Nurturing Superwoman by Carolyn Moody

I've been pretty obsessed with nutrition lately. Actually, I used to be pretty obsessed with nutrition in the past too, but didn't know enough about how my body works to be able to separate the stuff that made sense from the stuff that didn't make sense. And so much information out there gets published despite not making sense or just being completely wrong! Very difficult to sift through.

I read this particular book because it's written by a friend of mine and it popped up in a conversation. I thought that her take on health was perfect for me right now - the book's subtitle is "The busy woman's guide to stress reduction and dynamic health".

The author thinks that women today are still suffering from the legacy of the 70s Superwoman who thought she could have it all and that it should all be done perfectly. She says that we have let our nutrition slide and that this has resulted in a whole series of health problems - including things that we now take for granted as normal, such as PMS. I can get rid of irritability, fatigue and PMS with proper nutrition? Score!

I was happy to find that the book focusses on something that I never read much about - hormones and how they influence our health. Now, I'm actually pretty surprised to say that I never looked into hormones. I mean, going through IVF messed up my hormones and I sure felt the aftermath. Pregnancy - same thing. So why didn't I try to understand more about how hormones work in my body?

One of the most interesting things for me was reading about oestrogen dominance - what the hormone does and is supposed to do and how we're all exposed to so, so much more of it than we should. The book makes a link to how environmental factors like pollution affect us really and how important it is to eat organic.

Honestly, there wasn't anything about this book that I didn't like. Some of it was quite complex, but I thought that the author did a great job of putting in more personal comments here and there to lighten things up a bit. She also has a way of explaining complex processes in a way that makes them relevant to you. I love learning science stuff that way. :-)

I guess if I really think about it, the one thing that I'm not sure about are the Patrick Holford quotes. I read so much about him in Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and online that I don't know what to think anymore. I know that I don't really trust him, but to be honest I don't care enough about him to spend any time finding out.

The topics covered are for women of all ages - the information covers the menstruating years and menopause. It's a book that every woman should read once and keep as reference. We should all know how our bodies work and why they react in various ways to what we eat.

There are so many stories of people beating disease through dietary changes - this stuff is really worth looking into!

If you're interested, visit her website, Body Balance. You can get the book through there - and she does coaching and workshops and lots of other things, maybe you'll find something you'll like.

The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone

Yes, that's right, by Alicia Silverstone. I didn't know she had a book out either, but there you go.

This is a book about veganism, really. About how to eat great and treat your body and the planet in a kind way. Even though I have no interest in becoming vegan, I wanted to explore some of the ideas and benefit from some of the recipes. Which are great, by the way. I already made the Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew and all three of us enjoyed it immensely. Yum.

I liked the way Alicia explained what certain foods do to your body and what their production does to the planet. The tone is upbeat, without being pushy, which was appreciated. She presents three levels of changes, the first of which is just 'flirting' so that you can try out some different things with food and not get hung up on labels.

It took me longer than expected to read this, because sometimes I couldn't stand the peppy attitude for a second longer. :-) But all in all it's a good one to read if you're interested in nutrition.

I would never have read this book if my friend Larissa hadn't mentioned it to me and introduced tahini into my life. Larissa has now joined the world of book bloggers and she reads some great stuff (plus she's a really cool person) so make sure you go visit her!

The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac

I don't remember who in the blogosphere read this and blogged about it, but whoever it was, thank you, thank you, thank you. This little book is an absolute gem. The only thing I'm angry about it that I read it back in February and still haven't written anything about it... I felt so passionate about it as I was reading it and when I was done and now the passion has died down and it bothers me that this post will be flat.

Ah well.

So, The Rights of the Reader. It is an amazing, enlightening book (or essay) on why people read and how we can get more people to like reading, starting from when they're kids. Pennac is a teacher, passionate about reading, and he does his best to pass his enthusiasm along. Successfully.

There are so, so many things he talked about that I want to mention, but I think that would mean re-typing the whole book here. So, I'll just talk about a few things.

