Review: Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire at the Gates of Tassajara by Colleen Morton Busch

Opening lines of the book:

“On June 21, 2008, lightning strikes from one end of drought-dry California to the other ignited more than two thousand wildfires in what become known as the ‘lightening siege.’”

Why I read it:

I’ve long been interested in Zen Buddhism and I was curious to read this story about Zen in action.

What it’s about:

In June 2008, after lightening started over two thousand wildfires across the state of California, Tassajara, the oldest Buddhist monastery in the United States, found itself right in the fire’s path—at the end of a single unpaved road deep in the wilderness. Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire at the Gates of Tassajara by Colleen Morton Busch is the story of the five monks who stayed to save the monastery after everyone else was evacuated (including the firefighters).

What worked:

Fire Monks is an extraordinary, multifaceted story and Busch does a good job of weaving together all the strands of her narrative: the story of the fire itself, the personal stories of the players involved, some of the history of Zen Buddhism in the U.S. and of Tassajara in particular, and the politics of firefighting in California at the time. While on one level the book reads like an adventure story, its main appeal (to me at least) is as a study of Zen Buddhism in action. Though most of us are unlikely to be in a position to meet fire as these monks did, as Busch points out, “fire [is] the perfect metaphor for anything that comes uninvited and threatens to hurt us or the people and places we love” (p. 2). I found the story both moving and enlightening.

What didn’t work:

The large cast of characters was confusing at times, but a list of the main ones is included at the beginning of the book, which helped enormously. The one thing that I didn’t always follow was the politics between the different levels of firefighters involved. Although it was necessary to include some of this in the book to provide context for why certain decisions were made—this was the third wildfire that Tassajara faced, but the only one where the monks were left to their own devices—I was also least interested in this aspect of the story.
 
Favourite quote:

“The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that you cannot step in the same river twice. A Zen master might add cheerfully: You cannot step in the same river because there is no river, there is no actual you. The river and you and your steeping are in a dynamic and interrelated state of constant change. Maybe it is the river that steps into you. Maybe there is only stepping, no one to step or thing to step into.

“In Zen, you can’t really make a ‘wrong’ decision. But you can’t make a ‘right’ decision, either. You can only respond moment to moment in a way that feels the least harmful and deluded, the most compassionate and true.

. . .

“As a ring of flame looped around Tassajara, David felt a palpable beat of hesitation, a flickering thought that maybe they’d gotten themselves in over their heads. But then, as individuals, and as a small sangha within the sangha, they acted. They made an effort. They moved toward a river of fire.

“They didn’t so much make a decision as manifest, collectively and without words, a mind already decided. They just got to work, doing something extraordinary with the mind they cultivated in their daily practices and activities. On another day, it might have been a bell that needed ringing, a soup that required stirring, a broom that needed picking up. At one o’clock on [that] afternoon, it happened to be a fire hose.” (pp. 180-181)

Final thoughts:

If you have any interest at all in Zen Buddhism (or wildfires), this book is essential reading. I have a feeling it will be one I will want to read again.

Thank you to Penguin USA for sending me this book to review.
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Fire Monks is on blog tour with TLC Book Tours in July. Visit these other blogs for reviews:

Man of La Book • Broken Teepee • English Major’s Junk Food • The Road to Here • The Lost Entwife • Debbie’s Book Bag • the little reader • Book Journey

Recommended review: Book Club Classics (also part of the TLC Book Tour)

Other reviews: Brevity • Firefighter Blog • Illusory Flowers in an Empty Sky • Monkey Mind

Interview with the author: SF Weekly Blog

One Zen Buddhist priest’s take on why he hasn’t read the book: No Zen in the West
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Review: Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude by Emily White

Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude by Emily White chronicles White’s own battle with loneliness in her mid-thirties and provides an extensive overview of current research on loneliness, including interviews White conducted with lonely people who contacted her through her blog. Lonely is a portrait of loneliness written by someone who has experienced chronic loneliness, but it’s not a straight memoir, nor is it about “learning to live with solitude.”*

