pounds and gain that 10 of muscle back. It’s probably a function of my age and stage in life that I have lost all of the muscle tone out of my body over the past couple of years. I did join Weight Watchers and lost weight at first until it turned out that I was losing mostly muscle; then the weight came back with a few of its friends and I was bigger than when I started.

        I knew that Body-for-Life had worked before, with fatigue being the only real harmful side effect. So, I started the program in the middle of the month. At the start of October, I am on day 16. My progress is uncertain: I don’t face the horror of the scale and am not about to get out the tape measure, but my clothes are fitting better, and I can see a small rise in the area where my bicep used to be. I am following the program as well as my schedule and my advanced age will allow. I predict that the 12-week plan will be closer to 15 weeks in completion, but hey, at least I am doing something.

        The other book I finished is Crazy Busy by Eric DeYoung. The tagline on the book is A Mercifully Short Book About A (Really) Big Problem. I found book pretty interesting considering I find myself busier this year than I ever imagined I could be. What I really like about the book is that DeYoung doesn’t pretend to have conquered the issue of busyness. He takes his readers through is own journey and insights into what he sees are the key underlying beliefs that make us too busy. I know that “busyness” is kind of a trendy topic right now, with books ranging from The Four-Hour Work Week to 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The former promises to show you how to work less and have more time for the really cool stuff in life and the latter promises to show how to cram more into each moment of each day without neglecting the really important stuff.

        DeYoung’s book looks at the causes for our busyness and the problems this causes for us as believers.  I found a couple of the chapters describing me spot on: the terror of total obligation and mission creep. When he writes about “people who easily feel a sense of responsibility, people who easily feel bad for not doing more,” I thought he was reading my mind. I constantly tell myself that I should be doing more to help, praying more, reading more, writing more, cleaning the house more. That sense of obligation can blind me to what my true obligations are and bind me to the idea of doing instead of being what I am called to be.

        In the section on Mission Creep, the idea that stands out for me is that our true beliefs about our value and purpose show up in what we do. Another way to put it is that whatever drives our decisions about how we spend our time is what we have set as our mission. I try to remember this idea when I have to decide how to spend my time.  DeYoung examines other things that engage us and create time issues in our lives. I am sure that other chapters will speak to others.

        For fun this month, I perused the Seventeenth-Century engravings of Matthaus Merian collected in 1300 Real and Fanciful Animals. The images are intriguing. Many of the mammals have anthropomorphic expressions on their faces. Well-drawn horses stand and prance next to hippogriffs and dragons. Detailed images of insects fill page after page. The artwork is astonishing. And some of the creature, like the rhinoceros for example, were clearly drawn from exaggerated descriptions that Merian read rather than actual observation. The art is all copyright free, so I’ll be photocopying pages for my younger friends to color when they come to visit.

        The other book I started was Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas (high quotient of Erics this month, I see). The plan is to finish the book by the third week of November for book club.

        Despite the struggle, I am enjoying forcing reading back into my schedule. I missed it sorely.

        

Reading Matters: August 2013

Books Purchased:

Time Warped by Claudia Hammond

Redemption by Bryan Clay

Inferno by Dan Brown (Kindle edition)

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale

Books Read:

Redemption

Inferno

The Polysyllabic Spree

The Works by P.G. Wodehouse (Kindle edition)  (ongoing)

Beowulf Translated by John McNamara

        Let me be up front about it: I am stealing the format for my book posts, from here on, from Nick Hornby. His regular column “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” from The Believer Magazine (an advertising-free collection of interviews, essays, and reviews) was the fuel for his book The Polysyllabic Spree. His wit, humor, intelligence, and literacy make for great reading and have inspired me to rethink how I am handling book reviews here on my blog and elsewhere.  I particularly loved the fact that he is up front that he doesn’t read every book he buys; he “panic” shops when a new child is born to him and his partner; he is a reader of nuance and has valuable opinions about successive works by the same author; and he is doggone delightful to read.