Firstly, I loved how he talked about the time when a child is just learning to read. He (or she) loves when mommy and daddy read to him, he loves stories, he loves the magic. He also loves the magic of learning to read, the magic of words appearing on a page and meaning something that is beautiful. (Daniel Pennac describes these first moments of recognising words in an amazing, beautiful way, I could never do it justice here.) And then the child gets more comfortable reading on his own and his parents just leave him to it, happy that they have an extra ten minutes in the evening to do something of their own. But the child is still struggling and because that support, that reading companion is gone, some of the magic dies too. And some kids just never recover from this disappointment of reading and grow up to be adults who don't have time for books.

Then, Pennac talks about how we from the beginning distort the experience of reading by giving it inappropriate labels. Surely you're not meant to enjoy whatever you are assigned to read in school if adults make a difference between 'reading for school' and 'reading for pleasure'. Surely TV is a much more enjoyable pastime if punishment consists of 'no tv' and you're forced to sit quietly and do something boring, like read a book. This really struck a chord with me, perhaps because I am desperate to get Shane to like books.

The actual rights of the reader that Pennac talks about it are so thought-provoking. Like the right to skip over passages that don't speak to you. Isn't it better to enjoy parts of War and Peace than to not read it at all? Or the right to be read to out loud, even as an adult. For some people, this really turns reading into an incredible experience.

This is now getting pretty long, so I'll stop,  but I strongly urge everyone who loves reading and who wants to encourage kids and teens to read more to get Pennac's book. It's a real treat.

And a last note - Daniel Pennac is a Frenchman and the book is written in his native French. It is translated into English by Sarah Hamp Adams.

The Mystery of Atlantis by Charles Berlitz

I am so behind on my reviews! It seems that when I have some time to use on blogging I much prefer to see what everyone else has been up to than to post anything myself. I'm so lazy!

Is anyone interested in Atlantis? It's one of those topics that always makes my ears perk right up. Like in cartoons. I love the thought that there was this amazing civilization existed and thrived before us. And I love exploring all the things that the existence of Atlantis would explain. The idea of a sunken continent waiting to be found somewhere in the depths of the Atlantic is just too cool.

This particular book by Charles Berlitz was published in the 1960s so I can't say that I'm up-to-date on Atlantis-related research. But it's been on my shelf for over ten years, I think, I picked it up in a used bookstore when I was still a poor student. Apparently I had more interesting things to do with my time though because the book was still untouched last month.

Anyway.

Berlitz goes through various aspects of the Atlantis theory - references in ancient texts, oral traditions of various cultures, actual deep-sea findings. The oral tradition part interested me most. Why is it that cultures on the west coast of Europe talk about ancestors coming from the West or about a land of plenty to the West and cultures on the east coast of South and Latin America talk about the things to the East? So many mythical stories refer to wise men coming from either East or West, bringing wisdom and knowledge. Some scholars think that these are actually the ancient Gods, that the Greek and Roman Gods were actually memories of the kings of Atlantis. Interesting, eh?

Many cultures also have the story of the flood and only a handful of people (always with animals) escaping to safety. It's possible that this could also refer to the sinking of Atlantis and the rebuilding of life somewhere else, i.e. whichever land mass was closest.

By the way, apparently both the Canary Islands and the Azores could apparently be Atlantis' mountain peaks. Cool eh? Apparently, when the people of the Azores were first discovered (by the Spaniards maybe?) it was remarked upon that they weren't very advanced. They didn't even have the knowledge of boat-building, which was (is) surprising for an island population. But of course if they were Atlantis' mountain people, they didn't need boats, they had a whole continent to run around on.

Oh and Berlitz says that the Basques still now talk about being descendants of the kings of Atlantis. I wonder if this is true, but don't know anyone to ask.

