Touching the Void: Surviving the Unsurvivable

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I started reading this book at Holden Village in July and didn't get back into it until last week (I had to get it out of the library in Portland). Mike went to prep school with Joe Simpson in England (although Simpson's a few years older than him), so I've often thought about reading this book before it called to me from the Holden Village library.

Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, climbed a mountain peak in the Andes--the 21,000-foot Siula Grande. While ascending, Joe broke his leg...which can be an immediate death sentence for mountain climbers. However, Simon risked his own life to lower Joe 3,000 feet down the mountain while Joe kept digging "belays" into the mountain, allowing Simon to stretch out the rope once more. When the rope did not go slack (allowing him to affix a new hitch), Simon had no idea what was going on. He had no choice but to cut the rope, knowing that by doing so Joe would die. If he hadn't cut the rope, they both would have died on the mountain. When the rope was cut, Joe fell into a very deep crevasse.

The amazing piece is that Joe did not die--in fact, he survived. Over the ensuing three days, somehow he was able to crawl out of the crevasse and all the way down the mountain, and then 6 miles to base camp, just before Simon left to return to civilization. Joe writes about the deep loneliness, exhaustion, and terror that beset him on the mountain. He did not give up when most people would have. Not only did he survive with a horribly broken and painful leg, but he also did not have food and water for several days. The only thing that kept him going was a voice in his head--prompting him to keep moving and surviving.

Meanwhile, Simon was being tormented with guilt, even at the same time as he realized he had no choice in the matter. Joe writes from Simon's perspective as well (in italics), giving us a more complete picture of what was happening in both men's minds.

I woke up at night thinking about this book--it will stick with me for a very long time. It's clear that Joe is a mountain climber first and a writer second, because I often had difficulties following the technical descriptions of climbing and picturing everything in my mind. I didn't discover the glossary in the back until I was 1/3 of the way into the book. But even the glossary couldn't really help me understand fully.

Joe includes an afterword in the edition I read. He writes about returning to Siula Grande to film the documentary and experiencing post-traumatic stress (previously he had not even believed in its existence). It's the second book I've read recently where a British person discounts the value of psychotherapy--thinking it to be an American whim. When he calls the National Health Service to make an appointment with a therapist (realizing he needed to deal with his PTSD), he doesn't receive a call back until six months later. At that point, he's too disgusted to go forward with it. Instead, he realizes the healing, therapeutic power of telling one's story...and that's how he works through the stress and the trauma. At least he did come to realize the importance of working through it and the downsides of the British stiff upper lip.

He also writes about traumatic emotions and terror traveling hard-wired neural pathways in the brain...that's why what we think will be an easy task or experience can bring up all sorts of PTSD effects if we've experienced a trauma. I've experienced this phenomenon a few times myself.

Next I plan to watch the documentary, and I'm sure it will help me have a better understanding of what exactly happened to Joe and Simon on the mountain. Joe Simpson wrote this book partly to defend Simon Yates' actions on the mountain. From the very beginning, he understood that Simon made the only decision he could have at the time. He's truly grateful to him for doing everything he could to save him--most other climbers would have left him on the mountain without even trying to save him.

A therapist friend of mine used to show this movie to the boys he counseled: they were sex offenders in treatment. It was chosen as a testament to the power of the human spirit and the ability to conquer seemingly impossible odds.

After You: Grief times two

After You by Julie Buxbaum
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Ellie Lerner's best friend, Lucy, is murdered in broad daylight--in front of her 8-year-old daughter--in an upscale Notting Hill neighborhood. Ellie flies to London to be with her goddaughter Sophie and help Lucy's husband pick up the pieces of their lives.

While she's grieving the loss of her close childhood friend, she's still mourning her son Oliver, who died in utero at eight months gestation. Ellie's difficulty in moving past her deep-seated grief has put her marriage at risk. While she's escaping her own commitments back in Boston, her husband wants her to return home, but she just can't.

To comfort themselves, Ellie and Lucy escape into Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Sophie is an unusually bright, too-blunt-for-her-peer-group child, and she has endured more than any child should. I had to chuckle while reading her father's response to Ellie's suggestion that Sophie go to a therapist (because of bed wetting and nightmares)...reflecting the prevailing opinion that therapy is too American and completely unnecessary for the stiff-upper-lip British. Sophie returns to school a scant few days after watching her mother be murdered, because the headmistress convinces her father that "she should get right back into the swing of things. Routine, structure, and all that. Good for kids. She said that breaking from that will shake Sophie up even more."

Through the process of mourning Lucy (and discovering that Lucy was keeping at least a few deep dark secrets from her and she didn't know her as well as she thought), Ellie realizes that she hasn't fully mourned for Oliver. Instead she's been trying to escape her own feelings of loss.

Buxbaum effectively and sensitively handled the issues of grief, including the different ways people grieve (and not to assume that someone is not grieving just because they grieve in a different way from you). One thing I realized about the characters, though: I would not have liked Lucy. She came across as shallow, unfeeling, and snobby. The most egregious thing she did was after Ellie lost her baby: her first response was to tell Ellie she could always have another one. Perhaps she was stunned and didn't know how to react. But after the losses I have experienced in my own pregnancies, I cannot imagine being able to move beyond that kind of completely insensitive comment. Although Ellie was upset about the comment, she didn't seem to think it was quite as horrible as I did.