I initially found myself having a strong negative reaction to White’s personal story. In chapter 1 (called “Premonition”), White recounts how she reread the diaries she wrote at 19 in which she predicted “a life lived at a distance from everyone else” for herself (p. 17). She offers this as evidence of some sort of uncanny ability on the part of her younger self to see into the future, “as though . . . a sort of chronological porthole opened up, and I was able to catch glimpses of what my future would hold” (pp. 17-18). Her conclusion irritated me: surely it was obvious that this was a self-fulfilling prophecy! Her dismissal of yoga classes and meditation retreats as “time alone . . . commodified into something that can be bought” (p. 55) also raised my hackles. I confess I found myself feeling judgemental and impatient—and this despite the fact that I have some experience with chronic loneliness myself.

However, when White starts to investigate loneliness in an attempt to come to grips with what’s happening to her, my feelings about this book shifted and I started to feel more compassion for her story. White makes a convincing case for the fact that under the “right” circumstances anyone can become lonely, that the stereotype we have of the lonely as needy and desperate and unattractive (or worse, dangerous) is in fact not founded on reality, that loneliness is something quite different from depression and that it deserves to be studied and treated in its own right.

Although White spends a chapter defining and discussing the terms associated with loneliness, her focus is very much on loneliness as a result of isolation (which is what she experienced) and not so much on loneliness that results from not feeling connected even when you are with people (which is more the type of loneliness I’ve experienced). In addition, although she is an introvert, she barely mentions the possibility that introverts and extroverts might have different experiences of loneliness. As an introvert, my relationship to solitude/loneliness feels complicated: on the one hand, like everyone else, I need to connect with people, but on the other hand, I also need time alone—and certain types of social interactions generally don’t work for me. I would venture to guess that, at least some of the time, I feel lonely when I’m with people because I’m in a not-introvert-friendly situation. But White doesn’t seem to make that distinction: for example, her story of going on a bike trip in the hope of becoming “gregarious, embedded, fearless” (p. 159) sounds like a nightmare to an introvert—it’s no wonder the trip was a disaster. White, however, attributes the failure of this strategy solely to her loneliness, and not to introversion. More than once, it seemed to me that her discussion of loneliness could have been informed and enriched by looking at it through the lens of introversion/extroversion.

So much of the research White examines was interesting and thought-provoking and sometimes scary—I wished I had someone to discuss it with right away, especially as I wasn’t always sure I agreed with White’s conclusions. Despite the issues I had with Lonely, it makes for fascinating reading and is certainly an important book: if you have any interest at all in loneliness, I recommend reading it.

Thank you to Harper Perennial for sending me this book to review.

*The book’s original title was Lonely: A Memoir—unfortunately, neither of the subtitles is very accurate.
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Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude was on blog tour with TLC Book Tours in January and February. Visit these other blogs for reviews:

The House of the Seven Tails • Sophisticated Dorkiness • Silver & Grace • BookNAround • Confessions of a Bookaholic • Lisa’s Yarns • In the Next Room • Sara’s Organized Chaos • A Certain Bent Appeal

Other reviews:

BookPage • Bust Magazine (spoiler alert!) • S. Krishna’s Books

Guest post: In the Next Room
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Review: The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change—and When to Let Go by Eileen Flanagan

You are probably familiar with the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” In The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change—and When to Let Go, Eileen Flanagan, a leader in her Quaker community, attempts to answer the question: How do we develop the wisdom to know the difference between the things we can change and the things we cannot? Using her own experiences and challenges as well as the stories of people she interviewed from a diversity of spiritual/religious backgrounds, Flanagan structures her answers around seven spiritual lessons: “The Courage to Question,” “Knowing Yourself,” “Seeking Divine Wisdom,” “Shifting Your Perspective,” “Practicing Loving Acceptance,” “Letting Go of Outcomes” and “Finding Wisdom in Community.” Each chapter includes an exercise as well as a series of questions to reflect on. The focus of this book is both personal and global: Flanagan examines how we can make changes (or accept what we cannot change) in the wider world as well as in our personal lives.