In any case, I find this all terribly interesting. To me, it makes sense that Atlantis existed. It would explain a lot of similariities and all that. And Plato did write about it a really long time ago. Although Berlitz did quote a scholar (I can't remember her name) who said that Plato simply used a writing technique when he talked about Atlantis - he used something huge that was clearly false to establish that his writings were fiction. It's like starting a book with 'When Hitler won the war...'. So apparently going off to explore the Atlantic ocean floor is missing the whole point.

I believe in it anyway and I want to read more about it - any recommendations? I think I have a couple more book on Atlantis on my shelf, but let me know if you've read any good ones.

As an interesting aside, to me anyway, Charles Berlitz is the grandson of Maximilian Berlitz, who founded the famous Berlitz language schools. Apparently, when he was growing his grandfather instructed everyone around him, family and staff, to each speak to him in a different language. He grew up speaking something like eight languages fluently, but remembers believing that everyone in the world had their own language and wondering why he was the only one who didn't. Isn't that sad?

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

It took me a while to finish Bad Science, because I got stuck on the homeopathy bit. I've always been into homeopathy and took some time to kind of shift my way of thinking about it. I was able to come to terms with the science of it without disregarding it completely and I'm happy with the compromise. I'm also happy that I was able to get past these chapters, because the rest of the book was simply mind-blowing.

In Bad Science, Ben Goldacre deals with the way that the media and other authority figures use scientific facts, research and statistics in incorrect ways. Sometimes on purpose. This includes loads of subjects, including one that hit close to home, nutrition. I was one of the people who bought into the whole nutritionist thing, hoping to find easy weight-loss solutions. I considered myself knowledgeable, but I hadn't actually looked into the science behind some of the claims. This is a good many years in my past and since then I have myself learned to apply a lot more common sense to my life, but the science part of it was still a real treat. If you've read the book, I particularly enjoyed the chapter on anti-oxidants - what a fascinating eye-opener!

There was a lot that was disturbing in Bad Science. It really is disturbing to see how people will lie to achieve their own ends, even if their lies hurt thousands of people. I was shocked by many of the examples given by Goldacre... it's sad that this is the world we live in. It's sad that these sources that we all depend on and believe are the ones that are multiplying the lies. Where can you get trustworthy information from then?

It amazed me to see that even the most obvious nut jobs have huge followings. What does that say about our society? Do we question nothing? Do we really believe so blindly? Is that how desperately we need to belong to a movement, a group, an ideology?

I love ben Goldacre for trusting me with the bare facts. I'm not too stupid to understand the science behind the stories. Why is the science dumbed down for us?

I am recommending this to everyone. It's a book that I hope everyone will read as it has information we should all have. They don't teach this stuff in school but it's crucial to our everyday choices. Plus Goldacre's style is great and you'll get a few laughs out of the experience too!

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

It took me forever to finish this book, because I got stuck on the 'pray' part... I finished the 'eat' part before Shane was born, back in January and I read the 'love' part during our holiday in Wales, just a few weeks ago. The months in between were spent trying to get through the 'pray' bit, which I now obviously consider the weakest part of the book. I'm glad I didn't abandon Elizabeth and her journey though, because I absolutely loved the 'love' chapters.

This is a book about the author's journey from escaping from a life she thought she wanted and didn't - a house, husband and future children - and going on a journey, both physically to Italy, India and Indonesia and spiritually towards self-acceptance, self-knowledge and, ultimately, happiness.

The 'eat' part was of course spent in Italy and I loved the utter indulgence of it.

The 'pray' part was spent in India, meditating at an Ashram. I admit that meditation, yoga and ashrams are all things that by all logic I should be passionate about, what with a pagan belief system and my thoughts on spirituality and our connection to the universe. I've tried to get into the India craze sooo many times, to no avail; it all bores me to death. Someone once told me that it's because to do well in meditation etc you need to learn to exclude the world and look inwards, but I can't do that, I need a system where I work with all the noise. Who knows? Fact remains though, I almost didn't make it through this book at all and that would have been a real shame, because the 'love' chapter, the one about Indonesia turned out to be my favorite part of the book.