I'm always attracted to stories about Americans in England or vice versa, so I enjoyed this book overall. Buxbaum lives in London and has done an excellent job representing the British culture through American eyes.

Unbroken, a great book according to my husband!

Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand

I haven't read it yet, but my husband just finished this book and loved it. You can read his review here.

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons: Women can survive more than they think

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, by Lorna Landvik
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

As my book club selection for August, I wasn't too sure what to expect. I've read Landvik before and enjoyed her books, but I believe this one was my favorite yet. She typically sets her stories in Minnesota, like this one.

Kari, Faith, Slip, Merit, and Audrey are housewives in small-town Minnesota in the 1960s. They live on Freesia Court and start a book club (fairly unusual back then). Through the years, they share their heartaches, secrets, and intimacies in the ways that only women can.

Through 40 years, the Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons (a name coined after Merit's abusive husband angrily demanded she stop being in the group) each battle their own personal demons. Faith harbors the secret of her dysfunctional childhood and sense of abandonment and is convinced no one will love her if they know the real her. Audrey loves sex and food and lives largely, although her husband enjoys sex with other women as well as her. Daughter of a straitlaced minister, Merit ends up with a perfect-on-the-outside doctor husband who begins verbally abusing her and soon starts in physically. Slip, the impassioned activist, loves her family just as much as she loves peace and justice and gradually convinces the other women not to accept sexism without a fight. And Kari, the widowed and oldest member of the group, happily becomes a mother but can tell no one where she got her baby.

Beginning in the 1960s when home life was much more traditional, and moving into the 1990s when people began opening up their minds and their lives, the book charts the separate pathways of these close friends. In addition to these fiercely strong, loving women, Landvik includes portraits of several wonderful men--some of which you don't expect at first to be so likable.

As we discussed at our own book group meeting last night, for a story about books, Landvik didn't really let us into the book discussions very much. Each chapter was headed by a book club selection and why it was chosen, but beyond a few mentions in the text, we didn't really get to hear much of what the angry housewives thought or said about it. She could have woven the texts into these women's lives more effectively.

In addition, some of the supplemental characters (children and husbands) are well shaped while others are one dimensional and rarely described. Clearly, the angry housewives are the primary characters of this novel. The most heartbreaking scene to me was when one of the sons told his mother that he felt that no one loved him. Even though she knew deep down that he was gay, she could not reach out to connect with her son--she just wanted the whole situation to go away, and if she avoided it, she thought she could make it so. She chose to close the door on her own son because she was too afraid to face facts.

Even with the criticisms we had of the book, we all enjoyed it and give it a strong recommendation.

Reading flash mob: love it!

Bitter Bitch: Fear of Flying revisited

Bitter Bitch by Maria Sveland
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Bitter Bitch is billed as "the international bestseller that has shocked Europe"; however, the only thing particularly shocking was the title, which caused all sorts of commentary from my family (especially when my husband showed it to my visiting mother-in-law and sister-in-law!). Apparently the literal translation from the Swedish is even more schocking: "Bitter Cunt"!

Sarah, mom of a toddler, has just turned 30 and is feeling like a bitter bitch. She flies to Tenerife (in the Canary Islands) for a week's vacation and reads Erica Jong's feminist classic, Fear of Flying, while she's away. However, she finds herself longing for quiet and uninterrupted sleep rather than the classic "zipless f--k."

Sveland examines the state of modern woman- and motherhood and peels back the facade that women can easily have it all. Although Sarah loves her husband Johan, she also has great unresolved hostility towards him. Having experienced horribly sexist men in television journalism and other areas of her life, Sarah reflects that "Refusing to admit your own part in oppression is an incredibly smart power strategy, since oppression is made invisible by diminishing it." Not only does this lack of awareness exist in men, but it also exists in the privileged--both men and women.

After Sarah is unable to nurse her baby Sigge successfully, she develops a life-threatening breast infection. Johan chooses to take Sigge home instead of having them both stay in the hospital with Sarah, an action that Sarah views as betrayal. (Having experienced the extreme bonding connection that exists between mother and newborn, I can completely relate to this feeling.) Their marriage is damaged as a result of this and the fact that Johan is gone for weeks at a time (because of his job) while Sarah is caring for newborn Sigge. She feels exhausted and completely alone, even though she loves her child passionately.

Sarah struggles with the fact that women still bear the burden in marriage: they do most of the housework and the child care. "I really do not think there is much difference between becoming a mother during the 1970s or in the twenty-first century. In the beginning you are just as alone with your child as most mothers have been for centuries...it is sad, but becoming a mother seems to be one of the most difficult undertakings when it comes to equality."

When the couple goes to married marriage counselors, they tell Sarah that achieving equality in a marriage is impossible. Both Sarah and Johan storm out in disgust. But in fact, Johan's paternity leave (more common in Sweden) was what saved their marriage. "That's when he understood what it meant to take full responsibility as a father. Men should take longer parental leave than women, since women have a biological head start because they have carried and given birth to their children. Men need more time to get the innate experience."