        I don’t even remember where I came across the title for his book, but the subtitle- “A Hilarious and True Account of One Man’s Struggle with the Monthly Tide of the Books He’s Bought and the Books He’s Been Meaning to Read”- made me put the book on my Amazon wish list. Over this summer, I rededicated myself to reading more, lots more, just to spite my more-than-busy schedule this semester. As soon as my teaching money started to come in, I honored my commitment and bought a bunch of books (see above).

        Beowulf is for my British Literature Class. No matter how many times I have read it nor the detailed notes I have taken, I still have to read the book before I teach it. I wish I had a memory for plot details instead of themes and overtones, but alas, I don’t and at this late stage in the game, don’t think it will ever develop. So read, and reread, is part of my job. That said, this translation by John McNamara for The Barnes and Noble Classic Edition is great. Both lively and vivid, McNamara renders this classic of British Literature enjoyable for me as a teacher and for my students coming to it for the first time.

        Redemption is the story of Bryan Clay, 2 time Olympic medalist in the decathalon (Silver in 2008, Gold in 2010). His memoir, co-written by Joel Kilpatrick, chronicles his transformation from a rebellious party animal with good athletic skills to a world-class athlete. Along the way, Clay learns to commit to his sport and his wife, and most importantly to God. His message becomes “Do your best, and let God do the rest.” That may seem like wimping out, but I think it is just the recognition we all gain as we grow up that we are not really in control of much, so we need to relax and trust in our training and abilities.

        Another one of the things I really enjoyed about Hornby’s book—I keep coming back to him, I see. I guess that makes his work the most-influential of the month—were his frequent references to P.G. Wodehouse. I picked up The Works because I have always loved the Wooster and Jeeves stories, especially the adaptations starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry that aired on PBS. I knew that Wodehouse had written about much more than the befuddled Bertie Wooster and his Man Extraordinaire, but I didn’t realize the spread of his stories. I am finding stories set in France and New York alongside those in London (and nearby suburb). There’s even a few with a dog as the protagonist. Always the humorist, Wodehouse manages to portray the humanity of his characters as they struggle with everything from being downtrodden to rising on the social ladder. Love, relationships, friendship, and family are the stuff of all the stories. And the wit and jokes! Come for the jokes and stay for the humanity. Wodehouse is perfect for dipping into when I need a little levity. Read too many in a row and they all start to sound the same.

        Now, the only other book I read that I haven’t talked about is Dan Brown’s Inferno. Let me insert my Amazon.com book review here because I have already done the work and don’t plan on losing any sleep over writing a different review here: Dan Brown's novel Inferno is infused with the beauty of Venice and Florence. I loved all the references to the art and architecture and with a little bit of research, was able to run alongside the characters and "see" the sights for myself.

Like all Dan Brown books, this one has the usual cryptic messages and clues that leave our hero and his requisite tag-along girl running from location to location, chased by various characters. Brown includes the usual plot twists and the "is he or isn't he?" a bad guy that is supposed to leave you guessing until the end for the big reveal.

My only criticism of the novel is that the characters are unnecessarily dense at times. You would think that lead character Robert Langdon would remember his past brushes with cryptology and be a bit quicker at solving the clues. I had no advanced knowledge of the subject matter or setting of the book, and even I was able to figure out some things more quickly than the characters. I don't know that Brown dumbed-down his protagonist, but let's just say I wasn't that impressed with Langdon's supposed genius at times.

If you read travel guides for fun, enjoy Italian art and architecture, and are interested in the question of population growth, you will probably like this book.

Out of the Shallows: A book review of Nicola Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

            A Book Review of The Shallows, What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicolas Carr. By Donna Samudio

            No one really needs to tell us that we live in a shallow world. From television shows urging us to root for strangers in competition with each other to changing fashions in hair, clothing, and makeup that make no lasting difference to our lives, the world seems built on shallow interactions and superficial presentations. Nicolas Carr in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains argues that we are being led into increasingly shallow thinking by the very nature of how we access the world through technology. While the book is secular, its message has relevance for us believers living in a technological world.