I was a bit worried that this book would be too Christian or too preachy for my tastes, but that was far from the case. In fact, Flanagan demonstrates that the spiritual lessons in this book can be applied by anyone, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or simply a believer in a higher power. There were only a few stories that made me slightly uncomfortable (specifically the ones of people who had heard the voice of God).

While reading The Wisdom to Know the Difference, I had an “aha” moment about the importance of accepting the way things are before you can figure out whether or not you can change them. In one particular area of my life, I had been yearning for the way things were instead of coming to terms with the way things are now, which has made it very difficult for me to see my options with any clarity (having things return to the way they were is obviously not an option). Already, letting go of what was has made a difference—and has shifted the way things are in a positive way. It was worth reading this book just for this insight.

Another point Flanagan makes that has gotten me thinking is that each of us has a purpose or calling. As Flanagan says, “While getting in sync with this loving design does not mean that you will be giddy with joy every minute of the day, finding your purpose often brings both serenity and courage, not to mention clarity about what you should try to change and what you should just let go of and accept”
(p. 85). I have known for a while that I’m not “in my lane” (to borrow a metaphor Flanagan uses), but reading this book has prompted me to reflect further on the fact that I don’t know what or where my lane is—among other things, I’m hoping the Discernment Exercise Flanagan proposes in chapter 3 will help with this.

Finally, there was one passage in the book that particularly stood out for me:

“Disciplined spiritual practice can be one of the benefits of being part of an organized religion or a community like AA. For those who have rebelled against the rigidity or sexism of a traditional religion, it can be tempting to adopt the comforting or fashionable aspects of various traditions, while avoiding the hard parts. You may wear Buddhist beads, attend a Native American sweat lodge, visit a friend for Passover, or go to church on Christmas, but never participate in a community that challenges your False Self. In fact most religious traditions have practices that are difficult, like tithing or fasting, which are meant to strip away your selfish parts and develop qualities like gratitude and compassion. By practicing one tradition deeply you can benefit from such challenges, which can also help to transform your attitude.” (p. 145)

Because I grew up in a secular household—we didn’t even go to church on Christmas or Easter—I haven’t exactly rebelled against a specific set of beliefs. However, I have certainly been a dabbler, trying out elements of Eastern spirituality (yoga, Zen Buddhism, mettā) and flirting with Unitarian Universalism and neopaganism at various points in my life. When I was younger, I shied away from joining any type of spiritual or religious community for fear of censure and constraint; recently the benefits of both regular practice and community have become more obvious to me—and Flanagan’s words are a further nudge in that direction.

The Wisdom to Know the Difference is an insightful and thought-provoking book that deserves to be read slowly and reflected upon in depth—something I didn’t have time to do as much as I wanted to before writing this review. I highly recommend this book—it’s definitely one I will be rereading.

Thank you to Eileen Flanagan for sending me this book to review.
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The Wisdom to Know the Difference is on blog tour with TLC Book Tours in December and January. Visit these other blogs for reviews, interviews and giveaways:

Patricia’s Wisdom • Constantly Evolving • arriving at your own door • Awake Is Good (interview) • Serenity & Style • Always Well Within • emilyism.com • Evolving Beings • Liz Lamoreux • Evenstar Art • Enchanted Oak • I’m just F.I.N.E. • change therapy • Knowing the Difference

Other reviews:

Book Fetish • Guinevere Gets Sober • New Consciousness Review • The Power of Slow • Spirituality Practice

Guest posts or articles:

“Living the Serenity Prayer” @ beliefnet • Guinevere Gets Sober • “How Religion Changes Lives” @ The Huffington Post • Without Wax

Interviews with the author:

The Creative Competitor • Embody Your Vision • Lynn Dove’s Journey Thoughts • Beyond Blue • Read the Spirit • Selling Books • She Writes • The Social Work Podcast (with transcript)
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Review and Giveaway: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

I almost didn’t request a review copy of The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are—Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life by Brené Brown because I really dislike the cover; however, the book’s subtitle called to me. Then I read the back blurb, which includes this passage:

“Brown explores how we can cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough, and to go to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am worthy of love and belonging.”

