Tag Archives: nonfiction

Book Reviews , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

by

I wanted to hate this book.

When I first saw it, while mildly intrigued, my first snarky thought was “Yay. Another woman goes on some completely unrealistic vision quest and writes a book and gets Oprah to dote on her, and really I’m just jealous I can’t take a 15-minute walk without one of my kids needing my attention and isn’t she just special?!?!?!”

But, yeah. It kind of kicked ass.

It didn’t take but a few pages to realize I shouldn’t be jealous of, or envy Cheryl Strayed. Instead, I found a certain kind of empathy for her.  At the time she took her monumental hike, she was in her mid-20s, a few years out from the all-too-soon death of her mom, and weeks out of a marriage she acknowledges she destroyed. Emotionally adrift at the loss of her mom and without any kind of solid relationship with her bio-Dad and her sibs, Strayed turned to drugs and random sex with strangers for comfort. Though not necessarily characterized this way, the hike appears to be Strayed’s last-ditch effort to straighten out her life. To come to terms with her choices. To grieve the loss of her mom. To prove herself.

This was no easy challenge—in the world of expert hiking, relatively few have actually accomplished the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s not for beginners. Yet, Strayed was one. Undaunted, losing toenails, in constant pain, and really, unprepared, she soldiers on alone, connects with others and finds herself.

People are going to come at this from all different perspectives, and everyone will get something out of it. For me, I found myself more drawn to the physical challenge of the hike and her tenacity. For others, it may be more about her emotional journey. As someone who has experienced the loss of immediate family, and unexpectedly at that, I could relate to that feeling of being lost, and how she moved through her grief.

And the book I promised I would hate left me teary-eyed at the end, amazed at Strayed’s accomplishment, and grateful I read it.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Cheryl Strayed

Book Reviews , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity

by

History geeks, grab this book.

I took this book with me on a vacation to Washington, D.C.—the perfect setting to dive into presidential history. Beginning with the unlikely friendship between Presidents Hoover and Truman and culminating with President Clinton’s visit to the White House briefing room to support President Obama’s tax/budget package, readers will learn much more about the political machinery that is the White House than you’ll ever discover from CNN, MSNBC or Fox. Believe it or not, Republicans and Democrats can get along.

I’m a little bit of a political junkie, but not so much that I would ever call myself an expert—I often find the written topic too dry to follow for more than a few paragraphs and end up frustrated that I can’t speak from a more educated position on all things historical. This book was particularly refreshing in that, because it’s told from the perspectives of relationships between people, it was much more engaging. It was from this book that I learned the seeds of Vietnam were sown during the Eisenhower administration. That Johnson was so damn needy. That Nixon really was a master manipulator. That Ford was much more eloquent and humble in his service than bumbling. And that while he couldn’t save Nixon from himself, he could save Clinton.

It’s no surprise you have to be the mother of all egomaniacs to run for president, let alone hold the office. So you can imagine the personal difficulty in transitioning from being the most powerful person on the planet to a private citizen. The Presidents Club is like a permanent halfway house for a very, very select group of men that gladly offer themselves up for service at just about any turn. Their motives aren’t necessarily up for debate—I got the feeling that aside from Nixon, these are men who truly care for their country and the office and want nothing more than to make the world a better place—but for whatever reason, the Presidents Club is a great mechanism to seize their power and use it to move personal and professional agendas forward.

A great nonfiction read—I would go so far as to say if you have high schoolers embarking on a US History class, this provides great insider perspective. Don’t miss.

The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity
Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy

Book Reviews , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The American Way of Eating

by

I am a big fan of Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed.” And I loved “Food, Inc.” (Well, as much as you can love a movie that makes you want to barf when you realize just how much crap you’ve injested since the day you were born.) So McMillan’s undercover expose on the food industry seemed to be a literary match made in heaven.

Close.

I can’t quite put my finger on what I feel is missing from this book—it’s well-written in a mostly-story telling format. Readers are invited to become as close to the real-life characters as McMillan was during the time she spent with them, and her admiration for most of them and the work they each do is clear. And the story itself is compelling. I have a much, much stronger appreciation for where my food comes from and how hard it is (or, easy, as these mass distribution systems have made it) for my food to get from farm to the table. I also learned I’ll never look at an Applebee’s menu—or, as probably is the case, Chili’s, Houlihan’s, Champps and a dozen others—the same way ever again. I will now respect those establishments for what they do—meal assembly, not cooking.

I think what I was morbidly hoping for was a little bit more of the down and dirty—the Anthony Bourdain stories of exactly how nasty some of the food industry is. And maybe that’s not such a good thing. I do like to eat, and don’t want the epxerience of, well, food, lost on me.

But from a purely social sciences kind of view, the book itself is a wonderful history of how our food system developed into what we have today, which is fairly pathetic, and steps that some are taking to reverse trends and take us back to better, fresher days. If you enjoy the occasional piece of non-fiction and like to learn something new when you read, you’ll enjoy this.

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table
Tracie McMillan

Book Reviews , , , Leave a comment

Cool, Calm & Contentious

by

Before there was Tina Fey, there was Merrill Markoe.

I first came to know Markoe through her work as a writer on David Letterman’s late night show way back when … he was on NBC. And even though I was closer to my elementary school years then than I am to my high school prom now, I recognized funny and thought it was extremely cool that it was a girl doing it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say she was one of the first people that made me realize you could write and make a living.

Markoe’s latest collection of essays does not disappoint. Full of humor without being silly, she shines a flashlight on some of the insecurities (and wisdom) that come along with middle age—that our parents really do have an impact on the people we grow to become, that relationships are always a work in progress and that yes, assholes exist and are easy to spot once you learn the signs.

The biggest laughs for me came from her description of coming home drunk for the first time—not too far off from my own experience, having been to Greektown with my camp counselor buddies (“Mom! The cheese! The cheese! And then there was more cheese! And we said, “Oopa!” And then there was more cheese! OK, so … I’m going to bed now. See ya in the morning! Good night!”) … and from her description as a keynote speaker at a conference geared toward young women. Suffice it say, Merrill, had I been in the audience, I would have been way more interested in you than the gift basket raffle.

Read it now and join me in professional asshole spotting. It’s fun!

Cool, Calm & Contentious
Merrill Markoe

Book Reviews , , Leave a comment

A Secret Gift

by

Sometimes, you just need a little perspective.

There’s a photo floating around on Facebook right now—a tiny piece of social commentary titled, “Necessity.” It juxtaposes two scenes—one of starving children in Africa, most likely, up against several sour-looking women, their arms and carts overflowing with ridiculously unnecessary purchases at a big box store. It cuts right to the core, and reminded me of this book I read last year, which is equally profound.

Author Ted Gup wrote a book several years back that I found fascinating—Book of Honor, which detailed the stories behind the stars on the wall at CIA headquarters. “A Secret Gift” came about when Gup discovered his grandfather was an anonymous benefactor during a Depression Christmas in Canton, Ohio. His grandfather took out an ad and told people if they sent him a request he deemed worthy, he would give them $5. Gup’s grandfather saved the letters, and the author painstakingly fleshes out the story behind them, in most cases tracing families to modern times.

It’s a dry read, for certain—not one you can pull out and read easily from while sitting around the fire with your little ones on your lap. But if you like sociology, it paints a heartfelt portrait of what the Depression was truly like—not something we hear about often, given that generation is fading away. And maybe this time of year, when we’re all stressed about creating the perfect family holiday, a little perspective couldn’t hurt.

A Secret Gift
Ted Gup