In Indonesia, Elizabeth works with a healer and completes her journey of acceptance. She finally learns to love and respect herself and everything else falls into place. (Obviously, this is oversimplified, but I hope it intrigues you enough to read the book yourself). This totally resonated with me - I went through a similar painful process and although I consider that I came out the other end a better person, I didn't go through it 100% consciously so some of my lessons learned disappear from my life (and consciousness) just when I'd need them the most. This part of the book reminded me that perhaps it's time to go over some things and put some extra effort into my own journey.

So many ideas in this book touched me. This post is already getting long though, so let me share just two quotes with you. The first comes, oddly enough, from my least favorite chapters, the Indian ones:

"Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift."

It always strikes me that the main deep ideas of various belief systems are so similqr. This, the focus of energy on intention when praying, is exactly the same as in belief systems that use magic, in that if you're not clear on what you want from your spell, it won't work. This idea is also a reminder to live consciously - if you're aware of what you're doing and why, life will have much more sense.

As a quick digression, let me just point out that this is the same concept as what quantum physics demonstrates - watch What the Bleep Do We Know or read up on experiments on the memory of water, where particles behave differently depending on the positive/negative energy around them. Ah I love this stuff. :-)

The second idea I want to share with you comes from the Indonesia part and is actually said by Elizabeth's medicine man:

"You can do Yoga," he says, "but Yoga too hard. [...] Why they always look so serious in yoga?  You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will some to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver."

Is that wise or is that wise? :-)

And just a comment on the author's life choices - I love that she has shown that you can shy away from what society expects you to make of your life, take all sorts of risks on a new-agey journey to self-discovery and come out the other end, happier than you've ever been. I find it very empowering that this intelligent, talented woman realized that she doesn't want the house and husband and kids suburban life and acted on it. It takes courage and it's an inspiration.

Now, if you have any doubts about Elizabeth Gilbert, watch the video of her talking about genius, available on YouTube. Can you spot the genius?

Challenges: Women Unbound, 2010 Countdown, 4 month challenge

The Best Friends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood by Vicki Iovine

I really like this series of books about pregnancy and motherhood by Vicki Iovine. Last year, I read the Guide to Pregnancy and found it very helpful and honest. I'm happy to say that this book was just as helpful. And honest. :-)

Iovine provides information in an informal way, telling us about her own experience and the experiences of her friends. It's a fun and honest discussion of the beginnings of motherhood and includes the tough bits too. Getting lots of different stories means you get various perspectives but no judgment. Plus you see that you're never alone in what you're experiencing and that there are people who experience extremes of all situations. Sometimes things are better and sometimes things are worse.

The only criticism I have is that most of the book was really about the first 6 months. I've done that now and would have liked some more information about what to expect in the coming months. The title says 'first year' so I assumed it covered more.

I won't go into details here, since the subject matters appeals to such a small number of people, but if you're ever in need of such books, this series is a good choice. Not as good as Naomi Stadlen's What Mothers Do, Especially When it Looks Like Nothing, but still worth getting. It made me laugh out loud a good number of times and a new Mom sure needs that! :-)

What Mothers Do, Especially When it Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Stadlen

If you're a new Mom, this book is really, really, really worth reading. At a time that I found very difficult, this book was often the only thing that would give me any comfort. Because it includes loads of quotes from mothers, it made me feel less alone in what I was feeling. The way the author phrased and explained things gave me recognition in a situation where I often felt like I was doing nothing.


Books like this are so important. I must say that no matter how many questions I asked beforehand and how many books I read, nothing could have prepared me for those first weeks/months of being a mother. It's hard, frustrating, tiring and often lonesome, as well as being a beautiful time. All the things you're feeling are really intense and for some reason difficult to explain properly. And you can't really complain because something wonderful has happened in your life and you should be happy. Naomi Stadlen's book offered the honesty of other mothers that I needed to hear - it's not easy, you don't always like it or handle it well, and that's ok. 