And I knew I had to read the book. I cannot tell you how often I stress about the things I’ve left undone, not to mention feeling paralyzed by my own perfectionism. Brown is a researcher who has dedicated much of her career to studying shame, empathy, fear and vulnerability; in listening to people’s stories, she started to identify what she called wholehearted research participants, i.e. people who were leading amazing lives by “living and loving with their whole hearts.” This prompted her to ask “What did these folks value? How did they create all of this resilience in their lives? What were their main concerns and how did they resolve or address them? Can anyone create a Wholehearted life? What does it take to cultivate what we need? What gets in the way?” To answer these questions, Brown came up with 10 guideposts to wholehearted living: cultivating authenticity (letting go of what people think); cultivating self-compassion (letting go of perfectionism); cultivating a resilient spirit (letting go of numbing and powerlessness); cultivating gratitude and joy (letting go of scarcity and “fear of the dark”); cultivating intuition and trusting faith (letting go of the need for certainty); cultivating creativity (letting go of comparison); cultivating play and rest (letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth); cultivating calm and stillness (letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle); cultivating meaningful work (letting go of self-doubt and “supposed to”); and cultivating laughter, song, and dance (letting go of being cool and “always in control”).

Here are some of the things that stuck with me:

1. Brown talks about writing a blog post on the “‘dig deep’ button,” which she defines as “a secret level of pushing through when we’re exhausted and overwhelmed and when there’s too much to do and too little time for self-care” (p. 3). She turns this concept on its head, explaining that when wholehearted people get exhausted, they get:

• Deliberate in their thoughts and behaviors through prayer, meditation, or simply setting their intentions
• Inspired to make new and different choices
• Going: They take action

Ironically, while I was writing this review, I realized that I was relying on my own “dig deep” button, soldiering on and pushing through even though it was past two in the morning. (I think I already need to reread this book!)

2. Brown talks about how “one of the greatest (and least discussed) barriers to compassion practice is the fear of setting boundaries and holding people accountable” (p. 16). As she points out, “When we fail to set boundaries . . . we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who [a person is], which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice” (p. 19). This makes sense to me and yet I find it very hard to practise. (Why is it so scary to set limits?)

3. According to Brown, “the . . . one thing [that separates] the men and women who [feel] a deep sense of love and belonging from the people who seem to be struggling for it . . . is the belief in their worthiness” (p. 23). This finding is a bit depressing because for those of us who struggle with feeling worthy it’s such a catch-22: I feel like I don’t belong because I feel unworthy of belonging; I feel unworthy of belonging because I feel like I don’t belong. Although there are no easy answers, Brown does offer some hope: it is possible to cultivate a sense of worthiness by sharing our stories and letting go of our attachment to what other people think.

4. Brown describes herself as a “take-the-edge-off-aholic,” a concept that resonated for me. She says she can definitely say “today I’d like to deal with vulnerability and uncertainty with an apple fritter, a beer and cigarette, and spending seven hours on Facebook” (p. 72). My own numbing tools of choice (some of which veer towards addiction) are food, the Internet, television, sleep, lack of sleep, book buying, reading and busyness. And the funny thing is that in the middle of writing this review, when I was feeling stuck and vulnerable and my negative self-talk was starting up with the How could you leave this to the last minute again?, I procrastinated by watching Brown’s TEDxHouston talk, and it was only when she said “We numb vulnerability” that I realized that I was avoiding my own feelings of vulnerability by watching this video! (Listening to this talk is a great introduction to the concepts she discusses in this book and will give you a very good idea of whether this book is for you.)