She talks in detail about the great guilt work-outside-the-home mothers feel when they leave their children in day care (or take off for a weekend or week away). Fathers tend not to experience that same amount of guilt. Why is that? She concludes that women should be more self-serving: "The one who demands the most gets the most." For example, who is most likely to be doing the cleanup at a party? The women (especially with older generations). Sarah feels guilty when she doesn't jump up to help the other women, but the men don't seem to feel guilty at all. Why is that?

She also laments the fact that women are rarely able to relax or feel completely safe out in public. They can never escape the potential for men to harass them. (I discussed this very topic with friends at Holden Village late one night.) "I strongly doubt that men can comprehend the discomfort or ferar involved in having to deal with it. I wonder how this really affects women, deep down."

Sarah was raised with a doormat mother and a verbally abusive, alcoholic father, so she didn't have a lot of faith in marriage. Lest you conclude that Sarah is anti-men, though, she waxes lyrical about how much she loves men who peel oranges in public, bring packed lunches to work, bike or walk to work, and dance.

Reading this book, it made me realize how lucky I am to be in a marriage of relative equality. I nursed my sons constantly (and through the night) for many years, and then my husband took over the late night wakefulness after they stopped nursing. He is a stay-at-home dad and does the cooking during the week. I call him our "household manager," because of course he does much more than looking after the kids and cooking. We still fall back into gender stereotyped roles when it comes to some responsibilities: he takes out the garbage, mows the lawn, and deals with the car maintenance, while I am responsible for all of the gift and clothing buying and storing the kids clothes over various seasons. We both grocery shop. But he writes the thank you cards. I let him drive much of the time because he likes to, and I'd rather be reading. I'm the breadwinner but he still has a career and associated goals. I hope someday I can work less and he can get paid for the work he does (writing). We make decisions together.

I feel that we have achieved as close to equality as I can imagine in our marriage. So thankfully, even though I feel that Sveland's observations about marriage and parenting are completely sound, I am not a bitter bitch myself. I must say that it's refreshing to read a feminist novel given all of the anti-feminist backlash out there in popular society. Here's Maria Sveland on feminism and marriage.

I'm not sure what I think about the ending...it depends on whether you are cynical or optimistic. As an optimist myself, I'd like to think that Sarah found some comfort and peace with her life. I'm glad that Sveland wrote this important book, and I have no doubt that many women would be able to relate very closely to this story.

Julie & Julia: Skip the book...see the movie

Julie & Julia, by Julie Powell
2 out of 5 stars

It feels like I have been reading this book forever, and I'm so glad to be done with it. I loved Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child in the movie and liked Amy Adams enough to get through the Julie Powell bits. Stanley Tucci, another one of my favorites, played Julia's husband, Paul.

I'm all over one-year experiment memoirs, but I'd stayed away from this one because of the mixed reviews. But when this book was in my book group's "Yankee Swap" Christmas book exchange, I stole it from my sweet friend Caley. I took it to Holden Village with me last week, and halfway through I picked up another book (Touching the Void) in the Holden library because I needed a break from Julie Powell's incessant whining.

I'm not sure what her original blog was like, because it's virtually impossible to navigate through. I'm curious whether she actually chronicled her progress through the 536 recipes in 365 days, because in the book she writes about only perhaps 60 (?) of them, which is pretty strange since that's what the book is supposedly about. The recipes she does cover are mostly nothing I'd ever want to eat (many involve offal, brains, veal, or lamb). I wanted to know more about the actual cooking process of all of these recipes, not about Powell's tortured work life, strange friends, extremely squishy integrity, and pathetic house cleaning habits.

I definitely could have done without the maggots scene. The thought of her cooking all that fancy food in a filthy, maggot-breeding kitchen is enough to make me vomit. Her poor (dysfunctional) friends--they must have had the same feeling when they read her book and realized they had eaten the products of that kitchen.

Powell's husband, Eric, is faithfully devoted and long suffering. It didn't help me like Powell's personality knowing she cheated on her husband for 2 years and wrote all about it in her subsequent book, Cleaving. She's narcissistic and shallow and shares way too much information, even for a blog or memoir. I agree with her on some fronts (politics being one) and disagree on many others (she calls the World War II memorial in Washington "mind-bogglingly hideous"--but I liked it!).

Speaking of mind boggling, I question how Powell could hold down a mind-numbing bureaucratic job and cook 536 complicated and expensive recipes in one year's time, without gobs of vacation time and a hefty loan. It's hard to tell if she cheated--all we have to go on is her claim that she couldn't think of not finishing her project in one year's time. But who's to say she didn't skip half of the recipes?

One thing I'd like to know is how a notoriously fussy eater (she had never eaten an egg, for God's sake, before starting the project) was able to get past her food foibles and eat all sorts of bizarre ingredients (such as beef marrow and calf's feet). She does not address how she conquered her food issues, but she does mention she gained a lot of weight during that year. She relished eating innards and also in butchering, slicing, and killing (lobsters).