I picked up several things that made life easier for me. For example, one mother in the book remarked how much simpler life became once she stopped fighting against what her baby wanted. Once she accepted that whatever the baby wanted was fine, things became easier. I have to remind myself to stop trying to control the situation all the time and I have to say that if I manage to let go everything improves.


One of the more interesting ideas in the book is a discussion of language and how it's lacking the vocabulary to explain certain things about motherhood. The author argues that this is because in the past certain behaviors and realities were the norm and now society is very different. Life has changed but language has remained the same and a gap now exists. The book is worth reading even only for these language observations, very interesting.


I recommend this one whole-heartedly and will be buying it for any new mothers that I know.


Challenges: 2010 Countdown Challenge, Women Unbound Challenge

Into Thin Air

I thought my friend Elaine had recommended this to me, but in fact she recommened Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild - I ended up getting Into Thin Air. It's not the sort of book I would normally pick up, but I did need an adventure book for the Genre Challenge and I thought it might be interesting. I now feel like I learned a bit more about the world, a feeling I love.

Into Thin Air is Krakauer's account of the disaster that struck his and several other expeditions while they were climbing Mount Everest in 1996. Krakauer is a journalist and was doing a piece for a magazine - although he'd always been into mountain climbing so couldn't refuse the chance to climb Everest anyway. He joined one of the commercial expeditions and off he went. Thankfully, he also came back to tell the tale, although it's a story of eight climbers dying and many others only barely surviving...

First of all, I didn't know that there were commercial expeditions! I didn't know that people, sometimes people with very little climbing experience, would pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to companies that would take them up Everest with guides. It's a business and like all business, sometimes loses that feeling for the individual...which unfortunately makes disasters more likely to happen.

I also didn't know how physically taxing and outright dangerous climbing is. That's not correct - I guess I knew, I just never really thought about it. Those who climb mountains have to survive in terrible conditions and with little oxygen, meaning that they are mostly incapable of coherent thinking while up on a mountain...

And I didn't know that there is a whole people - the Sherpas - part of whose livelihood is dependent on climbing. They live in the mountains anyway and act as guides and carriers for the commercial expeditions. Often this is the job the pays most of anything that is available to them.

All in all, fascinating stuff. I'm very glad that I decided to read something so way out of my comfort zone, I am richer for it.

Krakauer insists that the story, told as truthfully as could be, needed to be told. I agree and I applaud his courage and his honesty. Parts of the story are not pretty - including bits about the author's own behavior and choices and the remorse he now feels. I'm sure this wasn't an easy story for him to tell and I thank him for deciding to put it out there.

Challenges: Genre Challenge, Dewey Decimal Challenge

We thought you would be prettier

I wanted to read this book by Laurie Notaro mainly because of the title. Shame, shame on me. :-) The subtitle is 'True tales of the dorkiest girl alive' which I thought was also fantastic. How can a girl like me (read: dorky :-)) not read this?

It's a collection of essays, true stories from Laurie Notaro's life. I must say that she has a great writing style - very entertaining. And the stuff that tends to happen to her! Wacky and quirky, for sure.

I'm too tired to write (think) more, but I hope you get the idea. I'll explain why I'm so tired in tomorrow's post.

Challenges: 999 Challenge, Non-Fiction Five Challenge Dewey Decimal Challenge,

Story of a Girl and The Stork Club

After a week of very difficult personal life stuff, here I am, back again, and with only two reviews! I am working on a couple other books - including The Book of Lost Things, which I'm finding quite slow... am I abnormal?

Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr is one of those young adult books that today's teenagers should be thankful are out there. I'm sure they're not, but they should be. I don't recall ever being able to read about such serious issues when I was an early teen. The book's heroine and narrator is Deanna, who makes some bad choices a few years ago (when she's thirteen) and is branded the school slut. No matter what she does, she can't get away from her reputation. Even her Dad can no longer look her in the eye. Deanna tries to cope but it's too hard for her when she feels that no one wants/loves her, that she doesn't belong to anyone - which are the same emotions that landed her in this mess in the first place.

Story of a Girl is very, very realistic. I could identify with a lot of Deanna's thoughts and feelings, I actually remember feeling that lost when I was her age. I hope that this book is of comfort to today's young women as they struggle with belonging, love and sexuality.

Challenges: 999 Challenge, A-Z Challenge, Countdown Challenge, New Authors, YA Challenge, Dewey's Books

And the other book I read this week - The Stork Club by Imogen Edwards-Jones. Another memoir of a woman with fertility problems trying to have a baby. It was honest and sometimes brutal, but I still preferred Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orrenstein. It's worth reading if this is an area that interests you though!

Challenges: 999 Challenge, A-Z Challenge, Countdown Challenge, Every Month is a Holiday, In Their Shoes, Non-Fiction Five

Two more reviews for April

I can't believe that April is over! I don't where this year is going, time feels like it's going really fast...

I've been busy for the past few days, so no blogging, but I'm back with two reviews of great books I want to tell you about.

First - Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein. The subtitle is 'The True Story of One Couple's Quest to Have a Baby', but I think that it would interest those of you not really into fertility/motherhood issues. Anyone who likes reading memoirs would enjoy reading about Peggy's story. The author asks a lot of questions about the choices women make and whether you can say that they are right or wrong. She also asks a lot of questions about how much women are willing to sacrifice in order to have a biological child - I found a section on whether it was pregnancy or motherhood that was the goal especially thought-provoking.

It's not all about babies either - Peggy tries to go on with her life in the meantime, which, among other things includes some fascinating glimpses of 'parasite singles' in Tokyo and survivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

Aside from the ideas and questions, which I thought were fascinating and incredibly pertinent to today's world, I absolutely loved the author's writing and voice. So honest and thoughtful and real. I truly identified. Especially with sentences like: "I had just turned thirty-five. I was beginning to realize what it meant to be a grown-up." :-)

Seriously, I can't recommend this book enough - it's certainly not just fluff.

Since April is the month of the pre-Easter pagan holiday Ostara, which is all about fertility, this book is my April book for the Every Month is a Holiday challenge.

Challenges: 999 Challenge, A-Z Challenge, Countdown Challenge, Every Month is a Holiday, In their Shoes, New Authors, Themed Reading Challenge,

And speaking of fluff, the other book I finished yesterday is Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic and Baby. After finding Shopaholic and Sister only ok, I'm happy to report that I absolutely loved this. Becky is a great character - I know she bugs some people but I don't care because I'm very much like her. :-) If you're looking for some light reading that's a notch above most of the chick-lit that's on the market, give this series a try.

Challenges: Chick Lit 2, Countdown Challenge

I can make you thin

Isn't that a great book title? It sure caught my attention and I couldn't not buy it! I Can Make You Thin is by Paul McKenna, who seems to have loads of other similar books out about other issues. By similar I mean employing self-hypnosis-like techniques - I have a book by him about confidence as well.

It's very, very short and is based on some very, very simple principles. Basically, he says that thin people don't obsess about food as much as overweight people, they just eat when they're hungry. Paul McKenna tries to change the reader's brain programming to think more like a naturally thin person and develop a healthier attitude to food.

I liked reading it and I've already been putting some of the principles into practice and doing some of the excercises and the weight is starting to come off. I've been struggling with my weight since I quit smoking two years ago now. I just can't seem to shift it... the simplicity of this book makes sense to me so hopefully I'll continue on this track.

The book comes with a CD too, but I haven't had the courage to listen to it yet. It says that you shouldn't listen to it while driving or operating machinery so I suppose it's proper self-hypnosis. Has anyone tried anything like this?