5. Brown’s research shows that, “Without exception, spirituality—the belief in connection, a power greater than self, and interconnections grounded in love and compassion—emerged as a component of resilience” (p. 64). She also found that, “Without exception, every person [she] interviewed who described living a joyful life . . . actively practiced gratitude and attributed their joyfulness to their gratitude practice” (p. 77-78). I’m still at the point where I have what she calls “an attitude to gratitude”: it’s something I think about, but not something I practise (at least not yet).

My only complaint about this book is that I wish it was longer (it’s only 130 pages excluding the endnotes): I wanted more stories and more details about who the wholehearted were. I also found that her final chapter about the research process was a bit short on details: it didn’t satisfy the sociologist* in me. Having said that, if any of the concepts she discusses resonate with you in any way, I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to Hazelden Publishing for sending me this book to review.

*I have a BA in sociology.
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The Gifts of Imperfection was on blog tour with TLC Book Tours in September and October. Visit these other blogs for reviews:

Silver and Grace • Simply Stacie • evolution you • Patricia’s Wisdom • Living Outside the Stacks • this full house • overstuffed • From Marriage to Motherhood • Rundpinne • Cynthia Lou

Read an excerpt from the book: Sober 24
To practise some of the things Brown writes about, participate in her Perfect Protest (watch the Protest Dance on the Being Joy blog for inspiration) and/or confess something imperfect about yourself on Karen Walrond’s Chookooloonks blog.

Visit Brené Brown’s blog: Ordinary Courage
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Would you like to win a copy of The Gifts of Imperfection? Hazelden Publishing has offered to send a copy to one of my readers. The giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only (no P.O. boxes). I will accept entries until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, November 18, 2010.

For one entry, please let me know why you are interested in reading this book.

If you are a follower or subscriber, let me know and I will give you another entry.

Make sure you provide me with a way of getting in touch with you. Entries without a blog link or email address will be disqualified.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED._______________________________________________

Review: Getting a Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want by Frances Moore Lappé

Up until recently, I had never read any of Frances Moore Lappé’s books, but she had nevertheless had a profound impact on my life: the connection she made between factory farming and world hunger in Diet for a Small Planet was influential in my decision to become a vegetarian nearly 20 years ago. So I was very excited when a publicist at The Small Planet Institute contacted me about reviewing Lappé’s latest book: Getting a Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want.

Getting a Grip 2 opens with a very good question: “Why are we as societies creating a world that we as individuals abhor?” (p. 3). Lappé answers this question by examining the assumptions we make about human nature—assumptions that we use to explain the state of our world. Her basic argument is that the real crisis we are facing today is not hunger or environmental degradation, but rather “our own feelings of powerlessness to manifest the solutions already in front of our noses” (p. 32). These feelings come from a false assumption: that there aren’t enough goods to meet our needs or “goodness” inside us to create something better. Lappé argues that in fact the opposite is true: there are plenty of goods and goodness. Unfortunately, however, we act on our ideas of scarcity and create the very thing we believe in so strongly. (In other words, our belief in scarcity is a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

This idea of scarcity versus abundance is not new to me, although I’ve only ever thought of it at an individual rather than a societal level. I’m aware that my own belief in scarcity—that there isn’t enough to go around, be it food, love, time or good fortune—can make me ungenerous, fearful and untrusting, and that my behaviour as a result reinforces my belief, in a vicious cycle. At the same time, it’s true that I have assumed that in order for the world to change, I, as a person who lives in the West, would have to give things up. I have also held on, at some level, to the idea that our flawed democratic system is still better than the alternatives out there. But Lappé has made me rethink these assumptions by redefining democracy: what we have now is what she calls Thin Democracy—elected government plus a market economy (where profit is the highest good); what we need is Living Democracy, democracy as a way of life, which means “infusing the power of citizens’ voices and values into every part of our public lives” (p. 58). In case you think this is naive or utopian, Lappé presents compelling scientific evidence to back up her claim that humans are “good enough”; she also provides many powerful examples of Living Democracy at work.