Powell is crushed to learn that Julia Child was not impressed with her project. After reading this book, I do not blame Julia Child one bit. Perhaps if Powell were more likable and spent more time focusing on the cooking and less on the drama in her life, Julia Child would have been entranced and intrigued by her blog.

At the end of the book, Powell claims that the project rescued her. When Julia Child died, she wrote, "I have no claim over the woman at all, unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the ocean." If this is true, though, why did she start an affair with another man a few years later because she was filled with self-loathing or some other ridiculous reason? Julie & Julia is full of soppy adoration for her husband Eric (except when he's having a "Blanche" day or gets in her way when she is having a tantrum). What happened to lead her to not only have an affair and have a quickie with a stranger, but to rub her husband's nose in it?

Throughout Julie & Julia, Powell scatters made-up vignettes about Julia Child and her husband Paul. They seemed out of place and only made me want to read Julia Child's My Year in France to learn the real story. Julia Child was a fascinating, dynamic woman who loved life and her husband with a passion. Julie Powell, not so much.

Operation Bonnet: Dabbling into the Amish

Operation Bonnet, by Kimberly Stuart

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I picked this book up at the library, and it didn't have very many reviews on goodreads or amazon, but the Amish storyline made me think it was worth the risk.

Nellie Monroe is a bit of an odd duck--she is naive but bright and spunky and doesn't fit in very well in her small Ohio town. Her parents are inattentive and wealthy, and the two people most important to her are her step-grandmother Nona and her best friend, Matt. She also desperately wants to be a private investigator.

So when a former Amish man, Amos, asks her to find out whether his long-lost love, Katie, is going to marry another man, Nellie jumps at the chance to go undercover. She sneaks her way into an Amish family's good graces through a bit of falsehood, and finds a way to bring the star-crossed lovers together.

In the meantime, Nona's fading and Nellie doesn't want to admit it, and Matt views Nellie as more than a friend, but she's too dense to see it.

I liked Stuart's funny writing style, although some of the characters were caricatures or not fully developed (such as her school nemesis, Misty--what was the purpose of her?). We also do not really get to know Matt very well. Kimberly Stuart is actually a "Christian" author, as I discovered toward the end when she threw God in several times. Even though I'm a Christian, I steer clear from so-called "Christian" books, music, and the like. It wasn't too extreme, but it definitely kept the book from being a secular selection. At other times I felt like it was a little preachy, such as when Matt kept telling Nellie that "guys need a break." It felt like a way of suggesting that Nellie's strong, independent personality might be keeping guys away and that women should be more acquiesent to men.

But all in all, I enjoyed this book but probably will not read any more of this author's novels. If you are interested in the Amish or in different cultures, you might like it. 

Letters to My Daughter: Bite-size wisdom from Maya Angelou

Letters to My Daughter, by Maya Angelou
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars


Maya Angelou is a poetic prophet, and this book contains nuggets of her wisdom. At first I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to relate, since I do not have any daughters myself. However, Angelou has one son and no daughters. Her daughter is metaphorical.

I enjoyed reading about some of her experiences and reflections (she is very opinionated!), but the one thing that bugged me was the glaring run-on sentences. Surely this book was edited? Perhaps it was meant to be stream of consciousness, but I found it to be distracting.

It did really feel like Angelou had taken her dear daughter out for dinner and was sharing her sage thoughts about life.

Take It Like a Mom: I have better uses for my time

Take It Like a Mom, by Stephanie Stiles
My rating: 1 out of 5 stars

After reading The Midwife's Confession all the way to the end so recently (and feeling disappointed), I decided to give up on Take It Like a Mom on page 59.

I was surprised to learn that Stephanie Stiles is a professor, because this book was very disappointing. It rings "chick lit" loud and clear. Former lawyer turned stay-at-home mom who is completely klutzy and clueless, but with a heart of gold. She gets into drama with her fellow stay-at-home moms, all of whom seem to be fighting a lack of fulfillment because of their life choices but channel their pent-up energy into their children.

She was shallow and the plot was just as shallow. By the time I reached the first day of the (cooperative) preschool (to which she did not have to register in advance--in whose world???), and she heaps scorn on the kid who is wearing a velvet cape on the playground and whose mom does not shave her legs...I was done. My kid could very well be the one wearing the cape on the playground.

My time is better spent on a good book.

The Midwife's Confession: I can't believe I read the whole thing

The Midwife's Confession, by Diane Chamberlain
My rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Every once in awhile I start reading a book, and I think "meh...this is not really hooking me," but I continue carrying on. In this case, I had found this book on the library shelves and thought it sounded interesting enough. I always look books up on Goodreads if I find them that way, and this book's reviews were overwhelmingly positive. However, both Goodreads and Amazon had only 30 reviews or so, and for all I know, they could have all been written by the author's friends!

I didn't notice until I was almost finished that a Harlequin publishing house, Mira, published this book.  I have never read a Harlequin book--and even though this is not your typical Harlequin romance--the writing rang similar. Formulaic and lifeless. The author had written many other books and I'd never heard of any of them--both of those should have been dead giveaways.