            Carr’s central argument is this: the way we get our information and interact through technology actually hinders our ability to make deep connections between ideas and to contemplate complex issues. He explores his ideas by looking at television, word processing, brain plasticity, and how we read on the internet. His tone is concerned, but I wouldn’t call him alarmist. I have experienced some of the things he talks about, like getting lost in a sea of pages by being lured by hyperlinks (the blue or underlined words in an article on the internet that take you to another page when you click on them).

            According to Carr, our experiences with data can easily become a matter of breadth rather than depth with each new page competing for space in our memories. Likewise, all the clutter of pop-up ads and animated gifs disrupt our brain’s natural process of moving things from working memory into storage memory. Have you ever had trouble remembering things you have read on the internet even when you tried to pay attention? It could be that you suffered from memory disruption.

            Google, Bing, Wikipedia, and other information gatherers would argue that access to endless information and multitasking through multiple windows is beneficial. Carr argues that in the long run our memory and neuron formation is programmed to be hyperactive by the increasing demands on our eyes and attention. Just like a diet too high in sugar will affect our body’s chemistry by reprogramming the release of insulin, a mental diet too full of these visual distractions and shallow interactions will hamper our ability to concentrate and think deeply. The internet screams at us to click anywhere and instantly get new visual information without ever stopping to ponder what we might be learning.

            I believe that the issue of contemplation versus stimulation has the most relevance for us in terms of our walk of faith. Ephesians 6:18 says, “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” Kyle’s recent message (August 18) dealt with this issue of “all prayer” and “praying in the Spirit.” He said something I am trying to contemplate deeply—that prayer is spiritual because it reminds us of our humanity, that we haven’t got it all together, and that we are vulnerable. Prayer is serious business. We are constantly vulnerable to Satan’s attacks; therefore, we need to be in constant prayer. It takes mindfulness and effort to keep the shallow “hit and run” prayer from being our primary means of talking with God.

            Satan would have us shallow and distracted by whatever means he can. If Carr’s argument is correct, then we need to counter the effects of the internet by shifting our focus and practicing contemplative thinking in the Scriptures and an attitude of constant prayer. Carr’s book has made me aware of how even seemingly good things on the internet can possibly make my mind conform to the world’s shallow ways without even being aware of their influence. 

Book Review: The Year of Leaning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings

Bottom Line: I can recommend this book to anyone involved with homeschooling and to those who wonder just what's up with homeschooling.

Quinn Cummings, Oscar nominee and recurring character actress on the TV show Family, writes with honesty and wit about her trials and tribulations during her adventure with homeschooling her daughter Alice. I came to this book by way of my book club, made up of mostly home school moms. Hang on, I'm going to brag about my group for a moment. Unlike some other home school groups, notably the ones Cummings reports in her book, we are kind of a fringe group in that we don't all attend the same kind of churches or have the same kind of leisure activities. We have ex-lawyers, ex-college professors, people with masters and PhD degrees, people who never finished college, people who dance, drum, play bass in country bands, sing, and quilt. Some of us work full time and home school still. We also have women whose children are done with the school journey and who now are working on their own educations and independent entrepreneurial careers.

 I tell you all this to show that we are a group who are uniquely qualified to review the "truth" of Cummings book, and let me tell you, the recount of her experiences is dead on, especially in that no two homeschooling families will have the same things happen because no two family dynamics are just the same. When Cummings locks herself in the laundry room and breathes into a bag, I am sure several other women nodded in sympathy for feeling the same way at times. As Cummings moves through her search to find her "tribe," I know exactly what it feels like to be an outsider and want connection, but because I am already a bit unorthodox it can be a struggle to find other independent people who want to have a group interaction.

Readers who are not part of the home school world will get a glimpse into the some of the reasons why so many parents are choosing this option for their children. Cummings impressed me by her research and her argumentation skills in considering deeply all sides of the issue.  She is also very funny. I don't want to spoil any of the LOL moments in the book, but I was reading this in a doctor's waiting room and got some pretty curious looks thrown my way when I got to the section on Radical Unschooling.