One of my favourite chapters in this book is entitled “When Fear Means Go.” As a person who often feels fearful, I found this chapter particularly inspiring. Lappé says:

We can learn to reinterpret fear not as a verdict but as a signal. . . . Maybe [our body’s fear sensations] are not telling us that we’re off track but that we are precisely where we should be—at our growth edge. We can see fear as pure energy, a tool we can work with. (p. 166)

This idea resonated with me: I have been in that place of knowing I must speak because my heart was beating wildly—and the words are there, just waiting to spill out of my mouth. Unfortunately, more often when I’m afraid, I feel blank, without words, too terrified of rejection or ridicule to risk opening my mouth only to have incoherent thoughts pour out. Lappé’s “Seven Ways to Rethink Fear” reminded me that “every time we act, even with fear, we make room for others to do the same. Courage is contagious” (p. 176).
 
Getting a Grip 2 is an important book, a book that bridges the gap between individual and social change, between living joyfully and changing the world. What Lappé is calling for is a movement, a paradigm shift (although she doesn’t use that term). As she puts it:

No physical obstacle is stopping us. Nothing. The barrier is in our heads. We are creating this world gone mad, not because we’re compelled to by some deep flaws in our nature and not because Nature itself is stingy and unforgiving, but because of ideas we hold. (p. xv)

This book has made me look at the world differently—now the challenge is putting Lappé’s ideas into practice in my own life.

Visit the Getting a Grip website for more information about this book and the Living Democracy movement.

Come back later this week to read a guest post by Frances Moore Lappé and enter a giveaway for a signed copy of this book!

Thank you to The Small Planet Institute for sending me this book to review.
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Other reviews: Ethio Quest News • Green Book Reviews

Excerpt of the book: The Progressive Reader
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Review: The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow + Giveaway

When I was younger, I looked upon groups of women having a good time in a public place with a certain amount of envy: although I’ve had close female friends since high school, until fairly recently most of my friendships had been one on one and I often felt uncomfortable in groups. So I was very curious to read The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow, the extraordinary true story of a group of 11 women friends who met in childhood—mostly in preschool, kindergarten or first grade—and thus have basically been friends for their entire lives. Because these women are about my age, I was surprised that I didn’t identify with them more, but then I didn’t grow up in the Midwest, didn’t have a lot of friends in high school (nor was I popular) and don’t have children now. This didn’t stop me from enjoying this book, however. As Zaslow says in his introduction, he has set out to write “the biography of a friendship, meticulously reported,” and in this he has succeeded. Because there were so many “girls” (and I must admit I bristle a bit at this term), he necessarily focused on some of them more than others, but the stories they shared made me laugh and cry and cry some more. (I also developed a little bit of a crush on Marilyn’s dad, a pediatrician and “beloved figure in Ames.”) Stories of mean-girl behaviour, secrets and the loss of loved ones (including one of the girls) are interspersed with lighter stories of celebrity encounters, goofy behaviour and girl bonding in the next generation. Occasionally, the way Zaslow wrote about Kelly, the most outspoken (and nontraditional) member of the group, rubbed me the wrong way, but overall this was a fascinating look at a unique friendship.

Thank you to Penguin USA for sending me this book to review.
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The Girls from Ames is on blog tour with TLC Book Tours in April and May. Visit these other blogs for reviews and giveaways:

Simply Stacie • Silver and Grace • chaotic compendiums • Rundpinne • Luxury Reading • Book Nook Club • Suko’s Notebook • Feminist Review • Bookworm with a View • Cafe of Dreams • Janel’s Jumble • Anniegirl1138 • Peeking Between the Pages • Life in the Thumb • lit*chick

Other reviews:

Boarding in My Forties • Book, Line and Sinker • Mother Daughter Book Club • Nonfiction BookPage • Offenburger.com • Story Circle Book Reviews • Walking with Scissors Reviews
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Would you like to win a copy of The Girls from Ames? Penguin USA has offered to send a copy to one of my readers. The giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only (no P.O. boxes). I will accept entries until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Monday, May 17.