The Midwife's Confession is not particularly well written. Chamberlain uses the passive voice constantly, and I found her characters to be shallow and one dimensional. I found the plot appealing (before I started reading): two friends try to discover why their other dear friend commits suicide...but it fell flat. Not only were the plot elements predictable, but they were highly unbelievable as well.

The characters annoyed me, and Noelle (the woman who kills herself) came across as difficult to fathom, even though Chamberlain has several chapters written in her perspective.

Speaking of perspective, that jumps around from chapter to chapter, from character to character and first person to third person. Why did Grace hate her mother with such passion? Is that typical of teenage girls?
Then it was all wrapped up way too nicely in the end.

I should have quit this book when I saw where it was headed. I do not recommend this--it was a waste of my time. Kind of like eating potato chips while watching a bad made-for-TV movie and pondering why you did that.

Now onto Maya Angelou--at least I know the writing will be lyrical and lovely!

House made for books

Check out this house in Japan with walls of bookshelves. So cool! I've always wanted walls of bookshelves...but of course, I try to circulate my books nowadays and I use the library a lot.

This is more my style though...

Or this:

Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering

Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering, by Meredith Baxter
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

First of all, very clever name. Meredith Baxter, star of TV movies and the classic family sitcom, "Family Ties," writes about her lack of mothering, three troubled marriages, parenting, drug use and alcoholism, bout with breast cancer, and eventually, her coming out as a lesbian.

"Family Ties" last three years were when I lived in Japan. I remember my parents or friends taping a bunch of the American TV shows I liked and sending me videotapes--they were priceless. "Family Ties" was one of the shows I relished on those videotapes.

I've always enjoyed Baxter's acting, and I was surprised along with many others when she quietly announced that she was in relationship with a woman...although I suppose the fact that her three marriages were unsuccesful could have been a clue.

Baxter never went to college so when she was with her second husband, David Baxter, who constantly verbally and emotionally abused her (and sometimes physically assaulted her, too), she always felt "less than." It took a lot of courage for her to finally declare that she'd had enough. I think that verbal and emotional abuse is even harder for women to walk away from sometimes than physical abuse. In her case, she had five children to consider as well.

Those expecting a full book of stories about "Family Ties" will be disappointed, as she covers that period in just a chapter or so. She fondly mentions Michael Gross (who played the dad), who became one of her closest friends and one of the first people she told about the abuse. I first heard about this book when I happened on an Oprah clip with Baxter, and Michael Gross appeared as a surprise guest. It was clear that they have great love and affection for one another.

She doesn't go into great detail about most of her costars (in fact she doesn't even mention Justine Bateman, causing me to wonder), so readers who are expecting a celebrity gossip rag will be disappointed.

It's not high literature, but it was an interesting read, with ultimately, a happy ending.

The Gilded Chamber: another female biblical story, reimagined

The Gilded Chamber: A Novel about Queen Esther, by Rebecca Kohn

3 out of 5 stars

I wouldn't have picked this up so soon after rereading The Red Tent, but my 8-year-old son was in a play about Queen Esther this week and I had a business trip, so Queen Esther it was.

Kohn's writing was not nearly as strong as Anita Diamant's, but I did have some similar issues about perspective. The novel was told in the first person, but Esther seemed to be omnipresent. It was interesting and disturbing to read about harem life and the subjugated roles that women led in this era.

One thing I had a hard time swallowing was Esther's undying devotion to Mordechai, and after she realized that King Xerxes was a weak tyrant, she still had the hots for him. Being a woman who has never been attracted to bad boys, I found this to be implausible.

The women (in particular, Esther) were much more vividly described than the men, many of whom were one dimensional. This might reflect the severe division between men and women, and the lack of personal connection they had. (Everyone in the kingdom was forbidden to approach the king without being called, including his wife.)

Some of the descriptions of Esther's clothing got to be a bit tiresome, and the writing seemed melodramatic at times. However, I found it to be another interesting story about another woman in the bible (and a Jewish hero).

Rereading The Red Tent

The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars


I reread The Red Tent this month for my Bras, Bibles, and Brew group, and I enjoyed it again the second time. (I first read it after it was published in the 1990s.)

What is most notable about this novel is that it was the first book to use the Jewish tradition of midrash to speculate on what might have happened in the family of Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. So little is written about women in the bible, so Diamant imagined what might have really happened in that family and to Jacob's only daughter, Dinah (who does not get any spoken lines in the bible).

Many people get quite agitated about historical fiction that attempts to retell events that actually or supposedly happened. I remember people getting similarly worked up about the Da Vinci Code. People are worried that others do not understand that these books are fiction. Honestly, if people do not understand enough to realize that these are fictional accounts, we probably have more cause for concern.

In fact, in last month's meeting of Bras, Bibles, and Brew, one of the women (who loves children's literature) says that she only reads fantasy--she's not interested in "real stuff." However, then she also said she didn't like The Red Tent, because it didn't really happen the way Diamant dramatizes, and she's concerned that people will believe The Red Tent in lieu of the bible. Like the bible is a factual book? This makes no sense to me.