Challenges: 999 Challenge, A-Z Challenge, Dewey Decimal Challenge (613.25019)

Night

I read Elie Wiesel's Night in one sitting yesterday evening. Although I did take one break because I had to cry. Night is the author's memoir of his childhood in Auschwitz and other camps. I'm not going to say much about the plot because I think that description says it all really. I'm lucky I could read it from the comfort of my own living room, after a nice dinner and while sipping some good red wine. Very lucky indeed.

One of the things that struck me is that even in times of war human beings don't really entertain then thought that something bad could happen to them. The Jews in the village where the author lived had heard rumors about the atrocities going on in the camps and about persecution everywhere. They even had actual evidence because of one their own had been taken away and had escaped and come back to warn everyone. And yet they still believed that the war would end just in time or that the Germans would never get that far or that they would somehow be more merciful in their village. Amazing thing, the human mind.

It also struck me that in the camps, in the end nothing mattered but survival. Watching others die didn't always have the effect that we would think it would. It's incredible what kinds of circumstances we can get used to, what becomes normal. I hope that I would be as strong in such situations, even though I find that hard to believe.

If books like this one are written, they deserve to be read. Night is the first in a trilogy - has anyone read the other two books, Dawn and Day?

Challenges: A-Z Challenge, 999 Challenge, Bang Bang Book Challenge, In Their Shoes, Jewish Literature Challenge, Lost in Translation, War Through the Generations, What's in a Name?

The Complete Persepolis

Wow. It's really original of Marjane Satrapi to choose to write her memoir as a graphic novel. It really worked. I'm glad I liked it so much, because it's my first 'real' graphic novel. I read the first Buffy Season 8 ones earlier this year, but that was an easy way to get started since I'm such a huge Buffy fan. I consider Persepolis the real deal.

So, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's memoir about growing up in revolutionary Iran - war, revolution, repression, persecution... what can these do to a willful teenager? I thought it was fascinating on so many levels. The coming-of-age storyline is one I usually like. I didn't know anything (and I mean anything) about Iran and learned so much. I want to read more about this interesting country.

I didn't know details of the fundamentalist repression either. I just can't imagine it, to be living like a 'normal' teenager and for everything to be taken away. All her dreams - of being free, of going to university, of going to the US - everything was taken away. I suppose that's when we find out what we're really made of but still.

It was strange to read about all the horrors in comic strip format. I somehow thought it would be lighter, even though that doesn't really make sense since I knew it would be about Iran. We're so used to graphic descriptions in books and we're so used to violent films and even cartoons, but we know that they're not real. It's strange when you look at the pictures, in the same format as Superman, and know that they are real. Does that make any sense? The simplicity reinforces the message, I know, but it was still weird to me.

I thought her story was beautiful and inspirational. To survive so much and to tell the world about it in such a meaningful way is amazing. I could empathise with her when she moved to Vienna - I know what it's like to be on your own when you're too young to be on your own, to be foreign, to miss that understanding from others of the same background.

And I loved the art. I loved that it wad black and white and simple. The emotions kind of jumped out at you. The hopeless romantic in me loved the page about how she and Reza are total opposites but they complete each other. Still makes me smile when I think about it.

This is certainly going to be on my list of favorites this year. If you haven't yet, you should definitely get this one.

Challenges: A-Z, 999, Countdown, Graphic Novels, In Their Shoes, Lost in Translation, My Year of Reading Dangerously, New Authors, Well-Seasoned Reader, World Citizen, Dewey Decimal

The Good Women of China

January 26 was the start of the Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year because it's start is linked to the moon. I thought this would be a perfect choice for the January holiday for the Every Month is a Holiday challenge.

The book I read was Xinran's The Good Women of China. Now, I would NEVER have heard of Xinran if it's hadn't been for Joy and the A-Z Challenge that she hosted last year. X authors are hard to find! I decided to do this challenge again this year (this time hosted by ...) and so was in a fix once more. I am so incredibly glad that I picked up Xinran's book when I saw it in a secondhand bookstore. I really think that my life is richer because I read this one.