For one entry, please answer this question: How old is your longest friendship? Mine will be 28 years old in September: I met my best friend in grade 7 in September 1982. I also have several other female friendships that are 15+ years old.

If you are a follower or subscriber, please let me know and I will give you another entry.

Please be sure to provide me with a way of getting in touch with you. Entries without a blog link or email address will be disqualified.
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Brogan’s Review: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World by Wade Davis

These last couple of weeks have been mad work-wise, so I haven’t had a chance to finish any of the reviews I’m working on. Luckily my sister Brogan has come to the rescue. Here then is her third review to appear on my blog...

The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World by Wade Davis is one of those slim books with an obscure title that you might think I would have found on the bottom shelf of a dusty second-hand bookstore, but in fact it’s quite a popular book—it’s even on a short waiting list at the library where I requested it. Part of the CBC Massey Lectures series, this book tells the stories of a variety of cultures around the world, of peoples who over centuries have adapted to and thrived in harsh, difficult environments with the tools that they could fashion from their immediate surroundings and only such possessions as they could carry. From the people who could sail the open Pacific ten centuries before the common era without the benefit of compasses or the written word, to the desert peoples who know to dig for tubers when there is no surface water anywhere for six months at a time, this book describes a range of human experience and skills that is inspiring and rich. These stories are honed in the context of our world where cultures are disappearing faster than endangered species.

The particular brilliance of this book is its detail. It gives shape, colour and texture to worlds as different as we could imagine, and it reflects on the first contact of colonizers and their vast misinterpretations of the cultures they encountered, from the Amazon to the Andes to Australia.

An environmentalist since my teenage years, I had a more nihilistic approach in those years, when I could relate to the notion that maybe all this planet really needed was for humans to disappear in order for the situation to improve. However, Davis indicates that humans have not always been destroyers of their environment—in fact this is limited to a few runaway cultures, including ours—and that it is the precious, historical/pre-historical knowledge of indigenous peoples who know how to interact with and live within the world that will save us, if anything does.

I wouldn’t qualify this book as an easy read. It doesn’t shy away from the ugly truths of our times, and after finishing it I didn’t entirely feel the buoyancy and hope that Davis manages to express. However, he does light the spark of celebrating human diversity, and the fact that it is fast eroding is no less reason to cherish and honour it. In Davis’s words:

Together the myriad of cultures makes up an intellectual and spiritual web of life that envelops the planet and is every bit as important to the well being of the planet as is the biological web of life that we know as the biosphere. You might think of this social web of life as an “ethnosphere,” a term perhaps best defined as the sum total of all thoughts and intuitions, myths and beliefs, ideas and inspirations brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness. The ethnosphere is humanity’s greatest legacy. It is the product of our dreams, the embodiment of our hopes, the symbol of all we are and all that we, as a wildly inquisitive and astonishingly adaptive species, have created. (p. 2)

To read other reviews of this book, visit these blogs:
Books & Company • Lindy Reads and Reviews • recycled minds

or these sites:
Quill & Quire • The Globe and Mail • The Walrus

Review: i am neurotic (and so are you) by Lianna Kong

i am neurotic (and so are you) is not so much by Lianna Kong as it is edited by her: in 2008, she created the website i am neurotic and invited people to submit their neuroses. This book is thus a collection of anonymous confessions by self-described neurotic folk with photo illustrations by Matthew Stacy. Oddly enough, the book had the opposite effect from what I’d imagined: I felt decidedly un-neurotic after reading it.