Diamant brings the bible to life for me in a way that the real thing just can't get anywhere near to. I can smell the animals grazing near the tents...and imagine the way women were treated as second-class citizens, not even worthy of introductions. I enjoyed rereading the stories of women's friendship and how they supported each other during menstruation, childbirth, and other life milestones. I felt heartbroken for Dinah when she had no female friends her own age as a child, and then her grandmother Rachel banishes her only friend (her cousin) because the proper rites had not been followed. I winced when I read that babies born with harelips (or cleft lips, which is what I had as a baby) were put to death.

The only criticism I have of this book--and it's a minor one I did not notice during the first reading--is the weird change of perspective at times. It's told in first person; however, a few times the narrator is omniscient and can describe events that are occurring without her knowledge.

I gave it five stars because of its first-of-its-kind (many other biblical retellings have followed) nature, and because of the way it went into deeper detail about the women in the bible. As someone who does not read the bible literally and is completely aware that so much is not written in the bible (take for example that the bible names only 188 women [many of whom do not get any dialogue], compared to thousands of men)...this book was a welcome read.

The Male Factor: The Unwritten Rules, Misperceptions, and Secret Beliefs of Men in the Workplace

The Male Factor: The Unwritten Rules, Misperceptions, and Secret Beliefs of Men in the Workplace, by Shaunti Feldhahn
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Shaunti Feldhahn, who has a financial analyst background and holds a master's in public policy from Harvard, has become an expert on men's and women's unique perspectives. After writing several books about the inner lives of men and women, and a novel, she turned her focus to statistically analyzing men's perspectives in the workplace.

After finishing this book, I did some research on Goodreads and discovered that this book also has a "Christian" edition. Even though I'm actually a Christian, that would totally turn me off, so I'm glad I didn't check out that version. (Yes, I'm a weird Christian.) :)

Feldman and her large team of researchers interviewed 3,000 men in the workplace over 7 years and carefully analyzed the data. This book is the summary of what they discovered. In short:

It's not personal; it's business. Women tend to have a harder time separating these two worlds, and in general, men see a clear and distinct line. Feldhahn discusses the fact that men's brains are wired to compartmentalize, whereas women's brains have much more free flow. Therefore, it's much easier for men to separate themselves and their personal feelings from their jobs. They are less likely to take things personally, and they are less likely to discuss their personal lives in the workplace. They also work hard to protect themselves from emotional pain.

If men see women operating by personal world rules at work, they can be perceived as lacking self-confidence and self-esteem, being defensive and insecure, not being a team player, and not being mature, sophisticated, or business savvy.

I would have to agree that although certain men can be complete assholes in the work world, in general women are more likely to have personality conflicts. They are also more likely to overreact to things. This is probably because of the different brain wiring and what I've observed in my own sons: males tend to be better at moving on and not letting resentments linger. They are less likely to hold grudges.

Men are concerned that if they let down their guard, the world will stop spinning. According to Feldhahn, men have a secret belief that if they do not perform their best at work, or if they let down their guard, they will lose their jobs and be unable to provide for their families. This fear drives many of the decisions they make in the workplace. As a result, they can be intolerant of colleagues (often women, who are not as driven by this fear) who appear to be distracting them from the task at hand. This focus on results can be a highly positive thing, but it can also be negative because sometimes men do not realize the importance of relationship building in business. To gain respect from male colleagues, it's important for women to demonstrate that they are fully committed to the job and "in the game."

Feldhahn elaborates on the little things that drive men crazy about women in the workplace: the need to get to the point, not overreact, and let it go. Furthermore, men value colleagues who "suck it up" and get the job done, no matter what, without complaining. The downside of the typical man's approach is that he might not take the necessary time to delve into the details, which can bite him in the end.

She also addresses men's inner insecurity and how it can affect women. Men do not like to be challenged openly...especially by women. Part of this is due to sexism, but part of it is also due to a lack of self-confidence and the fact that men are trained to come across as more confident than they really feel inside. She found that most men like to be challenged, but they fear being seen as inadequate. "One of men's most intense emotional needs is to feel adequate and to know they are respected and trusted by others." Feldhahn addresses situations in which men are likely to perceive disrespect, including a direct, brusque approach, asking "why" questions, pushing too much, and conveying exasperation.

Feldhahn also tackles the taboo of addressing the way women dress in the workplace. According to her research, men feel extremely uncomfortable discussing this issue, but most of them agree that dressing provocatively (tight or short skirts, or showing cleavage) is one of the major ways that women shoot themselves in the foot in the workplace. The interesting thing she discovered is that men tend to think that the woman wants them to look at her body rather than pay attention to what she is saying or doing...while in fact, most women do not mean to send this message at all. Their motivation is dressing stylishly or feeling good about themselves. Feldhahn has discovered in her research how visual men are, and that they often focus on a woman's attire to the detriment of her message. This is backed up by brain research. According to ABC's John Stossel (who did a program on this information), "The same part of the brain (the nucleus accumbens) lights up when a young man sees a picture of a beautiful woman as when a hungry person sees food, or a gambler eyes cash, or a drug addict sees a fix."