I love the scene toward where the storyteller is giving the commencement address at a home school graduation. He says, "As life can be well lived if you find someone who really loves you for who you are, if you find something you love to do and you find someplace that feels like home." That's advice I think any home school parent can agree with and wish for her or his children.

Book Review: Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Bottom Line: A clever, witty book that made me laugh out loud several times.

Amazon kept recommending this book to me, and I gave in and bought it for my Kindle. I  am so happy that I did. Sloan does a great job of marrying old-school table-top adventure gaming with Google, modern culture, and ancient secret societies.

The plot centers around unemployed graphic artist Clay Jannon who finds a job in a strange 24-hour bookstore that doesn't seem to sell books. Instead an interesting assortment of people come in a check out books from a three-story stack of strange tomes named for people. Clay's job is to keep a log book of each borrowing that includes details about the person's appearance and behavior. While Clay is wondering what's going on, he is simultaneously living with his roommate Mat's growing art project and his own interest in a woman named Kat Potente who works for Google.

The book is part mystery, part allegory for role playing games, part lesson in teamwork, and part examination of contemporary culture. If that sounds ponderous, don't worry. Sloan's writing is joyous to read. The book is lighthearted with lots of really funny moments in Clay's internal monologue. In one instance, Clay tries to boost sales in the shop by putting out a Google ad. When the mysterious Kat Potente appears in response to the ad, Clay almost blows the moment by hyper-responding. He thinks, "Google's astonishing advertising algorithms have delivered to me a supercute girl, and I have no idea what to do with her." Alliterative heaven right there.

Sloan's characters all come together for an adventure of their own, mirroring the world of D&D or Dragon Age. During the first half of the book I wanted to live in Clay's world and by the end, I realized that I already did. Even if these particular characters and conflicts are fictional, the lessons learned by Clay and company are the same that we all have to learn.

This is no Harry Potter with real wizards and quidditch. Instead it is a related story with many of the same themes of friendship, teamwork, bravery, and good choices. It is also a rare book that I and my 21-year-old son can both enjoy.

Book Review: Dandy Gilver and A Bothersome Number of Corpses by Catriona McPherson

Bottom Line: This, the seventh book featuring Dandy Gilver by Catriona McPherson, is one of the strongest in the series with beautiful characterization and enough complication to make it fun to read.

I ran across the first Dandy Gilver book in my local library when I was on the hunt for a work by another author. Set in post-WWI Scotland, it featured what was left of the landed gentry, dressing for dinner, and servants. Since I was in a Downton Abbey mood, I tried it and have stuck with the series because I find McPherson's writing to be interesting.

For a cozy series, and let's not kid anyone because that's what these books are, they cover lots of ground. The title character is Dandy, short for Dandelion, who is married to Hugh, a solid gentleman with enough land to be somewhat of consequence. Dandy is persuaded to start investigating mysterious happenings, at first by a close friend, and then later in response to more distance acquaintances and word-of-mouth advertisements. In this most recent book, McPherson takes the readers into Dandy's memories of a youthful idyllic summer spent with friends before bringing things back up to speed in Dandy's adult life with murders, mysterious school mistresses, and a charming Italian.

One thing McPherson does well is create diverse characters with their own voices. The schoolgirls sound different from each other, the mistress have their own energy, and the transition of one of the characters from youthful blithe spirit into something else entirely has its own reality in this fictional world. McPherson also has fun playing with Dandy's relationship to her rather stodgy husband who tolerates her detecting because of the money it brings in and her sons, one of whom is turning out to be much less talented scholastically than hoped for. Dandy's close working companion, Alec Osborne, excites all kinds of comments and rumors from people on the periphery, but unlike other crime detecting duos (Castle and Beckett come to mind) there is no steamy undercurrent of desire. They work as a duo, without much sexism, and it seems to be staying that way.

I find these books perfect for when I want some light reading featuring a strong female lead and charming Scottish folk set in rugged countryside.