On second thought, though, I can think of a few of my neuroses (past and present):

• I hate having anyone listen to me while I talk on the phone, including my partner, Mr. B. This means I will go into another room and close the door when ordering takeout for both of us.
• I hate straight apostrophes and quotes, and I go out of my way to replace them with curved ones. (I copy and paste the curved ones into all my blog posts.)
• I’m paranoid about getting lost even when I’m going somewhere I’ve been several times before. This is especially true if the journey involved taking a bus. I have this irrational fear that I’ve gotten on the wrong bus (even when I know I haven’t) or that the landmarks will have changed or somehow moved since I was last there.
• I used to make a point of never walking on city grates—I was afraid I’d fall through one. Then one day I read a magazine article that recommended letting go of an irrational fear (or something along those lines). Since then, I walk on them if they happen to be on my way.

OK, so maybe I am a bit neurotic after all!

i am neurotic (and so are you) is an entertaining (and sometimes somewhat disturbing) read. While this is not the type of book I would buy for myself (it has limited re-readability value), it could make a great gift.

To read other reviews of this book, visit these blogs:
A Bookworm’s World • Better with Books • Cindy’s Love of Books • Pop Culture Junkie • Reading to Myself • Starting Fresh • The Routine Ramblings of a Disorganized Perfectionist

Thank you to Cindy at Cindy’s Love of Books for giving me this book to read.

What about you? Are you a bit neurotic too?

Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood by Phillip Done (guest review)

I recently received a surprise book in the mail, which I passed on to my friend Louise, as it sounded like her type of book (and I already have a towering pile waiting for my attention). Happily, she also agreed to review it. Here then is her review...

Both as a former third-grader and as an adult who reads stories to children, I thoroughly enjoyed Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood by Phillip Done (rhymes with phone). Parts of Close Encounters are laugh-out-loud funny, others are moving, and one chapter in particular is downright sad. Done’s sense of humour had me giggling out loud on the bus and gasping with laughter at my desk. His descriptions of the trials and tribulations of a male third-grade teacher are priceless.

One thing bothered me though—the author’s tendency to address his female students as sweetheart and honey. It creeped me out. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to the professional stance now expected of adults working with children, but I wouldn’t dream of calling my audience members by anything other than their names.

Aside from that, I would recommend this book to anyone who knows a third-grader, remembers being in the third grade or just needs a good laugh. The stories in this book ring true, and the author is honest and generous in his telling of them. Done says that he started this book when he wrote some tips for a niece who was going into teaching. I think other new teachers might benefit from his 20-plus years of experience.

For other reviews of this book, head over to these blogs:
A Bookworm’s World • Better with Books • Bonggamom Finds • Fabulous Miss S • Mama’s Mouth • Selfish Mom • Starting Fresh

Thank you to Hachette for sending me this book for Louise to review!

The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories by Pagan Kennedy (a review)

I can’t imagine why it took me so long to read one of Pagan Kennedy’s books. I fell in love with her writing voice from the first paragraph of her introduction to The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories and was more than willing to follow her through the secret doorway “into a strange new realm.” In this collection of essays and articles, she writes about “oddities that [convince] you to expand your notions about what might be possible in this world,” as she says of one of her subjects. Although the promise of the introduction doesn’t quite carry through to the subsequent articles and essays*—some of the magic has leaked out of Kennedy’s writing—this doesn’t mean her book doesn’t make for fascinating (if too brief) reading. I thoroughly enjoyed the 12 vignettes of oddballs of all kinds, from Dr. Alex Comfort (the eponymous Dr. Sex) to a chatty African Grey parrot, not to mention a couple of MacArthur genius award winners. But where Kennedy really shines is when she writes about her own life and reveals that she too is an oddity, in the best sense of the word. Even though these last three stories are no longer than the others, she delves deeper and her writing is richer, more evocative, juicier. I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of her books now.

This was one of my favourite books in 2008.

Read other reviews of this book on these blogs:
Literophilia • minds alive on the shelves • My Journey Through Reading • Presenting Lenore • Raging Bibliomania • The Tome Traveller’s Weblog

Thank you to the Santa Fe Writers Project for sending me this book to review.

*This is understandable given that most of these stories were originally written for magazines; however, her introduction does tantalize us with the promise of more...

(First posted on LibraryThing on June 28, 2008)