Feldhahn conducted studies in which she showed groups of men the same video, except for the fact that the woman in the video was dressed differently. When they viewed the video of the woman showing cleavage, they retained far less of the information she was presenting than the group of men who saw the same presentation--but the woman was not showing cleavage. The men she interviewed were uncomfortable in admitting this or sharing it, but most agreed: women are taken less seriously in the workplace when they wear tight or short skirts or show cleavage. (You can view clips of this video in the video segment at the bottom of the post.)

The unfortunate finding is that men often think women are trying to distract them sexually, when in fact this is not usually the case. As one executive shared, "Women have the ability to be completely beautiful and completely appropriate...but there is a line that you cross where it becomes distracting, and another line where it could become sexual..." Consequently, men view women who dress this way with less respect, because they are not taken seriously. It also puts men who want to respect women professionally in an awkward position. In her book, she says that she has created a short presentation that can help explain these findings...and it can be downloaded on her website, TheMaleFactorBook.com; however, the website says this tool is "coming soon." This is highly disappointing, as the book was published in 2009 and it's now 2011.

In summary, the men she interviewed expressed their desire to help women in the workplace and suggested that women project confidence and competence to gain respect. I learned a lot from this book and it will help me approach my male colleagues with more understanding. Oh and no more cleavage and miniskirts!! Haha.

If you are interested in learning more, I suggest you watch this video of Feldhahn on the Today Show, with Donny Deutsch:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Attack of the Theater People: Marc Acito's second novel

Attack of the Theater People, by Marc Acito
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I read the first in this series (How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater) in 2009 while we were at our beloved Sylvia Beach Hotel. In that book, Acito tells the story of Edward Zanni, who is so desperate to go to Juilliard that he and his friends--mostly theater people--resort to embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, forgery, and blackmail to help him achieve his goals. It's over the top madcap farce with a theatrical twist.

Attack of the Theater People picks up the plot two years later, when Zanni has been kicked out of Juilliard for being too "jazz hands." He ends up becoming a party motivator for bar and bat mitvahs and business events, and soon he's participating in insider trading deals. It's not that Edward does not have any ethics...it's just that he can't keep himself from getting sucked into unethical and illegal arrangements.

I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the first...at times it was just a bit too over the top for me. But what I found especially fascinating about this book is that since I read the first one, I learned that I know one of the inspirations for one of Edward's extremely loyal, creative friends. (Much of Acito's storytelling is based on his life experiences, obviously spun way beyond what really happened.) This put a whole new spin on the book for me.

Here's Acito--who until this spring lived in Portland but has since moved back to New York--talking about the novel:



You can read more about Acito on his web site or blog.

Bossypants: Tina Fey kicks bossy butt!

Bossypants, by Tina Fey
My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I didn't notice until I actually started reading this book that Tina Fey has man hands and man arms on the front cover of this book. Ugh!! Shows how (un)observant I am.

Bossypants is part memoir, part show biz story, and nearly all funny. She wanders throughout her life, haphazardly, telling the reader stories and sharing observations.

She starts out by sharing her growing-up stories and photos--I always find it amazing to look at school photos of glamorous celebrities. I mean, who knew? They so clearly did NOT look glamorous in their school photos! Fey had a very normal childhool, raised by two Republican but also tolerant parents. They welcomed all of Fey's gay and lesbian friends through her high school years, especially during the summers when she was involved with a local theater group.

After college, Fey goes off to Chicago to make her millions and begins by working at the YMCA with a coworker, Donna, who loved to complain. However, "do not try to get ahead of Donna and initiate the complaining, no matter how sure she'll agree. Because Donna will leave you hanging every time.

ME: Can you believe they're cutting our lunch down to half an hour, lowering our pay by 10 percent, taking away our insurance, and making us eat dirt?!

DONNA: I don't go to doctors. I like dirt anyway, so...fine by me." 

I know people like this, and they drive me CRAZY!!

Fey begins working at Second City Comedy Club and learns the rules of improv, which she shares with the reader. The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. "Always agree and SAY YES. When you're improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we're improvising and I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun,' and you say, 'That's not a gun. It's your finger...,' our improvised scene has ground to a halt...but if you say, 'The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!,' then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun." Fey then shares that "as an improviser, I always find it jarring when I meet someone in real life whose first answer is 'no.'...What kind of way is that to live?"

Fey shares interesting observations about working with men in comedy, some positive and some negative. When she first started working at SNL, the writers actively discouraged having too many women in sketches and heaven forbid, not just two women alone. (They claimed that people wouldn't want to watch two women in a sketch.) Fey broke a lot of glass ceilings when she became one of SNL's head writers. And then when the sketch of Fey and Amy Poehler and Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton shot the ratings through the roof, Fey was vindicated.

I could have done without the image of men peeing in cups and leaving said cups on the bookshelves in their office. WTF? Are they too lazy to go to the restroom? Why on earth would you want to have pee-filled cups all over your office? Clearly, these men are not married. Or gay.

When Fey moved onto 30 Rock, she had a lot more power about the way things would go (hence the name, Bossypants). People often ask her if it's hard being the boss (as executive producer of 30 Rock). She ponders whether anyone ever asks Donald Trump the same question. She's proud of her "little show," in which all of the people look normal (unlike Friends or Desperate Housewives, among others). "I've never understood why every character being 'hot' was necessary for enjoying a TV show. It's the same reason I don't get Hooters. Why do we need to enjoy chicken wings and boobies at the same time? Yes, they are a natural and beautiful part of the human experience. And so are boobies. But why at the same time?"