The Good Women of China is non-fiction. Xinran is a Chinese journalist who had a radio show about Chinese women and their lives. Women could call in or leave messages and had the opportunity to tell their stories. Xinran gathered these stories and her experiences getting them and meeting the women involved and put it all in a book.

What she created is very powerful. Women in China had to live through so much - not only the traditional society aspect of things but also the political side of things. Women were married off by either their parents or by the revolution. They were used, abused and thrown out. They lost their children, they lost the loves of their lives, they ended up alone or with husbands they didn't care for. Survival was the main goal and everything else got buried in the process.

But these women's stories show that some things can't be buried, not really. The emotions in this book are so powerful that I couldn't tear myself away from the stories. Who knew that a non-fiction book about women in China could be such a page turner?

I think that this one sentence sums up how the Cultural Revolution affected people:

"Humanity and wisdom were banished to places which did not know there was anywhere in this world where women could say 'no' and men could read newspapers."

Reading this made me sad for the people of China and very interested in reading more about their country, including about the Cultural Revolution. If you've read anything interesting on these subjects, please let me know!

Challenges: 999 Challenge, A-Z Challenge, Countdown Challenge, Dewey Decimal System Challenge, Every Month is a Holiday, New Authors, Well-Seasoned Reader, World Citizen Challenge

SeinLanguage

I needed a happy book, so my friend Elaine brought me SeinLanguage by Jerry Seinfeld. It's a short book, but it sure made me laugh! I really needed that while I was waiting in our cold apartment for someone to come and fix the heating!

I love Jerry Seinfeld - I've recently started renting Seinfeld on DVD and it's still SO funny. His books reads very easily - you can picture him actually saying everything live, my brain was doing accents on certain words and everything.

Here are a few passages that cracked me up:

Or, you ever move a TV set in the back of your car? Then you've got to leave the car in the street for a couple of minutes, you put a sweater over the TV. "It's a couple of sweaters, that's all. One of them happens to be square with an antenna coming out of it."

This one is also great:

According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that seem right? That means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy."

And this one totally cracked me up, probably because I'm preparing to move and this is exactly how I feel!

When you're moving, your whole world is boxes. That's all you think about. "Boxes, where are the boxes?" You just wander down the street going in and out of stores, "Are there any boxes here? Have you seen any boxes?" It's all you think about. You can't even talk to people, you can't concentrate. "Will you shut up? I'm looking for boxes!"

If you don't know Jerry Seinfeld, you should really check him out, he's one of my favorite comedians.

Challenges: 999 Challenge, A-Z Challenge

The Year 1000

Robert Lacey's and Danny Danziger's book is actually called The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium. I love books like this. I love to read about what how people lived at other points of history. I find it comforting that people were always the same - those living in the year 1000 were not very different from us, it's just our environments that differ.

The book is full of interesting trivia, as well as 'proper' early European history. It is structured by month and each chapter highlights what would have been important to people at that point of the year. What I really enjoy about learning about early history is how much of what we celebrate now, of how we structure our lives, is based on what people did back then. The holidays we celebrate are based on old pagan dates, some of our traditions, such as Midsummer celebrations, date back to old rituals. Being pagan, I always look out for references to old Gods and was happy to find some here too.

I liked reading this book around Ostara and the Equinox, when I could think about the symbolism that we now associate with Easter - the bunnies, the eggs, the color yellow, all signs of fertility, of life beginning again. Spring is here! Well not here, it's actually snowing here, but in theory Spring is here!

The only minus isn't even the book's fault - it's only about England and I'd like to read more about the rest of Europe. But life looked the same in most places so until I find more books on this subject I'll have to project what I already know to other parts of the world. ;-)

Definitely 5 stars - I hope some of you out there read this, it's a short book packed with fascinating information and I think it's always useful to know something of what came before us.