During one very insane weekend of her life, she (1) scheduled and shot a critical Oprah appearance on 30 Rock, (2) learned Friday she would be appearing as Sarah Palin on SNL the next day--with almost no time to prepare, and (3) planned and hosted her daughter's birthday party on Sunday. She discusses her ambivalence about the Sarah Palin period...and how her Republican parents' initial excitement eventually turned to dread...and how she feels about women in politics and leadership. When Palin herself appeared on SNL one night, Fey insisted that she be protected from what she was sure would be a studio filled with loud boos. (Palin's first appearance was backstage, so the audience weren't sure if she was there in the studio or not.)

"In my opinion, the most meaningful moment for women in the 2008 campaign was not Governor Palin's convention speech or Hillary Clinton conceding her 1,896 delegates. The moment most emblematic of how things have changed for women in America was nine-months-pregnant Amy Poehler rapping as Sarah Palin and tearing the roof off the place."

This completely resonates with me and is akin to how I recall with fondness seeing our pregnant pastor in the pulpit, preaching to a community of Lutherans and Roman Catholics (who certainly had never had a pregnant pastor before). There's just no way you can not realize that you're listening to a WOMAN when she is pregnant.

In short, this was a highly enjoyable light read and makes me want to go watch all those Tina Fey/Amy Poehler SNL sketches all over again!

House Rules: Boy with Asperger's syndrome on trial for murder

House Rules, by Jodi Picoult
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I finished my June book group selection on the first day of June (not bad, eh?). I really enjoyed this Jodi Picoult novel about Jacob, an 18-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome, who somehow finds himself on trial for murder.

Jacob, an amazingly bright young man, is obsessed with criminal science. For fun, he sets up crime scenes in his house for his mom to solve. His younger brother, Theo, is less amused. While Jacob knocks it out of the ballpark by memorizing lines from movies, the "CrimeBusters" TV show he loves, or scientific/mathematical facts, he lacks the ability to read between the lines, understand subtlety, and engage with others on an emotional level.

Typical of Picoult's novels, House Rules contains a court trial, a variety of characters' perspectives, and a few (small) twists at the end. As I mentioned to my husband, I am astounded at Picoult's amazing prolific catalog of novels, not to mention her exceptional research and preparation for her books. And they are well written, too! Here's an example of what I like about her writing--although somewhat dispassionate (being from Jacob's perspective), doesn't this describe the feeling one has after someone dies?:

"I would like to be able to tell her that, yes, now I get it. When someone dies, it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerves are still a little raw."

Here are a few bits that feel a little "off" to me:

• The mom, Emma's, character didn't always ring true for me. At times she comes across as an overprotective mom, and at other times she seems a little batty (the whole thing about the vaccine link to autism seemed like a sensational add-in that didn't quite fit). She only allows her sons to go on Web sites she prescreens, but she allows Jacob to stay out of the house at all hours without keeping track of where he is? She also seems completely insensitive to the difficult life Theo has to lead. And the other thing that baffled me was why, since she knew her son better than anyone else, why didn't she (or anyone else) just ask Jacob straight up if he did it.
   
• The sudden return of Henry (the boy's father) also seemed a bit out of place. Was he just brought in to cause a bit of jealousy? For someone who had abandoned the family years ago and never really knew his sons--and also had a bit of Asperger's himself--why would he just show up to ostensibly help?
• Prosecuting attorney Helen Sharp is just a bit too one-dimensionally evil and insensitive, and then there's the detective, Rich, who veers from making fun of Jacob's need for sensory breaks to being the one to help him when he panics...kind of like a bully who feels guilty about his actions.
• I had to laugh at the stereotype of a young, inexperienced lawyer who essentially agrees to work for free. (Oliver shows his extreme naivete when he tells Emma to "relax" when Jacob is thrown in jail.)

On the other hand, I liked so much about this book as well, such as the way Picoult portrays the deep complications of parenting, especially special needs parenting:

"Real mothers wonder why (parenting) experts seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood.

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say 'Great. Maybe you can do a better job.'

Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.

Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

If parenting is the box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely imbalanced. For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something umprompted to to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error, and self-doubt.

Real mothers may not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they'd chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal.

Real mothers worry that other mothers will find that magic ring, whereas they'll be looking and looking for ages.

Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one."

Picoult detailed her in-depth research and sources for this book, including many kids with Asperger's and their parents. She describes the difficulty these kids have in making friends, and I note some crossovers to ADD/ADHD as well here:

"If you asked Jacob for a list of friends, he'd probably be able to give you that list. But if you asked those same kids for their lists, Jacob wouldn't be on them. His Asperger's leads him to mistake proximity for emotional connection."

At one point, Emma ponders that Jacob will never be able to understand love. I think she's just defining love in a "neurotypical" way here. But I believe the ending demonstrates that Jacob does indeed feel love and emotional connections. He just expresses them differently. I haven't loved all of Jodi Picoult's books, but I did enjoy this one.